by Susan Barrie
Melanie actually gasped a little. How dared he imagine she was to be bought!
“And my sister will find somebody else quite competent to write her letters and drive her car and so forth.”
“I see,” Melanie said quietly. “You have worked it all out, Mr. Trenchard.”
“To the last detail,” he assured her calmly.
Melanie felt almost revolted by the calculating manner in which his brain worked.
“Is that why you permitted me to come here with you this afternoon?” she asked.
He shrugged slightly.
“I am not at all sure. The germ of an idea concerning you may have been agitating my mind when we set off, but I think it is much more likely that I actually thought of you as a suitable companion for Noel when I saw you sitting here just now in the gloaming, and you struck me as being so exceedingly youthful—much too youthful for my sister Eve. It might flatter you a little if I say ‘to be wasted’ on my sister Eve! At the same time Eve is a sufficiently sound judge of value to make me feel quite safe in putting my proposition to you.”
“Thank you,” Melanie responded stiffly, standing up, “but although it may not have occurred to you I do have some consideration for my employer’s wishes, and I hardly think she would wish to dispense with me without any warning whatsoever.”
“Meaning that you consider a reasonable notice necessary?”
“I don’t consider giving notice to Mrs. Duplessis at all—at any rate, not at the present time.”
“And you don’t think she owes anything at all to her niece?—an orphaned niece!”
Melanie hesitated.
“A child whose parents were killed almost at her birth, and who has known nothing but school life and school holidays ever since?” he got in swiftly. “Think of it!” He went a little closer to her. “Think of what you yourself would feel if, say, that child happened to be your sister—and her health was anything but good! Up here in this clear atmosphere she might be put right in no time. And Eve would be so thankful to know that she was not going to be asked for any further sacrifices that she would probably part with you almost gladly, to ease her conscience,” he urged persuasively.
Melanie was silent, looking up at him. It was getting so dark in the room now that they could scarcely see one another’s face, but she knew that he was watching her, and watching her very closely. She could smell the faint scent of the lavender shaving-soap he used, and that attractive odor of his tobacco heavily in the room. He placed one hand lightly on her shoulder, barely gripping it.
“Think of it!” he urged again.
Melanie could not reply immediately, she was so overwhelmingly conscious of that loose hold of her shoulder. He was not even seeking to detain her by forcibly imprisoning her to the spot, and it would have been the simplest thing in the world to have brushed his fingers away. Yet some curious sensation like magnetism, utterly strange and disturbing, seemed to speed from him into her, and for a moment she felt weak.
“I’ll—I’ll think of it,” she promised.
“Good girl,” he approved, and let her go, and Melanie thought his voice sounded complacent and satisfied.
Two nights later his sister gave a small dinner-party in honor of his visit. It was a dignified and rather formal affair, with the oval Regency table in the dining-room ablaze with silver and cut-glass and flowers, and tall candles in Georgian candlesticks softening the hues of the women’s dresses.
There were three feminine guests, and only one young one amongst them. Old Lady Vine, who wore a deaf aid and was the local autocrat whom no one ever dared to leave out of any party, lest the omission recoiled on their heads, brought with her her nephew, a junior partner in a firm of local solicitors. Mrs. Gaythorpe was a faintly pathetic widow, and her only daughter Sylvia was taking a short cut to stardom in British films. The vicar was a bachelor and had been invited to help swell the numbers of the men.
Sylvia Gaythorpe, in cloudy black net and a curious snaky gold necklace which fitted her white throat like a dog-collar, had long and smiling greeny-grey eyes beneath the most entrancing eyelashes, and her hair was exactly the color of autumn beech leaves. She had a complexion like new milk, and a mouth so scarlet that it positively drew the gaze.
At dinner she had Richard Trenchard as her neighbor on her right hand, and since he was, after all, the lion of the evening, and certainly looked it in his faultlessly tailored dinner-jacket, and with his faintly disdainful and aloof expression, she sent many of her most warmly smiling glances in his direction. Sylvia had gone a long way towards success but she never believed in missing an opportunity to go a little way farther in the shape of a personable and much-talked-about playwright.
Melanie had been approached by her employer in the most tactful way in the world and requested, since the seating accommodation at the table was limited, to join the party after dinner in the drawing-room, and it was not until coffee was being handed round that she had a chance to examine the company. And then she saw that Sylvia was already “well away,” or so it seemed, with Richard. While the others talked about bridge fours she slid her hand inside his arm and led him away to a chesterfield in a corner on the pretext of talking “shop,” which she declared she found more entertaining than any other subject.
Melanie quickly grew bored with watching Lady Vine and her nephew, Mrs. Duplessis and the Vicar playing a solemn game of bridge, while Mrs. Gaythorpe turned over the pages of magazines because she frankly detested it. And after a while she stole away to the library with the intention of borrowing a book and then retiring upstairs with it to her room.
But she caught sight of her typewriter on the desk and recollected that there was still an unfinished letter in her notebook, and decided to get on with it. And when she had finished that there were some accounts to add up, and she was frowning over a varying total when the door behind her was flung open almost with a flourish and Sylvia Gaythorpe and Richard Trenchard stood framed in the aperture.
