by Susan Barrie
“You said you were going to return almost immediately,” she was accusing Richard, “and instead for some absurd reason you hang on here at this third-rate little hotel in a mere Austrian village. What on earth for, I can’t imagine!” And then she caught sight of Noel and Melanie and Dr. Muller, and her mouth closed like a trap. Her eyes accused them, however, of being a contributory cause—if nothing worse!
Dr. Muller stood up and sprang to attention in front of her, as if his training had been military and not medical, and Melanie looked as if she was about to offer her her chair, when Richard prevented her by placing a hand on her shoulder. His expression was difficult to read. For once he was merely meticulously polite, and his keen grey eyes were masked.
“Sit still, Miss Brooks,” he said. “There are plenty of other chairs. Anyhow as a matter of fact I think we had better go inside and start dinner at once, or the champagne I ordered will spoil.”
“Oh! So you did order the champagne?” Sylvia looked up at him still with a peevish expression, but a faint brightening of her eyes. “And I don’t mind telling you that I need it, after flying all the way from England. I hate flying—I’m always air-sick. And it was most difficult for me to get away at all.”
“Then it would perhaps have been as well if you had not made the effort,” Richard retorted smoothly.
Sylvia surveyed him from between narrowed lids.
“If the mountain wouldn’t come to Mahomet, then Mahomet had to come to the mountain,” she returned with some asperity. But all at once she softened towards him and slipped a hand inside his arm. “However, I’ll forgive you now that I’ve arrived, and possibly you did need a holiday after working so hard on the play, poor lamb! But you should have realized that I needed a holiday, too, even if it was only a tiny wee one sandwiched in between rehearsals. For, oh, how those rehearsals exhaust me!” She leaned her flame-colored head against his arm, and looked up at him with eyes that were suddenly languishing. “Poor Richard, all alone here in this dull little hotel, when I might have been with you!”
Richard, without seeming at all rude, very carefully removed his arm, and indicated Dr. Muller, who was still standing very stiffly to attention.
“Sylvia, my dear, this is the fellow who has wrought such a miracle for Noel, assisted by the climate out here—Dr. Kurt Muller! Don’t you think she’s made a tremendous improvement?”
Sylvia gave the doctor her hand and looked at him with all her milk-white teeth showing between her brilliant lips, and her green eyes as seductive as usual. Then she cast a casual glance over Noel—at least, it was casual until it became arrested by the picture of the invalid in a gauzy blue dress like a gossamer blue cloud, with a sophisticated page-boy and clear eyes that, regarded her with a hint of humor in them. Noel was certainly altered in more ways than one.
“My dear,” she drawled, “if this is what Zindenbourg has done for you, I think I ought to spend some time here myself!”
To Melanie she said nothing—nothing at all. She did not even acknowledge her by a bare inclination of the head, and when they went in to dinner, and all through dinner, she ignored the young woman whose job it was to look after Noel as if she did not exist. Possibly she regarded her as she regarded the waitresses who waited upon them at table, and to whom she never returned a word of thanks, but Melanie was a little shocked deep down inside herself by this evidence either of complete hostility or deliberate and very noticeable rudeness.
Dr. Muller sat beside Noel at the flower-decked table, and by contrast with Sylvia’s rudeness he looked after Melanie with almost old-fashioned courtesy and attentiveness. He saw to it that her champagne glass was replenished when even Richard did not seem to notice that of all his guests she was the one who was eating practically nothing, and drinking less. And afterwards, when the orchestra struck up its bright, lilting dance music, it was Dr. Muller who asked Melanie to dance, while Tony Malpas partnered Noel. Sylvia, making the excuse of overwhelming exhaustion after her flight, and her gruelling last few weeks in England—”So devastating, my dear, those continuous rehearsals, but the play is absolutely wonderful!”—preferred to sit and talk to Richard at the table, and apparently Richard preferred to sit and talk to her, too, for he never once asked Melanie or his niece to dance.
And when the room grew hot and a trifle stuffy he took Sylvia out on to the balcony, and Melanie watched them go with a feeling that “Finis” had indeed been written to her period of brief holiday—if you could call it that!—and that in future her position would be right in the background so far as Richard and his glamorous Sylvia were concerned,
But Dr. Muller, as if to try and make up to her for the loss of something which he read in her eyes, was gentleness itself, and he continued to pay her every possible attention. Whenever she looked into his eyes, honest and brown and reliable even as were her own, she knew that if she was willing to accept it he was ready to offer her something which would make it unnecessary for her to yearn for the brief notice of another—but she knew also that she could not accept it!
But she liked Dr. Muller very much.
Presently he said, when her spirits seemed to be flagging so badly that there was little he could do to bolster them, “If you’re tired, I’ll take you home, you know. And I think that child Noel has had about enough for one night, too.”
Melanie accepted his offer gratefully, and they despatched a message of thanks and farewell to their host by means of a waiter. He was still sitting with Sylvia on the balcony when he received it, and he seemed a little surprised. But not so Sylvia.
