by Anne Weale
“No, I agree. I don’t think he does want to marry her. I doubt if it’s entered his head,” the doctor said calmly. “On the other hand, if I’m any judge of character, he’s not a seducer of young and moderately innocent girls, my dear. If you ask me, Carola’s been laying it on a bit. She’s always fancied herself as a woman of the world, silly goose, and she probably wanted to give you the impression that she was being very daring. As for all this nonsense about marrying him for his money—well, she doesn’t really mean it, you know.”
He paused to fill his pipe and then looked up with a discerning twinkle in his eyes.
“I know; you’re thinking I’m a blind old bat,” he said, with a chuckle. “Don’t be too sure. I suspect that I know you two as well as you know yourselves. You’re both very like your mother in many ways, and I could nearly always guess the devious schemes that went on in her head, bless her.”
“Yes, but even if Dan ... Mr. Elliot doesn’t mean any harm—what will be the end of all this running around?” Rachel said anxiously.
“Well, for one thing, it’ll show Carola that a gay life isn’t necessarily a satisfying one. When the excitement begins to pall, I daresay she’ll discover a soft spot for some boy she used to think as dull as mud,” her father said wisely. “Women are contrary creatures—especially Carola’s type.” He laughed. “So she dallies in the moonlight with Elliot, does she? Don’t you believe it, puss. If he really was the villain you seem to suspect him of being, poor little Caro would run home so fast she’d break all records.” Comforted, although not wholly reassured, by her father’s unperturbed reading of the situation, Rachel slept more soundly than she had done for many nights.
The sixteenth of July was Rachel’s birthday, but as it coincided with a meeting of the Branford Archeological Society which Edward was particularly anxious to attend, he had asked if she would mind postponing a celebration until the following night. Supposing that it was petty and selfish of her to feel rather hurt by this suggestion, Rachel had agreed. But after supper she sat by herself in the sitting room with Bolster and felt strongly tempted to have a good cry.
Everyone but herself was out enjoying themselves. Carola had stayed in Branford to spend the evening with a friend from the store. Aunt Florence was at a W.I. committee meeting and Suzy was swimming with the Vicar’s daughters. Her father was playing golf.
At nine o’clock, after listening to an inordinately dull play on the radio, she switched off the set and debated whether to take Bolster for a run or wash her hair. She had just made up her mind to go out when there was a knock at the door and, thinking Edward had come home early, she called “Come in.”
“Hello,” said Daniel. “The bell doesn’t seem to be working and the door was unlatched, so I came in. Sorry if I startled you.”
“Oh no, you didn’t,” she said nervously. “I’m afraid Carola’s out.”
“I know,” he said easily. “She told me she would be. How do you know I haven’t come to see you?”
A fiery blush spread upwards from her throat. “You’d hardly have any reason to, would you?” she said chillingly.
“Not on the face of it,” he agreed mockingly. “It’s your birthday, I believe. Carola mentioned it last night. If I hadn’t thought you’d fling them back at me, I’d have brought you some roses from the garden.”
“What makes you think I’d have flung them back?” she asked cautiously.
“One doesn’t break bread—or take roses—from one’s enemies,” he said negligently.
“I think ‘enemy’ is over-stating it slightly,” she said evenly.
“Perhaps. But you’ve given me some very dark glances when I’ve happened to cross your path.”
“I don’t expect you lose much sleep over them,” she retorted.
“No, but I’d be interested to know what I’ve done to deserve them.”
Rachel was saved from replying by her father, who looked round the door and said, “Hello, Elliot. I’m just going to have a glass of beer. Will you join me? Good. Anything appetising in the pantry, puss? I’m feeling peckish.”
Blessing her father for his timely entrance, Rachel went off to cut some sandwiches. When she returned the two men were relaxing in armchairs, mugs of beer at their elbows.
“Ah, good. Have a sandwich, Elliot,” Doctor Burney said, eyeing them appreciatively. “I’ve poured you a cider, Rachel. It’s on the table.” Wishing he had not, as she had hoped to make a quick getaway, Rachel sat on the sofa and avoided Daniel’s eye.
