150312629 Lucy Lamb Doctor s Wife Sara Seale

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LUCY LAMB, DOCTOR’S WIFE

Sara Seale

It was a tremendous step for Lucy to leave her work in the children’s wards of St. Minver’s

Hospital and marry the famous surgeon, Bartlemy Travers. Many a woman envied Lucy her

marriage to this attractive doctor, who had a romantic hint of past tragedy to heighten his

fascination.

But Lucy knew that she came to Polvane, his big house beside the Cornish sea, as an unloved

wife, haunted always by the ghost of her lovely predecessor, and wanted by nobody but onesmall motherless boy. Could she hope for any change in their relationship?



CHAPTER ONE

I

“I WON’T employ you, my dear, but I’m prepared to marry you,” Bartlemy Travers had said so

surprisingly to Lucy that chill spring morning on the moors, and here she was, only a few days

later, standing beside him in the dark little church, timidly making her responses, watched by

strangers.

The church was cold and depressingly empty. Two young doctors from the hospital acted as

witnesses, and Matron, unfamiliar out of uniform, sat alone on the left side of the nave, a courtesyto the bride who had no one to support her.

With my body I thee worship... that could have been true, Lucy thought, with a quick, startled

glance at the still, tall man beside her. His dark profile, etched sharply against the crude stained

glass of a window, had the same compelling attraction which it had held for her years ago upon

that one brief meeting which he had long since forgotten, the mouth a little forbidding, the cold

blue of the eyes hidden now as he looked down at his strong surgeon’s hands. What was he

thinking, she wondered, hearing those words which, for him, could have no meaning. Did he

remember only his small son for whose sake he was marrying again? Was he regretting, too late,

that curious decision to marry her rather than adopt Matron’s suggestion of employing her as

nursery governess, or did he simply remember, with bitterness and heartache, these first vows

pledged to a woman to whom he had given everything?

... to have and. to hold from this day forward ... that spelled security, freedom from want, freedom

from loneliness, a sense of belonging that in all her short life little Lucy Lamb had never known ...

in sickness and in health, till death us do part ... the finality of those words should have comforted

instead of bringing home their terrible emptiness for Lucy made her utter a small, involuntary

sound, and he glanced down at her briefly, his thick black brows meeting in a frown. The chill in

his penetrating gaze was the familiar chill of indifference, but the hand he placed over hers was

warm and reassuring and he gave her a faint, infinitesimal smile.

The ceremony went on, and on, as she listened to the droning, uninterested voice of theclergyman, Lucy’s attention wandered again. As the crowded sequence of a dream fills only

seconds, so she reviewed the past few weeks; the post of companion to old Miss Heap with her

cats and her fads and her mania for economy; the few hours off which were filled with voluntary



work at the hospital because it brought her into contact with the children’s ward, and, finally,

Pierre, that strange, beautiful little boy who had first regarded her with the same silent distrust

which he reserved for his father, and quite suddenly had wrung her heart with his passionate,

inexplicable need of her.

He had been recovering from a minor operation for tonsils; as the time drew nearer for his

discharge from the hospital his reluctance to return to his home became more painfully evident,

and when his father visited him he would turn his face to the wall and refuse to answer leading

questions. It had not surprised Lucy that the child might be afraid of the tall, dark man whose

reputation for skill as an orthopaedic surgeon was combined with one for harsh intolerance of

human frailty, but she had seen the bitter look of disappointment in Bartlemy Travers’ face when

his son had turned from him, and been compassionately aware of the gentleness with which he

handled the child.

“You aren’t kind to your father, Pierre,” she rebuked the boy, and he looked at her for a moment

with the same chilly appraisal as Bart himself.

“He does not need me,” Pierre said with the old-fashioned formality, which sat strangely on his

seven years.

“I think he does,” Lucy replied gravely. “You are all he has left.”

“No!” the boy cried with passion. “He loved my mother. I killed my mother when I got born. He

cannot forgive me.”

It was, to Lucy, shocking that so young a child should recognize what might indeed be a truth,

but when she tentatively voiced her opinions to Matron, she received a faintly twisted smile.

“Pierre’s father has made his own rod by refusing to have a woman in the house,” she said

obscurely. “He was devoted to Marcelle, his wife, it is true—she was French and a very beautiful

woman—but he asks too much of the boy. A child needs the comfort of a woman in its early

years. Pierre, doubtless, doesn’t fully realize what he’s missing, but his father will pay for his own

obstinacy, I’ve often told him.”

“Has Mr. Travers taken against all women, then?” asked Lucy, not understanding.

“Perhaps—for a time. His wife was very dear to him. Had Pierre been a girl things might have

been different, but Bart has decided to bring up his son in a masculine household. I’ve tried, time

and again, to get him to employ a woman for Pierre while he’s still a baby, but—”



And finally, she had suggested Lucy in lieu of the tutor she felt the boy was too young for.

There had, from the first, existed a curious bond between Mary Morgan, Matron of St. Minver’s

Hospital in the quiet little Cornish town of the same name, and Lucy Lamb, the out-of-date bit of

flotsam who was content to eke out her living by acting as companion to an ill-tempered old

woman. To Lucy, Matron ’s tolerance had been merely a gracious gesture to be accepted withgratitude and a certain respect, but to Mary Morgan, Lucy was a reminder of her own youth when

she had been unwanted and a slave to her family until she had broken away and taken up

nursing as a profession. Mary now had her position at St. Minver’s, respected, and sometimes

feared, by probationer and nurse alike, but in Lucy she saw the ghost of herself, a ghost that in

these days of working efficiency had no place in the struggle for life.

“Would you like the post, should Mr. Travers offer it to you?” she asked Lucy, and was, for a

moment, disturbed by the look which briefly transfigured the girl’s thin face to a semblance of

fleeting beauty.

“Oh, yes, Matron,” Lucy said, clasping her hands to her slender breasts. “I love Pierre ... he—he

is the only being in all my life who has needed me.”

Sentimental nonsense, Matron had thought impatiently. Still there was something about Lucy

Lamb; on her visiting days with picture-books and toys, the children’s ward echoed to the

childish chant of Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool ... They all loved her and Pierre had

made her his own special property, the only person in all his seven years who had won his

strange little heart. But all the same, Bart had proved obdurate; instead, here he was marrying

the girl, committing them both to a nameless future, sacrificing her, as Mary Morgan believed he

would sacrifice anything, to the welfare of his only son...

The ring was being slipped over Lucy’s finger. She felt the strength of his touch as he eased it

over the knuckle; he had set the seal on their union, the visible and outward sign that she now

belonged to him, however empty the bargain...

“A business proposition, of course,” he had said that day on the moors. “As you may have

guessed, I have little interest in women.” He had selected and lighted a cigarette with care, not

offering one to Lucy, and leaned back against a shoulder of rock, blowing smoke lazily between

them, waiting for her to speak.

“Wouldn’t it,” she asked carefully, avoiding his eyes, “be simpler to employ me for Pierre?”

“Not at all,” he replied equably. “My staff wouldn’t tolerate a female employee—never have but



my wife would be a different matter. Besides, think of the security—for you a job for life, for Pierre

a stepmother—someone who couldn’t be whisked away at the whim of his father.”

“You make it sound very cold-blooded,” she said, and he blew another cloud of smoke between

them.

“A business proposition should be cold-blooded,” he retorted, and his eyes crinkled at the

corners in sudden wry amusement. “Think of yourself, Lucy Lamb. You have no future, no

prospects, and are, I understand, heart-whole. Marriage with me would be a better proposition

than a possible union with some insecure little clerk, and, in time, we might grow quite fond of

each other.”

“I’ve never heard such a thing in all my life!” cried Lucy, outraged. “You, I would think, have no

f-fondness left in you, and—and how do you know I would marry a clerk, anyway?”

He threw the half-smoked cigarette away and placed a hand over hers; the hard lines of his

face had softened to an unexpected tenderness. The wind blowing across the moor carried a

tang of the sea, and she was immediately reminded of that other occasion, six years ago, the

occasion he did not remember. His black hair, she noticed with faint surprise, had minute flecks

of white in it as it stirred in the breeze. He would, she thought irrelevantly, look very distinguished

when he was decisively grey at the temples.

“Dear Lucy,” he said softly, his fingers caressing hers. “I’ve been clumsy, haven’t I? But you’re

wrong about fondness, you know. There’s a little left in all of us, I think, no matter how life treats

us. I was only trying to be honest in explaining—rather badly, evidently—that my deeper

affections have long since been laid aside. Could you put up with me, do you think—for Pierre’s

sake?” She looked down at the hand resting so lightly on hers, at the strong fingers and well-

shaped nails. He had once been a good lover, she thought with surprise, dominant, perhaps, but

kind and sensitive to the loved one’s demands. She was aware again of that old attraction and

knew in the, as yet, unexplored regions of her own emotions that had things been different she

could have learned to love this man.

“I don’t know,” she said uncertainly, and tried to pull away, but his hands tightened on hers,

holding her there.

“Baba ... isn’t that Pierre’s name for you? Baa baa black sheep, come in out of the cold. There’sa nice warm fold waiting for you ... won’t you share it with Pierre?”

“And you?” she asked shyly, aware of temptation and a ridiculous desire to comfort him as he



expected her to comfort Pierre.

“I?” he said lightly. “I will just be the shepherd, keeping you both from harm...”

“Follow me to the vestry, if you please,” the clergyman was saying in a hoarse whisper, and

Lucy scrambled confusedly to her feet. It was over; she was married, and half the time she had

been inattentive, battling too late with memories which should have been behind her.

She became aware of the relief in Bart’s face, the faint doubt in Matron’s, and the politely

curious glances of the two young doctors. Bart did not kiss her. It would not, she supposed, occur

to him to accord her the time-honored custom on such a prosaic occasion. When the register had

been signed they stood in an awkward little group in the porch of the church, watching the rain

which had fallen relentlessly since early morning. The heavens weep for me, thought Lucy

fancifully, then gave herself a little shake. Why should anyone weep for her, she asked herself

crossly; had she not just signed a business contract which meant nothing more than security for

herself and happiness for a small boy?

“You look all eyes, Lucy,” observed Matron critically; and one of the doctors began to say

hearti ly: “Happy, the bride the sun shines on. . . ” observed the rain and his chief’s

uncompromising expression and took himself off with muttered congratulations.

II

Very soon she found herself sitting beside Bart in the long black car he drove with such

reckless speed about the district. His driving alarmed her now as the town was left behind and

they climbed the long hill which wound to the first wild stretch of moorland. The high banks were

starred with campion, small red eyes which glowed with warmth, but above them the spring sky

was grey and sullen and mist was already rising from the moor.

“Not a promising start, maybe,” Bart observed a little dryly, glimpsing her dismayed expression,

“but Cornish weather is fickle, as you should know by now.”

“Yes,” said Lucy, and was at once stricken dumb. What did one say to one’s bridegroom, she

wondered a little wildly, gripping the side of the car as it skidded with screaming tires round the

curves and bends in the narrow lanes.

“Nervous?” Bart asked pleasantly, and she set her teeth. If he was showing off to frighten her

she was not going to give him the satisfaction of hearing her admit it.



“Do you always drive like this?” she enquired politely, and he slackened his pace at once.

“I’m well acquainted with these roads,” he replied. “Can you drive a car, Lucy?”

“No.”

“One of these days I must teach you.”

Not if I can help it, thought Lucy with alarm, but deemed it wisest to hold her peace.

The country grew wilder and the mist thicker. The sea, she knew, lay somewhere beyond the

ragged horizon of the moor, and for the first time she wondered what her new home would be

like. She knew nothing of Bart’s private life save that he had shut himself up with his son in the

house on the headland which once he had shared with his young wife. He had no life now apartfrom his work, Matron had said, and Lucy shivered, thinking of the boy whose early childhood

must have known so little love and laughter.

“Cold?” asked Bart, seeing the shiver.

“No. Does Pierre know I’m coming?”

“No. I didn’t want a disappointment for him if you should change your mind at the last minute.”

There was a touch of irony in his voice and she glanced at him sharply.

“You gave me little chance to do that with your special licence and everything,” she retorted,

and caught for a moment the sudden bitter grimness of his expression.

“No, I wasn’t taking risks for either of us,” he said. “It didn’t occur to you, Lucy, that I, too, might

have had second thoughts?”

“Did you?” she asked with humility. It was, when all was said and done, unlikely that Bartlemy

Travers, rich and already high up in his profession, should choose on impulse to marry little Lucy

Lamb and not have doubts.

His hand rested for a moment on her knee with the same firm assurance with which his touch

had rallied her in the church.

“No,” he said, and his smile was oddly gentle, “I may have taken advantage of your youth in

rushing you to a decision, but at least I will see that you have no cause to regret it. How old did

you say you were, Lucy?”



“Twenty.”

“Twenty ... and I’m nearly thirty-seven ... an unfair advantage, would you say?”

“I don’t think so. When you’re left to earn your own living at a tender age, you grow up quickly.”

“Do you? You don’t seem very old to me, but for Pierre that will be an advantage.”

She forced herself to think of the boy, for with every mile left behind them she was

experiencing the beginnings of panic. What did she know of this stranger who was now her

husband? How would she measure up in the eyes of the unknown servants who had so

devotedly served the first Mrs. Bartlemy Travers?

He did not speak again until he turned the car between stone gates, which rose suddenly out

of the mist, and into a short drive flanked with giant rhododendrons. The flowers were nearly in

full bloom and the unexpected riot of color made Lucy exclaim in wonder; crimson, purple,

flamingo pink, snowy white, they glowed like jewels in that grey, rain-washed countryside.

“How beautiful!” Lucy cried. “And how gigantic they are!”

“Yes, they’re quite a sight,” he answered carelessly. “Vegetation takes on a tropical growth inCornwall, you know, but there are few flowers in the garden.”

His remark had a quenching sound as though he were reproving her for her enthusiasm, and

when the house came in sight it looked grey and drab after that splendid splash of color. The

slim, fluted pillars which supported the high porch lent an air of outdated elegance, but there was

no welcome in the uncompromising granite and slate of walls and roof, the tall, blind windows,

many of them shuttered. So this was Polvane, the house that was to her home from now on. As

the car came to a standstill before the closed front door, Lucy could hear the sound of the Atlantic

breakers thundering against the foot of the cliffs, a sound that was to be the constant background

of her life at Polvane.

Bart was frowning as he flung open the door and strode into the house shouting for his

servants, and to Lucy, following him, his voice seemed to echo through an empty house. The

high hall was dark with the gathering shadows of late afternoon and doors stood open on silent

empty rooms; it seemed scarcely possible that anyone could live here.

“Gaston! ... Smithers!” Bart called again, and pulled impatiently at an old-fashioned, heavily

tassled bell-rope. The clamor of the bell echoed strangely through the silent house. Presently an



altercation could be heard in some unspecified part of the house, and a door at the back of the

hall opened to admit two incongruous figures, a short fat man in a chef’s high hat and a tall thin

individual clothed decorously in correct but lugubrious black.

“Why wasn’t one of you here to meet me?” Bart demanded irritably. “You knew the time we

should be expected.”

“Pardon, m’sieur. I prepare the special dinner,” the Frenchman said, and Lucy wondered if she

imagined the faint irony in his tone. His companion said nothing until, avoiding Lucy’s eye, he

enquired if there would be luggage.

“Naturally there is luggage,” snapped Bart impatiently, adding with slight sarcasm, “Had I by

any chance omitted to inform you both that I would be returning with your new mistress? Lucy, I

must present to you Gaston Dupont who cooks for this household and Smithers who fulfils what

other domestic functions are necessary. You will, I hope, excuse their apparent lack of manners.”

Lucy came hesitantly forward, not knowing what to do. She was embarrassed by the little

scene and sought desperately for something to say which would put the two servants at their

ease, but as she advanced uncertainly, half holding out her hand, she realized that it was she

who needed to be put at ease. The two men made no attempt to meet her halfway but, ignoring

her outstretched hand, remained where they were, inclining their heads without speaking. Shesaw the quick look of tolerant contempt in the Frenchman’s eyes as he observed her more

closely and the raised, faintly insolent eyebrows of Smithers.

Lucy’s chin went up.

“How do you do? I hope we shall come to understand each other very quickly,” she said clearly

and politely, and became aware that Bart was watching her with a faint, appreciative grin.

“May I see Pierre, please?” she asked, turning to him.

“Master Pierre has gone to bed,” Smithers informed her as he crossed the hall to take the

luggage from the car.

“At five o’clock?” exclaimed Lucy with surprise.

The fat little Frenchman became suddenly voluble. A little migraine, he explained with plump,

waving hands, a touch of la grippe, perhaps ... it would be best if madame delayed the meeting

until tomorrow.



Bart’s eyebrows met in a quick frown.

“Has he a temperature?” he asked sharply.

“No, no, m’sieur—just a little difficult, as he sometimes is, you understand. It is nothing.”

“I would like to go up and see him,” Lucy said. “Which is his room?”

The cook shot her a look of dislike.

“He sleeps, madame, it would not be wise,” he said, and Bart held out his hand.

“You’ll have to put up with my company for this evening,” he said, and there was a touch of

mockery in his voice. “It’s our wedding night—remember?”

Lucy felt herself flushing. The mockery in Bart’s voice was reflected for a moment in his

servant’s face. This man knew, just as Bart himself knew, that their marriage was a farce, she

thought, and wondered for one wild moment whether he had gone so far as to ask his servants’

permission to bring a new mistress into his house.

She turned with relief to follow her husband into a room which seemed to combine the offices

of library and study alike, a man’s room, square and solid, with worn leather chairs, book-lined

walls and a big, ornately carved desk. Lucy sat down on the arm of one of the chairs, feeling

suddenly tired, but Bart immediately turned back to the doorway, calling for Smithers.

“He takes the baggage upstairs. M’sieur desires?” replied the cook’s smooth voice.

“Why has no fire been lighted?”

“There is a fire in the drawing-room, m’sieur.”

“Why? You know quite well I never use that room.” Lucy could imagine the Gallic shrug with

which Gaston replied:

“But tonight is different, perhaps? The salon is for ladies, no?”

Lucy could see the angry tensing of Bart’s back and the haughty displeasure in the movement

with which he flung back his head.

“Very well, you had better bring tea there. In the meantime, tell Smithers to get a fire going in



here at once. Come, Lucy, you must be cold.”

Lucy could understand why he did not care to use the drawing-room, which was furnished after

the style of the French Second Empire, with frail gilt chairs, lavishly designed cabinets filled with

elegant china and a wealth of small occasional tables dotted about the fine Aubusson carpet.

There was even a grand piano, its ivory wood painted with flowers and scrolls. The room had an

air, undoubtedly, but little comfort, land in spite of the fire and the drawn curtains it held the

empty coldness of disuse.

Lucy threaded her way carefully among the little tables to the fire and her startled eyes went to

a great bare patch above the mantelshelf where once a picture had hung. The colors of the

Empire paper had not yet faded to the mellowness of the rest of the walls, and the blind, empty

space seemed a mild affront in so much studied elegance.

She turned quickly, aware that Bart was watching her. His expression was a curious mixture of

mockery and bitterness, but he made no comment, and Lucy knew, as if he had told her, that a

portrait of his first wife had hung in that empty space, that the room had been hers and Lucy

herself had no place there.

She took off her coat, folding it carefully over the back of a chair, not knowing what to say to

him, and when he did not speak she turned to a long scrolled wall-mirror to tidy her hair. Theroom was reflected dimly behind her and she wondered how often the dead Marcelle had

admired her lovely reflection and known the elegant background to be perfect for her.

Lucy’s own reflection stared back at her and, for perhaps the first time, she studied her face

with critical curiosity. It was a small, wedge-shaped face with a gentle mouth and wide, enquiring

eyes; light brown hair curved softly into her slender neck, but was too fine and soft to dress in

any but the simplest of styles. An unsatisfactory face, thought Lucy, with disappointment; too

pale, too thin, too much space between the eyes, and a forehead which curved with undue

prominence like the forehead of a very young child.

She was aware that Bart had come up behind her and stood now, both hands on her

shoulders, looking over her head. His eyes were faintly amused.

“Are you vain, Lucy?” he asked, and she answered with solemn conscientiousness:

“No. I was thinking I had a discouraging sort of face. Negative, somehow.”

“Do you think so? I find it rather charming. Those eyes have always seemed somehow familiar,



you know, but Mary Morgan says I’m thinking of a Greuze.”

“The painter?”

For an instant she was tempted to remind him of that first meeting long ago, but his attention

had already wandered, and although his hands still rested on her shoulders, his eyes looked

beyond her reflection to the studied elegance of the room mirrored behind.

“I—I don’t match the period of this room very well, do I?” she said, trying to make light of the

moment, but it had been the wrong thing to say. He frowned and turned away abruptly as if too

sharply reminded of that other woman who must have graced the room so perfectly, and

observed indifferently, “What does it matter? We won’t be using it after today.”

III

When Smithers had placed the tea-tray on a table beside the fire, Lucy sat behind it, gazing

unhappily down at the massive silver and delicate china, wretchedly aware of the comparison

Bart must already be making. She poured out clumsily, spilling tea into the saucers, and Bart sat

moodily opposite her, drinking his tea but eating nothing.

She said with a sudden childish burst of inconsequence: “Your servants don’t like me. They

were determined I shouldn’t see Pierre tonight. I believe he was sent to bed on purpose.”

He looked across at her with a slight frown. “Now, Lucy, you mustn’t start off with wrong ideas

about Smithers and Gaston. They are devoted to the boy,” he said.

“And jealous of me, quite likely.”

“Jealous?”

“They resent my coming here.”

“Very possibly. Gaston was deeply attached to Marcelle. He came here with her from France.”

He answered coldly as if her protestations were impertinent.

“And Smithers?” she persisted because the formal elegance of the room was beginning to

oppress her.

“Smithers has never had great charm of manner for the ladies. You must forgive us all our

shortcomings, my dear,” he said a little sardonically.



After that there was a long silence. Rain still pattered on the windows and the sound of the

breakers was a steady and alien accompaniment to Lucy’s thoughts. Her wedding day ... for all

the implications of her bargain with Bart, it was still that ... a day that would never come again ...

For one dreadful moment she thought she was going to cry, and asked timidly if she might see

her room.

“Of course, how remiss of me,” he said, getting immediately to his feet “I’ll ring for Smithers.”

“Couldn’t you—couldn’t you show me yourself?” she stammered, instinctively shrinking from

the prospect of the hostile manservant conducting her through this alien house which was now

her home.

“If you prefer,” he replied courteously, and tossed her folded coat over his arm.

She followed him up a curving stone staircase, noticing for the first time that the house was

lighted by oil lamps and not electricity. The fact brought home the isolation of Polvane from

civilization, and she did not wonder that little Pierre, with his mixed blood, was strange and

unchildlike and older than his years. There seemed to be many rooms and corridors, but

remembering the shuttered windows, she supposed that not many of them were used.

Bart opened a door and Lucy received a confused impression of massive furniture and a bed

with heavy drapes looped back from the half-tester. Someone had unpacked her meagre

possessions and a fire burned cheerfully in the grate.

“Not very bridal, I’m afraid,” Bart said with a suspicion of laughter in his voice. “This used to be

my father’s room when he was alive.”

“Were you born in this house, then?”

“Yes. We’ve been here for three generations.”

“And which is your room?” she asked.

He nodded towards an intercommunicating door. “Through there. The door isn’t locked, in case

you should be visited with nightmares.”

“Oh!”

He turned her round slowly to face him and watched the firelight reflected in her wide,



enquiring eyes.

“What did that ‘oh’ mean?” he asked. “Do you prefer to keep the door between us locked?”

She blinked a little nervously, unsure of him in this mood.

“There’s scarcely , any need, is there?” she answered gravely. “Ours is just a—just a marriage

of convenience, isn’t it?”

He gave her a long, puzzled look, as if he had only just now realized he had committed himself

for better or worse.

“You’re either very innocent or very trusting,” was all he said, and he went through the door

between their two rooms, leaving her standing there.

She wandered curiously about the room, opening and shutting drawers and cupboards, finding

where her belongings had been put, and disliking very much the thought of Smithers’ prying

hands going through her possessions. It would be instantly clear to him, and subsequently to

Gaston, that the new Mrs. Travers had arrived with no trousseau and that such clothes as she

had were both cheap and shabby.

She had bought one new dress which, as a concession to her own romantic ideas of such an

occasion, she had intended to be married in, but the weather and prudence had decided her at

the last moment against wearing it. She put it on now, a pretty confection of ribbons and flounces

more suited to the warm summer days ahead than this chilly spring evening, but it was her

wedding day; tonight she would be dining for the first time alone with her husband and although

this was merely a marriage of make-believe there should be something to remember.

When she went downstairs again, the drawing-room door was firmly shut, but that into thelibrary stood open, and Bart was standing with his back to a blazing fire, a glass of sherry in his

hand.

“Charming,” he observed, surveying Lucy’s new frock with a lifted eyebrow, “but you look like a

little girl. Are you sure you’re really twenty years old?”

“Oh, yes,” said Lucy sedately. “I’ve been earning my living for nearly four years.”

“Companion to old ladies?”

“That sort of thing. I wasn’t trained for anything, you see. My aunt—the one who brought me up



—believed in waiting for a suitable husband.”

“And now you’ve found one. Tell me about yourself, Lucy Baa-lamb.”

He handed her a glass of sherry and she sat down by the fire with her feet neatly together like

the little girl he had called her.

“There’s nothing to tell,” she said. He knew about the aunt who had died when she was

sixteen, leaving her penniless and totally unfitted to make a life for herself. There was nothing

about her that could possibly interest him.

“Nothing?” he asked.

The sherry warmed her and loosened her tongue.

“Well, just one thing, perhaps. We’ve met before.”

“You and I? When, for heaven’s sake?”

“Six years ago. You pulled me out of the sea, but I never knew your name. I was fourteen.”

His eyes were suddenly on her, shrewd and penetrating. “Good lord, of course!” he exclaimed.“I knew I’d seen those eyes before! You were a skinny little schoolgirl being baited by a bunch of

brats.”

She could hear them now, their voices shrill above the screaming of the gulls.

“Ba-a ... ba-a ..” they had taunted her. “Silly little sheep, afraid to swim!”

She could not swim, but at fourteen and older than the rest of them, would not admit it. The

green swell of the heaving water had frightened her dreadfully, but the jeers of the children had

scared her more.

“You saved my life, but you were very rude to me,” she told Bart. “You said it was silly and

vainglorious to take a dare, and if the other children had called me a silly sheep they were

probably right.”

“Dear me!” said Bart mildly. “It doesn’t sound as if I was very gallant.”

“No, you weren’t. I annoyed you.”



“And you recognized me again?”

“Oh, yes. I never quite forgot you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It didn’t seem important. You hadn’t remembered.” Even as she spoke, Lucy knew that must

have been the year of his personal tragedy. Six years ago ... The young Marcelle could have

been dead only a few months. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, “so very sorry for everything.”

“For rescuing you from a watery grave?” he asked, deliberately misunderstanding her. “Well,

Lucy, our paths crossing again must seem like fate to you—or don’t you believe in fate?”

“Yes—yes, I do. You see, because I hadn’t forgotten you it made it easier to—to marry you.”

All at once his face became closed and guarded, the familiar dark face of the man who drove

recklessly through the lanes, who had warned her that he had nothing left to give.

“Had I known,” he said brusquely, “I might have had second thoughts after all.”

“Why?”

“Because I was under the impression we were strangers—because at fourteen one might be

tempted to build up a chance episode into something—romantic.”

She flushed, wishing she had kept silent. As things were, she could only embarrass him by

implying that she had remembered him all these years with gratitude. ‘You didn’t strike me at the

time as a romantic person, Mr. Travers,” she said calmly, and as he raised his eyebrows and

gave a short laugh, added hastily, “I’m sorry, the wrong name slipped out. It’s awfully hard to

remember.”

“Practice in your bedroom,” he admonished her severely, and looked relieved when he was

called to the telephone.

Left alone, Lucy thoughtfully finished her sherry and sat holding the empty glass. She should

not have reminded him now; she should not have suggested, however indirectly, that he had

possessed sufficient attraction for her to agree to this outrageous marriage. She must be very

careful in future, very careful indeed not to let him know that for her the fact that he had once

saved her life had forged a bond between them.



When he came back into the room his manner had entirely changed. He was already

shrugging himself into a light overcoat and Smithers could be heard bringing the car round to the

front door.

“I have to go out,” he said briefly. “An urgent call from the hospital. I’m sorry, Lucy, but you ’ll

have to eat Gaston’s special dinner by yourself.”

She got slowly to her feet, gazing at him with dismayed eyes. Not tonight ... not her very first

night among strangers in a strange house...

“But Bart…”

“You’ll have to get used to it, I’m afraid.”

“But tonight—the hospital knows we were married today.”

His mouth twisted a little sardonically.

“This is scarcely a honeymoon, my dear. We can hardly afford to be sentimental to satisfy

conventions which can’t apply to us,” he said.

He did not intend to be cruel, she supposed, but his words came as a slap in the face. Had she

hoped? But of course she had not, for what was there to hope?

“Of course not,” she said. “Will you be late? Should I—should I wait up?”

“Heavens, no! Go to bed—I may be operating half the night.”

“Very well.”

He patted her briefly on the shoulder in passing.

“Cheer up! The evening might have been a bit of a strain, mightn’t it?” he said, and was gone.

Tears chased each other down Lucy ’s cheeks. She was twenty years old ... this was her

wedding night, and she wore her only new frock...

“What did you expect?” she chided herself angrily, but her unreasonable heart could only

answer: Not this, not this...



In the big, cold dining-room, she sat very straight in her chair at the foot of a mahogany table

which seemed to stretch for miles and miles into the shadows. Smithers’ supercilious presence

embarrassed her acutely and the courses of Gaston’s special dinner appeared endless. From

outside came the steady roar of the breakers and sometimes it seemed as if the derisive voices

of children mingled with the waves, chanting their eternal Ba-a ... ba-a ...

In law she had today become Lucy Travers, she thought, choking over a piece of chicken, but

knew then that she would always and for ever be Lucy Lamb, unchanged and undesired through

the years...



CHAPTER TWO

I

LUCY slept fitfully in the big bed, unfamiliar and a little intimidating with its many heaped pillows

and the heavy drapery from the high half-tester shutting her into solitude. She tossed restlessly,

listening to the sound of the breakers, and in the small hours she heard Bart return, and lay

watching a thin thread of light appear under the door which divided their rooms. She had an

impulse to call to him, to seek a child’s assurance for this, her first night under his roof, but she

remembered him saying: “This is scarcely a honeymoon ... we can hardly afford to be

sentimental...” and turned her back to that heartening glow of light. She might be Bart’s wife, butfor him she was no more than a convenience, a whim to satisfy his son...

She awoke from a troubled sleep to find Smithers drawing back the curtains. A breakfast tray

had been set beside the bed. Lucy struggled up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and the man

turned and regarded her curiously.

“Can I fetch you your bed-jacket, madam?” he asked.

“I—I haven’t got one,” Lucy replied, aware of failing, at least in the servant’s eyes. There had

been no use or occasion for such frivolities as bed jackets in her life with old Miss Heap.

“I’ll make do with that cardigan, please,” she said with sudden firmness. She was not going to

be despised or pitied by Smithers for her very evident lack of a trousseau.

He helped her on with the cardigan and she buttoned it high with clumsy fingers, wishing he

would go away.

“Shall I pour your coffee, madam?” he asked with such an exaggerated imitation of the perfect

manservant that she was sure he was putting on an act for her benefit.

“No, thank you,” she said, and wondered if he made the beds and did the rooms, since no

women were employed in the house.

She saw his eyes roving round the room and he suddenly advanced upon the dressing-table

and ran a finger over its polished surface, making fussy little clicking noises with his tongue.



“Tck, tck, did you let the lamp smitch?” he said.

“Smitch?” The word was new to Lucy. “It—it flared last night. I don’t understand oil lamps very

well. Has it done any damage?”

“Smuts!” Smithers pronounced severely. “Smuts all over my dressing-table. An hour’s work it

will mean, an hour’s work.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I—I’ll clear them up “ said Lucy, feeling like a chidden child.

“Certainly not, that is my province,” he replied haughtily, then proceeded to explain in the

earnest tones of a governess exactly how an oil lamp should be adjusted.

He was a strange creature, Lucy thought uneasily, sparse and lugubrious, with an over-developed Adam’s apple and a habit of cracking his finger-joints which might become as nerve-

racking as the sound of breakers. She wondered idly where Bart had found him and what

particular virtue he possessed to remain so long in one employment.

“I see,” she said meekly when he had finished his homily, then asked if Bart was down, and

almost at once wished she had not. Bart might already have gone into St. Minver to his

consulting-rooms, or the hospital and it would seem strange that she was not acquainted with her

husband’s movements.

Smithers’ gloomy features took on the semblance of a smile.

“The master is with Master Pierre,” he said, and for a moment he was human. Pierre, the little

boy for whose sake she had consented to marry and come here to this isolated house, was loved

by Smithers, and by Gaston, too.

“How is he—the little boy?” she asked eagerly, and saw the manservant’s face crumple into

unfamiliar lines. It was an odd face, she thought, lined and sallow, with sparse hair plastered

carefully over a bald patch. Last night he had seemed resentful, insolent almost, but this morning

there was a certain forced humanity in him.

“Master Pierre is well, provided he is not excited,” he said repressively, and Lucy knew that she

had presumed. “We hope—the chef and I—that you will not spoil him—madam.”

“Spoil him?” The deliberation over the last word had not been lost on Lucy, and the warmth

which she had hoped to convey to Bart’s servant was quenched.



“Master Pierre has not been very much spoilt in the sense you mean,” she said shortly, and saw

the man’s eyebrows lift in surprise.

“Will that be all, madam?” he enquired, back in his role of the perfect manservant.

“Yes, thank you.”

It was ludicrous, Lucy thought when he had gone. They were resentful, clearly, he and Gaston,

at her invasion of their masculine household, and after last night they must know that Bart had not

married her because he loved her, for had he not left her on the wedding day to dine alone, to go

to bed alone in a strange house which held no welcome?

She ate breakfast, listening to the rain which still beat upon the windows, wondering about the

future, already regretting the impulse which had committed her to so much sad uncertainty. Wouldit not have been better, she thought forlornly, to stay with the Miss Heaps of this world until that

mythical insecure little clerk of whom Bart had spoken so disparagingly had, perhaps, turned up

to claim her?

Presently there was a knock on her door and she called “Come in,” with no great enthusiasm for

the reappearance of Smithers, but when the door opened it was Bart who stood there, and,

beside him, the hesitant, mystified figure of a small boy.

“You see, Pierre—I really did have a surprise for you,” Bart said, and Pierre, his great black

eyes glowing rounder and rounder with wonder, flung himself with a shout on to Lucy’s bed.

“Baba! “ he cried. “Baba—my Baba—you’re really here!” Lucy caught him in her arms, and for

the moment it was a perfect reunion. She felt the boy’s arms cling about her neck and

remembered those days in the hospital when only she could pacify him, and her eyes were wet

as she rested her cheek against his round black head. She was aware that Bart still stood in the

doorway, watching them both with a faintly wry expression, then he abruptly closed the door

behind him and came and stood at the foot of the bed.

The boy was nuzzling into her shoulder, proclaiming his delight in an excited mixture of French,

and English. She saw the curious look of sadness on Bart’s face and gently pushed the child

away.

“Don’t you say thank you for your surprise?” she said.

“Is she to stay for always, Papa?” the boy asked, his gaze returning to his father.



“Yes, Pierre,” he returned gravely. “She is now my wife and your stepmother. Will you like that?”

“Stepmother?” Pierre repeated, frowning, “I do not know what that means. She is my Baba. It is

for always?”

“Yes, for always,” Bart said. “And you must be good and do what she tells you and have no

more little scenes and tantrums—understand?”

“Yes, Papa,” the child answered dutifully, but he did not understand, Lucy saw, and saw, too,

that for him she had no significance as his father’s wife. She was the fairy off the Christmas tree,

the only toy he had been denied in all his l ife until now.

“I hope,” she said softly over his head to Bart, “you will think the sacrifice worth while.”

“Sacrifice?” he repeated with raised eyebrow. “Isn’t that a question I should be asking you?”

“I hadn’t much to lose,” she said shyly.

“Nor I, for that matter,” he retorted with a sudden brittle dryness. “Did you sleep well, Lucy?”

“Y-yes. I can’t get used to the breakers.”

“You will. Do you realize it was along this bit of coast I pulled you out of the sea? Just below

Polvane, in fact.”

“Was it?” She frowned, trying to remember. She had been sent to some holiday camp near St.

Minver, but she had not then known of the existence of Polvane.

“Fate, would you think?” he asked a little mockingly. For some reason her disclosure of that

forgotten rescue seemed to amuse him.

“Perhaps,” she said gravely. “You shouldn’t mock at fate, Bart.”

“No? Sometimes, my dear, it’s the only sane tiling to do.”

He had answered her sombrely and she guessed he was thinking of the turn of fortune which

had ended his first marriage and left him with only one small child on which to build the future.

“There’s always another day,” Lucy said gently, and Pierre suddenly strangled her with a fierce

embrace.



“Another day, another day ... but you’ll be here always, Baba!” he cried, and she replied,

“Yes, I’ll be here always, darling.”

“Run away now, Pierre,” Bart said brusquely.

“No.”

“I want to get dressed. Later, you shall show me the house and al l your favorite toys,” Lucy said,

and the boy obediently slipped off the bed and ran out of the room.

“Pierre’s toys are his own affair, but the house, I think, should be mine,” Bart said as the door

closed with a triumphant bang.

Lucy looked at him uncertainly.

“Of course,” she said, “only—”

“Only what?”

“Well, last night you rather dumped me here, and I thought—”

“You thought you were being neglected a little early in the day, is that it?”

He moved suddenly and came to sit on the side of the bed. She was very conscious of his

unfamiliar presence in her bedroom, and of the fact that she had been married to him for nearly

twenty-four hours and knew next to nothing about him.

“Of course not,” she replied uneasily. “I—I didn’t expect anything.”

“Yet you were disappointed in me when I left you to go to the hospital.”

“I suppose I hadn’t realized ... well, it was my wedding day ... even a make-believe wedding has

some importance.”

“Yes, indeed. Poor Lucy—it was a bad start, wasn’t it?” His face softened into unexpected

tenderness as he regarded her. She looked so young and defenceless sitting up in the big, old-

fashioned bed, her wide-set eyes meeting his with apology while she clutched the rather

shapeless cardigan tightly round her thin body.



