Bride of Alaine

by Rose Burghley

  “Always the little housewife,” he said. “Can’t you leave things to Jean for once and come out with us and enjoy yourself? After all,” as she lifted the dead roses out of a vase and inserted some fresh ones, “you’re not a paid domestic,” his smile growing more naturally quizzical. “You’re not even a domestic.”

  Amanda looked coolly back at him.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Sometimes I’m inclined to forget.”

  Alaine looked rueful.

  “That means you think I forget?”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “I feel guilty because Judy and I have taken such base advantage of your hospitality, and I do all I can to help,” she stated the case with simplicity.

  They were alone in the room, with its long lancet windows overlooking the loch, its shabby chintzes and threadbare carpet, and he was standing so close to her that she could catch the faint, attractive perfume of his shaving-cream, and the scent of the tobacco he used in his pipe. His fingers gripped her shoulder almost brutally all at once.

  “You haven’t taken any base advantage of my hospitality,” he said. “You’ve turned yourself into a slave ever since you came here, and it’s got to stop! Do you hear? It’s got to stop!”

  Amanda looked up at him in astonishment “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I say it has! Because you’re doing it for some inverted reason of your own, and it isn’t healthy. You seem obsessed with the idea that I can’t pay for someone to come and help Jean.”

  “Well, can you?” she asked, in the same cool way.

  “At this season of the year hired help is difficult to find on Ure,” he explained. He seemed bent on driving this fact home. “Girls have to be brought from the mainland, and of the mere handful who might be tempted by high wages not one in fifty would work with Jean. She has a reputation for being difficult and it has spread far and wide. You get along with Jean because she likes you and you’re you—” as if a compliment was implied, and she must realise it. “But that doesn’t mean there’s the smallest reason why you should be so obliging, and as a matter of fact I wish you weren’t.”

  They heard someone coming, and he spoke hurriedly.

  “Since you won’t come with us to-day will you give me your word that you will allow me to show you one of my favourite beauty spots to-morrow? It won’t involve a journey. It’s on the island...”

  Judy came hurrying into the room, and she glanced at Amanda suspiciously. But Amanda was trimming the stems of some roses in a perfectly composed manner, and she could actually feel the Australian girl relax.

  “Well, I’m ready!” she announced, with great cheerfulness. “Do we set off?”

  “We do.”

  But five minutes after he had left the room, and while Amanda was still dealing with her flowers, he came back—looking a little guilty, Amanda thought, as if he had thought up an excuse to return to the house—and he crossed to her swiftly.

  “I want an answer to the question I put to you just now,” he said. “Will you go with me tomorrow?”

  She looked into his dark eyes, and it seemed to her they were anxious, even vaguely pleading. For the first since she arrived on Ure she knew why it was that the island had woven a spell about her, and why it hurt so acutely every time she allowed herself to dwell on the thought of Judy taking over the role of mistress of the crumbling Tower. It wasn’t that she had any doubts that Judy would do quite a lot for the Tower, and, possibly, for the island of Ure itself. No doubt in a couple of years she would have the place transformed, but it would never again be Ure as it was to-day. And Alaine would be her husband.

  Alaine would be her husband!

  It was the thought of that that Amanda couldn’t bear!

  She drew a long and rather shaky sort of a breath, and answered him while her eyes still held his—or his held hers, she wasn’t sure which it was—in the affirmative:

  “Yes, if you really want me to do so.”

  “I do,” he assured her.

  He bent and snatched up a half-opened red rosebud that had fallen unnoticed to the carpet, and attached it to the front of his lapel.

  “I’ll wear this,” he said, “until it fades, and when it fades I’ll consign it to my wallet.” He smiled at her almost brilliantly, and she couldn’t be absolutely certain that there wasn’t a tinge of mockery in, the smile. “You were going to throw it away with the dead ones. That was very careless of you!”

