by Susan Barrie
Lucy had a last glimpse of Lise being whirled around by a giant in leather shorts supported by ornamental braces, with a Tyrolean hat on his blond head and an enormous feather stuck in the hat. Gretel also was about to take the floor with one of the hotel guests, and Frau Wern was standing looking on with the widest, most satisfied smile on her face Lucy had yet seen on it.
There was no doubt about it, everyone was enjoying themselves immensely, but Lucy felt almost confused by the noise and the shouts and the laughter, and she was glad to sink into the huge basket chair Dr. Wern pulled forward for her. He bent over her as if she was one of his patients who had collapsed, and suggested fetching her something cooling to drink, but she declined to allow him to do anything of the kind.
“I shall be quite all right if I can only sit here for a few minutes and get cool,” she said. She smiled at him apologetically. “It was hot in there, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose it was.”
He had not taken a chair himself, but was leaning against one of the carved supporting posts of the veranda. He looked very slender and graceful in the dim light—there was only one very subdued electric bulb lighting the veranda—and very dark and sleek, like so many of his countrymen, unless they happened to favor the blond giant who was dancing with Lise.
Outside, a moon that was approaching its full made a wonder of the snow, and the sky was full of brilliantly blazing stars as well. It was a sky that was deep and dark like velvet, and although they were protected by the thick plate glass that formed one side of the veranda from the freezing cold without, Lucy felt oddly conscious that outside the cold was so fierce that it might crackle and hiss—just as those faraway, diamond-bright stars might also crackle and hiss if only one was near enough to hear them doing so—if one was suddenly exposed to it. A dazzling white light from the snow fell across one side of Rupprecht Wern’s face, and let Lucy see that, despite her assurance that she was absolutely all right, he was still watching her a trifle anxiously.
Perhaps it was because she looked rather small in the big cane chair, and her eyes looked large and faintly luminous in the pure, pale oval of her face, and everything about her was delicate and slightly fragile.
Although she had chosen nursing as a career, she had never had a great deal of stamina, and exhaustion had welled over her many times in the past when she had had to put up with it, and draw upon what little reserves were left to her. Now there was a tiny bead of perspiration on her upper-lip, and she wiped it away with a wisp of lace handkerchief, but the dark shadows under her eyes remained.
Dr. Wern suddenly drew up a chair beside her and sat down close to her.
“If I opened one of these windows you would die of cold,” he told her. “But I think you’ll feel much better in a few moments.”
“I’m feeling much better already,” she assured him, smiling at him.
He leaned a little toward her with his hands clasped between his knees, a grave expression on his handsome dark face.
“Tell me,” he said, rather urgently, “you do like it here, don’t you? You are quite happy here?”
Lucy’s smile became more completely natural.
“Like it?” she echoed. “Why, I’m having an absolutely wonderful time—a more wonderful time than I’ve ever had in my life before! Fm not much good as a skier, yet, but I get an enormous thrill out of my abortive efforts to skim the top of the valley! And the air here is so sparkling and pure, everything has a quality of beauty I’ve never met with before, and your mother and sisters are so charming and so really kind. They look after Miranda and me in a way I’m sure we don’t in the least deserve.”
“That is good!” he exclaimed, his voice as grave as his looks. “But as for your deserving my mother’s and sisters’ care—anyone who knew you both would never be able to do enough for either of you!”
He looked down at his hands—those long-fingered, supple surgeon’s hands that had performed such miracles for Miranda, and he flexed them in the moonlight, and gravely inspected his fingertips.
“When you were in Vienna I was so sorry that I was unable to take you around and show you more that I would like you to see. It happened to be a very busy time, and I’m afraid you were often bored while you were at the clinic.”
This was not really true, because Lucy had insisted after Miranda’s operation was over, and everyone knew it was going to be a success, that she be permitted to undertake a few light tasks that would at least lessen some of the work of the regular nurses, and in the end she was actually acting as a kind of relief when one of them was off duty or on the sick list. “But perhaps someday you will return, and then I will have an opportunity to introduce you properly to our capital.”
He lifted his dark eyes and met hers fully, and there was a faintly pleading look in his.
“I ... perhaps so,” Lucy murmured, becoming interested in the design of her lace-edged handkerchief.
“Miranda will need you out here for a while yet,” he told her, leaning even nearer, “but when the time comes that you can return to England—will you, do you think, return there?”
Lucy looked a little confused as the question was put to her.
“I ... why, I ... why, yes, I expect so,” she murmured.
“There are, perhaps, great ties in your country that draw you?”
Lucy shook her head. In all honesty she had to admit that there were no ties—except Kathleen, her sister, and Kathleen, after all, was married to Clifford, and their interests were not exactly hers. In any case, they could exist without her. But it was a lonely thing to have to admit that there were no real ties in one’s own native land that could draw one back to it, and as the picture of Sir John suddenly intruded before her eyes—coming between her and the moonlit world without—her voice took on the merest suspicion of a tremble as she confessed that she was really free to do whatever she liked.
