To Journey Together (2 page)

The following morning, however, she was late for the office, having been delayed by fog, and as soon as she arrived Miss Pascoe said rather accusingly, "You'd better hurry. Mr. Prynne wants to see you."

"Mr. Pyrnne!" Elinor was startled. Mr. Prynne hardly ever dealt personally with the junior members of the staff, preferring to do so by remote control, through Miss Pascoe. "Because I'm late, do you mean?"

"No. Though I don't expect he'll be too pleased about that," added Miss Pascoe, on principle.

Elinor went along to Mr. Prynne's office with considerable inner trepidation. She could not recall any real error in her recent work, but he might, of course, just have discovered something. Nervously she tapped on the glass panel marked "Private," and, in answer to Mr. Prynne's sharp, "Come in," entered.

An unexpectedly agreeable-looking Mr. Prynne looked up and said, "Come and sit down, Miss Shearn. I have something I want to discuss with you."

Secretly much astonished at being elevated to

discussion level with Mr. Prynne, Elinor sat down and looked politely attentive.

"As you know—" Mr. Prynne leant back in his chair and regarded Elinor with the slightly benign air he usually reserved for very important clients—"Sir Daniel has been ill for some time, and, although I am happy to say he has now largely recovered, his doctor has advised a long holiday abroad. So he and Lady Connelton propose to go first to Austria and then, a little later in the year, on to Italy."

He paused, while Elinor continued to look attentive and secretly wondered what all this had to do with her.

"While he is abroad Sir Daniel will be doing a certain amount of work, partly in connection with an amalgamation which— Well, well—" Mr. Prynne cleared his throat and seemed to think he had almost committed an indiscretion— "you will hear about that later. He will also take the opportunity of making some of those personal contacts by which, as you know, we set so much store." Mr. Prynne was now speaking rather as though he were dictating a brochure. "Unfortunately his personal secretary has had to leave suddenly, owing to family trouble, and the office has been asked to supply someone in her place. I have decided, Miss Shearn, that you would be the right person."

"I, Mr. Prynne?" Elinor looked—indeed felt—as though something had hit her. "But why me? Almost any of the others—" she began agitatedly. But Mr. Prynne interrupted her firmly.

"I have considered the matter very carefully. You are efficient in your work and very conscientious which will suit Sir Daniel. The same could be said of several of your colleagues, I am aware. But you are also quiet and unobtrusive in manner, and that should suit Lady Connelton, whose companion you will, of necessity, more or less be."

"I—I'm very grateful, Mr. Prynne, that you should think so well of me," Elinor stammered. "But I'm not at all sure that I should be the right person.

You
see
—

"You must allow me to be the best judge of that," Mr. Prynne stated firmly. "There is no family or private reason, I take it, why you should not go?"

"Oh—oh, no," admitted Elinor, who could imagine the family's jubilant reception of the idea.

"Tell your people at home about it tonight," Mr. Prynne said, "and see me tomorrow morning first thing. You will be leaving in about a week's time, so we have to hurry things."

With a little nod he indicated that the interview was over, and, getting to her feet, Elinor somehow made her way towards the door. Then, as she reached it, some of the incredible magic of what had been said suddenly burst upon her like sunlight.

"Mr. Prynne—" she turned to face him again—"where did you say we should be going?"

"To the Tyrol first. You'll go through Holland and down the Rhine, I expect, and stay one night in Munich. Then on to Ehrwald. You'll probably still get some winter sports there, and there is a good resident clinic in case Sir Daniel still requires attention."

"And—and didn't you say something about Italy later?"

"Yes. Florence, I think, and Rome, of course."

"Of course," murmured Elinor dazedly, and groped her way out into the everyday world again.

It was the longest day she had ever known, for she could not bring herself to tell the other girls until the whole thing was confirmed. She could hardly believe in it herself, so why should they? But, released at last, she sped home, intoxicated by the unfamiliar sensation of being the centre of a major event.

"Mother, Mother!" She burst into the house with an almost noisy impetuosity entirely foreign to her. "Mother, I'm going to Europe with Sir Daniel and Lady Connelton! For I don't know how many weeks. Down the Rhine—and then to Austria—and Italy! Winter sports—Rome in the spring! Oh, I can't elieve it!"

"What's that, darling?" Her mother came out of the kitchen with a mixing-spoon in her hand and a look of incredulity on her face. "What's this about going to Europe?"

Elinor said it all again, while Deborah hung over the banisters with her ears on stalks, to use her own expressive phrase.

"But how wonderful, dear!" Mrs. Shearn delightedly kissed her flushed eldest daughter, while Deborah cried triumphantly, "I told you you'd need that petticoat!"

"I'll need more than a petticoat," Elinor declared with a laugh.

"You ought to have something in black velvet and terribly slinky," Deborah cried. "There's nothing so glamorous as slinky black velvet. Adventuresses always wear black velvet. And hats with ospreys," she added, in a final flight of imaginary haute couture.

"But I'm not an adventuress," Elinor pointed out.

"No," Deborah agreed regretfully. "But it's very glamorous to look like one, don't you think?"

Elinor said she did not. And then the others started coming in, and each in turn was told the astounding news. Anne thought it was a pity she was not taking in Paris, and Deborah said, rather irrelevantly, "Why not Cairo?"

Mr. Shearn asked if they taught any geography at all at Deborah's school and how she supposed one could go to the Tyrol via Cairo.

"I didn't think so," Deborah explained with dignity. "I just thought—why not Cairo?"

As this appeared to be a repetition which was getting them nowhere, Elinor hastily changed the subject to the question of her outfit, and everyone proceeded to make enjoyable suggestions. Deborah became very shrill again on the subject of black velvet, but the two really constructive suggestions came from Anne and Mr. Shearn.

