“Do I?” She gazed up at him. “Yet I’m nineteen. I’m not a child.”
“You’re a mere baby—and I’ve made you look sad. Damn my black heart, you’re to stop thinking about it!” He bent to her and took her face in his hands. “I want you to be happy,” he said simply.
“I am happy, when I’m with you and Peter.” She smiled a quick smile.
“Rea, you’re to promise me you’ll keep away from the Larchmont farm.” Burke’s hands tipped her face, so that her eyes met his, fully. “It’s a melancholy place.” “And your grandfather would be annoyed if he knew I went there!” Rea finished for him. “Oh, it seems such a shame! Mrs. Larchmont sees so few people. And I felt so sorry for her.”
“All the same, keep away from the place, Rea.” He went to straighten up, but suddenly Rea’s arms were about his neck. “Burke,” she said, “you’re so good to me and I’m terribly grateful. So grateful for all those lovely clothes—and the little watch.” And quickly, rather confusedly, as though she feared he would repulse her, she brushed her lips across his cheek.
She felt him tense, felt his jaw harden even before she drew her lips away. She shrank against her pillows, feeling as though she had poached. “Why—why do you look like that?” she stammered. “A-are you angry?” “This is rather a dangerous time of the night—or morning, rather—for kisses.” Now he was looking sardonic as he carefully removed her arms from around his neck. “I’m pleased you like the dresses and the watch, Rea. Now you must go to sleep, like a good child.” He watched her slide down in the and cover herself to the chin. Then he snapped off the bedside lamp and left her.
Still she didn’t sleep immediately.
The night closed round her in stillness, and in a little while there stole into her room, from the room next door, the scent of a cigarette; and it suddenly seemed to Rea that she had never known anything more lonely than the drifting scent of Burke’s cigarette, coming to her through the darkness and the silence.
She sighed and turned her face upon her arm, and even as she grieved for Burke’s loneliness, she resolved that never again would she thrust her unwanted kisses upon him.
Her face burned against the linen of her pyjama sleeve and she slid down even farther in her bed. Burke had thought—oh, she knew what he had thought! But she hadn’t intended a beguilement with that kiss. Beguile Burke—whose heart ached this night for the lovely, tragic Dani Larchmont?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TOLLIVER had barely got the front door open before Rea was racing past him with a breathless: “Hullo, Tolliver! It’s lovely to be home—I must go up to Peter!” leaving Burke and the butler to gaze after her in a shared, spontaneous amusement. She wore the little rust suit in which Burke had proposed to her and it made her look almost ridiculously like a rusty, long legged young greyhound as she sped the length of the hall and then went running up the stairs, her face alight with eager impatience.
Rea threw open the door of Peter’s nursery — and came to an abrupt standstill, just inside the door. The greeting she had ready for Moira died on her lips, for Moira wasn’t in the nursery.
Iris Mallory, very chic in filmy black chiffon, was sitting in the window seat, holding Peter in her arms and laughing up at Tab Gresham. Old Mr. Ryeland sat rather grimly on the edge of Moira’s rocking-chair, the formality of his dark evening clothes, his silver hair and his mouth that grew thin as he saw Rea, making him very out of place among the frivolous chintz coverings of the chair.
The immediate resentment that flared in Rea at the sight of Iris Mallory holding Peter—her Peter—took second place to concern as her eyes settled on Tab Gresham. “Why are you here, Tab—Peter isn’t ill, is he?” She darted across the room with all the possessive anxiety of a true mother and went to take hold of Peter. But Iris deliberately tightened her arms about him, laughing up maliciously into Rea’s concerned young face. “So the prodigal mother returns,” she drawled.
“Peter’s quite all right, Mrs. Ryeland,” Tab Gresham reassured her, smiling at her. “I’ve been invited over to dinner, that’s all.”
“Oh!” Rea’s face relaxed. “I thought, seeing you, that Peter’s sore throat had come back.” She bent over the baby, touching his cheek. “Hullo, Peter boy! Have you missed me?”
“You better had, old chap,” Burke laughed, strolling into the room. “Your young mother has missed you.” He glanced round at the company, his eyebrows quirking. “I say, is the gathering in honour of our return?” His grandfather snorted, while Iris said: “How was London, my dear? Did you enjoy your break from rural duties— when your young wife wasn’t pining for her son?”
