Past All Forgetting (25 page)

'Finish dressing, children,' she ordered calmly. 'I'll be back in a minute and I shall expect to find you all ready. No, Terry, I haven't forgotten your wrinkles and moustache, I'll do them when I come back.'

Vivien was in her office, and she waved a surprised hand at the phone when Janna said abruptly that she had to get in touch with Carrisbeck House.

Kim San answered, and Janna outlined in a few brief phrases what had happened, although she was careful to say it was an accident.

Kim San was reassuringly matter-of-fact. She was just about to go into town, she said. She would find some blue material and make another robe in time for the evening performance. She would bring it with her, she added, and that would ensure there were no more accidents.

Janna put down the phone with an uneasy feeling that Kim San understood far more than she had given her credit for, and she hoped that none of the gossip that had been rife in the town only a short time before had reached her ears.

Vivien had been listening to one side of the conversation with pursed lips.

'An accident, eh?' she said, as Janna turned to go back to her cast. 'Someone just happened to be using paint and glue in the room where your kids were dressing, Come off it, Janna.'

Janna shrugged unhappily. 'What else could I say?'

'How about Lucy Watson?' Vivien propped her chin on her hand and gave her a wry look. 'They're not the most subtle family in town, you know, and they've been making no secret of their annoyance that she didn't get the part.'

Janna gave a sigh. 'So you've heard too, have you?'

'Oh, I've heard,' said Vivien. 'But I make a rule to believe half of what I see and nothing at all of what I hear. And the sort of rumours they've been spreading are just plain scurrilous. You haven't been letting them get to you, I trust?'

Janna paused, her hand on the door handle. 'A little,' she admitted ruefully. 'But I could take it. It's this—attack on Fleur herself that's sickened me.'

'Do you think it will affect her?'

'Time alone will show.' Janna glanced at her watch. 'Speaking of which, they're due on stage in two minutes. I must fly and do Terry's wrinkles.'

It could not be said that Fleur stone that afternoon. She was obviously very self-conscious about the fact that she was the only person on stage wearing everyday clothes, and her new confidence seemed badly shaken. She had difficulty in remembering her lines, and her small body was hunched and tense when the time came for her solo, with the result that she sang flat.

From the side of the stage, Janna saw Beth Morris exchange a covert grin with Lynn Carter who taught the reception class. If Fleur makes a mess of things tonight, Janna thought miserably, then people will start thinking there was some basis in the rumours after all, and that I didn't choose her simply because she seemed the best.

She gave no hint of this to Fleur or any of the children. She merely praised them all, and warned them to do just as well that evening, and to remember that shepherds and Wise Men never waved to their parents in the audience no matter how tempting it might seem.

Janna stayed behind for a while to help set out the remaining chairs that would be needed, and then walked slowly home for tea. The evening, she thought, was going to be pretty much of an ordeal, as broad hints had been dropped that her leaving presentation would take place after the concert, so that the parents could also join in expressing their appreciation to her. The Watsons, she thought with a touch of mordaunt humour, would probably boo and throw things.

She made herself put on the new dress she had bought for her holiday—champagne-coloured wool jersey, cut on empire lines with a round high neck and long sleeves—and she made up her face with unusual care, using blusher and eyeshadow meticulously. It was a braver face altogether that looked at her .when she had done.

The hall was already half-filled when she arrived back at school. She went round to the classroom, and found the children busy getting ready, but not with the same
joie de vivre
that had been present that afternoon. Everyone seemed to be suffering from stage-fright to a greater or lesser degree, and even Lucy Watson was pale and silent.

Janna noticed with a small flutter of nervousness that Fleur was not among those present. Her heart sank as she wondered whether the child had been so unnerved by her failure that afternoon that she had decided not to appear in the evening. But even as she was asking herself whether she should put in another phone call to Carrisbeck House, Kim San's elegant little figure appeared in the classroom door-way, leading Fleur by the hand. Janna gasped when she saw her. In the limited amount of time at her disposal Kim San had performed wonders. The blue robe was perfectly simple with its round neck and full sleeves, and a gold dressing-gown cord made an effective girdle. The white silky veil covered Fleur's hair and billowed almost to the floor.

