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

by Mary Burchell

  "Oh, isn't this heavenly!" Thea leaned her elbows on the table and gazed out over the river, leaving her companion to choose her lunch, which he did with an admirable regard for a young, healthy and rather unsophisticated appetite.

  "I am enjoying myself." She smiled at him across the table when the waiter had departed to carry out Varlon's orders.

  "I'm very glad, Thea. Didn't I say the first time I met you that you have a very lively appreciation of pleasure?"

  "Did you?" She smiled. "Yes, I believe you did. But there's not much in that, is there? What's the good of being alive if you can't still appreciate the good things that come your way?"

  "What indeed?" he agreed with a Smile.

  "You still enjoy things, don't you?" she said a little anxiously.

  "At least, I am enjoying myself immensely at this mo-

  ment,* ne assured her and smiled straight into her eyes, introducing an experience that was entirely new to Thea.

  *'Is that part of your technique?" she inquired with an irresistibly mischievous smile.

  "No, you unkind little wretch, it isn *t."

  "Well, it's a good hne," Thea told him. "You ought to get results with it.'*

  He leaned back in his chair and regarded her with amusement and mock dismay.

  "And I imagined you couldn't look after yourself!*' he said.

  "Well, I can." Thea began to eat her lunch with great enjoyment. "All the same—" she looked up and smiled at him "—I was most awfully glad when you came to meet me at the station. I very nearly cried, just before you spoke to me."

  He shook his head.

  "You don't expect me to believe that, do you?"

  "Oh, but it's true! I was miserable and quite terrified," Thea insisted. "When I said just now that I could look after myself, I only meant if there were essentially nice people around."

  There was a thoughtful silence, and then he inquired dryly, "Am I to take it from that remark that I rank as an essentially nice person?"

  "Of course."

  "I'm afraid that's one mark down for you, Thea. No one has ever before committed the error of describing me as a *nice'man."

  "No?" Thea regarded him with a critical eye, which he seemed to find rather more disconcerting than she would have expected. "Well, of course, I know what you mean. Superficially, you're something of a rake, but fundamentally-"

  "Thea, how old did you say you were? "

  "Nineteen—nearly twenty. Why?"

  "Never mind. Do go on. Fundamentally I am—what?"

  "Fundamentally you mind quite a lot about the things that really matter.

  "And what," he asked carefully, "do you imagine I consider are the things that really matter?"

  "The same as I think," Thea said with startling simplic-

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  ity. ''Being kind-wanting as fair a deal for other people as you would like for yourself, being capable of moralincligna-tion over meanness and cruelty, and knowing that you have to do something about it, and-oh, well, you know, things like that," she finished comprehensively.

  "And you believe that I subscribe to all that?" he asked | gravely. j

  'Yes, I do. I can't tell you why I know it, but I do. I! suppose it's somewhere at the back of all my small experience of you, and I can't help sensing it."

  "All because I spent some money on you, which I could well afford?'' He smiled slightly.

  "Oh, no The money hasn't anything to do with it—or very little. Money's the easiest thing in the world to give, if you have it. I do understand that. It's the attitude of mind, the—the wanting to spend it that way. But that's only part of it, anyway. There were other things, too. Things that seem much smaller but are really more important.''

  He looked at her rather somberly and then away across the river, and was silent so long that she prompted him a little anxiously.

  "Well, am I right? What do you think?"

  He turned his head then and smiled at her.

  "I think you're such a nice child that it quite horrifies me to remember that I might not have come and collected you from Euston that day."

  "Oh "It was not the reply Thea had been expecting,

  but she saw she would never get him to talk seriously about himself She also saw that, for all his light manner of saying that about herself, he meant it most sincerely. And she forbore to question him further.

  Instead, she drank her excellent coffee, and presently she asked, "What are we going to do after lunch?" "

  "Would you hke to go on the river?"

