Authors: Sara Seale
Orphan Bride (20 page)
“You kept all my
letters,” she said, with such amazement that Julian looked up with a frown.
“Where did you find them?” he asked sharply.
“They were on the dressing table.”
He took the letters from her and tapped them carelessly in the palm of his hand.
“I must have forgotten to put them away. I was going through them last night,” he said.
“You were reading my letters last night?” she asked, her eyes enormous, and he replied a little irritably: “You needn’t look so staggered. It’s quite a normal occupation, to go through old letters in an idle hour.”
“They were very
dull letters,” she said.
He smiled.
“Very dull!”
“Why did you keep them?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He got up and locked the letters away in his desk. “It was amusing to watch the improvement in caligraphy, if not in style. You don’t express yourself very well, even now, do you, Jennet?”
“You were difficult to write to,” she said
.
“It always took me a long time.”
He sat down again and viewed her with amusement.
“Why did you never write to me?” she asked.
He regarded her thoughtfully.
“I don’t know, Jennet, unless I had nothing to say that I thought would be of interest.” He had never satisfactorily explained to himself his reluctance to write to her.
“Anything would have interested me,” she told him simply. “You see, I never get any letters.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Is that the
only reason?”
“Well, not the only reason. It would have made it so much easier to write back.”
“I see,” he said. “Well, when you go back to Pennycross, I must try and make an effort.”
“When am I going back?” she asked, quite prepared for him to say to-morrow or next week.
He answered carelessly:
“Oh, not till the end of October, or thereabouts, unless, of course, you get tired of London.”
But she did not think even if she were to get tired of London, he would let her go until he was ready. He had never consulted her in any of his plans.
“We might perhaps run down for a week-end and how they’re getting on,” he said absently.
“Yes, Cousin Julian,” said Jennet, and he looked at her, with surprise.
“
Now why on earth have you gone back to that after all this time?” he demanded a little wryly.
She flushed and said apologetically:
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what
made me call you that.”
But she did know. Julian in this mood was Cousin Julian again, and she a child awaiting his goodwill
.
CHAPTER
T W E L V E
By the middle of
October, Jennet’s portrait was nearly finished, and she was sorry. She had come to look forward to her visits to the studio, and without Julian’s watchful presence she
C
ould relax and enjoy her talks with Jeremy. She had grown very fond of the old man, and she responded
t
o the affection which lay behind his wise understanding.
Julian would sometimes come and fetch her after a sitting. But Jeremy would not let him see the portrait.
“Oh, no, my dear boy! With your critical eye you would be wanting me to alter the shape of her nose or the color of her hair,” he
said. “Don’t forget this is not a commissioned work. I’m doing it for my own pleasure.”
Julian laughed, but he looked a little disconcerted.
“My dear Jeremy! I shouldn’t dream of criticizing so eminent an artist,” he protested.
“
Oh, yes, you would, when it has to do with your
protégée
,”
Jeremy retorted shrewdly. “I suspect that you and I have a very different conception of Jennet on canvas.”
Julian raised
hi
s eyebrows.
“You alarm me! I shall begin to think you’ve conceived her in some futuristic style if you go on like this. What does the victim think of herself?”
“
She hasn’t seen herself,” Jeremy said, and rubbed his hands together with delight at his own double meaning. “No, she hasn’t seen herself.”
Julian lingered on at the studio one day, reluctant to take Jennet away. There was a quality about her here in the failing light of the studio that he wanted to remember and call to life again. She leant against Jeremy’s shoulder with a naturalness that was wholly charming, and watching them both Julian thought that they should have been father and daughter, and he realized for perhaps the first time what Jennet had missed in life. He got to his feet abruptly.
“Time to go,” he said. “We’re dining out, and Luke is joining us.”
“Luke?” She had not known she would see Luke. It was a delightful finish to a pleasant day.
She went with Julian, curbing her eager steps to his slow progress down the stairs, and at the bottom he stopped and said surprisingly:
“You wanted to run, didn’t you? Run and jump down the stairs two at a time.”
“How did you know?”
“
Every impatient nerve in your body told me so.
”
She looked up at him, expecting to see the old bitter disgust in his face at his own crippled state, and she remembered him saying: “Don’t ever give me pity.” She did not know what reply to make, but his eyes, when she met them, held no bitterness,
only a great weariness.
“Come along,” he said gently. “We shall be late for dinner.”
He seemed unusually silent throughout the meal and allowed Luke to take most leads in the conversation.
Jennet, aware of a change in Julian, wondered if he was in particular pain. For a moment she resented Luke with his easy gaiety, and his sound supple limbs, and like Emily, she wondered why these two were friends.
