"Would you like to see the house I've bought for Aunt Elaine?" Nicholas sounded hopeful.
"Well, perhaps it is a bit late…" she said doubtfully. She did not think she could bear much more of his company. She was terrified of betraying herself to him.
"It wouldn't take long," he pleaded.
She hesitated. Nicholas was out of the car in a second and opening her door. She still sat there, uncertain what to do. He bent and extricated her from her seat with a strong, deft arm. Before she could think of anything to say or do, she was walking across the road and in at the small gate of a little cottage.
The garden was overgrown, but she could see, even by the dim dying light, that there were hosts of spring flowers hidden among the weeds and brown brambles. Daffodils, tulips and hyacinths raised strangled heads in the gloom. A lilac tree leaned against the small white fence. Rose bushes reared up here and there, their thorny fingers scraping against the cottage walls as the wind blew.
Nicholas unlocked the front door and ushered her inside. He switched on the light in the hall. It was tiny, the wallpaper a gay splodge of many flowers, giving it the appearance of a mad garden.
The stairs led up on the right. On the left were two doors. Nicholas opened the nearest and waved her onward.
"The parlour—very cosy when it's furnished, as I remember. It was two small rooms. The last owners knocked it into one room, and I prefer it now. What do you think?"
Kate looked around her. The room was an odd shape, something like the letter T. But it had a certain attraction, especially as the windows had been enlarged to admit as much light as possible.
"It is a pretty room," she admitted.
"The kitchen is very modern," said Nick. He showed her into a small, narrow room, fitted with many modern cupboards and some excellent equipment.
"Well?" he demanded.
Kate shrugged. "She'll hate it," she said.
He groaned. "Do you think I don't know that?" He glared around the tiny room. "After the kitchen at Sanctuary! How could she be happy in this box, for all its wonderful gadgets? She hates food anyway. She rarely cooks. The kitchen for her is somewhere to live, not somewhere to cook."
"Then why did you buy it?"
"What else could I do? I've got to do something. This situation can't go on. Sylvia and Aunt Elaine are tearing me in two. I shall go out of my mind if something doesn't resolve the situation."
Kate took the poison point of a spear of pain and drove it into her heart. In a quiet, drained voice she said, "Why not just go ahead and marry Sylvia and let things sort themselves out afterwards?"
He turned to look at her, his eyes narrowing in astonishment. "What?"
She repeated her suggestion. "Once you're married, once it's a fait accompli, your aunt will have to come to terms with it. While you hesitate, she can hope that you'll change your mind. Once that hope has vanished she'll face facts."
He was oddly silent. Then he said slowly, "You're right, of course. That's what I must do."
She was surprised that he showed no pleasure in this way out.
He stood, staring down at her, his face thoughtful. "You're a perceptive little thing, Kate. Quiet, gentle Kate…" His hand touched her cheek, moved softly downwards to her throat, as though he were caressing one of the cats, the tips of his fingers leaving a track of fire where it had rested, awakening her nerve-ends and making her quiver with happiness.
A transparent glass dome seemed to enclose them for a moment. She saw, heard, nothing but him. He was looking at her with those cool grey eyes. She gazed back, her heart laid bare, moving closer to him without volition, her lips parted in trembling consent.
He bent his head and she lifted her face. For a fraction of a second they almost kissed. Passion did not enter into it. There was only a gentle recognition between them, a sweetness which pierced but did not arouse.
Then the glass dome shattered. Nicholas's face froze. He blinked, as though awakening from a dream. He drew back, his hands dropping from her hurriedly.
"My God," he muttered, "this is becoming a habit. You're far too pretty, Kate. We must avoid these occasions, or you'll think I have a nerve calling Jimmy a flirt!" He tried to grin. "We'd better go."
Mrs. Butler met them at the door, her face anxious. "Punch has disappeared!"
"Disappeared? How long has he been missing?" Nicholas was immediately concerned.
"All day! Ever since you went into Maiden, Kate. I suppose you didn't take him with you? I thought perhaps you had!"
"I wouldn't do that without telling you!"
Mrs. Butler sighed. "No, I realised that some time ago. That was when I really became worried. It's not like Punch to miss a meal. He's usually first through the door when I whistle." She looked at Nick pleadingly. "Where can he be?"
"Have you rung the farm? He often goes across there to hunt rabbit, you know, especially if both Kate and I were out and he hadn't had his daily walk."
"It's my fault," Mrs. Butler exclaimed miserably. "I meant to take the dogs for a walk after lunch, but he'd gone by then. That was when I first missed him. Patch and Poppy were asleep in the stable yard, but there was no sign of Punch."
"Odd for him to go off without the other two. They hunt in the pack usually." Nicholas looked down at his clothes. "Look, I'll change and go out to look for him."
"So will I," said Kate, flying upstairs.
"Your dinner!" called Aunt Elaine.
Nick was back on the stairs in five minutes flat, wearing his old jeans and a white sweater. Kate joined him a moment later.
"I'm not hungry," Kate said eagerly. "I had tea at four o'clock."
"Tea?" Nick looked at her in amusement. "That wafer biscuit?"
"I had had a sandwich before you joined us," she flushed.
Mrs. Butler shrugged. "Your dinner will keep hot. Mrs. Pepper left a hotpot in the oven, and that doesn't damage for keeping."
"Come on," said Nick, getting a large hand-torch out of the kitchen. "We'd better stay within earshot of each other. I don't want to have to look for you later."
"I shan't get lost," she assured him indignantly.
"You don't know this countryside yet. In the dark it's quite easy to fall into a ditch. We'll go down to the farm first, calling all the way. If they haven't seen him there, we'll cut across to the river."
"Oh!" Kate had a sudden chilly picture of Punch struggling helplessly in cold water, being dragged along by the impetus of the river.
Nick halted in his stride and looked back at her. His long arm hooked her up, pulling her close against the warmth of his side.
"Stop it, little Miss Fox. Punch has at least ninety-nine lives. Don't think the worst. I'm prepared to bet that he's sleeping, snug as a bug, at the farm, having dined like a king on best steak."
She laughed. "Yes, that's probably what's happened."
The darkness, out here, was absolute now. The moon had gone in behind clouds. There were no stars. The lights of the main road were far, far away. Only the pale path of Nick's torch showed them where they trod. The wind creaked protestingly in the trees. A far-off scream rose suddenly and Kate jumped.
"Don't squeak like that," Nick said, "I almost dropped the torch."
"W—what was that noise?"
"Owl hunting, probably."
She shivered. Hunting what?
"You are a strange little thing," Nicholas told her indulgently. "You shouldn't care so much about things. You will make yourself too vulnerable."
She did not answer. Too vulnerable? She thought of .Sylvia, remote and lovely, yet dead in some ways to any sort of human weakness. Better to be too vulnerable than so hard and empty. Was that the choice put before one? To expose oneself to pain, or shut oneself away from all feeling for others, only care for oneself?
I'm unfair to her, she told herself angrily. How do I know what she thinks? But at once she recalled Sylvia's contemptuous look as she spoke of Mrs. Butler, her patronising manner to Helen, even to herself, Kate.
She stumbled once or twice on molehills. Nick had to keep halting for her. She apologised.
"Why don't you go on without me? I'll be all right."
"It looks like it!" He was irritated.
They came down towards the farmhouse, and the lights from it made it easier to see their way. Jimmy met them at the back door, grinning delightedly. But his expression changed when he heard their reason for coming.
"No," he said in concern, "old Punch hasn't been here. How long has he been absent without leave?"
"Most of the day, apparently."
"I'll come with you to search," Jimmy offered.
"Why not search the barns?" suggested Jimmy's father. "Punch may have got into one of them and been locked up."
"Good idea!" said Nick. They all went out to search around the farm, calling loudly, but although the farm dogs set up a raucous noise in response there was no sound of Punch's very individual voice.
