by Ivy Ferrari
‘As I said, I have little choice. It’s one way of repaying your rather reluctant hospitality.’
His eyes darkened. There would have been nothing reluctant about it had matters been different.’ His voice sank a little. ‘Even now, perhaps—’
Tina’s gaze met his coldly. He broke off, resuming his former dictatorial tone. ‘Right. Letter one—to the Land Tax Commissioners. You’ll get the address from the files.’
By the end of the next two hours, when the letters were typed and ready for his signature, Tina had learned a great deal more about Adam Copeland and his work.
The letters had dealt with a cross-section of estate life, forestry, game reserves, farm tenancies, drainage laws, farm and estate workers’ wages. She learned that Fairstones needed new field gates, that High Dunchester was plagued with rats, that a cottage eviction order was being sought at Romandyke.
Later the cottager himself, much distressed, had rung the side bell and Tina, busy at her typewriter, had heard most of the interview. She admitted that Adam Copeland had been scrupulously fair even while insisting on the farmer’s rights. Eventually he had promised to try for an extension. There had been tears in the man’s eyes as he wrung Adam Copeland’s hand on leaving. ‘I knew you’d help me, Mr. Copeland. I knew I could rely on you.’
She also heard him roar scathingly down the phone to a building contractor falling behind on his contract, and gave a silky assurance to the local Children’s Officer that the twins at Quarry Farm were in no danger of being neglected.
At this Tina looked up, startled. His gaze met hers, bright with challenge. ‘Curious, are you? I heard you’d been to Quarry Farm and failed to get far with your enquiries.’ He smiled. ‘And now you’re wondering why I side with them against authority? It’s no secret. They’re a darned nuisance at Quarry Farm, but they’d be a much bigger problem anywhere else.’
‘Francey’s pretty, isn’t she?’ Tina said. ‘I suppose she “bats her eyes at you”, as you so charmingly put it.’
He laughed with such good nature she was startled again. ‘Oh, she does! Make no mistake about that. And why not? Like you, she uses the only weapons she has.’
‘And—it works?’ Tina found her voice unsteady.
‘She thinks it does.’ He grinned to himself, then with one of those lightning changes of mood she found so disconcerting he said tersely, ‘You didn’t get on very well, I hear—except with Matt. I would have said Jamey was more your line of country. And he’s always eager to notch up another newcomer.’
Tina’s face flamed. ‘Jamey’s a little too obvious, thanks. And anyway, I’m not looking for—anything like that.’
‘Of course not.’ he said smoothly, pushing aside the papers before him and relaxing in his chair. ‘You’ll content yourself with Roman remains and stirring up trouble—right?’
‘If necessary, yes.’ She got up. ‘Your letters are ready.’ She laid the sheaf on his desk. ‘Is it all right if I go now?’
‘When I’ve looked at them, yes.’ He riffled through the sheaf. ‘Excellent work, I see. Some Roman executive is going to get himself a perfect secretary. I may even write you a reference.’
Tina lingered in the doorway, stung by his mocking tone, but magnetised into holding his gaze. ‘What would it say?’ she faltered.
‘Oh, the truth, of course. Miss Rutherford is an ornament to any office, but used to having her own way and completely spoiled. She ought to improve rapidly under strict discipline and a daily beating.’
‘You sound like the overseer of a slave-market!’
Her heart was bumping uncomfortably, but she stood her ground.
‘Do I? It’s certainly true that you’ve been over-pampered, that you have no compunction in using your looks to your own advantage. Take care, my dear. There may come a day when the formula no longer works.’
‘Thanks for the warning!’ she flashed, and left the room. He was insufferable, she told herself. Yet the stinging truth in his last words stayed with her. ‘There may come a day—’ It seemed to her that the day had already come, that he alone was amused and unstirred by her beauty. It was a curiously depressing thought.
That evening Carrie and Tina joined Adam Copeland for the evening meal, which Isa, with much heavy breathing, served in the small dining-room at the rear of the hall. Adam had been sitting on the local magistrates’ bench that afternoon and wore a dark formal suit, which made him more impressive than ever.
