Orphan Bride (10 page)

“I don’t know,” he said frankly. “She accepts
things
rather like a child, but whether she’s accepted me along with my lecture, I really don’t know.”

“I don’t suppose, as yet, she understands jealousy as a motive for anger,” remarked Homer from behind his paper.

Julian frowned.

“My dear Homer, I was scarcely that!
”
he retorted.

“Weren’t you?
”
said Homer.

He peered over the top of his paper at Julian and observed: “You’ve become very fond of her, haven’t you, Julian? It’s a pity you won’t let her see it.” Then he began a long and rambling discourse on bee-keeping, until Julian finally knocked out his pipe and went upstairs to
unpack.

CHAPTER
S I X

To Jennet, the loss of Frankie and the children was more important than Julian’s extraordinary revelation. She lay on her bed after she had left him, the tears running slowly on to the pillow, and gazed miserably at Frankie’s china fawn. It was all she had now to remind her of those happy occasions. To marry, even to marry someone so unlikely as Cousin Julian was far in the future and might never happen, but to lose the only friend she had ever made, that was in the immediate present, and filled her whole horizon.

It did not occur to her to question Julian’s action in any spirit of rebellion. She could still hear Matron's thin voice saying: “When you live on charity you have no rights to independence. Always remember that.” Jennet remembered and accepted.

It was upon these thoughts that Emily entered with her cup of tea. She looked at Jennet’s tear-stained face and said briskly:

“Sit up now, and drink this while it’s hot. Julian thought you might be glad of it.”

“Cousin Julian?”

Emily sat on the side of the bed, and nodded her head brightly.

“He’s really very kind, you know, when he isn’t in too much pain,” she said. “You must always remember, Jennet, that Julian suffers a great deal. It makes him irritable.”

“Yes, Aunt Emily,” said Jennet.

Emily glanced at her curiously, wondering how much she had taken in of Julian’s proposition.

“It was very wrong of you, dear, to meet this boy on the sly, and say nothing to me about it,” she began.
“
But we’ll say no more, since Julian has spoken his mind, and I expect you understand now why he was
u
pset. You do understand, don’t you?”

“
Not altogether,” Jennet said slowly. “Frankie didn’t want to marry me. He was my friend.”

“Well, dear,” Emily said placidly, “Julian is your friend, too, and he does want to marry you. Perhaps one couldn’t expect him to understand.”

But it was too much for Jennet to assimilate just then.
Julian was charity. You couldn’t look upon him as a friend.
“Frankie was different,” was all she said.

Emily hoped that Julian, by his drastic handling of the
situation, had not put silly ideas about the youth into the girl’s head, but men were very clumsy in most of their approaches. She decided to improve the occasion while she might.

“You must remember, dear,” she said, “that if it hadn’t been for Julian, you would still be in the orphanage
.
You owe him a great deal, you know.
”

“Yes,” said Jennet, “I know.
”

“His plans may have come as a shock to you,” Emily continued in the soothing voice she only used to her dogs. “But there’s nothing really odd in his ideas. Very sensible, I think. After all, people come here and buy my puppies and then train them to be the sort of dogs they want to
... own. There’s no reason why marriage shouldn’t be regarded in just the same light. Don’t you agree?”

“
I don’t know,” Jennet said in a tired little voice
.
“I
haven’t thought about it much.”

“Well, you should. You’re seventeen now
a
nd are ceasing to be a child,” said Emily vaguely,
n
ot quite sure what she was trying to convey to the girl. “You don’t dislike Julian, do you?
”

“No.”

“Well, then, try and fall in with his arrangements as much as you can. You’ve a long time before you as yet, but in the meantime get used to the idea that Julian is doing a lot for you, and you can repay him if you will.”

“Yes, Aunt Emily,” Jennet said wearily, and Emily got up to go, satisfied that the right seed had been planted.

“That’s a good girl,” she said, patting Jennet’s shoulder. She picked up the china fawn in passing and glanced at it idly. “I
don’t remember this. Where did it come from?”

Jennet started up on the bed.

“Oh, be careful, Aunt Emily,
please
be careful!” she implored.

