Love Him or Leave Him

by Mary Burchell

But Mrs. Eskin prided herself on being slightly above anything so practical as exactness on minor points.

  ‘I have no idea,’ she said, with a far-away smile.

  ‘Well, would you please tell him that I would like a word with him when he comes in, Mrs. Eskin? It’s rather important,’ Anne insisted firmly, though she had the feeling that she was writing in sand. ‘Perhaps he would kindly ring me up, if he doesn’t want to come over to the hotel tonight.’

  ‘I’ll try to remember, dear,’ promised Mrs. Eskin, but as though the matter were really out of her hands. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to ask Deborah to give him the message, though?’

  ‘No,’ Anne said, gently but firmly, ‘I think not.’

  Then she bade Mrs. Eskin goodbye, and went out into the rain which was still falling.

  As she walked rapidly along, one hand thrust in her pocket, and her work—carefully protected by one of Mr. Jerome’s ‘folders’—clasped firmly in the crook of her other arm, Anne reflected with some surprise on the scene which had recently passed.

  Deborah’s annoyance had not really made any impression upon her, except in the sense that she did not exactly welcome a dispute with anyone. She had been prepared for the fact that her ex-employer’s fiancée would resent any decision being taken without consulting her, but the alternative would have meant abandoning the whole scheme. And Anne was convinced that, as Mr. Jerome himself had said, the slight exertion did him less harm than the continual worrying.

  What had surprised her—and even rather taken her aback—was the discovery that, beneath that cool and usually indifferent exterior, Deborah Eskin was a strong-minded, and even passionate, girl. It had been a mistake to suppose she was placid. That was just a manner she assumed, either because she considered excessive displays of emotion ill-bred and preferred to go to the other extreme or because she had found the pose effective in combination with her fair, rather statuesque style of good looks.

  But, caught off her guard that afternoon, she had shown not only a capacity for sharp anger, but—Anne caught her breath on an amused and shocked little laugh—an unexpected, and quite unfounded, tendency to jealousy.

  When she had come running upstairs and burst into the room so abruptly, she could not have been aware that Anne had been taking shorthand notes and defying doctor’s orders. Her anger, at that point, had been solely because she had heard from her mother that another girl had been paying her fiancé a prolonged visit.

  The glance she had cast round the room had been absurdly suspicious, and her anger about the flouting of medical advice had, Anne felt pretty sure, been quite secondary to her anger over her fiancé doing anything with any girl other than herself.

  ‘If she only knew!’ thought Anne, with a scornful little laugh.

  And then she became grave again and felt oddly uncomfortable. For she saw that, if Deborah did suddenly discover her earlier history in Mr. Jerome’s office, no dispute—even a dispute which had ended in dismissal—would weigh with her against the unwelcome knowledge that they had known each other before and—as Deborah would see it—chosen to conceal the fact.

  ‘And our having apparently patched things up, for the moment, would make her more suspicious than ever,’ reflected Anne crossly. ‘Oh, dear, how stupid and tiresome to be thought to have designs on Mr. Jerome, of all people! Being a Good Samaritan does have some very odd and trying consequences at times.’

  However, at that moment, her annoyed reflections received a cheerful check. For round the bend in the road came Robin’s car, and he immediately drew to a standstill and hailed her with pleasure.

  ‘Hello. Where have you been?’ He opened the door. ‘Jump in and I’ll drive you to the hotel.’

  ‘But you were going in the other direction.’

  ‘Never mind. It won’t take ten minutes, and you don’t want to get any wetter than you are already. What’s the day’s news? Don’t tell me you’ve been roaming the hills in this downpour.’

  ‘Oh, no. I’ve been taking dictation for Mr. Jerome,’ Anne explained demurely.

  ‘You’ve been what?’

  She laughed.

  ‘I have—really.’ And then she explained about her afternoon call, and her decision to offer to help her disgruntled ex-employer.

  ‘Well, I must say that was handsome of you,’ Robin said, using the same word as Mr. Jerome, but without any suspicious overtones in his voice. ‘Wasn’t he rather shamed by your generosity?’

