“Ask your husband by all means, my dear. I should be delighted if the top floor would be of use to you.”
Miss Balfour went on to speak of the alterations she and Mr. Milner proposed to make, of the number of rooms and the furniture available, but it is doubtful if Willow heard anything of these details.
Murray’s hasty words had stayed in her mind as irritatingly and painfully as a rose-thorn in a finger, but against the advantages of being independent in a flat of her own she weighed the fear of loneliness and boredom during Archie’s absence at sea. If she were at Number Four, the family would be next door and she would have Miss Dorothea and Mr. Milner and Edna actually in the house. It would be wonderful!
Miss Balfour, who had a pretty good idea of what was in Willow’s mind, left her to her thoughts, made her own purchases and gave various orders to the butcher and fishmonger. Then, conscious of feeling tired, and of a sudden wish to sit down quietly in her drawing-room, she turned homewards.
Willow, still in a trance, went with her. As the two turned into Kirkaldy Crescent, going rather slowly now, for Miss Balfour found her basket unexpectedly heavy, Willow woke up.
She looked at Miss Balfour with a radiant smile, and said in her pretty, exaggerated way: “You’ve saved my life, Miss Dorothea, really you have! I’ll write to Archie by air-mail and catch him at one of the ports on his way home, so that he’ll have the news about the flat before he gets here. I’m certain that he’ll want us to have it, when he sees how much it means to me. It’s terribly sweet of you!”
“It is Mr. Milner, too, you know,” said Miss Balfour, gently.
“But it was you who thought about us!” cried Willow. “I feel so happy! This has been a wonderful morning!”
And though Miss Balfour, creeping wearily up the steps of Number Four, did not entirely agree—she could have dispensed with that business of the baby and the perambulator—she had to admit that it had not been ill-spent.
CHAPTER 13
“If you please’m,” said Edna, hovering in the drawing-room doorway. “The young man that was here the other evening when you and Mr. Milner was out’s come again and says can he see you a minute.”
“Was that the fellow who called that night we went to see Rowan at her dancing show?” asked Mr. Milner, who was playing patience at a small table under the standard lamp and near enough to the wood fire for comfort.
“Yes, it must be. I can’t imagine who he is or what he wants.”
“The easiest way to find out is to go and see him,” said Monty, carefully laying a red six on a black seven.
Then he glanced up at her as she moved slowly to the door.
“Would you like me to come with you?” he asked.
“Oh, Montagu, I should! It would give me much more confidence if you were there, too,” said Miss Balfour.
For answer Monty put down the pack, went over to the door, and held it open.
“Come along then, and we’ll get it over,” he said cheerfully.
The young man standing in the hall staring respectfully at an old engraving was tall and thin, dressed in the tweed jacket and grey flannel trousers which are almost a uniform for men nowadays. As he turned, he revealed a distressingly loud shirt of multi-coloured checks, and a red tie.
“Good evening,” said Miss Balfour.
“Pleased to meet you,” responded the young man, seizing her hand and shaking it with a violence due as much to embarrassment as heartiness. “Dunlop’s ma name. Jems Dunlop.”
“How do you do?” said Miss Balfour.
It was quite plain that she was none the wiser, and Mr. Milner now came forward.
“Suppose we go and sit down?” he suggested. “And then Mr. Dunlop can tell us why he came.”
He led the way to the dining-room, saw them comfortably seated, and said:
“Now let us hear why you have come to see Miss Balfour.”
The young man called James Dunlop took a pull at his beer, and replied, speaking to Mr. Milner:
“I wanted to thank her. An’ to say if there’s any wee job I can do for her she has just to say the word. I’ll be real pleased.”
“That’s very good of you,” said Mr. Milner gravely. “Er—why do you want to thank Miss Balfour?”
Miss Balfour herself, having refused refreshment, was leaning back in her chair, quite content to leave the unravelling of the mystery to her brother-in-law.
