“You knew this, then?” Again Madame Blanchard was greatly surprised.
“Oh, certainly.”
Leslie’s companion muttered something to herself, but in such rapid and idiomatic French that Leslie found it impossible to follow. The general gist, however, seemed to be that the English were an extraordinary race, and quite unpredictable when it came to a question of the emotions.
This so genuinely amused Leslie that she could not resist adding teasingly,
“She married an old sweetheart of mine, as a matter of fact.”
But this seemed to Madame Blanchard to border on the indecent. So, after a few protesting exclamations from her, they returned to the more normal topic of menus and supplies.
“Well, at least I’ve seen Caroline again, and managed to face the encounter calmly,” Leslie told herself. “Being without Reid helped, of course. Perhaps if we don’t all have to meet together again—If Reid and I can leave here fairly soon—”
That evening she broached the subject to him—casually and as though she had not thought much about it.
‘How long do you. think we shall be staying here, Reid?”
“Well” he began, then he stopped and looked at her. “Do you want to go soon?”
“Not particularly. I just wondered.”
“It’s all taking longer than I expected,” he confessed. “But I do feel that, now we’re here, I’d better get the whole thing settled.”
“Yes. Of course. There isn’t anything I can do, is there? I don’t mean with the lawyers. But perhaps in connection with the house. Sorting out things, and so on.”
“Why, of course, if you like to. I thought you found the place melancholy.”
“Oh—only in a rather sentimental way. It wouldn’t depress me to be there alone, if that’s what you mean. Anyway, the old caretaking couple are still there, aren’t they?”
“Oh, certainly. Though they wouldn’t be much company, I imagine. I should he in and out, of course. Or, if you liked, you could get Caroline to go along with you. She’s unexpectedly efficient, when it comes to the point.”
“I’m sure she is.” Leslie hoped he didn’t notice that her voice chilled a little. “But I’ll try first on my own. She and Oliver will have their own affairs to attend to.”
“No doubt,” Reid agreed equably. And so it was arranged.
During the next few days, Leslie went each morning to the deserted villa outside the town and methodically dealt with each room in turn, deciding what should be kept, what should be sold and what might be given away.
“She made lists for Reid to run through and approve or query at a later stage. And because she had plenty to do and less time to think, she was, on the whole, happier.
Each morning, as she approached the small white house where Oliver and Caroline were staying, she would feel her heart beat anxiously, in case she might have to stop and speak to one or other of them in the garden. But each morning she was spared this ordeal, and her heart-beats would subside again once she had passed the house and was safely on the stretch of road leading on to the Villa Rossignol.
So well and energetically did she work that, by the end of a week, she was able to tell Reid that she had dealt with all the principal rooms.
“Tomorrow I’ll do what must have been a boudoir or personal sitting-room or something. It’s quite small, but there’s a great desk there, with all sorts of odds and ends, and one drawer at least full of correspondence,” she told Reid.
“Is that so?” He looked both surprised and interested. “What sort of correspondence?”
“All mixed, I think—bills, receipts, personal letters and one or two books that look something like account books.”
“I wonder—” began Reid, and then stopped.
“What do you wonder?” She smiled at him.
“Nothing. Something just came to my mind, but it’s not important.” He pushed back his chair and got up from the dinner table. “Look here, sweetheart, I’m sorry, but I’ll have to leave you for this evening. There are still one or two things to attend to.”
“Not the lawyers again, surely, at this time of night?” She looked surprised in her turn. “You certainly have them working overtime on Great-Aunt Tabitha’s affairs. I should have thought the old lady could have left things a little straighter after ninety-odd years’ experience of this wicked world.”
“That’s the trouble. She had time to make a lot of confusion in her ninety-odd years,” Reid retorted lightly.
But he kissed her good-bye before he went—a thing he had not done since the evening she had told him to leave her alone—and she felt happier.
If he were returning to his habit of casually natural endearments that must mean that he felt they were more at ease with each other again.
When he had gone, she wrote a long letter home. Ever since they had come to Laintenon she had felt unable to write freely and happily as she had in Verona. Instead, she had contented herself with postcards and the reiterated plea that she was very busy.
Now, with a sudden lightening of her heart, she felt that she could very well write to her mother, telling her all sorts of details about their life in Laintenon, her work at the villa and so on.
Once she had started, there seemed to be so much to say, and for over an hour Leslie wrote steadily.
Even when she had finished, there was still enough of the evening left to tempt her out of doors, and she decided to post her letter, and perhaps stroll up to the Villa. She had meant to bring Madame Blanchard some flowers from the lovely, overgrown garden that afternoon, but had forgotten them. This would be a good occasion to rectify the omission.
Slipping on a coat, for the evening air could be very chilly, but not bothering about a hat, she went out and, having posted her letter, started along the road to the Villa.
This time there was someone in the garden of the little house. As she came abreast of the gate, Oliver straightened up from some desultory weeding and came to lean his arms on the gate and greet her.
