The Young Nightingales (5 page)

“Will I?” She produced some Swiss francs from her bag and turned to pay the taxi-man, but Maurice had already received his instructions in rapid French and he waved the offer aside.

“It is all right,
mademoiselle
,” he said. “You do not have to pay.”

“But—” She felt annoyed, because it was her taxi and the man in climbing clothes had merely travelled as far as he had because she had permitted him to do so, and it was rather like having the tables turned and a beggar towards whom she had behaved generously returning her charity with interest.

She felt her face flush and was quite sure her eyes sparkled with annoyance, but the extra passenger had leapt back into the taxi and waved Maurice to proceed. Without giving her time to argue the matter further he waved to her casually from the back of the cab and she thought that his slate-grey eyes were
s
milin
g
with amusement, and then the hotel porter led the way into the hotel and a welcoming receptionist wondered why the attractive new arrival appeared so obviously discomposed.

Jane signed the register, received an impression of a great deal of up-to-the-minute opulence in her surroundings, and a quietly obsequious staff, and then was conducted into a gilded lift and upstairs to her room on the second floor, which had a wonderful wide window overlooking the lake.

In a matter of minutes Jane had cooled down and forgotten her recent irritation entirely, largely because the view from the window was so breathtaking, and outside the window she had a balcony of her own on which she could sit and enjoy herself thoroughly by simply absorbing all the unfamiliarity and the charm of the prospect whenever she felt like doing so.

It was true that night was closing down rather abruptly, but it was a wonderful July night, and the light lingered for some time on the high peaks on the farther shore of the lake. The stars shone like pale golden lamps when they first appeared in the dusky indigo blue of the sky, and each one was mirrored in the shimmering surface of the lake. In gardens with landing
-
stages running down to the edge of the lake lights gleamed fitfully amidst the gently stirring leaves of the overhanging trees, and pale paths of radiance streamed out across the lake.

As Jane, having bathed and changed into something more suitable for going down to dinner, brushed her hair before her dressing-table mirror, she watched a steamer moving like a phantom over the silent water, and that, too, was illuminated by a whole string of lights which were reflected like a string of pearls in the lake.

She was afraid that she was a little late for dinner when she entered the dining-room, but there were still plenty of people enjoying a leisurely meal at the flower-decked tables. It was the height of the holiday season, and her fellow guests were representative of many different countries, and most of them looked tanned and vigorous after a long day in the open air. As the
Continental was the kind of hotel where people dressed for dinner the men mostly wore dinner
-
jackets, and the women were like bright butterflies with many different hair-styles and, in a lot of cases, a lavish amount of jewellery scattered about their persons.

When she had been in Switzerland a little longer Jane was to make the discovery that Swiss women almost invariably carried a small fortune in jewels on their necks and arms—particularly the wives of prosperous business-men. And she was to recognise their beautifully coiffured blonde heads and elegant gowns and pick them out from the rest as soon as she entered a room or a public place where many of them were congregated.

But on this first night of her arrival she felt shy and awkward as she followed a waiter to her table in the
corner
, and she kept her eyes averted from everyone until she had been seated for several minutes and had had time to consult the menu.

The waiter was most helpful. He recommended several dishes, and as he was young and impressionable found it a comparatively simple matter to keep his eyes fixed on Jane. He thought she had the air of being English and was exceptionally attractive with her perfect skin and shadowy blue-grey eyes, and despite the fact that her only adornment was a neat row of pearls could not have appeared to greater advantage.

She had chosen a black dress for the occasion, and, like all her clothes, it was expensively simple and fitted her beautifully. Apart from the waiter other men in the room eyed her quite openly as she kept her head slightly bent and her eyes glued to the tablecloth; and when at last she looked up and about her they were fascinated by the flutter of her thick dark eyelashes, and by the faint air of melancholy that looked out from between them.

