by Susan Barrie
Afterwards they danced, sharing the room with only a very few couples and the orchestra, which nevertheless played away indefatigably ensconced behind a thin screen of palms, Most of the numbers were gay and tuneful Viennese waltzes, and for the first time Melanie found herself circling a polished floor in the arms of the man who paid her salary. He was, she realized immediately a most finished dancer and the fact that she was slightly out of practice meant nothing to him. He guided her steps with the utmost ease, looking down at her as she held herself somewhat stiffly in his arms, and smiling a little above the top of her head.
When she looked up at him his eyes smiled directly at her, but there was also a look of faint speculation in the smile.
Suddenly she found herself on a balcony outside the window, with an enormous, round and very yellow moon rising above the wall of mountains facing them. Noel had been permitted to dance with an acquaintance of her uncle’s who had accosted them during dinner, and for the time being there was nothing to prevent their being alone on the balcony and indulging in a little conversation if they wished. Melanie was not sure that she did wish, for with the lilting notes of the Merry Widow reaching her ears from the room behind them, that huge unearthly moon shedding its light over the wide valley in front of her, and a certain intoxicating sweetness about the very smell of the night, she was suddenly not at all sure of herself, or what she might say or do. Not with Richard Trenchard leaning negligently against the balcony rail and surveying her as if she amused him.
“I wonder if you know how enchanting you look in that dress?” he said suddenly. “Really enchanting!”
She looked up at him. He seemed so very tall, or else she was very short.
“Do I?” uncertainly. “I—I made it myself.”
“Very clever of you,” he told her. He offered her his cigarette-case. “But then you are a very clever young woman, aren’t you? Clever at managing invalids like Noel, and difficult and demanding females like my sister—and even frightening dragons like my Great-Aunt Amelia! I must certainly hand it to you, Miss Brooks. You have something about you—something which is not altogether on the surface!”
Melanie was not sure whether he was serious, or whether he was merely amusing himself at her expense. His eyes told her nothing, save that they appeared to wish to study her for some reason of his own.
“And now you’ve captivated Dr. Muller!”
All at once she was on surer ground, and she became very calm and composed. There was no reason why she should submit to taunts concerning a man who was her friend.
“Dr. Muller has been very kind and helpful, that is all,” she said. “He has been most attentive to Noel, and the progress she has made is as much due to his care as the favorable conditions we live under here. And he has relieved me of a little of the responsibility which might otherwise have been rather too much for me, with no one else to consult or receive advice from.”
He frowned.
“If anything had gone wrong you had only to let me know.”
“You have never once answered my weekly letters,” she reminded him. “One feels a little cut off out here.”
“Did you expect me to answer your letters—personally?” he asked. “My secretary wrote to you.”
“Yes; your secretary wrote to me,” she said quietly. He was silent, studying her. Above the glowing end of his cigarette his face was an enigma.
“But that was not enough?” he suggested. And then: “Why,” he demanded, “should I have written to you myself. You obviously expected it. Why?” he repeated.
There was something strange and compelling in his tone, and she faced his look determinedly.
“I don’t know,” she answered simply. “But I thought you might—I thought you might have written to Noel.”
“Noel would not be in the least interested in a letter from me. She would simply toss it aside.” He paused. “I am a busy man. I have little time to spare for useless communications which can be done just as well by people I employ. You have not been neglected, and yet you feel neglected. Did you think I had forgotten you?”
“I scarcely expected you to remember me as an individual,” she returned, with a certain dryness, for she was after all, merely “one of the people he employed”; “but the circumstances are rather different. Your niece is—or rather was—an invalid, and when you receive Dr. Muller’s report you may realize that she is still far from well.”
“When I receive Dr. Muller’s report I shall probably realize a good many things,” he answered her enigmatically, and then surprised her considerably by leaning forward suddenly and taking both of her hands. He examined them in the moonlight, very white and well-cared for hands, with slender fingers tipped with nails as delicately pink as the inside of a shell. He swung them idly to and fro. “I’m afraid, Miss Brooks, that I made a mistake in not writing you something in my best style in my own fair hand, thereby convincing you that you were never for a moment out of my thoughts.” Now his look was definitely teasing. “But, truth to tell, I had my reasons, and—”
He paused again, ‘and suddenly he lifted her hands and rested them lightly against: the dark front of his dinner-jacket, so that they looked like white flowers against a sombre background.
“Miss Brooks—Melanie! ... Do you recall that night in London, at my aunt’s house, when I held your hands in mine and said that they were not to toil too much in my service?”
She remembered the night so well that her fingers quivered in his hold, and she hoped he could not hear the violent beating of her heart.
“You do ...? Well, I’m afraid I have permitted them to toil far too faithfully for me, and as a reward I was quite poisonously rude to you this afternoon. It was probably something I had for lunch,” his eyes continuing to twinkle a little, “and, in any case I ask you to forgive me and to prove your forgiveness, not only for this afternoon but for weeks of criminal neglect in the shape of unwritten letters, by coming out with me in the car tomorrow and showing me something of the sights of the neighborhood.”
