To Journey Together (20 page)

She went out of the breakfast-room and waited in the big entrance hall, glancing at the newspapers which she could not read and the one or two notices which hung near the reception desk. And all the time she felt a slow anger against Rudi mounting.

He had no right to put her in this mortifying position! He had said he would come early—that he would make sure of seeing her alone. And what girl with any proper pride wanted to have to hang about a hotel entrance, waiting on the chance of seeing someone who treated her so cavalierly?

It was desperately disappointing not to have those last few words with him. But there was such a thing as pride. And, on this reflection, Elinor started resolutely for the lift.

As she did so, the big doors at the entrance revolved quickly and Rudi came in. A slightly pale, almost agitated-looking Rudi, who obviously saw her with relief and came straight across to her.

"Elinor, I'm so sorry "

"I was just going," she told him a little coolly.

"Yes—I don't blame you. But it wasn't my fault that I'm late. Something very distressing has happened. Leni died in her sleep this morning."

"OH, Rune !" Chagrin and annoyance were immediately forgotten in a rush of remorseful sympathy. "I am so terribly sorry." She put her hand on his arm in a quick gesture of friendliness.

"Yes. It's a shock, of course." Almost absently he covered her fingers with his. "One tells oneself that someone very old cannot, in the nature of things, be there much longer. But then, suddenly, when the end comes, the shock is just as great as if there had been no preparation."

"I know—I know. And you were so fond of her."

Rudi hesitated a moment. Then he said, "Yes."

"I mean—there was a real bond between you, wasn't there?" Elinor hastily amended, for she felt, a little embarrassedly, that she had presumed to over-state Rudi's feelings.

"Of course. Stronger than between her and Ilsa, at any rate. Though—I don't know " Again he seemed curiously absent, as though he just could not fix his whole attention on what they were saying. "Perhaps she didn't really care much for either of us. Perhaps it was Anton."

"Perhaps—what was Anton?"

"Whom she really liked," he explained almost impatiently.

"It's no good trying to guess such things," Elinor said, seeking to comfort him. "And, in any case, it hardly matters now, does it?"

"My unworldly child, of course it matters." Rudi smiled, a quick, slightly strained smile, but again there was a note of impatience in his tone. "Leni had it in her power to be very—generous to the one she loved best."

"Why—why, yes. I suppose she had," Elinor agreed, a good deal taken aback.

She tried not to be shocked. She told herself that he was only being realistic and that, in families where there were no strong feelings as in her own, perhaps

people did think along these lines. But no self-argument could quite reconcile her to the fact that, within a few hours of Leni Mardenburg's death, Rudi could already be conjecturing—even aloud—on the way in which she had left her money.

Elinor stood there, curiously at a loss for something appropriate to say. Not because she could not put her sympathy into words, but because she had the almost embarrassing impression that further expressions of sympathy were not really greatly needed.

Then, to her immense relief, Lady Connelton came downstairs. Surprised to see Rudi, to whom she believed she had already said goodbye the evening before, Lady Connelton came across to ask if anything had happened, and, on hearing the news, said with just the right degree of regret, "My dear boy, I am truly sorry! I know it is the way we would all wish to go, and of course she was a great age. But it is bound to be a sad occasion for you both. How is your sister taking it?"

Rudi said that Ilsa had recovered from the initial shock and was trying not to be too much upset. At this point Elinor found she had a curious and almost irrepressible urge to say she felt sure Ilsa was succeeding.

Then, in genuine remorse, she chided herself for thinking so censoriously of her two good friends, and assured herself that she had misjudged, or even misunderstood, Rudi a few minutes ago. After all, it would be unkind and absurd to examine anyone's words and manner too closely at a time like this.

Lady Connelton, with characteristic kindness, was already considering if there were any way in which they could be helpful.

"It would be rather awkward to postpone our journey at this point, I suppose," she said doubtfully. "But I'm sure if we could be of any real use to you, my husband would try to rearrange things. Perhaps "

"By no means. Though it is very kind of you—and just like you." Rudi gave her his most brilliant

smile, and spoke with that slight, charming formality which he often adopted towards Lady Connelton. "There is actually nothing which Ilsa and I cannot do. Of course we should be glad of any reason which prolonged your stay. But there is no real necessity at all. Instead, let us all—" he smiled at Elinor then —"look forward to meeting in Rome, in happier circumstances."

Lady Connelton said that no doubt that was the sensible way of looking at the situation. And then Sir Daniel and Kenneth arrived almost simultaneously from opposite directions and converged upon the group.

Fresh explanations and expressions of regret were forthcoming, Sir Daniel adding that he would willingly have stayed to pay his respects at the funeral of a great and affectionately remembered artist, only it had become too late for them to alter all their arrangements without some difficulty.

Once more Rudi protested that there was no need whatever for them to stay on, a view which evidently commended itself to Kenneth, whose expression became rather complicated at this point. Then goodbyes were again said all round, and Rudi—with a final hand-squeeze for Elinor—left the hotel, while the others dispersed to their rooms to make their final preparations for departure.

Elinor rather mechanically put on her hat and travelling coat, pushed the few last odds and ends into her overnight bag, and rang for a porter to collect her luggage. She was trying to concentrate on the minor things of the moment, but slowly growing on her was the chilling realization that she had now said goodbye to Rudi—though in circumstances she could never have foreseen.

He had spoken again of their meeting in Rome. She thought he certainly intended that they should meet there. But the break had been made, and who could say how future events would develop? She might even have said goodbye to Rudi for good, for all she knew. The idea hurt badly, and she thrust it away from her.

