The Silver Sty

by Sara Seale

  “Okay!” said Sarah, looking at her with sudden suspicion. She watched James shut himself into his study, made sure that Clare really went upstairs, then settled herself with a book in the library, leaving the door wide open. But she didn’t read. She curled up on the sofa, lit a forbidden cigarette, and stared contentedly into the fire.

  So far, so good. Between them, she and Sophie had chaperoned the G.I. with success. The Rosenheim female was plainly getting restive, and once or twice Sarah had been aware of her guardian’s curious and slightly puzzled regard. But so far James hadn’t shown any marked desire to be alone with Clare; in fact, it was very hard to guess how he was reacting to the visit. That worried Sarah. James had once said he had no I regrets, but he wouldn’t have invited Clare down unless he had wanted her.

  She listened, suddenly intent. Was that the creaky stair halfway up the first flight?

  “Ah-ha!” said Sarah, and flung herself across the room to the open library door. Clare stood in the hall, her hand on the handle of James’s study door.

  “Can’t you rest? Can I get you anything?” Sarah asked innocently.

  Clare, looking as guilty as if she had been caught stealing, smiled with a hint of ferocity.

  “I only came down for a moment to ask Jim something.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t disturb him,” Sarah said. “J.B.’s really awfully terse when he’s writing letters. I wouldn’t dare go in.”

  “My dear child!” said Clare impatiently, “I don’t doubt he finds your constant popping in and out disturbing, but you forget, Jim and I are old friends—very old friends.”

  “Oh, I know all about that,” said Sarah comfortably. “But he still doesn’t like people interrupting his flow of thought. I’ll tell you something in confidence. He’s probably asleep. He’s getting on, you know.”

  “What utter nonsense!” said Clare, uncertain whether to laugh or be annoyed at this flagrant attempt to keep her from James. “Jim may seem old to a child like you, but he’s in the prime of life. I’m quite sure he isn’t asleep.”

  ““Oh, yes, he is.” Sarah nodded and looked mysterious. “Or worse. He may be a little.—a little—well, you know, of course whisky is a stimulant, we know, but—” She shook her head sadly.

  Clare’s outstretched hand fell to her side and she turned a shocked face to Sarah.

  “Oh, my dear, surely,” she exclaimed, “not Jim!”

  “I’m afraid so,” Sarah sighed, then added quickly: “Of course, you know, one wouldn’t say he drank—that would be unkind. But men who’ve been in hot countries—well, you know what it is—they lose their hair among other things. J.B. hasn’t lost his hair, but—sad, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, my dear child, it’s tragic. I’d no idea—Poor Jim! I’m afraid I’m partly to blame. I treated him badly, you know, Sarah. Tell me more about him, my dear. We’ll go into the library and have a cosy chat.” Clare put an arm round Sarah’s shoulders and walked her away from the study.

  Sarah nearly shouted. Golly! The poor sop had swallowed it, hook, line and sinker! The woman must be a fool!

  The study door opened. “What’s all the chatter about? I thought you two were supposed to be resting.”

  Clare jumped, and Sarah ran to James and put her arms round him.

  “Did we disturb you?” she said. “Darling J.B., are you all right?”

  He looked down at her suspiciously.

  “Of course I’m all right. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. Mrs. Rosenheim and I are going into the library for a cosy chat. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “What on earth are you two up to?” demanded James irritably. “Sarah, how many cigarettes have you had since lunch?”

  “Only two, darling.”

  “Weil, let that be the last till after tea.” He took her half smoked cigarette from her and threw it into the grate behind him. “Please see that she doesn’t smoke any more, Clare. I’ll be with you as soon as I’ve finished my letters.” He shut the door again, and Sarah shrugged and said:

  “You see? It was only a little, but it makes him irritable at once.”

  “Poor Jim!” murmured Clare, then her eyes rested compassionately upon Sarah. “This is not very good for you, my dear. We must put our heads together and see what can be done about it. Perhaps if I spoke to him, very tactfully, of course—”

  “Oh, don’t do that,” cried Sarah in alarm. “You see—” she pushed Clare firmly towards the library—“we just don’t take any notice. It’s better that way. Now, what about a game of ping-pong?”