“But you know the neighborhood even better than I do,” gently but determinedly removing her fingers and placing them safely behind her back.
“I did once, but I’ve forgotten all about it since I was here last.”
“Then you can explore it again by yourself.”
“Certainly not. You are my employee, and I order you to come with me. I will not allow you to devote time to Dr. Muller that you are not prepared to devote to me also. Therefore, will you come?”
“Only if Noel comes also?”
He made a slight, impatient movement with his hands.
“Must we always take that child everywhere ...? Oh, well, if you insist, but I wish you wouldn’t. You don’t inflict her on Dr. Muller, I notice!” She was about to say something indignantly, but he cut her short. “Oh, yes, I realize it was a special occasion, but Dr. Muller was lucky. When I decide to get up at an unearthly hour to watch the sunrise—which I don’t imagine will be in the immediate future!—I shall expect you to accompany me without any appendages. And now do you give me your word to be waiting for me tomorrow—morning, shall we say? Somewhere about eleven? We’ll take a picnic lunch—a thing I loathe!—and Noel can sit in the back of the car and eat it while we go exploring!...”
Of course he was not to be taken seriously—Melanie realized that. But since it was his pleasure to flirt with her lightly while his glamorous Sylvia was so far removed from his attentions that she must be missing them sorely, Melanie was afraid it would be most undiplomatic on her part to repulse him altogether. For one thing he might then decide that she was taking him seriously, and that was the, very last impression she wished to convey. If he could regard her as nothing better than an amusing companion for an idle hour, then it was up to her to keep such a tight hold on her own emotions and feelings that he would never guess the havoc his smiling glances caused deep down in her innermost being, to say nothing of the magnetic touch of his hands when he chose to
take hers.
But she was determined there should be no more hand-holding, at least. Provoke her he might with his whimsical looks, set every sensitive nerve in her body quivering with repressed excitement when he introduced into his voice that almost caressing note which was very nearly her undoing, but actual contact with him she could not endure. She was his employee, not his plaything. And, after all, she was only human!
So when he arrived in the grey car at eleven o’clock the following day she greeted him coolly, but with a pleasant enough smile in her eyes. She wore a white dress with a contrasting red belt and white sandals, and carried a white cardigan over her arm. Noel wore shorts and a yellow pullover, and looked young and carefree.
“What a bevy of beauty I’m taking out with me,” Richard commented, and then instructed his niece to sit in the back of the car, while Melanie was to occupy the place of honor beside him at the wheel.
They drove until lunch-time through a lush green country-side that was starred with every variety of wild-flower, and but for the great snow-crested mountains rising all around them they might sometimes have believed themselves touring a corner of England at the time of high summer. But at other times they crossed foaming torrents and clung precariously to the steep sides of torturous mountain roads, and drove through picturesque villages that had the same mediaeval charm as the towns Melanie and Noel had visited in the company of Dr. Muller. Both girls were enchanted by the beauty of the scene and the perfection of the day, and when at last Richard halted the car and they left it to enjoy a picnic meal, put up for them by Trudi, in the welcome cool shade of a pine wood which overhung a great flower-filled ravine on tile one hand, and climbed upwards to infinity on the other, Melanie was prepared to forget everything but the enjoyment of such a day, and let it soak deep down into the heart of her being.
Richard was inclined to make a joke of Trudi’s abundance, when the lid of their hamper was lifted, but he was not far behind the girls in making short work of its contents. And afterwards Noel wandered down the hillside to gather another armful of the tempting, star-like blossoms, while Richard ordered Melanie to recline on the turf beside him and give him an account of her adventures while climbing to watch the sunrise.
“What I can’t understand,” he said, “is the charm of such an outing. Do you like getting up while sensible people are still counting on hours of sleep in order to become a kind of sun-worshipper? Because apart from being pagan it’s merely robbing yourself of your beauty-sleep. Not,” he added, lying gazing at her with the lazy, familiar twinkle under his languid lids, “that the charm of your appearance has suffered at all noticeably as a result of such thoughtless conduct. But I wouldn’t repeat the performance very often, if I were you—at least, not in the company of Dr. Muller!”
Melanie twined her fingers in the long, coarse grass and said nothing. He rolled over on to his elbow—so that he was that much nearer to her—and dropped his cigarette-case into her lap.
“Produce me a cigarette,” he commanded. “And perhaps you might be good enough to light it for me,” he added.
Her heart and pulses fluttered ridiculously as she complied with somewhat fumbling fingers. He took the cigarette from her and examined it for a moment intently before he placed it between his lips.
“Thank you,” he said. “You don’t overdo the lipstick, do you?”
“I’ve never been very fond of lipstick,” she answered, not quite sure of his mood.
“That’s all to the good,” he told her, “because I’m not fond of it, either.”
This time she knew—or thought she knew—that he was deliberately trying to provoke her. She looked down at him where he lay, stretched out at full length within easy reach of her hand, and even on a holiday in Austria his sartorial elegance remained with him. There was no doubt about the quality of his English tweeds, which fitted his six feet or so of impressive masculinity in a way which must have delighted his tailor, and as always his neckwear was immaculate. His tie—the badge of a well-known English public school—flowed carelessly. Already he seemed to have become more than ordinarily bronzed by the sun, and there was a kind of aroma of lazy—if well-earned—success about him which, combined with that suggestion of mockery in his eyes, confounded her a little.
