The Gated Road

by Jean S. MacLeod

  Jane found Adam perched on a pair of steps fastening one end of an evergreen chain to the central post of the minstrels’ gallery while Marion worked on a lavish floral display above him. At that time of year the Priory rhododendrons were just coming into exquisite bloom, and she had picked the best of them.

  “They’re lovely!” Jane breathed. “They’ve given so much life to the hall!”

  “This is what it should always be like, eh, Marion?” Roger Malchatt said coming up behind them. “It’s a shame to see these grand old houses shut up for want of a suitable tenant. But maybe this will give Adam the right idea!”

  He laughed uproariously, and Jane looked swiftly at Adam, knowing how much he disliked this man, but Adam would not give Roger the satisfaction of a reply.

  Marion, however, had laid down the flowers she had been arranging and was standing, tensed and still, above them. It seemed in that moment that she was waiting for Adam to speak or even to look up at her, giving some sign, no matter how infinitesimal, that Roger’s words had awakened some sort of response in him.

  The tense little silence ebbed away and Roger said with an awkward laugh, “Where would you like me to put the radiogram, Marion? I brought it over with me in case you might want to use it in the supper interval—or even this evening!” he suggested.

  “I don’t think anybody is going to feel much like dancing this evening, Roger,” Marion said crushingly. “You can leave it in the morning room, since you’ve brought it.”

  For the next hour Jane employed herself sticking the colorful heads of rhododendrons and azaleas through the chains of shining green foliage, which Adam looped expertly round the hall. Everywhere she went she was conscious of Marion—Marion watching, critical, antagonistic and resentful; Marion awaiting her opportunity to strike, like a powerful black python coiled ready for the attack.

  “I think that’s it!” she announced when the final decoration was in place. “Thanks a lot, everyone. I can’t say how grateful Adam and I are for your help.”

  Coolly, deliberately, she had linked her name with Adam’s, aware that the fact would not go unnoticed, and Jane saw the covert glances and the smiles on the faces surrounding her with a sinking heart. These people still believed her to be Adam’s fiancée, but some of them were quite prepared for fireworks. They were even secretly amused at the prospect of a tussle between her and Marion.

  Jane looked toward the door to see Nigel and Penny standing there. They had just come in and their faces glowed with the impact of the wind. They looked young and fresh and wholesome, and Penny had never looked lovelier.

  “I’ve got the most wonderful frock, Jane!” she cried as she made her way to where Jane stood. “Blue satin, with a gorgeous cherry-coloured stole! It fitted to perfection!”

  Such a simple thing had brought Penny so much happiness. “Come and eat!” Nigel commanded, pulling her away. “Marion tells me there are sandwiches and beer in the library.”

  “And coffee.”

  Jane turned to where the aroma of coffee filtered through from the kitchens. She had seen a look in Nigel’s eyes which had quickened her heartbeats, but she could not bring herself to believe in such a quick conquest. In one single afternoon how could Nigel have fallen in love with her twin?

  That Penny had him completely under her spell was obvious, however. During the remainder of the evening, when they danced to Roger Malchatt’s radiogram in spite of Marion’s first rejection of the idea, Nigel was Penny’s devoted slave. He partnered nobody else, and once or twice Jane caught Adam looking in their direction with a puzzled frown.

  Marion, too, could not help but notice the laughing couple circling the floor in each other’s arms for dance after dance, seemingly oblivious to time and place and responsive only to the music and the light they saw in each other’s eyes. She smiled a little when they passed her, but she made no comment, either to Adam or to Jane. She had the look of someone who was most carefully biding her time.

  “It’s after eleven o’clock, people!” she announced peremptorily at last. “Time that all good children were in bed! See you tomorrow, everybody!”

  Gradually the cars filled up, winding their way down the tree-lined drive. Marion stood under the bright light of the porch watching them go with an odd expression in her eyes.

  Adam and the Priory. The two were indivisible in Marion Denholm’s mind.

