Enchanted Autumn Read online

  ENCHANTED AUTUMN

  Mary Whistler

  From the moment that Jane, in her employer's fabulous Cadillac, bumped into the black and silver car, life was never to be quite the same again. For the car belonged to Etienne and soon Jane’s heart was his too.

  The danger was that he would merely add it to his collection of precious and beautiful things, grow weary of it, discard it and eventually forget it. For this, Jane realized, was a love destined to be haunted - by the past, by jealousy, by memories and by Etienne's own bitterness.

  All this she accepted. But she could not - and would not - accept second best from him. And that was all he seemed able to offer her...

  CHAPTER I

  Jane looked at the damage she herself had caused, and wished that the earth would open and swallow her. The garage attendant scratched the top of his peaked cap and looked almost as concerned, and the voice in the background said drawingly: “Mon Dieu, mademoiselle! ... Even if you have a grievance against me personally, need you take it out on my poor car? And she such a thing of beauty until a moment ago?”

  Jane turned to him, her face scarlet, “Oh, monsieur, I - I don’t know what to say!” she exclaimed. “I mean,” staring at him hopelessly, as if in proof of her statement that she was almost literally bereft of words, “I’m terribly sorry ... But I can’t think how it happened!”

  “Can’t you?” He glanced at the huge Cadillac she had been attempting to manoeuvre out of the garage, and his sardonic expression hardly lightened. The Cadillac was so plainly new, she herself was as about as substantial as a piece of thistledown in the strong breeze - or that was the impression he formed of her when he glanced at her for the first time - and her flustered expression had quite obviously begun before ever she took the paint off the back of his chaste black-and-silver car. And gave it a dent it would take time and money to remove. “I would say you are a little out of your element in a vehicle of this sort.”

  He put out a slender, beautifully formed hand and caressingly touched the Cadillac, in the manner of a lover of horseflesh permitting himself the pleasure of stroking an arched and glossy neck.

  Jane felt her mortification spread, but at the same time her back stiffened a little. “I’ll admit I’m not yet very used to driving this particular car,” she said; “but then it isn’t my car! It happens to be my employer’s car!”

  His eyebrows ascended.

  “And it has only just been brought over from New York. I’ve driven it all the way from the coast,” with a rather pathetic attempt at dignity. “And considering I’m not used to left-hand drives, or driving on the opposite side of the road to that which we use in England, I don’t think I’ve done too badly. Moreover, I’ve actually driven through Paris,” as if that was the final triumph.

  “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” he muttered, shaking his head. “What a trusting employer you have!” He went up to his own car and stood inspecting it. “But it was here in this hotel garage that you marred the perfection of my Josephine,” he reminded her. He touched the dent tenderly. “And, although not perhaps comparable with that thing of which you are in charge, I have an affection for Josephine - who, incidentally, is my only means of transport at the moment! - which makes me enquire what do you propose to do about it, mademoiselle?”

  “I will pay for the damage, of course,” she said swiftly.

  But inwardly her heart sank, for costs in France she had already discovered were in the neighbourhood of fantastic, and her own currency allowance wouldn’t last long if she went on at this rate, incurring bills for repairs to other people’s cars. And what sort of bill would it be when it was presented?

  She swallowed something in her throat, and thought that at the worst Sandra would come to her assistance. Sandra had a way of getting round every sort of restriction, including currency, and being an American the latter wouldn’t affect her in any case. She would say generously - for there was no one quite as generous as Sandra! - and with that attractive lilt in her voice which everyone found so captivating, particularly the millions who paid to watch her and listen to her on a cinema screen: “Oh, well, honey, you can work it off! ... But don’t let it worry you, because we’ll extend the payments!”

  But just then Jane felt appalled. The Frenchman looked round at her with his night-dark eyes in which there wasn’t even a suspicion of humour or sympathy, and she thought that for a Frenchman he was singularly ungallant, and singularly direct. Just as, for a Frenchman, he was unusually tall, with well-held shoulders and narrow hips, and a darkness that made her think more of the Basque country. But he had all a Frenchman’s air of being slightly jaded - or was it slightly world-weary? - and his mouth was the most cynical mouth she had ever seen. And hard!

  She began to quake inwardly, lest he demanded the settlement of the bill there and then and she hadn’t enough money in her purse.

  “Please don’t worry, monsieur,” she heard herself saying agitatedly. “Of course I will pay for the damage to be put right!”

  Once again his slightly puckish eyebrows ascended. “You are optimistic, mademoiselle! It will probably never be ‘quite right’ again! But since you are responsible for inflicting this disfigurement to my car, naturally I expect you to bear the burden of the responsibility!”

  “Naturally,” she agreed feebly.

  “I am a Shylock, and I demand my pound of flesh!”

