by Sara Seale
He smiled, then asked with a curiosity he had no desire to feel about her:
“What will you do when you get back to England? I mean, where do you live and who are your family?”
She lowered her lashes, not wanting to satisfy an interest which could only be passing.
“I have no family.” she said. “I lived in a rather dreary hostel in North London. We had to be in by ten and no men in the bedrooms.”
“Very proper, I don’t doubt but hardly home.”
“No, it wasn’t home,” she said, and he saw her wide green gaze begin to travel with unconscious nostalgia over the miscellaneous but comfortable appointments of the one room at Slyne he could honestly call his own.
“We share a mutual need,” he told her with faint irony. “It doesn’t please me to be obliged to turn my home into a guest house, you know.”
“It’s better than living in other people’s,” she replied gently, and he got to his feet with sudden impatience.
“Perhaps,” he said brusquely. “Well, Miss Ware, you can stay here for a week, if you would care to—as my guest, of course. A holiday at Slyne with all the trimmings might be a small compensation for your return to the dreary hostel. What do you say?”
Judy had risen also. He was not, she thought, at all like the usual employer, offering a week’s expensive holiday in lieu of dismissal as a sop, but he was still a disappointment
“Thank you, Mr. O’Rafferty, I would like to stay, as my room at the hostel is taken, but I wouldn’t care for those terms,” she replied politely. “I would prefer to do such secretarial work as you need until you can find someone more suitable.”
He looked down at her curiously, observing the tension in the slight lines of her narrow frame which, at twenty, he thought vaguely, should not have seemed so brittle and hungry-looking. The reproach in her clear eyes was probably unconscious, but he did not care for the uneasy feeling it gave him.
“You’re an odd mixture, Miss Ware,” he told her dryly. “Had you been the twenty-seven you claimed, with the large feet and neat bun of Marcia’s imagination, things might have been different.”
“Can—can I really stay for a week—on my own terms?” she asked hesitantly.
“I suppose so,” he answered, rubbing the aggressive hump in his broken nose with an irritable forefinger, “though I can’t think what I’ll find for you to do.”
“Why, then, did you advertise for a secretary?” she retorted with reasonable logic, but he seemed tired of the interview and wandered towards the door.
“It was Marcia’s idea,” he replied vaguely. “She can’t contend with the paper work, she says, and I, of course, can only type with one finger. Typical Irish fecklessness, you see, my dear Miss Ware. I was probably never meant to run a successful business.”
He went out of the room, leaving her standing there in slight bemusement. She covered the typewriter, straightened the papers on his desk, and turned the light out.
Through the uncurtained window she could see the still waters of the lough stretching away quiet and solitary in the twilight. Beyond were the mountain peaks, shadowy and indefinite, and a deserted ribbon of road wound through the rough parkland.
She turned her back on that brief glimpse of the unfamiliar, and shook the heavy hair out of her eyes. Tomorrow, the next day and the next, she would store up memories to be taken back to England and a new, depressing hostel, and the unrewarding routine of a London office. She was, she supposed, as her father had often told her, sadly unfitted for the dull demands of city life. Well, one learned; one learned, as her father had also told her, by one’s own mistakes and the unfulfilled promises of others.
Michael O’Rafferty’s promise had been implied rather than given, she had to admit, and she herself had built too much on a chance which had seemed to be golden and assured. All the same, it was strange and a little insulting, she thought resentfully, to be turned down because of the unfortunate colour of one’s hair.
CHAPTER TWO
I
SHE awoke the next morning to find Marcia standing by her bed with a tray laid with early morning tea. Struggling up among her pillows from the deep sleep of exhaustion, she felt embarrassed at finding her elegant hostess of the day before waiting on her.
“Please, Miss Maule, I’m not used to this,” she protested, wondering if she had overslept, but Marcia set the tray down with an encouraging smile, and seated herself on the side of the bed.
