by Jane Arbor
He took the plate from her and returned it to the dealer. “Then you can send all we’ve seen,” he said. “The name is Forester, Quintains, Crane-by-Sea.” And with a hand beneath her elbow he guided Jess out to the car again.
“Well, that was satisfactory,” he said. “Now what about some tea?”
Jess glanced at her watch. “I have my train to catch, and I told Mrs. Boss I should be in for tea.”
“But of course you’ll let me drive you back, and it’s teatime now.”
Jess smiled. “Not for Mrs. Boss. Usually she is still cleaning house or doing the ironing all through teatime by ordinary standards. She doesn’t get around to her own until about six.”
“And then it is high tea—with potato scones? Or is it honey bread as it is summer?”
“It’s honey bread today—so she told me this morning. But how did you know?”
“She has a reputation for them both, didn’t you know?” Muir opened the car door for Jess. “Let us waste no time in the teashops of Norwich but set track at once for Mrs. Boss and honey bread. I shall invite myself to a share before going on up to Quintains.”
Jess sat beside him in the car while they sped out of the city on to the flat open roads that led back to the Cranes, wondering how to savor enough his mood of unaffected friendliness, how to savor it and match it with an answering friendliness, yet not to set too much store by it or give it an importance it didn’t have.
She could not help watching his hands, brown and capable, on the steering wheel, and on the pretext of looking out of the window on his side, she could catch occasional glimpses of his profile set against the westering sun. But they were secret delights at which he could not guess. They were only the clamorous needs of a hungry heart.
Presently he said, “Have you seen anything of Liane while I’ve been away?”
“No. I was at Quintains once, but she had already phoned to say she was going to Norwich for the day and wouldn’t be there.”
Muir nodded. “Oh, yes. I think Jane Bretton was taking her to her own dressmaker for her party dress. That’s where they had gone, I suppose. Did you see anything of Lieutenant Seacombe?”
“No. He was out, too—” Jess felt that her evasion was patent, but Muir seemed satisfied.
“Golf, no doubt. Lucky we’ve a course handy. He’s a plus-two man and dead keen to improve his game still further. Neither Liane nor I are anywhere near his class, but I daresay he has found someone at the club who is.” Jess gripped her palms together in her lap, telling herself that she had hidden nothing from him deliberately, that indeed there was. nothing to hide. It was perfectly natural and innocent, wasn’t it, that Peter should have asked Liane to drive to Norwich with him? As natural and meaning as little, probably, as that Muir should be driving her, Jess, back to Crane-by-Sea now. Yet she could not argue it into being quite the same. Muir’s invitation was the outcome of their chance meeting, without deeper meaning for him, despite the forbidden delight it gave her. But hadn’t she sensed, on the night of their first meeting, that Liane’s attraction for Peter Seacombe had been an exciting, imperative thing, a force stronger than he was and one not to be denied? The strength that should have resisted it should have come from Liane—from the age-old instinct of woman that knows when it is playing with fire. If Liane were seeing much of Peter was she being fair to him? Was she being fair to Muir? Jess begged of fate that Muir would ask no more questions that she must answer disastrously or evade. She persuaded herself that the innocent truth of the expedition to Norwich would come out naturally, as Liane had promised it would.
“Perhaps you’d better break it gently that I’m inviting myself for tea and honey bread,” suggested Muir as the car drew up outside Mrs. Boss’s house.
“Yes, I will—”
She broke off as the front door of the cottage opened and her landlady appeared on the threshhold with someone else standing in the shadow behind her.
‘There now!” triumphed Mrs. Boss. “There you are, nurse—and long before we could hope you’d get here by the train, for all the surprise that’s been waiting all afternoon for you!”
“A surprise—for me?” faltered Jess, feeling that from her morning’s clash with Mrs. Bretton onward this day had already produced disturbance enough, without springing anything else.