  “Of course.” But although she was still in agreement, her cheeks burned with a mixture of humiliation and downright perturbation. He was looking down at her very coolly from his superior height, and being a Frenchman she no doubt struck him as completely lacking in chic. She was very English, for one thing, and Englishwomen on the Continent are not generally acclaimed for their chic. And after driving for hours - this was, in fact, her first stop since breakfast - she was aware that her tailored suit was crumpled, and the little round white collar of her muslin blouse had probably collected a few smuts on the road. The weather for September was very hot, and she had been driving with all the windows open, and her short chestnut hair was undoubtedly blown about. She hadn’t stopped to attend to her make-up since she put it on that morning, and she could almost feel the shine on her nose, and her big brown eyes were probably staring as bewildered as an owl’s that had been surprised by daylight. “I will have to give you my name and address, monsieur...”

  But he shook his head firmly. “Oh, no! Shylock was not to be turned from his pound of flesh, and neither will I be turned from mine! That would not suit your Shakespeare one little bit!”

  Her appalled sensation grew. She started to fumble with the clasp of her handbag, whilst striving frantically to remember how many francs it actually contained.

  But so suddenly that she wondered whether she was imagining things, he smiled with a flash of hard white teeth. The dark eyes softened miraculously, so that she was reminded of a summer night sky instead of the bleak winter one they had originally called to her mind, and he said gently: “Tuck that handbag under your arm and come and have lunch with me! ... Wasn’t it for the purpose of having lunch here that you stopped in the first place?”

  “Yes; but I’m in such a rush I thought I’d better keep on going! I didn’t think I had time...”

  “Time,” he told her, as he took her lightly by the elbow and propelled her past the Cadillac, “is something that will defeat us all in the end, so why try and keep pace with it? Why try and survive on a coffee, when what you need is a good square meal? And you do feel that some food inside you would be a great source of comfort, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes,” she admitted, the sudden relief making her absolutely truthful. “I feel so hollow that I was wondering how I was going to last out until the end of the journey. But I lost time yesterda
y, and I’ve simply got to make it up in spite of what you say.”

  “But not on one coffee and a macaroon!”

  “How do you know I had a coffee and a macaroon?”

  “I was observing you in the restaurant while attempting to make up my own mind about staying for lunch. You slipped in and polished off your order, and then slipped out looking as hungry as a waif! So I followed you, and was just in time to hear the thud as you hit my car!”

  “Oh,” she exclaimed, “your car! What am I going to do about it?”

  “Nothing,” he replied casually. ‘The garage people will attend to it.” He addressed the attendant over his shoulder in such rapid French that she couldn’t quite follow it, although her own French was good - definitely much better than the usual schoolgirl variety practised by girls of her age abroad, and was one reason why she had been lucky enough to secure her present job. And then he said suavely almost in her ear: “If you wish to recompense me for inconvenience you can drive me to my destination once we have had lunch.”

  “Of course.” But she paused doubtfully. “I am on my way to Chateauceaux... And after that I have fifty miles to drive!”

  “Exactly as I thought you had,” he murmured complacently. “There are occasions when I am inspired, and this would appear to be one of them. We can take turn and turn about at the wheel.”

  “But I don’t even know your name,” she objected, remaining as if irresolute.

  “That is easily remedied,” he told her. “Simply call me Etienne.”

  “Monsieur Etienne?”

  “If you wish.”

  “Then, Monsieur Etienne, I am Jane Arden.”

  He released her arm and bowed, the formal bow of a Frenchman. “I am delighted to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance. Mademoiselle Arden.”

  Her brown eyes gleamed for an instant under the deceptive downward sweep of her gold-tipped eyelashes. “Even though I’ve put your car out of action for you?”

  “Temporarily out of action. The man has promised it shall receive priority treatment, and will probably be ready for collection in a couple of days.” He took her once more by the arm. “Let us re-seek the hotel dining room. The cuisine here is excellent, and I fancy a lightly done omelette and a bowl of salad, preceded, as it is a very warm day, by some melon. After which, if you are in agreement, and your inner mechanism is still troubling you with hollow rumblings, we might try a steak cooked over the charcoal grill - a speciality of this house.”

  “Don’t!” she pleaded, placing a hand over the spot where the rumblings might be expected to commence at that moment. “My inner mechanism is threatening to collapse altogether!”

  CHAPTER II

  But although the food was excellent as he had predicted it would be, they didn’t consume it in the hotel dining-room. They had it served to them in the garden, beneath a large bright umbrella that deflected the rays of the hot September sun, and within sight and sound of a river that wound like a speckled snake at the bottom of a smooth green lawn.

  Jane was amazed by the greenness of the lawn considering the power ,of the sun. And considering that all summer the sun must have been many, many times hotter with a destructive quality where young, tender things like blades of grass were concerned. She was not so surprised by the many and conflicting perfumes of the flowers of high summer that hung in the atmosphere, for although when she left England three days ago summer was practically ended, here she was already south of the Loire, and the famous chateau country was not ready to begin thinking about autumn.

  Summer might linger on for many weeks yet, and then when autumn did finally arrive it would do so in a blaze of colour. She knew, because she had visited this part of the world once before with her father, and the splendour had been something she would never put out of her mind altogether.

