Unclouded Summer (13 page)

The villa to which he had been invited was on the north side of the Cap, just west of the Garoupe Lighthouse. It would be quite easy to find, he had been told.

“Go down the Boulevard du Cap, past the Maison Josse; on the left, I think it's the first turning, you'll see the Chemin de L'Ermitage. Half a mile or so down you'll see a path on the left leading to the beach. It's got all the villas marked, the Bougainvillea, you can't miss it. It shouldn't take you forty minutes. If I were you,” Judy had added, “I should get a taxi from Antibes.”

Which was the kind of thing that Judy, who treated mille notes as he treated ten-franc notes, would suggest. But his party on the previous evening had cost him, as such dinners tend to do, a great deal more than he had expected. He would
need to watch his expenses carefully over the next few days. He was unwilling to charter seventy-franc taxi rides unless he had to. He decided to give himself an hour and a half instead of forty minutes.

He had forgotten however quite how long it could take to get from Villefranche to the other side of Nice. He had had few occasions since he had met Judy to climb up the steep road from the waterfront to the Corniche; he had forgotten how steep that road could seem on a windless day, how very difficult it was to hurry that last two hundred yards, even when there was a tram about to start. Before when he had made that trip, he had not been in any hurry. If he missed a tram, he had been well content to sit on a seat before the octroi watching the traffic pass, gossiping with whomsoever was waiting too, looking down on Villefranche, on the ochre-brown spire of the church, on a sailing boat tacking in the bay, on the white superstructure of a liner, glistening in the sunlight. He had not realized how long an interval there could be between the departure of one tram and the arrival of the next. Nor had he realized to what extent that tram could appear to dawdle as it rocked between its rails along Montoboron. On other days he had been content enough to absorb yard by yard the details of the colored scene. He had even said that he preferred to be transported slowly. In a fast car one never saw the landscape. But then he had not been hurrying impatiently towards a decisive moment. Nor when he had taken his leisurely trips to Cannes and Biot had he realized how infrequently the buses ran from Nice. It was half-past twelve before he eventually reached Antibes.

On the right of the
place
there was a row of taxis. He looked at it, tempted, hesitating. It would be very much of a relief to relax into a means of conveyance that was both fast and comfortable. It could not be more than a five-minute drive. It might not cost more than fifty francs. It would be better to arrive there a little early than a little late. It would be better, far better, to arrive composed and cool: he was tempted but he was firm. Fifty francs was fifty francs, and there would almost certainly be expenses for which he had not accounted at Marseilles.

Quarter of an hour later he was railing against what he was designating as his “confounded New England conscience.” The Boulevard Albert Premier might seem a trumpery thoroughfare when you were speeding down it in even an ancient Chevrolet: and from the Jardin Public the Phare de
la Garoupe might seem a bare yard or two away. But such distances had a different measure when you were walking on a hard hot road, under a heavy sun, on a windless day, when you were carrying a bathing dress and towel. It was close on one before he turned out of the Boulevard du Cap into the Chemin de L'Ermitage. And even then his walk was not by any means over. By the time he reached the “Bougainvillea” he was hot and sticky and ill-tempered. Heavens, but he'd been a fool not to take that taxi; on such a day too, with so much ahead of him.

His hosts at lunch were two middle-aged Englishmen, one a guardsman, who had retired at the end of the war with the rank of Major and a D.S.O., the other a man of less certain origin who also carried a military rank and who supplemented his pension by laying out gardens for his friends. They were known along the coast as “the Major and the Captain.” They were generally accepted as a
ménage.

