The Tender Glory (15 page)

Beyond, through the half-open door leading to the hall, there was further disarray. She caught a glimpse of packing-cases stacked one on top of the other and what seemed like the framework of a bed. The cases looked as if they had just been delivered and her heart missed a beat as she looked at them. New furniture for a bride!

Turning hastily away, she tried to crush down the lump in her throat, but it persisted. Calders might be waiting for Tessa to put the finishing touches to it. Calders and Huntley.

She wanted to run from the room, to run and run until she dropped from exhaustion, but there was still the piano to think about. Closing a broken window would do little good and there was nothing to cover it with except the dust-sheet, which was now far too wet.

Slowly she lifted the lid, running her fingers over the keys in a rippling chord. The notes vibrated in her heart, weakening her resolve to flee. It was the first time she had touched a keyboard since her return, the first time in almost two months. Eagerly, instinctively her hands lay on the keys while a deluge of music flooded her mind. The rhapsodies, the minuets, the water music, the cradle songs of great composers filled the room, blotting out time and place. Magnificent concertos rent the air with sound and fury. Greig, her favourite, battled with the elements to reproduce the thunder of the sea. Mendelssohn offered a bridal march.

All about her the house lay waiting. When she began to play its loneliness seemed to vanish together with her own ungovernable regret. She played as she had never played before. All the frustration of loss, all the agony of love unreturned was there in each unhesitating note. It was a relief, a blunting of the pain to pour it all out through the medium she loved the most.

Then, gently, quietly, when the wild concertos had run their course, the lullabies and the minuets took their place. She played softly, beautifully, her thoughts far away. The music stole out into a garden replete with rain.

Then, harshly, as if the whole world had collapsed, something crashed on to the piano. She drew her hands away as the lid came down over the keyboard, slammed shut on the music she had made. She saw a man’s clenched fist and the unutterable anger in his face before she found the courage to speak.

“Huntley, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come.”

He turned from her, hiding the fury in his eyes. “Why did you?”

It was a voice she had never heard before, racked with passion and despair.

“I had to.” She could only tell him the truth. “Something made me come. Yesterday there was a shutter slamming at one of the windows. I wasn’t sure whether you knew about it or not, and today it was still flapping on one hinge. Then—I wondered about this side of the house. I had no right—I realise that now— but it didn’t seem to matter at the time. I found the piano. Everything was sodden with rain. I tried to dry it all up, but I should have told you first, or reported it at the Lodge.”

“I was here,” he said. “I knew about the window.”

“Here?” she looked at him in bewilderment. “Then—why didn’t you try to stop me? I must have played for over an hour. Surely—surely you couldn’t have been here all the time?”

“I saw you come in,” he said, the words harsh in his throat. “I didn’t know why, although I had a fair idea.” He straightened, turning to face her. “The power of music,” he said in a frozen voice. “Who can reject it or deny it the odd sacrifice now and then? You play beautifully,” he added coldly. “We mustn’t allow such an obvious talent to go to waste. When your mother is well enough you must go back to London.”

He had dismissed her with a promise of help. He imagined that all she wanted, all she would ever desire, was within his power to give. Mocking laughter choked against her throat. How true that was, although her heart’s desire wasn’t to be found in London any more.

“We can talk about it when the time comes.” She faced him with the best effort she could make at a smile. “You’re being more than considerate. I hope I can justify your trust.”

He looked down at her, as if he were seeing her for the first time.

“I’ve no doubt you will,” he said harshly. “And now, if you’ll let me clear up the damage, I’ll go back with you for the van.”

“It broke down,” she explained, picking up broken glass on her hands and knees. She was determined to help, whether he liked it not. “The wretched thing’s always letting me down.”

It was a relief to talk about everyday matters, a lessening of the tension between them which she recognised when he smiled.

“It’s time you had a new one. Couldn’t your friend Orbister help in that respect?” he suggested. “He’s in the garage business, isn’t he?”

“Not quite.” The thought of Jim brought normality to a situation which was completely beyond her. “He hopes to enlarge his hire service before he tries anything more ambitious, but I think he’ll open his own garage eventually. It’s what he wants most, I think.”

He looked as if he might ask her something further, but appeared to change his mind. Alison glanced through the door into the hall.

“If we had something to cover the piano,” she suggested, “it would help to keep it dry till you get the window repaired. Something heavier than a dust-sheet.”

“The answer might be to move it altogether.” He put a couple of chairs to one side. “Over here it would be out of range if we did get another storm, which I doubt.” She helped him to wheel the piano towards the centre of the room, her fingers caressing the dark wood, as if it had been alive.

“It ought to be dried out properly,” she said without thinking. “It ruins an instrument, leaving it in a damp room for any length of time.”

He stiffened perceptibly.

“I haven’t time to come lighting dead fires at Calders,” he said brusquely.

“Was it your mother’s piano?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Perhaps, if we could light one fire—”

Her suggestion fell into a long silence.

“I’m sorry,” she apologised at last. “It was only a thought. It seems such a pity to let a lovely instrument deteriorate, even gradually.” “Look for something to cover it,” he said, “and I’ll bring some wood. I suppose a fire wouldn’t do any harm, once in a while. You’ll find a rug of some sort in one of the other rooms which might do to cover it for the time being. I don’t suppose I’ll be able to get the glass renewed for a day or two.”

She followed him through the hall, avoiding the packing cases standing almost against the great main door.

Where they had been delivered, she thought, seeing them clearly for the first time. Each crate bore the name of a well-known furnishing house in Aberdeen. Huntley passed them by without seeming to see them at all, as if they had been there for a very long time.

