Love Him or Leave Him

by Mary Burchell

  ‘Something more? What do you mean?’ She could not quite keep the eagerness from her voice.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He looked faintly surprised at her tone. ‘Business of some sort, I suppose. Something to do with their marriage, perhaps.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  It was stupid of her, she thought, to have to be reminded of every reasonable possibility, because she insisted on clinging to the idea that something—something which concerned herself might be involved.

  ‘I hope I shall see him for a few minutes. I—I should like to hear some of the office news.’

  It was the most she could venture to say.

  ‘Oh, I expect you’ll see him,’ Robin said easily. ‘Unless he and Deborah have some plans of their own to fill the whole time.’

  Unless they had plans of their own. It was for them to do the planning, of course. Theirs was the time—the short time—to be disposed of. Only if there happened to be a little while over, or if David happened to think of her, would she be able to see him.

  In her pain and frustration and anxiety Anne saw the full measure of her failure to conquer her feelings for him. And she passed the rest of the day alternating between feverish hope and despairing resignation.

  Even of the easy-going and unsuspicious Robin she could not ask too many questions. Or at least, she was afraid to do so because guilty knowledge of her own feelings made her self-conscious about inquiries that would have seemed innocent enough from anyone else.

  But she did manage to glean the information that David would arrive by the afternoon train the following day, Saturday.

  In the morning she went for a walk. As she strolled up the lane, Miss Haskin overtook her, with the swinging, manly stride which she affected.

  ‘So Deborah Eskin’s fiancé is coming for the weekend, I hear,’ she said, as she sketched a gesture of greeting which was curiously military in character.

  ‘Yes,’ said Anne, not even bothering to inquire how Miss Haskin had chanced to ‘hear’.

  ‘What’s that for, I wonder?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Anne said, aware that she was proving a disappointing source of information.

  ‘Don’t you?’ replied Miss Haskin—not perfunctorily, but in a tone which invited her to think again.

  ‘I’m afraid I really don’t.’

  ‘Hm—something to do with the wedding, I daresay.’

  ‘Very likely,’ agreed Anne curtly, because the very mention of that particular wedding hurt.

  ‘I expect you’ll be hearing all about it.’

  ‘I doubt it. I understand he’s only here for a couple of days. They probably won’t want outsiders.’

  She was not quite sure why she deliberately hurt herself afresh by describing herself thus. Possibly in order to hear Miss Haskin challenge the description—which she promptly did.

  ‘Outsiders? You’re no outsider. Almost a friend of the family. You’d better—drop in there this evening, and hear what news is going.’

  It was almost an instruction, but Anne rejected it.

  ‘I couldn’t do that, I’m afraid. If they—if he wants to see me, he knows where to find me.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Miss Haskin again, evidently thinking poorly of a passive role. ‘You might telephone. It would be a friendly gesture to ring up and ask after his broken ankle.’

  ‘I’ve already had a recent report about his health,’ Anne explained dryly, because it was very hard to have Miss Haskin urging her to do what she longed to do and yet have to refuse her. ‘And we’re not on the phone, as you know.’

  ‘But I am!’ retorted Miss Haskin, who indeed had a telephone—some unkind people said for the express purpose of inviting her friends to unburden themselves upon it. ‘You’re welcome to use it whenever you wish.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Haskin. You’re very kind,’ Anne said. ‘But I don’t think I shall need it on this occasion.’

  Miss Haskin made the sound which is usually spelt, ‘Tch, tch, tch.’ But, as they had now reached the gate of Mrs. Thurber’s cottage, Anne was able to say goodbye firmly, and escape.

  It was a terribly difficult afternoon for her. Some vague hope that at least a message would be sent kept her chained to the house. Suppose he should choose to call to see her, and she returned from a walk to hear that he had come and gone. She would never forgive herself.