“I thought your first morning—and it wouldn’t have occurred to the servants, I’m afraid,” she said. “The guests, of course, have to be afforded the niceties, but the rest of us—” she shrugged, intimating that Judy might already count herself as one of the household.
“Our staff problems are somewhat acute here,” Marcia went on. “Once the season starts, of course, we’ll have to take on extra hands, but I’m sure, in the meantime, you won’t mind mucking in with the rest of us, Miss Ware.” Judy reached for the teapot. The worn silver and the thin bread and butter made her feel cherished and important, but she said regretfully:
“I won’t be stopping, I’m afraid, Mr.—Mr. O’Rafferty doesn’t think I will do.”
“Nonsense!” Marcia replied. “Raff was in a mood, that’s all. It’s a pity you had to have red hair.”
“Why? A man surely doesn’t pick his secretary for the colour of her hair!”
“No, of course not, but Raff hasn’t the normal approach to business matters. There was once a girl he had been going to marry, you see.”
“And she had red hair?”
“I believe so. I never knew her.”
Judy munched her bread and butter with relish.
“If he was so sensitive on that score, he should have stated in his advertisement that no red-haired applicants need apply,” she said logically. “Why didn’t he marry her?”
“She died,” said Marcia, and watched, with a certain amusement, the girl’s expression of slight indignation change swiftly to one of pity.
“Oh...” she said softly. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Why should you be? Raff was rather rude to you last night. How were you to know the colour of your hair might have unfortunate associations?”
“And he still cares?” Judy asked, her eyes wide and very green, and Marcia gave a little shrug of impatience.
“I wouldn’t know,” she replied shortly. “She was very young, and it was all a long time ago, anyway. Listen my dear, I want you to stay. My brother and I are getting this place on its feet again, but we need help. You seem a nice, uncomplicated sort of girl, and a job like this won’t be exacting—quite good to cut your teeth on, don’t you think? My brother, you know, was quite taken with you.” It was the wrong approach, she saw at once, observing the comprehensive flicker in the girl’s eyes as she answered with sudden stiff politeness:
“Mr. O’Rafferty, on the other hand, was clearly not taken with me, and he, I imagine, has the final word.”
“Of course,” Marcia agreed gracefully, but she withdrew a little into herself. Miss Judy Ware, though young and sufficiently ingenuous to be no stumbling-block to her own plans, was evidently not to be blandished by implied compliments. She wondered idly whether Noel had already tried his charms on the girl and been rebuffed, but looking at Judy, sitting up in bed, drinking her tea and eating her bread and butter with such frank enjoyment, she smiled a little sceptically. Neither her brother or Michael O’Rafferty would be stirred by such adolescent charms, she thought, and the girl was just what they needed; too inexperienced to feel put upon, and too anxious to hold down her first job to resent the hundred-and-one little chores which could be shifted on to her shoulders.
“You’d like to stay with us, wouldn’t you, Judy? I hope you don’t mind if I call you that, but I feel you and I could be friends,” Marcia said softly, and knew of old that she was hard to resist when she made an effort to be beguiling. The faint colour which crept under the girl’s clear skin, with its light, rather charmin
g dusting of freckles, told her that her small effort had borne fruit. Judy’s surprised pleasure was only too evident as she replied a little shyly: “Thank you, Miss Maule. I would like to stay very much, but Mr. O’Rafferty—”
“Leave Raff to me,” Marcia replied with a conspiratorial smile. “He may be the boss, but he can generally be handled if he’s tackled in the right way. Now, get dressed and come down to breakfast.”
Judy went down to breakfast, glad to be spared another meeting so early in the morning, and threaded her way through the separate and for the most part unoccupied tables in the dining-room, aware of the curious glances of guests. Judy had not served her apprenticeship in the college without coming to recognise the types among her elders who would want to make use of her. The elderly spinster with the floating scarves and violently blued hair already had a speculative gleam behind her pince-nez as she passed and smiled good morning, the military-looking gentleman with the bald head asked peremptorily for more coffee, no doubt mistaking her for a new waitress, and a harassed-looking married couple at a window table exchanged meaning glances, doubtless hoping that here was someone who might relieve them from time to time of the responsibilities of their two unruly offspring.
