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“I hope so,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mrs. Vidler.”

The housekeeper beamed at her and picked up the now cold cup of coffee. “That you will, Miss Sarah. Hurry home now!”

Sarah went, looking at her watch as she did so. It was unbelievable, but she had only been away from her father for a little less than two hours.

AUGUST slipped into September and the hops in the field were gathered in. Sarah picked up the windfalls in the orchard and looked for new ways of using up the apples that she and her father couldn’t eat. She learned to make chutney and to bottle the best of them, and for the first time she saw the point of having a deepfreeze, for she could have frozen still more and used them at another time.

The children went back to school and Neil departed to take up his teaching post at a school in the suburbs of London.

“I’ll be seeing you most week-ends,” he said as he went. And he was as good as his word, calling in whenever he went past the oast-house and giving her news of Robert. Sarah looked forward to his visits with mixed feelings, but she soon came to the conclusion that just to hear about Robert was better than to have him go out of her life completely.

Mrs. Vidler was another source of information. Her efforts to be tactful visibly hurt, but her loyalty to Sarah, as well as to Robert, was never in doubt. She would often do Sarah’s shopping with her own, stopping at the oast-house for a cup of coffee on the way home.

“How’s your father, dearie?” she would ask, plonking herself down on the nearest chair. “Getting along nicely, I hope?”

And the news was good for the most part. Daniel Blaney seemed to have separated himself from his previous worries and anxieties. He accepted his wife’s visits more easily and without much interest. More and more he lived in a world of his own in which Sarah felt she was a stranger and not always a very welcome one. But she, too, was busy growing scar tissue over her lacerated emotions, and she spent much of her time out of doors, taking advantage of the last of the summer. She would walk for miles through the pretty countryside, wearing out her body with grim determination so that she would be sure of sleeping at night. She had had enough of tossing and turning endlessly through the night, wishing things were other than they had turned out to be. Now she fell into bed and slept until morning, when she would be almost as tired as she had been the night before, but that was a small price to pay when the alternative was so much worse.

Then one night she woke suddenly in the small hours. She thought it must have been a noise that had wakened her, but only silence greeted her straining ears. Even the wind, which had been high when she had gone to bed, had dropped soon after midnight, and there was no sign of it now.

Sarah got out of bed and went out on to the landing. The silence began to oppress her and she longed for the hoot of an owl, or anything that would break into it and bring normality back to the house. That there was something wrong she was increasingly sure, but she didn’t know how to find out what it was.

Instinct took her to her father’s room. The stertorous breathing was still and she knew immediately that her father was no longer there. She switched on the light and spent a long moment looking at his quietened, puckish face. Then panic took her and she fled out of the room, hurtling down the stairs, half wondering what it was that she was afraid of. It seemed pointless to telephone the doctor, but nor did she want to be alone. Without thought of the consequences, she did what she wanted to do most, and dialled Robert’s number.

It was some time before he came to the phone. “Robert Chaddox,” his sleepy voice came over the wire.

“It’s—it’s Sarah!”

“Yes? What is it?” The quiet sympathy in his voice made her want to weep, but she couldn’t, not yet, not until she had told him what was the matter.

“I think Daddy is dead.”

She didn’t know what she expected him to do about it. Whatever it was, she was surprised when he said quietly, “I’ll be right over. Don’t grieve over him, my love.”

And then, almost immediately, he was there, and she had flung herself into his arms, too tired and sad to care whether he minded or not. She buried her face in his shoulder and was warmed by the comfort of his arms holding her tightly against him.

“I woke up and he’d stopped breathing,” she whispered.

“Hush, love. You knew it had to happen and so did he!”

“I know. He wanted it that way. But I can’t stop shivering!”

Robert hugged her closer still. “It’s shock, I expect,” he told her. “Why don’t you make us both a cup of tea while I go up and take a look?”

She nodded, prising herself away from him. “I’m sorry to have woken you too, but I couldn’t think of anyone else!”

“I’m glad you did,” he said gently. “Are you all right now?”

