“Who am I to forbid you?” he demanded. “You don’t owe me anything, Jane, in that respect. Roger Malchatt is by far the richest bachelor in the district, and you’re quite at liberty to accept his invitations if and when it pleases you.”
“Even when I’m supposed to be engaged to you?”
“That won’t last for ever,” he said savagely, striding away in Marion’s wake.
He had brought the car round by the road, parking it at the end of the drive so that it would save them the return over the stepping stones, making it unnecessary for Adam to take her again into his reluctant arms, Jane thought bleakly.
When they reached High Tor, Adam garaged the car and went straight to his mother’s room, while Jane went through to the kitchen to prepare Mrs. Drummond’s tea tray. Marion, riding up over the hill path, would not return much before six o’clock.
“Hullo!” Nigel greeted her, coming in from the yard in her wake. “Where have you been?”
“At the Priory.”
He whistled.
“With Adam?”
“Adam went to the home farm, but Marion met us and she took me to the Priory.” She turned to face him, the tray in her suddenly shaking hands. “Nigel,” she asked, “what happened to Angela Denholm?”
Nigel had been taken utterly by surprise. He looked so confused and unhappy that she felt genuinely sorry for him
“She’s dead,” he said heavily. “She died four years ago.”
He turned away, the memory overpoweringly poignant for a moment.
“Did she die at the Priory?” Something beyond Jane’s control seemed to be forcing the reluctant words from between her dry lips. “Forgive me, Nigel,” she begged, “but I’ve got to know.”
His face was completely devoid of color when he looked at her again.
“Angela didn’t just die,” he said. “There was an accident.”
Jane’s swiftly indrawn breath was like a sigh in the silence of the firelit room.
“Adam didn’t always live here,” Nigel went on, as if forced now by some inner urge to unburden himself. “He didn’t hit it off very well with the old man, for one thing. There were always rows. They couldn’t see eye to eye about the sheep, and I dare say Adam was right enough in a lot of the things he said and did, but they both had fair tempers when they were roused, so Adam considered it best to remove himself to a safer distance. He furnished the Peel Tower and went to live up there. He’d always wanted to do that, anyway. It was a kind of obsession with him, living up there on the edge of the fells where so much history had been written in the past.” He forced a brief, uncertain laugh. “He’s had one desire, and one only, and that was to set High Tor back on its feet again and to possess a good stretch of grazing land in one of the sheltered dales.”
There was a half-grudging admiration in Nigel’s young voice and Jane’s thoughts flew to the sheltered, secluded Priory lands standing half hidden in the shade of their ancient beeches. Adam had gained his heart’s desire in that direction, but somehow she knew that he had never really coveted the Priory as a home.
“Nigel,” she asked, her voice not quite steady, “did Angela die at the Peel Tower?”
“They brought her down here,” he said slowly, “but it was no use. She died within the hour, without regaining consciousness.” The last few words were a soliloquy. He appeared to have forgotten Jane and it was as if he were wrestling with a heavy burden of doubt and indecision, an old burden that had pressed on his conscience for months and was now constantly with him, plaguing him and irking him beyond endurance at times.
“She fell,” he continued after a moment, as if the conversation had not been interrupted by his own heavy silence, “from the turret window. Nobody knows how it happened. It would have seemed impossible if we hadn’t found her there, lying crumpled up in a heap at the foot of the tower.” He covered his face with his hands. “It was ghastly. Ghastly!” he repeated. “She was so full of life—so right for Adam and High Tor.”
“I’m sorry,” Jane said, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “I shouldn’t have made you talk about it, Nigel. I shouldn’t have asked about Angela.”
He looked up at her.
“Are you in love with Adam?” he asked.
“Isn’t that to be taken for granted?” Jane said unsteadily, hating herself for the deception now more than ever and wishing that she had the right to tell this impulsive boy the truth about her visit to High Tor. “Why did you ask, Nigel?”
