Sunshine Yellow by Mary Whistler

getting on...”
    “And Veronica?” he asked, standing with the bowl of the pipe gripped between his thumb and forefinger, but not putting it to his lips. “Do you think Veronica is consumed with curiosity to see how well I grope my way about the house now that I’m not exactly one hundred per cent? As I was when she saw me last! Do you think she wants to watch you guiding me about, and cutting up my meat for me, and things like that?” His voice was as bitter as a whiplash. “Do you think she wants to come over all truly feminine and regretful and pour sympathy over me, like treacle?”
    “Of course not!” Penny cried, aghast.
    “Then you don’t know Veronica,” he told her. He discarded his pipe, and turned as if he would leave the room. “She was born to ooze sympathy occasionally ... no one could do so more charmingly than Veronica! But I won’t have it! I couldn’t endure it!” His voice rose and sounded shrill. “I tell you I won’t have it!”
    Penny felt herself turn gradually very cold, although the room was very warm. Stephen knocked out his pipe again in an ash-tray for which he groped awkwardly, and then thrust it away into his pocket.
    “Where’s Waters?” he demanded irritably. “I’d like to go to bed!”
    If anything, Veronica was more beautiful than ever when she arrived the following day. She and her mother drove over the green cliff on which the cottage stood in a smart new blue car which Veronica drove, and Veronica herself was in a shade of blue that accented her dark violet eyes, and the exquisite pallor of her skin.
    If she had been ill, she had quite obviously recovered, but she was interestingly pale. It was a pity, Penny found herself thinking in a strange, detached fashion, that Stephen couldn’t see how well a hint of fragility became her.
    Penny went out alone to greet them, and Aunt Heloise drew her a little aside.
    “The poor child’s been fretting a lot,” she said. “She has been very distressed for Stephen, you know. She very stupidly blames herself for his accident.”
    “Does she?” Penny said quietly, and led the way into the house.
    Stephen was standing at the foot of the short staircase, looking unnaturally stiff and rather grim, but impeccably dressed as usual. His dark glasses showed up the gauntness of his face, and Veronica took one look at him and then came to an absolute standstill. Her mother spoke loudly to cover up her obvious distress.
    “How are you, Stephen? We couldn’t come all this way and not pay you a visit. Cornwall is so remote, but we were only about thirty miles away, and ... and so we came!”
    “It’s very kind of you,” Stephen replied, and took off his dark glasses and held them in his hand. Veronica, seeing for the first time the scars about his eyes— although, actually, they were fading a little by this time, and were expected to fade still more as the months went by—and his vividly blue sightless stare, put a hand u p to her trembling mouth and looked as if would dissolve in a noisy avalanche of t e ars.
    “Oh, Stephen,” she whispered, “how g-ghastly!”
    St ephen stiffened still more, and her mother frowned.
    “Darling, be careful,” she whi sp ered.
    “I’m sorry if I shook you,” Stephen said, in a hard, cold voice.
    “It’s not that,” Veronica assured him. “It’s ... ” And then the tears came, and her shoulders shook. She wept into her neatly gloved hands. “I feel as if I did this to you personally! I feel as if I’m responsible! I feel ...”
    “Yes, darling, we know all about that,” her mother said soothingly, “but you mustn’t upset Stephen.” She turned to Penny, “Perhaps I could take her upstairs to your room? Or if you have a guest-room perhaps she could rest there for a while before lunch? She’s badly overwrought.”
    “Of course,” Penny answered, wondering why the words didn’t stick in her throat and choke her, she found it so difficult to answer and literally trembling with