Reluctant Relation (11 page)

She hoped he would know that she was also thanking him for being friendly again, and he smiled slightly as he said, “Well, I promised Felicity I would look after you, remember.”

He refused their invitation to come in, saying that he had a dinner engagement in Newcastle. But he promised to come again soon, and made sure that Meg had his telephone number before he left.

Pearl seemed unaffected by the silence of the house, and continued to talk about the wonderful day they had had, particularly about Leigh’s good humor and kindness.

“I think he’s a darling, don’t you?” she demanded.

Before so youthful and uninhibited an audience, Meg said, “Yes, I do.”

“He was especially nice today,” Pearl declared. “I think he was happy, don’t you?”

“Why yes, I think he was,” agreed Meg, struck, not for the first time, by the child’s perspicacity.

“I think he hasn’t been very happy about
something ...
or someone—” Pearl went on thoughtfully. “And now things are changed, and it’s all right again. Do you think that’s what it is, Meg?”

“Well—” Meg laughed and then bit her lip “—I suppose it could be
that ...
yes.”

“And I think I know why he’s happy again,” said Pearl, nodding her head reflectively.

“Do you?” Meg smiled at her, half touched and half amused at the idea that she should receive confirmation of her own happy belief from such an innocent quarter. “Why do you think he was?”

“Well, didn’t you see that Mommy wasn’t at all friendly with Max this morning? She isn’t going to marry him.” The little girl’s tone dismissed the idea with scorn. “She’s terribly nice to Leigh again. She even trusted him to look after us, just as though he were part of the family. He knows what that means, and so do I, Meg. You’ll see ... Mommy will marry Leigh after all, and he knows it. That’s why he was so happy today.”

CHAPTER NINE

Summoning her self-control Meg tried not to let Pearl know the impact of her words. She managed to smile stiffly and even to say, “That sounds like wishful thinking to me, Pearl. I—I don’t think it’s good to guess about these things in advance.”

“I think it’s fun guessing,” Pearl replied naively. “And my guess is that Mommy will marry Leigh in the end. I think it’s a nice guess.”

Meg turned away. There was nothing she could say. She felt as though someone had struck her heart a blow.

She also heard an inner voice whispering, “
What a fool you’ve been, Meg Greenway! All day you’ve been flattering yourself that Leigh cares about you
...
is happy in your company. Even a little girl like Pearl could see the real reason for his lightheartedness. And she’s right, of course. It was a belief that he hadn’t lost Felicity after all which made him so happy that he could spare a little good humor for you
.”

She was so busy calling herself a fool that she could hide from herself the feeling that she was also the most miserable girl alive. And while Pearl was with her, the necessity of keeping up appearances helped her to avoid the full realization of her unhappiness.

But, once Pearl had gone to bed and she was entirely alone with her own thoughts, Meg could no longer put off the miserable truth.

Leigh still loved Felicity. It was as simple as that. Utterly obvious too, unless one were blinded by one’s own absurd hopes. That Felicity had casually brushed him off for
a while
in favor of Max Trenton had hardly affected Leigh’s attitude at all. He had not changed.

It serves me right!
she
thought bitterly.
People who dream like that deserve to be disillusioned.
She shed a few tears for her vanished hopes before pulling herself together and vowing that never again would she allow herself to jump to foolish conclusions just because it would be so utterly wonderful if they were right.

Life assumed a simple pattern during the next day or two. Mrs. Parker came in each morning to clean. Meg herself did the cooking. Since she was an excellent cook, she thoroughly enjoyed this side of her work. Besides, Pearl was an enthusiastic sampler, and even Mrs. Parker, on the days when she stayed to lunch, conceded that
“
them bit messes have their points, though Parker wouldn’t look at them. Good plain cooking for him or he’s not fit to live with.”

On both Monday and Tuesday Leigh telephoned to make sure that everything was all right. Meg managed to speak naturally and steadily to him.

She kept the idea that he would eventually become Pearl’s stepfather in the forefront of her mind, because somehow it helped more than anything else to re-establish a sensible attitude. Even when he announced that he would be driving over to see them on Wednesday evening, she contrived to keep her voice pleasant and casual as she said, “Then won’t you come in time to have an early dinner with Pearl and me?”

“Unless you’d prefer me to take you both out?”

“Thank you, but that disrupts Pearl’s bedtime,” Meg pointed out. “If you don’t mind dining early, it would be better if you came here, I think.”

