Sara Seale Read online

  "Come here, my child," she said, diving about in the box with her big bony hands. "I thought I would like to give you this. It was the gift Rick's grandfather made to me on my twentieth birthday—you remember I told you I had just got engaged to him?"

  She held out a diamond and sapphire brooch, old-fashioned but charmingly set in a true-lover's knot.

  "Oh, no!" said Anna, feeling, even now, that she had no right to Peveril mementoes. "I mean—wouldn't you want to keep it, Mrs. Peveril—your first birthday present from your husband?"

  "No ... no ... I'd like you to have it." The old lady sounded tired. "Is it not strange, Anna, that there's sixty-seven years between us? More than half a century. . . . That was the first of my birthday parties at Trevallion."

  "When you had the fireworks?" said Anna gently, taking the brooch and pinning it to her frock.

  "The fireworks . . . yes. . . . They were a mistake, I believe. The garden boy—that was Sol's father—let off some squibs on his own and set fire to one of the ricks. They farmed Trevallion in those days."

  "Sol's father!" said Anna. "His family has been with you all this time?"

  "Oh, yes. When I was your age, Sol's father was only a boy, of course. He married a few years after I did, and Sol grew up here. In his turn he married Rebecca. Such a pity there were no children to follow on. You will have children, won't you, Anna?"

  "Yes, I hope so, Mrs. Peveril," Anna said, observing with concern the look of exhaustion in the old face. Had the party and its dramatic finish been too much for this indomitable old lady?

  "You're a good child, Anna," Mrs. Peveril said, closing her eyes. "I hear them quite often, you know." "Them?"

  "The children across in the nurseries."

  "Oh—Rick and Ruth and Nigel and Alix."

  "No . . . those others ... the children who were here when I first came. They were all younger than my husband, you know. The nurseries were full in those days. Anna—pay no attention to Alix."

  "Alix?"

  "I've spoilt her—just as I was spoilt, myself. I wanted her for Rick, but it wasn't to be. Don't let her hurt you—she'll be gone soon."

  Anna leaned across the bed.

  "Dear Mrs. Peveril," she said, "I'm sorry you were all cheated." "Cheated?"

  The puckered eyelids flew open revealing those bright, astonishingly youthful eyes.

  "I mean—you all wanted Alix, didn't you?" Anna faltered. "I—I must be a disappointment to you."

  "Frankly you were," Mrs. Peveril returned crisply, and

  now there was no indication that she had softened or lapsed into the past. "Milk-and-water ways have no place at Trevallion, as you'll find out. Still, perhaps there's not so much milk-and-water about you as we first thought."

  "I think," said Anna clearly, "that the Peverils have been buccaneers for so long that anyone with a more gentle view of life would be written off as milk-and-water."

  The old lady chuckled unexpectedly and patted Anna's hand.

  "Good for you!" she said. "Buccaneers . . . well, I don't know. . . . The Peverils certainly sprang from the tinners and smugglers, but pirates—I don't think we boast one in the family. Are you fond of my grandson, Anna?"

  Anna's lashes veiled her eyes.

  "Would I be marrying him if I wasn't?" she said evasively.

  "I don't know. People marry for strange reasons—look at Alix and Guy."

  "Alix, I think, married out of spite."

  "I'm afraid she did. When Rick first brought you here we thought he was playing the same game. You'll be hurt, Anna. You know that, I suppose?"

  For a moment Anna could not hide her heart. Her eyes, as they met Mrs. Peveril's, held all the naked helplessness, the vulnerability of her position.

  "Poor child . . ." said Mrs. Peveril softly. "Poor child . . ." She slipped into a doze and Anna crept sofdy away. The birthday flowers were still massed about the room. The place, she thought, shivering, smelt like a funeral; it was good to get out in the sun again, to hear the pigs grunting in their sties and the sound of Birdie's shears in the topiary.

  Anna wandered into the shade of the vast yew hedge to see what he was doing. He climbed from the top of a step ladder when he saw her, his thin, bird-like face creased in smiles.

  "You can come and admire my beautiful new beast," he said. "Do you know, no one—no one has taken the trouble to come and look."

