Tremarnock Summer

by Burstall, Emma

  Bramble’s gaze shifted back to Fergus and she was struck by how relaxed he seemed in the company of the children, like a different person. Had he once been less angry with the adult world, and if so, what had happened to make him shut himself away and hide up on the cliff? She supposed that it might have something to do with Wilf’s mother, but she’d probably never know.

  Katie rose to clear away the first course and Maria assisted. Piers had temporarily turned his attention to Felipe and so, seizing the moment, Bramble got up, too. As she passed Fergus, balancing a pile of dirty plates, she asked nonchalantly if he’d ever dined with Lord Penrose.

  ‘Many times,’ he replied, mid-laugh, for Lowenna was now scrambling on his lap and trying to put the napkin back on his head. ‘He was a great raconteur.’

  Desperately wanting to know more, Bramble would have loved to get him alone in a room and try to pump him for information, but Piers was right behind her, practically breathing down her neck.

  ‘Let me take those,’ he said, wrestling the plates off her. ‘You go and sit down.’

  The moment was over: Fergus was now preoccupied again with the little ones. Bramble settled down once more beside Tony, who took a sip of wine.

  ‘Wonderful spread!’ he said, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief, for it was quite humid. ‘We’ll have to get you round for dinner at ours, if you don’t think it’s too much of a hovel compared with this!’

  Pudding was Bramble’s famous Eton mess (using sugar, not salt this time), as well as plum and greengage fool made with fruits from the orchard. By the time they’d finished, Lowenna had become tetchy, so Bramble took her and Liz to one of the bedrooms, where it was hoped that the little girl would settle.

  On the way back, she poked her head into the kitchen, where Maria was washing dishes.

  ‘Leave them – please,’ she insisted. ‘Katie and I will do them. I don’t want you working this late.’

  Maria glanced up from the sink and nodded. It was around ten thirty p.m. and she looked tired.

  ‘Very well then.’ She rubbed her hands dry on a towel. ‘I’m glad that your party has been a success.’

  The small smile that Bramble had noticed earlier reappeared briefly, but soon vanished.

  ‘Miss Bramble?’ the housekeeper went on with an urgency that hadn’t been there before. ‘That land agent...’

  Bramble’s eyes widened and she would have asked Maria what she meant, but the housekeeper shook her head as if she’d revealed too much already, and left the room. Bramble started to follow, until a loud crash from the dining room, followed by raised voices, sent her scurrying to investigate. Wilf, it seemed, who’d been running around the table, had caught one of the candelabra with his elbow and sent it flying. Luckily, the candles had blown out before hitting the floor and nothing was damaged, but still, the small boy had started sobbing.

  Bramble took him into what she and Katie called the TV room, where he soon settled down. Lord Penrose had only old videos, no DVDs, and the choice was distinctly limited, so Wilf opted for a 1930s’ Errol Flynn movie and pulled up his feet on the battered sofa to watch. He didn’t seem to mind the stuffed weasel in a glass case, the dusty books on the shelves or the general air of decrepitude. It was very different from the small, neat front room in Chessington, with its comfy maroon-velvet three-piece and fluffy rug that you could sink your toes into, and Bramble was pretty certain that at his age she’d have run a mile.

  The others took their drinks into the drawing room, where Katie put on some music. The doors were still open on to the terrace and the flickering candles cast strange shadows that made everyone appear mysterious and really rather beautiful. Katie’s strategy with Danny had totally failed, because Tabitha was now snuggled into his side on the sofa, his arm around her shoulders, and both had dreamy, faraway looks on their faces as if they were wrapped in a fluffy cloud just big enough for the two of them.

  Trying to make the best of things, Katie announced that everyone was to dance. When no one stirred, she grabbed Ryan’s hand and forced him on to the floor.

  ‘I’ve got two left feet,’ he protested, but she was having none of it.

  ‘I love dancing,’ she declared, shimmying to the sounds of Adele. She was rather drunk and it would have been sensible to quit while she was ahead and take herself off to bed, but that was never going to happen. Bramble just hoped that her friend wouldn’t make a fool of herself and burst into tears or, worse, pour a glass of wine over Tabitha’s head.

