Dear Deceiver(21)

Much of the singing she did herself. Her voice was not great but it was pleasant and she lilted as naturally as she talked.



' "The first doe he shot at he missed..." '

She squirted washing up liquid into the yellow bowl.

'"The second doe he trimmed he kissed...'

She slid an apple pie into the oven.



' "The third doe went where nobody wist Among the leaves so green-o!" '



She washed out Toby's shirt, a paisley in screaming hyacinth blues.



' "Oh, the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree They flourish and grow in my own country." '



She ironed Toby's shell-pink shadow patterned shirt and tie.



' "Oh, he that I wed must be north-country bred



And carry me back to my north-country home ..." ' She mended a rent in Rory's jacket.



Once she looked up and found him staring at her. 'Am I disturbing you?'  she jerked nervously. Jennie's apologetic manners had a way of growing  on one.

'Why jump to the wrong conclusion?' he countered. 'I was enjoying it. You sing a lot better than you used to.'

A two-edged compliment. 'Mrs. Brown,' Haidee said not too lucidly. 'The piano. She sang too, actually.'

'An accomplished woman.'

'Yes.' For a moment her mother's presence seemed strangely near. In life a humorous one, now, somehow, it did not seem to blame.

On another occasion Haidee went to move Brand from the arm of the  master's chair. 'Can't you leave him alone? He's doing no harm,' Rory  said shortly, and Toby dropped her a ferocious wink.

Each Sunday morning she went to church with Jennie and Toby. In the  churchyard people shook her hand and inquired after Antonia and no one  seemed to doubt but that she was Suzanne. It was evident, however, that  no one had been intimate with the stormy daughter of the big house. The  poignant fact was that when Suzanne wanted a confidante she had gone  across the fields to the convent.

No one had mentioned Mother Mary again. Haidee hoped she might yet escape meeting her.

Most settling of all was the feeling that Rory had put Suzanne away  again in the place where he had kept her over the years. He seemed to  accept that the clock could not be put back and the Suzanne who had  returned was not the wife he had lost. He made no further approaches.

It was a toss-up how long the fine spell would last. The twenty-eighth  of October, feast day of St. Simon and St. Jude, was often wet. This  year it came and went and October continued to dance in blue petticoats  and golden shoes. Rory who wanted rain said there would be no change  till the new moon.

Toby had other wants. A school friend's fox terrier had had pups, all  but one of which had been spoken for. Successfully, that is. Toby had  already spoken-at least twenty times-and Toby was a child who never took  no.                       
       
           



       

'I think I'll call' him Punch,' he confided to Haidee. 'It ought to be  something that goes with Toby, don't you think? He'll go with me  everywhere.' He threw her a puckish glance. 'That's a joke, in case you  don't know.'

'And in case you don't know, your father doesn't exactly go a bundle on  the idea.' Rory's reaction to the last approach had been more pungent  than usual, a hangover from the previous day when Toby had forgotten his  latchkey and had broken a window in the house to gain admittance.

'Oh well, keep trying,' Toby remarked philosophically.

'But you don't, do you? Not properly,' Haidee challenged. 'You could do  heaps better. I wish you'd give it a whirl. For me, if that's not too  silly. Before I go.'

'Go?' Toby had a mobile face and now its mouth fell open. 'Go where,  Johnny? I thought you'd come home. Oh, heck, I don't want you to go.  It's nice you and Buggy being here.'

'And nice of you to say so.' Since coming to Glenglass, she had  questioned more frequently than was wise how Suzanne could have borne to  leave this child. Granted, he was forgetful, dilatory and saucy-only  two days ago his school-teacher, introduced by Jennie after church, had  commented ruefully that, like someone of more fame, he never listened  when not amused-but he was so much else besides, cheerful, warm-hearted,  friendly. The cry each afternoon: "Hi, Johnny! I'm back!' had now  become something for which she looked.

Manifestly, however, emotion had to be cloaked and she did so, reproving  him for the use of 'Buggy' and saying quite firmly that she had only  come to be with Jennie while their mother was ill.

It did not deflate the hearer. 'She's going to die, isn't she? I hope she doesn't do it too quickly.'

