Dorothy Eden (19 page)

The cold was coming over Julia again, the slow, inexorable, inevitable cold that gave her a sensation of trembling inwardly all the time.

“If you don’t love me I’m not asking you to do anything,” Paul was saying in his flat hopeless voice. “But that kid was nearly frantic.”

Julia was remembering the time in the night when Timmy’s warm little body had comforted her. She didn’t want to remember it, but she couldn’t help it. Timmy was helpless and sweet and entirely innocent, but he had caught her, too. He was one of the strands in the web. She picked up her coat.

“Then we’d better go,” she said.

Paul lifted his head. He couldn’t quite hide his eagerness, his triumph. No, that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t triumph. It was simply delight that she was coming back after all. Poor Paul, she had really given him a bad fright.

Poor sentimental Julia, going back to the nightmare because she couldn’t let a baby cry…

“There’s not all that hurry,” he said. “We’ll have something to eat first. Where were you going to have dinner? You looked so pretty when I came in. Your cheeks were pink.”

His confidence was returning. (Or perhaps he had never lost it. Perhaps he had just been acting.) He put out his hand to touch her face with his easy familiarity.

.”By the way, whose arms were you going to throw yourself into? You never told me.”

“I was going to have dinner with Davey before he went back,” Julia said, with the calm of defeat.

“Oh, Davey,” said Paul indifferently.

“Yes. Would you give him four pounds two shillings and sevenpence. It’s the amount I had to borrow from him.”

Paul looked amused.

“What did you buy with that?”

But she couldn’t tell him about the cheap childish nightdress that a few minutes ago had seemed so sweet.

“Oh, things,” she said vaguely.

I
T WAS GRATIFYING THAT
Timmy, who had neither eaten nor slept the whole day, should nestle into her arms and take his bottle without a whimper. He had fallen asleep before it was half gone. His woolly white head, tucked in the curve of her arm, was so helpless and trusting that Julia knew bleakly that here she would have to stay until Timmy settled down with Lily or Dove or Kate. Unless she took him away with her. But that would constitute abduction. It was bad enough that she should have to go the long way home, a frightened runaway, without having a stolen child in her company.

Yet did she dislike so much being back here? It was true that she could not bring herself to go into the library where Nita had lain last night, and, although her legs were wilting beneath her, she hated the thought of going upstairs to bed. But for the rest it seemed as if everyone were genuinely pleased to have her back. Even Lily had an almost critical look on her face, and she exerted herself to prepare a hot meal at ten o’clock at night. Though that effort was more probably for Paul’s pleasure than Julia’s.

Julia ate without appetite. She was remembering how the mocking look had returned to Davey’s eyes when he had come back to the hotel to find her preparing to leave with Paul. She had known that for some reason he was despising her, thinking that after all she preferred silk to cotton, Lanvin to Woolworth’s. That knowledge had made her too proud to tell him about Timmy breaking his baby heart, and she had let him wave goodbye to her airily, calling, “Give the lamb its supper if Lily has forgotten it.”

Anyway, the whole thing was nothing to do with Davey. He had merely happened to be the person on the spot. There had been no reason for him to take anything personal out of any of the episodes. Even out of that kiss meant for a distressed child.

She would never cry again.

Kate, now, was the biggest problem. Lily said she had taken to her bed the moment Julia and Davey had left with Nita, and there she had stayed, alternately crying and drinking cups of coffee laced with brandy. You would have thought Nita was her own daughter and dead at that, Lily had said. When Paul had returned home she had gone into hysterics until they thought they would never revive her. What with her creating, and Timmy yelling his head off, it had been quite a day.

Now, however, Kate was calm, though her face bore the ravages of her emotional upset. Her eyes were swollen and almost closed, and beneath them bags had formed so that it looked as if she had two pairs of eyes, down-dropped and grotesque. She was also just a little tipsy, from her frequent sustaining cups of coffee and brandy. Her words were inclined to slur, and she was much happier in bed.

“Julia,” she said in a weak, pathetic voice, “you and Paul will postpone the wedding until Nita is better, won’t you?”

