Laura Possessed (15 page)

Caroline said shakily, ‘That tree's too close for comfort!'

‘It's all right, we're in a dip here. Plenty of higher landmarks for it to strike.'

The violent interruption of the storm was welcomed by both of them. Lewis said matter-of-factly, ‘One thing's sure, you can't go home in this.'

‘Could I have a shower, then?'

‘Of course. I'll come down with you and put the kettle on for a cuppa too.'

By the time she emerged from the bathroom extension, he had laid mugs on the kitchen table together with a packet of sugar and a bottle of milk.

‘Afternoon tea at the Ritz!' Lewis said with a grin. ‘Help yourself. I'll have a quick shower too and get dressed.' He gestured down at his dressing-gown. ‘The Noel Coward image is hardly me!'

She sat down and poured milk into the
mugs.
The kitchen window looked out at the back of the cottage, a drenched jungle of overgrown grass and bushes, with the straggling outskirts of Gillet's Wood apparently only kept at bay by the broken-down fence.

She wouldn't come here again. She knew it, and so did Lewis. Their brief, tempestuous affair was over. Perhaps it was as well, since she was incapable of finishing it herself, that it had ended this way.

After a while he joined her, reaching out for his mug. ‘It's still bucketing down. Where are you supposed to have been this afternoon?'

‘Shopping in Ledbrook.'

‘Then I'll say I found you sheltering from the rain and ran you home. As long as no one happens to see which direction the car comes from, that should cover us.'

‘You might as well stay for an evening meal, since you'd only have to come back again to see Laura. You won't be able to sit under your tree today.'

He leant over, took up her hand and kissed the palm.

‘What's that for?'

‘Just to say thank you.'

‘And—good-bye?'

‘In one sense, yes. I've behaved very badly, I know. I haven't hurt you too much, have I?'

‘No,' she answered steadily. ‘You never pretended it would last.'

‘We
can still be friends?'

‘We'll have to be, won't we, if you continue to see Laura?'

‘Yes.' The abstraction was back in his face and quite suddenly she had had enough. She scraped her chair back.

‘Will you take me now? It's almost six. Peter will wonder what's delayed me.'

‘Of course. You'd better put my jacket over your head and make a run for the car. I'm afraid I don't possess an umbrella. I'll go first and open the door.'

Edward was in the hall when they arrived, shaking the rain from his jacket. ‘Lord, what a day! Hello, Lewis. Did you rescue Caro? That's very good of you. Come and have a drink. Good heavens, let's have a bit of light on the subject. It's like the dead of night in here!'

Caroline said steadily, ‘I've asked Lewis to stay and eat with us, to save his coming back later. I'll just go and tell Mrs. Baines we'll be one extra for dinner.'

‘Fine. If you'll excuse me, I'll run up and change. I'm drenched! Pour yourself a drink, Lewis. I shan't be a moment.'

Peter came hurtling down the stairs. ‘Where were you, Mum?'

She ruffled his hair. ‘Sheltering from the rain, silly!'

‘I haven't any homework today!'

‘Lucky you!'

She
was behaving admirably, she told herself, not at all like a woman who has had to bow gracefully out of a relationship she would much rather have continued. It would take time, nevertheless, to school her body to ignore Lewis Castleton.

She left Peter helping Mrs. Baines arrange cheese biscuits on a plate and went back to the sitting-room.

‘It won't be—' She broke off. Lewis and Laura were standing close together in the centre of the room, her face lifted to him with a radiancy which made Caroline catch her breath. With a choked murmur which neither of them heard, she retreated and closed the door softly behind her.

Part
3

Lewis

CHAPTER
NINE

When Lewis returned to the cottage that evening, the mugs were still on the kitchen table and the milk in the bottle had turned, pervading the small room with its rancid odour. He poured it down the sink, watching the yellow globules separate and splay out against the white porcelain.

He rinsed the bottle, waiting until the water ran hot enough to remove the clogging cream round the neck, and then the two mugs. Now there was no reminder of Caroline but the rumpled bed upstairs. God, what a day!

