Mistress of Brown Furrows (26 page)

“That shouldn’t be very difficult,” he admitted. “You’ve got a perfect face and a perfect figure, and you might do very well as a model. But”—he looked rather worried— “You’re not very strong yet, are you? And it seems to me that you want someone to look after you. After all, you’re very young, too, and—well, I don’ t know! ”

He smiled a little whimsically. It was a situation which appealed to him, but it might not be altogether easy to handle. And Carol attracted him very strongly.

She took a sip at the light French wine he had ordered. She had little or no appetite, but she pretended to eat because she did not wish him to become anxious about her.

“And where are you going to live?” he asked. “Can you afford that hotel where you’re staying now?”

Carol shook her head very definitely.

“I thought perhaps you might be able to find me somewhere cheaper. ”

Brian did find her somewhere cheaper, but Carol was to make the discovery that while expensive Paris hotels provided every comfort, the less well-known ones—and the ones where the charges dropped considerably—were much more inconvenient, and a little depressing besides. She had lived for months now in the lap of a good deal of luxury, and to find herself suddenly on the top floor of a building tucked discreetly away behind the skirts, as it were, of the more imposing Parisian edifices was not calculated to give a lift to her spirits. There was no outlook, for one thing, and the room was dark and dismal, the lift worked erratically, and a stale smell of food hung in the atmosphere. Even so, after a week or so it would be more than she could afford, unless she appealed to the Marchesa, which she was quite determined not to do, or Brian found her a job. And inexperienced as she was, she could not hope for a very highly salaried job. She might even find it necessary to remove to somewhere cheaper than this.

Brian tried to console her when she rejoined him in the hotel vestibule, and he suggested taking her out to dinner that night. She looked at him rather anxiously. It was not to be expected that he should take her about and pay for her enjoyment and for diversion for her when she was really nothing but the merest acquaintance. He might like her—he made no secret of the fact that he liked her very much indeed—but that scarcely helped matters.

She knew that she must not encourage Brian. It was not fair to him, and it did not agree with her own slightly puritan moral code. Timothy would not like it, either.

Not that Timothy had very much to do with it any longer.

But she accepted Brian’ s invitation to dinner. She could not possibly sit alone in that gloomy hotel bedroom. And in order to recompense him she donned one of her prettiest evening dresses—the only one, as a matter of fact, she had brought with her from Venice—and made herself look as attractive as possible, and he took her to a gay little cafe in the Montmartre district, and afterwards to a cabaret where they danced until quite late. Then they decided to walk back to her hotel through a night that was alive with the hooting of taxis and the inconsequent chatter of numberless passing couples who walked arm-in-arm, or with arms draped about one another, and who all seemed very happy and carefree.

The night wind blew softly, the young green leaves on the trees whispered caressingly, and all Paris, apparently, was gay. But not Carol. She walked beside Brian as if she was walking in a dream, and when he looked down at her her eyes were downcast and her mouth had a pathetic droop. She had no conversation and she answered him in monosyllables. Somehow she managed to make his heart ache a little, and it was more on her own account than his. He knew she was not— and she never would be! —for him.

When he left her at her hotel she had to climb the stairs to her room because the lift was out of action, and the smell of garlic and vegetables seemed stronger than ever. In her room she did not attempt to undress, but sank down on the side of the bed and remained huddled there for a long time, and it was not until she found that she was shivering with cold that she went to bed.

The next day Brian was much occupied with his own affairs, and she found her own way about the streets of Paris, visiting an art gallery and a museum because there was nothing else to do. The shops did not tempt her she had no money to spend on trivialities, and no heart for them if she had. She was only conscious of an aching void inside her, and a strange spreading sea of loneliness which made her wonder how much longer she could endure it, and why she had ever decided that separation from Timothy was better than living without his love.

She knew now that it would have been better to spend her whole life near him, without receiving so much as a word from him, than to cut herself quite off from him as she had done.

Why, she asked herself, had she done it? Why had the Marchesa not stopped her?

It was scarcely likely that Timothy would want her back now. He had probably decided to let her work out her own salvation, that it was the best thing to do. And yet—and yet it was not like Timothy....

Whenever she saw a man who looked even remotely like him her heart did a kind of somersault, but she did not see many who looked like Timothy. Dark men, yes—Latin types with swarthy skins. Men who sometimes looked at her boldly, others who plainly admired her, who thought her fair, English beauty exceedingly striking. There was the dark-eyed man she shared a table with when she paused for a coffee at one of the little outside restaurants, and who offered her a cigarette, the man who offered to see her across the road when she seemed nervous of crossing. Then there was the man who really
did
look like Timothy, with the same bronzed skin and lean line of jaw, and a certain something about the eyes, who recovered her hat for her when the wind blew it off, and who was obviously one of her own countrymen on holiday in Paris.

He looked at her as if he would have liked to stop and talk to her, but being English he did not press the point. And being English Carol thanked him hurriedly, smiled at him uncertainly, and then went on her way.

He looked after her. She knew he was looking after her, but he was not Timothy, and she was not in the least interested in him.

She began to realize that what she was actually doing was searching every passing face for Timothy, without ever recognizing him amongst the swarm of faces. Her heart sank lower and lower. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and in any case Timothy was in Venice.

She stayed out until it was nearly dusk, and then returned to her hotel with dragging steps. She walked a good many miles that day and she was desperately tired. Climbing the stairs to her room—the lift seemed permanently out of action—was almost the last straw.

She did not look up when she entered the room, and she dragged herself wearily across to her bed. She did not realize that a shadow in the window meant that someone was standing there, and it was not until a voice spoke to her that she looked up, startled.

