The second collection of 3 great novels by Mary Burchell

by Burchell, Mary

  The taxi had just stopped at that moment, and a large uniformed attendant was already holding open the door. But Stephen seemed to have no intention of getting out until this interesting point was settled—and settled in the way he wanted.

  "Well, if you're sure it's all right—of course, I'd love it."

  "Good," Stephen said. It seemed to be his usual comment when he had got his own way. And then he jumped out, handed Thea out of the taxi, settled with the driver with what appeared to be jubilant generosity, and followed Thea into the Drilliantly lighted lounge.

  The rest of the evening was, if possible, even more delightful than the first half, Thea thought. The lights, the perfect food, the gaiety, the champagne were all fascinating adjuncts to a wonderful occasion.

  And then afterward they danced together, and Thea discovered the exact difference between dancing in "dancing class" and dancing with a very personable young man to a first-class band.

  By the time he took her home, Thea felt like an experienced habituee of London nightlife. And as he eot out of the taxi to say good night to her outside Geraldine s apartment, she felt that Stephen was one of her best, if not her oldest, friends. "I'll come for you on Sunday about eleven," he promised.

  "Yes. But please telephone or write to your mother first," Thea begged. "I know my mother would have had a fit if unexpected visitors had appeared like that."

  "All right. I promise, Stephen told her with a laugh. And he waved away her eager thanks for the evening's enjoyment. "I enjoyed it at least as much, myself," he assured her. "It's a long while since my worthy uncle has done me such a eood turn."

  Thea was slightly relieved to find that, late though it was, Geraldine had not yet returned. And the sleepy Denham, who admitted her, contented herself with asking if she had had a good time, and expressing satisfaction that she had.

  "That was Mr. Yarlon's nephew, you know," Thea told her.

  And Denham's unexpected comment was, "Then no wonder he looked a nice young man.''

  Thea, who already had her hand on the handle of her bedroom door, turned at that.

  "You like Mr. Varlon, don't you, Denham?" she said curiously.

  "Yes, miss. I like him. No one ever went to him in trouble and got turned away," Denham said.

  Long after she had undressed and reverently hung up her yellow dress and gone to bed, Thea lay awake and thought not only of her dazzling evening, but also of Denham's last remark.

  So that was how he appeared to some people, thought Thea. It was something to set against the other things that were said.

  The next morning Geraldine made only the most casual inquiries as to how she had enjoyed her evening. On the other hand, her astonishing generosity seemed stillnot at an end.

  "You'll need some sort of an allowance until you start earning for yourself," she remarked. "What are you used to having?"

  "Geraldine, it's most frightfully generous of you," Thea exclaimed, for some reason feeling much more uncomfortable than she would have believed possible. "You do understand that I mean to pay it all back gradually, as soon as I am earning, don't you? '

  Geraldine shrugged, with an indifference that Thea felt

  was positively saintly after what Stephen had said about her particular weakness.

  "Well, if you like to regard it in that light, that's your affair. It will probably make you more economical and save you from losing your head,*' Geraldine agreed. "I'll put fifty pounds in the bank for you, and you'd better draw on it as you need it and tell me when it's gone. I can't undertake to fit you out entirely from my own wardrobe, but I daresay one or two additions to what you already have will keep you going."

  Thea said that no doubt they would, and felt that Stephen must really have done Geraldine less than justice when he spoke of her. On the whole, the most likely explanation seemed to be that Geraldine felt genuinely remorseful for the shabby way in which she had originally intended to treat her young cousin, and that this was her way of making up for it.

  Thea thanked her afresh and then told her about Stephen's invitation for Sunday.

  "Oh, Jeannette Dorley's boy? He's quite nice in a harmless way," observed Geraldine, in a tone that would have prevented anyone from wishing to know any more about nim. "I suppose he would be rather your sort. Yes, go by all means, if you want to."

  She sounded as though she really cared very little what Thea did with herself—which was probably the case.

  When Stephen came for her on Sunday, Thea had been dressed and waiting for half an hour. Not that he was late, but her own eager anticipation made her early.

