Desperate Defiance

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1920Vivian Carrow rested her elbows on the table and looked at the fashionable throng chattering, laughing and drinking around her. From inside the Casino came the sounds of a good band and the murmur of many different voices as crowds sauntered in and out of the gambling rooms. Women, beautifully dressed, diamonds flashing and glittering, protested loudly that they were ‘completely broke’. The real spendthrifts hurried along, clutching their worn system cards in their hands, giving hardly a glance to the glamorous gaiety outside on the terrace. Men and women, representative of Society in every country in Europe, rubbed shoulders with the cocottes of every race. The habitués, who belonged to no nation, but lived year after year in Monte Carlo, eked out a precarious living as they gambled daily on the green baize tables. To Vivian, it was all new, amusing and exciting. Her life had never brought her into contact with this colourful, superficial and sophisticated life, which she found to be now surging round her like a kaleidoscope. Among most people Vivian stood out not only as a pretty girl but with something more arresting in her face than mere looks. There was character in the dark grey eyes, set rather wide apart under straight, firmly marked eyebrows. There was determination in the set of her small round chin that completed the perfect oval of her face, framed by long dark hair with a glint of bronze in its curly waves. Her mouth was firm and held a promise of deep emotions not yet awake to maturity. Vivian’s party was quiet and unspectacular. Her aunt, Lady Dalton, always sat at the head of the table, her hair streaked with grey, her pearls rather small but perfect, her dress obviously suitable for a woman who was nearing sixty. She was in striking contrast to the hostess at the next door table, whose hands and neck so starkly proclaimed her age, while her face masked by cosmetics, revealed rather than concealed the ravages of years. Withered shoulders peeped naked from her dress of soft pink chiffon that might have become a young girl. A necklace of diamonds, a huge sheaf of exotic orchids could not hide the obvious pathos of a woman striving to defeat time. Vivian watched this woman and gradually her red mouth curled a little in contempt at all the fawning attentions of the two men who partnered the painted spectacle at supper. Suave, dark and tight-waisted, they were both old enough to be her sons or young enough to have paid their attentions to her daughter, who was at that moment returning to the table. The daughter was as flamboyant as the mother, but besides her jewels and orchids she had the priceless possession of youth. It was not the daughter whom Vivian watched as she returned to the table but the man who escorted her. Tall, good-looking, with that indefinable air of good breeding, he seemed rather out of place amid the vulgarity of people with whom he was supping. He held the chair back for his partner to sit down and then drew his own chair to the table and lifted a glass of champagne to his lips. As she did so, he looked across at Vivian and smiled. Their eyes met and she smiled back at him, her face lighting up as if with inner radiance. Just for a short moment their eyes held each other’s and then they turned to their neighbours with a conventional commonplace remark. Vivian’s pensive mood had gone. She then drew the retired Rear-Admiral who sat on her left into conversation and her sparkling and spontaneous interest soon set him talking about his life in the ‘good old days’. He was too engrossed in the sound of his own voice to realise that after the first moment or two she was not listening to what he was saying. ‘How I love Jimmy!’ Vivian was whispering to herself. ‘How glad I am that I came here. If only we were in the same party.’ Vivian was twenty-three and yet this was the first time she had ever come to the fashionable South of France in the Summer Season. Every other year she had spent late summer and autumn either travelling in strange countries with her father, seeing new lands, or else at home. This was in a very quiet little Worcestershire village, studying in preparation for their next exploration or filing, writing and indexing all the information that her father had acquired in the previously. Ever since she was fourteen, when her mother had died, Vivian had been Professor Carrow’s constant companion wherever he went. He was the greatest authority on mineralogy in England, possibly in the world, and he was also what Vivian had called, ever since she was tiny, a ‘maker of maps’. Wherever there was uncharted land, Professor Carrow