The Questing Heart (4 page)

Traffic was speeding along the Corniche. Chris's car was a dark red, and every time a maroon vehicle came in sight her heart gave a lurch. She was a little early and stood, screened by the high bank on the corner to keep out of the way, so that when finally a car of the right colour came swooping into the lane at exactly three o'clock it nearly knocked her down. Chris pulled up with an oath and a screech of brakes, and leaped out.

'Your pardon,
mademoiselle,
but if you will play at being a wood nymph, I may be excused for not seeing you. You aren't hurt?'

Clare pulled off her glasses. 'Mr Raines, didn't you recognise me?'

Chris's eyes swept over her. 'Good lord! Are you really my Brown Sparrow?'

'Not a brown sparrow today,' she smiled.

'No. You look just like every other girl.'

'Oh!' She was dashed. 'Is ... isn't it an improvement? I've done what you said ... a bright colour, loosened my hair.'

A half tender smile softened his face.

'Do you think so much of my opinion?'

'As you're the only person who's going to look at me, naturally I wanted to please you,' she told him composedly. 'Don't you think I look nice?'

'The ... er ... hair is charming,' he said guardedly. 'But come on,' he opened the car door, 'hop in, we're blocking up the lane.'

Clare hung back, half inclined to say that she would prefer to stay at home. His reaction to her dress had disappointed her, especially after she had confessed she had chosen it for him. With a swift movement he seized her arm and propelled her into the car's front seat, slamming the door behind her. Clare fell on to the floor, and righted herself hastily, glancing anxiously at her tights as Chris came round and slid in beside her.

'Looking for ladders?' he asked cheerfully as he started the engine.

'No thanks to you that there aren't any,' she returned, arranging her skirt over her knees.

'You were dithering,' he accused her. 'I hate ditherers, so I took prompt action.'

'I'll make a note of that.'

The car gathered speed in the direction of Monaco, a direction that raised Clare's apprehension.

'Mr Raines, you're not going to take me to call on the Descartes?'

'The Lord forbid!' he ejaculated. 'But Monte Carlo is on the route to Italy. Have you your passport?'

She told him she always carried it in her handbag.

'Good. We'll have a look at Menton, Bordighera and go on possibly as far as San Remo. These seaside places are all much the same, but there's a casino at San Remo.'

'So there is at Monte. I don't gamble.'

'Obviously we can't go to Monte today and I feel like a flutter. You might bring me luck.'

'I should think that would be most unlikely. In fact by taking me out instead of going with Madame you're flying in the face of luck.'

'Didn't you want to come out with me?'

'Not if you're jeopardising your chances.'

'What a noble sentiment,' he jeered. 'Believe me, I can do without any help from Monsieur Descartes.'

'You're not in a position to be independent,' she said firmly, and began to lecture him upon his irresponsibility, which was only too common a failing among the rising generation. 'You simply can't afford to neglect any chance, that comes along,' she concluded.

'You aren't dressed for the role of mentor today,
mademoiselle,
those colours are much too frivolous,' was his response.

Diverted from her subject, she asked: 'What's wrong with them?'

'Did I say there was anything wrong with them, or the dress?'

'No, but your expression implied it. You find no difficulty in paying compliments to Mrs Cullingford, but you've none to spare for me.' It would not have hurt him to pretend he liked it.

'You know perfectly well they're insincere, and you advised me yourself to flatter her,' he reminded her. 'I wouldn't insult your intelligence by making false statements. You're so transparently honest and candid yourself, it's what I like about you, so the least I can do is to be truthful in return. That's more subtle flattery; I put on an act with a lot of people who ask prying questions.'

Clare digested these remarks while he negotiated the crowded streets of Monaco, which necessitated all his attention. That he was all things to all men—and women— she did not doubt, and she supposed she should be pleased he showed her his real self, but though truth-telling was worthy, she would have preferred it with a little gloss on it, arid wasn't his label of honesty and candour a polite way of telling her she was crude and blunt?

