Painted Wings Page 8

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  JULY promised to be even hotter than June had been, if its first day was anything to judge by, and Deryn felt incredibly lazy, even while she was still getting up. It was the kind of day that made one feel like doing nothing more energetic than sitting under the nearest tree and perhaps reading a light book in between the luxury of catnaps and long cool drinks. She would, she told herself as she dressed, go down to the river and sit under the trees. Not in idleness, however, there were some background drawings, she wanted to do, and the treebacked, creamruffled curve of the river just below the weir was the perfect place. It was the .most beautiful part of the river and she could combine pleasure with work, as she almost always did here in the valley. It would take her only a short time to walk down there, and she need not disturb herself again until she felt inclined for Gerald was not yet back from London and Dominic had gone into Glanreddin for some shopping and would not require lunch. The day was hers to do as she pleased with or at least most of it was. The river bank was more stony further along nearer the weir, so she put on a pair of light sandals to protect her usually naked feet. She had acquired quite a.delectable tan in the time she had been here, and the sun was beginning to bleach the front of her 106 (brown hair in the most attractive way. A brief printed brown and green smock displayed most of her simi arms and legs and added to a primitive rather woodnymph suggestion as she made her way down to the river to work. She glanced instinctively at the summerhouse ag she passed and smiled mischievously to herself when she saw a pair of swimming trunks draped over the wmdowsill to dry. The temptation to take them and hang them on the clothesline as she had done with their predecessor was almost too much to resist, but she did resist it because she was. unsure just how he would take another gesture like that on her part I She walked on through the brokendown garden g gate and into the trees. The sun glinting on the water was almost too dazzling, but it was so warm and mellow that she sat down with a deep sigh of contentment and dreamed for a moment or two before she started painting. It was wonderful to have no one else to bother i about, even Gerald, she realised, and she got on much faster than she could have dared hope, not even noticing the time until the pangs of hungerdrove her to consult her watch. It was already after three o clock and no longer possible to ignore the wants of the inner man Reluctantly she packed up her gear and prepared to leave, glancing up suddenly with a frown when a sudden noisy disturbance shattered the stillness of the summer air. The cause of the disturbance was easily recognisable and she pulled a wry face, wondering what was making Hound so vociferous now .that he was returned. Probably nothing more than 107 sheer exuberance because he was free to run around again after being confined to the car for the last half hour or so, but she thought not. It was obvious he was down by the river and she walked along the river bank instead of cutting through the trees at an angle, curious to see what was making him so excited. Some time before she got near enough to see him, she could tell there was something wrong from the timbre of his bark. He sounded agitated and not at all friendly as he usually did. Then she heard a man's voice raised above the racket and realised the reason. Gerald too had apparently returned and run foul of his archenemy. She wondered why she could not hear Dominic too, for he must surely know that something was wrong with Hound, and she hurried along through the trees as best she could for the gear she carried and the lethargy that seemed to pervade her whole body and slow her down after sitting so long. As she emerged into the clearing she could see Hound, standing there, solid and unyielding, like a sentinel on the river bank, voicing his dislike and slowly backing his adversary towards the river. Gerald looked more apprehensive than she would have believed possible, for he was used to animals and usually handled them with confident ease. But somehow Hound's persistent dislike seemed to undermine his selfconfidence. He was not panicking, but he had very little room to manoeuvre on the narrow strip of grass left to him, and Hound showed no signs of losing interest. 'Gerald!' 