by Anne Weale
“That’s a good girl,” the kind voice said approvingly. “Off to sleep now ... off to sleep ...”
When next she woke the headache and nausea were gone but she felt too languid even to raise her eyelids. There was a strong smell of disinfectant. She wished somebody would give her a drink of water. Couldn’t they see how thirsty she was?
Presently she became aware that someone was holding her hand. She opened her eyes and peered at the blurred figure beside the bed. Gradually her vision cleared and focused.
“It’s you. I wanted you to come,” she said weakly.
“Of course I came.”
“You won’t leave me, will you?” Tears of weariness slipped down her cheeks.
“No, I won’t leave you.”
“I do love you so,” she murmured.
The man beside her bent down until his face was close to hers.
“And I love you, Alex,” he said. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Just sleep now, darling.”
“Darling ....” The word died away on her lips. With a contented sigh she relapsed into deep exhausted slumber.
“What a fright you gave us, dear. Naturally, coming on top of Jane Allardyce’s illness we took it for granted you had polio. What a relief when that nice young doctor told us it was just a tropical fever. Now, Pippa, just stop sneaking those grapes. They’re intended for Alex.” Mrs. Lance ducked forward and rapped her daughter’s knuckles with a folded paper fan.
Alex reclined on a bank of pillows, sipping iced lime juice and only half attending to Laura Lance’s spate of chatter.
“How is Jane now?” she asked.
“She’s pulled through wonderfully,” Mrs. Lance said. “Of course it will be weeks before she is really well again, but there is no paralysis, thank God. Well, I must run along, dear, but we’ll be in to see you tomorrow. The doctor says he may let you come home on Monday and then you must have a good rest to recover your strength. I think I shall give you a course of yeast extract to build you up. What with dieting and late hours and using those nasty dirty trishaws it’s no wonder you girls pick up these dreadful germs.”
“I’ll stay for another ten minutes and go straight to my date, mother,” Pippa said.
“Very well, dear. Don’t let Charles keep you up too late. It’s been a tiring week for all of us. Goodbye, Alex, dear.”
When her mother had bustled away, Pippa said cheerfully, “I don’t envy you your fever, old thing, but you certainly seem to have the convalescence well organized. I suppose those gorgeous roses are from Jonathan.” Alex glanced at the bowl of velvety pink blossoms on her bedside table.
“From Jonathan? Why should they be from him? I thought they were part of the furnishings.”
“My dear girl, even the best hospitals don’t shower their patients with flowers,” Pippa said laughing. “Wasn’t there a card with them? Yes, look, it’s tucked down here among the leaves. Just ‘from Jonathan.’ Fancy the nurse not showing it to you.”
“That’s very nice of him,” Alex said casually. “I suppose he must have telephoned your father to get them.”
“Telephoned? But he’s here. Surely you knew,” Pippa said in astonishment. “Why, he rushed over the minute we notified him that you were ill. He was at your bedside for the first twenty-four hours. I believe the matron was furious, but he refused to budge.”
Alex sat up with a jerk, almost spilling her lime drink on the immaculate sheet that, at regular intervals, a brisk little nurse turned down to the exact length of her forearm and tucked in so tightly that Alex felt like an Egyptian mummy.
“Where is he now?” she asked quickly. “Why didn’t he come with you today?”
“Mother did suggest it, but Jonathan said three visitors at once would tire you. Perhaps he’ll look in later on.” Pippa shot a quizzical glance at her friend. “He’s a very devoted guardian, isn’t he?”
Color flamed in Alex’s cheeks, not so much at this sly dig as at the sudden horrifying consideration that while Jonathan was with her during her delirium she might have launched into febrile ramblings.
It was well-known that in the throes of delirium people lost all their inhibitions. Elderly maiden ladies shouted obscenities. Criminals revealed their crimes. Secret thoughts, even subconscious ones, poured out. Supposing that in the grip of a fever dream she had babbled about Jonathan? How could she ever face him again?
