by Sara Seale
"He understood, no doubt, exactly what you intended him to," said Cleo, getting off the bed and starting to repair the damage to her face. "Anyway, he means to make it up to you when you leave."
"Make it up to me? How?"
"A nice little bonus for services rendered, I imagine—the same as any other privileged employee."
"Thank you for warning me," Laura said bleakly. "Nothing would induce me to take money from Dominic. For one thing he owes me nothing, and for another—"
"For another your poor little pride would have a horrid set-down being obliged to accept a tip from the master—I know," said Cleo, who, with that astonishing gift she possessed for rapid recuperation, now seemed completely restored. Whatever the cause for that outburst of crying, it had certainly not been a headache, thought Laura, and got out of the
room as quickly as she could for fear she should succumb to tears herself. She would, of course, she thought disgustedly, have to meet Dominic at the bottom of the stairs.
"Oh, Laura," he said as she came to an abrupt halt, "can you spare me a moment?"
She had been going to seek solace outside in the cool spring breeze on the headland, but much as she wished to avoid him, it was scarcely possible to refuse. She followed him into the book-room, wondering whether he was going to suggest, himself, that it was time she left Penzion, and was not reassured when he asked:
"What are your future plans, Laura? Have you a job to go back to?"
"Not at the moment," she replied.
"So you're free of commitments as far as employers are concerned?"
"Oh, yes. My last employers went bust. Flower shops tend to, you know."
"Do they? Good. Well then, I have a proposition for you. Would you stay on here?"
She looked at him blankly. Whatever she had expected to hear him say it was certainly not this.
"What do you mean?" she said, and taking a quick surreptitious glance at his face, thought he looked tired; tired and rather alarmingly austere.
"Exactly what I say. If, as you have suggested to me before, you have enough liking for Penzion to want to stay with us, I have a proposition that might appeal to you. I'd like you to stay on, if you will, for Nicky, until I can make more settled plans."
"You wish to employ me as a nanny?" she said with such an absurd imitation of a correct prospective applicant that he looked at her in surprise.
"Good God, no! That is—well, I'd like you to stop on just as you are now—as my guest," he said, and for the first time in her knowledge of him, sounded a little uncertain of himself.
"I was given to understand," she said, "that you thought
it was time I left."
"Who gave you that idea—Cleo?" he asked.
"It's an idea I've had myself," she replied evasively. "I only came here in the first place to help Cleo out, and I've my own life to lead, haven't I?"
"And what are you doing to do with your life, might one ask, Miss Mouse?" he said with such an avuncular air of indulgence that she whipped round on her stool to confront him.
"I'm getting a little tired of this mode of address, Dominic," she said. "I may seem like a child to you, but I've been earning my own living for the past two years, and that does give one some knowledge of adult affairs, you know."
The teasing amusement left his face and he regarded her gravely.
"I'm sorry," he said, sounding stiff and awkward. "I'm going about this the wrong way, I'm afraid. I wasn't disparaging your capabilities—or your much despised youth, or your acquaintance with adult affairs. I think I need you, Laura."
He said it quite humbly and with a hint of surprise, as if he had only just convinced himself, and Laura, battling with so many conflicting emotions, felt her bones melting again, as they had that morning on the headland.
"What do you want of me?" she asked a little helplessly, and he replied with abrupt ambiguity:
"What you can't give me, probably. Will you stay?"
"If Cleo has agreed to your plans for Nicky, there's no need, surely?" she said gently, and his sudden frown was not very pleasant.
"Have you seen your cousin since lunch?" he asked. "Yes. She seemed rather upset." "Very likely. Didn't she explain?" "About what?"
He made a little gesture of impatience.
"Why all this fencing with me, Laura? I asked you a perfectly straightforward question."
"It's you who do the fencing, I think," she said. "I really don't know what you're getting at."
"Don't, or won't?" he countered, and she gave a little evasive shrug.
"Very well," he said. "I'll put my question another way. What did your cousin tell you?"
