Cloud Castle

by Sara Seale

  Was she falling for the O’Rafferty of Castle Slyne like the girls at the college with their first jobs and their first association with men of a different world? she asked herself scornfully, but she knew that for her the answer could never be quite the same. She had not desired petting parties with the few young men who had found her attractive; she did not now desire the time-honoured convention of the foolish young girl imagining herself to be in love with her boss.

  “Damn Ireland! Damn the romantic twaddle than can seep into your very bones!” she exclaimed and, realising that she was cold in her thin nightdress, pulled the curtains to impatiently, shutting out the moonlight, and went back to bed.

  With the coming of April parties began arriving from England for the Easter vacation, for the most part university students who liked to hit it up at the local races and who, one and all, fell hard for Marcia.

  Judy watched, with reluctant admiration, the ease and skill with which Noel’s sister handled a situation to which she was clearly well accustomed. It made no difference that these young men must be several years her junior, and she seemed to blossom, so that even Raff came to watch her with a new, slightly enigmatical expression. Was she doing it, Judy wondered, simply to arouse his interest, or was she one of those women who could not help responding provocatively to male admiration?

  Sometimes Judy would watch them all a little enviously. They were young, and probably foolish, and their ways were not really hers, but she knew, had it not been for Marcia, that they would have been glad to pay her idle attention. They shouted “Hiya Judy!” and slapped her on the back, and bought her chocolates, if they remembered, when she dried their wet clothes for them or performed the small services that the servants could not be persuaded to undertake, but they never offered her the courtesies they showered on Marcia, or noticed her clothes or the way she did her hair.

  “They make me feel like their kid sister,” she said wryly to Raff, who had caught her clearing up the mess left from one of their rowdy parties. “Wouldn’t you think just one of them might want to make a date to be shown the sights, or—or for anything?”

  “Poor Judy!” he teased. “But I thought you told me once that you didn’t care for young men.”

  “I don’t—still, one likes one’s sex to be recognised,” she answered crossly, and he laughed.

  “You can’t compete with Marcia when it comes to scalp-hunting,” he said lightly. “She’s probably been very bored all the winter with only old Colonel Frazer as a permanent victim.”

  “And you,” she said, then coloured slightly at the way in which her remark might be taken, but he only said mildly:

  “I don’t consider myself to be a victim.”

  Because you’re hooked already, she wanted to retort vulgarly, then her eyes grew gentle.

  “Don’t you mind?” she asked softly, but his reply sounded suddenly cold and she knew that he did mind.

  “Why should I? They’re only youngsters infatuated with an older woman. Very natural, Judy, and nothing to make an issue out of. Doesn’t Noel satisfy your own inclinations for dalliance?”

  “That was unpardonable,” she said quietly, and he began to rub the bridge of his nose, that now familiar signal of distress.

  “Yes, it was, wasn’t it? I’m sorry, Judy.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re very young. Don’t take Noel too seriously, will you? He can’t resist making passes at any reasonably attractive girl.”

  “Oh, Raff, do you think I don’t know that?” she said. “He’s just a wolf and a bored one at that. He deliberately let you think—he’d pulled me on to his knee that day and was quite annoyed because I didn’t struggle.”

  “And why didn’t you struggle—or is that an impertinent question?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t struggle because that’s what he would have liked. There’s nothing more deflating to a wolf’s ego than a victim who remains passive and just doesn’t care.”

  He gave a reluctant smile, then it reached his eyes, creasing up the corners in the tender expression for which she had begun to watch.

  “I misjudged you, Judy, and that was very stupid of me,” he said, and she asked with natural curiosity, because now there seemed to be no misunderstanding between them:

  “Why were you so angry? It wasn’t very serious after all, whatever you thought.”

  “I think I was disappointed in you,” he said slowly. “You had seemed to me different—more like—”

  “Kathy, were you going to say?” she interrupted sharply.