Then she wished that she had not had such a curious—perhaps such an unfair—impression of him at the end. Of course he had not really meant that the most important thing about Leni's passing was the division of what she had left. It was just—just-

"Are you ready, dear?"

Lady Connelton, dressed for the journey, appeared in the open doorway, carrying a very beautiful but rather over-sized handbag which she had rapturously acquired in Vienna, the home of such articles.

Elinor assured her employer that she was ready, and the two went down together, to wait in the car while Sir Daniel and Kenneth saw to the luggage and supervised the final arrangements for departure.

Presently the two men joined them—Sir Daniel taking his seat in the back with his wife, while Kenneth, with a friendly little gesture, invited Elinor to join him in front. Then, taking their last regretful glance at Vienna, they drove rather slowly out of the city and headed westward once more.

"Well—" Sir Daniel leaned forward to address his young secretary with a kindly smile—"so you enjoyed your first visit to Vienna?"

"Immensely, thank you." She smiled bravely in return, although the melancholy of departure was strong upon her. "It was one of the places I always wanted to see and—now I have," she ended rather lamely, feeling that this did not in the least express the joyous experiences of the last week or so.

"You will come back many other times, I daresay." That was Kenneth who, though apparently concentrating on the driving, still, it seemed, had attention to spare for conversation.

"I don't know," Elinor said slowly, wondering whether it was purely fancy which made her feel that the Vienna chapter was ended. "Some things never—repeat themselves."

"Oh, nonsense!" Her employer scouted this notion good-humouredly, because, to tell the truth, he rather liked to have the monopoly of pleasing regrets himself. "Vienna will always be there, I hope."

"Elinor was speaking figuratively, rather than literally, I think," Kenneth said, with rare understanding. But, before she could be either embarrassed or touched by this, Lady Connelton declared, with kindly common sense, "We are all feeling a bit melancholy because the visit ended on a sad note. Leni Mardenburg seemed a real personality to us all, and even if she had no close connection with us, and certainly lived to a gratifying age, we naturally feel with our two young friends in their loss."

"I understand she was not so close to them," Kenneth said.

"N-no, I suppose not," his aunt conceded. "But it is bound to mean a big change in their lives."

"It could mean a tremendous change, I suppose," Kenneth said dryly.

"Oh—financially, you mean?"

"Of course. If she left more or less everything to the von Eibergs, I imagine they would be very comfortably situated, without the necessity of raising a finger for the rest of their lives."

"Hm—yes. I'd forgotten that for a moment." Lady Connelton glanced at Elinor, but was tactful enough to glance away again immediately.

"It's not very good for anyone to be left like that," observed Sir Daniel, voicing an unpopular truth as though it were an original thought.

"I doubt if the von Eibergs would agree with you, Uncle," Kenneth retorted good-humouredly.

"Or anyone else similarly placed," added Lady Connelton in all fairness.

"Sir Daniel really meant that it isn't good for anyone, however well provided for, to feel that they don't need to pull their weight in some way," Elinor put in soberly. "He's right, of course."

"And, much though we all like the von Eibergs," said Lady Connelton, arbitrarily including her nephew in this, "we rather instinctively feel that they might react to prosperity that way."

Elinor bit her lip. She longed to defend them, but the words just would not come. Oddly enough, it was Kenneth who said, with a fairness amounting

to generosity, "One can never say how anyone will react to prosperity. Or disaster either, come to that. It could be that our charming, rather problematical couple would become thoroughly valuable and worthwhile people once they were freed from the day-to-day problem of scraping a living."

"Finest discipline anyone can have," growled his uncle argumentatively.

Kenneth smiled.

"I'm not going to do violence to my own view by arguing against that," he assured Sir Daniel. "But you can't take exactly the same measuring rule to everyone."

Sir Daniel seemed to think one could. So Lady Connelton called their attention to the very beautiful country through which they were passing, and the discussion gently petered out.

"Thank you," whispered Elinor to Kenneth, on inexplicable impulse, then wondered how on earth she was to explain herself if he asked what she meant.

He did not ask, however. He took one hand from the wheel and patted hers as they lay in her lap. And after that they drove on in excellent harmony.

They made a very long day of it and contrived to do the whole journey in one. This involved only the briefest of halts for meals and an arrival in Ehrwald considerably after dark. But, since Kenneth had preferred it that way and declared he could drive quite easily for that length of time, the others willingly accepted the arrangement.

For the last two hours both the Conneltons dozed in the back of the car, but Elinor remained bright-eyed and wakeful beside Kenneth.

Once, towards the end of the drive, when the road had become monotonous, he laughed slightly and said, "You'd better talk to me. This is rather sleep-inducing."

Elinor roused herself from her own somewhat complicated reflections and reminiscences.

"What was Rosemary intending to do after we left?" she enquired. "I managed to say only a brief goodbye to her, and didn't hear her final plans."

"She meant to stay on with friends near Vienna for a while, and then make her way home by leisurely stages, I think. She has a good many friends in Paris. I suppose she might well go there."

"She wasn't thinking of—of coming to Rome?" "No."

"Are you disappointed, Ken?"

"No."

Elinor was silent, for few things are less encouraging to conversation than monosyllabic replies.

"Nor," volunteered Kenneth, breaking the silence on his own account, "am I in love with her."

Elinor was slightly startled.

"Why did you think you had to tell me that?" she enquired.

"Because you seemed to have got hold of some odd ideas about me and Rosemary. I thought it was time to straighten things out a bit."