Sara Seale Page 9

  "Hullo!" he said, "I didn't know you could play." "I can't really. I was just strumming," she replied. "What was it? It sounded vaguely familiar."

  "Just an old Scots ballad someone used to sing when I was a child. Is it still raining?"

  "Yes. I suppose that means you've been cooped up in the house all day."

  He sounded censorious and she remembered the Peveril liking for walking in all weathers.

  "I didn't feel like going out," she said firmly, and saw his eyebrows lift.

  "Indeed, why should you, in that case?" he retorted, and grinned at her. "Got over your fright of yesterday?" "Yes, thank you."

  "You know, for a moment you almost had me believing that you minded whether I'd been drowned or not"

  There was a hint of derision in his voice and she said with heightened colour:

  "Naturally! I'd mind if anyone had been drowned."

  "To the extent of running into their arms and inviting embraces?"

  "Rick," she said, making up her mind quickly, "I want to talk to you."

  "What about?" He selected an ancient pipe from a collection on the mantelpiece and reached for a jar of tobacco.

  "Us. I want you to put an end to this—to release me from our bargain."

  He did not answer at once, and she watched his steady brown fingers pressing tobacco into the bowl of the pipe. He seemed intent on what he was doing and, when he had finished, lit up in leisurely fashion and made sure that the pipe was drawing to his liking.

  "Rick, I said-" she began nervously.

  "Yes, I heard you. You want to throw me over and leave Trevallion."

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "Because it's all such a farce. Because-"

  "No, Anna, I won't release you," he said.

  "But why not? Our—our engagement will have to finish sometime."

  "Because it doesn't happen to suit me now. I thought I'd made it plain yesterday afternoon that I expected you to see the summer through with us."

  "Yes, but since then-"

  All at once he was looking directly at her, a long, piercing look which seemed to probe too deep.

  "What can have happened since then to make you change your mind again?" he asked.

  "N-nothing," she faltered. She was still sitting on the piano stool and in her nervousness she swung herself this way and that in little half circles, making the stool squeak.

  "Don't fidget!" he ordered sharply, then gave a rueful smile as he remembered he had made the same irritable remark to her in the train coming to Cornwall.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to snap. Well, if nothing has happened since yesterday, how do you account for your change of heart?"

  "My change of heart?" For a moment the face she raised to his was startled like a child's fearing discovery, and his eyes narrowed.

  "Could we be talking at cross-purposes?" he asked softly. "I don't know. Please, Rick-"

  "Once for all, Anna, I refuse to discuss the subject until the right time comes," he said. "You knew the conditions when you came here. Nothing has changed and I don't intend that it should. Now, for heaven's sake stop looking so mopey. It won't rain for ever."

  "Ruth says that in the winter it can rain here for weeks on end," she said irrelevantly, and his mouth twitched in a faint smile.

  "Since we're now only at the end of July, there's no need to worry about the winter, is there?" he observed dryly. "And if you raise this point again, my dear child, I shall beat you or do something equally violent."

  It was no good, she thought with resignation, it was no

  good ever trying to argue with a Peveril. She could hear old Mrs. Peveril's stick tapping along the flagged passage outside, and stood up hastily, smoothing down her crumpled dress. The old lady opened the door and Anna remembered that she had never known her visit the den before.

  "Was that you playing the piano, Anna?" she demanded. She looked displeased and, at the same time, faindy troubled.

  "Yes, Mrs. Peveril," Anna replied, feeling immediately guilty. "Did I disturb you?"

  "My rooms are direcdy overhead. No one—" her voice trembled for a moment—"no one has touched that piano since Nigel went. It was his."

  "Oh, I'm sorry," said Anna softly, and saw Rick looking at her curiously.

  "You needn't be," Mrs. Peveril replied unexpectedly. "You don't play very well, child, and your repertoire is decidedly limited. Blow the wind southerly . . . southerly . . . southerly. . . ." Her voice softened reminiscentiy as she lingered over the familiar line and Anna cried with pleasure:

  "Oh, you know it too!"

