A Moment in Paris (10 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

For the next few days life at the chateau followed much the same pattern.

In the early mornings the host and his two guests who had arrived together rode the mountain paths until it was time for a late breakfast, and then they either drove or rode into the nearby mountain town and did some shopping, or merely engaged in sightseeing.

Celeste had taken to getting up quite early, and she always accompanied them on their drives, although she frankly confessed herself too terrified of horses to attempt to ride. Robert Sherman treated her nervousness with indulgent humour, declaring that he perfectly understood it, and that, in any case, she wasn’t built to be a horsewoman.

‘Anyone as delicate and fragile as you ought never to be allowed on a horse—ought never to be
risked
on a horse, I should say!’ he corrected himself. He glanced towards the Comte, whose face remained quite impassive. ‘But in the front seat of a car ... I wonder whether you’d like to try mine? It’s built for speed, but I’m used to mountain country—I’ve a ranch in Dakota—and I promise not to overturn you on an awkward bend. Madame Armand gave me quite a few marks for driving on our way here, isn’t that so, madame?’

She smiled at him, her slow, brilliant smile.

‘That is so, Mr. Sherman.’

‘Then may I...?’ Celeste turned like a child to Philippe, and perhaps it was the very eagerness of her appeal that touched him. Anyway, he gave his consent, and Celeste climbed into the American’s low-slung car and settled down as if this was something in the nature of a real treat.

Madame Armand touched Philippe’s arm.

‘And I will drive with you, Philippe,’ she said, it will give me an opportunity to have a chat with you about all sorts of things.’

Sometimes Diana accompanied them on their sightseeing tours, but more often than not she excused herself. This was made quite reasonable by Lady Bembridge developing a cold and wishing to remain indoors, and Diana announced that someone ought to keep her company.

But Philippe looked, on several occasions, as if he would like to protest.

Lady Bembridge declared with amusement: ‘My nephew dislikes anyone to go against him, or to override his plans. It is his nature to be dominant. And I expect he would like you to be with them in order that you could keep Robert Sherman amused, and away from his Celeste. The poor, pathetic child is so transparently at home with him already! But then birds of a feather flock together, or so they say.’ Diana made no reply, and Lady Bembridge picked up her petit-point and regarded her somewhat curiously over the top of it.

‘Or would you say Philippe has some other reason for not wishing to leave you behind? It could be that he finds Denys a little too much to cope with in her present mood ... She is determined to break up that engagement, you know! She and Philippe have always been very close, very honest with one another, and maybe she is assailing him with too many home truths! We all thought they would marry one day, and I suppose it isn’t yet too late.’

Diana rescued a skein of wool that had fallen to the carpet, and Lady Bembridge thanked her and tucked it into her work-basket. She spoke as if she was turning something over in her mind.

‘There could, of course, be yet another reason why Philippe is so disinclined to have you left out of things.’ She smiled in a very friendly fashion at Diana. ‘It could be purely and simply because he finds you a pleasant addition to the party. Possibly a very pleasant addition!’

No sooner had the others departed one morning than Michael Vaughan drove over from the Duchesse de Savenne’s great fortress nearby.

‘I’ve an invitation for all of you to lunch tomorrow, or the next day, if you can manage it,’ he said. ‘That is my ostensible reason for being here! But frankly, Diana, I want you to ride with me one morning, if you will. Tomorrow morning?’

‘That would be nice,’ she answered, a little reluctantly.

‘It’s a long time since we rode together,’ he reminded her sombrely. ‘It’s high time we did it again.’

Lady Bembridge agreed with him. In fact, she was extraordinarily affable to him, and between them Diana found it difficult to get out of a promise to put on her jodhpurs and a thick sweater the following morning and meet him a little way up the path which led out of the chateau courtyard. The fact that it was the very same path she had once ridden alone with Philippe made her more than ever reluctant; but Lady Bembridge called for sherry and insisted that Michael sit down and make himself thoroughly at home.

