The Other Linding Girl (22 page)

“Rachel, my dear—” her uncle’s gesture would have been extremely telling on a stage but was, in fact, entirely, natural to him—“you are interrupting a very private discussion.”

“Am I? I’m so sorry—” she made as though to go, while not really shifting her ground—“when I saw Keith, I thought perhaps he had come to tell you one of his lovelorn tales. We none of us set much real value on them, do we Keith? Not even you yourself, I think?” And she gave him a smile before which he actually blenched slightly.

“I don’t know what you mean—” he began angrily.

“Of course you do!” Rachel was almost offensively cheerful “Who is it you’re in love with now?—Hester—or me—or Paula?”

“Rachel—” her uncle straightened up, and she was sorry to see how pale he was—“do you know this young man well?”

“Well enough not to attach much importance to what he says," Rachel laughed slightly, and then added, more seriously, “What is it, Uncle? Are you upset about something?”

“Upset?” Poor Sir Everard passed his hand over his forehead with another of those telling gestures.
"Upset?
Of course I am upset! The most dreadful statements—accusations—have been made—”

“But, dear Uncle, you don’t have to take Keith seriously! He exaggerates madly. Hester will tell you—anyone will tell you—”

“And what,” interrupted Keith Elman’s high, strained voice, “will Hester tell him? That she’s cast me off now perhaps, but that at one time—”

“That will do!” thundered Sir Everard suddenly, and his hand closed on Rachel’s arm, as though he drew some sort of strength and resolution from the contact. “Get out of this room and house, and don’t ever come here again! How dare you make the monstrous suggestions you’ve made? If my wife were here—”

“If your wife were here,” retorted Keith Elman, speaking very rapidly, “she might have to tell you the truth about that motor accident. She wasn’t with her stick of a brother that night. She was with me. And if it was all so innocent and unimportant, why do you suppose they all banded together to deceive you into thinking she was with Nigel? There’s no smoke without fire, you know, and unless you choose to be blind—”

But suddenly the stream of sound ceased. For Sir Everard, who was a powerful man, had advanced and plucked his unwelcome guest from his chair and run him towards the door.

“Out!” he said, in a tone calculated to reach the last row of the gallery. “And don’t ever come back. If you try to see me or any of my family, or so much as speak a word to any of us, I shall give you in charge to the police.”

And he propelled the helpless Keith through the door and down the stairs at a speed which left him gasping and stumbling.

Rachel stood where she was, in the middle of the room, trembling. And when she heard the front door slam, and then the slow footsteps of her uncle coming back up the stairs, she gripped her hands together and prayed for inspiration. For this, she knew, was the dangerous moment, when any wrong word might spell disaster.

Her uncle came back into the room. But, instead of resuming his effective pose by the fireplace, he dropped into the chair Keith Elman had unwillingly vacated and raised heavy eyes to his niece’s face.

“Well, Rachel,” he said sombrely, "what was the real truth?” She thought of saying that he must ask Hester. But she knew that every moment he remained in doubt would deepen the suspicions now aroused. And so, standing before him with an air

of candour so natural to her that she carried conviction, she said, “Uncle, she
was
with Keith Elman when the car crashed, But that doesn’t mean anything that horrible young man pretended. She never took him at all seriously. She told me that herself. Of course she should have realised that, in spite of his boyish air, he is unstable and quite a dangerous person. But she didn’t. Underneath all that surface sophistication, Hester is rather naive, you know—”

She wondered desperately if this idealised version of her aunt jumped at all with her uncle’s view of her. And she was encouraged to hear him murmur, “I know—I know—” But he added, after a moment, “Only why should she leave you all and go driving with him alone, in the middle of a ball?”

“She was bored, I think, and the room was stuffy. It—it was only a short spin, Uncle. Then, when the accident happened, Keith was in a shattered, almost hysterical state, ready to make the most damaging statements, which Hester was in no condition to refute—”

“My poor girl,” Sir Everard interjected feelingly.