“You’re looking sad,” Luke said. “Let me buy you some champagne. We’ll put it on Julian’s bill.”
He filled her glass an
d
topped up his own and Julian’s
.
“To all orphans, especially Miss Jennet Brown,” he said, raising his
glass. “I like her in white, don
’
t you, Julian? She has a very fragile, virginal air.
”
Jennet was used to Luke’s audacities by now, but she glanced at Julian a little anxiously. He scarcely seemed to be listening, h
o
wever, although he raised his glass to her with a smile.
People were beginning to dance, and Luke said, pushing aside his empty coffee cup:
“Well, what shall we do with the rest of our evening? Would you both like to come back to my flat, and have a riotous evening listening to the last
chapters of my newe
st
novel? Jennet might find herself in it.”
Julian beckoned for the bill.
“I’m going home, if you don’t mind. I’m a bit tired,
”
he said. “Why don’t you two stay on here and dance
?
”
“
Dance?” said Jennet, looking thoroughly startled. Luke sat back and said nothing, his bright eyes darting from one to the other of them.
“Yes, dance,” said Ju
li
an casually. “You’ve alwa
y
s wanted to, haven’t you?”
Jennet was silent, looking at him with a puzzled expression, but Luke said with charming gallantry:
“Well, that’s a privilege I’ve been waiting for for a long time. Come along, my pretty. Say good night to your host and haste to the ball.”
J
ulian did not wait to see them go on to the floor, but, without a backward glance, limped slowly to the door.
At first, Jennet
w
as too occupied in following Luke’s unaccustomed steps to make any comment, then as she settled down to the rhythm and the knowledge that he was an expert partner, she wrinkled her forehead and remarked:
“I don t understand.”
“What don’t you understand, my sweet? My complicated steps?”
“No. Julian wanting me to dance. He’s never allowed me to before.”
Luke brushed his
cheek against her hair.
“Well, he couldn’t keep up that attitude for ever. It wasn’t reasonable,” he told her.
“It was from his point of view. He can’t dance himself.”
“Isn’t that making him out rather a selfish monster?” She
stumbled, and he held her more tightly. “Concentrate, darling. Take the gifts the gods send you and enjoy yourself.”
“I’m afraid of treading on your toes,” she said, laughing.
“You won’t tread
o
n my toes,” he reassured her. “Yo
u
’re a natural dancer. You only want a little practice. Don’t talk.”
She obeyed him and soon she fou
n
d that concentration was not necessary. The delight of the dance took her,
making her feel a little light-headed. Luke, at last insisting on a rest, laughed at her affectionately.
“You’ve taken to it like a drunk to drink,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “Perhaps Julian was right to discourage such an alarming vice!”
Flushed and brilliant-eyed, she answered seriously: “Something you’ve never had goes to your head at first.”
He sat, snapping his lighter on and off, looking at her quizzically across the tiny flame.
“
Is that going to apply to everything, I wonder?” he asked.
“Everything?”
“Love—passion—two things that go very much to the head.”
“I don’t know anything about either,” she said a little primly, and he smiled.
“You didn’t know much about dancing until you tried it, did you?” He leant forward and his plain attractive face creased into its many wrinkles. “I’d like to teach you about love,” he said softly. “I have a hunch you would be an apt pupil.”
She was out of her depth, and his blue eyes were sending her an invitation which was hard to resist.
She asked quickly, changing the subject with a naiveness which made him smile:
“
Am I really in your new book?”
“Someone very like you,” he replied. “Each time you, you give me a fresh slant on her character. Would you like to read it some time?”
“
Very much. Does your character come from an orphanage?”
“Um.”
“How far have you got?”
“Oh, she’s growing up, young, naive, unspoilt, with a funny kind of wisdom that keeps popping out from time to
time—rather like you. She’s just going to have her first affaire.”
“Oh. Isn’t there somebody special for her?”
“There’s a hero of course, but he hasn’t appeared much, yet.”
“Is Julian in your book?”
“Good gracious, no! Julian is much too unlikely a character to swallow—even in one of my books. Come and dance, my pretty.”
I
t was the first of a series of such evenings. Luke never openly abused a privilege, but it became the normal occurrence for him to take Jennet dancing. Julian made no objection, but he never accompanied them on these occasions. He made it clear
that Luke was privileged and would not accord the same favor to anyone else, and wher
e
Piggy commented, he said briefly:
“I don’t want it to become a habit.”
“Isn’t it becoming a habit with Luke?” Piggy asked a little dryly.
He smiled.
“Luke’s different. I can trust Luke.”
