Doctor's Orders (9 page)

“We could have telephoned her. Will she worry?”

“Anthea? I shouldn’t think so. Anthea doesn’t worry about people. People worry about Anthea.”

“Do
you
worry about her?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I do.”

“About her health?”

“Oh no—she has
you
to look after her.”

“Then why do you worry?”

Diana could not remember for a moment why she did worry; but when her head cleared again, she said:

“She doesn’t behave as she ought to. She pesters Hans, you know.”

“Hans? Not Hans Steuri, at the Morgenberg?”

“Yes. He has taken her fancy.”

“And she has taken his?”

“I don’t know—he doesn’t avoid her.”

“I regard him as a strong-minded young man.”

“Strong-minded young men aren’t always strong-minded about girls like Anthea.”

“And it worries you?”

“Of course. Hans has a quite lovely little girl friend.”

“At the Morgenberg?”

“On the mountain. She is called Katrina.”

“Does Anthea not know that?”

“Oh yes. But that’s Anthea.”

“And what do you hope to do?”

“I don’t quite know. At the moment, I am holding a watching brief. I hope to make her see reason.”

“Not an easy thing to do.”

“No.” Diana was still feeling a little lightheaded, aware that she seemed to be enjoying a most friendly conversation with this man who meant so much to her, but losing the conversation as soon as it was uttered; her memory oddly vague and unresponsive. “I’ve never been any good at making people see reason. I never could with my aunt.”

He realized that she was not quite herself, but if it would do her good to talk, let her talk. He said quietly:

“Is your aunt also such an unreasonable person?”

“She is dead,” said Diana. “But she
was.
And the most unreasonable thing she did was to quarrel with Mr. Wellis. As long as he was helping us we were all right; but after she quarrelled with him, everything went wrong; and she lost all her money, and I had to work for both of us; and oh dear, she was so terribly difficult and hard to please
...
but that doesn’t interest you,” she said belatedly.

“It interests me very much to hear that you worked,” he said.

“At what did you work?”

“Ordinary secretarial jobs,” she told him. “A glorified office girl. Until my aunt became ill and needed nursing; and then I had to give it up and devote my time to her. Such a cross patient, so irritable and demanding. Never a moment to myself. It seemed I would never know freedom again. Then she died ... I know it’s terribly wicked to be glad when somebody does; but if you have been cooped up for weeks and weeks with one old lady, one very bad-tempered old lady, who would not allow you out of her sight, if she could possibly help it
...
”

She lost the thread of her sentence. The doctor said rather abruptly, realizing that she was saying things under this strain that she would not ordinarily say:

“You are talking too much. You are tiring yourself instead of resting. It would be better for you to be quiet.”

Suddenly, Diana realized that what he said was true. She had been babbling on, inconsequently; but already she could not remember what she had said. But the brusqueness of his voice desolated her; she was being silly, childish, talkative. Tears sprang into her eyes, as she relapsed into silence; and she could no longer take any comfort from the warm clasp of his arms about her. She would have withdrawn herself, but that would look childish too. And, at last, they came to the lighted entrance of the Morgenberg, and Diana was helped to her room.

Dr. Frederic asked to see Anthea, and explained to her what had happened.

“My goodness,” exclaimed Anthea. “She is pretty wonderful, isn’t she? I’m jolly glad she wasn’t hurt.”

“She isn’t going to feel very good tomorrow,” said the doctor. “She will be unbearably bruised and
stiff. She must stay in bed. You can give her these tablets, to ensure her a good night’s rest; and don’t do anything to worry her.”

“
I
won’t worry her,” said Anthea innocently. “I’ll enjoy looking after her, for a change.”

When she went upstairs, Diana had got herself to bed, and was infinitely relieved to be there. She was too tired to talk any more, so Anthea saw that she took the tablets, wished her a good night and left her.

Anthea, for her part, had had a wonderful day. Hans, after a little prodding, had discovered that he must go down into the valley on business, and they had gone together. It was true that he had found something that needed doing; and that he was perfectly businesslike until it had been completed. Then he had cast off his serious manner for a gaiety that swept Anthea off her feet. He had taken her to a farm where he had spent much of his youth, and they had loitered on the mountain, in the isolation of that lonely place. At first, she walked with her arm thrust carelessly through his; a little later, he put his arm about her, and her fine hair blew back over his arm in silver-gilt strands. Then they rested on the short turf, and Hans played with the long silver-gilt strands, running his strong fingers through them, declaring they were like the finest silk. Anthea was thrilled and delighted with him, watching the mobile mouth as he talked his broken English, watching his strong white teeth when he laughed. She had never had so handsome, so virile, an escort. They had returned to the Morgenberg in their own time, and she was not perturbed to find that Diana had not returned. She did not know the time of the bus, and had not missed her.

Now, however, she felt a twinge of compunction on her account. She went softly into Diana’s room, to find her already sleeping, and went back quietly to her own. But she was not anxious to go to bed. She stood at her window, blissfully absorbed in thoughts of Hans, completely reconciled to staying at the Morgenberg indefinitely.

Anthea had never been one to bother about appearances. She did what she wanted to do, and what other people thought of it did not bother her. What she wanted now was to be with Hans, so she sought him out wherever he was, whatever he was doing, with an equal disregard for the opinions of the guests and of the staff. Katrina was plunged into misery. If she looked in at the farm buildings on her way to the hotel, Anthea would be there talking to Hans as he worked. If Hans went up the mountain to deal with the winter supply of wood, Anthea would be sure to follow him. Katrina could not follow. Katrina was tied to her mending or ironing; and, if she had not been, did not possess the character that could go out and pursue a man relentlessly.

