The Man from Ceylon

by Ruby M. Ayres

  *

  Paddy said it was’a rotten weekend’ without Monty. She wandered restlessly about the house—“Getting in the way all the time,” so Dilly complained, “and never offering to help, though she must see you and me on the go from morning till night, Miss Jess; as if things aren’t bad enough with the mistress so ill and——”

  “Oh, but she’s much better,” Jessica interrupted cheerfully, but Dilly’s fount of eloquence was by no means checked.

  “And the master looking worried to death,” she went on, determinedly. “And you looking tired out and worn to a shadow——”

  Jessica laughed. “Nonsense,” she protested briskly, but she knew Dilly was right when she said that Kirby was looking worried to death—realising that not only her mother’s illness was responsible.

  And there was no way in which she could help him! Since his broken admission that KIRLOU must be sold, he had determinedly avoided her, spending most of his time in his wife’s room, where by doctor’s orders she still lay in bed although she frequently protested that she felt well enough to be up and about.

  It was an additional shock to Jessica when, on the Monday morning, her father announced that he should not go to London, and he seemed to avoid looking at her as he explained that he did not like to leave his wife until she was really fit again.

  “John says she is quite out of danger,” Jessica reminded him gently, but Kirby only said, with a touch of his old irritability,

  “Pooh!… doctors will say anything that they think you want to hear. I’m staying at home, anyway.”

  Could it be that he was afraid to go to London, Jessica wondered? She understood so little of financial problems, and though her mother had frequently said that she considered the Stock Exchange to be the greatest and most dangerous form of gambling, she had never explained why!

  Kirby stayed at home on the Tuesday also, and as Gordon left to catch his train, Jessica heard her father say to him with forced indifference—

  “If Winter rings up or calls at the office—Stephen Winter—tell him I’m away for a few days, and that you are not sure when I shall be back.”

  Jessica did not know Stephen Winter very well, but she had always vaguely disliked him, not that she had much affection for his brother Gerard either, and she was profoundly glad that Paddy agreed with her.

  “Gerard’s got such a wonderful opinion of himself,” Paddy once said scornfully. “But apart from his money I can’t understand anyone looking at him!”

  *

  Paddy had appeared unusually interested in the arrival of the postman since Monty’s departure— racing to the door whenever she saw him or heard his knock, and remarking, as she hurriedly sorted through the letters, “Not a word from the great Monty! I think the least he can do is to drop me a line——” and then Jessica’s heart would contract as if it had been touched by an unkind hand, though she managed to answer carelessly,

  “I expect he’ll be back—today or tomorrow.”

  It was on the Tuesday afternoon that she saw Paddy standing in the hall with an open letter in her hand, staring down at it with a strangely drawn expression on her pretty face.

  “From Monty? “Jessica asked, and then as there was no reply she repeated the question with forced cheerfulness, “Is our lodger coming back at last?”

  Paddy gave herself a little shake as if she found it difficult to control her wandering thoughts.

  “No… Look! “she said with slow defiance, and thrust the letter into Jessica’s outstretched hand.

  Not a letter!… but a formal invitation to the wedding of Peter Phillips and Rose Gallon—printed in silver lettering and adorned with a true lovers’ knot.

  There was an eloquent silence which Jessica tried in vain to break, but she could think of nothing to say, and it was Paddy who spoke first with harsh bitterness.

  “They haven’t wasted much time, have they? Peter had evidently decided to take my excellent advice and to marry money while he has the chance.”

  “Peter would never do that,” Jessica reproached her gently. “I am sure Peter would never marry anyone he didn’t really love.”

  Paddy laughed. “Oh—love I” she said scornfully. “I’m sick to death of the word!… Love!… there’s no such thing——” and then to Jessica’s distress she burst into tears, and pushing her sister aside when she would have stopped her, she rushed upstairs shutting and locking her bedroom door behind her.

  Love!… there’s no such thing!… Jessica looked down at the wedding card with troubled eyes, realising more surely than ever before that—as she had always feared—Paddy still cared for Peter.

  So now she and Paddy were in the same lonely ship! both in love with men to whom they were less than nothing.

  Her father’s voice suddenly broke the silence, asking with sharp intonation. “Any letters for me?”

  “No—no!… Only one for——” She stooped to pick up the envelope which had fallen to the floor. “It’s addressed to us all—to the entire family—and it’s an invitation to Peter Phillips’ wedding——”

  Kirby growled.

  “Well, I’m not going,” he told her, flatly. “Why on earth can’t people get married quietly, without all this fuss and performance, as your mother and I did!… Sheer waste of money, I call it. Look at the price of things today!… and not worth having when you’ve got them! Must say I gave Phillips credit for more sense,” and with another grunt he turned away, only to stop and to ask, without looking round, “How do you think your mother is?”

  “Much better—John said he hoped she might be able to get up for a little while tomorrow—though not until he’s seen her.”

  Kirby said, “Humph!… and a nice bill we shall get from him, I suppose!—not that I grudge any money spent on your mother, God knows, but——” He glanced over his shoulder at Jessica. “You don’t think she guesses, do you? About the mess I’m in, and that’s what knocked her over?”

