His face looked suddenly gray in the moonlight and strangely hollow about the eyes. It was obvious that he was speaking under great stress, and Jane was instantly reminded of Angela.
“Do you think we should go?” she suggested unsteadily. “The others must be wondering what has happened.”
“Nigel has gone down the dale with the idea that you might have fallen into the Aise!” His tone was lighter now. “His concern was quite touching, since Nigel rarely thinks of anyone but himself. Perhaps you could even reform him, Jane,” he added dryly.
She could not understand the bitterness in his voice, because she believed that, fundamentally, he was fond enough of Nigel.
“And your mother?” she asked, ignoring the remark.
“We said you had gone out and would soon be home.”
The word twisted in Jane’s heart like the turn of a knife. It kept recurring, yet High Tor would never be her home. Adam, if he ever married, would choose someone else, someone more suited to the life he led, who would not wander helplessly about the moor or get locked in a tower because of her own stupidity.
Marion, for instance, would have known about the wind and not left the door open behind her.
Marion! Marion! Her name, her presence, was everywhere, skulking in the shadows even behind when Adam and Jane were alone. Jane rubbed her hand across her eyes, as if to obliterate the vision of Marion and shivered.
“Cold?” Adam asked as they walked toward the door.
“Only thinking what a fool you must consider me,” she confessed. “Anyone who knew the moor would never have done a thing like this.”
He said: “Don’t worry about it. Now that I’ve found you there’s no need for alarm.”
“Is Marion out looking for me?”
“No.” There was a pause before he added, almost harshly: “Marion believed that you had gone off deliberately.”
She turned on the top step before they left the hall, where she could still see his expression quite clearly.
“And you, Adam?” she asked.
His eyes came down fully on hers, searching them for a moment before he committed himself to an answer.
“I didn’t think you would do such a thing,” he said. “I believe you have become too attached to my mother for that.”
Jane’s heart lifted a little. There had been nothing personal about his reply, but at least he believed that she would not willingly hurt his mother.
It was the simplest thing in the world for Adam to swing himself from the third step down on to a narrow stone ledge that ran around three sides of the wall. From there he could reach the bolt above the door with an ease that only seemed to underline her own helplessness, and when the moonlight sped through the open doorway to envelop them in its friendly light Jane saw that he was smiling.
“Were you very scared?” he asked.
“Horribly!” She managed an answering smile. “Do you think anyone was ever shut up as a prisoner in the tower?”
“Dozens of people!” he assured her. “It even possesses a fair-sized dungeon, now blocked up for safety. The captive ladies were always kept in the tower, though.”
He was making an effort at light conversation for her benefit, Jane realized, while all the time his thoughts must be with Angela and the home he had sought to make for himself in the grim fortress that rose darkly behind them against the moonlit sky.
He did not turn. He walked on rapidly, putting distance between them and the tower as quickly as he could so that she knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that he wished she had never gone there.
CHAPTER FIVE
When they reached High Tor, Jane went straight to Helen Drummond’s room, well aware that Adam’s mother would not settle down for the night until she had seen her.
“I thought my wild family had scared you away,” Helen said haltingly, her thin hand raised from the coverlet as she smiled her greeting.
Jane knelt down by the bed, flushing excitedly.
“Mrs. Drummond, do you realize that that’s the longest speech you’ve made?” she cried. “You’ve just strung a whole sentence together without difficulty!” Her eyes were shining as her fingers fastened securely about the weak one on the quilted cover, quilting done by that very hand. “It’s wonderful! And it’s only the beginning!”
Helen nodded, her lips trembling into a generous smile, her fine blue eyes reflecting much of Jane’s obvious joy. Behind the happiness, however, there was the faintest shadow of uncertainty, a sadness only half acknowledged as she looked toward the door in search of her son.
“Adam?” she asked. “Did he find you?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “I was foolish enough to walk too far.” Somehow she could not confess to Helen that she had gone trespassing into Adam’s secret stronghold on the ridge of the hills, because she felt sure that Helen Drummond had loved Angela, too. “My ankle isn’t very strong yet.”
“It will improve if you walk.” Helen was still looking at her intently. “You will—stay—Jane?”
“A little while.” The words had choked against Jane’s throat and suddenly she felt that Helen knew all about their deception. “I should never have come, Mrs. Drummond.”
Helen shook her head.
“Try—to tell me,” she suggested slowly. “I’ve known—you see, for—quite a while.”
What would Adam say to this? What would he think when he heard that his mother already knew?
Jane explained the situation to Helen, leaving out no detail.
“You were so very ill,” Jane said at last. “We couldn’t risk telling you the truth.”
“And Adam made you stay.” Helen nodded as she looked into Jane’s distressed eyes. “He would do that—to protect me. I expect the doctor had told him that—I wouldn’t live. You see,” she added when she had taken a deep breath, “how wrong doctors can be sometimes!”
