The Tall Stranger by D E Stevenson

Author:D E Stevenson [Stevenson, D E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2019-12-04T22:00:00+00:00

Nell, also, had been out all day. She and her companion had lunched at an old inn on the South Downs and then had decided to take a walk to stretch their legs and fill their lungs with fresh air. They parked the car in a convenient spot and set off up a steep path which led over the hills … and at three o’clock in the afternoon (when Barbie was opening the gate of Green Beech Cottage and being greeted rapturously by David Kirk), Nell and her companion were sitting resting in a little hollow in the shade of an old thorn.

‘You do understand, don’t you?’ Nell was saying. ‘I can’t leave her now – all in the middle of her troubles. She’s frightened.’

‘That’s nonsense.’

‘I know. I told her it was nonsense – but she is. It seems odd because Barbie is a very brave sort of person in most things, but she really is scared. So we can’t be engaged.’

‘We are engaged –’

‘No, Will,’ said Nell firmly. ‘If we were engaged I’d have to tell her. We tell each other everything. I simply couldn’t keep a secret from Barbie.’

Will was silent for a moment. He was a little puzzled, for it seemed to him that Nell was keeping a secret from her friend, but he was aware that he was merely a man and that the curious workings of the female brain were mysteries which no mere man could hope to unravel.

‘You understand, don’t you?’ said Nell anxiously.

‘You said you would marry me –’

‘Because I thought she was engaged to Edward.’

‘Then you mean –’

‘I mean I’ll marry you when things come right for Barbie – if they do come right. In the meantime –’

‘In the meantime you’ll run about all over the place with Phil,’ said her companion clenching his teeth. ‘Oh yes, I know I’m jealous. I told you I could be jealous if I had anything to be jealous about, didn’t I?’

‘Dear Othello, it’s rather thrilling,’ said Nell in a dreamy voice.

She was lying back upon the soft turf and Will turned and looked at her. He put his hands very gently round her neck.

‘Rather thrilling,’ repeated Nell softly.

He leant over and kissed her.

She had thought him ugly. Perhaps he was – but it didn’t matter.

‘Darling Will,’ said Nell. ‘You haven’t anything to be jealous about. They’re all just boys. It’s fun having them as friends.’

‘Give them up.’

‘Why?’

‘Would you like it if I had half a dozen women friends?’

‘I’d rather you had half a dozen than just one,’ replied Nell, giggling at the idea of her tall gaunt doctor surrounded by a bevy of adoring females.

He had to smile, and when he smiled (as Nell had noticed before) he was not in the least ugly, but rather the reverse.

‘You must smile a lot,’ she told him.

‘I shall smile when we’re engaged – not before.’

‘What a pity!’ said Nell sadly. ‘You see I love you so much more when you smile.’

‘I love you all the time – better and better every moment.

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