  "I ought to. It was Nigel's favourite ballad. He was always singing it."

  "That's why it seemed familiar!" Rick exclaimed. "Lord yes, how it sends one back!"

  "Tunes, like scents and smells, are always reminding us. Have you found that already, Anna?"

  The bright, youthful eyes in the old face were suddenly soft and, for the first time, Anna ceased to be afraid of the old lady.

  "Yes," she said, "I think I have."

  "For you, though," said Rick a little mockingly, "such things are bound up with aeroplanes and the great wide skies, aren't they?"

  "Aeroplanes!" snorted Mrs. Peveril disgustedly. "What nonsense are you talking, Rick? Tea is ready. You'd better come and have it. Ruth's not back—trapesing round the countryside with that veterinary person again, I shouldn't be

  surprised. You'll have to speak to her, Rick, or him, or both. I won't have it."

  She began her slow, bent progress down the passage, grumbling as she went. Rick knocked out his pipe, then, placing a firm, deliberate arm around Anna's waist, followed in his grandmother's wake.

  CHAPTER VI

  The hot weather soon returned and they took breakfast on the terrace and tea under the cedar again. The bathing parties were resumed and sometimes Ruth and Anna would spend the morning in Merrynporth, poking round the antique shops or eating winkles from the stalls on the quayside. Then Anna would see Ruth's eyes going to each car that passed, and knew she was wondering if it might be David returning to his surgery. Sometimes they did meet him, and once he invited them into his house for a cup of coffee before he set off on his rounds again.

  The house was very small and neat. A daily woman kept the place clean and provided meals, but it was plainly a bachelor establishment with no flowers or fripperies. Anna wondered if Ruth would be content here after the spaciousness of Trevallion, but watching the girl's face as she awkwardly rearranged cushions and ornaments, she decided that Trevallion, for all its advantages, probably brought little solace to Ruth.

  "Has he asked you to marry him?" she once asked shyly.

  "Not in so many words. He's rather conscious, I think, that the family wouldn't look on him with much favour," Ruth replied, then added with what, for her, must have been a great effort: "Do you think I'm imagining things, Anna? Do you think I'm—I'm chasing him?"

  "I think he's very nice, Ruth," she said. "I think he's one of the ones I spoke of whose gentleness is their strength."

  "I can't think why he bothers with me," said Ruth, "except that I'm good with animals. I could be a real help to him in his profession, you know, Anna."

  "Yes, I think you could—and in more important ways, too. You're both lonely people," said Anna.

  Were they all lonely, these Peverils, she wondered thoughtfully? David was lonely because he was shy and a stranger in a strange land, but Ruth and Alix and Mrs. Peveril and even Rick might be lonely because, though they hung together, they also pulled against one another, forcing their wdls on each other so that in the end the bond was broken.

  Mrs. Peveril, now that the visits to Merrynporth were becoming more frequent, sometimes looked down her beaky nose and made caustic comments.

  "I hope," she observed to Anna one day, "that you aren't encouraging Ruth in any foolishness."

  "We occasionady run into David Evans, if that's what you mean," Anna replied frankly.

  "This
nonsense must stop!" the old lady exclaimed autocratically. "I shall speak to Rick."

  "Why do you grudge Ruth a chance of happiness?" Anna asked. She was no longer afraid of Rick's grandmother, and in any case, when the summer ended, she would be done with them all for ever.

  Mrs. Peveril looked at her sharply.

  "You're very bold, miss," she snapped. "Has my granddaughter been complaining?"

  "You know she wouldn't," Anna replied. "Ruth must have taken it for granted for a long time that her duty lies with you and Trevallion, and if that includes dying an old maid that's all she can expect."

