by Susan Barrie
“But she is going to be all right?” she asked, meeting his direct look.
“I’m fairly certain she’s going to be quite all right!” Virginia blinked more rapidly, for a tear was actually beginning to trickle down one side of her nose.
And it was to him they owed it! To him Lisa would owe everything!
She gulped suddenly and turned away, blowing her nose heartily.
He put his finger on the bell push.
“I really think you could do with some more tea! ”
Lisa looked so unlike Lisa when Virginia bent over her in the faintly lit room, that she felt almost as if she was encouraging a stranger.
“You’re going to be all right, darling! Quite all right!” Lisa’s enormous dark eyes reflected a glimmering of understanding and then smiled a little.
“Of course,” she whispered. Her pale lips seemed to be framing other words, and Virginia bent closer until she felt her sister’s faint breath on her cheek. “Tell Clive—do you mind—”
Virginia answered at once. “Of course not, darling. I’ ll let him know immediately.”
“Good for you, Jinny! ” Lisa whispered, smiled more naturally at her, and then, like a weary child, let her eyelids fall and seemed to go off into a kind of tranquil doze.
Virginia tiptoed from the room and found Dr. Hanson waiting for her on the other side of the door.
“I’ll take you home,” he said. “You’ve had rather an exhausting evening.”
“Do you think I could use the telephone first?” Virginia inquired.
“Of course,” he answered, “if it’s important. But won’t it wait until the morning?”
“Well, no.” Virginia told him. “You see, I want to call Clive Maddison and let him know about Lisa—”
But as soon as she had mentioned Clive’s name she knew that it had been a mistake. Leon’s dark eyes seemed to give a cold flash and the jut of his chin became noticeable. He said with a note like polite ice in his voice:
“Then he can certainly wait until the morning! And now, if you’re ready, we’ll go.”
Virginia realized that there would be little point in pursuing the matter, and for one thing it was rather late to put through a call at his hotel to a man about whom she actually knew very little. There would be time enough in the morning. And she had no desire to antagonize Dr. Hanson tonight, for, as she kept on saying to herself, but for him—But for him Lisa would not now be lying tranquilly in her white hospital cot with a look of the utmost serenity on her face and her whole future, perhaps, given back to her! Her whole future...!
Virginia was glad of the darkness of the interior of the car, which Dr. Hanson’ s chauffeur drove tonight, for every time she thought about Lisa the lump rose in her throat and she knew that the absurd tears would persist in welling over her eyelids. There were so many questions she wanted to ask Dr. Hanson—questions about Lisa’ s convalescence and how long it would be before she would be able to use her hands and whether the exercises he would prescribe would have to be carried out over a long period—but he was not an easy man to approach and tonight he seemed very silent as he lay back in his corner of the car. Virginia stole cautious glances at him every now and again and saw that he was staring at the softly gleaming roof lamp.
A small sigh escaped her suddenly before she could prevent it, and it was a
tired and rather ragged sigh.
He put out his hand and covered both of hers that were lying limply clasped in her lap.
“You’ re tired?” he said quickly. “You’ ll be glad to get to bed. And tomorrow you’ll be able to see your sister again.”
“Dr. Hanson—” she was fumbling for words “—Dr. Hanson, if Lisa’s going to be all right again it will be all due to you! ”
“Well, what of it?” he asked, a queer little smile at the corners of his mouth as he regarded her intently through the gloom.
“What of it?” She caught her breath again. “Oh, don’t you realize...!” She broke off, tightening the clasp of her hands while his still rested over them as if he had forgotten to remove it. “Dr. Hanson,” she said rather breathlessly, “whatever your fee for this operation you performed tonight on Lisa and all your care of her, we shall always be in your debt—nothing can really repay you! ”
Her eyes were enormous in her pale face and he could feel the tenseness of her fingers, the emotion that was coursing through her.
He said gently, “I don’t think we’ll discuss fees tonight, do you? If we ever discuss them! Instead I would like you to relax a little and forget everything for the time being. ’“ He suddenly slipped his hand behind her and pulled her up against him, forcing her head down into the hollow of his shoulder. “Now, shut your eyes and let your mind become a peaceful blank! Or, if you must think, think only of pleasant things....”
Virginia could actually hear the beating of his heart just under her ear and it seemed to her to be a remarkably strong and steady beat compared to the wild panic of her own suddenly racing pulses. He had ordered her to think calmly—if she must think at all—but every quivering instinct she possessed was responding to this unexpected close contact with him and a kind of shivering excitement took possession of her so that all thoughts of Lisa were driven out of her mind.
“I have been making plans,” he told her, “over the past few days, and if all is well with your sister by the weekend—as I feel certain it will be—then you and I will steal away and have a day to ourselves somewhere. Would you like that? A day in the mountains if the weather is fine, and I will show you something that you will never see in England. I will give you a little picture of my country to carry away with you—a mental picture that you can look at and examine in later days, and that will serve to remind you of your visit here. What do you say?”
