“It does,” said Alison. “I think it’s fascinating. I do think you ought to have your little cottage. And you must have pinks and Canterbury bells in the garden, and I shall come to stay with you and sleep under the patchwork quilt.’
“You would always be very welcome,” said Priscilla. “But this is only a dream, and I’m afraid, Alison, that the reality won’t be nearly so attractive.”
Alison made a resolve, then and there, that Priscilla should have her country cottage, but she said nothing, and they drank their coffee seriously, each thinking of the impending changes in the house.
One by one, Alison collected replies to her unsuccessful applications for the vacant posts. It was a depressing business, and she began to wonder if there were other ways in which she could earn money. Could she be a salesgirl in a store? Or a clerk in an office? Or receptionist for a doctor, or dentist? Did these things require training or qualifications? Did people require companions any more, or was it possible to be a lady
-
chauffeur? She thought of all kinds of impossible situations, and then, one morning, in her post, there was a letter from the young man at the bookshop. Very much surprised, she read it through. He apologised first for intruding into her affairs, then went on to tell her of a post he had learned of, in a school in Kent. It was, he wrote, a very expensive, first-class, boarding school for girls. The headmistress had written to his firm about some books difficult to obtain, and had later called in person, when this young man, in passing, had mentioned Alison to her. She had been considering, for some time, appointing a new junior mistress for languages to her staff, and although she had not yet definitely decided, she was willing to give Alison an interview while she was in London.
Alison immediately telephoned the bookshop to thank the young man, and to find out the address of the headmistress. Then she telephoned the hotel where the headmistress was staying, and was invited to call that afternoon. She dressed neatly for her interview, glad to be doing something that was at least constructive, and presented herself before the headmistress without the slightest qualm.
She was received by a very kind woman of middle
-
age, with a firm but friendly manner, who at once saw that Alison had enough presence, enough breeding, and unconscious
savoir-faire
to cope with the younger schoolgirls. Over a cup of tea, she satisfied herself that Alison’s languages were good and fluent, and that she quite understood the grammar.
“I have been to school,” said Alison, “in Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, France and Germany: and they were
all
insistent on grammar.” She smiled frankly at the headmistress. “I used to loathe it,” she said, “but I’m glad of it now.”
She returned to the house in Mayfair, elated because she had a job. Miss Gilton had said: “You will only need French and German for the girls, but I myself frequently spend my holidays in Italy, and shall be glad of some Italian conversation with you. Alison was to five in one of the lodges on the estate (of which the onetime mansion was now the school), with two other mistresses; but as she had no actual qualifications, such as a degree, her salary would be less than that of the qualified mistresses. Term would start in ten days’ time. She was expected to be at the school the day before the girls arrived, when she would be acquainted with her various duties.
Peter chose this time to fly to Sweden on business. As Douglas was at the office every day, and Priscilla took a long nap every afternoon, Alison found it an easy thing to get her trunk packed and sent off to the school in Kent without any member of the family knowing. She would similarly be able to get off herself on the appointed day, without too much difficulty.
To her great relief, Peter returned two days before she was due to leave. She wanted so much to talk to him about Priscilla and her cottage, and the opportunity arose on her last evening, when Priscilla retired to bed early, and Alison was sitting in the drawing room with the two brothers. The evening was chilly, and a fire had been lit; and in its light, the room looked more attractive, more home-like than ever. Alison was sorry she was leaving it, but she had only to think of Lydia sitting in the room with them, to bring herself back to reality and common sense.
“Peter,” said Alison, “you are really a very rich man, aren’t you?”
“Well, can any of us be very rich these days?” he asked with a smile. “I’m very comfortable, yes.”
“Could you afford to buy a little cottage for somebody without feeling the pinch too much?”
“Possibly,” he replied, wondering whether this was her roundabout way of telling him that she and Douglas wanted a house because they were going to be married.
“And even, perhaps, to settle a little income—quite a little one—on somebody?”
“Now what
is
all this?” he asked. “Be explicit.”
She came near to his chair, placed a footstool for herself and sat on it. She looked up at him, her soft hair falling back from her face, very pleading, very pretty.
