Fortune's Lead (19 page)

‘You have a fairly choice list of insults yourself. First I was idle and useless, I seem to remember, then I was—all right, all right!’ He put up a rapid hand as I opened my mouth, and Thunder, behind him, raised his head from a munching of hay to look at me reproachfully. ‘As you say, I started it. But if you knew Henry’s predilection for—No, that’s not fair, is it? I—I shouldn’t tell you that kind of thing, and besides, he’s been behaving a lot more parentally lately.’ Kevin looked down for a second: when he spoke again, his voice was curt. ‘If it’ll make for an easier atmosphere, I’ll even admit you seem to have been doing both of them good. In fact if—if it weren’t for one thing, I’ll go so far as to say that I’d be very glad to see you marry my uncle. I hope you’re satisfied with that. Now, I’d—better settle Thunder, and then we’ll look around for the best way of keeping warm—there’s plenty of loose hay up in the loft, anyway, and we can use it as blankets. We’ll have to go hungry, I’m afraid, and we can’t start any kind of fire, but we’ll just have to manage!’

He had turned away as he went on talking, and was fiddling rather unnecessarily with the hay he had put down for Thunder, leaving me without a chance to speak. I wondered, miserably, if everyone, except me, was so certain I was going to marry Henry. I also wondered what sort of night we were going to spend up in the loft with the rats. I could almost feel them running across my feet (or even my face) in the night: there seemed to be a choice of sleeping up there with rats, or down here with rats
and
Thunder ... or going outside and sleeping in the rain, which would be a sure way to die of cold. In a sudden flood of unhappiness, I found myself viewing dying of cold with equanimity, and caught myself up sharply. After a moment, hugging Kevin’s warm sweater to me and looking at his bent head as he murmured something to the horse, I tried to think of something I could say in return for his gesture (unnecessary though it might be, ‘at least I hoped so) in declaring himself willing to see me married to Henry. I swallowed, thought of something, and said in a small voice,

‘Did you know Rosalind hasn’t been asked to the dance? You—might not know. You ought to tell Henry you want her to come. I would have told you he’d left her out if you hadn’t been being so—’

‘If I wanted her to come I’d have told him so anyway. Are you trying to rearrange
all
our lives?’ Kevin asked, and walked past me to pick up another bale of straw and add it to the wall he had already built.

‘No, I’m not!’ I said, injured. ‘I just thought she was your—I mean—’

‘She’s a very nice girl,’ Kevin said coolly, ‘but she isn’t my girl-friend, if that was what you were going to say. I got dragged into this bridle-path committee of hers, that’s all.’ He gave me a sudden odd look of alertness. ‘What is it to you, Charlotte?’

‘Well, I thought you were—I certainly thought
she
was interested in
you
!’

‘If you’re trying to lay up embarrassment for me, don’t. If you’re just being tactless, don’t. By the way, why wouldn’t you go and see the Damons? They’ve asked you twice, haven’t they?’

‘I didn’t think I ought to go out when Henry was—’ I stopped, wishing suddenly that we didn’t have to keep talking about Henry. ‘You’d better have your sweater back. You’ve stopped working now, and you’ll be cold. And I’m sure you shouldn’t put that damp jacket back on again!’

‘It’s waterproof, so it’s only damp on the outside. You keep the sweater, I’m all right with this. I’m not as thin as you are. I wonder how long that torch battery’s going to last? We’d better get ourselves settled somewhere before it gives out. Hm—it sounds as if the rain’s lessening a bit—but it’s too late to be any good to
us,
though at least if it stops altogether the floods may have gone down a bit by morning.’ He glanced at me, and added, ‘Up in the loft, then. It’s the warmest—’

‘B-but the rats!’

‘I’ll keep them off you, if they start running around. They’re not likely to come near us while they can hear voices, anyway. Which are you more afraid of,’ he asked in something more like his old challenging manner, ‘them, or me?’

‘Them,’ I said firmly, feeling almost like smiling at him in the dim torch light. ‘And Thunder, of course!’

‘You needn’t be scared of him. Come and talk to him properly for a moment, and you’ll see.’

