ELINOR agreed to stay an extra couple of days for Andrew’s final visit.
‘He’ll want to talk to you,’ Jason said. ‘Your knowledge of the case is more up-to-date than his.’
He spoke coolly and with a lack of emotion that made it possible for her to agree. It was obvious that Jason had finally accepted her decision, for which she told herself to be glad. She passed the time out of doors, using Bob as an excuse.
‘Not again,’ she told him at last when he dropped the ball at her feet for the hundredth time. ‘Time we went back.’
As she approached the house she saw an unfamiliar vehicle outside the door. It was brand-new and a very expensive make, the car of a man who’d done well in the world.
Probably a business contact of Jason’s, she thought.
She entered the house quietly, hoping to get upstairs without being seen.
But then she checked, brought up short by the sound of a voice that had once made her heart beat madly.
‘And the next thing I knew they’d agreed to my terms—of course I always knew they would—’
‘Simon,’ she whispered.
Next came the sound of his laughter. He was in the study, the door to which stood open. Elinor paused, trying to find the will-power to move. She ought to climb the stairs, but the temptation to go back and see him was almost overpowering.
While she was still debating, Jason’s voice called out, ‘Come in, Elinor.’
At first she had only a confused impression of the scene. There was Jason, his eyes turned to the door, regarding her intently. And there was a younger man, just turning around.
He was heavier, and the sheen of good living was on him. His hair, once attractively unkempt, had been cut and shaped by an expert. His clothes, his gold watch spoke of money.
As he advanced across the floor his smile was full of a slightly self-conscious charm. ‘How do you do?’ he said, taking her hand in both of his. ‘So you’re the angel of mercy who’s saved Jason.’
‘I’m Jason’s nurse, yes,’ she said uncertainly.
‘It’s meant so much to know he was in good hands. We’ve all been so worried about him.’
Not worried enough to visit him recently, she thought.
She wanted to flinch away. There was something unpleasant about this sleek young man. His expensive attire couldn’t disguise the fact that he was going to seed through self-indulgence. Seedy. Yes, that was it. Expensive, pampered, and seedy.
Something seemed to strike him. He searched her face. ‘Are you—? Have we met before?’
‘Six years ago,’ she said in a voice whose calmness surprised herself.
‘That’s right,’ he said softly. ‘Cindy. Little Cindy Smith. Well, by all that’s wonderful. Come here!’
He put his arms around her and the smell of his aftershave nearly overpowered her. She managed to avert her face and his kiss fell on her cheek. He released her and held her away from him.
‘Cindy! My little Cindy!’
‘I’m not “little Cindy” any more. Not for six years.’
His eyes flickered uncertainly, as if he suspected a double meaning. Elinor was intensely aware of Jason watching them.
‘Come and meet my wife,’ Simon said, half turning to the woman behind him. ‘Darling, this is Jason’s saviour.’
Simon’s wife came as a shock. Jason had said she was a little older than him, but Elinor would have estimated the gap as at least ten years.
She was fair, and pretty, but her face had a permanently anxious look. Like Simon she was expensively dressed, but with far more taste. She greeted Elinor with gentle charm.
‘It’s really wonderful what you’ve done for Jason,’ she said softly. ‘He says you helped him more than anybody else could have done.’ The words were said with a grave simplicity that touched Elinor as Simon’s effusions had failed to do.
When she turned to leave Jason limped after her, using his stick. ‘I hope you’ll join us for dinner.’
‘Don’t you want to be alone with your family?’
His eyes met hers. ‘You know better than that.’
‘You sent for them, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. I wanted you to see him for yourself.’
‘What are you playing at, Jason?’
‘I was never in greater earnest in my life.’
It felt eerie to be sitting down to dinner again with Simon and Jason. She’d been on edge then and she was on edge now, but for a different reason. Simon did most of the talking. Carole spoke rarely, and always with a quick glance at her husband first.
She’s afraid of him, Elinor thought, with shock. How could anybody be afraid of Simon?
But this wasn’t the delightful boy she’d known. This was a sleek, hard man with a slippery surface. Again she heard Jason saying, ‘Underneath he’s cruel—cold and spiteful.’
Simon talked on, pronouncing ignorantly on one subject after another. An eighteen-year-old girl, blinded by love, hadn’t noticed that he was shallow and stupid. But she wasn’t eighteen any more, and this pompous, self-satisfied man—she nearly thought ‘little man’—was getting on her nerves.
