Katerina's Secret (9 page)

‘Are we to dash in and risk the temperature, or shall we dip our toes and try it first?' she asked.

‘Allow me to advance and fall in,' said the colonel, a German officer and therefore a gentleman, even though on the retired list. ‘If you hear me cry out, it will mean, madam, that you should return to your bathing hut.'

‘Advance, then, Colonel Brecht, and do me the favour of falling in.'

He approached the water resolutely, and she conceded he had a fine figure. He entered the sea without faltering, waded on and fell in when the level reached his thighs. He turned on his back. He emitted no cry. Rosamund hailed him from the water's edge.

‘Well, sir?'

‘Delightful, my dear lady, delightful.'

Rosamund went in. There was no one else about as she gently lowered herself and began an easy, steady breaststroke. The water, warmed by the Riviera sun during the long, hot summer, still retained that warmth. The colonel floated and basked. Rosamund swam gracefully around. Yes, it really was delightful. One must snatch what one could of sea-bathing while the weather lasted. Sea-bathing was so good for one. Heavenly. Her active body revelled in the rhythm of swimming. Her cotton bathing dress clung in some places and ballooned in others.

The colonel frisked about.

Binoculars glinted high above them, from just outside the little gate in the wall of the Villa d'Azur. It was one of the few ways in which Katerina Pyotrovna could participate in the activities of people. How happy they looked, the man and the woman, almost luxuriating in those warm blue waters. She saw the woman stand up, her bathing costume outlining her figure in wet, glistening blue. She saw the man swimming lazily in front of her. He turned to float on his back, the water waist-high around his companion. She saw him look up at the woman, who was not unlike a sea goddess, so
handsome was her figure, and she clearly saw him turn quickly over and swim away. And she saw a smile on the face of the woman.

She smiled herself. She put the glasses down. She sighed. She remembered the days when she too frolicked in warm seas and her bathing costume clung to her figure. Mama would come to wrap a towel around her, to modestly hide the shape of her blossoming breasts.

She entered her garden, closing the green gate behind her, and the high wall shut her off again from the world and its people. But she had received an answering note from Celeste to tell her that she was bringing Monsieur Edward Somers with her tomorrow.

A little pulse of pleasure beat.

‘Remarkable,' said Rosamund after dinner that evening. She had just learned that Mademoiselle Dupont, like herself, was familiar with the game of billiards. ‘Whist is usually the thing with the ladies here.'

‘Whist?' Mademoiselle Dupont, brilliant in a deep red gown, lowered her voice. ‘I avoid all contact with such a dull game. I'm not treading on your toes by confessing that?'

‘Not at all,' said Rosamund. She and Mademoiselle Dupont were taking coffee in
the lounge, and other guests were drifting in. ‘I've more of a liking for billiards than any card game.'

‘Do they allow ladies to use the table here?'

‘Why, of course,' said Rosamund. ‘Madame Michel advances with the times, and would on no account allow the gentlemen to monopolize any of the amenities. That permits us to engage with the gentlemen, not spoil them. I'm not in favour of being left to twiddle my thumbs. If you're willing, mademoiselle, shall you and I challenge Monsieur Somers and Colonel Brecht to a game of billiards?'

‘I'm very willing, madame,' said the Frenchwoman, quite animated. ‘It's an excellent way of capturing two such personable gentlemen.'

‘Capturing?'

‘They are really the most interesting men here,' said Mademoiselle Dupont. ‘Edward is extremely intriguing. He has a tired face, yet such fine eyes, and I feel some women could not look at him without wanting to kiss him.'

What an extraordinary statement, thought Rosamund. One must put it down to the woman being excessively French. And already she was using Edward's name.

‘That's something which would do very well in a play,' she said, ‘but might make Edward
keep to his room if we all indulged our impulses. Do you wish to kiss him?'

‘Don't you, madame?' asked Mademoiselle Dupont with an arch smile.

‘Only in sympathy that so fine a man should be so physically reduced.'

‘Ah, yes, gassed in that terrible and outrageous war,' said Mademoiselle Dupont indignantly, ‘a war fought for gain by the imperialists.'