  Perched on the end of the coffee table near Piers, Bramble noticed him lean forwards, perhaps to ask her to dance, too, but a pitter-patter of rain on the stones outside stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘The bucket!’ she cried, dashing to the corner of the room where she’d put it earlier. She managed to position it in the right place on the floor under the leak just in time to catch the first fat drops of water, which soon started to turn into a steady trickle.

  ‘I thought they’d fixed it – temporarily at least?’ Katie slurred over the music.

  Bramble frowned. ‘Not yet, it seems.’

  ‘What the hell have they been doing?’ Katie went on, but Bramble merely smiled, not wishing to get into a debate in front of Piers about the pros and cons of Gus and his band of not-so-merry men.

  Fergus, who had been talking to Felipe, walked over to where she was standing by the bucket and looked up at the ceiling.

  ‘Oh dear. How long are the repairs going to take?’

  Bramble’s heart sank slightly; she wasn’t sure why.

  ‘The workmen didn’t give a timescale,’ she replied uneasily. ‘They’re doing other stuff while they wait for some special tiles to arrive.’

  ‘Who are they?’ her tenant asked now. He was frowning, and Bramble was aware of Piers watching from the other side of the room.

  ‘The main one’s called Gus, and there’s a Baz, too. They’re local, I think.’

  She realised even as she spoke how limp this sounded, for the truth was, she knew nothing really about them, not even if they worked for Anatole full-time.

  Fergus pulled a face. ‘Gus Bottrell?’

  ‘I don’t know his surname.’

  ‘Guy with a big scar on his face?’ Fergus ran a finger across his cheek and Bramble nodded.

  ‘What on earth made you choose him? He’s worse than useless. He’s a bloody cowboy.’

  She recoiled, stung. ‘They were highly recommended to me,’ she said defensively. ‘They’re meant to be really—’

  They were interrupted by Piers, who slipped an arm around her waist and whispered in her ear, ‘You look as if you need rescuing.’ Then he cleared his throat and bowed theatrically. ‘Madam, I think the painter has taken up quite enough of your time. Will you do me the honour of giving me the next dance?’

  Relieved, she took his hand and allowed him to whisk her to the other side of the room in a sort of waltz. Piers wasn’t perfect at it and neither was she, but he moved with an ease and quickness that restored her confidence, and as the track changed to something slow and smoochy, she had no hesitation in melting into his arms, closing her eyes and breathing in the heady scent of his expensive aftershave.

  At one point she glanced around and noticed that Fergus had moved – she couldn’t see where – and when she checked again he was with Wilf by the door, speaking to a swaying Katie as if preparing to leave. Unintentionally, Bramble caught his eye over Katie’s shoulder and she could have sworn that he shot her a reproving look. The gall of it, she thought, turning swiftly back to her dance partner and nuzzling quite deliberately into his neck. Fergus had no right to criticise her judgement, and what did he know about roofs and restoration anyway? She was glad that he’d had enough of the party. She didn’t need him telling her what to do.

  The track changed to something more upbeat, and Tony and Felipe took to the floor, along with Liz and Robert, who, like Ryan, wasn’t a natural dancer and looked distinctly awkward. Katie, meanwhile, had crashed
into a chair and appeared to have fallen asleep, while Ryan sat on the arm beside her, jiggling his leg up and down and gazing around the room forlornly as if unsure what he was supposed to do.

  Bramble hardly even registered Liz and Robert leaving with Lowenna, soon followed by Felipe and Tony, who declared blearily that he’d had a ‘tip-top evening’, though he wouldn’t be feeling quite so cheerful in the morning. When Katie stirred and mumbled something in her sleep, Ryan helped her upstairs, before heading off disconsolately on foot.

  Left alone with Piers, Bramble suddenly felt shy. It had stopped raining but it was still wet outside, so she closed and locked the doors. Scanning the room, with all its empty glasses, she thought that it must be well after one a.m. and the clearing away would have to wait till tomorrow.

