The Quiet Heart (4 page)

Charles Leydon thrust open the great door with an impatient hand. He knew perfectly well that if he pulled the old-fashioned bell-chain (which was probably rusty in any case) no well-trained manservant would be likely to answer him, and as yet he was not quite clear about the duties of Mrs. Fairlie. She had struck him as an obliging if somewhat reticent young woman, but he had not so far ascertained whether she received a salary or anything of that sort. Mr. Minty was a trifle vague on the subject ... as indeed, he was vague on most subjects that had nothing to do with land values and tenures and rights of disposal. It was one of Mr. Leydon’s list of points that had to be raised and cleared up before this first visit of his to Leydon Hall terminated.

Mr. Minty was hard on his client’s heels as they entered the hall, and even he felt a trifle surprised by the sight of one of the young women they had met that morning apparently poised to receive them on the staircase. She was very differently dressed from the way in which she had been dressed that morning, and in fact he would have said she was a little overdressed for a caretaker’s dependent. And it certainly did strike him that she hadn’t any real right to be where she was ... not without a feather duster in her hand, or a polishing rag, or something of the sort.

Her quarters were in the south tower, where no one could take exception if she chose to dress up like one of those young women he had seen occasionally on television—and he was not a television addict; or in a glossy magazine. And he was not a great magazine reader, either.

“Good evening.” She spoke pleasantly and absolutely confidently as she descended the stairs. “I do hope you had a good lunch at the Leydon Arms. They do a good meal, I know. As a matter of fact, I’m going to have dinner there to-night.”

She addressed herself to Leydon, and it was into his eyes that she smiled with extraordinary sweetness as she reached the hall.

“Thank you, but I’ve already forgotten what I had for lunch. I’ve been into Murchester since then,” he replied curtly.

He was vaguely irritated by so much grace and elegance in sherry-coloured velvet and some strikingly good-looking fur. And beneath the coat her silken skirts were full and reached to her small satin slippers.

“Oh, really?” She was ready to be chatty, and he sensed it. “How do you like our little country town? I expect, after New Zealand, it seems terribly, terribly rustic and rural—”

“I haven’t been to New Zealand since I was a very small child! so I have no idea what goes on out there or how badly, or otherwise, it contrasts with England,” he snubbed her quite deliberately this time. And then, as she tried to ignore faint prickles of annoyance that made her delicate skin feel as if it had been rubbed up the wrong way, a diversion was created by Jessamy making her appearance from the flower-room with a great stone vase of chrysanthemums that was plainly far too heavy for her to carry, and as a result of her awkward movements the water was slopping all over the place, one of the prize blooms was interfering with her vision by doing its best to poke her eye out; and when she suddenly realised that the gentleman for whom all this tremendous effort was being made had already returned to Leydon, and was in the hall, she uttered a nervous gasp and the stone vase crashed to the floor.

Marianne, instead of going to her assistance, stood still and shook her head at her.

“Alison will thank you for that!” she exclaimed. “She’ll have to clear up the mess!”

But Charles Leydon, suddenly all concern, took a few quick strides across the hall and righted the stone vase for Jessamy. He went round gathering up the chrysanthemums and stuck them in the vase that was now depleted of its water content, and then assured Jessamy that accidents will happen and, in any case, the vase was far too heavy for her, and she shouldn’t have attempted to carry it. Someone else should have carried it for her—he shot an almost baleful glance at Marianne—and whatever she did in future she must not attempt to do anything of the kind again. With her unreliable foot she might have had a serious accident and hurt herself.

Jessamy, nineteen and extremely impressionable, with a retentive memory and a head full of Scott, Tennyson, Keats and other lyrical writers of the same period, found herself simply gazing at him as she had done that morning. She recalled that she was the only one that morning who had received a kind word from him. And now, when he might have felt annoyed because of the mess on his great hall floor, he was being unbelievably nice.

His curiously light blue eyes smiled at her. She noticed what very long and thick black eyelashes he had. and what a beautifully shaped chin and jaw he had. His nose was almost straight—Grecian, she thought—and his hairline was most attractive. The way his thick black hair, with a sheen like polished satin, grew back from it was intriguing and at the same time endearing. She wanted to put out a finger and touch it as he bent down and rescued yet another chrysanthemum.