  "Poor Birdie, what a shame!" she said, and remembered

  his sudden outburst at the party last night. She had thought then that he was rather clumsily trying to create a diversion, but she suspected now that his mind had been on his new creation all along.

  "What is it?" she asked, gazing in perplexity at Birdie's latest brain-child.

  "A prehistoric bird," he told her firmly. "One needn't specify exactly, need one? I told you, you remember, it was once a peacock."

  "It's very—very impressive," she said a little helplessly.

  "I'll no doubt have to alter it again. Cousin Maud won't like it," he said dejectedly, and took up his shears once more and returned to the step-ladder.

  "Birdie, I don't think Mrs. Peveril is very well," Anna said.

  "Not well? You mean she needs a doctor?"

  "Oh, no, but she seems very tired. Perhaps the party was too much for her-—and then Alix came this morning and, I think, upset her."

  "Alix?" Birdie came down from the ladder again and his eyes were suddenly kind and worried. "Don't let Alix upset you, my dear. Cousin Maud knows how to deal with her own kind."

  "Birdie—you don't like Alix, do you?"

  "I'm past likes and dislikes," he said with a rather sad smile. "But no, I've never cared greatly for Alix. She's predatory."

  "Aren't all the Peverils?" she asked with a flash of resentment.

  "No, not Nigel or Ruth. Not Rick, either." "Rick. . . ."

  "Rick, my dear, was a long time in finding himself," he said gently. "You will have to undo the harm Alix has done him."

  She left him clipping away in the topiary and walked thoughtfully back to the house. Birdie was wise, she reflected, thinking affectionately of the odd little man, Birdie would understand what the other Peverils, in their arrogance, cast

  aside. Her thoughts were so full of them all that it was a small shock to see Rick waiting for her on the terrace.

  "Hullo!" she said rather blankly. "I didn't know you were expected back for lunch."

  "And, by the tone of your voice, I gather you aren't exactly overjoyed," he observed dryly. "It seemed quite reasonable to me to snatch a couple of hours off to take a look at my prospective bride. Come here."

  "All the Peverils," said Anna, her thoughts still full of her recent conversation, "think they can order you about. You can come to me, for a change, Rick."

  For a moment the familiar frown creased his forehead, then he laughed, and jumping off the terrace, caught her up in his arms.

  "What infernal cheek!" he exclaimed, kissing her lightly on the nose. "Do you imagine that because we are to be married in a month's time you can begin dictating to me already?"

  She felt her bones begin to melt and weaken as always at the touch of his hands.

  "Do you still want it that way?" she asked, because she could not altogether regard this latest development as anything but one more Peveril trick.

  "I still want it that way," he said. "Were you having doubts?"

  "N-no, but-"

  "I can see I shall have to take you in hand. Did Gran give you that?" He was fingering the brooch.

  "Yes—yes, she did. Wasn't it kind?"

  His dark face grew suddenly gentle.

  "It wouldn't have been what I expected," he said softly. "Gran has a sense of fitness, evidently. My grandfather gave her that brooch on her twentieth birthday. I think Gran must have a fondness for you after all."

  "Rick, she's very unlike herself this morning," Anna said a little anxiously.

  "Because she's given in with a good grace at last and

  acc
epted you as a granddaughter?"

  "No. I don't think, in any case, she's exactly done that. But she seemed very tired and talked a lot about the past."

  "That's a habit the very old are apt to indulge in. The party and its unexpected climax probably tired her."

  "I wish Alix hadn't—well, said those things in front of them all."

  He sat down on the warm flags of the terrace steps and pulled her down beside him.

  "I was sorry on your account," he said unexpectedly. "We, of course, are used to Peveril tantrums."

  "You knew how she would react, then?"

  "I had a pretty shrewd idea. Alix seldom lets an opportunity go by for histrionics."

  "Then why did you choose that moment to—to break the news?" Anna asked accusingly. "Were you only scoring off her, after all?"

  "How censorious you sound! I admit it gave me a certain mild pleasure to make her believe at last that I had finished with her."

  Anna drew away from him. The sun no longer seemed warm on her bare arms and legs, and Rick himself was a stranger again.

