Sara Seale Read online

  For some reason Mrs. Peveril took exception to this observation and Anna, for the first time, saw her glance at Alix with distaste.

  "That is a little vulgar," she observed, reaching for her stick. "The midges are beginning to bite. I'm going in."

  Alix was shrewd enough not to follow the old lady, but she made a small grimace at Anna.

  "I seem to have put my foot in it," she said when they were alone. "Gran can be the perfect ostrich when it comes to anything concerning the family she doesn't want to know. Who's been telling tales?"

  "No one," Anna replied thoughtfully. "Ruth brought David Evans back for a drink, that's all."

  "And Rick failed to register disapproval? Well, well! Perhaps he's beginning to realize that they let the poor girl's last chance go when they stamped on that other affair."

  "What other affair?"

  "Well, of course, it was highly unsuitable. He was Rick's foreman at the quarry at the time—decent enough, I suppose, but of the earth earthy, and Ruth did set her cap at him. Rick could do no less than nip that little romance in the bud, and incidentally sack the man. Poor Ruth. I'm afraid she's one of these sex-starved females one reads about but very seldom meets."

  Anna looked at Alix, secure in her beauty, her married state, her certainty that life held fulfilment for the taking. Women like Alix, she thought bitterly, could never have an inkling of the hunger and frustration which might befall their less fortunate sisters.

  "That's rather cruel," she said quietly, "but I think you are cruel, aren't you, Alix?"

  Alix put down her empty glass and yawned.

  "Very likely, darling," she said without interest. "There's been a cruel streak in all the Peverils, so I'm told."

  "Not in Ruth."

  "Don't you think so? She hasn't been particularly kind in some of her remarks to you."

  "Because," said Anna bluntly, "she worships you and wants you in my place."

  "I know," said Alix quite pleasantly. "The girl's an awful bore, isn't she? But she's hung round my neck ever since we were children. I can't break her of it."

  Anna thought of Ruth's blind adoration, of the snubs she turned deaf ears to, the uses she allowed herself to be put to.

  "I hope she never finds you out," she said softly.

  Alix's eyes narrowed, then she laughed.

  "The school spirit dies very hard in you, doesn't it, Miss Milk-and-Water?" she said, getting to her feet. "Our private conversations never seem to have much future, so I think I'll

  go and find Rick, if you don't mind."

  Anna watched her cross the lawn with her graceful, indolent stride, the long shadows, as she passed through them, dappling her bare back. Feeling priggish and unwanted, she set about collecting the dirty glasses and carried them into the house on a tray.

  Back in the house, the inmates of Trevallion went their various ways. Ruth had disappeared after her encounter with her grandmother at tea-time, Anna went to her room to freshen up before dinner, and Mrs. Peveril sat in the long living-room, attended by Birdie, and watched the first flashes of lightning streak through the windows.

  "Where is everybody?" she demanded imperiously, aware that her half-hour before dinner was being shamefudy neglected. Anna came down at that moment and the old lady afforded her a more friendly welcome than was usual.

  "Come and sit by me, child, and partake of a glass of sherry wine," she said. "I don't know what's happened to the others."

  Anna sat on a stool at the old lady's feet and Birdie brought her a glass of sherry.

  "Ruth is upset, I think," she said gently. "She didn't think Mr. Evans was very welcome here."

  "And why should he be?" Mrs. Peveril retorted. "My granddaughter lacks a sense of fitness."

  "But he's very nice, Mrs. Peveril," Anna said, "and Ruth doesn't know many young people, does she?"

  The old lady touched her knee for a moment with the clawlike hand which boasted so many rings.

  "I think you are a kind child, if mistaken," she said. "Birdie, what do you make of young Evans?"

  Birdie looked nervous, unused to having his opinion invited by old Mrs. Peveril.

  "An excellent vet, Cousin Maud," he replied punctiliously. "An improvement on Trevawn, I should say. Oh, yes, an excellent vet."

  "Exactly!" observed Mrs. Peveril, and looked down her beaky nose at both of them.

  Ruth lounged into the room, her dog at her heels. She wore a dated cotton frock in place of her customary slacks, but her mood had not changed with her clothes. She sat at the far end of the room, refused a drink from Birdie, and lapsed into sullen silence.

  "Where is Rick?" asked Mrs. Peveril, becoming impatient.