“Poor old Rachel has been Cinderella tonight,” Doctor Burney exclaimed to him. “It’s her birthday, but Edward has some important meeting in Branford, so she’s been at a loose end.”
“How unfortunate,” Daniel said mildly.
She shot a swift glance at him and was chagrined, to see that, although his mouth was straight, his eyes were bright with derisive amusement.
Curbing a strong desire to tell him to go to blazes, she said, “I’ve some odd jobs to do, Daddy. I’ll take my cider upstairs. Goodnight, Mr. Elliot.”
He rose to his feet and in two long strides was ready to open the door for her. “Goodnight, Miss Burney. We must resume our interesting discussion another time,” he said suavely.
“A pity you ran off last night,” her father said, after breakfast next morning. “Daniel was telling me about his life in Canada. You’d have been interested.”
They were alone at the table as the two younger girls had already gone off for the day and Miss Burney took breakfast on a tray in her room.
“Would I?” Rachel said, in a carefully non-committal tone.
Her father pushed his tea-cup towards her and filled his pipe. “I admire a chap who starts from the bottom and makes a go of life,” he said reflectively. “Lord knows how he’s managed it. He’s only thirty-four. By the way, I found out why the old man had such a bust-up with this lad’s father.”
Rachel bit into an apple. The tone in which her father referred to Daniel as ‘this lad’ was disturbing. It would be the last straw if a close friendship sprang up between them, she thought.
“Don’t you want to hear about it?” the doctor asked, with a rather shrewd glance.
“Yes, very much,” she said hastily.
He tamped down the tobacco again and slapped his pockets in search of matches. Rachel handed him a box from the edge of the cooker and went on munching.
“Well, it all seems rather a storm in a tea-cup by present-day standards,” Doctor Burney began. “Apparently Lance Elliot had a love affair with a pretty young barmaid while he was up at Oxford. He was genuinely in love with her, not just amusing himself, and when she told him she was going to have a baby, he fixed up the wedding and came home to break the news to his father. Sir Robert was furious. Apparently he didn’t mind his son having an affair, but he drew the line at his marrying the girl. Told him he’d been a silly young fool, but there was no sense in ruining his whole life, and so on. I gather that when he found he couldn’t reason with Lance, he started to threaten him. The upshot was that the boy flung out of the house, married the girl and caught the first boat west.”
“But what did his father expect him to do?” Rachel objected. “He always seemed such a kind old man. Surely he wouldn’t have let Lance walk out on her?”
“No. I imagine he intended to make some financial settlement,” her father said. “You have to remember, puss, that thirty-five years ago a mésalliance was considered a much greater calamity than it would be today. The old man hadn’t seen the girl and no doubt he concluded that she was no better than she should be.”
“Whatever she was like, I think it was terribly cruel to want to dispose of her like that,” Rachel said indignantly. “What happened then?”
“Well, one hears of emigrants who have a difficult time out there nowadays,” her father continued. “but it was evidently even tougher in the twenties—certainly for a boy like Lance who’d never done any manual work, and had nothing but the somewhat du
bious merit of a public school education to recommend him. As things turned out, his father’s fears for the marriage were never substantiated. The poor girl died when Daniel was born.”
“How on earth did his father manage with a baby to look after?” Rachel asked, forgetting her resolve not to be interested in anything concerning Daniel.
“Fortunately he was able to put him in the care of a Jesuit mission for some years,” the doctor said.
“Although perhaps fortune isn’t a word to use in connection with Lance’s life. He was one of those people whom fate seems to have a grudge against, poor fellow. He drifted around from job to job for several years—making just enough money to keep alive and pay the mission for looking after the child—and then, when Daniel was twelve, he was smashed up in a mining accident and permanently disabled.” He stopped to re-light his pipe, and Rachel quelled an impulse to urge him on.
