The Young Nightingales (3 page)

“Yes,” she whispered again.

CHAPTER THREE

FAR away in the house a clock chimed, and a car started up on the drive. People were leaving—or beginning to leave—and she ought to be there to bid them goodbye, to accept their further commiserations and condolences, and long for the moment when they should be really gone. But with Roger holding her hands fast and looking down at her from his infinitely superior height with a kind of tender
quizzicalness
and pity in his eyes Jane could think of nothing but what he might say next.

What—knowing as she did that he was tremendously fond of her—that it was almost inevitable that he should say.

She half closed her eyes, and she heard him uttering those magical words
...
although in actual fact he was still silent.

“Marry me, Jane
...
that’s what you’ve got to do! Your father would approve of that!” But when he spoke he said nothing whatsoever about marriage.

“I’ve got a nice little job lined up for you, Janie my sweet ... as companion to my aunt. You’ve never met her, but you’ll like her, and knowing all the circumstances she’ll treat you more like a daughter than an employee. And she’ll even allow you to have Toby with you during the holidays. She lives in Switzerland— French Switzerland—and the two of you can have fun. That young man’s going to be a champion skier one of these days, and—”

“Your
aunt
?” Jane mouthed the words. “You want me to work for your
aunt
?”

“Not real work, darling.” He rallied her with an only partly humorous smile. “My relatives are all extremely reasonable, and my Aunt Agatha is an old dear. I haven’t the slightest doubt you’ll become extremely attached to her after a while. And all she’ll want you to do is to talk to her, write her letters and perhaps drive her about
...
that sort of thing. You’ll be in clover, really, with your own small income
...
and safe and secure with Aunt Agatha. I’ve already spoken to Miranda about your going to her.”

“You have?”

“Yes, of course.” He put a finger under her chin and lifted it, smiled into her stunned eyes. “She’s your stepmother, remember? And naturally she has your interests at heart.”

“Has she?”

“Now, now!” He wagged a finger at her reprovingly, and then caressingly stroked the tip of her slightly turned up nose with that same extremely shapely index finger. “You choose to believe that Miranda is all bad, whereas in actual fact she’s shaken by shock herself at this very moment, and is putting on a brave face in the drawing-room. She
loved
your father, in a kind of way. But he was too old for her, too preoccupied with matters that couldn’t possibly interest her, and she was driven to take an escapist line. Her nerves were genuinely in a pretty poor state when Chris Harrison ordered her to spend the winter abroad, and although you say she was enjoying herself
...
well, you and Irina have done nothing very much except enjoy yourselves for years. Ever since you’ve been grown up, in fact. And who footed the bills for your enjoyment? Your father!”

The room was inclined to reel round Jane. She felt as if she was clutching at useless straws when she chose to defend herself.

“I was never extravagant...” she began.

“Simply because it is not in your nature to be extravagant
!”

“I’d have been quite happy to take a job years ago...”

His extraordinarily attractive eyes humoured her in a tender kind of way.

“Poor sweet, you’re only twenty-two now. I’m not implying that you ought to have taken a job.”

“But you are implying that Irina and I both helped to bring about our father’s downfall?”

He was genuinely shocked.

“Nothing of the sort, you poor, silly little nitwit. I’m only trying to plead Miranda’s case, and to present her to you in a somewhat new light. You seem so determined to hate her—”

“I do hate her!” she declared, between her teeth.

Roger’s black brows knitted swif
tl
y.

“Why?” he demanded, in a somewhat harder tone. “Try and justify yourself in actual words. Explain to me exactly why you hate Miranda.”

Her quiet eyes were blazing now with a mixture of resentment, indignation, surprise and bewilderment. She snatched away a hand he was still holding and put several paces between them.

“I’ve already explained it to you,” she said, fighting to prevent her voice from failing altogether, and wondering whether this was all part of a most unpleasant dream she was having. “I hold Miranda responsible for—”

“Your father’s death.” His eyes had narrowed, and in her ears his voice sounded critical and blightingly cold. “Now there’s nothing at all that Miranda has done in the past few months that can possibly justify such an accusation as that, and I should know, because I’ve seen her several times while she was abroad, and it was I who went to France and brought her back when your father took his life. I knew she couldn’t be allowed to face such a catastrophe alone—”

“
Y
ou
brought her back?” This time she could hardly believe the evidence
o
f her ears. “But I thought it was Chris Harrison who brought her
back, and—and—” Her voice failed, and then grew stronger again. “I always thought you disapproved of Miranda as strongly as I do—as we all do! I’m positively certain it was you who actually advised Father against marrying her. And when he did marry her you predicted it would end in disaster! You told me that yourself,” she reminded him.

