Touch Not The Cat (31 page)

"Fine, if that's what you'd like. I think this day'll hold up till then. But we'll get storm before night."

"Oh, no! Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure. There's been rain in the hills, and I think it's coming this way. But not yet, don't worry. .

. ." The dark lashes shut. Time passed. He lay so quietly that I thought he slept, but then he said, without stirring: "Day's beginning to drag a bit, wouldn't you say?"

"'Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds.'"

"What's that?"

"Something Juliet said when she was waiting for Romeo."

"Them again."

"Yes." I did not say what I was thinking, that it had occurred to me, thinking about the play yesterday, that in some ways our secret love was much like theirs, a starlit descant to the family feuding and matchmaking of daylight. As long as the lovers could hold their private world inviolate, all was well, but when the warring factions crowded in . . .

"Forget it," said my lover. His eyes were open, and he was watching my face. "Whatever it is, we'll work it out together. And right this moment, today's our own, and after we've got your cousins' affair sorted out, so's the rest of our lives. Forget it. This is us."

He stretched an arm across and I slid onto it, with my head in the curve of his shoulder. The sun was hot. Overhead, the lacing of boughs slid a light and moving shadow over us, tempering the sun. A heron flapped ponderously upriver. The lambs slept on the warm hillside. Even the rooks were quiet.

I think we talked awhile longer. Our thoughts moved and mingled, but without the same clarity and force as before. No need now, I thought sleepily, with our bodies touching; with his hand cupped warm and gentle under my breast, and my hair under his cheek. No need. Here is my rest. We slept.

Ashley, 1835

At the door he paused, and looked back at the room. The faint light showed it clearly enough to his sharpened senses, but he could have shut his eyes and traced, accurately, every flower on the carpet, every line of the plaster maze on the wall, every fern on the frame that held the ceiling glass.

Fletcher would come later and straighten the bed, and put all to rights.

Never again, he thought. It would never be the same again. They had had their time outside the world, at the still center, in the Wondrous Isles. Now they must submit to the drag of the polar world outside. That they might change one happiness for another did not occur to him. Happiness was not the air he breathed.

He shut the door gently behind him, and trod down the slippery steps into the maze.

How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?

—Romeo and Juliet,
II, ii

We had arranged to go back to my cottage rather than to Rob's, because the latter, so near to the Hendersons', gave less privacy. When we got there we found that Mrs. Henderson, though respecting our desire to be alone, had nevertheless contrived that we should be welcomed. On the sitting-room table was a note which wished us well in the most substantial way possible. "Supper in oven," it said, and we found an excellent casserole gently bubbling there, with jacket potatoes hot and soft beside it on the shelf. The table was laid, and held, besides, an apple pie, a bowl of cream, and a generous wedge of cheese. We had brought a bottle of champagne in with us, and we drank this with supper, then washed the dishes together, while the dusk drew slowly over the shining lake outside, and the thrush sang its heart out in the pear tree.

"Make the most of it, mate," said Rob. "It's going to be a rough night." He caught my look, and grinned. "I was talking to the thrush. I warned you we'd get a storm, didn't I?"

"You did. Is it really going to rain? It's been such a lovely day."

He cocked his head to one side as he picked up the last dish and started to dry it. "Listen."

I listened. I heard it then, behind the thrush's song. Volleys of wind sifting the orchard trees; blowing and ebbing, then blowing again in gusts suddenly strong enough to keen in the telephone wires. The lake water darkened and gleamed under the racing cat's-paws.

"This'll fetch down a deal of the apple-blow," said Rob. "Here, I don't know where it goes." He handed me the dish, and I saw him glance at the clock, but I was wrong about the reason. He was reaching for his jacket, which he had hung over the back of a chair. "Bryony . . . " His apologetic look, which in someone I didn't love I'd have called hangdog, spoke for itself.

"I know," I said, "don't say it. You've got to go and feed the hens."

I found I had been watching for just that smile. Eleven short hours, and already a half-glance from him, amused and tender, could do this to me. We forge our own chains.

