by Susan Barrie
At first he was obviously surprised, and then he conceived the notion that it would be a good idea if he brought the horse over straight away. He sounded curiously eager, and she could hardly believe that his eagerness stemmed from an uncontrollable desire to see her. If he was so anxious to see her he would at least have said good-bye to her the other day, and once more she sounded slightly stiff as she answered that he could do so if he wished, but owing to the fact that she was in the process of changing her room - she didn’t at that stage explain to him that she was staying on at the Priory - she would be unable to see him.
Later she learned that the horse had been restored to its stable, and it was Inga Larsen who commented at dinner on the quality of the shapely little chestnut mare.
She looked across at Melanie over the top of a high-piled dish of fruit that had just been placed on the table for the dessert course, narrowed her eyes, and observed that she was lucky to have such a thoroughbred for a mount.
Melanie, who had just accepted a carefully prepared peach from Colonel Anstruther, who liked to make himself useful to fellow (feminine) members of house-parties in this way, looked up in surprise and asked her when she had seen the mare.
‘This afternoon,’ Inga replied. ‘That young man friend of yours, Martin Vidal, rode over from his farm - Willow Farm, is it called? - and brought her with him on a leading-rein. I was in the drive when he arrived, and I went with him to see her bedded down and placed once more in the care of the groom.’ A reminiscent smile appeared in her eyes. ‘He is an attractive young man, Mr. Vidal ... very English!’ she commented.
‘Oh, come now,’ the host exclaimed drily, from the top of the table, ‘we are all English here. You cannot single one of us out for particular mention.’
‘Can’t I?’ She was seated on his left hand, while her mother had been placed on his right, and she smiled at him in a languorous, golden-eyed manner. ‘But perhaps some Englishmen are rather more English than others, and that is what I think Mr. Vidal is. He is so brown and whole-some-looking, so thoroughly out-of-doors, open and honest-looking! You, Luke, are a completely different type. I’m sorry, darling, but you are,’ and she smiled at him more softly. ‘You are so dark you could quite easily be a Latin, for one thing.’
‘Thank you,’ he replied, rather more drily than before.
‘You are a dilettante. . . . You make one think of the cultivated corners of the globe, whereas Melanie’s friend Martin is so absolutely right as a farmer, and I think Willow Farm is quite the most fascinating name for a farm. I gathered from him this afternoon that his people have lived on the land for generations ... and I think that’s nice, too.’
‘But, Inga,’ her mother protested, obviously slightly alarmed because the host was looking none too pleased, ‘Sir Luke’s family have also lived on their own land for generations. Why, here at Wroxford they have become quite a tradition.’
Inga looked inscrutably across the table at her mother. ‘Well, and what of it?’ she demanded. ‘I was not attempting to draw any distinction between Mr. Vidal and Sir Luke. And, anyway, Luke is half American,’ she added, as she helped herself delicately to a grape from the massive bowl of fruit.
Sir Luke pushed back his chair and stood up, in order that the ladies could withdraw. Inga was not really ready, and she glanced at him in some surprise, but he merely looked back at
her coolly and remarked:
‘You and your distinctions, Inga. I could point out that you and Miss Grainger are as unalike as two widely different cheeses—’
She made a face at him.
‘I dislike being likened to a cheese!’
‘Then run away and leave us to deal with the port, and we’ll join you when the decanter’s empty.’
Actually, the ladies were rejoined by the gentlemen almost immediately, and Mrs. Larsen had hardly settled herself in her chair beside the table that would presently support the coffee tray, rather sharply admonishing her daughter for making indiscreet remarks during the course of dinner, and Inga had just carefully wandered over to Melanie’s piano, when the drawing-room door was thrust open and they came in.
Inga seated herself on the piano stool and ran her fingers quite competently up and down the ivory keys. She was plainly in a somewhat perverse mood, and she looked so lovely in a dress of pure white satin embroidered with silver that Melanie for one was not really surprised that there were occasions when she hardly put herself out to acknowledge the existence of the men folk who must always find her wildly attractive.
