by Sara Seale
She had no idea how long it took them to retrace their steps, but back again in the clearing, she sat the boy down under the shelter of some bushes while she vainly tried to remember their direction. She had already lost a sandal and she took the other one off and threw it away, too tired by now to care whether her bare feet would carry her any further.
“That’s the way ... a goblin’s just made a face at me and run down there ...” Timmy’s voice came to her eerily from under the bushes. He was already half asleep and she pulled him to his feet.
“All right, we’ll follow the goblin,” she said cheerfully. Short of tossing a coin, it was as good a way as any of deciding which ride to take, but they had not been walking for long before the boy began to cry again.
“My leg’s gone funny ... I think it’s broke ... carry me, Toria,” he whimpered.
“Oh, Timmy, I can’t—you’re much too heavy,” she protested, wondering if, after all, they would have to spend the night in this horrible wood.
“You can—a piggyback, like Uncle Rob does,” he said with a child’s complacent disregard for an adult’s difficulties.
“Your Uncle Rob is more up to your weight than I am,” Victoria countered with some tartness. “All right, I’ll try, but don’t throttle me.”
Progress was, naturally, slowed to a minimum, but she managed somehow. Every so often she trod on a stone which sent a sharp stab of pain through her numbed feet; the boy grew heavier and heavier astride her back and she spared a thought for St. Christopher breasting the torrent with his Burden, but the storm was retreating and although the rain still fell with some violence, the lightning had become intermittent and the thunder no more than a protesting grumble in the distance.
“Timmy, you must try and walk for a bit, now ... I can’t carry you much further,” she said at last, too weary to care any longer whether she had chosen the wrong ride again, but Timmy, already refreshed, slid unprotestingly to the ground and ran on ahead, shouting and splashing through the puddles. Presently he came running back to her, crying:
“The road! The road! Only I think perhaps it’s just a river.”
“More likely a mirage,” Victoria commented dryly, following in his wake with little hope that they had come to the end of their journey, but miraculously it was true, and she stood for a moment, staring with unbelieving eyes.
“What’s a mirage?” Timmy inevitably demanded, but she hugged him to her half laughing, half crying.
“Something you imagine you see, though you weren’t far wrong in mistaking the road for a river,” she said, and indeed, the lane which sloped gently down to the next village was awash with a swirling torrent of water spewed out by ditches too blocked or to shallow to hold it.
“Is it a flood, like Noah’s Ark?” Timmy asked, sounding suitably impressed, but she bundled him into the waiting car without stopping to embroider on this promising theme and wrapped him up in Kate’s old rug which always reposed on the back seat.
“Are you cold?” she asked anxiously, very conscious now that nightmare was behind them, of her responsibility concerning the boy’s health, but he shook his head and snuggled down beside her.
“No,” he said, proffering a hand. “Feel me. This rug smells of mice.”
She felt his hand then tucked it back under the rug, satisfied that he didn’t appear to be chilled, aware that she was in less good shape herself and her teeth were beginning to chatter. She pressed the starter button, offering up a silent prayer that the aged Morris would not play one of its favourite tricks and refuse to go, but after a few anxious pushes which produced nothing but ominous whirring noises, the ignition sparked and the car was in motion. It was a brief respite, however. The pedals felt strange and resistant without the support of shoes and Victoria’s bare feet kept slipping. She drove too fast down the hill and saw the minor flood at the bottom too late to slow up and take it cautiously. The Morris splashed recklessly through the water, sending up a spray which swamped the radiator, and the engine promptly coughed and died.
“Damn, oh, damn! As if we hadn’t had enough already!” she exclaimed, and had she been alone, would have eased her frustration in a bout of weeping.
“We need an ark,” observed Timmy, peering out at the water with interest, then settled comfortably into sleep.
“Yes, we need an ark,” echoed Victoria bitterly. “Failing that, we’ll just have to sit here and wait for some passer-by to give us a lift.”
They waited for a long time. It was not a road much frequented by traffic and early closing and the storm had kept tradesmen’s vans and private cars at home. Eventually it was the driver of a truckload of manure who rescued them, depositing them at the gates of Farthings very late in the afternoon and smelling strongly of dung. Kate, who must have been on the watch, rushed out of the house halfway between relief and anger, followed more leisurely by Robert who stood in the porch surveying the bedraggled pair with some amusement. Timmy, grasping very quickly that he was once more a satisfying centre of attention, gave his mother such a high-coloured account of their adventures that she rounded fiercely on Victoria.
“Hadn’t you more sense than to stay in the wood with a storm brewing?” she snapped. “Don’t you realise that when that tree was struck it might have fallen on the child?”
“It might have fallen on Victoria, too,” Robert murmured from the background, but she ignored the interruption. “And dragging a five-year-old, let alone one that’s lame, through mud and brambles because you hadn’t the gumption to remember the way! And what about the car?”