“I was criminally unfair.” He spoke as if having been convinced of this himself—although perhaps only very recently—and anxious to make amends, he was prepared to go to almost any length to blot out his previous mistake. “I allowed myself to be temporarily biased ... and that is a thing a man in my profession ought never to allow himself to be. Because Miranda was already a widow when she married your father, and had acquired something of a reputation—through no fault of her own—I, like the rest, was prepared to damn her. And when I say ‘the rest’ I mean all those stupid, narrow-minded, carping, hypercritical and therefore slightly
inh
uman
individuals who take up their residence in a district like this. The wives of socially ambitious business men and their collective maiden aunts—the do-gooders—”

“In fact everyone in the district,” she said quietly.

He stared at her, one eyebrow a little uplifted above its fellow, a network of impatient wrinkles at the corners of his eyes ... and then he flung out his hands and laughed. But it was a laugh without any mirth in it whatsoever, and there was quite definitely a certain amount of constraint about it.

“The district has a right to be censorious if it chooses,” he conceded. “But you must admit Miranda has had a good deal to put up with in this one.”

Jane attempted to compose her features into an expression that revealed little of what she was actually thinking and feeling—and at that moment she felt as if the solid rock on which she had previously imagined her life was founded had become a quagmire of shifting sand, and amongst familiar things to cling on to there now appeared to be little or nothing that could provide her with support—and changed the subject altogether.

“Are you staying the night?” she asked.

He looked first surprised, and then extremely penitent, as if he realised that he had failed her at a vital crossroad in her life.

“Oh, Jane!” he exclaimed, and went up to her again. But she backed a little. “Why do you and I have to quarrel about Miranda
?
Who is, after all, your stepmother
!”

“I am fully aware of that.” She came up against a bookcase, and was forced to allow him to lay gentle hands on her shoulders again. “But I want to know whether you’re staying the night. Helen wants to know before she makes up a bed.”

“I really ought to return to town...”

“Then shall I tell her you won’t be staying?”

His frown became very noticeable.

“It sounds almost as if you want to get rid of me
!”

“Don’t be silly.” But the soft line of her lips was unusually taut, and even hard. “Does Miranda expect you to stay?”

“She has asked me to stay.”

“Then you will, of course, be staying.” She turned away. “I must let Helen know. Excuse me, won’t you
...
I’ll see you later when the others have all gone. There are a lot of people to say goodbye to. I never knew we had so many relatives,” attempting a mirthless smile. “All thinking hard things about poor Daddy because he took what they think was the easy way out
!”
She made a sinuous movement and left the room, and he strode after her—still frowning very blackly; but she had slipped away along the corridor and managed to get caught up in the general confusion in the hall.

Later that night there was a family dinner, and the only outsider was Roger. He was impeccably dressed in a well-cut dinner-jacket, and Jane understood perfectly the reason why her stepmother appropriated him quite noticeably before dinner while they were having drinks in the drawing-room and she was acting the part of the bereaved widow quite cleverly, and even skilfully.

She wore a cloudy black dress ornamented with jet, and by contrast with it her skin looked dazzlingly fair and her blonde hair remarkable
...
which it was. She had strange, smoky grey eyes which revealed very few of her thoughts, although at times they could smile both disarmingly and alluringly. And possibly her greatest attraction was the husky charm of her voice, which was hardly ever raised in anger, and seldom entered into argument
...
almost certainly because she had discovered very early in life that argument was just so much wasted effort when winning appeal could advance one so much farther along the road one wanted to tread.

She had seen very little of Jane all day, but she understood perfectly that she was upset for some other reason apart from her father’s death and the grim ordeal of the day when she refused to accept a glass of sherry from Roger as he did the duties of host at a side table and handed her one. Jane looked slightly dazed, and she had taken little or no pains over her appearance and for once she looked almost plain. Her eyes were pink-rimmed from much crying, and her face was very pale
...
the pallor that shock induces.

Roger, on the other hand, was looking almost cheerful, and behaving as if he knew very well he was in his rightful element. He railled Jane gently as she refused the sherry.

“Oh, come now,” he said, “it will do you
good.
”
His hand went out to the whisky decanter.
“
Or would you prefer something stronger?” Jane shook her head silently.

Roger frowned slightly.

But, my dear girl, you’ve had a gruesome day—”

Miranda moved forward until she stood between them. She laid a hand lightly on her stepdaughter’s shoulder.

“Roger’s right, you know, Jane,” she said. “You
have
had a perfectly beastly day! We’ve all had a beastly day
!”

“I don’t need anything to drink,” Jane returned, in a flat and utterly colourless voice
...
and she moved slightly so that Miranda’s hand perforce fell from her shoulder. “And it can’t have been so very beas
tl
y for Roger. Daddy was only his friend.”

Miranda’s eyebrows went up.

“
Your father’s
greatest
friend,” she reminded Jane reprovingly. “And I thought he was your friend, too.”

To this Jane returned no answer, and Miranda looked from one to the other of them with a kind of careful interest. Then she enquired lightly:

“
Not quarrelled, I hope? I thought you and Roger had known one another far too long to quarrel, or be even mildly critical of one another?”

