‘Here, take them—if you must. I suppose I’ll get used to it.’
He continued to watch as she put them on, the way, no doubt, he gazed at the poor squirrels he was marking out for destruction. A cool hard look but apparently satisfying. ‘All right. You could have been an impostor, but you’re you.’ The eyes narrowed. ‘I take it I wasn’t to be honoured. Or Glenglass. Just your mother.’
‘I...’ This added riddle to the nightmare. How did he know she had planned to see Antonia?
‘Well, well, who’d have thought it? Suzanne Brown...’ he stressed it nastily. ‘Actually at a loss for words.’
The tone and the block-like impassive face was infuriating. Haidee found her gorge rising. ‘I’m glad it amuses you. And yes, I am surprised. Is that so strange? I can’t imagine a bigger coincidence.’
‘Coincidence!’ In other circumstances the lifted eyebrows would have been comic. ‘There’s no coincidence. I came out looking for you. Your mother has recovered consciousness.’
‘How do you know?’ Her stomach felt precisely as though she had dropped into an air pocket.
‘I called at the hospital. They were on the point of telephoning you. So for old times’ sake,’ the mouth took a wry twist, ‘I told them I’d do chauffeur.’
The sentence was a nail bomb. ‘For old times’ sake.’ What old times? His reign at Glenglass was too recent to have concerned Suzanne. ‘I called at the hospital.’ Why? Straw after straw piled up into near dementia.
‘What did the hospital say?’
Rory Hart had a habit of holding his head slightly to one side of his broad neck. The inquisitor effect could have been accidental. She felt sure it was not. ‘The facts, of course. What else? That Freeman had found you and you would come if required. Well, you are required, and quickly, if you want to see her alive.’
For the second time in minutes the sensation of air pockets returned. The whole implication was so contrary to the truth.
‘What’s the matter? Should I have broken it gently?’ he demanded unsympathetically. ‘I hardly thought it would come as a surprise.’ For all that his face was a shade less dour.
‘It doesn’t. I’ve been waiting for it,’ Haidee said quietly. She looked round for Skipper and whistled him to heel. He came in a cartoon rush of ears and legs which could hardly have been more out of place.
‘Personally I’m against this,’ Rory Hart observed as they walked back to the car. ‘At this stage it can’t do much for your mother and,’ he hesitated, ‘what’s done is done, No use upsetting yourself fifteen years late.’
It made more sense than Paul’s line of reasoning, but, like the look, it was hard and cold. Typical of the man who had ravaged Glenglass.
‘It’s a matter of opinion,’ Haidee said sharply. ‘Some people might say it was better late than never.’ She had spoken, she realized disconcertingly, as Haidee Brown who had seen no sacrifice in the services performed for another and dearly loved invalid. The speech had been a mistake, for at once the blue eyes gave her a shrewd sideways glance.
‘You’ve changed,’ their owner remarked expressionlessly.
It was like crossing a river on stepping stones that you had to place yourself, one after the other. What had she to go on? She didn’t even know Suzanne’s surname. And so far, nothing had been quite as she’d visualized it from Paul. Rory Hart, for instance, had been at the hospital. Why? Surely he did not visit Antonia Whittaker.
‘Have you seen her?’ she asked jerkily.
‘To tell her, you mean? About you?’ He was not as tall as Paul, but he would always have the illusion of height. Or was it just that at that moment Haidee felt herself shrink almost physically with fear?
Paul, she remembered, had said that Rory Hart was a local. Why had this danger not occurred to either of them? He could have known Suzanne in childhood—and kept in touch with her after her flight. What to do? Assume he did know something? A sixth sense urged her to wait. She did so silently and with success—success, that is, of a kind.
‘Don’t worry,’ unmistakable contempt laced her companion’s voice. ‘She’s heard nothing from me, near as I’ve often come to it. What you tell her—or don’t—is entirely up to you.’
Concession? It seemed so. Dear heaven, what had Suzanne done? And yet at this point in time there was surely only one answer.
