‘All right. All right.’ He hadn’t time to argue. ‘I must go in to work today. I’ll see you this evening. And—good rooting.’
When he had gone she looked at the money as if it was something that might bite. She had to take it, she couldn’t go about looking like Eve; but it was abhorrent to her to borrow. Although it was disloyal of her to think it, her adored father was a man of flexible principles, and even he wouldn’t borrow. He was quite illogical on the subject. He would steal, accept a gift, or do without, but he wouldn’t borrow. To do something he wouldn’t stoop to, made her seem less of a person. She hadn’t minded accepting the gift of clothes from Ian, she didn’t mind eating his food. But she did mind picking up that money.
She thought it might be dusty grubbing about in the attic, and shrank from going up there in her one and only dress. She wondered if she could fix it with her conscience to ‘steal’ one of Ian’s old shirts.
The master bedroom was about four times the size of hers. Three windows paced one wall, giving it an unsurpassed vista of trees in soldierly ranks, marching in dark, menacing majesty towards a rough heather clad fell that rose out of the blackness and the gloom in a series of humps to a skyline softened with cloud.
The view was such that it dominated all conscious thought, and she felt her breath catch imperceptibly in her throat and wished she had her father’s skill with a brush and pallette. She had his eye and his off-beat appreciation of beauty, but not his clever fingers. The sharply contrasting contours, too vivid for some tastes, stirred her senses and for a moment she was haunted by the strange loveliness, possessed almost by other spirits who in earthly form had clung to this window and enjoyed the merging of the obvious prettiness of pinky mauves, violets and greens, and thrilled at, and perhaps experienced a chilling feeling of disquiet by, the enveloping darkness and pagan density of the woodland.
It was almost an anti-climax to turn away and examine the room. It was so normal and ordinary; huge wardrobe units filled the deep chimney alcoves and a pastoral scene, idyllic and timeless and pleasing to the eye, adorned the white wall. It was a simple watercolour. Karen liked it. It did not inspire her to depths of feeling, and she did not know if she liked it because of, or in spite of this. She was still searching, finding out about herself through the medium of art appreciation.
The candlewick bedspread was cornflower blue, several old-fashioned hooky rugs in variegated shades of blue, from cornflower to deep wedgewood, set off the mellow beauty of the waxed, elm floor.
Investigation showed that Ian had emptied one unit of furniture completely, obviously to make room for his guest’s clothes. Would Miss Stainburn like this room? As she rested her elbows on the sill would she be filled with reckless exhilaration? Or would she back away from the pressing nearness of the trees? What kind of a person was she?
Karen moved to the other unit of furniture. The mahogany gleamed blood-red as the heavy door swung back to reveal a tie rack and several drawers. His shirts were in the third drawer down. She found a checked one in peacock-blue and green. Perfect for her purpose. She was just about to take her spoils and go when she spotted the photograph of a petite girl sandwiched between two tall men. The girl was not pretty, not obviously pretty, but Karen sensed an elusive something ready to penetrate the elfin features and wide apart eyes. The men were also unsmiling. It was the Ian she knew best, saturnine and half in profile. The other man was staring blankly at the camera, as if waiting for someone to say ‘cheese’ before troubling to fix his features. Perhaps that was why she didn’t immediately realize it was Mitch. She knew Mitch’s face best in smile, perhaps because she didn’t want to remember him looking bleak and slaughtered. It didn’t look a very old photo, the corners weren’t curled and it wasn’t sepia with age, so that meant the breach between them couldn’t be very old either. Had they quarrelled over the girl? And was Valerie Stainburn small, with elfin features?
The sewing machine was in the darkest corner of the attic. She disturbed a spinning spider to brush it reasonably free of dust, and then carried it gingerly down to the living room, where she soon had it wheezing into action. She experimented on her new acquisition, Ian’s shirt, slicing off the tail and hemming it round, shortening the sleeves and generally adapting it to her requirements. Presto, she had a knock-about shirt dress.
She would have changed back into her green dress, but she left herself short of time. As it was she had to leg it to the bus stop. It was market day in Todbridge and Karen was fascinated by the huddle of open stalls. She found one selling material and bought two dress lengths, a multi-coloured print and a matt cream that handled beautifully and would lend itself to dressing up. At another stall she bought knitting wool in a pretty russet shade, needles and a cardigan pattern, selected because of its uncomplicated stitch.
