Caravan to Vaccares Read Online Free Page A

the digestion’s sake.
    Bowman, though with obvious reluctance, went along with this. He had about him the air of a man for whom the creation of a disturbance with Le Grand Duc would have been a positive pleasure but who drew the line at having street brawls with young ladies.
    â€˜I’m sorry.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘But Lila is my friend. I didn’t want her embarrassed.’
    â€˜Ha! You didn’t want her embarrassed. Doesn’t matter, I suppose, how embarrassed I am?’
    â€˜Oh, come on. Just sticks and stones, you know. You really don’t look the least little bit dissipated to me.’ Bowman stared at her suspiciously, but there was no malicious amusement in her eyes: she was pursing her lips in mock but friendly seriousness. ‘Mind you, I can see that not everyone would like to be called a layabout. By the way, what do you do? Just in case I have to defend you to the Dulce – verbally, that is.’
    â€˜Hell with the Duke.’
    â€˜That’s not an answer to my question.’
    â€˜And a very good question it is too.’ Bowman paused reflectively, took off his glasses and polished them. ‘Fact is, I don’t do anything.’
    They were now at the farther end of the pool. Cecile took her hand away from his arm and looked at him without any marked enthusiasm.
    â€˜DO you mean to tell me, Mr Bowman – ’
    â€˜Call me Neil. All my friends do.’
    â€˜You make friends very easily, don’t you?’ she asked with inconsequential illogic.
    â€˜I’m like that,’ Bowman said simply.
    She wasn’t listening or, if she was, she ignored him. ‘Do you mean to tell me you never work? You never do anything!’
    â€˜Never.’
    â€˜You’ve no job?’ You’ve been trained for nothing? You can’t do anything ?’
    â€˜Why should I spin and toil?’ Bowman said reasonably. ‘My old man’s made millions. Still making them, come to that. Every other generation should take it easy, don’t you think – a sort of recharging of the family batteries. Besides, I don’t need a job. Far be it from me,’ he finished piously, ‘to deprive some poor fellow who really needs it.’
    â€˜Of all the specious arguments . . . How could I have misjudged a man like that?’
    â€˜People are always misjudging me,’ Bowman said sadly.
    â€˜Not you. The Duke. His perception.’ She shook her head, but in a way that looked curiously more like an exasperated affection than cold condemnation. ‘You really are an idle layabout, Mr Bowman.’
    â€˜Neil.’
    â€˜Oh, you’re incorrigible.’ For the first time, irritation.
    â€˜And envious.’ Bowman took her arm as they approached the patio again and because he wasn’t smiling she made no attempt to remove it. ‘Envious of you. Your spirit, I mean. Your yearlong economy and thrift. For you two English girls to be able to struggle by here at £200 a week each on your typists’ salaries or whatever – ’
    â€˜Lila Delafont and I are down here to gather material for a book.’ She tried to be stiff but it didn’t become her.
    â€˜On what?’ Bowman asked politely. ‘Provençal cookery? Publishers don’t pay that kind of speculative advance money. So who picks up the tab? Unesco? The British Council?’ Bowman peered at her closely through his horn-rimmed glasses but clearly she wasn’t the lip-biting kind. ‘Let’s all pay a silent tribute to good old Daddy, shall we? A truce, my dear. This is too good to spoil. Beautiful night, beautiful food, beautiful girl.’ Bowman adjusted his spectacles and surveyed the patio. ‘Your girl-friend’s not bad either. Who’s the slim Jim with her?’
    She didn’t answer at once, probably because she was momentarily hypnotized by the spectacle of Le Grand Duc holding an enormous balloon glass