Summer's Awakening

by Anne Weale

  In her mind's eye it was easy to see his black hair flowing to his shoulders, held in place by a band above his eyebrows and whipped back by the wind when he rode, like the mane of his pinto. She could see his tall frame clad in buckskins, or naked except for a breech-clout, his shoulders like polished bronze, powerful biceps swelling his arms as he drew his bow to kill an animal or an adversary.

  Even in the clothes he wore now, there was something about him which suggested a hard, tough man with a streak of ruthlessness in him. That he had no understanding of or compassion for other people's weaknesses had been clearly demonstrated yesterday.

  'Summer! What is the matter?' Emily exclaimed.

  Her train of thought broken, Summer said hastily, 'Nothing. Why?'

  'You had such a strange, angry look on your face. Not a bit like you. Whatever were you thinking?'

  'I—I was thinking about the Red Indians. The cruel things they used to do to their enemies and prisoners... and the equally terrible things which were done to many of them.'

  'James says America is an incredible country to live in, but I shouldn't have liked it in those days... never knowing when an arrow might come whizzing through the window. He says that a lot of things Americans eat, such as corned beef and pot roasts, derive from the days of the settlers. Even hamburgers are a modern form of the minced beef the early colonials used to eat with their fingers.

  'Did he mention whereabouts in America he was living while he was talking to Mr Darblay?'

  'No, he spoke of all sorts of places; Vermont, Montana, North Carolina—but not as if he lived in any of them. He says I'm too skinny. If you're not going to eat them, may I have one of your crumpets?'

  'By all means. Have them both, if you can manage them.'

  Summer poured herself some more tea and wondered how long it took to learn to like it without sugar.

  Prior to her illness Miss Ewing had done all the catering. After it, Summer had taught herself to cook for them both. However, that night she didn't have the fillet steak which had been her excuse for abstaining from crumpets and fruit cake. Her supper consisted of a boiled egg, two crispbreads from a packet bought on her way home, a raw tomato and an orange.

  For the second night in succession she went to bed feeling hungry, and wishing she had some bathroom scales to show whether her self-denial was beginning to show some results. Although she had got rid of all the high-calorie snacks which had been in the house the night before, the rest of the crispbreads were a lure, and she longed for a glass of milk to quieten her rumbling insides. Two pints were delivered every morning, and she decided to cut down to four pints a week, or just over half a pint a day.

  Usually she slept very soundly, rousing only when her alarm clock began to buzz. That night she woke several times and next morning felt tired and listless.

  On her way to Cranmere, the exertion of cycling against a head wind made her feel oddly shaky. By the time she arrived she was longing for a cup of sweet milky coffee and something to eat, but she knew she would have to wait until eleven.

  Emily greeted her with the news that shortly before her bedtime James had telephoned from London to ask how she was and say goodnight.

  'Wasn't that nice of him?'

  'Very,' Summer agreed.

  'He's expecting to be back about four.'

  Clearly Emily was looking forward to his return as much as Summer was dreading it. She would have preferred never to have set eyes on him again. Her pride was still raw. She felt that, as long as she lived, she would never forget the sound of his voice calling her an uncontrollable glutton who didn't give a damn what she looked like.

  By mid-morning the trembly feeling had worn off and she managed to restrict herself to black coffee, without biscuits. But it seemed forever to lunchtime.

  John was off duty that day, and so Conway waited on them.

  'Ooh, potted shrimps... lovely,' said Emily, when the butler placed a small bowl of pink morsels drowned in butter in front of her tutor.

  Summer ate her first food of the day with mingled relish and guilt; the latter because of the butter and because she had taken a bread roll to counteract the richness of the first course.

  The second was roast grouse—'Probably the last this year, Miss Roberts', said Conway—garnished with watercress and accompanied by gravy and game chips, with a green salad.

  She was not keen on game, possibly because the late Lord Cranmere had liked all his birds to be hung until they were extremely high. But at present she felt so ravenous that even the ripe, slightly undercooked flesh of the grouse tasted good to her.

