Sweet Sanctuary

by Charlotte Lamb

  "He's infatuated!"

  "A boy might be, but is Nicholas a boy, Mrs. Butler?" Kate spoke gently. "I think you're perfectly well aware that he's a man…"

  Grudgingly Mrs. Butler said, "The creature is attractive, I suppose."

  "She's beautiful," Kate corrected firmly.

  "Beauty is not merely decorative." The old voice was clear and certain. "There is a beauty beyond the outer appearance. Beauty is only skin-deep in Sylvia —underneath it she's ugly, ugly with selfishness and greed."

  "Oh, you shouldn't say that," protested Kate.

  "It's true. If Nick marries her he'll be miserable for the rest of his life, because he's a warm-hearted, generous boy, and once he discovers what sort of woman he's married, he'll hate her."

  "They've been engaged for six months and he's had plenty of time to get to know her pretty well."

  "She's far too clever to give herself away. Nick works hard, so he hasn't seen all that much of her. She puts on a pretty show when she's with him—I've seen her."

  "He'll never forgive you if he thinks you're trying to make trouble for them."

  Mrs. Butler sighed. "Do you think I don't understand that? That's why I'm very careful. I guard my tongue and keep my head." She looked out into the rolling distance, at elm and cloud and far, misty spire. "I love this place, but I would go tomorrow with a light heart if Nick was marrying the right sort of girl, a girl who would love Sanctuary as I do."

  "I got the impression that Sylvia is very keen on the house," Kate said softly.

  Mrs. Butler snorted contemptuously. "Oh, she wants Sanctuary. I know that. She's an acquisitive little magpie. The estate is valuable, and the house is respected locally. It's old and lovely, and she wants to get her hands on it, tear its heart out, vandalise it —hang new curtains, put in brash new furniture,' paint it queer colours, no doubt, and have it brought thoroughly up to date."

  "It's natural for her to want to make her own impression on the home she'll live in for the rest of her life," Kate said gently.

  "That's just it—it won't be a home, merely a showpiece."

  Kate sighed. "All the same, it will have to be as she decides, once she's his wife. I dare say she'll prefer to spend more time in the drawing-room and less in the kitchen, but everyone has their own idea of how to run a house."

  "The kitchen is the heart of the house!" Mrs. Butler's voice was fierce, but Kate detected a dampness around the corners of her eyes. Her emotions went deep where Sanctuary was concerned.

  Gently, she nodded. "While you live here!"

  "Anyone with any feeling for the place would see it at once!" The blue eyes flashed, like a kingfisher's wing, bright and sudden. "You feel it, don't you?"

  Kate hesitated. She did not want to be drawn into this war. It was not her war, and she had a premonition that if she allowed herself to enter the battle she would end up as one of the casualties.

  "I know you do," Mrs. Butler nodded at her, ignoring her silence. "I'm a good judge of character. Sanctuary is not just any house—it's an inheritance, to be passed on to the next generation. A petty, greedy mind, like Sylvia's, can't grasp that."

  Kate suddenly felt sorry for Sylvia. She probably did not realise yet just what she was up against—not the meanness of a jealous, frightened heart, but the wide surge of a great, selfless passion, the boundless obsession of a lover.

  "What about Nick?" she asked quietly. "You keep talking about the house. Where does Nick come into this? He is a human being, after all, and human beings mean more than houses, however beautiful."

  "Do you think he would be happy with her?" Mrs. Butler scornfully shook her head. "Nick loves Sanctuary, too, you know."

  "Perhaps he loves Sylvia more?"

  "I don't believe it!"

  They walked back to the house in silence. The older woman stumbled once or twice, and Kate took her arm. With a proud gesture her hand was shaken off. Mrs. Butler was a woman of great spirit, she thought, as they entered the house. It would have been a very interesting experience working for her, but she felt impelled to go as soon as possible.

  "Do you think you could just do one thing for me?" pleaded Mrs. Butler. "Tidy up my office? I seem to have got myself into a muddle. I've been shelving letters for months, and now I can't put my hand on anything. If you could bring order into chaos I should be most grateful."

