Dorothy Eden (22 page)

“Naturally I was interested in you. I had a reason to be.”

“Why?” she flashed.

“Because you were even more beautiful than your picture.”

“Oh, that.” She tossed that information aside, then she said quickly, “When did you see my picture?”

“At the time we wrote the letters.”

“We!”

“Paul had a poisoned hand. He couldn’t hold a pen.”

“You mean—you wrote that first letter.”

It seemed as if. he were no longer laughing at her. But she wasn’t sure. His eyes were very bright.

“Does it matter?”

She shook her head slowly. She was remembering that paper she had discovered in his desk with the name Paul written across it, as if someone were practising it to commit a forgery. This, after all, was no forgery. It was a simple act of kindness. Only it meant that that treasured letter was no longer privately hers and Paul’s. Indeed, it had never been.

There was no reason for her to feel resentful with Paul for not having told her that. A man was not sensitive about those things. He would not realise that now, in a peculiar way, Davey was mixed up in their life. That the magic of the letter was spoilt.

“You make me think of a seapink,” Davey was saying.

“Why?” she said indifferently.

“You’re clinging so hard to this cold stormy rocky place. You’re even blooming. Those delicate pink cheeks of yours, and that wind-blown hair.” He was speaking dreamingly, as if he were writing the words on paper. “Fragile, but tough. Just like that obstinate little flower that out-blooms gales. You don’t really love Paul.”

“Davey!” Her voice was an astonished whisper.

He put his arms round her suddenly. His hands, thin, hard, and full of vibrant life, bit into her flesh.

“You love me,” he said outrageously.

She began to struggle away from him. “Davey, I—Davey, this is fantastic. Let me go!” One of the lambs tottered against her legs and gave a thin bleat. Davey’s eyelids fell. He brushed her lips quickly with his own and released her.

She sat down in the rocking chair. She found that, absurdly, she was trembling.

With complete self-possession he scooped up the two lambs and took them through to the back. When he returned with paper and kindling for lighting the fire he said casually, “Well, what was it you came down here for?” She stood up angrily.

“It was to ask you a simple question. I didn’t expect this.” He looked at her with wide-open eyes from which every trace of mockery had vanished, and said simply, “To me you are the most beautiful woman in the world.” A moment later, as she remained without words, he added, “Well, what was it you wanted to ask me?”

“Are you—Paul’s brother?”

The question seemed lame, and now completely improbable. Perhaps it deserved his sudden hearty laughter. She shouldn’t have flinched from his whole-hearted amusement. “Me the elusive Harry! Oh no, you flatter me! I’m only what I profess to be, a writer turned shepherd. And that’s the truth.”

“Then why—” she stopped helplessly. His continued amusement suddenly made her furiously, childishly angry. “Everyone knows something except me. Lily, Dove, Georgina, Kate. You, too. I’m the only one kept in the dark.”

“You ought to talk to Paul about that.” Now his voice had no warmth at all, it was detached and impersonal. “Do you still intend to marry Paul?”

Her eyes, moving from his probing gaze, saw the dusky little Canaletto above the mantelpiece and her baffled anger deepened.

“Yes, I do,” she cried. “I certainly do.”

No matter how passionately Paul kissed her in the future she would not be able to forget how Davey’s kisses were soft caresses, such as one would give a child. A mere brushing of the lips, a mere beginning…How would she feel if Davey were to kiss her passionately? That unsatisfied knowledge, that, too, was going to haunt her.

“Paul,” she said that night, “you didn’t tell me that it was Davey who wrote me that letter.”

“What letter?” he said sharply, his face becoming wary.

“Oh, not the anonymous ones.” She should have realised that at present there was only one sort of letter in his mind. “The one you wrote to me in England. You didn’t tell me that you had a poisoned hand.”

Involuntarily her eyes went to his right hand, and suddenly the thought flashed through her mind that it was a little too much, the sprained ankle, the poisoned hand, the operations to his face.

He frowned a little. She guessed that he was angry with Davey for betraying a confidence.

“It was only Davey’s handwriting, darling. And even that we camouflaged. I was so desperately anxious for it to be the real thing.”

“The real thing,” she repeated stupidly.

