The Other Linding Girl (2 page)

It was Hazel—hugging her almost tearfully at the end—who made her feel worst But fortunately, before she too could shed an illogical tear, Dr. Linding called impatiently from the rather battered family car.

“Hurry! If I’m dropping you off at the station, you’ll have to come
now.
It’s time I was off on my rounds.”

And so, with a final hug for everyone, Rachel snatched up her handbag and ran out to the car.

“It’s always a mistake to prolong farewells,” her father said. “Even temporary ones,” he added kindly, by way of taking the edge off the moment of departure.

To which Rachel murmured, “Yes,” and blinked her long lashes hard and blew her nose.

Fortunately it was a short drive to the station—every distance in Loriville was short—and, once they arrived there, her father— with a final demonstration of tact and understanding—merely handed her over to Tom, the elderly porter who had seen them all off to school innumerable times in earlier days.

“Just see Miss Rachel catches the London train, with all her luggage, will you, Tom?” Dr. Linding said. “I’m afraid I can’t wait, as I have an urgent case.”

Then he kissed Rachel, briefly but fondly, patted her on the back with a smartness which discouraged any tendency to droop, and said,

“My regards to Everard and Hester. Work hard and enjoy your independence, and remember—home is always there to come back to, however far you try your wings.”

“Thank you, Father—for everything.” Rachel hugged him, swallowed a lump in her throat, and then turned and followed Tom, who was trotting ahead with her cases, pausing only to call over his shoulder, “Platform Three—under the bridge,” just as though she hadn’t known
that
for the best part of her twenty-one years.

True to his belief that Dr. Linding was one of the few people whose instructions needed to be obeyed to the letter, Tom firmly shepherded Rachel into an empty compartment, lifted her luggage into the rack and said,

“You’ll be all right now, miss. Just you sit there in that corner seat until you get to London. No changing, mind.”

“All right, Tom,” replied Rachel meekly, because she knew she was still a schoolgirl in his eyes, and somehow the feeling was oddly comforting at that moment.

Then Tom went away, and the train started—for London, Uncle Everard, and the new life.

For a while, Rachel just sat there, looking out of the window and not seeing very much. But then, as well-known vistas gave way to less familiar scenes, she relaxed, took off her hat and ran her fingers through her soft, wavy fair hair. The painful part of the break was over. The new experiences lay ahead.

Presently she got up and looked at herself in the mirror opposite, with some vague idea that, in the course of the great change in her circumstances,
she
might also have changed slightly.

No alteration in her appearance was discernible, however. Her face, with its wide cheekbones, slightly pointed chin and unexpected laughter-hollows in the cheeks, still looked friendly rather than enigmatic; and the wellspaced, darkly lashed blue eyes were enquiring rather than secretly knowledgeable.

It was not, Rachel thought ruefully, the sort of face which made men exclaim, “Who on earth is that? I must know her.” More the kind which made children ask one the time and old ladies request one to look after their luggage as they fumbled for a penny.

Still, once experience had come her way—varied and exciting—there was no knowing how her appearance might subtly change and her character mature. And, on this intriguing thought, Rachel settled down once more to enjoy her journey.

It was late afternoon by the time she arrived at Euston and, taking a taxi, she drove to Uncle Everard’s tall, handsome house near Wigmore Street. Here she was admitted to a beautifully proportioned and richly furnished hall, by a maid who looked a little as though she might have stepped out of a play.

“My lady is not yet home,” the maid explained. “But Sir Everard is in the drawing-room and will see you at once.” Then she led the way upstairs to the first floor, and showed Rachel into an elegant, high-ceilinged room, with a respectful,

“Miss Linding, sir.”

“Rachel, my dear! I’m delighted to see you.”

Uncle Everard—a trifle greyer, but even handsomer than she remembered him—came forward to greet her, with all the charm which, along with his almost magical skill, had put him at the top of his profession.

