by Susan Barrie
As Lucy watched the car move off—an impressive car even though it was now enclosed by other impressive cars making for the heart of London—she thought, with the faintest feeling of wonder, that Sir John, in whose company she had passed practically the whole of that day, would now lie back in his corner of his swift-running modern chariot and put her right out of his thoughts. If he had not done so already!
But at the back of her mind he lingered like something she was not certain of—like something she even mistrusted a little!
Kathleen, her sister, had just returned to the apartment after a shopping expedition, and she flung her arms around Lucy and hugged her as if she, at least, was really pleased to see her. She was a couple of years older than Lucy and was completely captivating, with something of Lucy’s own dark-haired, blue-eyed attractiveness and a great deal more of her own besides, a husband who was a barrister beginning to receive quite a lot of briefs, and her apartment, although small, was charming.
“Well, darling, and how’s Tiberius?” she inquired, when they were having tea. “I’m surprised that he let you come away like this, especially if he wants you to return.”
“Tiberius?” Lucy wrinkled her brows.
“Yes, your Sir John Ash! From the remarks you let drop about him in your letters he’s wallowing in money, but has quite a lot in common with that nasty Roman emperor. He orders the lives of everyone with whom he comes in contact, has no pity to waste on his invalid daughter, and no mercy, I should imagine, for anyone! I don’t know why I think of him as Tiberius, but I do.”
Lucy turned the name over in her mind and decided that in a way it could fit. But was Sir John merciless? How would he react if anyone definitely tried to oppose him in any one thing that affected him closely?
“But let’s not talk about him,” Kathleen continued, with a habit she had of sweeping from one subject to another. “I’m so glad you’ve arrived tonight, darling, because Clifford has tickets for the new show at the Colossus, and he was wondering what to do with the spare one. They were presented to him by a grateful client.” She grinned wickedly. “His clients are usually grateful, which is all to the good, isn’t it?”
“But don’t you think you’d rather be alone—just the two of you?” Lucy demurred, feeling rather too tired after her journey to view the prospect of an evening’s entertainment with unalloyed pleasure. “I’m sure you’d rather leave me behind.”
“Certainly not!” Kathleen declared firmly. “And after your prolonged period of incarceration in the benighted north, I’m quite sure that what you need is something to take you out of yourself, something to get you right away from your everlasting invalids!”
“A book and a good radio program—” Lucy was beginning. But Kathleen wouldn’t hear of it.
“Nonsense! You’re coming with us.”
“But I haven’t got a really suitable dress. My clothes are practically at their last gasp, and that’s why tomorrow I’ll have to whip around and do some shopping—”
“Then I’ll lend you a dress! I’ve got a heavenly blue organza that was simply made to throw up the color of your eyes, and there’s an adorable sequin-studded stole to go with it that is absolutely the last word! Come with me to the bathroom now, and I’ll give you one of my new miracle face packs—not that there’s much wrong with your skin, but one can always improve matters. And I’ll set your hair, and after that you can linger for a full half hour in the bath, with a spoonful of my new French bath essence thrown in to take the weariness out of your limbs. Believe me, you won’t know yourself once I’ve finished with you!”
Which was not by any means an empty boast, for by the time Lucy was dressed and standing in front of her mirror she could hardly believe that the vision that looked back at her was herself. The dress was ballerina length, and it displayed her slender ankles—in a pair of Kathleen’s sheer, cobwebby hose—to perfection. Her shoes were silver gilt sandals that felt like feathers on her feet.
When she gazed at her complexion she felt inclined to stroke it and pat it admiringly, for it reminded her of the smooth sides of a peach, lightly dusted with powder.
The thought crossed her mind that Miranda, if she saw her now, would almost certainly express the utmost approval, and the thought made her smile rather tenderly. Dear little Miranda! Shut away in the lonely, lovely house of Ketterings. She must buy something amusing to take back to her, something that would make her laugh.
The evening was an entire success, although Lucy enjoyed the spectacle of the show rather than the subtleties of wit, and so forth, for she was in that state of mental relaxation when it was enough simply to lie back and allow her eyes to provide her with her entertainment.
During the interval she looked around her idly and then stiffened at the sight of a face she knew amongst a line of other faces in the expensive seats near to her. It was a man’s face, thin, with rather a dark skin, and slightly sardonic features. His noticeable chin looked more impressive than every by contrast with his white dress tie.
Kathleen, beside her, felt her stiffen, and whispered. “Anything wrong?”
“No.”
“That’s Lynette Harling over there, fifth along in the third row! You know, the ballerina. She’s resting now, owing to a strained ankle or something....”
Lucy did not really need to count along the row, for the face of the exquisitely gowned young woman in the seat beside Sir John was almost as familiar to her as his was—she had come upon it so often in magazines and fashionable journals. There could be only one Lynette Harling, and there she was, with her head flung backward a little disdainfully as she, too, looked around her, and all the lights in the auditorium seemed to be concentrating their attention upon her brilliant red hair. She had dead white skin—it was almost startlingly white under the lights—and her eyes looked heavy and languid. Lucy had read somewhere that they were green as a cat’s.