108 Her cry was instinctive, but perhaps not the best thing to have done, for when Gerald looked across at her, the dog took advantage of his distraction to leap forward in one great bound. Gerald, already dangerously near the edge, stepped back further and caught his heel in a tuft of grass that sent him flying. His arms waved wildly for a second or two, then his legs shot from under him and he went backwards with a yell and landed in the water. The resultant splash sent a shining fountain of spray up into the air and, for a moment, everything seemed to become suddenly very still. 'Oh, Gerald ' She stared in dismay at the spot where he had disappeared and where Hound now stood, a tailwagging victor, looking down at him as he spluttered and struggled in the water. The fall itself would have been humiliation enough, but at that moment Dominic had to choose to put in an appearance at last, and he stared for a moment at the scene, as if he could not quite believe what he saw. Then he began to laugh great peals of laughter that Deryn, for a crazy minute, found dangerously infectious, despite her anger with him. It was, of course, inevitable that he would find it funny, especially as the victim was Gerald, but she glared at him indignantly as he stood there, laughing like mad and doing absolutely nothing about poor Gerald or the dog. 'Call him off!' she told him indignantly. 'Call him off, Dom!' Hound still stood on the bank, shrill with success, his tail waving madly, glancing back briefly at his master as if seeking approval of what he had done. 109 He made no attempt to move, however, and his being there prevented any move on Gerald's part to get out of the water. 'I doubt if I can call him off,' Dominic told her, his eyes glittering with laughter still. 'He's enjoying himself, and you know he never takes any notice of anybody.' 'Oh, you you brute! You monstrous, inhuman brute!' She stamped one foot on the ground, her eyes blazing. 'You you should be ashamed of yourself Hound ' She turned back to try herluck with calling off the dog herself, though not with any great hope of success. 'Hound Come here Do you hear me?' , ' Hound heard her and he even looked at her briefly, but his intentions were obviously more along the lines of inducing her to join in the fun than in letting his victim go. Gerald, for his part, was standing in the river, dripping from head to toe, with water up to his thighs and helpless to get out, or even move, without invoking further outbursts from his attacker. Deryn put down the things she was carrying and, setting her jaw determinedly, tried grabbing Hound's collar with one hand and pulling. Nothing happened, however, except that the dog tugged in the opposite direction and almost succeeded in overbalancing her. 'Come back, you great brute!' she yelled at him fiercely. 'Stop it. Hound! Come back!' Another violent tug towards the water and he succeeded in knocking her off her feet this time,, although by good fortune she fell on the bank and no not in the water. 'Hey! Take it easy,' Dominic laughed, helping her to hcr Eeet, a service she did not appreciate. 'Help Gerald,' she told him angrily. 'That's more to the point. I don't need your help.' ,' 'Did he hurt you?' He still had a hand on her . arm, but she shook free and made another grab at ' Hound's collar. 'Hound! Will you stop it?' ' 'Let him go,. Deryn,' Gerald called to her. 'Or he'll have you in the water as well.' ,. 'I agree,' Dominic told her with a grin. 'Let him go, he's too strong for you.' 'Well, you do something!' Deryn retorted. 'He's ' your dog, make him behave.' 'All right, all right, calm down.' He put a hand in the dog's collar and pulled him back forcibly. "Come on, you menace,' he told Hound. 'You've had your fun, now quieten down. Quiet ' Hound subsided at last, disappointed that the game was over, and watching eagerly when Deryn moved round to help Gerald up the bank. He was soaked to the skin and, his expression was as black as thunder as he shook water from himself, his clothes already steaming in the hot sun. 'Oh, you are in a mess,' Deryn sympathised 'You'd better come back to the cottage and we'll try and dry you as best we can by the kitchen range, while I try and dry out your clothes.' 'A better idea,' Dominic suggested quietly, still showing signs of enjoying the situation, 'would be for you to come to the summerhouse and I'll find you some more clobber, then I'll have those cleaned 111 for you.' He looked at the soaked and crumpled shirt and sl
