One Coin in the Fountain Read online

He had never kissed her in the whole course of their acquaintance, but he walked up to her now and put his hands on her shoulders. He looked down at her smilingly.

  “And done it very nicely, Rose,” he said softly. “Very, very nicely!”

  She felt herself blushing more painfully than ever.

  Heather interrupted, her voice as brittle as a Japanese windmill.

  “Well, you mustn’t keep the child out of her bed any longer, Lance! You forget that she flew over from Paris this afternoon and has had a long drive since then.” She turned a carefully conjured-up smile on Rose. “You and I have simply got to get to know one another, my dear,” she said, “and tomorrow we’ll have a lovely long talk, and you can try on your bridesmaid’s dress, and we’ll see how you look in it. With your hair you should look quite ravishing, because it’s an utterly enchanting pale primrose-stalk green. And you’ll meet all the other bridesmaids, of course—there’s three of them staying in the house.”

  Then she turned and slipped her hand possessively inside Lance’s arm, and almost tugged him away in the direction of the door.

  “Come along, darling—leave Rose to finish her

  coffee, and you, too, can have a talk with her in the morning. But it’s late now!”

  “Too late for Rose to be drinking coffee,” he said, a little critically, his gaze still fixed on the slight figure of his ward. “Would you like some hot milk sent up to you, Rose?” thinking how utterly weary she looked, and how young, in spite of her graceful height, and soft air of sophistication.

  “No, thank you.” She shook her head. “No, thank you very much.”

  “Sure?” His eyes smiled at her again. “You may be eighteen, but it’s still an excellent sedative after a long journey.”

  “I’m not eighteen,” she heard herself saying awkwardly. “I had my nineteenth birthday last week.”

  “Oh!” For an instant his eyebrows ascended and he looked quite shocked. “And I forgot it!”

  “It didn’t matter.” She still sounded awkward, but she smiled at him tremulously. “Of course I understood.”

  Heather looked up at him, a bright sparkle in her eyes.

  “She understood that you had other preoccupations, darling—which, of course, you had! And now do let us return to our guests!”

  CHAPTER II

  The following day Rose was introduced to so many people that her head was dizzy long before lunchtime. There were the three young women who were to share with her the experience—in Rose’s case the only experience in her nineteen years so far—of escorting a bride to the altar of the village church; and there were a couple of gay young men cast for the “roles” of ushers. There was also another very handsome young man, by the name of Peter Hurst, who looked, Rose thought, a trifle despondent sometimes—particularly when Heather was behaving as if the sole reason for her existence was the man she was to marry. Sometimes, however, she took a kind of kittenish delight in tantalizing Sir Laurence a little, pleading all sorts of whirlwind engagements, such as hairdressing appointments, appointments with dressmakers, jewellers — her mother was having a large amount of old-fashioned family jewellery reset for her—shoemakers (the kind that specialized in hand-sewn footwear only), etc., that would keep them apart for a time. But on other occasions she was completely adoring, the lovely clinging vine living only for her wedding day, and it was on these occasions Rose noticed that Peter Hurst looked rather more than distrait.

  Then there was the bride-elect’s godmother, a Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett, also staying in the house. Rose found herself curiously drawn to Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett, one reason being that she enjoyed her somewhat caustic sense of humour, and she was intrigued by her definitely eccentric manner of dressing. She wore bunches of dyed curls bobbing on her forehead—and her age was a thing which could only be guessed at—evening dresses of satin and velvet that had an Edwardian flavour, and was always smothered in jewellery. No matter the hour at which she appeared outside her room she invariably dripped diamonds, and her pearls were magnificent.

