‘What of it? I’m not a prude. We did team up for a while.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘We were two free people.’ He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t keep her. As a matter of fact that time I was in Tokyo. She found someone else, I guess.’
A thought struck, something she had left out of her calculations. Even now how much did Paul know?
‘Supposing she had been married. Would you still have lived with her?’
‘Suzanne? Married?' It seemed to amuse him. ‘I don’t think anyone would make that mistake, least of all Suzanne herself.’
He was quite wrong, Haidee thought dully. Suzanne had made it and someone else along with her. Toby was the product. And it was still mysterious. Why had Rory never told Antonia? Above all, where was Suzanne?
‘Probably followed the camel train to Iraq.’ Paul’s flippancy jarred.
She looked with new eyes at the small well moulded jaw above the jazzy turquoise shirt. That night on the long train journey from Euston, and for several nights after, the whole face had haunted her dreams. Now its charm seemed superficial.
‘Anyway, you’ve not been the loser,’ Paul remarked. ‘It’s made a woman of you. I’m a connoisseur,’ he added softly.
She could believe it, but it was startling how little she wanted his compliments—or the kiss that followed.
‘Silly!’ she said scathingly, and stopped, jerking her head away. ‘What’s that funny smell?’
‘You say the nicest things,’ Paul was murmuring.
She cut him short. ‘Hurry. I think it’s smoke. Hurry!’
Where had he thrown the match? Had it been properly extinguished? He’d been too irritated to check, she hadn’t pressed him. Terror clutched her as she ran, terror and guilt. More than half the blame had to be hers. Paul had not lived with the hazard as she had for the past four weeks.
Even he had stopped joking. The acrid tang of wood smoke became stronger with every yard. Dear Lord, Haidee prayed desperately, don’t let there be a fire.
Just this side of the badger sett they met the first puffs of smoke coming from a patch of leaf mould on the forest floor. The dryness of the air Haidee knew all about, the stillness seemed a dispensation of mercy. No draught. It was not blazing and Paul was already stamping on the mould. But at that moment a puckish breeze—ironically probably the forerunner of the rain Rory had prophesied—caught the danger area and a bright tongue of flame appeared. It was followed by others, small but greedy and licking perilously at the lower branches.
She had run so hard that her chest was sore and a second’s pause was imperative, but ill-timed.
‘Good grief! Don’t stand there!’ a voice thundered. A birch broom was thrust into her arms, a second flung at Paul. Rory—she didn’t dare look at his face—was already beating out the edge of the fire. Toby, similarly armed with a beater, had also appeared from nowhere and was following suit.
‘Spread out, in a line,’ Rory barked. Bad enough to have the fire he’d been dreading without having to fight it with a child and two complete novices. But to fetch more help would mean laying down a desperately needed brown.
It was worse than it seemed. Only the first patch was actually blazing, but already smouldering leaf mould covered a large area.
‘Look out behind!’ Rory shouted, and swung round. A heap which one of them had treated too lightly was suddenly showing a red glow and a tiny wicked flame. He beat it vigorously and it subsided.
Was that me? Haidee thought fearfully.
It was nightmare. The acrid curtain of smoke whipped into eyes and lungs. Tears came stingingly and streamed down her cheeks. She backed away for a minute to blink and cough.
Hard to say how long they had struggled. And still that one place blazed. For all the ferocity with which Rory’s broom crashed into it the eager flames continued to fork upward. She saw them with a clutch of terror. The birch beaters were for ground work. If the trees caught they were finished.
Had Rory bargained for the hold the fire had got? Should he have spared time to call the fire brigade? Strength, comage and experience, great as they were, could not do the impossible. Her heart told her sinkingly that here was the proof of it. His heart must be telling him the same, for he had just passed a hand across his forehead. It seemed like a gesture of despair. Haidee could have wept. Who knows how many of his trees Rory might lose, who knows how many years would go up in smoke? It took beech one hundred years to reach maturity. The conifers did it in sixty, but that was hardly overnight.
