To Journey Together (3 page)

"Oh, no, my dear. You'll stay with my husband and me in Ehrwald. Unless, of course, you want to make any special arrangements of your own at any time."

"By no means!" cried Elinor, somewhat put out. "I am more than delighted to do whatever Sir Daniel needs all the time we are away. I'm afraid we were talking at cross-purposes. I don't quite understand who—who 'Ken' is."

"My nephew, Kenneth Brownlow. Didn't Mr. Prynne tell you he was coming with us? He's going into the firm later in the year. So my husband thought it would be a good opportunity for him to learn something of the foreign side of the business now. It will save him doing a lot of work himself and be good experience for Ken."

"Oh, yes. I see."

"Kenneth is my younger brother's boy," Lady Connelton went on, as though Elinor would naturally like to know the general family set-up. "There he is over there." She indicated a photograph standing on a side table. "Now tell me something about your family. Have you any brothers and sisters?"

Elinor gave a brief, affectionate and surprisingly amusing description of her family, and, while she talked, she glanced from time to time at the strong, good-looking profile of the man in the photograph.

He looked remarkably attractive. About twenty-seven, she guessed. He was not smiling in the photograph, but one had the impression that when he did smile it was a quick, flashing sort of smile that reached his eyes.

Altogether someone one would like to know. It was nice to think he was to be in the party.

Just before Elinor left, Sir Daniel himself came in, and somehow in his own house and in the company of his wife, he was nothing like so frightening as he had appeared at the office. Indeed, Elinor was so sorry to see him looking much more spare and grey than she had ever seen him before that she insensibly addressed him with a kindly concern that was almost daughterly. And, to her immense surprise, when she was leaving, he said, "Well, my dear, I hope you will enjoy this trip as much as you seem to think you will. There won't be a great deal of work most of the time, but my wife will be glad of your company."

Elinor expressed her thanks and pleasure once more, and then went out into the foggy night, feeling as though the sun shone and the birds sang. Really, it was amazing how nice and easy some people became if you just treated them as you would your own family!

They were to leave London on Tuesday evening and cross by the night boat to the Hook of Holland. Over the week-end Elinor completed all her preparations and on Monday Mr. Prynne checked over with her all the tickets. Then, putting one set into a travelling wallet, he handed this to her and said,

"Here are all your tickets. Put your passport with them. Now I want you to take the other three sets to Sir Daniel. You know the house? You have been there before?"

"Yes, Mr. Prynne."

"Very well. It's nearly four o'clock now, so there's no need to come back this afternoon. And tomorrow—" Mr. Prynne rubbed his chin reflectively, then he gave a wintry smile—"come in tomorrow morning, Miss Shearn, but we won't be too strict about your time of leaving."

Elinor thanked him with a smile and a little later set off for the Connelton's house.

A small, rather rakish-looking sports car was standing outside the house. The sort of car, Elinor supposed, which might well belong to a favourite nephew.

It might not be Kenneth Brownlow's car, of course, but Elinor felt that familiar sense of shyness and reserve stealing over her as she mounted the steps and knocked on the bright brass knocker.

"I'm not sure that her ladyship's in," the pleasant elderly maid said as she admitted her. "If you'll wait here, I'll find out."

She ushered Elinor into a room she had not seen before. It was one of those double rooms so often seen in old-fashioned houses, and, although the maid had evidently not noticed the fact, Lady Connelton was obviously in the back room, since, almost before the door of the front room had closed behind the maid, Elinor heard her speak to someone.

"I can't agree, my dear," she was saying. "Rosemary would have been no use whatever to your uncle. I never believed much in her business training course."

"I was thinking as much of the companion side of the duties," Elinor heard a rather abrupt but pleasantly pitched man's voice reply. "I should have thought Rosemary would have fitted that part of the programme considerably better than some unknown girl from Uncle Dan's office."

"Not at all. The companion is for me, not you, you know! Though I don't think anyone could do other than like the nice, quiet little girl Mr. Prynne has chosen for me."

"Oh, Aunt Millicent!"

Elinor found herself going scarlet at the tone of amused disgust and protest in which this exclamation was uttered.

"And what do you mean by that, exactly?" Lady Connelton asked crisply.

"I was just thinking what an unutterable bore any nice, quiet little girl can be if one has to have her around all the time," the other voice replied carelessly.

Elinor didn't hear what Lady Connelton said in reply. She was only aware of a wave of humiliation sweeping her and carrying away all the happiness and confidence of the last few days.

She heard retreating footsteps and a door closing and, in the knowledge that she was alone at last, she almost burst into tears. But remembering that presently the maid would surely find Lady Connelton, wherever she had gone, and bring her, Elinor somehow managed to retain her composure.

She determined not to think of what that horrible nephew of the Conneltons had said. She would keep her mind on something else, fix her attention on something. Anything.

The next room, she realized vaguely, must be something in the nature of a library. Subdued lamplight shone on well-filled bookshelves. And because books always had a fascination for her she tiptoed instinctively towards the archway dividing the two rooms. She would look at the backs of the books, make herself read the titles, make herself forget what she had heard.

"Hello!"

A voice made her nearly jump out of her skin. Flashing round to look at the other side of the library, she saw the original of the photograph Lady Connelton had shown her. He was standing by one of the

bookshelves, his finger keeping a place in the book he had been studying.

Elinor stared at him in silence, her eyes widening and darkening.

"Come on in," he said good-humouredly. "No one's going to bite you. Who are you, anyway?"

