Authors: Unknown
'But surely, even if the village school closes, you'll be found a job somewhere else?'
'Of sorts, perhaps,' John Cornish admitted unhappily, 'But I'd hoped to remain here. I've less than two years to
go before I can retire, and it's a bit late to pull up my roots now and start again.'
'I thought the Education Committee were talking about dosing the village school anyway, because of lack of pupils?' Marion stopped abruptly. I'm doing Reeve's work for him, saying things like that, she thought with alarm.
'They were, but because I'd got such a short while to retirement, they were biased in favour of keeping the school open until I actually retire at the end of next year. If this valley project goes ahead, it'll do the scales the other way, and they'll close it anyway. If they do, I'll have to find another teaching post somehow because of my pension. And that won't be easy, at my age.'
'Haven't you got any thought for what you're doing to him? To all of us?' Marion cried when Reeve returned, and she told him John Cornish had called in search of him. 'Don't you care?' She hammered balled fists against his chest, trying to reach the human being that must—had got to, she thought despairingly—lurk somewhere beneath the uncaring outer shell of the reservoir builder. 'Don't you care?'
If ever I'm in trouble,' he observed whimsically, without answering her question, 'I hope someone will take up the cudgels as fervently on my behalf.'
He caught her fists easily, stilling their urgent beat, and turned her towards him. He had come back to the studio and walked in without asking, just as she knew he would, she told herself caustically, and tried to ignore the small voice that asked her, with maddening persistence, why then had she remained in the studio, when she knew he would return there? Was it because, knowing he would come, she wanted to be there when he did?
'No!' she denied stoutly.
'No?' the voice jeered in silent disbelief.
But Reeve had come, just the same. She was standing back away from her bench, studying the woodcut, when he walked through the door. His gaze swept over her work, over the chisel lying on the bench, and the shavings curled
about the floor, which told him she had been using the tool he had sharpened for her.
'At least go and see John Cornish, and ease his mind.' She had not meant to plead with Reeve. The memory of the elderly schoolmaster's haunted eyes drove her to it, but it galled her just the same.
'Nothing I can say to John Cornish at the moment is likely to ease his mind,' he disillusioned her bluntly.
'You went to see the others.'
'Some of them.' Still he did not say which ones, and Marion stiffened resentfully. 'I made excellent progress, too,' he goaded her, and her eyes flashed.
'I'll find out who you went to see,' she cried defiantly. 'And what you said to them. What you made them agree to.'
'I didn't make them agree to anything.' His face hardened. 'I put the facts to them, that's all, and left them to decide for themselves.'
'Decide whether to take your bribe, or try to make you pay more.'
Her shot found its mark. She saw his face go white, and a small muscle at the point of his jaw started to twitch spasmodically.
'You won't get away with this,' she vowed, 'I won't let you. I'll phone round and find out who you went to see, and I'll make whatever you said to them public knowledge. If everyone knows what's going on, individuals won't be so inclined to give in to you.' She did not care if he knew what her plans were, he would find out soon enough what she intended to do, anyway. 'You've managed to stop me from walking about for the moment,' she conceded grimly, 'but you can't stop me from talking,' she finished defiantly.
'Can't I?' The silky softness of his tone should have warned her, but she was too incensed to notice. She rushed on confidently.
'No, you can't. There's no way you can....'
He showed her the way.
With a quick twist of his hand behind her head, he turned her face up towards his own, and his lips descended on hers with punishing force. They drove the words back into her throat and drove her breath back with them. She gave a tiny whimper, a small, thin thread of sound, and he silenced that, too. Her lips parted beneath the pressure of his kiss, but no words came through them. Their tender lines lay bruised and silent under the searing force of his anger. She tried to struggle free, but he held her tightly against him, her hands trapped against his chest, with neither the leverage nor the strength to push him away.
Nor the will? The seconds passed, and still his lips clung to her own, drowning her resistance, as well as her words, as effectively as he wanted to drown the valley to make his reservoir. Despairingly she felt her resolve begin to slip, the armour of her anger melt under the passionate upsurge of her love which he drew unerringly to the surface with the fire of his kiss.
She forgot family ties, and the ties of loyalty that bound her to the valley. The latter were tenuous anyway, despite her protestations, and with Reeve's arms round her, Reeve's lips searching her own, she discovered how frail they really were. There was only Reeve. Nothing else mattered in the world but him. He could have his reservoir, take the valley if he wished, if only he would take her, too.
She gave a small moan of surrender, and her body melted against his, suppliant, weak. His hold on her relaxed its rigid tightness, freeing her hands, and her arms rose and clasped him hungrily about his neck, her willing lips returning kiss for kiss.
'I love you. I love you,' she whispered.
Would he say he loved her, too? Her eyes beseeched him. They searched his face, and incredibly they found no softening there. It was set and hard above her, unyielding in its expression, except for a cynical twist about his lips that was not even the beginning of a smile. She stared up at him, nonplussed. The same cynicism was repeated in his eyes. They looked down at her with angry awareness, and —yes, she was not mistaken—bitter contempt The twist to his lips became more pronounced. She shivered. It was more of a snarl than a smile. He loosed her, and reaching behind him he tore her hands from behind his head and thrust them back at her with a force that said he loathed the feel of them against him.
'I know I said no holds barred,' his voice cut like a whip, 'but your methods are contemptible,' he gritted.
'My—methods?' She stared at him in stunned incomprehension.
'You don't think I was taken in by that pretty display, do you?' he sneered. 'It was good acting, Marion—but not good enough.' His eyes were like twin pools of ice, and she flinched away from the scorn in his voice.
'You can't get round me in that manner,' he told her roughly. 'I'm not that gullible.' He thrust her away from him, and turned on his heel towards the door. 'Save your wiles for someone naive enough to be taken in by them,' he threw at her over his shoulder, and kicked open the door with an impatient toe. 'Ben Wade, for example,' he added, and vanished from her sight.
Reeve
took her to the hospital the next morning, exactly as he promised to. She did not want him to. She dreaded meeting him again. She had not spoken to him since he walked out of her studio the day before. He went out after lunch, she knew that. She hopped over to her bedroom window when she heard his car start up, and saw him draw it out of the garage, and park it in the stable yard.
'He must be waiting for Willy.'
She was safe from observation unless he looked up straight at her window, and he showed not the least inclination to do so, and she watched as he parked the car then got out of it and leaned easily against the bonnet. It was unusual for Willy to keep him waiting. And to be fair, Reeve did not keep the pilot waiting either, as a rule; there seemed to be a mutual liking and respect between the two men that ironed out any difference there might be in their status.
'Whatever's going on?'
Marion echoed Mrs Pugh's words to herself as a sudden burst of conversation came through the open top of her window, and she looked further across the yard in time to see a group of women appear round the buildings, Three—no, four, another woman hurried to catch up with the others—and Reeve straightened up from the car bonnet with a courteous greeting, echoed cheerfully by the newcomers. He seemed to be on good terms with them all. Marion's lips curled. No doubt he found it paid to ingratiate himself with them, she thought scornfully.
Her eyebrows raised as Reeve opened the doors and began to usher them into the car. Three in the back, he closed the door carefully behind them, and opened the door to the front passenger seat. Her seat, when she came back from the hospital, next to Reeve.
'I wonder...?'
She recognised all the women. They all come from the valley. Two of them were the mothers of the two sets of twins soon due to go to school in Dale End. Her forehead creased in a puzzled frown. Far from scattering the herd, Reeve appeared to be intent on gathering them together.
He shut the door on the last of his passengers and hurried round to the other side of the car and pulled open the driving door. So he was going to be his own chauffeur as well? Marion's curiosity increased, and she took a small step forward, nearer to the window.
Whether it was the movement that attracted his attention, or some process of thought transference, she could not tell. But in the act of stepping into the car, his left foot and leg already inside, out of sight, Reeve twisted round and looked up, straight at her. Could he actually see her? Or did he only guess she was there? There were net curtains at the window, but his eyes bored directly into hers, penetrating the net as if it did not exist.
