Return to Tremarth (13 page)

“And you agree with that, Charlotte?” he asked her again. “If you are honest, I mean?” “No.” She shook her head quite firmly. “I’d like you to remain here for as long as you choose to remain here, and I’m sure Dr, Mackay is of the opinion that you are already benefiting by the sea air. After all,” as if she was defending a secret urge to keep him there, and which she was quite sure Claire suspected her of being capable of attempting to do for some reason that was not yet quite clear — not shatteringly clear, that is — to Charlotte herself, “you haven’t been ill very long, and you haven’t given yourself a chance to feel steady on your feet, let alone regain your memory after such a frightful accident. Hannah and I both feel that you should take things a bit slowly for a time.”

“By which, of course, you mean that you wouldn’t recommend matrimony as yet? Not until I’m steady enough on my feet to take my bride in my arms and lift her over the threshold of my somewhat uninspiring London flat?”

Charlotte flushed brilliantly — far more brilliantly than Claire had flushed a moment ago as she hastily denied any such imputation.

“I think you’re steady enough on your feet... or you will be in a very short while if you continue to maintain improvement at your present rate; but not knowing very much about yourself — ”

“Or about my bride-to-be, if it comes to that!”

But Claire refused to look embarrassed by this reminder.

“You might be better off if you — if you stay where you are for another week or so, and allow us — Hannah and me — to look after you.”

Claire’s remarkable blue eyes developed a sparkle of pure malice as she put forward the suggestion:

“We could of course get married at once and honeymoon here! If Miss Woodford has no objection! If we did that I could help her and Nurse Cootes to take the very best possible care of you. Between us you’d be bound to make a remarkable and complete recovery in the shortest possible space of time! ”

But Charlotte, without realising it herself, looked so appalled by the prospect that Richard himself decided to end the discussion. And he did so in a suddenly curt and decisive manner.

“For goodness’ sake, Claire,” he begged her sharply, “stop talking about me as if I presented a problem, and do please get it into your head that I’m not exchanging my estate of bachelorhood at the present time for anyone — anyone, do you understand ? And when I do get married I hope I’ll do so in a sufficiently fit condition to require neither nursing nor consultations about my state of health. Now, is that a tanker out there? It seems to be fairly close in shore, or making for the shore. Let’s hope it’s not planning to pile up on the rocks. This is a nasty part of the coast! ”

He placed a telescope, with which Charlotte had provided him, to a somewhat irritable eye, and the two girls glanced at one another for a moment, and then assumed an interest in the aspect of marine life that was temporarily engaging all his interest. Charlotte had the feeling that Claire was subduing a keen sense of frustration, and as for her.... She only knew that she was conscious of a sense of respite. She was going to keep her patient for a little longer, and he certainly didn’t strike her as in any condition to get married, even had the girl he was contemplating marrying seemed somehow more suitable.

That night she took him a soothing milk drink before Hannah took over with his sleeping tablets, and somewhat to her embarrassment he returned to the subject they had been discussing that morning on the terrace.

“The whole point of my present situation is that I’ve got to recover my memory before I take any decisive steps,” he said to her. He was once more frowning and looking worried. “It seems absurd that I can’t even be absolutely certain that I did once propose to Claire,” he added.

“She would hardly say that you had done so if you hadn’t,” she replied, smoothing his top sheet as an excuse to keep her hands occupied.

“You don’t think she would?” and he stared hard at her.

“Would any woman as attractive as Miss Brown ? There must be a lot of men in the world who would like to marry her.”

“You think she’s as attractive as all that?” “You said yourself only a few days ago that she’s almost unbelievably attractive.”

“So I did and so she is.” He lay back against his pillows and smiled at her — not as if he had anything very much to smile about, but as if he was suddenly rather drily amused. “I suppose I ought to consider myself an exceptionally fortunate man because she’s consented to become my wife! ”

“Well, don’t you?”

He smiled more widely, and even more drily.

“I don’t know. I feel like someone groping a perpetual fog, and although all that I see of Claire is very easy on the eye I simply can’t manage to recollect her... as I should be able to do if she’d ever made a very great impression on me.”

