Jessica sat down rather wearily on the end of the bed, feeling quite beyond inventing explanations by now, and aware that she must somehow stem Judy’s rising pleasure in the car, unless there was to be a proportionate state of woe when she discovered there was not to be a car after all.
“Judy dear, don’t get in quite such a state about the car,” she began desperately. “It’s not—I mean, I don’t think I’m going to have it after all.”
“Not have it?” Judy spoke in shocked capitals. “Do you mean Ford doesn’t mean to give it you as a present? Was it a mistake?”
“N-not exactly.”
“How do you mean—not exactly?” enquired the exact Judy, who liked things to be perfectly clear.
“Judy, it—it’s quite the wrong time of night to start explanations, and I don’t know that I can give you much of an explanation, anyway. But I’m not letting Ford give me the car, because I—I’m not going to marry him after all. You’ll have to know quite soon, so you may as well know now, I suppose.”
Judy’s mouth literally fell open. Then, because she could never resist giving a hand when she thought a situation required it, she said briskly:
“Couldn’t you make it up, perhaps?”
“Make it up? Oh, we haven’t quarrelled. We’ve just decided—I really can’t explain.”
“Aren’t we going to live at Oaklands after all, then?” This frightful aspect of the case had only just struck Judy.
“I’m afraid not.”
“You—you don’t mean it’s boarding school and Uncle Hector and Aunt Miriam, after all?”
“No, no. Don’t look so scared. You’ll like the new arrangement tremendously,” Jessica assured her hastily. “Mary and David are going to live here, and you’re going to live here with them.”
Judy brightened momentarily. But sudden suspicion darkened her world again.
“And Tom too?”
“Oh, yes. Tom will be here too.”
“And you?”
“Well, I shall be here for week-ends and holidays and—”
“What holidays?” Judy wanted to know suspiciously.
“Well, you see, I shall have to get some sort of a job and earn my own living. Then I’ll make lots of money and start saving up for when I can make a home with you two again.” Jessica explained with false brightness.
“That means you won’t be here very often.”
“Fairly often,” Jessica said—unconvincingly, she felt.
“But you won’t be living here.”
“Not exactly. But—”
“Oh, I don’t like the idea at all.” cried Judy. “It’s nothing like as nice as having us all live at Oaklands.”
“But, Judy, you love Mary and David.”
“Yes. But I love you better,” Judy retorted. “And, anyway, I love Ford too. Oh, it’s a much better idea for us all to live together at Oaklands. Then we can come and see Mary and David whenever we like, but you’ll be always there. Oh, Jess, do make it up with him!” For Judy still seemed unable to accept any explanation for the cancelled engagement which did not include a mendable quarrel.
“We haven’t quarrelled. I tell you. There’s nothing to make up,” Jessica repeated desperately, feeling that it was an unnecessary refinement of cruelty which forced her to argue against the very thing she most wanted.
“Well, then. I don’t see what the trouble is,” Judy cried. “Oh, Jess, think how lovely it would be at Oaklands. Ford is so kind and such fun. And when Angela’s gone it would be perfect. Don’t you want to live there?”
“Oh, Judy, stop it!” exclaimed Jessica. And, to the great dismay of both of them, she suddenly began to cry.
“Jess!” Judy knelt up in bed, appalled by this unusual sight, and flung her arms round her sister. “Don’t cry! Oh, how awful. Why are you crying? Has he said he doesn’t want to marry you?”
“No, no. It’s nothing like that. I’m just being silly.”
“Have you said you don’t want him, and now you’re sorry?”
“No.” Jessica shook her head, and rejected this accurate statement of the case with vehemence.
“But it must be something. Is it that you’re disappointed about losing the car?”
And. because she had to give some reason and Judy seemed to think this ridiculous explanation quite a possible one. Jessica nodded and said:
“Yes. It’s that more than anything. I always wanted a car. But it can’t be helped now, and I’ve got over it.” She dried her eyes, and tried to look as though the loss of a car could really produce this devastating state of affairs.
Judy regarded her doubtfully.
“Are you sure it’s all right now?”
“Yes. Quite sure. I was just tired and disappointed. I’ll be all right in the morning. And—and don’t worry about the future. We’ll manage to have good times here, as we always have.”
This general promise of brighter things seemed to quiet some of Judy’s doubts, and presently she lay down and allowed Jessica to tuck her in.
“P’raps you’ll be able to get a job quite near, and then you could live here, too,” she suggested hopefully.
And Jessica allowed herself the weakness of saying, “Perhaps I could,” because it was quite impossible to explain to Judy at the moment that no young couple— not even the understanding Mary and David—would wish to add a grownup and two children to their early marriage ménage.
Judy, however, was greatly consoled by this inspiration of hers, and was already viewing the altered future with cheerful resignation when Jessica said good night to her and finally left her.
But for Jessica there was no mood of cheerful resignation. Somehow, the conversation with Judy had served only to emphasize the blankness and emptiness of the future.
“Not that I mind standing on my own feet,” Jessica told herself earnestly. “And I’m very lucky to have had Mary and David to solve the worst part of my difficulties.”