She stopped, to tell him where she was going and give him the latest news from home. And he volunteered, in his turn, the information that he and Caroline had just bought a car.
“Not a new one, or a particularly elegant one,” he confessed. “But it will get us up and down to the coast. You and Reid must come along with us one day.”
“It would be lovely,” Leslie said, as sincerely as she could. “How is Caroline?”
“Blooming, as usual. She isn’t in just now, otherwise she’d have come out to speak to you. She went off on some affairs of her own,” Oliver explained, smiling indulgently. “Wouldn’t tell me where she was going. She likes her little mysteries.”
Leslie managed a creditable smile also.
“She’ll probably arrive home with some special local dish for supper or something of the kind. Caroline is great on discovering things of that sort.”
“Well, I hope it will be good,” Leslie said politely. And went on her way.
When she reached the Villa, she went in by a side gate. She knew the grounds very well by now, and was quite clear about where to find the best flowers for Madame Blanchard.
They took some finding, because so much of the garden was overgrown now, but Leslie liked the half wild appearance of the place, and she liked the atmosphere of deep solitude which the high stone walls induced.
She picked her flowers slowly and with enjoyment, arranging them with some care. And then, just as she selected the last few, the silence of the garden was broken by the sound of voices. Not the thin, rather wavering voices of the old people in charge of the house. But strong, laughing familiar voices.
Prompted by some instinct she could not have explained, Leslie drew behind a thick, overgrown hedge which hid her completely from sight. As she did so, Reid and Caroline came into view, walking along one of the more distant paths.
They were too far away for Leslie to hear what they were saying, but they were both obviously in an excellent humour
and laughing.
Then, even as she watched them with widened, angry eyes, they paused, evidently to say good-bye to each other.
Caroline put her hands on Reid’s arms and said something which made him smile. Then she reached up and kissed him.
It was not a prolonged or passionate kiss. But it was a kiss. She went off towards the gate after that and he turned and walked towards the house. ‘ And even from where she was, Leslie could see that he was smiling in a very well-satisfied way.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LESLIE moved at last, because she realized that she was getting cold, but still she walked up and down some of the paths most distant from the house and tried to decide what she was going to do.
In the end, it was Reid who settled the question for her. He came out into the garden, having evidently seen her from one of the windows, and waved his hand and called to her.
“Hello! What brought you here?”
She came towards him until she was within easy speaking range. And then, because he seemed so unabashed, she knew she could not speak of what she had seen. She would be so ashamed for him. “I just looked in to get some flowers for Madame Blanchard. I meant to bring some home this afternoon. Have you been here long?”
“Yes. Most of the evening. I thought I’d like to have a look through those papers you mentioned.” Well, perhaps that was true!
“Did you find anything interesting?”
“Not what I was looking for.”
“Were you looking for something special, then?”
“Not really.” He was suddenly evasive. “I thought there might be something It doesn’t matter. Have you been here long?”
There was nothing suspicious or anxious about his tone.
“No,” she said coolly.
“Well, I’m ready to go home now, if you are.”
“Yes, I’m ready,” she said. And they left the place together.
As they approached Oliver and Caroline’s place, Leslie saw that the discussed car was standing outside in the road, and both of them were hanging over it, presumably in ecstatic admiration.
“Hello,” they all said, more or less together. And Reid and Caroline, she noticed, showed no signs of having seen each other before during that evening.
“Come and look at the latest addition to our family,” Caroline invited them.
And they too examined the finer points of the middle-aged car, and agreed that it was certainly capable of conveying one to the sea and back.
“Why don’t we make a day of it tomorrow?” Caroline looked up, flushed a little from having been bent over the bonnet examining the car’s interior. “The four of us, I mean. You don’t have to shut yourself up in that stuffy lawyer’s office every day, Reid, do you?”
“No. I don’t have to.”
“But it’s as well to get things finished,” Leslie cut in quickly.
“It’s much better to seize on any good weather one can,” countered Caroline promptly. “After all, you two are on your honeymoon too. It’s going to be a wonderful day tomorrow. Look at that sky! Let’s make a beach party, take our food and go down for the day.”
“Sounds all right to me,” said Oliver.
“To me too,” Reid agreed.
They waited for Leslie’s added agreement, as a foregone conclusion.
There was no objection she could raise—no argument she could oppose to this generally accepted idea of a party of pleasure. She made a virtue of necessity, smiled and said it was a wonderful idea. And everyone looked very well satisfied.
It was a matter of minutes to arrange the details. Oliver and Caroline undertook to call for the other two about ten the next morning, and each couple promised to bring a sufficient supply of food and drink.
“And swim-suits,” Caroline added. “Down here the water will still be beautifully warm, and they say it’s a wonderful shore.”
“Not an entirely safe one, though,” Reid said. “There are some tricky under-currents. But we’ll keep an eye on you girls.”
“I like that! I’m a better swimmer than you are,” boasted Caroline.