“Yes, and I not knowing where I could reach you, and your young man cooling his heels and asking me every quarter of an hour what time you could possibly get back!”
“My—?” But Michael had already stepped out from the shadow of the doorway and had taken both her hands in his. “Jess!” he breathed. “Say you’re glad to see me!”
“Of—of course I am, Michael.” What other answer could she give to his eager devotion? “But it is so utterly unexpected. Why didn’t you let me know you were coming!”
“Well, it’s lovely to see you.” Jess, realizing that Muir Forester had alighted from the car and was close behind her, knew that the words came lamely from her reluctant lips. But Michael seemed to find them adequate, and Mrs. Boss stood regarding her and Michael like a conjuror with a successful trick.
She looked up at Muir over Jess’s shoulder. “Well, now they’ve got each other, haven’t they, sir? And all thanks to you. And the kettle is ready on the boil, so that they can have their tea straight away and all to themselves. Meanwhile, Mr. Forester, maybe you’d stop and have a cup and a bit of my honey bread, fresh made, just along with me? Must leave sweethearts to their own company, mustn’t we?”
Jess listened for Muir’s reply, knowing bleakly that it did not matter now what he said. Michael, well meaning and quite blameless, had successfully cheated her of a few more precious moments of Muir’s time and attention, and that was surely the worst he could do.
If Muir accepted, that meant he was entering into Mrs. Boss’s cozy conspiracy to “leave sweethearts to their own company,” and she shuddered at the thought. If he refused, it would be because of the glance of hostile recognition already passing between the two men, and not because Muir had been looking forward to a little more time in her own company. That could not have been important to him.
She heard him refusing—coolly and politely and without reference to her. He told Mrs. Boss that he was expected back at Quintains to an early dinner and couldn’t stay. Then he was gone, leaving Mrs. Boss a little plaintive with disappointment and Michael clamorous for explanations at Jess’s side.
“Jess—how come? Of all the colossal coincidences—that was the chap at your sale! The one who bought the dresser. I ask you, how in the name of Jeminy—come?”
CHAPTER FIVE
After Michael had gone Jess was glad that she had managed to hide from him her dismay at his inopportune arrival. In fact, because she felt secretly guilty for blaming him for something that was not his fault, she was particularly cordial and friendly, and when his friend picked him up for the return journey to London some hours later, it had been arranged that Michael should come again for a full weekend before the autumn.
Of course, he had had to hear the whole story of Muir Forester and the chance that had taken Jess to Quintains and so to meeting him again.
Michael said jealously, “And now you’re quite friendly with the chap.”
“But I told you—I’ve been attending Mrs. Seacombe regularly, and today he and I met by chance in Norwich.” Jess hesitated. “Michael, you didn’t tell Mrs. Boss that you—that you and I—?”
“Bless you, no! I hadn’t realized that she had jumped to her own conclusions about my being your ‘young man’ until she came out with it when you arrived. I suppose I didn’t conceal my disappointment at not finding you here, but you can’t blame me for that, when I was set on surprising you and banking a bit on your being glad to see me.”
“I was glad to see you Michael,” said Jess, reflecting that as long as she did him no harm by accepting his friendship, it was a sane, stable thing for which she should be grateful.
“And may I come again?”
“Yes, of course.” Upon which Michael had gone away contentedly enough and, to Jess’s relief, questioning nothing of all that she wanted to hide from him.
The next day was Dr. Gilder’s office hours, and she woke to the realization that she must fulfill her defiant promise to Jane Bretton without delay.
After the last patient had left, she asked if he could spare her a few minutes and then retailed her talk with Muir about Petra and Jane Bretton’s accusation as briefly as possible. But Dr. Gilder seemed not to grasp why the story had been brought to him at all.
“You say Mrs. Bretton accused you of a breach of professional confidence?” he asked, puzzled.
“It amounted to that,” admitted Jess.
“But you hadn’t mentioned any detail of Mrs. Tempton-Burney’s case?”
