by Susan Barrie
Her heart gave an uneasy bound, and she asked anxiously, “I—I suppose everything is all right at the clinic...?”
“So far as I am aware there is nothing to give rise to any anxiety in your sister’s condition, if that is what you mean,” he replied coolly.
Virginia flushed uncontrollably. “I’m afraid she is rather on my mind,” she admitted.
He said nothing and very shortly they were joined by his aunt. During dinner the conversation was on a variety of topics and Aunt Heloise made particular efforts to include Virginia, and ensure that she had no feeling of being left out. But Dr. Hanson did not deliberately address any remark to her. After dinner they sat listening to a symphony on the radio while Madame d’ Auvergne did a little fine embroidery work, but when all at once she started to nod over her bright silks, her nephew very skillfully removed them from her lap, placed a cushion comfortably behind her head and left her to enjoy a nap in her favorite straight-backed armchair.
Then he looked across the room at Virginia.
“It’s a fine night,” he said rather curtly. “Would you care for a breath of air outside? And there’s something I’d like to talk to you about, if you don’t mind. ”
“Why, of course,” she answered, feeling her heart start to race again. Was there something he felt he should no longer conceal from her, she wondered. And would it upset her very much when she learned about it?
Outside he placed his fingers very lightly under her elbow and guided her across the cool crispness of the lawn in the direction of a flight of steps that descended onto a terrace bounded by a stone balustrade, which overlooked the lake. It was such a beautiful night that Virginia felt her breath catch at the loveliness of it with its coldly glittering stars reflected like huge diamonds in the placid waters of the lake. Never before in her life had she experienced anything quite so soul-disturbing as this—the dreamy beauty of the garden hidden from her eyes by the velvet mantle of the night, and with a young moon rising above the tops of the great chestnut trees, whose candles were touched by the delicate, pearly opalescence. The same faint light lay across the terrace, crisscrossing it in silvery bars.
There was a decided chill in the air, but Dr. Hanson had advised her to fetch a wrap so she was not cold. She stood beside him at the stone balustrade, nestling her chin into the soft gray fur stole, and he stood with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his dinner jacket, staring at the magic surface of the lake while together they listened to the musical murmur of the water breaking in tiny wavelets not many feet below them.
“It’ s a wonderful night! ” Virginia exclaimed suddenly, a thrill like a little tremor in her voice. “I don’ t think I’ ve ever known such a wonderful night before! ”
“Haven’ t you?” He looked down at her, considering her, and then up at the frozen aloofness of the snows lying like a protecting mantle over the mountain peaks. “So you and young Clive Maddison know one another already?” he remarked, his voice very cool and even.
Virginia looked up at him quickly.
“How—how do you know?” she asked with a certain amount of
amazement.
“It’s very simple,” he replied. “I saw you together this morning. And moreover you seemed to be absorbed in a very deep conversation and you had an enormous bouquet on your lap. Is Clive ‘saying it with flowers’ so soon?”
Virginia’ s eyes widened almost incredulously and for a moment she could hardly reply.
“But—but I waved to you! ” she said. “And as you didn’ t make any sign of having recognized me I didn’t think you could have noticed us. Why didn’t you let us see that you saw us?” she asked, gazing into his dark, shut-in, austere face with a look of wonderment in her eyes. “Clive and I were having coffee together. I—I first met him at the clinic.”
“Yes, I gathered that that was where you met him. ” He produced his cigarette case and offered it to her. and as he lighted her cigarette she thought that he seemed to be studying her face intently. “I suppose it’s natural, as he’s a countryman of yours, that you should get together. ”
“I—why. I—” She didn’t quite know what to say but she did recognize that there was something almost hostile in the tone of his speech, and those brilliant dark eyes of his were detached and critical. “You probably know more of him,” she said, “than I do, as he’s a patient of yours—or was—but at least he was very good for Lisa while he was at the clinic and I feel that he helped to cheer her up enormously by looking in and chatting to her and taking her mind off herself. He’s quite an entertaining young man.”