Sylvia’s eyebrows rose, and her glorious greenish eyes slid round humorously at Richard.
“How lucky Eve is to have such a devoted secretary! Surely you don’t make it a practice to work as late as this, Miss Brooks?” she inquired in her cool, amused voice.
Melanie swept up the little pile of bills and locked them away in a drawer. “Not usually,” she replied, and prepared to leave the room.
Sylvia was still clinging to Richard Trenchard’s arm. She looked like a graceful black-and-white shadow with a mane of brilliant hair, and her exotic mouth was curved mysteriously back from small and, perfect teeth. Richard Trenchard, with her scarlet-tipped fingers detaining him so slightly, was very much taller, but also black and white and elegant, and his expression for once was relaxed and human. He seemed to be very much amused about something.
“Go to bed, Miss Brooks,” he ordered her lazily. “Little girls who sit up late in order to improve their arithmetic not only lose their beauty sleep but risk losing their eyesight as well. Can’t you find something more interesting to do to while away an evening?”
“That’s a polite way of telling you you’re not wanted, Miss Brooks,” Sylvia informed her, with a trill of careless laughter. Then she went forward to the fireplace and sank into one of the deep leather chairs, her red head a flame in the fireglow. “Give me a cigarette, Richard,” she commanded—already they were, apparently, on a Christian-name terms—“and tell me some more about this wonderful new idea of yours...”
Melanie struggled to get the door open, but for some reason the handle stuck in her grasp. Richard leaned forward behind her and encircled her hand with his.
“Treat it gently,” he remarked, mildly, “and you’ll get some results...” The door flew open smoothly. “There!” he observed, studying her abashed face with faintest of smiles. “What did I tell you?”
Melanie said nothing. She went up the stairs with the sound of Sylvia’s second insistent “Richard!” in her ears, and his answering, casual “Com
ing, my sweet!” while her wrist tingled a little where his fingers had encircled it. She decided that she hated him to touch her, even when it meant coming to her rescue. She wasn’t at all sure that she didn’t hate him altogether, despite his consideration for his niece. Apart from that one weak spot he was iron-hard and self-sufficient, but susceptible, apparently, to flattery. He would get that from Sylvia Gaythorpe.
CHAPTER FOUR
RICHARD TRENCHARD’S visit was extended for only another two days, and then he returned to London. His sister seemed to draw a deep breath of relief when he had gone, leaving her once more without the need to exert herself in any way she did not choose in order to entertain him, and the atmosphere of the White Cottage became again completely feminine. Melanie wondered a little whether, before his departure, Richard had mentioned his intention of depriving her of her secretary-companion when the need arose: but, if so, Eve Duplessis gave no sign.
Possibly, thought Melanie, she was too overwhelmingly conscious of the escape this would mean for her, in that her well-ordered and luxuriously comfortable home-life would stand no danger of being disrupted by an unwanted and unwelcome stranger niece at the awkward age of fifteen. And secretaries—even the best of them—can be replaced. Melanie was by no means indispensable, and if she had to be offered up as a sacrifice, well—!
It was all in the cause of an ordered peace, and Mrs. Duplessis had trodden the calm and untroubled ways all her life. Also, if her conscience occasionally disturbed her at all in connection with her brother’s child, here was an opportunity to salve it!
In any case, life pursued its normal course, and with the approach of autumn, and the shortening days, there were a few more bridge parties, and cosy little luncheon-and dinner-parties, which Eve so much enjoyed. Melanie wrote her letters and exercised Potch, and drove the car into Murchester to change her library books and match her knitting wools, and performed all the useful little daily errands which she herself would have disliked very much to perform. And some new people arrived in the district and gave a delightful dance to celebrate their arrival, and the Vicar announced a Grand and Imposing Sale of Work which would mean the display of some of her finer petit-point, and Melanie taking over the charge of a stall. And a new amateur dramatic society was being formed locally, and she was being pressed to act as a judge of talent, and there were always the demands of the Women’s Institute. She liked to feel that she had a certain amount of value in the eyes of the neighborhood generally.
Her brother wrote to let her know that the negotiations connected with his purchase of the Wold House were now complete, and he was setting about having the place put into order and furnished according to his own taste without delay. Eve was sufficiently intrigued to order Melanie to get out the car and drive them both there, and she decided that Richard might have done much better had he bought something a little less old and more readily convertible to present-day standards of comfort; but Melanie—when she saw it in the process of its restoration—could not agree with her. The Wold House had something which the White Cottage, for all its eighteenth-century elegance, could never hope to acquire. It had solidity as well as atmosphere, and its character was as unshakable as its antiquity was undoubted.
She could envisage it one day as a home—a real and permanent home—with its background of flaming moorland and misty hills. But whether its owner would ever look upon it as such she could only conjecture.
