That Tender Feeling

by Dorothy Vernon

  Her door opened after a peremptory warning tap, and Hannah walked in looking very sophisticated in black, a color she tended to favor; and it did enhance her blond beauty. She smelled expensively of Bal à Versailles.

  Ros hoped that Hannah would read the extra brightness in her eyes—that thoughts of Cliff had brought—as party excitement.

  ‘Rosalynd, how lovely you look.’

  ‘So do you, Hannah. But then you always do look gorgeous.’

  They went down together. On these occasions, Ros was inevitably roped in to do the food. But as she hadn’t been on hand, a firm of caterers had been hired. Everything was in order, looking appetizing and decorative on a long buffet table. The sofas and chairs had been pushed against the walls to give more center space for circulating and for a carpet shuffle should anyone get the urge to dance to the background stereo music. The ringing of the doorbell heralded the arrival of the first lot of guests.

  To begin with, people arrived in a trickle, but then everyone seemed to come at once, and the party was in full swing. It wasn’t long before Jarvis came to find her. She had buckled in straightaway, taking round a tray of food, and had stayed chatting with the group that had relieved her of the remaining cocktail snacks. Jarvis took the empty tray from her hand, reared it against the wall, hooked his arm through hers and walked her away to a relatively quiet corner. ‘Where we can talk,’ he said.

  Ros felt there was nothing to talk to Jarvis about, but one or two speculative eyebrows had risen at his approach and subsequent conduct. To make a fuss would have been to refute the ‘parting by mutual consent’ propaganda Jarvis had put around.

  ‘You’re looking exceptionally attractive this evening, Ros,’ he said.

  ‘And you are looking your usual debonair self. But really, Jarvis,’ she said, her party smile firmly in place, ‘is there any purpose in this?’

  ‘What’s the harm in saying hello to an old friend?’

  ‘Hello, old friend. Now I really must help Hannah, so if you’ll excuse me—’

  ‘Running out on me? That’s not very cordial. I see I shall have to take you in hand again.’

  ‘I’m flattered that you should want to, but no.’

  ‘You can’t cancel out what we had so easily, Ros.’

  ‘Can’t I? You did!’

  Choosing to ignore that barb, he said, ‘That damned cottage was at the root of our troubles. You thought more about it than you did of me. All that nostalgic wallowing into your childhood was unhealthy. You should have been concentrating on the future, our future together.’

  ‘We haven’t got one, Jarvis. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You can’t mean that. When you went away, you led me to believe there was a chance that we’d get back together.’

  ‘But later I said that you should consider yourself free. I had to get away to think things over, but I didn’t tie you down to a possibility that might never happen. I think I knew then that it was over between us.’

  ‘I want you back, Ros.’

  ‘It’s no good, Jarvis. Anyway, what about Glenis?’

  ‘We rowed. We aren’t talking now. So you see, you don’t have anything to worry about in that direction. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll behave myself if you’ll give me another chance.’ His lower lip jutted out in the manner of a small chastened boy. In the old days, it had never failed to bring a smile to her mouth, but it did nothing at all for her now.

  ‘I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you and Glenis, because I think you were made for each other.’ She could have said deserved each other. Had he gotten the inflection, or had he been on the verge of turning nasty anyway?

  ‘Have you met someone else?’ he asked sourly.

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted.

  ‘That didn’t take long.’ Two couples were taking advantage of a record that was being played and shuffling in time to the music. Jarvis wasn’t so lacking in perception that he didn’t know she was on the point of walking away from him. ‘Dance?’ he said, a sneer on his handsome mouth as his arm went round her waist, effectively trapping her.

  ‘I don’t want to dance with you.’

  ‘I suppose you’d rather be dancing with him?’ he said, his fingers digging cruelly deep into her flesh.

  ‘Yes. Too true I would!’

  ‘Is it Miles? I always did think his attitude was a bit too fond. And it won’t have taken him long to figure out that there’s more glory in being your husband than your agent. And, after all, he did land the contract for you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Celebrities aren’t usually so modest. The slot you’re doing for television, what else? Miles thinks you’re going somewhere. Can’t blame the guy for making sure he holds on to you.’