“I hope you don’t mind my getting all these flowers out of the gardener,” she said, in her soft, husky, breathless voice. “He’s a friend of mine.”

“I’m not surprised.”

This time his eyes smiled at her. She knew she would never quite forget the way he smiled at her. A sensation like anguish took possession of her. If only she wasn’t wearing quite such an old jumper and skirt, and a little of Marianne’s tinsel-like charm could replace the melancholy gloom of her great dark eyes, and the way she knew she smiled ... diffidently. For this one night at least!

She wanted to be able to dazzle him with her charm, feel him recoil before the impact of it ... as Marianne’s young men recoiled before her charm. She wanted to be able to impress him, not with her Dresden-china fragility, her helplessness, her awkwardness, but with her vital, glowing beauty.

A car came roaring up the drive, and Marianne rushed to the door and opened it. She slammed the door after her. Alison appeared in the gallery above them and looked down and sighed when she saw the watery mess that had to be cleaned up.

Mrs. Davenport thrust her aside.

“
I
’ll do it,” she said.

CHAPTER III

THE dinner went off marvellously, considering the brief amount of time that Alison had had to prepare for it and devote to it. Her two helpers in the kitchen were both untrained girls who could prepare vegetables and wash up, but knew little about the finer points of cookery.

Alison herself, as soon as she had satisfied herself that there was no more that could be done to the rooms prepared for the new owner, disappeared into the nearest bathroom and cleaned herself up, found one of her own overalls—a clean one—hanging on a door, donned it, and raced downstairs to the kitchen to really get to work on the dinner.

Luckily, a few telephone calls to reliable tradesmen had resulted in a brace of pheasants being brought to the Hall, some tinned turtle soup, a carton of frozen strawberries, cream, and some tins of anchovies.

The anchovies she used for a savoury, the strawberries were incorporated in a fresh fruit salad, the cream whipped to be served with them, and some of it retained for coffee. The pheasants were accompanied by a rich brown gravy when they were carried into the dining room, and amongst the vegetables that she served were creamed potatoes and potato straws.

Having had little to eat herself since breakfast she felt quite hungry herself when dishing up the meal.

Before beating the gong—unused since Sir Francis’s day—she made certain the fire in the dining-room was behaving itself. It was in actual fact roaring up the chimney, Mrs. Davenport having piled the log-basket with logs, and the table that had been laid by herself looked attractive if a little funereal where the candles in the gleaming silver candelabrum that she had set at one end of the table did not succeed in dissipating the shadows with their flickering light.

For some unknown reason the electric lights in the dining-room had failed, and therefore candles were essential. Fortunately she had a supply of coloured ones in her own store-cupboard.

Just before the meal was served Mr. Leydon found his way to the largest of the three kitchens, where the ovens were sited, and placed a bottle of wine on the table.

“Chill this if you can,” he requested. “Don’t chill it too much or you’ll ruin it.” He cast a glance round the kitchen, recognised that a transformation had taken place since morning and that the place was actually warm. He seemed surprised. “You must have done a lot of work,” he said, “to achieve this.”

Alison, in her blue overall, and with her pale gold hair lightly smudged with flour, answered a trifle drily.

“I engaged some help from the village.” For the first time he became aware of the two young women scouring saucepans and putting away used utensils at the far end of the kitchen. “I hope that’s in order. I mean,” a little awkwardly, “they have to be paid—”

“Of course.” He spoke loftily. “Naturally I shall pay them, and you must let me know the cost of all this...” waving a hand to indicate the contents of the littered table.

Alison flushed slightly.

“I didn’t mean the food, Mr. Leydon,” she protested. “I’m perfectly happy to provide you with dinner.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” he exclaimed. His expression was good-humoured, and she was not entirely surprised to find that he had changed into a dinner-jacket. It was perfectly tailored and fitted him so well that for the first time it was really borne in on her that he was an extremely personable man ... a handsome man by any standards. His cool grey eyes flickered over her. “I feel I ought to ask you to join us at dinner, but I’m not quite certain who would take over here if you did. Could matters proceed now without you?” He directed a more doubtful glance at the washers-up.

“Oh, no, thank you all the same.” Alison was heartily glad that she had no option but to refuse. “Jenny and Margaret are not really cooks, and I have to supervise them. But Jenny will wait at table. She’s had quite a lot of experience, and she’s not clumsy.”

“Good!”

