by Jane Arbor
Kate said, “I’m afraid membership of anything in the city isn’t practical for me. I don’t come in often enough, and I’m probably going back to London very soon.”
Hester’s brows lifted. “You are? I thought you were more or less a fixture on Na Scathan?”
“Only for as long as my father was alive.”
“Was? Oh yes—he would be the Professor Ruthven whose obituary got a full-page spread in the Herald and a column in The Times? I’m sorry. But you still surprise me that you have to go back to England. Have you had another disappointment, then?”
“Another disappointment?” queried Kate.
“Well, there was Basil, wasn’t there? By the way, did you know he wasn’t around any more? The last I heard he was in the Argentine, and likely to be there indefinitely on Kent Holdings business. But I really expected to hear you had dried whatever tears you shed over him and that you’d soon be announcing your ' engagement to that melancholy wealthy widower you were always with. No?”
“No,” confirmed Kate shortly.
“Too bad. Ah well—‘the best laid plans’—and all that, and you mustn’t let me pry. It’s just that one finds it amusing to keep abreast, if you see what I mean? And come to that, I daresay you may have wondered yourself why neither Guy nor I have set foot in the Lakestrand since the last time you saw me there?” asked Hester.
This had gone on long enough, decided Kate, and signalled for her bill. “In fact, I hadn’t,” she said. “I hadn’t given it a thought.”
Hester’s eyes snapped. “And you certainly wouldn’t have been told the truth if you had asked! For he wouldn’t dare utter a word, and he can count himself lucky that to date—though only to date—I haven’t blown the story sky-high!”
Against her resolution Kate heard herself echo, “He?”
The other girl nodded. “Conor Burke—who else? Oh, I know he’s Bridie’s blue-eyed boy and probably yours too. But I ask you”—the spread hand and shrug were expressive—“how was I to know that when he wanted me to dance—you heard him yourself—he was going to pilot me straight to his private office and—well, you can guess the rest!”
Kate’s heart missed a beat. “I don’t believe it!” she said hotly.
Another shrug. “Please yourself. Though you should, for it’s true.”
“It can’t be! For one thing, Conor isn’t... like that. For another he would never dare. Besides, how could he keep you there against your will? You could have walked out on him, what was to stop you?”
Hester’s smile was falsely sweet. “Just a locked door, honey, of which he had the key.”
“I still don’t believe it. You’re making it up to discredit Conor for some spite of your own. No man in his position would risk his public reputation by taking a woman guest into his private room and keeping her there against her will!”
“Are you implying that I was complacent to his filthy advances, then? Or that I wasn’t even there?” demanded Hester.
“Almost certainly, I’d say that you weren’t there; that it’s a pack of lies.”
“I see.” Hester stubbed out her cigarette with a determined thumb. “Then perhaps we’d better re-cap. You saw and heard him ask me for a dance—check?” Kate nodded.
“And did you see me again throughout the rest of the evening before you left yourself?”
“No, but—”
“Not ‘No, but’. No, full stop. Because until I shook the dust of the place from my feet for good, I was where I said I was. Care for me to prove it?”
“If you can.”
“And how I can! How otherwise could I know that after Burke had toted me away—after, mark you!—you and your boy-friend went for a walk on the shore and that at one point you both stopped and he saluted you with a chaste kiss? For is that stretch of the shore past the bluff to be seen from anywhere else than from the window of that room?”
Sick at heart, Kate said, “I don’t know. I’ve only been in there once or twice.”
“You should check on it, though you can take it from me that I could only have seen you from there. Satisfied now?”
Kate allowed reluctantly, “I agree you must have been there at that time with Conor. But it doesn’t prove he was keeping you against your will or that he—”
“And why else should he have taken me there?” parried Hester. “To talk business? Or politics? And you don’t think I’d have stayed for a minute if the door hadn’t been locked? Besides, if you want more proof, let’s not forget, shall we, that there was one occasion when he seemed to be trying much the same thing with you? Although I must say, for all that you were more or less engaged to Basil Kent at the time, you didn’t appear—unwilling!”