  Nigel and Penny set off in the smaller car and Jane went with Adam and Marion. All the way to High Tor, sitting in the front seat with Adam by her side, Marion kept up a running flow of conversation about hunt balls of the past, in which Jane could take no part. It was done deliberately to exclude her, but Jane was too busy with her own perplexing thoughts to mind very much.

  Anger against her twin was uppermost again by the time they had reached High Tor, and when Penny looked in at her bedroom door for a last goodnight she could not help saying:

  “You’re behaving disgracefully, Pen! If you came here to get Adam back you’re acting in the worst possible way. You won’t force Adam into anything by trying to make him feel jealous of Nigel. He’s not that type.”

  Penny’s eyes opened wide. She had come along the corridor from her own room armed with the new dress for Jane to see, and now she halted in the middle of Jane’s room with the utmost consternation in her eyes.

  “But, Jane,” she protested, “I don’t want Adam to feel jealous of anyone! Perhaps I did come with some idea of begging him to forgive me,” she hurried on to confess, “and he’s done that, but—but—Oh! you’ll never understand!” she cried.

  “If you want me to believe that you can fall in and out of love at a moment’s notice,” Jane retorted, “then I certainly don’t understand! What you’ve been feeling—for Adam and Stephen and Nigel,” she added with the deliberate intent to hurt, “has been nothing more than attraction. Sexual attraction, if you like. You’re a bundle of silly impressions about love that wouldn’t last for five minutes after you were married!” she ended furiously.

  “You’re still sore about Stephen,” Penny said.

  “I’ve forgotten all about Stephen Moreland!” Jane snapped, turning away.

  “Then—then it’s Adam?” Penny stared at her as if she could not quite believe it. “It is Adam,” she repeated.

  “Oh—please go away!” Jane cried. “It’s after midnight.” She felt that if Penny didn’t leave her she would crumple up on the carpet at her twin’s feet in ignominious confession of her hopeless love. “Please, Penny,” she added more kindly, “don’t make everything more difficult. Don’t play around with Nigel while you’re waiting for Adam. You’ll only end by breaking your heart in the process.”

  Penny ran to her own room and lay down on the bed and sobbed herself to sleep.

  Jane could not sleep. Tossing and turning from side to side, she reviewed the events of the past few hours and from there she traced the tortuous path of her own loving back to the moment when she had first met Adam.

  When the dawn came at last, she had done no more than doze off for an hour, but she could not catch up with sleep again. She lay listening to the sounds of the farmyard, sounds that were dearly familiar now, until she heard the men’s heavy boots on the cobbles and knew that Doris would be in the kitchen making the first cup of tea of her busy day.

  She rose and dressed, not very happy about facing anyone this morning, especially Adam, but he had already gone out when she made her first appearance in the hall.

  So had Nigel, and she presumed there was extra work to be done before they got ready for the ball.

  Marion came downstairs, announcing that she intended to spend the entire day at the Priory.

  “It wasn’t my intention to come back last night, but I thought I should,” she intimated. “Now there are all sorts of people to meet and organize. I want the Priory to look lived-in. Adam is carting wood for the fires, so it ought to look homely enough. I think that he feels as I do about the old place,” she added pointedly.
/>   Penny arrived late for breakfast, looking rather shamefaced.

  “I’m sorry about last night, Jane,” she apologized humbly. “But I still don’t think you understand.”

  “We’ll not speak about it,” Jane said tightly. “I’m sorry I didn’t take time to admire your dress.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Penny said wistfully. “It looked nice in the shop, and Nigel said he liked blue.”

  That was the ultimate test, Jane supposed, trying not to give way to anger again, and when Penny wandered off with Nigel, who had come to collect her, she divided her morning between Helen’s room and the kitchens, where she helped to prepare the midday meal.

  Adam brought his mother through to the dining room for the first time in eight weeks. They stood waiting for her—Jane and Penny and Nigel, with Doris hovering solicitously in the background, her eyes suspiciously moist as she played her small part in that happy moment.

