With All My Worldly Goods (4 page)

She was no longer Robert Culpane’s insignificant but well-loved daughter, impatiently awaiting his homecoming. She was alone. Utterly and absolutely alone in a strange and friendless world.

To say over and over again that she had a guardian, that Bruce Mickleham would look after her, was merely to play with words. He meant nothing to her.

With a restless little movement of despair, Leonora got up again and went over to the window. She leant her head against the frame and stared out sadly, but she was not really seeing anything of the quiet side-street below. She was remembering one of the all too-brief holidays when her father had come home.

He had taken her into the country one day—just the two of them, without Aunt Sophie—and he had been so gay and careless and irresponsible. Not a bit like a grownup, Leonora had thought. And even then she had begun to romance to herself about the wonderful future when he should come home for always.

She could not have been more than ten at the time, but she could remember it all quite clearly—even the frock she had worn. Stiffly starched so that it was inclined to scratch her bare legs, and with two deep tucks in the skirt, because Aunt Sophie always believed in making things to “let down.”

Her father had laughed about the tucks and said:

“Perhaps you’ll be wearing silk before it’s time to let those tucks down, Lora.”

She began to cry, very quietly and quite without being able to stop herself. She was realizing suddenly that there had been something a little wistful in the way he had said that.

It had never entered her head before, but now she began to see that perhaps, behind all that carelessness and that irresponsible air, there had been a dogged desire to do something big for his daughter.

And he had done it. He had made the fortune he had dreamt of. His daughter was rich for life. But all of it meant nothing at all now because he was not with her to share it.

“I don’t want silk or the money or anything like that,” sobbed Leonora. “Cotton frocks and days in the country would have done perfectly well, if only daddy had been there.”

With a long sigh she dragged herself back to the present. It was no good crying. It was no good standing by the window growing colder and more wretched every minute.

She must go to bed. She couldn’t sleep, of course, but she must go to bed.

Even undressing added a fresh poignancy to her grief, as she remembered the eager hope and anticipation with which she had dressed that morning. But, by the time she got into bed, she was so sick with weariness and bewilderment that she scarcely had time to put her head on the pillow before she sank into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

Leonora woke in the morning to more problems than she felt able to tackle. She was reluctant to leave it to her new-found guardian to make suggestions for the future, and yet she could think of nothing concrete to put forward.

He had said something about a sister of his coming, she remembered now. That seemed to suggest that he would expect his guardianly duties to extend to their living in the same house.

It was not unreasonable, of course, since her father’s will
had
put them in this extraordinary position, but the prospect was terribly unwelcome.

“Perhaps he will go back to Mexico fairly soon and leave me here,” Leonora told herself hopefully, but she had an uneasy feeling that his interpretation of his duties would be something quite different.

She was perfectly right.

Five minutes after they had met again, over the breakfast table, he was outlining his intentions.

Intentions, she noticed—not suggestions.

“My sister has a house in London,” he explained, “and I always go there on my rare visits to England. She was away in Scotland, but I cabled from the boat asking her to return, and I imagine she will be here today.”

“It won’t, I suppose, enter her head to disobey your summons?” Leonora could not resist saying.

He looked slightly taken aback for a moment, and then said coldly: “Agatha is always perfectly willing to fall in with my arrangements.”

“I see.” Leonora colored faintly at his tone. “And—is it your idea that I should go with you to her house?”

“Yes. At any rate until we have time to discuss other arrangements. Have you any objection?” He gave her a penetrating look, which somehow made any idea of objecting seem very difficult. Besides it was perhaps the best plan for the moment. The only thing was that she resented anyone of less than a day’s acquaintance arranging her future in this arbitrary manner.

But under his cool gaze she said at last: “No. I have no objection.” Then, after a moment, she added as casually as she could: “How long do you expect to stay in England?”

She didn’t look at him as she asked the question. She didn’t want him to see how important the answer was.

“How long?” He repeated the words just as casually as she. “Oh, I shall not be returning to Mexico at all.”

He didn’t seem to think it necessary to add anything to the bare statement of fact. And during the rest of breakfast Leonora found neither the courage nor the opportunity to pursue the subject.

It was half-way through the morning when a message was brought to her in her room—Would she come down to the lounge if it was convenient? Mr. Mickleham and his sister were waiting to see her there.

Swallowing her misgivings as well as she could, Leonora ran the comb through the thick waves of her hair, glanced a little nervously at herself in the mirror, and went downstairs to the two people who seemed likely to have the ordering of her life, at any rate for the next year.

When she came into the lounge they were absorbed in their conversation, so that she had a moment to observe them before they noticed her.

She was not surprised to see that Agatha Mickleham was an exceedingly good-looking woman—Bruce’s sister could scarcely be anything else, she supposed a little reluctantly—but Leonora guessed her age at a good ten years older than her brother.

Miss Mickleham was apparently doing most of the talking just then, but, silent as he was, Bruce still somehow dominated the scene in that disturbingly inevitable way of his.

He turned his head at the sound of Leonora’s step, and as he stood up—dark and tall yet curiously graceful—she had the inescapable impression that he dominated his sister too.

Miss Mickleham’s manner was courteous and even kind, as the introductions were made, but Leonora noticed that she was inclined to glance from time to time at her brother, as though expecting to take her cue from him.

That too was not at all surprising, Leonora thought.

