The house of my enemy

by Norrey Ford

  Verity considered the point, head on one side. "I don't know, Sally. With a Bramhall one would never be dull. Sailing in rough weather is more fun than gliding along on a calm sea."

  "Not to me," said Sally firmly. "I'm a poor sailor."

  Again Adam's quiet tone made an enclosed world for himself and Verity. "You're a good sailor?"

  "I'm not bad. Calm weather bores me. I like to battle the wind and waves."

  He nodded, as if he had noted a point. "Good."

  "In our generation," Laurie declared, "this ridiculous quarrel must stop. Let's vow eternal friendship, here and now." He placed his open hand on the table, and Adam at once laid his big brown paw on top of it.

  "Eternal friendship, Laurie."

  Sally added her hand. "I string along with Laurie."

  There was silence, All three looked at Verity. The little eating-house was very quiet. The shiny urn hissed and from outside there was the clatter of a dray-horse on the cobbles, but round the four at the table the atmosphere seemed charged with significance.

  Adam said, "Verity?"

  She laid her hand on the others. "Eternal friendship, Adam."

  Laurie broke the tenseness. "That's fine. We'll seal it with coffee." He moved over to the counter. Adam

  asked Sally a question about Springwater Farm and she replied.

  Verity said nothing. She was deeply moved. With a laugh, a cigarette, a cup of coffee, these men had blown away a lifetime of bitterness and hate. You had to be big, to do that. She felt light-hearted, excited. The Bramhall quarrel had never oppressed her heavily; it had been merely a part of her life's background, like the brocade drawing-room curtains, yet now she felt as if a load had been lifted.

  Sally's young happiness and Laurie's delight in his bride-to-be shed a shimmering magic on the day. Verity knew the moment would stay with her as long as memory lasted. On that day, she'd say when she was old—on that day and at that moment, I was happy and knew it.

  Adam turned to her. "Not repenting your bargain?"

  She gave him look for look, clear and steady. "No, I've not repented. Adam—almost thirty years of hating gone!"

  Swiftly, he covered her hand with his and pressed firmly. The gesture was done and finished almost before she knew. The touch signalled so plainly that he too was moved by the sharp significance of the moment.

  He glanced at the clock. "I must go. Work to be done and throats to be cut. We must meet again soon."

  "Sure thing," said Laurie. "When we're settled in at the farm it'll be easy."

  They watched Adam stride away down the dock, among the blown grain and the sleek grey pigeons which strutted everywhere.

  "There goes a man," said Laurie. "I like him. Hey, wait a minute!" He pounded after Adam, who heard him coming and turned to wait for him.

  "Do you like him?" Sally asked curiously.

  "Any friend of Laurie's is a friend of mine."

  "That, my child, is exactly no answer at all. I like him, though I'd hate to marry him. As a husband he'd be impossible."

  Verity watched a pink-footed pigeon picking scraps in the roadway. "I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "At least it wouldn't be dull."

  Laurie returned, rubbing his hands with pleasure. "Saturday nights, girls. Put on your oldest clothes, we're having a night out with Adam at Earlton Fair."

  Verity's heart leapt. It wasn't long to Saturday. "Cheers! I adore the fair."

  "As much as all that?" Sally queried shrewdly. "Your face is like a lantern."

  Earlton Spring Fair had its feet firmly planted in tradition, but did not let itself lag behind the times. After the ceremonial opening by the Mayor and the observance of several peculiar customs said to be hundreds of years old, the showmen provided the most up-to-date methods of hurtling the human frame through space, deafening the human ear, extracting money from Earlton pockets. Lights flared, loud-speakers blared, the packed crowd swayed from sideshows to hoop-la tables where they could—but rarely did—win anything from a china tea-set to a giant plush rabbit; from space-rockets to walls of death and ghost trains or tunnels of love. Verity and Adam, Laurie and Sally linked arms and drifted with the crowd, breathing a heady air powerfully scented with fish and chips, cockles and hot peas. Children of Earlton, brought up on an annual visit to the fair, they found the smell delightfully nostalgic, though in any other setting they might have thought it horrid.

