Enemy Lover (11 page)

Tina saw, in her imagination, the hollow mockery in his eyes when he made the enquiries. As matters stood at the moment, if anything happened to her he would almost certainly benefit, for with no close relatives of her own to whom her worldly goods could be transmitted the Giffard family would lose no time in getting the will put right. Of that she felt fairly well assured.

But, after a week in her room, she was considerably amazed to receive a present of a large carton of snowdrops the first probably to show their heads in that part of the world. Mrs. Appleby put them into water for her and explained that there were masses of them in sheltered corners in the grounds, and Sir Angus had been seen picking them an hour or so before. But to Tina they didn’t look like wild snowdrops, the kind to be found in little, lonely hollows in leafless woods. They looked like snowdrops that had been forced under glass, and the carton that contained them had undoubtedly, at some time or other, come from a local florist.

But why should Sir Angus Giffard buy her snowdrops?

There was no reason that she could think of, and she accepted it that he had picked them in the grounds... probably from want of anything better to do.

The first day she was downstairs she sent for him, and he came with a smiling air that made her feel secretly uneasy. For when Sir Angus smiled she usually needed all her wits about her to cope with him.

But today he was uninhibitedly friendly. After enquiring after her health, commenting that she looked pale, and himself adding a log to the already bright fire that blazed on the hearth, he nodded towards the snowdrops that were making a gloomy corner of the room look fresh and springlike.

“I see they’ve survived,” he remarked. “Hope you liked them?”

She gazed at him curiously.

“Why did you buy me flowers, Sir Angus?”

“Tut, tut,” he reproved her. “We mustn’t have this formality. Sir Angus, when everyone nowadays calls me Angus! Including even Cook, who doesn’t think I look the part! And why shouldn’t I buy you flowers, when you pay me a salary? On top of all the money of my own that I possess!”

She sighed. Suddenly she wished that he would stop making fun of her—that she could talk to him, as one human being to another.

“You did buy them, didn’t you?” she insisted.

“I bought them.”

“Why?”

He leaned against the mantelpiece, and his blue eyes flickered at her oddly.

“Perhaps because I thought you looked a little like a snowdrop that day you and Appleby were inspecting the stables, and I saw you underneath my window wondering whether you ought to pay me a call. A rather pinched and bewildered snowdrop ... but a snowdrop all the same! There wasn’t any other really appropriate flower that I could send you.”

“You didn’t have to send me flowers at all,” she reminded him.

“In fact,” with a sudden rather shy gleam in her eyes, “it was a little irregular, to say the least.”

His eyes mocked her mildly.

“Are you against irregularities ?”

“In this case, I think I—appreciated them very much indeed. It was nice of you, Sir Angus.” The shy look deepened.

He removed one shoulder from the mantelpiece, and wagged a finger at her to enjoin caution.

“Always remember that I’m not nice, Miss Andrews. If ever I seem really nice you’ll have cause to mistrust me. But perhaps I thought I owed you an apology for my insufferably bad behaviour when you paid your first visit to this house, the night my uncle died... It was rather much to expect any young woman to put up with, and you were rather defenceless. My cousin Alaine realised that. However ...” He walked over to the window, and abruptly he changed the subject. “I don’t know whether you know it, but it’s a fine day outside. The sun is actually shining, and it’s not particularly cold. What about letting me take you for a drive somewhere this afternoon ? It would do you good!

She thought for a moment.

“There is somewhere I would like you to drive me to,” she admitted. “I would like you to drive me to see the children in my old school. And, as a matter of fact, there are a few of my things that have to be removed from the schoolhouse.”

He stood looking down at her curiously.

“You don’t think it’ll look rather odd if you drive up there in the Bentley? Rather like—”

“Showing off? No,” she shook her head with its feathery soft fair curls, “they’ll love it, and I’ll love seeing them again—particularly little Johnny Gains. And we’ll take them some sweets and toys and things. Perhaps we could buy them on the way.

But he shook his head.

“I'll buy them this afternoon, and we’ll make the trip tomorrow. I think it would be a bit much for you to make the trip this afternoon, when it’ll be dark around four o’clock. Much better to leave early tomorrow morning—-if it’s fine enough—and I’ll go into Stoke Moreton and buy the gifts this afternoon.” She thought it a good idea.