“Tell me,” he said, “how long you are prepared to remain out here with Noel? Indefinitely? That is to say, until Dr. Muller considers her cure complete, or have you mad longings for home? Home in your case would probably mean returning to my sister, and that has never struck me as a wildly exciting job for a girl. So have you anything against staying on out here?”
Melanie felt her heart sink a little, in a way it had when he said something which brought the exact relationship in which they stood to one another more forcibly to mind. Her temporary employer!—that was all he was! And as soon as he had no longer any need of her he would return her with thanks to his sister! If, of course, she was willing to be returned!
She replied a little distantly, “I have nothing against remaining here with Noel, but I imagine it will not be long before she will be able to dispense with my companionship. Dr. Muller might even be willing to take her into his clinic as a patient whom he could observe on the spot if you were willing. Now that she knows him, and is not at all strange...”
“If Dr. Muller took Noel into his clinic he would almost certainly find you a job as his receptionist, or something,” he interrupted her smoothly. “So I don’t think we’ll think about that.”
“Then I am willing to remain while you need me.”
“Good girl!” he told her softly. He patted her hands, where they were rather primly folded in her lap. “I was a little afraid, since you already apparently have considered yourself neglected, that you might be nursing a desire to return home, and that would place me in difficulty, since I depend upon you, and Noel depends upon you. And one of the reasons why I’ve snatched a few days away from my work to come out her to see you is to get this question of your willingness to remain quite clearly established. I’ve got a busy time ahead of me, and I don’t want to have to bother my head about Noel, and questions of that sort.”
“I see,” she said.
“I doubt whether you do,” he told her rather strangely, regarding her quizzically. “But Miss Gaythorpe is appearing in one of my latest plays, and while rehearsals are going on I don’t wish to be distracted by other matters. So long as I can depend upon your staying here quietly with Noel—” They heard Noel’s footsteps returning up the steep hillside, and he turned to catch a glimpse of her in her yellow pullover and shorts, looking very lithe and happy and brown—“and not taking it into your head to marry Dr. Muller or anything of the sort—”
Melanie looked astonished.
“I am not in the least likely to marry Dr. Muller—or anyone!”
He smiled at her in his whimsical fashion.
“I wouldn’t like to think that you will never marry anyone, my dear child—but it must not be for some considerable while! Understand that?”
Melanie felt herself flushing rather brilliantly as she strove to answer him.
“You can feel safe on that point, at least, Mr. Trenchard.”
“Good!” he exclaimed, and once more patted her hands. She thought bitterly that once he no longer had any use for her she could, apparently, marry anyone she chose—which was kind of him! And rather a brutal revelation of the extent and quality of his own regard for her.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BUT when Noel joined them Melanie succeeded in looking as if their conversation had been merely of the lightest and most impersonal order, and Noel announced that she was hungry, and the remains in the picnic-basket were brought to light for her benefit.
Shortly after that they all three returned to the car, and by early evening they were back at the chalet. Richard decided to stay and have dinner with them, and this so delighted Trudi that she promised something special by way of a change. Trudi was never happier than when working culinary
miracles in her spotless kitchen, and the opportunity to show off before a man who she knew was something of a connoisseur where food was concerned was very much to her taste. In addition to which she had, as she expressed it, “an affection” for Herr Trenchard. She had known and served him for years, and if at times his tongue was a trifle sharp-edged there were other occasions when he would joke with her in her kitchen, and even put his arm around her fat shoulders and give her an occasional hug. And that kind of encouragement went a long way with her, even if it did cause her to giggle hugely, and cause those same fat shoulders to shake and quiver like a jelly.
Although it had been so fine all day—indeed for weeks —while they were seated at dinner the weather underwent a most unpromising change. Mist swept down over the mountains, shrouding them like a curtain, and the valleys became temporarily almost blotted from their sight, all the color of beauty of them suffering a complete eclipse. And the change brought a lowering of the temperature which caused Trudi to come bustling in with logs and kindling and create a glowing fire on the hearth before which they all presently gathered while they sipped their coffee.
Melanie, who occupied a chesterfield with Noel, dispensed the coffee, and Richard Trenchard stretched himself out at full-length in his own favorite chair, a briar pipe in his mouth—he did occasionally prefer a pipe to cigarettes, and the scent of his tobacco always did something curious to Melanie, on whom the scent of honeysuckle and stocks on a warm summer night at home in England had a similar effect, and she longed to snuff it up openly, because it set all her pulses tingling queerly. The firelight leaped and played in the lamp, and the room looked exceedingly cosy. Richard had enjoyed his dinner and was in an amiable mood, and Melanie could not but recall those one or two nights at the Wold House when she had sat near him in close proximity to a blazing fire, and inclement weather without had somehow emphasized the snugness and the feeling of intense security.
