by Susan Barrie
Martin frowned as if this was a piece of information that didn’t please him at all.
‘But was that wise?’ he asked. He glanced round at Sir Luke, and the two men’s eyes met and clashed like a pair of swords in the sunlight. ‘Would Dr. Binns approve of you making the descent of the stairs?’ Martin inquired aggressively, and Sir Luke stepped forward and said in a bleak but decisive voice that he was quite sure he would not.
‘Then why—?’
Martin flung the question at Sir Luke, and the latter narrowed his extremely dark and strangely brilliant eyes and answered:
‘Have you ever tried to prevent Miss Grainger doing something she has set her heart on doing? Have you?’ Martin seemed slightly taken aback. He glanced at Melanie, who was demurely inspecting her nails, and shrugged his shoulders and answered uncertainly:
‘Oh, well, if it’s like that! But I can usually get her to see sense if it’s important.’
‘Can you?’
Martin met his eyes again, and made the slightly abashed admission:
‘Sometimes.’
The three men surrounding Melanie laughed, and Mrs. Larsen held out a hand to Vidal, as if she had already decided she liked the look of him very much indeed, and pleaded charmingly for an introduction.
The necessary introductions were made, and it was not until it came to Inga’s turn to be included in the presentations that Melanie actually saw Martin start slightly. At first she wasn’t sure whether she had imagined it or not, but the succeeding five minutes proved that she had made no mistake.
Martin hadn’t actually clutched at his head and reeled back, smitten by the sheer disturbing loveliness of the enchanting Swedish girl, but he had been noticeably shaken by the discovery that she was real. And when she smiled at him unexpectedly, revealing all her perfect little white teeth, and her silken eyelashes fluttered like feathers in the breeze, it was quite obvious she was intrigued, too.
She even advanced a few steps from the stone vase to meet him and offer him the tips of her fingers, and her golden eyes roved over him with naked curiosity.
‘You are a close friend of Miss Grainger, yes?’ she said softly.
Her mother frowned.
‘We’re good friends, yes.’ Martin echoed the attractive inquiring intonation, and then apparently thought it important to clarify the matter still further. ‘We’ve known one another for a good many years,’ he explained.
‘Ah! Childhood friends?’ she murmured.
‘You could put it like that.’
He was still hanging on to her hand, and despite the presence of her host - and perhaps, even more likely to act as a deterrent, her mother — while all the rest of them looked on, the golden girl appeared almost equally unwilling to remind him that he was behaving in a somewhat unconventional manner. And then she gave a light, tinkling, amused laugh, and tugged away her hand.
He blushed as if he had suddenly realized the enormity of his behaviour.
Sir Luke, looking rather less displeased but distinctly more grim than Mrs. Larsen, spoke shortly.
‘Can I offer you a drink? I’m sorry, I had no idea you were such a close friend of Miss Grainger or I would have kept you informed of her condition.’
Martin looked slightly distrait.
‘Her condition? Oh, yes.’ He glanced at Melanie apologetically. ‘I don’t know whether you heard me say just now that I’ve been away, otherwise I would have been here to see her before. As a matter of fact, I thought it an extremely foolhardy thing to do to move into that cottage ... or to attempt to move into it,’ turning more aggressively to the slender figure of the host. ‘Anything might have happened to her ... anything! In a lonely place like that.’
‘I think quite enough did happen to her,’ Sir Luke observed quietly.
Martin’s eyes had a determined glint in them.
‘That’s what I mean,’ he returned almost accusingly. ‘But for the fact that you found her ... well, what might have been the consequences? With no one else likely to go near the cottage she might have lain there and - died!’ with a slightly husky note in his voice as he concluded. Melanie spoke up hurriedly.
‘Oh, but that’s ridiculous,’ she declared. ‘Dickson had promised to deliver some of my things that night, and if he hadn’t called someone else would - Betty Clark’s mother, very likely!’
‘But you had been lying on the floor for over an hour when Sir Luke found you!’