  Usually, when her plate was removed there was nothing edible left on it. When she had first come to England and found some of Aunt Margaret's dishes strange and unappetising, she had been told not to be faddy and was made to eat every last crumb of whatever had been put in front of her, so that leaving a clean plate had become an ingrained habit.

  Today she left all but two or three of the game chips, causing the butler to enquire if they were not to her liking.

  'There's nothing wrong with them. I'm just not very hungry today.'

  She could imagine the sardonic expression with which James Gardiner would have reacted to this statement, had he been at the table. Conway kept his thoughts to himself. Perhaps, returning to the kitchen, he would say something such as, 'Wonders never cease, Mrs Briars. Miss Roberts isn't hungry.' But, if so, she wouldn't hear him.

  The pudding was a chilled orange compote, giving her her first taste of sweetness since the day before yesterday. Having eaten the thinly sliced fruit, she was about to drink the syrup left in her bowl when the echo of a scornful voice saying fat as a pig made her hesitate and put down her spoon.

  During the afternoon it began to rain and Summer foresaw a wet ride home. Fortunately, she had a black plastic cape and a sou'wester in her saddle-bag, and there were wellington boots she could borrow in the downstairs cloakroom.

  Conway was clearing away their tea things when the schoolroom door opened and James Gardiner walked in.

  To Summer's astonishment Emily leapt to her feet and ran across the room more eagerly than she had ever greeted her father. They had not been a demonstrative family and, although this man was her uncle, he was still virtually a stranger.

  Even more surprisingly, he scooped her up in his arms, whirled her round in a circle and set her back on her feet.

  'Hi there. How've you been?' he asked, smiling, before turning to say good evening to Summer and the butler.

  In fact it was still afternoon, but the unrelenting heavy downpour had made them draw the curtains earlier than usual. Lit by one lamp and the leaping flames in the hearth the schoolroom looked very cosy.

  'Would you care for some tea, m'Lord?'

  'No, thanks, Conway. I need something more potent than tea after driving from London in this deluge.'

  'A Scotch on the rocks perhaps, m'Lord?' A faint smirk showed that the butler was being facetious.

  'A double Scotch without the rocks would be even better. Ice is fine when it's hot, but not in this climate.'

  James Gardiner raked back a lock of wet hair which had fallen forward across his forehead. Then he produced a linen handkerchief and dried his hands on it.

  'I got drenched in a five-yard dash from the car to the house.'

  'You're going to get soaked going home. Why don't you stay the night, Summer?' Emily suggested.

  'No, I must get back. I have things to do. My cape is completely waterproof.'

  'You can't cycle in this, Miss Roberts. You'll be half blinded by the rain. I'll drive you home,' James Gardiner offered, taking up the traditional English male stance on the hearthrug, with his back to the fire. However, as the room also had radiators, he only blocked the firelight, not the heat.

  'Thank you, but it isn't necessary. I often cycle home in the rain. The trees along the drive will shelter me from the worst of it.'

  'You live near the schoolhouse, don't you? That's half a mile from t
he gates, on a major road. Visibility is very poor tonight, and you could be knocked down. I'll drive you—when I've had my reviver. Wait a moment, Conway'—this as the butler was about to leave the room. 'Bring me a cold beef sandwich with my Scotch, would you, please? If there's no beef, chicken or Cheddar will do.'

  'Certainly, m'Lord.'

  With Emily holding the door for him, the old man carried the laden tray from the room.

  Summer had glimpsed a flash of irritation on the younger man's face which she attributed to his dislike of the butler's repeated use of his unwanted title. Perhaps he held strong views which allied him more with the Left Wing element of the country's political system.

  'So what have you two been doing with yourselves today?' he asked, as his niece returned to the fireside.

  She curled up in a corner of the large shabby slipcovered sofa which faced the hearth, as it had in his time and before.

  Having described their activities, she said, 'What have you been doing, James? Did you stay at the flat? I've never been there.'

  'The flat is in Belgravia, near Eaton Square. I stayed at the Savoy which is nearer the City where the people I had to see have their offices.'