  “Perhaps I was, but you should take that as a compliment my child. She was clean and uncomplicated and simple of heart.”

  “I daresay she was,” Judy replied, feeling suddenly cross, “but one doesn’t want always to be compared with somebody else. I hope I’m clean, but I doubt if I’m simple of heart.”

  “How cross you sound,” he observed, his eyes twinkling. “And are you sure you know what it means?”

  “No, not really. Do you?”

  “I think so.”

  Then, she wanted to say, don’t love Marcia, for she is not simple of heart as you mean it, and she’s very, very complicated.

  Judy felt distinctly relieved when the end of their present guests’ visit was in sight. It was she who had to pacify the Colonel and Miss Botley who perpetually threatened to leave, and fill the post of receptionist also, when necessary, for Marcia, making the best of the few days left to her, went gaily off with her posse of young men, not even troubling to ask permission. Raff never reminded her, as he had every right to do, that she was a salaried worker like everyone else employed by him, and Judy found herself irked too by his apparent reluctance to assert his authority which must surely spring from his fear of losing her.

  “Men!” exclaimed Judy, just as Miss Doyle was passing by with a basketful of her uninviting woollen underwear which she had been washing against orders in one of the guests’ bathrooms.

  “Ah, you may well say that, young miss,” she paused to remark. “It’s the divil they are with their false faces and lyin’ tongues. Seducers they are, all the lot of them!”

  “Oh, no, Miss Doyle!” Judy objected from habit. She was used by now to the indictments uttered by Timsy’s star-crossed niece, and often she enjoyed them, but she always felt bound to protest.

  “Oh, yes, Miss Judy, and don’t you be led away by soft words and promises, like me. There’s not a man alive I’d trust and so I’m tellin’ you.”

  “Not even Mr. O’Rafferty?”

  “Ah, him—that’s different—but that fancy housekeeper will get him, you mark my words.”

  “Do you mean Miss Maule?”

  “I do so. And she’s no better than a housekeeper for all the fine names she likes to call herself. Thinks to be mistress here and sell the place up. I’ve heard them talkin’, those Maules and Dan Grogan.”

  “Miss Doyle—” Judy’s old suspicions gathered again, making her indiscreet, “why is he always around, when Mr. O’Rafferty’s not here?”

  Miss Doyle looked coy and sly at the same time and her thin body strained against her washing-basket.

  “He’s around because he fancies me, much good will it do him,” she said, with a rather sad preening of herself. “Him and Mr. Maule has business, so I believe. You’d better ask him yourself, young miss.”

  She made off for the kitchen quarters, the basket on her hip, and Judy stood there frowning, remembering the certainty with which she had expected to find a reproduction in place of the returned tallboy. That Noel and Grogan were up to tricks of some kind she was sure, but on that particular day the Maules had very neatly called her bluff. Because she was still so sure, she went to the Grand Saloon and examined the tallboy again, but it was undoubtedly the original piece, and the repair work had been skilfully done. Her eyes went to the piece next to it, a small eighteenth-century kneehole desk in burr elm with ebony mountings, which had always charmed her, and perhaps it was a trick of the light tha
t made her suddenly go on her knees beside it and examine it more closely. It was, she could see now, quite a clever copy of the original, but a copy, nonetheless, and she was convinced this time how the substitution had been managed. The tallboy had been a blind all along to cover the exchange of the desk, either at the time when the damaged piece had been taken or when it was brought back; on both occasions both Raff and Judy had been out of the house.

  She was still on her knees beside the desk when she heard footsteps crossing the polished floor and someone switched on the lights.

  “What on earth are you doing, Judy?” Raff asked in surprise.

  She spoke before she had given due consideration to her words, tumbling them out in confused eagerness.

  “This is another copy,” she said. “I thought they’d make an exchange on the tallboy, but all the time it was the desk, which was quite clever. Look—can you see how one of the mountings is out of alignment? And the golden colour of the wood hasn’t quite the richness of the period.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Raff said; frowning. “Do you imagine you’ve discovered another fake like the chest in the Small Saloon which has been in the family ever since I can remember?”