He moved a hand over his forehead, pushing back the thick damp hair. The rain hadn't made it any cooler. He switched on the transistor, half-listening to the aimless patter of the disc jockey as he took a can of beer from the fridge and poured it into a glass. Then he hitched himself onto a corner of the table and fumbled in his pocket for cigarettes. His fingers, he noted dispassionately, were stained with nicotine. What the hell? If it killed him, he didn't care. His eyes returned broodingly to the upturned mugs on the draining board. Here, away from Four Winds and its tentacles, the idiocy of allowing the affair with Caroline to finish struck him forcibly for the first time. Of all the damn-fool things to do, especially
when
she was obviously anxious for it to continue. How could he possibly have let that pale, slip of a girl come between him and voluptuous, passionate Caroline?

He moved impatiently, drank deeply from his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The rain was still drumming relentlessly on the corrugated steel roof of the bathroom extension, and he felt as though it were beating on exposed nerves.

Restlessly he moved through to the living room, quite attractive now with the scattered rugs on its stained boards and the couple of easy chairs he had managed to pick up. He went over to the massive desk he had come across in a junk shop and which took up far more than its share of the small room. He unlocked it and as he pulled down the flap, his eyes fell on the photograph he had removed from the scrapbook. Incredibly, it was the only one he had of her. They had both been too cautious to use cameras.

Involuntarily his hand went out to pick it up, his eyes travelling millimetre by millimetre over the face that looked back at him, so intently that the image itself blurred in the minute, speckled detail of the paper on which it was printed.

The old, desperate sense of loss raged inside him. ‘I found this,' she had said, reaching into her purse. He paused on the word, smiling even in his agony. Was that what
Laura
called her handbag now? ‘I thought you might like it. I won't write on it or anything. It's better not, but you know what I'd write if I could, don't you? “This gal's in love with you!” '

They had been in that little hamburger bar in downtown New York, but even so she was wearing the dark glasses she always insisted on when they were out together.

‘It makes me feel I'm going around with Greta Garbo!' he'd teased her.

‘But you do understand, darling?' she'd pleaded. ‘If there was ever any hint—'

‘Oh, I understand!' He hadn't troubled to hide his bitterness, even though he knew that it hurt her. ‘We must never take any risks that might upset your precious husband, must we? What does it matter if we happen to be tearing ourselves apart, as long as he's all right?'

‘Lew!' Her face was white, but he couldn't see her eyes through the damn glasses. ‘Honey, I did warn you, right from the first.'

‘Oh yes, I was lucky to make even first base with you, wasn't I? What was it they called you? The chaste, the untouchable Mrs.—'

‘Hush!' Frantically she leant forward and laid a finger on his mouth and he caught hold of it with a reassuring pressure.

‘All right, I know. I'm sorry.'

‘I never meant this to happen,' she went on tremulously. ‘You see, it's what he's always been afraid of, that I'd find someone—'

‘Younger?'
he interrupted brutally.

After a moment she said in a low voice, ‘It would be like throwing his age in his face.'

‘But he promised to release you! All you have to do is ask!'

She smiled a little. ‘Like Soames and Irene? But it didn't work out for them, either.'

His eyes refocussed on the photograph—the sweet curving mouth, the broad brow and wide, trusting eyes. What had he done to her? What had they done to each other?

He waited, holding his breath, for the pain to reach the unbearable crescendo as it always did when he allowed his thoughts to go back unchecked. Incredibly, this time it didn't come. Instead, like a balm to his tortured soul, came the thought of Laura, peacefully sleeping at Four Winds. Slowly his fingers unflexed and he relaxed.

Gently he replaced the photograph, locked up the desk and began to prepare for bed. He couldn't begin to understand the permutations which flickered in his mind, seeming one moment to offer a plausible solution but dissolving before he could grasp and understand them. Slowly, with his head still full of unanswerable questions, he went up the narrow wooden staircase to bed.

