Читать книгу Who Pays the Piper? - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 6

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Bill went off in the morning. Somewhere round about twelve o’clock, when Susan was just going to make a cake, the telephone bell rang. Well, at least it hadn’t waited until she had got her hands in the flour. She picked up the receiver and heard Cathy say, “Is that you?”

Susan laughed a little.

“Who else could it possibly be?”

“I know—but you see——” Cathy sounded a little breathless. “Are you very busy? Because Mr. Dale is planning the new lily pool, and he wondered if you could possibly spare the time to come with us and have a look at the place.”

“I’m making a cake,” said Susan, not quite truthfully.

There was an indistinct murmur from the telephone, and then Lucas Dale’s voice.

“Miss Lenox, Cathy has told you we are planning the pool. She says you are much better at that sort of thing than she is. You don’t know how grateful I’d be if you would come and have a finger in the pie.”

“But I’ve got to make a cake, Mr. Dale—to say nothing of lunch.”

“I see——” He sounded as if he were considering a point of importance. “Well then—I ought to have thought of that—we must just make it after lunch. How would that do?”

Susan said, “I could come after lunch.”

There was colour in her cheeks as she hung up the receiver. She could not refuse without rudeness, and he had given her no reason to be rude. On the contrary he had been all that was kind and considerate to Aunt Milly, and, she supposed, to her. He paid Cathy three pounds a week for doing very much what she had done for Uncle James without being paid at all. It would be cutting off the family nose to spite her face if she were to offend Lucas Dale, and she really had not the slightest reason for offending him. He had never said or done anything to which she could take exception. All he had done was to look at her rather longer and rather more often than she liked, and the long, frequent looks had said what she did not choose that anyone except Bill should say—“You’re lovely. I love to look at you.”

Well, if he got no farther than that.... Other men’s eyes had said the same things, but he knew, everyone knew, that she was engaged to Bill. And it would be fun to plan the lily pool. It was fun to plan anything when you could go absolutely all out without having to think what it would cost.

She went up through the garden after lunch. There were snowdrops sheltering among ivy leaves in the orchard bank. The green spikes of the crocuses were pushing through. The air was damp and mild, the sky patched blue and grey.

She came out on the upper terrace, and found Lucas Dale waiting for her. He said, “Cathy had some letters to finish,” and she felt that she had been trapped. He had used Cathy to trap her, and she found that hard to forgive. Her temper stiffened. If he asked for a snub he would get one, and he would have no one but himself to thank for it.

But for the moment no one could have stood in less need of snubbing. They went across the rose garden to the far end where a hedge shut off the view.

“You see, this is what I thought. An archway here, so that you can see down the valley, and beyond the arch—well, that is really what I wanted your advice about. Would you have the pool there, and should the hedge be carried round it?”

Susan considered.

“If you have the pool, I think it would have to be enclosed. It would need a formal setting—you couldn’t just put it down in the open. I think we ought to go round to the other side of the hedge and see if there’s enough flat ground there.”

They turned, but when they came to where the sundial waited to record a sunny hour Lucas Dale took a step ahead and stopped there right in her path.

“It will do another time,” he said. “I want it to be just as you would like, but just now—I want to talk to you.”

Susan stood and looked at him.

“What do you want to talk to me about?”

A little dark colour came into his face. There was a sense of emotion kept in check. He said,

“Don’t you know, Susan?” And then, “I think you do.”

Susan kept her eyes on his face. She said,

“I don’t want to know.”

“Is that because you want to save my feelings? But suppose I don’t want to have them saved. It won’t hurt you to listen to me, will it? I won’t make a scene or distress you. I only want a hearing—I only want to put my case.”

“You haven’t got a case,” said Susan quickly.

“You mean you have prejudiced it. Well, even so, it can’t possibly hurt you to listen to what I have got to say.”

“But it’s no use——”

He smiled.

“How do you know that? I have got things that I want to say to you. I shall never rest until I have said them—I shall never stop trying to make you listen. You know, I am not asking so much—I only want you to listen. You will do that, won’t you?”

Susan looked away. There was something in his eyes—something. She said,

“Very well, I’ll listen—but it isn’t any good.”

There was a little pause. She thought he came a step nearer, and she thought that he was smiling.