“Well, that was virtually the end of Lance Elliot,” the doctor said sombrely. “By the time Daniel was able to look after him, the poor devil had gone right down the slide. He still earned a few dollars by playing the piano in some rough bar, but what little he got he spent on drink. Lived in a doss-house for down-and-outs. Tragic, when you think that he started out with every advantage. It’s queer how life goes against some people, and others can’t make a false move. Daniel’s luck seems to have been as good as his father’s was bad—although it isn’t only luck that’s put him where he is today. He’s had to work like blazes.”
He paused again and this time Rachel said impatiently, “Oh, do go on, Daddy. What did he do?”
Her father glanced at her with some curiosity for a second. Then he said: “He started at fourteen—working as a general factotum in a store. It was owned by an elderly widow who seemed to take a fancy to him, although she didn’t pay him much. When he was eighteen, she died and left the place to him. She’d never made more than a living out of it, so it wasn’t much of a windfall as it stood, but several new industries were starting up in the neighborhood and after a couple of years Daniel was making quite a decent profit. Working like a slave, mind you, and living on air and ambition—but that’s the only way one does make a fortune.”
“So then?” Rachel prompted.
Her father glanced at his watch. “Hm, I shall have to get moving,” he said. “Yarning away in here won’t cure anyone.”
“Oh, Daddy, don’t be so tantalizing. I want to know what happened next. ”
“I thought you weren’t very partial to him,” her father said dryly.
“I’m not terribly. That doesn’t stop me being interested in the story,” she answered, avoiding his glance.
“Well, very briefly, he had the foresight to invest every cent of his profits in concerns which turned out to be extremely profitable. The whole country was expanding at a tremendous rate and the Government wasn’t taxing people out of existence as they do us, so Daniel began to feel his feet. By the time he was twenty-eight, he’d got fingers in half a dozen pies and a good solid balance in the bank. As they say, it’s hard going to make the first thousand pounds, but once you’ve got it, the rest is comparatively easy. Providing you’ve got a first-class head on your shoulders, of course.”
Doctor Burney rose. “That’s the bones of the story, my dear. If you want the blanks filled in, you’d best ask Daniel. I’m off.”
When he had gone, Rachel buttered a remaining piece of toast and ate it with a faraway look in her eyes. The fact that one did not like a person, she reflected, was no reason not to be interested and curiously moved by such an extraordinary success story. It seemed incredible that the Daniel Elliot they knew, the man whose arrogant assurance had so often incensed her, should have spent his boyhood in such unpromising circumstances. How lonely he must have been, she thought. All his youth spent slaving to achieve an ambition. How lonely and how brave.
Hastily cutting short this train of thought, she jumped up and began to pile the dishes on the draining board. But, in the days that followed, she found her thoughts reverting to what her father had told her and was fretted by a mental picture of Daniel as he must have been ten or fifteen years ago. Alone, too thin for his height probably, with no one to make him rest or attend to his comfort; with nothing but his will to drive him to success.
On an airless afternoon, about a month after her engagement, Rachel rode her bicycle to a village eight miles away to visit an old woman who had been the Burney’s cook when Rachel was a baby. After sitting in a stuffy parlor for two hours and having to shout her remarks down an antiquated ear-trumpet, she was glad to get back on the road, although her route, mainly downhill on the outward journey, meant toiling up a series of inclines.
The air was so still and heavy that she felt sure there was going to be a storm and she cast anxious glances at the sky, not wanting to be caught in a downpour halfway home. By the time she had pedalled three miles, the horizon was dark and lowering and she could hear thunder rumbling in the distance. Presently the atmosphere began to cool and she knew it would not be long before the rain started.
She had passed the crossroads which were her halfway mark when the first drops flicked her arms, and at the same moment, her front wheel began to wobble and wheeze. The puncture, caused by a large and rusty nail, would not have been difficult to repair had the puncture outfit been in her saddlebag. Muttering vengeance on whoever had borrowed it, Rachel examined the tire and saw that it would be quite impossible to ride on it. There was nothing to be done but start walking and hope that a friendly lorry driver would come past before the storm broke.
