Cloud Castle

by Sara Seale

  “Well, I’ll take your word for it. Who else has been confiding? Colonel Frazer?”

  “Yes, he comes in, and that funny little man who came a few days ago and says he’s writing a book.”

  “Probably making up to you for free typing services!”

  “Probably, only he’s going tomorrow. He says the vibrations are wrong here.”

  He sat down on the sofa beside her and she moved her legs to make room for him. He looked a little harassed, she thought, but he seemed for the moment to have forgotten the courteous remoteness he had shown towards her since the night of her accident.

  “You have a decided way with you, haven’t you, Judy?” he said. “You’re probably wasted as a secretary.”

  “I can take a job as companion to Miss Botley when she leaves here,” Judy said demurely.

  “Is she leaving? What incredible good fortune!” he exclaimed with much satisfaction, then frowned. “What do you mean—you could take a job as her companion? Has she asked you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good grief! Had you told her you were leaving, then?”

  “No, but things get around. I thought you probably had.”

  “I’ve told no one anything of the sort,” he said. “I thought, in any case, that subject had been left for future discussion.”

  “But you did give me notice provisionally,” she reminded him gently.

  “I did nothing of the kind! And don’t you go tying yourself up to that old battle-axe without due thought! I can find you something better than that if you really want to leave.”

  “I never wanted to leave, Raff. It was your idea—when you were being avuncular,” she said with the ghost of a grin, and he smiled reluctantly.

  “There seems to have been a great deal of confusion of surmise and reaction of late,” he said.

  “Yes, I’ve noticed it too.”

  Have you, Judy? And have you, like me, sometimes put the wrong construction on certain things?”

  “I’ve put no construction that could distress you on anything that concerns you,” she answered carefully, and he gave a sharp little sigh of frustration.

  “And that’s a pretty ambiguous answer,” he said.

  “Perhaps it was an ambiguous question.”

  “Yes, perhaps it was. Judy—often I want to talk to you seriously, but you put up funny little barriers.”

  “You put up your own barriers, too,” she said. “Lately you’ve been miles away and so often you treat me like a child.”

  “Do I? It’s a form of defence, perhaps.” He paused, hesitating. “You once told me that I had the gifts most women want. I wonder if you understood what you meant.”

  “Oh, yes, dear Raff. I understood very well.”

  He was silent, mulling over some fresh problem of his own, and she wondered if he had heard her reply, or whether, indeed, he knew what had prompted his question. There seemed to be a latent anxiety about him, a weary suggestion of something that was not quite unhappiness at the back of his eyes. Did he talk to Marcia like this?

  “You’re worried, aren’t you?” she said, and he smiled at her as if apologising for a weakness that was unfamiliar to him.

  “Yes, I am a little,” he replied. “I had another not very encouraging session with the lawyers today—also with the bank.”

  “The bank?” Banks surely could have little to do with marriage settlements and trust funds. “Are money affairs bothering you, then?”

  “I suppose they bother most people, from time to time,” he answered evasively, “but this place has run into a great deal more expense than I’d allowed for. I’ve been slack, I suppose, not seeing where the overheads were going, and I’m beginning to think Noel is a bit too slapdash for careful management.”

  “You should have accountants,” she said with slight asperity. “They’d soon demand explanations for unaccounted-for items in the books. Why don’t you suggest it to Noel?”

  “I think I will, but it’s a little late now to be crying over errors in the past. Do the sort of guests who come here really expect out-of-season food and luxury appointments when the main attractions of the place should be the fishing and rough shooting and plain if plentiful fare, and a comfortable bed to sleep in?”

  She observed him curiously. It was, as he had admitted, a little late in the day to become conscious of the shortcomings of the management, but it was encouraging, she supposed, that he had at last emerged from his dependence on his subordinates.

  “I tried to tell you that not long after I came here,” she said. “But you just went king-of-the-castle on me.”

  “Marcia’s phrase seems to have stuck,” he said, a little curtly. “Am I so high and mighty?”

