by Jane Arbor
‘Isn’t Mrs. Steven a dear?’ Patrick Byrd asked Bridget as they moved away.
‘I like her immensely,’ Bridget agreed. ‘This was the first time we’d met, but I feel welcome at once.’
‘She’s like that with everyone. Gay and kind, and giving no hint of the courage that she has to bring to every morning’s waking. For years she has hardly known what it is to be quite free of pain. You’d never guess that, would you?’
‘No indeed.’
A trim maid brought round drinks, and as they helped themselves from her tray Patrick Byrd asked anxiously, ‘Isn’t your sister coming to-night?’
‘Yes, but a little later, with Mr. Christie, our paying guest. Oh, there they are now—over there, do you see?’
‘Your sister, yes. Is that Dion Christie, the naturalist? I’ve heard of him...’
‘And you’ve met Jenny, I daresay?’
‘Not officially. Not even satisfactorily. Once, near the beginning of term, I overslept, was late on my way to the gym and found myself being asked by a dream of a girl to direct her to the kindergarten. I asked a lot of questions afterwards and gathered that the vision I’d seen was your sister. But we’ve never met since, and now I’m convinced that the maxim “Early to rise” has always been overrated. Look what happened to me when I got up late! Could you get her over and introduce us properly, do you think?’
‘I’ll try.’ Bridget waited to catch Jenny’s eye, then signalled in the little gesture which had always meant between them, ‘Come here. I want you for something nice.’
Her fingers tightened on the stem of her wine-glass as she saw that Dion was coming over too. Did he know that the girl who had been ‘dearest’ to him once was a widow now? That she was coming home to-night? And if he did, how important was it to him after three years? In imagination she could hear him asking caustically what right she had to wonder. And what right had she, after all?
As he and Jenny approached she saw him looking at her in an oddly calculating way and she flushed as she recalled the glimpse he must have had of Trent’s arm round her when their cars had met on the Tullabor road. She found herself praying that he would not mention it. She could explain it, laugh it off. But not in front of Jenny. Even if it opened Jenny’s eye to Gordon Trent’s character, Bridget felt she could not bear to see Jenny ‘lose face’ in front of Dion and Patrick Byrd if Dion mentioned it and Jenny did not understand at once how completely meaningless the incident had been. Better she should not hear of it at all, even in the joke that Dion would make of it at her, Bridget’s, expense.
But Dion said nothing, nor asked any explanation as to why Bridget had gone ahead with Trent. At that she was surprised by the degree of relief she felt until a new misgiving whispered, Dion being Dion, wouldn’t you have expected him to chip you about it at once? If he isn’t going to, does that show that he thought you had invited Trent’s advances, that you were willing...? In that thought there was a dismay which had nothing to do with Jenny at all.
Now the bridge enthusiasts were beginning to make up their fours and among the younger people there was a move towards the idea of dancing. Patrick Byrd asked Jenny anxiously, ‘You’re going to dance, aren’t you?’ and beamed with pleasure when, after a provocative, ‘No, I much prefer bridge!’ she agreed to have the first dance with him.
Others of their group paired off, and Bridget heard Dion asking her, ‘Do you prefer bridge too?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s Greek to me, I’m afraid!’
‘Surely nothing is Greek to you?’ he mocked.
‘Plenty of things are—including the habits of golden orioles,’ she reminded him wryly. She was glad that she was learning to fence with words as he did, to lunge and parry without resentment and the offence he had roused her to at first.
‘Well, that ignorance is in process of being rectified, I hope,’ he retorted crisply. ‘How are you getting on with the books? The one on migration, for instance?’
‘It’s so fascinating and incredible that I’m re-reading it.’
‘Good. We’ll make a naturalist of you yet. One of these days I’ll take you out with me and you shall tackle some field-work. And I’ve got some more diagrams I want to consult you about.’
How ridiculous to be filled with a sense of tremendous achievement because he was actually seeking her company, wanting her help! As she felt his hand beneath her elbow, guiding her in to the drawing-room where they were to dance to the radiogram, Bridget was aware of a brief, tingling happiness which she was later to recall as one moment which the shadow of Tara Brent had not been able to threaten or disturb.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dion and Bridget joined the group of young people who were gathered about the radiogram. Bridget was looking round for Jenny, who was not there.
