Cloud Castle

by Sara Seale

  Raff had been wandering absently round the room, gazing at the stuffed trophies as if uncertain how to begin, but as Noel finished speaking he sat down suddenly behind his desk and leaned forward, resting his arms upon it.

  “There will be no more ordering of anything that isn’t strictly essential, so put right out of your mind cocktail cabinets, fancy sheets and all the rest of the phoney humbug you’ve planned for visitors who could doubtless buy us all up and not even notice it,” he said, and there was a note in his voice which made the Maules, brother and sister, turn to regard him with puzzled uncertainty.

  “What do you mean, old boy? It may seem like humbug to you, but all these extra frills are sprats to catch mackerel. I know from past experience,” Noel said, beginning to bluster.

  “I dare say you do, Noel,” Raff replied quietly. “But Slyne was never designed for the sort of place you have in mind. And my intention, since you ask, is that things must be put on a very different footing if we are to survive as a going concern. This extravagance has got to stop, and if you don’t like more humble methods of running the place—well, then you have your own remedy.”

  What do you mean?” said Noel again, his eyes shifting uneasily.

  ‘I mean,” Raff said quite pleasantly, “that I’m broke—cleaned out.”

  There was a sudden silence. Only Judy, sitting in the window embrasure away from them all, moved sharply, wishing that Raff had not insisted that she should be present; then Noel laughed.

  “Is this meant to be a joke, old chap?” he asked.

  “Certainly not. One hardly takes threatened bankruptcy as a joke.”

  “As bad as that?”

  “Well, not quite, but if things go on like this it might end that way. I don’t think you’ve quite realised, Noel, that you’ve been drawing on funds that weren’t your own all this time, and they won’t last for ever.”

  Noel began to bluster again.

  “You know I couldn’t put money into the business—you agreed to leave everything in my hands. You couldn’t care less, you said, how the place was run providing the lodgers didn’t get in your hair!”

  “Did I? Well, I dare say you’re right, only—I’d hardly bargained for the scale on which you proposed to run it. You aren’t content with a simple guest house, my dear chap; you’re trying to build the sort of business which needs unlimited capital behind it, and I haven’t got it.”

  Noel wheeled round suddenly to observe Judy, sitting quietly by the window. She was, it seemed, staring out into the falling twilight and paying no attention.

  “I suppose we’ve Miss Snake-in-the-grass Ware to thank for this,” he remarked unpleasantly, and she jumped and turned her head to look at him questioningly. “Don’t try to look so innocent, my sweet—we’ve all known your views for some time. What do you hope to get out of this—the sympathetic ear of the management and a small reward at the end of it?”

  “Leave Judy out of this, please. She has nothing to do with my own findings,” Raff said in a voice that was suddenly harsh, and Marcia, who had not so far spoken, laid a hand on her brother’s arm.

  “Don’t let’s lose our sense of proportion,” she said, her calm voice soft and quite unperturbed. “If Judy has been a little indiscreet and—shall we say—over-imaginative—that was perhaps to be expected in the circumstances. But Raff has a perfect right to call the tune—after all, he pays the piper.”

  “Thank you, Marcia,” Raff said. “Now perhaps we can arrive at some conclusion. Any extras in the way of stores, wine, and these proposed additions to the ordinary comforts of the house must be cancelled immediately unless they’ve already been passed by me, and furthermore, all future orders must have my sanction before they go out. Judy will bring all receipted bills to me for my own files, and this rather overdone habit of dispensing drinks on the house must be modified. Do you understand, Noel?”

  Even in the shadows the ugly sneer could be seen on Noel’s face.

  “I understand one thing,” he said. “You, inspired by that gossiping little secretary of yours, are making it pretty clear you don’t trust me. Judy must bring you the files, you must check all orders—nothing, in fact, is to be left in my hands. What do you imagine I’ve been doing—chiselling you out of the proceeds?”

