The black Hunter

by Donnelly, Jane

  Inside he was the same too, she would swear to that. 'He hadn't changed,' she said.

  'Don't be so thick,' said Simon, wearily. 'Of course he's changed. He owns the Manor now, he can give

  Thea and me our first real chance. What's that if it's not a change?'

  'Money,' said Dora. Coll Sullivan hadn't changed in any fundamental way.

  'We're not selling you to the man.' Simon was losing his temper. `He wants you to work for him, not sleep with him.'

  'Simon,' said Thea sharply, 'that's not funny '

  'You're damn right it isn't,' Simon exploded. 'What's the fuss about? So Dora doesn't want to work for Coll and that's probably why he wants her to, because she was such a little bitch to him in the old days. But we can't afford our pride any more. We had hundreds of years being top-dog and now we're the peasants, mate, and he's the master, and for God's sake, Dora, we've got to face up to it.'

  His flare of anger subsided. He was almost always a - good-tempered man, he had his father's bonhomie. It was Dora who had been born with spirit and stubbornness. They looked enough alike to be twins, except that Simon was older, but Dora always realised that Simon's was the nicer nature.

  He grinned at her now. 'You know you're going to do it,' he said.

  'Under protest.' She smiled back, grimacing. 'Who tells him?' Simon asked.

  do.' She took her pocket mirror and a tissue out of her handbag, and wiped off the lipstick she had smudged on her mouth. Then she replaced it with a fairly steady hand, combed her silky sun-streaked hair and asked, 'Do I look efficient?'

  'Thank you,' said Thea, and Dora laughed

  `Oh, it shouldn't be so bad once I get used to the

  idea. I'm going to enjoy getting the house in order. I can always pretend it's for us.'

  But that kind of daydreaming could hurt, so she must never risk it. She must always remember that this was Coll Sullivan's property.

  'I hope he intends to pay me a decent wage,' she said. 'I'd better check whether he thinks he can charge me against the loan, because if he does he's got another think coming.'

  He was standing in the library. There were armchairs around, but he was standing with a book in his hands and the glass door of one of the library shelves open. As Dora walked into the room he looked at her, heavy lidded and expressionless.

  Her spine prickled and she lifted her chin a fraction higher and said, 'Simon tells me I've got to work for you.'

  `Do you always do what Simon tells you?'

  She watched Tip trot forward, tail wagging, and wished he was a less friendly dog. She would have preferred something that snarled, or even bit, when Coll Sullivan was near.

  She followed the dog, seating herself. 'I don't do what anyone tells me unless the reasons are good,' she said quietly. 'Simon and Thea need the money.'

  'I know.' He must have gone into their circumstances thoroughly. She wondered if files on the Holcrofts had been put on some enormous executive desk for him, or if a secretary had read out notes, and she resented both his power and his cheek. It was a cheek, making their private business his business.

  'Of course you know,' she said shortly. `Will it be an

  ego-booster for you, ordering Simon and me around?' 'Do you think I need an ego-booster?'

  He never had, not even when he was in ragged clothes. Now there was arrogance oozing out of him, the lift of the head, the curl of the mouth. He looked like Lord Byron, that was what he looked like. With a dash of Lucifer. He had all the confidence in the world, and she could have spat in his face.

  She said, But it another way. Will it amuse you?'

  `Immensely.' He shut the book he had been holding, replaced it in its set, and closed the glass door of the bookcase. It was one of the Theatre of Moliere, in French. Dora wondered if he read French, and realised it wouldn't surprise her if he did.

  'You're not helping us out of the goodness of your heart, are you?' she said, and Coll smiled very slowly. In this smile there was a subtle difference that made her blood run cold.

  Simon had just said she had always behaved badly to Coll. She had been a spoiled child, her father's favourite. She hadn't wanted the tinker-boy around, taking Simon away during those precious summer holidays. But the last time had been the worst, that must be what he was remembering now.