‘Oh - er - yes,’ she agreed. She added, with rather a wan smile: ‘It was a very hard floor.’
Inga moved forward into the picture again.
‘By the way, Luke darling,’ she murmured softly — with that delightful, faint Swedish accent of hers - ‘why did you call on Miss Grainger at her cottage? She left here on what you referred to me as an impulse, and you seemed to think she was behaving rather irrationally ... even inconsiderately, or so I gathered,’ flirting coquettishly with her eyelashes and at the same time studying him pensively, and with a certain definitely noticeable curiosity. ‘And yet you took the trouble, apparently, to call on her and make certain she was safely installed in her cottage! Why did you do that, when she was merely being obstinate, as
you put it?’
Sir Luke looked taken aback for a moment, and then he smiled slightly.
‘You can put it down to the fact that I dislike untidy ends,’ he said. ‘The cottage was once part of the estate, and as. an estate cottage I wanted it handed over in an orderly manner to Miss Grainger.’ He looked towards Melanie. ‘I considered her occupation of it was a trifle precipitate, and I was worried about it.’
‘About her occupation of the cottage, or about Miss Grainger?’ Inga inquired in tones of dulcet sweetness.
Mrs. Larsen looked faintly apprehensive, but Sir Luke continued to smile.
‘About Miss Grainger,’ he stated, without any equivocation whatsoever, ‘I happened to have received a report on the condition of that cottage from my agent only that afternoon, and I was afraid she might bring proceedings against me if the roof fell on her.’
‘Which it will do, if you don’t have something done to it,’ Martin remarked bluntly. ‘For one of your prized estate cottages it’s in an absolutely appalling condition, and I’m amazed that Sir James selected it for Melanie.’
‘He didn’t,’ Melanie interrupted hurriedly. ‘I chose
it.’
‘Because of the roses round the door?’ Sir Luke asked blandly.
But Martin was obviously riding a hobby-horse, and he determined to air any grievances that he had on behalf of Melanie while the opportunity was his. It was the first time he had come face to face with the new owner of Wroxford Priory, and he was not entirely satisfied with what he saw. The fellow was so obviously not just an ordinary countryman, he thought
— not a countryman like himself, who had no need of an agent
to point out when a cottage roof was dangerous - and also he had behaved badly to Melanie, forcing her to remove her horse from his stables and even disputing her right to a piano that was part of a bequest under the terms of a will.
Belligerently he turned back to Melanie.
‘And what about your piano?’ he asked. ‘What arrangements have you come to with Sir Luke about that? You can’t keep it in the cottage, and you’ll want to play on it sometimes. You’d better have it removed to Willow Farm, and I’ll look after it for you — as well as your horse,’ he added, his hazel eyes glinting afresh as he turned them upon Sir Luke.
The latter replied for Melanie before she could say anything at all about the piano being a subject they were not discussing at the moment.
‘Miss Grainger can play the piano here at Wroxford Priory whenever she wants to do so,’ he declared with a touch of urbanity in his voice and manner this time. ‘I certainly would be the last one to advocate its removal to the cottage - even if it would fit in, which I doubt. And as you are already burdened with a mare I can’t think that you would also wish to be burdened wit
h a piano,’ with a faintly challenging gleam in his eyes as he smiled urbanely at Martin.
‘It’s not a question of being burdened—’
And then Vidal decided to say nothing further, for Inga had heard the luncheon gong sounding in the hall of the house, and she turned to him sweetly and asked him whether he was staying to lunch.
‘Even if Miss Grainger is having hers upstairs in her room there’s no reason why you shouldn’t stay, is there?’ she asked, her golden look affecting him like a golden shower of sunshine, so that he blinked and appeared temporarily confused.
‘Well, no, I suppose there isn’t,’ he answered. And then it obviously occurred to him that she had excluded Melanie. ‘But why has Miss Grainger got to have her lunch alone upstairs in her room?’ turning with a renewal of aggressiveness on the man who had refrained from seconding his guest’s invitation, as if he was quite sure that such an arrangement was entirely due to him.
