Pathway of Roses

by Mary Whistler

  “Oh, very well,” she answered, not altogether truthfully. For one thing she was not accustomed to sleeping in a four-poster bed in a room that was large enough to be converted into a small ballroom, and struck her as terribly remote from anyone else. “And I’m dying to be out there,” waving a hand to indicate the flowery meadows—and there were still quite a lot of flowers in the upper meadows, although the lower ones were mostly sun-scorched and bare—outside the window beside which they were standing.

  He looked for a moment as if he was about to suggest something and then changed his mind; and the suggestion he made when it came was entirely different.

  “Would you like to see my library? I told you once that I had your father’s book in my collection, and it is there.”

  He led her into a room that smelled strongly of leather bindings, although the furnishings were almost sumptuous, as if he had once planned to spend a lot of time in this room. It was lighted by an enormous window with some mullions, and there were some very deep arm-chairs, and a desk at which it was obvious Veldon worked.

  This morning it was strewn with papers, and there were a number of books like account books, which Janie suspected had been presented to him by the wonderful example of a neat, hardworking housekeeper who had welcomed them to the Schloss the night before, and had all their bedrooms ready and aired, and an appetizing dinner awaiting them, although she had had very little warning to prepare for them.

  Janie could see Frau Karlsbach presenting the household books, and feeling a glow of pride because they were so well kept. Max Veldon was lucky in possessing someone like her to look after his home while he was wandering the world, and delighting his fans with music.

  He led Janie over to one of the glass protected bookcases, took out a book and showed it to her. It was her father’s The Great Ones, and from the way in which he handled it he respected the contents.

  ‘Your father was a man who loved music,” he remarked, as he returned the book to the shelf. “It’s not altogether surprising that you got away with that little act of yours in New York, for you yourself are quite knowledgeable when it comes to the subject of music.”

  “Thank you,” she returned, her lips twisting wryly. “I’m glad you don’t think I let Vanessa down entirely.”

  He went over to a low occasional table on which there were several boxes of cigarettes, and offered her one of them. As he lighted her cigarette for her he told her:

  “You never let Vanessa down. On the contrary—”

  And then he broke off.

  Janie sat looking rather lost in one of the deep chairs, and watched him pacing up and down, reminding her once more of an elegant caged tiger. From the frown that knit his dark brows together he had a great deal to occupy him mentally this morning.

  Suddenly he stopped in front of her.

  “I’ve had news from Vanessa,” he told her quietly. “A telegram, which was brought up from the village this morning. It is imperative that I set off for London without delay.”

  Although she thought she was quite reconciled to living through all the years of her life without him, his news affected her almost like a blow. He saw the way she recoiled, and the sudden slight blanching of her cheeks. Her eyes grew wide with protest.

  Without realizing what she was saying she said, “Oh, no!”

  “I’m afraid it’s, ‘Oh, yes! ’ ”

  She sat very still in the chair, while he resumed his pacing up and down, over the beautiful Persian rugs that partly covered the highly polished floor of the library. Over his shoulder he flung at her:

  “You’ll be all right here ... you and Winterton and Mrs. Petersen. Frau Karlsbach will look after you, and you have nothing to worry about. Winterton’s making progress. Actually, I thought he stood the journey here remarkably well.”

  “Yes.” She nodded dully. “He’s staying in bed today, in order to rest, but he hopes to get up and resume a normal life tomorrow.”

  “In any case, if you want a doctor, there’s an excellent one in the village.”

  She nodded again.

  He crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray, seemed as if he actually squared his shoulders, and came across to her.

  “This time it will be good-bye for quite a while, Janie. We shall, of course, meet again, but I don’t think I’ll be at your wedding!”

  She stood up. She felt as if her knees had grown, weak, and were not entirely up to the task of supporting her body.

  “I suppose I ought to thank you for ... for supporting me as well as you did in New York. Without you and Miss Calendar I wouldn’t have got away with it as I did.”

  He smiled grimly.

  “We’ll say that Miss Calendar supported you, shall we? For some reason she felt very sorry for you right from the beginning, and felt that you deserved to be supported. Although she never actually said so, I have the feeling that she was highly critical of me and my attitude at times.”

  She looked down at her hands.

  “You’ll remember me to her when you see her, won’t you? I ... I should like her to come to the wedding.”

  He turned away almost impatiently, and strode to the window.

  “Have you any idea when it will be?”

  “Not—not really. But only this morning Abraham mentioned to me that he would like it to be ... very soon.”

  “His impatience is understandable,” Veldon remarked dryly. “But I would insist on a little patience, if I were you. You don’t want to act nurse on your honeymoon.”

  Then, once more, he came back to her.

  He looked deep into her eyes, and took her hands.

  “There are other men in the world, you know, Janie. Couldn't you wait—for one of them?”

  “And let Abraham down?”

  “No,” he said slowly, releasing her hands. “You couldn’t do that, could you? And at least Winterton will be good to you. You’ll never have anything to worry about.”

  She felt the words were a hollow mockery. Never anything to worry about. But never anything to be blissfully happy about!

