Love Him or Leave Him

by Mary Burchell

  ‘Robin, you know, there was something very—odd about that—’

  ‘I’ll say there was!’ he interrupted. ‘Never heard of a case where events fell more pat.’

  ‘No, I mean something odder, you know. When I described my employer I used a little—’ She hesitated.

  ‘Poetic license?’ he suggested.

  ‘All right then. Poetic license. I daresay he wasn’t any worse than a lot of other strict employers and—’

  ‘I bet he was,’ Robin said warmly. ‘You aren’t the kind of girl to go off the deep end, without being very seriously provoked. I just wish I could meet him, and tell him what I think of him.’

  ‘No, don’t say that,’ exclaimed Anne, somewhat alarmed.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, you might—I mean—Well, Robin, you have met him!’

  ‘I have? But that’s impossible!’ Robin was intrigued by the idea, but positive about its improbability. ‘I hardly ever go to London, you know.’

  ‘No. But he—he came here.’

  She was not making this quite as amusing as she had hoped.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes.’ She abandoned the oblique approach suddenly. ‘It was—I mean, he’s Mr. Jerome.’

  ‘David? I don’t believe it!’ He actually slowed down the car in his astonishment. And, after a moment, a roguish grin began to spread over his face. ‘David! But, good heavens—that first evening. Did he know that we were talking about him? But yes, of course he must have known.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he knew all right,’ Anne agreed dryly.

  ‘But how rich!’ Robin cried delightedly. ‘How absolutely and gorgeously funny. Why didn’t he say anything?’

  ‘He’d already taken his cue from me, I suppose, and decided it was less embarrassing all round to let the thing pass without comment. By the time you got round to describing him—’

  ‘Oh, lord!’ Robin drew the car to a standstill by the roadside, and burst into a roar of laughter. ‘How on earth did you keep from laughing out loud?’

  ‘Laughing out loud! I could have died from embarrassment,’ Anne retorted. ‘You paraphrased my remarks into something even more brutal than I had said myself.’

  ‘Did I?’ He grinned again. ‘More poetic licence, you see. I say—does Deborah know?’

  ‘No! And I don’t want her to know, either.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ he sounded disappointed. ‘I should have enjoyed telling her. It’s almost too good to keep.’

  ‘I don’t think she would find it funny,’ Anne said firmly.

  ‘No? No, perhaps you’re right. Deborah hasn’t a highly developed sense of humour. I wonder why David kept quiet about it all. Afterwards, I mean. I see it might have been awkward if he’d launched out into revelations that first evening. But later he could have said something. Maybe he really felt a bit ashamed of his part in it.’

  ‘Oh, no! I’m sure he didn’t,’ Anne retorted positively. ‘Shame and Mr. Jerome are not even on bowing terms. No, I think he just thought the whole thing, including me, was too utterly trivial and unimportant to merit mention.’

  Robin started the car again.

  ‘No-o, I don’t think that. He speaks about you fairly often, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Does he?’ Anne was astonished and, in some unreasonable way, flattered. ‘What does he say?’

  ‘Oh—nothing much, you know.’ Robin became tiresomely vague. ‘He occasionally suggests things that he thinks you might like to see. It was he who thought you might like this run out to Bassenthwaite, and then round by the other side of the water, through Keswick and branch off towards Penrith.’

  ‘W-was it?’ Anne could not quite imagine Mr. Jerome concerning himself with her pleasure.

  ‘Yes. It’s a good idea too. Then we’ll come back by way of Ullswater. It gives you a good round trip.’

  ‘Robin, it’s awfully nice of you to give me so much of your time, like this,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘My dear girl, there’s nothing “nice” about it. You must have noticed by now that I’m one of those healthy selfish creatures who do the things they want to.’

  ‘But oughtn’t you to be working?’ she said, a little doubtfully.

  He laughed.

  ‘I’m pretty much my own master,’ he assured her.

