Child Friday (22 page)

II

It was May when Dane left for London to have his operation. Emily went with him.

At the last moment he had asked her if she would like to spend the intervening days with Louisa Pink, and Emily had accepted gratefully and with surprise. They left on the morning train and parted at Paddington, Dane taking a taxi straight to the hospital, Emily making rather desolately for Louisa’s flat in Knightsbridge.

It was strange, she thought, to be entering that private part of a life she had
always wondered about, to see Miss Pink an easy, practiced hostess in her
comfortable, elegant home, instead of the slightly alarming deity behind the desk
in the agency off Regent Street. The sounds and smells of London excited her.
Walking in the familiar streets and pausing at shop windows to gaze with the old
nostalgia at the treasures displayed, made her forget for a while the past six months and the strange change of fortune which had turned her from Emily Moon into Emily Merritt.

“Do you hanker again for the fleshpots?” Miss Pink asked when she returned from these expeditions.

“No,” said Emily, “London never meant the fleshpots to me, Louisa. One looked, but didn’t touch.”

It seemed natural now to call Miss Pink by her Christian name. Since that visit in March circumstances had altered again. It was easier now to believe in herself as a person of consequence, even if only to the extent of being responsible for a blind husband.

“Are you nervous about the result of this operation?” Louisa asked curiously. To her, too, Emily had changed. There was not the same transparence, the same spilling over of a simplicity that could almost be irritating.

Emily’s lashes made the familiar small crescents on her cheeks, hiding her thoughts.

“Well, naturally,” she said, “it’s going to make a big difference, either way.”

“To you or to Dane?”

“To him, of course. For me—well, I’ve never known him any other way.”

“H’m
...
How was he today?”

“Quiet,” said Emily. “A little nervous, I think, now it’s all over.”

Dane had had his operation three days ago. To Emily, visiting him, no right words or phrases had come. The private ward in the hospital had been impersonal, sterile, and Dane, lying flat on his back with his bandaged eyes hidden from her, had seemed remote and no longer part of her life.

“Poor man
...”
murmured Louisa compassionately. “This waiting must be the worst part.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Louisa—will it matter desperately to him if things—don’t work out?” Emily asked.

“I don’t know. I think there are matters that are worrying him more than his sight just now.”

“Yes—yes, I think so too.”

“What are you afraid of, Emily—Vanessa?” asked Louisa suddenly.

The mask of maturity which Emily had worn ever since she had come to London began to break up. She was thinner, if possible, Louisa thought, frowning, the hollows under her cheek-bones more marked, but the softness of ado
l
escence
was suddenly back in her face, and uncertainty in the clear, troubled eyes.

“Of course,” she said simply.

“She’s here in London, you know, waiting, like you.”

“Yes, I had supposed she would be.”

Louisa regarded her thoughtfully, her shrewd, worldly
-
wise eyes a little cynical.

“It would suit you better if Dane were to remain blind, wouldn’t it?” she said, and Emily sprang to her feet.

“What a dreadful thing to say!” she exclaimed. “Of course I want him to see again—of
course
I do!”

“Do you? Be honest, Emily. Isn’t it the image of Vanessa you have always feared? Isn’t it fear of the reality that makes you hesitate now?”

“Hesitate?”

“To wish the best for him in your heart, whatever the
cost?”

Emily began to walk round the small, charmingly furnished room as if she could no longer keep still.

“But I do,” she cried, sounding distraught “In my
heart I do, Louisa, it’s only
—
”

“It’s only that you have a sneaking feeling that so long as he is blind the whip-hand is yours.”

“Yes—yes, I suppose so,” Emily said.
“You see, Louisa, it was my only weapon—the loving and giving. It wouldn’t have mattered in the end that I haven’t Vanessa’s beauty, for he could never see me. Can’t you understand?”

“Yes, I understand,” Louisa said with a sigh. “But I think you’re wrong. The blind often see what others don’t, you know.” Mrs. Mortimer, oddly enough, had said much the same thing. “Do you think he still wants Vanessa?”

“I don’t know,” said Emily wearily. “But I remember that hungry look on his face the day she first came to
Pennyleat—as if the sound of her voice brought everything back.”

