‘I was saying—’ he looked at her closed eyes and sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter. Wake up, you’ve got to go to bed.’
Chapter 19
Mary’s filly had proved a dud. No one ever said as much and she was not offered for sale but her few outings had been dismal in the extreme. She had no enthusiasm for a fence over three foot high and her gentle nature made her a quiet and placid hunter, despised by Brogan who liked his mounts to have fire. They called her Spindrift, in Brogan’s view a waste of a pretty name but he was careful of hurting Mary’s feelings. When Mary asked if she could take her out one day no one raised any objections, it was tacitly acknowledged that this was one horse she could not spoil.
They trotted down the lane one close, dull day, each relishing the freedom. Mary glanced behind, half expecting to see Jet and was appalled to recognise the galumphing form of Murphy who was taking his role as faithful companion seriously these days. He had no road sense and her carefree feelings evaporated with the need to bellow furiously at him every time a tractor passed. Spindrift merely pricked her ears delicately. They took the bridlepath that had proved disastrous so many months before with Merlin, but this time rider and mount were in perfect accord, neither wishing to set the world alight. Confidence abounding, they jumped a small hedge at a thin place and trotted along the headland of a cornfield, taking a short cut home. To her surprise Mary saw a man on a heavy grey riding towards her and she arranged her face in a noncommittal smile.
‘Good morning,’ she murmured as they passed, noting that the man was riding extremely badly despite his handmade boots and new-looking riding mac. She had gone no more than a few yards past when there was an eruption of barks and curses and she turned to see the rider sitting in the corn with Murphy gnawing one of his boots while the horse was a little further on, catching up on breakfast.
‘I do so apologise,’ she said worriedly as she jumped from her horse and helped him up. He wiped a hand over his face and looked at her, registering first surprise and then dazzlement in a way that made her blush.
‘Oh really - it’s nothing,’ he stammered, trying to hide the toothmarks on his boot. He was in his middle thirties, slightly plump with an open, cheerful face.
‘Murphy isn’t very bright I’m afraid and he had a nasty experience a little while ago. He doesn’t like men very much, thinks they’re all going to attack me.’
‘I can see why!’ he said ingenuously and Mary recoiled and went to catch the grey. ‘I mean - oh I say, that sounded awfully rude - perhaps I’d better introduce myself, my name’s Jonathan Mayhew, I’ve taken a cottage in the village.’
‘Are you the solicitor? My cleaning lady told me about you. You intend to hunt, I hear.’
‘Good heavens, word does travel. Yes, I’m trying to get this chap fit. He’s at livery, I’ve only had him a couple of weeks.’
Mary ran a practised eye over the big animal, roman nosed and over at the knee but with a kind eye. ‘Looks a good sort,’ she commented.
‘I say, do you think so? His name’s Jason.’ Mary warmed to Mr Mayhew, he was refreshingly naive, a rarity in the horse world. ‘I’m sure he’ll look after you. I’m hoping to do some hunting myself this season, if I can persuade someone to look after the children.’
Her companion glanced at her left hand and his face fell. Mary giggled to herself as she went to mount Spindrift, standing quietly, the perfect lady. Apologising again, she called Murphy and rode off, leaving Mr Mayhew holding the grey. A surreptitious glance behind when she reached the end of the field revealed the poor man going round and round in circles as he tried to mount and eventually, hot and bothered, leading the horse to a convenient tree stump.
Her spirits soared as she rode home, she felt young, desirable and vigorous. Things might work out in the end and nothing revives one so much as admiration, she thought happily. She had been a household drudge for too long, it was time she began to broaden her horizons and she would begin in the hunting field, watching Mr Mayhew fall off. That evening she gave Brogan a cheque. ‘What’s this?’ he asked blankly.
‘For Spindrift. I’m buying her back, you never really wanted her anyway and she suits me beautifully.’
‘Damn it, you don’t—’ he could not continue and ran a hand over his face. ‘I’ve had enough Mary,’ he said, his voice sounding thick ‘We can’t go on like this.’