  "I'd love it! Can you scull or punt or whatever one does?" ^

  "I daresay I can make shift to move the boat," he said, which, for some reason or other, made her laugh. And when she laughed he smiled, too, and his dark, clever face entirely lost its faintly moody expression.

  They strolled down a shady path to the river and rented a boat, which he seemed very well able to manage.

  "Shall I take an oar, too?*' Thea wanted to know.

  "No. You can lie back and trail your hand in the water and look elegant,*' he told her.

  They didn't talk very much, but each seemed to find a considerable degree of contentment in the silent company of the other. Once, a little to her shame, Thea dozed, and when she opened her eyes and saw the slight but perceptible change in the afternoon light, she said guiltily, "Goodness, was I asleep?"

  He was resting on his oars at the moment, and the boat was hardly moving at all. With a slight smile he brought his eaze back from some distant prospect that seemed to have Been absorbing his thoughtful attention.

  "I believe so. Why not? It probably is very good for you. Don't you work hard all the week?''

  "Most weeks. Not so particularly during the last two,*' Thea confessed. "Because I was out a good deal with Mrs. Dorley and Stephen in the evenings. But I'm going to make up for it now. I'm getting on quite well, you know." She seemed to think he would be interested, andf he was.

  "Are you, Thea?" He turned the boat and started rowing back at a leisurely pace to the point from which they had started. "When do you expect to start out as a full-fledged businesswoman?"

  "Oh, not for another three months yet." She glanced at him a little anxiously. "You're not finding it too frightfully expensive providing for me, are you?"

  He laughed then, and said quite unexpectedly, "No, darling. I 'm not finding you too expensive."

  And for the rest of the'way back Thea was silent, trying to decide whether people like Lindsay Varlon really called Tots of people "darlmg, ' or whether he meant it very nicely—or shoula not have used the word at all.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was after six when they arrived at the Dorieys' house, and the place looked strangely blank and deserted with neither Stephen nor his mother around.

  But Emma seemed really pleased to see them. And poor Darry, sunk in a condition of majestic gloom, emerged from it when he recognized them and became almost kittenish in the expression of his pleasure and his self-congratulation that someone had come at last.

  He deigned to sit on Thea's knee, giving forth full-throated purrs and offering the top of his head to be rubbed and the side of his neck to be tickled. Thea and Varlon obliged him in these two particulars, and Thea hugged him affectionately and promised to come and see him very often.

  Emma pressed them to stay and have a meal, but Thea said it was time they were getting back and they ought to be home before dark.

  "Anyway, I've done nothing but eat large meals and laze today," she explained. "We've been out in the car or on the river all day."

  "That will have been very nice for you. Miss Thea," said Emma, who would not have entered a car, much less a boat, for any inducement, having always regarded both as an almost certain means to sudden death.

  "It was heavenly. I've never had such a lovely day before in my life." She gently lifted Darry from her knee and left him with a large saucer of milk, in which he certainly seemed very willing to drown his sorrows.

&n
bsp; Bidding a cordial goodbye to Emma, she went out to the car again with Varlon, and on the way to the gate, he took her lightly by the arm.

  "Was it really such a lovely day, Thea?'*

  It was the first time he had ever actually touched her, except for the most conventional shaking of hands, and Thea was startlingly aware of his thin, strong fingers on her arm.

  *'Why . .. why, of course it was.*' She smiled at him quickly, very faintly put out by the effect that his touch had upon her. "It might well be. You went to a good deal of trouble about it, didn *t you?''

  "I was not aware of any trouble,*' he told her, and he was smiling, too, as he handed her back into the car. "Now we'll have to get a move on if we are going to be home before dark."

  "I think I should be," Thea explained. "If not, Geraldine just might ask questions since she knows I couldn't have been out with Stephen, and then—well, it might be awkward."

  "Might it?"

  "Don't you think so?'' She glanced at him quickly.

  "I don't know. You know Geraldine's reactions to your behavior better than I do."

