by Sara Seale
“Duff?” She spoke his name on a soft note of enquiry, reaching up a hand to feel for his to pull him down beside her. When he did not move, she turned over with a little sigh of disappointment to face the wall. It was her first timid venture into those uncharted seas of which Samantha knew so much and she so little, and he was giving her no help.
“I don’t know the way...” she said. “I don’t know how to show you that I—I wouldn’t have denied you, because...”
“Because gratitude is all you have to give, and gratitude demands sacrifice?” His voice sounded ragged and she could see his shadow on the wall, stiff and motionless.
“To give freely isn’t sacrifice.”
“But gratitude’s a lean substitute for love.”
“You didn’t really want me, did you? You were just punishing...” she said, and he moved then and began tucking in the blankets with brisk finality.
“I should never have married you in the first place. Now, go to sleep and forget your unhappy Christmas. Everything will be better in the morning,” he said, and went back to his own room and let in the dog.
She slept the dreamless sleep of exhaustion and awoke heavy-eyed and unrefreshed. Her impressions of the night before were confused and nightmarish, but one thing stood out clearly; he didn’t want her, he regretted marrying her. Everything will be better in the morning, he had said like a conscientious nanny regretting too harsh a punishment, but the morning brought no solace to a heart which could no longer be comforted by the assurance given to a child.
The storm had blown itself out and the rain had stopped, but the skies were still leaden and the cold was bitter.
“We’ll be gettin’ snow yet, so you’ll likely have your wish, ma’am,” Molly said when she brought the early tea and drew the curtains, but what use was snow now to crown her Christmas with a false promise of felicity? thought Harriet.
“That felly’s still at large, they say,” Molly volunteered, disappointed by Harriet’s unaccustomed disinclination to chatter when she brought the morning tea.
“What fellow?”
“Why, the wan that broke out yesterday. Didn’t you hear the bell?”
“Oh? Yes, I suppose I did. Well, I hope he gets away,” Harriet said with such heartfelt emphasis that the girl looked at her curiously.
“Ah, now, that’s no way to be feelin’ for a felly that’s no better than a wild animal, robbin’ an’ beatin’ up an ould woman, for that’s what he’s in for,” she said, and Harriet had to agree, but her sympathies at that moment lay with any imprisoned creature bound as she was by one reckless unthinking action to an endless period of detention.
“Himself said to tell you Mr. Rory would be takin’ you to Castle Slyne and himself would meet you there, if he finds time to go at all,” Molly said before she left the room, with the firm suspicion that the quality had been at odds with one another while the kitchen celebrated last night, and Harriet remembered with difficulty that they had been bidden to a pre-luncheon cocktail party which was an annual Boxing Day custom at Slyne when drinks were on the house and as good a way as any, Duff had said, of introducing her informally to their scattered neighbours.
Harriet dressed with care, anxious to do him credit, but it would seem that he was not very concerned with making it a small social occasion for himself and his new bride. She pinned a cheap little brooch, the only trinket she had brought with her from England, to the lapel of her new suit, but she left Kitty’s pearls on the dressing-table.
Rory took the north road to Slyne, and as they passed the prison, Harriet thought with renewed sympathy of the man on the run. Was he hidden up in the mountains, she wondered, or was he lying in some damp cleft in the rocks on the desolate Plain of Clooney as she had that memorable foggy day which had led to such ill-considered impulses and sorry regrets?
“Marry in haste...” she thought, and did not realise she had spoken aloud until Rory gave her an enquiring look and observed:
“And are you repenting at leisure, Princess? You’ve been very silent and distrait.”
“It’s too late for repentance,” she said, and he gave her another glance. He was filled with curiosity to discover what if any repercussions there had been from last night’s unfortunate little scene, but Duff, when they had met at breakfast, had not encouraged either explanations or apologies, and Harriet herself had an uncharacteristic air of withdrawal.
“Are you nervous?” he asked as he turned in at the Castle gates and parked the car among the others in the forecourt, and she smoothed her hair down with a neatly gloved hand.
