by Susan Barrie
One room had been so recently and beautifully decorated as a nursery that it somewhat surprised Virginia, for she had imagined that the Van Loons were childless.
Mary smiled at her surprise and explained, “I’ m expecting my brother’ s children to arrive and stay with me soon—in fact I’ ve more or less agreed to take charge of them for a while. Their mother died about six months ago, and as their father, like Edward, my husband, leads anything but a settled life, we thought it a good plan to offer them a more permanent sort of home until, perhaps, they acquire a stepmother or are sent to school or something of the sort.”
“Oh, but that will be nice! ” Virginia exclaimed, thinking that it really would be nice, for she was particularly devoted to children and had a naive belief that everyone else felt the same way as she did about them. “How soon will they arrive? And aren’t you looking forward to having them?”
“Well, as a matter of fact,” Mary Van Loon confessed, a somewhat subdued twinkle in her eyes, “I’m a little at a loss to know what to do with them when they do arrive. They’re at the somewhat awkward ages of six and seven respectively, and I understand they’re a very lively pair who’ve never been accustomed to very much discipline. My brother has more or less ruined the girl, and the boy takes after his mother and is nothing if not headstrong. They’re at present in the charge of a well-meaning aunt who is scared to deny them anything, and I’ m wondering what the impact is going to be on this household when they finally reach here straight from America.”
“Oh, but young children are not really difficult to manage,” Virginia assured her easily, with memories of her two young brothers—who had never at any, time in their lives been exactly tractable—softened by distance in her mind. “Not if you’re genuinely fond of them and you let them see that you are.”
“As simple as all that, is it?” Mary inquired with a decided look of amusement on her face this time. “Well, perhaps you’d like to come and look after them for me as you seem to have a natural aptitude?”
Virginia was slightly taken aback by this suggestion but she decided that her hostess was joking.
“As a matter of fact. I’d love it,” she confessed—and she meant it as she looked round the large, airy night nursery in which they were standing, with its pastel pink walls and its specially constructed furniture, its dainty satin eiderdowns on the twin beds and pictures of birds and flowers executed on the white woodwork. Adjoining it was an equally attractive day nursery, having a peerless view of the lake and all the cascade of blossoms that made up the fairy-tale garden of the Van Loons’s house—and a bathroom that was more luxurious than anything she herself had ever used.
“Well, then, why not?” Mrs. Van Loon suggested. Virginia stood gazing at her in amazement. Mrs. Van Loon was extraordinarily slim and graceful; she was wearing a heavy white silk dress that breathed expensiveness and everything about her—including her gold charm bracelet that was so loaded with charms that the weight of it must have been almost too much for her slender wrist—breathed expensiveness, also. By contrast with her, Virginia, in her homemade linen, which certainly became her, and her lack of any sort of ornamentation save her neat and unimaginative wristwatch, was almost painfully homely. Yet somehow Virginia did not think that it was the realization that she was the kind of girl who had to earn her own living that had prompted this sudden and quite surprising offer of employment.
Mary Van Loon’ s, color came rather noticeably as if she was all at once a little appalled by her own impulsiveness.
“My dear,” she said quickly, apologetically, “forgive me for shooting that one at you! Don’ t think I honestly imagine you want to be employed as a children’s nanny—or whatever the appropriate term is! I know you told me that you were someone’ s secretary in London—a lawyer or someone equally dull and deadly, wasn’ t it? And although I can’ t imagine you spending more than half your life in a drab lawyer’s office, I do realize that children would be a bit of a comedown. But it suddenly occurred to me—if you did think of staying on out here...?”
“I can’t think of anything I’d like better than to stay on out here,” Virginia told her with slightly wistful truthfulness, “in fact it’s been such a wonderful experience—all this beauty and color and the new friends I’ ve made— everything about it—that it’ s not going to be at all easy to settle down when I get home again.”
Mrs. Van Loon sank down on to the wide window ledge and produced her cigarette case from her handbag. She offered it to Virginia and when both their cigarettes were alight she regarded the other through a blue haze of smoke.
“Assuming that this operation your sister is to undergo is a success, she will, I suppose, resume her interrupted musical career?” As Virginia nodded, her hands clasped together fervently, Mrs. Van Loon frowned faintly. “But what about you and your future? Don’ t tell me you’ re going on working for a dry-as-dust lawyer all your days? Because that would be too ghastly! You’re so very attractive, so very English, and I’ m sure there are lots of things you could do if you thought about it. Leon Hanson might find you something in the clerical line out here, if you want something in the clerical line, and if you like Switzerland.. And the climate here is perfect from now until the autumn and in the winter there are the winter sports. You could at least have fun.”
“Don’t make it sound too tempting,” Virginia said, smiling a little at the other’ s concern. “But I wouldn’ t dream of troubling Dr. Hanson. He has been so kind already, persuading his aunt to let me stay with her and making everything so easy for me.”
“I don’t think his aunt required very much persuasion,” Mary returned. She went on regarding Virginia, “Have you met Carla Spengler?” she asked rather abruptly.
“Yes,” Virginia replied. She added, “She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?”