Rupprecht Wern’s keen ears did not miss the tremble, and he looked at her with sudden keenness.
“It is out of my province to say this,” he murmured, “but it is obvious that you will marry one day, and the ties will be there!”
“But not necessarily in England,” she said.
“No!” He caught her up quickly. “Not necessarily in England!”
Peals of laughter reached their ears, escaping from the distant lounge, and then the noise of feet approaching them warned them that in a few moments they would no longer be completely alone together. Someone else was feeling the need of a little coolness—probably one or two of the hotel guests—and Dr. Wern bent quickly and held out his hands to assist Lucy to her feet. As he drew her upward out of the basket chair her slender body almost rested against him for a moment, and his arms held her lightly.
For a single instant she wished that he would draw her right into his arms, blot out that tantalizing picture of Sir John that haunted her all the time these days, by bending his head quickly and claiming the soft red lips that were partly upturned to him as he held her. And then, perhaps....
But Rupprecht Wern was not the type to take advantage of an odd though infinitely tempting moment. He did, however, look deep into her eyes before the others came upon them, and he told her in a voice that was deep and quiet and moving, “If you ever decide to send out roots—in Austria—I hope that you will let me know.”
Lise came swinging through the door into the veranda and behind her were several other young people all still obviously moved by the infectious spirit of the dance. Lise put her hands on her broad hips and surveyed her brother and Lucy with laughing, audacious, brown eyes.
“Don’t tell me that you two have no desire to dance!” she said. “Why, it’s absurd to waste time out here when you can have real fun indoors. Come, now, Lucy—!” lately she had taken, as had her sister and mother, to calling the little English nurse they liked so much by her Christian name “—and you, too, Rupprecht! Come back with us and dance!”
Dr. Wern looked at Lucy, and all at once she felt a
spirit of something like recklessness enter into her. Rested, and temporarily fresh again, she could see no reason why—if he wished it—they should not dance together, even though it was not the kind of dancing to which she was accustomed. She smiled at Lise—and then she smiled at him.
“Very well,” she said, “if you would like me to....”
Rupprecht Wern became happy himself all at once. He took Lucy’s arm and led her back to the lounge, brought her a glass of wine that put one or two more stars into her eyes, and then for nearly two hours they joined in the tremendous merriment that everyone was having there, while the musicians excelled themselves in the gallery, and only paused to accept refreshments.
When she went up to bed at last Lucy was strangely detached and happy, and forgetful of everything save the fact that for one evening at least one man had looked at her as if she could make or mar his world for him. She even thought that it would be a tremendous pity if his world had to be marred, and she deliberately, as she took off the red dress and caught that faint odor of a perfume she had once used and that took her back to Vienna and a certain night when she thought she was near to being absolutely happy, shut her ears to the sound of Sir John’s cold, clipped voice saying good-night to her outside the door of the clinic.
Sir John and Lynette Harling, the celebrated ballerina.... Was there any reason why he should even pretend to be interested in her? Or why she should spare him a thought—the anguished kind of thoughts she had been in the habit of sparing him lately...?
And then, as at last she climbed into bed, she knew unhappily that there was.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dr. Went had decided to take one of his rare holidays, and to the delight of his mother and sisters he announced that he might remain with them for a week or longer if no urgent message was received that would call him back to his clinic in Vienna.
Lucy, when she knew that he was going to stay at the Hotel Arlberg for several days at least, was really pleased, and Miranda of course was delighted. Her delight was so transparent that it amused everyone, but Rupprecht Wern himself was obviously touched by it.
In the first few days of his stay he taught Lucy to ski; not well enough to skim the top of the valley, but enough to avoid turning turtle into snowdrifts at every available opportunity. She began to gain confidence when she was on skis, and to enjoy the pastime almost as much as he did, which was something she had imagined she never would do when she first started to learn.
Miranda watched them from her balcony, but her limbs were not strong enough yet to allow her to do anything so venturesome as try to ski, although she was impatient for the moment when she could make the attempt. She was permitted brief daily walks that were being gradually extended, and she could already make her own way around the quaint, rambling hotel, and was always welcomed with open arms in the kitchen when she put her head around the door. Frau Wern would set down an enormous glass of milk in front of her on which the cream was several inches deep, and there would be spiced cakes from the oven, or a bowl of preserves and a hot, crunchy roll.
Miranda felt very much like the king of the castle in those days, and she was enjoying the position immensely. She was quite happy for Lucy to go off and improve her skiing under the expert direction of her adored Rupprecht, and if she nursed in her head any persistent secret wish that their acquaintance, thus daily improved, might end in her favorite scheme at the moment, she kept it to herself. Although Lise and Gretel, she felt sure, had no objections to welcoming Lucy into their really intimate family circle, and she had overheard Frau Wern observing to her daughters, with rather a sigh in the words, that she hoped she would acquire a daughter-in-law before she died, since it was plain that she was not likely ever to possess a son-in-law.
