The Tender Years (9 page)

‘Not that much,’ she denied. ‘I don’t feel any different. . . .’ She was confused, fumbling for words, and her eyes were lowered as she stared at her feet. ‘How are you, Steve? Do you like your new house? I’d—I like to come over sometime and—and see it. . . .’ Again she became lost for words. Steve’s fingers curled around hers and he bent to kiss her lightly on the cheek.

‘It’s great to be back and to see you. What have you been doing with yourself?’ Tucking her arm through his, he went with her into the house. Greta was in the sitting room by the open window, staring out to the ornamental pond where giant lilies shone pink and white, translucent in the sunshine. Christine’s nerves seemed to be springing to the alert as the older girl turned, slowly, as if the effort were too much for her. A baby on the way? A dryness caught at Christine’s throat and she swallowed convulsively. Steve’s baby . . . But no. Greta’s figure was as slender as ever.

‘You’re looking well.’ Christine smiled at her sister but the only response was a swift appraisal by eyes that held an unfathomable expression in their depths.

‘So are you.’ Greta looked over her shoulder to where Steve was standing, just inside the door. ‘Where’s Father?’ she asked Christine.

‘In his study. Shall I tell him you’ve arrived?’

‘I expected him to be at the office.’

‘He’s not been too well lately.’ Christine, still tensed, felt the sudden need for enlightenment. ‘Is everything all right, Greta? I mean, you’re—well—not very— cheerful.’

A deep silence followed and it was Steve who broke it, merely saying, ‘Tell Arthur we’re here, Chris. And I’ll have a drink if I may?’

Christine flicked a hand. ‘You know where it is,’ she said, surprised that he should ask at all. He was one of the family, and always previously had helped himself to drinks without asking permission to do so. ‘I’ll tell Father.’

She knocked lightly on the study door and was invited to enter. Arthur was at his big, leather-topped desk with Luke sitting opposite to him. Christine sent a fleeting glance around the familiar room, liking its maleness, as she liked the maleness of Luke’s study. Arthur’s taste was rather more flamboyant, though, his having chosen Chinese wallpaper of vivid crimsons and greens and saffrons whereas Luke’s walls were plain white, two being lined with bookshelves. One wall took up the massive picture window and the other was covered partly with an exquisite tapestry depicting a scene in a Turkish garden. Arthur’s furniture was of light oak, except for the desk which, like Luke’s, was a Georgian antique. Luke’s furniture was also antique, the small sofa and matching chair being French, exquisitely covered in fine, gold-threaded tapestry.

Both men looked at her as she stood just inside the doorway and she felt the colour rise on noting Luke’s expression. He was not pleased with her, but why? It wasn’t her fault that Steve was here.

‘Greta and Steve are here.’ she said and came into the room. ‘They’ve just arrived. Which room have you given them, Father?’

‘Me?’ He frowned. ‘What do I know about rooms? It’s your mother’s place to be here and see to such things!’ Anger lent a glint to his eyes as he went on, ‘As she’s not here, then it’s your job to arrange which room they’ll have!’

‘Perhaps Greta will prefer her old room. I’ll ask her.’ She had blushed at his abruptness, and as she caught Luke’s eyes she saw that he was almost scowling. It seemed that although he himself was not pleased with her he resented her father’s manner which was causing Christine this discomfort.

‘Aren’t you going in to see them?’ he enquired of Arthur. And when there was a glowering hesitation Luke added with a hint of censure, ‘It’s expected of you, Arthur, if only for courtesy’s sake. Surely you’re glad to see them?’

For answer he gave a deep sigh, glanced at Christine, hesitated a moment and then, ‘Run along; tell them I’ll be there in a few minutes.’

‘Very well.’ Her brow puckered in bewilderment at his behaviour; she went slowly from the room, merely pulling the door to behind her without actually closing it. She was recalling Arthur’s strangeness at the breakfast table on that particular morning last week when he had received the letter from Greta. Halfway through his breakfast he had seemed to become brooding, as if he had something lying heavily on his mind. And now ... he was not in the least eager to come out of his study and welcome his daughter. There should have been hugs and kisses and many questions for Greta and Steve to answer. Instead, it would appear that Arthur had no enthusiasm for the meeting with the daughter he had not seen for just over six months.

