A Promise Is for Keeping (13 page)

Mark got up. "I'll take you up on that one of these days. Where is Lamontella? Italian Riviera?"

"That's right—and it would make me very happy to know you were there."

"We'll see. It certainly sounds attractive," Mark said. "But our first job at the moment is to get you ready for that operation and the first order is no smoking—none at all."

"Right, doctor, I'll be good. Geoff will help me. It's mostly when I'm alone that I smoke too much—take out my old pipe and light up before I know what I'm doing. You'll stop me, won't you, my boy?"

Mark swung round to Geoff. "I'm afraid it means no smoking for you too—you'll have to get them to push you outside if you want to smoke."

"That's all right—I'm not a heavy smoker, and I can't smoke and write—not when I'm in bed, anyway," Geoff agreed. "Mr. Oliver has been giving me such marvellous descriptions of his villa and the countryside around that I can see it all and feel as if I've been there. It's going to be very handy," he said, picking up his writing pad significantly.

"Picking up copy, eh?" It was the first time Mark had spoken to Geoff about his writing. "Is the hospital going to get into your novel too?"

"Oh, sure thing. You'll all be in it," Geoff told them. The remark was greeted with good-natured laughter. "I'll have the law on you if you say I've got big feet,"

Shorty, who took size twelve, threatened.

"Well, it's the most noticeable thing about you," Mark twitted his houseman, and added, "I wonder if we shall recognise ourselves."

There was no room left for wondering on that point, Fay discovered, when she read the opening chapters of "Life's Beginning."

There was no doubt at all whom Geoff had cast for his heroine.

Time being a commodity which was always in short supply with her, Fay was utilising the occasion of the train journey

to Buckinghamshire to see Toni to read Geoff's manuscript, so that both items could be crowded into her one day off.

Her first reaction when she had heard of Toni's illness had been to pay her a visit, but other things had intervened. Her rejection of Mark's suggestion that she should undertake to nurse his grandmother had made her feel a little awkward about proposing the trip and his outburst over Geoff Wentworth had been a further barrier to an easy approach.

She had felt hemmed in on every side with inhibitions. Her natural impulse to ring up Beechcroft to get a report on Toni's condition had been thwarted by the recollection that Horsey must know by now that she and Mark worked in the same hospital and she would think it strange that she did not get her news through him. But here too there was difficulty. He sometimes switched from the professional to the personal relationship, from the hospital to Beechcroft, but she had never been the first to initiate the transposition and she felt shy of doing so.

Eventually, however, she had nerved herself to make the approach, and it had been easier than she had thought it would be.

"How is your grandmother?" had been her rather stilted opening. She had hesitated to say "Toni" for fear of seeming too familiar.

"She's made quite a good comeback," he told her. "She sits out now and can move around with help. She's still a little slow in speech, and of course vague at times."

"I've been wondering if she'd be well enough to have visitors—whether she'd like me to go down and see her."

Mark's face lit up with one of his flashing smiles which always made her think of sunshine on a lake which until then had been cold and grey. "I'm sure she would be delighted to see you—her angel child! I'm afraid she still confuses you with your mother."

"I have a free day next Wednesday," she suggested.

For a moment a cloud obscured the sunshine of his smile. "That's my operating day," he said. "I couldn't drive you down that day."

"But there's a very adequate train service from Baker

Street," she pointed out, "and in any case wouldn't it be less of a strain for Toni to have visitors one at a time?"

"Perhaps you're right," he admitted a little grudgingly. "I'll be ringing Horsey tonight—I'll tell them to expect you on Wednesday, then. D'you know about train times, and where to change?"

"Oh yes, thank you—I found that out at Christmas."

For a moment Mark looked at her without replying. There wasn't any need of a reply really, she reflected, but he did not seem to consider the conversation ended. "Yes," he remarked reflectively, "the time I failed to meet you at the airport. Things might have been very different if we hadn't misfired then—we might have got to know something about one another on the drive down." Then abruptly his face changed, and he spoke briskly. "I'll tell them to expect you by the morning train, then," and turned on his heel and walked away.

And now it was Wednesday and a beautiful morning in early May. Through the train windows first the suburban gardens, bright with spring flowers, and then the fresh green of the countryside and the hedgerows in full blossom tempted her attention away from the manuscript which lay in her lap.

Once she did bring herself to start to read her attention was held. "Life's Beginning" might be a first novel, but it was good. She read quickly, professionally, and it did not take her long to realise that here was talent in no small measure. The early chapters were touching in their portrayal of a sensitive, imaginative little boy, who emerged as a real child. The adolescent stage was not quite so good, and his account of his first meeting with Jocelyn, his first glimpse of romantic love, lacked vitality and warmth. But those two qualities returned in full and overflowing measure as the story proceeded. He met another girl—at an international skating meeting in the Austrian Tyrol—and this was his "Life's Beginning."

As Fay read on her heart grew cold and heavy and all the brightness went out of the day. Mark had been right. This girl of the ice rink, though her name was different and the setting and circumstances of their meeting fictitious, she could not fail to recognise as herself.

The chapters she had did not go much beyond the first

meeting, but with a sense of chill foreboding Fay remembered that it was she who had told Geoff that he could bend his story's ending to his own desire.

Fay, who had only seen Beechcroft under the snow, was unprepared for the loveliness of the surrounding countryside. Even the Victorian Gothic house itself seemed less out of place with the gentler background of different shades of green. The garden too was aglow with patches of brilliant colour, whereas before it had been featureless under the snow. Unbidden the thought which sprang first to Fay's mind was, "What a lovely place for children to grow up !" and she was thinking not of Helen or Wendy, the present generation, but of children who might have been there twenty years or more ago—of Mark and his sister.

She did not need to go right up to the house, for Toni was sitting, well wrapped up, in the sunshine on the terrace. Behind her through the open french windows Fay could see that the small downstairs sitting room had been utilised as a bedroom now.

Another chair was set out beside Toni's and a small table, so Fay knew that she was expected. Toni had a smile of welcome, too, as soon as she caught sight of her visitor, but Fay was not sure at first whether Toni did indeed remember who she was, or that she was expected, or whether perhaps the charm which had been her chief asset all through her long life was still standing by her.

"My dear angel child!" she greeted her, stretching out her one good hand.

Fay bent and kissed her on both cheeks and was surprised to notice how soft and smooth the old lady's skin was. "How are you, Toni? It is good to see you enjoying the sunshine."

Toni gave a little grimace. "Sunshine—you call it sunshine? It's bright, but there's no hot in it
anymore
."

That was the first sign she gave of the results of her second stroke, that of choosing the wrong word and producing her words slowly. Otherwise, as Fay sat and chatted and listened to her memories, Fay might have been back at Christmas time—except that Mark was not there, nor any of the others.

Horsey, who must have heard voices, came out with coffee and biscuits and stayed a few minutes to chat.

Nurse had gone into the village, she told Fay, but would be back soon—and she was a good soul. There was also a young Italian girl in the house—au pair—because Toni, so Horsey explained, very often found it easier to express her thoughts in her native tongue these days. She too was a nice young thing.

When the housekeeper had gone inside again Fay settled herself to let Toni talk or be silent as she would—not wanting to tire her out with too much talking and content enough herself just to be there. She had not realised it, had not even thought that such a thing could be possible, but she had been homesick for Beechcroft as though indeed she had once been a part of the days into which every now and then Toni slipped back.

Fay tried to take her cues from Toni, but it was sometimes a little difficult to follow her thread of thought, as it veered from the 'present to the past, and even to the future, in a matter of seconds.

There was a tiny stream running through the garden, a pretty sight now, sparkling in the sunshine. Toni's eyes rested on it a moment, then she said slowly, "Mark says it will have to be filled in—it is dangerous for the children."

Since the stream was not more than a couple of inches deep it could not have presented any danger to Helen or Wendy—only to toddlers perhaps. To Mark's children? Fay managed to remain non-committal and did not ask any questions, but she was wondering. Did Toni after all know about Mark's wife and children? But if so, why weren't they at Beechcroft at Christmas—and why had Mark not told her of them? There were no ready answers to these questions, nor to many more she would have liked to ask. She could have asked Horsey many things, but her innate loyalty forbade that. By asking her questions she might have disclosed knowledge which the others did not have.

But Toni was off into the past again. "We must get the tree house repaired," she said. There was no tree house now, though there were plenty of trees which might have held such a child's delight. "Oh—but I forgot. One of the child-

ren fell out and broke an arm. We can't have that happening again?"

"Which one of the children was it?" Fay asked, but for answer she got an entirely different subject. "I'm worried about Mark," Toni told her. "I didn't want him to marry too young—he had his work to think of. But it is time now. He should marry soon. I would like to see my great-grandchildren," she finished with a smile.

Fay's previous surmises were shattered. Toni obviously did not know—or if she did, she had forgotten.

By lunch time the nurse had returned from her shopping in the village and turned out to be a kindly woman in her mid-fifties. The Italian girl came to the table with Horsey. She was young and shy and very pretty, but as yet she could speak little English. Toni, Fay noticed, could take very little food, and she began to realise that Toni's looks were deceptive. She was frailer than she had at first imagined.

All through a long sunlit afternoon she sat beside Toni on the terrace while she alternately dozed or chatted. It was all very peaceful and—yes—strangely enough it was happy. Toni's illness did not in any way seem to have detracted from the graciousness of her way of living, and those about her were normal and naturally cheerful. She remarked as much to Horsey when they were alone for a moment.

"Mark is most insistent about that," the housekeeper told her. "He won't have her illness bring her sorrow or ugliness if he can help it. That's why he wanted you to come and nurse her—though he knew it was all wrong to ask you—but there's nothing he won't do for his grandmother."

The long day drew to a close with the arrival of the car which was to take her to the station. There was a certain sadness in Fay's heart as she prepared to leave. There was the sadness of last times about it. She did not think that she would see either Toni or Beechcroft again. They would soon be just a memory to be treasured along with the memories she already had of that time with Mark. Only already the two were getting mixed and she saw herself and Mark here at Beechcroft in all the beauty of summer and not in the bleakness of winter. She sighed as she realised that this was all she would ever have of Mark and Beechcroft—just

memories. And memories, however sweet, do not assuage hunger when you are young.

At the last moment there was a delay which nearly caused her to miss her train. Earlier in the day Toni had told her that she must take back some roses with her to London, but it had been a passing thought and Fay had not reminded her. But Toni remembered and sent Lisa with a pair of scissors to the greenhouse where the flowers for the house were grown, and a lot of voluble instructions in Italian.

The girl came back with a generous bunch of deep red rosebuds which she presented to Fay with a shy smile. "For you wiz love," she said, immensely proud of her English.

Goodbyes had to be hurried then, and at the very last Toni called after her, "You will give the roses to Mark, won't you?"

Fay had evidently misunderstood, for she had thought the roses were for her, but she quickly adjusted and gave Toni the assurance that they should be delivered to Mark at the first opportunity.