by Jane Arbor
Leaning against its trunk she ran her fingers through her wet curls and sighed gustily several times in order to regain her spent breath. Momentarily she had forgotten Jenny and the children and she started in surprise when a figure appeared round the bole of a neighbouring tree.
It was Dion Christie, his chest criss-crossed by the straps of his camera and his field-glasses. A notebook was sticking out from the pocket of his burberry.
‘For pity’s sake!’ he exclaimed irritably at sight of Bridget. ‘What are you doing here? Practising a tribal dance or something? If primitive war-cries are to come next, no doubt we could whoop in chorus. What shall we sing? “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” might be suitable...’
Still panting, Bridget stared at him, completely dumbfounded by his vehement sarcasm. ‘I’m only sheltering from the rain,’ she managed at last. ‘What harm have I done?’
‘What harm—the way you were threshing about like a stranded whale? Or were you merely being a robust female out for a country walk?’
Belatedly Bridget took in the significance of the camera, the binoculars, the notebook. ‘You mean I’ve disturbed your bird-watching or something? Is this copse a bird sanctuary then?’ she asked, calling upon one of the few country phrases she knew.
‘It’s not a bird sanctuary, as labels go. And anyway birds aren’t particularly interested in labels. But they do happen to live here. They mate here, they nest here, they bring up their young—’
‘And I did interrupt your watching them?’
‘Not birds. Just one bird. Or, if you insist on exact figures, two. A pair of golden orioles—’ Dion paused, fixing Bridget with a stern eye and seeming to expect some reaction from her.
‘Golden orioles?’ she echoed lamely. ‘Are they very rare?’
‘Rare? If I say they are, I suppose you’ll run away with the idea that they’re as rare as the golden eagle, and they’re not. But there aren’t any records of their nesting in these parts for a generation or more.’
‘And you mean this pair were nesting?’ queried Bridget, suddenly realising the depths of his frustration if her noisy advent had really driven them away.
‘Not nesting. Beginning to build. Not necessarily the same thing.’
‘Oh ... won’t they come back?’
‘How should I know? I only had them in focus for a few minutes when you capered in. They were collecting material all right. But most birds experiment around, and, once discouraged, their next venture might be miles away.’
‘I’m so sorry. But I couldn’t have known!’ exclaimed Bridget impulsively.
Dion hitched his binocular-case forward and thrust his glasses into it with an air of finality. ‘You don’t have to be sorry for them,’ he muttered. ‘If they’ve really got the urge to breed, they’ll finish the job somewhere or other. I’m just the chap who’s missed the photograph-scoop of his career. But too true—you couldn’t have known!’ With which he stumped off into the depths of the copse, leaving her alone.
She had to wait only a few minutes for the sharp rain-storm to clear. When the watery sun reappeared she left the shelter of the trees and hurried down towards the road.
She was puzzled by her reactions to this latest clash with Dion. She should have been seething with indignation, and she wasn’t. All she wanted was the chance to explain her point of view to him, to show him that she understood his. When he had stalked away she had actually been sorry to see him go.
To her surprise she found the house still empty. Where could Jenny and the children be? At any rate, she decided, there would be no more gardening to-night, and she was out in the garden piling tools into the barrow when she heard a car being driven away.
‘Jenny! Where have you been?’ she asked, as Minna came running, followed more quietly by Jenny and Pegeen.
‘We’ve been to Ardvar again. We had tea there.’
‘To Advar? But why? How?’
‘Well, it was like this. Minna had some money that was burning a hole in her pocket, and while you were still talking to Kate she asked if she could go and spend it at O’Hanlon’s. We forgot it was closing day, and Minna was so disappointed that we decided to try the other little shop by the hotel. But that was shut too, and we were coming up the street again when Mr. Trent caught us up in his car, and he offered to take us over to Ardvar where it isn’t closing day. He’s just brought us back and I think he’d have liked to come in. But I knew it was near the children’s bedtime, so I said he’d better not. You don’t mind do you, Bridgie?’