  All at once tears blinded her eyes.

  Lucky, lucky Vanessa!

  Veldon exclaimed sharply;

  “What’s wrong, Janie?” And then he bit his lip. “It might have been better for you, my dear, if you’d never left the protection of old Hermann Brandt!”

  Frau Karlsbach came knocking on the door, but he sent her away. He returned to Janie.

  “Janie, let’s have a talk. Let’s try and sort this thing out. Perhaps, if I put it to you...”

  But she was suddenly horrified by the thought that in another moment or so he might be confessing his love for Vanessa—avowing it openly— and she knew she couldn’t bear that. She said hastily, surprising him:

  “No, no! No, I don’t want to talk.” This time it was she who turned to the door. “I’m going out,” she said quickly, nervously. “I feel that I’d like to—to see something of the countryside...”

  “You’ll be careful?” he warned. “You’re not accustomed to this type of country.”

  “I know, but Rudi—”

  ‘You can’t trust Rudi. If you allow him the least bit of latitude he’ll start making love to you again!”

  She faced him with dignity.

  “No one,” she said, “is going to ‘start making love to me’ unless I approve of it. Rudi made a mistake last night, but I don’t think he’ll repeat it. And now I really must go ... You’ve got packing to do.”

  She started to race away along the corridor, but he called after her.

  “Janie!”

  She didn’t stop.

  “Janie, I’d like to say good-bye!”

  She went on flying along the corridor as if she hadn’t even heard him.

  Later that morning she heard his car start up, and from a safe position watched it disappear under the ancient stone arch which guarded the entrance to the main castle courtyard.

  Later still she put on some dark glasses and tied
a protective headscarf over her soft golden hair and went out into the brazen sunshine that was bathing the exposed mountainside. She was wearing shorts, and a pair of sensible shoes, and she looked up at the heights above her and decided to climb.

  Gasping and panting—and it was only when she had really started to climb that she realized one had to be in condition for this sort of thing— she at last reached a green plateau to which she clung dizzily, while the whole world swayed round her, and she wondered how she was ever going to make the descent. But for the moment, having reached her lofty elevation, she determined to stay there, and to make no attempt at descending. The thought of coming face to face with Abraham Winterton’s uncannily clear eyes—and, during the last few days, she was certain they saw more than they had done hitherto—was more than she could endure so very soon after that final interview of hers with Max Veldon, and the thought of talking about wedding gowns with Nicola Petersen made her feel physically sick.

  Not yet, not yet, she said to herself, as she lay very still on her ledge, her fingers clutching at the short, sweet grass, until the world about her steadied, and she was able to take in details of the sun-flooded valley below her. The curious onion shape that had been floating in the atmosphere became, the spire of a church, the walls and outbuildings of a farm settled into shape and remained stationary, and she was able to identify the silvery clanging of a bell' that had been making the silence shiver, with’ a solitary cow that, for some reason, had not been driven with its fellows to the upper pastures, and was cropping the burnt-up grass of one of the lower meadows.

  It was all so much like a backcloth at the theatre that Janie could hardly believe in its reality, and after a time the utter peace of it all, and the silence, soothed her somehow, and as drowsiness stole over her nothing any longer seemed of such acute importance that it need worry her personally.

  She allowed her eyelids to droop down over her eyes, and very soon she was asleep, the scent of grass in her nostrils, the incredibly blue sky like a canopy above her. And, no doubt because she had had so little sleep lately, she slept for hours and hours, and when she awakened the sun was low in the sky, and it was cool on the plateau.

  Dazed and bewildered, she sprang up, and it was then that she became aware that she was not alone. Rudi van Eisler was seated near her, chewing the end of a long blade of grass as quietly and complacently as if he had been doing it for a long time.

  When she asked him in confusion how long he had been there, he replied with an odd smile that he had been watching her for at least an hour.

  “You looked very pretty,” he observed, “lying there in those boyish shorts of yours,” His eyes ran over her appreciatively. “Vanessa wouldn’t look nearly as well as you do, dressed like that, but unfortunately Vanessa is Vanessa, and to Max that’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

  She backed against a boulder, with both hands behind her. In that rarefied atmosphere, and standing up—while he remained lounging carelessly at her feet—she felt that he was very decidedly the one with the advantage.

  “Max has gone,” he remarked, throwing away the blade of grass and selecting another one. “I suppose you know he’s gone to Vanessa?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “But he can’t marry her,” standing up and confronting her with a malicious smile replacing the languid one. “He can’t marry her, because a couple of years ago she and I were married, and it was in order to raise funds which we both badly need that I hoped to compromise you and extort a lump sum from Max. You see, Vanessa’s reputation is very precious to him, and he was never at all sure that it was safe in your hands. He expected you to cause trouble, and when it came he would have paid up ... for Vanessa’s sake!