‘I’ll tell her good-bye,’ Haidee said shortly. ‘That’s all.’ As a statement it did not seem to warrant the dryness in Rory Hart’s look. ‘You find that strange?’ she challenged.
‘Interesting,’ he corrected, opening the door. ‘You’ll agree that saying good-bye has hardly been your métier.’
Haidee had never thought of herself as pretty, but she did aim continually at being neat and speckless. It came of being brought up to wear a pinafore in the house and to keep her shoes on trees. Surprisingly, Rory Hart seemed to have similar leanings. His hair was trim and his hands immaculate. The car’s interior, which might well have been grimy, was spotless and positively monastic. Sole evidence of personal clutter was a pair of sun-glasses in the glove compartment. He did not drive slowly and James Larkin Road was swallowed while Haidee was bringing herself to the pitch.
‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to change. It won’t take more than a minute.’
‘I seem to have heard that before,’ he said uncompromisingly.
It was not encouraging. ‘I’ll tell you where to stop.’
‘No need. I know the house.’ He snapped out the indicator. ‘I was knocking at it when your neighbour told me Miss Brown had gone out on the Bull. Brown!’ he repeated scathingly. ‘Couldn’t you have hit on something less phony?’
Haidee swallowed. ‘I didn’t think of it that way.’
‘Oh well, I suppose it’s one cut better than Smith.’ He pulled in neatly at her gate and switched off. ‘Mind yourself getting out. Let the cyclist past.’
It was another awkward moment. Like it or not, he seemed to have been on familiar terms with Suzanne. Would she have left him sitting 'outside the house? ‘Won’t you come in?’ Haidee invited formally. She added: ‘I’ll only be a minute,’ in the hope that he would not consider it worth his while.
The hope was not realized. Another oblique look and the driver’s door opened. ‘AH right, then,’ Rory Hart said casually, and followed her up the path.
The situation had its funny side. During the past year almost the only male visitors to the Brown ménage had been the doctor and the parish clergy. Now no less than two men, in the space of twenty-four hours, had stepped across its threshold, a fact which Haidee was certain had not gone unnoticed by Skipper’s mistress. It was certainly not unnoticed by Brand who pirouetted from the kitchen, his plumy tail a ramrod. He was a cheery cat and he thought a chap couldn’t have too many friends. He gave in greeting the whole of his half octave range.
Haidee was prone to think dotingly that Brand’s cream and amber thistledown would have given him Best of Breed in any show. ‘My cat,’ she said proudly.
‘Keep him away from me. I don’t like cats,’ Rory Hart said dourly. ‘As you very well know,’ he added.
Haidee felt herself flush. How long would it take to remember that this was indeed Operation Stepping Stones? She must take nothing for granted. She must live by feelers.
In the circumstances, even one reminiscence would be valuable. It would help her to see the young Suzanne and the young Rory together. But fate was not to be so easily won. Rory Hart did not elaborate, he darted a question.
‘How long have you lived here?’
It could have been shock tactics, but Haidee was improving. ‘About two years. I...’
‘About two years.’ Tone and expression were bland. ‘Then I put it to you that at any moment in that period if you’d felt an urge for the past you had only to lift the telephone. Your concern now is supposed to be for the present. Don’t let’s waste any more time.’ He flicked his fingers and Brand drew back offendedly. ‘Don’t hang around me, ca
t. I’ve seen too much of what you and your kind can do.’
Haidee had not lied about the length of time she’d lived in the house. It had been a recent purchase aimed at labour-saving. Much of their old furniture had been sold in the move and what they’d kept Haidee polished lovingly. It looked good against the white walls. The piano looked especially good. They had been a musical family, both her parents had played on it and she played it too, with feeling if not with genius. She saw Rory Hart’s eye rest on it as she went upstairs.
‘The paper’s there if you want it,’ she said.
‘Thanks. I’ve seen it,’ he returned. He let her go halfway up the stairs and spoke again. ‘Don’t be all day. I’ve to get back to Glenglass.’