“Peter,” she said, “do you know that our dear Priscilla has been pining for a little country cottage for years and years and years? That she dreams about it all the t
im
e—in fact uses it as a sedative when she is worried, and a drug when she is depressed?”
“Heavens, no,” said Peter, and Douglas said simultaneously:
“Good Lord, does she really?”
“Yes, she does really. And she can’t help feeling dreadfully worried now, because she thinks her housekeeping might not come up to Lydia’s standards; and I was
thinking
how marvellous it would be if Peter really did buy her a little cottage, and let her help the Vicar, and work for church bazaars, and give sweets to the village children, and all the other things she wants to do.”
“Is that what she wants to do?” asked Peter curiously
.
“Yes. We had a long talk about it.”
“Isn’t it surprising,” he said, “how you can live with people in the same house for years, and not know what they are dreaming about, not know what they are up to? I thought the best thing would be to bring her here
—
that a little place of her own would be too lonely.”
“We all have our private worlds,” said Alison. “Yes, indeed.”
“What do you think about the cottage, Peter? It might even suit Lydia better that way.”
He knew very well that it would suit Lydia better that way. He said, looking down at Alison:
“Yes, she shall have her cottage, wherever she chooses it. She can have it for her own sake, but I would have given it to her in any case, because you asked so sweetly for it.” He wanted to add: “And what about you, Alison, and your future? Tell me about that. Don’t live privately in that private world of yours.” But Douglas was in the room, and Alison was already on her feet.
“Peter, you are a dear. The most unselfish man in the world. I must go and tell her at once, before she goes to sleep. May I?”
“Of course,” he said, and was surprised when she leaned down, and gave him a fleeting kiss of gratitude on his cheek, before hurrying to the door, and going in quest of Priscilla.
Priscilla was in bed reading a novel. She always read herself to sleep. She was surprised to see Alison, and not too welcoming, since she did not want the child to make a habit of this sort of thing.
“Priscilla, I had to come and tell you,” said Alison swiftly. “I’ve been talking to Peter about your little country cottage
...”
“Oh Alison, you shouldn’t,” interrupted Priscilla, at once. “You will make him angry.”
“Angry! Peter, angry! Of course he wasn’t. He thought it was a fascinating idea, just as I did; and he is perfectly willing to buy you a cottage. He would have bought it at any time if you had asked him.”
Priscilla was overwhelmed. They talked about it with delight for a few minutes, then Alison said she must go.
“You’ll have such fun looking for just the right place,” she said. “I do envy you.”
“Perhaps you could help me,” said Priscilla. “Come with me sometimes. And you shall certainly come and sleep under that patchwork quilt when I get it.”
“That will be lovely,” said Alison. “Now you ought to have sweet dreams, so good-night, Priscilla.”
She went back to say good-night to Douglas and Peter, who were talking business, as they often did these days, and then went up to her room. Well, the business of Priscilla was satisfactorily settled; and she supposed she herself was settled too, with a job to go to. So that Peter and Lydia need be delayed no longer.
Next day, she breakfasted with the brothers. When they went, they gave her their usual cheerful salutes, their so-similar beautiful smiles. She crossed to the window to see them drive away, and as the car started, Peter looked up and saw her. He waved to her, she waved back, and he was gone.
She spent the morning finishing the letters she had written to them. After lunch, when Priscilla retired to her room as usual, Alison went first to Peter’s room and left his letter there; then to Douglas’s and put his upon his little writing table. The one for Priscilla she gave to Nora.
“Give it to her just before Mr. Douglas gets back, will you, Nora?” asked Alison. “Not before.” For she did not want Priscilla to have time to worry by herself.
“Certainly, Miss Alison. Will you be back for dinner?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Alison.
