by Anne Weale
“Oh, cold beef and salad. Nothing very exciting,” she said, passing his tea to him.
“Enough for six of us?”
“Yes, I think so. Why?”
“I hope you don’t mind, dear, I’ve asked a guest to join us. You hadn’t planned to go out tonight, had you?”
“Only for a stroll with Edward. Who have you invited?” Rachel enquired.
“Aha, that’s my big surprise,” her father said, with a smile. “No one you know, but I think you’ll like him. Our new ‘squire’!”
He watched her expectantly, waiting for astonishment to give place to eager questioning. Instead, Rachel gaped at him in dismay.
“You’ve asked him to supper—here?” she said bleakly.
“Yes. Why not?” her father asked cheerfully. “There’s no need to lay on a banquet, if that’s what’s worrying you. I told him he’d have to take pot luck and he seemed delighted. We want to make him feel at home, you know, and he seems a very decent, down-to-earth sort of fellow.”
“Oh yes, very down-to-earth,” she said, with irony. “Hard as a rock!” Then, as her father looked puzzled, “I’ve already met him, Daddy.”
“Oh? When, He didn’t mention it,” Doctor Burney remarked, in surprise.
“No, I don’t expect he did. It wasn’t a very cordial encounter. In fact, I think it was pretty low of him to accept your invitation. He knows I’m your daughter. Perhaps I’d better go out this evening after all. Aunt Flo can cope with supper for once.”
“Now, Rachel,” what is all this?” her father asked, frowning. “You sound as if you’d taken a dislike to the chap, but you didn’t mention meeting him at lunch time.”
Briefly, Rachel explained her introduction to Daniel Elliot and the reason for her antipathy towards him. “So you see, it will be better if I’m not here,” she concluded. “I’ll go over to the Harveys for the evening.”
“Nonsense, my dear. You’ll stay here and make him welcome,” her father said bluntly. “As far as I can see, the whole thing is a storm in a teacup. I dare say Elliot was pulling your leg. Anyway, if he wants to sell the place, that’s his affair. I know it’s a favorite haunt of yours, but there’s no sense in getting your knife into the man because he doesn’t see it your way. Now pour me another cup of tea and stop looking as if I’d asked a rattlesnake to supper, there’s a good girl.”
“You don’t understand. Daddy. It’s not just because of the Hall that I dislike him,” Rachel said crossly. “It’s his whole attitude. He’s so ... so bumptious and sure of himself. You ought to have seen the way he strode through the house, looking at his grandfather’s things as if they were so much trash. Surely you can see how awful it will be if he does sell to this company in Branford?”
“I agree that it isn’t a welcome prospect,” Doctor Burney said mildly. “But I doubt if the planning people would allow it. Some fellow wanted to put up a motel near the crossroads a year or two ago and they soon clamped down on the idea. I think they’re as anxious to keep the village from being swamped by housing estates as we are.”
“But they couldn’t stop him turning the Hall into a roadhouse or something ghastly,” Rachel said bitterly. “I can just imagine it. Masses of chromium plating everywhere and a huge neon sign on the roof. He’d probably turn the drawing room into a cafeteria and have a jazz club in the cellar. I expect he’d make a lot of money out of it.”
“Now you’re letting your imagination run away with you, puss,” her father said dryly. “Wait until he’s actually doing something to the place before you get up in arms. Why, good heavens, the poor fellow only arrived this morning. We’ll have to reserve judgment until we get to know him better.”
“I don’t think I want to know him better,” Rachel said sourly.
At this point Aunt Florence appeared on the scene and, hearing the news, was thrown into a flutter of eager anticipation.
“Oh dear, what a pity you couldn’t have let us know earlier, Richard!” she twittered anxiously. “I would have made one of my special trifles and we could have asked Mrs. Bell for a chicken. Did you dust the sitting room this morning, Rachel? And what about the best china? I expect it will need washing.”
“Now there’s no necessity to turn ourselves inside out, Flo,” her brother said firmly. “Anyone would think I’d asked the Prime Minister to dine. Just do everything in the normal way. It will only embarrass the poor chap if he sees we’ve put on a show for him.”