“Oh, I saw to it that she didn’t pine the entire weekend,” Burke quipped, coming straight across the nursery to Iris and lifting the baby out of her arms. He swung him high, his dark face breaking into a boyish smile. “Hullo, youngster!” he cried, and was quite unconscious of the brilliant dilation of Iris’s green eyes as they rested upon him. He looked particularly attractive and vigorous this evening in expensively tailored light grey, and he and the chuckling, handsome baby made quite a pair.
Iris felt her heart come into her throat. She loved him so! It wasn’t fair—in fact it was ludicrous that this man should belong to—to this little typist—this schoolgirl! Iris’s hating glance swept Rea from head to foot. That suit! It was priceless. Couldn’t Burke see what a sight she looked? Didn’t he care enough even to notice?
Then Burke said: “I say, Rea, you can just see Pete’s two new teeth when he laughs.”
“Can you really?” Rea eagerly took hold of Peter’s dumpling fists as Burke lowered him towards her. “Laugh at me, darling,” she begged of the baby, and when he good-naturedly obliged and she glimpsed those two minute teeth, she looked as awestruck as though she had suddenly struck gold. “Why, they’re like little seed pearls!” she gasped.
She glanced round at Tab Gresham. “Have you seen Peter’s teeth, Dr. Gresham?” she asked.
“Yes—dear—we’ve all seen them,” Iris drawled. She rose gracefully to her feet and took hold of Mr. Rye land’s arm. “Shall we go downstairs?” she asked, looking bored. “You can play to me.”
“Didn’t you want to see the baby bathed?” he asked. “Hardly, darling!” she retorted, and with that they went from the room. As the door closed on them, Tab Gresham exclaimed: “I’d like to take a slipper to that girl!”
“Why don’t you?” Burke laughed, lowering himself into the chintz of the rocking-chair his grandfather had just vacated and dancing Peter upon his knee. “She might come to her senses, then, and decide to fall in love with you. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Tab flushed slightly. “She’ll never look my way,” he said. “And even if she did, I could never give her the kind of life she's been used to.”
“No?” Burke looked amused as he gently touched the dimple in Peter’s chin. “She’d take you by the scruff of your neck and plonk you down in Harley Street. At the end of six months you’d be the most sought-after and fashionable physician in the whole area.”
“I’d rather go without Iris than be that!” Tab retorted.
The two men stayed with Rea to see Peter bathed, then they went downstairs. She was rather wet—Peter, taking his bath, resembled a frolicsome puppy taking a swim; arms and legs were much employed in the operation and as a result water was inclined to fly in all directions—and had to go along to her room to change her dress. She had opened the wardrobe and was just about to lift out her navy-blue linen, when she thought of the little amber wool dress. She spun around on her heel and saw that the box it was in had been brought up from downstairs. She swooped on the box and eagerly lifted off the lid. Tonight she need not look dowdy beside Iris in her smart chiffon. Tonight she could wear a dress that was charming, expensive and becoming.
Yes, it was becoming, she decided, smoothing the wool down over her hips and gazing at herself in one of the long mirrors set in the doors of the wardrobe. It fitted beautifully. She lo
oked neither a boy nor a schoolgirl in it. A happy little smile was playing about her lips as she energetically applied a brush to her hair. Then, neat and gleaming, she hurried from the room and made her way downstairs.
She could hear the sound of the piano before she reached the drawing-room, but she knew, as her fingers touched the handle of the door, that it wasn’t Iris who was playing. She slipped into the room, her eyes opening wide with surprise when she saw Mr. Ryeland at the piano. And he played, she thought, much better than Iris.
She sank quietly into one of the chairs, suppressing a quick little smile as she saw Iris slowly scrutinize her from head to foot, a flash of disagreeable surprise plain in her eyes. She was sharing a couch with Burke, who lay back in a cat-like ease, a cigarette between his lips and his blue eyes half shut as he watched his grandfather.
Tab Gresham came behind Rea’s chair and bent to murmur in her ear: “We’re drinking sherry, Mrs.
