by Sara Seale
They lingered for a while in silence, listening to the owls calling from the woods below and the myriad small night sounds which stirred in the leaves and grass about them, but he made no move to take advantage of the romantic setting and suddenly a brilliant point of light detached itself from the glistening galaxy above them and swept down to earth to be forever lost.
“Oh, look—a shooting star!” Victoria cried in delight. “You must wish, Robert. You must always wish on a shooting star, and this is the first I’ve ever seen.”
“Then let’s hope it’s a good omen,” he said, observing with tender amusement the way she instantly closed her eyes and moved her lips as if in unconscious prayer.
“Did you wish?” she asked anxiously, opening her eyes again, but he gave her no reply, only stooped to kiss her good night so lightly that she was scarcely aware of his lips touching hers.
“Bed,” he said, brushing off a white moth which had settled on her hair, as long ago he had brushed away the white petals of apple blossom, then turned her gently back towards the house.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SUNDAY proved a sad disappointment after such seemingly settled weather, for rain had come with the dawn and the laden sky gave no promise of lifting.
“You’d never believe things could change so quickly after the heat of yesterday, would you?” Victoria said to Robert when they met for breakfast. “Everything seemed set fair for a lovely week-end.”
“Which just goes to show that you can’t trust nature any more than your own feelings,” he replied with rather discouraging promptitude, and she eyed him uncertainly.
“What, exactly, do you mean by that?” she asked, wondering if he already regretted his mood of yesterday.
“Nothing very profound, merely a passing comment on life’s depressing uncertainties,” he answered, extracting a wasp from the pot of marmalade and squashing it irritably on his plate.
“Are you depressed, Robert? The weather certainly isn’t helping, I’ll admit, but we can find plenty to do indoors and Timmy will welcome an excuse for his Uncle Rob’s undivided attention,” she said, not realising how wifely she sounded until he cocked a sardonic eyebrow at her across the table, observing acidly:
“Trying your make-believe out on me?”
“Not consciously,” she replied, making an effort to laugh at her own absurdities. “I suppose Kate being away gives me a false feeling of being mistress of the house, but it’s only pretence.”
“And what part am I playing in this pretence of yours?” he asked rather in the suave, misleading tones he had employed for his cross-examination, but she was not going to be trapped into incoherent admissions or denials as she had been then, and replied coolly:
“I haven’t got as far as casting you, yet. My imaginary master of the house is a very intangible character—just a dim figure in the background.”
“Like Mr. Brown?”
“Not at all like Mr. Brown. I picture him living in some remote mansion in chilly isolation except for minions he pays so well that they never give him notice. I don’t think he’d suit Farthings at all.”
He laughed then and seemed to shed some of his early morning irritability.
“Poor Mr. Brown! I fear that his star is at last on the wane for want of a more substantial identity, and a good thing, too,” he said, sounding rather pleased with himself, but she remembered the roses, undeniable evidence of an interest not wholly dutiful, even, perhaps, of a change of heart, and felt she had been unduly flippant.
“Oh, no,” she said softly, “it wouldn’t be a good thing at all. Even if we never met I should still feel bound to him in a queer sort of way.”
The look Robert gave her was neither conciliatory or particularly sympathetic, but he spoke quite gently:
“In that case you seem likely to be caught in your dream world for the rest of your days. I wonder if you could meet this ubiquitous ghost the spell would be broken.”
“What spell?”
“A spell you have made for yourself, I fancy, but no less potent for that I’m not at all sure it isn’t you who are awaiting for the traditional disenchantment and not me.”
Despite the prosaicness of the breakfast hour and the discouraging sound of rain beating on the windows, something of last night’s magic returned with his words.
“I’m glad you haven’t forgotten all those things you said to me, even if you didn’t mean them,” she told him, and that unconscious smile began to turn up the corners of her mouth and then stopped abruptly as if uncertain of a welcome.
“I meant them, but possibly you misinterpreted my reasons,” he said, but she answered quickly, instinctively avoiding a reply that could pin him down to more concrete explanations:
“There doesn’t have to be a reason in make-believe—that’s the beauty of it.”
For a moment it seemed as though he would have liked to dispute the point, but he evidently had second thoughts, for he only shook his head at her and got up from the breakfast table to stand staring out of the window at the rain-soaked garden.
“Well, what shall we do with ourselves this uninviting morning? Shall we take advantage of the contrary weather and go to church?” he asked
“I should like to,” she said, “but I don’t think I ought to leave Timmy to his own devices, and Elspeth will be busy with the Sunday, joint and won’t want him under her feet. Why don’t you go?”
“I think perhaps I will,” he replied. “You didn’t expect that, did you?”
“Well, you’ve never bothered much when you’ve been down before.”
“To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven—or didn’t your expensive education include a bowing acquaintance with the Bible?”
“Oh, yes, that was one of my favourites. A time to be born and a time to die ... a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance ... a time to love and a time to hate ... practically everything’s catered for, isn’t it?” she said, delighted, if surprised by this fresh twist in his personality, but although his eyes softened as they momentarily dwelt on her eager face, his voice held a hint of asperity when he countered swiftly:
“A time to keep silence, and a time to speak ... you’ve forgotten that one, possibly the wisest of them all. Well now, it’s certainly time for me to get cracking if I don’t want to be late for church, so I’ll leave you to your nursery duties.”