Sir Luke did not even bother to answer him. He bent over Melanie and lifted her bodily out of her chair, carrying her towards the open French windows of the library.
‘I’m going to see to it that you have a tray brought to you in here,’ he said, as they crossed the threshold, ‘where I’m sure you’ll be far more comfortable than you would if you joined us in the dining-room.’ He lowered her carefully to a capacious couch rendered superbly comfortable by matching velvet cushions. ‘Here there will be no one to disturb you, and you can stretch your legs out comfortably without any danger of anyone falling over your ankle.’
He stepped back and regarded her with a suspicion of a smile in his eyes - a warm and, in some way, curiously intimate smile
— as she reacted to his suggestion by stretching herself out luxuriously and rather thankfully on the cushions. And without quite realizing what she was doing she returned his smile with an added ingredient of gratitude.
‘All right?’ he asked softly, before he turned to leave her and return to the terrace and his guests.
‘Beautifully all right,’ she answered, with a soft sigh in the words, and she wondered whether Martin would stay to lunch with the others after all.
She was to find out later that Martin did stay to lunch, but whether or not he attempted to say good-bye to her she was unable to discover, because by the time lunch in the big diningroom of Wroxford Priory was over, and the leisurely ritual of coffee-drinking that succeeded it had also come to an end, she had set aside her own luncheon-tray and - despite the fact that she had more or less implied to Sir Luke that she would do nothing of the kind — crept outside into the corridor and made her way back to her own room in the same painful manner in which she had left it.
She felt quite exhausted when she reached her room again, and she realized that it was entirely due to the effort she had had to make to ascend the stairs. The stick had been practically useless, and she had had to sit down and lift herself bodily from tread to tread until she reached the top, and after that there had been two corridors to negotiate. It was not surprising that she felt a little depressed - and, for the first time in her life, a little neglected - as she subsided thankfully into her chair near the fire, and, also for the first time, wondered how in the world she was going to organize her future. It had all seemed so simple when she first planned to go and live in the cottage, but now for some reason that was not entirely clear to her it was not so simple. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that she had an injured ankle, which was all due to her efforts to improve the appearance of her cottage - at least on the inside. It had nothing really to do with the fact that one of her biggest problems was how she was going to maintain herself in the future, when the modest sum she had in the bank grew really low, and her expenses didn’t lower themselves in proportion.
Of course, she had never really intended to settle down and rusticate. She had intended to do something practical like taking a course in veterinary treatment, and perhaps run a kennels of her own. Or - but this was very unlikely - she could have gone on striving to become a concert pianist.
But without a piano how could she possibly do that?
And for some reason she had abandoned all hope of ever possessing the piano Sir James had always intended should be hers. She felt that to assert her rights to it would be beneath her dignity, especially now, after she had put the present owner of Wroxford to a considerable amount of trouble and inconvenience by making it necessary for him to offer her hospitality.
More than anything else, however, the fact that she was enjoying Sir Luke’s hospitality depressed her. She felt that she had put both him and herself in an impossible position, and the sooner she ceased to take advantage of his kindness the better it would be, she was sure, for all concerned ... particularly Inga Larsen, who made no attempt to conceal her opinion that Sir Luke was being taken advantage of, and Miss Grainger was nothing short of a nuisance.
She looked down gloomily at the strapping on her ankle, and wondered whether the hospital X-ray would reveal the fracture she knew Dr. Binns now suspected. If it did, it might be ages before she could get about freely. On the other hand, if there were no fracture she could at least return to the Bell.
She felt happier when she remembered that Dr. Binns himself was driving her in to the local hospital the following day. The sooner she learned the worst the better, and at least Dr. Binns was an old friend and she wouldn’t feel she owed him a great deal because he was taking the trouble to drive her himself to hospital.