She lost her sweet smile, her sparkle, and lowered her sorrowful face over her mending or the ironing board, so that the rest of the staff should not see how she suffered.

The rest of the staff saw only too well, and had a contempt for Anthea which threatened to spread to Hans, too. They were surprised at Hans’ behavior. He was a level-headed fellow usually, and nothing swept him off his feet. They waited, and watched events, and wished the young English lady would go back to England.

Hans felt what they were thinking. That did not bother him, but he had many twinges of conscience about Katrina. True, nothing definite had been said or arranged between himself and Katrina, but he knew, as well as everybody else, what had been growing up between them, and what was understood. Later, he would make it all up to Katrina. Later, this girl would go away, and things would relapse into the normal again. But, for the moment, he found himself unable to do without Anthea. While she remained at the hotel, her presence was a disturbance, a distraction, a spell binding him. She made no attempt to hide the fact that she was
attracted by him, and this, in itself, had a heady effect. But he felt impelled to make one protest.

“I cannot do my work properly, Anthea, if you are with me all the time.” He always had a little difficulty with her name, which was a difficult one for him to say. She smiled teasingly at him.

“I don’t stop you,” she said. “I only talk to you.”

“I haven’t time to talk. The rest of my family works hard, and I must work hard too, or I am not doing my part.”

“But you work all day, and I shall be so bored waiting for you to stop.”

“You can come if I go out on business. You can come when I am in the forest. But not around the farm, please; not when I am milking or cutting hay.”

“Make as much time as you can, Hans. It is so dull here without you.”

“It is only dull because you allow it to be dull. You have nothing to do.”

“What
can
I do?” asked Anthea.

“Well, what do you do in London?”

“There is always plenty to do there. I meet friends for luncheon, I go to the hairdresser, or I buy clothes; I go to theatres, to regattas, to parties. I dine out nearly every night and I dance
...
”

“That isn’t
doing
anything,” said Hans. “That is enjoying yourself. Don’t you ever work?”

“Oh no,” said Anthea, “I never work.”

Hans shook his head in incredulity.

“No wonder,” he said, “that you are bored.”

“Not bored now,” she said, “with you to talk to.”

“But only,” he reminded her, “when I am not working.”

She tried to keep to his regulation, but it did not always work. There was enough of an improvement for the staff to think that Hans had recovered his good sense; but every evening, after dinner, Anthea disappeared to meet him somewhere, and Katrina, at least, knew that they met at every opportunity.

Diana was very perturbed at the trend of events, and decided to speak to Anthea; but, far from making her see reason, she met with a cool indifference.

“About Hans?” she queried, looking at Diana with wide, innocent eyes. “What do you want to say about Hans?”

“Don’t you realize that you are making yourself very conspicuous in the hotel?”

Anthea laughed.

“So what?” she asked. “I’ve never been afraid of being conspicuous.”

“Not even of being conspicuous with somebody else’s young man?”

Anthea considered Diana thoughtfully for a moment or two.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said, after due reflection. “I might have been in that position more than once; but I can’t say that it disturbs me.”

“Anthea, you are hopeless. You know very well that you are making Katrina very unhappy.”

“Katrina? That little fair girl who does the mending? How am I making her unhappy?”

“You know there is an understanding between her and Hans.”

“What exactly is an understanding? They are not engaged, are they?”

“No, they are not engaged; but everybody expects them to be.”

“Oh, that’s very indefinite. As long as Hans is not engaged, or married, he can choose where he likes.”

“And he chose Katrina.”

“That was before I appeared on the scene.”

“But Anthea, you know that, as far as Hans is concerned, you are simply passing the time while you have to stay here. Can’t you realize the damage you may be doing to Hans and Katrina?”

“That is up to them. If Hans thought enough of Katrina, then he wouldn’t have time for me. And if Katrina can’t hold him, well, that’s her fault. I can’t see that I’m doing the damage.”

“That is wilfully blinding yourself. How can a little shy girl like Katrina, much too shy to put herself forward, compete with a girl like you? You dazzle him, Anthea; but you aren’t serious and he isn’t serious, and it isn’t fair—either to him or to Katrina—to go on as you are.”

Anthea laughed.

“What a lot you make out of a little harmless friendship, Diana. If I’m not serious, and Hans isn’t serious, why worry?”

“Because you are making Katrina very unhappy.”

“Katrina must look out for herself; and if it is all not serious—as
you
say—then perhaps she won’t be unhappy for long.”

Diana looked at Anthea with sudden intentness. Surely, it
was
just a harmless flirtation? Yes, she decided; it was simply Anthea’s way to try to complicate matters by pretending to Diana that it might be serious, when it was not. It seemed, too, to be of little avail to appeal to her better nature, since, if she had one, it could not compete with her desires. So Diana decided to drop the matter for that time, hoping that Anthea herself would tire of Hans.

CHAPTER
SIX

Diana’s
hope that the affair between Hans and Anthea would end of itself was hardly likely to be realized, for Anthea was becoming more and more absorbed in him. He was such an enormous young man, so handsome in his virile strength, that the mere sight of him moving about on the mountain or round the farm buildings, was enough to thrill her, to impel her towards him. When she watched him at work with the timber, high up on the mountain, she admired his skilful strength; she liked the feeling of smallness and fragility that she experienced when she stood beside him, or walked with his arm about her. His skin was brown from the sun, his eyes were clear with perfect health. “You are quite the most beautiful man I ever knew,” Anthea told him one day, and although he laughed heartily at her words, for he had never in his life been told that he was beautiful, how could he help being pleased?