The Hunter's Moon (Timeless Classics Collection) Page 15

  Next day she went round to Bernard’s studio. He had been worried about her, he said, and realised by her pallor that she must have been ill. When he asked what had happened, she told him. He did not think she was a suitable person for the casino, where all sorts of things went on. Did she like it?

  ‘I went because the others did. I went because I had nothing else to do,’ and that was the truth.

  ‘You should find something to do.’

  She said, ‘But what …? Where …?’

  It was at that moment that there came the wailing sound of a ship at sea, for there was a thick mist lying off the coast, and as she heard it somehow Diana got the impression that life still had much to offer her. The ship called. There was something nostalgic about that note, something which offered itself.

  He saw the look in her eyes. ‘You like the sound?’

  ‘Only that I thought it was like a voice calling to me.’

  ‘Life has much to give you.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  She had got up and had gone across the bare studio where the big half-finished hulk of a female in stone was set. The body was shaped and formed; it was supple and delicately made, the body of a young girl, but her hands were still mere lumps, no more.

  ‘You like it?’ he asked her.

  ‘Yes, of course. I wish I could sculpt.’

  ‘Why sculpting?’

  ‘Because I like stone. Painting is not the same thing, somehow that never seems to me to take form as stone does. This is different, it would be the medium I loved.’

  He nodded, closely watching her, and now she thought there was something of homesickness in the hazel eyes. ‘I would teach you all I could. It would be a joy to give another great sculptor to the world.’

  ‘Oh no!’ she said quickly. ‘Oh no, it could never be that!’

  He brought out a cigarette and lit it very slowly, and she saw that his hand was trembling. She had noticed about him that whenever he was thinking hard all his actions were slower, as if when one part of him accelerated, the other lost speed. He said, ‘I believe you could be great. Part of you has that strangely “fey” attribute which is the art. For you the shadow in the corner has not formed as yet, and it could stay a shadow for ever. But it could live, and that would make me very, very happy.’

  So he knew there were shadows in the corners of her life, or had she told him? They stood facing each other, and then the moment passed.

  ‘I ‒ I must go home,’ she said.

  ‘You promise me to think of it? If you became an artist it could change everything for you. You yourself would become real and strong and vivid.’

  She said, ‘I know,’ then half afraid turned and ran from him, well aware of how rapidly her life was changing.

  She walked back thinking of this strange man and the bigness of his emotions. Maybe their greatness was created by his work? It could be. He was perhaps the most understanding person whom she had ever met, a man who could see right through her and know that side of her nature to which she sometimes felt that she herself was a stranger. The shadow in the distance, and now for her that shadow might be materialising!

  When she got back to the hotel, there was another letter from Solihull awaiting her. The new doctor had persuaded her father to go away for a holiday. He had refused to book for longer than a week whatever the doctor said, and they were already back, for four days had been as much as he would accept. He had insisted on going to Wales because he had been there as a boy, but when he arrived he found that everything was so entirely changed that he simply could not take it. He had flown into a violent fury and had brought on another slight attack, which had terrified her mother. She had got him home again by car.

  The holiday had done no good and he had returned saying that he would never go there again, no place like home, and he did not know what the world was coming to the way people behaved today. Now he blamed the new doctor for having made such a silly suggestion, he should never have done it.

  Her mother could not foresee the future, nor could she come to any conclusion as to what to do for him. He refused to retire, but went to his office only four days a week, which was the most he would do towards meeting opposition half way. This was, she was sure, too much for him, and she did argue, but it made him so angry that she got scared it would induce another attack.

  There was little one could do or say to advise them. Privately Diana was certain that if they flew out here the change would be so great that he would be better for it, but he was the sort of man who would go mad on a difficult flight, and that might bring on an attack. What did one say or do?

  There was a second letter, and she opened it with a nasty feeling in her heart, for it was in John’s writing. Obviously he knew exactly where she was, for he had the address in full. She sat down in the comfortable bedroom chair to read it, knowing that maybe she had come to a corner in her life, a turning in the road, and she must be careful.

  My dearest Di,

  I have at last found where you are and what you are doing. I did go down to Newbury, but this achieved nothing. Your housekeeper keeps secrets safe and sound.

  I have had adventures. I have left that vile office where I suffered far too long, and for a pittance. I was fortunate to get a much better job through a friend in an insurance office. I have given up the old flat and have a new one in a big block, a flat where a chap can live. I couldn’t in the old one.

  My salary is double what it was, and my mother’s sister died the other day and left a few hundreds to me, which make all the difference for me between bread and scrape, and iced chocolate cake ‒ your favourite, and I am the man who never forgets.

  I am coming out to the Riviera. I am flying, so soon after you get this letter you will meet me in the hotel. I meant it to be an entire surprise, and then decided that was a bit unkind, and so am sending this letter shortly before I start to come to you.

  I do still love you and always shall. Do remember this. All of us can make silly mistakes in the living of life, but surely we can forget them?

  I love you so much.

  John.

