by Pamela Kent
“To what?” Janine asked. “To loneliness?”
“To separation from the man of the house.”
“As a matter of fact,” Janine answered, rather more slowly, “I don’t think it is separation from Stephen—which is more or less inevitable unless they lived in London—that seems to be undermining Chris’s health. Naturally, she doesn’t like it, but … it’s something else.”
“Ah!” he exclaimed, and stopped dead in the middle of a sea of shrubbery.
Janine decided there was no point in fencing. “It’s the house,” she said distinctly. “Your house! You sold it to them, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and I wish I hadn’t now. I may want to settle down before very long, and until my aunt dies I shall be without a roof over my head unless I look around for somewhere else to settle. I’m too fond of my aunt to wish her to depart this life for some considerable while yet, so it’s likely to become quite a problem.”
“Well, at least I’m glad you’re not anxious to see the last of your aunt,” Janine remarked scathingly.
Tim Hannaford regarded her with a mild gleam in his eyes and tight lips.
“Determined to like me, aren’t you?” he said. “I seem to have made an extraordinary impression! … But to get back to Sandals. What in your considered opinion is wrong with the house? Do you think I left the family skeleton insecurely locked away in a cupboard? Do you think it jumps out on Christine when she’s not expecting it, and that’s why she’s seldom seen without that great mastiff nowadays? Is she afraid?”
“I think so.”
A positive cleft had occurred between Tim’s wrinkled brows.
“But what of?”
“She has bad nights. She dreams a lot. In her dream—which is repetitive—she sees a man enter her room by means of a door which is non-existent in the daytime. I myself have gone over every inch of wall space in her room when she was safely out of the way, and there is absolutely no sign of a door.”
He regarded her oddly.
“Have you?”
“There’s the door to the bathroom and the door to the corridor, but no third door. Was there ever one to that room, to your knowledge?”
A mildly derisive smile appeared in his eyes.
“Dear lady, as I don’t visit your sister in her room when I pay my unwelcome visits to Sandals how can I be expected to know which room she occupies?” he asked.
She made an impatient gesture.
“But you must know which room she occupies. It’s the main bedroom.”
“Ah!” he exclaimed.
“And she and Stephen share the same bathroom.”
“But not the same room?” he said softly.
Janine wondered whether she had been indiscreet and revealed something that she should not have revealed.
“Well, there’s not much point in discussing it, is there?” she said, turning determinedly back towards the house. “I’m very much afraid Chris will have to see the doctor again, and possibly another nerve specialist, but until she’s well I shall remain with her.” She looked at him defiantly. “I don’t intend to leave her.”
“Splendid,” he said.
“Already I’ve noticed a small amount of improvement since I arrived.”
“Meaning that you’re quite a success as a substitute for Stephen?”
Indignation flashed into her face.
“Well, of course not, but—”
“By the way,” he said, increasing his long strides to keep up with her short, quick, agitated steps, “was it merely a dream I had, or did someone actually tell me that you were once engaged to Stephen?”
The colour mounted to her face, and she was annoyed because it disappeared under her hair. No young woman with looks and a personality of her own likes to have to admit that she was once jilted, and Janine realised that such an admission was about to be dragged from her now. She carefully averted her eyes from him, noticed how the branches of a magnificent cedar tree growing close to the terrace tapped against the panes of one of the upstairs windows, and spoke stiffly through pursed lips.
“I was engaged to Stephen for a short time.”
“How long?”
“A—a matter of months.”
He gave vent to a low, peculiar whistle.
“Unbelievable,” he said.
She shot a swift, surprised glance at him, the colour still palpitating under the smooth skin of her cheeks, and she thought that his expression was as unreadable as the expression on the face of the Sphinx.
“What do you mean? Unbelievable?” she asked suspiciously, and almost immediately she wished she hadn’t. For he turned that thin, brown, indolently good-looking mask of a face towards her, and he smiled … The look in his brown eyes causing her cheeks to smart afresh.
“Oh, nothing,” he answered casually, “except that a lot of things in life are … unbelievable!”
Just before they reached the house his expression underwent one of those curious changes, and he put a strange question to her in an almost toneless voice:
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of a Mrs. Philip Hay, have you?”
“Mrs. Philip—?” She stopped to think, and then she remembered. Stephen had become very involved with a Mrs. Philip Hay when he defended her in open court. The papers had made a great deal of the fact that she was very beautiful, and Stephen had become so eloquent in her defence that his success, when she was acquitted of the charge of being in some way involved in her husband’s death, had undoubtedly brought him large numbers of clients.
“I think I do remember something about her,” she said, a trifle hesitantly.
Tim merely glanced at her.
“I just wondered whether you’d ever heard of her,” he said.
They rejoined Chris and Lady Hannaford in the drawing-room, and Chris had a slightly strained expression on her face, as if she had been listening to good advice. She welcomed her sister’s reappearance with obvious relief, and somewhat to Janine’s surprise smiled at Tim as if she was quite glad to see him again, too. Janine made a mental note of the fact that Chris approved of Tim … really approved of him. And she had a sudden mental picture of her sitting up in bed with a breakfast-tray on her knee, and a blush-pink rose that was all wet with dew held almost lovingly up against her face.
