Sara Seale Page 16

  When Ruth still did not appear, Mrs. Peveril asked Anna to go up to her room and fetch her.

  Ruth was not in her room. The evening can of hot water, covered with a towel, stood untouched in the wash-basin and the room had a strange air of desertion.

  "I think she must be out," Anna said when she returned to the terrace. "She hasn't used her hot water."

  Mrs. Peveril sighed.

  "She's probably over at the cottage with Alix," she said. "Whenever there's an upset in the house, Ruth runs to Alix. Would one of you mind going over there? Rebecca won't like to be kept waiting for dinner."

  "Start without her," Rick said irritably. "If she's over at the cottage she'll most likely stay for supper."

  "If she intends staying with Alix then she should leave a message. I dislike casual habits," Mrs. Peveril replied emphatically. "Will someone go and fetch her, please?"

  "I'll go," said Anna, running down the terrace steps before either Birdie or Rick could make a move. If Ruth was to be fetched back from the cottage like an ill-mannered child, it was best, she thought, that she should deliver the message herself, rather than Rick.

  She ran along the little path which wound across the ha-ha and the wasteland to the cottage. She had no wish to talk to Alix and hoped Ruth would be sensible enough to come without argument. It was ridiculous, she thought impatiently, that a young woman of thirty should have to be fetched home like a truant schoolgirl, but Mrs. Peveril clearly intended to exercise the power she had wielded at Trevallion for so long.

  The cottage door stood open and Anna could see Alix stretched languidly on a sofa, a thin housecoat pulled open to her waist for coolness.

  "Hullo," she said, looking up but not troubling to rise. "What do you want?"

  "Is Ruth here?" asked Anna.

  "Haven't set eyes on her all day. Who sent you? Gran?"

  "Mrs. Peveril wants to start dinner. She thought Ruth might be here."

  "Most likely she's holding hands in a shelter in Merrynporth," said Alix with slight malice. "I should tell Gran not to wait, if I were you. These little sessions can become lengthy affairs."

  Anna felt anger rise within her.

  "Why do you have to go out of your way to make trouble?" she asked.

  "I don't know what you're talking about, darling," Alix drawled, raising her eyebrows in very much the same manner as Rick did when he detected impertinence.

  "Oh, yes, you do," said Anna. "You come telling tales

  to Mrs. Peveril and making something nasty out of a perfectly innocent meeting."

  "Really, Anna, if you're referring to Ruth's rather ridiculous carryings-on with the local vet, you should know better than to encourage her to make a fool of herself," said Alix sharply. "It's hardly the way to get round Gran."

  "I've simply encouraged Ruth to stand up for herself," Anna retorted. "You, on the other hand, have gone out of your way to stir up trouble, and, for all I know, invent a whole lot of lies. Why?"

  "Lies?" said Alix, looking amused. "Why, they were positively entwined, my dear, when I saw them in the shelter. So public, don't you think? But I suppose your upbringing has been different." Her derisive gaze said plainly that she could well imagine Anna Crewe would know no better than to behave like a tripper in a seaside shelter.

  "What's Ruth ever done to you?" Anna demanded, ignoring the taunt. "She's worshipped you all her life. Why do you grudge her a little happiness?"

  "Oh, for God's sake!" exclaimed Alix with rising impatience. "Do you suppose I care what the silly girl does with her spare time? What I choose to discuss with Gran in private is none of your affair."

  "It might be Rick's," said Anna quiedy.

  Alix's eyes narrowed. "If you're going to drag Rick into this, trying to make trouble in your turn, I should advise you to think twice," she said softly. "Rick may marry you, my dear, but don't ever forget I came first."

  "I'm not likely to do that, Alix," Anna replied gravely. "Even so, it's me he's marrying and not you."

  Alix stretched like a great, sleepy cat.

  "Don't be too sure of that, darling," she said. "Rick has always been one to cut off his nose to spite his face, but 1 still have a few cards of my own to play. It would be silly to allow a grown man to wreck his life, and, incidentally,

  yours, for want of carrying the fight a little further, wouldn't

  it?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Don't you, darling? Well, no doubt you'll find out."