  "Well—upon my soul!" exclaimed the old lady, and this time she favoured Anna with a look as long and piercing as any Rick had given her. "You're taking a lot upon yourself, young woman. I never, I must confess, thought you could speak your mind in this fashion!"

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be impertinent," said Anna

  nervously, and was surprised when Mrs. Peveril gave a chuckle.

  "Don't apologize—I like you for it," she said. "We all thought that Rick had picked a ninny, but now I'm not so sure—though, mind you, I will not tolerate interference in family matters, and neither, you'll find, will Rick. Stick to your own affairs, Miss Bread-and-Butter, and leave the Peverils to get on with theirs."

  The Peverils usually got on with theirs, regardless of anybody else, reflected Anna ruefully. Alix came in and out of the house as she pleased and annexed Rick when the fancy took her. And Rick? Anna could never be sure how much Alix stid affected him. They would bicker and snap and be intolerably rude to each other, then go off amicably to swim or stride along the cliffs.

  Later, she walked to the cliffs because the evening was fine and inviting and the sea had a deceptive tranquility, and saw Rick coming out of the cowman's cottage. He sometimes called in on Alix, she knew, but today the encounter ruffled her. Alix had no business on their doorstep; she could not know the true nature of Rick's engagement, so she could only be offering her presence as an affront.

  "Hullo!" he said. "Have you come to find me?"

  "At the cottage?" retorted Anna. "I shouldn't dream of it."

  He looked down at her with a sardonic expression.

  "Wouldn't you? Why, I wonder? Or do you imagine you'd be interrupting a clandestine meeting?"

  She knew him in this mood. Whatever she might reply would sound prim and miss-ish and he would mock at her unkindly.

  "How ridiculous!" she observed with her nose in the air, and he caught her by the shoulder and turned her round to walk beside him along the top of the cliffs.

  "Now you look like a little girl about to thumb her nose at me," he said. "Are you jealous of Alix?"

  She tried to pull away from his hand, aware that she was no longer indifferent to his touch.

  "What right have I to be jealous?" she asked. "Our engagement is, after all, of no consequence."

  "Isn't it?" he said softly. "I think, perhaps, we both may be due for a surprise."

  "What do you mean?"

  He stopped suddenly, and made her face him. Except for the gulls which screamed in circles above them, they were entirely alone on the cliffs. Over Rick's shoulder, Anna could see Merrynporth lying far below in the sunlight. The hot scent of gorse was all around them.

  "Will you want to go at the end of the summer, after all?" he asked, and his fingers touched her hair, pale and soft in the evening light.

  "I don't know," she answered, striving for truth and assurance at the same time. "There's—there's a lot I shall miss, of course."

  "Does that include me?"

  "I suppose so."

  "What an unsatisfactory answer."

  He bent his head and suddenly kissed her, not provocatively and derisively as he did in front of his grandmother, but with a lingering tenderness that was unfamiliar to her.

  "No response?" he asked.

  "There's no need for any response when we're alone," she said, afraid that her eyes would give the lie to her lips.

  "You managed to forget about that the other night on the shore," he retorted, and she suddenly puded away from him.

  "How dare you come from Alix to me and expect the same —the same kindness!" she exclaimed, surprised by the rage that mounted in her.

  His eyes narrowed and lost their twinkle of amusement.

  "So you-think I make love to Alix, do you?" he said, and there was a coolness in his voice.

  "I expect so," she replied recklessly. "I see no reason, if it comes to that, why you shouldn't, only I—I refuse to become part of the overflow, that's all."

  "Indeed it isn't all!" he exclaimed and, taking her by the

  shoulders, shook her hard. "How dare you talk to me like that, you rash and ignorant child! I've told you before that Alix and her affairs are no concern of yours or mine. I could forgive your being jealous if you had any sort of fondness for me, but as things are, I can only imagine that, like most women, you want a man's undivided attention."

  "That's not true!" As a result of his shaking and her own tumultuous feelings, Anna felt the tears start to her eyes. She hit out at him blindly, understanding only too well how a Peveril could provoke the mildest opponent to violence.

