Fortune's Lead (17 page)

‘Another bargain?’

‘Sort of. You have to be careful making bargains with Pa,’ she said cheerfully, ‘but I’ve dropped a hint or two! Dominic would have been back in the saddle by now, I’ll tell you, but
he
doesn’t have to sit around and be coddled!’

‘You don’t sit around. You’re always off somewhere or other.’ I tried not to sound wistful: after all it wasn’t my job to be always off somewhere or other, neither would I have felt particularly at home amongst Essie’s group of friends and admirers. Casually, because I was curious, I asked,’ Is Michael still driving you around? I—noticed he wasn’t there when the others came up yesterday afternoon.’

‘Oh, your friend Michael?’

‘
Not
my—’

‘All right,’ Essie said, but she gave me an odd look.

‘Pa doesn’t like him too much—nor does old Tom Laidlaw, funnily enough, I don’t know why
he
shouldn’t, but he snubbed him a bit last time we were over there. Still, the Laidlaws are a cliquey lot. Oh,
I
know what I was supposed to remember, while we’re in Henning. Pa said you were to have a new dress too for the dance. It’s no use looking like that, Shah, he did! He gave me a cheque, too, and told me I was to see you spent it. And if you’re going to object, I
will
make that a bargain—if you don’t dress up, I won’t.’

‘He didn’t say anything to me—’

‘That was because he knew I could handle you,’ Essie said, regarding me with eyes dancing. ‘What with shutting the door on your boy-friends, and insisting on dressing you, you might almost think he had intentions! No, I was only teasing, honest—but if you
won’t
buy a dress you’ll spoil everything, because I promised Pa I’d make you! And I don’t want to put him in a fuss just now, so you’d better do it, or I’ll refuse to wear anything decent myself, I swear I will!’

She was quite capable of carrying out any threat, and we could hardly stand stock still in the middle of Henning arguing it out, so I went with her helplessly. She even displayed more interest in what I was to wear than she ever had in anything for herself—which might have shown that I was succeeding in making her more clothes-conscious, or might just have been part of a plot to keep her father sweet so that he would let her ride again. I hoped, fervently, that it wasn’t her way of indicating a willingness to have me for a stepmother—and all my confusions crowded in again. Henry was a very nice man: I liked him, and he was charming company. On the other hand ... It was no use going into a panic about what was on the other hand because of a teasing remark from Essie, nor to feel that I had landed myself in a situation which was getting too much for me. I could only hope, as Essie showed signs of an inherited good taste by picking out the most expensive dress in the shop, that this was nothing but a manoeuvre on Henry’s part to make his daughter more aware of what people did and didn’t wear at a formal country-house dance. She was making me feel even more helpless as she commanded me to try things on, eyed them with unusual attention, and organized me into purchasing a very beautiful, and becoming, sea-green dress with a long, sweeping skirt. Her behaviour made me realize that she could quite capably be left to grow up on her own now without any help from me—if only two-thirds of the Thurlanger family hadn’t adopted the habit of making me feel obliged to stay.

When I thanked Henry for the dress I found myself blushing, but he waved thanks away with the assurance that I was getting nothing more than I deserved. In Kevin’s absence, we seemed like nothing so much as a united and happy family—a fact which kept giving me a wild sense of unreality. I tried my best to see Henry’s treatment of me as paternal and almost succeeded in persuading myself that it was. I threw myself into the preparations for the dance—about which I kept failing to feel any kind of excitement—and tried to ignore the cold feeling I had every time Kevin stepped silently out of my way, or went back into his room as I came into our shared passage, or addressed me at meals with a kind of impersonal civility. It was just that I had grown used to his propinquity—and there must be a flaw in my character which made me want to throw things at him when he was behaving with unexceptional quietness. I must have been crazy to feel that I would almost rather have been quarrelling with him...

