‘Why, my dear?’ He didn’t look quite so surprised as she had expected, but, with her nerves so strung up, she felt she could bear no arguments.
‘Oh, do you always demand an explanation before you will do anything?’ she cried with uncontrollable impatience.
‘No, of course not. We will go back this afternoon,’ he said quietly.
‘Oh, thank you.’ She bit her lips to keep them from trembling.
‘Alison.’
‘Yes.’ She looked faintly startled at his tone.
He turned her gently but relentlessly towards him.
‘Has Simon anything to do with this decision of yours?’
CHAPTER IX
ALISON had the odd sensation that her mind went completely blank for a second. Then incoherent thoughts seemed to rush in from every side at once. Explanations… prevarication… the truth… which was the right thing to do? What would simplify the miserable situation instead of complicating it?
She looked up desperately into her husband’s face. And at the quiet reasonableness of those grey eyes she suddenly found courage again.
With only a hint of nervousness, she stroked the sleeve of his coat appealingly.
‘Julian, don’t think me deceitful or-or anything, but please may I leave that question unanswered?’
He raised his eyebrows slightly.
‘My dear, I’ve no wish to force your confidence now or at any other time,’ he said. ‘But you realise that your silence is almost an answer in itself?’
‘Please, Julian-if you’d just say no more about it-’
He could not ignore the earnestness of her appeal. ‘Very well,’ he said slowly. ‘But I will arrange that we leave this afternoon. There will be no necessity for you to make explanations to anyone, you understand-not to anyone.’
‘Thank you, Julian,’ she said. And without another word they went into the house together.
It was impossible to say whether Julian was deliberately responsible for the fact, but Alison was not left alone again with Simon, and for that she was profoundly thankful.
Only right at the end, when they were actually going out to the car, Simon drew her back slightly, so that Julian and Jennifer went on ahead.
‘I hope there were some things about the week-end which you enjoyed, Alison,’ he said, ‘and that I haven’t entirely spoilt it for you.’
In the relief of going away it was easier to forgive him, and Alison impulsively held out her hand.
‘It’s all right, Simon. Don’t think any more about it, and I won’t either.’
He made rather a wry face for a moment.
‘You’re asking a good deal of my memory, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘But if your forgiveness depends on that-I’ll do my best.’
And then they came up with the others once more, and good-byes were said.
‘You must bring her again, in the spring. It’s beautiful then,’ Jennifer told Julian.
‘Yes, come again, in the spring,’ Simon said. But it was at Alison that he looked, and not at Julian at all.
On the drive back to Town they talked very little, but something in the contented quality of their silence reminded Alison of that time months ago when Julian had described her as ‘a restful little presence,’ and it made her very happy.
It was pleasant to be home again-for the luxurious flat was rapidly becoming ‘home’ to Alison, after all-and to add to her pleasure there was a letter from Audrey which had arrived the previous evening.
‘Dear Alison’ [she wrote, with touching confidence], ‘You will be pleased to hear we shall be home for the Christmas holidays in just over a week Do you and Julian like pantomime’s? Because we thought it would be more fun going with you than with Mother. If Julian doesn’t like them we could go with just you one afternoon, and then go home to your new flat for tea. We’d like to see the flat.
‘Theo thinks you may not want anybody but yourselves, but I should think you’ve nearly got over that by now. Anyway it will be very nice to see you.
‘Lots of love.-Audrey.
‘P.S. Could you tell Daddy very tactfully that I do want a bicycle for Christmas? I’m afraid Mother means it to be a silver manicure set, and it does seem such a waste, as I should have much more use for a bicycle.’
Alison laughed a good deal as she handed the letter over to Julian.
‘I must see what I can do with Uncle Theodore,’ she said.
Julian read the squarely written lines.
‘We could make perfectly sure, of course, by giving her the bicycle ourselves,’ he suggested.
‘Why, of course we could! I keep on forgetting. It’s such fun being-’ She stopped and looked a little embarrassed.
He smiled. ‘What is fun, Alison?’
Alison flushed. ‘Being rich,’ she said after a moment.
Julian laughed outright at that.
‘I begin to think it is, now that I have you to point it out,’ he agreed amusedly. ‘Shall I see about these pantomime tickets?’
‘Oh, thank you, Julian. You don’t want to come too, I suppose?’
‘Why not?’ He was still smiling thoughtfully, although he was not looking at her.
‘Well, I-I hadn’t thought that taking children to a pantomime was quite in your line, somehow,’ Alison said.
He gave her that amused, winning look that he could sometimes wear. ‘Stop talking like a superior mother of a family,’ he told her. ‘I’m just as well qualified as you to take children to a pantomime. We’ll take them together.’
‘Very well. That would be nicest of all, of course,’ Alison agreed.
She too smiled a little as she turned away. When Julian was boyishly light-hearted like this, it made up for nearly everything.
A week later, Alison went to the station to meet the twins on their arrival.
They were both quite obviously delighted to see her, and Audrey kissed her with unembarrassed fervour.
‘How nice you look, Alison,’ she said. ‘You’re nearly as pretty as Rosalie sometimes, and much nicer, of course. I’m going to enjoy these holidays!’
The next afternoon was an unqualified success. The twins possessed a certain rather artless capacity for enjoying themselves which made them excellent company. And both Julian and Alison went to a good deal of trouble to see that they had plenty to enjoy.
It amused and touched her to see Julian so much at home as the host of a couple of schoolchildren. There was nothing surprising in his being an admirable escort when he took her out, but it was something of a revelation to find that he seemed to know by instinct-or perhaps forethought-what would best please Theo and Audrey.
During the interval, she looked round interestedly. She hadn’t been to a pantomime since the days of her own early school holidays, when she used to come with her parents. Then, the grown-ups had seemed immeasurably older than oneself, and really rather unimportant people. It was funny how ten years could change one’s point of view.
Afterwards, they took the twins home with them to the flat for tea, since that seemed to be what they most wanted.
‘I say, what a lovely flat,’ exclaimed Audrey.
‘And tea,’ supplemented Theo, with his usual economy of words.
‘It was nice of you to ask us here,’ Audrey said, turning to Julian.
‘Not at all,’ Julian assured her. ‘I was under the impression that you asked yourself.’
‘Did I?’ Audrey paused for a moment in the act of selecting a cake, and looked enquiringly across at Alison.
Her cousin only smiled, while Julian said gravely, ‘I seem to remember a letter which outlined a very happy Christmas holiday for us all.’
‘Oh, that.’ Audrey went on with her tea. ‘Well, I thought it would be best to get plenty into these holidays before Alison starts having a baby or anything like that.’
Alison looked slightly put out, but Julian said with admirable composure: