‘I’ll walk you home,’ he said in a low voice, as he pulled on his coat.
‘Oh, don’t bother,’ Belinda replied hurriedly. ‘It’s only a few steps really.’
‘It’s black as pitch out there,’ he frowned, ‘if you don’t know the way you’ll break a leg.’ He grasped a large electric torch and opened the door.
Protesting that she would be all right, Belinda stepped out into the dark. The pool of light from the torch was the only illumination in the velvety black of the rural night and she cautiously put one foot before the other as she felt her way down the hill towards her cottage.
‘You see what I mean,’ said Jacob triumphantly, ‘you’d be in a ditch before you knew it.’
Belinda sighed. ‘Yes, you were right. If that makes you feel better.’ She sensed that Jacob turned to look at her in the inky shadows.
‘You must forgive me if I sounded angry this evening,’ he said with a tenderness in his voice that she had not heard before, ‘it’s just that I care about this part of the world, this village, very much.’
Belinda stumbled on a pebble and instantly she felt Jacob’s arm support her, then felt it slide around her waist. She began to pull away but his grip increased and she admitted to herself that it felt strangely comforting.
‘It’s just that one sees so much destruction these days,’ he continued, a new strength and determination in his voice. ‘Destruction of the environment, family houses destroyed to make way for mean little hovels. Whole farms disappear, farms that have been in the one family for generations.’
‘You’re an environmentalist,’ declared Belinda, enjoying the closeness of his firm body. Perhaps she had been wrong. There was another side to him, a depth she hadn’t expected.
Jacob snorted. ‘That’s a fancy new label invented by journalists. I just care for the land, for the history, and want to see that history and the land respected.’
They arrived at Belinda’s gate and with the aid of the torch negotiated their way through the weeds and shrubs to the front door. His comforting arm never left her, guiding her through the labyrinth of twisted branches and grasping foliage.
The house was glacial with winter drafts and Jacob found a few dry logs and kindled a fire. Belinda threw some blankets over the old divan.
‘I’ll sleep here again tonight,’ she said, ‘the bedrooms are freezing.’
The orange flames lit the musty room, driving back the shadows and adding an illusionary gilt edge to the Victorian furnishings. Jacob squatted before the blaze, feeding it further logs.
‘Do you really think you’ll sell?’
Belinda sank down on the sofa. She felt too weary to resume this argument.
‘Oh, not again, Jacob. Give me a break, please.’
He turned to look at her and the firelight turned his fair hair scarlet. In the flickering shadows she could see his pale eyes sparkle, but she could also see within his eyes an urge and a need, the same impulse and demand that, inexplicably, she felt take hold of her. He leant over her and bent his head to hers, his lips brushing tantalisingly against hers. For a brief moment Belinda resisted him, was prepared to reject him and push him away, but the urgency of his lips increased and, with surprise, she felt herself respond and she opened her lips to receive the fever of his kiss.
His urgency strengthened and she returned his passion. His mouth moved to her cheek and seductively ventured to her neck and to her breasts. She knew that in a moment or two she would not be able to stop, that she would succumb to his urgent need and with gentle hands she thrust him away.
‘We must stop,’ she whispered huskily.
He swallowed hard and nodded. For a moment they both fought to control their emotion and then Jacob slowly stood before her.
‘Thank you for seeing me home,’ she said softly.
He turned to her and his eyes slid a yearning glance over her breasts and slowly, tenderly, back to her face. He smiled.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow?’
A sudden wariness took hold of Belinda and she shrugged. ‘Perhaps. We’ll see,’ she replied in an offhand manner. ‘Good night, Jacob … and thank you.’
He held her look for a moment, then nodded and stepped out into the black void of the night.
Belinda drew in a deep breath and sank down onto the sofa. She stirred the fire with a twig and elfin sparkles went spiralling upwards. Her breathing was heavy and she felt light-headed.
‘What am I doing?’ she asked herself. ‘This morning I couldn’t stand the man, and here I am kissing him.’ She stood and, with an angry movement, threw the covers back off the divan. ‘I must be losing my reason.’
