The black Hunter

by Donnelly, Jane

  Perhaps he was curious too, but there was nothing Dora had to tell him that he hadn't heard already from Simon.

  The phone rang and Neil went to answer it, and Mrs Hewitt leaned confidentially forward over the plate of neatly cut salmon and cucumber sandwiches she had been offering Dora.

  'No, thank you,' said Dora, to another sandwich.

  'Do you mind if I give you some advice, dear?' said Mrs Hewitt.

  'Feel free.' Dora was feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed; she was pretty sure what advice she was going to get.

  Mrs Hewitt, still holding her plate of sandwiches, said solemnly, 'Don't get carried away by this man. It might be flattering if he starts paying you attention, but you know that you'd only be one of many—'

  'This isn't necessary,' said Dora, angry colour in her cheeks, and Mrs Hewitt smiled with a grim archness.

  'I only hope it isn't. I only hope you'll remember

  you're engaged to my boy, but you have changed your

  mind before, haven't you?'

  It won't be your fault if I don't change it. again, thought Dora, and tried to remember how nice Neil was, what a considerate employer, how reliable and kind. But any minute now she was going to have words with his mother, and it was by no means certain that Neil would take Dora's side.

  He came back into the room in the nick of time and told her, 'That was your brother,' and as she jumped up thankfully, 'He's rung off.'

  'What did he want?' she asked.

  'He wants us to go round to the Manor.'

  'Is that all he said?'

  'No. He said they were all there, Thea and what's his-name, and they were looking over the place and discussing it, and they wanted you along. Do you want to go?'

  If it was a choice of going or staying here—yes, she did. 'Why not?' she shrugged.

  'Of course my opinion doesn't matter,' said Mrs Hewitt, the acid swamping her surgary tones, 'but I shouldn't have thought that the Manor was Dora's business any more. Why should he want you there, Dora? Or your brother, come to that. Simon doesn't have any share in it, does he? Everybody knows that Simon and Thea are poor as church mice.'

  'Perhaps Simon's tossed Coil for it and won,' said Dora. 'Perhaps Coll's a gambling man.'

  'Like your poor-father,' said Mrs Hewitt with a sigh.

  Unfortunately it was true. Laurence Holcroft had lost, on the horses and the Stock Exchange, which was why Dora had been an idiot to give Mrs Hewitt that opening and showed she wasn't thinking too clearly.

  As they got into the car Neil said, 'Mother's right.' 'Every time,' Dora muttered, 'but what are we talking about this time?'

  'About the Manor not really being your concern any more.' That was playing on Neil's mind, he was frowning as he thought about it, asking her, 'Why should he ' want to involve you and Simon? What's he hoping to get out of that?'

  'I cannot imagine,' said Dora.

  'I saw the way he looked at you.' Neil was scowling at the road ahead and Dora shrugged, because Coll had hardly looked at her at all.

  She said slowly, hoping this would sink in, 'He and Simon got on well enough as boys, the little they saw of each other, but I never liked him, and believe it or not I still don't like him.'

  In profile Neil's mouth was downturned and sceptical. 'He'd even got a pet name for you,' he said. 'Dora Lily. I've never heard anyone else call you that.'

  He sounded hurt and she thought wildly—you've never heard anyone else call me a stupid little slag either. She said, 'That was no pet name. I don't like the name Lilias, I'm not crazy about Dora, but both together used to really rile me when I was a kid.'

  'He'd remembered,' said Neil, as though that proved his point.

  'Oh, forget it,' said Dora. 'Why are we going to the Manor anyway? Let's go somewhere else. How about Savernake Forest? Let's take a nature ramble.'

  'They're expecting us at the Manor,' said Neil stubbornly, and Dora realised that he was going to watch her with Coll Sullivan, waiting for signs of intimacy. He was suspicious, very suspicious, of this man he con-

  sidered a rival. 'I'd rather be around when you meet him,' he said, and she snapped,

  'I'm not likely to be dating him alone, but if he suggests it I'll let you know.'