  Heather was always noticeably anxious that her godmother should receive every attention, and never under any circumstances be neglected; and Rose decided that this was because Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett was obviously a very rich widow. And then she instantly took herself to task for thinking such a mercenary thought about her guardian’s future wife. For, in spite of the fact that she herself had been more or less consistently ignored by the bride-to-be since the night of her arrival, and they had not so far had that “lovely long talk” Heather had expressed herself as looking forward to, she had such an unshakable belief in the natural shrewdness and common-sense of Sir Laurence that she was sure he would not have picked a woman to share his whole future life who was not, under the somewhat dazzling facade she presented to the world, essentially nice—in the way Rose youthfully understood niceness.

  And although Heather struck her as almost too radiantly lovely at times—a slightly brittle loveliness, like the note that occasionally invaded her high-pitched laughter—and as the only child of elderly, doting parents who were straining every nerve and all their resources to give her a memorable wedding, she was undoubtedly both spoiled and pampered, she could, when she chose, exert a good deal of charm. Appeal was probably a better word—an extremely feminine appeal that got under the skins of the masculine element in the house, and made them anxious to obey her lightest behest.

  Rose was often amazed to see Lance looking on with complacency in the evenings whilst she queened it in the midst of a large circle of obvious admirers. Wearing something new and expensive that bore the hall-mark of a top-ranking couturier, enclosed in an aura of delicate Paris perfume, she distributed her favours with such gay impartiality that anyone old-fashioned amongst the guests, considering that she was planning to be married so soon, might have looked a little askance. But the smile on Lance’s lips was invariably indulgent, the look in his eyes completely adoring. It was plain to everyone that he was a man very, very much in love, and Rose found that something difficult to understand.

  She found it difficult to understand because the Laurence Melville she had thought she knew was a man she had frequently seen looking extremely cynical, had frequently heard expressing cynical, hard-headed opinions. There had been nothing about him to suggest that underneath his hardbitten exterior he was quite dangerously vulnerable—to such an extent that a golden-headed will-o’-the-wisp like Heather Willoughby could suddenly turn him into a more or less abject slave. If,

  Rose thought, she had been a woman of a slightly different type — one whose mentality would enable her to share his interests later on, who would make his interests her interests, and demand less in the way of admiration. . . .

  But she obviously throve on admiration, and she certainly justified it. Also she was twenty-six, and at that age no doubt most women had learned something about the art of captivating male hearts. About the value of sheer glamour.

  Rose felt certain that if Yvonne de Marsac had been amongst the guests at Farnhurst Manor she' would have held forth on the subject of glamour. She would probably have declared it was the one thing no true woman could afford to be without, and every wise woman sought to cultivate.

  In which case Rose was afraid she was singularly lacking in the commodity, for although she sometimes saw admiration in masculine eyes, she was not sought after like the other young women who helped to swell the guests.

  But everyone was roped in for the purpose of performing some useful function, and Rose spent the better part of those days before the wedding helping to unpack wedding presents as they arrived, and displaying them to advantage in the panelled library of the manor. And when the discovery was made that she could type she was kept busy sending off acknowledgments, and dealing with other items of relative correspondence that might otherwise have been overlooked. Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett, who seemed to have taken quite a fancy to her, declared she was too willing, and advantage was being taken of her willingness, but Rose didn’t really
mind.

  She preferred spending whole days quietly in the library at a typewriter to joining the other young people in their constant and somewhat hectic search for entertainment. They were such sophisticated young people, and they made her feel young and stupid, and over-conscious of the fact that she had only just left her schooldays behind.

  Sometimes she was even sent on messages to the village when every telephone line was engaged, and it was impossible to get through to such people as Miss Mackintosh, who was generously lending valuable china and glass for the reception after the wedding, or Colonel Carpenter, at The White House, who had promised hothouse blooms, including orchids, to form part of the decoration in the church. Or little Mrs. Annie Moss, who was a skilled embroidress, and working on part of Heather’s more intimate trousseau.

  It was when she was on her way to Mrs. Moss on the third afternoon after Thatcher had safely delivered her at Farnhurst that Rose caught a glimpse of her guardian’s car streaking through the village ahead of her. It was a lovely village, with a square-towered Norman church, a well-tended green, and even a pond with ducks quacking on it, and Sir Laurence’s big car looked a little incongruous coming to rest outside the tiny post office.

