Cloud Castle

by Sara Seale

  What had Kathy been like? she wondered, picking up a brush and attacking the thick red tangle with impatience. Had she really been a person with whom Judy shared some affinity and, if so, how could Raff turn to Marcia who had none of his ways of life? And why, she wondered, frowning, did he escape from his new commitment, if such it was, just as he had escaped the evening when Marcia had provoked him to action in the Small Saloon?

  The same question was being asked by Noel, shaking cocktails behind the bar. Since the Colonel was out and the new arrivals had not yet taken up residence, he and Marcia had the place to themselves.

  “Not a very enthusiastic suitor, going off fishing on top of a proposal,” he said, and Marcia shrugged.

  “It wasn’t a proposal—only a hint of things to come,” she said with a cosy little smile. “He’s gone fishing to clear his mind, I shouldn’t wonder. He says he can’t think indoors.”

  “Why do you want a chap like that?” her brother asked irritably. “You don’t like Slyne, and I can’t see you stuck here for the rest of your natural for the sake of a man who, to put it mildly, seems a trifle faint-hearted.”

  “Darling, it’s the faint-heartedness that attracts me,” she said. “Maybe I’m peculiar, or maladjusted, or something but there’s a lot of pent-up emotion behind all that facade, I think. Fun to explore his possibilities.”

  “Then why don’t you just have the usual affair and get it out of your system? He’s not really your cup of tea, my sweet.”

  “Oh, I’d be willing but, unfortunately, he’s not the man to indulge in such things, and I’m afraid I shocked him. No, Noel, you may think I’m crazy, but he attracts me and I want him, and if I have to marry to get him, then that’s all there is to it. Of course I won’t be stuck here for the rest of my life! I will have turned these mouldy antiques to some advantage, once I’m mistress here, and then—well, we’ll hit the high spots on the proceeds and settle down, maybe, in a nice little luxury flat within easy call of the bright lights. Isn’t that a thought? You can come and stay.”

  He gave her a sidelong look. She was, he had often thought, extremely stupid for a sophisticated woman, when it came to affairs of the heart.

  “It’s a thought, certainly,” he observed a trifle dryly, “but can you be sure that Raff will share it with you?”

  She shrugged and pushed her empty glass forward to be refilled.

  “To start with, anyway—and marriage, after all, isn’t irrevocable. There’s always a way out through the divorce courts.”

  “And supposing Raff won’t play?” he said. “You haven’t my experience of the puritanical streak that runs through many of the Irish. The O’Rafferty doesn’t strike me as a man who’d care for his dirty linen to be washed in public, my sweet.”

  She shrugged again, and looked provocative.

  “Then perhaps he’ll be able to hold me after all,” she said. “I’m not sure it isn’t that puritanical streak you speak of that attracts me. He’s the first man I’ve ever wanted who’s been hard to get.”

  “Lord, women!” he exclaimed, emptying his own glass at a gulp, and replenishing it “Why don’t you leave the poor devil to his own half-baked conception of womanly virtue? All things being equal, our Judy would make an excellent successor to Kathy.”

  “Judy! Are you mad, Noel?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Incidentally, he gave me quite a tolling off earlier—just his prudish instincts, maybe.”

  “He feels responsible for her. Actually, he wants to get rid of her.”

  “Does he, indeed? And what’s stopping him?”

  “I stopped him. She may be a nuisance, but I’m certainly not prepared to cope with the secretarial side just as business looks like booming—neither, I’m sure, are you.”

  “Oh, well, you know your own affairs best, I suppose,” Noel said, “but don’t underrate our Judy. She would be prepared to make a burnt offering of herself for your laggard suitor, if he wanted her.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! He wants to get rid of her, and as soon as it’s convenient I’ll see that he does. The servants are trouble enough as it is.”

  “Funny how they’ve taken to her, isn’t it?” he drawled, cocking an eyebrow at her.

  “How you love to try and make mischief—even with me,” Marcia countered coldly. “As for Judy, she’s too familiar with the servants—that’s why they like her.”