  "That was cruel," she said. "I don't understand Alix, but she's a woman and whatever she's done hardly warrants that sort of punishment."

  "Do you think she thought of it as punishment?" he replied, sounding amused. "My dear Anna, Alix's conceit of herself is so great that she would find it quite impossible to believe in her heart that I could prefer another woman to her."

  Anna leaned back against one of the stone pillars, feeling tired and discouraged. She remembered Alix only a few hours ago bidding her look in the mirror and compare herself with the type of woman Rick might be expected to fall in love with.

  'Is it just spite with you, too?" she asked, not looking at hiim.

  "Is what just spite?"

  "Deciding to marry me out of hand. It's what she did when she ran away with Mr. Brook, isn't it?"

  He turned to look at her. She had rested her head against the pillar, her hands clasped about her knees. She was looking past him, to the soft greenness of the wasteland and the cliffs beyond, and there was a touching innocence in the young curves of her throat and the cool, shadowed hollows beneath the old-fashioned coral necklace she wore. He laid a swift hand on hers.

  "Do you really believe I would marry you out of spite?" he asked with great gentleness.

  She turned her head then to look at him, and he saw the unguarded, delicate colour creep under her skin.

  "No . . ." she said, blinking at him uncertainly. "No, I don't think you would, Rick. You don't after all, have to marry anyone, unless-"

  "Unless what?"

  "Unless as a kind of protection against—against something you want too much."

  "And you think I'm using you as a shield against my old passion for Alix?"

  "You could be," she said, and saw the sudden tenderness in his hard eyes.

  "Then why are you marrying me?" he asked with gentle mockery. "As an insurance for the future or just because you've drifted into it?"

  "It could be either," she said, raising her invisible barriers because not now, not ever, perhaps, could she tell him she loved him.

  "Yes, I suppose so." He sounded disappointed and withdrew his hand. "Well, we'd better get our plans straight. I'd like to be married in September. Can you be ready by then?"

  "Oh, yes," she said, gathering composure around her. "I bought a little trousseau for Toby, you know. But I haven't

  any more money left to get anything else."

  He frowned and seemed to withdraw into the stranger she had first known.

  "Oh, the young airman," he said. "I'd forgotten. Have you forgotten, too, Anna?"

  "No," she said gently, her mouth curving in a smile. "One doesn't forget the lovely moments of life. Have you forgotten Alix?"

  "That isn't the same at all," he replied. "Do you think of him, Anna? Do you wish things had been different?"

  "No," she said on a little sigh. "It wouldn't have done, I expect—like Ruth and the foreman of your quarry. Rick— this David Evans—you couldn't object again, could you?"

  "Object to what?" he said irritably. "Anna—if you want money for things—I mean, you'll want more than a summer outfit at Trevallion—please draw on me."

  "Thank you," she said, still leaning against the pillar. "Perhaps, when the time comes, you'll tell me what to buy. When I collected a few things for Toby, I hadn't, of course, in view a winter at Trevallion."

  "You are," said Rick, suddenly shaking her, "the most irritating young woman I've met for a long time."

  "Am I?" said Anna, blinking again. "That's probably because the Peverils have had it their own way for too long. Rick—about Ruth-"

  "Oh, to hell with Ruth!" he exclaimed, and got to his feet "We have ourselves to think of first. Are you happy about this, Anna? Do you still want to be released from our original bargain?"

  She looked up at him, observing his strong, broad shoulders, the sharp outiine of his beaky, Peveril nose, and was suddenly content.

  "Yes," she said. "Yes, Rick, I'm happy about it." He held out his hands to her and pulled her to her feet. "Very well," he said. "No more doubts—no more recriminations?"

  "No," she said and felt his lips suddenly on hers, hard and

  possessive, the sort of kiss he would have given to Alix in the days they were going to marry.

  Old Mrs. Peveril did not come down for dinner that night, and the omission was so unusual that Anna felt anxious.

  "Is she all right?" she asked Rick as they drank their sherry in the long living-room.

  "Oh, yes," he replied. "A little tired after yesterday's fun and games and wishing, perhaps, to get her bearings. She has to get used to you, Anna, as a replacement to Alix."