  “No, my dear,” said Clare with decision. “I want to talk to you—before Jim joins us.”

  Sarah sighed, and followed her reluctantly into the library.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “You know”—Clare’s gentle voice was dreamy—“we women have a great deal to answer for. We don’t always realise how much we influence a man’s life.”

  Sarah looked alarmed. The cosy chat was developing along the wrong lines.

  “I’ve a confession to make to you, Sarah,” Clare went on. “Jim once loved me very much. I wasn’t big enough, brave enough then to stand up to life. I let him go, and I’ve always regretted it. Drink—you see how responsible I am, Sarah. A man of Jim’s temperament only loves once. He loved me and I failed him, but you have opened my eyes. I think—I think I can save him.”

  “How?” asked Sarah, feeling distinctly uneasy.

  “By coming back to him,” said Clare simply. “By awakening the love which I don’t think is dead, by making up for all those bitter years. You and I between us, Sarah, can change his life—you, the young girl to whom he must set an example, and I—the woman who is ready now to walk by his side through life.”

  You bet, thought Sarah, with Long John’s money to make it cushy! For a moment she felt quite sick. Her invention of the spur of the moment was reacting like a boomerang. She might have known it! Clare would be talking in a minute about the love of a good woman.

  “Oh, I don’t think you’ll change J.B. now,” she said very quickly. “You didn’t make him take to drink, you know. That was some other woman—in Mexico, I think. You know—all castanets, and flashing eyes and vendettas and things. He had a terrible crush on her.”

  Clare looked at her kindly.

  “My dear, of course there were other women,” she said regretfully. “That is the natural reaction, it means nothing. I drove him to it. But when he understands that I’m willing—” She broke off and looked more closely at Sarah. “But surely, my dear, Jim doesn’t discuss his affaires with a child like you!”

  “He wasn’t himself at the time,” said Sarah hastily. “Willing to do what, Mrs. Rosenheim?” She knew, but she had to hear it said.

  “I think you might call me Clare, Willing to marry him, of course, dear.”

  Sarah’s heart began to thump uncomfortably.

  “Has he asked you?” she demanded bluntly.

  Clare sighed.

  “He asked me long ago—four years ago,” she said.

  Sarah pushed back her hair from her hot face.

  “Oh, but so much has happened since then,” she said. “You see, I came along in the meantime, and we can’t both marry him, can we?”

  “What on earth do you mean, you funny child?”

  “Well, he’s going to marry me when I am a little older. It was all arranged ages ago. Didn’t he tell you?”

  Clare sat up very straight in her chair.

  “He’s going to marry you—a mere child? Oh, but, Sarah, that’s impossible. Why, he’s years older than you are.”

  “It was all in the will,” said Sarah airily. “One of these arranged marriages, you know. I don’t mind. I like J.B. He’ll look after me.”

  “But you’re not in love with him,” said Clare quickly. “You’re too young to be in love with anyone. Jim couldn’t do such a thing.”

  “He thinks it’s best,” said Sarah. “Besides, he’s very fond of me, you know.”

&nb
sp; Against all reason, Clare believed her. Try as she might, she could not deny the tenderness in James’s eyes, the concern he obviously felt for the child. It would be like Jim, she thought, to make a thorough job of his responsibility and marry the girl.

  “You’ve given me a shock, Sarah,” she said rather helplessly. “I can’t help thinking—my dear, you’re too young to go into this thing blindly. A man so much older, a man who has had his one great love. Oh, my dear, I do beg you to think well before you take such a step.”

  “I will,” said Sarah cheerfully. “I shall wait another year, anyway. J.B. thought when I was nineteen, you know. But don’t mention it to him, he doesn’t want it known outside, yet.”

  James joined them at that moment and she jumped guiltily, but had the presence of mind to stretch out a hand to him and say:

  “Hullo, darling, finished at last?”

  He dropped a kiss on the top of her head in passing, watched closely by Clare, and replied:

  “Hullo, monkey! You both look very serious.”

