by Susan Barrie
THE QUIET HEART
Susan Barrie
It wasn’t exactly the kind of life Alison Fairlie had once planned—tucked away as caretaker at Leydon Hall, with three young girls to look after. But when Charles Leydon arrived, threatening to disrupt it, she dreaded what the future might bring.
Then the master of Leydon became ill and Alison was suddenly forced into the role of nurse as well!
CHAPTER I
THE French clock on the mantelpiece chimed eleven delicate, silvery chimes.
Alison rose and approached the tray that Mrs. Davenport, the daily help, had just brought in and set down on a rosewood table, and she ran an anxious eye over it to make absolutely certain it held the requisite number of cups. They were all delicate examples of expensive china, rescued by Alison when one of the periodic ‘turnings out’ of closets and store cupboards at Leydon had taken place.
She had managed to amass a number of things that she valued, and the then owner of Leydon did not. Fine linen, lace-edged towels and pillow slips, mammoth sheets that could be split down the middle and utilised as a pair, silver dishes and a pair of silver wine-coolers that were wonderful for displaying flowers. The French clock on the mantelpiece had been thrown out because something appeared to be wrong with its mechanism, but Alison herself had put it right.
She was clever at doing little jobs like that ... clever at quite a number of things.
The girls, clustered before the window, gave voice to a concerted shout as the car drove under the arch.
“He’s coming!”
Marianne rushed to the oval mirror above the fireplace and frantically inspected her appearance, Jessamy watched excitedly, Lorne whistled softly.
“A Mercedes sports! ... I’d have one myself if I could afford it! It’s the only car I’d really like—”
“What colour is it?” Marianne rushed back to the window. “Letter-box red! And it looks new! ... All gleaming and gorgeous! My goodness,” the breath catching in her throat, “he’s quite something, isn’t he? Dark and devastating ... But all the Leydons are dark, aren’t they?”
“Devil’s brew, Mrs. Davenport calls them.”
“Rubbish! What does she know about them, anyway?”
“She used to work for the family ... was nanny to this present Leydon. Wonder if she’ll greet him rapturously despite the things she says about him, and he’ll let her cry on his shoulder? My dear old nurse, and so forth!”
“Don’t be silly,” Lorne said crisply, contemptuously, because her information was correct. “Mrs. Davenport worked in the kitchens when she worked here at all, and the present Leydon was born in New Zealand. If he had a nanny out there she was probably a Maori.”
“I wish you girls would come away from the window,” Alison, who all at once was feeling quite consumed by nerves and apprehension, protested in thin, taut tones. “If Mr. Leydon can see you he’ll think you’re behaving very vulgarly, and if old Mr. Minty is with him he certainly will. Is Mr. Minty with him?”
The two older girls backed decorously from the window, but Lorne remained at her place of vantage.
“Mr. Minty is driving his own car, and as always it looks as if it’s about to fall to bits,” she reported. “Wouldn’t you think that man would buy himself something new? When you think how often clients leave him money in their wills ... Quite large sums! I wonder he’s got the nerve to take it, and go around like that—”
“S’sh!” Alison exclaimed, biting her lip as the footsteps came along the corridor. “Be quiet! They’re coming!”
Mrs. Davenport preceded them, hobbling along on her rheumaticky limbs, rapping sharply on the stout oak panels of the door.
“The gentlemen are here, Mrs. Alison, ma’am,” she said hoarsely.
Alison stood stiffly, as if at attention.
“Do ask them to come in, Mrs. Davenport,” she said quietly, and from the musical cadences of her voice no one would have guessed that at that particular moment she felt as if the whole of her future was in the melting-pot, and her anxiety was so great that it clouded her brain, and rendered her incapable of anything really inspired.
Mrs. Davenport withdrew in order to allow the gentlemen to pass her in the narrow oak doorway. There was a coat-of-arms above it, let into the panelled wall, and it was the coat-of-arms of the Leydons. The present incumbent, as it were, was tall, dark, and impeccably dressed.