Mrs. Van Loon made an almost imperceptible movement with her shoulders.
“She’s somewhat spectacular,” she said. She studied the tip of her cigarette.
“Most people in this part of the world think that she and Leon will make a match of it one day, but somehow I have my doubts! ” She smiled at Virginia. “And now I must go back to my guests, my dear. But don’t forget, if you should suddenly decide that you’ d like a change, Peter and Paula will be arriving at almost any moment now—well, within the next week or so, anyway. ”
WHEN SHE GOT BACK to the villa Aunt Heloise met Virginia in the hall and told her that her nephew had telephoned during the afternoon. Virginia, with her heart doing one of those crazy leaps to which it was addicted these days, felt the color receding from her face as she asked, with a catch of the breath, “Do you mean that he telephoned—me?”
Aunt Heloise shook her head at her chidingly and placed one of her plump hands on her shoulder.
“Now, my dear, foolish child, there is no need to look like that! Leon did ask for you, but I told him you were playing tennis and he insisted that the message could wait until you returned.”
“What message?” Virginia demanded quickly.
“Only that he would call you again, perhaps this evening.”
“Oh! ” said Virginia as she sank down on to a spindly legged chair rather abruptly.
Madame d’Auvergne stood leaning on her ebony cane and regarding her with an extremely shrewd look in her eyes. Then she shook her head again, very slowly.
“It is not good,” she said, “when the nerves play tricks and one is all on edge as you are at this moment. My nephew Leon would most certainly be highly disapproving! And therefore I shall insist that you go to bed early, whether he telephones or not, and we will have a little dinner served to us much earlier than usual in the small salon, and you will drink a very large tumbler of hot milk before you retire for the night, and that will induce sleep
Her guest smiled at her wanly.
“You are kind,” she told her.’
Her hostess made a little clicking sound between her teeth and waved a hand to dissociate herself f
rom any such thing.
But Dr. Hanson did not telephone that night, and but for the hot milk, reinforced with a couple of aspirin tablets, Virginia might have lain awake until the small hours wondering what it was he wanted to say to her. As it was she was all on edge at breakfast, which as usual was served to her in her room, and by lunchtime, as the telephone bell had not shrilled, Madame d’ Auvergne had formed the resolution to take her with her on an afternoon’ s visit to an elderly English friend who had passed the winter in one of the little hotels that had not closed down and was much higher up the valley.
“You and she will have much in common,” she said, “and it will do you good to talk to one of your own nationality. Quite apart from which I feel that I shall enjoy an outing myself.” In the face of this last observation Virginia felt that it would be ungracious in the extreme to try to avoid accompanying her hostess, and they set forth with Aunt Heloise smiling in secret to herself because she realized that Virginia was repressing her own wishes and merely being polite.
Still, but for the fact that her mind was more than half-occupied elsewhere, Virginia would have enjoyed that visit to the little hotel, standing knee-deep in spring flowers high up on a lush green ledge that overhung the valley and with all the wonder of the snows rising behind it. Miss Finch, the faded little elderly Englishwoman who could not stand the rigors of her own climate and yet was hungry for news of the well-remembered places—Bond Street and Piccadilly, the Green Park on a Sunday afternoon, Hampstead Heath where she used to exercise her dog—plied her with so many questions that she was forced to thrust her own affairs into the background of her mind for the time being, and Madame d’ Auvergne sat complacently in her chair and consumed far more cream cakes than were good for her, as she well knew, while the other two chatted.
But when the typically English tea was over and it was getting on toward the dinner hour, Virginia began to grow anxious. Madame d’ Auvergne looked as if she was fully prepared to remain and have dinner with her friend, and it was only because Pierre, her elderly chauffeur, disliked mountain roads after dark that she decided they really must leave. Virginia followed her thankfully out to the car.
When they returned to the villa there was still no message for Virginia, however, and it was not until after dinner that the summons came. Dr. Hanson’ s secretary spoke to her crisply, coolly, over the telephone. Dr. Hanson was sending his car to convey her to the clinic and he would see her when she reached there.
Virginia, with the telephone receiver shaking in her hand, asked in a voice that shook just as much. “Does this mean that there is something wrong with my sister?”
“No, nothing wrong. You will be able to see her as soon as she comes out of the anesthetic.”
“The anesthetic? Oh...!”
“The car will arrive for you in about ten minutes.”
Madame d’Auvergne came up silently behind Virginia, took the receiver out of her hand and replaced it on its little ivory rest. She smiled at the shocked face of the girl.
“I was expecting you would bear something about this time,” she said, “and in any case Leon knew perfectly well what I intended to do with you today. Had it been necessary he could have contacted you at any time.”
“But—Lisa—” Virginia’s voice would not go on.
“Lisa will prefer that it will be her sister there beside her bed when she opens her eyes and therefore if you wish to make any changes to your dress I would recommend you to hurry. Would you like me to come with you, my dear?”
But Virginia shook her head.
“No, thank you. I’ll be all right.”
“I’ m quite sure that you will. ” Aunt Heloise gave her shoulder a little reassuring pat.
