by Sara Seale
“Too tired,” she said, and cuddling her face into the snow, closed her eyes again.
He shook her roughly.
“You must wake up,” he said. “Here—take a pull at this—it may put some life into you.”
He unscrewed the top of his flask and held it to her lips.
She choked a little and tried to push it away, but he held it firmly until he was sure a good portion of the spirit had gone down her throat.
“Now,” he said, “if you don’t want me to slap you hard, put your arms round my neck and hang on.”
This time she obeyed him. He pulled her out with no difficulty, for she was ridiculously light, but as she stood on firm ground again her legs crumped under her and she began to cry.
“Oh, they hurt,” she sobbed. “Hold me, Adrian. I can’t stand.”
“It’s only the blood running back into them,” he said, his arms tightly round her. “Very agonizing, but it will pass. Here—prop yourself against the rock and I’ll rub them for you.”
He rubbed vigorously, pushing back the turn ups of her wet slacks, working mercilessly with his strong pianists’ hands until she cried out with the pain. But it passed as he said it would and she leaned against him, shivering with cold, but able to stand.
He examined the cut on her forehead, but it was not serious, and he wound the spare muffler round her neck and made her drink some more whisky.
“Did you knock yourself out when you fell, do you think?” he asked her, but she could not tell him that. She only remembered banging her head as she slipped in the drift, and wanting to go to sleep.
She began to giggle.
“Dear Adrian ...” she said. “How extraordinary you coming to find me in the snow like a St. Bernard with a cask of brandy round your neck.”
“It’s lucky I did,” he retorted. “You wouldn’t have been here to tell the tale in the morning if you’d been left to your slumbers. Like poor Lucy, you’d ‘never more be seen.’ ”
“Who’s Lucy?”
“Never mind. Are you fit to walk now?”
“I think so, but I’d much rather snuggle up to you! You’re so nice and warm. Are you angry, Adrian?”
He gave her a little shake.
“Yes, I am angry. Of all the idiotic foolhardy things to do! You deserve a good spanking and I’ve a damn good mind to give you one. At least it would warm you up! Come on, now. Walk fast and pray to your favorite saint that you won’t catch pneumonia.”
It was an anxious journey for Adrian. She seemed so cold and often he was obliged to stop and let her rest. Then she would lean against him for warmth and comfort, snuggling her head into his shoulder, begging him to let her sleep.
When at last they reached the house, he was glad to see that her lips were less blue. She looked exhausted but the violent shuddering had stopped and he handed her over to Nonie with instructions to wrap her at once in blankets and prepare the hottest bath she could manage.
“Ah, me poor child!” the old woman exclaimed. “Sure Miss Emma must be out of her mind and she with no notion of what she was doin’. If I’d known ‘twas Paddy-the-Sheep you were after visiting, I’d not have let you go without Nolan for company. Sure, Mr. Flint is the only wan in this house with a head on him, an’ he English at that an’ not knowing our ways. Is it drunk you are that you can’t stand up, an’ you with the smell of the craythur on you the like of which I’ve never known outside the saloons.”
“It’s not all inside me,” Sarah giggled. “Adrian poured it in my shoes. Just think, Nonie darling, all that good whisky sloshing about in my shoes.”
“Och, that’s an old gillies’ trick. I’d not be giving the English the sense for it. Come on out of that, now, me bold girl, an’ lep out of them wet clothes.”
Nonie began stripping her regardless of Adrian in the doorway, and he nodded to her and went away, leaving them together in the warm kitchen.
He found the family subdued. They had all been given the rough side of Nonie’s tongue in his absence, and Aunt Em said a little timidly:
“You must think us very thoughtless, Mr. Flint. I hadn’t realised, I suppose, what might have happened. We —we’re most grateful to you.”
Kathy was regarding him with big reproachful eyes and he said with an effort:
“I’m sorry if I was rude to you, Kathy, but I was worried.”
“I understand,” she said in her soft voice. “Is—is Sarah all right?”