  Rose, who had been enjoying the soft warmth of the early October afternoon—almost as good as a return to summer, she thought, with the crisp leaves underfoot, a genial sun in her face, and the hedgerows burgeoning afresh with a blaze of scarlet berries—and was not in any particular hurry, when she realized that her guardian was sitting waiting for her. He was alone in the car, and she could see his dark, handsome profile turned sideways to watch the narrow sidewalk, and with her heart beating more quickly she increased her pace.

  “Get in, Rose,” he said, gently, as he held open the door for her. “I don’t seem to have seen anything at all of you since you arrived.”

  “Oh, but I’m on my way to Mrs. Moss,” she explained. I don’t think I ought to waste any time.” “And who,” he asked, smiling, “is Mrs. Moss?” “She’s a wonderful embroidress, and lives in the

  village—she’s working on part of Miss Willoughby’s trousseau.”

  “Don’t you think you could bring yourself to say Heather?” he inquired, his smile twisting a little oddly.

  “Oh, er—y-yes, of course.”

  “Good!” he exclaimed, softly. “You’ll be seeing quite a lot of one another in future, you know.” He agreed to drop her outside Mrs. Moss’s cottage, but urged her not to be long.

  “And when you’ve finished discussing these important details on behalf of Heather we’ll go for a little drive,” he said. “There are one or two things I must talk to you about, and this seems a splendid opportunity.”

  Rose couldn’t imagine what it was he wanted to talk to her about particularly, but she was glad that there was no excuse for lingering inside Annie Moss’s cluttered living-room, for the exquisite hand-tucked nylon nightdresses were ready, and the three sets of underwear were all but ready. She was able to carry away with her the nightdresses and place them, protected by layers of tissue-paper and a stout cardboard box, almost reverently on the back seat of the car, and then Lance once again held open the door for her. She slipped into the seat beside the driving-seat and realized that this was the first time she had been really close to him for more than a year—apart from those few minutes when he had welcomed her on the night of her arrival.

  “Now,” he said, “I think we’ll go into Rington and have some tea, shall we? Would you like that?”

  “Of course,” she answered, “if you’re quite sure you—I mean,” haltingly, “if you don’t think

  that Heather ------?”

  “Heather is very much preoccupied this afternoon,” he told her. “And in any case I am occasionally allowed to devote a little time to my ward,” smiling-again in the fashion she thought a trifle odd. “Oh, of course,” she agreed, feeling herself

  flushing. “I wasn’t suggesting that you have to ask her permission.”

  “I should hope not!” he exclaimed, and she thought all at once his tone sounded quite grim, as well as emphatic.

  When they reached Rington he drove her at once to the George, an ancient and delightful halftimbered hostelry standing flush with the main street, where they served afternoon teas in an atmosphere of log fires and peaceful old oak.

  Although it happened to be a market-day, and later the place would be crowded, at that early hour of the afternoon it was still comparatively empty, and they were provided with a table quite close to the fire. Sir Laurence ordered tea and toast and lots of cakes—“with cream,” he added, looking at Rose in a twinkling fashion as if he still secretly regarded her as very young indeed—and then remembered that she was actually a young woman and offered her a cigarette while they waited.

  “Now, tell me,” he said, “what you’re going to do with yourself while Heather and I are away.” Rose look quite confounded.

  “I don’t think I’ve actually thought about it,” she confessed.

  “I’m afraid you will have to think of it,” he warned her, gently. “You’ve finished with Lausanne, and in fact you’re now a very finished product indeed”— flashing her his most charming smile—“but there still remains the problem of what precisely is to become of you while your legal guardians are away.”

  The waiter carried a loaded tray to their table, and Rose waited while he set forth the flowery pieces of china, and then placed a hot chafing-dish at her elbow. She poised the sugar-tongs above her guardian’s cup, asked the usual question, and passed him his tea before she replied at last in a somewhat subdued tone.

