Brittle Bondage (6 page)

Thea came into the porch, smiling, in spite of herself, with the pleasure of being home again.

From the doorway, Blake said: “Well, Thea? You’re looking younger.”

And she replied: “I wish I could return that compliment. If I didn’t know you for a healthy brute and a heavy sleeper, I’d say you’re suffering from insomnia. Are you worried about Venetia? Paul Rivers just told me it wasn’t serious.”

Over lunch she watched him. Blake was only thirty-four. Those grey streaks at his temples didn’t mean a thing, because they were hereditary. Their father had had thick, dark hair till the day he died, but she couldn’t remember the time when he had not had the fascinating white wings. They were a distinction which began early in the Garrard men and attained maturity round the age of fifty-five. No, the difference was in his eyes and mouth.
Thea did not know quite what she had thought to encounter in her newly-married brother, but she had certainly hoped to find him expansive and happy. Blake was neither.

CHAPTER
SIX

VENETIA woke gently and slowly. Her senses resumed their functioning, but she kept her eyes veiled to the outer world. She remembered the sickness and the longing to die. Both were gone and at the moment she had no headache either, only a severe compression like an iron cap over her scalp. Paul, when he had helped her to undress, had said that most of the reeling and thudding was the result of movement; she must simply lie still till the inflammation had subsided, try not to cough or do the least thing to jar her head. The minimum of movement would mean the minimum of pain. The doctor’s order would be easy to obey; she had never felt less like getting out of bed and facing life.

Through her lashes she could see that the curtain had been pulled to one side to let in more air. Daylight was fading, so it must be about six o’clock. She had slept for six hours and still felt doped.

Her glance widened and became concentrated on the woman who sat in the column of late light, knitting something which might have been a plain pink bed-jacket. A woman with straight, well-cut, familiar features, smooth black hair, and an air of serene detachment from the labour of her fingers. So this was Thea.

T
he realization brought back this morning’s scene with Blake, and an uncomfortable tightness came into her chest.

“Hullo, Thea,” she said softly.

The other woman cast aside her knitting and swiftly crossed to the bed. Smilingly she bent and kissed Venetia’s cheek.

“Hullo, my dear. How’s the head?”

“Weighty, but not too bad. I’m so sorry to greet you with a patient.”

“So am I, for your sake.” Thea laughed quietly. “What are you staring at?”

“You really are like Blake. Dr. Rivers said you were, but I couldn’t imagine a feminine edition of Blake
’
s looks. Thea, I’m so glad you’ve come.”

The shy welcome touched Thea more than she would have cared to acknowledge. She hadn’t bargained for so young and unsophisticated a sister-in-law. Venetia didn’t somehow line up with Thea’s assessment of Blake at lunch-time.

“I hope we three are going to have fun together, but our first task is to see you through this piece of bad luck.” She lifted a pillow from the foot of the bed. “I’m going to raise you. It’ll be quite easy and you won’t feel
a single throb. Just stay as you are and you’ll find your head and shoulders six inches higher.” One arm slipped under Venetia’s pillow, while the other hand pushed the second one beneath it. “How’s that?”

“Heavenly. I’m cooling already.”

Thea surveyed the wide apartment with approval. “Good thing Blake had you put straight in here this morning. It’s the coolest room in the house. I’ve never understood why he prefers the other side. You must find it suffocating, even if he doesn’t.” From habit she adjusted the bedcover and folded back the sheet. “Would you like to see him at once, or shall I freshen you first?”

“A wash first, please. I’m sticky. But, Thea,” the blue eyes put more into the question than Venetia intended, “are you staying tonight?”

“Of course. Tomorrow as well. I told you in my letter.” Thea turned her attention to clearing the bedside table ready for the hand-basin as she added flippantly: “That is, if you’ll have me. You’re the mistress of the house now.”

“An inexpert one, I’m afraid. I’d like you to live here always.”