  ‘Not in the least,’ Anne assured him cheerfully. At which Robin laughed a good deal.

  ‘The great thing now is to get hold of a typewriter from somewhere, Robin. Do you think you might run me into Windermere, or even Keswick, tomorrow, and see if we can hire one?’

  ‘It could be done,’ Robin conceded. ‘But I’ve managed to clear the decks for tomorrow. I was hoping we were going to have a day out together.’

  ‘O-oh—’ She was disappointed at the thought of spoiling a day with him, and could not conceal the fact. ‘What a pity!’

  ‘Can’t David’s stuff wait?’

  ‘It’s already waited too long. At least, a good deal of it has. And he asked me to get it done as soon as possible.’

  ‘Did he! This is your holiday, isn’t it?’ Robin objected.

  ‘Ye-es. But it’s not much help, just to take his notes and leave them un-transcribed. That’s rather, worse than not doing anything at all. How I wish I could get hold of a machine tonight!’

  Robin considered that.

  ‘I could run you along to the office, if you like,’ he offered. ‘You could use one of the typewriters there, if you’re so set on finishing the job.’

  ‘Oh, Robin, would you? Right away, do you mean?’

  Robin made a face.

  ‘I haven’t had any tea,’ he said pathetically.

  ‘Nor have I,’ retorted Anne briskly.

  He laughed.

  ‘All right. We’ll have tea together in Ambleside, and then we can go into the office, and you can satisfy your passion for work.’

  ‘That will be marvellous,’ Anne declared. ‘Then I can take the letters back for signature tonight, and Mr. Jerome won’t need to worry any more.’

  Robin gave her an amused glance.

  ‘I find it hard, at this moment, to identify poor dear Mr. Jerome with the detested employer you described to me on the first evening,’ he remarked.

  ‘Oh—well. Things have changed a bit, haven’t they?’ Anne said hastily.

  ‘Have they?’

  ‘I—think So—yes,’ Anne replied, a little confusedly. And then, as she found it difficult to say in what way things had changed, she left the subject, and Robin did not press her to explain herself further.

  They had tea together, and then Robin took her along to his office.

  Even the cleaner had gone by then, and the place seemed very silent and deserted. But Robin appeared to know where everything was, and installed Anne before a typewriter and provided her with stationery—clearing a space for her with a ruthlessness which set Anne’s professional teeth on edge and made her offer up fervent mental apologies to the girl whose desk she was occupying.

  ‘But I think I noticed where everything went,’ Anne told herself. ‘I’ll try to leave things in their right places.’

  And then she became absorbed in her work, and, for a long time, there was no sound in the office but the tapping of her typewriter, or an occasional movement from Robin, who sat working at his own desk, rather glad of the opportunity to put in some extra time without losing Anne’s company.

  At last she drew her pencil through her last page of notes and looked up with a pleased sigh.

  Robin, leaning back in his chair, was watching her over the top of some papers he was holding, and she had the impression that he had been doing so for some time.

  ‘Well?’ she said, and smiled.

  ‘Well—what?’

  ‘What is the result of your solemn cogitations?’

  ‘I was thinking how ni
ce it is to have you sitting there working. It seems quite—right, somehow.’

  “To see me working, instead of enjoying myself?’ she asked mischievously.

  ‘No, no. To have you there. Anne—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When your holiday is over, will you look for another job in London, or would you consider any other place?’

  She slowly gathered her work together.

  ‘I hadn’t thought of anywhere but London. Why?’

  ‘I just thought—there might be an opening here. If there were, would you be interested?’

  ‘I—don’t know. I might be.’

  Anne suddenly found that she did not want to commit herself. She felt excited but, somehow, a little wary too. As though events were moving a trifle too fast.

  If she stayed here, and she and Robin saw each other constantly, it was not likely that their friendship would stand still. They struck too vital a spark between them for that.