“Dear me, what good-looking girls Robert does produce.” Sir Everard looked at Rachel with a shrewd but approving smile. “I remember, your elder sister was a real beauty, even some years ago, and the younger one was a charming child. I didn’t recall you so clearly as the others, but—”

“No one ever does, Uncle,” said Rachel, without offence and with a touch of genuine humour. “I’m the rather ordinary one of the three.”

“My dear, I should never dream of calling you ordinary!” exclaimed her uncle, who indeed would not, because he had long ago discovered that nothing pleases people better than to be considered rather special. “You have, for one thing, a delightful speaking voice—all too rare nowadays—and a charmingly shaped face. Very good bone-structure—very good indeed,” he added, with such authority that Rachel wondered for a moment if he were regarding her as a welcome niece or a good anatomical specimen.

In any case, she found herself very much at home with him, and had hardly finished her brief but lively account of the family, when the door opened and into the room came a small girl, with straight dark hair, bright, intelligent black eyes and an amusingly tip-tilted nose.

She was what the Americans mean by “cute”, but not at all pretty, and she said, with great composure,

“Hello. You’re my cousin Rachel, aren’t you?”

“Yes. And you must be Paula,” replied Rachel, suddenly remembering the name scrawled at the bottom of one of the

unfortunately chosen Christmas cards.

She smiled and held out her hand. And when the child came across to her, Rachel—who came of a comfortably demonstrative family—put an arm round her and kissed her, which seemed to surprise Paula somewhat.

However, the advance evidently met with approval, because she said at once, “Can I take Rachel to her room?” It is possible that Sir Everard—who was also enjoying the new toy—might have refused. But at that moment the telephone rang and, picking up the receiver, he said impatiently, ‘Yes, yes—run along, both of you.” And Rachel had the distinct impression that both she and Paula ceased to exist.

However, she was used to a household where the demands of the telephone took precedence over almost everything else, and she got up immediately and accompanied her little cousin out of the room and upstairs to the next floor where, it seemed, a very pleasant bed- sitting-room had been put at her disposal.

“Do you like it?” Paula watched the older girl closely as she looked round.

“Very much indeed,” Rachel assured her sincerely. “Would you like to help me unpack?”

“Yes, please.” Paula spoke with alacrity. “And tell me about my other cousins.”

So Rachel obligingly described Elizabeth and Hazel, and something of their life in Loriville.

“It must be fun to have sisters.” Paula heaved an involuntary sigh. “It’s dull being only one. But Mummy says she won’t have any more. I’ve asked her several times.”

“Have you?” Rachel smiled, but left that subject tactfully undeveloped. “How about any other cousins? Has your Uncle Nigel a family?”

“Oh, no!” Paula seemed rather amused at that idea. “He isn’t married. He says marriage is for the very good or the very courageous, and he’s neither.”

“I see.”

“He’s taking you out to a party tonight,” Paula volunteered unexpectedly.

“Really?” Rachel looked surprised. “I don’t know anything about this.”

“No, Mummy arranged it. Daddy’s taking her, and Uncle Nigel is taking you,” the little girl explained. ‘You can wear that pretty dress.” And she approvingly indicated the one full evening dress which, at the last minute, Rachel had decided to include in her luggage.

“Then it’s quite a grand affair?” Rachel still very much doubted if she were to be plunged immediately in such social activities.

"It’s a ball for one of the big medical charities,” Paula explained knowledgeably. “Daddy won’t usually go to anything like that unless it’s for charity. He doesn’t like these things as much as Mummy does. Are you ready to come down now? I expect we’ll be having dinner early, if you’re all going out.”

“Then I won’t change until later—if I really
am
going to a full-dress party,” said Rachel, sounding as sceptical as she felt.

However, almost as soon as they stopped outside her room, Paula cried,

“There’s Uncle Nigel! He’ll tell you all about it.”

And, darting away from Rachel’s side, she flung herself with affectionate abandon upon a man who had just reached the top of the stairs.

