Welcome to Paradise (10 page)

CHAPTER NINE

IT wasn’t, after all, possible to go in to Salisbury to lunch with Richard next day, because Bernard had to go with Mr. Barrett to Marandellas to look at some young calves he was hoping to buy; and Sandra was obsessed, for the moment, with the training of the new gelding for a jumping contest next month.

So Alix telephoned as she had promised to do, and made their apologies.

“Hallo, Alix,” Richard said when she got him on the line. “Sleep well?”

“Very well, th
ank
s.”

She had, in fact, slept dreamlessly and without stirring, in spite of her earlier distress of mind. Perhaps the little talk with Richard had had something to do with it. She had cried for a little while—not quite sure what she was crying about but finding relief in letting her tears flow—then had taken a hot bath, and fallen asleep a few minutes after her head was on the pillow.

“What luck about lunch?”

She explained why it wasn’t possible, and he replied good-humouredly, “Too bad, isn’t it? But at least I’ve heard your voice. That’s something. You’ve got a charming telephone voice, Alix.”

She decided not to go into that. She said quickly, “When Sandra’s finished schooling Victor, she’s taking me out riding. On a very tame horse, I hope.”

“We’ll go out riding together this weekend.”

“Perhaps”—doubtfully. “I’m a bit of a duffer on a horse, I’m afraid. I should be quite terrified to get up on Victor, for instance.”

“Mind you don’t. I’ll be seeing you all tomorrow afternoon. Clever, wasn’t I, to wangle an invitation to Punchestown? You know why—don’t you, my sweet?” This was going altogether too far.

“Do you usually talk to girls that way when they’re engaged?” she asked repressively.

“Not usually.”

“Please
—
don’t do it now, Richard.”

His voice sounded very cheerful as he replied, “Anything you say.”

“I mean it, Richard.”

“I’m sine you do. Look, I’m afraid I’ve got to go now. I’ve a business appointment. You’ll remember, won’t you, Alix?”

Incautiously she asked, “Remember what?”

“What I told you last night.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip.

“Goodbye,” he said, and rang off.

Alix hung up the receiver. She felt at once vexed and—yes—a trifle exhilarated.

That, she reflected, seemed to be the curious effect that these Herrolds had on her. Both father and son
...

She went out, presently, to look for Sandra.

She found her in a big paddock furnished with several different kinds of jumps. There were single bars and double bars, and a gate, and a fence with a ditch beyond to represent a water jump, and one made of thick brush like a hedge.

They all looked intimidating to Alix, but Sandra and Victor just took them, as it were, in their stride.

Sandra sat the gleaming chestnut beautifully, and handled him with easy confidence.

Alix held her breath as the pair of them soared easily over one jump after another, time after time. When they had finished, and Sandra came cantering up to her, she said generously, “You were marvellous, Sandra. He is a beauty, isn’t he?”

Sandra patted Victor’s sweat-darkened neck.

“He jumps well. I think I shall be able to do something with him at the Show. Though he’ll be up against some stiff competition this year, I’m afraid.”

“Have you won lots of cups, Sandra?”

“Well—yes, a fair number.”

She spoke naturally, without mock-modesty or conceit. Alix thought, She’s a girl I could like very much, if only she’d let me.

But Sandra, though polite and sweet and agreeable, showed no sign at all of wanting really to be friends.

Alix felt that she had erected an invisible barrier between them, beyond which it was not possible to pass. She felt that Sandra didn’t want to know her better. Was it, perhaps, that she didn’t want her there at all?

Still, one had to admit that she was playing her part as hostess with skill and charm. She was doing everything that could be expected of her.

She had loaned Alix a pair of jodhpurs and some boots—which if they hadn’t quite the perfection of fit of her own, were at least comfortable and wearable.

Out in the stable yard, she had helped Alix to mount staid old Trojan, and had taken great care to see that her stirrups were correctly adjusted and that she was comfortable and ready to start. She had waited patiently while Alix walked him round the paddock, then trotted, then tried a cautious canter.

Alix was delighted to find she could manage him quite well. He seemed completely docile, and obeyed the signals she had learnt in her few riding-school lessons quite readily. She began to enjoy being up on him.

When she pulled him up Sandra smiled and said, “Like an armchair, isn’t he? You’ll be all right on old Trojan. We’ll go and get the mare, and then we’ll ride through the wattles. Follow me, will you?”

So Alix and Trojan fell in behind the chestnut. He seemed a little fidgety, but Sandra soon had him cantering smoothly along the path. Trojan cantered too, very sedately. Alix was enchanted.

Suddenly, however, Victor swerved sharply to one side. Alix gasped, afraid that Sandra would be thrown. But no. She had recovered quickly and collected him. Now she was waiting for Alix to come up with her.

“Did you see that?” she asked vexedly.

“Yes. What happened?”

“He shied. I told you that’s what his trouble was, didn’t I?”

“Did something frighten him?”

“A bit of white paper, a sugar-bag or something, fluttered across the path. I’ve noticed before—he seems to dislike white things. I’ll have to watch it.”

“It looks awfully dangerous to me,” Alix said. Sandra gave a little shrug.

“A shy is never very pleasant,” she allowed. “Still, I know what to expect. ’Ware white things. It’s something.”

At the stables she handed Victor over, and had the boy saddle the mare.

They made for a big plantation of wattles and enjoyed a splendid canter along one of its straight grassy rides, between the ranks of sweet-smelling flowering trees.