  “No, Raff, no,” she said quickly. “You are, I think, what your forebears have always been, and refuse to alter with the times. You thought, didn’t you, that when Noel took over there was nothing you need do but remain in the background as a figurehead?”

  His eyes, watching her with sudden intentness, had an alertness behind the cool grey.

  “You think the fault is mine, then?” he said with unexpected humility.

  “The fault was yours only to the extent that you allowed your own feelings to be overruled,” she said. “Noel’s idea was good, but he never took the background into consideration. This place could have been a paying concern now if you hadn’t tried to cater for the sort of guests who expect caviare at every meal.”

  “A flash establishment for rich tycoons,” he said, and she laughed, looking surprised.

  “So you remember that? But it’s true, Raff. Slyne was never meant for that kind of place. How did Noel persuade you to his way of thinking?”

  “He didn’t in so many words,” he said. “He’d had experience of hotel work before and seemed full of ideas, whereas I was a child in such matters. He’d been ill and was broke. If I could give him a job and keep Slyne going at the same time, it seemed the answer to both problems. And then Marcia joined us...”

  They both fell silent and when, presently, Judy asked her next question, she felt that already the crux of the matter had been reached.

  “And Marcia blinded you to more prosaic things?” she said tentatively, ready for his displeasure. It was never, she knew, safe to skate on such thin ice because for the moment his mood was relaxed and receptive, but he did not immediately freeze up on her.

  “Marcia is a very beautiful woman,” he said slowly. “To me, I suppose, she was also a new experience—we have simple, and probably undemanding tastes in our women-kind in these parts.”

  “And?”

  “What do you want me to tell you?” He began to sound impatient and suddenly wary. “A woman’s touch was needed here and Marcia filled the bill excellently. We were, I suppose, a well assorted trio, none of us interfering with the others.”

  “And to you, as you said, she was a new experience,” Judy prompted, and saw the chill beginning to come back into his eyes.

  “Yes ... well...” he answered vaguely, and began to run a hand over her damaged ankle. “How is it today? Shall I bandage it again for you?”

  “It’s not necessary,” she replied, accepting his change of mood with the knowledge that the time had passed for confidences if, indeed, he had intended to make any. “I hardly limp at all now. I can quite well do a full day’s work instead of just mornings.”

  “Let’s see you walk,” he said, and she eased herself off the sofa and paraded obediently before him across the polished floor. As she had said, she scarcely limped now, and he watched her sombrely, observing the way her wide skirt swung out from her slender waist, the gentle curve of her breasts beneath the tight sweater, and the free fall of her red hair about her neck.

  “Yes,” he said absently. “It seems almost mended. You are very young, aren’t you, Judy?”

  She paused to stand and look at him.

  “No younger than Kathy was,” she replied gently, and saw him frown.

  “No, I suppose not
,” he said, and got to his feet. “We’ve had one cancellation,” he remarked casually, as he made for the door. “Friends of that American couple who made a fuss about their bill. Noel’s efforts at making a bit on the side have got around, I imagine.”

  “That’s never good,” she said, ignoring the obvious opening. “Was it a long booking?”

  “I forget. Marcia seems annoyed, but I tell her we can do without the Yanks.”

  “She’s thinking of the dollars, and I suppose one has to—still, there are some very nice Americans,” Judy said hopefully. “They don’t all want to sample poteen and buy up your antiques. What exactly is poteen?”

  “Something to be avoided by young ladies who boast of strong heads!” he retorted, reverting to his usual manner with her. “Well, we’ll be full again by the end of the month, I suppose. Tomorrow’s the first of May.”

  II

  The first of May ... “It’s summer,” Judy stated firmly as Marcia, and even Raff, raised Quizzical eyebrows at the cotton dress she had put on, in defiance of the rain that was falling.

  “Not so that you’d notice,” Marcia retorted dryly. “Does it never do anything else but rain in this country, Raff?”