On the ride out, any number of lorries and farm vans had been passing her in both directions, but now there was not a sign of one, and she resigned herself to a four-mile trudge and a thorough soaking. She had gone about half a mile when she heard a vehicle changing gear to come up the hill behind her. Maddeningly, it was a private car, and as she could not very well expect a motorist to lash her cycle to his roof (even if he had a rope and was not worried about the effect on his paintwork) she did not bother to look round as it drew nearer. The rain was falling in big drops now, and sheet lightning was flashing across the darkened landscape. Rachel was not afraid of storms, but neither did she enjoy them, and when, instead of speeding past as she expected, the car screeched to a halt, her spirits lifted. But they dropped sharply again as she recognized the car and its driver.
“Hop in. I’ll wedge your bike in the boot,” Daniel shouted, against a crash of thunder.
“No, please—I’ll be all right. You can’t,” she protested.
For answer, he grabbed the handlebars, bundled her into the passenger seat and disappeared round to the rear. It was some minutes before he slid behind the wheel and slammed his door, his hair and the shoulders of his jacket soaked by the rain which was falling faster with every second.
“Lucky I had a coil of wire in the back. Don’t worry. The bike won’t fall off,” he said, raking back his hair.
“It’s very good of you. I’m sorry you’ve got wet,” she said uncomfortably.
“I’ve been wetter. You’re a bit damp yourself,” he said, looking at her thin pink blouse and denim skirt.
Finding nothing else to say, Rachel sat silent until in a very short time they were on the outskirts of the village.
But where the road forked, instead of following the one which led to the green, he turned the car left towards his own house.
“Oh, please—” Rachel began.
“Don’t look so alarmed. I’m only going to offer you tea,” he said coolly.
“Thank you. But I’d really rather go home. I’m late as it is,” she said stiffly.
“They won’t miss you for another half an hour,” he said easily.
“But I don’t want any tea,” she said, rather desperately.
He swung the car through his gateway and gave her a mocking grin.
CHAPTER SIX
RACHEL gritted her teeth, wondering if it was worth being soaked to show him that he was n
ot all powerful. Before she made up her mind, they were at the door, which had already been opened by a plump middle-aged woman in a navy blue dress.
“Out you come,” Daniel said firmly, taking hold of her wrist.
“Of all the—!” Her exclamation was cut short as he got out himself and, hauling her across the seat, almost lifted her through the downpour to the shelter of the portico.
“I was hoping you’d be home before it broke, sir,” the woman said. “Good afternoon, miss.”
“This is Mrs. Hodge, my housekeeper, Rachel,” said Daniel. “Take Miss Burney upstairs and find her a towel and one of my shirts, will you, Mrs. Hodge?”
“Yes, sir. This way if you please, miss. I’ll soon have your blouse dry again.”
With a furious glance at Daniel, Rachel followed the woman upstairs to the bathroom.
“If you like to be doing your hair, I’ll fetch one of Mr. Elliot’s shirts,” the housekeeper said, handing her a towel. “It’ll be a bit on the big side, but that’s better than taking a chill. Tsk, such weather!” Rubbing her hair, Rachel mentally reviled the storm, the ill chance which had brought Daniel along that road at that time, and her own spinelessness in not demanding to have her bicycle unfastened and marching home. Not, she thought rebelliously, that his insufferable high-handed behavior would do him much good. She had no intention of being an agreeable tea-time companion, and the second the rain slackened, she would leave.
“I really don’t think it’s necessary to change. My blouse isn’t all that wet, and I never get colds from this sort of thing,” she said, when Mrs. Hodge returned with a blue linen sports shirt over her arm.
“May I feel it, miss? Ooh, not wet? It’s sopping,” she said reproachfully. “The master won’t mind your wearing his shirt, if that’s what’s troubling you. I expect he’s changed himself by now. He’s more sensible than most gentlemen in that way. And ever so considerate. Where we were before—my hubby’s seeing to the garden, you know—they were quite nice people, but they didn’t half give me some work—tramping their muddy shoes all over the place. Not Mr. Elliot, though. He’d walk in his stockinged feet sooner than make a mess for someone else to clear. Now I’ll leave you to change. Just put your blouse on the rail and I’ll collect it presently. You’ll find the master in the study, if you know where it is, do you?”