  ‘Yes. But even people who are their own masters can’t just ignore their work,’ she protested.

  ‘I gave myself a short holiday,’ Robin announced light-heartedly.

  ‘Justifiably?’ Anne wanted to know.

  ‘How do you mean—justifiably?’

  ‘Well, were you entitled to a holiday, or did you just have one by the simple process of stopping work?’ she inquired.

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, I work pretty hard, in the ordinary way, Anne, though I know I look the lighthearted kind of ass who idles his way through life. But when such an opportunity as this offers—’

  ‘Such an opportunity as what?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘Stop fishing,’ he told her, with a laugh. ‘When such a girl as you happens to be spending some time here, of course. Well, then I can rearrange things a bit and take a holiday for a short while.’

  Anne was silent. For a moment, she even thought he was teasing her. Then she saw he was not, and a feeling of immense gratification and innocent pleasure filled her.

  She was not a conceited girl, but she was affectionate, and dearly liked to be liked. Though she had not quite realised it at the time, she had been a good deal bruised by the events which had led up to her leaving London. Like most of us who have had a sharp dispute with someone, she was not quite sure now how much to blame, and how much to excuse herself. In her worst moments, it had even passed through her mind that perhaps she was as reprehensible as Mr. Jerome had implied.

  Now, to have anyone so nice and well-balanced as Robin actually think it worth while to take a special holiday to be with her—a holiday, moreover, which would probably entail a good deal of extra work later—restored her self-respect, and made her feel happy and confident.

  So, though she did not actually answer him, she gave him a shy smile of gratitude, and then settled back in her seat to enjoy the ride which, improbable though it seemed, Mr. Jerome had apparently helped to plan for her.

  They had already passed through Grasmere—charming and now growing quite familiar—and were heading along the main road which skirts the quiet beauty of Thirlmere. On their right, mighty Helvellyn lifted his head into the clouds, and, since it was a bright clear day, they could make out the outline of peak after peak in that matchless range which lies between Thirlmere and Ullswater.

  ‘I shall often think of this,’ Anne said, with a sigh of satisfaction for the beauties around her.

  And: ‘I shall often think of it too,’ Robin said. But he looked at her, and she thought he meant that he would remember her when he passed this way, after she had gone home.

  But she didn’t want even to think of going home, at this moment.

  Skirting the end of Derwentwater, they drove at a leisurely pace through the beautiful Vale of Keswick, and so on towards Bassenthwaite.

  The invaluable management at Merring Towers had packed a picnic basket for them, and they ate their lunch by the side of the lake, within sight of Skiddaw.

  Robin—though he could be gay and sociable enough when they were both in the mood for it—also had the priceless gift of knowing there were times when one preferred to be silent. And, when they had finished their lunch, they idled happily by the water’s side for a while, doing and saying little, but just enjoying the scene around them.

  Presently, however, Robin said it was time they went on, if they really intended to go as far east as Penrith and come back by Ullswater. So they drove on through the soft, bright afternoon, happy in each other’s company, and feeling that the world was theirs.

  Several times on the homeward journey, they stopped to enjoy some beauty spot or special view. And, as they came through Patterdale, he pointed
out Goldrill Beck to her, and they planned to picnic there one afternoon.

  ‘Let’s go back over Kirkstone Pass,’ Anne begged. ‘We can go round that way, can’t we?’

  Robin laughed, rather indulgently.

  ‘If you like. I had meant to take a branch road. But, if you don’t mind a late return, we can go over Kirkstone and then down to Troutbeck. Then we’ll cut across and join the Ambleside road near Low Wood.’

  ‘How well you know it all, Robin,’ she said, almost enviously.

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ve lived here most of my life,’ he explained. ‘My parents loved every inch of this country, and I used to go with them on expeditions from the earliest times I can remember.’

  She gave him an interested glance, because he had never spoken of his own immediate family before. And presently she asked diffidently:

  ‘Have you lost both your parents, Robin?’

