Child Friday

by Sara Seale

  “I don’t know,” said Emily, suddenly afraid. “I don’t know at all.”

  He looked profoundly weary, as if, for him, a matter of no consequence had been forced into ugly proportions.

  “Don‘t make mountains out of molehills, my dear,” he said. “I’m well aware that you must know what the position once was between myself and Vanessa, but that has nothing to do with you. Understand?”

  “Yes, Dane,” she said, keeping the unsteadiness out of her voice. “I understand very well.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  EASTER was early that year. When April came, Emily found that she was looking forward to Alice’s return from school. A fourth person, even a child, would make the three-some which she and Dane seemed now to share with Vanessa more bearable. Although days would go by without the girl making an appearance at Pennyleat, Emily always had the uneasy feeling that she might walk in at any moment and claim Dane’s attention for the endless reminiscences to which she was so adept at turning the conversation, leaving Emily outside the warmth and humor of experience which could not be shared by a third.

  Emily had no means of knowing whether he welcomed these periodical visitations or not. Whatever his earlier mood, he seemed to have withdrawn his objections to interruption as far as Vanessa was concerned. If he appeared moody and irritable between her visits, Emily could only conclude that he missed her. In spite of his assurance that she would soon tire of country dullness, she showed no signs of going.

  “How can I?” she said with a shrug and a charming pout. I’m broke, and Aunt Gertrude is my only refuge.”

  “You don’t look broke,” Emily said, eyeing Vanessa’s expensive clothes with a sceptical eye, then wished she had not spoken when she saw Dane smile.

  “Vanessa always had to have the trimmings,” he said. “You haven’t changed, have you, Vanessa?”

  “No,” she said, “I like the best, and you used to say the best was good enough for me.”

  “Did I? Well, you paid for dressing, I will say, my dear. What are you wearing now?”

  It seemed to amuse him to listen to her describing her clothes and accessories. Sometimes he would turn to Emily for confirmation and Vanessa, because such things evidently mattered to her, would turn and twist about the room as if he could really see the things she was describing for him.

  “Is she as lovely as I remember her?” Dane asked Emily once, after Vanessa had gone, and she replied, knowing that her voice was flat and expressionless:

  “I don’t know how you remember her, Dane. But she’s very lovely.”

  “You’re generous, aren’t you?” he said.

  “Why not?” asked Emily gravely. “Do you think I’m jealous of her, Dane?”

  “No,” he answered with faint surprise. “By all accounts you have your own share of loveliness.”

  “No,” she said. “No! Compared to Vanessa—”

  “You’re charmingly modest” One eyebrow rose in quizzical amusement. “There is more than one kind of beauty, you know.”

  “But you’ve never seen me!”

  “Not with the eyes of the body, perhaps, but the blind have other compensations.”

  “To you I’m just a voice, a nebulous personality conjured lip by touch and hearing and nothing substantial,” she said, and he pressed his fingers against his eyelids in sudden weariness with the whole conversation.

  “Do you think so?” he said indifferently. “Well, Emily, perhaps in our case it hardly matters. Not regretting your bargain?”

  “No,” she said. “As you’ve reminded me, in our case it hardly matters.”

  But to herself she cried passionately: “Am I always to take second place to beauty ... to my mother, to Rosemary, and now to Vanessa? But hard on that thought came another, striving for common sense. She had married a stranger without love, without even the promise of affection; she had nothing to expect from such a union, or, indeed, any right to demand that which was not in the bargain.

  Her thoughts leapt ahead to Alice’s holidays. There should be dyed eggs for Easter and Simnel cake, and all the delights of the spring of the year for a child unused to treats. There was the new playroom with its carefully chosen treasures, and there was Emily’s own untapped store of affection ready for the asking. As the holidays approached she unconsciously identified herself with the child. Were they not, both of them, guests in Dane’s house, pieces of flotsam that had no real place there?

  “Oh, my!” Mrs. Meeker would say, admiring each new addition to the playroom. “Bain’t she the lucky little toad! Miss Alice will surely be powerful delighted at all you’m thought of for she.”

  But Shorty was less enthusiastic.

  “Miss Alice ain’t like most kids,” he observed disparagingly. “ ’Ope you won’t be disappointed, ma’am.”

  But before Alice could return, an unlooked for happening put all thoughts of the child out of Emily’s head. Tim Lonnegan came to stay at Torcroft and Vanessa brought him over to Pennyleat one afternoon.

  Dane’s Research Thesis was nearly finished. He and Emily had been working on it all the morning and now she sat with him in the library, going through his accumulation of correspondence. Emily, for once, was thankful for the interruption, but she thought Dane looked displeased. Vanessa stood for a moment in the doorway, surveying them both, and said with her amused drawl:

  “Keeping the little woman to the grindstone, as usual, darling? Well, you’ll have to let up for a bit. I’ve brought an old friend of Emily’s to call on her.”

  Tim followed her into the room, his eyes flickering curiously from Dane to Emily. He was just as she remembered him; the gay, red head, the blue, humorous eyes, and the spare frame, with its neat, elegant bones. For a moment she felt the breath catch in her throat as she rose to greet him and the memory of her own behavior in the past made her tongue-tied.

  “Well, Emily?” he said with that easy unconcern she remembered so well. “I didn’t expect to find you down here, married, established, old friends all forgotten, as well.”

  “I haven’t forgotten you, Tim,” Emily said, gathering herself together. “This is my husband. I knew Tim Lonnegan, Dane, when I was one of Miss Pink’s young ladies always looking for work.”

  Dane’s mouth twitched slightly as if he appreciated the description. He acknowledged the introduction gravely and all the time Vanessa stood and watched the three of them.

  “Well, now, isn’t that nice?” she said cosily, settling herself in a chair by the fire. “Emily and Tim will have lots to say to each other so we can just sit and listen for a change, Dane, or, better still, go for a walk or something.”

  “Yes,” he said unexpectedly. “Why not? Fetch me Bella’s harness, will you, Emily?”

  “Oh, but please—” Emily began, feeling uncomfortable, but he only smiled and repeated his request and she went out to the hall to fetch Bella’s harness.

  Tim watched the process of harnessing the bitch with evident curiosity, and when they had gone, went to the window to watch Dane cross the lawn.

  “Is that what you fell for?” he asked. “The strong and silent hero of romantic fiction being led about by his dog?”

  Emily said calmly: “Have you never seen a guide dog working before? They are pretty amazing.”

  “No, I haven’t, but you’ve begged the question, anyway,” Tim replied with amusement. “Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself since the days when you expressed such devotion to me.”

  “Earning my living,” she answered sedately.

  She thought he looked faintly puzzled. He crossed the room quickly, and took her by the shoulders, holding her away from him while his eyes ran over her curiously.

  “You’ve changed,” he said.

  “One tends to change after two years,” she replied.

  “Do you think so? But you can’t be very old.”

  “Old enough to have learnt a little sense, I hope.”

  “How severe you sound! Have you lost all that o
ld adolescent fervor? What a pity—or is it? Perhaps you’ve acquired a more enticing flavor or would it be just the elegant clothes?”

  “I had no money for elegant clothes when you knew me,” she said.

  “No, in those days you had to borrow from Rosemary.”

  “That frock was mine, not Rosemary’s. She borrowed it from me,” she said with all the indignation she had felt at the time of that incident, and he laughed.

  “Poor Emily!” he said caressingly. “We did treat you badly between us, didn’t we? But you were such a funny little thing with your enthusiasm and your rather touching desire to please. What a pity you weren’t then as you are now. Do you know you’ve become most attractive? Clothes help, of course, but there’s some new quality—poise, perhaps—or can it be that you really have no further interest in me?”

