by Iris Gower
Her eyes were shuttered by thick lashes, her expression hard to read. ‘Put some leeches on it,’ he said. ‘It will work, believe me; the swelling will go down almost immediately.’
‘How do you know that?’ she asked. He could see that she was intrigued in spite of herself.
‘I was training to be a doctor,’ he said, ‘and before that I took a great interest in what the village women advocated for treating ills. A good deal of what they practise makes sense.’
‘They would have been burned as witches at one time,’ she replied, and Eddie thought she was actually relaxing a little with him.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
She withdrew into herself like a snail into a shell, but she gave him an answer. ‘Arian.’ She half-smiled. ‘It means silver.’ She moved away from him, and he felt a momentary panic; she was slipping away.
‘Please stay and talk, Arian,’ he said. ‘I’m perfectly harmless, I assure you.’
After a moment, she nodded. ‘Right, I’ll believe you. Let’s walk down to Mare’s Pool, shall we?’
At her side, he felt ten feet tall. She was so small, so beautiful and so vulnerable, he felt she could be crushed like a petal. And to think she was at the mercy of that brute Bob Smale!
‘He’s not so bad, you know.’ It was as though Arian had read his thoughts, and he looked down at her in surprise.
‘Are you sure you are not a witch?’ he asked, and she glanced up at him, shaking back her shining hair.
He touched it lightly. ‘If you are, you’re the most beautiful witch I’ve ever come across.’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ she said. ‘My father, he’s driven by a sense of injustice, he wanted that strip of land. It should have been his – or so he thinks.’
Eddie was silent, choosing his words. The land had been there for anyone to buy, and it was Jamie who had got there first.
‘Jamie is a good man,’ Eddie said with conviction. ‘I know he bought that land fair and square from Mrs Jones.’
‘I know,’ Arian agreed. ‘The land belongs to Mr O’Conner and his wife, but Dad set such store by it, for some reason.’
‘To profit from the new road that will run through it,’ Eddie said, and then he could have bitten out his tongue, because Arian turned to him, a sad look in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said at once. ‘You didn’t know. Come on, sit down by the pond. I have no right to judge you or yours.’ He took off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeve and dipped his hand in the water.
‘What are you doing?’ Arian sat beside him and stared at him as he stretched out along the bank. ‘Oh no!’ she said, as he brought out his hand with a leech clinging to the pad of his thumb.
‘Come on, it won’t hurt – don’t be a baby, now.’ His voice was teasing.
‘It’s not the hurt I’m afraid of; it’s the thought of having that creature stuck to my face I don’t like. Anyway, how are you going to get it off your hand? It’ll stay until it’s gorged.’
‘No, I have the knack,’ Eddie said. He began to stroke the back of the leech, and after a few moments it curled away from his thumb as though dead.
Quickly, before Arian could protest, he put it against her eye. He smiled as she squealed but remained still.
He held her hand and she didn’t resist. ‘It’ll fall off soon,’ he said reassuringly, ‘and in the morning your eye won’t look half bad.’
‘What a pity you didn’t go on with your career,’ she said. He knew she was talking in an effort to ignore the leech that was fastened to her eye.
‘Yes, a great pity,’ he agreed. ‘But sometimes fate takes a hand, and here I am sitting by a pond silvered with moonlight with a lovely girl at my side with a leech on her face.’
‘You’re laughing at me,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can stand this much longer. Can you get it off me?’
Eddie cupped his hand and held it near her cheek, feeling the softness of her skin with a sense of great tenderness.
The leech fell into his hand as though on cue, and deftly he placed it back in the water. Then he took out his handkerchief and dipped it in the pond and gently wiped her eye.
‘There, all over,’ he said, and looked down at her soft mouth, so invitingly close to his. Her eyes met his and then she leant slightly closer. Emboldened, he kissed her.
He knew he was trembling. He’d kissed girls before – not too many, but some – and he had enjoyed the experience; but never had he felt so moved, so earth-shatteringly aware of a woman as he was of Arian Smale.
