The Other Linding Girl (13 page)

“I think she is—interested in him,” Rachel conceded.

“And you also?—are you interested in Monsieur Nigel?”

“I—I haven’t known him very long” she objected softly.

“It is not always necessary,” he said kindly. “I myself fell in love with my wife the second time I saw her. Possibly,” he added reflectively, “even the first time—except that I had very much else to think of at that moment.”

“Oh, Monsieur Florian, that sounds very nice and romantic!” She was not sorry to switch the conversation from
her
affairs to his. “How long have you been married to her?”

“Ten years. And I have only one regret, that in marrying her I lost my best mannequin. But that is old history. Your affairs are more interesting tonight. Tell me—what happened when the charming Miss McGrath, who must never be crossed, found the man of her choice kissing someone else?”

“N-nothing very much happened—”

“How English!” exclaimed Florian, with mingled disdain and admiration. “Everyone kept the stiff upper lip?”

“Not exactly,” Rachel laughed—a little surprised to find that she could laugh about that dreadful scene. “I managed to stress the relationship between me and Nigel—”

“And what,” interrupted Florian with genuine interest, “is the relationship between you and Monsieur Nigel?”

“Oh, I mean literally, you know. We
are
related in a sort of way. He is the brother of my uncle’s young wife.” Florian obviously worked that out rapidly to himself, and then said, ‘That is satisfactorily remote.”

“I suppose it is.” Rachel laughed again. “But we both laid some emphasis on it and—got past the most difficult moment.”

“Did he look foolish?”

“No. He contrived to look remarkably cool, for which I admired him” Rachel stated. “I should have been
mad
if he had looked silly and stammered.”

“Quite right. One’s beloved should never look silly, however foolish he may feel,” agreed the Frenchman approvingly. “And Miss McGrath—was she in the least deceived by this admirable talk of uncles and cousins?”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so” Rachel said,

‘Then she knows you for a rival?”

“I’m afraid I don’t rank as that ” Rachel replied, rather sadly. “You see----- ”

She stopped, And there was silence until he prompted her gently, “Yes,
mon enfant?
What is it that I should see?”

“I can’t imagine why I’m telling you all this!” Rachel exclaimed, suddenly recollecting that he was virtually a stranger—and a distinguished stranger at that.

“People tend to tell me things,” the great designer said, with a faint smile. “You have no idea how difficult I find it sometimes to prevent my more boring customers from telling me their whole life stories.”

“Well, I won’t do that.” Rachel too smiled slightly. “And there’s remarkably little to tell Monsieur Florian. Nigel is a passionately dedicated research worker—perpetually frustrated by lack of funds. Miss McGrath, as I don’t need to tell you, is very rich. And—she likes him.”

“Does he like her?”

“I don’t know,” said Rachel slowly. “I think perhaps he likes her— enough.”

“Unless he feels that he likes someone else more?” suggested the Frenchman shrewdly.

“That’s just it!” Rachel exclaimed, on a note of sudden pain. “How passive should one be? How far should one try to come between a man and his work and conscience?”

“You think his conscience is involved?” The great designer sounded skeptical.

“He thinks—and some absolute inner instinct tells me he is right— that, given the chance to follow his line of research to the end, he can make a discovery that will help suffering humanity. This matters to him more than anything else in the world. And I think he is prepared

to sacrifice everything else to it.”

“Including you?”

“He may not even see it that way; I have only just touched the edge of his consciousness. At least—” She thought of the way he had kissed her that evening, and was silent until, a few moments later, the taxi stopped outside her uncle’s house.

“We’re here,” she exclaimed, almost regretfully. “And thank you so very much, Monsieur Florian, for being such a sympathetic listener. You won’t, of course, say a
word
to anyone—”

“My dear, I have not come to my position by being indiscreet.” Florian replied drily. “But there is one question I should like you to ponder. We have been talking on rather a high plane, perhaps too high for such a worldly creature as I am.” He gave that pleasant, cynical smile which his few friends loved and his many enemies loathed. “Now let me ask you, on a very practical basis: How happy do you think Monsieur Nigel—or indeed any man—would be as the married dependant of Fiona McGrath?”

Apparently it was not a question she was expected to answer, merely one to consider. For he handed her out of the taxi immediately and said,

“I shall look forward to seeing you next month, or possibly earlier, if I have to come to London. Good-night, mademoiselle. It has been a signal pleasure to meet you.”

It had been a great pleasure for Rachel too, and somehow exhilarating. And before she went to sleep that night, she thought a good deal about his final question—without, however, arriving at any satisfactory answer.

The next day, when she explained to her uncle the suggested new arrangement of work, he was at first urbanely obstructive. Because, while quite willing to approve the scheme in principle, he cherished the illusion that he needed her constant attention and was only persuaded of the contrary with difficulty.

However, he finally said, “Well, my dear, have it your own way,” with the air of a good-natured and generous man being persuaded to sacrifice himself, against all reason, for an unworthy cause. “But check first with Mayforth that he will not require you.”

Rachel—who would, of course, have done this anyway— promised gravely to do so, and presently found the assistant surgeon a great deal more co-operative than her uncle.

“No, I shan’t need you this afternoon,” said Oliver Mayforth, who believed in working his subordinates ruthlessly when they were on duty, but would never have dreamed of pretending he had work when he had not. “What’s afoot? Are you off to enjoy yourself?”

“Only, in a manner of speaking. I’m going to work for Miss McGrath.” And she explained about the charity evening.

To her surprise, he frowned and asked, “Did Nigel let you in for that?”

“Oh, no! What made you think such a thing?”