She waited until Nora had gone down the stairs to the kitchen. Then she put on her hat and coat, picked up her suitcase and her handbag, and went out of the house. She hailed a taxi a little way down the street, and drove to the station. She could not help wondering what would happen when they read their letters. It would not be very important to Priscilla, who now had a golden future to plan. Douglas would probably wish her the best of luck, and leave it at that. Peter would worry about her, she knew. She was his ward and he was responsible for her. His strong sense of duty would not allow him to be satisfied to let her go; but nobody knew where she had gone, so he could find out nothing. She had reassured him about her job, asked him not to worry about her future, thanked him sincerely for all his kindness in giving her this splendid six months’ holiday in London, but affirmed that it was now time she earned her own living. She ended with her deepest wishes for his happiness.
Now, she thought, paying off the taximan, and walking to the ticket-office, I start a new chapter. I wonder how I shall like it—what a school in England will be like. I wonder how soon I shall stop thinking all the time of Peter. I wonder if Lydia will really make him happy. Oh, I’m sure she won’t. I wish something would happen to stop that marriage. But nothing will. Ah well, it’s no good brooding all the time over the past. I won’t keep a job that way. I must try to look forward—all the time, look forward.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PETER and Douglas came home from the office together. They drove straight to the garage and left the car there, and then walked round to the house, letting themselves into the hall, discussing a plan for sending Douglas on a round trip of visits to European agents, so that he might become acquainted with them. Priscilla, in her room, heard them come in, and stood by her partly-opened door, listening to them. They sounded completely normal, so they had not yet heard the news. She trembled, and closed her door, and retired farther into her room. She had no desire to be the bearer of such news, and if she must be the one to tell them of Alison’s departure, then she would wait until dinner time.
She had something entirely fresh to worry about, and she was, indeed, very worried about Alison. Her conscience pricked her sever
e
ly—and unwarrantably. She chided herself for not being kinder to the child when she first came into this house. She had not made her welcome, and she should have done so. Alison had lost her mother and needed friendship and love, and Priscilla was filled with regret because she had not attempted to supply it. Alison knew
l
ittle about England, yet she had gone off to a job that none of them knew anything about. She was too young to know what she was letting herself in for, and her way might be fraught with innumerable dangers. Priscilla took a great deal of blame to herself, and she could not help thinking that the brothers would also blame her. So she stayed in her room, until she would have to go downstairs for dinner.
Peter and Douglas stayed downstairs to have a drink, and talked for some time before going up to their rooms. Peter was to be at home for dinner. He crossed his room to the window, and stood looking down into the street, his hands in his pockets, whistling softly
under his breath. His thoughts were with Douglas and the suggested tour, and under these thoughts was another, scarcely acknowledged, that suggested he was rather relieved not to be seeing Lydia to-night, but to be able to stay in comfort at home.
He turned his back to the window, and caught sight of the envelope propped up on his chest of drawers. He picked it up and saw that it was addressed to him in Alison’s handwriting. What could Alison have to say to him that must be written, he wondered, and could not be said? He slit open the envelope and took out the closely written pages.
When he read
the
letter through, he found
him
self still so incredulous that he went through it all again; and even then, could scarcely believe that Alison could mean any of it. It was really a bolt from the blue. It simply did not make sense. It did not agree with anything that he had been thinking during the summer. Unless, of course, he amended, she had quarrelled with Douglas. That could alter everything.
He went quickly from his room to Douglas’s, and went in to find Douglas deep in another letter. Douglas looked up as his brother entered, saw that Peter also held a letter, and spread his hands wide.
“I see you’ve got one,” he said. “I suppose it’s from Alison?”
“Yes. What on earth does it mean?”
“Well, it’s not difficult to understand,” said Douglas.
“I find it extremely difficult to understand,” said Peter.
“No. She feels that she will be in the way here.”
“What utter nonsense. Have you quarrelled?”
“What, Alison and I? Good heavens, no. It’s difficult to quarrel with Alison.”
“Then why has she left you like this?”
“Left
me
!
She’s left all of us, hasn’t she? Unless you mean that she has only stayed on my account?”
“Well, it was on your account, wasn’t it?”
“Not entirely. But even if it had been, she might think that I don’t need her any longer.”
“And don’t you?”
“Well
...”
Douglas shrugged. “Obviously, I don’t need a nursemaid now.”
“I wasn’t thinking of her as a nursemaid.”
“Well, I don’t need her in any other capacity.”
