Maggie held up her hand to stem the hot tide of protests and jumbled explanations which had been falling from her young cousin’s lips for the last half-hour.
Susie had recovered from the shock of discovering that Maggie had responded in person to her plea with an aplomb that Maggie could only envy. It was plain to her that neither Susie nor Sara stood in the slightest fear of Marcus, because it seemed to have occurred to neither of them that he might punish them for contacting her behind his back, nor that he might resent her interference.
After a snatched high tea which Maggie had prepared herself from the very limited provisions she had found in the cupboards, she and Susie had retired to the old school-room on the second floor so that they could have their talk.
‘So what are you trying to tell me?’ she asked gently now. ‘That you don’t want to go to boarding-school?’
‘Well, would you?’ Susie asked indignantly. ‘And besides, it isn’t fair. Just because Isobel doesn’t want to be bother
ed with us… I wish she and Marcus had never got engaged. I hate her. She just wants to get us out of the way so that she can be on her own with him.’
Maggie looked at her thoughtfully and then said quietly, ‘People in love often feel like that.’
Susie scowled and kicked the leg of the battered chair. The school-room had originally been furnished over forty years ago, and its furniture bore the scars of the generations of young Deverils who had inhabited it.
Her own father had carved his initials inside one of the heavy wooden desk-lids, and when she had wanted to do the same thing, after he had died, Marcus had gently suggested instead that she make up a scrap-book of anecdotes and photographs of the generations of young Deverils who had worked in the room.
The task, at first a chore, had quickly become an absorbing hobby. Her grandfather had supplied the photographs, and the original book had soon expanded to include sketches and notes of things she had discovered and been fascinated by. Her glance roamed the packed bookshelves and stopped automatically at the spot where the book had been kept.
Her heart gave a tiny leap as she realised it was still there, and Susie, conscious of her lack of attention, followed her gaze and then said knowingly, ‘You made that book, didn’t you? Marcus told us about it. He used to be such fun,’ she added with another scowl. ‘But he isn’t any more, and it’s all because of Isobel.’
‘Now that he’s engaged, I expect he has other things on his mind.’
‘They don’t sleep together, you know,’ Susie told her, shocking her with her forthrightness. ‘At least, not here. I supposed it’s because Marcus doesn’t want to set us a bad example.’ She pulled a face, and Maggie had to remind herself that at sixteen Susie could hardly be ignorant of the realities of life. ‘I don’t think he loves Isobel at all. He never touches her or anything.’
‘Susie, I don’t think you should be telling me any of this,’ Maggie protested weakly, trying to deny the sensations burgeoning inside her at the thought of Marcus making love to Isobel…at the thought of him touching her…running his fingers through her dark hair and then spreading it on his pillow while he buried his face in it and… She swallowed hard, forcefully dismissing the teenage fantasies with which she had tormented herself as a young girl. Once she had dreamed of Marcus making love to her in just such a way…had dreamed of it, and ached for it, until she had almost been able to feel the solid weight of him pressing her down against the mattress of her virginal bed.
‘Why not, when it’s true?’ Susie protested, showing signs of the stubbornness she was cursed with possessing herself, Maggie recognised on a wave of sympathy for the younger girl.
‘It may not be so bad,’ she told her.
‘Yes, it will. Isobel hates us. She can’t wait to get rid of us. I heard her telling her mother that there was no way she was going to put up with having us hanging around.’ She scowled again. ‘Anyway, I think Marcus is only marrying her because he thinks we need a woman’s influence…’
‘Well, that’s what I heard Mrs Simmonds—she’s the vicar’s wife, you know—saying to him. She said she thought it was time we had a woman’s influence in our lives and that we were growing up very quickly, and then less than a month later Marcus and Isobel got engaged.’
‘I’m sure that was just a coincidence, Susie,’ Maggie told her firmly.
‘Well, I don’t think so. If Marcus really wanted to get married, why should he wait until now? He’s pretty old, you know,’ she told her with all a teenager’s scorn for anyone over the age of eighteen. He’s thirty-seven, and he’s never been engaged before…’
‘Yes, he was…a long time ago,’ Maggie said painfully, forcing herself to make the admission as she saw in Susie’s eyes the younger girl’s determination to do all she could to break the engagement. She could not allow it to happen…could not allow Marcus to suffer a second time, and it came to her as she looked down into the pretty, flushed face of her cousin that here, perhaps, was the means of her salvation…her way to make reparation and in so doing to free herself from the past for ever.
‘When?’ Susie asked her, immediately diverted. ‘Was it when you lived here? What happened?’
‘I…it’s all a long time ago,’ Maggie told her feebly, wishing she had never made the betraying comment, and then adding firmly, ‘And anyway, I haven’t come all this long way to talk about Marcus…’
‘But you don’t like Isobel either, do you?’ Susie asked slyly.
Her perception was almost frightening, Maggie acknowledged, unable to deny her assertion.
‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ Susie asked her, changing the subject, and Maggie shook her head quellingly.
‘No, and I don’t intend to discuss my private life with you, Susie. You asked me to come and I’m here, and while I’ll do all I can to try to persuade Marcus to let you stay at home, I can’t promise to be successful. However, you must promise me that if I’m not, you won’t try to do anything to hurt Marcus or to…’
‘To hurt him? as if I would!’ Susie was immediately indignant and Maggie shook, remembering how once she would have replied just as passionately.
‘You may not think of it as hurting him if you try to break his engagement, but it will,’ Maggie told her quietly, and then added thoughtfully, ‘Are you really so sure you don’t want to go to boarding-school? They can be great fun, and wouldn’t it be better to be there than to stay here and be unhappy?’
‘No,’ Susie told her stubbornly, but it was the tears in her eyes and not her vehemence that weakened Maggie’s heart. It had been years since they had last met and yet immediately there was a bond between them, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to open her arms and hold the coltish teenage body in them, while Susie sobbed out her frustration and fear.