  But to stay indoors on this beautiful afternoon and keep her thoughts occupied was not easy. Her hands—yes. And presently determinedly, but her thoughts went elsewhere. And presently, about teatime, she went downstairs to Mrs. Thurber. Because, though it was difficult to feign interest in other things while her thoughts were occupied exclusively with David, it was even more difficult to stay alone upstairs.

  Mrs. Thurber was always pleased and flattered if Anne sought her company, and she looked prepared to enjoy herself like a child at an unexpected party.

  However, she had not had time to savour more than a few opening remarks when a resounding ‘Coo-ee’ sounded from the back of the house, and Miss Haskin’s resonant tones proclaimed:

  ‘You’re wanted on the phone.’

  ‘I am?’ gasped poor Mrs. Thurber, who was frightened of the telephone and would almost as soon have been wanted by the police.

  ‘No, no,’ bellowed Miss Haskin on a note of good-natured contempt. ‘Miss Hemming.’

  But Anne was already on her feet and almost running from the room.

  Miss Haskin conducted her through the convenient gap in the hedge, and into her own tiny cottage. Then, since every word which was said could easily be heard all over the ground floor, she made a great show of leaving Anne in privacy with the telephone, and retired ostentatiously to the next room.

  ‘Hello!’

  Her voice sounded so unlike itself, even to her own ears, that she was not surprised when Robin’s voice—it was Robin, she realised with sickening disappointment—said:

  ‘Is that you, Anne?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

  ‘Oh—it didn’t sound like you, for a moment. But I can hear it is now. Anne, are you free this evening? Could you come over to dinner?’

  Anne felt as though the heavens opened and the angels sang.

  ‘Yes—oh, yes! Of course—I mean, I’d love to.’

  ‘Good. Any time you like. David made a special point of it.’

  ‘How—sweet of him.’

  She thought that sounded dreadfully bright and artificial, when she had said it.

  ‘He wants us all together for some reason or other. I think he’s found out something about that confounded letter.’

  ‘Which? Oh! do you mean the Firth & Farraday letter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Robin, what has he found out?’

  ‘He won’t say. He’s going around a bit like the star detective in the last chapter, you know. Won’t say anything until you’re there. So hurry up.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Anne slowly replaced the telephone receiver, and stood there, for a moment, in Miss Haskin’s crowded little sitting-room, lost in thought.

  Something had been discovered about the Firth & Farraday letter. Something sufficiently important to make David insist on her presence. She was not sure whether to rejoice or to feel dismayed.

  David wanted her at Greenslade. That was something. But, even while she savoured the sweetness of that, a horrid doubt came to trouble her. Was it possible that, in some way, she had been to blame over the letter, and he chose to reprimand her—if only by implication—in front of the others?

  At that moment, curiously enough, she could only visualise David in his severest and most unapproachable mood—as the dictatorial and rather unreasonable Mr. Jerome who had originally roused her wrath, and who would, she thought, have been quite capable of this cruel form of punishment.

  Then she tried to remind herself how much things had changed between them—how much more understanding and even indulgent he had become. The David who had urged her to become his secr
etary, and had sent her that lovely present, would surely be more anxious to shield than to shame her.

  She took heart at that thought, and turned away at last, to find Miss Haskin hovering strategically in the tiny hall.

  ‘Not bad news, I hope?’ Miss Haskin said, in a tone which invited—indeed, almost compelled—confidences.

  ‘Oh, no, not at all,’ Anne assured her with a smile, which was baffling in its candour. ‘Mr. Eskin just rang up to say they would like me to go over there to dinner, as Mr. Jerome has come. Thank you very much, Miss Haskin. It’s so fortunate that you’re on the phone.’

  And then she went back to Mrs. Thurber, to repeat her news, and to say that she was sorry to have to go out and leave Mrs. Thurber alone, after all.

  ‘That’s all right, dear,’ declared Mrs. Thurber, who had never been considered in the remotest degree during the lifetime of the late Mr. Thurber, and was faintly flustered by the experience now. ‘Young people should go out and enjoy themselves. What are you going to wear?’