“Then I’d better give you some money,” she said. He shrugged. “Afterwards will do.”

But she was very firm about it.

“No, you must have the money now. I’ll give you a cheque.”

She rose and made her way over to a bureau in a corner, and he watched her as she bent a little unfamiliarly over a cheque-book and wrote in silence for a few seconds. Then, when she handed it over, his eyebrows lifted.

“So much?” he said. “You’re being very generous, Miss Andrews.”

“Not at all.” She shook her head, smiling. “Buy them some nice things, won’t you ? The sort of things children like... books, games, dolls. The little girls must have dolls!”

“And how many little girls are there?”

“There are ten, including Mary Jane Williamson, who is rather old for a doll. But still, she’d better have one.”

He turned away, smiling.

“And sweets? A big box, that they can share amongst them?”

“A very big box! ”

He reached the door, and turned and bowed to her with a touch of the old irony.

“It looks to me as if you really are going to turn out to be a kind of Lady Bountiful,” he remarked. “We’ll have to watch you,” more drily, “in case you over-reach yourself.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN IF Tina had expected the children at her old school to welcome her with open arms she was disappointed. It might have been the Bentley that overawed them, or the fact that, being children, they had already forgotten her; but although her replacement, a much older woman, encouraged them to smile and look welcoming, most of them looked more than normally glum, and only the sight of the presents brought gleams of sudden delight and appreciation to their faces.

Little Johnny Gains sidled up to her as soon as the opportunity arose and patted the sleeve of her coat as if even he, youthful though he was, could detect the difference in a handsome velour cloth and a piece of inferior tweed. And although he was temporarily diverted by his model engine and box of sweets, he was much more impressed by the Bentley, and Tina promised to come over one day when the weather was really fine and take him for a drive in it. Perhaps during the next school holidays.

“That’ll be Easter,” he said, gazing up at her solemnly.

“Quite right,” she agreed. And then an idea seized her. “How would you like to come and stay with me, Johnny?” she suggested. “At Easter! We could do all sorts of things together, and I’d see that

you had a lovely time.”

“And would we go out in the Bentley?” he asked, his eyes widening at the prospect.

“Of course we would. We’d go for long drives.”

He showed her the gap in his small front teeth.

“I’d like that,” he told her. “Gee, I’d like that!”

On the homeward drive Tina felt oddly, but distinctly, depressed. Somehow the visit to the schoolhouse had not been an unqualified success, and her ego had been pricked like a bubble by the fact, which she couldn’t prove, that the children had more or less forgotten her. And they were children over whose homework books she had once pored, concerned herself about when they were ill, been touched and warmed by when they brought her little gifts, like bunches of flowers and baskets of strawberries—even a solitary apple occasionally.

And now the one who had seemed closest to her— and who had, at least, remembered her—had quite obviously been much more impressed by her car than gratified by the sight of herself. And when she pressed half-a-crown into his hand, with which to buy more sweets or a comic or two, before departing, he had hardly thanked her for it, having the car very much on his mind.

“You won’t forget,” he said, looking up at her intently, “that you’ve promised to take me out in it, will you?”

“Of course not, Johnny,” she answered.

A sort of early dusk set in before they reached Giffard’s Prior, and the house itself looked a little grey and grim in the bleakness of the late February afternoon. Angus, when he held open the car door for her to alight, realised that she both looked and felt depressed, and although her depression might easily result from the bout of ’flu she had had he knew it was not entirely that. He saw her glance up at the windows, that were rather like blank eyes overlooking the lake, and he knew she was thinking of the empty, firelit room where she would have tea on her own, and where even Mrs. Appleby would not linger for longer than the few minutes it took to set down the tea-tray and enquire whether she had had an enjoyable outing.

Angus smiled . . . rather a peculiar little smile.

“It’s always a good thing to come home,” he remarked. “But perhaps you haven’t come to look upon Giffard’s Prior as your home yet?”

Tina’s eyes forsook the long line of windows, and encountered his darkly blue ones.

