Cruise to a Wedding

by Betty Neels

  They had reached the hall by now and were standing in the middle of its flower-scented warmth.

  ‘Terry?’ Loveday’s voice was shocked.

  ‘Of course. I told him that I would pay his fare.’

  ‘Rimmy, you can’t—even if you were married to him he would hate to take money from you; he surely won’t let you.’

  Rimada tossed her blonde head. ‘You are silly, Loveday—of course he lets me; he knows that I am rich.’

  For a moment Loveday felt herself to be in strong sympathy with Rimada’s guardian, however tiresome he was. ‘Look, Rimmy,’ she said urgently, ‘even if Terry knows you can afford to pay for him, he will hate to take money…’

  Rimada’s mouth set obstinately. ‘He does not hate it at all; I have given him money, three, four times.’ She added coldly, ‘We will not speak of it, for it is my own private business.’

  Loveday accepted the snub with outward meekness, feeling a strong urge to find her way to the Baron at all costs and urge him to do something, anything, before Rimada had her own stubborn way. But he was a hundred miles or more away; even if she telephoned he would never believe her; had he not said that they were in opposite camps? And how could she tell tales on a friend? Perhaps, she thought hopefully, she might be able to persuade Rimada to put her wedding off for a little while, long enough for her to be quite sure. She seemed sure enough now, though Loveday still nurtured grave doubts about the bridegroom. ‘Rimmy,’ she began persuasively, and was urgently shushed because Freule de Wolff was tripping downstairs to join them.

  The two girls were on their way to bed before Loveday had another chance to broach the subject. ‘Look, Rimmy,’ she coaxed, ‘I’ve helped you a great deal and I’ll go on helping you because I said I would, but I think you should tell your mother all about it before we go. Telephone her just before we go on board; it will be too late for anyone to come after us by then, so it’ll be quite safe. Once you’re married you can go home with Terry if you wish, and all the tiresome explanations will have been made.’

  Rimada liked the idea. ‘You think that I should do that?’

  ‘Well, yes—your mother, you know—it would be only fair.’

  ‘Supposing she were to tell Adam?’

  ‘Not if you ask her not to. Anyway, he doesn’t come as often as all that, does he? They may not meet for ages—long after you’re married.’

  Rimada nodded. ‘I believe that you are right. I will do that.’ She looked at Loveday. ‘And you will be happier if I do?’

  ‘Much.’

  They went back to the Royal City the next day, back to the bustling, absorbing life within its walls. Loveday, plunged into the ordered rush of the theatre, had no thoughts to spare for anything much save her work, and when she got off duty that evening it was to find a note from Rimada to say that she had gone out with Terry—a pattern of ever-recurring frequency during the days which followed, and a good thing too, Loveday considered; the more the two of them were together the better. Marriage, she firmly believed, stood a better chance if the parties concerned had had a reasonable time in which to get to know each other. She was inclined to scoff at the various tales she had heard of love at first sight. There was no such thing, she reminded herself with undue vehemence.

  The last details of the cruise were worked out; the tickets collected, clothes decided upon, rejected, and then decided upon once more, and the two girls went down to Tenterden once more, where they were welcomed with open arms, fed hugely, and given a great deal of advice by Mrs Pearce. ‘And you will be sure and send a letter from your first port of call—Madeira, isn’t it—or I shall be worried.’ She looked kindly at Rimada. ‘Does your mother worry, too, dear?’

  ‘Of course, Mrs Pearce, and because I am her only child, it is much worse for her.’

  A reasoning Mrs Pearce couldn’t subscribe to but was too nice to argue about. She had four children of her own, and therefore, she reasoned silently, four times the anxieties which a mother of one might experience.

  ‘You have enough money?’ she enquired of Loveday.

  She was instantly reassured by her daughter: more than enough, and if she was going to continue the cruise on her own, she thought silently, she would need even less than she had with her: it might be a little lonely, but… She cheered herself up with the thought that one was supposed to make a great many friends on board ship.