“We haven’t even talked about that yet,” Julia said. This was true, for when she had agreed to come back to Heriot Hills only the thought of Timmy had been in her mind. She had been grateful to Paul for not having raised the question of their marriage again. But it would have to be faced, of course. In Timaru, whether she had loved Paul or not, she had felt she could not come back to the peculiar, frightening, mysterious atmosphere that existed in this house.

Now she was back, and Paul was being thoughtful, quiet and gentle, the way she had always remembered him. If only someone would tell her the truth, the absolute truth of what had been going on, she could be happy here after all. There were the mountains, of course. All the way back, the larger they had loomed out of the twilight, cloud-wreathed and forbidding, the more the oppression of them had grown on Julia. The wind coming across the low hills was like their chill breath. It was sheer imagination, of course, that they were sinister and that nothing could come from them but storms and death. But there they were going to be, always; frozen, domineering, inescapable shapes. Even on dull days, when they were invisible behind clouds, one would be overwhelmingly conscious of them, like a presence behind a shut door, listening and breathing.

The windows of Kate’s bedroom were all shut and the air was warm and fuggy. It might have been a room in a house in a thickly populated town, but all the time, while she looked at Kate’s forlorn face and her blonde hair spread untidily on the pillow, Julia could hear the rising wind, and see in her mind the tossed mist over the high crags.

“Poor Nita,” said Kate in her slurred voice. “You must wait for her to get well. It’s only fair.”

“Yes,” said Julia evenly. “We must wait until she tells us what happened last night.”

“You mean how she came to stumble like that. But probably the poor child doesn’t know.”

“She would know if someone had pushed her.”

Kate groped under her pillow for her handkerchief. Her little mouth was being drawn down again as if something invisible pulled it.

“But that’s impossible, dear. There was no one downstairs. Paul was away and Lily had gone over to Dove’s. Nita was quite alone. And she must have gone into the library for a minute because she hadn’t even bothered to close the window. I had opened it before I went to bed because those old books make the room smell so musty.”

Julia watched Kate’s crumpled tear-sodden face. Had she carefully made up that story about the open window? To shield somebody?

“As it happened I was downstairs,” she said casually. “I couldn’t sleep and I was going to make a cup of tea. I heard Nita call when she fell.”

“W-what?”

“She called Harry.”

Kate lifted her swollen eyelids, then let them fall again. And her four eyes, the two real ones, and the two little pouches beneath them, were all veiled, so that her face, her crumpled doll’s face, looked ridiculously secret. “But, my dear, that’s impossible.”

“I have perfectly reliable hearing,” Julia commented. Then she lost her composure and sitting on the edge of the bed she grasped Kate’s damp soft hand.

“Look, I’ve got to know.
Is
Harry in this house? Are you hiding him?”

Kate shrank back in infinite distress.

“Oh, Julia! How can you say such things? Harry here, when we’ve lost him forever. Oh, my dear child, you don’t know how cruel you are being.”

“I don’t mean to be cruel,” said Julia patiently, “only I must know what’s going on. Paul can’t prove that Harry is dead. Can you? Did you go to his funeral? Did you talk to his doctor? Wouldn’t it be possible that he left Nita and she was too proud to say so. And that she followed him here. Or perhaps she had arranged to meet him here.”

Julia looked hopelessly at Kate’s agonized face.

“Don’t you know
anything?”

Kate shook her head. “Such dreadful things to say! Whatever makes you think—” Her voice was lost in sobs. “Oh, poor Harry! Poor Harry!”

It was no use. Resignedly Julia reached for the brandy bottle and poured a little into a glass. Would Kate weep like that for a son who was still alive? Perhaps she would, if he had done some dreadful thing…The brandy quietened her, and she lay back, flushed and exhausted.

“I’m sorry,” Julia said. “I’ve upset you again. Try to get some sleep.”

“What—are you going to do?” Kate asked in her blurred voice.

“Go to bed and get some sleep myself.”

“I don’t mean now, I mean—about this ridiculous fancy you have.”

“Wait until Nita remembers,” Julia answered calmly. “She will tell us.”

Kate buried her head in the pillow, an ostrich in the sand again.

“Make Paul postpone the wedding!” she whispered. “Please!”

