That Man Simon Page 9

  Jenny went to peep at Polly. When she came back she did not switch on the lights, but curled up on the couch again until it was almost dark.

  Suddenly the room was aglow with light from the lamp on the coffee table. Sitting up with a start, she realized that she had been asleep. Then she saw Simon standing in the shadows by the two shallow stairs that led into the hall.

  ‘Oh ... what time is it?’

  ‘Nearly midnight. What are you doing here?’

  Blinking, stiff from the awkward position she had been lying in, Jenny gave him a rather muddled account of what had happened.

  ‘I see.’ He switched on some more lights and came forward to the table, where he took a cigarette from a silver box.

  As he straightened to light it, she saw that he looked tired and rather drawn. And suddenly she knew that what she felt for him was no transient physical attraction, no giddy infatuation. She was deeply and irrevocably in love with him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘I’ll see you home,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you up so late.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Let me get you something to eat. It’s a long drive back from London. Or did you stop for a meal on the way?’

  ‘I had something before I left town.’

  ‘That was hours ago. I’ll make some coffee and toast,’ she said firmly, picking up her tea tray and carrying it back to the kitchen. ‘Where does Mrs. Rose keep the bread?’

  Simon followed her and pulled open a deep ventilated drawer lined with laminated plastic. Then he leaned against one of the units, watching her slice the loaf and load the electric toaster, his eyes narrowed and intent.

  Conscious of dishevelled hair and sleep-flushed cheeks, Jenny said, ‘Is my nose shining like a beacon? I must have been asleep since about ten.’

  ‘You were dreaming. When I switched on the lamp, your lips were moving,’ he said.

  ‘Was I? I don’t remember.’

  I only know that I woke up and saw you, and knew I loved you, she thought. And she was afraid to look at him for fear it might show in her eyes.

  Simon ate and drank in silence, and Jenny cradled her cup between her palms and felt another, deeper warmth spreading inside her, making her feel more wholly alive than she had ever felt before. She was not in the least tired now. There was a delightful intimacy about being up so late with him, sharing a simple supper. Probably they were the only two people awake in the whole village, and she would have been happy to stay there till dawn.

  But after he had drunk a second cup of coffee, Simon said, ‘It’s high time you were in bed. The dishes can wait until the morning.’

  There was a waxing moon in the sky, and they had no need of a torch to see their way round to the Rectory. But Simon slid his hand under her arm, as they walked along the road and up the drive.

  She wondered what he would say if she suggested that it was much too lovely a night to be wasted in sleep, and she felt like going for a walk. A spasm of laughter shook her.

  He must have felt it, and thought she was cold, for he quickened his pace.

  In the shadow of the porch, he said softly, ‘Thanks for holding the fort, Jenny. Good night.’

  She crept silently upstairs to her room, and a few minutes later she saw the light go on in his bedroom, illuminating the terrace. Then, after about fifteen minutes, it went out again, and she put on her own lamp and began to undress.

  When she was in her pyjamas, she suddenly thought of the record on top of the wardrobe. Smiling to herself, she reached it down and opened the lid of the gramophone which her grandparents had given her for her twenty-first birthday. With the volume turned very low, she set the record on the turntable and switched it on.

  April in Paris ... The Very Thought of You ... Wild is Love ...

  The soft strains of the violins, the romantic lyrics, the husky smiling voice of Nat King Cole were the perfect expression of her mood.

  In the middle of the night, when she should have been asleep two hours ago, Jenny lay on her bed in a state of exalted happiness.

  There was no rhyme or reason to it, but, all at once, loving Simon seemed as natural and inevitable as summer following after spring. How could she ever have doubted it? Because it had happened so swiftly? Because she had begun by disliking him? Perhaps, deep inside, she had known from the very first that he was someone special, someone who would change her whole life. So, frightened of being swept out of her safe unfamiliar rut, she had clutched at any pretext to deny her instinct.

  The music ended and the turntable slowed to a standstill. Jenny sat up to turn the record over.

  Then, like a douche of cold water, came the thought of James.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ James said blankly. ‘Why, Jenny?

  Why?’

  They were in his surgery, and he was standing by the sink - he had been about to wash his hands when she told him - while Jenny sat, pale and wretched, on the chair in front of his desk.

  It was a question she had known he would ask, but which she still did not know how to answer. She could not tell him the truth ... yet what other explanation was there?

  Coming to see him, telling him she could not marry him, was the hardest thing she had ever had to do. Meeting his bewildered blue eyes, she realized it was a thousand times easier to bear pain than to inflict it on someone else.

  'I’m sorry,’ she said, very low. ‘Oh, James, I’m so terribly sorry.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he repeated dazedly. ‘I was so certain ... I thought... Oh God!’ He turned away to the window and stood there with his back to her, the muscles at his jaw clenched hard.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said at last, without moving.

  ‘Yes ... quite sure.’ Still he did not turn and, after a few more moments, she stood up. ‘I - I’d better go.’

  ‘No - wait!’ Two swift paces and he had his back to the door, barring her way. ‘I can’t accept this. It doesn’t make sense. What’s happened? What’s changed you?’

  ‘I haven’t changed,’ she said huskily. ‘I was never sure, James, you know that. If ... if you love someone, you don’t need time to make up your mind. I should have seen that from the beginning.’

  ‘But that doesn’t prove anything. Lots of girls get cold feet when it comes to the point,’ he protested vehemently.

  ‘They’re nervous of being tied down, and of having a house to run and kids to look after. It’s a perfectly natural reaction.’

  ‘Not if they’re really and truly in love, James. Girls want to get married. They look forward to it,’ she answered gently.

  ‘Well, then perhaps it’s because we’ve known each other so long,’ he went on, in a desperate tone. ‘Women always seem to imagine love is going to hit them like a thunderbolt. That’s nonsense. You know it is, Jenny. You aren’t going to meet some chap and take one look at him and say to yourself, “This is it.” It just doesn’t happen in real life. If it did, it wouldn’t last. People get married because they want the same things out of life, because they laugh at the same jokes, because they’re ... comfortable together.

  Like we are.’

  ‘I know that, James. I’m not a starry-eyed teenager. But love is something more than that, I’m sure. It’s not just two people suiting each other. It’s knowing you can’t live without someone.’

  He flinched. ‘You mean if I dropped dead tomorrow it wouldn’t make all that much difference to you?’ he said, on a bitter note.

  ‘No, of course not!’ Jenny’s voice shook.

  She loathed herself for doing this to him. But how could she convince him without hurting him?

  James moved away from the door, and slumped into the chair behind his desk. ‘You’d better go home now,’ he said flatly. ‘I’d like to be alone for a while.’

  He looked so haggard that a flicker of fear went through her. But, as she hesitated, he looked up and met her eyes.

  ‘I can’t stop loving you, Jenny,’ he told her steadily. ‘And I still believe
we’re made for each other. As long as there’s no one else, I shan’t ever give up hope.’

  Walking slowly back to the Rectory, Jenny wondered if she had made a mistake in not telling him there was someone else. But she felt sure he would not have believed any fabrication about someone she had met in the city; and equally sure that he would never accept her love for Simon as anything but the passing infatuation which she had thought it was herself, until last night.

  ‘And the fact that I love Simon doesn’t mean that he loves me, too,’ she thought, biting her lower lip.

  The next day was the first day of the holidays, and Jenny spent the morning gardening. While she was mowing the lawn at the back of the Rectory, she caught sight of a small rather forlorn-looking little figure watching her from the other side of the fence.

  ‘Hello, Polly. Would you like to come round and help me?’ she asked, walking across to the child.

  ‘Oh, may I? Yes, please.’

  ‘You’d better ask your uncle if it’s all right.’'

  ‘He won’t mind. He’s busy in his room.’ Polly darted off towards the house.

  ‘Uncle Simon says it’s very kind of you, but you’re to send me home at once if I’m a nuisance,’ she announced breathlessly, some minutes later.

