"How is the new 'baby' coming along?" she asked, for once or twice he had referred to the pangs and delights of producing a book as being 'darned near as bad as a pregnancy must be at times.'
"I should go into labour around Christmas," he quipped.
"I'll hold your hand and mop your brow," she smiled. "Have you chosen a name yet for your new baby?"
"How do you like Winter Lightning?"
She considered. "It's the title of a poem, isn't it, Ross?"
"Yes, by James Montgomery." Fern felt the fingers holding hers tighten a little, then Ross softly quoted :
"So life appears;—a sudden birth, A glance revealing heaven and earth, It is—and it is not!
"The poem's a little sad," she mused. "Is the book sad?"
"In parts, maybe. Life after all is a stewpot into which smiles and tears, songs and laments are indiscriminately thrown together. You've found it so yourself, Fern. I know you have."
"Yes," she agreed, remembering the poignant grief of losing her mother; the father who was but a fleeting memory of very blue eyes, which her sister Bryony had inherited. She thought of Ken and he was like a song whose words she had forgotten; she looked at Ross and knew she would not have changed one moment of being with him, though he might yet turn her heaven into hell.
"Winter Lightning" she murmured. 'Yes, I do like it. It should look awfully good on the jacket of your book."
"You're awfully good for my morale," he grinned, carrying her hand to his mouth and giving her slender fingers an affectionate nibble. Boyishly he nuzzled his cheek against her hand, and as the sun slanted through a window and found the fire of his hair, Fern hoped with a sudden primitive passion that she would have his child. The loveliness of their being together at Monterey would be in the eyes of such a child; the music of the
nightingale who used to sing near the lodge would trill in the small voice. ...
And then, as though a sudden cloud rolled over the sun, Ross's smile died away. He released Fern's hand and thrust Mr. Leston's letter back into its envelope. "I think I'll pop up to Aunt Winna's right after breakfast," Now he didn't look at Fern as he spoke. "You can have the car if you've some marketing to do."
"All right." Fern began to make out her shopping list, her fair head bent closely over the jotting-pad. She didn't understand Ross's abrupt change of mood; she only knew that it bewildered and frightened her. She couldn't quite stop her voice from shaking as she asked him what he fancied for dinner that evening.
"Oh—anything will do." His chair scraped back. "I'll get the car out for you."
"May I have a little housekeeping money, Ross? I—I haven't quite got enough."
"Of course you can have some money!" His voice was rough, quick. His fingers plucked dollar bills from his wallet... then the bills scattered to the table and the next moment he was pulling Fern up into his arms. She was lightly clad in a filmy housecoat and the intensity of his embrace hurt her a little. He didn't seem to realize how hard he held her, his cheek pressing hers as he said :
"Look, honey, we've got to have a talk, but right now I—I couldn't find the words. Maybe I need the twilight shadows. Maybe a little more time to think." He framed her face in his hands. "All right, lovely?"
She must have said yes, for he smiled. "Say, let's have a lemon pie for dessert tonight, you know I kind of go for them." His bold mouth just touched her soft one, then he strode from the kitchen and made for the garage. Fern could feel her pounding heart. Was Ross at last going to open the deep, secret places of his heart to her.. . and had she the courage to face the revelation ... the pain it might bring her?
Ross had already left for his aunt's house when Fern drove away from the bungalow to do her marketing. She
was putting her purchases in the car when a voice sang out behind her : "Fern, honey, you're back !"
Fern swung round to see Diana charging across the pavement towards her, pert and pretty in a white halter dress. They hugged one another. "My, you're looking dreamy!" Diana eyed Fern's blue-clad figure from top to toe. "Did you have fun up at Monterey? Isn't it just the swellest place?"
"Mm ! We visited Carmel. I loved the seals."
"Just ducky, aren't they? How's my favourite uncle, looking marvellously tanned and handsome, I bet, after his lungfuls of mountain air and armfuls of beautiful wife?"
"Diana!"
"I just love you when you blush, Fern!" Diana had indeed grown to love this beautiful wife of Ross's, breathtaking this morning in her blue suit, her wonderful hair coiled into a chignon and contrasting vividly wth her tanned skin.
