Fortune's Lead (10 page)

‘Certainly,’ I said with dignity, picked up the cases from his feet, and then realized what he had said.

‘What do you mean, not a genuine mistake? And come to that,’ I added, putting the cases down again militantly, ‘
what
did you mean when you were so atrociously rude to me this morning? Or are you always rude to—to employees? I may tell you, you have the worst manners of anyone I’ve ever met, as I thought the first time I saw you, though
then
I didn’t realize just how bad they actually were! And if I’d known I was going to have to put up with
you
banging about in the middle of the night and waking people up, I doubt if I’d ever have come!’

Attack might be a good method of defence with some people—but not, apparently, with Kevin Thurlanger. He looked down at me with as much regard as he might have given to a fly which needed swatting. I became aware that I was ruffled with sleep, and not very thoroughly dressed; and I pulled my dressing-gown more tightly around me, wondering bitterly why I couldn’t have guessed he was out here and put on something thicker. (At least this morning I had been clothed). However, I stood my ground, glaring at him, determined to have an apology out of him if it was the last thing I did.

It certainly seemed to be the last thing I saw going to get. After a pause during which he studied me scornfully, he said, ‘Quite clever. But I thought I’d made it clear enough that I saw through you. After all, as you’ve pointed out, we met before. I’ll give you credit for one thing, you aren’t scared away easily. But it won’t work, and I shall see that it doesn’t!’

‘What,’ I asked in a shaking voice, ‘are you talking about? I suppose you know? Because I certainly don’t!
What
won’t work?’

‘My dear good girl,’ he said coolly. ‘It’s one of the oldest tricks in the world, though you carried it off quite well. Do you want me to spell it out for you, so that you can see that I
do
know what you’re up to? Very well. An elderly man is alone in a first-class compartment. A young woman with a second-class ticket makes her way along the corridor, pauses and carefully arranges things, trips—by accident, of course!—over a perfectly obvious piece of luggage, and takes care while doing so to rip the lining of her coat. Lo and behold, the acquaintance is made! How convenient. A travelling companion. And the travelling companion turns out to be a wealthy widower, which was a piece of luck for you, wasn’t it—’

I had been listening in stunned silence to his version of my meeting with Henry, with the feeling that all the breath was being knocked out of me. Choking, I found my voice. ‘How—how
dare
you suggest—I’ve n
-never
been spoken to like—’

‘I don’t know what you are,’ Kevin interrupted me calmly, ‘but to find my uncle getting entangled—yet again—leads me to suppose you gave him some sob-story about being out of work, and needing a secretarial job. You could hardly say you looked poverty-stricken, but I suppose that’s part of the act. My uncle is remarkably soft-hearted. He—’

‘I never gave him a—’

‘It’s a pity for you,’ Kevin continued inexorably, ‘that he wasn’t
quite
alone when you decided to make his acquaintance. You should have waited until the train was moving. As it was, I was there, and I saw you. I also saw you trying to type this morning. So—’

‘If,’ I said furiously, determined to get a word in, ‘you were anything other than—than an idle, useless, and obviously thoroughly spoiled young man, you might be aware that people can work for a living without being able to type! Furthermore, if you think I came here to—to see what I could get out of your uncle, you’d better go to
him
and say so, instead of telling me! Though there’s really no need—I shall go to him myself,
right
now!’

‘Do,’ Kevin invited sardonically. ‘Rushing down to him in a floating negligee would fit in very well with the act—particularly at this time of night! Well, what are you waiting for? I’m sure you—’

‘Hey,’ a husky voice, filled with amusement, said from the stairs, ‘are you two fighting again? Kev, if you want to know, it was
my
fault Shah made Thunder bolt, so you needn’t go on at her! Or are you being beastly about something else? You’re making a horrible din, anyway, between you! It’s lucky Pa’s still down in the library, or he’d have had your hide off by now!’