Piggy was silent. She herself had never trusted Luke, but she was not going to say so to Julian.
“It’s a pity, then, you don’t go with them sometimes,” she remarked.
“What! Sit alone the whole evening and watch other people enjoy themselves!”
“That,” said Piggy, “is a dog-in-the-manger attitude
.
Luke always did take your toys when you were little, and you let him take them. But you wouldn’t stay and watch him play with them.”
“You don’t really like Luke, do you Piggy?” Julian said with surprise.
“I always made a point,” she said primly, “of never allowing myself to dislike any of my charges. Luke was not a bad little boy, but he’s easy-come, easy-go.”
The old-fashioned expression reminded him of his nursery days. She was a surprising person, Piggy.
The weeks went quickly, and there was not, after all, a great deal of time for amusement. The days were occupied with French and singing lessons, and the daily walks in the Park which Julian insisted on for health’s sake. She had now started learning Italian, and Julian would have added German to the rest if Piggy had not put her foot down.
“If you really had to make your living by teaching,” she told him severely, “you would realize how much or how little an untutored mind can receive. I can’t think why you didn’t send the child to a good finishing school and have done with it.”
“Perhaps that would have been better,” he admitted slowly. “Though that wasn’t what I had in mind. This was a personal matter, you see. I wanted to do my own finishing,
so
to speak.”
“The sort of finishing you have in mind would come more easily after marriage than before, I imagine,” said Piggy shrewdly.
He regarded her plain, round little face thoughtfully. “But she’s so young,” he objected. “So immature in many ways. It seems unfair to hurry things.”
‘
“
Fiddlesticks!” Piggy snapped. “You know nothing at all about the girl, which isn’t surprising the way you handle her. How do you expect her to think of you as a husband when you behave like a cross between a school-teacher and a Victoria papa?”
“Do I, Piggy?” he asked, and sounded quite taken
aback.
“Yes, you do, and I’ve no patience with your methods. Ever since your mother ran on with another man, Julian, you’ve been trying to rule affection out of your life. Well, you’ve a right to do so in your own case, I suppose, if that’s what you want, but you haven’t the right to do it to others.
Y
ou’re riding for a fall, dear boy, and you’ll have only yourself to thank if your plans go awry.”
“Well,” said Julian, observing her gravely, “that’s plain speaking. You seem to have very definite ideas about us both. What do you suggest I should do?”
Her eyes behind her
pince-nez
snapped
“Really, Julian, doesn’t your own observation of human nature tell you that? Make a fuss of the, child, treat her to some of the charming attention Luke flings around so freely. Give her affection, if you can. She’s had precious little of it.”
“Yes,” said Julian. “Yes, I see.”
But it was Luke who gave her that, Luke, who, with his
alert writer’s instinct for dissecting his fellow beings, would, behind his facile charm, go to any lengths to find out how they worked.
Jennet’s portrait was finished at the end of October, and as she sat for Jeremy one wet afternoon and he told her that he only needed one more sitting, she knew a sharp pang of regret.
“
You look sad,” Jeremy told her
,
working feverishly while the light still held. “You mustn’t look sad with only one more sitting, or else something foreign will creep into
the picture, and that wouldn’t please friend Julian.
”
She smiled and said:
“He’ll send me back when you’ve finished it.”
“And you don’t want to go?”
“
Not now.”
Jeremy glanced at her quickly.
“No, the flower is opening, isn’t it? But when you do go back, it will only be for a little while, perhaps.
W
hen you marry, you’ll be back with us again. Or doesn’t Julian want to live in London then?”
“I don’t know,” said Jennet. “He never talks about it.”
“Why don’t you ask him what his plans are?”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said. “I don t think he would like it.
”
Jeremy grunted.
“You’re the queerest engaged couple I ever saw.”
“But we’re not engaged,” she said quickly. “He’s never—I don’t even know when he means to marry me.”
She moved in her eagerness to explain, and he flung down his palette and brushes.
He sat down on the dais beside her.
“Don’t you want to marry him?” he asked abruptly. She pushed the long hair out of her eyes with a tired gesture.
“I do
n
’t know,”
s
he said. “It’s so difficult to
think of him as a husband.”
“As a lover, then? I’d rathe
r
rest on
a
true love’s breast
...
Not
my
true love or
the
true love, you notice, Jennet, but
a
true love. Julian would be that, don’t you think?
”
She stared at him gravely.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think he would.”
Jeremy hummed the air of “Searching for Lambs” in his cracked old voice.
“What else does the song say? ‘For I am thine, and thou art mine. No man shall
uncomfort thee
...
