Authors: Unknown
“How can I help you?” she asked.
Susan turned from her quick survey of the room.
“I’ve come about Grisell,” she said. “Do you know where she is?”
Lilias stooped to the low, marble-topped table to extract a cigarette from the ebony box which lay there, lighting it before she spoke, her half-veiled eyes challenging her visitor across the breadth of the room.
“Of course I know,” she said with the faintest hint of insolence in her husky voice. “Why?”
It was difficult to deal frankly with someone like Lilias, but Susan made the attempt.
“You know how unsettled she is,” she began, “and she has only just started at Denham’s. I wish you hadn’t encouraged her to throw it all up quite so soon/’
Lilias frowned.
“My dear Sue, you are taking a lot upon yourself, aren’t you?” she mocked. “Grisell is nineteen years old. She can look after herself.”
“She’s in a strange country,” Susan flashed. “You might have thought of that.”
“Why should I?” asked Lilias. “It was entirely Her own idea to get away.”
“If she hadn’t known that you would back her she wouldn’t have done it!” Susan countered angrily.
Lilias favoured her with a thin smile.
“You’re so entirely sure of yourself, aren’t you?” she sneered. “But we’re not at Yairborough now, you know. I’m not modelling for the boss, at the moment, so do be reasonable.”
“I’m trying to be, but you’re making it rather difficult. If you’ll tell me where I can find Grisell I’ll go,” Susan offered.
Lilias shot a quick glance at one of the closed doors.
“She’s out,” she declared bluntly.
Susan’s colour rose.
“Is that true?” she demanded. “If she’s here, Lilias, you must let me speak to her. Max is outside. He didn’t come in because he didn’t want to make a scene.”
“Max?” Lilias turned on her like a wildcat. “You brought him here, you little cheat! You told him I’d encouraged that silly little creature to run away!”
“Didn’t you?”
Susan was quite calm as she watched Lilias stub out her cigarette in the nearest ash-tray.
“Never mind what I did, Susan Denham,” she said. “What you’ve done won’t help you one little bit, even if you imagined it would. Max has no time for you. He thinks you’d go to any length to pay him out for taking over your mill. He told me so !”
Something hard and constricting seemed to fasten about Susan’s throat.
“I haven’t come to discuss Max,” she managed with an effort. “Only Grisell, so if you’ll tell me where she is—”
Lilias’s laughter cut her short.
“Not so-and-so likely!” she declared. "You can go back to Max and tell him I don’t know. That’s the truth. She came here crying her eyes out about being lonely and hating the job you gave her out of the kindness of your stony little heart.
You
helped to chase her away from Fetterburn, Susan Denham! It was you who kept her nose to the grindstone and shut her up in an office when what she really wanted was the Great Outdoors, like it was back in Timaru—or wherever! You and Max didn’t give the kid a chance. Between you her future was neatly carved out as
you
wanted it, for some reason best known to yourselves !”
Some grain of truth, some glimmer of light seen in dark places, kept Susan silent.
“She isn’t here,” Lilias said again. “But I told her she could stay with me if she got the job.”
“What job?”
“Modelling. Same as me,” Lilias said with insolence. “And you think that’s much better than sitting in an office all day?” Susan’s anger was uppermost again. “It’s the same sort of thing, Lilias, and you know it. At least the work Grisell was doing at Denham’s was creative.”
“Your kind of work,” said Lilias. “You can’t see past it. If Grisell goes into free-lance modelling at least she’ll be outside some of the time.”
“I can’t imagine her doing it,” Susan said almost to herself. “I know the routine only too well. But that’s not what we came for. Max wants Grisell to go back to the Carse for another reason—a personal reason. You’ve got to help us, Lilias,” she found herself begging. “Max won’t hold this against you if you help now.”
Lilias turned to the window. It looked out on to the road below, where she could see Max waiting beside his car.
“Tell him I want to see him,” she said. “I object to dealing with an intermediary.”
There could be no harm in Max coming up now, Susan thought, if Grisell wasn’t there.
“I’ll tell him,” she said.
Max frowned when he saw her returning alone.
“No luck?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to call it.” Susan brushed her hair back from her forehead with an impetuous gesture as she looked back at the house. “Grisell is here all right, looking for a job.”
