Dear Deceiver(37)

Haidee closed her eyes against the checked tweed. You have put your  shoulder to a wheel, Mother Mary had said, don't depart from it. But  what to do when the only hope for Rory lay in her leaving Glenglass? At  that moment agony made her savage. She cared not at all for Antonia or  for Jennie. It was Rory alone who mattered and for his sake she must go.

It was the clean dramatic solution and if it meant leaving Jennie in the  lurch she couldn't help it and could she really be expected to care?  But again with icy clarity she answered herself. She should care and she  could help it, and there was another way.

'What are you doing down there, girl?' Rory asked teasingly. 'Don't you want to see who won?'

The stags, she realized, had stopped roaring. The hummel had taken  himself off and the royal was pacing proudly round his hinds. As she  looked he threw up his great head, snorted and led them away.

'One bundle not gone on!' Still the voice was teasing. 'Correct?'

It made what she had to say all the harder, but say it she must.

'Thank you for bringing me up. I've enjoyed it awfully.' How silly, she  thought when she'd said it. But still she went on. 'And about what  happened just now, I'm sorry. Chemistry, actually. Moonlight-that sort  of thing. I couldn't go back, Rory, not to you. Besides, it wasn't quite  true what I said on the way up. I have been thinking about Paul. Sorry,  but there it is.' As the light died from his face, she added  exasperatedly: 'Oh, honestly, I wish you wouldn't bother me. You know I  only came back to see Mother.'

Unlike the hart royal Rory put up not the slightest opposition. 'If I  didn't I do now,' he said shortly. 'And since I asked you for honesty I  suppose I can't complain when I get it. We might as well go down. We've  had our money's worth.'

The words made a cold echo to the homeward trek. Only one other  observation was added to them. 'I don't think you'll be bothered much  longer-by me or anyone else in Glenglass. The hospital were on to me  this evening. There's been a change in your mother's condition.'

'And you didn't tell me!' She stared at him, aghast.

'I'm telling you now. There was no point earlier. It's not a matter of  hours.' For the first time a touch of humanity laced the cold  unemotional tones. 'Let me know if you want transport.'





CHAPTER TEN



On no count did it seem worth going to bed. It was almost morning and  she knew anguish would keep her from sleep. But it had been a long tramp  and in the end her tired body took over. She woke to a bright room and  Rory's grave face. He was standing by the bed fully dressed.



'Wake up, Sue. The hospital have been on.'

'They want us?' Wide awake now, she sat up in bed.

'As soon as possible,' Rory told her quietly. Antonia had opened her  eyes. This after weeks of false security she had not expected. The shock  hit her like a turning blade. Then there was no room for self. 'Have  you told Jennie?'

She was surprised to see a headshake. 'No. I thought...'

'We'd better.' She changed her mind. I will.'

Her role, after all. It didn't deserve the disarming flash of gratitude  it won. Too soft a heart, she thought. He could do most things without  turning a hair, but this was too much for him.

'It's good and it's bad,' he said as she threw back the bedclothes. 'I  mean for Jennie. I'm afraid It's all been happening, Sue. While you were  asleep.'

'What?' Curiously the skin of Suzanne Desmond seemed at long last to be  hers. There was no strangeness about Rory standing there as though he  were her husband with something in a mess that needed her to put it  right. 'My robe, please, would you?' she murmured, and he threw it  across.

'The balloon went up.' He made a rueful mouth. 'It had to one of these days. I think she's packing.'                       
       
           



       

'Packing? Packing?' Wasn't that just typical? Love was the same the  world over. Explosive. Snappy. Sensitive. And Rory was very snappy at  breakfast time. And Jennie very sensitive twenty-four hours of the day.  Good grief, how would they last out the next two or three years?

'You'd want to watch yourself, Rory Hart,' she said briskly, tying the belt of her robe. 'You won't always have me around.'

He seemed to be hovering open-mouthed and slightly glazed as she whisked  down the corridor. And indeed, she had to admit it, she did not feel  nearly as assured as she sounded. Something about Jennie, even still,  made her feel inferior. She would turn the handle now and see her in the  fringed maxi waistcoat and drab trousers she wore so easily, her  striking eyes accented. But Jennie was in trouble and so, in a way, was  Rory, and that was all she must think of.

