Unknown (5 page)

'For a stranger to the district you seem to know a lot about our public transport facilities,' she snapped ungraciously.

'I made it my business to find out,' he answered her coolly. And as he spoke he shot a glance at the pilot. Willy began to speak. He got as far as, We've been looking....' Then he caught Reeve's eye, and subsided into silence.

It was almost as if Reeve's look warned the pilot of something. But what? She cast the two a puzzled glance. If they were based at the aerodrome, it seemed natural enough for them to want to explore the district while they were there, although—Marion glanced at the sleek luxury car—they would hardly stand in need of the public transport facilities, such as they were. It struck her suddenly that she had not seen either of the men in uniform. Perhaps Reeve did not have to wear one, although he had about him an air of confident authority that would fit well with rank. But surely if they belonged to one of the airlines, Willy, as the pilot, would be required to don the garb of his status. They were both in mufti now, Willy in sweater and denims, which kept his portly form tidy without trouble, and Reeve in black, tightly fitting slacks and a white open-necked shirt with the sleeves rolled above his elbows, showing darkly tanned, muscular arms. Marion felt glad, now, she had not succumbed to an earlier temptation to dress in the slacks and sweater she wore yesterday, which would have been ideal for a ride in the post van, but her slender-fitting cream skirt and brown shirt-blouse pleated to her waist by a brown patent leather belt were a more fitting outfit for a car ride into town.

'Would you like to travel in the front or the back?' Willy asked hopefully, and Marion hesitated. She did not want to travel in either. Her first instinct was to refuse to travel with them at all. But she had promised to obtain a special book for her uncle. The library had telephoned to say it was ready, and she did not want to disappoint him. He was something of a historian, and in his spare time he was writing a book on road building going back to the earliest times, and the changes, both beneficial and otherwise, that it had brought in its train. The book he wanted from the library was a reference volume that would be invaluable to him at the stage he had just reached. The weight of the books under her arm reminded her of her obligations to her only relative. She could feel Reeve's eyes on her, watching to see what her reaction would be. No doubt he would think he had won, but she knew the real reason for accepting a lift from him, if he did not. She shrugged with feigned indifference, and tried to ignore the gleam her submission brought to the grey eyes.

'In front, please.' That way she would have Willy's company in the driving seat, not Reeve's. She felt grateful that the car did not have a front bench seat that would accommodate three.

'Let me take your books, they look heavy.' Reeve held out his hands for them. 'They'll travel in the back of the car quite safely,' he insisted as she hesitated, and she relinquished them in silence. He waited for a second or two while Willy handed her into the car and shut the door, and then he went round to the other side, and Marion sat back and relaxed. She could rely on Willy, she felt sure, to keep up a cheerful flow of conversation, and with Reeve safely ensconced in the back of the car she could will herself to forget he was there.

She heard the rear door of the car open, but she did not look round. The books made a light thump on the back seat, and then the vehicle rocked to the greater weight of a human body. A hand reached down to the driver's door, and she turned to smile a welcome at Willy. It froze on her face as a brown arm with a white shirt sleeve rolled up past the elbow reached inside towards the steering wheel, and Reeve jack-knifed himself into the driver's seat.

She would never have accepted the lift if she had known Reeve was going to drive. As Willy was the pilot, she had automatically supposed that he would take over this chore too. She simmered silently. The deep hide seat offered a refuge, and she shrank further back into it and turned her head mutinously towards the side window.

'I say!' An awestruck whistle came from Willy in the back seat. 'Does your uncle really read these things?' The tides of the books on the seat beside him were evidently too much for the pilot. A reluctant smile tilted Marion's lips. She herself was deeply interested in her uncle's work, but she had to admit that some of the tomes he used for reference made extremely hard reading.

'He's writing a book on road building through the ages,' she explained. The engine of the car made no more than a low purr, almost inaudible in the interior, and she found it easy to respond to the pilot in her normal voice. Different from the post van, she admitted to herself wryly. That worthy vehicle echoed every pothole in the road, and defeated reasonable conversation. 'He's ordered a special reference book from the library, and he'll be temporarily stuck without it. That's why I must go back into Dale End today. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered,' she added deliberately.

She felt Reeve's eyes leave the road and slant towards her briefly, then away again, as if he had caught her hint that it was only the pressure of necessity that made her ride with him, and she felt an unrepentant satisfaction that her barb had gone home.

'Your uncle's research must make him appreciate the necessity for change,' he commented casually, apropos of nothing, and Marion turned her head and looked at him, puzzled.

'Change? What sort of change?'

'Any sort. Roads, where no roads were before....'

'But Uncle Miles is writing about Roman roads, not modern motorways,' Marion protested. She had not intended to speak to Reeve during the journey. The things she would have liked to say to him were better left unuttered, she thought grimly. But since Willy had broken the ice with a fairly innocuous topic of conversation, she responded, thankful despite herself to be able to ease the sense of strain that seemed to fairly crackle between herself and the man sitting beside her.

'Nevertheless, even the Romans must have disturbed the indigenous population by their road-building activities,' Reeve responded drily.

'I can't imagine a peasant population being consulted by an invading army,' Marion's tone was equally dry.

'Neither can I,' Reeve responded easily, 'but just the same, the desire to resist must have been there, the same as it would be today. The road-builders would automatically take the easier route, and that would mean cutting through the valleys, and consequently spoiling some of the best grazing land. The owners of the castles and the manor houses of the day wouldn't take kindly to having their flocks and herds disturbed.'

'But the roads brought benefits,' Marion argued. 'They encouraged trade, and opened up the country. If the peasants didn't see that, the lords of the manors should have done, surely?'

'I wonder if they did, at the time?' Reeve pondered. 'Afterwards, yes. Because ultimately they'd probably have built the roads themselves across the same routes, and thought the temporary upset to their pasture land a reasonable price to pay for what, when all the arguments were settled, would eventually come to be regarded as the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people.'

'Reeve's got your uncle's bent, he likes history,' Willy put in with an apologetic note from the back of the car.

Was it only that? Marion wondered. She felt, uneasily, that Reeve was trying to impress something on her. But what? A point of view? The subject of their conversation seemed innocent enough. It had arisen quite spontaneously, over a few chance library books. And yet his remarks held a subtle insistence she could not put her finger on. Was he a road-builder himself, perhaps? Maybe come to build a road through the valley, that would cause disruption to the people living there? She dismissed the idea as soon as it occurred to her. Fallbeck had nothing to attract a road-builder, even if he was one. The presence of Fallbeck Scar at the head of the valley had been sufficient, a few years ago, to take the new highway through Merevale. It was a broad, modern proof of sophisticated engineering, more than sufficient for the traffic it bore towards the distant motorways.

In spite of the logic of her argument, her sense of unease persisted. It followed her into the library, where Reeve dropped her with the explanation that he was going to take Willy to the airport. He made no mention of his own plans, and Marion did not ask.

'Thank you for the lift.'

She was stiffly polite. She did not consider she had anything to thank him for. It was the result of his own deliberate action that had left her stranded in the first place.

'See you later,' Willy called from the back of the car, and Marion smiled and waved to him, and muttered between her teeth as she entered the cool quietude of the library.

'Much later. Back at the Fleece, in fact ....'

She would go back by the post van, she determined, and with her decision arrived at she found she could concentrate more easily on what she had come for. The book her uncle had ordered presented no problems, it was waiting for her on the shelf when she got in, but choosing the other books for him took some time. She dawdled over her task, browsing along the shelves, knowing the post van would not return to Fallbeck until late afternoon, and by the time she checked out her choice and was ready to leave, the clock above the desk at the entrance told her she had been there for over an hour.