Monaco is such a tiny state that land is at a premium. Huge modern buildings rise skywards, dwarfing the older structures, including the palace, and others cling precariously to the mountain slopes. A final development is to reclaim land from the sea, the only expansion left unless the inhabitants decide to five underground.

Beyond the Principality, Christopher avoided the auto- route, taking the old coast road through the towns bordering the sea.

'Like all motorways it's fine for getting from A to Z, but we want to see something of the country,' he explained. They reached Menton, a white town famous for its lemon groves, with its old citadel set up on a low hill. He wanted to stretch his legs, so they left the car and wandered down to the beach. This in parts was stony—all sand along that coast has to be imported—and they seated themselves on a bank of pebbles away from the crowd at the water's edge with the Mediterranean, its own peculiar blue interspersed with patches of emerald and purple, spread before them.

'You asked me what was wrong with your dress.' He reverted to the thorny subject. 'Nothing is wrong with it, and it suits your colouring, but it's not you. Pretty-pretty clothes do nothing for you, they make you look ordinary. You had more distinction in your plain brown shroud.' He squinted at her appraisingly. 'You should wear plain colours and well-tailored gowns. Your hair ...' He leaned forward and lifted it from her neck. 'It should be shortened to show the very excellent shape of your head and jaw, and a hat, not those disfiguring sun-glasses.'

'I didn't know you were a fashion expert,' she said, wincing away from the touch of his fingers because it excited her.

'I'm not, but clothes should express the wearer's personality. I'm very particular about how my heroines dress. It should be a key to their characters.'

'But I'm not one of them and I've no wish to appear on a stage.'

'All the world's a stage,' he quoted airily. 'I'd like you to make the most of yourself.'

'Thank you,' she returned. 'I'm flattered you take such an interest in my appearance and sorry I fall short of your standards, in that respect. Since the only approval you've given me would apply to a Girl Guide, I'm a little puzzled to know why you've asked me to come out with you.'

He slid down on to his back on the warm stones, gazing up at the sky.

'You're restful,' he said dreamily. 'You don't expect me to chatter all the time, and you don't want me to make love to you.' He turned his head and shot a sudden glance at her drooping face. 'Do you?'

'Of course not,' she declared vehemently.

'So I surmised. I like feminine company so long as it isn't too exacting.'

'So now we know where we stand,' she said coolly, masking. her inner chagrin. She would learn nothing from him if he did not want to make love to her and she was aware as she sat beside him of an intense desire to touch him and to be caressed by him. She had never felt such a desire with any other man, and it would have to be suppressed if they were to continue on his terms.

'Do you meet many exacting females?' she enquired pertly.

'Dozens,' he answered abstractedly, his eyes on the sea. 'It gets monotonous.'

That she could believe. If she with her unawakened sexuality could sense his attraction, more blatant and sophisticated girls would be unwilling to leave him alone, and refuse to accept that he did not want to respond to their advances. Probably he did upon occasion and his boredom was the result of satiation. Clare was innocent, but she was not ignorant. She had seen enough of what went on around her to have few illusions about modern life.

'That's rather a pity,' she said slowly.

'What is? The number of predatory girls I've known?'

'Oh no, I'm not interested in them, only in my own reactions. You see, I want to be a writer too.'

Chris sat up abruptly. 'You do?'

'Yes, and you needn't try to discourage me. I know all the difficulties and discouragements, as well as you do. You haven't established yourself yet, have you?' She looked at him interrogatively, but he said nothing and she went on: 'My ambition is not to win fame. I only aspire to write something like
Passion Fruit.'

'But good God, girl--!' he exploded, and she smiled serenely.

'That form of writing can be very lucrative.'

Chris's eyes ran over her slight neat figure seated demurely beside him on the shore, her arms clasped around her raised knees.

'Maybe,' he agreed. 'But you ... you look the last person to exploit the throes of burning emotion.'

'That's just it,' she sighed. 'I need some initiation. I hoped you might give me some, but you don't want that sort of friendship, which from my point of view is a pity.'

Christopher began to laugh immoderately, but presently his mirth faded and an almost anxious expression crossed his face.

'But good lord, Sparrow, you can't go around inviting all sorts of stray men to kiss you to ... er... gain copy.'