Most of the women had escorts, and the fact that she had none no doubt increased her attractiveness in the eyes of the impressionable males. She began to feel their persistent glances on her, and decided to hurry through her meal and return to her own room as quickly as possible, for she was not in the mood for masculine admiration
...
and she most certainly did not wish to risk being accosted by any one of the gentlemen present as soon as the first opportunity presented itself to him.

As she left the dining-room she saw a party of people enter it from a door on the farther side, and they were all so splendidly dressed—particularly one woman who was also young and exceptionally beautiful in a fair and arresting fashion—that she actually glanced up to observe them before making her way to the reception desk to gather information from one of the clerks.

“Can you tell me how far the Villa Magnolia is from here
?
” she asked the young man on duty.

He was only too eager to deal with her query.

“The Villa Magnolia? Now let me think
—
”
He was turning to consult one of his colleagues when she added the information:

“A Mrs. Bowman, an Englishwoman, lives there.”

“Mrs. Bowman? Ah, yes,
mademoiselle
!”
he exclaimed, light apparently dawning on him immediately. “We know Mrs. Bowman very well. She comes here sometimes for dinner, or when she has friends she wishes to entertain for lunch. There was a time when she came here quite often, but she is not nowadays—how do you say?”

“She is very elderly and not very strong,” Jane helped him out.

“Ah, yes,
mademoiselle
!”
He leaned across the counter and beamed at her. “That is, I am afraid, very true. Madame Bowman cannot nowadays get about as much as she once did, but she is a so very charming lady all the same ... Very charming
!”
he added, as if he wished her to be in no doubt about his personal opinion of Madame Bowman, who was as English as the young woman confronting him.

Jane looked surprised. From the little Roger had disclosed to her about his aunt she had not gathered that charm was the most noticeable thing about her. Autocratic might be a more suitable word. She had lived in Switzerland for years, and in St. Vaizey where her villa was situated for at least half of that length of time. She had an English housekeeper and an English chauffeur, and maintained a certain amount of rather comfortable state on an income which had been left to her by her second husband, another Roger Bowman, who had been a City merchant, and accumulated quite a fortune in his day.

The young man behind the reception desk was suddenly inspired.

“You are a relative of Madame Bowman,
mademoiselle
?
You have come to Switzerland to visit her?” he suggested.

Jane thought it best to put him right at the outset.

“No, no, I am not a relative of Madame Bowman,” she answered. “But I am going to be employed by her, and tomorrow I must leave here for the Villa Magnolia. That is why I want to know whether it is very far from here, and if it is whether I can hire a car to take me there?”

The young man was obviously intrigued.

“It is no distance at all,
mademoiselle
,” he assured her. “And a taxi will take you there...”

He broke off as a man came in swiftly through the main entrance and started to cross the vestibule to the dining-room. He was a youngish man of medium height, with well-held shoulders and a curious, cat-like grace as he moved, who looked extraordinarily fit and brown and was dressed
with care in the full regalia of white tie and tails, which most certainly became him because by any standards he was an attractive man, and if the impeccability of his linen was any
thing
to go by an exceptionally fastidious one.

“Ah, there is someone-—!” the desk clerk exclaimed; and then broke off as the man paused in his swinging stride and quite obviously recognised Jane.

“Well, well,” he exclaimed. “Miss Nightingale!”

J
ane stared unbelievingly.

The bronzed man smiled.

“Yes, I’ve had an opportunity to clean up a bit, he admitted, “and I hope I’m a little more presentable now. Are you settling in
?
I do hope they’ve given you a room on the lake side. If not I shall have to use my influence and persuade them to shift you
!”

CHAPTER FIVE

JANE suddenly became aware of the fact that she was staring, quite literally, open-mouthed.

This
elegant man so correctly attired for an evening’s formal festivities could not be the man in the da
rn
ed khaki shirt and thick woollen stockings and clumsy boots who had shared her taxi as far as the Continental
?
And yet there was so little doubt of it that she started to blush almost painfully with embarrassment, particularly when he railled her on the obviousness of her surprise.

