The Gated Road Read online

  “I shall have to get over my disappointment,” Jane confessed. “I know I shall never be able to dance again—not professionally. I’ve known it for about five weeks now, and I suppose I have been trying to look around for compensation.”

  “What have you found?”

  She smiled slightly.

  “None at present. I thought that I might be able to help with the choreographic work, but that fell through, too.” The thought of Stephen and the work she had hoped to share with him was sometimes more than she could bear. “I haven’t made any definite plans, I’m afraid,” she added truthfully. “A friend let me have her cottage for my convalescence, and that seemed enough for the moment.”

  He got out to close the gate behind them, and when they came to the next one Jane offered to help.

  “Let me do this one.” Her eyes followed the winding road ahead, where gate after gate obstructed their passage across the moor. “You seem to be well barred in at High Tor,” she added lightly.

  “It’s a protection,” he told her briefly, “against intrusion.”

  After that they drove in silence, and in silence Jane got down to open one gate after another and close them again when Adam Drummond had driven through.

  When the last one had been opened and closed he said abruptly: “Well, there it is. High Tor in all its glory and its absolute isolation!”

  High Tor was situated in a fold of the hills, a sprawling white farmhouse, evidently added to by successive generations as the family had grown. The original house had been constructed on two sides of a square, with byres taking pride of place on the third, but now these had been converted into garages and the stock was accommodated in two neat rows of outbuildings beyond the storage barns.

  The whole place had a trim air of prosperity and well being about it. It was obviously a scientifically-run farm, which had been built up to its present degree of efficiency by a man determined to produce nothing but the best.

  Above it, on a peak of the Border range, stood an old Peel Tower which fascinated Jane immediately.

  “Who lives up there?” she asked involuntarily.

  Adam Drummond shrugged.

  “I did at one time,” he conceded, but that was all.

  The gate leading into the farmyard itself lay wide open, and Jane saw him frown as they drove through. All about them was the bleating of sheep, the murmurings of the first lambing ewes brought down from the more treacherous reaches of the hills, and for the first time she realized how big a place High Tor really was. In the broad pens behind the house where they were sheltered from the cutting northerly winds, there must have been several hundred sheep, and she felt her heart lift excitedly as she watched them. In so short a time the small white Iambs that were the true harbingers of spring would be running beside the ewes and this vast flock would be more than trebled.

  Without knowing very much about their value, she could see that Adam Drummond had a considerable fortune in livestock moving restively beneath his farmhouse windows, with many more on the wide moor beyond.

  It was impossible to ask any more questions, however, because immediately they entered the farmyard she was conscious of tension. It did not seem to have anything to do with Adam’s broken engagement or with her own presence at the farm, and she could not guess at its cause.

  He looked at her uncertainly and Jane returned the look.

  “I won’t let you down,” she assured him.

  They went in by the back entrance to the house. As on every other farm she had ever known, the front door was rarely used.

  The hall they entered was a revelation to her, however. It was comfortably furnished, with good rugs on the stone flags and a roaring fire in the wide grate, a well-used living-place bearing the stamp of male taste in the ancient firearms on the walls and the deep leather chairs gathered about the hearth.

  It was then that she noticed the staircase built into the thick stone wall of the original house and approached by three broad oak stairs, making the narrow landing above them look like a miniature stage. It was neither the stair nor the room itself which riveted her attention, however. It was the presence of another woman.

  She stood there on the top step, immovable, dark, and forbidding as she watched Adam Drummond with an intensity that even Jane, the stranger, could feel at that first moment of contact.

  She was older than Jane and as tall as Adam, a dark young woman with a high forehead from which the black hair had been swept uncompromisingly back. Prominent cheekbones accentuated the peculiar angularity of her face. A handsome girl, Jane thought, seeking the word and applying it instantly. Handsome and arresting, though not in any sense beautiful.

  “Marion,” Adam said when he noticed her. “I had no idea you were back.”

  “I rode over as soon as I heard.” The girl came slowly down the remaining stairs. She was still dressed in riding breeches and a black coat, although she had discarded her gloves and hat elsewhere. “I haven’t been to see your mother yet,” she added. “I thought it best to let the cold thaw out of me first. How is she?”

  “Not too well, I’m afraid.” Adam turned toward Jane, who had been standing with her fingers tightly gripped round the handle of her bag, waiting for this first moment of introduction with a rapidly beating heart. “This is Jane Thornton. Jane—Marion Denholm, our housekeeper.”

  There had been a peculiar intonation in his voice as he had uttered the last few words, a mixture of dryness and acceptance that suggested the inevitable, but Jane had hardly time to ponder his reaction to Marion Denholm’s surprising presence at High Tor because Marion herself had bridged the distance between them.

  It was then that Jane saw how pale the other girl’s eyes were. They were light gray and looked almost opaque, with no shadows—no depth—in them, and they had no definite expression. They were eyes that saw all and gave nothing away.

  “Jane?” Marion queried with one lifted eyebrow. “I thought you were called Penny.”

  Jane looked her straight in the eyes.

  “I was christened Jane,” she explained briefly.

