i 57926919a60851a7 (33 page)

When they reached the beginning of the drive to the Lodge he swung the child up into his arms and walked rapidly along it, and Richard, looking about him excitedly, cried, "This is where the rabbits are?"

"Yes, this is where the rabbits are."

At one point on the road the child said, "Is this the way the carriage goes. Papa, when we go to the sea?" and Clive answered, "It is indeed." He found it difficult to talk with the child. One moment he saw him as a baby, the next as a little boy very advanced for his age, for he talked incessantly, and very distinctly; almost, Clive thought, like his father. And he was forever asking questions about everything he oh'

served. He did not like to confess that he wasn't at ease with the boy. When the child looked at him now it was as if he were reading his thoughts, for he said quite suddenly, "Do you like me. Papa?"

Clive blinked, smiled, and moved his head jocularly before he answered this probing question.

"Of course I like you. Why do you ask such a question?"

"Because Nanny says you're not like a real papa."

"Oh, she does, does she?" He pursed his lips.

"Why am I not like a real papa?"

"I don't know, but that is what she said."

"Did she say that to you?" His face was straight now.

"No, Papa. She was talking to Raddiffe while they were attending to the bath water."

"Do you think I'm a real papa?"

He watched his son hesitate before saying, "I don't know ..." then add mischievously, "but I would like to go on your ship." And at this Clive put his head back and laughed.

They were well on the fells now. They passed the stone quarry; then, a few minutes farther on, they rounded a bluff, and there in the distance was the dwelling.

The child saw it immediately and cried, "Look, Papal Stables." And Clive said, "They're not stables, Richard, that is a house. I am taking you to see" --he paused"--the lady who lives there."

As he came nearer the dwelling he saw two small girls carrying water, and when they caught sight of him one of them dropped her bucket and ran helter skelter into the house.

He was still carrying the child when he approached the door, and there she was standing framed in the opening, her eyes fixed on them as if she were beholding a vision. To put matters straight right away, he said quickly, "We have only come to pay you a visit, we were out walking." He watched her mouth open and close; then her head moved downwards in a nod, and she stepped backwards into the room. Now he put the child down on the ground and, taking his hand, led him forward and into the dwelling. Inside, he looked down at his son and said,

"Say how-do-you do and the child, holding out his hand to Cissie, looked up into her face and, in a voice that was almost as strange to her as to be foreign, said, " How- do-you-do, Ma'am? " And when the lady didn't make any reply, only held his hand tightly, he added, as he had been taught to do, " I hope you are well. " At this she slowly released his hand and looked at Clive, and he again said, uneasily now,

" We were out for a walk;

I thought it would be a kind of introduction. "

"Yes." She moved up the room. Her eyes still on the child, but speaking to Clive, she said, "Will you take a seat?" And he went and sat down and he looked at the four little girls staring at the visitor and was about to say, "Wouldn't you like to play?" when he had the thought they could be verminous, but then dismissed the idea. She wasn't verminous--he'd lay his life on that--and she'd never allow them to be. He wondered in passing how she came to be so different from the types in the hamlets and villages; perhaps living up here in the clean raw bareness of the moor had something to do with it.

Whatever it was that had made the difference, he knew in his own mind that she was different, and for a moment he saw her dressed as Isabelle was dressed and visualized her beauty enhanced a thousand fold He also imagined she would be educable.

He said now to the child, "Would you like to play with the little girls, Richard?" And Richard, smiling broadly, said, "Oh yes.

Papa."

He did not often have children to play with and this indeed was a surprise to him. When he held out his hand to Nellie, who was nearest to him in size, she glanced up at Cissie;

and Cissie nodded to her, and she took the boy's hand and allowed him to tug her down the room and out through the open door.

When the other children rushed after them, Cissie, as if just coming awake, flew to the door and cried at them, "Be careful! Play gentle.

