Dear Deceiver(8)

       
           



       

So why go on changing? She paused, still immersed in sweater folds. He  should be told at once. But she'd hesitated and for the moment was lost.  He had come out of the sitting-room and begun to mount the stairs,  doubtless looking for the bathroom. Call out, tell him which it is, she  urged herself, and found her mouth had dried. She remained inside the  sweater, childishly and inexcusably shy.

And then, in a flash, the heavy feet were no longer out in the corridor but treading the carpet on which she was standing.

'Come on, we haven't got all day,' a voice commanded.

She started to protest, her voice muffled. Another stride and she felt  his nearness. Brisk hands had the end of the sweater, one businesslike  tug and it was over her head.

Nothing particularly nude about what was left, a flowery bra and belted trousers, but Haidee was too shocked to be rational.

'How dare you!' she gasped. 'What do you think you're doing?' If it was a  mistake, giveaway or what have you, she didn't care. No strange man was  going to be allowed walk into her room like that or to look at her ...  She turned confusedly from the ink-blue eyes: You couldn't read them;  one second determined 'I'm not sorry' eyes and now bewilderingly gentle.  Perhaps he wasn't sorry, he was certainly having a good look at her,  but he did know unmistakably that he'd scared her, that inwardly she was  trembling.

'What's up? You used to ask me to,' he said in a puzzled tone.

'Not now, please,' she managed to stammer. 'It's different.'

The blue eyes flickered. 'Yes, it would be, wouldn't it? I forgot you'd  met Freeman again. All right, have it your own way.' He sat down on the  bed.

She stared transfixed. 'I want to get changed.'

'No one wants it more than I do. Please get on with it.'

'How can I?' She was almost speechless. 'How can I when you're there?'

Once more the eyes studied her face, her shoulders, her collarbones.

'I don't know,' their owner sighed as though he really didn't. 'I don't  know what's got into you. However, if it makes you any happier I'll sit  over here,' He drew a chair ostentatiously to the window and sat down,  presenting his back to the room.

Haidee opened the wardrobe and found the skirt she wanted, a midi-length  parchment tweed. The belted sweater which matched it was in the chest  of drawers. She took it out with a pair of dark brown tights and rather  prissy shoes and got busy. There seemed no alternative. She was stepping  out of the trousers when Rory Hart addressed her. 'Who owns this  place?' His head was still stolidly turned. She spoke to its blocky  back.

'My-employer did. She died four weeks ago. I'm looking after it till the solicitor has things straightened out.'

'What happened?'

She gave the details bleakly and without expression.

'And who looked after her?' he asked.

'I did.'

'Nights too?'

She wriggled her arms through the straps of a patterned cream petticoat.

'It wasn't so hard. She was wonderfully considerate. I was very fond of her.'

'And the cat?'

'He was hers. She gave him to me.'

'Any help in the house?' the catechism proceeded.

'No. We couldn't-I mean she couldn't afford it. But there was no difficulty once we moved here. This house is very easily run.'

'The piano?'

Careful, Haidee, the warning light flashed, this could be a trap.

'Mrs. Brown played it as long as she was able. She was very musical. I  picked it up from her. Not that I'm any good, but she liked to have it  used.' It was so true that she had to steady herself against the  memories that flooded-Handel's Largo, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, The  Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy...

'It's amazing. You never touched the piano at Glenglass.'

Haidee reminded herself that she was not going on with the deception.  She was dressed now, it only remained to put the finishing touches to  face and hair. In the circumstances, silly, perhaps to bother. Why not  turn round and say fairly and squarely: 'This is a mercy deception. I'm  not Suzanne'?                       
       
           



       

This time she got as far as opening her mouth. But not to turning round.  In a sense she felt fey. It was like disbudding a rose, the work of  seconds but what might you have destroyed? She drew the brush downwards  and to the right. 'Let me think,' she said silently to the girl in the  glass.

'What did you say her name was? Brown?' Rory Hart had fastened on the  name a little later than Haidee had expected. 'A coincidence, surely.'

'I think that's what got me the job,' she told him now demurely.

'And she never knew about Glenglass? You told her nothing?'