“Have you no bed-jacket?” he asked abruptly.

“No. It shocked Smithers, I’m afraid.”

“Smithers?” He frowned.

“Well, you see,” said Lucy apologetically, “it must be quite obvious to him that I have no

trousseau. He unpacked my things last night.”

Bart’s frown deepened.

“Why didn’t you tell me you needed clothes?” he asked, and she replied simply: “I never

thought.”

There was the familiar hint of impatience in his eyes.

“That must be remedied,” he said. “I shall, of course, make you an allowance. You will, please,

at the first opportunity, fit yourself out with anything you may need.”

“It—it isn’t necessary,” she stammered, and watched the coldness return to his eyes.

“Certainly it’s necessary,” he retorted, getting to his feet. “Do you think I want my servants tothink I picked you up at random?”

The color mounted in her thin cheeks and she sat suddenly stiff and straight against the heaped

pillows.

“But that’s what you did do, isn’t it?” she said very clearly, and for an instant the unwonted

tenderness was back in his face.

“Not quite, Lucy Baa-lamb,” he replied with sudden gentleness. “You’re rather like a lost lamb,

now I come to think of it.”

“Very likely,” she retorted with spirit “But lambs grow into sheep and sheep have no sense

when it comes to protecting themselves. They just run round and round in circles.”

“Really? And is that what you propose to do?” His voice held amusement and he stood there

looking down at her, his hands thrust into the pockets of an ancient pair of flannel slacks. He was

unfamiliar again, she thought uneasily. She had seen him only in the uniform of his profession,

black coat, striped trousers, cloaked in that polished air of clinical efficiency. He still seemed hard



and unpredictable, but there was a certain comfort in the old slacks and the tweed jacket patched

with leather at the elbows.

“No,” she said inattentively, “I won’t run round in circles.”

He glanced at her with amusement.

“What were you thinking of?”

“Your old clothes. They make you seem more human.”

“I’m sorry if my inhuman qualities have been uppermost during our brief acquaintance,” he

observed dryly. “Well, I’ll leave you to get up now. When you’re dressed I’ll be happy to take you

round the house, no doubt escorted by my son.”

He left the room as abruptly as he had entered it, and she could hear his brisk step growing

fainter and fainter on the polished boards of the corridor outside.

II

When she was dressed Lucy went downstairs. Smithers was in the hall, polishing the floor. He

had exchanged his more formal attire for dungarees and an open-necked shirt and seemed also

to have changed his personality. He dabbed and rubbed with fussy, feminine gestures and made

little clicking sounds of annoyance at each fresh mark he found.

“Wet weather makes a lot of extra work, doesn’t it?” Lucy said, trying to think of some

pleasantry.

“I’m most put out—my beautiful floor that I spent ever so long on yesterday! I’m most put out,”

he replied.

Rather at a loss, she began to make some suitable reply when Pierre came running out of the

library and seized her by the hand.

“In here, in here!” he shouted. “We start with the lib’ry because it’s Papa’s room.”

“Pierre has a tour of the house all mapped out,” Bart said, rising from the big desk where hehad been checking through a pile of papers. As he did so he removed a pair of horn-rimmed

glasses from his nose and Lucy discovered that she had learnt one more small thing about him.

She had not known that he wore glasses for close work.



By daylight the room revealed a shabbiness which had not been apparent in the soft light of

the lamps, but it was a comfortable shabbiness which spoke of use and familiarity. The many

books which lined the walls had been much read, the deep chairs well used, but the three or four

fine Persian carpets which covered the floor had the distinction of the wear of centuries, the

colors muted but glowing with the delicate silken sheen of the threads which had been woven

into such intricate patterns.

“You know something about Persian carpets?” Bart said, observing her interest.

“Not really, but Miss Heap had a rather beautiful one and she taught me how to tell a Bokhara

from a Kashan. The cats had ruined hers, of course.”

“How unfortunate. And who is Miss Heap?”

“My last employer. But you knew.”

“Of course. How stupid of me.” His lips twitched a little at the corners. “Well, your present

employer has no cats. Shall we move on to the next exhibit?”

They walked from room to room, drawing-room, dining-room and small breakfast-room, Pierre

running ahead. There was a flower-room opening on to the garden, gaily painted, with frivolous,flouncy curtains draping the windows, and shelves stacked high with bowls and vases and tall

pottery urns of strange color and design. It was a charming little room, Lucy thought, and

remembered with disappointment that Bart had said there were few flowers in the garden. She

saw him watching her with a curious expression, and at once she knew this had been Marcelle’s

special pleasure. She had stood here among her pretty fripperies, arranging flowers, sure of her

beauty in such gracious occupation, sure, too, of her husband’s love and admiration as he

leaned, perhaps, in the doorway, watching her.

Lucy closed the door softly. There had been flowers in the gardens at Polvane then, she

thought, well-tended borders, color and scent, and the house had been full of them where now

bowls and vases were stacked on their shelves and shut away, forgotten.

“Now,” said Pierre, pulling at her hand, “we go to see Gaston, yes?”

The kitchen was vast, with a floor of flagstones and a range so big that it seemed to have been

designed for the needs of a regiment rather than those of a family. Was it Marcelle or Gaston.

Lucy wondered, who had introduced such a Gallic flavor to this part of the house? Strings of

onions and drying herbs hung in the cavernous alcove which housed the range, saucepans,



skillets, bains marie were all of polished copper and presented a formidable array, and a smell of

garlic hung on the air. Gaston himself was beating some concoction in a huge china bowl and

he dropped his wooden spoon as Pierre ran to him, and swung the boy high into the air.

“And how are you today, my little cabbage?” he demanded in French. “The migraine has gone,

hein?”

“I did not have a migraine. I wished to be free of lessons. It was you who sent me to bed,” said

Pierre. “Look, Gaston—this is my Baba—she of whom I have spoken so much. Papa has

brought her home as a surprise for me and she will live with us always. Is that not wonderful?”

“Speak in English, Pierre,” Bart interrupted sharply, and the boy looked stubborn. The cook’s

little eyes darted to Lucy and then to Bart; standing behind her. It was impossible to read

anything into his expression.

“Vraiment ?” he replied briefly, and reached for his wooden spoon. “Madame enjoyed a good

night?” he enquired politely and resumed his beating.

“Thank you, yes,” Lucy answered, and added, wishing to find some way to his good graces,

“I’ve never seen cooking utensils all made of copper before, and how beautifully you keep them

polished.”

His shoulders, reached his ears in a shrug as he went on vigorously beating.

“The English have forgotten the accompaniments of good cooking. Aluminum, plastic—pouff!

You are a chef, ma’moiselle— pardon—madame?”

“No, oh, no,” said Lucy quickly, thinking of the meagre contents of tins hotted up on the gas

rings of bedsitters,

“Bien,” he said with satisfaction, and she knew it was his way of warning her to keep out of his

kitchen and not to imagine that she could give him culinary orders of her own.

“Come,” Bart said, “we are keeping Gaston from his chores.”

“What is for lunch?” asked Pierre, still lingering. “I am to have lunch in the dining-room today,

Gaston, because Mr. Bond is not here and it is Baba’s first day.”

“You will see,” Gaston replied, and gave vent to some Gallic imprecation as something boiled

over on the stove.



“He doesn’t like me,” Lucy said as she was taken up the staircase to see the’ other rooms.

“Nonsense!” Bart replied brusquely. “You seem too concerned as to how the servants may

think of you, my dear.”

“It can be quite important when we all have to live together,” Lucy said mildly.

“Not in this case,” he said. “To Smithers and Gaston, you must remember, you are possibly an

unwelcome innovation. Don’t interfere and things will continue smoothly, as before.”

His words had a chilling sound, as if he was reminding her that she, no less than the two

menservants, was merely an employee at Polvane. He did not understand, perhaps, that she

had no wish to interfere, only to make friends.

Her pleasure in exploring the house was diminished after that. There seemed many doors

which were thrown open on empty bedrooms and one which Bart passed without a glance.

“That is a room that’s never used,” he said as he saw her pause.

“Bluebeard’s chamber?” Lucy asked, trying to make light of a situation that was becoming

something of an ordeal, but Bart only replied discouragingly: “Perhaps,” and passed on to thenext room.

It was a relief when they reached Pierre’s quarters and Bart announced that he would leave

them. He would expect her, he said, in an hour’s time for a glass of sherry before luncheon.

“Now !” said Pierre, firmly shutting the door, “now you shall see all my things, Baba.”

He began digging out toys and picture-books for her inspection, and she sat on a worn tuffet by

the fire and forgot that she was a stranger to Polvane. It was a pliant room, more nursery than

schoolroom, for a faded paper of nursery rhymes covered the walls, and there was a rocking-

horse and animals on wheels and a little scarlet sports car in miniature propelled by pedals. A

diminutive desk stood at one end of the room, flanked by a larger one, and a bookshelf against

one wall contained primary editions of works considered necessary to the rudiments of

education. “Do you do lessons already, Pierre?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. Since I am five. I’m seven now,” he replied with pride.

“But who teaches you?”



“Paul.” He had mentioned a Mr. Bond, she remembered, while talking to Gaston. “He is my

tutor.”

“Your tutor! But you aren’t old enough, Pierre!”

He shrugged with the same Gallic eloquence that Gaston showed.

“Papa thinks so. But he does not come today because you are here and I have the holiday, but

tomorrow—Baba, now that you have come, it is not necessary that Paul should continue, is it?”

“Don’t you like him?”

“Oh, yes, but now I have you there’s no need for another, is there?”

“I don’t know, Pierre,” Lucy replied a little helplessly. “Your father has never spoken of Mr.

Bond to me.” When she went down to the library for her sherry she asked Bart at once about the

tutor.

“Didn’t I mention Paul Bond?” he said carelessly. “He comes here daily. Today Pierre has a

holiday in your honor, but Paul will be up tomorrow.”

“But, Bart, he’s such a baby! Little boys of seven surely don’t need tutors.”

He looked at her reflectively.

“Pierre’s old enough to have some sort of education,” he replied. “The lessons are fairly

rudimentary, I fancy.”

“But now I’m here, it surely won’t be necessary—I mean, didn’t you marry me to take charge of Pierre?”

“Not entirely.” He sipped his sherry with deliberation. “You were something, a someone the boy

appeared to need in his l ife, but that doesn’t automatically turn you into a nursery governess.”

She could not altogether follow his line of thought. “Even so,” she said, “I can surely fill Mr.

Bond’s place in the matter of elementary teaching. It seems wasteful to have two of us.”

His eyes were suddenly cold.

“I think you’ll have to let me be the best judge of that, my dear,” he replied. “And since I



evidently have to explain my actions, I’ll tell you that Paul is a distant connection of mine, not

very strong or at all well off. At the moment he depends on me for a living, added to which, Pierre

likes him.”

“I see,” she said, feeling snubbed, and fell silent, thinking what a strange mixture he was. It

seemed clear that this unknown young man was dependent on Bart, who had probably created

the rather ridiculous job of tutor to so young a child as an excuse for helping him.

“You must try to get on with all of us, Lucy,” Bart said dispassionately. “There will most likely be

plenty of things at Polvane that seem strange to you. I haven’t, I suppose, led a very normal life

for some years.”

Lucy looked out of the rain-spattered windows and shivered, listening to the breakers. No, she

thought, it was not normal, this masculine household, isolation on a lonely headland, bringing up

a small child to such a warped way of life.

“Have some more sherry,” Bart said, observing the shiver, and when she had taken the glass

she did not really want from him, he leaned over her for a moment “Are you a little dismayed by

your hasty action, Lucy Lamb?” he asked with wry humor.

“I’m Lucy Travers now,” she reminded him sharply, because she found his sudden change of

mood disturbing.

“I hadn’t forgotten,” he said with amusement. “But I think you’ll always be Lucy Lamb to me—

lamb with a small ‘l,’ you know. Ah, here’s Pierre. I hope you’re going to behave nicely in the

dining-room, young man. You must make a good impression on Lucy if you want her to stay.”

The boy’s eyes grew enormous. He lifted a face to his father that was both beautiful and utterly

unchildlike in that moment.

“But you p-promised,” he stammered. “You said it was for always. Baba, you have come for

always, haven’t you—haven’t you?”

“Of course, darling,” Lucy said as he flung himself upon her, spilling the remains of her sherry.

“Don’t be so silly, Pierre, your father was only joking, weren’t you, Bart?” Just for a moment she

caught the look of unutterable weariness in his dark face, then he stopped to mop at her skirt

with his handkerchief.

“Of course. Don’t make a scene, Pierre. You’re getting too big to cry.”



The boy bit his lip, fighting back the tears, and Lucy, giving him a comforting hug, would have

liked to do the same for Bart. They neither of them, she thought with compassion, understood the

other, and both of them needed that affection which neither knew how to give, Smithers sounded

the gong for luncheon and she jumped to her feet with relief. It had been a strange, rather

disconcerting few hours, that first morning at Polvane.

III

The rain did not stop all day. Whether Bart had cancelled all his calls or whether it was chance

that he was free, Lucy never knew, but he remained in the house, lying back in a chair with his

pipe while he listened to the endless chatter between his son and his new young wife, and

watched their constantly changing expressions. Lucy’s face, no less than Pierre’s, lit up with

pleasure and affection, lending her moments of elusive beauty, and he remembered her

standing last night before the wall mirror in the drawing-room complaining that she found her

face discouraging and negative.

The boy was merciless in his demands, like most children, and when tea was finished, Bart

ordered him to bed. Immediately the child’s lips began to tremble and he looked at his father with

open dislike.

“No,” he said, and Lucy saw Bart’s mouth tighten.

“We are not going to have any scenes, Pierre,” he said quietly. “You should know by now that

when I give you an order I expect to be obeyed—instantly. Go along, now.”

Pierre edged slowly towards the door.

“Will Baba help me undress?” he asked.

“No. Smithers will see to you as usual. If you won’t make any fuss, Baba will come up later and

tuck you in.”

The boy went immediately. He did not bid his father goodnight, but perhaps, thought Lucy a

shade unhappily, it was his own practice to go upstairs and tuck his son in for the night.

“You look tired, Lucy,” Bart said when they were alone. “You mustn’t let the boy wear you out

with his demands. That’s another very excellent reason for keeping Paul on. He manages Pierre

very well.”



“And you think I wouldn’t?”

“I think you’d be inclined to be too soft with him.”

“I don’t think,” she said gently, “that a little occasional spoiling does harm. Children respond to

indulgence as well as to discipline.”

“Possibly, but they must also be taught not to impose.” Firelight flickered warmly over the room

but the lamps had not yet been lighted. She could hardly see Bart’s face in the shadows, so that

she found it easy to say:

But Pierre’s had so little spoiling. I — I think you make him afraid of you.”

“Am I so harsh with him, then?” His voice sounded suddenly weary and she said quickly:

“No, of course not, but you treat him like an adolescent. He doesn’t understand that you need

him too.”

He moved impatiently and his hands were revealed in the firelight, his strong surgeon’s hands,

tightly clasped so that the knuckles showed.

“Perhaps you don’t believe that I’ve tried very hard to win my son’s affection,” he said with

sudden harshness.

Lucy shrank into the depths of her chair, grateful for the shadow. Her opinion in anything that

mattered had never been invited by her past employers and she was afraid of seeming

impertinent.

“I do believe it,” she said at last, “but perhaps — perhaps you’ve gone the wrong way about it.”

“Perhaps. Will you act as intermediary for me, Lucy?”

“I?” she sounded startled. “But that’s something between the two of you.”

“It’s also something that I seem unable to manage for myself. I’ve been wrong, I think, in

allowing no woman’s influence in the house. When the boy has needed me I’ve been tied up with

work and often away from home. You’ve won his love in some strange fashion. Will you try topersuade him to spare a little of it for me?”

It must have been, she knew, a difficult speech for him to make. He was a proud and often



intolerant man and she a comparative stranger.

“Is that why you married me?” she asked. “To—to intercede for you?”

“Yes, perhaps it was.”

“How strange,” she said with wonder. “How strange—and rather pitiful.”

He was on his feet at once and standing over her.

“Not that,” he said harshly. “Blind, pig-headed if you like, but not pitiful. Make no mistake about

me, my dear—I have no self-pity on account of the kicks life deals, only a resolve not to lay myself

open to fresh kicks. Do you understand?”

She did not altogether understand. She vaguely supposed that part of his savage outburst must

refer to his dead wife and the fact that he could never forget her, and it was this very bitterness,

she thought, which had stood between him and his son.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I—I’ll do all I can, of course, to win Pierre over for you.”

“Thank you,” he said, turning away to light the lamps. “I must apologize for barking at you.”

With the gradually spreading light as he turned up the wicks, the brief intimacy vanished. Bart

went to his desk, and reaching for his glasses settled down to work.

“You’d better go up and say goodnight to Pierre or he’ll be asleep,” he observed casually.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“He doesn’t expect it. I made a rule against the practice long ago. I’m here so little at his bed-

time that it would only make for disappointment if I didn’t go.”

It was quite a shock to find Smithers sitting by the child’s bed, deep in a long and involved

story. Lucy stood in the doorway watching the man’s gesticulations and grimaces. The hair that

so carefully concealed his bald patch stood on end like a question mark and the collar of his

black coat was turned up to his ears which were large and red and stuck out each side of his

head.

“And then this here ogre said to the ‘aughty princess: “I’ll larn you, me girl, just you wait,’ ” he

was saying, his Adam’s apple working overtime, and Lucy realized with surprise that this was



probably Smithers’ natural mode of speech when off duty, ungrammatical and faintly cockney.

“Baba!” screamed Pierre from the bed, flinging wide both arms, and adding impatiently, “You

can go now, Smithy.”

“I hope you’ll say thank you to Smithers for the story,” Lucy said, coming into the room. The man

had got to his feet and Lucy wanted to laugh as he stood there, smoothing his hair and adjusting

his collar, trying to slip back into his more familiar role of manservant. He really was a most

extraordinary person, she thought.

“Thank you, Smithy,” Pierre said indifferently. “Baba, come here. Sit close to me and sing me to

sleep. No one has ever sung me to sleep.”

“Had your dear mother not been taken, she would have done so, Master Pierre. She had abeautiful voice, fit for opera, so they say,” Smithers pronounced piously, and sending Lucy a look

of acute dislike, left the room.

“Oh dear, I’m afraid he doesn’t like me at all,” said Lucy, trying to laugh.

“It doesn’t matter, he likes only me,” Pierre said with kindly complaisance. “Sing to me, Baba.”

“I can’t sing—not properly,” she protested.

‘Try.”

She searched her memory for half-forgotten songs of childhood, but could remember only the

folk gongs of her adult years, so she sang him The Turtle Dove, that plaintive air from Dorset

which always seemed to spring the most readily to her tongue.

“Oh! don’t you see the turtle dove

Sitting under yonder tree,

Lamenting for her own true love?

And I will mourn for thee, my dear,

And I will mourn for thee.”

“The tune is triste,” Pierre murmured sleepily. “The words are a little triste, too ... you have a



pretty voice, Baba—like a small clear bell ... sing me more.”

She sang the second verse, then as his heavy eyelids closed, she kissed him gently, turned

down the lamp and tip-toed from the room. Smithers was standing just outside the door, cracking

his finger-joints one after the other.

“What was that piece, madam?” he asked.

Lucy had a moment’s discomfort thinking of him standing outside, listening.

“An old Dorset air called The Turtle Dove,” she answered a little shortly.

“Really? Very quaint, very pretty. You have a voice like a little girl, madam, if I may make so

bold.”

Lucy looked at him sharply. She was not going to stand for patronage from Bart’s servants.

“Very likely. I, unlike the first Mrs. Travers, have no aspiration to opera, ” she retorted, and was

sorry she had spoken sharply when he saw his hurt look of surprise. He had possibly meant his

remark as a compliment.

He tossed his head and went away, offended, and Lucy found her way to her own room to

change her dress for dinner.

She turned the lamp up gingerly, not yet being used to this manner of lighting, which, unless

respected, could produce a shower of smuts and a horrible smell. It would not do to give Smithers

extra work again tomorrow morning. The bed had already been turned down for the night and her

things laid out meticulously, the cheap nightdress, the well-worn dressing-gown, the slippers with

the scuffed toes. She would never get used, she thought, to a man’s handling her intimate

possessions and making her bed.

Her eyes went to the door which separated her room from Bart’s, and with sudden curiosity she

sprang across the room, opened the door and looked inside.

It was a smaller room than hers, with the same heavy furniture and old-fashioned paper on the

walls, but the bed was narrow and severe, and the room bare of all personal reminder of its

occupant. Pyjamas and dressing-gown were laid out on the bed, and brushes were on the

dressing-table, but it might have been a hotel bedroom prepared for a visitor for one night only.

Lucy shivered and closed the door. What manner of man had she married, she wondered?



What manner of man had he been when he had shared his first wife’s bedroom and mingled his

intimate possessions with hers? She viewed, with relief, the comparative comfort of her own

room, the welcoming fire, the scattered belongings that were familiar and homely, already

softening the impersonality of a strange room.

Bart had told her that she was to buy what she needed. Well, she thought, she would do so.

Smithers should no longer sniff at the meagreness of her wardrobe, and she, perhaps, with

possessions she had never been able to afford, would blossom in stature and confidence.

She dressed carefully, choosing judiciously from her few outmoded frocks, and spent a long

time brushing her soft fine hair until it shone and seemed to take kindly to the shape of her head,

curving over her ears into delicate fronds. I’m not bad, she thought, gazing at her reflection which,

in the lamplight, was one she was not accustomed to, and she began to wonder, a little

nervously, how the evening would unravel. She would dine with Bart by candlelight, as, last

night, she had dined alone, and tonight the formality of damask and old silver and fine glass

would be warmed by a certain intimacy. She would sit at his table and be proud, however empty

the sensation might be, that she was his wife.

She must have sat dreaming longer than she had thought, for the distant sound of the gong

brought her hastily to her feet. She blew out the lamp and ran quickly down the graceful, curving

staircase, thinking, as she ran, how often the lovely, and loved Marcelle must have done thesame, only she would have made an entrance, trailing down those gracious stairs, aware that,

however late, everyone would wait for her.

Smithers still stood by the gong.

“The master regrets that he has been called out, madam,” he said with lugubrious pleasure.

“Would you care for a glass of sherry before dinner?”

She was brought to an instant standstill in her hurried flight across the hall and felt the blood

ebbing from her face. Not again, she thought helplessly, and knew her disappointment to be

disproportionate. Smithers watched her with interest, his human curiosity only just hidden by his

professional impassiveness.

“No, thank you,” she replied, raising her chin. “I will go straight in to dinner.”

So for the second time Lucy dined alone at the foot of that long mahogany table which seemed

to stretch into the shadows, and went, alone, to bed to lie listening to the breakers and the

ceaseless rain on the windows. But this time she did not hear Bart return. Sleep, took her, and the



sound of the rain and the distant sea mingled with her dreams and she slept with the tears still

wet on her cheeks.

CHAPTER THREE

I

WHEN Lucy awoke the next morning, the sun was shining. It poured into the room as Smithers

drew the curtains, and even the sound of the breakers seemed less insistent

“How lovely,” said Lucy, stretching luxuriously. “And how different it makes everything seem,

doesn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” said Smithers repressively. “But in this part of the world, bad weather is the rule,rather than the exception. You’ll get used to it, madam.”

“Oh! Yes, I suppose I will,” said Lucy, feeling discouraged. “Was Mr. Travers late last night?”

“I really couldn’t say, madam.” The servant’s eyes closed in mild reproof. “He has gone into St.

Minver as usual. He did not wish to disturb you. He will be back, I understand, in time for dinner.”

“Oh!” said Lucy again, and wriggled her arms into the old cardigan which must soon be

replaced with the bed-jacket Smithers seemed to think so important. “Well, I shall be able to get

out into the garden. I haven’t seen the garden yet. Are there really no flowers, Smithers?”

He thrust his hand into the breast of his jacket as if about to make a set speech.

“None since she was taken,” he said in a reverent voice. “When she was alive, ah, then—then

she would stand in her little flower-room surrounded with blossoms, and she the fairest flower of

them all. It was the prettiest sight to see her. She would place a blossom here, a blossom there—”

he made ridiculous motions of arranging flowers—“and she would laugh and sing little French

songs, and now it’s all gone.”

“Yes, well—it sounds a charming picture,” Lucy said, wriggling her toes, torn between

embarrassment and a desire to laugh. “I must persuade Mr. Travers to restock the gardens. I like

flowers, too.”

“That he never will do,” said Smithers, shaking his head. “Ask Abel.”

“Abel? Who’s he?”



“Abel’s been gardener here for thirty years or more. He set great store by young Mrs. Travers—

the first Mrs. Travers, I should say. Will you be lunching with Master Pierre and Mr. Bond in the

morning-room, or alone in the dining-room?”

“With Master Pierre, of course. What time does Mr. Bond come?”

“At nine-thirty. He will be here any minute.”

Lucy began pouring coffee into her cup, splashing it clumsily.

“I must get up earlier,” she said. “I’m not used to breakfast in bed.”

“Indeed madam?” said Smithers with raised eyebrows, and left the room.

Lucy crunched toast and marmalade with angry impatience. He was absurd and a mountebank,

of course; still, these deliberate allusions to the dead Marcelle were disturbing. Bart himself had

scarcely mentioned her, but her presence could be felt in the house, in the flower-room, in the

drawing-room which nobody used, and most sharply of all, in that great blank space over the

mantelpiece, more eloquent than any portrait could have been. Seven years ... does one never

forget? she wondered.

“It’s unhealthy!” said Lucy aloud, and bounced out of bed. “The house is a shrine—no wonder

the child is strange!”

When she was dressed she leaned out of a window to have her first sight of the garden and

saw Pierre trotting beside a young man who was strolling across one of the smooth lawns. He

was tall and slight with an odd, unconscious grace in his movements, and the morning sunlight

turned his thick fair hair to pure gold. He was laughing, and every so often the boy looked up into

his face and laughed too.

Lucy made her way downstairs with a lifting heart. She did not know quite what she had

expected of the unknown tutor, but not this, not youth and laughter and the impression that, like

herself, he was still outside the claims and demands of Polvane.

She went through the flower-room in to the garden, leaving the door open, and presently she

saw them skirting the terrace on their way back to the house. She began to walk across the grass,calling to Pierre, who gave a shout of delight and ran to meet her.

“Did you sleep well, my poppet?” she asked as he flung his arms about her knees.



“Poppet—what is that?” he enquired, screwing up his nose in puzzlement.

“It’s an English term of endearment like your French petit chou, but nicer than a cabbage, don’t

you think?”

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. Someone who’s nice, I should think. Someone like you when you’re good.”

“Oh, Baba, you are so drole,” he laughed, wrinkling his nose like a rabbit, and the young man,

at his more leisurely pace, joined them.

Paul Bond had more than his share of looks, she thought, observing him at closer quarters. His

eyes were blue, not the cold, appraising blue of Bart’s, but with depth and color and curiously

enlarged pupils. His face had a hint of delicacy, or was it weakness, but his mouth curved into a

promise of laughter, although at the moment it was pulled down slightly at the corners as if he

already disapproved of her.

“How do you do, Mr. Bond?” she said, and held out her hand. “I’m Lucy Lamb—I mean Travers.

It’s hard to remember, yet.” Her eyes were shy as she stumbled a little over the small slip, and

suddenly he smiled.

Why, she was scarcely more than a kid, he thought, someone to be beguiled, not a threat to his

own position at Polvane.

“How do you do, Mrs. Travers?” he replied, and his voice was light and charming. “I’ve heard a

very great deal about you from Pierre. You’re his pin-up girl, you know.”

“Have you to start lessons yet?” Lucy asked. “I thought, perhaps, you might show me the

garden.”

“I should be delighted,” he said. “Lessons are rather a figure of speech. I’m more of a nursemaid

than a tutor, you know.”

They turned to walk across the lawn to some stone steps which took them down to another.

There were a series of lawns, Lucy saw, all terraced and dropping one below another.

“Oh, I like this,” she said. “Perhaps it doesn’t need flowers, after all. It would spoil the formality.”



“You like formality?” he asked, sounding amused.

“Perhaps I’ve never known it,” she said. “It gives a pattern, I think, a sense of security.”

He glanced at her curiously. Was that why she had married Bart, he wondered? There had

been gossip and speculation, naturally, at his sudden marriage. He had been prepared for a

capable governess type who might soon endanger his own job, but he had not been prepared for

Lucy with her long legs and l ittle-girl politeness. Where on earth had Bart picked her up, and what

had induced either to marry the other?

“Pierre took a fancy to me,” she said, as answering his thoughts. “My—my husband would do

anything for the boy, as I expect you know.”

He gave her a sharp glance. Did she realize the extent of her own admission, he wonderedwryly. She met his look with one of enquiring simplicity from those curiously widely spaced eyes,

and he knew that if that had indeed been Bart’s reason for marrying her, she would accept it as

perfectly natural.

“I must see the rhododendrons in sunlight,” she said as they came round to the drive. “I’ve never

known any so high or magnificent before. On Tuesday it was misty.”

“Your wedding day,” he said with the desire to hurt her a little, to extract, perhaps, another

admission. It had been common knowledge among the servants that Bartlemy Travers’ second

marriage would be no love match. But she only replied “Yes,” quite simply, and reached up to

touch one of the giant blooms above her head. The flowers were still heavy with yesterday’s rain

and a shower of bright drops fell on her upturned face, making her laugh and blink her eyes.

“You make a very charming picture, Mrs. Travers,” he said. It was an old chestnut, he knew, but

she turned to him with shy pleasure.

“So you think so?” she said, and he smiled on discovering so easily that compliments had not

often come her way.

They walked down the short avenue with the spreading rhododendrons almost meeting

overhead, and soon the house came into view, its slate and stone ugly in Lucy’s eyes.

“You don’t like your home?” Paul asked, observing her expression.

She turned startled eyes to his.



“I hadn’t thought of it as that,” she said. “I must try to like it, mustn’t I?”

“It might be as well in the circumstances,” he answered dryly, and she laughed.

“You must think me very naive.”

It was exactly what he did think, but there was a quality about her which intrigued him, too.

Provided she offered no threat to his own security she might prove a pleasant diversion from an

occupation he was finding tedious.

“Pierre, run up to the schoolroom and start getting out your lesson books,” he said to the boy.

He wanted to show the rest of the garden to Lucy alone.

“No,” said Pierre firmly, “I shall stay with Baba.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to be with your stepmother after lessons. Run along, now.”

“She is not a stepmother—they are wicked. She’s my Baba, and now that she is here I do not

need you any more, Paul. I shall speak to Papa,” the child said, and his voice was a ludicrous

echo of his father.

Lucy interposed quickly, “That’s rude, Pierre,” but she saw the tutor’s expression change to one

of annoyance and he said sharply:

“Go indoors at once when you’re told, or it will be I who will be speaking to Papa.”

The boy’s eyes went uncertainly to Lucy and his lower lip quivered. It was clear that he was

unused to being addressed in such terms by his tutor.

“Run along, poppet,” Lucy said gently. She did not want to be left alone with Paul Bond, but she

felt obliged to uphold his authority. The child at once obeyed her, and Paul gave a short laugh.

“I can see I shall have to abdicate,” he said. “Until now it was poor Bart who found himself at

loggerheads with his son and I who poured oil on troubled waters. Have you any idea that he

means to dispense with my services now he has married again?”

He stood looking at her under frowning brows, and his mouth, which was so fashioned for indulgence and laughter, was twisted into a grimace of discontent.

“No, I’m quite sure he hasn’t,” Lucy said quickly. “In fact we were speaking of you only



yesterday, and when I suggested—”

“You suggested I should be given the push?”

She colored slightly under his accusing eyes. In trying to reassure him she had said too much.

“N-not in that way,” she stammered, looking distressed. “I didn’t even know, until Bart told me,

that Paul had a tutor. It only struck me as—as unnecessary now that I’m here to look after him, but

—but Bart thought otherwise.”

“And so he should,” the young man retorted. “Pierre has far more fondness for me than he has

for his father, and Bart knows it. That’s why he was only too thankful to keep me on.”

“You wanted to leave, then?”

“Not exactly, but—well, it’s hardly a full-time job for a man, is it?”

“I suppose not. But if you felt that way, I’m sure my husband would have understood.”

“There were reasons—still are,” he said, and she remembered that Bart had said the tutor was

badly off and not too strong. It was possible that he was not fit to do a more exacting job.

“The boy has obviously transferred his affections, as children will,” he said, and his blue,

resentful gaze troubled her, “but don’t count on it too much.”

“I’m a woman,” she reminded him. “Pierre is only seven and has missed a woman’s care al l his

life.”

“And so my cousin several times removed brings you into his masculine household and life is to

change for all of us.” He spoke with the crossness of a spoilt child, and Lucy sighed, thinking that,

after all, he was only one more person who resented her coming. But he was her own kind of

generation; she could make a plea for herself which was not possible with Bart’s servants.

“Please, Mr. Bond, don’t resent me too,” she said, putting out a tentative hand towards him, and,

despite his annoyance, he found the gesture touching.

“Who else resents you here?”

“The servants, but that’s natural.”



“Well, I’m a servant of a different kind, perhaps. Still, never mind that. No doubt the feminine

touch will be good for us all.”

“Do you think so?” she asked doubtfully. He saw the faint clouding of those wide, enquiring

eyes, the uncertainty in the gentle mouth, and his ill humor vanished. Poor kid, he thought, she

couldn’t know what she had taken on. She was naive and unsophisticated and anxious to please.

With the right handling she could be an ally rather than an enemy.

“Of course I think so,” he said lightly. “Polvane has needed a woman for a long time. Bart let his

first wife’s death throw him right off balance, but now—may I say without offence, Mrs. Travers, I

consider he has made a very charming second choice?”

It was gracefully spoken and Lucy knew a little glow of gratitude.

“Thank you,” she said gravely, then asked if she might be shown the rest of the garden.

He took her round to the other side of the house where more well-kept grass intersected with

paths and neat, dwarf hedges of yew spread to a small plantation of flowering shrubs. Beyond

she could see a rough stone wall which marked the boundary to Polvane, and beyond this again,

the coarse, bleached grass of the headland and the great arc of sky which met the sea’s horizon.

The breeze was sharp and laden with salt, and the sound of the breakers, thundering on the cliffs

below, mingled with the harsh cries of the gulls overhead.

They came upon an old man turning the soil in a bed that once must have been a herbaceous

border. He paused to lean on his spade, and watch them, and as they approached he muttered:

“Youth ... youth ... ‘tes going back a brave little way.”

“Have you met Abel, Mrs. Travers?” Paul asked, and when she shook her head, he continued,“This is the new Mrs. Travers, Abel. She seems distressed that there are no flowers growing at

Polvane.”

“Flowers?” The old man straightened up, observing Lucy with sharp dark eyes which, for all his

age, had retained their brightness. He was dark-complexioned, like so many Cornishmen who

have Spanish blood in their veins, and his face was lined and weathered from years of exposure

to the Atlantic gales.

“The mistress liked flowers, but they won’t grow proper here,” he said. “This was a border that

nursed plants well once, but what’s the use any more?”



“Could you not try again, Abel?” Lucy asked, and he frowned at her discouragingly.

“Maister had ‘em dug up seven years ago,” he said. “ ’Twasn’t no good to nobody, see? You ’m

the new mistress, you say? You’m but a maid, m’dear.”

“We all have to grow up,” she said. “Couldn’t we grow flowers again, Abel?”

“I dunno,” he said, staring at her. “When I sees you and Mr. Paul coming across the grass to me,

I says to myself ‘Youth,’ I says. I don’t know about they flowers.”

“You keep it all very beautifully,” said Lucy, feeling a little uneasy. “You’ve been here a long

time, I understand.”

“Thirty, year. Old maister and mistress was alive then. Mrs. Travers, she liked fine vegetables,but Mr. Bart’s lady wanted flowers—but she weren’t like you, m’dear, a little maid blown in from

nowhere.”

“Is that how I seem to you, Abel?”

“No offence, ma’am,” he said apologetically. “But maister’s marriage was sudden-like. Us

thought—that is, if you’ll excuse me, ma’am—I’d expected an older lady.”

“I’m sorry if you’re disappointed,” Lucy said, “but we still might try growing flowers again,

mightn’t we?”

“Maybe,” he rejoined, and began digging again, taking no further notice of them.

“He liked you,” Paul said as they made their way back to the house.

“Then he’s the first one,” Lucy said, and Paul paused to take her hands and swing her round to

face him.

“Fit in to the life of Polvane and you’ll have no cause for regrets,” he said. “They are all

frightened of you—Smithers, Gaston, Abel perhaps—even myself. Don’t make changes.”

She drew her hands gently away from his. For a fleeting instant she preferred the hostility of the

servants to his ready assumption of advice.

“I wouldn’t dream of making changes without my husband’s sanction,” she said gravely. “Thank

you for showing me the garden, Mr. Bond. Hadn’t you better be going in to Pierre?”



“I’m sorry,” he said. “I meant no impertinence.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” she replied, but she knew with the knowledge born of her past, scant

experience that had she not been his employer’s wife he would not have spoken with such

respect. She had been given little chance to meet young men of Paul’s type, but, for a brief

moment, she recognized him for what he was.

“I’ll leave you then,” he said. “Will we be meeting for lunch or do you eat alone in state?” He

was laughing at her now, as if warning her that she would not find it easy to put him in his place.

“I shall be lunching with you and Pierre in the morning-room. I’ve already told Smithers,” she

replied, and he raised a hand in salute and ran back across the lawn to the house.

II

Bart arrived home earlier than was expected. They had just settled down to tea in the morning-

room, which, Lucy understood, was largely given up to Pierre’s mealtimes, when he walked in.

“Hullo!” said Paul, jumping to his feet.

“Hullo...” Bart replied a little blankly, and stood for a moment surveying the domestic scene with

a slightly surprised expression, as if he had not expected to find Lucy presiding over the tea-table.

“Pierre, ring for another cup,” Lucy said, and pulled a chair up to the table beside her.

She thought that for a moment he looked annoyed, as if he resented finding her in his home, or

perhaps he had forgotten her existence, but he smiled and sat down beside her, refusing her

offers of cake and bread and butter.

“You and Paul have got acquainted, I see. Well, Pierre, have you been good today?” he said.

“I think so. Have I, Baba?” Pierre replied doubtfully, and Paul laughed.

“I’m afraid not many lessons have been learned. Mrs. Travers has quite captivated your son,” he

said, and added slyly, “Would you and Mrs. Travers prefer to have your tea in the library, Bart?