Sir John turned his head and looked down at her, and she smiled up at him, slowly, seductively. Lucy was amazed by the response in his face—it completely transformed it. The Sir John Ash she and Miranda knew was an entirely different person from the Sir John Ash who was spending the evening in the company of the famous dancer. Not only was his expression almost human, it was miraculously softened, with a look of sweetness around the usually harsh lips.
Kathleen, intrigued by her sister’s attentiveness, bent a keen look on Miss Harling’s escort, and then looked down again at Lucy’s face. Lucy looked as if she could hardly believe the evidence of her eyes.
“Don’t tell me you know the man?” Kathleen whispered, scenting something unusual. Then all at once a ray of light seemed to pour over her. “My goodness!” She clapped a hand to her lips. “Don’t tell me—it isn’t—it can’t be—Tiberius...?”
CHAPTER FIVE
The lights went down for the second half of the performance just as Kathleen received her sudden, blinding flash of intuition. But she did not need Lucy to confirm what she was now quite certain was no more than the truth.
Sir John Ash, her sister’s employer, was also a very close friend—or so it seemed—of Lynette Harling!
As for Lucy, she was now so very wide awake that all her previous sleepy interest in the performance was gone, and she sat up very straight in her seat and peered through the dim light at the row of seats that contained Miranda’s parent. The extraordinariness of the coincidence that had caused him to select, out of all the other varied entertainments in London, this particular show, to which her brother-in-law Clifford had brought her, struck her most forcibly. At the same time, she was so much more than astonished that Sir John—who was so remote and austere, and who she had somehow secretly imagined had an aversion to feminine society—should have the power to make a sought-after young woman like Miss Harling smile up at him beguilingly, that she could hardly take it in.
Although, of course, from Miss Harling’s point of view the head of the famous shipping line was a very decided catch—if she was out to cat
ch him! But a ballerina, even a beautiful ballerina, as someone Sir John might link his life to—as a mother for Miranda—why, that was somehow altogether different!
And yet Lucy could not help recalling that half-finished sentence of his in the library at Ketterings, “As a matter of fact, perhaps I also ought to let you know that I am thinking of—?”
Of what was he thinking? Marriage?
Lucy had decided at the time that by just a remote possibility it could be that, but she had dismissed the idea as unlikely. But now, of course, it seemed clear enough, particularly after she had witnessed the transforming effect of his responsive smile at the lovely Lynette.
But Lucy was disturbed to the very roots of her being. She could only think of Miranda, and the effect such a marriage would have on the life of the small invalid. Miranda had been left lonely and made to feel unwanted for quite a long time now—almost all her short life, in fact—and what sort of impact a stepmother would have on her life remained to be proved only in the future. There were stepmothers who would probably make her life very much happier, considerably happier. But—and Lucy stole another glance at the delicately chiseled and coldly perfect profile of the dancer—was Lynette Harling the type who would want to play stepmother to any child?
“If you get an opportunity to introduce me, do so!” Kathleen whispered urgently when, the show over, they fought their way out of the theater crush.
Lucy was secretly hoping that Sir John would not notice her, for she had a curious feeling of shrinking from making the acquaintance of Miss Harling. But, as luck would have it, the moment they emerged into the vestibule she heard the high, clear tones of a woman behind her, and Sir John’s voice—unmistakable because of its quality of curious but incisive quietness—answered, “This way, Lynette, my dear. I think we can force a path through here!”
Lucy refrained deliberately from looking around, although she started slightly, but Kathleen, determined not to miss such an opportunity, turned her head over her shoulder quickly and exclaimed in a very clear and carrying voice, “Why, Lucy, what’s happened to Cliff?”
She was perfectly well aware that her husband had forged ahead in order to try to secure them a taxi, but that didn’t matter just then. Sir John’s eyes looked down at her—she was, as a matter of fact, blocking his path—and Lucy paused, too, acutely embarrassed.
“Nurse Nolan!” Sir John exclaimed, and one of his dark eyebrows shot upward.
Lucy felt herself coloring profusely, but it did nothing to detract from the charm of her appearance just then. She was carrying her wrap over her arm, and the borrowed blue dress looked almost violet beneath the harshness of the lights. Her eyes were almost violet, too, under those thick, dark eyelashes that Miranda had likened to little curly dark brooms. No doubt it was the effect of the “miracle” face pack, but there was a purity about her complexion that was almost dazzling.
“Sir John! How ... what a coincidence!”
“Yes, isn’t it?” he agreed very quietly.
Kathleen’s voice, light and gay and charming, broke in. “Sir John...? Don’t tell me this is Sir John Ash, Lucy, my dear?” She smiled expansively up at him. “Why, how nice—how very nice to meet you!” and she offered him her hand in the most natural manner in the world.
Sir John appeared to be slightly taken aback, but a faint smile curved his lips as he took in the soigné appearance of the young woman in the sophisticated black dress with the rhinestones patterning the bodice, and the feathers of silken dark fringe, curling gently on her white forehead. Lucy interposed quickly.
“This is my sister, Mrs. Cunningham, Sir John. It is she I am staying with until Monday.”