“Both Oliver and—and Nigel realised that, unless we were to have Keith making a major scandal, the incident simply must be explained away in some other manner. I think Nigel knew afterwards that he acted a bit too impulsively—but what else could we do? He put the fear of God into Keith, accepted the responsibility for the accident himself—which wasn’t difficult since it was his car that had been borrowed—and arranged for me and Oliver to back him up.”

“But what exaggerated precautions,” protested her uncle. '“Why not have told me the simple truth? Am I an unreasonable man?” Clearly he thought there was only one answer to this. “Am I a domestic tyrant that you should all be afraid to tell me of a most minor indiscretion? Such anxiety suggests that there was much more to the story. As that vile young man said—”

“Uncle,” interrupted Rachel reproachfully, “don’t quote Keith Elman. That’s what we were all really afraid of, you see. That what we could say would not carry as much weight as the clever, spiteful way he can put things. The truth is always so much duller than the colourful lie or implication.”

“That is true,” agreed her unde, with an air of doing strict justice.

“Looking back, I don’t think we behaved very wisely ” Rachel admitted. “But then we were dreadfully overstrained and frightened because of Hester’s accident. We took up an attitude which we couldn’t afterwards drop. And the stupidest thing of all, of course, was that we under-estimated your understanding and generosity.”

“My dear—” Sir Everard made a gesture disclaiming such praise, though not too emphatically—“I am not at all blameless. Particularly in the hasty way I judged Nigel.”

“Well, perhaps not. But we should have known
you
would realise immediately that Hester simply couldn’t be involved in anything discreditable.”

Rachel met her uncle’s glance unflinchingly as she said that. But then she saw, to her surprise, a glint of genuine amusement— was it knowledgeable amusement?—in his eyes.

“Perhaps, my dear,” he said gravely, “that is going a little too far. But let us say that I love her enough to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“Oh, Uncle—” Rachel bent forward suddenly and kissed him—“you are a dear! And truly I believe there was no harm in Hester’s friendship with Keith. She may have been silly and encouraged him when she should have snubbed him. But there was nothing else. Of that I’m certain.”

“Then I must be certain too,” replied her uncle with a smile. “Only—” the smile went and he frowned—“what distresses and vexes me beyond measure is the thought that I should, have so deeply misjudged Nigel. You should have told me—really, you should have told me, at some later stage, rather than let me make such a grievous error.”

“I think we all hoped to, as Hester grew better. But if you’ll forgive my saying so, Uncle—” she put out her hand and patted his shoulder in a placatory way—“you took such a furious stand—forbidding him the house and everything—that it was difficult to start saying that he was innocent, after all.”

“You mean that I was myself to blame, in my intolerance and my excessive anger?” Sir Everard leaned his forehead on his hand in a really beautiful pose, and Rachel began to feel very sorry for him.

“You were no more to blame than anyone else, Uncle,” she assured him hastily. “And I’m certain Nigel will understand, when you tell him.”

“To be sure—to be sure. He is a generous fellow at heart.” Sir Everard sounded a little as though he were recommending Nigel for a scholarship. “But my regret remains. My really deep regret. It makes me wonder if I have misjudged Nigel in more ways than one.” He paused, and then said, as though astonished by his own admission—“Even perhaps in his work. ”

“Uncle, he really is terribly hard-working and absolutely dedicated to his own line of research,” Rachel exclaimed earnestly. “I’m not just saying that on my own—”

“No, no—I remember. The hall porter at the hospital thinks so too,” interrupted Sir Everard with some humour.

“Not
only the hall porter,” Rachel corrected him rather crossly. “Why don’t you ask someone in authority there? One of the big men who visit there. Quite a number do. I looked it up and found out for myself. There’s Sir Miles Somebody-or-Other, for one.” “Sir Miles Clitheroe,” said her uncle, evidently deploring her way of referring to a distinguished colleague. “Does
he
know anything of Nigel’s work?”

