House of Mirrors

by Yvonne Whittal

  “Why are you telling me this?” Liz asked cautiously, lowering her eyes to the woven blanket on the bed. “I may be mistaken, but I sense that you still have some feeling left for him and…” her hand gripped Liz’s, “believe me, my dear, you’re the one who’s going to be hurt. Leave him to women like Myra Cavendish who have ice in their veins. They’re the ones who know how to cope, but you, Liz, are all heart beneath that outspoken, often cheeky facade, and You’re the kind who would end up suffering the consequences of tangling with a man who’ll never know how to give his heart and soul to a woman.”

  Stacy went out as quietly as she had come in, and Liz leaned back against the pillows with a tightness in her chest which she could not explain to herself. What Stacy had said made sense, but it did not make pleasant listening when it concerned the man who had held a special place in Liz’s heart all these years. What was it, then, that had held him and Myra together for such a long time if it had not been love?

  Surely the reason for his embittered disposition was because Myra’s rejection of him had cut deep into his soul?

  Liz was too tired to think. It had been a long day, and her mind was whirling round in senseless circles, so she put out the light and went to sleep.

  Stacy went into the nursing home a few days later and, after spending half the night at her side, Angus burst into the house just before breakfast with his coppery hair awry, and his jaw badly in need of a shave.

  “I thought it was going to be a boy,” Liz mocked him gently.

  “Och,” he grinned, his face colouring slightly, “there’s always a next time.”

  “Well, congratulations anyway,” Liz laughed happily, kissing him on his rough cheek, and suffering his bear hug without complaint. “When am I going to be allowed to see them?”

  “This afternoon, of course,” said Angus at once. “I’ll take you there myself.”

  He left her standing there in the kitchen, and she heard him whistling loudly as he bounded up the stairs. He was like an overgrown boy, she thought, a smile plucking at the corners of her mouth, and it was this endearing quality of his that had made it so easy to accept him into the family.

  Stacy’s little girl was exactly as Angus had described her, Liz discovered that afternoon. She was indeed a “bonny wee lass”, and the spitting image of her mother, as Angus had said.

  “We’re going to call her Rosalie,” Stacy said excitedly, and almost in the same breath she added: “I hope you won’t mind feeding my brute of a husband while I’m lying here incapacitated?”

  Liz laughed and shook her head. “I won’t mind at all.”

  She did not stay too long at the nursing home. She felt very much like an intruder into their cocoon of happiness, and she envied them somehow when she became aware of that empty void in her own life. She very much wanted a husband and children of her own, but no one, as yet, had quickened her interests in that respect, except…! She shook herself free of these disturbing thoughts and, armed with a list, she did the round of the shops. Angus possessed a healthy appetite, and she wanted to cook something special for that evening as a sort of a celebration. They did, after all, have something wonderful to celebrate.

  Liz was on her way back to the house when a white Jaguar purred to a halt beside her, and she almost dropped her parcels when the door on the passenger side was flung open and Grant’s voice said harshly, “Get in!”

  She hesitated only a brief second before she got in beside him, and her parcels were swiftly transferred to the back seat before he pulled away from the kerb.

  “Where can we talk privately?” he asked morosely.

  “At Stacy’s house,” she replied after a quick, nervous glance in his direction.

  “There’s no one there now, and we’ll be absolutely private.”

  He asked for the address, and she gave it to him, but they did not speak again until they reached the house. Grant refused her invitation to come in, so she took her parcels into the house and joined him moments later where he waited for her on a bench in a shady spot of the garden.

  “Liz….” He began, frowning down at the cigarette between his fingers when she sat down beside him, but she interrupted him hastily.

  “If you’re going to apologise, then please don’t. I’m the one who should be apologising for the terrible things I said.”

  She felt considerably better after having got that off her chest, but there was a hint of mockery in the eyes that held hers captive as he murmured questioningly, “Liz, the horror?”