He did not look as if he had spent any part of his life in a cattle-raising country, but he did look much as his forebear at the time of the Regency—judging by his portrait in the main gallery—must have looked. His features were faintly aquiline, and he had an excellent brow and beautifully marked eyebrows. In place of sideboards there was nothing but a smooth-shaven appearance, and whoever barbered him did the job lovingly. His tailor, just as plainly, loved fitting him out with casually cut clothes that were nevertheless faultless, and on this occasion his Old Etonian tie was knotted perfectly.
Alison was a little surprised to discover that he wore an Old Etonian tie. Like Lorne she had imagined him wearing a slightly tougher appearance ... that is to say, physically tougher. For in this thin-lipped face there was a degree of toughness that alarmed her, and in his colourless eyes—ice-blue eyes, she thought of them for ever afterwards—there was nothing but a disinterested coldness.
He had a way of looking about him, from the very first moment that he entered the room, alertly, critically, and without pleasure, not even noticing her until the elderly solicitor, who was feeling distinctly uncomfortable on this occasion, drew his attention to her. He coughed behind his hand and said, smiling wryly at Alison:
“This is Mr. Leydon, Mrs. Fairlie. Mr. Leydon, allow me to introduce Mrs. Alison Fairlie. She has been a remarkably excellent caretaker since Leydon Hall came into her scope of things.”
“Really?” Charles Leydon held out his hand. But it was a purely perfunctory gesture, grasping her fingers for an instant and letting them go. But before he let them go he took in every detail of her appearance, she was sure of that. Without insolence, without interest—without any expression whatsoever—he took in the pale curves of the delicately featured face, the grey eyes, the soft, silken hair, the resolute little chin, the rounded throat that looked more rounded and pliable because she was wearing a neat white collar and a navy-blue dress.
“You don’t mind if I have a look round, Mrs. Fairlie?”
“Of course not,” she replied. She added awkwardly: “It—it’s your house now, isn’t it?”
“I believe it is.” For an instant the colourless eyes expressed surprise. Then for the first time they appeared to notice the girls ... Alison’s trio of stepdaughters.
As a trio they had a very, very great deal to commend them. Marianne, who was only a few years younger than Alison, was a startling beauty, with corn-gold hair, china-blue eyes, an exquisite skin. Jessamy, who was the studious one, was dark and dreamy in her appearance, and walked with a limp because she had had polio when she was young. The limp was noticeable and extremely painful to her and to everyone who knew her and thought a lot of her, but to Alison it was particularly painful. She loved Jessamy as if she was her own daughter. Her main idea in life was to protect Jessamy. Lorne, who was only fifteen, was the plainest of the three girls, but she had an engaging smile and a freckle on the tip of her nose that drew attention to its shapeliness.
She was not pleased by what she saw when the new owner walked in. And because that was the way she reacted her smile vanished, and her eyes narrowed. She felt the need to be cautious.
All at once Leydon smiled. Or rather, he looked amused.
“What a bevy of beauty! Surely they are not all yours, Mrs. Fairlie?” switching his cool glance towards her while his eyebrows upraised the
mselves.
It was so obvious that they could not possibly be hers—except in the sense that she had married their father—that Alison actually flushed with resentment. She could not remember feeling so taken aback for a long time. If a young woman of twenty-seven could be the mother of another in her twenty-first year it was nothing short of a miracle, she might have retorted; but she heard Mr. Minty cough in an embarrassed manner, Marianne giggled, and she decided to explain simply but stiffly:
“Marianne, Jessamy and Lorne are my stepdaughters. May I present them, Mr. Leydon?” The girls looked slightly awkward, but Leydon’s eyes developed a twinkle. “Say how do you do to Mr. Leydon, girls,” their stepmother commanded, biting her lip again because it had been necessary to remind them of what was expected of them.
They chorused, “How do you do, Mr. Leydon?”
Beautifully cared-for white teeth flashed as he smiled briefly.