Unfortunately the Comte and his party came back earlier than was expected because the weather had deteriorated, and he strode into the salon. He looked grim at sight of Michael—in fact, he could hardly have looked grimmer—and without giving him time to get over the unwelcome surprise, his aunt launched into an explanation for the visit, the Duchesse’s arrival and invitation, and Diana’s plans to go riding the following day.

She made it sound as if Diana could hardly wait to be alone with her ex-fiancé.

‘Now don’t be unreasonable, Philippe!’ She held up a chiding finger. ‘Diana has a right to a certain amount of free time, just like any other employee, and I was only thinking the other day that it was a pity she hadn’t any friends of her own, or at least a few acquaintances. Mr. Vaughan is a very old friend, and I’m sure he can be trusted to take care of her...’

Her lips curved in faint relish. ‘Can’t you, Mr. Vaughan?’

Michael gazed at Diana with all his heart in his eyes. ‘Diana and I have known one another since she was a little girl in pigtails,’ he returned. ‘I’ll look after her!’

‘It’s a pity you weren’t always obsessed with the idea of looking after Miss Craven!’ Philippe observed, with such a harsh note of acid in his voice that the others all looked at him in astonishment.

Michael flushed brilliantly, and this time it was Madame Armand who intervened.

‘Oh, come now, Philippe!’ she protested, in her soft, silken voice. ‘Because something has gone wrong with your morning, and you are a little annoyed, that is no reason why you should vent your ill humour on the rest of us!’ Her glance slid past him and alighted on Celeste. ‘It may upset you because your pretty little fiancee is still attracted by the idea of seeing her name in lights above all the important cinemas in the civilized world, but that is a purely personal matter, and you mustn’t inflict it on others. As an employer you must be reasonable, and not mar the pleasure of Miss Craven!’

Philippe looked at her for a moment with very dark eyes, and then he swung round and looked at Diana.

‘Will it spoil your pleasure if we make up a party? We will all go riding tomorrow morning!’

At his elbow Denys laughed with faint mockery. ‘Tut, tut,
cheri
! Have you
no
tact?’

Philippe’s eyes darkened so much that they were positively sombre. He addressed himself again to Diana.

‘Would you rather go riding with Monsieur Vaughan alone?’

It was easy for Diana to answer without a moment’s hesitation. That reference to Celeste—possibly quite skilful on Madame Armand’s part!—and Philippe’s ill humour had been more than enough to make up her mind for her.

‘Yes,’ she answered simply, and quite firmly.

Philippe swung away from her.

‘Very well,’ he said curtly.

When she rode out of the courtyard in the morning Diana was still glad she had made use of that single affirmative. Philippe’s behaviour had been freezing all the rest of that day—to her, that was—but to Celeste he could not have been more attentive if he had tried.

Diana had unwisely entered a room somewhat hurriedly to find them in each other’s arms, and she had backed out of it feeling a trifle sick. Philippe had looked at her almost insolently, while Celeste’s childish white arms were still round his neck, and although he unwound them somewhat deliberately there was nothing uncomfortable in his voice when he addressed Diana.

‘You wanted something, mademoiselle?’

His voice was polite, and chill, and waiting.

‘No, nothing, monsieur. I beg your pardon!’ Diana backed out, scarlet with mortification, although once outside the door she turned as white as a sheet. And it was then that she became aware of the sensation of nausea.

It was all that was needed to send her out to meet Michael with a tremendous sensation of relief in her heart ... the relief of escaping the four walls of the chateau. And perhaps Michael could help her to get away ... anywhere, back to Paris, or back to England.

He might even know someone who could employ her.

But he wouldn’t fail her if she appealed to him to help her get away. She was convinced that Michael wouldn’t fail her a second time.