“Not really,” she said, “but I wish Duff could have come with us. Won’t it look odd?”
The thought had crossed Rory’s mind that his cousin should have made an effort to support his bride on her first public appearance, but Duff had never found the small conventions important and if, as seemed likely, he had quarrelled with Harriet, it was possible he was glad of an excuse to avoid the embarrassment of a joint appearance.
“He’ll be along later when he can get away from whatever contingency has kept him,” Rory said reassuringly. “And no one will think it odd at a casual get-together, you silly coot— here’s Judy coming out to welcome you, so put on your best bridal face and smile.”
Judy O’Rafferty allowed Harriet no time for embarrassment, rushing her into the house, introducing her to a crowd of tweedy, rather dowdy people who asked innumerable questions but never waited for the answers, and seemed both casual and kindly if rather at a loss for conversation when they found she knew nothing about horses. She was a little shy at first; Rory was hemmed in at the far end of the room, and Duff’s continued absence troubled her, for she was sure now he did not intend to come. But her second Martini loosened her tongue and thawed the ice round her heart and she suddenly began to enjoy herself, and even a glimpse of Samantha, sitting on a stool at the bar and looking very smart, failed to cast a shadow. A delightful glow of self-confidence lent her a most unfamiliar sensation of superiority and she elbowed her way through the crowd to the bar.
“Hullo,” she said blithely. “Are you pleased with your dirty work?”
Samantha looked up and for a moment she seemed taken aback. Harriet, pink-flushed, and by the look of her, quite ready to start a brawl, had stepped out of character.
“Hullo, yourself,” she drawled. “You sound indecently chirpy and unconcerned, considering all things.”
“Why should I be concerned? Did you think you’d get Duff back by dropping nice little poisoned darts? It worked with Kitty, didn’t it?”
“Keep your voice down. I think those Martinis are going to your head.”
“But why should I care who hears? You’re the one who people would look down their noses at.”
“For Pete’s sake! If you want a brawl save it till we’re alone.”
“I should love a brawl!—I’m just in the mood, but not here, because my sort of brawl wouldn’t be yours. Orphanage scraps aren’t confined to barbed remarks and civilised mud-slinging, you know. We quarrel and bite on the floor and pull out hair and black each other’s eyes. I would dearly like to do all those things to you, Samantha, and one day I will if you don’t lay off Duff,” said Harriet, wondering even as she spoke what was inspiring her tongue to such effortless insults.
Samantha for once lost her aplomb.
“I don’t know what’s got into you, unless it’s the drink, honey, but do remember you’re not back in the orphanage now,” she said uneasily, aware that one or two people were glancing at them a little curiously.
“Drink is a great aid to clear thinking, I’ve discovered, though others mightn’t agree,” Harriet went on. “You warned me yesterday, and now I’m warning you. I’ve had enough of being pushed around to make a Roman holiday for you and Duff, so make up your minds, both of you.” Someone put another Martini into her hand, and she sipped it with evident pleasure. She did not sound at all tipsy, Samantha had to admit, despite the extraordinarily uninhibited th
ings she was saying.
“And have you said all this to Duff, darling?”
“Not yet, but I will,” said Harriet cheerfully.
“Then you’d better say it at home, I think,” said Duff’s voice behind her, and she swung round so quickly that she spilt her drink down her skirt.
“So you made it after all, darling,” Samantha drawled with something of relief. “Your neglected bride was getting all ready to tear a strip off you, as you may have heard.”
“My neglected bride should know by now that estate matters come before parties,” he said with a hint of impatience, but when he looked up there was a faint twinkle in his eye which Harriet failed to catch.
“Other matters, too,” she said menacingly, with a final snatch at her swiftly departing bravado.
“Such as two strings to your bow, honey?” said Samantha, and Duff stood looking down at them both with impartial consideration.
“I hear you’re leaving for Dublin shortly, Samantha, so we’ll not be seeing you at Clooney,” he said conversationally, and Samantha’s eyes were suddenly wary.