Kim San smiled with satisfaction at Janna's openly expressed admiration. 'When there is an emergency, one must improvise,' was her only comment.

She looked round the room at the wide-eyed children.

'Which one is Lucy Watson?' she enquired. There was a long pause, then Lucy stepped forward, bottom lip fixed in a sullen pout.

'So you are Lucy.' Kim San studied her for a moment, then smiled. 'How pretty, and you sing well, Fleur says. I sing too, and if you would like, I will give you lessons—when Christmas is over.'

Lucy's face was a study. Kim San gave her another, rather enigmatic smile, added a wink for Janna's benefit alone and departed.

Shortly afterwards the concert began. Janna could register its progress by the bursts of applause which greeted the end of each item, and she was able to gauge the moment when the curtains were drawn and she was able to get her children to the hall and on to the stage with their simple props.

From the moment that Jimmy Gordon, playing a Roman centurion, unrolled his scroll and announced that all the world was going to be taxed—a message greeted with rather feeling laughter by some male members of the audience— Janna knew the play was going to be a success.

The children's attack of butterflies had done them no harm at all. Their adrenalin was obviously flowing, and they threw themselves into the spirit of the play with complete abandon. From the rough innocence of the shepherds to the majesty of the Wise Men, making their traditional entrance dawn the entire length of the school hall, with nervous black slaves carrying the gifts for the child in front of them on cushions borrowed from home, they captured the imaginations of their audience.

And when the moment came for Fleur, amazingly serene like some exquisite porcelain figure, to kneel by the manger and begin her solo, there were many adults in the hall stealthily fumbling for handkerchiefs they had not suspected they would need.

Janna herself felt hot tears pricking at the back of her eyelids as she listened. There was a talent there, she thought, that could develop and grow if it was directed with wisdom, and she knew that Kim San had that wisdom. Janna could just see her, leaning forward slightly, the dark almond eyes intent on her daughter's kneeling figure. Automatically her eyes moved to her companion, and she stiffened with astonishment. Rian was not there.

It was hard to believe he would not attend a school concert in which his own child was playing a leading role, she thought bewilderedly. She looked towards the back of the hall where some of the men were standing, to see if he was among them, but his tall figure was nowhere to be seen. She felt acutely disappointed in a strange way. She knew now that Mrs Watson had not been so very far from the truth. Whether she had been conscious of it or not, she had hoped to please him tonight by presenting him with Fleur at her best.

It was hurtful to wonder whether the rumours had in fact got back to him, and if he had deliberately stayed away because of them. Perhaps, after their parting on the bridge, he simply did not wish to see her again. That was even more hurtful to contemplate.

Afterwards when the final tableau had been staged, and the curtain had fallen to tumultuous applause, Fleur came to her starry-eyed. 'Oh, Miss Prent-iss, did you see? My father is here, sitting with my mother.'

Janna shook her head compassionately. 'I don't think so, dear,' she said quickly. 'I think something must have kept him away.'

'No.' Fleur gave her a puzzled look. 'He was there—I saw him. But I did not wave, Miss Prent-iss, because you said we must not.'

Janna collected herself with a start. 'Well, that was right, of course,' she said hurriedly. 'Now, everyone, into the hall for the final carol.'

When the last appeal to come and adore Him had died away, Mrs Parsons advanced to the front of the platform.

Smilingly she thanked the audience for their attention, and the children the staff who had put on the concert. Then she paused.

'Many of you will be sorry to learn,' she said, 'that Miss Prentiss, whose first year junior class presented the play tonight, is;, leaving us this term. On your behalf I would like to present her with this travelling case, and this small dock which the children have chosen for her.'

Janna's eyes were unashamedly wet as she mounted the steps at the side of the stage and heard the applause. If there had been gossip—if the scandalmongers were sitting there that night—then it was all forgotten in the wave of warmth and interest and affection that Janna felt was almost tangible. She accepted her gifts, said a few stumbling words of thanks, and walked back into the body of the hall.

A number of parents approached her before leaving to express their regrets at her departure, and she smiled and thanked them and agreed that she, too, would miss Carrisford and its school.