The appearance of Essie, in pyjamas, saved me from attempting physical violence on Mr. Kevin Thurlanger. (Which was fortunate: he was undoubtedly far stronger than I was). I glared at both of them, but Esther had at least given me a valuable piece of information—Henry was still downstairs, in the library. I gave Kevin a look of the most withering scorn I could manage, whisked into my room, slammed the door, and threw on my clothes: then I came out again, hearing him as I came telling Essie to go back to bed and stop asking questions, and made for the stairs. As I ran down them, I was angrier than I had been in my whole life. How
dared
he! A thought came to me which almost brought me to a stop. Kevin’s version of the incident on the train was ridiculous—but suppose Henry had thought the same as he did? And of course, when we met again, I
had
told him I was at present out of work ... or between jobs, which came to the same thing. I glanced back—and realized that if I went upstairs again without seeing Henry, Kevin would assume he had called my bluff. So there was no use thinking it might be better to wait until morning, and then simply pack and depart. I went on down, wishing with furious misery that I had never got myself mixed up with the Thurlangers, or anyone else who led the sort of life which led them to assume that any female stranger must be—must be a ...

I entered the library with unceremonious speed, and Henry looked up in surprise as I came to an angry halt before his chair. He began to get up, saying, ‘My dear Shah—’ but I didn’t even let him begin.

‘I’ve just come down to say I shall be leaving first thing in the morning. It was very kind of you to offer me this job, but I am
not
poverty-stricken, or in need of anything at all, and I am certainly not a—a confidence trickster! So if you thought I was, I would be obliged if you’d think again!’

‘My dear child.’ Henry exclaimed distressfully, ‘what an extraordinary suggestion! How could anyone possibly think you
were
a confidence trickster? Has someone said so?’

‘Your nephew has just explained that since I can’t type, and since he saw me pick you up on the train—I s-suppose think I picked you up on the train, too—’ I was near tears of unhappy rage.

‘Good heavens, no. You didn’t make the least attempt to do so. I would have been highly complimented if you had,’ Henry said, and twinkled at me, managing to do so at the same time as looking concerned. ‘My dear Shah, please sit down, and tell me just what my atrocious nephew’s been saying to you. He must be growing more horrible every day. I should never have invited him to live here, but the estate’s entailed and he happens to be my heir. But I certainly can’t have him upsetting you like this. Please, do sit down!’

‘I shall have to go in the morning,’ I said shakily, but I did sit down. ‘He seems to think th-that you’re always getting
entangled,
or—or something—’ I realized, abruptly, that this was embarrassing ground. ‘Anyway, I can’t possibly stay, and I’d quite decided that it wasn’t the sort of job I could do anyway, so—so perhaps it’s just as well!’

‘Oh, my dear, please. If you leave now, I shall be quite desolated. You know,’ he said wickedly, ‘I did warn you that I had some entirely horrible relations. But Kevin, I can quite see, has gone too far. I shall see that he apologizes to you. As for entanglements—I really think those are my business, not his! I expect he’s referring to the time I adopted an entire operatic company which had got itself stranded. I did it mainly to annoy my sister, and it did. Very much.’ Henry grinned, then sobered. ‘But Shah, my dear, if you go away in a rage, I shall feel entirely responsible, and eternally shamed. You’ll make me feel that you believe I brought you here under false pretences. What can I do to convince you to stay? Esther likes you already, and I was hoping so much you could feel at home here. Besides,’ he said with a grim note in his voice, ‘if you go, my intolerable nephew will believe he can run my life as he chooses, which I
will
not have! Would it satisfy you if I turned him out? I offered him a home here partly because I thought it would please Esther to have young company, particularly since she was brought up with his family. However, you begin to make me feel that it was a grave mistake! Shall I send him packing?’

‘N-no—I mean ...’ He seemed quite seriously to expect me to give him an answer. ‘You—can’t send him away just because he was rude to me,’ I said uncertainly.

‘Indeed I can. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you won’t forgive us sufficiently to stay here at least a little while longer, Kevin shall depart bag and baggage tomorrow!’

