“I’m sorry—” the clerk was genuinely regretful, for she would have liked to help this good-looking pair who seemed in such distress—“I’m afraid she’s no longer here. She left this morning.”
“This—morning
?
” Utter dismay engulfed Clare again. “Where did she go
?
Did she leave a forwarding address?”
“No. She had us call a taxi for her, and I heard her asking the man to drive her to the station.”
“Did she have any visitor while she was here
?
” enquired Greg. “Any contact that you can remember?”
“She stayed in her room a good deal. There was one visitor that I know of. Quite a young girl, who evidently knew her as Miss Foster, because she asked for her under that name. I was on duty at the time,” the woman explained. “Yesterday afternoon it was.”
Greg and Clare exchanged a bewildered glance. Then Clare turned back to the woman and said pleadingly, “And there’s nothing else at all that you can tell us? She—she’s our daughter.”
“Nothing. I’m so very sorry. If you like to leave your address—?”
“Yes, of course.” Clare groped with trembling fingers for a card. “If you hear anything else at all—or remember the slightest detail which might be helpful—” She bit her lip, unable to complete the sentence.
“Yes. Yes, indeed,” the desk clerk said, and she watched compassionately as the two went out slowly to the car once more.
“Is it any good making enquiries anywhere else?” Greg said doubtfully. “The station, perhaps? Someone might remember her and which train she took. She’s an outstanding girl, with that pretty hair and
—
and—”
Clare made a wordless little gesture which stopped him.
“We can try if you like,” she said huskily. “But I don’t think it’s any good. I don’t think
anything
will be any good.”
He persisted, however, and they drove to the station, where he went in and made painstaking enquiries. But, understandably enough, no one remembered even a very pretty girl among the morning rush-hour crowd.
There was no need for him to say anything to Clare when he came back to the car. She saw from his face that the enquiries had yielded no result. And in silence he started the car and turned for home. Presently he realised that she was crying, quietly and hopelessly, beside him.
“Oh, Clare dear—” There was a note of real anguish in his voice.
“Don’t take any notice. Just drive on, Greg. There’s nothing you or anyone can do. I’ll be better presently.”
But after a while he could stand it no longer, and he stopped the car in a quiet road.
“Look, darling—” it was so long since he had called her darling that it gave her a queer lit
tl
e lift of the heart, in spite of all her wretchedness—“I know it’s desperately disappointing not to have found her. But at least we know she’s well and safe. That woman had been speaking to her only an hour or two before.”
“That’s just it! If we’d only been a few hours sooner!”
“We couldn’t have been,” he reminded her practically. “We didn’t know the address in time, and evidently she left early.”
“But why, Greg, why
?
There’s something dreadful about the way she persistently runs away from us. We love her, and we want only her good. And yet she goes to these incredible lengths to get away from us. It’s as though she were trying to escape something we represent.”
“No, no, it’s not that.” Troubledly he put his lips against her cheek for a comforting moment. “God only knows
what
it is, Clare. But young things do sometimes get a mad urge to ‘live their own lives’ as the phrase goes—”
“She could have lived her own life from home,” Clare interrupted eagerly. “I gave them both the utmost latitude. Truly, I did.”
“I’m sure you did,” he said soothingly. “But she had to have something secret, it seems. At least it doesn’t appear to be an entanglement with a man. It was a girl who came to see her. That’s queer when you come to think of it. Who on earth could that have been
?
”
“I don’t know.” Clare leaned her head wearily but quite naturally against him. “Someone who is going to help her to live the sort of life she wants, I suppose.
Oh, Greg, I’m so thankful to have you to discuss it with! I don’t feel so bad now.”
She even managed to smile at him then, and he said, “That’s my girl
!”
just as he used to when they were quite young and had surmounted some difficulty together.
They drove on presently, the black depression lifting from Clare’s heart as she realised that he was taking the utmost pains to present the situation to her in a hopeful light. They did know Pat had come to no actual harm. They did know that she meant to keep some tenuous contact with them, even if only in the shortest of notes. And they did have each other as support in this difficult moment of their family life.
