Green Girl

by Sara Seale

  But Harriet learnt very early to keep her enthusiasm to herself, for Samantha soon grew impatient at being asked to stop the car in order to investigate some fresh but probably commonplace feature of their trips into town. Sometimes they would lunch in the town; sometimes come back to Clooney for a late meal, when Samantha would linger on until Duff returned in the evening; sometimes, however, Samantha would just drop Harriet at the gates with a careless reminder of their next shopping date, and drive away.

  Duff, mindful of his assurance, conscientiously bestowed the nightly kiss upon her, but she did not take him up on his casual suggestion, and offer any demonstration of her own. Only to Uriah could she fell free to expend the love and gratitude which so often welled up in her, and she watched in fullness of hearts the gradual filling out of the thin, starved body, and the trust returning to the soft dark eyes.

  “Don’t get things out of proportion, will you?” Duff warned her once, a little troubled by such a wanton squandering of affection, but she had answered quite simply that the dog was the first living creature that had ever needed her, and therefore exceptional, and he said no more. He was glad that Harriet had found an outlet since he was becoming conscious that he himself failed her in this respect. Uriah pattered in the wake of the two Alsatians on his little short legs, his tail carried at a vulgar angle, and however subservient he might be to the human race, he appeared impervious to snubs from his own kind; indeed the reactions of the other dogs were so contrary to Duff’s expectations that he could even feel annoyed. Kurt, it was true, dissociated himself entirely with well-bred scorn not only from the interloper but from Harriet, who had not appeared to notice his cautious bids for affection of late, but Delsa, the fastidious one, with eyes only for her master, lost her head entirely. She invited advances shamelessly, became skittish and ridiculously coy at the smallest attention, and lay gazing at her raffish admirer with love in her eyes and no thought at all for her destined mate.

  “There’ll be trouble later on,” Duff observed, unamused by the antics that caused Harriet so much pride in her protégé. “If, when the time comes, you allow that unspeakable cur to mate up with Delsa, I’ll have him out of here in double-quick time, so I’m warning you.”

  “It would certainly be a love-match,” Harriet replied in a moment of rashness, gazing with fond eyes at Uriah’s rapt expression while the bitch licked him all over, and jumped guiltily when Duff retorted with sharp displeasure:

  “For heaven’s sake, Harriet, don’t carry your absurd romanticism to extremes! Love-match indeed! Animals are no more concerned with love when their natural appetites are aroused than the average male is.”

  He saw the innocent pleasure drain out of her face and, although cursing his own clumsiness, he blamed it on that irritating naiveness of hers which could make a rather silly remark sound deliberately provoking.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologised, “I didn’t mean to be quite so crude, but sometimes you display a simplicity that makes me want to shake you.”

  “Simplicity doesn’t necessarily mean half-wittedness,” she said gently. “You’ve made it clear before that love isn’t important when natural instincts just boil down to common desire. I quite understood.”

  “You’re an odd mixture,” he said, sounding puzzled and a little uncertain of himself. “One minute you’re an uninformed child and the next you come out with some curious snippets of wisdom.”

  “I’m not at all wise. I’ve no experience, you see,” she said, and he smiled at her with a touch of tenderness.

  “Well, that should make you very rewarding material for the right man,” he said, and she realised then how often he must forget the implications of their relationship.

  “But I’m already married,” she said, and saw him frown as if he had just remembered the fact.

  “Yes, well ... I wasn’t suggesting another Mr. Right might come courting you in the future,” he replied rather shortly, but she smiled, knowing he had forgotten for that moment. His remark had been just the kind of indulgent assurance a fond uncle might have given to a doubting niece.

  “And the future,” he added, seeing and unwillingly interpreting the smile, “may hold surprises in store for both of us.”

  With a complete change of mood, Duff asked, “Do you like Samantha?”

  “Yes, I do. She alarmed me a little at first because she’s so very elegant and assured, but she’s different when you get to know her, and she’s been very kind to me.”