“Because, if you’re not, you ought to tell him so. The longer you wait the more terrible it will be.”
“I wish I could explain something to you,” she said impulsively, “but I can’t. Not just yet. Adam understands me. Don’t worry about my possibly deceiving him. I don’t think anyone could deceive Adam for very long.”
“Then,” Nigel said, “if you’re not in love with him—”
“Please,” Jane begged, “can we leave it there?”
She could not say that she was not in love with Adam. It seemed now that she had been in love with him all her life, but to admit to her love would only complicate matters when Nigel came to know the truth. He might not even be above telling Adam.
Her cheeks burned at the very thought and she turned away to hide the confusion in her eyes. In that instant Nigel’s hands came down, heavy and compelling, on her shoulders.
“I’ve often wondered about this engagement of Adam’s,” he said in a strange, clipped undertone. “It was so devastatingly sudden. He went to London on a business trip and the last thing in the world we expected was his return with a fiancée in the background.”
She tried in vain to shrug herself free of his imprisoning hands. He had no intention of letting her go quite so easily, however, and suddenly he was reminding her of Adam.
“This is quite ridiculous, Nigel!” she tried to add lightly. “If Adam came in and saw us he would wonder what on earth was happening.”
“Yes,” he said, and took his hands away. “I suppose all I wanted to say was that it’s a pity that a girl like you should have Angela hovering in the background all your life. Adam will never forget her.”
“You have no right to say such a thing!” she condemned him stormily. “It’s mean and despicable of you.”
“All right,” he said quietly, “I apologize! I’m a rotten sort of brother and all that, but I like you quite a lot and I don’t want to see you hurt.”
He gave her an odd, calculating glance, laughed again, and put a companionable arm about her shoulders.
“Come on, and I’ll show you the new lambs!” he offered. “I think we’re going to be good for one another Jane!”
CHAPTER THREE
Jane’s uneasiness was beginning to grow into a peculiar fear. To let Adam’s housekeeper intimidate her seemed absurd. Yet it was Marion, pale-eyed and ever watchful when she sat beside Helen Drummond or spoke to Adam, who dominated her thoughts at the end of a day, Marion who shut out even Adam from her mind at times because in some strange, almost hypnotic way, that was exactly what Marion had set out to do.
Nothing Jane said or did ever went unnoticed. Always she was conscious of Marion filing away each slightest reference, each unguarded remark, until only Nigel seemed willing to take Jane for granted. Nigel and his mother.
To Jane the knowledge of Helen Drummond’s unspoken affection became a rock to cling to in a suddenly uncertain sea. It was there always, mirrored in Helen’s shining, happy eyes, and Jane went often to the quiet, downstairs room where the mistress of High Tor lay, to find comfort and reassurance in Helen Drummond’s presence. Even when she found Helen asleep, she would pause beside the bed, as if to absorb some of the tranquillity that was always to be found there.
In all the rest of the house, the suggestion of antagonism and distrust was so strong as to be almost tangible. Long before she had come to High Tor in Penny’s stead, the enmity that she now felt so strongly had been kindled in Marion Denholm’s bitter, resentful heart.
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br /> And Adam? What did Adam, really think of Marion? He had known her all his life, and he could not help but admire her ability to deal with any situation that might crop up. There was, too, the sense of obligation he felt over his purchase of her old home. Obligation, perhaps, but not pity. Not even Adam would dare to offer Marion his pity.
Confused by her unaccountable fear, Jane found herself avoiding Marion whenever she could, but it was difficult, even in a house as large and rambling as High Tor. Marion’s presence dominated her wherever she went, and it was only when Nigel took her about the dale that she felt really free.
Marion did her best to encourage these outings. When she had any time to spare herself she was in the saddle, riding swiftly across the moor, urging Thunderer to what Jane would have considered insurmountable barriers if she hadn’t been so sure that Marion would clear them with ease. She was a superb horsewoman. Nobody in the dale could beat her.