  Geraldine was understood to be still sleeping, as she had been up very late the night before; and as they crept out of the apartment making as little noise as possible, Thea had the impression that they were fellow conspirators in some delightful adventure.

  Stephen's somewhat battered two-seater was waiting outside the building, and he indicated it with mingled pride and apology.

  "She's no beauty but she's tough," he explained. "And faithful unto death—hers or mine. Do you mind driving in an open car?"

  "No," Thea said. "My experience of cars is not so

  extensive that I can afford to be choosy. And you seem to have plenty of rugs.' *

  It was a clear, bright day, but comparatively few people were on the road, and it seemed to Thea that they skimmed along very happily in a world that was practically their own. He seemed interested in almost anythmg that she cared to tell him about herself, and she found herself describing her life at school, her holidays with "poor mummie'* and the sudden change that had come into her life.

  "Then you're really quite on your own, as Lin said?"

  "Oh, yes. But I seem to be acquiring some very nice friends, Thea pointed out with a smile.

  He thanked her for that with an answering smile, and she added, "Did you know that your uncle took it on himself to come to the station and meet me because he thought Td be scared and miserable left on my own? Geraldine didn't want—well, she wasn't prepared to do anything about it. And so, as she'd shown him my letter, he just took things in his own hands and came.''

  "Did he?" Stephen whistled and looked amused. "Tell mother that. It will please her. In theory she disapproves of lots of things about Lin, but she adores him really, and he's been very good to her ever since my father died when I was fourteen."

  "Of course I'll tell her," Thea promised. "And I think I can understand how she feels about him. Somehow you don't want to know about his faults, and would much rather think well of him."

  "Oh, you women!" grinned Stephen. But added good-naturedly, "Have it your own way. Now tell me what you're going to do with yourself now that you're through with school."

  So Thea explained about the idea of taking a business training course, and, unlike Geraldine, he enthusiastically approved. But, as Thea discovered at once, from an ulterior motive.

  "Then you can come and work in the offices of our firm," he declared. "We're very important and go-ahead and frightfully good to the staff, bfice, light offices, Christmas bonuses, dowry on marriage, and all that sort of thing."

  Thea laughed a good deal.

  "Wait until I'm trained," she said. "And anyway, Mr.

  Varlon has offered to get me into the office of one of the theaters."

  "Oh, you can't do that, *' Stephen declared.

  *'Why not?" Thea demanded obstinately, forgetting that she had already refused Lindsay Varlon's good offices in this direction.

  "Well, you can*t," retorted Stephen just as obstinately. "It's all right for him to meet you at the station and all that, and read the riot act to Geraldine about you, but you can*t go tagging around the theater world as a protegee of his. No, really, you can't. I wouldn 't allow it."

  "y<9wwouldn't allow it! I like that."

  "So do I. It sounds good, doesn't it?"

  And Stephen grinned at her in such a friendly way that she laughed and said, "Oh, well, as a matter of fact, I did refuse. I told him I'd
rather work on my own merits and not have strings pulled for me."

  "That's right," agreed Stephen heartily, although he seemed perfectly prepared to "pull strings" at his own office if necessary.

  "Tell me something," Thea said, half persuasively, half diffidently.

  "Anything," Stephen promised expansively.

  "Is Mr. Varlon—well, has he what's called a bad reputation?"

  "Not a bad one,"Stephen said. "A doubtful one."

  "Oh." Thea digested that and then asked, "What*s the difference?"

  "Well, you wouldn't hear anyone say, *See that girl with the red hair over there—she's Lmdsay Varlon's latest.' And so far as I know, he's never rented a West End apartment for anyone, or hit the headlines in a divorce case. But—well, there's a general impression abroad that he's pretty swift where your sex is concerned, and I don't imagine he's ever asked the price of wedding rings, if you get my meaning."

  "Yes. I think I do," Thea said. "In other words, there's nothing specific against him, but people like to think he's capable or nearly anything."