It’s a charming word, Jennet, warm, and tender. No man shall uncomfort thee. Isn’t that what you really want?”
Jennet’s eyes filled with tears.
“But he’s not mine!” she cried. “I’m his because I had no choice, but he’s not mine—he could never be anybody’s.”
Jeremy said softly:
“Do you love him, little Jenny-wren?”
“Love?” It was a word remote in her conception of Julian. “No. No, I don’t love him.”
He smiled.
“I wonder
...
The essence of your little song that means so much to
you
—have you never felt it with Julian—or any man?”
‘Yes, she
had felt it. Once when she had leaned against his breast in the dusk of evening, once when he had taken her in his arms on the moor.
“He’s become necessary to me,” she said with slow surprise. “I can’t break away even if I would.”
“Necessary to each other—that’s what counts.” Jeremy’s old voice came
s
oftly. “When you’ve been starved of so muc
h
, it’s easy to fall in love, if you try.”
She looked at him with swift repudiation.
“I don’t want to fall in love with anyone,” she said. “I just want someone to love.”
He patted her knee, then got to his feet.
“So do we all, my child, so do we all,” he said, and went over to the portrait. “Would you like to have a look at yourself?”
Jennet’s face was eager.
“May I? Before it’s finished
?
”
“It is finished, to all but a discerning eye,” he replied. “Come along.”
She went and stood beside him and he lifted the drape.
Her own face gazed back at her, delicate, ardent, with a lost, questioning look which was infinitely touching.
Jennet stared for a long time, then she turned to Jeremy.
“Am I really like that?” she asked, a little wonderingly
.
He replaced the drape.
“
I think so. But sometimes, you know, a painter’s eye sees what another’s does not.”
She could hear Luke clattering up the stairs to fetch her back for tea at Julian’s flat, and the next moment he had knocked and entered.
“Am I too early?” he asked. “Or is the session over?”
“No,” Jeremy said, “we’ve finished for the
day. There’s only one more sitting. I’ve just been showing Jennet herself for the first time.”
“How exciting.” Luke’s bright eyes were glancing and eager. “Do you like yourself, my sweet? Has Jeremy flattered you nicely?”
“I think it’s very flattering,” she said, “though somehow—somehow
—”
“Somehow what? You intrigue me
!
May I look
?”
He did not wait for permission but snatched the drape from the portrait and stood back, his head on one side. “Yes
...
yes
...
” he murmured.
“Really, Jeremy, you’ve been very clever—very clever indeed. You’ve exactly caught that funny lost look and the awakening maturity in the eyes
...
that plea for affection, the promise of the future—it’s all there. Julian should be impressed. Has he seen it?”
“Julian won’t see her like that,” said Jeremy shortly. He seemed a little annoyed. “No, he hasn’t seen it. He’s coming for the last sitting.” He took the drape from Luke and covered the portrait again.
Luke helped Jennet into her coat, and dropped a careless kiss on the top of her head.
“You ought to fe
el
very proud,” he told her. “Jeremy really has done you justice, you very charming creature. Good-bye, Jeremy, and congratulations.”
Jeremy watched, them
l
eave, a frown between his shrewd old eyes,
then with a shrug he took up his palette and started to clean it.
Julian opened the door to them, and they came into his flat, laughing and talking. “We’ve seen the portrait, Julian,”
h
e announced, “and it certainly is a honey.”
“
You’ve
seen it?” asked Julian sharply. It was only a small prick that Jeremy had shown Luke the portrait first, but it was a prick all the same.
He looked at Jennet, observing her charming air of slight dishevelment, and said more curtly than he had intended:
“You’d better tidy yourself for tea. They’ll be bringing it up in a moment.”
She went away to his bedroom, conscious of his disapproval, but unaware of the reason. She peered in the mirror, trying to see herself as Jeremy had painted her, and was so long away that Julian was pouring out the tea when she returned.
“I know just what you’ve been doing,” Luke accused her. “Prinking in Julian’s masculine mirror and trying to discover all those flattering details in Jeremy’s portrait.” He gave a shout of laughter as she blushed, and demanded of Julian; “Did you e
v
er see such guilt? The conceited little minx! I want to take her to Pirrelli’s on Friday evening, Julian. They’ve got a new cabaret that I think
I
she would like.”
“You’ll have to postpone it, I’m afraid,” Julian said casually. “We’re going down to Pennycross for the weekend
.
Here’s your tea, Jennet.”
“Thank you. I didn’t know we were going away,” said Jennet, taking her c
u
p from him. Julian never discussed his plans with her, but she had the impression that he had only that moment decided to take her away
.
