Next Door to Romance (22 page)

For over a week Lisa heard nothing more from Mark than could be written on postcards. Even at that, the messages were brief and the: 'Love, Mark,' with which each terminated was little consolation for the feeling of loss of contact with Mark which grew increasingly as the days passed.

She laid the cards out on a table in the order in which they had arrived, regarding the colourful pictures in a perplexed way.

Certainly Mark had spoken of the necessity of having someone ready to go anywhere at a moment's notice if they were to make use of the unusual opportunity which had come to the firm, but Lisa hadn't visualized quite such rapid movement as this! Why, in some cases he could hardly have had time to stay overnight before he was off somewhere else! It wasn't in the least the way that Lisa had imagined financiers behaved! In her mind, they sat in luxuriously furnished offices with a battery of telephones on an outsize desk and a ticker-tape clicking frantically near at hand. And they made decisions and influenced the world's markets without stirring from their lavishly upholstered chairs.

'But then, of course, really one doesn't know how other people do their work,' she finally decided with a sigh. 'I wish I did—' and then wasn't sure if that was true.

But then Lisa wasn't sure of anything these days, herself least of all.

And there was no one whose advice she could seek to help her sort out her problems because, of course, they concerned Mark and herself. Her parents—no, that was quite out of the question! They were both essentially fair-minded people, but she knew that it was impossible for them to be unbiased where her happiness was concerned. They would be bound to blame Mark for everything—

Tom, then? She dismissed the idea almost as soon as it came. Tom had made his opinion of Mark clear right from the beginning, and besides these days Tom was too concerned with his own affairs to want to be bothered about hers.

No, this was her own puzzle and she alone must solve it. But as each day passed, it became more and more difficult.

A few days later the village woman who 'obliged' the Bellairs for several hours a week arrived with the news that Mr Cosgrave had had a stroke.

'In the middle of the night it was,' she retailed with dramatic relish. 'Had to get Dr Mayhew out of his bed to come to him! Then, this morning, he was taken off to the hospital for observation and no knowing when he'll be back! Dreadful, isn't it? You never know what'll happen from one day to the next, do you?'

'No, indeed, you don't, Mrs Tompkins,' Mrs Bellairs agreed, and escaped as quickly as she could. Mrs Tompkins made a study of bad health. Mrs Bellairs knew only too well that in a very short time she would be listening to an account of the late Mr Tompkins' final illness and so, by easy, stages, to that of Aunt Ethel and Cousin Bert.

'And really, I don't quite see the sense of paying her for a very morbid and I'm quite sure inaccurate account of their various diseases,' Mrs Bellairs confessed to Lisa. 'She goes on and
on
, and at the current rates of payment it really is an expensive form of conversation!'

'Yes, she is a bit non-stop,' Lisa agreed 'Mother, did she say just how bad Mr Cosgrave is?'

'No, dear, of course she didn't,' Mrs Bellairs said briskly, her back to Lisa as she ferreted in an untidy drawer where she was quite certain she had left her spectacles. 'Of course, she's anticipating—and I rather think—hoping for the worst. But she certainly doesn't
know
.'

'But a stroke is always serious, isn't it?' Lisa asked anxiously.

'It can be,' agreed Mrs Bellairs. 'On the other hand, I know people who have lived for many, many years after having had one. Of course, it probably means living a quieter life than before—'

'Yes, that was what I was thinking,' Lisa explained. 'Oh, I know it sounds rather hard and mercenary, but I can't help wondering just what this will mean—'

'You mean you're wondering just how Mark's future will be affected by Mr Cosgrave's illness?' Mrs Bellairs asked gravely. And when Lisa nodded in a rather shamefaced way she added no more than: 'Well, I'm sure Mark will be letting you know all about it very soon.'

But he didn't. There weren't even any more postcards.

It wasn't until nearly a week later that Lisa had any first-hand news about Mr Cosgrave, and that came from Mrs Cosgrave herself.

They met in the village and naturally Lisa had to stop and make enquiries.

Mrs Cosgrave beamed at her.

'
Very
much better, thank you, my dear! They're delighted at the hospital with his progress. Of course, he'll have to be very careful for a long time, perhaps always.' Her pleasant pink face was momentarily clouded. 'But there,' she went on, 'I've been telling him for a long time that he ought to retire, particularly lately. Things seem to have worried him so much more. That sad business about Chicot—he took that very much to heart, you know.'

