'I—Doktor Frey is very pleased with her progress.'
Jane felt that her answer had sounded stilted and unnatural, but every pulse in her body seemed to be throbbing with excitement at his coming. She wanted to gain time, wanted to put even the distance of the room between them so that she might reconstruct her sadly crumbled defences and be able to meet him on an equal footing.
She thrust her arm through Martin's and drew him on to the floor. While they danced she could see Stuart greeting Della and the professor, and she could almost hear Della's swift cry of delight. How wonderfully satisfying it must be to know that the man you loved had crossed a continent to be with you, even if it were only for a few hours!
The music seemed to go on indefinitely, but at last Martin was leading her back to the doctor's table. Stuart got up to give her his chair.
'You appear to be indefatigable,' he observed. 'It would be unwise, though, to let the Swiss admiration society go to your head.'
'They are the kindest people I know,' Jane flashed, 'and the men are at least polite!'
'I retire defeated!' He sat down beside her in the chair Della had vacated to dance with Martin's brother. 'How have you achieved the miracle? Doktor Frey tells me that Della has behaved like a proverbial lamb.'
'Leading has been the secret, I think.' Jane was on surer ground now, meeting him on a professional level. 'Della can be led, you know.'
'So far,' he said. 'It surprises me that there hasn't been a break in the routine, though, a sudden feminine divergence from the uphill path.'
'You expected it, of course! You have so little faith in a woman's staying powers.'
She wished immediately that she had not said that because it brought their personal relationship into the conversation like a challenge.
'Do you blame me?' he asked mildly. 'I have yet to experience my first proof that woman can be the more faithful animal.'
She flushed scarlet, biting her lip on an angry retort.
'Did you expect me, Jane?' he asked after a moment's pause.
'How could I expect you? Apparently you arrived like a bolt out of the blue.'
'And with, apparently, as unpleasant a shock! Doktor Frey knew that I intended to come, either at Christmas or shortly afterwards.'
'Why?'
'To check up.'
She knew that she need not have asked the question. His professional sense of responsibility alone would have brought him to Zurich to see such an important patient as Della, and he must be well pleased with what he saw.
'Doktor Frey called you a secret surprise. Was the secret your idea?'
'Not entirely. I asked him not to upset Della by mentioning it too long beforehand because she might have thought that I was anxious about her condition.'
'It has improved so much. I think she is almost out of the wood now.'
He did not answer and she turned in her chair to look at him. His grey eyes were fixed on Della's tall figure circling the floor in Hans Kirchhofer's arms and there was an expression in their depths that was as hard as flint. She saw the jutting line of his jaw suddenly exaggerated as his teeth fastened fast on the stem of his pipe. Was he jealous, she wondered, or was that one of the emotions he knew nothing about, like pity and tenderness and the impulse to forgive?
Surprisingly, he asked her to dance. Most of the others were already on the floor and the professor and his sister were gossiping volubly at another table.
'There's no way out, Jane,' he added dryly.
'I had no idea that you had learned to dance,' she explained her momentary hesitation. 'Once you considered, it a great waste of time.'
The past again, cropping up so naturally in her thoughts that she was constantly being betrayed into referring to it.
'I was taught out here,' he confessed, leading her on to the crowded floor. 'That's why I ventured to suggest that I could amuse you for a few minutes that are left until midnight.'
His arm went round her, strong and lightly supporting, and the heady quality of the whole evening was renewed a thousandfold as they moved to the music. Bitter-sweet memories came crowding in and the tune they danced to was a tune they had listened to many times in the distant past. Oh, Stuart! Oh, Stuart! Her whole body was trembling at his touch and she knew that he must feel it and wonder.
Before the dance had finished he guided her to the edge of the floor and drew her hand imperiously through his arm.
'Enough of that,' he said. 'Come out on the terrace and get a breath of air. This place is stifling.' He pushed open the double glass doors, standing aside for her to pass through before him. 'If you're very quiet,' he said, drawing her towards the verandah rail, 'you'll hear the Christmas bells sounding down the valley. They ring them at Ober Gletscher on the last stroke of midnight.'
