The Truant Spirit (15 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said, brushing the snow from her hair with nervous fingers. “I didn’t even know I had touched you. Was it really my fault?”

“I probably braked too violently as well, but never in any circumstances do such a thing again,” he said; then noticed the whiteness of her face.

“You’re all right, aren’t you?” he asked sharply.

“Yes, I’m all right,” she said. “You frightened me more than the accident did.”

“Serve you right,” he retorted unfeelingly. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble in your own quiet way, haven’t you, young woman? Picking up strangers in pubs, losing yourself on the moor, inviting overtures in an empty house, and now this.” “Since you’ve brought it up, it wasn’t I who invited overtures,” she said indignantly, and he grinned.

“Wasn’t it? If you hadn’t turned to run and fallen through the floor we might still be inspecting the upper rooms of your property—or do you feel that might have led to greater indiscretion?”

“I think you’re hateful!” she replied, the colour back in her face. “I think a man who—who kisses a girl and then taunts her with it is—is unspeakable.”

“Quite right, he is,” he said. “But I wasn’t really taunting you, Sabina—didn’t you like being kissed? All right, all right—I’m not going to do it again on the public highway.” She had backed away from him hastily, and as he finished speaking she lost her footing and fell into the ditch again.

He stood looking down at her without immediately offering to help her up. His annoyance seemed to have gone.

“You see? Pride goes before a fall,” he said. “That should teach you not to anticipate gestures of affection before they happen to you.”

“Was it a—a gesture of affection?” she asked.

“What else?”

“I thought perhaps it was just—amusement.” “Oh, I see. Has my good preceptress been dropping timely hints?”

“Not in that way, but Marthe—”

“Oh, that coarse old trollop!”

She sat in the snow, blinking up at him shyly. With her long legs and smooth, rounded forehead she looked like a child who has taken an unexpected tumble, and he reached down to pull her up, this time with gentleness.

“You’re very sweet, Sabina Lamb,” he said. “A lamb too young for the market, I think.”

“I’m only inexperienced,” she said with grave sedateness. “One grows up quickly with a little help, I think— even for the market.”

His eyes narrowed, and she was struck again by their strange icy blue; the eyes of a mountaineer.

“And I wonder what you mean by that,” he said softly. “M. Bergerac may have quite a surprise in store for him after all.”

She turned away. Was he always deliberate in bringing things back to Rene Bergerac, she wondered? Was he warning her or mocking at the path Tante had chosen for her?

“What do we do about the car?” she asked to change the subject, and he laughed.

“What do you imagine we do, my innocent? We walk. The thing will need a breakdown gang to heave it out of the ditch.”

Walk! It was a long way back to the rectory, and Brock with his stiff leg found walking difficult.

“Does that disconcert you?” he asked, seeing the dismay in her face.

“No, but you—won’t you stay with the car and let me go to the village for help?” she said, and saw his expression freeze at once into one of arrogant distaste.

“Certainly not,” he said brusquely. “I may be a cripple in your eyes, my child, but I can still get around. You will have to suit your pace to mine, that’s all.”

She flushed scarlet, remembering that Bunny had told her he was afraid of pity. She said no more but started to walk beside him down the hill, aware of his cold withdrawal.

It was an unhappy finish to a confusing morning, she thought, walking the slow miles home. It was a lonely road, and in this weather nothing passed them. She tried to avert her eyes from Brock’s halting gait, but it worried her to glimpse the twinge of pain in his face when he slipped and know that this heavy going through the snow was wearing him down. She could have helped, she knew, by lending her shoulder as support, but she did not dare touch him or even suggest a periodical rest. At last he called a halt himself, and when with relief she watched him prop himself against a wall, she saw his eyes upon her.

“Don’t look so worried,” he said quite pleasantly. “Such occasions are tedious, but I make out in the end. ”

“I feel I’m to blame,” she said because she did not like to ask him if he was in pain.

“Forget it. My careless braking was really the trouble.

I suppose I was human enough to demand a scapegoat,” he replied. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

Her mouth curved into the tender crescent that Bunny found so endearing and the uncertainty left her face.

“I didn’t mind,” she said. “It always helps to blast someone, doesn’t it?”

He smiled.

“I suppose it does. And do you ever blast anyone, Sabina?” “Oh, yes, sometimes. Marthe when she makes me feel a fool and people in buses who tread on your toes.”

‘Tell me about your childhood after your aunt adopted you,” he said, and turned to walk on.

Because she thought it would help to distract his attention from his infirmity, she gave him a meticulous account of the life she had led, but she did not feel it could make very interesting hearing to a man of Brock’s experience. The cheap schools had been dull, even to her, and the hotels were all the same; only Tante gave colour to those years, with her wit and gaiety, the elegance of her clothes, the bright quirks of her restless mind.

“My father probably wouldn’t have approved of Tante making herself responsible for me,” Sabina said, laughing. “We were all very English, you see, and Tante had a slight flavour of wickedness because she was French.”

“Then why didn’t your father make proper arrangements in his lifetime?”

“I don’t know. He was a very absent-minded man; and besides, I don’t really think there would have been anyone else. Marthe used to say Tante saved me from an institution, but I don’t suppose that was true.” “H’m ... And when was the rich M. Bergerac thought of as a solution to everyone’s problems?”

“When I was sixteen or seventeen, I suppose, though I don’t think Tante started negotiations then.”

“You’re sure the negotiations, as you call them, aren’t principally in your aunt’s mind?”

“Well, not now, you forget she’s staying at the Chateau Berger.”

“So she is. And M. Bergerac is being gently persuaded, according to plan.”

She glanced at him quickly.

‘That doesn’t sound very flattering. I understood he is in need of a wife as well as the house and is quite agreeable to discuss the arrangement.”

