The black Hunter

by Donnelly, Jane

  He waggled a finger at her and she was reminded of his mother, leaning over the cucumber sandwiches this

  afternoon to give her a piece of free advice.

  But before you do start playing around again,' said Neil severely, let me remind you that you're not getting any younger.'

  Dora's lips twitched. He was four years older than she was and she had no worries about her looks. She said sweetly, 'Who is? Although—I don't know, you're a bit of a Peter Pan. Maybe you should grow up.'

  He coloured at that. He hadn't expected her to retaliate. He said, 'Mother said this was going to happen. Last night when I told her she told me—"Watch Dora".'

  I'll bet she did.' She was both angry and sad, and she wanted it over and she wanted him gone.

  He was telling her, 'I don't want the kind of wife I've got to watch, so you'd better understand—' and she cut in,

  'That you're my last chance and my roving days are over?'

  `Yes.' He said it again, on an even firmer note. 'Yes,' and she took off her ring, picked up his hand, and slapped it on his palm.

  'Present for you,' she said. 'Run home now.'

  He stared down at the ring as though he had never seen it before; then, with tight shut lips, slipped it into his pocket. 'I'll talk to you in the morning.' His voice sounded tight too, as though he was holding in a lot of unpleasant thoughts.

  Dora listened to the car and then she went back to the chair where she had been sitting, and sat down again looking at her hand without the ring. It wouldn't have worked. How could it? Mrs Hewitt would never have let it work.

  And yet it might have done if she had stayed calm

  and quiet and sensible, and Coll Sullivan had never come back.

  He should have changed completely. The tinker-boy was a tycoon now, but he still had the knack of upsetting everything.

  'The sun always seemed to be shining,' Simon had said, but she remembered that there were always clouds when Coll Sullivan was around, and crackle of thunder. There was always danger in the air.

  He was not going to know that she had come straight from the Manor tonight, rowed with Neil and broken off her engagement, because that would have him laughing his head off. But not at her. She was giving him no excuse for laughing at her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  NOBODY in the office next morning noticed that Dora was not wearing her ring. She went on with her work and there was plenty to do, and Neil had several clients to see. After he had seen them he dictated some letters for Dora to type, arid it was only when she took in the letters for signature just before lunch time that he said, 'About Coll Sullivan.'

  She stayed uncompromisingly silent because she couldn't think what to say, and Neil, after a quick glance at the top letter which he couldn't fault—he rarely could fault Dora's work—demanded, 'Will you give me your solemn word to avoid him?'

  She could have said, 'All right,' again because of course she would try to avoid Coll, but how was she

  going to satisfy Neil and his mother on that? He was deadly serious, and if Simon and Thea were getting furniture for the Manor there would be times when Dora would be going up there, and each time would mean an inquisition. She couldn't win. They wouldn't believe her so she couldn't win.

  `No,' she said.

  'I see,' said Neil.

  'I don't think you do, but if you have to ask for a promise like that there's something very wrong with our relationship.'

  'Oh Dora,' he sighed. 'Dora, Dora.' He shook his head at her. The old cliché 'More in sorrow than anger' summed it up, and she could imagine Neil and Mrs Hewitt shaking their heads together tonight over their evening meal, bewailing her ingratitude and her flighty nature.

  There was really nothing funny, about it, and if she had loved Neil deeply she would have been desperate. She was miserable, because although she had gone into this engagement with a cool head she was very fond of him and she had wanted to marry him.

  But she couldn't now. Even if she promised everything he asked there would be a probationary period, during which Mrs Hewitt would see her off for some reason or other, with Coll Sullivan as odds-on favourite.

  Neil left it at that. He went, with no suggestion that she might join him for lunch, as she usually did, and he was out of the office all afternoon. She didn't see him again before she finished work for the day; and when she got back to the village she called at the shop, , which had just closed, to tell Thea all about it.

  Simon had gone rounding up several pieces they thought might be suitable for the Manor. He had

  phoned some fellow dealers this morning, describing what he was after, and he had gone to look at, and possibly return with, what they had to offer.

