Sweet Enchantress Read online

  “What are you going to do?” Zaria asked nervously.

  “I am going to cut your hair as it should be cut,” Madame Bertin answered.

  She took some scissors from a drawer and holding the comb ran it through Zaria’s hair and then, holding it high, began to cut.

  Zaria gave a little cry of horror.

  “You are cutting it off!” she said.

  “Oui,” Madame Bertin answered. “I am cutting it off. It is going to turn up, not down. I must not cut too much or too little. It’s the line that counts. Remember toujours that beauty depends on line.”

  ‘I am sure I ought not to let her do this,’ Zaria thought to herself. ‘I shall look worse than ever – a scarecrow.’

  But she knew it was impossible to argue, impossible to assert her own mind or wishes against Madame Bertin’s.

  And perhaps she thought as she heard the snip, snip round the back of her head, Madame Bertin did know what she was talking about.

  Zaria gave a little sigh, and then, almost before she knew it, she had forgotten Madame Bertin and the snipping of the scissors.

  She was thinking only of Chuck, wondering what he was doing, knowing, with a stab of her heart, that Kate would be looking up at him with those liquid blue eyes, her slim white arm linked in his.

  ‘Oh, God, don’t let Kate have him.’

  Zaria almost said the words aloud – and then, as she checked them, she looked into the mirror and saw Madame Bertin’s eyes watching her.

  “You are suffering, ma petite,” she said. “What is it? Are you afraid your fiancé will succumb to the attractions of Kate? Don’t be afraid. He will soon find that she has nothing in her, a little birdlike brain, a body which might well be full of sawdust because when Le Bon Dieu made her He forgot to give her a heart.”

  “Do you know her well?” Zaria asked.

  Madame Bertin laughed and it was not a pleasant sound.

  “Well enough,” she said.

  “I thought they were all – great friends of yours, Zaria said a little hesitantly, afraid of sounding critical.

  Madame Bertin laughed again.

  “They say that you are born with your relatives and that you choose your friends,” she said. “Ma foi! It is not always true. Sometimes your friends are, how shall we say, thrust upon you!”

  Zaria said nothing, but she was thinking quickly.

  Had Edie Morgan and Victor somehow got Madame Bertin entangled in their intrigues? She was sure of it and yet she knew that she must be careful and she must say nothing that might make even Madame Bertin suspicious that she had heard too much or was curious.

  Madame Bertin gave a last snip with the scissors, flung them down on the dressing table and combed Zaria’s hair upwards until it stood out all round her head like a little halo.

  “Voila!” Madame Bertin said and Zaria looked at her reflection in amazement.

  It was astonishing what a difference it did make.

  There was now a mass of soft natural curls turning upwards from her neck to her temples.

  They stood out like little tongues of fire and framed her face so softly and so delicately that one forgot to notice the too sharp lines of cheekbones and chin.

  “It is – extraordinary!” Zaria exclaimed. “I look much – better.”

  “Mais oui,” Madame Bertin smiled. “Of course it is better. But I have not yet finished. Lie down on the bed, the wrong way round, your feet where one should put one’s head, your head where one should put one’s feet.”

  For the first time m her life Zaria had a face massage. She could feel the strength of Madame Bertin’s fingers as they patted and smoothed soft scented creams into her taut and dry skin.

  And after a time she began to grow sleepy. It was all so soothing.

  Her eyes were shut and all she could hear was the soft pat of Madame Bertin’s hands, the hum of the engines and the lap of the water outside.

  She began to dream. Not those frightened terror-stricken dreams she had dreamt in Scotland when her father had been particularly angry with her and when she had been too hungry and too utterly worn out to sleep anything but fitfully.

  This was a dream in which she drifted along in utter contentment.

  Chuck was beside her. She could feel his arm around her shoulders and hear his voice talking to her –

  *

  How long she slept she did not know.