A youthful, unguarded statement which caused Thea a twinge of uneasiness. Venetia was so slightly built and appealing, so completely vulnerable. The antithesis of the type of woman she had expected Blake to choose, she repeated to herself, and was annoyed with her own reflections.

Tentatively, she remarked: “I could have attended your wedding if Blake had asked me. But he was completely high-handed. Why did he try to put me off buying you the kist as a gift? You haven’t one, have you?”

“No.” Venetia was incapable just then of prevarication. “I heard nothing about it.”

“Oh, well,” said Thea. “No lives lost. I did get one after all. It’s on its way up by train. Stay like that while I fetch water and towels, and we’ll soon have you as dewy as a rose.”

When she came back they went on talking, or rather Thea chatted and Venetia stayed silent, absorbing the re
assuring atmosphere exuded by the other’s cool efficiency.

Mosi carried away the water and straightened the room. He had hardly closed the door when Blake knocked and walked in. Venetia’s heart jerked, but she achieved a smile.

Brother and sister exchanged glances, and Thea said: “I like your wife, Blake. Venetia and I are going to be the best of friends.”

“Good. I was sure you would.” He stood above Venetia. “It’s a relief to see your colour more normal. I believe your temperature’s down, too. Think you could eat something?”

It was dreadful to have Blake on one side and Thea, quizzically observant, on the other.

“I’ll try if you think I should,” she answered.

“Milk-and-soda would be more suitable than food,” suggested Thea.

“She hasn’t eaten since breakfast,” he said. “Tell Mosi to scramble an egg, will you?”

“Fancy a scrambled egg, Venetia?” enquired Thea.

“Blake, I’d really rather have the milk-and-soda,” she said apologetically.

He gave in more readily than she had anticipated, but she would have swallowed whatever he ordered rather than argue. When Thea had gone out, he pulled forward a chair and sat down. He crossed his legs and plunged a hand into his pocket, apparently in no haste to speak. In fact it was Venetia who ended the silence.

“Please smoke if you want to.”

“I don’t,” he said. “I’d rather talk, if it wouldn’t make your head worse. Does my being here distress you?”

It did, but his nearness in this mood was worth quite a bit of suffering. At the moment Venetia was not concerned with herself.

“No—please stay. Blake,” her tone dropped, “Thea doesn’t know you were going to turn her away, does she? You ... you haven’t said anything to her?”

He shook his head. “Don’t upset yourself over it any more. When I remember that it was my churlishness which sent you into the sun without protection I could shoot myself. Sometimes I get into a frame of mind when I can’t help being a swine.”

“It was my own lunacy,” she protested; “the same sort of idiocy that prompted me to wade through the storm and fib about it. I’m an awful trial to you, Blake.”

His smile was a little grim. “You are—more than you realize. Possibly all young women are somewhat unpredictable, but you seem to be more so than most.”

“I never mean to behave so crazily. I feel first and think afterwards, when it’s too late.”

“I know you do.” His interest centred on the silver bedside clock which gleamed in the glow from the table-lamp. “Cling to that habit as long as you can—it’s one you’ll eventually lose—but for the love of Pete cultivate a respect for the sun
!
”

The soda-and-milk arrived then, and she had to sit up to drink it. Blake helped her, but her head knocked and her vision blurred. She leaned against him with tears of weakness glistening on her lashes.

“My poor sweet,” he murmured. “Sunstroke is always like this. It’s hell for a day or two, and after that you’ll still have to be careful not to get up from a chair too quickly. It’ll be a week before you’re right. I oughtn’t to have let you talk.” With unwonted tenderness he lowered her. “It won’t hurt for us to be quiet for a while. Forget everything, and if you slip off to sleep, so much the better.”

After she had lain for a few minutes the pain diminished into the former ache of pressure. Her arms rested outside the cover and Blake stroked the fingers nearest him with an abstracted, soothing motion. His warmth and strength, so lightly bestowed, reached and encompassed her heart.

“Your dinner will be ready,” she reminded him presently
.

