“Very—? What do you mean?”
“I can’t explain. Will you
please
just take my advice. It’s more important than you know. Will you please ask Mother out to dinner tonight, and
insist
that she comes. Don’t ask m
e
why and, whatever you do, don’t mention this to her.”
“But I must know a little more than—”
“Thank you
so
much,” said Marilyn softly, and rang off.
Then, with the air of a kitten who had drunk all the cream but found it slightly indigestible, she gathered together the lunch dishes and went into the kitchen to do the washing-up.
She was just hanging the tea-towel on the line when she heard her mother’s door open again, and Clare came out, looking quite composed and very much herself.
“Oh, Mari dear, I didn’t mean to leave all that for you. After you got it all ready, I might at least have cleared it up.” She came over and kissed her daughter’s cheek lightly.
“That’s all right. There wasn’t much to do.” Marilyn’s tone was off-hand, but she returned her mother’s kiss warmly.
“You’re such a good little daughter.” Clare smiled at her. “And rather a clever one too, I sometimes think. Mari, I’m going to take your advice.”
“My—advice?” Marilyn swallowed hard.
“Yes. You’re either very right or very wrong. I’m not sure which, and perhaps I’d better find out.” Clare was still smiling in that reflective way. “I’m going to ring up Greg and ask him if he’d like to take me out to dinner tonight.”
“Oh—yes,” said Marilyn, feeling a little as though someone had slipped a small lump of ice down her spine.
“You don’t sound quite so enthusiastic now.” Her mother gave her an amused, half-puzzled glance.
“I am enthusiastic!” Marilyn declared. “I think it’s a wonderful idea. But you don’t think—” she glanced at the kitchen clock—“he might be having an afternoon nap or something? I mean, perhaps a little later would be better?”
“Greg isn’t at all the afternoon nap type,” Clare laughed, genuinely amused. “And he wouldn’t thank you for making him sound quite such an elderly gentleman.”
“Do something!” Marilyn implored her guardian angel mentally. “Please do something!”
And, as though in celestial answer to her appeal, at that very moment the telephone bell rang.
“Oh—” Marilyn could hardly control her gasp of almost superstitious relief. “There’s the phone,” she said unnecessarily, and she pretended to be drying damp hands, so that her mother would be the one to go and answer it.
She followed, however, to the sitting-room door, in time to hear her mother say, “Hello?” Then, just as she prepared to slip tactfully away, she heard her mother’s voice change entirely and she cried,
“Pat!
Is that you, dear? Pat—Pat, answer me!”
For a moment or two longer Clare shook the receiver and repeated Pat’s name. Then she dialled the operator and asked distractedly if the call could be traced.
“You can’t? It was a call-box? But you can’t tell which
?
—Oh, what sort of a service is this
?
—No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t criticising you. It’s just—Well, I’m sorry.”
She rang off and turned in agitation to Marilyn, who stood in the doorway, still dangling a kitchen towel and looking petrified with dismay and bewilderment.
“That was Pat! She thought it was you replying
—
she said your name in a cautious sort of way. Then when she heard it was me she hung up! She
hung up
because I was on the line! Oh, what have I ever done to make her feel like that? She’s my child—I love her—and she doesn’t even want to speak to me. Has she grown to hate me or something?”
“Oh, Mother, no. Of course not.” Marilyn moved at last and came forward a little stiffly into the room, not knowing how on earth to tackle this unexpected complication.
“She asked if it were you. Why did she do that, Mari? What did she want that she didn’t mind asking you, but she wouldn’t ask me? Think, dear
—
think.
There must be an explanation somewhere, and it’s as though you were somehow nearer to it than I am. Haven’t you any idea at all why she is behaving like this?”
Greatly shaken, and feeling a criminal, Marilyn slowly shook her head. Then once more she was rescued by the ringing of the telephone bell.
“Oh, she’s trying again!” Clare snatched up the receiver and said in the most loving appealing tone, “Darling, please—” and then, “Oh—oh, Greg! No, I didn’t know it was you. Oh, well—” she gave a shaky little laugh—“you can take it as meant if you like. As a matter of fact, I thought it was Pat.—Yes, she phoned a few minutes ago, but she rang off when I replied. It was like a slap in the face. I thought this was her ringing back.—What? Yes, of course it was a disappointment.—No, no! Not in that sense. I’m terribly glad to hear from you.—Oh, Greg, what did you say
?
”
Marilyn, who was shamelessly watching and listening, saw her mother’s face change, as though a light had been suddenly lit inside a lamp.
“Tonight? Why, Greg, I’d like it very much.—Yes, of course I would. I what? Seemed off-brushing
?—
Oh, because I wouldn’t stay to lunch, you mean
?
I’m terribly sorry. I was tired and worried. I didn’t mean to speak that way. Will you come about seven and have a drink here? Then we could go on wherever you like. What about taking Mari too?—Oh, wait a minute. She’s making violent signs.”
Clare held the receiver away and said, “It’s your father, dear. Imagine! He rang up to suggest we should dine together tonight. I can’t leave you all alone. Would you like—”
“I wouldn’t
think
of it,” exclaimed Marilyn. “What a ridiculous idea! He wants you to himself—and quite rightly too. Anyway, I’m tired. I was going to bed early with a book. Besides, Pat might ring again, and if I answer she might tell me something.”
“That’s true!” The argument appealed to Clare irresistibly. “Well, if you really don’t mind, dear
?
”
“I told you, earlier on, I think it’s the best idea possible.”
“She’s being sweet about it.” Smiling, Clare spoke again into the telephone. “She insists that she wants to stay at home, and of course it’s true that someone should be here in case Pat rings again. She might talk to Mari when she wouldn’t talk to me—to us. Mari is specially easy to talk to.”