‘I—I don’t think I want to upset him, just now—’

‘Coward!’

‘I’m not, but—but I should think he dislikes me enough at the moment, for keeping him out of his warm stable!’

‘It isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known about Hobbs’ Bottom, I suppose,’ Kevin said, but he seemed to accept my unwillingness to approach his horse, and led me over towards the ladder instead. ‘Up you go. I’ll bring the torch up with us, though we’d better not run the battery out entirely in case we suddenly need it for something. No, Charlotte, there is
not
a large rat lying in wait for you at the top there, silly—
pea-goose
!—and I’ll be with you in a moment, so go on!’

He grinned as he said it, making it impossible for me to do more than give a mock-offended snort. As I climbed the ladder, I was feeling extraordinary comforted that Kevin was here with me—a feeling I looked at with some disbelief when I discovered it—but his presence was, of course, better than being left alone with the rats. A moment later he joined me, and there began a time which was amongst the most unreal of any I had spent since I arrived in Suffolk. If anyone had told me I could spend hours sitting close against Kevin Thurlanger for warmth (his idea, but a practical one) listening with interest while he talked to me about his home, his job, his life, without our quarrelling once, I would have suffered from instant disbelief. More than once, I almost told him that I was a nurse, but my promise to Henry stopped me: I did weaken and admit that my father was a Vicar,
not
a vanished drunkard, my slightly spiked admission of this making Kevin chuckle, so that I could feel his shoulder shaking behind mine. At last he said we’d better settle down for the night, and moved about making a nest in the hay for me. He switched the torch on again to do it, and then scrambled towards the ladder to go down and see if Thunder was all right.

‘Are
all
your family really so obsessed with horses?’ I asked, as he began to make his way down the ladder, and his still visible head grinned at me.

‘Complaining because I’m paying Thunder some attention now? Have I been boring you, by the way?’

‘Not in the least,’ I said truthfully, and chuckled.

‘Besides, you promised to keep talking to keep the rats away—didn’t you?’

‘So I did. I wondered why you plied me with so many questions. It was to keep me going, was it? Oh, and in answer to your question—’ his deep voice floated up from somewhere below—‘Yes, I suppose they are fairly obsessed. But aren’t most people absorbed in their jobs? My father breeds horses—on a shoestring, I might add, so if anything about
me’s
given you a contrary impression, you may forget it! Henry gave me the rather elegant car I drive because he wanted to, but I am
quite
used to a life where one doesn’t get waited on! Maybe—’ his voice was suddenly sober, ‘that’s what’s made Essie tend to rebel. She grew up in a place where everyone worked for a living, and Henry barely bothered to notice her existence until she was sixteen, except to send her. fairly useless luxury presents from time to time. Still, she seems to be settling now. As for me—well, horses are my second love. Medicine happens to be my first.’

He was silent suddenly, but I heard him moving about down below. Some moments later he came up again, quietly, and settled himself down a little way away from me. I realized abruptly that I hadn’t heard rain on the roof for quite some time: I could hear wind, but no storm. After a moment or two, wondering why I had suddenly stopped feeling sleepy when the warmth of the hay and Kevin’s closeness had previously been bringing on the beginnings of drowsiness, I listened to see if his breathing had a sleepy evenness, and then said softly, ‘Kevin?’

‘Yes?’

‘Has the rain stopped?’

‘Yes. Clearing sky and stars, now.’

‘Ought we—’

‘It’s still no use trying to get back in the dark,’ he said, shortly enough to make me feel I was keeping him awake, so I went back to silence. Until, a second later, there was a rustle somewhere, and I sat bolt upright catching my breath.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Did—did you say the rats would run about once we stopped talking?’ I asked the voice from the dark.

‘I told you, they won’t hurt you. They’re not starving, or anything like that,’ he said, but tolerantly, and I heard him move. A moment later he was disconcertingly close to me, settling down in the hay beside me. ‘There, does that make you feel safer?’

