by Lucy Gillen
"I suppose so, my lady," she allowed cautiously. "I mostly see him on my days off, when I'm walking or down by the river."
"Hmm!" The eyes did not open, but a small frown drew her sparse brows together. "Is there anything serious between you?" she asked, and again Isa hesitated. At once the bright, shrewd eyes
flicked wide open and regarded her sharply. "Well, child? You know that, surely!"
"I don't really think I do," Isa told her, truthfully enough. "I—I like Mr. Burrows, but as for anything else—well, I just don't know."
"Not good enough for you, hmm?" Surprisingly a soft chuckle followed the suggestion, and Isa was given no opportunity to object to it. "Well, you know your own mind best, I dare say," the old lady allowed, "but I would have thought a romantic young girl like you would have found young Burrows very much to her liking, with those gaunt, gloomy old looks. You could do worse, child, far worse, if you are serious about him."
"Lady Carmichael," Isa began, left breathless by the swift summing up of Chris Burrows' assets as a husband, "I don't—"
"If you're going to tell me that it's none of my business," Lady Carmichael told her, "you'd better think again, young lady! The welfare of my domestic staff is my business, and I happen to like you, no matter what you might suppose to be the contrary! Does that surprise you?" she demanded.
Isa's heart warmed, for she believed it to be true that the old lady had a certain affection for her. In her own way she had betrayed it several times, though never perhaps consciously. "I'm flattered," she said softly, and smiled at the strong intelligent face below soft white hair
Lady Carmichael snorted her opinion of such sentiments. "Nonsense!" she said forcefully. "I don't flatter anyone, child, I merely state my opinion!"
"Well then, I'm glad you like me," Isa told her, emboldened by the kindness she knew to be behind that seemingly harsh façade, "because I like you too, no matter what you might suppose to the contrary!"
"Impudent child!" For a moment Isa wondered if she had gone too far in quoting the old lady's own words to her, but then she saw a hint of a smile curve the thin lips at their corners, and breathed an inward sigh of relief. "And just how much do you like my grandson?" she asked.
Isa's heart leapt into her mouth, then set up a rapid and urgent beating that sounded like drumbeats in her ears. "I—I like Mr. Carmichael," she said, wishing her voice sounded less husky and that she could avoid the shrewd eyes that noted her flushed cheeks.
"Hmm!" Again that non-committal little sound left her opinion in doubt, and Isa wondered if it was possible that the old lady knew as much about those brief episodes with Toby as she, seemed to know about Chris Burrows. The thought was discomfiting and she said no more for the moment while Lady Carmichael's shrewd old eyes regarded her steadily. "I can see that Toby is a subject you prefer not to discuss," Lady Carmichael said quietly, and briefly a small, almost sly smile touched the thin mouth and softened the whole face. "Very well, child, I shall say no more about it. I know my grandson—rather too well, I'm afraid!"
It was not easy, after her earlier misgivings, to realise that far from objecting Lady Carmichael
fully expected Toby to behave as he had, and for a moment Isa resented her calm acceptance of it. She glanced through her lashes at the old lady, now apparently fallen into a daze again, the sun warm on her face, her expression smooth and content, and sighed inwardly as she returned to her sewing.
She sat for some time in silence while the old lady dozed in her chair and wondered if now was the time to approach the matter of asking for a full day off in lieu of her usual half-day. The idea had been in her mind for some time now, and she had little doubt that she would be allowed to do as she asked, but years of being with Aunt Carrie had made her hesitant about asking for anything.
"Lady Carmichael," she said hesitantly, and the bright, dark eyes were open instantly, "I—I wondered if I could have my usual two half-days in one," she ventured, and took hope from the fact that there was so far no discouraging frown. "I'd like to do some shopping," she went on, "and I thought if I had a whole day in town—"
"In London?" Lady Carmichael asked, and Isa hastily shook her head.
"Oh no, my lady, just into Sherwell."