“A very entertaining young man—to impressionable young women like yourself and your sister! ” He was leaning up against the stone balustrade and there was a cynical uplift to his eyebrows and a kind of cool, amused smile at the corners of his mouth. “But, all the same, I wouldn’ t accept all he tells you as gospel truth if I were you, and I wouldn’ t feel too sorry for him when he tells you his hard-luck story. He’s been living in Switzerland now for quite a while, existing more or less on his charm and his wits, and although he comes from a very good English family I don’ t think they’ re particularly eager to have him back home again. In fact I don’t think they’re at all eager.”
Virginia was regarding him with a quiet gleam in her eyes. “But that has nothing to do with me, does it?” she asked. “Or Lisa? So far as we are concerned, his affairs are his own—and quite private! ”
She thought that his sudden smile was touched with a hint of humor. “Which means that they are nothing to do with me, also? Well, no doubt you are right, but I’ ve just succeeded in patching him up after a very nasty accident, and in the course of time I may have to do some more patching if he persists in willfully risking life and limb as he has a habit of doing. He disdains the commonplace and in your country you would describe him as a keen sportsman, which means that he spends half his life climbing mountains, undertaking hazardous enterprises with the utmost zest and excelling at all outdoor sports. He will never settle down and a dull desk-and-office routine would kill him. Yet he is popular with everyone he meets, including me! ”
“Yet you don’t hesitate to imply things against him!” Virginia accused
him, feeling a little incensed by the unreasonableness of his attitude.
“I say nothing against him that he wouldn’ t endorse himself—and I am only warning you! This morning I was surprised to observe that you are already so very friendly.”
“Is having coffee with a man you have only met once before in your life a symptom of overwhelming friendliness?” Virginia inquired with a faint edge to her voice. “And, in any case, I think you might have acknowledged both of us, especially as I waved to you.”‘
“I might have acknowledged both of you if you had not appeared to be so engrossed in your conversation.”
“Our conversation did not concern ourselves—’’And then Virginia broke off, biting her lip. For the moment she was inclined to forget how much she was likely to owe to this man and how much assistance he had already given her in the matter of providing her with such exceedingly comfortable accommodation, which was costing her nothing at all and had already been the means of introducing her to new friends and acquaintances, while Lisa’s mind was relieved of any anxiety concerning her. Virginia only thought suddenly that he was rather overbearing and arrogant. What she did while she was in Switzerland was really no business of his, and in view of the fact that he himself was practically engaged to be married and all his friends were awaiting an announcement of his wedding, even if Clive Maddison had bought flowers for her and had decided to pay her very marked attention, Leon Hanson could have no justifiable reason for objecting.
But despite her little spurt of indignation—largely because he had practically spoiled the whole of dinner for her by causing her to imagine that something had gone wrong with Lisa, as a result of his determined and. as she now realized, disapproving silence—she was about to tell him that the flowers purc
hased by Clive had been meant for Lisa when he interrupted her.
With a low note of humor in his voice and perhaps a faintly apologetic note, also, he said. “You mustn’t be angry with me because I feel it’s my duty to keep a kind of watchful eye on you while you are here. Although you may not be so very young in years, you do strike me as being particularly youthful when it comes to looking after yourself in a manner that I could approve. I haven’t forgotten, for instance, that you allow young savages to slam hotel doors in your face—”
Virginia’s expression instantly softened and she laughed a little.
“That was because I wasn’t very bright that night.”
“Perhaps you weren’ t, and you certainly did look very small and alone at that table beside the palm.”
He had placed his fingers under her elbow again and was guiding her back across the lawn to the house. Virginia glanced up at him in a surprised fashion, meeting a faint twinkle in his eyes in the moonlight.
“But—but I didn’ t know you saw me! ”
“Nevertheless I did! And now—” giving her arm a very gentle squeeze, “we will say nothing more about Maddison, save that I wish you to be aware that he has a reputation as a charmer and it would be as well to be on your guard, and arrive at a subject that I believe will be of even greater interest to you.”
