Consider Her Ways (22 page)

After a late breakfast the next morning Dr Harshom helped Colin into his coat in the hall, but held him there for a final word.

‘I
spent what was left of the night thinking about this,' he said earnestly. ‘Whatever the explanation may be, you must write it down, every detail you can remember. Do it anonymously if you like, but do it. It may not be unique, some day it may give valuable confirmation of someone else's experience, or become evidence in support of some theory. So put it on record – but then leave it at that … Do your best to forget the assumptions you jumped at – they're unwarranted in a dozen ways.
She does not exist
. The only Ottilie Harshoms there have been in this world died long ago. Let the mirage fade. But thank you for your confidence. Though I am inquisitive, I am discreet. If there should be any way I can help you …'

Presently he was watching the car down the drive. Colin waved a hand just before it disappeared round the corner. Dr Harshom shook his head. He knew he might as well have saved his breath, but he felt in duty bound to make one last appeal. Then he turned back into the house, frowning. Whether the obsession was a fantasy, or something more than a fantasy, was almost irrelevant to the fact that sooner or later the young man was going to drive himself into a breakdown …

During the next few weeks Dr Harshom learnt no more, except that Colin Trafford had not taken his advice, for word filtered through that both Peter Harshom in Cornwall and Harold in Durham had received requests for information regarding a Miss Ottilie Harshom who, as far as they knew, was non-existent.

After that there was nothing more for some months. Then a picture-postcard from Canada. On one side was a picture of the Parliament Buildings, Ottawa. The message on the other was brief. It said simply:

‘Found her. Congratulate me. C. T.'

Dr Harshom studied it for a moment, and then smiled slightly. He was pleased. He had thought Colin Trafford a likeable young man; too good to run himself to pieces over such a futile quest.
One did not believe it for a moment, of course, but if some sensible young woman had managed to convince him that she was the reincarnation, so to speak, of his beloved, good luck to her – and good luck for him … The obsession could now fade quietly away. He would have liked to respond with the requested congratulations, but the card bore no address.

Several weeks later there was another card, with a picture of St Mark's Square, Venice. The message was again laconic, but headed this time by an hotel address. It read:

‘Honeymoon. May I bring her to see you after?'

Dr Harshom hesitated. His professional inclination was against it; a feeling that anything likely to recall the young man to the mood in which he had last seen him was best avoided. On the other hand, a refusal would seem odd as well as rude. In the end he replied, on the back of a picture of Hereford Cathedral:

‘Do. When?'

Half August had already gone before Colin Trafford did make his reappearance. He drove up looking sunburnt and in better shape all round than he had on his previous visit. Dr Harshom was glad to see it, but surprised to find that he was alone in the car.

‘But I understood the whole intention was that I should meet the bride,' he protested.

‘It was – it is,' Colin assured him. ‘She's at the hotel. I – well, I'd like to have a few words with you first.'

The doctor's gaze became a little keener, his manner more thoughtful.

‘Very well. Let's go indoors. If there's anything I'm not to mention, you could have warned me by letter, you know.'

‘Oh, it's not that. She knows about that. Quite what she makes of it, I'm not sure, but she knows, and she's anxious to meet you. No, it's – well, it won't take more than ten minutes.'

The doctor led the way to his study. He waved Colin to an easy-chair, and himself took the swivel-chair at the desk.

‘Unburden
yourself,' he invited.

Colin sat forward, forearms on knees, hands dangling between them.

‘The most important thing, Doctor, is for me to thank you. I can never be grateful enough to you – never. If you had not invited me here as you did, I think it is unlikely I would ever have found her.'

Dr Harshom frowned. He was not convinced that the thanks were justified. Clearly, whoever Colin had found was possessed of a strong therapeutic quality, nevertheless:

‘As I recollect, all I did was listen, and offer you unwelcome advice for your own good – which you did not take,' he remarked.

‘So it seemed to me at the time,' Colin agreed. ‘It looked as if you had closed all the doors. But then, when I thought it over, I saw one, just one, that hadn't quite latched.'

‘I don't recall giving you
any
encouragement,' Dr Harshom asserted.

