“To-morrow we go back to the hotel.”
“But not before you and I have spent a short while alone!”
His eyes gazed straight down into her widely distended golden ones, and she felt as if something interfered with her breathing, and she wanted to gasp
...
She wanted, also, to stop having any qualms and press near to him, beg him to take her into his arms, beg him to hold her, kiss her
...
The words very nearly formed on her eager lips:
“Please, Alex!
...”
But he was suddenly very remote, far, far removed from her, in spirit as much as anything else, and the words were choked back into her throat, and only the slight trembling of her mouth betrayed the storm that had swept over her. She felt as if tears pricked behind her eyelids
—
weak tears of frustration
—
as he walked back to the double doors and prepared to open them.
With his hand on one of the crystal door knobs he turned back to look at her.
“To-morrow, do not forget, I shall arrange something!”
She nodded. She didn’t attempt to say anything, and as they walked back into the banqueting-hall she was remembering that Haversham wished to speak with her alone. But the irony of it was that, although he had a perfect right to talk to her, was a thoroughly upright, admirable, and estimable Englishman
—
which meant that he was also a fellow countryman
—
he had no power at all to melt her bones with a single look, or
plunge her into such a wild desire for contact with a beloved creature as that which had just shaken her to her foundations.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In
the morning Lou started talking about packing and getting back to the hotel even before she had had her breakfast, which was brought up to her on a tray by Helga.
“I’ve had quite enough of it here,” she said, studying Valentine in a way that was new, and which made the English girl feel vaguely uncomfortable. “Alex hasn’t behaved like the same man since we arrived, and I find that grandmother of his a most unsympathetic character. She’s a survival of the past, and she clings to the past so tightly that you can smell the moth-balls she carries around with her! And I mean that quite literally! That
awful
old fur coat of hers! ... Yet her hands are smothered in rings!”
She surveyed the breakfast-tray, with its fine lace cloth and exquisitely delicate china, and a puzzled gleam appeared in her eyes.
“It doesn’t fit in. This”
—
she touched the tray
—
“and this!” She indicated the room. “Everything has been allowed to go to rack and ruin, but the contents of the
schloss
would fetch a great deal of money if they were put up for auction! I know Pop would like to get his hands on some of the stuff that is here
!
... That bureau thing downstairs in the main room, and those chandeliers in the ballroom! They’d be worth a fortune in the right market. And that old woman knows
that...”
Valentine felt a shiver of distaste as she heard the Countess constantly referred to as “that old woman”
—
“and I think she takes a kind of delight in maintaining things as they are, and keeping Alex poor. Poor sweet, it’s no wonder he ceases to be himself when he gets back into this kind of atmosphere! It would destroy me altogether!”
“Then you don’t think you’ll live here when you ... get married?” Valentine asked, as she bent above an open suitcase and expertly folded away gossamer under things.
“I don’t honestly know.” Lou sent her another of her sidelong, searching looks. “There’d have to be some large-scale alterations before I’d consent to spend more than a few days here, anyway. I’d rather have a nice house on Long Island, and another on the French Riviera
...
Monte Carlo, perhaps. That would be fun!”
“And a flat in Paris,” Valentine said, as she lifted a satin evening-gown with a balloon skirt that made it difficult to pack, out of the dark recesses of the wardrobe, “and a penthouse flat in New York! You’ll be able to have such a lot of homes that you’ll never be dull! So why worry about a place like this
?
...”
“Yes, why?” Lou asked, as she went on privately studying her employee, and tried to prevent herself shivering uncontrollably in the icy atmosphere of the bedroom and a flimsy bed-jacket that was utterly inadequate over her cobwebby nightdress. She buttered a corner of roll with slightly numb fingers. “Would you say that you, as a result of being English, and as a result of
—
well, perhaps, going to the right schools, and living a different sort of life from the one I’ve lived
—
speak Alex’s language better than I do
?
”
“You
mean
...
German
?
” Valentine looked round at her in surprise, for Lou’s knowledge of German was confined to the ability to say “yes” and “no” in that tongue.
