IDYLL ON LAKE GENEVA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 68, 22 March 1937, Page 17

IDYLL ON LAKE GENEVA.

Short Story hy

, Stella Harrison.

DIANE stood at the window watching the heavy cloud driving swiftly from the Juras to the Alps, lowering relentlessly till the slice of light above the Saleve was wiped out and the mountain itself, above and beyond the tall houses opposite, was only a emudge of murkier blue in the murky grey of the sky. Down the Rue Jean-Jacquet rushed the people—office and legation people mostly, but a few townsfolk. The old flower lady had doubtless slammed down her basket with the last bunches of sweet scented wild cyclamen and grabbed wildly for her coat, hoping to get away before the storm broke. Two or three officials tooting up to the garage below, eager to fill up and make for home before the rain ehould spoil their shining coachwork, all newly washed for the week-end. A young woman pushing a perambulator with one hand and with the other clutching her white straw hat under her light coat, grimly determined though she herself might catch influenza, neither infant nor headgear should suffer a wetting. With a menacing growl the thunder announced itself; the advancing cloud bank closed down on the eastern horizon and there followed a few heavy drops.

Nearer and nearer rolled the ..thunder, peal after peal, and the first furtive darts of lightning paled in the succession of blinding flashes that lit the heavens as the hail gave place to a eteady, sullen downpour of rain. • • • . • The noise of the storm was music in Diane's ears. It exhilarated and buoyed her with gleeful triumph . . . Now Pierre could not take the Fleur de Malte up to Genthod this evening, ready for the morning's race. He would come to her instead. Diane knew jealousy only for the yacht—for only the yacht could drag Pierre away from her. In the winter months he was hers entirely, at her. beck aria" call, obedient to * her demands, grateful for the hours she gave him, plunged in deep melancholy if she had a whim not to see him one evening. i The dreary work of translating daylong speeches in the Secretariat passed quickly in the knowledge that at six she would be released from the machine, and at 6.4s—giving her time for a shower and a fresh make-up—-Pierre would call for her, drink a vermouth siphon on the balcony while she finished dressing, and whisk her off to dinner. After a leisurely meal they would saunter along to the Cafe du Midi for coffee and sit listening to the music for an hour, then, if the night were mild, stroll through the Jardin3 Anglais along the lakeside, or as far as the Pare des Eaux-Vives. Or, if the weather was unfavourable for strolling, they would taxi across the bridge and up the Rue du Mont Blanc to descend at the Mauvais Pas, the gay 'little cabaret where they could dance and sip Pernod until the small hours. That was in the winter. But no sooner did Easter com* with white horses riding down the blue lake before a stiff breeze, than Pierre went back to his first love, his boat, the Fleur de Malte.

No woman ever stepped aboard her. for Pierre boasted he had no need of women except for love-meking; and there was no time for love-making when he was sailing the Fleur de Malte.

Pierre knew the lake, and its wind« and currents as he knew the planks of his own deck.

A score of times each month he would take the Fleur de Malte up as far as the Creux de Genthod, and bring her out of the tiny port and away to Hermance, to la Belotte, to the Point de la Bise.

When the regatta season came round and the shapely craft were gathered in the little harbour, always the first away at the crack of the starting gun was the Fleur de Malte, leading in any weather, on any course.

Diane loved only Pierre, but Pierre loved Diane and the Fleur de Malte. Diane wanted to marry Pierre, but Pierre didn't want to marry anyone, yet.

He wanted to enjoy innumerable intimate dinners tete-a-tete, to saunter through countless moonlit eveninprs, to dance through endless happy nights at the Mauvais Pas, with Diane in his arms—Diane, the good sport, the smiling companion, the light-hearted playmate —and still be free to do it only so long as it pleased him, free to so back to the Fleur de Malte and spend his evening* and hifc Sundays riding the lake with her, his first love. Often he toyed with the idea of taking Diane with him, running down to Lausanne over the weekend and sleeping on the boat, because Diane. was' the only girl he knew who could be unobtrusive. She was the only girl who could forget she was a woman when a man's mind wag on other things, and because it must be lonely for Diane at home on Saturday evenings when the whole town was out at the casino or the Perle du Lac.

But whenever he tried to approach her tactfully about it she stemmed the conversation with the curt request:—

"Please don't talk about that hateful yacht." Because she was jealous of her.

