Unknown (6 page)

“Tell me about our new neighbour,” she said. “The new owner of Bucksfoot.”

“I don’t know anything about him,” Susan began, realizing even as she made the statement that it wasn’t strictly true, but how was she to tell Evelyn that Elliott’s was likely to survive while they went under? “He’s something of an enigma, I should say, coming all the way from New Zealand to start again here, in Scotland.”

Evelyn glanced up with an odd expression in
her
eyes.

“When did you first meet him?" she enquired.

“Two days ago, riding over the moor. He was trying out Bucksfoot and he came down from Hunter’s Crags as if he hadn’t a moment to spare. He crossed the road right in front of me and I had to pull up or drive straight into him. Of course/’ Susan added, “he thought it was my place to give way. He had that sort of look about him.”

“You don’t really like him, do you?” Evelyn mused.

“Arrogant men tend to repel me!”

Evelyn smiled.

“But he could ride,” she suggested.

“Yes—I suppose so. Bucksfoot isn’t an easy horse to control, even when you know all his vicious little tricks. Oh—!”

Susan was looking straight across the room and her gasp of surprise was not entirely lost on her stepmother as Evelyn’s gaze followed hers to the tall figure standing in the doorway. He was the sort of man who would attract attention anywhere, and the word Susan had just used lingered in Evelyn’s mind. Arrogant-looking men had always intrigued her, and when he came straight across to their table she smiled on him automatically. Susan was forced to introduce them.

“I’ve just been telling my stepmother that you bought Bucksfoot the other day.” She couldn’t bring herself to mention Hope’s Star. “Evelyn, this is Maxwell Elliott. He’s come to live at Fetterburn Carse.”

Her stepmother gave Maxwell Elliott a steady, probing look as she held out her hand to him.

“Welcome to the Borders,” she said gaily. “I hope you will be very happy at the Carse, Mr. Elliott. It's a lovely old house. Almost as nice as Denham,” she added with a twinkle. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to confess that I liked it equally well, would it?” she challenged.

“Not if your loyalty is in the true Denham tradition,”

he agreed, returning the warmth of her handclasp. “I’ve come up against Border loyalty on more than one occasion recently,” he added deliberately as he glanced in Susan’s direction, “but I may learn to live with it in time.”

“Which means that you intend to stay in Scotland?” Evelyn asked.

“I’ve come to work at Fetterburn,” he said briefly. “I’ve taken over the family business.”

“Won’t you sit down?” Evelyn asked, obviously finding him agreeable. “There isn’t another vacant table, and we’ve just finished. You’d better hold on to this one.”

“Thank you.”

He lowered himself into the vacant chair beside her, long legs stretched out comfortably before him, capable hands clasped loosely between his knees. A man completely without inhibitions. An arrogant man, Susan thought once more.

“How long have you been in Scotland?” Evelyn asked conversationally. “Susan thought you had just arrived.”

“I’ve been to the Carse several times in the past three years,” he explained as the waiter brought an extra cup and saucer and some fresh tea. “But never to stay for any length of time. I was interested in the mill, though, and my great-uncle liked the idea of an Elliott taking over when he was ready to go.”

Which suggested that he hadn’t bought himself into Elliott’s, after all, but had inherited it because Nathan Elliott had remained a bachelor and had no son of his own. Susan bit her lip. Their situations were almost the same, only Elliott’s was destined to survive as a family business while Denham’s would be lost if Evelyn meant to have her way and sell out or merge immediately.

“We never really knew your uncle,” her stepmother was saying as if she wanted to put their relationship on a different footing now. “His health wasn’t too good, I understand.”

“He was always something of a recluse,” Maxwell Elliott admitted. “Elderly bachelors have a reputation for that sort of thing, unfortunately, and the Carse has been neglected, I’m afraid. We hope to remedy that in time, though. My brother is joining me from New Zealand for an extended holiday, and I hope you will meet him.”

He was speaking almost exclusively to Evelyn, aware of her friendliness and the subtle charm which nobody could resist for very long, but Susan felt the strength of his own personality reaching out to her, criticising her, perhaps, for her continuing silence and the very obvious way in which she had made him seem the intruder. Pointedly she glanced at her wrist-watch.

“We really ought to go,” she reminded her stepmother. “Nellie knows how long it takes to get from the airport and she’ll begin to fuss if we’re too late.”