“You saw her?”
“No, only Lilias. Apparently Grisell will come back to the flat if she gets the job.”
“And if not?”
“I don’t know. She may return in any case.”
“She wouldn’t sponge on Lilias.”
“Perhaps Lilias wouldn’t look at it like that.”
“Meaning?”
“She might think she was doing Grisell a favour.”
“Do
you
think Grisell was unhappy at Denham’s?”
“No, just bored.”
“Bored? But she was only there a week.”
“She wanted to work out of doors. Probably something to do with horses.”
“Who told you all this?” he demanded.
“Lilias.”
“Had you any idea, Susan?”
“No. I might have had a passing doubt at first, but she was handling the designs quite well.”
“And that satisfied you?”
“Yes. Shouldn’t it have done?” They were back to argument again. “She
could
have been part of the firm, which was what you wanted, I gathered.”
“I wanted Grisell to stay at the Carse, but I also want her to be happy,” he said briefly. “Do you think gadding around with Lilias is going to spell happiness for her?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What sort of job has she gone after?”
“Modelling.”
His mouth tightened into a thin line.
“I see,” he said. “And you don’t know where?”
“There’s bound to be several agencies in Edinburgh, but Lilias will tell you if you go up.”
“I haven’t time for this! ” He got out of the car. “But Grisell must be back at the Carse before Richard gets home.”
He stalked off, leaving her with a distinct feeling of inadequacy because she hadn’t been able to help him, after all.
He was with Lilias for more than half an hour.
“That didn’t help very much,” he said when he came back. “It’s one of two agencies. Lilias didn’t seem to be too sure.”
He reversed the car almost violently, driving back along the length of the terrace before she could explain that they could have joined the main road at the other end.
“Melville Crescent,” he said. “Do you know it?”
“Yes. It isn’t very far.”
Grisell was coming down the agency steps as they pulled up at the kerb. There were tears in her eyes.
“Get in,” Max commanded, holding open the back door. “And don’t make a scene.”
“I wasn’t going to. They said my legs were terrible,” Grisell sobbed.
“So you didn’t get the wretched job?” Max said with some relief. “I don’t think your legs are as bad as all that, but nobody’s perfect, are they? Here, mop up, and we’ll find somewhere to eat!” He proffered his handkerchief.
“I’m not coming back with you,” Grisell declared.
“Why not? You haven’t got a job and you can’t sponge on other people. Not Lilias, anyway.” Max was being tactless. “You have to be trained in modelling, just like anything else, I should say. There’s no back way in just because your name’s Elliott, you know.”
“Grisell,” Susan said gently, “do you really want this kind of job?”
“Lilias said it was easy enough, if you could act the part, and I did have deportment at school.” Grisell dried her eyes. “I don’t care,” she said.
“I’ll find something
else.”
“But not in Edinburgh,” Max said grimly.
They drove on in a tense silence, looking for
a
parking meter.
“Try George Street,” Susan suggested.
“I want to go back to the flat. I want to see Lilias,” Grisell objected. “Besides, if I did go home with you I would have to collect my grip.”
“So you meant to stay,” Max said. “We’ll eat first, I think,” he added.
“Lilias would be only too pleased to make us some tea,” Grisell began, but he cut her short.
“Susan needs something more substantial than a cup of tea,” he said. “She’s had nothing to eat since breakfast, and you kept her standing in Hawick for two hours in the pouring rain.”
“Oh, Susan, I’m sorry!” Grisell apologised. “I meant to phone you at Denham, but I had to catch a bus.”
“So that’s how you got here,” Max said.
“Yes. I was determined to come.”
Max glanced at his watch.
“It’s almost half-past one. We’d better chance our luck here.” He stopped at the discreetly-screened door of a restaurant. “We can pick up your gear later.”
“I’ll need a wash,” Grisell decided, peering at her tear-stained face in the mirror lined wall of the foyer. “I look ghastly!”
Susan followed her into the powder-room.
“Max treats me like a baby,” Grisell complained. “I’m nineteen, you know.”
“Yes, Lilias told me.” Susan met her resentful gaze through the mirror. “You could come back to the Carse, even if it was only for the remainder of the summer months. Your father needs you.”