She caught her breath sharply and stood transfixed. Her limbs felt heavy, incapable of movement, and she could not tear her eyes away from his. How long he held her bound she could not tell. It might have been seconds—minutes— or aeons of time. Then abruptly he turned, dropped into the driving seat of the Rover, the door slammed on him, the engine purred into life, and the brake lights winked derisively at her as it turned the corner of the stable block and sought the main road.
She shivered convulsively. It was like coming round from a trance. And the awakening brought a sensation as of intense cold, that reached out to encompass her from the twin icebergs that were his eyes, set in the unrelenting hardness of his face.
And now she had to go with him in the car to the hospital. Her heart leapt at the prospect, while her mind shrank from the ordeal. If only Willy would come, too! But
Willy, for once, was remaining behind. To write out more reports? Or perhaps to interview more people while she, Marion, was conveniently out of the way? Was that why Reeve had suggested they remain away for lunch, and come back to Fallbeck at their leisure afterwards? She had wondered at his magnanimity at the time.
'He's got every move mapped out in advance,' she muttered with reluctant admiration. And at each move he was at least one step ahead of her, she admitted.
'I know someone who'll be thankful when your ankle's better.' Mrs Pugh rubbed the collie's ears, sympathetically, and to Marion's chagrin her smile included Reeve in the conversation as he emerged from the dining room after breakfast. 'Gyp's lost without his regular morning walk. I take him myself, but I don't go so far nor so fast as Marion,' she explained ruefully, 'and he's got used to being taken out first thing, wet or fine, ever since she came back. Oh well,' she told the disconsolate collie, 'you'll have to put up with it for a day or two longer yet. And to think,' she shook her head disbelievingly, 'when you took him out the other morning, all I worried about was you getting a wetting, and you ended up with your foot all bandages!'
Mrs Pugh did not know the full story of how she had come to hurt herself. When Reeve brought her back to the Fleece, Marion had merely said she'd sprained her ankle on the hill, and she had not seen fit to enlarge on her explanation since then. Neither, it seemed, had Reeve. She supposed she should feel grateful to him for that. She stole a glance at his face. He had accused her of going out to meet Ben Wade .....
'I saw no reason to worry Uncle and Mrs Pugh unnecessarily.' She spoke defensively the moment the car started, and they gained the road, and privacy to speak out of earshot of the housekeeper.
'There's no sense in worrying them,' he agreed evenly. 'If they knew what really happened, they'd be frightened out of their minds for you. Just as I ....' He broke off, and braked to let a cyclist go past.
'What time's your appointment at the hospital?' He, set the car in motion again, and changed the subject at the same time.
'Nine-thirty.' They were conversing like strangers. Why did the cyclist have to appear and take his attention, just at that moment? What did he mean, 'just as I ...' ? Just as he would have been frightened, if he had been in her uncle's shoes? But he was not, she thought drearily. Reeve had not been worried about her, only angry that she had taken his time when he wanted to make another survey of the valley. She lapsed into silence. No doubt when he had the four women from the village in the car yesterday, they found plenty to talk about. She would have liked to ask him about them. Where had they gone? And why? But the words would not come. She would not give him the satisfaction of showing curiosity.
'I can walk.'
He did not argue with her, nor did he attempt to pick her up. One part of her was glad; the other mourned the lack of his closeness, the feel of his arms around her. She stepped out carefully beside him, thankful that she had only a slight limp left, and she did not need to lower her pride to ask Reeve's help, but silently grateful that he had parked the car near enough to the Casualty Department entrance to ensure she had only a few steps to walk.
'It's coming along nicely,' the doctor pronounced his approval. 'I'll put another bandage on it for support. Keep it strapped up for another two or three days, and use it gently, and you should have no further trouble.'
She did not expect to—at least, not with her ankle. Reeve was an entirely different proposition, she thought with increasing exasperation, as he plied her with lunch at a nearby hotel afterwards, and throughout the meal kept up an easy conversation as if they had been chance-met acquaintances. She followed his lead, pride would not allow her to do otherwise, and somehow she ate her lunch in spite of the growing misery inside her that seemed to stop her throat from swallowing properly, and made the food itself taste as if it was sawdust—a slanderous description for the perfectly cooked meal that under other circumstances she would have partaken of with enthusiasm.