Marjorie Lewty - A Girl Bewitched (1982) Read online

  Emma looked down at the book in Lisa's hands. 'Cathy and Heathcliff didn't seem to get much happiness out of it,' she observed practically.

  'All right, you can laugh, Em, but I know I'm right. I'm going to wait and I know he'll come.'

  'How about Richard Southall?' Emma enquired. 'He's awfully keen on you.'

  'Oh, Richard!' Lisa wrinkled her straight little nose. 'He's all right, I suppose, but who wants to marry the manager of a drapery store? I suppose that's what he'll be when he grows up.'

  'I wouldn't mind,' said Emma. 'If he was the right man I wouldn't care what he did.'

  'Oh, you! Lisa had pouted. 'You just don't understand.'

  Emma opened her eyes to the dark motorway, dotted with lights, red and white like a Christmas tree, and smiled a little ruefully to herself. It looked as if Lisa's Great Lover hadn't measured up, after all, and she had had to settle for Richard. Oh well, it was probably a blessing; she only hoped Lisa hadn't minded too much. She couldn't bear to think of Lisa being badly hurt.

  It was more than an hour later when the car finally passed through the small village and turned up a steep lane, to pull in between stone gateposts from which the gates had long since disappeared.

  The old grey house was a shadowy hulk, lights pouring from every window. As she got out of the car Emma saw the dark shapes of the trees and heard the splash and hiss of waves below, and she felt a happy tug of homecoming.

  Then the front door flew open. For a moment the light from the hall outlined a slender figure in dark trews and a fluffy white top, her pale hair lit from behind like a shining nimbus. Then Lisa threw herself into Emma's arms. 'Darling, darling Em, you've managed to get here! Oh, I was so terribly afraid you wouldn't!'

  Emma hugged her close. 'Of course I came.' Lisa felt so small and fragile in her arms. Just a child—too young to be getting married. There was a sudden lump in her throat. They had always been so close—brought closer by tragedy—and Lisa was as dear as a younger sister to her.

  They went into the house, arms entwined, and Jessie was standing in the hall, a tall, bony woman in a blue dress, with scraped-back grey hair and kind, shrewd eyes.

  Emma kissed her. 'Good to be home again, Jessie.'

  'Weel now, Miss Emma, and it's guid to see you.' Although Jessie had long been a friend and equal she still kept to the formal mode of address. 'It's a long trip you've had. You'll be tired, no doubt. A nice cup of tea now, while you're waiting for your supper?'

  'Oh, Jessie, that would be heavenly.'

  Lisa turned. 'Bring it up to my room, will you, Jessie.' She was pulling Emma towards the stairs. 'I want to show Emma all my things.'

  'Och now, Miss Lisa, they can wait a bit. Give your cousin a wee rest.'

  'She can have a rest upstairs. Please do as I say, Jessie.' Her tone was imperious. Lisa doing her little princess act, Emma thought, amused.

  But Jessie wasn't amused; she stiffened and her brows went up. She ignored Lisa and spoke pointedly to Emma. 'Would ye like something to eat with it, Miss Emma? I'll get on with supper right away now. Your uncle's still down in his workroom. He said he wasn't to be disturbed, but now you're home——'

  'Oh, for goodness' sake don't disturb the mad professor, Jessie. I'll see him later.' Emma's eyes met Jessie's, sharing the old family joke, and she saw Jessie relax. 'I don't need anything much to eat, thank you, I had a meal on the plane. Just a couple of biscuits, perhaps. Bang on the gong when it's ready and I'll come down and get it.'

  'Ye'll do no such thing,' said Jessie indignantly, and with a hard look in Lisa's direction she disappeared into the kitchen quarters.

  'What was all that about, then?' Emma enquired. 'Have you and Jessie been getting in each other's hair?'

  'Oh, she annoys me sometimes. She gets above herself.' Lisa tossed the subject aside, running lightly up the wide staircase with the carved wooden rail.

  Emma followed. Lisa wasn't being deliberately sharp and unkind, of course she wasn't. Lisa was never unkind. She was probably practising her new status and authority as a married woman. Lisa had always had acting ability; if she hadn't been delicate she might have taken up the stage as a career. She wouldn't have much difficulty now in turning from the lovely, cosset- ted, adored daughter to the beautiful, poised, adored wife. Amusement and affection tugged at Emma's heart.

  Lisa's bedroom was at the back of the house, overlooking the garden and the sea. She pushed open the door and threw out her hand dramatically, her eyes dancing. 'There—how about that, then?'

  Emma drew in a breath. The room looked like a boutique when a new consignment has just arrived. There were exquisite clothes everywhere, hanging from the open doors of the wardrobe, spread on the bed, draped across chairs. Day dresses in jewel colours of fine wool, evening ones that were froths of chiffon and georgette with glittering trims, gay cotton sun-dresses, sleek trousers, sweaters and tops in softest angora and cashmere.

  'I'm quite stunned, I can't take it all in.' Emma walked across to where a long dress of softest white satin, the heart-shaped neckline encrusted with tiny pearls, drifted down from a padded hanger. Beside it, on the dressing table, lay a filmy veil with tiny ornaments of pearls and orange-blossom.

  Emma touched the dress gently with one finger.

  'Gorgeous,' she breathed. 'It really is a dream. London? Paris?'

  Lisa perched on the edge of the bed, watching her cousin's reactions with unconcealed delight. 'You're kidding,' she laughed triumphantly. 'It came from Southalls, every last bit of it. Mrs S. would have been mortally offended if I'd shopped anywhere else. She went to Bristol, to some wholesale place she buys from, and came back with a whole van-load of stuff to choose from. I've had such fun. Besides—' she pulled a mock-smug face '—it'll all be good for trade. When the local ladies find I'm shopping at Southalls they'll decide they don't need to go into Bournemouth or London for their clothes after all.'

  Emma laughed. 'My word, you're getting quite a keen business head!'

  'Well, I'd better, hadn't I?' said Lisa, getting up restlessly and wandering across the room. 'Richard's mother has made him manager of the store, have you heard?' She tweaked the collar of a pink organza dress and stood back to admire the result.

  'That's splendid,' said Emma warmly, 'I'm sure he'll make a terrific success of it. I rather fancy being cousin to Mrs Richard Southall. Will you sell me lots of lovely clobber at cost price?'

  'As much as you like, you can take your pick,' Lisa cried gaily from the far side of the long room.

  Emma felt a weight falling from her. Lisa was really happy about marrying Richard, she really did love him, and it wasn't just on the rebound. No need even to mention those letters or the Trent Marston man—he was well and truly in the past. Perhaps some day Lisa would tell her about that little episode and they would laugh together over it, but until that day came she would try to forget that the letters had ever existed.

  She went across the room and hugged Lisa closely. 'Sweetie, I'm so glad about everything for you. It was a bit of a shock when I heard about it, I couldn't quite take it in. It was so awfully sudden.'

  If Lisa wanted to say anything about the letters, about Trent Marston, this was her chance. If she didn't, then it proved that the whole thing was just a final adolescent crush, before she grew up and saw where her real happiness lay.

  Lisa drew out of her arms. 'Oh, you know me. When I make my mind up that I want to do something I can't wait,' she said lightly. 'And I suddenly found out I adored Richard. We're going to have the most wonderful marriage there ever was. Now come and see what I've chosen for your bridesmaid's dress.'

  She took Emma's hand and led her to her own bedroom next door, chattering as they went. 'I had to ask Lorna to be the other bridesmaid, of course. She's at the spotty stage, but Mrs S. took it for granted that I would want her. The snag is her hair—she's even more carroty than Richard, when you come to look at her. So I thought it had better be green. It's a bit obvious— green with red hair—but
green suits you so well, and anyway nobody will be looking at poor Lorna, will they?'

  She was giggling as they walked down the corridor, and Emma wished that the silly old superstition about green being unlucky hadn't come into her mind just at that moment.

  Half an hour later, while Lisa was talking to Richard on the phone, Emma walked down the garden and ventured to push open the door of Uncle Edward's workshop.

  He didn't hear the door open and she could only see the side of his face. His head was bent low over the worktop desk, the spotlight shining down on the thick, untidy fairish hair and glinting on the gold rims of his glasses. A small computer that was his constant companion stood before him, its signals flashing on and off incomprehensibly, and all around lay sheets of paper covered with complicated diagrams.

  Very carefully Emma began to close the door again. You didn't disturb Uncle Edward when he was deep in thought and on the track of a new idea. But this time he heard her, and swung round in his swivel chair. 'Emma, my dear, come in.' He began to get up.

  She hesitated. 'Won't I be interrupting something?'

  He pulled a rueful face. 'I wish I could say that you were—I'm stuck at the moment. What I need is a break, after which all will—I hope—become clear.'

  He came towards her, smiling his vague, kindly smile. Edward Fairley was forty-seven and looked older, perhaps because of the deep creases across his forehead and down his cheeks that gave him, Emma always thought, the look of a benevolent bloodhound. That wasn't such a bad picture of him, either, he was always on the track of some new idea.

  He kissed her and held her at arm's length, studying her face through the thick lenses of his glasses. 'You're looking peaky,' he said. 'You haven't been overdoing things, rushing about the New World?'

  She shook her head, grinning at him. They had a good relationship, and she felt that, in a way, she understood him. 'Nothing that a good night's sleep won't put right.'

  Uncle Edward went back to his chair and she perched on a stool beside him. 'Tell me all your news,' he said, but she saw his glance go compulsively back towards the blinking computer.

  'My news?' Emma hid a smile. 'I should have thought your news here is more important.'

  'What—oh, Lisa's wedding.' He pulled himself back to the outside world and its doings. 'Yes,' he said heartily. 'Splendid, isn't it? I'm glad you were able to get back just in time, was it difficult?'

  'It was a bit tricky,' she admitted, 'but I managed it.'

  He sighed. 'You always manage, my dear Emma, I don't know what we should do without your practical good sense.' He surveyed her with a kind of surprise.

  'You're glad—about Lisa?' she prompted.

  'Oh yes, very glad indeed. I always hoped she would settle for Richard Southall, but you can never be sure what Lisa will come up with next. Her head's always been in the clouds,' he added with vague fondness.

  Emma smiled her quirky smile. 'Like yours, only different clouds.'

  'Too true, only too true. I've been a rotten father, I expect. Never managed to concentrate on the job for very long.'

  'Don't be silly,' Emma told him warmly, 'you've been the best kind of father—and uncle too. You've given us the freedom to grow up our own way.'

  He looked very wry. 'Nice of you to say so, my dear, but I'm not quite convinced it's altogether true. Ah well, I'm handing over the responsibility of Lisa to Richard from now on. She'll be in good hands.'

  'And the responsibility for me?' she teased.

  He shook his head. 'You've never posed any problem, Emma. I've always been able to trust you to be sensible. And now, from what Joe tells me, you're going to be an asset to the firm.'

  She bit her lip, not replying, and he looked up quickly. 'You're worried, aren't you? Things haven't been going too well on the trip, Joe told me on the phone.'

  'Oh, don't let's talk business now, Uncle Edward. Leave it until after tomorrow.'

  He didn't seem to hear. He picked up a silver pencil and ran it throughtfully between his finger and thumb. At least he said, 'Emma, there's something I'd better tell you, if you don't know already. The firm's going swiftly downhill and if we don't do something about it soon we're sunk. All these years, since your father— left us—it seems that the lifeblood of the company has been draining away. He was the dynamic one. I've always been useless on that side of things, and Joe— well, Joe's loyal and hardworking, but he isn't your father. And he's getting tired.'

  Emma blinked hard. He wasn't telling her anything new, but just hearing him say it brought a huge lump into her throat. 'I know,' she said, not looking at him. 'I thought perhaps you didn't realise; you don't come to the office very often.'

  He smiled wearily. 'Oh, I realised. I don't have my nose stuck in a computer all the time, you know.'

  'Just most of the time,' she murmured, trying to keep the conversation from becoming too doom-laden on the eve of a family wedding. 'Let's not talk about it just now,' she pleaded.

  'There's something I must tell you—warn you about,' he said.

  'Warn me?' she asked sharply.

  'Yes, I think so, something you may need to adjust to.'

  She waited, watching his face, seeing anxiety there. At last he said 'You know how much I value Joe, but I'm afraid the time has come to infuse some new blood into the promotional side of the business, Emma. New blood and new cash too. There will have to be changes.'

  'What changes?' she asked quickly. 'If Joe's going to be pushed aside I don't think I could——-'

  He reached out and patted her hand. 'Ssh, my dear! Listen to what I've got to say.'

  'I'm sorry, Uncle Edward, it's just that——-'

  He nodded. 'Yes, I know. But listen. Joe's getting tired, as I said, and I'm sure he won't be sorry to step down. He's told me so himself. You know, he never really wanted the top job, he took it on to "save the situation at a very difficult time. He would have served happily under your father.' He shook his head slowly. 'But there's never been anyone to take your father's place, my dear. Until—perhaps—now.'

  Emma caught her breath. 'You're not thinking of bringing someone in from outside?' She was horrified. 'A stranger?'

  'I know, Emma, I know. I felt the same way at first. But it's the answer, I'm sure of that. The only answer.'

  'You mean you've someone particular in mind?'

  He clipped the silver pencil into the pocket of his jacket and patted it. She had never seen him look so confident and pleased with himself.

  'It's all settled,' he said. 'I would have liked to bring you in on the decisions, my dear, but it wasn't possible when you were at the other side of the world, and I had to act rather quickly. The bank was getting extremely nasty. So, when the opportunity came I took it.'

  He was watching her face closely through his gold- rimmed glasses and his eyes were kind and understanding. 'Now, I can see this has all been a bit of a shock to you. Put it behind you until after the wedding tomorrow, then we can go into it all in detail and I can explain everything. I mean to involve you in all this from the start, Emma. You're a valued part of the firm now and this will affect you personally. I hope you'll be working quite closely with our new director in the future.'

  'Who is he? Do I know him?'

  'I don't imagine so. He's been away in the Far East and I only met him recently, since you went to Canada. It's all happened very quickly.' He touched her hand almost apologetically. 'He's a first-rate man, Emma. No one will ever take your father's place with me— you know that—but I get the feeling that this man will put the firm back on its feet if anyone can. He has the drive and assurance and personality to do it.'

  Emma felt a sudden hot flood of anger and resentment that shook her, down to her toes. Some stranger walking in and taking her father's place! Drive and assurance and personality indeed! She could just imagine him and she hated him already. She had met men like that on the trip with Joe, and drive and assurance and personality seemed to her to add up to push and conceit and arrogance. And s
he was going to have to accept him and work with him, instead of darling Joe!

  Edward Fairley was still watching her face closely. 'Don't make any snap judgment, Emma. Wait until you've met him.'

  She smiled crookedly. 'I'll have to, won't I? When do I see Wonder Man? What's his name?'

  Much later, she thought perhaps that she had somehow known all along what he would say.

  'His name's Marston,' Uncle Edward said. 'Trent Marston.'

  Trent Marston—the man Lisa had been crazily, wildly in love with only a couple of weeks ago!

  Emma was still staring blankly at Uncle Edward, her head spinning, when he added, 'And you'll probably meet him tomorrow. I told him to come along to the wedding if he could manage it.'

  CHAPTER TWO

  Richard came to supper. Later, he told them, he was going on to a stag party. 'A very mild and respectable one, I assure you all,' he said, his steady grey eyes twinkling round the table under his thatch of fiery red hair. 'Tomorrow I shall be at the church on time, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and not suffering from a hangover, cross my heart.'

  He turned to Lisa, sitting beside him at the big table in the dining room and smiled adoringly, squeezing her hand.

  'Mind you are, then.' Lisa stretched out to the big bowl of fruit and selected a ripe peach. 'I shall wait for no man.' She lifted her chin, acting the little princess.

  Lisa had been in one of her fey moods all evening— gay, laughing, brittle, vivacious. Emma, while she was helping Jessie in the kitchen before supper, had had to listen to her gloomy predictions.

  'Sing before breakfast, cry before night,' she had quoted, stirring the tomato soup vigorously. 'Miss Lisa's been above herself these last few weeks—up and down, up and down. You never knew what to make of her.'

  'Well, at least she'll settle down when she's married,' Emma smiled, wondering if it was true. 'Lisa' and 'settling down' didn't seem to go together.