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The Rose Stone

Page 49

by The Rose Stone (retail) (epub)


  He was watching her steadily. “I didn’t somehow suppose that it was.”

  “The boys. They’ve got themselves expelled from school. Some awful scrape Nicholas got himself into. Involving—” she added with some difficulty “—a couple of younger boys.”

  “How very unsavoury.” The words were non-committal.

  “Yes.”

  A faint puzzlement had drawn his brows together.

  She found herself talking without taking breath, very fast, the words all but running into each other. Her hands were tight-gripped before her. “I feel so sorry for poor Ben. I don’t believe that he was involved at all. But Nicholas just let him take half the blame anyway. He doesn’t seem to see – doesn’t seem to care – what he’s done. Oh, God, it’s my fault isn’t it? My fault – I’ve ruined the child.” Her voice died to silence. Rain drove against the window panes.

  He said nothing. Shook his head, very slightly.

  She looked down at her clasped hands, and took a long, sighing breath. “That wasn’t really what I came to say,” she said softly, not looking at him. “Oh – it’s all true, and perfectly horrible. And I do feel dreadful about it. But I can cope, I expect. I didn’t have to come running to you.” There was a kind of defiance in the words.

  “Of course.” He waited.

  She lifted her head at last, and held his gaze steadily. “Nicholas told me what he told you on the morning after Father’s funeral. When you found him with the diamond.”

  There was a long moment’s silence. Anna heard her husband’s slow release of breath. “I see.”

  “I wanted you to know – I had to tell you myself – that there was absolutely no truth in what he said. I have never at any time spoken to Nicholas about his father. Nor told him that I still loved him. Nor formed any—” she hesitated, then spoke the word firmly “—any conspiracy with him against you or anyone else. The boy guessed about Nicolai. He found the pictures, and he guessed. The rest he made up. I don’t know why. Mischief, perhaps. Or – I don’t know – some obscure need.” She stopped. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know that whatever has been wrong between us in the past, whatever has stood between us, that is something that I never would have done.” At the look on his face her voice faded and she caught her breath. He turned from her and looked out of the window.

  “I think – that I have known that for some time. After I had left. After I had had time to think—”

  The words sparked swift anger. She stared at his back. “I beg your pardon?”

  He said nothing.

  “Are – you – trying to tell me—” the words were slow, almost choking with anger “—that after you had had time to calm down you realized that Nicholas had been lying?”

  “I suppose so. Yes.”

  “And yet – you said nothing? You didn’t come to me – to tell me?”

  “No.” The low word was scarcely audible.

  “Why? Joss – why?”

  Silence.

  “I don’t understand you.” The words were flatly quiet. “I never have understood you. I never will, if I live to be a hundred. First you let your hatred of my father come between us. And then, with that gone, you manufacture something else—”

  “No!” He turned at that.

  “And I say yes! What other explanation is there?” Her voice was rising. She fought to control it.

  He shook his head, turned from her again.

  “Joss!”

  He did not answer. But this time she would not make it easy for him. She gritted her teeth, held her silence, let the quiet stretch between them, dark and empty and full of the sound of the driving rain.

  “It isn’t easy for a man like me to love.” He said at last, very quietly, as if in that single sentence all was explained. As perhaps it was.

  “For God’s sake!” Anna, without thought, spoke savagely. “Do you think it’s easy for anyone?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  Quite suddenly the rain eased a little. Large, dirty drops slid down the glass of the window, glinting in the light.

  “Pride,” she said. “That’s the key, isn’t it? Sheer, stubborn, bloody-minded pride! You make up your mind to do something, and that’s it. You won’t back down, won’t admit you might be wrong, won’t ask for explanations. Your stupid man’s pride has stood between us like a wall since the day we were married.” Unexpectedly her breath choked in her throat. She swallowed. “Hasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re always ready to believe the worst. Don’t you know that that in itself can sometimes make the worst happen? You’re like that hateful diamond. Hard as rock, and cold as stone.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “You’ve never given me reason to believe anything else.” To her horror she felt hot tears rising. She had promised herself – vowed to herself – that she would not, above all things, cry. Fiercely she fought them down.

  He turned at last, back to the room and to her. “Anna.” His voice was gentle.

  “Don’t,” she said, sharply. “I didn’t come here for your pity.” She could not, absolutely could not, stop the tears.

  Surprisingly he almost laughed. “Pity you? I don’t pity you, Anna. I never have. As a matter of fact I can think of few people I’m less likely to pity than you.”

  She looked at him. “What, then?”

  “I told you once before. But you didn’t listen. Not that I blame you for that—”

  “Told me?”

  “That I loved you. That I have always loved you. No matter—” he added softly “—how I tried not to.”

  She made a small, sharp sound of disbelief. “And that’s why you left me? And stayed away for all this time? Because you loved me?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  She shook her head, violently.