He looked very much as if he meant it. Faced with Henry, I was beginning to feel fractionally less as if Thurlanger House belonged in a nightmare: he was remarkably calming. I said unsteadily, ‘I really think I should go.’

‘Please, at least reconsider it. I shall make sure Kevin gives you a full apology. He really has no excuse for his manners. He’s no credit at all to your profession, is he?’

‘To my what?’ I asked, startled.

‘Medicine. Weren’t you aware that he’s a doctor? At present he’s acting as surgeon-in-charge at the Cottage Hospital. If his diagnoses are as bad as his judgment of character, I fear he’ll never get very far! But as I told you, he’s quite boringly serious-minded. Riding that horse of his is the only frivolity he allows himself, even when he’s off duty.’ Henry cocked an eye at me. ‘You look remarkably surprised. At Kevin’s stupidity? Some doctors are stupid, I believe, when outside their own professional sphere.’

‘Oh,’ I said weakly, and remembered something. ‘I—oh dear! I just called him a-an idle and useless young man. I thought he—’

‘I’m sure he deserved whatever you called him,’ Henry said, twinkling. ‘If you’ll agree to stay—and I hope you
will
be so forgiving, because otherwise I can assure you I fully intend to throw Kevin out!—you may treat him as less than the dust beneath your feet. It should do him a great deal of good. I’ve come to the conclusion that he hasn’t come across enough people with the spirit to stand up to him. Please, Shah, do stay. I told Esther only this evening that we were planning a sociable winter, and I need you to help me make her tolerate the idea. Besides, would you—now would you, truthfully!—like to give Kevin the satisfaction of feeling he was able to scare a perfectly respectable girl like you away?’

Put like that, I could only feel that I wouldn’t. Kevin Thurlanger, I felt, needed to be taught a lesson. No doubt, in the small world of a Cottage Hospital, he had fallen into the delusion of thinking himself extremely high-and-mighty—with Thurlanger House behind him as well—and I could feel an itch to bring him down to earth. And Henry, after all, was begging me to stay...

I looked back with a feeling of unreality at Charlotte, the plainest and most serious of the daughters of the vicarage. Somehow, the remodelled version of Charlotte which had emerged from the shopping spree in Bradfield seemed to have taken me over entirely.

By the time I went back up to bed—through a thankfully empty upper corridor—I had thrown caution to the winds, and allowed Henry to persuade me to stay at least a month to give the job at Thurlanger House a fair trial.

CHAPTER V

Three weeks later, I looked back with surprise to find how fast the time had gone. It was remarkable to find how much idleness became a habit. Henry occupied my time not with work, but with showing me the countryside—getting me to drive him in my little car, and pointing out things of interest—and the rest of the time, I tried to befriend Essie (when she was in) or read, or went out for walks with Kevin’s dogs, which seemed to have taken a fancy to me. Essie and I, I was glad to find, were on amiable terms.

Amiable was hardly the word for the terms Kevin and I were on. At our first meeting after the showdown between us, he had said curtly, ‘My uncle feels I should offer you an apology.’ Since I didn’t feel capable of speaking to him at all, I had merely inclined my head coldly. He took it as an acceptance, and walked away. That was as far as the matter got, but as I wasn’t willing to raise it again with Henry, I had to let it go at that. The atmosphere which existed when Kevin was in was not as pleasant as when he was out, but despite the proximity of our living conditions we managed either to ignore one another when we happened to meet, or to keep up a scrupulous politeness which I felt on his side was deliberately designed to annoy. It was on mine, too; but somehow I always felt more ruffled than he looked, which irritated me. Unfortunately it was impossible to live in the same house, even such a large house as Thurlanger, without being forced to meet: I would see him setting off for the hospital, or down by the stables with Thunder, or pausing to talk to Mr. Mott when I was in the garden looking for late flowers to fill a vase for the library. At mealtimes, handicapped by being unable to admit my true career, I found myself avoiding descriptions of my past life while trying to indicate haughtily that it had been blameless. Altogether Kevin was a thorn in an otherwise comfortable life: his arrogant presence was difficult to forget. I hoped he found mine as annoying—and wondered if he glared at my toothbrush in the bathroom as often as I glared at his. I felt inclined to sing loudly in my morning bath to counter the noise of his electric shaver from along the passage, and had to reprove myself for being childish.