  Helen Drummond walked with a proud step. She was still very frail to look at, but her unquenchable spirit showed through like a beacon light, illuminating her pale face and shining clearly in her eyes.

  It was the happiest meal they had ever shared at High Tor, Jane realized when it had come to an end. Penny and Nigel had kept Helen amused reciting their adventures on the way to the Priory when the tea urn had bounced off the back of the car and rolled down the hill behind them, garlanded in paper chains, before it had been stopped by a surprised shepherd and his equally surprised dog. Adam excused himself at last.

  “I’ve promised Marion to get in some wood,” he explained to Helen. “Emmerson is carting logs down from the high wood. I’ll have a load sent up here, too, now that you’re able to come into the hall for an hour or two.”

  “There’s nothing like a log fire,” Helen agreed, “especially in these old stone houses with their great chimneypieces. I’ll be picturing the Priory tonight with the chandeliers lit and the wood fires burning,” she added, “and I think I shall be feeling sorrier than ever for Marion. She has a passionate love for her home.” Adam did not answer, but before he went out he looked at Penny.

  “I think you ought to come and help,” he said deliberately, “if Jane can spare you.”

  “I’ve only my dress to iron,” Jane said, trying to keep her voice casual when, to her own ears, it seemed to reflect all the envy and heartbreak she felt. “Do you want a meal when you come back?”

  “A very light one, I should think,” Adam decided. “You’ve no idea what you’ll be expected to eat at supper!”

  Penny rose to follow him, casting an enquiring glance in Nigel’s direction as she crossed the room.

  “I’ll be down later,” he assured her. “Chores to do, and all that, but they won’t take long.”

  He seemed quite cheerful about his work now, willing to do his fair share before he began to play, and Helen smiled across at Jane as he followed the other two from the room.

  “Penny and you are very much alike in a lot of ways,” she observed thoughtfully, “but it still isn’t as confusing as it might be, even although you look identical. Penny would throw her hat over the windmill tomorrow if occasion demanded. She’s like Nigel—full of life and laughter.”

  They stood at the window watching Penny and Adam drive away. Penny was smiling back at Nigel. She appeared to see no one else, not even the watchers at the window, and Niger stood on the grey cobbles long after his brother’s car had passed from sight, watching the little swirl of dust that the wheels had lifted.

  Marion came back to High Tor to dress for the ball. They were all gathered in the hall when she came slowly down the stairs. The wall sconces were lit and a bright wood fire burned between the ancient andirons, sending orange tongues of flame licking up the wide chimney. Their reflections played gently on the white walls and among the high rafters, laying soft fingers on the old, darkened oak of the stairs and on Marion’s brilliant red dress. Set against such a muted background of soft colors it was a flame and a challenge, and Marion had drawn her raven-black hair up on to the top of her head in a sort of plated coronet.

  The whole effect was boldly magnificent and fearless, Jane thought as she looked at her. Marion was the natural complement to her surroundings, the confident, assured chatelaine of a place like High Tor, although it was the Priory that Marion coveted most.

  “I shall have to go on ahead, Adam,” she announced. “There’s no need for the others to hurry over, but I shall have to be there before the first of our guests arrive. Probably Colonel Melidew,” she added dryly. “His sense of punctuality unnerves one at times.”

  Adam had been pouring drinks and he looked up as she joined the circle round the fire.

  “Do you want me to take you?” he asked.

  “If you would.” Marion had expected it. “Most people will expect you to be there in advance, too, you know.”

  She had stressed his position as the new owner of the Priory, but her manner suggested so plainly that it was a shared position. Adam passed her a drink and turned to Jane.

  “You’ll come down with Nigel and Penny,” he said. “I’ll leave Nigel my car.”

  “We’ve time for another drink,” Nigel suggested. “And a word with Mother. She wants to see how we look before we go. It’s the old maternal instinct raising its head, I suppose. Clean behind the ears, and all that! She can trust Adam, but not me!”