  ‘When is Mrs. Rose coming back?’ Jenny inquired.

  ‘This evening. Someone else is going to look after her daughter and the new baby.’

  ‘A “home help”, I expect. Now, let’s get you a basket from the shed and you can weed the rose bed while I finish cutting the grass. Later on, we might walk down to the shop and buy a couple of ice-creams to celebrate our freedom,’ Jenny said, smiling.

  In the days that followed they were together a great deal, and Jenny was glad of the child’s company and chatter. It distracted her from the thought of James. And, although she longed to see Simon again, in a way she was glad that he was busy in the city all day. She felt she had no right to be happy while poor James was going through hell.

  One afternoon, in the second week of the holidays, Polly came running round to the Rectory after lunch to announce that Simon had come home for the afternoon.

  ‘We’re going to the sea. Can you come with us, Jenny?’

  she asked excitedly.

  ‘I’d love to, sweetie,’ Jenny said, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Wait a minute and I’ll get my bathing things.’

  It was now nine days since she had stood in for Mrs.

  Rose, and it seemed more like nine months.

  Simon was putting a picnic basket into the boot of the car when she accompanied Polly back to Flint House.

  ‘Jenny is going to come with us,’ Polly told him.

  ‘Oh, Polly, you shouldn’t have invited me off your own bat,’ Jenny said, in dismay. ‘I’m sorry, Simon. I thought it was your idea.’

  ‘Come by all means.’ Simon locked the boot and smiled at her.

  But although his manner seemed cordial enough, Jenny had a chilling feeling that he had not thought of asking her to join them.

  He drove them to a stretch of coast where there were only a few other people about. Polly, who had her swimsuit on under her dress, was scampering down to the water’s edge within seconds of reaching the beach. Simon, too, after he had put their belongings down, stripped off his shirt and trousers and said, ‘See you in the water.’

  Jenny watched him striding over the sand to join the child, a tall lithe fit-looking man in navy boxer shorts. He scooped Polly out of the shallows and swung her high above his head. Then, hand in hand, they advanced into deeper water.

  Jenny changed into her own trim green one-piece, folded her clothes, and walked a little way up the beach. It was a broiling afternoon, and the calm sparkling sea looked very inviting. She waded in up to her waist, then flung herself forward and swam the fifty yards to the sandbank which ran parallel to the beach and beyond which was the darker blue of the deep water.

  Presently, Simon and Polly joined her. The child could not swim more than a few strokes yet, but she obviously had no fear of the water and let her uncle tow her over by the life-saving method.

  ‘Isn’t it lovely and warm, Jenny? Oh, look, I can see a dear little crab.’ She ran off to investigate.

  Simon looked at Jenny in a way that brought a flush of delicate colour into her cheeks. She was glad she had taken an optimistic view of the summer and bought the sleek new suit to replace her old blue wool one.

  She pushed back a strand of wet fair hair. ‘Will you be going away for a holiday, Simon?’ she asked, rather breathlessly.

  ‘I haven’t arranged anything. I doubt it. How about you?’ He dropped down on to the smooth sand and stretched out, supported on one elbow.

  He had the kind of olive skin which kept a slight tan all the year round, and his broad shoulders glistened in the sunlight.

  Jenny sat down beside him. ‘No, we aren’t going anywhere. There isn’t much point, living so near the coast.

  We can’t afford to go abroad.’

  ‘Would you like to travel?’

  ‘I already have - as a child. My father was in the Foreign Service. The places I’d like to see now are all impossibly far away ... Zanzibar, Hong Kong, Mexico.’

  ‘At your age anything is possible.’

  Something in his tone made her say, ‘I’m not as young as all that.’

  His eyes teased her. ‘Young enough to resent being called young.’

  Jenny traced a pattern on the sand with her forefinger.

  ‘You speak as if you were middle-aged.’

  ‘I am,’ he said dryly. ‘I am nearly half-way through the allotted span of three score years and ten.’

  ‘That isn’t middle-aged. It’s the prime of life,’ she said lightly.

