Taken at the Flood Read online

  “You know nothing about it—or about him. You couldn’t begin to know!”

  Without any air of changing the conversation David asked:

  “What do you think of Rosaleen?”

  “She’s very lovely.”

  “What else?”

  “She doesn’t seem to be enjoying herself.”

  “Quite right,” said David, “Rosaleen’s rather stupid. She’s scared. She always has been rather scared. She drifts into things and then doesn’t know what it’s all about. Shall I tell you about Rosaleen?”

  “If you like,” said Lynn politely.

  “I do like. She started by being stagestruck and drifted on to the stage. She wasn’t any good, of course. She got into a third-rate touring company that was going out to South Africa. She liked the sound of South Africa. The company got stranded in Cape Town. Then she drifted into marriage with a Government official from Nigeria. She didn’t like Nigeria—and I don’t think she liked her husband much. If he’d been a hearty sort of fellow who drank and beat her, it would have been all right. But he was rather an intellectual man who kept a large library in the wilds and who liked to talk metaphysics. So she drifted back to Cape Town again. The fellow behaved very well and gave her an adequate allowance. He might have given her a divorce, but again he might not for he was a Catholic; but anyway he rather fortunately died of fever, and Rosaleen got a small pension. Then the war started and she drifted on to a boat for South America. She didn’t like South America very much, so she drifted on to another boat and there she met Gordon Cloade and told him all about her sad life. So they got married in New York and lived happily for a fortnight, and a little later he was killed by a bomb and she was left a large house, a lot of expensive jewellery, and an immense income.”

  “It’s nice that the story has such a happy ending,” said Lynn.

  “Yes,” said David Hunter. “Possessing no intellect at all, Rosaleen has always been a lucky girl—which is just as well. Gordon Cloade was a strong old man. He was sixty-two. He might easily have lived for twenty years. He might have lived even longer. That wouldn’t have been much fun for Rosaleen, would it? She was twenty-four when she married him. She’s only twenty-six now.”

  “She looks even younger,” said Lynn.

  David looked across the table. Rosaleen Cloade was crumbling her bread. She looked like a nervous child.

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “She does. Complete absence of thought, I suppose.”

  “Poor thing,” said Lynn suddenly.

  David frowned.

  “Why the pity?” he said sharply. “I’ll look after Rosaleen.”

  “I expect you will.”

  He scowled.

  “Any one who tries to do down Rosaleen has got me to deal with! And I know a good many ways of making war—some of them not strictly orthodox.”

  “Am I going to hear your life history now?” asked Lynn coldly.

  “A very abridged edition.” He smiled. “When the war broke out I saw no reason why I should fight for England. I’m Irish. But like all the Irish, I like fighting. The Commandos had an irresistible fascination for me. I had some fun but unfortunately I got knocked out with a bad leg wound. Then I went to Canada and did a job of training fellows there. I was at a loose end when I got Rosaleen’s wire from New York saying she was getting married! She didn’t actually announce that there would be pickings, but I’m quite sharp at reading between the lines. I flew there, tacked myself on to the happy pair and came back with them to London. And now”—he smiled insolently at her—“Home is the sailor, home from the sea. That’s you! And the Hunter home from the Hill. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” said Lynn.

  She got up with the others. As they went into the drawing-room, Rowley said to her: “You seemed to be getting on quite well with David Hunter. What were you talking about?”

  “Nothing particular,” said Lynn.

  Five

  “David, when are we going back to London? When are we going to America?”

  Across the breakfast table, David Hunter gave Rosaleen a quick surprised glance.

  “There’s no hurry, is there? What’s wrong with this place?”

  He gave a swift appreciative glance round the room where they were breakfasting. Furrowbank was built on the side of a hill and from the windows one had an unbroken panorama of sleepy English countryside. On the slope of the lawn thousands of daffodils had been planted. They were nearly over now, but a sheet of golden bloom still remained.

  Crumbling the toast on her plate, Rosaleen murmured:

  “You said we’d go to America—soon. As soon as it could be managed.”