Peter looked extremely angry. His mouth was set in a grim fashion that augured nothing pleasant for Doug
las.
“Well, I’m damned,” he said. “You’ve had Alison dancing attendance on you for the last six months, giving up all her time to you, giving all her thoughts to your improvement and your entertainment; and now you can say coolly that you don’t need her any more.”
Douglas was puzzled.
“Well, what’s wrong with that?” he asked. “She was glad to do it.”
“And now that you don’t need her, you simply drop her and drive her into running away.”
“I say, hold on,” said Douglas. “You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I don’t quite know
what’s in your mind, but Alison isn’t running away from
me
.
”
“You say you haven’t quarrelled?”
“No. Why should we quarrel?”
“You’re still in love, the two of you?”
“Good Lord,
no,"
said Douglas, very emphatically. “Whatever put that notion in your head?”
“You’re not?”
“No. Nor is Alison. We’ve never been the least bit in love. I can’t think why not—we’re awfully fond of one another—but there you are. We’re just the best of friends.”
Peter looked at him for a long time. There was no doubting the truth of what he said. Then how was it, he wondered, that the idea had taken such firm root in his own mind? And he realised that it was Lydia, Lydia, all the way. He saw how easily she had duped him.
Douglas was holding his letter out to Peter.
“You’d better read this,” he said. “You won’t have any doubt about it if you read this.”
Peter read Douglas’s letter, and it was obvious to him that these two young people were, as Douglas had said, the very best of friends and nothing more.
“Thanks,” he said. “Then you think she has gone just because she thought she would not be wanted here?”
“Sure of it,” said Douglas. “She knew, as well as you and I know, that Lydia would not want her. Just as she knew that Lydia would not want Priscilla, and so she persuaded you to buy a little cottage for her.
”
“Thoughtful for others, as always,” said. Peter.
“As always,” agreed Douglas, who had reason to be grateful to Alison for her thoughtfulness.
There was silence between them for a while. Then a thought occurred to Peter.
“Do you know where she is?” he asked Douglas.
“No.”
“Sure about it?”
“Sure. You can see that from the letter.”
“The letter could be a blind.”
“Well, it isn’t.
I
have no idea where she is.”
“Of course, she must be found,” said Peter.
“Why?” asked Douglas.
“Why? Good Lord, man, we can’t have her wandering round England, at everybody’s mercy.”
“She isn’t at everybody’s mercy. She has found herself a job in teaching. That’s respectable enough, surely. She wants to be independent. Good luck to her, say I.”
“She must have been thinking of this for some time.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know about it?”
“No.”
“Why should she do it? We’ve never made her feel unwanted. And she must have known I would arrange something for her future. She could have stayed here.”
“With Lydia? Neither of them would want that.”
“With Priscilla for a while.”
“Why should she like that? She is young and wants life.”
“Still, she must be found. I would never be easy about her, not knowing where she was. Anything might happen to her.”
Douglas watched his brother, and he saw that P
e
ter would indeed not rest until Alison was found. Peter walked up and down the room, the letter still in his hand, his forehead creased in thought. At last, he stopped and faced Douglas.
“I wish I’d known earlier,” he said, “what you two were up to.”
“You could have asked,” said Douglas. “You’re my brother.”
“Sensibility,” said Peter, with a down-curving smile. “You both gave all the signs of a youthful falling in love.”
“It was a privilege of my crippled state,” said Douglas. “You mistook solicitude on her part, and dependence on mine.”
“It was never love?”
“I’ve told you.”
“But can you be sure about Alison?”
“Positive. In fact, when I told her I couldn’t understand why I didn’t fall in love with her, she asked me not to.”
“Then I wish you hadn’t appeared so damned fond of each other,” said Peter.
Douglas laughed.
“Missed the boat?” he enquired, tactlessly.
“I don’t know how you can laugh about it,” said Peter, “when we have no idea where she is. I can’t laugh, I assure you. I’m worried about her. She must be found.”