  He sighed. “I left in anger – and then – I suppose it became a – a kind of habit. To stay away. It seemed to me that we could not get near each other without hurting each other.”

  She sniffed. “You never seemed to be hurt.” For her life she could not keep the bitterness from her voice.

  “That, perhaps, is my misfortune,” he said. “Not to seem to be hurt.”

  She straightened, took a handkerchief from her small handbag, blew her nose. “Well,” she said, a little more composedly, into the silence. “There it is, I suppose. As usual I’ve done all the things that I swore I wouldn’t – cried, lost my temper, caused a scene. All the things, I expect, that you find so difficult to understand. But at least I’ve told you what I came to tell you.” Her voice was commendably steady; but she could not look at him. “So now I suppose I’d better go.” She turned to the door.

  “Anna.”

  She stopped, head high.

  “Have neither of us learned anything in twenty years?” The words were very soft. “Please. Don’t go,”

  That almost broke her. She stood unmoving, her hand on the door-knob.

  “You surely didn’t come all this way just to turn around and go back home again?”

  She ducked her head.

  He moved to her, standing behind her, not touching her. “Anna—”

  She shook her head. “Don’t! You don’t mean it. And I didn’t come here to – to—” The tears came again, sliding down her cheeks as the rain slid down the windows.

  In the quiet, beyond the door, Miss Adams’s typewriter rattled loudly.

  “Please,” Joss said. “Come and sit down for a moment.”

  She sat down beside him, rigid, upon the edge of the leather sofa.

  He surveyed her with dark, quiet eyes. “Why did you come here today?” he asked unexpectedly.

  She looked up in surprise. “I told you. To tell you—”

  “Yes. But why?”

  She flushed, deeply.

  “Tell me,” he said, insistent.

  She turned her head from him.

  “Then let me tell you.”

  That snapped her head back. �
��No!” Then, chin lifted. “All right, tell me. If you can.”

  “Because you love me still,” he said softly.

  She sucked her lip. “No.”

  “Look at me and tell me so.”

  She raised her eyes to his. Remained silent. The mouth that could be so harsh turned down in a strange, deprecating little smile. “Who spoke of pride a moment ago?”

  “Well, you aren’t the only one—”

  The pressure of his hand upon hers stopped the words. “I know,” he said, “I know.” In the most gentle gesture she ever remembered him offering he extracted the damp handkerchief she was twisting between her fingers and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Then he handed her the handkerchief, caught her wrists lightly in his hands. “There is an excellent tea shop,” he said solemnly, “not far from here. It’s warm and cosy and a very good place for talking. I think you’ll like it. Would you care to take tea with me?”

  “I – yes,” she said, bemusedly.

  “Good.” He stood, helped her to her feet. “I think perhaps you should get to know a little of Manchester. Come.”

  She took the proffered arm. Miss Adams looked up as they entered her office. “Ah, Mr Anatov, the Minister’s been on the telephone. He’s free later today.”

  “I shan’t be able to make it, Miss Adams.”

  “But – what shall I tell him?” The big blue eyes were wide with astonishment.

  “Tell him,” Joss tucked Anna’s hand firmly into the crook of his arm, “tell him that Josef Anatov is taking tea with his wife.” Half-way to the door he stopped, as if suddenly recollecting something. He looked at Anna thoughtfully. She lifted enquiring brows. “A moment, Anna. I have an idea. A small gift. Something that I think I must have been keeping for you.” He walked to a large safe set in the wall, opened it, took out a long, familiar box.

  “For you,” he said, simply, and ushered her from the office, closing the door firmly in Miss Adams’s amazed face.

  “And what,” Anna asked, snapping the case open and gazing with some distaste upon the brilliance within, “am I suppose to do with this?”

  He shrugged. “Wear it. Sell it. Give it away. Whatever you like.”

  She stared. The Rose Stone’s rainbow refractions flashed upon wall and ceiling. “You mean that?”

  He took her arm. “I mean it.”

  She snapped the case shut. Half-way down the wide stairs he stopped. “If you sold it,” he said.

  She looked at him warily, “Yes?”

  “You would raise enough money to invest in a quite nice little house, would you not?”

  She frowned. “Joss – it can’t have slipped your mind – I already have a house.”

  “Ah, yes. But that one’s in London. I was thinking of something a little different. A little – further north?”

  She took his arm, started down the stairs again.

  “You mean somewhere like – Manchester, perhaps?”

  His smile was slow and wide. “Somewhere like that, yes.”

  They stepped through the doors into the busy city street. The rain had stopped at last.

  First published in the United Kingdom in 1985 by Victor Gollancz Ltd

  This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by

  Canelo Digital Publishing Limited

  57 Shepherds Lane

  Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU

  United Kingdom

  Copyright © Teresa Crane, 1985

  The moral right of Teresa Crane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781788633529

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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