They set out then to search the surrounding land, right down to the riverbank and back, but after a further hour it was clear that Punch was not within easy walking distance of Sanctuary, and they went back to the house, leaving Jimmy at the farm on the way.
Mrs. Butler met them at the house, her face eager. Her expression changed as she realised that they had not found the dog.
Nicholas looked at Kate with raised eyebrows. "You need a hot bath—you look like a mudlark!"
She laughed, looking down at her filthy jeans and sweater. She had fallen so many times during the search that she had long given up any idea of brushing off the mud, and her nose and cheeks were as smeared as her jeans.
"He may have hitched a lift in a car," suggested Nick. "Did anyone call here this morning? You know how much Punch loves to have a ride in a car."
"There was only Sylvia," said his aunt crisply.
Nick went to the telephone and rang her at once. Kate and his aunt stood, waiting, trying not to listen to the conversation.
He returned within a few moments, shaking his head. "No, Sylvia hasn't seen him." He was rather red, Kate saw, and had a tight-lipped air of fury which his aunt observed with great interest.
"Well, we can only wait and see if he turns up," said Mrs. Butler cheerfully. "Kate, go and have that bath. Nick, you'd better have one after her. You can't eat dinner in that condition."
Nicholas curtly nodded. "Yes."
Kate soaked slowly in her bath, feeling her weary muscles relaxing in the scented warmth. Had Nick quarrelled with Sylvia during that brief telephone call?
As he emerged, swathed in the new rose-pink quilted dressing-gown which Helen had persuaded her to add to her list of clothes, she found Nicholas waiting impatiently.
"What were you doing in there?" he demanded in some irritation. "I was about to break the door down and give you artificial respiration!"
Pink and relaxed, her brown hair damply curling, she smiled impishly at him, and passed into her bedroom without answering.
"Women!" He slammed the bathroom door and began to run his bath noisily.
When she got downstairs Mrs. Butler smiled at her, admiring her new appearance.
"You've even had your hair done in a new way!"
"A page-boy bob, yes. Do you like it?"
"Very much! It makes you look quite different. Don't you agree, Nick?" looking over her shoulder with an amused smile.
Kate didn't turn. Her heart leapt and, ignoring this traitorous feeling, she pretended indifference to his response.
"She looks very nice," said Nick tamely.
"Very nice? Oh, Nick," reproached his aunt. "Are you blind?"
His voice was husky, no doubt from the steamy bath. "No," he said flatly. "I'm not blind." Then, suddenly, in a voice sharpened by hope, "And I'm not deaf, or mad, either—isn't that Punch barking somewhere?"
They all stood, transfixed. Faint and far-off came the weak barking.
"It's coming from upstairs," said Nick, running.
They followed. The sound came from the. attics. Nick followed it like a hound on the scent and flung open the door of the small room.
"I was in here this morning looking for something in one of the trunks," said Mrs. Butler. "I must have locked him in when I left…"
"But where is he?" asked Nick, staring around the small, dusty room.
Then from a motheaten tangle of old blankets crawled a weary animal, lifting his head with eager pleading, whining and licking their hands as they reached him.
"He's ill!" Nicholas touched the damp, perspiring flanks with a gentle hand.
"That's why he didn't answer us! He was asleep, sick…"
"He's been sick," Nick indicated. "Poor old lad, what is it?"
"I'll call the vet," Kate offered, leaping for the stairs.
The vet arrived within fifteen minutes and examined Punch carefully. He was slightly better now, able to lift his head with less difficulty.
"He's been poisoned," said the vet. "Fortunately, I think he's managed to expel most of the poison when he vomited, and he's slept most of the day in an effort to fight off the effects. He may have saved his own life. I'll take him with me, just in case the poison is more serious, but I think he'll be all right."
"I'll come with you," said Mrs. Butler.
"Nothing you can do, dear lady," said the vet. "Much better to stay here and look about for the poison. It may be lying around anywhere. Other animals may take it."
"What sort of poison?" asked Nicholas.
