Cloud Castle Page 2

  “No, I’m not O’Rafferty,” he said, wondering what Marcia would think of her. “I’m Noel Maule, the guest house manager. Shall we go, or would you like another drink?”

  Her eyes went to the stationmaster with serious challenge.

  “Is he who he says?” she asked, and old Mick grinned.

  “Sure he is,” he said. “You’d not be expecting the O’Rafferty to meet you, would you, and he, like as not, fishing his own waters or doing the polite to those fancy guests they have up at the castle?”

  “No—no, I suppose not,” she replied uncertainly and, becoming conscious of Noel’s ill-concealed look of assessment, she raised her chin and banged down her empty glass simultaneously.

  “Hadn’t we better be going, Mr. Maule?” she said, and he was aware of a flicker in her green eyes which promised to enliven the duller moments at Slyne.

  Both Mick and the porter hastened out to the car with her spare luggage and caught the largesse which Noel tossed to them with eager hands.

  “Does that pay for my whisky?” Miss Judith Ware asked coldly, as she perched herself awkwardly on the Land Rover’s high seat. “I’d thought it was Irish hospitality—the kind you read about in books.”

  “The kind you read about in books is usually a figment of the author’s imagination, and even Irish hospitality has to be paid for,” Noel observed indulgently.

  Judy said: “Oh!” with a sharp little inflection as if the explanation had disappointed her, and Noel, letting in the clutch and moving away into the main street of the town, gave her a sidelong glance.

  “Don’t start off with romantic ideas about the Irish—you’ll be disappointed,” he said softly, and saw that in profile her nose had an upward tilt and that she was holding her head high enough to exaggerate the long clean lines of throat and neck.

  “You’ll be a surprise at Slyne,” he added, wondering, even then, what possibilities of amusement she might hold for him.

  “Why?”

  “Well—your letter didn’t give much indication of what you’re really like, did it? How old are you, to be truthful?”

  “Twenty. This is my first job, you see, and—and I thought I’d stand more chance if I was older...”

  “But twenty-seven! Weren’t you overdoing it a bit?”

  “Seven’s my lucky number—I simply added it,” she said with a touch of defiance. “Besides, it’s a sensible, safe-sounding age. Does it matter how old a secretary is?”

  “Not so long as you’re efficient, I suppose. Are you efficient, Miss Judy Ware?”

  “Very. I had a higher speed in typing than anyone else who took the course and I can spell correctly.”

  Her hair streamed behind her in the wind as the Land Rover bucked its way over the bumps and stones, and she craned her neck to gaze upon the lough and not miss a single aspect of its beauty. Only when they reached the gates of Slyne did her enthusiasm falter.

  “But,” she said, as her eyes beheld the sprawling, indefinite lines of the house which almost met the water’s edge, and the unfenced, neglected boundaries of the parkland, “I thought it was a castle, with a moat and a drawbridge and—and everything.”

  “Almost every small estate calls itself a castle in Ireland,” he answered carelessly. “Were you expecting liveried flunkies as well?”

  “Of course not! You must think me a greenhorn, Mr. Maule.”

  He had pulled up in the drive to let her have her first sight of Slyne and, for him, it was an automatic reflex to let his arm slide along the back of the seat behind her shoulders.

  “A greenhorn with possibilities, I would say. Slyne can be very tedious in the off-season, you know,” he said.

  She studied his ridiculously handsome face with unembarrassed curiosity. He was, she thought, almost too good to be true, with his film-star features and black curly hair. “Are you a wolf, Mr. Maule?” she inquired seriously.

  He raised one eyebrow and replied indulgently, “What experience have you of wolves, Miss Ware?”

  “Quite a bit,” she answered calmly. “Girls alone in London have plenty of opportunity to study the species. I don’t care very much for wolves.”

  “Don’t you, indeed? I wonder what Mr. O’Rafferty is going to make of you.”

  “Why? Is he a wolf?”

  “No—oh, dear me no! Raff’s wolf days are over, if he ever had any. You’ll be quite safe; he won’t notice much difference between you and your typewriter.”