  'So I should hope,' said Neil.

  They drove to the Manor in silence. Dora did not want to go. If only Neil had agreed with her that it was a bore and unnecessary they could have gone off somewhere else and had a carefree hour or two. She had told him she disliked Coll, why couldn't he believe her, instead of playing the heavy fiance?

  She was sorry he was jealous. It was ridiculous. It irritated her, and it wasn't likely to be giving him any pleasure. He looked like a sulky boy. He was a solidly built man of middle height, and he had been a plump boy. 'My boy,' his mother still called him, and Dora's irritation evaporated because suddenly she could see what his mother meant.

  She squeezed his arm and smiled. 'Cheer up,' she said, and he gave her a slight smile.

  When they sold the Manor they had kept the lodge, and Dora had gone to live with Mrs Drayton who had lived in the lodge for the last forty odd years.

  Thea had wanted Dora with herself and Simon at the shop, but even at seventeen, Dora was practical and romantic enough to feel that the newlyweds should be alone. She had always been fond of old Mrs Drayton and it was a convenient arrangement, the strong young girl helping the ailing old woman; Mrs Drayton giving devoted affection and stability. They were like grandmother and granddaughter, and Dora had been broken-hearted when she'd died just over four years ago.

  She had resisted fresh offers then to move into the

  flat over the shop. At twenty-two she preferred her own little home, and Thea and Simon had to settle for providing her with her small guard dog.

  But they could hardly have been a closer family if Dora had been living with them. Thea had no other relations, and she and Dora were sisters in every sense.

  Perhaps part of Dora hadn't wanted to leave the Manor altogether when she had decided she would like to go and live with Granny Drayton in the lodge. She had never walked up the drive again, until John took them to look over the empty house last month. She had rarely glanced in its direction, but she had always known it was there, behind the trees, and perhaps she had felt she was the watcher at the gate.

  She almost held her breath now, driving between the cut grass verges that were beginning to straggle, the bushes that needed pruning, and the trees. The front of the house hadn't changed at all. It was perfectly proportioned Georgian, the pale grey Bath stone darkened by age, curtains still at the windows.

  As they drew up the front door opened and Coll stepped out, and if she had been at the wheel she would have turned the car and driven away fast. She licked her dry lips and got out of the car on shaky legs.

  Thea and Simon appeared almost immediately, or she doubted if she would have managed to walk up the steps towards the open door with Coll Sullivan framed in it. Every nerve in her body revolted against going through that door and being shown around her home, hers and Simon's, by the new master here.

  But Thea and Simon were smiling, and Tip came rushing between feet, and she stooped to pat the small dog.

  When they had walked around with the estate agent she had had hardly a pang. It had been like visiting a place where you had been happy but on which you no longer had any claims. Pretending they might buy it had been part of a game and she wouldn't have resented any other owner.

  But she had always resented Coll, from the day he dropped out of the skies into the five-acre meadow. A farmer had bought the meadow when everything went up for sale. Pigs and sheep grazed between the walnut trees now, and it was hard to reconcile this man in the superbly cut suit with the skinny boy in ragged clothes.

  But she resented him still. She could feel the same seething distrust and she moved away from him, into the hall.

  It was an hotel foyer now, complete with reception counter. 'What are we here for?' she asked. 'A hou
sewarming or another conducted tour?'

  'A conducted tour, sort of,' said Simon. 'Coll want,, us to put it back.'

  'Put what back?' She jerked her head towards him, her body stayed rigid, and her eyes glittered as she repressed a desire to say, 'If we're putting things back how about starting with my pearls?'

  'The house,' said Coll.

  'The clock,' said Thea gaily. 'He wants it furnished more or less as it used to be.'

  'Why?'

  'It was mostly in period as I remember,' said Coll. His smile was slow and easy and self-mocking. 'From what I remember of what I saw. At the time I wasn't an expert on Georgian furniture.'

  'You are now, of course?'

  'Yes.'