  It was a pleasing—an exciting—prospect. But she was not absolutely certain yet that she wanted that spark to start a blaze. She must not commit herself to something which might eventually mean pain and disappointment for one of them, and quite unavailing remorse for the other.

  And so she said again: ‘I don’t really know, Robin. I’d have to think about it a good bit. All my family and most of my friends are in London, you know.’

  ‘I thought you had no immediate family,’ Robin countered quickly.

  ‘Well, that’s true. But I have my aunt, uncle, and several very nice cousins.’

  ‘Oh—cousins.’ Robin didn’t seem to value them very highly, and she saw that he was thinking of her cousins in terms of Deborah.

  ‘They’re none of them at all like Deborah,’ she said, with a smile.

  ‘Eh?’ He looked inquiring and rather puzzled for a moment. Then he evidently saw her point and laughed. ‘You don’t much like Deborah, do you?’ he said frankly.

  ‘I don’t know that I’m entitled to say that, knowing her so little,’ Anne said fairly. ‘But I don’t think there’s a great deal of love lost between us. Do you like her, Robin?’

  He didn’t answer that immediately, but leant his crossed arms on the desk in front of him and looked meditatively out of the window.

  ‘It’s a funny thing,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve known Deborah all my life, and yet I don’t know quite how to answer that.’

  ‘You mean that, in a sense, you don’t know her, although you’ve passed most of your life in her company?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that’s it. I saw a great deal of her even when we were kids, because our families lived practically next door to each other. It was difficult to know what she was thinking, even then. You know how most kids can’t possibly keep their feelings to themselves. They spill them all over the place, and give themselves away at every turn. Deborah was never like that. She sort of—watched to see what would happen next, and acted accordingly.’

  ‘Yes, I think I know what you mean.’

  ‘In a way, she’s still like that. I don’t mean to exaggerate it into a fault exactly. Only—’ Robin groped for words to express what he meant. ‘Only it isn’t endearing. It makes one put an increased value on unstudied impulsiveness.’

  Anne laughed, and nodded.

  ‘She makes me feel that way, too. But I suppose it’s a characteristic that would appeal to Mr. Jerome.’

  That, too, Robin considered before he answered. ‘Theoretically—yes,’ he agreed at last. ‘I imagine that, in an argument, David would give a fairly high place to thoughtful and deliberate action. He’d probably call it one of the virtues. And yet—I don’t know—’

  ‘What don’t you know, Robin?’ she prompted him, as he paused.

  ‘Well, sometimes I think that, in spite of his air of worldly experience, and his tremendous business success, there are quite a lot of things David hasn’t even begun to know about yet.’

  ‘Do you really?’

  The idea of a Mr. Jerome who had much to learn was very acceptable. It made one feel less inadequate oneself.

  But Robin got up, with a laugh, bringing the discussion to a close.

  ‘That’s just a guess—or not very much more than a guess. Anyway, perhaps Deborah really is his kind, and they’ll make a go of things. I hope so. I rather like David, in spite of his having been so rotten to you.’

  ‘Oh, I rather like him, too!’ Anne was surprised to hear herself say. ‘At least—I mean, one can’t go on bearing grudges against people indefinitely. And, naturally, I’ve seen him in a rather different light here. Part of the time,’ she amended, recalling one or two very characteristic moments that afternoon.

  ‘All right, you don’t need to take back too much,’ Robin told her amusedly. ‘Finished everything?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Then we’ll go.’

  Anne carefully replaced everything on the desk, and hoped the owner would not detect too many discrepancies the following morning. Then she and Robin went out to the car once more.

  ‘Do you want me to drop you at the hotel?’

  ‘No, thank you. If you don’t think Mrs. Eskin will mind my reappearing again so soon, I’d like to take these letters straight back to Mr. Jerome.’

  ‘Oh, my aunt won’t mind,’ Robin promised confidently.

  Neither of them mentioned Deborah. Both of them thought of her.

  When they reached the house, both Deborah and her mother were in the long, pleasant sitting-room which ran from back to front of the house. Anne saw them through the window, as she and Robin came up the garden path.

