Sweet Sanctuary

by Charlotte Lamb

  Jimmy gave Kate a grin of proffered conspiracy. "Dad knows very well that Mrs. Cooper would step in at a moment's notice—she's always made it quite clear that she's willing to cheer his later years, shed sunshine on his life's downward slope…"

  Old James threw a handful of straw at him and stamped away, shaking his head, muttering, "Impudence!"

  "I can't really stay for tea," Kate told Jimmy. "I didn't think you were serious. I have to walk back now. Mrs. Butler will wonder where I am."

  "We have a telephone—ring her."

  "No, I couldn't do that. I work for her. I'm not a guest in the house."

  "Surely you have some time off?"

  Kate looked blank. "I'd never thought of it. I have so little to do even when I am working that I hadn't thought of asking for time off."

  "Disgraceful! The union would have something to say about that! You must do something about it as soon as possible, then I can take you into Maiden to the pictures."

  "I haven't been to the cinema for ages," she exclaimed.

  "High time you did, then! Will you do that? Tell Aunt Elaine I want to date you." Kate blushed. "Well, thank you, but…"

  He groaned. "Oh, come on… don't be cruel! If you knew how empty my life would be, if you said no, you couldn't refuse!"

  Very pink, but smiling, she shook her head at him. "You don't expect me to believe that, of course?" He was an engaging young man, and she suspected, very popular with her own sex, for all his pretended loneliness. That carefree, cheerful manner would be quite attractive to most girls, even if Sylvia ignored him, and Kate felt sure that he had a string of girlfriends somewhere.

  "What do I have to do to prove my need? Cry? Stand on my head?" He did a graceful handstand and gazed at her, upside down, his feet waving way above her head. "There… are you convinced?"

  She walked away, laughing, despite her cynical disbelief in his plea. Jimmy righted himself and hurried after her.

  "I'll walk back with you," he announced, adding complacently, "That will give me time to persuade you to agree…"

  "I'm very flattered by the invitation," she said, "but don't you think I should wait until I've been at Sanctuary for a while before I start asking for time off? Another time, perhaps?"

  "You look so pliant, so sweet and feminine," he complained. "Why are you being hard and unyielding to me?"

  She saw Nicholas suddenly, coming slowly towards them through the green pasture, wearing biscuit-coloured slacks and a chocolate-coloured pullover.

  "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded tersely as he reached them. "Aunt Elaine has been worrying herself sick over you."

  "I'm sorry—" Kate began unhappily.

  "It was my fault," Jimmy broke in quickly, smiling at her. "I persuaded her to pay us a short visit."

  "She's old enough to say no," snapped Nicholas. "And old enough to know that she doesn't pay private visits during working hours. She was supposed to be walking the dogs, not flirting."

  "I was not flirting," Kate snapped, her colour and her temper flaring together. "I'm sorry if I walked too far, but I didn't realise how late it was getting."

  "Look here, Nick," Jimmy said, "I think you're being a bit unreasonable…"

  "Your opinion is irrelevant," Nick said coolly. "Goodbye, Jimmy." Putting a hand under Kate's elbow, he walked her away, fast, ignoring the boisterous attempts made by the dogs to attract his attention.

  "I thought you were a sensible girl," Nick said to her cuttingly. "Surely you can see that young Jimmy is a flirt? Have you no common sense, wandering off with him like that, without, letting anyone know where you were?"

  "Mrs. Butler told me to take the dogs for a long walk. She didn't say I should be back by any specified time."

  "Your own sense must have told you that you'd gone too far," he said angrily.

  Kate was silent because she was near to tears. For a while they walked in silence, then he glanced aide-long at her averted little face. His own face softened. "All right, I'm a male chauvinist pig. I blew my top. I've had a hard day at the office and a difficult drive home, and when I had to come out looking for you when I got home at last, I was irritated. I shouldn't have taken my temper out on you. I'm sorry."

  His capitulation brought a queer roughness into her throat. She said huskily, "It doesn't matter."

  "It does," he disagreed. "I have no business behaving like a brute to you. I expect you already had a pretty shrewd idea of Jimmy's character. What did he say to you?"

  "He was asking me to go out with him," she said, without thinking.