“Well, I hope you didn’t come out with anything improper,” Pippa said airily, as if she had half read Alex’s thought. “I thought Jonathan looked a bit shaken when he finally came home. Perhaps you told him some home truths.” She inspected herself in her compact. “I mustn’t keep the navy waiting. Sleep tight, honey. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Pippa!” Alex called her back.
“Yes?”
“Do you remember telling me that people were gossiping—about Carey?”
“Yes.” Pippa looked slightly discomfited.
“Are they still talking?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that anymore, Alex. After all it’s over now.” Pippa fidgeted with her bracelet, avoiding Alex’s eyes.
“Yes, but are they, Pippa?”
“A bit, I suppose. You know what people are here. But everything is a nine days’ wonder. Something much more spicy will crop up soon and they’ll forget you exist.”
“I suppose so.” Alex sighed. “Hurry up or you’ll be late meeting Charles. Have fun.”
“You’re not going to brood over all that nonsense, are you, Alex?” Pippa asked anxiously.
“No, of course not.” Alex simulated a carefree grin. “As soon as you’re out of the way I’m going to have a long nap. Bye.”
But in spite of her assurance she could not help worrying. Weakened as she was by the severe bout of fever, the prospect of being a center of sordid interest terrified her. She remembered the cold stare with which her cheery good morning had been received by old Mrs. Kentish on the morning before her illness. If only I could go back to the estate, away from here, she thought wretchedly. But perhaps Jonathan had heard the tales, too, and was also disgusted with her. Because he had sat by her bedside while she was ill did not mean that he did not despise her.
She was desultorily flicking over the pages of an American magazine after a light supper of consommé and steamed fish when the staff nurse popped her head around the door and announced that Mr. Fraser had come to see her.
Alex panicked. “I can’t see him. I feel sick.”
“You look all right to me,” the staff nurse said. “A bit of lipstick and that yellow bed jacket and you’ll feel fine.”
The bed jacket was a loan from Mrs. Lance, a charming frilled cape of palest yellow nylon and ecru lace with a satin bow that tied under the chin.
“There!” The nurse plumped up the pillows and tidied the top of the table. “I’ll look in in ten minutes in case you’re tired.”
She rustled away and Alex clenched her fists under the taut sheet in an effort to stop trembling. She felt sick with nervousness and her heart was thumping so violently that she felt sure it must be audible. Presently she heard the nurse’s voice at the end of the corridor and then a man’s even footsteps approaching the room. The door opened.
Jonathan came in and shut it behind him.
For several seconds dark gray eyes met tawny hazel ones.
Then Jonathan said, “Hello, Alex. Feeling better?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He sat down in the armchair by the bed.
“Am I allowed to smoke in here?”
“Yes, I think so.”
He felt in his pockets for a packet of cigarettes, still appraising her with that steady measured glance that was so difficult to meet and told nothing of his thoughts.
“I hope the estate will be all right while you’re here,” she said. Anything to break the silence.
“My good child, you are far more important than the estate.” He sounded almost angry.
Another silence.
&
nbsp; Jonathan blew a smoke ring. “As soon as they have finished with you here I think it would be a good plan for you to go up to one of the hill stations for a couple of weeks,” he said.
“Oh, is that necessary? I feel much better. If Mr. Evans would let me have a few more days away from the office—”
“You don’t realize how ill you’ve been,” he cut in. “These fevers pass over quickly, but they leave you very weak. If you don’t care to go alone I daresay Pippa could go with you.”
Alex could imagine Pippa’s reaction to being separated from Charles.
“I think Pippa is pretty busy,” she said.
“Well, we’ll see how you are in a day or two,” Jonathan said. “I understand that your friend Blake has left.”
“Yes.”
“How do you feel about that?”
She said carefully, “One is always sorry to lose a friend.”
“I rather gathered there was an attachment between you.”
“What made you think that?” She could not prevent a hint of bitterness in her voice. So he had heard the gossip. No doubt he believed it.