Lou shook her head impatiently.
“No, of course not. Why, I couldn’t talk to Alex at all if he hadn’t any English! No, what I mean is
...”
She tried to explain without damaging her own opinion of herself, or giving rise to the belief that she considered she lacked something. “Alex’s title makes him a bit unique, and I know he’s very proud of his birth, and that sort of thing
...
He’s not a snob, but he
could
be snobbish if he felt like it! And you ... well, your father was a Sir Somebody, wasn’t he? And at times you’ve a sort of air about you as if
...
well, as if
you
felt a bit superior.” She waved away Valentine’s denials with an impatient hand. “No, don’t interrupt, honey
...
It’s just an idea of mine. That if two people are more or less the same, well, they’re more likely to get on well together than two people who are not.”
Valentine stared at her, the blood moving quickly along her veins, a sensation like guilt rushing up over her.
“What do you mean, Lou
?
” she asked.
“Oh, forget it,” Lou said, stepping gingerly out of bed and snatching up her dressing-gown. “I’m just about blue with cold, and if that Helga woman hasn’t filled my bath right up to the top
...”
She smiled momentarily, sideways, at Valentine. “Well, for one thing, you speak German, and I’ve noticed that Alex likes to snatch a few moments alone with you sometimes, and last night he asked you to dance
...
”
“Shouldn’t he?” Valentine asked, her heart beating faster than ever, a strange rising resentment right at the
back of her mind.
Lou shrugged, sliding her feet into mules.
“So far as I was concerned, honey, it was O.K. But he left me sitting alone on a settee while he waltzed you right out of that awful draughty room they call a banqueting-hall, and it seemed to me that you were away for quite a time. I think the Haversham man thought so, too. He didn’t seem to find me a very good substitute for you.”
Valentine bent once more above the suitcase, and she said quickly that that was absurd. It hadn’t struck her that they were away for any length of time.
Lou gathered up her sponge-bag, and the bag that contained all her bath oils and so on, and grimaced.
“Always remember, honey, that it’s the looker-on that sees most of the game,” she said. “If the time was passing very agreeably you wouldn’t be likely to notice it. But I hope you realise that Alex was born telling a pretty woman he liked the colour of her hair, or her eyes? I’ve made up my mind that, marriage or no marriage, that’s one weakness I’ll never cure him of!” And she slithered across the floor to the bathroom. Valentine left the suitcase and walked to the big window. Outside the morning was blue and gold and smiling, and the whiteness of the snow was a heartening whiteness. But beyond the peaks on the far side of the valley there were a few clouds floating about, sailing above the peaks as if they were boats on a lake of blue. A mere murmur in a sea of silence, but they could be a warning of more snow if they decided to mass together.
But Valentine wasn’t interested in clouds, or snow, just then. She was thinking of Lou’s words, “Alex was born telling a pretty woman he liked the colour of her hair!” But Alex had never told her he liked the colour of her hair!
...
He had called her “Cinderella,” and “Poor little Valentine!” And she was certain that, whatever his record with women, last night he had been so desperately in love with her that he had probably never been quite so unhappy before in his life
...
Because there were complications in the way of his loving her, and she wasn’t the type to be loved lightly and then forgotten.
She was Valentine, and he was Alex!
...
Alex and Valentine!
“Oh, Alex!” she whispered, pressing her cheek to the cold pane of glass.
There came a knock on the door and she went to open it. Outside stood Max, the Baron’s personal servant, an elderly man with rather a tired face and trustworthy eyes.
He bowed formally in the Austrian manner as he handed over a note sealed down in an envelope.
“Good morning,
Fraulein
,” he said. “The Herr Baron has entrusted this message to me, and he begs you will read it at once.”
He bowed again and disappeared.
Valentine glanced round guiltily to make sure that Lou was still in the bathroom, although the noise of her splashing could be plainly heard in the bedroom. Just as the scent of her bath essence came richly and thickly under the door.