  “But, unfortunately, Winterton asked you to marry him, and that queered my pitch. Max, naturally, was never more relieved in his life, and the only thing he wanted to be really certain of was that the marriage would really take place. So he came up here into the mountains with you, and this morning Winterton told him that the date was fixed. You’re scrapping the trimmings, and getting married as soon as the arrangements can be made. All Max will wait for now is a telegram announcing that you’re Mrs. Winterton, and he’s gone back to London to wait for that. Having seen you settled in here there was no need to hang about in the mountains when he could be with Vanessa.”

  “But,” Janie stammered, “if he knows that you’re married...?”

  “He doesn’t,” Rudi confessed, smiling with much amusement.

  “And this morning ho—he received a telegram from Vanessa.”

  Rudi shook his head.

  “He didn’t. If he told you that he did he was inventing a piece of fiction, but if the fiction worked and enabled him to get away quickly, what does it matter?”

  Janie swallowed.

  “I don’t believe all that you’ve told me,” she said.

  “No?” Rudi regarded her mockingly. “Would you like to see my marriage lines?”

  “I believe that,” she admitted, “because it ties up. I found your photograph in one of Vanessa’s drawers, and then you had a key... a key to her flat.”

  “Max has a key, too—have you forgotten?” Rudi mocked her.

  Janie knew when she was defeated. She knew when the whole world was against her ... and she turned and ran blindly down the path which led from the plateau, and although Rudi called to her sharply to be careful, she went on running—or rather, stumbling down the path, and Rudi decided to go after her.

  But the knowledge that he was following her filled her with a panic she had never known before in her life. She couldn’t bear that he should catch up with her and mock her afresh, and so, when she reached the point where the path to the Schloss diverged from the path which led to the bridge over the cascade, she went flying on down the road to the cascade.

  Rudi continued to shout after her, warning her to be careful—calling her a little fool in a mixture of German and English—but by that time the only fear that possessed her was the fear that he would catch up with her. So, when she reached the bridge, she never hesitated to cross it, and it was only when she was half-way, and she looked down, that terror seized her—terror and an inability to move either backwards or forwards.

  The bridge was so narrow that two people could not pass on it abreast, and an altercation of any kind in the middle of it might result in a disaster. There was only a single wooden balustrade on either side, and if Janie pressed against it in order to avoid a pursuer...!

  On the Schloss side of the bridge Rudi called to her coaxingly, telling her she mustn’t take him too literally, and if she would return with him to the Schloss he would pester her no more.

  “Let me come and give you a hand, Liebling,” he implored, but she backed so suddenly that the bridge swayed, and Rudi held his breath.

  Behind him a man put him aside with a rough hand, and Janie, who had closed her eyes and turned white as paper when the bridge swayed, opened them to see Max Veldon walking calmly across the bridge to her. He didn’t hold out one hand to her, but he held out both his arms.

  “Janie, I’m here!” he said softly. “It’s all right, my little one, I’ve come back for you!”

  And Janie stood absolutely still. When his arms went round her she shuddered from head to foot, and then she buried her face in his shoulder.

  “I daren’t look down,” she whispered.

  “Then don’t,” he advised. And before she had time either to look down or up he swung her up into his arms and carried her off the bridge.

  On the path to the Schloss Rudi waited, but Max merely looked at him. Rudi disappeared as if he had never been, and the man with the sleek dark hair and the rather harsh face carried the slight figure in crumpled shorts half-way up the path until they reached a fallen tree-trunk, and on this he sat her down, and himself sat beside her.

  “It’s all right, my little one,” he crooned, stroking her hair. “You’re safe now, and with me you always will be safe!”
r />   CHAPTER XVII

  When Janie at last lifted her head and looked up into his face she never would have believed that they were the same eyes regarding her that had so often looked at her with very active dislike. They were dark eyes swimming with tenderness and concern, and his hand that went on stroking her hair shook a little.

  “Darling,” he said. “You’ve a lot to forgive me for, but when I went off this morning I swear I believed I was leaving you in absolutely safe hands. I forgot that Winterton isn’t very active, and you are. And even I thought that Rudi was harmless.”

  “He told me you didn’t receive a telegram this morning,” she heard herself saying, as if the words had to be uttered. “And he told me you only wanted to see me married ... quickly! That you’ve been working for this marriage, and—and—”

  “If I have, why have I come back now?” he asked her, taking her face between his hands and looking straight into her eyes.

  “I—don’t know,” she whispered.

  “Don’t you?”

  He went on looking at her, and the misery died slowly out of her eyes as the truth warmed her heart. She stammered again:

  “Then Rudi wasn’t ... it wasn’t all true?”

  “Not knowing exactly what he told you, I’d say nevertheless that none of it was true,” Veldon replied very distinctly. “Except, perhaps, that he’s married to Vanessa. But I’ve known that for at least a year, and I suppose there’s nothing I can do about it. Vanessa made her bed, and she must lie on it. But I’ve never been in love with Vanessa—I haven’t even come remotely near to being in love with Vanessa—but I do admire her as a singer, and for a time I admired her as a woman. I knew that you thought I was in love with her, and because the truth seemed less admirable I allowed you to keep on thinking so. The truth is, however, that I valued my freedom to such an extent—or thought I did!—that I didn’t want to fall in love with you!”