She herself had taken hardly any trouble with her appearance that night, and her little black dress emphasized the fact that she had lost quite a lot of her normal healthy glow as a result of her incarceration in the house over the past few days. If Martin Vidal was an outdoor man, then she was really an outdoor girl.
She felt peaked and nondescript as she sat there on a striped satin-covered Regency couch, with her injured foot extended in front of her, and watched Sir Luke prowling restlessly about the room and looking infinitely attractive in his dinner-jacket, but almost sullen because the woman he planned to marry had dared to compare him with a young man of no particular influence or background, whom he no doubt considered of
little or no importance and extremely ordinary to boot.
He was the Lord of the Manor. He was Sir Luke Charnock of Wroxford Priory, and the woman who became his wife would discover that he could bestow endless benefits upon her. Whereas Martin Vidal. . . .
He reached the fireplace, and then he stood staring gloomily down into the small fire that had been lighted since tea, and while Inga rippled away behind him at the piano he put up a pretence of being quite unaware of her. Mrs. Larsen watched him anxiously, and carried his coffee-cup over to him herself. But he thanked her curtly, set the coffee cup down on a convenient side table and walked purposefully across to Melanie, listening to a lively dialogue that was going on between Christopher Winslow and Richard Culdrose.
‘If you’re ready, Melanie, I’ll take you upstairs,’ he said, and held out his arms to her.
Melanie felt ridiculous being carried all the way upstairs by him, but she was also feeling distinctly depressed, and somehow she let her head droop against his shoulder. It could have been because she hadn’t got the energy to keep it away from his shoulder, or it could have been because his shoulder was so conveniently near, and it exercised a magnetic attraction for her.
He looked down at her as he stood outside the door of her room, and it seemed to him that she was already half asleep.
He spoke to her softly.
‘Poor little soul! Poor little willing Melanie! And all I did was make your life a misery when I arrived here! No wonder that fellow Martin is someone you seem to cling to.’
Her long eyelashes fluttered against the paleness of her cheeks, and she looked straight up at him as he walked across her carpet and lowered her into a chair.
‘Martin?’ she echoed. ‘But Martin is only a very good friend.’
‘Is he?’
But he sounded so dubious she knew he didn’t believe her.
It suddenly seemed important to her that she must get it through to him that Martin was really and truly nothing more than a very good friend - an almost lifelong friend - and as he was about to leave her in her room she called him back.
She got haltingly to her feet and fixed him with slightly hollow eyes.
‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘He - he asked me to marry him, but I refused.’
Sir Luke glanced at her quite kindly ... in fact, very kindly.
‘Have a good night,’ he said gently, and left the room, closing the door carefully behind him, and she felt her cheeks grow hot with acute embarrassment. She wondered why on
earth she had made such a statement to him at such a time.
CHAPTER NINE
Two things happened in the next week which affected Melanie
with the realization that one should never allow oneself to be deceived about o
ther people’s apparent motives.
She had decided from the moment she met Luke Charnock that he had a hard streak, and she had not been surprised when he had calmly informed her that she would have to say good-bye to her puppy, Sherry, because the fact that he had offered her the right to stay on at Wroxford Priory meant that she must observe the rules about cherishing his new possessions. These rules had not obtained in Sir James’s day, and more than one puppy had ravaged the furniture to Melanie’s knowledge. But no sooner had she accustomed herself to the belief that Sir Luke was different - very different!
- than he proved that he was nothing of the kind by delivering a basket to her one morning when she was sitting in the sunshine on the terrace.
‘Take it,’ he said. ‘He’s all yours, and I hope you’ll teach him not to sharpen his claws on the contents of the library. That is the only stipulation I’m laying down.’
Melanie gasped with delight. Sherry, with the sherry-coloured eyes and the white fleece, was comfortably chewing away at his blanket at the bottom of the travelling- basket, and when she lifted him out he looked at her as much as to say: ‘So we meet again! I thought you’d forgotten all about me!’
