The house of my enemy

by Norrey Ford

  He held up a parcel. "Wedding present. I thought it would look out of place in the grand display. Imagine Laurie trying to explain my card away to his father! Sally told me there'd be someone in the house to-day to receive

  it."

  Their eyes met. Then Adam laughed. "Bless Sally's heart! Did she tell you to come, too?"

  "I promised to bring Hobo and collect her maid. Adam, she comes from that place. The orphanage. It wasn't as awful as I imagined. Quite nice, in fact—I liked it at first. Then I panicked."

  To her relief he did not laugh. He considered her seriously. "Were you afraid they'd grab you?"

  Decidedly, she shook her head. "It wasn't Them. It was the other me, the girl who never had a chance to exist. She seemed to be fighting for recognition. It seemed as if I owed her a debt, and someday I'd have to repay by being her again. I don't even know her name—my name I never thought about that before."

  He smiled kindly into her eyes. "Verity Bramhall." Doubtfully, her face troubled, she asked softly, "But am I?"

  He leaned lazily on the wall, as if ready to listen all morning. "Tell me about this girl."

  "That's the trouble. I don't know about her. I don't know which is the real me, and which is the me the Bramhalls created. Jenny Small has never had a bedroom to herself. That seems dreadful to me, because I've always had my own room. But just now, coming downstairs, I felt I'd missed something warm and living, the way sisters are—quarrelling, chattering, sharing things. My lovely room at home seemed cold and sterile for a moment. And there's another thing I almost envy Jenny, but not quite. She can earn her own living and I can't. She's more free than I am, because she's standing on her own two feet. I'm spoilt and useless."

  "Some girls would enjoy that."

  "I know. It's ungrateful of me to talk like this. I'm useful to Daddy because he likes to see me about the place wearing a pretty dress. I'm an ornament he bought for his house, you see. I'd like to be a real person, like Jenny, and have a purpose in life."

  "Perhaps you haven't come to your purpose yet. You'll marry, make a man happy, and have children."

  "But

  "Wait a minute, I hadn't finished. Don't imagine that being married is just a matter of transferring the ownership

  of the pretty ornament from your father to another man. As I see it, a woman brings something creative to a marriage, quite apart from the children. In a way, she's creating all the time. She creates a home, something over and above a collection of furniture and fittings; and she creates a single unit out of two separate human beings. Some women fail at this completely; haven't you met couples who are always two separate beings, and marriages where husband and wife are blended into one entity which is bigger and better than either?"

  "For a bachelor, you're remarkably knowledgeable about marriage."

  "I'm talking about my ideal marriage and my ideal wife. I've thought about her a lot, in my time. Perhaps that is because I was brought up in a motherless home, but remembered the time when it had a mother. Maybe I was just of an age to appreciate the difference, not too young and not too old."

  She said softly, "Laurie and Sally will make a real marriage. I think I see what you mean. Sally has that quality —for Laurie. Springwater will be a home."

  "You've reached the heart of my meaning at once. Now do you see what I mean when I say you may not have come to your purpose in life yet? Do you have a feeling of marking time?"

  "Until lately, I've had a feeling of having all the time in the world to spare. But this spring and summer have been different. I've been restless, dissatisfied, rooted out of my complacency. I think it's the other me becoming discontented, nailed down in her prison."

  "Or simply spring fever. Your feet tingling to be on your road. Maybe the prince is already hacking his way through the brambles, small princess in the tower. Maybe you've heard his voice disturbing your sleep."

  She shook her head slowly, her eyes far away and troubled. "No, it can't be that, Adam. Because if I heard the voice of the prince in the brambles, I'd know. I couldn't hear it and not be certain sure, once and for ever. I'd not be in any doubt."

  "And have you not that certainty, my fine girl?"

  Her voice was low. "No certainty. at all."

  He patted her brown fine hand as it lay on top of the yard wall, warm in the sun. "Then it is only spring fever, for when love comes, one is sure." His voice was light, the pat on her hand playful, but there was no playfulness in his voice at all.

  "What is the wedding present?" she said, to change the subject.