Francis had met them a number of times at various parties, but it was the first time that he had been invited to their villa. It was one of the last houses along the narrow path leading from the Chemin de L'Ermitage. There was no such elaborate entrance as he had expected, just a wicket gate in the center of a high box hedge opening onto a broad gravel courtyard. He stood at the entrance looking round him. He had expected from his knowledge of the
ménage
that it would be extremely modern in the German style, with a great deal of plate glass and rounded sunparlors. It was anything but that however. It was a solid two-storied Victorian house, with a faded stucco front and narrow green-shuttered windows. It had no view. It had been built in the days when English visitors left the Riviera in early May. The end of the courtyard facing him, the northern end, was protected from winter winds by a high hedge, in the center of which was a narrow gap through which you glimpsed the sea. The foot of the hedge was a bright blaze of color, the herbaceous border lining it was the Captain's pride and his shop-window, the advertisement of his capacities. The courtyard was shaded by a row of plane trees, their trunks peeling and their branches lopped. Under the trees was a long buffet table, with half a dozen small tables arranged about it. Beach mattresses were laid out in the sun and a number of men and women, with brown glistening legs and shoulders were lying out on them. Others were grouped about backgammon boards, or waiting with glasses in their hands, waiting for lunch to be brought on. There were at least
twenty people there, many of whom Francis had seen or met before. Standing at the gate, unnoticed and unannounced, Francis felt himself like an actor in the wings, taut, expectant. This courtyard was the stage on which his personal drama was to be enacted. If only he did not feel so clammy, so ill at ease. The sea glimpsed beyond the hedge was temptingly cool. I've got to get into it, he thought, I've got to be fresh for this.

He moved forward from the gate, looking for either of his hosts; but already he had been observed. A tall elegant figure had detached itself from a group beside the cocktail table and was on its way towards him. At the sight of Sir Henry, Francis' nerves tautened. If Judy had said anything to her husband, he would know it now. He looked again for Judy. At his first glance he had not noticed her. Now he saw her crouched over a backgammon board, so absorbed in her game that she was not aware of his arrival. He was surprised by her absorption. He had not expected her to be capable of such concentration on a day like this. If she had told Sir Henry, surely she could not have been so absorbed.

He looked closely at Sir Henry as he came across to him. He was looking his habitual cool spruce self in gabardine slacks and carefully pressed silk shirt. But then it was his diplomatic training to give the impression that nothing untoward had happened. He came forward with outstretched hand.

“At last, my dear fellow. We were beginning to give you up as a bad job. Not that I should be surprised. Judy tells me that you kept her up gossiping last night till three o'clock. I don't know how you children manage it. She had a great time, she tells me. Your party was a great success, I hear. The Merivales have just been telling me about it. That soupe des poissons. I felt furious at having missed it. Now let me see, you haven't met our new guests. Sir Andrew and Lady Heathcroft; an industrialist, knighted in ‘17 for public services. Perhaps in view of the circumstances at the time, one shouldn't inquire too closely into the nature of his services.”

There was a twinkle in his eye as he said that. Surely if Judy had said anything to him, he could not be so friendly: surely he could not slip his arm so easily through his as he led him to an elderly couple, unsuitably attired, he in a gray flannel suit with formal shirt and collar, she in a flowered silk dress that suggested the appropriateness of gloves.

“Margaret,” he was saying, “this is Mr. Francis Oliver. Francis, this is Lady Heathcroft.”

“We've already heard a great deal about Mr. Oliver,” said Lady Heathcroft.

“Then I can safely leave him in your hands.”

But Francis was in no temper for social chitchat. It was the Heathcrofts' first visit to the Riviera. They were anxious they informed him to get a “healthy tan,” but were very much afraid of getting sunburned. It was the kind of conversation that Francis had not at the moment the necessary detachment to maintain. His shirt was sticking uncomfortably to his shoulders.

“I know you'll excuse me,” he said, “but I've walked all the way out from Antibes, the only thing that can save me is a swim.”

He sought out his hosts. “Certainly, my dear boy,” the Captain said, “straight down the garden. You'll find the key hanging inside the door. Lock it when you come back, won't you? And don't be long. Lunch'll be ready in ten minutes.”

