Dorothy Eden (10 page)

“That’s exactly what he is doing,” she said, her voice high-pitched. “Harry was just too adroit in getting out of tangles, but Paul isn’t like that, really. Women flatter him, but underneath he’s very sincere. I don’t need to tell you that, Julia dear. You know how he has treasured the memory of you all this long time.”

“I’m beginning to think,” said Julia dryly, “that’s it’s been too long. I should have come years ago.”

Paul laughed, and his eyes, looking into hers, were full of warmth and tenderness. Her vague troubled thoughts left her, and now she wanted only to be taken into his arms. Yet some perverse instinct in her resisted that desire. Paul mesmerised her. She mustn’t let it become too easy for him.

“I promise you won’t get any more of those letters,” he said. “I’ll find out who is doing it and stop it.”

“Yes, for goodness sake do,” said Kate. “It’s utterly awful for poor Julia to be treated like this.”

“I agree. Now run along, Mother. I want Julia to pack a bag for me. I have to go to Timaru and stay overnight, darling. I have to see about buying sheep, and other things. I’ll stop on the way and see Mr. Peters.”

“Who is Mr. Peters?” Julia asked.

“The parson, darling. About our wedding. Well, come upstairs quickly. We have to fix the day, don’t we?”

The quick unbearable excitement was flowing through Julia again. She wanted to ask Paul whether his ankle was strong enough for him to go on a long trip like that, and why she could not go with him. But the grip of his hand on hers had her in that wordless spell, and she could only follow him meekly, prepared to do whatever was his bidding. It was only vaguely that she noticed the quick uneasiness in Kate’s eyes again, as they left her standing in the hall.

It was the first time she had packed a bag for a man. Folding pyjamas, a clean shirt and socks filled her with a possessive pride. It would be fun to choose Paul’s shirts and ties for him, if he would let her do so. And he badly needed new hairbrushes, if the ones on his dressing table were all he owned.

“What about a fortnight from today?” Paul said. “Darling, you pack beautifully.”

“Our wedding? Yes, please, darling. Don’t let’s wait any longer. I think things will be simpler when we are married.”

“Simpler?” His eyes mocked her.

“Don’t pretend not to understand me. I mean about those letters and things.”

“Forget those letters, will you.”

“Yes, of course. I never did take them seriously.” From somewhere Julia heard Timmy begin to cry, and she at last asked the question that was nagging at her. “Paul, why did Nita come here?”

“Because she’s lonely, poor little devil. She’s drifted here and there since Harry died. Someone apparently told her I was getting married, and she wanted to meet you and be your friend. That’s why she came.”

“One couldn’t be her friend,” Julia said, thinking of Nita’s hostile eyes. “She wouldn’t allow it.”

“Well—don’t fight with her. I know she’s prickly. She won’t be here long. I’m going to find her a place in Timaru.”

“Oh,” said Julia slowly. So exit the brunette.… What about the blonde and the redhead?

Paul put his arms out. “Don’t look at me in that highly suspicious way. Come here, blast you! Do you know you give me no peace of mind? You’re too entirely beautiful.”

T
HE HOUSE WAS DEAD
without Paul. Not that Julia had time to feel lonely, for as soon as he had driven away the electricians arrived to fix the lights, and when they had gone she decided to make plans for the redecorating of the house. She had thought Kate would be a willing adviser, but strangely she seemed to have lost her enthusiasm. She kept saying,

“I have a headache. I get nervous headaches when I’m upset. Often I have to go to bed. Those letters you have been getting upset me. Anyway,” she added, “it’s going to be your house. You do as you wish.” Once she muttered under her breath, “It’s too difficult.”

“What’s too difficult?” Julia asked. “Getting painters and decorators? But Paul would never expect me to live in the house in this state. You have been saying that yourself all the time.”

She became aware that Nita was standing in the doorway, and she had the distinct feeling, in that second, that Kate was afraid of Nita. Perhaps Nita had been behaving badly about Julia getting what she, as Harry’s wife, would have shared. Poor Kate was torn between the two of them and wanted to be fair. It was only since Nita’s arrival that she had shown this reluctance to discuss the renovations, and, indeed, the wedding also.

Or perhaps the knowledge of those anonymous letters had upset her more than she had shown. After all, one didn’t like to think that there was a vindictive woman in the house.