"Lock the car and come with me to Celestine's," Diana urged. "I'm modelling some ski-clothes. You'll be crazy about them."
"Celestine's?"
Diana grinned at her hesitation. "Now don't tell me you worry about Laraine Davies? I bet Ross hasn't given her a single thought since he married you."
Which wasn't quite true, Fern thought, remembering the night at Monterey when he had cried out: "I won't go through it all again. I'd be broken completely a second time."
She bent over her purchases in the back of the car. "I have a little more shopping to do," she said, "so let's meet for a coffee at The Viking when your modelling stint is over."
Diana good-naturedly agreed to the suggestion, and an hour later she joined Fern in the little Danish coffeehouse they both liked. Over cups of coffee and a plate of delicious pastries they chatted about Diana's recent engagement to Jeff Lane.
"I guess Jeff wanted to make sure of me," Diana
laughed. "He knows what a flirt I used to be ... as though I'd look at anyone else now. I'm so crazy about him!"
"Were his people pleased?" Fern asked.
"Oh yes. They're awfully nice. Momma Lane used to be a great one for going to the theatre and I guess it gives her a bit of a thrill that I'm kind of related to the famous Edwina Kingdom." Diana smiled and moved her left hand in a beam of sunshine slanting through a nearby window. "Jeff's ring is awful pretty, isn't it?"
"Sweet," Fern agreed, watching Diana with fond eyes over the rim of her coffee cup.
"Jenny says I'm to be married in white because she didn't have a white wedding and she wants to enjoy all the fuss and palaver at second-hand. Say, do you think Jenny will ever get married again? I know she was terribly in love with my dad, but she's still pretty young and she's got loads of personality. It seems a waste. Anyway, that's how I look at it."
"I suppose you're thinking of the faithful Mr. Sin-den?" Fern smiled.
Diana nodded and carried a forkful of cream pastry to her mouth; all the calories in the world didn't affect her willowy figure and she ate like a young navvy. "Jay would be exactly right for Jenny. They're both in the film business; he's a bit older, which makes a man more interesting, and his reserve kind of stabilizes Jenny's boldness. Like me and Jeff. And you with Ross."
More cream pastry occupied Diana, then she said : "Look, Fern, I think you're crazy to let Laraine Davies worry you . . . now you do, poppet, I can tell! I'll admit she has oodles of glamour, but she hasn't got what it takes to make a guy really happy. It takes a big warm heart and caring about a man's work and his ideals. Laraine lost Ross six years ago because she only cared about satisfying her own inclinations, but you aren't like that, Fern. I bet you'd follow Ross to hell and back."
Fern flushed slightly and lowered her eyes.
All that Diana said might be true, but none of it altered the fact that Laraine seemed to hold a witchery
for Ross that their years apart had never fully exorcised. She had once called herself the star in his life, Fern the stand-in, and the recollection was so agonizing in this moment that Fern, frightened her agony might be showing in her eyes, bent her head over her handbag and pretended to be searching for a handkerchief.
"Did you do much swimming while you were up at Monterey?" Diana asked.
"Mm," Fern touched her handkerchief to her dainty nose, "most days we were in the water swimming or fishing. We also did
lots of climbing."
"Then you aren't having a baby?" Diana regretfully exclaimed.
"No, it's a little too early—I mean, what made you think—?"
"Oh, I dunno. I guess I thought you'd like one. And it would be some baby. Cute as a button, I bet."
"Di, you've got babies on the brain," Fern made herself laugh.
"I've warned Jeff I'll probably fill our house with them," Diana chuckled.
Fern offered to drive Diana home when they left the coffee-house. "Ross may still be at your aunt's place and I can pick him up," she added.
But he had already left his aunt's. Fern fully expected to find him at the bungalow and was surprised when she didn't. She made a cheese souffle for lunch, waited rather anxiously for Ross to come home, then finished up putting the cold, untouched souffle out for the birds.
She finally phoned the Kingdom house to ask if Ross had returned there for some reason.
