House of Mirrors

by Yvonne Whittal

  His mouth twitched, but his expression remained unaltered as he remarked cynically, “You’ve found yourself a more worthy Prince Charming since, I’m sure.”

  “I haven’t exactly been looking for one,” she shrugged, looking away from him towards the river, but something in his silence made her glance back at him. His face had gone quite white, and she saw for the first time the livid little scars against the back of the hand which was massaging his right leg. “Does it hurt very much?”

  “Mind your own business!”

  “Don’t be so damn touchy!” she retaliated swiftly.

  “I don’t need and neither do I want your concern,” he virtually snarled at her.

  “My concern was for myself,” she informed him in a voice which was devoid of sympathy. “If you collapse at my feet I’m hardly in a position to carry you home, am I?”

  “I must sit down,” he confessed at length.

  “This is the best place, I think,” she said, pointing to a grassy patch beneath the shade of the willows, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she refrained from offering her assistance when he lowered himself awkwardly on to the grass.

  Liz sat down a little distance from him, her anxious eyes observing him unobtrusively when he popped a tablet into his mouth and lay back with his arm raised over his face. Was there any real truth in the rumour that his career as a surgeon was at an end? Her eyes sought his scarred hand, but when she recalled how he had handled the walking stick the previous day she could not quite believe that his hand had lost its flexibility to that extent, and even though she longed to question him about it, she knew that she dared not.

  “You’re unusually quiet,” Grant finally broke the silence between them, and her golden gaze locked with his.

  “I didn’t imagine you were in the mood for making conversation.”

  “I’m not, as a matter of fact,” he said drily.

  “Then we won’t talk.”

  She hugged her knees up beneath her chin, and stared out across the river which paved its way so relentlessly through both High Ridges and Riverside. As children they had bathed in it often, and the smooth golden tan of her skin was evidence of the fact that Liz still indulged in this pleasurable pastime.

  She sat there for a long time, immersed in her own thoughts, with only the birds in the trees for company, and the slow, even breathing of the man who lay on the grass a little distance from her. He had fallen asleep, quite probably as a result of the tablet he had taken, but, whatever the cause, she had no desire to wake him. In sleep he looked more like the Grant she had known and loved as a young girl of sixteen, and if it were not for the abundance of grey hair against his temples, then she could almost make herself believe that they had gone back in time to those happy, carefree days before Myra Cavendish had appeared on the scene. Myra had whisked him out of their lives with her bewitching ways, and now, after six years, she had thrust him back, a mentally crushed and embittered man.

  A lump rose in Liz’s throat, but she swallowed it down forcibly and looked away from his sleeping form. The clouds were building up in the sky, and if she was not mistaken they would have rain before nightfall. They could do with a good rain to soak the parched, crusty earth, she thought, and she sighed audibly.

  “Have I been asleep?” Grant’s deep voice startled her into an awareness of his presence.

  “You have,” she informed him abruptly and, glancing up at the sky, she added: “I must go home.”

  “I suppose your father must be wondering what’s— ”

  “My father died six months ago,” she interrupted him in a brittle voice, getting to her feet and brushing the dry grass off the seat of her jeans.

  “I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” he muttered apologetically, levering himself up on to his feet.

  “Riverside has been sold, but the new owners very kindly allowed me to stay on in the house until the end of this month. That means I have a little less than two weeks left to vacate the place, and I’m finding it rather an awesome task trying to decide what to keep, and what to put up for sale by public auction.”

  Grant fumbled in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes and lit one. “Where will you go?”

  “I shall be staying with Stacy and Angus in Pietersburg for a while. They offered to have me until I decide what to do, and where to go.”

  An awkward silence followed, then he glanced up at the sky and echoed her thoughts of a few moments ago. “There’s a storm brewing.”

  “In more ways than one,” she thought wryly, listening to the labouring beat of her own heart, but aloud she said: “You’re welcome to drop in at Riverside while I’m still in residence.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But you won’t, will you,” she said stiffly, sensing his rejection of her friendly invitation. “You’d rather withdraw into yourself than seek out the company of an old friend.”

  She bit down hard on her wayward tongue, but it was too late. Those words had been spoken, and there was no way she could retract them.

  “You’d better go, Liz, or you might find yourself caught in the rain.”

  His voice was polite, but acid, and her hands made a helpless gesture of apology before she turned from him and walked quickly to where she had left her bicycle. She climbed over the fence, aware of his eyes following every move she made, and a prickly sensation coursed its way up her spine as she pedalled away at a furious pace.

  Liz was kept too busy during the next two weeks to give much thought to Grant, although there had been a few evenings when she had sat amidst the chaos of what had once been her home, and loneliness and misery had driven her to wonder whether he might not, perhaps, consider accepting her invitation. It had been wishful thinking, of course and it had been just as well that he had stayed away, for Liz had rarely been in a fit state to entertain visitors after the hectic days of packing her belongings and arranging for the disposal of the furniture.

