The Gated Road Read online

  So Penny had managed to talk Stephen out of sending her to Cumberland!

  In her letter Penny had enclosed the Drummonds’ address, “just in case” Jane would shoulder her responsibilities for her. Now that final telegram had made it impossible to refuse. Penny had possibly known that all along. She must have known that she was going back to New York with Stephen.

  Jane thrust the damaging accusation out of her mind. It didn’t really seem to matter now. What mattered was how she was going to handle this problem for herself and Adam Drummond.

  High Tor. She stared down at the name of the farm. It had a bleak, unfriendly sound. How could Penny have got herself into such a mess?

  She wondered what Adam Drummond would be like to deal with. Would he be smitten and dumb, and only too eager to slink away like a beaten animal to lick his wounds alone?

  Perhaps so. She set off with a heavy heart, locking up the cottage and taking an overnight bag with her in case she might have to stay in Carlisle or somewhere on the way back. The journey was not an easy one, either in the physical or the mental sense. She had to change buses at Kendal and again at Penrith, and all the while the thought of timely retreat lingered in her mind.

  Her hands were closely gripped over the handle of her small case as she took her seat in the local bus which would take her as near to High Tor as she could get without a private conveyance.

  “There’s only one bus a day goes through to Kirkleyhead,” the conductress told her conversationally as they drew out of Carlisle and took the Brampton road to the east. “High Tor’s a mile or two beyond that, right in the heart of the hills.” She gazed at Jane with frank curiosity in her eyes. “You’ll be met, I dare say,” she suggested. “It’s a goodish way.”

  “I’ve no idea,” Jane answered. “I suppose someone will meet the bus.”

  The bus trundled on, amiably, leisurely, letting down a passenger here and there in the most unlikely spot where sometimes there was no sign of human habitation within miles.

  Gradually she realized that she was going to be left in undisputed possession of the bus by the time it reached its destination. Kirkleyhead was right in the heart of the hills, a bare little hamlet built entirely of grey stone, with a few houses huddled together in a short main street, as if for protection, a church with a squat Norman tower, a shop, and a school no bigger than the average village hall.

  “This is as far as we go,” the conductress told her. “It’s the terminus. We go up to the school and turn.”

  Jane took down her case from the overhead rack. There was no sign of her being met. The village street was deserted and the road beyond it looked as if it could lead to nowhere.

  “How far is it to High Tor?” she asked as she reached the open door. “Could I possibly walk?”

  “Eh, no! It’s all of ten miles, and a bad road at that.” The conductress considered her sympathetically. “You could stay in the bus, if you like,” she suggested. “They’ll be down for you, don’t worry! There’s often something on the buses for them at High Tor. It’s a big farm and they’re often on the road. Especially the younger brother. He’s a caution, he is! You’ve got to pull well into the side when he’s passing you in that sports car of his!”

  “Is that—Mr. Adam Drummond?” Jane asked.

  “Oh, no!” The reply was prompt and amused. “We’d have to get off the road altogether if Adam Drummond wanted to pass! Nobody likes him much round these parts. He’s too arrogant.” The girl took out a half-smoked cigarette and re-lit it. “But maybe you’d better find that out for yourself,” she suggested as she inhaled appreciatively, “for here he comes!”

  Jane wanted to shrink back into the shelter of the bus. Suddenly she didn’t want to meet this man, because she knew, even before she looked out through the bus window, that she had made a mistake. Adam Drummond was not the sort of person she had imagined him to be.

  An old, powerful-looking car had drawn up at the far side of the road and a big, broad-shouldered man was getting out from behind the wheel. He was taller than average and he strode swiftly across the intervening space between them, covering the distance far too quickly for Jane’s liking. She had no time-to draw breath, and no idea what she could possibly say to this man.

  He knew that she was not Penny even before she got down from the bus. She was sure of that, yet in spite of the fact he stood waiting—waiting for the explanation she suddenly felt incapable of giving.

  The bus moved on, turning in the wide space in front of the school and they were alone. It seemed to Jane that the entire village was deserted and all the hills had gathered closer to hear what she might have to say. Their stern faces seemed to condemn her even before she could bring herself to speak.

  “I’m not Penny,” she said needlessly. “I think you know that.”

  The gray eyes searched hers.

  “Yes,” he said. “Perhaps you can explain?”

  Jane looked about her in sudden desperation, but there did not seem to be anywhere where they could go to talk in privacy. It seemed that they would have to stand here in the empty village street, unable to reach any understanding, about Penny or anything else.

  “If there was somewhere we could go,” she suggested, looking round without a great deal of hope for some sign of an hotel or a village inn, “I might be able to explain why I have come, Mr. Drummond.”

  He picked up her case, moving with it across the road to his parked car.

  “Do you always go about shouldering your sister’s responsibilities, Miss Thornton?” he asked.

  “Penny and I are twins,” Jane answered almost defensively. “We help each other where we can.”

  “I see.” His tone was dry. “Did Penny send you on this errand, or did you come of your own free will?”

  “A little of both,” Jane was forced to admit. It had been on the tip of her tongue to say that she had come because she was sorry for him, but how could she tell this man that she pitied him? “It’s all been—rather a shock.”

  He turned to look at her as they reached the car, the gray eyes searching hers without pity. Jane had no way of telling if he had guessed the full implication of her unexpected visit. It was as if he wore a mask out of which the calculating eyes surveyed her unrelentingly. She heard the bus reverse behind them and start up again, and in a few seconds it came slowly toward them and passed, gathering speed as it swept down the hill and disappeared.

  It was only when it was out of sight and almost out of sound that she remembered what the conductress had told her. There was only one bus a day.

  “Will you get in?” he asked, holding the car door open. He had already put her case into the back seat, where a large collie surveyed them and wagged its tail in welcome. “Wisp’s all right. You needn’t worry about him,” her companion told her briefly.

  He got in behind the wheel and drove away. The road went on beyond the village, winding and dipping over the hills until it turned into a hidden valley where the snow was still white on the loftier peaks and a deep, tense silence reigned.

  It seemed to Jane that they had entered a kind of no man’s land between Scotland and England, shut away from the world she knew and understood by these crowding snowcapped hills whose scarred old sides had seen so many Border forays in the past. Here the mosstroopers had come riding down; here was the scene of pillage and adventure. Here, if she knew anything of Border history, an untamed spirit had prevailed for hundreds of years and must still prevail.

  She glanced at her companion’s face, seeing the dark concentrated frown between the heavy black brows and the tightly compressed mouth. It was too late to wish that she had never come.

  Unexpectedly Adam Drummond pulled up on the brow of the next hill. Beneath them a deep defile cut into the range of fells ahead, its dark sides, steep and precipitous, sloping down to a rushing stream far below. It appeared to be the only way that they could go, and suddenly all the sunshine that had been on the hills behind them was shut out. The sun itse
lf went down beyond the shoulder of a hill and the valley was immediately dense with shadow.

  Jane suppressed a shiver. Without looking around at her companion she waited for him to speak,

  “What made Penny change her mind?” he demanded abruptly.

  Jane drew in a quick breath, trying to force her voice to some semblance of calmness before she answered.

  “I’m not quite sure. I’ve been convalescing after an accident and I was staying in the Lake District when Penny wrote to me.”

  “I see,” he said. “Very convenient—for Penny.”

  She turned toward him, her eyes darkened by her own concern. “Please try to understand,” she begged. “It would have been no use—not after Penny discovered that she was in love with someone else. It’s better to make a—a clean break at the beginning than to go on pretending.”

  Her words fell into a small, brittle silence.

  “So that was it?” Adam Drummond mused after a moment or two. “She fell in love with someone else.”

  A flicker of something that might have been amusement broke in the gray eyes, although Jane could not believe that this man would be easily amused by such a situation.

  “Won’t you try to make allowances?” she asked. “Penny wouldn’t mean to hurt you. That’s why I’m here. She didn’t want to write, to break it to you in such a cruel way. Whatever you may think,” she hurried on staunchly, “Penny is sensitive about a thing like that. She can’t bear to hurt anyone.”

  “It would depend, of course, on the degree of hurt and how it would affect herself,” he suggested stonily. “That’s generally how a woman reasons, isn’t it? When she finds herself in a tight corner and wants to wriggle out?”

  “No!” Jane protested. “You’re wrong! We’re not all the same, in spite of what you think. I can’t blame you, of course,” she added more gently. “This must have been a dreadful shock to you, and a terrible disappointment.”

  He did not confirm or deny her statement, and when she looked round at him again his expression told her nothing. His mouth was still grim, his eyes half-hooded and remote.

  “I ought not to have come,” she said involuntarily. “It was presumptuous of me to think that I could make it any easier for you, Adam.”

  She had used his Christian name without thought, because in spite of everything, her pity still lingered. He did not seem to notice the little liberty, however. His eyes scanned the horizon, as if only out there on the far reaches of the lonely moor could he find the solution he needed in this present crisis.

  “I’m taking you to High Tor,” he said with the sort of decision that would not brook a refusal. “I need your help and, in any case, you couldn’t get back to Thorpe Newell tonight.”

  Jane stared at him, completely taken aback by the decision because she had been so utterly unprepared for it.

  “But—your family?” she protested. “Won’t they find it difficult to accept me? It will all be—rather embarrassing,” she added nervously.

  “It’s because of my family that I’m taking you there,” he returned grimly. “I’m not doing it for my own pleasure, I can assure you.”

  Abruptly he turned, to face her, and for a moment she saw vulnerability on the hard face and a desperation that he could not have wished to convey.

  “I’ve told you that I need your help,” he said. “You can put it that I feel you—or Penny—owe it to me, if you like. Two days ago my mother was laid low with a stroke. She has been given less than a week to live.” His face hardened into the emotionless mask again. “For that week, at least, I want her to believe that my marriage will go on. I want you to take Penny’s place.”

  Jane drew back.

  “But how could I?” she protested. “It would be acting a lie—pretending to be someone I’m not!”

  “You’re Penny’s double,” he reminded her briefly. “You’re twins, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but there are so many little points, things about us that people can pick out almost at once.”

  “Not if they’ve never seen you together. Penny has never been here. This was to have been her first visit,” he added grimly.

  Jane bit her lip.

  “Yes,” she acknowledged, but she could not say again that she was sorry. Adam Drummond did not want her pity.

  All he wanted, apparently, was her cooperation for a day or two to save a dying woman a bitter disappointment. When he had mentioned his mother his expression had softened visibly; most of the harshness in his face was replaced by a gentleness she would not have expected in him. But how could she meet his family and pretend to be Penny with the knowledge of her twin’s perfidy hovering uneasily between her and Adam?

  “Surely there must be some other way?” she asked. “Could you say that Penny hadn’t come, after all?”

  “I’m afraid not.” His reply was immediate. “I have a peculiar feeling that my mother is hanging on to the thin strands of life for just this purpose. She has always been a determined woman. She won’t die till she sees the girl I’m going to marry.” He gave a sharp, brief laugh. “Strange that you should have to lie to the person who means most to you to let her die in peace!” he reflected bitterly.

  “The fact that you have already been seen coming off the bus makes it impossible for us to draw back now,” he reminded her. “The grapevine in these parts will have your full description at High Tor by tomorrow morning. You needn’t worry about the rest of the household,” he added. “None of them knows very much about you. Just that you are arriving today.”

  Suddenly he looked straight at her, the gray eyes cold as steel again. It was as if some sort of challenge had passed between them, as if he had warned her that he had every intention of guarding his privacy in the future.

  “I see,” Jane said. “Perhaps it ought to be easy for me to do what you ask, because I feel that you’ve been so badly let down.” Her clear eyes met his with something of his own determination in their depths. “You see, I know how it feels,” she added briefly. “I’ve just lost the person I was going to marry. But does that excuse our deceiving your mother now?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it as a deception,” he argued harshly. “It appeared to me as an act of mercy. My mother has been badly paralyzed by this stroke; she can neither see nor speak, and part of the time she appears to be completely unconscious of what is going on around her. I have had expert advice. There doesn’t seem to be any hope of a recovery.”

  “I’m sorry.” She felt warmed to him and ready to help now. “Tell me what I’m to do.”

  “You may not have to see her at all,” he said with brief finality. “The fact that you are at High Tor will be sufficient to reassure her.”

  “And ... afterwards?” The question was entirely involuntary.

  “I shall not hold you to any bargain. By that time you will be able to feel that you have at least paid off some of Penny’s debt.”

  “You’ll never forgive her, will you?”

  He shook his head.

  “We don’t forgive easily in these parts,” he said.

  “Have you never thought how unjust that is?” she demanded as he started the car. “Penny couldn’t help falling in love with Stephen. It happened so suddenly.”

  To her utter consternation she was aware of the suppressed agony in her own voice and knew that her companion must have heard it, too. He turned to glance at her as they followed the road on to the moor, and she looked away so that he could not confirm, his quick suspicion.

  “You’ve been ill,” he mentioned after a moment. “You said something about an accident.”

  “Yes.” Jane’s face flushed scarlet. “I thought you might have noticed when I walked.”

  “No,” he said. Perhaps he had not noticed her at all. Only the fact, driven home with devastating certainty at that first moment of contact, that she was not Penny. “Perhaps the air at High Tor will do you good.”

  “It will certainly blow away the cobwebs!” she agreed as they ca
me on to the long reaches of grass and heather high above the valley. “There seems to be nothing here but hills—and then more hills! How far have we still to go?”

  “About six miles.”

  “And you’re monarch of all you survey up here?”

  His mouth curved in a wry smile.

  “More or less,” he agreed.

  “It must be rather wonderful,” she said in an attempt at normal conversation, “to look as far as the eye can see and know that you own it all, that your sheep graze these hills as they have done, perhaps, for generations. I think Penny said that your family had been at High Tor for many years.”

  She broke off, angry with herself for having mentioned Penny again when he must be trying to thrust her twin’s memory away from him with every breath he drew.

  “Yes,” he answered briefly. “There couldn’t really be any question of a Drummond doing anything else but rearing sheep. Environment invariably has a strong hold.” He gave her an odd, probing look, as if he had just really noticed her for the first time. “What did you do with yourself before your accident?” he asked. “I rather thought you and Penny were in the same profession.”

  “Yes, we were both dancers.”

  There was an odd little pause as he drew the car up at the end of a gated road.

  “I should have known better than to imagine that anyone like Penny could ever have settled down here,” he observed.

  “Does this man—Stephen—intend to marry her?” Adam asked abruptly as he came back to the car.

  “Oh, yes.” Jane bit her teeth into her. lower lip to steady it. “They will probably be married in New York. Stephen must have found Penny a job over there in the meantime.”

  “Dancing, you mean, of course.” He seemed to be deliberately tearing his own heart apart. “Once you are dedicated to a thing like that I suppose nothing else really matters to you so much.” He started the car to drive through the gate. “How about you?” he demanded.