She still had not the slightest idea who this Dunlop was, or why he felt he had to thank her. Realization broke upon her as she heard the words “Linden Terrace”, “pram” and “the bairn.” This must be the baby’s father, and how very good of him to feel that he ought to come round and thank her.
She wondered what Montagu was thinking, for she had never told him about her adventure. There had been the call on Mr. Ferrier and his tempered approval to the scheme for doing up the house and renting the top floor; and then there had been the evening spent in watching Rowan dancing in her exhibition team, never to mention the difficulty of trying to find accommodation in an Edinburgh hotel during the Festival . . .
Montagu listened attentively and in silence until the story had been told.
“Miss Balfour was too modest to tell me this herself,” he said. “So I am most grateful, personally, to you for coming here this evening.”
His sister-in-law looked at him. “There was so little to tell,” she said. “And we had a great many other things to discuss. Of course, the baby was important. It would have been terrible if anything had happened to the baby, and I am so glad to have been of use. But what I did was very simple, and anyone else who was passing would have done as much.”
She turned to young Dunlop. “I’m afraid it was rather an expensive business, having the perambulator smashed like that.”
“Och, never heed the pram!” he exclaimed, his accent broadening in his feeling. “Whit does it matter? It was the bairn! An’—an’—onyway, it was no sma’ thing to us, an’ I’m verra greatly obliged tae ye, an’ the wife says the same, an’ I’d like fine if there’s onything I could dae for ye, just to show what we think o’ it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Dunlop,” said Miss Balfour. “But I—really I don’t think there’s anything. It is exceedingly kind of you—”
“Wait a minute, Dorothea,” Montagu interposed. “What were you thinking when you said you would like to do something for Miss Balfour?” he added, to their visitor. “Was it something in the odd job line?”
“Weel—that, if it’s what ye want,” said Dunlop. “I’m a painter to trade, and I thought maybe there might be some bits o’ painting ye’d like done in ma spare time—a Setterday afternoon, or an evenin’?”
“Oh, but that is far too good of you! We couldn’t dream of taking up your spare time!” began Miss Balfour, hastily.
Again, Mr. Milner, begging her pardon for interrupting, took charge of the situation.
“We are going to re-decorate the top floor,” he said. “If you and perhaps a friend in the same trade would be willing to do the papering and painting in your free time—at the usual rate of pay, of course—we should be most grateful. I’ll just take you up and let you have a look round. Then you can see whether it would be too much for you to tackle,” said Montagu, and they went away, talking eagerly.
“Dear me!” said Miss Balfour, mildly, a trifle put out by this cavalier treatment. Then she smiled, and at last laughed. They had been exactly like small boys rushing off to look at some new treasure.
When Mr. Milner, some time later, came back to the drawing-room, having seen James Dunlop off, he found Miss Balfour quietly reading her book again.
“Please forgive me, Dorothea,” he said, sounding much too pleased with himself to feel in need of forgiveness. “But I could see the young man really wanted to do something for you, and it seemed such a good opportunity of getting the top floor done. You know we can’t get rooms in an Edinburgh hotel for at least a fortnight, but we don’t have to turn out while Dunlop and hi
s pal are painting upstairs of an evening. The only trouble was to get him to agree to being paid, but we have settled that. Now all we need is to hurry the plumbers and then he can start.”
“I hope he is a good painter,” said Miss Balfour, not without mild malice.
“Good God, Dorothea!” cried Montagu, bouncing half out of his chair at the mere thought. “I hope so, too! I never thought—”
Miss Balfour relented. “I expect he knows his job, Montagu,” she said, soothingly. “He struck me as a capable and sensible young man. I very much doubt if the other kind would ever have made the offer.”
“Good. So now all we have to do is make the plumbers get a move on.”
Mr. Milner’s new occupation of harrying—and hurrying—plumbers, kept him employed, and Miss Balfour, helping Edna to get the rooms on the top floor ready for painters, found herself with very little spare time, so that neither noticed how quiet Number Six had become.