“She’ll be all right if she doesn’t get pneumonia,” he replied a little shortly. “You’d better take her temperature as soon as she’s in bed, Miss Emma.”
“I don’t think we have a thermometer,” Aunt Em said vaguely. “Danny broke the last one trying to get the mercury out.”
“Nolan has one for the cows,” said Danny helpfully.
Adrian moved impatiently. Heavens, what a family! Nothing ready for emergencies, and probably not even the simplest first-aid box in the house.
“Well, I suppose you have aspirin and hot-water bottles in the house.”
“Oh, yes,” said Aunt Em brightly.
“Then pack her with both. No, on second thoughts, leave the aspirin to me.” If he left it to Aunt Em she was quite capable of administering half the bottle in a moment of abstraction.
He looked in on Sarah before supper and found her curled up in a very large bed with two half-grown greyhound puppies peering out from under the eiderdown.
“How do you feel, now?” he asked, placing a cool hand, on her forehead.
“Lovely,” she said sleepily. “Nonie simply boiled me and I’ve had a huge bowl of soup. It was very kind of you, Adrian, to come and rescue me. Are you still angry?”
“No. I had to be angry to get you home. You kept wanting to go to sleep on me.”
“You were warm and kind of comforting. Do you know I kept confusing you with my father.”
“Did you, Sarah?”
“Yes. I think I still do. Isn’t it strange?”
“Not altogether, only you’re too young, still, to understand the reason.”
“Am I? How queer. It’s a good thing you have meals downstairs, now. I wouldn’t be able to bring your tray up tonight.”
“I’ll carry yours up instead.”
“It isn’t,” she said, burrowing into the pillows, “correct for the lodger to carry up trays to the landlady.”
He stood looking down at her, his hands in his pockets. “But when one has such a feckless landlady anything may happen,” he said and added: “I didn’t know you went to bed with a couple of puppies.”
“I don’t as a rule. But I’ve been bringing them in since the snow. They feel the cold, poor, things. You see, they’re the only ones left from the rickety litter. I still can’t find homes for them.”
“You were too soft-hearted to put them down?”
“I’m not soft-hearted, but they were young and full of life, and—and, well, I couldn’t, Adrian. I’ve found homes for all of them except these two.”
The puppies wriggled and beat apologetic tails under the eiderdown. They peered at Adrian with bright, trustful eyes.
“You and your lame dogs,” he said. “You’ll never run a business, Sarah. Now, here’s a couple of aspirins to make you sleep, and let’s hope you’re none the worse. Do you still feel shivery?”
“No, I feel lovely,” she said, and reached put a hand to take one of his. “Thank you, Adrian, for coming to find me. It’s nice to be looked after.”
“Then I’d better appoint myself as guardian from now on,” he said, giving her fingers a squeeze. “But if I’m going to look after you, mind, I expect to be obeyed.”
“In all things?” she asked, smiling sleepily.
“In all things. Now go to sleep. That’s the first order.”
Sarah was lucky, in Adrian’s opinion. She caught a bad cold but nothing worse. She was doubtless running a temperature, he thought, looking down at her flushed face in the morning, but her breathing seemed normal, and
he told Nonie that a couple of days in bed would probably put her right.
Sarah enjoyed all the attention. Adrian carried up her trays, her family looked in at all hours of the day and Nonie reverted to nursery days with her commands and admonitions. In the afternoons Adrian brought his gramophone into her room and played her the records she had begun to recognize and love, and she would sit propped up against the pillows looking like a little girl with her straight, childish fringe and the young, touching hollows in her slender neck.
“You know,” she said to Adrian, “in all these years, I’ve never known the family so attentive. Did I give them a fright?”
“I think I gave them the fright,” he answered humorously. “I’m afraid I was a little rude to your sister.”
“To Kathy?” she said with surprise. “No one is ever rude to Kathy. She’s so gentle.”
“You admire gentleness?”
“Well, one feels one has to guard it, don’t you think? Now me, I’m not gentle. I’m tough.”
