Follow a Stranger (2 page)

delighted to be dating her.”

“I can’t think why,” said Kate. “She’s the most boring girl I

ever met.”

“But she looks like a beauty queen,” said Mrs. Caulfield

with amusement, “and all the other boys are crazy about

her.”

The doorbell rang and Kate jumped up. “That will be

Peter—I’ll go.”

She opened the door and a tall, bearded young man

wandered in, smiling vaguely at her. “Hi!”

She sighed and reached up to kiss him. “Hello, darling.

Had an interesting day?”

He looked almost lively. “Yes—guess what was brought in?

Another urn fragment from the Roman fort at Lower

Greyford. And it fits perfectly! The urn is really taking shape

now. Another few pieces and I’ll have a complete second-

century urn.”

“How fascinating, darling. Like a jigsaw puzzle,” she said,

pushing him into the sitting-room.

Peter Hardy was a few years older than Kate, but looked

less, because his features were less mature. Sam had once

said that Peter looked like a Viking, talked like a professor

and hardly knew one girl from another. Blond, grey-eyed and

pleasant, he was too passionately involved with his work to

be aware of anything else.

Kate, who had fallen in love with him years ago and had

only managed to make him notice her by being continually

underfoot, often wondered if he remembered that they were

engaged to be married. Certainly he never suggested a

wedding date. But she curled up beside him on the sofa and

let him talk of Roman urns while her mind wandered to more

romantic ideas.

A few days later Miss Carter came into the music room and

introduced her to Pallas Lillitos.

Kate was taken aback to find her new pupil to be far more

adult than she had expected. She was wearing a plain black

skirt and white blouse, the usual sixth form version of the

school uniform. But she managed to invest it with a Parisian

chic which, with her sleek black hair and matt complexion,

made her look nearer twenty than sixteen.

Miss Carter left them alone together after a moment or

two, and Kate looked thoughtfully at the new girl.

“Perhaps you’d better show me what you can do,” she

suggested. “Shall we start with the violin?”

Pallas shrugged indifferently. Taking out her violin, she

played a dazzling piece of Paganini, her face remote and

austere beneath her black cap of hair.

Kate smiled at her when she had finished. She knew very

well that Pallas had chosen that particular piece in order to

startle her by her technical brilliance, and, she had to admit,

it was very clever. But there had been something lacking.

She could not quite put her finger on what that was, but she

said nothing, except to ask Pallas to sing for her.

The girl looked a little cross. Sullenly she chose a song,

Kate played the introduction on the piano, and Pallas sang.

Kate’s fingers almost halted in amazement as the clear,

sweet notes spilled out. She looked round and saw a dreamy

expression stealing into the girl’s face.

Afterwards, she closed the piano lid with a gesture of

finality. “You don’t need me to tell you that you have a very

lovely voice,” she said, smiling at Pallas. “I shall arrange for

our specialist violin teacher to come in and teach you. Your

voice is really almost beyond me. You need serious training.”

“When I am eighteen Marc will let me go to a college of

music,” said the girl. “But he has no intention of letting me

take up a professional career. So what does it matter?”

Kate leaned back and stared at her. “Why won’t he let you

become a musician?”

“He wants me to marry,” said Pallas, “as I’m sure you

know!” And her eyes bit contemptuously at Kate.

“How should I know? I’ve never met him. Why shouldn’t

you marry and still have a career?”

Pallas shrugged, without answering.

Kate waited, then changed the subject. “I’m sure Miss

Carter could arrange to have someone really good to come in

and teach you singing. Madame Liovitch lives twenty miles

away—she might accept you as a pupil.”

Pallas looked at Kate for a while, frowning. “No,” she said,

at last, “I want you to teach me.”

“Me?” Kate was absurdly touched. “My dear girl, I’m not fit

to black Madame Liovitch’s shoes. I really think you could

teach me rather than the other way around.”

Pallas smiled, with sudden and surprising charm. “I’ll take

the risk.”

“Why?” Kate asked curiously.

Pallas flushed. “I ... I like you. You seem honest.”

The friendship between them grew quickly. Kate had no real

friends on the staff, since she lived out, and Pallas found the

other girls far too schoolgirlish for her. She asked Kate about

her family, and was very amused by the descriptions of Sam,

Harry and John. “Sam’s a nut case,” Kate explained.

“What’s that?” asked Pallas, and when it was translated,

went off into peals of laughter.

Kate invited her to visit them and was touched by the

eagerness of the girl’s acceptance. It occurred to her to

wonder what the autocratic Marc Lillitos would think if he

knew that Miss Carter was encouraging his sheltered little

sister to visit an ordinary family. He sounded like a

tyrannical paterfamilias, a type which she had thought

extinct years ago.

When Pallas appeared at the Caulfield home she was

wearing a chic grey dress, pretty grey shoes which looked

hand-made and very expensive, and a very smart hat on

her black hair.

Sam, lounging on the carpet with his head on a cushion,

gazed at her as though at a very rare and peculiar animal.

Kate introduced her to the assembled family, and made

her sit down on the sofa. There was a difficult silence.

Then the twins, rarely at a loss for long, politely offered

her one of their awful jokes, and were pleased, if surprised,

when she laughed. Thus encouraged, they told a succession

of them. Pallas, conscious of Sam’s unrelenting stare,

laughed at each with as much enjoyment.

Mrs. Caulfield disappeared into the kitchen, and the

twins, drawn by the sound of cakes coming out of the oven,

drifted after her.

