And Be Thy Love (16 page)

He was already untying his tie, and she caught at his arm to

prevent him.

“But you can’t—you can’t do a thing like that,” she cried, “at this hour of the day! It will soon be completely dark, and in any

case the water is filthy and stagnant! It might drag you down....

There might be deep mud, anything....”

“Sharks?” he enquired, softly, stooping to unlace his shoes.

“No, please...!” She was almost crying. “I am not joking...! We must get help some other way, but you mustn’t think of swimming to the island! Armand, please...!”

“Ah!” he said, still more softly, straightening up and looking at her in the strange, harsh, eerie light “That is the first time you have called me Armand, and the name slipped out quite naturally! Which means that you must think of me sometimes as Armand!”

Her eyes were appealing to him, and she was too conscious of the unsuspected iron-hardness of his will, and the importance of combating it somehow, to even bother about subterfuge just then, and for a few moments there was no pretence between them.

“Of course I think of you....” she said.

“Just as I think of you—all day and all night!” He caught her into his arms, and she felt the infinite dearness of his lips against her own, kissing her with tenderness and a touch of passion. Then he let her go, just as another thin cry reached them from across the water. “Don’t move from where you are,” he instructed, “and if it gets really dark before I return shine this torch,” thrusting one into her hand, “as often as you dare without wasting the battery. There is a boat-house on the island with a boat in it that I may be able to make use of as a means to get us back, but if not the other boat will have to serve us somehow. Thibault obviously used it to get him where he is—although quite possibly he drifted—and at least it didn’t sink with him. So it could bring us back!”

“But, Armand...!” she pleaded.

“Step away from the edge in order to avoid the splash,” he cautioned. He waited while she took an unwilling step away from him, and then the splash followed immediately. There was a gurgling noise as the disturbed, brackish water closed round him, mouthing at him, sucking at him, causing great spreading ripples to reach right across the lake, and then he struck out strongly.

Caroline stood straining her eyes on the edge of the water and feeling as if she would have to cover them with her hand at any moment, for it was one thing for a boy without any clothing of any kind to attempt such a feat, but a man hampered by everything except his shoes, collar and jacket was altogether different. She thought of all the patches of poisonous weed that might lie out there waiting to ensnare him and catch at him, eventually drawing him down into a foulness that was too horrible to contemplate. She thought of obstacles that might prove too much for him, pieces of rotten tree-trunk floating just below the surface that might catch him a glancing blow on the head, and cause him to sink before anyone could do anything at all to save him, and sensations of utter panic took possession of her. Wishing wildly that she had come here alone—although if she had come here alone, how could she have helped Thibault?— she knew that Armand’s safety was the only thing in life that really and violently mattered to her, and the knowledge merely intensified her fears for him. And even if he got to the other side, it was too great a risk to return in a rotten boat!

She waited until the light was about to die, and then switched on the torch. The spreading ripples had ceased and the lake was calm, and on the other side the boat—or a boat was coming leisurely towards her. The almost painful leisureliness of its movements made her feel sick, and she endured further agonies until it touched the shore. Then she shook off her fears, and every other sensation, and went down to help Armand beach the boat, and also to make certain that he had the child with him.

Thibault had endured so much terror that he no longer had the power to whimper even, and when Armand handed him over his eyes appeared to be glazed, and he could only make clutching movements with his small fingers. Armand said soberly:

“He was lying in a clump of scrub, but I don’t think he’s hurt—only half dead with fright! I don’t think he’ll be quite so adventurous in future, or not for some time, at any rate! You’d better wrap my jacket round him in order to keep him as warm as possible, and if you can also carry him that will be much the best, for I am so wet that I could only add to his discomfort.”

“You—you’re very wet?” she asked, not knowing quite what she said as she wrapped the coat round Thibault, and then kept

him closely hugged to her in-her arms. Armand had taken the torch from her and was shining it away from himself.

