by Sara Seale
“And how are you getting along with this young woman?” she began quite pleasantly to James.
“Oh, quite well, I think,” said James, and raised a humorous eyebrow at Sarah. “Are we getting along, Sarah?”
“Um,” said Sarah into her teacup.
“Well, we haven’t quarrelled so far, anyway,” said James, and Lady Bollard frowned. James appeared to be adopting far too casual an attitude towards his young ward.
“It must be a change for you, my dear, to have someone at home to keep an eye on you,” she said to Sarah.
“Oh, J.B. isn’t like that, thank goodness,” said Sarah cheerfully. “At least I don’t think he is.” She looked at James a little doubtfully.
“Then he should be,” snapped Lady Bollard. “After all, the man’s your guardian. That means something, I suppose, even in these lax days.”
“We don’t stress the relationship, Lady Bollard,” he said, grinning, “It’s hardly tactful.”
She glanced at him suspiciously. Was he having the impertinence to laugh at her?
“Then I think you’re making a great mistake,” she said, and added with ill-concealed satisfaction: “I should hardly have thought you would have cared for the little exhibition in the Skylark last night, if you had witnessed it. But perhaps you don’t know about that?”
“No,” said James innocently. “What happened in the Skylark? Were you there?”
Lady Bollard’s spoon rattled in her saucer.
“I—in a public-house I Certainly I was not there! But nothing goes on in this village that I don’t hear about, and when it concerns your ward’s reputation, I think you should be told.”
“Dear me!” said James. “It all sounds very sinister. Were you in the Skylark throwing glasses about, or something, Sarah?”
“Yes, I was. I mean I was there, but I wasn’t throwing glasses about,” grinned Sarah. J.B. was rather a sport.
“I’m sure,” twittered Sophie, who hadn’t been able to get a word in edgeways so far, “there was nothing wrong, Lady Bollard. It’s quite fashionable these days for young people to go to the pub—to go to inns.”
Lady Bollard withered Sophie with a look which plainly said, “My good woman, you’re a fool!” and held out her cup for some more tea.
“My dear Miss Brand,” she remarked, “there is a certain set that will always defy the conventions and call it fashion. But I shouldn’t have thought that either you or Mr. Fane would care to have Sarah talked about.”
“I must say,” said James a little impatiently, “I don’t see anything very dreadful in having a quick one in a pub.”
“You’re old-fashioned, Mummy,” Daphne said in a bored voice. What a tea-party! Mummy might at least have waited until tea was finished. It could have been so pleasant sitting out here on the terrace chatting to James Fane. Daphne rather envied Sarah. It must be quite a thrill to have an unknown guardian as personable as James descend on one out of the blue. Of course, Sarah was rather impossible, but her nice guardian was sticking up for her. Perhaps he had fallen for her a little. Men did seem to find that red hair attractive. But how extraordinary to discover them both up a tree like a couple of children.
Daphne’s thoughts had run on long after her mother had snapped:
“Be quiet, Daphne, you don’t know what you’re talking about. My dear James, I may, as Daphne says, be old-fashioned, but I don’t think it’s a good thing for a girl as young as Sarah to be constantly seen in the public bar of the village public-house, standing the yokels drinks. And when her escort is a man whose reputation is the kind enjoyed by this de Pinto creature, I think it’s deplorable, and you should put a stop to it. Last night, the man was as usual very drunk. Do I have to speak more plainly?”
Sarah, who had been sitting sprawled in her chair, her slim bare legs thrust out aggressively before her, sprang to her feet.
“I don’t see, Lady Bollard,” she cried with the colour mounting quickly to her high cheek-bones, “that it’s any business of yours. What I choose to do is my own affair, and no one—no one has any right to interfere.”
James had been looking at her thoughtfully, and when she finished speaking he said quietly:
“I don’t think we can have plain speaking all round, Sarah, so if Miss Bollard has finished her tea, I think you had better take her round the garden or something.”