The Maules sat at a table in another window recess, and Nod rose with exaggerated courtesy and pulled out a chair for her. The admiring glance he bestowed on her was, she was sure, quite automatic, but it was pleasant to be treated as a guest and to contemplate with delight the type of breakfast which had never been provided by the hostel. “Heavens!” Marcia exclaimed, watching her wade with gusto through porridge and cream, bacon and eggs and sausage, finishing up with Mary Kate’s lamentable efforts at toast that was always thick and hard as leather. “How can you stomach all that at this hour of the morning?”
“I’m hungry,” Judy replied simply. “Besides, we never got food like this at the hostel.”
“That’s what you should be putting in your stomach, Miss Maule,” Timsy said, breathing heavily down Judy’s neck. “All that orange juice and heathen grapefruit will turn the bile on you. It’s slimmin’ you are, I suspicion, and where’s the sense of that if it turns you sour?”
Marcia looked annoyed for a moment, but she was used, as Judy was not, to the deplorable habit privileged Irish servants had of joining in the conversation.
Where’s Raff gone?” she asked, dismissing the subject for the moment “Over to the other side to fetch in extra provisions from Casey’s. Knockferry doesn’t deliver till tomorrow and there’s another couple expected tonight”
“Yes, I’d forgotten. The honeymoon pair go today, don’t they? I wonder if Mary Kate’s remembered to pack up the usual butter to take home. I’d better go and see.”
Marcia stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette with an irritable gesture and went out of the room.
“Do we puzzle you?” Noel asked, cocking an eyebrow at Judy, who had sat listening to them both in silence.
“No,” she replied, seriously considering his rather idle question. “There must be a lot to contend with in running a successful guest house—but—does Mr. O’Rafferty leave everything to you two?”
His eyes narrowed, wiping, for an instant, the careless good nature from his face, then the casual, half-impudent charm was back again as he flipped his fingers against her cheek.
“Don’t get ideas about our status here,” he said, a little mockingly. “Raff may not be particularly interested in the project, but he’s still the boss.”
“Of course,” she said, not understanding, but feeling that in some way she had trespassed. “Only it seemed queer—”
“What seems queer?”
“I don’t know. I have no experience of these things, of course.”
“No, you haven’t, have you? You will work along with us all very happily if you just stick to your job—remember that.”
Judy frowned, puzzled by the hint of a warning behind his casual remark.
“I haven’t got the job—didn’t you know?” she said, sounding a little forlorn.
“Oh, I think you have,” he replied with faint amusement. “You took Raff by surprise last night, you know, but Marcia will fix that. Now, when I’ve attended to my usual duties, I’ll show you round. Slyne, though rather falling to bits, is quite an eyeful for urban visitors.”
But she did not wait for Noel to be free. She wanted to explore for herself and take back the gleanings of her brief visit unconfused by the flippant nonsense of a stranger. She wandered through the big rooms, examining with interest the fine collection of period furniture which was housed there, then slipped out into the softly falling rain to enjoy her first experience of a new country.
She ran down to the little wooden jetty on the shore of the lough, and saw, too late, the boat pulling in with Michael O’Rafferty standing in her bows, getting ready to make her fast to her moorings. It would have seemed rude to withdraw, she thought, and walked to the end of the jetty to wait for him.
“Hullo!” he shouted, and stiffened momentarily as he saw her standing there, her face lifted towards him in a once familiar attitude of expectancy, her red hair darkened by the rain.
“Hullo, Mr. O’Rafferty!” she shouted back. “Can I help you?”
“I doubt if you’d know much about boats,” he replied, “but you can help with the provisions. Here—catch!”
He tossed a package to her across the narrowing strip of water which she caught with difficulty. The next fell in the lough and promptly sank and they both began to laugh.
