Dear Intruder

by Jane Arbor

  In the charged, electric silence Bridget’s eye, catching Dion’s, surprised there a look that was almost of entreaty but which could hardly have been directed at her. It passed, eclipsed by one of contempt as he turned to Trent. ‘Shut up—if you don’t want me to knock you down!’ he commanded, and held out his hand for the letter.

  But Tara, a slight but imperious figure, was already at Trent’s side. ‘My property?’ she queried, plucking the sheet of paper from him. She glanced at it, then in a curious calculation at Dion. Her lip curled as she said to Trent, ‘I suppose you thought that was clever. What was the idea?’

  Dion cut in, ‘Sorry, but I’m not interested in what your idea was. Only in your getting out. Do you mind?’

  Trent blustered, ‘What a lot of heavy weather about a mere spur-of-the-moment joke!’ But Tara had turned away, adding her dismissal to Dion’s with, ‘If Patrick will take you, will you go back with him please? I’ll drive myself later.’

  Patrick rose. ‘Come on, Trent. Let’s go,’ he said tactfully. His hand held in Jenny’s direction invited her to see them off.

  Jenny protested, ‘I don’t understand! Gordon didn’t mean anything!’ But he ignored her championship of his cause and pointedly waited for Bridget to leave the room with him. Jenny hesitated, then went out with Patrick to his car, leaving the other two to follow.

  In the hall Trent demanded of Bridget, ‘What’s the almighty fuss? Christie had written the darned letter, hadn’t he?’

  ‘You know he hadn’t written what you claimed to read out,’ said Bridget indignantly.

  ‘But the “Dearest Tara” part was genuine, also something about “last night.” Otherwise, how could I have got the idea that it had been meant for Tara? I only added a bit of spice, and though it couldn’t have been much of an effort if you caught on to it at once, at a party with any life to it it would have started a bit of fun...’

  ‘Fun? It was in despicable taste!’

  ‘Tara didn’t think so!’

  ‘Tara was just as angry as Dion was.’

  ‘Not she. He was mad because my butting in may have spoiled his timing with her. But Tara’s an actress and she was only putting on that indignation act. Really she was seeing me as her fairy godmother who’d speeded things up for her. I think she’s made up her mind to get Christie if nothing more exciting offers, and if she wasn’t sure before that he’s willing, that “Dearest Tara” which I made public has told her what she wants to know. Sorry, my dear Bridget, if the warning has come too late for you!’

  ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’

  His smile was insolent. ‘My dear, do you think I didn’t guess that all the while you’ve been turning me down you’ve had an eye on him yourself?’ As he swaggered out Bridget realised that he felt he had levelled scores with her to his satisfaction. And, angry and dismayed as she was, she could only hope it meant that both she and Jenny were now done with him.

  She was reluctant to intrude on Dion and Tara’s private moment by returning to the playroom, but she waited for them when she heard them coming through.

  Tara went to her and touched her cheek with her lips, a gesture which surprised Bridget until she realised that it had been a cover for the other girl’s whispered ‘Thank you’ before she added, ‘Bridget dear, I’m just going. Dion will come with me. We—we’ve got a lot to talk about.’ Her glance in his direction was starry-eyed and shy.

  Dion said, ‘Yes, I’ll walk back. Don’t wait up for me. Are you ready, Tara?’

  ‘Yes. No—I haven’t my scarf. I think I know where I left it...’ She ran off, leaving Dion and Bridget alone.

  ‘You didn’t believe I’d written that vulgar stuff to Tara, did you?’ He demanded roughly.

  Bridget’s heart was crying, I know you’d written the essential part, the only part that could hurt me! But she did not permit even her eyelashes to flicker as she replied, ‘I didn’t want to believe it and I don’t know that Gordon meant us to. It was just his idea of a joke that he thought we should all share. When you and Tara took it as you did, he felt you were wanting in humour.’

  ‘And I suppose he deputed you to make his excuses for him?’

  ‘Of course not, though he probably felt he wasn’t given much chance to make them himself.’

  ‘Was it likely? He was lucky not to get a sock on the jaw!’ Dion paused and then upon a different note, uncertain yet oddly touched with importance, he asked, ‘You say you didn’t want to believe I’d written the thing. Why not?’

  How could she answer that with truth without tearing down every barrier of her pride? There was a ragged triumph in hearing herself say lightly, ‘Just because I’d hate to think that your literary style could possibly be so deplorable!’

  ‘No other reason? Only because as a supposed love-letter, it was a poisonous effort?’

  ‘Well, it was, wasn’t it?’ she evaded, and was thankful that Tara rejoined them before he could realise that his question had not been answered. Though why he had needed to ask it she did not know.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  During the next fortnight Gordon Trent did not come again to Tullabor. Jenny made her last three or four journeys to her music pupils with Mr. Steven’s chauffeur and answered Bridget’s direct questions with the information that Trent had had to excuse himself on the score of extra secretarial work involved by the school’s end of term. Whether Jenny either believed or accepted this she did not say.

  For Bridget there was a grim satisfaction in realising that the man’s intention to ‘get out from under’ the entanglement was sincere enough, and she reflected again that he must have been badly frightened by some earlier affair to have been made so wary with so little cause. She supposed she could congratulate herself on her effectual use of the weapon which his sense of callous self-preservation had offered. But that was small consolation for having to witness Jenny’s growing listlessness and the silent misery behind her absent eyes as she set up an unaccustomed barrier of reserve between them, shutting Bridget out as she had never done before.

  Hitherto they had shared everything— perhaps almost too much so for Jenny’s self-reliance and perhaps even for Bridget’s over-developed instinct to protect the younger girl. But now Jenny seemed determined to suffer alone, and Bridget, unable to escape a rankling misgiving that Jenny would hardly forgive her own hand in Trent’s defection, was at a loss to know how to reach or comfort her, but she had not reckoned with another solicitude at least as gentle as her own—Patrick Byrd’s. Nor with the fact that when Trent had packed his bags and taken himself off to England for the school vacation, Patrick was still at Cion Eigel which, even after the term’s end, he seemed in no hurry to leave.

  One morning when she had used the infrequent bus service between Tullabor and Ardvar, Bridget emerged from a shop to find him sitting in his car at the kerb.

  ‘I saw you go in there and waited for you,’ he told her. ‘How are you going back?’

  ‘By bus. But there isn’t one until after lunch.’

  ‘Then have lunch with me and I’ll take you back afterwards?’

  She thanked him and he drove her to the hotel where, over the meal, she asked him why he had not yet gone home to Dublin.

  ‘Oddly enough,’ he grinned, ‘the Head and Mrs. Steven seem to like having me around, and I’ve been able to help with the clearing-up after term. I suppose you’ve heard from Tara that they are off to the west coast in a few days’ time?’

  Rather to her surprise Bridget had not seen Tara since the night of Dion’s broadcast, though she knew that Dion had been to Cion Eigel more than once. She said, ‘Tara hadn’t told me, but I did know, as we’re to have the Brett boys to stay while they’re away. They are going to an hotel on the coast of Clare, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, though I think Tara is rather bored with the idea. But of course Christie is going out to Aran later. So there’ll only be a few miles of sea between them.’

  Bridget felt her throat tighten as it
always did now when the thought of Dion and Tara together was thrust upon her. But she agreed levelly enough, ‘Yes, Dion plans to be there for the migration season, by the beginning of September, I think.’ And felt that it was out of the telepathy of thought between them that Patrick said, ‘I suppose we may hear that they’re engaged one of these days. Funny business, that letter, wasn’t it? A bit hot-under-the-collar-making for everyone, even if it was obvious that that fellow Trent was making up the rotten stuff as he went along. If I’d been Christie I’d have kicked him from here to Howth. Only thing is—was it the sort of ill wind that told Christie and Tara something they hadn’t been sure of before?’

  ‘They would hardly have chosen to learn anything about themselves quite so publicly,’ Bridget pointed out.

  ‘You’re right. They would not. I always thought Trent was an outsider—’ Patrick broke off in embarrassment. ‘Sorry if you mind my saying that?’

  ‘I don’t mind at all.’

  Patrick looked at her curiously, then firmly removed the flower centrepiece between them with an air of clearing his decks. He folded his arms on the table-edge and looked her straight in the face to ask, ‘Since you’ve said I that, would it be impertinent to ask just what he is playing at between you and Jenny? It happens to be rather important to me.’

  It was good to be able to tell him the truth. ‘It’s not impertinent,’ said Bridget. ‘I dislike him as much as you do, but “playing off” is more apt than “playing at.” That’s what he has tried to do—claiming to be madly attracted by me and using Jenny to while away his time when I didn’t fall victim to his charms.’

  She had not thought that the colour beneath Patrick’s tan could fade so quickly. ‘And Jenny fell for it?’ he muttered.

  ‘I think she was flattered at first. He is so much older and so much a man of the world, and she has been awfully vulnerable since her illness. It wasn’t to his interest to fob her off, and when he actually encouraged her, she thought he was more serious than he was.’

  ‘How did you find out that he wasn’t?’

  ‘He admitted it quite openly and cynically to me, as if he thought I’d be gratified.’

  ‘But what has happened now?’

  ‘Just before the night we all went to Dublin they had a silly quarrel—one that he wouldn’t have allowed to part them for an hour if he had really cared for her. But she was hurt and had pride enough to want to force him to make the first move...’

  ‘And I suppose when she was charming to me that night she was only teaching him a lesson! I knew there was something wrong before the end of term. But then Trent always seemed to be trailing you, even while he was taking her out. And Christie, for one, seemed to think that it was you and Trent—’ Bridget cut across that, ‘Except to add another scalp or two to his belt, it was never either of us, I’m convinced. But I suppose Dion judged by appearances, as you did.’ She must not let herself care about something which was not likely to embarrass her again and which could have had none of the significance for Dion which she had feared during the days when she had allowed her dreams to run riot.

  ‘And Jenny—now?’ asked Patrick hesitantly.

  ‘I thought I should find a way to comfort her. But she hasn’t let me get near her since.’

  ‘She’s been avoiding me too. That’s why I wanted to ask you—’ Suddenly Patrick blurted, ‘Look, Bridget, I needn’t hide from you that I love Jenny to her very fingertips, need I? That I’m quite, quite sure I do? Or that, now I’ve heard this, I don’t ask anything but simply to be allowed to stand by...?’

  Bridget laid an impulsive hand on his crossed arms. ‘Then will you? Just be there for her all the time, without asking anything of her or making any claims?’

  ‘You know I will! Hand on heart, I’ll not ask anything she can’t give. For instance, I’d meant to ask her to stay with my people this vacation. In the light of “This is the girl I’m asking to marry me,” you understand. But do you think she might still be willing to come merely as a friend? We live out at Black Rock, you know. My mother would take good care of her, and I’ve got a kid sister who’d adore her; we could swim and drive around. I’d teach her to ride and we could sail my boat in the Bay.’

  He was like an eager small boy, laying out his treasures one by one. Gratefully Bridget said, ‘Ask her, Patrick, will you? And then try to be content to stand back—and wait?’ It was good to know that he would, out of a loyalty which she felt to be almost a tangible thing.

  A few days later Dion surprised her by reminding her that they had not had their day out in the country together. She had not expected him to ask her again even though he had suggested it in the first place only to give her a chance to see him out on a day’s field work. He could not possibly guess that for her the prospect of the long hours alone with him held a sweet danger that she ought to resist and could not.

  Taking her consent for granted, he said, ‘We’ll cross the hills to Lough Tulla. You haven’t been out there, and we might get a glimpse of some bird migrants coming in for the winter, though you mustn’t count on it as it is full early yet. Mid-September onwards is the time for them. We’ll take some food with us, and for goodness’ sake wear decently stout shoes. Your raincoat will roll up with mine and go in my haversack. So will the lunch if you pack it compactly. Which day shall we go?’