  ‘Yes. They were killed climbing, when I was about eighteen.’

  He looked very unsmiling, for Robin. And she said quickly:

  ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I wouldn’t have asked, if I’d thought—’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, Anne.’ He took his hand off the wheel to give hers a friendly pat. ‘It’s just as well to remember sometimes that there’s a dark side to the beauty of this place, and that one should take very special care.’ He sighed impatiently. ‘It’s unusual for the actual people of the district to be involved in disaster. They know better than to take such risks. More often, it’s some poor idiot from the outside, who comes here with grand ideas of climbing where no one else has ever climbed before, and that sort of thing, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine that,’ Anne said soberly. And she shivered a little. Perhaps because, at that moment, they began to enter the long, dark shadows of Kirkston Pass, and the evening air grew perceptibly cooler.

  Later, she wondered if a slight sense of foreboding had touched her. But, not being a fanciful girl, she decided this was not the case.

  By the time they reached Troutbeck, the evening light was beginning to fade, but Robin made good time after that, and brought her back to the door of Merring Towers at an hour which might still be considered to be within the limits of dinner-time.

  ‘Thank you. It’s been wonderful, Robin.’

  ‘Bless you. It was wonderful for me too,’ he told her, putting his hand over hers.

  Then they smiled at each other, in that particularly understanding way which is the prerogative of those whose minds are pleasantly akin, and she got out of the car, and stood on the steps to wave to him as he drove off homewards.

  As she came into the hotel, the maid who had been so friendly and helpful on the first morning—and to whom Anne had spoken several times since—was coming through the hall, with a tray of glasses.

  ‘Hello, Jean. I’m not too late for dinner, am I?’ Anne asked, with a smile.

  ‘Oh, no, Miss Hemming. Have you only just got back?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been out on a wonderful all-day drive.’

  ‘One of the motor-coach trips, miss?’ inquired Jean sociably.

  ‘No, I went in the car with Mr. Eskin.’

  ‘With Mr. Eskin?’ Jean, who had been moving on, stopped suddenly, and looked important and solemn. ‘Then, if you’ve been away all. day, you won’t either of you have heard about the accident,’ she said, with a certain naive, if ghoulish, pride in being the first with some sensational news.

  ‘Accident? No. What accident? Who was hurt?’ Anne asked abruptly, with a sudden and confused recollection of Robin saying there was a dark side to the beauty of this district, and her own sense of chill as they came to Kirkstone Pass.

  ‘The gentleman who comes in here sometimes with Mr. Eskin. Gentleman from London,’ Jean said. ‘Very badly hurt, they say,’ she added with a relish, which was none the less because she had a very kind heart and would not, for the world, have chosen to have anyone hurt.

  ‘Mr. Jerome, do you mean?’ Anne had an immediate and quite illogical feeling that she ought not to have said critical things about him, after all.

  ‘The one that’s engaged to Miss Eskin.’

  ‘Yes, that’s he. What happened, Jean?’

  ‘I don’t rightly know the details, Miss Hemming. But he had a fall somewhere up near Hart Crag. They do say he was unconscious for five hours, and his leg broken in three places,’ Jean asserted with important exactness.

  ‘How awful! I am sorry,’ Anne exclaimed. And she meant it. For, although she did not like Mr. Jerome, she would not have wished him—or anyone else—ill.

  She went upstairs to her room to change. And, suddenly deciding to risk even further lateness at dinner, she picked up the telephone receiver, and asked for the number of Greenslade, the Eskins’ house.

  It was Robin who replied to her call, and, as soon as he recognised her voice, he exclaimed:

  ‘Oh, I suppose you’ve heard about poor David?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why I rang up. How bad is it?’ Anne asked. ‘One of the maids here said something about his leg being broken in three places, and that he was unconscious for hours.’

  Robin laughed vexedly.

