With All My Worldly Goods (7 page)

“I didn’t
know
it,” Lora said slowly. “But I think I guessed there was something wrong.”

“Yes. That’s why he is so terribly—hard sometimes. But I’ll tell you about it another time,” Agatha added hastily. “Run along and enjoy yourself.” And she gave Leonora a little hug, and then turned and went back into the library.

But Leonora didn’t “run along”. She went very slowly and thoughtfully upstairs.

She was not specially surprised at what Bruce’s sister had said, but, all the same, it put him in a very different light. Apart from the arrogance and the dominating personality there was another side to Bruce. Something that needed understanding and sympathy and infinite tenderness.

And she was very glad that it should be so.

When she came downstairs again, she was wearing one of the new dresses she had bought with her first month’s allowance. Stiff, pale-blue taffeta, lightly powdered with little gold flowers, and cut rather low, away from her childishly-rounded shoulders.

Bruce was in the hall waiting for her and, coming over, he stood at the foot of the stairs looking up at her.

“No. Stay where you are for a moment.”

She laughed a little and paused a few steps above him.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I want to look at you.” He wasn’t smiling himself. He gazed at her with an almost sombre attention. Then, putting his hands round her waist, he lifted her down.

“Bruce, what is it?” She was half amused and half disturbed.

“Nothing.”

“But there is something. You look so solemn.”

He smiled slightly then and drew her close.

“You’re so different from anything I ever thought when I used to hear about you,” he said, almost as though it troubled him.

“But I don’t suppose you thought
anything
about me when I was only a name,” Leonora said. “Why should you?”

“Oh, yes. All the way across I imagined I had a very clear picture of you,” he assured her.

“And what did you expect?” she asked with amused curiosity.

“Oh—a tiresome little nonentity,” he said impatiently. “Easily managed but deadly dull.”

“I’m sorry to have disappointed you,” Leonora said demurely. “For I see from your serious expression that I
have
disappointed you.”

He laughed then and caught her close against him. “Lora, you’re so sweet. And you’re good, too,” he added with a little grimace. “Much, much too good for me, I suppose.”

“Are you advising me to jilt you, Bruce? It seems such a pity after having spent all this time assuring me that we can’t be happy without each other.”

He kissed her—a quick, fierce kiss.

“You’re absurd, and you’re certainly the only person who has ever dared to laugh at me to my face.”

“I can believe it. I’m terrified about doing it myself,” she assured him, smiling. “But it’s good for you. Shall we go now?”

“Yes. We’ll go now.” But even then he held her tightly for a minute longer before he put her cape round her and took her off.

They were half-way through dinner when he took a little box out of his pocket.

“I have a ring here for you, Lora. But if you prefer to have something more—conventional for your engagement ring, you must tell me so.”

She leaned forward with eager interest, and then, as he opened the box, she gave a cry of astonishment and admiration.

“Why, Bruce, how wonderful! I’ve never seen anything like it. Where did you get it?”

He lifted out the ring and put it on the white cloth where she could see it better.

There was only one stone—a ruby, which glowed with a sullen dark fire that made it seem almost black, and the ring itself was of thick pure gold, most curiously wrought.

“Where did you get it?” she repeated.

“It was among the things your father discovered,” Bruce said slowly. “I—bought it from him because I thought it so beautiful.”
She looked up with her eyes sparkling.

“You mean
daddy
found it. Oh, that makes it doubly precious. And it’s all those hundreds of years old?”

“Yes. The last woman who wore that ring was probably an Aztec princess,” Bruce said thoughtfully.

Leonora caught her breath.

“Bruce—how extraordinary. And will you really give it to me for my engagement ring?”

“If you want it.”

“Why of course I want it,” exclaimed Leonora. “Any girl would want it.”

“Then you’re not superstitious,” he said as he gently slipped the ring on her finger.

“No. But anyway, why should I be superstitious about this? I think it’s wildly thrilling to wear the ring of an Aztec Princess.”

“Well, Lora, she probably came to a violent end. That’s all.” Bruce smiled slightly. “But I’m glad you like the ring and want it. It’s so such more passionately alive than the usual solitaire diamond set in platinum.”

