Return to Spring (14 page)

The smile was still playing round her lips as she left her order for Will to collect and made her way back up the steep road towards the stile. She knew that Will had a visit to pay to an old crony, one Geordie Armstrong, the proprietor of the “Swan and Ladder” which faced the Veycourt memorial cross in the square, and Will had a habit of lingering in Geordie’s company for some considerable time when the ale was good and the chaff better.

Travayne was sitting on the stile with his pipe between his teeth, and she waved to him as she came over the breast of the hill. It was warm and she was hot and flushed when she reached his perch.

“Sit down until you get your breath back,” he commanded with a smile. “You’ve been hurrying up that hill.”

“Guilty!” Ruth confessed. “I thought I took longer over my errands than I had promised.”

“And I stayed longer at the widow’s cottage.”

“She’s a fine old woman, isn’t she?” Ruth said. “She’s been here a long time. I hate to think of her living all alone there and nearly blind, too. Really, she should go into the village and board with someone.”

“I doubt if she would be happy away from the cottage. She seems to cling to it,” he said.

“Yes. It was through the kindness of the Squire’s wife that the cottage was given to her. Mrs. Veycourt was seemingly a very gracious lady, and there are numerous instances of her kindness to be found in and around the village.”

“Her memory is very precious to Widow Charlton,” Travayne said quietly.

“I’d feel much better about Mrs. Charlton if she had someone to live with her, all the same,” Ruth said. “She always seems so alone to me.”

“She wasn’t alone to-day,” Travayne said almost absently. “There was a woman called Harrup with her.”

Ruth frowned.

“I wonder what Martha Harrup was doing down there,” she said. “It won’t be out of pity or a desire to help, I’m afraid.” “Probably out of curiosity!”

“Well, whatever it is, I’d sooner Mrs. Charlton had anyone than Martha,” Ruth declared.

Travayne rose to help her over the stile and they set off to walk across the moors.

“So would I,” he acknowledged.

It was easy to walk in silence beside John Travayne, Ruth thought, as the rough moorland path slipped away behind them and they breasted the rise which led on to the narrow cliff road. A gust of wind met them, sweeping in from the sea with the tang of salt heavy on it and the sting of the cold North Sea in its breath. Travayne breathed it in deeply.

“It’s good for a man!” he said appreciatively.

“After years abroad?” Ruth questioned.

“At any time!”

His eyes were on the far horizon, as if the vast blue distance and the expanse of water between had power to cut him off completely from his immediate surroundings. That far-away look cut her out, too, but she was not angry. She knew that this preoccupation of his was not intended to hurt her in any way. It came upon him unbidden. She had noticed it before now.

They were almost at the lane which led past the Long Meadow when Ruth saw Valerie Grenton’s car drawn up beside the hedge. Valerie was talking to two men, and instantly Ruth recognised Edmund Hersheil and his artist friend. It was impossible to avoid a meeting; there was only this way back to Conningscliff.

“Miss Grenton and our friend, Mr. Hersheil,” Travayne said. “Must we stop?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Ruth saw Valerie Grenton flush as she caught sight of them approaching, and she was aware, too, of Edmund’s angry stare when they drew level and stopped. Almost reluctantly Hersheil presented the artist.

“Mr. Monset—Miss Farday. You’ve met before, I believe.”

To Ruth this second meeting with the artist brought back the scene on the day of her father’s accident most vividly. She turned to John Travayne.

“Mr. Travayne, this is Mr. Hersheil, our new manager at Conningscliff,” she managed, in the silence which followed the first introduction.

Edmund did not attempt to offer Travayne his hand, and Ruth noticed that John had kept his thrust deep in his trouser-pocket.

“A merry company!” Valerie Grenton laughed, as she met the amused smile in the artist’s eyes. “Can I give you a lift back to the Hall, Victor?”

She had pointedly ignored Travayne—so pointedly as to appear merely childish. Valerie was very much a child at heart. Petulant, impulsive, and easily swayed, she allowed her emotions to run riot and did not seem to care where the flood-tide of them might carry her.

Hersheil’s annoyance was more suave, and perhaps it was more a power to be reckoned with for that very reason. He accepted Valerie’s offer of a lift back to the Hall, and bade Ruth and Travayne a too-polite good-afternoon.

“How long has Hersheil been at the Hall?” John asked.

“Several years, I think,” Ruth told him. “A year or two after the real heir left.”

Travayne did not speak again until he greeted her father in the ingle by the kitchen fire.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The next two days found Ruth with very little time to spare. Several new guests had arrived during the weekend, and the first few days of a new month were always busy ones in the house until the guests had settled in comfortably and had begun to find their own way about the farm. They were a mixed company: people who had replied to Ruth’s original advertisements, and the others the result of Edmund Hersheil’s more recent efforts in the London papers.

The latter gave Ruth most trouble. They were constantly in need of attention of some kind, and ready to express their dissatisfaction in no uncertain terms if things did not run quite smoothly. They kept late hours at night and slept far into the morning, demanding, rather than asking, to have their breakfasts served in their rooms.

All this was extra work for Ruth, and Peg Emery was quick to notice the tired expression in her young mistress’s eyes.

“Ye canna go on like this for long, hinny,” she warned her. “Up in the mornin’ before six an’ not back in your bed until midnight an’ all that work in between! It’s overmuch for one human being!”

“I’m young, Peg!” Ruth would reply, although she often felt much older than her twenty-four years with all the burden of responsibility that fate had thrust upon her young shoulders.

John Travayne was not blind to these facts either. He saw Ruth’s struggle and admired her the more for her smiling acceptance of it and the way she strove to remain cheerful.

