The front door led straight into a square, half-panelled hall, where a bright wood fire burnt on the open hearth, and Mrs. Tamberly—elegant and a little languid in a rather trailing dress of russet-colored velvet—waited to welcome them.
The setting was almost too good to be true, Hope couldn’t help thinking, and recalled without remorse her description of Mrs. Tamberly to Enid Feldon. She admitted, however, that the welcome was kindly, and she was glad that Mrs. Tamberly kissed both the children.
“It’s very kind of you to have us all down for the weekend, Mrs. Tamberly,” she said. To which her hostess replied in a soft, rather impressively contralto voice:
“But, darling, of course I wanted you all. And it’s only right for the children to see their new home as soon as possible.”
Hope looked startled.
“Their new—home?”
“Why, of course. Hasn’t Errol told you?”
“There hasn’t been time or opportunity for explanations yet, Mother,” her son interrupted dryly.
“No, no. I daresay not. Well, suppose you tell them now.”
Errol Tamberly frowned.
“Hadn’t they better see their rooms and have their tea first, before we have any discussion?”
“Before any discussion, if you like. But I think they’d like to know right away. Children,” she said, in that slightly artificial way of hers, “how do you like the idea of having Doctor Tamberly for your guardian?”
Hope gave a slight gasp. But Tony and Bridget, with the stolidity of childhood, considered the proposition on its own merits.
“Would that be rather like having him for an uncle?” Bridget enquired.
“Very much like that,” Mrs. Tamberly assured her.
“And should we come here in the holidays?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I’d like that all right, wouldn’t you?” Bridget turned to Tony.
“Can we think it over?” enquired Tony, who was more cautious.
“No, I’m afraid you can’t,” Mrs. Tamberly said, laughing. “But we can talk it over. Though it’s really all settled. Now come along, children, and you shall see your rooms.”
Hope standing there, silent and stunned, holding her hat in her hand, felt that she was probably included in the “children” this time. But she made no move to follow Bridget and Tony as they obediently went up the stairs in the wake of Mrs. Tamberly. Instead she took a few quick steps across the hall to Errol Tamberly, who was standing by the fire, his back half turned to her.
“Isn’t this a little precipitate?” she asked in a low, angry voice. “What makes you think you can arrange the lives of my brother and sister in this high-handed manner, without even consulting me?”
He turned rather slowly then and looked down at her. “I didn’t mean it to be presented to you in quite that way,” he said. “But the arrangement—high-handed or otherwise—is not mine. Your father wished me to become the children’s guardian.”
“Daddy did?” She fell back from him. “But had he forgotten me? Where do I come in all this?”
He took her by the arm rather abruptly and said: “You’d better sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down.” Did he think she was going to faint or something ridiculous?
“Oh, please—”
To her surprise, she thought she detected pity as well as impatience in his tone. And suddenly she sat down in the big armchair by the fire and stared up at him anxiously.
“What is all this? Will you please explain? Why should you be made the children’s guardian? Why shouldn’t I have the job of looking after them and making a home for them? I’m perfectly capable of it!”
For a moment he stared down rather moodily at her. Then he shifted his gaze to the fire, and it was the first time she could ever remember him failing to meet someone’s glance.
“Your father realized that the financial burden would be too much for you.”
“The financial burden? But that’s ridiculous. There must be plenty of money for them and for me. There always has been.”
There was silence.
“There always has been,” she repeated, as though the phrase fascinated her with its specious sound of security.
“Well, there isn’t any more,” he said with curtness which might have been brutal or embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you to hear about it in this bald way, but the fact is there, however nicely one wraps it up. Your father died practically penniless.”
CHAPTER TWO
FOR quite a minute there was silence in the room.
Then Hope said, “It’s impossible—quite impossible.”
Errol Tamberly shrugged. He didn’t even bother to reiterate his statement, and somehow that lift of his broad shoulders brought more conviction to her than any protestations would have done. He saw no reason even to argue about it. It was an accepted fact.
Upstairs she could hear the voices of the children, lifted in unmistakable pleasure and surprise over the discoveries they were making. To them this shattering new discovery downstairs would seem a very minor part of their worries. They liked their new home. It was as considerable, as secure, as luxurious as the one they were used to. Any talk of financial losses would be so much theory, so far as they were concerned.
But for her—and Richard—
‘I won’t think of that just now!’ Hope told herself frantically. ‘I’ll think about that later on, when I’ve taken in the central fact.’
With a tremendous effort she brought her wide and darkened gaze back to Errol Tamberly. He was watching her now, a little anxiously, she thought, but somehow she resented his anxiety, as though he were in some small measure personally responsible for the shock he had had to deliver.
“You aren’t going to faint, are you?”
She laughed slightly then.
“No, of course not.”
It passed through her mind, even at that moment, that Errol Tamberly’s remedy for faintness would certainly be to thrust one’s head between one’s knees with considerable lack of ceremony.
“I’m sorry, as I said, that you had to learn about this quite so brutally.”