When the meal was over she excused herself quickly. She headed upstairs, but when she was halfway up she heard her name called in a laughing voice, and Simon bounded up to join her on the landing.
‘I’ve been longing to get you alone all evening,’ he said. ‘Oh, Cindy, what a smasher you turned out to be!’
‘My name is Elinor,’ she said.
‘To me you’ll always be my sweet Cindy.’
‘That’s not what you called me last time we met,’ she reminded him. ‘No word was bad enough for me then.’
He smiled. ‘That’s long ago. Why rake up the past?’
‘It was money, wasn’t it? Jason threatened to turn off the supply if you didn’t dump me. You seized the excuse.’
‘Well, a man needs money to live.’
‘Then why ask me to marry you at all? You knew I was poor.’
‘But being in love with you was so much fun. I simply adored you. You’ll never know how much.’
‘Oh, I think I know exactly how much,’ Elinor said evenly.
He missed her irony. ‘I thought Jason would be so pleased to see me settle down that he’d cough up. But he turned awkward. Anyway, who cares about that now?’
‘Yes, I think we should forget it now that you’re married.’
He chuckled. ‘Carole’s a sweetie, isn’t she? And rolling in filthy lucre.’
‘Otherwise, of course, you wouldn’t have married her?’
‘Carole and I understand each other. Mind you, she gets a bit difficult now and then. It’s not the same as having your own cash. Between you and me, sweetie, it’s a pity you nursed Jason quite so brilliantly. Know what I mean?’
‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ Elinor said, almost unable to speak through her disgust.
‘Still, too late now. Come here, and give me a kiss for old time’s sake.’
‘If,’ Elinor said, speaking distinctly, ‘you dare to lay a finger on me, I shall slap your face so hard that the mark will show for a week. And then Carole might stop your pocket money.’
His smile faded. Before her eyes he turned into the man he really was, the man Jason had tried to warn her about.
‘Bitch!’ he spat.
‘As long as we understand each other.’
Andrew called early next morning, pronounced Jason fit, and congratulated her. Elinor thanked him and went to finish her packing. She had nearly finished when she heard Andrew’s car drive away.
She went looking for a book she thought she’d left downstairs. But as she crossed the hall she heard Carole’s voice coming from inside the conservatory. She started to back away, but something in the other woman’s voice held her. Carole sounded as if she was talking through tears.
‘It wouldn’t matter so much if you didn’t lie about it.’
Then Simon, bored and irritated. ‘I didn’t lie.’
‘You said you didn’t know her—but you did, didn’t you?’
‘Years ago; it was nothing.’
‘You were in love with her.’
‘Good lord, no! She set her cap at me, but she never meant a thing to me.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Carole cried passionately. ‘You called her “little Cindy”. Why do you call her Cindy if her name’s Elinor?’
‘All right, all right, it was a pet name. So what? Do I have to make a grand confession of every little thing that happened to me in the past? I tell you, Carole, if you don’t stop making my life a misery with your jealousy, I really will find another woman, and it’ll be all your own fault.’
There was the sound of desperate sobbing.
‘Here we go!’ Simon sneered. ‘The waterworks again.’
‘Why do you talk to me like that?’ Carole sobbed. ‘Oh, darling, we used to be so happy. You said you loved me. What went wrong?’
‘Hey, come on!’ To Elinor’s relief Simon’s voice was gentler. ‘Don’t be a silly girl. You know I don’t care for anyone but you.’
Elinor leaned against the wall. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop but she was so horrified by what she’d heard that she couldn’t tear herself away. Simon had already shocked her with his crude wish for Jason’s death, but this was almost as bad.
Carole said something she couldn’t catch, then Simon replied, ‘We’re not going to quarrel about money, are we? So I overdrew a little—all right, I overdrew a lot, but what the hell? There’s plenty where that comes from. Write me a cheque, there’s a good girl! And finish the packing. I want to get out of here pronto.’
‘Today? But you know how I like staying here—’
‘Well, we can’t. I’ve got to meet a man in London this afternoon. So hurry up.’
Elinor backed quickly as she heard his footsteps heading for the door. Simon emerged and went upstairs without seeing her. From inside the room came the sound of heartbroken weeping.
If she’d cherished any lingering belief in him, it was gone. Simon, the greedy, cold-blooded bully, swearing he loved her but betraying her pathetic little secret to Jason ‘for a good laugh.’ Simon, sneering at his wife while throwing her money away.