  She gave him a long look. He seemed no older. The little tricks of voice and expression which he had always practised were, perhaps, a shade more mechanical, but the charm was still there, and now his eyes held the flicker of renewed interest. She looked at him and knew that the old, unhappy affection for him had gone for ever.

  “I was eighteen then,” she said gently. “One grows up.”

  He turned away and lit a cigarette.

  “This is all rather astonishing. How did you, the little mouse, land such a handsome prize in the matrimonial stakes?”

  “Dane is blind,” she said unnecessarily, as if that fact excused her good fortune, and he said, as once Vanessa had:

  “A blind husband has his points. Some women might envy you, Emily. How did you come to marry him?”

  The eyes she raised to his were clear and grave.

  “I think Vanessa has already told you that,” she said, and he smiled.

  “Well, yes. It was a little tough on her, wasn’t it, to miss her ultimate goal by so small a margin?”

  “Hardly her ultimate goal,” said Emily with calmness. “She threw Dane over five years ago when he first became blind. Didn’t she tell you that, too?”

  “Oh, yes. Vanessa discusses her affairs very freely—and yours.”

  The faint color stained her cheek-bones.

  “Vanessa doesn’t know a great deal about my affairs—only what she guesses,” she said.

  “Well,” said Tim bluntly, “my guess is as good as hers. One can tell by looking at you that your marriage has gone no further than the wedding ceremony. Don’t misunderstand me, my sweet—I, personally, find that most intriguing.”

  For a moment she was caught up in the old compulsion, and although his surmise humiliated her, she knew an involuntary quickening to the remembered invitation in his voice.

  “Are you staying long?” she asked, meaning to snub him for his impertinence, and saw too late that her question could be taken another way.

  “That depends,” he answered. “That depends very much on whether you might need me.”

  She threw a log on the fire, feeling the flush moment more hotly to her cheeks.

  “What became of Rosemary?” she asked quickly. “I’ve often wondered.”

  “I’ve no idea. I haven’t seen her for well over a year.”

  “Oh! I used to think you’d marry her.”

  He laughed, not unkindly.

  “Oh, Emily! There was no curing you, was there?” he said. “One doesn’t marry the Rosemarys of this world. They’re there to have fun with.”

  “Like me.”

  "No. not like you. You were always too serious, my pet—that was our undoing, but now—well, I like you that way.”

  “Only because you’re safe,” she said. “I can no longer embarrass you by expecting declarations you aren’t prepared to make. I have a husband already.”

  A little spark danced in his very blue eyes.

  “And that, my innocent, is a very strong inducement” he told her softly, as Dane and Vanessa came back into the room.

  “Will you ring for tea, Emily?” Dane said. “I’ve already told Shorty we have guests.”

  Vanessa’s heavy-lidded eyes watched Tim speculatively. For once she did not monopolize the conversation, but encouraged Emily to respond to the young man’s chatter. They were alike in some curious fashion, Emily thought, for each had a brand of charm which could be turned on and off at will, and each had that brittle brilliance which would always serve their own ends. She was relieved when Vanessa rose to go.

  “May I come again, sir?” Tim asked, and Dane’s eyebrows lifted slightly at the small formality of address.

  “Certainly,” he said courteously. “It’s often dull for Emily here, I’m afraid.”

  When they had gone he stood with his back to the fire without speaking immediately. The bitch thrust her long muzzle into his hand and he caressed her absently.

  “That was your young man, wasn’t it?” he said then.

  “What young man?” Emily hedged.

  “The one you told me you ran after. How does he appear to you after two years?”

  He asked the question casually, as if the answer had not much interest for him, and Emily said, with an effort to appear as casual:

  “Like any other young man one has known and forgotten. How did you know—that it was the same one, I mean?”

  He stooped to rub Bella’s ears, his face tender with affection for her.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps one senses these things. Strange he should turn out to be a friend of Vanessa’s. Is he staying long?”

  “I don’t know. In any case we won’t see much of him.”

