Child Friday (6 page)

Not you,
she thought with sudden anger, and with that disconcerting trick he often had a discerning a mood, he added:

“You are thinking that affection is a commodity I, personally, have no use for, aren’t you, Emily? I must remind you that what one cannot have one must learn to do without.”

“And deny it to others?” she asked quickly.
“
If you’re thinking of Alice, I should have thought it was plain that she wanted nothing of me. Ben brought her up to be self-contained, like himself. It’s an admirable lesson to learn when young.”

He spoke with his old bitterness and Emily said with gentleness:

“I think you have your values confused, Mr. Merritt. Alice is too young to learn that sort of lesson. Mr. Carey may have been old and a recluse, but you are different.”

“Do you think so? It isn’t necessarily old age or a bad digestion that drives one into seclusion, you know. Ben knew that when he died and unexpectedly left me all his property. I was poor and my work curtailed and badly handicapped by an unfortunate infirmity. Also there were other matters with which he had knowledge and
s
ympathy.”

Emily, because such a denial of life made her angry, said without thinking:

“Were you, too, crossed in love?”

In the silence that fell between them, she became vividly conscious of her own temerity. She remembered that both Miss Pink and Shorty had hinted at a love affair which had gone awry as a result of Dane’s accident, and she realized to the full that as a paid employee her personal views were merely impertinent when voiced unasked.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered wretchedly. “That was unpardonable.”

He was looking across at her in the firelight as if he could actually observe the confusion in her face.

“Yes, it was, wasn’t it?” he observed quietly. “However, since I hope you may still consider stopping on here, no doubt you have a right to your opinions. Yes, my dear Emily, among other things I was crossed in love as you so, elegantly put it, but don’t let that trouble you. Incidentally, from one of your remarks at our first interview, I rather had the impression that something of the sort had come your way.”

Emily thought of Tim and the bitter lesson he had taught her. Had not she, too, wanted to run away from life, to hide herself from the pitying amusement of acquaintances, to vow never again to fling her affections under the careless feet of a stranger?

“Yes,” she said, then added honestly: “I think I ran after him.”

His face was suddenly gentle in the shadows.

“I daresay you did, my dear,” he observed carelessly. “It never pays, you know, to wear your heart on your sleeve. Ah, well! Scars are not so deep at eighteen as they are at thirty. You’ll get over it.”

He did not care, she thought, hearing only his words, any more than he cared whether the child in his charge perhaps needed more than he was prepared to give her.

“Of course,” she said, regretting that brief admission of her own foolishness. “Would you like me to read to you, Mr. Merritt?”

“If you must,” he replied with an amused resignation which she ignored.

She switched on the lights with decision, then reached for the book of travel which had occupied them in idle m
oments
since her arrival, and began to read.

I
I
I

Christmas came and went almost unnoticed. It seemed strange to Emily that no one even bothered with the usual decorations.

“Don’t you put up holly and mistletoe?” she asked Alice.

“No,” said the child, gazing moodily out of the window. “Uncle Dane can’t see it and Mrs. Pride says it makes too much mess.”

She spoke disinterestedly for the snow had all gone, washed away by the steady moorland rain which had fallen for two days. With the snow gone it was just like any other time in the winter at Pennyleat and Christmas no longer mattered.

Emily looked at her helplessly. Old Mr. Carey, too, she suspected, had never troubled about Christmas.

She spoke to Dane about presents for Alice. There would be very few, she knew, arriving through the post.

“Buy what you like,” he told her indifferently. “I gave her money last year—it seemed the simplest solution since I couldn’t do much selecting myself. Get Shorty to drive you into Plymouth and get the feel of the car yourself now the roads are reasonable again. I shall need you to act as chauffeuse for me upon occasion. By the way, I had a phone call from Louisa Pink last night. She seems a little worried about you.”

“About me? W
h
y?”

“She seems to think you are rather helpless and in need of security and a home. She hopes you have settled down here. Have you, Emily?”