"No, Miss Fern, honey," Delilah was on the other end of the line. "Mist' Ross done left here 'bout eleven o'clock. Why, it was soon after Mrs. Gladys Hammond called to tell Miss Winna all about her flying visit to Miami. Miss Winna was kinda rattled at the quick way he went off, but like I says to her, he ain't none too keen on that ole gossiper of a Mrs. Hammond, and that woman done caught him on the portico and she was full of somethin' that kind of got him all boiled up."
Fern couldn't imagine what Gladys Hammond could have said to Ross to get him so boiled up that he forgot to come home. She asked Delilah if he had mentioned any of the conversation on the portico to his aunt.
"Far as I know, honey, he didn't have much to say at all. Left real soon, like I told you."
"I—see." Fern's hand gripped the telephone cord. "Well, I expect he's met a friend—or something. I expect I'm worrying unnecessarily."
"You still feels like a bride, honey, that's your trouble sure enough," Delilah chuckled. "Why, Mist' Ross is probably up at the country club knocking a little ole white ball into a hole in the ground. That's men, honey. Love 'em we've got to, but my, oh my, they sure has peculiar little ways."
Fern broke into a smile. "You're probably right about the club, Delilah. I didn't give it a thought."
"Like I says, honey—"
"I know, I'm acting like a bride."
Well, Fern excused herself when she walked away from the phone, I've only really been one for a couple of weeks!
The afternoon hours dragged away.
Fern did think once or twice about ringing the country club to ask if Ross was there, then she told herself she was behaving exactly like a fluttery mother hen with one precious chick. Ross was a grown man and quite well able to take care of himself, so she had better face the real truth. His protracted absence from the bungalow was evidently connected with the talk he had said he must have with her. He had something to say that would hurt her, and it was a small mite of consolation that he hesitated to do so.
It was just after seven o'clock when the hallway was filled with the imperative ringing of the telephone bell. Fern hurried through from the kitchen and snatched up the receiver.
"Ross, is that you?" Her voice was charged with anxiety and a definite hint of tears.
"Yes."
"W-where are you? Are you all right?"
"I'm perfectly all right." He spoke in a voice so cold she barely recognized it. "I just rang to let you know I shan't be home to dinner."
"Ross, I—I don't understand—"
"It's perfectly simple. I'm dining at the apartment of a—friend."
That suggestive pause drained away every bit of colour from beneath Fern's suntan. A friend? Laraine? Was it she to whom he referred?
"Ross, what's the matter? Why haven't you been home all day?" A couple of tears broke over Fern's lashes and trickled down her cheeks. She was utterly bewildered by the coldness of his voice.
"Maybe I didn't feel like coming home, Fern."
"Darling, have you something on your mind which you feel you can't tell me?" she asked.
"You can cut out the endearments," he curtly retorted. "And I certainly have got something on my mind that won't bear rational discussion just at present. Don't wait up for me. I shall probably be quite late." He rang off, putting down the receiver so hard that Fern felt a sharp crack against her eardrum. She replaced her own receiver with a hand that shook, then she stood frightened and alone in the growing dimness of the hallway.
There could be only one explanation for Ross's behaviour—somehow he had found out about Marina Beach and in his disgust at being lied to he had gone to Laraine!
Fern slowly walked into her bedroom, where she threw herself across the bed. She buried her face on her arms and she wanted to weep, to give way to utter misery, but her tears had turned to stones and they lay heavily at the backs of her eyes and in her throat.
"Mistakes are not always redeemable," Ken had warned her, "and regret is a very cold companion."
Accumulated anxiety and misery took their toll of Fern in a while and she suddenly fell asleep, her face
at rest upon her arms and her blue skirt riding up her slender legs. She awoke abruptly several hours later. The bedside lamp was glowing and when she lifted her bemused head she saw Ross standing over by one of the windows. His eyes were fixed upon her and there was a half-smoked cheroot in a corner of his mouth. He looked a hard, grim stranger with features cut from marble. Gone was her lover with a lurking smile of tenderness on his mouth.
She sat up and his eyes swept over her, taking in her bright, ruffled hair, apprehensive lavender eyes, and her slender body that had a talent all its own for melting into the very bones of a man.
