Away Went Love (10 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

BY morning light, Hope’s fears of the night before seemed illogical and groundless—born of nothing more serious than weariness and overstrained nerves.

It was a beautiful spring day with the fullest promise of early summer in the air and, though she would not be seeing Richard that day, as she dressed she felt that her spirits—like her hopes—matched the brightness of the sunshine.

She was meeting Enid Feldon for tea, and she thought amusedly that she would enjoy a carefree chat with the scatter-brained Enid all the more for knowing that a delightful tomorrow was still before her. Perhaps she would even tell Enid something about Richard and their approaching marriage.—Or was it better not to talk of that until everything was settled?

In the end she decided to say nothing, though whether from a last lingering doubt or from other obscure form of superstition about it being unlucky to talk of a thing before it was settled, she would have found it hard to say.

At the Laboratory everything went smoothly that day, as though the crisis of yesterday had, in solving itself, also simplified everything else for her. She felt faintly embarrassed at the thought of seeing Errol Tamberly, but, after all, he was not expecting her to come to him with any decision until a week was over. It was unlikely therefore that she would receive more than his curt “Good morning” or a purely official request for some piece of work to be done.

But, to her surprise and somewhat to her embarrassment, she was summoned to his office during the afternoon.

He couldn’t surely be going to refer to the question of Richard again so soon? Hope felt her heart thumping nearly as uncomfortably as the day before, and she wished with almost passionate intensity that she really had something positive to tell him.

However, she need not have worried. Nothing in his manner suggested that he even recollected their conversation of the previous evening—still less that he expected any comment as a result of it.

“Oh, Hope, I wonder if you could manage to put up the children at your flat tomorrow evening,” he said as she came in. “They have been invited to a matinee and tea afterwards by some friends of my mother. They are both extremely anxious to go and I see no objection, but it will be rather late for them to come out home afterwards. There’s rather a gap between trains at that time in the evening. Also”—he smiled not unkindly—“I might add that they’re very eager to see you.”

No doubt they were, poor children! Hope thought sympathetically. However happy and comfortable they might be in their new home, no doubt they already felt the strain of being with comparative strangers all the time.

“Why, of course!” she began. Then suddenly she remembered Richard and their “celebration.” “Though I—I was going out tomorrow evening,” she added a little confusedly.

“You couldn’t alter the arrangement?”

Well, she could really. After all, the children must come first at the moment. It was horribly disappointing, of course, but they might be feeling really homesick and be wanting her more than their independent natures usually allowed. She was all they had.—And she and Richard could go out the next evening instead. They had all the week—all their lives—in front of them .

“Yes, of course I’d love to have them. I’ll alter my appointment,” Hope said after only a second’s thought.

“Good. Don’t think they’re moping or anything, but I think a sight of you will do them good, and no doubt it will give them a sense of security and a link with familiar things if they feel they’re in constant touch with you.”

“I quite agree. When will they be coming?”

“About seven, I imagine. But in any case they’ll be sent by taxi, so you needn’t worry about their arrival.”

“All right. Give them my love and tell them I’m looking forward to seeing them.”

“I will,” he said, and then gave her a little nod of dismissal.

She thankfully made her escape, wondering all the time whether tact or indifference accounted for this magnificent ignoring of the subject that most concerned them both.

There had never before been any occasion to put Richard off or to alter any arrangement which he specially wanted, and the thought did cross her mind that he might be disappointed to the point of being angry.

But when she telephoned to him, on her way to meet Enid, he was very reasonable and sweet about it.

“Of course it’s disappointing, but naturally the kids come first this time. I expect they find the Tamberly atmosphere a bit rarified,” he said, and she knew he was smiling.

“Well, I think they’re quite happy there, and I’m sure Doctor Tamberly is conscientiously kind to them,” Hope explained earnestly. “But naturally they want to see me.”

“Naturally,” Richard agreed and laughed.

“Shall we meet at the same time and same place on Thursday, then?”

“Oh—Thursday. Well, no, I’m afraid I can’t manage Thursday, darling. It will have to be Friday.”

“Oh, Richard!” She felt she could hardly bear the disappointment. One day’s delay was bad enough—but two!

“Hope dear, I’m frightfully sorry, but there’s a job coming into the office late Thursday afternoon and I know I shan’t get away until any old hour.” He sounded at least as sorry and disappointed as she, but, to do him justice, he still made no effort to persuade her to put off the twins.

“Could we—could we perhaps meet late and have supper together?”

“Darling, it’s no good my saying yes, because I know I shan’t get away until really late.”

“How late?” Hope asked rather forlornly.

“Oh—tennish, perhaps. And then I shouldn’t be very good company,” he assured her.

With an effort, Hope conquered the almost childishly strong wave of disappointment that had engulfed her. It was ridiculous of her! Of course she could wait another day. She was behaving like a little girl over a birthday treat.

“Oh, well then, of course, we’ll make it Friday.” “Good!” He sounded so relieved that she wondered guiltily if he had thought her angry.

“That will be lovely, Richard. And thank you, dear, for being so understanding about the twins.”

“But, of course! One couldn’t disappoint two nice kids in their circumstances,” Richard declared, with such good-natured sincerity that Hope thought all over again what a darling he was and how silly she had been to think anything could go wrong between them.

By the time she met Enid her good spirits were entirely restored. The fact must have been reflected in her face, for Enid’s greeting was:

“How much better and happier you’re looking, Hope dear! I suppose you’ve got things settled now and feel quieter in your mind.”

Hope agreed that things were certainly “settled” now, but she reflected a little grimly that quietness of mind had not been exactly a constant state with her since she had last seen Enid. However, Enid was fortunately the kind of person who assumes that flat contradiction is the only alternative to complete agreement, and that Hope had therefore endorsed her whole statement.