They knew, of course, that Rowan had gone to join her mother and Holly at Kersland, because she had come to say good-bye to them. Murray, too, was on holiday. He had received a graciously worded invitation from Susan Rattray’s mother in St. Andrews, and had decided to go there. Good tennis and golf, neither of which he could get at Kersland, were the reasons he gave for accepting; and if Susan were a greater attraction, he never mentioned it.
Willow was left alone at Number Six, except during the evenings after Hazel came home; but she was so full of the prospect of her flat that she made no complaint either of being lonely or having too much to do.
“What’s Willow up to? She looks like the cat after it’s eaten the canary!” said Murray, but as he was on the point of departure for St. Andrews, the question was never answered, or even thought about.
Rowan, dismissing Angus and dancing from her mind, was anticipating the joys of Kersland, and Hazel was too heavyhearted to bother about anything except her own troubles.
Not as pretty as Willow, less vividly attractive than Rowan, Hazel suffered from a slight inferiority complex about her own looks. She had no opinion at all of her power to appeal to men.
So when Adam, notorious for his indifference to the female staff, began to notice her existence, she continued to behave with her normal impersonal friendliness. It was the remarks made by Christine Rennie and the other girls that awakened her not only to the fact of his attentions but to her own growing fondness for him.
After that Hazel was lost. With the abandon of the single-hearted she fell headlong in love, and until the day after their party had cause to hope that Adam cared for her.
But since then everything had gone wrong. Adam had hardly spoken to her, certainly had made no attempt to arrange a meeting outside the Hospital, and Hazel was in such a state of bewildered misery that she did not know how to bear it.
The only redeeming feature was that Christine was on holiday, which meant that Hazel was spared her searching looks and sharp comments. She thought herself lucky for this, but she was more fortunate in being a conscientious person, for it meant that no matter how unhappy she might be, she worked hard and well.
She had schooled herself into never glancing up when she heard his quick step across a hall or down the passage outside her office; she had succeeded in returning his hasty “Good morning” with calm politeness, and then, suddenly, he stopped beside her desk one afternoon, put down a little pile of forms for her to file, and said:
“Could you come and have tea with me on the way home?” For a moment the whole office, the desk with its forms and cards, all whirled so madly that she had to put out a hand to steady herself by the back of a chair. The feel of its cold round bar, more than the actual support, helped her. She was able to reply quite composedly.
“It will be rather late for tea, won’t it, by the time we leave?”
“Well, coffee, then, or a drink. It doesn’t matter, does it?” he said, impatiently. “I’ll meet you at the bus stop.”
Hazel nodded, and he went away. She set to work on her files, wondering why she wasn’t wild with delight. Adam had come in and said he wanted to see her. Yet she was conscious only of feeling very tired and stupid, and unaccountably heavy hearted.
The bus was crowded, it always was at the rush-hour, and there was no opportunity for talking until they had found seats in a corner of the lounge in the Caledonian Hotel.
“Why the Caley? Aren’t you being rather grand?” asked Hazel, trying to sound gay, but with a quiver in her voice.
“Why? Oh, it’s handy for both of us,” he said, vaguely. “What will you have? Sherry or a cocktail?”
A waiter came noiselessly up and took Adam’s order. Hazel, from her place, could see, through one of the long windows, the grey mass of rock and the Castle crowning it. She sat staring as if she had never seen this well-known, well-loved landmark before. Somehow she could not think of anything to say, and Adam seemed equally dumb.
There was nothing companionable about their silence. It hung over them like a thick dark blanket, choking thought and speech.
When their drinks came, Adam took a gulp at his—it was a double whisky, with only a splash of soda, as Hazel noticed with uneasy surprise—put down his glass, and said:
“I’ve been slaving these last few weeks.”
“Yes. I—I thought you were pretty busy,” murmured Hazel.
“You see, there’s a chance that old Prentice may take me on as his assistant, and that would be a tremendous lift for me.”
Hazel turned to him then, honest delight and pride in her eyes. “Oh, Adam, it would! It would be splendid! I do hope he will!”
