. . . "If you really mean you want to try out this business you'll have to serve your cadetship like anyone else."
. . . "You'll go interstate, as I did, like it or not — good lord, man, who do you think you are?"
. . . "There's no short cut, no easy way, and if I accept you, if, you'll do what I tell you, work where I say."
"No, Peter, there's no alternative."
Yes, mainly Bart.
Then, breaking in at last, Peter's answers, undoubtedly protesting that he did not want to leave Sydney, that he wanted to work right here.
Bart still saying he must go.
And suddenly, surely, the fact coming to Verity that Peter would go, because Bart, for all his weakness, was strong. Stronger than Peter ever would be.
Later she heard Peter leave, no goodbye, just a quick appearance at her door . . . she was serving the browser now ...
and his fingers on his lips to her in farewell.
did Peter...did Mr. Prince .. " she started to ask Priscilla
"Yes, Bart sent Peter interstate," finished Priscilla for her. "That is, if Peter is serious, and if he wants a future like this." Priscilla glanced indicatively around. "If he doesn't, then he can please himself, but otherwise he'll do what Bart says. Bart always wins, you know."
"I didn't know. I know now."
"Yes, you know now." It was Bart Prince at the door. "That last sale, Miss Tyler," he told her formally, "you very nearly lost. You can stay back after we close tonight and I'll suggest to you what you lack."
It sounded a suggestion, but Verity knew it was an order, an order she dared not disobey.
Priscilla had made no other comment. She had lost her withdrawn air and now she looked almost sorry for Verity. Well, Verity thought, not very happy for herself, even someone who loved Bart as Priscilla did would never take him lightly.
She spent more time over her last customer than the customer's two Japanese candles deserved. But at last she could eke out the moment no longer, and she was listening to Bart follow the customer to the doors to drive home the bolts.
He did the closing up slowly, deliberately, double checking. No thief, Verity thought abstractedly, would find it easy to break in here tonight.
Then he turned, slowly, deliberately again, to look at Verity.
"Well, Miss Tyler?" he said.
She pretended puzzlement, though she knew it would be no use, there would be no subterfuge with this man.
"I want an explanation," he said barely.
"I made the sale," she defended. "Sometimes it's like that, some customers aren't so easy as others, some-Mr. Prince ! " For Bart had come across and taken her hand, and his grip was punitive.
He still did not release her, even though he must have seen her wince. "Stop misunderstanding me," he said. "You know what this is about."
She wanted still to pretend confusion. What right had this man to intrude like this? She wasn't hurting anyone, but one look at his angry face changed her mind.
"Yes, I know," she admitted instead.
"Then get any fancy ideas you may have right out of your head. You're not for my brother Peter."
"You could have put it that your brother Peter was not for me." She had gone a dull red.
"Put it whatever way you like, so long as you get the idea."
"I don't get the idea, as you put it, and I resent you speaking like this ! " she snapped.
"You'll resent it a great deal more if you go any further."
This was too much ! What did he think he was, his brother's keeper? Who was he to forbid love? She was not aware that she had said it aloud until he answered roughly, "Love! Don't give me that. You don't love Peter, and Peter —"
"Yes? Peter?"
"Peter is already accounted for," he said bluntly.
"Then that's something he doesn't know." But she was aware of a tension in her, a tension and not a confidence. It should be a confidence, she knew that, a confidence in what Peter had whispered to her. But now, when she wanted it, she could not gather any confidence to her. It simply wasn't there.
He was looking at her shrewdly, summing up her doubt. She wished she could wipe that small smile off his face, tell him he was wrong. — Yet was he wrong? Was Bart? And what about herself? How much had Peter meant . . . that is, apart from that new enchantment, that new sweet madness? How much had he meant?
Peter is already accounted for.
For the first time she seemed really to hear Bart's words. Before, Bart had said that there was only one available Prince, and she had taken it to be Peter. If what Bart said now was true, then the only one must be — Bart. Matthew had already been discussed and dismissed. But Bart — why, Bart belonged ... His mother had said so . . . Priscilla's soft eyes had acclaimed it . . . Yet Bart, in Bart's own words, was the only Prince to remain.
"So the episode is now finished," Bart Prince was saying authoritatively. "It would have been, anyway, because I've sent Peter off."
"Yes, I heard you."
"And with my brother Peter it's out of sight out of mind. I'm really doing you a service, preparing you for a letdown in this way."
"Then thank you, Mr. Prince, for the service." She was looking round for her coat. She hoped he did not see that she was trembling.
But the keen eyes missed nothing. Abruptly, quite unexpectedly, he said : "Will you have dinner with me?"
"No."
"Yet you went . . . frequently . . . with my brother."
"That was different. You're my employer."
"Possibly Peter could be in the future. We'll discuss it over the meal."
"I still don't wish to come."
"If I make it an order ?"
"When you make an order you don't make a question of it."
"Put on your coat," he said, and he went across, got the coat and handed it to her. For a moment she hesitated, saw there was no question in him now, and slowly, unwillingly complied. He barely touched her elbow and together they emerged into the street.