  In some dismay Diana laid the letter down. It was the one situation she had not thought would occur. Perhaps when she came to think of it she was still not quite sure how she felt about the man who had been the father of her child. Today Devonshire seemed to be remotely far, more like a dream from which she had awakened to everyday common sense. Today she had come farther from that horrible November day in John’s own flat when they had met face to face in the stark reality of life. How she had needed comfort then! The memory stayed and still had the power to bruise her. But in his flat she had come to the truth as though she woke up from the lovely dream to the realisation of another morning.

  He should never come here, she thought, surely he would not do it? and she tried to forget that he had mentioned it. I’m tired, I’m imagining things, she told herself and she lay down for a while because the day was hot. I’m changing now and all the time, for France is lovely. It can never be everyday like England, it has those qualities which bring one to rest with life. The thing to do now was to get really well herself, to get clear of the commitments with which life enmeshed her. She could not believe that John would come all this way to visit her. Surely he would realise that she did not wish it? I must forget that, she thought, and remembered that Christian James had told her that the greatest pain of all lay in remembering. The next greatest pain was looking too far ahead. Living today for today only, was the happy thing to do.

  Greville rang her before she had finished changing.

  He had the chance to go over to Corsica for a couple of nights and see Napoleon’s homeland, maybe she would like to come, too?

  ‘I’m awfully tired,’ she said, and with truth.

  ‘But it would be an experience to see the lay-out of the home of the first of the great dictators. I’ve fixed up everything. I thought you would be a cert,’ and he sounded irritated.

  ‘I’m
sorry,’ she said, for this had taken more out of her than she would have believed possible.

  She went to bed early, all she wanted now was to forget John and the possibility of seeing him, not to worry about her father, but to realise, as Bernard had said, that tomorrow was another day. She slept late, and it did her good. Suzette was there with the superb coffee and croissants when she woke. Another day, she thought, and another day is indeed something.

  She dressed slowly, then she walked out into the garden, ever refreshing, and she knew that this part of the world had something divine, in the warmth and the sweetness and everything that never seemed to change.

  She walked down to the artists’ colony knowing that if she could see Bernard he would help her. He was in the studio, chipping at stone, and utterly absorbed in his work. As though genius took possession and he was oblivious to all else. He was working for the big statue for the Langeline in Copenhagen, and in the last few days he had made so much progress that at last one realised how beautiful it was going to be. A work that was inspired.

  Diana slipped on to a corner of the dais to wait until he came to. She watched his radiant and ecstatic face as gradually he transformed the work into something of infinite value. Then he must have heard her stir, though she had thought that she was soundless, for he turned sharply.

  ‘So something has gone wrong?’

  She told him of her father and the strenuous home life of a man who drives hard and insists on having his own way. The adored mother whom she loved but had never really known until she had come down to Newbury to stay. She told him of the affair with John, and the baby who had died, never realising how easy it was to talk to someone who she knew would understand.

  ‘I had the accident,’ she said, ‘all that was a blur, and when I came to there was no baby.’

  ‘And the man? This fellow called John?’

  She lit a cigarette with a very shaky hand. ‘I tried to be rid of him. He wanted marriage, and I ‒ I don’t know how but somehow I had changed. Then today my friend John wrote to me to say he is coming down here.’

  ‘When does he arrive?’

  ‘I don’t know, but soon, I am afraid.’ She moistened her lips uncomfortably.

  ‘You hadn’t thought of disappearing for a short time?’

  ‘No, I hadn’t,’ but she knew that she played with the idea.

  ‘Corsica is pleasant,’ he ventured, then went back to the unfinished statue.

  ‘I’m scared of running away, and scared of staying here,’ she murmured.

  ‘The young in a dilemma always feel this way,’ and he smiled. ‘Things are never quite as bad as you think they will be,’ he reminded her.

  She went back to La Cloche for lunch. Madame informed her that Greville had gone off with a new arrival, a very flaxen young woman with a dashing pink frock. By the way Madame said it, Diane knew that she was inferring that he was fast, one of those here-today-and-gone-tomorrow young men. For the moment she regretted that he had gone, because his light-heartedness was an antidote to everything that she had been feeling.

  Madame saw her agitation and nodded. ‘Not the so good young man,’ she suggested, ‘and these not so good young gentlemen cut into the ’eart. There are other gentlemen in the world. Remembaire zis. Other gentlemen,’ and she nodded again.

  She went to bed early and slept over her time, rising and feeling better for it. In the afternoon when most of the Riviera snoozes, preparing itself for an uproarious evening, she went to see Bernard again, but the girl was sweeping out the studio, and said that he had gone to Marseilles, to see someone about a commission. He would be returning late.

  She had not expected that this news could make her feel so down, and she went back to the hotel feeling wretched. She slept, for here in the pleasant heat it seemed that one could fall asleep at any moment and enjoy it, and when she rose it was almost dinner time. She put on a luxurious evening dress, for in this part of the world everybody changed for the evenings. With the recent war the rules in England had altered, and evening dress had gone by the board.

  This was an elegant frock which she had bought in a moment of extreme extravagance. It had crystal trimming round the throat and at the hem, and it shimmered as she walked. Maybe it had been the shimmering which had attracted her.