  Marion favored her with a thin smile.

  “Perhaps you think ‘Penny’ sounds prettier?” she suggested. “What do you want us to call you while you are here?”

  “Jane, I think,” Adam said before Jane could answer. “And now, if you don’t mind, Marion, I’ll go in and see my mother. Perhaps you could take Jane up to her room?”

  “Of course,” she agreed. “Will you come this way?”

  Adam went off through a door at the end of the hall and immediately Jane felt deserted. In some peculiar way she seemed to be at the mercy of her new guide, and anyone more unlike the housekeeper of a remote Border farm than Marion Denholm would have been difficult to imagine. She was quite obviously a clever and cultured woman, more at home in the saddle, Jane would have thought, than in the kitchen, but, of course, it was not the first surprise she had encountered at High Tor. There was Adam himself.

  She followed Marion up the stairs where they opened out on to a broad landing dominated by a long window that let in plenty of light. In this fuller, more revealing brightness, her guide scrutinized her unashamedly.

  “You were a dancer, weren’t you?” she asked as Jane walked beside her, painfully aware of her halting gait.

  “Yes.” It would be easier to tell the truth as far as possible until Adam decided to let his housekeeper into their secret. “I fell skiing in the Alps. I don’t think I shall ever be able to dance again—not professionally, anyway.”

  Marion Denholm turned at the end of the passage to survey her with calm, level eyes.

  “But surely that was taken for granted when you first promised to marry Adam?” she suggested. “You could hardly go on with your career and become the mistress of High Tor.”

  The words held a decided sting, an implication of inferiority, which sent the color swiftly into Jane’s cheeks and made her first confusion over this girl turn to a swift dislike.


  “I hadn’t thought of that,” she answered defensively. “Adam and I have a lot to discuss.”

  “I’m sure you have.” Adam’s housekeeper gave her a long, searching look. “I can’t imagine where you and Adam met.” Jane’s heart missed a beat as her inquisitor went on relentlessly: “You appear to be so completely unsuited to one another.”

  Jane drew in a sharp breath, but anger was uppermost now.

  “At least you’re frank, Miss Denholm,” she said as they turned into the room that had been prepared for Penny.

  “I prefer it that way,” Marion Denholm told her, watching as Jane crossed uncertainly to the window. “Don’t you? I always think it saves such a lot of trouble in the long run.” She smiled, standing in the open doorway. “I’ll leave you to change,” she decided.

  Jane was left with a feeling of tension and the quite ridiculous impression that she had made an enemy. It was foolish, of course, to imagine that Marion Denholm had disliked her on sight, but it. was also useless to struggle against the definite feeling of resentment which had hung in the atmosphere between them from the moment their eyes had met.

  Marion Denholm did not want her here at High Tor. Jane was sure of that.

  The most obvious reason, of course, would be that Marion herself was in love with Adam, but almost as soon as it had occurred to her, Jane refuted the suggestion. Adam and his housekeeper were far too much alike to be paired off successfully. Immeasurably strong-willed and dominating to a degree, they were both completely sure of their own power, and Adam’s ruthlessness would be a swift match for this entirely arrogant woman who had somehow come to keep house for him. Marion was the sort of person who would seek to rule by the very force of her own overbearing personality, and Jane could imagine her doing everything Adam could do, equally well. She would ride well and know a great deal about farming, and drive a car as efficiently and as effortlessly as any man. She looked the sort of person who might have travelled all over the world and yet come back to settle in one particular spot because she had a strong reason for doing so.

  Marion was waiting in the hall when Jane went back downstairs.

  “You haven’t brought much luggage,” she observed, the pale, inscrutable eyes noting the fact that Jane had washed and tidied her hair but had not changed out of the green woollen suit in which she had arrived. “Adam only brought in one bag.”

  “It’s all I have with me,” Jane said, without offering any other information.

  Marion made no comment, although she looked faintly surprised.

  “I don’t know when Adam will want a meal,” she observed after a pause. “I’ve been at my old home for a few days and everything has been left to the girl in the kitchen. Adam’s desperately concerned about his mother, of course, and I expect the doctor will be here this afternoon. It’s all rather sad,” she continued with peculiar indifference, “but I don’t suppose any of us can go on for ever. Mrs. Drummond has had rather an unfortunate life.”

  There had been little sympathy in her tone, little real feeling behind the offhand words. Almost it was as if Marion Denholm condemned the woman who now lay so near to death in another part of the house for not dealing with life more effectively.

  “There doesn’t seem to be much hope of her recovery,” Jane said.

  “No,” Marion agreed thoughtfully. “She appears to be almost completely paralyzed.”

  She took out a cigarette from a curiously carved jade case and lit it, nursing the match for a moment in her cupped hands. They were large, capable hands, Jane noticed, suggestive of enormous strength, and she could imagine the horse Marion rode as being big and powerful.

  “Do you ride?” Marion asked, almost as if she had read her thoughts.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Or fish or shoot?”

  “No,” Jane was forced to admit.

  “Life’s going to be rather trying for you up here,” Marion observed. “What do you do?”