She came in just then with Gordon Trent. And behind them in the doorway Mr. Steven was beckoning to Mrs. Steven, who rose as quickly as she could and hurried to him. When, a moment or two later, they both came back, a girl who could only be Tara came with them.
She was slim and very young—younger than herself, Bridget judged. She was hatless and her dark hair, which she wore as long as Jenny’s seemed to lift away from her temples and brow as hair is lifted lightly by the wind. Her face was thin and her skin, a faintly flushed olive, seemed to be drawn across her high cheekbones which shadowed the narrowing line to her jaw. She wore a tailored suit of black linen, and a travelling coat was still shrugged across her shoulders.
There was a hush of surprise. Then a murmur rippled, ‘Tara!’ ‘Surely it is Tara?’ And at Mrs. Steven’s smiling invitation a few people, evidently close friends who had known the girl, hurried over to speak to her.
Later Bridget was to re-live the scene and to admire her hosts’ well-bred handling of Tara’s unlooked-for homecoming after so long. But now she had thought only for Dion, for his reaction to seeing Tara again.
At her side he had straightened and turned round. He did not move but stood rigidly, his face a mask, his mouth a set, grim line.
Sympathy for him surged through Bridget. She felt an almost irresistible urge to beg, ‘Don’t—don’t look like that!’ But he must not guess that she knew he had loved Tara, nor that her own growing awareness of him, of every changing line of his face, every inflection in his voice, enabled her to penetrate that guarded mask to the stripped emotion beneath. So, because she must say something, she murmured, ‘It’s Tara Steven, isn’t it—Mr. and Mrs. Steven’s daughter?’
‘Tara Brent. She’s been married for three years.’ Then, drawing his eyes down to meet hers, he demanded, ‘What do you know of her, anyway?’
He did not wait for a reply, and Bridget, glancing up at him, felt her throat tighten as she saw that he was looking again at Tara. She had been talking to one of the Cion Eigel masters, but he was moving away and, seemingly drawn by the invisible compulsion of Dion’s eyes, the girl looked back at him.
Bridget thought, They might be quite alone. None of the rest of us counts. It marked the fading of a hope that she was reluctant to define.
The long look held. Then with a little up-flung gesture of her head Tara raised her hand in greeting. She bent to speak to her mother, who nodded quickly, and beckoned to Dion.
He turned to Bridget. ‘I’ll go and speak to Tara, if you don’t mind?’ he said.
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she smiled. But she felt as if she had wantonly hurled a stone into a pool after launching a paper boat and knew that there was no hope for the frail craft from that moment. She joined Jenny, Patrick Byrd, Doris Farran and another man for the buffet supper. She could not avoid having one dance with Gordon Trent. And at last she said her good-nights, thanked her hosts and left with Jenny and Dion.
In the car Jenny’s curiosity attacked at once, ‘Dion, you’d never told us you knew Tara Steven?’
‘Was it important that I should?’
A little taken aback by a brusquerie of tone he did not often use to her, Jenny hesitate
d. ‘Not important. But of course we’d heard about her—about how she ran away to marry a divorced man and has never been home since. She is utterly fascinating to look at, isn’t she? Sort of wraith-like. She doesn’t look even married, but they say she’s a widow now. Is that true?’
‘So she tells me.’
‘I wonder why she’s come home. After all this time?’
‘Don’t tell me your information service couldn’t supply the answer!’
‘How could it, when hardly anyone knew she was coming until she arrived?’
‘Well, she didn’t honour me either. But, if I’d realised you were interested in her plans I’d have asked her, of course.’
That damped even Jenny. Fortunately she had something of interest to herself to discuss. At the party, she told them, Mr. Steven had asked her if she could help him out of a difficulty until the end of the summer term. The elderly music master had been taken ill and would not be back until the autumn, and although Miss Bute, the kindergarten mistress, could take on his classes she could not also accept his private music pupils. And as Mr. Steven knew Jenny had L.R.A.M. qualifications, would she take on these private lessons?
‘Do you want to?’ asked Bridget.
‘Need you ask? I’m hungry for more time at music, even at superintending five-finger exercises! And they did say, didn’t they, I could begin to do some work, as long as I was getting lots of fresh air as well?’
