The Man from Ceylon

by Ruby M. Ayres

  “Nylons!” she gasped. “How perfectly heavenly! “And then, after a squeal of excitement, “And crêpe-de-chine! … My favourite shade of pink, too! … You must be a thought-reader, Monty!”

  “And well in the black market too,” Gordon said with pretended disapproval. “Have you no shame? “But he calmly unfastened one of the parcels and discovered several pairs of men’s socks. “All forgotten and forgiven,” he announced generously. “I think I’ll collar these before the Guv’nor sees them. Here, Jess, just mark these with my name and address, so there can be no mistake. Why, she’s departed! “he ejaculated, for Jessica had slipped away feeling, as she always did, a little unwanted when Paddy was present and as usual the centre of attraction. She was halfway up the stairs when she met her father coming down.

  “What’s this hubbub about?” he demanded. “You all seem to have taken leave of your senses since this Hallam fellow arrived.” And then as another babble of voices arose in the sitting-room, “Damned if I’ll, stand it. Anyone would imagine I was the lodger—shan’t be able to call my soul my own if this goes on—I’m going round to the club, tell your mother——”

  But Jessica firmly prevented him from passing.

  “He’s brought some lovely presents from Ceylon,” she said with quiet firmness. “So please, Daddy——” She broke off as Monty suddenly appeared at the foot of the stairs holding something at arm’s length.

  “What the devil,” Kirby Mansfield muttered under his breath and then his grim expression changed as—

  “Shirts, sir,” Monty announced. “I hope they are the right size, and that you will accept them as a slight token of my gratitude for your great kindness.”

  ” Shirts I” Kirby brushed Jessica aside and hurried downstairs. “The very things I am abominably short of!…and no confounded coupons left— shirts!” He grabbed one with schoolboy eagerness. “Linen, or I’m a Dutchman! “…

  Jessica gave a sharp sigh of relief and was smiling happily as she ran upstairs and came face to face with her mother on the landing.

  “No need to worry, dear,” she assured her in reply to Mrs. Mansfield’s anxious, questioning glance— and then lowering her voice, “Monty has brought Daddy some shirts.”

  They laughed together in amused relief.

  “I was so worried” Mrs. Mansfield admitted. “Your father has been so naughty—I was afraid he might really lose his temper and offend Mr. Hallam. However, thank goodness, it’s all right.”

  “‘So we come to the end of a perfect day’,” Paddy quoted happily, when later that evening Jessica was helping her to undress and get to bed. “It’s almost worth while being laid up for a bit now there is someone really interesting in the house! … life’s been dull enough lately, goodness knows!”

  For Paddy at least, it was anything but dull during the next few days, for Monty was untiring in his attentions, fetching and carrying for her and driving her out in the car for which he proudly announced he had’wangled’ an extra allowance of petrol seeing that she was unable to walk.

  He certainly on one occasion asked Jessica to accompany them, but she refused—declaring she had more important duties to perform.

  Monty looked at her unsmilingly for a moment before he said grimly, “The willing horse goes all the way, is that it?”

  Jessica laughed. “I shouldn’t have thought you knew any poetry,” she told him. “You’re a funny mixture, aren’t you?”

  But there was a faint look of regret in her eyes as she watched him drive away, with Paddy comfortably ensconced beside him.

  “Why didn’t you go, Miss Jessica? “Dilly, who had overheard the conversation, reproached her. “You haven’t been out of the house for two days.”

  “Because I have to make a pudding for lunch,” Jessica retorted briskly, and then as the doorbell rang, “Oh dear!…yet another interruption——”

  “Dr. Barker, Miss,” Dilly presently announced. “I told him Miss Paddy wasn’t in, but he said he would like to see you if it was convenient——”

  Jessica sighed, as she wiped the flour from her hands, and crossed the hall to the sitting-room.

  “Paddy’s out,” she said. “And her ankle is much better.”

  Barker nodded.

  “Yes—I passed them at the end of the road.”

