Dorothy Eden (8 page)

“Paul!” she whispered.

“Be quiet!” he said. He took her in his arms and kissed her until her mouth hurt. She tried to draw away, but the hardness of his grip increased.

“We’ll be married quickly,” he said.

“But, darling—”

“Now I have my way,” he said definitely.

Julia reached out her arm to grope for matches.

“What do you want?”

“I want to light the candle. I want to see you.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t sound like yourself. Something has happened. You talk as though if I don’t marry you soon you’re afraid I never will.”

All he answered was, “Nothing’s happened. Except Nita coming, of course.”

That was it, Julia thought. Nita coming unexpectedly like that with the baby. Paul may have disguised his feelings behind his pleasant affability, but Kate had been unable to hide her agitation. She had put it down to the difficulty of preparing another bedroom in the ramshackle old house and how they were going to cope with the requirements of a fifteen-month-old baby, but her distress was disproportionate. Hadn’t she liked her son Harry’s wife?

“Paul,” Julia said, “why did you tell me Nita was Harry’s wife?”

He moved back.

“Because she is.”

“No, darling. His widow.”

“My God, don’t split hairs! You know that was what I meant.”

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry. It’s just that—”

“Just what?”

Julia thought of Nita’s thin face that had a hungry yet excited look. She said slowly,

“She doesn’t look like a widow.”

“Nita isn’t the kind to look sad,” Paul said shortly. “She’s too tense, too edgy. She’ll take it out of herself in other ways, but she won’t let you see she’s sad.”

“We must be kind to her,” Julia murmured.

When he didn’t answer she finally reached the box of matches and succeeded in striking a match. She held the frail flame up to Paul’s face, laughing at him behind it, her tousled hair tumbling into her eyes.

“You’re lovely!” he said involuntarily. Then he. blew out the match and holding her again in that hard painful embrace muttered, “Let’s be married soon. Soon!”

Julia lay stiffly, suddenly deeply glad of the bed coverings between them. For Paul wasn’t being kind about Nita. She had seen that in his face as she had held up the match. The laughter had been flattened out of his mouth. It had had an implacable look. For a little while she was not sure that she loved him at all.

After that she couldn’t go to sleep. She lay awake listening to the wind that lashed overhanging branches against the house until it seemed that the whole house was rocking and floating in a green sea. Much later, above the sound of the wind, she heard Nita’s baby Timmy begin to cry. He had been put to sleep in the little room across the passage from Julia’s room, and apparently wherever his mother was she could not hear his cries.

Finally they became so pathetic that Julia got up and went in to him. He was tucked up in an old cradle that no doubt had done service for Georgina’s baby sixty years earlier. Timmy was a well-grown little boy, and the cradle was obviously a little too short for him. He had become cramped and uncomfortable, and was protesting emphatically. But when he saw the wavering flame of the candle that Julia held he began to laugh with delight, his flushed chubby face crinkling charmingly. On an impulse Julia put the candle down and gathered him into her arms. He continued to express his appreciation with murmurs of pleasure. “Where’s your mother?” asked Julia. She didn’t know where Nita was sleeping, and she shrank from rousing the house. If she was upstairs it was odd that she had not heard Timmy. The window of Timmy’s room looked over the back garden and the orchard and the path that led to Davey’s cottage. Julia could see a light shining in one of the windows. She looked at her wrist watch and saw that the time was one o’clock. Why was Davey up so late? Suddenly, for no reason at all, the thought came to her that Nita may have been down there. That was why she had not heard Timmy crying. If she had been in the house she must have heard him.

Her suspicions had no foundation. As far as she knew Nita had never seen Davey in her life before. Yet something made her carry Timmy back into her own room and take him into bed with her. He murmured contentedly, his fingers exploring her face. Then he fell asleep, and she put her arm round him protectively and was filled with comfort. The wind had not abated, but now it no longer disturbed her, she no longer imagined she could see it flinging the snow off the high mountains in a white spray. She began to drift into sleep. Even the sound of a girl’s laugh, low and satisfied, not very far away, perhaps outside beneath her window, or perhaps on the stairway, didn’t deeply penetrate her consciousness.

