There Will Come A Stranger Page 7

  When one is happy ... Like a gong his words rang through her consciousness. She had believed all happiness on her own account was left behind for ever, that the only happiness remaining to her lay in giving it to others. Until this revealing moment she had taken it for granted that the joy she had found here in this little mountain village was a reflection of the happiness that she had been the means of giving Valerie, who had been living in a blissful whirl, ski-ing by day with more and more enjoyment as her skill grew and her tumbles became few and far between, and of an evening amusing herself with the group of gay young people in which she had become caught up.

  But she knew now, quite suddenly, that for the first time since Pete’s death she had been happy for herself. And knowing it, she was ashamed, feeling that her happiness implied disloyalty to Pete. Not that she had forgotten him. Constantly she thought of him and longed for him. She could not see a lovely view, could not experience some new happening, without wishing he were there to share it. Yet the fact of being happy gave her a guilty feeling as though she had gone ahead without him, leaving him behind, alone, deserted.

  Perhaps John read her thoughts in her expressive eyes. Possibly he knew them by intuition: friendship takes small account of time, and during the last fortnight they had seen more of one another than many friends do in a year, talking together of an evening in a quiet corner of the lounge while Valerie and the Prescotts were in the games room, dining together at his table or hers when the others had gone off elsewhere of an evening. After she and Valerie had graduated from the nursery slopes to more adventurous activities, he had several times foregone the longer runs that he habitually made to spend the time with them instead. During that time he and Vivian had learned more of one another than perhaps either realized. And so John knew, now, what lay in Vivian’s mind, and knew he could not leave her to do battle with it by herself.

  He did not speak of it until they were alone. Luck was on his side; as the landlady brought their coffee the only other people dining here to-night, a Swiss couple, asked for their bill, paid it, and left. The landlady brought the two Benedictines John had ordered, then left them to themselves, beamed sympathetically; she believed the handsome couple who always seemed so pleased with one another’s company were honeymooning, since the lady wore a wedding ring.

  John waited for a moment. Then he said deliberately, “To look at you, one never would imagine that you were so full of complexes!” Startled, she met his eyes, steady and kind.

  “Complexes!”

  “Yes! First of all, you got some queer kind of notion that you must put up a prickly barrier between us, or otherwise I might feel you thought I ought to be responsible for helping you to find your feet here, as it was through me you came. We soon scotched that one—but it seems another complex has attached you now; Far more dangerous, this time. One that will wreck your life, if it’s not nipped in the bud.”

  Vivian said in a low voice, not looking at him now, “My life was wrecked two years ago.”

  “My dear, forgive me if I’m crashing in where any angel of good sense would fear to tiptoe—but I like you far too well to go away to-morrow without first doing what I can to drive away this foolish bee that’s buzzing in your bonnet! ... Nobody’s life is wrecked at twenty-seven. In fact, I very much doubt whether a life is wreckable at any age. Maimed, yes, and cruelly injured. But injuries do heal in time, although the scars remain.”

  The fingers of her right hand turned her wedding ring upon its finger in a way they had, as she said huskily, “Thank you for putting it so well. Only, you know, one feels—disloyal—”

  “I can understand that, yes. But it’s a feeling that can do no good. Only harm. You are far too sensible to believe that Pete would want you to go through the years ahead perpetually grieving! Because he loved you, he would want you to be happy.”

  Vivian said nothing, staring into her coffee cup. After a minute or two John went on, “You’re young. Too young not to take your share of happiness when it comes your way. Too young to stand aside from life, believing you should have no pleasure on your own account—only in that of other people!”

  She said, “I know you’re right. Only it’s difficult—”

  “I know. But you have common-sense and courage on your side. You’ll win through, maybe sooner than you think. You would have seen the truth of what I’ve said for yourself, in time. But sometimes a short cut saves one a long, hard bit of road.”

  He changed the subject, talking of a plan he had of going one day to film big game, until Vivian was herself again.