  Thea had the evening meal almost ready, and laid another place for Dora while she was hearing that Dora had handed back her ring last night because Neil had accused her of mooning over Coll, and warned her that at her age she should be considering him, Neil, as her last chance.

  'He's potty,' said Thea cheerfully.

  'He's jealous,' said Dora. 'His mother doesn't think I've got a good record, having been engaged twice before. She warned me to remember I was engaged to her boy before we came over last night, and this -morning I think Neil wanted a signed affidavit that I'd keep right away from Coll Sullivan.'

  Thea laughed. 'They're both potty. Simon will laugh. Do you mind very much?'

  'Well,' Dora was down on her knees, building up bricks on the lino that Kiki knocked flying as soon as the stack was high enough to make a satisfying clatter, 'better to find out now that we're not suited than wait until we were married.'

  'Much better,' agreed Thea. 'Will you look for another job?'

  'I might have to.'

  'At least you can do that.' Thea sat down at the table, chin in her hands. 'The shop's our living and we're stuck with it.' She sounded wistful. Thea was usually very contented, but Coll Sullivan had probably unsettled them all.

  Although Simon had been pleased to see Coll again he must be sensitive about the extent that life had changed for both of them. The boy who had had noth-

  ing had so much now, while the Holcrofts—as Mrs Hewitt had pointed out—were poor as church mice.

  Simon didn't seem to care, but both he and Thea must be wondering where all his advantages of birth had got him, while Coll Sullivan could buy the Manor as though he was paying for a packet of peanuts.

  Dora put another brick very carefully on top of her tower of four and said, 'Coll Sullivan started with a natural advantage for getting on these days. He's quite unscrupulous.'

  Thea didn't ask what childish memories Dora was basing that on. 'I should think he is,' she said. 'But he must be clever and he must be lucky.'

  Dora turned over the brick in her hand, studying the picture of a rabbit, 'B' for Bunny. 'You took to him, didn't you?'

  'He's attractive,' said Thea. 'Anybody can see that. And if we're finding most of his furniture for him that's marvellous. Simon was hoping he'd come back with something worthwhile today.'

  'To put the house in order for Coll?'

  'Why not?' Thea pushed back her heavy dark hair, that she wore in a fringe and falling loose. She usually wore long skirts, and today's dress was a cotton print of small pale blue flowers on a dark blue ground. Dora was in a beige shirtwaister, Neil liked discreet clothes at work. He liked discretion in most things.

  Thea was talking about Coll, who had been dressed discreetly too, in an expensive immaculate suit, and yet had generated a fierce disruptive alchemy.

  She was saying, 'Why not? He said last night that he'd been thinking for some time of moving into a house, and when he saw the Manor advertised in the

  —Sunday Times he thought he'd come down and have-a look at it.'

  Kiki sent the tower tumbling, and Dora began building it up again automatically, most of her, attention with Thea. All this talking must have been done after she and Neil had left. How long did they stay, she wondered, sitting around the kitchen table?

&
nbsp; Thea was smiling, as though this was a nice story. 'When he saw it again he realised that it used to be part of a boyhood dream he'd forgotten, but it was still the kind of house he wanted, and finding you and Simon here was—well—' words seemed to fail her. 'Incredible.'

  'Why should it be incredible?' asked Dora. 'There are Holcrofts in the churchyard who've-been there for three hundred years.' That was flippant, and Thea said with the faintest note of reproach,

  'He was always being moved on when he was a boy so he might not appreciate how secure some families are.'

  Dora smiled, 'And it's nothing to be proud of, is it? We just lacked get-up-and-go. From the Manor to the churchyard, and nice cushy lives in between. But it's a very different world these days.'

  She picked up Kiki and lifted her eye-to-eye height. 'And as for you my pet, the last of the Holcrofts, if you ever have a birthday party in the Manor it will be by courtesy of the boy who pushed Arnold Rigby's face in the trifle when he came to my party.'

  'Who was Arnold Rigby?' Thea asked, smiling, and Dora kissed Kiki's nose.