The shutters were still open. As she began to pull them closed, she looked out into the night and saw the lights of the next-door cottage. The downstairs lamps went out and in a moment the upstairs bedroom windows were illuminated.
She thought back over the evening’s conversation and the description of her aunt’s solitary life. She felt that both brother and sister were too eager to impress upon her the aloofness of her aunt.
Too anxious to convince her that they had no contact with the old lady.
Jacob’s silhouette appeared briefly at a window and the light was extinguished. Her neighbour’s cottage melted into the black night.
‘He may deny it, but Jacob knows the meaning of “Lancelot Bro…”,’ Belinda muttered as she violently closed the shutters with a bang, reducing her world down to the confines of the dusty room.
It was four weeks before Belinda returned to the village. As she lay in bed on her last night in London she recalled that she would be knee-deep in brooms and mops if she were to take up Rosemary’s suggestion.
‘I only hope I’ve made the right decision,’ she yawned as she turned out the light, ‘a bit late now though, if I haven’t.’ All her belongings were packed and stood waiting silently in the hall.
She had just drifted off into an apprehensive sleep when she was woken by the piercing ring of the telephone.
She switched on the light and noticed that it was well past midnight.
‘Hello?’ she croaked, her voice full of postponed slumber. Jacob’s over-cheerful voice crackled down the telephone wire.
‘Is that you, Belinda?’
‘Who is this?’ she demanded gruffly, even though she knew full well who it was. The nerve of this man. Calling at some ungodly hour. Then a frightful thought struck her. The cottage. It was on fire. Incinerated. And she hadn’t yet renewed the insurance policy.
‘It’s me, Jacob, I was calling about …’
‘The cottage,’ interrupted Belinda, now wide awake and struggling with one arm to pull on her dressing gown. ‘Is it all right? How badly damaged is it?’
There was a confused silence at the other end of the phone, then Jacob replied in a perplexed voice, ‘Damaged? There’s no damage that I know of. Why should you think there would be?’
‘Well if nothing is wrong, why on earth are you ringing at this hour?’ Belinda said crossly.
‘Rosie told me you were arriving tomorrow, and I thought that, seeing you probably had a few cases and belongings, I would drive up, collect you and bring you down in the truck.’
Belinda drew herself upright. ‘I can manage very happily, thank you, Jacob. I have everything under control.’
He chuckled down the phone. ‘Yes, I’m sure you have, however don’t you think it would be much more pleasant to drive down to the village with me?’
‘I’ve made arrangements for a freight van to collect my boxes and I am going down by train, Jacob. As I told you, it is all under control. All organised.’
‘Well, un-organise it. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll pick you up at your flat, Rosemary gave me the address, and we’ll take a leisurely drive back here, stop off at a pub I know for a tasty lunch, and have you back in the cottage in time for tea. How does that sound?’
Belinda sighed. ‘But Jacob, I already have the van booked to pick up my belongings.’<
br />
‘Well, cancel it. Be ready at ten. I won’t take no for an answer.’
There was a click and the line went dead. Belinda dropped the receiver and sank onto the bed.
‘Well, really. The insolence of the man. He’s got more front than Selfridges.’
Yet, even as she muttered the words, she felt herself relax and a pleasant feeling of anticipation engulfed her. Anyway, he will be handy for carrying the luggage. She smiled to herself as she put out the light. But the moonlight was creeping in through her window and the clock chimed four before her eyes closed and she slept.
The air grew warmer the further west they travelled and Belinda opened the window allowing the breeze to whip her dark hair away from her face. She welcomed the pastoral scents after the petroleum fumes and grime laden air of South Kensington.
‘Rather than take the motorway I thought we should go by the back roads that take us through some of the countryside. After all, what can you see from the motorway other than the car in front and back of you?’
‘But this way will take forever, Jacob!’ cried Belinda.‘We won’t get there until all hours.’
