Читать книгу The Catherine Wheel - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 9

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The week between being interviewed by Jacob Taverner and travelling down to Cliff was of a very variable emotional temperature as far as Jeremy and Jane were concerned. It was, in fact, like some of our more versatile weather forecasts, including gales, bright intervals, frost in places, and fog locally. There were some sharp clashes, a major quarrel, a reconciliation which was not without its softer passages. But in the end there was not very much real change in their relations, since Jeremy continued to disapprove of the whole Taverner connection and proposed marriage as an alternative to acquiring what he described as a lot of riff-raff cousins, and Jane continued to observe with varying degrees of firmness that it wasn’t any good his putting his foot down, that she meant to have her hundred pounds, and that everyone said cousins oughtn’t to marry.

When the Saturday afternoon arrived there was what might be described as a fine interval. Since Jeremy possessed a car known to his friends as The Scarecrow, they were going to drive down to the Catherine-Wheel, and it did seem a pity to waste a fine afternoon quarrelling. As Jane pointed out, Jeremy would probably make himself frightfully disagreeable over the weekend, and there was no point in taking the fine edge off his temper before they got there.

‘It would be a pity if you ran out of frowns and things half way through Sunday just by being extravagant with them now.’

Jeremy said briefly that he wasn’t in the least likely to run out, after which he suddenly burst out laughing, kissed her before she had time to stop him, and informed her that he would probably be the life and soul of the party.

‘Wait till you see me putting down cocktails in the bar with dear Geoffrey and our attractive cousin Al! When I’m well and truly lit I shall make love to Call-me-Floss. When just on the edge of passing out I may even get as far as whispering rude nothings in dear Mildred’s maiden ear. I say, what do you think she’d do if I really did?’

‘Drop her bag and blush a deep pure puce.’

‘Well you watch me!’

Jane giggled.

‘You’d better watch yourself. Either Mildred or Floss might feel that they’d like to get about and see places with the Army.’

They were driving down the Great West Road. A pale winter sun shone overhead. The sky was turquoise blue, the air fresh without being cold. Jeremy took his left hand from the wheel and flickered Jane lightly on the cheek.

‘I shall be protected by our engagement.’

‘We’re not engaged.’

‘Darling, you can’t refuse to protect me. There shall be no misunderstanding. We shall advance hand-in-hand into the bar and announce that we are affianced. The clan will then drink our health in bumpers of synthetic port, after which we shall all expire, the family ghost appearing when we are at the last gasp to mutter, “You had been warned”.’

Jane put her chin in the air, but the corners of her mouth quivered.

‘We are not affianced. And if it’s going to be fatal as quickly as that—’

‘Darling, I have a plan. We will pour the lethal draught on to the aspidistra, then everyone else will expire, and we will run the family pub. What shall we do with it? It’s had a shady past, so I think we might give it a decorated future. What shall it be—a gambling hell, or a dope den?’

Jane said primly, ‘I was very nicely brought up. I once got a good conduct prize. It was a bowdlerised edition of The Vicar of Wakefield with all the bits about lovely woman stooping to folly cut out. I think we’d better make it a tea-garden.’

‘Jane, you can’t have tea in a garden in England—at least hardly ever.’

‘You don’t. You have a sort of leaky verandah—only it sounds better if you call it a loggia. The rain drips down your neck and the earwigs get into your tea, but it gives you a nice out-for-the-day sort of feeling, and if the cakes are really good, you just can’t keep people away. I make frightfully good cakes. Gramp said I had a natural aptitude. He said I’d inherited it from his mother who was the world’s best cook. He made me have really good lessons.’

Jeremy took his hand off the wheel again. It caught hers and held it in an ecstatic clasp.

‘When can we be married? I can’t wait! I knew that you were lovely and talented, but what’s that to the solid worth of a really good cook?’

They went on talking nonsense very comfortably.

The daylight was fading when they passed through Ledlington and took the long flat road out of it which runs through Ledstow to the coast. It is a seven-mile stretch, but the old coast road takes off just short of Ledstow and bears away to the right. It is quite easy to overshoot it, because it isn’t much used and the trees have grown in and made it narrow. After a mile the ground rises. There are no more trees, and the hedges are low and bent by the wind off the sea. Cliff is quite a small village, and very few trains stop there. That the railway passes it at all is due to the fact that the land was Challoner property, and at the time the railway was built Sir Humphrey Challoner was someone to be reckoned with. He had married an heiress. And he represented Ledlington in Parliament.

As they ran through Cliff and out at the other side, Jeremy slowed down and looked about him.

‘What is it?’

He said, ‘Nothing. I just wondered—there’s a place my grandfather used to talk about here. As a matter of fact I know the man it belongs to now—Jack Challoner—a very good chap. It’s a frightful white elephant of a place. It ought to be somewhere along here. Well, I’d better be lighting up.’

A moment later the headlights picked out two figures walking in the road—a girl with a handkerchief over her head, and a big man, bare-headed with a shock of fair hair. Their arms were linked.

Jane exclaimed, ‘It’s John Higgins! Jeremy, I’m sure it is! Do stop! Perhaps he’s coming after all—they might like a lift.’

Jeremy said, ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

But he ran slowly past them, drew up, and got out.

‘John Higgins, isn’t it? I’m Jeremy Taverner. Jane Heron and I are on our way to the Inn. Can we give you a lift?’

Jane arrived in a hurry.

‘I do hope you are coming.’

‘That’s nice of you, Miss Heron, but—why, no.’

‘Oh, but you mustn’t call me Miss Heron, when we are cousins.’

She could just see that he was smiling and shaking his head. The girl holding his arm spoke up. She had a very pretty voice with something like the ghost of a brogue.

‘Miss Jane Heron?’

Jane saw her pull at John Higgins’s sleeve. He said, ‘Yes,’ and turned to Jane.

‘This is Eily Fogarty. You’ll be seeing her at the Inn. She’s related to Mr. Castell. My Aunt Annie brought her up.’

‘We’re terribly short-handed,’ said the pretty lilting voice.

Jane could see no more of her than the oval of the face, with the handkerchief hiding what seemed to be dark hair and tied under the chin. There was an effect of charm, but perhaps that was just because she had such a pretty voice.

If John Higgins had not seen his Aunt Annie in ten years, he seemed to manage to see his Aunt Annie’s protegée. The little bare hand never let go of his arm. Jane thought it would be a nice strong arm to hold on to. She said, ‘We’d love to give you a lift if you’d like one.’

John Higgins said, ‘Would you, Eily?’

The hand plucked at his sleeve. Jane saw him smile.

‘Thank you, Miss Heron, but I think we’ll have our walk.’

Just as they reached the car Jeremy went back.

‘What was that for?’ said Jane when he returned.

‘I thought I’d ask John about the Challoner place. He says the entrance is about a hundred yards farther on.’

Her little quick frown of surprise came and went unnoticed in the dusk.

‘You’re very interested in the Challoners, aren’t you?’

Jeremy said nothing. He was watching for a pair of tall stone pillars. When they loomed up he slowed the car right down. They hardly broke the encroaching darkness. Iron gates held the space between. Something like an eagle topped the right-hand pillar. The left-hand capital was broken and the bird gone. A few stunted trees and huddled shrubs made a black background. Jeremy whistled and said, ‘Poor old Jack!’ And then, with a laugh, ‘Better him than me.’