  His face froze again, the grey eyes icy. "Jimmy has dated every girl for miles. He's labelled strictly for fun, and I doubt if you're old enough to know how to deal with him."

  "I'm not a child," she retorted indignantly.

  "Aren't you?" His brows lifted in an infuriating smile.

  "No, I'm not," she insisted. "I liked Jimmy. He was kind and friendly."

  "Oh, no doubt," he murmured sardonically.

  "In any case, I think it's my business who I go out with. You know nothing about me. We only met a couple of days ago. You may have given me a job, but that doesn't give you the right to dictate who I go out with."

  He was withdrawn, his profile unyielding. They walked up towards the house in silence. Then he looked at her in unsmiling scrutiny. "I should have known that it was useless to discuss the matter with you. You're determined to test the water, aren't you? I suppose you were shut up in that house with your aunt for so long that you feel you've missed out on the gay things of life, and I can understand that. But you can pay too dearly for such things, you know."

  "Experience is worth any amount of theory," Kate said. "I don't think anyone learns from other people's pasts, only from their own."

  "Oh, it's experience you want, is it?" He bit the words out, his face dark red, his eyes furious. "Well, how about this?"

  He pulled her into his arms so that she jerked off balance, falling against him. His head bent. She was taken so much by surprise that she just stood still while he kissed her, neither responding nor struggling. His mouth was hard, demanding, strange. She had never been kissed before. When he lifted his head she stood in passive incredulity, her hands trembling, pale and stricken.

  Nicholas was breathing fast. For a moment they stood, like statues. Then he groaned. "Oh, God! Why the hell did I do that? What on earth can I say?"

  Kate ran from him, then, fleeing into the house. He stared after her, then turned on his heel and strode into the darkness.

  At an upstairs window Mrs. Butler stared down, her blue eyes wide and very bright in her lined old face. She smiled. Her gaze moved gently over Sanctuary's land.

  "Well, Mistress Sylvia," she breathed triumphantly to herself, "we'll see who has the trump card now!"

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kate slept badly. Conscience pricked badly, making a poor bedfellow. Her dislike of Sylvia somehow made the whole incident even worse—increased her guilt and made her question her own integrity. Her aunt had been strict, a Christian in an older mould, teaching virtues which modern civilisation seemed to find unnecessary. Kate had never before been faced with any choice which caused her pain. Now she lay awake, tossing restlessly, trying to decide her future course.

  Should she leave Sanctuary at once? Or was that pure melodrama?

  She flew from one extreme to the other. At one time she laughed at herself for taking seriously what to Nicholas had been a moment's impulse, forgotten as soon as he walked away.

  Then she felt again the impact of his mouth, the hot flood of colour in her own face as she stumbled out of his arms—and she sat up in her bed, shivering.

  When she fell asleep at last it was into a sleep so deep, so heavy, that dawn passed into full sunlight before she woke, sandy-eyed and yawning.

  After a hasty, lukewarm bath she dressed in jeans and sweater and fled downstairs. The kitchen was sunnily empty. The kittens slept in their basket and the old clock on the shelf above t
he range ticked busily, with a sound like bees in clover, full of satisfied complacency.

  She ate breakfast hurriedly and went out to find Mrs. Butler. There was no sign of her in the gardens or the paddocks, so Kate returned to the house, full of contrition for having left all her share of the early morning work to her employer.

  Voices drew her to the front of the house, so rarely in use that she barely knew her way around it yet. The front door stood open. In a shaft of sunlight Mrs. Butler's white hair shone like filigree silver.

  "No, no—I don't need any of these things. I'm too old for such frivolities."

  "Too old?" The voice was like warm treacle, thick and dark. "No woman should ever say that. Even if you were a hundred you should want to look your best."

  "Who's to say that my best needs any artificial aids?" Mrs. Butler was cool, a little wary of this man.

  "You don't use lavender?" The man's voice was teasing, knowing. "Lady, don't tell me—I'm an expert!" He sniffed loudly. "Nice, very nice, but I can offer you something more in keeping with your personality."

  "I grow my lavender. I dry it and I hang it in my wardrobes and drawers, in little silk bags." Mrs. Butler was triumphant. "I always have, always will."