“Yes. I think so too,” Leonora said slowly. But she turned the ring on her finger thoughtfully, and wondered half fearfully what had been the fate of the woman who had worn it four hundred years ago.

But then the band started again and Bruce asked her if she would like to come and dance.

It was curious being out like this with Bruce. Until now, practically the only man who had taken her out in this sense had been—Martin!

She jumped, almost physically, as Martin forced himself back into her mind.

By some incredible process she had contrived to forget all about him until this moment. Now she remembered him with overwhelming dismay.

“Something the matter? “Bruce bent his head to look at her.

“No, no. I’m all right, thank you.”

But she wasn’t all right, of course. She was thinking wildly: “How on
earth
am I going to tell him? It will seem simply inexplicable to him. But I must tell him as soon as ever possible. I can’t let him go on thinking—thinking—”

Well, thinking exactly what she herself had been thinking, of course, until five o’clock that afternoon.

Leonora felt she had never anticipated any task with more distaste than this horrible business of having to tell Martin she loved Bruce. It wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t been so really dear and splendid himself. But as it was—on top of his even having come to London to see her—it seemed so base to deal him a blow in the back like this.

Yet what else could she do? she thought unhappily. She
did
love Bruce and she meant to marry Bruce. And Martin would have to be told.

The thought of it kept her rather serious for the rest of the evening. And even the kiss which Bruce gave her before she went up to bed was not entirely able to remove the shadow from her heart.

The moment she was alone in the room she flung herself down at the writing desk.

“I don’t know how to word this letter,” she wrote, “because, however I put the fact, it must make you think I am perfectly mad after all the things we said this afternoon. But the incredible truth is, Martin, that I find I am in love with my guardian.”

“Oh, that does look preposterous written down,” she thought disconsolately.

“There is no need for me to say how sudden it all is,”
Leonora went on after a minute,
“for no one can know better than you how I
did
feel about him. But there is nothing to say except that I have changed. I love him now and I am going to marry him. Try not to think me too utterly crazy—though I do feel a little crazy at the moment myself.

“I felt I had to write and tell you before any one else, and in any case I meant to write to you tonight to say ‘thank you, thank you’ once again for your dear friendship in coming all this way to see me this afternoon.

“Please don’t think I have forgotten my appreciation of that in my new-found happiness.”

It was not a very satisfactory letter, but it was all she could achieve, and presently she went to bed, very late, with her mind still very unquiet.

Leonora woke unrefreshed and oddly depressed. But, of course, it was really her uneasiness about Martin that made her feel like this. She supposed she wouldn’t feel happy in her mind again until she had received his reply. And perhaps not even then, she thought nervously.

But Martin’s reply, when it came, contained nothing that could upset her. It expressed the warmest good wishes and no hint at all of whatever disappointment he himself was suffering.

Right at the end there was a slight touch of misgiving.

“It would be ridiculous to pretend I’m not astonished, and just a little bit disturbed, Lora. But if you are perfectly happy about the arrangement, it is certainly not for me to question it.

“When I come back to London next week, I hope you will come out to lunch or tea with me. There is so much that can be said instead of written and, as an old friend (for I
am
that) I feel I want to hear from you yourself that you are happy—and I want to see how you look as you tell me about it all.”

It was a natural enough request, and Leonora was almost glad of it. She felt that, in the peculiar circumstances, Martin was bound to feel misgiving as well as disappointment, and probably a quiet talk together would be much the best way of dispelling it. In any case, she felt she owed at least that to him.

For the rest, that week was strange and unreal—shot with brilliant moments of rapture when Bruce made love to her, and faintly shadowed by some queer, disturbing occasions when he seemed oddly indifferent.

Not that Lenora expected to live on the heights all the time, but, very occasionally, it would seem to her that Bruce looked at her almost as though he were unaware of her presence, and if she spoke to him then he replied in that curt, hard way she had learned to know so well in the early days of his guardianship.

“It’s just that he’s moody,” Leonora thought. Besides, she
was
marrying a difficult man. It would be idle for her to pretend anything else. And in that case she must not try to analyze and explain every action and impulse. The really important thing was that, strange and difficult though he could be, he was infinitely dear as well—and he
needed
her.

