Orphan Bride (14 page)

The girl called Cleo looked anything but pleased at the prospect
of having her
tete-a-tete
spoilt, and Jennet knew what these others seemed to have forgotten that Julian was probably in pain and wanted to rest his leg.

“Oh, please,” she said, uncomfortably aware that she was suddenly the focus of attention and Julian was not pleased. “I don’t mind what I do. I’ll go back to Piggy’s, Cousin Julian.”

Too late she remembered
that he had told her to call him Julian, and she saw his mouth tighten. But Luke, either for reasons of perversity or a genuine wish to amuse her, was insistent.

“Come on, you old spoil-sport, let her come with us,” he said. “We’ll return her to store at six or half-past, and that will save going all the way out to Piggy’s.”

Julian got to his feet.

“Very well,” he said, disliking so much fuss, “Jennet must please herself.”

It was not a very gracious form of permission, and Jennet would have liked to do whatever he wished, but she saw it was better not to prolong the unimportant discussion any longer, and unwillingly she decided to go with Luke and his annoyed companion.

They were standing
o
n the pavement, waiting for Cleo, who had retired to make up her face, when a voice suddenly shouted out of the crowds

“Jen-ny
!
Jenny Brown!”

Jennet whirled round. She would have known that voice anywhere. Milly White, in a tight emerald-green jumper, her hair frizzed in little curls all over her head, was pushing her way towards them, followed by a young man
.

“
Milly
!
” cried Jennet with all the gladness in the world in her voice.

Milly slapped Jennet soundly on the back.

“
I knew it was you, in spite of your posh hat, and I said to Bert: ‘There’s Jenny Brown. She and me wear the old school-tie of Blacker’s Bairns, didn’t I, Bert? Then I saw Mr. Dane, and I knew I was right.
H
ow are you, Mr. Dane? I hope our Jenny-wren satisfies your dear aunt?
”

“Very well, thank you, to both questions,” replied Julian gravely, while Luke looked on with a delighted eye.

“Oh, Milly, I’ve thought of you such a lot,” Jennet said, and neither man had heard such a nostalgic emotion in her voice before. “Tell me what you’re doing now. When did you leave Blacker’s?”

“Well, after you got yourself adopted, I was kind of lucky. I’m behind the counter in Sparks and Spicer in Oxford Street, art
,
jewellery and haberdashery. You must come up and see me some time and we’ll have a good laugh at our old college days. Oh, and I must tell you about Matron’s pep-talk when I left. What do you think she
said...”

She pulled Jennet aside and they stood, arm-in-arm, laughing and exclaiming. Luke glanced at Julian’s grim face and murmured: “One of your prospective brides?
Well, well!”

Julian made no reply but tapped Jennet on the shoulder with his stick.

“I’m afraid we must be moving on,” he said politely
. “
Goodbye, Miss White. It’s nice to have met you again.
”

“Oh, bye-bye, Mr. Dane.” Milly joined her Bert, hovering a little embarrassed in the background. “Don’t forget, Jenny—Sparks and Spicer. I’ll be looking out for you.”

“
Oh, I will,” said Jennet fervently. “I’ll come the very first opportunity I have. Goodbye.”

As they moved away, she turned to Julian with an eager
_B
question, but Cleo joined them at that moment, and Julian raised his hat.

“Well, here we go our separate ways,” he said. I expect you about six, Jennet.
Au revoir
!”

She looked after him a little wistfully. She knew he had not been pleased at the meeting with Milly.

“Quite understandable, you know,” Luke murmured in her ear
. “h
e’s probably considering the might-have-been.”

“Who’s considering the might-have-been?” asked Cleo crossly. “Really, Miss Brown, with all due respect to your feelings, I think your cousin has become an awful boor.”

“He’s been walking a lot and he was in a lot of pain,
”
said Jennet quite sharply, and Luke grinned.

“Quite right, Galatea, you stick up for, the old curmudgeon.”

“Why do you call her Galatea?” asked Cleo suspiciously.

Luke placed a hand under each girl’s elbow and propelled them gently along the pavement.

