The Vital Spark

by Carson, Angela

  So that was why the cabin looked so bare, Lee thought.

  `Well thought out,' Jon applauded, and Lee butted in before he could go any further.

  For Haydn, yes, but not for us.' She stressed the 'us'. `We don't live on a small island, we don't trade with the Continent, and our business talks at the moment are confined to asking Mr Dunn how many trays of tomatoes he's likely to want next week,' she stated baldly. The possibility of Haydn talking Jon into buying a boat made her blanch. The strawberries and tomatoes they had already accepted from the big nurseries were bad enough, and there were the daisies for the festival float still to come. They were already in debt to Scotts to an extent that disturbed her sleep at night.

  'I know that,' Jon protested, stung by her tone. 'I wasn't suggesting we dash out and buy a boat. It's a bit beyond us, yet,' he admitted wistfully.

  `It's way beyond us, for a long time to come,' she snapped back. `Our sole purpose in coming here is for you to see how to make the stretchers to hold strawberry plants for next season. Don't count your berries until they're grown and picked,' she misquoted darkly. 'We haven't even got the plants yet, let alone the fruit.'

  `We could supply you with those,' Haydn offered mildly, and then before Lee had a chance to reply added, 'but as you say, you're here now to see how the stretchers are

  made. If you've finished your coffee?'

  All Lee's doubts returned as she followed him towards the door. Haydn had manoeuvred Jon into a position where Polrewin would be a handy market outlet for plants, as well as a distributing centre for his mail order business, and bitter resentment welled up inside her at his unscrupulous manipulation.

  Polrewin's too small to be of any interest as a market to a place like Scotts,' she put in firmly, and Haydn paused at the bite in her voice, and eyed her strangely.

  `The bulk of our trade is done through comparatively small outlets,' he said at last—almost, Lee thought irascibly, as if he was explaining the ABC to a particularly obtuse child. 'It eliminates the middleman's profit and allows us to sell at a more reasonable rate, and it also helps to maintain our reputation for supplying goods in mint-fresh condition, without the time lag of going through the bigger markets.'

  The trouble was, Lee thought helplessly, it all sounded so reasonable. His arguments were perfectly logical, and if Polrewin had been a viable concern she would probably have been as ready to listen as her brother. But it was not. It would be another two seasons before they would be secure enough to consider launching out, and in the meantime their joint savings were at risk. Lee deliberately placed herself between the two men. If Haydn had any intention of putting more wild theories into her brother's mind, she intended to be there to field them, and mitigate some of the damage.

  `Here's the block of glasshouses where we grow the strawberries.'

  She had never seen a glasshouse packed to such capacity. There was scarcely an inch of wasted space from the floor to the roof, and it made Polrewin's two glasshouses, Lee realised uncomfortably, look like the work of an amateur.

  `I say !' Jon was impressed, and showed it. Lee was equally impressed, and determined not to show it. 'Are you sure there's room for us?' Jon asked with heavy irony, and Haydn grinned.

  `Plenty, so long as you keep to the walkways. You can see now what I meant when I said use all your space,' he went

  on conversationally. 'The same amount of heat keeps all this lot going.' He paused to speak to a man in overalls who wheeled a light trolley full of containers along the walkway towards them. Some of them, Lee noticed, were already full of strawberries. He must be picking the morning crop.

  `Will it upset your count if I take one?' Haydn asked him, and the man smiled.

  `No, I've got a few extra in case there's a split punnet.' He handed one over, and Lee looked on curiously. She could not imagine Vince asking permission from one of his own staff. He would be more likely to take what he wanted, and blame the staff for being one short afterwards.

  `I'm just going to let this stretcher down and pick it, if you want a few berries for the young lady, Mr Haydn.' The man's friendly smile embraced Lee, and she felt her cheeks go pink, but Haydn merely said easily,

  `That was the general idea. This gentleman,' he indicated Jon, 'is more interested in how the stretchers work. He's a grower on the mainland.' Again he overlooked, deliberately or otherwise, the fact that Lee was Jon's partner.

