Love Him or Leave Him

by Mary Burchell

  And then, for some reason, they both laughed immoderately again. It was really extraordinarily easy to laugh with this cheerful young man, and Anne was already beginning to feel that the holiday was showing some nice possibilities.

  His thoughts must have been running on somewhat similar lines, because after a moment he said, rather more carelessly than the occasions warranted:

  ‘If you haven’t any plans for your first evening, why don’t you join us at dinner?’

  ‘It’s very nice of you.’ Anne, who blushed rather easily, blushed then. ‘But your cousin and her fiancé might not want a complete stranger wished on to them.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. Deborah and David can pair off together, and you and I can talk or dance, as we like. They’ll be quite glad to have it turned into a foursome, I daresay. Three is the wrong number for an evening together.’

  ‘Well—if you’re quite sure—’

  ‘Absolutely certain,’ Robin Eskin assured her. ‘Look, we’re just coming in sight of the Towers now. And it’s stopped raining. I told you it would.’

  Sure enough, the dark clouds were scudding before a strong wind, and a pastel-coloured evening sky was beginning to show between the rents. Half-way up the green hillside, Anne saw the country mansion of one’s dreams—anyone’s dreams, she felt—backed by magnificent trees. And when she turned to look out of the other window of the car, she had her first glimpse of the serene beauty of Rydal Water, calm and shining in the strengthening evening light.

  ‘Oh, it’s beautiful!’ she breathed. ‘Just exactly as I wanted it to be.’

  Robin Eskin grinned sympathetically.

  ‘I know what you mean. Yes—I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in things there.’

  And Anne felt perfectly certain she was not going to be disappointed, in any sense whatever.

  At the hotel, she was welcomed in a personal way which made her feel an eagerly awaited guest. It seemed that the car sent to meet her had unexpectedly broken down. The driver had only just managed to telephone through to explain. And the idea that she had had to make her own arrangements to reach the Towers appeared to be a disaster for which no reparation was too much.

  Having promised to meet Robin Eskin, and his cousin and her fiancé, in the lounge in half an hour’s time, Anne was escorted to her first-floor balcony room, which had the same enchanting view of Rydal as the one which had enraptured her in the journey up to the hotel.

  At least, not quite the same view, she decided, after a few moments. Because—as she was to find during the next few weeks—every change of light in this beautiful mountain and lakeland country imparted a subtle change to the whole scene. So that it was ever familiar, and yet ever new.

  After the indulgence of a few minutes’ gazing from her window, Anne turned to the serious business of partial unpacking, and deciding what she was to wear for this first—and possibly rather important—evening.

  Early impressions mattered a good deal if one wanted to make friends. And she had a very human desire that Robin Eskin should feel pleased and proud to introduce her to his cousin and her fiancé.

  It was obviously not a sufficiently important occasion for the white and gold dress. So she chose instead a very charming sapphire blue crepe dress, which Angela had kindly insisted on lending her, at the last minute.

  Being Angela’s, it was a little more sophisticated than Anne’s usual choice of dress. But it fitted her perfectly, and, when she surveyed herself in the mirror, she decided, with satisfaction, that the dress ‘did something to her’ as the telling phrase goes. It made her look like the kind of girl who was used to going places, and knew how to handle most situations.

  Thus supplied with the small bit of moral support which was all that was necessary to make her pleasure complete, Anne went downstairs. She chose the stairs, rather than the lift, because the stairs led straight into the lounge, and she felt instinctively that this would afford her a good ‘entrance’.

  Robin Eskin came forward immediately to greet her. And, though he made no comment on her appearance—they hardly knew each other well enough for that—his smile paid tribute to her appearance, and his general air told Anne that Angela herself could not have looked more charming in the blue dress.

  ‘Come and be introduced,’ Robin Eskin said, and took her across the room, to a couple who were standing in one of the deep window embrasures, talking.

  They both turned as Anne and Robin came up.