Sir Luke stood watching them with quite a gratified expression on his face, and Melanie’s surprise and pleasure were so intense that all her recent pallor vanished, and a lovely, lively colour invaded her face. She looked excited, scarcely believing. And she looked up at Sir Luke with a shining brightness in her eyes.
‘Oh, this is wonderful!’ she declared. ‘I thought you were going to ask the kennel people to return my cheque.’
‘I did that,’ he told her, and held her cheque out to her, waving it before her eyes. ‘Take it, too, and tear it up ... unless you feel the puppy is so desirable that it should be paid for
twice.’
‘But—’
‘It’s a gift,’ he said casually, half turning away from her to examine the springtime growth in one of the stone vases that adorned the terrace. ‘I’ve already told you I’ve a guilty conscience—’ glancing at her smilingly over his shoulder. ‘And a guilty conscience is not a pleasant thing to carry about with one.’
She was so busy fondling the puppy that she didn’t entirely appreciate the peculiarly softened quality of that sideways smiling look of his; but it did strike her that he was in a very softened mood, and she also knew that there was no real reason why he should present her with a puppy, and that if she accepted that she must insist on paying for it herself.
She endeavoured to explain to him how she felt about the matter, but before she had got half-way through her explanation his expression altered so alarmingly, and his brow grew so black, that she felt temporarily quite alarmed.
‘If you’re going to look a gift horse - or puppy! - in the mouth, then I think it will be better if we send it back to the kennels,’ he declared. ‘I thought you would be pleased... but apparently you are not!’
‘Oh, but I am, Sir Luke,’ she assured him, the words leaving her lips so hurriedly that they practically ran into one another, so anxious was she to convince him that she really was delighted. ‘But you’ve been so very kind, and you’re behaving so generously towards me—’
Only that morning he had presented her with a cheque for a month’s salary in advance, although as yet she had barely started on her duties, and in any case her ankle wasn’t entirely as good as new, so that she couldn’t get about enough to make herself really useful.
‘What rubbish,’ he said.
‘Then there’s this beautiful new travelling basket. You’ll have to let me pay for that!’
He made a sound that was rather like a growl low in his throat, and she desisted. She smiled at him gratefully and radiantly.
‘Then thank you very much, Sir Luke,’ she said. He grunted slightly.
‘How many thanks do you think I would deserve if I presented you with a diamond necklace?’
She dimpled slightly. He had seated himself beside her on the terrace, and was playing with the puppy’s ears. It was a particularly fair spring morning, and the sunshine was falling all about them; the scent of the wallflowers under the sheltered south wall of the terrace reached them in vaguely exciting wind-blown puffs, and beneath the trees lining the drive daffodils were dancing in the breeze. They could catch a glimpse of the lake from where they sat, and it appeared to have a million diamond-bright ripples on it.
Altogether, the world was very fair, and Melanie felt all at once astoundingly happy and almost ridiculously content. She continued to dimple as she answered:
‘It is quite unlikely that you will ever present me with a diamond necklace, so I don’t think we need discuss my thanks.’
He turned with one of his slightly aggressive movements and confronted her.
‘Why is it so unlikely?’ he asked.
She blinked at him.
‘Because you know very well that it is.’
‘I know nothing of the kind ... at least, I don’t see why I should admit that it is utterly unlikely that I will ever make you a valuable present. And if it’s diamonds you’re turning your nose up at, well then, we can always make it rubies, or sapphires ... or even emeralds!’
She gurgled suddenly, with enjoyment.
‘What about pearls?’ she asked. ‘I’ve always coveted a really priceless rope of pearls!’
‘Then one day you shall have a really priceless rope of pearls,’ he told her solemnly.
She thanked him with equal solemnity in advance. ‘You’ll have to keep them in the library safe for me,’ she told him.
‘I’ll do that,’ he promised. ‘And as you’ll probably require matching ear-rings, and possibly bracelets, to go with the necklace, we’ll keep those in the safe, too.’
