Dear Intruder

by Jane Arbor

  All Saturday morning heavy rain fell inexorably, spoiling the prospect of the children’s party being a garden picnic. Bridget, realising that their guests’ descent would be made as early in the afternoon as the small boys could persuade Tara to bring them over, hastily revised her plans for their entertainment. She set Pegeen to looking out painting-books and chalks and sent Jenny across to O’Hanlon’s to see if that emporium could produce a Snakes and Ladders and Ludo boards. Fortunately these were in stock, and though their appropriate counters were not at first forthcoming Tim O’Hanlon bore them across the road an hour later, declaring that it was ‘the Devil himself’ who had secreted them under a pile of empty flour sacks.

  ‘And would the Devil have any say at all at all in the hiding of goods that are kept tidy and in their rightful place?’ demanded Kate, snatching the little boxes from him.

  ‘Ah, have done, woman. Is it running my business entirely that you’d be after?’ retorted Tim as he stumped off, leaving her clucking with annoyance.

  Towards lunchtime the clouds cleared a little but then closed in again, and Dion, who had been out since dawn, came back soaked through. The meal was held back for him while he took a hot bath, with the result that Kate and Bridget were only clearing the kitchen after washing-up when Tara and Patrick and the children’s brothers arrived.

  Bridget sent the nine-year-old twins to find their sisters in the playroom, and suggested a move to the sitting-room for themselves. She had not visualised the party like this. She had been looking forward to sharing and joining in the little family’s reunion at play. But she sensed that being with the children did not amuse Tara and that she was quite glad to be rid of her charges.

  ‘Don’t you feel that it’s a frightful strain, keeping down to their mental level?’ Tara asked as they crossed the hall.

  ‘There’s not always so much “down” about it!’ put in Patrick with a chuckle. ‘They’re so devastatingly logical. Get a few questions like “What will happen, sir, when someone runs the mile in no minutes?” and you’ll forfeit their respect for ever if you can’t make a stab at an answer!’

  As he spoke, Bridget noticed that his eye was roving towards the open door of the playroom, and when she said that she believed Jenny was with the children he asked eagerly if he might join them.

  Tara, accepting a cigarette, said tolerantly, ‘Patrick is rather transparently young, isn’t he? His enthusiasms bubble so.’

  ‘Do you mean they don’t last?’

  ‘Heavens, no. Patrick is the original of Faithful Dog Tray. If Jenny doesn’t want him she’ll have her work cut out to choke him off.’

  ‘I thought he seemed very attracted by her at the Cion Eigel party,’ murmured Bridget.

  ‘Attracted? He’s head-over-ears. Thinks and talks of nothing but Jenny. Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be the object of such a single-minded devotion? I mean, if you weren’t sure whether you returned it or not?’

  ‘If I thought it was sincere. I’d still be awfully grateful for it,’ said Bridget slowly.

  ‘Would you? I’m wondering whether I should enjoy it or whether it would bore me stiff. Still, it might be interesting to see...’ To Bridget’s sorely acute senses it was not difficult to read in Tara’s speculative tone and thoughtful eyes that it was of Dion’s devotion she was thinking.

  After that the conversation lapsed. Bridget tried several subjects, including plays and books. But Tara did not read much and her talk of the theatre was inevitably from a different side of the footlights from Bridget’s. And after other fruitless changes of subject Bridget thought, Dion is right: we have nothing in common at all.

  When she suggested in desperation that they should see what the children were doing Tara rose with alacrity. But she said, ‘You go. I’ll find Dion. He’s not out on this foul day, is he?’

  ‘He was this morning and got wet through. He went to his study after lunch and he’s probably working.’

  ‘Didn’t he know I was coming?’

  ‘Yes. I told him.’

  ‘Then I’ll go and rout him out. Through here, his room?’

  ‘Yes.’ Bridget added, ‘As a rule we don’t disturb him if he’s writing or doing experiments...’

  Tara laughed. ‘You mean you tried—and he bit your heads off?’

  ‘No. But we feel that, even if he does work in a private house, he has as much right to uninterrupted privacy as if he kept office hours or had a laboratory. I try to respect Jenny’s practising time in the same way.’ For a moment Tara stood apparently undecided, her lips thrust forward in a little moue. Then she said, ‘Dion won’t mind me...’ and went through to the door of the garden-room.

  She knocked and went straight in. Bridget heard her speak to Dion; heard him reply. Then Tara hooked a heel round the edge of the door, closing it behind her. Her laugh rang out and Dion’s deeper note of laughter followed.

  At the sound a swift pang of jealousy stabbed Bridget through. Dion might love Tara for what she had meant to him in the past, for her gipsy loveliness, for her appeal to his compassion, for almost any quality which Tara had and which she had not. But perversely, because she herself had begun to value laughing with Dion, she cared most just then that he should not love Tara for the laughter which their lives had shared, would share again.

  Pulling herself together with an effort she went across to the playroom. Jenny and Patrick were no longer there; the children were absorbed in activities at the big table. Bryan and Barney were cutting out model aircraft; Pegeen was painting with long careful strokes while Minna stood by with an unaccustomed frown on her bright face.

  ‘Oh, Pegeen, you’re doing it all for me!’ she protested at last. ‘Now you’re using my lovely red...!’

  Pegeen painted on. ‘I’m only showing you. You daub so. You spoil the picture.’

  ‘I don’t, I don’t. It’s my picture and I want to do it my way!’ Minna’s lip was quivering and Bridget stepped forward to intervene.

  ‘I should let Minna paint hers as she wants to, Pegeen dear,’ she urged.

  Pegeen put in a last stroke and gave way with a reluctant, ‘She doesn’t paint. She only scribbles with the brush. I was just showing her how to do it properly.’

  Across the table Bryan muttered, ‘As if you’re the only person who knows!’ But this Bridget ignored as she advised, ‘All the same, Minna would rather do it her way—really. She can always try again if she goes wrong.’

  ‘But she chooses colours that clash.’

  ‘I like them to clash...’ defiantly from Minna.

  ‘That’s silly!’

  ‘It’s not!’

  At this point Bridget’s hand propelled Pegeen back to her own place at the table. ‘What have you been painting yourself?’ she asked.

  Pegeen turned into view a competently executed ship in full sail towards the sunset. ‘I’ve finished it,’ she said.

  ‘It’s beautifully neat,’ praised Bridget. ‘Are you going to do something else?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Pegeen dispiritedly, washing out her brush. She seemed aware that she had courted a passing unpopularity with the others, and when Bridget suggested that she might like to help Kate with the tea, she seemed glad to go.

  As the door closed behind her Bryan said seriously, ‘She’s like that at school too—putting everybody right.’

  Barney nodded agreement. ‘Bossy—and the chaps hate it. Couldn’t something be done about it?’

  Bridget was watching Minna splash scarlet blossoms on to the branches of blue surrealist trees. The effect was not entirely happy. She said slowly, ‘I don’t want to upset Pegeen. You see, it makes her really miserable to see people doing things wrongly when she feels she knows the right way.’

  ‘But she interferes so!’

  ‘She doesn’t see it as interference. And she isn’t showing off her own cleverness either. She thinks it is tidier to help, and she doesn’t realise that some people would rather make a few mistakes before
they learn the right way for themselves.’

  ‘You mean we’re to let her be as bossy as all that?’

  Bridget smiled. ‘Perhaps not always. Only try to be gentle and not to mind too much when she is, will you?’

  At this point the little lesson was helped by Minna’s laying down her brush and cocking a critical eye at her work. ‘It’s not as nice as Pegeen’s really, is it?’ she appealed forlornly.

  ‘Not quite...’

  ‘Would it be gentle-and-not-minding-too-much if I went and told her that I think the bit she did is a lot better than mine?’

  ‘Very gentle-and-not-minding-too-much!’

  ‘Then I will.’ Minna the peacemaker slid down from her chair.

  Not to be outdone in generosity Bryan began, ‘Of course we don’t let people rag Pegeen too much about being bossy. She’s our sister after all—’ But he broke off as Minna reappeared and ran to Bridget, tugging at her urgently. ‘Oh come—do come!’ she panted. ‘There’s Mrs. Kate in the kitchen and Pegeen is holding her hand and it’s all bleeding and Pegeen said to come for you quick!’

  Bridget ran. On the kitchen table a partly cut sandwich loaf and the razor-sharp ham-knife which Kate used as a bread-saw told their own story. And the only reason why the blood did not pour unchecked from the deep cut in the ball of Kate’s thumb was because Pegeen, white-faced and tremulous, was holding it tightly closed.

  ‘All right, Pegeen dear. Let me see...’

  Pegeen moistened dry lips. ‘I—I held it together because Mummy once did it to a cut of mine and I didn’t think it ought to be bleeding like that. When Minna came I sent her straight back...’

  ‘You couldn’t have been more sensible,’ Bridget praised, silently blessing a presence of mind which many grown-ups might envy. Over her shoulder she told Bryan to go for Dion and sent Barney and Minna to the first-aid cabinet in the hall.

  Kate was voluble with self-blame for the accident. ‘And I that should be knowing the sly ways of that knife this ten years!’ she grumbled. But the clouding of her bright eyes spoke of more pain and shock than she would admit.

  Dion came in, followed by Tara, who murmured, ‘Oh dear, I can’t bear the sight of blood. Do you mind...?’ and disappeared, though Bridget was too preoccupied to see her go.

  Dion wasted no time on questions. He held the injured hand in position while Bridget gently swabbed the wound, applied a padded dressing and deftly bound it up. Meanwhile Pegeen, in her element, had switched on the electric kettle, and by the time Kate’s arm-sling was in place there was a cup of hot, very sweet tea ready to counteract her shock. Dion beckoned Bridget from the room. ‘Doctor?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think it’s necessary. There was no question of glass or dirt involved and, thanks to Pegeen, she lost very little blood. After our tea she must go to bed very early and if the hand isn’t comfortable I’ll change the dressing again before night.’

  ‘All right. We could get the doctor to look at her to-morrow perhaps. By the way, Tara has suggested going over to Ardvar for dinner to-night after she had delivered the boys back to Cion Eigel. Apparently Byrd gave her a hint that he’d like to take Jenny out and this is the first chance he’s had.’

  Bridget said, ‘I see. And you’ll be going with Tara?’

  ‘The project includes you,’ Dion pointed out.

  ‘Count me out. I must stay with Kate. With that hand, she couldn’t do anything for the children, and anyway I shouldn’t care to leave her to-night.’

  Dion looked at her and Bridget believed they were both recalling her refusal to join that first little expedition to Ardvar. He had mocked at and made her feel ashamed of the needless caprice that had been; but she felt she could not bear it if he chose to be as caustic now.

  However, all he said was, ‘As you please. You know best,’ leaving her in doubt as to whether he approved of her decision or whether he was secretly relieved that she would not be making the odd man out to the evening’s plan.

  Jenny and Patrick came in just then, having braved the weather to inspect Jenny’s new henhouse and the pullets. They had to hear about Kate’s mishap, and then everyone was roped in to the task of getting the tea.

  At the meal Tara was in sparkling form, exciting the children to wild hilarity at her shrewdly executed imitations of the school personnel. These were not always in the best taste, but Jenny too thought them clever and begged for more. Dion did not laugh much, but he was watching Tara intently most of the time. Watching Tara herself, Bridget thought, She is like a chameleon. Against a quiet background she is indecisive, vaguely lost. But when she evokes notice she takes colour and vitality from it; against even the children’s admiration she fairly glows.

  After tea there was time for some round games before the boys had to be returned to Cion Eigel for the evening curfew. When the party was ready to set out Jenny took Tara’s place in Mr. Steven’s car while Patrick and Tara prepared to go with Dion. But before they left Bridget was sought out by both the Brett boys.

  ‘Pegeen really saved Mrs. Kate’s life, didn’t she?’ they demanded breathlessly.

  ‘Hardly her life,’ smiled Bridget.

  ‘Couldn’t we tell them at school that she did?’ They looked a little like newspapermen about to be deprived of a front-page scoop.

  ‘Well,’ yielded Bridget, ‘it wouldn’t be strictly true. But perhaps—’

  They brightened perceptibly. Bryan promised, ‘Of course we shouldn’t exactly fib—’ And Barney offered, ‘You see they’ve got to know that we’re jolly proud of her,’ adding with relish, ‘We’ll just tell about Pegeen being there all alone with Mrs. Kate and nobody knowing she needed help. And about the knife being awfully sharp and about the blood...’