Christine had just reached the door of the sitting room and was about to open it when she heard voices upraised—the shrill, high note so familiar when Greta was in a temper, and the angry voice of her husband. Quarrelling? Unwilling to go in, Christine turned away, and so absorbed was her mind on the two in there that she found herself back at the door of Arthur’s study, which was slightly ajar as she had left it only a few seconds ago.

‘They’re not happy, you say!’ It was Luke’s disbelieving voice that drifted out to her as she was about to pass on with the intention of going out to the garden for a few minutes. But she stopped, held to the spot by some compelling force even though one half of her mind was urging her to move on. ‘How the devil do you know that?’

‘It came through in her letter—oh, nothing actually said but I could easily read between the lines. I can’t think what in heaven’s name has gone wrong, and I’ve enough on my mind with Loreen. Added to all this I’m not feeling myself at all these days, Luke.’ ‘It’s a damnable situation! If Loreen were my wife I’d give her a damned good hiding!’

‘And what would that solve? No, Luke, that’s not the way to rectify anything. And to hell with Loreen and her damned lover! I’ve my daughter’s troubles to cope with!’

‘You could be mistaken.’

‘Perhaps, but I don’t hold out much hope.’ Trembling from head to foot, Christine managed at last to move on, down the corridor to the arched alcove off which were the bedrooms, Entering her own, she sank down on the bed, her mind in a chaotic muddle as she endeavoured to sort out what she had heard. Yet it was simple, and her mind became clear in seconds. Loreen definitely did have a lover, and Luke had obviously known it for some time, and secondly Greta and Steve had run into difficulties with their marriage— or so Arthur believed.

Christine turned her head to stare at her companion. Her throat felt dry and in her violet eyes were dark shadows of near despair. ‘You mean—you and Greta can’t go on? You really mean it, Steve?’

He sighed and for a moment did not speak. He and Christine were strolling along the beach, their bodies wanned by the sun but in their hearts a coldness neither of them could dispel.

‘I was madly in love with her,’ he mused, a pained expression on his rugged face. ‘Looking back now, I realise it was the sort of affair that had no foundation and it was bound to collapse.’ He turned his head. ‘No, Christine, we can’t go on. Greta’s impossible to live with and you must have known what I was letting myself in for.’

She made no answer to that; she owed a certain loyalty to her adoptive sister if only because it was her parents who had given her, Christine, a home. She said in a low despairing voice, ‘What will you do, then, Steve?’

‘It’s up to Greta. She wants her freedom—says she ought never to have given it up yet awhile—until she had had her fling.’

‘She actually said that?’

‘As good as,’ shrugged Steve. He stopped and turned to her. ‘I know now that you had begged her to let you be a bridesmaid—’

‘That’s not important any more,’ broke in Christine hastily. It was surprising how soon she had forgotten that desperate hurt. The tender years . . .Yes, that disappointment had taken on enormous proportions but only because she was—as Luke maintained—going through her tender years. But about Steve and her feelings for him Luke was wrong, mistaken in thinking this was calf love. It was real, alive, vital within her, and although she felt sorry about the broken marriage she was woman enough to see the future . . . and the silver beginning to show through the cloud that had descended upon her since the moment she had fallen in love with him. But the cloud was still very dark; Steve was still married and it would probably be two years before he was free. . . . The weight dropped on Christine’s spirits again and she bit her lip, wondering why fate was so cruel, letting Steve marry Greta when she, Christine, could have made him deliriously happy.

And as though reading her thoughts, he said softly, a hand coming out to touch her cheek, ‘I guess it was you, Christine, but I was fool enough to consider you far too young. In any case, Greta dazzled me and I believed myself the luckiest guy alive when she said she’d marry me.’

Christine’s throat went dry again. ‘You mean— you’re saying . . . ?’

‘I care for you, Christine. Oh, so much I thought of you after the wedding. You must have been in tears when Greta refused to let you be a bridesmaid—you should by rights have been the chief one. Yes,’ he continued musingly, his eyes locked to Christine’s and within their depths the sort of glazed look that told her his mind was not focussed on the present moment. ‘So many times I thought of you, and I knew that you’d never have done a trick like that to Greta, had the positions been reversed. You’re gentle, dear, and compassionate and understanding.’