And then she fell to wondering what she would have done if Mary had not made such an offer. If the happiness of the twins had been in doubt, would she have refused to accept the implications of that scene between Ford and Paula? If Oaklands had been the only home available for them, would she have grimly kept Ford to his bargain, and have seen that they made the best of it?
And, if so, what would “the best of it” have been? Might Ford not have resigned himself very well to second-best, and eventually have been very happy with her?
Jessica went to the window of her bedroom, and stood looking out into the darkness, in what she judged to be roughly the direction of Oaklands. And immediately her thoughts flew where her sight could not follow, and she wondered if Ford were at this moment telling Paula that there was no longer any barrier between them.
There would be a decent interval, of course, between the breaking of one engagement and the announcing of the other. But the thing was as good as done. She had resigned him to Paula, and her part in his life was over.
For a long time she stood looking out over the darkened countryside. And then, because one had to go to bed, even if one would not sleep, she slowly drew the curtains, as though to shut out something, and wearily began to undress.
CHAPTER TWELVE
BY breakfast-time next morning, Jessica had braced herself to face the fresh questions which Judy would have thought up in the interval, backed by the slower— but no less searching—enquiries of Tom.
But, to her surprise, neither of them even mentioned the subject of her broken engagement.
It was hard to believe that they had both risen to such heights of tact that they had mutually agreed to say nothing. And Jessica could only think that they had grown so used to threatened upheaval that they were prepared to accept this fresh proposal for the future with stolid calm. That being so, possibly the more urgent problem of getting to school on time presented itself, at the moment, as being of greater importance.
In addition, Judy had lost her history book, and a frantic search took pla
ce, to the accompaniment of wails that no one else ever lost their history book and it would be quite impossible to go to school without it. Finally, it was run to earth in improbable seclusion under a cushion in the drawing-room, though Judy was positive that it had never been outside the dining-room. And by then it was time for them both to depart at a brisk trot.
Unnatural quiet seemed to descend on the house when they had gone, and Jessica determinedly set about her household tasks with a concentration which she hoped would keep unhappy thoughts at bay.
The children lunched at school, so she had not the distraction—pleasant or otherwise—of their company in the middle of the day. And, by the middle of the afternoon, she was thinking desperately around her own affairs once more.
With distaste she faced the fact that she would have to write to Uncle Hector and Aunt Miriam with some sort of explanation. For, although she hoped to be able to dispense with their financial help as early as she would have had she married Ford, they were certainly entitled to know something of the new situation.
“But I need not do it this afternoon,” Jessica thought, with great reluctance for the task. “There’s no hurry for a day or two.” And she hoped that, in this, she was displaying well-balanced common sense, rather than sheer cowardice.
Tom came in first, and, even then—though the fact of finding Jessica alone might well have seemed an opportunity for speaking—he still refrained from saying anything.
“It’s almost unnatural,” thought Jessica, puzzled and amused. “Doesn’t he know about it? Surely Judy can’t have kept it to herself. They always tell each other everything.”
But, if Tom had nothing to say, Judy was obviously bursting with information when she came in.
“I’m sorry I’m late. There was something I had to do,” she explained, with gratified importance exuding from every pore.
“Had you?” Jessica smiled at her. “Well, come and have your tea now.”
“Just a moment.” begged Judy, as though the fate of nations hung on the next few moments. “There’s something I must say to you, Jess. Come into the drawing-room for a minute, please.”
“Is it a secret, then?” Tom wanted to know.
“Yes. But I’ll tell you after.” Judy promised.
And, a good deal amused, Jessica allowed herself to be led into the drawing-room.
“Well, what is it?” she asked, sitting down and watching Judy shut the door with exaggerated care.
Then Judy rushed across and hugged her.
“It’s about the car,” she explained. “It’s quite all right. You’re to have it, after all.”
“Have it after all?” gasped Jessica with a funny, empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. “What do you mean?”
“I went to see Ford. That’s why I was late.”
“Judy!”
“I had the idea last night, after you’d gone. I knew Ford must have wanted you to have the car really, or else why did he buy it? And it seemed silly you should be upsetting yourself about it like that, when he wanted you to have it. I didn’t tell Tom,” Judy explained, “because I thought he might say it was interfering’. But I nearly burst with wanting to tell him. Still, I can tell him, now it’s all over and—”
“Judy, will you please go back to the bit about your going to see Ford,” Jessica interrupted firmly. “What— what did you say to him?”
“Oh, I explained that I knew about the engagement being broken, and I said I knew that was his business and yours,” Judy conceded magnanimously. “But I said you’d cried awfully when you got in last night.”
“Judy!”
“And that it was because you weren’t going to have the car after all, and did he mind awfully if you had it, even if you weren’t engaged to him?”
“What did he say?” Jessica asked faintly.
“Do you really want to know what he said?”
“Of course.”
“Swear words and all?”
“I suppose so.”
“Well, he said, ‘Good God! of course she can have it—or anything else she wants. Why the devil didn’t she tell me she would like it? Doesn’t she know she’s welcome to every damned thing I’ve got?’”