He groaned and moved away from her, his body betraying his arousal so that he was embarrassed.
She touched his shoulder lightly. ‘I can’t commit myself to anyone, Eddie,’ she said, ‘but I don’t want to go through life becoming a dried-up spinster either. If you can accept that, then I’ll be whatever it is you want me to be.’
He touched her face gently. ‘I’m in love with you, Arian,’ he said. ‘I think I would die for you; but I couldn’t take advantage of you.’
She moved closer and put her arms around him. ‘I’m ignorant of love and of men, Eddie,’ she said simply, ‘but I know that with you I think I would be content to learn. Will you be patient with me, Eddie?’
He groaned. ‘How could I be anything else?’ he said. ‘We will learn together.’
He kissed her throat and, with a skill he didn’t know he possessed, he undid her buttons, releasing her full sweet breasts. She drew away, startled, her eyes wide.
It was then he felt the shock of leather lashing against his back. The first impact was just like a blow, and then the leather bit deep and he was suddenly on his knees, facing the aggressor.
Bob Smale was white-faced in the moonlight. He must have crept up through the undergrowth and been watching them for several minutes. The thought made Eddie burn with anger.
The whip crashed down again, this time across his chest, and wound around him like a streak of fire. Eddie became aware of Arian calling out in anguish.
‘Stop it, Daddy!’ Her voice was shrill, and it made no difference to the man standing glowering at Eddie, whip raised to strike again.
The whip wound a line of pain around Eddie’s body, and this time he clutched at it, hauling the handle towards him.
‘You bastard!’ Eddie said, enraged. His fist lashed out, catching the man squarely on the jaw.
‘No!’ Arian was in front of him, her breasts full and upright, her nipples hard in the chill of the night air. He wanted her with a fierce desire, and he’d so nearly possessed her.
‘Don’t hurt him, Eddie,’ she said, ‘or all will be over between us before it’s begun.’
She took the whip from him and turned to her father, catching at his arm and helping him to rise.
‘Come on home, Dad, let me put you to bed,’ she said softly. For a moment, it looked as though Bob Smale would push her aside.
‘Come on,’ she insisted. ‘If you don’t come home now, I’ll leave you for good and go away with Eddie. You’ll never see me again.’
‘Arian,’ Eddie said softly, ‘please . . .’ He watched as she moved away over the uneven ground, her hand clutching her father’s arm.
After a moment, Bob Smale turned and held his ground, his face hard. ‘You come near my daughter again and I’ll kill you.’ He spoke coldly,. without anger, and Eddie clenched his teeth, wanting to hit out at the man again and again, until he closed his foul mouth.
Arian shook her head and dragged at her father’s arm. Eddie watched until they were out of sight. Then he turned and with slumped shoulders made his way back to Honey’s Farm.
‘Now don’t start, Dad.’ Arian closed the large front door and turned to face her father. He was more angry than she’d ever seen him in his life, but he was sober.
‘You and that scoundrel!’ he said. ‘Together in the fields like beasts, you lying there like a wanton waiting for him to get between your legs! Have you no shame, girl?’
‘You forget, Dad,’ Arian said quietly. ‘I’m not a girl, I’m a woman, and I have feelings just like you or anyone else. If I want a man “between my legs”, as you so delicately put it, I’ll not ask your permission.’
He raised a hand as if to strike her and Arian faced him squarely. ‘No more of that, Dad, or I’ll walk out on you right now.’
He moved towards her. Arian stood her ground, facing him, her hands on her hips. ‘You dare hit me, ever again, and I’ll leave you for good. You’ll never see me again. I mean it.’
She watched as her father lowered his hand and sank into a chair. ‘I don’t know what the world is coming to,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I’m your father, you should have respect.’
‘I’ll have respect when you stop pickling your liver in brandy.’ Arian didn’t know where she found the strength to speak to her father the way she did. Was it the knowledge that Eddie wanted her, would take her away if only she gave the word? But no, it was some deeper instinct than that; it was as though she had suddenly left girlhood behind and become a woman.
