Child Friday

by Sara Seale

  “Quite a considerable amount,” he replied with gentle irony. “I remember you always used to speculate on how much the old boy was worth.”

  “Because,” she said, pouting charmingly, “it always seemed such a waste when he shut himself up and never spent it, and now you’re following in his footsteps.”

  “How can you be sure of that?”

  “Only, I suppose, judging by first impressions,” said Vanessa carelessly, but her glance rested for an instant on Emily’s shabby clothes.

  “I’ve left the house exactly as I found it. I know the position of the furniture,” Dane said, and Emily made some excuse to leave the room.

  “I was referring to your wife,” said Vanessa calmly when she had gone. “Did no one buy her a trousseau?”

  He frowned.

  “A trousseau? I don’t suppose so. She has no parents and there wasn’t much time.”

  “Then you might have remedied the omission yourself, darling. Even if she’s content to be buried here for the rest of her life, I’ve no doubt some pretty things would help the interment. Don’t you make her an allowance?”

  He flushed a little at her words and replied impatiently that there had not, as yet, been much time to arrange such matters.

  “In other words you never gave it a thought,” laughed Vanessa. “Oh, Dane, darling, how typical of you! I suppose because you can’t see what she wears it doesn’t occur to you that others can.”

  “Is it as bad as that?”

  “Oh, yes. You should do something about it, darling. Even if you did marry your typist-cum-governess for reasons best known to yourself, you want to put up a front for the village, don’t you?”

  The lines about his mouth deepened.

  “I don’t very much care for the way in which you allude to Emily,” he said. “She came here in the first place for a job, yes, but that doesn’t put her on the level of a servant.”

  “Of course not,” said Vanessa, sounding quite unruffled. “But you’re not in love with her, are you?”

  “That,” he said quietly, “I consider an impertinence, even from you.”

  She sprang to her feet and began to pace the room with those quick, restless movements he remembered so well.

  “You forgave my impertinence once,” she said. “Oh, Dane, why couldn’t you have waited? Why couldn’t you have waited even three weeks longer—or did you know I was coming back? Did you marry so hurriedly as a kind of protection?”

  “It was you who wouldn’t wait five years ago,” he countered. “You ran away, because you couldn’t face poverty and a maimed husband.”

  “And you are punishing me for that? Yes, I ran away, but I was very young at the time—hardly older than your Emily. I didn’t know—I couldn’t bear to think of your being helpless. You loved beauty so much.”

  “But, you see, I’m not helpless,” he said gently. “And as for beauty, well, I should always have remembered you as I used to see you. For me you would never have grown old.”

  She stood for a moment looking down at him, and her lashes were wet with an honest emotion.

  “I didn’t think of that,” she said softly.

  “You didn’t think of a lot of things, my dear,” he replied. “And now it’s too late.”

  “No,” she cried with the old passionate repudiation of anything that might stand in her way. “It’s never too late—never!”

  Just for a moment his face had the old hunger, then he said a little sadly:

  “I’m five years older, Vanessa. My self-adjustment wasn’t easy but I’ve made it. There’s never any going back, you know, even if we wished it. Stay away from us, my dear. We are no longer good for one another and there’s no need to be hurt all over again.”

  “Then let me help you with Emily,” she said. “There’s no use in the innocent third being hurt as well, is there?”

  “No use at all, and I shall see to it that such a thing will never arise.”

  “We’ll both see to it,” she said. “For that reason you’ll let me help?”

  The old wheedling warmth he remembered so well was back in her voice and he smiled.

  “What do you imagine you can do?” he asked.

  “Oh, the things any woman can help another over,” she said. “Clothes, running a house, having fun. The child has no confidence. She’s a mouse.”

  “Not such a mouse as you might suppose,” he said with amusement. “By all means take over her wardrobe if it amuses you, Vanessa, but don’t expect me to accompany you on your shopping expeditions. Are your own clothes as decorative as ever?”

  She shrugged.

