Cloud Castle Page 5

  “They’re always ready to take in every Tom, Dick and Harry who knocks on the door.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “No,” he said, his bony face suddenly assuming the expression she first remembered, the cold, slightly distasteful expression of a man unused to modern trends. “Slyne is my home, after all.

  “Then why—” she began, lured, in spite of herself, into starting one of those eager discussions, of which she had as yet had not time to cure herself, but his mood had changed. He offered no concession to her half formulated question and, for the next couple of hours, she took down his dictation, sealed and stamped envelopes, and when that was done, found no surprise at being dismissed with peremptory relief.

  “Where did you take our little guest?” Marcia asked idly, as she and Raff sat drinking in the bar before dinner, and when Raff told her through the pass and up into the country behind Slieve Rury, her fine eyebrows rose.

  “Really? I thought you would never take tourists there yourself,” she said.

  “Miss Ware is not a tourist in the accepted sense, neither is she any longer a guest,” he replied. “I’ve taken your advice and engaged her.”

  “I don’t think,” Marcia said carefully, “that it’s a very good idea, after all, to do that”

  “For heaven’s sake!” Raff exclaimed. “How inconsistent can women get? Only this morning you were threatening to leave if I didn’t keep her.”

  “Is that why you changed your mind, darling? I’m flattered, even though I’ve come to the conclusion it’s a mistake.”

  “Why—don’t you like her?”

  She shrugged, tracing a pattern on the bar counter in the tiny puddle her slopped gin-and-tonic had made.

  “I’m afraid I find her too negative to have very definite opinions about, though she seems a nice child, if a little too sure of herself,” she said.

  “We’ve done an afternoon’s work, and she appears to me to have an excellent grasp of essentials,” Raff said mildly. “What’s troubling you, Marcia—that fleeting resemblance to Kathy? They’re not really alike, you know. It won’t disturb me.”

  She saw Judy standing at the door waiting for them and frowned thoughtfully. The Pass of Slyne, usually forbidden territory when Raff was escort ... red hair ... a disconcerting flair for truth and naive enjoyment ... they all added up.

  “And you’re making two and two equal five,” Noel murmured wickedly in her ear as they all filed out for dinner.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I

  FOR the first week Judy awoke each morning to the pleasant anticipation of a new day. The view from her window was seldom the same. One day the mountains were a dark, irregular line, reflecting themselves in the water with startling clarity, on another both the lough and the far shore would be shrouded in mist which, even as she gazed, would sometimes break for a moment to reveal the tapering summit of Slieve Rury piercing through the clouds before they closed again.

  No one had brought early tea to the nursery after that first morning, and Judy had learnt for herself that in order to wash, she must fetch water from the sink at the end of the passage. She had not, as yet, had the temerity to invade Timsy’s pantry in search of water that was hot; at that hour of the morning the servants were sketchily dad and uncertain of temper, filling cans for the guests.

  Once Judy unexpectedly came face to face with Raff while she filled her can at the end of the passage.

  “Don’t they bring you hot water?” he demanded with a frown. “What room have they given you, anyway?”

  She found it odd that he should not know, but presumed the arrangement had been Marcia’s. His frown deepened, however, when she told him she slept in the nursery.

  “The room hasn’t been used for years; it must be as damp as the cellars! I must speak to Marcia,” he said, but when she started to protest that the nursery was much to her liking, he gave her a look which made her very conscious that she must present an unattractive appearance, straight out of bed and that her ancient red dressing-gown accorded ill with the colour of her hair.

  She thought he would have forgotten by the time they met again for breakfast, but just as he had finished and was preparing to leave the dining-room, he inquired quite aggressively of Marcia why his new secretary had been relegated to the nursery wing when there were, at present, several empty guest-rooms which boasted more comfort, and had easier access to the hot water supply.

  Marcia looked as surprised as she felt. Raff had never before concerned himself with the amenities of the bedrooms, even for an important guest.

  “Mary Kate is the one you should take to task, my dear. I had suggested the Oak Room, but Mary Kate seemed to have the opinion that the nursery was good enough for a little English employee who would scarcely expect a choice of one of the best rooms.”

  “She would expect a room with reasonable warmth and comfort, and a bed without broken springs,” Raff retorted, and Judy, having finished her breakfast, without interruption, became aware that she was being discussed.

  “I like the nursery,” she said. “I like making up stories about the children who’ve slept and played there. Was it your nursery, Mr. O’Rafferty?”

  “Yes.” His eyes dwelt on her absently for a moment, then he got up from the table without further comment and left the room.

  Marcia lit a cigarette and sat back, surveying Judy thoughtfully.

  “I shouldn’t try to make trouble so early on in your employment here, if I were you,” she said gently. “Your services can always be dispensed with in favour of someone older and—shall we say, more tactful.”

  “I haven’t been complaining, Miss Maule,” Judy answered cheerfully. “Mr. O’Rafferty happened to come along when I was filling my can at the landing sink. He didn’t seem to know where I was sleeping and seemed surprised when I told him.”

  “Well now, hadn’t you better be getting down to the morning’s mail?” Marcia asked impatiently, and Judy, who had not liked to make the first move to leave the table, scrambled to her feet a little awkwardly. Marcia watched her walk the length of the, dining-room, observing the coltish grace of limbs not yet quite discipline to adult control, and knew the first qualms of uneasiness, No one could call the girl pretty, she thought irritably, although she possessed an annoying kind of candour which, to another woman, could be exasperating, but to a certain type of man might prove endearing; that red hair could continue to remain an unconscious reminder, and that tiresome curiosity might prove a danger in another quarter.

  “Oh, hell!” Marcia muttered, riled by her own ill-judged insistence in the matter of Raff’s secretary, and, stubbing out her half-smoked cigarette, went in search of her brother.

  Most mornings Raff went through his mail with Judy, dealt with such letters as required his personal attention, then left her to answer the rest as she saw fit and leave them for his signature. He was, she thought, still slightly embarrassed at having to work with her, and she could sense the relief with which he vaguely outlined her routine for the morning, then took himself out of the house to find his accustomed jobs around the policies.

  The correspondence, she thought, could well have been dealt with by either of the Maules, for once the arrears had been cleared up there was little in a morning’s work to justify the added expense of a secretary. Marcia, she soon came to realise, was only concerned with the social side of her employment, although she ran the house efficiently, but Judy sometimes wondered what Noel did with his time, apart from making out bills and being a decorative asset to the bar.

  She learnt very quickly, however not to offer opinions or suggestions of her own. As Marcia pointed out, she was paid to do a job for which a modicum of efficiency was called, and nothing more, but Raff must have put his own queries to his manager, for the books tallied for a while and the weekly bills received rather more prompt attention.

  By the end of February, Raff had lost his reluctance to work with her. It had, he admitted to Marcia, turned out a goo
d idea to employ a secretary, and the Ware child appeared to be doing all right He did not of course, notice the many extra uses to which Judy was put, and she for her part was glad to be of help so long as it was understood that her immediate employer had first call upon her services.

  “Really!” Marcia exclaimed to her brother, “she guards Raff’s interests like a dog with a bone! Do you suppose she’s getting a crush on him?”

  “It’s always possible, I suppose,” Noel replied with a grin. “But that shouldn’t worry you my dear.”

  His sister sent him a look of distaste. He took, she was aware, an almost feminine delight in making mischief when he was bored, and she knew better than to rise to the bait; all the same both Miss Judy Ware and her rather too lively perceptions could bear watching.

  Judy, for her part, had her own reservations about the Maules. Noel she had come to tolerate without illusion, for he could usually make her laugh. He might be the wolf of her first impressions, but she felt at ease with him, whereas with Marcia she was frequently on her guard.