Then she went back to the first stall because she’d forgotten to look for lingerie material. She found some remnant pieces and because they were so cheap she planned to make two underskirts, and three shortie nighties with high drawstring necklines and tiny puffed sleeves.
‘Replenishing your wardrobe?’
She swung round and grinned up at Howard Mitchell. ‘You make it sound a chore,’ she accused. ‘It’s fun!’
He grimaced. ‘Only a woman could say that. Have you had enough fun for today? Or might I tear you away for a spot of lunch?’
‘You might. My thoughts were already edging that way.’
‘You mean you accept. You’ll let me buy your lunch?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she counter-questioned his incredulity. ‘You might have quarrelled with Ian, but you and I have no axe to grind. You saved my life; in the circumstances I should treat you to lunch.’
‘I won’t hear of that,’ he said, much to her delight as she didn’t want to get too heavily indebted to Ian, and she would have had to use his money to pay for her fine gesture.
‘But are you sure?’ he persisted. ‘I’m sorry to be such a Doubting Thomas, but are you sure? What will Big Brother say?’
‘Nothing. For the simple reason that I shan’t tell him.’
His chuckle was low and resonant as his hand nipped easily into the crook of her elbow to guide her through the stalls.
‘Know what I do first thing every morning?’
‘Open your eyes?’
‘Ah! So I’m squiring a joker, am I?’ he said. ‘After I’ve opened my eyes, after I’ve washed and shaved, before I have breakfast, know what I do?’
‘No, what?’
‘I read my horoscope. Know what my horoscope said this morning?’
‘No, but—’ She suppressed a giggle. ‘My stars! I’m going to!’
‘It said—and I will ignore the flippancy—today you meet your destiny.’
‘It didn’t!’
He grinned. ‘No, it didn’t. Actually it said “Good phase for exchanging information and pooling ideas with a comparatively new friend.” Well, new friend, to begin. I’m thirty-one, in unsettled employment, and I dislike wearing odd socks. That’s enough information to be going on with. My idea, at the moment, is to know you much better. Now it’s your turn.’
‘My turn?’
‘Dear Dimwit, your turn to exchange information and pool ideas. I never let my horoscope down.’
‘Now you’re being flippant,’ she accused. ‘Are you a disbeliever?’
‘M-m.’ His expression was dead-pan. ‘Let’s put it this way. I never walk under a ladder, or on a crack, if I can help it. And I never, but never whistle in a dressing room. Now, about lunch. What’s it to be. A sit down in a restaurant, or pot luck with traveller’s samples?’
‘Pot luck, please,’ she answered promptly. ‘Are you a traveller?’
‘For my sins, yes,’ he said, his voice unfolding in a bored drawl.
‘Temporarily. Until I discover the crock of gold.’
‘Oh that,’ she pooh-poohed. ‘Everybody’s searching. Nobody finds.’
‘I almost did once.’—Now the draw
l conveyed a world of regret. ‘I really thought I’d hit it good.’
‘You know,’ she teased. ‘The streets aren’t paved with gold. That’s only a fallacy. They’re paved with lost chance.’
He weighed her words, made nothing of them that pleased him, and for reply thrust out his lower lip like a thwarted child. She deduced he bitterly regretted his lost chance, and, on that subject at least, had put up a closed sign. What she had thought was pie in sky, was ambition, and he wasn’t prepared to expose it to humorous banter. She pressed hurriedly for a change of subject, one less hazardous, and happily the mood of zany amiability was restored.
On the way to the car they stopped to shop for items not to be found in his samples. Bread rolls and butter, and a bag of crisp, sugar-glazed Eccles cakes.
Approaching the car park, Karen didn’t have to grit her teeth. At first she was staggered, then relieved. Ian had done this for her. By bundling her straight back behind the wheel of a car, he had given her back her nerve. You have to relive an ordeal in order to conquer it. She just hoped there was one ordeal she wouldn’t have to relive, even if she never conquered it.