“But, as you also said, the facts are the same, however nicely they’re dressed up. What I want to know is—why? I mean, how does it come about that—that this has happened? There was always plenty—No, I’ve said that before, and it’s so stupid to keep on repeating it. But one can’t imagine how everything can be secure and—and lavish and unquestioned, and then suddenly it’s all gone—just like that! What happened?”
“It wasn’t anything melodramatic that happened from one moment to the next.” He sat down in the chair opposite her, his strong, rather fine hands loosely clasped between his knees. “I don’t know if you were aware of the fact, but your father sank much the greater part of his capital in the building of the Laboratory. Don’t blame him for it. It’s paid for itself over and over again in the things that matter.”
“I shouldn’t blame him,” Hope said coldly, because she didn’t need Errol Tamberly to dictate her attitude towards her father.
“It was the old, old story of private enterprise doing what public regimentation fails to do. Your father was a man of vision and limitless ideas. He worked them out to their logical conclusion, and usually footed the bill himself. I don’t think he always realized how big the total was, that’s beside the point now. During the last few years, he had very little more than his admittedly large government salary. There was no reason to think he would not draw that for many years to come—certainly until long after you and the twins were comfortably settled in life.”
He paused for a moment, a little as though he expected Hope to make some comment. But she merely said rather softly, “Go on.”
“That’s really about all there is to it. Many people would say he had no right to risk the private interests of his family, in order to pay for his public work. But the risk was really small. It’s only when the unfortunate hundredth chance happens that peop
le say—”
“It’s all right, Doctor Tamberly. If he thought that was the right thing to do with his money—well, it was.”
“I think so too. That’s why I wanted to take on the responsibility of the children until they’re older. You should be able to stand on your own feet by now, of course”—he dismissed her cavalierly from the discussion—“but there is no reason why the twins should suffer.”
“No. No—I see that.”
She was really thinking, ‘Of course I can stand on my own feet. One should stand on one’s own feet at my age. But what are Richard and I to do?—We counted—Oh, well, we had no right to count on easy money for nothing. I can go on with my job. We’ll manage somehow. Richard is only joking when he teases me about marrying a rich man’s daughter. He laughs about it. It’s just a joke. It must be a joke. I couldn’t bear it if it were anything else, because that would mean that what Doctor Tamberly’s just said could—could spoil everything.’
Again she saw that he was watching her.
“It’s—it’s all right. I’m just trying to adjust myself to things.”
“Well, don’t let the adjusting process hurt too much.”
“In—what way?”
“Lots of ways besides actually doing without things, you know. There’ll be a good many changes. Your fair-weather friends will fall away, for one thing. People like that rather bounderish young architect who was hanging around after you just before I went to the States—What’s his name?—Richard—Richard Fander.”
“How dare you speak of Richard like that! And what do you know about him, anyway?”
Errol Tamberly raised his thick eyebrows and smiled in a way she particularly disliked.
“Nothing much except that he rang you up and left messages for you rather too often, and then seemed to have time to hang about waiting for you when he ought to have been earning his own bread and butter. However, it’s no concern of mine, except that I have occasionally thought I should like to kick him in those nice pale grey pants of his.”
She stared back coldly at Dr. Tamberly, and in that moment she quite distinctly hated him.
“Richard Fander is a very good friend of mine,” she said slowly.
“Oh, is he? Well—I’m sorry—you’ll probably find he’s not quite such a good one now,” was the equable reply.
“You don’t really know anything about it, do you?” She was so furious that her voice sounded quite silky.
“Only what my excellent eyesight and moderately good judgment tell me,” he admitted amusedly.
“Well, then,” Hope said dryly, spurred beyond discretion by her anger, “you might like to exercise your moderately good judgment on this—I’m going to marry Richard Fander. We became engaged last week.”
If she really wanted to wipe the amused look off his face, she certainly did so. It went so completely that, if she had not known such a thing was impossible, she would have said he even lost color as well as his smile.
“You can’t mean it.” He got slowly to his feet, and, because he seemed to tower over her in a way she disliked, she stood up too.
“Certainly I mean it. Is it really any business of yours?”
“Well—yes. In a way, it is. Your father made me the children’s guardian—asked me to look after you all—and, come to that, you’re not twenty-one yourself for another month or two, are you?”
Hope gave an incredulous and angry little laugh.
“And what has that got to do with it? You aren’t by any chance trying to play the heavy guardian with me, are you? It simply won’t work, you know. I can’t exactly imagine myself calling you Uncle Errol.”
“Good God, I should hope not!” he retorted, and flushed unaccountably. “It’s only that—naturally I feel a little—oh, responsible for you, and—”
“It isn’t natural in the least. Nor is it in the slightest degree necessary,” Hope told him crisply. “My affairs are not your concern at all. I only mentioned my engagement because—well, because of the way you were speaking. Otherwise, I shouldn’t have thought it either your business or a matter of any interest to you.”
He frowned at that, standing there with his legs apart and his hands thrust into his pockets—a big, rather overwhelming figure against the background of the firelight.
But Hope refused to be overwhelmed. And after a moment it seemed that it was he, rather than she, who was put out.