'Yes, I suppose so,' Lisa said awkwardly.

'But there, my dear, you mustn't blame yourself,' Mrs Cosgrave patted her hand kindly. 'You
had
to fetch Mr Farrier, I quite see that. And after that—well, one thing followed another, you might say. But that was only a small thing compared to—' her voice faded away and then, in a way which suggested to Lisa that she was almost unconscious that she was speaking her thoughts aloud, she went on: 'He's been very much worried about business matters for some time past. Of course, I don't really understand about that sort of thing, but as far as I can make out, people started getting worried that the money they'd invested in Simon's firm wasn't safe. Goodness knows why, but people do get these odd ideas sometimes and then they all follow one another like sheep and want to withdraw their money. It's the thing financiers dread most, that I do know. But everything's all right now because dear Mark took control and somehow he's convinced everybody that there's nothing to worry about,' Mrs Cosgrave finished triumphantly.

'That must be a weight off Mr Cosgrave's mind,' Lisa managed to say through dry lips, and earned another beam.

'It is, my dear! You'd be surprised at the difference it's made! That dear boy—he's worked wonders! He couldn't have done more if he'd been our own son—'

Lisa reached home with the uncomfortable feeling that she'd been eavesdropping on someone's most private affairs. Of course it wasn't her fault. It was simply that Mrs Cosgrave was so incredibly indiscreet, and once she got started, it was well nigh impossible to stop her without being really rude.

'Well, at least I'll take good care not to pass on anything that she said,' Lisa resolved. 'Because I can't help feeling that she shouldn't have told me.'

With that belief firmly established in her mind, she stiffened defensively when Tom stopped her in the hall and said that there was something he had to tell her.

'Oh, not now, Tom,' she said hurriedly, and tried to slip past him. But Tom blocked her way resolutely.

'I'm sorry, Lisa,' he said inexorably, 'but it's something you've got to know—and I think it would be better if I told you on the quiet than if you had it bounced on you in front of a lot of people. Come into my room, will you?'

There was something in Tom's manner that compelled compliance. Lisa followed him silently into his sitting room.

Tom shut the door and handed her a copy- of the morning paper.

'There—where I've marked,' he said gruffly, and turned away to stare out of the window.

For a moment Lisa found it impossible to focus on the spot he had indicated. Then, suddenly, the print leapt into prominence:

'SAVILLE—COSGRAVE. On August 29th at Caxton Hall, London, Mark Saville, son of the late Mr and Mrs Thomas Saville of Colnethorpe, Derbyshire, to Evadne June, only daughter of Mr and Mrs Simon Cosgrave of Bardley Manor, Bardley, Sussex.'

There was a long silence—so long that Tom had to know what was happening. He turned.

Lisa was sitting down. The newspaper was on the floor beside her, her hands lay limply in her lap. But it was her eyes that riveted Tom's attention. Blank-unseeing—

'Lisa!' he said sharply.

She caught her breath in a shuddering sigh and came back, it seemed for a great distance.

'It's all right, Tom,' she said bleakly. 'It's a shock, but not, somehow, a surprise—'

'You mean to say you expected it?' Tom demanded incredulously.

'Yes—no—I don't know,' Lisa said confusedly, and stood up. 'Thank you, Tom, for showing me—' and she drifted across to the door with an aimlessness that Tom found frightening. Rapidly he moved to intercept her.

'Where are you going, Lisa?' he demanded urgently.

She seemed perplexed at the question.

'I don't know. Does it matter?' she asked indifferently.

'You know it does, my dear,' he insisted gently. 'As you say, it's been a shock—'

She smiled faintly.

'I'm not going to do anything desperate, Tom. Really, I'm not. I don't think I've got the courage to.

But I—I must be alone for a little while until I've got things sorted out in my mind. If you were me, wouldn't you feel the same?'

He knew that he would and he had to let her go, though he extracted a promise from her that she would either be back within an hour or else telephone to say where she was. And knowing Lisa, he knew that she would keep her promise.

For a while Lisa simply walked, oblivious to the heat of the sun, hardly aware of the direction she was taking and, for all that she had told Tom she wanted to think things out, too numbed to do anything of the sort.