‘Then they blundered, it seems,' said Rosamund, ‘for there was no gain by any of them. Here is Edward now.'

‘Edward?' It was Mademoiselle Dupont who rose to engage him. He crossed the room to join her.

She's taking him over, thought Rosamund. Celeste will fly into a sweet fury.

Celeste, indeed, entering a few moments later to pour coffee for guests awaiting it, stared at the spectacle of the Frenchwoman in flirtatious possession of Edward. She was outrageously close to him, her face lifted to his, her red-sheathed bosom breathing against his dinner jacket. She was exercising a winning smile and a sweet tongue.

Celeste served the coffee. Colonel Brecht entered. She served him too, then disappeared.

She
is
in a sweet fury, thought Rosamund. How enchanting. The French are very French at any age.

All ten guests were present. The spacious lounge, carpeted and restful, was a civilized retreat after dinner and very conducive to conversation, although in addition to the billiards room there was also a card room.

The dapper man, Monsieur Valery, hovered with an amiable smile on his face, obviously ready to take on either Rosamund or Mademoiselle Dupont at whatever social activity they cared to pursue with him. The two ladies, however, repaired to the billiards room with Edward and Colonel Brecht immediately they'd finished coffee. As they proceeded through the lobby, Celeste appeared. She detained Edward. The others went on, Rosamund with a little smile lurking.

‘M'sieur,' said Celeste proudly, ‘your affairs are none of my business, of course, but—'

‘My affairs?' said Edward.

‘But I beg you not to become inextricably involved with Mademoiselle Dupont.'

‘I'm only going to play billiards with her, little angel.'

‘I really don't care for her,' said Celeste.

‘She's quite entertaining.'

‘Oh, m'sieur, you are so naïve.'

‘I was as a boy, before I found out how necessary it was to cope with terrible little girls. It was sink or swim.'

‘It is not amusing, m'sieur,' said Celeste. ‘Mademoiselle Dupont is not a woman who'd take care of you.'

‘I haven't asked her to,' said Edward.

‘I shouldn't like you to meet the countess tomorrow if you were covered with Mademoiselle Dupont's scent, as you are now.'

‘Good heavens, am I?'

‘How could you not be,' said Celeste, ‘when you allow her to purr up against you like a cat?'

‘Well, you must pray, sweet infant, that by tomorrow it will have worn off.'

‘Play your billiards, m'sieur,' said Celeste, ‘but beware of scented cats.'

‘You delicious girl,' said Edward and patted her cheek.

He entered the billiards room. Colour glowed. The table was a deep green, Mademoiselle Dupont was a picturesque figure in red and Rosamund majestic in midnight blue.

The game was on. Rosamund exercised fluency with her cue. Mademoiselle Dupont was quick and exuberant. The Frenchwoman
had played, she said, since girlhood. Rosamund had played during the nine years her marriage had lasted before her husband, a sapper, had been blown up by a German mine while tunnelling to lay a British one. She had been a widow now for twelve years, but did not live a lonely life. She had come to terms with the loss of a husband who had also been an ardent lover, and was not in desperate search for a new one. She enjoyed male company, however, and the discovery that Colonel Brecht was actually a shy man aroused the ineradicable tease in her. He had almost swallowed the best part of the Mediterranean when, on his back, he had looked up at her wet bathing costume clinging revealingly around her full breasts.

The two ladies ran the men close. Edward and the colonel scored steadily, but Rosamund put together some excellent breaks, and if only Mademoiselle Dupont had been less flashy with her cue, they might have been in front. Certainly, they had the colonel tugging at his moustache. Entirely a masculine man, he really did not want to be beaten by the ladies, and looked relieved when he and Edward clinched the close match.

‘Thank you, mademoiselle.' He shook the
Frenchwoman's hand. ‘Thank you, madam.' He shook Rosamund's hand.

‘Cognac as a nightcap for all?' suggested Edward.

‘Thank you, but no,' said Rosamund. ‘It's ten thirty and time for my bed.'

‘Alas, I too am sleepy,' said Mademoiselle Dupont, ‘but shall be alert and alive in the morning. Perhaps I can look forward to a few gentle walks with you during my stay, Edward.'

Dear me, thought Rosamund, she has no reticence at all.