  “My dear Noel,” Raff replied wearily, “I’m perfectly aware that you’ve been putting away perks and commission—that, I suppose, is a legitimate supplement to the fairly handsome salary I pay you. But there are limits even to that, and since you might quite justifiably accuse me of slackness in the past, it seems only reasonable that I should adopt a firmer stand in the future if we’re to keep the place going, don’t you think?”

  Noel’s manner suddenly changed.

  “You’re taking it all too seriously, me boyo!” he said with a swift return of his old, easy impudence. “What’s it matter being in the red these days? Everyone is—not to worry!”

  “You say that a little too often,” Raff observed rather curtly. “It’s very easy to shrug off worries when they don’t happen to be your own. Now, this is the position. I’ve been into the matter very carefully with my bank manager and the lawyers, and I gather we can just hold out for the summer with the bookings we already have if, during that time, we manage to save money. I can sell out no more capital, so it’s obvious we must draw our horns in. If, after the summer, our overheads haven’t been reduced, then we must start running the place on quite different lines or close down altogether. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Very,” snapped Noel, his boyish manner vanishing. “And if you imagine I’m going to work under those conditions in a dead-and-alive hole like this, you can think again.”

  “Very well,” Raff replied quietly. “Perhaps you’ve rather lost sight of the fact that you were grateful for this dead-and-alive hole when you were sick and out of a job, but if that’s how you feel you’d better go.”

  “Rats leaving the sinking ship, I suppose you mean to imply.”

  “Well, it might look a little like that, mightn’t it?”

  “It can look any dam way you please! You were the boss—why did you leave your affairs to a paid employee, without looking into them yourself? Because you were too damn king-of-the-castle to bother!”

  “You’ve got something there, I’ll admit,” Raff said rather wearily. “But it was my ignorance that kept me in the background rather than a sense of superiority, as I thought you understood. And I regarded you as a friend, Noel, rather than as a paid employee. You might remember that.”

  Noel began to shuffle his feet uncomfortably without answering, and Marcia slid an arm across Raff’s shoulders.

  “You’re both getting hot under the collar for no reason,” she said, a little undertone of amusement in her voice. “Even if you are sailing rather near the wind, darling, you have the answer right here under your roof—and I won’t desert the sinking ship.”

  “Thank you, Marcia,” he replied gravely, and reached up a hand to touch hers in response. “I’d hardly expect you to stop on without Noel, however.”

  “But, dar-ling!” she protested with fond indulgence, and now the laughter was uppermost in her voice, gently persuading. “I wasn’t thinking of your silly old guest house. You had other plans for us, I thought.”

  Judy, anonymous now in the shadows, watched them motionlessly from her place in the window. Marcia was leaning over him, her soft hair brushing his cheek, her beauty and utter self-confidence exposed in the lamplight like a challenge. Raff seemed to stiffen for a moment, then he said very gently:

  “Such plans as I may have imagined for anyone, myself included, could hardly be said to have crystallised, could they? Shall we say we’ve all of us suffered a sea-change?”

  “You,” she said, still sure of her power, “had only to ask for what you wanted. I threw myself at you pretty shamelessly, didn’t I, darling? Well, perhaps the time has come to take stock and be sensible.”

  “I’m nearly broke, my dear,” he
said patiently, as if he was unable to make her understand, and she threw back her head and began to laugh.

  “Broke!” she echoed. “Why, you could make your fortune if you’d only listen to me! The house is falling to pieces and not worth restoring, for all your high hopes that the lodgers would take care of that—but the treasures inside! I’ve had schemes for months as to how and where we would get the best prices—once we were married.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I

  JUDY sat frozen into immobility on her low stool. She had watched with helpless fascination the rich colour flood Marcia’s lovely face as her assurance and excitement rose. She wanted to cry out and implore her not to speak the very words that must destroy her ambitions, and even Noel had taken a step forward, gesturing feebly, as if to warn her to be silent. But they were both of them forgotten, she knew, and only the dreadful little silence which followed seemed at last to penetrate.