  "A carved ivory chess set, to remind Laurie of the games we played in those endless insect-ridden nights."

  "He'll like that. He's teaching Sally to play. How rude of me not to ask you in! I'm sure I can find some sherry or whisky somewhere."

  Indoors, he stared around with admiration. "Sally has done well. With all her money, she might have made a mess of it."

  "They're not antiques out of expensive shops. Every piece came from an old farm or a country house. She has an eye for possibilities and craftsmanship."

  He ran an appreciative hand over a plain, well-proportioned oak writing table under the window. "Good work a man could do, sitting here. See—" His fingers found and caressed a tiny carved mouse on the corner of a table-leg. "This is the signature of the man who made it. An artist, that one."

  Mrs. Apple beckoned Verity anxiously. "I've put your dinners in the dining-room, you and the gentleman, There's lamb chops and apple pie with cream and a nice bit of cheese."

  "How did you know he was staying?"

  "I've got eyes in my head. Go along now, eat it while it's hot."

  "It appears," said Verity, returning to Adam, "that we're to lunch together. I didn't ask you earlier because I didn't know how the larder was, the house not being officially occupied. I hope you like lamb chops."

  After lunch they took Hobo for a walk, and laughed at his astonishment at first encountering one of Laurie's Friesian cows in a meadow. The cow lowered its bland, inquisitive head to inspect the short-legged creature which sat

  and stared at her; she blew her flower-scented breath through wide nostrils, and Hobo fell over in astonishment. He picked himself up and ran for cover behind the humans, a species he knew and trusted. Verity picked him up.

  "Poor Hobo, it's hard learning to be a country dog."

  "He's young enough not to mind running away. A cat would never lose her dignity like that. She'd disengage herself with immense self-possession, with a casual reference to an important appointment in the next field for which she was already rather late."

  When they returned to the house, there was a smell of baking bread, and a substantial tea laid out for them on the dining-room table. Jenny brought in the teapot on a tray, with buttered toast and a plate of jam tarts.

  "Mrs. Apple let me make the tarts,", she told them proudly. "I'm going to like it here. I'm going to watch Mr. Apple do the milking machine now. Is there anything more you want?"

  After tea it was time to leave. Laurie and Sally were due in less than an hour. The house must be ready for its master and mistress, with flowers and good food and the windows wide open to the warmth of the August evening —but empty of all but shy Jenny in the kitchen and Hobo on a chair at the windows, his paws on the ledge.

  When they parted, Adam held Verity's hand in a firm grip. "Goodbye for the present, Verity Bramhall."

  "I don't think I have been Verity to-day at all, Adam. I've done all the things that pleased me, yet none of the things I'm supposed to like."

  "And what are those?"

  "Dancing, playing tennis, driving a car very fast. Listening to chamber music, looking at paintings, watching ballet —and a million other things besides."

  "Perhaps you're a country girl after all."

  "Not for keeps. I like towns and shops and theatres, and talking to lots of people at parties."

  "But I'll see you again here, I hope? I've promised Laurie to help with the harvest wh
enever I can get away."

  "Then we are sure to meet, because I've promised Sally to help with the extra feeding, too."

  "Then I must work up a good appetite. I'm sure you're a first-rate cook."

  She gave her silvery laugh. "You're wrong. I don't know how to boil an egg, and Sally has only been to an expensive cookery school in London. I wanted to go too, but Aunt Fidget would never tolerate me in the kitchen for a moment."

  "I'll bring sandwiches, to be on the safe side." He shut the door of her car, stood back and waved.

  It had been a lovely day and it was nice to think they'd meet again soon. But there was Rosemary, and one mustn't start thinking much about Adam's voice and touch, the smile in his eyes and the humorous quirk at the corner of his mouth. Better not to think about him at all.

  At home there was a message from Tom, inviting her to an evening at his film club, where they were showing German and Russian films. He'd call for her just before eight, and they'd eat at the White House Restaurant and dance a little, if, she cared to. The films weren't to start till later.