“The lorry driver promised he’d stop at the garage on his way to the village. I’m sorry, Kate, none of this was intentional, you know,” Victoria said, sounding suddenly rather tearful, and Robert, turning to go back into the house, said over his shoulder:
“Pull yourself together, Kate! Recriminations may relieve your feelings, but they serve no other purpose. Your son, quite clearly, is none the worse for his adventures, so forget your other grievances.”
“I’m sorry, Victoria,” Kate muttered, turning a little pink. “I only hope, though, that Timmy won’t have caught a bad chill. I’ll get him into a hot bath at once, and you might ring John in the meantime and ask him to come over.”
She hustled the boy into the house and up the stairs, calling to Elspeth to have hot soup ready when the child was in bed, and Victoria remained standing uncertainly in the middle of the hall, aware that her teeth were starting to chatter again.
“You could do with some hot soup yourself, I think Victoria Mary. In the meantime, I would prescribe something stronger,” Robert observed, and she became aware that he had propped himself against the oak chest and was regarding her with an amused expression.
“Was Kate very worried?” she asked.
“My charming cousin tends to lose her sense of proportion where her ewe-lamb is involved, as you should know by now,” he replied, and she took immediate exception to his apparent air of unconcern.
“Well, at least you were here to boost her morale, or couldn’t you be bothered,” she snapped, and his eyebrows shot up.
“What an unsympathetic image you still have of me, he observed. “You don’t need to be so up in arms. Kate and I understand each other very well.”
“Does that mean that you’ve—settled your affairs?” she asked, and shivered, feeling suddenly very tired and cold.
“I don’t know that I quite follow that question, but it’s high time you got out of those wet things,” he said then, and moving suddenly, took both her hands in his. “You’re icy, child, and your teeth sound like castanets. You’d better have the reversion of Timmy’s bath in case the hot water doesn’t last out. In the meantime go and put on a warm dressing-gown while I fix you a good strong toddy.”
The warmth of his hands and the sudden warmth in his eyes were her undoing. His concern for her brought about a swift reaction and she began to weep.
“There, now, my poor child ... cry it all out ... the
re was more in that wood to upset you than a thunderstorm, wasn’t there?” he said, and his voice held both tenderness and understanding.
“Yes, there was ... you were all mixed up with Mr. Brown and I was being m-menaced ...” she wept.
“Menaced?”
“By the wood ... I can’t explain ... then Timmy went and hid to pay me out while I was asleep and then we got lost and—and it was all a dreadful nightmare ... I don’t think Timmy is any the worse, though ... I carried him piggyback the last part of the way ... my b-back aches.”
“I’m not surprised! You’re hardly built for such feats of endurance. Don’t take Kate’s sharp words too much to heart, my dear—she was frightened, and when one is frightened, one finds relief in hitting out.”
She looked up at him with swift enquiry, wondering if he intended the words to mean more than they said, and he smiled down at her and nodded his head.
“Yes,” he said, “we all do it at times.”
“Even you?”
“Even I. As for you, young woman, you make a positive art of the habit, but don’t think you fool me.”
“At least I haven’t tried to make a fool of you, which is altogether different,” she retorted, unable to resist an opportunity to renew hostilities in case he should imagine he had sufficiently weakened her defences, but he only grinned and gave her a mild shake.
“Now don’t start all that nonsense again, Miss Hayes. One is taught to let bygones be bygones in more charitable circles, so stop bolstering up your ego with false grievances. Go on upstairs, and get those wet thing off.”
When she came down again, she found Robert had switched on an electric fire. It was cooler now after the storm and she was glad of the extra warmth for her very bones felt chilled. She sat huddled up in her dressing-gown sipping the whisky Robert brought her and staring at him with puzzled eyes. Every so often she sneezed, and he observed with gentle malice:
“You, my child, are going to have the father and mother of a cold. I doubt you’ll be keeping that appointment on Monday.”
“Oh, but I must!” she exclaimed, feeling immediately guilty. “The chance may never come again.”
“And would that matter?”
“Of course it would matter! Isn’t it the one thing I’ve looked forward to for as long as I can remember?”
“But I fancy the image of Mr. Brown has suffered a sea change of late, or is that wishful thinking on my part?” he murmured gently, and she frowned.
“Why should it be wishful thinking? My feelings for Mr. Brown can hardly matter to you,” she retorted, and wished he wasn’t so adept at sowing doubts in her mind.
“If that remark was intended to provoke an impassioned denial, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed, Victoria Mary. I have no intention of competing with an imaginary hero,” he said with that disconcerting ability to administer a sharp set-down just as matters were looking promising.
“It was no such thing!” she exclaimed indignantly. “I was merely stating an obvious fact. Why should I care if you minded or not?”
“Why, indeed? You’ve made it very plain that you prefer
fiction to fact.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I may have built up an image for myself for want of anything better, but Mr. Brown is still a fact, however much you don’t want to believe in him.”
“Yes, yes ... one can’t, I’ll agree, accuse poor old Chappie of cooking the whole thing up. I have no doubts concerning your Mr. Brown’s existence, only the romantic notions he seems able to inspire in you.”
“I’ve had no romantic notions. If I’ve thought of him as a father figure it was only natural in the circumstances.”
“Ah, but it’s been pointed out that he’s neither senile nor in poor health, which strikes me as a hint that the suggestions he trusts you will look upon favourably are not necessarily paternal,” Robert reminded her with an infuriating air of unconcern, and she took another incautious gulp of whisky which made her choke and cough.
“You really should learn to treat spirits with more respect until you’re accustomed to them,” he reproved her, adding the final insult to his uncomplimentary innuendoes.
“I’m not a child!” she exclaimed angrily. “In France we had wine with every meal as a matter of course and were taught to recognize a good vintage, too.”
“Let us hope, then, you also learnt discretion in other matters.”
“If you mean affairs of the heart, there was little opportunity for learning discretion. There never has been much opportunity, now I come to think of it.”
She sneezed again and fumbled vainly in the pocket of her dressing-gown for a handkerchief. Robert tossed her his, and the small, intimate gesture accompanied by an indulgent smile made her want to weep once more and bid for the comfort he so obstinately withheld.
“And if you were me, would you let your head rule your heart or the other way on?” she asked him.
He gave her a long, considering look before replying, and the lines of his face settled into the unrevealing mask he had worn in court. She was carried back to that day and the same sensation of impatience when he said with cool finality:
“That, in the circumstances, is a most improper question, Miss Hayes, and one I could not possibly answer with any certainty. You will have to make your own decisions, or, perhaps, Mr. Brown will make them for you.”
“Perhaps he will!” she answered on a rising note of angry disappointment. “Perhaps he’ll settle my doubts and everyone else’s, too, once and for all ... and—and whatever he proposes, I shall be only too happy to oblige him so you needn’t think a cold in the head will prevent me from keeping that appointment now.”
“What appointment?” John Squires asked unexpectedly from the doorway. She had heard him arrive some time ago and make his way up to the nursery, and she turned to him now with relief at the interruption, but before she could reply Robert said with cool amusement:
“Haven’t you heard the great news? Our little Victoria has been summoned at last to the Presence.”
“Yes, Kate told me,” the doctor answered rather curtly, turning a professional eye on the girl’s, flushed face and overbright eyes. “You look as if you’re more in need of medical attention than that young man upstairs, Victoria. Are you running a temperature?”
“I don’t know, but whether I am or not, nothing is going to stop me from going to London on Monday,” she replied, and he gave Robert a shrewd, appraising glance, then said briskly:
“In that case, the sooner you’re tucked up in bed the better, and I suggest that you stay there tomorrow if you want to be fit by Monday.”
“Now that, Victoria,” said Robert approvingly, “is an excellent notion. It will give you time to prepare for this momentous occasion and consider the various ways in which you might be expected to oblige Mr. Brown.”
“Run along, now,” John said, ignoring the interruption. “I’ll be up in a little while to run the rule over you and prescribe something to tide you over the worst. Ah, here’s Elspeth come to take charge with hot water bottles and a very determined expression, so away you go.”
Victoria took herself off, and Robert got up and poured a couple of drinks, saying the doctor might as well refresh himself while he waited and John accepted the offer absently, then asked:
“Do you do it on purpose or don’t you care?”
“Do what, for heaven’s sake?”
“You know very well. Making fun of the poor child’s obsession with her illusionary benefactor.”
“But the gentleman’s far from being illusionary, as the latest development should convince you.”
“But Victoria’s conception of him may well be. It would be a pity if your vagaries drive her to extremes.”
“My vagaries?”
“For want of a better definition. It’s none of my business, I suppose, but it isn’t very kind to let an inexperienced girl take your attention seriously if you mean nothing more than a mild flirtation.”
For a moment the icy anger which leapt into Robert’s eyes and the hint of pain in the tightening of the muscles round his mouth took the doctor by surprise, but when he spoke his voice was quite controlled.
“As you say, it’s none of your business,” he answered coldly, “and since we’re being personal, I would suggest you take a hand in working out Kate’s problems rather than mine.”
“Since Kate is involved with your problems, and incidentally, with mine, you can hardly expect me to be indifferent,” John retorted, and Robert’s taut expression relaxed in surprise.
“But, my good chap! Surely you aren’t labouring under the impression that Kate cherishes anything more than a cousinly fondness for me?” he exclaimed.
“I’ve never been sure, but Victoria certainly does,” John replied a little stiffly, “and since she’s a nice child with a strong sense of obligation it hasn’t helped her to sort out her own emotions.”
“Oh, dear, oh, lord! What very unnecessary complications!” Robert observed, sounding at once both rueful and relieved.
“If,” John said, finishing his whisky and putting down the glass, “you had been a little more explicit instead of indulging in provocation there need have been no complications. I think perhaps I may have misjudged you, Farmer, in the matter of your intentions, but don’t carry this little game too far. Young girls have curious ways of saving their pride and I fancy you might have a serious rival in Mr. Brown.”
“Are you suggesting I should come clean, as the saying is, before allowing this eventful meeting to take its course?” asked Robert with a return to his rather sardonic manner, and the doctor shrugged and got to his feet.