  She was acutely aware of Piers watching while she snuffed out the candles on the mantelpiece, and when she turned around he took a few paces towards her, grabbed her in his arms and kissed her on the lips, before asking in a low, suggestive voice if he could see her new bedroom.

  Half-drugged with sleep as she was, Bramble sighed with a mixture of happiness and guilt, because she already knew that she wasn’t going to put up any resistance. This was just as she’d hoped, wasn’t it? Just what she’d imagined when she and Katie had started planning the party, discussing who would come and what they’d eat. It was the real reason she hadn’t wanted Matt here, wasn’t it? She’d planned it all along.

  She wrote a quick note to Maria, then led the way through the marble hallway and up the wood-panelled stairs to Lord Penrose’s bedroom, where the blue shimmery dress soon found its way on to the spinet in the corner, the bra and pants on to the mantelpiece and the wedge sandals on to the floor beside the four-poster bed.

  The only witness to the rest of the night’s activities was a lonesome seagull that landed on the windowsill and cocked its head inquisitively before flapping off again; the only sound, the distant hooting of an owl and the scrabbling of a family of tiny brown mice that had made their home behind the wainscot.

  17

  KATIE LOOKED AND sounded like death the following morning, white-faced and extremely grumpy. The mention of breakfast made her gag, so Bramble went downstairs on her own, rather dreading seeing Maria – who, despite her relatively good humour last night, would undoubtedly have been dismayed to wake to a heap of dirty crockery and cutlery in the kitchen, a dining room that resembled a war zone and a rushed note from Bramble telling her to leave everything as she and Katie would do it later.

  Although Maria was technically her employee, Bramble still couldn’t cope with the idea of someone cleaning up after her. Besides, she felt sure that the housekeeper wouldn’t approve of the fact that Piers had stayed over – and in the old earl’s bedroom, to boot.

  Bramble supposed it was fortunate, in a way, that Piers had risen at dawn and tiptoed out without waking her. He’d sent her a text later explaining that he had an appointment in Plymouth.

  Thanks for last night, he’d written. I’ll be in touch.

  She’d found the text a little short; she’d have preferred a few reassuring kisses and something about how gorgeous she was. But she told herself that he must have been in a hurry.

  As she padded across the hallway in bare feet, remembering last night, she realised that she felt uneasy on several counts, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. After all, his performance had lived up to every expectation, hadn’t it? His taut body and languorous touch, his devil-may-care smile in the moonlight, his air of adventure, the sense she’d had with him that nothing was out of bounds. He’d certainly done several things to her that she’d never experienced before. Yet despite all this, she’d felt strangely absent, as if she hadn’t really been there at all and someone else pretending to be her had been there in her place. She brushed the thought away quickly, not wishing to dwell on it. She was probably just tired.

  Maria was waiting for her at the dining room door, dressed in a calf-length beige skirt and pale-pink checked blouse, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her expression just as sour and disapproving as Bramble had feared. All the softness of yesterday, it seemed, had melted clean away, though whether this was owing to the general chaos or to Piers’s unexpected stopover, she couldn’t tell.

  ‘I have prepared breakfast for you in the morning room, Miss Bramble,’ Maria said curtly, ‘as there is no space elsewhere.’

  ‘Sorry about the mess,’ Bramble mumbled, cursing her complexion, for she could feel herself turning red under the housekeeper’s gaze. ‘Katie’s still asleep, but we’ll do the washing-up when she wakes.’

  She scurried, head down, to the hexagonal room in the east wing of the manor, where the morning light was so bright that she rather wished she’d brought sunglasses. She and Katie had rarely been in here, because it seemed such a long way from the kitchen, and besides, who needed so many different living areas? If you used them all, you’d never be able to remember where you’d put your book or left your phone or shoes.

  Still, Maria had gone to a lot of trouble to cart in the bread, cereal, jam pots and coffee jug, and Bramble did her best to look grateful.

  ‘Thank you.’ She settled down at the round walnut table and reached for the milk, orange juice and coffee. ‘You’re very kind.’