He went back to his own room, wondering by what methods she could most quickly be traced. Douglas whistled softly as he changed for dinner, more than a little surprised by Peter’s reaction to Alison’s disappearance. “Good old Alison,” he thought, “you hit on a wonderful way of getting him worried.”
Priscilla went down to dinner, still trembling a little. She said to the brothers, as they took their places at the table:
“I am afraid I have some bad news for you.”
“It’s all right,” said Peter, “we know all about it.”
Relief flooded through her. They knew the worst. Well, the rest wasn’t so bad.
“I do feel it was my fault,” she said bravely. “I didn’t make her as welcome as I should have done. I ought to have gone out of my way to make her comfortable. Poor little girl, without a mother and without a home. And now she has gone away, and we have no idea where. And she had promised to come and sleep under my patchwork quilt.”
The last piece made no sense to the brothers, but they quickly reassured her that it was in no way her fault. At last, she began to realise that they were not angry with her, and cheered up a little.
“Who were her friends?” asked Peter.
“Well, Guy and George were the ones she saw most of,” said Douglas.
“Have you their addresses?”
“They live together. Yes, I’ve got their address, and through them, we can get hold of Susan. She stayed at the cottage with us, but she won’t know anything. There’s Mrs. Thomas, of course. She and Alison had a sort of mutual admiration society. It’s just possible Mrs. Thomas might have heard something. I don’t think there’s anybody else, unless, possibly it was Erica Winlake.”
“Why Erica?”
“Oh, she seemed to be fond of Alison. But I shouldn’t think she would know anything. I don’t think she had any other friends. She was, as you say dancing attendance on me all the summer.”
“Well, we can try these people, anyway,” said Peter. “Or there’s that dancer, Elisaveta. She’s in London. And she and Alison knew each other in the old days. But if you ask me, none of them will know anything. When Alison does a job, she does it properly.”
“By which you mean?”
“That if she wanted to go away from us, she wouldn’t leave half a dozen strings by which we could pull her back.”
“I can’t understand her wanting to go,” said Priscilla, near to tears. “I would have welcomed her in my cottage—if I had a cottage, of course.”
“You’ll get your cottage, Priscilla,” said Douglas, consolingly. “And I expect Alison will come to see you in it. I’m not worried about her. She’s young, I know; but she’s got common sense and personality, and she’ll get along.”
“It’s easy to see you weren’t in love,” said Peter drily.
“But not so easy, apparently, all the summer,” retorted Douglas, who could have made another retort but decided this was not the right moment.
After dinner, Peter joined the others for coffee in the drawing room, but then went downstairs again to the telephone in the morning room, and went through a number of calls to the people who might know something of Alison’s movements. He could not contact Mrs. Thomas that evening, but from all the others he could obtain nothing. In fact, they were as surprised as he had been, and Guy was quite as dismayed. Erica in her turn, promised that she would let him know if she heard anything, and with that he had to be content. He replaced the phone, and sat with his arms on the table, staring ahead, and wondering where Alison could be at this moment. He could not quite get out of his mind the picture of her as she had been when he first encountered her at Lisbon: alone, unhappy, tear-stained, with nobody to turn to, nobody to help her; and, although he knew she was now a very different Alison, the picture persisted. Somewhere, she was again alone, and probably lonely. In a little room somewhere, certainly not a luxurious room and perhaps a very bare one, she was spending her first evening alone. He longed to be able to comfort her.
At last, his mind turned from that, towards Douglas. Douglas was amazingly cool about Alison’s departure, and it was now easy to believe that they were not in love. In fact, from the vantage point of this knowledge, Peter could look back over the summer and see that they never had been in love. He realised that Alison’s enthusiasm over Douglas’s ability to walk had been that and nothing more; that Douglas’s apparent devotion had been a very natural gratitude for her help and sympathy, so sweetly and generously given. It was Lydia who had consistently built it up to something else, and Lydia who had traded on it to obtain her own ends. But Lydia could wait. The important thing was to find Alison. It did not matter if she came back or not, although Peter wanted her to come back: it did not matter if she wanted to continue with her teaching; what was important was that he should know how she was faring, know if she needed anything,
kn
ow where to get in touch with her if it should prove necessary.