by Jane Arbor
‘I didn’t think it necessary, as I’d spoken to Miss Cusack myself.’
‘Well, in future I’d rather you did confirm in writing. It saves trouble in the long run and obviates the need for taking one person’s word against another’s.’
Verity did not care for the sound of that. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But I do assure you that in this case mine is the word you can take, if only because ‘—she had suddenly remembered Bob—‘I can produce a witness of my having offered Miss Cusack the twenty-fifth, not the twenty-fourth. Dr. Wales was with me at the time and he overheard me on the phone.’
Daniel looked up from closing a desk-drawer. ‘Dr. Wales? What did he want?’
‘Want?’ Verity was so used to Bob’s dropping in whenever he came to the school that the question took her aback. ‘As far as I know he only came to see me that morning. Why?’ she asked.
‘Just,’ said Daniel evenly, ‘that I wondered whether he was a regular member of the social club which I notice the junior staff tend to make of your office, apparently when they please.’
Verity flushed. ‘That’s not quite fair. They never stay when I tell them I’m busy, but if you mean they sometimes take their morning coffee with me, I admit they do.’
‘Exactly. But do you mind my taking this opportunity to say that while I haven’t the slightest objection to your joining the staff for coffee in the staff-room, that’s the proper place for it, not your office, which I think you should regard as your workshop, nothing else?’
‘I’ll remember.’ But determined to make her point, Verity added, ‘About Bob—Dr. Wales, that is. When he heard me mention the twenty-fifth on the phone he made a joke about its being the anniversary of Agincourt and of El Alamein and also his own birthday. But if you still doubt he could have made a mistake about that at least, you ought to ask him to verify what he did hear me say to Miss Cusack!’
Daniel ignored the spurt of truculence in her tone. Saying, ‘I think we needn’t put Dr. Wales on the witness stand. I accept that the whole thing went as you say, but please confirm by letter in future, will you?’ he squared off some papers and handed them to her. ‘Since we’re launched on “shop”, these are for your attention in the morning,’ he added. Then opening the door for her and following her out, ‘Would you tell Mrs. Lytton I shall be late back? Well after midnight, I dare say.’
He left her in the hall, wondering about him.
Which was the real Daniel Wyatt? The ‘nice’ person with whom her mother got on so easily? The usurping opportunist Lance believed him? The stranger suddenly turned companion who had shared with her the childish pastime of throwing duckstones at the sea; the swift-witted man whose adroit intervention had rescued her from Jane Dysart’s sly malice? Or the perfectionist taskmaster he had shown himself tonight?
She shook her head over her inability to sum him up. Anyway, wasn’t it only in books that characters were wholly ‘goodies’ or ‘baddies’, cut to a pattern which everyone recognized? In real life people weren’t like that, nor was he. Any more, she supposed, than, to his intimates, he was the unknowable enigma she found him.
But who were his intimates? Whom did he know best ... love? Who, already perhaps, loved him?
With a small sigh she left the unrewarding curiosity there and went back to Nash.
The habit of going to him during the night woke her at half-past one. Would this be her last vigil with him? she wondered as she reached for her dressing-gown and slippers. Must she steel herself to face tomorrow’s grim duty to him? Or would the hope he had given her earlier renew itself and turn into the reality of a second recovery?
Her heart pounding, she slipped down to the kitchen where his basket was set, close to the all-night warmth of the radiant stove. She opened the door, then left it wide behind her as the glow from the stove showed up his basket ... showed up Nash. But not a Nash who would suffer or enjoy, or know himself loved any more. Even as Verity flung across the room to drop on her knees beside him she knew he had gone ahead of any human decision for him. He was dead.
There had, after all, been no promise in yesterday’s brief rally of his faculties. She realized now it had only been the late flaring of a candle about to go out. She had been there for him then and he had made it his farewell to her. But though he looked peaceful now, as if he had known no distress, no struggle at the end, he had died alone, and at the thought desolation and self-reproach engulfed her.