  “It’s hot,” she said, as she slipped out of the jacket of her suit. The Frenchman’s eyes appraised the impeccability of her blouse, with the little round collar that she had been so afraid had collected smuts. She need not have worried, for it was as crisp as the fine lawn handkerchief that was tucked in at the end of his sleeve. The neck it enclosed was smooth and girlish, and the outlines of her face were young and vulnerable, but her eyes that reminded him of honey when it first drips from the comb had an unyouthful quality of wisdom about them. Wisdom and penetration.

  Or they did when she had disposed of three courses of the truly wonderful meal and was feeling a little more like herself. When the vacant expression that made her look like a near-sighted owl vanished, and her slight pallor vanished also, and a peach-like glow of health took its place.

  She was most attractive, this English girl, he thought, and it was within the realm of possibility that she wasn’t such a very young girl, either. She could be twenty-two, or twenty-six, or twenty-eight, according to the way she made use of those fascinating eyelashes that were attached to creamy lids, and looked upwards either attentively or contemplatively. The attentiveness made her seem very young; the contemplation made him wonder.

  She had a shapely little head like a polished chestnut, and her slenderness was the slenderness of the age in which she lived. No need to assess her measurements, he thought. They were no doubt highly gratifying to herself, if she admired the world in which she lived; but for him, if he had to describe her, it would be that insubstantial thistledown air that had struck him from the first, when he saw her gazing in horror at his car, that would receive emphasis over everything else. That and the English flawlessness of her skin.

  He went round to help her remove her coat, and when it was arranged over the back of her chair, and they were seated, facing one another again, she smiled at him. She had the sort of smile that a man might come to watch for, for there were dimples at the corner of it, and her mouth curved happily upwards to match her feathery eyebrows.

  “Monsieur Etienne,” she told him, “I simply cannot understand you. I damage your car and cause you inconvenience, and you stand me a heavenly lunch.” She sighed over the memory of the Tarte aux fruits chauds she had just consumed, and wondered whether she could ever make pastry like that if she tried for the rest if her life. “You must be extraordinarily forgiving.”

  “Don’t deceive yourself, mademoiselle,” he warned her. “It is not my nature to be over-generous.”

  She looked at him with interest. Throughout the meal they had talked in a mixture of French and English, and he had complimented her on her French, and she had complimented him on his English. She gathered that he knew England well. He seemed to know the whole of Europe well, and the vast continent of America. If anything, he was more familiar with America than he was with England. He had one or two silver threads in his crisp black hair above the temples, and it was plain that he had filled his life very full of experience. There were lines of disillusionment in his face, and lines of cynicism, and her first impression had been of him that he was hard ... Perhaps life had made him hard; but she was quite certain that he was hard. And now she didn’t know whether he was joking or not about not being over- generous.

  She decided to accept him at his own valuation. “Perhaps not,” she agreed. “But you have put up with me all through a meal, and you haven’t suggested that I pay for it - at least, not yet!” continuing to smile. “And some people would have flown into a fury when they saw what I did to your car.”

  “That wouldn’t have got them very far.”

  “No, but it would have eased their feelings.”

  He lay back in his chair and regarded her through slightly sleepy dark eyes, while a cigarette smouldered away between his fingers. His hands fascinated her, they were so sensitive and beautifully cared for.

  “And made you feel suitably repentant.”

  “I did feel absolutely horrified! And of course I will settle the bill for the repairs.”

  “Out of your English currency allowance?”

  She made a face. “We are all tied up in difficulties, we English, aren’t we?” she sai
d. “At any rate, when we’re abroad. Not that I could afford to be abroad at all if I wasn’t in a job - a job that permitted me to travel! It’s rather wonderful, really, because all my life I’ve been used to travelling, which sounds extravagant, although that was never the case. My father was a schoolmaster who had many friends on the Continent, and he dragged me around with him during the holidays. We lived like gypsies sometimes, but there were occasions when we lived like princes - or a prince and princess!” She smiled her radiant smile. “It was fun. But it’s over.”

  “Meaning—”

  “My father is dead” - stirring the sugar at the bottom of her coffee with unnecessary vigour, while the smile vanished altogether.

  “And the other members of your family?”

  “There are no close members.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It is a sad thing to be without a family. But now tell me about the job you were so fortunate to secure, and the employer who owns the Cadillac.”

  For an instant her eyes glowed. “Can you imagine what a joy it was for me to be given the opportunity to drive a Cadillac across France?”

  “I can imagine it was slightly diluted joy when you drove into the back of my stationary car! However, we will forget that now” - magnanimously. “Proceed, if you please!”

  “My employer is Sandra Van Doone, the American film-star,” she explained. “And she is coming to France to make a film. At least, she’s planning to make a film over here as soon as she’s had a holiday, for she’s been working very hard in recent months; and the man with whom she is to film - Rene Delaroche, of whom you’ve almost certainly heard, for the French look upon him as a kind of idol of the entertainment world - is placing his country house at her disposal until they start to film. They may make a few scenes in which the house will be used as a background; but in the meantime I’ve got to get there and make absolutely certain that everything is ready for Sandra.”