acks. 'You can't go back to the hotel in those even if they're dried. I'll foot the cleaning bill, of course.' 'Don't bother,' Gerald told him shortly. 'I can do as Deryn suggested.' Deryn looked from one to the other, uncertain who she should support. Certainly Dominic's suggestion was not only the more practical one but would also be easier for her. It would save her having Gerald blanketwrapped in the kitchen for heaven knew how long, but whether he would like her taking Dominic's side was doubtful. 'It might be better for you if you changed into dry clothes right away,' she ventured, and he turned to .her, frowning, as she expected. 'If you'd rather I did that, of course,' he said. 'I'm prepared, whatever gives you least trouble.' 'Well, there's very little warmth from the range,' she went on, anxious to explain her reasons. 'I'm thinking of what's best for you, Gerald. I'd hate you to sit around while your clothes dry and probably catch a cold.' He shrugged resignedly, then looked down at his erstwhile attacker. 'What about him?' he asked. 'I'm not likely to be allowed into the summerhouse, am I?' 'Oh, Hound can go with Deryn for the time being,' Dominic said, having apparently got it all tidily sorted out to his own satisfaction. 'He'll staywith her all right.' 'Of course he will.' She sounded very confident, but she wondered if the dog would indeed go with 112 : her when he saw his master going off with the intruder. She picked up her gear again and put a , hand through the dog's collar, and this time he made no attempt to knock her off her feet. 'Come F on. Hound.' They were a curious little procession, she realised, as they wound their way through the trees to the garden gate. Dominic leading the way, inevitably, with Deryn, her painting gear tucked under one : arm and Hound held firmly with the other hand, then Gerald, who had started by walking beside her' but been discouraged by the dog's warning looks.' Dominic, Deryn thought wryly, was probably the only one who fully appreciated the humour of it. 'This way,' he told Gerald cheerfully, and strode off to the left with Gerald squelching dismally behind him. 'I'll see you later,' Deryn called after him, keeping a firm hold on Hound. 'Some tea will put you right.' . ' Dominic half turned in the act of opening the door of the summerhouse, and grinned at her over one shoulder. 'Me too?' he asked, and she was hard put to it not to respond instinctively to the grin. Instead she looked as disapproving as she could. Tou can wait until dinner time,' she told him. 'Come on. Hound.' The dog went with her willingly enough, although he was not altogether happy about the cornany his master was keeping, and Dominic himself only laughed at her refusal to give him tea. 'Just don't get feeding my dog with biscuits,' was his parting shot, and one she pretended not. to hear. 113 She had the tea made and Hound well under control by the time Gerald came up from the summerhouse wearing a pale blue sweater and light slacks borrowed from his host. The dog was tethered by a length of clothesline to the front porch, but he barked furiously when his erstwhile victim came and and sat down, looking oddly limp and even more than usually thin because Dominic's clothes were just a bit too big for him. 'I feel like a scarecrow,' he complained when she put his tea and a plate of biscuits in front of him. 'You look perfectly all right,' she told him. 'It's a good job the weather's so warm.' 'Warm or not, it's no fun being tipped into that blasted river,' Gerald retorted. 'I'm afraid I don't share Gregory's amusement at the idea either. Damned sadist!' It was really being a little overdramatic, Deryn felt, to describe him as a sadist. He was thoughtless, certainly, and his sense of humour could get out of hand. It had been very unkind of him to laugh' when he must have known poor Gerald was not only uncomfortable but humiliated too, but she could not altogether forget her own very brief inclination to laugh. 'I'm very sorry it happened,' she told him. 'But at least you're dry now, and it's better than sifting around in a blanket while I tried to dry your clothes. Where are they, by the way?' she asked. 'Have you left them with Dom?' He nodded. 'He insisted on keeping them and having them cleaned,' he told her. 'And I didn't see why I shouldn't let him. After all, it was his fault 114 and his dratted dog.' Deryn looked out of the door at Hound, standing there defiantly, attached to his rope lead, and barking furiously because Gerald was sitting in the chair that Dominic usually occupied. 'I'd better take him , back,' she said, 'or he'll drive us mad barking at ? you all the time.' 'Untrained brute,' Gerald declared, .with unaccustomed viciousness where an animal was concerned. 'It's typical of Gregory that he lets a great thing like that roam around attacking, people:" He didn't exactly attack you, did he?' Deryn said, defending Hound if not his master. 'I'd like to know what else you call it,' he demanded. 'I came here to look for you and when you were missing I guessed you'd be down by the river, so I came to look for you. Before I knew where I was that great brute came hurtling at me and knocked me into the river. call that attacking me, whatever excuses you make for him.' Deryn frowned, shaking her head over the labrador's shortcomings in that direction. 