Child Friday (19 page)

II

It seemed a long three days to Emily. She missed Dane unbearably, and even Shorty, with his impudent ways and downright speech. Bella, too, moped and lay beside Dane’s empty chair, refusing to be comforted, her brown, melting eyes fixed reproachfully upon Emily, as if she held her responsible for the master’s absence. Only Alice seemed released and more natural and became, for a time, the polite little girl who offered Emily her shy affection, as in the Christmas holidays, but on the second evening Tim came in unexpectedly after dinner and stayed on well into the small hours of the morning.

Alice sat up as long as she dared, silently hating him. Emily had allowed her licence in the matter of bedtime while Dane was away and she bitterly resented this intrusion. In the end it was Tim who observed pleasantly that it was far too late for little girls to be sitting up with their elders, and Alice went, omitting to kiss Emily good-night, and slamming the door after her, The next day she was distant and aloof and Emily felt thankful that Dane
w
as returning in the evening.

When she heard the car draw up at the door she ran into the hall to meet him, accompanied by Bella who began uttering the little piping cries peculiar to her breed. When Dane came in, Emily would have run unt
hinkin
gly to kiss him, so glad was she to see him, but the bitch was first, springing against his chest in an ecstasy of delight, screaming her pleasure, and he spoke to her softly as if hers was the only welcome he expected or wanted.

“Down, Bella!” said Emily sharply. “She’ll hurt you, Dane. She’s too boisterous.”

“She won’t hurt me,” he laughed. “Poor Bella ... poor old girl
...
you missed me, didn’t you?”

The bitch squirmed at his feet in frantic subjection and he stooped to caress her again. As once before, Emily, watching, thought:
He’s fonder of his dog than he is of me
...

“Did you have a successful trip?” she asked, and knew she sounded merely polite; the well-trained secretary enquiring dutifully after her employer’s affairs.

For a moment he looked disappointed, as if he found something lacking, then replied casually, that the trip had been quite satisfactory.

“And how was Miss Pink?”

“Louisa was very flourishing. She sent her love.”

“Was the train crowded?”

“Not
u
nduly. Shorty saw to my comfort.”

Such banal, empty little phrases as they walked together to the library.

“What about food?” asked Emily, glancing at the clock.

“I had dinner on the train, thanks,” he replied.

Alice was waiting to say good-night. She had particularly asked to be allowed to stay up until Dane came home, and Emily, hoping that the child had missed her guardian, had gladly given permission.

“Hullo, Uncle Dane,” she said.

“Hullo, Alice,” he returned with surprise. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“She wanted to stop up to say good-night to you,” Emily said. “I’m afraid we’ve been rather lax the last two nights. Alice has been staying up late to keep me company.”

“And did you enjoy that?” he asked the little girl.

“No,” said Alice unexpectedly. “That horrid Mr. Lonnegan
was here
all
the time.”

Dane’s eyebrows rose and Emily said quickly:

“Oh, Alice! Not all the time. He only came in last night for a bit
.
”

“And sent me to bed, so that he could kiss you—
I
know!” said Alice. “He didn’t go till
two
in the morning.
I wasn’t asleep.”

Dane’s mouth tightened.

“That’s enough, Alice,” he said sharply. “If Emily chooses to entertain a guest it’s none of your business—understand?”

The child’s lower lip quivered ominously.

“Yes, Uncle Dane,” she said.

“Very well. Say good-night and be off to bed.”

Alice gave
Emil
y
a frightened look of apology but she bade neither of them good-night and ran out of the room, crying.

“Oh, dear,” said Emily rather helplessly, “I don’t seem to get the right side of Alice these holidays.”

“Have you tried very hard?” asked Dane coldly, and she saw that his mouth was set and hard.

“What do you mean? I made a playroom for her which she didn’t like, and I’ve tried to interest her in outside things. I’ve
t
ried to give her affection, too, but she doesn
’
t seem to want it.”

“Because she’s jealous.”

“Oh, but, Dane, that’s absurd!”

“Is it? I told you at the beginning of the holidays that it would be a mistake to let your young man monopolize
you.”

“But I haven’t seen a lot of Tim. It was unfortunate that he came in last night, but he wasn’t to know the child would still be up.”

“You mean you didn’t ask him?”

“Of course I didn’t ask him!”

“No, I suppose if you’d intended a
tete-
a
-tete
well into the morning you would have sent Alice to bed,” he said, and there was such bitterness in his voice that Emily’s hands flew to her mouth.