Anne said, "Get a long lunch-hour if you can and come to the shop. I'll see what I can do for you."

And Mr. Shearn said, "You're the one who has never cost me a penny since you first started to earn your own living, Elinor. You can count on me for twenty pounds towards the wardrobe."

"Daddy!" Greatly moved, both by the tribute and the offer, Elinor went round the table to hug and kiss her father. "Everyone's being so marvellous about it. I just don't know what to say!"

The topic had been discussed from all its fascinating angles before the family retired to bed that night, and the next morning Elinor went to tell Mr. Prynne that she had full parental approval and was now ready to make the final arrangements.

"Well, I suppose you'll need to do some shopping," Mr. Prynne said, with unusual understanding. "And then there's your passport to get—unless you already have one?"

Elinor said she had not, and was immediately despatched to have her photograph taken and to complete the other formalities.

At this point she confessed to the other girls what was taking her out at this odd hour of the morning, and immediately found herself a centre of interest.

"How very strange that Mr. Prynne should pick a junior," Miss Pascoe said tartly. "What could he have been thinking of?"

"I suppose he thought I could be spared more easily than a senior," Elinor said peaceably, thus salving Miss Pascoe's vanity though not appeasing her envy.

The others, however, were whole-heartedly congratulatory, for Elinor was popular in a quiet way.

"I'm just delighted," declared Gladys Smith, generous m the comforting knowledge of her own happiness. "It's what you need, dear, to bring you out of yourself. Why, I shouldn't wonder if you come home engaged."

Elinor smiled and slightly shook her head. But there was no denying that the future had suddenly blossomed with the most strange and enchanting possibilities.

Released from her office duties for most of the day, Elinor made all the arrangements for her passport and then went along to the store where Anne worked. Here, under her young sister's able guidance, she was gradually provided with a wardrobe which, if it did not rival that of Gladys Smith in chic and magnificence, at least provided for most contingencies in a very charming and decorative way.

Anne would have urged her to even further extravagances, but Elinor refused to lose her head.

"I'm only going as a secretary, when all's said and done," she pointed out realistically.

"And companion," Anne reminded her. "And, from the little I saw of her, I'd say Lady Connelton will be a very nice person to be companion to."

Elinor was not sorry to have this reassurance. She knew Sir Daniel as nothing more than a dignified and slightly alarming presence in the office, and the thought that his wife was less intimidating was a relief.

This relief was intensified when, during the next day at the office, she was called to the telephone and a pleasant voice said, "Miss Shearn, this is Lady Connelton speaking. Mr. Prynne tells me you are going to accompany us next week and be a great help, I am sure, to my husband. I think it would be nice if you came along to tea and we got to know each other, don't you?"

"Thank you very much. I should like to." Shy though she was, Elinor was too happy to sound anything but friendly.

"Shall we say half-past four tomorrow, then? I suppose you can have permission to leave the office about four?"

"I expect so. In the circumstances," Elinor added rather gravely, which made Lady Connelton laugh. And then, because she felt she simply must say something about the delight and wonder of the trip, Elinor ran on, "And, Lady Connelton, I—I want to say how thrilled and excited—I mean, I know I am really coming to do work rather than have a holiday —but it's the most wonderful thing that ever hap-

pened. I can't really believe it even now. It—it's like something one makes up, only it never happens. I mean—"

She broke off, suddenly aware that she must sound incoherent and naïve, and not at all like a cool, efficient secretary who could be trusted to keep her head in unusual circumstances.

Lady Connelton seemed to understand, however. She said, "My dear child, I'm glad you find it all so exciting. I like people who enjoy themselves. Have you been abroad much before?"

"Never."

"Never? Oh, then we are going to have a nice time together," the older woman declared. And on this promising note the conversation ended.

As Elinor set out from the office the following afternoon, she tried to keep her spirits from bouncing too dangerously high.

"There are bound to be a few snags," she reminded herself. "I mustn't be put out if things are not quite as I hope."

The Conneltons lived in a big, old-fashioned but handsome house near Regent's Park, and the maid who admitted Elinor was quiet and elderly.

"My lady is expecting you," she said in a friendly tone as she took Elinor's coat and then led the way into a pleasant firelit room. "I'll tell her you are here."

Left alone, Elinor glanced round with interest. The furniture, she knew, was good and what used to be called "solid," there were one or two attractive and perfectly understandable pictures on the walls, and there were several bowls of flowers, well, but not too professionally, arranged. Altogether a room she liked on sight and in which she felt very much at home.

A little diffidently Elinor sat down, but she came to her feet again almost immediately as the sound of quick footsteps announced the arrival of Lady Connelton, and a moment later a very well-groomed, grey-haired woman came into the room.

"Good afternoon, Miss Shearn. How nice of you to find time to come along." She spoke as though Elinor were doing her a personal favour in leaving the office early. "Do sit down and we'll have some tea."

Elinor sat down and regarded her hostess shyly, taking in the fact that she was a pleasant, forceful type of woman in her late fifties, and that there was a humorous lift to the corners of her mouth which augured well for the future months together.

As she poured out tea, Lady Connelton discoursed at some length on the arrangements for the trip.

"Mr. Prynne worked it all out personally, partly to suit us and partly, I am sure, to suit the affairs of the firm," she stated with a laugh. "With Ehrwald as a centre, Ken can go easily to most of the Austrian, Italian and south German holiday resorts, and to the music festival cities. Really, it was very well chosen."

Elinor agreed politely, supposing that "Ken" was her special name for Sir Daniel. But she could not help thinking it sounded an energetic programme for an elderly man convalescing.

"Shall I be travelling to these places, too?" she enquired.