The hospital, the next morning, reported that Nita was improving satisfactorily physically, but her mental condition was unchanged. When Paul said he was making the long trip into Timaru to see her Julia announced that she was going with him.

Paul looked up sharply. “I don’t think so, darling. There’s no need. She won’t know you. Besides, there’s Timmy.”

“I’m going to take Timmy,” Julia said calmly. “I think seeing him might bring Nita’s memory back. Anyway, it’s worth trying.”

Paul seemed to have grown older and thinner. The merriment had gone from his eyes and there were hollows beneath them, as if he were very tired. But everyone was tired. Julia herself could think no further ahead than the next hour, and as it went by, the one following. Timmy’s bath, his feeding time, breakfast, her morning chat to Georgina who was happily unaware of the events of the past twenty-four hours, her visit to Kate whose head ached too badly for her to get up.

The only thing that had made a sharp impression on her was the fact that there seemed to be relief in Paul’s voice when he said that Nita had not yet regained her memory. Was he glad because she still could make no accusation against his brother? The thought of this strengthened Julia’s determination to go and see Nita and to take Timmy.

“I’m sure you won’t be allowed to take a baby into the ward,” he said.

“Perhaps not, but under the circumstances I think the doctor will permit it. Anyway, I intend to go with you.”

“Darling, really, I’d rather you didn’t. I’m going to drive like mad, and it’s too far for Timmy, anyway. You’ll have him in the state he was in yesterday.”

“He’ll sleep in the car. He’ll be perfectly all right.” Julia looked at Paul directly. “What’s wrong? Don’t you want me to see Nita?”

“Darling, don’t be absurd. It’s just not necessary, making that long trip with a baby, when you’re looking absolutely worn out.”

“It is necessary, Paul, Anything is worth trying if it will make Nita remember.”

“All right. Have it your own way.”

He spoke in a sharp clipped voice, and he went away quickly. He was angry with her. It was just possible he was also a little frightened. After all, that was understandable. It was not going to be very pleasant if Nita accused his brother of attempted murder.

But nothing happened. Paul need not have been afraid. Nita lay and looked at Julia with blank eyes. She hadn’t any idea who she was. She also ignored Timmy, although he crowed with delight when he recognized his mother. It was only when Paul bent over her saying, “Nita, it’s me—Paul,” that her eyes filled with tears and she began to sob in a dreary, helpless way.

The sister in charge of the ward, however, said that this was a most encouraging sign, for it was the first emotion Mrs. Blaine had shown. Hitherto she had been completely indifferent to everything. The doctor, too, an earnest young man, was full of encouragement.

“These things take their time. In a few days, perhaps, she’ll begin to remember.”

“But there’s no certainty?” Paul asked.

“No certainty, I’m afraid. No two shock cases are entirely alike. But there’s every possibility. There’s no reason at all to despair. I suggest your bringing the baby in occasionally. He’ll cheer her up, and any time, today, tomorrow, she may suddenly recognize him. It’s like a shutter lifting. No one knows just what will cause it to lift or when it will happen. But I do beg you not to despair.”

Paul took Julia to the George and asked her to wait there with Timmy while he attended to some business. They lunched first, and although Paul tried to be a good host, even buying a bottle of chianti, he failed lamentably.

It was time, Julia realized, looking from the scarcely touched bottle of wine to Paul’s lugubrious face, that they became entirely honest with one another. So far their relationship had gone along in a rosy cloud created by kisses and words of love. But marriage was more than beautiful illusions. She would be flesh and blood and nerves and feelings beneath that fabulous wedding dress. They had to get down to reality.

“Paul, don’t worry so much about Nita,” she said gently. “She’ll get better.”

He looked up. His face was unfamiliarly haggard. For the first time the scar from his nose to his upper lip showed distinctly.

“I’m too soft,” he blurted out miserably. “I hate to see a girl crying.”

Was that how they got round him, the Doves and the Lilys? Julia’s heart softened.

“Silly! All girls’ tears aren’t innocent. They’ll put it across you.”

Later, however, Paul’s spirits had risen. He had been away on his business affairs so long that Julia was beginning to think he had forgotten she and Timmy were waiting for him. But when at last he arrived he seemed to have quite thrown off his melancholy. He couldn’t stop talking.