  Kate watched from the shadows of the hall. The man, short, thick-set, with thick oily black hair and a round, humorous face, smiled at the old woman, lifting his shoulders in an age-old gesture of resignation.

  "I know when I'm beaten. So I've wasted a journey! It happens. Thank you for listening to me." He was about to turn away when he caught sight of Kate and his smile widened once more. "But is the young lady so hard-hearted? Can I show you what I've got to sell, miss?"

  Mrs. Butler moved sideways, but too late. He was inside the hall, moving swiftly, for a man of such bulk, his suitcase under his arm.

  "The light here is terrible—if I may?" He was off again, darting from door to door, peering into rooms. "Now, in here you'll be able to see my goods properly!" He was in the drawing-room, putting his case on the occasional table by the window.

  Indignantly Mrs. Butler stalked up to him. "Were you invited into this house? You come barging in here, bold as you please…"

  "I won't take up more than five minutes of your time—I swear it." He was pulling out bottles, packets, boxes—creams, perfumes, hair lacquer, all expensively packaged and heavily scented. Kate looked apologetically at Mrs. Butler, shrugging her shoulders.

  "I'm sorry," she told the salesman, "but I really don't want anything—I have enough of such things already." Why was it so difficult to be rude to these people? She resented his impudence, wished he would go, yet could not bring herself to be downright rude to him. For to order him out of the house would seem like rudeness—she knew that it was illogical. How dared he walk into the house without an invitation, ignore their coldness, deliberately force them to be unveiled in their hostility before he would leave!

  All the time he was talking, extolling the virtues of this or that bottle, and all the time his small black eyes darted around the room, examining the furniture and the ornaments on the mantelshelf and the tables. There was a fine cabinet in one corner, filled with old china. His eye lingered there.

  "No," Kate said firmly, "I don't want anything— please go, now. You have no right to be in here. If you don't leave…"

  He cut her short, darting to the cabinet. "I'm going, I'm going. Lovely china—some of it good stuff. I suppose you wouldn't sell any of it?"

  "Certainly not!" Mrs. Butler was angry now. "Kate, go and ring the police…"

  "Now, is that nice? I said I was going…" The man picked up his case, his samples and was walking out of the room as he spoke. In the hall, with them close behind him, he sauntered casually along, still talking cheerfully. He dropped one of his samples, bent to pick it up and took some time to stand up straight again. Kate saw his hand touch, in a strange stroking motion, the old umbrella stand beside the table on which lay hats, gloves, scarves of the household, rarely used and gathering dust.

  He gave them a wide, friendly smile. "No hard feelings, ladies. Good day."

  Mrs. Butler slammed the door shut. Kate was kneeling beside the umbrella stand, inspecting it. Mrs. Butler lifted an eyebrow.

  "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "Could this be valuable?"

  Kate's urgent tone amused the old woman. She laughed and looked at the tall china pot, yellow with age, cracked here and there, all the colours painted on its sides fading to gentle shadows of themselves; misty blues and greens.

  "A Victorian umbrella stand? Now is it likely? Why should you imagine such a thing?"

  "He seemed very interested in it."

  "Perhaps he once had one like it—or perhaps he's just fond of Victorian objects. Many people are— they like the solidity of Victoriana, you know, the' vanished glory of a secure age. I'm too much a part of that time, myself, to feel such an emotion. I detest Victorian stuff—heavy, clumsy work. Vulgar."

  "You like the eighteenth century?"

  Mrs. Butler smiled. "I like things that work, my dear—chairs you can sit on, tables that stand on four good legs. I'm a practical down to earth woman."

  Kate laughed. "That's why you prefer the kitchen."

  "It's a warm, living room—not a tomb!" Mrs. Butler stood at the door of the drawing-room, looking round the walls. "These rooms were all furnished just as they are now when I first came here—I haven't touched a stick of furniture. I feel an intruder in this part of the house. It was intended to be very grand."

  Gently, Kate said, "Just as Sylvia intends it to be?"

  Mrs. Butler shut the door with a bang. Kate watched her walk away, straight-backed and erect of head, and sighed.

