This Merry Bond (14 page)

She got up abruptly and shut the piano.

“You’d better have a hot bath and some whisky, hadn’t you?” she said apathetically.

His expression changed. He began telling them how exhilarating it was riding through the dripping woods with the rain driving in your face, how exciting the pungent smell of the horse’s wet skin, and the feel of the sodden earth under you.

Despite herself, Nicky felt herself responding. This was a Michael she understood and a mood she understood. She began wishing she had gone with him.

“If it’s still raining tomorrow we’ll go again,” she said eagerly, and remembered then that she must tell Michael to go.

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Simon broke in sharply. “I’m not going to have you risking a chill on top of your other upset. Besides, it gives Smith unnecessary work getting the horses clean again.”

Michael made a small grimace and went off to have his bath, and Nicky, feeling unaccountably chilled, wandered into the library to find a book.

Dinner that night was an odd affair. Michael’s ride seemed to have affected him like wine. He was in his most inconsequent, irrepressible mood. It was impossible for Nicky not to react; she became as inconsequent as he, her depression vanishing in the exhilaration of the old akinness that had always united them.

She was aware of Simon sitting at the head of the table and listening to them both in his grave fashion, a little puzzled perhaps, but his real thoughts as usual hidden and secret. She wondered what he was thinking, and it crossed her mind that she never really knew whether he liked Michael or not.

But Simon, watching them, was again conscious of envying the younger man his ease of manner, that light, charming touch that in a moment, could carry Nicky with him on a wave of sympathetic delight.

Michael was telling a long anecdote with much wealth of color, reminding Nicky of some forgotten escapade in which they had both successfully got the better of some short-tempered tradesman.

“I don’t think that’s a very funny story,” Simon said unexpectedly.

They both stared at him.

“But it was exquisitely funny,” Michael exclaimed.

“To get the better of a man who had every right to his money, just because your brain worked quicker and more dishonestly than his?”

Michael laughed good-humoredly.

“Don’t be such a pompous ass, Simon,” he said without rancor. “If he’d been decent in the first place, so would we.”

Nicky said nothing, but sat crumbling her bread and looking straight in front of her.

“A tradesman is just as worthy of decent treatment in the matter of debts as anybody else,” Simon said with a quietness that was suddenly ominous. “Don’t you agree, Nicky? After all, you once called me a tradesman—a hard-headed tradesman, I think you said.”

There was a sudden silence, Michael, instantly aware of the hurt anger that lay behind Simon’s words, glanced across at Nicky with a lift of the eyebrows.

She turned to face Simon, a faint flush staining each high cheekbone.

“I’m learning to pay my debts,” she said in a clear, high voice.

He gave her a long, curious look, and seemed about to say something when Michael remarked with that slight drawl he used when he wished to be insolent:

“Does Nicky fling your boots and shoes at you when she wants to insult you, Simon?”

Nicky saw his hands move swiftly with the old secret sign, and he began to bait Simon with delicate malice. She sat very straight and stiff at the table listening, and suddenly she got to her feet.

“Let’s go,” she said. “This meal was over long ago. Let’s have some music. Michael can sing—or don’t you sing any more?”

“It’ll be cold this evening in the drawing room,” Simon said, glancing at the rain-washed windows.

“We’ll have a fire,” said Nicky at once.

She didn’t understand the instinct that prompted her to keep Michael occupied doing something other than baiting Simon. She only knew the color and sparkle had gone out of the evening and she was aware once more of the new Michael.

“All right,” he said with his crooked smile. “For old time’s sake, as they say. You shall choose my songs.”

She was aware of Simon standing in front of the fire at the other end of the room. Sometimes he asked a question about a song that he liked, and Michael threw him some flippant reply, shutting him out in some subtle fashion of his own from the warmth of their own intimacy.

Nicky broke off in the middle of a bar and shut the lid down over the keyboard with a crash. Common Enemy
...
Michael was playing Common Enemy against Simon and expecting her to join in with him. She was amazed at the flood of protectiveness that filled her toward her husband. At that moment she almost hated Michael. She crossed the room and stood beside Simon in the circle of firelight, slipping a hand through his arm. She wondered if he was aware of Michael’s deliberate intention, but his face told her nothing, and if he was surprised at her little overture he gave no sign.

But Michael, watching them both with eyes that saw everything too quickly, grinned suddenly and said:

“I think I’m leaving you tomorrow. My family complain they never see me.”