For a time Alix forgot her troubles. This was heaven. Flushed, breathless and enthusiastic, she was a little chilled when Sandra, on being thanked when they were safely back, said coolly, “I don’t suppose you’ll be quite so pleased tomorrow, when you’ve stiffened up!” Alix determined she was not going to be stiff tomorrow.

“I’ll go and have a swim in the pool now, if I may,” she said. “That should stop me from getting stiff, shouldn’t it?”

“All right. I’ll come too.”

The pool lay blue and inviting under the hot sun.

Of course, Sandra swam and dived as perfectly as she danced and rode a horse. She was exquisitely tanned too. And she looked a dream in her sleek scarlet swimsuit. When she swam under water she was like some exotic tropical fish, twisting and turning with effortless speed and grace.

Was there anything she didn’t do well and adorn? Alix wondered, not without a touch of honest envy.

Yet she didn’t obviously show off. You couldn’t, Alix thought,
resent Sandra.

She was just a girl who was lucky enough, it seemed, to have everything.

The day passed very pleasantly.

The men didn’t get back till nearly sundown; but Alix and Sandra played tennis singles in the afternoon, and Alix managed to win one set to Sandra’s three
—
which was something.

They had showered and changed into their pretty silk dresses by the time Mr. Barrett and Bernard were ready for their sundowners. All of them sat on the veranda, as usual, to watch the great fiery orb sink down in a sky splendidly banked with those big, sulphurous clouds that pile up in the west at this time of year, and with growlings of thunder and flashings of brilliant ligh
tnin
g promise rain—which, however, doesn’t yet fall.

The evening was more or less a repetition of the previous one. After dinner there was music on Sandra’s radiogram. Then, instead of dancing, Bernard ran off some coloured stills on a small projector. Stills of Sandra riding, Sandra swimming, Sandra playing tennis. Stills of
hims
elf ditto. Stills of the farm, the livestock, and of Mr. and Mrs. Barrett. The usual sort of family pictures that cause those who are featured in them to keep on saying, “Oh, yes, remember this one? It was that day we were
...
—and make those who
aren’t feel
rather out of it.

Alix felt that way—a little out of things. However, she did her best to sound pleased and amused. They were, after all, very attractive pictures—especially the ones of Sandra
...

Later on Bernard again took Alix over to her cottage. He stayed for a little while chatting; and before he left, he again kissed her goodnight.

Again he had said nothing that he mightn’t have said to any casual acquaintance. Again his kiss was the lightest and least emotional of contacts.

Alix was beginning to feel desperate.

Why didn’t he say something to the point?

Why did he go out of his way to avoid any intimate talk?

Had he, perhaps, made up his mind that he must leave this to her? That having asked her to marry him, he must go through with it, unless she herself—having had the good sense to see that it wasn’t going to be any good—offered
him
back his promise and his ring?

If only I had someone to talk to about it, advise me what to do, Alix thought. If only I had Aunt Drusilla with me—what a comfort she would be
...

Aunt Drusilla had said she could either let Bernard go—or she could put up a fight to keep him. It all depended on how much he meant to her.

That, of course, was the question. Had she been asked to state now, in words of one syllable, her present feelings for Bernard—apart from a not unnatural exasperation—Alix thought she would hardly know what to say.

She
had
loved him very dearly.

And he was still the same Bernard she had loved
—
plus that something else that could only be for the better, that maturity she had noticed at their meeting at the airport.

So there was no reason why he should mean less to her than he had done when they became engaged. No reason, that is, so far as she herself was concerned.

If there was no longer much rapport between them
—
and she was sadly afraid there wasn’t—the fault lay in Bernard, not in herself.

Though perhaps
fault
wasn’t the fair word. Perhaps it was simply that Bernard had grown up; and growing up, had grown out of her.

Could she really be surprised at that, now that she had met Sandra?

So what now?

What to
do?

She shuddered away from being the one to open up, point-blank, the subject of their future relations.

However well she did it, it was bound to lead to a scene.

And above all, Alix dreaded scenes.

It wasn’t that her character was weak. She could stand up for herself on occasion; and she could do, against opposition, what she believed to be right.

But she couldn’t see herself deliberately asking Bernard if he no longer loved her; if he would like her to go away and leave him free.

It would be crude; too embarrassing; too
...
oh,
impossible.
Not her sort of
thin
g at all.

She decided she must wait a little. Perhaps some time during the weekend, when Richard would be here and they could split up now and again into twosomes, she and Bernard would have some time together, and he would really let her know what was in his heart. Or perhaps, somehow, she herself would get a lead
...

Meantime she must try to be natural and amiable and gay—as she normally was. She mustn’t let anyone guess that she was feeling miserably anxious, unwanted, and alone.

She didn’t think anyone
would
guess—unless it was the old grandmama whose bright beady eyes saw, she suspected, a good deal more of each one of them than lay on the surface for everyone to see.

She must be careful how she looked and spoke and behaved when the old grandmama was around
...

Richard arrived at Punchestown in a hired car in time for tea on Saturday afternoon.

Alix felt a warm glow of pleasure as he jumped out and came striding up the veranda steps. She had a feeling that now he was here, everything would miraculously be all right. She didn’t try to explain this feeling to herself. She simply basked in it.

It was plain that the elder Barretts were as pleased to see him as she was herself.

“Man, this is like old times,” Mr. Barrett said contentedly, his hand on Richard’s shoulder.

“It’s grand to be here again,” Richard told him. “You’ll be seeing a lot of me, I warn you, when I come back to Salisbury to work.”