  Anna turned on her heel and left the cottage. She wished now she had let Rick or Birdie undertake the errand. Would Rick, she wondered, remembering Alix's open housecoat, the lazy grace of her body stretched on the sofa, have returned so quickly to the house? How many evenings had he spent already at the cottage, resentful of Alix, but unable to keep away?

  They were still sitting on the terrace when she got back. Mrs. Peveril received the information that Ruth was not at the cottage with compressed lips, but Rick gave Anna a quick, searching glance.

  "You look rather played out, Anna," he said thoughtfully. "Come, Grand, we'd better go in to dinner. It's no use waiting for Ruth."

  They were drinking their coffee on the terrace when Rebecca came out of the house looking flustered.

  "That Sol!" she observed, speaking to no one in particular. "Brain like a hen's and always has had. Had to come back all the way from Treginnik because Miss Ruth gave him this early this afternoon and he goes and shoves it in his pocket and forgets all about it!"

  "What is it?" Mrs. Peveril asked, frowning. It was like Ruth, and Sol too, to make a muddle between them of something.

  "A note, ma'am. It's for Miss." Rebecca jerked her head in Anna's direction, conveying her disapproval. "Sol thought maybe 'twas important."

  She handed a crumpled envelope to Anna and went back into the house, presumably to rate her husband further.

  Anna felt their eyes on her as she tore open the envelope and took out Ruth's briefly written note.

  "Well?" snapped Mrs. Peveril when she had read it and

  made no immediate comment. "What does she say?"

  "Really, Gran!" protested Rick with a smile. "It may not concern us."

  Anna looked up at him and for a moment her eyes held only astonishment.

  "Yes, it does concern you," she said. "Ruth's gone."

  "Gone? What do you mean?"

  "She's taken Ranger and run away to David."

  "Run away!" thundered Mrs. Peveril.

  "Yes. They're going to be married."

  "Let me see that note."

  Anna handed it over silently, aware of the surprised expression on Rick's face. Birdie sat blinking and twisting his fingers together agitatedly. He looked like an alarmed crow about to take flight.

  " 'I have taken your advice,'" read Mrs. Peveril aloud. " 'David will take me in until we can be married. Tell Gran I'm sorry. We will come to your wedding if Rick invites us . . .' Anna, did you advise my granddaughter to elope?"

  Anna felt herself go a little pale under that fierce, accusing gaze.

  "Not in so many words," she replied. "I told her to make a fight for what she wanted, yes, but I—I didn't think she'd really have the courage."

  "And have you the courage to face me and admit you've been living among us like a snake in the grass, plotting behind my back?"

  "I did no plotting, Mrs. Peveril," Anna said. "Ruth used to talk to me about David. I told her she was of age and could choose for herself, and that's true."

  "So you encouraged her! Do you see now, Rick, what your obstinacy has done? You bring this little nobody here as some strange act of defiance of your own and now you see what you get for your pains! Littie Miss Milk-and-Water and butter wouldn't melt in her mouth! What are you going to do about it?"

  Anna took a quick, frightened look at Rick. His face was

  suddenly hard with some emotion he found difficulty in con-trolling, but when he spoke there was no anger in his voice.

  "W
hat do you expect me to do?" he said quietiy. "Ruth is a woman of thirty. If she chooses to run off and get married I can't stop her."

  "But Anna could have. Anna could have talked sense instead of encouraging her to disgrace us all."

  "It's no disgrace to marry David Evans," said Anna, suddenly angry. "He's a decent, perfectly respectable young man and Ruth could do a lot worse. Yes, I did encourage her! What has anyone ever done for Ruth? Oh, I know she's got a comfortable home, and has never had to worry about money, but who's ever bothered about her as a person? You've always treated her like a tiresome child, Mrs. Peveril, and you, Rick, I don't think have cared one way or the other."

  She had got to her feet and stood facing them with her fingers nervously tugging at the pearls at her throat.

  "You'll break them," said Rick mildly, and she snatched her hands behind her back.

  "Well, now we know what she thinks of us," Mrs. Peveril observed grimly. "Have you been aware of this gross neglect on our part, Rick?"

