That Tender Feeling

by Dorothy Vernon

  Rusty was the name of her childhood—for the color of her hair. Now she was Ros, short for her given name of Rosalynd.

  In spite of that nostalgic turn of thought, she did not travel unhappily, but drove for the most part on the tide of her growing enthusiasm, gaining greater certainty with every mile that swept under the hood of her car that she was doing the right thing.

  The farmsteads and trees began to look like stenciled cutouts as she, and darkness, approached the village of Gillybeck. Of compact proportions, it had an endearing and friendly quaintness about it, with its cobbled square where market stalls were set up on Saturdays and Wednesdays and queer-shaped cottages lurked in unlikely corners.

  She pulled up at the public telephone box to honor her promise to Miles, sorted out a collection of the necessary coins and dialed his number.

  On hearing the friendly and comforting familiarity of his voice, she said, ‘I’ve arrived without mishap, and I’m in fine spirits, so you don’t have to worry about me.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d remember to ring. As it happens, I’ve had a phone call from your father.’

  The line was atrocious. For a moment, she thought he’d said her father.

  ‘Who did you say?’

  ‘Your father,’ he said.

  Gracious he had!

  ‘Obviously, he was trying to get in touch with you,’ he went on. ‘Glenis gave him my number, and he got through to me.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  The anxiety in her voice prompted Miles to say, ‘No cause for alarm. Sorry, I should have put your mind at rest about his well-being straightaway.’

  ‘Where was he phoning from?’ Her father was grossly extravagant, finding it easier to pick up a phone rather than a pen, and it could have been from anywhere in the world.

  She thought Miles said Australia, but there was another burst of static on the line, and so she couldn’t be sure. It cleared, and she heard him say quite distinctly, ‘He’s been working with a guy who has returned to the U.K. because of illness . . .’ The line faded, and then she heard, ‘. . . said he’d look you up if he got the chance.’

  ‘What did you say his name was, Miles?’

  ‘Sorry, what’s that? Can you shout up?’

  She was shouting up.

  ‘Is that better?’

  ‘Better did you say? Not much.’ He said something else that Ros couldn’t catch. The static was now so bad that Ros only managed to get occasional snatches. ‘. . . nothing definite . . . might not show up . . . thought you should be warned just in case.’ Warned about what?

  Ros asked Miles to repeat what he’d said but gave up on realizing the hopelessness of it. Letting it go, she merely said, ‘I’ll look forward to seeing him, whoever he is.’ Soon after that, she rang off.

  On stepping out of the phone box, Ros decided not to return immediately to the car. After being confined behind the wheel for so long, she needed to stretch her legs. It was cold, yes, but she had anticipated that it would be, and so she’d layered herself with extra woollies accordingly. In any case, it was a crisp, invigorating coldness, and the air was like wine as she breathed it into her lungs.

  By this time, the shops were closed and shuttered for the night. She had foolishly not stopped on the way to buy provisions, so unless she found somewhere to eat, she would go to bed hungry. With that thought came the realization of just how hungry she was. Like the shops, the main street’s cafés that catered to the daytime tourists were also closed. She knew she would be able to get a meal at the Gillybeck Arms, which served as both residential hotel and local pub, so she made her way there.

  Later, she had no doubt, trade would pick up in the hotel’s dining room, for the town wasn’t noted for its variety of choice; but this early in the evening, she had the restaurant practically to herself. The exception was a family group enjoying high tea. The dinner menu wasn’t supposed to be served until seven o’clock, and so certain things weren’t available, but the obliging waitress said she thought the kitchen staff could come up with a grilled T-bone steak, and of course the dessert trolley was available, so Ros was well pleased.

  She didn’t hurry over her meal. It was pleasant to relax in that warm and comfortable atmosphere, and she was still there when the first of the early diners began to trickle in. Mostly twosomes and foursomes, but there was one man on his own.

  She had put her cumbersome handbag on the floor by her chair, and he kicked it as he passed. They both apologized at once, she for leaving it at such a careless angle, he for kicking it.