He pointed out to her the Duchesse’s stronghold, perched on a ridge against a backcloth of snow-capped mountains, and looking towards Spain. It had a watchful look, as if at any moment the occupants expected marauders to come sweeping up from the valley, and were prepared for them.

If marauders did come sweeping up from the valley while the Duchesse de Savenne was there Diana was certain she would most decidedly be ready for them!

‘Do you know,’ Michael said, referring to her affectionately, ‘she has an amazing spirit. She never lets up. When she gets an idea into her head it buzzes round like a bee, and then all at once she becomes active. At the moment she keeps talking about you. Today’s luncheon-party was very largely arranged in order that she could have another good look at you.’

Diana recalled the Duchesse’s shrewd eyes, and she knew herself in no mood to be closely inspected by them. The Duchesse could look for something and discover it, if she suspected that it was there; and one glance at Diana would tell her that she was hiding a heavy secret in her heart.

The mounts which she and Michael bestrode picked their way in a sure-footed manner round the occasional encroachments, such as boulders, which abutted on to the path. Michael’s mount came from the Duchesse’s stables, but Diana was once more riding the grey.

Suddenly he halted his horse and turned in his saddle. ‘Diana, if you’re not happy working for the Comte—and something tells me you’re not—why do you stay? I didn’t like his attitude yesterday. It’s dictatorial, to say the least, and he hasn’t any right to behave in a dictatorial manner to a girl like you. Why, you’d find it the simplest thing in the world to get any job you set your heart on...’

She shook her head, deciding it was best not to attempt to discuss the Comte’s attitude towards her.

‘I’m not trained, you know. It isn’t easy for untrained people to find jobs.’

‘But you’ve other qualifications.’ He smiled at her, with a warm glow in his eyes. ‘For one thing, you’re you! And there are a lot of people who would be only too happy to have someone like you helping them to cope with their problems. The Duchesse might know of someone if I mentioned the matter to her. Would you like me to do so?’

Once more she shook her head.

‘Aren’t you forgetting that the Comte is her godson?’ She must be far away from the Comte when she got a new job, in no danger—ever—of bumping into him and Celeste, once Celeste was his wife! ‘And, as an employer, he’s very generous ... I’ve nothing against him.’

‘Except that you’re not happy in his household! Granted it’s rather an extraordinary household, made up of a self-centred old aunt and a girl who’s got to be licked into shape before he can marry her. That, to me, is quite extraordinary!’

Diana looked down at the grey’s arched neck.

‘She’s terribly attractive, and he’s—well, something of a connoisseur. He knows that she hasn’t had the advantages that a girl born and brought up in his own social circle would have had, and so he’s trying to give her a little extra polish before—’

‘The members of his own social circle start tearing her to pieces—with their tongues if nothing else!—when he really and truly launches her upon them as the Comtesse de Chatignard!’ Michael shrugged. ‘Well, each to his choice. But if I were picking a life partner, and I had the Comte’s money, and there was nothing at all to prevent me picking the best—’ with a meaning look at Diana—‘I wouldn’t plump for a colourless little nonentity like Celeste O’Brien, or whatever her name is!’

Diana leaned forward a little over the horse’s neck, looking at him almost eagerly.

‘She wouldn’t appeal to you at all? I mean ... even that American, Robert Sherman, thinks she’s devastatingly attractive.’

‘Sex appeal,’ Michael said, smiling at her. ‘Some women would rather have that than bags of personality.’

‘Would you say that ... men like the ... Comte—perhaps rather harried in their daily life, with plenty of business distractions, and so on, and not much time for ordinary family life—would prefer to have someone like Celeste—someone with a lot of sex appeal, as you call it—fitting in to what little spare time they have, than someone with ... well, personality?’

‘If you mean would a man who should, owing to his upbringing, have a certain amount of taste, prefer a young woman with sense plus charm to a vacuous blonde with nothing very much besides, so far as I’ve been able to discover, to help while away his idle moments ... Well, if it were me, I wouldn’t have to hesitate over the answer to that one! But then I’m not a Frenchman, and I’m not a business tycoon ... nor a chap with a title...!’