"Could be anything—dogs will eat whatever they find! Rat poison, weed-killer, chemicals of some sort… who knows? Just check on his usual haunts. Early tomorrow morning will do—in daylight."
When he had gone they had a rather subdued meal. He rang two hours later to tell them that he had got a laboratory analysis of the contents of Punch's stomach. The poison was probably some form of weed-killer. It was in a diluted form, possibly accidentally deposited on some animal. Did Punch eat mice, for instance? That might have been the source.
But they found the source easily enough next day when they discovered a little pool of weed-killer spilled on the floor in the small greenhouse behind the kitchen garden.
"I must have done it," moaned Mrs. Butler in terrible self-reproach, her face white.
"You left the top off the bottle and Punch knocked the bottle over and drank some of the contents," said Nick. "Don't be too upset, Aunt Elaine. Accidents happen. You must remember to put the top back on the bottle again in future."
"I may have killed Punch," she whispered faintly.
"I think he's going to survive! The vet did say that as he's passed the first twenty-four hours without expiring he's not likely to do so now!" Nick's voice was cheerful and coaxing, a little teasing.
"It isn't funny, Nick!" Her vivid blue eyes glared at him.
"I know, darling," he said gently. "But it isn't the end of the world, either. You made a mistake! You're human. Just put it behind you now and forget it."
"I shall never forget it!"
Kate put an arm around her. "Of course you won't forget it! Come and have a cup of tea, then we'll drive in to see Punch and bring him home."
She looked back at Nick, shaking her head reproachfully. He had not handled his aunt very well. Nick shrugged his inability to understand the female mind.
"I shall never use weed-killer again," said Mrs. Butler in a passionate whisper. "I won't take such a risk ever again."
"You don't need it, anyway," Kate said. "I'll do the weeding for you in future, and I'm not poisonous!"
Mrs. Butler laughed. Nick, following them into the house, gave a groan of apprehension.
"I don't like the sound of this! I have a shrewd suspicion that it's me who'll be doing the weeding around here!"
"Put the kettle on, Nick," Kate told him. "Shall we feed the kittens, Mrs. Butler? They look as though they could do with a saucer or two of milk."
"Why don't you call me Aunt Elaine?" came the plaintive reply. "I keep asking you to call me that."
"She's shy," Nick said tolerantly, smiling at Kate's pink-cheeked confusion.
"Have you put the kettle on yet?" Kate demanded crossly.
He laughed. "What a monstrous regiment of women I'm surrounded by! Why do I put up with it?"
"You like it," said his aunt softly, her smile secret.
CHAPTER SIX
Sylvia lounged on a rough garden seat, her sinuous body sheathed in silver-blue silk jersey pants and shirt. The loose mass of her hair fell into a perfect frame around her face as she tilted her head to smile at Nick.
"You will be at my party next week, won't you? You won't let business interfere with that? If it's fine I planned to have a barbecue in the field next door to our garden—if it rains, we can eat indoors."
"I can't see why anything should interfere," he said vaguely, looking across the garden as the dogs came into sight.
Patch and Poppy snuffled up to him, tails wagging, eyes bright and hopeful. Nick, grinning, patted them, and they became ecstatic. When their enthusiasm took them too close to her, Sylvia's red mouth tightened. The green eyes were frozen with distaste.
"Keep them off me, Nick!"
He looked at her in frowning silence, surprised by the sudden sharpness of her tone.
Unaware for once of his reaction, she went on irritably, "They shower my clothes with hairs. This material picks up everything, and it takes hours to brush it off later,"
"Down!" Nick spoke firmly to the dogs. Taking hold of their collars, he pulled them back. They sat, reluctantly, tongues wagging.
Sylvia, engrossed in the inspection of her pants for signs of the attentions which the dogs had given her, did not even notice Nick's grim silence or the long, cool look he was giving her.
Kate suddenly ran from the house, flushed and excited. "Nick! Nick! The vet just rang! Punch can come home!"
His face lit up. "That's wonderful news!" He smiled at her. "Calm down, Kate! What have you been doing this morning?"
Sweet Sanctuary Page 7