‘Good evening.’ He smiled at Carrie, nodded at Tina, eyeing in a brief but comprehensive glance her white sleeveless dress with the forget-me-not silk scarf at the neck. She thought she saw a hastily-suppressed approval in his eyes. Carrie wore a suit in pale green, but as always with her clothes, seemed quite Tina aware of what she was wearing, not even quite inside them. She was usually much too preoccupied to give her wardrobe any particular thought.
‘Well, how many poor victims did you send to prison today?’ Carrie asked briskly, as Isa served the soup.
‘None. A few probation orders, fines, the usual thing. This is a pretty law-abiding district ... Oh, by the way, Carrie, Sandy Armstrong’s got another lodger.’
‘Carrie groaned. ‘Let’s hope he likes listening to the pipes, then.’ She turned to Tina. ‘Sandy’s manager of High Moor Quarry—that’s a couple of miles over the moor. He has a cottage right-up in the woods above the dig, on the line of the Wall. In fact, one of the milecastles backs right on to his place, and I’ve a suspicion most of the stones in the cottage walls are from the Wall. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but accommodation’s hard to get round here, and Sandy often has people knocking on his door, asking for meals or a bed. So now and again he takes pity. Who is it this time, Adam?’
‘Oh, a student walking the Wall from the Tyne to the Solway. Seems bent on making it, but he’s laid up with pretty bad blisters for a day or two. The trouble is, half these people with Wall Fever haven’t a due as to the conditions they’re going to find, especially up on the Whin Sill. You could wear out any pair of ordinary boots from Chesters to the Knag burn Gap alone ... Anyway, Sandy picks and chooses. He doesn’t take just anyone. Their aura has to be right, as you might say.’
Adam flashed a glance of sharp mischief at Carrie. ‘Sandy’s by way of being a special friend of Carrie’s,’ he said blandly.
‘Friend!’ Carrie exploded. ‘The day he and I see eye to eye is a long way off! I wanted to dig up a square yard or two inside his garden. I just had a hunch it was the site of the baking-oven in the south wall of the milecastle. But would he let me do it? Not on your life! He has no respect for the Wall at all, though he’s not above making money out of it with his lodgers. Don’t talk to me about Sandy Armstrong!’
Tina looked with surprise at Carrie’s heightened colour. ‘Methinks the lady protests too much,’ Adam said softly. He turned with disconcerting suddenness to Tina. ‘I’m visiting my sister tonight. Is there any message you would like to send?’
She felt his tone was unnecessarily goading, a reminder that while he decreed there should be no contact between the two girls, any message she might care to send would have all the force of a spent rocket. ‘Please say how sorry I am she’s ill, and that I hope to see her soon.’
‘Certainly. But one hopes she will have patience, as a meeting just now is, of course, out of the question.’ He turned to Carrie again. ‘Any luck at the dig today?’
‘One good-sized shard of pottery, three third-century coins and a Roman hairpin.’ Carrie said briskly. ‘We’re going to bring the notes up to date tonight. In my den. No objection to Chris Irwin coming, have you?’
‘Any friend of Tina’s is, of course, welcome. You did say he was just a friend, didn’t you?’ He eyed her coolly.
‘There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother!’ quoted Isa, as she panted in under the weight of a large apple pie. Adam grinned.
‘We must have Mr. Irwin in for a meal one evening,’ he went on. ‘Very remiss of us not to have a
sked him earlier.’
Carrie nodded. ‘I’ll ask him, then. But I’ll have to warn him to keep off archaeology, for your sake.’
Isa cleared the plates. Carrie was dubiously poking at the pie. ‘You’ll find that pastry a bit on the hard side, Mrs. Butterfield.’
Isa announced. ‘I was down in the dumps when I made it, all along o’ my knitting no’ winning first prize at the Handwork Show. I always say you need a light heart for light pastry.’
‘But you won’t find that text in Proverbs!’ Adam remarked. ‘Just a small portion for me, Carrie, please, now I’ve been warned.’ Isa stood over at the sideboard, placing out the coffee cups, a look of bovine complacency on her face. Carrie shot her an exasperated look. ‘If that’s another text coming up, Isa, I’m not in the mood.’
‘Text—what text?’ Isa looked affronted. ‘I was just waiting to say the coffee’s ready and I’m off to the Chapel Social.’ She bustled out importantly.