  "I really ought to go at once," Kate said slowly. "I have to find a hotel."

  "Why not stay as my guest for a few days?" Then, seeing the refusal hovering on Kate's lips, she added quickly, "Or one night? Just another night?"

  "Well…"

  Seeing her weaken, the old woman pressed home her advantage at once. "Oh, good. That's really very kind. If you would come along to the office just now I'll show you where to find things."

  The office was a small, cold room at the end of the stone passage which ran right through the house on the ground floor. Kate stood in the doorway, looking around at the scarred wooden desk, the metal filing cabinet and wall shelving. Then she laughed. A huge, rough-headed dog lay asleep in the corner beside a pair of muddy Wellington boots.

  "Punch, what are you doing here?" Mrs. Butler ruffled the dog's orange fur so that he looked like a lion, the hair standing out from his massive head as he studied Kate curiously in his turn, his yellowy-brown eyes bright and steady.

  "He's a darling. Is he yours?"

  "No, Nick's, although Nick pretends to find him irritating. He found Punch drowning in the marshes years back. Brought him home in his pocket, a puppy no bigger than a tea-cup. Can you believe it? Look at him now, the silly great pudding!"

  Punch looked up, head to one side, tongue lolling, much pleased by her remarks. Like all dogs he knew very well when he was the subject of discussion and enjoyed the limelight.

  "Does he always sleep in here?"

  "No!" Mrs. Butler picked up the muddy boots. "I see what happened—Nick took him for a walk before breakfast, and left his boots in here when he came back. Nick is often absent-minded. Punch stayed to guard the boots." She walked towards the door with them, and the dog followed.

  When she returned, Mrs. Butler showed Kate what she wanted her to do. Opening the top drawer of the filing cabinet, she looked in dismay and distaste at the great pile of papers which immediately began to billow upwards.

  "Could you sort these out? Put aside the important ones, throw away the rest? Any that should be kept can be filed in here."

  Kate nodded. "I'll see what I can do!"

  She worked in the office all day. There were piles of letters and documents everywhere, dusty and crumpled, some yellow with age, but gradually she began to whittle the piles down.

  They had a simple salad lunch, and Kate immediately got back to work. It was dusk when she finally came to an end. She had opened a window, and the moths began fluttering into the room, attracted by the electric light. They hovered around the lamp, singeing their bodies and powdery wings. The birds were giving a valedictory chorus. The goats bleated plaintively and the twilight air was chilly on her skin.

  "Good lord, you have been busy, haven't you?" She looked up with a start to find Nicholas in the doorway. He had changed into an old blue sweater which brightened his grey eyes to blue, and a pair of faded old jeans instead of his creased city trousers His face was flushed with night air, his eyes bright, his hair ruffled by the wind.

  She smiled at him, thinking how much these casual clothes suited him.

  "Come for a walk!" The words were an order rather than an invitation and he did not wait for a reply, taking her arm firmly and leading her out of the room. The house was redolent of herbs, spices and slowly cooking meat.

  "Casserole!" Nicholas nodded towards the kitchen range, as they went out. "Aunt Elaine's speciality-cooks itself." He whistled and dogs shot from all corners. "My aunt is bedding down a newcomer in the stable."

  "A horse?"

  He laughed and shook his head. "You'll see later," he said. "Come on, you need some fresh air
before dinner. It's bad for your health to spend hours indoors without exercise. A walk will give you an appetite."

  "I've got one already," she said wryly, but he was already striding off into the dusk with the dogs rushing to and fro around him. One of them halted, came. back and solemnly surveyed her, his great head to one side. He offered her a consolatory paw and she was forced to smile.

  "Thank you, dog." He was very like Punch, she noticed. When she mentioned it to Nicholas later he smiled.

  "That's Patch—Punch is his father."

  "And that one?" She looked at the third dog, a spidery object on very thin fluffy legs which had a high, excited yap when it barked.

  "No connection—Poppy came to us from a family who were leaving England and couldn't take her with them. Punch and Patch despise her. She's rather a silly animal, actually. I don't blame them."