“When I first saw you at the Three Sailors you were very anxious to buy Tremarth. Was it because you were planning to get married, do you think, and you wanted somewhere familial where you could set up a home with Miss Brown?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t know.” His eyes twinkled. “But I do know this house affects me in a most extraordinary way. I know that I’ve been here before, often — and I know that I always wanted to return to this place.”

“You can’t remember visiting here when you were a schoolboy?”

Another shake of the head answered her.

“You can’t remember my aunt? You were a little afraid of her, I believe, but in a way I suspect you were fond of her, too. She was quite a personality.

“And you? You tell me that you were often here during my visits?”

“On more than one of your visits. I treated you abominably, but you were always very kind to me — quite exceptionally kind considering I was such a little beast.” She looked concerned by the memory of her own beastliness, and the little she had done to repay him for his determined cherishing of her. “Even Aunt Jane thought I treated you rather shabbily.”

“And yet you refused to sell your house to me when I asked you to do so! ”

Startled, she looked at him.

“You — you remember that?”

His eyes avoided hers. He stared out of the window at the moonlit sea.

“I didn’t say so. I think you must have told me so yourself.” He frowned at the shimmering pathway that was lying like a golden sword-thrust across the gently heaving indigo bosom of the restless Atlantic. There are occasions when, I suppose, you could say that I do remember some things.... Not very relevant, perhaps.” “What sort of things?” she asked, with a queer sort of breathlessness.

He looked up and directly into her eyes.

“I remember a little girl with red hair.”

“Me?”

“Since your hair is very red now it must have been as remarkably red when you were a child! ”

“Then your amnesia must be getting better. You are recovering! ”

He shrugged against his pillows as if he was not prepared to agree with her entirely.

“You can say that if you wish, but it is when people are growing older that they remember in detail the things that happened to them when they were a child. I can remember nothing at all that has happened to me in recent years — not even your refusal to sell to me this house.” She felt a trifle perplexed by the slight perverseness of his attitude.

“But perhaps if you tried a little harder_”

“Do you think I’m not constantly trying to penetrate the fog that is all I’ve got left of a memory?” he demanded, with such a spurt of irritation that she practically recoiled noticeably. “Especially when it seems that short of a miracle happening I’m doomed to become a married man within a matter of a few weeks, possibly less.”

“Then you honestly don’t — don’t want to get married?”

All at once his grey eyes were disconcerting hard grey pools of mockery. “What gives you that impression?” he asked. “Something I said about a miracle depriving me of the opportunity to become the husband of one of the most delightful and enchanting young women I’ve ever set eyes on? Substitute the word ‘disaster’ for ‘miracle’ and you’ll realise that the one thing I’m looking forward to is getting married! In fact, I find it hard to wait.... And that’s easily understandable, isn’t it?”

Charlotte felt herself turning a dull, but rather painful, red. He was amusing himself at her expense.... She realised that. And although she couldn’t quite understand the reason he seemed to think it was no more than she deserved that she should be treated unkindly. Between the almost feminine fringes of his thick black eyelashes his eyes held her in a sort of contempt.... And with her knowledge of all that she had done for him in the past few days, including the sacrifice of her own bedroom

— that seemed to her a little unfair. In fact, unreasonable, unless it was the result of his amnesia.

She stared back at him suddenly a little critically and curiously. Just how much did he remember of his past ?

A little girl with red hair!

“I was a very plump little girl,” she remarked suddenly and soberly. “I had a large number of freckles, too.”

“You had nothing of the kind.... And you were as slim as a sprite! ” “When you came here the other day to look over the house Waterloo behaved in a most extraordinary manner. He was most unfriendly towards you! ”

“He was not.” He seemed complacently satisfied because he was able to make the admission. “He was almost effusively friendly.” She gathered up the empty glass that had held his hot milk drink, and made for the door.

“Good-night, Mr. Tremarth,” she said softly. “I hope you have an absolutely undisturbed night, and are very much better in the morning!”

When she joined Hannah in the drawing room she was both looking and feeling extremely thoughtful, but Hannah was curled up on a settee in front of the television set that had been installed a few days before, and was not in a mood to be distracted. Her attention was, in fact, glued to the television screen, and she answered abstractedly when Charlotte spoke to her.

