The Tender Years (13 page)

She was dumb now, steeped in misery.

‘It would certainly be a good idea—’

‘Have I no say?’ she cried, valiantly fighting the tears that threatened. ‘After all, it’s my life—my future you’re arranging. Father, what makes you suppose I want to live with Luke?’

‘There isn’t anywhere else for you to live,’ he answered flatly.

And suddenly she was admitting that he cared nothing for her now. Once he had cared but so much had happened to him recently that he had become like someone numbed of all feeling. It wasn’t that he was acting in a heartless manner on purpose, she decided. But the time seemed to have come when all he wanted was to find peace of mind, and in his present state the only way was to put four thousand miles between him and Cassia Lodge and its memories.

‘Come to me for the time being, dear,’ she heard Luke say quietly. ‘I know why you don’t want to come but we can deal with that later.’ He sipped his brandy and she watched his long brown fingers holding the glass. She herself was becoming numbed, devoid of any conscious emotions. She closed her eyes tightly because the tears were so very close to falling.

‘Deal with what later?’ Arthur was asking in a puzzled tone.

‘It’s nothing,’ began Luke when Christine interrupted him.

‘I love Steve,’ she admitted flatly. ‘And he loves me. Luke doesn’t like the idea—’

‘You and Steve!’ Arthur stared in disbelief. ‘My God, Christine, what are you saying?’

‘It’s calf love,’ interposed Luke tightly. ‘A crush, nothing more.’

‘What is this all about?’ demanded Arthur, glowering at Christine as though he hated her. ‘Answer me!’ he snapped, ‘at once!’

‘Why the devil did you have to mention it?’ gritted Luke with a flash of censure in his eyes and Christine bit her lip.

‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered contritely, ‘It was a mistake.’

‘One that you’ve committed! And I want to know more about it!’ Arthur continued to subject her to that glowering look. ‘How long has this been going on?’

‘It hasn’t been going on—!’ Christine felt the ragged abrasion of her nerve ends would result in her having a fit of hysterics—in which case Luke would be sure to take charge and cure her in the most effective way.

‘It’s infatuation,’ intervened Luke, his glance contemptuous. ‘Infatuation and perhaps habit,’ he added cynically.

Christine’s cheeks burned, ‘It’s no such thing!’ she flashed. ‘Neither of you knows how Steve and I feel!’

‘Steve,’ said Arthur between his teeth, ‘happens to be your sister’s husband!’

‘Greta always maintained that I wasn’t her sister. She never regarded me as being any relation at all.’ She was pale and her nerves were being kept under control only by the greatest effort. ‘When Steve said they were having a divorce we talked about us. He—’

‘There must have been something going on before,’ broke in Arthur harshly. ‘I seem to remember now. . . .’ He paused reflectively. ‘At the wedding, he kissed you in a very different way from the way he’d kissed you before. Can it be that you and he discovered this infatuation for one another
before
the marriage?’ 

‘No, certainly not!’

‘Steve always liked you a lot.’ Again Arthur paused in reflection. ‘This breakup is obviously the fault of Steve. And my daughter’s the one to suffer.’ His face was twisted now, his eyes hard and accusing. Why, oh, why, had she let slip the unthinking words that had caused all this!

Luke was also subjecting her to an accusing stare and she wished she could run from them both, run away all by herself. She had no money and that again was her own fault. Arthur had never been mean and she could have saved from the allowance he gave her. But she had never expected to be in a situation like this. Already through the turmoil of her mind had emerged the reluctant acceptance that she was no longer wanted here . . . not by Arthur or his wife, not by Greta with whom she had always yearned to be close.

‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ she sighed wearily and rose from the chair.

‘Not here, you won’t!’ growled Arthur. ‘And not ever again! Luke, take her the devil out of this! Never did I think she’d break up my daughter’s marriage!’ He looked at Christine with contempt. ‘Don’t you come back—not ever. Do you hear?’

‘Yes,’ she answered huskily. ‘Yes, I hear you.’

Christine looked around the restaurant. Everyone seemed to be in a lighthearted mood, dining in the semilight of candles and muted lamps. The Captain’s Charthouse was one of Freeport’s most favoured restaurants with Bahamians and tourists alike, the nautical flavour affording it a certain uniqueness and at the same time a sense of cosiness.

‘What is it, darling?’ Steve was here on a visit after hearing of what had happened and that Luke had taken her, under protest, to Grand Bahama Island, where he had rented a house rather than have her live at the hotel.

‘I want to get a job, Steve, so that I can be independent. I shall be nineteen in a week and shouldn’t be in this helpless situation. I’m not free; Luke domineers over me all the time. He’d be furious if he knew you’d come over and we were seeing one another. You have no idea what a relief it was when he said he was going to Nassau and would be away for at least a week.’ Pale and unhappy, she looked appealingly at him, thinking how very attractive he was with that rugged look and pressed in a white linen safari suit. She was wearing a multicoloured blouse trimmed with glittering metallic threads. The matching skirt was full and flowing with a corded waist which fitted snugly to her tiny waist. Her hair shone, but she did not look in the pink of condition tonight. She had cried much during the past two weeks, feeling desperate and unable to adjust to this disaster that had happened to her. She was deeply troubled that people would be talking on Pirates’ Cay, condemning her for something that wasn’t true: the breaking up of Greta’s marriage.

‘You won’t tell me what they’re saying,’ she added when he did not comment on her previous words. ‘I expect my name’s mud over there?’

‘I haven’t heard anything,’ he said, but she knew he was lying in order to spare her feelings. ‘About getting a job—what would you do, Christine?’

‘I’ve no idea at present,’ she had to admit, ‘but there must be some way I can earn my own living and break away from Luke.’

Steve lifted his wineglass and regarded her youthful face curiously from over the rim. ‘Do you really want to break away from Luke, Christine?’

‘Of course.’ She frowned. ‘How would you like to have someone telling you what you must and must not do all the time?’

‘I feel sure that Luke thinks only of your own good, Christine.’

‘In the past, yes, but this time . . .’ She tailed off, half ashamed. ‘I didn’t want to come here, to Grand Bahama, but he made me and it was only because he intended to keep you and me apart.’

‘You shouldn’t have told him—’

‘He knew, Steve. Luke’s so perceptive. I did let it out to Arthur, though, and that was my undoing.’ She took a sip of her wine, watching the dancers in the middle of the floor, a brooding expression on her face. ‘I can’t believe all this is happening to us, Steve—the whole family torn apart. It’s so sad.’

‘Greta and I haven’t made things any better.’ He too wore a brooding expression, but as she watched him closely Christine knew a little access of uneasiness . . . misgiving, almost.

‘Have you heard anything from her since you went back home?’

‘She phoned yesterday—a few hours before I was due to fly out here. She wanted to see me but I told her I hadn’t any time.’

‘She wanted to see you?’ A frown creased her brow. ‘Perhaps she wants to—to make it up.’ Something akin to terror seized her. Steve had been so sure and determined each time she phoned him, and yesterday he had said he couldn’t bear to be away from her and immediately arranged to fly over to Grand Bahama once he knew Luke had left.

‘I shouldn’t think so. In any case,’ he added in sudden haste when he noticed Christine’s expression, ‘I’d not even think of a reconciliation. Greta’s unbearable to live with.’

‘She’s still at Cassia Lodge?’

‘As far as I know.’ He sounded indifferent, she thought . . . and yet . . . He was in a pensive mood, staring unseeingly at the dancers.

‘But Arthur isn’t there, you said?’

‘He wasn’t. But he might have gone back by now.’ ‘I wonder where he was?’

‘Greta said he was staying at an hotel, since he couldn’t bear to go back to Cassia Lodge. Personally, Christine, I’m beginning to wonder if he’s become unbalanced over this business of Loreen and her boyfriend.’

‘Do you think everybody knows about it?’

‘Well, she’s been away so often during this past year that I should imagine all their friends have guessed there’s something the matter. And after all, Loreen’s always been a bit of a flirt, hasn’t she?’

‘I didn’t think it meant anything,’ mused Christine. ‘Some women are like that but it doesn’t say they’re unfaithful to their husbands.’

‘Loreen’s different. She’s always liked to think she could turn the mens’ heads.’

‘She’s very beautiful, even though she’s over forty.’ Steve said nothing and Christine wanted to get back to the subject of Greta, ‘Is it really true what Arthur said—that Greta’s found someone else?’

He nodded but frowned at the same time. ‘She said she had, but when she rang she sounded rather depressed—almost as if something had gone wrong.’

‘They might have parted, you mean?’

‘Could be—’ He reached across the table quickly and covered her hand with his. ‘Don’t let’s talk about them, darling.’ He smiled and her heart seemed to turn right over. How she loved him! His smile deepened in the silence of their intimacy and that tinge of uneasiness dissolved, leaving her spirits soaring.

‘What do you want to say—about us, Steve?’ Sudden unwanted shyness assailed her and she lowered her lashes, quite unaware of the delectable shadows cast onto her cheeks. Steve was looking at her with deep admiration when at length she glanced up again.

‘I want to marry you, Christine, just as soon as it’s possible.’

‘Marry . . .’ Her heart was full. Rapture flowed over her. ‘I knew, of course,’ she quavered, ‘but to hear you say it, Steve. . .

‘Meanwhile, though?’ His thumb was moving over the back of her hand in a tender, caressing movement. ‘What are we to do love?’

Startled, she could only stare for a space. She was not so naive as to be in ignorance of his meaning, but she could not for one moment imagine living with him while he was still married to the girl whom she had always regarded as her sister. True, there was no blood tie, but all the same it savoured of the indecent even to contemplate a situation such as Steve was so subtly suggesting. She shook her head. ‘We’ll—just have— have to wait, won’t we?’

‘For two years?’ His brows lifted a fraction, it’s not possible, dear, not the way we feel about one another.’ Again she shook her head. It was the strangest thing but her mind had wrenched itself back to Luke, and the dark warning he had given her.
Watch yourself. Don’t go headlong into something you’re likely to regret
.

But why should she suppose she would ever regret it? As long as they intended to marry what did it really natter if they lived together meanwhile? No!
She could not
! What would Luke think of her? She would lose him forever, earn his utter contempt where once she had only his admiration and his care.

‘Why, oh, why am I so confused!’ she cried, not meaning to reveal her thoughts, but the words were out before she could suppress them.

‘Because, darling, it’s a big decision, but with a little time you’ll become used to the idea of our being together.’

‘Luke.’ She quivered, and she put her glass down because her hand was so unsteady. ‘I can’t lose his respect, Steve.’

His eyes kindled strangely as they stared into hers. ‘You just said you wanted to break away from Luke,’ he reminded her slowly.

She sighed. Confusion assailed her again as she thought of the long and wonderful relationship she had enjoyed with Luke. Caring, dependable, with always a shoulder to cry on. ... He had kissed her passionately and she had known sensations new and as exciting as they were bewildering. She felt closer to him then, just as if the physical attraction was drawing her . . . drawing her . . . ?

‘I feel I shall never break away from him,’ she heard herself say and now she thought of Clarice and of the possibility that Luke might one day marry her. But what of Luke’s recent offer? ‘He asked me to marry him,’ she had to say, lifting her eyes in an imploring way as if she were seeking an explanation from Steve. ‘I supposed it to be because he wanted to protect me.’

‘From me?’ Steve frowned now as he added, ‘He told me in no uncertain terms to keep away from you.’

‘I know. I was there when he phoned you on the night of the barbecue.’ Christine broke off a small piece of crusty bread roll and toyed with it absently. Waiters were hovering or moving around; Willie was playing the guitar in his usual superb way. He was singing ‘This Is My Island in the Sun.’ A request from a tourist. They invariably requested this, or ‘Yellow Bird’ or ‘Mary Ann.’

‘I’m a lot older than you,’ Steve was saying and his voice sounded a little flat. ‘Luke’s more right in age for you.’

She said nothing. It was Steve she wanted to marry; in her mind there was no question about that. On the other hand she had a sensation of ice on her spine at the idea of a rift between Luke and herself. They had had several arguments recently over her ‘infatuation,’ as he still insisted on calling her feelings for Steve, but always it had ended up in her crying on Luke’s shoulder, even while keeping secret her confusion.

‘Shall we dance?’ Steve broke into her reverie and she rose at once, excited at the idea of his nearness. He danced superbly but was not as light as Luke, who was all muscle and supple agility.

She kept thinking of Luke and feeling guilty that she was here with Steve when she knew he would disapprove. Torn between two men, she thought wryly, one whom she loved but was married, and the other whom she loved in a very different way . . . and who was single ... as yet. Should he suddenly discover he cared for Clarice he would marry her and—Christine wrenched her thoughts from that possibility and brought them back to her companion.