  She awoke with a start and knew by the stillness that she was alone. She tried to open her eyes and found there were pieces of cotton wool on them. Her face was covered with cream.

  She wondered whether Madame Bertin had finished with her and whether she should get up or stay where she was.

  She was still lying there indecisive when she heard the door open.

  “The child’s asleep,” she heard Madame Bertin say in a very low voice. It sounded as if she was standing in the doorway.

  “What about this damn-fool bet?”

  It was Edie Morgan’s voice, but he too was hardly speaking above a whisper.

  “S’amuse,” Madame Bertin replied. “We have to occupy ourselves until we get there. You are all so, how do you say, jittery.”

  “What do you mean, jittery?”

  “What I say. Prenez garde of the Steward. I would not be surprised if it was because Ahmed talked too much that he was stopped at the frontier.”

  “I thought you said they suspected that his papers were forged.”

  “Mais oui,” Madame Bertin agreed. “But who tipped off the officials so that they looked more closely into them? They were good enough if he had been passed through in the ordinary routine way.”

  “You’re quite sure you weren’t followed?”

  There was a note of real anxiety in Edie Morgan’s voice and, although she was lying with eyes closed, Zaria somehow knew that he had laid his hand insistently on Madame Bertin’s arm. She knew too that Madame Bertin shrugged her shoulders in a characteristic manner.

  “If so, would I be here?” she asked.

  “It’s a damn nuisance having that girl here,” Edie Morgan said. “But we’ll have to use her. Not one of us can speak the accursed language.”

  “I did my best,” Madame Bertin replied deferentially. “It’s not my fault that Ahmed was arrested.”

  “It was that motor job last year I expect,” Edie repeated. “I said it was a mistake to use him on something so small and insignificant. ‘Keep him for the big game,’ I said, but nobody listened.”

  “Hush! Don’t talk so much,” Madame Bertin said.

  She walked across the cabin and stood beside the bed. Zaria knew that she was listening.

  For the first time since the door had opened she began to feel afraid.

  If they thought that she was not asleep and if they thought she had overheard what they were saying, what would they do to her?

  “She’s asleep?” Edie’s voice hissed from the background.

  “Dead asleep,” Madame Bertin answered. “But get out toute de suite!”

  He obeyed her without another word.

  Zaria heard the cabin door close and Madame Bertin still stood there saying nothing.

  Then at length, very softly, she asked,

  “Are you awake?”

  Zaria did not answer and she repeated in a louder tone,

  “Zaria, are you awake?”

  Slowly, as if she came back from a great depth, acting with an ability that she had no idea she possessed, Zaria stirred and moved. She turned her head from side to side as if she did not wish to waken, she stifled a little yawn and then seemed to drop into heavy slumber again.

  She knew without seeing Madame Bertin and without looking at her that she relaxed and the tension died out of her.

  The Frenchwoman was satisfied.

  Zaria snuggled against the pillow until in a very different tone Madame Bertin said,

  “Come, ma petite, it’s time to wake up!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was two hours later when Ma
dame Bertin flung open the door of the Saloon where the rest of the party were waiting for dinner. They were drinking, as they had been the whole evening.

  The men had the inevitable Scotch at their elbows and Kate had a glass of champagne in her hand. She raised it now with a little glance to Chuck who was sitting on the arm of her chair.

  “Now we shall see what we shall see,” she said with a little giggle. “May the best girl win.”

  It was obvious that she had no doubts as to the outcome of the contest. It was hard for anyone looking at her to think that she could be eclipsed.

  She wore a long skin-tight gown of silver sequins that made her look like a voluptuous mermaid. Every line and curve of her body was revealed and the dress was cut down to the waist at the back and was so low in the front that one could see the narrow valley between Kate’s pointed breasts.

  Round her neck she wore diamonds and the same stones flashed in her ears. Her fair silvery hair fell in a big burnished wave onto her naked shoulders and her red pouting mouth matched her long fingernails.

