With All My Worldly Goods (2 page)

“Have you a return ticket?”

“Yes.” She produced it. To her extreme annoyance and astonishment, he calmly took it as though she were a child who could not be trusted with it. Somehow, it was the last straw.

“Please may I have my own ticket back?” she said sharply. “I am perfectly capable of looking after myself to that extent.”

He looked at her then with the most devastating amusement.

“Why, of course. I’m sorry.” He gave her back the ticket at once.

For a moment she felt unable to take her eyes away from him. She couldn’t stand the man already, she told herself, but she had never seen anything like the brilliance of those dark eyes when he laughed, nor the fascination of that even line of perfect white teeth.

In that second she remembered her father’s remark: “The women run after him.” And she thought she understood why.

But almost immediately the laughter was gone, and she half thought she must have imagined it.

It seemed a long while before the train started, and she sat there rather disconsolately in her corner seat, while he strolled up and down the platform smoking.

He was not wearing his hat now, and she noticed that his thick dark hair was very slightly touched with grey at the temples. It was difficult to guess his age. Thirty-five? Forty? Something between the two, she supposed. But that air of experience and unshakable self-confidence made it impossible to say.

He was standing half turned away from her now, looking along the platform, and she could study his strong, clear-cut profile at her leisure. Something about it made her nervous again.

She wished something would happen that would make him laugh again. She didn’t like him, but he fascinated her when he laughed, and it made him look much more human and approachable too.

However, nothing happened that made him laugh. And he didn’t even bother to smile as he took his seat opposite her just before the train started.

It was the most extraordinary journey back to London. They were alone in the compartment, with no one to break the silence between them, and Leonora felt that nothing in the world would make her able to talk naturally to him.

Perhaps he didn’t feel the same embarrassment as she. At any rate, he leaned back in his seat most of the time, gazing out of the window at the very English landscape with a sort of passionate, hungry satisfaction that made Leonora astonished and uneasy.

“I don’t believe this man does or feels anything in moderation,” she thought. “In a way, I should think he’s very violent underneath this queer calm.” And then: “Oh,
Daddy,
I wish you were here! I never want to see this Bruce Mickleham person again.”

She stared out of the window, too, after that. But she was not seeing the same things as he. She was seeing herself on the journey down, eager and trembling with happy anticipation. Full of joyous hopes and loving plans. They had all crumbled now like grey wood-ash, and she felt unbearably cheated and forlorn.

Even the fact that her father’s coming could only be delayed a week or two was little comfort. In the meantime she was dependent in every sense on the caprice of the man opposite, and the very fact that he seemed so reluctant to speak of her father implied a callous indifference that was disturbing.

He
must
know how unhappy and anxious she felt, yet he made not the slightest attempt to reassure her.

“He’s just a cold-hearted beast,” she thought. “Anyone can see it. It’s written all over him. Oh,
why
did daddy choose him, of all people?”

Still, her father had chosen him, and there was no escaping the inevitable. The longer she left this heavy silence, the more difficult it would be to break, and there were one or two things which they must have straight.

Even so, the train was actually nearing London before she plucked up sufficient courage to say timidly:

“Mr. Mickleham.”

He looked across at her at once.

“Yes?”

“I think I ought to explain. I—I have practically no money.”

“It is of no consequence. I have plenty,” was the rather astonishing reply.

Well, what was she supposed to make of that? Leonora wondered. And then she blushed hotly, for his way of putting it somehow made her feel almost as though she were asking for charity.

“I mean,” she said coldly, “that I really have nowhere to go. You see, I used to live with my aunt, and now she’s dead and—”

“I know.”

“I gave up my room at the girls’ club this morning. And—”

She stopped. She had nearly blurted out the bit about the six and eightpence halfpenny, but she had an idea he might crudely produce a bundle of notes if she did.

“You need not worry,” he told her a trifle impatiently. “I told your father I would look after you, and I have every intention of doing so.”

Leonora didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, With an effort she forced out a reluctant “Thank you.” But she felt quite astonishingly ungrateful, really, and would have given a great deal at that moment to have been able to refuse his help.

As it was, she had to content herself with saying: “I left my suit-case at the luggage office at Waterloo.”

“Very well. We will collect it on our way out,” he replied. And after that the silence between them was unbroken until the train drew into the station.

It was only when she stepped out on to the platform at Waterloo again that the remembrance of Martin struck her like a blow.

Oh, why couldn’t he have been here now? It was only a few hours since his smiling, dependable good-temper had seemed such an easy thing to lean on. Now he was speeding northward in some wretched train that was taking him farther away from her every minute. He would not be back for three weeks—probably not until her father came. And until then Bruce Mickleham was the only person on whom she could depend.

However, he seemed quite well able to look after her in the smaller matters, and her luggage was collected, a taxi was commandeered, and he gave the address of a quiet but exclusive hotel, before he too got into the taxi.

When he was sitting beside her like that, his arm almost touching hers, she was overwhelmingly conscious of the strength in his big, silent figure.

“It’s like stored up electricity or something,” thought Leonora uneasily. “Unlimited power—unused at the moment, but ready all the time. I wonder why he gives one that impression.”

Sheer personality, she supposed. And then she thought: “I shall be quite relieved when I’ve been left alone at the hotel. He’s altogether too overwhelming.”

