She knew that Ian and Freda as well as Nancy thought Miles both capable and guilty. He so badly wanted to buy Puck’s Hill and thought to force Vanessa’s hand. Vanessa thought it likely too, but she did not want to think about it. Perhaps he hadn’t meant to harm Nancy, only to scare herself. He must have seen her go out and waited his opportunity, and watched for Nancy’s light going on upstairs. But the important thing to Vanessa was finding out how she stood in Ian’s eyes. That evening when Nancy had retired and Freda was upstairs in her room Vanessa tried to discuss things with him.
“Ian, can we have our little talk now?” she began.
“Of course. What is it?”
She quailed at the cool politeness in his voice, but went on: “First, I want to apologize for all the times when I’ve seemed—difficult. I’m—not usually so.”
His expression was guarded. “There isn’t the slightest need for you to apologize about anything, Vanessa. We all have periods when we’re not quite at our best, myself included.”
“But you were being so kind and helpful. You must have thought me terribly ungrateful.”
“Not in the least,” he answered.
Vanessa almost despaired. This was getting her absolutely nowhere. She tried another tack.
“Ian, would you be sorry if I left Barn Hill for good?”
She watched him start, then freeze. “You must do just what you think best, Vanessa. I can only repeat what I said to you this morning. Wait until you’ve heard from Mr. Oliver.”
“Yes, I’ll do that,” she answered quietly. “But whether I go or stay depends entirely upon you.”
He frowned and glanced at her swiftly. “What do you mean? Why does it depend on me?”
“I want to know what you think of me, Ian.”
At this he rose swiftly to his feet and stood on the hearth, his back turned towards her.
“Why should you want to know that? And what possible difference can it make?”
“All the difference in the world,” she answered softly. She stood up and went towards him and put her hand on his shoulder. “You see, I—think a very great deal of you.”
He swung round and stared at her with wide eyes, his skin stretched taut across his jawbone.
“Vanessa, don’t say things like that!”
“But I must. And I must know how it is with you. I—feel about you, Ian, as I’ve never felt about any man before.”
He backed away from her. “Please, Vanessa, don’t say any more, I beg of you. It’s impossible. I can’t. You don’t know what you’re saying or what you’re asking. The best thing you can do is to go back home and forget all about me.”
He went out, and Vanessa sank into a chair feeling sick at heart. If he’d loved her he would have told her so. It would have been better if she had said nothing. She went out into the hall and heard his footsteps on the front verandah, then the crunch of his feet on the gravel outside. Evidently he was going for a walk through his grounds.
Vanessa went out too. She couldn’t possibly stay at the Lodge now. She got in her car and drove back to Puck’s Hill. She would sleep on the settee if the stairs really proved unsafe. When she arrived she telephoned from her study—a room the fire had not reached, and told Freda where she was. Freda protested and argued, but Vanessa was firm. Ian knew how she felt about him now. If he loved her he would seek her out.
She slept little that night, and it was not due in the least to any discomfort of the settee. She had not bothered to test the stairs, after all. She had felt too utterly miserable.
In the morning a letter was delivered from the solicitor asking her to call and see him in his office in a few days’ time. She would stay at Puck’s Hill until then, she decided, then leave Nancy to do what she liked with the house. She would not sell it nor give it away. She would ‘lend’ it to Nancy.
Both Freda and Nancy came to see her to try to persuade her to go back to the Lodge, but when Nancy saw Vanessa was adamant, she insisted on returning too. They discovered that by treading the stairs carefully along the side by the wall, it was possible to go up. Nancy refused to discuss the future at all until Vanessa had seen the solicitor, and in vain Vanessa told her that it would make no difference. She still intended to go away.
She did not see Ian at all, but Freda called each day, and though Vanessa felt as though her heart would break, she was beyond tears. All she felt was a coldness, and in her heart a dull ache.
Without much interest she drove into town to the solicitor’s office.
“Ah, Miss Woodrow.” Mr. Oliver shook hands with her and invited her to sit down. “The six-month period your aunt wanted to pass before you received your inheritance is up today. I’ve had a good talk with my fellow trustee, and we have decided that you have indeed fulfilled all the conditions.”
“But what were the conditions? And how can you possibly know whether I’ve fulfilled them or net? You haven’t seen me since the day I came into your office six months ago.”
“Ah, but I know all about what you’ve been doing,” he told her mysteriously. “But before we go any further, I think you should meet my fellow trustee. He’s in another office. He’ll tell you all about it. This way, if you don’t mind.
He led her into the corridor and opened a door for her. “There you are, Miss Woodrow.”
He allowed her to precede him, or so she thought, but instead he closed the door after her, and she was left alone with a man who stood with his back to her, looking out of the window. Vanessa’s heart leapt violently.
“Ian!”
He turned. “Yes, I’m the other trustee, Vanessa,” he said in answer to the unspoken question in her eyes. “And now perhaps you will understand how impossible it is for me to—take you up on what you were saying the other evening.”
She stared at him, trying to fit the pieces of the jigsaw together in her mind, but it was difficult all at once.
“No, I don’t think I do understand quite,” she answered.
He sighed. “It’s simple enough. Your aunt has left you a great deal of money and, of course, as a trustee I was well aware how much it was. I also knew the conditions. They were that you would do something worthwhile with Puck’s Hill, that you would not use chemical weed-killer to clear the giant hogweed, and altogether prove yourself worthy of your inheritance. Now do you see?”
“I see your difficulty. How much money is it exactly?”
“Twenty thousand pounds all told.”
Vanessa gasped. “Good heavens! I am beginning to see.”
“I thought you might. But of course, it wasn’t much of a gamble on your aunt’s part. She knew you well enough. And so there you are. You’re a very rich woman, Vanessa, and I couldn’t possibly take advantage of the fact.”
“I’m not asking you to.” Vanessa moved towards him. Now she knew what Freda had meant when she said Ian would never ask her to marry him. “All I’m asking is that you answer me truthfully. Do you care for me, Ian? At all?”
He took a deep breath. “Of course I care for you,” he shot out. “I would have thought it only too obvious.”
“You mean you love me?” she persisted.
He closed his eyes momentarily, then opened them and looked past her.
“Yes, but I’m not going to ask you to marry me.”
“Then I’m asking you.”
“No, Vanessa! Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t. But what I do see is a very selfish man. Don’t you care that if I can’t marry you I shall be the unhappiest woman alive? That I shall remain unhappy for the rest of my life? Is that what you want? Is it, Ian?”
He groaned. “Vanessa, don’t. You’ll forget me in time, just as I—” He broke off, lines of pain etched deeply across his face.
“Just as you will forget me? Is that what you were going to say? Will you forget me, Ian, ‘in time’?”
The next moment she was crushed in his arms, his lips hard on hers.
“Vanessa, forgive me. I love you so m
uch it hurts. I would never forget you, ever. Not for as long as I lived.”
Tears misted her eyes. “I’ll give the money away if you like, all of it,” she murmured, her whole being on fire with the love she had for him.
“Do what you like with it. Do what you like, darling Vanessa, only marry me—please, for I know I simply couldn’t live without you.”
Locked in his arms, his lips on hers, Vanessa caught a sudden vision of Aunt Maud’s face, puckish and mischievous.
“To my dear niece, Ian Hamilton—to have and to hold—”
And suddenly she knew that this was what her aunt had intended from the very beginning.
To My Dear Niece Page 18