“Really?”
“Yes, really! And you needn’t smile in that superior way. You were purring like a cat yourself when you told me Pat said you were the only person she could turn to.”
“I
was
the only person in the circumstances
!”
He reddened angrily.
“Yes, I daresay. But her cleverness was in making you feel that was a distinction instead of a bore. But never mind. She likes you, anyway. She told me so.
—
But let’s get back to the story,” added Marilyn quickly as she saw that her companion would willingly follow that delightful red herring, if allowed to. “Pat and I realised it was vital to get the parents together again, else they’d
never
discover that they really wanted each other still. So Pat went out to spend three weeks’ holiday with Dad, and we arranged that she should disappear on the way home.”
“You arranged it? You mean you horrible children deliberately inflicted this misery and anguish on your mother who loves you?”
“On Dad too,” agreed Marilyn, unmoved. “And not so much of the ‘children’. I bet you’re not all that much older than we are.”
“Of course lam!”
“How much older?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jerry Penrose said coldly. “What does matter is that you and Pat did this dreadful thing to your parents, who—”
“But it worked, didn’t it?” interrupted Marilyn coolly.
“How do you mean it worked?”
“Well, Dad came home, didn’t he?” said Marilyn simply. “For the first time in nearly a year he came rushing to Mother’s side, to console her and share her anxiety. And there they are now hareing up and down the country together looking for Pat.
She’s
wringing Dad’s heart with her pathetic anxiety and
he’s
wa
rm
ing her heart with the feeling that she’s being looked after again. I reckon there’s a seventy
-
five per cent chance that it will bring them together again. So long as no interfering busybody thinks he knows better and spoils things.”
“Meaning
me
?
”
“We-ell—”
“But I never heard of such a thing! Situations involving real people don’t just solve themselves like that.”
“How do you know they don’t? If you’ve never heard of such a thing—and frankly, nor have I
—
how do either of us know it won’t work? It’s bold and original, and it’s based on our belief that they do really love each other.”
“But—” Jerry Penrose was obviously wavering, and yet distressed to find that he was—“I promised your mother I’d keep in touch with her, do everything in my power to help her to find Pat. I’d feel the most utter skunk if I joined this disgraceful deception, even as a passive partner. As it is, I feel awful at having sent her off to Westcliff on what is obviously now a false scent.”
“If you hadn’t interfered you wouldn’t have raised her hopes unduly,” Marilyn pointed out severely. But he looked so startled and unhappy over this viewpoint that she relented and said, “As a matter of fact, she and Dad would have gone off to Westcliff anyway this morning, because Pat wrote from there and they got the letter by the first post.”
“She wrote?” He brightened up considerably at that.
“Very meagrely,” Marilyn explained. “Saying little more than that she was perfectly all right. But it did take off the worst edge of their anxiety.”
“Thank heaven for that! But
—
mind, I don’t want to sound as though I’m condoning this business—but if the anxiety is over, mightn’t your father go back to Munich almost right away
?
”
“No.” Marilyn shook her head. “Because, you see, the anxiety is not over. They still don’t know where Pat is—or why she went away or when she’s coming back. In fact, they still don’t have any idea of what has happened to her.
“You really are diabolical, aren’t you?” he exclaimed angrily.
“No. Only desperate. And sometimes
I’m
very frightened too.” Marilyn gazed sadly across the table at Jerry Penrose, in a way that made him profoundly uncomfortable. She lacked Pat’s real beauty, and she had nothing like such a talent for making people do what she wanted. But Marilyn possessed one priceless gift. She could cry to order. And as she looked mournfully at her companion she forced two big tears into her eyes and made them spill down her cheeks.
“Oh, please don’t!” he cried in the utmost dismay.
“But you make me so miserable—and anxious. You talk about Mother’s anxiety, and I know it’s awful for her, poor darling. But what about my anxiety,
when you sit there trying to decide if it’s your duty to ruin all our hopes and plans, just because you think you know what is better for our family than we do ourselves?”
“I don’t think that,” he protested. “How could I? I didn’t even know any of you existed a week ago.”
“Well, that’s what I mean,” said Marilyn reproachfully. “How can you think it your business to interfere when you know so little about the people concerned
?
”
“I’m just thinking of your mother—” he began unhappily.
“Do you suppose I’m not thinking of her to
o
? Do you suppose Pat isn’t thinking of her while she plays out this horribly difficult part? It’s because we want her—and all of us—to be happy again that we’re doing this thing.”
“You don’t think—” he sounded more diffident now and nothing like so sure of his course of action
—
“you don’t think you might be tragically mistaken in the way you’re going about things
?
”
“We think it’s worth trying. We think a bit of unhappiness now may prevent a great deal more unhappiness later. We may be wrong, but we feel we have to make the attempt. All we ask is that no one spoils the whole thing, just as it’s showing some signs of succeeding.”
“Oh, all right! You win,” exclaimed Jerry Penrose. “I’m not a bit happy about it, and I feel I’m letting down your mother in some way, after she appealed to me to help her. But the way you put it leaves me very little choice. You make it sound as though even the best-meant interference might do a lot more harm than good—”
“That’s right,” interjected Marilyn joyfully. “Oh, I’m so
glad
you see it that way at last! And if it’s any consolation to you, I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll keep in touch with you and let you know when it all works out all right. And then you can see Pat again and receive her thanks in person. You’d like that, wouldn’t you
?
”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I’d like to see Pat again, of course. But I’m hanged if I know how I’m going to explain my part in things to your mother.”
“You probably won’t have to,” Marilyn assured him soothingly, as they rose and made their way to the cash desk, where he insisted on paying for them both. “By the time you’re due for Pat’s personal thanks, I hope Mother will be so radiantly happy that she won’t much mind what
any
of us did to bring about a reconciliation between her and Dad.”