Up in the nursery, Timmy was contrary and inclined to be fretful, alternating between affectionate demonstrations which became a trifle exhausting and sudden withdrawals into silence which were equally difficult to treat with patience. Nothing she suggested for his amusement seemed to please him, and Robert returning from church with an hour before lunch to devote to his godson, fared no better. In the end his patience gave out.
“Very well,” he said firmly but kindly, “since you prefer being rude and naughty to behaving nicely, you can have your lunch up here, instead of with us. Elspeth will bring up a tray.”
“But it’s Sunday!” Timmy protested, too astonished to resort to more usual methods for the moment.
“I know it’s Sunday, but you should have thought of that before, shouldn’t you? Come along, Victoria, we’ll leave this naughty little boy to his own company. Perhaps we’ll find him in a better mood after lunch,” Robert said, extending a helping hand to Victoria, who was on her knees picking up tiddlywinks counters from the floor where they had been thrown in a temper.
“Well, perhaps if he says he’s sorry, we’ll let him come down after all,” she said, aware that the boy, jealous and provoked, was quite quick enough to imagine he wasn’t wanted.
“Certainly, if he’s really sorry. Are you, Timmy?” Robert asked pleasantly. “Your mother won’t be pleased, you know, if I have to tell her you’ve behaved badly while she’s away.”
Timmy, it was plain, had been wavering, but the mention of his mother brought his grievances to a head. He shouted. “No! I hate you! I want my
mummy!” stamping his feet and bursting into angry tears.
“Oh dear!” Victoria exclaimed, wondering how best to quell the noise and offer comfort at the same time, but Robert said: “Leave him,” in no uncertain tones and taking her by the shoulders pushed her firmly out of the room.
Down in the parlour, Robert poured out drinks and Victoria, accepting hers with the comment that she had earned it, relaxed in a big armchair feeling tired and rather discouraged.
“Have I slipped up somewhere, do you suppose?” she asked him a little anxiously. “I’ve never known Timmy to be so unreasonable before. I generally manage him so easily.”
“Don’t upset yourself. The boy’s merely suffering from his first introduction to the green-eyed monster. It’s time he learnt he’s not the only pebble on the beach, anyway,” Robert said. “Kate, with the best of intentions, keeps him too much apart from other children. You and she teach him his letters, I know, but there’s no earthly reason why he shouldn’t be attending some kindergarten school like others of his age.”
“I understood John was against it. Kate sets great store by his judgment.”
“The gallant doctor obliged with the desired medical opinion to establish his own standing, but he won’t subscribe to sentiment much longer, from what I gather. Though we’ve little enough in common I have a great respect for Squire’s professional integrity.”
“Well, that’s something of an admission,” she retorted, eyeing him with faint disfavour. “Why, in that case, do you go out of your way to bait him?”
“For the same reason, probably, that you go out of your way to be upsides with me,” he replied promptly. “Something in the worthy doctor brings out the worst in me.”
She was silent, digesting the implication, then she said, sounding a little surprised:
“But I don’t any longer, or haven’t you noticed?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve noticed, my naive little charmer, but then I’ve been exerting myself in no mean measure to that end, or hadn’t you noticed?”
“That’s rather a silly question, considering you must know the answer, but Robert—” she stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished with an unspoken question in the way she pronounced his name and his eyebrows lifted quizzically.
“But Robert what?” he asked, mocking her gently, and she looked away.
“Nothing, only—I wouldn’t care to be just an experiment to bolster up your masculine ego,” she said, and quite suddenly he became angry.
“How dare you credit me with such shallow motives out of your prejudice and colossal ignorance!” he exclaimed in his courtroom accents. “Do you imagine I’d waste my time trying to make a conquest of one stubborn little girl when there are those less averse to being charmed?”
She was a little shaken by such an unexpected reaction but not prepared to capitulate without a struggle.
“I may have been prejudiced, but I’m not so ignorant as to be unacquainted with the rules of human behaviour,” she told him calmly. “I can imagine that if conquests, as you call them, have come easily, the one stubborn exception could present a challenge.”
For a moment he looked as if he would like to shake her, then the hard lines about his mouth slackened and he laughed.
“Well, I’ll give you this, Victoria Mary,” he said, “for all your uncomplimentary opinions of my methods in court you need never number yourself among the browbeaten witnesses! I’d back you to stand up to the toughest cross-examination.”
“But I didn’t, did I?” she said, forgetting the present in being reminded of the ignominious past. “They told me afterwards my evidence had lost the case.”
“Who told you?”
“I forget. My father’s solicitor, probably.”
“Then forget that too. The case was lost before you ever went into the box and your evidence, even had you been better briefed, could have made no difference. It was just a last throw for leniency on the part of the defence, gambling on old Seldon’s distaste for children being forced to give evidence, and it didn’t come off. Had I been able to see you afterwards I could at least have relieved your mind on that score.”