He was with her now and profoundly aware of her beauty—the big violet eyes wide and sad, the tremulous quivering of the mouth and the delicate colour of her cheeks—pale and yet glowing with health as was her hair, gleaming in the sunlight and with that adorable half fringe that never would behave as she wanted it to. Steve touched it tenderly, and his fingers traced a line to her temple as if he was actually feeling the blue veins showing there, through the transparency of her skin. A quiver passed through her and when he bent to kiss her she wanted to let him, to feel his lips on hers in a real kiss, not those brotherly kisses she was used to receiving before his marriage and subsequent departure from the island. But Luke’s face intruded, stern and forbidding, a glint in those tawny eyes . . . and disapproval written all over his face. The scar seemed to her imagination to be standing out, just as if Luke were being affected by some strong emotion. She shook her head to dispel the unwanted vision and stepped backwards at the same time.

‘You mustn’t kiss me,’ she said.

‘Why not? We care, Christine, so why pretend? I can see it in your eyes, have done for the past three days— No, darling, don’t deny it! I have seen love for me in your eyes since the moment you heard Greta say, so harshly, that it was all over between her and me.’

Christine frowned at the memory. It was barely two hours after their arrival and they were having lunch. Luke had been persuaded to stay but he had contributed nothing to the conversation, which was strained to say the least. Greta was silent, Steve trying to converse with his father-in-law and Christine just sitting there feeling the food was choking her. Then suddenly, without even leading up to it, Greta had said to her father, ‘You might as well know now as later. Steve and I are having marriage trouble.’

Arthur had said nothing, because of course he had guessed from Greta’s letter that something was wrong with the marriage. Christine’s eyes had met those of Luke; she read contempt, which she knew was for Greta and Steve, for marrying without making sure it would work—or, at least, have some chance of working. Then Christine saw a challenge in Luke’s eyes, in that steely glint that was so often pronounced these days, and this time she knew it was for her—directed against her, more like, and she averted her face, quite unable to meet that challenge. Afterwards Luke had managed to get her alone for a few moments.

‘Watch yourself,’ he had advised. ‘Don’t go headlong into something you’re likely to regret.’ His voice had been hard, his eyes tempered steel and his jaw taut, inflexible . . . and almost frighteningly forbidding.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she had begun.

But Luke had cut her short with an imperious flick of his hand and said, ‘You know very well what I mean! Keep your head!’ and with that he had swung away on his heel, said a brief and curt good-bye to Arthur and left. Christine had not seen him since; she did not even know if he was on the island or if he had gone off to Grand Bahama or Nassau ... or perhaps Miami. . . .

‘Christine . . . you’re miles away.’ Steve’s voice recalled her and she forced a smile to her lips.

‘I was thinking of how Greta told us all that the marriage had broken up. I suppose there was no sense in trying to be subtle about it,’ she added. ‘Luke was disgusted—’

‘I saw that at once. But then, he’s the kind who’d make absolutely sure. There’ll be no wild and heady road to romance for him, no starry visions which could disintegrate like a vaporous film of starlit cloud.’

‘You’re saying he isn’t romantic?’ Christine wondered why the implication was resented.

‘I expect he’ll find romance, of a kind, one day, but—’ Steve shook his head vigorously. ‘He’s the staid kind, Christine.’ He looked at her curiously. ‘You must have discovered this already, seeing that you and he are so close.’

Close . . .

‘We’ve been drifting apart lately,’ she reflected and a small sigh issued from her lips, ‘He has a girl friend— but perhaps you know?’

‘Greta said something about a girl in Miami—Clarice something or other.’

‘I’ve met her.’

‘What’s she like?’ Steve seemed slightly impatient, as if he wanted to talk of other things instead of wasting time on discussing a woman he had never met.

‘Very beautiful,’ was Christine’s brief reply before, abruptly, she changed the subject, suggesting they went along to the cafe and had morning coffee.

He readily agreed, and while they were drinking it he told Christine of his early disillusionment. ‘Greta seemed cool even after the first week,’ he said with a reflective frown. ‘And a week later she was acting as if she were bored.’