Except, perhaps, Adam?
Jane had never seen Adam ride really hard, and he didn’t mention the point-to-point until he was quite sure about his mother’s recovery. When Doctor Fenwick finally gave them the news they had prayed for, he strode to the fire and stood with his back to the room for a second or two, hiding the tide of emotion which swept across his face.
They were all there: Marion, and Jane, and Nigel, whose joy was immediately articulate.
“This is terrific!” he said unsteadily. “You’re sure, Doctor Fenwick, aren’t you? There couldn’t possibly be any mistake?”
“I’m quite sure,” the little doctor beamed. It was a personal relief for him, too. “I’m not saying that she’s going to be up and about inside a week, mind you, nor that she will get the full power of her speech back right away, but the emergency is over. She will live—for a very long time, I hope—so long as she takes care in the next few weeks. No shocks; no surprises, unless they are pleasant ones.” Suddenly he was looking straight at Nigel. “There must be nothing to set her back, no worries or irritations that can be reasonably avoided until she’s on her feet again.”
Adam turned from the fire. His face was set, although some of the former strain had passed out of his eyes.
“You can safely leave that to me, Doctor Fenwick,” he said. “I shall make quite sure that she isn’t upset in any way.”
Marion turned, feeling in the pocket of her jacket for the inevitable cigarette, which she bent to light from the fire with a paper spill. She straightened slowly, watching Adam through the first haze of smoke.
“So life goes back to normal,” she observed. “I think we’ll all be rather thankful for that.”
“Almost to normal.” He met her pale eyes squarely. “Jane will be staying here, of course. My mother has come to depend on her a great deal.”
“But, Adam...” Jane tried to protest.
“She can’t possibly go before the point-to-point,” Nigel put in for the first time. “She’s never seen one, and I’ve promised her that she’ll enjoy every minute of it.” He looked from Marion to his brother. “You’ll ride now, I suppose, Adam?” he asked.
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Adam said remotely. “I ought to have scratched, I suppose, but I had other things to think about.”
“More important things, he means!” Marion laughed. “Are you afraid of being beaten, Adam?” she challenged.
He looked up, his eyes slightly narrowed as he met her mocking smile.
“Not fairly beaten,” he said. “If it’s a tussle for the salver, Marion, I don’t mind giving you a run for your money. Otherwise it might be too easy a victory.”
“You flatter me!” Marion assured him. “Or do you just want to prove to Jane how infallible you are?”
“Neither,” he returned briefly. “I think that perhaps it isn’t really good for anyone to have too much of their own way.”
“That goes for me, too, of course,” Nigel reflected when Adam had gone. “My brother is a great believer in discipline, even when it has to be applied to himself! I’ll drive you to the point-to-point, Jane, although you could quite easily ride over yourself now that you know one end of a horse from the other!” he grinned.
“I think I would be safer in the car, all the same,” Jane smiled. “I don’t want to get in anyone’s way.” She had caught the look of disdain in Marion’s eyes, but somehow she did not care. She made no pretensions to horsemanship and she did not think that Adam would expect it of her. “When exactly is the point-to-point?”
“On the twenty-second,” Nigel looked across at her and smiled. “You can’t possibly go away before then, Jane,” he pointed out. “Adam will expect you to support him.”
Marion stubbed out her cigarette with a small, vicious movement that suggested a barely subdued impatience, but she made no comment, either about the race or about Jane’s prolonged stay at High Tor.
The twenty-second of March, however, was a week ahead, and Jane had to discover whether Adam really wanted her to stay. Now that the doctor had pronounced his mother almost out of danger, he might want to be rid of the constant embarrassment of her presence at the farm as speedily as possible.
She found Adam in the stables. He was standing in the harness-room with a couple of new girths in his hand, but something in his strained attitude, in the taut look about him, made her pause at the open door. His back was to her and he said without moving:
“Why don’t you come in? I have a fairly good idea what you’ve come to say.”