The next morning the rain had gone and grass and leaves glowed with renewed greenness. Lewis awoke with the sun on his face and a feeling of happy expectancy. He had
intended
driving down to the south coast today in connection with a series he was contemplating on British seaside resorts. There could hardly be a better day on which to put the plan into effect and, he thought on a rising tide of excitement, he could call in at Four Winds on the way and see if Laura would like to go with him.

She and Caroline were still at breakfast when he arrived, shortly before nine. Caroline was pale and composed, courteously pouring him a cup of coffee as he rather self-consciously put forward his proposal, but Laura was delighted at the prospect of the unexpected outing.

‘Oh, Lewis, I'd love to!' She turned to her sister-in-law. ‘It would be all right, wouldn't it, Caroline? You haven't made any other arrangements?'

‘No, nothing, but I hope the long drive won't tire you.'

‘I'm sure it won't!' Laura pushed back her chair. ‘Can you wait just a moment while I get a cardigan? It might be cooler coming home.' She ran out of the room and his eyes met Caroline's.

‘You do understand—' he began awkwardly.

‘My dear Lewis, if you're going to apologize every time we meet, we'll never get back on a normal footing!' She stood up suddenly. ‘Will you excuse me? I have a meeting in Tonbridge at ten—it's time I was going.'

‘Of
course.' He stood while she left the room and then pulled out his chair again to finish his cup of coffee.

‘And did you really have a stag's head on the dining-room wall?' Noel had demanded delightedly. ‘I thought that was only in the stately homes!'

‘Not at all,' he'd replied smilingly, ‘many lesser homes had them, I assure you, Four Winds among them.'

‘Didn't you use to run into the hall to see where the rest of it was?'

It was a moment before he realized that it was Laura, and not his memory of Noel, who had spoken.

‘What?' He stared at her blankly.

‘Sorry—I thought—I mean—weren't you thinking of the old stag's head? You were staring at the wall just where you said it used to be.'

‘Yes, of course. You're quite right, as always.' He took her arm and felt her tremble slightly, as she had in the sitting-room the previous evening. His eyes as he looked down at her were oddly tender. ‘Will you be warm enough?'

‘Yes, I'll be fine.'

It was a glorious drive through some of England's most beautiful countryside—fields of hops, white-washed cottages and the quaint, bent roofs of oasthouses. Laura said musingly, ‘You know, I was terribly disappointed the first
time
I saw Brocklehurst. I guess I hadn't really wanted to come at all, though it sounds ungrateful to admit it, but I'd at least hoped for a pretty village like some of these we're passing through.'

‘I suppose Brocklehurst hasn't much claim to beauty. I've never really thought about it. It was just home, that's all. I know every inch of the woods and lanes round about. We used to picnic in them, and collect birds' eggs and play all sorts of wild games, and then later, when we grew up a bit, we'd walk with our girl friends there.'

‘You and Barry and Dave?'

‘That's right.'

After a moment she said hesitantly, ‘You—did tell me about them, didn't you?'

‘Of course.' And he saw that the worried crease had left her brow.

‘We had a letter from Fenella this morning,' she told him a little later.

‘Who's Fenella?'

‘I was forgetting. You never met her, did you? She was poor Mr. Sandilands' assistant.'

‘Ah. Yes. And how is she?'

‘Writing steadily, she says. The book should meet the publication deadline despite everything. She was asking how
my
study on violence was progressing.'

‘What shall you tell her?'

She laughed. ‘Well, we have digressed a bit, haven't we? The only violence we've touched
on
so far is the smashing of the ormolu clock!'

‘True. Unfortunately my intention of fighting as a mercenary in the Spanish Civil War never came to anything. Possibly it had something to do with the fact that I was only nine at the time!'

She smiled. ‘What was your first brush with violence, then?'

‘National Service, I suppose, directly after the war. I don't know whether that gave me a taste for adventure, but it certainly awoke my wanderlust. Anyway, aren't you rather jumping the gun? We've some way to go yet before we reach that epoch.'

‘What was the war like? It seems incredible to think how it must have been, with the Battle of Britain being fought almost directly overhead on beautiful summer days like this.'