  `A rival, eh?' The man eyed Jon shrewdly.

  `A friend of mine,' Haydn corrected him quietly. 'Step back a moment, Lee, the stretcher's coming down.' He raised one hand and helped adjust it to a comfortable picking level while he kept his other on Lee's elbow, drawing her to him safely out of the way of the descending load. Her eyes widened as she surveyed what it contained.

  `They're less trouble grown this way, the berries hang down and automatically stay clean.' Haydn let go of her elbow and started to fill the punnet in his hand. The berries were huge, replicas of those which had delighted the chef at the Royal Anchor, and Haydn handed her the filled punnet.

  `These will keep you happy while Jon and I talk technicalities.'

  `Any business discussions you have with Jon must include me.' She would not be thrust aside in this manner, she thought furiously, and with difficulty restrained a desire to hurl his strawberries back at him He treated her as if she was a no-account child, to be given a bag of

  sweets to keep her quiet while the grown-ups talked.

  `It's hardly a business discussion,' he retorted drily. 'Jon simply wants to see how the stretchers are made, so that he can instruct Ben when he gets back. Unless you're interested in carpentry, of course?' She was not, and he must know it, and he turned back to Jon. 'They're little more than stout slats, really, so that the air and the heat can get through....'

  Lee bit into a strawberry angrily, aware of the curious gaze of the man in overalls. She felt deflated, and if Haydn's reply was meant to defuse her anger it had not succeeded. What would be the outcome of this trip? she wondered worriedly, and wished fervently that they had never come. If it came to listening to either herself or Haydn, Jon would certainly take Haydn's advice, regardless of what she said. A sick feeling of helplessness assailed her, and she surreptitiously slid the punnet of strawberries back on to the trolley. She did not want any more. She felt another berry would choke her.

  `I'll take you to see Alan Walker, he's in charge of all the maintenance round here, and he's a master carpenter.' The two men finished their inspection of the stretcher and straightened up.

  `He's working at the end of the glasshouse, Mr Haydn,' the man in overalls put in. 'Here he comes, now,' he indicated his colleague in a brown smock walking slowly towards them, his eyes' searching overhead, as if he might be on a daily checking round.

  `You've come at just the right time,' Haydn greeted him, and made the necessary instructions. 'Mr Ramsay wants to investigate the possibilities of using something similar in his own glasshouses on the mainland.'

  `We've got some new stretchers made in the carpenter's shop, if you like to come and have a look at them.' The man was all friendly co-operation.

  `If there's one spare, we could take it back with us,' Haydn suggested. 'Ben could see then for himself just what was needed.'

  `Provided you add it on to our account.' Lee was deter-

  mined that Jon should not accept anything they did not pay for.

  `Oh, I will.' Haydn turned to her with a swift movement and looked straight into her eyes. 'Indeed I will,' he added softly, and there was a wealth of meaning in his voice that raised Lee's eyes to his with startled questioning, to meet the hard, impatient anger in his look, so that she dropped her gaze, and felt a shiver of apprehension run through her. Had she gone too far?

  No ! she denied to herself fiercely. You could not go too far to retain your own independence. What Polrewin received from Scotts nurseries, they would pay for. And Haydn's look confirmed that she would pay. She—and not Polrewin.... Suddenly subdued, she took r
efuge in silence while her brother and the maintenance man talked, and she shook her head emphatically when Jon asked,

  `D'you want to come to the carpenter's shop with us, Lee?' She did not. She would much rather continue to wander round the glasshouses on her own. It would give her time to collect her wits before she faced another verbal sparring match with Haydn. For once, Jon must get by on his own, and if Haydn led him into any extravagance she would simply veto it. She had the right, as his partner.

  `You go along with Alan, then, Jon, and we'll join up with you later.' Haydn neatly circumvented her move, and she bit her lip angrily. 'I've got something to show Lee that won't be of much interest to you.'