As for Lucy, during those days of rather exhilarating freedom, she was attacked by a most unusual spirit of carefree determination to make the most of them, and as on the night of the dance an even fiercer determination to put away from her all wistful hankerings after even a brief little note from Sir John—if it was in his own handwriting—and to try to think of him only as her employer.
It was obvious that he thought of her only as an employee! His last letter to Miranda, which accompanied an enormous box of chocolates and a leather writing case, had not even requested her to convey his kind regards to Nurse Nolan, which he sometimes did. It had ignored Lucy altogether. And as a postscript he had added the information that the chocolates were from Miss Harling.
Miranda had surveyed the expensive box of chocolates, with the wide satin ribbon that was looped around it, with a distinctly unchildlike look of distaste, and had suggested to Lucy that she might like to be made the possessor of it.
“I’m not all that fond of chocolates,” she said, “and you are.”
Lucy shot her a shrewd look. There was no doubt about it, Miranda, for all her fragile appearance, was a small person of strong views. If she carried these views on into her future life, and Sir John made Lynette Lady Ash, and therefore, Miranda’s stepmother—as Lucy was quite certain he would before very long—then Miranda’s future, even though she had regained the use of her legs, might be stormy—perhaps very stormy.
“If I were you,” she said suddenly, “I’d give the chocolates to Frau Wern. It would look like a little mark of appreciation, and I’m sure she’d love them.”
“And neither you nor I would have to eat them!” Miranda observed, with a sudden rather wicked little grin.
Lucy did not grin back at her—for she felt oddly humorless just then—but she watched Miranda depart for the kitchen with approval. The sight of that ornate gilt casket containing an assortment of highly priced confectionery had done something to her that was more or less equivalent to having the breath knocked out of her. It told her that every time she tried to thrust Sir John out of her thoughts she was merely indulging in a form of hollow pretense, and if she had needed evidence that the beautiful ballerina was still strongly in favor, it had arrived that morning!
When she went out to join Dr. Wern on the sparkling snow slopes, in the brilliant sunshine, she was looking somewhat graver than usual, and there was something else about her expression that caused him to look at her rather keenly for a moment; then almost at once he looked away. If he had deduced that something rather special was troubling her he said nothing, only knelt down in the snow to fasten the strap of one of her skis, and then told her that that morning they were going to make for a chalet a little less than halfway down the valley, and that he was expecting to see some evidence now that she really was becoming an expert skier.
Lucy smiled at him, just a trifle wanly, and he smiled back, but with something encouraging in his smile. She gave him her hand, as she always did when they started off, and after that the exhilaration of the movement and the spectacular perfection of the morning did the rest. When she returned to the hotel at lunchtime she was sparkling and aglow, with a color in her cheeks that made her eyes seem positively brilliant, and as blue as the absurd wool cap she wore on her dark curls. She had had more than one tumble in the snow, and she was shaking it from her blue windbreaker as she ascended the steps to the hotel, and in her dark blue trousers that were tucked into the tops of her heavy ski boots she looked very slim and young and graceful.
The comparative dimness of the hotel lounge made her blink her eyes, and then she looked again. It was Sir John who was seated in one of the comfortable chairs beside a little table that bore a tray of coffee. He was turning the pages of a magazine when she entered with Dr. Wern behind her, but he stood up slowly as she came to a halt and stared at him—plainly unable to believe that her eyes were not playing her tricks.
“Sir John!” Lucy exclaimed at last, as he stood with his straight and rather rigid back to the stove, still wearing the tailored garments in which he had traveled from England, and which made him look very correct just then. His eyes had a curiously veiled expression. But he held out his hand to her.
“How do you do, Nurs
e Nolan?” he said.
She had the feeling, as he clasped her hand, warm as a piece of toast when she removed it from her glove, that his greeting was not really a friendly one—not a warmly friendly one, that is. There was something repressed about both his voice and his manner, and even when he turned to Dr. Wern and smiled at him slightly—for at least he could never forget what he owed to him, and what Miranda owed to him—the air of faint hauteur was still there. Both Lucy and Dr. Wern were strongly conscious of it.
But Dr. Wern put forth his hand and grasped Sir John’s as if he was really pleased to see him, and Lucy exclaimed, a little weakly, “But, why—why didn’t you let us know that we could expect you, Sir John? Miranda would have been thrilled.... Oh, this really is a surprise!”
“I rather gathered that,” Sir John replied, and although his firm teeth were revealed in another of his faint smiles, his eyes remained unsmiling. “But if I’d warned you that I was coming you might possibly have remained in until I arrived, and that would have prevented you from enjoying some splendid exercise. As it is, I see that you’ve been having a first-class morning.”