'No.' Haidee laid down the hairbrush and walked across the room. Anoraks  did not do much for any form, the lean long belted look did a lot more.  Something that was primitive with no right to be there noted that Rory  Hart shared the view. His eye travelled the high pale sweater roll, the  gathered cuffs, the wandlike waist and the slim Victorian-looking legs  and feet.

'If I didn't know differently I'd say you were an impostor.' The gleam  of teeth indicated that this was a joke. The eyes, however, did not  smile and the room seemed to have grown very still.

'But you're happy that I'm not?' Haidee risked.

'That remains to be seen. Happiness was never a commodity you handed out  in large doses,' Rory Hart said dryly. 'And certainly not to me. But  I'm satisfied with the claim, if that's the correct jargon.' He looked  at her dispassionately. 'For one thing, anyone masquerading as Suzanne  has nothing to gain except trouble and for another you're so unlike her  in many ways that I don't think you'd try it on if you weren't genuine.  All the same, it's as well to clear the air, So tell me what next? Does  Glenglass begin to call to you now that you've lost your job?'

Haidee was becoming inured to shocks, but bitterness was scaring. She  wondered, not for the first time, what event had seared so deeply into  fifteen succeeding years.

'Please don't judge everyone by yourself, we're not all motivated by expediency.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'That I read in the papers what you did to Glenglass.'

'I suppose you read it by courtesy of Paul Freeman?'

'You needn't sneer at Paul,' Haidee said hotly. 'As an old friend he had every right to ventilate the position.'

'Ventilate?' Rory Hart echoed. 'You mean, make a stink. That's his  speciality, stirring up trouble. But one day he'll do it once too  often.'

'You're very sure!' she challenged. That was the most quelling  factor-his confidence and the fact that at no time had he lost his cool.

'Sure of one thing anyway. I shall be there to nail him when he does.'

Whatever gentleness had been in his eyes when he'd pulled off her  sweater, whatever approbation in his voice as he'd questioned her about  Mrs. Brown, most of all whatever filaments of feeling had tempted her to  be frank, they had all received their death knell. Nothing moved now in  his face, it was masklike. It would be merciless. So would the. hand  into which, she realized sharply, she had been about to put the hammer.  Altogether, it was answer enough. Paul's only crime had been quixotic  over-involvement. She could not give him over to this vindictive spleen.  Meantime, one thing remained to be said.

'In case it's of interest, I want my mother to die in peace. They seem  to feel she'll do so if she sees me again. I think I owe her that much.  She owes me nothing and, so far as Glenglass is concerned, I have no  intention of ever setting foot in it again.'

The hospital reached, Rory Hart accompanied Haidee up the steps and marched her across to the reception desk.

'Good afternoon. I've got Miss Desmond here. Will you see please if Dr. X is free.'

It was another stepping-stone. Haidee now knew the whole of her adopted  name-Suzanne Desmond-and surprisingly when she turned her head the ghost  of a smile was hovering on her companion's lips. Before either of them  could speak, however, the receptionist did so. The doctor was available.  Would Miss Desmond go up to the private floor?                       
       
           



       

'I'll be on my way, then,' Rory Hart announced. He walked to the lift  with her and pressed the call button. It came quickly and he held out  his hand. 'Good-bye and good luck. I know nothing's changed. We'd be at  each other's throats in no time. I accept that and my plate's too full  for it now.' He bent forward and kissed her on the mouth.

The lift door started to close. She mumbled good-bye and stepped inside.  Not, she felt sure, as Suzanne Desmond would have reacted. The  essential quality of tone and kiss, particularly kiss, had been  intimacy. It seemed to open a door-on a girl and the two men who had  known her.

The men were not brothers, but Haidee could not help thinking of Jacob  and Esau, the one gentle and citified with the soul of a dreamer, the  other rough and earthy, primarily hunter and slayer. And the girl in the  middle today? Which had she loved? In Haidee's mind there seemed no  possible doubt. But where was she? Where had she gone? Jacob had had to  serve only fourteen years for his beloved Rachel, Paul had searched and  waited for fifteen.