Sara Seale Read online

  There was a stone bench on the square of grass which the yew hedge enclosed, and Rick took Anna there, puding her down on to the bench beside him.

  "It's time we had a serious talk," he said.

  She looked up at him, knowing at once that her respite was over. He wished, at last, to end their engagement, but he would be kind, she thought disconsolately, in helping her towards a fresh future.

  "I want you to marry me," he said abruptly. "I'd like to arrange immediate plans for our wedding and get matters cut and dried for all concerned."

  "You mean," she said stiffly, "that although you still want Alix, rather than sacrifice your pride you would marry me in order to put an end to the affair."

  A white moth settled on her hair and he flicked it gently away, feeling, as he did so, the soft, fine texture of her hair.

  "No," he said. "It's not like that. Do you remember I told you once that you had a coolness that was restful? Your

  very difference from Peveril material makes you desirable, Anna."

  "Desirable?"

  Her eyes widened in repudiation. Whatever quality she might possess momentarily to attract Rick Peveril, it would not be one of desirability.

  "Is that so hard for you to understand?" he asked.

  "Yes. You have known love as I never have, Rick. These things aren't forgotten."

  "Haven't you forgotten your own affair?"

  "That was quite different," she said, stirring uneasily. "As you said at the time, I was in love with love. I read something into a relationship which had never been there. I don't forget Toby, but I can understand I took too much for granted."

  "How admirable to be clear-sighted so soon," he remarked a little dryly. "Am I not adowed the same good sense in regard to myself?"

  She sprang to her feet restlessly, and felt the dew through the thin soles of her slippers.

  "How can you talk such—such heresy after today?" she cried. "How can you pretend that your affair with Alix was anything like mine? You are two of a kind, you and she. Whatever the outcome, I'll go away and leave you to work things out. I should never have come here."

  He rose slowly to his feet and stood over her. In the dusk her white frock looked frail and nebulous, the full skirt standing stiffly out from her slender waist.

  "You'll do nothing of the kind," he said harshly. "Am I so repugnant to you, Anna, that you can't bear to think of me as a husband? I had thought that night on the shore—well, no matter—you were upset."

  "Yes," she said, knowing that she loved him, knowing that whatever crumbs of solace he might offer, she wanted to accept them, "I was upset."

  "Can't you bring yourself to agree?" he asked, and here was the familiar note of intolerance in his voice. "What sort of prospects have you to look forward to? Love, you know,

  isn't so very important when it comes to settling one's future."

  "Isn't it?" she said, and felt sudenly defeated and without armour against him. Love for him might be over and done with. He was thirty-six and had spent himself in a passion which was still not ended; she was at the beginning of life and already committed to dissemble, because she must.

  "It isn't fair!" she cried like a hurt child. "It isn't fair to s-spring things on me like this!"

  "Isn't it?" His voice had suddenly softened and he took her face between his hands and kissed her gently. "I would never willingly hurt you, my dear. I would only be grateful for your tolerance—and, perhaps, in time, your affection.... Think it over, will you?"

  They walked back through the dew-drenched garden to the house. Anna felt immeasurably tired. The happenings of the day culminating in Rick's totady unexpected proposition had left her weak and without will-power. He walked beside her, tad and dark and silent, a stranger still, yet someone who had already broken through her unwilling defences.

  The house seemed very quiet. Their shadows fell across the flags in the lamplight, long and strange, and for a moment, indivisible.

  "Go to bed," Rick said. "You look tired. And Anna— think over what I've said, will you?"

  She nodded without making any reply and began to climb the curving, gracious staircase to her room, aware that he watched her from the shadows. But as she turned at the bend of the stairs to call goodnight to him again, she saw that he had gone. A murmur of voices greeted his reappearance in the living-room, then the door closed and Anna made her way to bed alone.