  It rained again on the day of the auction, but the auctioneer seemed confident of drawing a large crowd, and he was right. The large, rambling house almost burst its seams, and moving from one room to the other with the breezy auctioneer was a near impossible task. Tired, and irritable in the extreme, Liz shouldered and elbowed her way out among the perspiring bodies into the fresh air on the wide stoep, and she considered herself lucky to escape only with a few bruises instead of several crushed toes.

  Two interminable hours later it was all over, and the driveway was empty when Liz wandered back into the silent house. The auctioneer’s stickers had been thumbed on to every conceivable piece of furniture, and muddy footprints intermingled on the wooden floorboards. This was her last night in her old home with these familiar objects around her. They would all be collected in the morning, and her meagre possessions would be transported to Stacy’s house in Pietersburg.

  Tears filled her eyes, but she dashed them away hastily. This was not the time for weeping, there was still too much to do, she scolded herself mentally, but a strong cup of tea would be a good idea to settle those nerves which quivered at the pit of her stomach. The kitchen was still blessedly untouched by the hordes who had roamed the house that morning, and Liz moved about automatically, making herself a cup of tea, and forcing herself to sit down quietly at the table while she drank it. There was still plenty to do, but it could wait a few minutes longer.

  She slept fitfully that night, and was awake long before dawn. Liz had been up three hours when the first truck arrived shortly after seven to cart away some of the furniture, and it was midday before she herself drove away from Riverside. Her father’s old station wagon was loaded, and she knew that she would have to make a return trip that afternoon to pick up the few items which had been left behind.

  A half hour later she was parked in the driveway of Stacy’s home, and Stacy’s maid swiftly organised the young garden boy into helping with the unloading of Liz’s belongings.

  “Come in out of the heat,” said Stacy, slipping her arm throug
h Liz’s and taking her into the spacious house with its cool, modern furnishing. “You look exhausted,” she observed, eyeing Liz critically with her brown, doe-like eyes.

  Liz found herself studying her sister just as critically when they entered living-room. “I could almost say the same about you.”

  Stacy lowered herself into a chair and rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. “As Angus would say, the wee lad’s becoming rather hefty.”

  “You seem very sure it’s going to be a boy,” Liz grinned, seating herself on a chair close to Stacy’s, and realising for the first time how tired she actually was when it felt to her as if every muscle in her body was aching.

  “Angus is positive it’s going to be a boy, but I don’t very much care what it is as long as it’s strong, healthy, and arrives soon.”

  “You haven’t very much longer to wait.”

  “Darling,” Stacy laughed ruefully, patting her well-rounded stomach, “in my condition a week could feel like a year!” Their eyes met, and Stacy sobered instantly.

  “I’m sorry you had to do it all on your own, Liz.”

  “It couldn’t be helped,” Liz brushed the matter aside abruptly.

  The selling of Riverside was a subject neither of them enjoyed discussing, and after a strained little silence Stacy directed the conversation along a different channel.

  “Have you seen anything of Grant lately?”

  “Not since the day I called on him to apologise for my runaway tongue.” Liz fingered the pleats in her skirt and frowned. “He’s changed, Stacy.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, apart from the fact that he looks a great deal older than he actually is, he- he’s terribly embittered and cynical if you were in his position?”

  “I suppose so, but….?” Liz thumped her clenched fist into the padded arm of the chair. “Dammit, Stacy, it’s not the end of the world, you know.”

  “Tell that to him, little sister,” Stacy murmured drily.

  “You know something,” Liz retorted. “I might just do that.”

  After a light lunch Liz drove out to Riverside to collect the things she had been forced to leave behind earlier, but before returning to Pietersburg she turned in at High Ridges and took the bumpy dual-strip track to Grant’s cottage.

  With whitewashed walls and tiled roof, it looked neat and compact where it nestled among the willow and acacia trees a little distance from the river. A sleek white Jaguar was parked in the car-port alongside the cottage, and Liz’s heart was suddenly thumping hard and fast against her ribs when she climbed out of the station-wagon and approached the front door. No one answered her tentative knock and, impulsively, she tried the door. It swung open when she turned the handle and, after a moment of indecision, she went inside.

  The place looked a mess. A thick layer of dust covered the furniture, and stale cigarette smoke cloyed the air. In the small kitchen the dirty dishes filled the sink and overflowed on to the cupboards. Liz had never seen anything like it before, and every instinct within her cried out for her to do something about it.

  “I might as well start somewhere,” she told herself grimly and, putting down her handbag, she tapped water into the sink, found a bottle of liquid soap in the windowsill, and waded her way through the pile of dishes.

  An hour later there was still no sign of Grant, but Liz had restored a certain amount of order to the kitchen, and the small lounge looked more presentable without its coating of dust, and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts. She felt a bit edgy at invading Grant’s privacy in this manner, but she would never have forgiven herself had she turned away and left the cottage in the chaotic state she had found it. She would have thought that Sam Muller would have sent along one of the house servants to do the daily chores for Grant, but then, she supposed, it was none of her business what the arrangement was between Grant and his farm manager.