“It’s not a question of putting on a show, Richard,” Miss Burney said primly. “I’m sure you would never have asked Sir Robert to take ‘pot luck’ as you call it, and I see no reason to be casual with his grandson. I’m quite positive that if poor dear Angela was alive she would make every effort to have things done properly.”
“Angela never needed to make a fuss,” the doctor said gruffly. “She put people at ease as soon as she smiled at them.”
“Anyway, one would hardly describe Mr. Elliot as a distinguished guest, Aunt Flo,” Rachel put in hurriedly. “Sir Robert disowned his father, remember, and when I saw him this morning he looked more like a lumberjack than the lord of the manor.”
“You met him this morning? But why didn’t you tell us?” her aunt demanded.
“I forgot,” Rachel said shortly, and dashed into the house to escape the inquisition which would follow if she stayed.
Soon after six, Rachel heard her sisters coming up the garden. Usually Suzy was home earlier, but on Fridays she stayed late at school to attend a Girl Guide meeting and Carola brought her home on the back of the motor scooter. Rachel and Suzy took after their father, whose hair, before it turned grey, had been dark. They had also inherited his clear eyes and square-cut chin. But twenty-year-old Carola was like her mother; so much like her that Rachel often saw a shadow of pain cross her father’s face when he looked at his second daughter. Even as a schoolgirl, Carola had been slim and pretty and unusually poised, and, a few months short of her twenty-first birthday, she was so lovely and perfectly groomed that strangers often took her for a film starlet or a model. The latter was what she wanted to be, but her father refused to allow her to leave home until her next birthday, so she had to content herself with working in Branford’s largest department store and gaining a little experience for her future career by modelling clothes in the spring and autumn dress shows which the store presented.
Now, strolling into the kitchen in an apricot shirt and matching pleated skirt, her red-gold hair curling crisply round her vivid little face, she looked as if she had stepped straight out of a fashion plate instead of spending the day in Whiteways’ busy gown department.
“Rachel, something absolutely marvellous has happened! Guess what?” she demanded immediately.
Rachel grinned, brushing back the soft wing of hair that had fallen across her forehead as she bent over the old-fashioned low-level sink.
“You’ve met another fascinating man,” she hazarded, since this happened to her sister so regularly that it had become a family joke.
“Heavens, no—much better than that,” Carola said eagerly. “Well—just as good. Shut up, Suzy. I want to tell her myself.”
Suzy, fourteen years old and as plump and untidy as Carola was svelte and immaculate, made a face at her and dived into the pantry to stave off the pangs of starvation until supper time.
“It’s no use making me guess. I’m hopeless at it,” Rachel said, hunting for a tin-opener.
Carola went to the door to make sure that her father was not about, then lit a cigarette, and settled herself gracefully in the old basket chair by the stove.
“You know I’ve told you what a terrific live wire our new managing director is, utterly different from dreary old Bates,” she began. “Well, just after lunch break today, I was summoned to his office. Naturally I was terrified, trying to think what I could possibly have done to deserve the sack. I had to wait in his secretary’s office for hours—absolute purgatory—and then, just as I was wondering if it would soften
him if I staged a faint, he called me in himself.”
She paused for dramatic effect and Rachel said, “Do get to the point, Caro. You always ramble so.”
“Well, it obviously wasn’t the sack because he ushered me to a chair and beamed and asked me how I managed to look so cool on such a sweltering day.” She paused, then said reflectively, “You know, he’s really rather a lamb—in a middle-aged kind of way. I wonder why he’s never married.”
“He’s certainly missed the boat now. He must be all of forty,” Rachel said dryly, having seen him walking round the store when she was shopping there one afternoon.
Carola ignored her. “So, eventually, when I was positively writhing with curiosity, he explained,” she went on. “He’s decided that, as well as the ordinary dress parades, it would be a good idea to have a model drifting round the restaurant at coffee time and in the afternoon. You know—like they do in London.”
“And so?” Rachel prompted.
