by Sara Seale
"Gentle and undemanding—a little like you, dear child, as I remember, in her fondness for legends and day-dreaming. Zachary, of course, was much too old for her—he could have been her father—and he never, you know, understood a woman's needs other than the physical. She found her solace in books and verse, and Dom, of course ... he was the only one she had, you see, to share her private dreams and follies with, and that's made him different from the other two."
"Yes, I see. He missed her very much, didn't he?"
"Well, he was eight when she died and old for his age— old enough to have passed the formative years. Don't the Jesuits say 'Give me a child until he's seven'—I forget the rest of it," Bella finished, and Laura said, reflectively:
"I suppose that's what Dominic feels about Nicky. You know, of course, he wants to bring him up here."
"Oh, yes. Dom feels very strongly that the boy's mixed blood will prove a dangerous heritage if there's no firm hand to guide him."
"Mixed blood?"
"Well, your cousin is no more stable than Troy was, dear child, you must agree." "You don't like Cleo, do you, Bella?" Laura said, but Bella
replied with faint surprise:
"I don't feel very strongly either way, dear child, since she will not be among us for much longer."
"But, Bella," Laura began, "you must know, surely—I—I think they mean to marry—to settle the problem of Nicky that way, you know."
"Really, dear child? Oh, I don't think that would settle anything—unicorns, you see, are not for her," said Bella, and drifted away.
Really, reflected Laura a little crossly, Bella could be most exasperating at times, but the mention of unicorns reminded her that her hand felt no less painful, despite Dominic's professional dressing last night, and was beginning to swell a little.
"Do you think it's getting gangrene or something?" she asked him quite seriously later in the day, and although he replied with solemn ridicule that undoubtedly the hand would have to be amputated, when he took the bandage off he said she had better see a doctor.
"I'll drive you down to St. Mewan after tea. You probably need an antibiotic injection," he said, but in the end it was Peregrine who took her, a Peregrine behaving once more very like a spoilt child.
He had, when Nicky had come down for tea, made a great play for the boy's attention, never doubting he could recapture the old allegiance with a few jokes and a conspiratorial incitement to mischief, but Nicky would not go near him, sidling round the tea-table to sit as close as he could to Dominic. All Peregrine's blandishments met with the same sullen lack of response until Dominic told him rather sharply to leave the child alone; but Peregrine could leave nothing alone that savoured of personal defeat, and Nicky suddenly and very disastrously found his tongue.
"I hate my Uncle Perry!" he announced to the room at large. "He's cruel and wicked and—he's not my unimecorn any more!"
Cleo laughed and even Bella smiled, but Peregrine, displaying the injured pride of a schoolboy made to look ridicu-
lous in front of his elders, hurled a cup across the table at Nicky, who shrieked as it smashed in pieces, and flung himself upon Dominic in a torrent of tears.
"Oh, for God's sake, don't behave like a child yourself, Perry!" Dominic snapped, then lifted the boy on to his knee and set about soothing him, while Laura said quickly:
"Perry can take me. Don't miss your chance, Dominic. You've got him where you want him, and it won't hurt for once to turn a blind eye."
He frowned, then smiled at her a little ruefully and obediently hoisted the child to his shoulders for a piggy-back up the stairs.
To Laura's relief, Cleo decided to go into St. Mewan with them for the ride. She was glad not to be the sole recipient of Peregrine's sulks and grumbles and thankfully left them to their sparring while she waited her turn in the surgery. By the time she came out again they appeared to have reached an amicable understanding and dropped her back at Penzion, then went off to spend the rest of the evening together.
Laura went up to the nursery to relieve Dominic of his charge and found them both happily engaged in building a house of cards on the floor, at least Dominic was patiently building, and Nicky, with unholy shrieks of joy, was blowing it down.
"I never get a chance," Dominic complained, getting to his feet. "This terrible north wind blows my house down before I reach the second storey."
"Story!" shouted Nicky, who was very quick on word association.
"In a minute. What had the medico to say about that hand, Laura?"