  'Did you go to the theatre last night?'

  'No, I dined with a friend at his club.'

  'Daddy belonged to the Turf Club and Boodle's, but he mostly used Boodle's. So did Granpa.'

  'A bastion of undeserved privilege and reactionary minds,' was her uncle's dry comment. 'My friend is a scientist. He belongs to the Athenaeum.'

  The reference to undeserved privilege seemed to support Summer's thought that he might be a staunch Left Winger. If he were, it would increase her dislike of him.

  She had an instinctive fear of people with extremist views which they almost invariably sought to impose on everyone around them. Kindness and tolerance were the qualities she admired above all others.

  The Lancaster family's motto was Nemo me impune lacessit. No one attacks me with impunity. James Gardiner had told her that his personal motto was: He travels fastest who travels alone. Looking back to her formative years, Summer knew that if her parents had a credo, it had been: Live and let live. Their friends had been drawn from all walks of life, many different religious sects and more than one racial background. Her father would have thought it as foolish to condemn a man for being privileged as for being poor.

  She was seated in a high-backed basket chair with cushions of the same faded, rose-patterned chintz as the cover on the sofa. On the opposite side of the hearth was a deep wide-armed club chair, also slipcovered. Presently James Gardiner lowered his tall frame into it, stretching out long legs which made her uneasily conscious of the width of her thighs, made more noticeable by being in a sitting position.

  She could never sit with her knees crossed. Except when she was alone with Emily, she tried to remember to sit like the Queen when she was being photographed; with her lower legs slanted to one side and crossed at the ankle. Nothing could make her legs look slim, but in that position they looked less like the legs of a billiard table, as they did when planted squarely in front of her with a space between her fat knees.

  As she listened in silence to Emily chattering to her uncle, her mind was at work on the problem of how to avoid being driven home by him.

  When Conway returned with a silver tray in place of the wooden one he usually brought to the schoolroom, she rose, saying, 'If you'll excuse me for a few minutes, I'll take some books back to the library. Mr Renfrew doesn't like us to accumulate too many up here.'

  'Who is Mr Renfrew?'

  'He's a retired archivist who came to live near here some years ago, and discovered that the library had never been properly catalogued. He's been working on it ever since.

  'For a salary or for love?'

  'I've no idea.'

  Conway cleared his throat. 'If I may venture to answer your question, m'Lord, I believe Mr Renfrew receives an honorarium for his services. His health is not good and he doesn't come on a regular basis. This week he's confined to bed with a chill.'

  As she made her escape from the room with an armful of leather-bound volumes, Summer hoped James Gardiner hadn't spotted Emily's look of puzzlement at the mention of Mr Renfrew. In fact the archivist had never expressed an objection to books being removed from the library—it wasn't his place to do so. Besides, as he was aware, both Summer and Emily were people with an inborn respect for all books, old or new.

  Young as she was, the child could be trusted to handle a rare and perhaps fragile volume with the care it deserved. Although sometimes careless with her clothes and other possessions, she never had to be reminded to wash her hands before touching the books in the library, or indeed those in her own bookcase, given to her as Christmas and birthday presents.

  On reaching the library, Summer didn't spend time replacing the books in their correct places on the shelves. She left them in a pile on a table before hurrying to the downstairs cloakroom.

  The early morning weather forecast had made it seem advisable to unbuckle her saddle-bag and bring it indoors with her. Quickly she changed her shoes for a pair of Wellington boots which she knew would accommodate fat calves.

  She was unfolding her cape when the cloakroom door opened so suddenly that she jumped and gave a little gasp.

  'Where do you think you're going?' James Gardiner demanded.

  It took several moments for her to recover from being startled. To her annoyance, he had managed to make her feel as guilty as if she had been doing something wrong—instead of relieving him of the trouble of turning out again when he would much rather be lounging by the schoolroom fire.

  'I'm going home, Lord Cranmere... I beg your pardon, Mr Gardiner,' she corrected herself. 'I happen to want to get back early tonight, and I saw no reason to spoil your enjoyment of your drink.'