“Yes, thank you.” She sniffed, wiping her face with her hand. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

She had finished making the tea and was sitting at the table with the tea tray in front of her when Robert came back. He smiled at her, his grey eyes warm and affectionate.

“He is dead, isn’t he?” she asked abruptly.

“Yes. I think you must have woken up almost immediately—”

“I heard him stop breathing,” she said flatly.

He took the tea-pot from her and poured out the tea, pushing her cup close to her hand. “This isn’t really the time,” he said, “but someone will have to make all the necessary arrangements. Do you want me to do it for you?”

“Oh, Robert, would you? I don’t know what one has to do. We—we never discussed that sort of thing!”

“No, people seldom do,” Robert said with a sigh. “Have you told Madge?”

Sarah stiffened. “No,” she said.

Robert frowned at her. “She has a right to know.”

“Yes, of course she has. Only I don’t know what to say to her!”

“Would you like me to telephone her for you?” Robert offered.

She was grateful to him even while she knew that he didn’t approve of her not contacting her stepmother herself. She sipped her tea quickly, wishing that she could explain how she felt. It was right that her stepmother should be told, but not yet! Not until she had grown used to it herself and could say all the right things, and be ready for Madge’s comments on her father’s last few months.

“I’ll do it now,” Robert said. “There’s no point in putting it off.”

He went out into the hall and she heard him searching for her stepmother’s number and then dialling it with impatient fingers.

“Mrs. Blaney? Yes, Miss Dryden, if you like! Will you fetch her, please. This is Robert Chaddox.” There was a lengthy pause, pregnant with Robert’s suppressed impatience at the delay. “Madge? This is Robert Chaddox. I’m with Sarah at the oast-house. I have some bad news—”

Sarah wandered out into the hall and stood beside Robert. She could easily hear her stepmother’s voice, as beautifully produced as ever.

“Is it Daniel?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it is. I thought you’d better know immediately. I don’t know what—”

“Sarah will cope with everything, I’m sure,” Madge Dryden interrupted him. “I’m afraid anything like that is apt to upset me! Especially when it concerns someone I love—or should I say loved—like Daniel.”

Robert’s voice took on a harsher note. “I’ve already offered to do all that. Perhaps I could speak to you about it when you come down.”

“I don’t know that I want to!”

“I see,” said Robert. “But surely you’ll want to come to the funeral?”

“I suppose I must! But it will have to be on a Monday. I can’t possibly take time off just now. The show is hanging on by a thread and if I were to be away, even for one performance, that would kill it once and for all!” Sarah held out her hand for the receiver, but Robert had already murmured a brief goodbye and had replaced it in its cradle.

“I’m sorry!” Sarah said helplessly.

“So am I!” he answered.

“She can’t help it,” Sarah rushed on. “She loved him really! ” She looked at Robert with a kind of impatient sympathy. She knew so well the disillusionment that he was feeling.

“I don’t think she needs you to apologise for her!” he snapped.

“I’m sorry!” she said again.

He gave her an angry smile. “It’s always the same when one gets involved with the theatre! What is it about it that makes perfectly pleasant people put it first, last, and all the time?”

“It’s an escape,” she said gently, “for some people. They don’t have to portray their own emotions on the stage—”

“I sometimes doubt they have any!”

Sarah touched his hand with her own, but drew back before he could misinterpret the gesture. “Some of us have,” she said. “Actors are people like everyone else!”

“Neil’s mother was more like an overgrown child!” he retorted.

This was so apt a description of her own stepmother that Sarah gave him a quick, frightened glance and looked as quickly away again.

He saw the look. “Are you going back to the stage?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

He grunted. “But you will go back to London?”

“I suppose so.” She took a deep breath and changed the subject. “Robert, will you be able to arrange the funeral for Monday.”

“Why not? If you agree to his being buried here at Chaddoxboume. I’ll speak to the vicar about it and arrange a time if you like.”

“Would he be able to be buried in the churchyard? I mean I shouldn’t like him to be buried somewhere else.”

“There’s plenty of room in the Chaddox plot,” he, said indifferently.