  ‘It’s a far cry from twenty.’

  She scrambled to her feet. ‘Let’s swim again - before your poor old bones seize up on you,’ she added mischievously.

  But the joke was forced because she felt that he had put a distance between them. She knew she was not sophisticated, but did she seem so very immature to him?

  Simon ferried Polly back to the beach, and he and Jenny helped her to build an enormous sand castle. They then ate the tea Mrs. Rose had packed in the hamper.

  ‘Hadn’t you better change?’ Simon suggested, when he was smoking a cigarette and Polly had run off to find some shells to decorate the castle. ‘You might get a chill sitting about in a damp suit.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ Jenny said, with a touch of sharpness.

  Was he treating her like an adolescent deliberately? Or was she only imagining it?

  About half past five, Simon glanced at his watch and called to Polly that it was time to go home.

  ‘Oh, must we go already? I’m not a bit tired. Can’t we stay a little while longer?’ Polly begged.

  ‘Not today, I’m afraid. I have to go out this evening.’

  Simon turned to Jenny. ‘I’m having dinner with the Warings.’

  ‘Oh, are you?’ she said, her spirits sinking. She had no doubt about which of the Warings had issued the invitation.

  Later that evening, at the time when Simon would be on his way to Red Gables, Jenny sat at the dressing-table in her bedroom, and studied herself in the mirror.

  ‘I suppose I do look younger than I am,’ she reflected, with a frown. ‘I must do something about it - but what?’

  Normally she had her hair trimmed every three weeks, but recently she had missed a couple of visits to the hairdresser. It occurred to her that her hair was now almost long enough to put up in a French pleat. Tomorrow she would buy some pins, and experiment.

  ‘And I’ll try a bit more eye make-up,’ she decided.

  Next morning, knowing her grandfather would be working on his Sunday sermons, Jenny asked if she could take the car for a shopping trip in the city. Then she went round to Flint House to see if Polly would like to go with her. As it was nearly ten o’clock, she had thought Simon would have left for his office. But it wa
s he who came to the door when she pressed the bell.

  ‘Oh ... good morning.’ Jenny explained the reason for her call.

  ‘I expect she’d love to go with you,’ he said. ‘Polly come here, will you?’

  ‘Did you have a nice evening with the Warings?’ Jenny asked casually, while the little girl was getting ready.

  ‘Yes, it was very pleasant.’ Evidently Simon was working at home all day. He was wearing buff-coloured slacks and a navy cotton sports shirt. ‘Fenella is quite an eyeful, isn’t she?’ he said, with a quirk at his mouth.

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  Jenny wondered what Fenella had worn and which of her several techniques she had used on Simon. Had she decided to be madly feminine ... all wide-eyed fragility and frills? Or had she put on her super-sophisticate act, and worn something startlingly décolleté in black, with a long cigarette holder and crimson lips and nails?

  Anyway Simon did not seem to have taken her very seriously. But then he was a very different kettle of fish from John Barton.

  In the following fortnight, Jenny and Polly were together nearly all the time.

  ‘I don’t know what she’d do without you, Miss Shannon,’

  Mrs. Rose said, one day, after Polly had spent the rainy afternoon making pastry men in the Rectory kitchen. ‘It would be very lonely for her, with no friends of her own age.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a pity there are no other children from our school in this area. Unfortunately, all the village children are either too old or too young for her.’

  ‘Mind you, she’s very fond of reading,’ Mrs. Rose went on. ‘But I don’t think it would be good for her to spend too much time with her nose in a book. She still grieves for her mother, poor mite. She needs taking out of herself, and you’ve a wonderful understanding of children. You’ve more patience than I ever had when my family were youngsters.’

  ‘I’m very fond of her,’ Jenny said sincerely.

  And indeed she would have been glad to keep Polly company even if it had not offered greater opportunities of seeing the man she loved.

  One afternoon, when Simon was working in his room, as he quite often did, Jenny took Polly for a walk to the woods. She had not been there since the day she had gone with James, and she avoided the spot where she had sat with him.