Grisell dabbed at her blotched face.
“I wonder why you think so,” she said. “He had no time for anyone but my mother.”
“Grisell, is that quite fair?” Susan turned from the wash-basin to dry her hands. “You know he worships you.”
“He also listens to what Max has to say about me!”
“I don’t think Max would be unfair. He can be stem and strict, I expect,” Susan allowed, “but not unjust.”
“I thought you didn’t like him?”
Susan felt the colour deepening in her cheeks.
“I didn’t, just at first.”
“But now—? Go on! I find this interesting!”
“I don’t think—discussing Max in this way is any help,” Susan answered firmly. “We were talking about the Carse. Come back with us, Grisell, and give the Borders another chance. There really is lots to do there, and I’ll help all I can. We could exercise the horses together, and Fergus would be only too pleased to see us at the Mains now and then.”
Grisell shot her a guarded look from beneath her long, silken lashes.
“At least he would be pleased to see you,” she said. “Are you going to marry him?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter, anyway? I’ve got an awful lot to do at Denham’s before I can think of marrying anyone,” Susan added. “That was why I appreciated your help so much.”
Grisell said carelessly: “Did you really?” but that was all.
“You’ll think about it?” Susan asked.
“Maybe.” Grisell turned to the door. “We’re keeping Max waiting,” she said.
The meal they shared was hardly the height of enjoyment. Max did his best to talk about everything but their return to Fetterburn, but Susan could see his concern as the minutes ticked away. At last, Grisell said : “Oh, all right, I’ll come! But I warn you, I’m not going to be browbeaten into going back
to that wretched
mill!”
Suddenly Susan had an inspiration.
“Would you work at Denham House?” she asked. “It would be a sort of outdoor job, and you could ride over each morning. You like Evelyn,” she added before Grisell could answer too hastily, “and we’ve always held our shows there. We’ll be having more shows as time goes on, and there are always the displays to organise. I work in the library, but if you took over for a while it would help me enormously.”
Grisell considered the idea in silence for a moment or two.
“What would your stepmother have to say?” she asked eventually.
“She would be delighted,” Susan answered without the slightest hesitation. “Evelyn loves company, and after the baby is born she’ll want to help, too.”
“Supposing she decides to go back to London?”
“I don’t think she will. Denham is really her home,” Susan said without thinking.
Max had kept silent, but she felt that he approved of her suggestion.
“I’d have to think about it,” Grisell said, “but I must say it sounds far more attractive than working at Yairborough.”
Susan decided not to press the point, and Max looked relieved. The main issue had been settled and they were on their way home to the Carse. He went with Grisell to collect her grip from the flat, using the pass-key Lilias had given her and leaving it behind on the table when they came out. Susan thought that this might be the end of Lilias, as far as they were concerned.
Grisell chattered incessantly all the way back to Hawick.
“I’m sorry I missed the fun,” she confessed. “I really did want to see Fergus in the Chase. I wonder if he came in ahead of everybody else. Personally, I think he ought to have been chosen Comet. He rides almost as well as you do, Max. It’s all tremendously exciting, isn’t it,” she ran on, “reliving something which happened so long ago? It was the year after Flodden, wasn’t it, that the original ‘callants’ chased the English raiders back across the Border? Can’t you just imagine it? The havoc of feudal wars, the lonely peel towers ‘in the morning grey' that we can still see on nearly every hill, the ladies in their secret bowers, and the knights in armour riding across those very moors!” They were in sight of Teviot now and she quoted generously:
‘But no kind influence deign they shower
On Teviot’s tide and Branksome’s tower,
Till pride he quelled and love be free !’
The words fell into a deep silence as Max continued to look straight ahead and Susan sat beside him, wondering if he thought how foolish her pride had been. If he thought of her at all! Ever since their first meeting she had associated him with those dark-browed warriors of the past who had come riding into her Border land to pillage and destroy it, but the truth was far removed from her original conception of him. Stem and demanding he might be, but he had come to work for Elliott’s, for an old name and an old heritage, and she had accused him out of false pride and stupid prejudice. He was one of them, whichever way she liked to look at it. He belonged among those ancient fells as surely as she did, and only the brief space of a lost generation separated them. Max and Richard Elliott had come home.