  "Oh—oh, it's nothing to do with that. She doesn't care how late I stay out or anything of that sort. Only she probably wouMn 't like my going out with you."

  He raised his eyebrows.

  "Why not, Thea?'* L "Well ....*' Thea struggled to find a tactful way of I putting things and failed. "Well, she rather regards you as ner property, doesn 't she?''

  ; "She has no reason to," he replied coolly and categorically. And suddenly Thea knew this was much the nicest day she had ever known and that she could have hugged him with some unexplained feeling of relief.

  They drove very fast after that, silent, perhaps because of what they had just said about Geraldine.

  Later Thea was to wonder if Varlon's thoughts had been just a little too much engaged with what she had said rather than with his driving, so that his attention was not at its finest pitch. He was not in the least a reckless driver, but certainly he always refused afterward to exempt himself entirely from blame.

  Perhaps the uncertain, fading light had something to do

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  with it. Or perhaps it was just that the turning was too sharp, the truck too large and too swift, and the recovery of full attention just a moment too late.

  To Thea it seemed as though the mountainous truck backed sharply into the road from almost nowhere, and their car rushed upon it with the speed of dreadful and inevitable doom. She thought she hardly had time to scream, and certainly there was no sound from Varlon. Only the shriek of brakes applied with frantic urgency, but a second too late.

  She did scream at the moment of shattering impact, and she thought he called out something, too. She knew he flung his arm across her face as a shower of splinters fell around them. But all these were only superficial impressions, dwarfed by the realization of the terrific crash, the tearing pain in her left hand, and the smothering unconsciousness that dropped on her like a great black blanket.

  She struggled up from its folds some time later, but only to partial understanding. Someone was lifting her, and she muttered, "My hand—mind my hand."

  Then she seemed to be back in the car. Only it couldn't be the same car as before, because she had heard that car being ground to wreckage against the side of the truck. But she was in something that was moving fast, and Lindsay (she thought of him suddenly as Lindsay) was there, too, because she heard him say, *'You're all right, child. Don't cry."

  She wasn't really crying and she wanted to tell him so, but the words wouldn't come, because she could only catch her breath by sobbing. She wondered what she could do about it. And then, while she was wondering, the black blanket came down over her again, and there was another long blank.

  But presently a voice-not a voice she knew, but still a very kind voice-said, '*You mustn't cry now. You're going to be all right, and you're safe and comfortable in bed. There isn 't anything to worry about."

  "All right," Thea said very meekly to the slim, pretty nurse who was, rather miraculously she thought, suddenly standing by her bed.

  Then she had something to drink, and after that she went

  to sleep. Not the queer smothered unconsciousness in which she had been before, but real, ordinary sleep.

  Thea awoke to morning light, the soft sound of falling rain, and a complete realization at last of what had happened to her. Now she distinctly remembered the last few moments before the car crash, and she was filled with anxiety to know what had happened to Lindsay Varlon.

  Evidently she herself had oeen rescued, not too badly hurt, if her feelings were any reliable indication, and brought to a hospital or nursing home. But what had happened to him?

  She raised her head from the pillow—with rather more effort than she had thought would be necessary—and looked around to see if there were a bell to ring. There was: a neat little brass bell, standing beside her on a table.

  And as she put out her hand to ring it, she suddenly became acutely conscious of her other hand—her left hand. It was lying on the bed beside her, very heavy and still and very much bandaged. Rather, thought Thea, as though it hadf become in some way disconnected from her.

  She looked at it with apprehension and a certain amount of distaste, but because the anxiety about Lindsay still remained uppermost in her mind, she rang her bell determinedly, and when the nurse appeared—which she did almost immediately—all Thea said was, "Where is Mr. Varlon?''

  "He*s coming back later this morning," the nurse told her. *' How are you feeling?''