  His eyes were on Anna, on the coral dress which tonight took all the colour from her face, on the childish hollow at the nape of her neck, the twist of ribbon on top of her head.

  "No," he said, "but perhaps I should have been. Anna's right, you know, Gran. We've always taken Ruth for granted. She hasn't had much chance of making a life of her own."

  "Most women," said Birdie unexpectedly, clearing his throat, "need something of their own, or so I'm told. Dear me! Dear me! This is all most distressing."

  "Be quiet, Birdie!" snapped Mrs. Peveril. "You have a good conceit of yourself, my dear Anna. Has this all arisen because I saw fit to speak my mind this morning? Did you connive at this—this disgraceful elopement?"

  "No," said Anna, beginning to feel abashed at her own temerity, "but if Alix hadn't come here exaggerating and

  stirring up trouble, I don't suppose it would have happened."

  "What did Alix say to you this morning, Grand?" Rick asked evenly, and Mrs. Peveril reddened.

  "Nothing that need concern you now," she said. "I daresay she did exaggerate—she always has. Still, I shouldn't have thought that even you would have been pleased to hear your sister spoken of like that."

  "You're very gullible where Alix is concerned, aren't you, Grand? Spite, my dear, that's all. She married Guy out of spite for me, and now she's probably using Ruth as a whipping post to get her own back on all of us, and for the same reason."

  "If she is, then that's your doing," said his grandmother swiftly. Her face suddenly looked very old and grey and Anna watched her with a flash of concern. However much this affair had been the result of her own stubbornness and pride in the past, it must have been a shock to her.

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Peveril," Anna said gently. "I mean I'm glad Ruth has made a stand at last but sorry it should have been this way."

  "Be quiet!" said Mrs. Peveril, rallying at once. "You've done enough damage as it is. Well, Rick, you will fetch the girl back, of course—now, at once. There will scarcely be time for talk to have arisen."

  Rick leaned back in his chair, surveying her curiously.

  "I'll do nothing of the kind," he retorted. "Ruth is thirty years old. I'm not going after her as if she were a child who didn't know her own mind."

  "Are you mad?" his grandmother said. "Are you going to permit your sister to stay in this man's house, a subject for gossip and perhaps worse?"

  "Don't be ridiculous, Grand!" he exclaimed impatiently "Young Evans isn't a fool. He'll send her off to some hotel until he can make arrangements to marry her, if he has any sense."

  "As Alix once said a little vulgarly, there are no flies on

  Mr. Evans," said Mrs. Peveril with bitterness. "I'm disappointed in you, Rick."

  "No, you're not, my dear. And if Alix was implying that young Evans had his eye on a rich wife and a Peveril at that, it would be rather what I'd expect from her."

  "That's not the reason she came back here, hoping to marry you," said Mrs. Peveril too quickly, and his smile was a shade sardonic.

  "Wasn't it?" he said gently. "Well, Grand, perhaps it might be a little embarrassing for Anna to pursue this subject now. Shall we all go in? The midges are beginning to bite."

  Mrs. Peveril got to her feet with difficulty. She looked very old and bent as she tapped her way along the flags of the terrace. Birdie fodowed her into the house, but Rick put a detaining hand on Anna's arm.

  "Let them be alone for a while," he said. "For all his seeming vagueness, Birdie understands her. They'd play piquet and behave as though nothing has happened. Anna—do you find us very hard to understand?"

  "Sometimes," she said, aware that she was suddenly very tired.

  "You must try, all the same, to understand Gran's stubbornness over Alix. She sees herself in her, that's all. Alix is a reminder of what she once was, a sort of image of herself, I think, to leave behind her when she's gone."

  She looked at him with troubled eyes.

  "Yes, I think I've always known that," she said. "But you, Rick—you loved her, too. You still can't keep away, can you?"

  "Are you thinking of what Ruth said last night? I've been to the cottage sometimes, yes. But I see Alix for what she is, you know. She'd be gone soon."

  He was watching her closely, his dark face taut with a sudden intensity. It might have been the moment to ask him what she, herself, had come to mean to him, if indeed she meant any more than an escape from an old passion, but she was too tired. The long day, it seemed, had been filled with

  the conflicting emotions of others; there was no time to add her own to them.

