by Sara Seale
CHAPTER EIGHT
The arrangement suited Charles admirably. Long ago he had found Nye a heavy burden. The money that for years should have gone to the support of the estate and the tenants had been poured into his stables, his cellar, and his doubtful speculations. Simon proposed paying him a nominal rent and putting the entire place in order again providing he was given a free hand. Charles, knowing very well the expenditure this would cover, was thankful enough to receive any rent at all. The work was to start straight away, so that the house would be in order when Nicky and Simon returned from their honeymoon, and Charles made plans to go abroad immediately after the wedding.
They were to be married early in April. Nicky, in spite of protests, refused to have the conventional white wedding, but insisted that they be married quietly in the village church with only their most intimate friends and relations present. In this she was thankfully seconded by Charles and Simon, but Mary Shand was frankly disappointed.
“I love a big wedding,” she said regretfully, “and Nye would be such a beautiful setting. But you modern young people don’t seem to mind about these things any more. I suppose I’m just a silly romantic old woman.”
Nicky liked Simon’s mother. With her she lost that feeling of aggressiveness and antagonism that John Shand always roused in her. For the first time she wondered what difference it would have made to her life if her own mother had lived, and she envied Simon that close, harmonious relationship she had never known herself.
Mary was wise. There were several things about this affair that puzzled her, and sometimes worried her a little, but she never interfered. She knew that Nicky wasn’t in love with her son in the conventional meaning of the word, and that didn’t very much concern her. She had not been in love with her own husband when she married him, but things had worked out very well, and she had never thought regretfully of any other man. But Nicky was not naturally adaptable. She had never learned that it is politic to give in upon occasion, and Simon was too like his father in many ways to adapt himself to new conditions entirely unaided.
Mary was not happy about the changing hands of Nye. She considered that every young bride should leave her father’s house for her husband’s, and in her eyes Simon had, by his own generous gesture, raised a barrier against himself that must lead to ultimate trouble. For it was perhaps inevitable that they shouldn’t see eye to eye over the running of the estate. Simon, when he went more thoroughly into things, was horrified at the neglect into which the place had fallen. It filled him with indignation that Charles should have been content for so long to allow the tenants to get along as best they could only doing repairs when he was forced to, forever procrastinating.
What to Charles and Nicky was picturesque antiquity was to Simon a crying scandal that should never have been tolerated. Like his father before him, he was thorough and unsentimental in his methods, having little regard for tradition when it clashed with his conception of efficiency, and the state of some of the cottages led to angry scenes between himself and Nicky.
“Half of them should be pulled down,” he told her after one inspection. “After we’re married I’m going to make it my business to see that some decent cottages are built for these people.”
“They’ve lived in them for generations,” retorted Nicky. “And those cottages are some of the loveliest in Hammertye.”
“They ought to be condemned,” Simon replied. “It’s monstrous that human beings should be asked to live that way.”
“You just don’t understand, Simon. The cottagers wouldn’t want to move.”
“It isn’t a question of what they want. It’s entirely a matter of hygiene.”
“Oh!” Nicky poured all the scorn she could muster into the exclamation. “You talk like all social reformers who haven’t lived among country people. You think you can just play God and arrange their lives for them and expect them to curtsey and say, ‘Thank you, sir.’ ”
“Don’t be absurd, Nicky,” said Simon impatiently. “It’s only a matter of common sense. Everyone’s got to learn. Once you get people living a better way they’ll be just as contented as with the old way, and at least we’re helping progress instead of standing still.”
“Nye has stood still for five hundred years and is none the worse for it,” Nicky said grandly, and Simon laughed.
“Nye didn’t have electricity five hundred years ago, or plumbing, or drainage. Try to be reasonable, Nicky,” he said.
Nicky appealed to Charles, but he only shrugged his shoulders and declined to take any part in the argument.
“After all my pretty,” he said with his sly,' puckish grin, “he’s paying, so he can call the tune.”
There were times when Nicky almost hated them both. Simon for his high-handed methods, Charles for his indifference. She delivered long tirades to Mouse, but unexpectedly, Mouse agreed with Simon.
“The state of the cottages has long been the talk of the place,” she said disapprovingly. “Your father would have had the Council down on him before long, anyway. Mr. Simon has the right ideas; don’t you go quarrelling with him, Nicky. He’s doing these things as much for you as for the tenants.”
It is difficult to say whether during the weeks of their engagement Simon might have made better progress with Nicky if he had shown her more plainly that he was in love with her. He was not a very demonstrative man and his fear of frightening her led him too often into the mistake of hiding his real feelings from her. She grew to accept him as someone who gave her an unfamiliar sense of security, strange as it was sweet. But she knew so little herself of the art of making love that she could not make it easy for him, neither did she altogether realize how much was lacking in their relationship. She only knew that when he kissed her he stirred something within her she hadn’t known existed, that when she lay in his arms she knew contentment. But what she called the Shand side of him she could never reconcile to the Bredon side of her. Their arguments were hot and passionate on her part, logical and final on his, and she soon came to know him for a man who would never compromise to save her face.