“I see,” he murmured, with a complete lack of expression in his voice.
And then a feminine voice at his elbow broke in drawlingly, “Am I permitted to be introduced to your friends, John?”
“Why, Lynette, of course!” He turned to her with the smile deepening on his lips and a softened look in his eyes. “But it’s merely that we’ve run into Nurse Nolan, who is in charge of Miranda, and she and her sister must have been inspired by the same ideas as our own when they picked on this show tonight.”
“Then Nurse Nolan manages to combine a certain amount of pleasure with her task of looking after Miranda?”
The cold voice was even more drawling, but Lynette Harling made no attempt to offer even the tips of her fingers to either Lucy or Kathleen. They were fingers that were encased in ice-blue suede gloves, and she wore a shimmering gown of an almost exactly similar color, with a white mink stole protecting her shapely shoulders from the chill of the night air. Her eyes seemed to be more ice-blue than green, as she surveyed Lucy, in particular, with a kind of calculated disdain, and then looked away from her and at the line of glittering cars moving slowly to the front of the theater.
“I think I can see your man Jennings, John,” she exclaimed rather more loudly, as if that was the only thing of importance to her just then. “He’s driving the Bentley, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Sir John answered. “Jennings never fails to arrive at precisely the right moment,” he added.
He cast a glance at the two sisters, one of whom was wishing most earnestly that the entertainment her brother-in-law had obtained seats for had been anything other than the show at the Colossus.
“Can I offer you two a lift anywhere?” he asked, with formal politeness. “If you’re going straight back to your apartment....”
But Kathleen declined the offer with a charming smile.
“No, thank you, my husband is hunting for a taxi for us.”
“Then I hope he’ll be successful. There’s rather a crush.”
“If he isn’t, we’ll walk!” Kathleen declared with bright insouciance.
Sir John studied her for a moment, looked at Lucy again with an expression that baffled her—for she suspected this time that there was a gleam of humor in it—became aware that his lady friend was being assisted into his car by the punctual Jennings, and then bowed slightly.
“Au revoir, then, Nurse Nolan! Make the most of your brief stay in town.”
“I will,” she replied rather foolishly, and stood watching the big car draw away from the curb just as Clifford shouldered his way back to them through the thinning crush with the information that he had commandeered a taxi.
Kathleen gazed at him with a thoughtful gleam in her eyes.
“We’ve made the acquaintance of a charming ballerina,” she told him. “But I think she’s rather more ballerina than charming!”
Which expressed Lucy’s own sentiments about Lynette Harling very neatly.
Lucy did not extend her stay in London beyond a couple of days, but they were days filled with shopping, and therefore, simply flew by. Sunday she did not count as a holiday, because it would have been her free Sunday in any case, and on Monday she returned to Ketterings.
She returned by train, taking a taxi when she reached the junction and arriving at Ketterings in time for tea. It was already set out for her on a little table in her sitting room, and the table had been drawn close to a bright log fire, because there was a decided nip in the evening air. There were new cretonne covers on her sofa and her one deep armchair, and cretonne curtains to match at the tall window opening outwards onto a little balcony overlooking one of the nicest corners of the grounds. Someone had placed fresh flowers in a vase on her writing table, and the smallest tabby kitten she had ever seen in her life was comfortably asleep on the thick skin rug before the fireplace.
Lucy was about to stoop and pick up the kitten when a noise was heard from the corridor, and Miranda propelled herself into the room in her wheelchair, with Fiske beside her. Miranda’s eyes were bright and sparkling, and there was a hectic pink flush on her cheeks.
“Do you like it?” she inquired, before Lucy had a chance even to kiss her. “Do you like the room? We decided to make it all look much nicer for you when you came back, and Mrs. Abbott routed out these covers and curtai
ns and things. The kitten is called Gentian, on account of its eyes, and it’s one of Cherry’s latest litter.” Cherry was the stable cat. “I know you like cats, and Gentian will be company for you, won’t she, when you’re alone in here in the evenings and I’m in bed?”
For an instant Lucy was so touched by this eager thought for her—and the way Miranda’s eyes hung anxiously upon her own—that it brought a lump into her throat, and she found it difficult to answer straightaway. Then, with Gentian perched contentedly upon her shoulder and purring loudly into her ear, she assured Miranda that she was delighted with the new appearance of everything, and Fiske poured out tea for them all, for Miranda had had the forethought to order for three beforehand.
Then, when Miranda had nibbled her way very slowly through one scone, Lucy brought out from her suitcase the present she had purchased for her in London, and Miranda received it ecstatically.
It was a nightdress case in the shape of a penguin, constructed very cleverly of black and white velvet. And it looked so exactly like a business gentleman in a tailcoat, with his hands behind his back, that it had struck Lucy as soon as she saw it as the very thing to bring a smile to Miranda’s lips, and provide an ornament for her severe little bed. Miranda received so much that was expensive—and which often failed to give her any real pleasure—that the unpretentious gift was in two senses of the word a novelty, and Lucy could tell from the way she received it into her hands and gazed at it that it was going to become one of her most prized possessions.