"I see no reason why you cannot do so," the old lady told her. "If you can get what you want in Sherwell."
"I'm sure I can, thank you." She hesitated to express concern about her charge during her absence, because such a thing was bound to be ridiculed by the old lady, but the idea of leaving her for a whole day was the one flaw in the idea that
she could see. "I—I don't altogether like leaving you for a whole day, my lady," she ventured cautiously. "Perhaps if someone—"
"You have no need to concern yourself about me, child!" A careless hand dismissed the matter as unimportant. "I shall arrange for someone to be here when I want them, you need concern yourself only with your day's outing. How are you travelling?"
Isa shook her head. "I hadn't thought about it, my lady," she said. "By bus, I suppose—there's quite a good service from here into Sherwell."
"Nonsense!" Again the autocratic hand dismissed her suggestion. "Toby can drive you in with him when he goes to his office. It will make things much easier for you than going on one of those wretchedly overcrowded buses and, since you will be there all day, you can drive back with him in the evening, then you won't have the problem of struggling with your shopping."
Isa bit her lip, seeing too late how she had left herself wide open to such a suggestion, but it was unlikely that the old lady would change her mind, having decided, no matter what objections she raised. "It—it really isn't necessary, my lady," she told her. "I can manage perfectly well on the bus."
"Why on earth should you manage?" Lady Carmichael demanded, her frown deepening. "How can you prefer to struggle on and off public transport when you have the simple alternative of driving there and back by car?" The dark eyes studied her narrowly for a moment, speculative as well as
curious. "Have you some reason for not wishing to drive in with my grandson?" she asked, and Isa hastily shook her head.
"Oh no, of course not, Lady Carmichael!"
The old lady nodded, as if the matter was already settled to her satisfaction, but she still looked at Isa curiously. "You haven't already arranged to go with Chris Burrows, have you?" she asked. "If so, for heaven's sake why didn't you say so, child?"
"I haven't," Isa denied hastily, and the old lady's thin mouth smiled again briefly, a slightly malicious smile that glittered like jet in her eyes.
"But perhaps you think he might object to your going with Toby!" she suggested softly. "Is that it, Isabella?"
"Oh no, not at all !" Isa said. "Mr. Burrows isn't in a position to object to anything I do!"
"Then there can be no possible objection, can there?" Lady Carmichael declared, and closed her eyes again, as if she considered there was no more to be said.
Then, with a sigh of resignation, went back to her sewing once again, but not for very long. "How much do you know about Chris Burrows?" the old lady asked suddenly, and Isa stared at her for a moment uncomprehendingly, her heart pulsing uneasily for some inexplicable reason.
"I—I know that he's your—that he works for Mr. Carmichael," she said cautiously, only just stopping herself in time from referring to Chris as her gamekeeper. "I'm not sure in what capacity exactly, I've never asked."
Once again the shrewd bright eyes opened and looked at her speculatively for a moment. "I believe gardener-handyman is the official designation," Lady Carmichael said. "Do you find that strange?"
"In a way I do," Isa admitted, without giving reasons, and the old lady made one of those small, non-committal sounds again.
"He had a very good education, as you'll have noticed," she went on. "The pity is he hadn't the spirit to put it to better use!"
The rather acid comment surprised Isa, and something about the tone of the old lady's voice made her suspect that she knew much
more about Chris Burrows than the rather sketchy knowledge of the average employer. "I had noticed that he speaks very 'well," Isa admitted. "But we haven't talked much about our respective backgrounds."
The old lady nodded, as if she understood, and Isa looked at her through her lashes, frankly curious about Chris, but unwilling to betray her curiosity too obviously. "One should feel some sympathy for him, I suppose," Lady Carmichael said, and gave the impression that such an emotion would not come easily to her in this instance. "I don't know if he's told you, but he was at school with Toby—they've known each other more or less all their lives."
"Oh!" Isa blinked at the revelation—it was something she had not expected.