There was a clatter of hooves on the path ahead of them, and Diana looked up quickly to see what struck her as a whole cavalcade of horsemen and horsewomen coming towards them. She recognized the Comte at the head of them, and instantly a most unreasoning desire to escape before he was right on top of them seized her.

She never afterwards quite understood that moment of blind panic—for she had no reason at all to fear coming face to face with the Comte—or the urgency with which she turned to Michael and said: ‘Don’t let’s stop and talk to them. I don’t want to!’ and then attempted to turn her horse in the narrow, confined space, with the result that it got out of hand. Some of her desperate urgency must have been communicated to it: for it reared, let out a whinny of sheer fright, and then bolted off down the track with her clinging to its neck.

The gradient was far too steep for her to escape disaster, and in a matter of seconds the mare was out of control. Diana closed her eyes as a great clump of rocks reared up ahead of her, and then opened them again to see the rocks slide past. There was the entrance to a deep gully ahead of her, and the ground was comparatively level ... If only her hands were strong enough to have some effect on the bit in the horse’s mouth, and she could get a good pull on the curb rein!

But her hands were as useless as if they had suddenly gone quite numb, and her senses seemed to be slipping away from her as well ... By the time they swept into the gully she and the grey were still one by nothing short of a miracle, and the thunder of hooves behind her, like the roar of approaching doom, snapped the last thread in her awareness of what was going on around her.

It was Philippe who snatched her from the back of the terrified horse, while at the same time checking its progress. Within the hollow, echoing walls of the gully it snorted and pranced, behaved like an incensed demon for a few seconds, and then stood still.

Philippe waited for the others to come up before dismounting with Diana. He handed her over to Michael, because it was the sensible thing to do, and his face was grey.

‘I think it would be better if we took her to the Duchesse,’ Michael said, with a quick glance at Diana’s insensible face. ‘It’s nearer than your chateau. Although I don’t think she’s hurt in the least.’

‘Merely fainted,’ the Comte agreed. Slowly, very slowly, the colour was returning to his face. ‘You’re right,’ he said curtly, ‘it will be better to take her to the Duchesse, and as quickly as possible. She has been badly shocked.’

Late that afternoon, while the westering sun was gilding the peaks of the Pyrenees, Diana sat up in a big bed in a colossal room that reminded her partly of a museum and partly of a Victorian stage set, for it was draped with frilly nonsense and had a blush-pink carpet, although the wardrobe was cavernous and the bed a priceless relic.

The Duchesse de Savenne, leaning heavily on an ebony stick, her ear-trumpet at the ready, came walking stiffly towards her over the carpet. Diana had a strong suspicion that the ear-trumpet wasn’t strictly necessary; but the old lady thrust it at her as she sat down in a chair beside the bed, and began a kind of inquisition which began, however, with a polite inquiry concerning her health.

‘You look to me as if you’re pretty well recovered,’ she remarked, ‘but one can never really tell with modern young women. Instead of lying back and luxuriating in an opportunity such as this—as I would have done at your age!—you’ve put on lipstick and powder and, no doubt, a touch of rouge, and you’re all keyed up and anxious to be off. Isn’t that it?’

Diana answered that she had no right to be occupying one of the Duchesse’s guest-rooms, and the old lady chuckled throatily and agreed with her.

‘No right at all! And you’ve no right to be wearing one of my nightdresses, either ... although I expect you find it a bit voluminous, don’t you?’ As Diana looked down at herself and the stiffened ruchings of lace under her chin automatically, the Duchesse chortled afresh. ‘Don’t worry, some of your own things have been sent over in a case, and you can make yourself as pretty as a picture in one of those indecent nylon nightdresses that I expect you wear, in common with most of your kind! I’ll have the case sent up—’

But Diana interrupted her swiftly.