And Be Thy Love Page 6

  “Marie-Josette, how could you?” she demanded. “Monsieur’s fine clothes to be spoiled by the muck of the garden and the pig-house! What has come over you?”

  But de Bergerac laughed, and snatched her back from her mother, and Marie-Josette shrieked with delight as he swung her round the garden, and she felt like a suspended ballerina in his hold. When at last he set her down she was pushing the fringe out of her eyes and glowing with unexpected happiness, and the happiness was increased when he solemnly mentioned that there was a present in the car.

  “In the left-hand pocket,” he said, and both children hurled themselves upon the left-hand pocket of his car, their eager voices calling aloud that he had brought them a present.

  The present turned out to be quite a large box of expensive confectionery, and Caroline saw Monique brush something suspiciously like moisture from her eyes as she watched the excitement of her small family, while the man who had caused it stood by with a faint, amused smile on his lips.

  “You are too good, monsieur.;” she said, “too good!” and used a corner of her apron to intercept one of the drops that persisted in rolling down her cheek.

  “Nonsense,” he returned, and ruffled the wispy hair of Marie-Josette, now decorated with the ribbon from the box of confectionary. “It is impossible to be too good in this world, isn’t that so, ma petite? One spends all one’s time attempting to be even slightly good!”

  Monique tried to persuade them to go inside and allow her to make them some coffee, but de Bergerac said Miss Darcy had had a long enough outing for one day, and that she ought to get back and rest in her room. Monique agreed that Miss Darcy must certainly rest, and promised that as soon as she had tidied up her house and dealt with the washing on the line she would be along at the chateau, and would pick up Marthe’s discarded reins until such time as Marthe herself should return to grasp hold of them again, or monsieur should decide she was no longer needed.

  The two children would accompany her, she had to make it plain, and de Bergerac said that would be splendid, and Marie-Josette could wait on him personally. And from the adoring fashion in which Marie-Josette hung on his arm, and the way in which her grey eyes seemed anxious never to leave his face—even while Thibault was eagerly disembowelling the contents of the chocolate box —Caroline deduced that to wait on him would be the greatest delight in the world to her, although she was barely eight years old.

  On the way back to the chateau at last she found herself studying him thoughtfully as he drove, and believing him to be unaware of her contemplative regard she was a little surprised when he looked at her sideways, and asked with a curious smile:

  “Well, what is it that is puzzling you, Carol, Cherie? Or is it perhaps, that you have arrived at a decision?”

  “You are fond of children?” she said, as if that was the decision she had arrived at.

  He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

  “Are not most men?”

  ‘‘Not all. Certainly not all And children are cautious about forming attachments.”

  His smile glinted at her, whiter than ever.

  “And you have made up your mind that the little Benoit children have attached themselves to me?”

  She could have told him that it was the one thing she could be absolutely certain about, and she could have added that he didn’t surprise her in the least. For there was something about him that was not merely endearing, it was almost a compelling charm. She had been aware of it from the moment they met.

  CHAPTER VI

  The next few days passed with a smoothness that neither Caroline nor de Bergerac would have believed possible when they arrived at the chateau to find that Marthe had met with an accident. Monique wasn’t merely quite as good a cook as Marthe, but being much younger she was able to undertake far more than poor Marthe had found it possible to undertake in recent years, and although most of the rooms at the chateau were under dust-covers, the two or three that were now used constantly began to look really well kept. Monique baked, and scrubbed, and washed, and polished, and looked after her two children, without apparently

  finding any of it beyond her, and with very little assistance from Pierre, who stuck closely to his kitchen-garden. And in addition she insisted on waiting on Caroline to such an extent that the English girl began to feel positively useless.

  “I’m not used to it,” she protested more than once, when Monique declined to be dissuaded from carrying her breakfast tray up to her, laundered her crisp linen dresses before they were in any real need of attention, insisted on serving “elevenses”, and made odd pots of tea for her because she was used to them. “If Marthe was here I couldn’t possibly allow her to do these things for me, and you have so much to do that I certainly shouldn’t allow you.”

  “Marthe is old,” Monique returned complacently, “and one does not expect so much of the old. But I am young and strong, and it is monsieur s orders!”

  And by this time Caroline realised that anything “monsieur” ordered would be the last thing that would be disputed.

  It occurred to her that de Bergerac had acted as a kind of emissary (in the pleasantest sense of the word!) of the Comte on more than one occasion, so far as Monique was concerned, and that was one reason why she had evolved such an admiration for him. It might be the Comte’s generosity, but Robert had his own method of administering it, and allied with the warmth and appeal of his own personality it attracted to him some of the gratitude that should rightly belong to the Comte.

  And as Caroline had hot very high praise of the Comte this didn’t worry her very much. In fact she thought it was poetic justice that the one tenant in whom he interested himself should reserve so much appreciation for his friend.

  But she was a little anxious sometimes when she wondered what the Comte would think if he turned up suddenly and found her there, being treated like an honoured guest by someone he would have to recompense.