  CHAPTER VII

  The day of the party broke fair and cloudless with the promise of great heat in the shimmering haze which already hung over the countryside. The house had an air of expectation with the girls busily polishing, and Rebecca, and even Sol, emerging from the kitchen quarters every little while to make sure that nothing was being overlooked. Birdie was already in the piggeries, dealing with the outdoor chores, while Sol lent a hand in the kitchen, but Rick was still finishing his breakfast on the terrace. He was always, he told Anna with a grin, expected to take a day off from the quarry on his grandmother's birthday, even though she would not appear among them until it was time to make a formal entrance for the evening's festivity.

  "It's been the same ever since I can remember," he said, "Gran holding court in the morning for the well-wishes of the household, then dismissal and a special job for everyone until the evening. Now, of course, she receives us from her bed, otherwise nothing is changed, even to the food we eat at dinner."

  Anna helped herself to kedgeree and coffee, and sat as far away from him as possible. However, he made no effort to reopen their conversadon of the night before, but told her in great detail what she might expect to eat and drink that evening.

  "Starry-gazy pie?" she echoed, her attention quite diverted by the strange name.

  "Pilchards with their heads sticking up through the crust," Rick said with a grin. "That and squab pie used to be famous dishes in these parts, and Rebecca makes both of them admirably. There will follow fruit and scalded cream and little savoury canapes and, of course, lots and lots of saffron cake."

  It sounded an odd sort of meal to Anna, but the Peverils, of course, could be trusted to reverse normal procedure, living well and often extravagantly every day of their lives, and reserving farmhouse fare for more formal occasions. She saw Rick's eyes twinkling faintly.

  "Don't look so surprised, Anna," he said with gentle raillery. "Gran's a great one for tradition, you know. Somebody must have started this when we were children, who appreciated a good Cornish tuck-in. Anyway, it's been the same every year. You'll enjoy it."

  Ruth joined them, late and full of the day's importance. She tossed a small package into Anna's lap, observing offhandedly :

  "Many happies! Couldn't think what to get, so hope you won't think it frightful. Is there any kedgeree left?"

  Anna flushed with pleasure as she undid the parcel. She had almost forgotten it was her own birthday, too, and she was touched that Ruth should trouble to mark the occasion.

  "Oh, thank you, Ruth!" she exclaimed, unfolding one of the gaudy head-scarves the shops in Merrynporth displayed for the tourist season. It was crudely designed and would go with none of her clothes, but Anna's eyes grew soft as she pictured Ruth, worried, and with little taste in dress herself, hunting the shops for something suitable.

  "What's this?" said Rick, frowning. "Have you got a birthday, too, Anna?"

  "Well, yes, I have," she repded apologeticady. "Isn't it strange it should fall on the same day as your grandmother's?"

  "Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded of his sister.

  "I naturally thought you knew," Ruth replied blankly.

  "How could I know if no one told me?"

  He sounded put out. Ruth looked at him across the table and for a moment her eyes held a hint of pleasure that, for once, she should have caught him at a disadvantage.

  "I thought," she mumbled, her mouth full of kedgeree, "when people get engaged the first thing they found out about was birthdays and things like that. Do you really like

  it, Anna? They'll cha
nge it if you don't. David thought it was a bit bright, but I said it was gay."

  "It's very gay," said Anna gently, flinging the scarf round her shoulders, but Rick's gaze was still on his sister and his eyebrows rose.

  "David?" he echoed softly, and had the satisfaction of observing her own discomfort.

  "David Evans," she replied, sticking out her chin, ready to meet him at any moment with antagonism.

  "And is it your habit to go shopping for feminine trifles with our worthy veterinary surgeon?"

  Anna saw Ruth's colour rise and the dumb, defeated appeal in her eyes.

  "Be quiet, Rick!" she said with thinking. "You're not to tease Ruth just because she remembered my birthday and you didn't. It was very nice of David to take the trouble to help."

  Ruth glanced at her with surprise, unused to hearing her answer back, but Rick's eyes narrowed slightly and his smile, if sardonic, was faintly appreciative.

  "I stand corrected," he said gravely. "All the same, I'm not sure your vet friend wasn't right, Ruth. That colour scheme was hardly designed for Anna's type."