"About your plans for Nicky? Only that they were working out very nicely and she would be stopping on."
"I see. And how was she proposing to cope with the boy?"
"I didn't ask. Bella could manage for a time, I suppose."
"You don't really want to stay, do you?" he said, his voice sounding a little harsh. "Perhaps I was wrong to think you were happy here. Is it Perry you want to get away from?"
"Perry? No—oh, no! He makes things easier for me."
"Yes, I see. In that case, a few more weeks of his company shouldn't hurt you, should it? You might even turn it to advantage if you don't give up and run away." He spoke with such a savage bitterness that she was bewildered.
"I don't know what you're getting at," she said again, getting to her feet and shaking the creases from her skirt, hoping to end this very confusing interview, but he got to his own feet, hesitated a moment, then took a swift stride round the desk and took her by the shoulders.
"For God's sake, Laura, what's happened to you?" he exclaimed. "All the week-end you've been ill at ease with me —evasive. I don't seem to get through to you."
He had told her he thought he needed her, but it was, she knew now, only the need of a rather lonely man who, despite himself, had come to have a little fondness for an undemanding child. It wasn't fair, she thought, to trade on the suspicion of her own feeling for him.
"You don't make it very easy," she said, then added, with the vague idea that a familiar absurdity might coax him away from more serious introspection, "Predatory overlords sit up on pedestals, you see."
His hands slipped from her shoulders to her wrists, with so painful a pressure that she cried out, and he was suddenly kissing her with Peregrine's familiar roughness.
She could do no more than submit and remain passive, for his grip on her wrists was so rigid, and his mouth so hard and
demanding that response was impossible. She could not free her hands to slip them round his neck, as she would have liked, and when he let her go, abruptly, and with a suggestion of self-disgust, she still stood there, pliant and unprotesting.
"I'm sorry," he said, turning away. "You drove me to extremes, I'm afraid, ganging up like the others."
"Ganging up?" She touched her bruised lips tenderly, but her eyes were puzzled rather than shocked, and he drove his hands with an angry thrust into his trouser pockets.
"You and Perry. The predatory overlord is a dig that's begun to pall," he said and she experienced a little surge of tenderness for him that he could be hurt by such foolish nonsense.
"I'm sorry," she said gently. "I just didn't understand you —and I've never ganged up on you, Dominic."
"No, of course you haven't," he said. "Do I apologise for my rough handling?"
"If I said predatory overlords never apologise, I suppose you would take it as another dig," she replied, and he gave her a quick, reluctant smile.
"Am I making a fool of myself?" he said, then with the abrupt change of mood which seemed to come to him so easily, added in quite a different tone of voice: "You haven't given me an answer."
"An answer?"
"To my proposition."
"You're full of propositions. Haven't you just made one to Cleo?" she said.
"You know my plans for Nicky," he replied rather impatiently. "Your cousin, when she's had t
ime for second thoughts, may think them worth considering. In the meantime—" He broke off for a moment and she waited incuriously for him to continue, knowing the answer to this one. Cleo, of course, was keeping him guessing in the traditional manner; had she not said, only just now, that her plans were working out very nicely?
"In the meantime," he went on without noticing Laura's attention had wandered, "I'm most anxious the boy should
have no disturbing indication of any change. If you leave too soon, his sense of security will be gone, so isn't it reasonable to ask you to put your own affairs aside, just for a little while?"
"Reasonable! Do you think reason has anything to do with Trevayne demands?" she exclaimed with a sudden revulsion of feeling.
He must have sensed the withdrawal behind her little spurt of indignation, for he said placatingly:
"Have I got off on the wrong foot again? I only meant that the boy is fond of you and wouldn't take kindly to losing his Moo-moo. If it's a question of money, Laura, which of course I should have thought of before, I will naturally see that you have an adequate salary."
"And a generous bonus at the end?" she said tartly, remembering Cleo's words, and he failed to catch the rising inflection in her voice.