Edward merely smiled, avoiding a commitment.

The door opened and Monsieur Valery put his head in, his pointed nose leading his enquiring look.

‘Ah, the game is finished?' he said.

‘Quite finished, m'sieur,' said Mademoiselle Dupont and, passing him by, flowed out of the room with a swish of silken red. Monsieur Valery's eyes sighingly followed her. Edward took pity on him by inviting him to join in the nightcap, and Monsieur Valery accepted with the gratitude of one longing for company.

Edward woke up just after midnight. He had been asleep for only an hour. His lungs felt congested. He got up and went to the casement windows, opening them wide. The night air was fresh, but not damp. He breathed it in. The moon was brilliant, flooding the land with light. He glimpsed movement close to the summer house, inside the shadow of the hedge. It came and it went, a movement in the shadow.

He thought about Gregory. The man seemed honest enough. He looked one in the eye and he answered questions. All the same, the countess's doctor had obviously caught him prying. Whether the gardener had been there out of curiosity or for some other reason, he alone knew. Edward supposed it was Gregory who had flitted by in the garden a moment ago. The path behind the summer house led to the back of the hotel, and the man had a room in the basement.

Edward closed the windows and returned to his bed. Because he had been alerted, his ears picked up a little sound. He opened the door of his room and stepped quietly out. The hotel was invested with the silence of sleeping night. Except for little whispers of movement. Someone had entered through the back door,
someone who was not treading the basement stairs, but the upper flight. There were no bolts used in the Corniche, no habitual locking of either the front or back doors, for crime was almost non-existent in this little area. Guests who liked to spend an evening in Nice or Cannes could return as late as they wished, and were only expected to enter the hotel quietly, front or back. The back stairs led to both upper floors.

Edward stood outside his bedroom, listening to the little sounds of someone cautiously ascending. A door opened on the first floor and a moment later the hotel was still and silent.

A guest had been out. A guest had returned. Edward went back to his bed.

The next day was again warm and sunny, the Riviera enjoying one of its extended summers. For her visit to the countess, Celeste wore a dress of dark blue cotton with an open collar, and a loose white imitation-silk tie. A straw hat sat on the back of her head. Celeste had never used the iron gates fronting the road, but turned into the wood right of them to skirt the walled drive and emerged from the trees a little way from the green wooden gate. She took Edward through on this same route. The wall gate was, as usual, open for her. She entered with Edward, closing the gate after her. The countess was there, promenading the wide, extensive lawn, a blue-and-white parasol up.

Celeste thought how regal she looked. She did promenade, often, with Celeste beside her, and in the manner of a lady of grace superior.
Celeste frequently felt, however, that a woman of spirited vitality dwelt within that elegant form, a woman longing to shed her cloak of constraint.

The countess laughed when she saw Celeste in her dark blue, for she too had chosen blue. But hers was a blue as delicate as the azure sky. Hatless, her deep auburn hair was enriched by the light.

‘Celeste, Celeste, your blue has outdone me, incorrigible girl,' she said, and planted a kiss on her cheek. ‘Yes, how sweet you look. Monsieur Somers, is she not a picture?' She put the question lightly, smilingly, her eyes still on Celeste.

‘I'm grateful for both pictures,' said Edward.

She lifted her clear grey eyes to his, and again he was held in mesmerized fascination. Reflections of life danced for him. And she, granted permission to receive a man she wished to make a friend, put out her hand to him, and the faint flush deepened her colour as he lifted her fingers to his lips. Edward could think of no other way of greeting her.

‘Thank you, Countess, for inviting me,' he said.

‘An arrangement isn't quite so startling as an
unexpected collision, is it?' she said, her smile turning her vivid.

‘Did we collide?' asked Edward.

‘Almost,' she said. ‘Thank you for coming today. I am Katerina Pyotrovna.'

‘Of Bulgaria?'

‘Yes, of Bulgaria.' There was only the slightest hesitation about her reply. ‘It's a country now too unstable for many of us.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Edward, who thought instability had been a characteristic of Bulgaria for more years than he cared to remember.

‘Are you acquainted with Bulgaria?' she asked.

‘Shamefully, no.'