The house of my enemy

by Norrey Ford

  "It wasn't a holiday, you know. Wagstaffe went to take films and he took 'em, regardless. We had some gruelling days. I admit I was a bit ill in one spot. I spent a few days in a very decent hospital sharing a room with another Englishman with the same tummy trouble. We played chess between bouts of sickness. He usually won."

  "You shall tell me all about it afterwards," said Aunt Fidget firmly. "In hospital! You never said a word in your letters."

  "I didn't want to worry you, Auntie. By the way, I've brought you dozens of presents. You too, girls. Want to come upstairs and help me unpack them? You don't mind, Father?—I want to get your things out too."

  Upstairs in his austerely masculine bed-sitting room, Laurie unlocked his cases and invited the girls to help themselves.

  "Incidentally, that Englishman lived in Earton," he told them. "We got pretty friendly and I'm taking you to meet him to-morrow. Not a word to Father—cross your hearts?"

  "Why?" Sally wondered. "What's the mystery?"

  Verity, with a lifetime's experience of Robert, knew how necessary it was to keep secrets if they were likely to annoy him, and crossed her heart solemnly before asking questions. "I swear, Laurie. Who is he?"

  "I shan't tell you. You'll find out to-morrow."

  "Don't be so maddening, you brute," Sally grumbled good-humouredly. "Oh, what heavenly silks! My trousseau, Verity! Laurie, you are an angel. I do believe this is a real sari."

  Excitedly, the girls unpacked rolls of soft, bright silks.

  "The bringer of the feast is forgotten," Laurie complained. "I'll go down and talk to Father. Any ructions while I've been away?"

  "He's keen for me to marry Tom Cooper and keeps dropping heavy hints. He's torn between that and not wanting to lose me, so up to now he hasn't turned the pressure on."

  "Tom Cooper? He'd be doing himself a good business deal if he brought it off. Coopers have a fine export trade. But Tom's a decent chap for all that. Are you in love?"

  "Not with Tom, or anyone else at present."

  Sally, swathed in a sky-blue sari, said "Anyone else? You'd better not be, if Laurie's father has decided you're to marry Tom Cooper."

  "Daddy's not so terrifying as you think. After all, Sally, he did let Laurie be a farmer and even bought the farm."

  Sally wound loving arms round her Laurie's neck. "And let him marry me. He must be a lambkin really, though my shivering nerves tell me he's a ravenous wolf seeking what he may devour in the shape of nervous young females. Shall I ever get used to him, I wonder?"

  Laurie gave her a spanking kiss. "Begin by getting used to me, my angel. I'm going down to talk to him Enjoy yourselves, girls."

  "We want to be married as soon as possible," Sally told Verity. "Mother wants six bridesmaids and pages, but I shall battle to the death. I want a simple wedding, with just you. I'd prefer Laurie and me and the Vicar, but the families would have a fit. Queer how the middle-aged are so romantic!"

  "They want to live their lives over again in us." Verity spread a carved ivory fan and admired it. "How come you changed your mind about Laurie? When he went away you were dead set against marrying him."

  "I didn't exactly change my mind. I loved him all the time but I didn't know it till he went away for six months in that awful jeep thing. It was the sight of Laurie in a beard that settled it. I cabled him straight away."

  With delicate fingers, Verity stroked the ivory sticks. "Fancy being in love and not knowing. I bet I'd know, the first minute."

  "Love's a funny thing," said Sally with the wisdom of her brief experience. "You don't know how funny till you're in it, and then you're too late."

  Laurie headed his car towards the Earlton docks. Verity and Sally were wild with curiosity, but he obstinately kept silent about their destination.

  Verity, alone in the rear seat, was happy to see their shining happiness. Sally had been her best friend at school, and since then the three of them had shared many gay expeditions, sometimes with an extra man but quite happy to go threesome. Up to Laurie's going out East, he and Sally had teased and tormented each other, with little thought of love. But on the eve of his departure Laurie had proposed to Sally and been turned down flat.

  Now life was going to be different. From now on, Verity knew she would be odd man out. The fleeting, carefree days of casual friendship belonged to the past. She could not help a pang of feeling too affectionate to be jealousy—of regret, perhaps, and the knowledge that her

  two closest friends had retreated from her in a mysterious way.

