Fortune's Lead

by Barbara Perkins

  I had been listening in stunned silence to his version of my meeting with Henry, with the feeling that all the breath was being knocked out of me. Choking, I found my voice. ‘How—how dare you suggest—I’ve n-never been spoken to like—’

  ‘I don’t know what you are,’ Kevin interrupted me calmly, ‘but to find my uncle getting entangled—yet again—leads me to suppose you gave him some sob-story about being out of work, and needing a secretarial job. You could hardly say you looked poverty-stricken, but I suppose that’s part of the act. My uncle is remarkably soft-hearted. He—’

  ‘I never gave him a—’

  ‘It’s a pity for you,’ Kevin continued inexorably, ‘that he wasn’t quite alone when you decided to make his acquaintance. You should have waited until the train was moving. As it was, I was there, and I saw you. I also saw you trying to type this morning. So—’

  ‘If,’ I said furiously, determined to get a word in, ‘you were anything other than—than an idle, useless, and obviously thoroughly spoiled young man, you might be aware that people can work for a living without being able to type! Furthermore, if you think I came here to—to see what I could get out of your uncle, you’d better go to him and say so, instead of telling me! Though there’s really no need—I shall go to him myself, right now!’

  ‘Do,’ Kevin invited sardonically. ‘Rushing down to him in a floating negligee would fit in very well with the act—particularly at this time of night! Well, what are you waiting for? I’m sure you—’

  ‘Hey,’ a husky voice, filled with amusement, said from the stairs, ‘are you two fighting again? Kev, if you want to know, it was my fault Shah made Thunder bolt, so you needn’t go on at her! Or are you being beastly about something else? You’re making a horrible din, anyway, between you! It’s lucky Pa’s still down in the library, or he’d have had your hide off by now!’

  The appearance of Essie, in pyjamas, saved me from attempting physical violence on Mr. Kevin Thurlanger. (Which was fortunate: he was undoubtedly far stronger than I was). I glared at both of them, but Esther had at least given me a valuable piece of information—Henry was still downstairs, in the library. I gave Kevin a look of the most withering scorn I could manage, whisked into my room, slammed the door, and threw on my clothes: then I came out again, hearing him as I came telling Essie to go back to bed and stop asking questions, and made for the stairs. As I ran down them, I was angrier than I had been in my whole life. How dared he! A thought came to me which almost brought me to a stop. Kevin’s version of the incident on the train was ridiculous—but suppose Henry had thought the same as he did? And of course, when we met again, I had told him I was at present out of work ... or between jobs, which came to the same thing. I glanced back—and realized that if I went upstairs again without seeing Henry, Kevin would assume he had called my bluff. So there was no use thinking it might be better to wait until morning, and then simply pack and depart. I went on down, wishing with furious misery that I had never got myself mixed up with the Thurlangers, or anyone else who led the sort of life which led them to assume that any female stranger must be—must be a ...

  I entered the library with unceremonious speed, and Henry looked up in surprise as I came to an angry halt before his chair. He began to get up, saying, ‘My dear Shah—’ but I didn’t even let him begin.

  ‘I’ve just come down to say I shall be leaving first thing in the morning. It was very kind of you to offer me this job, but I am not poverty-stricken, or in need of anything at all, and I am certainly not a—a confidence trickster! So if you thought I was, I would be obliged if you’d think again!’

  ‘My dear child.’ Henry exclaimed distressfully, ‘what an extraordinary suggestion! How could anyone possibly think you were a confidence trickster? Has someone said so?’

  ‘Your nephew has just explained that since I can’t type, and since he saw me pick you up on the train—I s-suppose think I picked you up on the train, too—’ I was near tears of unhappy rage.

  ‘Good heavens, no. You didn’t make the least attempt to do so. I would have been highly complimented if you had,’ Henry said, and twinkled at me, managing to do so at the same time as looking concerned. ‘My dear Shah, please sit down, and tell me just what my atrocious nephew’s been saying to you. He must be growing more horrible every day. I should never have invited him to live here, but the estate’s entailed and he happens to be my heir. But I certainly can’t have him upsetting you like this. Please, do sit down!’

  ‘I shall have to go in the morning,’ I said shakily, but I did sit down. ‘He seems to think th-that you’re always getting entangled, or—or something—’ I realized, abruptly, that this was embarrassing ground. ‘Anyway, I can’t possibly stay, and I’d quite decided that it wasn’t the sort of job I could do anyway, so—so perhaps it’s just as well!’

  ‘Oh, my dear, please. If you leave now, I shall be quite desolated. You know,’ he said wickedly, ‘I did warn you that I had some entirely horrible relations. But Kevin, I can quite see, has gone too far. I shall see that he apologizes to you. As for entanglements—I really think those are my business, not his! I expect he’s referring to the time I adopted an entire operatic company which had got itself stranded. I did it mainly to annoy my sister, and it did. Very much.’ Henry grinned, then sobered. ‘But Shah, my dear, if you go away in a rage, I shall feel entirely responsible, and eternally shamed. You’ll make me feel that you believe I brought you here under false pretences. What can I do to convince you to stay? Esther likes you already, and I was hoping so much you could feel at home here. Besides,’ he said with a grim note in his voice, ‘if you go, my intolerable nephew will believe he can run my life as he chooses, which I will not have! Would it satisfy you if I turned him out? I offered him a home here partly because I thought it would please Esther to have young company, particularly since she was brought up with his family. However, you begin to make me feel that it was a grave mistake! Shall I send him packing?’

  ‘N-no—I mean ...’ He seemed quite seriously to expect me to give him an answer. ‘You—can’t send him away just because he was rude to me,’ I said uncertainly.

  ‘Indeed I can. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you won’t forgive us sufficiently to stay here at least a little while longer, Kevin shall depart bag and baggage tomorrow!’

  He looked very much as if he meant it. Faced with Henry, I was beginning to feel fractionally less as if Thurlanger House belonged in a nightmare: he was remarkably calming. I said unsteadily, ‘I really think I should go.’

  ‘Please, at least reconsider it. I shall make sure Kevin gives you a full apology. He really has no excuse for his manners. He’s no credit at all to your profession, is he?’

  ‘To my what?’ I asked, startled.

  ‘Medicine. Weren’t you aware that he’s a doctor? At present he’s acting as surgeon-in-charge at the Cottage Hospital. If his diagnoses are as bad as his judgment of character, I fear he’ll never get very far! But as I told you, he’s quite boringly serious-minded. Riding that horse of his is the only frivolity he allows himself, even when he’s off duty.’ Henry cocked an eye at me. ‘You look remarkably surprised. At Kevin’s stupidity? Some doctors are stupid, I believe, when outside their own professional sphere.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said weakly, and remembered something. ‘I—oh dear! I just called him a-an idle and useless young man. I thought he—’

  ‘I’m sure he deserved whatever you called him,’ Henry said, twinkling. ‘If you’ll agree to stay—and I hope you will be so forgiving, because otherwise I can assure you I fully intend to throw Kevin out!—you may treat him as less than the dust beneath your feet. It should do him a great deal of good. I’ve come to the conclusion that he hasn’t come across enough people with the spirit to stand up to him. Please, Shah, do stay. I told Esther only this evening that we were planning a sociable winter, and I need you to help me make her tolerate the idea. Besides, would you—now would you, truthfully!—like to give Ke
vin the satisfaction of feeling he was able to scare a perfectly respectable girl like you away?’

  Put like that, I could only feel that I wouldn’t. Kevin Thurlanger, I felt, needed to be taught a lesson. No doubt, in the small world of a Cottage Hospital, he had fallen into the delusion of thinking himself extremely high-and-mighty—with Thurlanger House behind him as well—and I could feel an itch to bring him down to earth. And Henry, after all, was begging me to stay...

  I looked back with a feeling of unreality at Charlotte, the plainest and most serious of the daughters of the vicarage. Somehow, the remodelled version of Charlotte which had emerged from the shopping spree in Bradfield seemed to have taken me over entirely.

