Authors: Susan Barrie
But she stopped him.
“Oh no, I love it
...
the way it blows my hair about, and the scent of fresh growing things. It’s the scent of spring.”
He smiled.
She stroked the warm red leather against which she was reclining.
“A car like this must—cost a lot of money,” she remarked, rather thoughtfully.
He laughed, a richly amused laugh, low in his throat.
“What you really mean,” he said, “is that you find it difficult to comprehend how a man like myself—employed in what I’m afraid you consider rather a humble capacity!—can make enough money to own such a car.” His voice dropped, as if he was letting her into a secret. “By raking in the tips, of course! By hoarding them carefully and occasionally risking a few pounds on a certain outsider fancied by the chef. He has an unerring instinct in such matters, and is good enough to pass on his hunches to me occasionally.”
But Lucy looked at him with such clear, doubting eyes that he laughed again.
“You don’t believe me, little one? Why is it that you don’t believe me?” he asked.
Lucy shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“I assure you I seldom lie about anything
...
Lies have a habit of recoiling on one.” He adjusted the little shield above the windscreen and prevented the golden beams of afternoon sunshine from striking right into his eyes. “And you, of course, never lie
...
something tells me it would never even occur to you to prevaricate.”
“You mean I’m as transparent as glass!”
“Well, what is there lovelier than a piece of flawless glass? If you’ve ever collected crystal you
’ll
know what I mean.”
“Don’t tell me that in addition to being able to own a
c
ar like this, you have a passion for display cabinets which you keep well filled
?
And hidden away somewhere very secretly!”
She saw his beautiful white teeth—whiter than blanched almonds—as he put back his head and laughed delightedly, uproariously.
“Remind me to show you one of them later this afternoon when we reach our destination.” Then he pointed out to her the beauties of some half-timbered houses as they flashed through a typical Surrey village. “What a lot of charm there is over here in England! I suppose that’s the reason why one always wants to come back to it, why one never completely forgets any of it.”
“What do you mean by ‘reach our destination’?” she asked. “Where are we going?”
“Wait and see,” he replied softly. “Wait and see!”
“How long have you been over here in England? You haven’t always lived here, have you?”
“Oh, most certainly not. I be
g
an life in Seronia, was educated here in England, spent a lot of time in America, and now I’m back again in England.
”
“You spent a lot of time in America?” For some reason that intrigued her. The Countess has a grandson in America
...
”
“Has she?” he said, and turned the
c
ar off the main road and into a narrow off-shoot of a lane that in summer smelled heavily of honeysuckle and wild roses, and even at this early season was a pleasant green tunnel running between high banks and overhung by the delicate green lacework of new young leaves.
At the end of the lane they turned into another, and here the banks were even steeper, and the road itself badly rutted by recent heavy rainfalls and what looked like the wheels of a farm tractor. The wheel tracks ended at a white gate beyond which was an obvious farmyard, with tall chimneys rising between the bare- branched trees at the far side of it, and a television aerial showing up clearly against the pale blue sky. A noisy cackling of geese greeted the arrival of the car, and a couple of hens flew up and alighted on the pillars of the gate.
Lucy peered ahead of her through the windscreen with interest, taking note of the sloping line of the roof between the gaps in the trees, and the twisted shapes of the chimneys. It seemed to her that the house was very old, and it was so tucked away that, on the broad main road they had left, it would have been easy to believe that such a dwelling-place—even if one was searching for it—did not e
x
ist. And as Paul slipped out from behind the wheel and opened the white gate, and they drove through into the farmyard, she could see that the house was a d
welling-ho
use, not just a cluster of farm buildings. Th
e
re was a white door, and a path leading up to it, and a leaded casement window was swinging open. Some flowery curtains were waving in the freeze, and
beneath
the window, on a sort of brick-paved terrace, there was a white-painted garden seat.
“Well?” Paul said, as he held out a han
d
to assist her to alight. His eyes were bright and alive a
n
d questioning, and his hand was very firm.
“That is what I should say to y
o
u,” Lucy replie
d
. “Where is this? And why are we here, in a
n
y ease? Don’t tell me we’re calling on friends of yours?” a little diffidently, in case that should turn out to be the very thing they were doing.
But he shook his head.
“Nothing of the sort.” He took her by the elbow and guided her towards a little wicket gate that admitted them to the terrace where the whit
e-
painte
d
garden seat was pla
ce
d. Lucy’s eyes grew wider and wider as she took in the ordered appearance of the garden, with its fla
g
ged paths and yellow cl
u
mps of
d
affodils growing in the shade of spreading branches. There was a pocket-handkerchief lawn with a sundial in th
e
middle of it, and a small pond with the flat
g
reen leaves of water-lilies floating on it. She felt her heart beat quicker and a wave of nostalgia sweep over her as she caught sight of a southerly facing wall of warm red brick, and a bed of wallflower
s
underneath it.
The scent of the wallflowers brought a lump into her throat.
“Oh,” she said, “it reminds me of my aunt’s house
...
where I was brought up. Only it was in the heart of the country, and not nearly as impressive as this!”
“So you’re a countrywoman at heart?” Paul Avery murmured, seeing the wistfulness in her face. He urged her forward towards the front door. “Well, it’s a good thing—if you’re fortunate enough to live in the country! But if you have to pass your days in town it’s not so good!”