  So their last hour together ticked away, until the cuckoo clock proclaimed the time to be eleven, and the landlady came to tell them that the sleigh had come to take them back to their hotel.

  The lounge was empty when they reached the Casque d’Or; no one was there to see their parting as John took, Vivian’s hand and held it for a moment.

  “Good night,” he said. “Good-bye, too—I shall be gone to-morrow while you’re still asleep.”

  “Good-bye. We’ll miss you, Valerie and I! You’ve been so kind. I hope we’ll meet again, some day!”

  “I hope so, too.”

  But if he had really meant it, Vivian reflected on her way upstairs, he would have asked for her address: and since he hadn’t, it was most improbable that they would ever meet again.

  She went to bed, oppressed by a flat sense of anti-climax.

  Nearly twelve already! thought Valerie, her eyes on the clock high on the wall above the band. Only one more dance, and it will be over. And I’ve scarcely danced with Rory all the evening...

  Her flagging spirits must have made her feet flag too, for Robin’s arm tightened about her and he asked “Tired?”

  She pulled herself together. “Not a bit! I can’t think how it is that one never does seem to be tired here, taking all the exercise we do!”

  “Enjoying oneself is never tiring,” Robin told her sagely. “Look—d’you mind if I leave you just for a moment? Ronnie Barsham looks as though he’s going off, and I must have a word with him about to-morrow.”

  “Of course—do go!”

  Robin left her at their table and hurried after the departing Ronnie. Valerie thought how nice it was, just for a moment, to sit peacefully looking on, without the need to talk to anyone, or listen. There were eight of them in Rory’s farewell party: Hilary and Gordon Frayne, Robin and the man they all called Buster, whose real name she had never discovered, a girl with red hair and green eyes and a sharp, amusing tongue who came from Kerry and was in consequence nicknamed Blarney, a pretty brown-haired girl whose name was Pamela, Rory himself, and Valerie.

  For the last fortnight they had all been seeing a good deal of one another, since by mutual consent they had drifted into an elastic group. By day they split up into twos and threes, but of an evening they would foregather at one or other of the hotels or pensions where they were scattered, to play rummy or canasta, or dance to the wireless or a gramophone. When Vivian and Valerie had graduated from the nursery slopes to venture farther afield, taking a sandwich lunch from the hotel to save their precious currency and eating it in the hot sunshine high in the silence of the dazzling snows, Blarney and Pamela, and sometimes Robin and Buster, had joined up with them. Only Hilary, an expert skier despite her glamorously feminine appearance, disdained the company of the other girls and went off with the men on longer expeditions.

  Unenviously Valerie thought how marvellous it must be to do everything so well, and look so lovely into the bargain. According to her brother, Hilary’s tennis was up to Wimbledon standard, and her handicap at golf was four. She had travelled, it appeared, all over Europe and America as well, and judging by her conversation her circle of acquaintances was composed chiefly of people who were internationally famous in the worlds of politics and literature, music and art and sport. Her vivid personality made her the centre of every gathering. In Hilary’s company, Valerie felt as though she were a candle whose light had been pleasant eno
ugh until the switching on of a hundred watt electric light bulb had made it all but invisible.

  Hilary was dancing now with Rory. They were the most striking couple in the room, well matched for height and dark good looks, superbly poised, pivoting, gliding, eddying, whirling as though they were a single entity borne on the current of the music. Hilary was talking with her usual animation. From time to time Rory joined in. With Valerie he seemed to prefer to dance for the most part in silence. Probably, she thought, that’s because I don’t dance as well as Hilary: with me he has to concentrate on what he’s doing.

  Robin was taking longer than she had expected over making his arrangements for to-morrow. He had not reappeared when the dance came to an end. Hilary was talking still as she and Rory came back to the table. “Well, all I know is, that’s what the Shah told me himself a month ago, in Rome!” she concluded.

  “M’m. Very interesting!” said Rory. Giving her a cigarette, he waited until she had fitted it into her long ivory holder, lit it, then turned to Valerie.

