The Golden Maze (13 page)

But the diary must be somewhere safe. Cindy 'thought worriedly; whatever happened, Peter must see it. Maybe it would be safer if she took it back to London and then posted it to him ? If she registered it, he'd have to get it, because it could be traced.

At breakfast next morning, Peter looked at Cindy.

"Yvonne's lunching with my cousin. Care to comes along and we can lunch somewhere? Good idea? Looks as if it's going to be a nice day after all."

Yvonne buttered her toast and looked up. "You don't mind me lunching with David, Peter?"

He looked surprised. "Of course not, Yvonne. I'm afraid we never got on well."

"So I gathered. I wonder why? He seems intelligent, easy to talk to, full of good ideas."

"That invariably fail and he rushes to someone with a soft heart for help. I gather from Luke that David practically bled Dad, always asking for money."

"Oh, Mr. Fairhead !" Yvonne said scornfully.

"These narrow-minded country people ! No doubt

your father saw David as the son who'd let him down."

A dull flush filled Peter's cheeks and Cindy wondered what he'd say. To her surprise he merely smiled :

"Is that David's line? Well, I've some work to do, but I'll pick you both up round about twelve. Okay?"

"Okay," they agreed, and he left them.

Yvonne glanced at Cindy. "You don't like David?" "I don't know him. I did think he was—well, very unlike Peter when I could really see him."

"It must be an awful bind having to wear glasses," Yvonne said sympathetically. "It makes you lose all your real personality."

Cindy managed a laugh. "I loathed them when I was younger, but I'm beginning to get used to them. My boss told me that I was even prettier in them."

Yvonne laughed. "Some boss ! He likes you, I take it." -

"Actually he's very sweet. None of the other girls can stand him, because he loses his temper and shouts at them."

"And not at you?" Yvonne poured herself out some more coffee.

"Oh yes, he yells at me more than at them, but I know he doesn't mean it. You see, he can never forgive himself if he makes a mistake. And he makes lots, so he has to yell at someone who happens to be handy."

"It sounds as though you're in love with him," commented Yvonne. "Rather surprises me, because I thought ..."

Peter came into the room. "Yvonne, David's on the phone and wants to speak to you."

"Oh no ! I hope he doesn't want to cancel our

lunch, because I've a lot of questions to ask him. I was

wondering if a boutique would pay off in Keswick."

"I think there are several already," Peter said drily.

"That means there's a market." Yvonne gulped

down the remains of her coffee and hurried from the

room.

Peter stayed, leaning against the door. "What were you two talking about?" he asked.

Cindy hastily finished her coffee, too. "About my boss."

"Are you in love with him?"

Cindy hesitated. Maybe she should pretend she Was and then Peter could never guess the truth.

"Well, not really," she said slowly. "I do like him very much. He's thoughtful and kind."

"These are important traits to you ?"

"Traits?" Cindy wrinkled her face as she tried to understand and then she nodded, her hair swinging. "Oh yes. I think one wants to be loved by someone kind."

"He loves you? He's said so?"

"Oh no, of course not," Cindy said hastily. "There's never been any question. I mean, I don't really know him."

"He's never taken you out to lunch?" Peter said drily.

"Lunch ? Goodness, no ! Oh, once he did take me out to dinner, but that was different."

"Why was it different?" Peter came and straddled a chair, looking at her curiously.

"Well, we'd been working very late. He'd been away ill and everything had just piled up. There was just Mr. Jenkins and me in the office and we both had

a shock when we saw the time. It was nine-thirty! `I'm starving' he said, 'so must you be, let's get something to eat.' " Cindy laughed. "We were both so tired he yawned all through the meal, and then he paid for a taxi to take me home."

"Home?"

"I have a bedsitter in Earls Court."

"Did you ask him in for a drink ?"

Cindy looked startled. "Of course not ! I could hardly stay awake. Besides, he didn't come with me, just put me in the taxi and gave me a pound note. He said I could give him the change next day—which I did."

"Very thoughtful of him. I expect he'll be glad you're going back."

Cindy laughed. "He told me I mustn't stay away more than a week or he'd go mad. None of the other girls can stand him, nor he them. He says they can't spell and the files get in a mess."

"And you can spell and the files don't get in a mess?" Peter asked, a strange smile on his face.

"Yes, I am lucky that way," Cindy said gravely. "It's just having a photographic memory."

"Useful." Peter looked at his watch. "I must go. I want a talk with Johanna Younge. She was very, strange last night when I saw her out to her car. She said she was sure she'd seen Yvonne before, yet she couldn't place her. Then she said she might remember it in the night and would I look in to see her." He laughed. "She's very amusing as a rule, but I don't know what was wrong last night, because I've never known her so quiet. Not that I ever really knew her. I think we actually met once, but she used to go to the

Club quite a lot and I saw her there, the life and soul of the party. Last night she was very ... well, not herself."

Cindy hesitated. Should she tell him that Johanna was in love with David and that he'd had eyes only for Yvonne? Peter was in one of his gentle moods, but was just as likely to change, and he might accuse her of being unkind to Yvonne, so Cindy decided to say nothing.

Peter drove them to Kendal where Yvonne was meeting David and then he drove Cindy around. The sun shone, the snow on top of the mountains sparkled, the lakes looked placid, the villages were huddled together. Together they admired Windermere with the distant mountains and the trees sheltering the little stone houses.

"I imagine that lake would be packed in the summer," Peter said drily. "Steamers and launches."

