The Young Intruder (16 page)

“People who have taken as long to get engaged as I have, don’t often rush madly at the last fence. I haven’t had room in my mind lately, for anything but you.” Her heart leaped, but to Peter she said only:

“Oh dear, that can’t have been very comfortable for anybody.”

“It wasn’t comfortable for me, I can tell you. You have given me a good many sleepless nights.”

“I wasn’t thinking only of you,” said Alison. “I don’t suppose it was very comfortable for Lydia, to have you so concerned about me. But I didn’t mean to give you sleepless nights, Peter—I’m sorry about that.”

“Lydia thought perhaps you did mean it.”

“Yes, she would. I’m not trying to be rude, but she would. No; actually I meant, by going away, to make it much
more
comfortable for everybody.”

“You chose an odd way of doing it,” said Peter.

Alison deliberately forsook this topic. She said:

“I want to hear more news. You aren’t married yet; but I hear that Douglas has gone abroad?”

“How did you hear that?”

“I rang him up, at the office. He wasn’t there, but his secretary told me about him. How is he getting on?”

“Very well. I think he will be a very useful contact man. He can turn on the charm so well, and it never fails to work. Also, he has native intelligence; without which, the charm would not be enough.”

“I’m so glad he’s happy. I think it would have to be a job with some moving about, and new people to meet, and lots of liveliness. Dear Douglas!”

“Dear Douglas indeed! You led me a pretty dance all the summer, the two of you, with this dear-Douglas attitude.”

“How do you mean?” she asked him.

“Never mind that for the moment. I want to know something else. Why did you ring up Douglas? Have you been in the habit of doing it? He hasn’t told me that you telephoned.”

“No, I hadn’t done so before. But I had a week-end off, and I didn’t quite know what to do with it. I didn’t choose to stay at school because that occasioned all sorts of curious remarks; so I rang Douglas. But as it happened, I was unlucky
.
”

“So what did you do?”

“Oh, I rang Guy instead. We managed to have a very jolly week-end—with George and Susan, too.”

“Where did you stay?”

“At the little hotel you sent Emile to. It was quite pleasant, but fantastically dear.”

He was silent, and she felt that she had displeased him.

“What is it, Peter?” she asked softly.

“You didn’t think of coming home?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” she said softly. “Over and over again; but you see, the whole point of leaving home was not to be in your way.”

“I take it most unkindly,” he said.

“Oh Peter, I’m sorry. But we were in your way, all of us. Douglas had some right to be, because he is your brother; but he was soon leaving, anyway. Priscilla had some right to be, because she was related to you; and she felt just as I did. But I had no right to be there at all, impeding things for you
...
And Priscilla, Peter, is she still with you?”

“Yes, Priscilla is still there; but almost as anxious to get away as you were. She is always going off to inspect cottages that sound wonderful, but prove to have snags when she gets there.”

“You must help her, Peter.”

“Very well,” he said, obediently. “I will help her to escape, too.”

“You will persist in looking at it in the wrong way. And, by the way, how
did
you get my address?”

“I put a private detective on your track.”

“Good gracious, have I had somebody sleuthing me?”

“No, actually I have only recently engaged him, and now I shall have to call him off. Your bookseller sent a postcard to the house—your new books had arrived at the shop. So I went round hotfoot, and interviewed the assistant, and he told me about the job at the school.”

“Did you bring the books?”

“Well
...”
said Peter. “You’re a cool customer, Alison. That was this morning, and I have wasted no time in coming to find you.”

“I do appreciate it,” said Alison. “I really do. I only wish you hadn’t worried about me.”

They drove on until they reached the inn that Peter had mentioned. During the season, it was so well patronized that one could not expect dinner without previous reservation; but now, with the season finished, service was good and leisurely and they had plenty of time for talking.

“Now,” said Peter, as they unfurled their napkins, and the waiter went away with their order. “Explain why you thought it necessary to run away from what I had fondly imagined was a good home.”

“It was a good home, Peter; and I have been very happy there; but I was in the way, and nobody likes to feel in the way; and you had extended hospitality to me for long enough.”

’“Alison, have you forgotten that I am your guardian?”

“No, but I didn’t want that to tie you down.”

“Really, I have no patience with you. Where did you get the idea that you tie me down, that you are a burden to me, that you are in the way? Why this self
-
effacing attitude of yours? Have I ever made you feel in the way?”

“Not you, no. Your consideration for people wouldn’t allow you to do that.”

“Who then? No
t
Douglas, assuredly.”

“No, of course not.”

“Priscilla? The servants?”

“No, never. Peter, you are engaged to Lydia, aren’t you?”

“With reservations, yes.”

“With reservations? What kind of reservations?”

“It doesn’t matter. Take it as yes.”

“Well, poor Lydia has found me most dreadfully in the way. And not only me, but Douglas and Priscilla, too. We all knew it. It didn’t matter to Douglas, because, once he could walk, he knew it was only a matter of time before he would spread his wings and fly away. It mattered to Priscilla, but Lydia would have managed her, somehow. It was me she could not endure.”

“Alison, you exaggerate.”

“No, I assure you I do not.”

“It was not until the Italian trip that we became engaged.”

“Oh, but you were next door to engaged for ages. Lydia said so.”

“Lydia said so? Lydia told you so?”

“Yes. Why, right back when you made me go and apologise to her about the dresses. Do you remember that affair of the dresses?”