“No hurry,” he said. “Thea arranged for a cold meal. She’ll be having hers now. I’ll go when she comes.” Another tranquil half-hour ticked by before Thea entered the bedroom.

“It’s time Venetia was tucked in,” she announced.

“Mind if I ask you to say good night and go, Blake?” She turned and made a casual complication of arranging windows and curtains.

“Good night,” Venetia whispered.

He bent over and kissed her forehead. “Good night, my dear. Sleep well.”

He was gone, and Venetia found herself braving the effort of twisting her head rather than have Thea inspect her face by lamplight.

Durin
g
Sunday, Venetia had ample opportunity of admiring Thea’s poise and charm, and she even contrived a degree of enjoyment from the relationship between Thea and Blake. Yesterday, for some reason, Blake had acquiesced to the soda-and-milk diet, but today he was back in form. Useless for Thea to insist that a healthy young woman laid out by a slight indisposition could get along with practically no food and recover the quicker for the temporary abstention. Blake remained unconvinced. He ordered a boiled egg for Venetia’s breakfast, some steamed fish and a baked custard for her lunch and a cream-
c
heese salad for her supper. To please him, Venetia would have got through steak and onions.

The glass door was open all day. Except for two hours in the afternoon, when she was bidden to sleep, Thea and Blake were constantly about, either lounging in chairs half in and half out of the room, or playing table tennis wi
thin
Venetia’s view on the veranda.

Early next morning Thea left Bondolo. She brought Venetia’s breakfast and poured her first cup of coffee. “You will come again soon?” Venetia begged.

“With luck, I may snaffle next Sunday afternoon. I’ll do my best to let you know.”

“If you can’t, come just the same. It’s going to be wonderful, having you so near.”

Thea gave a tug to the brim of her hat and a pat to the lapel of her suit. “I’m going to enjoy it, too.” A pause. “Do take care, Venetia. Blake must love you very much and you owe it to him not to do anything risky.”

She reverted to her usual briskness. “Well, wish me luck in my new job.”

“I do, with all my heart. I shall think of you often during the day.”

Thea laughed. “You can let up while Blake’s about, and don’t remind him too often that I work for my living. He has the masculine type of self-respect that demands complete dependence upon him of his womenfolk. The fights we’ve had about it!”

It struck neither of them as odd that Thea should be elucidating Blake to Blake’s wife. But Thea’s expression, as she drove away from the estate, was grave. Sunday, with Venetia recovering and Blake natural and companionable, had allayed her suspicions of the day before. She had been able to assure herself that her brother’s curt welcome was the outcome of anxiety, and Venetia’s relief at the arrival of another woman understandable in a young wife who had been too much alone.

No one who knew Blake would expect him to be lavish with endearments in front of others, but wasn’t his behaviour abnormally cold? Perhaps her impression that Blake treated his wife too much as a child was mistaken. Surely it was obvious to a man of his years that Venetia craved his love and tenderness, that however young, where he was concerned she was a woman?

Venetia was unfledged, of course; she wasn’t yet nineteen. Nevertheless, Thea was certain that both spirit and intensity dwelt within her young sister-in-law. Her flowering was up to Blake.

This morning, saying goodbye to him, Thea had ventured an opinion.

“Venetia’s stronger than she looks, Blake. She shouldn’t be wrapped in cotton wool.”

“She gets around—rides and plays tennis,” he’d answered, without expression.

“Not as much as she should. Time enough to curb her activities when she’s going to have a baby.”

Blake hadn’t replied for a minute. Then he’d said, with vicious coolness: “Mind your own damned business, Thea.
Being a nurse doesn’t entitle you to use clinical arguments in the house.”

A clammy thought now brought her foot down hard upon the accelerator. Supposing Blake hadn’t married for love? Supposing he’d been prompted by a lesser emotion, such as pity allied with mere fondness, and Venetia were doomed to endure his tolerance and unintentional cruelties?

Thea could picture nothing more tragic than being married to, but not loved by, a man like Blake.