She was in the bedroom unzipping her anorak when the warning sounded like a tocsin through her brain. Stop, this has gone far enough. The idea in the first place had come out of the fog, it had been as crazy as all the other incidents of that hilarious uncomfortable journey. Irene had teased, Paul had flirted. How serious had he been about the request? Now he was not even here to support her. Up until now the most she’d done had been to inconvenience. Rory Hart would not take that lying down, she knew, and shuddered as she started to pull off her sweater. But it was not a crime. The rest could be. Impersonation was a nasty word.
So why go on changing? She paused, still immersed in sweater folds. He should be told at once. But she’d hesitated and for the moment was lost. He had come out of the sitting-room and begun to mount the stairs, doubtless looking for the bathroom. Call out, tell him which it is, she urged herself, and found her mouth had dried. She remained inside the sweater, childishly and inexcusably shy.
And then, in a flash, the heavy feet were no longer out in the corridor but treading the carpet on which she was standing.
‘Come on, we haven’t got all day,’ a voice commanded.
She started to protest, her voice muffled. Another stride and she felt his nearness. Brisk hands had the end of the sweater, one businesslike tug and it was over her head.
Nothing particularly nude about what was left, a flowery bra and belted trousers, but Haidee was too shocked to be rational.
‘How dare you!’ she gasped. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ If it was a mistake, giveaway or what have you, she didn’t care. No strange man was going to be allowed walk into her room like that or to look at her ... She turned confusedly from the ink-blue eyes: You couldn’t read them; one second determined ‘I’m not sorry’ eyes and now bewilderingly gentle. Perhaps he wasn’t sorry, he was certainly having a good look at her, but he did know unmistakably that he’d scared her, that inwardly she was trembling.
‘What’s up? You used to ask me to,’ he said in a puzzled tone.
‘Not now, please,’ she managed to stammer. ‘It’s different.’
The blue eyes flickered. ‘Yes, it would be, wouldn’t it? I forgot you’d met Freeman again. All right, have it your own way.’ He sat down on the bed.
She stared transfixed. ‘I want to get changed.’
‘No one wants it more than I do. Please get on with it.’
‘How can I?’ She was almost speechless. ‘How can I when you’re there?’
Once more the eyes studied her face, her shoulders, her collarbones.
‘I don’t know,’ their owner sighed as though he really didn’t. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you. However, if it makes you any happier I’ll sit over here,’ He drew a chair ostentatiously to the window and sat down, presenting his back to the room.
Haidee opened the wardrobe and found the skirt she wanted, a midi-length parchment tweed. The belted sweater which matched it was in the chest of drawers. She took it out with a pair of dark brown tights and rather prissy shoes and got busy. There seemed no alternative. She was stepping out of the trousers when Rory Hart addressed her. ‘Who owns this place?’ His head was still stolidly turned. She spoke to its blocky back.
‘My—employer did. She died four weeks ago. I’m looking after it till the solicitor has things straightened out.’
‘What happened?’
She gave the details bleakly and without expression.
‘And who looked after her?’ he asked.
‘I did.’
‘Nights too?’
She wriggled her arms through the straps of a patterned cream petticoat.
‘It wasn’t so hard. She was wonderfully considerate. I was very fond of her.’
‘And the cat?’
‘He was hers. She gave him to me.’
‘Any help in the house?’ the catechism proceeded.
‘No. We couldn’t—I mean she couldn’t afford it. But there was no difficulty once we moved here. This house is very easily run.’
‘The piano?’
Careful, Haidee, the warning light flashed, this could be a trap.
‘Mrs. Brown played it as long as she was able. She was very musical. I picked it up from her. Not that I'm any good, but she liked to have it used.’ It was so true that she had to steady herself against the memories that flooded—Handel’s Largo, Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy...
‘It’s amazing. You never touched the piano at Glenglass.’
Haidee reminded herself that she was not going on with the deception. She was dressed now, it only remained to put the finishing touches to face and hair. In the circumstances, silly, perhaps to bother. Why not turn round and say fairly and squarely: ‘This is a mercy deception. I’m not Suzanne’?
This time she got as far as opening her mouth. But not to turning round. In a sense she felt fey. It was like disbudding a rose, the work of seconds but what might you have destroyed? She drew the brush downwards and to the right. ‘Let me think,’ she said silently to the girl in the glass.
