by Susan Barrie
“Well, perhaps that’s just as well,” he told her, and then while she waited—wondering whether he was going to kiss her goodbye, as he had kissed her on arrival, although on this occasion there were no onlookers, and they were alone together in the hall—he lightly touched her cheek. His long, firm fingers merely brushed it, but it was a caressing touch. “Be a good girl,” he said—as if, she thought, she was not much more than a schoolgirl—“and don t do anything you know I wouldn’t approve of. By which I mean don’t under any circumstances do anything to tempt providence, will you?”
Then he ran away down the steps to his car, but before he got into it he looked up at her and smiled a little mockingly.
“I will give your love to Mrs. Burns,” he called out to her, and she stood watching .until the long black car had disappeared round a bend in the drive, and she heard Aunt Horatia coming down the stairs behind her.
Aunt Horatia came up behind her and encircled her shoulders with a plump and friendly arm: “He hasn’t gone for ever, my dear,” she said, and there was something humorous in her tone. “And be careful never to mistake gratitude for anything warmer than gratitude!”
CHAPTER TEN
Somewhat to Karen’s surprise the days crawled by, and the week-end came at last. It was followed by another week-end, and yet another, and by this time the weather really had improved. Spring was in the air—it was painting a picture all about them, a picture in many tones of green, enlivened by the pale gold of celandines and the sprightly mauve of crocuses. The little cascades coming down from the hills were running fresh and free, there were green patches amongst the brown of the moorland, and stagnant tarns reflected the sunshine.
Karen was feeling a very different human being from the one who had left London so many weeks before, and not only did she feel different but she looked different. The wan hollows, in her cheeks had vanished, and her eyes were very blue. There was always a delicate color under her peculiarly fine skin, and the attentions of Aunt Horatia’s personal maid had transformed her ordinary short, fair, curling hair into a spun-gold wonder that amazed her when she looked into a glass.
One day Aunt Horatia called her into her room and showed her some lengths of material that were spread out on her bed. They were lengths of gleaming silk, one in ivory, with a tiny, threadlike pattern of silver leaves, another in faintest cyclamen pink. There was also a huge bale of Harris tweed, with a delightful blue fleck in it, and half a dozen rich silk evening shawls spread out across the bed.
“I’ve been turning out my cupboards,” Aunt Horry told her, declining, however, to meet her eyes, “and I’ve found all this stuff that I must have picked up sometime somewhere or other. It struck me that this ivory silk is the very thing to make up into an absolutely perfect evening dress for you, and I could I imagine you looking quite enchanting in this pale pink.”
She picked it up and made as if to hold it up against her guest, but Karen’s clear blue eyes looked at her accusingly. She was not greatly surprised, for Mrs. Montagu-Jackson had been hinting so frequently lately that she would like to take her on a shopping expedition, offering as the excuse the fact that it was so long since she had shopped for anyone young, and that it made her so happy to see young things really well dressed.
“And as you’re going to be my niece before very long, I don’t see why we shouldn’t have a wonderful time buying you an outfit—so what do you say?” she had asked.
Karen’s cheeks had first burned with embarrassment, and then she had shaken her head fiercely.
“I wouldn’t even dream of allowing you to do anything of the sort,” she had said. “You’ve already been far too kind to me—far too kind!”
“Rubbish!” Aunt Horry had exclaimed mildly. She had not looked acutely disappointed but as if the answer she had received was one she had expected. “Well, we’ll have to think up some other way of providing you with new clothes,” she had concluded, with a sigh of frustration.
“I don’t need new clothes,” Karen had declared. “At least—” And then in a rising panic she had said to herself that the sooner the deception she was practicing was ended, and she was back in London, the better. She was being basely unfair to people who were good to her, and she would have to let Iain know her decision very soon. Now that she was quite well again there was no excuse for her remaining where she was. “At least,” she had repeated, “I don’t need them so badly that I’m going to let you provide them for me.”
Aunt Horry’s eyebrows rose, and she had looked at the slim figure of determination in front of her with a faintly puzzled frown.
“But you are going to marry Iain, aren’t you?”
“I—I—”
“Aren’t you?”
Karen had remembered the promise she had made to the man who had befriended her, and she had swallowed something in her throat, and then nodded her head.
“Yes, but we haven’t discussed when we’re going to get married, or anything like that. It’s merely—merely—”
“Merely an engagement! Well, my dear, that’s all; it could have been as you’ve only just begun to pick up your strength after being so unwell, but talk of marriage is bound to crop up before very long now. And you must have some clothes to get married in. You can’t expect a man to buy them for you until he becomes a husband, although I’ve no doubt at all that Iain would be delighted—”
“Oh, no!” Karen had exclaimed in horror. “I wouldn’t accept a thing from, him—not anything like that!”
“And even if you’re not going to get married you, still need clothes,” her hostess had declared, with a return of her mildness, “and it doesn’t seem to me that you earn enough to keep yourself alive, let alone buy other necessities. From all you’ve told me about that flatlet affair of yours in London, and the way you’ve lived, I’d never have an easy moment if you ever thought seriously of going back to it. And I’d see that you didn’t go back to it,” with a sudden firmness. “Whatever happens about Iain, I’m quite determined that someone has got to do something about you in future!”