Emily turned, still holding the fawn.

“My dear child; I wasn’t going to drop it,” she said with surprise. “You really must learn a sense of proportion, Jennet. You appear to have far more interest in a china ornament than in your future.” She put the fawn back on the mantelpiece
a
nd left the room, feeling disturbed and out of patience with the whole affair.

Jennet fell asleep from pure exhaustion, and only woke when Mrs. Dingle thumped on the door to tell her they were all at supper.

She sprang off the bed and hastily set about making herself tidy. Julian disliked unpunctuality, and never before had she
had to make a late entry i
n
to the dining room. But when she got downstairs, he rose at once, and pulled her chair out for her, settling her at the table with the same courtesy he always showed his aunt, and which until now he had never afforded her.

The small attention disconcerted her, and she sat down dumbly, making no excuses, but the fleeting smile ho gave her put her at ease and gave her an unwonted feeling of warmth. His ill humor seemed to have gone, and although he made no direct attempt to include
h
er in the conversation, she was aware that he made an effort to turn the talk away from all personal channels, and was grateful for the fact that for to-night, at least, they would ignore her.

The week-end passed without further comment from anyone, and Julian, although he was alone with Jennet on
several occasions, made ho other allusion to his plans
.
He enquired kindly after her health, told her that her sin
ging
was improving, and even paid her hands their first compliment.

“You have charming hands, Jennet,” he said, holding them in his own and turning them over for inspection.
“
Now you see why I was so particular about them. Keep them like that, won’t you?”

He made no reference at all to the Thompsons, and for him the incident was closed. He had no further interest in them and took it for granted that Jennet would fall in with his wishes in the matter. He left early on Monday, before Jennet was down.

The week passed slowly for Jennet and at times she was
very unhappy, thinking o
f Frankie. She remembered how she had rested against his breast in this very place, and the lines of the song came unbidden into her mind:

...
I’d rather rest on a true love’s breast,

Than any other where
...

She wept, not for Frankie, or even for the children, but for that lost felicity which had seemed so nearly within her grasp.

She wrote to Mrs. Thompson, a stiff painful little note,
explaining baldly that she was to marry her cousin, Julian, who did not wish her to continue the friendship. She could not write what was in her heart and she knew that she must hurt them. It never occurred to her to disobey Julian and go to see them.

Once she saw the children at
Pennytor. She would have turned away but they had seen her. They did not come running to meet her but stood staring at her without speaking, hand in hand.

“Hello!” said Jennet awkwardly.

“Hello!” they replied.

There was a blank pause, then Jennet said
rather desperately:

“Is your mother quite
well again?
”

“Yes, thank you,” Betty replied with rather unfamiliar politeness.

Jennet knelt down in the heather be
si
de them and looked up into their blank
li
ttle faces.

“I’ve missed you so,” she said softly. “You know I would come if I could.”

Their eyes were accusing.

“Frankie said we weren’t good enough,
” Jo
Anne stated in her deep voice.

“Frankie said that?” There was a bitter hurt in Jennet’s voice.
“You know that’s not true. But I have to do what I’m told the
s
ame as you have. Will you tell Frankie that?”

Betty tugged at her sister’s hand.

“We must be going back. Mum said if we saw you we weren’t to try and keep you talking.”

“Oh, Betty!” Jennet’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s I who am trying to keep you. You
don’t understand—you don’t understand what you all mean to me—how I miss you.”

They stared at her with stony politeness. How should they understand?

All at once she hated Julian
f
or his interference, his unimaginative lack of understanding, and she thought of her
birthday party, of the solitary little candle left burning on the cake, and the children’s cries of disappointment:
You won’t get your wish
... no, she had not got her wish. Julian had taken that from her.

“I mustn’t keep you,” she said quietly. “Will you take a message to Frankie for me?” They nodded. “Tell him—tell Frankie—” she turned away—“no, don’t tell him anything—just my love for all of you. Good-bye.
”

“Good-bye,” they said, and sounded relieved.

She watched them race off through the heather while she stood there already forgotten, then she turned and made her way slowly home.

After all, Julian did not come down the following weekend. Emily thought on the whole it was wise. Jennet was very quiet and mopey.