  "Oh, well," said Ruth, unoffended, "I never had much eye for types. You can't find much in a one-horse place like Merrynporth, anyhow. Goodness! Gran will be expecting us! Birdie and Sol and Rebecca have been up already."

  She bolted the last of her breakfast and rushed into the house.

  "You wouldn't think, upon occasion, that my sister is a woman of thirty, would you?" Rick observed, and Anna looked across at him, wrinkling her forehead.

  "Perhaps," she said sedately, "she has to rely on birthdays and rare occasions for the stimulus she found at my age."

  "Perhaps. You're rather critical of me this morning, Anna. Are you getting into trim for joining your lot with the Peverils?"

  Her new-found temerity began to dwindle. She did not wish yet to have to join issue with Rick about their future. She did not know whether she had the courage to be content with what he offered and learn to hide her own heart.

  "Your grandmother will be waiting," she said, twisting the big emerald round on her finger.

  "I must wait till Ruth comes down. We go up one by one, you know. That's always been the tradition. Perhaps you'd like to go before me?" he said.

  Anna sat silent, not knowing what was expected of her. Rick, she knew, and perhaps Alix, visited Mrs. Peveril when they chose, but others of the household, even Ruth, did not intrude on that suite of rooms in the nursery wing unless sent for. Never once, since she had first come to Trevallion, had Anna been summoned.

  "Are you afraid of Gran?" Rick asked.

  "No, not really—but she's never asked to see me before."

  "This is different—everyone goes. Grand will expect you."

  She rose to her feet uncertainly.

  "I—I have a small present for her," she said hesitantly. "Should I take it with me?"

  "No, present-giving comes in the evening. Just pay your respects and come away."

  He spoke with gravity, but she knew he was laughing at her. For all his concession to family occasions, he stood in no awe of his grandmother and Anna was aware that he would rather enjoy her discomfort. As she passed his chair he tweaked the scarf from her shoulders.

  "Leave this behind," he advised. "It won't, I think, find favour with Gran."

  She took the scarf gently from him and put it round her shoulders again.

  "Oh, no," she said, "I won't have Ruth hurt by thinking her gift isn't appreciated. I shall wear it all day."

  He looked up at her with sudden tenderness in his eyes. The morning sunlight caught the silver strands in his black hair and Anna wanted to touch it

  "You're very nice, aren't you, Anna?" he said gently. "Much too nice for this headstrong, selfish family."

  She stood for a moment, twisting Ruth's scarf into an awkward, clumsy knot, then ran into the house without replying to him.

  As she walked rather nervously down the long corridor which led to the nursery wing, she wondered if Ruth had come out of her grandmother's rooms. It would not do, evidently, to break in upon somebody else's audience. As she paused outside Mrs. Peveril's door, voices warned her that Ruth was still there and she went into the old nursery, opposite, to wait.

  Perhaps because the day had a birthday air, Anna felt suddenly close to the children who had long since gone. She could almost hear their laughter and the squeals of excitement as presents were opened. How many birthdays had the nurseries seen? Rick's, Ruth's, Nigel's and Alix's, and before them Rick's father, and before him those nine young Peverils, dead now, their own children scattered to the far corners of the earth. So little remained of them all; a broken rocking-horse, a neglected dolls' house and the faded pictures of nursery rhymes on the walls.

  Anna touched the rocking-horse with loving fingers. Was this, then, to be the way for her? Could a future generation fill the empty places of her heart? By giving to Rick and ensuring Peveril posterity, could she be content without the love he must withhold?

  The door opposite opened and Ruth came out.

  "Oh, you're in here, Anna," she said. "Go in and see Gran. Then you can fetch Rick."

  Anna knocked and went in. The room was crowded with flowers, Birdie's traditional gift, brought in first thing by Rebecca and arranged in precisely the same way each year. Old Mrs. Peveril, propped against the pillows of her high, old-fashioned bed, looked piercingly at Anna and bade her shut the door and sit down.

  "Well, Anna Crewe," she said in her deep, crackling voice, "why haven't you been up to see me before?"

  "I—I was waiting my turn," said Anna nervously. It would be a bad start to the day if she had already unwittingly offended.