  In the enormous relief of knowing that he was capable of "coming back'* anywhere, Thea forgot for a moment about anything else, and the nurse repeated her question before Thea said, "Oh, I'm quite comfortable, thank you. I don't feel very ill. Am I?"

  The nurse laughed and said, "Oh, no," but with a brightness that suggested this was a standard reply rather than a piece of strict veracity.

  "Was Mr. Varlon hurt at all?"

  "Nothing to worry about. Only bruises and a small cut or two. He was able to go home later. We thought his arm was broken at first—the one he put up to save your face—but it was only rather badly knoclced about. You were both very lucky people, and there is nothing for you to worry about."

  "Did anythins happen to my face?'* She put up an exploratory hand to her face, but not until it reached her head did she feel any bandages.

  '*No. Your beauty isn't spoiled."The nurse smiled at her.

  " My head's bandaged."

  "Yes. You got a bit of a knock that put you out for a while. You Ml do all right, now."

  It all sounded wonderfully satisfactory, Thea thought. Then she looked again at her left hand.

  "What about-that?" Again she felt it didn't belong to her, particularly as when she tried to lift it there appeared to be no response.

  "Your hand? Oh, that will have to be in plaster for a little while," the nurse said, as though more people than not had one hand or the other in plaster. "But now you've talked Quite enough. I'm going to bring you some breakfast, and then I daresay you '11 want to go to sleep again.''

  With quite unreasonable resentment, Thea wanted to say that she had no intention whatever of going to sleep again, and that she meant to stay awake until Lindsay Varlon came. But perhaps the nurse was right about her having talked enough.

  When the door swung open she looked eagerly to see if it were Lmdsay, but it was only a rather cocksure but kindly young man whom she guessed to be the resident physician, accompanied by her nurse.

  He asked a few questions of the nurse, rather as though Thea was still unconscious and could give no account of herself, but just before he went out again he smiled at her and said, "Feeling better now, aren't you?"

  It was more a statement than a question, and Thea's impression that these people knew much more about her than she did herself was considerably increased.

  "Yes, thank you, I feel nearly all right."

  "Oh?" He laughed
. "Well, you can't go home just yet. But I see you're on the mend."

  And then he went off again, leaving Thea to some rather agitated thinking. His remark about her not being able to so home just yet had suddenly presented to her the picture of her going home-to Geraldine, of whom she had not thoupht until this moment. Geraldine, who must now know , all about her having gone out for the day with Lindsay i

  and—still worse—that she had resorted to a certain amount of concealment about it.

  Then there was the question of going back to Geraldine as a convalescent instead of a busy stuclent who was hardly «ver in the apartment. Geraldine would not like that at all.

  In fact, she would hate it. She might even refuse to submit to it. Once having got Thea out of the apartment, she would probably not be very enthusiastic about having her back, and there would be trouble—oh, lots of trouble! And Thea began to feel hot and feverish at the very idea.

  She had just reached the point of composing placatory speeches to an angry Geraldme when the aoor swung open again and the nurse, smiling even more fetchingly tnan before, showed in Lindsay Varlon.

  *'0h, Mr. Varlon!" Thea gave a great gasp of relief, and if her left hand had not been weighted down so thoroughly she would probably have held out her arms to him.

  He came across the room to her without a word and picked her right up in his arms, so that it was just the same as if she had held out her arms to him. He looked very much his aee and strangely gray and anxious, she thought, and he didn t seem to take very much notice when the nurse said brightly, "Not too much talking, mind, and you mustn't stay longer than half an hour."

  "You can stay as long as you like,*' Thea whispered resentfully. "She doesn't know what's good for me."

  And at that he smiled for the first time and, quite unexpectedly, he kissed her cheek and said, "How are you now, child?"

  "Oh, I'm all right. You don't need to look anxious like that. Or is it iust the shock of the accident that makes you look so terribly grave and—and worried?"

  "No, I've got over any shock, I expect. I'm just so thankful to see you conscious again and talking like yourself."