  She hesitated, message-pad in hand, for a moment or two of indecision. The voice of the prince in the brambles? Could one really be sure at the beginning, or was love, after all, a thing that grew on one? In spite of the poets and the storytellers, wasn't that something everyone had to find out for themselves?

  She dialled Tom's number, and told him she'd be delighted to go with him. She always enjoyed dancing at the White House, and as they talked, her mind was busy deciding what she'd wear.

  Laurie returned from his honeymoon to face the busiest season of the year—harvest. Normally he should not have taken over the farm till Michaelmas, but the elderly widow

  of the previous owner had been anxious to get rid of her responsibilities. She had gone to live with a widowed sister in Scarlington, and the farm had been under the care of Mr. Apple, supervised by Laurie. But with the harvest ripe for gathering, Laurie took over full control.

  Even though this year he was reaping where he had not sowed, the harvest of the fertile, flat cornland was a delight. Verity drove over the Springwater day after day, unable to resist the sight of the heavy-eared pale gold wheat, the clean stubble, the shapely stacks growing up in the farmyard.

  Sally and Jenny wrestled with the extra cooking. Sally had no experience apart from her course at a cookery school, but Jenny knew a lot about feeding hungry children; and men, she declared, were the same when it came to food, only not so faddy.

  So Jenny rolled out acres of short pastry on the kitchen table, while Sally and Verity sat on the ancient mounting block outside the stable door and peeled apples till their fingers were deeply stained with juice. Apple pie was their standby in the first hectic days, served with jugs of cream and mounds of cheese.

  "Apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze," Jenny would quote blithely as her busy feet skimmed to and fro. Then she'd steal a shy glance at Verity and ask if Mr. Adam was expected for his dinner to-day.

  The Bramhall warehouses closed for the employees' summer holidays and, work being slack, Adam came often. He worked hard in the fields, shoulder- to shoulder with Laurie and his men, till Sally sent Verity into the field with the morning's traditional 'lowance in a basket. Then everyone would stop work and sit in the shade of the hedge, drinking scalding tea and eating wedges of buttered teacake. Sometimes Sally went too, or sent young Jenny for a breath of fresh air. Hobo prudently stayed at home. His spirit was willing, but he found corn stubble scratchy and unsympathetic for one as short legged as he Laurie had added his own dogs to the establishment, an Irish red setter called Red, and a golden Labrador, Goldie. These two refused to leave the harvest field till the last load of

  the day was carried, and at 'lowance time sat around laughing and panting, accepting pieces of cake and lolloping up the water which Sally thoughtfully sent for them with the tea-flasks.

  In the long, mellow days, Verity and Adam learned much about each other, and not always by talking or being together. Just watching, Verity learned to know the movement of muscle under golden brown skin, the set of Adam's head on his powerful neck; the sound of his laughter, always to be heard among the laughter of others. The men liked him, he was at ease with them. In any trial of strength or stamina, slyly organized by the men to lighten the monotony of the day, Adam came out well. He did not always win, but he had no need to be ashamed of the margin by which he had lost.

  Adam watched Verity, too. As she came across the field, with the lunch basket on her arm, the dogs, he observed, would get up from their retreat in the cool grasses and pad over the hot ground to meet her. He'd watch her helping Sally with the evening meal or chattering with Jenny at the washing-up. He thought, then, of the question she asked herself so often. Which is the real me? He pondered over it himself. Which was the real woman—this carefree, busy, faintly tomboyish girl at Springwater Farm; or the cool, smooth Miss Bramhall of Nutmeg House? If a man fell in love with the one image and married it, would he find in the long run that he'd loved a will o' the wisp, gone in the morning and leaving him another girl, the other Verity?

  There was no history to the golden days that stretched into September, as far as the farm was concerned.

  In Earlton, it was different. A dock strike affected the business of the whole town, directly or indirectly. The Bramhall ships were held up.

  Robert breathed fire and slaughter over the local evening paper. "Fools, brutes, hotheads!" he'd exclaimed, crumpling the sheet till Aunt Fidget trembled for her Woman's Page and the cartoons. "If I had my way I'd shoot every tenth man, before ten o'clock to-morrow morning."