  She found a broom in the closet and swept the kitchen floor. She could not wait for Grant very much longer, but she would leave a note informing him that she had called, and she was still contemplating the wording when a sound behind her made her turn.

  Grant stood framed in the kitchen door, his large bulk almost dwarfing it, and one look at his face was enough to tell her that he was in no mood to be pleasant. The stabbing coldness of his steel-grey eyes raked her from head to foot, and she steeled herself for whatever was to follow.

  Chapter 2

  “HOW did you get in?” Grant demanded, his harsh voice shattering the awful silence in the small kitchen.

  “The door was open,” she replied, quaking inwardly, but outwardly calm as she put the broom away in the closet.

  “I shall have to be more careful in future,” he observed cynically, limping towards the table and leaning heavily against it as he demanded icily, “Why are you here?”

  “I had to collect one or two things at the house, so I thought I’d drop in and say hello.”

  “It didn’t occur to you to leave when you found no one here, I suppose?”

  “It did, actually,” she confessed guiltily, “but it looked as though you could do with a little assistance.”

  “So you stayed and carried out your charitable deed for the day.”

  His sarcasm stung, but she did not evade his piercing glance, “If you want to look at it in that light, then ….yes.”

  “I suppose it would be expecting too much to presume that you’re on your way out?”

  Any other girl would have fled at this point, for Grant could not have made it more clear that she was welcome, but Liz merely leaned back against the cupboard and studied him in silence before she said thoughtfully, “You really have become nasty, haven’t you?”

  “I came here for peace, quiet, and obscurity,” he bit out the words, straightening to his full height, and towering menacingly over her in the process.

  “You don’t have to tell me why you came to High Ridges,” she retorted sharply. “You haven’t been here for years, but you’ve finally crawled back into your lair, a wounded animal intent upon licking your scars, and having a grand time feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “That’s enough!”

  His eyes flashed a warning, but she was too angry now to care. “If the truth hurts, then don’t you think it’s time you faced up to it?”

  “Get out!”

  “You disappoint me, Grant,” she said quietly, her hands surprisingly steady when she picked up her handbag and slid the strap across her shoulder. “You always had my admiration and respect for being such a solid, sensible person, but it seems my sentiments have been misplaced.”

  Liz was totally unaware of the effect her words might have had on him, or whether, in fact, they had had any effect at all, for she brushed past him, and with her head held high, she walked out of his cottage and into the sunshine. He could go to the devil! she decided, her soft, generous mouth tightening as she climbed into the station-wagon and slammed the door behind her with unnecessary force. If he was so utterly determined to be left alone, then she would jolly well leave him alone in future! Why should she care after all?

  That evening, when her anger had simmered, Liz felt more than a little ashamed of herself. She supposed that some of those things had had to be said, but why did she have to be the one to say them. She had no desire to hurt him, but neither could she let him continue shutting himself away like some dreary recluse. Could she?

  “What’s the matter, lass?” Angus demanded when they had coffee in the living-room later that evening. “You’ve been rather quiet all through dinner.”

  Stacy pushed a tired hand through her short, fair curls, and intervened teasingly, “What’s the bet that it has something to do with Grant Battersby?”

  “Och, that man,” Angus frowned, his accent more pronounced in moments of anger, or stress. “He was a fool to cling to that Cavendish woman all these years, and she certainly showed her true colours when that accident shattered his career as a surgeon.”

  Liz stared down into her
half empty cup and was surprised to discover that her hands were trembling. “Do you think it’s possible that he might never operate again?”

  “Never is a long, long time. Who know what the future has in store for us all,”

  Angus smiled at her, then he studied her more closely. “Why this concern for Dr. Battersby?”

  “When I think of what he used to be, and what he is now, then I can’t help being concerned.”

  “You haven’t still got a crush on him, have you?” Stacy intervened, and when Liz’s startled glance met hers, she added quickly, “You hid it very well, but I was in the throes of falling in love myself at the time, and I recognised the signs in you whenever Grant was about.”

  “Oh, lord!” Liz groaned, her cheeks growing pink. “I hope—”

  “No one guessed, I’m sure of that,” Stacy interrupted, “and if I ever happen to meet Grant during his stay at High Ridges, then you can be sure I shan’t tell him.”

  “It wouldn’t really matter.” Liz put down her cup and met her sister’s steady, enquiring gaze. “I told him myself.”

  “You did what?” Stacy gasped in surprise, but Angus merely laughed loudly from deep within his strong throat.

  “I bet you told him in such a way that he’s quite positive you were not telling the truth,” Angus assumed shrewdly, and his infectious laughter soon had them all giggling about the incident.

  Liz felt much better after that, but she was hardly in bed that evening when Stacy entered her room after a brief knock on the door.

  “I know you’re tired,” Stacy began, seating herself on the bed beside Liz, “but I must have a serious chat with you.”

  “This is quite like old times,” Liz laughed lightly, sitting up in bed and flicking her shoulder-length hair away from her face. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Don’t get involved with Grant Battersby,” Stacy came straight to the point. “I know him better than you think, and you’re bound to be hurt in the process.”