  “Maybe. Incidentally, I’ve rung Grogan, since we can be sure of Raff’s absence for the rest of the afternoon.”

  “Grogan?” she frowned. “Is that wise?”

  “Wise or not, he has some accounts to settle with me,” he replied. “That smooth little crook isn’t going to get away with half my share of our transactions. Better keep Judy out of the way. She’s too sharp by half.”

  His sister’s eyes grew wary.

  “Very well,” she said. “But remember I’ve had nothing to do with your transactions. I’ve thought it dangerous ever since that wretched girl started nosing about, knowing more than we’d bargained for about old furniture. She could make trouble for you yet, Noel.”

  “Then why did you dissuade Raff from getting rid of her?” he retorted sulkily. “Anyway, this is the finish, since you seem to be going to many into the family and can look after turning the stuff into hard cash rather more legitimately. I simply want to get my just dues out of that little blighter.”

  The gong sounded for luncheon and they repaired to the dining-room which, deserted but for themselves and Miss Botley and a couple of strangers who were not stopping the night, was waited on with indifferent attention by Timsy, since it was Rosie’s day off.

  “I suspect the old villain’s been tippling again,” Noel observed with easy tolerance, but Marcia frowned.

  “I don’t find Timsy particularly amusing any longer,” she said rather shortly. “Neither does Miss Botley, judging by the sour look on her face at this moment. Something must be done about him.”

  “Timsy’s a fixture, like the other antiques, my sweet, but not one that you could work a lucrative fiddle on, unfortunately,” he said with gentle malice, and she sent him a warning glance.

  “You’ll be giving our Judy fresh ideas if you talk that kind of nonsense,” she retorted, and began pouring the coffee. “Tepid again! I believe the old fool boils it up on his smelly old stove and then lets it get cold on purpose. I shall have to speak to him again.”

  As they drank their coffee in a rather uncomfortable silence, Judy thought she could hear The Mountains of Mourne being played somewhere in the distance, and grinned as she pictured the incorrigible Timsy registering a final protest in the pantry.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I

  JUDY worked undisturbed in the study all afternoon. She signed the routine correspondence herself now, on Raff’s behalf, and when the pile of letters was ready she collected them together and went through the hall intending to find Mick or Pat or one of the Boyles to take them to the post.

  The hall was deserted, as were the living-rooms, then doors standing open, but high voices were coming from the manager’s office and Judy recognised the rich, exaggerated brogue which Grogan appeared to adopt as part of his stock-in-trade.

  “And what d’ye think you can do, me fine boyo?” he was saying, and Judy recognised the source from which Noel’s occasional Irishisms must spring. “Is it the O’Rafferty you’ll be runnin’ to with tales of bein’ cheated, and he as innocent as a new-born babe of the dirty tricks you’ve played him?”

  “You know very well the money goes into his own pocket,” Noel shouted. “Well—half and half, that is, allowing for my commission.”

  “Och, that for a likely tale! D’ye think I didn’t guess that himself knew nothin’ of your shenanigans? I wasn’t born yesterday, me fine young bantam cock. If you’ll do no more business with poor Dan Grogan, then you can whistle for your money, and so I’m tellin’ vou.”

  “That’s blackmail!”

  “Ay-ah—the harsh w
ay you have with you, Mr. Maule! And whose to believe you—tell me that?”

  “I can call the Garda.”

  “The Garda! And what would you be tellin’ the Garda? That you’ve been robbin’ your employer and can’t get your money? Oh, no, me brave gossoon, you’ll not do the like of that, I’ll wager. Is it true that pretty sister of yours is to be mistress here?”

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “And it might have at that. You’d not spoil her chances by grudging poor Grogan a bit of a present, would you?”

  “But you’re proposing to take the lot on the last deal,” Noel protested shrilly, and Grogan’s voice in replying held a well-practised richness which almost became a whine.