They went to Thirlmere, to Derwentwater, finally lunching at Keswick. Cindy had been quiet all the way; indeed she had little chance to talk, for Peter seemed full of life and kept her amused with tales of the first time he went climbing, and how once when camping he had crawled into his sleeping bag to find it full of water. He really seemed cheerful and she was glad, for it meant she would have a happy memory of this, their last day together.

At lunch he startled her by saying abruptly :

"I expect you're looking forward to being back at work on Monday."

"Well, I I. . ." Cindy wasn't sure what to say.

"You must have missed your friends and found life rather boring up 'here as well as lonely."

Cindy stared at him in amazement. All those things were the very last she could have felt up here. Everything had happened so fast, so much had happened.

"I've . . . I've thoroughly enjoyed my stay here. I certainly wasn't bored."

"Good. Only it's a drab life for the very young." "I'm not the very young," she said slowly.

He laughed and she saw he was teasing her and

she had, as usual, risen to the bait.

"Anyhow, your boss 'll be glad to have you back," Peter said cheerfully, as if that finalised everything.

Afterwards he drove her round the lakes again, showing her what they had missed. He showed her the Langdale Pikes, even taking her to the Dungeon Ghyll Force where the waterfall plunges sixty feet into a basin-like valley between huge cliffs. At Blea Tarn, they looked back at Great Langdale. It was all so beautiful, even though parts of the bleak mountains were eerily depressing, and this would be her last view for she knew that she would never come up here again. Once she had gone out of Peter's life, she must never return. That was the only way to avoid heartache . . . if it was to be avoided, which she doubted.

Finally they drove back to the castle.

"Enjoy the trip ?" Peter asked her cheerfully.

"Very much," Cindy said brightly. It meant nothing to him at all that she was going away, nothing whatsoever. He had met her and now she was going. It was as simple as that.

In any case, why should he miss her when he had Yvonne to be his companion ?

Yvonne looked up to greet them. She was sitting at the table, papers before her and a pen in her hand.

"I've got a wonderful idea, Peter. David and I think it would work," she said eagerly. "Now if we were to build on at the back of the castle. . .."

Cindy escaped to her bedroom and reached it just in time before the tears came. She stood in the middle of the room, her hands pressed against her eyes as she tried to stop crying. The castle was Yvonne's
,
Yvonne's and Peter's, and it looked as if David was easing his way in and she was the one left out. This was a fact Cindy had to accept—the hardest she had ever known.

The evening seemed endless, Yvonne chatting away while Peter listened patiently and Cindy twisted her hair round her hand until Yvonne told her to stop fidgeting.

"You're not a child, Cindy. Do grow up !" she said in the patient voice of an exasperated adult.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise." Cindy said, and stood up. "I think I'll have an early night."

"Good idea!" Yvonne smiled sweetly. "You have a long journey tomorrow."

Both of them, though neither had mentioned it, had remembered that that day was Cindy's last. Both probably were pleased, Cindy thought miserably.

She carefully packed her clothes, putting Uncle Robert's diary under everything. The first thing she would do in London would be to post it back and register it ! At least in that way she could repay Uncle Robert a little for his remembering her.

It was hard to sleep. She hugged her pillow, almost like a child hugging her teddy bear for comfort. How could she bear it? she asked herself. How could she look at Peter and calmly say 'Goodbye' ?

Next morning she awoke early and she got up soon after six, washed, dressed and hastily scribbled a. note for Peter.

"Thanks for everything, Cindy."

She crept down the stairs of the quiet castle, left the note on the silver platter in the hall, and then hoping the heavy wooden door's squeaks and groans wouldn't wake someone up, she let herself outside, her suitcase in hand.

Quickly she walked round the back to the garages As she backed the car. out, Paul Stone walked out of the kitchen.

"Where are you off to ?" he asked.

"Home," she said simply, and drove away.

It was still very dark, the sky starting to brighten, and Cindy drove carefully along the track back towards the main road, but suddenly it began to rain. It was only a drizzle, but it blotted out the fells and now the depressing mistiness came down to shut out the new light and everything else. Cindy felt a strangely frightening feeling of finality—almost as if she was in a small oasis of isolation. Again she felt the terrible depression she had known before she heard of her chance to own the castle—the awful feeling of belonging to no one, of knowing that no one cared about her.

She had to drive slowly, for it was difficult -to see, but as she reached the main road, the mist lifted and everything was for a brief moment beautifully clear. Then the rain fell and really fell. A great grey curtain of water was before her and her windscreen wipers seemed inadequate to do their job. Suddenly the car skidded and though she tried to save it, went

off the road, bouncing against a tree and stopping dead.

For a moment she sat stunned. Luckily she had been crawling along, so she had not been flung forward through the windscreen, only bumping her head badly. She moved her legs, arms and hands nervously. Nothing was broken !

She heard a car draw up and someone shouting and turned as a man came running towards her. Dimly she saw his face, but did not know him, and then everything went black .. .

When she came round something hot was stinging her throat and she opened her eyes to see the man bending over her, a flask at her mouth as he gently eased down a little brandy.

"Nasty shock," he said tersely. "Skidded, eh? Lucky thing you were going so slowly. I was behind you. Could hardly see a thing."

"It . . . it was a bit of a shock," Cindy whispered. "I ... I think I'm all right."

"But your car isn't. We'll have to get it towed.-I'm taking you to a hospital."

"But I'm all right," Cindy said quickly.

"Is that so ?" he asked, amused. He was a man of about Luke Fairhead's age, Cindy saw. "You should see the bulge on your head ! Reckon by tomorrow your eyes will be black. No, I'm taking you along to have an X-ray. Can't be too careful about bumps on the head. Come along, see if you can walk to my car. I'll bring your suitcase and lock your car, then I'll phone a garage for you."