N
icky gave a quick little sigh of relief. It was so like Michael to solve the problem himself. And yet, did she really want him to go? She knew she would miss him desperately, just as she had missed Charles. It was going to be strange to be alone with Simon again.

“But you’ll come back?” she said, in spite of herself, and became aware that Simon was looking down at her with an odd expression.

“Oh, yes,” said Michael, his slanting eyes suddenly bright with some secret jest. “I shall come back.”

For a moment Nicky stood quite still beside Simon. She didn’t realize her fingers had tightened on his arm. She had forgotten Michael. She only remembered that for the first time since she had known him she was ranged on Simon’s side. It had always been she and Charles, she and Michael against all comers. Tonight for the first time it was she and Simon against—what? Those who should hurt him. Michael, Charles—even herself. She was no longer a Bredon. She was a Shand and must fight the Shand battles.

“Don’t you think it’s time you went to bed?” Simon’s voice said above her head. “You’re looking tired.”

“Yes, I think I will,
”
she answered. “Give me a cigarette before I go.”

But it was Michael who was quickest. Giving her a cigarette with a flourish, lighting it with some absurd remark, opening the door, saying:

“I’ll mix you a hot drink and make Simon bring it up to you in bed, and tomorrow, my pigeon, you shall be taken for a drive to the highest point in Sussex and let the winds blow away your headache. You have a headache, haven’t you?”

The little things. ... It was always Michael who thought of the little things. Nicky felt suddenly like crying, and went out of the room.

As she crossed the hall the telephone bell rang and she went into the library to answer it.

“Oh, Nicky,” said Stella Lucy’s voice, eager and a little breathless. “There’s a book Simon promised to lend me. Might I come up and fetch it tomorrow?”

“Yes,” said Nicky. “Come to tea,” and banged down the receiver.

She was asleep before Simon came up, but in the morning the bed beside her was still as it had been the night before. He had slept again in his dressing room.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

It
was still raining the next day. Nicky regarded the soaking countryside with distaste and thought enviously of Charles idling away the hours in a sun-baked Breton fishing village. A fever of restlessness possessed her and she half-seriously considered sending Charles a wire and joining him for a fortnight, but for the first time she found herself reluctant to leave Simon.

S
itting in the deep embrasure of one of the library windows, waiting for tea to be brought, she listened to Simon and Stella discussing books, and thought how different he seemed with the girl. His old aloofness had vanished. He answered Stella’s eager questions with genuine pleasure, teasing her gently, responding to her interest in him with a charm of manner that was rare in him of late. It seemed to Nicky that there was a real bond of understanding between these two. She didn’t stop to think that Simon had been lonely, that the girl’s evident liking for him was in itself sufficient to break through his reserve. She only knew that she was unhappy; that for the first time in her life she was unsure of herself, that she wanted both Michael and Stella to go and leave her alone with Simon; that she dreaded Michael’s going.

After tea she drove Michael to the station, glad to get out of the house. They stood together on the little rain-swept platform waiting for the train. Nicky stood, her hands thrust into the pockets of her mackintosh, her face and hair wet with rain. She had nothing to say to Michael.

“Can it be, my sweet”—his voice came to her, gently mocking— “that my departure is the cause of all this gloom?”

“I don’t know,” she said absently. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, I hoped you might miss me.”

“I shall miss you,” she said, and turned to look at him. “Michael—”

“
Yes?”

“I don’t know what I was going to say.”

He looked down at her without speaking for a moment, and there was a gentleness in his face that was unfamiliar.

“You have a curious kind of defenselessness at times, Nick,” he said thoughtfully. “The Bredons are a tough take-it-or-leave-it lot as a tribe.”

“And so am I,” she said defiantly. “I’m as tough as either you or Charles, and I don’t give a damn for anyone.”

He smiled, that crooked, puckish smile that made him look like Charles.
“You’re not tough, my pigeon,” he said gently, “though you like
to think you are. But you’re like all the Bredons in this respect. No one’s going to have what belongs to you. But don’t let it lead you astray. You’d never be happy with someone with different fundamentals to yourself.”

She hadn’t time to ask him what he meant for at that moment the train drew up in the station, and he turned to find an empty carriage.

He leaned out of the window, and the softness had gone from his face. His bright eyes smiled down at her in the old tantalizing way.

“I shall come back for you, Nick,” he said. “Any day, any night—when you’ve had enough of boots and shoes. I told you I could wait—but not for too long. We’ll be dead a long time.”