‘Apart from the occasions when I wear them to go to some brilliant ball.’
‘Oh, of course. When you go to a brilliant ball I’ll let you have them ... and I’m sure you’ll look so utterly enchanting that everyone at the ball will be slightly dazzled by you and realize that by comparison they pale into utter insignificance.’
She laughed ... but this time it was not entirely a natural laugh. He was sitting back on the seat with his arm stretched along it and almost touching her shoulders, and his inky-dark eyes had very little laughter in them and they appeared to be brooding on her.
‘Where is Miss Larsen?’ she asked hurriedly, ‘and where is Mrs. Larsen? I promised to unravel a skein of embroidery silk for her, and she said she would leave it for me in her room. I’d better go and get it.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the kind.’ He spoke quite sharply. And then as if he realized there had been no real need for such sharpness he added in a more normal tone, ‘You’ve got to make arrangements for the bestowal of this animal of yours, and I suggest you keep it up in the day nursery.’
‘Yes; that will be a good idea.’
‘But I’ve told you the only room I insist you keep it out of is
the library.’
‘I don’t expect Miss Larsen will like to see it running about in the drawing-room—’
‘Never mind Miss. Larsen!’ The sharpness was back again. ‘By the way, you asked me where she was just now. She’s gone over to Willow Farm to see your friend Vidal. Apparently he has a horse, he wants to sell, and he’s persuaded her it’s just about right for her weight. That young man believes in the direct approach, I must say,’ and he frowned at the tip of the cigarette he had just lighted.
Melanie could hardly believe her ears.
‘But if Miss Larsen wants to ride you’ve got plenty of mounts for her here.’ And the last time she saw Martin he had particularly stressed that he had no intention of parting with the graceful grey mare which he was apparently now trying to foist on to Inga ... or Sir Luke Charnock, since he was the one who would almost certainly have to pay for it if Inga insisted that she liked the mare. ‘Besides—’
‘Yes?’ with sudden, arctic coldness.
‘Miss Larsen doesn�
�t really enjoy riding, does she? I heard her say the other day to Colonel Anstruther that she’s rather afraid of horses.’
‘And what if she is?’ The coldness was still there, and all at once it struck her that the real reason why he had seemed somewhat loath to discuss Miss Larsen was because he not only knew that she had no real fondness for riding, but that she had gone over to Willow Farm - very likely out of pure curiosity because she wanted to see it — and turned down some suggestion Sir Luke had made to her himself, which was one reason why he was sitting beside Melanie on the terrace.
She stood up somewhat hurriedly and decided to terminate the interview. She looked upon him as being slightly uninhibited, and he was very definitely showing signs of being infinitely displeased ... and all because he had been unable to tempt Inga, his beautiful Swede, to remain closely glued to his side.
Melanie was slightly sorry for him, but only slightly. For the first time in her life she was feeling dismay about Martin.
She had always looked upon him as her property ... yes, in spite of the fact that she had no intention of marrying him, she had! His dog-like devotion had seemed somehow important in her life, and now it appeared that she was to be deprived of it. Martin, who had remained faithful for so long, had been presented with a new pair of eyes when Inga Larsen appeared on the scene. He had been actually shaken when he first caught sight of her, and now apparently he was taking the unwise step of trying to lure her away — from Luke Charnock.
Which was ridiculous, of course, and quite hopeless from Martin’s point of view, because Luke Charnock held all the cards ... wealth, looks, position. No girl in her senses -certainly not an Inga Larsen, whose mother was insisting she should marry well, and who liked comfortable living herself — would turn aside a landowner for a farmer.
A charming, honest, attractive farmer, but a farmer just the same. A very hard-working farmer at times, too.
But the reason why Melanie felt as if she was treading strange ground was because she would never have expected it of Martin. And even allowing for the fact that he was attracted, she still didn’t believe it was anything more than that. He was basically sensible. He could never enter the lists with Luke.