I was becoming quite well known in Tyzet. I was getting quite familiar with the sight of Michael Chace, too: I ran into him more than once on my walks, and once stopped to offer him a lift in my car when I was driving alone, since I saw him further from his cottage than he should have been considering his injured ankle. As we walked along one afternoon I was telling him of Henry’s plans: the social events I was officially employed to organize were now actually about to begin. Michael listened with interest as I strolled beside him towards his cottage from the post office where we had run into each other.

‘We’re giving a cocktail party on Saturday, and a lunch party the following week, for the point-to-point. That’s over at somewhere called Dressley, I gather—and one of those things that everybody who’s anybody goes to!’ I glanced into his thoughtful face and smiled. ‘How’s your book going?’

‘I’m still more or less playing at it,’ he said deprecatingly, and gave me one of his pleasant grins. ‘You must be putting in quite a lot of work, arranging all these parties. Mr. Thurlanger must be a sociable type—and you drive him about, too, don’t you?’

‘Sometimes. I don’t seem to do very much work,’ I admitted, thinking ruefully about Mrs. Mott’s assurances that I needn’t ‘bother my head’ over all sorts of things. The party catering was firmly in her capable hands and any interference from me was quite unnecessary. ‘I don’t feel that I do nearly enough!’

‘I’m sure you do,’ Michael said politely. He had very nice manners. He was nice-looking too, with his black hair and brown eyes: not handsome in Kevin’s style (if he had been anything in Kevin’s style, I should have disliked him on sight) but pleasant to look at, with an open face and a well-knit form. He was a fraction taller than I was, and had a kind of innocent look about him. He went on, ‘I really must start getting about a bit myself. I’d thought of suggesting you came to tea with me on Saturday, but—’

‘I’m afraid I’ll be getting ready for the party. But it was nice of you to think of it.’ I stepped aside quickly as I heard a car approaching, and put out an instinctively protective hand to Michael in case he should be caught off balance. ‘Sorry! Er—how
is
your ankle getting on?’

‘Not too badly, thanks. Was that someone you know?’ he asked innocently, turning to give me a questioning stare. ‘He seemed to peer at us rather hard as-he went by.’

I had noticed. I had also recognized Kevin’s low grey car, with its quiet but powerful engine: like everything else about him, it was forceful. ‘Mr. Thurlanger’s nephew,’ I said, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.

‘Oh, the one who lives at Thurlanger House?’ Michael said, seeming to know about Kevin even though it was a subject I had a tendency to keep off. I had talked to him about Essie, since he seemed interested in the Thurlangers and led me on to describe them. He didn’t talk much about himself—though I had gathered he was trying to decide whether to take up writing as a career or go home and run what he vaguely described as his father’s estates.

‘Yes, him. I think I’d better be getting back now. Oh, there’s no need to bother seeing me to the car.’

‘Oh, that’s all right.’ Michael limped along beside me, and opened the Mini’s door for me, leaning on it for a moment. ‘It’s a pity I haven’t got a car down here myself, or I could come up and see you some evening.’

‘Even if you had one, you couldn’t drive with that ankle, could you?’

‘No. Well, I’ll be seeing you some time,’ he said, and stood back after shutting the door for me. As I drove away, I saw him limping back in the direction of his cottage. He seemed rather solitary, despite the people in the district to whom he said he had introductions: I guessed he found his foot more incapacitating than he would have liked for getting about. Such isolation, I thought a little maternally, must be unusual for such a pleasantly friendly young man.