Adam took only a half cup of coffee before excusing himself to make some telephone calls. Tina felt herself relax and watched Carrie light a cigarette. Suddenly she noticed a photograph on a bookcase in a rather shadowed corner of the room. ‘That photo—who is it, Carrie? I haven’t seen it before.’
Carrie got up and brought it over. ‘It’s Helen—you may as well have a good look. It’s a perfect likeness.’
Tina saw a fair face, fragile, almost moody. The eyes held depths impossible to fathom, but there was a hint of petulance about the mouth, a weaker reflection of the arrogance of her brother.
‘She takes after the mother’s side.’ Carrie explained. ‘Adam is more like his father.’
‘She looks rather frail,’ Tina said.
‘She isn’t exactly bursting with health, even in normal times. She had polio as a child, and that’s one of the reasons Adam is over-protective.’
‘One of the reasons?’
There were—others, or at least one more. He put up a pretty big black when he was still just a boy.’
‘Putting up a black,’ Tina had already learned, was Air Force language for making a large blunder.
‘Something to do with Helen, you mean?’ she pressed.
‘I shouldn’t be telling you this. But it might help you to understand Adam more. He was just fifteen at the time it happened—or so he told me. He shut Helen up in an old quarry hut for a joke, then forgot about her. Sounds odd, I know, but he was asked to go and play football, and, lad-like, it put everything else out of his mind. It was after ten at night when he got back—he’d cycled over to Hexham for supper with friends. Naturally the household was in alarm and he had to confess what he’d done. Helen was in hysterics when she was found. It was pitch-dark in the hut. Since then she’s always been terrified of the dark. She burns a light all night in her room.’
Tina was intrigued. ‘Do you think he still has guilt feelings towards her, then?’
‘I’m pretty certain of it. That’s why he flew off the handle so much about this breakdown of hers. But I’ve a feeling Miss Helen is deeper than Adam imagines.’
‘Why?’
‘I think she plays on the situation. She can put on a fine show of hysteria if she wants anything badly enough.’
‘And he actually gives in?’
‘Not always.’ Carrie shook her head. ‘But there are times when she is genuinely upset and depressed. Sometimes he has to give her the benefit of the doubt.’
‘I suppose so.’ Tina hesitated. ‘I can’t help wondering what Bruno found to love in Helen.’
‘You ought to know by now that a deep physical attraction doesn’t have to depend on liking a person or even being blind to their faults.’ Carrie’s eyes looked faraway and Tina got the impression that she wasn’t thinking of Bruno and Helen at all but something much more personal. Lofty, perhaps?
‘And you think it was like that?’
‘I know it was. Your brother fell hard, but he was too intelligent to nurse too many illusions.’
‘But what about—before he came? Didn’t she have anyone else? I wondered about Matt Finch—’
Carrie shook her head decisively. ‘Never in the world! You’re flying right out of formation there. He was too slow and quiet for her and he’d have far too much sense, anyway, to offend Adam. I suppose she flirted around, here and there, but no one she was specially keen on.’
She sighed. ‘I know—I know—you’re looking for reasons to justify Bruno walking out on her, if he did. But I can’t find you a male scapegoat, look as hard as I like.’
Tina sighed. ‘So you think Bruno just tired of her?’
‘I don’t know. But men, even the best of them, do these things. They may see a new face and be tempted to cut and run. Instant romance instead of ploughing through all the conditions laid down by Adam—the year’s engagement, the elaborate wedding expected of a Copeland who is as near as anything we’ve got to a local squire—the promise perhaps that Helen wouldn’t be required to live in Italy. It could have all got on top of him. But you know the gossip—about this mysterious girl?’
‘I know.’ Tina said miserably. ‘But I’ll never be convinced the first fault was Bruno’s.’
Carrie said drily: ‘If you reveal Helen to be the serpent in Eden you’re not going to be very popular with Adam.’
Tina set her lips. ‘He detests me, anyway. What have I got to lose?’
‘Detests you? That’s not quite the impression I got...’ She pushed back her chair. ‘It’s Isa’s night out, so me for kitchen fatigues. Like to help?’