  Did he approve of Sylvia's desire to get rid of all the animals who at present inhabited Sanctuary, she wondered, or was he, for all his expressed irritation, secretly quite happy with them?

  The high flint wall which ran around the estate was, she saw, totally enclosing, and the land which lay within it was a considerable area. In the twilight it was hard to see exactly how far the Sanctuary land extended on all sides, but it gave the impression of being a great green park, dotted with trees and the grazing shapes of animals, with the wall appearing and disappearing in the distance.

  "You do have a lot of land," she said, gazing around with a fascinated look. "Is it only used for grazing animals?"

  "At present, yes," he said slowly. "I would like to throw down the walls and add the park to my farm."

  "Farm? You have a farm?"

  "Of course." He looked at her with amusement. "Sanctuary is an estate farm—I have a tenant who farms it. His family have always farmed my land. He would dearly love to have the Sanctuary park land, but while Aunt Elaine lives here he's unlikely to get his wish."

  "Would he graze sheep or cattle on it?"

  "No, this is first-class arable land, or would be if it Was released and properly prepared to take wheat or oats. It's flat and fertile, well drained, and poor old James would be in heaven if he got his hands on it. It lies right in the middle of his farm, you see, cuts his land in half. If I gave it back to him he would be able to double the size of his yield."

  "But the house? That would mean pulling down the house, surely?"

  He shook his head, standing still to point out features of the landscape. "No, see that slope to the lake? We would cut across there, draining the lake, of course, and taking in all that land. Then the house would stand with just a small garden back and front, with a path leading to the main road as it is at present. Most of the park lies in front of the house, luckily."

  "Sanctuary would still be ruined," she said sadly, gazing back through a rising mist to the house. It looked warm and inviting, with its yellow squares of light from the windows, and the small curl of white smoke from the kitchen chimney.

  Nicholas groaned. "Aunt Elaine certainly found the sort of girl she was looking for! I imagine she had to interview half London before she found you!"

  "Well, you need worry no longer. I shall leave tomorrow," she returned with dignity.

  "Look," he said, staring down at her, "will you listen to me first? I need your help even more than my aunt does."

  "You do?" Kate lifted her head to look at him, her brown eyes serious.

  "I'm desperate," he went on, grimacing.

  Desperate for. love of Sylvia? she wondered. Was that what he meant?

  "My fiancée and my aunt are in the middle of an all-out war, and the chief casualty so far has been me! I can't go on living like this, with sniping going on over my head. I've got to force a decision somehow." He bent to smile at her hopefully. "That's where you come in, Kate."

  "I don't want to get involved," she said hastily, turning to go.

  He caught her by the arm. "Please listen to me," he pleaded, his grey eyes fixed on her face.

  She hesitated, feeling angry and alarmed at the same time. Why did she feel so confused and anxious? she asked herself. These people were nothing to her. Let them settle their domestic squabble among themselves. They should not drag outsiders into the affair. It was all childish, anyway. Why couldn't they live together peacefully instead of making all this fuss?

  She started to give Nicholas her views, and he listened eagerly, nodding.

  "Of course, you're right. So right! That's why you must help me. Only someone from outside could do anything, and you're the perfect person to intervene."

  "No," she protested.

  "Yes—Aunt Elaine likes you, I saw that. She's really taken to you—been singing your praises ever since you arrived. She would listen to you. You could influence her."

  "I'm not talking your aunt into leaving her home," said Kate coldly.

  He took her hand and held it between his, looking at her with such a hopeful air that she was tempted to laugh. "I've bought her a cottage just across the road. She could keep some of the animals there. I'll keep the rest at Sanctuary until they die of natural causes. After that, no more animals, of course. But surely she can accept that compromise? It means that she gets some of her own way."

  "You do know that she has a dream of making Sanctuary a permanent animal rest home, a sort of old pensioner's home for animals?"

  "It's impractical," he said impatiently. "I can't afford to run the house like that."

  "She means to leave her own money to support it."