  Adam and Laurie were flown with excitement, leading each other on to absurd exploits which half delighted, half terrified the girls. They fought out a grim battle on the dodgem cars, won coconuts and shot ping-pong balls off miniature fountains of water. To Verity's relief, both drew the line at stalls which offered caged budgerigars or jars of goldfish as prizes.

  There were stalls brilliant with pink mint rock, yellow pineapple rock or vivid green rock, lettered all through; there were glistening heaps of golden brandy-snap, piles

  of bright fruit and meat pies and gaudy boiled sweets of improbable size. Verity lingered hopefully before a stall which sold boiled sweets in the shape of giant fish, white one side and a poisonous red the other.

  "I ate dozens as a child, and I'm still alive," she protested plaintively, as the others pulled her away. "They taste delicious, like the acidest acid drops."

  To console her, Adam bought a stick of rock. "Away with lime or pineapple," he declared. "Pink mint rock is the only thing." Verity declared he had the root of the matter in him, and declined a black and white striped humbug merely because she couldn't carry any more booty.

  At last, in a distant corner of the fair, they came across an old-fashioned roundabout with an enchanting steam organ on which a painted wooden bandmaster in knee-breaches beat time with a gilded stick.

  "Bags I the horse," Verity shouted, and led the rush up the three wooden steps as the monster slowed down. There were pathetically few customers for this staid, dignified old has-been, and the four were able to take their choice. There were cocks and horses, ostriches and pigs riding up and down on a brass pole twisted like a barley sugar stick. Each had two shabby red velvet saddles, one before and one behind the brass pole. The rider in front had the glory of clutching the reins, but the rear rider could grip the brass pole securely.

  Verity and Adam shared a white horse with flaring red nostrils and a blue ribbon painted on its neck with its name, Thunderer.

  "Ride in front and I'll hold you on," Adam ordered.

  Verity obeyed. His arms held her firmly round the waist as the contraption gathered speed; hard, muscular arms which were safe, dependable—and exciting. Because of his closeness, his iron hold upon her, she was not able to abandon herself to the high, wide, swinging motion as she had always done in the past. For the first time in her life she felt self-conscious. I'm getting too old for fairs, she thought sadly. She patted Thunderer's neck before she slid to the ground. It was a pat of farewell.

  Laurie lifted Sally from their mount, an ostrich with long racing legs. They were laughing together, and instinctively the other two separated themselves a little, not wishing to play gooseberry to the young lovers.

  Adam put his lips close to Verity's ear, nothing less being audible in the din of the old steam organ. "Having fun?"

  She nodded violently. "This is better than all the atomic submarines and space rockets. Look, the darling pig has lost his curly tail this year."

  "He'd lost it last year. I know. I rode on him. Do you realize that in ten years space rockets will be old-fashioned too, and people will ride them nostalgically and think of their youth?"

  "What a sad thought!" She was wondering with whom he'd shared Percy the pig last year.

  After that they were hungry, and all young enough to defy hygiene and enter a tented restaurant for fish and chips.

  "The temperature of boiling fat must destroy any germs," Sally declared comfortably, and as no one in Earlton was ever expected to eat anything but the freshest fish, brought in on the morning's tide, they had a remarkably satisfying supper,
preferring their own fingers to the proprietor's forks.

  Verity licked her fingers delicately and wiped them on her handkerchief. "This is the nicest way of settling a family feud that I know. How lucky Laurie doesn't pine to be a spice importer."

  Adam grinned. "Lucky he wants to be a farmer. That's his mother's blood. We threshed all that out in hospital. Me, I'm sold on the family business. There's a kind of magic in it. The lovely singing names! Coriander—did you ever hear a more musical name?"

  Verity tilted her head, as if listening. "Coriander, Coriander, she has stolen my heart away! It's poetry."

  He seemed pleased by her quick understanding. They were sharing a scrubbed wooden bench. The scent of crushed grass under their feet was almost as strong as the fish and chips. "Some day, little Verity, I'll tell you about

  the history of spice trading. It stirs the heart, if you have the right understanding. Do you know it's one of the oldest known trades in the world—there were spice caravans on the world's trade routes in the Queen of Sheba's time, and oh, long before that?"

  Laurie groaned. "Take warning, Verity. This man's wits are crazed by his spices."