  He bent to retrieve it, examining it for damage as his long, lean frame uncoiled with the grace of an animal. His hair was thick and smooth, the color of ebony. His face was deeply tanned; he was either a sun worshipper, or he worked long hours out-of-doors in a country where the sun was much fiercer than here. His features were strong—harsh was the word that flung itself into her mind. It was the type of face that Miles would have said was full of character, lopsided nose and all. Had he been born with that tilt to one side of his nose or gained it in a punch-up? He had the kind of broad shoulders that suggested he would be handy with his fists. In contrast to the satanic hard lines of his face, his mouth came as a shock. It was too full, hinting at an inner sensuality. His eyes complemented his mouth—dark brown, the color of woodsmoke, emitting more sex appeal than any one man should be allowed to pack. They lifted from inspecting her handbag for any outward sign of the abuse it had just received, and as they played over her face, her knees turned to jelly. She had an uncanny sensation of déjà vu. Someone, somewhere in her past, had created feelings similar to these, if not quite taking the same form.

  He clearly registered her reaction; indeed, the glazing of contempt that came to his eyes told her that it was one he was used to and found boring.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to have come to any harm,’ he said, and even though the scorn that was so apparent in his eyes had now slid into his voice, the deep and slightly husky tone was still attractive.

  She swallowed, hating herself for responding to his masculinity and hating him for knowing that she found him so disturbingly interesting.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  In accepting her handbag, her fingers brushed with his. She jerked back as if a naked flame had touched her, and that was just what the sensation had been like.

  She expected him to depart then, but he did not. Instead of continuing on his way, he remained where he was and surveyed her for a moment. The woodsmoke eyes no longer contained that gleam of derision but smoldered in speculation. The nature of that speculation was unknown to her; that it wasn’t to his liking was obvious in the grim frown that touched his lips. She couldn’t be sure, but she felt that his awesome self-assurance had slipped a little.

  From her own point of view, she was overwhelmingly conscious of two things: her quickened pulse beat and her crumpled appearance. He was the most maddeningly handsome man she had ever come across, and it had to be when she was feeling considerably less than her best, after a long and tiring day’s drive. She had gone into the ladies’ room before coming into the restaurant, but only to pay court to hygiene and wash the grime from her fingers. She hadn’t bothered to comb her hair or touch up her makeup, and her comfortable traveling gear—trousers and thick-knit sweater—were hardly Bond Street. In contrast to his clothes, they didn’t seem all that far removed from the rags category. He was superbly turned out in tasteful country tweeds. She knew how poor Cinders felt—but her prince was blocking her exit, and she could hardly push him out of the way to make her escape.

  Collecting up her coat from where she had deposited it on the spare chair, she said, ‘Excuse me, please,’ and rose to her feet with dignity.

  ‘Certainly,’ he said, looking momentarily puzzled, as though wondering what he was still doing there as he moved aside to let her pass.

  She felt his eyes boring into the back of her as she walked away. Even though it made her feel uneasy, she was flattered by his att
ention. She lifted her head, walking tall and trying to swing freely from the hips with jaunty nonchalance, just as if devastating men were in the habit of following her with their eyes. Actually, her figure adapted well to trousers, and she had quite a neat rear view; not that it would be apparent now that she was snuggled in her bulky sheepskin coat.

  She sailed out of the swinging door. Only then could she relax. No, she couldn’t. She heard his step pounding after her. That was unbelievable. To be looked at was one thing, but to be chased after—wow! She might not have had Cinderella’s fairy godmother on hand to deck her out in the kind of impression -making clothes she would have liked him to see her in, but she must have done something right.

  Wrong again. In her confusion, she had only walked out without paying her bill—and it was with that transgression that he was about to confront her. Not that she knew it straightaway, but when the realization was bluntly driven home to her, it made her feel even more of a fool.

  His mantle of self-assurance was firmly back in place as he trapped her wrist in a blood-stopping grip and inquired in the most sardonic drawl she had ever heard, ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

  Still it didn’t click. She checked. Handbag, gloves, scarf. ‘No, I appear to have everything, thank you.’