Virginia did not ask him what that subject was but he could feel the whole of her slight figure tense a little as they moved toward the veranda steps.
“It is, of course, your sister. I shall operate very soon now, I think. She has improved so much in a couple of weeks.”
“Oh! ” Virginia exclaimed, and he thought that she went rather white as he looked down at her.
“Don’t worry.” His voice was very quiet and she could feel his fingers on her arm increase their pressure so that for an instant they almost hurt her. “Don’ t look so concerned, my dear child! All will be well with her, I feel sure.”
“Oh—oh, do you?”
They had come to a halt at the foot of the veranda steps and Virginia looked up at him rather helplessly. She was wearing her blue evening dress, and in the moonlight it seemed to have lost all its color, as had her small, heart-shaped face. Her gray eyes looked large and were filled with anxiety. He said even more gently, “I think you can safely leave it to me.”
Virginia was suddenly so filled with gratitude that she wanted to return that pressure on her arm by catching at his sleeve and clinging to it. He had the sort of personality that, arrogant though it might be at times; gave out waves of comforting strength and renewed courage and was full of a kind of magnetism. From the very beginning she had been aware of his magnetism— that very evening when he had touched her hand before dinner she felt as if it was something alive and vital that had deliberately sought to claim her as a kind of victim.... And now...! Now she was all at once so strongly affected by it that she actually wanted to postpone the moment when this standing together in close proximity would end and they would move on and enter the house; when his strength would leave her and the comforting confidence that he made her feel would desert her, too.
Oh, no. she thought suddenly in a kind of terror, as the realization of what was happening to her swept over her. Not that—not that! Not if there is to be any peace or any sort of happiness in thefuture...!
“You’ re cold?” he said suddenly, in a concerned tone as he felt her shiver, and he hurried her up the steps and into the house. Madame d’ Auvergne’ s cheerful voice called to them from the great salon, where she was once more engaged at her embroidery work. She looked as if she had had a good nap, nevertheless, and her eyes were bright and observant.
“It was unpardonable of me to fall asleep,” she apologized, “but at least you had the good sense to take Miss Holt into the garden, Leon. It was such a perfect evening, and I fear it is always a little stuffy in here, because when I admit the air I admit the drafts, also, and those I detest.” She was studying her guest’ s somewhat revealing face and it seemed to her that the attractive gray eyes, which were normally addicted to quite ready smiles and had a happy, anticipatory gleam in them sometimes, had become blank and a little bewildered, unless it was purely her imagination. And the sharpness of the night air had driven all the color out of Virginia’s cheeks and she seemed to huddle for warmth in her unpretentious gray squirrel stole.
“We will have some hot coffee,” Aunt Heloise said, “and another time Leon must remember that it is perhaps a little early in the year for moonlight strolls.”
She patted the striped satin-covered settee on which she was seated. Virginia accepted the invitation to take the place beside her and helped her unravel a skein of silk. Leon Hanson stood looking down at her a little thoughtfully.
Shortly afterward he left the room, and then Aunt Heloise inquired, with her eyes on Virginia’ s face, “It was perhaps the little sister that my nephew discussed with you in the garden? Is all not well with her?” Virginia seemed to come out of a kind of bemused trance. “Oh, no—oh, yes! He did discuss her, and he thinks that she has improved very much in the last two weeks.”
“Then that is excellent news. And he will shortly decide to operate, is that it?”
“I think so yes,” Virginia answered.
Madame d’ Auvergne gave her slim shoulder an affectionate pat with her beringed hand.
“In that case, my child, you will have nothing to worry about, for Leon is the one to be depended on. Your sister is in good hands; she could not be in better.”
Virginia smiled rather wanly.
“I think you are quite right,” she agreed.
“There is no doubt about it,” Madame d’Auvergne said. “I am right!”