  “H’m ... when Samantha’s being kind, she’s usually feeding her own ego, so don’t be lulled into a false conceit of your importance,” he said with dry ambiguity, and she remembered that odd impression of antagonism he had given her before.

  “Why don’t you like her?” she asked.

  “Have I said I didn’t?”

  “No, but—well, perhaps I just got the wrong impression.”

  “You’ve collected a whole heap of wrong impressions since you’ve come to Clooney, haven’t you, my child?” he retorted and she wondered whether he was warning her yet again not to concern herself with affairs of the past.

  Samantha, on the other hand, showed no such disinclination to satisfy a natural curiosity when next they met.

  “I wondered when you’d get around to asking about Kitty,” she said, a ripple of amusement warming her husky voice to a pleasant promise of feminine gossip. “What exactly has Duff told you?”

  “Nothing, except to keep my nose out of what doesn’t concern me,” Harriet said, feeling suddenly injured, and Samantha laughed.

  “Duff would!” she said. “Wait a moment, honey, while I order another round of drinks, then we’ll really let down our back hair.”

  They were sitting in a corner of the saloon bar of the Knockferry Arms, drinking sherry and hungrily consuming sandwiches, having driven into the town to gratify Harriet’s desire to taste again the colourful novelty of market day.

  “I’d thought,” Harriet said, when the drinks had been brought to their table, “that Duff couldn’t bear to talk of his first wife, perhaps. Agnes says—”

  —“that his heart’s buried in the grave—I know! It’s a conventional tag servants like to tack on to a widower, and Duff certainly played up to popular opinion, shutting up the Castle and taking off into the blue.”

  “But surely that only shows—”

  “It shows remorse, perhaps, because, having got his wife with child, thinking that would settle her, it killed her, but not love. He realised his mistake too late. He should have married me, you see.”

  Samantha was watching Harriet with bright anticipation, but if she had hoped to jolt her into embarrassment or dismay, she was to be disappointed. To Harriet, the disclosure was neither startling nor upsetting, but only seemed to explain that odd reserve in Duff which she had taken for dislike.

  “You mean he was engaged to you first?” she asked.

  “Oh, no—I just misjudged my moment,” she replied. “I was playing hard to get, you see, and hadn’t allowed for pretty Kitty, or Kitty’s matchmaking parents—my own uncle and aunt, incidentally.”

  “So?”

  “So—Duff came down for the Horse Show Week that year and there were the usual junketings, with Duff and Kitty paired off for every occasion. I, being young and foolish and much too sure of myself, went off on a visit elsewhere to keep Duff guessing, and Kitty got him.”

  “But was he in love with you?” Harriet asked, unable to understand how such a situation could come about unless as the result of a lovers’ quarrel.

  Samantha’s smile was slow and secretive.

  “Not then,” she said. “He wasn’t in love with Kitty, either—just flattered by her rather popeyed admiration, I suppose, and in a mood for marriage. Her parents pushed it for all they were worth, of course, rather fancying the idea of a castle, and Kitty just did as she was told; a whirlwind courtship and then the reckoning. Duff sticks to the pattern, doesn’t he, darling? Let’s hope you, too, won’t live to repen
t at leisure.”

  “Was she like you—your cousin, I mean?” Harriet asked to avoid a direct comment, and Samantha shrugged.

  “Oh, she was pretty enough in a conventional chocolate-box fashion, and there was a vague family resemblance, I suppose. She didn’t really want Duff—she wanted Clooney, and she wanted to score off me. We used to come up here and stay with Aunt Alice when we first left school, and Kitty would moon about the Castle and picture herself as a sort of romantic Lady Bountiful handing out largesse to the grateful tenants. It didn’t work out like that at all, of course. The tenants weren’t grateful for half-baked advice on the running of their homes, and Kitty soon got bored with her ivory tower and made tracks for Dublin and a bit of gaiety. She’d always been the spoilt child, and when Duff couldn’t or wouldn’t show her the good times she expected, her parents took against him and made a lot of mischief. They never forgave him for Kitty’s death, and have done their best to wean the child away—not difficult when she makes out her father neglects her.”

  “Does she?”

  “Well, what do you think? Nonie’s no worse than any other child who’s cute enough to seize an opening for self-dramatisation, I suppose, but personally, I can’t stand the brat—what I remember of her. Have you made your number yet as the new stepmama?”

  “No. Duff thought it best to wait till she comes home for the holidays.”

  “It’s a wise man that knows his own child, to reverse an old proverb. I wish you joy, honey!”

  Harriet finished her sherry and absently bit into another sandwich. She was not, as yet, particularly disturbed by the prospect of having to deal with an awkward little girl, but Samantha’s own admissions seemed oddly inconclusive.

  “Why didn’t Duff marry you when he was free?” she asked suddenly.

  “For the simple reason that I’d got myself wed in the meantime,” she said. “Bad timing again, you see. I married on the rebound as they say in the novels, and serve me right for not being content with what I had. After all, half a loaf is better than no bread at all, or wouldn’t you agree?” Harriet made no answer, her thoughts following a line she did not care for. Was Samantha implying that she and Duff had been having an affair while Kitty waited for her baby?

  “I see you don’t,” Samantha observed with amusement.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Agree that half a loaf is better than no bread. An adolescent viewpoint, honey, and one I’d advise you to revise for your future comfort.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you still want Duff?” Harriet, asked, and Samantha’s eyes were amused.

  “Oh, come now, darling, I’m hardly as crude as that, though you must admit that in the event of you being right, I’m at least honest and playing fair. You’re not in love with Duff or he with you.”

  “No.”

  “How refreshingly candid—not that it doesn’t stick out a mile with both of you that your marriage was one of convenience, as they say. As to those eight years which you dismiss so lightly, they were not quite barren, you know. Duff and I met up again by chance in the South of France where I was spending my elderly husband’s dollars and having myself a ball at his expense, and Duff was playing the tables in every available casino with the usual Lonnegan luck.”

  “Winning?”

  “No, losing, of course. Duff’s luck hasn’t lived up to the Castle’s nickname in many respects, has it? However, it turned then just for a time. He’d run through most of his English money, so I paid his losses—as a temporary loan, of course—and we had a very satisfactory affair which did us both a power of good and released some of those dark inhibitions which had bothered him since Kitty’s death.” Drinking hard, gambling high and wenching hard, too, if he’s anything like his grandsire ... Jimsy had said, she remembered.

  “And then?” she prompted, gripped by a story which, for the moment, had little personal significance for her.

  “And then, my surprisingly sensible child, I went back to the States and got me a divorce and some nice fat alimony, and was free again, which was another mistake—or perhaps it was just Lonnegan’s Luck pursuing me.”

  “I can’t see—”

  “No, neither could I at the time, but Duff, it appears, like many of his race, has a puritanical streak in him. He doesn’t accept divorce, so in his eyes, you see, I wasn’t free at all—ironical that I should find that out when I’d gone to all that trouble, and a little hard when you think of all those dollars which helped out at the time, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You mean the gambling losses? But surely—”

  “Oh, a loan, of course, which he repaid, but when he got home, he found things here in a pretty poor state, and was forced to borrow again. I’d never intended the money to be anything but a gift, of course, thinking I’d be here to profit by my investment, so to speak, and when poor old Silas K. popped off so conveniently, leaving me all his lolly in spite of the way I’d treated him, I thought it was in the bag, but that’s life for you. I could have bought up Clooney and put it all to rights, but—proud as the devil is your unpredictable husband, Harriet, and don’t ever think you can talk him into any sort of compromise with his rigid notions. He’ll stand by his marriage vows however badly things may turn out, and it will be you who must compromise.”

  “What are you really trying to tell me?” Harriet asked, and Samantha gave one of her graceful little shrugs of evasion.

  “I should have thought it was plain. Everything boils down to compromise in the end, and there’s no need for you and me to tread on each other’s toes—I don’t believe you’ve understood a word I’ve been saying! Shall we have another drink?”

  Harriet shook her head, only anxious now to get out in the fresh air and readjust her ideas. She understood very well what Samantha had implied, just as she now understood Duff’s reasons for a hasty marriage.

  Samantha watched her, wondering whether anything she had been saying had sunk in, for the girl was clearly as dumb as they come and not even emotionally disturbed, which seemed odd.

  “What made you marry him?” she asked curiously, and Harriet was silent, tracing idle patterns with her fingertip in a small puddle of sherry which had been slopped over on to the table.

  A man who had been leaning on the counter with his back to her turned suddenly, and she recognised Duff’s friend who had given her away and been kind to her at the luncheon which had followed. He came over to their table, carrying a mug of beer, and smiled down at her with pleasure.

  “How nice to see you again, Mrs. Lonnegan,” he said pleasantly. “I’m afraid we haven’t got around to that promised dinner date, but my wife’s been very busy. I don’t suppose you’ve wanted to be bothered with invitations yet awhile, anyway.”

  His eyes twinkled with kindly teasing as he spoke, and she smiled back at him politely. She frequently found it difficult to remember on such occasions that strangers would naturally assume her marriage to be a normal one.

  “Duff never goes out very much in the evenings,” she said, trying to sound less ignorant of her husband’s tastes and habits than she felt, and saw Samantha’s mouth turn down at the corners in a little droop of commiseration.

  “Yes, Raff, do get him to come out of his shell,” she said, widening her eyes at them. “Eight years is too long for needless regrets, don’t you think? I’ve been trying to fill in the picture a little for Harriet, for things can be difficult for the second wife until she knows what she’s up against, don’t you agree?”

  Michael O’Rafferty observed her with a thoughtless deliberation which carried a certain coolness, but he answered courteously enough:

  “Mrs. Lonnegan is up against nothing more serious than the gradual adjustment of any young wife to the ways and habits of an older man. You’ll make Duff young again, my dear, as my wife did for me. Are you staying long, Samantha?”

  “Long enough,” Samantha replied, and Harriet thought an odd little flicker of understanding passed between them, and when Raff
next spoke the slight coolness of his regard was in his voice.

  “And Miss Docherty? Is she well? We don’t often see her these days unless at a race meeting.”

  “My Aunt Alice is as tough as one of her own elderly pensioners put out to grass and a long old age of contemplation. How formal and polite you’ve become, dear Raff, since you married your Judy,” Samantha replied on a slightly waspish note. “Come on, Harriet, it’s time we got out of this mob and made tracks for home. Be seeing you, Raff.”

  They were free of the crowds and the market traffic now, and Samantha took the north road back to Clooney in deference, she said, to the long-suffering springs of her car. She did not comment for a time, then observed suddenly:

  “Don’t let Duff walk all over you, darling. He will, you know, if you give him half a chance.”

  “Another warning?” asked Harriet, surprised that after such a disturbing morning she should feel no animosity for Samantha.

  “Never heed the gipsy’s warning unless you’ve crossed her palm with silver,” said Samantha frivolously. “Don’t, by the same token, take all my nonsense too seriously.”

  “But what you told me was true, wasn’t it?” she asked, sounding like a grave child again, and Samantha replied with the impatience she could not quite control:

  “True on most counts, but I don’t advise you to try verifying the facts with Duff.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of embarrassing him with knowledge of his private affairs. What’s happened in the past is no concern of mine, as he frequently tells me,” Harriet replied with dignity.

  As November dipped into December with a change in the weather which proclaimed that winter had come to stay, Harriet’s thoughts turned again to Christmas.

  Despite Duff’s warning that old customs had made little difference to Clooney in the years of his solitude, she was resolved that this year the festival should not pass unnoticed, for there would be a child in the house. The thought of Nonie, that unknown little girl who was now her stepdaughter, sometimes gave Harriet an uneasy moment, for the child was so seldom discussed that it was often difficult to remember that Duff had a daughter.