She returned quietly to the tasks Emily set her. “Julian will be pleased,” or “Cousin Julian wouldn’t approve,” were no longer phrases which needed explanation. He was the self-appointed arbiter of her destiny, and as such deserved considerati
o
n. She wrote to him, as she had always done, stilted colorless letters which painstakingly told him so little. She read diligently, looked after her hands, and even practised singing, for which at first she had no heart. Emily looked on with approval. A sensible child, Julian’s foundling. That little affair had not gone deep, after all.

Towards the end of April, Julian wrote to say he was coming down by car since he proposed staying for a fortnight.

It was still raining when he arrived and he grumbled good-humoredly about the drive down, but he had done it in easy stages, and seemed far less tired and irritable than usual. He tossed a package into Jennet’s lap, telling her they were the best chocolates in Fortnum’s, then, scrutinizing her face more closely, remarked that she looked pale and perhaps had better not eat them after all.

She started to hand the box back, unsure of him in this more genial mood, but Emily laughed and said:

“He doesn’t mean it, dear. The weather’s been so bad, Julian, she hasn’t
been able to get out enough. But she’s perfectly well, aren’t you, Jennet?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Jennet politely.

“H’m,” said Julian non-committally, but he continued to look at her with a critical eye.

No one mentioned the Thompsons, but later in the evening Emily told Julian that she thought he had made a mistake.

“She was fond of the children, I think, and the boy himself is only nineteen. I was afraid at first you had put foolish ideas into the girl’s head. She was very quiet and moony for several days, but I’m thankful to say
it’s all worn off, and she’s been working hard to please you.
”

Julian raised his eyebrows.

“Has she indeed,” he remarked. “Very praiseworthy
.
They’re not still meeting, I hope?”

“Oh, no, I’m sure they’re not. The weather has been too bad for walks on the moor, and in any case, she is an obedient child and not given to questioning authority.”

Julian smiled.

“An orphanage training has its
points, I think,”
he
said
humorously. “Well, I wasn’t really worrying about Jennet and her embryo admirer. A couple of children, from all accounts, although, I gather
not averse to kissing. But the child is curiously innocent—or is it ignorant?
Anyway,
a little judicious supervision won’t do her any
harm.”

Emily looked at him with surprise.

“You’re really very old-fashioned, aren’t you,
Julian?
”
she said. “I hadn’t quite realized.
”

His dark eyes were grave.

“Am I?” he answered carelessly. “Perhaps that’s a
result of my own rather modern upbringing—and Kitty’s.”

Only yesterday, Luke had said much the same thing to him, walking into his flat and remarking:

“Well, Pygmalion, and how is your Galatea?”

Julian had answered impatiently, and Luke had said with a grin: “You’d never get by with these old-fashioned methods if you weren’t dealing with a poor, downtrodden little foundling. The girl must be a natural
!
”

But looking at Jennet after supper, her brown head bent over her knitting, he did not think she was downtrodden. He was hanged if he knew what she was. He had thought of her as a child, and yet she was not a child. He did not even know if she liked him, or what she thought about his proposal to marry her one day. He knew very little about her at all beyond her orphanage record.

He moved impatiently, and she looked up, aware suddenly of his intent regard.

“I didn’t know you knitted,” he said quickly, conscious of her faint embarrassment.

“
Aunt Emily doesn’t like me to be idle,” she said with quaint primness. “We all learnt to knit in the orphanage.”

“Really? What are you making? It looks a rather alarming color.”

“I thought it would be nice if she made a pullover for you, dear,” Emily said, pausing in her own work
.
“
S
he chose the color herself.”

“Good God!” he exclaimed, “you’d better turn it into a coat for one of the dogs, Jennet. I can see I shall have to take you in hand over the question of clothes.
”
He looked at the bright sweater she was wearing herself, and smiled.

Jennet regarded him gravely, then resumed her knitting with care.

“I didn’t
think you’d like it,” she said calmly. “I don’t suppose I have much taste.”

“I don’t suppose you have, either,” Julian agreed, but his voice was gentle.