“I hadn’t realized it was so late, but even so, I think Alice exaggerates,” she murmured.

“We’d better get things straight once and for all,” he said, and she saw that he was controlling a rising anger. “I realize that your life with me is a little abnormal, but young Lonnegan’s attentions are rather too obvious for anyone’s comf
o
rt. It’s got to stop.”

Emily had gone white but she kept her voice steady. “You encouraged him to come here at first, if you remember,” she said.

“Oh, yes, I admit that, but also, if
you
remember, you told me, indirectly, that you no longer cared for him. I wanted to be sure of that, so, as you’ve just pointed out, I encouraged him to come here.”

“Then why—why are you angry now?”

“What you’re implying, I suppose, is that I’ve no right to be angry,” he said bitterly. “I condemned you to a marriage which had no promise of fulfilment and I shouldn’t squawk if you choose to lead your own life.”

“I wouldn’t have denied you fulfilment,” she said gently. “You made your own choice.”

He pressed his fingers against his eyelids in that familiar gesture of tiredness and she wanted to go to him, to put her arms round him and tell him this misunderstanding was none of her making.

“Dane
—
” she said, but he straightened and immediately put his hands in his pockets. His sightless eyes looked blood-shot and infinitely tired, but his face was the still mask of distaste.

“I could scarcely take advantage of your
compassion, even if I’d wanted to, could I?” he said harshly.

“Do you despise compassion, then?”

“I despise pity.”

“They’re not the same. But I’ve never known what you wanted, Dane
.
When I agreed to marry you, you sai
d—
”

“When you agreed to marry me there was no question of emotions being mixed up. You knew what you had undertaken, just as I did.”

“I suppose so. But what of Vanessa, Dane? Had you bargained for that when you married me?”

“No more than I’d bargained for your young man coming back into the picture.”

“But he didn’t—he hasn’t.”

“Hasn’t he?” said Dane, and she went to him then, putting her hands on his shoulders.

“No,” she said. “I only want them both to go away—Tim and Vanessa. What you’ve offered me I’m content with—if you are. Aren’t you satisfied?”

“No,” he said, thrusting her hands away. “No, I’m not content. I should never have married you, Emily—I should never have tempted providence, nature—whatever you like to call it, so flagrantly. Blindness is a handicap in more ways than one. One is too sensitive to things which those who can see don’t notice. I was foolish ever to think that this sort of thing could work.”

“You mean our marriage?”

“I mean our marriage and all it entails.” His voice suddenly softened and his face, too, and only a great weariness remained.

“I’m sorry, Emily,” he said. “I hadn’t meant to treat you to a scene. Things will work out—they always do.” She was almost crying. His face, ravished by an emotion she had never seen before, tugged at her compassion. She did not know what he wanted; whether it was Vanessa or the lost days of his youth, but each, she thought, was one with the other. How could she hope to make up for the bitterness of the past?

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry that things can’t be as they were.”

“Friday’s child?” he asked with an odd little smile. “Never mind, Emily, life is not eternal.”

That night she
sl
ept very little. She could hear Dane pacing his room far into the small hours and once she opened the dividing door and called to him softly.

“Let me come and talk to you,” she said. “You must be so tired.”

He was only a dim figure in the darkness but he seemed
to stiffen.

“No,” he said., “Go back to bed, Emily. I’m sorry if I’ve kept you awake.”

She went because she knew she could not reach him, but she lay awake, listening to his movements in the other room until, long after dawn, there was silence, and she knew he slept.

It was difficult the next day for Emily to revert to normal. For the first time she was glad of Dane’s blindness so that she need not guard her face. Alice looked sullen and peaky, and it was good to have Shorty back with his disregard for polite speech.

“Cor!” he observed. “You and Miss Alice look as if you’d lost a fortune! Wot’s been ’appening since we’ve been away?”

“Nothing much,” said Emily evasively. “Miss Alice has been a bit difficult, that’s all.”

“Ho!” said Shorty with a world of expression, but his look told Emily that he was of the opinion that she was mostly to blame.

The day before Alice was to return to school, Emily went out to
the orchard.
The blossom was in full bloom now, and the old trees were a mass of delicate foam. Emily stood fingering the rough bark of the tree she had climbed, remembering its significance; the tree from which she had first seen Alice, the tree where Dane had found the first colored egg at Easter, the tree from which he had told her he would always see her, peeping out between the snowy branches. She swung herself into the familiar cleft branch, then almost immediately jumped down again, for she had seen, over the high wall, Tim’s car coming up the hill and she did not want him in the house. They met at the gate.