'Jennie?'

The chocolatey voice that always seemed to put a distance between them  said: 'Yes?' and Haidee swung the door open. And stood-staring, blinking  and incredulous.

What looked in age like Toby's twin was standing before her, hair-slides  holding back the former seductive tresses. A child's plump shiny face  rose from a royal blue fly-fronted jacket. Sturdy knees showed under the  matching mini-skirt. The cotton socks were white and pulled up very  straight. And, true for Rory, on the bed was a half packed suitcase.

'I'm going back to school,' Jennie announced defiantly. 'I hate him! I'm never going to speak to him again.'

Haidee had been prepared to act as Cupid's go-between, but all she could  think of was that she'd been duped-or doped. This was not Jennie  disguised in school uniform. It was Jennie looking exactly what she  was-a child approaching O-levels. Half woman, half child, Mother Mary  had said. And almost before their eyes Suzanne's rival had stepped over  from one half to the other.

She would step back again, of course, but in her own time.

'You mustn't say things like that, Jen. You know you don't mean them,'  Haidee reproved in the elder sister tones that up till now she had never  been able to muster. 'And now you must be brave. There's been a call  from the hospital about Mother. They want us there at once.'

'Darling, it's better,' she added as Jennie's face, pink and silent,  looked like bursting, 'It's much much better. And you know you've got  me, if you want me.'

Jennie did not speak. It was on top of her at last and first and  foremost she was frightened. But her hand was there and when Haidee  reached for it the fingers linked tightly with her own.

'Well, Johnny, so it's mission accomplished.' Rory, who never put table  napkins back in rings, on this occasion did not put his table napkin  back in its ring.

Somewhat pointedly, Haidee repaired the omission. 'Obviously not!'

By this time tomorrow her worries would be over. No napkins to retrieve,  no Toby to drive out to school, no Punch to run off with slippers and,  above all, no Rory to cross swords with. You lucky girl, she told  herself, and could have cried.

'I'm excluded,' he said blandly. 'We still have some unfinished business. When did you say Freeman was collecting you?'

'About three, I think.'

'That's all right. I'll be back long before then.' He glanced at his  watch. 'See what she's doing, Johnny. I don't want to cut it too fine.'

The use of 'Johnny' twice inside five minutes was surprising. It had  scared her so that first day when he had likened her to the old street  song 'Johnny, I hardly knew ye?' but it was some time now since anyone  but Toby had aired it. She risked a glance at Rory and it was  intercepted by a poker face.

'Jennie. See if she's ready, will you? Thanks.'

As always he had flustered her. Something to do with one-upmanship. That  brown lined face of his could look infuriatingly superior. Her own face  with no lines to speak of and silly crescent-shaped eyebrows never had  had a chance against it.

She went hurriedly across the hall.

Four days had elapsed since the hospital summons. Antonia had died so  peacefully that Haidee could not have told exactly when it had happened.  One moment the calm blue eyes had been fixed on her face, the next the  nurse had laid down very gently the wrist she had been holding and was  shaking her head.                       
       
           



       

An anti-climax, perhaps, after the weeks of vigil? Fulfilment would have  been for her to accept Suzanne's marriage and to die knowing that her  own feeling for Glenglass lived on in her grandson. But life was no  sentimental package. The most that watchers by the bed could take away  with them had been a face of utter tranquillity and a gaze riveted to  the spot where Haidee and Jennie sat.

You have put your shoulder to a wheel, Mother Mary had said, perhaps  inadvisedly, perhaps that great good may come. Sitting with Jennie in  the back of the car as Rory drove home, Haidee could only hope that she  had given comfort.

Certainly during the next few days it was to her Jennie had turned.  Whatever differences had arisen between her and Rory it was plain that,  though he appeared to have forgotten them, she had not. She was polite  to him, excessively so. But she was remote. And, small point perhaps,  never these days out of her school uniform. That it denoted quite a  famous school could have had significance.