“And so guess who’s to do the drifting?” Carola said triumphantly. “Oh, Ray, I can hardly believe it! No more slogging behind a counter all day. No more lectures from Miss Cotton. It’s the most blissful thing that's ever happened to me.”
Suzy emerged from the pantry, a moustache of crumbs on her upper lip.
“Fancy paying you just to swank about in new clothes all day,” she said wonderingly.
“Oh yes, that’s the best part, Ray,” Carola added, glowing. “He’s put my wages up by two whole pounds a week because I'll have to have more stockings and shampoos and so, on. Honestly, I could have kissed him—I almost did.”
“It certainly sounds ideal for you,” Rachel agreed, smiling. “When d’you start?”
“Next Monday. I shall still have to serve in the department when I’m not modelling, but it won’t be nearly such a grind because our busy spells are when the restaurant is full.” Her shining green eyes grew serious. “I suppose working in Gowns has been quite useful experience, but it’s been a frightful slog sometimes. You wouldn’t believe what ghastly grubby underthings some women wear. They spend fifteen guineas on a dress and wear tatty old girdles which haven’t been washed in years. It’s too nauseating.”
“Oh lord, that reminds me!” Rachel exclaimed, with an anxious glance at the clock. “Look, don’t ask me for details, there isn’t time, but we’re having a visitor. Old Sir Robert’s grandson. He’s just arrived from Canada. If you want to change before he gets here, you’ll have to get cracking.” Then, to Suzy: “You’d better freshen up too, poppet. Your hair’s like a bush and you’re smothered in ink.”
Promptly at half-past six, the door bell rang and Rachel whipped off her apron and quickly rinsed her hands. Her father was still in the surgery, but there were usually only two or three patients on Fridays and he was hoping to be free by seven o’clock. None of the others had come downstairs yet, so Rachel was obliged to go to the door herself and, as she hurried down the long paved hall, she felt her color rising and her composure ebbing. To give herself confidence—certainly not out of deference to their guest—she had put on a slim-fitting dress of coral linen and high-heeled white shoes, but as she glanced at herself in the mirror above the hall table, she wished she had time to wind her hair into a dignified chignon instead of wearing it smoothed back under a gilt band to curl softly against her neck.
Her hand on the latch, she mustered a polite smile. But when she opened the door, her jaw dropped and for a moment she was stricken dumb.
“Good evening,” Daniel Elliot said coolly. “I’m not too early, I hope. Your father said six-thirty.”
“Oh ... good evening,”' Rachel said weakly. “No, not a bit. Won’t you come in?”
Still stupefied with shock, she led the way to the sitting room.
“D—do sit down. The others won’t be long. Will you have a drink? Sherry or gin-and-something?”
“Sherry, please.”
Making a strong effort to collect herself, Rachel turned to the cupboard where her father kept the drinks and poured two glasses of sherry, her hands unsteady. When she had first opened the door she had thought that the man on the step was a stranger, and even now she could scarcely believe that he was the shabby Canadian she had met in the Hall gardens only a few hours earlier.
CHAPTER TWO
TURNING, Rachel handed him a glass, another swift glance confirming that she had not suffered a momentary hallucination. It was incredible that clothes could work such a transformation, she thought limply—and even more astonishing that a man whom she had described to her aunt as looking like a lumberjack should possess such clothes.
Although Rachel had spent most of her life in a neighborhood where even rich people wore ancient tweeds and discolored Burberrys, she was not such a country mouse that she had failed to recognize the faultless cut of the medium grey lounge suit which now replaced the disreputable slacks their visitor had worn earlier that day. She knew, too, that the immaculate cream silk shirt and olive green gum-twill tie must have been bought at some very expensive shirtmakers.
Perching on the edge of the sofa, she tried vainly to think of something to say, and was relieved when Elliot broke the silence by asking permission to smoke.
“Oh yes, please do,” she said hastily, looking about for the ivory cigarette box that her father—himself a pipe-smoker—kept stocked for guests.
But before she could discover where it had been moved, Elliot produced a slim silver case and offered it to her.
“N—no, thank you.” The foolish stammer made her even more self-conscious. “My father says you are staying at the Saracen, Mr. Elliot. Is it comfortable? The couple who run it now have only been there a short time. The hotel side is quite new.”