  Sylvia arrived in the middle of the morning, shooting up the drive in her sports car, making a violent commotion on the horn. The horses kicked up startled hooves and fled to another part of the park. Kate, who had been inspecting them for signs of wear and tear on their shoes, since a visiting blacksmith was due any day, looked round in dismay.

  Sylvia braked, waving. Kate walked reluctantly over to meet her, saying good morning in a politely colourless voice.

  "Are you ready?" Sylvia demanded without answering.

  "Ready?"

  A flicker of irritation in the lovely face. "Surely Nick told you I was coming to drive you into town to get some new clothes?"

  Kate flushed angrily. "I think I can be trusted to buy my own clothes, thank you. I can't just drive off and leave Mrs. Butler…"

  "We'll go up to the house to tell her. You'll have to change, anyway. You can't go out in those filthy jeans." The green eyes flicked at the mud-stained edges of the legs.

  Kate felt her spine stiffen. Rage made her brown eyes hard, her lips compress.

  Sylvia looked up at her, leaning back in her car, a smile touching the corners of the exquisite mouth. "Get in!"

  Kate still hesitated, searching for the words with which to refuse, words which would somehow express her anger yet remain at least on the surface totally courteous.

  "Look," Sylvia drawled, "if you can't afford to buy some clothes Nick will advance you the money from your salary!"

  "I've got plenty of money," Kate retorted indignantly, forgetting the speech she had been carefully preparing.

  "Then get in, for goodness' sake," Sylvia said wearily.

  Kate found herself obeying. In her own bedroom, a few moments later, she stared at herself in critical irritation. She looked like a schoolgirl, she thought. Or even a schoolboy, in these old jeans, her figure slender and boyish, with the clean fresh-air glow in her face, innocent of make-up as it was.

  With a self-dismissing shrug she hurriedly slipped into a pale lemon sweater and tan skirt, brushed her sleek brown hair and put on some make-up.

  When she ran down the stairs Sylvia regarded her carefully, one thin eyebrow flickering upward in amused scorn. "Well, at least it's an improvement."

  The drawled words stung, as they were meant to do. Kate bit
back a retort. Had she really spent half the night guiltily wondering if she ought to leave Sanctuary rather than come between Sylvia and Nick? What man in his senses could even look at her with this almond-eyed blonde around? Her vanity had blinded her briefly. Now she was clear-eyed once more, seeing things as they were rather than as she would have liked them to be.

  Her mind jumped involuntarily at that thought. As she would like to be? Was that it? She closed her eyes and sighed heavily.

  "What's up? Am I going too fast?" Sylvia, glancing sidelong, had caught her expression and misread it. She laughed, accelerating even more, her green eyes malicious.

  Kate did not like to drive so fast, but she would have died rather than admit as much to this girl. She gritted her teeth and suffered in silence. After a while Sylvia slowed a little and soon after that they arrived at Maiden, having exchanged no word on the journey.

  When they had parked, Sylvia took Kate to a newly opened boutique in the main street. A tall girl with short, curly brown hair greeted them politely. She clearly knew Sylvia very well, but equally obviously did not like her.

  "Hello, Helen—I've brought you a client. Do I get any commission?"

  Smiling at Kate, the other girl held out her hand. "Hello, client. I'm Helen Cochrane."

  Sylvia stiffened. "Sorry, did I forget to introduce you? This is Kate Fox, she's my fiancé's secretary."

  Helen had not glanced away from Kate's face. "So you want some new clothes, Kate? Your colouring is useful—you can wear almost any colour. What sort of thing are you looking for? Dress? Coat?"

  "The lot," Sylvia drawled, despite Helen's determined cold-shouldering. "Pastel shades would be the best bet."

  "Oh, I don't think we'll limit ourselves to colour for the moment." Helen took Kate's elbow and led her towards the old-gold curtain which was draped across the entrance to the fitting-room. It matched the rich piled gold carpet exactly and was a perfect foil to the dark blue of the walls.

  Sylvia stood, a spot of hard red in her cheeks, staring at them. Over her shoulder, Helen murmured, "Oh, don't wait, Sylvia—I'm sure you have plenty of other things to do! Kate can meet you in the Copper Kettle for lunch in an hour's time!"