Reluctant Relation (14 page)

And, at the idea that he might dismiss her altogether from his thoughts, Meg had some difficulty in swallowing a lump in her throat.

It was not until the next morning that the consoling reflection came to her that he would be telephoning from London soon. She must be prepared to handle the situation lightly and charmingly, in a way which would make him forget her rather gauche behavior of the previous evening.

She tried out one or two amusing little comments and sentences to herself. She even thought she might embark on a casual explanation of her somewhat foolish exit.

But none of this was needed. Instead of telephoning Meg, Leigh wrote a short note to Pearl, with the information about Felicity’s return.

“It’s from Leigh, Meg!” There was no mistaking Pearl’s gratification. “And he says Mommy is coming back to England today. No, it will have been yesterday. Look—” and she held out the letter for Meg’s inspection.

With a great effort, Meg concealed her disappointment that Leigh would not now telephone her. She smiled brightly at Pearl, took the letter and read:

“I’m sorry, my dear, that you were asleep when I called the other evening, but I’ll be back in the north before you go back to school, and I’ll bring you a present from London.

“Your mother is coming back to England today, I’ll probably be meeting her at the airport, but I understand she will be staying in London for a few days. Will you tell Meg for me? She wanted to know what the arrangements were.”

There followed a few messages for Pearl herself, and a conventional greeting to Meg.

“Isn’t it a nice letter?” Pearl was watching Meg eagerly for signs of approval.

“Perfectly charming,” said Meg, with the best smile she could muster, and she handed the letter back.

For several minutes Pearl burbled on happily about Leigh and the present, she was to get and, to a lesser degree, about her mother’s return.

“I expect we’ll hear soon when Mommy is coming back here,” Pearl said. “Or perhaps we’ll join her in London. That would be nice! Would you like that, Meg? To have a few days in London with me before I go back to school?”

“I’ll like a few days with you wherever they’re spent,” Meg told her with a smile, and she ruffled Pearl’s hair affectionately as she got up to clear the breakfast table.

Well. That was that. He didn’t even want to telephone her. If she went on after that hoping for some miracle which would make everything O.K. again, then she was just being a fool.

But she went on hoping, all the same.

Every day she looked for a letter—from Felicity or Dick, or even Leigh himself. Every evening she waited for a long-distance telephone call. But several days slid past without a word about Felicity.

Obviously Leigh was lingering in London. If he had returned to the north, he would have come out to Purworth, if only to see Pearl. After a while, even Pearl herself remarked, “It’s about time Leigh came home, isn’t it? If he doesn’t come soon, he’ll miss me. So will Mommy,” she added as an afterthought. “I wonder if they’ve both forgotten the date when I go back to school.”

“I don’t expect so, darling.” Meg spoke with a casual air of reassurance. It was all she could do to hide her real feelings when Pearl went on thoughtfully, “It’s funny they should both stay so long in London and not even write or phone. I wonder what they’re doing.”

Meg wondered too. Desperately. But she had to pretend to the little girl that there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Late that evening, when Pearl was asleep the phone rang. But the voice which answered her when she snatched up the receiver was Dick’s.

“Why, Dick! I’ve been wondering what on earth happened to everybody,” Meg cried reproachfully. “Pearl and I haven’t heard anything for ages.”

“Not quite a week,” he corrected her. “But yes, I know it was a long silence. Things have been pretty hectic here.”

He sounded curiously subdued and, for no reason she could explain, she felt her heart begin to thump heavily.

“Has anything happened?” she asked almost apprehensively.

“Quite a lot.”

“You sound ... depressed, somehow.”

“Well, I have to tell you something which I’d much rather not have to say.”

“What is it?” She braced herself, but she felt a chill so acute that it was almost as though cold water ran down her spine. “Is it about
... Felicity?”

“Yes. She was married today.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

In the most extraordinary way, it seemed to Meg as though everything suddenly stopped: the heavy beating of her heart, the quick, uneven catch of her breath, even the hall clock, which usually ticked so loudly. For perhaps three seconds, an immense stillness enveloped her.

Then she heard a scraping noise coming from the telephone, and she said, almost absently, “What did you say?”

Faintly Dick’s voice asked, “Are you still there, Meg?”

“Yes.”

“I can hardly hear you.”

She could hardly hear him either, but she supposed that was part of the strange numbness which had not yet worn off. With an effort, she raised her voice, and, although she knew the answer, she managed to make herself ask, “Whom did she marry?” Again Dick’s voice was almost inaudible. She could just hear that he was speaking, above the persistent scraping noise. Then suddenly both his distant voice and the noise ceased, and Meg was left staring at a silent receiver.

And then there was a knock at the front door. Meg dropped the telephone and rushed to open the door. Outside stood Mrs. Parker.

