A Kind Of Madness Part 11

"In the end I thought it might be easier to keep an eye on him and find out exactly what he's up to if I let him stay," she added lamely.

"You mean he's actually staying there? Living in your parents' home unsupervised? Your parents're 7 ally are totally irresponsible, Elspeth. It's just as well you are there to keep an eye on him."

Wondering why on earth she should feel so irritated and angry that it was her parents' business Peter was concerned for and not her, Elspeth reminded herself that theirs was a relationship founded on mutual trust and that the last thing she would have wanted was Peter breathing fire and brimstone like a jealous lover, demanding to know what the h.e.l.l she was doing living under the same roof as another man.

"So you'll let me know, then, about next weekend?" she asked him, sensing his anxiety to conclude their conversation.

"Yes, of course; and Elspeth... Next time perhaps you'd ring me in the evening at home. You know how I feel about personal calls at my chambers..."

Swallowing the small, rebellious spurt of resentment, Elspeth duly apologised and replaced the receiver. And then, for no reason she could think of, she said very fiercely and out aloud, "d.a.m.n Carter."

"Let's have a nice cup of tea."

The sound of her mother's soothing, soft voice behind her made her spin round in astonishment, but the room was empty. Apart from Jasper the parrot, she realised as she caught sight of the bird staring devilishly at her.

"Good chap. Carter," he told her, faithfully imitating her father's voice and causing her to say peevishly, "No, he isn't. He's ... he's a snake in the gra.s.s," she told the parrot irately, but Jasper wasn't listening to her any more.

CHAPTER SIX.

carter hadn't returned for any lunch, which didn't bother her in the least, Elspeth told herself firmly, as she made plans for how to spend her afternoon.

It was tempting to pick up the new paperback she had found in the sitting-room and spend the rest of the day sitting outside in her mother's pretty garden; after all, officially at least, she was on holiday.

With a start she realised how little thought she had actually given to her work. Normally whenever she was absent from the office she was itching to get back, suffering something approaching withdrawal symptoms, but this time Carter and his invidious behaviour had taken up so many of her thoughts that there hadn't been any room to spare for worrying about work.

And of course she wasn't going to idle away her time while she was here. Briskly she decided that she would spend the afternoon in her father's office sorting out his paperwork. Something she doubted he would thank her for, but her orderly, efficient mind could not bear to see the state in which he managed to reduce even the most simple accounting procedures.

Firmly resisting the temptation of the sunshine outside, she made herself a fresh cup of coffee and headed for the office.

Behind, Jasper was saying in her father's voice, "Is there any tea going, love?" and then somehow or other producing the sound of someone pouring tea into a mug.

"Show-off," she criticised under her breath as she opened the door into the office and stepped inside.

For a moment she thought she must have come into the wrong room. She stared at her father's desk, which was somehow smaller and less familiar without its normal burden of scattered papers filed haphazardly in a selection of cardboard boxes that meant nothing to anyone but him.

Behind the desk on the shelves that normally held untidy piles of out-of-date Field and Horse and Hound were a dozen or more neatly indexed filing boxes.

But most astounding of all, sitting squarely on the pristine neatness of her father's desk was a brand-new, up-to-date computer terminal complete with screen and printer.

Elspeth literally could not believe her eyes. She remembered the number of occasions on which she had virtually pleaded with her father to bring him 1

self into the nineties with the purchase of such equipment.

How he had argued, prevaricated, claimed that he had no use for such newfangled nonsense, and even when her mother had wryly informed her that it was his fear of the technicality of such equipment that was making him stick so rigidly to his determination not to get one, Elspeth had still not been able to convince him that he would master the technique of using it within weeks.

She had even offered to teach him herself, to set up a series of easy systems for him to use, and, when that failed, she had actually threatened to buy him the equipment and book him on to one of the many excellent computer familiarisation programmes run all over the country.