‘What’s so important about getting there in a hurry, Belinda? You’re leaving London behind, you know. You don’t have to clock-watch in Milford; it’s the country. We do things differently there.’
‘You certainly do,’ Belinda said grumpily, ‘things like kidnapping.’ Jacob shifted gears and leant back in his seat, sighing and shaking his head.
‘Boy, you really get uptight, don’t you? And so easily. I can see that we will have to teach you to relax once we get you to the village.’
‘If you get me to the village. At this rate, I’ll have a tour of Great Britain before I ever see it.’
Jacob shook his head. ‘Not a tour of Great Britain, just a pocket of it. I want you to see some pretty countryside along the way. We’re going down through Wiltshire. Have you been to Salisbury before?’
Belinda shook her head.
‘What? You’ve never seen the cathedral? I can’t believe it. A pretty young English woman like you?’
‘I’m not English, I’m Australian.’
‘You don’t sound Australian.’
‘Well we don’t all talk like Crocodile Dundee and wear corks around our hats, you know. Actually I am English, but I was raised in Australia and spent most of my life there so I feel Australian.’ She leant back in her seat and gave an artificial yawn. ‘As a matter of fact, I was thinking that after I sell the cottage, I’ll probably go back to Melbourne. The money from the sale would come in handy there, and it’s such a good rate of exchange at the moment.’
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him stiffen, and smiled to herself as she realised that her teasing had irritated him. She now knew his Achilles heel. He hated the idea that she would sell the cottage.
Late afternoon found them wandering around the nave and Trinity Chapel of Salisbury cathedral and Jacob, a fountain of ecclesiastical and architectural knowledge, had been giving Belinda what amounted to a guided tour of the thirteenth century structure.
‘That stone,’ he said pointing to a plain black slab, ‘marks the spot where a shrine in honour of St Osmund stood. He was the bishop who built the original cathedral at Old Sarum.’
Belinda nodded sleepily. She’d heard of Sarum quite recently, she recalled, and she knew it was of some importance, but little sleep last night and the drive in the country had combined to make her drowsy. Jacob looked at her quizzically.
‘You do remember Old Sarum?’
‘Should I?’ queried Belinda stifling a yawn.
They made their way back to Jacob’s truck.
‘I showed you the ruins on the way here, and told you its history,’ he whispered testily as an elderly deacon shuffled by.
‘Hmm. I remember. Something about it being hit by lightning and rheumatic clergy moaning about the cold winds, so they rebuilt the cathedral here, am I right?’
‘Sometimes you act as though you’ve been hit by lightning,’ Jacob hissed as he turned away. Belinda shrugged.
‘Well, I’m sorry, Jacob. I live in this century, and while all that history is interesting, I can’t see why I should be expected to drool just because you happen to think its exciting.’
‘Do you know your trouble?’ asked Jacob as he clambered into the truck and angrily revved the engine.
‘No,’ sighed Belinda. ‘But I have an awful feeling you’re going to tell me.’
‘You lived too long in Australia. They have no history to speak of.’
He put his foot down hard on the accelerator and the truck lurched forward and onto the road that led to Bath. Belinda groaned.
‘Jacob, that is such a stupid statement, even from you.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he snapped, swerving to avoid a pothole in the road.
‘I mean that at times you behave like a child, and please slow down, you’ll run off the road and I do want to survive this trip so that I can get to live in my cottage. Look, I think it’s wonderful that the cathedrals and ruins are here and that you like them, but please don’t expect me to react with the same enthusiasm.’
‘You haven’t understood one little thing have you?’ he sneered.
Belinda looked bewildered. ‘I’m sorry, was I supposed to?’
Jacob braked sharply and pulled the car over to the side of the road. He switched off the engine and turned towards her, his face red with indignation.
‘I’ve shown you some of the most beautiful countryside and one of England’s loveliest cathedrals and you haven’t got the message.’
‘Message?’
Jacob nodded abruptly. ‘Yes. You saw the effect of history, of man’s efforts in architecture and the combined reward of retaining his history and his landscape.’
