by Sara Seale
“I’ll get it,” he said briefly, and went downstairs again. He could hear voices from the snug as he passed, Kathy and her aunt no doubt discussing the subject of Sarah’s future. He returned with the lemonade and put the glass and the candlestick on the table beside the bed, then stood looking down at her, his hands in his pockets. She lay in an uneasy huddle, a puppy each side of her, and her eyes were bright and wakeful.
“You’d be more comfortable without the pups,” he remarked. “Can’t they sleep on the floor?”
“They’re cold,” she said, and looked up at him, blinking a little in the lamplight. He looked severe, she thought, and rather disapproving.
“Were you going to bed?” she asked, for something to say. The way he was looking at her made her feel uneasy.
“I was on my way,” he replied, and she held out a hand.
“Stay and talk to me for a little. I feel awfully wide awake.”
“It’s getting late,” he said. “You should be asleep.”
“I’m not sleepy.”
“Then take some aspirin.”
His manner was abrupt and she thought he looked at her, with the old coldness. She remembered her aunt saying: “We can’t fall in love to order,” and sighed. Her thin, pointed face looked very small on the pillows, and when she turned her head to the light the traces of tears were still apparent. ‘
“Well, if there’s nothing more I can do for you I’ll say goodnight,” he said and picked up his candlestick.
“No, there’s nothing,” she answered in a small voice. “Goodnight, Adrian.”
She watched his shadow moving along the wall, unbelievably tall and thin. So had she watched her father’s shadow long ago and tried to call him back.
“Goodnight,” Adrian said again and softly closed the door.
It rained in the night, and the next day and the next they could hear the ice breaking up. All day and all night the small sounds heralding the thaw broke the long silence of their snow-bound world. The snow melted from the mountains and Sarah would watch from the snug windows the shining blanket of white slipping; from the shoulder of Slieve Rury. It would be some days yet before the south road was clear, but already grass was beginning to appear on the lawns, and yard and shippen were a mass of slush.
Sarah’s days were full, for the thaw brought havoc in its wake. Burst pipes, collapsing fences and a flooding of the barn which ruined much of the carelessly stacked hay. They all worked, even Kathy, splashing about in gum-boots and getting in the way. Adrian, helping with the rest, would sometimes look at Sarah in a puzzled fashion. She seemed older and at the same time more withdrawn since she had left her bed. He saw her very little alone for there was too much to be done, but it struck him that she avoided him if she could and it seemed always to be Kathy who took time off with him, or remained behind in the snug when the others had gone to bed.
Sarah, herself, found her emotions too confused to sort out alone. She only knew that with the coming of the thaw the strange intimacy of those snow-bound days had vanished as the snow itself was fast vanishing from the mountains, and she was back to the time when Adrian was a stranger with the trick of rubbing her up the wrong way. Only now he had also the power to hurt her. She would watch him lean over Kathy’s shoulder as she pointed out some line in a book of poems, observe the careless touch of his hand against hers and know again the old sensation of aloneness which her father and her sister used to give her.
“You have Dun Rury,” Kathy had told her. Yes, she had Dun Rury, the tangible mark of her father’s love for her, and none should take it from her.
When Adrian wrote his weekly cheque for her she said unexpectedly:
“As you’re not getting any of the things you’re paying extra for, Adrian, I can’t possibly go on taking the additional two guineas. Do you mind writing me another cheque, please?”
He folded the piece of paper and held it out to her.
“I thought we’d agreed to leave it for the present,” he said.
“That was weeks ago. You’re already paying too much for your two rooms. I can’t possibly go on charging you for extras you don’t have.”
His eyes twinkled.
“But I have the home comforts. Don’t they rate two guineas a week?”
She did not smile but only stood there, her hands behind her back, ignoring the cheque he still held out to her.
“The home comforts were a joke and not a very funny one,” she said, and he looked at her a little sharply.
“I don’t find them a joke,” he said quietly. “I’ve appreciated being one of the family very much.”
“You’re very polite,” she replied. “I don’t imagine that burst pipes and general chaos can have been the height of comfort.”
“Now you’re talking like a landlady.”
“I am a landlady and a pretty bad one. Please write me another cheque, Adrian.”
“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” he replied calmly. “And don’t tear this one up as I see by the glint in your eye you mean to do. It wastes twopence and I’ll only have to write another. Come on, Sarah, don’t be so stubborn. You know you need that two guineas. Remember the stable roof!”
“It’s very ill-bred of you to remind me of my poverty, and I don’t need your two guineas, so there!” she said, and he nearly laughed.
“Well, if you won’t be reasonable, I’ll have to take to having my meals in the nursery again, and I’d much prefer to remain with the family,” he said, but she only replied: “You must do whatever you think best.”
He seized her suddenly by the wrist.
“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded impatiently. “You’ve reverted to your old prickly self these last few days and are treating me like a stranger. Have I inadvertently upset you in any way? If I have, for heaven’s sake come out with it and stop being so childish.”
“You haven’t upset me at all,” she said with irritating calm, and went out of the room leaving the matter of the cheque undecided.