would be sent and then, sooner or later, his findings would be adopted by the Geographical Society to be incorporated later in the atlas that he was working on. It was indeed a strange life for a girl, but Vivian adored it and had asked for nothing better until just three months ago. Then she met Jimmy Loring. They had been introduced casually but conventionally at her father’s Club in Pall Mall. ‘Such a strange place to meet an attractive young man,’ Vivian had thought afterwards. He had been lunching with his uncle and she with her father and the old men had been talking when she arrived, a little late too and flustered because her shopping had kept her until past the appointed luncheon hour. “I cannot apologise enough, Daddy dear,” she had said, hurrying into the lugubrious waiting room where both sexes were allowed to intermingle. Then she found herself introduced to General Loring and to his nephew. Even as Jimmy took her hand and she raised her eyes to meet his she felt that something unusual was happening to her. They had all lunched together but afterwards Vivian could never remember what they had all talked about. She was only conscious of feeling absurdly happy, of being unusually amused and of finding that it was after three o’clock almost before she realised that they had started their meal. “Three o’clock! It just cannot be true,” she said ruefully as the clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour. “I had an appointment at a quarter to three.” “Let me drive you there,” Jimmy Loring had suggested. “Would you really?” Vivian smiled. Then she hesitated. “But it may be out of your way. I want to go to Harrods.” “I would love to take you there,” he protested. The professor nodded his approval from the head of the table. “Don’t wait for us, my dear,” he said. “It is not often I meet an old friend and we shall sit here over our port for at least another half-hour.” Outside the Club, Jimmy’s tiny sports car had awaited them. He had offered to close the hood in case it should be too windy for her, but Vivian had pooh-poohed the idea. “I am used to the wind,” she had answered him. “My father and I have just come back from the North of Canada and London seems absolutely stifling.” Somehow they never found their way to Harrods that afternoon. They had driven round and round the Park, they had sat watching the Serpentine glimmer in the spring sunshine. They had talked of themselves, of their life, of hopes and again of themselves, until finally the sun was sinking behind Kensington Palace. “I will call for you at about nine o’clock,” Jimmy had said when finally he dropped her at the quiet unpretentious hotel where she and her father were staying. Vivian had run up the stairs with burning cheeks and a thumping heart. ‘I love him,’ she had said to herself unashamedly in the privacy of her own bedroom. “I love you!” she whispered to Jimmy two nights later, when he kissed her for the first time. The summer had passed in a golden haze, leaving a panorama of memories long days spent drifting down the river Avon in a punt or afternoons exploring round the neighbourhood of the black and white sixteenth-century house, which, to the professor and Vivian, was the most perfect spot on earth. ‘The Manor House’ was a pretentious name for their house. The rooms were small and few so that more than two guests seemed to be a crowd, but it perfectly fulfilled all the professor’s requirements. To Vivian, who had known and loved every inch of the estate since she was a baby, it meant home in the fullest and deepest sense of the word. “Has anyone ever been so happy before?” she asked Jimmy, as they sat on the bank of the river listening to the soft whispering of the summer breeze through the rushes. “I do think that someone might have made that remark before,” Jimmy teased. “Don’t laugh at me,” Vivian said solemnly. “Answer me.” He turned round to face her and, putting out his hand, raised her face to his. “Never,” he replied seriously. “It is quite impossible that anyone could ever be as happy as we are.” “Really truly?” Vivian asked. “Really truly,” Jimmy repeated and kissed her again. Six weeks of delirious joy and then had come the moment of parting when Jimmy had to go off to London to take up a job in an insurance office. “My uncle has fixed it for me,” he told Vivian. “That is why I was lunching with him that day.” She slipped her hand into his. “I will come down every weekend,” he promised, “but I have got to work very hard, my darling, and if you cannot guess the reason why, I shall not tell you.” Of course she could guess the reason and, of course, she thought of little else. Marriage with Jimmy, having him all to herself, a tiny home