“Very well, thank you, and I trust you’re all in splendid health, too.” Then his eyes fastened on Jessamy, who had taken an unwise step forward and drawn attention to her ungainly limp. “But this young lady has obviously met with an accident recently.” The colourless eves revealed an amazing amount of concern. “I hope it wasn’t very serious? The leg will mend in time?”
“We hope so,” Alison replied without elaborating.
Charles Leydon looked hard at her for a moment, and then away. He laid a gentle hand on Jessamy’s arm.
“Of course it will mend in time,” he said, as if he knew all about it and had prior knowledge of what would happen to her.
Jessamy stared at him.
The solicitor spoke in a nervous voice.
“Mr. Leydon has decided not to make use of his title,” he explained to Alison. “The baronetcy is not extinct, of course, and we had a Sir Charles before the late Sir Francis inherited. It would be most pleasant to have another Sir Charles at Leydon Hall, but if Mr. Leydon prefers otherwise—”
“I certainly do,” Mr. Leydon said coldly.
“If we could have a look round ...? I’m sure everything is in order.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Alison handed over a fat bunch of keys to the solicitor. “I think it might save time if I showed you round, but I thought first of all you might prefer a cup of coffee?”
“How long will it take?” Mr. Leydon, who had been fingering one of the coffee cups and was at that moment holding it up to the light to test the quality of the china, looked up at her sharply.
“Only a few minutes. The percolator boils quickly. I’ll plug it in—”
“No, please don’t!” He set down the coffee cup, and then picked up another. “You have a nice collection of china here, Mrs. Fairlie,” he remarked. “An example of Spode, Wedgwood, Minton, Sevres and Worcester. Are you knowledgeable about such things?”
She felt herself flushing as the strange eyes forced her to meet their full regard.
“I—I... Well, yes, I suppose I am—up to a point,” she admitted.
“I suppose you picked these up in a junk shop, or somewhere like that? Individually they are perfect, but without companions they wouldn’t fetch much.”
“Well, no, as a matter of fact, they once formed part of various sets that belonged to the house,” she explained. “You’ll find you’ve inherited a stack of china, Sir Ch—Mr. Leydon,” she corrected herself hastily, flushing more painfully still. “When I took over the job of caretaker here—after my husband died and we could no longer afford the rent of our corner of the house—it became a part of my duties to look after the silver and the glass and so forth. The china that is on display has to be washed, and inevitably there are accidents—”
“You mean you broke the fellows to these?”
“No, of course not.” This time her eyes flashed indignantly. “My father, Mr. Leydon, was a collector,” with a stiffness that hurt her throat, “and he taught me how to handle fine china. When I said that inevitably there are accidents I meant that—”
“Other people indulge in wholesale smashes?”
Two spots of red burned in her cheeks. Mr. Minty spoke soothingly.
“Of course, of course,” he said, “these things happen.”
Charles Leydon shrugged his shapely shoulders. Carefully his long, artistic fingers returned a coffee cup to the tray.
“Unfortunately, apparently, they do,” he agreed, and turned away.
“What about coffee—?” Alison still felt as if her indignation would choke her.
“Thank you, but I prefer to get on with the job of seeing the house. You can accompany us if you wish,” and he moved towards the door.
Alison and her stepdaughters exchanged glances.
CHAPTER II
IT was a day in late November, and as Leydon Hall had been built in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and successive owners had either not possessed the wherewithal to stand up to the excessive cost, or had disliked the thought of installing some form of central heating, the atmosphere was distinctly chilly as they set forth along the ground floor corridors to explore the house.
Alison’s small suite of apartments was contained in what was known as the south tower, and there at least the temperature was equable. There was always plenty of wood to be found about the estate, and she had permission from the estate office to help herself, and was thankful because she was always able to maintain good fires. But in the main part of the house, despite enormous fireplaces, one generous wood fire would have made little difference.
