by Susan Barrie
“With probably the best intentions you’re not really helping Noel. I’m anxious for her to overcome that absurd sensitiveness of hers, and as this place obviously suits her you mustn’t try to hold her back.”
“As you have been doing,” Sylvia added, “we’re not living in the mid-Victorian era, you know, Miss Brooks.”
“Go and get your coat,” her uncle said to Noel, who had not the courage to support Melanie by adding her own plea to be excused. And to Melanie he added, with the faint beginnings of a smile: “Why, you’re rather like a hen with one chick, aren’t you, the way you fuss over that child? But you must remember that youth needs to be encouraged, not driven into a shell. And Noel will require to be extricated from her with a tin-opener if we allow her to retreat into it any further!”
Melanie said nothing, and Sylvia seized his arm.
“And if you want to know what I personally think,” she said softly, leading him forth into the night, “there’s nothing like a first-class finishing school for a girl at that age. On the Continent! I went to a finishing school outside Paris, and believe me I thoroughly enjoyed myself, as is natural when you’re amongst a lot of other girls. This attitude of clinging to one person is absurd—quite seriously absurd!”
Melanie stood listening as their voices died away, and she heard Richard teasing Sylvia lightly.
“So that’s why you’re such an altogether finished article!—since you went to a finishing school! But are you proposing that I shall settle the bills for this extravagant experiment, when I’ve already provided the chit with a home?”
Noel, with apology in her eyes, touched Melanie’s arm gently, and the two girls went outside, following the others’ into the night.
Melanie was very thoughtful as they walked up and down, doing their best to keep warm in a niggling, bitter wind which seemed to be blowing straight off the wastes of the Arctic. The lake was certainly brilliant and beautiful in the moonlight, and the shadows of tree and shrub were like blue pencils on the snow. Sylvia had discarded her coat and was describing an intricate figure, her friends were experimenting with skates for the first time and enjoying themselves with shrill laughter, and only Richard Trenchard, the host, stood alone at the edge of the great sheet of ice. Melanie wondered whether he was too conscious of his dignity to risk a tumble like the rest, and she also wondered, as she watched the glow of his cigarette, whether he knew that they were pacing up and down behind him.
Noel shivered suddenly, as she clung to Melanie’s arm. “It’s c-cold,” she muttered, through chattering teeth. “Do you mind if we walk a bit faster? We might even go as far as the Lodge.”
Melanie put an arm about her as if to protect her from the chill menace of the night.
“Would you like to go in?” she asked at once. “You can if you want to, you know.”
“But they won’t l-like it,” Noel demurred, looking towards the frozen, glittering surface of the lake where the others were still disporting themselves, and where her guardian still stood watching. “It might have been better if we’d said we’d skate, but I don’t think there are any skates over.” She paused, and then, “Did you hear what she said about school?” she asked. “Melanie, I think she’s hateful, and I don’t want to go away to school again,” with a white, pinched, apprehensive look.
“Don’t worry, darling—you’re not going away to school again,” Melanie tried to reassure her, and then asked herself inwardly who was she to prevent it? How could she prevent it if a decision was taken?
“I can’t bear her!” Noel exclaimed rebelliously, as they continued to walk briskly up and down. “I’ve decided that I loathe her hair, and I don’t like that scarf she gave me for Christmas!”
“That,” Melanie told her, laughing, “is what is known as venting your spite!”
But two evenings later, when she was summoned to the library, she looked so grave that Richard Trenchard, seated, dealing with the latest delivery of post at his desk, lifted his eyebrows slightly as he gazed up at her.
“How’s your patient?” he inquired. “Has the doctor been again?”
“Yes; and her temperature’s down to a hundred and one, but that’s still quite high.”
“It is,” he agreed.
He picked up a paper knife and played with it, running his fingers along the ivory edge.
“And I suppose you feel that I’m more or less responsible, because I didn’t support you the other evening?” He studied her with an inquiring look, the demure oval of her face, the faintly fly-away dark eyebrows, the deep dark eyes which rested upon him with an unmistakable hint of disapproval. And Melanie did feel almost bitterly disapproving of him just then, and especially did she loathe the very thought of his glamorous girl-friend in the next room, who was at that moment announcing peevishly to her mother that she would be glad when they left for London the following day, since there was literally nothing at all to do in the country at this season of the year, and she hoped Richard was not going to allow his niece’s illness to interfere with their plans.
“I realize now that I should have supported you,” Richard said, “but I must confess that there are times when you look so young that I find it difficult to believe that so much uncanny wisdom dwells in that small head of yours.”
“I think it was more largely a matter of ordinary common sense,” Melanie replied to that, with a cool, aloof note m her voice. “I have always been rather concerned about the state of Noel’s health, despite the fact that she has seemed to be growing rather stronger these last few weeks. I think, until two days ago, she was very much stronger, but that was all the more reason why no risks should be taken. However, you and Miss Gaythorpe thought otherwise.”
