Unknown (11 page)

“I’ve heard it called the necessary evil on more than one occasion,” she said, “but we can’t do very much without it, can we? At least we have a stake in Denham’s—a share or two. We ought to be content with that”

Susan turned back into the room, lifting the novel she had been reading earlier in the day.

“What are you reading?” her stepmother asked.

“Scott. I never tire of him.”

“You must know his novels backwards, Sue!”

“They
are
the Borders. He wrote with such clear insight.”

“And such romance!” Evelyn’s eyes sought the distant moonlit fells towards Cheviot. “It’s all so lovely,” she added softly. “So lovely and so heartbreaking.”

“I hate change,” Susan said, “and Maxwell Elliott has started to change things already. He’s sacked Mungo and Elsie Cockburn.”

Evelyn shook her head.

“Not really,” she said. “They’re going to work at the Carse. Mungo is to take charge of the gardens and Elsie will be employed in the house. It’s nearer for her than the mill, so she can get home for a midday meal with her mother.”

Susan’s heart seemed to miss a beat. Evelyn was heaping coals of fire on her head. How ungenerous she had been in her harsh criticism of Max before she had known the truth !

“What can he possibly think of me?” she said as she turned towards the stairs.

SPRING passed quickly into summer and the Middle March was full of flowers. Liddesdale and Teviot and the swift-flowing Yarrow reflected the sun, day after day, with never a cloud to trouble the blue sky overhead. It was exceptional weather. The secret forests and the lonely hills of the March lands seemed full of peace, although there was little peace in Susan’s tempestuous heart. She felt as if she were waiting for some sort of axe to fall.

Yet nothing happened for two weeks. Busy at the mill with the autumn designs, she hadn’t found time to visit the Carse, as she had promised, and the Elliotts seemed determined to keep their distance. She had expected Max or Richard Elliott to come to Yairborough, but they seemed in no great hurry to take possession or to exert their authority in any other way.

Fergus, who was busy with his work at the Mains, was also involved in the plans for the Common Riding, where the local horsemen came into their own. The preparatory cantering was already in progress, and none of the original ‘callants’ could have been more keen than the young men competing for the honour of bearing the Hexham Pennant through the streets and byways on the great day. The ‘Comet’ had not yet been elected and the excitement was intense. Tearing across the countryside on their trusty steeds, they were much in evidence from Denham House, and when she worked at home Susan often paused to watch them. Once or twice she imagined that she saw Max Elliott in the procession, but she could not be sure.

Then, one day, coming home from the mill, she saw him riding against another horseman across the moor. The two came thundering down across the heather from the ancient peel tower which stood high on the cliff overlooking the Yair, and there could be no denying who was the better rider. Max crossed the road ahead of her much as he had done that first day of their meeting and Fergus remained several yards behind. Their breaths were coming hard and their horses' flanks were flecked with foam, but surely Max couldn’t hope to compete for the honour of being elected ‘Comet’ for the day?

Fergus looked disgruntled.

“That’s the second time he’s beaten me,” he admitted, leaning down from the saddle as she stopped the car. “I must be losing my skill.”

“You’re probably out of practice,” Susan consoled as Max rode up. “It takes time.”

Max smiled.

“Or experience,” he suggested. ‘You haven’t kept your promise to come to the Carse,” he added.

“No, I’m sorry. I really have been too busy.”

He looked down at her quizzically.

“Is that an excuse,” he asked, “or are you really in need of help?”

“Neither. It’s just that I don’t seem to be able to concentrate hard enough.”

“It could be the weather,” Fergus offered. “You ought to get out more, Sue, but at least you’ll be coming to the Riding. We want weather like this for it, so let’s hope it holds till June.”

Susan looked up at his companion.

“Are you riding?” she asked.

Max shook his head.

“Not this year. I may try it some other time, when I’ve been a resident for a bit longer. The Chase rather appeals to me,” he added with his sardonic smile in full display.