  “Oh, yes,” he replied with a faint smile. “You must have forgotten last summer—and we call this a soft day.”

  “I can’t see the distinction between a soft day and a good old downpour myself,” she said a little crossly. “Judy, there’s another cancellation to be dealt with this morning and that family from Manchester now want a private bathroom and are bringing their dogs.”

  Ours will probably fight them, and we haven’t got any private bathrooms,” said Judy cheerfully.

  “Then we should have, as I’m always saying. Two of the dressing-rooms could easily be converted, Raff. We haven’t nearly enough bathrooms.”

  “We have four apart from the servants’ quarters. That should be enough when we can only accommodate a dozen guests at the outside,” Raff protested mildly, and she gave an exclamation of impatience.

  “Two bathrooms in a great barracks of a house like this is archaic!” she said. “You skimped on the job when it was done, Raff, and now you’ve made Noel cancel the extra plumbing we were having put in which could easily have been extended to the dressing-rooms if they were converted. And that rag-bag collection of dogs outside ought to go. Apart from the annoyance to visitors’ pets, the wretched creatures get into the house and bring dirt and fleas, if nothing worse.”

  “Once and for all, Marcia, will you please understand that this is my home, whatever you’ve chosen to make of it,” Raff said with a complete change of manner. “The dogs belong mostly to the farm-workers and are not for disposal, as you very well know, and in regard to the bathrooms, I’m not prepared to spend any more money than I’ve done already. If visitors find our accommodation insufficient they can go elsewhere.”

  It was so unusual for him to assert his authority in such blunt terms that Judy jumped and glanced nervously at Marcia, whose colour was slowly rising.

  “Well, really!” she said. “I think you must be out of your mind to speak to me like that—and in front of your secretary, too.”

  “I’m sorry if you don’t like plain speaking, my dear, but you and Noel don’t seem to understand that there’s a limit, to one’s capital. The profits of the place, so far, have been swallowed up in quite unnecessary expenditure, and it’s got to stop,” he replied, then added on a milder note: “And the fact that Judy is employed as my secretary doesn’t place her in the position of a servant, you know.”

  “Very evidently not!” Marcia snapped back. “And I imagine I’ve her to thank for this charming little outburst. Why don’t you put her on to running your guest house for you and see how she makes out?”

  They were still sitting over a late breakfast in the deserted dining-room, and Raff got to his feet.

  “Come along, Judy ... we’d better get down to some work,” he said. “Has Noel gone over to Casey’s again?”

  “Yes,” said Marcia with sulky venom. “We need fresh supplies again, which I suppose you consider further bad management. Your precious staff account for half of it in the kitchen. I don’t mind betting.”

  Raff paused behind her chair and bent over her with that curiously intimate little gesture Judy remembered observing before.

  “Don’t be cross, Marcia,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to bite your head off. I’m a bit worried, that’s all.”

  “Lay off work, then, darling, and take me gallivanting somewhere,” she said, but he shook his head.

  “Another time,” he said. “Judy and I have a lot of catching up to do as she’s been out of action for a bit.”

  In the study, Judy stood turning to admire the crisp folds of her frock while Raff sharpened pencils for her.

  “You shouldn’t have said that about me being a servant,” she observed.

  “She shouldn’t have implied it in the first place,” he replied equably. “I’m sorry about our bickering, though.”

  “You don’t bicker enough—not with Marcia.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “I don’t know—but when two people are—”

  “Are what?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she said. “I’m afraid my speech sometimes runs away with my discretion.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed that. But you were going to say, I think, that if two people care enough it’s natural to bicker. Is that what you had in mind?”

  He was still standing by the desk, looking down at her, and she raised her eyes to his and gave him the clear, untroubled look with which he had become so familiar.

  “Something like that,” she said, and he smiled.

  “And you were thinking, perhaps, that you and I had several times crossed swords.”

  Her eyes widened with surprised inquiry, then she looked away.

  “That was different,” she said. “You were mostly ticking me off.”