“Very well. Only don’t go to any special trouble on my behalf,” he said.

“We’ll treat you like one of the family,” Meg promised lightly. She smiled to herself with pleasure as she replaced the receiver. The thought of cooking for Leigh gave her a queer little sense of satisfaction impossible to describe or explain.

Pearl too highly approved the arrangement, and followed Meg around the kitchen, taking an immense interest in all that was being prepared.

As though it were a family affair, thought Meg involuntarily, and she caught her breath on a slight sigh of envy for people who did this daily for those they loved.

But when Leigh finally arrived and she served the meal in the pleasant dining room, there was no one in the world whom she envied.

It was all so simple, so unsensational. Just good food, a hungry little girl, an equally hungry and appreciative man, a pleasant room and a general air of satisfaction, but Meg would not have exchanged it for anything else life could offer.

“You’re a wonderful cook, Meg,” Leigh declared. “And I’m afraid you went to a good deal of trouble, in spite of what I said.”

“Oh, no,” Meg assured him, with a smile.

Pearl hastened to explain. “Meg says cooking is no trouble at all if it’s for people you like.”

“Charmingly put.” Leigh stirred his coffee. “I think she must have meant you, Pearl.”

“She meant you too,” Pearl assured him naively. “Didn’t you Meg?”

“I like cooking in any case,” Meg said evasively. “I always have. I miss not doing it at home, so this was quite a treat for me.”

He laughed softly and she knew he had been aware of the evasion.

Pearl was allowed to stay up half an hour later than usual, but when her bedtime came, Leigh showed no signs of departing. In fact, he unexpectedly offered to help Meg wash the dishes. When she refused, he laughingly allowed Pearl to push him into a comfortable chair by the window.

“Come up and say goodnight to me in ten minutes,” Pearl begged.

“Very well,” he promised lazily. “Call me when you’re ready.” Then he reached for the evening paper, and settled himself with the air of a man very much at home.

Meg went out to the kitchen and busied herself there, not able to decide whether she wanted him to stay or go. If he went, it would all be over. But if he stayed, how would she talk to him?

What did he really feel about her now? Resentment still, because of the unhappy business of the ball? Or was that forgiven now, and the resentment replaced by a good-natured indifference? She found it difficult to decide which would be more painful.

Presently she went upstairs. Pearl had been dawdling, but she skipped into bed with a guilty squeak when Meg appeared, and allowed herself to be kissed and tucked in.

“Leigh hasn’t gone yet, has he?” she asked anxiously.

“No.”

“Well, will you tell him he can come up and say goodnight to me now, please?”

“Yes, I’ll tell him,” Meg promised. And when she went downstairs, she looked into the room and said as casually as possible, “Pearl’s ready to say goodnight. Don’t let her keep you though. She’s in a time-wasting mood.”

“All right.” He laughed and went upstairs two steps at a time, while Meg returned to the kitchen, pretending that she still had things to do there.

She heard him come downstairs again in a few minutes and go into the living room. And though she hung about quite a long time, he made no move to come out and say goodnight.

There was nothing else she could do. She fetched some mending from her room and went into the living room.

He looked up from his paper and said, “You should have let me help you. There must have been a lot to do.”

Her domestic pride made her insist, “Not at all. I was making some things ready for the morning.”

“Were you trying to avoid me?” he inquired, so casually that it was a moment before she grasped the significance of his words.

Then she said, “Certainly not,” with more emphasis than was necessary, and blushed deeply as she pretended to search for a necessary spool of thread.

“Well, I see you were. I’m sorry, Meg. I’ve created an awkward situation between us by making that ridiculous fuss about the ball, haven’t I? Is there any way of making it all right?”

“Oh, Leigh—” she dropped her hands in her lap and looked across at him “—you mustn’t blame yourself. I did behave badly, even if my part did get exaggerated. Any difficulty between us is at least as much my fault.”

“I don’t think we need argue who’s to blame.” He smiled at her. “Do you suppose we could just wash the whole thing out and decide that explanations aren’t called for?”

“Do you ... want to?” she said slowly.

“Very much so. I hate quarreling with people.”

She was not entirely happy to have it put on such a general plane, but reconciliation on almost any terms would be wonderful.

“I ... I
’d be glad to be ... friends again,” she assured him. “But even though you say explanations aren’t called for,
I ...
I would just like to say that I was ... rather stampeded into doing what I did. It wasn’t a deliberate attempt to deceive you. It was more that
I ...
I agreed to appear much more friendly than I had been, and then found—” she cleared her throat nervously.

