Unknown (19 page)

“Was there nothing else you spoke of?” he asked urgently.

Linda’s eyes narrowed. The most convincing lies, she had long since decided, were those that had at least a grain of truth in them.

“Yes! We were talking about Windygates—and you!” she told him.

“But you said ”

“You asked me what lies I had told her,” Linda said calmly, turning aside to take a cigarette out of a box. “And I denied that I had done any such thing! I still do! If you like, I will tell you what was said. Wait a minute! With a suspicious sort of person like you, one wants to be exact! I know they told me about this announcement, and Judith said that she was going to sell Windygates. Des asked her if she had really thought it over, because it was a pretty big step. And she said that it had been in her head some time. Ever since she had realised that it was a saleable thing. I think you put that idea into her head, didn’t you?” she asked curiously.

“If so, she had not had very long to think it over!” he said grimly.

“No? Well, then she said that you wanted to have the first refusal if she did sell.”

“And your precious brother pointed out to her that she would probably make more out of it if she auctioned it!” Charles said, breathing heavily.

“Well—” she shrugged her shoulders. “If you come to think of it, that was natural enough! After all, as her future husband, he has got to look after her interests!” Charles was silent. He had come here absolutely convinced that at last he was going to be able to get things sorted out—that Linda would admit the truth when confronted with his suspicions that had seemed so like convictions until now, and that he would be able to prove to Judith that he had never tried to cheat her or get the better of her. Now he felt farther away from the truth than ever.

He said slowly, as if to convince himself:

“When I came here, Judith hated and mistrusted me. But with the business of the foot-and-mouth disease, she was beginning to trust me—she did trust me! And then, quite suddenly, today, all that old mistrust returned. She hated me as she has never hated me before. And there must be some reason for it!”

“Possibly,” Linda agreed indifferently. “But I can’t tell you what it was! Why don’t you ask her?”

“I have done already,” he said heavily. “She swears there is nothing wrong;”

“Oh dear, Charles, you do take a lot of convincing, don’t you?” Linda said distractedly. “Ask her again! Only—do remember one thing!”

“What?”

“Well—just this. It was never Judith’s idea that you should come in the first place. You know that. Surely, in the circumstances, it would be better to accept the situation as it is for the few days that are left! Judith sails on Friday. This is Tuesday. Does it matter so very much what she thinks of you?”

Charles’s hand dropped to his side.

“More than anything else in the world,” he said quietly. “It always has!”

“Always!” Linda spoke sharply. “Do you mean you never ”

She stopped abruptly, but it was too late. Charles had read the rest of her sentence in her face. She saw the sudden loathing in it and hated him with an intensity that even Judith had never known.

“I mean,” he said deliberately, “that Judith is the only woman I have ever loved or wanted to marry. And I think you are clever enough to have known it all the time—though she never has!”

And then he was gone.

Linda clutched the back of a kitchen chair, swaying a little. That—was that! Charles might never marry Judith, but he would certainly never marry her, Linda. All her schemes had come to nothing.

Slowly she became conscious that a bell was ringing. It was the one that hung in the tea-room for visitors to summon her. Holding on to first one piece of furniture and then another, she made her way to the front of the house.

There was just one customer there. It was the American who had been so interested in seeing over the house the day that Judith had told them about Charles. She had seen him several times since—in church, in the High Street and twice when he had come in for tea. He had always been pleasant and friendly but now his face was very grave. Linda stiffened.

“How long—” she began, and stopped. Suddenly it did not matter. Nothing mattered—and the room was getting oddly dark.

She heard an exclamation. The next moment strong arms were helping her into a chair and someone was telling her to take it easy—then a glass of water was held to her lips and she drank avidly. The room cleared.

“That’s better!” a pleasant voice said cheerfully. “No, sit still! This is where I take command! I’ve shut the front door—a liberty, I’m afraid, but necessary. You are in no state to wait on people. Besides,” he sat down beside her and took her hands in his, “you are going to tell me just what is wrong—everything, right from the beginning!”