  It was a long time since dinner last night and she was hungry; plus she had a slight headache herself and it would be good to have something to soak up the alcohol. It was hardly surprising that she felt groggy, given the quantity of wine she’d consumed, and she wasn’t alone. In fact, the only sober people by the end of the evening had been Fergus and Liz, who was driving. Certainly, Robert, Tony and Felipe were extremely merry, Ryan was pie-eyed, Katie was utterly out of it and Piers was bewitchingly dangerous.

  Surreptitiously, Bramble pulled a painkiller from the pocket of her shorts and downed it with a slug of juice before starting on the toast and honey. At least she wasn’t as bad as Katie, who was probably throwing up at this very moment, and she had the Danny disappointment to cope with. As far as Bramble could tell, he’d hardly spoken to anyone, so wrapped up had he been in Tabitha. In fact, the pair might just as well have been alone on a desert island for all they’d contributed to the general gaiety of proceedings.

  Bramble was tucking into her third slice of brown toast when the ancient corded Bakelite telephone rang on the desk in the corner, nearly making her jump out of her skin. She scarcely ever used the landline, and it took her a moment or two to work out where the noise was coming from. Rising to pick it up, she half-expected to find Piers at the other end, inviting her on some jolly jaunt after he’d finished his meeting, so it was a shock when a familiar London voice announced that it was Matt.

  ‘How are you?’ Bramble asked over-brightly; he was the very last person she wanted to speak to. In fact, the mere sound of his voice made her wish that the ground would swallow her up.

  Matt didn’t reply but paused for a moment instead, as if mustering courage.

  ‘You’ve been avoiding my calls,’ he said finally, very deadpan.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Bramble protested, quick as a flash. ‘You know I’ve been super-busy, that’s all.’

  ‘Did the party go well last night?’

  She started. How did he know?

  ‘It was all right. Quite dull actually,’ she fibbed. ‘I knew you wouldn’t want to come.’

  Matt sighed heavily. ‘Don’t, Bram. I’m not stupid.’ He seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. ‘You weren’t answering your mobile as usual, so I rang Katie. I don’t give a damn about the party, though I would’ve come if you’d wanted me to. It’s the lies I can’t stand. At first, when you weren’t getting back to me, I just thought you had a lot to do. Then when you came to London and you weren’t even going to tell me, I tried so hard to give you the benefit of the doubt. But now I realise there’s more to it. I can’t believe it, but it’s true...’

  She could imagine his face, all screwed up wit
h pain. He was a proud man, not given to emotional outbursts. He’d be finding this so hard.

  ‘You could’ve told me you were having second thoughts, Bram,’ he went on. ‘You could have done me that courtesy at least. I’ve only ever had one proper girlfriend and that’s you. I thought we were for keeps, together for ever and all that.’ He sounded so hurt. ‘Seems I was wrong.’

  Bramble felt a tugging sensation in her guts and her eyes filled with tears. She wasn’t prepared for this, not at all, but she knew full well that she should have spoken to him sooner. She’d been a bitch.

  ‘You refused to come to Cornwall with me,’ she said querulously, hating the self-pity that had crept into her voice, the self-justification. ‘How could it ever have worked with you there and me here?’

  ‘I thought it was only temporary. I thought you’d get bored and want to come home. I would’ve waited for you. I would’ve joined you in the end, if you’d wanted to stay.’ There was a catch in his voice and he seemed close to tears. ‘You should’ve told me the truth. You should’ve said it was over.’

  He paused to collect himself and she gripped the receiver so tightly that her knuckles turned white, waiting anxiously for what was coming next.

  ‘There’s someone else, isn’t there? Tell me. I deserve to know.’

  Bramble felt sick. She wanted so much to make it easier for herself, but she owed him more than that.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, screwing up her face and squeezing her eyes shut, ‘there is.’

  Matt made a strange noise, half-splutter, half-choke, and she prayed that he wouldn’t break down completely because she didn’t think that she could hold it together herself.

  ‘Who is he?’ he said at last, but Bramble couldn’t bring herself to repeat his name. ‘Just a local guy, someone who’s helping me sell some land.’