That was true. And, less than three months after their coming to Eire, Jenny was responding wonderfully to her treatment. Bridget saw no reason to discourage the project. ‘How many private pupils are there?’ she asked.
‘Ten altogether. They’d arrange for me to take the eight at Cion Eigel for half-hourly lessons on two mornings a week after I’ve left Pegeen and Minna. The other two are boys who have a tutor over at Rowan Castle. I should have to visit them in the evening.’
‘But Rowan Castle is eight miles away. How would you get there? How did Mr. Brady go?’
‘He drove himself. Gordon has offered to drive me.’
‘Oh—’ Bridget, realising that if Jenny were deprived of this opportunity of Gordon Trent’s company she could make others, checked the protest which had sprung to her lips. But she had not kept a note of flat dismay out of her tone and both Jenny and Dion looked at her enquiringly. Jenny, misjudging the motive for her protest, urged, ‘Bridget, it’s high summer and I shan’t be out late!’ Dion said nothing, but his silence let her with the uneasy impression that he had misjudged her motive too. She thought he might be adding the dismay of her ‘Oh’ to the incident of Trent’s arm about her, and making of the sum an idea that she wanted Trent’s interest for herself. How could he ...? And why did it matter so much if he did?
He dropped them at the house and took the car back to the hotel garage where he kept it. Jenny, following Bridget to the kitchen to collect her mild ‘nightcap,’ was afforded a fond welcome by Masterman, who jumped from his basket to wreathe ecstatically about her feet.
She gathered him up and rested her chin on the top of his nuzzling head as she mused aloud, ‘Dion was cagey about Tara, wasn’t he? Why has he never mentioned her, and why did he snub me so thoroughly to-night?’ Bridget, at the refrigerator, did not turn. ‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘that he may have been a bit in love with her before she married that other man.’
‘In love with her? Dion? Whatever makes you think so?’
‘Just—the way he looked at her when she came in to-night. And his reluctance to discuss her with us—with you.’ It was still not fair to Dion to reveal to Jenny her knowledge of the letter.
‘Oh, poor Dion! And I pestered him so. Perhaps you’re right, Bridgie. But nobody has said a thing—’
‘Perhaps nobody knew,’ was Bridget’s dry comment.
‘Now you are snubbing me for gossiping with Doris Farran and Gordon! But I don’t do it evilly. It’s only that I’ve got an interest in people that I simply can’t help. Tara’s story intrigued me, and her arrival to-night was sort of satisfactory, like being able to add another piece to a jigsaw puzzle, don’t you see? But of course I hadn’t guessed about Dion.’
The return of Tara. Satisfaction for Jenny. For Bridget, a threat to something she had begun to value. And for Dion...?
Suddenly Jenny buried her face in the collar of short fur at Masterman’s neck. Her voice came muffled as she asked, ‘Why weren’t you keen on Gordon’s taking me to Rowan Castle?’
The question was not unexpected, but Bridget could not bear to wound Jenny outright with the brutal truth of what had passed between Trent and herself. She said, ‘I suppose because I don’t care for him, and I don’t think you know him as well as you think you do. But if you are attracted by him, I haven’t any right to interfere, only not to feel too happy about it, that’s all.’
‘Supposing,’ murmured Jenny, ‘he wanted to marry me?’
‘Jenny—he hasn’t asked you?’
‘N—no. I was just imagining. But if he did, and I said Yes—would you mind?’
How on earth to deal gently with the romance which Jenny had contrived to make of the man’s meaningless flirtations? Bridget floundered. ‘How could I mind—if he asked you and if you were sure you loved each other? But there’s the difference in your ages, and all his experience!’ ... At that point she broke off despairingly. Jenny was hardly listening. She put Masterman gently back into his basket and took up her glass of milk. She said dreamily, ‘I think I’m sure now. But I can wait. In fact, waiting and wondering and making a lot out of a little is one of the nicest things about being in love ...’
When she had gone Bridget sank limply down at the kitchen table and pressed her fingers to her temples. How cowardly had she been? Ought she to have told Jenny the truth? But that still left the problem of how to open Jenny’s eyes to him. Or was that possible at all with words? Did you always want to right other people’s lives while being blind to the mistakes of your own? Life, Bridget decided wearily, had not taught her enough to enable her to know. She went to bed longing for her father’s experience for Jenny, for her mother’s gentle wisdom for herself.