  "Yes," she said on a little sigh, "she'll be gone soon," but she wondered, as they walked slowly back to the house, if Alix would ever be gone, if, even when she had left the cottage, the essence of her would not still linger at Trevallion.

  The sun-blinds were still drawn in the long living-room, giving an illusion of cool green light. As Rick had predicted, Mrs. Peveril was playing piquet with Birdie, caustically enjoying his mistakes as if nothing had happened. Anna sat down by the open window and Rick leaned over the back of her chair.

  "You look tired, Anna," he said. "It's been quite a day for you, hasn't it?"

  "It's been very hot," she said. "I've never imagined an English summer being so hot."

  "It will pass," he said gently, and she thought it was not entirely of the summer that he spoke.

  It was beginning to grow dusk when she thought she heard a car draw up outside. A few minutes later Ruth walked into the room. She stood there awkwardly, searching each of their faces in turn, and Mrs. Peveril slowly put down the cards in her hand.

  "So he didn't want you, after all," she observed triumphantly. "It's a mistake to go chasing after men, my dear. They don't like it."

  "He brought me back," said Ruth with a brave attempt at dignity, "because he wouldn't agree to marry me without Rick's consent. He didn't want to force anyone's hand, he said. He's gentle and honourable and—and much too good for any of us."

  "How very extraordinary!" said Mrs. Peveril. "Are you sure he's not trying to wriggle out of a rather uncomfortable position?"

  "Please, Gran . . ." said Rick quickly, and went to his sister, putting an arm round her shoulders. She was nearly as tall as he and in that moment they were curiously alike.

  "He wants to marry you, doesn't he?" he said with great gentleness. "Yes."

  "And you? You're sure it's what you want?" "Yes."

  "Then there's nothing anyone can do to spoil things for you. We've been rather blind, Gran and I, but if you'd talked to me as you seem to have talked to Anna, you wouldn't have found me unsympathetic. I'm sorry, Ruth ... I'm deeply sorry that I, at least, had so little understanding."

  She started at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then her eyes filled with tears.

  "You sound like Nigel when you talk like that," she said, adding awkwardly: "It's all right, Rick. Anna always said I should confide in you. I've been a bit of a fool, haven't I?"

&nb
sp; "A bit of a fool, perhaps," he replied, and patted her shoulder. "Is the young man still here?"

  "He's out in the car."

  "Let's go and get things cleared up, then. Birdie, will you bring drinks along to the den, please?"

  They went out of the room together and Anna realized that her own lashes were wet

  Birdie began loading a tray with glasses and bottles, and Anna, seeing the blank, suddenly deserted look on old Mrs. Peveril's face, slipped into Birdie's empty chair and picked up his cards.

  "Would you like me to take his hand, Mrs. Peveril?" she asked.

  "Can you play well enough to match your wits against mine?" the old lady said, but her voice was lacking in its usual asperity.

  "I don't suppose so," Anna replied casuady. "Birdie hasn't been teaching me for very long."

  "He's too addle-pated himself to impart much knowledge to anyone else," sniffed Mrs. Peveril, then as Birdie went out of the room with the tray and they were left alone, she put down the cards again.

  "No, I won't play any more tonight," she said, sounding suddenly very tired. "You're a nice child, Anna ... a kind child. . . . You think we're all very hard, don't you?"

  "I'm beginning to think Rick isn't," Anna said.

  "He never was, my child. Alix made him bitter. I was proud of Rick tonight."

  "Yes," said Anna softly, "so was I."

  "With Ruth gone and Alix gone, this house will seem very big. I shall only have you to bully."

  Anna glanced swiftly into the old, imperious face. The old lady had spoken almost with affection.

  "You may bully me if you like, Mrs. Peveril," she said with a smile. "I'm beginning to understand you all better now."

  "Well, I don't suppose it will be for long," Mrs. Peveril said with the indifference of the very old. "Give me your arm upstairs, if you please, Anna. I don't think I care to welcome my future grandson-in-law tonight. A veterinary surgeon! In my days such persons were interviewed in the stables or the servants' hall. No, I don't think I care to see him tonight. . . ."