“Very wet, and very odorous,” he answered. “That patch of water must be the foulest in this corner of France! Now lead on, if you will, my little one, and I will keep the beam of the torch directed straight ahead, so that you can see where you are going”

She did exactly as he requested, stepping carefully in order to avoid catching her foot in a trailing bramble, or coming up against a stump of tree trunk that would cause her and the child to end up lying in the middle of the path, and behind her Armand encouraged her occasionally, and she thought that he sounded just a trifle jaded, or perhaps exhausted. And she realised that he wasn’t used to swimming in his clothes at the wrong end of the day, and on top of the swim he had had to row the boat back, after dragging it down to the water’s edge. And he had wasted so little time after returning from what must have been a reasonably exhausting day already—a day devoted to sightseeing, most probably, since Helen Mansfield had been a member of the party, and Helen was an indefatigable sightseer—and it was little wonder his voice sounded dragging, and he breathed a little heavily as he plodded along behind her.

When they reached the house at last Monique threatened to become almost hysterical with relief as soon as Thibault was handed over to her, but Armand silenced her a little curtly— which was probably the best thing he could do under the circumstances—and told her that she owed the safe return of her small son to Mademoiselle Darcy. It was Mademoiselle Darcy who had thought of the lake, and saved Thibault a long night, at least, of exposure.

Then he excused himself hastily and vanished upstairs to a bathroom, and it was not until he emerged from his own room, once more neat and correctly attired and smelling distinctly more wholesome, and Caroline accidentally met him in the corridor, that she saw the cut over his right eyebrow. He had done nothing about it save dab some iodine on to it, and it looked dark and ugly, to say nothing of having quite a large area of bruising around it.

Caroline took one look at the ugly cut, and then exclaimed with horror.

“You are hurt!” she said. “Something must have hit you while you were swimming!”

He shook his head.

“It was a branch of a tree when I landed. I didn’t see it in the dark.”

He smiled at her rather oddly.

“Oh, I’m so sorry...!” Her voice sounded as if she was actually upset. “You were wonderful...! I can’t think how you dived into that horrible water...!”

“I can’t think how you were clever enough to hit upon the lake, and the boat, as an explanation of Thibault’s absence!”

She smiled rather wanly.

“I knew all about his secret aspirations to become a sailor, and that the water fascinated him.” She moved a little nearer to him. “Have you really cleansed that cut thoroughly?” she asked anxiously. It’s almost bad enough to have a stitch put into it! Are you sure we oughtn’t to get a doctor to have a look at it?”

“Quite sure.” He sounded amused at the idea, and there was a definite suspicion of dryness in his voice as he added: “Why, would you like to put on a Florence Nightingale act and assist him if he ordered me to bed for a few days, or went in for a little rough surgery? Would you hold my hand while he worked over me?”

She couldn’t help being convinced that there was mockery in his voice as well, and she looked at him with a certain amount of perplexity in her dark violet eyes. His dark brown ones studied her in an inscrutable fashion.

“I would assist him, of course, if it was necessary.”

“And you would hold my hand if it was necessary?”

Suddenly, looking at the injury above his right eyebrow, and thinking of him swimming through that evil water—and perhaps remembering all that she had heard of him that day from Monique—her love for him rose so triumphantly to the surface that her whole being felt as if it was being dissolved in the uprush of her emotions. Her eyes ceased to be perplexed and reflected only a kind of yearning, and a tender anxiety, as she looked up at him, and she actually put out a hand impulsively and touched his sleeve.

“Armand, I------”

He covered the hand lightly, carelessly, with his own, and then patted it gently.

“Armand—nothing!” he said. “It is too late to stand here in the corridor telling me how much you admired my behaviour this evening; and, besides, I badly need a drink! Let’s go downstairs and rejoin the others, and see what Monique has done with the dinner she cooked—and to-morrow, if you feel like it, you shall tell me how much you admire me!”

There was no doubt about the mockery in his voice this time, and although it was quite gentle mockery it bewildered and confused her. She saw his white teeth as he smiled, his eyes remain unsmiling. And then he stood aside for her to proceed along the corridor ahead of him.

She did so with so much absurd disappointment rushing up over her that she several times all but stumbled as she walked.