‘Arian!’ Her father looked up at her in disbelief. ‘I drink because I’m alone, you must understand that.’
‘No, Dad,’ she said, ‘you are not alone. If I walked out on you, then you’d be alone.’ She paused to take a deep breath. ‘And as for the drinking, you drink because you’re weak and you are filled with bitterness. For heaven’s sake, why don’t you pull yourself up by your bootstraps and be a man? Then I would show you all the respect in the world.’
‘Have you quite finished, girl?’ he asked in a dull voice.
Arian nodded. ‘I’m going to my bed now, and if you need the bottle so badly, there’s a new one in the kitchen, and you can go to hell your own way.’
She walked through the large, shabby hallway and up the curving staircase to her room. After a few minutes, she heard her father come upstairs behind her. She smiled; for tonight at least, he was not having any more to drink. It was a small but significant triumph.
When she was in bed, Arian thought of the moments she’d spent with Eddie out there on the banks of the pool. They had been filled with magic, those moments, filled with desire and longing and curiosity, and perhaps spiced a little with love.
Her mouth curved into a smile. Dad might have stopped her knowing Eddie’s love for now, but when the time was right she would know it, and then she would go to Eddie, and she would learn what it was like to have a lover.
She had meant what she said. She wouldn’t marry Eddie, not while her father needed her, but there were joys to be tasted that didn’t need the words of a preacher or the presence of a gold ring to make them more precious.
At last, Arian fell asleep, and she dreamed of Eddie and his touch on her breasts. She woke to the silent darkness of the night, and there were foolish tears staining her pillow.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘That’s it, then.’ Calvin smiled down at Eline, his handsome face alight with happiness. ‘It’s decided; we’ll be married the last day of November, just before the rush for Christmas begins.’
Eline felt her heart contract with apprehension. Now was the time to tell Calvin she was not sure, she was having doubts about the wisdom of marrying a man she didn’t love. And yet what else lay before her?
She thought of Will with a sense of unhappiness. He had betrayed her; he had taken Gwyneth Parks to his bed, given her his child. Was this the act of a man who loved her?
‘Yes, that’s a good date.’ Eline forced herself to smile up at Calvin as he stood in the window of the gallery, staring at her anxiously.
‘Eline, you are sure, aren’t you?’ he said, crossing the room to where she was sitting and taking her hand in his.
Eline’s lips were dry. Now was the time to give voice to her doubts and fears, to be honest with the man she was taking for her husband. And yet Calvin knew she didn’t love him, had told her he had enough love for both of them.
The door-bell rang at that moment, and Eline looked up, grateful for the interruption.
‘Hari!’ she said warmly. ‘Welcome to the gallery. It’s an honour to have your patronage.’
Hari looked doubtfully towards the couple; her sharp eyes had taken in the way Calvin was holding Eline’s hands in his, and the glitter of the diamond ring on her finger.
‘I hope I’m not intruding,’ she said quickly. ‘I just wanted a word with you, Eline.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ Calvin said, his smile warm. ‘There’s a great deal for me to do, arrangements I must make; it’s about time I moved myself and went into town.’
There was silence in the gallery after Calvin had left. Eline sensed what Hari had come for, and she wanted to keep the words at bay for as long as possible.
‘Please, sit down,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you any refreshments; Calvin has neglected to keep anything in the cupboard.’ She shrugged deprecatingly. ‘Being a man, he’d much rather go out to his club or to one of the restaurants, instead of making himself a cup of cordial.’
‘Eline,’ Hari said softly, ‘you must know why I’ve come.’ She arranged her elegant skirts around her legs as she seated herself on one of the carved chairs. ‘It’s Will. He’s so unhappy, and he won’t talk to me about it. Do you know what’s wrong?’
Eline looked directly at Hari for the first time, and her heart seemed to lurch at the very mention of Will’s name.
‘Yes, I know what’s wrong.’ She heard the bitterness in her own voice with a sense of helplessness. She was bitter, and who could blame her?