  "In my house? She has no right to make such arrangements. She has allowed a natural kindness to become an obsession. I hate to hurt her, but I'm going to marry Sylvia whether Aunt Elaine likes it or not. She can't expect to choose my wife for me." He looked at Kate frankly. "Aunt Elaine will be very much more hurt if this war goes on, you know. You can save her from some of that pain if you agree to my suggestion."

  "What exactly do you want me to do?" She spoke in sad resignation, knowing that she was already half committed to caring what happened to these people, and that such care meant action on her part.

  "Stay, as she wants you to, and tell her frankly what the alternatives mean. I'm determined, Kate. I have to choose between my aunt and my future wife. The natural choice is obvious, even to my aunt. She'll only be badly hurt if she continues to oppose our marriage. Talk her round, help her to see that my suggestion will work. The animals here will always be cared for, but there must be no more of them."

  Kate walked away from him, her shoulders hunched. She was a small, wistful figure, in her old cherry-red sweater and much-washed and patched jeans. From behind she looked rather like a young boy, slender and graceful, except for the soft fall of silky hair.

  She turned suddenly, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "Yes, I'll help," she said on a sigh.

  He caught hold of her shoulders, exultant, and smiled down into her face. "Thank you, Kate. I knew you would!" He suddenly hugged her, in a brotherly fashion, his rough cheek grazing hers briefly. Kate felt a shiver of premonition trickle down her spine. At the back of her mind there flickered an image of them both, held together, in the growing dusk, against the backcloth of the fast vanishing green of the parkland. She knew instinctively that that image would be recorded in her memory for the rest of her life, but she was not yet sure quite why.

  She drew away from him, pushing at his chest, and he stared at her in surprise, then grinned.

  "Sorry, did I alarm you? I wasn't making a pass, you know! Just showing my gratitude."

  "Then please show it in another way," she said stiffly.

  "Haven't you ever been kissed before?" he asked with great amusement.

  "Of course I have—that doesn't mean I want to be kissed by any Tom, Dick or Harry."

  "Or Nick, apparently," he said, still in a state of euphoric glee. "And it was only the merest peck, a fraternal embrace!"

  "I didn't like it," she said crossly.

  "So it seems!" He was suddenly angry and turned
away with an offended air, stalking off with the dogs gambolling around him in uncertain mood, watching him anxiously for some sign of their own position in his graces.

  Kate trailed after him, feeling very silly. Why, she asked herself furiously, had she made such a ridiculous fuss over nothing? She had never had a serious relationship with anyone, had really very little experience of men. He had startled her by his sudden hug.

  The moon was rising. It swam, reflected, in the waters of the lake below the house, a pale crescent half veiled in mist. From the dew-wet grasses of the park rose a pale vaporous mist which hovered, waist-high, especially in the hollow around the lake. The house seemed to float above, standing clearly against the sky, a sturdy, safe outline, promising security.

  She caught up with Nicholas and he glanced at her grimly, his face unsmiling in the dusk.

  "I'm sorry," she apologised. "I don't know why I was so touchy about such a silly thing."

  The cold mask dissolved. He smiled, crinkling eyes and nose in the charming amusement which could make such a difference to his face. "Forget it! Do you know 'Old MacDonald had a farm'?"

  She laughed. "Yes, of course."

  He began to sing, and she joined in, their voices blending well together. They walked up towards the house, singing loudly, and startling the rooks, on their nests in the elms, sending them cawing in disgust up into the darkening skies.

  The door of Sanctuary stood open, sending a shaft of bright gold winging into the dark. Their voices faltered and fell silent as someone emerged.

  Nick dropped his arm from around Kate's shoulders.

  "What," demanded Sylvia in a voice like splintering ice, "is she doing here?"

  CHAPTER THREE

  "What are you doing here?" Nicholas asked Sylvia sternly. "I thought we'd agreed that for the time being you would stay away from Sanctuary?"

  "Yes, you talked me into that, didn't you, Nick— and your reasons were so good!" Sylvia's voice was scathing. "But you had a reason you didn't mention, hadn't you?" Her eyes flicked over Kate, the stiletto stab of her hostility visible. "So again—what is she doing here?"