Storm In A Rain Barrel. Anne Mather
terribly sophisticated and ‘with-it’ and would use all those awful exaggerated adjectives she had heard artists use at the local coffee-bar whenever she and one or two of her friends had gone alone into town on special occasions like someone’s birthday. She supposed he was a kind of uncle really, except that they were not related by any blood tie. Why, why had Great-Uncle Henry done it? What had he hoped to achieve? After all these years—refusing to acknowledge him as his son, and then finally making him his heir!
She shook her head. Not that she cared about the money, particularly, except that had she been six months older everything would have been so much easier. She would have been eighteen then, and capable of refusing anyone’s charity.
As it was, she had had no choice but to fall in with the terms of her great-uncle’s will. She had not attended his funeral, but that had not surprised her. After all, in all the years that she had been in his care, she had never once visited Grey Witches, the house her great-uncle owned in Yorkshire, and where he lived for nine months of the year. The other three months he devoted to Domine, and during those times they visited a hotel in Bognor which had become Domine’s only home away from the convent. There they had spent every Easter, summer and Christmas holiday for the last nine years.
She cupped her chin on her hands, wondering what would have happened to her nine years ago, had Great-Uncle Henry not stepped in. She could still remember the horror of the train crash which had killed her parents, still recall the screeching of the brakes, the groaning of the overturning carriages, the shrieking of the women, and the cries of the children. She shivered again. Oh, yes, she still got nightmares about that time and the awful impact it had made on her life.
Then, Great-Uncle Henry had been a deliverer, taking the eight-year-old Domine away from the loneliness and misery of the orphanage and installing her in the comparative comfort and pleasant surroundings of the Convent of the Holy Sisters. Not that Great-Uncle Henry had been a religious man, he had not; but he respected the church and all it stood for, and as he affirmed that he could not possibly have Domine with him all the time, they spent these holidays together. Soon now, Domine had been hoping to leave the convent and go on to college, or maybe even university. She was bright and intelligent, and the sisters had been confident she would do well. But all that had been changed by the sudden death of her great-uncle. He had been her father’s uncle, the husband of her grandmother’s sister, and therefore his interest in Domine had been all the more admirable as their relationship had only been by marriage. But he had had no children of his own, or so he had said, and he had given Domine the kind of moral background she needed, had given a stay to her existence. But now—
She started, almost guiltily, as the door opened and Sister Theresa stood there regarding her compassionately. ‘Well, Domine?’ she said, with a smile. ‘Are you ready?’
Domine’s eyes widened. ‘You mean—he’s here!’ Her heart fluttered wildly.
‘Yes, Mr. Mannering has arrived,’ replied Sister Theresa. ‘I believe he had some difficulty locating the convent in this driving rain. And after all, these roads are not very well signposted, are they?’
Domine shook her head. ‘I—I didn’t hear the car,’ she stammered.
‘Didn’t you? Well, perhaps the storm disguised its arrival. Or maybe you were not thinking about it,’ she murmured gently.
Domine swallowed hard. In truth, she had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts she had not been conscious of her surroundings. Nodding, she lifted her handbag and smoothed the skirt of the pleated pinafore dress she was wearing over a white shirt blouse. She felt young and gauche, and wished she had something a little more inspiring to wear. But perhaps it was as well that she had not. Any attempt at sophistication on her part would appear quite ludicrous.
She followed Sister Theresa’s flowing-robed figure along the stark tiled corridor and down a flight of stairs to the ground floor. Here a beautifully carved statue of the Mother and Child gave warmth to an otherwise bare hallway. The glowing colours of their robes and the gilding of their headdresses brought their cold features to life, and Domine twisted her fingers together nervously. She was not a Catholic, and until now she had felt apart from their religion, but suddenly its strength enfolded her.
Sister Theresa knocked at the door of the study where the Reverend Mother awaited them, and ushered Domine into the room. She entered rather tentatively, her eyes going immediately to the figure of the man who stood motionless beside Reverend Mother’s desk. He had his back to the door as she entered, and was staring out of the window that surveyed the same view that previously Domine had been contemplating. The rain had not eased at all, and lamps had been lit in the study to relieve the gloom.
The man turned as Sister Theresa closed the door, and looked piercingly at Domine with eyes that were a strange light shade of blue. Cold eyes, they were, she thought palpitatingly, and could see no warmth in his face. He was not a handsome man, his features were harsh and darkly tanned, lines deeply etched beside a mouth which had a sensual curve. He was, she supposed, a little under six feet in height, with broad shoulders but an otherwise lean body. His hair was very dark and straight, and sideburns grew low on his cheeks. She couldn’t begin to guess at his age, although he was younger than she had vaguely imagined, certainly younger than her father would have been had he lived. And certainly he was not the artistic aesthete of her imaginings. He dressed like a business man in a dark suit with a matching waistcoat, and wore a thick dark car-coat overall. At the moment, his coat was unfastened, and his hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his overcoat. Raindrops glistened on his dark hair, and Domine reflected that he had not wasted any time discussing her with Reverend Mother. She wondered what Reverend Mother thought of him, and gathered from the old woman’s expression that she was still rather doubtful about delivering her charge into this man’s hands.
However, she appeared to disguise her thoughts, for she rose as Domine approached her desk, and said: ‘Ah, there you are, my child. As you can see, Mr. Mannering has at last arrived to take you home.’
Home? The word stuck in Domine’s throat. Where was home now? Some place belonging to this man? The hotel in Bognor? Or Grey Witches, finally?
‘Yes,’ she faltered now. ‘How—how do you do?’ Awkwardly she held out her hand, and with an imperceptible shrug James Mannering shook hands with her. His hands were the only artistic thing about him, she thought, long and lean, with smooth, rounded nails.
‘Hello, Domine,’ he said dispassionately. ‘Are you ready to leave?’
‘Oh, but—’ began Reverend Mother, glancing at Domine and then back at James Mannering. ‘I mean—won’t you stay and have tea with us? It—it would give Domine a chance to get to know you. After all, you are a complete stranger to her, are you not?’
James Mannering compressed his lips for a moment. ‘Yes, we are strangers, Reverend Mother,’ he agreed, ‘however, I don’t believe we could possibly begin to get to know one another with a third party present.’ His gaze flickered almost sardonically. ‘Besides, as you know, I was delayed in arriving because of the weather and I should prefer to return to London before dinner time.’
Domine felt an awful tightening of her stomach muscles. Until this moment she had been so concerned with meeting the man himself that she had not fully realized what being his ward would mean. She would be subject to his desires in everything, and wherever he said she should go she would go. She shivered, and Reverend Mother intercepted her nervousness. With a stiffening of her shoulders she said:
‘Nevertheless, Mr. Mannering, I must insist that you have tea with us. As you are a stranger to all of us, I should like to discuss Domine’s future with you. It is natural that we should want to know what your plans for her are, and what arrangements have been made for her to continue with her studies. Domine has always been one of our most intelligent pupils, and it would be a shame if she were to waste her talents—now.’
James Mannering drew out a cigar case and glanced at Reverend Mother rather shrewdly before extracting a cigar and placing it between his teeth. ‘Very well,’ he said laconically. ‘Very well, by all means have tea. But I’ll just have this’—he