Sara Seale Read online

  "I suppose not." Anna looked away. She was beginning to feel uncomfortable that Ruth should not know that her presence among them meant nothing.

  "You're a funny couple," Ruth said, fondling the spaniel's ears. "No one would think that you cared very much about each other."

  "I've always understood that the Peverils aren't demonstrative," said Anna, feeling her colour rise.

  "No, I don't think we are," Ruth replied, her eyes, for the first time, curious, "but that doesn't apply to you. Young girls in love, I've always been told, let everyone know it."

  "Do you," asked Anna gently, "know much about being in love?"

  She expected a snub, but, to her surprise, the unbecoming colour crept into Ruth's face. She averted her eyes and looked suddenly embarrassed.

  "No," she said brusquely. "No—I suppose not. Anna-"

  "Yes?"

  "Never mind. I must take Ranger for his walk. If David Evans calls this morning, ask him to wait, will you?"

  Anna watched her walk away, the dog at her heels. Did a busy veterinary surgeon wait indefinitely, she wondered? But presumably David Evans did. Anna met him in the stable yard about the middle of the morning and wondered if Ruth had known for certain he was coming.

  "She's out," she said, not liking to ask him to wait, "but Ranger seems to be all right."

  "As I'm here, I might as well stay and see him," the vet said. "Let's have a look at the pigs."

  Anna accompanied him to the piggeries. Birdie was there, mucking out. He plunged at once into talk about pigs, and Anna leaned over a sty, listening to their lazy voices and the soothing grunting of the pigs. How far away, she thought, it all seemed from the office and Miss Pringle's establishment, how far away from her own childhood when pigs would have been a delight and the upbringing Ruth and Alix had known a charm for any child.

  Ruth came back from her walk, greeting David Evans casually. They wandered back to the stables where, presumably, the vet would take another look at Ranger. Anna, left leaning over the warm wall of one of the sties, was conscious of Birdie's eyes on her, bright and enquiring.

  "Knows about pigs, does young Evans," he said.

  "Does he know about dogs, too?" Anna asked, smiling gently.

  "Oh, yes. There's nothing much wrong with Ranger, but— well, Ruth doesn't see many young people, you know."

  "Mr. Evans seems nice," said Anna, rather at a loss.

  "He's a good lad," Birdie replied, and his face suddenly lost its look of meek abstraction. "Ruth's been kept down by

  her grandmother too long, you know. She's nearly thirty. The Peveril women become set after that age."

  Anna observed him thoughtfully. His open shirt revealed the rather pathetic bones of his meagre chest and the Adam's apple which seemed to accentuate the weak chin. Had he, too, become set, poor, discounted Birdie, living on Peveril charity?

  "Have you never wanted anything for yourself, Birdie?" she asked gently.

  "Me?" He seemed surprised, then his eyes went to the pigs, snuffling around in their clean, beautifully kept sties.

  "It might surprise you, Anna, but I have all I want," he said, tickling the back of a large white sow. "My topiary, now —that gives me artistic outlet. I'm really very good at topiary work, you know—it's a dying art. But Ruth—Ruth needs a life apart from Trevallion—somewhere she can be her own mistress and not just one of the Peverils, like me. Can you understand that, I wonder?"

  "Yes," said Anna, seeming to know him for the first time. "Why don't you talk to Rick?"

  "Rick!" There was sudden impatience in the little man's voice. "Have you tried talking to Rick? But of course you have—I was forgetting you are to marry him. It's for you, then, Anna, to talk to Rick—make him understand."

  "Understand what?" asked Anna, bewildered. It seemed to her that Ruth herself was better equipped to talk to her brother, each slamming away at the other, if necessary, in typical Peveril fashion.

  Birdie looked disappointed.

  "Oh, well, perhaps you're too young," he said. "I'm sorry, my dear, you must forgive me. After all, you're still a stranger among us."

  He returned to his pigs and Anna walked away, feeling she had failed him. He was right, she thought, wandering idly through the topiary; she was still a stranger among them and would remain a stranger until she left Trevallion. Was it Alix who held them all together; Alix, for whom old Mrs. Peveril's

  eyes grew soft, for whom Ruth became an adoring schoolgirl once more, for whom even Rick, despite his rejection of her, could still look hungry?