He ran a hand over his jaw. “Oh, something you said while you were feverish. You rambled on a bit. Most of it was incoherent.”
A flood of color stained her face and throat. So she had talked.
“I was never in love with him, if that’s what you want to know.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Quite sure,” she said curtly, angry at his persistence. Was he deliberately taunting her? Paying her back for that brief, biting note in which she had practically accused him of being a profligate? Oh, to be able to tell him the truth—to say, Darling Jonathan, I love you, more than anyone in this world.
He rose to his feet, and now that he was going she longed for him to stay.
“Jonathan ... they told me how good you were ... sitting with me all that time, I mean. I do appreciate all you’ve done for me.”
She was totally unprepared for the effect of this on him. The mask of inscrutability that was habitual with him suddenly fell away. The strong muscles at his jaw tensed. His eyes glittered.
“So—” he put his hand under her chin and turned her free up “—you appreciate my kindness, do you? Well, you needn’t labor under a sense of obligation on that account. I would sit with a tapper or a dog or any sick creature in my charge. In this case my vigil was unusually interesting. One would never guess from your demure exterior, Alex, what a remarkable young woman you really are. Good night!”
And with this salutation he strode out, leaving Alex to toss and turn until after midnight wondering what he had meant.
When Jonathan left the hospital he hailed a trishaw and drove to Miss Lin’s apartment.
“How is Alex now?” she asked when he was settled in a chair with a glass of lager and a cigarette. There were lines of strain around his mouth and he smoked with quick impatient draws, stubbing out the cigarette when it was only half-finished and almost immediately lighting another.
“She seems much better.” He frowned. “Lin, you hear most of the local gossip. What are they saying about Alex and that Blake fellow?”
She spread her hands in a gesture depreciating the importance of public opinion. “Much the same things that they used to say about us.”
“Damn them! Damn their dirty little innuendoes.” Jonathan sprang up and began to pace restlessly around the room, his mouth tightened in a grim line.
“Does it matter what they say or think?” she asked.
“Not to us perhaps. But Alex is a child. She hasn’t learned to cope with that sort of thing. Coming on top of her illness it will make life hell for her.”
He swung around, running a hand wearily through his thick dark hair.
“By heaven, I’d like to have words with Blake. He must have known some of his own mud would stick to her. Why the devil did he have to run out just now?”
“I think he was afraid that if he stayed he would ask her to be his wife. He was not really a bad man.” Miss Lin fingered the heavy jade bracelets on her slender wrists. “You love her, don’t you, Jonathan?” she said softly, her eyes full of compassion for him.
For a moment he did not answer, and then in a low voice he said, “Yes, I love her. So much that I could kill anyone who hurts her. I never thought I would want any woman as I want Alex.”
“Then why don’t you ask her to marry you? You could take her back to the estate, away from all this unpleasantness.”
He was silent.
“It is the only way to save her from gossiping tongues,” the Chinese woman said. “Perhaps she does not love as you want her to now, but you could teach her to love you. She is right for you, you know that. If you really love her. you will take the risk. My risk was greater than yours, Jonathan, and I have never regretted it.”
He stared at her intently.
Miss Lin smiled. “Can you forget her, Jonathan? Can you watch her struggle against this scandal? Can you see her fall in love with someone else and come to you for permission to marry? Can you put her out of your life and go on living alone or with some other girl?”
Alex was reading when, the following afternoon, the nurse announced that Mr. Fraser had come to see her. He had brought her a basket of fruit and by the time she had thanked him for it and asked the nurse to cut up a pineapple the wild fluttering of her heart had stilled.
Jonathan seemed in a strange mood. He would talk trivialities for several minutes and then lapse into a long silence. For half an hour this went on until Alex began to feel quite exhausted. Then suddenly he left his chair and came to the bedside. There was a tautness about him, an air of leashed tension that she did not understand.
“You look worried,” she said. “Is it about the estate? When are you going back?”
“Alex, will you marry me?”
If he had told her there was a cobra under her pillows she could not have stared at him more frozenly.