‘What did you say her name was? Brown?’ Rory Hart had fastened on the name a little later than Haidee had expected. ‘A coincidence, surely.’
‘I think that’s what got me the job,’ she told him now demurely.
‘And she never knew about Glenglass? You told her nothing?’
‘No.’ Haidee laid down the hairbrush and walked across the room. Anoraks did not do much for any form, the lean long belted look did a lot more. Something that was primitive with no right to be there noted that Rory Hart shared the view. His eye travelled the high pale sweater roll, the gathered cuffs, the wandlike waist and the slim Victorian-looking legs and feet.
‘If I didn’t know differently I’d say you were an impostor.’ The gleam of teeth indicated that this was a joke. The eyes, however, did not smile and the room seemed to have grown very still.
‘But you’re happy that I’m not?’ Haidee risked.
‘That remains to be seen. Happiness was never a commodity you handed out in large doses,’ Rory Hart said dryly. ‘And certainly not to me. But I’m satisfied with the claim, if that’s the correct jargon.’ He looked at her dispassionately. ‘For one thing, anyone masquerading as Suzanne has nothing to gain except trouble and for another you’re so unlike her in many ways that I don’t think you’d try it on if you weren’t genuine. All the same, it’s as well to clear the air, So tell me what next? Does Glenglass begin to call to you now that you’ve lost your job?’
Haidee was becoming inured to shocks, but bitterness was scaring. She wondered, not for the first time, what event had seared so deeply into fifteen succeeding years.
‘Please don’t judge everyone by yourself, we’re not all motivated by expediency.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘That I read in the papers what you did to Glenglass.’
‘I suppose you read it by courtesy of Paul Freeman?’
‘You needn’t sneer at Paul,’ Haidee said hotly. ‘As an old friend he had every right to ventilate the position.’
‘Ventilate?’ Rory Hart echoed. ‘You mean, make a stink. That’s his speciality, stirring up trouble. But one day he’ll do it once too often.’
‘You’re very su
re!’ she challenged. That was the most quelling factor—his confidence and the fact that at no time had he lost his cool.
‘Sure of one thing anyway. I shall be there to nail him when he does.’
Whatever gentleness had been in his eyes when he’d pulled off her sweater, whatever approbation in his voice as he’d questioned her about Mrs. Brown, most of all whatever filaments of feeling had tempted her to be frank, they had all received their death knell. Nothing moved now in his face, it was masklike. It would be merciless. So would the. hand into which, she realized sharply, she had been about to put the hammer. Altogether, it was answer enough. Paul’s only crime had been quixotic over-involvement. She could not give him over to this vindictive spleen. Meantime, one thing remained to be said.
‘In case it’s of interest, I want my mother to die in peace. They seem to feel she’ll do so if she sees me again. I think I owe her that much. She owes me nothing and, so far as Glenglass is concerned, I have no intention of ever setting foot in it again.’
The hospital reached, Rory Hart accompanied Haidee up the steps and marched her across to the reception desk.
‘Good afternoon. I’ve got Miss Desmond here. Will you see please if Dr. X is free.’
It was another stepping-stone. Haidee now knew the whole of her adopted name—Suzanne Desmond—and surprisingly when she turned her head the ghost of a smile was hovering on her companion’s lips. Before either of them could speak, however, the receptionist did so. The doctor was available. Would Miss Desmond go up to the private floor?
‘I’ll be on my way, then,’ Rory Hart announced. He walked to the lift with her and pressed the call button. It came quickly and he held out his hand. ‘Good-bye and good luck. I know nothing’s changed. We’d be at each other’s throats in no time. I accept that and my plate’s too full for it now.’ He bent forward and kissed her on the mouth.
The lift door started to close. She mumbled good-bye and stepped inside. Not, she felt sure, as Suzanne Desmond would have reacted. The essential quality of tone and kiss, particularly kiss, had been intimacy. It seemed to open a door—on a girl and the two men who had known her.
Dear Deceiver Page 4