'I wasn't .exactly making excuses for him,' she denied. 'But it puzzles me, I must admit, the way he behaves towards you. He's always so friendly as a rule, but he just doesn't like you, does he?' 'He's been taught not to like me,' Gerald insisted, but she shook her head again. I can't believe that,' she told him. 'I hold no brief for Dom Gregory, but I don't think he'd do anything so deliberately malicious as that.' , 'No? Well, I do.' It would be useless to try and change his mind : "5 once it was made up, Deryn knew, and decided not to waste time arguing v>dth him about it. Instead she went and untied Hound from the porch and held on tightly to him as she brought him through the house. 'I'll take him back to Dom,' she said. 'I won't be a minute, Gerald.' She left him drinking his tea and looking morose and a little sulky because he did not like her going down to the summerhouse even if it was for his sake that she was taking Hound back. The dog was quieter once he was out of the house and,he pulled eagerly down the garden to the summerhouse. 'You're a wicked old dog,' she told him sternly as they walked across the grass. 'And you deserve to be beaten, only I shan't say so to your master because he'd probably do it, and I don't really want you hurt.' 'What makes you think I would?' She had not realised she had been overheard and she looked up almost guiltily at Dominic standing in the doorway of the summerhouse. 'I didn't see you there,' she told him. He grinned. 'So I gathered, or you wouldn't have been saying slanderous things about me to my dog.' 'No, I wasn't!' 'Yea, you were I heard you,' he argued. 'You were suggesting I would probably beat him.' 'Well, you probably would,' she retorted. 'And you know what they say about listeners hearing no good of themselves.' She handed him the rope attached to Hound's collar. 'I had to tie him up,' she explained, 'or he'd have attacked poor Gerald again. 116 'Oh, come on, it was hardly an attack,' he objected mildly, using almost her own words to Gerald. 'If Gerald hadn't backed away he wouldn't have gone in the river. I told him as much,' he added with a grin, 'but he didn't appreciate it.' Deryn studied him for several seconds, her hazel eyes steady and speculative. 'You know,' she said at last, 'I think Gerald might just be right after all You are a sadist!' 'Shouldn't you be getting on with yourbook?' Deryn asked one morning as Gerald once more sat beside her on the grass while she worked. They were sitting in that same curve of the river, where she had been a day or two earlier, just below the weir, and she was trying to concentrate on capturmg the creamy, ruffled sparkle of the water as it fell. Somehow this morning she found concentration elusive and she sighed. It was obviously going to be one of those mornings when nothing went right and, while she hesitated to attribute the entire blame to Gerald's presence, she could not help but wish he was elsewhere so that she could give her whole attention to the job in hand. She frowned over what she had done so far, without really hearing what Gerald had said to her. 'You sound as if you're trying to get rid of me,' he told her. Are you?' She did not answer, but studied the effect with pursed lips, comparing her own creation with the sparkling, everchanging beauty of the original. 'Deryn!' 'Hmm?' She glanced at him, frowning because she was reluctant to be distracted. 117 'You're not listening, are you?' , 'Hmm? Oh no, no, I suppose I'm not really, Gerald. I'm sorry.' He sighed. 'You do wish I'd go back to town, don't you?' he asked, and this time she gave
him her full attention. 'Not unless you want to go back to town,' she told him. 'I can't help thinking, though, that you must be neglecting your own work while you sit and watch me do mine. Haven't you got the rest o those captions to do for these illustrations?' 'I've done those ages ago,' he told her, with exaggerated patience. 'They're only waiting for those pictures of yours now.' 'And at the rate I'm going on,' she said wryly, 'I shan't be done this side of Christmas.' 'There's there was something I wanted to talk to you about, Deryn.' She was looking at her picture again and frowning. 'Can't it wait until I've got on a bit further with these?' she asked. 'As you've just said, Gerald, I'm all behind with them and I'll never get them done while you keep talking to me.' "But this is rather important,' he insisted. 'It won't take long, darling, but I wish you'd listen tor a moment.' She sighed again, and gave up any attempt to concentrate on what she was doing. 'All right,' she said resignedly. 