by Betty Neels
She might have known that it was nothing of the sort; they had watched the nine o’clock news together over their coffee and she had put aside her cup and picked up her sewing. Gideon asked her idly what she was making.
‘Clothes for a doll I’ve got for Eleanor’s Christmas present.’
‘Ah—yes Christmas. We had better decide what we intend to do—rather short notice to invite friends, but I’ve no doubt they’ll accept. I expect you want to see something of your family. Decide what you want to do, will you and let me know? I’m going up to town tomorrow and I have a dinner date I don’t care to break, but I’ll give you a ring early the following morning. I must get seats for a Pantomime too, Eleanor’s old enough to go to an evening performance so we’ll make an occasion of it. That will give you a chance to wear a new dress…’
Deborah put down her sewing. There had been mockery in his voice and she couldn’t bear that, it was as though he found it amusing that she should be trying to shake off her former staid image. She said quietly: ‘I think it would make no difference what I wore. Not to you, at any rate; you think of me in nanny’s uniform, don’t you, Gideon? But I expected that.’ She added fiercely. ‘What else was there to expect?’
He was sitting back in his chair, staring at her with a calm face. ‘Are you happy, Deborah?’ He waved a large hand. ‘Here? Do you find it too quiet? Peggy was asking me a day or so ago if you would like to take Eleanor for a visit; the twins would love to see you again and Eleanor likes being with them.’
She said in a wooden voice: ‘That sounds delightful. If you’re going to be in London, she won’t miss you so much.’
‘And you, Debby? Would you miss me?’
She eyed him stonily. ‘I really don’t think that my feelings come into it, nor do you have the least interest in them.’
She got up quickly and whisked out of the room and flew up the stairs, as she reached her room she heard the drawing room door open and Gideon’s voice calling her, but she shut her door firmly on the sound.
Things were going from bad to worse and what a very good thing that he was going to London in the morning; she would have a headache and not go down until he had left and perhaps by the time he phoned… Perhaps what? she thought in a panic, and in the mean time he would have spent the evening with Barbara Inge. She ran a hot bath and lay in it until the water was cool, her thoughts whizzing round and round inside her head until the headache she was going to pretend to have in the morning was really there.
Indeed, it was still there when she woke after a brief, heavy nap towards morning so that she was able to tell Eleanor when the child came to her room, that she wouldn’t be down to breakfast and would she see her father off. ‘And I’ve taken something for my headache, love, so tell Daddy not to come up; I shall be asleep.’
To be on the safe side, she kept her eyes shut until she heard the car going down the drive.
Peggy Burns telephoned during the morning. ‘Come for lunch,’ she suggested when Deborah told her that Gideon wouldn’t be home until the next day. ‘And why not leave Eleanor here for the night—I’ll drive her over in the morning—that’ll give you time to get your plans laid for Christmas. I don’t suppose you are doing much this year—you’ve not had the time—have you? But I expect there will be the usual family gatherings and so on.’
It was nice to have something to do; Deborah drove over later in the morning with Eleanor beside her. It was a cold grey day and she wondered if it was going to snow as she took the car the short distance; the day suited her mood, although she was cheered by Peggy’s greeting of: ‘Deborah, don’t you look marvellous? That heavenly suit, and your hair is different!’
They had a boisterous lunch, with the twins allowed to sit at the table and Dee sleeping peacefully as usual. ‘It isn’t just you, Deborah, who looks smashing, it’s Eleanor as well—she’s plump and such a lovely healthy colour and so very happy. How’s Gideon?’
‘He is fine,’ said Deborah. ‘He works too hard, but he enjoys that, doesn’t he? We had people for the weekend—he’s a marvellous host…’
‘Who came?’
Deborah told her, keeping her voice casual.
‘Oh, is she still around?’ asked Peggy Burns. ‘The ghastly Barbara—always getting her talons in someone else’s husband.’ She gave Deborah a lightning glance. ‘She’s pretty good to look at, isn’t she?’
‘Fabulous, and such gorgeous clothes…’
‘Well, as to that, you’re not doing too badly yourself. Gideon must be so proud of you.’
Deborah couldn’t think of an answer to this and Peggy went on kindly: ‘Gideon’s not always as busy as this; he tends to work in fits and starts; he’s got a TV interview coming up—he’s told you, of course, and that means making notes, but you’ll be going to Brussels with him in the New Year, won’t you? When is Miss Timmis coming back?’
Happily a question Deborah could answer: ‘After Christmas; Gideon wants to send Eleanor to school—a day pupil of course—and I think she might like it, we’re going to discuss it when he comes home.’
She left shortly after lunch. ‘The Buckles have the afternoon off and the dogs will need a run before tea. Will you come to lunch tomorrow?’
‘Tea, if I may. Can we all come?’
‘Well of course; I’ll get Mrs Buckle to make a chocolate cake. Please give my love to Mrs Beaufort when you see her.’ Deborah began a round of hugs and kisses, ending with Eleanor who wanted to know anxiously if she would be lonely.
‘I shall miss you, love, but I promise I won’t be lonely— I’ve letters to write and I want to phone Granny Farley.’
The afternoon was melting rapidly into twilight by the time she got back to be welcomed rapturously by the dogs, their barks sounding hollowly in the empty house. She went indoors, changed into stout shoes, and went out of the back door, locking it behind her; the Buckles might be back before she returned but they had a key. With the dogs circling round her, she took the path which skirted the wood beyond the grounds at the back of the house. It was slippery with frost but she knew it well. It circled round the trees as it climbed the hill and came down the other side to join the lane to the village; half an hour’s walk at the most, she would be back home before it grew dark.
She went fast, trying to outrun her unhappy thoughts and she was beginning the downhill rutted path on the other side of the wood when she noticed the Jack Russell, Benjy, was missing. She stopped and whistled and Jack and Prince whined. She hushed them and whistled and called again and this time she heard a faint bark, coming from somewhere within the wood. She had never penetrated its sombre depths but she did know that somewhere in its heart, towards the bottom of the hill, there was a pond. She whistled again, listened for Benjy’s bark and then walked back a little way to where a narrow path led down into the trees. Jack and Prince came with her, walking sedately now, keeping to her heels as she began to slip and slide, barely able to see her way.
It seemed a very long way down and she stopped from time to time and called, to be answered by a whimper which sent her hurrying on once more.
The path ended at last, abruptly terminated by a pool of sluggish water, thinly coated with ice. Ice through which the unfortunate Benjy had fallen; she could see his small head turning desperately this way and that as he paddled in the broken ice, unable to get out because of the sheer sides of the pool. Jack and Prince barked and then went to the edge and whined, Deborah said: ‘No, you don’t. Stay, both of you.’
It was barely light by now, she cast around for some means of help and thankfully laid hands on a broken off branch, it was stout enough and there were any number of smaller branches on it, leafless now, but that was all to the good. She knelt down on the muddy ground and pushed the branch cautiously on to the water as near to Benjy’s head as she could reach. He was a bright little dog and she prayed and hoped that he would have the sense to allow her to drag him to the edge…
‘Get on the branches, love,’ she be
gged him gently, ‘just hang on and I’ll pull you inside.’
For a few moments she thought that she must fail, but suddenly she felt his weight on the twigs as she scooped him up and then began to drag the branch back towards her. He fell off at once, and they had to start all over again but at last she had him at the pond’s edge, but still out of reach. She shuffled backwards, hampered by Jack and Prince trying to help, and lifted the branch slowly, terrified that Benjy might drop off into the water again. But he didn’t; with a yelp of delight he fell into her lap and shook himself, completing the ruin of her new suit. Not that she cared; she hugged him with relief while his friends nosed happily at them both. She didn’t dare stay longer; she had moved round the pond and now she wasn’t sure which path to take, there were several, barely discernible now, and anxious to get away from the pool she started up the first one she blundered into. It led uphill but twisted away after a few yards and presently, to her horror, it came to an abrupt end, barred by a towering thicket. She had Benjy in her arms, small and shivering and wet, and the other dogs crowded close to her. There was no help for it; they would have to go back—but not to the pond. She had seen a narrow track a short distance back, they would take that and hope for the best.