And don't go away from the flat. Hear me now. " Then she turned into the room again and walked slowly to the table, and standing there, she said simply, " Thanks. "

"I ... I thought it better he should see you before the final arrangements were made. My solicitor tells me that it may take a week or two to find a house, but I would imagine you should be well installed before Christmas."

She now walked along the side of the table and, staring at him, her head shaking, she said, "I don't know what to say to you" ; and to this he answered, "There's no need to say anything. I... I have already told you why I'm doing this."

His eyes were looking straight into hers, and she lowered her lids and after a moment muttered, "I ... I was thinkin', what if he doesn't take to me? And ... and the change. What if he frets?"

"He's only a child, a baby; he's still young enough to forget about everything over there. And ... and he'll have young children to play with. This he has never had. His life is peopled with adults; it is not good for him."

"What... what does your father say?"

"He doesn't know yet."

"He'll never let it be." She moved her head slowly, and he answered,

"He has no power to stop it. He himself saw to it that I recognized the child as mine, gave it my name, and am responsible for it. He's mine to do with what I will; and I will to hand him to his mother."

Again they were looking at each other; then again her lids shaded her eyes. She didn't know what to make of this man, who was young, yet not young. Only one thing she knew, and in a way this surprised her: she was no longer afraid of him. She didn't actually know what her other feelings were towards him, but she did know that she no longer stood in deep fear of him.

A silence fell between them, and he broke it by asking softly, "What is your name?"

She was for saying "Cissie," then she gave him the name by which she was christened and which she had never heard spoken but once, and that by her father:

"Cecilia."

"Cecilia." He inclined his head towards her, then said, "It's a beautiful name."

She felt the color rushing over her body, up her neck, and to her hair, and she had no power to suppress it, but as she looked into the eyes fixed hard on her, Matthew's warning came back to her; He's after something; they do nothing for nothing, people like him, not for the likes of you, they don't.

She turned slowly about and moved down the room to the door and looked at her son chasing the girls gleefully hither and thither on the flat rock terrace, and they were responding to him as if they had played with him all his life, and not just while he was in the cradle.

Clive now joined her, standing just behind and to the side of her. He glanced at the playing children for a moment, then brought his eyes onto her head to where the thick, brown plaits of hair were twisted to form a cap. And there came to him again the aroma from her body, and he knew that of all the things he had wanted in life, and of all the things he might want from life before he died, he would never want anything, or anyone, as much as he wanted this girl at this moment.

When she turned her head quickly towards him and said, "He ... he looks happy, he likes them," he said, "Of course, he likes them. I don't think you'll have anything to worry about." Then stepping past her, he called to the boy, saying, "Richard! RichardI Come here." And when the child came running to him, he said, "Let the lady see what a big fellow you are, how heavy you are." Then turning to Cissie, he added,

"Lift him and see what a great boy he's grown into."

Cissie, stooping over her child, slowly put her arms about him and lifted him up; but when the child's face was close to hers she couldn't see it, and the breaking point came when the child's hands clasped her cheeks and his small voice said in concern, "Why are you weeping?"

And, his own voice breaking, he turned to his father, saying, "Papal Papal the lady's weeping."

Clive took the child from Cissie's arms and with his hand on her shoulder he turned her about and pressed her gently through the open door into the room again. And the children gathered round the door and watched the unusual scene, and so no one noticed the two riders on the road at the bottom of the slope.

Isabelle had had an enjoyable day. She had brought down a number of birds and evoked the admiration of Arthur Bellingham. She had been pressed to stay to dinner at the Bellinghams' but had refused, as had her father; the nights drew in early and neither of them relished even a five-mile ride in the dark. Her father had gone on ahead some time ago, taking the high road back to the Hall, and she had been content to meander by side roads with young Bellingham, whose admiration afforded her some amusement, if nothing else.

They crossed farm land, taking the horses uncaringly over fields of turnips, then dropped down on to the narrow road that ran alongside the wall of the estate.