“Someone said he’s very thick with the McGraths just now.” Oliver Mayforth shrugged. “And I thought he might have pressed you into service. Don’t let them exploit you, Rachel. They’re a hard crowd. And you’re much too nice to be run through their mill.”

“Oh, thank you for the compliment.” She laughed, a good deal surprised as well as touched. “I didn’t know you thought so well of me.”

“You’d be surprised! One of these days I might tell you just how well I do think of you,” was the unexpected reply.

And then Matron came in and said she would be very glad if Mr. Mayforth could give her a few minutes over the new patient in Eleven-C.

For a moment Mr. Mayforth looked as though he thought the new patient—and possibly even Matron—a confounded nuisance. But then professional demands triumphed over personal, inclination, and he followed Matron out of the room, leaving Rachel speculating a little amusedly on just what he had meant by that last remark.

Having telephoned to Fiona to say she would be coming—and received a faintly chill word of commendation—Rachel hurried through her morning’s work, lunched at a small restaurant near the Nursing Home, and presented herself at the McGrath house soon after two o’clock.

She would not have been human if she had not experienced a slight tremor of apprehension as she was shown into Miss McGrath’s presence once more. But Fiona was polite, if not exactly cordial, showed Rachel what she wanted done, and left her to it for most of the afternoon. The awkward moment came when she called Rachel in to have tea with her, and the two faced each other on more informal

terms than those they had managed to preserve in the office.

She commented appreciatively on Sir Everard’s consideration in releasing Rachel, asked politely about Lady Linding’s progress, and then suddenly said, with an air of rather synthetic amusement,

“So you and Nigel regard each other as cousins?”

“Well—” Rachel found herself blushing, tried hard to stop herself, and merely succeeded in going a deeper shade of crimson—“we have a half-laughing agreement about it.”

“I see. Was it a half-laughing matter that he was kissing you when I interrupted you yesterday evening?”

With anyone else, of course, it would have been possible to suggest very pleasantly that she minded her own business. With Fiona—whose whole air stated her absolute conviction that she had a right to ask what she pleased—this was virtually impossible.

Rachel took a deep breath and said, as naturally as she could, “We’d had a slight argument, as a matter of fact, and he thought I was cross. It—it was just his way of saying he was sorry. You mustn’t attach any importance to it. Miss McGrath.”

“I attach no importance to it at all,” replied Fiona coldly, and her tone consigned Rachel and her inconsiderable activities to pitiable insignificance.

Rachel bit her lip and tried to control her temper. But, before she had completely regained her composure, Fiona went on, meditatively,

“It interests me to try to decide just what sort of a person Nigel is. You know him very well, I take it. Would you say he is rather irresponsible?”

“Certainly not,” Rachel said eagerly. For, in spite of all the difficult cross-currents, she still clung to the fact that this was the woman Nigel hoped to impress with the idea that his work was worthy of support.

“I’ve heard from people that he is,” replied Fiona coolly. “For one thing, wasn’t it his fault that Lady Linding was injured?”

“Careful!” Rachel told herself. “This could be a trap.” But, because even now she could hardly bear to think of Nigel’s being blamed unfairly for that unhappy business, her tone was almost indignant as she said,

“That was a complete accident! The sort of thing which might have happened to anyone.”

“Accidents don’t happen to responsible people,” stated Fiona arbitrarily. “At least, not unless someone else is involved. There was no other car involved, was there?”

“No,” admitted Rachel reluctantly.

“As I understand it, he just took the entrance to the hotel too sharply and crashed into a stone pillar. Isn’t that right?”

“Something like that.”

“It doesn’t sound like responsible driving to me,” said Fiona disparagingly. “Either Nigel was driving too fast, or his judgment was poor. Hardly a good recommendation, I should have thought, for someone whose work must depend on accuracy and good judgment.”

“Miss McGrath, I don’t think you can relate the two things!” (Why should she, of all people, be called on to defend Nigel to her rival?) “I have it from people who should know—Mr. Mayforth and—and people like that— that Nigel is brilliant at his work.”

Fiona gave her a long speculative stare which was extremely difficult to withstand. Then she said, just as Rachel was feeling she could not bear this any longer, “You have great faith in him, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I have,” stated Rachel resolutely.

“Well, you know—” the older woman suddenly spoke almost confidentially—“you could help him a great deal, if you tried.”

“I could?” Rachel looked puzzled. “In what way?”

“In the way that is always the hardest for any woman,” replied Fiona smoothly. “By simply leaving him alone.” She made a slight pause, so that her words could make their full impact, then she went on, almost lightly,

“It’s never a good idea to provide a man with too many distractions. If he has a great future, that is. And I think Nigel might have a great future—if he’s not sidetracked. You don’t mind my speaking to you so frankly, do you?” Her hard smile said plainly that she cared not at all whether Rachel minded or not. The warning had been given—and in the clearest possible terms.

She did not even wait for Rachel to reply—if reply she had ready. Instead, she went on to talk knowledgeably about the advertising necessary for her charity evening. And Rachel—in what she wryly supposed Florian would have considered a very “English” way— somehow contrived to reply courteously and calmly, thus drawing a decent veil over the fearful gulf that had been torn open between them.

At one point, she almost thought of telling Fiona she no longer wished to work for her. But one could not allow her the satisfaction of knowing that her wound had gone so deep. Besides, what reason could one give?

There was only one possible course: to go on being polite and preserving a composed exterior until—at some unspecified future time—one could decide just how literally Fiona McGrath’s warning should be taken.

The following week was not easy. Apart from the fact that there was really a great deal of work, Hester came home, and proved to be fractious and demanding, while Sir Everard fussed over her to a maddening degree. None of this would have mattered if Rachel had not been under a great strain because of her own affairs— and, even more, because she saw nothing of Nigel.