  Back at hospital and two evenings later, just as she was about to go off duty, Gordon Blair flung open the swing doors as she was approaching them and ushered Professor de Wolff. She stopped dead in her tracks, her only thought, and that muddled, that Rimada had gone out with Terry.

  The Baron sauntered towards her, immaculate as usual and very much at his ease, his face wearing a bland smile. ‘Miss Loveday Pearce!’ he exclaimed. ‘How delightful to see you again, although I must say that at the moment you appear to be suffering some form of shock.’

  Loveday opened her mouth; something should be said, something polite, something to dull the suspicion she felt was hiding behind that placid smile. No sound came. She glanced at Gordon, rather in the manner of a drowning man grasping at a rope, but he didn’t help at all.

  ‘I say, you do look a wreck, Loveday,’ was all he said, with all the candour of an old friend. ‘Seen a ghost or something? Working too hard, I dare say. You ought to give yourself an evening out—relax.’

  Relax! thought Loveday hollowly; how could she relax when she needed all her wits about her?

  ‘A shrewd piece of advice,’ observed the Baron admiringly. ‘Don’t let me keep you, Blair—much obliged for your assistance.’

  Loveday watched with resigned despair as Gordon wandered off, shutting the doors with a clang behind him, leaving her alone with this man, who any minute now was going to enquire for Rimada. She would have to cook up some tale, and she was a bad liar, but she wasn’t a girl to wait for the worst to happen.

  ‘Good evening,’ she began inanely, and managed a smile. ‘Have you come to take Rimada out? What a pity you didn’t let her know sooner. They’ve gone to supper and then on to the cinema—there’s a very good film on—’ a flight of fancy, but there was bound to be something spectacular on somewhere ‘—we’ve all been hoping to see it, but we’re not all off this evening. Rimada was lucky.’ She paused for breath, afraid she had overdone it. She had, for he said softly:

  ‘A commendable effort, dear girl, laid on thick with a trowel, just as though you had something to hide. Now what should I do? Go along to the restaurant and join her? The other girls wouldn’t mind, would they? Where were they going?’ He glanced at his watch, apparently deep in thought. ‘If you would tell me which cinema, perhaps that would be better. I could pick her up before the show starts.’

  Loveday felt the colour oozing from her cheeks. She managed a, ‘Oh, yes, well—’ and then came to a full stop, her mind a hideous blank.

  ‘Of course, you and I might dine together instead.’ His blue eyes surveyed her keenly. ‘After all, I only happened to be passing by, as it were, I intended to do no more than spend an hour or so.’

  She accepted with an eagerness which blinded her to the lift of his eyebrows and the muscle twitching at the corner of his mouth. Rimada and Terry almost always went to a small restaurant in Soho, not at all the sort of place the Baron would be likely to patronize. By the time they got back surely Rimada and Terry would be safely in the hospital again. ‘That would be very nice,’ she told him, a little breathless. ‘I—I’ll go and change.’

  She had already locked up; it only remained for her to accompany him down the stairs and leave him in the consultants’ room while she went over to the Home. She flung into her room, almost lightheaded with relief at getting out of such an awkward situation. He had said nothing to make her uneasy as they had gone through the hospital, only talked trivialities; the pattern of a man with an evening to waste.

  She chose a dress with care, an amber silk jersey with a ruffled collar and tight sleeves, and fu
ssed a little over her shoes and bag. She looked all right, she decided, peering into the mirror; her hair had gone up nicely and she had on a new eye-shadow which suited her. She caught up her coat and made for the door, reminding herself that the reason that she had taken such pains with her appearance was in order to rivet the Baron’s attention upon herself and keep his thoughts from Rimada. There was little truth in this praiseworthy idea, but even though she was half aware of this, she was in no state to dispute it. She ran downstairs, a prey to the fear that Rimada and Terry might have come back early and fallen into the Baron’s clutches.

  He was walking up and down the hospital forecourt, looking genial. She hurried over to him, unable to prevent herself peering anxiously in all directions as she did so, which meant that she missed his grin of pure delight as he watched her. ‘You weren’t going out this evening, I hope?’ he asked her.