Ryeland. Shall I pour you one?”
“I’d prefer cider,” she whispered, and as he went to move over to the sideboard, she caught at his sleeve. “And do call me Rea.”
“If you’ll promise to retaliate and call me Tab,” he whispered back. “A nonsensical name, I know, but it’s short for Talbot.”
“I’ll retaliate,” she promised, and watched him go to the sideboard to pour her drink. It had surprised her to see that he harboured an affection for Iris. He seemed too sensible, too solid, to fall in love with the glamour Iris represented in both a physical and a social sense. He seemed the type who would either remain a bachelor or marry a solid, dependable girl, one who would reap every fraction of worth and joy out of being a country doctor’s wife. Besides, Iris was in love with Burke. It showed in every glance she gave him. It showed now in the very way she was sitting beside him, her left hand lightly brushing his shoulder, her eyes watching his profile, her mouth lushly red, lushly inviting in her smoothly tanned face. Rea was amazed, even a little shocked, that Iris should show her love so openly. A pagan love, Rea thought; uninhibited, unashamed, and still Burke’s to take if he wished, despite the wife and child he had brought home to King’s Beeches.
Tab brought Rea’s glass of cider to her and settled himself in a chair at her side.
“Are you musical?” he asked.
“I like music and I can play the piano—a little. I play by ear, though.”
“Is that bad?” Tab grinned. “I mean, aren’t you supposed to?”
She smiled and shook her head.
After they had eaten dinner and returned to the drawing-room, Iris suggested some bridge. “There’s four of us,” she said.
“There’s five of us,” Tab Gresham put in quietly. “Oh, I don’t play,” Rea said quickly. “You people go right ahead. I’ll be perfectly happy just watching.” “Are you sure, Rea?” Burke watched her across the flame of a match as he lit a cigarette. Then he shook out the match and tossed it into the fire. “It isn’t an exciting occupation,
watching other people play cards.” “Don’t you sew, dear, or knit?” Iris queried, her tone implying that if Rea was capable of doing anything, sewing and knitting possibly represented the sum total of her abilities.
“I read.” Rea jumped to her feet. “I won’t disturb you people at all. I’ll take a cider and go to the library and read. I expect there’s still a fire.”
“Bring your book in here,” Burke said.
“No, you’ll disturb me.” She smiled quickly at him, poured herself some cider from the small cask on the sideboard and slipped quietly away.
About half an hour later, quite unexpectedly, the door of the library opened and then closed, and when Rea looked round the side of the big library couch, where she was curled among some big green velvet cushions with a book in her lap, her enquiring eyes met the grey-blue eyes of Tab Gresham. “The brainy ones have thrown me out on my ear,” he said, coming to the couch. “They are now playing three-handed something or other. I’m going to talk to you—I’ve been dying to ever since I sat down to play my tortuous bridge.” “What a gallant speech, Dr.—I mean Tab,” she smiled.
“May I join you?” he came round the couch and sat down beside her. “May I also say that I like your dress, Rea? It’s a beautiful colour.”
“Yes, it is nice, isn’t it?” She took a fold of the amber wool in her fingers, admiring it “Burke has bought me the most wonderful wardrobe of clothes.
I’ve never had such lovely things!” Her eyes shone into Tab’s as she showed him her wrist, bearing Burke’s little watch. “He gave me this, too. Isn’t it lovely?”
“Very lovely,” he took her wrist in his hand, but his eyes were upon her face. “Tell me, Rea, you don’t worry about Iris at all, do you? I mean,” Tab’s forehead corrugated in a frown, “you may have noticed that she doesn’t bother to hide—what she feels for Burke.
She hoped to marry him, you know, and she’s the sort who doesn’t let go of the things she wants very easily.
What I want to say is, don’t let her attitude bother you.
She couldn’t coax Burke into her web while he was single, so she’ll not succeed now that he’s married—and
very happily married, might I add.”
“Do you really think that?” Rea searched Tab’s face with her large eyes, pushing at her fringe as she always did when perplexed. “I wish—I wish I could make him happy.”
“But you have!” Tab looked down at her in surprise. "You’ve given him yourself—and Peter.”
“Y-yes, of course.” Rea glanced away from Tab’s half smiling blue-grey eyes in some confusion. “We may not be enough, though. I think he still longs to travel. It seems hard that he should be tied here at King’s Beeches when his heart yearns for far places—don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t, as a matter of fact.” Tab spoke with quiet decision. “In my opinion, happy domesticity is the best thing any man can have. Perhaps that sounds funny, coming from a stick-in-the-mud bachelor like myself, but I’ll warrant Burke is settling down as a family man much better than you may think. Look at him tonight with Peter!”
“Yes, he loves Peter,” she agreed, but still she kept her eyes turned from Tab’s and he watched her in a growing puzzlement. It was funny, he thought, the way she seemed to grow a shell and to creep in under its protection whenever the talk veered round to her marriage. She seemed—she seemed almost frightened of talking about her marriage.
Tab’s perplexed glance drew away from Rea’s averted profile and settled on the low red glimmering of the fallen logs in the fireplace. There was, it had to be admitted, a decided mystery attaching to Burke’s meeting and marriage with this young, sweet, unworldly girl. Tab couldn’t believe, somehow, that she had ever been anywhere near Peru. He felt, in fact, that she had never been out of England in her life.
Yet if that were true—if that were true, where had they met, and when?
It was very definite that Burke had been in Peru. It had been the very devil trying to get into contact with him at the time of Philip’s death. His expedition had been scattered, some of the members dead, and it had been some months before Burke had rejoined civilization and learned of his brother’s death. He had come home immediately, but he had not mentioned a wife and child—the wife and child he must have had at that time.
Tab’s sandy brows drew together in a frown. "What was it Burke’s grandfather was always saying? “Peter’s like my Philip. The little lad is my Philip all over again.” Tab felt his nerves give the same sort of jolt they might have given had he suddenly touched a faulty electric light switch and received a shock. Lord, what was he thinking? The child was Burke’s—Burke’s and this little girl’s. One only had to see them with the child to realize they worshipped him.
Tab threw off his puzzling thoughts and returned his glance to Rea, a small golden and white figure among her huge green cushions. She had kicked off her shoes and Tab’s sandy brows quirked amusedly at the doll like proportions of her feet. Iris might call this
girl a colourless little ninny, but Iris was a woman, she wouldn’t see in Rea what a man—a man of sensitivity— would see. Rea might be laid out in pastels, Tab thought, but her colours would never fade, nor her value depreciate.
“I suppose,” he said, “you’ll be going to Iris’s birthday dance next week?”
“If she invites me.” Rea grinned. “Does she invite wives to her birthday dances?”
“Rather! She uses them for fuel on the big bonfire they always have in the forecourt of the house. The dance falls on Guy Fawkes’ Night, you know.”
“Yes, so Burke told me.”
“Will you save me some dances, Rea?” He looked coaxing. “Nine times out of ten I arrive late and can’t find a sausage to dance with.”
“A sausage?” She chuckled. “I’m more like one of those skinny things they sell in delicatessen shops. But I’d love to dance with, you, Tab—if I can manage to persuade Iris not to shovel me on to her bonfire.” Relaxed and easy again, now that Tab had ceased to talk about her marriage, Rea laid her head back against the couch and the slight shifting of her body sent the book on her lap slithering to the floor. Tab bent to retrieve it, his eyes on the title. “Ah, another book of Burke’s, I see?” he exclaimed. He opened the book at the dedication page. “I remember him writing this, Rea. He’d never done a novel before. Are you enjoying it?”
Rea considered, watching Tab as he scanned the dedication, which was a single line from a poem of John Keats’; ‘Two witch’s eyes above a cherub’s mouth.’ A dedication that was not obscure to Rea, for she had seen Dani Larchmont’s portrait. Then she said: “The book’s beautifully written, of course, but it makes me sad.”
Tab smiled slightly. “Burke sees dreams like pennies, Rea, with a reverse side, and here he was fascinated by the reverse side. You don’t like it, eh, that Paul is never going to have his Caprice?”
Rea smiled and shook her head. “You’re giving me an awfully male look, Tab. I suppose you think women soft, wanting dreams to come true all the time?”
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