He helped himself to a grape from a dish on the table.

“What about dessert?”

“It’s on the dining-room sideboard.”

“Splendid.” Another grape, and then he turned away. “By the way, polish up a couple of liqueur glasses and bring them to the library with the coffee, will you? There’s a bottle of Napoleon brandy upstairs in my room, and I’ll fetch it.”

He was half way to the door when something else occurred to him, and he turned back.

“Don’t those stepdaughters of yours ever help you? That poor little thing with the lame foot appears to have done the flowers, but the other two, who struck me as very fit specimens, don’t seem to have rallied round. One of them has apparently just gone off for the evening, looking like a contestant in a beauty contest. Is she allergic to housework, or does she consider that my coming here has nothing whatsoever to do with her?”

Alison flushed again. She could have told him that that was exactly the way Marianne looked at it. His coming to Leydon Hall was nothing to do with her, although circumstances forced her to live in a corner of it.

“Marianne has a boy-friend who was coming to collect her to-night. He was taking her to dinner and a dance. This is rather a dull part of the world for young people ... She doesn’t get many opportunities to enjoy herself.”

His eyebrows went up slightly.

“And the other young woman? Is she old enough to have a boy-friend? You must make allowances for me, because I’m quite ignorant about these matters,” with a good deal of dryness.

Alison explained. “Lorne has gone to the cinema in Murchester after a Spanish lesson this afternoon.”

His eyebrows remained up.

“Spanish lessons and the cinema, dinners and dances. Life can’t be all that dull!”

Alison dived for the oven-cloth as soon as he left the kitchen. Her nostrils were offended by the smell of too-well-done pheasant.

But when Jenny carried them to table they could not have looked more gloriously brown, nor smelled more succulent. There was a disused hatch between the kitchen and the dining room, and this was opened for the meal. Margaret on the one side handed dishes through it to her fellow helper on the other, while Alison remained discreetly in the background and hoped for the best. In fact, she prayed fervently that all would go well ... the chestnut stuffing, the crisp curls of bacon, the tiny sausages, the vegetables in the piping hot dishes. The dishes were so hot, in fact, that Jenny burned herself carrying them to table, but they were cooling rapidly by the time they reached the candlelit oasis in the middle of the vast, shadowy room.

Nevertheless, Jenny reported excitedly, through the hatch, that Mr. Leydon and his guest were falling to with a will. They had drunk a couple of sherries in the library before dinner, and now it was quite obvious they had worked up an appetite. Even Mr. Minty looked as if he was really enjoying himself, although when he arrived it was quite plain he had more or less resigned himself to the worst type of evening imaginable. What with talking business with his client and freezing in his great house, the outlook had not been good. Attired in an antiquated dinner-jacket, and sniffing into his pocket-handkerchief, Alison had felt quite sorry for him when she showed them to the library. But the sight of the roaring fire that awaited him had wrought quite a transformation.

And now matters were proceeding more favourably still, and Mr. Minty was making quite a pig of himself with the chestnut stuffing. The fresh fruit salad and the cream disappeared in a flash, and then the savoury was placed before the diners. It wasn’t merely an anchovy savoury, it was an artistic as well as a culinary triumph, and the result of a secret recipe
Alison
possessed. Afterwards the cheeses remained untouched, but Mr. Leydon cracked himself a walnut, and Mr. Minty nibbled at a few muscatels.

Then the gentlemen withdrew to the library

The fire had been made up in their absence, and it would have threatened the flues if
Alison
hadn’t had the chimney swept recently. Two leather chairs were drawn close to the flames, and as soon as she heard footsteps crossing the hall Alison nipped round through the service door and placed the tray with the coffee and the liqueur glasses on a little table between them. She was beating a retreat when the two men entered the room, and Mr. Minty overwhelmed her with his appreciation.

“A wonderful dinner!” he declared. “A superb dinner! In the whole course of my life I don’t think I ever had a better!” He stood beaming at her, his eyes mellow with the memory of it, and undoubtedly brightening still more when Mr. Leydon placed the bottle of Napoleon brandy on the tray with the glasses. “If you cooked it yourself, Mrs. Fairlie, you must be a Cordon Bleu.”

Alison shook her head. She was still wearing her pale blue overall, and she looked a little heated from the stove, but it was quite obvious she was gratified because her efforts had not gone unacknowledged. Although as yet Charles Leydon had said nothing about enjoying the meal.