“Bruce has been telling me about you,” Miss Mickleham said, “and I’m afraid everything must seem very sad and bewildering to you just now. But I hope we shall be able to make you happy.”

It seemed to Leonora the first natural and kindly remark that had been made to her since Bruce Mickleham had walked into her life, upsetting everything, and she felt a warm rush of gratitude.

“It’s very kind of you to trouble about me at all,” she said earnestly. “Especially as—as Mr. Mickleham tells me you came back from Scotland on purpose.”

“Well, I should have come back anyway as Bruce is here,” Miss Mickleham assured her. And, having seen them together, Leonora felt quite sure that was true. Agatha Mickleham appeared more than willing to dance attendance on her brother. “And as, of course, my home is also his home when he is in England, I hope you, as his ward, will come there too,” she added a little formally.

“Miss Lora has already intimated that she has no objection to living in our house,” Bruce observed dryly.

Leonora, who had been touched by his sister’s more gracious way of putting things, flushed with resentment at the interruption.

“All the same,” she said sharply, “I naturally feel happier to have Miss Mickleham’s own invitation to stay in
her
house.”

Miss Mickleham seemed more agitated than grateful at this polite distinction.

“Oh, it’s Bruce’s house, too, of course, you understand,” she explained nervously.

While her brother merely remarked imperturbably: “It isn’t exactly an invitation. It’s an arrangement.”

“In any case, we are very pleased to have you, my dear,” Miss Mickleham said quickly, evidently anxious to avoid any friction.

To which Bruce added: “Oh, very pleased,” with
a
grim little smile that rather disconcerted Leonora.

It was all such a curious and disturbing position, she thought unhappily. If anyone had told her twenty-four hours ago that the next day would find her preparing to make her home with two strangers, she would have been completely incredulous.

But so it was, and there didn’t appear to be any help for it. Even seventy thousand pounds seemed inadequate to save her from the humiliating position of having to do more or less what Bruce Mickleham told her. But then, of course, the seventy thousand pounds didn’t seem very real to her. She felt that five pound notes in her handbag would have been a great deal more convincing.

Which reminded her how little there actually was there.

However, it was beyond her to ask her guardian (how strange that seemed!) for money at the moment. She supposed there would be some arrangement about an allowance later, but if possible she would rather leave it to him to take the initiative. She
had
told him the evening before that she had practically no money. He would be bound to do something about it soon.

Leonora felt her resentment against him growing every minute. It somehow seemed insulting that she had to stand by and see him pay her hotel bill as well as his own; she hated having to climb meekly into the taxi while he directed everything and issued orders in that arrogantly efficient way of his; and, as she sat there, silent but seething, while they drove through the smooth greenness of Regent’s Park, she thought for the twentieth time:

“Oh, Daddy—I don’t want to be undutiful, but I think you must have been mad, dear.”

It didn’t take very long to reach the Micklehams’ house—a moderately large, moderately handsome and more than moderately gloomy place on the north side of the Park.

Miss Mickleham appeared to see nothing wrong with it. As they came into the hall she said rather eagerly: “Are you glad to be home, Bruce?”

“Yes, very glad,” he replied. But to Leonora’s ears his tone was unenthusiastic. However, she was not interested in his home-coming reactions or anything else about him, she told herself. All she wanted was that she need never see him again.

She heard the front door close behind her. Evidently all the luggage was in. But she would not turn to face her guardian. She had nothing to say to him, and no desire that he should speak to her. She wished they would all just leave her alone, so that she could go away and cry by herself.

And then she became aware that he was standing just behind her.

“Lora,” he said, but still she would not turn. “I didn’t say so before”—he was speaking quite quietly, almost gently—“but
I
want you to be happy here too, you know.”

It was so entirely different from anything she had expected that she swung round to stare at him with startled eyes, her easily-touched heart beating with quick remorse.

“You!” she said, and put her hand timidly on his arm. “But I thought—you didn’t care—at all.”

Suddenly she began to cry, and then she was weeping quite unrestrainedly, though she scarcely knew whether it were with grief or bewilderment or a sort of strange relief.

Without a word he put his arm round her, and without a word she hid her face against his shoulder. The extraordinary thing was that it all seemed perfectly natural.

Presently she felt him gently take off her hat and smooth her hair. And after a while she stopped sobbing, although she didn’t move.

“How bright your hair is,” she heard him say, and there was a note of something like wonder in his voice. “It’s like light—the brightest thing that ever came into this place.”

Leonora wondered a little if she were dreaming. But the light touch of his hand on her hair was real enough, even if it were also inexplicable. And for some unknown reason it comforted her beyond description.

At last she looked up and smiled faintly. He didn’t smile. He looked at her with that sombre attention that so oddly fascinated her.

“I think my sister is coming back,” he said, before she could make any remark, and gently but quite firmly he put her away from him.

“Will you come upstairs and see your room now, Lora?” Miss Mickleham said. And then added: “I think it will be best if I call you by your Christian name, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, of course. Please do.”

“Am I included in this permission?” Bruce asked gravely, as though he had quite forgotten they had already had a little dispute about her name.

There was a second’s pause. Then Leonora said: “I suppose so.” And—without looking at him, because she didn’t want him to see her smile—she followed Miss Mickleham upstairs.

The room intended for her turned out to be large and comfortable, with a good deal of solid elegance about it Aunt Sophie, she knew, would have greatly admired the heavy mahogany “period” furniture, but to Leonora’s mind it was faintly gloomy, like most other things about the house.