  “I do feel that I ought to have found a little hotel and gone there,” she said, more than once, to a Robert who had joined forces with Monique in spoiling her as much as it was possible to

  spoil one single human being. (And that a very ordinary English girl, as she looked upon herself.) “Staying here like this is an imposition. It would have been different if Marthe was here.”

  “But Marthe is not here!” His eyes roved over her with a kind of gentle amusement, and he bent forward to adjust the cushion behind her back, and enquired whether she would like another for additional comfort. She shook her smooth and gleaming head.

  “I am supremely comfortable.”

  “Actually, it is I who should find a little hotel!” he looked at her rather sombrely. “Do you realise that by remaining here I am likely to create a certain amount of talk? And even in out-of-the-way French villages like this one near here people do talk, you know!”

  “W-what about?” she asked, although she knew perfectly well what he meant. She avoided meeting his eyes, those velvet-brown eyes that were doing such extraordinary things to her. “Monique is here too, and the— the children....”

  “And Jacqueline, the cat who is always creating the need for drowning kittens...! And the fat kitten from the last litter who has not yet acquired a name, but is the property of Marie-Josette! And perhaps Marie-Josette is the best chaperone of all, for she doesn’t leave us alone together very much, does she?” with the whimsicalness back in his eyes.

  It was true that Marie-Josette followed them practically everywhere, and even on short drives she accompanied them sometimes, her un-named kitten purring contentedly in her lap. She seemed to have staked a kind of claim where de Bergerac was concerned, and looked possessive every time he was near, and even glanced occasionally with faint hostility in her enormous grey eyes at Caroline, because she was always awarded the seat beside the driving seat, and was so noticeably fussed-over. Caroline felt a little amused, realising that this was the true feminine jealousy that, later on, would make her rather a dangerous young wo
man to play fast and loose with. And at the moment she had a hero, and she adored him.

  But she didn’t always accompany them on their drives, and there were days when the two of them went off together in the cream car, days when Monique packed them up a picnic basket, the contents of which they later enjoyed beside the stream, or in some cool glade of the forest where civilisation seemed far away, and they might have been back in mediaeval France, with the deep silence beneath the trees emphasising their aloneness.

  It was on these occasions that they talked a good deal— perhaps in order to forget that pregnant silence that seemed to press upon them in the green gloom that surrounded them, waiting for them to become aware of other things apart from conversation. Apart from Robert’s description of the Luxembourg Gardens in spring, lilies of the valley on sale everywhere in Paris at the beginning of May, the Horse Show in the Bois de Boulogne, gala performances at the Opera. He talked so much about Paris that she began to feel she had done far more than pass through it, and although she wouldn’t admit it— preferring to cling to her pre-conceived notion that, compared with London, it was a frivolous city, likely to appeal only to those who were naturally rather frivolous-minded—she did begin to be conscious of a desire to see something of it one day.

  He whetted her appetite for the sight of tree-lined streets greening over, as it were, in a night, after a particularly hard winter. Wide avenues where the sun found it possible to gild everything, because they were so open, and shop windows that would tempt even the most nunlike female, if she was a female at all. It was only when he talked of little restaurants tucked away near the Madeleine, and the Montparnasse district with its literary and artistic associations, that she grew a little cautious of displaying enthusiasm. And when he talked of “first-nights’’ at the theatres, and night-clubs that kept open until an hour in the morning when it seemed to her peculiar that people should still be seeking vicarious entertainment. Then he felt her withdraw into a kind of shell, and his eyes twinkled, and twinkled still more as he casually mentioned “mornings after”, and Armand making frequent threats to cut out that side of his life altogether, because it interfered with his work, and his work was the one thing that was really important to him these days.

  But he had not so far been strong enough to eschew the lighter side of life entirely, although there was no telling what he might do one of these days.

  “Armand is a little bit unpredictable,” he admitted to her once, when they were re-packing the picnic basket after doing more than justice to Monique’s feather-light pastries and macaroons, and the excellent coffee she had introduced into a thermos flask. “It is not always easy to understand him. Sometimes he is gay—without, you would say, a care in the world—and then,” with a little shrugging movement of his shoulders, “for no reason whatsoever he is down, deep down, in the doldrums! It is a little difficult to keep pace with his moods.”

  “Isn’t that because he is naturally temperamental? A writer would be temperamental, wouldn’t he?”

  “Would he? Or, rather, should he be?” He leaned on his elbow and watched her, while his cigarette burned away between his fingers, and his look seemed to her to be a little intense, as if he was interested in her reactions. “Does temperament excuse fits of very bad temper, impatience with everything and everybody, refusal to take anything but a cynical view of most people’s intentions, and a disinclination to believe that there is any real good in human nature? Does it excuse thinking contemptuously of his own success, which he does?”

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes were very large and rather round in the dimness of the wood, and their colour was a kind of misty violet. “But then I don’t know very much about successful people. Actually, I’ve never met any.”

  “Then you are fortunate, my child.”

  He ground out the end of his cigarette in the long grass, and then lighted another. She had noticed that he practically chain-smoked, and the tips of his supple fingers were stained with nicotine.

  “You—you see a good deal of the Comte, don’t you?” she suggested diffidently.

  “For my sins, I see a very great deal of him—a very great deal, yes!” he admitted.