  "He went back with Alix to the cottage," Birdie said.

  "Then Ruth, dear child, run over and tell him we are waiting dinner," said Mrs. Peveril.

  "Why wait?" asked Ruth. "He'll come in his own time."

  "But this, as you've already reminded me, is Rick's house," said her grandmother silkily. "We can scarcely start dinner without our host, can we?"

  "You always have before," said Ruth, not moving, and Mrs. Peveril gave a little shrug.

  "Anna, perhaps you would oblige?" she said.

  "I'll go, Cousin Maud," Birdie said, but she waved him away.

  "Now, Birdie!" she protested with an archness which Anna had never known in her. "It gives Anna a nice excuse to walk back alone with Rick. Will you run over, please, child?"

  Anna went unwillingly. The lightning had been incessant and she was afraid of storms. As she scrambled into the ha-ha and up the other side, the first peal of thunder echoed round the cliffs. The evening light cast a lurid glow over everything and a dry, boisterous wind blew the wide cotton skirt of her frock over her head.

  The cowman's cottage was empty. Anna, stumbling amongst the furniture in the tiny living-room, found Alix's sun-suit tossed idly over a chair, a pair of masculine trousers thrown on top. It was an intimacy which shocked her, not because for a Peveril to go swimming in a rising storm was, she knew, any peculiarity, but because here, in the cowman's cottage, things, she felt, took on a deeper significance.

  She ran to the head of the cliffs where the path led down

  '

  to the shore, and the sight of the sea lashing against the rocks filled her with sudden fear. She remembered the currents, the deadly undertow. No human being could live in that tumult, she thought, not even the Peverils with their fine disregard for safety. She began to scramble down the path. Thunder echoed with frightening ferocity from the cliffs, and lightning pierced the sudden darkness which seemed to have fallen. Rain broke in wild torrents before she had reached the shore and in a few moments she was soaked.

  Anna had never know a storm like this. She stumbled over rocks and shingle, calling desperately, aware that her voice was carried away, but aware, too, that if Rick was drowned it would matter to her desolately. Of Alix she scarcely thought at all but Rick . . . Rick must be safe. . . .

  He came out of the breakers then, fighting his way to the shore with strong, effortless movements. He turned to offer a hand to Alix who was close behind him and she joined him. laughing. They stood there, with the water creaming round their feet, the two fearless Peverils who defied the elements for a lark.

  Anna stood watching them, trembling from cold and fright. She felt an intruder in matters which she could never understand; she would have got away, if she could, before either of them saw her. Rick snatched his towel from a rock and made for the cliff path. "Anna!" he exclaimed, and stopped dead. She stood before him, drenched and frightened. The coral ribbon had long since been wrenched from her hair by the wind, and the pink cotton frock had lost its starch and clung darkly to her slender body.

  "What on earth are you doing here?" Rick demanded roughly. "You're soaked to the skin!"

  "Mrs. Peveril sent me to find you at the cottage," she answered, trying to remember the events of the evening. "They are waiting for dinner."

  "Gran sent you
out in this?" he said. "It wasn't raining then," she replied, and he saw the strain

  in her face and the fear in her eyes.

  "You poor scrap," he said, putting an arm round her. "You're frightened of storms, aren't you?"

  "I was more frightened that you were drowned," she said. "Oh, Rick .. ."

  He had pulled her close into the circle of his arm. She felt his bare wet chest, cold beneath her cheek.

  "Would you have minded?" he asked, and she was aware of his dark face bent to hers, the wet, black hair falling over his forehead.

  "Yes," she said, drawing immeasurable comfort from his nearness. "Yes ... I would have minded very much." She lifted her face, offering a spontaneous invitation, and tasted the salt on his lips.

  "Well!" he said. "That's the first time any initiative has come from you!" He kissed her again, without hesitation or mercy.

  They had forgotten Alix until she spoke, shouting against the wind.

  "I seem to be redundant, my dears, though I should have said it was hardly the weather for love-making. You'll call at the cottage for your shirt and trousers, I imagine, Rick."

  "We'll all go together," Rick replied.

  Alix went ahead, bounding up the cliff path unhindered by the wind or rain. Rick followed more slowly, his arm round Anna, helping her over the rough places.