  ^'That's about it." Stephen laughed. "And I'm not at all sure that he doesn't encourage the notion himself"

  "But why should he?"

  "Oh, good for box office and all that, you know,"Stephen

  explained carelessly. "Most women prefer a devil to a domestic animal, so long as it's not on their own hearth. Besides I expect it saves him all the usual trouble with designing mammas and respectable marriageable daughters."

  "It sounds a bit farfetched," Thea said.

  "Most things about Lin are farfetched," retorted Stephen. "He had an incredible record as an airman during the war, you know. That^as farfetched, if you like."

  "Did he?"

  Thea was interested and would have asked more, but at that moment Stephen said, "We've only about a quarter of a mile to go now. Home is just over the next hill."

  Thea smiled appreciatively at the almost naive way he said that, and thought how nice it must be to have a place that was so simply and unquestionably "home."

  Stephen Dorley's home was one of those charming, frienoly, quite small country houses that you find dotted all over the hills and fields of Surrey. It had a big, not very tidy garden; it was a little too far away from any station to be very accessible; and it definitely did not have the very latest modern conveniences.

  And yet, somehow, its occupants contrived to be amazingly comfortable. Jeanette Dorley herself, who came to the door to welcome them almost before the car stopped, must, Thea could see, have been something of a beauty in her youth. She was still handsome in a gay, laughing, colorful way, with fine eyes like her brother, but with absolutely none of his worldly, disillusioned expression.

  "Comein,my dear. I've heard such a lot about you." She took both Thea s hands in a warm, capable clasp.

  "Stephen shouldn't have brought you down in that horrible open thing. You must be frozen."

  "It was that or walk two miles from the station," Stephen said, as he kissed his mother with great affection. "And my good little tin Lizzie makes us independent of trains back to town this evening. Hello, Darry— as a large cat strolled negligently forward, wound gracefully around his legs, and indulgently arched a back in order to be stroked.

  "His name is really Darius," Mrs. Dorley explained. "We called him that because we could see immediately that he was going to be a Persian tyrant. But it's a diflficult name

  to call, and I'm afraid it's degenerated into Darry. Do you like cats?"

  Thea said she did and knelt down to stroke him and rub him under his rather haughty chin. Immediately, with the unpredictable favoritism of cats, he flung himself against her, while purrs broke forth as though an organ stop had been pulled out.

  *'0n, isn't he nice?" Thea sat down on the floor and hugged him. "I've never had a cat. One couldn't in lodgings, you know, and—"

  Suddenly she became aware of the very kindly, sympathetic quality of the silence around her, and looking up quickly she saw that both Stephen and his mother were watchmg her with indulgent smiles. And beyond them, standing in the sitting-room doorway with his hands in his pockets, stood Lindsay Varlon, and he, too, was smiling as though the sight of Thea sitting on the ground with a large cat was a very pleasing one.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Why, hello, Mr. Varlon!"

  Feeling slightly foolish and exceedingly pleased, Thea scrambled to her feet.

  "Hello, Lin. I didn't know you were going to be down here, *' Stephen said at the same moment.

  "And I didn't know I should find you two down here, either," Lindsay Varlon said, as he came forward and took the hand Thea held out rather shyly to him.

  "I thought you might as well all have your pleasant surprise simultaneously," Mrs. Dorley explained. "So I. didn't tell Lin, though he arrived about an hour before you. Would you like to come upstairs and take your things off, dear?" she added, turning to Thea. "And Stephen, you and Lin had better go and see about drinks."

  Thea followed her hostess up the wide, shallow stairs, while Stephen and his uncle went into the lounge, and Darius, finding with displeased surprise that he was no longer the center of attraction, also sauntered back into the lounge, where he took up the most comfortable position by the fire without appearing to notice that he was doing so.

  "What a lovely house, Mrs. Dorley," Thea said, as she stood before the mirror combing her hair in the pretty, informal, chintz-hung bedroom, which suddenly made her room at Geraldine's seem a Uttle like a place on the stage.

