by Susan Barrie
‘Ah, but there you’re wrong, Sir Luke,’ she told him in the same dulcet tones. ‘The Bell has very comfortable bedrooms, and you mustn’t be misled by this slightly dismal room.’ Unconsciously she sniffed the slight odour of must combined with good strong wax polish, and wondered secretly why such rooms were always overburdened with pot-plants. ‘And at least I’m paying my way here, and any food I eat isn’t likely to choke me. I partook of my last supper at Wroxford upstairs on a tray, and I’m sure Miss Larsen would have begrudged me that if she’d known exactly who I was.’
‘Nonsense.’ She hadn’t realized he was so tall, and he seemed to tower above her. ‘Miss Larsen is the most reasonable of human beings, and so is her mother ... who, incidentally, took quite a fancy to you. And Mrs. Edgerley is being positively awkward because she seems to think you were badly treated, and even Horton mentioned your name rather pointedly this morning. Colonel Anstruther is one hundred percent on the side of my late Uncle James, and Richard Culdrose thinks a delicate situation has been somewhat clumsily handled. Will you return with me this morning?’
‘What? To Wroxford?’
‘Yes; to Wroxford.’
‘For how long?’
‘Until your cottage is ready. I understand it isn’t quite ready for occupation yet.’
This was so much of an understatement that Melanie felt inclined to smile. But she also felt annoyed because she had apparently been discussed in her absence, and he, who had been so uncompromising in his attitude towards her, and had even gone so far as to argue about her right to receive a bequest made under the terms of his own relative’s will, had, it would seem, been somewhat pressurized into offering her a little more of his hospitality, although left to himself he would probably have dismissed her entirely from his mind.
Her blue eyes regarded him with very evident distaste.
‘Thank you, Sir Luke, but I’ve decided to move into my cottage tomorrow, and even if I hadn’t I have no wish to return to Wroxford,’ she told him quietly. ‘My Wroxford days
are over.’
‘That is pure obstinacy,’ he remarked, frowning.
She shrugged.
‘Perhaps. You can think so if you like.’
‘And I understand you have already removed your horse from my stables. Where is it now?’
‘A friend - a very good friend,’ and she glanced demurely at the carpet - ‘is looking after it for me and is stabling it with his own horses.’
‘I see.’ His tone sounded curt. ‘And you have no conscience about troubling your friends?’
‘None whatsoever in the case of this particular friend.’ He turned away. Once again he began an almost nervous pacing up and down the carpet, and she could tell from the bent condition of his brows that he was far from pleased. He had behaved in what he no doubt considered a most generous manner, and she had spurned him. ... He was not a man who enjoyed being spurned.
‘This cottage of yours,’ referring to it once more. ‘You’re not proposing to live there alone?’
‘I am.’
‘It’s in the village, of course?’
‘It’s not a part of the village, but the village is within easy reach. I’ve got a car, and I’ve bought myself a dog, so I shall settle down very happily once I’ve got all my bits and pieces around me.’
‘And at the moment quite a few of your bits and pieces are at the Priory?’
‘Yes.’ She decided she had better tell him she was borrowing Dickson, and somewhat to her surprise he didn’t offer any comment, or appear slightly outraged because a member of his staff had conspired with her to place not only his services but the use of a Priory shooting-brake at her disposal.
‘Well, if your mind’s made up I suppose there’s nothing more I can say,’ he remarked, as he retrieved his gold cigarette-case from the table on which his empty beer tankard also reposed, and looked as if he was about to take his leave. ‘But as your cottage is on the estate, and it was my uncle’s intention to spend a certain amount of money on it, you must let me know - or rather, let my agent know - what, if any, repairs you would like carried out on it, and when you wish them to be done. As far as I am concerned you can do what you like and expense is not a matter that will bother me. And now I really must go,’ glancing at the watch on his wrist, ‘or I shall be late for lunch.’
‘Thank you, Sir Luke,’ she replied quietly, ‘you’re very generous.’
It could be that he suspected a certain dryness in her tone, for he glanced at her sharply. The eyes that so closely resembled Indian ink narrowed.
‘And if there is anything you need for the cottage — any items of furniture — you can buy those yourself and send the bills to me.’
She really was astonished this time. Her blue eyes flew open very wide.
‘You really are generous, Sir Luke!’
He turned away from her very purposefully this time. But at the door he turned back.
‘By the way,’ he inquired casually, ‘What is the name of the cottage?’
‘It’s called Rose Cottage, and it has roses clambering all over it in summer,’ she informed him with that false demureness of hers.
A somewhat cynical expression chased itself across his face.
‘In that case the bricks are probably porous,’ he told her. ‘Let’s hope it isn’t also running with damp!’ and without any formal farewell he took his departure and she heard a car starting up outside.
The Rolls? she wondered. It didn’t sound like a Rolls ... and Dickson was probably guarding that with his life.