This last, more than anything else, cheered Clare. As she sat beside Greg and remembered his calling her darling and kissing her, however passingly, she felt such an uprush of positive happiness that she wondered if it were not almost wrong to be so happy when she still had not solved the mystery of Pat’s disappearance.
“I’ll call in at the hotel to see if there’s a message by any chance, before I drive you home,” he said, as they neared the centre of town.
“You don’t need to drive me home,” she assured him, anxious not to appear to make demands upon him or his time. “I’ll come in with you, just to see if there is anything, and then I can drive myself home.”
“Are you sure
?
”
“Dear Greg—” she laughed, and then wondered why she had used that expression—“I’m doing it all the time!”
“Yes, of course,” he agreed hastily. And when they arrived at the Gloria he parked the car and they went into the big hotel together.
With a nervous distaste for any more hotel enquiry desks, Clare let him go on ahead, and as she watched him cross the big foyer she thought, “He’s just as attractive as ever. More so, with that touch of grey in his hair. Oh, Greg—!”
And then she felt her heart miss a couple of beats. For at that moment a good-looking, beautifully dressed woman turned from the reception desk and obviously gave some smiling exclamation at the sight of Greg. Clare was too far away to hear what was said. But there was no mistaking the possessive amusement and affection with which the woman reached up and kissed his cheek.
CHAPTER
V
SOME instinct, quite inexplicable to her at the time, made Clare turn away and stare with the
utmost attention at a display of elegant handbags in a showcase just behind her.
His life was his own now, she told herself, as she gazed unseeingly at a gold mesh evening bag. Greg was entitled to kiss—or be kissed by—any woman without reference to her. Only she didn’t want him to start explaining or attempting to excuse what had happened. She could not
discuss
it with him. So long as she need not talk about it she could go on telling herself it was not her business. But if he said anything she simply could not trust herself to make the right reply.
“If he thinks I just didn’t see—”
“Clare!” He was beside her now, just a trifle out of breath. “I’m sorry I was so long. I ran into a friend from Munich who has just arrived in London.”
“Did you really?” She managed to look at him with just exactly the right amount of passing interest. Nothing
m
ore, nothing less. “There wasn’t any message, of course
?
”
“No, I’m afraid not. It wasn’t very likely, you know. Don’t be too disappointed.”
“I’m not disappointed,” she assured him. And to herself she said, “It’s just that all the joy’s gone out of me again. And not only for Pat.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to drive you home
?
”
“Quite sure, thank you. And I’m grateful for your coming with me this morning.”
“It was the least I could do
!”
She supposed it was. Even if a beautiful, well
-
dressed woman from Munich also had claims upon his attention.
“Besides, I wanted to come,” he reminded her urgently. “And we still have to decide what else we should do about Pat. I’ll come round this evening—or tomorrow, shall I
?
”
“What else
can
we do?” She sounded bitterly dispirited again. “We know she’s in no physical danger, as you said. She’s gone away of her own accord. Presumably she will come back—if at all—in her own time.”
“Don’t talk like that!” he cried in a shocked tone. “As though you’re almost resigned to her staying away.”
“But if people choose to go away—and stay away
—
there isn’t very much anyone else can do about it, is there, Greg?”
He looked uncomfortable, then a trifle resentful. “We could still go to the police,” he insisted. “She’s under age and still the responsibility of her parents.”
“Oh, those phrases don’t cut so much ice as when we were young,” Clare exclaimed sadly. “Provided we have no reason to think she is in danger—”
“We don’t
know
if she is in danger or not,” he cried, suddenly reversing all his comforting arguments of an hour ago. “We know she was physically capable of marching out of that hotel in Westcliff just an hour or so before we came in. But we don’t know where she is and why she went—or with whom she went. Anything could have happened, even since then. We can’t just leave things there. What’s the matter, Clare? It’s as though all the life and determination had suddenly gone out of you.”
“Perhaps it has. I feel so—so tired and dispirited. I can’t think or make plans any more. I’ll feel better when I’ve had some lunch, I expect. It’s late and—”
“Stay and have lunch with me here,” he said impulsively.