“Yes.”

“She told me then that it was an irregular sort of arrangement for me to live there; and that by doing so, I was holding up her marriage.”

“So,” said Peter softly. “Go on. When else did she imply that you were in the way?”

“Oh, often, my dear Peter. It was Lydia who suggested to you that Douglas should have a holiday to build him up; and Lydia who suggested that I should go as company for
him
. And it was Lydia who asked me not to go on the Italian trip with you and your friends
...”

“What?” exclaimed Peter, with such violence that the waiter turned round sharply, thinking he had been called.

Alison looked up, surprised at the tone of his voice. “I think perhaps I shouldn’t have said that,” she said.

“I think you certainly should,” said Peter. “It seems to me that various people have been deliberately out to deceive me this summer. Either I have been stuffed full of stories about things that did not exist, or I have been kept in ignorance of things that did exist. Now I think we will have a clearing-up. When did Lydia ask you not to go on the Italian trip, and why?”

“I only mentioned this, Peter,” said Alison earnestly, “to prove to you that I have been in the way for somebody; and I thought that somebody was Lydia, and indirectly, you. I don’t want to make any bother.”

“It isn’t a case, any longer, of what
you
want, my dear Alison. I discover that, all this summer, I have been needlessly doing without what
I
want. Now all that is going to be changed. What is all this about the Italian trip?”

Alison waited while the waiter changed the plates.

“It was simply that Lydia did not want me to go, and asked me not to.”

“I can’t understand her doing such a thing. Did she offer any reasons?”

“Yes. She said I had continually come between you two—unwittingly, of course—and that if I had any decency, I would refuse to go. She implied—in fact, she said openly—that your feeling of obligation about me made you invite me.”

“I see,” said Peter. “And what else did she say?”

“Was it true?’ asked Alison. “Because if it was not, I shouldn’t say any more.”

“Tell me what else she said.”

“No, I can’t tell it all to you. She knew I would be a nuisance to herself and all your other friends.”

“And to me?” asked Peter.

“Yes, she said to you as well.”

“I see. Well, Lydia has been working hard, it seems.” There was silence between them, while they thought over what had been said.

“Wouldn’t it interest you,” asked Peter, at last, “to know that I thought you and Douglas were in love, and on the point of becoming engaged?”

Alison looked up at him quickly, and their eyes met. “It interests me very much,” she said.

“It seemed to me that you both gave a pretty good imitation of people in love.”

“Oh, never,” exclaimed Alison. “A picture of people very fond of one another, yes; but not of people in love.”

“So Douglas informed me, but until that moment, my informant had been chiefly Lydia; and I must say that Lydia had something to go on.”

“She had a good imagination to go on,” said Alison. “But, Peter, doesn’t it occur to you that we are talking about the woman you are going to marry?”

“That,” said Peter, “is something that Lydia and I have to talk about. And until we have had that talk, we will not condemn her. But this I must say, Alison. You and I have been under a good many misapprehensions this summer.”

“So it seems,” said Alison.

“And it is important that these misapprehensions should be done away with. Alison, if I take you back to that school, and leave you there to your French and German lessons, will you promise me not to run away anywhere else?”

“I promise,” she said; and was very happy indeed to make the promise.

Later, they drove back to the school, and Peter stopped the car a little way from the lodge, where a light was still burning.

“When do you have another free week-end?” he asked.

“Next week, as a matter of fact. It isn’t really due yet, but Miss Brockwell wanted me to change with her.”

“Will you come home?”

“You really want me to?”

“I want you to very much. Please, Alison.”

“I shall love to come,” she said. “I’ve missed it.”

He walked with her to the gate of the small lodge garden, then he took her hand in his, and held it closely
.

“I’m very glad to have found you again, Alison,” he said. “We’ve all missed you. Until Friday evening, then.”

“Until Friday evening.”

“I will meet your train,” he said. “Now goodbye, Alison.”

“Goodbye, Peter.”

Lydia was waiting for Peter. She had not expected to see him this evening, and was surprised when he telephoned to find out if she were at home. While she waited, she speculated on his reason for coming. She was feeling even less sure of Peter now, than on the day at Monte Carlo when she had indirectly announced her engagement to him; and that should not be. She should have made some progress by now, but it was harder than she had believed possible, to progress in the face of Peter’s continued coolness.

She was looking her best, and she gave herself courage by taking one or two drinks; so that when Peter arrived, she could greet him smilingly, apparently taking it for granted that he would want to come and see her.

“This is really nice,” she said, as she carried a drink to him. “I didn’t expect to see you this evening, Peter.”

Peter, however, was not here to be polite, and he went straight to the point.

“I doubt if you will think it quite so nice when you hear what I am here for,” he said quietly.

“Nothing unpleasant, I hope?” asked Lydia.

“I’m afraid so. As unpleasant for me to have to say as for you to have to listen to.”

Lydia waited, her eyes on his face.

“I will not beat about the bush,” he said. “Lydia, you wanted us to be engaged, did you not? And you rather forced my hand about that engagement by announcing it to our friends.”

“You could have denied it,” she said.

“Yes, I could have denied it, and I almost did. But I did not want to put you in that awkward position;
also, I was sorry for you, because you had pleaded with me to try an engagement and see how it worked. So I thought I would fall in with your wishes to just that extent—to see how it worked.”

She waited, still without speaking. Peter shook his head slowly.