Peter's restaurants had been carefully chosen, Peter had ,Studied the menu, conferred with the chef. But Bart simply led Verity to the end of the street to a small simple room with a red door beneath a red awning. At a window table he shrugged carelessly over the offerings, leaving it eventually to the waiter. When the waiter had gone, he pushed aside the plate in front of him and put his elbows there instead.
"You've been a fool," he began.
"So it's to be that sort of dinner ! "
"You didn't think I brought you here to feed you, did you?" "You could have done your talking back at the Castle." "Propriety," he reminded her coolly. "Behind closed doors.
Though that hasn't worried you, has it ?"
The first dish arrived, and in spite of everything it was delicious. It was a good restaurant. She said so, surprised, and he said, equally surprised, "Where else did you think I would have taken you ?" After what he had just said about the type of dinner she was to receive, all Verity could think was : What a man!
They did not speak much until the waiter had removed the final plates, then Bart Prince said : "I want your promise." "Yes ?"
"To drop this fool affair now."
"You mean Peter ?"
"I don't mean Woman's Castle."
"What business is it of yours?" she demanded.
"All my business."
"Your mother —" she began.
"My mother has three sons she loves but doesn't understand."
"She told me that she —"
"That she wanted you to nab one of the Princes, or something to that effect — oh, yes, that would be my mother. But the thing she did not say was to rule out the first and last."
"That leaves the in-between." Now Verity spoke out what she had thought . . . and incredulously . . . before.
"Precisely. Any objection?" His eyes were narrowed on her. When she replied, it was not an answer for herself, but for Priscilla.
"There could well be, Mr. Prince."
"Namely?"
&nbs
p; She stared at him in dislike. How could he use Priscilla as he did?
When she did not answer, for indeed she was so disgusted she was incapable of answering, he said sneeringly, "Why these evasions and innuendoes? Why that 'There could well be, Mr. Prince'? Why not come straight out and say, 'Yes, I would object.' Why, Miss Tyler ?"
"Can we drop the subject?" she asked distastefully. "And take up the subject of Peter?"
"Why not? Peter and I —"
"Have nothing," he said baldly.
"You could be wrong."
"Only I'm not."
"How could you know — I mean —"
Bart did not lean across the table, but all the same his eyes seemed to move forward to meet hers. "I know," he said quietly, and while hating him for that, she knew suddenly and with bitter chagrin that he did know. Why . . . oh, why had she had this change of heart? Or had it been only change of mind?
Angrily she cried, but secretly in challenge not conviction : "I care about Peter."
Bart smiled thinly and said nothing.
Needled now, she flung : "He cares about me."
This time he laughed scornfully. "That I do know about." "And what is it you know?"
"That Peter has already near-forgotten you. I'm sorry, I mean I'm sorry if you're hurt, but that's our Peter."
"You're not a loyal brother," she said sarcastically.
"I am an aware brother, aware of Peter's —"
"Failings? And they would include me?"
"Your words, Miss Tyler, but since you put it that way,
yes. Peter is — what shall we say? — vulnerable. These things happen with monotonous frequency."
"What things ?" Verity broke in, incensed.
"Boy meets girl," he said cruelly.
"You're impossible ! "
"Yet knowledgeable. Peter meant every word he said .. . but only for the length of time he said it. Already, and I have no doubt about this, he has forgotten."
"You don't understand —" she endeavoured.
"No," he came in quietly, "you don't. You don't understand that Peter must be understood — and that only one woman ever has understood him yet, and it's not our mother, nor" . . . gently, that is if this man could be gentle . . . "you."
One woman. Dully Verity remembered what Bart had said previously. He had said : "Peter is already accounted for."
But — but by whom ?
He broke in on her thoughts, gentle no longer. "Look, Miss Tyler, you're not hurt, you're not even remotely affected. Drop that injured guise."
"I wasn't aware I looked injured," she muttered.
"You didn't look the way you looked when you first came to the Castle."
"And how was that ?"
There was a pause. It went on so long she began to wonder if he had heard her. Then he said : "Beautiful."
But he did not add to it, he did not explain it, so perhaps she only imagined it.
Presently he said, "I'll take you home."
"Thank you, no."
"Is that what you said to Peter ?"
"I don't need to be taken home."
For answer he rose, crossed and paid the bill, led the way out of the restaurant. Without asking her, he opened the
door of the car, and, not questioning his authority, she got in.
They drove in entire silence. Even when the bridge was open and they had to wait, they still did not speak. Verity looked down at the ship passing through the opened span up to Blackwattle Bay. She was thinking nothing at all; she seemed beyond thinking. She wondered what Bart Prince was thinking about, or whether he, too, was beyond thought.
As soon as the car stopped at her terrace, her hand went to the door. She must get out and inside the flat before he —
A hand covered hers, stopping any pressure on the catch.
"Why are you in such a hurry?"
"Please, Mr. Prince —"
"Please, Mr. Prince . . . is that what you gave Peter?" "This is going too far," she said.
"On the contrary, it hasn't gone at all. Was it like that? Was it 'Please, Mr. Prince'?"
"No ! " She fairly flung it at him.
"But it is to me ?"