Apart from Mrs. Edgerley no one came near her that day, and the housekeeper seemed vague about the hour when Martin Vidal took his departure. Melanie felt certain he had been almost instantaneously attracted to Miss Larsen, but in view of the fact that Miss Larsen was to marry Sir Luke she hoped Martin had had the sense to depart at a reasonable hour ... almost immediately after lunch if he had had any real sense.
She was fond enough of Martin not to mind greatly because a fascinating face like Inga’s had had the effect of striking him down, as it were. Martin was only human, and she herself had never given him very much encouragement. He could be forgiven if he looked elsewhere just for a moment.
That evening Mrs. Edgerley offered to spend a little while sitting with her, and Melanie was grateful for her company. A television set had been installed in Melanie’s room, and the two of them sat watching it until Mrs. Edgerley departed to make them a cup of tea, and after that Melanie went to bed, and was grateful for the comfort of her feather mattress.
But long after she went to bed she could hear someone playing the piano in a very lively manner somewhere far off in the house ... and she realized that it was her piano, and no doubt it was Inga Larsen playing it.
Good-bye, piano, she thought, and buried her face in her pillow and fell asleep.
The next morning Dr. Binns called for her at ten o’clock, and the two of them set off for the nearest town of any importance, where the hospital was situated, and which served a very wide area. Dr. Binns handed her over to the care of a nurse and said he would call back for her in a couple of hours, if she didn’t mind waiting, and then he waved to her cheerily and departed.
‘Nothing to it,’ he assured her, referring to the X-ray. ‘And I’m fairly hopeful about the result, so keep your chin up!’
The actual taking of the X-ray occupied a very short time, and after that Melanie was free to return to the waiting-room and buy herself a cup of tea, and she was sitting sipping it and pondering on the results of the X-ray and hoping it would not be long before she would be able to drive herself in her own car again when the nurse on duty appeared in the doorway, and behind her was a reasonably tall masculine shape that had become very familiar to the late Sir James Charnock’s protegee in the last few days.
None other than Sir Luke Charnock, in fact.
The nurse was obviously thrown into a pleasant flutter by her knowledge of who he was, and the fact that he looked the part in his beautifully tailored suit and immaculate linen - to say nothing of his slightly
arrogant, dark good looks. And she was smiling at him over her shoulder as she conducted him across
the room to Melanie’s side.
But Sir Luke, apparently, was feeling a little annoyed, and he spoke quite sharply to the girl who was sitting there with her injured ankle stuck out in front of her.
‘Why couldn’t you wait for me?’ he demanded. ‘I had every intention of bringing you here to the hospital myself, and there was no need for you to interrupt a doctor’s busy working day by causing him to bring you. Didn’t Mrs. Edgerley let you know that I intended to drive you here myself?’
‘N-no. . . .’ Melanie glanced at him for a moment, and then away. As a matter of fact, the housekeeper had warned her that Sir Luke had said something about driving her to the hospital, and she had hobbled down the back stairs and out on to the drive in order to keep her appointment with the doctor. And then it suddenly occurred to her that he might reprimand Mrs. Edgerley for not delivering a message that he had had every intention should be delivered, and she added hurriedly that, now that she thought about it, the housekeeper had said something to the effect that Sir Luke was proposing to place himself and one of his cars at her disposal, but she had already arranged with Dr. Binns to accept a lift from him, and she couldn’t very well get out of it
Sir Luke tightened up his mouth in the way she had seen him do before, and said something quietly about obstinacy. Then he inquired of the nurse whether the patient was ready to leave, and receiving a smiling - nay, beaming - affirmation, he offered his arm to Melanie, declined the offer of a cup of tea brewed specially for him, and escorted her out of the hospital.
No sooner were the swing doors closed behind them than he looked down at her and addressed her in a highly displeased tone.
‘You are impossible,’ he said.
Melanie turned an innocent pair of dark blue eyes up to his face and inquired why.
‘You know perfectly well,’ he answered shortly. ‘And it would serve you right if, in your efforts to escape my attentions, you gave that ankle of yours an extra twist and were forced to accept my hospitality indefinitely.’