CHAPTER XIII

AND the following day she did not even see him to tell him anything.

When Monique served her breakfast coffee and rolls on the terrace, in the sunshine of another beautifully fine morning, that promised another very warm day ahead, she learned that Monsieur le Comte had left at an early hour with Mademoiselle Montauban, whom he was driving to visit friends or relatives, who resided a good many kilometres the far side of Le Fontaine. They would be absent all day, and it might even be quite late when they returned.

Caroline experienced her first sharp disappointment of the day when she received this news.

Mademoiselle Montauban... !

Oh, no...! she thought. Not after the way he had kissed her, Caroline, the night before! Not after he had said that he thought of her all the time...! It was true that having admitted as much he was curiously loath to talk to her again alone while the rest of that evening lasted, and she had gone to bed so full of apprehension and longing that she had hardly slept at all. He had said that to-day she could tell him what she thought of him... ! Well, she would have to let him know—let him know that it didn’t really matter to her who or what he was, because she loved him so much that nothing else really mattered at all! She could overlook everything he had ever done, and all the things he had not done that would have made him so much more worthy to bear the title that was his, and to be the last of an illustrious line, if only he would tell her once more that he loved her! If he would reassure her, and put her out of her agony of mind....

Robert or Armand, it didn’t matter now....The only thing that mattered was that she loved Armand, whom she had first known as Robert, and somehow soon she must make him believe it, and that she wasn’t capable of change, whatever the shock that might temporarily stun her. And if only he would again ask her to marry him—to share his life with him...!

It didn’t matter whether it was at the top of a tall building, in fashionable Paris, or unfashionable Paris.... loving as she did she couldn’t just go on alone, without the constant presence of the loved one.! Every part of her ached for the constant society of Armand, and she had looked forward so much to to-day because, if only she could find the courage, she would let him know all that he meant to her; and having said that he thought of her all the time he wouldn’t snub her—he wouldn’t do anything to make her ashamed of confessing so much.

At least she was certain of that....

For even if he had ceased to be as much in love with her as he had once imagined that he was, he was innately chivalrous. He was rather exquisitely chivalrous.

But Monique had altered everything with her few words. Monsieur le Comte had gone off for the day with Mademoiselle Montauban....

Christopher Markham came down and joined her at the breakfast table. He was wearing an open-necked tennis shirt, prepared for another hot day, and he looked a little bored.

“This is too much like the weather I’m used to,” he remarked, as he helped himself liberally to Monique’s strawberry preserve. “In my part of the world we expect it, but on leave I like to do things and go places without being reminded that my leave must end one day!”

“How much longer have you got?” Caroline asked, without really caring.

“Another couple of months.” He smiled across the table at her.

“Come out with me to-day and let’s have lunch somewhere, and if our host chooses to absent himself all day why shouldn’t we?”

“I don’t seem to remember that our host invited any of us,” Caroline couldn’t resist answering—being only too well aware that he hadn’t invited her, and the other four had more or less inflicted themselves upon him. “So I suppose he can go out for the day if he wishes.”

“With Mademoiselle Diane?” He sent her a flickering glance. “Would you say she attracts him seriously, or is it he who attracts her?”

“I—I wouldn’t know, would I?” Caroline replied, and then hastily enquired whether he would like some more coffee.

“Thanks.” He lighted a cigarette, and watched the smoke drift away dreamily in the direction of the moat. “You realise that my aunt rather led Helen to believe that it would be possible to put salt on Armand de Marsac’s tail? But she doesn’t seem to have been very successful, does she?” He glanced up at the peaceful front of the chateau. “Fancy owning a place like this and not wanting to settle down here! Although I suppose, as he said, it would be pretty expensive and unwieldy to run. But you’d think he’d come here more often than he does. Monique told me that Marthe sometimes doesn’t see him for months at a time, and it’s never more than a few days he spends here. This is his longest stay for ages, apparently, and he’s beginning to talk about his new autumn play— rehearsals and so forth—so that means we shall have to be pushing on.”