  "Do you like it?" Mrs. Dorley smiled. "I'm very fond of it, though of course it's quite old-fashioned and not at all convenient."

  "But its got'atmosphere,' "Thea said.

  "Has it? What sort of atmosphere?"

  "Oh, nice and homey and ... and real."

  Mrs. Dorley laughed.

  '*It's funny you should say that. Lin always says that something happens to him when he comes down here and that he's much more a real person than he ever is in London.'*

  "I can quite imagine it." Thea nodded. **rm so glad Mr. Varlon came today," she added quite simply. "He's been so awfully kind to me, you know." And she immediately seized the opportunity of making good her promise to Stephen, and told Mrs. Dorley about Lindsay Varlon fetching her from the station.

  ^'So he should," declared Mrs. Dorley, but her eyes brightened quite unmistakably. *'Geraldine ought to have been ashamed of herself for not going herself."

  "I think she was rather ashamed and sorry afterward, Mrs. Dorley," Thea said hastily. "She's been very kind to me since."

  "I'm glad to hear it. Did she say she was sorry?"

  "N-not exactly. But she's been extremely generous to me and even put money for me in the bank so that I shall have something to draw on," Thea explained earnestly, feeling that justice must be done to Geraldine who seemed to hold such a poor place in the esteem of the Dorleys.

  But Mrs. borley laughed as incredulously as her son had done.

  "Geraldine! She put money in the bank for someone other than herself? She must have been conscience-stricken!"

  Thea laughed a little dubiously, and Mrs. Dorley added, "Well, I mustn't stay here making spiteful insinuations against Geraldine. You take your own time, my dear, but if you don't mind, I'm going to run down to the kitchen. My old Emma will do most things for me, but nowadays she says she 'can't take the responsibility of dishing up all to the inoment on her own.'''

  j "That's quite all right." Thea smiled at her hostess in the toirror. "I can find my way down, Mrs. Dorley." ' When she came into the lounge, she found it was a long, toleasant room, running the full length of the house from oack to front, with windows at both ends, and the only person in it was Varlon. 1 "Come and get warm, Thea." He smiled at her in a way

  that reminded her of what his sister had said about his being a much more "real'* person down here.

  Thea came forward slowly to the fireplace where a big wood fire was throwing out a faint resinous odor, and she stood l
ooking down at it with great pleasure.

  *'How did you enjoy the play on Friday evening?" he inquired.

  "Oh, immensely!" She looked up again and smiled. *' Geraldine 's splendid, isn 't she?''

  "Yes. It's one of the best things she's ever done."

  "I was glad when-you came on the stage at the end, too."

  "Were you? Why?" he wanted to know in some surprise.

  "Oh, because it was nice to see you," Thea said simply. "I clapped like anything. Did you notice?"

  He laughed.

  "I expect that was the embarrassing burst of applause that I heard from the fifth row," he said teasingly.

  "I'm sure you weren't embarrasssed," Thea retorted. "I can't imagine anything in the world that would embarrass you."

  "I was a good deal embarrassed the other evening to find myself in the role of golden-hearted protector of youthful innocence," he assured her.

  "You were not," Thea declared, twisting around so that she could really look up into his interestmg, clever face. "You were thoroughly enjoying the situation most of the time." He laughed. "And perfectly capable of handling it in all its details," she added. "By the way, I haven t yet thanked you for even sending Stephen to look after me on Friday evening. You thought of everything."

  "I think Stephen feels the thanks are due from him." Varlon smiled down at her. "But he played his part all right, did he?"

  "Perfectly. As producer, you may be entirely satisfied with that performance,"Thea said.

  "I'm glad. How are you settling down with Geraldine now?"

  "Mr. Varlon, she's really made up handsomely for... for not being very kind at first."

  "So?"

  "Yes. Did you—" Thea glanced at him as though some thought had suddenly struck her "—did you speak to her

  ibout me after that first evening? I mean later, when you )oth went to the theater and left me at home?''

  "We naturally mentioned the subject.*'

  "I don't just mean that. Did you—well, take her to task for lot being kind tome?" p