  “Yes,” she answered, taking no warning from his sudden reserve. “Raff—don’t you understand? Someone’s robbing you quite cleverly, and it isn’t hard to see that Grogan has a hand in it.”

  “And who would you suggest is conniving, if that’s the right expression?”

  The cold smoothness of his voice warned her now, and she set back on her heels, blinking up at him. Suspicion was not, after all, proof, and the Maules, brother and sister, were established here with his trust and his friendship,

  “There isn’t much choice is there?” she faltered at last, and saw the fleeting look of distaste in his eyes.

  “If you are making accusations, which I hope you’re not, I should think again, my dear,” he said quietly. “I wouldn’t like to have to set you down as a mischief-maker, Judy.”

  “But you can’t get away from facts,” she persisted stubbornly. “This piece and the piece in the Small Saloon are reproductions, and if you say they’ve been in your family ever since you can remember, then the substitution must have been made under your nose!”

  “You were sure about the tallboy till you saw it again,” he said with controlled patience. “How can you be sure this piece, that’s always stood in this dark corner, isn’t the same? If it’s a copy as you suggest, then it’s something we’ve always had.”

  “I feel I would have known,” she said obstinately, “I feel that the very difference I sensed today proves—”

  “It proves nothing, except possibly a too highly developed imagination where antiques are concerned,” he replied, and his voice was once more indulgent, and he used the irritating tones of the more experienced adult seeking to humour a well-meaning but misguided child. “Don’t try us too highly with these flights of fancy, will you, Judy, or I shall have to think, as Marcia does, that you want to attract attention to yourself.”

  “Is that what Marcia thinks?”

  “Well, she’s rather had the monopoly with those young guests of ours, hasn’t she?”

  “And she thinks I’m jealous?”

  “Not jealous, perhaps, but left out of things a little, shall we say?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I may have been wrong about the desk, though I don’t think so, and I was not wrong over the date of the chest. As to being left out of things—I wouldn’t dream of competing with Marcia, even if I could, and she’s welcome to her young men.”

  “Judy—” he said, but she wheeled round quickly, her red hair swinging out in a shining curve as she ran out of the room without waiting to hear what he had to say.

  She must not, she realised now, play into Marcia’s hands by trying to warn Raff before he was ready to listen, and that same evening she was afforded an unwelcome opportunity for discovering how unlikely he was to listen at all.

  Marcia had returned from a day at the races with her escorts who were frankly merry after repeated rounds of the bars on the course. They had flocked immediately to the Small Saloon, of which Judy and Colonel Frazer were the sole occupants, and Raff had refused to serve them. They were decent young men for the most part and, after the first indignant protestations, were prepared to submit sulkily to his ruling, but Marcia, following in their wake, slipped quietly behind the bar and announced that she herself would take their orders.

  “Marcia, please—” Judy heard Raff say with an edge to his voice, but she just smiled up at him and began using the shaker.

  “Don’t be stuffy, darling,” she said. “You, an Irishman, to turn prudish at an extra drop of the crayture! I’ll mix you one of my brother’s specials, boys—that will make your hair curl! Where is Noel, by the way?”

  He looked so white with anger for a moment that Judy thought Marcia for once had gone too far, but he replied with rigid control:

  “He’s gone into Knockferry for some fertiliser. Will you please mix yourself a drink and take it over to Judy’s table? It’s not a question of being stuffy, but we have other guests to consider.”

  “Where?” asked Marcia innocently. She had already seen Colonel Frazer stump, muttering, from the bar, and Miss Botley did not drink and was probably listening avidly on the other side of the door. She picked up the shaker again and began rapidly filling glasses one after the other.

  “On the house—just to show there’s no real ill-feeling,” she said with her brother’s charming insolence.