  She moved across the spacious hall towards the salle à manger, and remarkably enough Madame was not seated in state over the desk. Usually she seemed to live there for ever, but tonight there could have been what she always termed a ‘disturbance’ (Madame herself was an excellent promoter of disturbances) and she was absent. The hall was empty. As she walked across it Diana heard the purring swing of the big revolving doors, and knew that someone was entering. A man came through, followed by the taxi driver with the baggage. The man wore an English suit, for Diana had become adept at placing clothes in the right niche. A man is made by his clothes. It was a good suit, and he carried over his arm one of the new fashionable short coats.

  As he advanced, apparently for the first time he noticed Diana standing there. That was when she knew the bitter truth, and it was as though someone had dealt her a blow between the eyes. Surely she was dreaming? Of course she had believed that this would happen, but believed that somehow she could avoid it. All along she had been poised on a cliff edge of event, and the cliff itself was life.

  She spoke first. ‘So you have come down here, John?’

  He dumped the smart new suitcase, she remembered that he had been left some money, and the case obviously showed that he had spent some.

  ‘Darling, this nonsense has gone on too long. I had to find you again, I just had to see you and discover how you felt about all this.’

  ‘But why?’ and even as she said it she recognised that she spoke in a tone which she had never used to him before. He might have even been a stranger to her. The weeks between had widened the gap far more than she could have believed. She had travelled far, and alone, it was probably the fact that she had been alone which had taught her so much. In this aloneness she had found her real self. Meeting him suddenly and almost unexpectedly did not take her back to the loveliness of a Devonian village in September, but rather to the November when she had gone up to town to tell John the truth in that dead ordinary little flat which seemed to have left its mark on her. This was the man who had thought that a doctor could help them, and who had thought more of getting out of the mess than of the emotions surging through her body and horrifying her.

  He went on talking. He had that brightly eager look which once had gone straight to her heart, but did nothing of the sort now. Her character had changed far more than she had ever realised.

  ‘Look here, darling, you and I were meant for each other. We can’t just split and be done with it, for we were in love. You think that I walked out on you, but you walked out on me. It was a pretty nasty shock.’

  ‘You were not being very helpful, John.’

  ‘I know ‒ I do know ‒ that I acted stupidly. The whole thing was a shock to both of us. You never said a thing, just came up to the flat and sprang it on me out of the blue. I dare say that I behaved like a fool, men do under those circumstances, but I was so taken aback.’

  She was only half listening. She was telling herself how futile it was to talk to the man whom once she had loved so deeply. Yet she feared that, as he had made this journey, he would not slip quietly out of the picture again. She thanked heaven Madame was not sitting at her usual seat of custom, because she would have aggravated everything. They had the place to themselves, but what could she do?

  ‘Then you were desperately matter-of-fact,’ she said, she hoped calmly.

  ‘Only because I was horrified for you.’

  ‘Yes, but all that is over and done with. I came down here because I had been so ill and needed a change. I came here because I wanted to sever connections with the past, and then you turn up.’

  She never raised her voice, she was firmly determined, but what she had failed to hear was
the arrival of Madame. She always wore absurdly silent shoes, which others never heard, and for the first time Diana appreciated their mundane purpose. Madame must have overheard the last few words, if not the rest of them. She went behind the desk, and squirmed herself on to the high stool, not hurrying the arrangement of the bust on the desk before her. Then she faced John almost arrogantly, with those beady black eyes of hers, and a most commanding composure. She was a remarkable woman in the way she could understand a situation in a second, and react accordingly.

  ‘No room, yes?’ said Madame quickly. ‘Ve are complete. All full. No room.’ She was used to employing an abrupt form of brevity when she faced a crisis.

  John put on his best R.A.F. manner, dating slightly by now, and instinctively she knew it was wrong. ‘I only want a shake-down, a garret will do. I am an old friend of m’lle and I wish to stay here.’

  ‘Impossible!’ said Madame firmly.

  Diana wondered how much it was that the woman had overheard, everything if she knew much of her, for other people’s business was one of the major interests in her life.

  ‘You know of somewhere else?’ he asked, slightly shaken by the reply.

  ‘Non, m’sieur,’ with the same abruptness.

  ‘But there must be other places?’

  She shrugged her ample shoulders. ‘There is the Bon Vista, but I do not recommend. I would not stay zere myself. Non!’ Mechanically she opened the blotter before her, giving it most unnecessary attention, then taking up a quill pen from the tray she scratched something on the top sheet waiting for her. What a woman!

  ‘Can I telephone the Bon Vista?’

  ‘If m’sieur desire.’

  ‘The telephone?’ he asked, gaping round the hall.

  Madame was scratching away with the quill pen. She looked up. ‘The telephone? Mais oui, m’sieur. Eet is at the street corner, very ’andy. You are permit to leave the baggage.’

  There was no getting round Madame writing away at her desk. John said something under his breath which was unflattering in the extreme, pushed the bag aside, then went to the swing doors, but Madame had not finished with him.