  Anna sighed and went back to the house. She could not care about Rick, who was, in a sense, almost her employer, but she found she was beginning to care about Ruth and even poor, vague Birdie, both tied to the chariot wheels of Rick and his grandmother.

  She stopped dead as she came to the terrace and saw him sitting there, a glass of iced beer at his elbow. Her thoughts were so much uppermost in her mind that she felt he must be able to read them.

  "Good morning, Anna," he said, surveying her with amusement. "You look very thoughtful. Come here."

  She came and stood beside him, wondering why he was back so early from the quarry, and was quite unprepared when he pulled her on to his knees and kissed her.

  "Does that surprise you?" he asked, observing the colour in her cheeks.

  "Of course," she replied. "There's nobody here to see."

  "How light you are," he -remarked. "I shouldn't think you weigh more than seven and a half stone. Are you eating enough of our nice, fattening Cornish cream, do you suppose?"

  She felt ridiculous, perched there on his knees, aware that he simply wanted to tease.

  "I eat all I want, thank you," she said. "May I get up now?"

  "No, you may not," he retorted, his hand suddenly firm and unyielding on her waist. "You wear my ring, Anna, you're committed to marry me. Why the bashfulness?"

  "I'm not bashful," she said furiously. "And I'm not committed to marry you. Don't you think this sort of thing is rather unnecessary when we're alone?"

  "Oh, I don't know. We need a little practice, perhaps, and you're rather delectable in that pink cotton frock, you know. Do you dislike me?"

  She did not want to look at him directly, but his dark, sardonic face was so close to hers and the hand on her waist was warm and suddenly possessive. She was aware of an uneasiness not altogether occasioned by his first casual gesture, and her eyes met his for an instant and were immediately veiled by her lashes.

  "Well?"

  "Well what?"

  "Do you dislike me?"

  "I don't know. I don't understand you, I suppose." He sighed and let her go.

  "I don't always understand myself, perhaps," he said. "Had you plans for this afternoon?"

  She struggled to her feet, feeling nervous and foolish.

  "No," she said. "I don't think you were expected back for lunch, were you?"

  "Probably not, but it's too good a day to sweat in the quarry. I thought I'd take you to bathe. I seem to remember your telling me that you weren't much of a swimmer."

  "No, I'm not. You said, in that case, your bit of coast was not for me."

  "Neither is it, but there are pools when the tide is right, where you can splash about and come to no harm."

  He was laughing at her, she knew. Whatever his impulse to take her to bathe, it was not, she was sure, for the pleasure of seeing her splash about in pools.

  "All right," she said obligingly, and he reached for his glass of beer and raised it to her mockingly.

  "So adaptable, aren't you, Anna?" he said. "I shouldn't ask for more, should I?"

  But when they reached the little strip of beach by way of the rough path down the cliffs, it seemed plain why he had wanted to come. Alix was already there, poised on a high ledge of rock. Whether she saw them or not, she took off in a magnificent swallow dive and struck boldly out to sea.

  "Undress behind a rock," said Rick carelessly, beginning to strip. "We don't bother with ni
ceties here, as you can see."

  Long before Anna had adjusted her bathing cap he had dived off the same rock and was swimming out to Alix with swift, powerful strokes. Anna felt irrationally angry. If he wanted to be with Alix why had he insisted on bringing her too? The sea looked calm and harmless and incredibly blue with only a flurry of foam breaking on the rocks. Anna breasted the first breakers, determined not to be left behind, and almost immediately felt the undertow dragging her out. It was impossible, with the feeble breast-stroke she had had so few occasions to practise, to get back to safety.

  "This is the end of my summer, of my idiotic engagement to one of the mighty Peverils," thought Anna, painfully swadowing salt water, then she felt a hand seize her and turn her on her back.

  "Float," said Rick, "I'll bring you in in a jiffy."

  She sat on a rock by the water's edge and he stood over her angrily.

  "What possessed you to be such a little fool?" he demanded. "I told you the currents here were dangerous."