Kate ignored the tart meanness of that. Though her waitress had not come to her signal, she stood up and drew on her gloves. “And always supposing you were imprisoned, how did you get away in the end?” she asked.
“I threatened to scream until someone heard me.”
“And you want me to believe that if Conor really tried to assault you, you did nothing about it but walk out and stay away from the Lakestrand ever since?”
Hester smiled thinly. “ ‘There are more ways than one of killing a cat,’ ” she quoted. “Naturally I was fit to be tied, but Guy had a better idea. We’ve a lot of friends, and a hint here, a word there, and I rather imagine friend Burke and his wretched joint may already be feeling a draught—”
But at that point there was a touch on Kate’s elbow and Bridie, was there, her eyes puzzled and hostile as she looked from one to the other.
Kate said, “D’you mind, dear, if we adjourn for coffee somewhere else?” the words clashing with Hester’s bland, “Why, Bridie! you’re as much a stranger as Kate, Guy was only talking about you the other day, saying that if you had grown the teeniest bit out of what he called your emotional puppy-fat, he’d love to see you again—You’d like that too, I daresay? So if he really meant what he said, shall I ask him to give you a ring some time?”
Bridie swallowed once and her lips compressed in a hard line. “No,” she said, then turned and stalked away, leaving Kate to follow.
How much to believe of Hester’s scurrilous story Kate did not know. Her mind chafed ceaselessly at the pros and cons.
Hester must certainly have been in Conor’s room, and she would not have been there alone. Only Conor could have taken her there. But for what purpose, if not the one she claimed?
And had the door been locked, or hadn’t it? If it had, Kate doubted if even Guy could have persuaded her to leave the scandal there. If it hadn’t, then the malice of which Kate had accused her must have inspired the story. But from what shreds of truth, if any? No smoke without fire? Kate despised the doubt which made the trite phrase seem apt. To Hester she had defended Conor, and would again, she knew.
“Conor isn’t like that,” she had said, wanting passionately to believe it. Yet was he perhaps “like that” on occasion? As opportunist as any other man? At the dictates of his prime self-confidence, even more so? And how much or how little encouragement did he need? Once, he had needed none from her, and if Hester had given him any at all, mightn’t the story be a thing of half-truths, not strong enough for scandal but still more than abhorrent to her own will to love and to trust Conor? Meanwhile it was easy to resolve against repeating it to Bridie. For Bridie at present was too full of thwarted wrath against Hester on her own account; irate with regret for all the things she might have replied to her, and hadn’t.
On the way home she was raging to Kate, “ ‘No’. ‘No’—just like that! That was all I said. How is it, d’you suppose, that one only thinks of the really flaying remarks after one needs them, never at the time?”
Kate said gently, “There’s a word for that—‘staircase wisdom’ they call it, and it happens to' everyone. Personally I thought the tone of your ‘No’ was flattening enough. But what is it you wish you had said?”
Bridie appeared to consider a choice. Then she offered, �
��I ought to have asked her why she imagined for a moment I ever wanted to set eyes on her wretched brother again.”
“Your ‘No’ was more effective than that.”
“Well then, I wish I’d managed to look perplexed, as if I couldn’t remember exactly who Guy was.”
Kate nodded approval. “Yes. Good—”
“Or better still, I should have gone all wide-eyed and silky and asked her if she hadn’t heard I was engaged—”
That brought Kate bolt upright. “Bridie!”
Bridie wrinkled her nose. “Oh, I’d only have said it. Anyway, I doubt whether Rory and I will trouble too much about a formal engagement. We just know we’re going to be married one day. It’s as simple as that, and I only wish, wish I’d had quick wit enough to tell Hester Davenport so.”
“How long have you and Rory known you’re so certain to get married?” asked Kate.
Bridie’s smile was tender and very good to see. “Right from the very beginning, I think,” she said. “We both agree that it was like having been only half a person until we recognised the other half in each other almost as soon as we met. Was it ever like that for you and Basil Kent, Kate?”