  She was lovely, sophisticated and a complete product of the modern age when every artifice is used to make a woman not only beautiful but a synthetic product of beauty.

  “You are all here?” Madame Bertin asked from the doorway unnecessarily.

  “You can see we are,” Kate replied.

  “Come on, bring her in. We’re all waiting,” Victor said unsteadily.

  “Allons y!” Madame Bertin cried. “Voila la beauté de Bertin.”

  Zaria stood for a moment quite still, as Madame Bertin had instructed her to do. Although she was shy and frightened, she could not help hearing the sudden gasp, the indrawing of breath which to any woman means more than applause.

  “Good God!”

  It was Edie who spoke first and Zaria hardly heard him.

  She was gazing across the room at Chuck, watching him rise slowly and almost incredulously to his feet and seeing the expression on his face.

  Suddenly she felt wildly ecstatically happy.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it! I wouldn’t have believed it!” Edie exclaimed, while it was left to Mr. Virdon to say in his quiet rather serious way,

  “You’re a genius, Lulu. If I was never sure of it before, I am now.”

  “Give me a drink, I deserve it,” Madame Bertin called out.

  She held out her hand to Chuck, but he did not see her. He was handing a glass of champagne to Zaria.

  She took it from him almost blindly and felt the colour coming into her cheeks.

  She felt a tingling excitement go through her, a sudden knowledge that she was young and attractive and that Chuck was gazing at her.

  “I think there is no need to drink your health,” he said softly. “Instead I shall drink to your future.”

  “That is a surprisingly pretty speech,” Madame Bertin interrupted before Zaria could answer,

  “Come along all of you, drink to Zaria’s future – the future to which I have shown her the right way.”

  The men raised their glasses, everyone conscious that there was no need for a secret ballot, no need to ask who was the winner of the contest.

  Wordlessly, with his back to Kate, Edie passed a roll of green-backed dollars over to Madame Bertin.

  Kate poured herself out another glass of champagne, her lips turned down sourly.

  Then she said aggressively,

  “I too hope that Zaria’s future is what she expects. Fate has a way of producing some very nasty surprises when one least expects them.”

  Mr. Virdon laughed, but Zaria hardly heard the words. She was tingling with this new consciousness of herself.

  She knew that the dress that Madame Bertin had chosen for her made her look lovely with a beauty she had never known she possessed.

  Made of soft pink brocade shot with silver, it billowed out in an enormous bouffant skirt from a tiny waist. The bodice was embroidered with pearls and there was a cloud of pink tulle draped round her shoulders to hide the thinness of her arms.

  She looked like a girl from a dream, young, innocent and untouched as the apple blossom in May.

  At the same time there was something spiritual and elusive in her beauty – as though it was not obvious but had to be sought for if it was to be found and appreciated.

  She had not believed that it was herself when she looked in the mirror and saw how large her eyes were when they were shadowed with green and her eyelashes were brushed upwards with a little eyeblack.

  There were strange lights in her hair that she had never seen before and there was a fullness on her red lips.

  But it was not only the artistry that made Zaria so different. It was the confidence that Madame Bertin had instilled into her.

  It was the words of wisdom and advice that she had given her which made Zaria carry her head high, made her conscious that she could, in these soft, silken, wonderful clothes, look like a woman and feel like a woman.

  “Forget the past, forget what you have suffered,” Madame Bertin admonished. “I don’t want you to tell me what you have been through or tell anyone. Forget it. It’s gone. To every woman it is the present that she should consider, the moment that she can never have again.”

  Now Zaria took a sip of the champagne she held in her hand and then, as they toasted her, said quietly,

  “Thank you. I hope my future will be happy, but I am happy now – terribly happy.”

  She did not know quite why she said the words, she only knew that she was telling Chuck something, asking something of him, hoping that in some inexpressible way he would understand.

  And then with a little deflated feeling she thought perhaps that she had failed and he did not know what she meant. He was just standing there and she could not see his expression because of his dark glasses.