"He thought I would live," she smiled. "No, seriously— he said the wound had gone a bit septic but an injection would put that right, and I will say it feels better already."
"Story!" insisted Nicky, dancing up and down with impatience, and Dominic picked him up and sat him on the deep,
half-circular window-seat covered with a patched and faded nursery chintz.
"Well now, suppose we get Moo-moo to tell us both a story," he said, and Laura sat down on the opposite half of the semicircle to them and folded her hands.
"Well, once upon a time ..." she began, and he sat watching her, remembering this was a favourite and characteristic pose of hers. Thus had she sat on a stool in the book-room, her feet neatly together and her hands folded in her lap like a little girl. She looked like a little girl now with the light brown hair curving about her neck, and the great, clear eyes as wide and solemn as Nicky's.
He was not paying any great attention to the story, which appeared to concern the abortive nuptials of a fearsome-sounding prince rejoicing in the name of Lindworm, who gobbled up a succession of brides on their wedding nights. The unfortunate gentleman was apparently under a spell, for all came right in the end when the third bride, who clearly had more nous than the other two, bade him slough his skins, of which he had ten, and he was disenchanted.
The story seemed to come to a rather abrupt end with Laura looking slightly pink, and Nicky said accusingly:
"You left out the part when she had to take him in her arms and kiss him when he was still all ugly and slimy, Moo-moo. It's the importantest part of all, because if she hadn't kissed him when he was horrible and scary, the spell wouldn't have worked'."
"Yes, well ..." said Laura rather lamely, and Dominic directed a steady gaze on her faintly embarrassed face and tried to keep the amusement out of his eyes.
"Very remiss of Moo-moo to omit the proper ending," he agreed solemnly. "I think she thought my feelings might be hurt."
"Because of your face?" the boy enquired with renewed interest as, tired of sitting still, he began to slide off the window-seat.
"Well, you found my face scary once, young man." " 'Course I didn't! Not when I knew it was a pirate made
that funny mark with his cutlass—besides, you're a unimecorn now, and that's different," Nicky retorted.
"Oh, Laura ... !" Dominic murmured with tender ridicule, and she smiled reluctantly.
"Yes, I suppose it was rather silly of me," she admitted. "I don't know why I should have imagined you'd be sensitive about your scar, which is really rather distinguished in a buccaneering sort of way."
He laughed and said:
"You are very absurd, and very endearing."
"Endearing?"
"Does that surprise you? I'm beginning to wonder, you know, if I've been misled on certain matters." Then he took her suddenly by the wrist and jerked her round to face him.
"I want you to stay," he said abruptly. "In spite of your threat yesterday to spit in my eye!"
She considered, with that thoughtful solemnity she had at times, and said:
"I was in a temper then. I'll stay, of course, as long as Cleo needs me here."
"Thank you," he said gravely. "Your cousin's plans are, I think, nearly decided on."
"And they are the same as'yours?"
"I hope so."
She looked away, finding it difficult to sustain that very blue regard for long, and sighed. The transformed burrows seemed to
lose their magic, and the old hound, Rowley, slowly crossing the lawn dragging his hindquarters, stabbed her sharply with the sad reminder of the brief transience of life.
"Poor old dog—he hasn't got much longer, I'm afraid," Dominic said, his eyes following her, and she shivered.
"Your heart's too tender," he said a little roughly. "Life will hurt you, Laura, and so will people unless you grow a protective skin."
"Have you found that?"
"Oh, yes, but with me it has to work in reverse, you see. Like your bedevilled Prince Lindworm, one has to learn to slough the skin," he replied unexpectedly. "I sloughed one
last night when you so surprised me up there on the headland."
"It's not," she replied, as she had on another occasion, "very fair to remind me of a—an indiscretion. I was not at all myself."
"Weren't you? Was I, after all, only a substitute for Perry?" He spoke too lightly for her to read anything other than a kindly offer of escape from embarrassment into the casual question, and remembering Cleo's hints and even his own upon occasion, she answered as lightly:
"Perhaps. I'd better start getting Nicky ready for bed. It's long past his time."