She tucked the books under her arm and wished she had brought a bag in which to carry them. They seemed heavier than the ones she had brought back. She stepped outside and raised a dismayed face to the sky. Gone was the bright sunshine of the early morning. Cloud rolled in grey billows across the rooftops, and the pavement under her feet was shiny with wet. And she had with her neither coat nor mac.

She half turned to go back into the library when she remembered it was their afternoon to close. A glance at her wrist watch told her that time would be in about ten minutes from now, so she could not return and sit reading in the hope that the weather would clear; neither could she, for much longer, remain in the shelter of the open doorway. She shivered. The rain had made it cold. Already a damp discomfort reminded her that toeless sandals were a poor protection against soaking wet pavements.

'I'll go and have some lunch.' She gave herself what comfort she could. She crouched back into the library door hurriedly as a sudden squall drove slanting wet across the street, and she turned concerned eyes on the burden in her arms. It would be bad enough if she got a soaking, but it could ruin the books.

'I'll wait until it eases off a bit, then go and buy a bag of some sort,' she decided. The books were more important than lunch, and they would be easier to carry in a bag. She was faced with an afternoon of walking round the stores, because the local cinema had gone the way of most such institutions, and was now converted into a bingo hall, effectively reducing her choice of activity on a wet day until the post van was ready for its evening run back to Fallbeck.

The squall slackened to
a
drizzle, and she stepped out of her temporary shelter just in front of the librarian, who turned the key in the old-fashioned lock with an air of finality, bade Marion a meticulous 'good afternoon'— it was exactly two minutes past twelve—and with a courteous nod left her wondering which route was best to the shops for the quickest shelter. A passing car sent up a shower of spray and she backed hastily away from the pavement edge, just as another vehicle drew to a halt beside her, and Reeve emerged from the driving seat.

'Jump in,' he bade her peremptorily, and wrenched open the door on the passenger side.

'I don't .....' Despite the weather, she drew back.

'If you don't mind getting wet yourself, at least give me the books,' he said impatiently. 'They're too valuable to be spoiled just because you choose to be stubborn.' He did not sound as if he cared whether she got drenched, so long as the books were safe, and her chin came up.

'I'm not being stubborn.'

'If you choose to get soaked rather than remain dry in the car, you're out of your mind,' he retorted bluntly, and before she could stop him he whisked the books out of her arms and into the rear seat. 'Are you going to get in or not?' he asked impatiently, and ducked his head against a return squall that flung itself against the shining coachwork in a hissing downpour. 'Make your mind up, quick. I'm getting wet as well as you.' He was still in his shirt sleeves, as unprotected as she was, and a tardy feeling of guilt made Marion duck into the shelter of the front passenger seat, and release him to run round the car to his own. He slammed the door on her with unnecessary force, indicative of the state of his feelings towards her, and she wondered what had made him return to pick her up. Perhaps he had not. He could have been passing, and seen her on the library steps, and stopped out of sheer compassion for her unprotected state—or concern for the books. She sent him a covert glance, and discovered he was watching her as he turned sideways in his seat, and brushed the clinging dampness from his shirt with undisguised irritation in his movements.

'If I get pneumonia, I shall expect you to nurse me,' he told her, and she flushed uncomfortably.

'I'm as wet as you are. Wetter.'

'I can see that.' He shook out the duster in his hand and re-balled it in a fresh grasp. 'Hold still, while I wipe you down. You needn't worry, it's quite clean,' as she made a wriggle of protest, 'and it'll take the surface wet off you at least.' His left hand grasped her shoulder while his right hand wielded the duster efficiently across her shoulders and collar, and over her hair—it seemed to linger on her hair, but perhaps that was merely her imagination—and finally, she burst into indignant speech, across her face and chin.

'I don't want a wash.'

'You look as if you've been under a shower bath,' he grinned. 'Sorry if I've spoiled your make-up.' He did not look in the least sorry. His eyes mocked her burning cheeks, and she snapped angrily,

'I don't use make-up.'

'That makes a nice change,' he said approvingly, and ignoring her glare he pushed the duster into her hands.