  The girl gave Anne one of those cool, charming smiles which are polite, but not exactly welcoming. The man was Mr. Jerome.

  CHAPTER TWO

  To say that Anne was appalled to behold her employer—or, more accurately, her ex-employer—established, as it were, in the forefront of the scene of her beautiful holiday, would be to be guilty of the grossest understatement.

  No lamb frisking in the meadow and suddenly spying a wolf looking at him through a gap in the hedge—no rose-fancier discovering a worm in the centre of his prize bloom—could have felt more dismayed or more chagrined than Anne did at that moment.

  But something—perhaps the ghost of Angela’s personality, still clinging to the beautiful borrowed dress—something told her that this was a moment when she must somehow display social grace and sang-froid.

  And, with her heart knocking against her ribs, she managed to smile upon Deborah Eskin, acknowledge the introduction, then turn to shake hands with Mr. Jerome and say sweetly:

  ‘But I think we’ve met before somewhere, haven’t we?’ The moment was not without its shock for Mr. Jerome either, of course. And perhaps he paid silent tribute to Anne’s effrontery—or courage—as you cared to look at it. At any rate, with a dry humour of which she would not have thought him capable, he replied:

  ‘Somewhere in the City, I think. Weren’t you speaking on the relations between employer and employee?’

  Anne was so much taken aback at this unexpected evidence of a sense of humour in Mr. Jerome that, for a moment, she was incapable of reply.

  However, Robin filled in the gap very suitably.

  ‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed admiringly. ‘Do you lecture on business relations, as well as everything else?’

  ‘No! Oh, no,’ Anne hastened to assure him.

  ‘It was more a case of a few impromptu and well-chosen words, if I remember rightly,’ Mr. Jerome explained. ‘Can I bring drinks for everyone? How about you, Miss Hemming?’

  Anne felt this was the only occasion on which she had ever required a stiff brandy. But she murmured that she would like a sherry, and Mr. Jerome went to fetch the drinks.

  Robin found chairs for them all, and they drew them into a companionable group round the window. Anne, sinking rather weakly into one of the chairs, stole a surreptitious glance at Deborah Eskin, for she felt a sort of fascinated interest in any girl who could have the temerity to regard Mr. Jerome in the light of a future husband.

  ‘A cool, reposeful blonde’ was the phrase which immediately sprang to Anne’s mind. Followed quickly by the half-grim, half-admiring reflection, ‘She looks as though she could manage most things. Even him.’

  Mr. Jerome was coming back now across the lounge. And, though she did not venture on more than the most fleeting glance, that glance measured Mr. Jerome for the first time as a person, rather than as a sort of official Act of God.

  He was a big man. Tall, well made, and she supposed some people—people who didn’t have to work for him, of course—would have called him good-looking. Recalling, uneasily, that she had described him to Robin as not exactly decrepit, she admitted grudgingly to herself now that he was probably something between thirty and forty.

  Meeting him casually, like this, on holiday, one might consider him not unattractive, in a rather reserved way. She preferred something gayer and more high-spirited herself, and she didn’t like people who, when they smiled at all, smiled in that grim, dry fashion. Just as, on the whole, she liked candid blue eyes—rather like Robin Eskin’s—not unco
mfortably penetrating, unsmiling dark eyes which made you wonder if you’d forgotten to put an important enclosure in one of the letters for yesterday’s mail.

  But, to the unprejudiced—and she freely admitted that she was prejudiced in the extreme—Mr. Jerome might not appear to be the monster of injustice and oppression at which she had hinted when she talked to Robin. Doubtless Deborah Eskin looked upon him with less jaundiced eyes than did his office staff.

  He was sitting beside Anne now, which made it difficult to take one’s glass in a completely steady hand. But she had set the tone of high courage by her bold opening challenge, and—a little giddily—she was determined to keep things on that level.

  This was made easier for her now by the fact that conversation was becoming general and was, in any case, of the conventional pattern which is the only one possible between people meeting for the first time.