To add to all this Georgina kept reiterating in her piping voice, like a bird giving its good-night twitter, “It’s so nice to have the boys back. Like old times. I hope they don’t fight, Kate. You remember how they always used to be fighting.”

Julia looked at Kate. “Did they?” she asked.

Kate sighed. “Harry used to tease Paul. He was such a mischievous boy.”

“But isn’t it peculiar,” Nita said, “how lately Paul has grown so much more like Harry.”

Her voice was quite calm and impersonal, yet beneath its quiet tones Julia could sense again the anger and frustration. She either resented the fact that Paul was alive while Harry was dead, or else Paul’s resemblance to Harry aroused too much painful emotion in her.

“Don’t you think he has changed, Julia?” she insisted.

Julia was aware that Kate was watching her, her baby blue eyes suddenly still, wiped clear of feeling, like a washed slate.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “He used to be so much more quiet, and slower.” (The Paul she had known in England would not have been giving careless caresses to every attractive girl he met.) “He was sweet,” she said reflectively.

Nita’s face had an avid look.

“You mean, you don’t think he’s so sweet now?”

Julia laughed. “In a different way. After all, then we were both very young. Now…” she let her voice grow reminiscent remembering the way Paul kissed her.

It was a moment before she realised that Nita’s wary black eyes were reading her thoughts very accurately.

“You’re just like all the others,” she said contemptuously.

“The others?”

“Oh, everyone falls for him. Don’t they, Kate?”

Kate said rather helplessly, “It must have been those nurses in hospital who gave him ideas.” The heavy eyelids drooped over her eyes. Her face was a doll’s, blank and secret. The fearful person who dwelt behind it was kept well out of sight.

“Harry told me a joke last night, one of his naughty ones, the bad boy.” The old lady’s voice meandered happily on, oblivious of any undercurrents. “He remembers how I used to enjoy a joke. Do you enjoy jokes, Julia? You’ll need to, if you marry Harry. I wonder, dear, if you would ask Mrs. Bates to get my wedding dress out and air it, so the moths won’t get in it. Mrs. Bates always has to be reminded to do that.”

“Granny, Mrs. Bates isn’t here any longer,” Kate said. “Lily will look after your dress for you.”

Georgina’s tiny pink face crumpled into scanty tears.

“Oh, I miss Mrs. Bates. Why did you send her away? You were very unkind.” She muttered on unhappily for a little while, then she said, quite clearly, “I don’t like that Lily. I don’t trust her.”

Kate sighed. “Now she’s going to go over and over that again.”

“Julia, are you very much in love with Harry?” Nita clapped her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God, now I’m catching it from Granny. With Paul, I mean.”

“Of course,” said Julia serenely.

Nita stood up abruptly. “I don’t see how you will be able to stand it,” she said and went out of the room.

Kate instantly moved over to sit by Julia. Her eyes, now, were conspiratorial.

“Don’t take any notice of Nita. The poor child is just very lonely and unhappy, and I’m afraid Paul reminds her too much of Harry. She mustn’t stay here. It’s too distressing for her. Don’t let her upset you, my dear.”

Kate patted Julia’s hand. A gust of her perfume filled Julia’s nostrils, and suddenly Julia had a stifling feeling of revulsion. She was aware, all at once, that she didn’t like Kate. She should have been just a kind-hearted shallow person, but she was hiding some other characteristic beneath her friendly exterior, and that was not pleasant. Perhaps, secretly, she did not want Paul to marry Julia. Perhaps she was the author of the anonymous letters!

It was time someone talked in plain language.

“Is it because of Nita that you don’t want me to start altering the house?”

Kate’s heavy eyelids—they were like the thick texture of a lily petal—dropped again.

“I try to be tactful, dear. It really is painful for Nita. And she isn’t going to stay. Paul is arranging something for her while he is in Timaru. Couldn’t you just wait a day or two?”

“Do you think it’s Nita who has been writing those letters?”

“Oh no, no! I’m sure it isn’t. After all, why should she? She doesn’t care about Paul. It was poor Harry whom she loved so much. Oh, no, not Nita.”

“Then who?”

Kate flung up her hands agitatedly. “How do I know? Paul said he would stop it, didn’t he? Try not to worry about it, dear.”

“I know Paul said he would stop them,” Julia said calmly. “But I want to know who has been writing them. And I intend to find out.”

