Harlequin Omnibus: Take Me with You, Choose What You Will, Meant for Each Other

by Mary Burchell

  MEANT FOR EACH OTHER

  Meantfor Each Other

  It's like some silly domestic drama, Thea thought bitterly — a conjugal scene, and the disillusioned wife begins to pack.

  Except that she didn't feel like a disillusioned wife. She'd never been Lindsay Varlon's wife in any real senseof the word.

  Why had he persuaded her that marriage to him was the only solution to her predicament? Whatever his reason, Thea was convinced now that it had nothing to do with love. If only she didn't love him!

  CHAPTER ONE

  *'It will be a very different kind of life, no doubt, from anything you have previously known. *'

  Mr. Thorburn, senior, removed his spectacles and regarded his client severely. Not that he saw her better that way, but he had long ago discovered the sudden removal of his spectacles and intensification of his gaze to be an invaluable trick for a family lawyer to employ when wishing to emphasize the gravity of an occasion.

  Beneath this scrutiny his client wriggled ("squirmed" was the word Mr. Thorburn used in his inmost thoughts), pushed back her bright fair hair so that it stood out in a halo around her absurd little hat, and then finally burst out:

  "But I won*t mind that. It's terribly thrilling, I think. After all, my cousin's really a very famous actress. Of course, living with her will be different from boarding school. And from holidays with poor mummie, too."

  "Of course," agreed Mr. Thorburn austerely, trying to match the sudden dropping of his young client's voice by infusing a degree of regret and respect into his own tone. It was difficult, however, for "poor mummie" had undoubtedly been one of his most infuriating clients.

  Perhaps in an attempt to achieve the right state of mind, he drew toward him a very bulky file on which was inscribed in rather faded capitals "Mrs. Amelia Pendray," and then in much fresher ink, "(deceased)."

  But the very bulkiness of the f^Ie reminded him forcibly of what he had suffered at the hands of Mrs. Amelia Pendray before the blessed word "deceased" had been added to her record, and he turned quickly to another file. This was

  bright and new and almost completely flat, and across its blatantly fresh surface ran the words Miss Althea Pendray.

  Opening the file, Mr. Thorburn thoughtfully turned over its meager contents. Then he directed his attention once more to Miss Althea Pendray herself.

  With or without his spectacles, he could not help seeing that she was one of the prettiest creatures that had ever occupied the large, worn leather chair opposite his desk, though he noted the fact with quite impersonal attention. On principle Mr. Thorburn disapproved of anyone under thirty, and as his client fell short of this minimum age of discretion by eleven regrettable years, it followed that she could hardly find favor in his sight in the strict sense of the phrase.

  At the same time, his excellent powers of observation enabled him to record the facts that Miss Althea Pendray*s eyes were of a dark and almost startling blue, that her hair was of that brilliant fairness often sought at the hairdresser's, never found there, but occasionally bestowed by a carelessly generous Nature, and that she was lightly and gracefully built, with a spring and eagerness to her movements that spoke of youth and perfect health.

  She looked at him as though she found him an integral part of a brave new world that had suddenly presented itself to her fascinated gaze. She seemed to regard him as almost personally responsible for introducing her to a future that she evidently saw in the brightest colors.

  For a few seconds Mr. Thorburn basked in this unwonted approval with a faint sensation of bewilderment. Then habit and a grim conscientiousness reminded him that he was there not to create, but to dispel foolish illusions, and he said firmly, *''In the absence of any definite reply from your cousin, we are not in a position to say for certain that you will actually live with her, of course."

  "No. But I'm bound to stay there for a day or two—or even a week or two and even that will be exciting. And then afterward I might get a job in connection with the theater and—"

  "Miss Pendray—I don't know that I have made your position clear to you even now. Your mother—contrary to all my advice, I must say in fairness to myself—had been living on her capital for years. There is practically nothing

  left. Certainly nothing that would constitute a source of income for you, and whoever receives you will do so at the cost of training you to earn your own living.' *

  "But 'whoever receives me* can only mean my Cousin Geraldine, can't it? She's simply the only relation I've got in the world," Thea pointed out with an air of reasonableness. "And of course I'm willing to be trained to earn my own living, and that's what I want to do."