“I suppose we can’t persuade you to remain and take coffee with us, Mrs. Fairlie,” he suggested ... but from his tone she gathered that he was quite confident she would refuse.

“Not with all the clearing away still to be done, Mr. Leydon,” she replied. And then in case she sounded ungracious she added hurriedly, “But it’s very good of you to ask me.”

“Not at all.” It was Mr. Minty who spoke. “I think you’ve had a very hectic day, Mrs. Fairlie, and must be quite worn out.”

Once again she shook her head.

“I don’t mind hectic days occasionally.”

She fetched an ash-tray and placed it at Mr. Leydon’s elbow. He stood cutting the end off a cigar and regarding her a trifle strangely.

“Before you go to bed to-night I’d like a few words with you,” he said quietly. “If you’re not too tired, of course.”

She assured him mechanically that she would not be too tired.

“Good.” He puffed fragrant cigar smoke into the room, and his sleek dark head went back in a relaxed manner while he lent one shoulder against the carved mantelshelf. “I’ll ring for you about ten o’clock, if Minty has left by then. If not, it will be later.”

“I’ll come whenever you ring,” she told him, but she couldn’t help wondering what he wanted to talk to her about so late at night. And because she was feeling so very, very tired anxiety took possession of her easily. While Mr. Minty sank luxuriously into his chair and lit his own cigar she retreated quietly from the room, and outside in the kitchen she suddenly had no appetite for the meal that awaited her.

Jenny and Margaret had already done most of the washing-up and clearing away, and Margaret had made a pot of tea and put some titbits on to a plate for Mrs. Fairlie.

“Come now, Mrs. Fairlie,” she coaxed, “you’ve got to eat. Jenny and I have had ours, and if you don’t mind, when we’ve done the last of the washing-up, can we go home?”

“Of course.” Alison was shocked because it was already quite late, and the girls had a longish walk back to the village. She wondered whether she ought to get out the Mini and drive them back. She decided that she ought, but both girls refused.

“As if we mind a bit of a walk,” Jenny said. She smiled at Mrs. Fairlie, who was a considerate employer, and no one ever refused to help her out when necessary. “If you want us tomorrow just let us know,” she said. “Perhaps Mr. Leydon will be staying on for a bit now that he’s here.”

The words echoed hollowly in Alison’s ears once she was alone in the kitchen. The atmosphere was warm, friendly, and the most pleasing smells hung about it still. All the freshly washed and polished saucepans were gleaming on their racks, the great Aga looked spick and span, Jenny’s tea-towels had been swung aloft to dry on a contraption that appeared to have a close affinity with the ceiling. After all the excitement and the bustle there was a profound air of peace.

But Alison was feeling far from peaceful as she toyed with the food in front of her. She told herself that she would be kept awake with indigestion if she ate roast pheasant at that hour, and after a few minutes’ pretence she pushed the plate away from her. She drew a coffee-pot towards her and poured herself a cup of coffee, and then she rummaged in the pockets of her overall and produced a packet of cigarettes and lit one.

She didn’t smoke very often, but she felt like one now. As the smoke curled upwards to the ceiling she kept seeing Charles Leydon’s face, filled with after-dinner complacency, while he cut the end off his cigar and watched her. There was an old saying about a cat having a right to look at a king, but Charles Leydon hadn’t any real right to look at her like that when she had had such a hard day.

Before she took the coffee into the library she had powdered her nose and combed her hair, but her expression must have been weary, and her overall was not as immaculate as it had been when she put it on. It was a well-cut overall and the shade of blue lent depth to her eyes, but an overall in itself was a badge of servitude. She felt very far below him—although in actual fact she was nothing of the kind—in social status as she stood there like a well-trained parlourmaid or housekeeper and knew that even if her legs gave way under her she hadn’t the right to sit down, despite the fact that he had asked her to take coffee with them.

That was purely mechanical courtesy, and she was perfectly well aware that he had not expected her to accept.

And now, as she sipped her coffee and took nervous pulls at her cigarette, she wondered what she was going to hear when he sent for her.

Every instinct she possessed warned her that she was not going to hear anything that she would like ... There had been a touch of grimness in his expression when he said he wanted to talk to her, and the only thing he was likely to talk to her about was Leydon Hall.