“This time it has been like a miracle,” Jane said thankfully. Helen lay back among her pillows, tired out by the effort she had made, but when Jane rose to go the thin hand detained her and the blue eyes were turned fully to hers.
“You—and Adam...?” she asked hopefully.
“No!” Jane cried before she could stop herself. “That isn’t possible! Adam could never be in love with me.”
Strangely enough she was thinking of Angela; thinking that Adam’s love for Angela Denholm had influenced him far more than the attraction that he had felt for her twin.
Mrs. Drummond looked sadly disappointed and too tired now to pursue the point.
“There’s still Nigel,” she murmured sleepily. “If only—you would take Nigel in hand, Jane. You are—the sort of steadying influence Nigel needs.”
Jane smiled wanly.
“I think Adam has some such idea,” she said, “but Nigel may not think it the perfect solution,” she added unsteadily.
“He will,” Helen said, her eyes closing. “He will.”
Jane went from the room to find Adam waiting for her in the hall. He was alone, standing before the fire, and he turned when he heard her step on the surface behind him. She had not expected him to be there, had not thought to encounter him so soon.
“Adam,” she said without preliminary, “your mother knows.”
He looked at her sharply.
“About Penny and me,” Jane went on. “I think she has known for a day or two. I’m sorry I had to tell her. I know it was your job, but—but I couldn’t lie to her any more.”
“There was no need,” he said briefly. “It’s difficult to lie to anyone like my mother. How did she take it?”
The color stole into Jane’s cheeks as she remembered Helen’s alternative suggestion.
“I think she had got used to the idea,” she said.
“And you?” he asked. “What will you do now?”
“I ought to go,” she answered tensely. “Your mother’s not being strong enough to be told was the only reason for my being here.”
He had turned back to the fire an
d she could not see his expression, but she supposed that he must be relieved.
“Have you already made your plans?” he asked.
“No.” The monosyllable fell into the silence between them. Jane felt desperate. There ought to be something she could do. “I’ve been very happy nursing your mother,” she confessed. “Perhaps I could take that sort of work up when I go back to London.”
“Companion to elderly ladies?” He looked round with a sudden mocking light in his eyes. “It wouldn’t suit you, Jane, because all the elderly ladies wouldn’t be like my mother. Some of them would be tartars and you wouldn’t know how to deal with them. You’d feel sorry for them. As sorry as you felt for me when you first came here,” he added dryly.
“Please, Adam!” she begged.
“All right, I won’t remind you about that—even to save you from the old ladies. Besides,” he added without expression, “you’ll marry.”
“No!” Her voice was thick with pain. “That would be no solution, Adam.”
He laughed abruptly.
“A woman can never be so sure of that as a man,” he asserted. “They need protection in the end.”
“Not always.” Jane said. “And I mean to find something to do—soon. My period of convalescence is almost over.”
“Supposing,” he suggested, “that I asked you to stay here, at least till my mother is on her feet again?”
Jane’s heart filled with joy. She could not suppress it, although she knew that Adam had meant it when he had said that this would be only a temporary measure.
“Your mother half suggested it just now,” she confessed, without mentioning Helen’s suggestion about Nigel. “But what would Marion feel?”
“About your staying?” He looked surprised. “Marion would have to get used to the idea,” he decided autocratically. “Besides, she hates a sick-room. Marion never did pretend about that sort of thing.”
No, Jane thought, Marion did not pretend. She didn’t pretend to like people who got in her way, nor would she give any quarter once she had openly declared war.
“Well,” Adam asked, “what is it to be?”
Jane found her eyes drawn to his by the very force of his determination. He needed her here at High Tor—for the moment.
“I’ll stay,” she promised, “so long as I’m needed.”
“You’re very generous,” he said, “and I hope you won’t regret it. There will, of course, have to be some sort of discussion about a salary—”
“No—please!”
“I won’t hear of it otherwise,” he told her firmly. “You’ve just said that this is the sort of work you would like to take up in the future. The elderly ladies would pay you, Jane.”
She couldn’t tell him that this was different, because to Adam there was no difference. He was employing her to nurse his mother in an emergency and, by so doing, he would save himself the embarrassment of too much gratitude.
“If you think it would be best that way,” she agreed. “But I feel that I have such a lot of repayment to make.”
“That’s nonsense,” he declared abruptly. “I’d have to get in a stranger if you refused.”
She moved toward the kitchens and he watched her go without a word.
She felt desperately tired after her adventure, but it was ages before she was able to sleep that night. She had eaten a solitary supper and gone to bed without seeing either Marion or Nigel, and in the morning Nigel had gone out before she appeared for breakfast.
Marion was just finishing hers.
“Where did Adam eventually find you last night?” she asked, pouring herself a second cup of coffee. “He has been very reticent about the whole stupid business.”
Jane flushed.
“I went for a walk on the moor,” she explained, “and I suppose I bit off more than I could chew. I got as far as the Peel Tower and inadvertently shut myself in.”
It was no more than the simple truth, but it had an electrifying effect on her inquisitor.