‘Mind Mr. Trent’s not coming in? Not in the least,’ said Bridget, accepting a sweet from the sticky bag being thrust at her by Minna.
‘No. I meant—you didn’t mind our going with him to Ardvar?’
‘Of course not, dear, if you enjoyed it.’ A telltale flush on her cheeks and the brightness of Jenny’s eyes showed that she had.
‘In Ardvar I posted the letter about Battle that we wrote this morning,’ volunteered Pegeen.
‘Did you?’ smiled Bridget. ‘I wonder when we shall have an answer?’
To-night Dion did not appear for supper and while they ate theirs Bridget told Jenny of her encounter with him in the copse.
‘You two seem destined to rub each other up the wrong way,’ sighed Jenny.
‘I know. It’s fantastic,’ agreed Bridget.
‘It doesn’t happen with me or with the children,’ Jenny pointed out. ‘What’s more,’ she added quite sharply for her, ‘it isn’t always his fault. For instance, he really wanted you to come to Ardvar this morning. He said so—’
‘And taunted me about duty and punctuality when I refused!’
‘Bridgie, you look for offence from him! That could have been his disappointment. And this afternoon he may still have been feeling sore.’
‘This afternoon was different. He had every reason to be irritated with me.’
‘Of course a jet plane overhead might have done as much harm.’
‘Yes. But it had to be me,’ said Bridget ruefully. ‘I felt so ashamed. I’d never even heard of the golden oriole and I’d so love to be really country-wise.’
‘Well, who could help you better than Dion himself? By the way, I’ve begun to call him Dion and he doesn’t seem to mind.’
‘And can you see me spreading my abysmal ignorance for him to trample on?’
Jenny rose and began to collect their used plates. ‘You could do worse,’ she said. ‘He knows it all, and if you’d heard him answering Minna’s questions this morning, you realise that he can be patient and kind. Up to date you two just haven’t given each other a chance.’
They cleared away and set a fresh plate for Dion. Then Jenny went to the children’s playroom to play the piano—softly, so that she should not wake them—and Bridget sat down to read. Dion came in at dusk and evidently elected to have his supper with Kate in the kitchen. Bridget heard them talking and laughing, and then he went to his study. A few minutes later he came to her, a defective electric light bulb in his hand.
‘An early casualty,’ he said. ‘Have you got any spares?’
Luckily the fitters had left some, for she hadn’t thought to order any. Dion followed her to the hall cupboard where they were kept. But when she had given him one he lingered, turning it between his hands. ‘The orioles came back,’ he said abruptly.
‘Oh, I’m so glad!’ said Bridget warmly. ‘Were you able to go on observing them?’
‘Yes. After you went I made myself a hide and I got some pictures and had them in view until it was too dark to see. So much for one day’s work...’
‘I—I was sorry about this afternoon,’ murmured Bridget.
‘I barked, I suppose. I’d have barked at the Queen of Sheba,’ he admitted disarmingly.
Bridget thought wonderingly, We’re actually making peace! Or perhaps it's only an armistice ... Aloud she said, ‘Do you know, I don’t know what a golden oriole looks like?’
‘Anyone could see it wasn’t even a name to you,’
Dion retorted. ‘You’d better rectify that. Come to my room and I’ll look out some coloured plates.’
In his study he cleared a place on the table by the simple expedient of dumping its superfluous contents on the floor. Then he thumbed through some reference books and laid a couple open at the details of the bird in question.
‘He’s awfully handsome, isn’t he?’ said Bridget admiring the brilliant yellow plumage with black wing and tail markings of the male. The female was more greenish, with brown underparts.
‘Too temptingly handsome for the man with a gun,’ commented Dion grimly. ‘Look, this nest was interesting.’
He rested his hands on the table and bent above her, reading with her the account of a nest which had been built almost entirely of the litter of a field ambulance unit, its supports of surgical dressing bound about with string, its lining partly of torn letters and the whole lashed firmly to the tree branch with string.