“Where did you get that idea?” she asked sharply, and he shrugged.
“Oh, these rumours get around. I heard you’d fallen out with old Miss Docherty.”
“Well, the old girl says she wants her house to herself again, or she has another guest coming or something, but that doesn’t mean I’m leaving the district. I shall come here. Raff isn’t booked up at this time of the year.”
“Oh, but we are—we’ve no vacancies until after Easter,” said Judy O’Rafferty firmly, passing by with a fresh tray of drinks, and Samantha flushed.
“Little liar! I know they’re not booked up, but that girl’s never liked me,” she said, and Harriet, whose spirits had begun to rise again at the unexpected news of Samantha’s departure, said innocently:
“Perhaps she’s rather fond of her husband.”
But it was a rash bid for the last word. “You, I should judge, have had enough to drink, so we’ll make our excuses,” Duff said, taking the half-empty glass from her and setting it down on the bar counter. “I should think about Dublin, if I were you, Samantha. I’ll be going down myself for a couple of nights on business very shortly. Goodbye.” Harriet followed him through the crowd to find their host and hostess, then out to the car, leaving Rory to follow on later, her elation quenched. There had seemed to be a deliberate suggestion in Duff’s casual remark which cancelled out his apparent indifference that Samantha’s visits to Clooney would cease.
“I wouldn’t,” said Duff as. they drove away from Slyne, “make the mistake of being too brash with our friend Samantha.”
“She’s not my friend,” Harriet returned rather childishly, and he answered gravely:
“No, I don’t think she is. You have unexpected moments of rushing in where angels have second thoughts, you know, and I think this was one of them. I’m only trying to warn you.”
“Everyone tries to warn me—I’m getting tired of it,” she said crossly. “Anyway, you can’t possibly know what we were talking about unless you’re a mind-reader.”
“I can guess.”
“You couldn’t for a moment,” she contradicted him flatly, and saw the eyebrow nearest her lift.
“Well, suppose you tell me,” he suggested mildly.
“Why should I? You don’t tell me what you and Samantha talk about,” she retorted, and he smiled. She really was behaving like a contrary schoolgirl, he reflected.
“As a matter of fact,” she said when he made no answer, “I told her I’d like to roll her on the floor and black her eye and pull out handfuls of hair like we did in the orphanage, and would too, if—”
“If what?”
“Never mind!” she said, and he burst out laughing.
“Oh. Harriet! Will you never grow up?” he said. “How many of those Martinis did you have?”
“I wasn’t tight, was I?”
“No, you weren’t tight, just elated sufficiently to forget your inhibitions, I should say. Still, be careful. You’re no match for Samantha.”
“Are you really going to Dublin on business?” she asked, feeling suddenly depressed.
“Yes, in a few days.”
“Why?”
“Really, Harriet, I can’t see that my business affairs could have much interest for you, but I’m selling the pig-farm, if you must know, and that necessitates discussions and papers to sign in Dublin.”
“Selling the farm!” she exclaimed. “But I thought you mainly depended on that to keep Clooney going.”
“Yes, well—it’ll mean drawing in our horns a bit, but I need the capital. I thought you’d be pleased, actually—you never did like all those little piggies going to market, did you?”
Although he was talking to her like a child, she thought that this time it was more as a cover-up for himself.
“You wouldn’t sell Clooney, would you?” she asked. “The place must be a terrible drain on you.”
“It’s entailed, so I can’t, even if I wanted to. We’ll just have to carry on as before until the place falls down about our ears. Does the thought of a poverty-stricken future in a decaying castle daunt you, Harriet?”
He had propped an arm along the back of the seat behind her and she rested her head against his sleeve, feeling the roughness of the tweed against her neck. It was not, she thought, the prospect of poverty and decay which daunted her, but the complexities of a relationship with this stranger to whom she had committed her life, who had stolen her heart with such little use for it, whose own heart, if he had one, was still concerned with a maturer and more experienced passion. She was dumb with the agonising dumbness of youth and first love which feared ridicule as much as rejection, for how could you make a man who kept you at arms’, length like an importunate child understand that being allowed to love would be sufficient reward without the expectation of return?
