The Other Linding Girl (7 page)

“Rachel—’ He took hold of the hands she had put against him in her distress and drew her quite close— “you simply mustn’t upset yourself like this. You’re tired and over-strained, It must have been a whale of a day for you, and its nearly three o’clock in the morning. Go to bed now—you’ll feel quite different in the morning. And as for me,
I
don’t care where I sleep—”

“No, but its the
idea
of it!” she protested. “Fancy being forbidden anyone's house for s-something one hasn’t done.”

“My dear, tender-hearted little niece—or whatever you are to me—”

‘Tm
not
your
niece
!” She had to put that straight, even in the midst of her woe.

“Well, you're my sister’s niece, which makes you something that I can't possibly work out at this hour of the morning,” he retorted amusedly. “Anyway, you simply must not shed tears over me. I can take a lot more than your uncle's disapprobation, you know, and—”

“But don’t you hate being misjudged like this?” she interrupted, with such force that he was silent for a second.

Then he said, unexpectedly, “All right—I loathe it But there’s no other way out of things, Rachel. And now I don't mind half so much—since you’ve shed a few tears for me.”

He laughed softly and kissed her wet cheek. And, before she knew what she was doing, she returned his kiss. It was only long afterwards that this seemed an extraordinary thing to have done. At the time, it seemed natural.

“You're sweet,” he said. “Now go to bed and sleep well, and remember that your indignant support made a lot of difference to me. Only you mustn’t indulge in it openly, any more than I can tell Keith Elman openly what I really think of him We must each keep our own secret. Agreed?”

“A-agreed,” she whispered, on a rather childish aftersob.

“Then good-night,” he said, and gently put her inside the doorway.

“Good-night,” Rachel replied, but already the door had been quietly closed.

For a few seconds longer she stood there, listening to the crisp sound of his footsteps dying away along the street. Then slowly she climbed the stairs to her room, conscientiously putting off the lights as she went.

It was too late—and she was too tired—even to think about all that had happened since she had left Loriville that morning. She could achieve
no
more than an immense astonishment that so many experiences could have occurred in less than twenty-four hours. But even that was unimportant beside the overwhelming fatigue which now took hold of her. And, undressing in a fog of weariness, she dropped into bed and fell into a sleep so deep that it was like tumbling over a cliff

Except for Paula, there was no saying when she might have woken the next morning. As it was, she struggled to the surface, at some unidentified hour, to find her little cousin beside her bed, and enquiring,

“Where on earth is everyone? Mummy’s not in her room Uncle Nigel isn’t in his room And although I know Daddy was going off early, he doesn’t seem to have had any breakfast first.”

“Oh—” Rachel sat up, slightly dazed. Then she remembered everything— and, with it, the necessity of not frightening the little girl. “There was something of a car accident last night,” she said, as casually as she could, “Your mother was a bit injured, arid they thought it better for her to go to the Nursing Home, where they could look after her.”

“Was she much hurt?” Paula seemed interested, rather than violently upset.

“I think they thought so at first, but later your father said she would be quite all right,” Rachel explained, not wishing to depart too far from the truth, while at the same time determined to sound unalarming.

“And Uncle Nigel?” A deeper shade of anxiety was discernible on Paula’s small face at that.

“Oh, he’s all right!” Rachel was able to declare that quite cheerfully. “For some reason of his.own, he went back to his own flat. And your father stayed on at the Nursing Home, so as to be near your mother, and available for his work this morning. What time is it, Paula?”

“Half-past eight.”

“I must get up! I’m supposed to be at the Nursing Home to take letters for Mr. Mayforth this morning. I imagine he’ll expect me about nine-thirty.”

“Was he up half the night too?” enquired Paula practically.

‘Well—yes, he was.”

‘Then he won’t be dictating at nine-thirty. Why don’t you have breakfast in bed?”

“No, darling! Run along, and I’ll be down in twenty minutes,” Rachel promised.

“I shall have gone to school then,” Paula explained. “I’m just off now, as a matter of fact. Only I thought I’d come and ask you first where everyone was. I’ll see you this evening.”

“All right, pet.” Rachel smiled at her. “Have a good day.”

“At
school?”
Paula seemed to find that improbable. But she grinned at Rachel and started off towards the door. Then suddenly she turned and came back to the bed. “You’re
sure
Uncle Nigel’s all right?”

“Absolutely sure.” “And Mummy’s not—not too badly hurt?”

“I don’t think so, dear. Your father assured me she would be all right,” Rachel repeated. “And he would know.”

“Oh, yes, he’d know,” Paula agreed. “He knows everything. Of that sort, I mean,” she added somewhat enigmatically. And off she went to school,

Rachel got up, bathed and dressed rapidly, and was downstairs before nine. Here one of the maids served her with breakfast, and asked, with respectful curiosity, after Lady Linding. It seemed Nigel had been right and that one or two of the newspapers had at least a mention of the accident.

Unable to add much to the bare news, Rachel repeated that Sir Everard seemed hopeful. Then, having had her breakfast, she walked over to the Nursing Home, to find that Paula was right and that Oliver Mayforth had not yet arrived.

However, Matron—with a certain degree of graciousness, attributable, Rachel felt suie, to the name of Linding—informed her that Lady Linding was as well as could be expected.

Finding this phrase as comforting and informative as most of us do, Rachel ventured to enquire what kind of injuries Hester had suffered.

“Why, head injuries, of course. They called in Sir Michael Ventris, you know,” Matron said, as though Rachel would naturally have drawn her own conclusions from that.

“Oh—I see,” Rachel replied meekly. And then she went into the office which had been indicated to her as the place where Mr. Mayforth would expect to find her.

In spite of the fact that he must have had an even shorter night than she, he was not really many minutes after her.