  “Mostly a matter of what money will run to these days, but, yes, I think I still have a flair,” she said, and was immediately irritated that he could not see and admire the exquisite ensemble she had planned for this visit.

  Emily, returning at that moment, caught the look on her face and immediately understood it. She could not like Vanessa, but she had always been a willing slave to beauty.

  “Your suit is a lovely color, Miss Larne,” she said shyly. “That dusty blue is perfect for your hair and eyes.”

  “Now I can see you, Vanessa,” said Dane with a grin. “Dusty blue—a good description.”

  Vanessa turned to Emily, warming at once to expressed admiration.

  “You must call me Vanessa,” she said kindly. “You are I are going to have a lot of shopping jaunts together. Dane is going to let me fit you out with a trousseau.”

  “Oh!” said Emily unenthusiastically, and wondered what disparaging remarks the girl had already made to Dane. “I hardly need a trousseau for the life I lead here.”

  “Dull though your life may be,” said Dane with unexpected sharpness, “Vanessa evidently thinks I’ve neglected you, so you’ll please be guided by her on this important matter of clothes.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean—” began Emily, horrified that she might have been thought to be complaining of her lot, but Dane interrupted, irritated that she should seem to be apologizing to him in front of Vanessa:

  “Never make explanations,” he said. “They are apt to lead from bad to worse.”

  “Now you’ve embarrassed the poor sweet,” laughed Vanessa, but her eyes plainly said that she considered Emily a fool.

  III

  After that it seemed that Vanessa was in and out of the house at all hours of the day. Sometimes she would carry Emily off in the middle of a morning’s work, and if Dane protested, said gaily:

  “Nonsense, Dane! She’s your wife now, not your secretary. You must allow her off the chain sometimes.”

  Emily would not have been human had she not enjoyed choosing the things which all her life she had been unable to afford, but she did not altogether enjoy Vanessa’s chaperonage. Vanessa and the saleswoman between them turned her into an automaton with no opinions of her own. She was rarely allowed to choose for herself and Vanessa’s frank exposure of figure faults or posture became embarrassing. She was humbly grateful when a saleswoman would murmur something complimentary with reference to her slender waist or small breasts, but Vanessa would impatiently point out another defect until Emily would say despairingly:

  “What’s the use of spending so much of Dane’s money when I don’t seem to do anything justice?”

  “Nonsense!” Vanessa would counter swiftly. “You mustn’t take my criticisms too seriously. I’m a perfectionist. You have many good points, Emily, if you’d only get a little confidence in yourself. That’s the whole secret of good clothes—to give you confidence. Don’t you feel more like Mrs. Dane Merritt of Pennyleat, now, than little Emily Moon from an employment agency?”

  “Ye-es,” said Emily doubtfully, but it was true that away from Vanessa’s critical eye she could walk with an air and feel assured because her clothes were good and her shoes expensive.

  Dane evinced little interest in the wardrobe he could not see, but Mrs. Meeker was highly appreciative and even Shorty looked at Emily with jaundiced approval.
r />   “Wot’s she up to?” he enquired after a little while.

  “Who?” asked Emily.

  “That Miss Larne. Dolling you up a treat when all the time she’s sweet on the governor herself.”

  “That was a long time ago,” she said severely, but Shorty only winked and observed:

  “Oh, yers? She’s up to something. Still, and all, I suppose she’s on a safe wicket. ’E can’t see you in all these nobby confections but she gets ’erself into ’is good books for being kind to the little woman. You better watch your step, ma’am.”

  “You’ve no business to talk like that, Shorty,” said Emily sharply. “Miss Larne, is an old friend of Mr. Merritt’s and he wouldn’t like to think you discuss her in this way. Besides, she’s been very kind to me.”

  “Cor love us! You believe everything you ’ear, don’t you?” he said, and went away, sniffing.

  But she knew in her heart that he was right, and, as the weeks went by and Vanessa became, part of their daily routine, her own uneasiness grew.

