by Susan Barrie
The kitchen clock ticked away the minutes and Lisa went on talking until at last she noticed that Virginia was not only looking white and strained, but that she seemed to be hardly listening. She put it down to the fact that she must be very tired and suggested that as their mother and father were likely to be late she should go to bed, and Lisa would sit up and wait for them and let them know about her return.
“They’ll be thrilled to bits to know you’re back,” she said. “Daddy’s missed you terribly.”
And Virginia felt glad of one thing at least, and that was that she was home and that on the following day she would see both her parents, and in particular her father, who had always seemed to understand her better than anyone else.
But although her mother and father gave her a really warm welcome home and Lisa was plainly delighted to have her back, Virginia found settling down at home again the most difficult thing she had ever attempted in her life.
It wasn’ t that her affection for her own people had lessened while she was away, but other interests absorbed her mind to such an extent that she could think of nothing else. She began to be afraid that all her life she would be haunted by the image of one man; that try as she would she would not be able to forget him, and that the ordinary things in life would remain perpetually without any sort of savor for her.
When Lisa asked her to go shopping with her she found it impossible to work up any enthusiasm for lengths of material or displays of gossamer underwear. Household linens, brocades for curtains, antique furniture, none of these things could hold her attention for long. She followed Lisa from counter to counter, in store after store and felt as if she were being propelled by something purely mechanical, and as if her ability to appreciate anything had died completely. Even the beauty of the Brussels lace wedding veil, which had belonged to their grandmother and which Lisa was planning to wear, passed Virginia by.
When Clive came up from Buckinghamshire he took her and Lisa out and she tried to show some signs of appreciation when he planned a particularly entertaining outing as a mark of his gratitude for that evening when she had dined with him and his father, thereby softening his father’ s attitude toward him.
They went to a theater, and then on to a nightclub. It should have been a bright and sparkling evening because Lisa seemed so entirely without care and Clive was so proud that she wore his ring, but Virginia had so little life in her that the other two began gradually to be affected by her attitude and the evening was not a success.
When Lisa tried to talk to her about Switzerland and the friends she had made there, Virginia withdrew so determinedly into her shell that Lisa could find out nothing of what had happened to her after she left. But Lisa at least had a shrewd idea, though she hoped against hope that she was mistaken.
Her mother and father began to be anxious about her and to show it, but even her father, close to her though he had always been, could draw nothing out of her, The Swiss experiment had been just an experiment, she said, and now it was over she would take a few weeks’ holiday until Lisa was married and then go back to her old job in the city if it was still open to her.
A week before Christmas her two brothers came home from school and the apartment became a hive of preparations for the festive season. Holly and evergreens went up above the pictures and the hall was festooned with paper streamers. Virginia had always been popular with the boys and she did her best to enter into their excited holiday spirit and to forget this hollow, empty feeling inside her, which made her despise herself sometimes because she felt that in not being able to fight it she was lamentably weak. Mrs. Holt began to make preparations for Christmas in the kitchen and Lisa helped her, but Virginia’s assistance was not the thing it had been once when she would have enjoyed every moment of that grand seasonal baking.
When, without making it too noticeable she would get away from her family, she took to wandering alone around the streets, avoiding the gaily decorated shop windows, All that she could think of was the Hotel Grunwald away up in the mountains where she had once spent a blissfully happy day with Leon Hanson and the preparations that would be going on there for Christmas.
No doubt Dr. Hanson was back there by now and Carla, of course, would be with him. The show would have hardened and the skiers would be having a wonderful time, and at night they would dance in the hotel ballroom.
Very likely Carla would persuade Dr. Hanson to announce their engagement at Christmas, and like Lisa and Clive they might be married early in the new year. It was what their friends expected.
Torturing herself in this way it was no wonder that everybody found her changed. But despite the change she did not forget what was due to people who had been kind to her; she forced herself to go shopping, and, in addition to presents for all the members of her own family she bought toys for Peter and Paula that she dispatched to them in gaily wrapped parcels, an exquisite hand-painted scarf for Mary Van Loon, and some choice lace handkerchiefs for Madame d’ Auvergne that cost her far more than she could really afford, but which of all the presents she was the happiest to send.
For when she had told Leon Hanson that she had grown fond of his aunt she had meant it. She sent rather a wistful little note containing all her gratitude with the handkerchiefs. and Madame d’ Auvergne would be touched when she received it.
She went out to post all her Swiss parcels on the same day, a day when the skies were lowering and rain fell steadily. She put on an old raincoat and tied her hair up in a head scarf. When she came out of the post office she decided to walk back to the apartment despite the weather, because all her family had gone out and she would be alone until supper time.
By the time she reached the apartment the rain had found its way even into her shoes and the head scarf was completely soaked. But she was hardly aware of these discomforts and certainly did not recognize them as discomforts, because she was far away in thought with her recently dispatched parcels, following them on their journey to Switzerland.