“Of course not, doctor, though naturally she was mentioned in connection with Petra.”
“Naturally—since her unreasonable demands are the child’s chief trouble,” he agreed dryly. “Personally, I’d advise you to forget the whole thing, nurse. It’s a storm in a teacup of Mrs. Bretton’s brewing and certainly you’ll hear no more of it from me.”
“Thank you, doctor—”
“Not,” he added with a twinkle in his eye, “that we may not have heard the last of it, by any means. If I know Muir Forester as I think I do, he’ll be on the warpath in young Petra’s interests without delay. That feudal conscience of his takes such quixotic turns, I’ve found, and he is apt to indulge it at the risk of complete misjudgment of his motives. It doesn’t always make for popularity, but it makes him a man one can respect. Don’t worry, nurse—you’ve probably done young Petra Tempton-Burney a lot of good!”
Jess wished she could share his complacency. For if, on what she had told him about Petra’s ambitions, Muir interfered between mother and daughter, she felt she would never forgive herself.
She need not have worried. For on her next visit to her convalescent patient, Petra met her with shining eyes and a gulp of excitement in her voice.
“Mommy is asleep, so you can spare a few minutes to hear my news, can’t you?” she begged Jess.
“News, Petra?” asked Jess, her heart sinking a little.
“Yes. Unbelievable news, but true all the same. I’m to have my chance to take my veterinary degree after all!”
“Petra dear, I’m so glad—”
“I knew you would be, as from what Mr. Forester said, it was all due to your telling how keen I was. I’m not going to college quite yet; I’m to apply for admission for next summer’s term, so as to give mommy the whole of the autumn and spring to get quite strong again. Oh, I’m so thrilled, you can’t imagine!”
“I’m sure you are. It’s a complete surprise for you, but just what you wanted, I know. What about your mother? Is she happy about it?”
“Oh, she’s sweet,” said Petra innocently. “As she told Mr. Forester, the very last thing she wants is to stand in my way, and when he suggested that I might help myself by getting a scholarship for my fees, she said she expected we should manage somehow. It was really rather odd,” added Petra in wistful wonder, “how she agreed with him when she wouldn’t even listen to me.”
Jess was wondering, too, what magic Muir Forester had worked, whether a subtle flattery in which Mrs. Tempton-Burney had been able to sun herself or merely straight talking that had fairly shocked her into agreement with him. Certainly she seemed disposed to put no more barriers in Petra’s way and even thanked Jess for having been the means of introducing Muir to her.
“I daresay he has wanted to know us for some time, but being a bachelor, he couldn’t very well call on me,” she said complacently. “Now the ice is broken and there will be nothing out of place in my calling on Miss Hart at Quintains as soon as he makes her his bride.”
“I daresay she would be glad to see you even before that,” murmured Jess.
But that was a step that Mrs. Tempton-Burney’s rigid etiquette could not consider. “To call at Quintains now would amount to calling on Mr. Forester, and for a widowed lady like myself that would never do,” she replied distantly, and proceeded to deliver a lecture on the complicated business of leaving cards to which Jess listened with a good deal of quiet amusement while feeling glad that her own profession took her everywhere and allowed her to make friends of all sorts of people wherever she pleased.
She wanted to thank Muir for his tactful intervention on Petra’s behalf. But she had not seen him since Michael’s unexpected arrival had seemed to cut across the thread of friendship that she had believed was strengthening between them during that shared afternoon in Norwich. She did not want to face just how much wishful thinking that might be nor how dangerous it was to indulge it when she had resolved against the temptation of loving him. But she could not resist the lesser temptation of wanting him to like her while they met as acquaintances, while she accepted his hospitality as Liane’s friend.
On her next visit to Quintains, after attending Mrs. Seacombe, she waited for Liane in the morning room where the dresser stood. Its shelves were still bare of the willowware she and Muir had chosen together, and she felt an unreasonable twinge of disappointment at that, as if he had rebuffed her for her share in its choice. But again she had to tell herself that that way lay danger, that she must not read any action of his into carrying importance for her.