It was as they turned the bend in the road, and her head was back laughing at a weak quip her companion had made, that her eyes took in the huddle of stone buildings in the distance at the top of a slope, and the group of people standing in front of them.

It was the first time she had been on this road since she had returned home, but it was not the first time she had thought of the girl or the stone dwelling; and now there they both were, the girl, and that shanty, which she herself had tried to wreck, and . nol No! She must be imagining things, it must be a trick of the light, because that couldn't be dive and the child. He would never . NEVER1 She reined her horse in and stretched herself upwards in the saddle, and dearly now she saw her brother lift the child from the girl's arms and put his own arm about her and lead her into the place; and it was only young Belling ham voice that stopped her from bringing her horse round and taking it up the slope at a gallop.

"What is it," he asked, "squatters?" His horse was prancing and he brought it to her side, and when he looked at her he was amazed to see that her face was distorted with anger; yet at the same time he was pleased to note she had a feeling for land.

"Damn nuisance, all of them," he said.

"As Father said the other day, it wants a mighty brush to sweep the whole bang lot of them into the sea. He's right an' all, quite right, can't leave a yard of land open these days but they come up with some tin pot claim to it. You should get your father to enclose it."

She didn't enlighten him as to the fact that her father didn't own this land; she was concerned at the moment only that he hadn't recognized Clive over the distance, for had he done so the scandal would have swept the county like wildfire. She was already aware that he had a loose tongue and gloried in tidbits of scandal.

She surprised him still further by swinging her horse about and setting it into a gallop, and she didn't stop until she reached the North Lodge, through which she was just passing when he drew up with her.

She turned in the saddle and said, "I'll likely see you tomorrow.

Good-bye," and on this she set the horse into a gallop up the drive, leaving him gaping after her.

She didn't slacken speed until she pulled up the animal on the gravel drive. Jumping from the saddle before the stable boy could reach her to take her foot, she ran up the steps and into the hall; and there she saw Hatton and demanded of him, "Where is His Lordship?" and Hatton, looking at her in some surprise, said, "I should imagine he he is taking his bath by now. Miss." Didn't she know that His Lordship took a bath immediately after returning from a shoot? He watched her tearing 08. her hat and gloves and throwing them aside together with her crop, as she crossed the hall; then he watched her lift up the dip-end of her riding skirt in no ladylike fashion and mount the stairs at a run.

When she reached her father's room she rapped on the door, which rapping indicated to His Lordship, who was immersed in his bath, that it was no servant outside. Thinking it was his son, he said to Cunningham, "If that is Master Clive admit him."

When Cunningham opened the door and saw Miss Isabelle standing there he immediately pulled it closed and allowed himself only a small aperture in which to stand.

"I wish to see His Lordship."

"I'm ... I'm sorry. Miss, but His Lordship is in his bath."

Cunningham's voice was a mere whisper, and for a moment he thought she was going to push past him. Then she said, "Tell His Lordship I must see him immediately ... immediately. Do you hear?" Then she raised her voice.

"It is very important." As a maid passed down the corridor she dropped her voice to a whisper, and, leaning towards Cunningham, she added,

"Tell him it is to do with Master Richard."

"Yes, yes, Miss, I will do that."

"Tell him I will wait in his dressing room."

"But... but. Miss."

"Cunnings." Her tone was louder now.

"I will wait in his dressing room. Give His Lordship that message."

Cunningham realized that His Lordship could quite clearly hear the message and when he dosed the door it was to see his master getting out of the bath; and so, going hastily towards him and picking up the warm towek that hung on the rack to the side of the fire, he enveloped him in one of them, and, taking the other, he knelt down and dabbed at his legs and feet, saying hesitantly, "Miss Isabelle, m'Lord, she wishes to..."

"I heard. Cunnings. Be quick. There, that's enough. My robe."

Minutes later he opened the door into his dressing room, and he saw his daughter with an expression on her face that he hadn't seen since the day he raised his hand and slapped it. Yet the anger and venom in it weren't, he recognized, turned against himself now.