Karen had felt such a rush of gratitude—almost pathetic gratitude—to her heart that she had almost choked, and she could only mutter. “You’re terribly kind!—you’re far too kind!” and rush from the room.
And now here was Mrs. Montagu-Jackson with her ornate French bed entirely covered with costly silks and expensive tweed, and Karen realized as soon as she saw them that she had had a new inspiration.
“I’ve a dressmaker coming here from the village this afternoon—a really excellent dressmaker!—and I thought if you agreed with me that these would make up very nicely we’d get her to take your measurements and see what she can do with them,” Aunt Horry declared, thinking with admiration that the pink performed miracles for her guest’s delicate complexion.
Karen shook her head almost sadly.
“You know you’re just trying to be generous again,” she said, “and I can’t let you.”
“But, my dear girl, why not? If it pleases me? I’m tired of seeing these things lying about in my cupboards, and the tweed will get the moth in it if I don’t do something about it. I thought it would make you a couple of nice skirts, and perhaps a big coat as well. It’s exactly the tweed I would choose for you for a coat.”
Karen’s blue eyes filled slowly with tears. She wished she could make Aunt Horry know how grateful she really was.
“All the same, I can’t let you.”
“Then I’ll send the whole lot to a jumble sale and be rid of it.”
After that, of course. Aunt Horry won the day, and the dressmaker arrived to take Karen’s measurements and carried away the lengths of silk, while Aunt Horry insisted upon Karen’s accepting one of the silk evening shawls as a gift.
“You can wear it over that pretty blue dress of yours,” she said, “and until the others arrive it will ring the changes for you nicely.”
She patted Karen on the cheek, and said gently: “You know, my dear, I do like havi
ng you staying here. You’re so young and different, somehow, from most modern young women. And I want you to be happy. Although I was not at all sure when I first met you, I hope now that you really will marry Iain!”
Iain’s visits at the week-ends were things Karen looked forward to with a blaze of longing in her heart. When he came, although perhaps he was merely friendly to her—even a little distant—she felt weak with relief because he was there. Whilst he was at Craigie House she was constantly worrying lest, perhaps, something might call him away—to London, or even farther afield, and that she felt she could not endure, although she knew that before long she would have to endure doing without him altogether, and that the sooner she was sensible and told him that this sort of thing could not go on any longer, the sooner some sort of peace of mind would be restored to her.
Once away from him—once really away from him—she would have to forget him. And when you know you’ve got to tear something by the roots out of your heart, every moment’s delay is merely strengthening the agony when the operation itself takes place. She knew that if she had any pity on herself she would turn her back on Auchenwiel and Craigie with as little delay as possible and fly back to London, obscurity and work.
And perhaps if she worked hard enough at something she disliked she might forget these past weeks altogether...
She made up her mind that the next time she saw Iain she would have this matter out with him, and explain that in her view the deception they were practicing had already gone on long enough. So far as she could see he was not in any serious need of protection from his former fiancée, although how he secretly felt about her she often wondered. Fiona was so beautiful; assured, and a little mysterious, but apparently quite willing to be nothing more than friends with him now that at last she had come back into his life. To Karen she was quite charming, which seemed to prove that she had no secret designs on the man she had once proposed to marry. Sometimes Karen had the odd feeling that, if anything, she was a little too charming, and there were moments when the younger girl asked herself why—why, if Fiona was no longer interested, had she decided to make her re-entry into Iain’s life? It should have been embarrassing for them both, especially as she had treated him so shabbily. But apparently it was not. They met and talked with one another as if they were old and well-tried friends, and were quite at ease in one another’s company. Iain had been distant at first—perhaps cautious. But he had rapidly thawed, as any man must thaw beneath the appeal of those golden eyes; and Fiona’s desire to be friendly. And if sometimes the golden eyes rested on him, when neither he nor anyone else appeared to be aware of them, with a strange slumbrous, brooding quality that had set a warning telegraph working in Karen’s brains, because she had observed it, it was really nothing whatever to do with Karen, as she realized.
But although it was nothing to do with her there was one thing she would have avoided for Iain if she could, and that was that he should once again become a victim of a woman who had already badly let him down.
When the fourth week-end arrived and, as usual, he made his appearance at Auchenwiel, Karen made up her mind that this was the occasion to come to a clear understanding with him. To tell him that the time had come to stop pretending, and for them to part. She simply couldn’t go on accepting hospitality and kindness from his aunt and wilfully deceiving her at the same time, and he had to be made to see it. And perhaps once she pointed it out to him he would be glad to agree that the thing had gone on rather too long. He might even meet her half-way and suggest some manner in which they could terminate the affair without making it appear too obvious that from the very beginning it had been nothing more than a hollow pretence.
But Karen was glad she was going to have this weekend—it would be something to hug to herself in after days, and re-live wistfully when she could bear to do so.
On Sunday morning they all went to church in the big Daimler, and then after lunch she and Iain set off for their usual walk. At least, for the past two Sundays she had walked with him on the moor, and she found it an exhilarating experience.
He looked so well in his tweeds, and he never tried her beyond her strength. And he seemed to know just how much strength she had. It was not as much as she liked to pretend to herself, and the most disconcerting thing about her recovery so far was that moments of sudden exhaustion had not been altogether left behind. Those were the moments when he saw to it that she rested, and when, after a glance at her face he decided to turn for home. Those were the moments, too, when she felt that he had not given up protecting her, and thinking for her. They were the moments that were going to be the bitterest of all to recall when their paths had permanently divided.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
This Sunday afternoon the sun shone, and a lark sang high in the air. They trod briskly over the new green grass that was forcing its way through the dead bracken, and occasionally Iain looked sideways at Karen. She was wearing the new tweed coat Aunt Horatia had had made for her, and her shining curls were free to the wind and sun.
Whenever Karen also turned impulsively sideways and met the faintly perplexed, faintly amused grey eyes that were resting on her, she wondered whether he had recognized that the coat was new and that it was definitely not in the same class as her own cheap tweed, and whether perhaps she ought to tell him about his aunt’s generosity. Then she decided that that could come later, when she made her appeal for a return to normality: and all the appalling dullness that normality would inevitably mean for her.
Just for the moment, while they swung together side by side across the crisp turf, her courage failed her, and she was glad to give way to weakness and postpone the serious conversation that she herself had scheduled for that afternoon.
When they came to rough or uneven bits of ground Iain took her arm, and she wanted to shut her eyes and treasure the feel of his firm fingers holding her strongly by the elbow. She thought that if they could only go on like this through life—even if there were no Craigie House, and no Auchenwiel, and not very much money or the means of making life secure—then all the days ahead of her would be a kind of benison, and all she would ever ask for.
Once she did give way to weakness for a few moments and shut her eyes, and when she opened them again she caught him looking at her in concern.
“Are you feeling tired?” he asked.
“No—no.”
A cloud had swept across the face of the sun, and as the wind blew strongly in their faces it carried a few drops of rain with it. Iain swore softly, and looked around for some sort of shelter.
“There’s going to be a shower,” he said, “and you’ll get wet, and it’s all my fault. My wits must have been wandering.”
Then they both noticed a tumbledown-looking cottage standing off the beaten track only a few hundred yards away from them. At first glance it might have been a shepherd’s hut, or something in the nature of an outbuilding, but it was not. It had once been a strongly built grey stone cottage, and even now the roof was good, and the panes of glass in the windows were intact. There was a tiny unkempt wilderness of a garden in front of it, and Iain took Karen more firmly by the elbow and led her up to the front door. When he turned the handle it opened, and just as the rain came down in earnest, driving in its usual uninhibited fashion across the moor, they were able to seek shelter in a small dark room which smelled strongly of damp and wood smoke.
Karen found her handkerchief and wiped the rain-drops from her face, and she shook them at the same time from her hair. As Iain looked down at her he saw that her cheeks were pink as a result of that hurried dash up the garden path, and her eyes were not only very blue but shining.
“Well, we were lucky!” he said, and looked about him at the humble interior of the cottage. That it had been recently occupied was obvious, for although it was bereft of furniture there was a wooden bench in front of the fireplace, ash in the grate, and a pile of wood on the stone hearth. He took one look at the wood and gave vent to a low pleased whistle, a
nd then he added: “Indeed, I think we were very lucky, for although this shower won’t last long we might as well warm ourselves up while we’re waiting.”
And while Karen watched him he bent and filled the grate with sticks, and ignited them by means of an old newspaper which was lying conveniently to hand, and a box of matches from his own pocket. As the flame sprang up the chimney and the dark little room became irradiated with ruddy golden light he looked up at the girl and smiled at her. “How’s that for service?” he asked.
She smiled back at him. She was a little bemused by the suddenness with which they had been forced to desert the open and, until a few minutes before, smiling moorland, land find themselves in this modest abode which, although it plainly no longer fulfilled the functions of an ordinary cottage home, was accustomed to providing shelter for-whoever it was who had kept the room supplied with kindling and firewood. And at the same time she was fascinated by the movements of the tweed-clad figure who had so promptly taken advantage of the facilities that were offered them and brought the little room to life with color and warmth, and watched him dusting his hands on his snowy cambric handkerchief with the awareness that her heart was thumping rather wildly, and that, words would not come easily to her lips. But he did not seem to notice this, although he did look at her rather keenly before he pulled forward the bench for her to sit down. And when she sat down and stretched her hands to the blaze, not so much because she felt the need of the warmth but because she was conscious of the necessity to do something with them, he took the vacant place beside her and observed:
“Although this house is empty and a bit derelict it’s probably used by a shepherd, or someone of the sort, and I hope he won’t feel very badly treated when he discovers how much of his store of wood we’ve used.”