“I believed so once. But I don’t think he could have done.”
“No, or he would never have let you go.” There was a pause before Bridie added, “You know, I’ve wondered a bit about you and Dennis. You’ve beep sort of—closer lately. Or am I matchmaking just for the sake of it?”
Kate hesitated. “We’ve talked about it,” she admitted.
Bridie flashed her a quick look. “You have? And—?”
“Not since Father died. Dennis has been very patient, but I’ve shirked facing it because”—Kate expelled a sigh—“I’m just not sure.”
Bridie said sagely, “If you feel like that, you mustn’t. Even I know that. What about him, though? Is he in love with you?”
“Not as he was with Aileen. But he says he ‘needs’ me.”
“He needs me too—to do his mending. But that wouldn’t be enough—to be needed for anything, I mean—if I wasn’t sure I loved him,” retorted Bridie.
“I know, and that’s why I’m scared. But it’s possible to be wrong, even about loving, as you and I both found out,” Kate reminded her.
“It is. But you’ve got to begin with loving, or believing you do, I’m sure of that. Did Father know about you and Dennis?”
“Yes, Dennis had told him, and he said the same as you—that being fond of Dennis and wanting to help him wasn’t enough.”
Bridie sighed. “Dear Father. You were right when you said once he saw more and was a lot wiser than we knew. But Conor said the same too—d’you remember? Told me to warn you not to make yourself a life sentence of pity for Dennis? I suppose he guessed you might consider marrying him. But don’t, Kate, please—not sort of coldbloodedly. Go back to London and think hard first, will you?”
“I have thought. I’m still thinking,” said Kate.
They parted company at the bottom of the ride. Bridie took the van on to the Lakestrand and Kate went up to the house on foot. Nobody ever locked doors on the Lake, and when she entered she found Dennis was there before her.
He came into the hall to meet her. “Well, it’s come, Kate,” he said, his tone flat, sending her heart plunging for him.
“The—? The result of the competition? Oh, Dennis—what?” A hand on his arm, she drew him into the sitting-room, where he flicked a paper towards her.
“Nix,” he said. “Short-listed among twelve others, that’s all.”
“But isn’t that good?” Desperately Kate cast around for consolation for him. “It was an international competition, remember, and to be in the first twelve—do you think you could have hoped for better than that?”
“Maybe not. But I did. Daft, I suppose, considering the odds, but I’d been thinking in terms of a third or a second place at least. And now, where do I go from here?”
“Well, I should think your name being in the first twelve should bring you as many commissions as you can deal with,” Kate claimed stoutly.
“If I needed them, which financially I don’t, and what other incentive is there? Anti-climax with a vengeance. I feel as if I’d invited a tank to roll me flat and it had just done it.”
Kate was silent. They both were. Kate was thinking, This is the moment. The time I thought I still had has run out. Dennis had said he wouldn’t ask her to discuss marriage until she was ready, and he would not go back on his word. But she sensed he was waiting. They had to talk now, and suddenly she knew what she was going to say.
CHAPTER TEN
She said it, burning her boats. “Dennis, do you still feel you could make an incentive of marrying me?”
“I’ve told you so, haven’t I? I could—you know that.”
“Well then—?”
But to her infinite surprise he shook his head. “No,” he said, and then, “Come here, Kate—please.”
She went to him and he took both her hands in his. “I daresay you haven’t realised I’ve been dreading this as much as you have?” he asked.
“As... I have? How did you know?”
“Because if we both hadn’t, we’d have talked it out long since, or not have needed to discuss it at all. I’ve been scared too of its coming to a head, for fear that I’d be weak enough to let you say ‘Yes’ to me for all the wrong reasons. Because you’re sorry for me over Aileen, because we’re good friends, because I’ve got a game leg for keeps, even because Na Scathan is common ground to us—and none of them add up. Or we mustn’t let them.”
“Why not—if I’m prepared to let them?”