“Led up the garden by a photograph of spurious glamour?” Sabina flushed at his tone and wondered if Brock and Rene had ever met and discussed the project.

“Yes, the photograph was a mistake,” she agreed. “But Tante says it will not matter that I am rather plain, for M. Bergerac would not care for a wife who might turn the heads of his clients.”

“I see. And do you consider yourself plain?”

She sighed, then answered prosaically:

“Well, I am rather. My eyes are too big for my face, my forehead too bulgy and my hair never made up its mind whether to be blonde or just near-mouse.”

He slipped a hand through her arm, whether from a gesture of friendliness or for the support for which he would not ask, she did not know, but it made her happy.

“The French would describe it as
cendre
— far more subtle than plain blonde,” he told her. “You haven’t been allowed much conceit of yourself, have you, Sabina? Well, a man can doubtless teach you that more successfully than a smart French aunt.”

“Oh!” She did not know what to reply to this and he had made her suddenly shy. He had taught her already, she thought wryly, to be conscious of an inadequate wardrobe and a lack of feminine tricks which she had never before been called upon to use.

“You know,” he said with a touch of his old mockery, “it’s very odd that you should always allude to your future husband so formally.”

“Well, I’ve never met him; besides—he’s never seemed quite real, to tell you the truth. When I think of M. Bergerac, I see someone in tails and a white waistcoat, very polite with shiny hair—like the head waiters in our hotels.”

“Good God! ” he exclaimed.

“Isn’t he like that? You say you’ve met him.”

“Not very, I hope.”

“Oh! He’s attractive, then?”

“Not at all,” said Brock crisply, “but since he’s his father’s son and the name of Bergerac still means something in France, there are plenty who like to boast of his acquaintance.”

“Oh!” she said again. “It doesn’t sound as if he’s going to find me very satisfactory.”

“On the contrary, he will probably find you a relief after the sycophantic women he has to deal with,” he said, then added slyly, “Besides, a biddable, wisely brought up young wife will be a protection. Hasn’t your aunt told you that?”

“Yes, but—”

“But what?”

“Well, nothing really. I’m getting muddled.”

He made no reply and seemed to lose interest in the subject. She had been talking too much and too inconsequently, she thought, seeing the weariness in his face. He leant on her now without apology and she found it difficult to match her steps to his in the shifting snow. He knew of a short cut which would take them across one of the moorland tracks to the churchyard, thus saving a mile, but it must have been a gruelling couple of hours for him.

“You should have waited with the car,” she said as the little graveyard was at last in sight and she saw the effort it was now costing him to keep going.

“Perhaps I should,” he agreed with surprising meekness. “I shall be infernally crippled tomorrow.”

“Like Mrs. Cheadle’s bad legs,” giggled Sabina, able for the first time to make a small jest about his infirmity and see him grin.

“Yes, it must be. Mrs. Cheadle and I will have to get together and discuss our ailments.”

“You,” said Sabina, feeling emboldened by his response, “will rest by the fire and take orders, and not make people feel that they are trespassing when they only want to help.” He paused in sight of the house to look down at her. “Do I do that?” he asked with surprise.

“Yes, you do. Look how you bit off my head when I suggested earlier on that you should stay behind. Bunny says—”

“What does Bunny say?”

“Nothing that I should repeat.”

“I’m sorry if I bit off your head,” he said mildly. “You should have bitten back.”

“Yes,” she said, considering the matter seriously, “but Tante and Marthe have never encouraged pert answers and I haven’t much practice.”

He walked on again but made an effort to lean upon her arm less heavily.

“It would appear that I’ve been taking an unfair advantage,” he said. “All right, Sabina, for the next few days I’ll take the place of the robin for you. I shall probably be glad of solicitude.”

“The robin?” she inquired, not following his allusion. “Something to be responsible for, something that needs you—don’t you remember?”

“Yes,” she said, knowing suddenly that she desired this of him with aching intensity. “But you would never need me, Brock. You don’t need anyone—only the mountains.”

“And second best isn’t good enough?”

They were walking between the graves now, and she brushed the snow tenderly from one of the headstones.

“Oh, no,” she replied, “second best isn’t as chilly as it sounds and I haven’t been brought up to expect the best.” “Sometimes you make me want to shake you,” he said impatiently, but he did not alarm her any more.

“Well, you did when you found me that night at Pen-ruthan,” she said demurely. “If it makes you feel better you can do it again.”

“You’re learning fast, aren’t you?” he said, and observed the tiredness in her small face. “I’m sorry, my dear; I’m afraid I’ve been inconsiderate for the last mile or so. You’re scarcely used to country endurances or the weight of a six-foot man. Are you hungry? I’m afraid we’ve missed our lunch, but no doubt Bunny can find us something.”

But Bunny, Sabina felt, was disapproving. She listened to the tale of their misfortune with pursed lips and gave Sabina a look which said plainly that she knew who was to blame for the whole affair.

“Any undue strain on that leg sets up a peck of trouble,” she said, snatching plates out of the oven where she had been keeping something hot against their return. “Brock can suffer a lot of pain from that injury.”

Sabina felt reproved and guilty of a lack of adult firmness.

“I should have insisted he stayed with the car, I suppose,” she said, “but it’s difficult to know with Brock.”

“Well, it can’t be helped,” Bunny replied, not responding to a plea which she would normally have understood. “You will be able to see for yourself the folly of pretending a disability doesn’t exist. You’d better keep out of his way for the next few days, Sabina. Brock can be difficult when his leg troubles him excessively.”

But Brock was not difficult. In the days that followed, although he was clearly suffering a fair amount of pain, he seemed content to sit by the fire, his leg propped on a stool, while Sabina sewed and Bunny made periodical appearances from the kitchen or other parts of the house where she was occupied.