  It was so dark that Alix had lighted a lamp in the living-room. She tossed Rick's trousers to him and stood in the bright circle of light, towelling her hair and observing Anna with malicious amusement.

  "You do look a sketch, darling," she said. "Whatever possessed you to come down to the shore in this sort of weather? Did you think I wasn't to be trusted with your fiance?"

  "Mrs. Peveril sent me," Anna answered wearily. "We thought you were here."

  "Gran should know us both by this time," Alix said, and Rick frowned.

  "Have you got any brandy?" he asked.

  "Brandy?" Alix's eyebrows went up. "Yes, I think so. Is it for you or this half-drowned little scarecrow, frightened of a common thunderstorm?"

  "Anna is hardly used to west-country weather, or to frights of a different kind," he said suavely, and she shrugged her gleaming bare shoulders and turned to a corner cupboard which housed sundry bottles and glasses.

  "We'll all have a nip—to drink your health, if nothing else," she said, and, pouring out three measures of brandy, handed them round.

  "To you, Rick," she said raising her glass, "and to you, too, Anna. Maybe, after all, you've got something that I haven't."

  "What?" asked Anna, not because she really wanted to know, but because she was too bewildered by the Peverils to keep silent.

  "The pull of a weak woman for a strong man," Alix replied, and laughed.

  Anna saw Rick's mouth tighten. He had pulled his shirt and trousers over his wet trunks, and he now swallowed his brandy at a gulp and set the empty glass down with a bang.

  "We'll be going," he said, making for the door. "Come, Anna, you can't get any wetter than you are already."

  They went back across the wasteland. Anna stumbled as usual into the ha-ha and Rick pulled her out impatiently.

  "Why did you have to reply to her?" he asked. "You might have known she was only having you on."

  Anna was tired and confused. The last half-hour had held so many emotions, she scarcely knew what he was talking about.

  "What do you mean?" she said, aware that, for some reason, he was angry with her again.

  "Never mind," he said. "You're rather chuckle-headed, aren't you, Anna? Go to your rooms when we get in and take

  a hot bath. I'll have a tray sent up to you."

  The weather broke with the storm and the next morning Anna awoke to rain beating on her window. She sat up in the vast bed, drinking the cup of tea which had been brought her, and knew that she was no longer quite the same Anna Crewe who had opened her eyes to the morning yesterday. Something had happened to her down on the shore when she had thought Rick in danger. For that instant when he had held her close and she had tasted the salt on his lips she had thought of him as the man she was to marry. She had known anxiety and relief and a great flood of thankfulness and, until Alix had spoken, she had forgotten that she was only playing a small part in Peveril affairs.

  She gazed at her reflection in the mirror, as later, she sat before the dressing-table brushing her hair. Her face looked peaky and her eyes were strained and heavy, for she had slept badly. She was, she thought ruefully, indeed the little scarecrow that Alix had called her; the delicate bones accentuated immature hollows at her throat and wrists, and her body seemed to have no substance, judged by Peveril standards. She sighed, remembering that Toby had liked her smallness. Toby . . . already he seemed a ghost, a dream, perhaps, that had never been real, a dream forgotten too soon because the empty place in her heart was already open to be filled again. . . .

  "No!" she exclaimed angrily and aloud. "No! I'd not go through it ad again!" She would go away before it was too late; she would make Rick release her and leave him to that first, tempestuous love which, she thought, could still torment him.

  She tied her hair back into the familiar pony-tail, dragging the fine, soft strands up from her temples until her skin felt stretched and sore, then she wrenched the ribbon off again and, impatiently shaking the hair loose on her neck, ran down stairs for breakfast.

  Ruth was sitting alone at the table, moodily scanning the

  morning paper. She, too, looked as if she had slept badly and she had clearly scarcely bothered to run a comb through her untidy black hair.

  "Hullo," she said, and eyed Anna curiously. "Feel better?"

  "I wasn't ill," Anna said, helping herself to a boiled egg.

  "Rick seemed to think you were—sending up trays and telling everyone not to disturb you. What did you want to go down to the shore for on a night like that? You could have waited for them at the cottage."

  "Yes, I could, couldn't I?" said Anna wearily. "The sea frightened me, I suppose. I didn't imagine anyone in their senses would have gone swimming in those waters."