Kevin’s car had been heading away from Thurlanger, so it was safe to suppose I wouldn’t find him there. I drove up and left the Mini by the garage so that Ganner could put it away when he had finished polishing Henry’s Bentley, and was going towards the house when I heard my name shouted. It was Essie, over by the stables, waving at me. She seemed to want me for something, and since I wasn’t wearing anything vivid I went to see what it was. She had someone with her—a plump redheaded girl whom I had seen in the distance with Essie more than once—and introduced me.

‘Shah, this is Mamie Laidlaw. Remember I told you the Laidlaws had some quiet hacks? She’s brought one over for you to try.’

Essie had made several casual suggestions previously about my riding, but so far I had dodged them. I opened my mouth to give a firm negative, and saw Mamie Laidlaw watching me expectantly. She was regarding me with curiosity, too: I might have been a polar bear. I said pleasantly, ‘Thank you, but I haven’t got anything I could wear to ride in. And I certainly wouldn’t get into anything of yours!’

‘Ah, well, I’ve thought of that.’ Essie gave me a considering look. ‘You know how Pa keeps on saying we ought to hurry up and go to Henning to buy me something to wear for Saturday? He said only last night we were leaving it a bit late. We can leave Jimbo here—Mamie’s pop said we could keep him for a while—and go and get
me
a dress, and
you
some jeans, so that you can ride.’

I looked at Essie suspiciously. So far, each time there had been any plan of buying her any clothes, she had disappeared without warning for the whole day. It was, indeed, getting rather late to be sure of finding her something suitable before Saturday: her wardrobe seemed curiously denuded of anything at all respectable, which had surprised me until I discovered she had a habit of giving all the clothes she didn’t like to Sarah Ann, the village girl who acted as housemaid. (As a form of rebellion it was effective—and provided Sarah Ann with a vastly expensive wardrobe). I heard Mamie Laidlaw stifle a giggle. This was obviously a plot, but short of taking the unwelcome course of appealing to Henry, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Except buy myself some jeans, and agree to take a riding lesson.

‘All right, let’s go to Henning now. I’ve got the car out,’ I told Essie, meeting her eyes squarely. Inside, I was quaking at the fact that Henry had made me the arbiter of Essie’s wardrobe—but since he didn’t ask me to do much else, I could only do my best. It was lucky that Henning, a sizeable town beyond Beemondham, had developed itself into quite a smart shopping centre, so that with money no object I might at least succeed in fitting Essie out in something suitable for Saturday. Beyond that, we would have to see.

‘Can I come?’ Mamie Laidlaw asked. She had a nasal drawl of ugly proportions, though I supposed, charitably, that she couldn’t help it. I decided not to be outfaced by a teenager who was plainly hoping to see me used as a butt for comedy, and put on a pleasant smile.

‘I think you’d better not. If we’re going now we’ll have to stay in Henning for lunch. I’ll go and warn Mrs. Mott. Essie, are you coming? You’ll have to change.’

‘Okay. Mamie, leave Jimbo where he is in the far paddock, and tell Phil what he’s doing there, will you?’ Since I had accepted her challenge, Essie seemed to have decided to accept mine. She gave me a slightly mischievous look, and waited for a moment to give Mamie some more instructions before following me towards the house. I thought grimly that she had better play fair if she expected to get me up on a horse. We were supposed to get her a dress suitable for a cocktail party, and a dress we would get. This time, too, it wouldn’t go the same way as had the silk sheath ordered by Henry for his daughter from Harrods—to Sarah Ann.

Somehow Essie and I had got into a state of complicity over the things I didn’t tell Henry. It struck me, as I went into the house, that I was behaving as a kind of buffer state—and that my tendency to keep the peace between them had an almost stepmotherly air about it ... I squashed the thought quickly: I had been quite successfully forgetting the gypsy nonsense. Animals (horses and dogs); a dark man whom I shouldn’t trust (Kevin, definitely); and an older man whose name began with H, there might be; but all that didn’t give me any excuse for believing in the foolishness of a short journey with my heart’s desire at the end of it. In fact, much as I liked Henry, I couldn’t avoid the uneasy feeling that thirty years’ difference in our ages rather put him out of the running as a heart’s desire ... and living in his house for three weeks gave me no excuse for letting my imagination run away with me.