  When Raff finally spoke, however, it was with such soft quietness that even Judy was deceived.

  “I see your plans have rather outstripped mine,” he said. “This is my home, Marcia, and all that goes with it. If I decide to carry on the business on more simple lines or, alternatively, just live on here quietly as I used to do and cut down rigorously until debts are cleared—would you still be prepared to stand by me?”

  Marcia looked puzzled. She knew now that she had spoken too soon and brought about a double crisis instead of allowing one to follow naturally on the other, as she had planned, but he was taking it calmly enough.

  “Well, naturally, darling—what a curious question,” she replied glibly. “But of course you’ll sell—you’d be mad not to. What do you care about all this mouldy stuff you’ve lived with all your life without ever appreciating its commercial value?”

  “It’s familiar, and I’m old-fashioned in my habits—not at all the sort of man you’d care for as a husband.”

  “How do you know? How do you know what you mightn’t become once I got you away from this decaying mansion you’ve allowed yourself to become obsessed with? I can teach you to live, Raff.”

  “Do you think so? But supposing I don’t care to live the kind of life you have in mind?”

  “Oh, Raff, think of the fun you’ve been missing!” she cried, rushing obliviously into recklessness. “Think of what we both could do on the proceeds of what all this junk would fetch! Why, apart from the furniture and glass and china, Grogan says the panelling and the Adam fireplaces would fetch a fortune in America.”

  “So you’d strip my house and leave it a shell?” His voice was gentle with the soft cadences of his race.

  “Why not? The place isn’t marketable as it stands, and Grogan says—”

  “Oh, God!” groaned Noel, turning his back, and Judy, although she had been expecting an outburst, jumped as Raff got to his feet with a suddenness that nearly threw Marcia off her balance, and began to speak.

  “Very well, Marcia. Since you choose to discuss such matters in public, we’ll carry it on to a conclusion,” he said, and Judy had never heard such bitterness and distaste in his voice. “You don’t care for me—you only want to get your greedy little hands on the money you could raise from my possessions. You’re a beautiful woman, my dear, but life hasn’t taught you yet that there are some things a man won’t barter his birthright for. I thought of marrying you once, yes, but you took too much for granted. I never made you an offer of marriage, and if I’ve misled you in any way as to our future, I apologise. Had you really cared, I might have seen things differently.”

  Marcia was very white, but it was the whiteness of temper rather than of humiliation. She said, staring up at him and still trying to quench the ugly words that were clamouring to be spoken:

  “You’re wrong, Raff, and rather cruel. I did care—I wanted you.”

  “And want is the word you really understand,” he said more quietly. “You wanted me because I was a new experience, just as you were to me, but love and plain animal desire are two very different things. You can live with one but not with the other. Once you’d satisfied your natural urge, you’d soon have tired of me, wouldn’t you? Be honest for once—wouldn’t you?”

  She remained seated on the arm of the chair, graceful and indolent in the lamplight, but her breathing was suddenly rapid and she flicked her fingers impatiently at Noel to give her a cigarette.

  “So our marriage was just a figment of my imagination, was it?” she said slowly. “Because I made all the running, you had nothing to offer in the end—except yourself and this barracks of a place you call a heritage. Yes, I wanted you, but did you imagine that was all I wanted? You asked me to be honest for once—well, I will be. You attracted me, damn you, because you were different—hard to get. I’d have had you for a lover, Raff, as I once told you, but I thought you were bent on chivalry at all costs. How wrong one can be about a person—how wrong about oneself.”

  Raff was silent while she leaned towards the lighter which Noel held for her, then she flung back her head, dispelling the smoke from her nostrils in a contemptuous, insolent stream, and when she again started speaking there was a vicious, deliberate bite to her words.