She shed tears then, weeping for her memories, for all the mute reminders of him which she could not escape, for the emptiness of there being nothing more to do for him ever again. Crouched beside him, her eyes shaded by one hand, one of his ‘wrinkled glove ‘ forepaws in the other, she did not hear Daniel cross the hall, nor know that he paused at the open door, looking in at her, nor even that he was beside her until he stooped and drew her to her feet and into his encircling arms.
He said her name once, then with infinite compassion, ‘Dear, don’t cry so!’ But he let her cry and, beyond surprise or resistance, beyond shame at her weakness, she hid her face deep in the hollow of his shoulder and allowed the comfort of his nearness, his gentle touch, to wrap her about.
Her voice muffled against him, she spoke broken incoherencies. ‘I—I wasn’t here—Last night he seemed—Ever since he’s been ill I’ve come to him about now. Why had it to be tonight—I mean this morning—that I was too late? Oh, Nash, Nash, I can’t! I!’ Sobs choked her and no more words came, only long-drawn aching breaths which she tried to control.
For long minutes Daniel held her as if she were precious ... a little fragile, saying nothing until she was silent, when he laid his cheek on her bowed head and spoke softly into the air.
He said, ‘You shouldn’t blame yourself. You could have done nothing for him. This way, he died at the hour and the minute that it was destined he should. That is, at no mercifully meant but heartrending decision of yours—and oughtn’t you to be thankful for that?’
‘I—suppose so. I’ll try to be. But if only—’
Daniel’s hand went to smooth her hair. ‘That’s a remorse you needn’t feel. He had rallied; you had no warning he might die tonight, and your not being here was no betrayal of the years of happiness you’ve given each other. They’ll remain as your reward—the rest will pass. And though you’re not ready to believe it now, you’ll love again, and serve and enjoy again—and invite suffering again without counting the cost. For that’s life and it’s all worth it. Worth it, do you hear? Worth it!’
As he spoke he gave her a little shake, then held her from him and released her. She guessed he made a business of covering Nash’s basket to give her time to wipe her eyes, and when he straightened she managed a wintry smile.
She began, ‘You’re very good. I don’t know how to thank you—’ at which he cut in, ‘I’ve been through it myself and it taught me something I’m glad to be able to pass on.’ He looked her over, making her conscious of her dishevelled hair and puffed cheeks and her homely wool dressing-gown. ‘You should be in bed and so should I,’ he said. ‘But would it help you to sleep if we sat over a cup of tea first?’
She clutched at the straw. ‘You’d have one with me if I made it?’
He smiled. ‘I’ll do more. I’ll make it myself, if you’ll show me where the things are kept. Sit there’—he turned a chair to the table—‘and if it helps, tell me about Nash when he was a puppy. How old were you when you first had him?’
‘I was ten. He was a Christmas present, and when we fetched him from the kennels, he was sick in the car four times on the way home.’
‘That must have made him popular with whoever owned the car!’
‘That was Father. He was very nice about it, and it made a bond between Nash and me, as I was given to car-sickness myself at the time.’
Either the stimulation of the tea or Daniel’s sympathy made talking easier every minute. But as she went on to tell him more about Nash, another part of her mind was remembering, comparing ... but
what with what?
Suddenly she knew. There had been another time, last summer, when she had needed the same understanding, expected to get it from the man she loved and had been rejected. She hadn’t asked that Max should care for Nash as she did; only that he should appreciate that her own love mustn’t fail him when he was ill.
Max hadn’t been equal to that, hadn’t understood. Yet unasked, Daniel had. Max, whom she had loved, and Daniel in the same channel of her thoughts—why?
She realized she was hearing Daniel ask, ‘And what were you like yourself at ten?’ and laughed self-consciously.
‘To look at? Well, snapshots show me rather toothy, with my hair in plaits and a fringe that I glowered under. I had a burning ambition to take Lance out in his pram all by myself. I think I discovered The Wind In The Willows that year, and my favourite food was boiled chestnuts. What were you like at the same age?’ She found she wanted quite badly a word picture of the small boy he had been when her mother had known him.