  “We’ve been having our cosy chat,” said Sarah, “haven’t we, Clare?”

  “Yes,” said Clare, looking a little dazed. “I think I’ll go up and tidy before tea.”

  “Are you up to something?” asked James suspiciously as the door closed behind her.

  “Up to something? What do you mean, J.B.?”

  James regarded her with thought,

  “You’ve been behaving very oddly all the week-end,” he remarked. “This sudden desire for my company—all this affection—”

  “But I feel affectionate.”

  “Well, don’t overdo it, someone might misunderstand,” he said cryptically.

  Sarah was very talkative through tea. There was an unusual amount of colour in her cheeks and James watched her curiously. Clare in her turn watched them both. Since her talk with Sarah, James’s interest in the girl seemed more apparent than ever. She couldn’t believe that he could be honestly in love with such hoydenish immaturity, but he was fond of the child, that was plain, and he wouldn’t be the first man of his age to marry a girl nearly young enough to be his daughter.

  Clare sighed. She had hoped so much from this week-end. Izzy had encouraged her expensive tastes while he was alive, only to throw her back to where she had come from when he died. But Izzy had had an unsuspected sardonic sense of humour. At seventy he had respected no woman, and he had been quite aware that Clare had married him for his money. “A woman as beautiful as you are, my dear, and with such a good business sense, will quickly marry again,” he had told her once. Well, that had been her mistake. Once married to Izzy, she had allowed him to see that she found him repulsive. It was her second mistake. Her first had been when she had tried to patch things up with James on the death of his uncle. She should have waited. But she couldn’t afford to wait. She couldn’t afford to wait now, and there was Sarah, a little upstart whose father was no better than a criminal, waiting to snatch security from her. She looked at Sarah and hated her.

  She became aware that James was regarding her thoughtfully, and looked quickly into the fire.

  “I’m afraid it’s been a dull week-end for you, Clare,” he said suddenly. “We ought to have asked some people in to meet you, but since Sarah hasn’t been well we’ve rather got out of the way of entertaining, I’m afraid.”

  “But, my dear Jim,” she protested with a smile, “this is just what I wanted. Peace and quiet after the racket of London, and time to reminisce. It’s delightful here, even though I do sometimes wonder why you bother to keep this place.”

  “It’s an awful house, isn’t it?” Sarah interposed cheerfully. “But we like it, don’t we, J.B.?” She cast him a smug glance.

  “I’m afraid I’ve been too lazy to look for anything else,” James admitted. “After all, it’s comfortable, and the country is pleasant.”

  “Later on,” said Clare delicately, glancing at Sarah, “perhaps you may want something different.”

  “Perhaps,” he said absently, “if Sarah ups and leaves me suddenly.”

  “But why should she?” Clare asked sharply.

  “J.B., you know I’m going to be an old man’s darling,” broke in Sarah hurriedly.

  He grinned at her.

  “What old man?” he said.

  She came and perched on the arm of his chair.

  “Why you, my poppet,” she said, and wound an arm round his neck.

  His grin widened. Sarah doing the Dutiful Ward act was a charming if slightly humorous spectacle. He hoped Clare was duly impressed.

  “Well, if you’re referring to me, be accurate,” he retorted. “I’m not in my dotage yet!” He slipped a hand through her wide green belt and gave it a friendly tug.

  Clare knew a sudden bleakness of spirit. Sarah sitting there so carelessly with her arm thrown across James’s shoulders seemed like some cruel challenge to her own beauty. She wasn’t beautiful, this red-headed child with the elfin face and tilted green eyes. Her thick hair was tousled and her nose needed powdering, but she had youth; youth and a vitality that was almost insulting. Clare felt suddenly old. Dimly she perceived in the girl that warmth of spirit which might appeal to James, to any man, and knew that her own beauty was not enough. Sarah and Sarah’s kind would always threaten her.

  She turned abruptly.

  “I think I’ll go up and dress for dinner,” she said, and moved slowly across the room as James got up to open the door for her.

  He turned back into the room and saw Sarah standing on the hearth, her hands behind her back, something a little defiant in her whole attitude.