She was just turning away when Kim San came up to her.

'What is this, Jan-na? You did not mention that you were to leave? I am sorry to hear this. Fleur is so fond of you.'

'And I'm fond of her too.' Janna forced a smile. 'But it's a mistake to stay in the same place for too long. You risk becoming staid—and stale. It's time I moved on.'

'You sound like Ri-an,' Kim San observed. 'Nothing will do now than for him to leave again. He is so impatient. I have asked him to spend Christmas with us, but he will not.'

Janna stared at her. 'But it's your—first Christmas together!'

'That is what he says. He says he will be an intruder, but I say how can this be so, when he is our greatest friend?'

Janna began to feel bemused. It was as odd way, she thought, to refer to the man you were about to marry, even if the marriage was not wholly a love match.

'But surely he realises how much it will mean to Fleur to have him there?'

Kim San gave a wry smile. 'There would be little point in saying that when Ri-an knows quite well that he is no longer the first in her affections. Since her father came to us, he has been supplanted.'

'Her—father?' Janna did not know how she managed to utter the words.

Kim San gave her an odd glance. 'But yes. You did not know that he had come? He has been with us since yesterday. Come, you must meet him.'

She took Janna's unresisting hand and led her to where a tall, fair-haired man was standing.

'Philip, this is Janna Prentiss who has been Fleur's teacher.'

Janna looked dazedly up into a tanned face, firm-chinned and brown-eyed. Her hand was gripped warmly and firmly.

'I've heard a great deal about you, Miss Prentiss. I feel we have already met.'

'From Fleur, I suppose.' Janna struggled to gain her composure in a world that seemed to be reeling about her. Rian was Fleur's father, not this blond stranger.

He smiled down at her. 'Not entirely. I should tell you perhaps that I've been a friend of Rian's for over ten years. We started on the same paper together. I say, are you all right? You've gone quite pale.'

'Yes—yes, I'm fine,' Janna said mechanically. Her eyes sought Kim San's. The other girl was watching her, a gleam of understanding in her face. Frantically, Janna moistened her lips. 'You see—I thought… I didn't realise '…' She stumbled to a halt, and Kim San gave a little smile.

'You thought that it was Ri-an I was to marry?' she asked on a soft note of incredulity, and Janna nodded.

Kim San shook her head. 'It explains much,' she said thoughtfully. 'But all Ri-an has ever been to me is a good friend. Philip and I might have remained apart for ever if it had not been for him. When he decided to turn his family home into an adventure school, it was Philip he thought of at once to take charge of it. Three years ago Philip gave up reporting to work as an assistant in such a school in Scotland. But there was no place there for me, and I was angry. How, thanks to Ri-an, we have a home, and a job and a chance to be happy.'

'But—Rian let everyone think…' Janna began numbly, and paused.

'What they basically wanted to think,' Philip finished for her. 'It's a form of arrogance with him. But I think he would have explained had he been asked to by someone he—cared about.'

Janna's face was suffused with hot, painful colour under his considering look.

Kim San laid a gentle hand on her arm. 'Perhaps Ri-an too needs an explanation,' she said. 'But there is not a great deal of time. He is at the house now, packing.'

Philip produced a set of car keys and looked at her. 'Can you drive?' At her barely perceptible nod he tossed them to her. 'It's the blue station wagon parked just opposite the gates. We'll walk home-slowly.'

Janna found the vehicle without difficulty, and unlocked the door. She sat for a moment or two, forcing herself to be calm, wiping her suddenly clammy hands on a handkerchief. Then with infinite care she started the engine, and manoeuvred herself out of the parking space.

The now familiar shape of his car was missing from the front of the house, and everything seemed dark. With a feeling of agony, she thought, 'He's gone.' And at the same moment, she recognised that wherever he was, she would follow.

She got out of the station wagon and trod up the steps to the front door. She twisted the ornate handle and it yielded easily to her pressure and the door swung open with the faintest creak. Her heart lifted slightly. Surely he would not have driven away and left the house open like this, knowing that Philip and Kim San were at the school.