“And you didn’t think of breaking that.” She gently took his face between her hands, but she saw from his faintly puzzled smile that he was not quite sure why she looked at him so tenderly.
“Well—no. I wanted you to find what you really wanted. And if I’d done the pathetic injured suitor, you know, that might have started you off on the pitying tack, and heaven knows what would have happened then.”
“Oh—Errol!”
She flung her arms round him and hugged him with an energy that made him wince.
“Darling, I’m sorry!”
“No, no. I like it,” he assured her with a smile. “You don’t know how I’m basking in this unaccustomed approval.”
“Oh, Errol, I’m sorry I’ve been such an idiot all this time. Not recognizing what a darling you are and—and making you miserable sometimes—and then not even knowing my own mind when you did say you loved me.”
“Never mind.” He smilingly put his hand under her chin and tilted up her face. “Are you sure you know your own mind now? That’s all that matters. Sure that this isn’t an emotional impulse you will regret? Sure that you won’t change your mind when you next meet Richard Fander?”
“Heavens, no!” Her vehemence made him laugh surprisedly. “That least of all. It wasn’t only you who helped me to make up my mind, you know. It wasn’t even just I who did it myself. It was Richard who had more than anyone else to do with it.”
“Um-hm.” Errol gave her a glance of quizzical amusement. “There’s still something I don’t know about, it seems. What is the explanation of Richard’s mysterious appearance as the hand of fate, eh?” He ran his finger affectionately down her cheek.
“Why, you see,” Hope said slowly, as she comfortably pillowed her head against him, “Richard lost me by coming to see me. And you won me by staying away.”
He laughed.
“I’m sure that’s delightfully epigrammatic, darling. But either I’m not at my brightest or—”
“Errol, what on earth is happening?” demanded Mrs. Tamberly’s voice rather plaintively at that moment from the stairway. And, trailing a very elegant velvet wrap around her, she made a leisurely but extremely effective entrance.
Hope felt more than a little foolish, and looked very faintly sulky. But Errol said imperturbably:
“It’s all right, Mother. Hope turned up rather unexpectedly, that’s all.”
“What a very odd time to choose, dear,” Mrs. Tamberly remarked, regarding Hope as though she had often thought her strange but considered this her best effort to date.
“Yes, I know. I—I only just caught the last train, and—”
“But why choose the last train? And how did you get from the station?”
“I walked.”
“You walked?” Mrs. Tamberly sounded as though she had not heard of that method of covering the ground. “Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”
“I—I didn’t know myself until tea-time,” Hope murmured foolishly, but the pressure of Errol’s arm told her that this action was not by any means so foolish as it might appear to Mrs. Tamberly.
“My dear—really—”
“I had to come, Mrs. Tamberly. Bridget wrote to me and told me about Errol’s accident. She said that even you”—Hope caught herself up and changed that to—“she seemed to think you were worried, and she was evidently terribly worried herself.”
“Bridget has a highly developed sense of drama and cries much too easily,” observed Mrs. Tamberly tranquilly, and Hope suddenly felt very glad that she, and not Mrs. Tamberly, would be having the upbringing of the easily moved Bridget.
“Well, she certainly gathered that you thought I ought to be sent for,” Hope said a little tartly. “And—”
“Of course. Since you were Errol’s fiancée—By the way you are Errol’s fiancée? It seems to be one of those elusive facts which are here today and gone tomorrow, so to speak.”
“I am Errol’s fiancée,” Hope stated categorically. “And I’m going to marry him, the first moment he wants it and—and can arrange it.”
“I have the special licence,” murmured Errol reassuringly, and she flung her arms round his neck and hugged him, because it was wonderful to think that Richard was not the only one who had thought of that.
“Then I still don’t understand why he wouldn’t let me send for you when he was ill. It wasn’t a life-and-death matter, of course, but I should have thought—”
“Yes, Mrs. Tamberly, it must have looked that way,” Hope agreed earnestly. “And if you hadn’t got the best and dearest and most honorable son in the world, it would have been that way.”
Mrs. Tamberly looked as though she didn’t recognize her son very easily under this description, but Errol said softly and as though he suddenly understood something: “So Richard came to see you, eh? That wasn’t very clever of him.”
“It wasn’t very straight of him either.” Hope switched round suddenly to face him and spoke with great earnestness. “No man can guess right every time about what is the smartest thing to do. But everyone knows in his heart what is the decent thing to do. Richard knew. But it didn’t interest him. He made me see that, once and for all. And that was the end. Quite, quite the end, Errol.”
“I see, darling.” Errol drew her back against him and kissed her very tenderly.
“I don’t see,” Mrs. Tamberly said. “But perhaps that isn’t necessary. And anyway, it’s much too late to bother about anything like moral discussion now. You had better come to bed, Hope. That is, unless you’re hungry and want a meal.”
“No,” Hope said, still smiling up at Errol, “I’m not hungry. I don’t want a meal, thank you, or anything else. Everything is just perfect.”
“Well, I’m sure that’s very satisfactory.” Mrs. Tamberly yawned slightly, and stood up. “But I don’t think you’d better stay down here yearning over Errol any more. He’s something of an invalid still and ought to be in bed.”
“Oh, yes, of course.”
Hope kissed him quickly and eagerly, and got off his knee, where she had been sitting very contentedly for the last ten minutes.
“I haven’t made you very tired, have I?” she asked anxiously.
“No. You’ve made me very happy,” he told her gravely.
Hope smiled and followed obediently in the wake of her hostess.
“Are you coming, Errol?” Mrs. Tamberly asked, without turning round.
“Yes. I’ll just lock up again.”
He went over and locked the front door.
From half-way up the stairs, Hope turned and looked back at him. Then, on sudden impulse, she ran down again.
“Errol—”
He turned.
“It’s only just beginning, isn’t it? You will love me just as much tomorrow, even though you’re sure of me now?”
“Tomorrow, and every day after, until we’re very old,” he told her.
And, as she turned and ran up the stairs again, he watched her with smiling eyes.
THE END
Away Went Love Page 17
