Child Friday (23 page)

It was, decided Louisa instantly, the very thing, and even Emily, regarding her reflection in the long mirrors, had to admit that the frock did something for her. The soft, lichen-green wool accentuated the transparency of her skin, its muted simplicity flattering to delicate lines and angles and the enquiring wonder of clear wide eyes. The matching jacket had a narrow collar of fur, leaf
-
brown like Emily’s hair. It was, Louisa said, the perfect
ensemble
for expressing Emily’s personality.

“Vanessa, for all her vaunted flair, couldn’t have found you something as clever as that,” she observed triumphantly as they left the shop, and Emily laughed.

“You’re a dear,” she said, giving the older woman’s arm an affectionate squeeze. “But I felt awful writing such an enormous cheque on poor Dane’s account.”

“He can afford it,” retorted Louisa. “Neither will he grudge his wife something he will be able to remember her in all his life.”

“But we don’t know—” began Emily, and Louisa answered briskly:

“Oh, yes, we do. They rang up from the hospital early this morning. The operation is a success. Didn’t I tell you?”

For a moment Emily stood stock-still on the pavement. The passers-by jolted her but she did not notice. Louisa was looking into a shop window, her face politely averted.

“No, Louisa, you didn’t tell me,” Emily said, and started to walk on. “You thought I would rather hear that he couldn’t see, didn’t you?”

Louisa joined her. Her mink stole and smart accessories proclaimed her one of the daily fashionable Knightsbridge shoppers.

“No,” she said. “I didn’t credit you with that much selfishness, but—well, I know how you feel.”

“Yes,” Emily replied. “You know how I fee
l
...
Louisa
—
”

“Yes?”

“Nothing. Nothing matters very much for us, does it? I mean for him—well, it’s terribly important, is
n
’t it?”

“And can’t you be glad?”

“Of course ... of course
...”
said Emily so
ft
ly. “I was only a stop-gap, anyway, wasn’t I?”

The alterations to Emily’s new frock had been rushed through, but even so it only arrived the day before she got her summons from the hospital. Louisa saw her off in a taxi.

“I’ll be waiting,” she said. “Tell him I’m coming to see him, myself, tomorrow.”

Emily sat in the taxi, unable to relax, feeling the breeze from the open window ruffling her hair. She wished she had worn a hat, but Louisa had said no hat, so she had gone bareheaded, and her new clothes had felt no different to the ones she wore every day.

She passed through the hospital vestibule, bare and impersonal as usual, and made her way down the many familiar corridors and up the stairs to the wards on the second floor. At a turn in the stairs she met Vanessa. The sunlight streaming through a long window lit her hair with blazing glory; her beauty was like a challenge within the grey hospital walls. She wore clothes which Emily had never seen before, gay, vibrant colors which matched herself, and Emily smiled. Vanessa, too, had de
c
ked herself for this occasion.

“Hullo
...
” she said. “Have you been to see Dane?” She spoke lightly, but her heart was heavy with resentment for Vanessa who had got there first.

Vanessa looked at her coolly. The temper in her eyes faded to patronizing scorn. She stretched out an elegantly gloved hand and removed a speck of dust from Emily’s jacket.

“Yes,” she said. “Quite a nice outfit, darling, but why no hat? So suburban in London, don’t you think?”

She passed on and Emily could hear her high heels tapping down the stone staircase.

Emily paused outside Dane’s door and experienced the nervousness she had known outside Miss Pink’s office when she had been looking for work. At last she knocked and, at the sound of his voice bidding her enter, stepped inside.

The room was dim. Curtains were partially pulled across the window, shutting out the sunshine; the bed was neat
l
y made and Dane, fully dressed, was propped against one wall, watching the door. Emily’s eyes went to his but, in the uncertain light, she could not see him very well. She was so accustomed to his trick of looking at her as if he saw her that she could not quite believe that for him she was no longer a voice, a presence who could be imagined or ignored.

“Emily?” he said, and at the sound of the familiar voice she became, for a moment, the obliging ghost with whom he had lived for the past six months.

“Yes, Dane,” she said. “How are you?”

He smiled then, gently ridiculing her, but a note of urgency crept into his voice when he next spoke.

“Come here,” he said. “Come here and let me look at you. I can see, you know—not too perfectly yet—but enough to find out if I was right about you.”