  “But think of me own expenses, your honour. That chest I did meself, but it was bad work, bad work. The other wan, now, needed an expert craftsman, and I had to pay him. There’s been nothin’ much in it for any of us, but if you let me take the tallboy, now, we can have a settlin’ up that will suit us both. Didn’t I get a lovely job done when I had it in for repair, and only waitin’ the moment to make the change-over? Come on, now, I have it waitin’ in the cyar beyont.”

  Judy had listened shamelessly, uncaring for the tenets of her upbringing, for in a case of this kind, what did ethics matter? She heard Noel say: “W-ell...” on a note of doubt and capitulation, and the scraping of chairs pushed back, mid she turned on her heel and sped into the grand Saloon and, kneeling down in front of the tallboy began to rub up the handles with her handkerchief. She could not, she thought, do good at this juncture by admitting that she had overheard their conversation, but at least she could prevent them from taking the piece away.

  “What are you doing here?” Noel snapped at her, his handsome face like a sulky child’s as he discovered her kneeling on the floor. “I thought you were typing in the study.”

  “So I was,” she replied. “But I’ve finished the letters and was going to look for someone to take them to the post.”

  “Ah, sure! And on the way you thought you’d put a shine on the handles of that beautiful article of furniture,” said Grogan. His voice brimmed over with cajoling bonhomie, but his full, dark eyes were not so pleasant.

  “The brass soon gets tarnished with the fires. It will be better in summer, I expect,” Judy replied calmly, and spat nonchalantly on a corner of her handkerchief and resumed her polishing.

  “What a very conscientious young lady,” Grogan said. “But shouldn’t you be findin’ someone to take the letters? The last post goes from the crossroads at six o’clock.”

  “You could take them yourself, Mr. Grogan. You’ll be passing that way,” Judy said sedately, and his sallow face grew ugly for a moment.

  “So I could, then,” he replied, apparently forgetting that he always travelled the north road when he carried merchandise in the back of his van. “Give them to me, then, and you can run away and play, or whatever young ladies do when they’ve finished work.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “You’ll be going by the north road, won’t you? The post will have gone from Casey’s, so I’ll find one of the men.”

  She sat back on her heels on the floor, and leant against the tallboy, enjoying their discomfiture. Noel said nothing, knowing very well that her bland remarks were far from innocent, but Grogan began to try persuasion again, and Miss Doyle chose that moment to sidle into the room, crying:

  “And is it yourself, Mr. Grogan, come to do another job for us, and not a word to poor Agnes Doyle!”

  “Och, women!” the dealer exclaimed bitterly, and turned on his heel “Another time it will have to be, Mr. Maule, and you mind to have that other little matter cleared up between us. Good day, now.” He pushed past Miss Doyle with scant politeness, and Noel, with a very unpleasant glance in Judy’s direction, followed him.

  “And what’s the trouble with them two fine cocks?” Miss Doyle demanded, highly offended. “Mr. Maule has the English way with them he thinks of as the lower classes, which he can’t help, I don’t doubt, the poor heretic, but Dan Grogan is never without a kind word and an admiring glance, and he with the hard livin’ to make doin’ tinker’s work about the country—patchin’ up old worrum-eaten stuff like we have here, when a bonfire is all it’s good for.”

  “Is that what he tells you?” said Judy, scrambling to her feet and surveying a fresh ladder in one of her stockings. “Your Mr. Grogan is a scoundrel, let me tell you, Miss Doyle, and you should have more sense than to be taken in by him.”

  “Has he deceived you too, Miss Judy?” Miss Doyle asked, avid, as always, for drama, and already seeing herself as a woman scorned for the’ second time.

  “He’s never deceived me for a moment, neither, really, has Mr. Maule,” Judy said, and grasped the woman’s arm with sudden urgency. “Think, Miss Doyle—the day they brought this tallboy back—did anything else go out of the house? That desk, for instance?”