  He imprisoned both her hands against his chest and the anger went out of his face.

  "What a little wild-cat!" he said mockingly. "I would never have believed such goings-on of you, Anna."

  "Because," she said, "you know nothing about me. You don't even try because—because anyone would have done as well—you said so."

  "Did I? I'm beginning to think I must have been as reckless as you over burnt boats, or bridges, that day in London."

  A plane droned slowly overhead, the sound of its engine harsh above the wash of the sea. Rick looked down at her curiously.

  "You didn't look up," he said.

  She blinked up at him uncomprehendingly, already ashamed of her outburst.

  "That plane. You always watch them. Can it be that you're forgetting your young airman so soon?"

  "Oh!" she said.

  He had both her wrists in one hand now, and with the other he gently brushed the tears from her lashes.

  "If it's safe to release you again, we'd better turn back and go home to dinner," he said, adding, as she obediendy fed into step beside him, "you absurd little creature, trying to attack someone my size! You're about as high as the centre button on my shirt and a puff of wind could blow you away!"

  As high as my heart, thought Anna, stretching to make

  herself tall, and found, before very long, that she had to run to keep up with him.

  David Evans was just leaving as they reached the house. They could see Ruth, before she was aware of them, leaning against the car, talking earnestly to the young vet. To Anna, there was something about the girl's pose which tugged at her heart and reminded her of all the hours when she herself had sought to detain Toby.

  "Ranger off his feed again?" asked Rick, his eyes on his sister with their old derision.

  "He had a thorn in his pad," Ruth answered, looking embarrassed.

  "Such things can cause festering, Mr. Peveril," David said seriously. "I think Miss Ruth did right to call me in."

  "I'm sure she did," Rick replied, with a twinkle. "Won't you come in for a drink, now you're here?"

  David, however, refused, looking as embarrassed as Ruth, and they watched his small car down the drive, Rick with an indulgent eye, Ruth with considerable awkwardness, and Anna, remembering her own recent heartache, with indignation on Ruth's behalf.

  "That's a very nice man," she said, and saw Ruth's quick look of gratitude.

  "Have I said he wasn't?" retorted Rick and clapped them both on the shoulders. "Lord—women!" he exclaimed, and, leaving them both to make what they could of that remark, went into the house.

  The first week in August was hotter than ever. Anna was glad to spend most of the day on the shore, lying in the shade of the cliffs, between dips. Thanks to Ruth's tuition, she was expert enough now
to swim in the sea itself, but when she was alone, she liked the safe pools where the water was warm and pleasant, and she could explore the deep crevices in the rocks for shells and the mysterious sea-life which lay below the surface.

  "In two days," Ruth said, on one of these occasions, "we have the party."

  "What party?" Anna asked, curling up her toes in the sun.

  "Gran's birthday, of course. Every year we have a party."

  "Is it her birthday the day after tomorrow?" Anna asked, with pleasure. "How strange—it's mine, too."

  "Really?" said Ruth, without much interest. "Well, that should make the evening better than most, shouldn't it?"

  Anna was not sure. She would like, she said, to find some small present for old Mrs. Peveril, but the fact that her own birthday occurred on the same day could not, she felt, make much difference.

  "What could I find in Merrynporth?" she asked. "And what would your grandmother like?"

  Ruth had little idea, but she was willing and anxious to drive into Merrynporth in the morning. While Anna looked round the shops, Ruth made off, she suspected, to David Evans' surgery, and was not seen again until lunch time. Anna found an old porcelain patch-box for Mrs. Peveril, remembering her liking for old-fashioned trivia. When Ruth returned, she looked flushed and surprisingly handsome.

  "Did you see David?" Anna asked as they drove back to Trevallion.

  "Yes," said Ruth briefly. "Anna—how can I manage things?"

  "You want to marry David, you mean?"