‘Do you understand now?’
Jason had been standing in the shadows, watching her. He took her arm and drew her into the library.
‘He married Carole for her money,’ he said, ‘and he doesn’t even treat her decently. It could have been you, crying your heart out.’
‘Yes, I see that,’ she said. ‘But there was no need for this, Jason. I believed you.’
‘Only with your head. Like me with the horses. I didn’t really believe they were safe until you took me to the stables to feel them. There’s no substitute for your own experience.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘Another thing I owe to you.’
Carole appeared in the doorway. She’d dried her tears and now wore a bright, forced smile.
‘It’s been a lovely visit, but we have to be going,’ she said huskily. ‘I’ve got an appointment in London today—I’d forgotten.’
Jason spoke to her kindly and led her away with his arm around her shoulders.
Elinor let out her breath. She felt desperately sorry for Simon’s wife, and deeply thankful that it wasn’t herself.
She knew that in bringing Simon here Jason had done something valuable for her. A weight seemed to have gone from her shoulders. For six years she’d suffered the trauma of that night, and her subconscious feeling of guilt at responding to Jason’s kisses.
Now she knew herself to be innocent. She could leave this place with an easy mind, and somehow, somewhere, she would find the strength to start her life again.
Jason returned, closed the door behind him and stood looking at her.
‘You were right about Simon,’ she told him. ‘It was all there, but I was too young and blind to see it.’
‘But you’ve seen it now. So can’t we—?’
‘Jason, I’m going away—’ she said quickly.
‘Then I was wrong,’ he said, moving close and looking intently into her eyes. ‘You can’t forgive me?’
‘There’s nothing to forgive—not any more. But too much has happened. How can we—you and I of all people—ever find peace together?’
‘It wasn’t peace I had in mind,’ he said, with a flash of something in his eyes that made a blush start in her. ‘Not just at first, anyway. Peace is for the old, and when we’ve grown old together we’ll worry about peace. Whether we’ll find it, I don’t know. But I do know that neither of us can ever find it with anyone else.’
‘There’ll never be anyone else for me,’ she agreed. ‘But don’t press me on this, Jason. Please.’
‘You’re really going?’ he whispered.
She nodded and his face became bleak.
‘Then I’ll drive you to the station,’ he said. ‘There’s an irony in that that I’m sure we’ll both appreciate.’
She’d tried not to let herself think as the countryside sped past the car. Last time had been terrible, but this time was worse. She would blank out all thought and emotion until she was well away.
Even now she watched him anxiously as he limped up the steps to the platform, with the aid of his walking stick. The train came trundling in slowly. He pulled open the door, and thrust her bag inside. She got in and looked at him through the open window as she had done long ago.
‘We’ve a moment yet,’ he said. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind.’
‘It’s been too late for a long time,’ she said sadly. ‘Goodbye, my darling. Don’t hate me for being a coward. Try to understand that I’m doing what I must.’
‘I could never hate you. Only myself. If you can’t take the love I offer, then I damaged you beyond repair. I’ve killed love in the only woman whose love I want, and I’ll live with that guilt all my life. But one day—Elinor—surely—?’
‘One day is so far away,’ she said in anguish. She took his face between her hands and covered it with kisses.
‘Goodbye, my love,’ she whispered through her tears. ‘Goodbye—goodbye—’
The guard blew his whistle. The train began to move.
She touched his face gently one last time, and then they were apart. The distance between them was growing, slowly but inexorably.
‘Elinor,’ he called. ‘Elinor!’
Suddenly, as if a curtain had parted, she saw what she was doing: condemning not only herself but him, whom she loved. She’d healed and protected him, and now she was abandoning him.
Love was stronger than fear. He’d said that and she knew it was true. The train was gathering speed. It had almost left the station. At the very last minute she threw open the door and jumped out, landing on her hands and knees. Someone in the train pulled the door shut again. She didn’t see. She saw only the man standing at the far end of the platform, transfixed. He was the man she loved more than herself, more than her life. But she hadn’t understood until it was almost too late.
‘Jason!’ she cried, trying to tell him everything in one desperate word.
She began to run to him. At the same moment he threw away his stick and took the first halting steps towards her. Then more steps, and more, growing in strength and confidence as he realised the glorious truth.
And then he too was running, his arms outstretched to reach her, engulf her, hold her against his heart for ever.