They had talked over the telephone several times, but for one reason and another she and Liane had not met face to face since the night of Peter Seacombe’s arrival. And when Liane came into the room now Jess was completely unprepared for the change in her. There was a kind of radiance about her, shining behind her eyes, bringing new cadences into her voice.
Jess could not resist exclaiming, “Liane dear, how happy you look!” But was it happiness? Wasn’t it rather a glory from within for which happiness was not the right word?
“Happy? Do I? Yes, I suppose I am—and yet—” Liane’s breath caught and she reached impulsively for Jess’s hand as she went on. “Jess, you’re the only person who could understand that it could happen like that. Suddenly and without my having to wonder whether it was the real thing. I suppose, when I questioned you the other day, you thought it was silly of me not to know—whether I was in love or not, I mean. But I really didn’t then, and I do now. Because it was just as you said it would be—about feeling a little challenged at first and later quite at peace, as if we belonged to each other as I never belonged before to anyone, not even to daddy—” She broke off, her eyes shadowing. “Daddy—” she repeated on a thoughtful note.
“He wanted you to be happy in just this way,” Jess reminded her gently. She was feeling sorry for Peter Seacombe, who, it seemed, had been an innocent foil to Muir, bringing Liane to realize what Muir’s love meant to her.
Liane went on dreamily, “I understand now everything you meant—about treasuring all he says and feeling humble and utterly surprised when I found he felt just the same about me—”
“But—you knew that, Liane!”
“Ye—es. Yes, I suppose I did. Even before he told me. In fact, when he did, we both had to confess we’d known all along.”
Jess was silent for what seemed like a frozen instant of time. There was something wrong here, though she did not know what. She and Liane were at as much cross-purpose of meaning as if they were not using the same language. At last she asked hesitantly, “Liane—you are speaking of Mr. Forester, aren’t you?”
“Not Muir. Peter.”
“Peter! You are in love with Peter? Oh, Liane—” It was the measure of Jess’s selflessness in love that for the moment she saw no further than the implied tragedy for Muir, who loved Liane himself.
Liane said: “Yes. Peter. I—I thought you’d guessed. But you’re thinking of Muir—aren’t you?”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t he? Are you sure?” Was his perception blind to the new unguarded flame behind Liane’s eyes?
“He does
n’t know,” reiterated the girl. “And he mustn’t.”
“But, Liane—you must tell him!”
“I—can’t. He’s been so good to me. I told you—he would wait indefinitely for me.”
“But hoping for your love, surely.” Jess’s voice held a stern note. “Liane, if you can’t tell him, Peter must.”
“No. I’ve made Peter promise not to.”
“Peter knows, then, that Muir loves you and hopes to marry you?”
“Yes, he knows. I’ve nothing hidden from him.”
“But you’d try to hide this from Muir! Don’t you see that you owe it to him to tell him before he finds out for himself? And how do you suppose that he doesn’t guess already, unless you’ve definitely set out to hide from him that you’ve been seeing a lot of Peter? Even so, you told me over the phone that Mrs. Seacombe would be sure to tell him about your day together in Norwich, for instance.”
“She didn’t tell him—for her own reasons, I see now. She doesn’t want to admit even to herself that I might mean anything serious to Peter or he to me. She wouldn’t want Muir to learn anything about me that might endanger his—his wanting to marry me, because she would regard that as a suitable career of luxury for me for the rest of my days, and would keep Peter out of danger from me,” said Liane with bitterness in her tone.
Baffled, Jess said nothing for a moment. Then, “And do you think that Muir, loving you deeply, could have minded your enjoying Peter’s company and liking going about with him, if you’d been quite frank with him from the beginning?”
“We haven’t deceived him.” Jess could see that she sincerely believed they had not. “And he has even suggested that I should show Peter around.”