Away Went Love (3 page)

They ran along, shouting good-bye over their shoulder with a friendliness quite undiminished by this prohibition. As Richard passed them, he smiled irresistibly, and Bridget, who was on good terms with all the world, said, “Hello.”

“Who was that man?” she inquired interestedly, the moment they had come into the flat and Hope had shut the door.

“Just a friend of mine who called.”

“What sort of a friend?”

“How do you mean?—’what sort of a friend’?”

“Well, I mean—is he a friendly friend or just an acquaintance sort of friend?”

‘I think you might call him a friendly friend,” Hope admitted with a smile. “How did you enjoy yourselves?”

“It was lovely,” Bridget assured her. “But I
wish
I wasn’t too old to go on the elephants.”

“Elephants!” snorted Tony contemptuously. “I liked the insecks best. We saw some spiders that eat their young. Did you know there were spiders that eat their young?” Hope said that she had had a horrid suspicion of the fact. “Well, I don’t
believe
it,” cried Bridget, who was tenderhearted. “If they eat their young, how is it that there are any of them left?”

“Perhaps they only eat them when they’re very hungry,” suggested Tony. “And then when they get past a certain age p’r’aps the others don’t want to eat them after all. How young do you suppose the young have to be for the others to eat them, Hope?”

Hope, who saw this discussion stretching into infinity, said truthfully that she had no idea, and, talking of eating, weren’t they ready for their supper?

Fortunately this proved a welcome diversion and the subject of the infanticidal spiders was dropped.

“What time is our train down to Orterville tomorrow?” inquired Bridget, doing more than justice to the meal.

“We’re catching the two-thirty from Charing Cross. I understand Doctor Tamberly’s expected sometime before lunch, and I daresay his mother will want him to herself for a bit. If we arrive round about tea-time, that should be all right.”

“Did Doctor Tamberly fly back?”

“I think so. Yes—of course he must have because of the time.”

“I think he’s jolly brave,” Bridget said thoughtfully and solemnly. “You’d think he’d be afraid of an aeroplane after what happened.”

“Doctor Tamberly isn’t afraid of anything,” stated Tony with authority.

“I don’t see how you can know that,” Bridget countered quickly, resenting this assumption of superior knowledge.

“Well, I do know it.”

“You can’t know it. And, anyway, he is afraid of someone. He’s afraid of Hope.”

“Afraid of me!” exclaimed Hope, while Tony gave vent to a sound which was something between a snort and a hoot and clearly indicative of mirthful scepticism.

“It’s quite true. That time Mrs. Tamberly and he took us to the pantomine last Christmas I asked him if he didn’t like you in that silver fox fur Daddy had given you for Christmas. And he said, ‘Most impressive,’ and I asked him what he meant by that and he said, ‘Quite lovely but very terrifying,’ so there you are.”

“He didn’t say that?” exclaimed Hope, flushing unexpectedly.

‘He did.’

“What impertinence!”

Bridget drank cocoa and stared at her sister over the rim of her cup.

“I don’t think he meant it to be impert’nent,” she said reflectively.

“I expect he meant it for a joke,” Tony explained boredly.

“But it’s not funny,” protested Bridget.

“No. But perhaps he thought it was. People often think things are when they aren’t,” Tony pointed out with innocent cynicism.

“Quite so,” said Hope hastily, and privately decided not to wear her silver fox fur tomorrow after all. Not that it mattered what silly thing Errol Tamberly had said to Bridget at the pantomine. But, anyway, she wouldn’t wear it.

However, when tomorrow came, it brought with it the kind of cool, treacherous wind in which an English April excels. It was obviously a day for a fur with one’s suit. It would be ridiculous to leave it off simply because of some silly remark made some months ago. And anyway—

Hope wore the silver fox fur, and was glad that neither of the children seemed to find the fact noteworthy.

The journey down to Orterville took something over an hour, and all three of them were a good deal subdued by the thought of what lay ahead. Hope was the only one of the three who actively disliked the idea of having to discuss their intimate concerns with Dr. Tamberly, but the children—young though they were—were quite capable of realizing that, making this visit, they were also making the last approach possible to the parents they had loved and lost.

Until now it had sometimes been difficult not to believe that, though there was no home to go to during
these
holidays, that was only because their parents had prolonged their stay abroad, and
next
holidays all would be as it always had been. This meeting with Dr. Tamberly,
who had
so recently come from the scene of the tragedy, was going to bring it all much nearer and make it more horribly believable.

Once or twice Hope glanced anxiously at Bridget, and noticed that though she looked out of the window with great attention and apparent interest, her mouth quivered from time to time.

‘They’re such good children!’ thought Hope, full of anxious love for them. ‘Richard and I must marry as soon as possible and have a home for them to come to in the holidays.’

She slipped her hand into Bridget’s and squeezed it sympathetically, receiving in return a fervent handclasp and a rather unsteady smile.

Orterville was little more than a country halt, and when they got out of the train there was only one solitary figure, walking impatiently up and down the platform.

“There’s Doctor Tamberly,” exclaimed Bridget, coming to a dead stop as he walked towards them.

Then at the sight of him—so familiar in himself, so reminiscent of other more familiar figures—the tears which she had been keeping back with difficulty for the last hour suddenly became uncontrollable, and with a sob she flung her arms around Errol Tamberly and buried her face against him.

Without hesitation, the big, dark man picked her up off the ground, kissing her and holding her close in a way that rather astonished Hope.

“She’ll—she’ll be all right in a minute,” Hope said, a good deal moved herself.

“Yes, of course. Come along. I’ve got the car waiting.”