Valentine slit open the envelope in her hands with slightly shaking fingers, and the message on the single sheet of embossed notepaper inside it made them shake still more. It had been written in German
—
a clever ruse, she thought, on Alex’s part, in case by some mischance Lou had got hold of it (although the necessity for ruses caused her a quick pang
)
—
and it commanded simply:
“Meet me in the courtyard in half an hour. Make any excuse that occurs to you to get away. But do not fail to be in the courtyard
!
”
It was signed, simply,
Alex.
Once again she whispered his name to herself. Over and over she whispered it.
“Oh, Alex, Alex, Alex!”
Then she rushed to complete Lou’s and her own packing, and to be ready to descend to the courtyard in half an hour.
He was waiting for her under the arch beneath which one had to pass to reach the bridge that crossed the torrent, and was the only means of gaining access to the world beyond the castle precincts. He was wearing a thick sweater and
vorlagers,
and when Valentine made her appearance at the head of the flight of steps leading up to the great front door he was smoking a cigarette and regarding the tip of it in an oddly contemplative manner.
But when Valentine slipped furtively down the steps he threw it away and moved at once to greet her. She, too, was wearing a thick sweater and ski-pants, and her cheeks were flushed with her hurry, and her eyes were bright and questioning. She had had to endure a difficult five minutes with Lou before she made her escape, and she was by no means convinced that her employer was entirely satisfied with the explanation that had seemed finally to lull her suspicions.
“We’re leaving immediately after lunch,” she said.
“For heaven’s sake don’t go and get lost, or something, if you must explore this desolate neighbourhood. Although why you should want to do so, I can’t think. The skiing’s poor, and the scenery isn’t any better than we had at the hotel.”
“But at least we have it to ourselves,” Valentine pointed out, in a further attempt to sound convincing
—
and also because she felt the urge to defend the beauties of the
schloss
, and its immediate surroundings. “The place isn’t overrun by tourists.”
“Well, you may have something there,” Lou agreed, running a buffer over her nails, and settling down for a quiet half-hour with the finer details of her toilet. “But, to be honest, I prefer the tourists.” And she grinned fleetingly and unrepentantly up at Valentine.
So Valentine made her escape, leaving behind her a much more thoughtful Lou than she imagined, and when the Baron came to greet her, and approve her punctuality, she was experiencing a kind of uplift of her spirit because she was temporarily free, and the world was fair. And he... he was waiting for her!
“You have done exactly what I asked,” he said, as he laid a hand upon her arm. There was nothing guarded about his eyes this morning, nothing resentful, nothing hidden. They were deep and dark, and full of an extraordinary tenderness, and a gentleness
—
a gladness, too
—
that melted her bones. “I was so afraid that Lou might make difficulties, and you might even find it impossible to get away.”
“I
... would have got away somehow,” she answered, and she knew, in those moments, that it was true.
She would have got away somehow.
She would not have missed meeting him alone!
... Perhaps the very last time they
would ever be alone together!
“Come along,” he said, after he had smiled down at her with wholehearted approval, and he closed his fingers firmly over her arm and drew her towards the bridge. “Your skis are here, and I will attach them for you while you sit on the parapet.”
She recoiled for an instant as she glanced down over the parapet, but he reassured her instantly.
“It is perfectly safe. You do not think I would let you slip down into that abyss, do you?” regarding her reproachfully.
So she sat on the parapet in the sunshine that was mellow and golden all about them while he knelt in the snow at her feet and carefully buckled the straps of her skis. And if she recalled another occasion when he had done the same thing
—
and she had just escaped a danger that had come so close it had practically claimed her
—
she was not in the least troubled by the memory, and had no intention at all of dwelling on it
...
either as a warning, or as a reminder which might be needed later on, when she was bewitched by the snow, and her freedom, and
... him!
“Where are we going?” she asked, when he gave her a hand to assist her to rise from the parapet, and she clung to it instinctively for a moment as they stood close together.
He wrenched his glance away from hers and indicated a hut on the mountainside some considerable distance above them.
“I thought we might make for that.”
“But it looks
...
quite a climb!” Her voice was suddenly doubtful. “Are you sure I can do it? I mean, without slowing you up
?