She found the track, but by now it was so dark that she could see nothing at all. Fighting panic, she stood still, deciding what was the best thing to do—the answer seemed to be to stay where she was. It was bitter cold and would get much colder as the night advanced, but surely if she and the dogs kept close together they would have a modicum of warmth. She felt around her and found a tree stump, icily cold but better than the damp, frosty ground. She perched on it, tucked Benjy under one arm and dragged Prince and Jack close on either side. They whined anxiously, but as they leaned against her their warmth was comforting.
Gideon had had a busy morning, indeed it was early afternoon before he stopped for sandwiches and beer eaten at his desk while he added a few more notes to the lecture he was to give later on in the week. These finished he sat back, not thinking of lectures at all, but of Deborah. He had expected to see her at breakfast that morning and when she hadn’t come down he had felt a keen sense of disappointment, followed by an increasing desire to shake her until her teeth rattled for filling her head with such silly ideas, and an even greater desire to discover if she meant what she said. The more he considered this the more urgent it became to find out. He pushed his papers aside, asked his secretary to ring his home and when there was no answer, told her to try his sister’s house, remembering that Eleanor and Deborah had been invited there.
Peggy answered the phone. ‘Deborah? She left a couple of hours ago, Gideon, said she was going to take the dogs out and of course there’s no one at home, she told me that she had given the Buckles the afternoon off since you weren’t coming home and she would be on her own. Eleanor’s here… She wants to talk to you.’
No one listening would have found the professor’s manner anything but his usual urbane self. He talked to his small daughter for several minutes and then rang off.
‘Cancel everything there is for the rest of the day, and that goes for my dinner date. I’m going home at once.’
His secretary had been with him for a long time. ‘But sir—the rest of the afternoon appointments are easily postponed, but not this evening’s—it’s the Ministry…’
‘I know, I know. Ring through and see if I can have a half an hour of someone’s time now—explain—oh, say anything you can think of…’
She earned every penny of her excellent salary; within minutes he was in the Bentley driving down Whitehall.
The half hour stretched over an hour, only his promise that he would return the following day made it possible for him to get away even then.
The evening rush hour was already under way as he crawled out of the city, showing no signs of impatience at the hold ups, but once on the M3 he kept up a steady seventy until he reached Salisbury and changed to the A30. In less than half an hour he was turning in through his own gates, to see lights shining from the house. Deborah was home.
She wasn’t. The Buckles, delighted to see him, assured him that Mrs Beaufort hadn’t returned from Mrs Burns, and when he rang Peggy it was only to hear her repeat what she had already said. ‘And where are the dogs?’ He wanted to know from Buckle.
‘Possibly with Mrs Beaufort, sir. Although it’s a little late…and dark…’
The professor grunted, shrugged himself into his sheepskin jacket, pulled on rubber boots, took the torch Buckle handed him, and left the house.
‘Do you wish me to inform the police, sir?’ asked Buckle at the door.
‘I’ll look round first; if the dogs are with Mrs Beaufort, she shouldn’t be too hard to find.’
He tried the lane to the village first, with no success; then the grounds round the house, whistling for the dogs; half an hour had gone by by the time he started up the path by the wood, and it had begun to rain, a freezing downpour which made the going doubly difficult. He was at the top of the hill, circumventing the wood when he heard the dogs bark, and when he whistled, bark again.