“Not so tough,” he said with tenderness. “But you’ve had too much to carry.”
“Have I? But, you see, Father relied on me. That’s why he left me Dun Rury.”
“Yes, well—do you remember what I told you that day at St. Patrick’s Well?”
“About my father and Dun Rury being one?”
“Yes.”
“You said it wasn’t healthy, but I still don’t see why.”
“I think I was trying to point out that it was dangerous to transfer an affection to some inanimate object which simply became a symbol.”
She lowered her lashes.
“Can one do the same thing with a living person?” she asked, and he glanced at her sharply.
“Yes, I believe it’s quite common—especially in the very young.”
“And is that unhealthy, too?”
He smiled, and pushed the fringe back from her forehead; “No, I don’t think so. Sometimes it’s the basis of something very lasting and precious—providing, always, of course, you pick the right recipient.”
She reached out for his hand.
“I expect I’ll understand one day,” she said.
“I expect you will.”
“Do you think it’s the snow?” she asked suddenly.
“The snow?”
“The snow that’s changed things. Being cut off, I mean. Things have changed, haven’t they?”
“Have they, Sarah? Yes, I suppose they have, though I think the change is more in yourself.”
“How?”
“Perhaps you don’t fight me as much as you used to.”
“Did I fight you? Yes, I suppose I did. Dear Adrian, I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know what?”
“I’m not sure.” She sounded suddenly sleepy. “But you’re nice. You’re my very ... nicest ... lodger...”
Kathy came to see her, and sat on the end of the bed asking questions about Adrian.
“What does he talk about ... what does he do when he comes up here?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes he plays me records, sometimes we just talk—I don’t know what about.” She only knew that the old ache had gone.
“He’s nice, isn’t he?”
“Very nice. Not really the Flinty One at all.”
“I never did think so, but perhaps I understood him better.”
“Did you, Kathy? Do you understand him now? I don’t always.”
“I think he’s just looking for something—something to fill the gap.”
Sarah stared at her and her eyes were afraid.
“Something to fill the gap,” she repeated a little forlornly. “Perhaps we all have gaps to fill—”
“Not you, Sarah,” Kathy said in her gentle voice. “You have Dun Rury.”
Sarah looked at her, and the strange security of the last two days slipped from her.
“Kathy—” she said, but her sister looked past her.
You have, haven’t you?” she said with gentle persistency.
“Yes,” said Sarah bleakly. “And I thought you had Joe.”
Kathy bounced off the bed with a sudden impatient movement.
“Oh, Joe!” she said. “You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about Joe as much as you have about Dun Rury. I’m fond of Joe, but it’s finished. Understand that, Sarah, it’s finished.”
Sarah was to get up the next day. Aunt Em brought her a glass of hot milk before going to bed and stood, twittering with satisfaction that her cold seemed so much better.
“It’s much milder, and Nolan says it’s thawing at last,” she said. “It will be a relief when things are normal again. No mail for so long, and the whisky’s running short. I must say Mr. Flint is a great surprise, carrying trays and shovelling snow. He didn’t seem to expect to do a hand’s turn when he first came, shutting himself in the nursery and ringing bells and all.”
“Why don’t you call him Adrian?” Sarah asked lazily.
“Well, dear, I’ve never got used to the modern habit of Christian names on short acquaintance, and he’s not a boy, if you understand me, and he pays to be here, and—well, I find it more natural to address him formally. But he’s easier than I expected, I must own, and so charming to Kathy. He’s reading poetry with her now in the snug.”
“Is he? Aunt Em, sit down a minute. Do you find Kathy different these days?”
“Different?” her aunt said vaguely. “In what way?”
“Well, it’s hard to explain. But she seems touchy—difficult. I thought at first it was because of Joe, but now I don’t know. Have you noticed?”
Aunt Em sat down beside the bed.
“Well, dear, she’s unsettled,” she said. “We’ve been cooped up for so long, and then you see Mr. Flint has unsettled her.”