Evelyn looked round for her handbag and gloves.

“My stepdaughter has become a tyrant, Mr. Elliott,” she smiled. “I’m to have no will of my own. Please don’t get up,” she added. “You must finish your tea.”

The waiter brought her coat while Maxwell Elliott retrieved her gloves from underneath her chair.

“I really do need a nursemaid!” Evelyn smiled, holding out her hand again. “You’ll come to Denham House when you are ready, I hope?”

Susan, marching on ahead, didn’t hear his reply, but when she looked round in the car-park he was still with them. He had evidently paid for their tea, too, which annoyed her even more than Evelyn’s friendly approach.

Silently she installed herself in the car, waiting for her stepmother to finish her protracted leavetaking of this man who had the disturbing power of making her appear always in the wrong. Evelyn had done her best to cover up for her on this occasion, but now she was overdoing it,
wanting
to make friends with Maxwell Elliott for her own sake.

They stood together near his parked car, a big Mercedes as new as his immaculate new tweeds, and Evelyn was probably admiring it out of the comer of her eye, thinking how elegant it looked. Oh, disloyal Evelyn!

Suddenly her stepmother turned and went back towards the hotel.

“She’s forgotten something,” Maxwell Elliott said at Susan’s elbow. “Apparently I couldn’t help.”

Susan looked up at him. The sunlight was full on her face, giving him the advantage.

“Evelyn’s like that,” she said. “Incurably impulsive.”

“I take the point,” he said without smiling, “if you mean that she makes swift friendships. It must be difficult for you to understand, I guess.”

She felt rebuffed, although she would not let him see how easily he had managed to disconcert her.

“I’m not without friends,” she informed him stiffly. “I’ve lived here all my life.”

The sun glinted in her eyes, highlighting the amber flecks in them until they appeared like angry sparks, and it caught the red in her hair, the fiery colour which was neither gold nor bronze but a subtle mixture of the two, suggesting spirit and, possibly, wilfulness to the man who stood watching her.

“You’re far too intense, Susan,” he said with the deliberation she had come to expect in him. “I know how you feel about Hope’s Star, but the mare isn’t lost to you for ever. Far from it. You can come and see tier at the Carse any time you wish.”

She drew in a sharp breath of protest.

“How could I?” she exclaimed, looking beyond him for an instant to the shining new car he had just left. “But you would never understand,” she rushed on to stem the emotion in her voice at the thought of her loss. “Hope’s Star means nothing more to you than another possession—something you could buy!”

Infuriatingly, he seemed more amused than angry.

“Think about it,” he advised. “We’re not going to remain strangers for ever. Not in the circumstances.”

“I won’t come,” she told him. “I’d feel—indebted to you and I couldn’t bear that. I don’t like people feeling sorry for me. I sold Hope’s Star of my own free will and I can stand by a decision once it’s made.”

“That I can admire.” He smiled into her hostile eyes. “What made you sell the mare?”

“I couldn’t afford to keep her,” Susan answered bluntly.

“I see.” He seemed to be making some sort of calculation in that astute brain of his. “Would it help you to know that Hope’s Star is being properly cared for?”

She shot a quick glance in his direction.

“I’d expect it, if you were fond of horses,” she said. “Which I am,” he volunteered. “Does that put your mind at rest?”

“In a way.” She refused to look at him again. “Thanks for the tea. You mustn’t have finished yours. Here comes Evelyn,” she added with some relief.

“Your stepmother is one of the most interesting women I’ve ever met,” he observed while Evelyn was still beyond hearing. “She’s younger than I expected, too.”

“Expected?” Susan repeated. “But you’ve only just met—”

“She’ll tell you about it,” he said with a smile in his eyes as Evelyn joined them.

“Susan,” Evelyn said as they drove away, “I can’t for the life of me understand why you don’t like him.”

“It’s probably instinctive!”

Evelyn glanced quickly in her direction.

What can you possibly mean ?” she asked hesitatingly. “Disliking a person at first sight.”

You were antagonistic because he had bought Fergus s horse, and possibly more so when he bought Hope’s Star,” Evelyn rejoined.

“Who would blame me? He’s so casual about everything—buying our bloodstock and taking over mills! But you got on very well with him, I must say!”

“Susan, don’t let’s be cross. I’ve something to tell you. Can we pull up somewhere?” Evelyn asked.