“I think so.” Emily’s voice sounded suddenly lost. “I—I don’t imagine Miss Pink sent me here either for security or for a home.”

“Don’t you?” He was faintly mocking. “Can you not think of Pennyleat as home, then?

“Yes,” said Emily, “I think I can, but Miss P
ink—
well, I didn’t suppose she’d have any personal feeling about me.”

“Didn’t you? Perhaps she thinks—perhaps I need
—
well, go and buy Alice’s Christmas presents, my dear
—
other matters can wait till later.”

Apart from the pleasure of choosing presents for Alice, Emily did not enjoy the expedition to Plymouth. Shorty surrendered the wheel to her with the deepest distrust
and had little encouraging to say about the way she handled a car.

“I haven’t had a great deal of experience,” she apologized nervously.
“And never of such a good car as this.”

Shorty sniffed and looked as sour as he felt. He had not yet forgiven her for putting him in the wrong over the matter of her bedroom.

“That I can well believe,” he observed. “You won’t ’arf cop it with the governor when you drives ’im. Got a respect for a good engine, ’e ’as. Used to be a rare good driver when ’e ’ad ’is sight. Gor blimey, miss! Don’t rev your engine like that—it fair makes me ’ead ’um.”

Shorty’s aspirates seemed to vanish altogether when he was upset or annoyed. His report to Dane on her driving would not be complimentary, she knew.

He waited for her outside shops, grumbling at the parking restrictions, the weather and everything else, but, to her surprise, he took a genuine interest in the parcels which began to pile up on the rear seat
.
Dane had been generous in tile matter of expenditure and Emily, remembering the delight of opening parcels on Christmas morning, had collected as many as possible rather than spend the money on one or two expensive gifts. She explained this to Shorty, and for the first time saw a look of I appreciation on his flat monkey-face.

“That’s as it should be,” he approved. “Kids like surprises and there ain’t much of a surprise in a cheque, in a ma
nn
er of speaking, when you’re ten years old. Shame there ain’t some kids hereabouts for her to play with.”

“Yes,” said Emily. “Perhaps she could bring home one of her school friends next holidays.”

Instantly the little man’s mouth turned down.

“Wouldn’t do at all,” he said. “Strange kids larking all over the ’ouse and shifting the furniture. Mr. Merritt wouldn’t ’ear of it and don’t you go putting such notions into ’is ’ead—if you’re still ’ere, that is.”

“Why do you dislike me, Shorty?” Emily asked, anxious, in spite of his rudeness, to come to terms with
him,
but he only gave her the contemptuous look that told her she should know better than indulge in personalities with a servant, and once back on the road to the
moor, surrendered the car to her again and indulged in criticism all the way home.

On Christmas morning Alice’s eyes grew round at the number of parcels piled in front of her place at the breakfast table, but she did not immediately open them, eating her porridge and boiled egg with unusual patience in one of her age. There was a cheque for Emily from Dane, impersonal, and, to her mind, unwarranted on such short acquaintance, and a china pig from Alice “to keep her money in”. The cards were a little sorry—for Dane neither sent nor received any. There were four or five for Emily from girls she had struck up vague friendships with in the past year and, surprisingly, one from Miss Pink.

“How odd!” exclaimed Emily, and at Dane’s enquiring expression, explained from whom the card had come.

“Really?” He sounded amused. “What banality has she chosen?”

“Very uncharacteristic, I should have thought. Bells and hearts and a message that reads:
May the coming year bring joy to you, and wishes great and small come true
.”

“I always suspected Louisa had a sense of humor,” said Dane, and Emily flushed scarlet.

“Why are you blushing, Emily?” asked Alice in her clear, high voice, and Dane said, with a little quirk of the eyebrow:

“Never draw attention to a lady’s confusion, Alice. I wouldn’t have known she was blushing if you hadn’t said so, would I?”

“But why should Emily be confused by a Christmas card?” demanded Alice.