  "It is just possible, Miss Pendray, that your cousin will take the view that you should already have been trained for this purpose. Had your mother taken my advice—but never mind about that now. The late Mrs. Pendray was not of a businesslike turn of mind and she had her own—rather peculiar—ideas about education." It was obvious here, even to Thea, that Mr. Thorburn was employing a euphemism. "Not everyone, you know, would necessarily be delighted to have to assume responsibility for an entirely untrained girl and support her while she acquired the necessary means of earning ner own living."

  Mr. Thorburn felt faintly uncomfortable at the anxious darkening of his young client's eyes, though he told himself immediately that it was kinder to disillusion her now.

  "You ... you mean that my cousin won't want me?"

  "I don't say that positively, I only say that you must not necessarily expect Miss Marven to receive you with open arms," Mr. Thorburn replied noncommittally.

  "No. Not open arms exactly," Thea conceded. "But I am her only relation, just as she is mine, and blood is thicker than water, isn't it?"

  "No, Miss Pendray, it is not," Mr. Thorburn returned emphatically from the depths of his experience. "When it comes to a Question of financial aid, blood is apt to run remarkably thin, believe me."

  "I see." Thea considered the departure of her illusion rathersolemnly. "Well, of course, I do understand that my cousin wouldn't want to spend a lot of money on me. But if she would just see me through the difficult time until I could earn my own living, I could arrange to pay her back or something, couldn't I?"

  "You could," agreed Mr. Thorburn, somewhat softened by this immediate acceptance of the situation in its less glowing colors. "I don't say, of course, that there will be any

  necessity for such an arrangement. From her address and from her stage position your cousin can hardly be a poor woman. I only wish to prepare you for all eventualities.

  "It's funny that she never even replied to your letter, isn't it?*' Thea said after a moment.

  *'I believe stage people are notoriously unmethodical about these matters," Mr. Thorburn returned primly. "I have, however, sent a further letter today, and I suggest that you should write another letter yourself. Since it is impossible for you to remain with Mrs. Roberts beyond next Thursday, it is essential that your position should be clear."

  "Yes—oh, yes," Thea agreed, realizing that, until now, she had regarded her position as very much clearer than it apparently was. "Yes, I'll certainly write another letter. And if there's nothing else to settle—" she looked inquiringly at Mr. Thorburn "—I'd better go and write it now, and not keep you any longer.''

  "An excellent idea," agreed Mr. Thorburn with the spurious heartiness of one who sees a rather uncomfortable interview drawing to a successful close.

  He got up from his chair and accompanied Thea to the door, where he shook hands with her before instructing the junior clerk to show her out—an office performed by that susceptible gentleman with an admiring respectfulness that made Thea feel less of a schoolgirl and more of a client than she had at any other time during the interview.

  As she emerged from the gloomy offices into the bright winter sunshine once more, Thea felt, like Mr. Thorburn, (though for slightly different reasons), that an uncomfortable interview was successfully over, and her spirits rose accordingly.


  Her spirits had a habit of rising, and only fell under great provocation. This had stood her in good stead during poor mummie's lifetime, because poor mummie had been one of those people who enjoy bad health with a gloomy relish amounting to an all-absorbing passion.

  Left a widow when Thea was five, Mrs. Pendray found herself no longer of overwhelming interest and importance to anyone. Instinctively—perhaps unconsciously—she sought some means by whicn she could attract and hold attention. She found it, as so many have before her, in the adoption of the role of semi-invalid.

  As long as Thea could remember, life at home had been ruled by mummie's headaches, mummie*s '*poor heart,*' mummie's inability to do any of the things that one most wanted to do in the holidays. And even when Thea went away to boarding school, the reason given was mummie*s inability to stand a lively, energetic child around the place.