  "The sea looked all right," said Anna unhappily, peeling the tight cap from her head.

  "Never do that if I'm not around or I'll have to forbid you the shore," he said. His eyes were still angry, but suddenly he knelt beside her and put a hand on hers.

  "All right?" he asked.

  There was a gentleness in him which had not been there when he had pulled her on to his knees and kissed her earlier in the day. Looking at him now she could have forgiven him that mockery, even proffered an embrace of her own.

  "Yes, I'm all right," she said. "I'm sorry, Rick."

  There was a sudden wry tenderness about his mouth and she thought he was going to say something more, when Alix joined them, squeezing the water from the thick black hair which had been unprotected by any cap.

  "Was she really in trouble?" she asked, looking at them both with eyes alight with amusement.

  "Unless she was having us both on," Rick retorted, getting

  to his feet again. "But she hardly has the physique for a swimmer, has she?"

  "No," said Alix indifferently.

  Anna looked up at them. They were the counterpart of each other, these two dark Peverils, she thought, feeling suddenly humble. With their broad shoulders and strong, straight limbs, they were a challenge to any sea, to any of the elements.

  "You shouldn't," Alix said, eyeing her calmly, "play tricks in Cornish waters. Besides, what would poor Rick do if his bride was drowned before he could get her to the altar?"

  "Not very funny," snapped Rick, and Alix ran casual fingers through her wet hair.

  "Darling, it wasn't meant to be," she said, quite unperturbed. "Surely you would wish us all to have consideration for your feelings—to say nothing of Anna's."

  She walked away and began to climb again to the diving rock. Anna had the curious impression that had she been drowned, Alix would not have gready cared.

  "Come on, Rick!" Alix called from the rock, and dived again.

  All the afternoon, Anna splashed in and out of the pools which they said were safe for her, and watched them diving and swimming, coming out every so often to sun themselves on the rocks and wrangle in a fashion which she had come to believe must be inherent in all the Peverils. At last Alix began pulling a skirt and sweater over her wet bathing dress and, without farewell, started to walk, barefoot to the path on the cliffs.

  "Coming back for tea?" Rick called after her, but there was little hospitality in his voice.

  "No, thanks," she replied, and Anna watched her, strong and lithe, climb the cliff path with careless, arrogant grace.

  "You've probably had enough for your first day," Rick said. "You'd better be careful of that skin, my child. Anyone as fair as you can burn badly."

  Anna looked at her skin, already faindy pink, and felt

  inadequate because she could not boast the dark, strong Peveril limbs. She was aware of Rick watching her and flushed when he said mockingly:

  "You needn't look so downcast. A fair skin is a welcome novelty in these parts, I assure you."

  A plane came flying in from the sea and Anna looked up instinctively.

  "Your thoughts are still up there, I see," Rick observed. "Not forgotten him yet, Anna?"

  "Of course not," she said, but her eyes fell before his. She had forgotten for days at a time, not because the old hurt was healed, but because Toby and what he had stood for seemed a little unreal. Only when a plane flew overhead would she look up and remember.

  Rick was still watching her.

  "Get your things on," he ordered brusquely. "One day I'll teach you to swim, if you like."

  After that day, they spent much time on the shore. Rick was only with them when he could spare time from the quarry, but Alix was nearly always there, diving, swimming, lying on the sun-baked rocks, regardless, it seemed, of the presence of either Anna or Ruth. When Rick was present she would join them, and Anna became acutely conscious of the old bond between the three of them. Do you remember . . . one would say to the other, and she could see them all as children, then as young people no older than herself, enjoying that freemasonry which the long years had forged.

  It was Ruth, strangely enough, who undertook Anna's education in swimming. In the water she looked a different person. Her strong limbs, without the sagging, disfiguring slacks, were as firm and well-proportioned as Alix's, and her diving nearly as good. She took pains with Anna, and if she was grudging with praise, she did not leave her, as Alix would have, to splash ignominiously in the safe pools. Ruth was a constant source of surprise, she had discovered. Her clumsy hands had a sureness of touch for sick animals or wounded

  birds, and beneath that brusque, rather uncouth manner, Anna sometimes recognized the raw bewilderment of the adolescent

  "You know," said Anna one afternoon when they were sunning themselves on a flat rock, watching Alix swimming far out to sea, "you are beautifully made, Ruth. Why don't you bother more at home?"