Sometimes in the evening they sat in the library so that Kathy might play for them, but Sarah would not sing. She made any number of excuses which caused Adrian to raise his eyebrows, but she would not sing for him.
“You’re being rather difficult, my lamb,” Kathy told her when they said goodnight to each other on one of these occasions.
“Because I didn’t want to sing? I had a sore throat,” Sarah said glibly.
“Your cold went days ago,” her sister told her with a smile. “But it’s rude to Adrian, Sarah. He likes your singing. You seem very snappy with him of late, and I thought you’d come to like him.” Kathy’s eyes were suddenly soft. “I—I want you to like him, darling.”
“Why?”
“Because—well, because I—I like him so much myself.”
“Are you in love with him?” asked Sarah bluntly. Aunt Em had hinted, but she had to know from Kathy.
Her sister put down the lamp she was carrying on the chest of drawers.
“I don’t know. I—I think I am.”
“Don’t you ever know?” Sarah asked with exasperation. “You didn’t know with Joe, and now you say you don’t know with Adrian. He’s not like Joe, you know, Kathy. He won’t wait patiently for years for an answer.”
Kathy’s eyes were dreamy; she was lost in the peaceful shallows of anticipation and she did not want to leave them. “He hasn’t asked me yet,” she said.
“Do you think he loves you?”
Kathy lifted her soft, childish face to her sister’s.
“He’s kissed me,” she said simply.
Sarah moved impatiently.
“Oh, Kathy, that’s not enough,” she said.
“He’s kissed me ... Joe used to kiss me and that was making love ... He tells me I’m lovely ... He once said I could melt a statue ... That was like a lover, wasn’t it, Sarah? And he’s always gentle with me. Joe was gentle with me and he loved me...”
Sarah looked round the room observing automa
tically the familiar little touches. Things had always been pretty for Kathy. Joe was gentle ... lovers are gentle ... Her own pain and Joe’s were somehow mingled.
“Goodnight,” she said.
By the end of the week the last of the snow had gone and only Slieve Rury still wore a cap of lacy white. The south road became passable again and Willie-the-Post delivered a mammoth mail for the household. It was mostly for Adrian and he spent the morning reading and answering letters and asked for a tray to be brought up at lunchtime. It was Mary’s half day, so Sarah took up his lunch.
“I’ll collect the tray when you’ve finished, then it will be out of your way,” she said.
“Don’t bother,” he replied with a smile. “I’ll bring it down myself.”
“It’s no bother.” Her voice was polite but he saw the old light of battle in her green eyes. “And it eases my conscience. Is there any other service you can think of?”
“Not unless you’d like to clean my shoes and wash out a few shirts and press a suit or two.”
“If you give me the shirts I’ll take them down to Nonie. I’ll clean your shoes but I don’t think pressing suits is much in my line. They’d better go to the cleaners in Knockferry.”
His eyebrows went up.
“I was only pulling your leg,” he said mildly. “I’m quite capable of cleaning my own shoes. What’s the matter with you these days, Sarah? You seem to have lost your sense of humor.”
“Perhaps I never had one,” she replied and walked out of the room.
“I may have to go to England for a few days,” he told her when she came back to fetch the tray. “I think I shall fly. It saves a lot of time.”
She moved towards the fire, feeling suddenly cold.
“Will you come back?” she asked bleakly.
He frowned.
“Of course I shall come back, unless that was a polite hint that you’d prefer me not to. You’ve been in a very odd mood this last week.”
“Kathy will want you back,” she said, and he looked at her sharply.
“Meaning that you don’t?” She was silent and he said, his voice suddenly gentle: “What is the matter, Sarah? Have I upset you in any way?”
She looked into the fire. Yes, he had upset her, but not in any way she could speak about, not in any way she as yet completely understood.
“No,” she said. “Have you told Kathy?”
‘Told Kathy what?”
“About going away.”
“Of course not. I’ve only just decided, Anyway, why should it matter to her?”
She looked at him then, and her eyes were accusing. “You know why,” she said sternly.
“My dear child, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, and neither, I should think, have you,” he said impatiently. “In any case you seem to be making a great to-do about a simple visit to England. I shan’t default on the rent, you know. It’s quite usual to pay a retainer for one’s rooms, so you won’t be out of pocket by my absence.”
The color mounted slowly under her pale skin. “That,” she said, “was a perfectly beastly thing to say. I wasn’t just thinking of the money, and you know that perfectly well.”
“What were you thinking of, then?”
“Things you wouldn’t understand.”
His eyes were unexpectedly tender.
“Do you think I don’t. Perhaps I understand better than you do. I learnt quite a lot about you while we were snowbound, you know. By the same token, I thought we had agreed that I was going to try and look after you. You’re not making it very easy, are you?”
“I think,” she said stiffly, “you had better forget any misplaced remarks I may have made to you on certain occasions. I told you at the time I got you confused with my father. You shouldn’t take advantage.”
He lost his temper.
“There are only two ways of dealing with young persons like you,” he said, jumping to his feet and suddenly towering over her. “If I were a woman beater, you’d have the spanking of your life. Alternatively, perhaps this will teach you a lesson.”