Only once did she broach the subject of keeping her own name as well as his once they were married. He had brought her a charming little string of pearls as an unexpected gift, and they had sat in front of the schoolroom fire in the growing dusk.
“Simon, won’t you take my name with yours when we’re married—to please me?” she had said tentatively.
But he said quite definitely with that odd little inflection in his voice that she had come to recognize when his mind was made up: “As far as I’m concerned, darling, that subject’s closed. We won’t discuss it.”
And yet there were times when he gave in over something quite unexpected, times when she would put her arms around his neck and know that even when he was most adamant he was usually right. But it was only a week before the wedding that the final rift came so swiftly that it seemed any purpose would have served for the misunderstanding. Nicky, overtired with the endless preparations, acknowledging wedding presents, dealing with relations and the inevitable press, was in no mood to be reasonable when Simon announced one afternoon that Honeysett’s cottage must be demolished.
“But, Simon, you can’t!” she cried in horror. “That cottage is as old as Nye. Archaeologists come and look at it. It has some of the finest timbering in Sussex.”
“I’m very sorry, Nicky,” Simon said a little wearily. “I don’t like destroying beautiful things any more than you do, but that cottage can’t be allowed to stand.”
“Honeysett won’t go.”
“Honeysett is perfectly willing to go. He says he’s been agitating for another cottage for years.”
“Well, let him go, then. No one has to live in it. But you can’t pull it down. Charles wouldn’t allow it, anyhow.”
“I’ve spoken to your father,” said Simon patiently. “He completely agrees with me. He says he would have pulled it down years ago if he’d had the money.”
“I don�
��t believe it. Even so, you can’t. Michael would be furious.”
“Michael!” He raised his eyebrows. These constant references to the absent cousin were beginning to get on his nerves.
“Well, Nye goes to him eventually.”
“Then the less liabilities he finds when he inherits, the better pleased he’ll be, if I know the Bredons,” Simon said more sharply than he intended, and he saw Nicky’s chin go up.
“Because you insist on reforming Nye is no reason why you should sneer at us,” she said with a slight tremble in her voice. “No one’s asking you to do it, anyway.”
His face softened.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sneer. But you are being a little difficult, you know. Try to see my point, will you? If I don’t pull the cottage down it’ll fall down, anyhow, in another year or so, and in the meantime I’m not going to risk disease spreading to the other cottages. I’m sorry, darling, but it’ll have to go.”
There was silence. They had just finished tea in the library, and the curtains were still undrawn, revealing a dark wintry sky outside. The firelight reflected in the old Queen Anne silver was cheerful enough, but a wind was getting up. It would probably be a rough night.
“If you pull down that cottage, Simon,” Nicky said very distinctly, “I won’t marry you.”
He glanced across at her, startled for a moment, then he frowned.
“Don’t be childish, now,” he said, trying to hide his impatience with her. “You seem to think I’m doing this entirely to spite you. I do assure you there’s no question at all as to the necessity for such a course.”
She got up and stood with her back to the fire.
“I mean every word I say,” she said. “Are you going to pull down Honeysett’s cottage or not?”
“Yes, Nicky, I am,” said Simon quietly.
She pulled off her ring and held it out to him.
“I’m sorry. Our engagement’s at an end,” she said, and he thought he detected faint satisfaction in her voice.
He didn’t take the ring and presently, a little nonplussed, she tossed it on to the shining tea tray.
“Sit down, Nicky,” he said then.
“There’s nothing more to be said,” she muttered.
“On the contrary,” replied Simon gravely, “there’s a great deal more to be said. Sit down.”
Against her will, she sat down on the extreme edge of a chair.
He leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees. “Nicky, have you ever thought what would happen if everyone ran out on their bargains as you do?” he began quite gently.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, trying to avoid his eyes.
“Oh yes, you do. We’ve had all this out before. When an arrangement doesn’t suit you and your father, you decline gracefully to have any more to do with it, and because you are who you are, in nine cases out of ten you get away with it. But supposing we all lived like that. What do you think society would be like if everyone refused to pay their debts or honor their contracts?”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” she said quickly. “One marries of one’s own free will, and I’ve a perfect right to change my mind if I want to.”
“Oh, no. In this case, believe me, my dear, you have not,” said Simon, and a harder note crept into his voice. “Our agreement dates back further than the day I asked you to marry me. You came to me of your own free will demanding quite a big favor, and agreeing upon a certain security. When the time came for you to honor that contract, you ran out on it, just as you tried to run out earlier still on the sale of your land. I offered to marry you where someone else might have taken you at your first valuation. You agreed—again of your own free will. And now, just because you want me to give in over some point that is important to you, you think you can run out on me again. No, Nicky, I’ve no intention of being thrown over like this at the eleventh hour. You made a bargain with me and I expect you to stick to it.”