  "Very likely not, but Alix has always been wild as a hawk. She has no fear."

  Anna tapped round the shell of her egg in silence. The sharp brittle sound seemed to annoy Ruth, for she observed impatiently:

  "Why don't you slice the top off? Did Rick really give you a fright?"

  "Yes, I suppose so. It's quite a natural reaction, you know. I'm not as versed as you are in the unexpected ways of the Peverils."

  "Funny," said Ruth, looking puzzled. "I always thought you didn't care a button for Rick."

  Anna began eating her egg, hoping that inconvenient habit of blushing was not betraying her.

  "I'm engaged to him," she said mildly. "It would be a little odd if I felt no concern for his safety."

  "I suppose so. Anna—can two people utterly unlike each other make a go of it, do you imagine?"

  Anna was silent before answering. She knew instinctively that Ruth was not referring to her brother's engagement. Was she really fond of the soft-voiced gentle little vet, she wondered, or did she see in him only a means of escape from an existence which held no future?

  "Yes, I think so," she said then, "but only if you care

  enough. Don't they say that the marriage of opposites brings better balance to a relationship?"

  "But the stronger personality must dominate, surely?"

  "I think in any union one must dominate more than the other, but you know, Ruth, these gentle people are often the strongest characters in the end."

  Ruth turned a dud red and Anna could see she was already regretting her impulse to confide.

  "That's rot," she said gruffly. "Look at Guy and Alix. He was gentle enough, and weak, too."

  "It's not necessarily the same. The gentle people are often the strong ones. I didn't know Alix's husband, of course, but perhaps he was only weak."

  "Weak as water. She did what she liked with him."

  "How bad for her, and how un
happy." "Unhappy? That's a funny thing to say. Rick will do what he likes with you, you know."

  "Why? Do you think I'm weak, too?"

  Ruth regarded her, frowning, and her eyes were suddenly puzzled.

  "No—no, I don't, oddly enough," she said slowly. "When Rick first brought you here, I don't mind telling you we all thought he was out of his mind, but even Gran says now that there's more to you than she had supposed."

  "Mrs. Peveril said that?"

  "Yes, she said it only yesterday, as it happens, but don't imagine it means anything, Anna. Gran's always had her heart set on Alix and what Gran sets her heart on she usually gets.

  It rained all day. Anna ate a solitary lunch, for Ruth had gone out on some unspecified errand of her own and Rick seldom came home at midday. She spent the afternoon in the den, listening to the radio and dipping into the old books she found on the shelves. Framed snapshots hung on the walls, nearly all family groups, and Anna studied them with renewed interest although she had seen them many times. There was

  Rick's father, easily picked out because they were so alike, there was Ruth as a schoolgirl complete with long plaits and gym tunic, and the dead Nigel, a slighter and more gentle edition of his brother, and there was Alix, always there was Alix. She appeared in all the groups, sprawled beside Rick on the shore, lovingly entwined with Ruth or stretched out at Mrs. Peveril's feet on the lawn. There was Alix alone, posed on the diving rock or standing on the cliffs, the wind blowing her hair, there was Alix at fifteen or so showing the first promise of beauty, and Alix taken on the terrace in her first long evening gown. There were numerous snapshots of dogs, mostly spaniels, presumably the forerunners of Ranger, and one of Sol with a prize pig, displaying its card and rosette with Birdie in proud attendance.

  How clannish they were, these Peverds, Anna thought a little wistfully, aware how lacking her own life had been in family groups and holiday souvenirs. She opened the lid of the piano, wondering why it was there, for no one ever seemed to play it and the keys were yellow with age. She picked out an air at random with one finger and found she had chosen that plaintive badad she had once associated with Toby. Blow the wind southerly. . . . She slid on to the revolving stool and began improvising a hesitant bass. She was not a skilled performer, but she had learnt the rudiments of theory and after a time she found the right chords came naturally. She was delighted with her own success and played the ballad over and over again, and now it no longer seemed to be Toby who sprang to mind but Rick and the sea and the wind flattening the grass on the cliffs. Blow the wind south o'er the bonny blue sea . . . the sea had not been blue or bonny last night when she had stood on the shore with fear in her heart . . . blow, bonny breeze, my lover to me. . . . Anna shut the lid of the piano with a bang and a moment later Rick came into the room.