"I knew both Kay and Arthur Burrows," Lady Carmichael went on, apparently bent on confidences. "I knew them for a number of years, al-
though they were never close friends, and I know how hard it was for Kay Burrows to cope with her situation—a husband who gambled and drank to such an extent that his son was left destitute." The strong, stern face had a look of pity briefly, then she shook her head slowly. "But I find it hard to pity a man who sinks into self-pity when he is left alone to cope with his own life!"
"His mother died too?" Isa asked, feeling for Chris in his helplessness, although she had coped much better herself in similar circumstances.
Lady Carmichael nodded. "The fool killed both himself and his wife in a car crash, less than a year after Christopher came down from university."
"Poor Chris!" Isa's softly spoken sympathy did not go unnoticed, and the sharp, dark eyes narrowed as they looked at her.
"You knew nothing about it?" Lady Carmichael asked, and Isa shook her head.
"Nothing," she said, and looked at the old lady steadily for a moment. Despite the avowed lack of sympathy, she thought she knew how it was that Chris came to be working for Lady Carmichael and why he stubbornly insisted that she and not Toby was his employer. "You gave him that job, didn't you, my lady?" she suggested quietly. "Because you wanted to help him?"
For a moment it seemed that she might admit to such a sentimental gesture, but only for a moment, and then the frown reappeared and her mouth tightened. "The estate needed a man to tend the gardens and look after the various other chores,"
Lady Carmichael said in a harsh, sharp voice that denied any suggestion of charity. "Chris Burrows was drifting aimlessly, doing nothing at all with his life—it was a matter of common sense to put one with the other."
"It was kind and understanding," Isa insisted gently. "I know Chris is happy working for you, Lady Carmichael, and he thinks a lot of you."
Again the old lady's dark eyes narrowed shrewdly and she looked at Isa for a moment before she spoke. "I'm glad he's settled down to it," she said after a moment or two. "I had thought he might perhaps leave when the estate was made over to Toby." She looked at Isa sharply again. "You knew about that?" Isa nodded. "He and Toby never got on, even at school, and I know he must resent working for him:"
"Perhaps Chris is a little—envious," Isa suggested, and the old lady nodded thoughtfully, her bright eyes distant and absent for once.
"The idea is rather ironic," she said. "Chris Burrow used to look down on Toby and now he's working for him One can understand a certain amount of resentment."
"Looked down on him?" The idea seemed so unlikely that Isa looked frankly curious. When she thought back, however, Chris's attitude towards Toby was one of derision as much as envy, and she had no doubt at all that he disliked him intensely.
The old lady was looking at her with narrowed eyes, her expression doubtful. "Perhaps you think me a garrulous and indiscreet old woman?" she
suggested, and Isa hastily shook her head to deny it, though she was given no chance to deny it verbally. "It's many years since I talked to anyone about such things, Isabella," she added quietly. "You are a very good listener, child."
"Nothing you tell me will ever be repeated," Isa assured her earnestly, and the old lady smiled briefly.
"I know, child, but it has been so long since I faced—certain things that I had almost forgotten them." For a moment her face was as gentle as only those stern features could be on occasion. "We took Toby from an orphanage when he was only a tiny baby, I and my husband," she said, almost as if she spoke to herself, and Isa's heart gave a great lurch of surprise as she stared at her. "That's why Chris Burrows always looked down on him, you see —he knew nothing about his background."
"I—I didn't know that," Isa whispered huskily. For a moment she wondered if the confidence had been rashly made and would be regretted later. Sometimes old people made slips that they later regretted, even such alert and intelligent ones as Lady Carmichael, and if that was so, then it might prove awkward for her later on, although the expression on the old lady's face gave no indication that she in any way deplored her moment of confidence.
"We've never made a secret of the fact that Toby was adopted," she went on in the same quiet voice, "but it's so long now that I think of myself as actually being his grandmother." She smiled briefly
and shook her head. "I was much too elderly at the time to be called Mama by a tiny child, and the compromise suited us all well enough."