But she experienced such a revulsion of feeling at the very idea of being under the same roof as that woman—perhaps having to meet her—that she cried, “Oh, no!” with such distasteful emphasis that he recoiled.
“Well, of course not if you feel so strongly about it,” he said stiffly.
“It isn’t that! Oh, Greg, I’m sorry.” Too late she put a placatory hand on his arm, but her confused air gave little support to her apology. “It’s just that I must go home to Marilyn now. She’ll be wondering what has happened. She too has her anxieties, poor child.”
“Yes, of course.”
He followed her out of the hotel and saw her into the car. She wondered if she imagined, or actually detected, a faint degree of relief in his manner now that he was parting company with her.
“I’ll come this evening,” he assured her. “Or, if not, I’ll phone and we can decide on a meeting tomorrow to discuss things.”
“Very well.” She managed to smile faintly before she drove away. But she supposed that his “if not” covered alternative arrangements that he might very well make to spend the evening with the woman who had greeted him so warmly.
Marilyn was very sweet and sympathetic when she reached home. She had lunch ready and listened with utmost attention to Clare’s account of the abortive journey.
“Oh, Mother, don’t be so unhappy about it. At least you know she is perfectly well and doing whatever she is doing of her own accord. It’s mysterious, rather than terrifying. Of course, I realise that you and Dad must get to the bottom of it,” Marilyn added hastily, in the interests of keeping her father on the spot. “But I really think you could relax a little and not take it so hard. You look all in, you poor darling.”
“It was so unspeakably
—
disappointing.” Clare could not quite keep back the tremor of distress in her voice, but at least Marilyn would attribute that only to the scene at the Westcliff hotel, and not at all to anything which happened later.
“I’m sure it was.” Marilyn gave her a well-meant if rather too hearty pat on the shoulder. “I know you don’t like me to criticise Dad, but I don’t
thin
k it would have hurt him to take you out and give you a spanking lunch, to cheer you up.”
“He offered to,” Clare said quickly, in all fairness. “He wanted me to stay and have lunch with him at the Gloria.”
“Oh, Mother! Why didn’t you
?
”
“I—wanted to get back to you. I thought you would be waiting anxiously and—”
“But, darling, how
silly
of you!” Marilyn looked really vexed, for it seemed to her that this had been a golden opportunity lost. “You could have phoned me quite easily.”
“Well, I suppose I could.”
“Of course you could. You probably disappointed poor old Dad badly. He
is
making some effort to retrieve his position as head of the family. I think you should encourage him a bit. It’s awful to make an effort to do something difficult and then have it brushed off, just as you’re feeling hopeful but unsure.”
“I don’t think your father is feeling that,” Clare exclaimed defensively.
“Well, I do,” replied Marilyn firmly. “And the onlooker sees most of the game. You know what I think you should do? I think you should phone him now and say you hated disappointing him over lunch, particularly now you find I wasn’t at all worried, and how about his taking you out to dinner tonight instead
?
”
“Oh no!” cried Clare.
“Why not?” Marilyn opened her eyes wide. “I bet you he’d like it. He’s all on his own and—”
“No,” said Clare, before she could stop herself. “He isn’t all on his own.”
“What do you mean?” Marilyn was genuinely appalled. “You don’t mean he’s brought some other woman along with him
?
”
“Of course not! What a dreadful way to put it,
Mari. But some very good friend of his has turned up from Munich and was booking in at his hotel. I—I was waiting while he went to the desk to see if there were any messages, and I saw them greet each other. She was very good-looking, very well-dressed and—” Clare swallowed slightly—“very possessive.”
“Oh, crumbs! Mrs. Curtiss, I suppose,” exclaimed Marilyn in disgust.
Clare looked at her younger daughter, resisted temptation for a moment and then finally said,
“I despise myself for even discussing it. But, as you seem to have had information from Pat which I haven’t, who exactly
is
Mrs. Curtiss?”
“According to Pat, she’s quite unimportant, Mother. No one for you to worry about.”
“I’m not worrying,” replied Clare quickly and coldly.