Inferno was a word out of fashion. Suddenly it was close, stinging eyes and nostrils, crackling in ears. Heat shimmers distorted her vision. She saw quiveringly—Rory’s arm crooked for a second across his scorched forehead, Paul’s bright shirt spattered with black smudge, Toby who had just panted out: ‘Oh, gosh!’ and retreated with squeezed-up eyes. Toby had fought like a Trojan, but he was only a child and she suspected he had reached his limit.
It was the way she felt herself if she could yield to it. But she couldn’t Half her fault, she had to go on. One more try, you can, you must. She raised the beater and at that moment Toby screamed something and went hell for leather towards the main approach.
Haidee had not heard him properly, but now there were other sounds, tyres crunching on the tarred roadway, and, blessedly, miraculously, a siren. Now she knew what he had shouted; it had been: ‘Fire brigade!’
Steel-helmeted figures dragging their long hose were running down the path.
Beside her Rory’s broom fell from his hands. ‘Thank God,’ he said.
The terror ended as dramatically as it had begun. The hissing of the jets died away and the writhing flames gave place to soaking black mould and dripping trees. Rory was still with the fire crew and Toby hanging round them.
‘Do I get the impression that nobody loves us?’ Paul asked Haidee.
It was only too evident. ‘I’m sorry,’ she had faltered to Rory as the firemen rushed into action. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry!’ He had cracked back the word like a whip. ‘Look at it, girl, look at it! You did that—you and Freeman!’ A vein throbbed scaringly in the grime on his forehead.
Walking now with Paul to his car she shivered at the memory. It did not go unnoticed.
‘Forget it. Always knew the fellow was a boor.’ Paul looked at her concernedly. ‘Look, change your mind. Get your things. I’ll wait.’
‘I’ve told you no.’ She couldn’t explain why the suggestion should now seem even worse. Except that in every crisis there had to be ‘behind the scenes’ help—hot water for baths, a good meal, clothes to be cleaned.
‘Would you like a wash?’ she offered.
‘In this house? Ta very much, love. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me.’ A villain, she knew, but not a Grade A villain, and suddenly she felt sorry for him. He had done his best at fire beating, a best as poor as her own, but at least he had tried. And what a mess he had made of his clothes!
‘Sorry,’ she jerked.
It was not spurned as last time. ‘So am I,’ he said quite gravely for the opportunist she knew him to be. ‘And listen. I’m here till tomorrow. I’ll ring you later.’
The long rubber hose still snaked across the apron. She had just stepped over it when Jennie’s flying figure rounded the corner from the main drive. She had obviously been running hard and was out of breath.
‘Is it out? Was it bad? Was I right to phone?’
Rory, still talking to the fire officer, caught the last word and turned.
‘You phoned? You, Jennie? Good girl!’
She nodded, her cheeks near to bursting. ‘I saw it from up there—the smoke, I mean. I wasn’t sure, but I thought there seemed a lot of it.’ The spaniel eyes searched anxiously for approval. And got it, warmly and generously.
‘Thank the lord you did, Jen, that’s all I can say.’ His arm went affectionately across her shoulders.
It was Jennie’s hour and well earned, Haidee conceded wholeheartedly
as she looked at the child’s glowing face. It made her own thoughts of Rory and Jennie in future years even more credible. In fact it would not be surprising to find that even at this moment Rory shared them.
Paul phoned during the evening from the pub in the village.
‘How are things? You sound pretty cheap,’ he commented.
She was sorry not to be a better actress, but the temperature, so far as she was concerned, had been sub-zero. ‘Whose idea was it to take Freeman into the woods?’ Rory had asked.
‘Well—mine.’ Remorseful as she felt his tone had nettled. ‘Since when have they been out of bounds?’
‘Always, to those who can’t be trusted,’ he had flung back. ‘And that includes cigarette smokers. I gave even you credit for knowing that.’
The ‘even you’ was surely a needless cruelty. ‘Rory, I’ve said I’m sorry. We didn’t do it on purpose.’
‘No? There’s not much distinction, is there? You brought him there, he threw the match. I pay the piper. If it hadn’t been for Jennie we could have lost the wood.’