  Inevitably, after a few moments, Deborah asked:

  ‘It this your first visit to the Lake District, Miss Hemming?’

  Anne said it was. And Robin broke in, with amused eagerness:

  ‘Do tell Deborah how you came to choose just this holiday at just this time.’

  ‘I—was left a small legacy,’ Anne said timidly. ‘I—I always wanted to see the Lake District. And this seemed a good opportunity.’

  ‘How sensible of you,’ Deborah said, polite but bored. ‘So few people really know what they want. Then, when the chance comes, they don’t even see it.’

  ‘Oh, but tell the rest of the story,’ Robin urged, evidently a trifle disappointed that the whole thing was not nearly so entertaining as when he had first heard about it.

  ‘Well—’ began Anne, and stopped.

  ‘Miss Hemming worked in an office where there was one of those perfect old brutes who make their office staff’s fives a misery,’ Robin explained, enthusiastically helping her out with the details.

  Mr. Jerome cleared his throat slightly, and Anne was stricken dumb.

  Robin, however, unfortunately, was not. And, having evidently decided to take over the piquant story himself, he went on:

  ‘And then, one morning, she’d just about had enough, so she upped and told the blighter where he got off—and then walked out.’

  ‘N-no,’ Anne protested, in a small, horrified voice. ‘No, I—I told you, I was ordered to walk out.’

  ‘A nice distinction,’ observed Mr. Jerome drily. And Anne felt that her one effort at accuracy had done little to save a dreadful situation.

  ‘Well, anyway, she did walk out,’ Robin summarized impatiently. ‘And then, that very day, she had news of this legacy. So she decided to have a super holiday. A much longer holiday than she could possibly have had if her Old Man of the Sea hadn’t sacked her. I bet he’d be mad, if he knew that he’d just smoothed the way for her to do one of the things she’d always wanted to do.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said the Old Man of the Sea in question, rather coldly, ‘that he would not be in the remotest degree interested.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense’ retorted Robin, with good-humoured impatience. ‘Everyone is interested in that sort of story. Shall we go in to dinner now?’

  So they all went in to dinner, Anne wondering if she would ever be able to look Mr. Jerome in the face again.

  Not that he hadn’t well deserved all which had been said. But, really, the circumstances could hardly have been more embarrassing. And, as she struggled to give a good imitation of a sophisticated girl taking everything in her stride, she was not quite sure whether tears or a desire to laugh wildly were nearer to the surface.

  Fortunately, it was natural for her to address most of her conversation to Robin, and leave Deborah and Mr. Jerome (who seemed quite another person when referred to as ‘David’) to pair off together. And she vowed that, the moment she got Robin to herself, she would tell him the truth and warn him never, never to mention the circumstances of her leaving her office again.

  However, when it came to the point—when, that is to say, dancing began, and she was alone at last with Robin—she suddenly found that she was most reluctant to tell him, after all. It was not as though there were any more damaging disclosures to be made. He could not put his foot into it further than he had. And, since Mr. Jerome had accepted the implication that they knew each other only passingly, perhaps it was not necessary to tell Robin any more.

  It was all very well for him to laugh and sympathize with her, so long as the erring employer of the story remained anonymous. But doubtless he regarded Mr. Jerome in a fairly favourable light. He might be embarrassed and displeased to have him identified with someone he had himself described as ‘a perfect old brute.’

  He could hardly fail to regard Anne’s story as a piece of gross exaggeration, and possibly rather ‘cheap’, into the bargain. The very last impression which she wanted to give Robin Eskin.

  She had just come to the final conclusion that there was no need for her to enlarge on the subject, when he himself, said:

  ‘You’re very quiet. Are you enjoying yourself?’

  ‘Immensely.’ Anne smiled up at him quickly, and quite sincerely. For, except for the unfortunate appearance of Mr. Jerome, she was certainly enjoying herself.