He looked at her with his engaging innocence.

“I imagined you would think it important that a love letter had been penned with your lover’s hand, darling. Was I wrong?”

“N-no. I did think it was your writing.”

“And the words were mine, definitely, so has anything changed?”

His eyes were teasing. She had to shake her head, although uncertainly.

“It has just made Davey a little more interested than he should be.”

“Oh ho! Is our dark horse getting ideas? Actually, I can’t say I blame him. You’re such a pretty thing.”

For a moment, foolishly, Julia imagined she could hear Paul saying those identical words to Lily or Dove. Then she remembered Davey’s outrageous behaviour, and she moved a little closer to Paul.

“Darling, who
is
Davey?”

“Just a chap I picked up. We liked each other. He wanted to live in the country while he wrote his book—I’ve told you all that. I took his bona fides for granted. He’s well educated, as you can see. He comes from Australia. That’s all I can tell you. What’s wrong?”

“You said Australia!” Julia exclaimed.

“What about it?”

“Harry—you said Harry—”

His face darkened. He seemed about to speak angrily. Then he controlled himself, and with an effort began to smile in his old light-hearted manner.

“That poor old worn-out subject is now strictly closed. If you think Davey ever met my brother Harry in Australia, I can only say that nothing was less likely.”

“I didn’t mean that, Paul. I meant—” But her lips were closed by his fingers. And anyway, even before she put the thought into words, it seemed utterly fantastic.

“If Davey is going to put queer ideas in your head he will have to go. Because you’re mine.” Then he said in a curious, low, longing voice, “God, I wish we were married.”

She looked at him in a troubled way. He roused himself.

“Take no notice. But I haven’t been able to track down those anonymous letters. Now I’m getting the jitters.”

Impulsively she had to kiss him.

“Don’t let them upset you.”

“But they do. And they throw poor Mother into a blue funk. After all, it is damned unpleasant. By the way, have there been any more mysterious telephone calls?”

She didn’t want to worry him by telling him about the two which had produced no answer. She shook her head.

“Thank goodness for that, at least. It must have been a wrong number. I’ll ring again in the morning about Nita, poor little devil.”

“Lily’s leaving,” Julia said.

“Yes, so she says. I’m sorry about that. But we’ll find another maid.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised if Dove persuades her husband to go, too. You’re losing all your women, darling.”

He looked at her with his deliberately merry eyes.

“They’re not my women. You’re my woman. Remember that.”

Kate, however, persuaded Lily to stay an extra two days while she got in touch with the agency in Timaru to see if someone else could be sent out. This, Lily unwillingly agreed to do, although she refused to unpack her bags and also to speak unless absolutely necessary. When Paul appeared she pointedly walked out of the room. After this had happened several times even Kate had to laugh.

“What a devastating effect you have on these girls, Paul. You’ll have to keep him in hand, Julia. His father was exactly the same.”

“And his brother?” Julia queried lightly.

Kate’s lashes dropped.

“Oh yes. Poor Harry. He was the worst of all.”

There were no more letters. It seemed it must have been Lily, after all. Paul was certain of it, and so was Kate. As nothing further suspicious happened their spirits rose. Paul laughed a lot in his hearty infectious way, and old Georgina wrinkled her sharp delicate nose and said, “What joke has Harry been playing now? No one tells me. I enjoy a joke as much as anyone.”

“Paul’s happy because he’s being married in three days,” Kate explained.

But that only reminded Georgina of her carefully preserved wedding dress, and she had Lily get it out again, and go over the yellowed folds in a search for moth holes. The air reeked of camphor, and old Georgina clasped her hands quietly on her breast as if she were already dead. Although the weather was fine and sunny the chill seemed to deepen in the house. Julia found she couldn’t think of the lovely snowy gown in her own wardrobe without imagining being dead in it. She was getting morbid. The nights were too long and dark. She kept listening. It would be a good thing when she was at last married. Then she could lie warmly in Paul’s arms and stop her ears.

But nothing happened. Nita’s condition, Paul reported, remained unchanged. Even the telephone didn’t ring again except for the most legitimate reasons.