“You went to the tower?” Marion’s face looked curiously gray. “Why?”
“I had no idea I shouldn’t have gone,” Jane said, countering the question. “I was tired and I went in. I found the door open.”
“Adam doesn’t expect trespassers up there,” Marion said deliberately. “He’d be furious when he found you.”
Jane did not contradict her. She had a peculiar feeling that Marion had been shaken by the unexpected revelation, and not just because her younger sister had met an untimely death at the Peel Tower. The shadow of fear had been in the opaque gray eyes which watched her relentlessly, but in the next instant Marion was asking guardedly:
“Was Nigel with Adam?”
Jane shook her head.
“I haven’t seen Nigel since yesterday at lunch,” she remembered. “I think he went down through the dale to look for me when I hadn’t come back by tea-time.”
“You must feel flattered,” Marion suggested, “stirring up so much attention when everyone is so busy. Adam came back from Selkirk and had to go search for you when he had other things to do. He wasn’t exactly pleased.”
“I’ve already apologized to Adam,” Jane said stiffly.
“So I believe.” Marion’s tone was dry. “He also tells me that he has more or less had to offer you a job looking after Mrs. Drummond, but he could quite easily have employed someone else—some qualified person.”
“Adam asked me to stay with his mother till she was on her feet again,” Jane said defensively. “She doesn’t really need professional nursing. It’s more or less companionship she needs.”
“Does she know yet that you and Adam have been deceiving her for the past three weeks?” she asked.
“Yes.” Jane answered the question with some satisfaction. “She knows now.”
Marion’s eyes narrowed.
“I see,” she mused. “All is forgiven and forgotten, is it?”
“I hope it’s forgiven,” Jane said.
She moved toward Helen’s door and had entered the room before she became aware of the sound of voices. Adam was there, sitting beside his mother’s bed as Helen enjoyed the early morning cup of tea he had brought her.
He rose as Jane hesitated in the doorway.
“I’m just going,” he assured her. “There’s a marvellous change in her speech.” His gray eyes were full of relief as he looked at Helen. “Don’t let her tire herself too much till Fenwick sees her.”
Helen was gazing from one of them to the other with a puzzled smile in her eyes.
“I’ve told her you’re going to stay,” Adam said to Jane.
Helen nodded, her blue eyes shining now.
“We will all be happy,” she declared slowly. “Nigel especially.”
Adam turned abruptly from the bed.
“Nigel needs young company,” Helen continued, as if to herself. “Perhaps we have been too harsh with him...”
“He also needs discipline,” Adam said. “But don’t worry too much about it. Jane may be able to help there, too.”
For a terrible moment Jane felt trapped, wondering if she were being gently chivvied into a love affair with Nigel, but although Helen’s eyes still remained expectantly upon her flushed face, Adam’s grim expression told her nothing of his feelings on the subject. He had donned the old mask, which, if it could not quite be called indifference, certainly did not reveal any personal emotion.
“I’ll bring your breakfast tray, Mrs. Drummond,” she said, and was gone before Adam could offer to do it for her.
The following morning she was busy in the kitchen when the housemaid came through carrying Helen’s breakfast tray.
“I wish to goodness Mr. Nigel would stop away from these goings-on in the dale,” the girl said explosively as she set down the tray. “It will only start off another row, and the poor mistress lying there not so very far from death’s door!”
Doris was a small, stout person with honest eyes and a ruddy complexion heightened at the present m
oment by her obvious indignation.
“Mr. Adam would kill him if he knew he was going back there again,” she added when Jane did not speak.
“Going where, Doris?” The fingers of sudden fear had fastened about Jane’s throat.
“To them there cock-fightings!” Doris stood with her bare arms akimbo in the stream of sunshine which slanted through the window. “They’re mighty cruel things, miss, and the police are out to break them up. They’re illegal, you know,” she added wisely. “Folks gamble away fortunes at them, I’ve heard tell!”
Jane caught her breath. It was the kind of thing that Adam would abhor, as Doris had just pointed out, and suddenly she was remembering the guarded references that had been exchanged at Fother Gill before Nigel had driven her back to High Tor.
More conflict, she thought; more dissension at High Tor, and quite possibly a scene when Adam discovered the truth, the impact of which might even reach the invalid in the downstairs room.
For Helen’s sake, as well as for Adam’s, Jane felt that she must argue Nigel out of this foolish adventure.
Adam had gone on to the hill, but Nigel came in at one o’clock, eating his lunch in a preoccupied manner.
Jane followed him out into the yard, where she found him putting extra petrol in his car. He looked round at her rather guiltily and she said at once:
“Don’t go, Nigel. It’s going to cause a lot of trouble if you do, and it’s not worth it.”
He did not pretend to misunderstand her.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “It’s good fun.”
“You don’t really think that” she challenged. “I don’t know much about it, Nigel, but it sounds a horrible sort of thing to watch. Besides, it’s against the law, isn’t it?’
“Nobody can find out,” he began aggressively. “The place is always changed.”
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