by Jane Arbor
‘But she only made a joke of it!’
‘Well, you can take it from me she’s in dead earnest now. You’ve only to look at the way she’s always throwing them together. Tonight, for instance—Why do you suppose she drove over here with you and Howard? To leave them tête-à-tête, of course!’
‘But Howard invited Mary to come with us.’
‘If you say so—But supposing he hadn’t, she would have laid on some other ploy. And if you want any further proof of what she’s up to, what do you think she told Ira when Ira was interviewing her for the TV thing? She said that, having known him as a little boy, she had remembered his birthday; that horoscope-wise it “married” perfectly with Verity’s, and wasn’t that rather nice, didn’t Ira think? Well!’
Mrs. Perceval wavered. ‘Oh dear. That does sound rather—But you don’t think, do you, that he guesses what’s in Mary’s mind, if it is?’
Jane snapped, ‘There’s precious little “if” about it. But whether or not she’s clever enough to work on him without his knowing, I—Good heavens, what was that?’
‘That’ was a sharp clatter and a stifled cry from the direction of the short, rope-railed flight of steps from the upper level to the lower floor of the foyer. A crowd gathered. Someone had missed their footing and fallen, and as the knot of people pressed in Ira Cusack had the choice of many hands ready to help her to her feet.
She took the nearest—Daniel’s—and leaned against him, her mouth working with shock and pain. She grimaced at Guy Tabor who was thrusting his way towards her, ‘Didn’t I tell you that gimmicky rope thing had sworn an oath with itself to get me before I left the place? Nice work, leaving it until my last night’ and then sank gratefully into the chair someone had brought for her.
She nursed an elbow and watched as her chief knelt to support a rapidly swelling ankle. ‘You may have broken this,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to get you to a doctor, my dear.’
She grimaced again. ‘Bully! I’ve probably cracked my funny-bone too—’
But Daniel had beckoned forward Miss Downing, Clere’s Matron, who also knelt to examine the injured foot and to pronounce, ‘At a guess, it would have swelled less if it were a break, though of course only an X-ray will tell. Meanwhile, we must splint and bandage it and you must be taken home. Could someone bring a cup of hot, sweet tea, please? Now, you’ve hurt that arm as well, Miss Cusack? May I see? And didn’t I hear from Mrs. Dysart that you were planning to come back to Clere tonight?’
Ira nodded. ‘Where you can keep me under your eye, Matron.’
Matron smiled. ‘Good. So the sooner we get you there and to bed and under Dr. Wales’s eye as well, the better. You can leave her to me—she’ll be all right,’ she added to the watching people, and as they drifted away, murmuring sympathy, she set expertly to work to use the bandages and splints which the studios’ first aid produced.
A little uneasily the party took up its swing again. But not for Verity, who knew she had used the few minutes of her real concern for Ira as a kind of mental safety-curtain between herself and the aftermath of her eavesdropping. Now she must lift it, look the ugly thing in the face and try to force her loyalty to forgive and understand.
Oh, Mother...! Across the room she could see the bright, bird-like head turning, and heard in imagination the light voice, diffident, wistful, which she loved. Mrs. Lytton, surrounded by people, inviting them to talk about themselves by the artless ruse of feigning ignorance of almost every subject under the sun, was enjoying herself to the full, while her daughter fought an ache of wretchedness that was almost a physical pain.
Jane Dysart, Verity knew, could make a sour judgment on anything. But even her readiness to think evil could hardly have grown fat on no facts at all, and though Verity refused to believe her mother had serious designs on Daniel, Jane’s report of her prattling astrology to Ira rang true and was borne out by Daniel’s own mention of the same subject tonight.
What more had Mrs. Lytton said to him which he had chosen not to pass on? Verity wondered.
And why, from their talk of Lance, had he turned their conversation that way at all unless—the thought was a sword stab—he believed she needed warning off indulging the same silly hopes as her mother?