  ‘That’s all right, then. You’re a bit shy, though, aren’t you?’ He sounded as though he thought shyness a delightful quality. ‘I daresay you found Deborah and David rather overpowering.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Anne declared, anxious not to give any impression of criticising his relations. ‘I think your cousin is very good-looking.’

  ‘Do you?’ Robin considered Deborah’s charms with the air of one who had known her too long to be able to be objective. ‘Yes, she is, I suppose. But, between ourselves, I sometimes wonder just what David Jerome sees in her. Oh, she’s very nice, and all that, of course. But he’s quite a brilliant chap, you know, and could have had most people, I imagine.’

  ‘I don’t think he would be every girl’s choice,’ Anne said austerely.

  ‘No? Well, you’d know that better than I should,’ Robin conceded, with a grin. ‘Funny your having met him before, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Very funny,’ Anne said, without any signs of having been amused by the encounter. ‘How long is he staying here?’

  ‘Only about a week or ten days, I think. He has a big business in London and can’t leave it for long.’

  ‘I see,’ Anne said. And thought, ‘Thank goodness! He won’t be a blot on much of the holiday, then.’

  And she proceeded to enjoy the rest of the evening almost exclusively in Robin Eskin’s company.

  Oddly enough, it was not until she was in bed that night—in the beautiful, spacious room which looked out over Rydal Water and the wooded hills beyond—that the idea came, that while she might choose to be silent about her relationship with Mr. Jerome, he might not.

  She thought now that she could imagine him saying to Deborah Eskin—and, still worse, to Robin Eskin—something about her being nothing more nor less than an impudent, inefficient shorthand-typist, of whom he had been very glad to see the last. If she read him aright, he was not in the least ashamed of his own part in the incident. He probably still considered her completely in the wrong. And, that being so, there was nothing to prevent him giving his version of what he evidently considered a very minor—though annoying—matter.

  His silence during the evening itself was probably nothing more than a preference for avoiding further embarrassment all round. But, as soon as he was alone with the two Eskins, there would be nothing to prevent his telling Robin pretty plainly what a gaffe he had made when he foolishly introduced some completely unknown girl into the circle.

  Anne could not imagine now why she had not had the sense to tell Robin—casually and amusingly, as befitted the wearer of the blue crepe dress—just how he had complicated the situation when he insisted on retelling her story to his cousin and her fiancé. She could have made something really funny of it, if she had carried it off with a light hand.

&nb
sp; After making such a good beginning, with her bold assertion that she had met Mr. Jerome somewhere before, surely she could have had the sense to continue the comedy, and make Robin laugh over the further development?

  Instead—idiot that she was—she had just remained rather guiltily silent. And now, when he heard the story—as hear it he was bound to do—in Mr. Jerome’s sarcastic and slighting words, he would simply think her silence indicated that she knew she was in the wrong. And what had first appeared to him as a bold and amusing gesture, would seem nothing more than a piece of rather ill-bred boasting about a display of silly office cheek.

  For someone who had just begun a lovely holiday with an evening’s enjoyable dancing, Anne felt extraordinarily miserable. She kept on telling herself that it was not of great personal importance to her if Mr. Jerome made Robin Eskin think as poorly of her as he did himself. After all, it was not twelve hours since they had first met.

  But no girl likes to feel that a personable young man is going to be made to see her in a most unflattering light. Besides, she liked Robin Eskin, and, although no definite arrangements had been made for the next day, she had felt certain that he meant to take a hand in seeing this was the best holiday she ever spent.

  Well, she thought with a sigh, she probably wouldn’t see much of him now. Mr. Jerome would see to that. She only hoped—from the depths to which her spirits had momentarily fallen—that neither of them would see fit to tell anyone else that she was rather the type of girl to be avoided.

  However, low though Anne’s spirits had been when she went to sleep, she woke to such a radiant, breathtakingly beautiful morning that far less volatile spirits than hers would have gone bounding up again. And, as she ran to the window, to watch the early morning sun sparkling on the lake outside, she decided that nothing could spoil this wonderful holiday of hers.