She did not sleep for a long time but lay listening for Dion’s return. She heard him come in, but she was upon the edge of sleep and the birds had begun their dawn chorus before he went to his room.
A few days later Mrs. Steven rang up and asked Bridget to tea at Cion Eigel. When Bridget accepted readily she sounded pleased and said that she would look forward to seeing her very much.
Bridget walked over to Cion Eigel on an afternoon when a blue heat-haze hung over the Wicklows and the warm air brought out every fugitive scent of the wayside.
The dog-roses which had massed the hedges a little earlier were mostly over now, but the road verges were a riot of meadowsweet and herb robert, foxgloves and yellow toadflax.
Bridget was listening alertly for the bird-notes she was learning to recognise. A yellowhammer hopped invitingly in front of her for a quarter of a mile, clamouring for his ‘Little bit of bread and no che-ee-se,’ and as she listened to the ecstatic carolling of the blackbirds she recalled Dion’s comment on the nightingale—that he chose to sing at night because he was an astute fellow who had realised long ago that any blackbird, thrush or robin could out-sing him by day.
She wondered whether she was to meet Tara at Cion Eigel. But only Mrs. Steven was waiting for her in the small pleasant room which the bridge-players had occupied on the night of the party.
Tea was brought in and Mrs. Steven explained that Tara had gone with Patrick Byrd to the Ardvar riding-school to hire horses for an afternoon’s hacking. ‘They knew each other as children, though they haven’t met since Tara married and Patrick went to college,’ she said, adding that she would have asked some other young people to meet Bridget if she had not wanted to see her alone.
Perhaps Bridget looked her surprise, for her hostess added quickly, ‘I mean that, my dear. I want you to do something for me if you will.’
‘Of course—whatever I can.’
Mrs. Steven’s hands moved quietly and deftly among the tea-things and she handed a cup of tea to Bridget before she spoke again. Then, stirring her own tea, she said, ‘It’s about Tara. She was widowed some six months ago; we hope she has come home to stay for an indefinite time, and as she is much of an age with you and your sister, it would make me very happy if you would make a friend of her and ask her sometimes to Tullabor.’
‘But of course we will. I—I’d like to know her.’ Bridget honestly wanted that to be true. Liking Tara was something she could do for Dion...
‘Thank you. I felt I could ask you. I’m afraid my girl is restless and unhappy—seeking some kind of anchorage, my husband says of her. I—I should like her to marry again. But it’s early days yet, and the most we can hope to do for her is to provide her with the background of home and friends which, travelling from place to place as she has done, she has lacked for a long time.’
Bridget said, ‘I understand. And I hope she’ll come to Tullabor. I was thinking—on Saturday the Brett boys are coming to tea with Pegeen and Minna. Would it break the ice if Mrs. Brent came too?’
‘A splendid idea. She could drive the boys over instead of their having to be taken and fetched. But do call her Tara, won’t you?’
‘I’d like to.’ In a low voice Bridget added, ‘She already knows Mr. Christie, doesn’t she?’
A shadow crossed Mrs. Steven’s face. ‘Yes. He’ll have told you all about that, I daresay?’
‘No. He hadn’t mentioned knowing Tara.’
‘He hadn’t? Well, I must say I’m grateful to him for not making gossip—capital against us which he might easily have done, especially as we learn now from Tara that we were hideously in the wrong. But if he has told you nothing, I’d better do him the justice of telling you the circumstances of Tara’s leaving home. Besides, it will help you to understand, if they’re awkward with each other at first. And though he accepted our long overdue olive-branch when we invited him with you to our party, he may well feel bitter against us still. You see, he and Tara met about five years ago, when she finally came home from her boarding-school. It wasn’t a conventional “courting” or anything like that—in any case, Dion Christie isn’t a conventional person, as you may have discovered!—and Tara was very young. We didn’t interfere; we knew from the way she spoke of him that she had no romantic ideas about him and we thought of it as a friendship of the out-of-doors, which I believe it was. He rarely came here; I think she never visited the house at Tullabor. Then one day Tara left home—suddenly, secretly and, as we felt, disgracefully...’