  Vanessa showed her up in small insidious ways that might or might not have been deliberate. If they went out in the car she would insist on taking the wheel herself, saying that Dane was used to the way she handled a car. Emily, relegated to the back, was forced to admit that Vanessa drove superbly and very fast, and she would sit listening while Vanessa shouted joyous reminders to Dane of other drives they had shared. Then, catching sight of Emily’s unhappy face in the driving mirror would call out: “Frightened, Emily?”

  She would discuss foreign countries, which Emily had never seen, with vividness and wit, bringing that rare smile to Dane’s face, and she invaded Mrs. Pride’s kitchen and cooked delicate foreign dishes which Emily had never heard of.

  “You should learn, Emily dear,” she would say gaily. “Dane used to be quite an epicure in the old days. Now that he is blind, his palate is probably even more discerning.”

  “Mrs. Pride wouldn’t let me experiment,” said Emily bleakly. “She always made it clear that the running of the house is her province.”

  “Don’t you get on with Pridey?” asked Vanessa innocently. “Ah, well, you haven’t much experience in handling servants, have you? Still, it’s a mistake to let them think they can run you. That man of Dane’s is sometimes very familiar.”

  “Shorty’s manner is unfortunate, but he’s devoted to Dane,” Emily said defensively.

  “I daresay, but that’s no reason why you should put up with impertinence,” said Vanessa. “You should make a stand, my dear. He’d respect you more.”

  “I’m scarcely in a position to—” began Emily without thinking, and stopped when she saw Vanessa’s blue eyes on her, suddenly brilliant and avid.

  “Scarcely in a position to give orders in Dane’s house, were you going to say?” she asked softly. “But what a strange confession for a bride.”

  Emily said nothing. She saw that Vanessa had a very shrewd suspicion that this marriage was unusual. She had seen her eyes dwell on the clean and obviously untouched second pillow on the big double bed, and watched her delicate eyebrows lift when Emily sometimes appeared ignorant of her husband’s habits. Did she, too, think that Dane had hurriedly married his secretary to place a barrier between them? The thought was disturbing, just as was Dane’s reaction when she ran into his room one night when she heard him knock over a chair.

  “Are you hurt?” she 'asked anxiously, but he turned on her with such irritation that she shrank back.

  “Of course I’m not hurt,” he snapped. “Kindly keep to your own room unless I call. It’s—humiliating to be observed in undignified behavior when one can’t see oneself.”

  “Oh, Dane,” she said compassionately, “you need never feel that with me. I’m here to help.”

  “Then don’t make it so plain,” he replied. “Take a leaf out of Vanessa’s book and treat my infirmity as a joke. It’s easier to bear.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice trembling.

  She stood there in the doorway between their two rooms, not knowing what to do. He took off his dressing-gown and felt his way to the bed and she quickly picked up the fallen chair and set it back in position.

  “Are you still watching me?” he asked sharply.

  “No, I was picking up the chair,” she said.

  “Well, then, please shut the door and go to bed,” he said and she ran back to her own room without even bidding him good-night

  She sat for a long time in front of her flowered dressing-table, watching the reflected tears chasing one another down her cheeks. It was foolish to be hurt, she thought foolish to resent the comparison with Vanessa. It was easy for Dane, hearing only Vanessa’s laughter and bright, gay little jests; he did not see her grimace of distaste when he blundered into something, or the impatience in her eyes when, forgetting he could not see, she thrust a newspaper or periodical into his hands. Vanessa might have loved him once, but whatever she wanted of him now, she was safe from being observed, safe in the knowledge that he could only see her as she used to be.

  Emily wept, remembering how nearly she had offered herself to him that afternoon in the drawing-room, how nearly, perhaps, he had accepted what she had to give. He had been gentle then and she thought he had need of her.

  I love my love and well he knows

  I love the ground whereon he goes ...

  But that was not for her, not even yet for Dane, whose love had been taken from him long ago.

