Return to Spring

by Jean S. MacLeod

  “I’ll be back early next week,” he said. “While I’m down there, Ruth,” he went on, “I mean to insert one or two extra advertisements in the better-class papers. Pep them up a bit and attract the right people. You know the sort of thing?”

  Ruth thought that she knew what the result of Edmund’s “pepped up ’ advertisements would be, but she did not make any comment. She lilted the covered basket which she used for gathering eggs and made a movement towards the door. Hersheil held it open for her, falling into step beside her as she turned down the lane which led to the far meadows.

  “Let me take your basket,” he offered.

  Ruth handed the basket over without a word. She did not want Edmund Hersheil’s company, but she was not exactly in a position to be openly rude to him. Virtually she was dependent upon him for her living now, and for her father’s peace of mind. She bit her lip at the last thought.

  They walked on, and Edmund stood at the wire door of the enclosure while she gathered the eggs.

  “Quite a quantity,” he remarked, as she put the last egg carefully on top of the brown and white pile in the basket.

  “They’re most plentiful at this time of year,” she said, closing the gate behind her so that none of the feathered occupants of the enclosure might escape.

  “Are you finding a market for them—apart from the house? ’ he asked.

  “A small one among the villagers,” Ruth replied. “I need a good many for my—our guests, you know.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” He was silent again as they crossed the road and went down beside the Long Meadow. Suddenly, he halted. “I’ve been thinking of this improvement for several days,” he said, looking out across the field. “This meadow strikes me as just the place for a landing-ground.”

  Ruth was puzzled.

  “A landing-ground?” she questioned.

  “For light aircraft, I mean.”

  Ruth paused. The idea was so unexpected—so im-practicable—that she smiled.

  “But what could we possibly want with a landing-ground for aeroplanes?” she asked.

  Hersheil frowned.

  “My dear girl,” he said, “you’re living too far from the modernised world up here! Perhaps you are unaware that a great many of the younger set have their own ’planes nowadays.”

  “Are those—members of the modern younger set likely to want a holiday on a farm?” Ruth asked, still a little amused by the new suggestion.

  “You have made provision for your guests’ cars!”

  “Yes,” Ruth admitted, “but surely that’s a different matter?” “Not so different,” Edmund declared. “Besides, it will cost next to nothing to fix it up. All we need to do is to take down that fence which divides that field from the next and we have an almost perfect run-way. I don’t propose to build hangars or illuminate it at nights, you know!”

  He seemed serious enough about his proposition, Ruth reflected, and, after all, he was managing the place! If he thought a landing-ground would improve Conningscliff, he was surely welcome to tear down a fence on his uncle’s property!

  Will Finberry had set her father’s long chair in a patch of sunlight facing the stackyard, and Peg had helped him to carry the farmer out to it. Farday was sorting out a stack of letters which had arrived by the morning’s post when they approached.

  “Busy, Dad?” Ruth asked, relieving Edmund of the basket of eggs.

  “There’s quite a bit of post this morning,” the farmer replied. “And here’s one for you, Ruth—private like!”

  Hersheil took the letter to hand it across to her, glancing at the postmark as he did so.

  “London,” he mused. “Some south-country friend, Ruth?”

  “I might be able to tell you when I’ve read it,” Ruth flashed. He gave her the letter with a smile and turned towards the railing where he had tethered the Firebrand.

  “I'll see you in a day or two, then,” he said, and with a nod to the farmer, strode quickly across the yard.

  Ruth glanced down at her letter. There was something vaguely familiar about the handwriting which sprawled mannishly across the envelope, and she carried it up to her room with her heart racing faster at every step. John Travayne? The name seemed to echo from the very rafters as she closed the door behind her.

  Her hands were trembling as she tore the envelope open and extracted the single sheet of thick paper with the well-remembered club crest in the corner.