  “Oh! “She looked at him in surprise before she laughed. “You didn’t imagine I was ill, did you?”

  “No—though you’re looking a little tired. Anyway, I thought I would like to see you. Sit down—” and then as she obeyed. “Isn’t it possible for you to get a holiday? It would do you all the good in the world.”

  “A holiday!…I’m afraid not—I can’t be spared—and—anyway, I don’t know that I should care to go. It’s not much fun having a holiday alone,” she smiled. “You see, I haven’t Paddy’s gift of making friends everywhere.”

  Barker turned away from her and there was a slight frown on his face as he said abruptly,

  “You’re too unselfish, Jessica.”

  “Unselfish! Me!… What do you mean?”

  “What I say,” he insisted. “You practically run this house and are constantly at everyone’s beck and call. What on earth they would do without you I can’t imagine.”

  She laughed. “Anyone would think I was planning to run away.and desert them all.”

  He looked at her very directly. “Why not?”

  There was a moment of profound silence before Jessica asked in bewilderment, “What do you mean? … Why not?’

  He took a step nearer to her.

  “We all have our own lives to live,” he said, “and…” For an instant he was silent before speaking again. “Will you marry me, Jessica?”

  ” Marry—you? “She repeated the words in a whisper—and then again, “marry—you?”

  “Yes! … We’ve always been good friends— and I—I’m a lonely man—and … I’m—very fond of you, my dear.”

  He would have taken her hand, but she moved away beyond his reach. “I—I couldn’t,” she said faintly. “I couldn’t—because—I—don’t love you— I’ve… never loved—anyone—not—in the way one should … if——” Her voice died helplessly away, and it seemed an eternity before he spoke.

  “Very well—I understand—but—if you ever change your mind …” His voice resumed its usual brisk, businesslike tone as Jessica’s mother entered the room, “I’m glad Paddy is so much better. How are you, Mrs. Mansfield? Busy as usual, I suppose? Well, I must be getting along——”

  “Is anything the matter, dear? “Mrs. Mansfield asked when he had gone. “You look—as if——Is anything the matter, Jess?”

  Jessica gave herself a little shake.

  “The matter!…Of course not. It’s a pity Dr. Barker just missed Paddy, isn’t it? She wanted to know if she could leave off the bandages. Well, I must go and finish making the pudding——”

  But for almost the first time in her life, pudding-making seemed a tiresome, uninteresting job, for her thoughts were very far away.

  John Barker had asked her to marry him! John, whom they had known almost since she was a small child, certainly long before he had become qualified and had taken over his father’s practice..

  John!—who, although she liked him—they all did—she had always considered a little dull and— well, a typical doctor, invariably businesslike and in a hurry.

  A lonely man, he had called himself. How old would he be? Several years older than Monty, of course,—quite middle-aged.

  A lonely man! …

  Jessica momentarily forgot the pudding and looked towards the window and the sunlit garden beyond.

  A thing she had always dreaded—loneliness!—a thing for which she had always profoundly pitied Miss Dawson, an elderly spinster woman who lived in a minute flat over a shop in the village. Jessica and she had always been on friendly terms, and Miss Dawson had once told her, with surprising wistfulness, for she was usually a cheery soul, that she had lost her one chance of happiness w
ith the man she loved, because it had been impossible to leave her parents who were an old, helpless couple. “He wouldn’t marry me, and consent to live with them,” she said. “And I couldn’t desert them, and so—— Well, here I am!—a solitary spinster woman!”

  Perhaps—some day—I shall be like that too, Jessica thought now. Not for many years, of course —but—supposing she had been in love with John?

  “But I’m not, and never shall be,” she told herself firmly. “Perhaps I shall never love anyone!”

  But if such happiness should ever come her way—well, it would not be a man like John who would win her affections; he was too quiet, too much like herself —she would want someone more lively and youthful— more like … yes, more like the Man from Ceylon —whose boyish exuberance never failed to cheer and amuse her.