“Hang it, I didn’t mean to antagonize you like this from the beginning,” he said, half ruefully, half impatiently, and Hope thought how unreasonable he was to suppose he would do anything else with such talk about her friends.
It was so much easier not to feel slightly in awe of him here, as she did at the Laboratory. Here, in this charming, elegant house he was simply the son of her hostess. At the Laboratory he was very much one of the heads of the place. And, without thinking twice about it, she said what was really in her mind—
“It’s not just a case of antagonizing me, is it? We should never get on very smoothly together, you and I.”
To her surprise, he looked up quickly at that and said sharply:
“I shouldn’t want to put it that way exactly.”
It was Hope who shrugged that time, and the gesture said quite plainly that, whether he wanted it put that way or not, that was the way it was.
He took a step towards her, and she saw he was going to start some sort of rather dogged argument, but, to her relief, Mrs. Tamberly came half-way down the stairs again just then, and said in her clear, sweet voice which could somehow sound peremptory too:
“Would you like to come up and see your room, Hope? The children seem very well satisfied with theirs.”
With a word of apology for having kept her hostess waiting, Hope caught up her hat and gloves from the table where she had put them, and ran up the stairs to Mrs. Tamberly.
She was glad to escape further argument, and her smile and manner were both conciliatory as she said:
“Do forgive me for being so rude. I’m afraid I didn’t think of anything but asking Doctor Tamberly about—about the guardianship of the children and all that. There—there was rather a lot to say.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Mrs. Tamberly gave the impression of being only slightly—though very politely—interested, and, not for the first time, Hope had the conviction that she only concerned herself with her own immediate interests. Even the fact that her son had suddenly become the guardian of two children only mildly interested her, and Hope felt sure that this was because she felt perfectly certain of her ability to see that the new arrangement made no alteration to her personal affairs beyond what she was agreeably willing to permit.
The room into which she led Hope was, like the hall downstairs, reminiscent of a beautiful stage setting rather than a lived-in room, but Hope felt it was impossible to be anything but charmed by the dull blue and cream chintz, the pale walnut furniture and the wonderful hand-quilted bedspread on the bed.
“I know you won’t actually be living here, as the children will in the holidays,” Mrs. Tamberly explained, “but any time you do come down, you must regard this as your room.”
Hope thanked her, and wondered amusedly how it was that, by her regretful tone, Mrs. Tamberly had somehow managed to convey that of course Hope wouldn’t be inflicting herself on them too often. One felt that circumstances quite outside Mrs. Tamberley’s control would keep Hope away most of the time—but, quite definitely, they would keep her away.
While she quickly ran a comb through her hair and powdered her nose, Hope asked Mrs. Tamberly with frank curiosity:
“Isn’t it something of a shock to you to find that you—well, that Doctor Tamberly has taken on the guardianship of two children? I think you’re accepting the situation marvellously.”
“But Errol always does take his own line, quite irrespective of me or anyone else,” Mrs. Tamberly said. “Of course I’m devoted to him,” she added in a tone of monumental indifference, “but I never attempt to influe
nce him. It’s useless. It was the same with his father,” she added as an afterthought, and Hope felt that Errol’s father was someone Mrs. Tamberly had known slightly years ago but almost forgotten.
“How philosophical of you,” Hope said, smiling at her in the mirror.
“But it’s so much better, don’t you know?” Mrs. Tamberly smiled perfunctorily in return. “You never get anything by making a fuss, whereas you can get nearly everything by going about it quietly.”
‘She’s not often as frank as that, I’ll bet,’ thought Hope, amused and impressed. ‘That’s a candid statement of her recipe for success. I think it works, too, with her. Like one of those nice dogs who gradually edge you off the sofa, without making any to-do about it!’
By the time she and Mrs. Tamberly came downstairs again, the twins were sitting on the rug in front of the fire, bombarding Dr. Tamberly with questions, and again Hope was struck by the fact that he appeared to have their approval.
“And shall we come here every holidays, just as though it were home?” Bridget was enquiring.
“I think so. Unless you have an invitation to go somewhere else of which I approve.”
“Oh, I see. If you approved, we shouldn’t go?” That was Tony, getting the situation quite clear.
“If I disapproved, you wouldn’t go,” agreed Dr. Tamberly, but he smiled.
“And what would happen if you got married?” Bridget wanted to know, providing for all eventualities.
“Well, I hadn’t really considered that serious contingency,”‘ Dr. Tamberly admitted gravely. “We should have to do what is, I believe, called ‘reviewing the situation’ then.” And he got up from his chair as Hope and his mother came over to the fire.
The children too scrambled to their feet, and Bridget said, “We’ve got the loveliest rooms, Hope.”
“And Doctor Tamberly says there’s a stream at the end of the garden with fish in it,” supplemented Tony.
“Don’t you think perhaps it had better be ‘Uncle Errol’ rather than ‘Doctor Tamberly’?” suggested Mrs. Tamberly agreeably. Whereas Hope gave him a small malicious grin, and, somewhat to her surprise, he flushed slightly again.
Away Went Love Page 3