Just as she reached the top of the steps that led up to the front door of the tall house in which she lived, a taxi drew up at the curb. A man alighted, paid the taxi driver and then turned and looked up at her where she stood on the steps. Something had made her pause and turn her head, and all at once she was certain that she must be dreaming, for those dark eyes beneath the brim of that soft felt hat were so wonderfully familiar.
He moved quickly up the steps until he stood beside her. Without any ceremony he grasped her wrist and dragged her up against him. He said, his voice intensely brusque, “This is where you live, isn’ t it?”
“Yes.” But her voice was a mere thread of sound that escaped her without her own volition.
“Then go inside and change out of those soaking wet things and join me again as soon as you’ve put on something dry. I’ll get another taxi and then we’re going somewhere where we can talk.”
She was quite sure now that she was dreaming.
“There’s no one at home,” she said. “Would you like to come in?” He hesitated for a moment, but for a moment only and then he shook his head.
“No. I’ d like to meet your parents later on, but for the present I want to talk to you. Now hurry!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
When she joined him again she was wearing a camel’s hair coat and a little blue velvet cap like a blue velvet leaf on the back of her soft brown curls. She wore hardly any makeup and she looked pale.
Dr. Hanson had engaged another taxi and was waiting to open the door of it for her. As soon as she was inside he gave some instructions to the driver and then got in beside her and closed the door. She seemed to shrink away from him into her corner of the cab.
Dr. Hanson looked out at the rain and the passersby and the general murk and his dark brows met in a frown. He observed rather shortly to Virginia, “It’s a very bad climate that you have.”
“I know.” The taxi was rounding a corner and she had to grip the seat hard to prevent herself being flung up ag
ainst him. “It’ s very unpleasant today. ”
“And yet you walk about in it as if you enjoyed it! Do you make a habit of strolling about the streets in a downpour like this getting soaked through almost to the skin? And is there no member of your family who can prevent you from behaving so foolishly?”
Virginia tried to excuse herself and her family.
“We don’ t think very much of getting a little wet. And I was wearing a raincoat. ”
He frowned harder than ever, but he still did not turn and look directly at her.
“It is obvious that you require someone to look after you!”
The taxi gave a second, more violent jolt than the first and this time she could not prevent herself from being flung rather forcibly against him. She clutched instinctively at his thick tweed coat and then gave a little gasp as his arms imprisoned her. His voice spoke roughly into her ear, “I swore that I would punish you for making us both so desperately unhappy, but now that I’ve got you there’s only one thing I can bear to do to you and I’ m going to do it now! ” When he had kissed her on the bridge in the little pine wood there had been a certain gentleness about the kiss, although it was also determined; but this kiss contained no gentleness and it not only bruised her lips, but it drew, or seemed to draw, all the breath out of her body. It was completely demanding and there was an unrestrained hunger in it that was no greater than the hunger she had known for him. It rendered her so entirely helpless that all she could do was cling to him with her cold, ungloved fingers while the taxi sped on over the slippery, wet, shining surface of the road. The rain teemed down on all sides of them and the dusk of evening descended like a mantle over London.
At last Virginia’ s head went back against his shoulder and her little blue velvet cap fell off, but still his mouth refused to leave her mouth and their hearts thundered against one another. The taxi swayed, slowed, jerked almost to a standstill and then went on again, and at last, although very reluctantly, he lifted his head. Virginia gazed back into his eyes, so close to her own, and never in all her wildest dreams had she imagined those brilliant dark depths so filled with undisguised passion and adoring love as they were in this moment of breathless reality.
“Virginia! ” he exclaimed in a voice that shook. “Oh, Virginia, my darling, my little love! ”
Virginia could say nothing, but the expression in her eyes in that half-lit taxi was more than sufficient to tell him all he needed to know. He drew her head down into the hollow of his neck and his fingers entwined themselves in her soft brown hair; he whispered to her endearments that shook her to her very soul, and he kissed her again with a lingering tenderness that had nothing to do with that first desperate claiming of her lips.”
Virginia put up a shaking hand to caress his cheek and he caught it and held it against his lips.
“Virginia, why did you run away like that and leave me without any clue as to why you had gone? If it hadn’t been for Aunt Heloise I might not have found out even yet. ”
“Did she tell you?” Virginia whispered into his neck. “But she didn’t know—”
“Oh, yes, she did! Mary Van Loon told her, for one thing, and for another, she didn’t really need any telling, because she’s always understood you far better than I have! I’ ve never been able to be certain how you felt, although I’ ve loved you—adored you—from the beginning! ”
A look of complete wonderment appeared on Virginia’ s face as she lifted it to gaze at him, and she struggled up in his arms because this was something she found it almost impossible to believe.
“From the—beginning ...?”
“Yes, my darling, from the moment that great, hulking lump of a fellow swung the door of the dining room back into your face at the Milano and brought up that bump on your head. Although I think as a matter of fact, the sight of you even before that, sitting alone at that table not far away from me, decided me that the one thing I really wanted in life was you and that if it was humanly possible I’d got to have you! You were so small and adorable and so shy and lovely that I think I could have swept you up then and there and defied anybody and everybody to take you from me! ”
“Oh! ” Virginia exclaimed, breathing ecstatically as she sank back against him. “And I thought I thought that it was Miss Spengler! ”
“Carla? Why should you think things like that about Carla?”