  “I think the best thing I can do is to get a job as quickly as possible, don’t you? I’m quite a competent shorthand-typist—we learned that sort of thing at

  Gerhardt—and I’ve also quite a flair for languages. I can go and stay in Paris with Yvonne until I actually land myself a job, and as she’s job-hunting, too, we can go in for it together.” But her guardian, who had been staring thoughtfully at the tip of his cigarette and had declined any of the tempting edibles, looked up at her with a faint frown between his brows.

  “I don’t know that I approve of that idea at all.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  The frown grew more noticeable as he looked across the table at her—at her lovely flame of red hair surrounding the perfect heart-shaped face, her extraordinarily lustrous and unusual eyes, her lovely sensitive mouth, and slender column of a throat. She was wearing a heather-mixture tweed suit today, with a plain little white blouse below it, and as the collar of the white blouse was round and puritan it somehow lent her a puritan look, too. An unsullied look.

  “For one thing. I’m not at all sure that I approve

  of your friend Yvonne----- ” He crushed out his

  cigarette in the ash-tray and lighted another. “She’s rather a light-hearted young woman, if I remember rightly, most unmistakably French, and I couldn’t view the prospect of your careering round Paris under her auspices with anything like equanimity. And I don’t think the present time is a good time to discuss your taking on any sort of a job. Later on we will discuss it—but not now!”

  “And in the meantime?” she asked quietly.

  “You could stay on at the Manor. The Willoughbys would be delighted to have you, and would treat you like a daughter.”

  But Rose shook her head.

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t agree to that. Whatever happens, I mean to be independent.”

  Sir Laurence smiled.

  “Not of me, too?”

  “Yes,” she surprised him by answering quite definitely, “of you, too!” As his dark eyebrows ascended she rushed on: “My father asked you to look after me, I know, but it wasn’t—it never has been!—a legal arrangement. You have been most kind—more than kind!—particularly as you have had to spend your own money on me for years, but that is one reason why I have firmly made up my mind that I am going to free you of the responsibility of looking after me�
��of concerning yourself about my future! I’m old enough and capable enough now to concern myself about my own future.”

  “Indeed?” His voice was suddenly soft and rather drawling. “And for how long have you been thinking along these lines?”

  She made a small, shrugging movement with her slim shoulders.

  “Oh, for a long time!”

  “Ever since I decided to get married?” dryly.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Or ever since you met Heather?”

  “Please,” she begged, “I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but you must believe me when I say that I am completely serious. Now that you are marrying Miss Will—Heather, I couldn’t possibly go on thinking of you as a guardian! It would be different if—if I had to think of you as a guardian—but you know as well as I do that I don’t! And in fairness to Miss—to Heather—”

  “Whom you don’t like!”

  “It isn’t that at all! She’s a young woman getting married for the first time, and how could she possibly look with any sort of pleasure on the idea of a ready-made family? And, in any case, I am not your family, I am really nothing to do with you, and I want to launch out on my own. . .” She hadn’t meant to say all this when she started, but somehow the words had poured from her, and she felt tremendously relieved when she had given them vent. For to have gone on with the idea of one day living with him and Heather —once Heather was his wife!—had become such a revolting idea that she knew she couldn’t bear it. Heather would very quickly let him see that she couldn’t bear it—she would pick on the absence of any legal ties—and life would be impossible for Rose.

  “You are talking the utmost nonsense,” Sir Laurence declared, looking at her as if she had succeeded in disturbing and dismaying him, “and all that I can think of is that this endless fuss about the wedding has upset you in some curious way. But I promised your father that I would look after you, and I mean to go on doing so—until someone else has the right, at any rate!—and since you’ve reminded me that you’re not legally my ward I’ll take the necessary steps at once to ensure that you are. You needn’t think that just because you’re nineteen you’re beyond all need of future guidance.”