  “I’m afraid you don’t like her, do you, Sarah?” he said.

  She shook back her bright mane.

  “Who? Your girlfriend? Not my type,” she replied carelessly. “She’s like Eleanor in The Fruits of Passion. But she’s the goods, I give you that. I don’t wonder you fell for her looks. J.B.”

  He took her small, resentful face between his hands and regarded it with gentleness.

  “That’s what I did, Sarah,” he said. “Fell for her looks—and something else I thought was there. Do you mind?”

  “Mind? She looked suddenly bewildered. “Why should I mind? Unless—J.B., you haven’t—you don’t—” She broke off, her eyes frightened, and he kissed her on her tip-tilted nose.

  “Silly child, aren’t you?” was all he said. “Run along and get ready for dinner.”

  Sarah came down for dinner with a sense of relief that the week-end was nearly over. There was now only the evening to be got through, and if Sophie did her stuff, the opportunities for a last minute tête-à-tête would be few. Clare was leaving early after breakfast the following morning and Sarah didn’t think she would come back.

  But Sophie failed. She ate scarcely anything at dinner, and when she had drunk her coffee she announced that she was going to bed.

  “I’m very sorry,” she said, looking apologetically at Sarah. “I think I must be starting a cold. My head’s rather bad and I really think it would be best.”

  James and Clare expressed concern and urged her to go up at once, but Sarah looked at her reproachfully.

  “Is it very bad?” she asked hopefully.

  “Well—” Sophie hesitated. “I do feel very stuffy and stupid, Sarah, I think, if nobody minds—”

  “Of course, darling. Tell them to bring you up a hot drink,” said Sarah at once. Sophie really did look rotten, one couldn’t expect her to sit up.

  But after she had gone, the evening seemed to hang fire. Clare was thoughtful and silent, and try as she would, Sarah couldn’t get the conversation going. At half-past nine Pepper brought in the drinks; whisky for James, and hot milk for Sarah. She noted with satisfaction Clare’s watchful expression as James squirted soda into his glass, and took as long as she could over drinking her milk. She knew that at ten o’clock James would send her to bed, and her fertile brain could think of no excuse for not leaving them together.

  Already James was
looking at the clock and saying:

  “Hurry up with your milk, Sarah. You know it’s nearly bedtime for you.”

  Sarah, who had encountered a piece of skin, was making faces.

  “I don’t need to go so early now, J.B.,” she said quickly. “I’ve quite got over that silly business.”

  “Thanks to my bullying,” retorted James. “But I think we’ll go on with our routine a little longer, so hurry up.”

  “I’d like some more milk,” said Sarah faintly.

  He looked at her suspiciously,

  “I thought you loathed it.”

  “I’ve come to like it,” she said firmly. “Besides, I let this get cold.”

  “Very well,” said James, repressing a smile. “Ring for Pepper.”

  Sarah eyed the fresh glass of hot milk with misgiving, and wondered if she could drink it without feeling sick. But James was watching her, and she shut her eyes and took a deep gulp, “It’s too hot,” she said, and put the glass down by the fire. She managed to make the milk last until a quarter past ten, when James rose and pulled her out of her chair.

  “Run along now, unless you want a third glass of milk,” he said with a twinkle.

  But that was too much, even for Sarah.

  “Golly, no!” she exclaimed, and shuddered. “J.B. let me stay up a little longer. I don’t feel a bit tired, and it’s cosy here.”

  James shook his head.

  “Nothing doing, young woman. Be off with you.”

  “Please—just this once. I’ll go to bed at nine o’clock tomorrow, if you like.”

  “But I don’t like. Run along. It’s nearly half-past ten.”

  Sarah knew when she was beaten. There was something in the G.I.’s expression that told her he knew precisely why she was so reluctant.

  “All right,” she said. “On one condition—that you come up and say good night to me.”

  “Really, Sarah, you’re being childish,” he said. “You know I perfectly well I never come up and say good night to you.”

  “Well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” she retorted. “It’s a guardianly gesture, and, after all, I am an invalid.”