  “It’s here now, isn’t it?” the woman said vaguely. “I misremember what came in and what went out. They was fetchin’ and carryin’ all the time, but the room looked the same when they’d gone.”

  Yes, thought Judy grimly, the room looked the same, only one fake piece had been cleverly substituted, and there would have been another today had she not been in the way. She picked up the bunch of letters and ran out of the room and through the hall. The office door was wide open, but Noel was not to be seen, and Judy wondered if Marcia had been diplomatically keeping out of the way all this time and whether she was a party to what had been going on.

  “A fine couple of vipers for Raff to nurse in his bosom!” she exclaimed aloud angrily, and a fine start to married life when the deception became known, she thought, for Grogan, holding the whip-hand so self-confidently, could not muzzle her as he had muzzled Noel.

  She went out on to the terrace and looked towards the lough, but there was no sign of the boat as yet; there was no sign, either, of any of the men who worked about the place, so it must be later than she had supposed. Two of the letters were urgent, but Grogan’s van had gone, so there was nothing else to do but take one of Raff’s cars and go herself.

  She chose the shooting-brake because the gears were easier, and set off down the south road, remembering as she encountered the bumps and twists in the road Raff’s decree that she should not drive either of the cars until he had given her lessons. It seemed a long way to the crossroads where the only postbox for miles around was situated, and she did not realise that the rather momentous happenings of the day were beginning to catch up with her. She was tired, and the brake was heavy to swing round the bends, and the driving-seat badly adjusted for her to reach the pedals with comfort.

  When she had posted the letters, Judy realised that not only had she missed the last collection, but she must reverse the car in order to make the return journey. The crossroads were a misnomer, like many landmarks in the west, being a meeting of ditch-bound tracks with one little-used secondary road leading to Knockferry. You could, thought Judy, racing the engine, very easily run over the edge and into a ditch, and, getting her gear into reverse more quickly than she expected, did that very thing almost immediately. The car seemed to hover for a moment on the brink of an abyss, then tipped backwards and over on to its side with its wheels spinning and a sound of splintering glass.

  “Holy St Michael! Holy St Patrick!” Judy groaned, invoking Mary Kate’s favourite saints. She struggled with one of the doors, finally clambering out with difficulty, then jumped into a foot of bog water, wrenching her ankle badly on landing.

  It was too much. The day’s happenings, the shock of overturning and the pain in her ankle mingled together, bringing final defeat, and she sat where she had fallen in the water-logged ditch and burst into tears.

  At last she climbed out of the ditch and stood wringing water out of her skirt, while she surveyed the wrecked car with rueful eyes. The rear window was broken, one wing badly dented, and Raff would be furious. Well, he should have given
her the promised lessons; he should have left her carefree heart alone; he should have followed his inclination and sacked her this morning; he should never have employed her in the first place; everything, in fact, was his fault.

  She looked, not very hopefully, down the Knockferry road, but no one was likely to pass at this hour. She would have to walk; but a very few steps of putting her weight on the damaged ankle persuaded her that this would be an impossibility. She must climb back into the car, if she could, and if necessary spend the night there. It was more difficult to accomplish the feat of getting in than getting out, but she managed it, with disastrous results to her skirt, which caught and tore, and sat huddled in a corner, nursing her aching ankle which was beginning to swell rapidly.

  It seemed to her that she sat for hours, watching the daylight begin to fade, and listening to the sounds which Raff had made familiar to her. That was a curlew calling; that sharp, intermittent bark was a hill fox, and somewhere not far distant must be a waterfall, for the rhythm of its tiny splashes over the stones lulled her to drowsiness and finally to sleep.

  A blinding light roused her and it took her a moment to realise that it was the headlamps of a car and that someone was hammering on the window above her head and shouting her name.

  “Raff ... Raff...” she cried, and straggled up to meet him as he wrenched open the door.

  “Are you all right?” he said, and there was the rough edge of fear to his voice as he peered down at her.

  “Yes... yes...” she answered, and began to weep again with the pain and the cold and the sheer relief at seeing him.