Sarah lowered her lashes.
“Yes, that’s what I thought.” The ache was back again, now. “He—he’s so different from Joe, isn’t he?”
“Well,” said her aunt a little apologetically, “I’m very fond of Joe but I can understand that for a girl like Kathy he wouldn’t stand much chance against a man of Mr. Flint’s accomplishments.”
“No, I suppose not. But Joe—it seems so cruel—he can’t help being what he is.” Sarah suddenly began to cry, and Aunt Em looked at her a little anxiously.
“There’s no need for you to be upset, dear,” she said mildly. “After all we can’t fall in love to order, can we? Joe will get over it.”
“Poor Joe,” wept Sarah. “Poor, poor Joe .”
A sudden suspicion crossed her aunt’s mind, and she smiled and patted her hand. Now that, she thought, following her own reflections, would be very satisfactory, very satisfactory indeed.
“Don’t worry, Sarah, it will all come right,” she said. “You’ve always been so faithful to Joe—that won’t go unrewarded. Now dry your eyes and drink your milk. It’s your cold that is making you feel depressed.”
But downstairs, in the snug, she said in answer to Adrian’s enquiry:
“Better I think, but I left her a little tearful. She seemed upset about Joe.”
“About Joe?” His eyebrows rose a fraction.
“Yes. Kathy, has it ever struck you that Sarah is really very fond of Joe?”
“Well, of course. She always has been,” Kathy answered, looking puzzled.
“But has it ever struck you that she might—er—care for him more deeply without realizing it?”
They both stared at her—Adrian with a slight frown between his eyes, Kathy with a dawning look of comprehension.
“You mean you think Joe and Sarah—oh, but Aunt Em, she’s always been so angry with me for not being nicer to Joe.”
“Because she’s always thought he wanted to marry you, but now—well, it is quite common for a man to marry on the rebound, isn’t that so, Mr. Flint?”
Adrian’s frown had deepened.
“So I believe,” he said shortly.
Aunt Em glanced at him. He did not sound very pleased, she thought, bu
t then most men were dogs-in-the-manger even when they did not want a woman themselves.
“It would be very suitable, you know,” she said gently. “They are such good friends, and of course it would settle the child’s future, and she could sell this place, or go on living here if Joe could afford it, which I rather doubt. He could go into Knockferry every day, and—”
Kathy interrupted her.
“Darling Aunt Em, your plans always run away with you,” she said. “Don’t forget Joe’s supposed to be in love with me.” There was a little droop to the corners of her mouth as if she did not altogether relish losing her old love to someone else. “He—he wouldn’t switch so easily, would he?”
Her aunt sighed. No, it did not seem possible that any man having loved Kathy could be content with someone else, but men, she knew, were strange, unpredictable creatures.
“Well, dear, men are susceptible to flattery, so my mother always used to say—not that Sarah ever flatters anyone, but she’s a good listener when she likes, and she certainly has been upset on Joe’s account for some time.”
“But she knows he’s mine,” said Kathy quickly, before she could stop herself, and Aunt Em replied gently:
“But you don’t want him, do you, dear?”
Kathy glanced at Adrian under her lashes. It was the same secret look which Sarah sometimes gave him. Would he, Kathy wondered, ask her to marry him? Would she still want Joe if she was sure of Adrian?
“I don’t know,” she said slowly, then added hastily: “No—no, of course not. I told Sarah so only this evening, and if she wants him—well, I suppose it would be a solution in a way. What do you think, Adrian?”
“I think I’m going to bed if nobody minds,” he said, and got to his feet. “These family matters are rather beyond my province.”
He went upstairs slowly, watching the shadows advance before him in the light of his candle. Sarah’s bedroom door was ajar, and as he passed she called out: “Is that you, Nonie?”
“No, it’s me,” he said, pushing the door open. “Did you want anything?”
“Only some lemonade to drink in the night, but it doesn’t matter,” she said, turning her head restlessly on the pillow.