  The Man from Ceylon! … who already, after only a few days with them, had gone the way all men of Paddy’s acquaintance invariably went, and was obviously devoted to her.

  It was with a feeling of mixed amusement and depression that Jessica suddenly realised how much older she felt than her twenty-two years. Much older!

  “Silly” she rebuked herself firmly, as she tied the pudding-cloth round the basin and began to clear the table just as the telephone bell rang sharply through the silence.

  “Hullo! “Jessica spoke with quiet disinterestedness as she lifted the receiver. It wouldn’t be anybody exciting of course—probably someone for Paddy— most of the telephone calls were for her.

  But it was Monty’s voice which she heard in reply.

  “That you, Jess! … Monty here! I’m just ringing up to say we shan’t be in to lunch. Is that O.K.? We’re staying over at a pub called The Greyhound—the most amazing thing has happened— who do you think we’ve met?”

  Jessica tried to laugh. “I haven’t the slightest idea. Is it someone very thrilling?”

  “It’s Peter—my half-brother—I nearly dropped dead when we came face to face. So we’re lunching with him. Is it O.K.?”

  “Of course—give him my love——”

  “Right-oh! … See you later. Goodbye——”

  Peter! Peter Phillips, who, as they all knew, had adored Paddy and had begged her to marry him.

  Chapter IV

  So Paddy Would be Lunching With Two of Her admirers! There was a mingled feeling of envy and amusement in Jessica’s heart as she hung up the receiver and turned away.

  life was funny, she thought again, somehow it didn’t seem quite fair that some people should have all the good looks and admiration while others—she caught sight of her reflection in the hall mirror and moved a step nearer to it, scrutinising her face with a faintly humorous smile.

  Nothing very exciting, though her hair was nice, as everyone admitted, even Paddy had always been a little envious of its natural wave.

  “You don’t know how lucky you are,” she sometimes sighed. “Just being able to comb it out and know it will look all right, while every few months I have to sit for hours in durance vile and have a P.W. —knowing all the time it’s not really’ permanent’, as they call it.”

  Brown eyes, too!—more serious than usual in expression now, not eagerly alert like Paddy’s, which were nearly always bubbling over with laughter and gaiety.

  Strange how utterly different brothers and sisters could be I Paddy and Gordon so good-looking and she and Selby—well—Jessica knew that no stranger would ever turn to give either of them an admiring glance, though of course Selby was by far the cleverest of the family. Yes, life was funny, Jessica thought again as she turned away from the mirror, and she wondered what the family would think and say were she to tell them that John Barker had asked her to marry him.

  She had no intention of telling them, of course; Jessica was always shy about even the smallest personal achievement, but it gave her a warm little feeling of comfort to recall the surprisingly tender and wistful look in John’s eyes during that brief silence before he admitted “I’m a lonely man—and—I’m very fond of you, my dear——”

  John was such a good fellow—even her father, who was reluctant to praise anyone—always spoke of him with admiration.

  Dear John, Jessica thought, as she returned to the kitchen to put the unromantic pudding on to boil, and yet—strangely enough, she was visualising Paddy and the Man from Ceylon, no doubt laughing together as if they were life-long friends! Peter would be with them now, of course, such a strange coincidence, meeting him as they had done—like something one read about in a story, finding it a little difficult to believe it could really happen.

  Lucky Paddy, Jessica thought again, but she might have been less envious if, at that moment, she could have known her sister’s perturbed feelings as she sat between the two men in the ‘Greyhound pub’, as Monty had called it, over the phone.

  As a matter of fact, the Greyhound was a small old-fashioned inn, situated in a village only a few miles away, but it was a well furnished and well run place which, in pre-war days, had been exceedingly popular with motorists. There were not many people there today, but the owner, with whom Paddy was well acquainted seeing that she often lunched there with various admirers, after hearing of her injured ankle, had taken great pains to ensure that she should have every possible comfort and the best table which the quaint, oak-panelled dining-room could offer.