It would, Susan thought, because he was the personification of every dark Border reiver who had ever galloped across the Disputed Lands into the sorrow-laden vale of Yarrow! Only a moment ago he had rode ahead of Fergus over the heather as if they were both on some foray long ago and he the better man, and Fergus seemed dull and awkward in comparison. She felt angry at the younger man’s acquiescence and told him so.

“I thought you wanted to be ‘Comet' this year?” she challenged.

Fergus shrugged.

“Not particularly. I’ll go along with it, though, if they elect me.”

And Max Elliott could beat you to it, if he tried! Susan looked at Max and knew that he had guessed her thoughts.

“Do you mind if I bring Grisell across to the mill?” he asked.

“Why should I? You can bring any visitor you wish,” she told him stiffly.

“She wouldn’t be coming as a visitor.”

“Oh?”

He leaned down from the saddle, caressing his mount’s warm neck with a steady hand.

“I believe she could be interested in your work,” he said.

Susan drew back.

“What does she know about it?"

“Nothing, at present. I’m preparing one or two desirable branch lines in case she does decide to go off the tracks.”

“She ought to be doing something useful,” Susan agreed, “but it would be foolish to force her into a decision, especially about designing. She either has what it takes or she hasn’t. There’s no middle course, even for the boss’s niece.”

He laughed outright.

“I deserved that one, but I believe she has talent, all the same.”

“She told me she wanted to be an actress.”

“Ah, that!” he said, “But it was almost four years ago. I’m hoping she’s got it out of her system by now,”

“She spoke about it to me.”

His eyes sharpened.

“At Denham House?”

“Yes.”

He looked back towards the peel tower.

“We’ll see,” he said.

Two days later he brought Grisell to Yairborough. Susan was in the middle of a particularly difficult photographic session with Lilias and Nicholas Begbie. Nothing had gone right and the last person she wished to see was Max. He stood just inside the studio door, watching as Nicholas posed his model for the final take. It had been difficult before, but this time Lilias was at her best.

“Look this way,” Nicholas urged, and she smiled into Max’s eyes.

“Now this way!” Nicholas hopped across the floor to get another angle. “Perfect! Just perfect,” he enthused. “Now, up at the light. Good! Good! And down again.” His camera was clicking furiously. “Lilias, I love you! You couldn’t have done better!”

He was completely immersed in his art and quite oblivious of his audience, but Lilias was keenly aware of Max and posed successfully for his sake alone.

Susan turned angrily away. Lilias was a nuisance and Max couldn’t possibly be serious about her. But supposing he was?

Well, did it matter so much? She tried to imagine Lilias at Denham, but couldn’t. T might decide to take a wife, as you say in these parts’, Max had told her, meaning that he would one day marry and live at Denham House.

Oh, not Lilias, she thought. Surely not Lilias!

He followed her into the office while Grisell remained a fascinated spectator of the photographic session in the other room.

“Have you made up your mind about Grisell?” he asked.

She faced him across her desk.

“Are you asking me to train her?"

“Yes.”

“What does her father think?”

“He believes that anything Grisell does is perfect, so long as she does it within striking distance of the Carse.”

“I see.”

He was waiting for her decision. She had to make up her mind about Grisell, then and there, and he wanted her to agree to his absurd proposition. This was virtually a dictatorship!

“I can’t promise anything. How could I until I see how she shapes? At the present moment,” she was forced to confess, “my own ideas aren’t so very bright. I seem as if I can’t concentrate. Perhaps it would be better,” she added lamely, “if you did bring in someone else. Some other designer.”

He reached her in one swift stride, turning her to face the light with his hands on her shoulders.

“What is this?” he demanded with the first hint of an accent she had heard in his normally controlled voice. “Why are you trying to undermine Denham’s in this way? It’s your responsibility as well as mine. If you opt out of your job and we have to train someone at short notice we could lose some of our existing markets and, quite frankly, we can’t afford that. Competition is the big word in cashmere these days. You take it from me!”

She didn’t want to take anything from him and certainly not advice, but he had made a small breach in her defences when he had mentioned her responsibility to Denham’s.

“I’m not asking you to do anything difficult,” he declared, picking up a discarded sketch which she had tossed into the waste-paper basket. “Grisell has this sort of talent, I feel sure. Couldn’t you interest her in your job?’’