“What a long, ominous silence, and what a big sigh! It would seem my question’s stirred up doubts and possibly vain regrets. Perhaps it was better unasked,” he said, and although he spoke lightly enough, she thought there was disappointment in his voice.
“I wasn’t thinking of that side of it. You wouldn’t understand,” she said, trying to speak as lightly as he, but the old invisible shutter seemed to come down between them as if, she thought, he had some mysterious power of pressing a switch at will as he answered:
“On the contrary, I understand very well. We’d better go in to lunch.” As he leaned across her to open the car door, his cuff caught on her brooch and he stooped to examine it.
“Where did you get this?” he asked. “It’s rather a shoddy piece of costume jewellery.”
“I brought it with me,” she said. “One of the maids at Ogilvy’s gave it to me. It was all I had to wear.”
He gave her rather a sceptical look.
“You had your pearls,” he said with a certain dryness. “But perhaps you prefer the skivvy’s offering.”
She felt herself colouring.
“Of course not!” she exclaimed, ready to cry that her unexplained reluctance to wear the pearls should have hurt him. “I—I just was afraid of losing them, I suppose,” she finished lamely, and he pushed the door open for her to get out.
Rory returned in high spirits that evening to regale them amusingly with snippets of gossip gleaned from the party which had gone on until all hours. Harriet had been voted a well-mannered girl with simple charm, but much too young to know how to deal with a difficult husband, and Samantha had been rude to Judy for refusing to accept a booking from her and been told off by Raff in no uncertain terms.
“It was quite a thing to see her pulling out all the seduction stops for Raff only to be slapped down very politely and practically called a trollop,” Rory laughed. “She swept out breathing fire and threatening to blacklist the hotel with all her friends in Dublin, and then we all settled down to a very late lunch and pulled all the guests to pieces with pleasurable spite. What
, incidentally, had you been saying to the fair Samantha, Princess?”
“I told her a few home truths too, but I don’t suppose they cut much ice. I think I was flushed with wine,” Harriet said.
“Flushed with wine—what an enchanting thought! Was she, Duff?”
“Very decorously flushed, I would say,” said Duff with a twinkle at Harriet. “She appears to have threatened to black the lady’s eye and pull out her hair.”
“But what else did you say to Samantha, Harriet, that gave her to think?” asked Rory. “Because think she undoubtedly did. She told me you were rude but were evidently seeing the light, whatever that meant, and she’s coming to see you before she goes back to Dublin, so she says.” Harriet was finding it a little difficult to remember exactly what she had said to Samantha, apart from those rather adolescent bursts of spleen, but before she could answer, Duff looked across at her and said with a complete change of voice:
“If she does come, I don’t wish you to see her, Harriet. Understand?”
“Why?” asked Harriet, blankly.
“Because I say so. You don’t, as is evident from today’s little bit of mud-slinging, get on together, so it’s better you remain apart.”
And he rose to his feet and walked out of the room.
“Oh, dear!” murmured Harriet. “I had so hoped that everything was all right again. What have I done now?”
“Nothing, I imagine, but being a little too blunt with Samantha,” Rory said. He had noted with interest his cousin’s uncompromising reaction, and his eyes now resting on Harriet were a little quizzical.
“So for that reason I’m out of favour again?” she said with uncharacteristic bitterness.
“You’re growing up fast, aren’t you, Princess, more’s the pity?” he said. “Well, I won’t bother you any longer. I’ll be shaking the dust of Clooney off my shoes shortly, I think.”
“Oh, why, Rory? Are you bored here?” she asked.
“Not bored, but I get itchy feet after a period of the out-of-work actor’s polite definition of resting,” he said evasively. “I must do a round of the agents and find me a job of work.”