The next morning she breakfasted early and set off from the Bell for the cottage as soon as she had made it clear to the landlord that, having reserved her room for a week, she would adhere to her bargain but might not return that night, in which case his doors could be bolted and barred against her, and no one need sit up for her.
Betty Clark’s mother looked dubious when asked whether she could find any free time to assist with the actual cleaning of the cottage.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she promised. ‘But what with the Bell and my own home I don’t have much time.’
But she saw to it that Melanie took a packed lunch with her when she set off, and she also provided her with some cleaning utensils and an old kettle in which she could boil water for a cup of tea since Rose Cottage hadn’t yet been provided with one.
In fact, when she reached the cottage Melanie realized that it was singularly badly equipped from the point of view of someone moving in and beginning a normal life there. The boot of her car contained several tins of paint and brushes for its application, and a local hardware store had promised to deliver a pair of kitchen steps during the morning; but the kitchen itself was enough to deter a very stout heart when one stood in the middle of it.
Melanie felt appalled by the shell of the old kitchen range, which no amount of effort would induce to work; and she was thankful for the fact that the fire in the sitting-room worked, and it had a small trivet attached to it which would support her kettle when she needed hot water. But hot water in very limited quantities, as she realized when, as a kind of gesture, she started off by making herself a pot of tea.
The next thing she did was to make a tour of the rooms ... two up and two down. It didn’t take her long to realize that one bedroom would have to go if she was to have a bathroom. She began to feel acutely depressed, for one bedroom only meant that she could never have a guest to stay with her, and she was not exactly looking forward to living the life of a recluse at Rose Cottage.
Of course, when the place was properly furnished, and she was surrounded by her own familiar things, she might feel a little better ... a little more hopeful, anyway. But she doubted it. She doubted it the more strongly because it was a dull day, the cottage had a deathly chill despite the fire in the living-room, and in addition the place smelled of dry rot.
She felt a sudden alarm. Didn’t dry rot mean expenditure if one was to cope with it... perhaps fairly considerable exp
enditure? And although Sir Luke had said she could contact his bailiff for any reasonable repairs that were necessary she doubted whether a major structural repair would appeal to him.
For the first time she wondered why Sir James had picked Rose Cottage, out of all the cottages on his estate, for her. And then she recollected that he had intended to spend a lot of money on the place before she took over, and he had even intended to build her a couple of loose-boxes in the rear.
A surge of gratitude for what he had intended to do passed through her, and after that her confidence was partially restored, and she determined that she would prove to his nephew that she could create a home for herself out of little or nothing. She would not appeal to either him or his agent. She would grapple with the whole mammoth job herself, and in the end she would be very pleased with herself.
So she carried in the tins of paint from the car, set up the steps as soon as they were delivered, and began her job of painting the living-room woodwork.
She had received instructions about stripping and preparing the wood from the hardware store, but somehow it seemed hardly worth it when the rest of the place was in such a very poor condition. Later on, perhaps, she would have the whole thing done properly, but for the moment a temporary coat of paint was what was needed, and after that she would deal with the distempered walls and the ceiling.
She had another cup of tea and ate some sandwiches before she started work, then she placed her ladder in the spot where she wished to begin and got down to it.
She had unearthed an old pair of jeans and an old blouse from amongst her possessions, and she had no anxiety on the score of covering herself with paint. It didn’t matter if she did and, in any case, she had a large bottle of turpentine which she understood would remove it. Fortunately she was one of those people who did not dislike the smell of turpentine. She was prepared to use it freely if it became necessary.
She painted steadily for over an hour, and she found it extraordinarily easy, and the satisfaction derived from seeing the old drab wood covered by the new white paint unbelievable. She painted both doors and the window frames, and then mounted to the top of the ladder to deal with some picture moulding which she intended to remove later on, but which, for the moment, would have to remain where it was.
By this time she was getting a little over-confident, and she was also very anxious to complete the paintwork in the sitting-room, so she was not as careful as she should have been about the placing of her pair of steps. They were no more than six feet in height, but they needed a wedge because of the uneven surface of the floor, and the thing she omitted to do was to make absolutely certain that her wedge was always in the best possible position. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon, and already the small low-ceilinged room seemed full of shadows, when she reached out unwisely to add a dab of paint to a corner of the picture moulding, her movement was somewhat precipitate, the steps wobbled, and a second or so later they had folded up and she was lying on the hard floor of the living-room.
She would probably have escaped unhurt if her foot hadn’t doubled up under her, and if having doubled up under her it hadn’t sustained a nasty sprain ... in fact, immediately after the catastrophe, and while she was still lying on the floor and wondering bewilderedly why such a thing had happened to her she felt reasonably certain, as a result of the sharp pain she was experiencing, that she had broken her ankle.
A similar thing had happened to her when she was quite young, only then she had fallen out of an apple tree, and there had been several people on hand to come to her assistance.
Now there was no one.