  'A nice little boy, but his parents never let him come to another party at our house.'

  Boys fighting at a birthday party was a natural

  hazard of youthful high spirits, but she was tempted to confide in Thea about her pearls, because that had a different feel to it. That was nasty. Coll had been a young man then, light-fingered and untrustworthy, and who was to say that he could be trusted now?

  'Prove it,' he had said. She couldn't prove it then, and she couldn't prove it now, but now he was the rich man and they had nothing he would want to steal, so perhaps it didn't matter whether he could be trusted or not.

  It would only stir up trouble, put a blight on what must be a profitable business arrangement for Thea and Simon. So she said nothing.

  She began to build again with the wooden bricks, but when she set Kiki down the baby crawled off to start a tug of war with Tip over a battered teddy bear.

  Simon had a fair day's haul. He brought along several chairs, a corner cupboard and a small table for Coll's approval; and a list of other possibles. He was keen on getting along to the Manor and seeing what they could do with the drawing room. Coll was due back about nine o'clock and Simon and Thea were meeting him there.

  'You'll come, won't you?' Thea said to Dora, who swallowed her mouthful of steak and kidney pie—they were eating the evening meal—and said,

  'I don't think so, thanks.'

  'Scared what Mrs Hewitt would say?' Thea teased, and Simon asked,

  'What's it got to do with mother-in-law?'

  Thea waited to see if Dora was going to explain. Simon hadn't noticed she wasn't wearing her ring, folk really were very unobservant, but Dora wasn't going into details right now. He'd be less understanding

  than Thea. He'd think it was a great joke, and it was likely he'd relate it to Coll at the first opportunity.

  'Oh, very well,' she said, 'but it's a bit of an effort for me.' She tried to smile. 'The old place, you know. It was different when we were walking round with John Redway, I didn't mind then, but last night—'

  Her lashes were suddenly wet and she made a small grimace.

  'I do know,' said Simon. 'I'm sorry.' Dora's wide grey eyes, so like his own, widened even more, and he said huskily, 'In the last ten years I should have made enough to get it back for you both.'

  Thea made a soft little murmur of protest and reassurance, and Dora said, 'I didn't mean that. Even if we got it back what could we do with it? It isn't suitable for us anymore. The upkeep will cost a fortune.'

  'Coll Sullivan's made a fortune;' said Simon. He pushed aside his plate as though he was losing his appetite. 'And he'll he a millionaire before he's through. He'll get anything he sets his mind on. He always had to win.'

  'But you liked him?' Thea asked anxiously, and Simon grinned.

  'Of course I like him. He was a wild one, but we had some great times when he came. He'd take on anything. I used to feel that the sky was the limit when he was around. I used to wonder sometimes what happened to him.'

  'Did you?' said Dora. 'You never talked about him.' 'No, we never did, did we?' said Simon.

  Perhaps that was because their lifes had changed so completely after that last time Coll came to the Manor. They didn't talk much about the past. It was bound up with the loss of their father and the loss of

  their world. The new life was Thea and the little antique shop, and Dora going to secretarial college, then taking jobs and acquiring boy-friends.

  Until the estate agent told them who was buying their old home Dora couldn't remember Coll Sullivan's name ever being mentioned. But Simon had wondered about him.

  Sometimes she had too. But when he had come into her mind she had put him out again. You don't linger over unpleasant memories and she had never liked him.

  Thea stacked the plates. There was a good meal there for Tip, nobody seemed to have eaten up. Then she began to scoop out from a bowl of caramel cream. She said, 'He said the Manor was a boyhood dream, the kind of house he'd dreamed of living in, and now he's come back for it, and good luck to him. We don't want it, do we, Dora? Miles of floors, to scrub—no, thanks, and how many bedrooms?'

  Too many,' said Dora.

  'I like my little flat,' confessed Thea. 'I like my little shop.' She put a dish of caramel in front of Simon. And I'd hate to be married to a millionaire.'

  'No danger of that,' said Simon. 'I can't even keep out of the red.'

  It was a joke tinged with wryness, and Dora stuck out her left hand, 'Notice anything?'