“Better wait till I’ve tied up the boat,” he said. “Our lodgers wouldn’t be pleased if their case of whisky went to the bottom.”
II
He seemed quite different this morning, she thought, watching him unload the boat, or perhaps, like her, he was able to forget his prejudices away from the guest house. In his rough fisherman’s jersey and trousers, he presented no preconceived notion of the master of Slyne. Noel, with his casual but studied elegance, looked more the part.
“Well, what do you think of your first glimpse of the Emerald Isle?” he asked lightly, and was unprepared for her bright look of happiness.
“It’s lovely and strange and different,” she said softly, and he felt irritated for no reason by her frank plight
“It’s the back of beyond, as Noel and Marcia would doubtless tell you,” he answered shortly. “You’d very soon get tired of our lack of civilisation, my dear—no dances, no cinema, no cosy elevenses in ye olde tea-shoppes.”
“What a strange life you must think I’ve led, Mr. O’Rafferty,” she said demurely. “I don’t care for gossiping in tea-shops, even if there had been time, and dances don’t come your way very much unless you have a special young man lined up.”
“And hadn’t you?”
“No—but I’m not very romantic, you see.”
“Aren’t you?” he said, and looked quite startled. “But surely all young girls—anyway, you seem to have built up the usual sentimental conception of my country.”
He made it sound like an accusation as he had over the colour of her hair, but she only smiled and shook her head.
“Oh, no,” she said. “That kind of romantic conception doesn’t have to be sentimental. I think you must have suffered unduly from the tourists who probably come here looking for local colour—leprechauns, banshees—that sort of thing.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” he conceded, giving her a quick, puzzled glance. “Well, let’s make a start to the house with some of this provender.”
They went back to the jetty for the last load, and Raff paused suddenly to look down at his somewhat breathless companion and observe that it was hardly the act of a considerate host to make his guest do navvy’s work.
“I enjoyed it,” she said. “Besides, if you remember, Mr. O’Rafferty, I was to be a guest on my own terms. So far, you haven’t found any work for me.”
He smiled reluctantly.
“I suspect you have a stubborn streak in you, Miss Wa
re,” he remarked with a certain severity. “How would you like to see something of the countryside this afternoon? We mustn’t send you back to England with only the rather bare policies of Slyne to remember.”
“With you?” she asked in surprise.
“Unless you’d rather Noel obliged. He’d probably be better company for you.”
“Oh, no, I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t at all,” she answered with decision, and his eyebrows rose in surprise.”
“Don’t you like Noel?” he asked curiously. “He’s said to be quite a ladies’ man.”
“I don’t care for ladies’ men,” she replied, her nose a little in the air, and he grinned and, picking up the case of whisky, swung it with ease on to his shoulder.
“I’ll take you through the Pass of Slyne and show you the view,” he said. “The rain’s stopping and it’s going to clear. We’ll even pause at the Wishing Well in proper tourist fashion, if you like.”
“Do they come true—the wishes, I mean?” she asked, following him back to the house.
“I shouldn’t think so. You’re rather absurd, aren’t you, Miss Judith Ware?” he answered with the impatient indulgence he might have used to a child.
“My friends call me Judy,” she said, but he did not reply to that and only shifted the heavy case he was shouldering into a more secure position.
Noel was already behind the bar in the Small Saloon ready to serve pre-luncheon drinks when Raff deposited the case of whisky on the floor. It was, he explained to Judy, Raff’s job in the evenings to make the point that, though not often visible, he was in fact the proprietor, but trade was slack at this time of the year.
“I’ll mix you one of my ‘specials’,” he said, reaching for bottles and a shaker. “You’ll need a snifter after all that fetching and carrying. I was watching you both out of the window.”
“You might have come and given a hand instead of watching,” Raff observed mildly, and Noel grinned.
“My dear chap, I’m all togged up as the barman! It wouldn’t have done my best suit a bit of good to hump damp parcels about in the rain. Judy, you look rather dank, my child; here’s your ‘special’—drink it with caution.”