Deborah was numb with cold and very frightened, even with the dogs for company the wood was giving her the creeps with its vague small rustlings and the steady drip of the rain. She had cried a little but since crying wasn’t going to help, she had made herself stop and now sat huddled against the dogs’ warm hairiness, sniffing and gulping and talking to them from time to time. When they barked she had let out a small yelp at the unexpectedness of it and it wasn’t until they barked again, joyfully this time, that she heard the whistle. Gideon, come home by some miracle. She allowed herself the luxury of a few tears and forgot to wipe them away as the whistling grew louder and before very long gave way to the steady tramp of Gideon’s feet. She could see the torch now and called out, but what with cold and fright her voice came out a useless squeak, lost among the rustling and dripping round her.
The torch’s powerful light came to rest on her face, making her blink.
‘You little fool,’ said Gideon in such a rough voice that she winced. And then: ‘Which one of you fell into the pool?’
She found a voice of sorts. ‘Benjy.’
‘You’re soaked…’
‘Well, I had to get him out.’ She started to get to her feet and discovered to her embarrassment that her numbed legs wouldn’t obey her. Gideon bent down and hauled her to her feet and bidding the dogs stay still, he began to rub her legs with hard hands. The pain of returning feeling brought the tears to her eyes again, and a small sob secretly escaped her. But it was only one; his, ‘For God’s sake, don’t start snivelling,’ was enough to choke back any desire to weep; if she could have laid hands on something suitable and heavy she might have been tempted to bang him over the head. To have spent the night in the miserable cold wetness of the wood could have been no worse than Gideon’s even colder anger. His, ‘Come along now,’ was uttered so harshly that she gibbered with rage, but silently; if she said all the things on the tip of her tongue then he might turn round and walk away and leave her there. At the back of her head she knew quite well that he would never do such a thing, but it suited her at that moment to think so. She allowed herself to be led up an overgrown track, almost hidden by rough undergrowth, with Benjy tucked firmly under one arm and the glad dogs, their noses at Gideon’s heels, crowding her on either side. Gideon didn’t speak but went steadily ahead, holding fast to her hand and once or twice she felt sure that he must have lost the way, for the track seemed to go on for ever. And when they at last emerged at the top of the hill there wasn’t much difference; the icy rain was still falling and the dark was stygian.
‘Can you walk?’ asked Gideon.
‘Of course.’ She strove to make her voice haughty and spoilt it with a sniff.
He hadn’t let go of her hand but now he walked beside her, shining the torch ahead of them, highlighting the icy slipperyness of the path. She could see the lights from the house now a
nd since there was no one to see allowed herself to weep from sheer thankfulness. By the time they reached the house she would be so wet that the tears would be unnoticed. She still had to explain exactly what had happened to Gideon even if he was in a rage. The bad temper could be accounted for, of course, Barbara had stood him up and he’d come home instead of spending the evening—or more than the evening?—with her. Well he could spend it alone as far as she was concerned. Deborah sniffed again; she had every intention of having a hot bath and going to bed.
The Buckles’ reception made up to a large extent for Gideon’s terse greeting and lack of sympathy. Mrs Buckle bore her upstairs, tut-tutting all the way. A hot bath, hot soup, a glass of brandy and then a good hot dinner would soon put madam right, what a shame that the suit was a ruin, covered in mud and slime and smelling very nasty too. Deborah, soothed by the housekeeper’s soft, country bred voice, turned to look down into the hall. Gideon, who had flung his jacket down, was examining Benjy, walking at the same time to the kitchen with Prince, Jack and Buckle behind him. He hadn’t spoken to her, not even to ask if she was all right. He had behaved abominably; the hero in a romantic novel would have wrapped her in his sheepskin jacket and carried her all the way home, breathing easily too. Gideon had been breathing like a man under great stress and she had to admit, being a sensible girl, that if he had wrapped his jacket around her she would have dropped to the ground with the sheer weight of it. Besides, despite his size and strength, she and the jacket would have gravely impeded his way through the wood. She giggled and then burst into tears, something which Mrs Buckle saw with satisfaction. ‘You’ll feel better after a nice little cry, madam. You just sit down while I get these shoes off, and that suit.’