“And I can see that you’re not going to forgive either of us very easily because we ventured to do so!” he observed, his lips curving in a cool, strange smile.
Melanie stared down at the top of the desk, and he stood up and started to pace about the room. There was something restless in his movements, something which told her that his mind was actually rather badly disturbed. The arrogance in which he cloaked himself so often was entirely absent from him now, and the dark line of his brows seemed to be drawn together, as if in painful thought. His shoulders were a little bowed, and his hands thrust deep in his jacket pockets.
He said suddenly, “I don’t like leaving you here with a sick child—and she’s little more!—but there are things I must do in London. My new play opens on the fourteenth, and I have several commitments which can’t be neglected any longer. And I’ve promised Miss Gaythorpe to drive her all the way home.”
Miss Gaythorpe! thought Melanie, repressing a curl of her lip. She felt that the Miss Gaythorpes of this world were probably responsible for a good deal.
“But you can always put a call through to me at my flat if you want me,” he told her. “If I’m not there my secretary will see that your message reaches me with as little delay as possible. And I don’t feel so bad about leaving you with Mrs. Abbie.”
“Oh, Mrs. Abbie and I will manage quite well,” Melanie assured him composedly.
He nodded. He thought that tonight, somehow, she did not appear quite so young, and if he had the power of keeping all feeling out of his face, she too seemed to have acquired it. He did not know that as she looked at him she was thinking contemptuously that even although they were discussing a serious subject his thoughts were probably running on Miss Gaythorpe. She was inclined to agree with Mrs. Duplessis that when he married her he would be opening a door to a few shocks for himself. Life would not be quite as smooth as he imagined—Sylvia herself would see to that! Temperament and beauty and artistic talent combined would almost certainly rob him of some, at least, of his present rather self-centred and essentially masculine complacency. The ordered routine of his comfortable bachelor existence might even receive a few jars. But no doubt there would be compensations which would make it all completely worth while!
She felt his eyes on her, studyin
g her somewhat oddly while she was thinking these thoughts, but she looked away from him at his desk and the little pile of letters awaiting the evening collection. She noticed that the desk trays were now empty and the neat polished surface bore every evidence of having been carefully cleared and tidied in preparation for his departure. By this time tomorrow evening there would be only herself and Mrs. Abbie, Brigid and a far-from-well Noel in occupation of the Wold House!
“Of course, if you should need me urgently Dr. Crofts will contact me. You can have every confidence in Dr. Crofts.”
“I have,” Melanie answered.
“And you’re not afraid of taking on so much responsibility? You don’t feel that it’s an unfair advantage I’m taking of you?”
She shook her head.
“Why should I? After all, you engaged me to look after Noel, didn’t you?”—“But not to coddle her!” she just refrained from adding.
He took another turn about the room, and this time came to rest in the middle of the rug before the fire. He looked up at the portrait of the eighteenth-century admiral above the mantelpiece, with its garland of laurel still above it, at the greeting cards displayed on either side of the graceful French timepiece. And then his eyes roved to the shaggy chrysanthemums on his desk, his comfortable elbow chair in which he found it surprisingly easy to concentrate, and then his deeper leather chair drawn up close to the hearth where it was pleasant to recline and relax. The whole room was one in which it was possible to allow one’s thoughts to wander and drift—a peaceful, serene room. He sighed, unexpectedly, and lighted a cigarette.
“I’m sorry I’ve got to go away just now,” he said. “This house is the kind of house that grows on one. A London flat seems a poor place by comparison.”
And yet you’ve endured the flat for quite a long time, Melanie thought.
“Possibly it’s because I’m growing older, but there is a feeling of contentment in this place which is beginning to seep into my bones!”
There is excitement and interest in London which will soon help you to forget this place, Melanie could have told him, but did not. And Miss Gaythorpe will be there! Miss Gaythorpe is not a country-lover, and she will soon wean you away from the Wold House and bleak stretches of open moorland! She may even persuade you to sell it! Although a country house is always useful for entertaining friends, and the possession of one is a boost to prestige—particularly the prestige of a wealthy and popular playwright and his beautiful film-star wife!
That was how they would be described in press notices when they were married!
Melanie felt a dull ache deep down inside her, not only because life was often so unsatisfactory, but because she did not know when she would see him again once he went from her tonight. At the moment he was so close to her that she could have touched him with ease, but tomorrow night!—and all the nights after! ... The house would seem so empty, with Noel lying upstairs in her room with a high temperature and a flushed, strained look on her face which Melanie did not like. Ought she, perhaps, to mention it to her employer? But since he had spoken to her so harshly in the snow two evenings ago she did not find it easy to say the things she wanted to say to him. She had felt both bewildered and hurt at the time, because he might have spared her that humiliation in front of Miss Gaythorpe. After all, she had merely been trying to serve him.
“I...” she began.