“Well, I hope you’re right,” he said sceptically.
“I know I am.” Marilyn actually shook him cordially by the hand as she said good-bye, for her sense of relief at having at last silenced him was immense. “If Mother is a bit anxious and miserable now, it’s nothing compared to the joy she’ll feel later.” And with a confident wave of her hand, Marilyn turned and walked rapidly homewards, while Jerry Penrose made his way more slowly towards the Underground, increasingly certain that he had somehow been stampeded into doing something he would presently very much regret.
Marilyn hummed contentedly as she re-entered the block of flats. There was a very good morning’s work behind her. She had re-established contact with Pat—or nearly so—she had silenced the tiresome scruples of Mr. Jerry Penrose, and she had cheered herself insensibly by talking a great deal of the happy times ahead when their scheme would have succeeded, and the need for all this complicated deception no longer existed.
Her confidence, however, might have been slightly shaken if she could have guessed at the depths of her mother’s despair at that moment.
The morning’s expedition had started well. It was almost like old times to be sitting beside Greg in the car, with a long drive in front of them. And the fact that she was certain she was going to find Pat at the end of it raised Clare’s spirits to a pitch almost in keeping with the brightness of the day.
Greg drove. Partly because it was natural for him to take the lead when they were together, and partly because she guessed he desperately wanted to be doing something—anything—specific towards the finding of their daughter.
For a while there was silence. Not a difficult silence, oddly enough, and Clare took comfort from that too. Now that they had crossed the first bridge across the rift that had been torn in their lives, they seemed able to accept each other’s company with a naturalness she had never expected. She was content to sit there enjoying the fact.
It was he who spoke first, when they were free of the most congested part of their route, and what he said was, “Did you hear what Marilyn said to me
over the phone last night?—about thinking I didn’t really care much what happened to any of you.”
“Yes, I heard. I was still in the room.” She could tell from his tone that he still felt shocked about it.
“Clare, did you know that was how she—perhaps
they
—felt
?
”
“I didn’t know until yesterday that she felt quite so strongly about it. She started to talk in that vein just before we phoned. It shook me too, Greg. I tried to reason with her—”
“That was generous of you,” he interjected curtly. “Not really. For whatever she felt about your part in things applied—I’m not quite sure in what degree
—
to me too. You weren’t the only one who had failed them.”
“You feel that was what we did?” He flashed her a quick glance.
“Well, of course. Whatever our reasons—good or bad—we cut the secure ground of their home life from under their feet. Oh, I know it isn’t quite as simple as that. But I suppose—” she sighed involuntarily
—
“at their age life
is simple.
Or should be. It’s made up of a few things, but those few are vital. Perhaps I should have let them talk more about it, get it out of their system. But I felt that a lot of discussion wouldn’t be fair to you—to the one who wasn’t there.”
“That’s more or less how I felt when Pat tried to talk to me about things in Munich.”
“But you didn’t tell me she did that!” Clare exclaimed.
“I hadn’t thought of its having any bearing on the present situation. And as for our talking in general terms, we haven’t had much opportunity for that, have we, Clare
?
”
“No. But it disturbs me somehow that Pat should do such a thing. One wonders if
that
had something to do with her disappearance.”
“Why should it? There was no sort of argument, you know. She merely said—” he stopped, then went on more deliberately—“she said how wonderful you were to them both, and that home was as nice as it possibly could be with only one parent there.”
“Oh, Greg, did she? And what,” asked Clare curiously, “did you reply to that
?
”
“I just made a few general comments.” He frowned. “I said I was sure that was so. I agreed that you were wonderful—to them.”
“Did you have to make that pause there?”
“It wasn’t intentional. It didn’t imply anything derogatory to you,” he protested. “I merely wanted to show that I went along with her statement just as far as I could. I wanted to be fair to you, just as, I’m sure, you wanted to be fair to me. I felt the less said, the better.”
“So did I,” Clare said slowly. “And the result was, I suppose, that it must have seemed to them that the one thing no one would discuss frankly was the most important subject in their lives.”
“Do you think that was how they viewed the
—
break-up? As the most important subject in their lives?” He sounded uneasy.
“I don’t know, Greg. I’m just wondering. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder how well I—perhaps we
—
really know our daughters at all.”
“Well, we’re going to know Pat a bit better after this morning,” he replied drily. “She must have
something
to explain to us when we find her.”
“You’ll come in with me when I make enquiries at the hotel, won’t you, Greg?” she said anxiously.
“Why, of course.” He looked surprised. “We’re in this together.”
And the comfort of that stayed with her all the rest of the way, until they stood before the hotel enquiry desk, where a very co-operative but puzzled desk-clerk shook her head and said,
“Miss Collamore? No, we’ve never had anyone of that name here. Certainly not in the last few months. I would remember. It’s an unusual name.” And she produced a neatly kept register in proof of her statement.
In the first shock of disappointment Clare went so white that Greg instinctively put his arm round her, which slightly surprised them both.
“Might she have used another name?” he asked quietly.
“Oh, Greg, of course she might!” Her glance of grateful admiration actually made him tighten his clasp for a moment. “She’s very fair,” explained Clare, turning back to the desk. “A very pretty girl, really. She would have arrived late on Sunday evening in a hired car, and—”
“Oh, you mean Miss Foster!” The clerk’s face cleared.
“Miss—Foster?” repeated Clare, oddly dismayed to think of her child rejecting even her name in order to put a complete barrier between herself and the f
amil
y she wanted to repudiate. “Is that the name she used
?
Could we see her, please
?
”