  And then suddenly Victor struggled out of his chair.

  He had difficulty in doing it for he was drunk enough to be unsteady on his feet and, in reaching out a hand to assist himself, he knocked over a bottle of whisky. It crashed to the floor, but he took no notice of it.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said thickly, slurring his words. “It’s a trick, there’s something wrong. How could Lulu make her look like that? She’s a spy! She’s been sent here to spy on us! That’s what she is, I tell you – a spy!”

  Five pairs of eyes were staring at Zaria and instinctively she knew that the speculative expression in them meant danger, not only for herself but for Chuck.

  For a moment she felt paralysed.

  Then, because of her love for him, because it seemed to her she had known all the time that he was in an infinitely more precarious position than she was, she rallied all her strength to save him.

  “A spy!”

  She heard her own voice, high, a little unsteady but full of laughter, repeat the words.

  “You flatter me, Mr. Jacobetti. I wish I was clever enough to act the spy for one of the big model houses in England or New York. I know, of course, they do try to get in on the newest collection before it is seen. I know that they send people to take particulars and make sketches.

  “But I am afraid that I am not clever enough. Madame Bertin can trust me with her secrets, however important they may be. I should not be able to betray them even if I wanted to.”

  As she talked, rambling on like an excitable young girl, she could feel the tension relaxing and she could feel Edie’s reaction even before he took charge of the situation.

  “Shut up, you fool!” he said almost beneath his breath to Victor. And then aloud, “you’re drunk, old boy. This is only Zaria Brown, the girl who’s been with us the whole trip, the girl we’re trusting with all our secrets. In fact we couldn’t have one from her even if we wanted to. A good secretary knows everything, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Zaria answered.

  Chuck came to her assistance.

  “I can assure you that we are both as trustworthy as the Bank of England,” he said and now Zaria felt
his arm go round her waist and he gave her a little squeeze as if to say, “well done!”

  “I’m wrong, so I’ll apologise,” Victor said, slurring his speech a little and swaying. “No hard feelings, eh, Zaria?”

  He lurched towards her and instinctively she backed away from him.

  “No, of course not,” she said quickly.

  “Then kiss and make up,” he suggested. “Got to show you’re not angry with me. Give me a kiss to show we’re friends.”

  “No!” Zaria said sharply.

  Victor seized hold of her hand and started pulling her towards him.

  “No! No!” she cried again in a sudden panic and turning towards Chuck, she held on to him.

  “Stop him! Please stop him!” she begged, her head thrown back in the desperation of her appeal.

  “We’ve all got to be friends,” Victor slobbered.

  “I quite agree with you,” Chuck said in his quiet steady voice. “But I cannot allow you to kiss my fiancée. Zaria belongs to me. You get that into your head.”

  “I don’t think I believe you,” Victor said. “I’ve seen you messing about with Kate all the afternoon. I don’t think Zaria belongs to anyone, if you ask me.”

  “Well, I assure you that she is engaged to me,” Chuck said, “and that’s all there is to it.”

  He spoke sharply as if his patience was wearing thin.

  “Then what about a kiss for the bride?” Victor asked.

  “If there’s any kissing to be done, I’ll do it myself,” Chuck replied and this time there was no mistaking the irritation in his tone.

  “Very well then, kiss her,” Victor said. “Kiss her for me. Kiss her and let’s see if you’re as fond of her as you pretend.”

  There was something uncanny, Zaria thought, in his drunken perception that something was wrong. He was not certain what, but he was gnawing at the matter in a manner that made her tremble.

  She felt Chuck’s arms go round her shoulders.

  “But, of course I’ll kiss Zaria if that’s what you want,” he said. “Why not? It’s something I very much enjoy doing.”

  He bent his head. Zaria would have turned her face away from his lips, but she was taken by surprise. And then, as she felt his arms tighten still closer about her, his mouth took complete possession of hers.