For a moment she was silent, struggling for the right words, but when they came, it was in a rush of disjointed phrases, angry, a little frightened.
“You can’t conduct my life along the same lines as your shoe factory ... It’s perfectly absurd to take this line with me ... You can preach as much as you like, but you’ve forced me all along ... I made no bargain with you that any sane person would expect me to keep.”
“And yet, you know, I don’t believe you got engaged to me simply for what you could get out of me,” said Simon gently, and she was silent.
“I know, my dear, that you weren’t in love with me in the accepted sense of the word,” he went on. “But I know, too, that I don’t leave you entirely unmoved. You’re a strange, unawakened creature in many ways, Nicky, and I think you know in your heart you’d be safe with me.”
She looked across at him. His face in the circle of firelight was grave and a little appealing, and in spite of herself she felt the strange old urge toward him. Yes, she would be safe with Simon Shand.
“Will you leave Honeysett’s cottage alone?” she said a little breathlessly.
His mouth tightened.
“It’s no use going over all that again,” he said impatiently. “My mind was made up before we ever began the discussion.”
She sprang to her feet.
“And so is mine made up,” she cried. “I won’t marry you and you can talk about bargains and honor till doomsday. It won’t make a hoot of difference.”
He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment or two without speaking, then he said slowly:
“And what about all the money that’s been spent on Nye? A great deal has been spent, you know.”
She stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
“Well—” He spread his hands in an expressive gesture. “Would you propose throwing me over and at the same time accept everything I’ve done for the place as a matter of course?”
She was silent, and the angry color began to drain from her face, leaving it white and pinched.
“I see you hadn’t thought of that,” Simon continued, still in that gentle, ominous voice. “I suppose about a couple of thousand has already been spent on the house, to say nothing of contracts for the estate. That, together with the original five thousand you borrowed on your father’s account, makes seven thousand with a couple more to come. What do you 'propose to do about that?”
She clenched her hands so tightly that the knuckles showed white through the skin. For a moment she stood staring unseeingly over Simon’s head. She was caught, caught in a trap of her own making. There was nothing left to say.
Presently she was aware that he had risen and was standing over her, with kindly hands on her shoulders, and was speaking gently above her head.
“Come, don’t be so foolish. You know quite well that this all began in a fit of temper. Let’s forget about it. In any case you can’t begin returning wedding presents at this late date, whatever you may think of me.”
She stood still and straight between his hands and began to speak. “You’ve got me cornered and you know it. You can afford to joke about it. I never had a chance from the start with a man like you. You’re just a hard-headed tradesman who thinks of nothing but money and contracts. Well, I’ll marry you. I can’t do anything else. But you can’t force me to live with you. I never will. I might have loved you, but instead you’ve made me hate you.”
She didn’t know that she was crying. She scarcely knew what she was saying. He stood in silence looking gravely down at her, but the tears blinded her, to the pain in his face.
“You’re overtired and upset,” he said then, quite gently. “I don’t think you know what you’re saying. I’m going now, Nicky. Get to bed early, and have Mouse bring you something hot to help you sleep. Good night.”
He didn’t kiss her, but went softly out of the room and shut the door.
Gusts of April rain beat upon the windows as Nicky dressed for her wedding. Mouse ran in and out with hot drin
ks, and heaped wood on the fire, for the girl seemed shivery and sat about listlessly instead of getting herself ready.
“You’d better make a start,” Mouse said as she darted away to attend to Alice Bredon; who was unsuccessfully demanding endless services from the servants. They were too busy and harassed downstairs to pay attention to any of the guests.
Nicky went to the window and leaning her forehead against the glass, looked out onto the rainswept park. Up on the hill she could just see the turrets and upper windows of the Towers, and she wondered fleetingly how Simon was feeling. Up there, he too, was preparing for his marriage, and she wondered if any doubts assailed him, whether in his juggernaut fashion he was so confident of success that he didn’t trouble to think at all.
She had seen very little of him since that painful scene a week ago, and when they had met he had treated her just as if nothing had happened. The days had passed very quickly and soon relations had begun to arrive, the final details were completed, and Nicky at last knew herself to be committed to a course from which there was no drawing back.
She thought of the little package that had been delivered this morning from the Towers. A lace handkerchief that had turned a delicate ivory from frequent careful ironing, and a pair of blue garters. Something borrowed and something blue. Dear Mary Shand! How kind she had been, and how shyly she approached Nicky with her little romantic follies.
She started as Mouse’s voice behind her said with exasperation: “For goodness sake, Nicky, stop mooning about and get some clothes on. You have to leave in an hour and you haven’t even begun to get yourself ready. And come away from that window. You’ll get your death standing there with next to nothing on.” Nicky turned and began to put on a pair of fine stockings. With a little smile, she slipped Mary Shand’s blue garters over each slender leg.
“For luck,” she said and sat down at' the dressing table to make up her face.