It would be difficult to say what made Elinor behave in a manner contrary to anything she had ever done or said in her life before. But she was excited and indignant, and above all for the last few days she had been living completely outside her usual routine. She looked straight at the half-smiling man with the book.

"I'm the nice, quiet little girl who is going to bore you for the next few months," she said.

If a mouse had hurried out of its hole and given him a smart bite on the ankle, Kenneth Brownlow could not have looked more astonished.

"You don't say!" He came across and stood looking down at her with twinkling eyes. "Well, you know, you don't strike me as a quiet little girl at all. I'm not sure that you even strike me as nice," he added amusedly. "You look at the moment as though you'd stick a knife into me as soon as blink."

"Oh!" She immediately blinked her long lashes. "I—I'm sorry."

"No, don't start apologizing. That will quite spoil the effect of your wonderful entry. Besides, I suppose it's up to me to do the apologizing. I'm sorry if you overheard my remark. It was rather silly, now I come to think of it, and I don't think I'd have made it if I hadn't been rather—fed up."

"I know. Because of my coming," she said, before she could stop herself.

"No. Not really that."

"Because Rosemary was not coming?" she suggested, again rather impulsively.

"Oh—you heard that, too, did you?" He laughed, a little vexedly, she thought. And then Lady Connelton came hurrying into the room, before they could say anything else.

"My dear, I'm so sorry! I've heard that you've been waiting quite a long time. I didn't know you were here. Drummond thought I hadn't come in yet. Oh, have you and Ken introduced yourselves?"

"More or less, Aunt Millicent," Kenneth Brownlow said, and Elinor noticed that irrepressible flash of amusement again.

She handed over the tickets to Lady Connelton, carefully explaining the points which Mr. Prynne had told her to emphasize. And then, though Lady Connelton kindly pressed her to stay to tea, she made her excuses and prepared to take her leave.

"It's my last evening at home," she explained. "The family will be disappointed if I'm not home in good time."

"Yes, of course," Lady Connelton said.

"May I assist by running you home in my car?" Kenneth Brownlow suggested.

"Oh, no, thank you!" Elinor assured him hastily. "It isn't necessary at all."

"But it will save a lot of time," Lady Connelton pointed out practically. "You had better let him take you, my dear. That is, if you don't mind travelling in his horrid little open car."

"I don't mind a bit," Elinor said with a slight smile. "I thought it looked a very nice car—if it's the one outside."

"Come along, then," Kenneth Brownlow said with a laugh. "We are bound to be friends if you defend my car against Aunt Millicent."

He lightly kissed his aunt—presumably to show there was no real ill-feeling—and then escorted Elinor to the car.

It certainly was rather open for winter travel, but her companion supplied her with rugs and told her to wrap up well. Elinor obeyed, wondering how she was going to think of enough entertaining conversation to occupy the journey from Regent's Park to Wimbledon.

Her companion spoke, however, before she could say anything.

"What gave my aunt the idea that you were a quiet, unassuming little thing?" he asked.

Somewhat startled, Elinor gave this very personal question some thought.

"I suppose," she said honestly, "that's really what I am."

"Now, you don't expect me to believe that. Not after your opening remarks to me, do you?"

"Oh—that wasn't a bit the way I usually speak," she explained hastily. "I suppose I was really very angry with you."

For some reason or other this seemed to amuse him a good deal. But, before she could ask him why, he enquired about the other members of the family. And, surprised that he seemed interested in the subject, she found herself telling him about them in detail.

To her further surprise, she found that they were home before she had had time to feel shy or stumble over any awkward gaps in the conversation.

"Will you come in?" she asked rather timidly. "My parents will be very pleased to see you."

But he smiled and shook his head.

"Not this time, thank you. I'm sure they want you to themselves this evening. I'll see you at the station tomorrow evening."

And, raising his hand in a gesture of farewell, he drove off, leaving Elinor wondering how she felt about his addition to the party.

The next day was like no other day she could remember. She went to the office in the morning, but no one seemed to expect her to do any work, which was just as well, since she felt so strung up and excited that it was difficult to concentrate on anything but her own affairs.

Then soon after lunch she was allowed to go home, accompanied by the good wishes of all her colleagues.

The quiet afternoon with her mother soon slipped away, and it seemed no time before all the others were coming in and preparing to say goodbye to her. And, at this point Elinor began to feel a ridiculously

large lump in her throat. It would be so long until she saw them again! She could not imagine her home without her. Still less, for some panic-stricken moments, could she imagine herself without her home. She wondered now why she had ever agreed to go. With people she hardly knew—in foreign lands—and strangers everywhere. She must have been crazy!

When the taxi arrived to take her to Liverpool Street, she had a childish desire to run away and hide herself. But Deborah recalled her to her senses with brutal realism.

"Hurry up, hurry up! The taxi's standing out there ticking up threepences like anything."

So Elinor hugged and kissed everyone, except Edward who was accompanying her to the station, promised all over again to write often, thanked Anne once more for her help and her father for his generosity over the cheque, and ran out to the taxi with tears in her eyes.

Deborah pursued her to the gate, shouting final instructions about foreign stamps.

"It doesn't matter if you send lots of duplicates," she shrieked, as the driver started up the taxi. "I can always swop."

"All right. I promise, I promise," Elinor called back, her composure somewhat restored by the clamour.

And then the taxi started with a jerk, and Edward, slumping down in the seat beside her, said, "If any of us ever sets out for Australia, Deborah will deafen the neighbourhood."

During the drive he told Elinor all about how he felt that perhaps he had not
read his friend, Inez, quite ar
ight. She never seemed now to want to know what anyone else thought about anything—only to display (with even slightly boring repetition) what she knew.