To Journey Together (8 page)

Her unusual sense of confidence even survived the lacing on of hired skating boots and the first stumbling to her feet in this unfamiliar footgear. Then Rudi took her crossed hands in his, the strength

of his wrists making her feel unexpectedly secure, and, after a little initial sliding and slithering, to her amazement she found herself skimming along for whole stretches, feeling, she thought, as a bird must feel as it swooped over the icebound earth.

"It's glorious!" she cried, laughing aloud for sheer pleasure—and then almost immediately sat down hard on the ice.

They both laughed inordinately over that. Then he pulled her expertly to her feet, and for a moment she was almost in the circle of his arm, close against him, so that she could see the colour under his fine olive skin and almost feel the pulse of the vitality which emanated from him.

It was a curiously exciting and disturbing moment, one which left her tingling with something other than the sparkling cold. But it was over almost before the impression was registered, and presently they were skating off together again, Elinor not even noticing that the fringe of spectators watched her and Rudi rather more than they watched anyone else.

All too soon the afternoon light began to fade, and the brief, lovely experience was over. As they walked homeward, Elinor tried to tell him how much she had enjoyed herself. But he brushed her thanks aside.

"You're a natural skater," he told her. "If only we were staying longer—" He broke off, just as his sister had, and sighed regretfully.

Elinor felt sorrier than ever about their going. And more than a little puzzled too. For she had never met anyone who appeared more foot-loose and fancy-free than the two von Eibergs. Why, then, should they have forced on them a departure which apparently neither of them wanted? It was all very odd.

There must be very much more in the background of their lives than appeared on the surface,

she supposed. And now she was never likely to know

more about them, for tomorrow they would be gone.

She tried to remind herself that she was lucky to

have known them at all, that she was bound to meet

and lose many delightful acquaintances on this trip.

But none of this ready-made philosophy served her very well, and she felt unreasonably that there was nothing that she wanted quite so much as to know Rudi and Ilsa really well.

For once Lady Connelton seemed to want her company for most of the evening. And, while Elinor very willingly acceded to the modest demands that her kind employer made upon her, she could not help noticing that the von Eibergs obviously went off for an evening's dancing, down at the big hotel.

It would have been wonderful fun to have gone too. But this evening it was somehow impossible to make the suggestion. And tomorrow they would be gone.

Elinor dined quietly with Sir Daniel and his wife, sat knitting and chatting with Lady Connelton in the lounge, and went to bed early. Just before undressing, she went and stood by the open window of her balcony and listened to the faint sound of dance music borne on the still air from the hotel further down the valley. She thought she could imagine the scene. He probably danced as well as he skated. "Ilsa too, of course," she added perfunctorily to herself. It was a pity—

Well, it could not be helped. She undressed and went to bed, where she lay re-reading the batch of letters which had come from home that day.

It must have been nearly an hour later, just as she was thinking of putting out her light, that a cautious tap sounded on her door.

"Hello!" Elinor leaned up on her elbow. "Who's that?"

"It's Ilsa. May I come in? Or are you more or less asleep?"

"Come in! I'm wide awake," cried Elinor, who was indeed so all at once. And Ilsa came into the room.

It was a rather pale, fatigued-looking Ilsa, however, and Elinor noticed at once that there was a long, wet smear all down her pretty bright red cape.

"Why, Ilsa! What's happened?"

"It was an accident—no, nothing terribly serious. But Rudi and I were knocked down by a car on our way back from the dance. It only grazed me, but Rudi's knee was hurt. Either a small bone broken or else a bad sprain. The doctor is having a look at him now. But, whichever it is, there's no journey for us tomorrow." Ilsa pushed back her hair from her forehead and laughed a little shakily. "We'll be here for some time longer."

"OH, ILSA, I am sorry! About the accident, I mean. I can't help being delighted, of course, that you are going to stay longer, after all," Elinor exclaimed frankly. Then, noticing how tired and shaken the other girl looked, she added, "Sit down, dear, and let me get you something."

She was out of bed and reaching for her dressing-gown before Ilsa could make any protest. It was second nature to Elinor to look after people, and she took Ilsa's wet cloak from her, settled her in the most comfortable chair in the room and rang for hot coffee —Ilsa having rejected the suggestion of hot milk with a shudder.

"Won't coffee keep you awake, rather than steady you?" Elinor suggested.

"I don't care if it does. I shan't sleep for a while, anyway. Do you mind my staying here with you? I feel my own company isn't just what I want at the moment."

"Of course you must stay! Unless you prefer to go to bed in your own room, that is, and have me come and sit with you."

"No. I like it better here, thanks." Ilsa glanced round her almost curiously, and said with a sigh, "How restful your room is!"

"Yes, it's lovely, isn't it? And by daylight I think I have the most beautiful view in the place," Elinor said.

"It isn't that. Oh, it's a nice enough room, of course. Rather like my own, as a matter of fact. But you've impressed your own personality on it. I don't know quite what you've done, but—it's you. That's why it is restful."

Elinor was touched. This was the first time she had thought of Ilsa as being in the least in need of anything that she could supply. Until now the situation had been very much the reverse—the sophistication and experience of the other girl being

something on which she herself instinctively leaned. Now Ilsa seemed, in some curious way, to have something in common with Anne when things went wrong at the shop. Or even with Deborah when school became too much for her.

The coffee was brought by a sympathetic maid who explained that the Herr Doktor had just left Herr von Eiberg, and it seemed that the injury was not a very serious one—only somewhat incapacitating.