‘Y-yes ... I didn’t mean,’ I said hastily, as his arm came round me, ‘that I w-wanted you to—’

‘Don’t stiffen like that. I’ve had my arm round you most of the evening, and this is no different,’ he said drily, adding, ‘And if it’s me or the rats, I should hope you prefer me? Go to sleep, then. You really
aren’t
very sensible, Charlotte—unless it’s just your natural distrust!’

‘Yes, I am. I’m sensible Charlotte, the plain and serious-minded sister—’

‘You must be asleep, or you wouldn’t be talking such nonsense. If that describes you, your sisters must be even worse pea-gooses—’

‘Pea-geese,’ I said drowsily, letting my head rest against his shoulder, feeling sleep coming on again. His presence was a lot more comforting than it had any right to be. ‘You don’t say gooses, even when you’re insulting someone...’

He murmured something, but Thunder let out a whicker below, and anyway I was shifting a little to find the most comfortable position and the rustle of hay covered whatever he said. I knew, as the heaviness of sleep crept further over me, that I ought still to be worrying about Henry worrying about my absence—and Kevin’s absence—but Thurlanger House seemed less real than this barn, and the warmth of the man beside me, and the hay ... I would probably wake up in my bed at Thurlanger with Kevin still at enmity with me, and my last thought before I fell asleep was that it would be a pity. In fact, very sad. Very sad indeed...

I woke with a jerk to wonder where I was, what was scratching my legs, and why my pillow seemed to be breathing. It was light—an oddly dim light—and the ceiling was brown instead of white. Twisting my head round because of a soft breath against my hair, I looked up into a pair of sleepy grey eyes, open. For a long second while I looked at Kevin and he looked at me, I remembered everything, and felt an odd, confused ache inside me. It was followed by a feeling of worse confusion, and I rolled away from him—from the arm which was still round me—and put my hands to my face. My hair, I could feel, hung in tangled, unbecoming rat’s-tails, and I must look quite unbearably awful. I heard him move behind me, and scrambled, instinctively, towards the ladder.

‘It’s light,’ I said, my voice sounding stifled.
‘
We should be going. They must have been so worried ... and—and supposing somebody comes along and—’

‘Concerned about your reputation?’ Kevin said quietly behind me. He sounded fully awake now. ‘It’s—half-past six. Yes, I suppose a tractor might be along soon. Probably need something to tow your car out, anyway. The best thing to do—’ he came past me, sounding practical, and swung himself on to the top of the ladder—‘is for me to go for help, I suppose. Come on down.’

‘What—what will people say?’ I asked, peering down at him.

‘I said come on
down
!’

He sounded impatient, and as if my movements weren’t quick enough for him, as I began down the ladder he reached up and lifted me to the ground. For a second he was holding me, but I wriggled away from him quickly, and went to peer at the world outside. I could see Thunder out of the corner of my eye turning round to gaze at us, stamping his feet: for all his night in the barn, he looked as beautiful, and as unapproachable, as ever.

‘Henry will have been awfully worried. Do you think the floods will have gone down? I—I’ll just go down and see what the car looks like now. I don’t suppose it will
start,
will it?’ I was aware I was talking to keep talking, and when I heard Kevin move I thought he was
coming towards
me—but I saw him, again out of the corner of my eye, over beside Thunder, petting him and beginning to lift the saddle down from the bale over which he had hung it. ‘Did you say it was ten miles to Thurlanger from here? If you ride ahead, I can start walking—once I’ve got through the ford—’

‘Rather than be seen with me, you mean? I don’t think you need put too much on it. I’m sure Henry will understand,’ Kevin was already flinging the saddle across his horse. ‘Whoa, boy—yes, I know, but you’ll have to be groomed when you get home. The lady’s eager to be rid of us. I shouldn’t start walking, incidentally—wait here, you’ll be all right , now it’s light. I’ll—send someone back.’

‘I—I didn’t mean...’ I turned round to face him, guiltily—seeing with a sudden touch of resentment that he looked as handsome as ever despite the beginnings of a beard, and that while I felt filthy and hideous, he was capable of wearing clothes he had slept in without looking as unbecoming as I did. ‘I’m not ungrateful,’ I said crossly, ‘but it’s only sense to let everyone know we’re all right as early as possible. Isn’t it? I mean, when you consider—’