“And the proof of the pudding very successfully whittled .the lovely but haughty Iris down to size!” Burke’s deep laughter rang through the orchard, startling a trio of birds out of one of the trees. “I’d like to have been there! Oh, there’s no getting away from it, Rea, this situation definitely has its amusing side.” His blue eyes danced as he paused under a tree and leant his wide back against it.
Rea stood tossing the golden apple. Burke might be amused, she thought, but the situation wasn’t all that amusing for her. Philip Ryeland most emphatically did not like her, and there was every likelihood that Iris Mallory, out of pique, would say things to him that might set him wondering; set him asking questions of Burke. Awkward questions. Questions about how they had met— where they had met. Rea ceased to toss the apple, her eyes growing wide and panicky. Was she expected to say that it was in Peru they had met? “I’ve never been to Peru—I know nothing about the place!” she gasped aloud.
“It’s hot and primitive and it steams,” Burke drawled. He watched her, amusedly, reading her panicky thoughts in her eyes. “We’ll tell Iris I found you under a banyan tree, dressed in half a dozen inches of dyed grass.”
“Oh, don’t! I’d never live that down! What will you really tell her?”
“I’ll tell her as much, or as little, as it suits me to tell her.” Burke reached up a lazy hand and plucked a spray of apple leaves. He spun the spray in his fingers. “Don’t be intimidated by Iris,” he said. “She might be Grandfather’s prize pet, but she knows I’ll not tolerate any of her hankying about with anything that is mine.” He passed an arm about her shoulders and walked her back under the trees towards the open glass doors of the drawing-room. “Iris is all right, really,” he said. “She’s just been rather spoiled by a doting father. Highly-strung fillies need a strong hand, and he’s never used one.”
Rea possessed only two dresses that approached, in her opinion, anywhere near the demands of sitting down to dinner under the gabled and turreted roof of King’s Beeches. One was an old-rose colour, the other violet-blue. And both of them were in London, at the flat of Laura Damien.
So, for the second time, Rea sat down to dinner at King’s Beeches in plain navy-blue linen.
She wouldn’t have felt so acutely the inadequacy of her rather schoolgirlish dress if there had been no Iris Mallory, glowingly alive in a superbly cut dress of several shades of honey, with pearl studs in her ears, sitting across the table from her. She was so undeniably attractive, so smart and vivid, that Rea actually ached with the knowledge of how unattractive, dowdy and dull she must look in contrast.
She ate her dinner in a dull silence, constantly aware of Iris’s jade-green eyes upon her, but they had reached the sweet course before Iris directly mentioned Burke’s marriage, which had come as such a shock to her.
“I’ve met your son, Burke,” she said, “did you know?”
He glanced up from his brandied pears. “Who do you think he resembles?” he drawled.
“You, of course, my dear.” She smiled in a bittersweet fashion.
“Nonsense!” This expletive came from Philip Ryeland. “The boy is like my lad, like my Philip. Dead spit of him.”
“Really?” The jade-green eyes opened very wide and then went gleamingly narrow. “I’ll have to take another look at him.”
“Yes, do that, Iris,” Burke murmured. “Get Rea to take you up to the nursery after we’ve had dinner. You’ll love his toys—he’s got quite a young zoo up there, hasn’t he, Rea?” Burke’s blue eyes rested upon Rea’s face, a lazy smile in them. “Show Iris the pink elephant, the one you like playing with.”
“Oh, does she play with the baby’s toys?” Iris laughed, softly. “How unutterably—comical.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Burke took up his wine glass, the opaque stem looking very delicate in his brown hand. He sipped the wine, which had a pale golden sheen. “This has a pleasant softness, sir,” he said to his grandfather. “Italian?”
The old man nodded. “Thought I’d try it, as Tab Gresham recommended it. Not bad, eh? One thing I’ll say for Tab, he’s got an unassailable palate, but like all doctors he plays a rotten game of bridge.”
“You and your bridge!” Iris laughed and reached over to pat the old man’s hand. “Well, there’s four of us, we could make up a table tonight.”
“I—I don’t play—I’m awfully sorry!” Rea broke in. “Don’t be sorry, my darling.” Burke’s smile was rakish. “I like you just the way you are, without any vices.”
“Hasn’t she one little one to make life exciting for you, Burke?” Iris laughed. Then she glanced at Rea, speculatively. “Do you ride?” she asked.
Rea shook her head. “There’s—never been an opportunity to learn.”
“How extraordinary! Burke lives in the saddle when he’s here at King’s Beeches.” Her green glance swivelled to Burke. “Wherever did you find your wife, my dear— in a convent?”
Rea’s heart seemed to turn a complete somersault at the question, while her eyes became fixed upon the dark, unconcerned-appearing face of Burke. She had hoped and prayed that they might elude this question and so avoid the lie that Burke must now tell; her young, honest heart shrank from that lie.
“Why, we met abroad,” he said lazily. “Rea was playing secretary to some woman I knew. I rescued her.” He smiled straight into Rea’s eyes. “Eat your pears up, sweetie, then you can take Iris to see the baby.” His smile moved to Iris. “You wouldn’t think she had a baby, would you? She looks such a baby herself.” “Oh, I don’t know,” Iris retorted, with her bittersweet smile. “Dull covers
often hide surprising literature.”
“And vivid ones some surprising mediocrity,” Burke returned swiftly.
Rea saw Iris go tense in her chair, while her cheeks definitely paled under the smooth tan. Why—why, she loves him, Rea thought, rather wildly. Burke knows she loves him and he doesn’t care a jot. He doesn’t feel that the minutest speck of love from anyone demands, at the least, gratitude. Rea shivered. So far Burke had shown her kindness, but what if he ever turned on her with his cutting tongue, lashing out and hurting for the mere pleasure of it? She shrank from the thought. He was her only friend in this new, strange world she had entered; he must stay her friend.
She covertly studied him as he talked now with his grandfather, discussing the piece of land he had been sent to survey that morning. She knew so little of him, and what she knew presented an enigma. Laura Damien had called him hard; she had held the opinion that he had never cared for anyone in his entire life. Yet Rea was convinced that in his own fashion he had loved Peter’s mother. It wasn’t because Peter was a Ryeland that Burke had brought him here to King’s Beeches. It was because in some way he had hurt that girl Dani, and he made recompense by taking her son into the heart she had left empty.
Strange, complex heart, rejecting and yet observin
“Ah, so I did, so I did. All the same, little girl
Strange, complex heart, rejecting and yet observing, in its own puzzling fashion, its allegiance to this ancient house. Giving far more, really, than the brother who had died for it, for Philip had not died in bondage. Whereas Burke, whose eyes yearned for far horizons, would give the rest of his life to bondage!
Burke’s remark had very successfully taken the sparkle out of the jewel-bright Iris. She was polite about Peter, fast asleep in his new nursery, apathetically amused by his collection of colourful toys, but very soon she turned to go. “Are you coming down?” she queried of Rea.
Rea shook her head. “I think I’ll read a book,” she said. “Please ask Mr. Ryeland and Burke to excuse me.”
“Very well.” Iris stood a moment by the door, gazing back at Rea, who had curled herself down in the padded window seat. She looked very young, the muted nursery light falling gently across her face and painting shadows in the slight hollows below her cheekbones. This twilight figure, of gentle muted tones and a youth that would be perennial, touched off the hate an
d resentment that had been simmering in Iris since the moment Rea had shyly introduced herself as Burke’s wife. Burke’s wife! Iris’s green eyes lit to a catlike blaze and sudden quick words broke from her, so startling Rea that she curled into an even smaller figure in the window seat, her eyes growing large, her hands clenching together in her lap.
“You don’t make the fantastic mistake of thinking Burke loves you, I hope?” Iris exclaimed. “He isn’t capable of loving, you know! He wanted a son, that’s all! He wanted a son, for King’s Beeches—not a wife! And you’re the perfect choice—placid, undemanding, giving him his son and then permitting him to tuck you away out of sight whenever he feels like it.” Iris’s full breasts lifted and fell stormily under the soft honey material of her dress. “I don’t know whether you love him, but God help you if you do.”
“God—help me?” Rea stared wide-eyed at Iris.
“Yes, God help you, for Burke Ryeland, you poor little innocent, takes a peculiar delight in breaking those who love him. He hates love, you see; it imprisons him —robs him of his precious freedom!” Her head went back and her chestnut hair gleamed angrily. “How he must hate Philip for dying—how he must hate you because he has had to marry and settle down here at King’s Beeches. He had to marry, don’t you see? That’s how you got him.”
With these words she was gone, the door closing sharply on the rich honey tones of her dress, a backwash of acute silence following the angry retreat of her high heels along the gallery.
Rea sat very still, caught trance-like in that queer web of following silence, her heart racing and thudding. She was learning so much of Burke tonight—too much —and she was afraid.
A little later Moira came up to bed. She was to sleep in the little room that led out from the nursery and Rea envied her. Her own room was so vast, so darkly grand, so full of shadows that the oil-lamps seemed unable to penetrate, but after she had said goodnight to Moira, she
was reluctantly obliged to make her way to that room.
She was curled among her pillows, absorbed in the adventures of her great hero, Sydney Carton, when fingers suddenly rapped her door and then opened it.
When Rea glanced up and saw Burke, the magic of forgetfulness fled from her eyes. “Oh—hullo!” She pushed nervously at her fringe. “I—I hope it was all right, my not coming down?”
“Why didn’t you?” He came to the bed and reached lazily for her book. He stood glancing through it, idly noticing that the book was a Christmas present, inscribed to ‘My dear daughter.’ “Did Iris frighten you?” “Oh, no!” She shook her head. “I wanted to stay with Peter, that’s all. I—I like him, you see. He’s so little and sweet.”
“And with him you feel safe,” Burke added. “He can’t ask questions, can he?” He shot her a quizzical look. “You nearly died, I saw it, when Iris wanted to know where we had met. Did she broach the subject again when you came up to see Peter?”
“No.” Rea flushed, remembering what Iris had said, and Burke saw the flush, saw it stain her throat and mount into her cheeks. He bent and tipped up her chin with a gentle finger. “Suddenly you seem afraid,” he said. “Are you afraid of me, Rea?” His eyes insistently searched her, held her, drew out her secret. “I see,” he said at last, and his smile was whimsical. “Don’t be afraid of me, Rea. I’d no more think of hurting you than I’d think of hurting Peter. You two are my family now, you know.”
“Are we?” Her eyes were large on his dark, quizzical face. “You think of me like—like a daughter?” A strange hope, a bated, almost desperate hope edged her question, while her heart, under the blue linen of her pyjamas, beat with sudden nervous thumps.
His eyes dilated with surprise at her question, and then grew soft as they travelled the young face, so hopefully raised to him. “Why yes, Rea, I suppose that’s how I do regard you. Why not?” He laughed gently. “I’m certainly old enough to be your father, presuming I was precocious enough to take a wife at the age of seventeen.”
Seventeen, she thought, watching him. What had he been like at seventeen? Surely, even then, he had been stamped with a cool maturity; an air of withdrawal, as though human contacts were fundamentally unnecessary to him? “Weren’t you precocious, Burke?” she murmured, a smile of sudden impishness darting across her pale face, banishing for the moment its gravity and its slight look of fear.
He fingered his chin, his eyes quizzical as he reflected on her question. “You should ask my grandfather that,” he said. “If I remember rightly, I was writing rather fiery articles for the school rag—I was slightly Bolshevik in those days—and got myself expelled. Grandfather wore a purple face for weeks afterwards. I was a blot on the family escutcheon from that time onwards. Yes, I suppose you could say I had precocious tendencies, Rea.” He grinned as he glanced at the book in his hands. “Are you fond of reading?”
She nodded. “I love A Tale of Two Cities. It’s my favourite out of all Dicken’s books. Have you read it?” He nodded and smiled. “The inimitable Sydney Carton is your great hero, eh?”
She lay back against her pillows ruffling her fringe in thought. “I always cry when the little seamstress asks him to hold her hand. Do you think that’s silly?”
“You think me cynical, Rea?”
“I—I don’t know.” Again her fingers pulled at her fringe, as though she had solved the problem in some measure. “I think you’re probably a bit of a mixture. Your approach to real life problems is cynical, but imaginative things appeal to you, don’t they?”
“It’s my writer’s mind, Rea,” he agreed.
“Why don’t you write another book?” she asked, looking suddenly eager.
“No.” He shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t do, my dear. I’d get discontented with—well, with things as they are now. It’s best this way. I’ve turned a page on the past.” Abruptly he turned and took the oil-lamp from the bedside table and carried it to the chest of drawers. “You’re to go to sleep, now,” he said, “it’s well past eleven o’clock. I’ll leave your book here, beside the lamp. D’you want both lamps turned out?”
“No, only one.” Her voice came rather small from the bed. “This room is so big and dark—”
“You baby!” he laughed softly, as he turned out one lamp and lowered the other to a glimmer. “Is that all
right?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You’ll sleep? You won’t lie awake worrying?”
“No.”
Slowly he strolled back to the bedside and straightened the lace quilt across her shoulders. “Tomorrow, you funny child, I’ll take you out and show you a bit of Somerset.” Suddenly he grinned broadly. “Want me to go and get that pink elephant for you? You can cuddle him in bed.”
She pulled a face at him. “You were very mean, telling Iris I play with Peter’s toys. I felt six inches high.”
He answered with a deep spurt of laughter and made his way to the door. “Poor old Iris, she did look startled, didn’t she? She’ll be telling the county that I’ve taken my wife straight out of the creche.” He stood by the door, still laughing. “I’ll have to buy you some shockingly sophisticated frocks, my dear, and restore you to normal height. We’ll go shopping just as soon as I can spare the time. . . .” Then he was gone, the heavy door creaking shut behind him.
Rea lay watching the flickering tongues of rather weird shadows the glimmering oil-lamp cast up the walls of her room.
Her second night at King's Beeches! The end of a day crowded with new, strange impressions!
There was Burke’s grandfather, watching her at breakfast and suddenly exclaiming: “It’s incredible! The boy’s done it for a damn joke!” Rea’s bottom lip trembled slightly and she swiftly caught it in her teeth, biting on it. It wasn’t pleasant to be thought a joke, but she did see how she must look to him, beside the assured and picturesque Iris Mallory. A dull little nobody, who couldn’t boast a single attraction—least of all, he must think, for a man like Burke, who had had the world to choose from, y
et who had chosen to bring her here to King’s Beeches as his wife.
Burke’s wife! It was laughable!
But Iris Mallory hadn’t laughed. Rea’s toes curled nervously into the soft mound of the feather mattress. The lush Iris had been wildly jealous, her cat-green eyes tormented, her long nails barely held in control as she had faced Rea in the nursery, kneading and clenching the
honey skirts of the dress that blended so well with the honey skin of her arms and throat. “Burke takes a peculiar delight in breaking those who love him!” she had cried.
And that, Rea thought, knowing it to be the complete and dismal and still rather frightening truth, was what he had done to Dani Larchmont.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SEPTEMBER turned the corner into October and suddenly it rained so hard some evenings that great puddles collected between the uneven kidney stones of the stable-yard and the rain splashed down the wide chimneys of King’s Beeches and hissed as it died among the glowing apple logs.
It was very pleasant, Rea found, on such evenings as these, to spend the time curled up with a book in Burke’s study, a room furnished with all the individuality of the lettered traveller Burke still was at heart, despite the farming tweed and the high brown boots he now wore six days out of seven; despite the businesslike manner in which he had taken control of all the Ryeland holdings.
He did a lot of his paper work here. “Farming,” he ruefully told Rea, “might be a whole lot easier on the muscles these days, but there’s a darned sight more red tape attached to it. Forms—forms! Look at these!”
So, while Burke filled in his forms, Rea either read to herself or she brought Peter and some of his toys down from the nursery and had an hour’s game with him on the big Bokhara rug in front of the fireplace.
One evening Burke said to her: “You’ re getting a bit more used to the life here, aren’t you, Rea?”
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