They both recalled that she had asked him to kiss her goodnight and while she blushed at the recollection, Chris looked comically dismayed.

'I've got to learn,' she said doggedly.

'But writers don't have to have experience of what they write.'

'Most of the women ones are married,' she retorted. 'Monica's been married, but I've never met anyone who wanted to marry me.'

'If that's your motive for marriage you can be thankful for that. It's the dullness of ordinary marriage that turns Monica's readers to romance,' Chris said drily. 'You're all mixed up, my darling. Romance is escapism, not actuality. Incidentally, does your employer know you intend to rival her?'

'Of course not,' Clare said crossly, subtly wounded by his careless use of an endearment which she knew meant nothing. 'She'd fire me at once if she did, imagining I use her time to work in.'

'Oh, would she?' Chris looked pleased. 'And do you?'

'Never. I write in the evenings when my time's my own.'

'Such a conscientious little lady!'

'Oh, you can jeer, but I don't want to be an underdog all my life, and this seems to be the only way to get on top.'

'A long hard way and beset by disappointments.' He became serious and she recalled that he was also a would-be author with his way to make. He looked up at her consideringly.

'Got any family?'

'Parents. My home's in Manchester.' He made a grimace.

'Oh, it doesn't rain all the time and it has access to some beautiful country. But my people aren't enterprising. They go to Blackpool for what we call Wakes Week. Dad's a warehouseman and thinks only of watching football. Mum's a housewife and houseproud. She even whitens the window sills and doorstep ... ours is a terrace house in Newton Heath ... one in a row.'

She became silent, seeing in her mind's eye the rows of smoke-grimed houses back-to-back from which she had so thankfully escaped to the glitter of the Cote d'Azur, unaware that she had betrayed in tabloid form the bleak existence that had been hers before she came there. Chris glanced at her pensive face and ejaculated:

'Poor kid!'

'Oh, there were compensations. There are good theatres in Manchester, I went to plays whenever I could afford a gallery seat, and a marvellous library. I read a lot.'

'Naturally, if you've a literary bent.'

'But I wasn't living,' she complained.

'No boy-friends?'

She shrugged. 'I'm not glamorous enough to attract anyone worth having.'

'And the Riviera has been a disappointment in that respect?'

She laughed. 'You've seen Mrs Cullingford's circle.'

'A collection of tame cats, and mangy at that.'

'That's what I call them, the tabbies.' She smiled at him shyly. 'You're so different.'

'I'm glad you except me.' He threw a pebble into the sea. 'I'm not a failure, you know.'

'You told me you'd had some luck, but as I said you shouldn't be so extravagant until you're established.'

Chris grinned. 'Practical, aren't you? It used to be a rule in China that the husband turned over his money to his wife to administer. You would dole out my spending money to me each week while you built up a savings account.'

'I would that.' Clare found she was pleased by this Unking of himself with her, although it was only in fun. She picked up a handful of pebbles and let them dribble from her fingers as she asked with studied indifference: 'Have you a wife?' »

'God forbid!' he exclaimed fervently. 'And the sort of girls I meet are spenders, not savers.'

'So I should imagine,' she said drily. 'If you prefer the glamorous types, you have to pay for them.'

'You know nothing about my preferences,' he returned.

Clare thought she did; he had practically admitted he consorted with sophisticated women. She picked up another handful of pebbles, but before they started to drop from her fingers, his hand closed over hers.

'Stop that! It's distracting, and I've a proposition to put to you.'

Clare caught her breath, staring dumbly at the brown fingers closed over hers. Had she been too frank about her needs? Men, she believed naively, were ready to take any girl who made herself available and he might have construed her remarks as an invitation. Chris seemed to read her thought, for his mouth curved sardonically.

'It's nothing to raise your blood pressure, it's not amorous,' he told her. 'I merely wondered if you'd like to change your employer.'

'It depends upon the employer,' she told him, becoming very cool and distant to disguise a faint disappointment. 'Are you suggesting another author?'

'Yes, since you're familiar with that sort of work.'