“You shall come up to London one
of these days, and we’ll go shopping,” he told her on a sudden impulse.

She looked up, astonished.

“You mean you’ll choose my clothes for me?”

“Certainly. Though you might not think it, I have excellent taste, haven’t I, Aunt Emily?”

Emily smiled.

“So you’ve always told me, and I believe you,” she said.

Julian shifted his bad leg into a more comfortable position.

“Well, that’s a future date,” he said lightly. “We’ll go round the West E
n
d and see what we can do. It
’
s time you took an interest in yourself, what do you think?”

“You’re very kind, Cousin Julian,” Jennet said politely, and returned to her knitting.

The weekend was wet, but on Monday the weather cleared and Julian suggested they go off for the day somewhere.

“I’ll teach you to drive,” he told Jennet. “That’s an accomplishment you ought to have these days.”

The lesson was not a success. Jennet was nervous and Julian impatient of mistakes.

It was a bad start to the day. Jennet, sitting silently beside him, wondered what on earth she could find to say to him for the next few hours. He seemed at a loss for
conversation himself, or else he
ju
st could not be bothered with her, and glancing at his dark, forbidding profile, she heartily wished herself back in the orphanage.

They stopped at an inn for lunch, but the food and the service were poor, and Julian cam
e aw
ay little better pleased. They drove across the moor in the direction of Widdecombe, where they were to have tea, and Julian stopped the car so that he could get out and ease his leg.

“Your leg will get better,” she said shyly, walking slowly
beside him. “You won’t always
h
ave pain, will you?”

“My leg will never be right,” he replied shortly, “but certainly I hope I won’t always
have pain.” He stumbled on the rough ground, and she instinctively put out a hand.

“Let me help you,” she said, but he quickened his pace and said sharply:

“I don’t need any help, thanks. I may be a crock,
but I can still stand on my own feet.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, flushing, and widened the distance between them as they walked back to the car
.
It was only half-past three, but she was glad when, he suggested that they gave Widdecombe a miss and went back to Pennycross for tea. He had clearly enjoyed the day as little as she had. But when he stopped the car at the gates, he put a hand for a moment on her knee and said:

“I’
m sorry, Jennet; it’s been a dull day. I’m afraid I’m not very used to amusing orphans. We’ll try again some other time, shall we?”

If Julian wanted to repeat the unsatisfactory performance, she had no choice but to agree, so she said, as usual:

“Yes, Cousin Julian.”

He gave an exclamation of impatience and watched her already
e
dging away to open the door of the car and escape.
“Lord, almighty!” he said, “I never knew anyone so acquiescent and at the same time so remote. You hated to-day, didn’t you? Then why in heaven can’t you say so?
I shan’t eat you!”

She swallowed nervously. It seemed so easy to annoy
him.

“You—you jump on me so,” she said.
“
I get confused.”

He rubbed the back of his black head with an exasperated gesture.

“
You’d make the Archangel Gabriel jump on you if you stared at him with those enormous eyes and said: ‘Yes, Cousin Gabriel’ in that polite little voice.”

The unexpected, engaging grin suddenly transformed her thin face.

“But Gabriel was an understanding angel. He wouldn’t
pounce. Now, if you’d chosen Michael
—
!” she said, and
stepped out of the car and into the house.

Julian admitted to himself that the day had been a failure, and it was
largely his own fault, but that polite remoteness of hers had begun to pique him. He tried leaving her severely alone, and he tried drawing her out, but always she remained polite, acquiescent, and seemingly anxious to please, and he knew that whatever the real self was, hidden behind that docile facade, he had never seen it.

“I can’t make any headway,” he told Emily irritably. “Sometimes I wish she’d tell me to go to hell and have done with it. I could shake her when she stares at me with those huge eyes and looks at me as if I’d
slapped her.”

“Well, you do, dear, quite often,” Emily said prosaically. “Figuratively, I mean. I expect you scare her to death at times.”

“I don’t think she’s scared,” said Julian slowly. “I think she just doesn’t care one way or the other.”

Emily blinked her surprise.

“Why should she?” she asked mildly. “There’s no personal emotion in this arrangement of yours.”