“I—I would love it,” she answered, trying to still that wild clamor of her pulses and longing to ask him what Carla Spengler would think of their spending a day in the mountains together. Although had he not made it clear that it was to be merely an interlude—something she could look back upon in later days? If she were wise she would refuse. But she hadn’ t the strength of mind to refuse. “I would love it,” she repeated, inhaling the faint perfume of cigarette smoke and shaving cream that clung about him.
“Good!” he exclaimed softly. “Then you will keep Sunday free for me and if anyone else—Monsieur Maddison, shall we say—should ask you to devote the day to him you will be ready with the polite refusal? Is that understood?”
“Of course,” she murmured, and longed to turn her face right into his neck and just lie there peacefully with her eyes shut, with the knowledge that a drive of several hours was ahead of them instead
of merely a few minutes longer. And those minutes passed.
When they drew up outside Madame d’Auvergne’s villa he helped her to alight and then insisted on escorting her through the garden and up the steps to the closed-in veranda. Franzi, who had been sitting up for Virginia, opened the door for her and then was somewhat curtly dismissed by the doctor who ordered her to take hot milk to Virginia’ s room and to make herself useful to her if necessary.
But Virginia insisted that she did not really require hot milk and that Franzi must go to bed at once. She was full of apologies for having kept her up so late.
“Do not countermand my orders,” Leon Hanson said, looking down queerly into Virginia’s wide gray eyes. “Not only will Franzi take the milk to your room but you will drink it! ” Franzi disappeared from the hall and he lifted Virginia’s hand and after a moment’s hesitation, carried it up to his lips. “Good night, my little one!”
Virginia’ s heart stopped beating for a moment.
“Good night,” she whispered, “and—and thank you for— everything...!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
To Virginia’s relief it was not much more than a matter of days before Lisa was sitting up in bed and holding court in her room and by the end of the week she was allowed to sit on her veranda
.
Her hand was still in bandages but she looked a very different Lisa already. There was a bright gleam in her eyes and a touch of color in her cheeks, and her outlook was so completely optimistic that Virginia could only keep her fingers crossed for her and trust most fervently that nothing would at this stage go wrong.
Not that Lisa talked so much about her future. She seemed almost completely content in the present, especially when Clive Maddison was sitting in the chair beside her and entertaining her with his cheerful conversation. He had already caused the nurses to start teasing him because he was so often at the clinic—apparently he had fallen in love with it, they said—and he never made his appearance in Lisa’ s room without bringing her quantities of flowers and chocolates and anything else he thought she would like. When she protested because she knew he had to earn his own living he informed her debonairly that money was intended to be spent and once parted with it could never be spent again. And what better cause could he expend his on than the cause of a future concert pianist?
Virginia watched them when they were together, and she happened to be visiting her sister at the same time as Clive—and that was very nearly every afternoon!
There could be no doubt about it—and this astonished her more than anything in life had astonished her before—Lisa was almost violently attracted to her young fellow countryman. Only he could bring that slightly feverish sparkle to her great dark eyes and only his departure could dim the sparkle, like someone abruptly extinguishing the wick of a lamp.
Lisa was so transparent where her feelings were concerned that Virginia sometimes felt vaguely uncomfortable and apprehensive. Before she had had to listen to Lisa bewailing the almost brutal way in which all her future hopes had been blighted and her outlook on life rendered overcast, but now, instead of chattering about the moment when the bandages could be removed from her hand and the exercises to render her fingers supple again could begin, she chattered to Virginia about Clive’ s hopes of getting the job of tennis coach his heart was set on and about the various misfortunes and accidents that had prevented him from holding down any particularly good job for long.
She was eager to defend him because he was something of a rolling stone—and even she was aware that a rolling stone gathered very little moss. Virginia ventured to remind her of that one day, but Lisa instantly replied that in Clive’s case it wasn’t because he wished to be unconventional and drift from place to place, apparently shirking responsibilities—already he knew most of the capitals of Europe—save, of course, those tucked firmly away behind the Iron Curtain—and had visited Australia and New Zealand and eyen tried looking for a job in Canada but because fate was inexorable and would not allow him to vegetate for long in one place.
“But one day he’ll settle down,” Lisa said optimistically. “I know he will.”
Virginia was not so optimistic. She wondered sometimes what her parents would say if they knew about this sudden change of heart of Lisa’ s. It would no doubt perplex them extremely because music, which had been her whole world, was no longer even a part of her world.
The truth was that Lisa hardly ever spoke about music these days.
As for Clive himself it would have been difficult to form any opinion as to what his real feelings were for Lisa. He was charming to her and most attentive, but then he had been charming and attentive to quite a few women in his life if all that she had heard about him was true. He went out of his way to be specially nice to Virginia; it was true he had not so far loaded her with gifts, but he made a habit of waylaying her when she was shopping in the mornings and persuading her to have coffee with him at the little open-air cafe on the shore of the lake. And he had an open invitation to so many houses in the district that she was almost certain to meet him when she went visiting with Madame d’ Auvergne. Hostesses had formed a habit of pairing them together because they seemed to know one another so well and this was sometimes a little embarrassing for Virginia.
It was embarrassing, for instance, when Leon Hanson was also a guest, as he was at one dinner party, and the fact that he avoided her very noticeably all evening and left without saying goodbye to her—it was true that his hostess explained that he had been called away—made her almost deathly miserable throughout the whole of the next day.