LINDA jumped to her feet, her face white with anger.

“How dare you!” she gasped. “You’re outrageous! Please go—at once!”

The American shook his head.

“I can’t do that,” he said gently. “You’re in no condition to be left. I think you’ve got to the end of your tether, you know. And—you need someone to lend you a hand. Someone who is a bit stronger than you are, perhaps.”

The strength seemed to go out of Linda’s legs and she sat down suddenly. It was so true. She had worked very hard and, with Desmond’s not too efficient help, made some sort of a living for both of them. But the years stretched ahead with no hope of relief—it would always just be hard work for very little gain. And she was very tired. More tired than she ever let herself acknowledge. Slowly she buried her face in her hands.

There was silence in the quaint little room. Then her visitor sat down beside her and suddenly, in spite of the fact that he was a stranger, his nearness brought reassurance and comfort.

“I want to tell you a bit about myself,” he began quietly. “You’ve a right to know that. My name is Carl Brand and I’m over here partly on business and partly pleasure. As far as the pleasure is concerned, I meant to tour about seeing some of your old towns—well, this is the only one I’ve seen. You see, I found something here that wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

Linda looked at him quickly.

“Yes, I mean you,” he admitted. “You’re different from any other women I’ve ever met. I just knew –"

“Please,” Linda begged, but he shook his head.

“I’ll be grateful if you’ll hear me out,” he told her, and not entirely against her will, Linda found herself listening.

“I suppose,” he went on slowly, “in this country you’d call me a self-made man. If by that you mean I started out with nothing, you’d be right. But it wasn’t all my doing. It was my mother who fought for me before I was old enough to fight myself. She was left a widow with a family of four to bring up. There was hardly any money at all, but she was determined that we should have a fair chance. Can you guess what that meant?”

“I suppose she went without things herself,” Linda said, interested in spite of herself.

“She did that,” he agreed. “But more—much more besides. She worked—she didn’t mind what she turned her hand to or how long the hours were. Sometimes she had to do things that she would have despised herself for doing if it had been just for her own gain. But it wasn’t. It was for us kids. That’s why I can never find it in my heart to blame a woman, no matter what weapons she uses to fight with. You see, the odds against her are always so heavy.”

Again Linda looked at him in that quick, enquiring way, and saw nothing but compassion and understanding in the strong, rugged face.

“I don’t suppose you are aware of it,” he went on, “but since that first visit I paid to you I’ve been living in the district. I didn’t come back to see you again before because I didn’t want to embarrass you. Besides—I wanted to find out something about you.”

Linda laughed bitterly.

“I don’t suppose you heard much to my advantage!” she remarked. “We’ve always been what 1 suppose you would feel are parasites—we’ve lived on the money that our ancestors earned, and now that is gone we squeal about our hard luck!” He did not reply immediately, and she went on savagely: “Well, go on, say it! Tell me that if we had worked half as hard as you have we’d not have been in this mess! It’s true, you know!”

He shook his head.

“No. You have had hard luck! You know,” he said slowly, “I can’t think of anything that would have felt so stable, so permanent as life did to people of your sort before the war—and even more before the first one. A big, well-built house. Well-cared-for grounds—yes, I’ve had a look at your old home. It was very easy to imagine you in that setting. And I suppose that there was an income that came in steadily. An existence that must have seemed to have the most solid foundations one could want. And then, suddenly, it was all different. I don’t suppose you ever had a moment’s anxiety until right at the end, when you found out just how bad things were?”

“Not until after my father’s death,” she admitted in a low voice. Her eyes dilated as the memory of that terrifying time came back to her. “We knew things were tight, that we should have to get rid of Brierly sooner or later. But we had no idea the house was mortgaged to the last penny. And all the money that had been raised on that and everything else besides had gone. All that we had was a few hundred pounds and this house that an old aunt had left to Mother.”

“You couldn’t have known which way to turn!” he said softly.

“We didn’t—and Mother was ill. I think, really, she began to die when Father did. It wasn’t very long, you know.”