Mitch was glancing across at her—doubtless remembering things too—trying to assess her reaction. She wanted to put out her hand and say, “It’s all right”. But it was enough to be all right. Anyway, she was so choked with relief, she doubted she had a voice.
‘Into the yellow peril, with you,’ he instructed. ‘Let’s hope we don’t meet an exile from Europe. Don’t worry,’ he added. And in the mysterious manner of auto-suggestion, she immediately did begin to worry. ‘We shan’t meet up with anybody driving on the wrong side of the road. Lightning never strikes twice.’
He meant to be kind, but he couldn’t have said anything more shattering. It was as if every syllable was spiked with a point of steel. She closed her eyes, and in memory heard the growl of thunder; yet it wasn’t the thunder she feared, but its dread companion. Thunder might have the loudest voice, but it’s lightning that has the power to sear and pain.
‘Look, sweetie,’ he said, abounding with grave consideration. ‘You don’t have to get in the car. There’s a park nearby. We can have a meal alfresco style.’ He elaborated invitingly: ‘A picnic lunch. Won’t that be fun? Much better than a stuffy old—’
‘It’s not the car. I’m all right,’ she gulped.
‘All right! All right, she says!’ His hand clapped across his forehead in exaggerated disbelief. ‘After what you’ve been through, I’m a brute, a four headed monster for even suggesting . . . I mean, I should know better than anybody. I was there. I dragged you clear.’ His sympathy washed over her like balm; she wallowed in it, she spread her arms in it, she tasted it in her mouth and savoured it on her tongue, and some of it trickled into her throat to thicken her voice. ‘Do you mind if we get in the car and away from here. Before the flood gates open and I make a right spectacle of myself.’
She held back until they were parked in a quiet lane some three miles to the east of Todbridge. Then it was all up with her. A severely held barricade collapsed and she wept until there wasn’t a tear left in her.
Mitch was marvellous in the role of comforter, administering soothing words, supplying her with a large clean handkerchief, her own being a useless, sodden, tightly screwed ball, offering her the use of his shoulder. His shoulder she declined, not without regret, because it looked wide and comfortable. But she had no intention of letting misery drive her into a man’s arms. All the same she tried to convey her gratitude for his able handling of an unpleasant task. A regular envoy of mercy, light on tact perhaps, but offering sympathy with a lavish hand.
So kind of him. It wasn’t his fault she felt blotchy-eyed and wretched, and filled with self-loathing for creating such a scene. He was wonderful. She was tempted to confide all, the true reason for her conduct, but her misery made her maladroit and she couldn’t be sure of finding the words. Besides which, enough is enough. So, contriving a light tone, she beseeched: ‘Any chance of conjuring up some coffee? I’ve got a raging thirst.’
He produced a flask with the dexterity of a magician. He gave her his own pottery mug and he used the plastic vacuum flask cup.
‘This is good,’ she complimented. ‘Did your wife make it for you?’
‘I made it myself,’ he said, answering only one part of her double edged question. ‘Which is not quite what you wanted to know?’
‘No,’ she admitted unequivocally, even smiling at her own unabashed curiosity.
‘No wife, Karen. The nearest I got was a fiancée.’
‘But not any more?’ No use falling at the first fence.
‘She went away.’
‘Oh.’ Perhaps she should have fallen at the first fence, after all.
‘A long way away. You could say she passed beyond the concept of wordly things.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yes.’ He knuckled his hands, bringing his thumbs together, holding on to something—thought? Reason? ‘It was a bad business. She was too young to . . . too young.’ His voice cracked mid sentence, died, came back with vigour. ‘So you see, we share a common bond. We have both suffered. Shall we cheer one another up?’ He was talking too loud, too fast, and his eyes were heavy with pain. He had suffered. The roles shifted. Now she was the comforter.
‘I should like that,’ she said gravely.
He countered: ‘Ian won’t approve.’ His eyes narrowed. In taunt? Or speculation? All she knew was that at the mention of that name, some of the fire and vitality that had drained out of her, oozed back.
‘I only work for him. My private life is my own. I don’t defer to Ian, or anybody.’
His glance slanted in her direction. The pain had gone and was supplanted by a look of triumph, of undisguised caprice. It dried her mouth and gave her the feeling she had been cleverly manipulated to say just that.