“Found what, Meg?”

“That it wasn’t really pretence,” she explained huskily.

“Well ...
that’s very handsome,” he declared. “And makes it possible for us to be natural with each other again. On my part, I must say I think I was an ass about it all. It was a minor matter, anyway and by now has lost its significance.”

“Has it?” she looked at him a little doubtfully.

“Yes, of course,” he said easily.

Meg realized with a chill that of course the incident had lost any real significance now. If Felicity were really turning from Max to Leigh again why should he make heavy weather of the way she had treated him during that other unhappy period?

It all fits in, Meg told herself. Just take it quietly and with dignity. You’re friends again. And very welcome that is.

So she said in a matter-of-fact but cordial voice, “I’m glad you forced the issue like this, Leigh. It’s so much nicer and more sensible to be on civilized terms, particularly as we’re more or less related.”

“I thought you always resisted relationship,” he teased her.

“Well—” she made herself laugh “—it is there, even if I didn’t want to emphasize it at first, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he agreed. “For good or ill.”

“For good or ill?” she bantered. “Do you think it has its undesirable side, then?”

“Well, it certainly started me off at a disadvantage in your eyes, didn’t it?”

“We’re ruling all that out too,” she told him firmly. “I was the silly one that time.”

“We are getting things sorted out, aren’t we?” He too looked amused. Then he added earnestly, “What are your plans for the future, Meg?”

“I’m not quite sure.” She smiled slightly.

“You wouldn’t stay on indefinitely with Felicity?”

“Oh, no!” she cried quickly, suddenly visualizing somehow
fitting into the household after Leigh and Felicity were married. He looked surprised at her tone of protest.

“I thoughts you liked Felicity,” he said
.

“I do! I think I quite love her, in spite of her occasionally maddening ways. But there just wouldn’t be a permanent place for me with her.”

“She might make one. Or at any rate, make one for the time being. You’ve made a big difference to Pearl’s life, for one thing.”

“Pearl will be going back to boarding school soon. And then there wouldn’t really be any reason for me to stay here.”

“Felicity might like to have you around.”

“Felicity has Cecile for all practical purposes,” Meg retorted, “and is well able to look after herself in most other respects. Besides—” she forced herself to speak coolly “—she might marry again.”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “She might marry again, I suppose.” And then he smiled to himself in a thoughtful way and fell silent.

She longed to think of a clever leading question which would fathom his real views. Instead she went on with her mending and pretended that nothing significant had been said.

The silence was not uncomfortable. In fact, it was curiously companionable. It was with a regretful sigh that he said, “I must be going, Meg. I hope I haven’t taken up too much of your time.”

“Oh, no.” With difficulty she resisted the desire to assure him he was welcome to all the time she had.

The next day there was a long letter from Felicity. She gave an amusing account of the journey and a shrewd assessment of her surroundings.

“Give Leigh my love,” she instructed Meg casually, “and tell him that, pleasant though it is to have one’s hand kissed every five minutes, I would give a lot at the moment for a dash of his common sense and, above all, his British efficiency.”

It seemed that it was impossible to stick to a rigid program in the Spanish never-never-land in which she now found herself; consequently she had no idea when the filming would be finished.

“I think you’ll have to get Pearl off to school on your own, Meg dear,” Felicity wrote. “But if there’s any difficulty, get in touch with Dick. He should still be in London, I think.”

“How like Mommy,” said Pearl indulgently, when Meg read her a slightly edited version of the letter. “But it’s all right, Meg. I know what’s necessary for me to take back, and where I have to go and everything. I didn’t give the list to Mommy when I came home for vacation. I kept it.”

During the next few days they went through the list together. Meg checked Pearl’s wardrobe, and busied herself with nametags and other minor matters relevant to Pearl’s return to school.

“There’s plenty of time, really,” Pearl told her kindly. “You should see the way Cecile usually has to run around at the last minute.”

“I have a rooted objection to running around at the last minute,” Meg said firmly.

Pearl laughed and observed, in the manner of grown-up speaking to a child, “You are sweet. Uncle Dick was right—we ought to keep you in the family somehow.”

This kind of observation invariably left Meg speechless. Although she could cope with every childlike facet of Pearl, she was floored by the grown-up way she sometimes talked.