  Aunt Fidget, who believed all strikes immoral, chimed in virtuously. "I'd go further. I'd decimate them. Have you finished with the paper, Robert?"

  Verity knew Robert's bloodthirsty threats were a safety-valve and that Aunt Fidget couldn't smack a kitten. She rescued the paper tactfully and handed it over to her aunt.

  The Earlton Echo believed in Earlton. It shared with its readers the belief that Earlton was the centre of the universe. Earlton man at Palace, it would announce; or Earl-ton man in earthquake. Its admirers declared that the headline announcing the end of the world had already been decided upon; Earlton man hears Last Trump!

  So besides giving full value to the strike news, the paper gave Aunt Fidget all the social items she longed to hear. She read contentedly, allowing Robert's grumbles to flow easily in at one ear and out at the other in a placid stream.

  "The fools can't see that if they smash half a dozen Earl-ton businesses this year," he tiraded, "and a couple next, in the long run there'll be no business. No trade in a port means unemployment. They're cutting their own throats."

  With Robert putting up his blood pressure and prophesying woe, and Aunt Fidget agreeing with him mechanically while reading the gossip column with her full attention, Verity felt it wiser to keep her own counsel till she could discuss it with Adam.

  "The strike will be settled," he told her, "and everybody will be just a little worse off. The men will be behind with their rent, their hire-purchase. Their wives will have a long bill at the grocer's. Overseas customers will think twice, another time, of buying British goods or shipping their' goods in our ships. So everybody's prosperity goes down a peg."

  "Father's hard hit," put in Laurie. "How about your business, Adam?"

  "Not so bad. We've a shipment held up, but our stuff isn't as perishable as some." He grinned. "Which doesn't mean Dad is taking it philosophically."

  "I can imagine!" said Laurie dryly.

  "The strike isn't all the trouble on the docks," Adam told them. "There's a different kind of bother. Gangs of

  young toughs, fighting and bullying, more looting than usual. Those fingers never did a day's work in their lazy young lives, they attack in gangs, and always someone weaker than themselves. If one of them found himself in an honest-to-goodness fight he'd squeal like a rabbit. They're making hay just now, knowing any trouble will
probably be laid to the dockers' account."

  Verity frowned, troubled. "You're often on the docks. Are you safe?"

  He smiled reassuringly. "Safe as houses."

  It was easy to believe him. On these long warm days at the farm, or in the evenings when they piled into the estate car and drove to the coast to swim, Earlton docks seemed in another world.

  The weather lasted just long enough. The last cornfield was being carted, there was a feeling of relaxation in the comfortable knowledge that the harvest would be safely home for another year. Sally and Verity had taken tea down to the field and were too lazy to return to the house when the men started work again. Verity lay on her back and stared up into the green recesses of the oak tree above her, trying to feel like a bird living in such a vast green block of flats. Sae had just succeeded in imagining herself small enough, and establishing the right scale in her mind, when Sally interrupted.

  "I wonder why Adam didn't come to-day. We wanted him for our first harvest home. Shut me up if I'm prying, but his he said anything about being in love with you yet?"

  Verity stopped being a bird and focused her gaze on Sally, who was sitting back, propped up on her arms, her eyes on the men with the tractor.

  "There'd be trouble if he did! Don't you know he's going to marry Tom Cooper's friend Rosemary Brown?"

  Sally was so startled she forgot to be aloof and detached, "He can't be! Laurie and I have been so sure —!" She was lost for words and stared at Verity, her pretty mouth still open.

  "Then you and Laurie were wrong, weren't you? Rosemary told me herself, at the races."

  "Did he say anything about it?"

  "Not directly. When I mentioned Rosemary quite casually, he politely hinted that it was none of my business."

  "The brute!"

  Verity sat up. "Don't call the poor man names. We've been good friends during the harvest, we've had lots of fun and naturally we've paired off occasionally, because you and Laurie are still in the honeymoon stage and we didn't want to play gooseberry. But I've understood all the time that Adam came to help Laurie, not to be with me. You may have had romantic, matchmaking notions in your silly noddle, but I haven't. No bones are broken. We like each other, and no more."