  So Anne gave her the pleasure of being fully consulted on this important question, and so arranged things that Mrs. Thurber was under the impression it was on her suggestion that Anne wore a dress David had once admired.

  Anne had expected to walk over to Greenslade. But, in the end, Robin came to fetch her. And she had hardly completed her preparations and accepted Mrs. Thurber’s assurances that she ‘looked a picture’, before a couple of blasts on his horn told her that he was ready and waiting for her.

  She said goodbye to Mrs. Thurber and ran out of the cottage to join Robin, aware that Miss Haskin’s curtains moved slightly, as their owner looked out to discover who had come to call for Miss Hemming.

  ‘Oh, Robin, I’m so glad about this!’ she exclaimed, as she slid into the seat beside him.

  ‘About coming over to dinner, you mean?’ Robin inquired. ‘Or about the Firth & Farraday letter?’

  ‘Both, I suppose. I was hoping very much to see Mr. Jerome’—she managed to make that perfectly casual, now that she was to have what she so ardently desired—‘and of course I’m tremendously intrigued to think the letter mystery may be solved.’

  ‘I’m not sure that there’s so much as that to it,’ Robin explained. ‘David said no more than that something very interesting had come to light. I think Deborah’s rather cross with him for being so mysterious. But he refused to say a word until you were there, even though she sounded quite nervy and put out about it.’

  ‘I expect he—he rather likes his little mystery,’ Anne suggested, ‘and doesn’t want to be done out of his denouement.’

  ‘I daresay.’

  ‘Robin, you didn’t get the impression that he was feeling—angry with me, did you?’ She could not quite keep the anxiety out of her voice. ‘I mean, Deborah isn’t the only one feeling nervy. I can’t help getting an occasional wave of panic, just in case I was to blame—or in case he thinks so.’

  ‘He didn’t show any signs of wrath,’ Robin declared reassuringly. ‘To tell the truth, I thought he still sounded a bit puzzled and doubtful. But anyway, here we are. You’ll soon hear whatever there is to hear. My own guess is that it’s rather a to-do about nothing,’ Robin added indulgently.

  Anne didn’t answer. She was too busy controlling the sensation of breathless excitement which came over her as she found herself under the same roof as David once more.

  She looked calm and smiling as she went into the room. But her heart was thumping almost painfully as she greeted Mrs. Eskin and Deborah, and then held out her hand to David. A tanned, energetic, completely restored David, who came forward, with very little sign even of a limp, and took her hand in his.

  ‘Hello, Anne,’ he said, quite naturally. And she wondered if he really were calling her that for the first time, and if the others had noticed the fact. ‘I’m glad you were free and able to come.’

  She said something conventional, instead of the passionate, ‘I’d have made myself free, whatever my engagements,’ which rose to her lips.

  And then Robin said—‘what about a drink?’ And Deborah added:

  ‘And, while we’re drinking them, perhaps David will agree to raise the veil of mystery and tell us what he’s been dying to tell us ever since he came into this house.’

  There was the slightest edge to her usually very well-modulated voice. And Anne thought surprisedly that it sounded as though she had almost quarrelled with David about his provoking silence.

  However, there was nothing quarrelsome about David’s own manner, as he took his glass from Robin, smiled reflectively, and said.

  ‘This isn’t the solution of our own private mystery. In fact, in a sense, it only deepens the mystery. But at least it adds to our knowledge of what happened, and I’m hoping that it may prompt one of you to—remember something helpful. I’m talking of the Firth & Farraday letter, of course, Anne.’

  ‘Yes—of course. Robin told me you’d discovered something about it. Please tell us quickly. I’m quite as anxious as Deborah. I begin to wonder what you have found out about—me, or the letter,’ she added, with a nervous little laugh.

  ‘Nothing about you,’ David stated categorically.

  And she gave such an audible gasp of relief that he laughed.