  Were they seeking reflected glory for themselves? Bridget wondered amusedly as Patrick called them and she waved the two cars goodbye. Or were they making honourable amends to Pegeen? In either case it looked as if anyone in their circle who criticised Pegeen for some time to come would be coldly received by both twins!

  Trying not to think of Tara and Dion together, she saw her own charges to bed, taking some hot milk to Kate and sitting by the old lady while she drank it.

  Kate seemed to want to talk. As with many elderly people, her memory of years gone by was sharper than of the immediate past, and to-night she told in her rich brogue some stories of old William Haire’s bachelor foibles which made Bridget laugh heartily. Besides, in Kate’s tales she could catch occasional glimpses of Dion at a time when she herself had not known him, and there was a secret sweetness that...

  At last she asked, ‘By the way, Mrs. Kate, how was it, do you know, that Uncle William knew so little about Jenny and me that he thought we were quite old—middle-aged spinsters at the very least?’

  Kate looked her blank surprise. ‘Ah, he thought nothing of the kind! Didn’t he know your ages quite well, and that at the time he made his will you were but the bits of girls that you are?’

  ‘But he’d given Mr. Dion to think that we were old!’

  ‘He had so?’

  ‘So I understood. The first time we met, Mr. Dion was quite taken aback to find that I was in my twenties. Why are you smiling, Mrs. Kate?’

  ‘And why wouldn’t I smile? To think that himself has the cunning to ensnare Mr. Dion so!’

  ‘To ensnare him?’

  ‘Ah, don’t you see that, with Mr. William’s idea of Mr. Dion, he feared to give him a hint that you were lovely young colleens, lest he’d be away and off out of the very sight of you? I see it all now. Mr. William had not only the hope that Mr. Dion would marry, but that he might put him in the way of marrying one of you, if so be you might meet before Mr. Dion had a chance to take fright.’

  Bridget protested, ‘Oh no—it’s too far-fetched!’

  ‘Not for Mr. William, the way he thought he could order most things as he wanted them.’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Meath gave me a hint of that. But even if this idea had come off, he wouldn’t have been
here to see.’

  Kate said with sad wisdom, ‘When men are old, alannah, they have to begin things of which they’ve no hope of seeing the end.’ Bridget took Kate’s empty cup and rose. ‘All the same,’ she said drily, ‘someone should have told Uncle William the proverb about “You may take a horse to the water—” ’

  ‘There was no one he’d have taken it from, the way he liked to scheme instead of letting young blood seek its own. And you see, he never guessed, as I had, that maybe Mr. Dion had learned how to care...’

  Kate went on, ‘He never brought her here, as if loving her—and she little more than a starry-eyed child at the time—was a secret that he wanted to keep to himself. But there was love in the very way he walked at her side, and love that still went hungry in the black mood that was on him in the days that came after. Perhaps it wasn’t long then until we heard she’d gone away. But now that she’s come back a widow, maybe she has that which he has never been able to resist—the call of the sad thing that’s in need of help and comfort from him...’

  The soft musical brogue flowed, talking to itself rather than to any hearer. Bridget listened, fascinated, until at last she said unsteadily, ‘I don’t think we ought to discuss Mr. Dion’s affairs, Mrs. Kate.’ It was significant, she thought, that they had not needed to mention Tara’s name.

  Kate did not appear rebuked. She agreed, ‘Arrah, neither we should. But isn’t it only loving the boy that concerns me for him? And he with his head in a cloud of love and pity and with never a glance for the good earth that’s at his feet!’

  Jenny and Dion were not late back from Ardvar and Bridget was only just preparing for bed when Jenny came to her room to tell her about the evening.

  ‘The dinner wasn’t very good,’ she said. ‘Dion would have been awfully sarcastic if you or Kate had served anything as tasteless. But he couldn’t very well say anything as it was Tara’s idea ... By the way, she is coming to Dublin for Dion’s TV thing on Wednesday. And Patrick Byrd seems to have got himself included too.’