Child Friday (21 page)

He went into the house and Emily rose, too. She felt hurt and angry and had no wish to be left alone with Vanessa, but the older girl did not move.

“Didn’t you really know?” she asked curiously.

“How could I, since Dane didn’t tell me?” retorted Emily, and remembered Tim’s amused question when he had come to say goodbye.

“How very odd of him,” said Vanessa, and her eyes were suddenly sleepy and dangerous like a cat’s as they rested on Emily’s revealing face.

“Perhaps he won’t decide because he knows that once he can see again his marriage might be in danger,” she said softly.

Emily was too simple to dissemble.

“Because of the compassion, you mean?” she said calmly. “He already knows what you look like, Vanessa.”

“Yes, darling,” Vanessa said with an assured smile. “But he’s never seen
you.
I don’t think I’ll stop, after all. I seem to have annoyed you both.”

Emily went into the drawing-room. She did not want to face Dane just then. The implication of his behaviour and Vanessa’s remarks had destroyed the tenderness of the last weeks. She was, she thought, what she had asked to be, Bella’s successor and no more.

She sat down at the piano, seeking comfort from something familiar and her fingers wandered instinctively into the haunting air of the song of the Appalachian mountains:

My own true love, so fare you well,

The time has passed, but I wish you well;

But still I hope the time will come

When you and I will be as one
...

She felt Dane’s hands on her shoulders and stopped.

“You’re hurt, aren’t you, Emily?” he said.

CHAPTER
TEN

SHE looked straight ahead to the open window and saw the slender shadows of late spring lengthening on the lawn.

“Perhaps I have no right to be hurt,” she said.

“Yes, I
think you have. I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“Everyone kne
w
but me,” she cried like a child. “Vanessa—Tim—even Shorty, I expect.”

“Yes, I should have told you.”

“Why didn’t you? Why
didn’t
you, Dane?”

“
I
’
d meant to,” he said. “But when I returned that evening, if you recollect, there were other matters to think of.”

She was silent, remembering. He had been angry and bitter and she the victim of her own stupidity and, perhaps, of his.

“
But after that—” she said, trying to understand.

“After that I suppose the moment never arrived.”

“Yes, I see.”

He turned her round on the music stool to face him.

“I may not be able to see you but I dislike talking to your back,” he said with a sudden flash of humor. “Do you want to discuss it, Emily?”

“Would my opinion be of any use?” she asked a little bitterly.

“I don’t know. Do you want me to have this operation?”

She looked up at him with widening eyes.

“But surely it can’t be a matter of what
I
want?” she exclaimed incredulously.
“
As Vanessa justly said, there can’t be any question of a decision in a case like this.”

He looked at her a little strangely.

“Do you know I had an impression you would prefer me as I am,” he told her softly. “Do you want me to see again, Emily?”

With his old perspicacity he had exposed the secret places of her heart. Did she want him to see again? Was she not, besides being afraid of another’s living beauty, afraid, too, of the picture he had made of her for himself? His dependence of her gone, what should take its place? “Well?” he said and waited.

She pushed her hair back from her forehead with a primitive little gesture of defeat.

“Dane, you can’t make me responsible,” she cried. “Of course I want you to see again if it’s possible. What did the specialist say?”

“He thought there was every chance of success.”

“Then there is no argument. You must have it done.”

“Yes, I think so, too. If it fails then we’re no worse of
f
than we are at present.”

“You had decided already, hadn’t you?”

“Not entirely. Like you, I’ve sometimes wondered if one should tempt fate.”

“How could this be tempting fate?” she asked sturdily. His face was gentle.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Sometimes something better grows out of a misfortune. Take the misfortune away and what have you left?”

“Isn’t that denial of life itself?”

“I don’t think so. Life is
n’t merely a wholeness of body and c
ompleteness of faculties. In some odd way, life compensates for the loss of one or the other.”

“How strange to learn acceptance only when reprieve is in si
g
ht,” she said wonderingly.

“But I’ve not,” he retorted, his voice harsh and mocking. “I want to have my cake and
e
at it, too, so I must get back my sight if I can, even if it should mean the loss of something more precious. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”

“Not very well,” she said, sounding suddenly tired. “But I think you’re right to take a chance, Dane. Whatever
t
he alternative, the restoration of your sight must be the most precious thing of
all.”

“Do you think so?” he said with a small, crooked smile, and took her face between his hands.

“Such young bones,” he murmured, tracing the lines of cheek and temple. “If you think I’ve been unreasonable in the past, Emily, I want you to know that I would be prepared to release you from your bargain if, later on, you should want it that way. If this operation is successful you would have no need to reproach, yourself for leaving me, would you?”

She could not speak at once for the fear she knew would catch in her voice. She sat there feeling the warmth of his hands on her face and knew that her own skin had grown cold.

“Well, you don’t need to think that one out now,” he said rather wearily and dropped his hands. “You feel cold. Shut up the piano and come into the library for a glass of sherry.”