It was only slowly that she realized her brain, unbidden, was taking her in a definite direction—towards Sir Gerald Tenbury's cottage.

For a moment she stood stock still. Then, abruptly, she made up her mind. Perhaps it wasn't just by chance that she had come this way—in fact, if Uncle Gerald was at the cottage—and she wasn't at all sure about that —then yes, it must be something more than chance.

He was, actually, in the little front garden clipping expertly at a hedge. His clothes were disgracefully old and shabby, but his finely cut face had a tranquillity about it that proved how wise he had been to find this quiet hide-out.

'Hallo, Lisa,' he greeted her cheerfully. 'Just in time for a pre-lunch drink! What's it to be—hard or soft?'

'Soft, please, Uncle Gerald,' Lisa replied, and waited under the shade of a swinging garden seat while her godfather went into the cottage.

In a very short time he was out again with a glass of lager in one hand and one of orange juice in the other. As Lisa took her glass from him, their eyes met momentarily and Lisa knew that she hadn't got to explain what had happened. Sir Gerald knew already, for in his wise eyes there was a great tenderness and a deep compassion.

'You know, don't you, Uncle Gerald?' she whispered, and he nodded.

'Yes, my dear, I do. And—' he drew a deep breath, 'I'm not going to make any bones about it, Lisa, I've rarely been more thankful for anything in my life!'

'O—oh!' Lisa said blankly. 'But why?'

He made an impatient little movement of his free hand.

'Oh, my dear—an intelligent girl like you—don't you know the answer to that without me telling you?'

'Perhaps I do,' Lisa admitted. 'But I don't feel very clear about anything. I feel rather as if I've been in a foreign country where they speak a different language—and it's left me muddled.'

He looked at her thoughtfully.

'Can I do anything to unmuddle you?' he asked gravely.

'I think perhaps you might,' she replied, and then, after a little pause during which Sir Gerald held his glass up and watched the sun gleam through its golden contents, she went on: 'I think, really, it begins with Mr Cosgrave—'

'Yes?'

'Will you tell me about him, please?' Lisa asked. 'What sort of a man he is—just how he makes his money?'

'Yes—' Sir Gerald lit a cigarette and for a moment or two puffed it reflectively. 'Well, every now and again a man comes to the fore who is an inspired gambler. I don't mean on the turn of a card or the spin of a wheel. That's a mug's game. But on which way the cat will jump—in this case that means what will be happening in the future, near or far, and how people with money to invest will react to those happenings. All clear, so far?'

'Yes, I think so,' Lisa said cautiously. 'You mean, Mr Cosgrave is one of that sort?'

'And how!' Sir Gerald replied with, for him, an unusual use of a slang phrase which somehow made the reply more convincing. 'Now, the more successful a man is along those lines, the more risks he's going to take because he's confident that he's got the necessary skill. In fact—do you remember, when you were a child, I used to take you to the circus, Lisa?'

'Of course I do!' Involuntarily she smiled at the memory of those golden days.

'Then of course you remember the juggler? All those shining balls he used to keep going in the air at once, gradually building up the number? Now, you may not have realized it, but there was never more than one ball in his hand at any time, yet they were all completely under his control. Well, for years Cosgrave has been juggling just like that. And so long as he kept his nerve and his conviction that he'd got the necessary skill, everybody else believed it, too. Or at least, most people did,' he added reflectively.

'But not you, Uncle Gerald?' Lisa suggested.

'No, not me,' he acknowledged. 'You see, I've always remembered that juggler, particularly on the occasion when, quite suddenly, something went wrong. Possibly his eyesight wasn't as good as it had been, or his muscles weren't as responsive—he was quite an elderly man, you know. But I remember, he faltered and the act would have been a complete fiasco but for the presence of mind of a younger man—the stooge. He seemed to materialize from nowhere and before one could say Jack Robinson, he was keeping the balls going and the old man just faded out—'

'And you think that's what has happened now?' Lisa said gravely. 'And Mark has seized his opportunity.'

'What do you think yourself?' Sir Gerald asked.

'I think you're right,' Lisa nodded. 'Particularly after what Mrs Cosgrave told me this morning.' And she repeated the conversation as nearly as she could remember it.