"You," she reminded him cruelly, not understanding her cruelty, not really believing she said it even after she had spoken it, "are not your brother."
It had immediate effect. She could see the old bitterness returning to him. His hand dropped away. He got out of his side of the car and came round and opened her door.
He said nothing but "Goodnight, Miss Tyler," then came back to his seat at the wheel. Before she reached her front door she heard the car draw away.
CHAPTER V
THE following day it seemed that Bart had spoken too quickly. In the afternoon's mail there was a letter from Melbourne for Verity.
Priscilla handed it to her without comment . . . Bart was out . . . and Verity took it also without speaking.
She held it for quite a while before she opened it. She waited for the quickening of the pulses that such a letter, Peter's letter, should bring. She wished desperately that she could summon up something — what sort of woman was she to change her heart so quickly as this? Yet had her heart ever been involved? Even without Bart's raw words to start all this, wouldn't she still have been asking herself this?
Clutching the letter, she crossed to the antique room, trying to stifle her feeling of guilt over Peter by anticipating what he wrote before she read it. It would be as his brother had said : Out of sight, out of mind. He might even have written an apology over the pleasant but unimportant dalliance, for that was all it had been, she knew it now, and she half-smiled. Though possibly if it was not an apology, it was an extrication. She smiled all the way now, thinking that yes, an extrication would be Peter Prince.
She took out the letter.
"My darling."
My darling. Verity tested Peter's opening uneasily. It didn't sound an apology, or even a bowing out. She realized with shame, shamed at her shallowness, that she had hoped it would be.
"My darling, Were you let down when I allowed my big brother Bart to browbeat me so mercilessly, Banish me to Melbourne? Then if so, my sweet, I did it for you. (For myself, too. After years of indecision I have decided after all that trade is for me, especially since it involves you. That it has to be in another state is saddening, but I don't think it will be for long. Anyway, let's hope.)
"Verity, the magic is still working, so it must be the real thing. I've thought of no one else since I left you. Everywhere I look I see only your little face. That might not surprise you, not after what we came to realize about each other, but I must admit it rather has surprised me. I've never been the stable Prince. I'm sorry, dearest, but that is a fact, that is Peter. But now it is another tale. Write and tell me the same story from you, and until then I'll still look round and see only one face. (That's quite good, isn't it ?"
She realized she held the letter so tightly that she was crumpling it. It would not matter, she would remember the words, if not with thrall, then certainly with triumph. Triumph against Bart Prince. Bart had been so confident, so sure, and he had been wrong. She put the letter in her pocket.
She took out her writing things that night to answer Peter. Yet what to say? The same story, as he had asked her, as his to her? She looked at the paper a long time, finding no words, then put the pen down again. Although it was rather late she decided she would visit Robin.
As she caught the bus she felt remiss about the last week, Peter's week, that had passed without her seeing her half-brother. She had disciplined herself after meeting Adele not to go to see Robin as often as she wanted, but these last days she had not wanted, because she had not even thought of Robin.
One thing, her brother had always been a night subject; he
would see nothing amiss in her turning up now at this hour.
As it happened it was Adele who opened the door, and for the first time the girl greeted her with less than her usually thinly-veiled animosity
.
"I was wondering when you would come."
About to remind Adele that she could have contacted her herself, Verity said anxiously, "How's Robin?"
"Oh, he's all right. Not picking up, of course, that's right out, but it wasn't Rob I was worrying about. We had no remittance this month."
Verity turned her head away so that Adele would not see the dismay in her face. Before she had left London she had had a long talk with Mr. Carstairs, Robin's solicitor, and he had warned her that the money from the Ramsay estate that was being allotted to Robin could not last indefinitely. But he had not said it would be depleted this soon. Verity remembered sitting down in the Balmain flat after Robin's attack and going through figures, trying to approach the subject keenly and practically, not with a numbness in her heart. She had estimated that the money should see her brother out.
She glanced around at the lavish apartment. Obviously the way it was being spent it was not going to last, but even then it should still be forthcoming for a period at least.
"I'll see to it," she promised. "I'll write at once."
"That will take time, and right now we're down to our last cent. Really, I've never seen such mismanagement! That solicitor must be a fool. Why, without you we'd be stuck." Adele looked irritated.
Without you . . . The meaning of the words came abruptly to Verity. Adele was obviously expecting her to . . . she was relying on her for . . .
She thought dully that ordinarily she would have rushed the chance to help Robbie, she would have made a jealous privilege of it, but at this present moment all she possessed was in the handbag under her arm, and though quite sufficient for herself, in fact generous, by Robin's and Adele's standards it would not be worth the taking. But she was wrong, for Adele said, "Anything will do until the cheque comes through. And see you don't forget to jerk that lawyer." She waited as Verity opened up the purse, then coolly accepted the entire contents.
Hiding her dismay, for she had only been paid that day, Verity allowed Adele gather up the notes. She did a quick mental arithmetic as Robin's wife pocketed the money briskly, saying, "Rob's asleep ... he has these sedation things ... you can look in on him, though, if you like." Her arithmetic told her that it was fortunate that she had paid the rent ahead, also bought her ferry tokens, but as for food...
There Were Three Princes Page 6