  By the time I went back up to bed—through a thankfully empty upper corridor—I had thrown caution to the winds, and allowed Henry to persuade me to stay at least a month to give the job at Thurlanger House a fair trial.

  CHAPTER V

  Three weeks later, I looked back with surprise to find how fast the time had gone. It was remarkable to find how much idleness became a habit. Henry occupied my time not with work, but with showing me the countryside—getting me to drive him in my little car, and pointing out things of interest—and the rest of the time, I tried to befriend Essie (when she was in) or read, or went out for walks with Kevin’s dogs, which seemed to have taken a fancy to me. Essie and I, I was glad to find, were on amiable terms.

  Amiable was hardly the word for the terms Kevin and I were on. At our first meeting after the showdown between us, he had said curtly, ‘My uncle feels I should offer you an apology.’ Since I didn’t feel capable of speaking to him at all, I had merely inclined my head coldly. He took it as an acceptance, and walked away. That was as far as the matter got, but as I wasn’t willing to raise it again with Henry, I had to let it go at that. The atmosphere which existed when Kevin was in was not as pleasant as when he was out, but despite the proximity of our living conditions we managed either to ignore one another when we happened to meet, or to keep up a scrupulous politeness which I felt on his side was deliberately designed to annoy. It was on mine, too; but somehow I always felt more ruffled than he looked, which irritated me. Unfortunately it was impossible to live in the same house, even such a large house as Thurlanger, without being forced to meet: I would see him setting off for the hospital, or down by the stables with Thunder, or pausing to talk to Mr. Mott when I was in the garden looking for late flowers to fill a vase for the library. At mealtimes, handicapped by being unable to admit my true career, I found myself avoiding descriptions of my past life while trying to indicate haughtily that it had been blameless. Altogether Kevin was a thorn in an otherwise comfortable life: his arrogant presence was difficult to forget. I hoped he found mine as annoying—and wondered if he glared at my toothbrush in the bathroom as often as I glared at his. I felt inclined to sing loudly in my morning bath to counter the noise of his electric shaver from along the passage, and had to reprove myself for being childish.

  I was becoming quite well known in Tyzet. I was getting quite familiar with the sight of Michael Chace, too: I ran into him more than once on my walks, and once stopped to offer him a lift in my car when I was driving alone, since I saw him further from his cottage than he should have been considering his injured ankle. As we walked along one afternoon I was telling him of Henry’s plans: the social events I was officially employed to organize were now actually about to begin. Michael listened with interest as I strolled beside him towards his cottage from the post office where we had run into each other.

  ‘We’re giving a cocktail party on Saturday, and a lunch party the following week, for the point-to-point. That’s over at somewhere called Dressley, I gather—and one of those things that everybody who’s anybody goes to!’ I glanced into his thoughtful face and smiled. ‘How’s your book going?’

  ‘I’m still more or less playing at it,’ he said deprecatingly, and gave me one of his pleasant grins. ‘You must be putting in quite a lot of work, arranging all these parties. Mr. Thurlanger must be a sociable type—and you drive him about, too, don’t you?’

  ‘Sometimes. I don’t seem to do very much work,’ I admitted, thinking ruefully about Mrs. Mott’s assurances that I needn’t ‘bother my head’ over all sorts of things. The party catering was firmly in her capable hands and any interference from me was quite unnecessary. ‘I don’t feel that I do nearly enough!’

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ Michael said politely. He had very nice manners. He was nice-looking too, with his black hair and brown eyes: not handsome in Kevin’s style (if he had been anything in Kevin’s style, I should have disliked him on sight) but pleasant to look at, with an open face and a well-knit form. He was a fraction taller than I was, and had a kind of innocent look about him. He went on, ‘I really must start getting about a bit myself. I’d thought of suggesting you came to tea with me on Saturday, but—’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll be getting ready for the party. But it was nice of you to think of it.’ I stepped aside quickly as I heard a car approaching, and put out an instinctively protective hand to Michael in case he should be caught off balance. ‘Sorry! Er—how is your ankle getting on?’