She sat rigid with fright waiting for him to tell her that baby or no baby, they were finished. The cheque had been intended to please him, to show that her escape fund was no longer so precious to her. There was a knock on the kitchen door. It was Fred.
‘Sorry to break in on your evening,’ he said cheerfully, ‘but I’ve a few things I’d like to discuss Paddy. Shall we sit down?’
‘It’s not convenient,’ snarled Patrick.
‘Well, you know me, business always comes first and I like the people working for me to look at things that way too. Needs must.’ He was in a bulldozing mood.
‘But I don’t work for you, do I Fred? Or has the arrangement changed?’
‘Don’t let’s split hairs, my boy, there’s work to be done. Now, I’ve some figures here I’d like you to look at.’ He charged on, and reluctantly Pat bent his head to the papers in front of him.
After a time Fred looked up. ‘Mary, my dear, how about a drink?’
Patrick drew a short, annoyed breath.
‘Of course, Fred.’ Mary was in no mood to argue, she had plummeted from the heights to the depths in less than a minute and wanted only to go to bed and avoid further conversation with Patrick.
‘Now, I’ve been hearing rumours,’ said Fred as she placed bottle and glasses on the table, for Fred was not one for subtlety in his drinking. ‘About you, Paddy. And me.’ He sipped his drink and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs with the air of one who is about to utter words of greatness. ‘As you know I’m not one to keep things hidden, I put my cards on the table and I expect everyone else to do the same. I can’t help it, it’s the way I am, Yorkshire through and through.’
‘Get on with it Fred,’ groaned Patrick, who listened to Fred’s bluff Yorkshireman act about twice a week, lately with increasing impatience. ‘I hear that you’ve approached other sponsors.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Sylvia Priestley.’
Mary stiffened and felt the colour drain from her face. Sylvia! No wonder Patrick wanted to talk about not ‘going on like this’. He said nothing to her and then went and confided in that woman. It was too much. She sat and shivered inside, only half listening to the conversation.
‘I don’t see why you should believe anything she tells you. Anyway Fred, you had only to ask me.’
‘As I am doing. What’s going on, Pat? Are you going to leave me in the lurch?’
‘You know me better than that. The contract comes up for renewal every year and you’ve as much right to terminate it as I have. I admit, now that this business with Tim has been settled and the papers have booked me as Mr Clean, things are starting to look a bit different. I don’t know what I shall do in the long term. But so far I’m happy. Will that suit you?’
‘I suppose it’ll have to.’ Fred’s meek acceptance owed something to the fact that Pat’s horses were flying and Fred did want to be on television at the Christmas show. Someone might interview him.
‘Well then, that’s settled. Have another drink,’ said Patrick and poured a large glass for both of them. ‘Did you hear about the row over the new type of competition?’ He launched into a long tale of intrigue and dispute and Mary slid from the room. When Patrick finally came to bed he was drunk and fell asleep half dressed and snoring.
On the day Edna received her engagement ring it was raining and everyone was gathered in the kitchen drinking coffee and feeling bored. When she sidled in, blushing, they all knew what had happened.
‘Oh Edna! Can I see?’ demanded Mary, and Edna ducked her head, holding out her left hand. Sam’s choice was an excellent one
for the large solitaire was magnificent on the strong, brown finger where anything smaller would have looked apologetic. Nonetheless Mary suspected that she was looking at the best part of a combine harvester.
‘Let’s have a look,’ said Brogan as Susan, Mary, and the new girl, Jane, oohed and aahed. ‘Good grief girl, I should think it’s what the Titanic hit.’
‘It’s lovely,’ said Mary and stared meaningfully at Patrick, who rose to the occasion and fetched a bottle of champagne. He teased Edna in a heavy-handed way that she found easy to cope with. ‘When’s the big day then? When does he get his ball and chain?’
‘October I think,’ she replied shyly. ‘You’re all invited, the church in the village.’
‘Ooh, a white wedding,’ said Susan. ‘Can I help you choose your dress?’
‘I thought - not white, just a suit or something.’
‘I’ll help you choose,’ said Mary firmly, determined that on this one day Edna should look her best.