Belinda’s jaw dropped. ‘So that’s it,’ she gasped. ‘You’re still on about my retaining the cottage and restoring the garden – restoring it the way you want it to be.’
Jacob slumped exaggeratedly back into his seat and raised his arms. ‘Finally!’ he cried. ‘But not the way I want it, the way it was.’
‘Do you mean to tell me that you dragged me all over the country, just to try and convince me to do what you want?’ cried Belinda. ‘What you want to do with my property? Well, let me tell you Mr Aitkins, nothing will convince me now or ever to listen to what you have to say. Nothing!’
The drive to Bath was undertaken in a glacial silence and it was under darkening skies that the truck pulled up outside the cottage. Belinda jumped out of the cabin almost before the vehicle had come to a halt. Fumbling in her purse, she found the keys and flung open the front door.
The freezing air hit her with force and she shivered as she groped for the light switch. The electricity had been reconnected and a weak light washed over the frigid hall.
There were one or two letters on the floor near the door. One was from Mr Munro and the others from the local council. She looked out the window and saw Jacob unloading the boxes by the front gate. He dropped the last one heavily and clambered back into the truck. Belinda gasped in exasperation and dropping the letters, ran back out along the path. A tendril of a weed caught her foot and she fell headlong into a bush. There was a roar of laughter from the truck as Belinda pulled herself free from the foliage, her hair ruffled and a scratch on her arm. She glared at Jacob.
‘Well, don’t just sit there laughing like a hyena, help me get the boxes inside.’
Jacob shook his head and turned the ignition key. Belinda stared at him in disbelief.
‘That’s your problem, Miss Lawrence. You’re so efficient, I think you should be able to manage to get the contents inside.’
‘But it’s getting dark,’ wailed Belinda.
‘That it is, so you’d better get started.’ The truck moved off slowly. ‘Welcome to Milford, Miss Lawrence.’ Jacob sullenly gave a wave and drove on up the hill to his own cottage.
‘You brute,’ shouted Belinda a
fter the taillights, and kicked one of the boxes angrily.
Unfortunately it was a solid carton holding the works of Shakespeare and Dickens, and Belinda stubbed her toe. She let out a cry of pain.
Feeling miserable and close to tears she began to carry armfuls of her belongings inside, hobbling along on her injured foot and dumping them in a pile on the floor. She made her way to the long room with the intention of lighting the fire to warm the house. As she flung open the door she stopped in amazement.
The room was in chaos.
Drawers had been torn from cupboards. All the books from the bookcase were scattered about the room. Pictures had been torn from their frames.
Belinda gave a cry of exasperation. Instinctively she knew this was not the work of vandals.
Whoever had broken into her cottage was searching for something and she was convinced that that “something” had to do with the mysterious “Lancelot Bro…”.
***
Five
The stars were twinkling when the last armful of Belinda’s unpacked belongings hit the floor and she sank exhausted onto the sofa. Her arms were aching and her back sore but her mind was exhilarated with lurid thoughts of Jacob stretched on one of his mediaeval racks – slowly elongating.
With weary limbs she carried wood to the fireplace and collapsed in a frazzled heap in front of the soothing flames, aching, grubby and exceedingly lonely.
Back in London curtains would be going up in the theatres, nightclubs happily full of dancing people, restaurants serving gourmet food.
‘And I haven’t got a thing to eat,’ whimpered Belinda, tears of self-pity and frustration welling up.
After her discovery of the confusion in the long room, she had fearfully made her way upstairs. Even though this was her first night in her new home she felt the violation by the intruders as keenly as if she had lived there all her life. Her first thought was to run up the hill to Jacob, but her pride and her anger prevented her. Arming herself with an iron poker, she tentatively climbed the stairs.
Her worst fears were confirmed as she inspected the disarray in each bedroom. Beds had been stripped and contents of cupboards flung on the floor. There wasn’t one piece of furniture that had not been violated.
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