The Youngest Bridesmaid (13 page)

“
But it must be nearly dinner time. Miss Tibby
w
ill expect—
”

“
I
’
ll have a tray sent up, and for heaven
’
s sake
,
don
’
t address the old faggot as Miss Tibby—she
’
ll only despise you the more,
”
he said, but his impatience could hardly touch her now, for her eyelids were already heavy with exhaustion.

“
Yes, of course
...”
she murmured, and barely heard the door close softly behind him.

She roused herself sufficiently to pick at the food which Tibby brought her later, but the old woman
’
s regard was so contemptuous and at the same time so triumphant at this show of weakness in the bride
that Lou made no effort to placate her.

When Piers came up after a solitary dinner made no easier by
T
ibby
’
s thinly veiled satisfaction as she waited on him, he found the door between the two rooms had been left invitingly open, and the oil-lamp still burning, but Lou herself was asleep. She slept with the untroubled abandonment of a child, one arm flung above her head, and he stood there watching her for several minutes before he blew out the lamp and went quietly to his dressing room.

III

To Lou those first days at Rune were a curious mixture of conflicting emotions. Even on the very first day she had been left alone. Piers had business on the mainland and would be back late, or possibly not until tomorrow, Tibby had told her with barely concealed malice. Lou, refreshed after a good night
’
s sleep, and more prepared to meet the old woman
’
s hostility, refused to allow dismay or disappointment to give her satisfaction. It was only polite, she thought that first morning, to propitiate and enlist Tibby
’
s aid in finding her way about her new home, but the small sop was not appreciated.
“

“
Go where you
”
like, the place isn
’
t big,
”
Tibby said repressively.
“
There
’
s no need for me to waste time showing you round.
”

Lou sighed, wishing she had not made the offer, but she was relieved all the same that she could explore the house alone. She had seldom had to deal with servants in the past, which might, she reflected, make her own approach awkward, but neither had she met with such unreasoning hostility. She wondered for the first time what the popular press had made out of the Merrick wedding which must have provided such a boundless source of copy for the gossip writers. Piers, if he had read the papers, had made no comment, but Tibby from
her remarks last night clearly had. Cinderella stuff probably, thought Lou, remembering how fond Piers was of addressing her by that absurd name, and how careful Cousin Blanche would have been to keep Melissa out of the limelight in the circumstances.

Piers
’
house, Lou found with su
r
prise, was unexpectedly simple, and his own adjectives
immediately sprang to mind as she walked from room to room. Bare and monastic, he had said with faint mockery, and it was both. Plain rush matting covered most of the floors and passages, the walls were whitewashed and naked of pictures and the furniture comfortable but sparse. It was as if, thought Lou on what seemed to be a strange voyage of discovery into another
’
s personality, Rune was not only a refuge, a small kingdom that might not be invaded, but an escape, perhaps, from the wealthy trappings to which nine-tenths of the year he must be accustomed. Only the main living room had warmth and color with its book lined walls and the stone hearth piled with glowing peat and driftwood. Here, Lou supposed, they would spend their evenings, and here with lamplight and drawn curtains she would learn to know and perhaps love this dark stranger who was now her husband.

But that dream, she reflected later when he did not return, had been premature. She dined alone, waited on by the unsmiling Tibby, and sat alone through the long evening, wondering when the launch would make harbor, listening to the unfamiliar night sounds of the island, the sea and the gulls, the occasional hoot of a ship
’
s siren, and her isolation seemed very complete.

“
Best go to bed, missis,
”
Tibby
’
s dry voice said from the doorway.
“
He
’
ll not be back tonight.
”

Lou started guiltily, aware that she had let the fire go down and the hour was past midnight.
“
You shouldn
’
t have waited up, Tibby,
”
she said, trying to sound friendly.
“
I can lock up if you tell me where the different doors are.
”

The woman laughed with disagreeable scorn.
“
Lock up on the island! We don
’
t bother with those town practices here. Who do you think would row out from the mainland to burgle the house?
”
she replied.
“
As to waiting up, it was only on account of some jobs I had to finish. I never sit up for Mr. Piers—too unpredictable in his habits. If you come now, I
’
ll light you up to bed. The lamps have been doused.
”

Lou, because she was clearly being a nuisance by lingering, followed the woman and her candle up the stairs, wondering a little at this belated act of courtesy, but when they reached her room and
Tibby stood in the doorway watching her, she knew. The bed had not been moved in from the next room.

For a moment Lou shrank from making any comment, but the woman stood there waiting, and there had to be a first time for establishing authority.

“
Why haven
’
t you had the other bed brought in, Tibby?
”
she asked quietly.

“
There
’
s been no time.
”

“
There
’
s been all day.
”

“
The men were busy,
”
Tibby said, referring to the two young islanders who helped about the house during the day.