After all, you’ve only been married two days.”

Lucy looked across at him, and her color rose as she saw his bright, mischievous glance

darting between herself and Bart. He was, she knew, enjoying the situation, and she experienced



a quite new sensation of resentment against her husband. He might at least have pretended for

the sake of appearances, kissed her even; but he had never kissed her and, for all she knew, he

might have already explained to Paul the reason for this sudden marriage.

“I don’t think so,” he was replying equably. “Perhaps, later, you will have a glass of sherry with

us before you go. Now, Pierre, what have you been doing today?”

But the boy became sullen and tongue-tied. Bart asked his patient questions but got little

response, and the friendly tea-time atmosphere, seemed to have dispersed at his coming. Lucy

watched him surreptitiously. He was not the sort of man, she thought, one could associate with

such nursery occasions. He brought an air of clinical efficiency into the room, a dark suggestion

of a different world where pain and suffering and even death were all in the day’s work, and

domestic affairs, even though they embraced his own son, were unimportant. He had lost touch

with reality, she thought, and knew a sudden fierce anger against the dead Marcelle who had

taken his humanity from him and buried it in her own grave.

“You’re looking pensive, Lucy,” he observed. “Have you had a dull day?”

“Oh, no,” she replied quickly, feeling as guilty as if he had read her thoughts. “Mr. Bond showed

me the garden and I met Abel and we talked about flowers, and— and—”

His cold eyes rested on her for a moment as if he were seeking a medical reason for her

incoherence, but all he said was:

“I think you two had better get on to terms of Christian names. Paul is a distant cousin of mine,

you know. Well, I think I’ll leave you all to finish your tea. Bring Paul to the library for that drink

later on, Lucy.”

She would have liked to go with him, sensing that he felt himself unwanted, but with the tutor’s

perspicacious eyes upon her she could only remain where she was. Pierre, as soon as his father

had gone, immediately became excited and talkative, dispensing his favors between them both,

and Paul murmured:

“Pity, isn’t it?”

“Do you try very hard to bridge the gulf, Mr. Bond?” retorted Lucy.

“What a high-sounding phrase, and I thought we were told to be on Christian name terms,” he

replied lazily. “We are now, you know, related by marriage and are cousins very many times



removed.”

“I don’t understand you,” she said, and, indeed, she did not understand him. He seemed to

alternate between easy charm and an unexpressed grudge against life, and she was not sure that

he considered Bart’s interests at all.

“I’m sure you don’t dear Lucy, but we have something in common. We are both dependent on

Travers’ bounty,” he said, and she sprang to her feet with the color flaming in her cheeks.

“That’s unforgivable!” she said. “I don’t know what your private arrangements with Bart are, but

no wife is dependent on her husband’s bounty these days.”

“I’m sorry,” he said swiftly, and his blue eyes were contrite and pleading, like the eyes of a

naughty child who begs forgiveness. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I say stupid things for effect veryoften. It’s made me a lot of enemies.”

He sat down again and poured herself out another cup of tea.

“Please—” he said softly—“forgive?”

She smiled reluctantly. One could not be angry with him for long, she thought. He had that

slightly outrageous honesty which must, in the end, always turn away wrath.

“What are you quarrelling about?” demanded Pierre, frowning at them both. “Paul, if you are

unkind to my Baba I won’t like you any more.”

“You see?” smiled Paul. “The champions are all on your side.”

“I think you’re quite ridiculous,” she said, and turned to smile reassuringly at the boy. “We

weren’t quarrelling, darling. Grown-ups say stupid things very often.”

“Do they? Then why do they tell children not to be silly?” Pierre observed, and desired to be

given another cake.

“Unanswerable logic, wouldn’t you say?” murmured Paul, and then went out of his way to be

amusing and charm his small charge until Smithers came to clear the tea-things and take the boy

to bed.

“Will you undress me?” Pierre asked Lucy.



“Not tonight, my poppet. Your father expects us in the l ibrary,” she said. “Tomorrow, perhaps.”

“He undressed himself, madam,” Smithers observed with a withering look at Lucy. “There is no

need for you to see him into bed. I make sure that his teeth are brushed and his prayers said.”

“But you must have plenty of other things to do,” Lucy protested. “I can at least relieve you of

one chore.”

“I do not consider a little child a chore,” said Smithers with sanctimonious awfulness, and

shepherded Pierre from the room.

“If you could see your face, Lucy!” said Paul, giving way to helpless laughter.

“That is a most extraordinary person,” Lucy said. “One minute he’s the perfect butler, another he’s Mrs. Mopp, and other times he makes speeches like a very bad ham actor.”

“But that’s what he is—or rather that’s what he wanted to be. Don’t you know about Smithers?”

She shook her head. “He was one of the orderlies at St. Minver’s Hospital years ago—that’s

where Bart found him. He had tried the stage but, I imagine, found he was no good and had to be

content with amateur theatricals in his spare time—still does, I believe. When Bart brought him

here he found he was able to switch his personality into any role he wanted to play provided he

did his job, so, you see, that’s the explanation of Smithers, whose name is really Smith. He’s

peculiar, but harmless.”

“Oh,” cried Lucy, beginning to laugh herself, “poor Smithers! I won’t ever mind him again! Oh,

Paul—this is a very odd household!”

He thought how charming she looked with her small nose wrinkled in laughter and the soft hair

falling over her forehead in disarray. In her brief skirt and highnecked jersey she looked no morethan a schoolgirl. “How old are you, Lucy?” he asked impulsively.

“Twenty. And, you?”

“Twenty-six, eleven years younger than Bert. It’s rather monstrous.”

“What is?”

“The difference between his age and yours. What was he thinking of, for, heaven’s sake?”

“Of his son, as I imagine you’ve already guessed.”



“But you, Lucy, what induced you to—”

But the laughter had died out of her. He had got under her guard because she was incautious

and because for a long time there had not been anyone with whom to laugh.

“Bart is a very attractive man. Don’t you think so?” she broke in sedately.

“I suppose so, to some women.”

“I find him so.”

“You haven’t known him long, have you?”

“Oh, dear me, yes,” she said calmly. “We met six years ago. As i t happened, he saved my life.”

He looked at her suspiciously as though he suspected she was pulling his leg.

“He never mentioned it,” he said.

“Very likely not He wouldn’t advertise his own heroic deeds.”

“Was it so heroic?”

“Oh, yes. I nearly drowned—along this bit of coast here, it was.”

“You can only have been a kid. Have you kept up all these years?”

“I was fourteen,” she said firmly. “And now I think we’ve talked quite enough about how Bart and

I met. You had better go along to the library and have your sherry.”

Bart was lying back in a chair by the fire smoking his pipe. He had already changed his

professional clothes for something more comfortable. Lucy thought he looked tired.

“Help yourself—and Lucy, too,” he said, nodding towards the tray of decanters and glasses.

“You’re late tonight, Paul.”

“Well, it was rather an occasion—the new bride and all,” Paul replied, pouring sherry into twoglasses and handing one to Lucy.

“Yes, indeed, let’s both drink to her,” Bart said, raising his own glass.



She smiled at them both a little nervously. It was both pleasant and embarrassing to be toasted.

“If you want to take more time off in the future you can, now Lucy’s here to take charge,” said

Bart. “There will be no need for you to stay after lunch if you want to get away.”

Paul lost color, and he swallowed his sherry at one gulp and helped himself to another.

“Is that your tactful way of breaking the ice? Are you wanting to get rid of me?” he asked a little

truculently.

Bart’s black eyebrows rose in surprise.

“Good heavens, no, my dear fellow!” he protested mildly. “I only thought you might be glad of

your afternoons free. The question of pay, I may add, would remain the same.”

“I, see. Well, thank you. I’ll think about it.”

“You could, possibly, find part-time work elsewhere in the afternoons which would help

expenses.”

“Thanks for the hint. I’ll have to consider it.”

“It’s entirely as you like, of course,” the older man assured him.

“Thanks,” Paul said again, and putting his empty glass back on the tray, muttered a goodnight

to each of them and left the room.

“Put my foot in it, did I?” Bart said, but he did not sound much perturbed.

“I think he misunderstood you,” said Lucy, finishing her sherry slowly. “Perhaps he’s sensitive

because he hasn’t got much money.”

“Paul isn’t really the sensitive kind, you know,” he said. “Still, perhaps I gave him a wrong

impression. I gather you like my young relative.”

“I’ve only known him a day,” she said cautiously.

“You had only known me fourteen days when you married me,” he retorted. She was silent, and

he shot her a wry little look of commiseration.



“Run along and get ready for dinner,” he said, and his voice was suddenly dry. “Tonight we ’ll

have that twice postponed evening together and retire to bed like a respectable married couple.”

III

Dinner, however, was scarcely a sparkling success. Bart sat silent and preoccupied at the

head of the long table, drinking his wine abstractedly, frowning a little when Lucy declined to

have her own glass filled. Was he, she wondered, searching vainly for a topic of conversation,

just as she was, and finding his mind a blank? She had a frightening vision of their future; a vista

of endless meals together, two strangers who had nothing to say to each other, with Smithers in

the background making an uneasy third.

“You’re not eating, Lucy,” Bart said abruptly, and she became guiltily aware that he had

already finished and was waiting for her. She gobbled her food like a greedy child, aware that

Smithers was hovering disapprovingly to snatch away her plate, and in her haste she knocked

over a wine glass.

“Don’t choke yourself,” said Bart mildly. “Smithers, give Mrs. Travers half a glass of wine.”

“No, thank you,” she said nervously, but the wine had already been poured and she did not like

it.

He saw the small grimace of distaste as she took a sip and said with a touch of impatience:

“You must learn to appreciate good wine, my dear, it’s the natural accomplishment to good

food. No Frenchman would dream of not marrying the two.”

It seemed to Lucy as If the ghost of Marcelle leaned over her shoulder, sharing that glass of

wine, taking it finally from her and gently pushing her from the place she had usurped at Bart’stable. It was of her that he had been thinking, of course, throughout that silent meal, and Lucy

knew that if the occasion was strange for her, it also was strange for him, the first meal shared in

that house with another woman for seven years.

She was unaware that she was gazing at him a little distractedly over the rim of her glass and

that her eyes seemed wide and troubled in the candlelight, making him move uneasily.

“Don’t finish it if you really dislike it,” he said kindly, and she put the glass down carefully

beside her.

“It isn’t that—” she began, but could not, after all, voice her thoughts. Smithers was out of the



room fetching the next course, but it was not possible to express a more intimate opinion.

“What is it, then? Am I proving a dull host?”

That, of course, was what he was and always would be; her host and never her husband.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Tell me about some of your cases, Bart. I’m very ignorant about

orthopaedic surgery.”

“Bones,” he said, smiling at her brave attempt to make conversation. “I don’t think you would

find it a very interesting subject.”

Smithers came back into the room and they both fell silent again. It was a relief when the meal

ended and they repaired to the library for coffee, but Lucy wondered how the rest of the eveningcould possibly be spent. She must, she knew, be an unwarrantable intrusion on his privacy, a

guest in his house who should find an excuse to go to her room as soon as the meal was

finished.

“Are you going to work?” she asked with a glance at the pile of correspondence on his desk.

“Not tonight, I think,” he replied, stirring his coffee lazily. “You seem nervous, Lucy.”

“Not exactly nervous,” she said, “but—but I think you’re finding all this a little awkward, aren’t

you?”

“Are you?”

“Yes, I suppose so. I hadn’t realized, you see—I mean I—I just don’t want to be in the way.”

He passed her his cup for some more coffee and said a little wearily, “Look, my dear, I think we

had better get things clear. I’ve married you and you have the rights of mistress of this house.

You mustn’t feel in the way, neither must you be too humble. I won’t, I’m afraid, be much of a

companion for you, but the security of my home is yours and anything I can do to make life easy

for you, well, you have only to ask.”

“Thank you,” she said, handing him back his replenished coffee cup. “I’m humble, you know,

only in the sense of feeling inadequate. You didn’t want to marry me, did you?”

“I would hardly have done so if I’d had objections, would I?” he replied with a lift of the

eyebrows.



“I don’t know. You ’d do most things for Pierre’s sake, I think. Only why didn’t you just employ

me as nursery-governess?”

“It wouldn’t have been at all the same. You are part of the family now—Pierre’s stepmother. To

a young child that should mean a great deal. I am, I hope, bringing security to both of you.”

“And you?” she asked, and he smiled with a certain bitterness.

“I? I scarcely count any longer in the sense you mean,” he answered. “Don’t fret on my account,

Lucy. I’ve, had my life, and the future holds work and yet more work. There is a certain

satisfaction in proving useful to the community, you know.”

To Lucy at twenty it sounded sad and resigned and a denial of life itself. “But you’re not old,

Bart!” she cried. “You can still be of service to others, and—and have fun yourself.”

His black eyebrows met in a single line of displeasure. “Fun!” he exclaimed bitterly. “That’s all

your generation thinks of. You—Paul—have fun, you say. What do you suppose you mean by

that?”

She shrank back in her chair in dismay at his unexpected attack, and observed with distress

the harsh, bitter lines of his dark face. Such an innocent remark could upset him and provoke that

edged sarcasm.

“I—I don’t know. I think I only meant happiness—pleasure in another’s company,” she

stammered, and his mood changed again.

“Poor Lucy Lamb,” he said with gentleness. “You haven’t had a great deal of fun in your life,

have you? Forgive me for being a boor.”

She sighed, and he got up to remove the coffee tray out of the way, then leaned over her,

supporting his weight with one hand on the back of her chair.

“If we are to live together we must try to know each other, Lucy,” he said. “I would hate you to

have regrets so soon for that hasty action in marrying me.”

“Was it hasty?”

“I think so. I probably took advantage of you.”



“No,” she said, restraining an impulse to reach up and touch the dark cheek so close to hers. “I

knew what I was doing.”

“I wonder. Well, it’s too late for doubts now, isn’t it? We must both make the best of our

bargain.”

“You talk,” said Lucy bleakly, “as if it were you who was having the doubts.”

“Only on your behalf.” He straightened up and stood looking down at her. She seemed very

small to him, curled up in the big chair. Until he had seen her with Paul that afternoon he had not

appreciated either her youth or her individuality. “Try to bear with me, my dear. I’m away from

home a good deal and Paul can be trusted to brighten the days for you.”

She glanced at him under her lashes. Was he deliberately relying on his cousin to provide thecompanionship which he felt himself unable to offer, or did he just not care?

“As you pointed out to him earlier, there’s no need for him to remain here in the afternoons,”

she said.

“True, but I think I hurt his feelings all the same. Paul can be touchy, and it ’s a break for him to

get away from the old aunt in Merrynporth. She brought him up and spoilt him abominably and

now he’s saddled with her.”

“What is she like?” Lucy asked curiously.

Paul had not mentioned that he lived with an aunt; he had not, in fact, given her any indication

of his background.

“I haven’t seen her for years,” Bart answered carelessly. “One of those foolish, clinging women,

I’ve always imagined, the kind a young man of Paul’s type has difficulty in breaking away from.”

“What will he do when Pierre is old enough for school?” said Lucy, and saw the little irritable

crease come and go between his eyebrows.

“That’s a long way off,” he answered shortly. “He can, if necessary, be educated at home until

he’s ready for his public, school.”

She was immediately diverted from her mild interest in Paul’s affairs.

“But you’ll send him to a preparatory school first, surely?” she said.



“Not necessarily. I have a lot of leeway to make up with my son.”

“But, Bart, it wouldn’t be fair! To live here for the next six or seven years shut up with the three

of us and then find himself pitchforked into the utterly strange life of a big school—why, it would

be cruel!”

She could see him freezing into the familiar unapproachable mood which could accuse her,

without words, of impertinence.

“My plans for Pierre are not yet made,” he said coldly. “You and Paul, between you, can cope

with the early years, I imagine. When I’ve reached other conclusions I will let you know.”

She was silent, accepting the implied rebuke. He was, she thought, becoming dangerously

near to turning into a crank where his son was concerned, and she resolved to ask Paul if there

were any children in the neighborhood who might be encouraged to visit Polvane and play with

the little boy. Pierre was already strange and unchildlike for his seven years.

Bart had returned to his chair and was leafing through the latest issue of The Lancet, the

conversation forgotten, and Lucy sat listening to the sound of the breakers and the rising wind,

thinking how desolate this house must be in winter. She thought of many things, growing sleepy

as she stared into the fire; of old Miss Heap and her cats and her endless economies, of the

matron of St. Minver’s who had come to her wedding, of Gaston and the extraordinary Smithers,

and the unknown aunt who tied Paul to her apron strings. So many unfamiliar faces in such a

short space of time, and only one to express affection for her, the little boy for whose sake she

had joined her life to a stranger’s.

“What are you thinking about?” Bart’s voice cut suddenly into her thoughts, making her jump.

He was watching her over the top of his horn-rims and his eyes were quizzical as if he had readher reflections for himself.

“Nothing,” she said, feeling guilty of intrusion. “The wind seems to be getting up.”

“Well, it’s only March still. We get strong gales along this bit of coast. You were half asleep.

Why don’t you go to bed?”

“Perhaps I will,” she said, wondering if this was his way of signifying that he desired his

solitude.

“You said,” she surprised herself by reminding him, “that we would retire to bed like a



respectable married couple.”

He removed his glasses deliberately.

“Did I? Well, that was a figure of speech, of course.”

“Of course.” She had risen to her feet and stood now, blushing at the enormity of the

suggestion her remark must have implied. She did not know how she was expected to bid him

goodnight and, in her confusion, politely offered him a hand to shake.

“How absurd you are!” he laughed unexpectedly and, taking her hand, pulled himself up out of

his chair. “I wonder what you’d say if I took you up on that reminder.” He held her hand firmly

between his own and she blinked up at him dumbly. As usual, his change of mood perplexed

and troubled her.

“Don’t worry,” he said, watching her expressive face, “I was only joking.”

“Of course,” she said again. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Lucy Lamb,” he replied, releasing her. “I’ll be up later, but don’t trouble to lock your

door.”

She closed the library door softly behind her and stood for a moment looking up into the

shadows which gathered in the curve of the staircase. Once, Marcelle had run up those stairs,

her high heels clicking light-heartedly on the stone, and prepared for bed with loving care,

awaiting the coming of her husband; or perhaps they had gone up together, he with his arm

about her, his laughter mingling with hers, for she had been gay, of that Lucy was sure. Her

broken English would charm him and her beauty, would for ever guard her from loneliness ...

With a small, nostalgic sigh, Lucy slowly began to climb the stairs to bed.



CHAPTER FOUR

I

THE gales of which Bart had spoken persisted with little cessation for the rest of March. Lucy

became used to the sound of the wind tearing at the house, the noise of banging doors and

shutters and the sudden flaring of the lamps, but it seemed to emphasize the solitude of Polvane.

Bart had no visitors; the tradesmen only called once a week, and, so early in the year, it was rare

to meet anyone walking on the headland. Often it was too rough for Pierre to take his daily

exercise, and then Lucy and Paul and the boy were isolated in the schoolroom.

In the mornings she left them strictly alone, for, as Paul pointed out, lessons were his affair and

she would only prove a distraction. Lucy agreed, thinking that he himself was rather like a small

boy jealous of his rights, but she was grateful to him for the companionship he put at her disposal

for the rest of the day. Bart was seldom at home until late in the evening, and, so far, Paul had

shown no signs of following his cousin’s suggestion that he should in future consider his

afternoons to be free.

“Well, in a sense I’m taking him at his word,” he told Lucy with charming impudence, “but I

choose to spend my time with you. What is there to occupy me in Merrynporth?”

“Part-time work, perhaps, as Bart suggested.”

“Nothing worth considering in that one-horse little place. I prefer to share your company and

your responsibilities here.”

“My responsibilities?”

With Pierre, naturally. The house and your husband are outside my province.”

Lucy sighed. She had no responsibilities in the house, as he very well knew. She had tried to

assert her position as mistress of Polvane to the extent of arranging menus and enquiring what

provisions might be needed on the next order, but her daily visits to the kitchen were not

welcomed. Gaston was polite, but made it clear that the choosing of menus had been left in his

hands ever since la pauvre madame had been taken by the good God, and Smithers was

shocked to suppose that anyone but himself should have the task and satisfaction of ordering



from the local tradespeople.

“I feel so useless,” she told Paul. “Besides, they resent me.”

“Are they rude?”

“N-no, but they make me feel they have secret thoughts going on behind their blank faces.”

“Haven’t we all? Cheer up, Lucy—most girls would be delighted to have no chores to do in

these servantless days.”

“I suppose so, only—well, one does like to be more than just a figurehead in one’s own house.”

He looked at her shrewdly then and asked softly, “Are you only a figurehead?”

“With the servants, I meant,” she said quickly, and felt furious with herself when he replied

suavely,

“But naturally. Who else could you have meant?”

He had a disconcerting habit of catching her unawares, or perhaps it was merely that she was

unguarded in her speech, but it was difficult not to be natural, shut up for long hours at a time, withsomeone who was gay and charming and of one’s own generation.

“Is that why you married Bart—to play at housekeeping and being the lady of the manor?” he

asked lightly, and she frowned upon him fiercely, hoping it would remind him that although their

acquaintance had ripened with the swift growth of propinquity, he was still her husband’s

employee.

“No good!” he said with his quick, disarming grin. “You aren’t cut out for haughty displeasure,

Lucy Locket, and you mustn’t mind if I’m curious. You and the great Bartlemy Travers don t seem

at all suited at first glance.” She looked at him sharply. It was the first time she had heard him refer

to Bart with the hint of a sneer, and she did not like it.

“Your opinion on the point is hardly important, is it?” she retorted coolly, and he made a small

grimace.

“You’re so right, of course,” he replied with a conciliatory smile, but his bold eyes ran over her

with a glint of hidden amusement.



“You look quite delightful in that new, zipped-up thing-ammy, I flatter myself that particular

garment was my selection,” he said, and, despite herself, she laughed at his complacency, but

also in gratitude.

Bart had remembered that she had told him she had no trousseau and sent her off to the shops

with a credit to draw on which had made her eyes grow round with wonder. The bus service into

St. Minver was sparse and erratic, and in the end Paul had run her into the town in his small,

ancient sports car and insisted on supervising her purchases. It had all been gay and delightful,

and only Lucy had felt embarrassed when Paul had been mistaken for her bridegroom.

“But naturally,” he had said, “a nice-looking young couple, and the lady wearing a brand new

wedding ring—what can you expect?”

Only once had she persuaded Bart to accompany her, and the occasion had not been a

success. He had sat, looking bored and disinterested, while she tried on clothes and invited his

approval, and the pleasure went from the day as he remembered Marcelle. Marcelle would never

have taken her husband shopping in a small country town with little to offer. She would have sent

to Paris and London and held her dress parades at home demanding his attention, teasing him if

the bills were too high. Lucy remembered him now, writing cheques which to her seemed

enormous, replying impatiently to her protestations:

“Good heavens, child, you have to be clothed, don’t you? If you’re satisfied with what this place

can produce, then forget the rest.”

“But I’d like to say thank you,” she said shyly. “I—I’ve never had such lovely clothes in all my

life.”

His face, softened into gentleness as he looked down at her.

“Haven’t you, Lucy?” he said. “St. Minver’s shopping facilities can hardly be the answer to the

highest feminine dreams, I imagine, but if you are pleased, then so am I.” For the first few

evenings she had worn her new frocks proudly and a little self-consciously, expecting some

comment from him, but when none was forthcoming, she concluded that either he did not notice

or, for him, the matter had no importance. It was Paul who supplied the balm and, strangely

enough, Smithers, who checked over frothy piles of underclothes and put them tenderly away.

“Very nice, if I may say so, madam—very nice, too,” he said, inspecting the new bed-jacket, the

lack of which he had so much deplored. She had risen a trifle in his estimation, she thought, as

he helped her on with it each morning, for despite her intention of coming down to breakfast, he



kept her firmly in her room. The late Mrs. Travers, he told her reproachfully, would never have

dreamed of appearing for breakfast at the hour the master took it, but Lucy privately thought that

he and Gaston conspired to keep her upstairs in order to avoid any interference in the running of

the house. The two servants, she discovered, indulged in periodic quarrels. Gaston would

gesticulate and give vent to a flood of Gallic invective and Smithers would reply in kind according

to whatever role he fancied himself in at the moment. At first, alarmed by the disturbance, Lucyhad tried to intervene, when they promptly banded together against her. They were, she found

later, excellent friends and merely considered she was spoil ing their amusement in trying to make

peace.

“Tell me,” she asked Paul, “did this sort of thing go on in Marcelle’s time?”

“She would have encouraged it, I don’t doubt,” he replied, looking amused. “I imagine she and

Gaston, at any rate, found Polvane pretty dull.”

“Did they not entertain, even then?”

“Oh, yes, I believe so, but the neighborhood can’t have been exactly inspiring to a torch singer

from a French cabaret.”

“Torch singer?” repeated Lucy, wrinkling her forehead.

“Yes, didn’t you know? She sang in various nightclubs in Paris before Bart married her, and led

a pretty gay life, so one deduces.”

“She must,” said Lucy simply, “have loved him very much to give i t all up.”

“Well, that’s a point of view,” he said cocking an eyebrow at her. “I never knew her, of course. I

was barely twenty when she died.”

The picture of Marcelle was becoming clearer, and with it, the measure of her husband’s

desolation at her death. He would, thought Lucy, bear a disproportionate sense of guilt in that he

had, unwittingly, been responsible. She could understand his dislike of the drawing-room with its

collection of china and bric-a-brac, the stiff Empire furniture and the painted piano she had

brought from France, and she wondered, sometimes, what had become of the portrait which had

hung over the mantelpiece. Did it lie, forgotten, in some cellar or attic, or had it been sold to a

collector who could never be haunted by a face he had not known?

Sometimes, when she sat alone with Bart in the evenings, Lucy would be tempted to speak of



Marcelle, but her courage always failed her. She was his wife, but she had no rights of trespass;

she, as much as Paul, was virtually his employee, and only their legal tie permitted her to share

his roof and his table, but never his thoughts.

Their evenings had settled now into a routine. He would work at his desk while she read or

sewed; often he was called out and she would dine alone and go early to bed because there was

no reason to wait up. Sometimes if he came home unexpectedly for tea to find her laughing with

Paul he would tend to regard her a little thoughtfully, and once he observed:

“You seem to get on well with my young relative. You have much in common, perhaps?”

“I don’t think so,” Lucy replied, considering, “but he’s gay and young and someone to talk to.”

He frowned.

“You find it lonely here?”

“Not really. I’ve never had many friends.”

“And in Paul you have found one?”

“Perhaps. Do you mind?”

“Why on earth should I?” He leaned forward in his chair, his hands loosely clasped between his

knees, and regarded her gravely.

“I realize, Lucy, that I’m little enough of a companion for you,” he said. “I can only be grateful to

Paul for relieving the monotony. After all, fond as you are of Pierre, a small boy of seven can ’t

offer much in the way of companionship. You should get out more.”

“The weather’s been so rough,” she said evasively, and wondered if he imagined the headland

and the moor would be any less lonely than the house.

“It’s the first of April tomorrow. The gales should drop soon.”

“All Fools’ Day,” she said, and he countered a little sharply:

“Are you thinking tomorrow should really have been our wedding day?”

“No—no, of course not,” she said, bewildered. “Are you tired, Bart?”



He leaned back again in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Or perhaps I’m realizing that I haven’t been very fair to you.”

She tucked her feet under her, carefully spreading the full skirt of one of the new frocks, and he

smiled at the gesture. She looked very young with a ribbon tied round her hair accentuating the

childish curve of her forehead.

“That’s nonsense,” she said with surprising severity, “I think you only say these things because

you don’t know how to talk to me.”

“What do you mean?” he exclaimed, sounding quite startled.

“Well, you don’t do you?” she continued bravely. “I’m a—a sort of necessary appendage. I don’tknow how to talk to you, either.”

“Good gracious me!” he said, running a nervous hand over his black head. “I assure you I don’t

think of you as an appendage, necessary or otherwise.”

“Don’t you, Bart? How do you think of me, then?”

“I really don’t know.” He sounded irritable and she slipped to the floor beside his chair. It was

always easier to talk to him in the firelight before the lamps were lit.

“Couldn’t you take us out on Sunday—just you and me and Pierre?” she said. “Paul’s not here

at week-ends. It’s the only time you have for getting to know your son.”

“And you, too, are you thinking?”

“Perhaps. You told me that if we are to live together we must learn to know one another.”

“So I did. You’re thinking, I suppose, I haven’t done much about it.”

“You’ve been very busy,” she said, and he leaned forward suddenly and cupped her chin in his

hand, tilting up her face.

“You’re a good child—a charming child. We must see what can be done about Sundays,” hesaid, but when the first Sunday came he had either forgotten or did not care to remember, and so

it was the next week-end and the next.



Lucy was not surprised. Such moments of intimacy were rare between them, and he was, she

was beginning to suspect, as untutored in the way to his son’s affections as the boy was to his.

II

In early April the gales still raged. There were, it was true, the odd sweet days of spring when

the sea was calm, and the bracken on the moor began to unfurl and the headland was bright with

the budding gorse, but it seemed to Lucy that for every still day there were three of wind and rain

and the roar of the breakers, and other nerves than hers were becoming frayed.

Smithers and Gaston shouted at each other when Bart was safely out of hearing, Pierre was

fractious and difficult, and even Paul seemed moody and picked a quarrel with Lucy one day

Sind took himself off immediately after luncheon. She was glad to see him go, and she

persuaded the boy to rest on his bed for the afternoon. The servants’ voices began again in the

hall and somewhere a shutter banged ceaselessly.

Lucy ran downstairs, her patience ended.

“Gaston! Smithers! Will you kindly stop this shouting and go about your business—the boy is

trying to sleep,” she said, forgetting her awe of them.

Immediately they began pouring out their grievances, Smithers relapsing into his natural

cockney, Gaston in a mixture of French and English which she had difficulty in understanding at

all. Had she not been so angry she would have wanted to laugh, for they looked and behaved

like a knock-about music-hall turn.

“Stop it, both of you!” she cried, stamping her foot at them. “As if it wasn’t enough to have all this

noise outside? I don’t care which of you ruined the bouillon— you’re the chef, Gaston, so it was

probably you.”

“Mais, non, non, non, non! It is this imbecile, asked to watch my bouillon for one little minute,

and lets it burn!” Gaston screamed.

“I assure you, madam—” began Smithers, reverting suddenly to his role of dignified butler, but

Lucy stamped her foot again.

“Enough” she snapped. “And for goodness’ sake one of you go and stop that shutter banging.”

Gaston magically became wreathed in smiles.



“A-ha ... madame has temperament,” he said approvingly, and brandished a soup ladle under

Smithers’ nose. “Alors, Smeety, Allez-vous en! See to the shutter and I will make more bouillon...”

He drove Smithers before him back to the kitchen quarters and almost before the door closed,

Lucy heard him say:

“Tiens! Not so bad, la petite, hein?”

“Blimey!” said Smithers, cracking his finger-joints. “‘Oo does she think she is?”

Who, indeed, thought Lucy forlornly, her little spurt of temper, or perhaps it was only bravado,

deserting her suddenly; Lucy Lamb, neither flesh; fowl, nor good red herring. She went slowly

upstairs and tiptoed into Pierre’s room, but the boy was asleep, and she softly closed the door,

thankful that a possible scene had been averted.

She stood in the corridor wondering what to do with her afternoon, and the sound of the

swinging shutter was louder up here. It must belong to one of the upstairs rooms and she had

better find out which for herself, for Smithers, unless reminded again, would be sure to forget. She

began a systematic inspection of the rooms, remembering how Bart had flung open doors that

first day at Polvane and how many of them there were, empty, untenanted rooms, all with their

shutters firmly closed. She located the noise at once when she came to the other wing of the

house. It came from behind the door which Bart had passed without comment and never opened.

She had supposed the room to be some kind of store-room and had never had the curiosity to

explore on her own. The handle did not yield to her touch like the other doors, but there was a key

in the lock and she turned It. The recalcitrant shutter was here, certainly; she could see it

swinging against one of the windows, but she did not immediately go to fasten it, but stood on the

threshold looking about her in amazement.

This was no store-room. Even in the dim light occasioned by the shuttered windows, Lucy could

see that it was a bedroom, lavishly appointed and with every mark of ownership. Toilet

accessories stood on the dressing-table, cut glass jars and bottles, delicately fashioned brushes;

the bed was turned down and a little pair of feathered mules stood in readiness beside it.

Her discovery was so strange, so unexpected, that for a moment Lucy thought she must have

walked into one of Pierre’s fairy tales. She opened all the shutters to bring the room to life in

daylight and stood wide-eyed at what she saw. Pale carpet and satin drapes and a vast Empirebed with scrolls and elaborate adornments of gilt, and on the pillow a richly embroidered night-

dress case with the initials of M.T. Marcelle ’s ... this must have been the room she had shared

with Bart, the room he had omitted to show her, and just for a moment Lucy felt sickened. It was



morbid, out of character to keep it like this after seven years, with the bed even turned down for

the night, and Marcelle’s little mules waiting to be stepped into.

Lucy’s own reflection stared back at her from the many mirrored cupboards, curious and a little

shocked. All around her was the mute evidence of Bart’s love for his dead wife, the extravagant

lavishness which had gratified every whim, the bridal chamber which had been kept ever since

as a shrine. She opened the cupboards one by one and stood fingering the clothes that hung

there, outmoded now, perhaps, but fashioned of exquisite materials. She thought of her own new,

but far more humble wardrobe and the lack of interest he had displayed in it, and wondered if he

came up here to touch those other garments and smell the sweet stale perfume they still gave out.

“What are you doing in here?” His voice suddenly rapped out the question behind her, and she

wheeled round, her heart in her mouth. She had not heard his step in the corridor, so absorbed

had she been, and so loud the noise of the wind, and now she could think of no answer. He stood

in the doorway, his eyes blazing with anger, and she knew, as she had always done, that he was

a man of whom she could be afraid.

“Did you never read the story of Bluebeard when you were a child?” he said when she did not

speak. “I purposely didn’t show you this room, Lucy, because you have no concern with it. It’s not

very pleasant to come home unexpectedly and find you prying and spying.”

She felt frightened, but she said with a valiant effort to steady her voice:

“I was doing neither. A shutter was banging somewhere and I came to find out where. You

should have told me that there was, as in Bluebeard’s house, one room I must not enter.”

“It hardly seemed necessary,” he replied with icy coolness. “The room is never used.”

“Someone dusts it,” she said with a stubbornness born of fright. “It—it’s morbid, Bart—like

Queen Victoria and Albert.”

“Very likely,” he retorted sarcastically, and shut the cupboard doors with a series of bangs. “It

might interest you to know that whoever’s handiwork this is, it’s none of mine. Do you take me for

a psycho?”

Now that he was close to her she could see the angry whiteness about his mouth and she

realized that the room’s appearance was as much of a shock to him as it had been to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, because she thought apology for something was needed, but he paid no



attention but went from window to window, fastening the shutters, and she watched the outlines of

the furniture become slowly shrouded again in the gloom.

“Now that you’ve discovered the secrets of Bluebeard’s chamber, perhaps you’ll oblige me by

forgetting it and not referring to it again,” he said, closing the door behind them both, locking it and

pocketing the key. He took no further notice of her and walked quickly into the main corridor. She

could hear his steps descending the stairs, hurried, purposeful and somehow angry.

Considerably shaken by the encounter, Lucy went Into Pierre’s room to get him ready for tea.

The boy was awake and held out his arms to her. Flushed from sleep, he was pliant and

responsive to her quick embrace. The fractiousness of the morning had vanished.

“Dear Baba,” he said, nuzzling his head into her shoulder. “I have missed you.”

“While you were asleep?” she asked, smiling in gratitude for his need of her.

“Because I was asleep. I could not dream of you,” he insisted, and she laughed.

“Let me make you tidy. Your father is home,” she said, and instantly he frowned.

“I do not want him. I want only you.”

“You must behave nicely, my poppet. He will expect to take tea with us.”

“I do not want him,” the boy repeated stubbornly, and Lucy knelt beside the bed, holding his

small hands in hers in an unconscious gesture of pleading.

“Oh, Pierre, don’t be difficult today—not today,” she begged. “Your father is upset. He needs

gentleness—understanding.”

“Papa is not well?” he asked with a certain interest.

“He’s well but—a little unhappy, I think,” Lucy replied, seeking for a way to enlist the boy’s

sympathy, but Pierre only smiled with supreme indifference.

“Papa is never unhappy,” he declared firmly. “Grownup people aren’t.”

“Indeed they are,” she said indignantly, impatient of a child’s inevitable lack of understanding,

then added with guile: “You will make me very unhappy if you are not nice to your father today.”



“You?” His great black eyes examined her curiously, then he smiled with obliging charm.

“Then I will be nice, to please you, Baba,” he said, adding firmly, “But only if you will sing to me.”

“Very well,” said Lucy, “only you shouldn’t bargain. You should sometimes give without

expecting a reward. What shall I sing?”

“Not The Turtle Dove—it is too triste. Sing the one about the lily.”

She sang as she brushed his hair:

“Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow before rude hands had touch’d it;

Have you mark’t but the fall of the snow before the earth hath smutch’t it;

Have you felt the wool of beaver or swan’s down ever,

Or smelt of the bud of the bryer, or the nard in the fire:

Or have tasted the bag of the bee?

O so whyte ... O so soft ... O so sweet, so sweet is shee....

The words of the song rather than the air had appealed to him; he himself already knew them by

heart.

“Again,” he commanded.

“Oh, Pierre!”

“Please,” he said, his head on one side.

He was ready for, tea now, so she sat in a low rocking-chair beside him, and sang the song

again; Neither of them heard the door open, but as Lucy reached the last lines, Pierre looked over

her shoulder and put his finger to his lips, and she turned to see Bart standing in the doorway.

“What was that?” he asked, and his eyes lingered with a strange expression on his son and his

young wife.

She glanced at him under her lashes. Such a short while ago he had looked at her in anger and

spoken with icy displeasure. A small part of her fear of him still remained, but she answered



calmly enough.

“The words are by Ben Jonson, the music anonymous,” she said. “Pierre has a fondness for it.”

“It’s like Baba,” the boy said, and his father looked at him with attention.

“So it is,” he said softly. “You must sing it for me again sometime, Lucy. You have a charming

little voice.”

“I don’t lay claim to a voice at all. I’ve never been trained,” Lucy answered, remembering that

Marcelle had been considered good enough for opera and must often have sat at the painted

piano in the drawing-room and sung for him.