And Pierre, balked of his good deed, would reply jauntily:

"Don't worry; I've never shipped a woman -passenger,.;and- never will." * .The storm did not laet long. The rain eased off to a dispirited drizzle, and the pall of. cloud came slowly asunder, letting in a white, unfriendly light. Diane's mood of exhilaration left her ad though the storm which had filled her with expectancy of Pierre, pushing, out

all other thoughts, now abandoned the inner places of her consciousness and left them empty and deserted. She turned back into the room and began desultorily to prepare her evening meal. The old heaviness of heart came upon her, the old realisation of the futility of her narrow existence. Pierre had not come after all—he was probably waiting on the quay, ready to board the Fleur de Malte as soon as the rain ceased and spend the remaining hour of daylight going over her carefully for any damage she might have sustained, making good any scratch in her paintwork or any crack in her planks. • » • • No thought of Diane and certainly no thought, of dinner would disturb him. She hesitated, flirting with the undignified idea that came sliding down a ray of sunlight where the clouds had divided and rolled away. If the Mountain will not come to Mahomet . . . She looked away, but the imp of an idea danced before her eyes and would not be ignored. . . .

Quickly she packed the hot casserole in grease-proof paper, wrapped it round with a rug and rammed the whole thing into a rucksack. She stuffed in a half-flask of Chianti and a thin, crisp loaf, half a yard long, and jammed a hunk of cheese into the small pocket . . . and so, out of the flat, down the stairs and along the Rue JeanJacquet she could recover from her impulse. She rounded the corner at a run and tore along the quay, afraid that Pierre might have put off after all in the Fleur de Malte. On the Rade, level with the landing stage, ehe collided with him, head-on. "What's the hurry?" asked Pierre in his lazy sing-song. "And what's the luggage for . . . Going away?" "Never mind," said Diane, "that's not your affair." She recalled all his jeers about women being out of place on his yacht, and for the life of her she could not tell him she had decided to dine with him, uninvited, on board the Fleur de Malte rather than let him go without eupper while she tackled a solitary meal. "Oh, well," Pierre shrugged, "keep your secrets and your appointments and I'll go eat alone." "What?" exclaimed Diane, "aren't you spending the evening on the boat?" Pierre caught her by the arm and lifted the rucksack from her shoulder. "If you must know," he said, "I was on my way round to ask you to have dinner with me, and perhaps go for a walk now the weather has cleared up again. Seems a pity we hardly go near the park in the summer. . .However, as you're otherwise engaged. . . I could swear T smell liver end bacon'." "Oh, Pierre!" Diane wailed, suddenly feeling all soft and helpless inside because he had been willing to leave the yacht for her, "I'm . . . I'm bo . . ." "So what?" asked Pierre, bewildered. "I'm so hungry," she faltered. It was true. Yet about 20 minutes ago she had been trying to force herself to eat.

"Ma pauvre petite." Pierre put his arm round her ehoulder, comforting and easily capable of dealing with so natural a thing , as hunper.

"Look. I'll tell you what. Wait here and I'll run along to the eharcuterie and buy some ham and salami and stuff, and we can picnic on the Fleur de Malte." "You mean it?" "But, yes, of course, why) not? You -wait here just two minutes." "No, Pierre, don't go. I don't want you to leave me." "But the food, ma eherie . . . you are dying of hunger; I must get some food." "I've jrot it, Pierre," she said. "It's all here, in the rucksack. ... I .... was afraid you'd be hungry working on the yacht all evening . . ." "And that was your rendezvous you were running to keep? You frip-htened me, you know. Mais oui. e'est vrai, I was terribly jealous. But come alonsr. let's run across to Bellerive and moor there." In the minute cabin of the Fleur de Malte, snug and drowsy as the boat rocked very gently with the movement of the water, they sat smoking after dinner, drinking in the delicious calm after the storm. "She's a lovely craft," said Diane dreamily, thinking aloud. Pierre's arm tightened round her. "How do you think it would be," he said, "to sail round the lake . . . Tlionon. Evian, Villeneuve, Montreaux, Ouchy, Nyon, and back." "Together, cheri?" asked Diane in a whisper.

"On our honeymoon, ma petite Diane, answered Pierre.