But she had counted on her liberty too soon. Evidently he and Aunt Sophie didn’t share the same views on hotel etiquette. For, having engaged a bedroom and sitting-room for her, he calmly ordered the same for himself “in the same corridor.”

Leonora was seething with indignation. Was the creature entirely insensitive? How did he suppose she liked having the request put like that?
Martin
would have died rather than put any girl in such a position.

There was nothing she could say in front of the hotel clerk, of course, and she followed the page into the lift in wordless anger.

The moment she was alone in her room, she tossed off her hat and coat, and walked up and down in restless fury. Her father had no right to have put her in this position. Bruce Mickleham was the last person on earth to be entrusted with the tactful and sympathetic handling of a very unhappy girl.

At the thought of how unhappy she was, she felt her mouth quiver. The tears had been very near for some while now, and she bit her lip, trembling on the edge of a storm of grief.

But at that moment there was a knock on the sitting-room door.

“Come in.”

She turned quickly as Bruce Mickleham came in.

He glanced round the room quite calmly.

“Are you comfortable here? Got everything you want?” He was not personally exercised on her behalf, she felt sure. Merely carrying out a tiresome duty in every particular.

“No. I am
not
comfortable here,” she exclaimed, her blue eyes flashing angrily. “Have you no decency at all? Insisting on even being in the same corridor. What do you suppose the hotel staff thought?”

He looked amused and surprised.

‘They probably think you’re my niece—if they think about it at all. If you’re imagining they will take you for my mistress, let me assure you that no one as experienced as a hotel clerk would take you for anything of the sort.”

Leonora gasped.

“Isn’t that rather an unnecessarily insulting remark?” she said coldly.

“Why? Have you any special ambitions to look that type?” He seemed still more amused.

There didn’t seem to be an adequate retort to that, and for a moment she felt her mouth tremble again.

“My dear child,” he said reasonably, “must I remind you again that I have undertaken to look after you? I couldn’t very well do that if we were in different hotels you know.”

“I’m not a child,” Leonora murmured, resentful and unhappy.

“No?” he said coldly. “Well, you have behaved exactly like one from the moment we met this afternoon.”

Leonora was dismayedly silent. She felt the charge was largely unmerited, but she was aware that she had been behaving distinctly pettishly in the last few minutes.

She suddenly swallowed her wrath and looked up with a smile that was more winning than she knew.

“I’m sorry.” She held out her hand to him. “I expect I have been silly. But I’m very miserable about daddy, you know.”

She was almost amused to see how taken aback he was at her smile. He took her hand slowly and held it for a moment as though he scarcely knew what to do with it. Then he bent his head and just touched it with his lips.

“Very well,” he said a little stiffly. Then he turned and went out of the room.

Leonora didn’t know whether to be amused or annoyed. But she thought with a sigh that she would be immeasurably relieved when there was no longer any need to be either. She wished she could count the very hours until her father would come, and she would be free of this difficult person.

Presently she went downstairs to have dinner, for she realized that she had had nothing at all since an early lunch—and in any case she had been too excited then to pay much attention to food.

He joined her after a while, and though conversation seemed to flow just a little more easily than it had in the train, she still felt that uneasy constraint with him, and it was with a sense of distinct relief that a last she said good night to him and went upstairs.

Once she was alone in her room again, she realized that it was far too early to go to bed. Yet there was nothing to do, and her own thoughts were melancholy company.

And then, quite suddenly, the inspiration came to her. She would ring up Martin. She knew the hotel where he was staying. And the thought of being able to speak to him of her disappointment and her unhappy position brought a relief beyond measure.

With hands that shook, she picked up the telephone, and after a very short pause, Martin’s voice sounded clearly at the other end of the wire.

“Hallo. Who’s that?
Lora!
Oh, my dear girl, how delightful of you to ring. How is your father?”

“He—he hasn’t come,” she stammered into the telephone.

“He hasn’t—what? Hasn’t come? Do you mean he was not on the boat?”

“No. You see—” She began to explain feverishly, and suddenly she found she was crying too, so that the tears and the words all seemed to get mixed up together.

She could hear the concern in Martin’s voice, and it was blessed comfort after the callousness of Bruce Mickleham.

“
What’s
that you say? Do you mean this Mexican roughneck has planted himself at the same hotel?”

“He—he isn’t exactly that,” she tried to explain. “Only I don’t like being here with him.”

“Good lord, I should think not. Why don’t you go back to the club? You would be much happier there.”

“That’s just it, Martin. I can’t.” It seemed so easy to tell him now, after all that had happened. “You see, I haven’t any money.”

“Any what, dear? Money?” His voice became very tender. “Oh, why didn’t you tell me before? Why, Lora dear, you can have whatever you like. I’ll wire it to the club in the morning. No, please don’t make any protest. You can easily pay me back the moment your father comes. It’s the merest gesture of friendship, and it’s infinitely better that you should take it from me rather than from this Mickleham creature. Isn’t it now? Do be reasonable.”

It was true of course. And it would solve every problem at one blow. She could slip away now, this very evening, and go to the club. The money would arrive from Martin the next day. She could have cried all over again with the relief of it.

“Oh, Martin,
thank
you!”

“Bless you, child. You’re more than welcome. It’s a privilege to be able to lend it to an heiress like you, you know.”

She laughed rather shakily, because the anxiety behind his little joke was very touching. And even when she had said good night and rung off, everything looked much brighter.