“I wish you had. I wish I’d known that you tried.”
“Would it have made any difference to those uncharitable thoughts you’ve harboured ever since?”
“Yes, I think it would. There was nobody, you see, who seemed to care until Mr. Brown stepped in, and even he wasn’t much use as a comfort, as I never met him.”
“Yes, well ... possibly he was afraid of involving you in some emotional entanglement out of a sense of obligation that you might later regret,” Robert said absently, and she looked at him in surprise.
“Do you know, Robert, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you refer to Mr. Brown as if he was human with possible problems of his own,” she said, and he sent her a quick, rather wary look as though she had caught him out in an unintentional slip.
“Well, if one accepts the fact that your patron is unlikely to be the equivalent of a computer, one must, I suppose, allow him a modicum of natural feelings—but enough of Mr. Brown. Having exchanged a few home truths on the matter of my dubious attentions I insist upon spending the rest of the day in amicable harmony and the hope of furthering my private aims, despite your doubts,” he said, reverting firmly to his more usual manner and holding out a hand for her empty glass.
She thought it wiser not to pursue the ambiguous subject of his private aims by asking awkward questions, but she hoped very much for a return of yesterday’s felicity and knew in her heart that she no longer had any wish to withstand his persuasions.
There were few opportunities, however, for recapturing the mood of yesterday. Rain persisted steadily through the afternoon, putting paid to Robert’s original plan for a trip to the coast and a bathe.
Robert had lighted a small fire in the parlour to offset the gloom of the afternoon, although it was warm enough, and Victoria was grateful for the cosiness and an illusion of continued intimacy, but she could not quite recapture the magic of yesterday which had ended so fittingly with moonlight and the miracle of a shooting star. Robert, too, seemed in no hurry to renew his attentions or, perhaps, he was too wise to try to recall a mood that was already in the past and, although he still contrived to coax responses from her with a skill she was as yet too inexperienced to appreciate, he made no move to kiss her or even to touch her.
Kate, expected back that evening, had been vague about her train and said she would take a taxi up from the station, but Victoria, as time went on, found she had an ear alert for the sounds of arrival distracting her attention from Robert, and when Elspeth brought in the tea, delivering Timmy at the same time, she was grateful for the chance to revert to her more customary place in the household before Kate returned.
Robert watched her with amusement, admiring the determination with which she sought to ignore the subtle implications of the past two days, knowing with increasing tenderness that however in the future she might regret her weakness in accepting his overtures, she would never again be able to whip up that old animosity with quite such uncaring ease.
When tea was finished he obligingly joined in the games Victoria devised for Timmy, sitting on the floor and devoting his attention entirely to his godson. Although the boy received his efforts with satisfaction, his response was a little wary. To him the week-end had not only been a bitter disappointment but filled with uneasy doubts. The godfather so long admired and taken for granted had in his mother’s absence seemed different and rather like a stranger in a grown-up sort of way, and even his dear Toria had become grown-up too and had secrets with his Uncle Rab and not with him. He wished that Uncle John was his godfather, for, though not so entertaining as Uncle Rab, he never laughed at you or made funny jokes you couldn’t understand and he was always exactly the same. He was thinking all these things as they played Snakes and Ladders, a game he had been newly introduced to and hadn’t quite got the hang of, and Robert chose that moment to point ou
t that he had cheated.
“What’s cheated?” he demanded, sounding immediately truculent, for he knew very well it was something bad, even if he didn’t grasp the implication. Robert explained patiently, giving demonstrations with fee counters, making a joke about the snakes which you must always come down because they were slippery so that it was cheating to try to go up them.
Timmy listened unsmilingly, then firmly announced that if he wanted to go up a snake he would, so there!
“In that case nobody would play with you, so you’d, have to play by yourself,” his godfather retorted good-naturedly, and the boy’s face began to grow scarlet. Victoria, knowing the signs, tried hastily to find excuses for him, but she was too late.
“Don’t care, don’t care! Who wants to play with silly old snakes, anyway? You’re a snake, Uncle Rab—a big, ugly, slippery snake, and I hate you!” he shouted, snatching up the board with its remaining counters and hurling them at Robert.
“Now this is where you learn your lesson, young man,” Robert exclaimed, getting to his feet and picking up the child in one swift movement. He sat down in the nearest chair with the boy across his knee and Timmy let out such a roar that Victoria clapped her hands to her ears. He was making so much noise that none of them heard a car draw up outside, but his screams must have sounded alarming to Kate, for she did not wait to pay off the taxi but ran into the house and flung open the door of the parlour just as Robert brought his hand down on the child s wriggling bottom.
“For heaven’s sake! What’s going on?” she demanded breathlessly, and at the sound of her voice, Timmy twisted out of his godfather’s grasp and flung himself upon her, his bellows changing to gulping sobs.
“Oh, dear, oh dear! What a moment to pick for a welcomed return to the bosom of your family,” Robert observed, getting to his feet. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me in the act of administering a long-delayed spanking to your son and heir.”