“I won’t go and have things said about me behind my back,” she began, but James replied in a voice which held a warning note:
“Run along.”
She hesitated for a moment, then turned and said, “Come on, Daphne,” and walked off round the house, followed by the reluctant Daphne who, listening to the conversation, had been rather enjoying herself.
“Now, Lady Bollard,” said James briskly, “I had wanted to avoid this sort of thing in front of Sarah, but you’d better say all you want to now.”
Lady Bollard, dimly aware that James had handled the situation rather well, felt irritated. She was not accustomed to being made to feel she had been tactless. She glanced meaningfully at Sophie, who rose immediately and, muttering some vague excuse, went into the house.
“That’s better,” she said, “I can now talk to you seriously. First of all, have you met this de Pinto person?”
“Not yet,” said James briefly.
She raised scandalised eyebrows.
“You have been here three weeks and you haven’t made it your business to find out the truth for yourself!” she exclaimed. “Really, James, have you no sense of responsibility, or has the child wound you round her little finger like all the rest?”
James began to fill a pipe with firm, sensitive fingers.
“I don’t think you really understand Sarah,” he said carefully. “I haven’t been so blind or so slack as you seem to think since I’ve been back, but it would have been the most foolish thing I could have done to start flinging my weight about straight away. I’ve had to go very carefully, Sarah resented my coming and it was much more important to make friends with her first, before I tried exercising authority. I think I have made friends with her, and I’m home when the time comes to put my foot down she’ll remember that. I’m afraid you’ve precipitated things rather, Lady Bollard. I didn’t want to read the riot act quite so soon.”
“My dear James, all men are moral cowards,” she said triumphantly. “There’s not one of you who wouldn’t go out of your way to avoid a scene.”
“I don’t think I’m a moral coward,” said James mildly. “And if as a result of my authority, there’s a scene, as you put it, then a scene there’ll have to be. But I can’t help feeling that with a little judicious handling a great deal of that sort of thing could be avoided.”
“You can avoid anything by shutting your eyes to what’s going on,” she remarked acidly.
“I don’t think you get my meaning,” he said a little wearily. “Believe me Lady Bollard, I have my own methods of dealing with Sarah, and although they may not be yours, I think they will work. It takes time, you know, to alter someone’s ideas, and I don’t believe in rushing things.”
Lady Bollard turned down the corners of her thin mouth. She was beginning to realise that James wasn’t to be bullied.
“Well, all I can say is, I don’t envy you,” she said. “Thank heavens my Daphne was properly brought up. All the young of today appear to be mannerless and immoral.”
“I haven’t found Sarah mannerless,” said James gently. “And I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with her morals.”
“Of course,” she allowed, brushing this aside, “the child hasn’t had much of a chance. Your uncle had no manners himself—people used to say he lived like a pig in spite of his money, and he brought the girl up like a little animal, so what can one expect? It’s in the blood—she is his child, isn’t she?”
“No,” said James with misleading gentleness. “Sarah is not my uncle’s child.”
“Really? That’s what they all say in the village, anyway
, but then it was such an odd thing to do, wasn’t it? Adopt a baby when you are a bachelor, I mean.”
“Was it?” said James, and got to his feet. “Shall we go and see what the children are doing?” He felt more angry than he had for some time. If the woman thought he was going to satisfy her vulgar curiosity as well as listen to her tiresome insinuations, it was time the interview ended.
She walked with him across the well-kept lawns and felt uneasily that the afternoon hadn’t gone as he had intended. Fallow was a pleasant place, the house of course was terrible, but with money spent on it—Daphne might do a lot worse, and it was high time James settled down and took his position seriously.
“Don’t misunderstand me, James. In pointing out your—er—duty, I only wanted to help. Why don’t you pack the girl off to a finishing school abroad? After all, she’s very young.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’ll do that,” said James courteously.
“You’ll find her a handicap until she’s learnt to behave.”