The train began to move. Nicky remembered suddenly how she had seen him off the last time. Then he had said: “I shall come back,” but it had been four years before he had kept his promise.

“Michael—don’t go!” she cried childishly, beginning to run along the platform, but he gave her the old nursery salute and was gone from the window. She stood forlornly on the platform, watching the train out of sight.

Stella had gone when Nicky got back. Simon was standing at the window, a glass of sherry in his hand, watching the rain descend.

“What a couple of days!” he exclaimed disgustedly. “I hope we’re not going to have a wet July.”

He turned to look at Nicky. Her red hair was dark with rain and hung in straight childish strands against her neck.

“You look cold.” he said. “I’ll tell Bates to light a fire in here before dinner.”

He poured her a glass of sherry and watched her as she stood sipping it, and as he watched her his heart contracted. She seemed very young to him and he was aware that she wasn’t happy. What was it she had said last night at dinner? “I’m learning to pay my debts.”

It seemed so long ago now that he remembered Nicky saying in that hard, desperate little voice: “I’m afraid I’ve come to beg.” He hadn’t made it easy for her then. He had never made it easy for her
...
And later: “What security have I? There’s only myself.” His own voice asking: “In what capacity?” And her reply, defiantly, recklessly. “Any capacity you like. There’s only one really, isn’t there?” Nicky, a beloved child, bargaining with him in the only way she knew. He had wanted to spank her and gather her into his arms all in the same breath.

On impulse he stooped suddenly and kissed her, and was a little puzzled by her eager response.

“What a cold little face,” he said gently. “You ought to have let Simpkins take Michael to the station.”

“No, I wanted to,” she said, and he was silent, wondering just how much the young man’s departure mea
n
t to her.

“Did Stella enjoy her afternoon?” she asked idly.

“Yes, I think she did. I said we’d take her along to the Colemans with us on Wednesday. She hasn’t anyone to go with.”

“Oh!”

“Don’t you like her, Nicky?” He sounded a little puzzled.

“Oh, she’s all right,” said Nicky in a rather flat voice. “I think I’ll go and have my bath now.”

It seemed strange to be dining alone again with Simon. She was very conscious of him sitting gravely at the head of the table, the dim Bredon portraits looking down on him from the walls, and she realized with a slight sense of shock that it was no longer incongruous that the head of the house of Bredon should be absent. Simon was indisputably master of his estate.

There was comfort in the final shutting out of this dreary day. The library looked kind and familiar with its dr
a
wn curtains and small wood fire. Nicky curled up on the floor and rolled one of the dogs over on to its back so that she could tickle its stomach.

“Have you taken your tonic?” Simon asked as he joined her.

“Oh, no, I forgot,” she replied, as usual, and he went back to the dining room to fetch it. It had always been Michael who had remembered her tonic.

She sat on the floor beside Simon’s chair and wished he would touch her. A wave of desolation swept over her and she wanted the comfort of personal contact. Perhaps, unconsciously he was aware of her need of him, for he stretched out a hand and began playing with her hair. She turned her face abruptly into his knee and broke into a storm of weeping.

All at once he was very still. She had been so quiet all through the evening. Was it possible that after all, she really cared for Michael? But Nicky, in the throes of a grief she didn’t understand, was remembering that Simon had called her a cheat
.
“I shan’t
come near you unless you ask
me to yourself,” he had told her. In that moment, she might have cried to him: “I was wrong, Simon. Give me another chance. Teach me to give
you what you want.” But looking up through her tears, she saw his eyes look over her head with an expression that chilled her, and she drew
away from him, her tears checking immediately.

“I
’
m sorry,” she said. “I suppose it’s because I haven’t been well.” She tried to smile. “It’s been such dreary weather, hasn’t it?”

Before he had time to stop her she was on her feet.

“I think I’ll go to bed now, if you don’t mind, Simon,” she said. “I’m awfully tired.”

He rose and stood looking down at her, his quiet face giving her no clue to his thoughts.

“I understand,” he said gently. “Get a good night’s rest, my dear. You’re living on your nerves too much.”

“Good night.”

“Good night. Don’t forget I’m next door if you want me. You sleep better alone, don’t you, Nicky?”

She didn’t answer, but when he stooped and kissed her, she resisted an impulse to fling her arms around his neck, and went quietly out of the room.