Sarah went very pale, wondering if this was the olive branch she had been waiting for, but his next words disillusioned her. “I wouldn’t want to put a bar in the way of your visiting the grave, but I’d have to ask you not to come too often. It’s better that we don’t see each other too frequently.”

“I don’t suppose I shall want to come very often,” she said. It was hard to believe that it was her father they were discussing. It all seemed strangely unreal to her.

“Then I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve made all the arrangements,” he went on formally. “You’ll want to inform all his friends and anyone else who is likely to want to come. I don’t suppose your stepmother will want to involve herself in that sort of thing.” His face softened and he put up a hand, running his finger along the line of her jaw. “I’m sorry, Sarah. I’m sorry it had to be like this and that you should be here alone. I’ll try to make it as easy for you as possible.”

She forced a smile. “I know you will.”

“D’you think you can sleep a little now?”

She nodded. “I’ll try. I’m not nervous, if that’s what you mean. I was at first, but I’m not now. You have a wonderfully soothing way with you, Robert.”

He gave her a little slap on the cheek. “There’s no going back, Sarah. Not even now!”

She did smile at him then, a light jaunty smile that he found unsettling. “There won’t be any going back on my part until you trust my word, so you needn’t look so worried, Robert my darling. One day you’ll find out that I wasn’t lying and you’ll find me waiting for you. But all the time you’re despising me, I wouldn’t lift a finger to make you change your mind!”

His eyebrows lifted. “You’re sticking to your guns then, despite all the evidence against you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Oh, Sarah, Sarah, I wish I could believe you!”

This time it was she who comforted him. “Never mind, you will one day,” she said certainly.

“What makes you think that?” he asked heavily.

“Because one day it won’t matter and then my stepmother will tell the truth, quite casually, wondering what all the fuss is about—”

“Madge had no reason to lie!”

“No reason in the world!”

“Well then?”

Sarah thought he looked so tired and wretched that she wished that there was some way she could comfort him, but there was none.

“She hates to be uncomfortable,” she explained.

“That still doesn’t explain what Neil saw!” he objected, clenching his fists. “I’m going back to bed. Goodnight—at least for what’s left of it!” He glared at her with such dislike that she blenched. And then he caught her to him and kissed her hard. “I’ll be glad when you’ve gone!” he said.

The funeral was arranged for the following Monday. Sarah had expected her stepmother to come down the day before, but at the last moment Madge rang up and said she wouldn’t sleep a wink in the house where Daniel had died.

“I’ll come tomorrow,” she said. “I’d only be in the way if I came today.”

“All right, Madge. But could you give me some idea as to how many people will be coming?”

“Does it matter?” Madge asked testily.

“It’s a long way for them to come. I thought we ought to offer them some kind of refreshments before they go back.”

“Why don’t you get in a caterer?” her stepmother suggested.

“I prefer to do it myself,” Sarah said quietly. “If I just knew how many—?”

Her stepmother made some swift and audible calculations. “I’d say about twenty of my friends. He didn’t have any of his own, so I don’t think we need to bother about them. You’d better say twenty-five. Okay?”

“Yes, thank you, Madge. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Here, wait a minute, darling! Have you any black to wear? I was lucky and managed to borrow a black hat from one of the girls in the cast. I don’t want either of us to look
unfeeling
!”

“I’ll do my best,” Sarah promised. “Goodbye, Madge.”

Her stepmother hated the person she was talking to on the telephone to say goodbye first and she uttered a cross sound in the back of her throat. “I don’t think you care about me at all!” she snapped, and replaced the receiver with a bang.

Mrs. Vidler kindly helped with the catering. She came early, clutching her shopping bag in one hand. She stood in the kitchen, looking about her with approval at the start Sarah had made on the sandwiches and canapés.

“I’ll put on my overall and then we’ll be halfway there!” she said.

“Are you sure Robert doesn’t mind your helping me out like this?” Sarah asked her, not for the first time.

“A fine thing if I can’t give my friends a hand when they’re in need of it! ” Mrs. Vidler retorted.