  She forced her eyes to look calmly ahead. ‘No—oh, no. Have you your car?’

  ‘No, not this time—I flew over.’ They had reached the gates and he hailed a taxi. He was a man for whom taxis stopped, probably because he was so very large and moreover had the air of someone who expected them to. She got in and squeezed herself into a corner, and missed again his wicked grin. ‘I thought we might try a little place in Soho,’ he told her. ‘Rimada told me about it; she went there once or twice, I believe.’

  She clutched her handbag with hands which would have trembled if she had given them the chance. ‘Not Soho,’ she managed.

  He turned to look at her. ‘My dear girl, perhaps you have never been there in the evening? During the day it is a little crowded, I imagine, though some of its smaller streets are delightful. You have not been to the Gay Hussar?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then let me be the first to take you there. I feel sure that you will like it—you and Rimada have much in common, I imagine, and she was delighted with it.’

  Loveday sighed without knowing it and said nothing; relief had bereft her of words. She was almost sure that Rimada and Terry went to a place called—what was it called? She frowned heavily, trying to remember, and then when she did, smiled widely: Hostaria Romana, that was the place.

  The Gay Hussar was a smallish restaurant. The first person she saw as they entered was Rimada, right at the back, and Terry was with her. She glimpsed their rapt profiles as she followed the head waiter to a table—heaven be thanked—on the other side of the room and well out of their line of vision. With commendable promptitude, she elected to sit so that the Baron would have his broad back towards his cousin—but perhaps he had already seen her? After an age of seconds during which she waited for him to make some remark to that effect, she ventured to look at him. His expression was blandly enquiring, no more than that. He said merely: ‘Well, here we are in Soho—I hope you will find that I didn’t persuade you to come in vain.’

  He hadn’t persuaded her at all—just brought her along with him, but she let that pass; no point in annoying him now.

  ‘I’m hungry, I hope you are.’ He smiled at her as he spoke with such charm that it brought an answering curve to her pretty mouth. Besides, blessed relief was flooding over her; he hadn’t seen Rimada, and if the girl had the sense to stay where she was until they left the restaurant, he never would. Paralysed by the strength of the feelings she had suffered, she came alive once more. ‘I’m hungry too,’ she told her companion, casting round in her head for a topic of conversation which would keep him interested for the next hour or so.

  She talked through the starters, got her second wind with the smoked duck and was well into her stride with the dessert, a delicate mousse. And under the impression that it would give her courage if anything were to go wrong, she allowed her glass to be filled and refilled with the excellent hock the Baron had chosen. By the time they had reached the coffee she was feeling happy and slightly pot-valiant. Once or twice she had contrived to peep round her host’s massive shoulders, and once she had encountered Rimada’s pale, petrified gaze. She had looked away immediately, scared that the Baron might have noticed something, but it seemed that he hadn’t, he was signalling the waiter to re-fill their glasses. She took a thankful gulp and felt a fresh wave of courage course through her as she plunged once more into lighthearted chatter, calculated to engage his attention until the end of their meal.

  They had finished and she was beginning to worry about leaving before Rimada became too impatient, when he solved the problem for her by remarking gently: ‘Much though I am enjoying your—er—unexpectedly happy company, I feel that I should take you back to the Royal City—I expect you have a busy day before you in the morning.’

  Loveday was getting out of her chair almost before he had finished speaking and making smartly for the door, hardly pausing to put on the coat held for her. The desire to turn round and look at Rimada was very great; she kept her eyes in front of her however, and thus, for the third time that evening, missed the expression on the Baron’s face. Possibly if she had seen it, she might have been forewarned, as it was she climbed into the taxi, and still talking, a little feverishly by now, was conveyed back to the hospital. She would have bidden him good-bye at the entrance, but he got out first, paid off the driver and walked, without being asked, with her across the courtyard to the entrance.