"They'll be in bed long since. Mrs. H. did them for me. But I'm afraid I will have to go up to the Court and take a look around. I always do a night-watchman round on the public side, and tonight, with the family gone up to London—"

I clapped a hand to my mouth. "Oh, Rob, I quite forgot! I never rang Cathy up to say I couldn't go to the party! I did try this morning, but no one answered, and I meant to try again from Worcester, but I forgot all about it. How awful!"

"Couldn't you ring up now? It's barely ten. Happen they'll forgive you when you tell them what made you forget. Will you tell them?"

"Will I not! They'll be delighted, I know. They think the world of you. But I can't telephone them now, I don't even know where the party was to be held. I was to go to their flat and have dinner with them, and then go with them to the party. They'll have gone by now. . . . Oh, how awful of me."

"I shouldn't worry. They'll think you missed the train or something. They may ring up here to find out what happened."

"I hope so. I could try the flat again, I suppose."

He still hesitated. "Do you mind my leaving you? I'll be about an hour, I expect. If you like, I'll wait till you've phoned, and you can come with me?"

I shook my head. "No, go ahead. And don't hurry yourself; after I've done the phoning I'm going to have a bath, and I've got a lot of tidying up to do. Heavens, what on earth will I say to them . . . ? It'll sound a bit funny as an explanation, coming out of the blue. Would you call yourself an accident, or an act of God, or what, Rob?"

He grinned. "I'll leave that to you. Maybe you'll be clearer about it, come the morning." He had been checking doors and windows as we talked. He came back to me. "Now, as your husband, Bryony Granger, do I rate a latchkey?"

I went to the bureau where my father's things still lay in a little pile, and took his key. I held it out on the palm of my hand.

Yours now, Ashley.
The familiar name-pattern slid through.

Mine now.

Our eyes met, and the signals faded abruptly. He took the key delicately, as if he dared not touch me, hesitated briefly, then smiled and went. The door latched shut behind him, and seconds later the garden wicket swung and clashed. I heard a pause in the thrush's song, then it began again.

As I dialled the Underhills' flat, and then sat listening to the vain threshing of the bell, I reflected that I could very well do with the hour on my own. It was a little disconcerting to have to stage-manage one's own honeymoon at such short notice.

No reply. I put the receiver back, then ran upstairs to find that Mrs. Henderson, bless her, had been there, too. She had put fresh sheets on the double bed and turned it down ready. There were clean towels in the bathroom; she had even brought Rob's things across for him, and laid out the razor, with pajamas and dressing gown and a clean shirt for the morning. The room had been newly cleaned, and smelled of polish and the sweet scent of cowslips jam-packed tight in a bowl on the windowsill.

After all, there was plenty of time. I had a bath, hunted out a pretty nightdress I had bought in Funchal, then sat down to brush my hair. It was barely half an hour since Rob had gone, but already it was full dark, and without, tonight, even the light of moon and stars. Clouds had come piling up, seemingly from nowhere, into a black sky, and the fitful wind drove a loose bough of the Fribourg rose knocking against the glass. Even as I paused to listen, hairbrush in hand, the force of the spasmodic gusts increased. I could hear the growing fret and rush of wind in the orchard branches, and the slapping of water on the shingle at the Pool's edge. Rob had been weather-wise; it would be a rough night.

On the thought, I heard him come in, the soft click of the spring lock almost drowned by a sudden rattle of rain flung against the casement. A current of fresh damp air came with him.

I half turned towards the door, but he did not approach the stairs. He trod lightly into the sitting room, and paused.

No further sound. He seemed to be standing still, listening. I could picture him, head aslant, wondering, perhaps, what his cue would be to come upstairs.

My bedroom door opened straight on the small landing, from which an open stairway descended into the sitting room. I pulled on my housecoat, went to the head of the stairs, and leaned over the banister. The room below was in the shadows. I could see him standing near the door, with a hand up to the light switch.

"Rob? You've been quick. D'you know, Mrs. H. even got the bedroom ready and laid your things out—?" I stopped dead. He had turned quickly at the sound of my voice, and looked up. It was not Rob. It was my cousin James.