I took myself out for long drives when there was nothing to do in the house. The weather was too stormy for walking, and even Bess and Royal couldn’t tempt me into gumboots to splash through fields and wet woods. Henry was still tolerating the presence of the dogs in the house, and they were apt to sit on my feet unless Kevin was there, when they would go to him immediately to have their ears pulled in a casual caress. As I drove round the countryside I caught myself wondering about Kevin: what kind of doctor he was, whether he was good at his job, whether he intended to stay at the Cottage Hospital near Thurlanger for ever. Never having seen him at work, I tried to imagine how he looked, and behaved, with his patients, or in an operating theatre. When I found myself doing it, I decided crossly that it was simply a reflection of the fact that I missed working in a hospital myself. That led me on to other thoughts. Gypsy Rose, for example, who would keep coming into my mind at very inopportune moments. Would I ever have come here if I hadn’t been so credulous about having my fortune told? I remembered my fourth wish, to be happy, and decided that I wasn’t, so that ruled out all the rest: a satisfactory and yet unsatisfactory conclusion ... If I set my mind to it, I thought moodily, I ought to be able to be happy amidst all this luxury and comfort—then I pulled myself up sharply: there I went again, believing in all that superstitious nonsense, when all it really inspired in me was a feeling of shame—and unease. There was also guilt for letting myself think along such lines, which was one reason why I kept taking myself out of the house, with the feeling that things were getting far too involved.

It was two days before the dance when I took myself out yet again and gave myself a lecture on reading too much into ordinarily friendly, paternal behaviour. Being confined to the house by rain was making me imaginative. The fact that Kevin was having a day off, of course, had nothing to do with my decision to get out of the house at all costs after lunch, but I invented an urgent errand and drove away with a feeling of relief. The rain had let up temporarily, but it came down again in sheets after a while, and I began to wonder if I would lose my way amongst the winding lanes. I had explored the countryside fairly thoroughly by now, but the rivers were swollen with floodwater which blocked lanes and sent me taking different turnings from usual: the early dark would be coming down soon, and I ought really to find my way back to Thurlanger. I turned into yet another lane, and saw water ahead of me, but this time there was a notice which said ‘Ford’ and it looked familiar. After the ford there would be a turning I remembered, surely ... I drove into it, found the water startlingly deep, pressed my foot down hard on the accelerator as brown mud began to swirl alarmingly almost half-way up the doors, and decided hastily that I had better reverse out instead. At once, the engine stalled.

Several attempts on the starter produced no result at all. I cursed my foolishness, and tried again—but the unsympathetic weather chose that moment to bring the rain down even harder, and I began to have a worried feeling that the river I was in the middle of was going to rise to alarming heights. If I couldn’t start the car I had better get out of it while I could. It was a struggle already to get the door open, and I was beginning to panic before I managed it, letting in a cold, dirty flood to wash round me. I scrambled out into waist-high water and pouring rain, and waded quickly for the nearest bank. Surely only a maniac would put up a notice that said Ford just here: this was a full-scale
river
—and a river which had burst its banks somewhere, or something, by the way the flood of it was increasing every moment.

I had left my scarf in the car: I could see it on the shelf in front of the steering wheel. My hair was already dripping wet, so I felt even less inclined to risk drowning to go back for it. I had at least managed to get the car door shut again so that the river on the outside wasn’t on the inside too—or not too much of it. Now I would have to leave the car where it was and make for Thurlanger on foot. In
this
weather! I felt like crying, but that wasn’t very useful, so I turned my back on the Mini and set off to trudge—squelch—along the lane beyond the so-called Ford. After a hundred yards, I came to a place where the lane dipped again—into another river—and this one looked almost as deep as the last one. Besides, I realized with dismay, I didn’t actually know where on earth I
was.