“Well, it probably did,” Louisa replied. “Dane’s a man of natural appeti
t
es, after all, and he’d been shut away too long in that lonely old house with only a child and his dog for company.”

“He talked ab
o
ut releasing me,” said Emily.

“Oh, my dear child, that was because he thinks you’re regretting that young Irishman you once made a fool of yourself over,” said Louisa impatiently, and Emily flushed at her blunt manner of expressing herself. “From all I can gather, Pennyleat seems to have kept open house for intrigue all over Easter.”

“I didn’t want Tim except as a link with something of my own. It was Dane who encouraged him to come.”

“That was because
—
” Louisa began, then broke off
and shrugged her shoulders. “What’s the use of talking?” she said with a mixture of humor and exasperation. “You’ll have to work these things out for yourselves, both of you. Now, for heaven’s sake let’s take ourselves out to a movie or something. I shall soon be getting as mopey as you!”

Walking to and from the hospital each day, Emily thought how differently the seasons came to a city. In Pennycross the spring had come gradually, the moor
changing
daily in small subtle ways, until, with a burst of blossom, the opening of infinitesimal buds, and the living exhilaration of the turf under foot, it was there, sp
illing
over with bounty. Here in London the spring was harsher, gayer. Window-boxes were bright splashes of color, like the barrow-loads of flowers for sale. Women hurried by wearing new spring suits and dresses, but they hurried too much and did not pause to drink in the miracle of the season.

There was a barrow on the street
corner
outside the hospital and Emily bought a great armful of purple and yellow iris to take to Dane. He was sitting up today propped against the pillows, his head turned towards the open window. The sound of children’s voices drifted up from the gardens below.

“Hullo,” said Emily. “I’ve brought you some irises— yellow, and the purple ones with golden centres. Where shall I put them?”

The room was already filled with the scent of mimosa, effectually drowning the antiseptic hospital smells. Great sprays of the fluffy golden stuff filled every available vase. It had not been there yesterday.

“You’ve had another visitor, I see,” she said, speaking gaily. “There seem to be no more flower vases left
.”

He smiled.

“
Mimosa has such a nostalgic scent, I always think,” he
said. “
Reminds one of the South of France and all the warm, colorful spots of
the earth.”

And Vanessa, thought Emily, and knew that only Vanessa could have, brought the mimosa. She put her flowers down on a chair and came and stood by the side of his bed.

“How is it today?” she asked.

“The waiting’s nearly over,” he said. “The bandages come off tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

He could hear her catch her breath. So soon, so soon, she thought, and life will be changed ... he will be changed
...

“Shall I come tomorrow?” she asked, sounding a little frightened.

“No,” he said. “Not for several days.
”
He spoke abruptly and she drew back.

“It would be kinder to say outright that you want to see Vanessa first,” she said, and he laughed
.

“You silly child, I don’t want to see anyone,” he said. “If I can see at all it will only be cloudily at first. The eye has to get used to light and shape again. When I do see you for the first time, Emily, I want the picture to be complete.”

“Oh
...”
The small word escaped her like a sigh, and he held out a hand.

“They’ll ring you when I’m ready,” he said. “Until then, don’t come again.”

She took his hand, holding it between her own, and felt his fingers twisting the wedding-ring round this way and that.

“Very well,” she said. “Dane
—
”

“Yes?”

“Nothing, really. Would you like me to go now?”

“You’ve only just arrived,” he laughed, but she felt he wanted to be alone and, when a little while later she took her leave, he did not try to detain her.

“Goodbye,” she said from the doorway. “Good luck
...
”

She wanted to go to him, to kiss him once for a talisman, but he was listening to the children’s voices again and already, she knew, he had withdrawn from her.

She felt tired when she reached the flat. Louisa was already back from the office and relaxed in a chair, a drink at her elbow.

“It’s tomorrow,” Emily said.

“What’s tomorrow? You have a most annoying habit of announcing sybil-like utterances,” said Louisa crossly. She had had a heavy day in the office and was tired.

“The bandages come off tomorrow.”

“Oh, I see. Well, get yourself a drink, my dear. Tomorrow is a long way off yet.”