  “Oh! He doesn’t sound very cosy.”

  “Cosy! No, I wouldn’t describe our king of the castle as that. But you’ve just told me you don’t care for wolves.”

  “It’s quite different,” she retorted with some asperity. “There should, after all, be a certain sympathy between employer and employee—don’t you agree? Besides, I don’t find wolves cosy.”

  He experienced that sudden attraction which novelty could always hold for him. She might be fun, he thought, this uninhibited little redhead who expected such unlikely results from her first job.

  “I don’t know about the sympathy,” he replied lazily. “But when Raff can spare you, you can always do some typing for me, then we’ll find out, won’t we?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, giving him a very cool stare from under her lashes. “Hadn’t we better be getting to the house? I should like a cup of tea.”

  III

  If he himself had appeared to make little impression on Judy, Marcia had the opposite effect Noel was amused to observe the momentary shyness which descended on the girl when she was confronted with his sister’s experienced graciousness. Marcia gave a perfect example of the practised hostess putting a raw young employee at her ease, and the fact that Judy became gauche and almost tongue-tied would he knew, please Marcia, who did not care for feminine competition.

  “Not a very sparkling companion, and perhaps that’s just as well,” the older girl observed after she had taken Judy to her room.

  “Don’t you believe it!” her brother retorted. “I was treated to several rather unusual observations on the way home. You made her shy, my sweet, with all that womanly charm and sophistication.”

  “Did I? Well, she probably felt a bit travel-stained, poor dear, and certainly looked it I doubt if Raff will keep her.”

  “Oh, why?”

  “Well, she’s not what he was expecting, is she? Too young for a start, and that red hair.”

  His eyebrows rose.

  “Red hair isn’t a monopoly,” he said, “and she tells me she’s efficient. Raff likes efficiency.”

  “And you, my beloved brother, rather like the new secretary,” she laughed. “Well, there’s no accounting for tastes. At least she won’t be Raff’s cup of tea.”

  “No? There was a certain familiarity of type, I thought”

  “Oh, you mean Kathy,” she said with a little yawn. “But that was long ago, and one grows out of a taste for naiveness. Raff is thirty-six now, and has progressed out of adolescence, one hopes.”

  “Who has progressed out of adolescence?” Raff’s voice asked from the doorway. He stood in Ids rough tweeds and sweater, peering into the uncertain gloom which the late February afternoon made in the shadowy, high-raftered hall in which they had remained sitting.

  “You,” said Marcia, blowing smoke rings lazily above her head. “We were talking of your new secretary, darling—not at all what we expected, young and rather gauche, and her mother’s milk not yet dry behind her ears, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  He frowned.

  “Twenty-seven is a mature age,” he said.

  “Actually she’s twenty and this is her first job.”

  “Oh, lord! I’m no wet-nurse to unfledged novices! We’d better get rid of her.”

  “Not without an interview, darling. Here she is. Be tolerant, now!”

  Judy came down the shallow, graceful staircase, pausing every so often in uncertainty.

  Marcia looked up inquiringly. The girl had changed, she saw, into a dark froc
k which made her look very slender, and her hair was brushed and burnished into a thick, gleaming halo which curved back from her ears in childish fronds.

  “Come along, Miss Ware,” Marcia said kindly. ‘This is Mr. O’Rafferty for whom you will work.”

  She watched with idle curiosity the first meeting between these two and felt a fleeting sympathy for the girl, for Raff did not come forward to shake hands and make her welcome, but stood by the fireplace, his hands in his pockets, observing in silence her slow progress across the vast expanse of polished floor to meet him.

  “How do you do, Mr. O’Rafferty?” she said, holding out a hand.

  In the dusk his face appeared blurred and inscrutable, but she had an impression of sudden hostility in the lean, crooked features. Although he took her proffered hand for a moment and murmured some sort of greeting she was aware first of surprise then of a puzzling antagonism in him, and she looked a little uncertainly towards Noel lying back in his chair in the shadows.