But in the morning she remembered it. For it was then that she found the letter pushed beneath her door. It was printed in the familiar heavy printing. It read,
Paul Blaine is no good for you. Don’t be a fool.

Julia scarcely had time to thrust the slip of paper into her dressing-gown pocket before Nita burst in.

“Julia, have you got Timmy? Oh, there he is! I got the most terrible fright when I saw his empty cradle.”

She swooped over to the bed and gathered the baby, who had just awoken, into her arms. Then she turned and faced Julia. She was smiling with relief, but her eyes were definitely hostile. With her thin brown face and black dishevelled hair she had a gipsy look about her, something flashing and wild that was barely held under control. She was not going to be an easy sister-in-law, yet Julia sensed that there would be loyal friendship in her if one could arouse it.

“I brought him in here in the night,” she explained. “He was crying so badly. Where were you that you didn’t hear him?”

Nita’s lashes dropped over her eyes. Then she said primly, “Kate put me in that room right at the end of the passage, I was afraid it was too far from Timmy, but usually he never wakes. And I sleep like the dead myself.” She looked down at the smiling baby. “Were you crying then, my pet?”

“He’s sweet,” Julia said warmly.

Nita flashed her a look of unguarded friendliness. Then almost at once the tenseness came back to her face, the hungry-cat look that represented something more than physical hunger.

“He is rather nice. He’s all I have.” Then she said. “Do you like it here?”

Julia felt the crumpled piece of paper crackling in her pocket. She said gaily, “I love it. Come out on the balcony and look at the view. I stand out here in the mornings just to breathe in this wonderful air. But, of course, you will have been here before and seen it.”

“I’ve never been here before,” Nita said. She added as an afterthought, “Harry and I lived in Australia. I’m an Australian. I’m not used to these sort of mountains.”

She followed Julia out on to the balcony, and stood clutching Timmy as the fresh morning wind, like cold water, swept over them. The sun was shining and every crevice and scree slope was as clear as if the mountains were not more than half a mile distant.

“They seem to brood,” Nita muttered. She looked at Julia leaning on the rail of the balcony. “That doesn’t look very safe. I should think half the wood in this house is rotten. Who’s that down there?”

Julia looked down and saw Dove Robinson taking a short cut across the lawn on her way home. She must have been over to bathe Paul’s ankle. Her hair shone like a burning bush in the sun. She had a slow voluptuous walk, the movements of her body visible beneath the flimsy material of her cotton dress.

“That’s Mrs. Robinson, the wife of one of the shepherds. She’s a nurse and has been looking after Paul’s ankle.”

“Has she?” Nita murmured. “She looks decorative.”

Dove, thought Julia, could have slipped upstairs with that letter and pushed it under her door before anyone was about. She had come over particularly early. She even doubted if Paul were up yet.

“Kate tells me you have some fabulous clothes,” Nita was saying. “I should think they would be wasted up here. But I don’t suppose you knew what you were coming to. What on earth are you going to do with the house?”

“Oh, I have thousands of ideas,” Julia said airily.

Nita went inside and looked round the room.

“There are some marvellous bits among this old furniture. They could be polished and renovated. That chest of drawers, for instance. It looks like mahogany. These high ceilings give you scope, too. A satin-striped wallpaper would be nice in here and an off-white carpet. I adore white carpets in bedrooms, even if they aren’t practical.”

Her hungry eyes went on assessing the room, and Julia realised with a sudden shock of surprise that she was talking as if she were planning the renovations for her own home.

“Are you planning to stay here?” she asked politely.

The hostility flashed back into Nita’s eyes.

“It was Harry’s place as well as Paul’s,” she said.

Before Julia could absorb the thought of having Nita as a constant companion there was a tap at the door, and Lily came in carrying a morning tea tray.

“Good morning, miss,” she murmured demurely, her long eyes moving from Julia to Nita. Her lovely young body was held very erect. She contrived to wear her blue cotton overall like a mannequin. One could imagine her in a filmy negligée reclining gracefully on a divan, Julia thought, and she had the certainty that a similar thought must often come into Lily’s head. Especially after Paul’s joking about lilies of the field.

“Shall I bring another cup, miss?” she asked.

Nita answered. “No, I’ll come downstairs. I must heat Timmy’s milk. He’s starving.”

