Then She Fled Me (15 page)

“
Good morning. I hope you feel more rested.
”

“
Oh, perfectly,
”
she said, looking surprised.
“
I
’
m never tired.
”

“
H
’
m. You were pretty whacked last night, or was that principally from wrestling with those outlandish
‘
half
’
pennies? Come and sit down. I
w
ant to talk to you.
”

She sat in the old rocker which had been No
ni
e
’
s sewing chair and clasped her hands nervously in her lap, but he continued to stand.

“
You asked me last night if I was going to leave,
”
he said.
“
At that point I hadn
’
t quite made up my mind. My weekly cheque makes quite a considerable difference to you, doesn
’
t it, Sarah?
”

She felt herself flushing.

“
Well, yes it does,
”
she replied.

“
Do you think you
’
d let my room easily at this time of year if I went?
”

She shook her head dumbly, then said with a rush:

“
I did offer to reduce the rent.
”

He smiled faintly.

“
So you did, and your sister offered to read to me. Well, I
’
ve decided to stay, but on my own terms. If the proposition doesn
’
t appeal to you you have only to say so and I
’
ll make other arrangements.
”

She began to rock in the chair with increasing violence and her chin went up.

“
What are your terms, Mr. Flint?
”
she asked.

“
First of all, I must insist on being the only paying guest in the house while I
’
m here,
”
he said unexpectedly.
“
Second, the question of regular hours must be more strictly attended to, and third, the piano must be moved to another room; I cannot stand any more of
The Merry Peasant.
That
’
s a
ll
,
think.
”

Sarah stared at him speechlessly, and he turned back to the window and resumed his preoccupation with the lough.

“
Naturally I expect to compensate you for such restrictions. I
’
m prepared to take on Miss Dearlove
’
s room and this at ten guineas a week. If I sleep in one and use the other as a sitting room that will obviate the inconveniences when Mary is erratic in her cleaning hours. I
’
m of course also prepared to continue paying the extra two guineas for meals served in my room—twelve guineas in all, and I buy my own whisky. How does that strike you?
”

She did not answer, and he turned to look at her. She was sitting bolt upright in the rocking chair and tears were pouring down her face.

“
My dear child!
”
he exclaimed impatiently.
“
There
’
s no need to get upset. If you don
’
t care for the idea you have only to say so.
”

“
It isn
’
t that I don
’
t care for it,
”
she said.
“
But it
’
s far too much for what we can give you.
”

His eyebrows went up.

“
Oh, I don
’
t
think
so. After all I get two ro
o
ms and no disturbance from outside sources.
”

“
It
’
s not that, either,
”
she wep
t.

“
Well, what is it, then?
”

“
It
’
s the relief,
”
she said and wept anew.

He left the window and came and stood before her, his hands in his pockets, looking down at her.
”

“
What a strange creature you are,
”
he said.
“
Then I take it you aren
’
t averse to my proposal.
”

She looked up at him, blinking back the tears.

“
Did Kathy ask you to stay?
”
she said.

“
Yes, I think she did in her tentative way
—”

“
I
’
m glad you will,
”
she said.
“
Not only because we need someone, but because
—”

“
Well?
”

“
I
’
m glad you
’
re staying, and Kathy will be,
too, and Aunt Em, and you
’
re very welcome to our whisky.
”

He thought of Kathy pleading with her hyacinth blue eyes, and saying:
“
For Sarah, the money means Dun Rury, but for me—it would make me very happy, Mr. Flint, if you would stop with us. You—you are the only person here who talks my language,
”
and he looked at Sarah, blinking back the tears, trying to smile at him, and remembered the tired little girl of last night, counting on her fingers and telling him that St. Patrick was a great boy for miracles.