She noticed, as she trod submissively behind him, that Mr. Leydon turned his coat collar up about his ears as he strode forward. Their footsteps echoed on the stone floors of the corridors, and when they reached the great hall the echo was like the clattering of many pairs of iron-shod hooves. Leydon looked up at the gallery, and the portraits of his many ancestors that lined the walls. There were gentlemen in curled perrukes and elegant eighteenth-century gentlemen, as well as a beauty-chorus of females. One or two of the latter were tight-lipped, and the jewels that smothered their throats and partially concealed their exposed bosoms had the same wicked brightness as their watchful glances.
With one or two exceptions the men were all dark, but most of the women were fair, with generous curves and rose-leaf complexions that had survived despite the alterations in pigmentation throughout the slow passing of centuries.
The hall was magnificently panelled, and the staircase uncurled like a fan until it reached the gallery. It was an innovation put in by a Regency Leydon, who was also responsible for the enormous window divided by stone transoms that lighted one end of the hall. Through it the bleak sunshine of a November day filtered, and lay in primrose patches on the floor.
Alison saw Leydon glance at the fireplace, a mammoth affair that needed half a tree to keep it going once it was alight, and apologised faintly for neglecting to do anything about a fire.
“I know it would have looked cheerful,” she admitted, “but I didn’t think you would be spending much time in the hall.”
Leydon said nothing, and Mr. Minty glanced at her sympathetically. In the wake of the new owner they swept into the dining-room, the drawing-room, the library, the small drawing room, the Oak Parlour or breakfast room, the late owner’s den where he kept his fishing-rods, guns and an extraordinary collection of un-nameable objects, and then—although she hadn’t really believed he would want to see them—they proceeded to the kitchens. Not one kitchen, but half a dozen, apart from sculleries, butlers’ pantries, housemaids’ closets, cold-storage larders, etc.
Mr. Minty made a feeble joke about trying to find the staff to work in them as they filed through, but Alison, who was watching for Leydon’s reaction, thought he barely seemed to hear. Certainly he made no comment himself, and his expression struck her as curious.
There was neither interest, gratification, surprise, pleasure, or indeed displeasure ... and the only thing that happened to him was that his lips seemed to grow a little more thin, and his eyes more remarkably colo
urless.
By the time they had explored the entire ground floor of the house, including outbuildings, stable yard, etc., Alison was beginning to wish she had wrapped herself in a warm coat. She was wearing only her slim navy-blue dress with the little white collar, and her appearance was gradually becoming pinched. But still there were numberless bedrooms to be visited, and she steeled herself for the ordeal.
Behind her, in her little sitting-room, the girls would be drinking hot coffee and devouring ginger biscuits, but she had to remember that the lease of their flat was granted to them in exchange for her services, and the new Sir Charles Leydon looked as if he would demand value right down to the uttermost farthing, and he hadn’t even noticed that she was without a coat.
They climbed to the roof. There were steep staircases leading upwards through attics, and they emerged amongst a forest of chimney-pots and one solitary television aerial to view the surrounding countryside from that altitude.
For the first time Leydon’s expression altered. It would be untrue to say that it softened, but it altered. The tension of his mouth relaxed, a suspicion of brightness invaded his eyes. He leaned over a dangerously low parapet and looked out across the leafless trees of what, in summer, would be a truly magnificent park.
Serried row after serried row they grew ... beech, oak, ash, elm. The elms contained colonies of rooks, the straight trunks of the beeches rose like the pillars of a cathedral to the washed-out blue of the sky. Beyond the extensive parkland, where a species of deer still grazed, the purple heights of the moors could be seen, and beyond the moors was the sea.
Nearer at hand, almost immediately below them, in fact, were the gardens of the Hall. In summer they were a blaze of colour, and carloads of tourists arrived to be shown over them. Twice a week, in August and September, they paid half-crowns to wander at will amongst the glory of the roses, to admire the ornamental shrubs, the magnificence of the herbaceous borders, the sunken Italian garden, the parterre, the lake with its little island floating in the middle of it, the seemingly endless shrubberies.