Jane's breath caught on a sound that was half a sob. She might have heard those bells, listened to them in his arms that first Christmastide when he had come to Oberzach to study under Doktor Frey.
Stuart stood behind her, wrapped in an uncompromising silence, but the night held too much magic for that to make any difference. It was enough, for the moment, that he was here.
'What about the ski jaunts, Jane?' he asked eventually, knocking out the contents of his pipe against the rail and thrusting it into his jacket pocket. 'How has Della been reacting to the nursery slopes?'
He had thrust Della between them, and she recognised her own madness as she tried to answer him with true professional detachment.
'She loathes it, of course. Can you blame her?'
'No. The amazing thing is that it's working at all, especially with so many of her old cronies in the offing.'
'The Kirchhofers have just come,' Jane explained. 'We met them for the first time this evening.' There was no real point in mentioning that first meeting in Zurich. 'They may not be staying very long, and we don't come often to the hotel. This has been a special occasion.'
'You're liking it here,' he said. 'Is it—compensation for all you may be missing in Norchester?'
'My life would have been very lonely in Norchester.'
'Not, surely, with young Sark about,' he returned sardonically. 'I hear he has turned over several new leaves, by the way. Matron was loud in his praise at the last Board meeting.'
'It all sounds very encouraging,' Jane said stiffly, glad that he could not see her face clearly in the uncertain moonlight.
'It ought to be. Your magnanimous sacrifice is proving the foundation stone of his career!'
Before she could reply the first bells were chiming out across the snow, and Christmas Day had come to the silent valley. They stood quite still, listening as the distant carillons took up the sound, a paean of happiness reaching them out of the night.
Someone opened the doors behind them and a gust of laughter flooded out on the beam of yellow light.
'Joyeux Noel!'
'Mit herzlichen. Grussen!''
'A Merry Christmas!'
The hotel guests were raising glasses, toasting each other, embracing laughingly in the aperture as they heard the bells. Jane raised her eyes to Stuart's.
'Merry Christmas!' he said, and kissed her full on the lips.
Della came out, followed by the professor and the rest of his guests. They formed a group round Stuart and Jane to listen to the bells and the merry little doctor kissed all the ladies in turn, decorously, on either cheek.
Della turned swiftly into the room.
'The fun's just beginning,' she declared. 'I've been to many of these affairs, and they go on till dawn. After that you luge home behind the sleighs!'
Jane wondered if Della had seen that swift, mocking embrace out there on the terrace? There was a high colour in her cheeks and the light of rebellion in her eyes, and Jane knew sudden anger with Stuart. How ruthless he could be! How deliberately hurtful. Surely, if he loved Della he must realise how she felt!
She danced the final waltz with Martin Kirchhofer, who told her that he and his brother would spend the next few
days in the mountains before they went south to St. Moritz. Something in her responded to the sheer physical perfection of the man and she realised how Della must feel when she listened to him talking of his plans. It was her world, too, that he was setting out to conquer, the world she knew so well, which had captured her wayward heart so long ago and still held it deeply in thrall.
When the music ceased Stuart found their coats and boots for them. He helped Della into hers while the doctor fastened Jane's.
'Your evening has been a pleasant one?' Albert Frey enquired courteously.
Stuart's kiss was still stinging Jane's lips, but she told her host that she had enjoyed the evening very much, and in many ways it was true enough. There was only the bewilderment that Stuart should have stooped to such a shabby trick.
He rode back in the sleigh with them, sitting between her and Della under the bearskin rug, while the doctor and his sister travelled in front. Della was very quiet, tired by the long evening, no doubt, but Jane was quick to notice a certain amount of tension too. It had been apparent even before Stuart had put in his appearance, but his coming had certainly not lessened it in any way.