“
Well, then, that
’
s settled,
”
he said briskly.
“
Now, my dear child, do get that piano shifted as soon as possible. I really can
’
t stand these thumpings any longer.
”

She leapt out of the chair and out of the room in one swift movement, and he heard her running down the stairs calling as she went:
“
Kathy
...
Kathy
...
he
’
s staying
...
”
He turned and surveyed the room with its nursery wallpaper, its odd pieces of furniture, and its queer air of comfort despite everything. He was committed, and he was not really sorry. He could not possibly have left her to all those halfpennies alone.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

As October drew to a close, Dun Rury settled into its winter routine. Turf fires burned in all the rooms, the lamps were lighted at teatime, and Aunt Em wore her woollen mittens and complained of rheumatism.

To Adrian, solitary and undisturbed in the nursery, the life of the house became known to him through his windows. He would watch Danny start out for school, bumping down the drive on his old bicycle, then Sarah, running across the grass to the stables, and jumping the ha-ha on her return, her black hair flying. Sometimes Aunt Em could be seen bustling vaguely down the drive, a basket on her arm, bound on a mission of charity, sometimes Kathy would li
n
ger on the terrace, a book tucked under her arm, her exquisite face turned in contemplation of Slieve Rury, the lovely mountain which had begun to attract his own eyes.

Of his own thoughts and feelings at that time he was uncertain. There were days when meals were late and sometimes cold, and small requests forgotten or ignored, when he cursed himself for a philanthropic fool for remaining. Yet he knew there was more to his action than that. Despite the inconveniences, and the manifest absurdity of such a family running a business at all, there was something about Dun Rury that held him. After the months of struggle with himself, the hopes, the doubts, the final battle for acceptance, there was a strange tenderness about this
corner
of the west of Ireland. Dun Rury in its isolation held for him the beginnings of peace of mind and the knowledge that Adrian Flint; the pianist, was no longer impatient, but Adrian Flint, the man, had much to learn.

He took to going for regular walks and felt the better for it. Neither Kathy nor Sarah offered to go with him and he was grateful to them for their lack of interest in where he went. He explored the road east towards Kibeen, and west towards Knockferry, but he did not leave it yet for the mountain paths which Sarah knew so intimately.

The bed had been moved from the nursery, and he slept now in Miss Dearlove
’
s old room opposite. He had asked for another small table and a cupboard in which to keep hi
s
records and papers, and he had become very fond of the
nursery, with its hotch-potch of furniture, its nursery rhymes running round the walls and the morning sunlight flooding across the faded carpet. He began to picture the two sisters as children, playing with their bricks and their dolls while Nonie sewed by the fire and averted quarrel.

But perhaps they had not quarrelled. Certainly they never quarrelled now, and perhaps the child Sarah had always yielded to Kathy
’
s gentleness and fought her
ow
n s
mall
battles alone.

They took to dropping in on him at rare intervals, though they never stopped long. Aunt Em would
take h
is socks for darning, Kathy would bring flowers for his room and stay to listen to a record, and even Danny would knock and put his head round the door to enquire if Adrian would care for a bull
’
s-eye. Only Sarah never came. She would stand under his window and shout up at him that she was going
to
Knockferry and did he want a lift, or she was going to the other side and did he want anything from Casey
’
s, but she never intruded on the nursery unless he specially asked for her, and he found himself detaining her when she brought up his nightly supper tray, asking questions about the day
’
s happenings, frowning on her when she looked tired.

But it was from Nonie he learnt most about them. She would sometimes bring his lunch up instead of Mary, and she was always willing to stand gossiping while he ate, her faded eyes roving possessively about the room as if she still considered it her domain. It was from Nonie he heard the accounts of Sarah s previous efforts at making money, of Joe
’
s long devotion to Kathy, of Danny
’
s birth which had cost his mother her life, of Dun Rury
’
s forgotten glory when there were servants in the house and fine horses in the stable; and it was from Nonie that he learned what the young Sarah had felt for her father.