Determinedly banishing superstitious thoughts, I went to explain to Mrs. Mott about lunch, reassured myself that I had sufficient cheques to purchase anything Essie might need (Henry would reimburse me later: besides, some of the stores in Henning carried Thurlanger accounts), and collected a remarkably meek Essie from her room. She went on being meek even when I reminded her that her underwear could do with re-stocking, and was surprisingly amenable about trying things on when it came to the purchase of a dress. Being slight and beautifully proportioned, she had a wide choice of things which would fit her without alteration; and if she didn’t take much interest in my final choice (two dresses, since I had her in a good mood and might never again) she did at least keep silent in the face of an assistant who expected her to be burningly interested in fashion. When we came out of Henning’s newly fashionable boutique I looked at her curiously, and asked,

‘Don’t you really care what you’re going to wear? People are going to
see
you in them, after all!’

‘Only people I already know,’ Essie retorted practically. ‘Besides, Pa says you’ve got dress sense, or something, so you’re bound to be righter than I am. Now—’ she looked at me challengingly, ‘about those jeans you’re going to buy—for you!’

‘A bargain’s a bargain. But I’ll only keep my half if you keep yours, and don’t waste my time by giving these dresses away!’

‘All right, I’ll keep ‘em. Sar’Ann’s mum’s beginning to have doubts about her, d’you know that? Says she can’t be all she should be if she keeps getting given expensive clothes.’ Essie chuckled wickedly. ‘One thing about you, Shah, since you came you’ve learned to be as bossy as the rest of us! I wasn’t sure if you’d take the dare about riding Jimbo, but you needn’t be scared, you know—he’s as quiet as a lamb!’

We bought the jeans. Essie, I gathered, really thought she was doing me a kindness in persuading me to learn to ride; no amount of protests had so far convinced her that I preferred to view horses from a distance. Still, since she had managed to accept that as her father’s secretary I should help her choose her clothes, I would have to accept (probably) falling off a slippery beast with ignominy, in a good cause. I only hoped the ground I fell on would be soft.

An hour after we arrived back from Henning, I landed on the far from soft ground for the third and final time. Essie had insisted that I kept my half of the bargain straight away—and I had agreed, after ascertaining that Mamie had gone home, Kevin’s car wasn’t in the garage, and even Phil Mott was elsewhere. An audience, apart from Essie, I would
not
have. Jimbo had looked enormous and far from lamb-like when Essie led him up to me, but I gritted my teeth and let her help me mount. She had a remarkably strong hoist for someone of her size, and had to rescue me from going straight over the other side. Then Jimbo developed a state of boredom at my inactivity and kept putting his head down to crop the grass, which was all right until he did it at an unexpected moment. Essie assured me that her cousin Dominic said no one could do anything on a horse until they had fallen off at least once, and helped me up again. This time we managed to walk, and then trot—a tooth-jarring experience which ended when Jimbo stopped again, too suddenly, and I fell off for the second time.

At my third try I managed to stay on for longer. Lightheadedly (perhaps I was concussed) I decided that horses were better from on top of them than might be supposed: at least they couldn’t kick you or mow you down when you were in the saddle. Encouraged, I tried to obey Essie’s stream of instructions—though what she meant by getting into rhythm for a trot eluded me, and all my bones seemed to be getting detached from one another, as Jimbo bounced me inelegantly up and down. It was a fit of rashness which led me to try Essie’s suggestion to go faster, and attempt a canter. That didn’t last long—and this time when I came off I did it thoroughly. I landed on one hand, which went backwards with a sickening wrench, shooting needles of pain up my arm. In my other hand, remarkably, I still held the reins, so that Jimbo stopped obligingly and came back and nuzzled me. I remembered abruptly that horses were large, unfamiliar, unreliable beasts, with teeth—though it had to be admitted that Jimbo was blowing at me rather than biting me. As Essie arrived beside me I looked up at her, grimaced with pain, and said,