  "Oh!"

  She did not know how to take him when he was in this sort of mood. She had never felt altogether easy with Mrs. Peveril presiding at the table, but tonight things seemed more difficult. Only she and Rick and Birdie gathered for dinner. Ruth was out, and any moment Anna expected that Rick would question her as to the girl's whereabouts. Sol served their dishes in gloomy silence, and Birdie, as ever, concentrated on his food and said nothing at all.

  This was what it would be like, she thought, suddenly feeling a little desperate; night after night, year after year, she and Rick and Birdie, and old Mrs. Peveril untd she died, would gather round the long table with its silver and candles, and no laughter to stir the echoes, no departures from formality to relieve the gloom.

  "Are you feeling all right, Anna?" Rick asked suddenly, and she was aware that his penetrating gaze was on her, reading her thoughts.

  "Yes . . . yes . . ."she said, trying to smile at him and his dark face softened.

  "Are you too young for us here at Trevallion, Anna?" he asked softly. "Were you thinking of the winter and the long, quiet evenings?"

  She glanced across at Birdie, but he had not heard. Just for a moment it seemed as though she and Rick were isolated in a world together, a world in which he, strangely, could understand. The candlelight fell in a small circle of warmth, rele-

  gating Birdie to the shadows.

  "Perhaps," she said timidly, "I don't feel as if I quite belong, yet. Things will be different later, I expect."

  His smile was a shade sardonic.

  "Yes, things will be different later," he said, and went back to his food.

  Anna sighed. How would she ever get to know him, she wondered? How would she know when her opinions mattered to him and when they did not?

  "Drink your wine," he said suddenly. "There's little malaise of the heart a good Burgundy cannot cure."

  She was unused to wine and did not much care for it, but she sipped the Burgundy dutifudy. It tasted heavy and rather bitter to her unaccustomed palate, and Rick smiled as he saw her small grimace.

  "As bad as that?" he teased. "This is a Nuits St. Georges. It shouldn't make you look as if you're taking nasty medicine."

  "You know I'm not used to wine," she said gravely. "If this is
something special, then it's wasted on me."

  "Poor Anna! We must teach you to acquire a palate. Was grocer's port your tipple, then, or was it simply ginger pop?"

  He was chivvying her gently, she thought, not because he ready cared, but because for him, too, this solitary meal was something of an ordeal. Was he regretting already, she wondered, that final impulsive act which had bound him to her? Did he see, in his mind's eye, Alix, his own counterpart, sitting at his table, drinkng wine with his own appreciation, gracing his board in a fashion that would never be open to Anna?

  "Why aren't you wearing the pearls?" he demanded abruptly, and her hands went guiltily to her bare neck.

  "I—I don't know," she stammered, aware that Birdie was suddenly observing her across the table. "They seemed too valuable, I suppose, for everyday use."

  "Pearls should be worn night and day—didn't you know?" said Birdie unexpectedly. "They lose their sheen, otherwise."

  "No, I didn't know," Anna said, and Rick observed carelessly :

  "Wear them in the evenings, at any rate. You have the right skin for them."

  Sol brought coffee to the dining-room since neither Mrs. Peveril nor Ruth was present, and it was then that Rick asked idly where his sister had gone.

  "She's out with David Evans," Anna said nervously.

  "How odd. Is he still on his rounds?"

  "Of course not. He's taken her out to dinner in Merrynporth."

  Rick's eyebrows rose a fraction and he stirred his coffee for a moment without speaking.

  "He was here last night, wasn't he?" he said then.

  "Early in the evening," Anna replied. "Ranger had got trampled on by one of the pigs."

  "Ranger seems to require the services of a vet at most inconvenient moments," Rick observed dryly.

  "This time he was hurt," Anna said quickly. "At least— not very seriously, I think, but Ruth naturally wanted to be reassured."

  "Naturally. What's going on, Anna?"

  Anna drank her coffee in silence. She had intended to put in a plea for Ruth, but was this the moment with Birdie listening, and Anna herself unsure of the extent of Ruth's feelings? But she was aware that Rick was suddenly watching her, that he expected an answer and would not hesitate to question her again.