“Perhaps that has its advantage,” he said obliquely. “I came to tell you tea is ready. Shall we godown?”

Pierre ran on ahead, and Bart, as Lucy passed him, put a hand on her shoulder.

“Am I invited to tea?” he asked.

“In your own house!” she exclaimed.

“Perhaps I thought today I should be in disgrace,” he said, and she knew that this was his way

of apologizing for his earlier anger.

“It will be nice, just the three of us,” she said. “Paul went home after lunch.”

“That’s unusual, or has he taken my advice and found himself a part-time job?”

“I don’t think so. We quarrelled and he went off in a huff.”

He still had his hand on her shoulder, and he stood looking down at her with a rueful

expression.

“How young you sound!” he said. “Only children quarrel. What was it about?”

“I don’t remember,” she replied, and added with the grave simplicity that was beginning to

charm him, “One can quarrel with anyone, Bart, only some quarrels matter and others don’t.”

“Very true, of course,” he returned with a smile, and they heard Pierre’s voice shouting



impatiently from the foot of the stairs that the crumpets were getting cold.

III

Afterwards, Lucy wondered if that strange day marked a change in the relationship between

the boy and his father. She did not think, as tea progressed, that Pierre was making a conscious

effort to behave in deference to her wishes, or that Bart had more ease of manner with his son. It

was, curiously enough, as if, in the young tutor’s absence, the three of them could settle to a

congenial hour without making Bart seem a stranger in his own home. Encouraged by Lucy,

Pierre chattered naturally to his father, and Bart made a visible effort to respond to the boy’s

unusual communicativeness. Only once did he become impatient when Pierre lapsed into

French and was ordered sharply to speak English.

“Why do you discourage him?” asked Lucy, who had often wondered.

“Because I don’t want him to grow up speaking the language with Gaston’s provincial accent,”

he replied. It was, she supposed, a reasonable enough explanation, but, with her intuitions

newly quickened by the discovery of Marcelle’s room and personal possessions, Lucy

suspected that hearing the boy give expression to his mother’s native tongue was too sharp a

reminder.

“Pierre, you must remember,” she said, hoping that Bart’s rebuke would not upset the new

found felicity of the evening.

For a moment Pierre looked mutinous, then he smiled happily.

“I will try to remember—for you, Baba,” he said.

“Not for me—for your father,” Lucy said, and with a quick flutter of his long lashes, the boyamended:

“For Papa, too.”

“Thank you, Pierre,” said Bart gravely, and Pierre looked pleased, as though he had conferred

a favor.

As the boy’s bed-time approached, Bart glanced at the clock and, observing that Smithers was

late, rang the bell, which was answered by Gaston.

“Smeety is indisposed,” he pronounced with a look of reproach at Lucy which she did not



understand. “You speak severely and hurt his feelings, m’sieur. He has a migraine and moi, I

prepare the dinner. Madame will, perhaps, give the little one his bath?”

Pierre gave a shriek of delight. He, no less than Lucy, enjoyed the ritual of bath nights on the

rare occasions when Smithers would relinquish his rights. Gaston’s offended exit was lost in the

general uproar.

“Come and help,” said Lucy impulsively, turning to Bart. It seemed to her a golden opportunity

for fostering this budding intimacy between father and son.

“Oh, I hardly think—” Bart began awkwardly, but Pierre danced up and down, enchanted by the

novelty. He dearly loved an audience.

“Yes, Papa, come!” he cried. “You do not know the games that Baba invents with the boats andthe little ducks.”

“Very well,” said Bart, looking rather surprised at his own capitulation. “You two make a start

and I’ll be up in ten minutes.”

When, later, he joined them in the bathroom he was sharply reminded of his own childhood. In

the same huge bath with its old-fashioned mahogany surround he had been washed by his

nurse and played the same games with boats and celluloid ducks, splashing as Pierre now

splashed, shouting as Pierre shouted, blissfully unaware of the cares and problems of his elders.

How strange, he thought, that after thirty or more years he should be so swiftly transported back

to childhood.

“Don’t sit on the edge of the bath, Bart, you’ll get wet,” Lucy warned him. She was swathed in a

large apron, her sleeves rolled up, soap-suds clinging to the hair which fell over, her forehead in

charming disorder.

He sat on one of the old cork-bottomed chairs and watched her curiously. Not much more than

a month ago he had married her and she had seemed an inexperienced rather timid young girl,

ill-equipped for the role into which he had thrust her, but had a personality of her own, a gift of

adaptability that made her unconscious mistress of certain situations.

“What have I married?” he enquired softly under cover of Pierre’s noisy splashing.

For a moment she looked startled, then she leaned over the side of the bath to give one of the

floating toys a push and hide her flushed face from him.



“A nursemaid for your son,” she answered gaily. “That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Put like that it sounds a little crude, and I don’t think it’s quite what I’ve got, either,” he replied.

“Look at me, Lucy.”

She raised her face and looked at him wordlessly. His moods were too extreme for her

comprehension. Only a few hours ago he had made her afraid with his icily controlled anger,

now he was, regarding her with a strange uncertain tenderness, as if she both warmed and

puzzled him. He even looked a little embarrassed.

“I used to be bathed in this tub when I was Pierre’s age, with just the same toys and games,” he

said quickly to hide his awkwardness. “It sends me back years. We don’t know then how secure

and loved we are, do we?”

“I suppose not,” she said. “I never had a nurse, though, and I don’t remember toy ducks and

things. I think my aunt wasn’t a very imaginative woman where children were concerned.”

“No toys at all—not even a woolly lamb?” There was an unexpected twinkle in his eye.

“Toys, of course, but no lamb. That wouldn’t have occurred to Aunt Maud.”

“Where then do you get your understanding of children, or is it, perhaps, a natural antidote to

your own upbringing?”

“Perhaps,” she said, lifting Pierre out of the bath to dry him. “I’ve always loved children, having

had no brothers and sisters myself. I’ve always wanted them.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I should have thought of that.”

She paused in her towelling, aghast at the careless implication of her words, to meet his grave

eyes, but Pierre, aware that he had ceased to be the centre of attention for too long, let out a

shout and made a sudden lunge at his father with his wet fists. It was a spontaneous mark of

approval and appropriation as though he had accepted Bart along with Lucy as his especial

slave.

Lucy silently blessed him for his oblivious naturalness and concentrated her entire attention on

the remaining preparations for bed.

“And you will both tuck me up, yes?” Pierre cried excitedly, as Lucy tied his dressing-gown

over his blue pyjamas, but either Bart had lost interest, or had enough of unfamiliar domesticity.



He was, he said, going down to the library for a quiet pipe before dinner. Lucy could see to the

tucking up. Just for a moment the boy looked disappointed, then he turned to Lucy with the

disconcerting complacency of all children.

“Never mind,” he said indifferently. “Baba will sing to me about the white lily, won’t you, Baba?

I wish Smithy had a migraine every evening.”

Dinner was pleasantly informal, for although Gaston brought in the dishes, Bart and Lucy

waited on themselves. It was only then that Lucy remembered to enquire seriously as to the state

of Smithers’ health.

“A fit of the sulks more likely,” Bart replied shortly. “He’ll be all right tomorrow.”

She remembered the cook saying that Smithers’ feelings had been hurt and enquired withcasual amusement if Bart had been reprimanding him.

“Yes,” he replied, and she looked up at the familiar note of harshness in his voice. Her eyes

were enquiring in the candle-light, but she asked no questions and he said deliberately:

“I had wished this matter to be closed between us, but in fairness to myself I have to tell you

that it was Smithers who was responsible for the state of Marcelle’s room. I hadn’t set foot in it for

years.”

“Smithers?” She sipped the wine which she now drank nightly to please him, wrinkling her

forehead in perplexity.

“With his extraordinary mania for histrionics he’s evidently been weaving his own dramas up

there. I’m having the stuff cleared out. I thought it had been done long ago.”

“Oh!” said Lucy, and wished she had not enquired. She had no desire for Marcelle’s ghost to

disturb her newfound serenity.

“Shouldn’t that please you?” he asked impatiently.

“I—I don’t know. As you said yourself, I have no concern with that part of your life,” she replied

gently.

They had reached the dessert stage and he began to peel an apple with the easy neatness

which always fascinated Lucy. She watched now as the skin unwound into a complete shining

spiral under his skilful fingers to fall in a delicate symmetrical pattern on his plate.



“I can never do that,” she said.

“Do what?” he answered absently, still pondering over her last remark.

“Peel an apple all in one. It looks so easy, but mine always ends in pieces.”

“Comes of carving people up,” he said with a grin, then regarded her thoughtfully.

“You’re a strange child,” he said. “You don’t conform to pattern at all.”

She looked enquiring.

“Is there a pattern?” she asked, without coquetry.

“Generally speaking, I should say. Women are demanding, I’ve found, and not content to be

excluded. Where have you learnt your wisdom, Lucy Baa-lamb?”

She sat there eating grapes and considering. She would have liked to tell him that such little

wisdom as she might be acquiring came largely from the rules he himself had set and which she

was trying most scrupulously to follow, but she was unsure what lay behind his observations.

“You can’t,” she said gently, “be excluded from something you have never shared.”

“I suppose not,” he said, but he sounded uncertain and sat observing her reflectively as if she

puzzled him.

“How long will you be satisfied with what I can offer you, Lucy?” he asked abruptly, and she

twisted uneasily in her chair. This dawning intimacy, the delicate probing beneath the superficial,

was disturbing.

“We made a bargain, Bart,” she answered carefully. “I have no reason for being dissatisfied

with my share.”

He sighed and pushed back his chair, and the light from the guttering candles gave his face a

strange expression.

“Unlike most women, you play fair,” he remarked with faint surprise. “Well, my dear, I hope I

won't give you cause to regret your bargain. I'm not sure that of the two of us I haven’t got the

better part.” He rose as he spoke and held out a hand to her. “Coffee in the library, and then I



must do some work. Should you like me to drive you to Tintagel, or somewhere, on Sunday to

make up for so many dull evenings?”

“Very much,” she said, but she knew in her heart that when Sunday came more important

matters would intervene or he would simply forget.

They settled for the evening, she by the fire with her sewing, he at his desk in a little pool of

lamplight. The wind had dropped at last, but the sound of the breakers rose and fell with their

familiar crescendo and diminuendo. Lucy stitched absently, her thoughts rising and falling with

the rhythm of the sea.

She looked up as she heard him give an exclamation of .impatience. He had taken off his horn-

rimmed glasses and was rubbing his eyes irritably.

“Tired?” she asked, and would have liked to coax him to sit beside her near the fire.

“No concentration tonight,” he replied. “I’ve an extra early start tomorrow, so I think I’ll go to

bed. Will you see to the lamps?”

“No, I’ll come up too,” she said, folding her work. “I feel sleepy now the wind has dropped.”

While he stacked his papers and then turned down the lamps, she pulled back the curtains and

stood looking out at the night. The moon was nearly full and the terrace lawns lay bathed in

radiance, the shadows sharp and clear where they dropped one below the other. It was beautiful

and rather strange after the incessant battling of the elements.

“Are you taking a more kindly view of our wild Cornish coast?” he asked, and she was aware

that he was standing close behind her, looking out over her head.

“It’s very beautiful,” she said. “I like your terraced lawns, Bart, they match the place, and you.”

“Do they? Abel tells me you want to grow flowers?” His hands rested lightly on her shoulders

and she leaned her head for a moment against his breast, then a small picture crept, unbidden,

into her mind of the flower-room and Marcelle singing her little French songs as she arranged

great bowls of garden blooms.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied hurriedly. “I didn’t know then—I mean—” She broke off in

confusion and felt his hands tighten with ungentle pressure on her shoulders.

“Don’t be so damn’ self-effacing, Lucy!” he exclaimed roughly. “Why the hell shouldn’t you



grow flowers if you want to? Give what orders you like, only don’t for God’s sake’, humor me!”

He let her go abruptly, and she turned, dismayed by the storm she had so unwittingly

provoked.

“I’m sorry,” she said, swallowing nervously. “I’ll talk to Abel in the morning. Are you going up

now?”

“Yes. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she said gently, and turned back into the room to collect her needlework before

following him to her lonely bed.



CHAPTER FIVE

I

BART was away for several days during the month of April. His consultations took him all over

the Duchy and often into the next county, and Lucy was becoming used to his curt voice over the

telephone informing her briefly that he would not be home that night. She was invariably

disappointed, and Paul would tease her gently, although his blue eyes held a speculative look.

“It’s a shame,” he said once. “You aren’t getting much of a break, are you?”

“What do you mean?” asked Lucy in surprise.

“Well, no outings, no honeymoon, even. Devotion to work can be carried too far.”

“That’s Bart’s affair,” said Lucy quietly. She had become so used to Paul as part of the

household that she was apt to forget that he, as well as the servants, probably guessed at the

true state of affairs between them.

“You can’t put me in my place as easily as that, Lucy Locket,” he said with engaging

impudence. “Bart has deputed me to amuse you in his absence, so you mustn’t mind if I

sometimes become personal. What shall we do today?”

It became a familiar question, and Lucy had to admit that she was grateful for the young man’s

company. Those vaguely suggested Sunday expeditions had never materialized, and it was

Paul who took her to Tintagel and Land’s End and treated her to lobster teas in the little fishing

town of Merrynporth where he lived. The town, with its steep cobbled streets and quayside

smelling of fish and seaweed and the fishermen’s tarred nets, fascinated her. She loved to

browse round in the junk shops buying anything odd or colorful that took her fancy, and Paul

would enquire with a grin if her pieces of junk were intended to share the cabinets which housed

Marcelle’s valuable collection of French china. He was a gay, diverting companion, but he would

not take Lucy to his home.

“Why? I’d like to see where you live,” she said, then wondered with embarrassment if he was

ashamed of it.

On one occasion he had hurried her into a nearby cafe, having seen his aunt on the other side



of the street, and when Lucy protested that she would like to meet Aunt Minnie, he replied

impatiently:

“For heaven’s sake why? She would freeze on to us for the rest of the afternoon and bore you

to tears with her senseless chatter.”

“Perhaps she’s lonely,” Lucy said, and wondered if she ought to call on Aunt Minnie, since her

nephew was employed at Polvane, but, when she suggested it, Paul at once extracted a

reluctant promise that she would not do so.

“My aunt has never been on visiting terms at Polvane,” he said. “She’d send Bart round the

bend for one thing. She’s a very silly, gossipy sort of woman who can keep nothing to herself,

and—” he gave her a sidelong glance—“I don’t imagine you want your and Bart’s affairs

broadcast half round Cornwall.”

Lucy frowned over the coffee which she did not want and which had undoubtedly come out of a

bottle.

“You don’t sound very fond of her,” she said, ignoring the innuendo in his last remark.

“One can’t command affection,” he retorted. “Were you fond of your aunt?”

“Yes, I think so. She was kind in her way, though we hadn’t much in common.”

“Aunt Minnie and I have nothing in common—nothing at all, and there you have it. You have no

conception, Lucy, how galling it is to be tied to a weak woman who won’t let you go. I have no

money and no prospects and with poor Aunt Minnie round my neck, no chance of ever cutting

loose.”

“You could get a better job,” she said gently, and saw his weak mouth twist into the lines of

discontent which so ill became it.

“My health has always been my handicap,” he said gruffly. “I had rheumatic fever badly as a

boy and it’s left me with a bit of a heart. They wouldn’t take me for National Service, you know.”

Her eyes were compassionate. He looked so healthy, so typical of the golden, clean-limbed

young heroes of fiction that it was difficult to think of him handicapped by health and a foolish,

clinging woman without the ability to help him.

“I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I—I hope Bart makes it worth your while.”



“Oh, he’s generous enough,” he answered carelessly. “Actually he pays me far more than the

job is worth, but it’s hardly a man’s occupation, acting nursemaid to a kid of seven, is it?”

“I suppose not. What will you do when Pierre goes to school?”

He looked round him uneasily, as if the buzz of feminine chatter and the rattle of crockery

suddenly irritated him.

“Has anything been said about that?” he asked, frowning.

“Only indirectly. I think Bart is still undecided whether to send him to a preparatory school first,

or not, but I think he should.”

“You’re not working against me, are you, Lucy?”

She looked surprised.

“Of course not, but Pierre’s future must be considered first. I think it would be unfair to the boy to

let public school life be his first introduction to the world at large. If he lives in seclusion at

Polvane until he’s thirteen or so, he’ll be utterly unprepared for the rough and tumble of school.”

“I advised you against a prep school.”

“You did?”

“Yes. You must have seen for yourself that Pierre and his father don ’t get on too well. I think

that if the boy is sent away too young, the gap will widen. Bart saw that point.”

She sat considering, an uneasy pucker between her eyebrows. There was some flaw in his

argument, she felt, but she could not put her finger on it.

“Don’t try to talk Bart into anything, my sweet,” he told her softly. “You won’t succeed, in any

case, if his mind’s made up.”

“I think we’d better be going,” she said a little flatly. The day which had begun, like so many

others, with a holiday spirit, seemed to be ending for Lucy with that uneasy sense of puzzlement

that was becoming familiar.

Her pleasure upon getting home to find that Bart had returned unexpectedly soon from a trip



which should have extended to another twenty-four house was so spontaneous that she forgot to

be shy with him.

“How pretty you look, and how young,” he observed, regarding her with fresh eyes. “My young

cousin evidently takes my instructions seriously.”

“Did you really tell him he was to amuse me when you weren’t here?” she asked, flushing at

his rare compliment.

“Why not? It relieves my conscience to know that you aren’t being neglected in my absence.”

“Have you got a conscience, Bart?” she asked, and he looked quite surprised to find she was

gently teasing him.

“Oh, yes, quite a considerable one,” he replied gravely. “Have you enjoyed your afternoon?”

“Y-es,” she said doubtfully. “We met Paul’s aunt—at least we didn’t, because he rushed me

into a cafe as soon as he saw her. He doesn’t seem to lead a very happy life, does he?”

“Is that what he tells you?”

“No, not in so many words. But this aunt—and his health—well, it must be tough when you’re

only twenty-six.”

His brows rose.

“There are tougher things in life,” he observed dryly. “So Paul’s been showing you the sights? I

hope you’re taking more kindly to the Duchy as a consequence.”

“I never disliked Cornwall,” she said mildly.

“Only Polvane?” he suggested, then smiled as he saw the look of consternation on her face.

“Never mind, Lucy, no one would blame you; your home wasn’t of your choosing, was it? I’m

going in to my consulting-room latish tomorrow morning, and I’ll give you a lift in to St. Minver, if

you like. You can have a prowl round the shops and buy yourself a new frock, or something.

Would you like that?”

It was his way of making amends for his negligence, she supposed, and wanted to assure him

that she expected nothing from him, but she only smiled and thanked him politely.



Breakfasting with him the next morning, she realized with surprise that it was the first time she

had partaken of that particular meal of the day with him, and he behaved a s she imagined all

husbands must, engrossed in the morning paper while he let his coffee get cold. Lucy poured it

away and filled the cup again and he looked up in some surprise at seeing her and asked why

she was down so early.

“You offered me a li ft in to St. Minver—remember?” she said, and he removed the glasses from

his nose with a rueful grin.

“So I did,” he said. “You were to find yourself something in the shops.”

“I don’t really need anything,” she said. “You’ve been very generous as it is.”

“It’s a husband’s duty to clothe his wife,” he told her severely. “And haven’t you found out yet,Lucy Baa-lamb, that the things you don’t need are the most fun to buy?”

“I didn’t,” Lucy said meekly, “think husbands understood that point of view.”

“Didn’t you, now? Well, perhaps you have something to learn as well as I.”

She smiled, taking simple pleasure in waiting on him, pouring his coffee, passing him toast and

marmalade, glad that there was no Smithers seeing attentively to his needs. Smithers had not yet

forgiven her for being the innocent cause of Bart’s fresh and uncompromising instructions

concerning the late mistress’s bed-room, and he still treated Lucy with offended dignity.

“It’s rather pleasant being waited on by you, Lucy,” Bart observed, but when she told him she

would be glad to do so every morning, he only frowned and retorted that most days there was no

time for chatter over the breakfast table.

He had little to say, either, as he drove at his usual breakneck speed into St. Minver. Lucy

would have liked to idle along the lanes this bright April morning, but Bart never had time or

inclination for dalliance, and he dropped her now in the town’s centre and drove away to his

consulting-rooms.

She stood for a moment in the little grey square feeling rather lost. It would have been nice, she

thought wistfully, to have had a date for coffee with a girl friend and exchange news and look in

shop windows together, but Miss Heap had not encouraged friendships and Lucy knew no one

in the town.

“Why, Lucy! Lucy Lamb—or should I now address you as Mrs. Travers?” a voice exclaimed,



and it took Lucy a moment to realize that the elderly woman who had stopped her was the

matron of the hospital. The only time Lucy ever remembered seeing Mary Morgan out of uniform

was at her wedding, nearly two months ago.

“How do you do, Matron?” she said, and suddenly knew an aching desire to hear news of the

children’s ward, to experience even at second hand the warmth and welcome of the ward andremember the shrill young voices chanting: “Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool ?”

“How are they all—the children?” she asked eagerly. “I suppose they are all a fresh lot, now.

Did the little girl with mastoids have to stay long? And how did the boy with the amputation

manage his artificial limb?”

Matron smiled, but her shrewd, rather tired eyes had unspoken questions of their own. She had

often, in the last two months, spared a thought for little Lucy Lamb and wondered how that

marriage was faring.

“You should come to see us, Lucy. You ’ll always have the freedom of the children’s ward. We

miss you,” she said.

“Do you—do you really?” Lucy sounded so surprised—and so highly gratified, too, that Mary

Morgan laughed.

“Indeed we do,” she said. “You have a way with children. Few of my more experienced nursing

staff can soothe a frightened child as you could. And now what of your favorite patient—little

Pierre?”

“He’s wonderful,” Lucy replied. “Quite strong again and much less nervy and temperamental,

but Bart will have told you, of course.”

“Your slant might be more accurate than his. These able medical men can often be very blind

when it comes to their own kith and kin, you know. Let’s go in here and have a cup of coffee,”

Matron said, and Lucy, in some surprise, followed her into a li ttle cafe.

Mary Morgan, although she could put the fear of God into her underlings, was an adept at

drawing individuals out. Lucy talked and the morning slipped away; tables filled up and emptied

again, but still they sat on in the bow window that over-looked the High Street, and Matron

watched the passers-by and did not appear to be listening very carefully.

“And what of you, Lucy? How are you making out with the distinguished Bartlemy Travers?”



she asked suddenly, and Lucy replied vaguely, stammering a little and leaving broken little

sentences to hang unfinished in the air.

Mary sighed sharply. She had always had a weakness for Lucy with her enquiring eyes and

gentle mouth and her unconscious plea that life should be good to her, and, watching the

stippled sunlight in the street, she was reminded of other springs, when she, like Lucy, had

hoped for much and been passed by.

“You’re not already regretting your hasty action, then?” she asked with a smile. “It was hasty,

you know.”

“But I thought, at the time, you approved, Matron.”

“Oh, yes, I approved, in the rather peculiar circumstances, but things don’t always work out aswe hope, you know. Perhaps you were too young, too inexperienced, and yet those very

qualities—” Mary broke off, leaving the sentence as unfinished as Lucy’s own.

“Bart should take you out more—introduce you to people,” she said briskly. “The doctor’s wives

are full of curiosity, you know. They would like to call.”

“Oh, no!” Lucy exclaimed with more honesty than tact. “He doesn’t want other women at

Polvane. He’s had no need for any social life, he says, and I—well, I’ve never known it.”

“Nonsense!” Mary said impatiently. “No one should be as self-sufficient as that. Get him to bring

you to the Hospital Ball on the first of May. It’s an annual affair, you know, and anyone connected

with the hospital is expected to put in an appearance.”

“I can’t,” said Lucy, looking a little dazed, “imagine Bart dancing.”

“Can’t you? Well, you don’t have to dance—just be gracious for an hour or so and then retire,

like royalty.”

Lucy flushed a little at the acid dryness in Matron’s voice, but her eyes were suddenly bright

and expectant.

“Oh, do you think —?” she began like a child with a vision of an almost unbelievable treat in

store, and Mary’s tired eyes softened. Once, long ago, she had looked like that, but the vision

had melted away in her too-eager grasp.

“Ask him,” she said, gathering up her handbag and shopping basket. “Look at him as you’re



looking at me now, and ask him. He always buys tickets, anyway.”

II

Bart had his consulting-rooms in one of the Regency crescents which graced the town with

their ‘curving rows of elegant houses, an Adam fanlight over each front door. Lucy had never

been there before and she would not have thought of visiting him unbidden now, had it not been

for the impulse of the moment, and the childish fear that all the tickets for the ball might be sold.

But when she had rung the bell and been admitted by an efficient receptionist whom she had

never seen before, she realized she was in another world, a world of clinical austerity far

removed from frivolities, a world of soft carpets and subdued voices and the impersonal

atmosphere of any professional waiting-room.

“Have you an appointment?” she was asked, and was immediately tempted to say she had

made a mistake in the address and go.

She heard herself replying with more assurance than she felt:

“I wondered if I could see my—my husband for a few moments when he’s free. I’m Mrs.

Travers.”

Behind her glasses, the elderly woman’s eyes looked their surprise, but she only said

cautiously, “Certainly, Mrs. Travers. Will you wait in here, pleased.”

Two women were talking in muted tones by an electric fire. They broke off to stare at her

curiously, then resumed their conversation, and Lucy sat on the edge of a chair and gazed about

her at the unfamiliar surroundings. This was Bart’s real world, she thought, a world to which

women might be admitted because, for him, they were merely case numbers. She began to feel

like a case number herself, as she waited, and was aware of the raised eyebrows of the two

women when the receptionist opened the door and said, “Mrs. Travers, please.”

Although she had driven in with him only that morning, for a moment Bart seemed like a

stranger. The dark clothes emphasized his height and the sombre furnishings of the room were a

fitting background for his grave regard. He had risen courteously to greet her, but he had about

him the impersonal air he would reserve for his patients, and Lucy felt chilled.

“What is it, Lucy? Have you run out of money?” he said.

She stood, twisting her gloves in her fingers, suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of



trespassing on his time with such triviali ties.

“No,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. I—I shouldn’t have come.”

He frowned at her quickly.

“I don’t imagine you came here for no reason at all. Did you want a lift home, later on? I don’t

quite know when I shall be free, and I’ve no time, I’m afraid, to offer you lunch.”

“Of course not. I—I didn’t come for that.”

He glanced at his watch impatiently.

“I can give you just three minutes,” he said, and she found herself stammering out her absurd

request with the desperate baldness of a cornered child.

His black eyebrows drew together in a straight, uncompromising line as he listened and she

saw his mouth tighten.

“Do you mean to tell me you’ve come here during my consulting hours just to ask me that?” he

said grimly.

“It was an impulse. I should have waited, I know, but I met Matron and—”

“Oh, so Mary Morgan’s put you up to this?”

“No, not exactly. I’m sorry, Bart. I’ll go away, now.”

He took her by the shoulders and swung her round to face the strong light from the window.

Her eyes looked frightened.

“You behave, sometimes, as if you thought me some kind of ogre,” he said unexpectedly.

“Would it give you so much pleasure to attend this tiresome function, Lucy?”

“Yes,” she said simply, and he smiled a little frostily. “And why couldn’t all this have waited till

this evening?”

“I thought the tickets might be all sold,” she said, and he suddenly threw back his head and

laughed.



“What a child you are!” he exclaimed. “I’ve had the tickets for weeks. I take them as a matter of

course each year.”

“But you never meant to go?”

For a moment his eyes were grave and a little accusing, reminding her, perhaps, of the reason,

then he replied evasively:

“I hadn’t thought about it, but I think, perhaps, I owe you a concession, as things are.”

Her face lit up.

“Then you will take me?”

“Yes, but if you ever come wasting my time again with frivolous demands, you’ll quite likely get

a different answer,” he said severely, and rang his bell for his next patient to be shown in.

For Lucy the small victory took on an absurd importance. She chattered to Paul, and even to

Bart, about the dress she would buy, admitted to both that it was the first grand occasion she had

ever attended and asked endless questions as to whom she was likely to meet! Paul, as always,

was an obliging listener, but Bart would sometimes answer tersely, and, remembering that the

last time he had probably graced this annual affair it had been to show off the lovely Marcelle,

her own pleasure became dimmed. Would not all these people who had known the first Mrs.

Travers quiz her and marvel at Bartlemy Travers’ second choice, or did they already know that

he had only re-married for the sake of his son, and so be a li ttle pitying?

She spent many of these bright spring days in the garden, planning with old Abel the flowers

which Bart had said she might grow, and an odd friendship slowly ripened between them. Lucy

felt at home with the old man as she never did with Smithers or Gaston and, although he saidlittle, she felt he liked her. He would teach her, as he had already taught Pierre, the old Cornish

rhymes of his own boyhood, churning couplets, skipping songs, counting games and charms to

ensure good luck for almost everything.

“Do you know a charm for wedlock?” she asked him once, and he looked at her with the bright

glance he had given her that very first morning.

“No call for that, m’dear, you’ve wed to maister of Polvane, see?” he said, as if that fact were a

charm in itself, and perhaps it was, thought Lucy, for, with the coming of spring it was easy to

believe in miracles and she would be grateful, she knew, for very little.



It was Abel who described for her the old rites of the Cornish Spring Festival which had almost

died out, the Hobby Horse, the Furry Dance, danced by the mummers through the town, the

Morning Song which had so many verses that many were already lost in antiquity. Lucy listened

as round-eyed as Pierre, and Bart, occasionally interrupting these dissertations, would listen,

too, and watch her eager, changing expression with an odd little air of sadness.

“You still have all a child’s delight in pageantry and mime,” he told her. “I hope you never lose

it. It goes, with the light of heart.”

“Do you think so?” she asked him gravely. “I wish I could have seen one Spring Festival before

it all died out.”

“Oh, they still keep up an imitation junketing in certain parts for the tourist, but it isn’t the real

thing,” he answered carelessly, and remembered with vividness the mummers coming to

Polvane when he had been only Pierre’s age. There had been a girl among them, very like Lucy,

who had danced bare-footed on the lawn, her long legs flashing white in the spring sunshine. He

had always remembered her.

“You’ll have your own May Day celebrations, Lucy,” he said with an odd gentleness as though

he wished to console her for something of which she had been deprived.

“Oh, yes!” she cried, clapping her hands, and thinking of the exquisite dress which now hung in

her wardrobe, and the pride she knew she would feel when Bart publicly proclaimed her as his

bride, so her disappointment was double-edged when he told her only the day before that he

would be unable to come.

“Oh, Bart !” she cried, and stood there before him, looking stricken.

“Never mind, my dear, Cinderella shall go to the ball. I’ve detailed Paul to deputize for me—

more fun for you, really.” He spoke with the kindly reassurance he might have offered to a child,

and did not understand the expression in her troubled eyes.

“Is it nothing you can get out of?” she asked tentatively.

“I’m afraid not. An emergency has cropped up and I have to consult with a specialist, who’s

coming from Bristol, and most likely will operate the same evening.”

She turned from him with the first sign of rebellion he had ever known in her.



“It will always be the same,” she said, and as he turned her round gently to face him, he saw

there were tears in her eyes.

“What can it matter to you?” he asked in some surprise. “I’m not asking you to stop at home.”

“It does matter,” she said, and broke away from him and ran out of the room.

He seemed preoccupied at dinner that evening, and Lucy herself was unusually silent. The

heady excitement that had been with her all day had been quenched by Bart’s indifference, and

in its place was the sad knowledge that she had been building on a dream. Old Abel had

hypnotized her with his tales of the Spring Festival. Tomorrow was May Day and she had been

half prepared for the ghosts of the Hobby Horse, the Teazer and the mummers to come prancing

round the lawns of Polvane at daybreak, a fitting start to a day which, for her, was to end in such

glory. But now the glory had gone. The Hospital Ball was, as Paul had laughingly told her,

nothing more than a provincial dance attended by dowdy doctors’ wives and their no less

mundane husbands, and Bart would never see her in the beautiful dress she had chosen with

such care.

“Drink up your wine, Lucy.” His voice cut across her thoughts, making her jump, but, as she

reached for her glass, she realized that his injunction, was automatic. He was not really paying

attention to what she drank, but sat wrapped in his own meditations, although every so often heglanced across at her as if she vaguely troubled him.

He sat down after dinner to write letters, and Lucy wandered round the shelves, looking for

something to read. She found an old book on witchcraft and immediately became absorbed, for

now she found the origins of many of Abel’s rhymes and charms. She did not realize that the

scratching of Bart’s pen had ceased until she became aware that he was watching her, a little

puzzled frown between his eyebrows.

“What are you reading?” he asked, as she bl inked up at him abstractedly.

“A book all about charms,” she said. “Listen, Bart—this is one to find out what kind of a

husband you are going to get. You must lie in another county and knit the left garter about the

right-legged stocking and you say as you knit:

This knot I knit,

To know the thing I know not yet,



That I may see

The man that shall my husband be,

How he goes, and what he wears,

And what he does all days and years.

Then, in your dream, you will see him.”

“Sounds a bit involved,” he observed, but he did not smile. “Lucy—have I cheated you?”

“Cheated me? How?”

“By tying you up in a loveless marriage.”

She closed the book gently, letting it lie in her lap and did not look at him.

“No, Bart,” she said. “And—and perhaps there are several ways of loving.”

“Perhaps there are. Sometimes you trouble me, you know.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps because you haven’t turned out quite what I expected.”

“But what did you expect?” she asked serenely. “You married me because for some reason you

didn’t want to employ me for Pierre. You told me so yourself.”

“Damn it, Lucy, you make me sound a cold-blooded monster!” he exclaimed angrily. She saidnothing, and he recognized the fleeting look of apprehension which came into her eyes when he

snapped at her.

“Sorry,” he said. “You’re quite right, of course. What are you wearing tomorrow night?”

“White,” she answered, looking surprised, for he seldom expressed much interest in her

clothes.

He got up abruptly from his desk and crossed the room to a small safe in the wall. She watched

while he opened it and saw him extract a flat jeweller’s case from among several others.



“Wear these with the new dress,” he said, and tossed the case into her lap. She opened it

because she did not know what else to do and gazed down at the string of exquisitely matched

pearls with their old-fashioned but delicately designed diamond clasp.

“Well?” he said impatiently, as she did not speak, “You haven’t any jewellery of your own, have

you?”

“No,” she said, “but—” All those jeweller’s cases stacked away in the safe; she had not known

they existed. Did he expect her to borrow his first wife’s jewels because she had none of her

own?

“But what?” he asked, frowning, then shut the, door of the safe and came to sit on the arm of a

chair by the fire.

“The pearls belonged to my mother,” he, said casually. “She would have liked you to wear

them.”

The change in her face was startling. The soft color flooded her cheekbones and she lifted the

pearls from their bed of velvet and held them lovingly against her face.

“Oh!” she said softly.

“Did you think I was offering you Marcelle’s leavings?” he demanded with a touch of bitterness,

and she looked up at him with eyes that were apologetic but unable to deny the truth of this.

“However insensitive I may seem, I don’t expect you to take over what another woman has left,”

he said.

“I wouldn’t, anyway, do justice to them,” said Lucy simply. “She—she was very beautiful, wasn’t

she?”

“Very beautiful.”

“I don’t expect—I mean, you and I—well, it’s different, isn’t it?”

“You’re still my wife, Lucy—at any rate in the eyes of the world,” he told her gravely.

III

Paul was to stay the night at Polvane to obviate going back into Merrynporth to change, and



despite her disappointment at Bart’s absence, Lucy found her excitement mounting as she

dressed for the dance with elaborate care. It was, after all, the first grand occasion in a life which

had been starved of normal gaieties, and she was wearing a dress which no working girl could

ever have afforded. She had had to call upon Paul to zip her up the back, but had pushed him out

instantly, saying that he must not look yet. She twisted, now, in wonder before the old-fashioned

pier-glass in her room, marvelling at the miracle of frothy billowing lace, the little nipped-in waistand stiffly boned bodice, and Bart’s pearls, creamy against the whiteness of her skin. I really

don’t, she told herself with satisfaction, look like old Miss Heap’s companion, or anyone else’s,

and for the first time she made the descent down the gracious, curving staircase without the ghost

of Marcelle to haunt her.

Paul was already waiting in the hall, and as he looked up at her, he gave a low whistle.

“My! Is this something, or isn’t it! Stay where you are, Lucy—we must have an audience for this,”

he exclaimed, and shouted for Gaston and Smithers. They came and stood side by side gazing

up at her. Gaston burst into explosive ejaculations of admiration and even Smithers cracked his

finger-joints one after another, his Adam’s apple jerking up and down with emotion.

Lucy slowly descended the stairs and stood revolving, so that they could admire every aspect of

the frock.

“Will I do?” she asked them anxiously, and, just for tonight, she forgot their latent hostility and

their unspoken comparisons with the dead Marcelle.

“But Madame is enchanting—ravissante! Is it not a marvel what a good gown will do?” cried

Gaston naively, but his bright little eyes held the unstinting appreciation of his race.

“I would never have believed it!” Smithers exclaimed with unflattering honesty, but even his

eyes held a grudging admiration and he could not resist fingering the folds of Lucy’s skirt with

inquisitive fingers.

“Well, we make a handsome couple, wouldn’t you say, Gaston?” Paul said jauntily. “Give them

something to talk about in St. Minver, for a change, eh?”

“No doubt, m’sieur,” Gaston replied politely, and Lucy realized, in some surprise, that the

Frenchman did not care for Pierre’s young tutor.

“Well, do you think we should be going?” she said a little awkwardly, but there came loud

shrieks from the landing above and Pierre came racing down the stairs in his pyjamas.



“Baba! Baba! You p-promised to let me see you all dressed up!” he shouted, his voice shrill

with angry reproach.

She caught him to her with remorseful fondness.

“But, darling, you were asleep,” she said. “I didn’t want to disturb you. We tried it on thismorning, so you could see—don’t you remember?”

“It wasn’t the same, it wasn’t the same,” the boy stormed, and his face contorted into the

preliminary warning grimace of tears.

“Oh, lord!” Paul exclaimed disgustedly, “Don’t let’s have a scene at this juncture. Go back to

bed at once, Pierre, and don’t behave like a baby.”

“It is natural that the little one should wish to behold madame on such an occasion,” Gaston

observed smoothly, and Lucy said quickly:

“See, Pierre, you shall admire, too. Look how the skirt flies out when I whirl round, and my

shoes are silver and shiny like Cinderella’s slipper. That’s what’ I feel like, Pierre—Cinderella

going to the ball.”