There began for Nicky a period of intense unhappiness. Simon’s aloofness seemed more marked now that there was no Michael to bridge the gaps. Nicky developed a reserve of her own. She was very quiet these days and seemed unwilling to go out and meet people. She made no further advances to Simon, but she took to accompanying him on his rounds to the tenants, and seemed to like being with him. Indeed she came to know an entirely different side of him. She learned that he could be human as well as efficient. He seemed to have made it his business to take a personal interest in the tenants as well as in their needs, and they clearly liked him. Nicky began to realize that in her father’s time there had been no personal touch. His bailiff had seen to the entire running of the estate, and Charles could never have said how many children lived in one of his cottages. Simon knew them all, remembered their names and their habits and brought them little presents from time to time.

Watching him, Nicky knew humility for the first time. Here was a man who was strong enough not to compromise, but who tempered his justice with humanity. He was very like his mother, she thought with surprise, and then she wondered if the hard Shand streak was only reserved for herself. Wearily, Nicky wondered why he had married her. It seemed so long ago now since
that first day he had told her he loved her. Even then he had said it grudgingly: “I happened to fall in love with you, you little fool. God knows why, for you’ve little enough kindness.”

No, they hadn’t much kindness, the Bredons. Charm they had, and a facile carelessness, but kindness was a quality that had seldom been demanded of them. You’re not very kind yourself, Simon, Nicky thought, but without resentment, aware that she had earned little enough consideration from him. And yet he was always that. She thought that perhaps he had never really loved her, and she wondered what kind of lover he would make to a woman who desired him.

The fine weather arrived and Nicky decided to spend a day in London. She had the half-formed intention of seeing Michael when she arrived. But instead she rang up Hilary Bredon and demanded to be taken out to lunch.

Sitting opposite him and watching his shrewd, cynical face, she realized suddenly how little she really knew him. He had always seemed an older and more sober edition of Charles, but she wondered now as she talked to him, if he was so typically Bredon as she had always assumed. Had he, as a young man, been just as gay and irresponsible as Charles or Michael, long years married to Aunt Alice, wearing him down to a half-cynical philosophy of life?

Or had he always possessed some deeper quality that had made him a little different?

“Uncle Hilary,” she asked on impulse, “what was my mother really like? What would she be like if she was alive now?”

He regarded her thoughtfully.

“Your mother was a delightful creature,” he said deliberately. “But she had all the need of order and security that is in you, Nicky, though you don’t like to think it. If she had lived, Charles would have broken her heart.” Long ago, Mouse had said those self-same words. “The Bredons don’t give security.”

“But in your case—” Nicky said.

He smiled a little crookedly.

“In my case, I found security,” he said. “Would it surprise you to know, Nicky, that I’ve been extremely happy with your Aunt Alice? You and I, my dear, need roots. If you had been my daughter, and Michael Charles’s son, we would all have understood each other so much better. The Bredon tradition is so much accepted now that we’re all apt to take each other for granted.”

Nicky was silent. Was there a covert warning in what he said? How much had this shrewd old lawyer guessed of her relations with his son?”

He smiled at her suddenly.

“You wouldn’t do in the witness-box, Nick,” he said. “Your face is far too revealing.” He leaned across the table and his expression was half-serious, half-mocking. “You’ve got the right man. I’ve told you that before. Don’t be carried away by charm. It’s an insidious thing, charm, and all the Bredons have it. But it’s the roots that count—don’t you forget that. A man can be a vagabond all his life, but not a woman. She demands something more in the end. Now I must be getting back to my chambers.”

Nicky parted from him with real affection and an uneasy suspicion that he was right.

A few days later Simon went north for a couple of nights on business for his father, and scarcely an hour after he had left, Michael walked in.

Nicky greeted him with a mixture of pleasure and suspicion.

“Did you know Simon was going to be away?” she asked and felt annoyed when his eyes tilted in mirth.

“Darling, be reasonable!” he protested charmingly. “How on earth could I know? Still it’s rather fun he’s away, isn’t it? It’ll seem like old times again.”

It was an enchanting two days, and for Nicky the charm of older and more carefree times was almost recaptured. Riding with Michael in the freshness of early morning, swimming in the river, lying in drowsy silence in the warm, bee-loud meadow grass, she was a little girl again. Michael never spoiled it—in a moment of cynicism she supposed he was too clever for that—and the hours were ladened with the old spell. Once again they were the young Bredons, happy, graceless, united together against all comers. Mouse watched with disapproval as they idled away the hours. She didn’t think Nicky was taking life seriously enough for a young married woman.

Only once did Michael refer to Nicky’s marriage. He came to her room the night before Simon was to return, and asked her to tie up a cut finger.