We stood staring at one another for a few stretched seconds of silence. Juliet with a difference, I thought, with a wry flicker that had nothing to do with amusement. Then, forcibly, damn and damn and damn. We were to have had tonight, at least, before the world broke in.

Perhaps after all I could save it. It would be twenty minutes or so before he got back from the Court; if I could get this over, explain what had happened, and get rid of James before Rob had to come back and face him . . .

"James—" I began, and started down the stairway.

Stopped again. The cottage door opened a second time, and Emory came in. He took out the bunch of keys which James had left in the lock, dropped it into his pocket, and shut the door carefully behind him. As he turned, he saw me. I couldn't see his face, but he stopped still as if he had been struck.

"Bryony! I thought you were in London!"

"Well, as you can see, I'm not." I said it slowly, looking from one to the other. "I forgot the party.

Silly of me, wasn't it? But here I am. What do you want?"

"You forgot the party?" James's voice sounded strange, quite unlike his usual assured manner.

"What do you mean?"

"What I say. You seem to have forgotten it, too."

"Well, not exactly." Emory's ease of manner was a little too good to be true. "Our invitations were cancelled. I suppose we have you to thank for that."

"It's possible. So what brings you here?"

Dark as it was, I saw the glance that went between them, vivid as an electric spark. "I saw your light go on," said James, as if that explained everything.

"So?" I said coldly. "That still doesn't explain why you let yourself into my house like this, and how you happen to have a key. Or why you came here, thinking—hoping?—I'd be away. Well?"

"The fact is—" began James, but Emory cut across him.

"We thought you'd be in town, so we borrowed Mrs. Henderson's key."

The word "borrowed" held no touch of irony, but I knew that, had they spoken with Mrs.

Henderson, she would be bound to have told them about Rob's and my mar riage, and that we would be home tonight. I could translate well enough. She kept the cottage keys hanging on a nail inside her back door, which, like most doors in the country, was rarely locked. My cousins must have watched their chance to abstract the keys from their nail, then come down here.

Emory flashed me a smile, which, however, did not colour his voice; this was the voice of a man thinking quickly; of a man in a hurry. "It's a diabolical liberty, I know, but time pressed. Since you're here, that makes it easier."

"Makes what easier?"

"There was something we wanted rather urgently."

"I see." And I thought I did. I pulled the housecoat closer round me, belted it, and began slowly to descend the stairs. I was remembering, with a quick slam of the blood in my heart, the mysteries that had yet to be solved. And I remembered, as clearly as if it were my lover telling me again, that these two could be dangerous if they were driven to it. Perhaps, I thought suddenly, they had put two and two to gether about the silver pen, and that was why they had come here. . . . But no, they had thought I was in London; this visit had nothing to do with that mystery.

Resolutely I put the thought aside. I concentrated on the present, and on keeping my mind shut to Rob: if he had received the sudden jagged pattern of fear which had zig zagged across my brain a moment ago, he would come straight here at the run, and an awkward—surely no more than awkward?—scene could easily become nasty. There was still time enough, I thought, to grasp the nettle and tell them what had happened, and then get rid of them.

I reached the foot of the stairs. The light from the bedroom door, spilling out on the landing above, showed me James's face. It looked tense, and rather pale, and his eyes burned on mine with what looked like anger. I said, as easily as I could:

"It's late, and as you can see, I'm on my way to bed. What did you come to get? I suppose it was the books? Well, I'm sorry, but they'll have to wait till morning." I crossed to the window and began to draw the curtains. "Put the light on, Emory. That's better. The Brooke isn't here, anyway. I told you I was taking it to be valued. And I'd like to keep the other one for a couple of days longer, please. After that, you'll be welcome. And if you've anything more to discuss, that will have to wait, too. So, since there aren't any other objects of virtu to interest you, then I suggest—"

"Not even you, seemingly," said James.

"What?" I had been straightening the curtains. I swung round and looked at him. I saw Emory turn, too. A tiny chill stroked the skin along my bare arms, like a cat's fur brushing up.

"You were expecting Rob Granger," said James. Then, across me to his brother: "She thought I was Granger. She called down to tell him the bedroom was ready, and then came out. Like that."