"I see," he said with a complete change of voice. He was already on his feet, and stood for, a moment looking down at her, tall and lean and hard, once more the dark stranger withdrawn behind those unexplained defences. She put out a tentative hand as if she would detain him, but he turned abruptly on his heel and left the room.
The days of that holiday week were filled with the casual comings and goings of the household, but it was scarcely a holiday atmosphere.
Going upstairs one morning, Laura passed by Cleo's room.
The door was open and Cleo herself appeared to be having an unaccustomed urge to sort out her clothes. Dresses were piled on the bed, shoes thrown all over the floor, and Cleo herself looked untidy and decidedly cross.
"What are you doing?" Laura asked, poking her head round the door.
"Finding little jobs for you, darling; broken shoulder-straps and missing buttons. You might as well come in and help me sort. God! What a state my things are in—they look like a rag-bag!"
"Well, you never hang anything up, so what can you expect?" Laura observed with that bright little air of practicality which amused Dominic but annoyed Cleo.
"You might," she went on good-temperedly, "have given me your mending as things wore out instead of in one great lump. What do you want done first?"
"The lot. I shall be going away quite soon," said Cleo casually, and Laura stiffened. "When?"
"Oh, in a week or so—possibly sooner. It depends."
It depended on Dominic's arrangements, Laura presumed, experiencing a sudden little sick stab of dismay that time at last was running out and this was the reckoning.
"Well, let me know your dates as soon as you can," she said, striving to sound matter-of-fact and casual. "I shall have to give the hostel good notice of my return or they'll be booked up."
Cleo raised a delicate eyebrow, and settled more comfortably into her chair.
"Oh, will you be coming too?"
"Naturally. You'll need help with Nicky on the journey,
anyway." "Nicky's staying here."
"Oh!" Laura sat down on the bed, feeling a little weak. Cleo had, she knew, been closeted in the book-room with Dominic for some time after supper last night, and evidently a decision had been reached then.
"I understood from Dom you had agreed to stop on and look after Nicky," Cleo said. '
"I agreed to stop on as long as you need me here," Laura replied.
"Then you must sort that one out with Dom, mustn't you, darling?"
"Cleo, have things worked out as you hoped ... have you settled Nicky's future?"
"Things seldom work out as you hope, my dear, as you'll find out for yourself, but yes, things have worked very well, and yes, I've settled Nicky's future."
"And your own?" Laura did not know why the question she wanted to ask stuck in her throat, unless it was for fear that once the answer was given the frail solace of a foolish dream would be gone, and Cleo, too, seemed in no greater mind to be more definite.
"Mine? My future has always been in the lap of the gods,
darling, and I like it that way," she said with her lazy, catlike smile.
"But you'll be coming back here?"
"Oh, yes, I'll be coming back, my transparent little simpleton, so don't start getting ideas above your station again."
And that, thought Laura, of course answered the question. Naturally Cleo would be going away for a time if for no other reason than to collect a trousseau. She gathered up a pile of mending and took it along to the nursery.
CHAPTER TEN
The week had nearly ended, and Laura, feeling aggrieved that no one had troubled to take a day off and suggest one last expedition to send her away with pleasant memories of Cornwall, said to Dominic:
"Couldn't you—I mean, if I'm going so soon, I would like —I haven't even seen the quarry yet, let alone the places Bella promised me that day of our picnic."
"Are you going?" he said, with that infuriating suggestion of polite surprise. "I understood you had agreed to stop on."
"I agreed to stay as long as Cleo needed me here, but as she's going soon—"
"Is that all she told you?"
"Yes—except that she'd be coming back."
"I see. Well, Nicky will need you in the meantime, won't he?"
"I suppose so. Dominic—"
"Don't fuss about things that don't concern you, Laura. If, as you say, you agreed to stay so long as your cousin needed you here, she will obviously need you until she can make other arrangements for the boy, won't she?" he said dismissing the matter, but Peregrine was more co-operative.