  ‘As soon as I’d dealt with the accumulation of stuff waiting for me at the London office,’ David explained, ‘I determined to get down to the question of that letter and—’

  ‘I thought you’d decided to accept the position and not raise any more fuss,’ interrupted Deborah, with faint irritation in her voice.

  ‘Oh, no.’ David was smiling, but curiously obstinate. ‘I remembered Robin’s suggestion that possibly there was a careless post clerk at Firth & Farraday’s—’

  ‘I’m flattered,’ declared Robin, with a grin.

  ‘—And though I didn’t think that was likely—’

  ‘Devastated, I mean.’

  ‘—I did think it was worth while to make inquiries about the entering of letters as they came into the office. I saw young Firth, who was not very anxious to have inquiries made at first. But, after we’d had a talk, he invited me along to his office and sent for his posting clerk—a most intimidating lady of terrifying efficiency.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Anne declared. ‘At least, I mean I don’t believe she intimidated you.’

  David smiled and didn’t reply to that.

  ‘I explained the position to her, and she put me through a catechism on dates which wouldn’t have disgraced a C.I.D. man. But it was worth it. She went away, and presently brought back her register of incoming letters. At the end of the list for the day in question was a note to say that an envelope containing several sheets of blank paper had also been received. There was no name of the sender on the envelope flap, but the postmark was Rydal.’

  If David had prepared this moment, in the hope of creating a sensation, he certainly succeeded.

  Both Anne and Deborah gave stifled exclamations, while Robin said:

  ‘Good lord! It’s like a thriller.’

  It was left to Mrs. Eskin to inquire dreamily:

  ‘But why should anyone want to send sheets of blank paper to Firth & Farraday?’

  ‘That’s what I asked myself,’ her prospective son-in-law told her dryly.

  ‘And did you receive any reply?’ asked Robin, frivolously.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Someone at the Post Office—’ began Deborah.

  ‘No, no, that’s absurd. Why should anyone at the Post Office substitute sheets of blank paper for something inside an envelope which had no significance for them?’ demanded David impatiently.

  ‘Then there’s only one explanation left,’ Deborah countered coldly. ‘Anne must have made an error—as I’ve thought all along—and folded up the wrong sheets of paper and put them in the envelope.’

  ‘I did not!’ cried Anne angrily—the more so as she saw David look rather taken aback, as though this highly improbable explanation had never o
ccurred to him, but its faint possibility did present itself to him now. ‘I couldn’t possibly have done anything so ridiculous. I checked and—Anyway, what about the real papers, the letter and the specifications? They couldn’t just vanish into thin air. What do you suggest happened to them?’ she demanded scornfully of Deborah.

  ‘I—don’t know. I’m just trying, like all of us, to think of an explanation,’ Deborah replied mildly, in a tone which suggested that Anne was growing unduly excited.

  ‘It isn’t a very good explanation, Deborah,’ David interrupted firmly. ‘I agree with Anne. Even if, almost inconceivably, she could have put the wrong sheets of paper in the envelope—and I don’t think you did, Anne, don’t look so reproachful—I don’t see how she could have failed to discover the error almost immediately. The other papers would still have been somewhere about. It wasn’t like a single flimsy sheet. There were several sheets—they couldn’t have helped advertising their presence somehow and somewhere.’

  ‘No-o, I suppose that’s true,’ Deborah agreed. ‘Then I don’t see—Oh!’ She stopped suddenly, and so obviously had remembered something vital that everyone stared at her, hanging on her next words.

  ‘What is it, Deborah?’ Robin asked, rather irritably, when she seemed unwilling to explain herself.

  ‘It may not have anything to do with this. But I just remembered—Anne, wasn’t that the day I dropped all David’s papers, and you kindly rearranged them?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yes, I think so.’ Anne was thoroughly nervous by now, and found it difficult to recollect exact details clearly.

  ‘I thought so. I remember your coming into the study with a whole bundle of papers in your arm. And you asked what you should do with them, and I suggested your putting them in the table drawer. Do you remember?’