“Sit down,” she advised, “and put your feet up. Looking after invalids in a house of this sort is rather more than a trifle exhausting. If we were to go in for it in a big way we’d have to have a lift installed.”

Charlotte ignored her advice, and wandered rather aimlessly about the room. She was in no mood to talk, but there was something she might have asked Hannah if the latter had not been so obviously wrapped up in the development of an exciting television drama. But what was really rather remarkable was the way she fairly sprang to her feet and blushed like an eager schoolgirl when a tap came on the open French window and Dr. Mackay, without waiting for an invitation to do so, walked in between the quiet grey falls of brocade curtaining and greeted them with the coolness and assurance of an old and well-tried friend.

“It’s a wonderful night,” he observed. “I wondered whether one or other of you would care for a breath of air? I realise you’ve got a parent to attend to, but it doesn’t need two of you to sit with him and hold his hand, and in any case I imagine by this time he’s settled down for the night?” and he looked directly at Hannah as he spoke.

Charlotte rose at once to the situation. She smiled at Dr. Mackay as if she was only faintly amused by his rather appealing transparency, and agreed that there was little more they could do for their patient that night. But he would be the first to disapprove of them leaving him alone in the house, and she suggested that Hannah took advantage of the opportunity to stretch her legs ... despite the fact that it had been Hannah who was the strong advocate of taking the weight off their feet.

“It’s wonderful in the garden at this hour,” she said. “But if you feel like going further ... say a visit to the Three Sailors, I shan’t mind,” she assured them.

Hannah fairly beamed at her.

“You really mean that?” she asked.

“Of course. And don’t forget, there is a man in the house... even if he isn’t quite clear about who he is at the moment! ”

While Hannah rushed off to change and make herself look as attractive as possible for the unexpected treat ahead of her, Dr. Mackay accepted a drink from Charlotte, and sat on the end of a settee while he drank it.

“I am off duty to-night,” he admitted, “and if the alcohol content of this glass of sherry upsets the balance of my blood Hannah can take over the wheel of the car and drive us to the village.”

“I’m afraid it’s not very good sherry,” Charlotte apologised. She started to wander up and down over the pearl-grey carpets. “Dr. Mackay! ” she said suddenly.

^;
Yes?” He smiled at her, secretly agreeing with her about the quality of the sherry but far too naturally polite to make comments on it aloud. “Anything I can do for you?” he wanted to know.

“Not me, precisely.” She seemed to hesitate. “Dr. Mackay....”

“I’m at your service if you want anything, you know,” he told her affably. “Even if it’s free advice. But as you look extremely healthy and charming to me, I’m sure it’s not that.”

“No, I — ” She picked up a porcelain ginger jar, and then put it back again. “It’s about Mr. Tremarth! He seems to be making quite a good

recovery, but I’m a little puzzled about — about his amnesia. He remembers some things, but not others. He doesn’t even remember that he became engaged to be married shortly before he met with his accident! ”

The doctor smiled humorously.

“Perhaps he regretted becoming engaged as soon as he’d committed himself, and now he’s particularly vague on that point because he’d get out of it if he could — and he hadn’t all the right gentlemanly instincts!

“But the young woman in question is quite lovely_”

“Yes. I saw her in the village about ten o’clock this morning.”

“And you — you do agree that she’s — extremely attractive?”

Dr. Mackay smiled suddenly and more broadly. He set down his glass on a little occasional table, and then rose and walked across to her and patted her on the shoulder.

“As attractive as they come. And I admit it’s hard on her if she can’t get him to fix a day for the wedding, but I shall strongly advise him to turn his back on the delights of matrimony for a while yet. For one thing it would be far from satisfactory from his point of view if he married a young woman — though wholly desirable — without being perfectly clear who she is; and from her point of view it could even be disastrous. I shall do something I’ve never done before and issue a certificate that he isn’t fit to marry if he desires it — and she is rather too persuasive. If he doesn’t desire it I shall have a good talk to him, and we’ll see what effect that has.”