I
t seemed strange to Lou to find young men doing the daily chores, but Tibby, Piers had said, would not tolerate another woman in the house.
“
Well, please see
that it
’
s done in the morning,
”
Lou said, remembering with slight discomfort the curious stare of the .youth who had risen dutifully to his feet when
she
had entered the kitchen; Sam something or other, possessed,
o
f inordinate good looks and clearly Tibby
’
s favorite.
“
Goodnight.
”

“
Happen Mr
.
Piers will have changed his mind by morning,
”
Tibby said slyly.
“
Don
’
t seem in a hurry to get on with his honeymooning, do
‘
e? Goodnight.
”

It was the first time she had spoken with any hint of the
Cornish accent she must have picked up since coming to Rune, and as she closed the door, Lou shivered. It had cost her an effort to assert herself, and she had, after all, come out worst. If it was obvious, she thought, that Tibby had deliberately disregarded Piers
’
orders, the fact still remained that the bridegroom was in no haste to return to his bed and his newly wedded wife.

She slept restlessly, wondering how best to greet him when he did come back to her, how best to hide her chagrin that she seemed of such little account, but when morning came she found she had almost forgotten, and was only eager to explore the island. She and her dark stranger meant little to each other w
h
en all was said and done, and there was ti
m
e and to spare
for
disquiet wen the fairy tale ended. Lou
was young and healthy, and starved, for the most part, of holiday pleasures. Now, not only had she a delicious vista of idleness stretching ahead, but a kingdom of her own to discover and learn to love. She asked Tibby to pack her a sandwich and went joyfully out into the sunshine.

It did not take long to find her way down to the tiny natural harbor where boats lay bobbing lazily and nets were spread on the rocks to dry. A small shack did duty as a general store, selling mostly paraffin and tobacco and the emergency rations which might be required in times of storm, but the needs of the island must be small, for three cottages and the house appeared to be Rune
’
s only habitations.
A cow or two and some goats provided the necessary milk for the island, she supposed, and hens scratched freely where they chose. Washing hung out in the few back yards and outside the little store a couple of old men sat in silence on a rough bench, smoking shag and staring at the sky in idle contemplation
.
Gulls wheeled and swooped or mingled amicably with the hens; there was a strong smell of fish and seaweed.

It
’
s like a toy, thought Lou, wondering how such a small community had co
m
e about in the first place, and would have liked to question the child who came out of one of the cottages to watch her. She smiled, but he only gave her a dark, suspicious stare and ran away.

She spent the day clambering over rocks, discovering caves and pools and strange, unfamiliar shells along the shore. The weather had turned unusually mild for November and it was difficult to believe that storms could ever disturb the tranquil blue of the sea. The day was so still and so bright that the mainland looked very close, and cottages and traffic moving on the road above the cliffs could clearly be seen. Rune, Lou thought with surprise, only made a pretence of being isolated; a second motor launch had been moored in the harbor, and a couple of speedboats. How strange that the sophisticated and much publicized Piers Merrick should
still be playing kin
g
-of-the-castle games, pa
y
ing, it was said, a
fantasti
c
p
rice for
a
n unproductive little piece of land which he could claim as his realm; or was it, perhaps, his own private venture into make-believe?

Diverted by a wider fissure in the rock face which looked like a passage, she saw out of the m of her eye a launch approaching the island. It cou
ld
be Piers returning, she supposed, and if she was quick she could meet him at the jetty. The passage, as it proved to be, however, was inviting and her curiosity aroused. Piers had le
f
t her without explanation her very
fi
rst day on the island, so why sho
u
ld she hurry to welcome him back?

She squeezed gingerly through the aperture, feeling at once the chill and damp of subterraneous places, splashing through pools, stumbling over hidden rocks, experiencing a small tremor of fear at the darkness and the unknown hazards which might lie ahead. Suddenly the passage widened, a spear of light split the darkness and, standing in a pool of salt water, she blinked at the extraordinary cave which, like the transformation scene in a pantomime, had suddenly opened out before her. It was a cave which even her ignorance of such things could tell had been fashioned by man as well as by nature. A great slab of stone directly under the shaft of light gave the appearance of an alt
a
r, rough carvings had been hewn in the rock walls, and the roof towered in a natural sweep to the far distant opening to the sky from where the light was coming. Stalactites hung from the rock, catching the light with incredible beauty, so man
y
of them that the place seemed alive with winking, rejected light, but the water below the altar, if altar it was, looked black and fathomless and the edges of the crater in which it lay seemed to have been crudely fashioned into some sort
’
of semblance of a vast basin.

Lou f
elt
an atavistic shiver pass through her as she stared down into the dark pool, and her wedding ring, so loose that it was always slipping oil, slid
over her cold finger and sank, with a tiny splash, beneath the evil-looking water.

For a moment she knew dismay, and a foreboding of ill fortune, then she remembered that the ring had been meant for Melissa and that ill fortune, if it came, should pass her by.