With All My Worldly Goods (9 page)

Leonora stared at her in wordless horror, trying to imagine what it would be like to hear no word of Bruce for twelve years.

“My father was as good as his word. He sold Farron, and he and I moved to the London house. A year later he died, leaving practically everything to charity, except a fairly small annuity to me. And even in his will he called me ‘his only child’.”

“And then Bruce came back?” Leonora prompted her again.

“Yes. He came back. Only, of course, I should never have known him. He had gone away a sweet-tempered, easy-natured schoolboy, and he came back a very hard man. Somehow, I can say that to you. Lora, because I believe you know it as well as I.”

“Yes,” Leonora said quite simply. “I know he is hard. It doesn’t make any difference.”

Agatha touched her hair and said: “He is really very lucky.”

And then Leonora remembered that she was not going to marry him after all.

“He never told me very much about those years, but he must have been all over the world and in the strangest places. Sometimes he had made quite a lot of money, sometimes he had lost it, but, on the whole, he had saved a fair amount. It was only when you set it against the price you would have had to pay for an estate like Farron that it seemed a ludicrous sum.”

“Then he still had the idea that he would buy Farron?”

“I think so, Lora, though he never mentioned it by name. It was only—” she stopped and looked very much distressed. “I’m afraid money had grown to mean a good deal to Bruce. It was not that he was at all avaricious in the real sense. It was just, I suppose, that for years money was the only thing that had stood between him and what he longed for so passionately. It had almost come to mean power and happiness in itself.”

“I see,” Lora said slowly. “I think I see.”

“He was working then for some oil prospecting company, and by and by it meant his being sent out to Mexico. He used to come home from time to time, but though he sometimes spoke longingly of living in the country in England, he never spoke of Farron again.”

“He hated Mexico, didn’t he?”

“Oh, Lora, ‘hate’ is a mild word,” said Agatha with a sigh. “The pay was excellent. I know, and I believe there was always a chance of some enormous stroke of luck that would mean a fortune. That’s the way with oil, you know. But he hated every day and hour he spent there. He was in a specially dry and unpleasant part of the country, and to any one who loved the green of growing things, as Bruce did, it must have been hell.”

“I know. That’s what he called it once.”

“Poor Bruce.” Agatha shook her head slightly. “I know he has his faults, and I sometimes think he must have done some strange and violent things in his life—but I think he paid for everything wrong he ever did during those years in Mexico.”

“But he is never going back there again?” Leonora said eagerly.

“No. He’s not going back again. He has made enough money to live in England in a pretty comfortable way now.”

“And Farron?” Leonora spoke almost breathlessly.

“Oh, Farron—well,” Agatha folded up her work with a regretful smile. “I’m afraid Farron must just remain a dream. It would cost a fortune to buy it back now, even if it ever came up for sale again. I think even Bruce must have resigned himself to the inevitable about Farron long ago. One has to, you know, as one grows older.”

“Yes,” Leonora said. “Yes, I suppose so.”

But she was thinking of Bruce as a little boy, lying with his face pressed against the grass of Farron, because he loved it so much.

Agatha got up with decision.

“My dear, just look at the time. I had no idea it was so late. We really must go to bed.”

“I suppose we must,” Leonora agreed absently. And then: “But how late Bruce is. What can have happened to him?”

Agatha glanced at the clock again.

“Yes. I did expect him long before this, I must say. But there’s nothing to worry about. No doubt they are talking over old times.”

It was the obvious explanation, of course, but Leonora felt a horrible little wave of anxiety as they went upstairs. She wanted wildly to see Bruce—to know that he was in the house. It was absurd, really, because she had not decided even now what she was going to do about her marriage, or what she was going to say to him when she did see him.

“Good night, Lora dear,” Agatha said. “I am glad I’ve been able to tell you all this. You’re a good child and—and, frankly, you may find Bruce a little difficult sometimes. I thought it might help if you knew something of
why
he is difficult.”

Leonora kissed her gratefully and said: “Thank you, Agatha. I’m very glad to know.”

And she went into her room thinking: “
She
knows he is only marrying me for my money, and she’s afraid he is bound to show it sometimes. It’s her way of trying to comfort me in advance. Oh, Bruce, what shall I do about you?”

She could never hate him now, she knew. She couldn’t even be angry with him any more. And yet the terrible, hard, humiliating fact was there.

He was not marrying
her
—he was marrying seventy thousand pounds.

After a while she undressed slowly and got into bed. But sleep refused to come.

“It isn’t that I don’t understand. I do, I do,” she thought sadly. “Only, can’t he be satisfied with having bought his freedom to return to England, instead of—of stooping to marry some girl just because she’s got a bit more money?”

Unless, of course, it was still his passion for Farron that was driving him on.

But Agatha believed he no longer thought of that—and she should know. They must have had a pretty frank conversation only that afternoon, Leonora thought, wincing a little.

The clock in the hall downstairs struck the hour. Two deep, rather melancholy strikes that sounded through the silent house.

Where
was Bruce? Suddenly Leonora’s alarm returned. He had said he would be early, and now it was two o’clock. She was terrified for him, all at once—quite illogically terrified.

Suppose something had happened? But it couldn’t. No, but suppose it had? Well, it
couldn’t;
those things only happened to other people—people in newspapers. Yes, of course, but suppose something
had
happened?

“I’m going mad,” muttered Leonora and got out of bed. She thrust her arms into the sleeves of her dressing-gown, and her feet into slippers. It wouldn’t be any better waiting downstairs, but she could not stay up here any longer.

Softly she opened her door, and crept along the passage and down the stairs. The dining-room looked strange and gaunt at this time of night, and the fire had gone out a long time ago.

Shivering, she climbed into a big arm-chair, and drew her feet up under her. Somehow, she had almost forgotten about whether or not she would let him marry her for her money. She only wanted to see him, hold him, know that he was safe. And because of that she must sit here in this cold room, fighting her anxiety as though it were a living thing.

She was still sitting there, very white and very cold, when he came in almost an hour later.

He stood there in the doorway, looking at her in angry astonishment.

“Why, you perfect little fool—what do you think you are doing?” It was the guardian, not the lover, who was speaking to her. And it was an extremely annoyed guardian, too.

Then suddenly he crossed the room and caught her up in his arms. “You’re frozen—you’re simply frozen. Are you trying to get pneumonia?”

“I was—anxious,” she whispered.

“You were
what
?” He had not caught the word and he was still frowning.

“I thought you were dead,” she said ridiculously, and began to cry.

“Oh,
Lora
—” He sat down and drew her close. “You precious little idiot. Stop it. You mustn’t cry like that, it’s bad for you.” He turned her face up, though she struggled to keep it hidden against his shoulder, and he kissed her wet cheeks and her trembling mouth.

It was terribly, unbearably sweet after all she had gone through. She knew now that these endearments meant nothing. They were all just part of his grand pretence. But it was so dear. She couldn’t do without it now, whether it were real or false. Besides—was it all pretence? Could it possibly be?

Suddenly she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him almost violently.

“Oh, Bruce, do you love me? Do you
love
me?” There was something imploring in her voice. And then, before he could reply, she covered his mouth with her hand.

“No. Don’t answer that. I don’t want you to answer.” Because she knew in her heart that much the worst of all was to have him lie about it.

He very gently drew her hand down and held it in his.

“What is the matter, my child?” he said, and his eyes were anxious. “Why mustn’t I answer that question?”

“Because—because it doesn’t matter. I know the answer,” she said a little feverishly. “It was silly even to ask it.”

He didn’t say anything to that. And presently he got up with her still in his arms.

“What are you going to do?”

“Take you up to bed, of course. And then bring you a hot drink.”

“I don’t need it, really.”

“Oh yes, I think so.” And she saw he was in one of his moods with which there was no arguing.

“What happened, Bruce?” she whispered. “Why were you so late?”

He glanced down at her and smiled.

“I’m sorry. The car broke down, and I had to walk a good way. I never thought of your being anxious. I’m not used to having—any one to—worry about me.”

He bent his head and kissed her.

“Oh,” Leonora said on a long sigh. And in spite of everything that had happened that day she felt happy.

He carried her right into her room, put her into bed and tucked her up as though she were a baby.

“Now you he there, good and quiet, until I bring you something.”

She lay there obediently without moving, until he came back, and then she sat up and smilingly took the glass of steaming milk.

He sat on the side of the bed and watched her while she sipped it

Leonora made a face.

“I don’t like it. It’s got a funny taste.”

“Whiskey,” he said laconically. “Drink it up. It will keep you from taking cold.”

She drank it all, and put the glass on the side table. As she did so the clock downstairs struck half-past three. No wonder Bruce looked pale and slightly strained, she thought. And he had been walking miles.

She put out her hand and patted his cheek.

“Are you very tired?” She spoke a little more tenderly than she had meant.

“Not more so than I’ve been a thousand times before.”

“Oh—have you often been tired, my poor Bruce?”

He didn’t say anything. He leant forward with an inarticulate sound and put his head against her.

She slowly put her arm round him, trying to not think of his remark about “playing the great lover”.

“What is it?” she said softly at last.

“Nothing. When will you marry me?
Soon
?”

This was the moment, of course.

Leonora watched it pass, and did nothing to seize it. “Will you marry me by special licence next week?” He stared up at her, those dark eyes of his burning with his feeling for her—or her seventy thousand pounds.

“Yes. I’ll marry you next week,” she said faintly. And with a little laugh that was half a gasp of relief, he sat up, pushing back his hair with a faintly nervous gesture. “Good lord, child—I must go.”

He bent his head and kissed her quickly.

“Good night, Lora.”

“Good night.”

She watched him until, with a smile, he turned at the door and put out the light.

Then she slept.

The hours of cold and anxiety must have had some effect on her, after all. Or perhaps Bruce had overdone the dose of whisky in her hot drink. At any rate, she seemed to sink through layers and layers of unconsciousness, until there was nothing left at all.

When she finally woke, it was quite late in the afternoon, and Agatha was standing beside her bed, looking very anxious.

“Lora, dear! I’m thank
ful to see your eyes open. What
ever is the matter, child? You seemed almost unconscious.”

“Did I? I’m all right,” Leonora murmured. But she felt cold and extraordinarily languid. “I must have caught a chill, I think. I feel so weak and—cold.”

Agatha took her wrist in warm, capable fingers. “Your pulse is quite feeble, too, Lora. I’m afraid you’re not a bit well, dear. Would you like me to send for a doctor?”

“Oh
no.
Really, I’m all right.” Leonora roused herself then. “It’s just that I—I got very cold last night waiting for Bruce.”

“Waiting for Bruce?” Agatha repeated in surprise. “What do you mean?”