“Those stairs are a bit trying,” Timothy remarked in a cool voice. “I wouldn’t like to do them many times a day.”

Carol sat gripping the sides of the bed. She could not even utter his name.

“I wondered how much longer I had got to wait for you,” Timothy said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

SHE was back in the hotel where she had spent her first night in Paris, in a large double-bedded room with windows which looked out on to one of the most fashionable quarters of the city. She had no idea where Timothy’s room was, for beyond bringing her here and remarking that she would probably find it more cheerful than the spot where he had found her, he had said practically nothing at all to her, and he had certainly not reproached her in the least for behaving as she had done. His air and his attitude had been quite kindly, but detached and completely impersonal, and he had betrayed no hint of having suffered in the least as a result of her desertion. Apparently she had not even impressed him by her action.

She changed into the dress she had worn the previous evening, but her fingers shook now a little as she fastened the hooks of the brief corsage. It was rather a sophisticated dress, of white slipper satin embroidered all over with tiny clusters of silver beads, and it was slender and elegant, and left her shoulders completely bare. She wore no ornament with it, save a pair of delicate drop ear-rings—pearls surrounded by minute specks of diamonds—which had been given to her by Aunt Harry, and which looked well in her rather flower-like ears. Her hair she simply combed into soft curls well back from her brow, and she added the faintest trace of color to her cheeks, for she knew she was looking rather pale—excitement, and her exertions of the day, were responsible for that.

Timothy knocked politely at her door and conducted her down to the dining-room for dinner. Her heart thudded a little when she looked at him, so very much more distinguished and altogether better-looking than any of the other men around her. They had a table decorated with wine-red carnations and sprays of delicate fern, and an orchestra played softly in the distance, and there was a cleared space for dancing—if anyone wished to dance.

Timothy did not suggest that they should dance, but he ordered a bottle of red wine which he remarked might put a little more natural color in Carol’ s cheeks, and she colored a little at that, and hoped he did not find her looking particularly haggard—although she had certainly felt haggard earlier in the day. He looked down at her quite kindly when he saw her flush, and his eyes reassured her a little.

“Actually you’ ve survived this little adventure much better than I thought,” he remarked. “Aunt Harry was probably right when she said I was inclined to coddle you too much. You obviously respond better to rougher treatment. I shall have to remember that in future.”

Carol cast down her eyes and wondered agonizingly what he meant. Was he merely teasing her, or had he definitely decided to adopt a fresh attitude towards her? He certainly was already treating her in quite a different manner to what she had been previously accustomed to from him, and he also was inclined to regard her with a certain amount of rather quizzical amusement, which disconcerted her a little. As if he found her at moments a slightly humorous study.

“You haven’t told me yet how you came to—to know where to look for me,” she said, when he made no attempt to enlighten her.

“Oh, that was easy,” he returned. “Your young friend Winslow wired me your address last night, and I must say I think that was rather decent of him. But perhaps by that time you had made it clear that you were not particularly interested in him? And Aunt Harry had already told me that you had gone to Paris, but at first I assumed that you had flown direct to Brian.”

“You—you thought
that
?” she gasped.

“Well why not?” he said casually. “I had to think something, didn’t I, and you left me no clue. You were apparently getting a little tired of being cossetted and fussed over by me, and Aunt Harry suggested that there was another reason. I couldn’ t, however, reconcile that with your deciding to depart so suddenly and leave me It was too much like a slap in the face, a somewhat chill return for my attempts in the past to make you as happy as I possibly could. That you were not and never have been happy with me is now plain, and that’s one thing I shall have to discuss with you.”

“I don’t quite—I don’t know what you mean? Carol got out, looking almost pathetically concerned and bewildered. “Didn’ t Aunt Harry—didn’t Aunt Harry
—explain
to you?”

“Oh, yes, she explained, but I’m afraid I can’t accept that explanation. ”

“I see.”

Carol looked down at her soup, which was rapidly cooling on the table in front of her. She had eaten very little that day, but her appetite had dwindled to nothing at all now. She felt as if she had received something in the nature of a shock. This was a Timothy quite new and strange to her.

“Get on with your dinner and we’ll talk about it afterwards,” Timothy recommended.

She obeyed him—or she tried to obey him—but the meal was a kind of long-drawn-out agony to her. When they finally left the dining-room he asked her whether she would like to see something of Paris night life, and because she could not very well do otherwise she agreed. He hailed a taxi, and the rest of the evening was a kind of colorful blur to Carol. She knew that she sat with him on the fringe of a dance floor, and that he somewhat surprisingly ordered a bottle of champagne, which did have the effect of making her feel temporarily just a little more hopeful. She also danced with him, and it was heaven after the misery of the night before when she had danced with Brian, and he introduced her to some friends he encountered when they were leaving the night-club.

They were friends who were enjoying a bright week-end in Paris, and they wanted the Carringtons to return with them and join their party, but Carol could scarcely have endured such an ordeal at that, and she was thankful when Timothy said no; they were going back to their hotel.

He obtained another taxi, and in the close darkness of the cab she watched him lying back and smoking a cigarette, apparently quite unaffected by her near presence. And he never even asked her whether she was tired, or whether she had enjoyed her evening, or whether, for that matter, she had any feelings about anything at all. He simply seemed to be completely detached from her, and it made her so desperately miserable that she wanted to cry out and beg him not to treat her like this, but something prevented her from doing so. It might have been her pride—she didn’t know. She was not even certain that she had got any pride just then.