“
Proud of him she was, an
’
ready to put out her two eyes for him at the drop of his hat. He loved her, of course, but when the mistress died his heart turned to Miss Kathy.
She
w
as so like her mother, you see, sir, and who could be
a more loving
child with her pretty, gentle ways an
’
the race of an angel on her. But my heart sometimes bled for Miss Sarah. He would look at her, puzzled-like and call her his changeling which as everyone knows is a wicked thing to say for the fairy child has no soul, but that was the way of it. He
’
d call for Miss Kathy when he had company and forget Miss Sarah, but it was that wan that grieved when he died, God rest his soul. Miss Sarah had pride but she had no vanity.
”

“
So he left her Dun Rury as compensation,
”
Adrian said.

“
He left her Dun Rury because she was the only wan who shared his love of the place an
’
in his heart he knew it,
”
Nonie replied.
“
As to compensation, well, I
’
d not be knowin
’
. I think she sees her father in the place an
’
if that
’
s good or
bad I don
’
t know and that
’
s the truth of it. Doing man
’
s work in the fields, wearin
’
trousers, with Tom Blake, the veterinary with one eye on a sick cow an
’
the other on Miss Sarah
’
s figger, what life is that for
a young girl, I should
li
ke to know? Miss Kathy knows her station. You won
’
t catch her wearin
’
trousers an
’
carryin
’
coals and the like. Och, it was a sad thing the mistress died before her girls grew up.
”

Adrian wondered. He thought of his own mother, troubling so little to understand him, and of his father in the last years of his life, choleric, fretful, impatient of anything out
s
ide hi
s
own little narrow orbit. Neither of his parents had ever inspired him with that passionate fondness Sarah had known, and later he had been too much absorbed with his profession for other affections to take its place.

By November he had taken to having his Sunday lunch downstairs. Mary did not come on Sundays and Sarah or Kathy had to help Nonie in the kitchen. It would save work, he said, if he ate with the family. They had gone back to their habit of taking their meals in the old servants
’
hall, but
o
n Sundays they used the dining room. Kathy looked forward to these occasions. She liked to put on her best dress and sit at the head of the table as she had done after their mother died, and talk to Adrian as though he was her invited guest. Sometimes Joe came over for the day, and she would divide her attentions between the two, playing the part of gracious hostess with so much enjoyment that both men were amused.

Sometimes Adrian would sit by the snug fire with Kathy for half an hour while Joe and Sarah lent a hand with the
washing-up, sometimes they would stroll round the garden with Danny running ahead, playing some game of his own, but more often he went straight to his room and the small social contact was broken for another week. But with Kathy he grew indulgent. He answered her shy questions about his foreign tours patiently, gave her advice on how to deal with her pupils
’
faults in execution, and even listened to her quoting poetry with courteous attention.

“
You know,
”
Kathy confided to Sarah,
“
Adrian
’
s a very charming man.
”

“
Adrian?
”
Sarah looked surprised.

“
He asked me to call him by his Christian name. After all he calls us by ours. It
’
s so satisfying, Sarah, to be able to talk to someone who speaks your own language.
”

“
Yes, darling, I
’
m sure it must be,
”
Sarah answered absently. It was nice, she thought, of Mr. Flint to indulge Kathy
’
s charming little affectations. She would have expected him to snub someone whose knowledge of his own subject was so superficial, but then one did not snub people like Kathy. One listened with tolerance and one was charmed and perhaps a little flattered.

“
I
’
m glad he came,
”
Kathy was saying softly.
“P
erhaps we were meant to—to help him.
”

Sarah kissed her quickly. Dear Kathy, she thought with loving fondness, she had a tender heart for anyone in distress and Adrian would indeed be a monster if he could not find some measure of compensation in her regard for him.

“
Perhaps
you
are,
”
she said gently, then giggled.
“
Next time the bath water
’
s cold, I
’
ll send you to apologize.

One day he surprised her by asking her if she would take him to St. Patrick’s Well.

“Kathy will take you,” she said.

He looked amused.