  He had taken her pearls and she had asked if his father was in jail. She hadn't known his father was dead. None of them had known, but he had smiled at her then as he was smiling at her now, and said it was time someone took something away from her.

  She had a feeling that the next six months were going to be grimmer than any previous period in her life. When their father died and the house had to go, and she and Simon had to pick up the pieces and start again, she had thought—I survived. After this I can

  face anything, because no other time can be as bleak or as heartbreaking.

  She had been heartbroken then, but she had never been as apprehensive as she was now, with this iron band around her throat and every nerve in her body tightening. She knew that she should be wary of what this man had in store for her, and she said, 'The job will be no joyride, will it?'

  `Don't you think you can take it?'

  'I can take anything you can hand out.' If he had some warped idea of bettering her, bullying her, he would find he was up against more than he'd bargained for.

  'We'll see, won't we?' he said, and she nodded as though that was all quite satisfactory.

  'I'll have to hand in my notice and work out the month, but in the meantime I could come up here evenings and weekends.'

  'Excellent. What salary are you getting now?'

  She told him, and he quoted a higher figure. She wished he hadn't, because it showed how little her salary meant to him. She wished he couldn't have afforded her, and she asked, `Do you think I'm going to be worth that much?'

  'You'll be worth it,' he drawled. 'When you're around I appreciate my luck.'

  The contrast, he meant, remembering how things used to be, comparing with how they were today, knowing that the girl who had called him 'scum' was on his staff and paid to serve him.

  That would be fine for his pride, but not so good for hers or Simon's, and she said bitterly, 'You knew I never liked you.'

  'Of course.' He shrugged it off, it didn't matter.

  'You never liked me either.' He didn't trouble to deny it. 'Mutual dislike isn't much of a basis for a working partnership,' she said.

  His dark eyebrows rose. 'Who said anything about a partnership. While I pay the wages I give the orders,' and she had to swallow her resentment.

  She patted the little dog who was sitting on the floor beside her chair, giving her voice time to get back to normal. Then she said, 'You whistle and I come?'

  'That about sums it up.'

  'When do you aim to start whistling?'

  'You'll know when I do.'

  She was about to snap, 'You won't get me running to heel,' when the door opened on a worried-looking Simon trying to look cheerful.

  'Any hitches?' he asked, and Coll smiled at Dora. `None. We understand each other.'

  'We always did,' said Dora.

  That didn't really reassure Simon, but if everything appeared to be all right he wasn't going to dig beneath the surface. They were both smiling and Coll had said there were no hitches. Simon's reaction was to get down to the business talk as quickly as possible.

  His future, and Thea's and Kiki's, was at stake here. Coll could help them all to a better life, and Dora wasn't going to get the offer of a better job, so what were they waiting for?

  'What do we do now?' he asked.

  'Let's draw up the contracts,' said Coll, as though it was all a game.

  'Tonight?' Dora wasn't going back on anything, but it was getting late and what was the hurry?

  never believe in putting things off,' said Coll. 'We

  must' have Thea in on this. Where do we hold the conference?'

  It was a game to him. He threw back his head a
s he had done before he dived into the water below the weir, before the fight at her birthday party, taking on odds but sure he could win. She was part of the stakes tonight and she would have given a great deal to deny him his triumph.

  They went back to the drawing room and Coll took Simon's notebook and began to draft the agreement that his solicitors would draw up tomorrow. It sounded fine. He would do all he said, secure the lease, advance them the sum they worked out as enough to cover their debts and leave a little over for expansion.

  He suggested repayment terms, and they had the bargain of a lifetime so long as Dora kept her job for six months. If she walked out then Coll could call in the debt, and she wondered if that could be what he had in mind. To make her life unbearable so that in the end she did walk out, leaving all the cards in his hands.

  The light from the chandelier shone down on his smooth dark hair. He looked handsome, relaxed, happy with friends, and Simon and Thea were certainly happy; and Dora wished she could believe he had no ulterior. motive.