  What did it matter if Simon thought it was funny, her engagement being broken off? He had always considered Neil a bit of a joke, and that should get his mind off money matters.

  'Four fingers and a thumb,' said Simon. 'It looks much as it's always looked to me.'

  'No ring,' said Thea.

  'Has mother-in-law asked for it back?' Simon —sounded ready to laugh, and Dora said,

  'We had words, me and my ex-young-man.'

  'My God, she's done it again,' said Simon. 'What was it about this time?'

  'Nothing much. Mrs Hewitt thought we were going to live with her, and between them I saw rather a con-stricted future.'

  'Well, there would be, wouldn't there?' said Simon. 'What are we going to do with her?' he asked Thea, and Thea put an arm around Dora.

  'She's going to wait for the right man, like I did.'

  Thea had been twenty when she'd married Simon, but at twenty-six Dora still had no real idea what kind of man she was waiting for. She had no dream ideal, no repeating pattern in the type that attracted her. Her two broken engagements before Neil had been dissimilar men, and Neil hadn't been much like either of them.

  When the right man did come along, if he ever did, she only hoped she would recognise him.

  Dusk was beginning to fall when they reached the Manor, and you might have imagined that time had stood still, except for the silence. There had always been a staff here in the old days, always movements somewhere, always light. The house had never stood still and silent and shadowed like this.

  Simon opened the front door and turned on the hall lights, and Dora muttered, 'I suppose we should go round to the tradesmen's entrance.'

  'Not us,' chortled Simon. 'We're friends of the master.'

  'Don't call him that! ' said Dora sharply and Simon said gently,

  It's a joke, love.'

  But somehow, to her, it wasn't. The sound of it bothered her. Coll Sullivan had bought a house, no more. Simon and Thea were supplying him with goods, but he was master of nothing here except this house and its contents.

  Thea touched Dora's arm and said, 'Give us a hand, getting the cot down.'

  Dora needed something to do, and fast. She was standing like a zombie just inside the hall.

  There was a cot upstairs in one of the bedrooms and Thea planned to put it in what had been the sewing room down here, so that while she was moving around on the groun
d floor Kiki would be secure and within earshot if they left doors open.

  Thea never used a baby-sitter if she could help it. She would have been happy carrying her baby everywhere on her back. She was a born natural mother, and after waiting so long Kiki was her little miracle.

  The girls manoeuvred the cot down. Doors and staircase were wide enough to get it through without dismantling it. And then the baby, still in her carrycot, was deposited inside, and Thea hovered over her singing a soft lullaby until she was sure that Kiki was deep in slumber.

  In the meantime Simon had carted his pieces into the drawing room, and was trying them out here and there for effect.

  The dog warned them that Coll was arriving, giving Simon time to get to the front door as the car drew up, with Dora frantically hushing Tip. 'You wake that baby,' she warned him, 'and I'll lock you in the cellars! This house has cellars. You've never been down a cellar, have you? One more yap and you're for it!'

  Coll was brought straight into the drawing room, and Dora realised that they were all anxiously awaiting his approval. Simon and Thea looked quite worried, eyes on his face as he inspected the furniture that Simon hoped to buy on his behalf.

  The prices were high although Simon was only asking a modest commission. The stuff was good, collectors' pieces, genuine antiques. When Simon quoted figures Dora knew that he was apprehensive, and her hold on Tip tightened so that the little dog squirmed and turned to look up at her.

  `Fine,' said Coll, and Simon and Thea broke into smiles. They showed him everything in more detail then, pointing out the beauty of craftsmanship, assuring him that these were investments—which Dora was sure he knew anyway; and Simon began to tell him what else was available, producing the notes he had made on his travels today.

  `Have you eaten?' Thea asked.

  'Yes,' said Coll. 'Thank you.'

  'Are you sure?'

  He laughed then and admitted, 'Not recently.'

  'I'd have brought something if I'd known.' Thea sighed at her own lack of foresight and Dora felt like saying, 'Why should you? Surely he's capable of feeding himself.'