position to turn away any customer, however late or dilatory. ‘You get off for your bus.’
Iris flung open the door and Arnold found himself inside the shop with his heart thumping and Mrs Fleming smiling at him with friendly recognition.
‘It’s Mr Pierson, isn’t it?’ The card-index of her mind threw up the relevant details. Accountant at Underwood’s, an expensive leather handbag bought just before Christmas–and the eyes, she had docketed the memory of those eyes, dark and brooding, a hint of some granite-like quality and yet at the same time a suggestion of powerful feeling restrained by iron control.
‘I hope Miss Pierson liked the handbag?’ Linda was longing for a cup of tea, fervently wishing he would get to the point so that she could serve him and lock up.
‘Oh, yes, she was delighted with it.’ Even as he spoke the words Arnold realized the incongruity of the word delighted in connection with Sarah. But actually giving tongue seemed to free some block in his paralysed brain. ‘It’s her birthday soon.’ He glanced vaguely about the shelves and stands. ‘I want to get her something.’
Iris had struggled into her coat and tied a scarf round her head. ‘I’ll be off then. See you in the morning.’ She pulled on her gloves and picked up her bag. ‘I hope Mrs Bond turns up after all.’ She jerked the door open and let herself out into the icy air.
‘Preferably something she hasn’t got in her own shop,’ Arnold said rapidly, realizing with a stab of panic that he was now alone with Mrs Fleming and anxious only to buy something, anything at all, and clear out.
Linda narrowed her eyes in thought, running over in her mind the contents of drawers and cupboards. It occurred to her that it would have been far more sensible for Mr Pierson to have visited an entirely different kind of shop for his sister’s present, one that bore no resemblance whatsoever to Underwood’s. Flowers, chocolates, books, there were a hundred and one gifts he might have chosen without any difficulty about picking something Miss Pierson might have in her own stock. It suddenly struck her that the birthday present might be merely an excuse, that he had some other reason for propelling himself through her door. A half-formed notion rose in her brain: could it conceivably be that he fancied her?
The idea startled her, flinging up all at once into her mind a vision of Pierson holding her in a fierce embrace, bending his head to hers. She had an almost physical sensation of his arms around her, of the warmth of his face against her cheek. She shook her head with a small, abrupt movement, with difficulty blinking away the disconcerting image.
‘I see your point.’ She tried to smile at him and found to her surprise that her lips were trembling slightly. He was looking at her so intently that she was seized with a feeling that he might at any moment stride round the counter and take hold of her. ‘It would never do to buy her something like gloves or—’ She broke off; she had been about to say, ‘or a handbag’ when she remembered that it was a handbag he had bought at Christmas. Miss Pierson’s stock surely held dozens, hundreds of handbags. So his last visit had also, in all probability, been a pretext.
‘Or a cardigan.’ She finished her sentence, still contriving to maintain an air of casual ease. ‘We must try to think of something a little different.’ She was briefly aware that her tiredness had vanished; she felt alive, stimulated, no longer irked by the threat of the chores relentlessly awaiting her as soon as he had gone. She turned and surveyed the shelves. ‘Now let me see—’ It certainly wasn’t Iris who had drawn him to this quiet street; he hadn’t so much as glanced at the girl, had scarcely seemed aware of her existence.
Inspiration struck her. ‘I know!’ She raised a hand. ‘I’ve just remembered.’ She threw him a triumphant look. ‘There’s some pottery, hand-made, quite good pieces, ornaments, vases, book-ends. I took it over with the rest of the stock. It’s in one of the store-rooms, at the back.’ She jerked her head towards the curtained archway. ‘Would you like to come through and take a look at it? I’m sure you’d find something your sister would like.’
Arnold saw the precipice yawn before him. Another step and he would be plunged into a void of rushing darkness. He tilted his head back, knowing the door behind him. He had only to smile and say, ‘I’m afraid not, Sarah doesn’t really care for pottery, I’m sorry to have wasted your time–’ and he could be at the other side of the door, drawing a breath of relief, alone, unthreatened . . . and headed back towards the bleak and solitary wastes of freedom.
‘Thank you, I’d like to see the pieces. If you’re sure I’m not keeping you too late.’ He was astounded to discover his heart had steadied itself. In place of the black chasm he had an impression of sunlight, birdsong, green and blue spaces, the cradling warmth of idle summer air.
‘Not at all.’ She smiled at him as if she really didn’t mind, her voice seemed to hold a note of genuine pleasure. ‘But I will just secure the door.’ She came round the end of the counter. ‘In case anyone else wants to come in.’ She snicked the catch and the sense of alarm that always invaded him when a key turned or a bolt barred his way, faded almost as soon as he recognized its customary thrust. He was aware instead of a delicious feeling of being shut in with her in a pleasant and gentle world.
She led the way through the arch, along a narrow passage and into a store-room.
A couple of long rails holding dresses veiled in transparent covers; brown-paper bundles tied with string; cardboard boxes, bales of knitting-wool. ‘I’m afraid it’s not very tidy, I haven’t had time to go through everything properly yet.’ She opened a cupboard to disclose rows of vases, bowls, figurines. ‘I haven’t made up my mind what to do with all this. It dates back a good many years, to when it was a fancy-goods shop. I thought I might try a few pieces in the sale. If they don’t go, I might sell the whole lot to one of the stores with a china department.’ She began to lift out jars and dishes, setting them down on a table.
‘Let me help you.’ He came and stood beside her. She caught the damp moorland smell of his tweed overcoat; his sleeve brushed against her arm as he reached among the shelves. ‘Yes, I like this. Good shapes and colours.’ He ran a hand over the fine glaze of an oval platter decorated in soft greens and browns, touching it delicately and caressingly.
She watched the slow movement of his fingers and a strange sensation crept over her, an agreeable, dreamy feeling as if all her cares were being soothed away, as if she were being gently lulled to sleep by the touch of a hand stroking her shoulders, the back of her neck.
Somewhere in the town a church clock struck the quarters. She drew a little sighing breath, with an effort forcing away the insidious image. She took a couple of steps towards the door.
‘If you’d like to look over the rest of the pottery, I’ll make a cup of tea. It won’t take long.’ He was standing with his back to her; he said nothing, merely nodded to show he’d heard. ‘But please don’t feel in any way obliged to make a choice. If you don’t find anything really suitable, just say so.’ He nodded again and she walked briskly away to the kitchen, relieved to find an everyday normality return to her.
She put the kettle on to boil and went through into the little sitting room to take cups and saucers of flowered china from the glass-fronted cabinet. On a side table her dead husband smiled at her from a holiday beach enclosed in a silver frame. She levelled a long look at the handsome face arrested in perpetual youth while the eroding years hurried her remorselessly forward to the desert of middle age.
She set the china on a tray and carried it back to the kitchen. Milk and sugar, teaspoons, a small plate of fancy biscuits. She dropped into a chair and sat with her elbows propped on the table, her chin resting on her clasped hands, staring at the row of green and white canisters on the dresser but seeing in the recesses of her brain Owen Yorke getting to his feet behind his desk as she came into his office at the factory. Holding out his hand, a look of pleasure on his face.
A successful man, clearly ambitious still of further success, by no means old, a position of some consequence in Milbourne, no son or daughter to be taken into account . . . though surely a man in Yorke’s position, whether naturally fond of children or