Janine began to feel a trifle bewildered … and in the midst of her bewilderment she kept pondering the reason why Tim had so deliberately mentioned Mrs. Philip Hay.
Just before they took their departure Nurse Tempest appeared, wearing a smart tweed suit and beautifully made brogue shoes, and having shaken hands with the visitors she looked up almost coyly into Tim’s face.
“I thought I’d exercise the dogs before dinner,” she said. “I know you took them for a wonderful walk this afternoon, but they’re creatures of habit, you know, and they miss it if I don’t take them out. I’ve got to be back in good time to read to Lady Hannaford before it’s time to change for dinner, so if you’re not doing anything terribly important wouldn’t you like to come along …? Good for your figure, you know!” smiling at him archly.
Tim appeared to be considering something at the moment that she spoke to him, but he emerged from a state of mild trance to accept with enthusiasm. In fact, his whole thin, dark face became irradiated.
“Good idea!” he exclaimed. “I’m not very much concerned with my figure—after all, I can always lose a few unwanted pounds on the next expedition!—but when a pretty girl looks at me and says ‘Come along!’ I naturally come!” His brown eyes actually seemed to warm as he gazed at her. “You’re the prettiest nurse I’ve ever met, so lead the way!”
Janine was conscious of a feeling of distaste. Here was a man who loved to philander—she was quite sure of that. Probably not the kind who would marry for years yet, if he ever did marry, but certainly not the type to retire into a monkish peace in between assaults on Himalayan mountains and crossing arid deserts.
And then she remembered that he had said some
thing about settling down, and she found herself looking more closely and critically at Elizabeth Tempest. Was he thinking of settling down with her? Certainly she would make any man an attractive wife, and she seemed to be on very good terms with her employer’s nephew. During tea they had exchanged smiling glances many times, and now she laid a hand on his sleeve and gave it an intimate pat.
“Good,” she said softly. “I had an idea I could persuade you!”
Chris mentioned the attractive Nurse Tempest on the way back to Sandals. Janine was driving, and Chris was gazing thoughtfully out of the window at the lonely stretches of the moor.
“I’m surprised,” she observed, “that Lady Hannaford encourages Tim to go about with that girl.”
“That girl?” Janine was concentrating on the white road and a moorland pony that was crossing it leisurely not many yards away from the car. “You mean …?”
“Nurse Tempest.” Chris’s tone sounded a trifle short. “She’s so horribly obvious, don’t you think?”
Janine wrinkled her brows.
“Obvious?”
Her sister made an impatient gesture. When she thought about that gesture some time later Janine felt a little disturbed, although she didn’t entirely understand why it should have disturbed her.
“Oh, you do have to have your t’s crossed and your i’s dotted, don’t you?” This was rather like the old, arrogant Chris. “Tim Hannaford is a highly eligible bachelor, and Elizabeth Tempest no doubt finds him attractive as well. With Lady Hannaford’s connivance she’ll marry him … or she will if Tim is fool enough to be taken in by those limpid blue eyes of hers. But, somehow,” she added, with a tiny, satisfied smile curving the corners of her lips, “I don’t think Tim is in the least a fool, and I don’t think he’ll be caught very easily by any woman!”
Chapter VIII
FOR the next few days life was very quiet at Sandals. Janine would never have believed that it could adopt such a monotonous pattern, and yet be distinctly to her taste.
She loved her long walks on the moor, and her growing friendship with Miranda was oddly comforting. The great dog did not exactly forsake her mistress, but there was no doubt about it, she was dividing her allegiance between the two sisters. At night she slept outside Chris’s door; by day she padded after Janine with a hopeful expression on her impressive mastiff features, plainly anticipating the moment when she would be taken for a walk.
Chris didn’t seem to mind.
“I’m afraid I’m not strong enough to give her enough exercise,” she admitted, “and an outsize dog like that does need a very great deal of exercise.”
Somewhat curiously, Janine enquired:
“Why did you buy her in the first place?”
Chris looked directly at her.
“For protection, of course … and companionship,” she added.
Janine’s slim brows wrinkled.
“Do you still fell the need of constant protection?” she asked.
Chris smiled—her green eyes lighting up for an all too short while, while her lovely mouth curved almost contentedly—and shook her head emphatically.
“Not at the moment,” she said.
“But surely, with Stephen away—”
“Shall we say I don’t feel the need of protection while you’re here?” Chris elaborated enigmatically. “Perhaps it’s that you give me confidence.”
Janine looked surprised, and also rather pleased.
“Well, it’s the first time I’ve been able to look upon myself as a guardian of the weak,” she remarked. “Perhaps I’m tougher than I look … or perhaps I look tougher than my own mirror would have me believe!” She laughed, and regarded her sister with her head on one side. “But it’s perfectly true you look much better than when I arrived here. Your appearance at that time gave me quite a shock.” She paused for a moment, and then asked almost diffidently: “Do you sleep any better since I arrived? I mean—” trying not to sound as if it was important in any case—“do you sleep without dreaming? That rather horrible dream that was upsetting you so much, and which kept on giving you bad nights?”