There was no one in the house who disliked young and pretty girls, as Dove had suggested. Certainly, if there were, that person could not be Davey, for he had said he loved her beauty. But she had already forgotten Davey’s extravagant remarks, and she would not go to his cottage again. She would live through this week until her marriage day. Then, if there were something Paul would not tell her for fear of losing her, he could at last speak.

She was neither happy nor unhappy. Her chief sensation was one of peculiar, unreasonable and overwhelming apprehension.

The afternoon it began to snow again was the afternoon that Lily unpacked her bags and said she had decided to stay after all. Her manner was humble and full of apology. “I think it would be a bit mean walking out on you just before the wedding,” she said to Kate. “I got a bit upset about what Mr. Blaine was suspecting me of, but I guess I’ve got over that now. I’d like to see you through the wedding if you’ll let me.”

Humility came so strangely from Lily that Julia watched her closely, and surely enough, when she abandoned her downcast look, and lifted her eyelids to look swiftly at Kate, her eyes were glinting with a queer excitement.

Kate, however, appeared not to notice the excitement, and seized on Lily’s welcome offer.

“Why, of course, my dear. We’d be so glad to have you stay. I’d hoped you would get over that silly mistake of Paul’s. Julia, isn’t that splendid, Lily is going to stay after all.”

“How nice,” Julia murmured. But all the time she was watching for the flicker of excitement in Lily’s slanting eyes, and wondering what caused it. She didn’t trust the girl one inch. Some idea had come into her devious head, and now she was planning to unpack her crêpe-de-Chine panties and nightgowns, ready for some plot. Had Paul been talking to her privately and persuaded her to change her mind? It didn’t seem so, for Paul exhibited complete surprise when he heard the news, and when he attempted to express his pleasure to Lily she resumed her haughty attitude and marched out of the room.

Julia was angry with herself for her extreme uneasiness. She kept thinking, “Something will happen to stop my wedding,” then abruptly stopped thinking at all when she realised that the thought was coming to her hopefully.

It was only because nothing was straightforward. There were undercurrents which everyone strenuously denied, but which existed, nevertheless. A glimpse of the wedding dress hanging innocent and exquisite in the darkened wardrobe made Julia think of a gigantic silvery moth, and she shivered uncontrollably.

The wind continued to rise all afternoon, and the snow thickened, penetrating even beneath the thickly matted branches of the trees and lying on the dark curving drive. By night there was a gale. The wind shrieked eerily, the snowflakes hit the windows with small constant thuds. Paul came in, stamping the snow off his boots.

“We’re going to lose a lot of lambs,” he said. “Davey and Tom are working like slaves, but we can’t get all the ewes into shelter.”

He gave Julia one of his possessive, intimate caresses, his hand moving from her waist down over her hips.

“How are you going to like being a farmer’s wife, darling?”

“Come and dry yourself and get warm,” Julia said concernedly. I’ll get you a drink.”

“That’s music in my ears. What a lucky fellow I am.”

“You’ll need your luck,” came Kate’s voice, almost involuntarily, and at the same moment the telephone rang.

“I’ll get it,” said Julia. “Take off your wet boots. Paul.”

She went light-heartedly to the telephone. Suddenly it had been so nice, with Paul coming in wet and tired and being able to fuss over him a little, with a bright fire burning and lights and comfort to contrast with the fury of the gale outside.

“Hullo,” she said gaily into the telephone.

Instantly there was an agitated voice, a woman’s. “Is that Mr. Blaine’s house? I must speak to Mr. Blaine at once. It’s very urgent. Is he there? Tell him—” There was a sudden click and the line went dead.

Paul was at Julia’s shoulder.

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know. Someone wanting you urgently. We’ve been cut off.”

Paul snatched the receiver, then a moment later put it down.

“It’s this storm. Line’s broken again, I should imagine. God, what a place to live! Who wanted me? What did he say?”

“It was a woman. She sounded awfully upset.”

“What was her voice like? Anyone we know?”

“It wasn’t Nita, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Julia answered, looking at his tense face. “It sounded like an older woman. It was a voice I have never heard before.”

Paul picked up the receiver and began dialling.

“Dead,” he said disgustedly. “The line’s down all right.”

Suddenly he gripped Julia’s shoulders. “What did that woman say? Tell me every word.”