‘Let’s eat now,’ said Mitch, sending her an exquisite smile.
They did that. After which Mitch said, with sweet reluctance, that it was time to continue his rounds. She replied that she had some more shopping to do.
‘Don’t forget our date tomorrow,’ he reminded.
‘Is it still on? I didn’t think you’d want to see me again, not so soon. And it was only a tentative arrangement to meet at Sharpe’s.’
‘On your part, maybe,’ he charmed. ‘There was nothing tentative about the arrangement in my mind. I want to see you again, now more than ever. The only thing I plan to change is the venue. Instead of Sharpe’s, how about my collecting you in Hamblewick? I’m not suggesting charging the fortress,’ he said, no doubt answering the slight lift of brow. ‘I’ll pick you up by the bridge.’
‘Lovely,’ she accepted. ‘Please may I drive? Now, I mean, on the way back to Todbridge?’
His glance briefed her. It was levelled with disbelief, surprise, a hint of mischief. ‘Have a heart, sweetie. My shoulder, yes. Anytime. But my car.’ She felt like a chicken being inexpertly plucked alive. Something about her, the stiffening of her neck, or whatever flicked to her eye, engaged his attention and his voice dropped its teasing raillery and gathered compassion. ‘Let’s say,’—and who could deny this Mitch, forgiveness?—‘I wouldn’t put you through the agony.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
She completed the rest of her shopping in quick shakes, finding just the right all-purpose coat in the first shop she entered. It was camel, casual, warm for later, with the go-anywhere elegance of a higher priced garment. She mitigated this extravagance by remembering the enormous saving made on the other necessary items. The purchase of a handbag presented a problem. Her depleted resources decreed a cheap plastic, but inclination rarely, if ever, endorses economy and yearned for soft leather. She loved the expensive feel of good leather, for handbag, gloves, shoes.
Unbeknown to her the wheels of compromise had ground into action. The very handbag her uneconomic heart lusted for lurked seductively in the Oxfam, nearly new shop. In the darkest corner, amid a pile of
jumble. Real leather, well cared for by its previous owner, and price right.
Lipstick, foundation make-up, hairbrush (Woolworth’s best), comb, toothbrush, home. How quickly she had come to think of Hamblewick as home. The money had spun out. She even had enough left over to buy mushrooms to garnish the steak.
The girl in the photo trotted in two paces behind Ian. Photographs lie. This girl was fairer, more elfin, thinner. An emaciated ghost with jutting cheekbones and bruised sparrow eyes. Karen cushioned her in the comfiest chair, and mentally fed her the largest steak. The one intended for Ian.
Ian introduced them. He said: ‘Karen, I want you to meet Valerie Stainburn. Val, this is Karen Shaw. Karen has kindly consented to housekeep for me.’
The hand that rested for a brief moment in Karen’s, felt stick brittle. She meant to say, ‘How do you do,’ but said: ‘Have you been ill?’
The pointed chin bobbed up and down, but the grave little mouth remained sealed. It was left to Ian to explain: ‘It’s Val’s first day back at work, after an absence of, oh—six months. The wanness is due to strain and apprehension. Getting back into harness, renewing old acquaintances and making new ones, can be nerve wracking. And I don’t believe she had any lunch.’
‘Then you must eat an enormous supper to compensate,’ urged Karen, sounding as firmly established in the household as the clock on the wall.
‘It’s almost ready. You’ve just time to wash your hands. Bathroom, top of the stairs, second door on the left.’
Valerie said: ‘I know where it is,’ and vacated the room with little-girl docility. Karen’s hands squared to her hips.
‘Well?’ she challenged Ian.
‘Well what?’ he countered, topping his voice up with caution, which tone butchered benefit of doubt thoughts and considerably stepped up her determination. ‘Kindly explain,’ she said tightly.
‘M-m.’ He gave her a shrewd, less wary glance, and came out of his corner. ‘Val’s been ill, is that what you mean? Desperately ill. She needs baby birding. I’m not asking you to nurse her. I realize I engaged you as my housekeeper and that your duties don’t extend to my guests. But I thought—’
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