“He said—that?”
“Yes. But he was very upset, I think,” Judy explained —in extenuation of his language, presumably.
“I don’t understand,” Jessica murmured, and put her face in her hands.
“Oh, Jess! It’s perfectly simple,” cried Judy, exasperated by her sister’s apparent denseness. “He said—”
“Yes, I know. I understand that part.”
“Anyway, he’s driving the car over right away. I think that’s him now, so I’ll go and have my tea with Tom,” Judy finished with an air of tremendous tact.
“Wait a minute.”
Judy paused at the door and looked back at her sister.
“No. It’s all right.” Jessica had just realised that there was nothing to do with this new situation but deal with it on her own, and she waved her young sister away.
Anyway, what had he meant — what had he meant by saying that she ought to know she was welcome to everything he had? That was not the way a man talked when he wanted to give a girl something as a sop to his conscience.
Like Mary, Ford was used now to walking in and out of the house as he pleased, and he apparently had no thought that a broken engagement might have deprived him of that right, for she heard him come into the hall and say:
“Here, Judy! Where is she?”
“I’m here,” Jessica called rather faintly, and he came straight across the hall and into the room, closing the door after him.
Jessica stood up rather uncertainly, and faced him as he leant against the door.
“I—I’m sorry, Ford, that Judy should have come to you and told you all that.”
“I’m not,” he interrupted curtly. “Why did you cry last night?”
She was used to his coming straight to the point, but the brutal directness of this disconcerted her.
“Judy exaggerated—” she began.
“But you did cry.”
“Oh, well—girls cry for lots of things, you know,” she protested feebly.
“No, they don’t. Not your sort of girl. You hardly ever cry about anything, and you’ve had plenty to make you cry in the last few months. You weren’t really crying because you wanted the car, were you?”
“N-no. Of course not.”
“Why, then?” He crossed the room suddenly and had her in his arms. “Jess, what are you doing to us both? Why won’t you let us take the happiness that’s there? Is it because you resent having me supply all the material things? Don’t you know, darling, that I’d willingly give you everything I have and start from scratch again? Couldn’t you possibly forget your damned independence for once?”
“Independence!” gasped Jessica, going slack in his arms. “I don’t care that about my independence while you’re around!” and she snapped her fingers rather feebly. “Why I—”
“Say that again,” he said and gave her one or two quick kisses.
“No, I won’t,” retorted Jessica, suddenly remembering Paula—and also that, in her saner moments, she prized her independence very highly.
“Listen, my darling.” Ford turned her gently to face him. “You and I have been in great danger of losing the one thing that really matters. But fortunately you have an intelligent sister who believes in plain speaking, so we have a chance of retrieving it. Please tell me quite truthfully: why did you have this ridiculous idea that you didn’t want to marry me, after all?”
“It—it wasn’t that I didn’t want to,” Jessica whispered.
“What was it, then?” He dropped a kiss on the top of her bent head.
“I thought you—didn’t want me—that you were only holding to the engagement because you’d made a quixotic gesture and wouldn’t go back on it.”
“But I’ve told you a hundred times,” he exclaimed with impatient exaggeratio
n, “that there was nothing quixotic about my proposal. If you want the crude and discreditable truth, I was determined to have you for my wife after that first evening, only—”
“Ford!”
“Of course I was,” he reiterated rather angrily. “That was why I had to make sure that good-looking ass, Forrest, wasn’t after you. But I knew it was no good hurrying you too much, and I deliberately thought out ways of coaxing or bribing you.”
“Was that why you were willing to let me have the house on those ridiculous terms?”
“Of course. I told you—there was nothing quixotic about my behaviour. It was all rather disgraceful and calculated. And then, when you were ill and worried about the future of the twins, I knew I’d got a trump card and played it shamelessly.”
“Ford, don’t talk of yourself like that! Did—did you want me so much?”
He nodded.
“But why didn’t you tell me so?”
“Because I was afraid you wouldn’t take me then. I knew you weren’t in love with me, and I thought my only chance was to put everything on a basis of mutual convenience. Besides”—he smiled a little grimly—”I suppose, in my heart, I was a bit ashamed of what I was doing and—”
“But, darling, there was nothing to be ashamed about. You’ve been an angel to me and the twins always. And if in return you hoped that I’d come to love you, what was wrong with that?”
His smile became less grim and, taking her face between his hands, he kissed her slowly again.
“I dare say one always feels a bit mean if one holds all the material advantages,” he said.
“Only very generous, absurd people like you,” she returned softly.
“Well, anyway, that was why I couldn’t make any real protest last night. When you told me that Mary and Forrest were willing to give the twins a home, I felt I’d been deprived of a weapon I should never have used in any case.”
She smiled and shook her head slightly. But his mention of last night’s conversation brought the real cause of refusal back to her mind. Only, somehow, now it was quite easy to be frank about it.
“Ford, all this was quite incidental, you know,” she said slowly. “The real trouble was that I thought you were still in love with Paula Dryden.”
The Brave In Heart Page 19