  ‘Enjoy your meal, did you?’

  ‘Yes, it was very—oh, my goodness!’ At last, it dawned on her. In the kind of ‘pale’ voice that went with vividly flushed cheeks, she choked out in alarm, ‘I walked out without paying.’

  ‘Precisely. It’s a quaint British custom that unfortunately must be observed.’

  ‘You don’t think I did it on purpose, do you?’

  ‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t think anything of the sort,’ he said in a tone that hinted at just the reverse. ‘I’m quite sure it was an oversight.’

  ‘It was.’ How dare he be so insulting! Damn his mocking, arrogant smile. That smile? It teased the edge of her awareness. She was more certain than ever that she knew him from somewhere. It rankled that she couldn’t remember where. ‘And even if it wasn’t, what’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m just a public-minded citizen doing my duty.’

  He soon made it known to her what he considered that duty to be—to accompany her as she suffered the ignominy of having to go back inside and rectify her shameful omission. And did he have to keep such a tight hold of her wrist? She was returning voluntarily. She didn’t need the assistance of a jailer. Yet even in her temper, she registered the thought that it was a nice hand, large and strong, dependable. The kind of hand you’d want on your side in times of trouble.

  Attempting to thrust it off, she said, ‘Do you mind! I’m not about to run away.’

  That secured her release and allowed her to skip a pace ahead of him.

  The waitress looked coyly amused and brushed aside Ros’s apology, saying, ‘Please don’t give it another thought. It’s easy to tell that you usually have an escort to pay for you.’

  The girl meant to be kind and said that to put Ros at her ease; but her awareness of his wry nod of agreement added to her frustration. In these days of equal pay, she did not go through life sponging off men but accepted the sharing of expenses as the fair price to pay for women’s much-prized equality. She knew that not all women thought this way; some chose to accept the liberation but shun the liability. Glenis, for example, brought her own logic to bear on the subject and never paid even when her man friend earned less than she did. She justified that by saying that women’s expenses were higher and she needed her money to buy the pricey cosmetics and clothes to make herself lovelier for her male escort. She said that men liked to be seen with a well-dressed, expensively turned out woman, and therefore they should pay for the privilege.

  Ros settled the offending bill. Then, angered by his mocking assumption that she was the same as those women, she added a monstrously generous tip, to make up, and left.

  This time no pounding steps followed her. She didn’t know what she was getting into a state about. It didn’t matter what he thought of her. Probably she would never see him again. That would suit her perfectly well. He could only serve as an added complication in a life that was complicated enough already.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was quite dark. Trees met overhead, turning the road into a black canyon. The car’s headlights picked up ghostly shapes. A small animal darted into their beams before scurrying away to safety.

  Ros thought about the haven of Aunt Miranda’s old-fashioned high bed, as soft as thistledown. As a child, she had found it difficult to climb into and had used a small stool to give her a leg up and then dived into its enfolding softness. Her child’s vivid imagination had conjured up stories around the patchwork quilt, making mountains out of her knees that the handsome prince then charged up on his pure white steed to rescue the fair maiden held captive in pillow castle.

  She thought her imagination wouldn’t have much leeway that night. She was so achingly tired she knew that she would fall asleep instantly.

  After going on seemingly forever and forging deeper and deeper into isolation, she finally slowed down to negotiate the turnoff road that led to Hawthorn Cottage. The potholed road was hazardous even in daytime. It served only two cottages. Hawthorn Cottage forked off to the left, Holly Cottage to the right. So she supposed the authorities didn’t think it merited the cost of keeping it in good repair. She wondered if Mrs. Heath still lived at Holly Cottage. If her memory served her correctly, she was younger than Aunt Miranda. The two cottages, both named after prickly shrubs with red berries, had always caused a certain amount of confusion. Inevitably, Ros had frequently acted as delivery girl, taking parcels and letters to Mrs. Heath that had gotten to Hawthorn Cottage in error. At first, Ros had gone to Mrs. Heath’s in fear and trepidation, but a rewarding wedge of homemade pie or oven cake, the latter split and buttered while warm so that the butter melted into the fragrant fluffy softness of the inside, had gone a long way to soothing her qualms, and she had begun to look for excuses to visit. Ros had quickly come to realize that Mrs. Heath had a lot in common with her oven cake. She was only crusty on the outside.