Certainly he was displaying excellent taste in the manner he was setting about its restoration. To begin with he had employed an architect of well-earned reputation to deal with the major alterations, and these included an entirely new plumbing system and at least two extra bathrooms as well as completely modern domestic quarters. But the rest, of the house was treated very gently. Nothing could improve the beauty of the ancient panelling, or the seasoned timbers which were so much a feature of the place, and when it came to furnishing, all the hangings and carpets and period pieces were chosen unerringly to harmonize with the house and with each other. There was nothing in the very slightest degree ostentatious or over luxurious. On the contrary a somewhat monastic simplicity prevailed, and especially in the room selected to be the master of the house’s study. That was adorned only by a couple of obviously choice oriental rugs, one or two rare prints, and some editions which made Melanie’s mouth water when she looked at them.
Mrs. Duplessis was quite unimpressed, but she made discouraging comments. She looked rather hard at Melanie one morning, however, when she handed her over a letter to read, and Melanie, in some surprise, absorbed the contents. In Richard Trenchard’s upright, bold, and very black hand she found that she was commanded—”requested” would not have described his manner of expressing his wishes—to present herself at the house of his Great-Aunt Amelia in Hill Street, in close proximity to Park Lane, London, at the earliest possible moment she could be freed from her present duties, and take over the charge—as promised—of Noel Trenchard, his niece and ward.
“As promised?” Eve Duplessis murmured, very gently, looking across the table at Melanie. It was bright with the sparkle of silver and flowers—great, shaggy golden chrysanthemums—and the breakfast cloth was gay and yellow also. Outside the windows a blanketing November mist hid the garden and the moors, but within there was leaping firelight playing on white panelled walls, and Potch comfortably asleep in his basket on a thick skin rug.
Melanie actually looked confused.
“But I didn’t promise,” she endeavored to excuse herself, without even hoping to be believed. “I merely promised Mr. Trenchard to—to think it over!”
Mrs. Duplessis smiled. There was something rather cold about the smile, but it was not altogether condemning.
“In that case, of course, you are lost,” she said. “For Richard would never believe that, having thought over any suggestion of his, you could find any reasonable objection to it! As a matter of fact he told me all about it before he left, and not being in a position to agree wholeheartedly with him, I did give him my word that I would not, at least, prove obstructive. So we are both committed! But it rests with you to make the final decision. I shall be sorry to part with you—naturally...”
Melanie was a little surprised that she did not appear more greatly concerned, but thought that perhaps she already had someone in view for her job.
“But won’t it be very awkward my leaving you—with so little notice? I mean, it might be some little while before I can be replaced—”
“In that case I shall just have to struggle along without you!”
Melanie felt suddenly bereft of words. They were a strange family—these Trenchards. Their faces, and even their voices, betrayed so little of what they were actually thinking and feeling. Her employer’s beautifully cared-for mask, with its detached eyes, and even more detached and impersonal mouth, was almost like a barrier between her and any impulsive, anxious gesture she might be tempted to make at that moment. For, after all, they had lived in the same house now for over a year, and Melanie had been given the impression that if she was not actually valuable and indispensable she was at least highly satisfactory. But now, apparently, at the request of a man she had only met for the first time several weeks ago, she was to be despatched to London with the most cursory of blessings and no thanks whatsoever!
And what if she didn’t want to go to London? She was very far indeed from sure that she did! Very far from sure!
“Don’t worry, my dear,” Mrs. Duplessis urged her smoothly, as if she at least was able to read her thoughts. “I shall be very sorry to see you go, but I should be sorrier still to have my home invaded by a niece I know almost nothing about. You may think me intensely selfish, or whatever you please, but I simply couldn’t bear to have my life disorganized by a girl at the impossible age of fifteen! What in the world Richard is going to do with her I can’t imagine, but perhaps Great-Aunt Amelia has some sort of a plan. She loves interfering in other people’s affairs. And perhaps after all you won’t have
to stay away for long, and then you can come back here. I shall try and get along without replacing you for a while, in the hopes that I shall soon have you back.”
Melanie murmured her gratitude at this, and then Eve continued about her great-aunt.
“Don’t let her frighten you half out of your wits by staring at you and barking at you as if you were some sort of an under-servant! She’s like that, and her great age gives her a kind of determined arrogance which most people find intimidating. Personally I refuse to be intimidated, and never go near her unless I simply can’t avoid it. Richard, for some reason, is a great favorite of hers, and she plans to leave him all her money. We’ve all been given to understand that it’s a considerable amount.”
“Oh, yes?” Melanie murmured abstractedly, wondering how soon she would be expected to leave, and what would happen if she definitely refused to go.
But Mrs. Duplessis settled all that for her by getting up and removing the A.B.C. from a drawer of the desk. As she looked up train times she said, as if Melanie was in entire agreement with her. “You’d better get packed today and leave tomorrow. Wilson can drive you to the station and bring the car back. I’ll send a wire to Richard to let him know when to expect you, and if you’re not met at the other end it’s a simple matter to take a taxi to Hill Street. Your expenses, of course, will all go down to Richard’s account.” She concluded ironically: “And convey my regards to my niece! One day, perhaps, when she is not quite so young, I’ll have her to stay with me. And in the meantime I wish you joy of your new charge!”
Melanie felt in need of all the good wishes that could have been bestowed upon her when she stood in the murk at King’s Cross station the following day, and discovered that there was no one to meet her.