When they reached the doctor's house they drank steaming, milky chocolate round the tiled stove in the living-room, and as soon as it was finished Stuart ordered Della to bed.
'But that's ridiculous!' she protested instantly. 'It's not quite one o'clock yet.'
'The fact remains that it's long after nine, which is your regular bedtime.'
'You're treating me like a child, Stuart!' she protested. 'It's Christmas!'
'And a good child would consider herself privileged to stay up till one,' he reminded her with a firmness of purpose which she could not fail to recognise. 'Be reasonable, Della. Every hour is precious at this stage.'
'They're precious for you, too, aren't they?' she suggested. 'Full, waking hours to do with as you wish!'
He took her lightly by the arm.
'Yes, I know, my dear,' he said with amazing gentleness, 'but it's no use arguing that way. We've got to make certain of this cure, Della, because of the future. It means so much to both of us.'
For a moment she looked as if she might still resist and then she drew her arm away and ran towards the stairs without a backward glance.
'Good-night, everyone!' she called.
'Go with her, Jane,' Stuart said at Jane's elbow. 'She may need you.'
Della was at her own door when Jane reached the head of the stairs.
'You needn't come in,' she said in a stifled whisper. 'I can manage.'
Jane hesitated for a split second before she followed her into the darkened room. It was a full minute before Della switched on the light. She stood with her hand raised to the wall, breathing hard, and then the little click of the switch broke the silence and flooded the room in brilliant light. It was almost more than Jane could do to restrain a sharp cry of concern as she looked into the ashen face with it? large, darkly-shadowed eyes staring out beneath the finely marked brows. Despair and rebellion fought for supremacy in Della's expression, and her hands were tightly clenched as they fell to her side.
'You're tired,' Jane said. 'We all are. It's been a long, exhausting day.'
'You don't need to say that just because you're sorry,' Della cried fiercely. 'You're not exhausted. You're not very nearly at the end of your tether. You're happy, Jane. One can see it, shining out of your eyes, even though you try to hide it!'
Jane turned to take down the silk dressing-gown hanging behind the door.
'I've danced a lot and I've met people I liked,' she confessed. 'It's all so new to me, Della, but I can still feel tired.'
'Happily tired!' Della returned accusingly. 'Tomorrow you'll be full of vim again while I remain deflated. You can go with the others into the mountains. You're free to go. Even with your limited experience you could still join a ski party and go so far with them!'
'All that will come again for you, too,' Jane promised.
Della wheeled round, her nostrils distended, a white pressure line clearly defined about her mouth.
'You think so, but I know better than that,' she said. 'Did you see Stuart's face tonight—the doctor suppressing his verdict for the sensitive patient's sake? What chance have. I of happiness?' she demanded harshly. 'The sort of happiness I want. What chance have I with a—life sentence like this hanging over my head?'
She wheeled round to the window, pacing the room restlessly.
'I can read a man's eyes as readily as the next one,' she declared. 'The doubt in them, the shock to his affections and the hardening determination. I ought to have been prepared for it, of course!'
Her laughter was suddenly brittle, and Jane found herself blaming Stuart, recognising the ruthlessness of the doctor in him when faced with such a situation but unable to account for the mail's rejection of his own hopes. Was he ruthless all through, cold and dispassionate now' that the first bitterness of disillusionment had been checked?
When she finally left Della, she could not sleep. She watched the grey dawn filtering over the peaks, the first blue staining the eastern skyline, and suddenly, below her on the shadowed terrace, a man's figure moved into the light. He crushed out the stub of a cigarette before he turned back into the house, and Jane saw the dark stain of several more lying against the snow. It was Stuart.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Della was smoking against Stuart's orders. It was the one defiant gesture she needed now that she had agreed to obey him implicitly again.
Jane looked about the untidy bedroom, drawing the wooden shutters in a little to dim the bright rays of the early morning sunshine.
'I'm not getting up,' Della announced. 'Christmas morning bores me.'
Fundamentally, Jane knew the statement to be quite untrue. Della was fighting sentiment to prove to herself how little she cared about it, but Jane was not deceived.