  She coloured with embarrassment. “I’ve always been a horror where my tongue is concerned, and I have grave doubts whether I shall ever change.

  “One thing I must say for you, Liz,” he laughed shortly. “No one will ever be left in any doubt as to where they stand with you. You mocked me once when I had a thing going for Pamela, and you ridiculed me mercilessly when I met up with Myra Cavendish.” His mouth twisted cynically. “You said, if I remember correctly, that Pamela might break my heart a little, but Myra would tear it right out and have it for breakfast.”

  “Was I right?” His face hardened, and she added swiftly and apologetically,

  “Don’t answer that if you don’t want to.”

  “You were right,” he admitted harshly.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?”

  He observed her intently when at last she replied with compassion and sincerity, “To say ‘I told you so’ is petty, and mot especially when someone has been hurt.”

  “Will you come out to High Ridges again?”

  Liz’s hands fluttered in her lap, and she gripped them together tightly as she slanted a faintly mocking glance at him. “Is this and invitation or a challenge?”

  “Both,” he said abruptly, his eyes flickering strangely.

  “An invitation can be turned down, but I’ve never been able to resist a challenge.”

  He smiled faintly, dropping his cigarette on to the grass and crushing it beneath the heel of his expensive shoe. “You’re an odd child.”

  “Not so much of the child, than you,” she retorted at once. “I’m twenty-two, remember?”

  “It’s rather difficult thinking of you as a young woman at a marriageable age when the various stages of your growing up are still so vivid in my memory.”

  Liz sighed mockingly. “That’s the problem with family and friends. They never allow you to grow up.”

  Grant leaned towards her, and he was suddenly so close that she could see the little creases around his eyes and smell the muskiness of his masculine cologne. It affected her strangely, and so did the deep timbre of his voice when he asked, “Am I your friend, Liz?”

  “We’ve had our differences in the past, but I would like to think that you’re still my friend.”

  There was odd fluttering in her throat, and his finger left a trail of fire against her skin when he traced the curved line of her cheek down to her chin. His light touch had aroused such disturbing sensations that she had almost flinched away from it, but somehow she had managed to remain perfectly still until he had withdrawn his hand.

  “When you have nothing better to do, I shall welcome your company out at High Ridges,” Grant informed her, and a few minutes later she was watching him drive away.

  Liz should have felt elated, but instead she was nervous and troubled. Stacy’s warning was still too fresh in her mind to shrug it off, and she recalled some of it now in painful detail. “Don’t get involved with Grant Battersby, you’re bound to be hurt in the process. Leave him to women like Myra Cavendish, or end up suffering the consequences of tangling with a man who’ll never know how to give his heart and soul to a woman.”

  She went into the house to start dinner, but four words swivelled continuously through her mind. “Don’t tangle with Grant!”

  It was too late, she had tangled with him already, and by accepting his challenging invitation she had sealed her fate as securely as if she had padlocked it and thrown away the key. Liz squirm
ed inwardly at the thought, but she had never been a coward, and she felt certain that she could cope with whatever situation arose.

  Almost a week passed before Liz had the opportunity to take a drive out to High Ridges, and a troubled frown creased Stacy’s smooth brow when Liz told her where she was going.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Liz,” she said, turning away from the cradle and accompanying Liz into the hall.

  “I’m aware of the dangers involved, and I shall, naturally, be on my guard.”

  “Being on your guard is not enough,” Stacy warned. “You’ll need armour plating around your heart to be able to deal with Grant.”

  “Don’t tell me you fell for him once too?”

  “I’m not blind, and neither am I senseless,” Stacy said crossly. “He’s a very attractive man with a masculine virility which is potent enough to knock any girl sideways.”

  “You haven’t seen him since his return to High Ridges, have you?”

  “No, I haven’t, but-“

  “He’s lost weight, and he looks ten years older than he actually is,” Liz interrupted defensively. “He walks with the aid of a stick, and his hand is badly scarred. How badly I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out in due course.”