“In there,” he directed, indicating a door on the far side of the hall. “You’ll find a Persian rug on the wall.”

“Oh, but surely—” she protested.

He shrugged.

“If it saves the piano,” he said, “I’ll get it down for you.”

“A travelling rug would do,” she pointed out.

“They’re packed away somewhere. This won’t take more than a few seconds.”

He reached up, prising the rug from its fastenings until it fell at their feet.

“It’s beautiful,” Alison murmured, picking it up. “So soft and light!”

“Another sacrifice of time and eyesight.”

“Why do you pretend to be such a barbarian?” She faced him in the light from the door. “You do love this sort of thing, but—for some reason—you won’t admit it. You won’t allow yourself to be touched by beauty.”

He held the door wide open.

“Shall we say I’ve been cured of sentiment,” he suggested. “Beauty, like love and torture, can be devastating. It can leave nothing but a hard core of indifference behind it.”

She felt stunned by the bleakness of his outlook, his utter submission to grief.

“Surely there must be something left,” she said impulsively. “We can’t live out our lives hounded by despair.”

“There are other things,” he granted.

“Such as?”

“Oh—work and ambition, I suppose, and a determination to live one’s own life in one’s own way.”

“A selfish, hermit’s existence?” The criticism had escaped her involuntarily.

“If you like.” He seemed almost amused. “It has its compensations, you know.”

She followed him down a passage to the kitchens. “This house,” she said impulsively. “Couldn’t it offer a sort of compensation, too?”

He went through to the scullery to pick up wood and coal.

“I’m not looking for recompense,” he told her. “When I come back to Calders it will be because I have to come.

I don’t intend to let it rot or fall down about my ears. I’m fully conscious of my obligations, here and elsewhere.”

“You mean—you’ll marry eventually?” Her voice sounded quite steady as she walked beside him to the drawing-room, carrying the rug. “It—must be expected of you. Calders has been in your family for years.”

“For four generations,” he agreed. “Perhaps I owe it something, after all.”

He hadn’t answered her direct question. He hadn’t confirmed the fear in her heart. Only Tessa had hinted that he intended to marry her.

While he lit a fire in the wide grate at the far end of the room she covered up the piano, tracing the delicate bird and flower pattern on the beautiful wool rug with a finger that shook. How could he be so indifferent to so many lovely things?

The wood, at least, was dry. It roared and sparked between the ancient andirons, sending shafts of vivid fire up the chimney and a glow of light and warmth into the waiting room.

“How quickly a house responds to warmth!” she mused, sitting on the edge of a winged armchair on the far side of the hearth. “It’s the original source of life, isn’t it?”

He looked at her, still half turned towards the fire. “Of contentment, anyway,” he said. “We can all learn to be reasonably content.”

“Because it’s a half-measure?”

“If you like. Life can be composed of half-measures.” “You’re so wrong!” The colour had risen in her cheeks. “We never truly accept such a theory,” she argued. “Wasn’t there

hope at the bottom of Pandora’s box?” “The hope that things might turn out well, after all?” He smiled. “But you’re an optimist, Alison. You can even smile in the face of despair.”

“My own despair?” She looked at him in the leaping orange light from the fire. “If you mean my career I have every hope of taking it up again. You’ve just made that possible by promising your help.”

“So I did.” He straightened his broad shoulders. “There’s no fear of me going back on my promise,” he assured her. “Let me know when you wish the scholarship renewed.”

“It won’t be for a year, at least.”

“Even if your brother returns?”

“I couldn’t leave Craigie Hill all at once, even if he did.”

“He might marry. People do.” He sounded stiff.

“Yes. He might marry in Canada and stay there.”

“Is that what you fear?”

“I have to think about it.”

“If it did happen it would mean Craigie Hill for you all the time.”

“I suppose so.”

“You take it very calmly.”

“Not always. At least, I didn’t. Not inside.” She felt able to confide in him about this. “I was bitterly disappointed at first. I raged against fate for giving me so much, then taking it away, for letting me see what life could be like only to reverse the picture to show me a blank canvas in a shabby frame.” “You’re candid, to say the least.”

“It was how I felt in the first place. Now—”

“Now?” he prompted.

“I don’t know.” She shielded her face with her hand. “There must be something, somewhere, to make up for—for disappointment.”

“Another door opening?” he queried. “My mother had a touching faith in second doors. If she couldn’t exactly see them she made them appear of her own accord.”

“Like the Scholarship!”

He smiled.

“Like the Scholarship.” He came to stand beside her chair. “You were the second winner. What happened to the first

one?”

“She went to Australia on tour. Elizabeth Sutherland! We’re going to see her name in headlines one of these days. She was a magnificent choice.”

He turned to the damaged window.

“You’ve no jealousy in you, Alison, have you?” he said.

“It’s such a wasted emotion.” She rose to her feet. “But none of us escape it. I’m jealous of you owning Calders!” She attempted to smile. “And that magnificent piano.”

“Tessa asked you to the Lodge,” he reminded her. “There’s another piano there.”

She supposed she had deserved his snub.

“Yes,” she agreed. “When I have time I mean to take advantage of her offer.”

“Tessa needs company,” he said abruptly. “She’s very much alone down there. Her father hasn’t much interest beyond a salmon fly. His life at the Lodge is full to capacity in that respect.”

“But—when he can’t fish?”

“He reads about fishing.”

“Poor Tessa! I think she’s often bored,” she agreed. “Bored and a little afraid.”