  “It reminds me of the days when we used to go to Brampton for the ball,” Helen told them. “That was over thirty years ago,” she mused with a hint of wistfulness in her quiet voice. “There’s been a lot of changes in the dales since then—cars instead of the carriage, and television, and imported dance bands instead of the local talent—but you’ll just enjoy yourselves in the same way. Not a whit better and none the less!” She stretched out her hand to Jane, and then, impulsively, she drew the errant Penny toward her, too. “Be happy,” she instructed, “and see that Nigel behaves!”

  They reached the Priory as the first guests were going in. The lovely old house was ablaze with light and Adam’s huge log fires spread their welcome.

  On the staircase, standing on the wide bottom stair, Adam and Marion were waiting with the joint master of the hunt to receive their guests.

  Marion gave Nigel’s party a thin smile, but Colonel Nollis shook Jane warmly by the hand and grinned broadly as she introduced her twin.

  “For a moment I thought I was seeing double!” he roared jovially. “But it’s too early in the night for that, eh? Never seen anyone so alike!” he declared, nudging Adam. “Which one are you going to marry, old boy?” he demanded.

  Jane froze where she stood. She could not look at Adam, and it was Penny who saved the situation by saying, with an arch smile at the Colonel, “We’re going to have lots of fun leaving you to guess, Colonel Nollis! After all, it’s a party night!”

  When the dancing began she found herself in the small group that had formed about Nigel and her sister. Wherever she went Penny was immediately popular, and Nigel could not hope to claim her for every dance.

  “How will you manage?” she whispered to Jane. “About your ankle, I mean. Do you feel up to dancing for several hours?”

  “I’d forgotten about the ankle,” Jane said truthfully. “I won’t dance all the time.”

  “Will you come in with me, Jane?”

  Adam had crossed the hall and was standing at her elbow. He looked so tall and distinguished in his red coat that her heart lurched foolishly and a sudden mist of tears rose to her eyes. He saw them immediately and his jaw tightened as he looked across the room to where Nigel and Penny were standing waiting for the March to begin.

  “Come on!” he said briskly. “We’ve got to help lead this thing off!”

  Marion stood at the head of the long, gay column of dancers with Colonel Nollis, but she was vitally aware of Jane and Adam as they approached.

  So much conflict, Jane thought. So much that could only be straightened out by Adam in the end!

  The Marc
h was a magnificent procession round the room. It was an old-established custom which had been a feature of hunt balls in the dale for as long as anyone could remember and would probably open similar functions for years to come. With her hand on Adam’s arm, Jane looked about her at the color and the glitter, at the sheen of satin gowns under the crystal chandeliers and the dramatic note of the men’s red evening coats, feeling suddenly part of it all and aware of a moment’s almost unbearable happiness which would have to last for the rest of her life. Adam so near, so kindly possessive as he guided her through the intricacies of the first formations made her heart ache with a bittersweet longing to capture this moment forever. Adam with his arm about her and his heart beating strongly against her own! Adam hers for the space of a dream!

  When the dance ended she was flushed and her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

  “That was wonderful!” she confessed impulsively. “I never dreamed that I could dance it—all the way through.”

  He danced with her several times, in between duty dances with his tenant’s wives and the odd square dance with Marion. He seemed different tonight, somehow, no longer the remote hillsman who might rebuff her at any moment but a charming host determined to see that she enjoyed herself. If it was out of pity for her, she told herself that she did not mind. To be here—to be with him was enough.

  When supper was announced he guided her toward the buffet, although it was no more than seconds before Nigel and Penny joined them.

  “Having a good time, Jane?” Nigel asked.

  “Heavenly, thank you!”

  Jane could have embraced the whole world but, suddenly, across the buffet table she was looking into a pair of pale gray eyes which glinted ominously in the candlelight.

  Marion held her gaze for several seconds before she turned sharply to follow Roger Malchatt to the far side of the room.