'What about the presents you bought?' she asked. 'I've tied them all up neatly and put them on the family's respective breakfast plates. I managed to slip down before Hilde was astir, which I think must be a record!'
It was no use mentioning the fact that she had slept so badly that five o'clock on Christmas morning had seen her awake again, restless and cold in spite of the great down-filled bolster which covered the wooden-canopied bed.
'What did you do about Stuart?' Della asked curiously, flicking the ash from her cigarette on to the polished floor while her pale eyes searched Jane's across the room.
'I'm afraid I—haven't done anything.' Jane's colour was high and the battle of the evening before seemed joined again. 'He came so unexpectedly,' she pointed out.
'True,' Della agreed. 'But we can't leave him presentless on Christmas morning. It would hardly be charitable. We'll split Daddy's birthday present between us, and 1 can buy the old man something else next week when the shops open. It will still be in plenty of time.'
'I'd rather not, Della—if you don't mind.' Jane knew that her refusal must sound churlish, to say the least of it, and she was also surprised that Della had not sent her own gift to Stuart at Norchester. 'It's different for you, but—I'd rather not,' she ended lamely.
'Why is it different for me?' Della demanded. 'You told me that Stuart and you were old acquaintances. Doesn't that justify a Christmas present?' She leaned over to pulled out one of her dressing-table drawers. 'I'll be utterly magnanimous and let you give him the silk scarf while I take the rap for the wrong kind of pipe!'
'I don't really think Stuart will expect a present—not from me,' Jane protested. 'It would only embarrass him.'
'I don't see why,' Della said stubbornly, laying the rejected gift on the table beside her bed. 'He's sure to have bought you something.'
'I don't think so,' Jane said, turning away.
There might perhaps be a present from Hazel and Linda Jane, but the wildest of imaginations could not conjure up a reason for Stuart bringing her any sort of gift. In spite of herself, her heart sank at the thought and the day see
med a little less fair.
She went downstairs to find Stuart sitting alone in the lounge. Doktor Frey had brought a little fir tree indoors in their honour, festooning it with tinsel and fairy-lights. It reminded Jane vividly of the tree on the hotel terrace and Stuart's mocking salute.
'Good morning,' he said, glancing up at the clock. 'Is Della sleeping off the effects of last night?'
'No. She's awake, but she doesn't feel like coming down this morning.'
'What is it?' he asked coolly. 'A mood?'
Della's impassioned outburst of a few hours ago was too fresh in Jane's memory to permit of lightness. She saw Stuart's broad shoulders silhouetted against the long oblong of the window, his body virile and strong in the dark vorlage trousers and fitting wind-cheater and she heard the despair in a girl's quivering voice. 'I can read a man's eyes as readily as the next one, the doubt in them, the shock to his affections and the hardening determination!'
Her own heart twisting with pain, she turned to Stuart bitterly.
'Have you no pity?' she demanded. 'Can't you see how Della feds about all this? The despair and desperate agony of not being like other people—the utter inadequacy of her life as she is living it now?'
'Della has the chance to be like other people if she will take it,' he said evenly. 'I've stood out against her going up to the clinic, but I must and will be obeyed down here.'
'She has obeyed you! She's stuck to all the rules,' Jane cried. 'It was only last night when she saw all these people dancing and leading a full life that she rebelled. Perhaps— your coming so unexpectedly had something to do with it, too,' she added in a choked whisper.
He chose to ignore her last remark.
'Della's chief trouble is lack of patience,' he said. 'Any cure must be immediate or she will toss it over her shoulder and live for today.' His mouth hardened perceptibly. 'I have to fight Della and fight her trouble, too. I repeat, Jane, there can be no room in this situation for sentiment or leniency, and very little room for pity. Della will only use it her own advantage when she decides to kick over the traces.'
'You're actually expecting that!' she accused him. 'How much you've changed! You're not capable of leniency or love ‑'
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