Pierre was instantly diverted.

“You look beautiful, Baba. Will you be turned into a pumpkin at twelve o’clock?” he said

solemnly.

“No, of course not,” she laughed. “And you’ve got it wrong, you know. It was the pumpkin that

was turned into a coach, not Cinderella.”

“If we don’t get going, the coach, such as it is, will probably turn back into a pumpkin,” said

Paul a little sourly. “Do as you’re told, Pierre, and go back to bed.”

“No,” said Lucy, with new-found assurance. “He shall have a party, too. Gaston will find you

something good to eat in the kitchen when we have gone, poppet, and Smithers, perhaps, will

tell you a story, won’t you, Smithers?”

“You bet!” said Smithers, forgetting himself and winking, and the cook swung the child up on to

his shoulder.

“Madame has the understanding—and the wisdom,” he observed with a smug look in Paul’s



direction. “A pleasant evening, madame—helas that m’sieur should be chopping up the patient

—that has not much gaiety, hein?”

Paul seemed a little sulky as they drove into St. Minver, but Lucy was scarcely aware of it. She

had been admired and the May night was full of stars. She became aware, for the first time, of the

beauty of the moor by moonlight and, for no logical reason, had a desire to be in another county

and knit a left garter about a right-legged stocking.

The dance was held in the town’s principal hotel, and as Paul parked the car, his good humor

returned. He was well aware of his own good looks, and he was going to enjoy a lavish evening

at his cousin’s expense and the mild sensation he would undoubtedly cause in acting escort to

the bride no one had yet seen. He was soon aware, if Lucy was not, of the discreet stares and

whispers which followed them through the evening. After seven years’ eccentric seclusion,

Bart’s sudden re-marriage had been a nine days’ wonder, no doubt, and after tonight, Paul

thought with pleasure, the old trouts would have something fresh to gossip about. It was really

rather stupid, though highly typical of the great Bartlemy Travers, not to have put in an

appearance, just for the look of things.

For Lucy, after the initial nervousness that so many curious eyes inspired in her, the evening

was sheer delight. Paul was a charming and attentive escort, and even when her inexperienced

feet trod on his toes, he rallied her with outrageous compliments. He introduced her to no oneand she scarcely realized he was flirting with her with practised skill, and his open admiration,

like the unaccustomed champagne, went a little to her head.

Mary Morgan, dowdy but authoritatively impressive in purple crepe, came over to sit at their

table for a short while. She spoke to Paul with civility but no liking, and made it plain, without

actually saying so, that since Lucy’s husband was unable to accompany her, she should have

stayed at home. She left them shortly, aware that she had merely added to the young man’s

amusement and spoilt Lucy’s innocent enjoyment, but she was angry with Bart. The consultant

from Bristol had been late arriving, but the operation, she knew for a fact, had been postponed

until the morning. He should have put in an appearance for the look of things, or at least not to

have deputed that good-looking, worthless young cousin of his to take his place upon an

occasion so closely connected with his hospital. It was, she thought, with annoyance, making it

rather too patently clear that his second marriage was one of convenience and his wife a little

nobody he had picked up at random. But as she looked across to Lucy’s table, Mary sighed with

fresh irritation. The child did not look a nobody in that exquisite frock, with her slender limbs and

the delicate bones of her flushed, eager face. She looked what she was supposed to be, a young

bride of whom any man might be proud, and she could see the same thought in the eyes of



Bart’s colleagues as they tentatively sought for introductions.

“She thinks I shouldn’t have come,” Lucy was saying uneasily to Paul, but he only laughed and

made the shape of a kiss with his lips across the table.

“Don’t let that old trout worry you,” he said. “It’s common knowledge she’s had a soft spot for

Bart for years. She’s probably jealous.”

“What nonsense! Bart and Matron are old friends; he’s often told me so.”

“Need that stop the lady from having a crush on him?”

“Yes. She’s not that sort of woman. Bart has a great respect for her, and so have I.”

He recognized the touch of distaste in her voice and smiled at her with contrite charm.

“You’re probably right, my sweet,” he said. “And will you bite my head off if I say that I’m in

agreement with her over one thing? Bart should be here; if I was married to you, Lucy, I wouldn’t

allow you to gallivant around with another man.”

She flushed, not knowing quite how to deal with this observation, and he put a hand

impulsively on one of hers.

“You have a dangerous attraction, Lucy Locket—dangerous because it is unconscious and so

shatteringly sincere. Did you know that?” he said, but Lucy was not listening.

Over the heads of the dancers she had seen Bart standing just inside the door, and she felt the

color rush into her cheeks. The band stopped playing at that moment and almost at once he saw

her. She had risen to her feet and he began to walk leisurely across the room towards her.

“Damn!” said Paul.

She was unaware that people watched them. She held out her hands to him and he took them

for a moment as he reached her.

“After all I was able to make it. The operation was postponed till the morning,” he said

prosaically, but his eyes ran over her with a strange expression that held both tenderness and a

faint bewilderment.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” she said, her own eyes darkening as the pupils suddenly dilated. “Now the

evening’s complete.”



“That’s very charming of you. Hasn’t Paul been a good deputy?” He spoke lightly, but his

glance still travelled over her curiously.

“He’s been delightful,” she replied quickly, “but after all, it’s really your party.”

He stood there, smiling down at her with one quizzical eyebrow raised. The tail coat, the

carnation, the discreet opulence of links and studs all added to his air of distinction, thought Paul

resentfully in the background. He looked just what he was, a successful man at the top of his

profession, commanding as his right, respect, and, from many, admiration.

They were still standing when the band started playing again and, with a smile, Bart invited her

to dance.

“I haven’t performed for years, so you’ll have to make allowances for me,” he said as he put an

arm round her.

“And I,” said Lucy, “have hardly danced at all. I shall probably tread on your toes.”

“Then that makes two of us,” he replied, and swung her on to the floor.

At first she was nervous, but he was skilled, more skilled than Paul, she realized, and hedirected her where he willed. For a fleeting instant she compared herself with the unknown

Marcelle who would, of course, have danced beautifully, then she gave herself up to the

unfamiliar pleasure of being held close to her husband, to feel the tightening pressure of his

hand on her bare flesh.

“I don’t know you tonight, Lucy Baa-lamb,” he said, looking down at her. “You are rather

ravishing in that white bridal gown, do you know that?”

“I haven’t really thanked you for the dress,” she replied with some confusion, “and for the loan

of your beautiful pearls.”

“They’re a gift, not a loan,” he said quietly.

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes! They become you very well. Have you met any of this crowd yet?”

“No, only Matron. I think she was a little annoyed.”



“She was indeed,” he countered dryly. “I’ve already had a piece of her mind! When this dance

is over I’ll introduce you to some of the more respectable members of my fraternity.”

The rest of the evening passed like a dream for Lucy, and she felt indeed that at any minute the

clock would strike twelve and she find herself in rags, though it must already be long past

midnight. She could not remember the names of the people she met, only the eyes of the women

flirting with Bart and the pleasing, if staid, compliments of, the men bestowed on herself.

When they finally got back to their table, it was to find Paul gone and a hastily scrawled note

for Bart saying he would go straight home and pick up his clothes tomorrow.

“Oh, dear!” said Lucy, her tender heart distressed that after all his kindness he should feel

neglected. “He gave me such a happy evening, too.”

“Did he, indeed?” Bart said, making a spill of Paul’s note and lighting a cigarette with it. “I’m

told the uninitiated took you both for a honeymoon couple. Paul was evidently very obvious with

his attentions.”

“Was he?” she said, looking surprised. “Yes, perhaps he was, but he was only being kind.”

His eyebrows rose and he lazily blew a cloud of smoke between them.

“You don’t look, tonight, like a young woman to whom a man would feel impelled to be kind,”

he observed. “You’ve had quite a success, Lucy. Now, I suppose, we’ll have all these well-

meaning wives calling and arranging parties for us.”

She looked at him doubtfully.

“But you wouldn’t care for that?”

“No, not at all.”

“Then I shouldn’t, either. Pierre fills my days.”

He smiled and touched her hand with affection.

“Dear Lucy,” he said softly, “you’re resolved to stick to your side of the bargain, aren’t you?Well, we shall have to see. In the meantime, this sounds to me like the last dance. Come along.”

It was still like a dream, driving home in the starlight. Bart drove with his usual recklessness,



but at the headland turn to Polvane he paused and let his engine idle. The smell of the sea came

sharply on the night air, and only the sound of the rolling breakers broke the stillness.

“What a night!” he said. “Is there something in the May Day ghosts, do you suppose?”

“I don’t know,” she answered sleepily. “I only know that, for me, this has been a wonderful

evening.”

They drove on, and Lucy remembered the splendor of the rhododendrons when first she had

come to Polvane. Now the giant flowers were withering and only the dark, glossy leaves made a

tunnel over their heads, but soon, she thought, the flowers that Abel had planted would blossom

and there would be something of her own to bring into the house.

Upstairs, in her room, the fire had been kept in and a thermos stood on the table by the bedand a plate of sandwiches. A routine matter in a well-ordered household, she supposed, but she

liked to think that Gaston or Smithers had thought of her. She kicked off her shoes, twirled

happily round the room without them, and began to wrestle with the zip fastener of her frock.

“Bart!” she called, still under the spell of the evening. He opened the door between their rooms.

“What is it?”

“Will you un-zip me, please?”

He watched her peeling off her stockings as if he had not been there, and, picking up the

discarded shoes, set them, meticulously, side by side.

“Who zipped you into this contraption?” he asked, his fingers feeling for the catch.

“Paul.”

“Paul?”

“I couldn’t bear the thought of Smithers’ fingers—silly, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and ran the zip fastener down with a gesture which could hardly be

called gentle.

“Thank you,” she said, and turned to face him, holding the dress to her shoulders.



He surveyed her inscrutably and said, suddenly:

“What is that song you sing to Pierre—the one he said was like you?”

“ ‘Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow’,” she said, and to her their conversation did not seem

at all strange.

“Sing it now,” he said, and, because the evening still held magic, and Bart himself seemed a

different person, she stood there, the white frock held against her shoulders, and sang:

“Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow

before rude hands had touched it;

Have you mark’t but the fall of the snow

before the earth hath smutch’t it—

Smutched—smitched—it’s the same meaning, isn’t it?” she broke off to say. “I mean about the

lamps smitching.”

“Very likely. How does it go on?”

She sang the rest of the little air, aware of his cool eyes watching her, and faltered on the last

line.

“Yes, it’s like you,” he said, and turned towards the open door between their two rooms.

“Bart—” she said, aware that in this moment the initiative could lie with her—“will you come

back and tuck me in? It’s been—it’s been such a lovely evening.”

“Very well,” he replied, and returned to his own room. When he came back she was in bed. Her

clothes were strewn about the room, where she had dropped them in happy inconsequence. He

picked them up and laid them carefully over a chair, then came and stood by the bed, looking

down at her.

“Thank you,” she said, and thought how tall and strange he seemed in his dressing gown.

“What for?”



“My lovely evening, the frock and the pearls and—for coming yourself, after all.”

She looked very small in the big bed with her arms stretched above her head; he could see a

small pulse beating in the hollow at her throat.

“If it pleased you, then I’m glad,” he said a little formally, and she suddenly stretched out her

arms to him.

“Will you—will you kiss me goodnight, Bart?” she asked. “You—you’ve never kissed me—not

that I’ve expected you to,” she added hurriedly.

“Why not? I married you, didn’t I?” he replied, and bent over the bed.

His eyes might be cold but his lips were warm against hers. In some unchartered fashion, sheknew again, that the moment could be of her making, but she had no knowledge, no certainty, to

turn him from that other dead love.

“Thank you,” she said, resisting the desire to touch him. “Could you—could we—make it a

habit, do you suppose—like tucking Pierre in for the night?”

“I don’t see why not,” he replied with a strange expression. “Goodnight, Lucy, and sleep well.”

He was gone, and the door closed between them. She blew out her lamp and, almost

immediately, fell asleep.



CHAPTER SIX

I

BART had left to perform the operation which had been postponed the night before, long before

Lucy was awake the next morning. She propped herself up on her pillows and blinked happily at

the bright light of a May morning which Smithers let into the room as he drew the curtains. “Did

you enjoy the ball , madam?” he asked in his most cultured voice.

“It was wonderful,” she said, stretching her arms lazily above her head. “Mr. Travers came after

all, you know.”

“Of course.” She glanced at him uncertainly. He was, really, a very strange creature.

“Gaston and I—we didn’t care to see you going off with young Mr. Paul,” he said. “You looked, if

I may say so, just like a bride in that beautiful gown. Mr. Paul did not return?”

“No,” said Lucy absently. “He’s picking up his clothes this morning—oh, I’d forgotten, it’s

Saturday. He won’t be here till Monday, then.”

“No madam,” Smithers said, and his lined, sallow face looked pleased.

Suddenly, for Lucy, he was no longer Bart’s manservant, resentful and critical of her actions. He

was a fellow human being, peculiar, possibly, but as vulnerable and unsure as herself.

“Smithy—” she began impulsively, then coloured and looked abashed—“I beg your pardon—

Smithers. It’s easy to get into Pierre’s ways.”

His old face creased in a hundred wrinkles, and she realized that it was the first time she had

seen him really smile.

“I would esteem it an honour if you care to address me as Smithy,” he said grandly, then,

cracking his finger-joints with sudden violent agitation, added in quite a different tone of voice

and forgetting his grammar: “I would like to say, miss—madam—Gaston and me find you veryeasy, which we did not expect, and if we give offence when you first come, we’re sorry for it. The

first Mrs. Travers was such a very different lady, you see.”



It was a handsome apology, Lucy thought, and one which she had neither expected nor sought.

“Thank you, Smithy,’ she said. “The first Mrs. Travers was very beautiful, wasn’t she?”

“Oh yes. Gay—fiery—very ‘oo-la-la,’ you know. Gaston, of course, understood her far better

than what I did, but it was only to be expected, them being the same blood in a manner of

speaking. I fear she found Polvane dull—all those beautiful gowns and the master so seldom

home to see.”

The mention of Marcelle’s wardrobe reminded Lucy uncomfortably that in Smithers’ eyes she

was probably still held to blame for the discovery and disposal of all those lovely things.

“Smithy—” she began tentatively—“I—had nothing to do with Mr. Travers’ orders about her

room. I never even knew it existed until that day when the shutter was banging. I—I hope youdidn’t get into trouble on my account.”

His light eyes held a strange fanatical look for a moment, then they softened into one of

acceptance.

“I was wrong to keep her things all that time,” he said jerkily. “But I couldn’t bear them to go for

junk—such materials—such reminders of the theatre! Mr. Paul used to laugh at me for my care of

that room, but he never knew her or understood my craving for fine things.”

“Mr. Paul!” Lucy exclaimed sharply. “Did he know about her room?”

“Oh, yes, he encouraged me in what he called my play-acting up there. He would often come,

too when the coast was clear, and bring Master Pierre to look at the clothes his mother had worn.”

Lucy knew a moment’s sick revulsion. She could understand Smithers with his starved love of

pageantry, taking innocent, if misguided, pleasure in preserving the room as a shrine, but that

Paul, who had no concern with Bart’s first marriage, should find amusement in such matters and

even encourage the child, came as a shock.

“It wasn’t healthy,” she said gently. “Mr. Paul should have known better.”

“Yes madam,” Smithers said, his habitual mask settling once again over his face, and left the

room with dignity.

Lucy took her bath thoughtfully, reflecting on how strange Bart’s household was and how little

he probably realized of the private dramas of his employees. She had thought at first that their



common knowledge of Marcelle had bound them all together after she had died, but Paul had not

known her, and Pierre would never have been willingly encouraged by his father to cherish the

memory of what a dead woman had once worn.

She went, when she was dressed, into the garden to talk to Abel. The odd exchange with

Smithers had been a little disturbing and she was glad, in the circumstances, to be relieved of the

tutor’s presence until after the weekend, but the May morning was fresh and sparkling, the

memory of last night still warm within her, and she walked across the dew-soaked grass with a

light step. Things had changed since yesterday; Polvane lost its air of bleakness in the spring

sunshine and she had an unfamiliar sense of belonging.

She found old Abel chanting a rhyme for Pierre, making strange gestures with his dry, gnarled

hands.

“Underneath the hazlin mote

There’s a braggarty worm with speckled throat;

Nine double is he ...

“ ‘Tes a charm against snake-bite, see?”

“What’s a braggarty worm?” asked Pierre, who had a great liking for strange words.

“Why an adder, for sure, same as you get on the moor. Mornin’, young missus—did ee enjoy the

ball? I’m told ee looked a proper miracle.”

“She looked beautiful, beautiful !” shouted Pierre. “If a braggarty worm came out from under that

stone, Abel, what would you do?”

“Why, say the charm, m’dear, quick as ninepence,” the old man replied, and winked solemnly at

Lucy. “Where would you like they bulbs for next spring, ma’am?”

Next spring ... for a moment Lucy was lost in the wonder of all the springs to come, of the

blossoming of flowers that would be hers, of Pierre’s growing taller and stronger, and Bart, if not

forgetting, at last relinquishing that other love. She became aware that Abel was watching her

curiously, with a little half-smile, and she began hurriedly to talk about the garden.

Bart, returning for luncheon, watched them reflectively, noticing the fresh sturdiness in his son

and the way the morning light drew brightness from Lucy’s soft brown hair.



She turned and saw him and gave Pierre, a little push. “Run and meet your father,” she said,

and the boy, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, raced across the lawn, shouting,

“Papa, Papa! Do you know what a braggarty worm is?” and was caught up on to his father’s

shoulder in one welcoming swoop.

“ ‘Tes good to see ’n,” Abel muttered approvingly. “A brave few changes you ’m brought here,

ma’am. ‘Tes proper wonderful.”

Filled with this pleasant sense of her own importance, Lucy walked across the grass to join

father and son.

“Was the operation successful?” she asked, and he smiled at the air of wifely concern which sat

so oddly upon her.

“Very satisfactory,” he replied. “And still more so is the fact that, so far, the week-end is clear.

What would you like to do?”

It had so often happened that Lucy’s hopes for the week-end had been dashed or just forgotten,

that she was at a loss to know what to say to him, but Pierre was in no doubt.

“A picnic, a picnic!” he shouted, and Lucy looked enquiring and a little doubtful. She could not

visualize the distinguished Bartlemy Travers in his immaculate striped trousers eating hard-

boiled eggs and lettuce in his fingers.

“Why not?” he said, smiling briefly as if had read her thoughts. “But it will have to be tomorrow,

Pierre. Gaston will have our lunch ready now, and I’m late already.”

The week-end passed so felicitously that Lucy wanted to hold her breath. Bart was not called

out, neither did he show a desire to occupy himself apart from his wife and son. The weather

held; Gaston prepared a picnic which was a gastronomic miracle of improvisation, and, crowning

wonder, Pierre toot a passionate delight in his father’s company every hour of the day.

When they had performed the final concession of bathing the boy and tucking him up for the

night, Bart handed Lucy a glass of sherry in the library before dinner and thanked her gravely.

“I don’t know what your magic is, Lucy, but I’ve felt for the first time that my son has some liking

for me.”

It hurt her that he had accepted for so long a situation that should never have arisen.



“The magic is your own, not mine,” she told him shyly. “Perhaps you have been too—too busy

to get to know Pierre.”

He gave her a level, searching look from under his heavy lids.

“You don’t mean that, I think,” he said. “What you wanted to say is that I’ve been too

preoccupied with the past.”

She was silent, turning her glass slowly between her fingers, while she watched the last of the

evening light strike fire from the amber liquid. It was the first time as far as she could remember

that he had alluded to his former marriage so directly.

“Isn’t that what you meant?” he insisted, and she raised her eyes to his.

“Perhaps, in a way,” she replied. “One can’t, surely, live for ever with the memory of a dead

love.”

“No,” he said, and sounded suddenly harsh. “That way lies morbidness and neurosis. Is that,

how you’ve thought of me, Lucy Baa-lamb?”

She shook her head, not knowing what to reply. He had never encouraged personalities andshe was afraid of sounding impertinent.

He sighed a little sharply.

“I wonder where you learnt your self-restraint,” he said with a tinge of impatience. “Are you

never goaded into saying what you really think?”

“You learn self-restraint through your employers, if you want to keep a job,” she replied simply.

“And I’m just another employer?”

“That’s how you told me to think of you when you asked me to marry you.”

“Did I?” He regarded her with a puzzled frown. “Well, come to think of it, you would hardly have

married me, otherwise.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Well, my dear child, I wouldn’t have got very far if I’d made other demands—a man



you hardly knew.”

“I knew you a li ttle. You’ve forgotten that you saved my life a long time ago,” she said.

His eyebrows rose in cool scepticism and his voice was a little mocking.

“You aren’t going to try to kid me that you cherished a schoolgirl crush for your unknown

rescuer all those years?” he said.

“I wouldn’t try to kid you about anything, Bart,” she replied mildly. “You asked me to marry you

purely as a business proposition. You made that very plain.”

“Yes, I did, didn’t I? Good God! What a self-satisfied robot you must have thought me!”

She was beginning to feel the strain of this unexpected conversation, realizing in a half-

comprehended fashion that their relationship had shifted since the night of the Hospital Ball, that

even the servants were conscious of a change. The long, unlooked for intimacy of the week-end

had been bitter-sweet, and although Bart was still a stranger, he was a stranger who was no

longer entirely impersonal.

“I thought nothing you didn’t intend me to think,” she assured him, and was, relieved when

Smithers chose that moment to sound the gong for dinner.

As she undressed before going to bed, she wondered if he would remember to come and bid

her goodnight as he had done the night before, and when she was ready she drew the curtains

and leaned from the window to sniff the warm May night, conscious again that, did she but know

the way, the shaping of events might lie in her own hands. She was still standing there in her

nightdress when he knocked briefly on the door and came in.

“For heaven’s sake, child, you’ll catch your death!” he exclaimed sharply. “Get into bed!”

She obeyed him silently, flitting across the room like a small ghost in the moonlight. When she

had pulled the covers over her he sat on the side of the bed and took her hands in his, chafing

them gently.

“The month of May plays tricks. Next week we shall probably be back to fires,” he said.

“It’s been such a lovely week-end,” she said sleepily, and he did not think she was only

referring to the weather. In the dim light her face was a small, indeterminate blur against the

pillows, but he could see the brightness of her enquiring eyes.



Lucy—” he began hesitantly. “Sometimes our most heedless actions catch up with us. I have no

right to make demands, or even to ask favours, but supposing I did—would you be prepared to be

kind?”

She could feel the warmth and hardness of his thigh against hers, the firm, pressure of his

hands, but her inexperienced heart could not find a way to meet him.

“Demands—favours? You have never asked anything of me, Bart,” she said.

“Perhaps because I have so little to give in return,” he replied, and the ghost of that first love

brushed between them, pushing Lucy away.

“Anything I can give you, I will, gladly” she said, but the brief moment had passed.

“I believe you would,” he said, releasing her hands and tucking them under the bedclothes.

“One day I may take you up on that.”

He bent over and gently kissed her, but she knew that the strange, unexpected urgency had

gone out of him, and long after he had returned to his own room, she lay weeping because she

knew she must have failed him.

II

By Monday the house had resumed its normal air, and Lucy, left alone with Paul and their joint

charge, wondered if she had imagined the subtle change in her husband, but Pierre left her in no

doubt. He chattered excitedly all through luncheon of yesterday’s picnic and Papa’s attentions

until Paul, rather sharply, told him to be quiet.

“Don’t discourage him,” Lucy said. “He’s just beginning to get to know his father.”

“Bart’s moods are proverbial,” said Paul shortly. “By tonight he’ll have forgotten he has a son.”

“No!” cried Pierre triumphantly. “Tonight he brings me back a present and I stay awake till he

comes. He said so.”

“Bribery?” Paul murmured softly, and Lucy gave him a quick, troubled look.

“An unexpected treat can hardly be described as that,” she said. “And you know very well

Bart’s life is bound up in his son. He’s scarcely likely to forget he has one.”



“Well, if you take my advice, young man, you won’t bother your father. He’s a busy man,” Paul

said to the boy, ignoring Lucy, but Pierre looked sulky. Not today was he in his usual receptive

mood with his tutor.

“Always you say that. Do not bother him—keep out of his way—he does not want a little boy

when he is busy, you say,” he grumbled, and Lucy frowned.

Had Paul, for some reason of his own, deliberately fostered that unhappy misunderstanding

between father and son?

“Your father would never be too busy to attend to you, poppet,” she said. “You know, he often

thinks it’s you who don’t want him.”

The boy’s great black eyes opened wide while he sat considering the point.

“Perhaps I did not want him once—he made me afraid,” he said slowly. “But now—perhaps he

needs me—yes?”

“He needs you very much,” Lucy said, and Paul pushed back his chair with an irritable

exclamation.

“Now we shall have arguments and scenes every time I have to use my own authority,” he

snapped. “What do you suppose you’re going to gain, Lucy?”

She raised her clear eyes to his discontented young face and countered calmly:

“I might ask you what you hope to gain by keeping Bart and his son apart?”

“That’s ridiculous! Is it my fault if the boy is afraid of his father?”

“It might be. Your influence over the past two years could explain a lot.”

He looked suddenly uneasy.

“Are you going to make trouble for me?” he asked a little unpleasantly. “Your small success at

the Hospital Ball seems to have gone to your head, Lucy Lockett—Pierre, the servants, even the

revered Bartlemy Travers all eat out of your hand. You’ve not done badly for a girl whose only

experience of life has been that of a paid companion.”

Lucy had gone a little white, and Pierre, looking suddenly frightened, scuttled from his place at



the table to stand and hold her hand.

“I hope you don’t mean to be as rude as you sound,” she said quietly. “And I certainly have no

wish to make trouble for you, but Pierre’s welfare is as much my concern as yours, and his

father’s too.”

“Of course. That’s why he married you, wasn’t it?” Paul retorted, but even as he spoke his

angry eyes held the ashamed acknowledgement that he had said the unforgivable thing.

“You’d better go home for the rest of the day. I’ll explain to Bart that I gave you the afternoon off.

Come along, Pierre; you shall rest on your bed while I read you a story,” Lucy said, and led the

child out of the room.

Upstairs Pierre burst into’ tears, and it took her much time and skill to soothe him. Garbledaccounts of past disciplinary measures came out between sobs, and Lucy, troubled and

dismayed, wondered how much she should believe. A child tended to twist and exaggerate the

truth, and Pierre was an excitable small boy whose mixed blood fed a precious imagination. Like

most children, he was apt to revile whoever found disfavour with him at the moment, and it was

possible he was quick enough to see that his beloved Baba’s sympathies lay with his father and

not with his tutor.

“But Pierre, Paul has never punished you cruelly,” she said, trying to arrive at something

concrete.

“Non, non, non, non, non!” he protested in exact imitation of Gaston. “It is Papa he say will do

that. He will beat me, perhaps, or lock me in a dark room, should I displease him, so I keep out of

his way like Paul say and then he does not tell Papa when I am naughty.”

For a moment Lucy felt as she had on discovering Marcelle’s room, a quick revulsion from the

abnormal, the emotionally unbalanced. A child, surely, would not invent such a tortuous

misrepresentation, and for Paul, would that not have been the easiest way out? In using the

child’s father as a perpetual threat, he ensured his own position as ally and go-between.

“Listen, Pierre,” she said gravely. “Never hesitate to ask your father anything. You know, now,

you have no reason to be afraid of him.”

“Yes, Baba.”

“These tales of beatings and dark rooms—Paul was teasing you. Your father has been sad that



you didn’t want him. He loved your mother very much and now he has only you.”

“Yes, well, that is different. I will tell you a secret. He married me to give you what you wanted.

That should show you how much he loves you.”

“Did he not want another wife, then?” the boy asked, sounding surprised.

“I don’t think so. Sometimes if you have been very happy with someone, you cannot bear

another in their place, so you see, my poppet, your father made a sacrifice for you—he put your

happiness before his own wishes.”

He blinked up at her from the pillows, his eyelids already heavy with sleep.

“I do not understand,” he said drowsily. “But I think Papa must love you, too, Baba, or whywould he not just have bought you for me?”

She smiled and kissed him and he went to sleep almost immediately without the need of a

story.

Lucy went downstairs and out through the flower-room to the garden. She felt wearied by the

two small scenes and unable, at present, to sift one truth from another. She sat down in one of

the basket chairs on the terrace and, shutting her eyes gratefully against the pleasant warmth of

the sun, was almost immediately aware of a shadow falling across her.

“Paul!” she exclaimed in some dismay. “I thought you had gone home.”

He stood there, looking down at her, and his face was the charming, boyish face of the good

companion who had delighted so many of her lonely hours.

“I couldn’t go without an apology,” he said, and his blue eyes sought hers, anxiously. “I—I don’t

know what came over me Lucy. I suppose I was jealous.”

“Jealous! Why?” It was not at all the explanation she had expected to hear.

“Of Bart, I suppose, of the times when I’m shut out. You don’t know what it’s meant having you

here in this barrack of a house. Until now I’ve felt that you were as glad of my company as I was

of yours, because Bart—but he’s got you, too, as well as so many other blessings in life hedoesn’t need, hasn’t he?”

“You forget he’s my husband,” she replied, but looked quickly away. There could be no more



polite pretence between them on that score. He had already voiced the knowledge he must

always have had, and which she, perhaps, had unwittingly given him.

“You were right, of course, when you said that Bart had only married me on Pierre’s account,”

she said quietly. “I’ve never tried to hide the fact that ours was a marriage, of convenience,

neither has he.”

“I shouldn’t have thrown that at you especially in front of the boy,” he said. “That’s why I waited

to apologize But, Lucy—you’re too sweet, too soft to be sacrificed to the egotistical whim of a

crank.”

So whyte ... so soft … so sweet, is shee ... The words ran, unbidden, through Lucy’s mind, and

she sighed. Dragged into the open the truth had an ugly sound and the brightness of yesterday

was dimmed.

“Why do you hate Bart?” she asked, aware for the first time that the young man did hate his

cousin.

“I don’t know,” he replied, squatting down on the warm stones at her feet. “Yes, I do, though.

He’s always had everything, health, money, ability, acclamation—all the things most of us have

to struggle for and very few of us get. You don’t know how it’s galled me.”

She recognized the pain in his voice, the desperate bitterness of the have-nots.

“Yet, on your own showing, if it hadn’t been for Bart, you would have been struggling in some

ill-paid job with no prospects,” she said gently.

“And what prospects have I here?” he demanded fiercely. “A bonus at the end of my

usefulness. A promise of other work should the opportunity arise—and what have I to be gratefulfor?”

“A great deal, I should say,” she replied. “After all, my own position is little better than yours,

and I can be grateful.”

“With the difference that you’ve married the great man and, however empty that may be, in the

eyes of the world you’ve become part of the Travers circus, and Cousin Bart will keep up the

polite fiction to save his face.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Lucy wearily, and he suddenly buried his head in her lap.



“Don’t you, Lucy?” he asked in muffled tones. “Don’t you understand that amongst all the other

things, he’s now taken you, and I can only stand by and watch you fall in love with a man who

doesn’t want you? You are falling in love with him, aren’t you?”

“Yes—oh, yes,” she said, too tired, and too honest to prevaricate, and only knew when he

looked up quickly and met her eyes that until then he had not been sure.

“You poor lamb ... you poor silly little sheep...” he said softly, but there was an odd kind of

triumph in his eyes as if, for all his protestations, her admission pleased him.

For the second time that afternoon a shadow fell across the crumpled folds of Lucy’s dress and

she raised startled eyes to see Bart leaning against the open french window, watching them. For

a moment she imagined that his dark face held such a bitter, frozen look of anger that it would

not have surprised her if he had struck her, then he moved with deliberation and the look was

gone.

“What an odd attitude to find you in, my dear Paul. Are you saying your prayers to Lucy, or

have you got something in your eye?” he observed without a trace of emotion.

Paul sprang to his feet, running a hand through his tousled gold hair. He had the rather

engaging air of someone who has been caught in an undignified position, and that was all. Lucy

marvelled at the swift, effortless change in his expression; it was she who showed

embarrassment, and even guilt.

“Neither,” he laughed. “Actually I was demonstrating Smithers’ latest histrionic efforts. He’s

reciting Gunga Din at the local concert at the village hall, you know.”

“Really? We shall have to patronize the performance, I suppose. Lucy, you look very flushed.

You aren’t running a temperature, I hope?”

“Of course not. I must have gotten sunburnt or something, or else it’s the curry—we had curry

for lunch— not Pierre, of course—haven’t you come home very early? We didn’t expect you.”

Lucy heard herself saying all the wrong things, saw the amusement in Paul’s eyes and the

grave enquiry in Bart’s. It was, she knew, the young tutor’s astonishing switch over from one

mood to another as much as anything else which had made her blush and stammer and feel

utterly in the wrong. Bart did not help matters by replying smoothly,

“That would seem self-evident,” and Paul, with an easy gesture of farewell, embracing them



both, said he would collect the clothes he had left on Friday and take himself off.

Bart pulled up a basket chair beside hers and enquired for Pierre.

“I’ve brought his present,” he said. “He’d better have it before he goes to bed and get the

excitement over.”

“He’ll be coming down for tea,” Lucy said nervously, and hoped the boy would not see fit to

recount the lunchtime quarrel to his father.

She wished Bart would come right out with whatever he was thinking. The memory of last night

and his tentative suggestions in the moonlight seemed very far behind them.

He was regarding her thoughtfully.

“I brought you a present, too, but on second thoughts, I don’t think I’ll give it to you just yet,” he

said.

For an instant her embarrassment was lost in surprise and pleasure. He had never given her

anything personal except the unexpected gift of his mother’s pearls.

“Show me,” she begged like an expectant child, but the expression in his eyes suddenly

chilled her.

“No,” he said, “it’s not the moment. You seem very nervous, Lucy. Have there been—upsets in

the day’s routine?”

“Well, yes, a little,” she admitted, thankful that she could offer some explanation of what he

clearly thought was odd behaviour on her part. “Pierre talked too much about the picnic and his

new-found discovery of Papa, and Paul was a little short with him. We had tears, of course, but

your son’s devotion to you remains unshaken.”

Lucy knew she was speaking with bright unnaturalness and she thought that Bart’s quick ear,

trained to listen for the nuances in a patient’s voice, could hear it, but all he said was:

“I’m glad to know that. I think I’ll go and find him,” and she watched him go into the house,

feeling a little hurt. She would have liked to witness the child’s pleasure and response. Theshadows were lengthening on the grass now, grotesque shapes of buttress and gable, and the

pointing fingers of conifer. It was too cold, as yet, for sitting long out of doors, but Lucy stayed

where she was, the day’s events springing back to her mind, and she realized, with a small



sense of shock, that thanks to Paul’s unexpected outburst on the terrace, she had never taxed

him with her half-formed suspicions, nor asked for an explanation of his interest in Marcelle’s

room.

III

She was still nervous when they sat down to dinner. There had been no opportunity for a word

with Bart before the gong sounded, for Pierre had waylaid her as she left her room, and insisted

on displaying his present. He chattered naturally and excitedly about Papa’s great kindness, and

Lucy was glad to see that he seemed to have entirely forgotten their earlier conversation.

“Am I not fortunate?” he said as he finally snuggled under the bedclothes. “My Papa has for

wife my Baba and both are mine. Paul tells me often how beautiful was my real mama, but she

could not be as beautiful as you in that dress like Cinderella’s. Kiss me asleep.”

She held his face between her hands as she softly kissed his eyelids, and knew a fierce,

unexplained longing for a child of her own. She was only twenty, she thought, with passionate

awareness, and the years stretched ahead, barren and unrewarding unless she could find the

way to Bart’s heart.

Looking at him now in the soft radiance of the many-branched candelabrum, she wondered; a

little hysterically, if he had one, and was instantly aware of his eyes on her, probing, measuring.

“Are you sure you’re feeling quite well, Lucy?” he asked with polite concern.

“Well, perhaps I’m a little tired,” she said. It was easier to admit an imaginary malaise than

have him quizzing her with unspoken questions.

“Early to bed, in that case, then, and I prescribe another glass of wine,” he said.

She tried, after that, to make small talk, but he seemed pre-occupied, only once offering a

contribution of his own when he suggested, unexpectedly, that Mary Morgan should be asked to

dinner.

“Of course,” she said, looking surprised. In the three months she had been married to him they

had never once entertained visitors at Polvane, nor received hospitality themselves.

“Mary takes an interest in you, you know,” he observed with a crooked little smile. “She once

tried to persuade me to employ you here for Pierre—but you knew that, of course.”



“Yes,” said Lucy, and remembered his odd proposal that day up on the moor when he had

said, “I won’t employ you, my dear, but I’m prepared to marry you.”

It had, of course, been Matron who had put the idea into his head; Matron, who had come, to

their wedding as the only representative of the bride, Matron who, only the other day, had

wondered aloud if Lucy were perhaps too young and inexperienced,, and then left the sentence

hanging in the air, unanswered.

“Mary had a few disquieting things to say to me today,” Bart remarked. “You made quite a l ittle

stir at the Hospital Ball and were not at all what the wives of the medical profession had

expected, so I understand. You and Paul made a romantic couple, as I could see for myself.”

He was talking obliquely, frightening her a little with the smooth assumption that she would

understand his riddles. Smithers had left them to their dessert and he was peeling an apple with

his usual neat skill.

“Do you think, as Matron did, that I shouldn’t have gone to the dance without you, then?” she

asked trying to find the root of his displeasure, if displeasure it was.

“On the contrary. After all, it was I who insisted. I’m afraid Mary doesn’t care much for Paul, but

that’s largely on account of her long-standing friendship for me. I can’t afford gossip, she says

quite rightly, so, my dear, despite my disinclination, you and I must be seen in public a li ttle more.

Mary will drop a hint to the women who matter that it will be acceptable to call, and you, in due

course, will return the calls and ask them to dine.”

She was so surprised that, for a moment, the implication in his observations escaped her, then

the faint colour crept under her skin, and she fidgeted uneasily.

“Very well,” she said, and then raised her chin. She was afraid of him in this sort of mood, but

she was not prepared to be criticized, however indirectly, for something she had not done.

“Bart,” she said, “it’s hardly fair, is it, to blame me for small-town gossip? Paul is your cousin

and your employee—as I am. If people talked—and they always will —it should mean no more to

you than gossip about a couple of your servants.”

She had been stung to a more bitter retort than she had intended and was unprepared for the

force with which he suddenly brought his fist down on the table, making the delicate glass and

china quiver in perilous danger of smashing.