“At the same time,” went on Marilyn firmly, “from what Pat said, I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the family to gather round and organise something of a rescue operation.”
“Mari
!”
exclaimed Clare distastefully.
“Oh, Mother, don’t be so well-bred and dignified! As though you don’t know, just as well as I do, that Dad’s the natural target for man-eating tigresses. We’re all used to him, I dare say, and perhaps we don’t see why other people find him so attractive—”
“I know exactly why other people find him attractive,” interjected Clare drily. “I find him attractive myself.”
“Well, so do I, of course,” Marilyn admitted. “But in a different way from the outsider. It’s not always easy to have someone like that in the family. And both Pat and I do see that life couldn’t have been smooth for you or—
“It was once.” The words were forced from Clare involuntarily. “That’s the sad thing, Mari. For years it was the happiest marriage you can possibly imagine. I
—
don’t know quite what went wrong.”
“I suppose one seldom does,” said Marilyn solemnly.
“Oh, I don’t know why I’m talking to you like this,” exclaimed her mother.
“Because I’m the most natural person for you to talk to,” replied Marilyn simply. “Pat or me. After all, we’re part of both you and Dad. We ought to have some idea of how you both tick.”
Clare laughed at that. The first time she had done so since the conversation began. And as she ruffled Marilyn’s hair with an affectionate hand, she said, “You’re such a comfort, even though you’re still such a child in many ways. Go on explaining
'
your father to me.”
Marilyn grinned, and looked remorseful, for some reason Clare could not divine.
“I wasn’t really going to say much more, except that we just have to
accept
the fact that Dad’s the kind lots of women find attractive. After all, I suppose that was why
you
married him
?
”
“I suppose it was,” said Clare, and again there was that unexpected flash of amusement in her face.
“You’re so pretty when you do that,” remarked her daughter. “I think Dad was quite surprised to see how pretty you still are, when he came to take a good look at you again.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re prejudiced,” exclaimed Clare. But all the same, her colour deepened slightly and she was aware of an indefinable lift of her spirits.
Marilyn regarded her with some satisfaction. Then she said quite deliberately, “Mother, are you prepared to have Mrs. Curtiss just snitch Dad from under our noses?”
“Marilyn, what dreadful expressions you use! As though—as though it’s something like shop-lifting.”
“Well, that’s what she is.” Marilyn was rather pleased with the expression. “A matrimonial shoplifter. There are plenty of them, looking for other people’s husbands and fathers. And if people won’t look after their property—”
“Stop it!” her mother exclaimed sharply. “I won’t have you talk like that. When your father and I realised that our marriage wouldn’t work, we separated with at least some dignity and—”
“Oh,
Mother!
What good is dignity when one’s miserable, or—” She stopped in dismay. For the first time in her life she saw her mother bury her face in her hands.
“Oh, I’m so sorry—” immediately Marilyn was a schoolgirl, dismayed, completely at a loss. “Mother, don’t cry. I—I’ve never seen you cry like that!” She put out a timid, questing hand to touch her mother’s arm. But Clare exclaimed agitatedly,
“Don’t, darling. I’ll stop in a minute. Oh, it’s ridiculous to behave like this. I’m sorry. It—it’s the anxiety about Pat. Mos
tl
y,” she added, again as though the word were forced from her. Then she got up from her chair and, leaving a scared and guilty Marilyn behind her, she went across the hall and into her bedroom, where she closed the door.
For two whole minutes, Marilyn sat there, irresolution plain upon her face. Then, with the courage—or obstinacy—found only in the optimist with the one
-
track mind, she also closed the sitting-room door firmly and, picking up the telephone, she rapidly dialled the number of the Gloria Hotel.
Her good angel must have been at her very elbow, she decided. For not only did the hotel come through immediately on the line, but within seconds she had been connected with the right extension and her father’s voice said sharply, “Yes? Collamore speak
in
g.
“Dad, it’s Marilyn.” She spoke quietly, with her hand cupped round her mouth. “I can’t say much. But do you want to do something very kind and very clever this evening
?
”