  Jane was on the point of confessing that she liked to read and walk and that she also played the piano rather well when a shadow fell across the open doorway at the far end of the hall. It was the door leading into the gunroom, and a slim young man in a Norfolk jacket and breeches appeared in the aperture. He hesitated for a moment when he saw them standing beside the fire.

  “Come in, Nigel,” Marion saluted him. “You must come and meet Jane. She has just arrived.”

  The young man who approached the fireplace was quite unlike Adam, yet in some peculiar way Jane would have known them to be brothers even if she had met them in different circumstances. Nigel Drummond was little more than her own height and he was fair where Adam was dark, but there was a look about eyes and mouth which linked them together unmistakably. It was a strong family resemblance that must surely be reflected elsewhere in their character, Jane thought.

  “Did Adam send for you?” he asked half sullenly as he met Marion’s almost derisive smile. “He said there was no need for you to break into your holiday.”

  “My dear Nigel,” Marion reminded him placidly, “it was my duty to come. It’s nice to know that you’re all so pleased to see me,” she added with unveiled irony.

  There was a hint of sadistic amusement in the pale eyes as they flickered over Nigel’s flushed face. It was hot with resentment, Jane realized, yet Nigel Drummond managed to keep his temper in leash as he turned toward her with an apologetic smile.

  “You must think us a barbaric lot, Penny,” he began, “wrangling in front of you like this.”

  “Penny prefers to be called Jane,” Marion advised him with a small, acid smile. “It is, apparently, the name she was given at her christening.”

  Jane looked at Nigel, wondering just when Adam would think fit to tell his brother the truth about her identity. She liked Nigel on sight. There was a rich spontaneity about his smile which was wholly boyish, and she could well imagine a devil-may-care glint in the blue eyes under happier circumstances.

  But he appeared to be uncomfortable when Adam’s name was mentioned, straining at the bit like a half-broken colt anxious for freedom and ready to kick over the traces whenever his brother’s back was turned.

  The fact was more evident when Adam came back into the room. “I want you to get back to Loanhead as soon as you’ve seen Mother,” Adam suggested briefly. “I expected you to bring those sheep in yesterday.”

  “I had something else to do,” Nigel informed him sullenly. “There’s plenty of time.”

  “Let me be the best judge of that,” Adam decided. “You can take McColl with you, and Grainger if you like. The doctor won’t let any of us see Mother for more than five minutes at a time, and you’ll be back before the morning. Take the wagon.”

  “You’ll be here, though,” Nigel reminded him resentfully.

  Adam hesitated, turning on his heel to look at him.

  “Would you rather I went to Loanhead?” he asked.

  Nigel flushed.

  “No, not really.” There was a certain amount of urgency about the refusal. “I can cope. There’s not a lot to do.”

  Unexpectedly Adam put a hand on his arm.

  “All right, old chap!” he said with rough kindliness. “I know how you feel. It won’t take long.”

  Nigel gave Jane a quick, half-rueful smile as he disappeared in the direction of the doorway. Some task, she supposed, had been left undone and Adam had insisted that his brother should complete it before he came back.

  “What do you think, Adam?” Marion was asking.

  “About my mother? I don’t know.” Adam’s voice sounded flat and crushed. “There seems to be very little change since this morning.”

  “I suppose Doctor Fenwick would rule out visitors.”

  The last word had been aimed directly at Jane, although Marion had not even glanced in her direction.

  “He said she could see the family.” Adam’s tone was suddenly harsh. “If we could have something to eat, Marion, I’ll take Jane in.”

  Th
e meal they shared was an uneasy one. Nigel did not stay for it. He went out immediately after he had seen his mother, saying that he would be back as quickly as possible, and Adam went with him to the door.

  Jane sat facing Marion across the table as they waited for his return, aware of her animosity now as surely as if it had been voiced aloud.

  “This engagement of Adam’s has been rather a surprise to us,” she remarked almost casually. “We didn’t expect him to think of marrying again quite so soon.”

  Jane felt stupefied for a moment.

  “Do you mean that Adam has been married before?” she asked.

  “Oh dear, no!” Marion smiled. “It took him a long time to get round to even becoming engaged—the first time.” She allowed her gaze to rest on Jane meaningly. “You see,” she added, “Adam has had the cares of the family on his shoulders for longer than I like to think about. His father was a charming old rogue who practically drank himself to death in the saddle and let High Tor go to pigs and whistles while he was about it. Adam never forgave him. He lived up at the Peel Tower while the old man remained alive and afterwards he came down here and tried to square up the mess. But surely I must be telling you something you already know?” she added as Adam’s returning step echoed on the stone flags of the hall.

  “No,” Jane admitted, “I didn’t know.”

  She wanted to ask Marion about the girl Adam had first fallen in love with and why they had never married, but Adam was already in the room and the opportunity was gone.

  “Nigel wasn’t very anxious to go to Loanhead,” Marion remarked, pouring his coffee for him.

  “It’s understandable,” he said. “Yet there’s nothing he can really do here.”

  “No,” Marion agreed. “He could be on the spot, though, if your mother wanted to see him again.”