York Minster dominates the city, huge and impressive, almost too magnificent to be real. The summer plague of tourists was abating when Edna and Mary stopped opposite the main entrance to plan their route round the shops and they, like most of the locals, hardly spared it a glance. Only occasionally would Mary stop and marvel at the creamy, unblemished stonework alive with carving and wonder at its age. Today she had other, weightier matters on her mind; Edna’s wardrobe.
‘I hate buying clothes,’ Edna was grumbling. ‘I always feel so stupid, there’s never anything in my size and the shop girls sneer.’
‘We all hate buying clothes and shop girls always sneer, it’s the nature of the beast,’ replied Mary firmly. ‘Come along, we haven’t got all day.’ She frogmarched her briskly down Stonegate and into an elegant boutique.
‘I can’t go in here,’ hissed Edna, ‘it’s far too expensive.’
‘That’s where you’ve been going wrong,’ said Mary. ‘Cheap shops always skimp, here the things should fit.’
But it was several hours and many shops later before Edna was outfitted to Mary’s satisfaction. She had to be firmly steered away from a spotted suit with a peplum that made her look like a maypole and bodily dragged from a tweed ensemble more suited to a day at a horse trial, but in the end both she and Mary were pleased. They had chosen a blouse in brown silk, loose fitting, long in the sleeve with a tie neck, to be worn underneath a cream wool suit, the skirt flared to mid-calf, the jacket boxy. Mary had ignored Edna’s plea for low heels and had bought Italian leather court shoes that made even Edna’s muscly legs look slender, and as a last frivolous touch there was a wide-brimmed hat, its trailing ribbons matching the blouse.
‘You can choose the flowers yourself,’ said Mary, sinking exhausted into the van’s dilapidated front seat. ‘And your honeymoon nightie, get something sexy.’
‘Oh, but I couldn’t,’ said Edna, blushing.
Mary gave her a searching glance and climbed out of the car. ‘I deserve a medal,’ she muttered as they marched into the lingerie department of York’s most exclusive store. They emerged with a length of pale blue lace, the only respectable parts of which were the shoulder straps.
Her only reward was the happy smile on Edna’s face and the exuberance with which she flung herself into the arrangements for the wedding. Mary nobly offered to accommodate Edna’s parents, much to Pat’s horror.
‘My parents, her parents, the kids, this place is like the Dorchester! Are you sure there’s no one else you’d like to put up?’
‘Well I had to offer,’ she remonstrated.
‘Why?’
‘Oh don’t be difficult. I must go and feed the calves.’
In reality she was protecting herself against too much contact with Patrick and her policy was working so well that her only intimate moments with him were in bed. If he showed any inclination to talk personally she pleaded exhaustion and feigned sleep or undressed with studied languor. If that failed to silence him she would twine her arms around his neck, touch his lips with her tongue and undulate her pelvis against him. So far this had been entirely successful, although waking one morning with teethmarks on her breasts and in a tangled knot of bedclothes she wondered who was winning. She rolled towards the naked form beside her, lightly kissing the brown muscled shoulder and running a hand down the hollow of his spine.
‘It’s time to get up.’
Patrick groaned. ‘I can’t, I’m shagged out. I hope the hell you enjoyed it, it’s killing me.’
‘You’re getting old. And yes, thank you, I did enjoy it. Lots.’ She rumpled his hair and slipped out of bed, but he caught her arm.
‘Mary, there’s something I want to talk to you about because I’m not happy with the way things are.’
She pulled roughly away from him and almost ran to the bathroom. ‘Later, Pat please, I’ve got to rush, it’s Anna’s playgroup morning. Over breakfast perhaps.’
‘But Mary…’ the sound of the shower drowned his voice. He aimed a violent punch at the pillow and bruised his knuckles on the bedhead beneath.
Cub-hunting began in the dying days of summer, the leaves still on the trees and the occasional field of corn yet uncut. But the dawns were crisp and the mists hung low on the stubble as Mary hacked along the lanes, hinting at the lean times to come. The year had yielded richly, barns and haystores were full, but these were feeble bulwarks against what winter might bring. It was not to be thought of, today at least. Mary turned Spindrift into a field, taking her at a slow canter towards the small group of riders gathered round the wood. Before the season proper began one came cub-hunting for the pleasure of a dawn ride and the prospect of watching hounds learn their trade, not for the jumping and galloping of November. Jonathan Mayhew turned his big grey towards Mary as she rode up, his face a beam of delight.