  ‘Perhaps you’d explain, Robin,’ she said, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

  He gave her an amused, but not exactly uncomprehending, glance as he put his key in the lock.

  ‘Do they know about your taking David’s letters for him?’

  ‘Oh, yes. But Deborah was not pleased,’ Anne explained in a low voice, wondering, all at once, why she was going to all this trouble and discomfort for the odious Mr. Jerome—even if he were not so odious, after all.

  Robin gave an understanding nod, and led the way into the sitting-room.

  ‘Hello—is David seeable?’ he inquired, in a cheerfully matter-of-fact tone. ‘We have a nice surprise for him.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. He had a very tiring afternoon.’ Deborah gave a not very friendly glance at Anne.

  ‘Well, I’ve heard all about that,’ her cousin said. ‘But I daresay it did him good to get all that off his chest, Deborah.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Deborah conceded, and her manner was perfectly cool and self-contained once more.

  ‘And you must admit it was providential that there was actually someone from his own staff in the district.’

  Anne made a movement to restrain him, but she was too late.

  ‘I don’t quite understand.’ Deborah looked from one to the other.

  ‘Why, Anne, you know,’ Robin began. Then he saw that he had put his foot in it. That, when Anne had said Deborah knew about her taking David’s letters, she had not meant that she had explained her special qualification for doing so.

  Deborah’s expression—and Anne’s too—told him that he had already said too much. But there was no going back now. He could only go on—as casually and with as little significance as possible.

  ‘Didn’t you know Anne used to work in David’s firm?’ he said carelessly. ‘Not for him personally. But she knew quite a bit about the work.’

  ‘No,’ Deborah said slowly, ‘I didn’t know that. For some reason, Miss Hemming didn’t choose to tell me. Nor did David.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A curious and uncomfortable silence succeeded Deborah’s words. Not because of their innate significance, but because of the measured way in which she said them.

  There was nothing angry or astonished or reproachful in her tone. It merely gave full value to the fact that she had been left in ignorance. And it somehow implied that surely only a pressing—
possibly even a discreditable—reason would have accounted for such silence.

  ‘Well,’ Robin began, with uncomfortable heartiness, ‘I daresay neither Anne nor David thought it would be of special interest to you and—’

  ‘It wasn’t that.’ Anne spoke, quickly but earnestly, aware that, at all costs, she must try to remove an unfortunate impression before it became fixed. ‘The whole incident was rather an—an embarrassing one for me, Miss Eskin. I’d worked in Mr. Jerome’s office for some time, but not for him personally. Then, while his secretary was away, I took on her work, and I’m afraid I made a bad error. I thought Mr. Jerome unreasonably severe about it and said so. We—there was rather—’

  ‘You mean you quarrelled,’ Deborah suggested smoothly.

  ‘Oh, no, not exactly.’ Anne wondered how to explain that they had never been on those terms. ‘It was all much more impersonal than a quarrel,’ she began. ‘We had what might be described as high words. And he dismissed me. You’ll understand, then, that I was not specially delighted to find him here when I arrived.’

  ‘I’m glad, however, that you both felt sufficiently lighthearted to indulge in a little private amusement and innuendo,’ Deborah observed mildly, as though the point did not interest her, but should not, in the interests of truth, go unremarked.

  ‘Oh, no—surely!’

  ‘Didn’t you say something about having met him before, and he countered with something about your having spoken on the relations between employer and employee?’

  ‘Oh—that.’ Anne felt profoundly uncomfortable, and now bitterly regretted having resorted to any kind of concealment.

  Robin, however, laughed at that point.

  ‘Yes. It was rather an amusing conversation altogether,’ he remarked.

  ‘Did you think so?’ Deborah said, and Robin stopped laughing.

  However, he had known his cousin and her moods far too long for him to allow her to abash him.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ he said, with good-humoured impatience, ‘that’s old history now. The point is that I met Anne coming away from here, and drove her over to the office, so that she could type out David’s stuff for him. Here it is—only awaiting the great man’s signature. Shall Anne just go straight up?’