  "Perhaps Daddy's were, too." As if a curtain lifted just a fraction, she had a moment's quick perception of the baffling why? of the Bramhall quarrel. She'd thought one business as good as another, but if this spice thing could capture a man's heart and imagination as Adam's were captured, perhaps there was rhyme and reason in Robert's long bitterness.

  When it was time to go home, Adam said, "As a perfect little gentleman, I should take Verity home. As hereditary enemy, I am in your hands. What do you advise?"

  "Father would throw a fit if she turned up at home under your escort. Officially she's with Sally and me, so I'll drop her before taking Sally home."

  Adam held her hand a moment when saying goodbye. "It's been fun, cousin Verity. I hoped you enjoyed it too?"

  "Every minute," she assured him warmly. "But then I always do." She saw that he looked slightly crestfallen at that, and feared she had sounded rude. "But I've enjoyed it specially to-night, and thank you for all the things you won."

  "Shall you eat the mint rock?"

  "But of course," she assured him in innocent surprise. "Do you think I'm too old to enjoy a stick of rock?" He laughed with delight. "Verity, I adore you! Sleep

  tight and don't have nightmares about those sideshows."

  Sally decided to sit in the back seat of the car with Verity, and Laurie rolled his eyes skyward. "Bang goes my reputation!"

  "Nonsense, darling! We don't want to talk about you,"

  Laurie inched the bonnet of his car between the tightly-

  packed pedestrians who had taken advantage of the fair

  to claim the entire roadway to their own peril and the

  annoyance of all drivers. Sally snuggled cosily into her corner.

  "That man wants to marry you, Verity."

  Verity felt her colour rise, to her own annoyance. "Adam? Don't be ridiculous. He hardly knows me."

  "Five minutes can be enough. Didn't you notice his reaction the other day when he discovered you weren't really his first cousin?"

  "He seemed surprised, certainly."

  "That wasn't mere surprise. He was struck all of a heap with relief. I know that dark, grim-faced type. Nothing deters them, once they've made up their minds. He'll marry you, whether you like it or not."

  "Your wedding has gone to your head, my poor Sally! You imagine the whole world is in the same dotty condition as yourself. I hardly know Adam and I doubt if I could love him Daddy would be furious and so, incidentally, would Adam's father. It's more than likely I'll marry Tom Cooper, but whether I do or not, I've no intention of marrying Adam Bramhall—so there!"

  "Pooh! What do your intentions matter? He's a Bramhall. He knows what he wants and he'll get it. You'll see."

  In the days that followed, Verity found herself thinking far too often of Sally's absurd idea. Bless the girl, she saw everything in a rose-coloured cloud just now! There was no reason why Verity and Adam Bramhall should ever meet again. They moved in different circles, had different friends, lived at opposite ends of Earlton. If they'd never encountered each other all these years, why should they do so now?

  A dozen times she dismissed the silly notion from her mind. Twice she played tennis with Tom, and drove his car at top speed on the long, straight road to the sea. She bought three of the latest popular records and danced to them till Robert said his teeth were on edge, and on Sunday she walked demurely to church between Laurie and Robert and heard Laurie's banns asked for the first

  time. But in between times, Sally's voice came softly back into her memory.

  "That man wants to marry you!"

  "I've no intention of marrying him."

  "Pooh, what do your intentions matter? You'll see."

  When the telephone rang, her heart beat a tattoo between hope and fear. Sometimes it was Tom, but never Adam.

  Of course not, she told herself sternly. He'd be much too considerate to telephone me here. Suppose Daddy answered?

  She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, munching apples and listening to some of her older and more melancholy records, when Nellie, the housemaid, came looking for her.

  "It's the Oriental Steam Currant Packing Corporation on the phone, Miss Verity. They want to speak to you."

  "Nonsense, Nellie. What do I know about currants? It's my father they want."

  "The gentleman was positive. He asked if Mr. Bramhall was in, and when I said no, he asked for you."

  "Hello," said the Oriental Steam Currant Packing Corporation. "It's me—Adam."

  Her pulses raced. "Are you crazy?"