Most of this was detailed at length in German, though she courteously threw in the few English words she had, for Elinor's benefit. As hardly any of these fitted the situation, however, Elinor was little the wiser, and Ilsa had to explain when the girl had gone.

"Then it really isn't a major disaster," Elinor said consolingly. "As I said before, I can't help being glad for my own sake that I shall have you here a little longer. I hope it doesn't upset your own plans too much. Was it vital that you should go to Vienna just now?"

"Vital—no. Nothing's ever really vital, as you put it." And again Ilsa pushed back her hair with that weary, slightly disillusioned air.

Elinor regarded her gravely.

"Why, Ilsa, you make that sound as though nothing really matters very much."

"Well, does it?" The other girl laughed shortly.

"Why, of course it does!" Elinor was a good deal shocked at such a view. "I think almost everything matters," she added earnestly.

Ilsa looked half indulgent, half impatient. "Oh, you're so young!" she said.

"Not all that much younger than you," Elinor protested. And then, as some sort of inner knowledge touched her—"Am I?"

"About ten years in actual fact, I suppose." Ilsa smiled dryly, but not unkindly. "And about a hundred in experience."

"Oh, nonsense!" It was Elinor's turn to smile, indulgently. "That's just the way you see things at

the moment. You're a bit shaken and depressed after the accident, you know. You really ought to be in bed."

"I don't want to go to bed," Ilsa retorted almost fretfully. She was as obstinate—very nearly as childish—about that as Deborah could be. "Go on talking to me. You soothe me."

Elinor laughed.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Anything. Your philosophy of life; whatever it is that makes you serene and gentle and—caring about what happens to people."

"I don't know that I have a philosophy of life," Elinor said slowly. Certainly she had never thought of herself as having anything which sounded so impressive! "When you say I am serene and gentle, I suppose you mean that I'm quiet." She smiled reflectively. "I come of a dear and noisy and busy family who are all passionately interested in their own affairs. I'm interested too. I like to hear about them, rather than to do things myself, quite often. I am used to listening, Ilsa. And so it comes naturally to me to be—I suppose 'passive' is the word."

"Oh, indeed, it isn't!" Ilsa dismissed that with a laugh. "If you were passive you would be dull. It's because you are actively interested and yet quiet that you fascinate people like me and Rudi.'

Elinor was silent. She had not known that she fascinated him—them. But it was both moving and exciting to hear that she did.

"Go on," Ilsa urged.

"Well, I am genuinely interested in people," Elinor said at last. "I don't have to pretend to be. I just am. I was interested in you and Rudi the very first moment I saw you in the dining car. I thought you were like people in a book, and I longed to know what language you were talking and where you came from. I was thrilled when you spoke to me in the corridor. I don't know quite how I could have been anything else. Is it so surprising? Don't people

usually like you and find you interesting?"

Ilsa smiled and shrugged slightly.

"Oh, we're reasonably attractive, I suppose, and people like to have us at parties because we pull our weight socially and that sort of thing. But they don't care about us or what happens to us as individuals. Why should they? You somehow give the impression of caring about people for themselves. Oh, I'm not expressing it well, of course, because there is really no way of describing these intangible things."

"I think you express it very well," Elinor told her. "I do care, as you put it. Of course I care about people. Whom should one care about if not 'people'?"

"Oneself, I suppose," the other girl retorted frankly. "That's what nearly everyone does, you know."

Elinor smiled.

"Well, I won't pretend I'm not interested in myself and what happens to me," she conceded. "That would be either stupid or insincere. But that doesn't rule out an interest in—even a concern for—other people. Why should it?"

"It could do. What if your own interests conflicted very sharply with those of someone else? What would you do then?"

Elinor considered that. She had never before indulged in so much self-analysis, and this conversation half intrigued, half disturbed her.

"It all depends on the rights of the case, Ilsa," she said at last.

"There you are!" Ilsa laughed. "To most people the 'rights of the case' and their own interests are the same thing. That's what makes you different."

"But thousands of people argue the way I do," Elinor insisted.

"And millions argue the way I do," retorted Ilsa rather mockingly. "But never mind—you're sweet! And all the sweeter because you don't even know that you're unusual. I feel lots better now." She got up, stretched and yawned a little. "I'll look in and see how Rudi is and then go to bed. I think I shall sleep now. Good night, and thank you." And, quite unexpectedly, she kissed Elinor.

"Good night."

Elinor returned the kiss, once more curiously touched. She did not think Ilsa often kissed people. At least, not as though the kiss meant anything. And she could not help feeling that there was some sort of genuine emotion behind the impulse.

Ilsa went out of the room, and, left to herself, Elinor returned to bed, and lay there for quite a long time thinking about Ilsa and Rudi, infinitely glad that she was to see more of them, after all.

The next day, the chief topic of conversation in the place was Rudi's interesting accident. A broken arm or leg on the ski-in g slopes would have been a very ordinary affair. Such things happened any time. But to be knocked down by a car in Ehrwald was something of an event. For one thing, cars were not particularly numerous, and those that did appear usually negotiated the village street with care.

"I hear it was a girl who was driving," Lady Connelton said, over the breakfast-table. "She isn't staying here, but at the big hotel." (Thus was the shame attached to a rival establishment.)

"Someone said she had only just arrived," Elinor contributed. "She was driving in."

"A somewhat unfortuanate debut," observed Sir Daniel dryly. "Who is she?"

No one seemed to know that, though Liesel—who waited at table and liked to join in conversations—volunteered the information (unsupported by any evidence, so far as anyone could see) that she was probably American.