  “Dear Ruth,” Travayne wrote,

  “Would it be possible for you to put me up at Conningscliif for June? I know that this is somewhat scanty warning, but my plans have been altered quite unexpectedly and I find that I have a month in which to take a holiday. I am quite ready to sleep anywhere provided you can oblige and put me up.

  “With the hope that the Guest House is still the success you planned.

  “I remain,

  Yours sincerely,

  JOHN TRAVAYNE.”

  Ruth read the letter over, and again a third time before she folded it carefully and went slowly down to the kitchen. John Travayne wanted to come back! The thought was above everything else in her mind; it was reflected in her shining eyes; it was in her heart

  Then, crossing the hall, a darker thought presented itself. She almost ran down the passage to the kitchen. An old oak bureau stood in an alcove at the far end of the fireplace, and there her father kept the little notebook in which he entered the bookings for each month. She pulled down the fall of the bureau and found the book easily enough. Turning the pages quickly she came to the heading June. Her finger ran down the list of dates and she saw instantly that they were fully booked for the whole month.

  It was what she had half expected out there in the hall. June was becoming an increasingly popular month for holidays, and the Newcastle Race Week helped to account for the demand for accommodation. She stared blankly at the closely filled sheet for a moment and then her red lips drew firmly together. She would make room for him—somehow!

  Going out through the open door she found her father still engrossed in his task of opening letters. Edmund Hersheil and his mount had disappeared.

  “There’s a letter here from that Miss Grenton,” the farmer said without looking up. “We’ll have to tell her there isn’t a scrap o’ room left.”

  Ruth felt a sudden tightening at her throat.

  “When does she want to come?” she asked.

  “June.”

  Had Valerie Grenton known that John Travayne had written? Had they planned to come north again together? Had John been seeing Valerie in London all this time? A thousand questions stormed Ruth’s brain. How easily jealousy came—and she had thought herself incapable of it once! She tried to put it behind her, vowing that she would refuse both requests for accommodation, that, at least, she would be fair.

  And she was fair enough to admit, even as she vowed, that she would find room for John Travayne. Already she had made her plans. There was a small room leading off the kitchen which had once been a maid’s bedroom but which had been used as a storeroom for a very long time. She could easily make up a bed there for herself, and John could have her room.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The first day of June dawned bright and clear, with a fresh wind blowing over the dunes from the sea, and a sky stretching, blue and cloudless, to the far horizon’s rim.

  Ruth stood in the porch looking out across the fields, and she thought of John Travayne. The sunshine and the song of the birds and the rustling and dancing of the leaves were all part of his coming. Her heart was light again, although she knew that it could only be for a few weeks at most. To Travayne, it would only be another holiday; to Ruth, it was the promise of a short sojourn in paradise.

  She had replied to his letter the day after she had made up her mind to find room for him, and her father had approved her decision, although he was not too pleased at the idea of Ruth giving up her own comfortable bedroom. She had swept his doubts away, however, when she had wheeled his chair thro
ugh to the converted storeroom to let him inspect her new quarters. With Peg Emery’s help she had made it into a restful and cosy little room.

  Now it was almost time to send Will Finberry to the Junction with the trap. Recently Edmund Hersheil had taken over the task of meeting the guests with his car, but he was never very reliable, and during his visit to London, Ruth had brought the old trap into use again.

  Hersheil had appointed himself official riding instructor at Conningscliff and, as Ruth turned to go back into the house, she caught a glimpse of him riding at a quick trot across the field path from the Hall. Behind him a groom led a string of three horses.

  At the lounge door she met a party of guests on their way to bathe at the new cabins in the bay which were proving an enormous attraction. Hersheil had superintended the erection of those new huts, but Ruth had not yet found time to go over to see them. Secretly she dreaded that pilgrimage. The bay had been her retreat for years; the wild, unspoilt beauty of it had been as a

  sanctuary to her, and she could not bear to think of it surrounded by the ugly bathing-huts she had seen at so many seaside resorts. Edmund had asked her several times to come and see his handiwork, but she had always found an excuse.

  “Mr. Hersheil promised to be here at half-past ten with a horse for me.’'

  The speaker, a tall, petulant-looking girl with amazingly fair hair, glanced at the diamond-studded watch on her wrist as Ruth passed her.

  “He’s coming across the fields now, Miss Heddar,” Ruth said amiably. “Is your brother riding this morning, too?”

  “Probably!” Nancy Heddar replied. “He sticks like a limpet!” Ruth smiled and passed on to the kitchen. She did not particularly want to meet Edmund Hersheil that morning.

  However, she was not to escape him. He came round the side of the house and through the stackyard to the kitchen door.

  “Any arrivals this morning?” he asked.

  The farmer looked up from his paper before Ruth could reply. “Just one,” he said. “A Mr. Travayne. He’s been here before.” Edmund looked across at Ruth.

  “Not the colonial who was here at Easter?” he asked.

  “Yes,” William Farday replied, with frank enthusiasm. “He wrote and asked to come back.”

  “I thought we were booked up for June some time ago?” Hersheil said, with a frown.

  “We were,” the farmer replied, “but we managed to make room for Mr. Travayne.”

  Hersheil looked angrily from father to daughter.

  “Without consulting me,” he said.

  Ruth turned and met his eyes squarely.

  “I thought you said you wanted as many guests as possible,” she remarked.

  “Not his type particularly,” Edmund replied, unable to conceal his anger. “A hermit would be a better proposition—from what I could see at Easter. He never mingled with the other guests or went any of the arranged trips. He was always lounging around here.” He paused, looking directly at Ruth. “Perhaps there was a reason for it,” he added.

  “There was,” Ruth said calmly, mistress of herself now. “Mr. Travayne came for a rest and to be near the sea.”

  “Did you turn down anyone else?” Hersheil asked abruptly. “Two or three,” Ruth told him. “We really hadn’t the

  accommodation to offer them.”

  Among those two or three had been Valerie Grenton, but Ruth had been human enough to feel a certain measure of relief at being able to refuse Miss Grenton’s request.

  “Well, I can’t get back in time to go to the Junction with the car,” Hersheil said. “I promised that Heddar kid and his ash-blonde sister to give them a riding-lesson this morning.”

  “That’s all right,” Ruth assured him. “There’s always the trap in cases of emergency.”

  “Let Will Finberry take it to the Junction, then,” Edmund ordered. “There’s no need for you to go.”

  Ruth flushed angrily, but she bit back the retort which had risen to her lips and remained silent for her father’s sake. She disliked Edmund intensely; how much so she was just beginning to realise.

  Hersheil turned away as Leonard Heddar came through the stackyard in search of him.

  “He’s assuming the proper managerial air,” William Farday said ruefully. “I wish I could take you out of it all, lass!”

  “I don’t want to be taken out of it, Dad,” she said lightly. “You surely don’t want me to desert my idea at this stage?”

  “It seems to me your original idea is being gradually pushed into the background,” the farmer replied. “All these changes he’s making, lass—they’re not improvements.”

  “His new advertisements are bringing in requests for rooms,” Ruth reminded him.

  “But are they from the right sort of people?” the farmer asked. “If that Miss Heddar and her brother are the first samples o’ the new guests, I’d be thinking not! They’re never content. Always wanting to be on the move and looking for something new to do every five minutes.’'

  Ruth turned away without replying. Her father’s fears were her own, and she had realised from the beginning that Edmund Hersheil was advertising Conningscliff in the wrong quarters. It was no rendezvous for the bright young things of a certain social set.

  The grinding of the trap wheels on the gravel outside as Finberry led the mare across the yard reminded her that John Travayne would be arriving in less than an hour. It was close upon lunch-time, too, and she had still a few things to attend to before the meal was served.

  When the crunch of wheels sounded again she ran to the door as she was, a big white cooking-apron over her frock and a smudge of flour on her cheek. Travayne came straight across to her and held out his hand.

  ‘Ruth ...!”