But he suddenly terminated the interview by returning to his desk and starting to lock the various drawers.
“All right, Miss Brooks,” he said, in a dismissing tone, “you’ll telephone if you want me. In fact I think it would be a good idea if you gave me a ring each night for a few nights and let me know how things are going along.”
“Very well,” she replied quietly.
He did not stand up and shake hands with her this time—he did not even look at her. He began to be immersed in one or two papers that were still left on his desk.
“Good night,” she said uncertainly, as she moved towards the door.
“Eh? Oh, good night,” he answered casually. “Ask Mrs. Abbie to send me a pot of hot, strong coffee, will you?”
As she closed the door and realized that he had already dismissed her right out of his thoughts it occurred to her that their relationship now was exactly as it had been right at the beginning of their acquaintance. Then he had refused to allow her to drive him to his sister’s house. Now he was too preoccupied to allow her even to finish the sentence she had begun, and he must have realized that she was about to say something. Or was he as preoccupied as all that?
CHAPTER TWELVE
FOR the following two days Noel’s temperature fluctuated, rising and falling again, and then once more rising. She looked exceptionally pretty as she lay in her over-large bed in her firelit room, her blue eyes bright with an unnatural brilliance, a hectic pink color on her cheeks. What worried Melanie almost more than anything else was the fact that she was so resentful because she was ill. And Sylvia Gaythorpe was on her mind all the time.
“She’s not really a bit like my mother,” she said once, rather shrilly. “Except that she’s got her hair—and her eyes! And that’s what attracts Uncle Richard. And if he married her I shall have to have her for an aunt—and I’ll simply detest that!”
“My dear child, they’re not even engaged yet,” Melanie pointed out.
“No, but they will be!” Noel insisted, as if, like Brigid, she had the second sight.
Melanie sat down beside the bed and held her hand comfortingly.
“I’ve already told you more than once not to cross your bridges before you get to them. The unpleasant things do not always happen, you know,” she said soothingly, but she felt strongly that in this case they almost certainly would.
Noel looked up at her with feverish, anxious eyes.
“You heard what she said about school! I don’t want to be sent away to school.”
“Then we won’t let you,” Melanie promised rashly.
“You won’t?” Noel looked at her eagerly. “Oh, Melanie, I do feel so awfully safe with you, if you know what I mean? You give me so much more confidence than I’ve actually got, and even Uncle Richard listens to you sometimes—that it to say he would listen to you almost all the time, only when Miss Gaythorpe’s around she influences him. But you’ve got a certain amount of influence over him, too—I’ve seen that”—rather startling Melanie. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you sometimes, too, and once or twice I’ve thought that—if only he would marry you!...”
Melanie placed a hand lather hastily over her forehead to discover whether she was becoming light-headed, but if anything the pale brow was cooler.
“Don’t be silly,” Noel rather said petulantly. “I’m not wandering. I’ve discussed the matter with Mrs. Abbie, and both she and Brigid think that—”
“Noel!” Melanie exclaimed sharply. “You mustn’t discuss your uncle’s private concerns with the domestic staff here. It isn’t even loyal.”
“But it’s interesting to find out what they think,” Noel continued imperturbably. “And they both thoroughly dislike Sylvia Gaythorpe. I think they’d give notice immediately if he ever told them he was going to marry her, and I wouldn’t blame them. I’d run away rather than live here with her.”
“Running away is not a simple matter,” Melanie told her rather wearily, for this was a subject which affected her far more nearly than even Noel could guess, and she was anxious to have it closed. “Particularly when you’ve nowhere to run to. And if you feel like that it would be better to go away to school, where you’d probably have quite a nice time, for expensive finishing schools such as Miss Gaythorpe was discussing are more often than not very pleasant indeed.”
But this was enough to cause Noel to start protesting almost violently, and fearing a rise of temperature Melanie announced that she was going to give her her sedative and settle her down for the night, and then go downstairs and put through a call to her uncle. And when she was seated at the d
esk in the library and listening to the voice at the other end of the wire in the St. James’s Place flat explaining that Mr. Trenchard was not at home—and that he was not expected back for several hours—she was not surprised.
“Tell him,” she said, “that his niece’s condition is about the same.”
The next night the report was not so favorable, for the doctor had been twice during the day, and he confessed to Melanie that he was not pleased. Noel was on the verge of pneumonia, and her general physical condition was so frail that he was sending a nurse to be with her during the daytime, and another who would replace her at night. He asked if he could put through a call to Mr. Trenchard in the library, and Melanie left him alone with the instrument while he did so.
Whether he spoke to her employer or not she was not to learn, but he said, “I’m getting a specialist from London to have a look at Miss Trenchard. I don’t think we should take any chances.”
And Melanie thought that sounded ominous.
That night—somewhere between midnight and the small hours—Melanie was roused from sleep by the uniformed nurse, who apologized for waking her but explained that Noel was very restless, and that she kept calling continually for Melanie.