The hope seemed likely to fruit, for the fortnight had brought no change in Antonia's condition. She remained deeply comatose.

'There's no telling how long this could last,' the doctor said each time  Haidee and Jennie went to the hospital, and it could have been no more  than wishful thinking on Haidee's part that the small-boned wide-browed  face on the stiff pillow held a greater measure of tranquillity than it  had done before. All in all Antonia, for the moment, and probably for  all time, was out of their hands.

Jennie remained solicitous as ever. Her brown eyes were as selfless as a  spaniel's and she refused gently but firmly all suggestions that she  should return to school. 'Oh, Rory, I'm sorry. I know you want me out of  the way, but I'm not a child any longer and I've got to be here. If you  put me on a plane or anything, I'll take the next one back and stay in a  hotel. Sorry, but I will. Honestly.'

Rory, whose days were seldom short, had that day had a singularly long  one. The dry weather had reduced leader growth and brought the twin  hazards of late picnickers and stubble burning in the vicinity. He had  instituted extra patrols and as well had a massive programme of fence  repairs under way. When at last failing light had driven him towards the  meal Haidee had been keeping hot, the wages book and a clip of accounts  for payment had come with him. Toby, who had renewed the puppy theme,  had been roughly curbed and Haidee would not have been surprised had  Jennie met the same fate. She didn't.

Rory's natural expression was a serious one. Jennie seemed to make him  smile more easily than most. 'Point taken. And of course I don't 'want  you out of the way'. You know that very well.

'It can't be much longer,' he told Haidee sheepishly, when Jennie had  left the room. 'And there's no sense expecting her to do school work  till she can give her whole mind to it.'

'Do you think she ever will?' Haidee ventured, setting down his plate of  soup. 'She wants to work in a forest. Are there any jobs for girls?'

'Not for Jennie,' Rory asserted, blowing on his spoon. 'She's set for  higher things. It would never surprise me if she got to Cambridge.'

Haidee's third Saturday in Glenglass brought trouble. It began as a conversation.                       
       
           



       

'Toby, you mustn't do that here. It's dangerous,' Jennie's voice averred.

'It's not, I checked it. It's out,' Toby returned.

'We'd better go and make sure.'

Haidee watched the two figures walking towards the wood. Jennie, in her  leather jacket and looking anxious, was hurrying ahead, Toby in  mustard-coloured jeans was sauntering behind, his shoulders wagging  naughtily in a parody of her. A bad lad, Haidee owned, but an endearing  one.

When they came back, however, Rory was with them and Toby was no longer laughing.

'The number of times I've told you,' the forester was saying. 'One  spark, that's all it needs. One match-a million trees. God knows how  much we've spent putting this across to the public and here I find  you...'

'I put it out,' Toby squeaked. 'I didn't know it would start again...'

'Didn't burn?' Rory echoed cuttingly. 'Didn't look. Didn't care. And never will so far as I can see!' He strode furiously away.

Again Haidee heard Jennie's slightly heavy tones. 'It's all right, Toby, he doesn't mean it. He got a start, that's all.'

As anyone would have done, Haidee thought, coming on a still smouldering  camp fire and learning that one's own son had lit it and left it  unextinguished.

'He was going back, you know,' she ventured that evening when she and  Rory were alone. 'It would have been put out whether you'd been there or  not.'

'Thanks to Jennie,' he answered sourly. 'Don't try to kid me, Suzanne, or to protect your son. I know what I'm up against.'

'He's your son too, remember.' She was stung into the retort and  suddenly sorry for it. There was something so flat and empty about  Rory's face.

'Yes,' he said heavily.

'So don't give up hope for him. He must have it in him somewhere. Good  housekeeping, I mean, and responsibility. That's all he needs. He has  the love already.'

'Love?'

'For Glenglass. The animals, actually. He's taught me such a lot.'

'Taught you?' It was such a searching gleam that for a second her blood  chilled. 'You're his mother, for heaven's sake. You lived here seventeen  years. You should be teaching him.'

A bad moment, but practice was halfway to making her perfect. Deftly,  she bailed out. 'The point is not how much I've forgotten, it's how much  Toby knows. You should give him more credit, Rory, and encourage him  more. I sometimes think you think you're breaking a horse.'