“There is one very great difference,” he hit back, his eyes no longer hiding their anger. “You

happen to be my wife and, for what it’s worth, the keeper of my good name.”

“You should have thought of that when you asked me to marry you,” she replied with valiant

defiance. “I’m still your employee and have a right to my own life.”

“Is that what Paul tells you?”

“Paul?”

“For God’s sake, Lucy, do you think I’m blind?” he ‘snapped convulsively. “I come straight from

the hospital with Mary Morgan’s well-meaning warnings fresh in my mind and find my tutor with

his head buried in my wife’s lap! You even had the temerity to tell me I wasn’t expected!”

She sat there, her hands folded helplessly in her lap, the colour draining from her face. It had

not occurred to her that he could be jealous or that the surprise discovery that such an emotion

still existed in him could throw him temporarily off-balance.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You—you’ve got things all wrong.”

He sat for a moment, watching her, and, slowly, the anger died in him. She looked like a

stricken child, there in the candlelight, her bent head accentuating the slender line of her neck

from nape to shoulder and the delicate curves of her forehead. She was a little less than half his

age, he thought with a revulsion of feeling that made him slightly ashamed, and all her life she

had been bullied into subjection by the Miss Heaps of this world, and now, himself.

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” he said wearily. “I have no right to demand more than goodwill from you, and

that you have given me, It’s not your fault if Paul, poor fellow, should lose his head a little. He

hasn’t got much guts, I’m afraid, but fate hasn’t been too kind to him. Forget my stupidity, willyou? Paul, like yourself, hasn’t had much experience of life.”

She looked up, and he saw the tears on her lashes.

“Might it be better if he found another job?” she asked, remembering her own newly-awakened

doubts, but he only gave a quizzical little quirk of one eyebrow, completely in control of himself

again.

“Sack poor Paul?” he exclaimed with tolerant amusement, and Lucy saw, to her bewilderment,

that whatever notions he had cherished on the subject of his cousin’s behavior, he could

scarcely have taken the matter as seriously as he had led her to suppose. “We couldn’t do that to



him and throw him back on old Aunt Minnie—besides, Pierre’s fond of him.”

She swallowed her bewilderment in a sudden little spurt of anger.

“You would sacrifice anyone and everything for Pierre, wouldn’t you, Bart?” she cried. “Pierre

likes Paul, so Paul must stay, even though—even though—” she broke off, choking on tears, and

he watched her with narrowed eyes.

“Even though he may make love to my wife, were you going to say?” he asked her suavely.

“No, I wasn’t, and he hasn’t—not that you’d care!” she retorted wildly.

He smiled, but the amusement did not quite reach his eyes.

“You sound a little hysterical, my dear,” he observed with maddening calm. “Perhaps, after all,

you aren’t well. These evenings in May can be treacherous—you should put on a coat if you

want to sit out of doors when the sun has gone down.”

She could not keep pace with his change of mood.

“You might feel hysterical if someone sat there accusing you of vague things and then refusing

to listen to explanations,” she said.

His glance was cool and suddenly remote. He was, she thought, groping for-enlightenment,

like a man with two masks, and one was as confusing and difficult to penetrate as the other.

“If you’re alluding to Paul again, he gave an explanation of his rather curious attitude, didn’t

he? He was, so he said, giving an imitation of Smithers reciting Gunga Din,” he replied smoothly,

and Lucy was defeated. Whatever the cause of his original quarrel with her, he was clearly now

determined to ignore the whole thing and expected her to do the same.

What manner of man was he, beneath those masks, she wondered uneasily, or was she falling

in love with a man who did not exist at all? He had risen to his feet while she sat there staring at

him with puzzled eyes, and he leaned across and touched her cheek, as if to remind her of his

presence.

“Come, he said. “We’ve sat long enough quarrelling over the dinner table. Our coffee will be

cold. On second thoughts, I think I’ll give you my present tonight, after all. An apology, perhaps,

for biting your head off.”



She followed him into the library, wondering what he could have bought for her, and wondering

with a lifting heart, if his impulse to give her something had any significance. It was only

yesterday that he had made an appeal for her tolerance should the need arise, an appeal which

she only half understood, and had been too shy or too ignorant to follow up.

He had bought her a ring, a very perfect pearl set with small diamonds, and as she beheld it,

Lucy’s simple heart was convinced of its message. Rings meant only one thing in her

conclusions, and she looked at Bart speechlessly, searching for the words which would tell him

that she accepted and understood his token.

Before she had time to phrase the words adequately, however, he said with a quick frown:

“I hope you’re not superstitious about pearls. St. Minver doesn’t offer a great selection in

precious stones, but Mary Morgan thought this would match up with your necklace.”

“Matron? Did she help you choose it?”

“She suggested it, as a matter of fact. The other women at the dance had remarked on your

pearls, apparently, also on the fact that you wore no engagement ring. It was remiss of me to

have forgotten the symbol of our—er—courtship.”

To Lucy it was like a dash of cold water. It was Matron who had criticized Paul and decreed

that the doctors’ wives should call; it was Matron who had chosen the ring and even ordered Bart

to buy it because its absence led to speculation. The ring was a token of respectability and a

well-lined purse and nothing more.

“Thank you,” she said colourlessly. “Thank you very much indeed. No I’m not superstitious.”

But she was, she thought unhappily, remembering Abel ’s injunctions about charms, and didshe not curtsey to the new moon, refrain from walking under ladders, and recite the rhyme about

the braggarty worm each time she walked on the moor because she was afraid of address? It

was well known that pearls meant tears...

“You don’t sound very pleased,” Bart observed a little sharply. “We can change it, if you don’t

like it.”

“I wouldn’t want to do that,” she said gently, “but I—I wish you had thought of it yourself.”

He frowned.



“Don’t you like Mary?” he asked a shade irritably.

“Yes, of course. I don’t know her very well, and anyway—” She began to laugh, at Bart for his

lack of perception, at herself for a romantic dream which faded without a struggle in the cold light

of logic.

He stood watching her with the frown still between his eyes.

“I’m inclined to take your temperature, just to make sure,” he remarked. “You’ve been acting

very oddly ever since I came home.”

“Perhaps we all have,” she said, remembering the bewildering events of the day. “I’m quite

well, Bart. I—I’m just not used to so many quick changes.”

“Quick changes?”

“In people, I mean. You, Paul, Pierre—even Smithers—have all done or said odd things today.

It isn’t surprising, perhaps, that I should have caught the habit, too.”

He considered her gravely for a moment, as if searching for a clue to the quality in her that

eluded him, then he shrugged, dismissing the day’s unusual disturbances from his mind.

“Well, aren’t you going to put it on?” he asked, impatient with her cool reception of his gift. It

was a fine pearl and had cost a good deal of money. “It should fit. The jeweller remembered the

size of your wedding ring.” She slipped the ring on to her finger above the thin, plain platinum

band. It felt cold to her skin and she stood there a little awkwardly, not knowing how to express

her thanks in the face of his unsentimental bestowal of his gift.

“May I kiss you, please?” she asked at last with childlike directness,

“If you like,” he replied, and his indifference was discouraging, but as her lips brushed his with

shy hesitancy, he drew her suddenly close, holding her mouth under his with an urgency which

took them both unawares, and felt the little shiver that ran through her.

“You’d better go to bed now,” he said, releasing her. Tm still not quite satisfied about that

temperature.”

“Very well,” she replied, obediently, and her eyes were dark and held a sudden brilliance. “Will

you—will you be coming in to me?”



He stood there, regarding her a little strangely, the lines of his dark face taut and stretched.

“No not tonight, I’ve got work to do,” he said jerkily, sounding suddenly harsh.

She could not quite hide the disappointment in her eyes, or the bewilderment, and he turned

abruptly to his desk and began pulling out drawers.

“Goodnight,” he said, without looking up.

“Goodnight,” she echoed, and went softly from the room.



CHAPTER SEVEN

I

MAY changed into June, and with the dying of that month, the bad weather returned. It was, Lucy

was to discover, to be one of the wettest summers for years, with the bracken growing high with

tropical swiftness and a perpetual mist driving in from the sea to shut Polvane away in ghostly

isolation. But before the halcyon days of May had gone, Lucy had come to terms with that wild,

bleak coastline, even finding solace in the solitude which had once dismayed her. She would

paddle in the rock pools which lay warm and sheltered in the little coves at the foot of the cliffs,

and sometimes Paul would be with her, teasing and attentive, and sometimes Bart.

It was he who took her to Gannet Cove and showed her the spot where long ago he had

rescued her from drowning, and she remembered the scene as if it had been yesterday; the

golden sand and calm, deceptive blue of the water, the children’s voices jeering: “Ba-ba ... silly

sheep...” and her own frightened plunge into the sea. She remembered, too, exactly how the man

who was now her husband had looked when he flung her on the sand, with his dripping clothes,

and the wet black hair falling over his dark, angry face.

She shivered.

“I don’t like this place,” she said. “It hasn’t finished with me.”

Propped against a rock, he regarded her with the fond amusement he reserved for his son.

“Are you feeling psychic?” he asked lazily. “Gannet Cove is quite harmless if you remember

about the currents and the tides, but I shouldn’t try swimming here if you’re no more expert than

you were at fourteen. The tide comes in very quickly and there mightn’t be a rescuer at hand this

time.”

“I shan’t come here alone,” she said, and he raised his eyebrows.

“Well, Paul’s an excellent swimmer,” he observed, and she glanced up quickly at the slight

change in his voice.

Of late, she thought, he seemed deliberately to throw them together, perhaps proving to himself

or to her that his anger on the occasion he had given her the ring was unjustified, but it made her



uneasy, and she did not care for the young man’s ready assumption that he should take his

cousin’s place.

He stood now at the top of the cliffs, waving and shouting to them, and immediately started to

race down the rough path to’ the beach, sure of his welcome.

“For someone with a dicky heart he seems pretty unconcerned,” Lucy remarked with unusual

tartness, and Bart looked surprised.

“There’s nothing wrong with his heart, as far as I know,” he said. “Who’s been telling you tales?”

“He told me himself,” she said, watching the young man leap from rock to rock, his blue linen

slacks and yellow hair making bright splashes of colour against the granite. “He said he had

rheumatic fever badly as a child and it left him with a bad heart.”

“A slight murmur, possibly, but nothing to worry about.”

“Not enough to be a handicap when it came to a job of work?”

“Dear me, no! I think Master Paul has been stringing you along, Lucy Baa-lamb. The fact is my

young cousin just doesn’t like work,” he said, but he did not sound concerned. He had, she knew,

a good-natured fondness for his cousin and was, probably, a little sorry for him.

Lucy sighed, hurt by the easy pleasure with which he turned to greet the tutor; it was so seldom

she had a chance of getting her husband to herself.

“Hullo!” Paul shouted. “Wasn’t this the place where you once rescued Lucy from a watery

grave? She buil t quite a romance on that little episode, you know.”

“Really?” said Bart, and his eyes rested thoughtfully on Lucy for a moment.

“Pity it had to be you and not someone like me.”

“Why?”

“Oh, well—” Paul’s laugh had a note of affectionate apology—“you’re not the romantic kind, are

you? And you’re almost another generation, and wedded to your profession and all that.”

“You talk a good deal of nonsense,” Bart retorted a little shortly.



“Yes, don’t I?” Paul grinned and, seizing Lucy suddenly by the hand, raced her unwillingly

across the sand.

Bart stood and watched them, his eyes narrowed against the sun. Lucy ran with grace, her hair

flying, her long, bare legs flashing in the light like that other girl whom she so much resembled,

who had come with the mummers that May morning when she was a child, and danced on the

lawn. Paul had reminded him that his own youth was going and the hearing had come as a

shock. He had scarcely regarded himself as belonging to another generation.

Out of hearing, Lucy was crying breathlessly.

“Stop it! I don’t want to run!” and trying to pull her hand from his, but he only gripped it more

firmly.

“Yes, you do. No use making sheep’s eyes at an unresponsive husband. You and I make a

much better pair.”

“You’re impossible! Let me go back to him.”

“When we’ve touched that rock shaped like a stork on the other side for luck. It’s the Corn Rock,

a charm for fertility. You ought to be thinking about that, oughtn ’t you, my sweet—a little playmate

for Pierre?” But when they had touched the odd-shaped rock and turned to run back, Bart had

gone. Lucy saw him reaching the top of the cliff path, and shouted, and he turned to wave, but did

not stop.

It happened so often now. Paul’s interruptions were natural enough, she supposed, but she

wondered, sometimes, if he took a kind of warped pleasure in denying his cousin chances of

becoming better acquainted with his wife.

“Oh!” she said with the sharp disappointment of a child. “And I so seldom can get him alone.”

Paul flung himself down on the sand and pulled her after him.

“That’s an odd complaint for a bride to make,” he said slyly. “What happens in the evenings—or

in the nights, if it comes to that?”

He was often bold in his observations now. In admitting so much that day on the terrace, she

had in some curious, fashion, given him the right to probe into her affairs.

She made a small movement of distaste.



“You know very well how things are between us, Paul,” she said. “But your knowledge came by

accident—you might respect it.”

His laughter had a derisive sound.

“I was never a respecter of other people’s secrets, my sweet,” he retorted. “Knowledge arriving

by accident, as you so primly put it, is one of my few amusements.”

“You are really rather a nasty young man,” she said, discovering that under all the boyish charm

he took pleasure in malice because, for him, the good things of life were beyond his grasp.

“Yes, aren’t I?” he replied with that engaging impudence which she had once found amusing,

then his mood suddenly changed.

“Don’t turn against me, Lucy Locket,” he pleaded, his eyes apologizing to her. “I have to tease

you, or I should make love to you.”

“What nonsense!” she exclaimed sharply.

“Not nonsense, my sweet, unfortunately for me. Do you think it doesn’t make me grind my teeth

when I see my pompous cousin handed something on a plate that he hardly knows exists?”

“He’s not pompous—you are, quite often!” said Lucy taking refuge in childish retaliation.

“Self-sufficient, then, which is much the same thing. One wonders how he managed to satisfy

the beautiful Marcelle. Perhaps it was just as well she died, or there might have been a scandal,

and that wouldn’t have suited Cousin Bartlemy.”

Lucy was idly picking up handfuls of sand and letting it run through her fingers.

“I find your resentment of Bart very hard to understand,” she said, striving to be reasonable.

“He’s very generous to you and quite unaware of your dislike. It doesn’t help endear you to me,

you know.”

He looked at her quickly under his lashes, aware that he was in danger of over-playing his

hand. He had no desire to alienate her sympathy at this moment.

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” he said, looking downcast. “I must sound beastly ungrateful to you, but I

thought you would understand. You, too, have been kicked from pillar to post by people who



didn’t want you. Were you never resentful of the good fortunes of others?”

“I don’t think so, but I never, like you, had a good Samaritan to ease the way for me,” she said

gently, trying to understand a point of view so different from her own.

“But can’t you see—one doesn’t want charity?” he persisted. “All right for a woman, perhaps—

you, for example—at least you live in comfort—but a man likes to stand on his own feet.”

“Well, what’s to stop you?” she retorted, stung by his assumption that she was content to live on

his cousin’s bounty.

“You know very well—my wretched health.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your health, or your heart, either. Bart told me so. I think you’re justa sponger, Paul.”

He got to his feet, brushing the sand from his linen slacks. His eyes looked suddenly very blue

and burning in a face that had lost colour.

“I’ll remember that remark,” he said quietly, and began to walk away along the sands without

her.

She got home some time later to find the house deserted. Paul’s little sports car still stood in the

drive, so he was presumably somewhere about, but Bart must have extended his solitary walk,

for the library was empty.

“I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls.

With vassals and serfs at my side,”

Smithers was singing from his pantry where he was polishing the silver, and Lucy smiled and ran

upstairs.

He got to his feet, brushing the sand from his linen slacks. His eyes looked suddenly very blue

and burning in a face that had lost colour.

The schoolroom door was open and she heard Paul saying:

“No, Pierre, he doesn’t want to see you this evening, so make haste and get undressed before I

go.”



“But Papa said when he and Baba came back—” Pierre’s high treble protested.

“He’s changed his mind. He told me so himself. He can’t always be bothered with little boys,

you know, so hurry up, now.”

Pierre began to cry, partly with temper, and Lucy hurried into the room.

“When did Bart tell you he didn’t want to see Pierre bathed?” she demanded. “It was a promise.”

He did not look a whit disconcerted.

“Oh, sometime down on the shore,” he answered carelessly.

“I was there all the time—there wasn’t a word mentioned,” she said, and he shrugged.

“Have it your own way, but don’t blame me if your lord and master is annoyed at being forced

into the role of conventional parent. The part scarcely becomes him, does it? Be quiet, Pierre,

don’t behave like a baby or Papa may smack you instead of kissing you goodnight.”

He spoke with light inconsequence, but Lucy remembered the day when the boy had sobbed

out his disquieting little tale of woe.

“It’s all right poppet, Paul made a mistake. Your father hasn’t come in yet, but I’ll come up in a

little while and undress you and we’ll be ready for him. Paul I should like to speak to you, please,”

Lucy said, and walked out of the room, her slender back very straight.

He followed her down to the library and helped himself to Bart’s sherry.

“All right, I made a mistake—so what?” he said, and sounded aggrieved.

She looked at him curiously, wondering why she had ever felt sorry for him. He was, she

thought, a mass of egotistical contradictions, with an overwhelming sense of self-pity, but she

could not have believed that he was just as malicious in his intentions.

“Paul, I meant to ask you about this at the time, but other things put it out of my head,” she said.

“A week or so ago Pierre implied that you had been using his father as a threat.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“I don’t quite know, because I don’t think Pierre himself was very clear, but I gathered that you



never actually punished him yourself for naughtiness, but held over his head the things Bart

would do to him if he found out. That would account very greatly for the boy’s fear of his father.”

“You certainly have it in for me today, haven ’t you, Lucy?” he said with a grin. “First I sponge on

your husband, and then I try to suborn your stepson. Any other complaints?”

“Paul, I’m not trying to pick a quarrel,” she replied patiently, “I only want to find out the truth.”

“The truth! Don’t you know that all kids are natural liars? They twist and exaggerate the truth, as

you call it, because for them there is little difference between fantasy and reality.”

“I know that—all the same, a child would hardly invent anything quite so—so adult as this.”

“Don’t you believe it! Pierre had a natural fear of his father—are you suggesting I encouragedit?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

He drained his glass and filled it again, angrily, spilling the wine on the polished table and

leaving it there to stain the wood.

“Really, Lucy! For someone who, like myself, is little better than a servant in this house, you

take a lot upon yourself,” he said. “Are you, by any chance, hoping to win Bart’s rather chilly

attentions by getting me out?”

Lucy mopped up the spilt sherry with her handkerchief and kept her back turned to him. Her

hands were beginning to shake.

“I think we’ll leave my position here out of this for the moment,” she said quietly. “At least you

can’t deny you used to take Pierre into his mother’s old room and show him her clothes. Smithers

saw you.”

“And what’s wrong in that? A harmless little amusement for wet days with old Smithy acting the

goat with his dramas and recitations.”

“Except that Bart thought that all her things had been cleared out long ago and certainly

wouldn’t have approved of his son being encouraged to pry when his back was turned.”

“Perhaps you’re right” said Paul indifferently. “Personally, I always thought, he kept the place as

a sort of shrine. How was I to know?”



He sounded, now, merely cross and sulky, as if he were a small boy accused, unjustly, of

peeping through keyholes, and Lucy exclaimed, with the exasperation she might have felt for a

child’s wanton stubbornness:

“But you must have known! Everything that could remind him of her has been got rid of—

photographs, personal possessions—even her portrait—and the drawing-room is locked up and

never used. He couldn’t bear to be reminded of her.”

His eyes travelled over her slowly and a l ittle smile came into them.

“Yes, my dear Lucy, that’s what you have to fight against, isn’t it?” he said softly. “A beautiful

ghost whose place you can never take, however much you try. Your battle is lost before it’s

begun, my sweet, and you know it.”

The tears sprang to her eyes, but before she could reply, Bart’s voice spoke from the doorway.

“A little early for drinking, isn’t it, Paul? It’s barely five o’clock,” he said.

Lucy did not know how long he had been standing there, or how much he had heard, and his

face told her nothing. Paul flushed and looked a little disconcerted, but replied jauntily enough:

“It is a bit early, I suppose, but I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I still prefer to act as host in my own house,” Bart retorted coolly, and replaced the stopper in

the decanter with deliberation.

This time Paul went scarlet.

“I’d always thought I could treat your home as mine, Bart,” he said in a deeply wounded voice.

“Did you? Well, I think there are lines to be drawn. Neither my possessions nor my wife’s good

nature are completely at your disposal.” Bart spoke with the sudden frigid politeness which had

become so familiar to Lucy, and Paul banged his empty glass on to the silver tray so that it

smashed in several pieces.

“Oh!” Lucy cried with deep concern, and began to pick up the pieces. The glass was Georgian,

one of a set that could never now be matched, and Bart’s especial pride.

“Never mind, Lucy, you might cut yourself,” he said dispassionately. “We had better go up and



be the admiring audience Pierre is expecting at his bath time tonight, or he’ll think I’ve forgotten

my promise. Goodnight, Paul.”

II

He had been particularly gentle with her for the rest of the evening, and sometimes she had

caught him watching her with an expression that was oddly compassionate, as if he, like Paul,

knew that she was fighting a losing battle with a ghost, and was sorry. She replied absently to

his observations, for her mind was still full of Paul and the disquieting aspects of the self he had

revealed to her. She could not, she thought, bear to see him each day and resume that light-

hearted companionship, knowing what he was, yet she guessed from experience that if he

wished to he could even now charm her back to a semblance of friendship and almost make her

believe that she had exaggerated much of what had passed between them; and she desired,

above all else to keep from Bart knowledge that would prove hurtful.

She went early to bed, drugged by her own weariness of spirit, but when she was between the

sheets she could not sleep, but lay listening to the sound of the breakers and watching a patch of

moonlight creep slowly across the ceiling. She heard Bart come up late and move about his

room, but he did not knock on her door, thinking, no doubt, that she was asleep. Somewhere in

the house a clock struck two with the light, silvery chimes that had now become as familiar as

the sound of the sea, and Lucy experienced a terrible sense of desolation, as if the world, andeven her Maker, had forgotten her, and she gave way to a sudden violent fit of weeping because

only in tears could she find relief.

She did not hear the door from Bart’s room open, and it was the flickering light of his candle

that told her he was standing by the bed.

“Lucy ... Lucy ... don’t cry, my dear...” he said and set the candlestick on a table and sat down

beside her. But she could only continue to weep, the great tearing sobs that had aroused him,

and presently he gathered her into his arms and held her against him without speaking any

more.

She rested her head against his breast and peace flowed into her. He was, in that moment, the

father she had never known, the friend she had never had, the man she would love, no matter

that he had nothing to give in return.

“Better?” he said when she was quieter.

“Yes,” she said. “Don’t go.”



“I won’t go—not until you’re ready to sleep. Paul upset you, didn’t he?”

“Yes. He can be rather cruel.”

“It’s only the cruelty of youth hitting back at what it doesn’t understand,” he said, and she

reached up to touch his face, feeling the roughness of his chin which would soon be needing ashave.

“Yes,” she said, and sighed, “Perhaps that’s all it is.” But she knew that to Bart Paul was only a

boy with a chip on his shoulder, and she hoped he would never learn of the treachery with which

his cousin had tried to repay his generosity.

“You won’t be bothered with him tomorrow. I sent Smithers into Merrynporth this evening with a

note to tell him to stop away for a day or so,” he said. “We’ve had these upsets before, you know.

Given time, the poor chap always forgets his grievances and comes back thankfully. He doesn’t

know it, but I’m very conscious that, in a sense, I’ve helped to make Paul what he is. I should

have let him stand on his own feet long ago., Now he’s become a liabil ity.”

“Yes, I see,” she said, and wondered how he would deal with his liability when it became time

for Paul to leave Polvane.

He was silent, and she knew there was something more he needed to say, but was finding it

difficult.

“Lucy—” he spoke at last with a certain diffidence—“I couldn’t help overhearing, as you must

have guessed. I want you to know, if it will make you feel happier, that I have never, at any time,

compared you—with Marcelle. You told Paul that I couldn’t bear to be reminded of her, and that’s

true, but he couldn’t know my reasons or the state of my feelings. He never knew her, you see.”

“Yes, I know that, but he—everyone knew of her. I think her beauty has become a legend, ” she

said, and he laid her gently back on her pillows.

“A legend, perhaps,” he answered in curious tones. “Let her remain that, my dear.”

“Can you—can you ever forget?” she asked, and could only do so because he himself had

broken down the barrier of reticence.

He was silent for a long minute, then he answered with a certain harshness:



“There are some things in life one has no wish to forget, even if it were possible. One day,

Lucy, I’ll tell you the story of Marcelle, and then perhaps you’ll understand me better.”

“Why not now?” she said, trying to cling to this moment of intimacy because tomorrow it might

be gone, but he laughed with the familiar note of dismissal for trivial requests, and the moment

had already passed.

“At three o’clock in the morning!” he exclaimed as the same silvery chimes announced the

hour. “No my dear, you’ll be worn out in the morning as it is. Now, shall I give you a sedative, or

will you sleep?”

“I think I shall sleep,” she said, and already her eyes felt drowsy.

“Well, I’ll leave the door open between us, so if you want me you have only to call. Goodnight,Lucy Baa-lamb—or rather, good morning.”

He bent over the bed to kiss her and brushed a finger along her wet lashes with a gesture that

was oddly comforting. She watched the light of his candle dwindle and recede as he went back

to his room, leaving the door open. For a while the glow remained as he settled himself in bed,

and then it too was gone, as he snuffed the candle, and Lucy slept.

She hardly saw him during the next few days, for a sudden pressure of work kept him busy

until late at night. In a sense she was glad, for she felt he might have regretted that brief letting

down of the barriers between them. It was not his fault that she had come to love him, and she

must, she thought, never embarrass him by making demands with which he had no wish to

comply. She should have known when she married him, she told herself sadly, that she was

making a foolhardy bargain, for it was, perhaps, inevitable that she should have fallen in love

with him, the unknown hero of her adolescence and the only man she had ever known

intimately.

Paul returned to Polvane after three days, and however he had spent the time away, he had

clearly determined to ignore those recent passages between himself and Lucy. He was as she

first remembered him, the amusing companion of her solitary hours, with the added suggestion

that although she had hurt him he forgave her because, for him, she was someone rather rare

and special. It was, thought Lucy, easier that way. She did not want her doubts and suspicions

forced into the open again, neither was it her nature to believe ill of someone who, like herself,had done battle with a world which had no place for the weak and unskilled. As the days went

on and Bart’s absences grew longer, and June continued with weeping skies and the promise of

summer unfulfilled, she was grateful for Paul’s presence and the comforting admiration she read



in his eyes.

The doctor’s wives began to call, and Lucy dutifully returned their visits. In this way she

became further acquainted with the aspects of her husband’s first marriage. They had none of

them particularly liked Marcelle, it seemed, for she had made it plain that they bored her, but her

beauty was exceptional and her husband had been head over heels in love. It was quite a

shock, they said, when dear Mr. Travers married again, for everyone had thought him

inconsolable, shutting himself away with that odd little boy, and cutting himself off entirely from

any sort of social life. They gushed over Lucy, patronized her a little, and went away satisfied

that dear Mr. Travers had chosen such a gentle little nonentity as his second wife.

“They’ll like you because they can feel smug and superior,” Paul told her with a grin. “I imagine

the lovely Marcelle rather had the medical fraternity by the short hairs—certainly few of the

women liked her. It’s said to be a great gift of success to be tolerated by your own sex, Lucy. Bart

should be grateful to you.”

He won’t care one way or the other,” Lucy retorted. “I imagine the wife of Bartlemy Travers

would be accepted automatically—in this district, at any rate.”

“How perspicacious of you, my sweet, and a trifle cynical, perhaps. Still, it must help to be liked

for one’s own sake, as well as one’s husband’s.” His light glance flickered over her. How naiveshe was, he reflected a shade contemptuously, how sickeningly content to occupy what position

Bart saw fit to thrust upon her.

Pressure of work made dinner engagements impossible at present, so Lucy attended dull tea

parties, at some of which she met Mary Morgan. She had taken an unreasoning aversion to

Matron, who had pushed Bart into marrying her, and even suggested and supervised the buying

of her engagement ring. She felt uneasy under the older women’s shrewd, questioning eyes,

and took interest and a genuine desire to help as interference.

“You know, my dear, you ’re going the wrong way about things,” Mary said when on one

occasion they were left together to wait at her bus stop.

“I don’t understand,” Lucy replied nervously. For her, Matron was still the person who could

induce a feeling of guilt by a raised eyebrow and a certain intonation.

“I dare say not. You’re young and inexperienced and are married to a man quite outside your

normal ken,” Mary said, aware, even as she spoke, that Bart would not thank her for interfering in

his private affairs.



“You were largely responsible for that, Matron,” Lucy said with unusual boldness, and Mary

smiled.

“So I was,” she agreed. “For that reason, I fancy I have a right to pry a little, as I’m sure you

must think I’m doing.”

It was raining relentlessly. Lucy had an umbrella, but the queue for her bus was long and

dispirited; the patient travellers looked as if they had been standing there for ages.

“Come back to the hospital with me,” Mary said. “At least you’ll be dry there, and Bart can give

you a lift home. He’ll be in later—besides, I want to talk to you.”

Lucy could think of no reason for refusing without sounding rude, also it would be pleasanter to

be driven home than join that wet and depressed section of humanity waiting for the bus. But

once she had stepped into the hospital with its familiar smells and bustle, she seemed to shed

the confidence bred of the past months. She was no longer Mrs. Bartlemy Travers, recognized

politely by the hurrying nurses, but little Lucy Lamb doing voluntary work in the children’s ward

on her afternoons off, and like the rest of the nursing staff standing in wholesome awe of the

matron of the hospital.

“Now, Lucy,” Matron said, hanging up her mackintosh on the familiar hook behind the door of

her office, “take of your wet things and sit down. Would you like some more tea? That China

wish-wash that Mrs. Crosby dishes up never leaves one satisfied, does it?

Lucy did not want any more tea, but she was well acquainted with the hospital’s habit of

serving up a strong black beverage on the least excuse, and could only agree politely.

Mary Morgan sat at her desk and wondered vaguely how she could bring the conversation to

the point she wanted. It was time Bart put away his hankering for the past and made a fresh life;

this child was malleable material and it was up to her to persuade her husband in the right

direction, as any man who was not totally devoid of natural appetites could be persuaded. But

there was something about Lucy Lamb, she thought uneasily, glancing at that polite, enquiring

face, some quality under the gentle exterior that did not permit of familiarity.

“Lucy,” she said, when the tea had been brought, “I’m going to ask you an impertinent question.

Do you and Bart live as husband and wife?”

Lucy flushed scarlet, not so much with embarrassment, but for the reason that she had always

supposed Matron understood the terms of her marriage.



“I see you don’t,” Mary said, observing the flush. “I’m not trying to pry, my dear child, but these

affairs that start off as marriages of convenience can often have a happy ending. Bart has

grieved for that Frenchwoman long enough; it’s up to you, my dear, to put matters on a normal

footing between you.”

“I don’t know how,” said Lucy, bludgeoned into an admission before she realized it.

Mary regarded her impatiently. Perhaps her own single state and the long-standing devotion to

Bart which, though she would never have admitted it, embraced more than friendship, had made

her insensitive to the feelings of others, but she disliked waste, and she still could not rid herself

of the idea that the girl before her was just little Lucy Lamb, a bit of flotsam who had appealed to

her more than others and who now only needed a push in the right direction.

“You’re young and healthy and not unattractive. You can give him other children, Lucy, and

release him from this unnatural preoccupation with the dead,” she said, and when Lucy from

sheer dumbfoundedness, did not speak, wanted to shake her.

“That young man, the so-called tutor—you’re not, by any chance, taken up with him, are you?”

Mary suddenly asked, remembering Paul’s good looks and the proverbial foolishness of young

girls, and mistook the second wave of colour that swept Lucy’s face for an admission of guilt.

“Well, I suppose Bart was asking for it,” she said a little grimly, “but blind or indifferent though

he may be, his eyes can at least be opened. There’s talk enough as it is, and a man in your

husband’s position can’t afford talk, much less scandal.”

“Matron, please—please don’t mention anything like that to Bart,” cried Lucy, aware for

perhaps the first time of the lengths that a well-meaning woman’s misconceptions might lead her

and the havoc she could wreak.

Matron’s eyes became as cold as marble.

“Are you admitting that you have lost your head, then?”

“No—no, of course not. You don’t understand!” cried Lucy, torn between tears and an

hysterical desire to laugh, and at that moment Bart put his head round the door.

“Hullo!” he said in surprise at seeing Lucy, then observing her flushed face and distressed

eyes and the uncompromising set of Mary Morgan’s mouth, he knew he must have interrupted at

the wrong moment.



“Were you waiting for a lift home, Lucy?” he asked. “I won’t be free for a couple of hours or

more, I’m afraid. Hire a car from the garage round the corner; it’s no evening to be standing about

in bus queues.”

“Thank you,” she said, and fled precipitately, leaving the matron looking worried and

nonplussed. Bart lifted his eyebrows enquiringly.

“Have you been tactless, Mary?” he asked.

“Probably. I’ve certainly been clumsy,” she answered shortly, and he shook his head at her. He

had a fondness and respect for Mary Morgan, who was an excellent Matron, but her zeal could

sometimes be her tongue’s undoing.

“I must get the child a car of her own and teach her to drive,” he observed absently.

“And make her independent of you?” Mary snapped, and he looked really surprised. She was

being extraordinarily unlike herself this evening.

“What a very strange comment,” he remarked mildly, and added with a deliberate change to his

professional manner, “I’m ready for the rounds, Matron, if you’ll be so good.”

“Very well, Mr. Travers, ” she replied with an instant return to the formality which existed

between them when they were both on duty. “Later, if you can spare the time, I’d like to have a

word with you in here.”

She walked the wards with him, answering his questions automatically, but her mind was on

what she intended to say to him later. That silly young girl was probably being starved of the

romantic trimmings to marriage which any intelligent husband could supply without his own

emotions being seriously troubled; who could blame her if, in the end, she turned elsewhere?

Mary, most likely, knew more about that good-for-nothing young cousin of Bart’s than Bart did

himself, and it would not surprise her in the least if the boy was trying to upset the marriage for

pure spite, if nothing else.

Matron, was a good woman with no nonsense about her and little imagination. She did .not at

all realize that she considered Bart’s marriage to be of her making, or that her desire to interfere

was, in part, a sublimation of her own lost chances. When the last ward had been visited and the

last amendments or additions to treatments noted, she ushered him into her office and started,

without preliminary diagnosis of his own case.



III

It became clear at once to Lucy that Matron must have carried out her intention of speaking to

Bart, for his manner subtly altered. He was meticulously courteous to her at all times, but that

very politeness seemed to point to a coldness he made no attempt to hide. She could not ask

him for an explanation of behaviour which was, in itself, impeccable, and he did not hint, evenindirectly, at what had passed between himself and Mary Morgan.

It did not seem possible that this could be the same man who, not so long ago, had taken Lucy

in his arms and brought her peace and comfort and a flicker of hope for the future. The door

between their bedrooms remained closed night after night, and she did not have the courage to

open it herself and call to him. At the end of a day he did not enquire how she had spent her

time, and he seldom mentioned his cousin except in relation to Pierre’s studies.

She knew that Paul was aware of their altered circumstances, although the two men were

seldom in the house at the same time, and sometimes she surprised a look of satisfaction in the

tutor’s blue eyes, as if he knew the cause without being told and drew pleasure from the

conclusions he formed.

The wet days of June continued with depressing monotony. Lucy woke each morning to the

sound of the rain on the windows and Smithers would lugubriously report on another bad day.They were confined a great deal to the house, and Pierre became restless and fractious, or

perhaps, with the quickness of children, he sensed the unhappiness in Lucy and the fresh

preoccupation of his father with matters in which he had no place.

“I wish you could spare more time for him,” Lucy told her husband. “I—I’m so afraid you will

lose all you have gained.”

“Is that so much?” he returned coldly, and his eyes were grave and a little forbidding.

“I thought so.”

‘The boy has you—and Paul. It should suffice.”

“That wasn’t what you used to think,” she retorted, hoping to force him into some sort of

explanation, or even accusation, but he only replied with apparent indifference:

“I thought a great many things at one time, Lucy. I haven’t, I’ve come to the conclusion, a gift for

feeing in touch with my fellows. It’s no doubt a quality that exists in the unprejudiced findings



required in my profession.”

It was one of his rare mornings at home and they were in the library watching the rain beat

down on the deserted terrace. His face, she thought, with a little stab of pain, was as grey and

bleak as the day outside.

“Bart,” she said impulsively, pulling at the sleeve of his jacket, “what’s the matter with you? If

it’s something Matron has said—” Her words trailed off as he turned to look at her. For a moment

his eyes held the same look of frozen anger they .had shown when he found her in Marcelle’s

room, an anger because she had trespassed.

“Why should you suppose Matron could upset me?” he said. “Had you any reason for

mentioning her?”

It was as direct an opening as he had ever given her to offer explanations of her own and she

braced herself to pull down, if she could, the defences he had built against her.

“Yes,” she said. “There is something she misunderstood, and so, I think, have you. I have no

means of knowing what she said to you, if, indeed, she said anything, but in fairness to me, Bart,

if Matron has made mischief—”

She broke off as Paul unexpectedly joined them, and turned away, clenching her hands in

helpless frustration’ at his ill-timed appearance.

“Matron?” he said, with eager curiosity. “What’s that old trout been up to? She’s always hated

my guts.”

“Perhaps you’ve given her cause,” Bart remarked with unsmiling briefness, and turned on his

heel and left the room.

“Cousin Bartlemy seems in a bit of a tizz. Did I interrupt a tender scene or something?” Paul

said, his hand reaching automatically for the sherry decanter, then regretfully withdrawing as he

remembered past strictures.

“Oh, go on, help yourself,” said Lucy angrily. “And give me one, too. I need it.”

“My charming little cousin-by-marriage, what, might I ask, has roused you to such untypical

behaviour?” he asked softly, and his eyes were suddenly bright and experimental on her tell-tale

face. He poured a couple of drinks, handed her one, and patted the sofa invitingly.



“Now,” he said, “let’s sit down and be cosy and you shall unburden yourself on my bosom.

You’ve been behaving for too long like a jilted bride, my sweet. Tell all.”