"Certainly, if that's what you would expect," he replied with sudden stiffness. "I quite understand that you have a living to earn, and your cousin has already taken up too much of your time without any payment. Naturally, if you agree to stop on with us, I will see that you're not out of pocket."
It was too much, thought Laura, feeling that rarely indulged temper of hers rising in a spiral inside her.
"I wouldn't," she said, beginning to speak with such unfamiliar shrillness that he gave her a sharp look of attention, "accept a penny from you—not if I were starving'. Cleo warned me you had this in mind—a generous bonus for a privileged employee, she said—a discreet settlement for ser- I vices rendered which closes the book and puts everything on a comfortable, commercial footing. If you—if you dare hand me a cheque when I leave, Dominic Trevayne, I'll tear it up and—and I'll spit in your eye!"
She began to cry, and he took a quick step towards her, and would have taken her in his arms if she hadn't backed away.
"Laura, my dear—I've been clumsy—I had no idea of hurting you," he said, and his voice was the dark voice she
had once so fancifully assigned to him, a voice which, at any other moment, would have proved her undoing. "What the hell has that damnable cousin of yours been saying?"
"Only what's true—only what you've just said yourself," she cried, not even pausing to consider whether "damnable" wasn't rather an odd way of alluding to one's future wife. "If I stay at all, it will be for Nicky's sake and his alone, and you can keep your money—you don't owe me anything—but I don't think I will—stay, I mean. I've had enough of being pushed around with no thought—no thought at all, I may tell you, that I have private feelings—yes, and private silly dreams, too, of my own."
"Oh, God damn it! Why in hell did you have to go and lose your stupid little heart to—" he began violently as she turned to make her escape, and as if on cue, the door opened noisily and Peregrine stood there, regarding them both with a very merry eye.
"What—ho" he said, catching Laura as she bumped blindly into him. "Did I interrupt a tender moment? But no, the girl weeps—serves you right, you fickle jade, transferring your favours as soon as my back's turned! There's women for you, Dom!"
"Take your hands off her and get out; you're drunk!" snapped Dominic, but Laura clung to Peregrine, saying: "Take me away, Perry ... take me away out of this house ..."
"With pleasure, my pretty—we'll nip down to the local and have a cosy little get-together in the bar parlour. That will soon revive your flagging interest in me," Peregrine said, and with a knowing wink at his brother, put a firm arm round her and led her from the room.
"Do you think I'm drunk, Miss Bread-and-butter?" he enquired of Laura, rocking backwards and forward on the balls of his feet while he watched her with interest. She had stopped to cool her burning forehead against the cold bronze of the unicorn, and he observed with curiosity how her fingers began exploring the model's outlines, running with loving tenderness over the arching neck and tapering horn.
"I wouldn't know," she said indifferently, trying not to sniff. "I thought you were going racing."
"So I did, but I left before the last race, and the pubs not being open yet, had never a stop on the way."
She smiled, beginning to regain her self-possession in the earthy comfort of his familiar line of bravado.
"I bet you saw more of the beer-tents than the horses," she said. "Why are you back so early? We thought you'd be sure to make a night of it."
"Call it curiosity—or maybe a slight sense of guilt, if you like. I wanted a word with the fascinating widow, as a matter of fact. Felt I'd rather left her holding the can after this morning's little display of fireworks. Did she get the rough side of Dom's tongue?"
"Maybe at first—she did seem in a bit of a state, only—"
"Only the clever puss turned it all to her advantage and winkled Dom's future plans out of him?" "Yes, I think so."
"And you gleaned, dear Cousin Laura—"
"Only that she said her schemes were working out very nicely and she thought it was time I went home."
"Did she now? And was Brother Dom expressing the same view—thus causing tears and high words?"
"No, he wants me to stay—until he and Cleo marry, I presumed."
"O-ho ... did Dom mention marriage, might one ask?"