“Well, don’t show off,” her husband said, patting her dark head. “It isn’t nice before company.”
“Don’t worry! I’ll make her eat her words tomorrow,” Reid declared gaily. And then he and Leslie went on their way.
She was very silent on the way home, and if Reid found that disturbing, she told herself, she could not help it.
If she had started to say anything beyond the merest conventional remarks, she would have found herself breaking into angry, frightened protests about the expedition on the morrow.
“And I must not have another of those outbursts,” she told herself. “I must not. I should find myself upbraiding him for his meeting with Caroline tonight. I must be calm, and pleasant and unknowing. Oh, how I wish tomorrow were over!”
But tomorrow, like every other day since the world began, had to be lived through somehow, hour by hour.
She woke to a sense of indescribable foreboding, which the brightness of the day did nothing to dispel. And she thought, if it took so much effort to be reasonably bright at breakfast, what ,was it going to be like to pretend and pretend and pretend all day?
“I can’t do it!” Leslie thought at one point.
And then, as though to give her a little strength and happiness to help her carry the burden of the day, the long-awaited miracle, which she had almost forgotten in her personal misery, actually happened.
Madame Blanchard came in carrying a telegram, and set it down before Leslie with an air of suppressed drama very suitable to the occasion.
“For me?” Leslie looked rather startled, and tore the envelope open.
The next moment she was crying aloud,
“Reid! Reid, come and look at this!”
And Reid, coming in from the next room, leant over her chair to read the message which trembled in her hand.
“Triumphant greetings,” the telegram ran. “I salute you both—standing. Love and more thanks than I can say.—Morley.”
“Oh, Morley! Darling, darling Morley!”
She began to cry excitedly—something of her pent-up feelings of the last few days going into those tears. And when Reid took her into his arms and stroked her hair, she clung to him, just as though he had never made secret assignations with Caroline or kissed her.
“There, honey, there!” He laughed very tenderly and kissed her. “There’s nothing to cry about. It’s wonderful news.”
“That’s why I’m crying,” she sobbed, half laughing too. “Just because it is so wonderful and unbelievable.”
“Well, I guess that’s as good a reason as any for a few tears,” Reid conceded with a laugh. And then, still holding Leslie, he turned to explain to Madame Blanchard, who had stood in the doorway during all this scene, divided between delight and dismay, and very much inclined to contribute a few tears herself.
Their landlady added her warm and most heartfelt congratulations, and advised them to waste no time in going off to celebrate the glad news with a day’s pleasure.
As Caroline and Oliver arrived more or less at this moment, this seemed admirable advice. And, in the end, Leslie started off on the expedition with happier feelings and higher spirits than she would ever have thought possible an hour ago.
Oliver drove, of course, with Caroline sitting beside him, and contributing a little lazy advice from time to time. The other two sat behind and, because it seemed natural in their mood of shared excitement and relief, he held her hand rather tightly part of the time.
Once Caroline threw an amused, indulgent glance at them, and after that Leslie gently drew her hand away. But she had a warm little feeling at her heart because Reid’s impulse had been to share her happiness, and what Caroline might think about it she really did not care.
Oliver was unfeignedly delighted at the news about Morley, and Caroline showed a pleasant degree of sympathy, considering that she knew so little of the background
of the struggle which had preceded this triumphant achievement.
“I suppose you had been worrying a lot about your brother, although you didn’t say much,” she said to Leslie.
“Well, from time to time I did worry,” Leslie admitted, remembering guiltily that sometimes, in the worry of her own affairs, she had momentarily almost forgotten Morley’s. “Not that there was any likelihood of his being worse, you know. It was just that I knew what tremendously high hopes he had set on this experiment of Trevant’s. It would have been so fearful for him if it had all been a failure.”
“And you had been expecting the result almost any day?”
“I Yes, I knew it must be soon.”
“I thought you seemed very depressed last night,” Caroline said. “I suppose that was the trouble.”
“No,” Leslie replied levelly. “It was something else last night.”
She felt Reid turn and glance at her. But Oliver said at that moment,
“Does anyone know this road? I think we went wrong about half a mile back.”
The usual discussion followed, everyone holding a different opinion. And by the time they had discovered that they were on, the right road, after all, Leslie guessed that no one would remember her remark.
She was wrong, however. Reid bent his head down to hers and said in an undertone,
“Was something wrong last night? What was the trouble?”
“Nothing I can talk about just now, Reid. Don’t ask me now.”
“All right. Will you tell me later?”
“Maybe.”
She was not quite sure what had induced her to say that. Only, after the news about Morley, she had gathered a sort of inner courage. And, on the strength of that, she felt that perhaps it would be better to have the whole thing out with Reid. Quietly, of course, and without too much emotion. But so that at least everything was truthful and dignified between them.
The coast at this point was a beautiful one. Wild and rather rocky, but with a splendid stretch of golden sand when the tide was out, and it was not difficult to find the ideal place for a day-long picnic.
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