  “Oh no, I’m quite sure she doesn’t,” Jessica answered positively, and then—” Are things—still as bad? I mean—shall we have to sell this house?”

  Kirby shrugged his shoulders with pretended philosophy.

  “It’s the only way out I can see, unless a miracle happens,” and when Jessica said hopefully,

  “Perhaps it will—something good often turns up when we are least expecting it,” Kirby gave a final grunt.…

  “Don’t believe in miracles—there’s no such thing,” and he walked away.

  No such thing as love! and no such thing as miracles!… Jessica sighed as she paused for a moment at the open front door to look at the sunshine. Life seemed so filled with disillusionment, and it took all one’s courage and strength not to admit or to believe that this ‘so-called peace’ as her father liked to express it was indeed a pathetic disappointment.

  But mother is better, and the sun is shining, she reminded herself with quiet determination, just as a well-known, cheery whistle broke the silence, and Monty appeared at the gate.

  “The wanderer returns!” he announced, “but where are the flags I expected to see hanging across the street?”

  Jessica’s depression lifted as if by a magic touch and she laughed. “We didn’t know you were coming,” she told him, “or I would have had an illuminated address of welcome ready for you. Have you had a good time?”

  “First rate!… Everything went off like clockwork. I got my own way on every point.”

  “Don’t you always?”

  Monty shook his head with pretended regret.

  “Not always!… though I seldom give up hope!… How is your mother?”

  “Much better. John thinks she may be able to get up for a little while tomorrow.”

  “And—the Guv’nor!…Not been to London this week, I hear.”

  She looked at him in faint surprise.

  “How did you know—who told you?”

  He waved a hand of dismissal.

  “Oh—er—must have been Gordon!… I spoke
to him on the phone this morning—wanted me to stay in town with him this evening, but being anxious to return to the home of my adoption—or rather, to the home that has so amazingly adopted me— I refused.”

  He suddenly took both Jessica’s hands, gently pushing back the sleeves of her blouse so that her wrists were bare.

  “No sign of eternal friendship yet, I see,” he remarked drily.

  “What do you mean?—oh!…the bracelet——” Her colour rose a little. “Gold bracelets and housework hardly go together, you know.”

  Monty released her. “Where there’s a will,” he remarked. “However—time will tell,” and picking up the suitcase which he had set down on the doorstep he followed her into the house.

  “Where’s Paddy? “he asked.

  “Upstairs—I think she has missed you,” Jessica told him with unconscious challenge.

  “Meaning, I take it, that you have not!” Monty submitted, and then as she did not reply, “And is that the end of the home-service news?”

  Jessica suddenly remembered the invitation to Peter’s wedding.

  “No—it isn’t—Peter—your brother—we have been invited to his wedding—in a fortnight’s time—in London—but of course you know all about it!”

  “I do. I am to be Best Man. I suppose you will all grace the occasion with your presence?”

  Jessica shook her head.

  “I may not be able to come—it will depend how mother is and if I can leave her——”

  “Do you ever consider yourself?” he demanded with sudden exasperation, and without waiting for a reply he marched upstairs.

  Jessica had fully expected that as soon as Paddy heard his voice she would put in an appearance, but it was supper time before she left her room, and then—thanks to careful make-up, at which Paddy was an expert—there was no sign of tears or distress in her face.

  It was Dilly’s evening’ off’, so Jessica had laid the supper-table and prepared the meal, but it gave her a profound shock to realise, after the family had assembled, that she had not set a place for Monty!— only for four—her father, Paddy, Gordon and herself. Monty was the first to notice the omission and he stood looking across at her with an air of profound martyrdom before reciting grandiloquently—

  “’This is the most unkindest cut of all’ “—and then as she looked at him in bewilderment—”’By the world forgot’.”

  Paddy chuckled.

  “You haven’t laid a place for the wanderer,” she explained. “I’ll see to it——” and she ran off into the kitchen to get the necessary cutlery and plates.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jessica apologised. “I’m not usually such a bad parlourmaid,” she laughed, “I suppose now I shall get a month’s notice.”

  “A month’s notice to leave tomorrow,” Monty assured her.

  “Jessica has far too much to do,” her father said with unusual appreciation. “Why don’t you insist that Paddy does her share, my dear? “but Paddy’s return silenced him. …

  “Isn’t it nice to hear Monty’s cheerful voice about the house again?” Mrs. Mansfield said later that evening when Jessica went to’tuck her up for the night’, as she called it. “I have missed him, haven’t you?”

  “I think we all have.”

  Mrs. Mansfield pointed across the room. “Have you seen what he brought me?”

  Jessica turned round. “Oh!… what lovely roses!”

  Her mother nodded. “So kind of him! They must have cost a lot of money. They were about one and six each in the shops the last time I saw any. Of course your father calls it wanton extravagance—” she smiled, “but you know he never means it when he says things like that. Well, good night, my dear— I feel so much better I am glad to say. Don’t stay up late. I know it’s Dilly’s evening off, but let the work go—you mustn’t tire yourself out.”