“I must take greater care with my appearance next time I go climbing in the mountains,” he said. “But the truth is, I rather enjoy a little informality now and then
...
and it’s good to escape sometimes.”

“Y-yes,” she stammered, wondering quite what it was that he found it good to escape from. “I suppose it is.”

He smiled at her a trifle whimsically.

“Have you dined
?
An attractive young woman like you should not be dining
alone on holiday. But no doubt in the course of the next few days you will make
several new friends who will be delighted to show you the sights of St. Vaizey.”

There was an unmistakable gleam of admiration in his eyes as they travelled over the slenderness of her figure in the cloudy black dress, and then returned to study her face in that open and rather disturbing way he had which she had already noticed. “If you like sailing you can get some here, you know, and if you’re a tennis player there’s a very good club to which visitors are admitted. And when you’ve nothing better to do I strongly recommend a trip up into the mountains.”

The desk-clerk had been endeavouring to attract his attention for some reason, but a very stout lady with a purposeful air had sailed up to the reception desk and the young man who would have dearly loved to be of assistance to Miss Nightingale had to transfer his attention elsewhere, and leave Jane to make some embarrassed reply to her new acquaintance.

Apparently he had no intention of introducing himself, and it was a little awkward that he was in possession of her name
...
and he had quite obviously made up his mind that she was a tourist, and was there for the purpose of idling away a week or a fortnight. Well, she thought, since he was not prepared to let her into the secret of who he was, and what sort of standing he had in St. Vaizey, she most certainly was not going to put him right as to her reasons for travelling all the way from England to this lakeside town in a most attractive
corner
of French Switzerland.

“Ask that young man at the desk to give you all the information he can about excursions and so on,” the dark man suggested. “It’s part of his job, you know, to advise tourists. And don’t forget the afternoon concerts in the Kursaal Gardens. If you enjoy music you’ll find them very pleasant.”

“I—er—thank you. Yes, I do,” she answered.

His slate-grey eyes were attractively warm all at once. To her astonishment he held out a hand to her—a very brown, and slim, and shapely hand that was far better cared for than she would have believed possible when she met him for the first time after leaving the train.

“Have a good time while you’re here, Miss Nightingale,” he said softly. “Take a good impression of us back home to England
!”

The young woman who had arrived with the party of exceptionally well-dressed people while Jane was in the act of leaving the dining-room suddenly emerged from between the swinging glass doors which sealed off the dining-room and, after pausing for a moment as if in slight astonishment, came walking swiftly towards them.

“Why, Jules!” she exclaimed. “Everyone is waiting for you, and I’d no idea you’d arrived—!”

Her eyes, deep and dark like limpid pools reflecting starshine, swung round to Jane, and in addition to the surprise in them their expression was far from friendly. She had the most beautifully proportioned and graceful body Jane had ever seen, and whoever it was who designed her clothes quite plainly loved to emphasise her shapeliness, for her cloth of gold dress clung to her like a second skin, although the long skirt managed to swirl around her ankles in such a way that every time she moved the illusion was created of a golden cascade swaying above her slender insteps.

What with her golden hair and enchanting golden tan she was the most golden creature Jane had ever seen. And although every feature of her face had a beguiling perfection there was so much hardness in the resolute set of her mouth and the mutinous curve of her rounded chin that the English girl was quite taken aback by it.

Instinctively she backed a step as the other approached.

“Jules, you’re horribly late as usual! Did you have a good time in the mountains
?
”

Ignoring Jane, she slipped a hand inside his arm and smiled up into his face with resentment in her eyes, although her lovely mouth curved alluringly.

“Why you have to go off
climbing at this time of year I can’t think! The mountains are fun in the winter, when one can ski, but not now—
!”

“Your tastes are quite philistine,” he told her,
and slipped a hand beneath, her chin and tilted it so that he could smile into her eyes. “However, I do admit I am a little late, and I hope I shall be forgiven when I meet the others? Are they all here
?
Am I the last to arrive
?
”