“When?” she asked, sipping her sherry without tasting it.

“When what?”

“The operation.”

“Soon. In a week or so.”

“Oh
...
Will you be away long?”

“Ten days to a fortnight. It’s tricky but not dangerous, you know.”

“I see.”

Although the weather was so much warmer, Mrs. Pride still lighted fires in the evening. He stood now with his back to the glowing logs, his glass in his hand, and smiled across at her.

“No, my poor dear, you see very little at present, do you?” he said.

“I need time to think,” she replied carefully. “Things seem rather mixed up.”

“Perhaps we’ve all been a little mixed up,” he said cryptically. “Well, Emily, there’ll be time and to spare in the next few weeks for soul-searching. We’ll both do some, shall we?”

Emily made all the arrangements. She tried to treat the impersonal letters which passed between herself and the specialist and, later, the hospital, as routine secretarial work; she tried to rejoice that Dane’s days of darkness might soon be over, but always at the back of her mind was the fear that once he could see again, once he could compare, she would lose him.

“You knew of course, why Mr. Merritt went to London,” she said to Shorty, and he cocked a knowing eye at her.

“Well, yes,” he replied a little uncomfortably. “But the governor wanted to tell you himself, when things were
settled, see?”

“Miss
Larne
knew, and Mr. Lonnegan too, I think.”

He heard the resentment in her voice and looked a little embarrassed.

“I slipped up there,” he said, and annoyance with himself made him sound gruff. “I dropped an ’int in a manner of speaking to Mrs. Meeker and of course she ’ad to blow it all over the village. The governor didn’t tell Miss Larne ’isself. You don’t need to be ’urt, see?”

“Thank you, Shorty, that makes a difference,” said Emily softly. It was strange, she thought, that she should not mind the blunt little cockney sharing her fears and stupidities. Shorty, she was sure, had a very good notion of how matters lay between herself and Dane, but she felt he was on her side and he did not like Vanessa.

The days passed soberly with few distractions. Vanessa did not visit them again and Dane finished his thesis on chemical research. Emily several times drove him into Plymouth, waiting for him outside the laboratory, then escorting him across the dangerous bit of road where poor Bella had met her fatal accident. She had become expert at guiding him through the traffic, the lightest pressure on his arm sufficient to check or encourage. It would be difficult, she
c
ongratulated herself, for the passers-by to realize that he was blind, but, when once he praised her humorously for being the best guide dog he had ever known, she replied without pleasure:

“You were only being kind that time when you said I could take Bella’s place. You knew it wouldn’t be for long—that it wasn’t worth getting another dog.”

“Not at all,” he retorted with a wry smile at the accusation in her voice. “I have no guarantee that this operation will be successful. If it isn’t, then it will either have to be you, or another dog, for the rest of our lives, won’t it?” She was silent and he added a shade sardonically:

“But don’t let that oppress you. I understand there is a good chance of success and that will automatically release you from your obligations.”

“My obligations?” she repeated. She found it difficult to follow him very clearly just now.

“Yes, your obligations. You see, I think you would contin
u
e to be Child Friday to the end, Emily,” he replied with gentleness. “You wouldn’t withdraw all that loving and giving as long as I needed you, would you?”

“Loving?” she said, lingering on the word with startled surprise.

“Well, the giving part of it at any rate,” he said impatiently.

“I would never withdraw anything that you have already—whatever happened,” she said.

“No,” he rejoined, the impatience in his voice hardening to determination. “But I don’t—I’ve never wanted pity.”

The last days of April were wet
.
The month had brought few of the traditional showers that year, only the gentle warmth and sunshine of spring, but now the rain fell ceaselessly, sinking into the burgeoning earth ,with the promise of even richer fertility.

“’Tes going to be a lavish summer,” Mrs. Meeker said, watching the streaming windows as she did her work.

“But sad,” said Emily, watching too. “The spring sunshine is the best of all.”

“Must have rain to spring,” Mrs. Meeker replied with her deep-throated chuckle. “How else would things grow? You’m mazed, ma’am, with too much too early. Get out in the rain and let it wash ’e clear.”

Mrs. Meeker, thought Emily, might be a gossip, but she was comfortable and wise and knew things, probably, without being told. Emily went out into the rain and, if it did not wash her clear, it satisfied the physical demands of her nature. The rain was fresh on her face and hair, the earth, beneath her feet, rich with things to come.

It was during one of these wet walks to the village that she met Mrs. Mortimer again. The old lady, clad in a scarlet mackintosh and hood that was more suitable for a young girl, stopped Emily in the village street and again invited her to go back to Torcroft for morning coffee. This time Emily had no excuse ready, besides which, there was something in Mrs. Mortimer’s eyes which again professed loneliness.