As Lily opened the door to go out the wind swooped in through the open balcony windows, billowing the curtains out and making Julia shiver. It was going to be amusing, she told herself firmly, finding out who was playing those childish tricks. There was nothing to be frightened about. Nothing at all.

She sat down to enjoy her tea. But her enjoyment was short-lived. The tea tasted vilely. What on earth was the matter with it? She sipped it again, then hastily set the cup down and shuddered violently. Someone, she thought in sheer astonishment, was trying to poison her!

For a moment she sat quite still, trying to absorb this , shocking suspicion. It couldn’t be true! The letters—they proved that she had an enemy—but they were harmless enough. This dreadful tea was different. Perhaps already she was dying. She had only taken a sip, but if the poison were deadly enough—

“What on earth are you doing, darling?” came Paul’s exuberant voice from the door. “You look petrified.”

Julia turned her head. “Paul!” she whispered. She tried to indicate the cup of tea set on her bedside table. Her hand was trembling, uncontrollably.

Paul, walking with his stick, came across to her.

“Good lord, you look sick. What can you see? The only other time I saw a girl look as scared as that was when a spider had run up her arm.”

“Paul, don’t joke! I may be dying! The tea—”

“What’s wrong with it? I know Lily slips at times, but she can’t be that bad.” Before Julia could stop him he had picked up the cup and taken a mouthful of the hot liquid.

“Paul!” Julia screamed. “Spit it out. Quickly! It’s poisoned.”

Paul went rapidly out on to the balcony and spat with thoroughness.

“Pah!” he said in disgust. Then surprisingly he began to hoot with laughter. “Darling, if only you could see your face! You look at death’s door. It’s only a mistake of Lily’s. She’s put salt in instead of sugar.”

Julia licked her lips. Of course, that was all it was. She could taste the salt now. How silly to have got so panicky.

“The careless little devil. I’ll speak to her,” Paul said. “I’ll go down now and get you a fresh cup.”

“Was your tea all right?” Julia asked slowly.

“Yes, but I don’t take sugar. Neither does Mother. What about Nita, I wonder.”

“Nita didn’t stay up here for hers,” Julia said. Suddenly she said, “Mrs. Robinson did your ankle awfully early this morning.”

“She hasn’t done it. I’m only just up.”

“Then why was she over here? I saw her going home not ten minutes ago.”

“Probably come to borrow something,” Paul said lightly. “She’s always doing that. Anyway, what on earth has Dove got to do with it? Oh, I see. You mean she was talking to Lily and distracting her attention, so that the salt went in instead of the sugar.”

“I didn’t mean that, either.” Julia put her hand in her pocket and felt the creased scrap of paper. Any of the three women could have been in the kitchen and slipped the salt in her teacup. Nita had been up looking for Timmy, Dove had come over early, probably borrowing, and Lily, of course, would have been down making the tea. Lily would know which her tray was, but either of the other two could easily have found out which it was.

It was unimportant, it was trifling, it was just another prank in keeping with the anonymous letters. It was to show her she was not wanted.

“Don’t be so upset over a silly mistake,” Paul said chidingly.

“But you see it wasn’t really a mistake,” Julia told him quietly. “Because I don’t take sugar in my tea either.”

Nevertheless, she wanted nothing more said about the matter, and was distressed when Paul raised the subject after breakfast. Davey had just carried Georgina down, and settled her in her chair, and Paul’s words were accompanied by the small snuffling from the white-rabbit bundle in the big armchair.

“Oh, Lily,” he said to that young woman who was just leaving the room after giving Georgina her cup of hot chocolate, “did you remember that Miss Paget doesn’t take sugar in her tea?”

Lily’s eyes gave their slight flicker. She didn’t look directly at anybody, her eyes always had a sidelong look.

“Yes, sir. I think so. Didn’t I?”

“All too well,” said Paul who had obviously decided that the episode was no longer a joke. “You substituted salt, which doesn’t make a cup of tea exactly a refreshing beverage.”

Lily’s hand went to her mouth.

“But I’m sure”—she hesitated—“I’m sure I didn’t do that. I mean, the salt box wouldn’t be near the sugar basin. Anyway, I think I remembered about no sugar. I’m sure I didn’t do it.”