...”
She felt his fingers tighten over hers. “And won’t it take rather a
—
rather a long time to get as high as that
?
”
“Is time so important
?
” he asked gravely.
She sighed.
“You know it is!
...
You know I can’t be away too long!”
He answered impatiently:
“Forget how long you can be away! Forget everything but that we are together, and Lou and Willi and Giles Haversham and my grandmother
—
and
her dogs!
—
can all do without us until we consent to return. Until we consent to return!” he added, more slowly, as if the words appealed to him, and he gazed thoughtfully at Valentine. “This is an experience that cannot be snatched at, or rushed, or mitigated in any way. It is too important for that, so come, my little one, my love, and let’s be on our way!”
She put her hand into his, and her eyes glowed as if they were two golden flowers opening and expanding beneath the influence of the sun. She breathed softly: “All right, Alex. If
... that’s what you want!”
They climbed steadily for half an hour, and then they rested, and already, by that time, the
schloss
was far below them, and it was easy to see how harmoniously it fitted into the lonely world of austere white peaks and pine-clad slopes, and the thought that it had been there for so many years
—
centuries
—
was a stirring thought to Valentine. The second thought she had that one day it would disintegrate entirely was much more depressing. She mentioned it to Alex, but he shook his head.
“Oh, no.” He looked down at his
schloss
, and quite a contented smile touched his lips. “Felden will be there for years yet
...
many years! You do not need to make yourself unhappy thinking about the time when it will not be there, my Valentine.”
“But money
—
money spent on it wisely
—
would give it a far longer life?” she said, leaning against him for support and looking up wistfully into his eyes. “That is true, isn’t it, Alex
?
”
H
e shrugged his shoulders.
“Perhaps. But if money is not forthcoming then it will still survive on its own!”
“But money
will
be forthcoming
...
”
“Oh, please,” he said, and looked down at her reproachfully. “Not to-day, Valentine
...
Not now! If you can think about money when the morning is so beautiful around us, the sun is shining for us, and you
—
you are the most beautiful thing in the whole wide world!” he said, with a touch of reverence, as he gently laid a finger on her cheek, and then tilted her chin so that he could look into her eyes. “Oh, Valentine,” he whispered, “you are so much more than beautiful! You have everything! You are
everything
to me!” He kissed her softly on the mouth. “Let us go on,
Liebling
!”
The clouds that Valentine had observed earlier had passed onwards, but there were others that occasionally scudded across the face of the sun and hid it from them. Then the mountainside grew bleak and cold, and Valentine shivered. She looked down, and it seemed to her that the
schloss
was far, far away. She listened to the noise of the occasional avalanche
—
always very far away, and usually on the far side of the valley, but sometimes sounding very close
—
that shattered the otherwise complete stillness, and that, too, made her shiver, especially when she thought of tons of snow moving like a white and menacing wall down into the valley.
But whenever she glanced up into Alex’s eyes, and met their warmth, and their encouragement, her heart lifted, and even if the sun was not shining she was temporarily happy and free again. She had no doubts, no uneasiness, and no desire at all to go back and take her place once more with the little collection of people they had left behind.
As people they had ceased to exist, and she was as intent as Alex on reaching the hut that was their goal.
Just before they reached it she made an unwary movement, one of her skis buckled under her, and she went down in the snow before Alex could prevent her. Instantly he was on his knees beside her, lifting her, the keenest concern in his face, and although she tried to assure him that she was not in the least hurt he could tell by the sudden whitening of her lips that it was not entirely true. When he tried to lift her to her feet she gave a little cry of pain, and he knew at once that it was her ankle that was injured.
In order to ascertain the extent of the damage he unlaced her boot and removed it, and already the ankle was swelling so noticeably that he realised it would be impossible to get her boot on again until it had gone down. Her eyes grew dark with concern as she herself saw the swelling, and she clutched at him appealingly.
“But, Alex, if I can’t get my boot on, how
—
how will I get back to the
schloss
? We ought to get back soon! We shouldn’t have come so far!
.
.
.
”