“Old Prentice,” spoken of in this familiar manner, but thought of with admiration and awe, was one of Edinburgh’s foremost surgeons. To be chosen as his assistant at the Empress meant real recognition to a young surgeon.
“I think he will,” Adam was saying. “It’s what I’ve wanted and worked for ever since I went to the Empress.”
“Of course,” Hazel agreed.
“I—my whole life is in my job,” he went on speaking quickly and avoiding her clear gaze. “It must be like that if one means to be a really good surgeon. There isn’t room in one’s life for anything else—anything else at all.”
“I see,” said Hazel, very quietly. “I hope you will succeed in what you want to do, Adam. I wish you the best of luck in your career, always.”
She was on her feet, she was smiling at him, and then she was gone, walking away across the big lounge, leaving her sherry almost untouched on the little table.
“Hazel—!” he began, starting up.
Then he sat down again. After all, this was what he wanted, wasn’t it? He ought to be pleased, indeed, he was pleased, that she had taken his meaning so quickly. And yet he wished it hadn’t happened quite like this. He had meant to tell her that she was beginning to mean too much to him. . . . All he could think of now was the smile on her lips, and the stricken look in her eyes.
Pride carried Hazel through the big swing-doors, held open for her by a hall-porter, and took her as far as the crossing to the West end of Princes Street.
There, suddenly, it deserted her, to be replaced by stunned incredulity. That any man should have thought it necessary to warn her off seemed impossible. Yet Adam, Adam, had just done so.
Speeding across the Dean Bridge, Hazel was overcome by a fine heartening rage, which flamed in her like fire and made her pale cheeks glow. “How dared he? Oh, how dared he?” she said, over and over again as she hurried homewards.
“How dared he?”
Then misery rose like a lump in her breast, almost choking her. She stood beside the scarlet pillar-box wondering how she could go on living like this for years, until she was old enough not to care any more. She did not see the beautiful curving row of tall pillared houses, or the trees lifting their dusty autumn foliage to the clear sky; she did not hear the screams of children playing in Linden Terrace and the dull roar of distant traffic. For the moment she was blind and deaf to
everything except her own unhappiness.
“Oh, Adam!” she thought. “How could you? Why didn’t you leave me alone? I was all right before you came—”
She went on down the Crescent and let herself in to Number Six.
A piece of paper lay on the hall table, covered with Willow’s sprawling writing.
“Hope you don’t mind getting your own supper, but have been asked out—theatre and so on. Don’t wait up for me. Fish baking in oven. W.”
“Micky Grant, I suppose,” thought Hazel, crumpling the message up.
She was rather relieved not to have to be cheerful in company, but the thought of the evening alone was less agreeable.
“Well, you can’t have it both ways,” she told herself aloud. “And you’d better go and see what the fish is doing. It may be cooked until it’s like a brick by this time.”
But on investigation the fish proved to be just ready.
Hazel did not feel hungry, but if she didn’t eat it, the fish would still be there to-morrow, and even the self-absorbed Willow would notice and ask questions. So she made a slice of toast, decided that as she was alone she would have her supper in the kitchen, and spread a cloth on the table by the window.
The meal took a very short time; far too short from the point of view of helping to fill the hours until bedtime; and washing-up for one was an affair of five minutes. Hazel went out by the back door and wandered round the garden, shoving the thought of Adam firmly back when it intruded.
She was rather startled to see how badly the borders required weeding, and realized guiltily that none of them had touched the garden since Mrs. Lenox left for Kersland, more than five weeks earlier.
With sudden decision Hazel fetched a basket, a broken knife used for digging out obstinate weeds, and the gardening gloves, and set to work. At first she did not get on very fast. Her eyes kept filling with tears, and she could only blink them away as she dug and prodded with the knife-blade. But she stuck to the job, and after a while the smell of earth and grass combined with the satisfaction of seeing the cleared patch growing bigger to soothe her.
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