‘He’s been spending time with Gwyneth Parks,’ she said at last, feeling that some explanation was called for. Hari should know the truth; she cared about Will, and yet she was fair-minded enough to see Eline’s point of view.
‘I see,’ Hari said slowly, but Eline broke in quickly.
‘It’s not just that,’ she said defensively. ‘I wouldn’t be that childish, to be jealous over a few hours spent in another woman’s company, but it’s more. She’s expecting Will’s baby.’
She saw the shocked expression on Hari’s face with a sense of despair. ‘It’s true, unfortunately,’ Eline said. ‘There’s no doubt about that.’
‘Oh, my God!’ Hari put her hand to her cheek. ‘Poor Eline! Will doesn’t come out of this very well, does he?’
She rose and walked to the window. ‘What on earth came over Will to do something like this?’ she said softly. ‘Are you absolutely sure, Eline?’
‘Yes.’ Eline nodded miserably. ‘And I have to say that Gwyneth was going to release him from any responsibility. She was actually considering having an illegal abortion.’
Eline looked down at the glittering half-hoop of diamonds that Calvin had put on her finger, and twisted it without thinking, as though to remove an unwanted shackle.
‘In any case,’ Hari continued, ‘think very carefully before you marry a man you don’t love.’
She held up her hand as Eline would have spoken. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but I can’t help speaking my mind. I know you love Will, and he loves you, whatever else has happened. Do you really think you could be happy married to Calvin Temple, fine man though I’m sure he is?’
Eline looked up at her, knowing that Hari was giving voice to the doubts that had haunted her ever since the marriage had been arranged.
‘Perhaps not,’ she said in a strangled voice, ‘but I don’t know how to get out of it now. It wouldn’t be fair to Calvin; he would be humiliated.’
‘Would it be fair to Calvin to marry him under false pretences? That’s what you must ask yourself.’
‘He knows I don’t love him, and he’s prepared to accept me as I am,’ Eline said defensively, but she knew in her heart that Hari was talking cold common sense.
‘I do have doubts,’ she admitted suddenly, ‘but I’m wondering if I have the courage to face Calvin and tell him it’s all been a terrible mistake.’
Eline fell silent. She’d been married
to a man she didn’t love once before and it hadn’t worked. What made her think that this time it would be any better?
‘You will always love Will,’ Hari said softly. ‘I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice. You must see him, talk it over with him. Please, Eline, for your sake and Will’s, don’t rush into a marriage you might regret.’
‘How can I talk to him?’ Eline said, the pain apparent in her voice. ‘I want to be with him, I want to love and trust him, but there’s nothing he can say to put things right.’
She paused in an effort to control the threatened tears. ‘Hari, thank you so much for your concern, but, really, I’ve gone over and over it all in my mind. Will must feel the only honourable thing to do is to marry Gwyneth. There is no alternative.’
‘Perhaps,’ Hari said. ‘One more thing and then I’ll shut up. There is the possibility that Gwyneth Parks is mistaken; emotional upsets can have a physical effect on women. Have you thought of that?’
Eline was silent, but into her mind came a picture of Gwyneth’s face, pale and so lined with worry that she knew Gwyneth was not mistaken.
‘See Will, at least,’ Hari repeated. ‘Talk to him and then at least perhaps everything will be out in the open.’ She forced a smile. ‘I think I’d better be going, I’ve meddled more than enough all ready.’
Will got off the train at Swansea and stared around at the familiar landscape. The smoke from the works along the river bank filled the air, and yet to the south there was the cleaner air of the seaside.
Hari Grenfell wanted to see him again, urgently. The messenger had come to Cardiff bringing the letter by hand. It explained very little, but William knew something must be very wrong if Hari had sent for him in that peremptory way.
On his last visit, there had been little time for discussion; Hari had been too busy preparing for the return of her husband, who had been away on business, to pay much attention to Will’s reports. In any case, Will’s visit had, of necessity, been a fleeting one. There were problems in the shop in Cardiff that needed immediate action. A pipe had burst, destroying one of Eline’s displays, and Will needed help with sorting out the ruined stock.