  “Yes—but actually it isn’t managed so easily. There’s priority. Neither you nor I have any business reasons to put forward. Things are always difficult after a war.”

  He felt faintly irritated with himself as he spoke. The reasons he advanced, though genuine enough, had the sound of excuses. He wondered if they sounded that way to the girl who sat opposite him. And why was she suddenly so keen to go to America?

  Rosaleen murmured: “You said we’d only be here for a short time. You didn’t say we were going to live here.”

  “What’s wrong with Warmsley Vale—and Furrowbank? Come now?”

  “Nothing. It’s them—all of them!”

  “The Cloades?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s just what I get a kick out of,” said David. “I like seeing their smug faces eaten up with envy and malice. Don’t grudge me my fun, Rosaleen.”

  She said in a low troubled voice:

  “I wish you didn’t feel like that. I don’t like it.”

  “Have some spirit, girl. We’ve been pushed around enough, you and I. The Cloades have lived soft—soft. Lived on big brother Gordon. Little fleas on a big flea. I hate their kind—I always have.”

  She said, shocked:

  “I don’t like hating people. It’s wicked.”

  “Don’t you think they hate you? Have they been kind to you—friendly?”

  She said doubtfully:

  “They haven’t been unkind. They haven’t done me any harm.”

  “But they’d like to, babyface. They’d like to.” He laughed recklessly. “If they weren’t so careful of their own skins, you’d be found with a knife in your back one fine morning.”

  She shivered.

  “Don’t say such dreadful things.”

  “Well—perhaps not a knife. Strychnine in the soup.”

  She stared at him, her mouth tremulous.

  “You’re joking….”

  He became serious again.

  “Don’t worry, Rosaleen. I’ll look after you. They’ve got me to deal with.”

  She said, stumbling over the words, “If it’s true what you say—about their hating us—hating me—why don’t we go to London? We’d be safe there—away from them all.”

  “The country’s good for you, my girl. You know it makes you ill being in London.”

  “That was when the bombs were there—the bombs.” She shivered, closed her eyes. “I’ll never forget—never….”

  “Yes, you will.” He took her gently by the shoulders, shook her slightly. “Snap out of it, Rosaleen. You were badly shocked, but it’s over now. There are no more bombs. Don’t think about it. Don’t remember. The doctor said country air and a country life for a long time to come. That’s why I want to keep you away from London.”

  “Is that really why? Is it, David? I thought—perhaps—”

  “What did you think?”

  Rosaleen said slowly:

  “I thought perhaps it was because of her you wanted to be here….”

  “Her?”

  “You know the one I mean. The girl the other night. The one who was in the Wrens.”

  His face was suddenly black and stern.

  “Lynn? Lynn Marchmont.”

  “She means something to you, David.”

  “Lynn Marchmont? She’s Rowley’
s girl. Good old stay-at-home Rowley. That bovine slow-witted good-looking ox.”

  “I watched you talking to her the other night.”

  “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Rosaleen.”

  “And you’ve seen her since, haven’t you?”

  “I met her near the farm the other morning when I was out riding.”

  “And you’ll meet her again.”

  “Of course I’ll always be meeting her! This is a tiny place. You can’t go two steps without falling over a Cloade. But if you think I’ve fallen for Lynn Marchmont, you’re wrong. She’s a proud stuck-up unpleasant girl without a civil tongue in her head. I wish old Rowley joy of her. No, Rosaleen, my girl, she’s not my type.”

  She said doubtfully, “Are you sure, David?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  She said half-timidly:

  “I know you don’t like my laying out the cards…But they come true, they do indeed. There was a girl bringing trouble and sorrow—a girl would come from over the sea. There was a dark stranger, too, coming into our lives, and bringing danger with him. There was the death card, and—”

  “You and your dark strangers!” David laughed. “What a mass of superstition you are. Don’t have any dealings with a dark stranger, that’s my advice to you.”