“Ee, lass, nothing would do with Parker but that I should away and tell you not to worry if you can’t use your telephone. There’s a great big lorry run into the pole that carries all the cross wires, as you might say, and half the wires in the village are down. There’ll be a lot can’t do their bit of nightly gossip tonight. I said, ‘Miss Greenway isn’t one to talk for hours on the telephone.’ But Parker, he said ... with his feet on the mantelpiece and his backside in a comfortable chair ... ‘You get away up to Miss Greenway and say not to worry. The whole thing will be mended tomorrow. Or may be the next day.’ ”

“Thank you, Mrs. Parker,” said Meg, controlling her impatience with difficulty. “I did wonder what had happened. I was just in the middle of a call when the line faded and went dead. Do you suppose we’ll all be without phones for a day or two, Mrs. Parker?”

“Parker says so,” declared Mrs. Parker, though with a degree of scepticism in her tone for the reliability of her husband’s information. “You never can tell.”

“Thank you very much for coming up, Mrs. Parker. It was awfully kind of you.”

“You’re welcome,” Mrs. Parker assured her. “You’re not nervous like, alone here without the telephone to tinkle?”

“Oh no, thank you. I’m not in the least nervous,” Meg declared. And that was true. Even when Mrs. Parker had gone and everything in the house was quiet again, she was not nervous, only indescribably restless and unhappy.

It was impossible to settle down. Neither a book nor any work could hold her attention at this moment. Instead, she wandered softly from room to room, careful not to disturb Pearl, but unable to sit alone with her thoughts.

By now she couldn’t absolutely recall what she had heard Dick say. And yet it seemed to her that, if only she could remember his exact words, she would be able to guess the rest of his message.

Leigh’s name had not been mentioned. Of that she was certain. Dick had merely said that Felicity had been married that day.

Was it, then, absolutely certain that it was Leigh she had married?

For a few brief, glorious moments, Meg luxuriated in the possibility that Felicity might have married some other, unspecified person.

She went to bed at last, but for a long time lay awake, counting the hours by the chime of the old church clock. And when she slept at last, she was tormented by confused dreams, in which Felicity and Leigh and even Dick came and went like figures in some strange nightmare dance.

She woke late with a sense of foreboding and depression. Even from Pearl it was difficult to hide the fact that she was restless and unhappy.

“You’ve changed somehow.” Pearl regarded her thoughtfully across the breakfast table. “You were so gay and happy a few days ago. Now you look solemn and worried. Is anything the matter, Meg?”

“Nothing,” Meg assured her mechanically.

“Perhaps you’re tired of being alone with me,” suggested Pearl without rancor. “You’ll be glad when Mommy comes back and makes all the decisions, won’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose.” But even as she said the words Meg found herself wondering uneasily when she should tell Pearl the news about her mother, and just how she would react to it.

Joyously, presumably. For she had already declared that she wished her mother would marry Leigh.

Later, when Pearl had gone to play with her new friends at the vicarage, Meg took herself firmly to task.

It was useless to mope around, she assured herself, just because some ill-founded hopes had come to nothing. Leigh never had been anything special in her life. Or, to be more exact perhaps, she had been nothing in his life.

Nothing has really changed since the day when I met Pearl, she thought. In a way, this has been a delightful, sometimes harrowing interlude. Basically, it hasn’t changed the course of my life. Pearl will go back to school. Felicity will continue her erratic but successful path, married to Leigh instead of merely on the point of marrying him,
Dick...

For a moment or two she paused to think more speculatively about Dick, who really did want to change the course of her life. But although she liked him almost as much as she had ever liked anyone, it seemed to her that even her contact with him was a passing phase. She could imagine herself being friends with him. She could even imagine herself confiding in him, flirting with him, or shedding a few tears upon his shoulder. But she simply could not imagine herself married to him.

His proposal had touched and surprised her, but it had certainly not shaken her to the roots of her being. Nor, she thought shrewdly, had it done so with him. His sincerity was beyond question ... and, indeed, he would probably return to the attack, now that Leigh had been removed from competition. But she knew quite well what her answer would be the second time—or the third, or the fourth.

She winced a little to think that Dick knew so much about her crushed hopes and feelings. But at the same time she longed for him to come and tell her the rest of the sorry tale. It would be better to hear it from him, she decided ... the sooner the better.

Undoubtedly he would telephone as soon as communication was restored. But she found herself wishing that he would find some speedier method of letting her know. Anything would be better than existing in this agonizing vacuum of half-ignorance, waiting for a blow.

“I wish I could
know now ...
this very minute!” Meg told herself.

And, as though in terrifying, almost supernatural answer to her declaration, there was the sound of a car stopping outside the house.

“It’s Dick!” she exclaimed aloud, with cold, despairing conviction, and all her courage and resolution dropped from her like a discarded cloak.

If she could have fled, she would have done so. If she could have clung to one more minute of illusion and false hope, she would have done so. As she heard his quick, firm tread across the hall, her one thought was to recall the boldly expressed wish, as though she could put off the moment of final anguish a little longer.