Chris moved closer to her, and her green eyes gleamed with satisfaction as she admitted:
“I—I haven’t had that dream once since—since Stephen went away last time. Odd, isn’t it?”
Janine felt almost startled.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, I suppose it—is rather odd!”
Stephen didn’t normally, apparently, remain away for more than a few days at a time, but on this occasion he had already been in London for close upon a fortnight. Janine realised that he was possibly less worried about his wife while her sister was with her, and no doubt he had arrears of work to catch up on … work to which he could now apply himself with a less anxious mind.
Every other day he telephoned Chris, but the conversations never lasted for longer than a very few minutes. They sounded perfectly amicable, affectionate and, if not eagerly awaited, welcomed by both sides. They usually took place after dinner, when the house was particularly hushed and still, the domestic staff was securely shut away behind a green baize door washing up after the evening meal and preparing—with the exception of the cook, that is—to slip away to the village and their own homes; and Janine would be sitting quietly in the drawing-room playing with the dog’s ears, or listening to a discreetly turned down radio or television programme.
When Chris rejoined her she would refrain from asking questions, although sometimes her sister invited them.
“Poor Stephen,” she would observe, curling up comfortably on her settee, “it must be dull for him in town. And apparently it’s very hot. I always hate London during a heat-wave.”
“I wonder what he does with himself in the evenings?” Janine mused, on one occasion, and Chris’s whole face seemed to sharpen, and she looked at the other girl with somewhat peculiar alertness.
“Oh, there are heaps of things he can do,” she replied. “He can go to the club, or buy himself a drink somewhere where he might meet a few friends … or simply sit at home and read. Stephen likes reading.”
“And I suppose he always has a mass of correspondence to deal with,” Janine suggested.
Chris nodded eagerly.
“Of course. It simply piles up.”
“I don’t suppose he ever does any entertaining now that you’re no longer there to support him?”
Once more the sharp look altered the whole expression of Chris’s delicately beautiful face.
“Entertaining?” she echoed. “Who would he entertain?”
“Well, clients sometimes, perhaps … That is to say, he might be expected to entertain them. But he could always do that in a restaurant, couldn’t he?”
“Yes,” Chris answered softly, “yes.”
Janine afterwards took herself to task for putting that distinctly strained look into her face. But there were certain things she had to find out about Chris and her married life … not because that married life might have been hers if there had never been any Chris to come along and wreck her sister’s schemes, but because it was in Chris’s own interests for her to find them out.
Or she was beginning to suspect that it might be in Chris’s own interests.
Two days later something happened that confirmed—or partially confirmed—this lightly held belief.
She drove the car into Exeter to do some shopping for Chris, and while there she ran more or less head on into Tim Hannaford. He had just been putting his own car away in the car-park, and was pocketing his keys and turning to walk smartly into the shopping district when Janine, putting away her own car keys, emerged from a narrow avenue formed by orderly rows of parked cars and literally cannoned into him. He put out his hand to steady her, recognised her at precisely the same moment, and grinned.
“Well, well!” he said. “You and I seem fated to meet in a slightly abnormal manner! On the first occasion … No, I won’t mention that,” as he saw the indignant colour flood into her face. “The secon
d occasion was perfectly respectable and above board, but to-day you would have butted me like a goat if I hadn’t been wary. Do you always walk with your head down when pondering your problems?”
“I wasn’t pondering my problems.” Her voice was sharp with irritation, and her grey eyes were not as serene as they normally were. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t got any!”
“Good!” he said, and took her by the arm and saw her safely on to the pavement. “I like meeting people without any problems, because not merely is it a rare thing in this problematical world of ours but it should ensure that you’re very sunny-tempered. From the little I know of you I wouldn’t be prepared to swear that you’re sunny-tempered …” He smiled at her whimsically, his slightly crooked, whitetoothed smile. “But I’m not awfully good at assessing temperament. You’ll have to put me wise!”
She wrenched away her arm. It was not, perhaps, entirely strange, but it was, nevertheless, decidedly true that he did arouse in her feelings of irritation and impatience that few people had succeeded in improving on. It was hardly likely that in the future anyone else would have the power to ruffle her to quite such an extent without doing anything more than surveying her with a mildly critical (and humorous) gleam in their eyes.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Hannaford,” she said, as she walked on quickly ahead of him, “I haven’t got time to put you wise this morning.”
“A pity,” he murmured, falling into step behind her. “I suppose you’ve come in to do some shopping?”
“Yes.”
“Then surely you’ll feel more fortified after a coffee? I know a nice little place—”
“I’m sure you do!”
“Behind the cathedral,” lengthening his strides to keep pace with her. “Their special line is a gloriously sticky bun that is rather like a Bath bun, only it hasn’t got those sugary bits sticking to it, and I’m rather inclined to believe they leave out the peel …”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hannaford,” she repeated rather breathlessly, “but I’m not tempted by buns with or without peel, and I never drink coffee in the mornings.”