“You can’t come in,” said Emily, and he looked amused.

“As a matter of fact I’d come to say good-bye,” he replied. “I’m going back to town tomorrow.”

Emily experienced a sudden flood of relief, followed by a swift, illogical pang of regret. With Tim’s going the past would have gone, and with it the nebulous assurance of the present.

“You’ll not come back, Tim, will you?” she said.

His blue eyes watched her with gentle amusement. He did not speak for a moment and she was conscious of his first attraction for her; the sunlight bright on his thick red hair, the lean body, gay and careless, with its elegant bones.
But black is the color of my true love’s hair
...
The strange, mournful air of the song ran through her thoughts as she watched that bright head.

“No, I’ll be waiting,” he said, and grinned.

“Waiting? For what?”

“For you, perhaps. Don’t you know why your husband went to London?”

“Business, I suppose—or was it Vanessa?”

“Vanessa’s been here at Torcroft. Never mind, Emily, all in good time. Where is he today?”

“Dane? He’s gone in to Plymouth with Shorty—to the laboratory, I think. Did you want to see him?”

“No, that can wait. Well,
au revoir,
my sweet—I’ll be seeing you.”

He did not wait for any more but jumped into his car and drove away. Emily looked after him with no regrets now. She did not consider his suggestion that he would be waiting for her, only his query as to whether she knew why Dane had gone to London. Vanessa was linked with that remark, she was sure, and she began to watch for Dane’s return from Plymouth. She would question him, she decided, just as he had questioned her.

He did not come until very late. In the bright glare from the
chandelier
in the hall he looked rather white, and Shorty came slowly in after him, carrying Bella.

Emily ran to Dane’s side.

“What’s happened? Is she hurt?” she cried in alarm.

“She was hit by a car,” said Dane. “I gave the wrong command.”

“She’s not—she’s not
—
” Emily began, horrified, but
Shorty threw her a reassuring look.

“Lor’ bless you ma’am, she ain’t dead,” he said. “Vet’s patched ’er up good and proper, but Mr. Merritt’s upset,
see?”

“I gave the wrong command,” said Dane again, and Emily’s heart ached for him. She remembered how he had told her that a guide dog worked through the handler’s intelligence. To make a mistake would bring home to Dane all the bitterness of his handicap
.

“Where shall we put her?” asked Emily quickly, and Dane replied:

“In my room, of course. I’ll be up in a minute.”

Emily followed Shorty upstairs and watched him lay the bitch tenderly on her blanket by the fire.

“Poor Bella
...
poor girl
...
”
said Emily softly, and went on her knees beside the bitch.

Bella licked her hand and feebly wagged her tail and Emily looked up at Shorty, the tears springing to her eyes
.

“Is she bad?” she asked.

“
’Ard to say,” the little cockney answered, scratching his head. “The vet’rinary didn’t seem to think there was internal injuries and there’s no wound. Mostly shocks ’e thinks.”

“How did it happen?”

“Crossing in front of the research building. They’ve done it a hundred times in traffic as ’eavy, but today—well, I think the governor must ’a’ been wool-gatherin. Bella
,
she plainly said wait, but the governor said go on. Anyways, she got ’it, pore ole girl.”

“How dreadful for Mr. Merritt,” said Emily compassionately. “How terrible to feel yourself responsible.”

“Yes,” said Shorty soberly. “It shook ’im up and that’s a fact. Go down, ma’am, and pour him a real stiff snorter—none of that sherry, mind. I’ll make sure the old faggot’s comfortable before I leaves her.”

Emily turned to go, but Dane had already come upstairs. He blundered a little into things, she saw, as if his confidence had gone.

“Come down with me, Dane,” she coaxed. “She’s lying quite peacefully on her blanket. There’s nothing you can do.”

“I can at least stay with her,” said Dane expressionlessly. “I was responsible.”

It was Shorty who got him to go. Watching his expert handling of his employer, and the gentleness with which he put his arguments, Emily understood why Dane had kept him all these years, and understood, too, how much the
little man’s skill and devotion must have meant through the bad times.

Downstairs in the library, Emily took Shorty’s advice and mixed a strong whisky and soda. As he drank it Dane’s color came back and his hands were steady again.

“She’ll be all right,” said Emily softly, and he smiled.

“So the vet said, but that doesn’t make me feel any the less criminal. I forced her on when she was plainly telling me to wait. I was thinking of something else.”

“Something was worrying you?”

“Yes, my punctilious Emily, something was worrying me,” he said and fell silent.