  For the rest of that day Amanda moved about like one in a dream. And it was a rose-coloured dream. It was a bewilderingly beautiful unbelievable dream which she hugged to herself as she helped Jean with the breakfast washing-up in the kitchen, and then made a steak-and-kidney pie for lunch. As there was no one but herself to eat lunch, Miss Urquhart remaining in her room and subsisting on a diet of milk and apples, which she believed was good for the maintenance of her figure from time to time, and Miss Greystoke also remaining in her room and insisting that no one should disturb her—possibly because she was indulging in a fit of temperament, Amanda thought—while Michael Manners trod the forest paths of the island alone and consumed a sandwich lunch, Amanda decided not to disturb the steak and kidney pie, and Jean decided to hold it in reserve for the evening meal.

  That left Amanda free to do nothing at all after a cup of coffee and a wedge of bread and cheese, and she wandered out into the garden and sat dreaming on a bench until it was time to take Miss Urquhart a tray of tea, after which she played the piano in the drawing-room until Michael came back about six o’clock—very indignant because he had seen a stag which might have fallen if he had had a gun with him and Miss Greystoke made her appearance in the drawing-room in good time for a glass of sherry before dinner.

  And still the other two did not return.

  Amanda bathed and changed into a lemon-yellow dress of silk shantung, and brushed her hair until it shone and resembled burnished gold. For once she added a little eye-shadow to her lids and brown mascara to her ladies, and went downstairs aware that she was looking her best. As she entered the drawing room her heart was beating hopefully, but apart from Camilla and Michael and Miss Urquhart—who had decided to make up for her light lunch with a good dinner, and was impatient because Jean apparently had no intention of serving the evening meal until her master returned—there was no one else waiting to take note of her attractive appearance.

  By nine o’clock the light was fading over the island. Jean had been prevailed upon to serve dinner, and still the host and his Australian guest had not returned.

  A certain amount of speculation began to take place in the drawing-room, over the after-dinner coffee. Michael thought the whole thing had been arranged, and they planned to stay over on the mainland to dance until the doors of the Three Goats closed for the night, Miss Greystoke thought that was unlike Alaine and an affront to the rest of his guests, and was reasonably certain there had been some sort of an accident. She looked extremely peevish, as if it would not have mattered so much if she had been with the two absentees—or, preferably, if it had been she and Alaine who were absent—but Michael, perhaps to annoy her, was very much inclined to dwell on the romantic possibilities and was half inclined to believe they might have eloped.

  “What rubbish!” Miss Urquhart exclaimed, and for the first time Amanda saw her looking angry, even indignant. “If my nephew has no more sense than to get himself involved with that girl ... well, I’ll disown him as my nephew!” to the complete astonishment of Judy’s closest friend.

  “I thought,” she said softly, at Miss Urquhart’s side, “that at one time you rather hoped...”

  Miss Urquhart actually glared at her.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, child,” she said. “If I hoped anything of the kind I must have been mad ... And I’m not mad!”

  “But...” Amanda sounded bewildered, despite the fact that she was greatly relieved at heart. “There was the question of—Judy’s money,” she added, for Aunt Grace’s ear alone.

  Miss
Urquhart looked at her for rather a long moment as if she suspected she was having her leg pulled, and then she gave vent to a short and incredulous laugh.

  “Money?” she said, and this time the whole room heard. “But what does Alaine need with money? He no doubt strikes most people as a trifle eccentric because he allows this place to go to rack and ruin, but he has all the money he needs ... and more than he needs! He went in for some sort of a business venture five years ago and it paid big dividends. I should know, because I bought up some of the stock myself!”

  Camilla nodded her head complacently.

  “I, too,” she said. “But only very recently ... last week, in fact. I’m hoping to become rich overnight.”

  Michael looked a trifle peeved.

  “You might have let me in on this,” he said. “I’m poor but honest ... and I’d rather be less honest and make a bit on the side.”

  Camilla patted his arm gently.

  “Don’t worry, darling,” she said. “You shall share in my prosperity when it comes ... I give you my word on that!”

  And any slight rift there had been between them appeared to be bridged for the time being.

  Miss Urquhart led Amanda over to one of the windows.

  “You look absolutely astonished,” she said. “So you had no idea that Alaine wasn’t as hard up as he—and I—had led you all to believe?” Amanda shook her head. Miss Urquhart laughed. “If he does decide to marry an heiress it will be because he has chosen her—not because she has chosen him.” She looked out.

  “But I wish I knew where they were,” she said in an anxious voice. “I don’t trust that Australian friend of yours. She’s too bent upon becoming mistress here!”

  Amanda, who was beginning to feel as if the cold wind of reality was blowing round her, despite Alaine’s aunt’s confession, looked at her with understanding and the same sort of anxiety in her eyes.

  “But what could have happened?” she said. “They left almost immediately after breakfast. They had every intention of being back long before this, I’m sure.”

  Miss Urquhart regarded her cynically.

  “You obviously don’t know much about your own sex, my dear,” she returned. “A clever woman can achieve a lot by being simply clever ... and Alaine has an old-fashioned idea of the way a gentleman should behave, which makes it all rather more sinister. If they don’t return soon I shall really begin to feel seriously apprehensive ... not for their life and limbs, but because of what might result from to-day’s outing. I had a feeling, when I saw her set off, that Judy meant business!”

  Amanda remembered the rosebud Alaine had attached to the front of his coat before he set off, and for a brief while she allowed herself to grow hopeful again. Judy might be clever, but Alaine was no fool. And in any case, what could she do to involve him?

  Unless he wished to be involved!

  By ten o’clock they had not returned, and when midnight struck they were still absent. Miss Urquhart looked as if her worst fears were realised.

  “I don’t think,” she declared, as if she was lamenting something, “that we shall see them till morning!”

  And she was right.

  Amanda had fallen into an uneasy doze about six o’clock—two hours before Jean was due to bring her her tea—and she was dreaming that Alaine had ground his heel upon her rosebud and had gone off laughing to join Judy when the door of her room was flung open and Judy herself came in, wakened her without the smallest compunction, and perched herself upon the side of her bed.

  She was looking as fresh as when she set off the day before, and she was also looking completely satisfied with herself. It was already daylight, and outside the window the remains of a rosy dawn was staining the sky, and a brilliant morning sun was bathing the loch and the whole of the island of Ure in splendour. Amanda blinked her eyes in the strong light, and then blinked them at Judy, who was peering at herself in her handbag mirror, and plainly deriving a good deal of pleasure from the mere contemplation of her own image.

  “What happened?” Amanda demanded, and sat upright in bed. She suddenly realised that the thing she had sat up waiting for the night before had happened. Judy was back.

  Judy smiled at her. She stretched her arms and yawned sleepily.

  “Do you know,” she said, “I’m so tired I can barely keep awake, but I felt I had to tell you my news before anyone else heard it. I mean, men are not terribly discreet, and Alaine might give away something that we don’t wish to be given away ... at any rate, not for a little while. Not while Miss Greystoke and Michael Manners are guests here. We both agreed that it would be best to wait until they’ve gone.”

  “Wait for what?” Amanda enquired, with very little doubt about what was coming next.

  Judy smiled at her again in that drowsy, satisfied, indolent way.

  “Darling, you ought to be able to guess,” she said. “But first I’ll tell you what happened after we left here yesterday, shall I?”

  Amanda nodded.

  “Since we all thought you’d met with an accident, or something of the sort, I think you ought to.”

  “Well...” Judy settled herself against the carved foot of the bed, drawing her legs up and tucking them under her. “We had a wonderful day, crossing first to the mainland and then picking up Alaine’s car, which, as you know, he keeps in the garage of the Three Goats. We went for a very long drive, saw some wonderful scenery, and had lunch at a romantic little hotel that’s fairly typical of the kind of hotels you find around here. After that we decided to leave the car and go for a walk. We walked and walked, and Alaine told me all about his early life, and lots of things I never knew before. I’m afraid we forgot the flight of time, and we just lingered there in the sunshine until it was time for an early dinner. Yes, I know it was a little inconsiderate of us, but if you’d been on the telephone we’d have rung you.

  “Well, after dinner—and we took some time over that, too—we started out on the return journey, and all would have gone perfectly well if we hadn’t run out of petrol. Yes, we really did,” as Amanda looked incredulous. “In one of the most inconvenient spots it could possibly happen, too,” looking as if she had not been in the least inconvenienced by this disaster, “and Alaine wanted to walk back miles to a garage, but I wouldn’t let him. So we just sat in the car until another one came along—which was at least three hours!—and arrived at the Three Goats in time to hear their backyard hens crowing. We put the car away in the garage, woke up Geordie who works the ferry, and got back here a few minutes ago. As I said, I had to come in and tell you my news, as I knew you’d be worrying, and also I wanted you to know that everything—everything!—is fixed up!”

  “By which you mean...?” Amanda enquired, feeling as if her throat hurt her.

  “That Alaine asked me to marry him, and I accepted, of course!” Judy’s expression was rather more smug than radiantly happy, but that didn’t strike Amanda at the time. She merely felt as if everything life held that was good had become clouded over and had in any case slipped beyond her reach for ever. And as a result of the discovery she had made the day before this was not, perhaps, surprising ... for a few brief hours she had lived in a state of shining hope, and now her hopes had been dashed to the ground and she realised that she had been completely foolish ever to delude herself into believing. Just because Alaine had looked at her in a certain way—just because he had exacted a promise from her—that she was in any way important to him.

  How could she be important to him when someone who looked like Judy was ready to eat out of his hand?

  And it wasn’t as if Judy hadn’t warned her right from the beginning that she intended to marry Alaine. She had been perfectly open about it, and, naturally, she had got her wish. She was lovely and desirable and she had got her way. If Alaine had been able to resist her it would have been difficult to explain away.

  But all the same, there are some things that are very difficult to accept, and although, forty-eight hours before, Amanda
would not have felt as she felt now, because at that time she was as yet unawakened, and had no real knowledge of what had happened to herself, now that she knew the sense of loss was indescribable. It was as if she had been upon the very verge of something rare and precious, only to have it snatched away from her before the wonderfully attractive vista had had a chance to open up.

  Like walking in the sunshine and seeing the clouds roll over the sun ... like inhaling the perfume of flowers one minute, and the breath of decay the next.

  As she sat up in bed and stared at Judy she wanted to cry out, “Oh, no! You’re not in the least in love with him—you only think you are!—and it can’t be true!”

  But it was true.

  “You look as if you’ve had a bad night,” Judy said, regarding her. “Were you very worried about us last night?”

  “I suppose I was,” Amanda answered vaguely.

  Judy leapt up off the bed.

  “Now, there’s one thing you mustn’t do,” she said, looking suddenly alert and serious. “You mustn’t breathe a word of what I’ve told you to anyone. Understand?”

  Amanda gazed at her.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  For the first time Judy looked a little impatient “Because at this stage it’s a secret between Alaine and myself. We want to get used to the idea of ... well, being engaged.” She flourished her ringless finger before Amanda’s eyes. “One thing Alaine wants to do before we make any announcement is send to London for the remains of the family jewellery—it’s in the bank I believe—and go through it and see if there isn’t a ring I’d like to have for an engagement ring. Naturally, he’d have it reset, and any of the other pieces I selected would be reset, too. I told him I’m not terribly fussy about engagement rings, but he wants me to have something really valuable ... with sentimental as well as intrinsic value, I mean. The Urquhart family jewellery is probably not in the least the kind of jewellery I’d like to wear, but I wouldn’t hurt Alaine’s feelings for the world, and so I agreed. By the time he’s written to the bank and the jewellery has arrived here, Miss Greystoke has gone and things have returned to normal—pretty much as they were, that is, when we first came here—well, that will be the time to let Miss Urquhart into our secret. And then we’ll have a proper celebration, and the announcement will go to the papers, and so forth.”