She was sure she had turned the talk back again without betraying her secret. But the possibility he had been testing her was a cold misery, and when she looked up to see him lift a hand in a signal that he meant to join her from across the room, she had a panic impulse to turn away ... to run ... and run.
She did neither, and when he came over his errand was prosaic enough.
He said, ‘I’m sorry, Verity, but I wonder if you’ll go back with the Percevals or the Dysarts, instead of with me, as Matron thinks the Dysarts’ Mini will be too cramped for Miss Cusack, who is coming back to Clere? On the back seat of my car she can lie almost full length with her foot raised, while Matron has your seat in front. So I’ve offered to leave as soon as they’re ready, if you don’t mind making the switch?’
‘Of course not. I’ll go back with the Percevals.’ Verity snatched quickly at the chance, as at a reprieve.
‘Thank you. I was sure you would understand.’ As he touched her arm in a light gesture of parting, he couldn’t know that she was wondering bleakly whether she was ever going to feel off guard and at ease with him again. But tomorrow he was going to Oxford for the long weekend of half-term, which meant a little time bought in which to look at her false position and perhaps find a way of escape from it.
Usually she heard school news when she went to the staff-room for coffee. But on the Tuesday after half-term she had to work right through the break, so that it was from Lance that she learned of Daniel’s decision to give him his coveted move to North House.
At first Lance would not believe that he was the first to tell her.
‘You’d known and hadn’t told me when the High clamped down on it at the beginning of term,’ he accused her.
‘That was because I’d done a memo about it. I didn’t have a clue this time. In fact—’
Lance nodded. ‘I know. You thought, as I did, that Friday night’s little fiasco would have snuffed any gleam of a chance I had? But I was certain you must know it was on, because Old Nick, who told me it was to be given out in Assembly, said that you had had something to do with it.’
‘I had? How could I?’
‘I wouldn’t know. All Old Nick said was that the High was willing to take your word for it that the kick upstairs to North would do wonders for me. Not that Old Nick put it quite like that, but that was the gist,’ Lance added.
‘But I haven’t discussed North for you with Daniel,’ puzzled Verity.
‘Well, you must have said something and the High must have listened. Surely you can remember?’
‘I only told him I knew you weren’t afraid to admit you had damaged his camera; it was simply that you wouldn’t have him think you had been irresponsible with it.’
‘And just from that he worked out that I deserved North? However, if you say so, thanks a lot, V. Your lightest word must carry masses of weight!’
Verity flushed. ‘And that wasn’t called for!’ she snapped.
‘I didn’t mean it either!’ With the sudden contrition which could always disarm her Lance added,
‘Not the way you took it, anyway. And if that’s really all you said about me, I suppose Old Nick was talking through his hat when he said that it was through you that I was being booted to North.’ Abandoning the point, Lance scuffed at the matting underfoot with the toe of his shoe. ‘You know, V., this may sound a bit feeble of me, but I’ve begun to wonder whether I jumped to conclusions about the High too early,’ he allowed.
‘Handsome of you.’ Verity’s tone was dry. ‘Though only, of course, if you had this change of heart before today’s Assembly, not since!’
Lance playfully passed his closed fist just beneath her nostrils. ‘So I asked for that? O.K. But however it may look, it isn’t just because
of North, and I’m not the only one, either.’
‘Oh, you’re not? You and who else have decided you can bear to know him?’
‘You can cut the sarcasm, clever. I mean there’s a feeling going around school that in a lot of things he may have a clue after all. I even had to land a fourpenny one on a chap who said he was more with it than Father was. But though he’s not that and never will be for me, he’s on the beam, people think. And I must say, when I had to come clean about his Leica on Friday, he was pretty decent about it.’
‘Didn’t I tell you he might be? What did he say?’