“We are both taking a good deal for granted—aren’t we, Susan? You’re quite right of course. How soon did you find out that I was in love with you?”

Her colour rose. She made no reply. He said,

“I wanted you to know. It happened the first time I saw you. You had on a blue dress—you had caught it on a rose bush—you asked me if I had a pin, and I gave you one to pin it up with. I fell in love with you then. Whilst you were pinning your dress I said to myself, ‘That’s my wife. She doesn’t know it yet, but that’s my wife.’ ”

Susan made an abrupt movement.

“I can’t listen to this sort of thing, Mr. Dale.”

“Why? It doesn’t hurt you, does it? And you promised to listen. I was trying to explain. I don’t want you to think I fell in love with you in just the ordinary way—I didn’t. You got me the way a woman does get a man once in a while. I’m not saying much about how I feel, but if there’s any way a man can love a woman more than I love you, I’d like to know about it so that I can love you that way too.”

The tears stung in Susan’s eyes.

“Oh, Mr. Dale, don’t!”

“Because of Bill Carrick?”

“You know we’re going to be married—you’ve always known.”

He shook his head.

“I don’t know it now. You’re going to marry me.”

Susan flamed with anger.

“How dare you say a thing like that to me? I’m engaged to Bill, and I’m going to marry him—sooner than you think perhaps.”

“What does that mean?”

“It might mean next week.”

Anger had ripped up her discretion. She wanted only to convince him and to convince herself. Because she was frightened—she was frightened. There was nothing to be frightened about. There were gardeners within call. What could he do? She couldn’t guess. He was smiling. His smile frightened her. He said easily,

“Look here, Susan—have you ever thought what you are doing to Bill Carrick? If you were fond of him you wouldn’t want to do it. He may be as clever as paint and as good at his job as you think he is, but how is a young fellow going to get on if he’s got a wife tied round his neck just when he wants all his thoughts and energies for his work? It’s a hard scramble getting up the ladder, and the married men don’t make it. They’re carrying two, and the last little bit of push that means success peters out over trying to make both ends meet round the family bills.”

Susan said, “Stop!” Her eyes were wide and frightened. This wasn’t Lucas Dale’s voice. It was a voice that talked with her when she was tired, when she was discouraged, when she couldn’t sleep.

He said, “It’s true.”

Susan tried for words. She couldn’t get the right ones. She tried again.

“People have to make up their own minds about that sort of thing. No one else can say.”

“That’s true enough,” said Lucas Dale. “And you’re putting it kindly. You might have told me to mind my own business, and if you had, I should have told you that it was my business because I love you, and because I know what I’m talking about. You see, when I was Carrick’s age I did just that very thing—I fell in love and I married with nothing in the cupboard and my way to make. That’s why I could say what I did just now—I’ve been there. It was just plain hell. You don’t know what it does to a man, trying to be in two places at once, live two lives, work double tides, never get anywhere, and come home at night to a girl who hasn’t known what to do with herself all day. There wasn’t much left of our fine romance after six months. We had to count every penny. Sometimes there weren’t any pennies to count. She was very pretty, and she’d been used to more money than I could give her—she was on the stage. We’d been married just a year when she walked out on me.”

“Is she dead?” said Susan. Her soft heart was touched. She was sorry for him.

He gave a short laugh.

“No, she’s not dead. You know the first thing I did when I struck a bit of luck? I got my divorce, and I was every bit as glad to get it as I had been to get the licence to marry her. That makes you stop and think a bit, doesn’t it? She’d been bad luck to me all right, and when I got rid of her I got rid of my bad luck too. That’s when I went out to my first job in the States, and from then on everything went right. I couldn’t put a foot wrong if I tried. Well, I didn’t mean to go into all that. I only wanted to show you that I knew what I was talking about. And if you marry me, I’d know how to make you a good husband. I’d make you happy, Susan.”

She looked at him without anger and shook her head. There was pity in her eyes, and something that wasn’t quite a smile.

“You don’t think so now,” said Lucas Dale. “But I’ll make you happy, and I’ll make you love me.” His voice was suddenly rough with feeling.

“I can’t listen,” said Susan. “Please, Mr. Dale——”

He stood out of her way.

“That’s all,” he said.