Summer's Awakening (46 page)

Evidently he had not been completely engrossed in talking to Andrew because, as Nancy was looking at the last of the drawings in the portfolio, he said, 'You must have modelled several million dollars'-worth of rocks in your time, Nancy. What do you think of Summer's ideas?'

'Original. Stylish. I love them.' She showed one of the designs to her husband. 'If you're worrying about a present for our next anniversary, this little bauble would be fine. Listen, Summer, how about designing some clothes for my boutique? There are lots of very elegant women—with very rich husbands!—in Toronto. It could be a good testing ground for your ideas about clothes. I'm sure you have plenty, and I could have them made up for you.'

It was an exciting offer, but Summer wasn't sure how Raoul would react to it. Perhaps he wouldn't like her diversifying; and there was the book about her father and other muralists which James was going to discuss with his publishing contact. Would she have time for all these projects as well as preparing Emily for Smith or Vassar?

Before she could answer, Raoul said, 'Let her sleep on it, Nancy. I think we should all go to bed. You people have had a long day. My plan for tomorrow morning is to take Summer up the river and, I hope, let her see some bald eagles. I also want to show her the Florence Griswold House. You two have already seen it so you may prefer to do you own thing until lunch.'

Early the next morning, Summer sat on a log by the river bank, drinking coffee from a vacuum flask and eating an apple while the sun rose over the river and a salty breeze rustled the reeds surrounding their breakfast place.

Raoul had entered her room at first light and given her a gentle shake—to have set an alarm clock would have disturbed the Sinclairs sleeping next door. Before dressing she had washed her face and brushed her teeth, but she hadn't put on any make-up.

When Raoul snapped a bar of chocolate and offered half of it to her, she said softly, 'No, thanks. May I look through your binoculars?'

He removed the strap from his neck and handed them to her.

'You may have to adjust the focus,' he told her, as she put the strap over her head and propped her elbows on her knees to steady her hold on the glasses.

'No, the focus if fine. We must have the same kind of eyesight.'

She scanned the far bank of the waterway called Connecticut by the Indians, the name meaning long, tidal river. It was certainly long—its source was in Canada. And for some miles upstream from where they were bird-watching, it continued, so he had told her, to be a wide estuary.

'Not only that; we have a great deal in common,' he remarked.

She lowered the glasses. 'Raoul, what do you think about this suggestion of Nancy's that I should try my hand at dress designing?'

'I think you should. I felt you and she would get along. That's one of the reasons I asked them down this weekend.'

As the breeze caught a strand of her hair and blew it across her face, he reached out to brush it aside. Having tucked it behind her ear, he touched her cheek lightly with his forefinger.

'You do have cheekbones like Katharine Hepburn. In fifty years' time you'll still be a beautiful woman.'

She was conscious that this was a moment which would always be imprinted on her memory. No woman ever forgot the first time she was told she was beautiful, or the man who told her.

'Is that outside the terms of a working relationship—to say that I think you're beautiful?' he asked, with a slight smile.

'If it is, I can't truthfully say I object,' she answered lightly. 'To be complimented at this hour of the morning, with a bare face, does wonders for anyone's morale.'

'A lovely girl may enhance her looks with make-up, but she doesn't need it,' he said. 'In fact I think a lot of girls spoil themselves by overdoing their make-up. Those glistening lips and sultry eyes on the covers of the glossies aren't attractive from a man's point of view. Who wants to kiss a mouth thick with goo?'

He was looking at her mouth as he said it. She knew he was planning to kiss her but giving her the chance to turn away, if she so wished.

She kept her head still and after a moment he leaned towards her and kissed her, lightly at first and then, in a continuation of the first kiss, with a little gentle persuasion to open her lips.

Perhaps, if a heron hadn't chosen that moment to take off with languid wing-beats from a nearby reed-bed, he might have gathered her close. But the wading bird's sonorous croak before it took to the air made them draw apart and look up to watch its slow flight. As, its head drawn back in an S-shape, it headed north, it drew Raoul's eyes to another bird flying over the marshes. With an exclamation of excitement he pointed it out to her; the eagle which was her country's emblem and which, carved and gilded, with an olive branch and arrows in its talons, was to be seen above the lintels of many of the houses in the area.

It was their only sighting, and a distant one, of the birds he had wanted her to see. Presently they drove back to Old Lyme to visit the house which, at the beginning of the century, had been a summer colony for American artists such as Childe Hassam and Julian Alden Weir.

By the time they returned to the house, his sister and her husband had arrived from Boston. The former Giselle Santerre, now Mrs Scott Adams, was two years younger than her brother and very much like him in looks.

Raoul had already told Summer that Giselle had been engaged to the son of a French industrialist when she had come to America for a holiday and fallen in love with Scott, a junior partner in a Boston law firm.