He carried Bridget out of the station, Hope and Tony following rather solemnly behind.

“It’s a good job we’ve got him, really, isn’t it?” whispered Tony. And Hope—who had certainly not regarded Errol Tamberly in that light—said surprisedly:

“Y-yes. I suppose so.”

Bridget recovered quite quickly, but seemed glad to be installed in the front of the car with Dr. Tamberly, while Hope sat in the back with Tony. Both children, she noted with surprise, seemed to derive considerable comfort from Errol Tamberly’s presence, possibly because he represented a real grown-up to them, and gave them a sense of security which a mere elder sister failed to impart.

Very little was said on the short drive to the house, and Hope, from her corner of the back seat, spent the time studying Errol Tamberly—or as much of him as could be seen from her somewhat diagonal point of view.

His hat was pulled rather far down and slightly to one side, so that it almost touched the one thick dark eyebrow which she could see. It was a strong, uncompromising face. Not exactly a handsome face—certainly not in the way Richard was handsome. The bone-structure was good, but on the heavy side, the eyes dark and penetrating and a little frightening, and one certainly could not imagine that rather full, firm mouth saying “No” and ultimately changing it to “Yes.”

Her father had always maintained that he was a good friend. That might be so, but of one thing Hope felt certain—he would be a most formidable enemy.

None of them had ever been to the Tamberly home before, and both the children exclaimed with pleasure at the sight of the long, uneven mellow brick house, with ivy climbing up the tall chimney-stacks.

“Oh, isn’t it pretty! Look at that yellow moss in among the red tiles,” cried Bridget, greatly consoled.

“And doesn’t it look old! Is it very old? Is there a ghost inquired Tony hopefully.

“Oh, no! I hope not. I don’t want a ghost,” Bridget protested anxiously. “There isn’t a ghost, is there, Doctor Tamberly? I couldn’t
bear
it.”

“There’s no ghost,” Dr. Tamberly stated categorically, and lifted Bridget out of the car, before he turned to open the front door.

The front door led straight into a square, half-panelled hall, where a bright wood fire burnt on the open hearth, and Mrs. Tamberly—elegant and a little languid in a rather trailing dress of russet-colored velvet—waited to welcome them.

The setting was almost too good to be true, Hope couldn’t help thinking, and recalled without remorse her description of Mrs. Tamberly to Enid Feldon. She admitted, however, that the welcome was kindly, and she was glad that Mrs. Tamberly kissed both the children.

“It’s very kind of you to have us all down for the weekend, Mrs. Tamberly,” she said. To which her hostess replied in a soft, rather impressively contralto voice:

“But, darling, of course I wanted you all. And it’s only right for the children to see their new home as soon as possible.”

Hope looked startled.

“Their new—home?”

“Why, of course. Hasn’t Errol told you?”

“There hasn’t been time or opportunity for explanations yet, Mother,” her son interrupted dryly.

“No, no. I daresay not. Well, suppose you tell them now.”

Errol Tamberly frowned.

“Hadn’t they better see their rooms and have their tea first, before we have any discussion?”

“Before any
discussion
, if you like. But I think they’d like to know right away. Children,” she said, in that slightly artificial way of hers, “how do you like the idea of having Doctor Tamberly for your guardian?”

Hope gave a slight gasp. But Tony and Bridget, with the stolidity of childhood, considered the proposition on its own merits.

“Would that be rather like having him for an uncle?” Bridget enquired.

“Very much like that,” Mrs. Tamberly assured her.

“And should we come here in the holidays?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“I’d like that all right, wouldn’t you?” Bridget turned to Tony.

“Can we think it over?” enquired Tony, who was more cautious.

“No, I’m afraid you can’t,” Mrs. Tamberly said, laughing. “But we can
talk
it over. Though it’s really all settled. Now come along, children, and you shall see your rooms.”

Hope standing there, silent and stunned, holding her hat in her hand, felt that she was probably included in the “children” this time. But she made no move to follow Bridget and Tony as they obediently went up the stairs in the wake of Mrs. Tamberly. Instead she took a few quick steps across the hall to Errol Tamberly, who was standing by the fire, his back half turned to her.

“Isn’t this a little precipitate?” she asked in a low, angry voice. “What makes you think you can arrange the lives of my brother and sister in this high-handed manner, without even consulting me?”

He turned rather slowly then and looked down at her. “I didn’t mean it to be presented to you in quite that way,” he said. “But the arrangement—high-handed or otherwise—is not mine. Your father wished me to become the children’s guardian.”

“
Daddy
did?” She fell back from him. “But had he forgotten
me?
Where do I come in all this?”

He took her by the arm rather abruptly and said: “You’d better sit down.”

“I don’t
want
to sit down.” Did he think she was going to faint or something ridiculous?

“Oh, please—”

To her surprise, she thought she detected pity as well as impatience in his tone. And suddenly she sat down in the big armchair by the fire and stared up at him anxiously.

“What
is
all this? Will you please explain? Why should you be made the children’s guardian? Why shouldn’t I have the job of looking after them and making a home for them? I’m perfectly capable of it!”

For a moment he stared down rather moodily at her. Then he shifted his gaze to the fire, and it was the first time she could ever remember him failing to meet someone’s glance.

“Your father realized that the financial burden would be too much for you.”

“The financial burden? But that’s ridiculous. There must be plenty of money for them and for me. There always has been.”

There was silence.

“There always has been,” she repeated, as though the phrase fascinated her with its specious sound of security.

“Well, there isn’t any more,” he said with curtness which might have been brutal or embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you to hear about it in this bald way, but the fact is there, however nicely one wraps it up. Your father died practically penniless.”