  Nearly all the time, Thea had accepted her mother's complaints at their face value and willingly lavished sympathy and various forms of aid upon her.

  At times, her common sense told her that poor mummie was a bit of a fraud, but conscience and real kindness of heart prevented her from either saying so or acting as though she had discovered this fact.

  Now she was very glad of her restraint. For—contrary to all probabilities—poor mummie had died suddenly during Thea's last term at school, not from any of the many ills to which she had enthusiastically laid claim during her lifetime, but from slipping on an unsuspected patch of ice in the road and fracturing her skull.

  Thea had been summoned from school to the pleasant little country town where her mother had lived in very comfortable furnished apartments ever since she had decided that she was too delicate to run an establishment of her own. But Mrs. Pendray never regained consciousness and, with a surprising lack of fuss for one whose changes of health had always caused so much sensation during her lifetime, she slipped away, leaving her daughter a pretty, homeless and, to all intents and purposes, penniless orphan.

  ''Not that I won't be very pleased to put you up for a bit, dear," her mother's kind landlady explained earnestly to Thea. "But the rooms your ma had are my living as you might say, and I'll have to look around for a new regular that can pay well. But before I do that I'd like to close the house and go to my sister's by the sea for a bit of a rest. There's no hurry now, though I'll have to fit in with my sister, her taking boarders, too, you know."

  "Yes," Thea said slowly. "Of course I quite understand, Mrs. Roberts, and it's very kind of you to study my interests too. I'll get things settled and make a move as soon as I can."

  What Mrs. Pendray had planned for the future—if indeed she had ever done anything so sensible as planning for the

  future—it was hard to imagine. For, while well aware that she could not leave her daughter financially provided for, she had still chosen—with those peculiar educational views to which Mr. Thorburn had so feelingly referred-to send Thea to a rather pretentious, old-fashioned type of boarding school, which catered to "the daughters of gentlemen."

  It didn't say so, in so many words, in its prospectus, of course—even this school was not as old-fashioned as that —but in all Thea's school career the emphasis had been laid on good manners, ladylike behavior, and a superficial knowledge about a variety of arts and accomplishments, with hardly any attention paid to the hard, coarse business of earning one's own living.

  This, then, accounted for Mr. Thorburn's gloomy disapproval of the diflficult situation. This also accounted for Cousin Geraldine having been brought into the picture.

  In describing her cousin as "really a very famous actress," Thea had not been guilty of any exaggeration. At thirty, Geraldine Marven was one of the brightest lights of the London stage and her successes had been a source of pleasurable, though distant, pride to Thea and her mother.

  Neither of them had ever met Cousin Geraldine. Neither of them quite expected to, in ordinary circumstances. But when Thea found herself suddenly and completely alone in the world, her thoughts turned—quite naturally, she artlessly supposed—to her one relative. Cousin Geraldine, on whom Fortune had smiled so consistently for so many years, would no doubt be willing to extend temporary help and hospitality until Thea could stand on her own feet.

  Not by any means sharing this optimistic view, but seeing no other course at the moment, Mr. Thorburn had addressed an explanatory letter to Miss Marven, suggesting that her young cousin should come to London to her until something else could be arranged. To this Thea had added her own contribution in the shape of a much more informal letter than Mr. Thorburn's.

  But so far—and greatly to Mr. Thorburn's disquieted annoyance—no reply had been received.

  Now the situation had become more urgent owing to Mrs. Roberts having received intimation from her sister that she must "come now or not at all, it being between

  seasons and the room vacant, but no knowing when it might betaken."

  Urged by Mrs. Roberts's kind but obviously mendacious assurances that there was still "no hurry," Thea had announced quite positively that she would leave three days from then, on tne following Thursday. And with her boats burning slowly but surely behind her, she returned from her interview with Mr. Thorburn to address a final note to Cousin Geraldine.