But the day following was the day on which she was to go for the trip into the mountains with him and she looked forward to it with so much bottled-up pleasure at the thought that she felt she simply could not have endured it if anything had happened to interfere with their arrangement.
She had told Lisa about the expedition the day before and Lisa had at first looked mildly astonished. Then a gleam of interest had entered her eyes as she studied her sister.
There was something about Virginia’ s expression just then that gave away a good deal, and Lisa said gently, “Oh, I do hope you have a lovely day! Wear your primrose linen and that fleecy white bolero thing Aunt Kay knitted for you. You look so nice in it. And put a ribbon in your hair —a ribbon in your hair suits you.”
“I shall look like an Easter egg all dolled up for the occasion with a ribbon in my hair “ Virginia protested.
“Nonsense!” Lisa exclaimed. “You’ll look Virginia-ish, and Dr. Hanson will like you that way.”
“He probably won’t even notice what I wear. He’s merely taking me off his aunt’ s hands for a day. ”
“Do you honestly think so?” Lisa looked at her keenly. “Is that what you really think, Jinny?”
“What else would I think?” Virginia was conscious nevertheless of the absurd color welling up over her face and neck. “Madame d’Auvergne has almost worn herself out devising what she calls distracting little entertainments for me. They both have a kind of idea that unless I’m unceasingly occupied I’ m inclined to dwell upon you and worry about you— which I can assure you I don’t do now that you’re looking so blooming!”
Lisa suddenly looked thoughtful. She was wearing the pretty pink bed jacket Virginia had bought for her and was toying with an end of one of the satin ribbons that secured it at the neck.
‘‘Did you know, Jinny, that Dr. Hanson suggested to me that as soon as I am able to leave here—in about another week or possibly less—he would like me to become a guest of his aunt while he gets someone to start exercises on my fingers?”
Virginia looked almost startled. “No, I didn’t,” she admitted.
“I wondered whether he had mentioned it to you. ” Lisa stared down at the ribbon and then at the highly professional-looking bandages on her right hand, which made it look twice its size. “Of course I told him that we couldn’t both take advantage of Madame d’Auvergne’s kindness and I meant it. We couldn’t expect her to act hostess to us both, could we? You agree with me, don’ t you, Jinny?”
“Why, I—why, yes.” But Virginia still looked as if she had received something in the nature of a mild shock. “Of course I agree. And that means that one of us must go home and that one certainly won’ t be you! ”
“Well, darling. I’m afraid it will have to be you, but—” Lisa paused “— what about Dr. Hanson?” she asked rather abruptly.
“Dr. Hanson?” Virginia stared at her. “What has Dr. Hanson got to do with my going home?”
Lisa’ s expression softened and her eyes grew faintly concerned.
“Don’t pretend, idiot,” she said softly. “You like him, don’t you? But if he likes you your going home to England won’t make a scrap of difference.”
“For goodness’ sake, Liz,” Virginia exclaimed, jerking up her head like a young, startled pony, “stop talking such a lot of nonsense! Dr. Hanson is as good as engaged to Carla Spengler and their friends are merely awaiting an announcement that the wedding day has been fixed! How can you start thinking such crazy thoughts?”
“I wouldn’t be prepared to swear they’re crazy,” Lisa said, faintly amused by the look—of horror almost—on her sister’ s face. “And what has this Carla Spengler got that you haven’t go
t—except a voice.”
“She’s absolutely beautiful,” Virginia told her.
“Well, as you know, I’ ve never considered you exactly plain. ”
“We’re not even in the same class,” Virginia muttered rather wistfully. And then she started to gather together her gloves and handbag. “I must go now, and I hope during your moments of quiet reflection you’ ll grow a little more rational! ”
“I might,” Lisa admitted, “but, on the other hand, I might not! ” She looked rather sorrowfully at her sister. “I’ m ‘honestly sorry, darling, to cut your little holiday short—and I believe you’ve enjoyed it even though you’ve had me on your mind—but unless you can think of some way of staying, apart from turning Madame d’ Auvergne’ s villa into a kind of unofficial hotel—”
“There isn’t any way.” Virginia said. And then suddenly she remembered Mary Van Loon. There was a way... but why go on staying out here in Switzerland when there was no special reason why she should stay? All good things came to an end sometime! But, all the same, Mary had offered her a job and Mary did need help. And she was very fond of children. She was not altogether looking forward to taking up secretarial duties again, especially in a stuffy office tucked away in one of the least salubrious thoroughfares of London.
She would give the matter of Mrs. Van Loon thought.. And then she hurried away before Lisa could guess that an idea had entered her mind. Lisa might wish to discuss it with her and try to influence her decision....
CHAPTER EIGHT
But she decided to think of nothing that was in the very slightest degree unpleasant, when Sunday morning dawned in a lilac haze that promised early summer heat as the day advanced, and the telephone had not rung to prepare her for a postponement of the outing, or perhaps its cancellation altogether. Virginia, up as soon as she had swallowed her morning coffee and rolls, splashed happily in her bath and then dressed with more care than she had ever expended on her dressing in her life.