Dion’s face was close above Bridget’s when she looked up, her eyes shining. ‘It’s fascinating, isn’t it? I wish I knew more.’
He straightened slowly, closing the books, piling them up. ‘You could if you cared enough,’ he said.
‘How should I begin?’
‘With books. By using your eyes. By sharing observations with other people.’
‘My observations wouldn’t be of much value to anyone!’
‘Not at first. But theirs could be, to you.’ For a moment he hesitated, then reached for one of the bulky volumes and handed it to her. ‘Here,’ he said a little roughly. ‘Better begin with books. They’re safe, reliable and guaranteed not to bark when you drop bricks. You can graduate to the rest later...’
She felt dismissed, even slightly snubbed again. But briefly the climate between them had warmed. And she was glad the following Monday the children were to start school. The arrangement was that on fine mornings Jenny should take some of her needed exercise by walking over to Cion Eigel with them; when it was wet and on their return journey they would be driven by Mr. Steven’s gardener-chauffeur.
As with everything, they reacted differently to the coming ordeal. Little Minna saw it rosily and was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing Bryan and Barney, their brothers, again. Pegeen was outwardly calm and self-possessed, but Bridget believed she was suffering the ‘thousand deaths’ of all imaginative people when faced with the unknown.
‘She’ll like it when she gets there,’ consoled Jenny as Bridget worried that Pegeen had politely refused all but a very little breakfast.
‘I daresay. But “You’ll like it when you get there” is grown-up reasoning, and at Pegeen’s age I remember thinking that it was pretty poor stuff!’ smiled Bridget.
Overnight the weather had cleared at last, and when she had helped Kate with the beds, Bridget took the bowl of vegetables she was preparing for lunch into the garden. As she was working at them Dion, who again had been out before breakfast, came through from the lane.
They nodded ‘Hello’ and he went on into the house. Bridget supposed he would take the buttermilk, which she always ordered for him now, into his study with him. But a minute or so later he reappeared at the open window above where she sat. There were two tumblers in his hand and he passed one out to her.
‘Try it,’ he ordered.
Bridget did so, pulling a wry face. ‘It tastes like sour milk to me,’ she said, setting it aside.
Dion nodded above the rim of his own glass. ‘You’ll learn to like it,’ he said.
The complacent phrase was an echo. Bridget said, ‘How can you know? And “You’ll learn” has a maddening ring of “You’ll enjoy it when you get there”—which Jenny and I had to resist offering to poor Pegeen this morning.’
‘Wise of you—because she won’t enjoy it when she gets there.’
‘Isn’t that rather—defeatist?’ queried Bridget, suspecting that he might be right.
‘But she won’t. If you weren’t on the side of the angels who always conformed, don’t you remember the crime it was to be “different” at school?’
‘Yes, I remember. When it is something that grown-ups strive for, they forget what it is to feel out of the herd. But Pegeen doesn’t admit to caring. And she is so different from Minna.’
‘Minna?’ Dion laughed. ‘Minna is one of the world’s mixers, the born hail-fellow-well-met type. But why should you expect them not to be different? They’re not just two sisters—they’re two people. Besides, they mightn’t get on so well if they were more alike.’
‘Don’t you think so?’
‘I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t. Like doesn’t necessarily attract like. And differences are a lot more stimulating.’
‘Up to a point,’ agreed Bridget, digging an eye from a potato with some concentration. ‘But sometimes people are so different that they don’t even appear to speak the same language.’
‘Well—’ He paused for so long that at last she looked up at him from over her shoulder. She had the feeling that he had willed her to do so. ‘Well—’ he repeated, his eyes challenging hers, ‘different language or the same, the meaning gets across, doesn’t it?’
‘You mean the—hostility gets across?’
‘I do not.’ He reached out for her discarded tumbler and levered himself back from the open window. ‘I meant the fun of going by different ways and meeting in the end at the same point.’