“Is that an order?”

He fixed her with a straight gaze.

“If you like. I want her to stay here—contentedly, if possible—and not go flying off at a tangent all over the countryside searching for something she’s not likely to find. Back home she led a remote sort of life in some ways, although she went to Wellington to be educated. She was content at Timaru until she began to spread her wings. I took over at that stage, unfortunately,” he added. “Her father was ill.”

“Perhaps she feels homesick,” Susan suggested. “She told me she often felt lonely here. I—meant to do something about it, but I haven’t had much free time. Do you think she would really like to go back to New Zealand?”

“She may go back, one of these days.”

“And you?” The question had slipped past her guard.

“No,” he said. “I won’t go back. I’ve made up my mind to stay in Scotland.”

“Emigration in reverse!”

“You can put it that way. I grew up on the ranch, but Richard insisted on giving me a ‘proper education’, as he called it. For better or worse, I went to a university and studied technology. Wool had always held a great fascination for me.” He picked up a skein of pure cashmere. “You can’t better this, for instance.”

“I thought you might be going to try!”

He looked at her without smiling.

“You don’t like me, do you?” he suggested. “Well, we’ll have to live with that, I guess, since we have to work together. So long as we don’t get in each other’s way, things should turn out well enough for Denham’s.”

Lilias and Grisell came in, laughing.

“We’ve been doing trick photography,” Grisell explained. “Nick is so clever!” She swung round to consider Susan. “Max wants me to work with you, I suppose? He’s been throwing out plenty of hints, but I don’t think I would be much good.”

“You won’t know till you try,” Susan heard herself saying as Lilias went to change.

Grisell didn’t show any excitement about the proposed job.

“Can we give Lilias a lift, Max?” she asked instead. “She’s going our way.”

Nicholas came in and Susan didn’t hear what Max said, but presently they all went out together and she supposed he had agreed to take Lilias with him.

When they had gone she worked with a new, dogged determination to get things done and, almost miraculously, the ideas began to flow. It was late when she finally returned to Denham House and Evelyn called out to her from the sitting-room.

“Max has been here. He says you’re working too hard.”

Susan opened the door a fraction wider.

“You’re making this up, Eve!” she said. “He wouldn’t be the least little bit interested. Not in me! If he was worried, it would be about my designs—about my not being able to cope before the collections.”

“But you can?” Evelyn looked anxious.

“Take a look and tell me, quite honestly, what you think.” Susan tossed her portfolio on to the settee beside her stepmother. “Don’t try to spare my feelings,” she added. “I can take it!”

“Sue, they’re wonderful!” Evelyn enthused after a moment. “They’re—different. This is inspiration, something far better than you’ve ever done. What triggered it
off?”

Susan looked out towards the hills.

“I don’t know. How can one ever say about a thing like that? I was working and, suddenly it came. Everything began to fit into a pattern after days and days of gloom!”

“I knew your designs were missing out somewhere,” Evelyn confessed. “What went wrong?”

“I was tired, I suppose. Jaded, perhaps.”

“Have you thought about help? Grisell, for instance,” Evelyn asked.

Susan swung round to face her.

“You’ve been talking to Max!”

“He wants Grisell to do something useful with her life, for her father’s sake,” Evelyn answered quietly.

“I don’t know. I suppose I did promise. Oh, I wish it wasn’t all so complicated,” Susan sighed. “Why
has
it to be like this?”

Evelyn didn’t attempt to help her. She stood looking anxious, even perplexed, as if she couldn’t understand anyone wanting to refuse Maxwell Elliott anything. Oh, complex, baffling Evelyn!

“I don’t see why I should make myself responsible for Grisell,” Susan began rebelliously. “I don’t even know her very well.”

“Max wouldn’t ask too much of you,” Evelyn said. “He knows Grisell is his responsibility.”

“What about her father?”

Evelyn lowered her head.

“He—may have to go into hospital in the very near future.”

“Oh—I’m sorry!” Susan paused beside the door. “Is it serious?”