Sometimes Leonora thought that was the most precious part of it all. It did more than anything else to soothe the terrible bruise left by her father’s death. For, just as she had thought of her father as someone on whom she might lavish all her love and tenderness, so it seemed to her now that Bruce was even more in need of it.

To Lenora it was a very beautiful thing that she should be loved, but it was an actual necessity of existence to her that she should have someone whom
she
could love. And Bruce—lovable yet obstinate, difficult yet passionately demanding her affection and understanding—seemed able to put his very hand round her heart and hold it in a grip that was happiness and pain in one.

It was evidently no part of his idea that they should waste time on a long engagement. Having swept her off her feet with the breathless haste of his proposal, he seemed determined to marry her almost before she could recover her sense of balance or proportion once more.

“Why should we wait?” he demanded rather than pleaded. “We have no one to consult but ourselves.” And, to be sure, there was a good deal of reason in that.

“Well, what about a place to live and all that sort of thing?” Leonora asked, half touched and half amused by his boyishly arrogant desire to rush things.

“We can look for that at our leisure afterwards,” he said quickly. “For a little while after our honeymoon we can live here, but I don’t want to settle in London. I want a place in the country.”

“Bruce,” Leonora said gently, “do you never consider any wishes but your own?”

He was standing by the window when she spoke, his back to her, but at that he turned sharply. Then he crossed the room in quick strides and flung himself on his knees beside her chair, his arms round her, suffocatingly tight.

“But you do want that, too, don’t you? he exclaimed urgently and there was something almost violent in the pleading expression of his eyes. “I can’t bear it if you won’t come and live in the country with me. Somewhere where it’s green and cool. You can’t imagine—I’ve thought of it for years, sweating away body and soul in Mexico—”

He stopped suddenly and buried his head against her.

“Bruce darling—don’t.” She put her arms around him, quickly and comfortingly, unspeakably dismayed to find that he was trembling. “Hush. Of course I’ll come and live with you wherever you want.” She pressed his dark head against her. “Is that all right now—if I promise we shall live where you want?”

He nodded without a word, and then was absolutely still against her. And in that moment Leonora knew the full measure of her love for him.

A week later she received a telephone call from Martin. He was back in London, it seemed, and would very much like to see her. Could she come and have tea with him that afternoon?

With a slight feeling of nervousness, Leonora agreed Martin was too good a sportsman to make any real difficulty, she knew, but the guilty consciousness that she had hurt him refused to leave her entirely.

He greeted her, however, with all his usual good spirits, and once they were seated at a secluded table in a favourite tea-place of theirs, she felt much more at her ease.

In a way, it was almost like old times to have Martin sitting opposite her, in a place she knew so well, waiting to hear her news of what had happened since last they had met.

But the memory of what
had
happened was quite enough in itself to destroy any illusion of “old times.”

He ordered everything that she liked best—for, unlike Bruce, he did consult other wishes besides his own—and then he leaned back and smiled at her.

“Well, Lora, what does it feel like to be a heroine of a whirlwind courtship?” he asked a little teasingly.

She colored faintly and laughed.

“Does it all seem very absurd to you?” she asked.

“Well—very puzzling, shall we say?” Martin answered.

“I know. It must. I’m rather puzzled by it myself sometimes, when I think of it.”

“Lora”—Martin’s smile had gone suddenly—“we
are
old enough friends for me to speak quite frankly without causing any resentment, aren’t we?”

“Of course.”

“And, you see, it isn’t as though there’s anyone else to—well to speak to you quite seriously about this. So if I seem to be doing the presumptuous heavy uncle, don’t think I have anything but your good at heart.”

He was silent for a minute while their usual waitress brought their tea and set it out on the table.

When they were alone again, Leonora began to pour out the tea with slightly too elaborate unconcern.

“Lora—what sort of man is your guardian?” Martin said slowly. “I know you’ve really told me quite a lot about him, only I don’t seem to have got hold of him, somehow.”

“He’s very good-looking, to begin with.” Leonora spoke a little hesitatingly. “And your first impression is that he is terribly overwhelming—almost arrogant, I suppose. Then, after a while, you begin to realize that he isn’t so entirely self-sufficient as he makes out. In fact that he is rather—rather vulnerable and”—she dropped her voice suddenly—“in need of sympathy and love.”