  ‘Not too badly, thanks. Was that someone you know?’ he asked innocently, turning to give me a questioning stare. ‘He seemed to peer at us rather hard as-he went by.’

  I had noticed. I had also recognized Kevin’s low grey car, with its quiet but powerful engine: like everything else about him, it was forceful. ‘Mr. Thurlanger’s nephew,’ I said, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.

  ‘Oh, the one who lives at Thurlanger House?’ Michael said, seeming to know about Kevin even though it was a subject I had a tendency to keep off. I had talked to him about Essie, since he seemed interested in the Thurlangers and led me on to describe them. He didn’t talk much about himself—though I had gathered he was trying to decide whether to take up writing as a career or go home and run what he vaguely described as his father’s estates.

  ‘Yes, him. I think I’d better be getting back now. Oh, there’s no need to bother seeing me to the car.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right.’ Michael limped along beside me, and opened the Mini’s door for me, leaning on it for a moment. ‘It’s a pity I haven’t got a car down here myself, or I could come up and see you some evening.’

  ‘Even if you had one, you couldn’t drive with that ankle, could you?’

  ‘No. Well, I’ll be seeing you some time,’ he said, and stood back after shutting the door for me. As I drove away, I saw him limping back in the direction of his cottage. He seemed rather solitary, despite the people in the district to whom he said he had introductions: I guessed he found his foot more incapacitating than he would have liked for getting about. Such isolation, I thought a little maternally, must be unusual for such a pleasantly friendly young man.

  Kevin’s car had been heading away from Thurlanger, so it was safe to suppose I wouldn’t find him there. I drove up and left the Mini by the garage so that Ganner could put it away when he had finished polishing Henry’s Bentley, and was going towards the house when I heard my name shouted. It was Essie, over by the stables, waving at me. She seemed to want me for something, and since I wasn’t wearing anything vivid I went to see what it was. She had someone with her—a plump redheaded girl whom I had seen in the distance with Essie more than once—and introduced me.

  ‘Shah, this is Mamie Laidlaw. Remember I told you the Laidlaws had some quiet hacks? She’s brought one over for you to try.’

  Essie had made several casual suggestions previously about my riding, but so far I had dodged them. I opened my mouth to give a firm negative, and saw Mamie Laidlaw watching me expectantly. She was regarding me with curiosity, too: I might have been a polar bear. I said pleasantly, ‘Thank you, but I haven’t got anything I could wear to ride in. And I certainly wouldn’t get into anything of yours!’

  ‘Ah, well, I’ve thought of that.’ Essie gave me a considering look. ‘You know how Pa
keeps on saying we ought to hurry up and go to Henning to buy me something to wear for Saturday? He said only last night we were leaving it a bit late. We can leave Jimbo here—Mamie’s pop said we could keep him for a while—and go and get me a dress, and you some jeans, so that you can ride.’

  I looked at Essie suspiciously. So far, each time there had been any plan of buying her any clothes, she had disappeared without warning for the whole day. It was, indeed, getting rather late to be sure of finding her something suitable before Saturday: her wardrobe seemed curiously denuded of anything at all respectable, which had surprised me until I discovered she had a habit of giving all the clothes she didn’t like to Sarah Ann, the village girl who acted as housemaid. (As a form of rebellion it was effective—and provided Sarah Ann with a vastly expensive wardrobe). I heard Mamie Laidlaw stifle a giggle. This was obviously a plot, but short of taking the unwelcome course of appealing to Henry, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Except buy myself some jeans, and agree to take a riding lesson.

  ‘All right, let’s go to Henning now. I’ve got the car out,’ I told Essie, meeting her eyes squarely. Inside, I was quaking at the fact that Henry had made me the arbiter of Essie’s wardrobe—but since he didn’t ask me to do much else, I could only do my best. It was lucky that Henning, a sizeable town beyond Beemondham, had developed itself into quite a smart shopping centre, so that with money no object I might at least succeed in fitting Essie out in something suitable for Saturday. Beyond that, we would have to see.