The girl in the blue dress (6 page)

Then she went into the house, and immediately Aunt
Ellen popped out from the front room to demand,
"For goodness' sake, who was that in the hand
some car?"

"That was Franklin Lowell,
" said Beverley, taking off her hat and running her fingers through her
hair,
while she tried to look as
though it were nothing in
her young life to
be driven up to the house by a
reputed millionaire. Or near enough.

"Franklin Lowell?" Aunt Ellen sounded
more scandalized than approving. "But he's engaged to the eldest Wayne
girl, surely. You shouldn't go driving around the country with another girl's fiancé!"

"Oh, Aunt Ellen, don't be so stuffy, "
said Beverley, thereby causing her aunt to look very much offended. "He
only gave me a lift home because I missed my bus. But come into Mother's room
and hear all about it. I've had the most exciting afternoon!"

Curiosity getting the better of any huffiness, Aunt
Ellen followed Beverley into her mother's
room. And here, over another cup of tea, Beverley gave a lively account of her
first visit to Huntingford Grange.

She missed out all that Toni had said, of course,
and she did not give any of her own impressions of
Sara's curious listlessness or apparent lack of interest in her trousseau. But
she enlarged on the attractive prospects of the actual work, and also on the
friend
liness which had been shown her.

"Darling, how kind Mrs. Wayne sounds, "
exclaimed her mother. "She really need not have kept you to tea like that.
Or, at least, not in her own drawing
room."

"It's always a mistake to start by being too friendly,
" observed Aunt Ellen gloomily.

"Why?" enquired her sister flatly.

For a moment Aunt Ellen was nonplussed. Then she
expressed it as her opinion that people who started that way usually ended by
thinking you were presuming on their friendliness.

"Beverley would never presume on anyone, "
stated Mrs. Farman firmly. "How did you get home, dear?

You're too early to have come by the bus, surely?"

Beverley explained about missing the bus and about being
given a lift by Franklin Lowell.

"And, just imagine, Mother! it was Mr. Lowell
who bought that picture which Geoffrey painted of me when I was fourteen."

This information so delighted her mother, and even
impressed Aunt Ellen, that Beverley had to explain about this too, in detail.
And at the end her
mother said,

"Fancy Geoffrey never mentioning the fact to
you!"

"But he probably didn't know of Mr. Lowell as
anything but a name until quite recently."

"He could have told you recently, though, "
put in Aunt Ellen, in a vaguely censorious tone.

"Oh, I daresay he didn't think of it. Or he
didn't think of my ever having any connection with Mr. Lowell or being
interested. But I think I shall run down a bit later and see if Geoffrey is
in." Carelessly she proposed the one thing she had been longing to do ever
since Toni had dealt her that blow. "He will be interested to hear of my
meeting with Mr. Lowell."

To her mother, and even to Aunt Ellen, this seemed
a perfectly normal procedure. So Beverley spent an hour putting everything in
order for her first day's work on the morrow, washing a pair of white gloves, tacking
a fresh collar on to her dark. Working dress and so on. And then, telling her
mother that she would be back in good time for supper, she went off down the
village street towards Geoffrey's cottage.

She had very little idea, even now, what she was going
to say to him. And certainly she had no intention whatever of asking any
leading questions, or in any way showing that she knew of a connection be
tween him and Sara Wayne.
But surely, in
the natural course of her account of the day, he would say something which
would give her a hint of his real position in this story.

After her talk with Franklin Lowell, and the
carelessly reassuring things he had said about Toni's lively imagination, she
was inclined to take a much more hopeful view of things. She imagined his
saying
casually,

"Oh, I know Sara Wayne quite well. I painted
her portrait. Lovely girl she is, too. I'd have fallen in love with her myself,
if I could have allowed myself the luxury. But, as it is, she's marrying a very
nice chap who can well-afford to give her the setting she
needs."

Oh, if only he would say just that! And in a tone that
meant he didn't care about her at all, except as a pretty girl whom he
naturally admired.

But, even if he did say that, or something like it,
would she entirely believe him? Or would she wonder if he were putting up an
elaborate smokescreen, so that she should have no inkling of what was really in
his mind and heart?

To imagine that it could have come to that! Her even
supposing for one moment that there should be a barrier of deception between
her and Geoffrey. She told herself that she should be ashamed to be think
ing such a thing, on the strength of no more solid
evidence than the chatter of a highly imaginative child.

And, a good deal cheered by her own vehemence, she
turned in at the gate of Geoffrey's cottage. But this time too there was no
answer to her knock. And, although she thought it doubtful that he would
still be working in his studio at the end of the
garden,
she went round the house and along the rather untidy path which
led to the small converted barn used by Geoffrey as a studio. As she did so, the
most extraordinary sense of misgiving assailed her. It was nothing to do with
anything she saw or heard or could in any way account for. Only, as she neared
the studio, it seemed to her that her heart sank unaccountably, and she even
found that she was trembling.

She paused for a moment by the big old rambler which
sprawled in picturesque untidiness over an arch way half-way down the path. And,
as she did so, the door of the studio opened suddenly, - as though someone on
the other side of it had wrenched it
open.

For a second a girl stood silhouetted in the door-way.
Then she banged the door behind her and came running up the path. There was no
time to conceal oneself. Hardly even time to step aside out of her immediate
path. In a matter of moments the girl had cleared the distance between them, and,
with a great gasp, came to a stop only a yard or two from Beverley.

Beverley caught her breath in a gasp too. For the girl
who had run from Geoffrey's studio in such agitation, and now stood staring at
her utterly nonplussed, was Sara Wayne.