  Judy blinked at Raff inquiringly, seeing clearly now the not unattractive ugliness of his face, the unexpected grey in his hair and the coldness of his appraising eyes. Cosy ... she thought with a hastily suppressed grin ... no, he would never be that! There was no warmth in him, no welcome, even. Well, better that way, perhaps than the rather obvious intentions of someone like Mr. Maule.

  “You have red hair,” Raff said suddenly, and made it sound like an accusation.

  Judy flushed slightly; her hair had always been a sore point, earning for her, in younger days, the inevitable soubriquets of “carrots” and “ginger”, but she thought it rude of Mr. O’Rafferty to comment so bluntly in front of strangers.

  “The colour of my hair won’t, you will find, affect my efficiency, Mr. O’Rafferty,” she retorted, and saw him smile faintly.

  “Good for you!” Noel laughed, and Marcia rose to her feet and moved with cat-like elegance across the hall.

  “You aren’t exactly making Miss Ware feel at home, darling,” she observed to Raff. “I’ll go and see about some tea. Mary Kate remembers the guests if they ring the bell enough times, but she’s apt to forget us. Sit down, Miss Ware, and forget about Raff’s ill humour.”

  The two men talked idly, forgetting her, and presently Marcia returned, pushing a tea-trolley.

  “Really!” she remarked, sounding a little exasperated, “I do think you might train your servants better, Raff. Timsy hadn’t even the grace to wheel the trolley in for me.”

  “He probably wasn’t dressed for company,” Raff replied imperturbably. “Timsy has a great sense of fitness.”

  “He also has a great sense of idleness, and a taste for the bottle!” said Marcia shortly. “Do the daily girls usually go home so early as this?”

  “I don’t know. That, surely, is your province,” he answered pleasantly, and caught his prospective secretary’s eyes fixed upon him in a green, unwavering stare.

  “You must be thinking this is a very inefficiently run guest house, Miss Ware,” he observed, “but our visitors are properly catered for, I assure you.”

  “In there?” asked Judy with interest, inclining her head towards one of the closed doors, behind which the desultory murmur of voices could occasionally be heard. The apparent absence of guests had begun to worry her.

  “In there,” he answered, and she heard the faint distaste in his voice. “Fortunately we have only a handful to contend with just now, but later, according to Mr. Maule, there will be rich Americans, wealthy industrialists from the Midlands, even authors and playwrights and jaded film stars discovering the quaint delights of romantic Ireland.”

  “Why,” asked Judy, her mouth full of one of Mary Kate’s buttered baps, “do you run a guest house if you think so little of the customers?”

  Raff did not trouble to answer, or perhaps he was considering a suitable reply, but Noel said with faint relish: “L.S.D., my dear Miss Ware. The stately homes of Ireland, though running to decay more obviously than the English variety, need keeping up just the same.”

  “Oh! Oh, I see,” she said, conscious that her inquiry might have sounded impertinent, and was made to feel no happier when Raff observed with an edge to his voice:

  “I doubt if you do, my dear young lady. Sometimes I wonder myself if the preservation of one’s home is worth the constant irritation of strangers perpetually under one’s feet.”

  The passing glance he gave her seemed to include her in the same category, and she was grateful to Marcia who remarked gently:

  “You’ve got a chip on your shoulder today, darling. Poor Miss Ware will be regretting her trip across the channel.”

  “I’m sorry,” he replied quickly, and Judy observed with surprise the little smile which suddenly lent his ugly face a fleeting tenderness. “I’m being a grouch. I’ve had a few complaints that are usually reserved for you, I imagine—bath water not hot, beds not properly made—trivial irritations. Now, you’d better come to the study with me, Miss Ware, and answer some questions.”

  Judy rose obediently, but remarked with reasonable, though ill-judged surprise:

  “I answered all your questions when I wrote, Mr. O’Rafferty.”