Perhaps I would be able to see if only the rain would let up a little. Peering from side to side, I saw an ominously flooded field one way, but rising ground beyond the hedge on the other side of the lane. I decided to go up there and see if I could see anything more from the higher level. No one but me, I thought bitterly, would have been fool enough to go out this afternoon—even if there
had
been a brief break in the clouds when I set off—so it was useless to stand here and hope for rescue. Perhaps there would be a farm ... I saw a building ahead of me up the hill, made for it thankfully, and found myself looking at a large barn. It had an open front, but the inner depths of it looked dry. Temptingly so. With resolution, I made myself walk beyond the barn, but the ground at once started dropping again, and through the driving rain now going into my eyes and down my neck, I could see the gleam of floods ahead of me again. I seemed to be
surrounded
by water. And the clouds were dark enough already, but dusk must be coming. If I went stumbling through that lot, I would probably get benighted in a field—if I didn’t step into something deep, and drown.

I fled back to the barn. At least in its shelter I might be able to think of something. Perhaps the rain might even stop (perhaps pigs might fly), the rivers go down, my car start again, the whole situation turn out to be a bad dream. I wondered, shivering miserably, how late it would be before I was missed. Moving further into shelter, I leaned against the square scratchiness of a pile of baled straw, and wondered bitterly why someone like me, town-born and town-bred, had ever ventured into the country to start with. Gypsies—bah! If Gipsy Rose had foreseen my death from pneumonia, she might at least have warned me. It seemed to be getting duskier outside every minute, and perhaps I had better try to go back to the car, and wade (swim) back through that river to my original side, and try to find my way from there. At least if I was on a road I might meet someone...

Ten minutes later, while I was still standing in the barn trying to decide what to do, I heard a shout. Then a second—and as I came stumbling out from shelter, I realized it was my name being called. With an effort I tried to shout back, though my voice came out as a squeak; and the deep male voice which went on shouting ‘Charlotte!’ was recognizable, too. A moment later as I staggered down the hill I could see him through the dusk and downpour—Kevin, as wet as I was, on the great black form of Thunder. As I managed to call out audibly he turned the horse and came towards me through the gate I had found, and I was even glad to see these two—though I backed away quickly as the horse came right up to me, looking huge and none too good-tempered. Kevin was down off his back as they reached me, and caught hold of me in the strong grip of one arm.

‘Thank God you’re all right! What the hell did you drive into Hobbs’ Bottom for?—it’s always too full to get through in this weather!’

‘How w-was I expected to know that?’ I demanded—weakly, and through chattering teeth.

‘Come on, into the barn. You’re dripping. Thank goodness you had the sense to get out and come up here—I thought for a minute you were still in there, and the river’s rising all the time.’ Kevin sounded less than amused as he hustled me back to shelter—in fact, downright bad-tempered. I was caught between relief at being found, dismay at the closeness of Thunder whose flank was practically bumping me, and the desire to cry with annoyance that it had to be Kevin who found me in this foolish situation.

‘Did—did you come out to look for me? I’m sorry if—’

‘I was on my way home. After getting caught in the storm because I was stupid enough to decide it was fine enough to come out after all,’ he said curtly. ‘It’s pure luck I came this way—in fact I wouldn’t have if I’d known the floods were up so high, I’ve been picking my way through rising water for the last couple of miles. Steady boy, it’s only Charlotte.’

‘Only Charlotte’ was cringing as Thunder let out a restless snicker. The barn was wide, but even so I would have been glad to have been in less close proximity to a beast of Thunder’s size and strength. He rolled an eye at me, but his owner’s soothing voice reassured him and he dropped his head to blow at a few pieces of loose straw on the ground. Through the gloom, I could see that the black, sleek neck was wet, beginning to steam; and Kevin’s brown hair was plastered against his head. My own was a mass of dripping rats’-tails, and I was muddy to the waist from my immersion in the river. Having quieted his horse, Kevin glanced across at me (keeping my distance) and opened his mouth to say something, then looked out at the still-pouring rain.

‘Now we have the question of how we’re going to get home, don’t we?’ He sounded impersonal, standing frowning out at the weather. ‘You wouldn’t know how high the other ford is, would you? We only just got through Hobbs’ Bottom.’

‘It l-looked pretty deep. And there are floods down the other side of the hill, too—I looked.’