“Have you any younger brothers?” Sam asked pointedly.

Pallas looked round, as though amazed to find him

present, “No, but I have an older brother,” she said. “I did

have two, but one died three years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” said Kate.

Pallas said honestly, “I did not know him very well. He

lived in America. His wife still does.”

Mrs. Caulfield called Kate who, excusing herself, left the

two young people alone.

Pallas sat up very straight, her hands in her lap, like a

little girl at a grown-up tea-party. Sam lay back, staring at

the ceiling. She furtively inspected him from his red

sweater to his purple, fringed velvet trousers, then back,

with widened eyes, to the brown-red curls which fell to his

shoulders in wild abandon.

He turned his head lazily and stared back until her eyes fell

and she flushed.

“What’s with the gear?” he asked obscurely.

“I’m sorry?” She jumped and looked bewildered.

“The clothes,” he translated. “Why are you wearing that

drag?”

In a flash of temper she retorted, “I look no stranger than

you do. I couldn’t make up my mind whether you were a girl

or a boy.”

He laughed and leapt up, in one supple movement. Bending

over her, he kissed her mouth before she was aware of his

intention.

She gasped, backing away.

“Give you three guesses,” he offered wickedly.

Bright pink, she said crossly, “Don’t ever do that again!”

“Go on,” teased Sam, “you know you loved it! I bet that was

the first time you were ever kissed!”

She bit her lip in fury. Brought up in an atmosphere of

luxurious reverence, she was not accustomed to boys like

Sam. She was as sheltered as a novice from a convent

school. Sam baffled, alarmed, fascinated her.

Over the following weeks she became a fixture in the

Caulfield home. She and Kate shopped together and Pallas

bought a number of new clothes, with an eye to surprising

Sam. Jeans, bright cotton sweaters, miniskirts and flared

trousers were added to her wardrobe week by week. The

neat, Paris-made suits and dresses were pushed aside. She

flowered out into vivid colours, wild designs, and heavy,

esoteric jewellery.

Sam whistled admiringly when she arrived one day in an

emerald green dress made of silky clinging material, which

ended way above her knees, revealing long brown legs. She

looked much younger, much prettier, more alive.

‘You’re quite a little dolly,” he complimented her, and

Kate, seeing her blush scarlet, suddenly wondered if she was

wise in allowing their friendship to develop. Her family

would undoubtedly disapprove. Yet she did not have the

heart to cut Pallas out of the family. The girl was so clearly

happy. The sullen look which she had always worn at first

was never seen now. Her school work had improved

enormously since Sam made a few pointed remarks about

the dignity of labour. Sam worked very hard himself and

had no time for those who shirked.

Pallas had never enjoyed the casual, cheerful atmosphere

of an ordinary home before, and Kate suspected that if it

was taken away from her now, the girl would be twice as

unhappy.

Her interest in Sam was unfortunate, but Kate knew her

brother too well to fear any romantic entanglement. He was

level-headed, kind, ambitious. The glamour girls of his world

amused him, but he would not let himself get involved

seriously while he was still at art school, especially since he

knew that his mother and brothers would need his economic

support later.

She was convinced that she was right some weeks later

when she watched Sam and Pallas dancing to a record.

Pallas was tense, nervous, clumsy as she tried to follow him.

“You’re too uptight,” he complained. “You dance as if you

had a poker stuck up your back.”

Pallas went bright red. “You beast!” she shouted, pushing

at his chest.

Sam laughed and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Stop the

fireworks! Try it again, and put some give into it this time!”

Pallas did better this time, and Sam grinned at her,

“You’re getting the message! That was better!”

She beamed at him, her black hair loose and swinging. She

was a totally different girl from the one who had first visited

them. Today she wore bright yellow jeans, an orange sweater

with Mickey Mouse appliqued on the front, and an Egyptian

enamelled pendant which gave her an Oriental look.

They danced again, not touching each other, gyrating like

strange birds performing a ritual mating ceremony. Kate

watched, grinning. The veneer of maturity had been stripped

away from Pallas, leaving her a normal teenager.

When the music ended this time, Sam hugged Pallas, in a

friendly way. “Great, kid! You can really swing!”

And she, flushed and excited, threw her arms around him.

“Oh, Sam, do you think so?”

Kate heard the door open and glanced round, casually,

expecting to see her mother. But a tall man in the doorway,

his gaze fixed icily on the two in the middle of the room, who

were too absorbed in each other to have noticed him.

Kate recognised him. It was the man under whose car she

had almost committed suicide.

Then Pallas glanced over Sam’s shoulder, froze, and

dropped her arms as if they had suddenly developed

paralysis.

Sam turned and stared curiously at the intruder, who

stared back, his thick black brows meeting over his nose.

“Well, Pallas?” he asked coolly. “Aren’t you going to

introduce me to your ... friends?” The hesitation was

deliberate, and insulting.

A flash of intuition told Kate who this man was before

Pallas spoke, and she got up nervously.

He looked round, grey eyes hard, and studied her. Forcing

herself to look calm, she looked back, and saw a man of thirty

or so, very self-assured, his features arrogantly good-looking,

his clothes discreetly well cut. He was as dark as Pallas, his

black hair thick and straight, his skin very tanned.

Pallas came forward awkwardly, as white now as she had

been red, and falteringly introduced Kate.

Kate held out her hand, making herself smile, but Marc

Lillitos took it with a firm grip, unsmilingly.