  ‘Isn’t that just like a piece of village gossip!’ he said. ‘It’s bad enough, without their pretty well putting the wreath on poor old David’s coffin. No, his right ankle is broken, and he got a nasty knock on the head too. I think he probably was out for a good while but he’s only got slight concussion and the devil of a headache.’

  ‘Have you got him there—at Greenslade?’

  ‘Oh, yes. They brought him straight here. And Deborah’s pretty competent to manage some simple nursing, you know.’ Anne privately thought that ‘competent’ was the word, and that she personally would not have wished to be nursed by Deborah.

  ‘Well, I’m glad it’s no worse,’ was what she said.

  ‘Yes. But it’s darned awkward, of course. It will lay David here by the heels for several weeks, I suppose, and he was wanting to get back to the office in a few days.’

  ‘Miss Robinson will manage. She always does,’ Anne asserted. And she had a sudden, faintly nostalgic vision of the office tomorrow morning, when the news was received that the senior partner would not be back for some weeks.

  Not that there would be jubilation, exactly, in the circumstances. But the office does not exist where there is not a certain feeling of relaxation when it is known that the head will be away indefinitely.

  Anne rang off, and went down at last to her belated dinner. And, while she ate it, she reflected on Mr. Jerome’s accident, and wondered—not without a touch of friendly malice—if it had taken place on one of those slippery slopes which can be managed ‘quite easily, if you keep your head’.

  One or two people at the hotel, who knew that she was friendly with the Eskins, came to speak to her about the accident during the evening. It was a popular topic, since, in the case of an accident which can happen to anyone, it is always very nice to feel one was not the victim oneself.

  ‘Such a handsome man,’ remarked the beautiful but faintly passee Mrs. Vernon, who always seemed to be implying that she was an authority—albeit a completely respectable authority—on the subject of men.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Anne never felt more matter-of-fact than when Mrs. Vernon treated her to one of her flights of fancy. ‘Well set up and a good figure of a man. But I don’t think I’d describe him as handsome, exactly.’

  Mrs. Vernon actually had the effrontery to say that he would appeal to the connoisseur, rather than the unsophisticated, and left Anne divided between annoyance and a great desire to know just what Mr. Jerome himself would have said to that.

  But one thing struck her very much, and that was that no one seemed to have overlooked Mr. Jerome. He was not a man who was popular or at all easy of access. But even people who had only seen him once or, at the most, twice in the hotel dining-room, seemed to have a very clear recollection of him.

  In other circumstances, she supposed, s
he might have been quite pleased to say that she worked .for him, and knew him well. Or rather that she had worked for him—it was sometimes difficult to remember that all official connection with him had really been severed. But, circumstances being what they were, she let people think that her acquaintance with Mr. Jerome began and ended with the Eskins.

  Robin and she had made no exact arrangements for the following day. Indeed, Robin had said that he might have to go into Windermere on business. But, when Anne was in the village the next morning, she ran into Deborah.

  ‘Hello,’ she exclaimed, with more liveliness than she usually displayed to Deborah. ‘How is Mr. Jerome?’

  ‘Pretty well, but in a good deal of pain from his ankle,’ Deborah said. ‘And worrying unduly about affairs at his office.’

  ‘He has—I mean, I believe he has an extraordinary efficient secretary,’ Anne said. ‘I’m sure he can leave most things to her, for the moment.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Deborah’s slight shrug said—if not, what were secretaries and junior partners for? ‘But there were one or two things he wanted to handle himself. That was why he insisted on going back to London after quite a short holiday. He had intended to travel tomorrow, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I knew he was going fairly soon.’ Anne’s very clearly visualised an angry, frustrated, impatient Mr. Jerome, with a broken ankle which hurt a great deal, and a maddeningly placid fiancée who refused to take any of his business worries seriously.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Anne said, just as Deborah was about to say goodbye and turn away, ‘perhaps he could have some work sent to him here. A broken ankle is very disabling, but it wouldn’t prevent his attending to his office affairs.’