“
True, why should she? Open your presents, young woman. I want to know what’s inside them as well as you.”

Alice obliged without hurry, unknotting string and winding it up neatly, making Emily’s less controlled fingers itch with impatience, but even Alice’s sedate composure was ruffled as she opened parcel after parcel and marvelled at the varied treasures which Emily’s ingenuity had devised for her. Emily wished Dane could see the child as she explained to him with growing excitement what each object was, her cheeks growing pinker and pinker until her plain, pinched little face looked quite pretty.

At the end she went to stand by his chair and shyly kissed him, the first spontaneous gesture towards him Emily had ever witnessed. She thought he looked taken aback and, for an instant, genuinely moved, but in his surprise he moved towards his ward awkwardly and knocked over the coffee-pot, sending a thick black stream across the table and on to his trousers.

His face went a little white, and Emily, watching him dabbing ineffectually at the stains with his napkin, sprang to her feet to help.

“Careless of me,” he said, irritably resisting her gesture to take the napkin from him and repair the damage. “No, don’t bother, Emily. Ring the bell for Shorty while I go and change.”

He got to his feet clumsily, uncertain of his bearings in the confusion of the moment. Emily would have proffered her arm but Alice shook her head and they stood and watched without speaking while he made his way from the room, the bitch, Bella, close at his side, looking up anxiously every so often to assure herself that he did not come to any harm.

“You musn’t, Emily. You must never help him,” said Alice as soon as the door had closed.

“I know,” said Emily ruefully. “But it’s so hard to remember.”

For both of them the incident, so small in itself, marred the promise of the day. Alice put her presents carefully back in their wrappings and Emily finished mopping up the table, for Shorty, after one comprehensive glance at the results of the mishap, had gone straight upstairs to attend to his master.

It was a fine morning with a deceptive mildness after the cold weather. Emily went for a walk and listened to the bells echoing faintly across the moor. She would have liked to have gone to church, but the walk to the village and back was too far for Alice and Emily did not like to ask permission to drive the car. As she walked, she reviewed the future, and, for the first time, tried to imagine what Dane could want of her, for she felt instinctively that the month’s trial was to decide more than he had first implied. Was it for Alice’s sake that he silently weighed her up? Did he mean to offer a permanent position in his household to someone whom, in the years to come, the child might need; to secure a buffer between himself and the young life he felt unequal to manage? Emily knew a swift, humble desire to be accepted, not only for the sake of a little girl whose liking was not difficult to win, but for the far more hardly earned approval of a lonely embittered man.

As she turned for home, she saw Dane with his dog coming across the moor towards her. She stood watching them, marvelling as she always did at the sureness with which he negotiated the rough places, the bitch checking every so often, then turning right or left, waiting patiently while he got his direction. They reached the road, and Bella, seeing her, immediately sat on her haunches and waited for orders.

“Who’s there?” asked Dane sharply.

“It’s only me,” Emily answered. “I was just going home.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said, and gave the bitch the order to turn back.

“I was watching you,” Emily said, then bit her lip for she knew he disliked being watched.

“I’ve always wondered how these dogs are trained,” she went on hurriedly to cover any suggestion that her interest might have been in him. “How do they know which way to go, what to avoid? There are bogs on the moor, aren’t there?”

“They don’t,” he answered. “They are taught to avoid obvious dangers, of course, but they work through the intelligence of the handler. There are only four very simple commands, you know—Forward
...
Right
...
Left, and Back. Direction is the handler’s business, not the dog’s.”

Oh, I see. You must know the moor very well, then. Mr. Merritt.”

“Yes, round this part of the country. I used to stay here a lot when old Ben was alive. Even when I was a boy I spent summer holidays at Pennyleat
.
”

“
Then you know what Alice looks like?”

It was a foolish remark, thought Emily, as soon as she had made it, but he only smiled.

“I’ve seen her, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “But that was six years ago or more. She was only three or four at the time. She scarcely remembers me as I was then.”

“No, of course not.”