Jane stood biting her lower lip and looking utterly wretched, but Roger remained absolutely
motionless and made no move towards her. He and Miranda exchanged glances, that was all. Then Miranda said softly, soothingly:

“Ah, well, I think the best thing we can all do is go in to dinner and see whether some good hot food inside us will make us feel slightly better. I know I feel as if I haven’t eaten anything for days, and I’m positively hollow. I just couldn’t take very much more tonight! Come along, darling,” encircling the girl’s slim waist with what some people might have thought of as a motherly arm. “Don’t say a word until you’ve eaten
...
and even after that you needn’t say anything if you don’t want to. You can go to bed early, and we’ll excuse you.”

Jane, too, felt hollow and empty inside, but she found that she could eat nothing at all at dinner. While her stepmother exclaimed with pleasure at the roast and Roger tried to force her to drink some wine, she stared at him dumbly across the lavishly appointed table—no sign yet of any retrenchment, or any acceptance of the reason why the master of the place had died—and wondered whether perhaps she had imagined their conversation in the library, and whether the kindness in his eyes was the old kindness
...
much more than the kindness of a lifelong friend, and with far, far more behind it.

And then when she saw him turn the same look upon Miranda and fuss over her, too—an almost intolerable amount of fussing and con
cern
lest, now that she was a widow with no husband to take care of her she was in some danger of being completely neglected and it was his job to take over the role of leading protector and prime consoler—she knew that the conversation in the library had indeed taken place, and that as a result of it nothing could ever be the same again.

She pushed aside her untasted plate and asked to be excused.

Irina slipped into her room before going to her own much later that night and asked in some concern whether everything was all right between her and Roger.

“Only I thought you seemed a bit stiff with one another before you decided to go to bed,” she said. “And the idea of you and Roger being stiff with one another is laughable.”

“Is
it?”

Jane watched her sister curl up in her favourite chair and make herself comfortable for a ‘heart
-
to-heart’ before retiring for the night, and dashing off to London again in the morning. “Darling—” Irina hesitated, lighting a cigarette thoughtfully—“you know we’re all expecting you and Roger to get married, and now that Daddy’s dead you’ll probably think it a good idea to
get married almost immediately. After all, you need a home of your own, and someone to look after you. Conway thinks it’s a good idea that you should marry Roger quickly, and if you
want to do so without any fuss and with none of us looking on we shall all understand perfectly
...
Or Con and I will
!”

Jane answered mechanically:

“Thanks.”

Irina looked at her expectantly.

“Well?”

“Roger hasn’t asked me to marry him yet,” Jane said in the same unnatural voice.

“No, but he will.”

“We’re just good friends.” The tight, mirthless smile on Jane’s lips startled her sister.

“Don’t be silly,” she said impatiently. “It’s been obvious for ages that he’s in love with you
...
”
And then her slim brows contracted and she plainly recollected something. “By the way,” she said, “is he staying the night?”

“Yes.”

“And at the moment he’s downstairs with Miranda?”

“Yes.”

“Is it true that he went to Nice and brought her back home?”

“Yes.”

“I—I see,” Irina said, very slowly and with abruptly widening eyes. “Then you think that she—?”

“I know that, for the moment at any rate, he’s very much concerned with Miranda. He told me so himself this afternoon.”

Irina frowned quite blackly—for her—and
went across to the bed and spoke firmly to the other girl.

“Now listen to me, my child,” she said, seating herself on the foot of the bed. “We all know what Miranda is and of what she is capable—given the chance. Daddy made an ass of himself over her, and you and I have never trusted her from the moment she came to live here.
If
she’s taken a fancy to Roger you mustn’t let her have him
...
After all, men are easily bowled over and they never
b
elieve the worst of a pretty woman, so for his sake as well as your own nip the affair in the bud if it seems like developing. Roger’s your property, and you’re practically engaged to him. He wouldn’t even thank you himself if you let Miranda, who is death to any
^:
man once she really gets her hooks into him, carry him off in triumph under your eyes and wreck the whole of his future life. So for goodness’ sake, Jane, be sensible—”

“I am sensible,” Jane assured her, blinking at the softly shaded light above her head and wishing her sister would go away so that she could put it out, “and I mean to be very, very sensible in future—the immediate future. I’ve decided that I wouldn’t marry Roger now under any circumstances
!”

Irina was aghast.

“But you love him—”

“I don’t. At the moment I’m not capable of loving anybody.”

“That’s because you’re so upset about Father.”

“Father wouldn’t wish me to marry Roger now—I know that. He’d realise that it was not intended after all. I have other things to do with my life, and marrying Roger isn’t one of them. As a matter of fact,” she added almost complacently, although she wasn’t feeling in the least complacent, “I have decided to accept a job Roger himself has offered me—a job with his aunt.”

“A job with his aunt?” Irina echoed. “If he has an aunt alive she must be terribly old. Where does she live?”

“In Switzerland.”

Irina collapsed once more on to the foot of the bed.

“You’re joking,” she said.

But Jane managed finally to convince her that she was not.