  But he wasn't acting from pure friendship. He had just admitted that and she knew he wasn't. Had Simon ever done anything to incur his enmity while they were boys? Simon had been a cheerful and popular boy, but sometimes he had been thoughtless and selfish. Children often were. He might not remember now, but it seemed more likely to Dora that Coll Sullivan had

  So

  come back with a grudge, intending to harm rather than help.

  'He always had to win,' Simon had said. Simon might have resented him winning sometimes and tried to belittle him, to play the boy from the Manor against the tinker's son. Coll Sullivan would remember that.

  'What's wrong?' asked Thea gently, and Dora knew she was the only unrelaxed one, sitting ramrod-straight and grim-faced. Suppose she spoke up now and asked, 'Do you hate both of us? Is that what all this is about, so that you can bring us both down? Is that the secret joke?'

  But he would only laugh at her. So would Simon, and she said instead, 'I feel like merchandise in a slave market, being sold to the highest bidder.'

  'It's a thought,' said Coll, as though she was joking.

  'Isn't it?' She met his eyes, with a challenge in her own. 'And what kind of slavemaster are you going to make?'

  He went on smiling. 'You look healthy enough, you'll cope.'

  'Of course she will,' said Simon breezily. 'She's famous for it—coping.'

  'I think we ought to be going,' Thea suggested, and Dora was on her feet like a shot, when Coll said,

  'Not you, Dora-Lily, there are still one or two things I want to discuss with you.'

  Thea had realised that Dora wanted to get away, but now there was no choice. Thea and Simon had to say goodnight and leave Dora here, and Dora had to pretend she didn't care.

  Kiki was collected and raised a protesting wail at being disturbed. Dora bent over the carrycot in the hall and said, 'Goodnight, sweetheart.' She kissed

  Thea. 'Goodnight, see you tomorrow some time.'

  Simon was still talking business with Coll, all the way to the van which stood by the steps of the front door. At the door Thea said quietly, 'Thank you. Bless you.'

  Heaven bless me, thought Dora; heaven help me because I am into a situation that scares me.

  'Come on, wife!' called Simon, as Thea and Dora carried the carrycot down between them.

  'Wife and child,' said Thea, 'and set this down gently, I think she's waking up and wondering about supper.'

  Dora stood watching them go. Her home was at the end of the drive. The warm darkness and the soft rustle of night were there too, under the same trees and the same stars. But here the night was not friendly, and when she turned Coll was standing in the doorway, and the house she had loved seemed like a waiting prison.

  She could walk on, down the drive, following the white darting blur that was her small dog, and Coll couldn't stop her. He might call after her, but she didn't have to hear. Or he could follow, and she didn't want him to follow her in the darkness. She didn't want him touching her, putting a hand on her.

  She went back up the steps and as she passed him, into the hall, he shut the door. Surely it hadn't sounded like that in the old days when anyone closed the front door. Tonight the hinges seemed to creak and there was a dull thud, just like you'd expect a prison door to sound.

  First she had seen him as a slave master and now as a jailer, two roles with one thing in common. In both he was her master and her enemy.

  She went back into the drawing room. 'Sit down,' he said, as he followed her.

  'Thank you.' She got in a touch of sarcasm, taking the place she had just vacated. He sat down again in the chair he had been sitting in for the past half hour and said,

  'Tell me what you've been doing all these years.'

  She wasn't telling him anything. She hated sitting here alone with him, face to face; his eyes stripping her naked and defenceless. She countered the question. 'Don't you know all about us? You knew more about Simon's business than I did.'

  He didn't answer that. Instead he said, 'I'd have expected you to be married by now.'

  'I'd have thought you would.' Her face was stiff with distaste. 'If I'd thought about you at all, which I don't believe I ever did.'

  He smiled at that. `Ah yes, but I have been very busy.'

  'Me too.'

  'With your career?'