While carrying a loaded tray down the hall Tina encountered Adam Copeland leaving his office. His eyebrows lifted. ‘Useful as well as ornamental? Don’t carry your sense of a guest’s obligations too far, will you?’
Without warning he relieved her of the tray. ‘Much too heavy for a Roman water-nymph.’
Tina flushed. He jerked his head to indicate that she preceded him into the kitchen. Thank you.’ she said stiffly as he set down the tray. ‘I suppose it’s all right if I carry the salt and pepper through?’
His dark brows lifted. ‘That’s better. You’re beginning to relax and find your sense of humour. I hope it also means you’re beginning to feel at home?’
His tone was bantering, but something still and curious about his eyes disconcerted her. Looming in the doorway as he did, her exit was trapped. An answer seemed expected.
The truth, she thought in panic, was that he was right. To tell him so was the last thing she was likely to do.
‘Aren’t you expecting rather too much, Mr. Copeland?’
His eyes flickered coldly. He made way for her. She was distressingly conscious of his chilled withdrawal, for a moment wildly wishing she could retract her words. She even hesitated beside him, searching for the necessary courage. But he was already striding up the hall. She heard the decisive and final click of his office door.
Carrie, arriving with another tray, glanced at her sharply. ‘Anything wrong?’
‘Not a thing.’ said Tina lightly, blinking back the tell-tale tears. The following morning Adam Copeland was terse and abrupt over his letter dictation. As soon as he had finished he reached for his jacket. ‘So much for that lot. I’ll leave you to type them. There may be a phone call. If anyone wants me, be sure to say that I’m over at Rudchester—Bill Grant’s place.’
‘Rudchester.’ Tina repeated. Then: ‘Vindobala,’ she said, automatically using the Roman name.
‘Vindobala then, if you wish.’ His stare was sardonic. There’s something not a little disconcerting about all this pert knowledge of places you haven’t even seen. If you visited them with me you’d learn things your scale model could never teach you.’
‘That’s not very likely, is it?’ Tina said flatly.
He gave her an unreadable look, then left. Immediately the room seemed emptied of vitality. Tina looked with distaste at her shorthand notebook, then lurked behind the curtain to watch the departure of the Land-Rover. She turned to her notebook ag
ain, saw a faint gleam of sunshine at the window and decided to leave the letters for the moment. As long as they caught the afternoon post she told herself there was no urgency. Besides, being Tina, she was drawn to idle in the sunshine. There was little enough of it on these bleak heights, she excused herself.
His warning about the telephone message was already forgotten. It had been casually given and just as casually slipped her mind.
As she left the office a twinge or two of guilt did bother her, but after all, she told herself, she was no paid typist. Yet her heart raced a little as she let herself cautiously out of the side door.
She followed the path from the back of the grounds which led to the fork for Quarry Farm. It skirted the lip of an abandoned quarry, smothered now in leafless thickets and the pale ghosts of withered weeds. Beyond the quarry an unknown track led westwards into the woods, towards the dig. She hesitated, then turned to retrace her steps. Better not risk that way, in case she ran into Carrie, and the moor track to the farm would be too exposed for idle loitering. Remembering a sunny sheltered bank almost opposite the quarry, she thought it might be pleasant to sit there for half an hour.
Something hit her quite sharply on the shoulder. She spun, startled, and saw a fir-cone at her feet. Another struck her arm, this time more gently. She heard a giggle from somewhere above, and laughed in relief.
‘It’s the twins, isn’t it?’ she called. Where are you?’
‘Come and find us.’ The voices seemed to come from a giant ivy-clad oak near the path. She remembered the tree house and saw two faces peering down at her.
‘So that’s where you are? May I come up?’
The twins deliberated in whispers. ‘Aye, you can—if you can climb the ladder. We’re letting it down.’
The rope ladder was makeshift but strong, with roughly-cut stakes for treads. Tina scrambled up the ten feet or so to the fork of the boughs and found to her surprise that the tree house was quite a solid affair of saplings lashed together.
This is good.’ Tina scrambled in, helped by Bobby, and an old piece of curtain was slung over the door-space. ‘You didn’t build it yourselves, surely?’ She lowered herself to a seat on an old cushion.
