The Other Cathy by Nancy Buckingham Page B

might never have gained entry to medical school but for Paget’s influence on his behalf. So it was with no sense of grievance that he shouldered the bear’s share of Dr Eade’s work. He and Mrs Eade had reached a tacit under standing in trying to conceal the worst of the truth. But to night there was no concealing it. Paget’s drunkenness was distressingly obvious to everyone.
    As the door closed behind Bernard, Chloe said in a voice of determined brightness, ‘Well now, is everyone ready for tea? Randolph, and Mr Sutcliffe, will you be kind enough to do the honours for me?’
    The next minute Matthew Sutcliffe was at Emma’s elbow, holding a small silver jug poised above her cup.
    ‘Do you take cream with your tea, Miss Hardaker?’
    She refused curtly, anxious to be rid of him as quickly as possible, but within seconds he was back with his own cup of tea. The chair beside her was vacant, as Cathy had just moved across to speak to Blanche, and he enquired, ‘You don’t mind?’
    Emma shrugged to indicate her indifference, and he sat down. Stirring his tea thoughtfully, he went on, ‘I was hoping, Miss Hardaker, that we could be friends. But alas, I find you suddenly and inexplicably hostile towards me.’
    ‘Inexplicably, Mr Sutcliffe?’
    ‘When we met at the bank in Bythorpe, your manner was so different. Yet now —’
    ‘Ah, yes! On that day, I seem to recollect, you were calling yourself by another name. And perhaps tomorrow, when you find that the name to which you now answer is not best calculated to endear you to the neighbourhood, you will de cide to change it yet again.’
    Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Blanche was watching intently from across the room, looking none too pleased. Emma felt more than ever convinced that there had once been an involvement between the two of them.
    ‘I merely deleted one short syllable from my name, Miss Hardaker,’ he pointed out. ‘My intentions my only intention, was to ensure that the new tenant of Oakroyd House should not be condemned by local gossip even before his arrival. A small ruse and surely a forgivable one; not, I beg you to admit, a base deception. Even your uncle, who was annoyed at first when he discovered my true identity, has forgiven me now.’
    I am not my uncle, Mr Sutcliffe,’ she said icily, ‘so do not expect me to forgive you – for anything.’
    He sighed, and put down his untasted tea. ‘Can you have so quickly forgotten our meeting on the moor, the day I first arrived? Two strangers whose lives, as far as either of us knew then, held no point of connection. I had no idea who you were, that day, any more than you had the remotest con ception who I might be. And up there by Black Scar Rocks, on that misty summer morning, there sprang up between us an instant feeling of rapport. How can you explain this away, Miss Hardaker, and pretend that now, for the selfsame man, you feel such antagonism?’
    ‘You assume too much, far too much!’
    ‘You mean, you do not feel antagonism? Yet you seem to show it so strongly.’
    ‘I presume you are willfully misunderstanding me,’ she re torted. ‘But lest there be any confusion in your mind, I’ll make my attitude crystal clear. You were mistaken in imagining any special rapport between us that morning on the moor.’
    ‘So I am to take it that such is your normal conduct with every strange man you happen to meet when unchaperoned - when the groom who is supposedly accompanying you has been dispatched on some unlikely errand?’
    His insult brought the colour rushing to her cheeks.
    ‘It seems, Mr Sutcliffe, that your recollection of that morn ing is seriously at fault. As I recall it, we merely passed the time of day for a few moments, and then parted. But I can assure you that even this mild civility would not have been won from me had I known your true identity. Whatever any one else might choose to do or think, whatever everyone else does, nothing will alter my opinion of