“Because everyone said you would marry her! ”
He appeared mildly surprised.
“Carla and I have known one another since our earliest years but I’ m quite sure she has never been in love with me, and I know that I have never been in love with her! We are good friends and I hope we shall continue to be good friends, although at the moment she is thinking of marrying a rich American and he will probably take her away from Switzerland. If you had not run away as you did you would have met this American during the Christmas holidays for he will be staying at the Grunwald and perhaps if you saw the two of them together you might agree with me that Carla has never had any serious thoughts of me.”
“And you don’ t mind her marrying another man?”
“Mind?” He appeared so genuinely puzzled that the floodgates of her relief were suddenly opened wide. “Why should I mind?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “except that I thought—”
“What you thought,” he told her, putting his fingers under her chin and lifting it so that he could gaze at her with all his adoration in his eyes, “was nothing to what I thought and felt when you told me that night of the dance at the Grunwald that you were going to marry Clive Maddison! ”
“But I never said I was going to marry Clive! I said I had got to be at home for the wedding—Lisa’s wedding!”
“Yes, I know now, sweetheart, but you didn’t make it very clear to me at the time! And I had planned to ask you to marry me that night! It was why I asked you all up to the hotel—”
“Oh, Leon! ” She turned an anguished face to him and clung to him. “If only I had known! ”
“That’s the first time you’ve called me by name,” he murmured softly, stroking her hair. “And I like the sound of it on your lips! Virginia, beloved, you spent so much time trying to make me believe that you didn’t care in the least for me, and if it hadn’t been for Aunt Heloise I would be in the dark still. But surely now you can tell me—how much you love me?”
“I love you better than anything else in life,” Virginia replied to him with a passionate quiver in her voice.
“And I love you better than life itself! ”
The taxi driver had been carrying out his instructions and cruising aimlessly up and down streets that were becoming decidedly monotonous, and all at once he decided to bring the taxi to a standstill. He slid back the glass partition that separated him from his passengers and in a patient voice he inquired without turning his head, “And where to now, sir?” Dr. Hanson looked down at Virginia, a sudden quizzical gleam in his eyes.
“I suppose it would be a good plan if we went somewhere and had something to eat?”
“I’m not in the least hungry,” she assured him.
“All the same, you strike me as being thinner than when I saw you last, and if we can’ t eat we can at least talk. In any case we can’ t expect this fellow to drive us over half of London for no specific reason. ” He leaned forward and spoke to the taxi driver, and when he lay back against the seat again he drew Virginia back into the close circle of his arm. “We’ re neither of us dressed for the haunts of the fashionable, so I’ ve told him to take us to a little place I know of where we will at least be left in peace to enjoy a good meal if we want one.”
“You seem to be very familiar with London,” she murmured to him shyly.
“Oh, I spent quite a while over here doing part of my training and I frequently find an excuse to visit London when I can spare the time.” He laid his cheek against her hair. “This time the excuse was you, you heartless runaway! ”
Virginia was suddenly con
science stricken.
“I’ ve interfered with all your Christmas arrangements! You should now have been at the Grunwald! ”
“Never mind my Christmas arrangements and the Grunwald. I’ ve far more important things to discuss with you,” he told her.
And when they were seated facing one another in a cozy corner of a quiet little restaurant where the service was excellent and the food even better—if they had felt like food, which neither of them did—and he started to discuss those important things with her, she began to wonder whether she was living in a dream or whether this was indeed reality. For not only did he take it for granted that she would marry him, but he informed her that he was seeing her parents that night to request their permission to marry her without any delay whatsoever.
“But—but that’s impossible!” Virginia exclaimed. “Lisa is getting married in January and we’ll have to wait—”
“It doesn’t matter when Lisa is getting married,” he replied coolly. “Her affairs are not really our concern.”
“Then perhaps we could be married at the same time?” she suggested, looking at him with adorable shyness because the mere thought of actually becoming his wife was almost more than she could believe.
“Certainly not! Aunt Heloise advised me to marry you the very instant I set foot in England—or the instant I ran you to earth again—and that’ s what I intend to do! I’ve very little time to spare and if you think I’m waiting until you’ve collected a trousseau and invited hordes of relatives to attend our wedding ceremony, then I’ m afraid you’ ll have to stop thinking along those lines! ” She was up against his old arrogance, but this time it wasn’ t merely arrogance; she could tell by the set of his lips as he faced her across the table that his mind was unalterably made up—unless, of course, she flatly refused to have anything to do with his arrangements! But when he looked directly at her and placed one of his hands over hers where it rested on the white tablecloth and she felt the strength and vitality of it, she knew that whatever he decided she would agree to without raising any opposition of a really obstructive kind. “You do want to belong to me, don’t you? And I can’t altogether trust you, as you’ve run away from me once! ”