"No wonder To—Mr. Carmichael's so fond of you," Isa told her, and saw the immediate tightening of those thin lips at the very suggestion of anything resembling sentiment.
"We get along well because we're both down-to-earth and thoroughly selfish," Lady Carmichael declared firmly. "Now for heaven's sake, child, don't become maudlin about things! Run along and make us some tea, before I expire from thirst!"
"Yes, my lady, of course!"
Isa was on her feet in a moment, willing enough to comply, but she got only as far as the door when Lady Carmichael called after her and she turned back. "Don't forget to speak to Toby about taking you into town with him," the old lady reminded her. "If you don't speak to him yourself I shall do so, and I know you'd hate that—you're an independent little minx!"
"I ask him," Isa promised, and closed the door behind her, smiling as she crossed the hall towards the kitchen. Driving into Sherwell with Toby was something she looked forward to with surprising pleasure, and she did not even realise that one of her fingers was tracing the outline of her mouth as she walked into the kitchen.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHATEVER good intentions Toby might have had about getting someone to replace Mrs. Grayle, he had so far been unsuccessful, and Isa had raised the point with him yet again when he came into the kitchen to enquire after her progress with dinner. There were signs of the inevitable glimmer of amusement lurking in his eyes, she felt sure. despite his quite serious explanation of the difficulties. It was not that she really minded cooking, but her chores in the kitchen meant that she could not give as much time to looking after the old lady, and she disliked the idea of neglecting her.
As it was Saturday Toby wore the more casual clothes he always did at week-ends and his presence in the kitchen was something that Isa found rather, unnerving, especially when he seemed to be in to hurry to depart. A pair of faded blue denims moulded the long length of his legs, then flared fashionably at the bottoms and he wore a shirt of the same material outside the trousers, the sleeves turned back into winged cuffs above strong wrists and hands.
His blue eyes regarded her for a moment speculating on the seriousness of her complaint, then he smiled and they crinkled at their corners. "You don't really mind, do you?" he asked from his perch on the end of the table, and Isa took a
moment to consider, a paring knife in one hand and a half-peeled potato in the other.
"I mind not being able to look after Lady Carmichael as I should," she told him. "I've no objection otherwise, Mr. Carmichael."
He nodded, apparently satisfied. "Good, because so far I haven't had much luck finding a temporary—it seems Mrs. Grayle's sort are thin on the ground these days, and unfortunately we have quite a reputation with the agency. Grandmama, bless her, has a disposition that runs through hous
ekeepers like a hot knife through butter, which doesn't make things any easier."
"I can't think why anyone should find it hard to work for Lady Carmichael," Isa declared in defence of the old lady. "I get along very well with her, and so does Mrs. Grayle."
"True," Toby allowed with a smile, "but then you're a practised little dragon-tamer after years with Aunt Whatsit, aren't you, Isabella? And Grayle is a gem, in a class all on her own in this day and age, that's why I'm looking only for a temporary replacement for her." He looked at her for a moment with one brow raised, and Isa guessed what he was going to say next, although she could scarcely believe he was serious about it. "You wouldn't care to take on the job until Grayle comes back, would you?" he asked, and Isa shook her head firmly.
"No, thank you, Mr. Carmichael!"
"You're sure?" He sounded quite blatantly persuasive and Isa found it hard not to smile. "I'd give
you a lot more money for doing the extra work—are you sure I can't talk you into it?"
"You quite possibly could—in time," Isa admitted frankly "But I have no ambition to be a cook-housekeeper, Mr. Carmichael, and what's more, it's a trained. job, not one you can simply walk into without experience."
He held her gaze steadily for a moment, then smiled, a small, knowing smile that set her heart racing as she determinedly gave her attention to peeling the potatoes again. He lifted the corner of the tea towel covering a bowl of batter for Yorkshire pudding, and nodded. "Of course your Yorkshire pud isn't quite up to Grayle's standard," he remarked, "but you have a good line in sponge pudding that she can't compete with."