He said, ‘I’m afraid there are no surviving portraits of the subject. They were lost in the blitz which killed my parents, and I was shipped out to Canada soon afterwards.’
‘Yes, of course. Were you happy in Canada?”
He shrugged. ‘I was desperately unhappy at first, but you could say Canada and I came to terms after a time.’
‘You had pets of your own? You said you’d been through—all this?’
‘Only a yellow mongrel who followed me home from school one day. I had him for nearly eight years, and the bottom of my world dropped out when he died.’ As Daniel spoke he stood. ‘I’ll tell you about him some other time. Meanwhile it’s bed for you, even though you may not sleep. Come along.’ Though she dreaded the hours ahead, she obeyed, and he went with her to the door of her room.
‘Try to remember the happy times—h’m?’ he urged, then moved a step nearer, close enough for his breath to fan her cheek. But he only wanted to brush back the fall of her hair from her eyes—which made her own reaction to his nearness so shameful to recall later...
For suddenly she was clinging to him again in an abandon of need she could not define, seeking and responding like a hurt child to the comfort of the kiss which, after an instant’s recoil, he gave her, his mouth firm and cool upon her eager lips.
She stood back from him, her eyes lowered before the unreadable look in his. ‘I—’ she began.
But he was turning the handle of her door, throwing it open.
‘Goodnight. You’ll feel differently in the morning,’ he said, and left her without looking back.
CHAPTER V
Verity fell asleep towards dawn, but was awake and up very early, wanting to break the news of Nash’s death to her mother before Mrs. Lytton came down herself.
The blue eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, darling, what a shock for you! And after the hope he gave us yesterday! You went down and found him? Dear, why on earth didn’t you call me and I’d have come down too, to be with you?’
Verity said dully, ‘You couldn’t have done anything. I was too late myself. Besides, I wasn’t alone. Just after I’d found him dead, Daniel came home and—he was very kind.’
‘Did you expect him to be anything else, considering he knew just how much Nash had meant to you?’ challenged Mrs. Lytton.
‘Yes, well—he was kind. He’d been through it himself, he said, and he made me see that I ought to be thankful Nash died as he did—in his own time. We made tea and talked for about half an hour and then he—Daniel—made me go back to bed.’
‘But not to sleep, I dare say. Did you get any at all, darling? You look worn out.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘You’re not, and I shan’t let you go into the office today.’ Mrs. Lytton abandoned the cup of tea Verity had brought her and pushed aside the bedclothes. ‘If I get up now I can catch Daniel before he goes to morning Chapel and I’ll tell him so.’
‘Please, Mother, no! I need to keep my mind occupied, and I’d rather go to work as usual.’
‘I don’t think you should, dear. Daniel will understand!’
‘Yes, perhaps. All the same, he did—enough for me last night, and I’d rather not ask any more of him just now.’
But when Verity crossed the hall half an hour later a note addressed to her lay on the hall table.
Daniel had written without preamble or signature—‘Please take the morning off. On my way over to Chapel I shall send Martin to you. Get him to do all that’s necessary. Meanwhile, don’t think of coming to the office until after lunch, and not then if you don’t feel equal to it.’
Martin was the school gardener, and when he came to find her it did something for the ache at her heart to set him to work on a grave for Nash at the spot she chose for it—in a shrubbery near a well-worn path he had trodden for himself and where a spread of periwinkle would cover it in time.
Martin was gentle and sympathetic. ‘The old place won’t be the same at all without the little sausage!’ he mourned. But with the last duty to Nash done and over, the desert of the morning stretched out before Verity. Listlessly she pulled on her raincoat and went for a walk on the shore.
She had had all night in which to think and remember—and blush. She hadn’t wanted there to be any more hours in which to brace herself for facing Daniel. Waiting only made the prospect worse.
What must he think of her? How could she have made such an ell from the inch of understanding he had offered her—forcing him to kiss her when nothing could have been further from his thoughts?