"WHATEVER made me think she was listless or indifferent?"
was Beverley's first reflection, as she looked back at the lovely, flushed and
quivering features of the eldest Wayne girl. And then, "What on earth am I
going to say to her?"

It seemed to her that there was at least a whole minute's
silence between them. But of course there was nothing of the sort. A minute is
a long time, measured out in embarrassed seconds. And there is no sharper
inducement to break a silence than the
knowledge
that someone's self-respect is toppling.

In what seemed to her a somewhat artificial tone, Beverley
heard herself say. "Why, how extraordinary to meet you twice in one day' I
suppose you have been to see my friend, Geoffrey Revian, about your
portrait?"

"My, my portrait?" stammered Sara. And
then she too made an immense effort to recover herself. "Oh, no. That's
finished, you know, and, and hanging in Franklin's study. I came, " She
groped for words, and Beverley actually found herself wishing pitifully that
she could supply her with a good excuse.

Then Sara rallied herself determinedly and said, almost
calmly, "I came to talk over the possibility of Geoffrey's, of Mr.
Revian's doing a smaller copy for, for my parents. But, if he does, it will be
a secret until it's finished. So, so please don't
mention it to my mother."

"No, of course not, " Beverley promised
gravely. "What a good idea."

The other girl gave her a searching little glance, as
though she might be wondering if there were a second, ironical meaning to that
remark. But Beverley contrived to look guileless and friendly, and she thought she
heard Sara draw a quick breath of relief.

"I must go and catch my bus now. I, I thought
 
I was late, "
Sara glanced at her watch. "That
was why I was running."

"It's all right. It doesn't go until the
half-hour,
Beverley assured her, with every
evidence of believing her completely. "May I walk back to the bus-stop with
you?" For she felt she simply could not go straight in and face Geoffrey
yet, with this scene so
rawly fresh in her mind".

"Why, yes, do." Sara, she saw, hardly
knew
whether to be relieved at the
naturalness of this or distressed by the necessity of continuing to keep up
appearances.

Beverley turned, and together the girls went back up
the garden path. "I missed my own bus this afternoon, " Beverley said,
by way of innocent conversation. "It's a maddening experience. I can
imagine how anxious you were not to do the same."

"Did you? I'm so sorry. Why didn't you come
back to the house? You must have been ages at the bus-stop
waiting for the next bus. In fact, " Sara
glanced at her companion
quickly, as though any unexplained circumstance caused her alarm, "you ought
to have been on the bus I took, then, surely?"

"No. I got a lift instead, " Beverley
explained. "I had just seen the bus drive off when a car stopped
and, I was offered a lift. The driver turned out
to
be Mr. Lowell."

"Franklin?" Sara looked surprised and, again,
vaguely alarmed. "Do you know him, then?"

"Oh, no. At least, I didn't then. I thought I
recognized him from the photograph in the drawing room which your younger
sister showed me. And
when I explained I had
been to the Grange to arrange to do dressmaking for you all, he told me that he
was engaged to you."

"Oh, I see." Sara still spoke a little
hesitantly, as though she were hastily examining the circumstances and finding
them fairly reassuring. "Did he drive you all the way here?"

"Yes. It was wonderful luck for me. I got home
much earlier than if I had come all round by the bus."

"I'm glad." Sara sounded genuinely so.
But her tone changed again, as she said, with a not very convincingly casual
air, "Where was he going, then? Surely not, here?"

"I have no idea." Beverley managed to
sound cheer fully matter-of-fact. "He said something about going to
Steeplemere. He stopped in Binwick only long enough to drop me at my
house."

"I see." said Sara again. And this time
there was no mistaking the relief in her voice.

They had reached the bus-stop by now, and Beverley
stood there for a few minutes longer, in friendly conversation. Then the bus
came up, and the girls said a pleasant goodbye to each other. Sara even smiled
and waved through the window as the bus moved off. And Beverley had the
impression that she was a good deal reassured, and fairly well satisfied that
she had. not given herself away too badly. After all, why should she feel
otherwise? She was unaware how completely Toni had set Beverley on the right
track.

The question now, thought Beverley, was, what did
she intend to do next? Should she assume that she had found out all it was
necessary for her to know, and just go home? She could always say to her mother
that there had been no answer to her knock when she had called at Geoffrey's
cottage. Or should she go and see Geoffrey, after all?

Although one part of her shrank from any interview
with him, now that this unacknowledged barrier cut across their once happy
relationship, a painful, restless curiosity also urged her to go. She must know
how he looked when she told him of her unexpected connection with the Waynes.
She must see for herself if there were anything in his manner which could
possibly be a clue to his attitude towards Sara.

After all, she might think she knew about Sara's
feelings. But how was she even to guess at
Geoffrey's u
4uuu
ntil she had seen his reactions to the mention of Sara's
name?

With a curious mixture .of distaste
and eagerness, she retraced her steps to the cottage, and went round, once more
by the garden path to the studio.
When
she knocked, his absorbed voice bade her,
"Come"
in " And, suppressing a tremor of unfamiliar nervousness, she entered, trying
to look exactly as
she would have looked if she knew nothing at all of
this new complication, and had merely come down to
the studio to give him her own exciting news.

"Hello" He glanced up from his easel, and
save her the faintly absent smile with which
he often greeted her when he was busy. "I thought you might
look in
this evening."

"Did you?" She drew near and looked at
the beautiful flower study which appeared to absorb his attention. "Isn't
it getting a bit dark for working?"