“Don’t be obtuse, darling,” she murmured, laughing. “That handsome young doctor is already head over heels in love with Miss Brooks, and if he wants to take her home, why, let him! In any case, why not?”
But Richard frowned as he reached for his cigarette-case, and he did not echo her “Why not?” Instead he said a little irritably, “Well, tell me some more about the play. Is it really going as well as you think, I wonder? And if so, why do you need me there?”
“Because, my pet,” she replied to that earnestly, looking up into his face with eyes like green starshine, “I always need you there! Surely you know that?”
And Richard looked down at her and studied her reflectively in the light of a waning moon.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE following morning Melanie had three visitors. The first, in the person of Kurt Muller, came almost immediately after breakfast, and he explained that he was going in to Seltzburg, their nearest town of any size, and that as he was likely to be away for a few days he had wanted to see her before he left.
“To discuss your young charge, for one thing,” he told her. “When I come back I’d like to have her up at the clinic for perhaps a week to keep her under closer observation than is possible while she is here.”
“Why?” Melanie asked at once, concerned. “There’s nothing wrong?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing wrong at all,” smiling reassuringly. “In fact, she’s made such strides that I’m a little amazed. But I’d like to have her up at the clinic just the same. I may then be able to decide the wisest future course for her.”
“I see,” she said.
She sounded suddenly very quiet and subdued, as if already she saw herself dismissed and sent home to England, and impulsively he took her hand and gave it a little comforting squeeze.
“But, whatever happens, she’ll want you near her,” he assured her. “You’ve been her moral support for so long, and she owes a tremendous lot to you.”
“But now that she’s so much better she could be sent to school out here, couldn’t she? You’ve got that in mind, haven’t you?” trying to search his face. “And, after all, I can’t be with her always.”
“You mean that you have your own interests to study?” She made a faint, shrugging movement with her shoulders. It was rather a pathetic movement—to him a revealing movement, as if she was as uncertain about her own future as at that m
oment they were about Noel’s. Only, Noel was rapidly getting better, and definite plans would be laid for her. Her uncle would see to that. But Melanie had no one belonging to her who would lay plans for her, and unless she laid them herself she would become rather like a piece of driftwood at the mercy of the first strong current with the will to bear her along. And with no real interest in the future that current might bear her anywhere.
“Listen, Mees Brooks—”when he was moved his accent became noticeably stronger—“is there any reason why you should return to England when the little Noel is no longer any need of you? You told me once that you have no parents—no relatives to speak of. Would you not—consider—remaining out here ...?”
He still held her hand, and now he covered it with his other one, so that it was held strongly between his two warm and comforting palms.
“Mr. Trenchard has no claims upon you ...?”
It was not so much a statement as a question.
“No,” she said sadly, “he has no claims.”
His shrewd eyes searched her face, and his voice became very gentle.
“And you will forget, him, you know—in time!” Melanie felt the slow color roll up over her face and neck, but her eyes did not waver beneath his look. He knew her secret—he must have guessed it almost immediately! But whether he was right or not about the capacity of human beings for forgetting the one other human being who attracted them for some strange reason more than all the rest of the world put together, only time would tell. She did not say that to him, but he realized that that was what she was thinking.
“The so glamorous young lady we met last night—it is she who will become Mrs. Trenchard?”
“I don’t think there is very much doubt about that,” Melanie answered quietly.
He released her hands and took a turn or two about the room. When he came back to her his face was for the moment expressionless.
“I have to go to Seltzburg,” he said, “and I shall be away perhaps even for a week, but when I return I shall be at your service—always I shall be at your service!” He looked at her keenly. “You and I together, Fraulein Brooks, might do quite a lot for our weaker fellow-creatures. We have many things in common, and I have observed you—your methods—you sacrifice yourself for those you serve...”
He bent and seized her hands again, squeezing them so hard that he hurt her, and then he was gone, and she heard his car starting up outside.
Her second visitor that morning was Richard Trenchard, and he was accompanied by Miss Gaythorpe.
Sylvia actually condescended to smile at her when she entered, looking indescribably graceful and attractive in a flowered frock with an off-the-shoulder neckline, and carrying a drooping, shady hat. She had, she said, been very keen to see the chalet, because Richard had told her so much about it, and now that she saw it at last she was able to share his enthusiasm for his tiny Austrian home. As usual when she was with him she was hanging on to his arm, and when they entered the little pine wood adjoining, where Melanie spent so much of her time either quietly reading or looking out across the valley, she added her final word of approval.
“Perfect! It really is quite perfect.” She cast her hat aside and sank down on the cool pine needles, whose aromatic perfume mingled with the perfume of flowers borne on the wind and looked up at Richard as if for the moment she had forgotten Melanie’s existence. “The ideal honeymoon spot, Richard! Why didn’t you tell me that one need look no farther than this absolute duck of a place? Admittedly it’s off the beaten track, but that wouldn’t matter in the least.”
She stretched herself out at full length on her luxuriously soft bed, and looked up at him with the green eyes of a dryad in a woodland setting. She was smiling for him alone, an inviting soft smile which sent her red lips curving upwards, and her eyelashes flickered a little languidly. Richard stood quietly regarding her with apparent interest but otherwise little or no expression on his face, and when Melanie made a little movement as if to turn away and leave them he did not move his eyes from the pleasing subject they were contemplating but shot out a hand to detain her.