  “All alone? Robin deserted you?”

  “Alas, yes! He said I danced like a Dutch doll and bored him so much that he couldn’t bear it for another minute, so he’s taken refuge from me in the bar.”

  Hilary raised her eyebrows, then as the others laughed she realized belatedly that Valerie was not being serious, and smiled reluctantly, as though she thought the harmless nonsense was in poor taste. Valerie felt small.

  Hilary changed the subject. “I’ve been torn in two all day!” she told them. “Two invitations came this morning. Both for March. One from Lady Helson—you know, they’ve just gone to the Embassy at Washington—and the other from the Ravenswoods, to stay at Government House at Gib—that’s very hush-hush, though—it’s not announced yet that he’s going there, so not a word!—So what? If only one could be in two places at the same time! Do make my mind up for me, someone!”

  But the band was tired, and anxious to stop dead on time, so before they could embark on a discussion of Hilary’s problem, the last dance began.

  Rory got up. Valerie sat with head averted, anxious not to look as though she hoped that he would ask if she would dance with him, pretending to be listening to something Hilary was saying about Washington. Longing to know whether it was at herself that he was looking, or at Hilary, or Pamela, or Blarney, still she refused to turn her eyes in his direction, until beside her ear his voice said, “May I have this one, Valerie? As your host, I can’t let you be a wallflower all the evening!”

  Laughing, she made a face at him and they began to dance.

  “It was to this tune that I danced with you that first time of all, when I was petrified with fright!” Valerie exclaimed. “An odd coincidence that we should finish up with it as well!”

  “Not a coincidence. I asked for it. Told them I would be dancing it with a Very Special Person.”

  If only—oh, if only she could believe it! But one never knew, with Rory, if he meant what he was saying, or was teasing one.

  The man who had sung the words that first night began singing them again.

  “My small, my slim Susanna,

  Come out with me to dance,

  And I will teach you how to kiss,

  And weave a sweet romance—”

  Close to her ear Rory murmured the last two lines, then asked her “Does that apply to you too, Valerie?”

  “That would be telling!”

  “As you’re so cagey, we must investigate at the first opportunity.”

  “The opportunity won’t arise, as you’ll be off at dawn to-morrow!” she retorted, dimpling.

  “We shall have to meet in London, then.”

  Meet him in London! Oh, if it were only possible—!

  “I’m practically never there,” she said regretfully. “You know that I live miles and miles away, in Darlingford!”

  “Oh, so you do. Too far. You’ll have to move. Well, how about coming out with me one evening when you’re passing through on your way home?”

  “We’re only going to be there for two nights on the way back.”

  “Two nights! Good—time to come out with me twice then!”

  But Valerie, ruled by discretion rather than inclination, said firmly that one evening would be all that she could manage. Finally they agreed that he should take her out the second evening she would be in London.

  “What shall it be?” he asked her. “Dinner and dance—or a snack and then a theatre, then supper at some night club where there’s a good cabaret, and do a spot of dancing there?”

  To Valerie it all sounded very expensive. She had no notion what his means might be, only that he was in some shipping firm and shared a flat with a friend, so, mindful of his pocket, she said she would prefer dinner followed by dancing. It was decided that he should call for her at half past seven at her hotel and that they would spend the evening at the Savoy. That settled, they danced for the most part in silence and said no more of it until the dance had ended and they were on their way back to the others, who were gathering round to say good-bye to Rory. Then from his pocket he took out a looseleaf notebook.

  “Write down the address of your hotel in this, would you?”

  Taking the little book, she put it on a corner of the table, and did as he had asked her, while above her head the others inter-changed a chorus of farewells and promises to meet another year. Giving it back to him, she went to wrap up for the drive back through the frosty night.

  Rory was going to take her to the Casque d’Or. She found him waiting for her by the door. As she joined him, Hilary passed them on her way towards the cloakroom.