“A handicap?”
“Well, my dear man, you’ll want to be settling down yourself. You ought to marry, you know—you’re getting on, and you won’t want to wait till Sarah is of age before you bring a wife to Fallow.”
“But I haven’t any idea of getting married, Lady Bollard,” he laughed. “And if I had it would make no difference to Sarah’s future. Fallow is her home as well as mine, you know.”
She said nothing, but compressed her lips, and presently saw Sarah and Daphne standing by the pool in desultory conversation.
“There’s one thing,” Lady Bollard said sharply, and mentally compared Sarah’s slender bare legs unfavourably with Daphne’s more discreetly clad ones. “You’d better give up this tree-climbing nonsense. You’ll have no authority over the girl if you behave as if you were the same age as she is.”
Sarah heard, and turning, gave James a grin, her earlier resentment forgotten. Poor old J.B.! He had evidently been getting it too.
“J.B. is awfully spry for his years,” she said. “He can give me points on most things.”
“Thank you, Sarah,” he laughed, and inwardly cursed Mary Bollard. He had earned Sarah’s respect and was just beginning to get her confidence. He didn’t want to precipitate a crisis in their relationship just now, but he couldn’t very well let the woman’s insinuations pass with comment from him.
“Come, Daphne, it’s time we were going,” said Lady Bollard.
“High time!” muttered Sarah under her breath, and sprang with alacrity to walk with the guests back to their car.
“You must come and dine, James—and Sarah too, of course. I’ll ring you up.” Lady Bollard tried to leave on a more propitious note.
“Golly!” said Sarah, watching the Daimler progress majestically down the drive. “What a party!”
James sighed. There was no getting out of it this time. He might as well get it over.
“Come and walk,” he said, and hooked a hand through Sarah’s arm.
They strolled round to the back of the house. On the terrace, Pepper was clearing away the tea-things. He paused a moment to watch James and Sarah and grunted approvingly. That was all working out very nicely—very nicely indeed.
“Sarah, how much truth is there in all this gossip?” James asked suddenly.
Her face wore an elfin look.
“You mean the Bollard’s elephantine hints?”
“Hers and—others.”
They had reached the pool. James sat in the swing seat and lit a cigarette, and Sarah crouched cross-legged on the grass at his feet. The elfin look was still there. Her wide mouth curved upwards in a half-smile and her green eyes slanted like a faun’s.
He leaned forward, regarding her steadily.
“Look, Sarah, I haven’t said anything up to now,” he said. “But I think there are a few things you and I ought to get straight.”
Her expression changed. She looked wary and rather surprised.
“Is this a Serious Talk, J.B.?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m afraid it is,” he replied. “You didn’t think, did you, that I’d let gossip—real gossip go on and do nothing about it?”
“Well, you know what a small village is,” she said impatiently.
“Yes, I know. That’s why I’ve let things pass which perhaps I shouldn’t have. But the gossip about you tends to be rather unpleasant, and I don’t like it Pub-crawling at your age isn’t a very good thing, for instance, and I think it’s a pity to get your name coupled to the extent it is with that of a man like de Pinto.”
“But you said in front of the Bollard that you didn’t see any harm in a quick one.”
“I certainly wasn’t going to take the matter up in front of the woman and her daughter, but I didn’t like it, Sarah. There’s a difference between having a quick one and spending the entire evening with the local drunks. They may be very nice to your face, but they only laugh at you behind your back.”
She began to blink rapidly and he knew she was nervous.
“Stop going to the Skylark, will you, Sarah?” he said gently. “And I wouldn’t spend so much time in this fellow’s studio either.”
Her long eyelashes flew upwards, nearly touching her eyebrows.
“J.B.! You’re interfering!” she exclaimed, and sounded really horrified.
He smiled.
“Well, you know,” he said apologetically, “I’m afraid that’s my job when it’s necessary.”
She stared at him.