‘I am sure you don't but you did. You indicated to me the last, faintly possible line – and I followed it up – No, you'll see what it was later, if you'll just bear with me a little.

‘When I did see the possibility, I realized it meant a lot of ground-work that I couldn't cover on my own, so I had to call in the professionals. They were pretty good, I thought, and they certainly removed any doubt about the line being the right one, but what they could tell me ended on board a ship bound for Canada. So then I had to call in some inquiry agents over there. It's a large country. A lot of people go to it. There was a great deal of routine searching to do, and I began to get discouraged, but then they got a lead, and in another week they came across with the information that she was a secretary working in a lawyer's office in Ottawa.

‘Then I put it to E.P.I. that I'd be more valuable after a bit of unpaid recuperative leave –'

‘Just a minute,' put in the doctor. ‘If you'd asked me I could have told you there are
no
Harshoms in Canada. I happen to know that because –'

‘Oh,
I'd given up expecting that. Her name wasn't Harshom – it was Gale,' Colin interrupted, with the air of one explaining.

‘Indeed. And I suppose it wasn't Ottilie, either?' Dr Harshom said heavily.

‘No. It was Belinda,' Colin told him.

The doctor blinked slightly, opened his mouth, and then thought better of it. Colin went on:

‘So then I flew over, to make sure. It was the most agonizing journey I've ever made. But it was all right. Just one distant sight of her was enough. I couldn't have
mistaken
her for Ottilie, but she was so very, very nearly Ottilie that I would have known her among ten thousand. Perhaps if her hair and her dress had been –' He paused speculatively, unaware of the expression on the doctor's face. ‘Anyway,' he went on. ‘I
knew
. And it was damned difficult to stop myself rushing up to her there and then, but I did just have enough sense to hold back.

‘Then it was a matter of managing an introduction. After that it was as if there were – well, an inevitability, a sort of predestination about it.'

Curiosity impelled the doctor to say:

‘Comprehensible, but sketchy. What, for instance, about her husband?'

‘Husband?' Colin looked momentarily startled.

‘Well, you did say her name was Gale,' the doctor pointed out.

‘So it was, Miss Belinda Gale – I thought I said that. She was engaged once, but she didn't marry. I tell you there was a kind of – well, fate, in the Greek sense, about it.'

‘But if –' Dr Harshom began, and then checked himself again. He endeavoured, too, to suppress any sign of scepticism.

‘But it would have been just the same if she had had a husband,' Colin asserted, with ruthless conviction. ‘He'd have been the wrong man.'

The doctor offered no comment, and he went on:

‘There were no complications, or involvements – well, nothing serious. She was living in a flat with her mother, and getting
quite a good salary. Her mother looked after the place, and had a widow's pension – her husband was in the R.C.A.F.; shot down over Berlin – so between them they managed to be reasonably comfortable.

‘Well, you can imagine how it was. Considered as a phenomenon I wasn't any too welcome to her mother, but she's a fair-minded woman, and we found that, as persons, we liked one another quite well. So that part of it, too, went off more easily than it might have done.'

He paused there. Dr Harshom put in:

‘I'm glad to hear it, of course. But I must confess I don't quite see what it has to do with your not bringing your wife along with you.'

Colin frowned.

‘Well, I thought – I mean she thought – well, I haven't quite got to the point yet. It's rather delicate.'

‘Take your time. After all, I've retired,' said the doctor, amiably.

Colin hesitated.

‘All right. I think it'll be fairer to Mrs Gale if I tell it the way it fell out.

‘You see, I didn't intend to say anything about what's at the back of all this – about Ottilie, I mean, and why I came to be over in Ottawa – not until later, anyway. You were the only one I had told, and it seemed better that way … I didn't want them wondering if I was a bit off my rocker, naturally. But I went and slipped up.