There was absolute silence from Martin, and when Leonora finally looked up she was astonished to see that his mouth was set in a grim line she had never seen before. “Martin—what is it?”

He looked at her, his eyes dark and troubled. Then he leaned across the table and put his hand lightly over one of hers.

“You aren’t going to like what I’m going to say a bit, Lora,” he said, “but someone’s got to say it to you. I don’t like the sound of your Bruce. From your description and from what has happened, I should put him down as an extremely clever scoundrel.”

“Martin!” she drew back sharply. “Why on earth should you say that?”

“Well, look at the facts, my dear girl. He turns up from nowhere—first in the field with the news that you are an heiress. He proceeds to play the extremely good card of ‘masterful male.’ It always answers, however little you women like to admit it. Then as soon as he’s got you so bewildered and doubtful that you don’t know whether you like him or hate him, he weighs in with the old, old gag that he
needs
you. It’s an irresistible combination particularly if the man is good-looking, and you say he is.”

“Please—I can’t possibly have you talk of Bruce like this. You don’t understand in the least.” Leonora was pale with anger and dismay. “You’re judging the whole thing entirely on imagination instead of facts.”

Martin shook his head.

“I’m judging it by all the other times the same stock-in-trade has been used. Can you honestly deny, Lora, that you were tremendously flattered and thrilled to find that this difficult, masterful creature had been tamed by
you
? Of course you were. And that’s why you’ve let him rush you clean off your feet.”

“No, that’s not true,” Leonora exclaimed quickly. “I’m willing to admit that, put in your way, it does sound rather a funny business, but please, please, Martin don’t go jumping to any more conclusions before you have met Bruce.
Anything
can be made to sound suspicious if you twist it the right way, you know.”

Martin didn’t answer that at once. He looked at her rather gloomily, and shrugged.

“Well,” he said at last. “I’ve made my protest and, although of course I don’t expect you to take it at its face value—no girl would if she were in love with the man—I do beg you to think things over again, and in a more critical mood.”

“I—you really needn’t worry about me like this, Martin.” Leonora spoke earnestly but her voice shook a little with her agitation. “I’m afraid my own first prejudice is partly responsible for your idea of Bruce. But truly it’s a most fantastic picture of him. You’ll see for yourself when you meet him.”

“Very well, my dear. I can’t do anything but accept what you say. After all, it is true that you know him and I don’t,” Martin said. “I should be honestly glad to find that I was wrong—and in that case I promise to grovel for forgiveness.” And he grinned at her with a shadow of his old manner.

“Thank you, Martin,” Leonora drew a deep breath of relief. And after that, neither of them mentioned Bruce again.

Martin, once his outburst was past, made a gallant attempt to bring things back to normal.

“He’s such a splendid loser that he makes me feel terribly guilty,” Leonora told herself regretfully, and she, too, then did her best to put things on their old, familiar footing.

In the end, they achieved something like their friendly intimacy of the days before Bruce had come on the scene. And, by the time Martin handed her into the taxi that was to take her home, Leonora felt that everything was almost all right again.

But the moment she re-entered the house, all the earlier, disturbing part of their conversation rushed back upon her, and she went quickly in search of Bruce, so that his very presence might reassure her. She felt, somehow, that she had been treacherous in even letting Martin say the things he had, and she wanted to kiss Bruce and hold him and feel that everything was secure.

As she crossed the hall, she heard his voice coming from the library, and then his sister’s in reply.

Leonora paused a moment at the door, smiling a little because she realized suddenly that they were speaking of her.

“I think Lora is a dear child,” Miss Mickleham was saying. “But, frankly, Bruce, knowing you as well as I do, I
cannot
see why you should choose her for your wife.”

“Can’t you? Then shall I tell you?”

Leonora couldn’t see Bruce, but she could hear from his voice that he was smiling slightly. And it warmed her to her very heart that, straight on top of her conversation with Martin, she should hear him own to someone else that he loved her.

“I wish you would,” she heard Miss Mickleham say.

“Then let me remind you, my dear Agatha, that Lora has one superlative attraction which sets her beyond any other woman I know. She is the undisputed owner of seventy thousand pounds.”