“I don’t suppose I ever will do that,” she replied.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, I don’t know... At the moment the place is unfamiliar, and you’re feeling lonely, but if you had company it would be different. You’ll have to induce someone to come and live with you.”

“A companion, you mean?” she asked. “Mrs. Appleby suggested that I look out for a companion.”

Again he shrugged.

“If you’re so bereft of friends that you have to pay someone to come and live with you, well, do so. It might be the answer. Personally, I’d just get on the telephone to a few people I know and suggest a party.”

“I haven’t any friends,” she answered simply, still gazing up into his face.

He looked inside the car to make certain she hadn’t left anything behind, and then prepared to slip back into the driving seat. She thought of the long evening ahead of her, and that room with the portrait of old Sir Angus hanging on the wall above the fireplace where the handsome silver tea-tray awaited her, and impulsively she issued an invitation.

“Won’t you come and have tea with me before you return to your quarters? I’m sure Mrs. Appleby will make more toast, and there’s bound to be plenty of cake and things...” Her voice trailed away.

Sir Angus squared his shoulders under the fine grey cloth of his uniform jacket, and to her mortification his eyebrows ascended and the blue eyes looked back at her with a kind of amused disdain.

“My dear Miss Andrews!” he exclaimed. “However sorely tempted I might be to accept your invitation, I hope that I know my place! Think of the consternation in the servants’ hall if I sat gossiping over a pot of tea with you while they were firmly shut away in the kitchen!”

Tina said nothing further, only turned and walked up the steps. But her ears burned. How deliberately cruel he could be to her on occasion, and how much he must dislike her. She mustn’t let that box of snowdrops go to her head! He was quite plainly warning her about that.

Nevertheless, after her lonely tea and still lonelier dinner, she felt that she had to have someone to talk to or go quite mad. For the first time in her life her nerves were on edge; she jumped every time some slight noise occurred in the house and the great room in which she sat was utterly unaffected by it; every time her eyes met the eyes of Sir Angus hanging on the wall above her she was disturbed by the queer little smile in them ... not at all unlike the queer little smile she sometimes surprised in the eyes of the present baronet.

She wondered what Sir Angus would say if he knew she was employing his nephew as a chauffeur. She wondered why he had passed him over so entirely when making his will, and had remembered Alaine to the extent that he had left him a collection of stamp albums, and one or two pieces of Georgian silver.

Even Juliet had been remembered in the will, and Aunt Clare. They had each received some valuable china, and Aunt Clare had been permitted to make her choice amongst some family portraits, and select a couple for herself.

So far she had not availed herself of this postscript to the will, but no doubt she would do so one day when her mood of indignation had cooled a little.

Only Angus had been completely overlooked, and Tina could not think why. Unless old Sir Angus had disapproved of him so strongly that he couldn’t bring himself to leave him anything in his will.

She prowled about the room as the slow minutes passed, and at last she couldn’t bear it any longer. The house was oppressing her unbearably, the constant intrusive thought that she had no right there— and others had!—was like an obsession, and inside the quiet room she could not escape from it. Although it was a cold, windy night, and she had just had a bout of ’flu, she decided she must go for a short walk in the grounds, and perhaps the exercise would clear her mind for her. She might even, under the cool, remote stars, forget that she was singularly bereft of friends, and that Angus had refused to have tea with her.

She fetched herself a coat from the hall cloakroom, tied a headscarf over her hair, and let herself out by a side door. It was still only nine o’clock, and when, after rounding the angle of the house, she saw a light shining through the curtained window of the flat above the stable block where Sir Angus was at present quartered, she was not surprised to discover that he was still up. It occurred to her to wonder how he spent his time, and what means of diversion were provided in the little flat.

Had he a television, or a wireless set ? If not, ought she to provide one for him? What sort of furnishings was he living amongst, and how much actual comfort had he got? As his employer, it was her duty to find out as soon as possible, in order that any bad omissions could be rectified, and surely now was as good a time as any other to acquaint herself with his needs, if any? She ought to have done so days ago, but she had been confined to her bed, and also she had lacked the courage. Now, despite the fact that he had snubbed her and put her in her place earlier in the evening, she decided to summon all the remnants of her courage and go boldly up to his door and knock on it.