Beyond the hedge a narrow vegetable garden, some fifty yards in length sloped down to a high brick wall, on the other side of which the main coast boulevard led to the Plage Garoupe! There was no sand and consequently no row of beach umbrellas. A few yards of shingle, then the sea. It was Francis' first bathe that day. The water, tepid though it was, seemed after his long walk, exquisitely cool. With strong slow strokes he swam towards the jetty. Before him was the loveliest panorama along that lovely coast; in the foreground the old fortress of Antibes, with its narrow and climbing streets, its cluster of roofs and walls, its dull red tiles and faded yellow brick, with the two flat towers at its summit, with its steep guardian ramparts, with the blue of the Mediterranean circling it, its ripples breaking white upon the guardian rocks and beyond, across ten miles of water, the long curve of Nice and the villas climbing up into its hills, with the tremendous bastion of the Alps sheltering it from wind and frost. And the sky was blue, a pale cornflower gray-blue with an occasional dove-colored bank of clouds drifting low on the horizon. There was nothing lovelier along that lovely coast; there was little lovelier beneath the sun. He was conscious of its beauty, but vaguely; not with the painter's eye. He was too absorbed in his own problem. Clearly Judy had not told Sir Henry yet: but was she going to, or was she expecting him to, or was she planning not to tell him at all, but to “cut and run”? What
was
she planning? Surely her mind must be in the same ferment
as his own. How on earth could she on such a morning have settled down with such absorption to a game of back-gammon? If only he knew what she had decided; once he knew, he could brace himself for whatever course of action was demanded. If only he knew …

His body was refreshed and cool. But his nerves were as taut as ever, as he walked back up the garden to rejoin the party. He was at the same time longing for and dreading that first word with her. To have to meet her for “the first time afterwards” in public. If only this morning could have been like all those other mornings; with the children rushing up to him as he sat painting with their “L'Anglaise est ici, Monsieur Francis. L'Anglaise est arrivée,” so that they could have sat side by side at one of those round blue tables on the terrace sipping a vermouth cassis while the slow deep tides of intimacy flowed back. To have to make casual talk in public…

When he had arrived, when he had gone down to bathe, Judy had been so occupied with her game that he had not known if she was aware that he had arrived. But now on his return, she was the first person to notice him. She waved her hand. “Ah there you are. How are you feeling now? I've been telling everyone what a good time you gave us.”

Lunch had begun and she was already seated. There was one other woman at her table.

“Is there room for me here?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Two nice men have just gone to get us some of that lovely food. We'll soon find you somewhere else though. Eddie,” she called out, “here's Francis. I'm sure that he's suffering from the foulest hangover, so please put him next to someone restful.”

The Captain bustled forward.

“Why not? There's a place here.”

Here was the Major's table. All the four places were already taken, but room was found for him. “You'd better have one of these,” the Captain said.

“One of these” was the contents of a long tapered glass. It was very cold and almost colorless and very strong: so cold that it would have been tasteless had it not been touched with Pernod. Its strength made him shake his head. The Captain laughed. “Special hair of the dog concoction. Don't give it to everyone, not by any means. Now you should be fit to forage.”

The long buffet table was spread with various hors d'-oeuvres types of dishes; there was langouste mayonnaise and jellied eggs on ham, and cutlets in aspic, chicken salad and curried prawns; there were cheeses; and various salads, a large iced cake, and raspberries and a bowl of thick clotted cream. There were beaded carafes of chilled white wine, and on the ground a large basin of ice and water in which the contents of a case of beer was standing. Francis should have felt hungry but he had never felt less like eating. As he helped himself for appearances' sake to a reasonably well-dimensioned meal, he noticed that Judy was eating with the greatest relish from a plate that was piled twice as high as his. There were tumblers for the beer and thin fluted glasses for the wine. But it was a tumbler not a glass that he filled from the carafe.

There were more men than women at the party. And there was only one woman at the Major's table. She was firm-jawed and middle-aged, with gray hair cut short and curled. They were discussing Tunney's recent victory over Dempsey when he rejoined them.

“I can't make myself believe that Tunney really is the champion,” the woman was asserting. “I think that the only way a man can become a champion is by knocking his rival out. It's all very well to defend a title by a win on points. But to win a title I think you should have your rival on the boards.”