She knew he had been under heavy strain, but this venting of spleen had shocked her. Angrily, she had fought her corner. And yes, Paul was right, cheap was the way she felt. Cheap and valueless. She had never been highly rated in Glenglass, now she had no rating at all. It gave her second thoughts about leaving. It could even be that by doing so she would be performing a service.
When Paul suggested meeting him for drinks she hesitated, not relishing running the gauntlet of the village bar on Saturday night, but weakly longing for the company of someone who would not condemn her.
‘Meet me anyway,’ Paul concluded amiably. ‘If you don’t fancy the Shamrock ...’ he named the pub in question. ‘We can go further afield.’
She risked a glance into the sitting-room before she left, smiling at Brand who was snoozing on the table and at Punch who was goggling at the downhanging golden brush. Brand had accepted the pup from a great height; an extra courtier never came amiss. Friends including the natives were welcome at Glenglass, but he ruled the roost. He snored, he hunted, he played and he ogled. He had than all under his claw.
Haidee had to admit that Rory had been good about Brand. In happier days she had sometimes thought it was a case of two strong men.
Paul had said he would pick her up on the main road outside the forest entrance. It was nearly three-quarters of a mile from the house, but she had long ago lost her nervousness of the woods. In fact she was just beginning to ‘hear’ them, and this was easier at night. Tonight, distressed as she was, the background music was there as ever to be interpreted, the call that meant owl or hunted bird, the cracking twig that could be rabbit or weasel.
It was uncanny to stop and think how closely she did fit this side of the girl who had loved Glenglass so crazily. And, from a personal point of view, sheer tragedy that she would be remembered for her share in today’s fire. She loved these trees, the oak and ash descendants of the first Irish forests, the immigrant beech and chestnut which were young in time, and yes, even the spruce and pine which the little owls frequented. If she could have lived the rest of her life here, learning and caring, she would, she realized, be just as happy as Brand.
But that was absurdity. She checked her thoughts and stood in the shelter of the wall to watch for Paul’s car. After a few minutes it came and she stepped forward.
‘You made it. Good,’ Paul commended, stretching for the door.
She had her hand on it when a form moved out of the darkness. Fingers bit through her trench coat into the soft of her arm.
‘No, you don’t,’ Rory’s voice was as biting as his hold. ‘Not this time.’
Not this time... could he possibly think ...
‘Paul’s taking me—’ she began.
‘Paul’s taking you nowhere.’ The voice was quiet, the grip remained that of a vice. ‘That’s one bit of history I’m not having repeated.’
A gusty wind had cleared the rags of cloud off the moon. She saw his face, shadowed in indigo, eyes glittering. ‘No need to be so dramatic,’ she said with creditable cool. ‘We were going for a drink, that’s all.’
‘I’ve heard that once before,’ the stony voice reminded her. ‘On that occasion, if you remember, you asked me to listen for Toby.’
To remember was beyond her, to grasp his meaning was easy. It must have been in terms as casual that ten years ago Suzanne had walked out of his life.
‘I give you my word,’ she started breathlessly. ‘It wasn’t...’
‘You may keep your word, Suzanne,’ he interrupted. ‘It’s never been worth having. A week back I was uncertain, now I know. Keep your big eyes and the lies you tell with them. But be damn sure I’m keeping you—at least until you’ve finished the job you came for.’ A rough hand thrust her back and wrenched the car door open. ‘Do you need that repeated or have you got the message?’
Talk about temper! It needed only Paul’s justifiable anger and the fuse would be lit. Haidee looked fearfully from the dark glowering face to Paul’s poised head and decidedly strained smile.
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ he said uneasily.
‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’
‘What else? She’s told you, we were going for a drink.’
‘Why hide out here, then?’
‘No reason at all.’ For the second time that day Haidee felt sorry for Paul. He was not a boor or a bully and it was on her account he had come.
‘Do I have to spell it out for you?’ Rory thundered. ‘It’s near on a mile she’s walked to get here, in the dark. Don’t you know the kind we can get in the woods at night? Supposing she’d been assaulted. What then?’