“Never mind, my poppet, you wouldn’t understand,” he said.
“Now we three are going to find a nice restful cinema, and then you and I will hold hands because Jennet is much too well brought up to think of such a thing.”

It was raining as they came out of the cinema. When they reached Julian’s block of flats, Luke took Jennet up in the lift to make sure she got the right floor, then, with a wave of the hand, disappeared from view, leaving her alone in the corridor.

Julian
o
pened the door to her, and his first words were: “For heaven’s sake! You look like a drowned rat! Where’s your hat?”

She held it out to him.

“I took it off so that it wouldn’t be spoilt. I’m not really very wet.”

“Well, come in. Better have spoilt the hat than messed up your hair for the evening.”

“You always were extravagant about hats,” she told him demurely, and he smiled a little unwillingly and switched on the electric fire.

“Sit on the floor and dry it out. You look very like the little skinned rabbit I took from the orphanage eight months ago. Did you enjoy your film?”

She curled up o
n
the floor by the fire and shook the raindrops out of her hair.

“Very much, except that I think I spoilt the other girl’s afternoon.”

Julian grinned.

“I shouldn’t be surprised! Good old Luke—must have two strings to his bow. It was nice of him to amuse you though. I’m afraid I’ve not been a very good escort.”

“You’ve been very kind,” she said, quite without reproach. She had never expected Julian to give up his time to her. “Did you rest this afternoon?”

“Lay on the sofa with a nice thriller and went to sleep
,
I’m afraid.”

“Oh, do you read thrillers?” It was the last thing of which she would have suspected him, and it seemed suddenly to make him more human. “You might have
chosen one for dictation sometimes.”

He looked at her curled up on his Chinese rug, and his face softened. The fine hair was beginning to curl at the ends, and her face was flushed from the heat of the fire.
“Dictation was meant to be instructive,” he told her. “Did I force improvement on you
very hard, Jennet?”

She turned her back to the fire and flung back her head to the heat.

“I don’t know. I expect I needed it. Wasn’t it funny meeting Milly like that? Would I have time to go and see her at Sparks and Spicer before I go back?”

His expression altered.

“No, you wouldn’t,” he said, “I’ve changed my plan
s and
I’ve decided to drive you down to Pennycross tomorrow.
”

“Oh!” There was intense disappointment in the exclamation. “I thought—couldn’t I stay a few more days? It’s such a change.”

“And spend the week-end in Piggy
’
s flat? Not much of a change, I shouldn’t have thought. Wouldn’t it
be
pleasanter to go down by road with me than travel by yourself?”

“Yes, Cousin Julian,” she said with a sigh, and he made a gesture of impatience.

“I thought I’d asked you to drop this Cousin Julian business,” he said. “I shall have Luke and everyone else doing it, too, if I’m not careful!
”

She turned over again, hiding her face from him with a soft curtain of hair.

“I’m sorry, but it
is
difficult to remember. First you were Mr. Dane, then you were Cousin Julian, and now you’re just Julian. It makes me feel kind of familiar.
”

He looked at her sharply.

“Why on earth should it?
You call Luke by his Christian name without any fuss, and you can scarcely go on addressing me as Cousin Julian when we’re married.”

She looked up swiftly, showing him a startled face, and he smiled a little grimly. “You hadn’t forgotten that was they general idea, had you?”

She blinked.

“No, I hadn’t forgotten,” she said. It was only such a surprise to hear him mention it at all. “Julian, if I wrote a letter to Sparks and Spicer, would Milly get it?”

He got up from his chair, and stood leaning on his stick, slightly turned away from her
.

“
I’d rather you didn’t write,” he said briefly.

“Why not?”

“For obvious reasons. You saw what sort she was.”

“You mean you’d be ashamed of her,” she said in a small voice.

He gave a gesture of exasperation.

“Of course I’m not ashamed of her. She’s all very well in her place, but not a suitable friend for you, now.”

“I spent sixteen years of my life with her and others like her,” said Jennet slowly.