  There was nothing Haydn could show her that would not also interest Jon, as her business partner. She opened her mouth to tell him so, and then shut it again, the words unsaid, because the maintenance man and the strawberry picker were watching and listening.

  `This way, it's outside.' Wordlessly she followed him. Her feet dragged, and she wished she had elected to go with Jon to the carpenter's shop after all. She had thought Haydn would remain with Jon....

  He did not speak as he led the way through the glasshouse and out into the open air. He paused then for a moment or two, and took a deep breath, and Lee found herself doing the same. Perhaps they both need

  breather, she thought humourlessly, but if Haydn thought she would agree to anything he suggested just because he had brought them out for the day, he had yet to find his mistake. She walked slowly, determined not to be the first to break the silence, and he led her away from the administrative building towards flat, cultivated fields which beckoned with strips of brilliant colour. A short windbreak of trees protected one side, and Haydn led her through it and out at the other side, where he stopped and leaned against a handy trunk, and broke the silence.

  `There are your daisies,' he told her quietly. 'You can have all those to decorate your float with.'

  A broad strip of white, nodding heads with bright yellow centres ran down the entire length of the field confronting them, and Lee knew a moment of quick jubilation. There were all the daisies she needed, and more. It faded almost as soon as it came. Picking, packaging and transport would be costly. And already Polrewin's debt to Scotts nurseries was mounting steadily. Her lips set in a determined line.

  `We'll have only what we can afford.'

  His face whitened. She watched the colour recede, and felt a quick prick of fear, but he held himself in check with iron self-control, and only betrayed what he felt by a quick gesture of exasperation.

  `I'm offering them to you. As a gift. For my keep, if you like, while I've been staying with you at Polrewin. If you must be so damned independent....'

  `We don't take paying guests.' She faced him with dignity. 'Any produce we have from here must go on to our account, and be paid for.'

  She got no further. Haydn gave an exclamation of anger, and reaching out pulled her roughly towards him. She tried to turn away, but his hands held on to her shoulders with steel strength, and she was helpless in his grasp.

  `If you won't accept them, then you can pay something on account now,' he growled furiously, and his lips came down hard on her own. She struggled, but his one hand rose and cupped the back of her head, holding her still. His body was hard against her, hurting her, as unyielding in his anger as the tree trunks among which they stood, and

  she moaned and tried to beat against him with her fists, but her arms were pinioned to her sides. He held her in a searing, devastating embrace, afire with suppressed fury. She could not draw away, and she could not breathe. Her heart beat with hard, heavy thuds, like the waves against the harbour wall at Tarmouth. She felt her senses begin to slip, and if he did not soon let her go, her resistance would do the same.... Fear that she might yield and respond as she had responded when he kissed her on the rocks of the point gave her last remaining strength the impetus of desperation, and she arched her back and pushed away from him. He let her go, then, thrust her from him, and the force of his thrust and her own push combined made her stagger backwards. She came up hard against one of the tree trunks, and reached behind her to grasp at it for support, trembling in every limb.

  `I hate you!'

  Her lips felt stiff. They throbbed from the angry pressure he had put upon them, and the inside of them felt bruised where they had been mercilessly crushed against her teeth. She faced him like a wild thing at bay, her black eyes enormous in her white face, and her breath came in sobbing gasps.

  `I hate you!'

  If she repeated it often enough, she would believe it. She loathed him! She detested him for his arrogant, domineering ways. If he had never come to Polrewin, she would never have experienced this violent upsurge of feeling that destroyed her peace of mind, and would soon destroy her too.... It was like being a human tug of war, attracted and repelled at the same time. But the attraction is only physical, her mind cried to her heart, and she despised herself for it. But her mind waited in vain for a reply. Her heart just cried....

  `At least you've got something to hate me for, now,' Haydn ground through set teeth.

  `Go away! Leave us alone,' she whispered frantically,

  and his head reared up and he glared at her with angry eyes.