"Nobody ever comes out with anything definite in this house, I've come to the conclusion," she exclaimed, and pressed a hand so violently down on the unicorn's horn that its tip pierced the skin. She stood staring down at the little bubble of blood welling up from the wound, and Peregrine said with a rather wicked glint in his eye:
"Now you've done it! The beast of the house has put his mark on you and you're caught!"
"It's the unicorn that has to be caught," she corrected him with faint reproof, and he grinned.
"So it is. Well, you'd better clean it up—those perishing trophies and phoney antiques must be hatching with germs
I don't suppose anyone ever dusts them. How's the kid? None the worse for his fright, I hope?"
"Nicky?" She caught the handkerchief he tossed to her and alternately dabbed at the little wound and her own tear-stained face. "He's all right. He recovered very quickly with gentle handling."
"The healing touch of the head of the family proving itself superior in the end, one takes it," he said on the old jeering note of resentment, and Laura looked up.
"Why don't you leave the boy alone now?" she said, quickly. "You've had your fun at Dominic's expense; give him a chance now to follow up today's advantage. He really cares, you know, and you don't."
He looked at her serious face bent again over her hand. A thin shaft of sunlight caught unexpected gleams in the mousy hair and in the bronze of the unicorn outlined behind her head.
"Go and do something about your face and meet me down here in half an hour or so, and we'll nip down to the pub for a quick one," he said. "I want a word with Cousin Cleo, so that'll give you time to repair the ravages that my dear brother seems to have left on you. Stick a piece of Elastoplast on that hand—be seeing you!" .
He went up the stairs, two at a time, and pausing at the head to look down, saw her still standing there, her back to the unicorn, looking down absently at her bandaged hand.
'Silly coot!" he muttered, and turned the handle of Cleo's door.
She was still sitting at the dressing-table where Laura had left her, putting the finishing touches to her face, and he flood behind her, pulling her back against him.
"Hullo, sweetie ... Brother Dom torn a strip off you?" he said, rubbing his chin along her hair.
She gave a small, cross shrug as he touched her, then relaxed against him.
"On account of your nice little disp
lay this morning?" she replied. "No, curiously he didn't. Who would have suspected Dom of softness?"
"Haven't you yet got on to the pariah streak in Big Brother? Softness—or perhaps it would be more polite to call it tenderness—is Dom's pariah streak. That's why he's not for you, my pretty—far better make do with what you've got,"
"But what I've got doesn't include want I want," she said.
"Is marriage so important? You're thoroughly amoral, darling, as you've often admitted, so why should you care?"
"Because," she said, "even today it's easier to get by with one's passions lawfully sanctioned. I'm not prepared to live furtively, even for you, darling."
"But you're prepared to carry on the affair if someone else gives you the protection of marriage?"
She turned to give him a curious look.
"Well, weren't you?" she said, and was genuinely surprised by the lack of immediate agreement in him.
"Yes, I suppose I was," he replied, sitting down on the bed and allowing himself to sprawl. "But some things do tend to stick in the gullet, you know—even mine. Do I take it, then, that you've brought Dom up to scratch? No, I can see by your face you haven't. What, might one ask, did Big Brother's proposition amount to, then? Not the expected offer of marriage, I take it."
For a moment she was tempted to spill the whole humiliating story, admitting her premature bungling of the affair, but Perry, though he undoubtedly wanted her for himself, wasn't to be trusted not to make mischief should it suit his book, so she replied quite calmly:
"He suggests that I hand over Nicky to him, in return for which he will make me an allowance at my own price."
"Well, what d'you know! Why the hell quibble about a little thing like marriage? Jump right in and grab your opportunity with both hands," he exclaimed, rolling over on the bed.
"Oh no, if Big Brother wants Nicky he's going to have to pay for him in more than hard cash." "Meaning?"
She shrugged, and he added slyly, "The little cousin, of course. Well, remember unicorns, my dear."
"Oh, really, Perry! That crummy old legend!"