"What a shame, poor Miss Bread-and-butter! Well, what about tomorrow? I'll run you round to see sights if you'll say where you'd like to go."
"It doesn't matter," she said. "I would like to have seen the quarry before I go, but that wouldn't be much of an outing for you."
"Why not?" he said. "We could take the brat and, between us, win him back to his poor Uncle Perry, who's been too long in the doghouse. Yes?"
"All right," said Laura, not very enthusiastically. Peregrine, she knew, had been absurdly riled by Nicky's continued refusal to make friends again, but the boy at least provided an
excuse for the curtailment of unwelcome attentions.
"Why don't you come too, my pretty?" Peregrine said to Cleo the next afternoon when they were about to start, but when she replied languidly that perhaps she would, just for the ride, he said rather quickly:
"Think again, then. Three's company, etc. We don't, of course, count your son and heir, who'll probably be sick, anyway."
"Why did you suggest it, then?" she snapped, not unreasonably, but her eyes rested on Laura with a distinctly jealous gleam which he saw and enjoyed.
"For possibly the same reason that you deserve, yourself, for evening up the score," he said spitefully, and they at once became embroiled in one of their quarrels.
Laura withdrew out of earshot with the boy, wishing she had declined the invitation. Nicky had needed very tactful persuasion when he had understood it was his Uncle Perry and not his Uncle Dom in charge of the expedition, and the heated words being flung back and forth at the moment only seemed to be proof that both protagonists were jealous. If Laura felt surprise that she could cause her glamorous cousin a moment's uneasiness where another was concerned, the knowledge gave her no satisfaction. She only knew a fleeting compassion for Cleo, who, though her desires were so plainly centred on one man, was still prepared to make do with another because that union paid off best.
The quarrel seemed to have abated, and Laura pushed the boy forward again in time to hear Peregrine say:
"Don't be such a clot, you little fool! Do you think I care one way or the other? I've a few scores to settle up, that's all, and this is as good a way as any."
"Am I
supposed to guess what's in your tiny mind?" Cleo drawled in her husky voice. "A rather dull inspection of the Zion Works doesn't sound very promising to me."
"Nor it is, my sweet, except that I'll have the brat back where I want him by the time we return—but you can keep on guessing—and keep Big Brother guessing, too, if you're clever."
Nicky had created a diversion by sitting down on the gravel, and expressing a desire to stop at home, so most of the rather meaningless little exchange was lost, but as Laura lifted the reluctant child into the car and took her place beside him, she felt a twinge of uneasiness.
"Why don't you come, Cleo?" she asked her cousin impulsively, but Cleo, apparently restored to her normal indifference, shook her head and shrugged.
"Oh, no, darling—two's company and three's none, as Perry has just pointed out—besides, I've other fish to fry," she said, and went back into the house.
The irrational disquiet Laura had experienced as they drove away was soon dispelled in the novelty of having the intricacies of quarrying and the production of china clay explained. Peregrine was an excellent guide, and when Nicky tired they left him playing happily in a sheltered sandpit. Laura was fascinated by the filter process, and the clay stream flowing through the mica drays like a fabulous river of clotted cream, but the deserted buildings and the gaunt skeletons of idle machinery depressed her.
"Oughtn't we to be going? There seems to be a mist coming down, and Nicky will be getting cold in that sandpit," she said, and his smile was suddenly a little unpleasant.
"I'll go and fetch him," he said. "In the meantime, my pretty Laura, I'm going to lock you in here till I get back, just in case you go falling into one of the quarries. Be seeing you!"
He had slipped out of the door and locked it behind him before she had time to recover her breath and expostulate, and she ran to one of the windows to watch which direction he took. He appeared to be going towards the sandpit, and presently she saw him returning with the boy, but though she could not imagine why he had seen fit to play such a childish trick on her, she was not alarmed; but the mist rolling up from the sea and across the moor seemed to be thickening rather rapidly. She had read about these west country fogs which could suddenly blot out the countryside in an impenetrable blanket, and decided they must get the boy back to