“I think so. I have an idea he was the man Monsieur Florian asked about Nigel, because—”

“Florian?” Sir Everard looked astonished. “What has he to do with it?”

“He—he became interested in Nigel’s work,” explained Rachel, feeling that a certain telescoping of events was permissible here. “He—he understood that the McGrath offer was withdrawn—”

“Why?” asked Sir Everard quickly. “Did Martin McGrath feel, on reflection, that Nigel’s work was not worthy?”

“No,” said Rachel. “I think perhaps Nigel felt, on reflection, that the McGrath offer was not worthy. It would have meant—too

much interference in his private life.”

“I—see.” Sir Everard obviously did see, and Rachel was glad that she did not have to explain this delicate part of the story.

“And so,” Rachel went on, “Monsieur Florian decided that he might help—on certain conditions. He is prepared to put up five thousand pounds—”

“Extraordinarily generous!” interjected Sir Everard. “— provided Nigel can find someone else who believes in him to the same extent. Or it could be more than one person. Monsieur Florian is generous, but he is a good businessman, I suppose, and he says he never takes the sole risk in any enterprise concerned with someone other than himself.”

“A very proper view,” approved her uncle.

“Yes—but where does one find a similar backer?” replied Rachel, with a sigh. “Nigel himself once told me that research requires a daily act of faith, and that acts of faith aren’t popular with committees and government departments. And he said—very truly—that few men put money into something they’re not sure of.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” replied Sir Everard, who was fond of saying that he believed in the basic good in human nature.

“But I do know!” retorted his niece despairingly, as the helplessness of her position was suddenly brought home to her. “It was wonderful of Monsieur Florian to make the gesture, of course. But it’s useless unless someone else will match it. Someone who likes him—believes in him enough to give him the great chance of his life. That has to be a very, very good friend indeed, Uncle Everard. And where am I—” she was unaware that she had assumed responsibility herself now—“to find such a friend?” She looked across at her uncle and he slowly got to his feet, rather like a good actor rising to the great moment of his scene.

“I suggest,” he said, with an air of enjoying himself, “that you look first in his own family.”

“His own family? But they’re quite poor, aren’t they? Hester once said so.”

“I was not,” said Sir Everard, clearing his throat, “thinking of a

blood relation.”

“Uncle! ” Suddenly Rachel flushed, and then went quite white. And for half a minute there was complete silence in the room. Then she said, almost in a whisper, “It—it’s an immense sum.”

“But not an impossible one for a reasonably wealthy man— which is what I am,” replied Sir Everard.

“Do you mean—?” But she could not quite bring herself to make the whole suggestion. “Uncle,
what
do you mean?”

“Well—” he rubbed his hand reflectively over his handsome jaw—“it seems I owe Nigel rather a heavy debt. If Sir Miles Clitheroe thinks his work worthy of support, I don’t know why I should allow a French dressmaker—” thus did he refer to the famous designer—“to be more generous to my relations than I am myself. ”

"Uncle!
You angel!” Rachel flung herself upon him, in an access of relief and joy, and he was just returning her ecstatic kiss of gratitude when the door opened and Hester came in.

“What’s going on here?” She stood and surveyed the scene with a good deal of amusement. “Someone stealing my husband?”

“Not at all.” Sir Everard gently disentangled himself from his slightly equivocal position. “Rachel and I were just—discussing Nigel’s future.”

“What an odd way to do it.” Hester sat down and continued to look amused and curious. “How did this unusual type of discussion start?”

“With a visit from a young man called Keith Elman,” replied Sir Everard unexpectedly. And suddenly Hester was quite still. “Keith Elman,” she repeated softly. “What had he—to say?”

“A great deal of rubbish, which Rachel was able to interpret for me quite satisfactorily,” said her husband gently. “We can now all forget the incident, and certainly you need never worry about it again, my dear.”

“I don’t—quite understand.” Rachel could sense how scared she was, and how carefully she was feeling her way. And perhaps Sir Everard sensed it too. At any rate, he went on quite coolly,