‘Nothing about the lens. Just that the thing must have a hoodoo on it, as he had had almost the same mishap with it only a little while before he lent it to me. Then he asked me how nearly I was ready to give my show and we even talked photography for a bit. He kept the real bawling-out for my having roped you in to help. When you didn’t turn up on time he tore into me as if you were a bit of Dresden china. And that’s a laugh, ha ha. As if you couldn’t cope!’
‘Well, I didn’t very well, did I?’ said Verity.
‘Phooey! Not your fault, the snow. Anyhow, V., there it is. Seems I hadn’t to thank you for helping to get North for me. But I thought you’d be glad I’m having second thoughts about the man. Not, mind you,’ Lance warned, ‘that I’m in danger of being as sold on him as you seem to be and as Mother is. For instance, do you know yet why, after all that prehistoric mateyness between the parents, he never came near us for years while Father was alive?’
‘No, and he’s not telling.’
‘He must have told Mother by now.’
‘If he has, she hasn’t told me. He manoeuvred me once into admitting that you and I were curious, and then snubbed me by saying that Mother had “accepted he had his reasons”. Full stop. So if you take my advice, you’ll leave it,’ Verity advised.
‘Ask no questions and you’ll hear no lies, eh? O.K., I’ll leave it.’ Lance looked at his watch. ‘Got to go now, V. See you!’
But before he was out of earshot Verity called him back. ‘Did any of the others—Crossman and co.—get North as well as you?’
Lance turned. ‘Believe it or not, just me!’ he grinned, not guessing that it was something she half expected to hear.
For she realized that this was Daniel’s own wise way of handling Lance. This had been in his mind when he had asked her to leave the rest to him, though why he should have allowed Nicholas Dysart to think she had influenced him, she did not know. He hadn’t needed her help to take Lance’s measure. He had already taken it himself when he had put the boy at ease in the matter of the smashed lens and had talked their common hobby with him, man to man.
That, and his singling out of Lance for promotion had done more to engage his loyalty, to help him to ‘walk tall’ and alone than any stroke of iron discipline could have done. Even more, they were pointers to the understanding which Daniel was bringing to the human job of Clere; straws in the wind of the success he would make of it in the end.
At the thought she experienced a surge of faith and pride in him which forgave all his brusquerie with herself and even dulled the sting of the mortification which was the current price she paid for loving him. In that uplift of spirit she felt she understood just what he had meant when he had told her on the night Nash had died that all pain, all love, all living was ‘worth it’.
Sadly enough, it was an exaltation which was not proof against her next encounter with Ira Cusack.
Matron’s snap diagnosis had not been fully correct, in that Ira’s fall had cracked a small bone which necessitated her foot being put in plaster. So equipped, she was walking with a stick within two or three days, charmingly accepting help up or down steps, but otherwise well able to get around. She rarely lacked for company, and it was Daniel who brought her to Verity’s office the first time she left the garden of West House.
He said, ‘Miss Cusack finds she’s badly short of reading matter. So will you give her the key to the school library and she can go and choose something for herself?’
‘Of course.’ As he left them together and Verity gave Ira the key she told her, ‘I’m afraid you may find the library has its limitations, but perhaps you’ll find something you haven’t read.’
Ira smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I’m desperate enough to settle for anything from, say, The Moonstone to Biggies.’ She swung the key on a fingertip. ‘Nice of you not to take umbrage—if you didn’t—over my poaching your preserves the other night. I did my best to protest, but your chief wouldn’t hear of my travelling any other way. So I do hope he wasn’t too brutal about asking you to give up your seat to me?’
Verity said flatly, ‘He asked me and I agreed. Would you have expected me not to?’
‘Well, no. That would have been showing your hand, wouldn’t it? But how you must have loathed me! No, seriously’—Ira cut across Verity’s sharp-drawn exclamation—‘do you think I can’t guess what you’re going through? All the wangling and jockeying for position and the hideous frustration when none of it comes off and the man doesn’t bat an eyelid of recognition that, female-wise, you exist? Why, you know you were counting on a cosy heart-to-heart on the way home! Even, maybe, that he might relax far enough to say his goodnights with a kiss?’