  “And you, I seem to remember, frequently replied with a show of temper not usual between secretary and boss,” he retorted.

  “It’s my hair,” she said. “You told me that very first evening that you suspected my temper matched my hair.”

  “So I did. Well, Miss Judy Ware, on your reckoning, it all goes to show that we’re scarcely indifferent to one another.”

  “Hadn’t we,” she said, lowering her eyes suddenly, “better be getting on with some work? There seems to be an enormous pile of unchecked correspondence here.”

  They worked together each morning in a companionable impersonality, which checked any thoughts that might stray, but often in the afternoons Raff would leave her to finish off letters, and go out after duck or such game as could be found on the moors. The Maules too would take one of the cars and drive to the town for shopping or such gaiety as could be found, leaving Judy to hold the fort, since Slyne was virtually empty of visitors.

  The weather had turned suddenly to the false promise of a summer not yet to be taken seriously, and Judy was able to cling to her cotton frocks. One day she would wear the green, the next a blue, and on another a daffodil yellow, until the whole of her meagre wardrobe had been exhausted. She preened artlessly for Raff before they settled down to work each morning, for the invisible thread between them had strengthened into an unspoken intimacy. It was no longer difficult to evade his questions or dissemble when he talked in riddles. She did not flatter herself that he had anything but polite admiration for her cheap summer finery, but had he not implied that first day of May that he was not indifferent to her? Whether he was to marry Marcia or not, he did not, she thought, love her, and even Marcia could not grudge those brief moments of pleasure which soon she must learn to do without

  The Maules were too busy preparing for the imminent American invasion to pay much attention to Judy just now, so that provided she kept her mouth shut when extravagant plans were discussed in front of her, she avoided their label of busy-body. Marcia, who usually favoured the
decorative role of hostess, delegating the more tedious of a receptionist’s duties to others when she could, was tireless in her efforts to create an illusion of luxury for the transatlantic visitors she considered so important

  “You must order one of those cocktail cabinets for the Sarsfield Suite, Noel, they will want to throw private parties, of course,” she said, consulting a list. “And they can have those Georgian glasses, from the cabinet in the Grand Saloon—they’re never used.”

  “My best Waterford is certainly not going to be given over to strangers who probably don’t know the difference between bourbon and good Irish whisky,” Raff observed mildly, and she made a small face at him.

  “If you never use them, why don’t you sell them?” she pouted. “You’d get a wonderful price in the States for genuine Georgian Waterford.”

  “I dare say, but I like to look at them,” he replied.

  “In that case we must buy others, for the bar takes all our spares, and that will mean more of the needless expense you’re always carping at,” she said triumphantly. “I must see what Knockferry can produce in the way of coloured sheets to cheer up that gloomy four-poster, and chocolates, Noel—you must order a lavish weekly supply. Americans adore candy.”

  “Can’t they buy their own?” Raff asked with innocent inquiry, but Marcia did not even smile.

  “It’s a gesture, darling,” she explained, as if to a child. These people are stinking rich and say they have Irish ancestors. They’ll prove invaluable contacts when they go back if we’ve made a fuss of them.”

  “They all have Irish ancestors,” Raff remarked with resignation. “Look at those two tiresome women who were here, in March and claimed relationship with Timsy, and didn’t tip him when they left because they said it would be insulting a relative.”

  “Oh, they were a couple of cranks!” said Noel airily, then his eyes slid away from Raff’s as he remembered that it was tins same couple of cranks over whose bill he had so badly blundered, making the same error with the Lucases who had nearly caught him out. Come to think of it, he reflected uneasily, he never had been quite sure whether he had got away with it Judy had taken the blame for the last occasion, with a little quick thinking on his part, but old Raff was a deep one. It didn’t do to take that absent-minded act of his too much for granted ... Marcia was still issuing instructions, and he had to admit that she was a damned good-looker, even if she was his sister, and, he saw, getting herself into fine trim for her future role of chatelaine, but Raff suddenly got to his feet as if he lost interest in the whole affair and said: