Beloved Rake

by Anne Hampson

  ‘I like this little cove,’ she sighed as they sat down on the grass. ‘It’s exciting seeing new places.’

  He turned his head to look at her, watching her lovely face in profile.

  ‘I shall have to arrange for you to drive the car,’ he said suddenly. ‘Then you can get about on your own if you wish.’

  Her eyes clouded as she turned her head.

  ‘You mean—?’

  ‘No, my dear, I don’t! I shall continue to take you about, but it would be nice if you could drive the car.’

  She smiled then, happily.

  ‘It’ll be exciting to drive—but I shall be scared,’ she added. ‘Will you be teaching me?’

  A small, rueful hesitation and then,

  ‘It will probably be advisable to have someone else teach you. I’ll ring up a motoring school tomorrow and make the necessary arrangements.’

  ‘You think you’d become impatient with me?’

  ‘I don’t think, I’m sure. And impatient is a mild word. No, Serra, I’m fully aware of the lengths to which my temper will stretch.’

  He was in a communicative and approachable mood and Serra felt a sudden surge of happiness. She had told Jenny that she would like to have her husband’s company; it had been an automatic statement, but now Serra knew that behind it there had been an odd sense of yearning.

  ‘Do you feel like walking?’ Dirk asked after a while.

  ‘Yes, I love walking.’

  ‘Then we’ll have a saunter through the woods to East Lulworth.’ Here the coast was wild and rough and the waves rolled and leapt with white-foamed fury.

  Later, they had tea at a country inn. The atmosphere was medieval, with a large open fireplace at one end of the room and heavy oaken beams crossing the low plastered ceiling.

  That evening Dirk’s mother came to dine with them; she had of course learned everything from Jenny, and she seemed amused by the whole thing. It would take a great deal to shock Mrs. Morgan, Serra concluded, and decided to tell her she had intended calling on her for help.

  ‘I thought you would know what to do with the—the criminal,’ she ended with a smile at her mother-in-law.

  Both Dirk and his mother laughed.

  ‘I assure you I’m not in the habit of dealing with criminals, Serra,’ said Mrs. Morgan, her eyes alight with amusement.

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ protested Serra. ‘I meant that you would have some suggestions. You see, I didn’t want Dirk to know what I’d done.’

  ‘That’s understandable. Tell me, what happened when Dirk did come? You didn’t describe the scene to Jenny, and I would certainly like to hear about it.’ Lifting her eyes, Serra looked at Dirk. He was amused, and so very different from the scowling husband of the other evening that she could scarcely believe he was the same man. A little surge of pride engulfed her; he was so good-looking, and he had a softened expression which added enormously to his attractiveness as a man.

  ‘Charles had come into my bedroom—Jenny told you that?’ And when Mrs. Morgan nodded, ‘Well, Dirk burst in and thought I was—I mean, Charles was—’ She tailed off, going red. Mrs. Morgan’s shoulders shook, while Dirk was subjecting his wife to a look of mild warning, which she failed to notice because she turned her head as Mrs. Morgan spoke.

  ‘How very droll! Just as if Charles would. I’m surprised at you, Dirk. Fancy suspecting your best friend!’

  ‘Mother,’ commented Dirk with some asperity, ‘that escapade of Serra’s was no joking matter! You do realize that the family silver could have been stolen?’

  With amazing unconcern Mrs. Morgan nodded. ‘Perhaps it would have taught you a lesson, Dirk. As Jenny says, you’re married and you can’t leave your wife to her own devices all the time. Serra must have been very lonely indeed to think of advertising for relatives like that.’ She smiled at her daughter-in-law. ‘Tell me some more; I find the whole thing most entertaining.’

  Serra looked uncertainly at her, and even more uncertainly at Dirk. He was busy with his steak and did not now appear to mind how the conversation went.

  ‘Charles told Dirk why he had come up the fire-escape—’

  ‘He came up the fire-escape? How melodramatic!’

  Serra nodded.

  ‘That’s what Charles said, but I was trying to keep Preston out of it.’

  ‘Which would be quite impossible. Preston guards this house as if it were his own. To him, everyone is guilty until he is proved innocent. Go on, my dear, we appear to be digressing.’

  ‘There isn’t very much else to tell. Charles explained about my advertisement, and then Dirk told us that Roderick had gone.’

  ‘A rather tame ending,’ mused Dirk’s mother. ‘But for the best, probably.’

  ‘Indeed it was for the best. I had a horrid feeling that the police would come and it would all get into the newspapers.’

  Dirk glanced up.

  ‘You would have been in trouble then.’ His brown eyes held a glint that caused Serra to avert her head. ‘It would have been more than a box on the ears.’

  Mrs. Morgan’s eyes widened.

  ‘What did you say?’ she demanded.

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Jenny said he didn’t mean it when he said he’d box my ears,’ Serra hurriedly told her mother-in-law, who was looking decidedly disapproving.

  ‘You come and tell me if he lays a finger on you,’ said Mrs. Morgan, and Dirk grimaced.

  ‘You appear to have champions both in my mother and my sister,’ he laughed, his eyes on Serra, who was looking at those little fan-like lines at the corners of his eyes and feeling a strange stirring of some emotion hitherto unknown to her.

  ‘I’m very lucky,’ she returned. ‘I shan’t get into any more trouble now.’

  ‘I sincerely hope you won’t, my dear,’ from Mrs. Morgan, and then, ‘What was it about Dirk that made you decide to marry him? There must have been some small attraction other than the prospect of freedom.’

  ‘It was my voice,’ commented Dirk, rather lazily. ‘She decided she could live with it.’

  Serra laughed at her mother-in-law’s expression and proceeded to explain about Phivos’s voice, which she had heard from the room adjoining that in which the negotiations for her marriage were going on.

  ‘I must agree a voice can be most irritating. As you say, Dirk has a most attractive voice—except of course when he’s cross.’

  Jenny came over later, having been out all day, shopping in Bournemouth, and the evening passed most pleasantly in talking by the fire in the drawing-room. When at last Jenny and her mother said good night and Serra and Dirk were left alone he stood by the fire, one hand spread along the mantelpiece, and looked at her long and hard.

  ‘You’re a nice little thing,’ he declared at length, and she glanced swiftly at him, her eyes opening in surprise.

  ‘Thank you,’ she returned glowingly. ‘I think that means that you’re telling me you haven’t minded at all being with me today.’

  He smiled, and stifled a yawn.

  ‘It’s been a most pleasant day,’ he said and, a little later when Serra got up from the chair on which she had been sitting, and said good night, Dirk, who had also risen, took her chin in his hand and, regarding her piquant little face for a long moment, he bent his head and kissed her.

  ‘Good night, Serra. Sleep well.’

  ‘Good night,’ she said again, shining up at him, a smile quivering on her lips. ‘And thank you ... for today.’

  She regarded herself proudly through the mirror. Clad in jodhpurs and a white polo-necked sweater, she looked the elegant young lady, with her finely-contoured classical features touched with peach, and her dark hair, long and straight, falling on to her shoulders.

  It was three weeks since Jenny had begun teaching her to ride and as Serra was a confident, apt pupil it was not long before she had almost as much poise and confidence as her sister-in-law. They rode each morning in the park surrounding the Grange, and when it was Dirk�
��s turn to be with Serra she would then ride with him. He praised her on several occasions, bringing rosy blushes to her cheeks, blushes which sometimes brought a smile of amusement to his lips but just as often caused him to frown and become lost in thought, during which he would glance sideways at her and sometimes frown more heavily than ever.

  She ran downstairs and Dirk was waiting for her in the hall. His eyes moved over her, slowly and all-embracingly; she felt the colour rise to mantle her cheeks and inclined her head.

  ‘Come,’ said Dirk abruptly. ‘It looks very much like rain. Let’s hope we can get half an hour in before it does.’

  The great park was characterized by extensive areas of undulating grassland interspersed with ornamental shrubberies, stately yew hedges with arched entrances, and shady arbours leading off gravel paths which themselves often led on to ornamental pools filled with waterlilies and other aquatic vegetation.

  Cantering beside Dirk Serra sent him sidelong glances whenever she found an opportunity of doing so without his knowledge. His face in profile was hard and finely-chiselled, with a thrusting chin and firm square jaw. There was strength in his face, she thought, and this did not seem to line up with his abandoned way of life. He had this huge estate and many surrounding villages as well. He had work and enough if he required it, so there was no need to seek refuge from boredom in wine and women, as he appeared to do. A fortnight ago he had been on a friend’s yacht; it was a gay party, he had told Serra, with lots of beautiful girls. Serra had felt a strange unfamiliar pang as she imagined his being with other girls, making love to them, as of course he would be doing, the same as all his men friends on board the yacht. To Serra it was a strange way to live, and it would appear that there was to be no immediate alteration, for Dirk was off again this week-end on the same yacht, with the same crowd. What a lot of people seemed to have nothing to do but enjoy themselves, she thought, wishing her husband would give it all up and look after his lands and not have a bailiff doing everything as was the case at present.

  The clouds were low over the chalk downlands, but the rain kept off and on nearing a pool with a fountain rising from the centre Dirk dismounted. He came to Serra as she jumped to the ground and caught her in his arms. She felt his strength and the warmth of his hands as they slid down to enclose her wrists. In this attitude he stood, looking at her, an odd expression on his face.

  ‘Did anyone ever tell you you were beautiful?’ he asked, his eyes kindling as she blushed.

  ‘No. In Greece they don’t have the chance to flatter you.’

  ‘Of course. You never have a period of courtship, do you?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I used to imagine I’d have one,’ she confessed on a sudden note of shyness. ‘That was when Mother was alive. She said I should choose my own husband when I was old enough. She said I would meet someone who would fall in love with me, not someone who just looks at you and likes you as they do in Greece. She used to say that no matter how much Father argued she meant to have her own way over my marriage.’ A wistful note crept into her voice; it was a moment of profound quiet, with Dirk still standing close, and holding her wrists in his strong slender hands.

  ‘And you’ve missed all that.’ His tones were gentle and as she looked into his softened face she said impulsively, but earnestly for all that,

  ‘I wouldn’t have it any different, Dirk. I’d rather be married to you than to anyone else.’

  He gave a little start.

  ‘You don’t mind that there’ll never be any love in your life?—and no children?’

  Silence again. She glanced down to his hands—and all at once she felt tears in her eyes.

  ‘Do you know, I never thought about children.’ She turned her head, and gazed wordlessly at the fountain for a long moment. ‘I like children very much. We had a lot in the family—with the cousins and aunts and uncles always having babies.’

  ‘Uncles?’ But somehow there was no amusement in his voice as the word was uttered.

  ‘You know what I mean.’ She produced a smile, but with difficulty. ‘No, I never thought about children.’

  ‘You’d like to have some?’

  ‘Yes.’ She gave a long trembling sigh and then she repeated what she had already said.

  ‘I’d rather be married to you than anyone else, though.’

  He released her hand, a slight frown creasing his brow.

  ‘I wonder if I’ve been fair to you,’ he murmured, almost to himself. ‘It is natural for a woman to have children. And had you been married to Phivos you’d have had several, I expect.’

  ‘I didn’t want Phivos, not with a voice like that. No, it doesn’t matter about the children—’ She broke off, her face brightening as a thought occurred to her. ‘Jenny will get married some day and have children; then I’ll be an aunt. That’ll be better than nothing.’

  He frowned again and said.

  ‘You’re so satisfied with second best. But will Jen’s kids be enough?’

  ‘Of course.’ She became thoughtful, looking around at the luxury about her. Then her eyes wandered to the house, and its impressive facade with its Grecian columns topped by an ornate entablature and pediment. ‘Don’t you want an heir—?’ Impulsive the question and she stopped, her cheeks mantling with colour. She dropped her eyes and stepped away from him. There was a seat close by and she moved towards it. He followed, sitting down. The two horses bent to nibble the grass and Dirk’s attention appeared to be concentrated on them. Serra turned her head to read his expression, but when he caught her eyes she lowered her head, avoiding his gaze again.

  ‘I expect Jenny’s children will inherit,’ he began, then stopped. ‘Sit down,’ he said, patting the place beside him. Serra obeyed, wondering at his strangeness, and the tiny frown line that knit his brow. ‘No, he said emphatically, ‘I don’t want an heir.’ He still frowned, but turned to face her. ‘It’s a little late, in any case, isn’t it? There isn’t any possibility of my having an heir now that I’ve married for convenience.’

  ‘No—’ But with the passing of time would he become more mature and change his mind? Mature...? She examined his features, as she had examined them many times recently, and saw maturity there, and pride and firmness of character. It was odd that such a man could be satisfied with the life he led. His father had been a rake, according to what Mrs. Morgan had said, and so often sons took after their fathers. Dirk wouldn’t go as far as his father, Jenny had firmly asserted, and she had also said that she had a feeling her brother would mend his ways quite soon. It would be wonderful, she thought, a glow entering her lovely brown eyes, if Dirk were to become a stay-at-home and they could be together like this all the time. A rueful smile appeared and hovered on her lips as she recalled her previous wish that he would not become a stay-at-home, because she herself wanted to go around and have a gay time. Funny, but she no longer wanted a gay time—not since Dirk had taken an interest in her.

  ‘How’s the driving going?’ Dirk spoke into the silence, changing the subject. ‘Jenny says you’re doing fine.’

  ‘The instructor said so. He said I sit in the car as if I were part of it,’ she added, laughing.

  ‘A woman and her car, eh?’ His lazy eyes held a hint of humour. ‘You’d better be looking round for the kind of car you would like, then I can order it up for you.’

  Her eyes widened. He would order a car, he said—just like that! She shone at him, responding like a child who has been praised.

  ‘You’re very good to me, Dirk, and I’m really grateful. Oh, I never thought I’d be so lucky as this!’

  ‘We’ve both been lucky. The marriage is suitable to us and there’s no need for gratitude, my dear. I had to be married and—’ He broke off, smiling at her with a mingling of apology and amusement. ‘No matter what I said, I prefer you to Clarice.’

  Again she responded like a child who’d been praised. ‘I’m so glad—you have no idea how it’s worried me. I felt so inadequate, when I d
id the wrong things, and you looked so—so scowling and frightening that I was sure you would divorce me and marry Clarice.’

  ‘We don’t have divorce in our family,’ he told her, then paused in reflection. ‘That’s why I never wanted to marry. These days the pace and way of life isn’t conducive to lasting devotion. One is tempted all the time—girls throw themselves at men, and it doesn’t matter that the men might be married. I wanted to be free—so that I could go my own way without hurting anyone.’ Again he paused. The horses had strayed towards the pool, then stopped to nibble the grass again. ‘But seeing that I had to marry this is ideal. I can do what I like without hurting my wife.’

  She was silent, digesting this. He was an honourable man, then, for he did not like hurting people. Her heart warmed to him, and the tiny fluttering of that emotion registered but did not at present impress.

  But as they rose from the seat he automatically took hold of her hand, and then it was that she knew a feeling totally new—and exciting. Her heartbeats quickened slightly and her pulse began to act in the strangest way. Dirk walked quickly towards the horses and she trotted to keep up with him. Suddenly he slackened his pace and smiled down at her.

  ‘You’re a nice little thing,’ he said, repeating the description he had previously used. ‘Why didn’t you complain?’

  ‘Complain?’

  ‘Tell me I was walking too fast?’

  ‘It didn’t matter.’ He was still holding her hand; its warmth and strength filled her with a sensation of happiness and well-being; for some reason she remembered that kiss which he had given her on the evening of the first day they had been out together and she was suddenly walking on air. And because of this she did not see that they had to step down from the grass on to a gravel path which the horses had crossed a moment or two ago. With a jerk she came from the grass to the stone edging of the path; she was thrown against Dirk who, with a blank look, caught her as she would have fallen forward.