But as her shrewd old eyes continued to dwell on her young guest’s face she found herself wondering a little. If it was not the little sister who was causing the faintly bewildered, rather distressed look on the fair, English face, what was it? She felt that she would like to know.
CHAPTER SIX
The next day, Virginia, who received many invitations to local houses and events as a result of being a guest of Madame d’ Auvergne, went to a tennis party at Mrs. Van Loon’s. Mary Van Loon was still, as she described herself, a grass widow, but she knew a great many young people in the district and her beautifully laid-out courts were lively with laughter and the sound of cheerful, untroubled voices. Clive Maddison was there, ignoring the advice he had received before he left the clinic and taking part in a strenuous set with a pretty Belgian girl as a partner. Later he partnered Virginia, but she was so hopelessly out of practice that she feared she had let him down and apologized profusely when they wandered off the court. He would not admit that their defeat had been anything to do with her, however, and mustered gloomily that he would have to put in “a heck of a lot of practice,” as he phrased it, if the man who he hoped hire him that summer was not to turn him down.
Virginia glanced at him curiously as they strolled down a walk in the
direction of the lake. He looked almost too handsome in his well-cut white flannels, and he was already deeply bronzed and his brown hair curled crisply. But with the remembrance of Dr. Hanson’ s expressed opinion of him the evening before very fresh in her mind, she found herself looking for the signs of weakness and instability that should have been lying either at the corners of his mouth, in the shape of his chin or in the gaze of his very blue eyes.
But to her it appeared that he had a very good chin—perhaps a trifle obstinate—and his mouth was pleasant and curved easily into a smile, and his eyes found no difficulty in meeting her direct gaze at any time.
He fetched her an iced drink and they sat side by side in a couple of deck chairs in a shady spot where the scent of the lilacs reached them and the almost painful shimmer of the smooth surface of the lake was visible through a gap in some foliage. She asked him, “Don’t you feel that you would like to return to England?”
“Not particularly.” He gave her a look that was rather whimsi
cal all at once. “Why? Should I want to go back?”
“It all depends on how long you’ve been away.”
“That’s true.” he agreed. He swished at the toe of his shoe with the end of his racket. “I’ ve wandered a bit in the past couple of years, but I can’ t say I’ ve ever felt tremendously homesick. At least not any more than a good many other people! ” He grinned around at her, rather awkwardly, she thought. “Any special news of Lisa yet?”
She told him that Dr. Hanson was well satisfied with her and that he proposed to operate soon.
“How soon?” Maddison inquired and there was nothing but complete seriousness in his face now.
“Oh, fairly soon, I should think,” Virginia answered.
“You’ ll let me know when—when it’ s to be, won’ t you?” he said with a curious diffidence in voice and look. “I—I’d naturally like to know.”
“Of course,” Virginia replied. “That is,” she added, “if it’s possible and I know in time.”
He nodded his head understanding.
“I’ ll have to order something rather special in the way of flowers and so forth, to gladden her eyes when she comes out of the anesthetic.”
Virginia could not repress a shudder at the mention of that word “anesthetic,” and he gripped her wrist comfortingly with his lean, brown hand.
“Don’t let it upset you too much,” he advised. “Remember that it’s Hanson who is doing the job, and Hanson is the fair-haired boy at the clinic! ”
Her hostess took Virginia’ s arm after tea and asked her whether she would like to see the house and be introduced to some of the treasures her husband had brought home from various parts of the world. There was, for instance, the wonderful jade Buddha in the dining room and the Satsuma bowls and vases displayed in the drawing room. There was also an absolutely flawless Chinese carpet in the drawing room and some very, rare prints and jade ornaments. In Mary Van Loon’ s own bedroom there was an exquisite Venetian mirror on the wall above her dressing table, framed in beaten silver, and the wine-red, exquisitely fluted silk curtains of her half-tester bed were reputed to have once formed part of the trappings of Marie Antoinette’s ornate couch.