‘And then expect to meet him the next day without embarrassment? He happens to employ me, remember?’
‘Tch! So what? It goes on all the time. Midnight and after tends to have the oddest sentimental effect on boss-men, and the bachelor ones needn’t even feel guilty. D’you know something? At that time of night I dare say I could have made him kiss me if I’d been in any mood to try, and if we hadn’t had Matron as chaperon!’
‘Really?’
‘Yes—really!’ Ira mimicked. ‘It wouldn’t mean a thing, and the next morning I shouldn’t look as if I hoped he would be naming the day. Men can’t bear intensity when they’re not serious or even when they’re not sure whether they are or not. But if you doubt that I could, would you like me to prove it some time—huh?’
Verity said carefully, ‘I don’t think I want to know whether you could get Mr. Wyatt to kiss you. And even if you did, you’d hardly invite an audience, would you?’
Ira smiled. ‘You’ve got a point there. You’d have to take my word for it. Look, supposing we made a foursome date—he and I and you and—oh, you must know some man who’d make a fourth?—and at the end of the evening I raised my thumb and told you “Easy!”, would you understand what I meant and believe me then?’
‘I suppose I should, though I shouldn’t be interested.’
‘Not even if I offered you my technique as a gift?’ Verity shook her head. ‘Don’t you think this is rather a futile discussion? Who, anyway, wants to be kissed merely for kissing’s sake? And if a man didn’t care enough for me to kiss me of his own will, I’m afraid I couldn’t care less about learning the art of making him.’
Ira’s reply was a mock pitying look. ‘Oh dear,’ she sighed. ‘Just how pompous and “sour grapes” can the young get? If I didn’t know before that you’d got it pretty badly, that last crack alone would give you away! But if you won’t accept—How To Get Your Man, Lesson One from me, what about Lesson Two? Or no—perhaps on second thoughts I won’t pass that on. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, and you’re so dewy naive that I’d back you to muff it if you could. No, maybe you’d better learn the hard way—and on your own, except for one more word—don’t despise technique. It can be the only weapon a woman has, against the dozen or so that the social set-up has given a man.’ She swung the key again. ‘Do I bring this back to you, or what?’
Verity glanced at the school timetable, then at her watch. ‘You’ve got just ten minutes before the Sixth will be coming to the library for their Current Events class. You’ll take that time, I dare say, to choose something to read, so leave the key with Mr. Pedecker, will you, and he’ll return it here.’
But Ira was not ready to go. ‘About this date—is it on or not?’
she asked.
‘Not, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘You mean you’re afraid of a snub if you suggested it? You are a prize invertebrate! But you wouldn’t be laying it on—I should. So?’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
Ira lifted a shoulder. ‘Well, pardon me for living, won’t you? I only wanted to help. The rough idea was that we’d make a party for this Gala Anniversary Night at that four-star place—what’s the name of it—between here and Brancaster?’
‘The Golden Strand?’
‘That’s it. I’ve got four complimentary tickets through Viking Vision. But if you’re not interested I’ll ask Jane and Nicholas and do a “Pretty please—escort me?” at your Big Man myself. That is, if you’ve no objection?’
‘How could I have? Anyway’—Verity had rarely before come to so headlong a decision—‘anyway, I couldn’t have accepted for that night as I’ve already been invited to the Gala by—someone else.’
Ira threw her a long calculating look. ‘Oh, you have? Well, isn’t that nice?’ she drawled, making every slow syllable carry her veiled disbelief in a claim which, even to Verity’s own ears, hadn’t rung true.
CHAPTER VII
There was only one person—Bob Wales—who could help her out of her self-sown fix, and as soon as she was free Verity rang him up.
‘Bob? Do something for me if you can?’ she appealed.
‘Come hell or high water, did I ever refuse? What is it?’
