Dear Intruder

by Jane Arbor

  She turned the opened wallet towards Bridget, whose heart thudded as she saw what lay behind the little talc window indicated by Tara’s slim forefinger. It was one of the pictures Dion had taken of her at Lough Tulla—the one which they had agreed would probably come out best. There was the sunshine lightly dappling her hair, the gnarled tree-roots in the foreground, the towering boles behind. And she had been laughing...

  Tara was asking, ‘When did Dion take it? It’s very good.’

  ‘It was on a picnic. But I didn’t know they’d been developed, or that any of them would come out.’

  ‘Perhaps that was the only one which did, and he was keeping it to show you and then forgot.’ For a moment Tara’s quizzical glance lingered on Bridget’s face, as if she were not quite satisfied with her own explanation. Then she handed the wallet to her father for safe despatch to Dion, and for everyone but Bridget the incident was closed.

  Her thoughts whirled. So she had been wrong when she had thrown away that discarded marked spool in Dion’s study! He had taken the film of her with him and had developed it since. She supposed Tara must be right, and yet that precise insertion of a single print behind the talc seemed to deny it. Did she want it denied because she wanted to believe...? No, there was no hope there ... Yet something had prompted that safe keeping of a souvenir of herself. At what unreadable impulse had he done it? Bleakly, reluctantly, she faced the realisation that she was never likely to know.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jenny returned from Black Rock a day or two before the Cion Eigel term was due to begin and before Kate went for her holiday.

  Radiant with her new-found happiness, Jenny had evidently been a great success with Patrick’s family and brought an invitation from Mrs. Byrd to Bridget for the half-term week-end. She herself would be going for the alternate week-ends when Patrick had no school duties at Cion Eigel. Her ring was a single diamond from a famous jeweller’s in Grafton Street, and she and Patrick would be married in the spring, or sooner if they could find a house or flat in Ardvar before then.

  Bridget laughed, ‘You’d better show Kate your ring before she goes. It will send her off happily, because Miss O’Hanlon’s niece’s wedding is still rankling with her, and your being engaged should even things up! Oh—and could we ask Patrick to drive her to the Dublin train? She’s been hinting so darkly about being at the mercy of “that ould robber, Dan Burke” that, rather than take his taxi, I believe she’d set out for Ardvar on foot.’

  Kate duly departed; Bryan and Barney Brett returned to Cion Eigel, and with the new term the days settled to their previous routine.

  Pegeen seemed much happier at school. At the end of the first week she came home wearing the coveted green star of a class-monitor, and on the same day Miss Bute, the kindergarten mistress, rang Bridget up to say that, for the Lower School’s show of Alice in Wonderland, everyone had voted Pegeen to be the perfect Alice.

  ‘She is too,’ declared Miss Bute. ‘That demure primness of hers is completely Alice, and though it’s a long part, her memory is prodigious. Minna will be in the show too. Probably as a small animal—species undecided as yet! It will mean their staying after school for rehearsals once or twice a week but, with your permission, Mr. Byrd will always drive them home.’

  The autumn days were still lovely, but the mornings were chilly and the warm daytime air was apt to bring down over the mountains an evening mist that was sometimes almost a fog.

  When the children were in bed Jenny played the piano and Bridget did some mending. They talked desultorily and presently Bridget asked Jenny’s plans for the next day, Saturday.

  ‘I’ve got to catch the early bus for Ardvar myself,’ she said. ‘For my dental check-up, you know. And afterwards I’m going to lunch with Mrs. Steven. I suppose you’ll be seeing Patrick? In that case, I’d better take Pegeen and Minna as far as Cion Eigel on the bus and deliver them to Doris Farran’s care for the day.’

  ‘No need for that,’ said Jenny. ‘Patrick is coming to take me and the children to the other side of Slieve Donell where there’s a marvellous crop of blackberries in a wood he knows. He’ll leave us there to picnic and to gather, because he has to go back to Dublin on some business for Mr. Steven. But he’ll be back in time to pick us up by late afternoon, and we’ll all have blackberries and cream for tea. Does that suit you, Bridgie?’

  ‘Beautifully,’ agreed Bridget. ‘But between us, what are we making of Patrick? Is he still a schoolmaster—or going into the hackney-cab line?’

  They laughed and Jenny went on playing until she turned about on the piano-stool to remark, ‘How the evenings draw in! I wonder what winter will be like here?’

  Bridget, however, did not want to contemplate winter nights when Jenny would not be there and when there would be no Dion in the house, either with them or working in his room.

  She answered Jenny, ‘Awfully quiet and closed-in, I expect. In the evenings, after you’re married, Kate and I’ll have to take to board-games or be dependent on that...’ She jabbed her needle in the direction of the TV set.

  Jenny was stroking the piano-keys, one by one without depressing any of them into sound. ‘Bridgie—except for your being too proud to explain to Dion about Gordon, there wasn’t anything else between you which could have made him leave so suddenly that night? No other quarrel, I mean?’ she asked.

  ‘No other quarrel. Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Only it’s not like you to stand out on a point of pride, and it doesn’t tie up with Dion’s bluntness to let you get away with it. Besides, you two have often had differences before, but neither of you has ever stood out for so long.’

  ‘This was different. It cut away any possibility of our making friends again.’

  ‘Oh, Bridgie! Just because you wouldn’t tell him the truth that you had to tell me later! That Gordon was—was making a fool of me, and what you did was to protect me, not to cheat me. I can’t believe that that was all!’

  Bridget said wearily, ‘Don’t let’s go on tearing the cause apart. If it wasn’t all, it was still probably a sign of a hostility that must have been growing for some time...’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ exploded Jenny. ‘You and Dion were always sort of too sharply aware of each other. But you weren’t enemies. In fact’—over her shoulder she slanted a shy glance at Bridget—‘I had wondered whether it was the kind of challenge which turns into love...’

  ‘We thought that he was in love with Tara,’ said Bridget sharply.

  ‘You did,’ corrected Jenny. ‘I suppose we all did when Gordon pretended Dion had written that cheap letter. But Patrick says it wasn’t genuine. And there’s nothing between Dion and Tara now. Tara told you so herself.’

  ‘Also that he loved someone who didn’t love him. Jenny, please stop trying to make a plus and minus sum of Dion’s affairs that aren’t ours any longer!’

  Jenny’s shoulders squared stubbornly. ‘I haven’t quarrelled with Dion and I’m still awfully fond of him. I want to see him again, to tell him about Patrick and me.’

  It was a shifting of her dependence, her loyalty, from Bridget to Patrick which was quite unintentionally cruel. Bridget said a little unsteadily, ‘Of course you must do what you want.’ And knew from the resolute set of Jenny’s head that she was not to be stirred from her resolve.

  The next morning the children were up early, lining baskets with white paper and hunting out crooked sticks in readiness for the blackberrying expedition. If there were lots and lots to gather, how many could Bridget use? They were anxious to know.

  ‘A ton?’ suggested Minna expansively. ‘Not quite a ton,’ said Bridget, smiling. ‘Say—something under a hundredweight!’

  ‘I don’t know a hundredweight, but it sounds a nice lot. May we eat while we pick?’

  ‘Yes, but make it like shelling peas—one in the mouth to ten in the basket, or you’ll never have any appetite for all these sandwiches I’m cutting for you!’

  Although Jenny was expec
ting Patrick early, Bridget’s bus left before he arrived. In Ardvar she kept her appointment with the dentist, made the most of the chance of finding her hairdresser free to cut her hair, and after reporting the telephone breakdown, caught the noon bus back to Tullabor, alighting at Cion Eigel in time for her lunch with Mrs. Steven.

  There were notes about the holiday to compare and news of Tara, still on location on the coast but due to go to London any day shortly. Mrs. Steven did not tire so easily now, so they went to watch a game of rugby on the playing-fields, and at last Bridget realised that it was nearly four o’clock.