He produced a key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock of the white door. Lucy took note of the gleaming brass knocker and the antique carriage lamp beside the door. The glass of the lamp was as bright as the knocker, and when the door swung open and she could see inside the hall, the speckless condition of the interior was the thing that impressed her almost more than anything else.
The floorboards shone, a black oak d
o
wer chest at the foot of a flight of shallow stairs had the patina of satin or velvet. There was a little hall table just inside the door, and on it was a silver salver with one or two letters and a few visiting cards lying on it.
There was also a great bowl of flowers standing on the dower
c
hest.
Lucy stood absolutely still once she had entered the hall, and watched Avery slipping his key back into his pocket. She also watched him open one or two of the letters and glance quickly through them.
When he glanced round at her, and apologised, her eyes were very solemn.
“Whose
h
ouse
is
this!” she asked again. “And why have you brought me here?”
“Haven’t you guessed? It’s mine, and that’s why I’ve br
o
ught you here.”
At the faint flicker of something that altered the expression of her face, he spoke quickly:
“But please don’t become alarme
d
! There’s an excellent woman who looks after the house—her husband runs the farm, as a matter of fact—and she
’ll
be in to make some tea in a few
m
inutes. ” But the light in his eyes was a light of badly concealed amusement. “Naturally, I wouldn’t have brought you here if there was no one to perfor
m
such an all-important function as tea-making is in England!”
But Lucy seemed curiously disincline
d
to desert the spot on which she was standing.
“Why couldn’t you have told me,” she asked quietly, “that you wanted me to see your house?
Why
couldn’t you have told me that you
owned
a house?”
He shrugged.
“Because according to you I don’t think it’s quite in order that I should own a house. A waiter, you know
...”
“Do you also own the farm?” as the thought occurred to her suddenly.
“I’m afraid I do.”
She looked round her al
m
ost suspiciously.
“I know that you don’t live here—at least, not all the time
...
but why do you want a house, if—?” She was suddenly realising that she knew very little about him, and a most disturbing thought had entered her head which not merely stiffened her voice but stiffened the lines of her face, and the question trailed off awkwardly. “If—?”
“If I’m not married?” He understood immediately, and the laugh in his
v
oice was gay and amused. “I do assure you that I am not, and that I have no responsibilities or ties of any serious kind
...
thankfully
!
” She was so embarrasse
d
that t
he
colour rushe
d
up over her face, and she had to lower her eyes, but afterwards she wondered why he was so thankful that domestic ties had not yet caught up with him. Why he sounded so appreciat
i
ve because he was free
...
“So now th
a
t you know there isn’t the slightest danger you’ll be confronted by my wife, as well as mv exc
e
ll
en
t Mrs. Miles, won’t you come in here and sit down?”
And he opened the door of a room on their right, which was so attractive that she felt her awkwardness begin to slip away as an excuse for uttering delighted exclamations presented itself. But even so, as she sat in the
corner
of a deep and superbly comfortable chesterfield couch, and he stirred the logs in the wide brick fireplace with the toe of his shoe,
a
wkwardness still held her, and her colour was still rather high. She felt that she had allowed herself to appear more transparent than ever with that enquiry concerning his personal background. And it didn’t greatly restore her poise and tranquillity when he said gently, watching her with nothing more than a kind of half
-
twinkle in his eyes:
“Don’t be silly, my dear. Naturally a young woman like yourself wouldn’t care to become involved with a man who owned a certain amount of allegiance elsewhere ... to put it casually. And I’m quite certain your employer, the Countess, would be very much against anything of the kind! So don’t feel you’ve been prying unwarrantably into my private affairs by asking a simple question.”
Lucy looked up at him, face burning, but eyes smiling ruefully.
“I don’t think the Countess would be very much in favour of my coming here at all with you today,” she said.
“How right you are,” he agreed, leaning one shoulder against the broad mantelshelf and eyeing her quizzically. “You may be nothing more than an employee to her, but I’ve a feeling she takes an interest in your future.” Then he removed his shoulder from the mantelshelf and went across to a beautiful Bechstein piano that filled up a
corner
of the room. “Do you play, Lucy?” he asked.
She shook her head instantly.
“Not sufficiently well to do so in front of you. You wouldn’t care to listen to me for long.”
“Then I’ll play to you, shall I?” he said, and without waiting for her reply, seated himself on the piano stool and ran his fingers up and down the keys.
Even before he began to play she knew that this was going to be unalloyed pleasure. He drove a car with levelheaded ease, and in a manner that, even when he was touching eighty miles an hour, had kept her free from a moment’s anxiety; but as a pianist he was an entirely different person. His dark eyes grew darker and deeper, and were utterly absorbed, as the first ripples of sound flowed round the room, and by the time the whole room was resounding with a magic that brought Lucy’s slim back up straight and thrilled against the back of the settee, he might have forgotten everything about her. By the time he had been playing for a full five minutes she might never have existed for him, judging by the remote, withdrawn expression on his face.
Lucy sat watching him and that withdrawn expression, and she realised that this was a moment of escape for him ... a pleasure of the senses in which he became lost, and which was even more of a delight to him than it was to her. He wasn’t playing for her, he was playing for himself, and Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt were his methods of escaping from a mundane world. While she was able to marvel and to decide that as a pianist he wasn’t merely good, he was up to concert platform standard—perhaps far and away beyond it—he was caressing the ivory keys of the piano as if he loved them, and the piano was opening up its heart to him.