  His eyes rested on her with sudden unsmiling scrutiny. “You told me one lie, there may have been others,” he replied with rather alarming asperity, and she followed him across the hall to the door of his study, feeling all at once that she was back at school receiving a summons from the headmistress.

  “Poor child!” Marcia murmured as the door closed on them. “Raff seems definitely anti, doesn’t he? I wonder why?”

  “Must be the hair,” her brother observed lazily. “I told you there was something vaguely reminiscent about the brat.”

  “Nonsense!” said Marcia quite sharply. “Kathy was soft and cuddly like a kitten, and very pretty and adoring, from all accounts. This girl is a bag of bones and could, I’m beginning to suspect speak her mind if pushed to it She’ll not last long with O’Rafferty if the two get across one another.”

  Judy was beginning to reach the same conclusion as she faced her prospective employer across the littered desk.

  He sat down himself but did not offer her a chair, and she stood, twisting her fingers together in nervous anticipation while he fiddled aimlessly with the papers on his desk.

  “Why did you lie about your age?” he demanded suddenly, and she answered as she had replied to Noel:

  “Seven’s my lucky number. I just added it on.”

  “So you’re only twenty. What other—er—misstatements were there in your letter?”

  “None, I think.”

  “But you didn’t see fit to mention that this was your first job.”

  “You didn’t ask me. You asked for references, and mine from the secretarial college were very good.”

  “Possibly, but you have no experience.”

  “You didn’t ask that either. What experience do I need, apart from efficiency in my work and ability to keep myself in the background?”

  He smiled faintly.

  “I’m beginning to think that’s an ability you may not possess to any high degree,” he said, and she answered a little forlornly:

  “I can learn.”

  “Can you? Well, let’s see what your speed’s like. There’s the typewriter.”

  “Yes, pretty fair,” he admitted when she handed him the finished letter. “You kept up with me, too. Marcia always says I go too fast Pity—you might have been useful.”

  “What do you mean, a pity?” she asked, puzzled again by his manner.

  “You won’t do, that’s all. Naturally I’ll add a bonus to your return fare to compensate for your lost time, but I’m afraid you won’t suit Slyne.”

  She was, as yet, too inexperienced not to argue.

  “But why—why?” she demanded. “It doesn’t make sense to waste all that money on a fare from England and not even give me a trial. You said yourself I was good, and on my own machine I’d do better. This thing must have come out of
the ark!”

  His eyebrows rose.

  “You see!” he observed mildly. “You answer back. I’m sure the college must have warned you that wouldn’t do at all.”

  “I’ve a right to know where I’ve failed,” she persisted stubbornly, and felt suddenly very near to tears. There was something altogether perplexing about this man’s attitude.

  “Why do you dislike me, Mr. O’Rafferty?” she continued more quietly, and saw a look of uncertainty, or perhaps it was simply weariness, cross his ugly features.

  “How should I dislike you on such short acquaintance, Miss Ware?” he replied evasively, and her green eyes stretched wide in an effort to keep back the tears.

  “One can dislike anyone on sight. You haven’t made such a good impression yourself, if it comes to that,” she retorted unthinkingly, and saw the first hint of interest in his cold eyes.

  “No, I imagine not,” he admitted quite pleasantly. “I’ve nothing personal against you, my dear.”

  Judy was tired and bitterly disappointed, and with disappointment came sudden anger. What right had he to look at her with that chilly appraisal and address her as “my dear”, as if she were a child?

  “Oh, yes, you have!” she cried. “You didn’t like the colour of my hair, which I don’t either, but can’t do anything about short of dying it black, but that’s no logical reason for a grown man to give, is it—is it?”

  “I suppose not. You seem to have a temper that matches your hair, if I may say so.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t. Well, now, can I write a letter recommending you, to help you with the next job?”

  “How can you recommend me when you haven’t given me a trial?” she protested crossly, and he noticed for perhaps the first time the tiredness in her face and the struggle she was having to keep back tears.

  “Had you set your heart on this?” he asked with a renewed flicker of interest.

  “Yes—yes, I had. I wanted to see Ireland.”