The dingy drawing-room was as she remembered it, stuffy and uncomfortable, with an air of being unlived in. No fire burned in the grate today and Mrs. Mortimer switched on an ancient electric stove to warm them while they drank their coffee.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” the old lady said, offering the familiar stale biscuits. “But, of course, you think I’m tiresome, as most of the younger generation do.”

“Oh, no,” said Emily, distressed that Mrs. Mortimer should have thought her rude or uncaring. “I should have asked you to Pennyleat, but—well, we never entertain on account of my husband. Please forgive me.”

“You entertain my niece.” Mrs. Mortimer said with a certain dryness, and at Emily’s look of embarrassment, added kindly: “Never mind, my dear. Vanessa walks in where she likes. I don’t suppose you’ve always wanted her.”

"Dane’s friends are naturally welcome,” said Emily un
happily
, and Mrs. Mortimer smiled, a smile that, with her painted face and dyed hair, made her look incredibly old.

“Well, you and I know that can have a very loose meaning,” she said. “I expect you w
o
nder why a raddled old woman like me should be so insistent on your company, my dear, but, as I told you the first time, I like you, and I think you are the right
wife for Dane.”

“Because he can’t see?” asked Emily with sudden bitterness.

The old lady poured more coffee, her mouth set in the stubborn lines of old age.

“You place too much value on physical beauty,” she said. “Don’t you know that the blind often see more than those with eyes? Vanessa is beautiful, I know, but five years is a long time. One’s values change.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Mrs. Mortimer?”
Emily
asked. “I’d always understood that—that
—
”

“That I had pushed my niece on to your husband— that
I
would push her on to anyone who was rich and attractive?” said Mrs. Mortimer calmly. “That, I think, has always been Vanessa’s line
...
old Aunt Gertrude, rather impossible and with an eye to the main chance
...
it was the reason Dane never liked
me ...
He thought when he became blind that I had persuaded Vanessa to throw him over. If old Ben Carey had died and left Dane his money a little earlier, it would never have happened.”

“Is it only the money, then?” asked Emily, hating Vanessa afresh.

“It’s helped. Oh, Vanessa was as much in love with Dane as she
could be with anyone, but money would have made all the difference to the decision she took five years
ago.”

Mrs. Mortimer replenished Emily’s cup which had grown cold.

“You must wonder why I’m telling you this,” she said.
“I’m very fond of my niece—very fond indeed—but she’s never cared for me. I was there to come back to
when she was broke and I always will be, but—I don’t want to see your marriage broken up for a whim.”

“A whim?”

“Well, it may be more than that, of course, but I've watched Vanessa with the men we’ve met abroad. She wants them until they want her and then—perhaps, after all, she’s always hankered for Dane.”

The fustiness of the room began to grow oppressive; the rain made rivulets of dirt down the dusty windows and Mrs. Mortimer seemed like a fat, painted spider waiting her chance for a kill.

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Emily nervously. “Why do you decry your niece when you say you are fond of her?”

“Because,” replied Mrs. Mortimer a little sharply, “fond though I may be, I don’t want to see mischief done. You want to keep your husband, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well then—forget all this nonsense about beauty and the past. Fight on your own ground. Do you think Vanessa would be content for long to lead a blind man about and live a life of seclusion? If this operation isn’t successful, that’s what it will be.”

“He doesn’t want pity,” said Emily, and the old lady retorted with rough contempt:

“And he wouldn’t get it from Vanessa, either. Haven’t you more than that for him?”

“Yes,” said Emily, “but if he wants he
r—
”

Mrs. Mortimer filled her mouth with more stale biscuit
and spoke through it
.

“You make me impatient, Emily Merritt, she said. “What sort of life do you suppose Dane would have with my niece if he doesn’t get his sight back? Will he enjoy the knowledge that she would be having affairs with other people through boredom, willing to stay with him because his money is worth the gamble?”

“But he thinks he’ll see again.”

“Then take a chance. One way or the other you
’
ve got to make a fight for yourself.”

“I’ve no stand to take,” said Emil
y
flatl
y
.
“
M
y
marriage
—
”

Mrs. Mortimer wiped the crumbs from her chin with a careless hand.

“Oh, we all know your marriage is one of these arid affairs of convenience, so called,” she said in her rasping voice. “But something’s come out of it, hasn’t it—for you at any rate?”

“Yes,” replied Emily
with a sigh. “Something’s come out of it. I think, Mrs. Mortimer, I ought to go, now. The rain’s clearing.”

The old lady made no further effort to keep her, but at the door she said:

“Forgive me for seeming interfering. I like you, you know. I don’t like many people.”

“Thank you,” said Emily and saw the loneliness, the almost humble appeal, in the faded, mascaraed eyes.

“May I come and see you again?” she asked impulsively.

“I hope you will. Vanessa will be gone, soon—for a time, anyway. Goodbye, my dear—and forgive an old woman for being top garrulous.”

Mrs. Mortimer watched Emily down the path, observed the graceful swing of her slender young body as she danced into the road as if glad to be free again and, sighing heavily, went back into the house.