She went to him slowly, aware for the first time that she was now observed. The sensation was new and a little disturbing. Her protection was gone; the thoughts that might be written in her face were there for
him
to see, always.

“Here,” he said, standing her in the window and pulling back the curtains.

She felt the sunlight spill over her, warming and peaceful. She could not see Dane’s face clearly but was aware of his intense scrutiny. Tears started to her eyes and she blinked them away, nervously.

“Alice’s dryad
...
” he said softly. “You’re a little blurred still, Emily, but just as I pictured you. Does that please you?”

“I’m plain,” she said.

“Plain? What gave you that idea? You’re like your voice, your touch, your cool, delicate presence. You see, the blind aren’t often wrong about people.”

“You said you see me blurred,” she said, almost crying. “I can’t—I can’t compete with someone like Vanessa.”

“And who wants you to?
Emily, come here to me
...
”

She moved out of the sunlight and into the shadow and felt his hands on her shoulders.

“Do you want your release?” he asked. “Remember—I promised you that. I can see now.”

“No!” she cried. “No, I don’t want it. I love you, Dane, whether you can see or whether you can’t. It would
have made no difference to me. But you—Vanessa
—
”

His arms closed round her. She could feel now how his breathing had quickened, how urgent the bones of his cheek suddenly felt as it pressed against hers.

“Vanessa was an old passion, real at the time but with nothing to give,” he said. “Beauty changes, Emily—or, perhaps, the eye blinds one to the truth. When one can no longer see one only knows the essence of a person. I could remember Vanessa’s beauty clearly, like a picture, but it was no longer her. She had become hard, selfish—someone else behind that mask of beauty. I told her so just now. Emily, dearest ... if I hadn’t come into Ben Carey’s money, do you suppose Vanessa would have come back when she did?”

“But I always thought—you seemed to want her there,” said Emily.

“Because it didn’t matter any more, because
—
” He
held her away from him suddenly and for the first time she saw his eyes clearly, the look in them as they searched her face, so different from the blank, expressionless look she remembered, that, for a moment, he seemed almost a stranger.

“Because I had to be sure about your young man.”

“
Tim? But he wasn’t—
“

“He was once—just as I made a fool of myself over Vanessa. You were young—tied up with a bargain I’d no business to make. I had to be sure you hadn
’
t made a terrible mistake—that’s why I encouraged him.”

“And how was I to know, my dear, that your blessed loving and giving—your willingness to—exceed the limits of our bargain wasn’t just pity?”

“I would never pity you, Dane,” she said. “You’re too strong, too indifferent to such things. I think you were afraid of pity because Vanessa had taken away love.
”

He took her face between his hands, turning it towards the light, watching it hungrily. His fingers traced the planes and angles as if he still must rely on touch and not on sight.

“You’re lovelier even than the picture I had made of you,” he said.

“Lovely?” stammered Emily, flushing, and he laughed softly as he saw the color mount in her face.

“I always knew when you blushed,” he said. “Now I can see as well. How delightful to be able to watch your changing expressions and not just imagine them
...
Yes, lovely to me, my darling. Your eyes have truth in them, and your mouth has generosity and gentleness, and a promise of much to come. Will you stay with me, Child Friday?”

She touched his face in her turn, her fingers brushing lightly the lids of his healed eyes, knowing now that she no longer trespassed.

“Yes,” she said, “I’ll stay with you, Dane. I would always have stayed with you so long as you wanted me.”

“You taught me that very early—to want you, need you—love you,” he said.

“Love me?”

“Don’t you believe that yet? Then I must show you.”

He took her into his arms, drawing her close, and kissed her with the hungry urgency he had shown that night at Pennyleat, but now she knew the hunger was for her, that it had been for her that other time when she had thought it for Vanessa.

“I must make up to you,” he told her softly. “I must make up to you for all that loving and giving that was there for the asking
...
Will you come away with me, Emily? Will you share the honeymoon we’ve both been cheated of?”

She made no answer and he did not seem to expect any. She stood in the circle of his arm, looking out at the open window,
and
the words of the
old
song came unbidden to her mind:

The winter’s passed and the leaves are green,

The time is passed that we have seen
...

Dane moved with her to the window to watch the children at play in the garden below:

But still I hope the time will come

When you and I will be as one
...

T
he leaves of the plane trees threw dappled shadows o
n
the grasses and the laughter of the children floated up to the open window.

THE END