“Round the next bend, if we must, but I can take another ‘surprise' without landing you in the ditch,” Susan answered.

“This will be a shock to you,” her stepmother told her. “I hadn’t meant to tell you till we got home, but somehow I don’t think it will keep now.”

“Now that you’ve met Maxwell Elliott, do you mean?” Susan was conscious of a cold fear settling round her heart. “What has he to do with it?”

“He made the offer for Denham’s, on behalf of his brother, I think.”

Susan was speechless. She had drawn the car into a convenient layby, but it seemed that a long, dark stretch of road still lay before her.

“I don’t believe it,” she managed at last. “I simply don’t believe it!”

“It’s true.” Evelyn looked distressed. “It was done through our London solicitors and Mr. Frear advised me to consider the offer, but I couldn’t do anything till I had seen you. I didn’t realize that Maxwell Elliott was up here, Susan, or I would have let you know sooner.”

“What difference would it have made?” Susan felt completely stunned. “I still can’t believe it,” she repeated. “It’s much too fantastic.”

“Not really, when you come to think about it,” Evelyn said with more composure. “It’s a sort of mutual merger —the Fetterburn mill and a neighbouring knitwear factory, meant to complement one another. It’s no more than we’ve been doing for years. We’ve been co-operating with Elliott’s for a very long time, matching colours and fabrics to our designs. It won’t be any different now.”

“Except that it will be Elliott’s and not Denham’s.

Evelyn, you’ve got to understand," Susan begged. “We can’t
do
this. We’d be submerging our identity; we’d be completely swallowed up by these people. We’d
be
Elliott’s!”

“You’ve got the wrong idea,” Evelyn said gently. “It wouldn’t be like that at all. They want to preserve the Denham image, and we’d still be separate names.”

“And you can accept that? You can agree to Maxwell Elliott being the boss?” Susan asked coldly.

“Why not? We are happy enough co-operating in your father’s time.”

“This is different,” Susan insisted. “We’re talking about our birthright, Evelyn—yours and mine and the baby’s. Can’t you see? Don’t you think it’s worth fighting for?”

“There’s no suggestion of a feud,” Evelyn said calmly. “Just the necessity to face a few obvious facts. In a year —perhaps two—we’re not going to be able to meet mounting competition on our own, and this would appear to be our chance. A neighbouring mill willing to finance us on the old footing of close co-operation. What more could we possibly want?”

Susan could think of so much more, but it wasn’t the kind of argument that Evelyn wanted to hear. When she had left London she had almost made up her mind about Denham’s, and now it was obvious that her meeting with Maxwell Elliott had convinced her, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that she would be wise to sell out now. She saw it as a glorious opportunity and nothing would deter her. Sentiment had no place in business, Evelyn believed, but she had also liked Maxwell Elliott as a man. From the very first moment of their meeting she had approved of him wholeheartedly, in spite of his arrogant front. Oh, false Evelyn!

“We’ll talk it all over in the morning,” Evelyn said. “You’ll see what I mean when you’ve had time to sleep on the idea, Sue. It has so many advantages for us all. We could stay at Denham House, for one thing.”

“I couldn’t,” Susan declared firmly.

“Why not?” Evelyn’s tone was sharper than she intended.

“I couldn’t work under Maxwell Elliott.”

“You wouldn’t be expected to. He’ll have more than enough on his plate at the Fetterburn mill.”

“But he would still be the boss, the overall manager. We can’t talk our way out of that one!”

“I’m so tired of talking,” Evelyn said with a little sigh. “Don’t let’s quarrel about it, Sue. As I see it, I would be providing for us all—you and me and the baby.”

“You can count me out,” Susan offered.

“No, I won’t do that,” Evelyn declared. “Sometimes you can be very stubborn, Sue. If you knew how much this really meant to me, I think you would try to see my point of view. I do care about Denham’s and I want it to survive, in case my child is a boy, if you like—another Adam Denham. Does it matter if we are part of a merger? None of us need lose our jobs.”

Susan made no reply. She felt defeated, beaten by a set of circumstances over which she had no control. Of course, they must do their best to preserve Denham’s, and if this was Evelyn’s way she must go along with it until everything was finally settled to her stepmother’s satisfaction. Because if Evelyn thought that she was agreeing solely for her benefit and against her own will she would shelve the whole idea and lose out on something she considered to be a profitable deal.