  He strolled out of the house laughing, but when he was away from the house, his face clouded over and he frowned to himself, murmuring:

  “Bad luck to you, Lynn. Coming home from abroad and upsetting the apple cart.”

  For he realized that at this very moment he was deliberately making a course on which he might hope to meet the girl he had just apostrophized so savagely.

  Rosaleen watched him stroll away across the garden and out through the small gate that gave on to a public footpath across the fields. Then she went up to her bedroom and looked through the clothes in her wardrobe. She always enjoyed touching and feeling her new mink coat. To think she should own a coat like that—she could never quite get over the wonder of it. She was in her bedroom when the parlourmaid came up to tell her that Mrs. Marchmont had called.

  Adela was sitting in the drawing room with her lips set tightly together and her heart beating at twice its usual speed. She had been steeling herself for several days to make an appeal to Rosaleen but true to her nature had procrastinated. She had also been bewildered by finding that Lynn’s attitude had unaccountably changed and that she was now rigidly opposed to her mother seeking relief from her anxieties by asking Gordon’s widow for a loan.

  However another letter from the bank manager that morning had driven Mrs. Marchmont into positive action. She could delay no longer. Lynn had gone out early, and Mrs. Marchmont had caught sight of David Hunter walking along the footpath—so the coast was clear. She particularly wanted to get Rosaleen alone, without David, rightly judging that Rosaleen alone would be a far easier proposition.

  Nevertheless she felt dreadfully nervous as she waited in the sunny drawing room, though she felt slightly better when Rosaleen came in with what Mrs. Marchmont always thought of as her “half-witted look” more than usually marked.

  “I wonder,” thought Adela to herself, “if the blast did it or if she was always like that?”

  “Rosaleen stammered.

  “Oh, g-g-ood morning. Is there anything? Do sit down.”

  “Such a lovely morning,” said Mrs. Marchmont brightly. “All my early tulips are out. Are yours?”

  The girl stared at her vacantly.

  “I don’t know.”

  What was one to do, thought Adela, with someone who didn’t talk gardening or dogs—those standbys of rural conversation?

  Aloud she said, unable to help the tinge of acidity that crept into her tone:

  “Of course you have so many gardeners—they attend to all that.”

  “I believe we’re shorthanded. Old Mullard wants two more men, he says. But there seems a terrible shortage still of labour.”

  The words came out with a kind of glib parrotlike delivery—rather like a child who repeats what it has heard a grown-up person say.

  Yes, she was like a child. Was that, Adela wondered, her charm? Was that what had attracted that hard-headed shrewd business man, Gordon Cloade, and blinded him to her stupidity and her lack of breeding? After all, it couldn’t only be looks. Plenty of good-looking women had angled unsuccessfully to attract him.

  But childishness, to a man of sixty-two, might be an attraction. Was it, could it be, real—or was it a pose—a pose that had paid and so had become second nature?

  Rosaleen was saying, “David’s out, I’m afraid…” and the words recalled Mrs. Marchmont to herself. David might return. Now was her chance and she must not neglect it. The words stuck in her throat but she got them out.

  “I wonder—if you would help me?”

  “Help you?”

  Rosaleen looked surprised, uncomprehending.

  “I—things are very difficult—you see, Gordon’s death has made a great difference to us all.”

  “You silly idiot,” she thought. “Must you go on gaping at me like that? You know what I mean! You must know what I mean. After all, you’ve been poor yourself….”

  She hated Rosaleen at that moment. Hated her because she, Adela Marchmont, was sitting here whining for money. She thought, “I can’t do it—I can’t do it after all.”

  In one brief instant all the long hours of thought and worry and vague planning flashed again across her brain.

  Sell the house—(But move where? There weren’t any small houses on the market—certainly not any cheap houses). Take paying guests—(But you couldn’t get staff—and she simply couldn’t—she just couldn’t deal with all the cooking and housework involved. If Lynn helped—but Lynn was going to marry Rowley). Live with Rowley and Lynn herself? (No, she’d never do that!) Get a job. What job? Who wanted an untrained elderly tired-out woman?

