Secrets and Billionaires

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Her fingers moved the pieces in the game, at intervals of watching Zachary's clumsy movements assemble the red against her white; he knew what he was doing with them, but longer had the power of control over his finger-muscles, and sometimes knocked a piece over. She let him pick it up from where it had fallen sideways on the board, herself sil ently retrieving, from time to time, the pieces which rolled on to the floor. Zachary, she knew, preferred to do as much as possible for himself, and that she should not help him. Pres ently he raised his head and smiled at her.

"Did you want to play tonight, Annabel? Mama arranged it, I believe; or perhaps Clairette did so." "I always like to play with you," she told him. "I still learn

moves from you; you are a better player than I." She smiled steadily, and moved a pawn; it was a routine move, which would keep her, now the others had gone, from having to give too much thought to the moves, or to keep up appearances before Kitty and Clairette. Zachary, she knew, felt as she did; always kindly and welcoming to his mother and younger sister, he was able, she was, to relax when they were no longer present. It was possible, also, for Annabel, play ing this age-old, leisurely game, to be able to give way a little to the inner turmoil which had been with her, rigidly sup pressed by day, since the news had come of the imminent re turn of Gavallan, brought by Paul Melrose the other after noon. Of course one had always assumed that Gavallan would stay abroad, at the end of his sentence, as so many transported men did; what had he to come home for? It would have been better if he had stayed out there, and had left them at Malvie to live their chosen lives, which had grown, she hoped, over

the years, happy and contented. "Your move, Annabel."

She started; he had been waiting, she realised, for some time. She must be more careful; she hadn't even seen him make the move, and so many things, like the possible return of Gavallan, if permitted, could interfere with the bright, inflexible way she'd adhered, over the years, to her own promise to her self, which was that at all times, in every least way she could, she must make Zachary happy; must let nothing interfere with the promotion of his happiness.

Had she made him so? If Gavallan should come home She moved, and watched the puffy, transparent hand reach out with difficulty, and capture her white knight. Zachary was the kind of subtle, far-sighted player who, moving in from understated beginnings, swept the board in the end time and again; she herself could not have ventured to sugges how he'd taken the knight so soon. She was stupid, she knew. "That was quick," she smiled at him. "You will win tonight as usual; I despair of myself."

"You could win at times if you would think what you were doing. Is it the news of Gavallan that still troubles you, my dear?"

"I-yes." He thought of Gavallan, she knew, as the blind man she'd made him go to, that time of the birth, with the news of it as he lay in prison. That they had been cousins and had spent their childhood together, so that she must be fond of Gavallan, would be enough explanation for Zachary of that. Now she prepared to go on playing such a part; he mustn't see, must never suspect, how her heart thudded now beneath its high waisted bodice, and the colour crept up in her face beneath its rouge. "It hardly seems real," she heard herself say calmly. "Yet, knowing how fond he was of it here, he might have been expected, I daresay, to come back again; though I had hoped he would perhaps settle in Australia. If only he need cause no further trouble!" And her hand, her steady delicate white hand small as a child's, moved over the board and edged its remaining knight near Zachary's queen, but the latter was hedged about with red soldiers.

Zachary had stopped smiling, or even thinking of her or of the game. His face was pensive, and she knew that he was giving to the problem of Gavallan both the pity he accorded any offender-men didn't, as he repeatedly told her, become criminals in most cases unless through poverty, intolerable conditions, or despair-and with the experience he had ac quired when, in the early years of their marriage, it had still been possible for him to be carried to quarter-sessions, to act as justice of the peace. He had become much respected and loved for his handling of these matters, more often than not helping the men and their families, she knew, afterwards from his own pocket. But he had not been able to prevent sentences such as Gavallan's from being carried out, although it was probable that his influence had helped withdrawal of the death-sentence. The fact of his confirmed responsibility dis pleased Annabel, fiercely resolved to be guardian of her in valid husband's happiness. Gavallan, if he came home, should have no part or lot with them here, he must not be invited to Malvie. No doubt, as he was blind, he would be content enough with some obscure existence, perhaps in Max's cot tage, although that was still too near.

She shuddered. It wasn't possible, she found, to picture Gavallan as blind. Would he feel the gratitude he undoubtedly owed to Zachary and Sir Hubert for preserving his life? She herself doubted it; he had never been grateful for anything, even from the days of her own father's affection for him, which had surpassed any Philip Doon might have felt for her self. The disinherited heir of Malvie had taken all that should have been hers except that: childhood, love, honour, virginity, peace of mind, health. Why should she think further of him? But she could not prevent herself, she knew; and also knew that at night she'd lie awake again, thinking of Gavallan.