  !There was some Victorian,' said Simon.

  A heavy carved sideboard was still here. A few pieces had gone with the first sale of the house, furniture that was not out of place for the Manor's role as a guesthouse.

  Almost everything else had been sold through the antique shop, but now they were going to put back the clock.

  Once the contents of the Manor had been worth a small fortune, but in later years their father had begun selling off the valuable pieces. Both Simon and Dora had appreciated that he needed the money, although they had had no idea how deeply he was in debt until the bills were totted up after his death.

  'You can't turn the clock back,' said Dora, and Simon chimed in with cheerful confidence,

  `Rubbish, we're doing it all the time. Everything we sell brings back the past, the farther back the pricier. Come on now—in here. What did we used to have in here? A grandfather clock and what else?'

  Simon knew as well as Dora did, and as she gazed around someone touched her arm. She had pulled away before she realised it was Neil, and that Coll hadn't moved. 'Can't you remember?' Coll asked her, voice grave, eyes mocking.

  'Well enough,' she said, 'but I still don't understand why you want to reconstruct this house how it used to be. Don't you have any ideas of your own?'

  'I've never been short of ideas,' he drawled, `so put this down to a whim. I can afford whims.'

  'Some whim,' she said shortly, 'but hooray for you. Is it a shopping list we're making out?'

  'That's it.'

  Some list! She resented the fact that he could order

  what he wanted on this scale. It was hard to swallow her envy and pretend to joke. 'You're sure you are nearly a millionaire? I shouldn't like you to end up as the second bankrupt in this house.'

  Her father had not gone bankrupt, but he would have done if he had lived even another month or two. One of the bitter things about his death was hearing people saying he had been lucky to die.

  'Wouldn't you?' He had white teeth and an attractive smile. He knew it was an attractive smile, just as he knew that she wouldn't care what happened to him. His eyes had no part in his smile as he took her hand, holding it as though he was reassuring her, 'Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.'

  It was like a childish uneven trial of strength, only her whitened knuckles showed that she was trying to pull her hand from his encircling fingers. She smiled too, gritting her teeth. 'I'm glad to hear that. You'll have to settle for reproductions in some cases, of course, there aren't that many antiques going all at once. You can't order them like a load of bricks.'

  'I appreciate that. We'll settle for reproductions until we can get the genuine articles.'

  'We?' She was mocking too. 'Are you speaking as royalty, or are we in this together?'

  He smiled at Thea and Simon, and asked, 'What do you think?'

  'Of course we are,' said Simon, and Coll loosed her hand and she wanted to rub it because that grip had hurt, but she wasn't going to show anyone that it had hurt.

  'We're not doing this for love, are we?' she said lightly. 'Simon and Thea will get their commissions?'

  'A business deal, of course,' Coll assured them all. 'Not a love affair.'

  'Then that's all right,' said Dora. 'Where do we start?' ,

  An assignment like this would be a godsend. Often Simon and Thea were asked to keep an eye open for a particular article, but they had never been given carte blanche on anything like this scale. Simon would enjoy buying for the Manor because he had loved the old house.

  They went from room to room, Thea taking notes as they discussed the kind of furniture that used to be here, the articles that Simon might be able to secure.

  Most of the hotel furniture was still in place. The dining room was filled with small round tables and mock Regency chairs. The glass-fronted library shelves were locked and stocked with books that had been there from Dora and Simon's day—nothing of value, but some of them attractively bound. There were a couple of rows of Victorian novels that Dora had read as a young girl ... Only a Child Bride, The Wayward Ward ... She wondered if anyone had opened them since she closed them, and doubted it.

  'I should keep a couple of the armchairs,' Simon was saying, and Dora stood quiet and calm, wondering why it had seemed so different when the estate agent had brought them round. Perhaps it was because now they were going back in much greater detail that she couldn't stop thinking of her father.

  He had been a big man, always cheerful, which was strange when you knew that he must have been worried crazy towards the end. Or perhaps he wasn't. Perhaps he'd believed it would still turn out all right.