“That’s exactly what I am!” cried Lucy, and burst into tears.

She would not normally have confided so unthinkingly in a young man she did not trust, but her

husband’s studied coldness, and the bitter disappointment that now, when she might have

broken down his resistance, the moment had been thrown away, made her grateful for kindness,

whoever might offer it.

Paul watched her with interest. She would, he knew, regret her indiscretion later, but for the

moment he could pry and prod about in her naive little mind and draw pleasure from the fact that

he had been able to put yet another spoke in Bart’s wheel.

“Well, well,” he said mildly, “have your wifely advances been rejected, my poor sweet? Come

and sit down and let Councillor Paul give you some advice.”

She forgot that she had said she needed a drink, and put her glass, untasted, back on the tray,

and sat beside him on the sofa. He offered her a handkerchief with which to dry her tears and

grinned at her amiably.

“Well now, for one thing, you don’t know much about men, do you?” he said.

“No—I haven’t known many.”

“And, unfortunately for you, you think you’ve fallen in love with your silly husband?”

“That’s the only thing I’m sure of,” she said with sad simplicity, and his expression suddenly

changed.

“God, Lucy! How do you think I feel?” he exclaimed. “For years I’ve watched Bart take as his

due all the good things of life that came to him, and now he has you and wants you no more than

he’s wanted anything else since Marcelle died. He’s a machine that needs only the power and

adulation his profession can bring him—admiring nurses, grateful patients, the flattering awe of

the doctor’s wives—he’s not a human being, he’s the god in the machine.”

“That’s not fair!” said Lucy, shocked and startled by his outburst. “He doesn’t react in the least

to flattery—he wouldn’t even notice it, and the power you talk of is only what you haven’t got

yourself, the power belonging to someone strong and able.”



“It’s easy enough to be strong and able when you have money and a total disregard for the

feelings of others,” Paul said sourly, swallowing his drink and reaching for Lucy’s glass.

“You’ve always resented him because he’s had what you haven’t, haven’t you, Paul?” she

said, and because her heart was tender, and she herself had been deprived of so much, she

could still feel compassion for him.

“What chance have I ever had—bad health, a poor education, and helpless Aunt Minnie round

my neck for the rest of her days.”

“Helpless? She’s not an invalid, is she?”

“Not physically, as yet, but she’s the clinging, dependent sort with the brain of a hen, as I’ve

often told you. She’ll be the shawl and hot-water-bottle type before very long.”

“Poor Paul,” she said softly, already forgetting her own troubles in those of another. He was not

a very admirable character in many ways, she supposed, but circumstances were, perhaps,

against him.

“Well, my problems don’t help to solve yours, do they?” he said patting her hand

encouragingly. There was still a great deal more that lie wanted to find out. Did that old bag of a

matron really make mischief for you?”

“I don’t know. She gave me a little talking to a while ago and said she was going to speak to

Bart, too. It’s ever since then he’s been so—so unapproachable.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Bart will never tell me anything unless he wants to. Besides—there was something Matron

had misunderstood and—and, I suppose, I’m afraid to know if he has misunderstood, too.”

“The handsome young tutor making hay while the sun shone and, perhaps, getting some

response?” he said with a satisfied gleam of amusement, and she gave him a troubled look.

“How did you know?” she asked, and he flung back his yellow head and laughed.

“Because, my poor innocent, I’ve been doing my best to create just that impression,” he replied,with devastating frankness. “It was a way of getting my own back, since you, my dear Lucy, have

been so successful in weaning Pierre’s affections away from me.”



“I was right, then,” said Lucy wearily. “You had been encouraging the boy’s aversion for his

father. Why—why, Paul?”

He watched her with that bright, flickering glance, seeing the tiredness in her face and the

disappointment. She had wanted, he realized with surprise, to keep some illusions about him, or

perhaps it was just that her rather irritating goodness of heart merely wished to protect her

husband from knowledge.

“I doubt if you’d understand,” he replied glibly. He could not shock her now; she had known too

much, instinctively, already. “Perhaps it gave me that sense of power we’ve been talking about—

taking something away from someone who had so much.”

“Pierre was all he had left—all he cared about,” she said accusingly.

“Well, that’s as may be. Then you came along and I thought it would be fun to put a spoke in

that wheel, too.”

“Fun! Are you a monster, Paul? ” Lucy cried, but even as she spoke she saw him for what he

was; no monster, only a little boy who likes to pull the wings off flies.

“You never played up to me Lucy,” he said with the complaining disappointment of a child.

“When Bart brought you here and I saw you weren’t the sort of female to get one given the push, I

thought we could have some fun. It would have been so much more sensible to encourage me to

make love to you, in the circumstances. Bart may be content with his celibate couch, but you

won’t be.”

“You—you’re impossible!” she exclaimed, springing to her feet.

“Yes, I am, aren’t I?” he agreed with a return of his old impudence. His moods, she saw, wereas facile and inconsistent as quicksilver. The Pauls of this world never grew up. Their minds,

instead of maturing, merely became warped with age. There was no cure for the complete

egocentric.

“I think you should look for another job.” she said.

“You mean you’l l get me thrown out, after all?”

“No, the move must come from you. Bart will help in any way he can. I know he feels he’s kept

you too long here in leading strings.”



“Leading strings! That’s good! Wasn’t I heaven-sent at a time he was beginning to find his son

a problem? Bart got plenty out of the arrangement.”

“And so,” she pointed out, “did you. Let’s forget all this Paul, it’s—it’s rather distressing. When

you’ve gone—well, perhaps things will adjust themselves.”

He got to his feet and took her suddenly by the shoulders. For a moment his face was the

boyish, handsome face of the young man who in those early days had been playmate, friend and

companion. Even now, a regretful fondness looked out of his eyes.

“If you want him that much, go out after him,” he said with tolerant pity. “Fight fire with fire, my

dear. Would the world-wise Marcelle have wooed her man with a well-scrubbed face for the

night and a healthy smell of toothpaste? Use her weapons, Lucy Locket, if you know how—

scent, make-up, seductive negligees. For all his monkish habits, my stick of a cousin is,

presumably, a man, and he once loved Marcelle.”

She stood, unresisting, under his hands, her face, even after the shock and distress of this

interview, humbly , begging for an assurance she could not, herself, feel.

“Do you think—?” she began doubtfully, and, as he lightly kissed the tip of her nose, she saw

Bart pass the window in the rain on his way to the garage.

“You can but try,” Paul said. “Was that the great man himself going by? I want a l ift as far as the

garage on the St. Minver road. I had to leave my car there this morning with a broken oil pipe. I’ll

go straight back to Merrynporth after that—Pierre’s lessons are finished for the day.”

She was about to detain him with an anxious question, bewildered by the ease with which he

could return to normal, but he heard the sound of his cousin’s engine revving, and with a wave of

the hand was gone. Mechanically, Lucy picked up one of the used glasses and poured herself

some sherry.

She and Pierre lunched alone in the morning-room, and Smithers appeared concerned at

Lucy’s lack of appetite.

“Gaston is disturbed, madam,” he pronounced grandly. “Meals on trays, no proper set-out of the

dinner-table—it’s not what we’ve been used to.”

Had he spoken like this three months ago, she would have known she had been found

wanting in the servants’ eyes, but now she only smiled apologetically at his reproof. He and



Gaston had developed a tolerant affection for her lately, she thought, and tried in their separate

ways to make her feel part of the household.

“I’m sorry, Smithy,” she said, “but I dine so much alone and that table is so enormous for one

person. A tray by the fire is cosier.”

Smithers sniffed, and Pierre suggested with the hope of establishing a fresh novelty that she

should take nursery supper with him at six o’clock.

“Will Papa be late tonight, Smithy?” he asked, already planning in his mind an extension of the

allotted half hour in the schoolroom for milk and biscuits.

“Your Papa will be out for dinner but not late home, so I understand,” Smithers replied, then,

observing the rain still beating against the window, added: “Cor! Flaming June!” and left theroom, cracking his finger-joints.

When Pierre had been sent upstairs for his rest, Lucy wandered round the house wondering

how to spend the wet afternoon. Had Paul, she speculated, taken the opportunity to suggest a

change of occupation to Bart when he begged a lift into the garage before luncheon? But it

would take more than a hint from her to shift him voluntarily from the ease and comfort of

Polvane, she thought wryly, and wondered why she had not been more shocked by his own

admissions of spite and petty jealousy.

She found herself in front of the drawing-room door and, on impulse, turned the key and

walked in. The room bad never been used since the first night of her arrival, when, she was

convinced, one of the servants had lighted a fire there as a reminder to Bart that they did not

approve of his decision to remarry.

“Fight fire with fire,” Paul had said, and she wandered round the room, examining everything

minutely, trying to imagine just what sort of woman Marcelle had been, but the dusty, well-filled

cabinets told her nothing. The costly bric-a-brac and delicate Empire furniture spoke only of a

foreign taste for wealth and elegance, and the space where the portrait had hung was a mute

rejection of the room’s ownership.

Lucy opened the piano and sat down to try the yellowing keyboard. The instrument was badly

in need of tuning and the first notes filled her with a sense of alarm at her own temerity; then her

fingers wandered into the air that was still Pierre’s favourite and she sang softly to herself:

‘ “Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow



before rude hands had touch’d it;

Have you mark’t but the fall of the snow

before the earth hath smutch’t it...”

Would he ever think that song was like her? Would he ever ask her to sing it, he who had been

wooed with the less simple sentiments of French composers and the sensual music of cafés?

“ ‘O so whyte, O so soft, O so sweet, so sweet is shee...”

“Mon dieu!” exclaimed a voice as she stopped singing, and she turned with a guilty start to see

Gaston standing in the doorway, his l ittle bright eyes round with surprise.

“Pardon, madame, for a little moment, I heard a ghost,” he said, and advanced gingerly into the

room, flicking dust from the occasional tables as he came.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I shouldn’t have trespassed. It was her piano, wasn’t it?”

“But of course, but she did not sing as you do madame—better, oh yes, with the trills and the

panache the best teacher in Paris could give her ... but this piece you sing, it is gentle—like you,

madame.”

“Gaston, what was she really like?” Lucy said, and could ask the question because the room

had once been Marcelle’s, and the piano and the bric-a-brac and tills fat little man had come with

her from France.

Gaston shrugged, but his eyes were shrewd and suddenly very kindly on her face.

“You have no need to ask that, madame,” he told her gently. “She is gone, la pauvre, and we

do not concern ourselves with ghosts, hein?”

“She is a ghost that has haunted me ever since I came here,” Lucy said, and gave a little

shiver. “Sometimes I think it is she who is alive and I the ghost.”

“Enfin, it is an idea!” Gaston retorted cheerfully. “And what does this poor little ghost desire for

dinner tonight?”

“Oh, something on a tray,” she replied without thinking, and he threw up his hands in mock

despair.



“Non, non, non, non, non!” he protested. “Trays ... the poached egg ... the steamed fish! It is the

way of the English mees, no longer young, who finds pleasure neither in l’amour nor the

stomach, and that I will not permit.”

“But m’sieur will not be dining at home,” she said helplessly, wondering a little wildly if next,

like Paul, he would be offering her advice on how to capture her husband’s attentions.

“What matter?” he replied. “M’sieur will not be late tonight, and it is easier to deal with a tired

man when the stomach is well fil led, n’est-ce pas?”

Really, thought Lucy nervously, it seemed as if there must be a conspiracy in the house.

“Very well, Gaston, but I leave the menu to you. Your choice is always right,” she said, closing

the piano.

The cook beamed on her, rubbing his plump white hands together.

“And M’sieur Paul—he will be leaving soon, yes?” he asked innocently.

“Leaving?”

“I thought perhaps—” he shrugged, pulled down his mouth, and left it at that How did they do it,

Lucy wondered, with amazement? How did servants know and react to changes in a house

without being told?

“I don’t know, Gaston,” she said carefully. “There may possibly, be changes, but that, of course,

will be for m’sieur to decide.”

“Bien sur ...”

They looked at each other with mutual respect and the Frenchman stood aside to allow her to

leave the room, turning the key in the lock of the door with a small click of finality.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I

LUCY’S spirits rose with the waning of the afternoon. There was undoubtedly a conspiracy, she

decided, hearing sounds of bustle from the kitchen and finding fires had been lighted in the main



rooms to dispel the cheerless gloom of the wet summer day, or perhaps the change was simply in

herself. She had been content for too long to regulate her moods to Bart’s, and she remembered

him telling her angrily, once, not to be so self-effacing. Well the day’s mischief was done, but it

was in the open at last. Paul would be leaving soon, and she ... she must cease to be Lucy Lamb,

an English miss who ate things off trays and could not find her way into a man’s desires, let alone

his affections.

On an impulse she slipped out into the rain and picked a little bunch of the mignonette Abel had

sown for her and, arranging it with loving care, set it on Bart’s dressing table. It would greet him

when he returned and he would perhaps, think to open the door between their rooms and thank

her.

When she had bathed Pierre and tucked him up for the night, she lingered in her own room,

inspecting her wardrobe for garments of seduction. There were depressingly few, for the

trousseau she had bought at Bart’s bidding had not included extravagant frivolities that might be

deemed unnecessary, and she wished now that she had been more lavish in her expenditure.

Lucy sighed, wondering how other brides knew, by instinct, the way to their husbands’ desires.

Scent ... yes, she had that ... make-up, which she had always considered looked silly in bed and

came off on the pillow case, and, yes, there was one transparent nightgown she had never worn,

with a little lace jacket that added chic but little covering. She caught a glimpse of herself in the

mirror and was surprised to find she was blushing. It was rather shocking, perhaps, this

deliberate search after seduction, and she was relieved to hear the gang summoning her down to

the special meal Gaston had prepared.

After dinner she was restless and decided to wash her hair so that everything about her should

smell clean and fragrant, but it was a mistake, she decided, trying to dry it in front of the fire, a

panic-stricken eye on the clock; the pins and net slowed up the process, and there was still fresh

make-up to be applied. In the end she took the pins out in desperation and shook the hair free,hoping that the damp ends would not dry straight. She splashed scent on too lavishly so that she

was obliged to open a window to disperse the heavy perfume, and that made the fire smoke.

“Really!” exclaimed Lucy in exasperation to her flushed face in the mirror, “the path to seduction

is fraught with difficulties! How do other people manage?”

But when, at last, her toilet was complete, and she had time to think and feel, her confidence

began to ebb away. Also she had drunk more wine than usual at dinner to give her courage, and

felt a little lightheaded. It was nearly eleven o’clock and no one stirred about the house now. He

might not notice the flowers ... he might be very late ... he might not come at all ... Upon that

dismaying thought she heard the sound of his car and, later, the faint thud of the front door



closing. He would, she knew, have his usual nightcap before coming up, and she looked at the

door between their rooms. Should she leave it open, she wondered, to point the message of the

flowers? No, perhaps just ajar so that he would see her light and know she was not asleep. She

sped across the, room in the flimsy nightgown which she privately considered rather too

transparent for decency, set the door carefully ajar, then took a flying leap into bed and p repared

herself to wait.

It seemed a long time before she heard his footsteps in the corridor and the opening and

shutting of his door. He must have turned up the lamp, for a bar of light appeared suddenly

between their rooms, but he had not, it seemed, noticed that the door was ajar. She listened to

the sounds of his movements, drawers opening and shutting, the creak of a wardrobe door; then

the light went out abruptly and the door between their rooms softly closed.

Lucy propped herself on her elbow, not knowing what the next move was. Had he not seen the

flowers or understood the invitation of the open door?

“Bart!” she called, then, more loudly, “Bart ... please come in.”

The door opened after a silent moment and he stood there, his hands thrust into the pockets of

his dressing gown. His face remained in the shadow.

“Did you want something?” he asked with chilly courtesy.

“Yes,” she answered shyly. “I—I want you.”

He moved slowly into the circle of light shed by the lamp and stood looking down at her. The

freshly washed hair fell softly on her bare shoulders as she lifted up her face; her eyes were shy

and soft, and he could see the pulse beating in the hollow at her throat and the quick rise and fall

of her breasts under the revealing bodice of her nightgown. The expression on his own face was

curious, his eyes assessing her coolly as they travelled slowly over her, bringing the colour to her

cheeks. He touched her lips with the tip of one finger and examined the small pink stain-left there.

“Do you usually wear lipstick in bed?” he enquired with raised eyebrows, and she thought of

Paul’s tart allusion to a well-scrubbed face.

“Tonight is different,” she answered.

“Oh?”

He was not going to make it easy for her, she saw, and wondered if she had picked the wrong



moment.

“Are you tired?” she asked, searching his dark face for a sign of encouragement and finding

none.

“Not particularly.”

“Oh ...” She tried again. “Did you—did you notice my flowers on your dressing-table?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “And the door left ajar. The point was taken. Why don’t you come right out

with it, Lucy?”

The enormity of her own boldness suddenly struck her; he would think her forward and

presuming even a little cheap.

“There’s nothing to come out with,” she said hastily. “I’m sorry, Bart.”

“Oh, I think there is,” he replied smoothly. “You’re inviting me to make love to you, Lucy, I fancy,

since Paul apparently failed to come up to scratch?”

“Paul?” The question was so unexpected that for a moment she failed to grasp his meaning.

“He hinted—very delicately, of course—that it was you who had made the running, and implied

that the fault was mine.”

Lucy had gone very white.

“When did he tell you this?” she asked quietly.

“Today, when I gave him a lift to the garage. You had, he said, embarrassed him a little with

your tentative advances.”

Today ... directly following his advice on how to attract her husband ... Lucy-felt so bitterly hurt

by such treachery that she could not defend herself; she could only gaze up at the tall stranger

standing by her bed, her eyes dark with pain. What must he think of her; what, indeed, had Paul

thought, to play her such a shabby trick?

“And you believed that?” she asked at last.

He shrugged.



“Why not? I’m fully aware by now that I’d no business to marry you on the terms of our

agreement. Mary Morgan has pointed out to me, and indeed I can see myself, that you are a

healthy young woman with every right to expect fulfilment in a normal marriage. I have only

myself to blame if my wife looks elsewhere for satisfaction, haven’t I? All the same, man is an

unreasonable animal. You married me, Lucy, and I don ’t choose to share my possessions. That,

of course, is an entirely selfish point of view, as my young cousin himself pointed out.”

“You can’t,” said Lucy doggedly, “share what you’ve never possessed—or wanted.”

“Yes, there’s something in that, perhaps. Well, how do you suggest we solve this tangle?”

She shook her head, dumbly. Not again would she offer herself to be rejected so plainly and

cruelly.

He sat down on the bed and leaned across her, supporting his weight on one hand. His voice

when he next spoke was still measured and rather precise, but the coolness had gone from his

eyes.

“I’m quite prepared to make love to you, Lucy,” he said. “Did you suppose that I was entirely

devoid of natural passions?”

“You’ve led me to believe so.”

“Yes, I suppose I have, but jealousy, it appears, can flare up when you least expect it.”

“Jealous—you!”

“Strange, isn’t it? I thought I had buried all such emotions with Marcelle, but—” his voice

suddenly deepened and became harsh with anger which Lucy had not realized had been held incheck until now—“jealousy, bitterness, desire, even, need have nothing to do with love. Are you

prepared to accept me for what I am?”

“I know you don’t love me. I know I would just be second best,” Lucy replied, in a whisper.

“Oh, you’d do very well,” he answered, and suddenly caught her by the shoulders, bringing her

face close to his. “You have your own brand of attraction, you know—so white, so soft, so sweet

—isn’t that what your song says? Well, Lucy, you’ve asked for it, you must take the

consequences.”



He began kissing her, fiercely, demandingly, and his hands bruised her flesh. It was as if she

had never known him; the cold, self-contained facade behind which he had dwelt was stripped

from him like a protective skin, leaving a man starved too long of passion, hungry in his

demands—and a stranger to the consideration love would have brought. Lucy lay, unresisting, in

his arms, weeping a little because not like this had she wanted him to take her, in anger and

bitterness, all tenderness buried in a dead woman’s grave. Suddenly he turned his head into thewarm hollow between her breasts with a strange gesture of repudiation and, as suddenly, let her

go.

He sat there for a moment, not speaking, while he hid the trembling of his hands in the pockets

of his dressing-gown. Lucy, shaken and bewildered, lay and watched him. Presently he touched

her wet lashes with a still unsteady finger and brushed away the tears.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I wanted to hurt you, I suppose, but I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“I wasn’t frightened,” she said, wondering if she had failed him again in her inexperience. “I’m—

I’m willing to learn, Bart.”

His smile was stiff and automatic.

“I’ve never believed in rape, my dear, even when it’s legalized, by marriage,” he said. “I must

apologize for the exhibition. These hints and rumors have been festering in me for weeks, I

suppose. Try to sleep now, Lucy, and in the future— lock the door between us.”

When he had gone, she lay exhausted, and still weeping. Lock the door between us, he had

said, but he had already done this, himself, with his doubts and suspicions and the implied

assurance that in the future she should not fear demands from him. Outside, the rain still fell, as if

the skies, too, wept for her and the predestined failure of this foolish marriage. She turned her

bruised mouth into the coolness of her pillow and, with a little hopeless sigh, fell asleep.

II

It was still raining when she came downstairs the next morning, and it seemed that the

disaffection of the night had spread to the rest of the house. Gaston and Smithers were having

one of their violent quarrels in the kitchen, Paul had failed to arrive for the morning lessons, and

Pierre, incensed at being ignored by everyone, was banging loudly on the gong to attract

attention.

“For goodness’ sake!” exclaimed Lucy, in no mood for tantrums so early in the day. “Pierre, go



up to the schoolroom at once and find yourself something to do. Did Paul say he wouldn’t be

coming in today?”

“No. He has a migraine, perhaps. Baba, will you play with me?”

“No, I have things to do,” said Lucy shortly, and knew exactly why Paul had failed to put in an

appearance. “Do you know what time the buses run to Merrynporth?”

The boy shrugged, sulky now at Lucy’s evident preoccupation with other things.

“Smithers will know,” he said. “Do you go to find Paul and be cross with him, too?”

It was exactly what Lucy did intend, to have things out with Paul once and for all, and, if

necessary, to tell poor, clinging Aunt Minnie what she thought of her precious nephew.

“Everyone is cross today,” Pierre grumbled. “Papa did not even say goodbye to me when he

left the house this morning.”

Lucy went into the kitchen to enquire the times of the buses from Smithers, and the servants

broke off in the middle of a heated argument to look at her shamefacedly. Smithers gave the

required information with a significant glance at the cook, so that it became evident that either

she or Paul or both had been the cause of the argument, then hurried out to the hall as Pierre

resumed his noisy occupation with the gong.

“Madame enjoyed my special dinner last night?” Gaston enquired, his good humor at once

restored.

“It was delicious,” Lucy said tonelessly, and felt a little awkward at the unspoken question in

the Frenchman’s observant eye.

“Better than the tray by the fire, hein? M’sieur was home in good time, yes?” The. enquiry was

innocent enough, but Lucy felt herself blushing.

“Yes,” she said flatly, and he lifted his expressive shoulders philosophically, and observed, as

though she had answered the question he had not asked:

“Quel dommage!”

Lucy looked about her with an uncomfortable constriction of the throat; at the strings of onions

and the dried herbs, at the copper pans so lovingly polished, at the accumulation of small detail



that made the place a home, and at Gaston himself, watching her with the kindly eye of an old-

fashioned nanny.

“Gaston—” she said tentatively—“I—I’m not very experienced in l’amour .” It was of course, a

ridiculous statement to make to one’s cook, and not very dignified, but he beamed on her

approvingly, satisfied that she had admitted him to her confidence and they could now be

friends.

“L’amour ... what is it?” he exclaimed with Gallic tolerance. “A few moments when the blood

runs hot and the reason is, perhaps, blinded? In France we do things better—a sensible

marriage, respect, mutual tolerance, and children—many children. Madame will know in time.”

It was a very odd conversation, thought Lucy in surprise, but her heart warmed to the little

French chef who could lay salve so delicately upon her sore spirit.

“I must go or I’ll miss my bus,” she said a little awkwardly, and he at once turned a tactful back

and busied himself with the pots and pans of his calling.

“Ah, yes, you go to find M’sieur Paul,” he said. “It is permitted to say, perhaps, madame, that

m’sieur’s services are no longer necessary here, now that you can care for the little one

yourself?”

Had the servants had Paul sized up all along? Lucy wondered, and remembered how, some

time ago, she had realized that they neither of them cared for the tutor.

“Yes, I think so too, Gaston, but Mr. Travers doesn’t,” she said.

“These matters arrange themselves,” he replied comfortably. “M’sieur—M’sieur Travers, that is

—is a clever surgeon, but clever men do not always understand the simplicities of life, madame.They judge by themselves, and for m’sieur the realities have been dead for a long time.”

“You are thinking of the first Mrs. Travers?” Lucy asked a little sadly, and he smiled and

shrugged.

“Non, non, non, non, non!” he exclaimed. “There has been much confusion, and much trust

placed in wrong directions, I think—but madame must hurry—the bus, she will not wait.”

Lucy sat in the little country bus, watching the rain-washed landscape slip by. On last night her

mind still refused to dwell, but with Paul she would do battle and end for ever the treachery and

spite of many months. Gaston’s wisdom had strengthened her own, and, whatever might result



between herself and Bart, one canker should at least be removed.

She found her way through the steep, winding streets of Merrynporth to the little terrace where

she knew Paul lived with his aunt. The house was small and neat and rather charming, and the

terrace presented none of the seedy poverty which she had first supposed was the reason for his

reluctance to take her to his home.

For a moment when the front door was opened, Lucy thought she must have come to the

wrong house. The woman who stood there was tall and vigorous-looking, with a large, loose

figure which carelessly supported her plain, sensible tweeds. Her face had the strong,

uncompromising lines of a woman of character, and her eyes, as blue as Paul ’s, looked out with

a clear directness of purpose.

“I’ve come to see Mr. Paul Bond,” Lucy said uncertainly, and the woman replied with a swift

flicker of recognition:

“I’m afraid he’s not in, but won’t you come inside, out of the rain, Mrs. Travers? I’m Paul’s aunt.”

“You—you aren’t Aunt Minnie!” Lucy exclaimed, and, before she could stop herself, began to

laugh. Faced with the reality of Paul’s poor Aunt Minnie, the fabric of his evasions and pleas for

pity fell to pieces.

If Aunt Minnie thought her laughter odd and rather rude, she made no comment, and stood

aside to allow Lucy to enter, but there was a little quirk of amusement at the corners of her firm

mouth as she bade her guest be seated.

“How did you, know me?” Lucy asked.

“I’ve seen you with Paul, who usually hustled you into the nearest tea-shop when he spottedme,” Aunt Minnie replied. “I used to wonder if you really had such an aversion to meeting me as

he made out.”

“Oh, no!” cried Lucy, horrified. “I wanted to call on you, but he always put me off.”

“Well, I should have known. What sort of person did my rather untruthful nephew make me out

to be?”

“Clinging ... foolish ... shawls and hot-water-bottles ... a liability that hindered him from doing a

man’s job. That’s why I laughed. I didn’t mean to be rude.”



“Dear me!” Paul’s aunt observed mildly. “And is that what your husband thinks too?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it is. Bart’s always made allowance for Paul because of his upbringing. But

how was it you never met?”

“Oh, we did. Bart must have got us confused, my sister and I. We didn’t live in Merrynporth in

those days. My sister was Paul’s mother and answered very well to the description of Aunt

Minnie. Poor Carrie spoiled and pampered him all her life, and when she died, well, I just took

over.”

“But you—you wouldn’t have kept him tied to your apron strings.”

“My dear girl, quite the contrary, but it was too late by that time. For my sister’s sake—and

another reason I’ve made a home for Paul and supported him between jobs. Paul is weak, likepoor Carrie, and I was weak, too, when I didn’t push him out of the nest to fend for himself. I shall

pay for that weakness for the rest of my life, and it serves me right.”

Lucy’s eyes were wide with surprise and sudden understanding.

“And there’s nothing wrong with his heart, is there?” she said, and Aunt Minnie made a small

grimace of distaste.

“Has that been another of his tales?” she said. “My sister, I believe, encouraged him to think he

was delicate, but he’s as strong as I am. He managed, somehow, to wangle out of doing his

National Service, but that, I felt, was between him and his own conscience. I never knew the

details. Now, my dear, what message shall I give him? He ’s not going to be best pleased that

you and I have met, judging by the yarns he has spun you.”

Lucy looked at her gravely.

“A great deal of mischief and harm has been done,” she said. “There are things I must get

straight with Paul, and—and I think you should know that I am going to try to persuade my

husband to dismiss him. His—usefulness at Polvane was really over some time ago.”

The older woman gave her a long, steady look, then sighed a little.

“Of course,” she said. “That is understood. One hears many different rumors, you know, and I

wouldn’t care to think that any serious harm had come about on Paul’s account. You are so

much younger than your husband that, forgive me, you may have gone the wrong way about

things at the beginning.”



“Perhaps I did,” said Lucy softly. “Yes—perhaps I did.”

“I’ll tell you a little story,” Aunt Minnie said. “My sister and I fell in love with the same man.

Carrie was pretty in those days and very frail and feminine, and I was always the strong one. The

strong nearly always suffer for the weak, you know. I don’t quite know what moral that has for

you, my dear, but it explains why I failed with Paul.”

“Thank you for telling me,” said Lucy shyly. “I’m—I’m so sorry. Perhaps I’m a little in the same

position myself.”

“You? What nonsense! You are young and attractive and at least have no competition.”

“Oh, yes, I have. I compete with a ghost that won’t be laid.”

“That old story? I shouldn’t wonder if there was as little in that as in poor Paul’s attempts to

keep himself a place in the sun. Grow up, Lucy Travers, and don’t be defeated by ghosts. They,

unlike mortals, can do you no harm.”

Lucy rode home in the bus, her mind full of the strange interview. The final reckoning with Paul

was yet to come, but she had drawn strength from Aunt Minnie. The strong ones were all behind

her, she thought with a lifted heart, Paul’s aunt, Gaston, even Smithers; only her husband, the

strongest of them all, was yet to be won.

The rain had stopped when she reached Polvane and a warm, humid mist was rising from the

ground. She saw that Paul’s little car stood, as usual, in the drive; Paul himself was in the library,

playing tiddlywinks with Pierre, who looked bored and inattentive. At sight of Lucy, Paul sprang

to his feet with his customary charm and attentiveness and cocked an enquiring eyebrow at her.

“I hear you went in to Merrynporth to look for me,” he said. “Sorry I was adrift at the time. I was

here for lunch. Where did you have yours—with Aunt Minnie?”

His audacity was remarkable, she thought, and she said with admirable calm:

“You will realize, of course, now that I’ve actually met your poor, foolish aunt, that it would be

rather stupid to keep up the fiction of her helplessness.”

“Oh, that cock won’t fight any more,” he replied in cheerful agreement. “You can understand,

now, why I took such pains to keep you two apart.”



“Are you quite shameless?” she asked with sudden intense dislike for the handsome, smiling

face that masked such a mean, twisted mind.

“Oh, quite, I should think. Are you getting your own back, Lucy Locket, and going out to make

trouble for me?”

“You’ve made enough trouble for all of us, Paul,” she told him gravely. “You shouldn’t start

squealing when the tables are turned.”

His face lost its look of boyish impudence and his mouth pulled down into lines of sulky

discontent.

“Just because you didn’t make out with Bart is no reason for you to turn nasty,” he said, and

Lucy saw Pierre’s big black eyes going from one to the other of them with puzzled uneasiness.

“Pierre darling, run upstairs and play by yourself for a bit. I want to talk to Paul,” she said.

“You are going to quarrel,” the boy said accusingly.

“Well, if we are, it’s no concern of yours,” replied Lucy. “Run along now.”

“Run along! It’s always grown-up people say run along when one wishes to stay. I shall go and

wait at the gates for Papa,” Pierre said, and paid no attention to Lucy’s absent observation that

his father would not be back until evening. She heard the front door slam and the sound of his

feet running down the drive, but her attention was only for Paul.

“If I didn’t make out with Bart, as you put it, you know very well why, Paul. Why do you do these

things? Does it amuse you to have people like insects on pins, wriggling to get free?”

He looked pleased at the simile.

“You’re quite an attractive insect, my sweet. I don’t really want to hurt you, but I confess it

amuses me to watch Cousin Bartlemy wriggle.”

“So you tell him lies to assist in the process?”

“Half-truths, half-truths, my dear. There’s a difference.”

“And was it a half-truth to suggest that I was setting my cap at you?”



He smiled a little uneasily. It was clear, even to him, that this time he had gone too far.

“You exaggerate, Lucy,” he said, placatingly. “I may have embroidered the truth a bit, but I

thought a little competition might ginger old Bart up.”

“Truth!” cried Lucy, her emotions suddenly exploding in a wave of temper and passionate

indignation. “You don’t know the meaning of the word! The little subterfuges and petty

meannesses to bolster up your own conceit one might forgive, but to make mischief out of pure

spite to get even with a man who’s done you nothing but good, simply, because he’s got more

than you have, is despicable! What’s Bart ever done to you to deserve such shabby treatment?

First his son and then his wife—do you want to leave him with nothing?”

“Yes,” said Paul. “It gives me a sense of power—the only kind I’ll ever know. I would have

taken Pierre from him if it hadn’t been for you, damn you, and perhaps I owed you something for

that, Lucy, so I reverse the process and take your husband from you—not that you ever captured

him, did you, with his chilly affections buried in Marcelle’s grave?”

“Go on, Paul,” Bart’s voice said from the doorway, and, with a little cry, Lucy spun round to see

him standing there, Pierre, round-eyed and open-mouthed, at his side.

He spoke quietly enough, but his face had a curious greyness, and for the first time that

afternoon Paul looked scared.

“Now, look here, old man,” he started to bluster, “don’t take this wrong. Lucy and I were just

sparring. I—I didn’t mean it all.”

No? I’ve been here for some time, Paul. You’ve explained a great deal—too much to retract

this time,” Bart said, and Pierre began jumping up and down.

“I told you I would wait for Papa at the gates, Baba. I knew he was coming home early because

he has to go away tonight. I fetched him to listen because I do not think Paul is nice any more,”

he said triumphantly, and Bart ruffled his black head.

“Go upstairs for a little while, Pierre,” he said. “We don’t want you here just now.”

“You see? It’s as I say—always when something is happening the grown-ups say run along,”

the boy complained, but he gave his, father’s hand a sudden affectionate tug and obeyed without

further protest.

III



The three left in the library stood frozen into immobility for a moment, then Bart went to Lucy

and put an arm about her shoulders.

“In all humility, my dear, I ask your pardon,” he said gravely, and the tears sprang to her eyes

as she looked up into his face and saw the pain there.

She smiled a little tremulously. The relief at having him at her side, of knowing that at last all

the truth must come out, was almost too much for her.

“You weren’t to know,” she said softly. “We’ve all been taken for a ride, one way and another.

Even poor Aunt Minnie was someone else—I shouldn’t think she’s worn a shawl or used a hot

water-bottle in her l-life.”

She began to laugh with a trace of hysteria, and Bart caught her a swift hard slap across the

cheek.

“Pull yourself together,” he said sharply. “Shawls and hot water-bottles may be funny, but not

here and now.”

“They are, of course, when applied to the real Aunt Minnie, who’s a bit of a hard-faced bitch,”

Paul observed, trying to recapture his customary impudence, and his cousin turned on him with

such swift and terrible anger that he instinctively raised an arm to ward off a blow.

“You ungrateful, insufferable young puppy! Have you any conception of the harm you might

have done? Is there any shred of reason why I shouldn’t thrash the living daylight out of you? Oh,

you can stop cringing—I’m not going to hit you. Physical violence might have done good when

you were younger, but it’s too late now, and, as far as I’m concerned, you can go to the devil your

own way. You leave my employ as from now, but first I ’ll have a full explanation of what’s beengoing on at Polvane since you came here.”

Paul went suddenly to pieces. Watching him, Lucy experienced acute distress at having to

witness so humiliating a break-up of another human being and a deep sense of shame that in

some indirect fashion she was responsible.

“You can’t turn me off ... you promised a bonus ... I’ve never had a chance and you’ve had

everything...” he was whining. “Lucy, tell him to give me another chance ... tell him I still mean

something to you...”



“Shut up!” Bart thundered, and turned to his young wife who was looking so white and strained

“Lucy, this is needlessly distressing for you,” he said gently. “Leave us alone, please. I’ll deal

with this matter in my own way.”

“Lucy, don’t go!” Paul cried “Wouldn’t you care if he hurts me?”

“No,” said Lucy with finality, and walked out of the room.

It seemed a long time later that Bart came to find her, and she was still sitting on her bed in her

wet mackintosh, staring out of the window. The events of the past twenty-four hours had crowded

upon her too quickly and reaction had set in. She looked at Bart a little blankly.

“Has he gone?” she asked.

“Yes, he’s gone. He wasn’t worth the tongue-lashing I gave him, but at least I got the truth out

of him. That business over Pierre—why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried to, but you never took Paul seriously. He won’t—he won’t do anything silly, will he,

Bart? I mean driving off like this in that ramshackle little car.”

“That kind are too careful of their own skins,” said Bart contemptuously. “You haven’t regrets for

him, have you, Lucy?”

“No regrets—only a sort of sadness. He—he was gay and even kind—often,” she said with

unutterable weariness, and he looked at her sharply, his eyes narrowing in professional

attention.

“You’re all in, my child, and small wonder,” he said. “Get out of those wet things and into a

dressing-gown or something. I’ll light the fire.”

“It seems silly to have fires in June,” she said absently, and, after another quick look at her, he

put a match to the logs in the grate, then began to peel off her mackintosh and undress her. She

stood passively while he stripped off her clothes, cursing mildly when he encountered a stubborn

zip or button; it seemed too much effort to help him.

“Did I do that last night?” he asked, touching a small discoloration on her shoulder, and she felthis lips brush her bare skin for a moment.

He wrapped her in a dressing-gown, thrust absurd little mules on to her feet and lifted her



bodily into an easy chair by the fire.

“Stay there while I fetch you some brandy,” he said. “Later on I’ll give you a sedative and put

you to bed.”

The brandy warmed her and made her a little drowsy. It was pleasant to watch the evening

light fade and listen to the sound of the breakers which had once worried her so much. She had

no wish to ask her husband what had passed between Paul and himself; he would tell her when

he was ready, and, when he was ready, he would make amends for the violence of last night.

“It must be past tea-time,” she said, aware that the day had become disorganized. “Pierre

should be having his bath.”