  “Yes, you’re quite right—I would have tired,” she said maliciously. “What sort of lover would you have turned out to be, with your puritan streak and your roots bedded in the soil of a country which can never see beyond today? Yes, roots! Your precious Judy talked about that once, all dewy-eyed and simple. If the image of that blasted Kathy has always stood in my way, then take Judy to mould into your adolescent idea of what a wife should be—she’s more than willing, I don’t mind betting!”

  Judy sprang up from her stool, searching for words with which to put an end to such crude revelations, and at the same moment, Raff gave Marcia a stinging slap across the cheek.

  “You’re hysterical,” he said coldly. “You’d better go to your room. Tomorrow we can discuss your plans for leaving—yours and Noel’s.”

  She got to her feet slowly and saw Judy standing on the edge of the circle of light, her yellow frock crumpled, and her eyes two startled points of green in her white face.

  “Charming, Miss Judith Ware!” she drawled. “And have you thrown in Noel’s other little deals with Grogan for good measure?”

  “Marcia, for God’s sake!” her brother exclaimed, and she turned to look at him without compassion.

  “You never had have much guts, did you, darling?” she said. “I’ve come clean, so why shouldn’t you, to make a job of it? Or hasn’t dear little Judy told, after all?”

  “I’ve told nothing,” Judy said, “... not because of Noel’s threats, but because I minded for Raff. Now, can’t you rest on the damage you’ve done already, Marcia? There’s nothing to add.”

  “Are you by any chance alluding to the deals over my furniture?” Raff asked, so casually that they all turned to look at him with varying degrees of surprise.

  ‘So Judy did tell!” Noel exclaimed on a note of disgust

  “She tried to warn me on one occasion, yes,” Raff replied, still with that strange air of disinterest, “but I’m afraid I didn’t pay enough attention, owing to certain other things. I’m not, however, entirely gullible, Noel however easily you’ve led yourself to believe I am. It wasn’t very difficult in the end to put two and two together and guess what you’d been up to. How many pieces have you succeeded in substituting for the originals?”

  “Only two,” said Noel sullenly, then rallied a ghost of his old cocksureness to try to justify himself. “I did it to help you, damn it all, Raff. It seemed a justifiable swindle when you never knew one perishing antique from another, and I guessed things were a bit tight for you. The money’s all banked, ready to hand over—not a fortune by a long chalk—but a tidy little sum.”

  “I wonder,” said Raff reflectively, “if you would have handed it over if I hadn’t found you out.”

  “That’s coming it a bit strong! Actually there would have been more if we’d complet
ed the last deal, only that rat Grogan’s been holding out on me, trying a little blackmail because I said I’d finished with these transactions. Can’t trust these wide boys!”

  Raff’s eyes hardened.

  “Ah, yes, the mystery of the two tallboys is now explained. I didn’t think, I must own, that I was taking a common swindler into my employ—even though I know Grogan’s reputation.”

  “Are you going to prosecute?” Noel asked, and for the first time sounded scared.

  Raff, who had been moving round the room as he spoke, came to a halt behind Judy, resting his hands on her shoulders. It was not, she thought, an conscious gesture of significance, but she felt his hands tremble slightly and covered them with her own as she had often seen Marcia do.

  “No,” he answered very wearily. “I don’t care for the washing of dirty linen in public and—well, I once had a fondness for both of you. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “That’s decent of you,” Noel said awkwardly. “I—I’ll write a cheque for you before I go.”

  “No, keep it,” Raff replied, and his hands under Judy’s were steady again. “You’ll need something to start off again—you and Marcia.”

  Marcia moved slowly away and ranged herself beside her brother.

  “So we’re being given the sack, are we?” she said, and her voice was light again and faintly amused. “How are you going to cope with your American visitors with no manager and no receptionist—or is watchdog Judy going to step into the breach and run this place single-handed?”

  “I don’t think that need concern either of you any longer,” said Raff very courteously. “You will, no doubt, want to make your arrangements as soon as possible. It would be embarrassing for all of us if you were to linger on, don’t you think?”