Clare smiled across at her daughter, who looked slightly self-conscious. Then she went on, “I don’t know what I’d do without her, Greg.—You want to speak to her, you say—Oh, you mean when you come this evening to fetch me. Yes, of course, you’ll have plenty of opportunity then. Greg, I’m so glad you telephoned. The odd thing is that
I
nearly phoned
you
with the same idea.—What’s that
?
” She laughed and coloured charmingly. “Well, yes, we did often think the same things simultaneously in—in the old days. Till seven o’clock, then.”
She put down the receiver slowly and she was smiling and looking like a different woman from the one who had replaced the receiver after Pat’s call.
“Wasn’t that extraordinary?” she said musingly. “That he should have the idea of phoning me with the dinner suggestion just as I intended to do the same thing.”
“Extraordinary,” agreed Marilyn nobly.
“Of course I know that as far as I was concerned the idea came from you.”
“Yes,” said Marilyn, and tried not to look a trifle smug.
Her mother laughed.
“You minx!” she said almost gaily. “If I didn’t know you better I’d think you somehow prompted him, too.”
“Oh, Mother, what an
ideal”
cried Marilyn reproachfully.
“Darling, I was only teasing you! I’m happy we did both think of it. As though—as though we were more in tune again.”
“That thought pleases you, doesn’t it?” Marilyn’s regard was almost maternal in its affectionate indulgence.
“It does, Mari. I won’t pretend anything else. It even makes me feel that somehow this puzzling business with Pat will turn out all right in the end. That there’s some explanation that will make us all feel relieved and happy. Illogical, I know, but—”
“No. You’re very likely right,” Marilyn assured her eagerly. “Perhaps she’ll phone this evening while you and Dad are out. I’ll do my best to get some real information out of her if she does.”
“Do, darling. Your father says he specially wants to talk to you a bit when he comes tonight. I think he feels he hasn’t really seen much of you. So I’ll make it my business to be dressing still when he comes. You give him a drink and have a chat with him. He would like that; and so would you, wouldn’t you
?
”
“Yes, of course,” said Marilyn because it was impossible to say anything else. “But don’t leave us too long, will you? It’s you he really wants to see. And anyway, I don’t know why, but I feel a bit self-conscious with him when you aren’t there. I suppose it’s because I’ve seen so little of him in the last year.”
“Mari dear!” Clare was a good deal shocked at what she took to be evidence that her younger daughter had grown away from her father. “You need never feel like that with either of us!”
“Oh, not with
you,”
Marilyn laughed protestingly.
“But not with your father either. He loves you dearly, and thinks you’re such a clever, lively girl. I believe he finds you something of an attractive little enigma. He said he wonders sometimes just what you’re up to—”
“When did he say that?” enquired Marilyn quickly.
“Just now, on the phone. But he meant it admiringly, you know. Have a nice talk with him this evening.”
“I will,” said Marilyn with a certain lack of enthusiasm. But Clare thought it better not to comment further on that.
In actual fact, Marilyn was divided between anxiety and a considerable amount of hope. There was no doubt that her parents were, for the moment at any rate, drifting more towards each other. That Mrs. Curtiss was here in London to make trouble was, Marilyn thought, equally obvious. And she could not disguise from herself that she was becoming dangerously involved in ever-narrowing circles.
If only events moved quickly—in the direction she and Pat wanted, of course—all might yet be well. But meanwhile,
why
had Pat thought it necessary to take the risk of telephoning? Did she doubt Jerry Penrose’s reliability as a messenger? There was no reason for her to do so, Marilyn reflected. He had done his part nobly. And she herself had dealt with him splendidly. She experienced no false modesty about that.
Possibly, of course, it was just that Pat was longing for a cosy chat about recent developments; in which case, she would very possibly try again that evening. Nothing could be better, with the parents both out, thought Marilyn. And the possibility of a really long and informative chat with her sister made her feel so confident and cheerful that she even looked ready to deal with the enquiries which obviously trembled on her father’s lips when she admitted him that evening.
“Come in.” Marilyn, smiling hospitably, held open the door for him. “Oh, you do look distinguished! I’d forgotten how good you looked in a dinner jacket. Mother’s nearly ready. She said I was to look after you and get you a drink.” She had already led the way into the sitting-room and now crossed to the table where drinks were set out. “What will you have? Whisky
?
—Sherry
?
”
“Stop playing the nervous hostess.” Her father came up behind her and took hold of her quite gently by her upper arms. Then, bending his head, he ligh
tl
y kissed the side of her cheek and asked, “Exactly what are you up to?”
“Oh, Daddy!” As the childish term of address slipped from her, she turned suddenly in his arms and hugged him. “You’re not cross, are you?”
“No, I’m not cross. Only intensely curious. I’m a bit past the age of mysterious half-whispered conversations over the phone. Particularly with my nearly grown-up daughter. As you see, I’ve carried out my instructions to the letter, but now I’d like—”
“Oh, hush!” Quickly she put her hand against his lips and was both relieved and charmed that he immediately kissed her fingers lightly. “Mother has no idea—and she mustn’t. But she was so miserable about having unintentionally brushed you off at lunchtime—”
“Was she?” He looked pleased and a little amused.
“Yes. And I wanted her to phone and suggest dinner instead. But she turned scared and on her dignity, because she thought you probably wanted to go out with Mrs. Curtiss.”
“Linda! How did your mother know about Linda
?
” He looked rather put out.
“Well, she saw the meeting between you at your hotel, didn’t she?” returned Marilyn innocently.