  She heard her voice, belligerent because she despised herself.

  “I mean money,” she said.

  “Money?” said Rosaleen.

  She sounded ingenuously surprised, as though money was the last thing she expected to be mentioned.

  Adela went on doggedly, tumbling the words out:

  “I’m overdrawn at the bank, and I owe bills—repairs to the house—and the rates haven’t been paid yet. You see, everything’s halved—my income, I mean. I suppose it’s taxation. Gordon, you see, used to help. With the house, I mean. He did all the repairs and the roof and painting and things like that. And an allowance as well. He paid it into the bank every quarter. He always said not to worry and of course I never did. I mean, it was all right when he was alive, but now—”

  She stopped. She was ashamed—but at the same time relieved. After all, the worst was over. If the girl refused, she refused, and that was that.

  Rosaleen was looking very uncomfortable.

  “Oh, dear,” she said. “I didn’t know. I never thought…I—well, of course, I’ll ask David….”

  Grimly gripping the sides of her chair, Adela said, desperately:

  “Couldn’t you give me a cheque—now….”

  “Yes—yes, I suppose I could.” Rosaleen, looking startled, got up, went to the desk. She hunted in various pigeonholes and finally produced a chequebook. “Shall I—how much?”

  “Would—would five hundred pounds—” Adela broke off.

  “Five hundred pounds,” Rosaleen wrote obediently.

  A load slipped off Adela’s back. After all, it had been easy! She was dismayed as it occurred to her that it was less gratitude that she felt than a faint scorn for the easiness of her victory! Rosaleen was surely strangely simple.

  The girl rose from the writing desk and came across to her. She held out the cheque awkwardly. The embarrassment seemed now entirely on her side.

  “I hope this is all right. I’m really so sorry—”

  Adela took the cheque. The unformed childish hand straggled across the pink paper. Mrs. Marchmont. Five hundred pounds £500. R
osaleen Cloade.

  “It’s very good of you, Rosaleen. Thank you.”

  “Oh please—I mean—I ought to have thought—”

  “Very good of you, my dear.”

  With the cheque in her handbag Adela Marchmont felt a different woman. The girl had really been very sweet about it. It would be embarrassing to prolong the interview. She said goodbye and departed. She passed David in the drive, said “Good morning” pleasantly, and hurried on.

  Six

  “What was the Marchmont woman doing here?” demanded David as soon as he got in.

  “Oh, David. She wanted money dreadfully badly. I’d never thought—”

  “And you gave it her, I suppose.”

  He looked at her in half-humorous despair.

  “You’re not to be trusted alone, Rosaleen.”

  “Oh, David, I couldn’t refuse. After all—”

  “After all—what? How much?”

  In a small voice Rosaleen murmured, “Five hundred pounds.”

  To her relief David laughed.

  “A mere fleabite!”

  “Oh, David, it’s a lot of money.”

  “Not to us nowadays, Rosaleen. You never really seem to grasp that you’re a very rich woman. All the same if she asked five hundred she’d have gone away perfectly satisfied with two-fifty. You must learn the language of borrowing!”

  She murmured, “I’m sorry, David.”

  “My dear girl! After all, it’s your money.”

  “It isn’t. Not really.”

  “Now don’t begin that all over again. Gordon Cloade died before he had time to make a will. That’s what’s called the luck of the game. We win, you and I. The others—lose.”

  “It doesn’t seem—right.”

  “Come now, my lovely sister Rosaleen, aren’t you enjoying all this? A big house, servants—jewellery? Isn’t it a dream come true? Isn’t it? Glory be to God, sometimes I think I’ll wake up and find it is a dream.”

  She laughed with him, and watching her narrowly, he was satisfied. He knew how to deal with his Rosaleen. It was inconvenient, he thought, that she should have a conscience, but there it was.

  “It’s quite true, David, it is like a dream—or like something on the pictures. I do enjoy it all. I do really.”