“But you don’t really think I’m going to take this guardian and ward business seriously?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to. You see, actually, I have a parent’s authority.”
She digested this in silence, then, clasping her hands round her knees, began rocking herself gently on the grass.
“That won’t get you far,” she remarked. “Parents have very little authority these days.”
“Oh, haven’t they?” asked James gently. “There are all sorts of things you can’t do without the consent of a parent or guardian, as long as you’re a minor. Get married, for instance, run up bills, sign contracts. A guardian can always put the screw on, you know.”
“Put the screw on? What do you mean?”
“Oh, make it difficult to go entirely your own way.”
“You couldn’t stop me seeing Pinto, or going to the Skylark, How could you?”
“I should find ways.” The gentleness was still there, but James’s eyes were suddenly grave. “I’ve only asked you so far, Sarah,” he said. “I hope you won’t make it necessary for me to do more than that.”
She jumped up, shaking the long red hair back from her face. “I shall go on exactly as before,” she announced, and smiled down at him pityingly. “Better give it up, J.B. You’ll do no good, and things were awfully nice as they were.”
She gave him no time to reply, but ran across the lawn back to the house, leaving him still sitting by the pool.
At dinner she seemed as usual except that she talked a great deal and two excited spots of colour stained her usually pale skin. James watched her thoughtfully and noted how attractive she looked in her slender green frock. Too fine and delicate to be the object of bar-room talk.
But when Pepper brought coffee out on to the terrace, she disappeared, and presently James heard the sound of her noisy little sports car backfiring down the drive.
“Sarah looked very pretty tonight,” Sophie was saying. “Green suits her so well, don’t you think, James? She used to hate her red hair as a child—once, I remember she tried to dye it black with Indian ink, and we had a terrible job getting it out again. But, of course, her hair is an asset now—or are you one of those men who detest red hair?”
“No, it’s very effective with the right skin,” he answered absently.
“Yes, isn’t it? And Sarah might so easily have been sandy and freckled. I wonder where she’s got to, by the way.”
“Silly young idiot! I know where she is,” said James curtl
y, “And I suppose I’d better go and fetch her back.”
“Oh, James, must you?” It became evident from Sophie’s crestfallen voice that she too knew where Sarah was.
James glanced at her half-irritably.
“The way of least resistance doesn’t always pay, you know,” he said. “The young don’t respect your for it. Not anymore.”
“I suppose not,” said Sophie meekly. “But I wish—”
James put down his empty coffee-cup and got to his feet. “The armistice is over, I’m afraid, Sophie,” he said humorously.
“Oh, dear!” she replied helplessly. “And everything was going so well.”
James got out the Bentley and drove leisurely down to the village. The Skylark was a pleasant old-fashioned inn, whitewashed and half-timbered, standing at the end of the village street. Behind it the downs rose steeply to the long ridge of Fallow Down, and already cast their shadow over Heronsgill. James parked the car beside Sarah’s little red sports model and went into the bar.
The low, raftered room was full of smoke and the fumes of beer. A game of darts was going on, and, on a settle in the corner, Sarah sat looking oddly out of place in her long green frock, her elbows on the table, her chin on her clasped hands, listening with that absorbed attention James was coming to know, to the man beside her. This, James supposed, was the elusive de Pinto. He was a spectacular sight with his rust-coloured corduroys, brilliant blue shirt, and fine, leonine head with its short golden beard. He was talking earnestly gesturing with well-shaped but dirty hands, and was clearly a little drunk.
The momentary silence which fell upon the room at James’s entrance reached Sarah, and she looked up and saw him. James thought she went a little white, and she said something quickly to de Pinto, who turned and stared with interest. James walked over to them.
“Hullo, Sarah,” he said. “Are you ready to come home?”
She bit her lip and began to blink.
“No, I’m not,” she retorted. “I’m talking to Pinto.”
“How do you do?” said James to the artist. “I’ve been wanting to meet you. What’ll you have before I take Sarah home?”