For the first time in her life she felt a surge of panic. She didn’t seem to be able to lift herself, and she knew she didn’t dare to put any weight on her ankle. It felt as if red-hot. pokers were searing their way into her flesh and extending their activities along the whole length of her leg, which she was still unable to see because she couldn’t remove it from under her, and she made her lower lip bleed by digging her two small front teeth into it in order to prevent herself from crying out.
And in addition to the pain she was experiencing she felt a sudden horror. How long could she lie here without being discovered if she couldn’t move? She had been so careful to explain to the landlord of the Bell that she might not return to the inn that night, and she had even impressed her intention on Mrs. Clark. But the one faint hope she had was that Mrs. Clark might look in to see her on her way home from the inn.
Sheer curiosity might cause her to do so, and her cottage was not actually situated in the village. It was one of those built within the last year or so on a newly constructed road, and Rose Cottage was only about half a mile farther on. Mrs. Clark had a bicycle, and it wouldn’t take her more than a matter of minutes to reach Rose Cottage ... if she wanted to.
But if she was tired and went straight home and didn’t even remember her promise to ‘think about’ helping Melanie out? Melanie whimpered slightly as a fresh pain darted through her leg, and the ridiculous helplessness of her situation brought one or two very bright tears into her eyes, and they rolled over and spilled off her lashes and ran down her cheeks, and she was as much ashamed of them as she was of the absurdity of having to remain crouched on the floor.
She made a tremendous effort to get herself on to at least one foot, but it was hopeless. There was nothing for her to clutch on to. The step-ladder had fallen several feet away, and the one chair in the room was against the farther wall. She had no means of levering herself to her feet.
The fire had died down, and it seemed to her that the room was growing very dark. The windows were dirty and admitted little light at the best of times, and now the little that they admitted seemed to be fading.
So close to the floor and the ancient foundations of the cottage she could smell the dry rot more strongly than ever, and it made her feel slightly sick ... unless it was the unfamiliar gnawing pain in her ankle.
A mouse ran across the floor and disappeared inside a hole in the skirting, and for the first time in her life she failed to react in the normal feminine way. She couldn’t have cared less if half a dozen mice had made the same pilgrimage, and she even found herself dwelling on the thought of rats without any horror.
And then, just as the last of the light seemed to be fading, and her teeth were chattering with cold and fright, a car stopped outside the garden gate - unless she was lightheaded, or was simply dreaming - and firm footsteps approached the front door by means of the weed-grown garden path. Someone lifted the knocker of the front door and rat-tatted sharply.
The echoes resounded around the room, and Melanie felt as if they were actually beating inside her brain. But her real fear was that whoever was outside might be deterred if he or she received no answer, and she fought desperately to summon up a strong enough voice to call out.
‘Come in! Come in, please! You’ve only to lift the latch!’
The only response was another impatient attack with the door knocker. It seemed to Melanie that she was doomed, and apparently she couldn’t even cry out - not loud enough to be heard, anyway.
She made another tremendous effort, and then to her overwhelming relief the front door was pushed inwards and the same firm footsteps came along the passage and paused outside the sitting-room door. That, too, was pushed open, and an actual sob of relief escaped Melanie’s lips.
Afterwards she wondered whether she would have minded very much if the man who stood there had been a tramp, or someone who had formed a habit of passing the night in an empty cottage, and she decided that it would have made no difference. She would have been just as profoundly thankful as she was when she recognized, through the ghostly twilight in the room, the untramplike outline of her late benefactor’s nephew, Sir Luke Charnock.
For one moment he was obviously so astounded that he neither did nor said nothing ... and then he was kneeling beside her on the bare floor, and the shocked note in his voice was obviously genuine.
�
�What in the name of heaven happened? Don’t tell me you were standing on that crazy pair of steps ...?’
‘I was.’ Her smile was a ghostly travesty of her normal smile. ‘And they’re not crazy. I only bought them this morning!’
‘Then you should have bought a pair that were designed not to fold up when you stood on them. Or were you taking chances while you were wielding that paintbrush of yours?’ He glanced with distaste at the paint-stained brush that had fallen within a few inches of herself and her injured ankle, and despite the gloom of the room the whiteness of the paint showed up in an eerie manner. ‘What on earth possessed you to go in for interior decorating in a lonely spot like this without anyone to catch you if you fell?’
‘Perhaps I was more than half counting on you being on hand to gather up the pieces when disaster overtook me,’ she returned with a valiant attempt at flippancy, and then stifled a whimper as the fiery agony darted up her leg again.
‘It’s your ankle, isn’t it?’ he said quietly, and managed to sort out her twisted limbs sufficiently to make a swift examination of her ankle possible, and when he discovered how badly it was swollen he uttered an exclamation that sounded as if she had succeeded in shocking him badly, although at the same time he remained extremely cool and practical, and his voice was very gentle as he said:
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to hurt you because I must lift you and it’s bound to be pretty painful. But I don’t mind if you hang on to me, and you can yell as loudly as you like if it will give you any comfort.’
‘I won’t yell,’ she promised in a whisper.