  “It can’t be true,” she kept thinking as she looked across the table at Peter Phillips. “I shall wake up presently and find it’s just a dream.” Perhaps hoping that she would, for Paddy hated mental suffering and this chance meeting with the one man who had ever touched her wayward heart had again brought to life the pain and regret she had known and done her utmost to ignore when they parted.

  He hadn’t altered—at least not much—a little older looking perhaps, but still the same Peter in whose company she had experienced the greatest and most sincere happiness of her life.

  Once, when their eyes met, her heart seemed to stand still for a moment, as in his regard she fancied there was the same look of boyish adoration though almost at once he averted his gaze as if conscious of and regretting its betrayal.

  “So you two are step-brothers,” Paddy said with an effort at gaiety. “Well, of all the unbelievable things—I can’t imagine why you never told me about our Man from Ceylon, Peter.”

  “He probably had more interesting subjects to discuss,” Monty submitted.

  “And why on earth are you staying here of all places? “Paddy demanded, confident that the reason must be because, knowing she was close at hand, he had hoped to see her again.

  It was like a douche of cold water when Peter answered carelessly that it was pure chance.

  “I was on my way to the West of England, when the car broke down, so as the local garage couldn’t get it right till tomorrow, all I could do was to put up here for the night.”

  She made a rueful little grimace.

  “No intention of calling to see us?”

  She fancied that he avoided looking at her as he replied, “I was in a hurry—wanted to get to Taunton tonight—my friends were expecting me—but I wired them to explain——”

  “Friends? “she queried. “Anyone I know? “For in the old days most of their friends had been mutual.

  Peter shook his head.

  “No—I’ve only known them a few months— Gallon, their name is. They’ve been very good to me since I was demobbed—I’ve spent several weekends with them.”

  “Any special attraction?” Monty enquired, and then without waiting for a reply, “What’s that confounded waitress doing with the wine I ordered? “and he rose from the table to go in search of her.

  There was an eloquent silence when he had disappeared, until Paddy said, although it was the last thing she intended to say,

  “Nice to see you again—after so long, Peter.”

  “Thank you.” Peter peppered his soup with unnecessary generosity. “So Monty is one of the family now, is he?”

  “Yes. We like him very mu
ch, though he has only been with us a few days.”

  “He’s a good chap. One of the best. What does the Guv’nor think of him?”

  “He likes him, too,” Paddy laughed. “You see, Monty tactfully brought him some shirts from Ceylon —he brought us all something.”

  “Monty was always lucky.”

  “Lucky?”

  “I mean—coming in for all that money.”

  “Oh!… Was it—very much?”

  “About sixty thousand pounds, I believe.”

  Paddy caught her breath.

  “Sixty—thousand! “

  “Yes—and that was after the death-duties had been paid.”

  “Then he’s… almost a millionaire! “she gasped, and when Peter did not reply, “Why didn’t you get a share, Peter?”

  “I’m only a half-brother,” he reminded her with a faintly ironical smile, and then with quiet deliberation, “I suppose— had I been the inheritor it would have made all the difference to everything.”

  She looked at him, her colour rising with sudden emotion.

  “What do you mean—all the difference? “she asked faintly.

  He met her eyes with quiet indifference.

  “To our dramatic farewell—eight months ago.”

  “Oh—Peter! “She half moved a hand to touch his, but he drew it away.

  “Money always meant more to you than anything else, didn’t it? “he submitted unemotionally. “However—I’ve no reason to complain.”

  “No—reason?… What do you mean?”

  “That I’m engaged to be married.”

  Engaged!… to be married!… Peter!… who had declared he would never love anyone but her.

  Paddy tried hard to speak—to say cheerfully, “I’m glad—I hope you’ll be very happy,” but she couldn’t find her voice; it was as if she had suddenly become dumb—and helpless.

  “You must meet my fiancée some day,” Peter said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I think you’ll like her. Rose, her name is, Rose Gallon.”