  “You’re feeling sorry for him,” Stacy accused incredulously.

  “The word ‘sorry’ is a chilly adjective which pops off the tongue when we accidentally bump into someone,” Liz smiled when they stepped out into the driveway where the station-wagon was parked. “I prefer the word ‘compassion’. It has more warmth and depth to it.”

  “Oh, Liz!” Stacy sighed exasperatedly.

  “Take heart, dear sister,” Liz laughed mischievously. “I haven’t fallen foul yet.”

  The drive out to High Ridges took less than a half hour, but when she arrived at Grant’s cottage it looked very much as if no one was there. The windows were tightly shut and the curtains drawn, and if it had not been for the sleek Jaguar parked in the car-port Liz would have thought he had gone away.

  She had been too nervous on her previous visit to take in much, but on this occasion she noticed the small, unfenced garden with its smooth lawns and flowering shrubs. A table and a garden bench stood beneath a shady tree, and a little distance away the sparrows were splashing about in a bird bath. It was a warm day with hardly a breeze, and the peaceful serenity of the spot Grant had chosen for his cottage seemed to enfold Liz, calming those fluttering little nerves at the pit of her stomach.

  She knocked on the door, quite convince that Grant had gone out for a walk, but the door was flung open moments later, and her heart almost plummeted to her feet when she found herself staring up into his thunderous face.

  “Liz!” he uttered her name in surprise, his brow clearing somewhat, the those steel-grey eyes raked her from head to foot as if he could not quite decide what to do with her.

  “Do I come in, or do I park myself on the doorstep?” she asked brightly wrinkling her nose unobtrusively at the stale cigarette smell that drifted out towards her.

  “I think we’d better sit out there in the shade,” he gestured towards the garden bench.

  “No need for three guesses to know the reason why.” She grinned meaningfully. “Why don’t you ask Sam Muller to send someone along to do the daily chores for you?”

  “I don’t want to be bothered with someone fussing about the place.”

  “What about your meals?” she asked when they were seated on the wooden bench with a comfortable distance separating them.

  “I have a lot of tinned stuff in the cupboards.”

  Liz studied him openly, taking in the hollows in his cheeks, and the way his blue shirt hung limply about his wide shoulders. “No wonder your clothes sit on you as if you were a hanger!”

  He glanced at her sharply. “Do I look that bad?”

  “I do believe I’ve glimpsed a spark of male vanity,” she laughed softly, taking note of the fact that his shirt and pants looked as if they could do with a wash and a hot iron.

  “Would that be a good thing, or bad?” he questioned with a speculative gleam in his eyes.

  “Good for you at the moment, but bad if you suffered from an overdose,” she replied promptly.

  “What would you prescribe, Dr. Holden?” he mocked her.

  “Oh, nothing unpleasant, Dr. Battersby,” she assured him in a similar vein. “I would say you need plenty of fresh air indoors and out, one good meal a day, and a little less inhalation of dust and nicotine.”

  His mouth twitched, but his expression remained severe. “That sounds wonderful, but who would supply most of what you’ve just prescribed?”

  “That’s a bit of a problem,” she admitted.

  “What about you?”

  “I might.” She cast him a swift, humorous glance. “On a strictly professional basis, of course.”

  “Oh, of course,” he agreed seriously, but his eyes were mocking her in a way that sent a faint rush of colour into her cheeks.

  “That’s settled, then,” she said abruptly, flicking a beetle off her skirt.

  “Is it?”

  “Well, isn’t it?” she asked, her gaze unfaltering as it met his.

  This time it was Grant who looked away, and he took his time lighting a cigarette before he spoke. “I’d like to accept your very generous offer, but-“

  “Don’t tell me you’re concerned about what people might say?” she interrupted a little incredulously.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Not in the least,” she answered promptly, but she could imagine what Stacy would have to say about it.

  “Your reputation-“

  “My reputation is dependent on my conscience, and if my conscience is clear then I have nothing to worry about.”

  “Your brand of logic frightens me,” he admitted, blowing twin jets of smoke from his nostrils.

  “Nothing ever frightens the great Dr. Grant Battersby,” she announced grandly, but he shook his head and studied the tip of his cigarette intently.

  “Not so much of the ‘great’, and the ‘Dr.’ has now become no more than a courtesy title.”

  It felt as though something had taken her heart and was squeezing it painfully, but her voice was sharp when she said: “I’ve never known you to be fatalistic about things.”

  “Time and circumstances mould and change one.”

  “To a certain extent, perhaps, but it doesn’t make a healthy-minded man like yourself sit back and say, ‘Oh, well, let the world crash about my ears and see if I care.”

  He laughed shortly, but it had a ring of bitterness to it which her sensitive ears were quick to pick up. “How do I fight back against the fact that my career is at an end?”

  “Who told you that?” she snapped out the question.

  “It wasn’t necessary for anyone to tell me,” he stated harshly. “I’m a surgeon, I knew the extent of my injuries, and I knew the implications.”

  “And that, you decided, was that!” she bit out the words sarcastically.

  “Dammit, Liz!” Grant turned on her with all the pain and fury of hell itself in his eyes. “I can’t even hold a dinner knife properly. Let alone a scalpel!”

  “At the moment, yes,” she agreed, undaunted, “but who knows what might happen if you exercised your hand regularly.”

  Grant flung his cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath the heel of his canvas shoe, and there was a hint of violence in the way he did it. “I suggest we change the subject.”

  “Certainly,” she agreed abruptly, and she grasped at once at the first thing that came to mind. “I never told you, but Stacy had a daughter last week on the very day you gave me a lift home from town, and they’ve named her Rosalie.”

  “How nice,” he growled fiercely.

  “You would look much nicer if you didn’t scowl,” she rebuked him fearlessly.

  “And you might show a little more interest in the fact that I’ve just become an aunt.”

  He sighed he
avily and lit another cigarette. “I’m sure …er…Rosalie is a charming infant, but she doesn’t know what’s in store for her with someone like you for an aunt.”

  “Now that’s what I call loyalty to one’s friends,” Liz rebuked him laughingly.

  “Stacy and Angus would have apoplexy if you encouraged their daughter into some of the mischief you indulged in as a child,” he verbally underlined his statement.

  “I would never dream of encouraging Rosalie to climb trees, and so on,” Liz assured him with mock severity.

  “The climbing of trees is bad enough, but it’s the ‘and so on’ that horrifies me.”

  The laugher left her eyes when she met his cool appraisal. “Was I really that terrible?”

  “It amazes me that you’re still in one piece when I think of all the willow tree branches you snapped while imitating Tarzan,” he told her with sardonic humour lurking in his eyes. “And what about the time you decided to become a bullfighter?

  If my memory serves me correctly you taunted your father’s prize bull into a frothing rage that sent you flying over the fence.”

  “I broke my collarbone in that little stint,” she recalled soberly.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t break your neck,” he barked disapprovingly, and Liz smiled impishly.

  “I’m pretty resilient, you know.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “I also happen to be very thirsty,” she continued without embarrassment. “Does your hospitality extend to a cup of tea, or something?”

  “There’s cold beer in the refrigerator.”

  “Heaven forbid!” she exclaimed in mock horror.

  “You might find a packet of tea in one of the cupboards,” he relented frowningly, “but I doubt if any of the cups are clean.”

  “I can quite believe that,” Liz thought, but aloud she said: “If I do happen to run across that elusive packet of tea, would you like a cup?”

  He adopted a long-suffering expression. “If I can’t have a cold beer, then I suppose I shall have to settle for tea.”

  “Now you’re being sensible,” she laughed, getting to her feet and going into the cottage.