He was flicking his black enamelled lighter, and she noticed that his hands, mahogany dark against the pale cream cuff of his shirt, were clinically clean, the nails pared short at the tips of his long lean fingers. His cuff links were plain gold rectangles, and he did not wear a signet ring.
“Yes, extremely comfortable, thanks,” he said quietly.
“My room overlooks the village green. I’m told the stream running through the centre of it has quite a history.”
“The goose beck? Yes, it has. People used to do all their washing in it years ago. It widens into a pool up near the church. That’s where they ducked witches in the Middle Ages,” she said, with informative brightness.
He drank some sherry, his eyes disconcertingly keen as he watched her. “I imagine you weren’t very pleased to hear I was coming tonight,” he said bluntly.
Rachel swallowed, unable to meet his glance. “I think I should apologize for saying what I did to you this morning,” she said, flushing. “It was very rude of me.”
“On the contrary, I found it refreshingly frank. You look very attractive when you’re angry,” he added, with a hint of mockery. Then, glancing round the room, “Where’s the Hound of Baskervilles tonight?”
She stiffened. “In the garden,” she said coolly, furious that the lazy, almost caressing note in his voice had succeeded in heightening her color. “You know, I’m beginning—” He broke off, rising to his feet as Miss Burney and Suzy entered.
Thankful that their tete-a-tete was at an end, Rachel made the introductions and left her aunt to take over the conversation. She was pouring a sherry for her aunt, and thinking that, if Daniel Elliot took after his father, she could perfectly understand why Sir Robert had disowned his son, when the door swung open and Carola made one of her grand entrances.
After contributing a couple of pounds to the family exchequer—some of which she invariably borrowed back before the end of the week—Carola spent all her earnings on clothes and cosmetics. Every Friday saw some addition to her wardrobe. If no dress or shoes or bag had appealed to her, then she would buy jewellery and make-up and nylons. To be in fashion was as essential to her as eating or sleeping. She pored over Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar with the same professional absorption that her father gave to the Lancet, or
Miss Burney to horoscopes. Whatever was now in fashion, Carola was eager to try it. And fortunately, her shapely size twelve figure and beautiful legs made cheap mass-produced copies look as good on her as their haute couture prototypes.
Tonight, Rachel saw, her sister was wearing her latest acquisition, a summer evening dress of misty blue-green chiffon with a sleeveless bloused bodice and a flurry of pleats from the hip. Her eyelids shimmered with silvery aquamarine shadow and her lipstick was a subtle amber-rose. She looked willowy and fragile, and she was deliciously scented with the new French ‘Celui’ from the store’s perfumery counter.
Elliot stood up, his eyebrows tilting appreciatively, and, a little put out at the interruption, Miss Burney said, “This is Carola, my second niece, Mr. Elliot.”
Carola smiled at him and held out a small cool hand, her silver bracelets tinkling. “How do you do. Welcome to England, Mr. Elliot,” she said charmingly. Then, with mischievous candor, “I must say you’re not a bit what we expected.”
He laughed. “What did you expect?”
Carola sank gracefully into a chair and crossed her legs, revealing so much knee that Aunt Florence, who disapproved of recent fashion trends, made anxious signals to her to pull her skirt down.
“We weren’t really expecting anyone at all after so long,’ Carola said, ignoring the signs. “But you’re not at all like your grandfather. He used to stump round the village with an enormous stick and growl at people through his moustache.”
“I’m sure he never growled at you,” he said, looking amused.
“Oh yes, he did. I was terrified of him.” She gave a reminiscent shiver. Then, twirling imaginary whiskers, she did a very creditable imitation of Sir Robert’s deep bass voice.
Miss Burney sniffed disapprovingly.
“Really, Carola! I’m surprised at you!” she protested indignantly, her long thin nose turned pink with mortification at this irreverent piece of mimicry. She looked apologetically at their guest.' “Your grandfather was a most charming old gentleman, Mr. Elliot, and greatly respected,” she assured him earnestly.