He took her by the shoulders and kissed her hard on the mouth, and in the same instant she caught him a stinging slap across the cheek.
CHAPTER TWELVE
His eyes were cool and steady but she was aware of the anger in them.
“Were you never taught that it’s very vulgar to smack people in the face?”
She was crying now with a mixture of rage and fright. “You’re no better!” she shouted at him. “You’re no better at all; in fact you’re worse! Kissing two girls at once and one of them trusting you.”
His anger went in a rush of tenderness for her.
“I wasn’t aware I was kissing two girls at once, but I’m glad to know you trust me, Sarah,” he said with his old raillery.
“I was speaking of Kathy,” she said, the tears bright on her lashes.
“Kathy?” He frowned. “Why does Kathy keep coming into this conversation? You surely don’t imagine I’ve been making love to her?”
“You have so. She told me.”
“My dear child!”
“Didn’t you kiss her and tell her she would melt a statue?”
“Dear me! Did I make such a trite remark as that? As to kissing, I did that under the mistletoe in front of your own eyes.”
She stood there, blinking back the tears, the anger slowly dying within her.
“But she thinks—oh, Adrian, don’t you love her at all?”
He shook his head and her anger blazed up again. “Then why did you pay her compliments? Why did you lead her to suppose ... Don’t you realize she threw Joe over for you? Poor Joe, who’s loved her for years. They were happy until you came here turning her head, quoting poetry, letting her think you admired her. You make me sick!”
He observed her shrewdly.
“Now let’s take this point by point,” he said quietly. “I’ve done nothing to lead your sister to suppose I had anything but a perfectly ordinary interest in her. I paid her the sort of compliments any pretty girl would expect from any normal man. If she were a little more experienced she would never have read anything more into it than that. As for Joe, if she doesn’t love him there’s nothing he or I or anyone else can do about it. She’s free to make her own choice. She’s going through a phase, my dear, and it isn’t the first time a young girl has imagined herself infatuated with an older man. Even had I known what was in Kathy’s mind, which I assure you I did not, I don’t see that I could have acted any differently, short of being rude to her, and even then it probably wouldn’t have made much odds. Kathy is full of make-believe ideals and romantic notions. She sees herself as the heroine of a novel and she’s not quite real.”
Sarah searched wildly in the pockets of her slacks for a missing handkerchief, and he offered her his own. She snatched it from him and sat down suddenly in Nonie’s old rocking chair. He propped himself against the table beside her and folded his arms.
“Listen, Sarah,” he said gently. “You mustn’t take Kathy too seriously. Half her trouble has been that she thought nobody appreciated her artistic leanings, and because I’m able to cap a few quotations and discuss a piece of music intelligently she’s magnified that out of all proportion. She’ll get over it. She’s not really in love with me, you know.”
“Just infatuated, like Joe said. But Joe thought—I mean Joe said—that a present of jewellery was significant.”
“Did he indeed? Well, I seem to remember you had a present, too, Sarah, though I’d hardly describe my gifts as very valuable.”
“Joe said that was a cover up.”
“And Joe was right. Didn’t you realize it was you I wanted to please? I felt it would be too obvious if I left out Kathy, besides hurting her feelings.”
‘Her eyes widened.
“I didn’t know. The way Joe put it—” She broke off and he said briskly:
“The way Joe put it! Do you realize that lately all this talk of Joe has given me ve
ry odd ideas?”
“Why odd?”
“Your aunt seemed to think you might be fond of him.”
“So I am. We’re all fond of Joe.”
His eyes narrowed momentarily.
“Let’s at least get this point clear. Would you marry him if he asked you?”
“He did ask me,” she said defiantly. “At the dance on New Year’s Eve.”
“Oh, he did, did he?”
“Yes, he did. Does it seem so extraordinary to you that a man should want to marry me?”
The corners of his mouth quivered.
“Not at all,” he said. “I only want to get straight your own feelings in the matter. Did you turn him down or give him hope?”
The defiance went out of her eyes.
“Of course I didn’t give him hope. He was only feeling sore. He’ll never love anyone else but Kathy.”
“And you don’t feel that sort of affection for him?”
“Of course not. Adrian, how queer you’re being. You didn’t think that Joe and I—”
“You, my fine lady, thought that Kathy and I—”
She lowered her lashes.
“That’s different. “
“Is it, indeed? It’s high time certain little matters were cleared up all round and I think it’s a very good thing I have to go away for a few days. When I come back we’ll start things on a different footing, and that applies to you, too.”
Her tears had dried and she blew her nose vigorously. “Why me?”
His eyes were tender.
“Don’t you know?”
She shook her head but lowered her lashes at the same time.
“Well, you can think it over while I’m gone. At least I’m glad to know the cause of your prickly behavior this last week. I was beginning to feel discouraged.”
“Discouraged? You?”
“Yes, me.” He sounded amused. “I’m quite human really, you know, I’m not immune to hurt feelings.”
“But did I hurt your feelings?”
“Upon occasions. Why should that surprise you? The change was a little sudden after the other Sarah you had shown me.”
“I didn’t know,” she said slowly. “I thought only abstract things could hurt you, never people.”