together, was all that she dreamt of and all she thought about in the weeks that followed. Then Jimmy announced to her that he had been invited to Monte Carlo. “They are extraordinary people,” he had confessed. “Stubbs is their name. They are enormously rich and they might be useful, one never knows. I shall have to go, darling, but cannot you come too? You must know somebody who would put you up.” “There is Father’s sister,” Vivian had said, “my Aunt Geraldine. She has a Villa there and she has often asked me to go and stay, but I have always refused.” “But that is marvellous,” Jimmy said enthusiastically. “Write to her at once. It is all too perfect. You will adore it. Monte Carlo is the most enjoyable place in the world.” “I have always hated the idea of it,” Vivian confessed. “Crowds of smart people with wonderful clothes is not my idea of fun.” “Nonsense,” Jimmy had replied. “You will love it.” “I shall be terrified of them,” Vivian confided. “With me to look after you?” Jimmy asked. “What a little goose you are. Sit down and write at once.” So Vivian had obeyed and had received from her aunt a letter of welcome and affection. It was all just as she had imagined it would be, Vivian thought on her arrival. The blue sky and the blue sea, the practically naked bodies sunbathing on expensive mattresses, lacquered toe-nails, oiled backs, diamond cigarette-cases, luxurious cars, the calm efficiency of ‘the tables’. Tonight, as she sat at supper, Vivian could see the spotlights being fixed ready to illuminate the floating stage on which a monster cabaret costing thousands of francs would shortly commence. Above them in the sky there were stars while floodlights on the old Casino made it look like a white-iced cake. The shrill discordant laugh of Mrs. Stubbs now echoed from the neighbouring table and startled Vivian from her reverie. ‘How I dislike that woman,’ she thought and in the wake of that dislike came a sudden nausea. “Is anything the matter?” the Admiral asked her anxiously. “I am all right,” she said, reassuring herself as much as him. “A moment’s giddiness, that is all. Surely it is very hot here tonight?” “The place is like an oven,” the Admiral replied. “But you have no right to complain. Look at the uncomfortable clothes we poor men have to wear.” Vivian laughingly agreed with him and was wondering just how often she had heard that remark. “Let’s go up to the roof and dance. It may be cooler there,” her partner suggested. “Yes, let’s go there,” Vivian said, glad of an excuse to move. They rose to their feet, threading their way through the tables. “Don’t be very long, darling,” Lady Dalton said to Vivian. “The cabaret will start in another ten minutes.” “We will be back by then,” Vivian answered and turned towards the doorway. In the crowded vestibule that led to the roof garden and to the gambling rooms, the Admiral stopped to speak to some friends of his. As she waited, Vivian felt a hand on her arm. She knew without turning her head. , “Darling,” she whispered beneath her breath. “I have to see you,” Jimmy said. “You cannot want to any more than I do,” Vivian replied to him. “Oh, Jimmy, I have seen practically nothing of you for the last three days.” “I know,” Jimmy said. “When can I see you, Vivian? It is very important.” “Darling,” she replied, “any time and anywhere. You know that is all I am here for.” “I will come to the garden of the Villa in two hours’ time,” he said. “The garden of the Villa?” Vivian echoed almost stupidly. “Yes,” he answered. “Wait for me by the little summerhouse. I will not be later than I can help.” Without waiting for her answer, he disappeared as quickly as he had come, elbowing his way through the crowds to the terrace again. Vivian stood looking after him and then she felt wildly happy. She had not really enjoyed this past week. She had seen Jimmy every day, but generally for only a very few fleeting seconds or with a crowd of people round them. They had met at the bathing pool, on the tennis courts or aboard one of the many small yachts that steamed out of the Harbour for an afternoon’s amusement. It had all been very gay and amusing and what Jimmy’s friends would call ‘fun’, but it was not Vivian’s idea of real enjoyment and happiness. Jimmy to herself, Jimmy in the garden beside the River Avon, was what she wanted. From the moment that she had stepped on to Monte Carlo Station a week ago, she had been fêted, entertained and amused, but denied the only thing that could make her really happy. Now he wanted her and he was coming to see her alone tonight in the quietness and peace of the Villa garden. Vivian gave a little shiver of excitement. “I have to see you,” Jimmy had said several times.