  He was easy-going. Nothing had ever really seemed to bother him.

  She missed him still, his big laugh, his bear hug, and sometimes she moved on ahead of the others, as though she might find him yet in some room behind some closed door.

  The task took time. The bedrooms were hotel bedrooms, attractive if impersonal, and most of those could be left more or less as they were for the present. But Simon and Thea went into every room, taking notes, scribbling down suggestions.

  Dora stayed by the window, in the bedroom she had always had, watching the dusk creep over the skies, until Tip curled up and slept at her feet.

  When Thea came searching for her to say they were about to sit down and eat she asked, 'Where is everyone?'

  'In the kitchen now,' said Thea. 'Simon and I have just finished up here. Coll and Neil are downstairs--I thought you were with them.'

  'No,' said Dora unnecessarily, and Thea gave her a quizzical look.

  I wonder what they're finding to talk about.' can't imagine,' shrugged Dora.

  'Can't you?' said Thea.

  Kiki, who had been sleeping in her carrycot on the kitchen floor, had woken when the kitchen was filled with activity. But she woke happy and was trying to bite on a rusk and chattering nineteen to the dozen.

  There was a food, basket on the table, picnic fare on a grand scale, and they sat down to a cutting of pies and quiches, and the soft plop of wine corks.

  'This room's changed a bit, hasn't it?' said Simon. It was equipped as an hotel kitchen, with big white

  cookers and sinks and a microwave oven. There was nothing here of their childhood, except the view through the window where moonlight slanted on the stable block, and that was mostly garages now.

  Dora didn't usually spend much of her waking life dreaming, but this evening had been a dreaming time. She was still doing it, remembering Folly, and the other horses, and the way the kitchen used to be.

  She couldn't stop thinking about her father, and although the food was delicious she hardly ate anything. She put her wineglass to her lips several times and set it down almost untasted.

  When Neil said they should be going she didn't hear him at first, and then she said, 'Yes, yes, of course,' coming out of her reverie blinking.

  'Thank you for the supper,' she said to Coll. 'Any time,' he said.

  He and Simon and Thea were still discussing what was needed for the house. Thea was nursing Kiki, who had dropped off to sleep again, and Thea and Simon showed no signs of moving.

  When Dora got up so did Coll, although there was no need to see her to the door, she surely knew the way. But he went through the hall with them, and watche
d them get into the car with Tip, and Dora made herself turn because she had to get used to him in that doorway.

  She hoped he would have closed the door and gone back into the house, but he hadn't. He didn't wave or move, he just stood there.

  'I could have walked this, couldn't I?' she said, chattering nervously. 'I didn't need a lift for this little way. Are you coming in?'

  'I am,' said Neil grimly.

  'Oh! Oh, well yes, fine.'

  She turned on the light and her living room was tiny after the spaciousness of the Manor. The walls seemed to close in on her, or perhaps it was Neil crowding her, breathing hard and scowling.

  He said, 'It can't go on, you know.'

  'What can't?'

  'You know what I mean.'

  'I don't.'

  'You do.'

  This was developing into one of those lunatic exchanges that were wasted breath, so she said, 'You'd rather I kept away from the Manor?'

  'I'd rather you kept away from him.'

  `All right.' That was easy enough to promise, that was what she intended to do. She sat down, suddenly exhausted, and Neil said querulously,

  'You've been mooning over him all night.'

  'Over Coll Sullivan?' That produced a weary smile. 'Don't talk rot,' she said. 'If you must know I've been thinking about my father. Being up there again brought back a few memories.'

  'I don't believe you.' She waited for him to add, `Do you take me for a fool?' and sure enough he did.

  She said, 'If you don't believe me there isn't much I can do about it, is there?'

  Neil was very stiff, his lips set in that rather childish pout. 'Now, Dora, I'm not going to stand for it. You're not going to treat me like you did the last two.'

  That was excusable if not kind. It seemed that her past mistakes rankled with him, although he had never brought them up before.