  Her reservations, she supposed, extended to Raff too, but for different reasons, for she was still unsure of his possible liking for her. There were times when he observed her with an inquiring eye as if he would have liked to venture into personalities, but for the most part he was brusque and abstracted. He regarded her, she thought a little wryly, as something of a cross between an observant child and the efficient machine which never completely failed to surprise him. If he remembered those small, mutual revelations between them on her first day at Slyne, he made no direct reference to them, neither did he suggest a further expedition to show her the sights of the countryside on a free afternoon.

  Not that there were many free afternoons just now, for once Raff had finished with her services Marcia found innumerable jobs for her; taking the Lucases’ unattractive children for long walks to get them out of the house, doing crossword puzzles with Miss Botley and answering her endless questions, and making inquiries among Raff’s tenants on behalf of the American ladies who were trying to trace an Irish ancestor. It seemed unlikely that the mythical ancestor would be located among Raff’s tenants, but it gave her the chance to find out for herself the sort of life that was lived within the castle’s precincts.

  She discovered Granny Malone and, after a session of fortune-telling, was forced to the uncomfortable conclusion that the old woman might after all be a witch. Her clay pipe and old cloth cap were only such as any old woman would adopt in these parts, but her skill with the tea-leaves, and the eldritch cackles with which she foretold disaster proclaimed, if not the powers of darkness, a shrewd summing-up of the weaknesses of others. Judy preferred old Paddy-the-Sheep with his mild, vacant expression and his delight in small presents. He did well out of the tourists, she suspected, with his tales of sheep stolen by the little People, and the sale of home-made charms to ward off the evil eye.

  “Are you happy here, Judy?” Raff asked her suddenly one evening, and she appeared surprised by the sudden question.

  “Of course,” she answered.

  “Not necessarily,” he retorted. “Slyne can be dull, I’m told, and you haven’t seen much of the country yet, have you? How about both of us playing truant tomorrow? It’s market day in Knockferry—always an amusement to English eyes—and we can come back by the Plain of Cluny and stop for tea at the little inn by Lough Creagh that serves trout and lobster and Dublin Bay prawns, which the English dish up as scampi, any hour of the day you like to call.”

  “It sounds lovely,” Judy said, and wondered if the inn too had been one of the places which he and the dead Kathy had loved and visited.

  The little knot of new guests began to disperse for an early night, tired after their long day’s sport, and Marcia brought her nightcap over to their corner.

  “You’re looking very nice tonight, Judy. Is that a new frock?” she drawled.

  “No,” said Judy, knowing that Marcia was perfectly well aware that the dress was one that she wore most evenings, but she added obligingly, because it was obviously expected of her: “Yours is new, isn’t it?”

  “My last extravagance from that expensive little shop in Knightsbridge for some time, I’m afraid,” Marcia replied, smoothing the sleek lines of the dress over her hips with a provocative gesture. “Do you like it, Raff?”

  “Very nice,” he answered absently, and Judy, seeing the disappointment in Marcia’s eyes, thought impatiently: Why can’t she see he’s not that kind of man? The dress was clearly expensive and very becoming, but Raff, she knew instinctively, would scarcely define the difference between that and her own cheap frock.

  “Timsy tells me that chap Grogan has been around again. Did you see him, Marcia?” he asked, and she shrugged and grimaced at Judy, relinquishing her efforts to focus his attention on herself.

  “No,” she said. “Did you see him, Judy?”

  “That odd little man with the dark skin and a great flow of conversation? He was here this afternoon, wandering through the rooms, making notes about the furniture. I asked him what he wanted, but he said he had the run of the place and you all knew him,” Judy replied, and was aware that Marcia was annoyed by the remark.

  “Infernal cheek!” Raff exclaimed. “I’ve shown him the door more than once. If you see him again, Judy, send him packing with my compliments.”

  “Who is he?” she asked, wondering how far her authority would carry with the persistent stranger in the absence of the master of the house.

  “The Irish equivalent of a wide boy, I suspect,” Raff answered shortly. “Interested in antiques and anything he can turn into money on the side. He’s tried to buy from me on several occasions and apparently won’t take no for an answer. You shouldn’t encourage him, Marcia.”

  “I?” Marcia’s lovely eyes opened wide in surprise a split second after they had sought Judy’s in veiled inquiry. “It’s prim Miss Doyle who encourages him. He treats her to the most outrageous blarney and the poor soul laps it up, convinced, I feel sure, that her last chance of a husband hasn’t quite slipped by.”

  “Agnes is forty if she’s a day, and a confessed man-hater since she was by her own account, crossed in love!”

  “That could be to save her pride. When a woman’s nearing middle age she tends to regret her lost opportunities—and that goes for a man, too.”

  Marcia had risen as she spoke. Although her words were light enough, her eyes dwelt a little mockingly on Raff, and Judy felt herself stiffen. Whatever her feelings, she thought, Marcia should not chide him so openly, or flaunt her own beauty with such indifferent assurance in front of another woman.

  Raff had risen also out of politeness, and he stood now, regarding her with a curious expression, while he began absently to explore the bridge of his nose with a finger. Judy felt suddenly embarrassed and wished she could escape. She had the impression that had they been alone, he would either have taken Marcia in his arms or slapped her soundly. Whichever way it was she felt herself to be an eavesdropper, and she did out of her chair and bade them both goodnight

  “Tomorrow, Mr. O’Rafferty?” she said tentatively, because, like a child, she wanted to be sure of his promise and cherish the anticipation of her treat as she fell asleep.

  He nodded in brief acquiescence, but when the next day came, either unexpected duties arose, or he had just forgotten. It was Marcia who, later in the afternoon, he drove to Knockferry for some unspecified shopping, and neither of them returned for dinner.

  Noel took her to the town on market day in the end, not, she felt, because he wished to, but because his sister wanted them out of the way in order that she might pacify Raff, who she said was showing an unhealthy interest in the receipted bill which Mrs. Van Hoop had unwillingly paid on departure only that morning.

  Judy had no means of knowing whether the Americans had been grossly overcharged, for the making out of accounts was the manager’s province, but Mrs. Van Hoop clearly was not satisfied, and there had been a small scene.<
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  “You get confused with the rate of exchange, dear lady—pounds into dollars, dollars into pounds—very headache-making for all of us, but not to worry!” Noel had told her airily.

  “Wa-al, I don’t know,” the woman replied doubtfully. “Elmer—that’s my husband—will say we haven’t gotten our money’s worth—no central heating, cold bath water, and vurry, vurry doubtful hygiene as regards the plumbing. Do you reckon, young man, you have a right to charge this rate?”

  “You knew our terms before you came, Mrs. Van Hoop,” Noel replied with smiling suaveness.

  “If I may say so, Mr. Maule, your brochure is vurry misleading, and I shall say so when I get back to the States,” she retorted waspishly. “All these extra charges—what are they supposed to be for, I should like to know?”

  “Well, my dear lady, you can’t expect a setting like this without the privilege of paying for it, can you? Antiques have to be maintained and the cost of restoration is expensive,” Noel said smoothly, and saw, with relief, his sister and Judy coming down the stairs. “Marcia, will you try to explain to these ladies that our charges are high because of the unusual background offered?”

  Marcia took over with an ease and charm which won Judy’s admiration.

  “Of course,” she said, her voice soft and pleasant but her manner subtly very much the lady of the house, “our visitors from the New World frequently don’t understand the privileges of the Old which, alas, like all good things, have to be paid for. Where else will you find a genuine Irish castle dating from the days of Cromwell?”

  “Gen-u-ine Irish castle my foot!” exclaimed Mrs. Van Hoop vulgarly, shrewd enough to know when she was being high-hatted.

  Mrs. Van Hoop’s companion, who seldom spoke except to agree with her friend’s pronouncements, remarked in a timid voice that perhaps they had better see the proprietor.

  “Certainly, Mame, it was what I was about to suggest myself,” Mrs. Van Hoop snapped with annoyance. “Kindly send for him, young man.”