“I don’t understand,” she said at last.
“I’m asking you to be my wife.”
“But ... why?”
“For the conventional reasons.” His voice was level now. He even smiled at her. “I didn’t expect you to swoon with joy, but you look as if I had dealt you a death blow. It’s a little deflating to my self-esteem.”
“You aren’t joking, are you?”
“No, I’m not joking.” Something like a sigh stirred his strong chest and he moved away to the window, his back to her.
“You see, when you left the estate, Alex, I suddenly realized how narrow my life had become. I had never considered marriage before. I thought it unfair to ask any woman to maroon herself on the estate, even discounting the emergency. But you were born and bred on a rubber plantation—it’s home to you. That is one important reason why I think a marriage between us would be successful.”
“And the other reasons?”
Still turned away from her he said, “The other reason is that I’ve become very fond of you. I’d like to go on looking after you when you come of age.”
Alex felt curiously numb. Incapable of reasoned thought. What about love? Where does love come in, her mind demanded. Fond, he says. Is fondness enough for marriage?
The nurse tapped on the door and came in to say that Dr. Robinson wanted to have a look at Miss Murray, could Mr. Fraser come back later?
Jonathan looked at his watch. The nurse went out again.
“You don’t have to decide now,” he said. “Think it over. I can’t come back this evening and tomorrow I have to go back to the mainland. I’ll come over again next week when you’re out of hospital. That will give you time to decide. Goodbye, Alex.”
And with that he was gone, his footsteps echoing hollowly down the polished corridor.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“You look rather heavy-eyed, Alex. Didn’t you sleep well?” Mrs. Lance looked at the girl anxiously, noting her pallor and the shadows under her eyes.
Alex slipped into her
place at the breakfast table and mustered a cheerful smile. She had come out of hospital on the same day that Jonathan returned to the estate, and although at first her knees had had a tendency to buckle suddenly, by now she felt quite well again.
“The thunder disturbed me,” she said lightly.
For the past two days the still, close atmosphere that precedes a storm had been steadily mounting. Everyone longed for a torrential downpour to freshen the stagnant air.
“I don’t know about thunder, but you woke me up twice muttering in your sleep,” Pippa said plaintively.
“You were dreaming. I’ve never talked in my sleep.”
“Well, you do now.” Pippa popped a last corner of toast into her mouth, rolled her napkin into its ivory ring and rushed off to work. Presently Mr. Lance emerged from behind his newspaper, kissed his wife, patted Alex’s shoulder and strolled across the lawn to speak to the kebun. Disquieted by Pippa’s accusation that Alex had begun to talk in her sleep, Mrs. Lance made a tactful attempt to extract a confidence.
“You know, dear, if you have any worries or troubles, George and I will do our best to help you. You’re not upset over Mr. Blake going away so suddenly, are you?”
“No, of course not. Honestly I’m perfectly all right. It’s just the thundery weather.”
“Yes, it is trying. Perhaps it will rain today.” Reassured, Mrs. Lance went off to interview the cook.
After lunch Alex walked down to the beach to wrestle with the problem that neither the Lances, Miss Lin nor anyone else could help her solve. Tomorrow her week of decision would be over. Jonathan would expect his answer. Yes or no. She had thought of nothing else since that last afternoon in hospital and she was still miserably undecided. If he loved her, why had he not said so or shown it by kissing her as men usually did when they proposed? And if he didn’t love her but was marrying for companionship, could it ever work? Supposing he fell in love with someone else afterward? Supposing he found out that she loved him and was embarrassed and irked? Everyone said that marriage in the tropics was far more exacting than marriage in England. Was it foolhardy, then, to enter the relationship without mutual love?
Questions tumbled through her mind in endless, insoluble succession. If she refused him, could she ever forget him? Because this was the first time she had fallen in love was it necessarily a transient emotion, an infatuation that in a few years she would scarcely remember? Her heart clamored that this was a real, lasting love. “Dear God, help me to make the right decision,” she whispered.