'Go ahead and talk, I'm listening.' He seemed more reluctant now that he had the opportunity to say whatever it was he had on his mind. Pulling bladet of lush green grass and twirl ing them between his fingers, not looking at her but I down at his hands, so that she frowned curiously. It was, she siapposed, inevitably'something to do with her staying on there at the cottage, for several ,times since his ducking in the river he had tried to persuade her to return to London with him, and' each time she had adamantly refused. Once they had argued quite fiercely about it and he had accused her of actually liking the idea of her rather hap hazard existence with Dominic. He had apologised ,almost immediately, however, and she had not had the heart to tell him that, now she was accustomed to the idea, the unconventional domestic arrangements suited her quite well. 'You sound terribly serious about it, whatever it is,' she teased, sitting back on her stool and absently biting the end of her paintbrush. 'Is it something very important?' 'It is to me,' Gerald replied, sounding as if he was already on the defensive. 'Does it concern me too?' He nodded, but it was a hesitant, uncertain nod. 'I'm hoping it will,', he said. Deryn smiled, thinking she knew probably what it was and prepared to be evasive about it as usual. 'You'd better tell me and get it off your chest,' she suggested. He abandoned the handful of grass and reached up to take her paintstained fingers in his, although he still did not look directly at her, but at some vague spot just beyond her right ear. 'I have the chance to go out to Africa,' he said at last. 'An encyclopaedia of African wild life,' he went on. 'It'll he a long job, probably about a year or even longer, 119 because it will be very comprehensive. Vernon Cave'11 be the other naturalist, and I'll be working on the insect and bird sections. Deryn ' He played with her fingers, seeking words. 'I well, I suggested you for the illustrator.' 'Me?' It was not quite what she had expected and, at the moment, she was a little puzzled by his reticence. 'You could do it, darling, I know you could!' 'I probably could she agreed cautiously. "Although I know very little about that part of the world.' He dropped his gaze again, and one hand moved restlessly up and down her arm. 'Now's your big chance,' he told her. 'You come out with us on the twentieth of September,' She stared at him for a moment, trying to take it all in. 'To Africa?' 'Why not? You'd love it, I know you would.' 'I expect I would,' she agreed, wondering why such a marvellous opportunity did not strike her as exciting as it should have done. 'You'll come?' He sounded so pleased and excited about the prospect that she shied away from disappointing him. 'I'll have to think about it, Gerald. I can't just make up my mind in a moment, like this.' 'Of course you must think about it,' he agreed earnestly. 'But we must know by next week, darling, because of making the arrangements.' 'Yes, of course "I wondered ' He hesitated, and Deryn looked at him suspiciously. She had known he had some120 I thing else on his mind and now, apparently, he was h. about to tell her what it was. g 'You wondered?'she prompted, while he held her hand still, playing restlessly with her fingers. I 'I did say to George that maybe well ' He I shook his head, while Deryn waited with growing f impatience to hear what else he had in store for her I At last he took a deep breath and raised his eyea meeting hers with an air of defiance that at any other : time might have inspired her to giggles. 'I did say ' that maybe he could book us a double cabin ' he went on hastily, and Deryn stared at him for a moment wideeyed. 'Oh?' 'I thought we might get married before we went , out,' he explained hastily. A sort of working honey, moon, in a way.' He was watching her hopefully and she had once again to harden her heart against a rash decision. 'I don't think that would work,' she said at last. 'But, Deryn! Darling!' She shook her head. I can't I won't be rushed into a decision like that,' she told him adamantly : I'm sorry, Gerald, but it's much too important to rush into like that.' 'But you will come out with me?' She tapped her teeth with the handle of the brush and studied the teeth marks she had made on its end. 'I shall have to think about that, too,' she said at last. Somehow she was wary of taking a long journey like that with Gerald in close and continual attend121 anc.e. It would bea marvellous opportunity and she was probably mad to even hesitate, but when she thought of the sultry, exotic backgrounds and the ' big tropical moon, somehow it was not Gerald that. she saw with her, and that idea, too, disturbed her more'than she cared to admit. '122