“Where are you going, Miss Brooks?”
“To find Noel.” She sounded a little awkward. “You’ll like to see her, and she—she’s somewhere about—”
“I shall see her before I leave. There’s no need to go and look for her.”
Sylvia sat up, stretching her arms luxuriously. “Command performance!” she exclaimed, peering upwards at Melanie a little mockingly. “Do you always obey him so implicitly, Miss Brooks? There’s no reason at all why you shouldn’t go and look for Noel if you want to, and I for one don’t wish to detain you against your will.”
Melanie hesitated, not quite knowing what to do, but Richard, ignoring for once the fair apparition now clasping her knees at his feet, turned to her and addressed her deliberately.
“You left early last night, Miss Brooks. Was there anything wrong?”
“Nothing,” she answered, hoping he did not notice that she colored a little at the unexpectedness of the question. “Nothing at all, except that I was rather tired.”
“And your Dr. Muller offered to drive you home, wasn’t that it?” Sylvia put in, with a kind of smirk, from amongst the pine needles.
“He did,” Melanie admitted. “But he also drove Noel home.”
Richard was studying her with a look in his face she was quite sure she had never seen in it before. It was a searching look, without any suggestion of humor or mockery in it, and somehow she received the impression that behind it he had a genuine desire to find out why she had left the hotel at what he considered an early hour, and whether it had any connection with something that had gone wrong, and of which he was in ignorance. His eyes for once were serious to the point of gravity. There was no teasing at all in their depths, and his earnestness astounded her.
“You did enjoy the evening?”
“Oh, quite,” she assured him untruthfully.
Sylvia gave vent to an exclamation.
“For goodness’ sake, Richard, don’t be so untactful! If the girl wanted to leave early with that fascinating doctor man, why on earth shouldn’t she? It must be dull enough for her here otherwise, and it’s no business of yours to pry into her love-life. So long as she doesn’t neglect Noel—and Noel, I must say, doesn’t look in the least neglected.”
Richard’s lips seemed to tighten a little, and a cold look overspread his features.
“Of course I’m well aware that Miss Brooks’ affairs are her own, and if she finds Dr. Muller fascinating—” He broke off. The cool glint in his eyes seemed to accuse Melanie of doubtful taste nevertheless, and there was even a vague hint of contempt which had suddenly crept into his manner and which aroused a feeling of resentment deep down inside her. For Sylvia was right in her statement that whatever she did so long as her duties were faithfully carried out was not even the slightest concern of his, particularly in view of the fact that he himself was obviously contemplating marriage in the near future, if he had progressed so far in his relationship with Miss Gaythorpe that the question of where they should spend their honeymoon had arisen and was plainly being dealt with.
For not even Sylvia would dare suggest the chalet as ideal for the purpose if she had had the slightest doubt of Richard’s intentions.
He gave Melanie a long look—an inexplicable look—and then turned away and ignored her altogether. He showed Sylvia over the rest of his tiny property and then they departed and left her alone, and Melanie sat for a long time on the balcony outside her room staring forlornly across the valley and listening to Trudi’s light-hearted singing in the kitchen below her.
If only, she thought, she could feel as carefree and heart-whole as Trudi plainly was at that moment. If only she could look upon Richard Trenchard as nothing more nor less than an employer whom it was pleasant to serve.
But the trouble was she never could look upon him as an employer only—not now! Not after he had paid her absurd compli
ments and even kissed her—without the smallest ingredient of passion, it was true—and looked at her with a kind of half-veiled tenderness in his eyes, and laughed at her in an affectionate kind of way she had cherished as much as his compliments.
Her hands locked tightly together in her lap, she derided herself for her weakness in taking any notice at all of anything he had ever said, or done, or introduced into one of his long-lashed smokey-grey glances. For she had been useful to him, and he had realized at once that he could depend upon her, even as his sister had depended upon her, and she had been just the right kind of companion for Noel—the right age, the right kind of healthy outlook on life (until she met a man who obscured every future prospect for her!) and with the right amount of enthusiasm for any job she undertook. At least she had given him value for the salary he had paid her!
And in a few weeks he would need her no longer, for even Dr. Muller was surprised by Noel’s progress, and was no doubt considering suggesting to her guardian some well-run scholastic establishment where she could be happy in the right atmosphere, and where she would be able to settle down at last, at least for a year or so. For she was only just sixteen.
And in a few weeks Richard himself would probably be honeymooning at the chalet, and he and Sylvia were very possibly laying their final plans at this moment, and therefore it behooved Melanie to think about her own plans...
She felt she would like to be flying away over the mountains to England without any further delay. She made up her mind that that was what she would have to do, and soon—very soon now!
In the next few days nothing happened to cause her to change her mind. Richard did not come near the chalet, and neither did Sylvia, but Noel was invited to accompany them on a couple of outings in Richard’s car, and once to lunch at the hotel.