In the car, when it arrived, Virginia lay back against the silver gray upholstery and felt as if she were a balloon from which someone had unexpectedly released the air. She had no real feelings—she was not even capable of thought. Her hands were clammy inside the thin nylon gloves she had snatched hastily out of her dressing-table drawer and her feet were cold as if she had been badly shocked. And in a way she had. For although Dr. Hanson had no doubt decided that to spare her the long-drawn-out ordeal of knowing that Lisa was to be operated on that day was the sensible thing, she knew that she herself would have much preferred it otherwise.
All that she could think of now was that something could have happened to Lisa and she would not have been on hand to see her before it was too late. Lisa had had to face her ordeal without any member of her family near her, and to Virginia that seemed worse than heartless. It was typical of the calm levelheadedness of Leon Hanson, but she was not prepared to admit he was right. She was even, as his expensive car whirled her almost silently to the clinic, prepared to nurse a dull feeling of resentment against him because he had taken so much upon himself and had not even consulted her over such an important matter.
But when she reached the clinic her mind had awakened to one urgency only and that was to see Lisa. The cool white walls of the beautifully planned building received her, and the matron herself came to have a few words with her in the little room to which she was taken.
“Miss Holt is not yet sufficiently conscious for you to see her,” she was told, “but I’ m sure you would like a cup of tea while you are waiting, wouldn’t you? Dr. Hanson will be in to see you in a few minutes.”
“Then he is still here?” Virginia said. Her lips were shaking uncontrollably and she put up her handkerchief to hide them. The matron’s smile was completely understanding and sympathetic.
“Yes, he is still here and I think I can tell you quite truthfully that he is very well satisfied with the results of the operation so far.”
“Then—then Lisa is not in any danger?” she asked.
The matron’ s little shake of the head was most reassuring. “She is as comfortable as can be expected at the moment.” When she had left the room Virginia drank the tea that was brought to her and studied the pictures on the walls, and the bowl of flowers on the table. Outside the window with its little balcony there was that wonderful view that could never fail to enchant her, and with the last of the light lingering on the rose-flushed mountain peaks and the lake a shadowy purple pierced by the magic of the first stars that were hanging like lamps in the great, dusky void above, there was something soothing and reassuring about it. Virginia went to stand by the window and let the loveliness of it all seep into her soul. She thought, because her mind was a kind of incoherent whirlpool, if anything had happened to Lisa and she had to stand like this beside the window waiting for someone to come to her, how would she have felt about the view?
Would it have saddened her inexpressibly or would it simply not have been there ...?
The door opened without any sound whatsoever and Dr. Hanson stood
regarding her in his white coat.
Virginia had never seen him before in a white coat, only in his well-cut suits and evening dress, and her first thought was that he looked like another person somehow. He seemed remote and like a complete stranger, and even his eyes were detached. He came quietly into the room and shut the door firmly and then turned to her.
“Good evening. Miss Holt. I expect they’ll allow you to see your sister before very long.”
Virginia’ s gray eyes were large and accusing. “Why didn’ t you let me know it was to take place today?” she inquired with a quite noticeable quiver in her voice.
He glanced at the tea things on the table and even examined the teapot to make sure that she had consumed its contents.
“If you would like any coffee or even more tea you have only to ring, you know,” he told her in a rather abstracted voice.
“I don’t want any coffee or any more tea,” Virginia almost flung at him, “but I do want to know why you operated on Lisa without letting me know that you intended to do so? It wasn’ t fair! ”
“Wasn’ t it?” For a moment she might have been back in the garden of Madame d’Auvergne’s villa on the shor
e of the lake, with the night wind stirring the trees and his hand under her elbow guiding her across the lawn, for there was no longer any detachment in his voice, and his eyes looked down into her own with a softened expression that brought her close to him. “Wasn’ t it?” he repeated very gently. “But I thought it the wisest thing to do, and it seemed so senseless to keep you in a state of uncertainty and anxiety for hours on end. You’ve got rather a vivid type of imagination, and it’s not very kind to you on occasions such as this. ”
That was so true that Virginia could not dispute it, but there was still Lisa who had been deprived of the consolation of her presence—if it could possibly have been any consolation to her—here in the clinic while her whole future existence was being decided for her. And Lisa was the one who really counted!
“Perhaps you’ll feel a little less indignant if I tell you that it was your sister’ s idea as well,” Leon Hanson told her, still gazing at her with that faintly indulgent and very sympathetic gleam in his deep dark eyes. “In fact, she was quite insistent about it and as I agreed with her you were not told. I hope you’re not going to feel that you’ve been hardly used?”
“Oh, of course not.” But a film of emotion rising behind her eyes made Virginia blink her-eyelids rapidly. “That’s so like Lisa. She’s tremendously plucky. ”
“She is,” he agreed. He watched her maltreating her gloves with her restless fingers and suddenly put out his hands and took both of hers, crushing them rather hard. “You’ ll feel better when you’ ve seen her. But she won’ t be able to say much to you tonight and you won’ t be allowed to remain with her for more than a few minutes.”