“Harry’s the one who likes jokes,” came the thin high voice from among the shawls in the big chair. “Oh, he’s a bad boy, that one.”

It wasn’t too difficult to think of an excuse to go across the field to the cottage where Dove Robinson and her husband lived.

It was a small wooden cottage standing bleakly on a hillside among an outcrop of boulders. If there had ever been an attempt at a garden there was no sign of it now, and only the prickly spider-grey matagouri climbed over the recumbent boulders. There was no sun, and the wind from the cloud-shrouded mountains was strong. Julia felt herself blown along the path to the front door which was slightly ajar.

There was the sound of voices somewhere down at the end of the passage, a man’s raised angrily, and a woman’s, also pitched to a heightened emotion.

“Haven’t I told you not to go running over to the big house so often? But you never listen to me! Oh no, I’m your husband but that don’t matter a. damn!”

“I tell you I have to go over there to do Mr. Blaine’s ankle.”

“If you ask me, he sprained his ankle on purpose. Likes to make you a Mary Magdalene, doesn’t he? Well, it’s a part that suits you both, him so high and mighty, you ready to fall like a ripe plum. It’s that red hair of yours, you can’t trust it.”

“You knew I had red hair when you married me.”

“Yes. More fool me. Tell me, what are you going to do when your precious Paul gets married? His wife ain’t going to want you running up there all the time to stroke his head if he gets a headache.”

Dove made some inaudible answer. Her husband said finally,

“It’d do him a power of good if he got busy and did a bit around the farm. Expects me and Davey to do the whole bloomin’ lot, lambing and all. Well, he’s the loser if half his lambs die in a storm, and that’s as likely to happen as not.”

Acutely uncomfortable, Julia made to walk softly away, hoping she would be able to get out of sight before either Dove or her husband appeared. Then suddenly she thought, “Why should I pretend to have heard nothing? Paul is going to be my husband. I’m in this, too.”

So she knocked again, much more loudly, and instantly the voices in the back of the house ceased. A minute later the door at the end of the passage opened and Dove appeared. When she saw Julia she hastily smoothed her hair, her hands fluttering over her head to hide the colour that was suddenly a banner in her cheeks.

Julia said airily, “Does one knock at the front door or the back? I just came over to ask if you could sew.”

“Sew?” Dove was regaining her composure, the colour dying out of her cheeks and her green eyes glinting inquisitively. Julia suspected that she was not often at a loss. In her way, she had as much careless confidence as Paul.

She stepped back. “Won’t you come in? We usually sit in the kitchen. It’s the warmest room in the house.”

Julia followed her down the narrow passage into the long room at the end that was both kitchen and sitting room, a pleasant place with an open fire and shabby comfortable chairs drawn up to it. It flashed into her mind that Paul might find this room pleasant, too, perhaps when Dove’s husband was out on a long ride round the sheep.

The husband had left the room now. As Julia entered she caught a glimpse of him passing the window outside, a sturdy stocky man with a skin burnt red with the wind, and tousled coarse brown hair. Dove must find a considerable contrast between him and Paul—Paul whose ankle she liked to massage gently in her strong white hands.…

“Tell me,” said Julia abruptly, “how did Paul sprain his ankle? I never asked him.”

Again, momentarily, the red flag flew in Dove’s cheeks. Then she answered, “He tripped on a rock in the dark. He had been out looking after a sick ewe.”

Julia wanted badly to believe her. After all, what more reasonable explanation could there be for a twisted ankle. Those rocks that jutted up in the turf looked highly dangerous. (But this hillside was the only place that Julia had noticed the slate-backed rocks in great numbers. And Dove’s husband’s remark was still in her ears, “It’d do him a power of good if he got busy and did a bit around the farm.”)

“Wasn’t it lucky you knew how to treat it,” she said smoothly. “Did you nurse for long before you were married?”

“Six years,” Dove answered.

“Then you would know, too, how long it takes for scarring in a skin graft to fade.”

“You mean one like Mr. Blaine’s. Oh, quite a long time.”

“More than three months?”

“Oh yes. Mr. Blaine had a very successful one. It’s scarcely noticeable now.”

“No,” said Julia absently. “It was awfully silly of him to worry about what I would think of it.” (If Paul’s operation had been several months ago, what had he been doing in the meantime?) She smiled in a friendly way, and said, “How long have you been here, in this rather desolate spot? Don’t you find it lonely?”