“Smithers is seeing to Pierre. I’ve said we’re not to be disturbed for the next hour. Lucy — doyou remember I promised you once I would tell you the story of Marcelle?” His voice was

suddenly a little strained and she shook her head in protest. She did not want Marcelle’s gay

ghost intruding on this moment. She wanted to pretend for a little while that Bart was hers;

tomorrow, the next day, she would face reality again.

His eyes were suddenly tender as he watched her face. She was so small, so valiant in her

attempts to come to terms with the bargain they had made.

“My story is not going to hurt you,” he told her, gently. “I only want to go away with one aspect

of our misunderstandings—cleared up between us. The rest must wait till later.”

“Must you go?” she asked, knowing it to be a foolish question.

“I’m afraid so, only for a couple of nights to Bristol. While I’m gone, I want you to remember

what I’m going to tell you. It may—I hope it may—make a difference.”

She tucked her feet under her and settled down to listen like a good child who has been

promised a story. The firelight flickered on her face, but his was in shadow.

“I had been asked by the World Health Organization to give a paper at a conference in Paris,

when I met her. I was the British representative for orthopaedic surgery, which was considered

quite a feather in my cap at the time— I was under thirty in those days—and it may have

impressed her a little,” he began. “You’ve probably been told she sang in cafes and cabarets—a

precarious existence when your talent is mediocre, which hers was. I became infatuated with her

like many other men, and, perhaps, because I wanted to marry her, she took me a little more



seriously than the others. I wasn’t the kind, you see, to indulge in a casual affaire, more’s the pity.

The more she laughed at my serious intentions, the more determined I became to make her my

wife. I never really knew her background and I don’t suppose I would have cared anyhow. She

was beautiful and amusing and the first woman ever to stir me.”

His voice had become harsher and more abrupt as he spoke, and he paused now to fill and

light a pipe as if he found the telling of his story both painful and difficult.

“Well, in the end she took me. Work was becoming uncertain for her, I had money and an

assured position, and for some reason she wanted British nationality. She made it quite plain

that I was, for her, an escape, refuge, what you will; she was very French in her attitude to an

Englishman’s notion of love. Anyway, we married, and I brought her and Gaston to England. I

was very conscious that Polvane might bore her, though for me it was the home I had loved ever

since I could remember, and at first when I spent recklessly to gratify her smallest whim, l think

she was happy. Then she found she was going to have a child.”

There was a little silence while he sat considering the past, and Lucy held her breath, waiting

for what might come. It hurt her immeasurably that he had known from the beginning that he was

being used as a convenience and had been willing to accept such second-best.

“From that moment,” he went on, and now he spoke with a calm matter-of-factness as if hewere recounting one of his case histories, “our life became unbearable. Marcelle had never

wanted children and she blamed me every hour of the day and night for her condition. My own

passion had, I suppose, considerably cooled by then, but I think it was when I discovered she

was trying to get rid of the child that my emotions became completely sterile.

“I saw her then for exactly what she was, and I knew that once the child was born she would

leave me. We lived out the months of waiting and no one, I think, outside the household,

guessed at the true state of affairs. It was hardest for her, I suppose, for I had my work and she

had only the canker of resentment at the gradual distortion of her beauty. Gaston could manage

her, for he was fond of her and probably understood her temperament, and poor Smithers, who is

loyalty itself to anyone he serves, must have got a certain amount of kick out of the scenes and

dramas, I imagine. They have neither of them spoken of it to me since. The night Pierre was born

I had been called away—” The harshness was back in his voice and Lucy could see the

knuckles of his hands gleam suddenly white beneath the skin. “She fell—I’ve never known

whether by accident or some crazy notion of causing a still-born child. She was dying when I

was recalled and she cursed me to the end. That’s all.”

The tears were running down Lucy’s cheeks, but she did not know that she wept. All those



months of bitter hatred, all those ineradicable scars to fall on a man’s spirit.

“What a terrible story,” she said, and slipped to the floor beside his chair, wishing that she

could find the right words with which to comfort.

“Then all those years it wasn’t grief for her that you shut yourself in here with?” she said,

reaching for his hand.

“No, Lucy,” he replied gently, “only a determination to shut out all emotion, to bring up my son

in an atmosphere no woman could contaminate, to lose myself in my work and the well-being of

my boy, for he should not, I was resolved, suffer through a woman as I had.”

“And yet you married me.”

“Yes, I married you, and you know the terms of that bargain. The whole affair had thrown me off

balance, but I begin to think you were a little off balance yourself, Lucy Baa-lamb, to contemplate

such a barren union. Did you never stop to think what would happen if you fell in love with

someone else?”

He knocked out his pipe and dropped it beside his chair, and his hands were suddenly warm

on hers.

“Did you?” she asked, evading the question.

“If I did, then I selfishly smothered it,” he answered. “Pierre’s fear and dislike for me seemed

like an echo of his mother. I would have taken almost any step at that time to win his trust and

affection, to obliterate all trace of Marcelle. I was still not quite normal, you see.”

Lucy sat back on her heels, flexing and unflexing his fingers and tracing the fine bones of his

strong surgeon’s hands which had brought hope and life to so many and nothing to himself.

“I wish,” she said, “you could have told me that story sooner. I—I was made so unhappy by the

belief that your love was still with the past.”

“Were you, Lucy? Perhaps it was never love. I asked a great deal of you in the circumstances,

my poor child.”

“Never too touch. Never too much—at any time,” she said.

He leaned forward in his chair and his face was revealed in the firelight, infinitely tired, but with



a look in his eyes that probed her own with a searching question.

“You understand, I hope, why I’ve told you all this,” he said. “If we are to come to terms on last

night’s issue, you should know, at least, that you have no ghost for a rival. Think it over while I’m

gone.”

She blinked up at him with eyes that were wide and a little uncertain. He was, she knew,

accepting the offer she had made him of herself, and was appealing for tolerance. He had not

said that in time he might come to love her; perhaps he never would, and perhaps it did not

matter.

“I’ll do that,” she told him gravely, and put her arms round his neck to kiss him as a token of

good faith.



CHAPTER NINE

I

THERE was a note from Bart on her breakfast tray the next morning, and Lucy opened it with

eager hands; he had never written to her before.

Take things easy, my lamb, she read, and spare an occasional thought for your stupid and

unpreceptive husband. Bless you. It was unsigned, but the neat, precise writing brought him very

close, and she read the brief note over and over again, unaware that Smithers watched her with a

satisfied eye.

“It’s a beautiful day,” he informed her. “Real summer, you might say, but it won’t last.”

“Don’t be such a pessimist, Smithy,” she laughed, thinking that the return of summer was

symbolic of her own fresh hopes. “I must hurry and get out of doors.” Pierre was already in the

garden with Abel when she came down, and for a moment she stood watching them

affectionately, the old man, bent with rheumatism, and the young boy, straight and sturdy as a

sapling, who would grow up to enjoy his inheritance as his father had before him. She went to

meet them across the sparkling lawn, the sun warm on her bare legs, the sky a miracle of

unbroken blue above her.

“What a wonderful morning, Abel,” she said. “And how lovely after all that rain and mist. I’d

almost forgotten how good things could look.”

“Can’t beat the west country in proper weather,” he chuckled. “You’m growin’ a proper Cornish

maid, m’dear, and bonny, too. Been dabblin’ in the dew?”

“Is that another of your charms?” she laughed.

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose. There’s a west country song that says ‘tes dabblin’ in the

dew makes the milkmaids fair, and I do know when I were a young lad, the maids did use to

creep out early mornings and bathe in the dew for to make their skins white, see? But you don’t

need none of that, ma’am.” He bent to his digging, still chuckling.

“She’s like the white lily before the earth had touched it,” said Pierre solemnly, then flung his

arms round Lucy’s knees with a burst of joy. “Shall we have a picnic today, Baba, just you and



me?”

“I don’t see why not,” replied Lucy, smiling.

“And can we go to Gannet Cove?”

“No, not there. I don’t like i t.”

She spoke more sharply than she intended, and the old man looked up from his digging.

“Haven’t ‘e touched the Corn Rock yet?” he asked slyly.

“Yes, once—but that was only a game with Mr. Paul.”

He spat on his hands and resumed digging.

“Ar! ‘E baint the one to go visiting Corn Rock with,” he said in disgust. “Good thing ‘e’s, gone,

I’m thinking. I used to watch ‘e a-chasin’ of you across the grass and catching ee as like as not.

’Twasn’t proper.”

“Oh, Abel!” she said a little helplessly. “That was just play—like a couple of children.”

“Then visit Corn Rock and get childer of your own to play with,” he retorted grumpily.

“She has me!” Pierre exclaimed a little indignantly. “And if we will find more children at Corn

Rock then I do not wish to go to Gannet Cove. Come, Baba, we will find Gaston and arrange the

picnic, and he will, perhaps, have something nice in the oven for us to eat now.”

They went in the back way through the open kitchen door. Gaston’s herbs were spread out on

the warm ‘cobbles in the sun, and he himself stood in his shirt-sleeves, mopping the sweat from

his bald forehead.

“My young lady looks a treat in them cotton dresses with petticoats tacked inside of ‘em—very

jurn-fee, as you would say,” Smithers was observing conversationally, upon which the cook threw

up his hands:

“Your young lady pouff!” he exploded. “Have I not shown her—with much delicacy, you

understand—the ways l’amour ?”

“I doubt if you frogs could be delicate on the subject of larmoor, Monsoor Dupont,” Smithers



retorted coldly, and it took Lucy a moment to realize that it was she herself who was under

discussion.

She stepped into the kitchen before they could embark on one of their violent altercations, and

made her request for a picnic, but she smiled at them both gratefully. It was pleasant and

warming to know that the servants had accepted her so whole-heartedly.

“Gaston—Smithy,” she said impulsively, “I would like to buy Mr. Travers a present. You have

both known his tastes for years—what can I get?”

They were delighted at being consulted and took the matter very seriously. It was decided, after

the rejection of several rather wild suggestions, that she should give him a new briefcase with his

initials inscribed, for, said Smithers disapprovingly, the old one was past praying for and not fit for

a gentleman of Mr. Travers’ professional standing.

“I will go into St. Minver when we come back from the picnic,” said Lucy happily, and Gaston

suddenly leaped to his feet with a shriek.

“Vilain! Saboteur ! My gateau she will not rise!” he shouted, for Pierre, bored with the discussion,

had opened the oven door to look inside. In the end they all ate the cake, half-cooked though it

was, and Lucy fell to giggling as childishly as Pierre, so bright was the day and so warm her

heart.

They picnicked on the headland with the scent of the gorse all about them, and when Pierre

had been tucked up for his afternoon rest with the promise of another picnic tomorrow, Lucy took

the bus into St. Minver to choose her present for Bart.

The little town was warm and sleepy in the sunshine. Already Lucy had acquired an affection

for it, and she remembered with faint surprise the days when she had hurried on errands for old

Miss Heap and hated the streets which had seemed so grey and unfriendly. She chose the

briefcase, made a few purchases for herself then turned into a cafe for a cup of tea before

catching her bus home.

There were no empty tables, and, as Lucy stood hesitating, a voice called her by name. Matron

was sitting alone at a table for two, and Lucy could do no other than join her without appearing

rude.

“Well, how nice!” Mary Morgan said. “I’ve been meaning to come out to see you, Lucy, but

there’s been so little time. I have news of you from Bart, of course, but it’s not the same thing, is



it?”

Lucy felt a little embarrassed. That dinner date which Bart had said she was to make with

Matron had somehow never materialized, and, remembering the results of Mary Morgan’s well-

meaning interference upon another occasion, Lucy wished the meeting could have been

avoided. They made desultory talk and Mary remarked: “You’re looking well, Lucy—better than

when I saw you last. I hear that young man has left Polvane.”

“Paul? Yes, there wasn’t really enough for him to do,” Lucy replied guardedly, wondering

whether Bart had disclosed the real reason for Paul’s dismissal.

“A very good thing,” Matron said briskly. “Bart can be very near-sighted at times, or have you

discovered that for yourself?”

Lucy missed the kindliness in Mary’s eyes and saw only a feminine desire to gossip.

“Perhaps we all are, upon occasion,” she answered evasively, and Mary smiled.

“You don’t like me very much, do you, Lucy?” she said in her blunt fashion. “A pity, because I

take a great interest in your well-being. I think, in spite of your youth, Bart has made a good

second choice, and I’ve told him so.”

Lucy’s eyes were suddenly wide and a little strained. She was not enjoying her tea.

“I don’t want to sound rude, Matron, but I think, perhaps you’ve discussed me too much with

Bart,” she said carefully, and Mary sighed. These touchy young women, she thought impatiently,

did they always take well-intentioned advice for interference?

“Look, my dear,” she said, “I’ve realized that a great many things have probably been

misconstrued since the night of the Hospital Ball—that’s why I’ve been meaning to get out to see

you. Bart, no less than you, can be pigheaded, and I—well, perhaps I’m not always as tactful as I

might be, but I’m not a mischief-maker. I do want you to understand that.”

It was a difficult admission for a woman of Matron’s standing to make, and came near to an

apology, Lucy realized. She said at once, with the spontaneous warmth that another’s appeal

could always draw from her:

“Of course I understand that, Matron. I—I’m sorry if you thought me impertinent.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve thought about me?” Mary retorted, but there was humour in her smile.



“You’ve grown up quite a bit, little Lucy Lamb. I was right, after all, in urging Bart to what many

people considered to be an act of folly.”

Lucy raised startled eyes to her and saw the humanity which lay behind the shrewdness in

Mary’s.

“You mean his marriage? But that was for Pierre’s sake,” she stammered.

“Not so far as I was concerned,” Matron retorted with amusement. “I believed that his being

forced into a relationship with a thoroughly nice, unspoilt young woman who wouldn’t ask too

much of life would pave the way for nature. Don’t look so shocked Lucy. No man of your

husband’s temperament should go celibate through life on account of an old tragedy, besides—I

don’t believe he ever loved that woman. She was selfish to the core.”

“Well !” said Lucy, then threw back her head and laughed, and Mary observed with an odd

tenderness the long, delicate lines of the girl’s neck and throat, the youth and spontaneity in her

laughter.

“Poor Bart!” said Lucy. “How little he knew of your schemings—I wouldn’t have dared!”

“Because,” Mary replied with a twinkle, “you held him in awe like my silly young nurses who

can only admire from a respectful distance. Now you must do a little scheming yourself, if you

haven’t already. You are in love with him, I hope?”

Lucy’s gentle mouth curved in a slow smile but, although she did not answer, she no longer

resented the older woman’s outspokenness, and Mary called abruptly for her bill and insisted on

paying for both their teas.

“Well, I must be getting back to the hospital. It’s supposed to be my afternoon off, but there’salways something to attend to,” she said prosaically, and Lucy got politely to her feet.

“Please come and see us soon,” she said shyly. “I would like—I would like one of Bart’s oldest

friends to be mine, too.”

Matron’s eyes were soft.

“Would you, Lucy? That’s very charming of you,” she said, and, gathering up her parcels, made

her way out of the shop leaving Lucy alone.

II



The second day was as warm and cloudless as the first, and Pierre, waking in a holiday mood,

was once more insistent that this time they should picnic in Gannet Cove. Lucy gave in, chiding

herself for her unreasoning reluctance to visit the place again. Today Bart would be coming

home, and she would follow Abel’s advice and make a wish at the Corn Rock against his return.

Since it was a little way to walk, she took Pierre’s old push-chair to relieve her of the luncheon

basket and save the boy’s short legs when he got tired. They set out singing and shouting with

happy abandon, and Abel watched them into the distance, one eye on the sky.

“Ar! Storm before nightfall, thought ’twouldn’t last,” he muttered to himself, and went off to his

potting-shed.

The tide was out and Lucy and the child paddled in the pools and built sand-castles and, whenthey were tired, lay down together in the shade of a rock. It was really a very pleasant little cove,

Lucy thought contentedly; after lunch she would effect her pilgrimage to the Corn Rock and make

her wish. They lingered pleasurably over Gaston’s excellent provisions, and afterwards Pierre

curled up in the shade and fell asleep.

Lucy looked down at him with tender eyes. He was so small, so strangely beautiful, she

thought, and, aside from his black hair, so unlike his father. He had his mother’s beauty, she

supposed, and, sighing a little, left him there asleep and walked across the wet sands to the Corn

Rock.

She touched the rock with solemn hands and wished passionately for the children Bart might

give her, and just as li ttle feathery clouds began to drift across the flawless sky, so her happiness

became .unaccountably dimmed; what certainty had she that she could measure up to his

demands; what courage would be needed to give a love which could not be told and receive only

affectionate tolerance in return? Had he not said, himself, that night when he would have taken

her in bitterness and anger, that desire need have nothing to do with love? For a man things were

different, but for a woman the need for love was instinctive and inherent.

Lucy leaned against the Corn Rock, shaken suddenly with tears. The solitariness of the granite

cliffs and the waiting, cruel ocean pressed down on her spirit, and her strange dislike of Gannet

Cove returned to plague her. She turned to run back to Pierre and say they must be going, and

noticed how much nearer the water line was. The tide had turned and was coming in.

There was no sign of the boy, and Lucy began to pack up the luncheon basket He was hiding,

of course, a favourite game of his when her back was turned. In a little while she must go and



look for him and express great surprise and pretend alarm at his disappearance.

Her alarm, however, became real when she could find no trace of him. The small inlets and

hollows in the cliffs were empty of life, and she began to call, trying to keep the anxiety from her

voice. At last she got an answering shout which held glee that he had fooled her, and presently

she saw him peering at her round a raised platform of rock which jutted out into the sea.

“You did not know about the caves, yes?” he shouted as she ran to meet him. “Come, I will

show you.”

“Oh, not now, poppet,” she protested. “I’ve no idea what the time is and I think we should be

going.”

“Papa must buy you a watch,” he said, and continued firmly, “But now you must see the caves.?They are quite famous and have sticklebacks hanging on the roof.”

“Sticklebacks? Oh, you mean stalactites,” she laughed, and climbed up after him into the

opening above the rock. She could not cheat him of his surprise, besides which caves had

always fascinated her. She and those other children had never found the Gannet Caves all those

years ago.

“Look! Look!” Pierre shouted, pointing to all the marvels he had discovered for himself. “There

are hundreds of eaves all leading out of each other and they come out on the other side.”

“The other side of what?”

“I do not know, but it does not matter. We will not walk so far. Is it not wonderful, Baba?”

The caves were certainly worth exploring, she thought, gazing in wonder at the phosphorescent

stalactites which lit the place with a dim, eerie light. She followed in Pierre’s wake, going from

one cave to another, and became caught up in a spirit of adventure. They sang and shouted,

delighting in the echoes that came back to them, and Pierre chanted Abel’s charm for snake-bite

in case there were adders which swam in the dark little pools they encountered. He was still

singing as they approached the mouth of the first cave on the return journey.

“Underneath a hazlin mote

Lies a braggarty worm with speckled throat—”

He broke off at Lucy’s startled exclamation and looked with astonishment at the changed scene



before them. The sun and the sands had vanished, and all round them a heaving mass of water

boiled with angry implacabili ty. “What has happened?” Pierre cried.

“The tide has come up,” Lucy said, and remembered Bart saying: “Gannet Cove is harmless

enough if you remember the currents and the tides.”

“Do the caves fill at high water?” she asked, and the boy drew back at the sharpness of alarm

which she could not keep out of her voice.

“I do not know,” he said. “Baba—you are afraid?”

“No, of course not,” she said quickly.

The stretch of water between them and the remaining bit of beach where the path led up thecliffs looked alarmingly wide, but it could not yet be very deep, she thought. She could wade and

carry the boy to, the safety of dry land. “Come along, poppet, we’ll have to get wet. If the water’s

too deep for you I’ll carry you.”

“No!” he said, running back into the cave, and at that moment the storm which Abel had

foreseen broke over them.

It was not, Lucy supposed, very severe, but the sudden deluge of rain turned the sea into a

frightening whirlpool of foam-flecked water, and the lightning was incessant.

“Pierre! We must go while we can!” she shouted, but he was already out of earshot and she

remembered that he was frightened of storms. She found him cowering by one of the many pools

which answered her question as to whether the caves filled at high water, and she gathered him

into her arms for comfort.

“Listen, darling, you said the caves came out on the other side. Are you sure? she asked.

“I think so—I do not really know,” he whispered, beginning to cry.

“Well, we’d better find out,” she said, and took him by the hand.

It seemed that they walked endlessly, slipping and scrambling over rough places, cutting their

knees on stalagmites and barnacles, and when at last they reached the last cave there wasnothing but rock. If there had ever been another entrance, the sea’s slow shifting of rock and

granite had blocked it long ago.



The return journey was a nightmare passage for Lucy. She did not know how much time they

had wasted, or how quickly the tide came in. By now the water that filled the little cove might be

too deep for even her to wade, and she could swim no better than she had six years ago.

Though the rain still fell, the storm had passed when they reached the mouth of the first cave,

but the water had already risen high over their ledge of rock and was pouring into the cave. The

luncheon basket bobbed about at the foot of the cliffs and there was no beach left.

“Are we going to drown, Baba,” Pierre asked in awestruck tones. He was, she thought, too tired

now to be very much afraid.

“No darling, of course we won’t drown,” she said, and slipped down into the water to test its

depth. Her feet could not touch the bottom.

“We must stay here till somebody finds us,” she said, when she had climbed back, and saw the

water that was well above her ankles was nearly over his knees.

“Will anyone find us?” he asked, shivering a little.

“Of course they will,” she said, and of course they must, she told herself. Even though few

trippers visited Gannet Cove, they would be missed at home when they did not return in the

storm.

She tried to divert the boy’s attention by telling him stories, even singing the songs he always

begged of her; it was an exhausting business. It seemed a long time before she noticed that the

water was above the child’s waist, so quiet had he become. She made him climb on her

shoulders and sit there, propped against the rock. The water surely could not rise to her own

height, and if it did, she thought, with the slow advent of lightheadedness, she would have

carried, out her responsibilities to the letter; Bart would have his son, the only being in the world

he cared about.

“So much for the Corn Rock,” she said, her teeth beginning to chatter. “I won’t get my wish now.”

“What did you wish?” Pierre asked sleepily.

“You must never tell your wish or it won’t come true,” Lucy said.

“But you said you would not get it now.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” she replied irritably, thinking how ludicrous it was that they should be



having such an idiotic conversation at such a moment, when a voice gave a faint hail from the top

of the cliff. A man stood there, his hands cupped to his mouth.

“Wave, Pierre, wave!” Lucy cried, “I’m afraid of upsetting you if I try myself. Wave to that man up

there.”

The boy moved his arms with a weary effort and Lucy shouted and shook her wet skirt, hoping it

might serve instead of a handkerchief to attract attention. The man made a gesture of recognition

and went off at a run, and the tension went out of Lucy so suddenly that her knees nearly gave

under her.

After that, time became meaningless. They had only to wait for the boat that would surely come,

but Lucy’s strength was failing. Pierre seemed a dead weight on her shoulders and the agonies

of cramp shot through the muscles of her back and arms. The water had stopped for some time at

a level just above her knees, she noted dully, and wondered vaguely how long the tide took to

turn and go out again.

The boat had come round the jutting Corn Rock and into the little bay before she knew it was

there. Two men were bent to their oars, while the man standing in the bows waved and shouted.

It was without any very great surprise that Lucy recognized Bart. Had he not come to her rescue

in Gannet Cove all those years ago?

The boat scraped against the rock on which she stood and one of the fishermen steadied it with

an oar.

“Papa!” Pierre exclaimed, and showed no surprise either. It was to him, perfectly natural that his

father should be at hand in moments of stress.

Bart climbed on to the ledge of rock, the water washing over his ankles, and lifted his son from

Lucy’s shoulders.

“Take the boy, ” he said, handing Pierre to one of the men, then turned to support Lucy, whose

legs were beginning to buckle. “I have you, darling. Put your arms round my neck.”

She cried out as the pain travelled along her cramped muscles and he picked her up and

handed her gently into the boat.

“What be ee a think’ of, missus? Don’t ee know about the tides hereabout?” asked one of the

fishermen in mild reproach, then added with a certain rough respect: “Reckon you’m stiff holding



up the little ‘un, and you not more than a little ‘un yourself.”

There were blankets and oilskins in the boat. One of the men saw to Pierre, wrapping him up

and stowing him away in the stern where he sat, blinking sleepily at his rescuers, but Bart, after a

brief, cursory inspection of his son, devoted his whole attention to Lucy. His face, as he bent over

her, was grey and the skin taught against his bones. He looked as she imagined he had looked

when the dying Marcelle had cursed him for the birth of her child.

“How is it you are here?” she asked, reaching up a hand to him.

“I got back earlier than I had hoped,” he said, and gave her a wan smile. “Do I always have to

come home to unexpected shocks, Lucy Baa-lamb?”

“We were exploring the caves,” she said apologetically. “I never knew the tide could come in soquickly. “I told you Gannet Cove hadn’t finished with me.”

“So you did. Well, we’ll steer clear of the place in future. If it hadn’t been for the chap who found

Pierre’s push-cart at the top of the cliffs—” He broke off, as she snuggled against him, lulled by

the rocking of the boat and the strength and warmth of his arm about her.

“I didn’t know how high the water could get, but I thought it couldn’t get higher than me and

Pierre would be safe,” she said.

“Of all crazy, quixotic things!” he exclaimed, and his voice was unsteady.

“But he was all you cared about,” she said plaintively. “He was why I’m here.”

His hands were gentle on the wet head pressed against him.

“Don’t talk, my lamb,” he said. “Everything can be explained in the morning.”

“Like everything will be better tomorrow?” she said, and there was a pinched look of pain about

her mouth.

“Yes, everything will be better tomorrow,” he said. “Now rest, my dearest, we’ll be home soon.”

Afterwards, Lucy remembered very little about the rest of the journey, except that it was she whoheld Bart’s attention, and not his son. His car was waiting on the jetty and he carried her there,

with Pierre trotting cheerfully behind. At Polvane there was unusual bustle, with Smithers

sweeping the boy off to hot baths and, doubtless, an orgy of story-telling, while Gaston appeared



at regular intervals with tisanes for madame.

“They are so nasty, but I don’t like to hurt his feelings,” Lucy said, having drunk the third with

nausea. She lay on a sofa in the library to which Bart had carried her, and submitted meekly to

his professional introduction of thermometer and pulse-taking.

“They won’t hurt you,” he said, “but bed’s the best place, after a hot bath.”

“You’re always sending me to bed,” she complained, and wanted irrelevantly, to tell him of the

present she had bought him.

“It’s only the second time,” he retorted. “You shouldn’t get yourself into a state that requires

medical attention. Now, be off with you.”

“My shoulders are so sore,” she said, struggling into a sitting position.

“I’m not surprised,” he implied, holding out a hand to help her to her feet. “A boy of seven is no

mean weight to support on shoulders like yours. Would you like me to carry you?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling, and he picked her up and felt her arms go confidingly round his neck.

“You’re doing all right, Lucy Baa-lamb,” he said with a hint of laughter as he carried her

upstairs.

III

The lightheadedness that arose from shock and strain was not really serious, but he was up

with her all night. She got used to his tall figure bending over her bed, or just standing there,

contemplating her, when he thought she was asleep.

He had given her a sedative, but she woke every so often and spoke in rambling, disjointed

little sentences. The lamp, which had been left burning, threw strange shadows on the tester that

worried her.

“Is there a braggarty worm up there?” she said once, and he bent over her, putting a cool hand

on her forehead.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“An adder. Abel knows a charm against snake-bites: ‘ Underneath the hazlin mote there’s a



braggarty worm with speckled throat; nine double is he…’ ”

“There are no snakes in the tester, my silly lamb. Hold my hand and go to sleep again.”

She slipped a hand into his and knew comfort.

“Do you remember the charm in that book of yours about lying in another county and knitting

the left garter about the right-legged stocking? I can’t remember it; This knot I knit to know the

thing I know not yet ... how does it go on?”

He thought she was wandering and his fingers felt automatically for her pulse.

“Don’t worry about it now,” he said, and she replied with sudden urgency:

“But it’s very important ... you say the charm and then sleep and dream of the husband you’ll

get ... only, of course I have a husband already, haven’t I?”

“Yes,” he said, and saw with surprise in the lamplight that her eyes were clear and no longer

bright with fever, and he remembered now that she had read out the absurd jingle to him the

night he had given her his mother’s pearls.

“Do you go a lot on charms, funny one?” he asked, because it seemed better to let her talk.

“I don’t know,” she answered seriously. “Abel thinks they’re important. He told me to touch the

Corn Rock in Gannet Cove and I did, but I expect it wasn’t much good.”

And what does the Corn Rock represent?”

“Fertility. You wish for children. There! Now I’ve told my wish and it will never come true!”

“Do you want children, Lucy? Yes, you told me you did. You ’d do better to consult your

husband on that issue, and not a rock.”

“Yes,” she said, and gave a little sigh and slept again. He watched her tenderly, absorbing

every angle of her sleeping face, the gentle mouth, the delicate veins which lent a blue shadow

to her eyelids, the endearing curves of the forehead so much like a young child’s. He had

chosen her so lightly, he thought with humility, and had expected, because she had nobackground of her own, that the home and protection he offered should suffice, like the bone one

might carelessly fling to a stray dog.



He must have moved abruptly, for she opened her eyes and lay blinking up at him in the

lamplight.

“Pierre is safe, isn’t he?” she asked, looking anxious.

“Quite safe. Shut your eyes again.”

“I thought you looked worried.”

“And why shouldn’t I look worried about my wife?”

“You’ve never thought of me as that,” she said. “Not worried exactly, perhaps—kind of

remorseful.”

“Well, perhaps I have cause,” he said gravely, and she turned her face into the pillow, away

from the light.

“You needn’t be, Bart—dear Bart,” she said. “You can’t help it that I love you.”

“You love me?”

“I’m afraid so, but it—it needn’t embarrass you. I had to tell you because that night when I—tried to make you understand, you thought I’d been turned down by Paul. I—I would never have

offered you second-best, Bart.”

“Yet you were prepared to accept second-best from me.”

“That was different. You had given your love long ago. I would have been content with what

was left over.”

He turned her face gently back to the light again, and she felt his fingers tremble slightly as

they touched her.

“But you know the true story of my first marriage, now,” he said. “Doesn’t that show you that you

could be wrong, too?”

She gave a little sigh.

“Yes,” she said, “but it was too late.”



He had to exercise control not to pull her up into his arms and shake the truth out of her. Not

since the torment of those months with Marcelle had he experienced such a turmoil of spirit.

“Too late because I had already lost you, you mean?” he said steadily, and she looked

distressed again and suddenly a little hazy.

“Oh, no, no, never that ... I don’t know what I meant,” she said distractedly. “Everyone resented

me, you know. Gaston—Smithy, that first night—and you, even...”

“The servants only resented you out of loyalty to me,” he told her gently, realizing how she

could have misunderstood. “They were afraid I might have made another foolish marriage. Can

you understand?”

“Yes,” she said, and drifted into sleep again.

He got up to ease his stiff limbs, and walked across to the window to part the curtains a fraction

and look out. Dawn was breaking and the mists of early morning were rising everywhere from

the soaked earth. In this moment of immense stillness, before the birds began their dawn chorus,

he understood, for perhaps the first time, the loneliness of spirit that could fall upon another. He

had not tried, even in those moments when she had unaccountably disturbed him, to know his

young wife and, in his resolution never to be vulnerable again himself, had shut his eyes to the

tender vulnerability in her.

He turned back to the bed to resume his vigil, and saw that she was sleeping peacefully, the

anxious pucker gone from her forehead, the colour soft and healthy beneath the two still

crescents of her lashes. She would not wake now, he knew, until this last refreshing sleep had

done its work. He stretched out in the chair beside the bed and with the ease of long practice in

snatching at rest, slept himself.

The sun was up when Lucy awoke and Bart was drawing the curtains on another brilliant day.

She yawned and stretched, wincing a little at the stiffness in her shoulders. He came and sat

down on the bed, his face looking unshaven and a little haggard in the morning light, and her

eyes widened in surprise.

“Haven’t you been to bed all night?” she asked. “I wasn’t really ill, was I?”

“A little lightheaded, that’s all. I’ll take your temperature now, please.”

“Did I—did I say anything odd in the night?” she asked, after he had satisfied himself that both



pulse and temperature were normal.

“You talked about braggarty worms and lying in another county knitting garters, if you call that

odd,” he replied, shaking down the thermometer.

“Anything else?” The events of the night were still confused in her mind, and she looked at him

a little anxiously.

“Nothing that will be held against you,” he said with a twisted little smile. “Well, I’d better have a

shave and a bath. I won’t be going in to my consulting-rooms today.”

She looked at him doubtfully under her lashes. A great deal of the night’s conversation was

coming back to her.

“Can I get up?” she asked, wondering if he considered her to be ill since he had stayed up with

her all night.

“Oh, yes, when you’ve had your breakfast. You and I have some business to get down to in the

cold light of day,” he replied. It had a slightly ominous sound, she thought, then he suddenly

smiled and she knew he was not altogether serious.

“Will you kiss me good morning?” she said, trying to gauge the temper of his mood, but he only

laughed and made for the door.

“With a chin like this?” he exclaimed. “I must make myself more presentable, Lucy Baa-lamb,

before—well, never mind. Have a good soak in a hot bath to take the stiffness out of those

shoulders.”

When he had gone she lay there waiting for Smithers to bring her breakfast, and remembering

with sudden clarity the things she had said to her husband in the watches of the night. She had

told him she loved him, she had told him she wished for children; she had, she thought, made it

embarrassingly plain that she had no pride in seeking favours of him, and he—he had been kind

and gentle, thinking her lightheaded, and would, he had just told her, hold nothing against her...

It was past eleven o’clock when she was ready to come down, for she had lingered over her

bath and dressing, suddenly shy of the day that stretched ahead, and, at the last moment, could

not find the sandals which went with the frock and which Smithers must have taken away to

clean and forgotten to return. She went to the kitchen to retrieve them, and Gaston bounced like

a round rubber ball to attention.



“But madame is merveilleuse!” he exclaimed with gratifying astonishment. “And to think that

only yesterday you drown holding up the little one!”

“But I didn’t drown—I don’t suppose the water would ever have reached high enough,” she

laughed “Where are my shoes, Gaston, and where is Pierre?”

“Your shoes, I find them, and Pierre he has gone for another peecneec with Smeety, for the fine

weather she will not last long, so Abel say.”

“Gone for a picnic with Smithy! How very queer,” Lucy said, looking quite startled, and the little

Frenchman beamed upon her, holding out the missing sandals.

“It was m’sieur’s orders,” he said demurely. “He does not, he say, want to be bothered with a

child just now.”

“Not want to be bothered with his son—when this is the first free day he’s had for weeks?” Lucy

exclaimed incredulously.

Gaston’s eyes twinkled.

“Enfin, he has more important matters to consider, perhaps. He tell me to say he wait for you in

the garden, when you are ready.”

She took the sandals from him absently, but did not put them on. Dangling them by their straps,

she went slowly into the hall and out through the flower-room. Her mouth felt a little dry. She did

not see Bart where he sat waiting in a bend of the terrace, and he watched her tentative

excursion on to the lawn and the quick glance she cast about as if uncertain what to do next. She

looked very young in a full-skirted white frock he had not seen before, and she swung a pair of

scarlet sandals while her bare feet sketched an involuntary dancing step in the wet grass. Hewatched for a moment longer, unwilling to relinquish the pleasure of observing her unseen, then

he got to his feet.

“Lucy!” he called softly.

She spun round and he could see her small breasts rise in the quick little breath she took, and

then something in the way he stood waiting for her, in the invitation of his outstretched hands,

perhaps, must have banished her uncertainty, for she dropped her sandals on the grass and ran

across the lawn and straight into his arms.



“You can have your good morning kiss now,” he said, bending his head to hers.

“I don’t t-take any of it back,” she stammered rather incoherently. “I do love you ... and I wasn’t

lightheaded and—and you’ll have to put up with it, I’m afraid...”

“I hoped you weren’t lightheaded,” he retorted, “but your declaration being all mixed up with

braggarty worms and garters, was a little difficult to know.”

She slid her hands to his shoulders and looked up into his dark, suddenly tender face.

“I promised I would never let it become an embarrassment, and I won’t,” she said, and his eyes

held a look of honest perplexity.

“But, my darling child, how could such a thing become an embarrassment?” he demanded.“Don’t you suppose I have my feelings, too?”

“But you—but you—” she began, starting to stammer again, and he gave her a gentle shake.

“You don’t imagine you have a monopoly in that direction do you?” he said. “Why do you

suppose I was so upset by that business over Paul—went out of my way to hurt you and

misunderstand things that should have been plain to an idiot? My blessed, credulous little baa-

lamb, I was hoist with my own petard. I fell in love with you.”

It seemed to Lucy that she must be still dreaming through that long night while the lamplight

etched shadows on his face as he brought her comfort and gave her hope.

“When?” she said foolishly, because she could think of nothing more sensible to say.

“When? I’ve no idea. The night you so innocently offered what I thought was a sacrifice for my

pleasure, perhaps—no, before that or I wouldn’t have reacted so violently. Maybe it was after the

hospital do when you stood there in that bridal gown of yours and sang ‘So white, so soft, so

sweet is she’ ... I don’t know, Lucy. Does it matter?”

“No,” she said, then a sudden realization of the needless suffering she had endured of late

made her add in disgust: “Men! How could I know a thing like that by magic?”

His eyes were humble.

“You couldn’t,” he said. “I think, perhaps, I hardly knew it myself—but yesterday—when I saw

you holding up that boy, and knowing that you thought he was all that mattered to me, I knew



what I had done to you. Forgive me Lucy, if you can, for being so blind...” He raised her hands to

his lips and stood there a moment, his black head bent over them, and the tears filled her eyes.

“Don’t ... don’t, my darling,” she whispered. “I can’t bear to see you humble...”

“You’ve had little occasion to see that side of me, I’m afraid,” he said with something of his old

dryness, and she put a finger against his l ips.

“No more remorse—it doesn’t become you,” she said, and he kissed her on the nose and told

her to have more respect for his grey hairs. He was, she realized with wonder and a flood of

tenderness, as shy and uncertain as she.

He began to walk her back along the terrace to the house. The flags were warm under her bare

feet, his arm about her a firm encircling promise.

“Gaston has some champagne ready for us in the library,” Bart said as they reached the front

door. “Our wedding day wasn’t much of a celebration, was it?”

150312629 Lucy Lamb Doctor s Wife Sara Seale

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