They were questions she had asked herself over and over during the night. And now came something else to stab with the insistence of a thorn in a finger—Max Doran’s gibe which had wished her ‘better hunting’. Supposing Daniel had remembered it too, wouldn’t that partly account for the cryptic look he had given her before he had kissed her, simply to save her face, she supposed? At the thought she felt hollow inside.
Coming upon her crouched beside Nash’s body, he had taken her in his arms and at the impulse of a pitying moment had called her ‘Dear’, had stayed with her, talked to her, rallied her. And how had she reacted to his kindness? By clinging, forcing on him the choice of either kissing her or putting her aside. Still being kind, he had kissed her ... but so deliberately, at so little will of his own, that he might almost have slapped her face instead.
Her thoughts went off at a tangent. Why did it rankle so badly? Supposing it had been Bob who had been as kind, who had pitied her as much? If at parting she had made it difficult for Bob not to kiss her, he’d have done so roundly and heartily, and when she was less sore over Nash, he would have reminded her about it and they would have laughed it off together.
Certainly she wouldn’t now be giving a second thought to ‘better hunting’, nor keeping her courage screwed to the point of having to face Bob.
The difference was—it had been Daniel ... Daniel who, in the name of pity, had briefly cut the distance between them, as unwarned as she of the effect of his sympathy and his physical nearness upon her.
Walking fast, as if in flight from her thoughts, she faced the truth. When she had flung herself into his arms a second time, it hadn’t been at all that she dreaded his leaving her to her grief, which would last long beyond a night. It had been because in a mad, heady moment, she had wanted, willed him to kiss her, ached to know the touch of his mouth on hers, to have it to remember when he held her at professional arm’s length again.
To remember! She must have been out of her mind! To live down, to forget, to bury fathoms deep, rather! And certainly, if the look he had thrown her were anything to go by, he would see they both did just that. His note of this morning, as terse as a memo, had said as much. Incident closed.
He had an early afternoon class on Fridays and did not return to his study until shortly before Ira Cusack and her chief were due. At a minute or two to three o’clock he buzzed for Verity, but was at her door before she had time to collect her notepad and pencil.
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br /> ‘I’d just realized you mightn’t be here. But as you are, I’d like you to sit in and take some notes on this meeting,’ he said, and stood aside for her to go ahead of him. In his study he scrutinized her set face briefly. ‘Are you feeling a little more yourself now?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘Yes, thank you. I’m all right.’
And Martin came and did everything you wanted?’
‘Yes. It was good of you to realize I’d need help.’ Momentarily Verity was tempted to finish the broken apology she had begun last night. But pride and belated dignity kept her silent. She could take a hint and be as formal as he. Between them they were repudiating all their closeness of the small hours, but if his intention was to help her to forget the piece of folly with which she had spoiled it, she must meet him halfway. Their everyday relationship had to go on, after all.
Their visitors were punctual and, considering she had been in the wrong, Ira Cusack made a graceful job of accepting Daniel’s apology for their abortive trip of the previous day.
She smiled at him archly. ‘I’ve jumped the gun this time,’ she announced. ‘I’ve packed a toothbrush and I propose to camp with Jane for as long as necessary, as from tonight. So now say No to us if you dare, High Master! Oh, and I’ve a message from Jane. Will you dine with us at West House this evening?’
‘If Mrs. Lytton will excuse me, I’d like to,’ Daniel told her, then turned to Guy Tabor. ‘Now, if you could outline your proposals, perhaps we could discuss them?’ he invited.
Guy Tabor came to life and as he talked he dispelled Verity’s first impression of him. He might let Ira manage his social contacts for him, but he was completely master of his job and his enthusiasm for it was infectious. Watching and listening as she took notes, Verity changed her opinion to see them as a near-perfect team—he the artist, Ira the realist—and wondered why Ira was considering leaving him or why he was allowing her to go.
Presently he asked to be shown over the school and grounds and Ira and Daniel went with him. Verity returned to her office and saw him leave later without Ira. Daniel, she did not see again except when he looked in to their sitting-room to tell her mother he would not be in to dinner.