As the days passed Bridget realised that Jenny looked forward to her daily visit to Cion Eigel escorting the children. She had always needed the stimulation of people around her rather more than Bridget did, and she was probably missing the brittle contacts of her short professional life more than she admitted. Besides from things she said, she appeared to be seeing Gordon Trent there quite often, and she had struck up a friendship with Miss Farran, the under-matron, from whom she quickly learned the small gossip of the school.
On her return one day she sought out Bridget to announce, ‘I heard some more to-day about the Stevens’ daughter—the married one Mr. Meath told you of, who never comes home.’
‘What about her?’
‘Well, it was a runaway match with an Englishman—an actor—whom the Stevens knew absolutely nothing about. It happened during Doris Farran’s first term, three years ago. This man came for the fishing season and stayed at an hotel in Ardvar. Someone introduced Miss Steven to him and they met in secret, the Stevens knowing not a thing. You see, he was in process of being divorced and when he was and went back to London Miss Steven followed him and they were married shortly afterwards. The Stevens adored her and they were terribly hurt, especially as they had to learn all they did learn, bit by bit after she had left home. Doris Farran thinks they didn’t know even now how the marriage has turned out. The man wasn’t a well-known actor, you see. He ran a small touring company and they went abroad with it—to Australia, Doris believes.’
‘Poor Mrs. Steven,’ said Bridget compassionately, recalling too the withdrawn sadness she had noticed in Mr. Steven’s eyes at their first meeting.
‘I know,’ agreed Jenny. ‘She was never strong before, and the shock and worry nearly killed her.’
‘I remember now,’ began Bridget, ‘that Mr. Trent said something—’
‘Gordon?’ Jenny blushed as the Christian name slipped out. ‘Yes, he heard the story before I did—and that the girl was stunningly lovely to look at. But he says why the fuss? He could understand her getting fed up with the limitations of Cion Eigel and taking herself off at the first chance that offered. And he says that divorce doesn’t mean a thing nowadays...’
‘But there was the deception too. The utter, needless cruelty of that!’
Jenny nodded agreement and they sat in silence for a moment or two. Then Bridget asked, ‘What is Miss Steven’s name?’
‘Her married name? Oh—Brent, I think.’
‘I meant her Christian name?’
Jenny said, ‘It’s an unusual one. I’ve never heard it before. Awfully Irish, I suppose. It’s—Tara.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Bridget caught her breath sharply.
Tara? Tara ... But the letter which had fallen from the old ballad-book in Dion’s room had addressed a girl named Tara as ‘Dearest!’
The episode belonged to the time when she had visualised the owner of the room and of the book as an elderly professor, and that fact must have shut the doors of her memory upon it until now. But—Dion’s room, Dion’s book? Therefore—Dion’s letter? Yes, it must be. That meant that Dion had known and been in love with the Tara Steven who had ruthlessly cut adrift from home and people to follow her love of another man!
Jenny was saying, ‘You look as if you had known somebody called Tara. Have you?’
‘I’ve seen the name written recently,’ evaded Bridget. ‘It was just one of those odd coincidences of hearing a new name and meeting it again almost at once which surprised me.’ The letter, after all, was Dion’s affair, not to be confided even to Jenny. She changed the subject to ask Jenny how much she saw of Gordon Trent at Cion Eigel.
‘Well, we meet,’ said Jenny, blushing faintly again. ‘He is often about when I’m delivering Pegeen and Minna. Once—that morning when I was late back—he took me over to Ardvar for coffee. He’s awfully attractive,’ she added with a sigh.
‘When are you going to ask him here? To tea one Sunday, or to come in one evening?’
‘I would. Only I’ve an idea that he and Dion don’t get on.’
‘What makes you think they don’t?’ asked Bridget.
‘Oh, you can always tell,’ said Jenny vaguely. ‘But Gordon is quite curious about Dion. About his position here. About whether you like him...’
‘Whether I like Dion?’
‘Yes. You see, I made quite a good story about our arrival to find Dion parked on the very doorstep, and about how he stayed. And Gordon suggested that perhaps you weren’t unwilling, that you like Dion a good deal more than you admit.’