  “And you would rather it was otherwise?”

  He shrugged.

  “I haven’t said so. He is David to my Jonathan, or vice versa. In any case, we couldn’t get on without one another.”

  “You mean that you help him—with ideas, or something of the sort—in his work? And that is why he shares the profits with you?”

  Amusement overspread his face, and his dark eyes grew a little mocking.

  “You do not altogether approve of my sharing those profits, do you? You think it would be far more to my credit if I made that bookshop of mine pay dividends! Or did some other honest job of work! Well, perhaps I will one day—if you think it necessary!” He leaned forward and possessed himself of one of her hands, turning the fingers back so that he could admire the delicate nails, and then staring rather hard at the soft palm. “And we will not talk about this de Marsac, for he is a dull subject of conversation, and there are other subjects that could be so much more interesting.”

  “Such as?” she heard herself enquiring, in almost a whisper.

  He went on staring at her palm,

  “Can’t you think of one that would enable us to be in some sort of accord? No criticism on either side, no doubts, no uncertainties—just the delight of discussing something we both know and understand!”

  Her heart had started to hammer wildly, and the hand he had felt taut as a piece of live wire. But she looked away from him desperately, into the leafy green foliage, thinking that he was a man who allowed another man to be responsible for his creature comforts—or largely responsible —and the life he led was not the sort of life she was certain she could ever approve. He had a curious, detached attitude to what was important in life—even loyalty to his friend was not his strong point—and yet Marie-Josette would hurl herself into his arms the instant she saw him coming! Jacqueline, the mother of many kittens, followed him about like a forlorn dog, and Monique’s eyes grew several degrees brighter when his name was mentioned. Marthe Giraud had written from the hospital that he was being kinder to her than she deserved, and she had recommended Caroline to listen to his advice and stay away from sick-visiting for a time.

  “Get well and strong yourself’ she said, “and before long I will be back to look after you both!”

  Which looked as if she was accustomed to Monsieur de Bergerac’s visits, and had decided that this might be a lengthy one.

  And now Caroline could feel him tugging at her hand, gently but insistently.

  “Well,” he said, “isn’t there such a subject we can discuss?” Caroline looked down into his eyes, and it was her undoing. Her eyes became mirrors of all that she was thinking and feeling, and she heard him give a little exclamation—a satisfied exclamation—and then sit up swiftly. He held out his arms to her, and like Marie-Josette she went into them gladly, and he folded her close. She heard him whispering while he rubbed his cheek against hers, and although her other cheek was pressed against him and she could hear the wild thunder of his heart, she could also hear what he said.

  “Little one...! Little, little one! Cheiie...! Oh, Cherie ...!” His eyelashes brushed against her skin, and the wildest of thrills sped up and down her—she felt she was drowning in bliss. Her fingers clutched at him, and she trembled like a leaf in his arms. “I have wanted to hold you like this almost from the very first moment that we met,” he told her dreamily, “and now you are close to my heart! I don’t think I can ever let you go!”

  She felt his hand beneath her chin, forcing her face up, and his eyes above her were ablaze with all sorts of lights, and tender at the same time.

  “Don’t tell me if any man has ever kissed you before,” he said, “because I couldn’t bear it!”

  And then his mouth was on hers, and the ecstasy was complete.

  Later he lay with hi
s head in her lap, looking up at her. “You will marry me?” he said. “I have never asked a woman to marry me before in my life, but you I have got to have! Carol, if I don’t have you I shall pine away and die like one of those comfortless females in English novels of Victorian life! Do you believe me?”

  She traced the arrogant outline of his eyebrows with a slim fingertip, and then gently touched the eyelashes that fascinated her. Marry him... ? She felt bemused, unable to believe that that was what he was asking her to do, unused yet even to the touch of his lips, unsure of the sensations rioting within her.

  “But you hardly know me,” she answered. “I hardly know you!” “And is it necessary to know all there is to know about a man or a woman before it is possible to fall in love with him or her?” he returned, hurt rebuke in his voice. He captured her hand and buried his mouth in the palm. “Is that the way the English fall in love?—Is that the way a cool, remote little girl like you expects to be loved before she can make up her mind to marry?”

  “I am not cool and remote!” Her shaken voiced proved that she certainly wasn’t. “And I do love you, Robert...!” There...! It was out, her doubts vanished forever, everything clear and crystallised for her so that, whatever happened, it would be impossible to doubt that one thing again, and instantly he removed his head from her lap and took her back into his arms. He held her as if she was very young, and a little unsure of herself still, and had to be reassured, and his reassurances were the sweetest things that had ever happened to her in her life.

  “And I love you, my darling, my darling!” he told her. “It is a depth of love that has shaken me, I’ll admit, for I had become cynical about such things, but perhaps that is why it is all the more wonderful to be in love at last! And the fact that we met when and how we did, arriving at the chateau at the same time, is proof that it was all arranged beforehand! It is something that was intended... ! I knew it for a certainty that afternoon when you were frightened by the bat, and when you flew into my arms, but it seemed too early to tell you then! Although I think that you might have listened... ! And therefore there is nothing for it but that you must become my wife!”