  Laurie and Sally were living inside their own magic world, and Verity could only look in from the outside. They would go on loving her and showing her friendship, but she could not share their world anymore.

  A shadow of loneliness touched her. The two in front did not notice her silence as she watched the glimpses of shipping between the vast dusty warehouses. She always enjoyed the docks. There was a fascinating piney scent of new wood as a deck cargo was unloaded from some Scandinavian port—the breath of a faraway Norwegian forest. A horse-drawn dray held up the car for a moment; it was loaded with esparto grass. Sparrows were everywhere, picking the fallen grain and fruit, and gulls ceaselessly patrolled, turning their inquisitive heads this way and that on the lookout for scavengings.

  "Look, girls—there's the Bramhall Star!" Laurie pointed and Sally craned her neck to see the crack ship of the Bramhall Line at her berth.

  Verity leaned forward eagerly. "She's flying the Blue Peter, Sally—see? That means she's sailing on to-day's tide. Dr. Foggin wants Daddy to do the winter sunshine cruise with her, Laurie. I wrote you how bad his bronchitis was in January. The doctor says he should avoid another Earlton winter."

  "I'll bet Father says he's too busy."

  "He did. But Dr. Foggin merely said 'Busy or dead, Robert, take your choice.'

  Her head went up and she sniffed sharply. The fresh tang had been overpowered by a new smell which hung heavily in the air, sweet and sharp together, strange and exotic. Laurie nosed the car forward between the warehouses, moving slowly as if searching.

  Sally sniffed experimentally. "What is it? Sort of—nutmeg?"

  Verity's heart beat fast. Though she'd never been on these particular wharves before, she guessed what they were. Her throat was dry with utterly illogical fright.

  "Laurie—you wouldn't dare!" She found she was whispering.

  "Why not? Sally, this sister of mine still believes in the demon king. She's scared, Are you?"

  "If Verity is, I am too," Sally said promptly and with great common sense. "Put me down. What goes on?"

  The smell of spices was almost sickening. It clung in the throat. "All our lives," Laurie went on, "Verity and I have been brought up to believe that this was the lair of the devil, the entrance to the nether regions."

  "My scalp tingles," Verity admitted. She did not tell them she was trembling, partly with fear but mostly with excitement. "Suppose we meet him?"

  Curiously, Sally read the words painted the full length of two vast warehouses. "J. W. Bramhall and Sons, Spice Importers. No, it's Son, the 's' has been painted out, but not very well. Goodness, is this the uncle you had the feud with?"

  "The same. He and Father haven't spoken for about thirty years, the great babies. They quarrelled on the day of their father's funeral and have never exchanged a word since."

  "I never heard of anything so stupid."

  "Do move on," Verity begged. "He might see us." "Not a bit of it. We're going inside."

  "In here! Suppose we meet Uncle John William?"

  "Can he eat us?" Laurie opened the door with a flourish. "Step into the spider's parlour, girls. The fact is, it was the and Son I met in that hospital, Adam Bramhall, our cousin—he was on a spice-buying spree. Their markets in the far east have gone haywire these last few years, and he was straightening things out a bit. He's a decent bloke."

  "If Daddy finds out he'll never forgive you as long as you live."

  Laurie grinned over his sh
oulder at her. "We won't tell him, any more than Adam will tell his father. If the old boys choose to behave that way, we needn't follow their example."

  With a girl trotting anxiously at each side, Laurie marched boldly into the nearest entrance and asked for Mr. Adam Bramhall. As they waited, they stared about them curiously. The air was heavily scented, drowsy. Sunbeams drew a pattern on the gloom, slanting through windows high in the walls; dust-motes danced in the golden shafts.

  "It's terribly romantic," Sally whispered in Verity's ear.

  "It won't be if Uncle John William catches us. He'll probably eat us."

  No one seemed in a hurry. The boy they had despatched on their errand had disappeared. Laurie and Sally were holding hands, eyes only for each other. They had stepped into their own world and its magic had wrapped closely around them.

  Being tactful, Verity moved a pace or two away, and began idly reading labels on the high-stacked bales. The names of the spices, the outlandish places of their origin, sang like a poem in her head. Drawn by curiosity and delight to read another and another, she presently found herself alone.

  To be alarmed was foolish, because she had only to step back between two piles of bales to find Sally and Laurie and the entrance again. She did so.

  Sally and Laurie weren't there, but only more bales piled high into the dim shadows above, and more passages between them, all exactly alike.

  I can't be lost. I only moved a few steps to the right—no, left. If I take this opening and go round one more corner . . .

  She stepped out into an open space flooded with sunshine which made her blink like a little owl. A man's deep voice said sharply,

  "What the dickens are you doing here? What are you up to?" A hard hand gripped her wrist till it hurt.

  Startled, she uttered a sharp cry, but her brain refused to supply any answer to what was, after all, a reasonable question.

  He released her. "Good lor', it's a girl. I thought you were a warehouse thief, slipping between bales like that." It was a kind voice now, with laughter in it. "I'm sorry, did I hurt you? Are you looking for someone?"

  The dazzle was out of her eyes and she could see him. He was dark-haired and his eyes might be blue—or grey. Plain, rugged, dependable-looking, he had the unmistakable Bramhall chin, jutting and obstinate, so like John Robert Bramhall the First that she almost laughed, seeing the portrait at home come to life. His mouth owed nothing to the Bramhall strain, though; it was too kind, almost tender, as he smiled at her amusedly, waiting for her answer. He was too young to be John William Bramhall.

  "Adam," she decided aloud. "Of course—you're Adam."

  "I am Adam, but—" His dark brows met in a frown of bewilderment. "You'll have to forgive my not knowing you. If I'd met you before I couldn't have forgotten."

  She appreciated the delicacy of his compliment. "We haven't met. We came to call on you, my brother and his fiancée and I. A boy is supposed to be looking for you. We were waiting by an entrance and I turned away to look at some labels."

  "And lost your sense of direction? It's often done. Follow me, I was brought up in this Hampton Court maze and I know where you went wrong."

  Verity felt embarrassed when she saw how near she'd been to Laurie and Sally all the time. They hadn't even missed her.

  "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Adam said into Laurie's ear, and from then on, Sally declared, the men forgot the girls entirely.

  At last she tugged Laurie's sleeve. "Hi, there! When you two have finished swapping news about your respective tummies, there are females around."

  Adam bowed gravely over her hand. "So this is Sally! I'd have known you anywhere. I had to endure the ravings of a love-sick madman in between the less pleasant episodes of our illness. Laurie has vivid descriptive powers."

  "And this is Verity," said Laurie. I "told you about her too."

  "Not enough, my boy. Not nearly enough. I darned nearly arrested her. I thought she was a thief."

  Laurie roared with laughter. "That's nothing. Verity has always thought of you as the one who ate Red Riding Hood's grandma."

  Adam joined in the laughter. "You're wrong, Verity. It was your father who did that. He was also the Sheriff of Nottingham and Captain Hook."

  Between them, they were making a good deal of noise. Adam glanced over his shoulder. "My old Dad is around here this morning. If I want to be friends with you, I will be—it's time this stupid feud stopped. But the old man has had high blood pressure lately and it would be kinder not to make him blow his top. Suppose the meeting adjourns to Bert's Coffee House, by the dock gates? It's clean and my friend Bert makes good coffee."

  He gave Laurie directions and promised to meet them in ten minutes. As the three returned to the car, Sally was thoughtful.

  "Maybe I'm doing wrong in marrying a Bramhall, Verity. Adam is scared of his father, too."

  Laurie nodded. "He hustled us away pretty smartish. Maybe John William is worse than Robert."

  Verity was indignant. "He wasn't scared, he was considerate. If Uncle John Williams has high blood pressure, he'd go off with a loud bang to find two of the enemy inside his camp."

  "Three. Sally's marrying into our side of the battle."

  "Adam's better-looking than you—isn't he, Verity?" Dotingly, Sally stroked Laurie's sleeve. "But I love you best. Did you like him, Verity lamb?"

  "I think so. I'm not sure." She could feel a burning sensation where Adam's hand had gripped her wrist. She had not made up her mind about those penetrating eyes, that fiercely jutting chin. She would have to see Adam Bramhall again before she could decide whether or not she liked him. She wanted to see him again.

  When he joined them, he was apologetic. "Sorry to be late, the old man held me up. He walked round the corner two minutes after you left."

  He collected four thick cups of excellent coffee from the counter which was shining with chromium and plastic. "Now, Laurie my boy, I want to hear all about your inside."

  Soon the girls were rocking with laughter as Adam and Laurie gave a spirited account of their stay in hospital.

  "The orderly wheeled this bloke in. He looked like death warmed up, and I said, 'What's your name?' And, he said .. ."

  " 'Bramhall.' So Laurie said, 'Don't be an ass, that's my name.' Each of us thought the other was delirious, so we gave it up as a bad job, turned over and tried to sleep. Then the ward orderlies started on it. It was twenty-four hours before we got it thoroughly sorted out."

  "But couldn't you tell?" Verity was astonished at Laurie's lack of perspicacity. "Adam is so much like Grandfather John Robert. He's rather like Daddy, too. He's got the chin. Are you very stubborn, Adam?"

  He rubbed the square, deeply-cleft chin ruefully. "I do my share. I call it firm. Our old housekeeper calls it pig-headed. But what about you, Verity? You're not like anybody in the family. You haven't the chin or the eyes. You're much too pretty to be a Bramhall, you must be a fairy changeling."

  Verity's colour deepened to a rich crimson. Laurie and Sally exchanged glances, but no one spoke. The silence became so marked that Adam said uncomfortably, "Have I said something wrong?"

  Sally said, "My poor Adam, you've dropped a beautiful clanger. Is it possible you don't know? Verity is a sort of changeling, but they don't mind."

  "My fault," said Laurie. "I always think and speak of Verity as a sister. My parents adopted her when she was a year old. They couldn't have another child and both wanted a girl. It was the best day's work they ever did, for themselves and for me. Verity has been the joy of our lives and I hate to think what would have happened to us after Mother died if it hadn't been for Sunshine Susie here."

  Adam wasn't listening. He was staring at Verity. "You're not Uncle Robert'‘ daughter? Not my cousin after all?" "I'm afraid not. Didn't you know?"

  He shook his head slowly. "I was so much younger than the others. By the time I was old enough to notice, I suppose the novelty had worn off and no one thought of telling me. I'm sure the adoption would be talked
over and severely criticized at the time."

  They all laughed. "You bet it would," Laurie said heartily. "But after the nine days' wonder no one would bother. We never think of it ourselves."

  "But I should have been told!" Adam was still staring at Verity as if she had just walked through the wall. His tone puzzled her. The discovery seemed so important to him. She herself had lived with the knowledge of her adoption so long that it mattered nothing to her. But in some way she couldn't fathom, it mattered to Adam Bramhall.

  "I'm still one of the enemy, Adam, don't make any mistake about that. Daddy detests your father and he expects me to do the same. I don't, of course. It's all too long ago, and unreal. Until to-day, it didn't make any difference when I pretended to hate you, to please Daddy; you were all characters in a story, not real live people. But now I'm going to feel mean when I pretend."

  He gave her a remarkably sweet smile which did not include the other two but was meant for her alone. "Don't worry about that. I pretend too. You probably know my two brothers were killed and my mother died in an air-raid. My father is a lonely old boy and without me he'd be sunk. I jolly him along."

  "Me, too," Laurie admitted. "As a kid I felt fiercely about the great Bramhall feud, but now I know hate gets you nowhere. Hate and pride—in plain, old-fashioned language they're sins, and create their own hell."

  Adam grimaced ruefully. "True for you, boy. I must watch out. I have my own share of the Bramhall pig-headedness and I'm as prideful as the devil. When Father and I have a row it's apt to last a long time because neither will give in."

  Verity gurgled with amusement. "How do they end, then?"

  "I give in, because he's old and my father. And because we've never quarrelled about anything important. Heaven help us if we did—because I'd never surrender on a matter of principle. Neither would he."

  Verity turned to Laurie. "That's Robert Bramhall all over! What a family!"

  "Verity and I are blessedly free from the curse," Laurie explained. "She's not a Bramhall at all and I take after my mother's side."

  "Thank goodness for that," Sally put in. "I couldn't endure a second edition of your father."