  'Do you usually leave the house without saying goodnight to Emily?'

  'No, I don't,' she admitted, her colour rising. 'But in the circumstances, I—'

  He interrupted her. 'I don't know how long it takes you to ride home in normal conditions, but it would take longer tonight—considerably longer than waiting for me to drink my Scotch and run you home in the car.'

  'Possibly.' His autocratic manner was beginning to make her angry.

  After what she had heard him say about her, she would always feel latent hostility towards him in any circumstances. It only needed a little extra aggravation to bring that hostility bubbling to the surface, like a saucepan of milk boiling over.

  She said, 'Frankly, I'm not very keen on being driven by people who drink and drive.'

  'It takes more than one double Scotch to impair my judgment, Miss Roberts, and it's my first drink today. I don't start before lunch like your previous employer.'

  Later, when she was reviewing the altercation, she thought it a curious way to refer to his father's heavy drinking. She concluded he had meant to emphasise that it was he who now held hire-and-fire power over her. As if she needed 'reminding!

  'However, it's still in the glass, and I'm still as sober as you are,' he went on, reaching for the dark green waterproof coat which his brother had worn for flyfishing, and taking a flat brown tweed cap from the peg above it.

  It was the kind of cap worn for country pursuits by landowners all over England. It fitted his head well enough, but somehow it didn't suit his face. It went with a ruddy complexion, not a sub-tropical tan; with eyes of blue, grey or brown, but not with tawny gold irises; with an Anglo-Saxon physiognomy, not the sharply carved features of his face.

  He was the last of a line which could be traced back to the early fifteenth century. Yet when he had shrugged on the coat and put on the peaked tweed cap, he looked extraordinarily un-English. He looked what he had become; a tall, tough, decisive American who liked to give orders and have them obeyed, not defied.

  'And you needn't feel you're being a nuisance,' he went on. 'As anyone who knows me will tell you, being the son of a peeress doesn't make me one o
f Nature's gentlemen. I do things for my convenience; rarely for anyone else's. It would upset my plans for you to be knocked down tonight, and also I want to discuss them with you.'

  She hadn't seen the car he had hired, but she thought it unlikely it would be a large estate car with room for her bicycle in the back.

  She said, 'What about my bike? I shall need it tomorrow.'

  'If it's fine, you can walk for a change. If not, we'll send someone to fetch you. Don't stand there arguing, Miss Roberts. Get that cape on and let's get started.'

  Fuming, she did as he told her. A few minutes later she was in the leather-scented interior of a Jaguar, and he was dashing round to the driver's side of the limousine.

  Summer couldn't afford to buy a car, even a secondhand model, but since her aunt's death she had learned to drive. There was a driving instructor living in the village—he worked in the nearest town, but he lived not far from her cottage. He had a daughter who had sat for her 'O' level examinations the previous summer, and some weeks before the exams, he had asked Summer if she would give the girl some private coaching in the evenings. She had agreed, if he would teach her to drive. Somewhat to her surprise, she had passed the test the first time and could now hire a car if ever she needed one.

  The Jaguar had an automatic gear change, she noticed. So had the car which her father had driven. But as most of the less expensive cars on the road in England had a manual gear change, she had learnt to drive on one of those.

  'What are the plans you mentioned?' she asked coldly, as the car glided forward.

  'I'll go into that in a moment. First you tell me something. Why do you want to get home early tonight? Are you going out?'

  She didn't have a reason ready, nor could she improvise one.

  'That was a lie, wasn't it?' he accused her. 'Like the one about Renfrew disapproving of more than a few books being removed from the library. It was obvious to me that Emily had never heard of that embargo—you invented it. It was an excuse to get you out of the schoolroom.'

  When she said nothing, he continued, 'Don't ever try lying to me again, Miss Roberts. I dislike attempts to bamboozle me. If the reason you didn't want a lift was because you thought a double whisky might top up my alcohol level to the point of making me unsafe behind a wheel, you should have said so, point-blank. I never prevaricate myself, and I don't like people who do.'