“
I daresay you did, but those days are past.” He turned suddenly and looked down at her with hard eyes. “Once and for all, Jennet, I don’t want you to have any further connection with the orphanage. You’re living in quite a different world now,
and no good can be served by keeping up these old attachments. I don’t want you to write to Milly, and if you come to London again you are not to go and see her, understand?”

She lowered her eyes, and the flush faded
.

“Yes, Cou—Julian,” she said.

He smiled at her reassuringly.

“Now go and make yourself tidy before Jeremy arrives.”

CHAPTER
N I N E

Driving down with Julian the next day, Jennet reviewed the evening and found much that was unexpected in it.

She and Julian and old Jeremy Pritchard had dined in leisurely fashion, while Jennet, contributing little to the conversation, listened with pleasure to the two men talking. Julian seemed at ease with Jeremy, and despite the difference in their ages they were evidently old friends. The old man still stared at her with his keen, observant eyes, but she did not mind his stare now that she knew he was a painter.

“And you, my dear,” he said to her suddenly, “wouldn’t you rather be dining somewhere gay with a nice young man, instead of here with two quiet bachelors?”

“No,” she said with grave surprise, “I don’t think I would, although—” she glanced with faint apology at
Julian—“I never have, so perhaps I can’t really judge.”

Jeremy shook back his shock of white hair and exclaimed:

“A-ha! Don’t tell me that in these modern times, Julian, you have managed to preserve that rarity of all rarities, a young girl sheltered from sophistication?”

Julian smiled, then his eyes as they rested for a moment on Jennet were grave.

“
Yes, I think I have,” he said.

Jeremy cocked an eyebrow.

“And you think you will keep her like this
?
”

T
he lines about Julian’s mouth deepened.

“Yes, I think so,” he said. “She’s my aunt’s ward, you know.
”

“Yes,” said Jeremy with a twinkle, “I’d heard,” and reaching for his brandy glass with long sensitive fingers, added softly: “Pygmalion.”

Jennet’s eyes widened in anticipation.

“
Wi
ll
you tell, me the story of Pygmalion and Galatea, Mr. Pritchard?” she asked, and Julian began to cut a cigar with some care.

“Pygmalion was a sculptor who created a beautiful statue,” began Jeremy, delighted at such a receptive audience. “He became so enchanted with his work that he fell in love with his creation, only, you see, Galatea was a thing of stone or marble. He had fashioned her, but he could not breathe life into her.”

“Oh
...
” Her lips were parted, and her high forehead wrinkled with perplexity. She was thinking of Luke’s queer remark: “It’s uncomfortable work being a statue, isn’t it?”

“And did he—did she come alive?” she asked anxiously. But Jeremy, warming his glass between his shapely hands, smiled tantalizingly and replied:

“Julian, no doubt, will tell you the rest of the story one day.”

“My old friend likes to tease,” Julian said, looking up for the first time. “You mustn’t take him too seriously. Jeremy, some more coffee?”

As he spoke the doorbell rang abruptly, and Luke’s voice could be heard demanding admission.

“Hello
!
What are you doing here?” Julian enquired as he let him in. “I thought you were doing the town with the boring Cleo
.
”

“She’s not really boring, my dear fellow—it just depends on your point of view,” Luke said, patting Jennet absently on the head. “But she seemed to get more and more difficult as the day progressed, and finally stood me up and went off with another
party.” Julian poured him a drink and gave him a cigar. “Thanks. Incidentally, the boring Cleo has
no great opinion of you, come to that. She told Jennet that you had become a boor, and the nice child upped and defended you in no uncertain terms.”

“Did you, Jennet?” said Julian, looking surprised. “That was very charming of you.”

“But she is very charming. I told her so only today,” said Luke.

He flung himself into a chair, and Julian drew the curtains, and switched on the lights.

“Do you still sing, Jennet?” Luke asked idly.

“A little.”

“Sing for us now. She really has a charming voice, Jeremy.”

“Delightful,” said Jeremy, rubbing his hands together. “You really have been clever, Julian.
”

Jennet glanced enquiringly at Julian. He nodded, then went to the piano.