by Sara Seale
Harriet, finding her way among the narrow streets that were still strange to her, forgot all the disturbing crosscurrents of the past few days in the renewed delights of childhood.
She made a few purchases, and was about to ask her way to the hotel, when she saw Duff come out of a building and hurry across the road. Her natural impulse was to run after him and ask him to join the others for lunch, but she remembered he already had a luncheon date, and by the time she had hesitated to cross the road he had disappeared down a turning and was lost to sight. She glanced in idle curiosity at a brass plate on the building from which he had emerged, saw that it was the office of a firm of lawyers, and remembering past mention of loans and overdrafts and the perpetual drain on the estate, decided with a feeling of relief that of course it was financial worries which had seemed to change him just of late. As she walked on, finding that after all she remembered the way to the square, she thought with compunction of the money she had heedlessly squandered on decorations and presents, imagining his first reluctance to spring from a desire for no reminder of the past when in actual fact he had been trying to avoid extravagance.
“Oh, what a clot—what a spendthrift idiot I am!” she muttered to herself as she reached the hotel, but the solving of a problem and the simple pleasure of the morning had brought back all her anticipation and joy, and Rory handed her a glass of sherry with a smile of approval and told her she was looking very pretty.
They went in to lunch, and as they settled themselves at their table, Harriet glanced across the crowded room and almost immediately saw them; Duff and Samantha sitting in an alcove shielded by a potted palm from their nearest neighbours, and very intent on their own conversation.
Rory, catching Harriet’s change of expression, looked across the room and back again, his eyebrows turning up at the corners in a rather comical contortion.
“So what?” he said softly. “Do you want to make your number?”
“No—no, of course not,” she said quickly. “Couldn’t we just slip out and have lunch somewhere else?”
“I hardly think that’s a good idea,” he said with a warning glance in Nonie’s direction, but she, with the rather alarming acuteness which could still take Harriet by surprise, said calmly;
“If you think I haven’t seen Father and Cousin Samantha over there, you can save your grown-up signals not to speak in front of the child. What’s wrong with a lunch out, anyway? We’re doing it.”
“Nothing,” Rory said a little blankly. “Well, Harriet did you do all your shopping?”
“Most of it, but I rather wool-gathered, I’m afraid, just enjoying the shop windows and all the Christmas trimmings.”
Harriet said, restored to normality by the child’s matter-of- factness. What significance, as she had suggested, could be attached to lunching out in a place where the Lonnegans of Castle Clooney could scarcely hope to pass unnoticed?
“I saw Duff, as a matter of fact, coming out of some lawyers’ offices on my way here, but was too late to catch him,” she told Rory, relieved that the discussion should become trivial, and Nonie said:
“Oh, that ties up, I should think. He’s probably paying her off.”
“What in hell do you mean by that?” Rory said, so completely taken aback that he even forgot to mind his language.
“Well, he’s owed Cousin Samantha money for years, hasn’t he?” Nonie replied with mild astonishment. “Now he’s keeping Harriet he can hardly afford the two of them, can he?”
Harriet dissolved into undignified giggles, and Rory, after a valiant effort to find words of reproof, joined her.
“Really, my dear child, you do choose your words a little oddly,” he said at last. “You’re all confused again with not keeping girls as pets, I suspect. What did you mean?”
“I thought you knew,” she said through uninhibited sounds of soup-supping. “Father borrowed money years ago to keep the estate from falling in, and now he’s going to pay the last bit off and tell Cousin Samantha to buzz off.”
“And how, might one enquire, do you know all this?”
“I have my methods,” Nonie said, and gave Harriet a sly little smile of conspiracy.
“Listening at doors again, I suppose,” Harriet said severely, feeling that some sort of disapproval was indicated if she hoped to have any authority over the child in the future, but Nonie merely closed on eye and grinned.
“I’m not the only one,” she replied.
“Touché!” Rory murmured. “She might be right at that, you know. The kitchen grapevine has a habit of being curiously conversant with what goes on above stairs. It’s common knowledge, of course, that Duff had to borrow extensively to keep the place going after those years of neglect.”
“Oh, yes, Samantha told me herself. She seemed to think the money was more in the nature of a bribe than a loan,” Harriet said, filleting her fish neatly and with apparent unconcern.
“That would, of course, be obvious, but it should explain why he doesn’t like to boot her out until he can raise the rest of the lolly,” Rory said, but he was sorry her simple treat should have been spoilt all the same, for he did not think his well-intentioned assurances were doing much towards helping a sore heart.
“Well, it probably isn’t easy to boot something out of your life when there’s nothing much else to take its place, and it’s nothing to do with me, really,” she said with a dogged little air of acceptance, but she could not, he noticed, keep her eyes from straying to the other side of the restaurant, and he himself could see the couple reflected in a mirror behind Harriet’s head. Whatever matter was being discussed with such undivided attention, he did not think Samantha was having things all her own way; her gestures were sometimes conciliatory and inviting, but more often angry and impatient, but it was, on the other hand, not so easy to guess Duff’s reactions since his gestures were rare and his dark profile too far away to read. Presently they got up to go, and Harriet relaxed with a small sigh of release.