  With a feeling that she must snatch quickly at happiness, Bridget suggested the following day, and they set out after breakfast, waved off by the children, who wanted to go too.

  ‘Twenty Irish miles, gossoons,’ warned Dion, ruffling Minna’s hair. ‘You’d be asking for pickabacks at three!’

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ claimed Pegeen. ‘I’ve walked nearly to Ardvar without being tired, haven’t I, Bridget?’ And Minna’s reasoning led her to, ‘Supposing Bridget gets tired, Mr. Dion, will you have to give her a pickaback home?’ A smoky mist over the blue of the further hills promised a fine day, and as they went down the lane Dion gathered a trail of scarlet pimpernel to show Bridget the five-pointed star of the tiny flower and to offer a scrap of the country lore which she envied him. ‘That’s the shepherd’s weather-glass,’ he said. ‘The flowers open only for good weather and they’re wide open now, do you see?’

  Presently they left the lane to take a path across the lower slopes of the hills which would lead them to the winding road leading to the basin of the lough, seven or eight miles away. The lake was a small one and they would walk its length and return by a longer way which would not take them over the same ground twice.

  The air smelled of high summer, the turf was springy beneath their feet and every shadow was sharply etched. Bridget felt she must savour each minute with conscious pleasure because each as it passed made up the Now which was precious, in that it would never happen again in quite the same way. She would not face a future when it might be Tara, not she, who would cross these hills again with Dion as they took up old threads and spun new ones. This was a day which had no more significance for Dion than that he had made her a promise and was keeping it. He could not and must not guess the secret delight it was for her.

  He seemed pleased when she offered a belated opinion on his broadcast, telling him that if she had never before heard of the subject of bird migration it would have sent her hot-foot—to books, to other lectures, anywhere—to learn more. He commented, ‘Well, that was the idea. I’m glad it got over,’ adding with a wry, teasing glance, ‘I might have known that you’d bring your cool, impersonal criticism to it, instead of being amazed by the sound of my voice as the others claimed they were!’ (Cool! Impersonal! If only he knew...!)

  Every now and again he called her attention to things—a rare grass, a bird’s characteristic alarm note, some fledgling linnets taking to wing—which she would not have noticed for herself.

  In a hillside copse he spotted a lone hawfinch—a bird not common in Ireland. He drew Bridget into the natural hide afforded by an overhanging bramble bush, and they crouched side by side to watch and
photograph it while he whispered a description of its courting habits—how it first kowtowed to the female with outspread wings, then minced towards her and finally tapped its own breast with its beak as if to urge, ‘Notice me! Notice me! Notice me!’ Towards noon they dropped down on to the road. Here Dion knew and was greeted by every one of the few passers-by, and as they approached a whitewashed farmhouse he exclaimed, ‘Shawn Quin’s wedding, to be sure! I’d forgotten the day. Shall we step in and see the fun?’

  ‘I haven’t been invited,’ objected Bridget.

  ‘Maybe neither have the half of these!’ Dion indicated a pile of bicycles, a jeep, several decrepit cars, two tethered horses and a line of horse-drawn and donkey-carts which stretched fifty yards ahead. ‘And Shawn did invite me, on the strength of my having given him the suit he was to be married in. I’ll not be forgiven if I don’t wish him well.’ Beyond the half-door which he pushed open without ceremony the room within was surprisingly large. It was full of a shifting mass of people and was deafeningly noisy with laughter and talk, and the atmosphere was a rich mixture of the smell of food and the mingled smoke of tobacco and turf. As soon as Dion and Bridget entered, a red-faced young man with a long Irish face came forward to shake Dion sheepishly by the hand.

  ‘The bridegroom,’ introduced Dion. ‘How was the suit, Shawn?’

  ‘Sure and wasn’t the half of the master tailors of Dublin envying me the cut of it as I stood at the altar?’ crooned Shawn mendaciously. He glanced at Bridget. ‘Would I be knowing your lady’s name, Mr. Dion?’