“And now tell me
all
about the new arrangements,” she begged as tea was set before them. So Hope embarked on an account of the decisions taken. But at the second sentence Enid set down the teapot with a little scream of surprise and protest.

“My
dear,
you don’t mean that those poor children are to be the wards of the terrible Doctor Tamberly!”

“Enid, he’s
not
terrible! He’s rather nice—to them, I mean.”

“But I thought you couldn’t bear him,” cried Enid, who was a creature of superlatives.

“Nonsense. I only said I didn’t like him much and—and I have found him rather difficult at times. But he can be quite extraordinarily kind,” Hope insisted, with an earnestness born of the knowledge that she owed a great deal to him now.

“Well. I must say you’re not very consistent, darling.” Enid resumed her tea-pouring.

“Anyway, Daddy chose him as their guardian and—”

“But men are so silly,” Enid interjected.

“This was a perfectly good choice,” Hope stated firmly, a little surprised to find herself defending the arrangement so wholeheartedly. “Besides”—she waited until her tea had been handed to her before completing the sentence, because she knew Enid was apt to hold up proceedings while expressing shock—“besides, there isn’t any money after all.”

Then, before Enid could do more than clasp her hands and look stricken, she went on to explain the financial situation.

“But, my poor pet, how frightful!” Enid really meant that and her sympathetic horror was genuine. “What
are
you going to do?”

“Nothing,” replied Hope, who always became more matter-of-fact as Enid became more intense. “The twins are provided for—in a most generous manner, I might say—and I’ve got my salary at the Lab.”

“But it’s quite different when you have to manage on that alone,” Enid declared with truth.

“Yes, I know. But—”

“You’ll have to leave your lovely little flat!”

“Yes. Perhaps, but—”

“There’s no perhaps,” Enid insisted tragically. “You just don’t know what it’s
like,
dear, to have to manage on half or two-thirds of what you’ve always had.”

Hope realized the truth of that, but, at the same time, had toyed with the idea that she and Richard might go on living in the flat after their marriage. Certainly she had never seriously faced the prospect of leaving it.

“As a matter of fact, it may turn out that I can stay on at the flat.”

“D’you mean things aren’t as bad as they seem?”

“Not—exactly.” Hope hesitated. Then her desire to tell
someone
became too strong to resist. “Enid, I haven’t told you before because it wasn’t really settled, but I’m probably getting married quite soon.”

“Not Tamberly?” cried Enid in the manner of one recognizing the villain in the melodrama.

“No, of course not,” exclaimed Hope rather crossly. It was too stupid of Enid to give voice to that remote possibility. “Why ever do you think I should be marrying Errol Tamberly?”

“Well—you know—the man with the money—guardian of your young brother and sister—all that sort of thing,” Enid explained with what she evidently took to be logical deduction.

“Don’t be silly. This isn’t a film,” Hope said crisply. “Anyway, it’s someone quite different from Errol Tamberly. He’s—”

“Got money?” enquired Enid briskly.

“Not much. But we’ll be very happy together all the same,” Hope assured her quickly. “His name’s Richard. Richard Fander. And he’s an architect and—oh, you’ll like him awfully, Enid. You couldn’t help it.”

“I’d like him better if he had lots of money, to make up for what your father didn’t leave,” Enid declared with shameless candor.

“Oh, well, never mind about that,” Hope said with a laugh. “We shan’t be exactly poverty-stricken—and we’re very much in love.”

“That does all right at first,” Enid conceded. “Let’s hope he has a big rise in salary before it wears off. Now tell me how you met him and what he’s like to look at and when I shall have a chance of seeing him.”

So Hope obligingly entered on a further list of details about Richard, and all the time she was talking about him and her future plans to Enid, she felt her own sense of security and happiness deepening. To have reached the point of discussing minor details with Enid made it quite inconceivable that there should be any hitch now in the happy future which she sketched so willingly.

By the time she left Enid, Hope was even reconciled to the fact that she would not be seeing Richard until Friday, and, since she was really not at all a one-subject girl, she was able to take the liveliest pleasure in the thought of seeing her young brother and sister the next day.

The visit of the twins was an unqualified success. Both rather undemonstrative children in the ordinary way, they were on this occasion so delighted to see the one other member of their family again, that they almost literally fell on Hope and hugged her. But it was quite evident, as soon as they had time to talk in anything but unison, that they were happy at Orterville and most kindly looked after.

“Uncle Errol’s really a darling,” Bridget declared, and though Tony was not given to such romantic phraseology, he added that Uncle Errol was quite a good chap, which amounted, Hope knew, to equally high praise.

“And I hope you’re both very good.” She smiled very affectionately at them as they sat either side of the fire, eating their supper and turning their eager, bright faces towards her every other minute.

“We’re just ordinary, you know,” Bridget said engagingly. “Mrs. Tamberly says we both have nice manners, so I suppose we have. She should know. I should think she knows everything about things like manners, wouldn’t you?” Hope agreed that Mrs. Tamberly was probably a very good authority on social behavior.

“Did you know she’s going to get married again? Don’t you think it’s funny that anyone as old as that should get married?” Tony said casually.

“Married? Mrs. Tamberly! Is she really?” Hope’s astonishment evidently gratified the children.

“We think it’s queer too,” Bridget said. “She must be quite as old as Mother. Don’t you think so?”

Hope didn’t offer to say, though, in a passing guess, she put Mrs. Tamberly at a very, very well-preserved fifty-five. Still, there was no need to start the twins on the very absorbing topic of the ages of grown-ups, so she hastily retrieved her position by adding: