Duelling Fire. Anne Mather

warmth of the fire. It was going to be all right, she told herself firmly, and ignored the little voice that mocked her inexperience.

      While they were eating, Harriet had said little of consequence, the comings and goings of Janet, and the young village girl, who Harriet explained came up daily to help her, serving to make any private conversation impossible. But now that they were alone again Harriet became more loquacious, casting any trace of melancholy aside, and applying herself to learning more about Sara herself.

      ‘Tell me,’ she said, confidingly, leaning towards her, ‘you’re what? Twenty-one years old now?’

      ‘Almost,’ Sara agreed, and Harriet continued: ‘Twenty, then. Reasonably mature, in these permissive days. You must have had lots of boy-friends, mixing with the kind of people your father generally cultivated.’

      Sara shrugged. ‘Not many. Daddy—Daddy was quite strict, actually. He—he didn’t encourage me to accept invitations from other journalists.’

      Harriet seemed pleased. ‘No?’ She hesitated. ‘I suspected as much. Charles, in common with others of his kind, probably followed the maxim, do as I say, not as I do!’

      ‘Daddy wanted to protect me.’ Sara could not let Harriet cast any slur on her father’s reputation, no matter how deserved. ‘But it wasn’t necessary,’ she added, pleating the skirt of her dress with sudden concentration. ‘I was quite capable of taking care of myself. Boarding school taught me a lot.’

      Harriet nodded. ‘So—no boy-friends?’

      Sara shrugged. ‘Some.’

      ‘But no one serious.’

      ‘No.’ Sara didn’t quite know whether she liked this form of questioning, but then she consoled herself with the thought that no doubt Harriet wanted to assure herself that no young man was likely to come and take her away, just as they were getting used to one another.

      ‘Good.’ Harriet smiled now. ‘I think we’re going to get on very well.’

      ‘I hope so.’

      Harriet finished her coffee, and then lay back in her chair, regarding Sara with apparent affection. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’ve always wanted a daughter. Someone to talk to, to share my thoughts with, someone young and beautiful like you …’

      ‘You’re very kind.’

      Sara grimaced, but Harriet was serious. ‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘Once I hoped, but—it was not to be.’ She shook her head. ‘You don’t know what it means to me, now that you’re here.’

      ‘I just hope I can make myself useful.’ Sara paused. ‘You still haven’t told me what you would like me to do.’

      ‘Oh, don’t worry about it.’ Harriet lifted her hand, as if it was of no consequence. ‘There’s plenty of time for that. Settle down first, get the feel of the place, adjust to our way of life. Then we’ll start worrying about what there is for you to do.’

      Sara sighed. ‘I don’t want to be a parasite.’

      ‘You won’t be that, my dear.’

      ‘No, but—well, if there’s not a lot for me to do here, perhaps I could take a job, even a part-time one, to help support—–’

      ‘I wouldn’t hear of it.’ Harriet sat upright. ‘I’m not a poor woman, Sara. One extra mouth to feed is not going to bankrupt me. And besides, there’ll be plenty for you to do, you’ll see.’

      Sara was doubtful. Her foolish ideas of changing library books, reading to her aunt, or taking her for drives in the country, seemed so remote now and she didn’t honestly see what she could do to earn her keep.

      ‘Now, you’ll need some money,’ Harriet went on in a businesslike tone. ‘I propose to make you a monthly allowance, paid in advance, of course, and deposited to your account at the bank in Buford.’

      ‘I do have a little money,’ Sara protested, but Harriet waved her objections aside.

      ‘Keep it,’ she said. ‘You don’t know when a little capital might come in handy. Take the allowance, Sara. It would please me.’

      Sara shook her head a trifle bemusedly. She was grateful to Harriet, more grateful than she could ever say; but vaguely apprehensive too, although of what she could not imagine. It was like a dream come true, this house, her room—Harriet’s kindness. Surely even Laura could have no complaints in such idyllic surroundings.

      Jude had not returned when Sara went to bed. Janet brought hot chocolate and biscuits at ten o’clock, and by the time Sara had drunk hers, her eyes were drooping. It had been a long day, and in many ways an exhausting one, not least on her nerves, and she was relieved when Harriet suggested she should retire.

      ‘You must get your beauty sleep, darling,’ she remarked, lifting her cheek for Sara to kiss, and the girl hid her slight embarrassment as she quickly left the room.

      The stairs were shadowy, now that the chandelier was no longer lit, but her room was warm and cosy. Someone had been in, in her absence, and turned down her bed, the rose-pink sheets soft and inviting, folded over the downy quilt.

      Sara quickly shed her clothes and replaced them with a pair of cotton pyjamas. Then, after cleaning her teeth and removing her make-up, she slid between the sheets with eager anticipation. It was so good to feel the mattress yielding to her supple young body, and she curled her toes deliciously against the silky poplin. Sleep, she thought, that was what she needed. Right now, her mind was too confused to absorb any deeper impressions.

      She must have fallen asleep immediately. She scarcely remembered turning out the lamp, but she awakened with a start to find her room in total darkness, so she must have done. She knew at once what had awakened her. The sound was still going on. And she lay there shivering unpleasantly, as the voices that had disturbed her sleep continued. She couldn’t hear everything that they were saying. Only now and then, Harriet’s voice rose to a crescendo and a tearful phrase emerged above the rest. For the most part it was a low and angry exchange, with Jude’s attractive tenor deepened to a harsh and scathing invective.

      Sara located the sound as coming from a room some distance along the corridor. Harriet’s room perhaps, at its position above the stairs: a likely explanation why their voices carried so well. The echoing vault of the hall would act as an acoustic, throwing the sounds back at her with unwelcome resonance.

      Drawing the quilt over her head, she endeavoured to deafen herself to the exchange, but it was impossible. Phrases like: You don’t care how you hurt me! and Jude, please! were unmistakable, and Sara would have rather slept in the stables than be an unwilling witness to such humiliation.

      The sounds ceased with sudden abruptness. A door slammed, footsteps sounded—descending the stairs?—and then silence enveloped the old house once again. Sara expelled her breath on a gulp, and only as she did so did she realise she had been holding it. It was stupid, but even her breathing had thundered in her ears while they were rowing, her heart hammering noisily as she struggled to bury her head in the pillows.

      Turning on to her back, she now strained her ears to hear anything at all, but there was nothing. Only the haunting cry of an owl as it swooped low over the house disturbed the stillness, and her limbs trembled weakly as she realised it was over.

      What time was it? she wondered, and gathering herself with difficulty, she leaned over and switched on the bedside lamp. The little carriage clock glinted in the shadows, its pointers showing a quarter to two. Goodness, she thought, switching the light out again, it was the middle of the night!

      Of course, it was impossible to get back to sleep again. The first exhausted hours were over, and had she not had the proof of seeing the time for herself, she would have guessed it was almost morning. She felt wide awake, and restless, and with what had just happened to disturb her thoughts she knew it was hopeless to expect to relax.

      After lying for perhaps fifteen minutes, staring