“Hello!” He seemed pleased and surprised to see her. “Very punctual, I see. How are you feeling this morning?”

“A little better than you, I expect,” Rachel replied, at which he laughed “Oh, I can get by on quite a little sleep—and I hear the morning report on Hester is satisfactory. So, provided we all keep our heads—” he gave her a level glance—“we may come out of this business not too badly.”

“I’ve had my briefing,” Rachel informed him drily, “from Nigel Seton. It’s all right.”

“Good. Well then, what about some correspondence?” Rachel indicated that she was at his service, and for an hour he dictated—letters and a conference report— clearly and fairly rapidly.

“Have you got all that?” he enquired at last.

“Oh, yes.”

“Don’t say ‘yes’ if you haven’t,” he warned her, rather irritably. ‘Your predecessor was always cheerful about taking down, but singularly at sea when it came to typing back.” “She doesn’t seem to have been very hot on filing either,” Rachel observed mildly, as she inspected a muddled pile of letters and papers. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll do the letters first, so that they’re ready for signature, and then I’ll clear up the filing before I do your report.”

“Whatever you like,” he said, having apparently decided finally that she was efficient. And he went away, leaving her to her own devices.

Rachel was indeed efficient, and a steady worker, so that when he came back, just before lunch, all his letters were waiting for signature, and his new secretary was standing in the alcove by the filing cabinets, with an air of considerable absorption.

He said nothing, but shot her an approving glance, as he sat down at his desk, and for a while there was silence. Then Rachel, who had her back to the room, heard the door open, and a cheerful masculine voice said, “May I come in?”

“Oh, Denbey, come in. Have you got the lunch-time papers?” There was a barely controlled note of eagerness in the assistant surgeon's voice.

“Yes. Sister told me you wanted to see what they had to say about the accident, you old ghoul, you!”

“I just wanted to make, sure there was no—vulgar romancing about it You never know with the papers,” muttered Oliver Mayforth, rather unfairly. “Have you met Miss Linding?” He made a vague gesture in the direction of Rachel’s corner. ‘Miss Linding—Dr. Denbey, our resident physician.”

Rachel turned and smiled briefly at the resident physician, before returning to her filing.

“Nothing at all sensational, ” Oliver Mayforth stated, after a minute or two, with some satisfaction. “Just the bare facts.”

“But you haven’t noticed the star attraction,” countered Dr. Denbey, in the jocular tone which appeared to be characteristic of him “Have a look at the social page ofthe
Echo.
Splendid picture of you, enjoying yourselflike mad, you dark horse.”

“Of me?” Oliver Mayforth sounded astonished—and distastefully astonished at that. While Rachel—she hardly knew why—suddenly lost interest in her filing.

“Well, it’s not intentionally of you,” the resident physician conceded. “‘Miss Floo-Flah, top debutante of the Season, dancing at the Spastics Ball’—or something like that. But there you are too, just left of centre, on the point of kissing your very lovely partner, if I’m not much mistaken. Who is she, for heaven’s sake? Prettiest girl I’ve seen in a long while, and evidently thinks you’re the answer to her prayer. If I hadn’t been coming in with the paper anyway, I’d still have been coming to enquire when the banns are

being put up. As it is—Oh!”

The resident physician came to a dead stop, as Rachel advanced slowly from her obscure corner and impinged completely on his notice at last.

“I
say
—I’m sorry! That’s the gaffe of the year, isn’t it? You must forgive my nonsense—I often talk that way. Silly habit—only—”

But Rachel was not really listening to him She was looking down at the newspaper spread out on Oliver Mayforth’s desk. And there they were, both of them, caught ruthlessly by a roving camera, and registered for all time in a moment she would already most willingly have forgotten.

“How—how idiotic I look!” she exclaimed, angry and embarrassed beyond belief.

‘You don’t, you know. You look perfectly charming,” countered Oliver Mayforth unexpectedly. And, leaning back in his chair, he smiled up at her as though, in some odd way, he saw her for the first time.

CHAPTER III

“I wish I’d never gone to that wretched ball—or danced with Oliver Mayforth—or, most of all, let him pretend to make love to me! ” muttered Rachel savagely, as she pounded away at her typewriter that afternoon.

It was the most infuriating thing! She had had to pretend, in the end, to be amused, for both Oliver himself and Dr. Denbey would have thought it odd if she had made too heavy weather of it. But she was not really amused at all. For what girl wants to be photographed—much less have that photograph reprinted a hundred thousand times—smiling tenderly at the wrong man?

Not that the term “wrong man” was quite applicable, she reminded herself. For there was no “right man”, as it happened, in her case. But one didn’t want even casual acquaintances to see a photograph like that. What would Sir Everard think?—if anything other than Hester could interest him at the moment. Or her family?—except that no London evening paper was likely to find its way to Loriville. Or Nigel Seton?

She paused an unnecessarily long time over the possibility of Nigel’s reactions. Until it came to her that he would probably hardly be interested. And that it was quite immaterial to her whether he was or not

Rachel was alone in the office now and very nearly at the end of her work The assistant surgeon had told her that he would not be back that afternoon, and a message had also been sent that Sir Everard would not require her either, as he hoped to get some rest, after his broken night and strenuous morning.

“Once you’ve finished that report, you can go and amuse yourself,” Oliver Mayforth had told her, before he went off. And she had an uneasy feeling that the slight touch of indulgence in his manner was his reaction to the unlucky photograph rather than any tribute to the excellence of her work The prospect of being out on her own in London, however, was so attractive that she stifled her uneasy annoyance, finished her work at top speed, and tidied her desk for the day. It was still only three o’clock—and the rest of the afternoon was hers.

As she went out of the Nursing Home, she paused to ask for the latest report on Hester, and as this was satisfactory, she was able to start off on her afternoon’s exploring with a quiet mind.