  She felt the colour flooding into her cheeks and her eyes were shining as she looked up into his.

  “Welcome back!” she said.

  His hand had closed over hers and she felt the firm pressure of his brown fingers. The touch seemed to send a current vibrating through her, and a band of doubt that had been binding her heart seemed to fall away, freeing it.

  “My father is in the kitchen,” she said. “He’ll be anxious to see you as soon as you have had a wash. I’ll show you up to your room.”

  “I’ll pop in and see him now,” he said, and made his way to the kitchen door.

  The farmer’s joy at the reunion was almost pathetic. Ruth looked on with a strange lump at her throat, taking little part in the conversation, but happy just to see the pleasure in her father’s eyes.

  “I’ll show you to your room now,” she offered at last. “It is almost time for lunch.”

  Travayne followed her upstairs and along the raftered corridor to the little room tucked away by itself at the far end. When she paused at the door he hesitated.

  “This is your room,” he said.

  “It was,” Ruth admitted.

  “Then I simply refuse to turn you out!” he declared. “I knew when I wrote that I had probably given you too little notice.”

  “Please,” Ruth begged, “there’s been no inconvenience caused. I—I’m sleeping downstairs now—to be near my father.’

  He looked at her intently.

  “You’re sure you’re not putting up with any inconvenience on my account?”

  “Perfectly sure!” Ruth told him truthfully, and his grave eyes responded to the smile in her own.

  “It’s like coming home!” he said quietly.

  “Will you come down to lunch whenever you are ready?” she asked, as she turned back along the corridor.

  The clamp of horses’ hooves in the yard heralded the return of the riding-party. Ruth found Edmund Hersheil in the kitchen, tightening the strap of his riding-boot. He straightened as she entered.

  “Has your guest arrived?” he asked.

  Yes,” Ruth replied, “a few minutes ago.”

  “Strange,” Edmund mused, “how old acquaintances keep turning up! I’ve just met another of your ex-guests while we were rid
ing through the village on our way back here.”

  “Oh?” Ruth said, without much interest. “Whom?”

  “Miss Grenton,” Edmund told her. “I used to know Valerie rather well in London, you know.”

  He was watching her closely, and with an effort, Ruth forced a careless smile.

  “Miss Grenton has managed to find accommodation somewhere else, then?” she said, turning to the dresser to collect the plates for lunch.

  Edmund crossed to her side.

  “I know you refused to have her here,” he said, in an undertone, so that his remark might escape Mrs. Emery, who was busy at the range. “Valerie told me this morning.” He gave a queer, twisted smile. “So you’re as capable of jealousy as the next one, Ruth!”

  Ruth turned slowly and placed the pile of blue-banded china on the table.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said steadily.

  Hersheil laughed abruptly.

  “I think you do,” he said. “It’s only natural that Travayne should be attracted to Valerie, and not unnatural that they should want to come back here together. The only wonder is that he came alone! However,” he continued, following Ruth’s every movement about the kitchen, “she’s parked herself at a fairly convenient distance.”

  Ruth knew that he was trying to trick her into some show of emotion, and she was determined that she was not going to give him any satisfaction.

  “Mr. Travayne and Miss Grenton are both at liberty to come and go as they please,” she said frigidly. “And now, if you don’t mind, I must spread the table-cloth for lunch. ’

  She hurried to the dining-room, glad of the excuse to escape Hersheil. He had put into words the vague, half-formed feelings that were not yet thoughts in her mind. Yet, what right had she to demand an explanation of Travayne’s doings even of herself? He was free to come and go as he pleased. Thinking of the evident pleasure of his return less than an hour ago, she could not reconcile it in her heart with any desire on his part to be reunited with Valerie Grenton. But men were strange creatures, she thought, and John Travayne was often silent and preoccupied ...

  After lunch there was the usual grouping of guests in the hall, and a discussion began about how they might spend the afternoon to the best advantage. Ruth was referred to for a suggestion.