  She worked hard, but she was still taking down someone else's dictation. She swam well and played a good fast game of tennis, and she did her own home decorating and was a very fair cook. It wasn't an impressive record of achievement set against Sullivan Properties. I've had better things to do with my life than money-making,' she said primly.

  'So have I.' He leaned back, legs stretched and Crossed at the ankles, folded arms behind his head. enjoy myself. I enjoy my work and the money's very welcome, and I expect more enjoyment and more money in the future. Have you ever been married?'

  He had long legs and she felt that he took up more

  of the space between them than he was entitled to. She crossed her own ankles and tucked her feet back. 'No,' she said.

  'Nobody good enough for you?'

  Dora glared, and he laughed. 'Not still virginal?'

  He was being insulting. 'Are you?' she said, and he went on laughing. He had a young face, he would probably grow old looking young, but it seemed to her that all the experience in the world was in his eyes. Then he said, feigning solicitude, 'I hope Neil Hewitt hasn't been your only lover all these years? I shouldn't like you to have missed out all along.'

  Was he suggesting that Neil would be a rotten lover, and how could he know? Neil might be rampant with passion once they were alone. He wasn't, of course, he never would be, but she wasn't having Coll Sullivan sneering.

  She said, 'I've missed out on nothing,' and as Coll looked disbelieving, 'I've been engaged three times and I was the one who handed the rings' back, so I'm not exactly a frustrated spinster.'

  'Quite the raver.' This time she deserved mocking, recounting her three failures as though they were scalps at her belt or feathers in her cap. She wasn't proud of them. She was sorry about them, and she blamed herself. A broken engagement wasn't as bad as a broken marriage, but it was still a promising relationship flawed because something was missing.

  In her. She was the one who drew back because she couldn't give herself entirely and forever. There always came a time when she could go no further in commitment and then she was alone once more, with the relief of a bird escaping from a cage.

  Well, she was free again, after what must be nearly a

  record in brief engagements. Neil's mother had his ring back, but Coll Sullivan was clipping her wings. `What went wrong, three times?' he was asking, and she demanded furiously,

  `What's it got to do with you? We're supposed to be discussing my job, aren't we?'

  `Tonight this is your job. To sit here, in a room with me, until I say you may go.' The lightness had left his voice, it was sharp with command.

 
Dora remembered flouncing out of the room when he came in, and she wanted to do just that again, like the spoiled child she had been. She thought—I don't believe I can stand this, and in the silence she heard a dog bark.

  'Tip,' she said, so grateful for the chance of escape that she laughed. 'He thought I was following him. I'll have to get him, I don't like him out in the dark on his own.'

  'What's he likely to come up against?' Coll drawled. 'A rabbit?'

  'A fox, maybe. He'd give a good account of himself, but fox bites are nasty, and he's always finding hedgehogs. They send him berserk, they roll up and they're prickly, and he finishes racing round and round them, like those old films of covered wagons and Indians, you know.'

  She was at the door by now, smiling and chattering. Coll hadn't moved. 'Come back,' he said.

  Her lips tightened and the smile went. 'If I don't?' 'I don't pay out.'

  He meant it. If she left before he gave her permission he would tell Simon in the morning that the deal was off. Nothing was signed yet, but once the signing

  had been done she wouldn't put up with this treatment. She'd do a fair day's work for him, but no night duty that wasn't strictly impersonal.

  She said scornfully, 'It is a touch of your white slavery, isn't it? You really do think you're buying me.' He gave her that long slow look again, that made her want to hide behind something.

  `You're getting a good price for six months,' he said.

  She stood feet apart, glaring at him. 'I'm getting a wage for which I'm working,' she spat. 'It's Simon's shop that needs your lousy cash, not me.'

  `You need it for them,' he reminded her, and of course that was why she was here. She would have had to be starving before she would have accepted anything from him, but knowing how much it meant to Simon and Thea and Kiki was a blackmail she couldn't withstand.