  ‘Is that why you wanted me?’ she gasped.

  ‘No, of course not!’ The vehement denial would have had more backing if he’d been able to meet her eyes and if its cutting edge hadn’t been dulled by embarrassment. ‘We were friendly before the television company approached you.’

  ‘Friendly before, yes! But you didn’t propose to me until afterward! I’ve been a bigger fool than I thought,’ she said, dignity masking her dismay. ‘It isn’t any of your business, but it isn’t Miles. His attitude toward me is that of a good friend, which is what he is. Now, will you please release me.’

  Instead of doing as she asked, he tightened his arm around her. It was strange to feel revulsion at close physical contact with a man she had been on the brink of marrying. If they had married, she would have had to submit to more than this unwelcome public fondling, and she realized that she’d had an even luckier escape than she’d thought. Repugnance stiffened her body as his hand slid lower than her waist, and that adverse response made Jarvis angrier still.

  ‘Loosen up, you might enjoy it.’

  ‘I’ll enjoy kicking you on the shins if you don’t stop this.’

  ‘Why should I?’ It must have occurred to Jarvis that he’d burned his boats and had nothing more to lose. ‘You’ve got the kind of body a man likes to warm his hands on. Has he warmed his hands on you yet, Ros? The color of your hair sets my senses on fire—but all there is underneath is ice.’

  ‘Don’t blame me for your shortcomings,’ she was stung to retaliate.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘During our courtship, you convinced me I was cold. It took a man of sensitivity to show me that I’m not.’

  ‘You are cold. You’re incapable of melting.’

  ‘If that’s what you want to think.’

  ‘I can’t believe it! You led me on all that time. You can’t have known him two seconds, because you certainly weren’t two-timing me, and I do believe you’ve slept with him.’

  Ros was regretting drawing out Jarvis. She had attacked his masculinity, and he wasn’t going to let her get away with that. He intended to avenge himself. She wasn’t going to be able to escape without causing an ugly scene. Abhorrent as the idea of that was, she knew she had no other choice.

  She couldn’t believe her good fortune when a hand tapped Jarvis on the shoulder and a male voice said, ‘I’m cutting in.’ By the time he added, ‘Is that all right with you, Miss Seymour?’ Ros was already in Edward Banks’s arms, beaming a smile of gratitude that radiated halfway across the room.

  ‘Ros,’ she said, ‘please call me Ros. I’ll just call you Sir Galahad.’

  He laughed. ‘You looked as if you needed rescuing. He seemed very steamed up.’

  ‘My fault. I baited him, and what’s more I enjoyed doing it.’

  ‘He must have deserved it.’

  ‘He did!’

  ‘That’s emphatic.’

  ‘It still doesn’t excuse me. I very nearly caused a dreadful scene in someone else’s house. Miles would have taken it in stride, but Hannah would have been horrified.’

  ‘Hannah?’

  ‘Miles’s sister.’ Assuming that he had merely lost sight of their hostess for a moment, Ros sa
id, ‘She’s over there, looking her usual lovely self. Between the man in the blue velvet jacket and the girl in red. Do you see her?’

  ‘Ah . . .yes!’

  ‘Blondes always look fantastic in black, don’t you think?’

  ‘Not all blondes, but that one certainly does.’ His eyes were full of lively appreciation. ‘Hannah is a very striking woman.’

  When the record ended. Miles appeared. ‘Edward, my dear fellow, I’m afraid I’m neglecting my duties as a host. I haven’t introduced you to anyone yet. If I may drag you away from Ros, I’ll take you on the rounds. Hopefully, I won’t flounder. In a crush like this, names get evasive, and I get confused over who are our friends and who are friends’ friends. At this time of the year, people seem to have house guests, and I always say, “bring them with you.” The more the merrier is my motto.’

  Miles’s air of discomfort on meeting Edward earlier in the day was considerably less noticeable, yet there was still something that puzzled her. Just before they walked away, Miles’s eyes seemed to flash a message at her that she couldn’t understand. She must remember to ask him what it was all about.

  At a later point in the evening, as she was talking to Hannah, Ros was amused to see Hannah looking at Edward Banks with the same kind of approving interest in her eye that had been in his when he’d looked at her.

  ‘Your friend is a very good-looking man,’ Hannah said.

  ‘My friend?’

  ‘Well, he certainly befriended you over that incident with Jarvis. It was looking nasty until he intervened.’

  ‘You saw that? Jarvis isn’t a good loser. He wanted us to get back together. I should have said no, very firmly, and kept on saying no, and nothing else, until he was convinced. I unwisely let him know there is someone else.’

  ‘I knew it! I could tell that something about you was different when you walked in yesterday. So why don’t I feel pleased for you?’

  ‘Because you sense things. You always know that bit more than you’re told, or so it seems. There’s no future for us.’

  ‘You mean there’s some obstacle that prevents you from marrying?’

  ‘He doesn’t believe in marriage. That’s an obstacle, I suppose. But that isn’t it. I don’t know whether you know any of this or not, but my father tried to phone me. When he couldn’t get hold of me, he phoned Miles and asked him to pass on a message. A man he was working with contracted some obscure illness for which there’s no cure. He said there was a chance that he might look me up. I presume my father prompted this thinking that the man could use some company, the idea being for me to cheer him up.’

  ‘Only you went a step further than that?’

  ‘Yes. I fell in love with him. Would you blame me for . . . well . . . snatching what happiness with him I can?’

  ‘I think you are going to be hurt. But no, I wouldn’t blame you. I would like to think I’d be the same myself. Miles told me about your father’s phone call, of course. We were both terribly sickened. Look, Rosalynd, I must go and do my hostess bit. We’ll talk about this later, m’m?’

  People were now beginning to drift away. Once again, Edward Banks sought Ros out.

  ‘Before I go, I just want you to know how much I’ve enjoyed this evening and what a pleasure it’s been to meet you.’

  Meet you, he said. Not see you again.

  ‘So we hadn’t met before today?’

  ‘No. Did you think we had?’

  ‘Yes. You didn’t approach me like a stranger.’

  ‘That’s because you don’t seem like a stranger to me. I’ve heard so much about you from you-know-who that I felt we were old acquaintances. All that’s been said about you is true. You are a lady of beauty, charm and talent.’

  ‘Miles goes on too much. I don’t aspire to beauty, and neither am I all that talented. I’m only a glorified home economist.’

  ‘Yes, Miles is very proud of you, too,’ he said, making her wonder who else had been singing her praises. ‘Your modesty becomes you. But you’re rather more than that. Author of a very successful string of cookbooks, television personality.’

  She declaimed, ‘Hardly that. I was asked to tape a show before a selected studio audience. They liked me. So I was invited back to complete the series. I’ve just one more program to record. The audience ratings when it’s screened will say whether I’m asked back again or not. I’m not sure that I want it, anyway. I prize my obscurity.’

  ‘I’m confident that the choice will be yours. If I’m around, I’ll be sure to watch out for you.’

  ‘Oh, are you going away?’

  He pursed his mouth. ‘Two days ago, I would have given a decisive yes. Now there’s a slender chance that I might be staying my allotted time, after all.’

  * * *

  The last guest had departed. Hannah yawned delicately behind her hand, gracious to the end. ‘Leave the clearing up, Rosalynd. I’ll do it tomorrow.’

  She meant that her cleaning lady would do it the next day. Imagining the poor woman coming in to all this mess, Ros said, ‘I want to do it. You’ve done enough. Put your feet up, and watch someone else work.’

  ‘Don’t I always? I’m a past master at the gentle art of delegation, but if you insist,’ Hannah said. Ending on a smug note, she added, ‘Didn’t everything go beautifully?’

  ‘Nothing unusual about that,’ Ros said with the utmost sincerity. ‘Your parties are always rather special.’

  ‘But of course!’ Hannah smiled. ‘That’s because we’re special people, don’t you agree, Miles?’

  ‘I invariably do agree with you, Hannah, dear. In this instance, the chief accolade must go to Edward Banks. The courage of that guy. Makes you feel sort of humble. I know if that sentence hung over me, I wouldn’t be as genial. A bear with a sore thumb would have nothing on me.’

  ‘Sentence?’ Ros queried. ‘He’s not in trouble with the law, is he?’ Miles and Hannah exchanged telling looks. The air was electric.

  Miles let out his breath in a rush. ‘I thought you were doing so well. I’ve been praising you to myself all evening and wondering how you managed to be so perfectly natural with him. I even tried to follow your example. And now I see it wasn’t a bit of good acting at all. You didn’t know!’

  Hannah was suddenly sitting up, looking very tense as she scrutinized Ros’s face. ‘Is that true?’

  Her head was spinning. She remembered Miles’s using that expression before and completed it in her mind. Under sentence of death. ‘I must have had too much to drink,’ she said. ‘I’m not usually this much of a cloth head.’

  ‘I’ll vouch for that,’ Hannah said, ‘but not for the reason you’ve given. You’ve hardly touched a drop all evening.’

  ‘Oh—you take note of what your guests drink, do you?’

  ‘You know better than that. Providing they’re not driving themselves home, they can drink themselves insensible for all I care. I know you. Half a glass and that’s your limit. Stop dodging the issue.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m a coward. I think I’ve reasoned it out, but . . . it’s so wonderful that I can’t believe it’s true. Not that it’s so wonderful for Edward if it is true. Because . . . he is the man my father phoned about’—her eyes shot pleadingly to Miles—‘isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t make head, tail or middle of your confusion. It doesn’t make sense why you don’t know. I told you his name when you phoned from Yorkshire.’

  Miles had known from the beginning. That’s why he’d been so distressed when he’d first met Edward. He hadn’t known what line to take.

  ‘I didn’t catch his name. The connection was so bad I only heard half of what you said. When I phoned you back later to find out the bits I’d missed, I’d already met Cliff, and everything fitted. He had just come back from Saudi Arabia, and he was on sick leave. He told me he’d got malaria, but I didn’t believe him. I thought that was just a cover-up. I was firmly convinced in my mind that he was the man my father phoned about.’

  �
��But your father isn’t in Saudi Arabia. He’s in Australia,’ Miles corrected.

  ‘I know that now. Australia. Saudi Arabia. It’s easy to mistake one for the other on a bad line, and that’s what I did. With disastrous consequences. Poor Edward.’ Her brow went thoughtful. ‘I’ve just remembered something rather odd that Edward said. On thinking about it, it could be hopeful. We were talking about the series I’m doing for television. He said he’d watch out for it if he were still around. I asked him if he was going away, and he said that two days ago he would have said yes but now there was a slender chance that he might not be going. Do you know what he meant by that, Miles?’

  ‘Yes. He confided in me. Having come to terms with the other, he’s trying not to build his hopes up too high in case it doesn’t come off, but apparently there’s some new treatment they want to try him on. A new wonder drug that’s only recently come on the market.’

  ‘I hope it works. I’ll pray for it. It’s got to work.’

  ‘He’ll have to go into the hospital for a while; they want him under constant observation. I said I’d visit him. Now you can fill me in on something that’s got me guessing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Who is Cliff?’

  ‘Now you’re the one who’s not being very bright,’ Hannah chipped in on a chiding note. ‘It’s as obvious as the nose on your face who he is.’

  ‘It isn’t to me.’

  ‘Cliff is the reason for the stars shining bright enough to blind you in this little girl’s eyes. He is the man she has fallen in love with.’

  ‘I didn’t know Ros had fallen in love with anyone. I thought she was still falling out of love with Jarvis. No one tells me anything,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Why should they? You only have control of her business interests. Rosalynd’s private life is her own affair. Go to bed, Miles.’

  He got to his feet. He’d spotted the gleam in his sister’s eye and knew from past experience there was little use in resisting her domination, although at the door he did turn and say: ‘Take your own advice, Hannah, and don’t pry.’

  ‘Shoo. I never pry. I show kindly concern. There’s a difference.’