  “I don’t feel tired,” Jessica assured her, but it was not strictly the truth, and it was with a sigh of relief that at last she went to her room, leaving Paddy downstairs, laughing and chatting away lightheartedly with Monty and Gordon.

  “Love!… there’s no such thing”… Jessica recalled her sister’s surprisingly passionate denial, marvelling that to all appearances she had already completely recovered from her unhappiness. Wonderful to be able to throw it aside so quickly, but Paddy was like that, always able to hide her feelings!—and now she had got Monty back again of course it would make life much brighter for her.

  Jessica walked over to the dressing-table and looked at her reflection in the mirror.

  Less attractive than usual tonight, my dear, she told it comically, and then, as she looked down for her hair brush, she saw a three-cornered note lying beside it.

  It had not been there earlier that evening, she was sure—or if it had been, funny she had not noticed it.

  She picked it up and unfolded it—no beginning to the written words, and no signature—just a few pencilled scribbled lines—in Monty’s handwriting, she knew at once.

  “I hope, as no unwelcome guest

  At your warm fireside when the lamps are lighted,

  To have my place reserved amongst the rest—

  Nor stand aside, as one unsought and uninvited——”

  She knew well enough to what the words were intended to refer!—to that forgotten place at the supper-table!

  ‘As no unwelcome guest’! Did he really imagine that was how she felt about him?—an unwelcome guest?

  What would he say—or think—were it possible to tell him that there was one unsought place—in her heart!—which was his to the exclusion of all else, and would be to the end of her life!

  Chapter VII

  Kirby Went to London as Usual the Morning following Monty’s return.

  “Not that I want to go,” he told Jessica, “but your mother insists that she is so much stronger, she thinks it’s absurd for me to stay at home! Not that I want to go——” he added with a note of despondency.

  “Perhaps you will find that things are better,” Jessica said with forced cheerfulness, to which her father replied gloomily—

  “Well, they can hardly be worse! “And then warningly, “Mind you don’t breathe a word to your mother about selling the house—I shall be home early, and if you want me, ring up at once——” and with pathetic reluctance he took down his hat and coat from the hall-stand.

  Jessica watched with sympathetic eyes—as he walked slowly down the road, turning from force of habit to wave his usual farewell when he reached the corner, and though she waved back, her heart sank as she realised what a tragedy it would have been had her mother died.

  The end of everything for Kirby, she was sure! The end of everything for all of them, perhaps. Goodbye to their home, and the quiet, undisturbed happiness they had known for so many years—even though Paddy had always declared it was’deadly monotony’.

  “Nothing ever happens,” she so often complained, although perhaps even she would not be able to find anything thrilling in the menacing cloud now overhanging them all.

  Jessica lingered wistfully over her housework that morning, with an unhappy premonition that perhaps —before very long—she might be saying goodbye to the familiar rooms and furniture, without which she could not picture life at all, and remembering how— when the husband of a friend had suddenly died his wife had told her brokenly—

  “I shouldn’t feel so desolate if I could keep my home and all its memories—but I can’t—I’ve got to let them go.”

  “But ah! the little things for which I sigh,

  As each day passes by;

  The open book, the flower upon the floor,

  The dainty disarray—

  The sound of passing feet,

  The opening door—

  Alas! the little things of every day!

  Alas, alas!—for little things my heart is breaking.”

  She had sent that verse to Jessica after her house had been sold and she had moved away, and it seemed somehow prophetic that she should remembe
r it today when perhaps she herself was on the verge of such a parting.

  I won’t think about it, she told herself firmly—I’ll believe that everything will come right—but her courage failed her again when Paddy called out from the hall that she and Monty were ‘off for the day’.

  “So you won’t have to bother much about dinner,” she added half apologetically.

  Jessica looked down at them over the balusters—

  “Have a good time,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “Where are you going?”

  Monty shrugged his shoulders.

  “’All the way there and back again—To see how far it is!’” he quoted, and then as she did not reply— “Anything I can do for you before we depart—or would you rather we stayed at home?”

  It was Paddy who answered him—

  “We’re not staying at home, so come along,” and taking his arm, she led him away.

  It seemed an endless day, though Jessica busied herself about the house unceasingly, trying in vain to check her thoughts which persistently turned to her sister and Monty.

  Where had they gone? What were they doing? It was such a lovely, sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky, but somehow instead of lifting her depression it seemed to increase it.

  “I really think I might get up just for tea,” Mrs. Mansfield said cheerfully, but Jessica firmly refused—

  “John said you must not think of getting up until he gave you permission,” she told her. “Dilly’s going to do the shopping for me this afternoon, so I’ll bring the tea upstairs and have it with you.”

  Mrs. Mansfield sighed—” I wonder how many times a day you come up and down to me, my dear,” she said. “You must be very tired—I do think Paddy might have stayed to help you——” but Jessica only laughed and declared she managed better by herself.

  She was in the kitchen setting the tea-tray when she heard the front door open, and her father’s step in the hall.

  Home so early!…she caught her breath apprehensively as she hurried to meet him, but contrary to her expectation he was smiling in his old cheery way.