But the door opened and suddenly she turned away with her hands over her face and exclaimed, “No! Don’t tell me!”

There was a full second of silence. Then Leigh’s voice said gently, “Don’t tell you what?”

“Leigh!” She dropped her hands and turned to face him.

“What on earth is the matter?” He came forward quickly and took her cold hands. “Are you ill?”

“No—” she stared up at him in bewilderment “—no, I’m not ill. What are you doing here?”

“I was worried about you. Dick said you cut off in the middle of a phone call last night, and he couldn’t re-establish communication. I thought something must be wrong. I caught the night train—”

“You caught ... the
night train?” she repeated incredulously. “Just because you thought something might be wrong?”

“It was reason enough,” he returned curtly. “And, now that I see you, it looks to me as though something is wrong. Where’s Pearl?”

“She’s ... all right.” She suddenly realized how tightly her cold fingers were gripping his. “She’s at the vicarage.” Meg made an immense effort to loosen her grip and speak calmly. “I haven’t told her the news yet. I thought I’d better wait until I knew a ... a little more. The telephone wires are down in the village. That’s why Dick couldn’t get through.”

She was speaking very rapidly now, though more connectedly, but she thought there must be something queer about what she was saying because he was looking at her so searchingly.

“Sit down,” he said gently. He stood beside her still holding one of her hands. “I’d say you were feverish, if your hands weren’t so cold. Have you had a shock or something?”

Meg shook her head, because she was afraid of crying, divided as she was between anguish and the unspeakable comfort of having him hold her hand and chafe it in that anxious manner.

“Have you been worrying yourself about the effect of the news on Pearl?”

“Oh no.” She found her voice again, though it sounded husky to her own ears. “She’ll be very pleased. It was what she always wanted.”

“Was it?” He looked puzzled. “But I don’t see how—” he began.

“The very first time I met her—” Meg rushed on eagerly so that he would have something else to think about besides her own agitated state “—the very first time I met her she was grieving about your absence and saying that she wished she could have you for her father. Though I wish Felicity had accompanied you, so that you could tell her about it together.”

She thought she had managed rather well. But almost immediately she knew she could not have done so, for there was a long, astounded pause. Then he said: “Do you mind telling me what you’re talking about?”

“Why—” she looked up at him uncertainly “—your marriage, of course. Your marriage to Felicity.”

“But, my dear child,” he said very gently. “I didn’t marry Felicity. She married some crashingly good-looking Spanish fellow that she met on this film caper. And she’s gone around the world on a honeymoon trip, leaving the movie and Pearl and everything else flat.”

“You mean she
...
she didn’t marry you?” Meg seemed unable to take this in.

“She didn’t marry me,” he stated categorically.

“But ...
why not?” she muttered bewilderedly.

“For one thing, she didn’t want to. And, for another, I didn’t want to marry her,” was the cool reply.

“Oh,” said Meg, putting her forehead against the hand which was holding hers so reassuringly, and for a moment allowing her mind to go absolutely and blissfully blank.

Then Leigh’s voice said, from a long way away, “I think you’d better drink this.” She heard her teeth chattering against a glass he was holding to her lips and she obediently drank something which tasted fiery and not very agreeable.

“Why, that was brandy, wasn’t it?” she said. “I don’t really like brandy.”

“No?” He sounded amused. “Well, it’s a good stimulant. And at least it’s brought some color back to your cheeks.”

She sat up and confusedly pushed her hair back from her forehead.

“I don’t know why on earth I behaved in that silly way!” She was in better command of herself now. “I slept badly last night and didn't feel too good this morning.
And then ...
I was a little worried about the garbled version of the news which I managed to gather from Dick, and I suppose the shock of finding I had it all wrong anyway
just ...
just made my head swim for a minute.”

“I think so.” He appeared to accept her explanation unreservedly. “You made my head swim, with your insistence on marrying me off against my will.”

She smiled faintly. But she said, as though she could not help it, “There was a time when it wouldn’t have been against your will, Leigh, wasn’t there?”

“Wisdom comes to all of us eventually,” he answered her lightly.

“You mean—” she hesitated, but then she had to know the truth “—you mean it doesn’t hurt now, the fact that Felicity has married someone else?”

“Not in the least.”

“Such a complete cure,” she murmured, half to herself. “Does
that really happen ...
in a comparatively short time?”

“If there is some assistance, yes.”

“Some assistance?” She looked inquiringly at him. At that he sat down on the arm of her chair and put his arm around her.

“Never mind generalizations just now,” he said, and she felt him kiss the top of her head. “This is about you and me, Meg.”

“I ...
is it?” she whispered, and she began to tremble.

“No, don’t tremble, darling. There’s nothing to be frightened about.”

“I’m not frightened.
At least ...
I don’t think I am.”

But she was frightened, lest the sudden wild hope which had flared up within her was to be finally extinguished.

“Tell me ...
quickly,” she said, and her fingers twined nervously in his.