Emily refused the drink and sat down on a low stool at Louisa’s feet. She wanted to talk, with that craving for inconsequent chatter which emotional disturbances sometimes brings.

“I mustn’t see him for several days, she said. “I thought he meant he wanted to see Vanessa first, but he says it’s because, to start with, everything’s cloudy. She had brought him mimosa. It has rather a heavy smell, don’t you think?”

“It has an expensive smell,” Louisa said dryly. “You haven’t seen Vanessa, have you?”

“No, she’d already been. Louisa, do you suppose they know yet—the doctors, I mean? It’s rather uncanny when you think you may be seeing with a dead man’s eyes, isn’t it?”

Louisa got up and mixed a second drink.

“Now, Emily, pull yourself together and drink this up, whether you want it or not. You ought to be glad for Dane’s sake that the suspense is nearly over,” she said. “And if Vanessa chooses to fill the hospital with mimos
a
, why should that worry you? It’ll be dead in a couple of days, anyway.”

Emily laughed and pulled off her hat “Yes, it will, won’t it?” she said. “Louisa, did you ever want to marry?”

“Bless you, I was married before you were
born
!” Louisa said. “He wasn’t any good and I went back to my maiden name and started Pink’s Employment Agency. I was the type for a career, not marriage, but you, my girl—well, marriage is the only career you have any real talent
for, so make it stick.”

“How queer,” said Emily, “—that I never knew you’d been married, I mean. What was he like?”

“Charming, irresponsible—always wanting what he hadn’t got. Not at all unlike that Irishman of yours, in
fact.”

“Oh! And how did you come to be such friends with Dane?”

“That’s another story. I’ve known him since he was a boy—we had a lot of tastes in common and I always admired, his brain. That’s not the least serious aspect of his recovery, you know. His work could be important.”

“Yes. He always says you’ve been a good friend to him.”

“He’s been a good friend to me,” said Louisa musingly. “Five years ago the agency struck a bad patch. Dane put money into it, which he could ill afford then, and got me on my feet again. You didn’t know that, did you? That’s why, you see, when he made this ridiculous request to find him a wife, I did my best.”

“And you found me ... of all the unsatisfactory girls on your books you sent him me
...
”

“Yes,” said Louisa stoutly. “And I still don’t regret it.”

I
I
I

It was a week before they heard from the hospital. Emily prowled the shops and walked in the parks alone with her thoughts. Tim unexpectedly rang up one evening, but Louisa gave him short shrift over the telephone. She was beginning to get nervy herself, and she worried about Emily, when she had to be away all day at the office. She remembered Vanessa’s vibrant, challenging beauty and sometimes she doubted. Dane had never discussed his intimate personal life with her sufficiently deeply to allow her to do more than guess at the state of his mind.

“What are you going to wear for this momentous meeting?” she asked Emily.

“I hadn’t thought,” Emily replied vaguely. “All my clothes are suitable. Vanessa chose them.”

“Then you shall wear something she didn’t choose for once. We’ll go shopping this afternoon.”

Emily protested that it was a waste of Dane’s money. That little grey frock or the brown barathea suit would do quite well; but Louisa knew the value of shopping to distract the feminine mind in times of stress; she had, besides, a sudden urge to present Emily at her best. Dane had made her responsible for finding him a possible wife. Her choice must be ratified.

Louisa took an afternoon off from the office and escorted a faintly reluctant Emily to one of her pet and exclusive Knightsbridge salons.

“No,” said Louisa firmly, rejecting model after model. “No, no, no.”

“But some of these are charming,” Emily coaxed, feeling sorry, as always, for the saleswoman who did so much fetching and carrying with a professionally pleasant expression. “Anyway; I don’t suppose Dane will notice. He can’t, after all, have any preconceived notions of what would suit me.”

“Can’t he? I know exactly how he sees you, Emily— exactly,” said Louisa, and turned back to the saleswoman. “Moss
...
trees
...
dryads
...
spring
...”
she rattled off with an astonishing flight of fancy, but the woman’s face lit up.

“Ah, yes,” she said with surprising comprehension. “I had forgotten the little Viennese model—expensive, you understand, but the very thing.”