Still he had remained obdurate, stubbornly so, almost to the point where he had actually become annoyed with her. Which was totally unlike her gentle, mild-mannered father. So much so that she had reluctantly dropped the subject, even though nothing could convince her that with a little patience he would not soon have mastered the art, and that, as a result, the dreaded monthly ch.o.r.e of working on the accounts could have been reduced to a task of manageable proportions.

After all that she had been through, to see the untidiness of his office restructured into this model of modern technology neatness almost took her breath away. She blinked several times as though half believing that she might be hallucinating. To say that she was flabbergasted came nowhere near describing what she was feeling.

What on earth had happened to persuade her father to change his mind, and to have gone ahead and got the equipment without consulting her?

Like a tiny maggot gnawing away at her initial delight that her father had at last seen sense was a brief flaring of chagrin that he had not consulted her. She dismissed it quickly as idiocy. Of course it didn't matter that he hadn't consulted her. What mattered was that he had finally done something about putting his book work in proper order.

She walked round the desk and studied the computer more closely, relieved to see that it was one of the most reliable models on the market; that in fact it was the very model she would have probably recommended herself.

She heard the back door open and turned around. Carter must be back.

For some reason she suddenly felt extremely fl.u.s.tered and acutely uncomfortable. If anyone was feeling uncomfortable it ought to be him, she reminded herself grittily. He was the one who had inst.i.tuted that kiss, not her.

But he wasn't the one who had allowed it to get out of control, who had encouraged and abetted it in getting out of control, she acknowledged guiltily.

She had a moment's cowardly temptation to close the study door and stay where she was, but it wasn't in her nature to run away from unpleasant situations, and so, squaring her shoulders, she walked quickly towards the kitchen.

After all, she was going to have to face him sooner or later, and she wasn't going to have him thinking that she had been affected by the kiss. No, her best plan of action was to behave as though it had never happened, to ignore the whole thing. And if he should mention it--should apologise, for instance--well, then she could simply say airily that she had forgotten the whole affair. All she had to do was to remind herself that she was committed to Peter and that Carter knew that fact.

As she walked into the kitchen she was stunned to hear her own voice saying almost desperately, "But Peter, I need you."

It was several seconds before she realised that the parrot had overheard her telephone conversation and was mimicking her.

Her colour high, she pushed open the kitchen door. Carter was just filling the kettle. He was frowning, she noticed.

"Did you manage to get the rotavating done?" she asked him, trying to sound casual and normal.

"Most of it. We had to knock off to come back and start the watering.

Which reminds me, if you've got the time it might be an idea if you came and watched. It's too much for John or Simon to manage alone, and since I'm not going to be here for a couple of afternoons. "

That would be fine," she a.s.sured him, quite pleased with herself for managing to sound so businesslike and detached. That was the right way to behave, to pretend he was simply a very distant acquaintance with whom she had to be polite for form's sake, a stranger with whom she had been thrown into unwanted intimacy but who would soon be gone from her life.

"I was going to spend the afternoon sorting out Dad's accounts, but I see that he's taken my advice at last and bought himself a computer."

It was a casual, throw-away remark, meant only to fill the yawning gap of dangerous silence which she felt threatening, but instantly Carter tensed, carefully turning his head away from her. For a moment she was completely puzzled, wondering what on earth it was she had said to warrant that watchful, fragile silence, and then she knew.

"It was you, wasn't it?" she demanded, abandoning discretion and caution.

"You persuaded him to buy it. Oh, I might have known," she added bitterly.

"It doesn't matter what I say to him. I'm only a daughter--a female.

But let some fellow male come along, some member of his own s.e.x, and suddenly it's all different."

"Look, it wasn't like that. As a matter of fact your father remains as obdurately convinced that computers are an alien species as he's always been. Actually, it's your mother who uses the equipment. She's proved remarkably adept at doing so." He gave a warm chuckle.

"She says it's doing wonders to help her with her cataloguing."

"My mother!" Now Elspeth was astonished.