  “ ’Bye, once again!” she said to Rory, “or rather, an revoir till seven-thirty on the twenty-fourth!”

  Her casual words were like a cold wind, chilling the radiance of Valerie’s happiness that Rory had asked her to go out with him in London. Probably he had a date with some girl every evening of his life. His invitation to herself had been given on the impulse of the moment, and would never have been given but for the turn their talk had chanced to take. Guileless, romantic goose that she had been, to think it could be otherwise!

  They went out from the bright lights and the warmth into a world of bitter cold, lit by a moon so brilliant that it paled the stars. The soaring, snowclad mountains were illumined by its silver fire. Here was reality: the indoor world that they had left behind seemed suddenly trumpery and artificial.

  There was a long footwarmer in the sleigh; its warmth crept comfortingly up among the rugs which the driver muffled to the eyes, tucked up about their chins, finally enclosing them in a windproof, snowproof cover that he buttoned to the hood, “Exactly like a nannie,” Valerie declared, “tucking away twin babies in a pram!”

  With jingling bells they started off. Valerie sat upright, staring ahead. Beside her Rory leaned back comfortably. It was ridiculous, she knew, to feel self-conscious simply because she knew that he was looking at her. Bright though the moonlight was, he could not read her thoughts!

  Close to her ear his voice, lazily amused, told her, “You look as if you’d dined upon a poker! How often must I tell you to relax, my good girl?”

  Beneath the rugs his arm slid Skilfully about her waist and drew her close. “Still such a little thing, in spite of all the furs and what-nots!” Rory said, half-laughing and half-tender.

  If she were wise she would pretend to be annoyed with him. If she were wise, she’d pull away from his encircling arm.

  But she did nothing of the kind. She laid her head upon his shoulder. And when Rory drew her closer still, and bent his head, her lips were ready for his kiss.

  CHAPTER SIX

  As the taxi bore them through the crowded London streets to their hotel Vivian and Valerie were thinking, rather wistfully, how incredible it seemed that the little world high among the snows where they had spent four memorable weeks still remained just as they had known it: that the deep-toned chiming of the church bell still rang out at its appointed times into
the shining, frosty air, that still the dazzling peaks soared proudly to the sky and shadows lay like azure stains upon the snow although they were not there to see, that even now Elsie, with rosy face beaming beneath her golden plaits, was bringing drinks, and turning on hot baths, and generally ministering to all the lucky individuals they had left behind them at the Casque d’Or. Only one thing would be different: already someone else was in possession of the room that had been theirs.

  It was raining, just as it had been on the morning of their departure. By contrast with the picture in their minds London looked depressingly dark and overcrowded.

  Vivian said, “Well—it’s over. All behind us... Did it come up to your expectations?”

  The face that turned to her was radiant in the intermittent light of passing street lamps, as Valerie told her, “More! Oh, far more! There just aren’t words to tell you how much I enjoyed it, every single minute of it! You couldn’t possibly have given me a lovelier time if you had taken me to—to El Dorado!”

  Vivian laughed at her enthusiasm. “I am glad, darling!”

  “You really did enjoy it too, didn’t you? On your own account, I mean—not only because I did?”

  “Yes—yes, of course, I loved it!” Vivian assured her.

  Secretly she was reflecting that she had enjoyed the first half of their holiday far more than the second fortnight.

  John Ainslie’s going had left a blank for her that no one else had filled. She was surprised to find how much she missed that tall, athletic figure, that strong, square, sunburnt face, those calm, clear, steady eyes of his. She had been surprised, too, to realize how greatly she had grown to rely on his advice and help. When a letter had arrived from lawyers in America concerning complicated business matters which she found it hard to understand, or from her stockbrokers regarding some investment, it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to turn to John for his advice—and take it, too, when given! With John, the barriers such as we all put up about ourselves to hide our deeper feelings from the eyes of our acquaintances had quickly crumbled. Some affinity between them had drawn her on to talk to him with less reserve than she had talked with anyone, even Valerie, since Pete’s death.