Free The Young Nightingales by Mary Whistler Page B

... and very fashionable, too,” as if that appealed to her snobbish instincts, “He has his own clinic just outside the town.”
    “Really,” Jane murmured. “I must say his means of doing his rounds indicates a fashionable clientele. Not many English doctors nowadays can afford a chauffeur, and that car of his looked expensive. What is it? A Bentley?”
    “I’m sure I don’t know,” Florence answered, considering it impertinent that she should be asked. After all, the doctor was a friend of her mistress ... and whatever they did in England nowadays a great many of her mistress’s friends had extremely expensive cars. Madame Bowman’s own car, driven by Andre, was an old-fashioned Daimler, and Madame Bowman was very proud of it because it had such an opulent appearance despite its vintage years. ”
    She stood aside for Jane to precede her into the house, and then stalked through into the kitchen, after murmuring that lunch would be on the table in five minutes.
    Jane smiled to herself. It was plain to her that Florence loved this salubrious backwater in a corner of Switzerland, and apparen tl y Dr. Delacroix was all part of the general atmosphere of comfortable security and spacious living.
    She would have to be careful not to tread on Florence’s corns from time to time. Otherwise life at the Villa Magnolia might not be as smooth as it could be if she was consistently tactful.

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
    FOR the next week Jane found that it was a perfectly easy matter to settle down as Mrs. Bowman’s companion at the Villa Magnolia, and the only thing that troubled her was that she didn’t seem to be doing very much to earn her salary. Mrs. Bowman was a most understanding employer who liked life to flow past her like a placid stream, and fitting into her routine was as uncomplicated as trying on a pair of well- worn gloves.
    She never appeared outside her room in the mornings until eleven o’clock, and then she liked the English newspapers read to her and in particular any reports of Stock Exchange activities which seemed to interest her enormously. After that she toyed with the idea of writing a few letters, although as her only regular correspondent nowadays was her nephew, and occasionally she had something to say to her solicitor, never more than one letter at a time was dictated to Jane, and the latter typed these on her own portable typewriter in her own room, and afterwards took them to the post herself, together with letters she wrote to Irina and Toby, because it was a pleasant walk to t he nearest post-office, and the better part of it skirted the lake, and she could never have enough of the sheer beauty and the extraordinary placidity of the lake at St. Vaizey.
    They lunched at half-past one every day, and in the heat of the afternoon Mrs. Bowman dozed in her room. Sometimes after a cup of tea at five o’clock precisely the Daimler was brought round from the garage by Andre and Mrs. Bowman and her companion sallied forth for an evening drive. It never lasted longer than forty minutes, and Andre was not permitted to proceed at anything more than a snail’s pace along the lake shore, and at certain vantage points he was requested to pull up and a particularly attractive aspect of the lake was gazed at with much appreciation by both ladies.
    The air at that hour was pleasantly warm, a pathway of westering sunlight cut like a sword thrust across the lake, and although there was a considerable amount of traffic and a layer of hot dust covered the sidewalks and the ornamental gardens Mrs. Bowman seemed particularly to enjoy these late afternoon excursions.
    Jane found travelling in the Daimler rather like travelling in an old-fashioned chariot that had been most carefully preserved, and had the most comfortably sprung seats of any vehicle she had ever travelled in.
    Dinner was at eight, and after that they played card games and listened to the Swiss news on the radio. There was a television set in the villa,