‘Hello! I thought you might be out today. Bit colder than last week, don’t you think?’
She agreed and they talked pleasantly of nothing, hounds, horses, the weather. He was always there when she went out and she knew that if she did not appear he considered his day wasted, but she tried very hard not to encourage him.
After a slow hack from one covert to another she made for home, and Mayhew rode with her. As they turned into the lane, a car drew up and Mary saw that it was Brogan.
‘Patrick! Are you off to see Fred? This is Mr Mayhew, the solicitor I told you about. Jonathan, this is Patrick Brogan.’
‘How do you do,’ said Mayhew, drumming his heels ineffectually against Jason’s sides in an attempt to persuade him to walk up. ‘I often watch you on television.’
Patrick’s face was bleak. ‘I dare say. Mary, you’re wanted at home, the baby’s yelling, Murphy’s been sick and Edna’s screaming at Susan. If Mr Mayhew - Jonathan - can spare you, that is. He’s obviously such a particular friend.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, we were only riding back together,’ said Mary in a low voice, but Patrick had flung himself into the car, driving off at breakneck speed.
‘Damn him to hell,’ said Mary softly. She turned to Mayhew who was looking bewildered. ‘I must go,’ she said curtly. ‘Be seeing you.’ She set off down the grass verge at a brisk canter.
The familiar grey walls of the farmstead were visible from some distance away and to Mary’s jaundiced eye they had all the bleakness of a prison. Waves of noise rose to meet her as she approached the back door, voices raised in argument and the wailing of a baby without hope of comfort.
‘I’m not the junior any longer and I don’t have to clean the tack,’ Susan was saying, shrill with the threat of tears.
‘You do what I tell you to do, and no argument,’ retorted Edna. ‘You’ve been getting slack, my girl, swanning around in the house wasting time—’
‘I can tell you—’ shrieked Susan.
‘And I can tell you that I want you out of my house,’ broke in Mary, striding into the room like an avenging fury. ‘While you two are arguing my baby is breaking his heart, and much you care about it. Get
out, get out, why don’t you all clean the tack since you’re all so obviously idle.’
She flung the door wide and both girls slunk into the yard. They had never before seen Mary so cross and it was alarming.
'Murphy’s been sick,’ said Susan apologetically.
‘I can see that for myself since no one’s bothered to clear it up,’ said Mary with withering point.
Her mood cast a pall over the house for the rest of the morning. She worked furiously, running through an endless mental argument with Patrick in which she made her points with stunning clarity. He was in the midst of a long and abject apology, courteously received by her, when the door opened and he was there. She could think of nothing to say.
‘Everything calmed down then?’
‘Of course. The girls have been feeding the dog chicken bones.’ She was cool, it was for him to apologise for embarrassing her like that. He nodded and strolled round the room, looking at old postcards on the dresser and turning over bills. Stupidly she wanted to cry, and blinked furiously, to do so would be weak.
‘I’m going away for a few days,’ he said suddenly and for a moment her mind was blank. ‘But your parents arrive at the end of the week!’
‘I’ll be back by then. There’s someone I want to see.’ Their eyes met and she knew he meant Sylvia. All thought of tears left her, anger was hot in her throat and she reached for her half-empty coffee mug and hurled it at him. It bounced off the wall gouging a lump from the plaster and she reached for another missile. The door closed as her fingers curled round the coffee grinder and she was left staring at it in her hand. She sat weakly at the table and thought about crying but now the tears would not come.
It was plain that he intended to break with her sooner or later and if she pushed him it would be sooner. He even had her replacement in mind, although he would probably head back to Ireland at the first opportunity. He might even argue about the custody of Daniel Patrick, and really was she a fit mother? An impoverished loose woman, hopelessly given to violence and without visible means of support. If a court failed to give the baby to Pat they would probably take him into care, and Anna and Ben as well!
A Summer Frost Page 22