"You little liar, Fern!" he grated.
She flinched and he went on : "You told me you were here at the bungalow that night I was with the Brunhills in 'Frisco. You made out the storm had unnerved you because you were alone, and I actually felt a brute for leaving you—" the gold flecks in his eyes flared into tiny flames. "My God, what a laugh on me! You weren't here, nor were you alone. You were at Marina Beach with Ken McVicar."
A tremor of distress shook Fern, made all the more acute because she couldn't deny the accusation.
"It was most indiscreet of you, my dear, to pick the same hotel as a gossip like Gladys Hammond," Ross drawled. "She was almost spluttering on the steps of Aunt Winna's house this morning, so eager was she to tell me that I had married a little two-timer."
"Ross," his name was a cry from Fern's aching heart, "you've got to let me explain—"
"Explain what? That you wanted a night in Ken McVicar's arms and I was conveniently out of the way?" Ross lifted his cheroot and regarded her contemptuously through the smoke he expelled; a pulse in his temple flickered the edges of his scar. "Did you develop cold feet at the last minute, my sweet? Hadn't you the courage to go right through with your little adventure?"
She flushed painfully. "You're cruel!" she gasped. "Cruel and very wrong!"
"Then why did you lie to me? Why did you let me think you were here alone, when all the time you were at Marina with a man you very nearly married at one time? Don't you think I'm entitled to jump to the obvious conclusion that it was an arranged meeting, which I was never meant to know about?"
"It wasn't arranged a-and I wanted to tell you about it, but I knew you'd think exactly what you are thinking."
"Clever of you!"
"Ross, don't!" She knelt on her bed like some lovely supplicant begging the mercy of a god she had angered, and he, even in his anger, felt her silvery beauty strike admiration through him. Her sleeveless blouse showed off her slim tanned arms; he saw lilac shadows in the pool of her throat, and a mist in her lavender eyes like the vapour of tears.
"You see," she said, "I was feeling so lonely and blue that day you left for San Francisco. The Marina carnival sounded like fun, so I went there by touring bus and I ran into Ken quite unexpectedly. Then that awful storm arrived and we couldn't make it back to Cap Flamingo. I couldn't even phone you. A cable was struck by
lightning and the lines were down. I—I was wrong not to tell you I went to Marina, but I was afraid—"
"What nonsense!" he interjected harshly.
"I was afraid, Ross," she repeated quietly. "Once before you chose to disbelieve me when I told you the truth, a-and this time Ken was involved. You knew that Ken and I had once been fond of one another."
"The term 'fond' is a little mild, isn't it, Fern? You once told me that he half opened a door into paradise for you."
She flushed and glanced down at her tightly interlaced hands. She wanted to say: "Ken half opened the door . . . but you took me there."
She couldn't say it, and without looking at him, she said instead : "Where do we go from here, Ross?"
He had been watching her rather intently, now the
look went from his eyes and he shot the stub of his cheroot out through the open window. "I don't know, Fern. We're at a kind of crossroads and tonight I just can't see the turn we should take." He walked past her bed to the door of his room.
"Ross, may I know if you've been with Laraine all the evening?"
He didn't look round at her, but she saw the tautening of his wide shoulders. He seemed about to answer her, then he shrugged his shoulders, walked into his room and closed the door curtly and finally behind him.
Fern held her aching throat and wished that she could weep. She had lost the man she loved at Monterey and was frightened of the stranger she would have to face in the following days; the stranger who might suddenly say : "From now on we go our separate ways. Our marriage has served its purpose."
It was around mid-morning on Friday that the cablegram arrived for Fern. It was from Rick Scanlan, Bryony's husband. Their little boy Frankie was desperately ill with a lung complication and Bryony wanted her sister with her if it were at all possible.
"I'm going home, Ross," Fern said quietly. He inclined his bronze head in acceptance of her decision, but he did not offer to go with her. He rang the airport and managed to get her a booking on the afternoon flight to England, then he sent off a reply to her brother-in-law's cable, adding the time she should arrive at London Airport. When he joined her in her bedroom, she was packing a suitcase.
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