“Rachel’s here, Uncle Nigel! And she doesn’t quite believe she’s going to the ball. But she is, isn’t she?”

“As surely as Cinderella did,” was the reassuring reply. And, as he turned to her, Rachel found herself smiling into a pair of bright, provocative dark eyes, not unlike Paula’s own.

She was never able to decide—either then or afterwards —what it was about Nigel Seton which made one smile so easily in his company. At that first meeting—and in view of what he had said on the telephone—she supposed it was because he took life so lightly and carelessly. It was not until much later that she noticed the odd variance between the mocking gaiety of those eyes and the firm line of the mouth and jaw.

What she did notice on that first occasion was that the hand which took hers was strong and purposeful. “Hello,” he said, “so you made the date all right. And now you can come to the ball. I hope you like the idea.”

“I think it’s wonderful,” she told him sincerely. “But I had no notion that substitute secretaries came in for so much excitement.”

‘They don’t. It’s being Sir Everard's niece that does it,” he assured her. “Have you seen Hester yet?”

“No.”

“Then come down and meet her. She’s in the drawingroom— with Everard and Oliver Mayforth.”

Rachel, looked enquiring, and it was Paula who explained,

“Mr. Mayforth is assistant surgeon at Daddy’s Nursing Home.”

“And ‘Daddy’s Nursing Home’ is merely the characteristically possessive way this family has of referring to anything relating to it in the smallest degree,” Nigel Seton amplified a trifle drily. “Daddy doesn’t actually own the place. He’s principal surgeon. The chief miracle- worker in the eyes of the patients, and pretty well deputising for God in Matron’s view.”

“I see,” said Rachel—tactfully non-committal. And then they all went down to the drawing-room, where her uncle was deep in conversation with a dark, good-looking man in perhaps his middle thirties, and her aunt—as young and beautiful and soignee as Rachel had been led to expect—was reading a letter by the window.

Rachel saw immediately what her father had meant about the inadvisability of addressing her as “Aunt”. But Hester Linding greeted her quite pleasantly—and then Sir Everard noticed Rachel again and said,

“Come and meet Mr. Mayforth, Rachel. He is assistant surgeon at My Nursing Home—” Sir Everard not only laid claim to the home, but gave it capital letters. “You’ll be working for him too. Mayforth, this is my niece, Rachel Linding, who is going to get us out of the muddle that idiotic Freney girl created.”

“Is that so?” said Oliver Mayforth quite courteously.

But he looked as though he reserved judgment about the newcomer until she should have given genuine proof of undoing some of the mistakes of her erring predecessor.

Possibly, thought Rachel amusedly, Miss Freney had also had her problems. At least the assistant surgeon believed in wasting no time, it seemed, for he said immediately,

“May I have Miss Linding tomorrow morning, sir? I’ve a stack of letters that need answering, and one or two things to put right.”

“Well—” Sir Everard seemed reluctant to part so promptly with the treasure he evidently felt he had acquired.

“You’ll be operating from eight-thirty,” Mr. Mayforth

reminded him, respectfully but firmly.

“Yes—yes, that’s true. All right, then. That means you’ll go over to the Nursing Home tomorrow, Rachel. But I’d like you back here for the afternoon. What time is dinner, Hester? If I’m making an early start tomorrow—”

“Almost immediately” his wife replied calmly. "It’s ordered for seven sharp, as we are going out.”

“Going out?” repeated Sir Everard, in tones of mellow indignation. “I’m not going out tonight.”

“Of course you are, Everard.” Hester Linding was tranquil but adamant, and she passed over her husband’s protest like a steamroller—though a very decorative one, of course. “It’s the Spastics’ Ball at the Gloria. We’ve had the tickets for the last six weeks, and I’m wearing my new Florian dress.”

“I’m sorry about that.” Her husband frowned impatiently. “But you know I never go out late if I’m operating early. Nigel must take you.”

“Nigel is taking Rachel.”