It was past tea-time when Duff came home and the tree was nearly finished.
“That’s going to look quite something when it’s finished,” he said, his eyes on the tree.
“Yes, those ornaments are beautiful,” Harriet said. “Is it snowing?”
“No, but the wind’s in the right quarter. You may get your Christmas snow yet,” he said, thinking how small and light she looked, the slender lines of her body stretched to their utmost to capture a tip of a branch.
“Here, let me fix that—you can hardly reach,” he said, and went to stand behind her, one hand reaching for the branch, the other slipped round her waist. “How small you are—there’s nothing of you. Do we give you enough to eat?”
His question could scarcely be serious, she knew, but she caught an unfamiliar thread of anxiety in his voice. For a moment he seemed the old Duff, laughing at her a little it was true, but concerned as well. She allowed her body to rest against his in a brief instant of response, and was aware of the faint rasp of his chin as he brushed it across the top of her head.
Nonie’s voice spoke from the foot of the tree where she was crouched.
“We saw you having lunch with Cousin Samantha, Father, but you didn’t see us,” she said, and a glass star slipped from Harriet’s fingers and smashed on the stone flags with a sharp little splinter of sound.
“Oh!” wailed Harriet, looking ready to cry. The fragile star and the fragile moment seemed to her as one, and both were shattered.
“Never mind. Find me another, there are plenty more,” Duff said, but the warmth had gone from his voice.
“Father, did you hear me?” the little girl persisted, and Duff gave her a look of no mean displeasure.
“Yes, I heard you. What did you expect me to reply? If we didn’t see you then it was your fault for not coming to say how-d’you-do, wasn’t it?”
“Harriet didn’t want to. She said—”
“Nonie! If you insist on talking a lot of nonsense, you’d better go upstairs t
o your room. I mean it,” Harriet interrupted with such an unexpected ring of adult authority that Nonie scrambled to her feet, looking more surprised than indignant.
“Okay, okay—I was only trying to help,” she said quite mildly, and ran upstairs.
“And who, if I might ask, did the brat imagine she was helping?” Duff asked, and began taking off his coat.
“I don’t suppose she knows. Nonie picks up gossip here and there and forms her own conclusions,” Harriet replied glibly.
“And you do the same, one supposes.”
“I try not to come to conclusions when I’m not sure.”
“Well, that at least is praiseworthy if not strictly true. Is the fact that I gave Samantha lunch and you happened to see us of any great moment?”
“Of no more moment than you happening to see Rory kissing me,” she said, a little surprised at finding herself able to answer him so patly. She evidently surprised Duff as well, for he frowned and said rather shortly:
“That remark, of course, could be as ambiguous as it sounds. You’re learning quickly from Cousin Rory, my dear. You wouldn’t have been so smart with your answers a short while ago.”
“A short while ago I was only expected to answer like a dutiful child. One grows up, you know,” she said, and because she was busying herself with the tree and did not have to look him in the face, she was able to talk in this fashion.
“You may consider yourself grown-up, but you still have a lot to learn about human relationships,” he said with amusement, trying to recapture his old method of ending an argument on a note of indulgent tolerance.
“Then why the hell don’t you teach me?” she retorted, swinging round to face him with a suddenness which set the ornaments on the tree shaking and tinkling in brittle merriment.
Her vehemence, no less than an uncharacteristic resort to strong language, took him aback for a moment, then his face hardened and he made a long stride towards her, and took her by the shoulders.
“I may take you up on that before you’re much older, young woman, and my lessons will possibly not be at all to your liking,” he said quite quietly, but there was no longer any attempt to humour in his voice.
Long after, looking back on that disastrous Christmas Day, Harriet could trace the chain of mishaps right back to the moment of waking, for her hot water bottle had leaked in the night, producing an icy flood which had to be dealt with unaided, since Duff was driving the servants to early Mass, and there was no snow, despite the drop in temperature; instead, rain poured down relentlessly from a leaden sky. The present giving, too, fell flat, for Duff had already breakfasted and was not yet back with the servants; Rory was still in bed and asleep, since Molly, in her haste for church, had forgotten to call him, and Nonie, sitting in solitary state and, by the look of her, in no very Christian frame of mind, had already opened her presents and pushed them aside.
“Oh! Couldn’t you have waited till everyone’s here?” Harriet asked in disappointment; she had looked forward so much to the pleasure of watching the recipients’ faces as they unwrapped their gifts.
“What’s the point? Father won’t be back for ages and Uncle Rory won’t come down till someone brings him some shaving water. You’d better open yours.”
Nonie, reflected Harriet ruefully as she began cutting string had a much more adult and sensible point of view about such matters than she had, herself. Her presents were varied and well chosen, but her pleasure in them was dimmed with nobody there to receive her thanks, and there seemed to be nothing from Duff.