‘How could I have been assaulted?’ Haidee struck in. ‘There wasn’t a soul about. I do keep my eyes open, you know.’
A nasty gleam lit the ones regarding her. ‘That shows how well you do it. I was there, girl, walking behind you—all the way.’
He slammed the door of the car so viciously that Paul’s head had to draw back. Haidee’s share was three forthright sentences. ‘You’re bad medicine, Suzanne. Don’t think I don’t know it. But you’re not walking out on me now, by heck you’re not!’
If he had walked behind her on the way down, his long angry strides now gave him a lead.
‘I didn’t bring Brand, you know,’ Haidee panted. ‘I couldn’t go without Brand.’ Infuriating not to be able to keep up. She gave a little run. The face beside her under the low-brimmed hat remained impassive. ‘We were going for a drink, I tell you,’ she asserted. ‘I wanted to talk to Paul.’
‘You can talk to me.’
‘You!’ Her voice cracked hysterically. ‘What good would that do? You don’t care for anything but trees.’
‘I certainly don’t care for histrionics,’ he said cuttingly. Talk sensibly. I’ll listen.’ It seemed the height of condescension.
‘If you could be human for five minutes, you’d see why I wanted Paul’s company. I don’t say he’s perfect—’
‘So you do draw the line somewhere?’
The implication was unmistakable. And insupportable. A great mouth of anger swallowed Suzanne and what she had or had not done. Haidee stood alone, burning with resentment and injustice.
‘Yes. At spite and malice. And inhumanity. Paul may be careless...’
‘Careless?’
Regardless, she swept on. ‘He doesn’t treat you like the dirt under his feet. He’s kind, approachable, understanding. Understanding of women, actually.’
‘Go on.’ It was said icily.
‘All right. We like to be treated like people. You’ll never get anywhere—’
‘Is that an invitation?’
She stopped gasping.
‘I hope not,’ the voice continued relentlessly, ‘because I’m not in the mood to accept it.’
It cost her a second to take it in, what he said, what he had meant, the cold glint in his eyes. Then numbness went. She saw red, almost literally,
as her hand resounded against his cheek. It was like striking a rock. He simply looked more graven, more controlled.
‘As an honest tramp, Suzanne, you held me, fool that I was, for years. As a hypocrite I can’t stomach you. But you’ll stay for Jennie’s sake—if it’s the last thing you do.’
The rest of the walk was covered in silence. Haidee had no heart for further protestations. Rory’s face might have been a steel lake. Not a muscle moved as they climbed the steps to the house. ‘He loathes me,’ she thought, and could not baulk at the follow-on. For ten years Suzanne Hart had lived in memory, a question mark between love and hate. Haidee Brown arriving in Glenglass had been received accordingly. Now at last it had resolved itself and the answer was here—cold animosity. No shade of liking. Suzanne had not brought that about. She had. She done.
She walked into the hall as though brickbats were flying about her.
Punch was sitting on the landing, absurdly squat, absurdly fascinated. Brand was showing off on the newel post, puffed with his own beauty. He was revolving like a teetotum as Rory clattered upstairs. The noise startled him and he teetered and lost his hold. As he scrabbled, Haidee snatched him up, her heart in her mouth. He had had a fright and he clung, a kitten again, burying his head in her coat. ‘Sorry,’ said Rory awkwardly.
‘Sorry!’ she hurled. ‘If he’d fallen...’
Ferocity took her over. Brand, warm and soft in her arms, seemed suddenly small. He could have been maimed or worse. She saw Rory’s face change as he looked at her. He took a hesitating step forward.
‘Don’t touch him,’ she blazed. ‘He’s terrified. I wish I could take him away!’
They could have been two statues, he with a wry mouth and haggard cheeks, she magnolia pale with falls of dark hair. For a matter of seconds their eyes held each other like wrists in a measure of grips. Then Rory’s dropped and he turned abruptly on his heel.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sunday, inside and out, was a wretched day. The rain fell continuously and being cooped up in the house was the last thing Haidee wanted. The atmosphere between Rory and herself she knew could not go unnoticed by Jennie and Toby.
Dear Deceiver Page 14