  “Why not?” He sounded surprised. “You heard him ask if he might come again.”

  “Yes, but—”

  He looked up from his dog and his face was the polite, expressionless mask she sometimes found so hard to read.

  “If the young man can amuse you while he’s here, by all means let him,” he said. “It would leave me free for my own company which I rather enjoy.”

  “Am I in the way?” she asked, uncertain whether, perhaps, this was his fashion of warning her that his privacy was being invaded.

  “Of course not, my dear,” he said courteously. “But we all us need a holiday from time to time. Enjoy yours while you may.”

  II

  She did not know afterwards whether it was Tim or Vanessa who engineered those frequent meetings, or if it was Dane who made things easy. He certainly had no objection when the young man took Emily in to Plymouth for luncheon or dinner, or dropped in at odd moments of the day for a drink.

  He was, himself, spending a certain amount of time at the research laboratory just now. It seemed only a kindness for Tim and Emily to drive him in and pick him up later in the day.

  Emily was, at first, unsure whether she was pleased or sorry by the fresh turn of events, but presently when these small expeditions became a habit, she was glad of the company and temporary release from the solitude of Pennyleat. Tim was an entertaining companion and, now that her own inexperienced feelings were no longer engaged, she found that she could manage his more amorous moments with surprising ease.

  “It’s no use your looking down your charming nose, for I shall make mild love to you when the spirit moves me,” he warned her at the very beginning.

  “Then I shall refuse to come out with you,” she said, with such a convincing air of indifference that he smiled a little wryly.

  “Clever Emily, you really don’t care, do you?” he said. “All right, I’ll be good—but you’ve no idea how devastatingly attractive you’ve become.”

  “Because I no longer want to fall into your arms and beg for affection?”

  “Perhaps. It’s only human nature to desire what you can no longer have. Perhaps I was a fool two years ago. What do you think?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, gravely considering. “Two years ago I was a mess—full of a lot of silly romantic ideas, as you used to try and point out.”

  “What a cad you make me sound.”

  “Not a cad. I took you too seriously, that’s all
. I’ve learnt a lot since then.”

  “Since you got married, you mean?”

  “Yes, since I got married,” she said, and the long lashes hid her eyes for a moment.

  He looked at her across their small luncheon table, observing with interest how at ease she seemed. She was hatless, and the soft brown hair which used to be so unmanageable, though now well cut, still had rather an endearing air of unsophistication. The quality in her which had first attracted, then bored him, was emphasized by good clothes and a finished simplicity, and he now recognized it for what it was, a fastidious delicacy, an elusive charm which, in essence, was far more alluring than the careless vivacity of the good-time girls of his acquaintance.

  “I wonder—were you right?” he murmured softly, and she looked up.

  “To marry Dane?” she asked simply.

  “To marry for whatever reasons you did. You’re fond of him, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m fond of him.”

  “He was terribly in love with Vanessa, you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sometimes I could shake you,” he said. “She hasn’t done with him, my pretty, or do you just kid yourself?”

  A faint flush crept under her skin.

  “It’s Dane’s feelings that really matter,” she answered gravely. “Vanessa is only piqued because she threw him away—bored, perhaps.”

  “You don’t like her, do you? Even so, you’ll have to admit she‘s something of an eyeful and a strong personality.”

  “Oh, yes, she’s quite lovely.”

  “And do you imagine he doesn’t still see her like that? That he might never be tormented by old memories, now she’s come back into his life?”

  She had a picture of the quiet bedroom and Dane turning to her so suddenly, so unexpectedly in the darkness, then almost instantly bidding her go.

  “What are you trying to tell me, Tim?” she said with unexpected passion. “That he still wants her—that I only stand in the way?”

  “Well, my sweet, it’s always possible, isn’t it?” he replied easily. “But there’s no reason why you should be cheated, too. There are plenty as good fish in the sea. If you feel yourself in the way you have the remedy.”