  "I don't mean today," the old lady replied impatiently. "You've been here nearly two months, and, though I've heard you in the nurseries, you've not knocked at my door."

  "I understood that we should only come if we were sent for," Anna said, thinking how old Mrs. Peveril looked with her faded bed-jacket, her rings and her wispy, undressed hair.

  "That's true," Mrs. Peveril remarked with satisfaction. "Can't have strangers bursting in here when they like, can I? Well, what have you to say for yourself?"

  Anna advanced to the foot of the bed. She did not sit down, for the chair indicated was so much lower than the bed that conversation would have been difficult.

  "I came to wish you many happy returns of your birthday, Mrs. Peveril," she said.

  "Not a great many, I imagine," the old lady retorted dryly. "At eighty-seven, the wish is somewhat empty—not that I mean to die yet. I must see Rick married and started on a family first. Those nurseries need filling again."

  Anna said nothing. She knew that Mrs. Peveril was thinking of Alix, that although of late she had been kinder, more tolerant, never once had she looked on Anna as Rick's future wife.

  "Rick is fond of children, you know," Mrs. Peveril said sharply.

  "Yes, I know." Anna had sometimes seen him with the village children and been surprised by his gentleness with them and the unafraid liking they clearly had for him.

  "And you? You're not the Peveril build, unfortunately, but one presumes you are capable of performing nature's most simple function."

  Anna felt herself growing scarlet. She was used by now to being compared unfavourably with Peveril standards, but she was quite unprepared for old Mrs. Peveril's abrupt rejection of her own schemes. She stood at the foot of the bed, twisting

  her fingers together unhappily, and could think of nothing to

  say.

  "Does plain speaking embarrass you?" mocked the old lady, observing Anna's discomfiture with a certain enjoyment. "The old have privileges, you know. I could only have one child myself, so I'm naturally concerned for my future greatgrandchildren."

  The sharpness seemed suddenly to have gone out of her. She lay back on her pillows, her big, bony hands plucking at the wool of her bed-jacket, and Anna saw that, for the first time since she had known her, Mrs. Peveril had, like most old people, gone b
ack into the past. It was a disquieting experience. There had seemed no harm in helping to deceive Rick's grandmother who schemed and plotted for her own ends, recognizing none but her own rule, but this very old woman, capitulating because she must, was another matter.

  "Mrs. Peveril, I ought to tell you-" Anna began bravely,

  and stopped. Had she really decided that Rick's demands were too great? Was she well enough acquainted with herself to judge what steps she must take?

  But Mrs. Peveril was not listening. If she was aware of Anna just then, it was only as a flustered young girl, a stranger who was being called upon to play a part for which she was totally unfitted.

  "Sometimes I fancy I can hear them across the passage," she said, "Rick and Ruth, Nigel and Alix. Nigel was always the gentle one, you know."

  Anna could picture them, calling to one another, shouting, squabbling. Even then, Alix would have been provocative, demanding, Rick dominant and possessive, and Nigel the unconsidered peace-maker.

  "Yes," she said gently, "I felt it too, this morning. Perhaps nurseries give up their ghosts more reluctantly than other rooms."

  "Yes, I think that's true. Alix isn't fond of children, you know ... yet she was so well matched for Rick, so right to take my place here when I go. . . ."

  "He could have had her, had he chosen," Anna said austerely, and the old lady opened her eyes and looked at her with the old disparagement.

  "What a man chooses when his pride and spirit have been hurt is another matter," she said with her old asperity. "You, my child, are meddling in affairs you cannot understand. Think well before you finally commit yourself. You are not up to the weight of Peveril expectations."

  "Do the Peverils expect more, or less, of the women they take to wife?" asked Anna, goaded at last to irony.

  Mrs. Peveril looked at her and her bright, sunken eyes held a flash of interest.

  "H'm . . . not so milk-and-water as you seem," she said. "Are you getting our measure, my dear?"

  "I shouldn't think so," Anna replied. "I shouldn't think anyone outside your family ever gets your measure. I had better go now, Mrs. Peveril. Rick is still waiting to come up."