  Raff stood perfectly still without speaking and his silence was reflected suddenly in the three young men who, after shuffling their feet awkwardly, uncertain how to react, sheepishly began to drink their “specials”.

  Raff waited until they had finished, then said very courteously, but with a hint in his voice that he would stand no more nonsense:

  “Gentlemen, this happens to be my home as well as my house, and it is only by my favour that you come here. Miss Maule is employed by me, as I think you all know, and hasn’t the authority to countermand my orders, so I hope you will embarrass neither of us by prolonging this interview. Dinner will be ready in about half an hour. Good evening.”

  They filed out with muttered apologies and Raff began to rinse out the glasses.

  “How dare you, Raff!” Marcia said, but it was plain from the way she looked at him that, angry though she was, he had aroused fresh interest in her. She had, Judy thought shrewdly, been quite deliberately provoking him to find out of what stuff he was made.

  “I might say the same to you, my dear,” he replied quietly. “I don’t care to be made a fool of in my own house in front of a bunch of ill-mannered youngsters.”

  “Are you jealous?” she asked softly, and Judy, who was just within earshot but out of their line of vision, knew that they had forgotten her.

  “Jealous of that lot?” he said, but a little too quickly, and Marcia reached up a hand to stroke his cheek, the soft lines of her body suddenly fluid and inviting.

  “Darling—you take such a lot of persuading,” she said with a little gurgle of laughter. “Can’t you respond—like lesser men?”

  To Judy, still sitting over her half-finished tomato juice, it was highly embarrassing. She could not leave the room without crossing directly in front of the bar and, even as she sought vainly for some other means of escape, Raff pulled Marcia roughly into his arms and kissed her.

  “Is that what you wanted?” he asked harshly.

  “Of course. How slow you’ve been, darling.”

  He kissed her again, and this time she wound her arms round his neck and there was satisfied response in every line of her body, and the taut lines of his own relaxed visibly.

  Judy slipped to the floor and began to crawl on all fours in the shelter of the bar counter towards the door. She was halfway round when Noel came in and, after a glance at the silent couple behind the bar, stood watching her with interest. S
he made frantic faces at him, whereupon he began to laugh.

  “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” he asked, with bland disregard to her signals of distress. “If the Colonel comes in for a snifter he’ll think you’re drunk, or something.”

  “He’s been and gone,” she said, giving up all attempt to escape detection, then, as the absurdity of the situation struck her she sat back on her heels and began to laugh too, as much from embarrassment as amusement Marcia peered over the counter, her face betraying satisfaction rather than annoyance.

  “I’d forgotten you were still here, darling,” she said. “Were you trying to make a tactful exit before Raff was in danger of making a declaration? How sweet!”

  Judy stood up rather sheepishly and avoided looking at Raff, who had his back turned to them and was needlessly shifting the bottles on the shelves.

  “You might,” she observed with as much dignity as she could muster, “have invented some reason for getting me out of the room before—before—”

  “That’s enough, Judy,” Raff said, suddenly turning round. ‘I’m sorry if we have embarrassed you, you should have knocked over your glass, or something.”

  “If you’re disappointed in me again, it’s hardly my fault, Mr. O’Rafferty,” she said, speaking aloud the thoughts which he could scarcely be expected to follow. All the same, it seemed as if he did, for although he made no reply, his eyes, as they rested on her flushed face, held a curious expression. It could, of course, have been Marcia who had disappointed him this time.

  “What’s all the double talk in aid of?” Noel asked, and slipped deftly behind the bar to mix himself a drink.

  “I wouldn’t know, darling, but probably Raff understands,” Marcia said, changing places with her brother, smiling and unruffled to put an arm round Judy’s waist “Let’s leave the men to have a little business talk, shall we? In the meantime I’ll explain the facts of life to you if you’re still left in any doubt” she said, throwing Noel a conspiratorial smile, and gently pushed Judy out of the room.