  "Only cautious. I wanted to reach the princess in the tower when the dragon was out. You said you liked boats." "I do. But—"

  "Care to come fishing with me on Saturday? My boat is in Bridsea harbour and the tide will be right at ten in the morning. Shall I call for you?"

  "I haven't said I'll come."

  "But you will?"

  It was a temptation Verity couldn't resist. "I'd love to. You mustn't come here, so I'll join you at the harbour. I'm never seasick and I promise not to get in the way."

  "Fine. Don't be late, because of the tide. Wear flat heels and something warm and preferably dirty because of the bait and the scales. Seafoam is no luxury liner."

  She gurgled with quick laughter. "What do you take me for?"

  "A darling! Till Saturday, then. Goodbye."

  She cradled the receiver, a thoughtful smile touching her lips. He thought too much of himself, this Adam. Oriental currants indeed! And wear flat heels! Did he think she'd never been in a boat? Maybe Master Adam would have to be taken down a peg or two.

  A darling! Was that a snappy comeback to a silly question, or did he really mean a darling?

  She raced upstairs two at a time, to look out clothes suitable for going fishing with one's cousin—who wasn't any relation at all.-

  CHAPTER TWO

  "BIG romantic stuff!" said Sally, not very distinctly because her cheek bulged with mint rock. "Shall I have the blue check cotton for kitchen curtains or this pattern of carrots and cabbages? Of course you must go fishing with Adam."

  Both girls were sitting on the floor of Mrs. Dane's breakfast-room, surrounded by patterns of curtain material. Hobo, Sally's young dachshund, quivered with happiness as his mistress laid a strip of cotton across his smooth silky brown back and admired it wistfully. "Dare I go contemporary in the kitchen? I've been strictly traditional everywhere else."

  "It's your own kitchen," Verity told her sturdily. "Please yourself. I daresay blue checks were once daringly modern." She handed Hobo a sliver of rock which he chewed noisily. "What shall I say at home about Adam?"

  "Say nothing. It's simpler."

  "Simpler for you, with your modern parents and three younger sisters. Daddy and Aunt Fidget are so interested in all I do. They ask kind questions. They mean well, but it's frustrating."
/>
  "It must be." Sally changed the pattern on Hobo's willing back. "How do you like grandfather clocks and spinning wheels?"

  "Ghastly. Take the cabbages, they's so honest and the colours are bright and clear."

  "Thanks. That's the advice I hoped for. Now listen to your Aunt Sally. You're to say you're coming to the farmhouse to help me measure curtains. That's half true, because I'm going there on Saturday to do just that, and if you join me in time for tea, when Laurie arrives, he can say you've been there all day—if asked."

  "Suppose Laurie doesn't agree? He may not like my going out with Adam alone."

  "He introduced you, didn't he? And we all swore eternal friendship. Don't make difficulties or I shall think you don't want to go. You do—don't you?"

  "To go fishing, yes. I'm not so sure about going with Adam. He disturbs me. His eyes go straight through me and I imagine he sees too much."

  "He won't bite. After all, he's a Bramhall, and you've a lifetime's experience of handling that breed."

  Verity, leaning back on her hands, watched Sally's smooth head downbent over the curtaining, and it was as if a little chill wind blew down the corridors of her own life. Sally was so serenely happy, so secure in Laurie's love. Verity felt barred out from something too big for her to know. She and Sally had been friends as far as ever it is possible for women to know friendship, yet now Sally had some knowledge she could impart to no one; her red mouth curved more sweetly, her steadfast grey eyes shone with a new light, there was a richness and a bloom over her which Verity could appreciate though she could not say exactly where it lay.

  In Verity's own life at this moment there were two men she liked, and no more than liked. Tom Cooper, who was kind and gentle and good, who would be welcomed by her father and who would keep her secure all the rest of her life.

  And there was Adam Bramhall. If someday, the kindliness in her heart should wake to love for Adam, it would prove no happy love. For one thing, her father would he cut to the heart; most probably, he would never forgive her for loving the son of his greatest enemy. She would have to leave Nutmeg House, the only home she'd ever known. In doing so she'd hurt an old man to whom she owed so much, and would feel herself unfaithful to the gentle memory of a kind woman who had picked up an orphan baby in her arms and taken the child to her heart.