  It was a relief when Vanessa suddenly tired of country life and went to stay in London for a round of parties.

  “Only for a week or two, darling,” she told Dane when she came to say good-bye. “Aunt Gertrude’s rheumatism’s making her a crotchety companion and, frankly, I can’t stand Dartmoor in winter. Don’t you ever feel you want to revisit the old haunts again, Dane?”

  He shook his head, smiling a little sardonically.

  “All those little Soho restaurants and night-clubs—Bellometti’s when I could afford it? No.”

  “But we had such fun.”

  “I suppose so. One grows out of such things, though.”

  “Your blindness has turned you stuffy,” she said rather tartly. “Are you going to keep poor Emily shut up in this prison for ever?”

  “She married me on that understanding,” he answered quietly. “I don’t think your tastes and Emily’s really have much in common.”

  “Yet I seem to remember a time when you preferred mine.”

  “I was in love with you, my dear. One is inclined to adopt the tastes of another as one’s own at such times.” They were walking in the garden, Bella, in her harness, ever watchful to the pressure of her master’s hand. Vanessa put light fingers on his arm.

  “Have you forgotten already?” she said softly. “I don’t think so, Dane. That day when I came back the old magnetism was there, wasn’t it—wasn’t it?”

  “Magnetism is nothing to do with love,” he said harshly. “It’s purely a chemical reaction and can be experienced by anyone.”

  “There speaks the research chemist,” she said, unruffled. “Well, a chemical reaction’s good enough for me. You’re still very attractive, darling, and so romantic with your guide dog and all.”

  He shook her hand off and gave Bella the order to turn in another direction.

  “Is it Ben’s money that’s made me appear attractive again?” he asked gently.

  “Well, I admit it helps,” Vanessa replied at once with disarming frankness. “I’d be a hypocrite if I said I didn’t wish you’d come into it five years ago.”

  “You would have been prepared to put up with my handicap, in that case—lead me about on a string, as you once put it?”

  “Was I as crude as that? Well, darling, as I said, I was very young and I—I didn’t know what you were going to look like when the bandages came off. Was that very cowardly of me?”

  “No, I suppose not. I was bad company in those days.”

  Bella had halted at the steps leading dow
n from the terrace. Dane paused too, lifting his sightless face to the soft wind of late February.

  “Are any primroses out?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered impatiently. “Dane—I didn’t fill your place all those five years. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

  “What should it tell me, except that you may have had a few regrets, or found nobody—rich enough, shall we say—to compensate?”

  Her temper flared up.

  “That’s unpardonable!” she said.

  “Perhaps it was,” he replied wearily, and she took his shoulders suddenly between her hands and turned him round to face her.

  “I don’t believe all we once felt for each other is lost,” she said violently. “If there’s no going back, at least we can go forward.”

  “You’re forgetting, I think, that I’m married,” he said gently.

  “And what sort of marriage is it, I should like to know? One of convenience because even you, in the end, couldn’t bear to live alone. What use in Emily to you—a mousy little nobody who’s content to let herself be walked on? Her voice shook with passion.

  “Are you jealous of Emily?” he asked mildly.

  “Oh, really, Dane!” she exclaimed. “No, I’m not jealous of her. She stands in my way, that’s all.”

  He gently removed her hands from his shoulders.

  “Just the same Vanessa, aren’t you?” he said. “Nothing must stand in your way.”

  “Nothing has,” she said, “until that wretched accident wrecked our happiness.”

  He began to descend the steps with the sureness of long familiarity and Bella’s guiding presence.

  “It wasn’t the accident that wrecked us,” he said. “It was your lack of faith, my dear.”

  “You haven’t forgiven me, have you?” she said. “You haven’t made allowances for—”

  Emily was coming to meet them. She had seen them standing so close at the top of the steps, and had heard Vanessa’s last words. The anger in her clear eyes and the color in her cheeks gave her a fleeting delicate illusion of beauty and Vanessa glanced at her curiously.