He shook his head again. “But that’s the clue, Kate, don’t you see? If you were sure they could be enough, you wouldn’t have had to put off telling me so. Anyway, I mustn’t let them. Waiting for you this morning, that hit me between the eyes. I’ve got to stop leaning. For too long I’ve taken too much and given too little, and it can’t go on.”
“But if you need to lean—can you stop, just like that?”
“Not just by deciding to, I imagine. But I mean to put distance between me and my chief leaning-post. That should help.” Gently he cupped Kate’s face in his hands. “You’re too kind, Kate dear, too tolerant of my croaking and a darned sight too—available. That’s why I’m going away.”
“Away from the Lake? Oh, Dennis! Where? And for good?”
“Maybe not for good. I don’t know. Anyway, I’m due first for another trip north to Aileen’s people. After that I plan to go over to America on my own hook for a tour of the various foundries and to see what commissions I can pick up. So much for the geography of the thing. For the rest, I may be biting off more than I can chew alone. But if I don’t have a stab now at taking the wiseacres’ advice to come to terms with my guilt over Aileen and not needing to work for my living and—this,” he slapped his hip, “I never shall.”
Kate said bleakly, “We’re going to miss you terribly. Do you mean you’ll be clearing out altogether from the Island?”
“Not finally. Not yet. And that’s something you can do for me. Will you let the Lake think, after I’ve gone north, that it’s just one of my periodic visits and that I’m coming back?”
“Of course, if you don’t want anyone to know.”
“I don’t. From the Post Office to the Lakestrand they’d be nodding sad heads over me and sympathising like mad. I’d just as soon Bridie didn’t know either. Ten to one she’d try to persuade me I needn’t go, and I must.”
“She knows about us, Dennis. Only this morning I told her we had discussed marrying, and I’ll have to tell her we aren’t going to.”
“Tell her, then—but not until after she has gone to Dublin, or Mrs. Burke or Conor will have it out of her for sure. When does she go?”
“Next Monday. Friday will be her last day at the Lakestrand.”
“Then let’s give her a farewell lunch there tomorrow. I plan to go north on Thursday. What did she say when you to
ld her about us? Or had she guessed something was in the wind?”
“She said she had wondered, but when I told her it mightn’t be for love as she understands it, she was rather vehement about saying, ‘Don’t’.”
Dennis’s smile was wry as he quoted, “ ‘Out of the mouths of babes ...’ Odd, isn’t it, that we should have to be taught by a kid like Bridie that for people like us, nothing less than love in marriage will do? And you, Kate? You do understand that though I longed to hear you offer, I had to turn you down? Tell me?”
Her thumbs smoothed the backs of his hands in gentle affection. “You know I understand,” she told him. “And remind me to tell you whenever I see you in future that I’m proud of you, will you?”
“Proud, is it? For what?”
“For determining to come to terms, as you call it. Facing up, accepting ... doing it alone.”
“Ah, I’ve done none of it yet. Only talked. And you know how good we sons of Erin are at that!”
“You’ll do it,” said Kate. “Bless you!” And that, she thought, for saving her from herself, from her reckless offer to marry him, using him as a bolt-hole, a refuge from the morning’s bitter doubt of Conor. With that she must come to her own terms and try to forget it. So—“Bless you,” she told Dennis, making a secret gratitude of it.
Bridie was the next to go. Rory came down from Dublin for the weekend; the two of them spent Sunday on a round of the Lake, making Bridie’s farewells, and he drove her back with him on Monday.
After she had gone, it was left to Kate to do the final clearing up in a house now doubly empty, silent and purposeless. They would both be back for Christmas, but after that, when? And in the meantime its pulse must stop.
There was furniture to be polished and shrouded; the car to be laid up; the cat to go to Mrs. Heenan on board-lodging terms; the hens on temporary loan to the O’Sheas. Every day now there was some last occasion, something finished and done with, some ruling off of the past, and though Kate dreaded the final closing of the door behind her, there were times when her loneliness longed to speed the hour when she would do it.