Taken aback, she hesitated just inside the doorway.
“I thought that we ought to talk about it straight away, Adam,” she said nervously. “I know that all this has been very difficult for you.”
“And more than difficult for you.” He turned to look at her, the dominating gray eyes searching her face for the truth. “You can’t have wanted to stay here all this, time, and I owe you a deep debt of gratitude. I’m convinced, you see, that you have done more for my mother than Fenwick and all his drugs. You gave her hope for the future.”
“I thought you must want me to go at once,” she said. “It’s been an intolerable strain for you these past two weeks.”
He did not contradict her.
“I can cope with that,” he said. “It was you I was doubtful about.”
“You needn’t have been, Adam. I gave you my promise.”
“Promises can be awkward things to keep,” he reminded her. “Especially when the commitments begin to mount up. You took this thing on for a day or two, and now I’m asking you to see it through for a month at least.”
She turned to look at him.
“Will it be all that time before your mother is out of the wood?” she asked, disappointed for Helen’s sake.
“Fenwick says so. Apparently it’s a slow business.” Suddenly his mouth tightened. “But I won’t have her chances prejudiced now. We’ve got to go on with this thing—this wretched pretence—whether we wish it or not.”
“I think it would be easier,” Jane suggested, “if we told Nigel.” He stood looking down at her for a moment longer, a strange, half-questioning expression in his eyes, before he turned away toward the door.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I’ll find an opportunity of telling Nigel, but I think we ought to wait a day or two. He has a way of blurting out a confidence, which has its disadvantages on occasion, and I don’t think my mother is fit enough to hear the glad tidings that High Tor isn’t likely to remain in its present happy state for the rest of her life.”
Jane’s heart contracted with all the pain and longing of her own unhappy love. Nothing Adam had said had made it any easier for her to stay at High Tor, yet the fact remained that he had asked her to stay for his mother’s sake.
The days passed swiftly, with Helen beginning to take a keen interest in the coming point-to-point. Her eyes lit up when Adam told her that he would ride, but Jane saw sudden apprehension in them when Nigel announced that he had entered his father’s hunter for the main event.
The horse had a n
asty habit of baulking at a fence for no obvious reason, but it could go like the wind and Nigel declared that they understood each other.
“Satan’s all right,” he said easily. “And I want to give Adam and Marion a run for their money!”
Adam frowned, and Marion, who had just come in from one of her daily practice gallops across the moor, observed acidly:
“You won’t have a ghost of a chance in the Salver, Nigel. Satan’s getting too old and too bad-tempered for a long course over the sticks. He’d throw you in the ditch as fast as look at you, if he felt like it, and in a good many ways it would serve you right! You’ve never troubled to ride properly and you’re far too confident.”
They certainly didn’t mince words up here on the moor, Jane thought, seeing Nigel’s humiliated flush, but for once he made no retort. His mouth set in the determined line which made him look so like his brother, and the angry little flame at the back of his eyes glinted dangerously. Marion could raise the devil in Nigel and she seemed to take a delight in doing it.
The day of the point-to-point dawned gray and cold, with a mist hanging over the shoulders of the fells which obliterated everything.
Adam had been out early, long before he could possibly see without the aid of a lantern, and when Jane got down for breakfast there was a definite air of excitement about.
“Someone will have to take you over in the car,” Marion said, as she strode into the kitchen. “We can’t expect you to walk—or—ride—all that way. It had better be Nigel, I think. Adam’s going to ride Satan.”
Jane felt as if a ruthless hand had fastened tightly over her throat.
“But I thought the horses went over in trailers,” she protested.
“Satan would knock hell out of a horse-box in five minutes!” Marion laughed. “Adam’s going to ride him to take some of the fire out of him on the way over. It isn’t far.”
Jane felt decidedly uneasy, although she told herself that she was foolish to worry, especially about Adam.
The Gated Road Page 7