Ruth was conscious of John Travayne always in the background, and, somehow, his presence gave her a certain strength. He was less trouble than any other guest, and the hours he spent with her father, sitting yarning and smoking their pipes together, were a great comfort to her.

On the afternoon of the third day she found herself with an hour to spare. Most of the guests had gone for a run across the Border into Scotland, and the others would not be back before tea. Peg Emery had promised to attend to the second collection of eggs, and Sally had been given an hour off to go to the village. Ruth crossed to the kitchen window. John and her father were deep in a friendly argument, and she smiled to herself as she caught up a walking-stick and went out by the front door so that she might not interrupt them.

The collie was sunning himself in the porch. Since the sale of their few sheep he had been enjoying a well-earned retirement.

“Coming, Pete?” Ruth invited.

The dog leaped up instantly and followed her eagerly. Ruth chose the lane across the moors and up on to the sand-dunes, passing Carbay Hall and coming at last on to the high cliffs above the little sandy bay which had been her favourite rendezvous in the past. This was her first visit to the bay since the erection of the new bathing huts. They had been Edmund Hersheil’s idea of an improvement, but Ruth was thoroughly convinced that the beauty of her retreat would be marred.

It was with delighted surprise, therefore, that she stood at the top of the winding path which went down the steep cliff face and looked about her.

There were three huts, and they were placed artistically at irregular intervals on jutting outcrops of rock. The log-cabin design and rough-hewn steps which led down to the smooth yellow sand were in perfect keeping with their surroundings. When the weather had mellowed the timber more the little cabins would be in perfect harmony with all around.

Ruth was pleased; more pleased than she could have imagined, for the bay had been something alive to her— something with a soul. She went down the steep path and sat on a boulder on the far side, admiring the new cabins across the bay.

When she eventually saw Edmund Hersheil standing at the top of the narrow pathway down which she had come she was ready to praise his new idea generously.

“Well, what do you think of them?” he asked, noticing her contemplation of the cabins.

“I think they’re splendid,” Ruth said. “I was half afraid, at first, that they might spoil the beauty of the bay,” she confessed.

“There’s not much sense in having an artist staying in the same house if you don’t make use of his talents!” Hersheil replied. “Personally, I thought the design a bit backwoods at first.”

So it had been Victor Monset’s idea! Ruth felt glad that the artist had been at Carbay Hall.

“They are certainly in keeping with the surroundings, and I suppose they are comfortable enough inside,” she remarked.

“Haven’t you been across yet?” Hersheil asked. “Come on! I’ll show you round.”

Each cabin was furnished simply, with a long seat made of polished logs, a copper foot-bath, a small wooden table, and a mirror framed in bark on the wall. Ruth liked them, and stood on the little wooden balcony outside the last cabin looking out across the water. Subconsciously she knew that she was trying to find the peace of the bay again, a peace which had disappeared at Edmund Hersheil’s coming. Then, quite suddenly, she was aware of Hersheil close behind her. For a moment she stood there, with his warm breath on the nape of her neck, quite unable to move. She knew instinctively that he was about to take her in his arms, but she was incapable of flight. He came round to her side, smiling down into her flushed face.

“This is quite an event, Ruth,” he said half mockingly. “It is not often I get the chance to see you alone. Either you are phenomenally busy or you are avoiding me with maddening deliberation.”

Ruth moved uneasily.

“I am very busy as a rule,” she said.

He put his arm round her back and clasped the log rail on her other side, imprisoning her.

“What’s the objection to my company?” he asked.

“I have no very great objection to your company—at a distance!” she flashed.

She tried to free herself, but instantly his hand left the rail and he caught her by both arms. His face was flushed and his eyes were unnaturally bright.

“Look here, Ruth, you know I’m crazy about you,” he said huskily. “There’s no need for us to be anything but friends.”

“That is what I would prefer us to remain,” Ruth said, breathing quickly in spite of a determined effort to keep calm. “Will you please let me go?”

Edmund laughed at that.

“Let you go! Not on your life! I told you it was not often I was lucky enough to find you alone!”

His hands were fastening tighter on her arms and he was drawing her towards him, his head bent until his flushed face was almost touching her own. Desperately Ruth tried to free herself, straining away from him so that their added weights were pressing against the rustic rail of the tiny balcony. There was a sharp wrenching sound and instantly Ruth felt his grip on her slacken as the rail gave way and he clutched out to save himself. She caught hold of the remaining part of the rail to steady herself and was about to turn to his assistance when she saw him overbalance and disappear below the level of the tiny platform.

For an instant she could not move, and then, horror-stricken, she gazed over to the sands beneath. It was not a long drop, but there were one or two jagged rocks immediately below the cabin. She saw Hersheil stretched out on the sand beyond, rigid, unstirring. She turned towards the steps and realised that her shaking limbs were almost refusing to carry her. It was impossible that anything serious had happened to Hersheil, and yet ... and yet ...

She reached the bottom step at last and turned towards the rocks. With a sigh of infinite relief she saw him picking himself up from the sand and dusting down his riding- jacket. He was obviously unhurt, but as he turned to her and she saw the fury in his face, she caught her breath in once more. He strode over to where she stood at the foot of the steps.

“So you thought to make a fool of me?” he said between clenched teeth.

“I’m sorry,” Ruth said, “I could scarcely be responsible for the accident. I—are you much hurt?”

“Not much,” he said, “but you deserve a lesson for this, and I think that I might be able to give you one.” He caught her again roughly. “Why resist a kiss that is inevitable?”

“I think we might dispense with this, don’t you?”

The deep voice broke in upon them from the steps above. A flood of intense relief rushed over Ruth as she looked up and saw John Travayne standing on the rocks above them with Pete jumping at his feet.

Hersheil released her, scowling at the newcomer.