  On parting Mrs. Steven said, ‘We are very happy about Patrick and Jenny, you know. And though it’s a secret so far, Daniel is consulting the architect who made over the house for us about converting two or three of our spare rooms into a little suite for them when they are married. It might suit them better than a house in Ardvar, and you’d like to keep Jenny as near as possible, wouldn’t you, my dear? But not a word to her, remember, until Daniel has gone fully into the practical side.’

  Gratefully Bridget promised to keep the secret. As she walked briskly homeward, savouring it, she reflected that to lose Jenny only to Cion Eigel was the next best thing to not losing her at all.

  She did not expect that the others would be home before her, but as she climbed Tullabor street and came within sight of the house, she shaded her eyes against the autumn sunlight to see if Patrick’s car was standing outside.

  Yes, there was the car. They must be home ... Slightly puzzled, she quickened her steps, then halted, staring. That wasn’t Patrick’s car! It was an old open tourer, red ... Dion’s!

  So he had come back. He must want to arrange the removal of the remainder of his things. So that this, in all probability, would be the last time they would meet...

  She drew a long breath and walked on, rehearsing her attitude, forecasting his. They would both be curt, businesslike, cool; drained even of remembered anger. In fairness to Jenny she would have to ask him to wait to see her, and that meant being alone with him until the others came in. But they could not be long, and with Jenny there, and Patrick and the children, her own veneer of indifference should be easier to preserve.

  He was not waiting in the car. Instead he must have seen her coming from O’Hanlon’s shop, for he strode across the street in time to intercept her on the doorstep. To her surprise, both his hands went out to greet her and he said, ‘I’ve been waiting all day! What was it that kept you so long?’

  All this has happened before. The car standing there, Dion waiting, even that impatient question ... The memory flashed and was gone. For somehow it was not the same. She could almost have believed, have hoped that in the imprisoning handclasp, in his tone, even in his eyes there was a concern, a pleading which had nothing to do with the accusing words, and was no flashback to the day when, abetted by Jenny, he had thrust himself into her life, into her heart. In this entreaty there was—dared she believe it?—another memory. Of his eyes meeting hers, seeming to ask her not to believe he had written that letter to Tara...

  Her wrists were trembling as she withdrew her hands from his and took the house key from the pocket of her coat. As she unlocked the door she said in the phrase she had rehearsed, ‘You should have let us know you were coming. I would have arranged—’

  He followed her in and they faced each other in the dimness of the hall. He said explosively, ‘Do you think I didn’t try to get in touch? I did, endlessly, last night after I’d seen Byrd. But that thing’—he gestured towards the telephone—‘kept on being reported “Out of Order,” and as it was near midnight by then, I didn’t like to ring the O’Hanlons or anyone else.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘For once my native resource failed me, and I couldn’t think of a good enough yarn for getting Sarah out of her bed! So this morning I just came, and there’s a well-kicked butter-tub behind Tim’s counter as evidence of the hours I’ve been waiting.’

  Bridget stared up at him. She said stiffly, ‘I don’t understand your urgency.’

  ‘No? Well, I was in Dublin and I met Byrd in O’Connell Street. He was waiting to collect his sister from a theatre, so we went and had a drink and a meal. He told me about his being engaged to Jenny, and naturally I was pretty staggered at the swift work they had put in. I said, “The last time I saw Jenny she was broken-hearted over that fellow Trent.” Not very tactful, perhaps, but tact isn’t my strong point. And anyway, Byrd knew all about it. More than I did. A good deal more. Bridget, why didn’t you tell me the truth?’

  ‘What truth?’

  ‘You know very well. That Jenny didn’t so much fall out of her infatuation for Trent as that she was shocked out of it by what you managed to show her of his craven rottenness. That you planned it that way, and that you never did want him for yourself. Yet you let me believe it. Did it matter so little to you that I should think the very worst of you?’

  Bridget murmured evasively, ‘Patrick shouldn’t have let you think I planned it. Trent himself gave me the opportunity and I took it, that was all.’

  Dion’s hands went out again, this time to shake her by the shoulders. ‘You haven’t answered my question! Did you care so little what I thought?’

  ‘I think—I cared too much.’ The dangerous, shaming truth which pride had been at so much pains to hide from him was out at last.