  There was no doubt, whatever, that the present silence could be accounted for in a dozen ways: Geraldine Marven must be a very busy woman; she might have been out of town; the address that they had might be out of date; or her reply might even now be in the mail. But in any case, it was necessary to see her. And to do that Thea must go to London.

  In her second letter Thea recapitulated most of the circumstances that dictated this appeal, in case her first letter had gone astray. Then she explained about the impossibility of remaining any longer with Mrs. Roberts, and added:

  So, you see, I have no choice but to worry you, and I am coming to London next Thursday by the train that gets into Huston at six-thirty. I don't know London at all, but expect I can find my way—that is, if I really have your right address. But in case you come to meet me, or send your maid or anyone. Id better explain that I'll be wearine a navy coat and a little navy hat with a light blue turned-back brim. And I 'm medium height and have sort of yellowish gold hair. I'll stop at the barrier for a minute or two, just in case there's anyone to meet me.

  That, thought Thea, as she thoughtfully licked the envelope flap, about covered everything. And certainly Cousin Geraldine would do something about it.

  For greater safety, she addressed the letter to the theater where she understood her cousin was playing. And then she set to work to wind up the few odd ends of her life in Westermoore.

  Thea was not of a worrying disposition, but once or twice during her last few days in Westermoore, she experienced a

  chill wave of nervousness and a strange little fluttering in her chest and throat that she wonderingly identified as panic.

  Suppose that when she arrived in London there was no one to meet her, and that somehow she failed to find her cousin? Suppose that she found herself miles and miles away from even the cool familiarity of Westermoore and utterly alone in a great unknown city? Would she be frantic with terror and bewilderment? Would she be able to think of something sensible and normal to do? Would there be anyone to help her or give her advice?

  She knew that her usual air of happy anticipation, and her irrepressible interest in everything, had rather given Mr. Thorburn the impression that she was well able to look after herself

  Well, she was able to look after herself, of course. Only she hoped desperately that her capacity for doing so would not be put to too severe a test.

  During the last day she waited and hoped—and even prayed a little reproachfully—for an answer from Cousin Geraldine. When the mailman came with the afternoon delivery, she even ran out to the front door to take the letters before Mrs. Roberts could.

  But there was only a circular and a picture postcard for Mrs. Roberts. Cousin Geraldine evidently was not on
e to commit herself to paper for anything but a most pressing reason. Unless a letter came the next morning before she left....

  But no letter came the next morning before Thea left.

  On the other hand, the sun shone so brilliantly, and the frost, outlining every twig and branch, glittered so beautifully, and the bright, clear air was so exhilarating that it was impossible not to feel hopeful and even excited.

  All this was quite enough to make Thea's spirits rise, and she bade goodbye to Mrs. Roberts, took her suitcase and the package of sandwiches that was her landlady's last kind attention, and departed for the station with by no means the orthodox feelings of the friendless orphan setting out into the world.

  From the corner seat of the third-class compartment, Thea watched the sparkling, frosty splendor of the fleeing countryside, and in her interest forgot her anxieties. A while

  later, however, as she watched the dull light of the winter afternoon fading from the landscape, she felt the small, cold fingers of fear and anxiety stretching to the farthest corners of her consciousness and imagination.

  At the last stop before London a great many people boarded the train, and her compartment was crowded. But the number of people gave Thea no sense of companionship. In some queer way they only emphasized her isolation ana made her feel lonelier than she had felt since the night her mother died.

  They all seemed to have their plans so satisfyingly cut-and-dried. None of them were in any doubt as to where they were going and what they were doing when they reached the end of the journey.

  Thea sat there dumb in the midst of all this confident chatting and secure planning. Of them all, only she had no idea what her next step would be once the crowded train had disgorged her into the crowded city.

  She stared out at the now darkened countryside and saw nothing but her own pale, anxious reflection in the dark glass of the window.