“If you’re wondering where Father’s is it’s under your plate,” said Nonie, who appeared at times to have inherited her father’s knack of reading thoughts, and Harriet, lifting her plate, found an envelope with her name inscribed on it in Duff’s neat writing. She unfolded the cheque it contained, conscious of further disappointment, and Nonie, who had been watching her face, said with interest:
“Has he gone mean on you?”
“Oh, no!” Harriet exclaimed, for the cheque had been more than generous. “It’s just that—does he give you money, Nonie?”
“Oh, yes. Everyone gets money, the servants, the tenants, the pig people—even Uncle Rory. It’s easier to write cheques, Father says, and saves the embarrassment of choosing the wrong present. Quite sensible, really.”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” Harriet said, and wondered for one wild moment if Samantha, too, had received a cheque in exchange for the unspecified gift she had made such a mystery of a couple of nights ago. But it was another damper on the day and even Rory, arriving in a dressing-gown, unshaven and full of apologies, could not quite lift the blight which seemed to have settled. Duff came in a little later, looking chilled and damp, and swallowed a cup of tepid coffee with evident distaste.
It was difficult, Harriet thought, to find the right words to render thanks for his cheque with so many observant eyes upon her and so little concern for the occasion in him, and he interrupted her stammering little speech to say with absent kindliness:
“Never mind the polite acknowledgements now, Harriet. I hope you’ll buy something nice for yourself. Will you spare me a few minutes in the study before we embark on the day’s shenanigans?”
She followed him to the study, wondering a little uneasily if he was going to refer to yesterday’s explosive little scene between them.
The room felt cold and impersonal, and no fire burned on the hearth. She so seldom went there that she had not thought to put up any decorations.
“What is it?” she asked, as he seemed in no hurry to say what was in his mind.
“What is what?” He looked blank for a moment as if he had been thinking of something else.
“Whatever it is you want to tell me. Is it something I’ve done, or forgotten to do?”
He turned to look at her and his face was grave and a little troubled.
“I believe you still think of me as a kind of employer,” he said. “Haven’t you learnt ease with me yet?”
She stared back at him, disconcerted, but not at all flustered, and he remembered that perplexing quality she had of shedding her acquiescence when it was least expected.
“But that’s how I thought of you—that’s what you are—my employer,” she answered.
“I also happen to be your husband,” he retorted a little dryly, and her eyes slid away from his.
“Yes, well ...” she said vaguely, and he began rubbing his chin with that unconscious gesture of disturbance.
“What’s changed you? Is it Rory?” he asked suddenly.
“I haven’t changed. You’re just seeing me differently,” she said gently.
“Yes, I think I am. Do you feel I’ve cheated you?”
“Cheated me?”
“Cheated you out of a fulfilment of all those romantic dreams you had in the orphanage.” The old raillery had crept back into his voice.
“Dreams can be a substitute for spending,” she replied evasively. “We hadn’t any money of our own at Ogilvy’s and it costs nothing to dream.”
“Neither it does,” he agreed briskly. “However, all this is an unintentional digression. I brought you here, actually, to give you my private Christmas present. You were disappointed with my cheque, weren’t you?”
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed, distress at being found wanting in gratitude driving all the rest out of her head. “You’ve been more than generous when I have a good allowance already. Please don’t think I wasn’t grateful.”
“It was the sort of gratitude reserved for charity, all the same, wasn’t it? I should have thought of that at the time, but I wanted my special gift to be given in private.”
While he was speaking he had unlocked the safe which stood with the filing cabinets against one wall, and taken out a flat leather case which he now placed in her hands.
“Open it,” he said, as she stood there hesitating, and she fumbled with the snap which was a little stiff, then stood gazing speechlessly at the string of pearls which lay coi
led on a bed of velvet, the clasp of diamonds and sapphires catching fire from the dismal morning light.
“Oh,” she said at last, and the eyes she raised to his were bright with tears.
“Here—let me put them on for you,” he said a little roughly, and snapped the pearls round her neck. “Yes, they become you very well. They aren’t new, but they’re well matched, and you have the right skin for pearls. Don’t look so startled, child! It’s a husband’s privilege and duty when funds permit to provide a few trinkets for his wife. You have no jewellery, have you?”
“Well, you could hardly expect the orphanage to stretch the funds to that,” she said quite seriously, and he laughed.
“How endearing and solemn you are,” he told her, and her frozen moment of awkward astonishment passed, and she flung her arms round his neck without thinking and kissed him, her tears wet against his face.
“Thank you ... thank you, dear Duff...” she said. “If they had only been a worthless string of beads I would have treasured them because—a personal gift is precious.”
He seemed to return her kiss with a lover’s desire to linger and explore, brushing his lips along the fine bones of cheek and brow, his hands cupping her face very lightly, very delicately.
“Are you happy, Harriet?” he asked on an odd little note of urgency, and she opened her eyes and smiled at him with something very much more than happiness.
“Yes,” she said. “You’re forgetting, for once, I’m a child.”
“Was I forgetting? Well, those freckles should remind me, if nothing else,” he said, not ready yet to come to terms with himself, and saw her eyes cloud over.