  It was very quiet, the only bright lights were coming from the porter’s lodge and the Accident Room entrance; the ward lights were out by now, replaced by the soft glow of the night lights. Loveday paused at the door, anxious by now to wish her escort good night. Any moment now Rimada and Terry, thinking themselves safe, might come into the courtyard. But the Baron seemed not to notice her held-out hand, instead he tucked an arm in hers and walked with her through the hospital and across the inner yard until they reached the door of the Nurses’ Home.

  ‘Thank you for a very pleasant evening,’ she said without wasting time. ‘I—I liked Soho after all.’

  ‘You surprise me,’ the Baron’s voice was horribly silky. ‘I had the impression that you were on tenterhooks throughout dinner—indeed, I began to fear that the unusually large quantities of hock which you drank presumably to help you keep your nerve—would send you under the table. Certainly it sent your tongue rattling in a manner the like of which I haven’t heard for many a long year.’

  She stared up at his face in the dim light, her blood slowly congealing with fright. At last she managed in a voice which she strove to keep cool and offhand: ‘I can’t think what you’re talking about, Professor de Wolff.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you can, not after all that hock. I’ll refresh your memory for you, you saw my tiresome cousin as soon as we entered the restaurant, did you not? And just because I didn’t remark upon her presence, you were little fool enough to suppose that I hadn’t seen her. My poor, foolish, Miss Pearce, pitting your wits against mine; you’ll know better next time.’ He laughed, a sound which did nothing to reassure her. ‘Now I can say that I enjoyed my evening enormously, watching you toss off glass after glass of wine, and listening to the ceaseless chatter which I suppose you thought would divert my attention from anything else. It was a splendid effort, dear girl, you must be worn out, certainly you will have a shocking headache in the morning.’

  He took a step nearer and laid his hands on her shoulders, staring down at her. ‘It would be a fitting end to the evening if I were to kiss you.’ He thought about it for a long moment. ‘But on second thoughts, I don’t think I will.’

  She felt herself turned smartly and pushed, quite gently, through the door he had opened. As it swung to behind her, she heard his mocking ‘Good night, Loveday Pearce,’ but she didn’t look round. She ran upstairs as hard as she could go, suddenly in tears. It wasn’t until she was in bed ten minutes later that she wasn’t crying over the awful fiasco of an evening, but because the Baron hadn’t wanted to kiss her.

  She was late for breakfast the next morning, and just as the Baron had so hatefully predicted, she had a headache. When Rimada, late herself, ca
me to sit beside her to drink a hasty cup of tea, she said urgently, ‘Rimmy, not now—I’ve a vile headache.’

  Rimada took no notice, but: ‘He saw us, didn’t he? How could you let him take you to the Gay Hussar? We were there,’ she added just as though Loveday didn’t know it already.

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ snapped Loveday, weighed down by headache. ‘I had no idea…you always go to that other place with the funny name. He came to the theatre just as I was going off duty, and wanted to know where you were. So I said you’d gone out—I didn’t exactly tell a lie, but I let him think that you’d gone to the flicks with some of the other girls, so he invited me to go out with him instead, and it seemed a good idea because it would keep him occupied and there would be less chance of you meeting.’

  Her friend gave her a grateful look, tinged with bewilderment. ‘But what did he say?’

  Loveday thought. The conversation outside the Nurses’ Home was still unpleasantly clear in her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said at length. ‘He just said—when we got back here—that he had seen you, that was all.’

  ‘All?’ There was a load of disbelief in Rimada’s voice. ‘Is he still here?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Loveday swallowed her tea and got to her feet. ‘And what is more,’ she added forcefully, ‘I don’t care. I must go, Rimmy; there’s a colossal list. See you later.’ She hurried away, her aching head already full of the morning’s problems.

  She had no time to worry about the whereabouts of the Baron after that; she was eating a long-delayed supper at the end of a long, busy day when she saw Rimada again.

  ‘There you are,’ said her friend. ‘I had my supper hours ago.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Loveday sourly. ‘I would have had mine too, only a perf came in just as we’d finished the list. Sometimes I wonder why I stick it.’