  "Why should I?" Ruth replied indifferently. "There's no one to notice what one wears, and, anyway, I'm not the type."

  "Don't you like to look nice?" Anna asked, and wished she had not spoken when she saw the dull flush creep under Ruth's brown skin.

  "Who for?" she demanded brusquely. "No one has ever bothered about me with Alix around—why should they?"

  "Don't you think," said Anna gently, "that you've always been a little obsessed with Alix? You could make your own life, apart from her."

  "I can't think of life apart from Alix," Ruth said. "She was one of us—she was going to marry Rick. Everything would have been just the same, then."

  "With you in the background—the attendant slave to Peveril felicity?"

  Ruth sat up, startled by such unfamiliar raillery in someone she considered of little account, and the look she bent on Anna was the old look of hostility.

  "It was right Rick should marry Alix," she said gruffly. "As to being an attendant slave—well, Alix has grown up with us. I love and admire her, and-"

  "And you think very little of me," finished Anna sofdy.

  Ruth frowned at her.

  "Oh, you're all right as far as you go," she said grudgingly, "but scarcely fit for this family. When are you going to be married?"

  Anna felt the colour creep under her own skin, now. "I don't know," she said shortly. "We haven't discussed any plans."

  Ruth gave her a brief glance of commiseration.

  "I don't suppose you have," she said. "Rick makes his own plans and all you have to do is fall in with them."

  Anna experienced a quick uprising against the Peveril way of life.

  "My plans are my own," she said coolly, and Ruth looked at her with faint surprise.

  "Your plans, my dear, if they are opposed to Rick's, won't stand a chance," she observed. "Why did you get engaged to him?"

  "Why . . . why . . ." The two words trailed off, and Anna was left with nothing to say. She could not tell Ruth the manner of this engagement, neither could she pretend to the usual reason fo
r such a situation.

  "Oh, well, I don't suppose it matters," Ruth said, regarding her future sister-in-law with indifferent eyes. "Alix says you're not in love with each other. Is that true?"

  "Alix would hardly be likely to know, would she?" Anna retorted, hoping to shift the conversation from such dangerous ground.

  Ruth sat looking at her, rubbing her large, carelessly kept hands over the smooth brown skin of her thighs.

  "Alix would know a thing "like that," she said. "She and Rick—you know how things once were, I imagine."

  "Yes, I know."

  "You should go away, Anna, before it's too late." "To late? What do you mean?"

  "I don't know. But you aren't one of us. Nobody wants you here. You must have realized that."

  It cost Anna an effort to roll on her side and avoid that challenging stare.

  "Oh, yes, I've realized," she said, trying to sound indifferent. "I'm sorry if you don't like me, Ruth, but a man doesn't marry, after all, to please his relatives."

  Her back was turned to Ruth, so she could not see the reaction to her observation, but when the girl next spoke, Anna heard the uncertainty in her voice.

  "I don't understand Rick," she said. "I thought with Alix

  back with us again—no, I just don't understand."

  For the first time Anna felt mistress of herself amongst these Peverils.

  "There's plenty we none of us can understand at the time," she said gently. "You must bear with it, Ruth. After all, my position isn't too easy, knowing that you and Mrs. Peveril have your hearts set on Alix."

  "Who have their hearts set on me?" Alix's husky voice, close behind them, made both of them jump guiltily. She had come in from the sea, unnoticed, and stood beside them, the water running from her swim-suit and her wet, tangled hair. "Anna, you're tanning nicely, but how skinny you are. No wonder Gran views the future of the Peverils with trepidation."

  Anna sat up, pushing the fine, straight hair out of her eyes. Alix's meaning was only too plain and she felt herself flushing.

  "Did you enjoy your swim?" she asked, trying to ignore the implication in the girl's last words.

  Alix stood looking down at her. Her strong, vibrant body seemed a challenge to Anna's slight frame and there was a mocking derision in her eyes.