  ‘Say that again! No, don’t ... Repeat it if you dare when I’ve told you that I love you, alannah, love you with everything that’s in me ... Now explain caring “too much!”’

  ‘You love me?’ If only it were true, so many things fell into place. Their friendship, growing slowly from challenge to understanding. The curious sweetness of the kiss they had shared on the hillside. His treasuring of the snapshot which recalled that moment. Even his urgency in coming to-day. But against the blind hope it was too easy to set the memory of the hard, angry embrace he had forced her to, and Tara’s story that he loved another girl.

  Her shoulders stirred, resenting the iron grip of his hands. He answered her movement by slackening his hold. But then his forefinger went beneath her chin, tilting it. ‘Is it so hard to believe, alannah, when I’ve been trying to tell you ever since the first moment I saw you, and in so many ways?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Ever since—? Oh no!’

  He nodded. ‘That moment itself. You stood in the doorway of the garden-room, dangling your bunch of keys like an outraged chatelaine and your lovely cheeks flaring with alarmand indignation—mostly indignation!—at finding me in the house—your house. And I not expecting you at all and thinking you’d come in the shape of a landlady—all bosom and bombazine—when you did!’

  Bridget allowed herself a tremulous laugh. ‘Now you’re deceiving yourself. You couldn’t have had a glimmer of kindliness for me then—you were far too rude!’

  ‘Only because I saw that, having found you, I was in danger of losing you again. And I did care too for William’s hopes for an enduring future for the house which he hadn’t been able to plan in any other way. But it was really you ... and once Meath told me you meant to come back, nothing but a shotgun would have kept me away.’

  She glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. ‘I can’t use a gun,’ she said demurely.

  ‘You never really wanted to—on me! We’d taken each other’s measure from the start and were enjoying the pop and crackle hugely. I told you so once, and you didn’t disagree. And then something happened and it all went sour...’

  ‘I’d learned about Tara, and I thought you still loved her. And I knew, more than vaguely, that it hurt. But I didn’t admit the reason.’

  ‘Which was—’

  ‘I suppose that—I loved you myself.’

  On an exultant note Dion said, ‘You can say that as often as you like. But first—’ He held both arms wide to her and she went into them, felt them close about her and gave her mouth willingly to his.

  They kissed shyly, tenderly, as if neither dared to ask or yield too much. Then Dion’s mouth went
searching more urgently—from her lips to her throat, to her temples, her closed eyelids. His hand swept her hair back from her brow in a convulsive grip from which she felt no pain and suddenly the dark tide of his ecstasy was engulfing her too. She strained to him, responding in every sentient nerve of her body to the demanding question put by his. And all her long-smothered need of him became a tinder which lit her answering kisses to flame.

  She hardly knew when his persuasive arm had drawn her into the sitting-room, but only that, quiet now she was sitting on a cushion at his feet while his hands roamed only gently over her hair. Now and then he bent to put his lips to it and oftener to kiss the fingers of the hand clasped in his. But these were the quiet caresses of promise, of dedication. Their more passionate needs had been passingly spent in the agonised urgency of their embrace and now, in the age-old way of lovers, they were discovering the sweetness of How? and Why? and When?

  Dion was saying, ‘I never loved Tara, you know. Not like this. When you and I were out at Lough Tulla, I told you just what our relationship had been. She was a child at first, and I was brother-confidant to her, no more. And she, for a while, seemed to me the very spirit of the wild Eire that I was more in love with than with any woman until I met you. Once, I admit, I wondered if what I felt for her was love and was enough. But in my heart I knew it wasn’t. I recognised in time that it was my private demon at work—the impulse that I have to protect and pity all small things. And I believed that you knew I had no deep feeling for her when I told you I hadn’t written that revolting letter.’

  Bridget gripped his hand more tightly and turned about to face him fully. She said: ‘But I knew you had written the first words—“Dearest Tara”—’

  ‘Yes—that. It was the beginning of a letter I began when I was still in the doubt I’ve told you of. But how did you know? How could you have known?’