“So then you looked round to see what you could do.” He took on the story so confidently that Linda looked amazed. He certainly had found out about her! “You, a girl who had never had to do any hard work in her life, decided to start this tea-room. And from what I hear it is a success.”

“It is,” she admitted half proudly, half anxiously. “But this is the summer, you know. There are a lot of tourists—it is mainly cars which stop here that bring us trade. I get very little support from local people. And we are making our way—doing a bit more than that, actually. But it won’t keep on. As soon as the bad weather comes—it’s inevitable that our takings will drop. And I don’t know—I can’t see—” she stopped, biting her lip, and found, to her surprise, that her hand was being held in a warm, comforting clasp.

“Easy!” said a reassuring voice. “Easy! It hasn’t happened yet!”

“But it will, it will!” she insisted, the panic that she had shut up within her for so long getting the upper hand. “And there is nobody to whom it really matters! Why should it? I never worried about other people when we had money! So that’s why—” she stopped suddenly, but once again Carl Brand finished her sentence for her.

“That’s why you decided to marry the first rich man you came across. Saxilby.”

“Oh—” the colour flamed into her face. “How did you know?”

“That you meant to marry him?” he enquired coolly. “Or that he was rich? Well, that wasn’t difficult. You see, it isn’t a common name, and yet I knew it very well. His grandfather’s name was a household word in the States, and when I met him casually one day he told me that his father was an American. The old man’s younger son who didn’t carry on with the family business. All the same, there was plenty of money for him. And it’s come to this young man. I liked him. A good type. Maybe it’s a good blend, English and American. You’d say, first go, that he is a perfect English gentleman. But then, talking, you realise that there is something more. A bit more punch, perhaps.”

“You mean because, in spite of his money, he works?” Linda asked.

“Partly that,” he admitted. “Although I can’t claim that all our young men with money see things the same way. But what I was thinking was—he’s a man that knows what he wants—and will get it.”

Linda was silent. She knew now perfectly well what Charles wanted. To be honest, she had to admit that she had known all along. Just as Charles had said. Only one woman whom he had ever loved or wanted to marry— Judith.

“And now,” went on the quiet voice, “you are going to tell me just what you did say to that little girl— Judith, isn’t it? The one who is going about looking as if her heart were broken.”

“Why should it be?” Linda asked bitterly. “She’s got everything one could want.”

“Has she?” Carl asked thoughtfully. “Now, from what I’ve pieced together, I’ve doubts about that. Her father seems to have done his best to wreck her life.”

Linda was silent. That was true, as she knew perhaps better than anyone else.

“Tell me!” he said again, and now, in spite of the kindness that was still in his voice, there was a note of command as well. And to her own surprise,' Linda found herself beginning to speak.

At last it was all told. Linda made no attempt to spare herself, and when it was all done, she sat huddled up in her chair, waiting for the verdict of a man who was almost a stranger and yet whose opinion seemed to matter more than that of any other human being she knew.

And all Carl Brand did was to nod and say quietly:

“You’ll feel better now you’ve got that off your chest!”

She looked up quickly, her lips parted, incredulous.

“And now,” he went on cheerfully, “I’m going to get a cup of tea for both of us! That’s one thing I’ve learned over here—both to enjoy tea and to make it properly! You just sit still and leave it to me!”

Linda laughed uncertainly.

“It’s absurd,” she said, but she did as she was told. She heard Carl moving about in her little kitchen, and for the first time in a very long while, so it seemed to her, she relaxed in body and mind. Someone else had taken charge, someone she could trust.

She took the opportunity of his absence to repair the damage to her make-up that her tears had caused, and when he came back into the room she was sitting at her ease in a big old Windsor chair, smiling up at him.

For a moment he paused in the doorway. His eyes were full of longing—and hope.

“That’s what a man wants when he comes home,” he said slowly. “A woman waiting for him—smiling!”

But that was the only glimpse of emotion that he showed. The next moment he was pouring out tea competently and neatly and entertaining her with amusing stories of his experiences and the mistakes he had made during his visit to England.