It had taken considerable courage for her to upset her fiancé and her family by breaking the engagement a few weeks before her wedding, particularly as at that time Scott hadn't declared himself. But from the moment of meeting him, she had known that she couldn't go through with a marriage based on liking rather than love. As soon as she had returned to America, this time without an engagement ring, Scott had asked her to marry him.

Giselle had brought with her a typically French picnic lunch of pate, which she had made, crusty bread, good butter, fruit, cheese and—because it was her brother's birthday—champagne.

The six of them sat in the sun in the garden at the back of the house; four people who had found their life partners and two who might be poised on the brink between friendship and love. And yet, enjoyable as it was to be with people who had never known the other Summer Roberts, and with whom she had much in common, she found herself wondering how James and Emily were spending the day and whether they missed her or hardly noticed her absence.

After lunch they drove to the beach and filled their lungs with sea
air,
the three men walking together with the women following some yards behind. In the course of a conversation ranging over many subjects, Giselle contrived to elicit most of Summer's life history.

It wasn't until she was dressing for dinner that she had a chance to think about Raoul's kiss and what it might or might not presage.

Yesterday, in the train, she had told him she was a virgin and was inclined to remain one till she married. Did he think he could change her mind? Or were his intentions more serious? Judging by his arrangements for the weekend, and that one gentle kiss on the marshes, he was serious.

She closed her eyes, trying to recapture her feelings while he was kissing her. To her dismay she found herself remembering James's kisses, especially the one following his proposal at Nantucket. Merely to remember that kiss stirred her senses, but when Raoul had kissed her it hadn't made her heart stop beating or produced any way-out sensations. It had been more affectionate than passionate; a nice, tender, chocolate-flavoured kiss which had momentarily revived her desire for the taste of chocolate but hadn't aroused any deeper desires.

Perhaps true love, the 'durable fire', didn't burst into flame at the outset but began as a gentle glow. She felt sure that, if he wanted to, Raoul could ignite stronger feelings in her. There might be no rational basis for the idea that as lovers Frenchmen were superior to other men; but somehow she felt sure that he—if and when they went to bed together—would take her with tenderness and skill.

Meanwhile all she had to do was to let him set the pace of their relationship. She had once read an interesting essay by the English writer Margaret Lane— in private life the Countess of Huntingdon—in which she had analysed the nature of
amiti
é
amoureuse,
the special friendship between a man and a woman who found each other physically attractive but who, for a variety of reasons, preferred to be no more than friends in the old-fashioned sense.

It might be that she and Raoul would never progress beyond an
amiti
é
amoureuse,
although already, by kissing, they had gone beyond the strictest bounds of friendship. Or it might be that he was the one in whose arms at long last she would experience fulfilment.

At this moment she only knew that she felt more for him than for any man she had met—other than James, she thought wryly. He was kind and considerate, and also very attractive, and she always felt comfortable with him. What more could one ask?

Scott and Giselle were staying at the Old Lyme Inn which was where that night's dinner party was held. It was an elegant establishment with a reputation for haute cuisine and a strict dress code.

However, as among the families who had summer places or winterised houses in the area, those with old money still predominated, dressing up was low-key. Overdressing signalled the presence of tourists.

On Sunday they went to the Hunt Breakfast at the Griswold Inn in Essex. The breakfast was actually a superb buffet lunch.

These breakfasts are supposed to have been started by the British when they captured The Gris in the war of 1812,' Raoul told her, as they helped themselves from an appetising display which included bacon and eggs, sausages, kidneys, kippers, chipped beef in creole sauce, lobster kedgeree and turkey hash.

The waistband of her butterscotch cotton pants was feeling too snug for Summer's liking. She seemed to have been feasting for days and wished there was some way to avoid doing justice to the lavish spread. But with Raoul at her elbow there wasn't. She could only eat very slowly, and plan to revert to programme the moment she got back to New York.

Unable to stay a second night, at mid-afternoon his sister and brother-in-law began their journey home.

'I've told Raoul he must bring you to stay with us in Boston, so I'll only say
au revoir,
Summer,' said Giselle, before they drove away.

To Summer's relief, instead of going out to dinner that night, they stayed in and had omelettes and a green salad.

It was not till Monday, on the train, that she was alone with Raoul again.

'Next time you come down we'll take a ride on the Valley Railroad's old stream train. It's touristy, but fun,' he told her. 'And we'll try to get a closer look at the eagles.'

As he said this, she could tell by something in his eyes that he was remembering their kiss.

He didn't kiss her again till the day before she and Emily flew to Geneva.

As he had an important business engagement that evening, Raoul asked her to lunch with him, and suggested she come to his apartment.

It was a few days before her birthday. After lunch, when they had left the table and were having coffee on the sofa, he produced a small gift-wrapped package.

It contained a cornelian box, carved in the form of
a
pumpkin with a removable segment rimmed with tiny rose diamonds. She knew instantly that it must be
a
piece of Fabergé.