‘It was on the day before our wedding. Belinda was out getting some last-minute things, and I was at the flat doing my best to be reassuring to my future mother-in-law. As nearly as I can recall it, what I said was:

‘ “My job with E.P.I. is quite a good one, and the prospects are good, but they do have a Canadian end, too, and I dare say that if Ottilie finds she really doesn't like living in England –”

‘And then I stopped because Mrs Gale had suddenly sat upright
with a jerk, and was staring at me open-mouthed. Then in a shaky sort of voice she asked:

‘ “
What
did you say?”

‘I'd noticed the slip myself, just too late to catch it. So I corrected: “I was just saying that if Belinda finds she doesn't like –”

‘She cut in on that.

‘ “You didn't say Belinda. You said Ottilie.”

‘ “Er – perhaps I did,” I admitted, “but, as I say, if she doesn't –”

‘ “Why?” she demanded. “
Why
did you call her Ottilie?”

‘She was intense about that. There was no way out of it.

‘ “It's, well, it's the way I think of her,” I said.

‘ “But why?
Why
should you think of Belinda as Ottilie?” she insisted.

‘I looked at her more carefully. She had gone quite pale, and the hand that was visible was trembling. She was afraid, as well as distressed. I was sorry about that, and I gave up bluffing.

‘ “I didn't mean this to happen,” I told her.

‘She looked at me steadily, a little calmer.

‘ “But now it has, you
must
tell me. What do you know about us?” she asked.

‘ “Simply that if things had been – different she wouldn't be Belinda Gale. She would be Ottilie Harshom,” I told her.

‘She kept on watching my face, long and steadily, her own face still pale.

‘ “I don't understand,” she said, more than half to herself. “You
couldn't
know. Harshom – yes, you might have found that out somehow, or guessed it – or did she tell you?” I shook my head. “Never mind, you could find out,” she went on. “But Ottilie … You
couldn't
know that – just that one name out of all the thousands of names in the world …
Nobody
knew that – nobody but me …” She shook her head.

‘ “I didn't even tell Reggie … When he asked me if we could call her Belinda, I said yes; he'd been so very good to me … He had no idea that I had meant to call her Ottilie – nobody had. I've never told anyone, before or since … So how
can
you know?”

‘I
took her hand between mine, and pressed it, trying to comfort her and calm her.

‘ “There's nothing to be alarmed about,” I told her. “It was a – a dream, a kind of vision – I just knew …”

‘She shook her head. After a minute she said quietly:

‘ “Nobody knew but me … It was in the summer, in 1927. We were on the river, in a punt, pulled under a willow. A white launch swished by us, we watched it go, and saw the name on its stern. Malcolm said” ' – if Colin noticed Dr Harshom's sudden start, his only acknowledgement of it was a repetition of the last two words – ‘ “Malcolm said: ‘Ottilie – pretty name, isn't it? It's in our family. My father had a sister Ottilie who died when she was a little girl. If ever I have a daughter I'd like to call her Ottilie.' ” '

Colin Trafford broke off, and regarded the doctor for a moment. Then he went on:

‘After that she said nothing for a long time, until she added:

‘ “He never knew, you know. Poor Malcolm, he was killed before even I knew she was coming … I did so want to call her Ottilie for him … He'd have liked that … I wish I had …” And then she began quietly crying …'

Dr Harshom had one elbow on his desk, one hand over his eyes. He did not move for some little time. At last he pulled out a handkerchief, and blew his nose decisively.

‘I did hear there was a girl,' he said. ‘I even made inquiries, but they told me she had married soon afterwards. I thought she – But why didn't she come to me? I would have looked after her.'

‘She couldn't know that. She was fond of Reggie Gale. He was in love with her, and willing to give the baby his name,' Colin said.

After a glance towards the desk, he got up and walked over to the window. He stood there for several minutes with his back to the room until he heard a movement behind him. Dr Harshom had got up and was crossing to the cupboard.

‘I
could do with a drink,' he said. ‘The toast will be the restoration of order, and the rout of the random element.'

‘I'll support that,' Colin told him, ‘but I'd like to couple it with the confirmation of your contention, Doctor – after all, you are right at last, you know; Ottilie Harshom
does not exist
– not any more. – And then, I think, it will be high time you were introduced to your granddaughter, Mrs Colin Trafford.'