  `I only wish I could, but I promised Jon I'd help him,

  and help him I will, no matter what you say. He's working

  like a slave to get his business off the ground, and he asked me to come along and steer him,' he reminded Lee grimly. `Every time I make a suggestion, you block my way. You can't get a business afloat by just sitting back and letting things happen,' he snapped.

  `No, you push potential rivals into a corner, get them hopelessly into debt, and then take them over for your own purposes,' Lee hit back, stung into retaliation by the con-. tempt in his tone.

  `Purposes such as—what?' He stilled then, with a taut, alert stillness, like a mountain cat about to spring, she thought numbly, but it was too late now, she had to go on.

  `Such as having a ready-made distribution centre for your mail order business,' she flung at him, and saw his face go paler still beneath his tan.

  `So that's what you think,' he breathed softly. He held her eyes with a long, cold, considering look. There were no lights in the amber orbs now, they looked like quartz, and about as hard.

  `What else am I to think?' To her chagrin her own eyes filled with angry tears, and she brushed them away with an impatient flick of her hand. 'We'd just got out of debt with the bank when you came on the scene, and then you tempted Jon to buy this and buy that, and got us back into debt again. First it was the tomatoes and the strawberries, now it's the wooden stretchers and the daisies, and this morning you put the idea of a boat into his head....' Despair choked her utterance, and she shivered to a halt. His face wavered in front of her eyes, and she blinked, but it did not clear her vision, and out of the mists she heard him say,

  `You can forget the charge for the daisies, you're having them whether you want them or not. Jon needs the advertisement for Polrewin, and if you don't want to be a part of it, that's up to you.'

  `That's fine by me,' she flung back defiantly. 'As far as I'm concerned you....'

  `Mr Haydn!'

  She stopped abruptly as a voice called through the trees, and the fair-haired girl Lee had seen earlier with the clip-

  board in her hand hurried towards them. Lee averted her face. She did not feel like facing another woman's intuitive glance just yet.

  `Mrs Scott phoned through to say your lunch would be ready in half an hour, and that was ten minutes ago,' the girl warned Haydn with a smile.

  `We'll be there,' he promised. 'We'll go and collect Mr Ramsay from the carpenter's shop first.'

  `He's already waiting by the car,' the girl told him, and turned to go back the way she had come.

  `In that case we'll come back with you.'

  He turned, and took Lee's arm, and perforce she had to walk alongside him. Once she put her hand up
to her lips, to her forehead. Her head ached now, too. She felt him glance down at her, and she withdrew it, and carried on walking, conscious of a heavy listlessness that made each step an effort. It seemed a hundred miles before she saw the thatched roof of the office block again, and she somehow managed to respond to the girl's cheerful, 'Have a good day,' and walked towards the car pulled up on the gravel. Jon was already sitting in the back. Haydn paused for a moment to speak to the girl, she did not hear what he said, only the girl's cheerful, 'Leave it to me, Mr Haydn,' and she clambered into the car beside Jon, unwilling to wait in case Haydn tried to help her in. She shrank from his touch, her arms already felt bruised where his fingers had gripped her.

  `Those stretchers are an ideal thing.'

  Jon noticed nothing amiss, and his enthusiasm bubbled over the moment Haydn appeared. The driver started off as soon as they were safely aboard, and while they drove Lee tried surreptitiously to scrub her face with her handkerchief. The tiny, lace-edged square was hopelessly in-ad equ a te, and with a shrug she desisted. She felt past caring how she looked. It was Haydn's fault for bringing them back to lunch, but the reflection did not make her feel any better.

  She felt even worse when the car pulled up after about a couple of miles at a low, red brick house on the edge of a village. Sheltered by trees on the one side, it was girded

  by a garden that was a necklace of brilliance under the warm sunshine, evidence that the owner's livelihood was also his hobby. Roses of every description lent perfumed sweetness to the approach, and Haydn led them through a cool, panelled hall, scented with bowls of the same blooms, to a long, low-ceilinged room where an elderly man and woman sat waiting for them by open french windows.