  On losing her initial shyness, she had accepted Mrs. Heath’s invitation to visit anytime, and an unlikely friendship had developed between the taciturn old lady and the introverted young girl. Sometimes, when visitors had overflowed at Hawthorn Cottage, she had slept in the tiny spare room at Holly Cottage. The only time she hadn’t liked going there had been when Mrs. Heath’s grandson was staying with her. He had been a gypsy-dark youth back then, ten years her senior; so that by the time she had reached the age of ten, he had been double her age, a man. Everyone had said then he was good-looking, but in Ros’s eyes he had appeared sinister. In all the stories she’d read, the good prince had been golden-haired, while the black-haired prince had been the wicked villain to be feared—as she had feared him. His name was Cliff Heath. She had taken one look at that saturnine face and had naturally called him Heathcliff.

  Mrs. Heath had fallen about laughing when she had first heard Ros address him by this name, but not so her grandson. He had looked fiercer than ever and made as though to pounce on Ros, causing her to tremble in her shoes and regret her boldness. Mrs. Heath had insisted that he was only teasing, but Ros hadn’t been so sure. Usually, she had believed implicitly in Mrs. Heath’s wisdom, but this had been one time when she had felt more inclined to trust the evidence of her own eyes, and a stolen, under-her-lashes glance had seen all that forbidding black disapproval.

  She had been twelve at the most when, to her immense relief, he’d gone to work abroad. He had been in the same line as her father—civil engineering. She had always believed that his admiration of her father had influenced his choice. She wondered as she approached the cottages what Heathcliff had made of his life and where he was. She remembered her father’s once saying that he was brave and reckless and brilliant, that he had the ability to be anything he chose and would go far. She hadn’t thou
ght of him in years. She wondered what perverse twist of fate had made her think of him then and realized with a start of surprise that she had seen a fleeting resemblance to him in the man who had magnetized her thoughts in the Gillybeck Arms. He couldn’t possibly have been Heathcliff—could he? No, she’d known an instant aversion to Heathcliff, keen enough to last a lifetime and totally at variance with the feelings that the stranger had aroused in her.

  She brought the car to a somewhat jerky and grinding halt outside Hawthorn Cottage—which arrival, even with due consideration to the appalling condition of the road, was far removed from her usual proficient driving standard. Her concentration was elsewhere.

  She was surprised to observe that the old gate was still tied up with a piece of wire, just as it had been the last time she had been there. That was odd. The same old gate, in the same state of disrepair. She remembered no mention of a new gate on the sheaf of invoices she had received, yet she would have thought that a new gate would have had some priority in the repairs. If that was a small matter of disconcertion, her next finding came as a shock. Her key, the brand-new key that had been mailed to her to fit the newly fixed locks, wouldn’t fit. That was very strange indeed.

  She stumbled back down the overgrown, uneven flags of the path to her car and rummaged in the glove compartment for her flashlight. Playing the beam over the cottage, she saw that the roof, the windows, everything, were in the same state of disrepair as she had last seen, when she came to inspect her inheritance.

  She got back into her car, huddled forlornly behind the steering wheel and shivered, mainly from the cold cut of the wind blowing down from the moor but also from a tiny sliver of alarm. What did it mean? And where did she go from here? She had thrown her old key away, and she didn’t feel like breaking her way in. In any case, what would be the point? The cottage wouldn’t be habitable. The gate hadn’t been replaced, the roof still had a whopping great hole in it, and it would be a fair guess that the inside repairs hadn’t been carried out, either. Tomorrow she’d make an early call on the agent in charge of the work and find out what was going on, but where did that leave her tonight? Right out in the cold. She could, she supposed, go back to Gillybeck and book a room for the night at the Gillybeck Arms, but it was a long way; she had been driving all day, and she was exhausted.