Her flat tone and the use of Fran's first name had been intentional, to put her at a disadvantage, subtly reversing the role of employer and employee. In an attempt to counteract it, Fran said casually, 'Grant will be here in a moment—he's just gone to put the car away. Perhaps we could have some coffee. It's been a long journey.'
Mrs Matthews said, 'I've already taken the tray into the sitting room,' and Fran felt the malice behind her words. She didn't know where the sitting room was, as the other woman well knew. Determined not to ask she stayed silent until Mrs Matthews said grudgingly, 'I'll show you the way.'
She shook her head then, and said, 'No, it's quite all right, I'll wait for Grant.'
The dogs greeted him ecstatically, the two young ones racing madly round the hall, unable to contain their excitement, while Ruff quivered at his feet, her stump of a tail wagging furiously. Laughing as he gave them all a final pat, he said, 'Sorry, Matty, I should have said hello to you first. How are you?'
Unbending slightly, Mrs Matthews said, 'Well enough, Mr Grant,' adding, 'I've taken your coffee in,' as he picked up the suitcases again.
'Right, I'll have it first then.' He dumped the cases and Fran followed him into the room where the tray rested on a polished dark wood table. The housekeeper came too, but smoothly and pleasantly, Fran said, 'It's all right, Mrs Matthews, I'll see to it.'
The older woman sent her a glance which was perilously close to a glare, and when she had gone out, Grant said, 'Try to be a bit tactful with her at first. She's known you from a child so it's a slightly awkward situation.'
'I appreciate that, but perhaps you could tell her the same thing.'
Fran's reply came more sharply than she had intended, and she saw Grant frown before she turned away from him to pour the coffee. She took her cup over to the window and gazed out over the valley to the village on the far side. Normally the forge and her uncle's house would be visible from here, but it had begun to drizzle and a misty greyness obliterated the familiar scene. It had been a dismal day in London, but somehow the trees in the square outside the flat had never seemed as desolate as the view from this window now.
She let her eyes stray round the room instead. The embroidered satin cushion covers would be Julia's work, of course, the silver grey exactly right against the dark blue velvet of the suite, the blue embroidery a perfect match. She would have made the satin lampshade as well, with its discreet blue and silver trim.
She set her cup down so quickly that it rattled. Grant turned his head quickly at the sound and said, 'I'll take the luggage up then show you round.'
She nodded and tried to make her stiff facial muscles show some sign of enthusiasm. The rest of the house would be just as beautiful as this room and he would expect her to display pleasure in her new home. She couldn't let him know that she felt none—that the elegant room repelled her and made her feel an intruder, uninvited and unwanted.
She followed him on the tour with ever-lowering spirits. Julia was everywhere. When they reached the kitchen she stood in the doorway and silently stared round. This was where she had sat drinking her Coke with Grant all those years ago. Her memory of it was as sharp as though it had been yesterday, but nothing remained. Fitted units lined the wall once occupied by the old, solid fuel cooker, and the quarried floor was replaced by smooth, honey brown tiles. A hanging basket of plants trailed down luxuriantly beside the breakfast table in the alcove. Mrs Matthews had tended it lovingly for her departed mistress, Fran thought, her eyes dwelling on the glossy leaves.
The coldness inside her increasing, she accompanied Grant round the first floor. There were four other rooms apart from their own and Mrs Matthews' sitting room and bedroom. They were all large and airy and tastefully decorated, two of them with fourposters, though not as intricately carved as the one in their own room which Grant showed to her last. Julia had chosen red and cream in here—a thick, pale carpet, and the looped-back curtains of the bed and windows in a deep, jewel red.
She couldn't say anything. If she had spoken it would have been a frantic plea to Grant to take her away from here—back to London, anywhere away from the presence in this room she was expected to share with him. She even imagined she could smell her perfume still lingering in the carpet and fabrics where she had sat and walked and touched things. People often claimed they could smell perfume in haunted houses, but Julia wasn't dead, Fran thought wildly. She was alive—as alive as if she had only stepped out of this room the moment before they themselves entered.
She looked at the bed and was overcome with the same sickness she had felt when she had gone into the bedroom of the apartment before they were married. Only this time there would be no deliverance. This time she would lie in the bed and know she was resting on the same mattress, her head on the same pillow, her body beneath Grant's in the place where he had embraced Julia in the same extremity of passion.
Bile rose in her throat and she went into the bathroom and filled a toothmug with water to wash it down again. When she got back Grant had unlocked the cases and was hanging his own things in the wardrobe. She said, 'I'll do that,' and he relinquished them to her.
'Thanks. There are several people I have to ring, and I want to get myself organised in my study.'
Already he was involved, picking up his life from a few months before as though he had never been away. He would check on his horses and the farm, talk with his manager and his other friends, while she… what would she do? She could go down and help with the dinner, but her help wasn't needed and she would merely expose herself as a moderate and inexperienced cook before a woman who was ill-disposed towards her.
She opened up her own cases and crossed the room to inspect the other wardrobe. As she opened the doors, perfume wafted out strongly and she knew she hadn't imagined it before. There were only some blankets stored in a drawer, and primarily they had a clean, washed smell so it wasn't those. Perfume couldn't possibly linger for three years, and her lips tightening she went back to the bathroom and looked in the mirrored cabinets. As she had half-expected there was a partly used flagon of Arpège. A little welcoming gesture from Mrs Matthews, she thought bitterly.
When she went downstairs the dogs barked at her again, one of them growling threateningly when she tried to make overtures. Grant told her they were four when she asked him later on. So even the dogs would owe loyalty to her predecessor.
Dinner that night was excellent. Proffering an olive branch, Fran went to congratulate Mrs Matthews on the meal, but there was no lessening of hostility, and depressed, she went back to the sitting room where Grant was watching a current events programme on the television. The two young dogs were settled comfortably at his feet, but Ruff scratched at his leg, pleading to be allowed up beside him, and after a while, Fran said, 'Why don't you have her up?'
He rubbed his hand ruefully along the white, rough-coated back. 'She'll smother the settee in hairs.'
'They'll brush off,' Fran pointed out.
'If I let Ruff on the others will come as well,' he warned. 'Won't you mind?'
'If you have dogs you expect dog hairs,' she said, faintly surprised. 'It's the penalty you pay for the pleasure of their company.'
He continued to regard her for a few seconds longer, then suddenly smiled and clicked his fingers to Ruff. She jumped up immediately and rested her chin on his leg with a long sigh of contentment. The other dogs raised their heads, and Grant said, 'Come the other side while the space is still vacant.'
He was offering her an olive branch, she realised. With a rush of gladness she went into his encircling arm and for a while they watched the television, then his arm tightened and he turned his head to kiss her. His mouth on hers was light but lingering, a half-serious precursor to the lovemaking he anticipated later. Normally it would have aroused a warmth in her, and an equal readiness for what was to follow.
But now there was nothing. Her mind had gone on ahead, picturing the room upstairs, the big fourposter with its luxurious cover, and Julia,
her long hair spread loose across the pillow where she herself would be laying her head that night. The image was so clear it might have been something she had actually witnessed. It took hold of her mind, excluding all other thought, cancelling out the message to her brain that Grant's lips were sending, crowding out her reaction to the gentle caress of his hand on her breast.
He lifted his head, and his expression faintly enquiring, said, 'Tired?'
She nodded. 'Travelling always wears me out. I don't know why. Sitting there while someone else drives is hardly energetic.'
'Go to bed. I'll just watch the end of this, then I'll let the dogs out and lock up.'
She fell in with his suggestion but mounted the stairs slowly, unwilling to face the alien aura in the bedroom again. It would be better once this first night was over, she told herself. She was tired, and she had a nagging backache—she was letting everything affect her too much, and she would just have to learn to get over this revulsion. The temptation to pretend to be asleep when Grant came up was strong but she quelled it, then discovered the cause of the backache and realised circumstances had relieved her of the decision. With an ironic smile she donned one of her little-used nightdresses, and summoning all her resolution, climbed into the high bed.
It was worse than she had imagined. For a while she lay there, breathing in the faint but persistent scent of Arpège, then abruptly got out and opened the window. The night air chilled the room, but anything was better than that cloying suffocation. Trying to settle she switched off the light, but pictures formed in the darkness, scourging her, and she turned it on again. Through the open window she heard Grant quietly calling the dogs in, a nightly ritual that would soon be as familiar to her as it had been to Julia. No, not soon. Julia had been married to him for six years. Would she feel secure when she had reached that magic target herself? When she could notch up seven years, eight years, could she relax in the knowledge that she had passed her rival's score?
She was locked in a rigid tension when Grant came in. He spoke her name softly and she counterfeited a sleepy murmur in reply and lay listening as he got ready for bed. He got in beside her, then said wryly, 'Oh,' as his hand encountered the silk of her nightdress. Resting his hand on her hip, he kissed the back of her neck and whispered, 'That was bad timing. Tonight should have been our house-warming.'
She said sharply, 'It's always bad timing as far as you're concerned.'
There was a pause and he removed his hand and rolled on to his back. 'True,' he agreed in a colourless voice. 'But until now I always thought it was a view we shared.'
She could have bitten her tongue out for that acid retort. She said quickly, 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I feel a bit low and I'm touchy. Mrs Matthews rather got to me. She's never going to accept me…' Hastily she broke off, but she saw Grant's brows draw together and knew she might just as well have said, 'In place of Julia.'
'She's been here over twenty years and she's near retiring age. You'll have to make allowances—give her time to get used to you.'
'All right.' Fran tried to keep the stiffness from her voice, hiding her resentment that all the allowances were to be on her side only. It seemed that Mrs Matthews rated more consideration in his eyes than she did. She realised she was being childish, but a small core of grievance stayed with her as she settled down once more to try to sleep.
It stayed with her throughout the days which followed. Mrs Matthews continued to treat her with barely veiled contempt, and she had the household and the two dailies under her complete control. Fran insisted on washing her own clothes and Grant's, but it did little to fill her time, and sorting out cupboards and attics only brought fresh reminders of Julia. Several, she suspected, had been placed there deliberately—the photographs, some taken with Grant, some of Julia alone, a box of recipe cards in her clear, sloping writing, jigsaw puzzles of flowers and country gardens, a half-completed cushion cover matching those in the sitting room. She left them where she found them, but resolved that the first time Mrs Matthews took a holiday, out they would all go.
Since she had no transport until Grant brought her car from London, Ralph, the groom, dropped her in the village a few times to see her aunt and uncle. They were happy to see her, but she couldn't go too often, and in a desperate attempt to combat her boredom she began to teach herself to play the piano. The instrument was an impressive grand and she felt presumptuous as she practised scales and exercises from a tutor she found in the stool. Grant was a good pianist and grimaced at the discordant sounds she produced, but she persisted, undeterred.
He was taking the train to London in order to drive her car back, and Fran stood on the step to wave him off as he went with Ralph to the station. She watched as he stopped in the narrow lane to speak to the postman and receive his letters through the open window, then the postman plodded on up the slope. There was only one letter, a long brown envelope from the bank. Opening it she gave a cursory glance at the statement, then read it again, puzzled. It took a second for her to realise that it was Grant's name on the top, then she went cold. If the postman had given hers to Grant and he also opened it without noticing he would see that damning overdraft and the original date of it, all neatly printed out to confirm his suspicions.
For a moment she was too shaken to take in anything else, then the recurring standing order caught her eye. She read it with disbelief, then a gathering icy rage. If Grant could afford to give that amount to his ex-wife he could afford to give a lot more to his present one, and temper threatened to choke her as she recalled how he had asked her to limit her clothes spending.
Without stopping to think she went into the sitting room and burned the statement and envelope in the open fire. When Ralph returned, she got him to run her into town and bought some staggeringly expensive curtains for the bedroom. For the bed itself she chose white draperies, as different from Julia's red brocade as she could possibly find.
And the mattress could go as well, she decided grimly. And the sheets and the blankets and pillows and bedspread, and the stool where Julia had sat before the dressing table. If Grant found himself short this month as a result, his ex-wife would just have to wait a while for her money. She booked the alarming total to his account without a qualm, the store promised to have it all delivered the following week, and she defiantly took a taxi for the ten-mile journey home.
It didn't last of course. Nervous reaction had settled in by the time he returned two days later and she found herself studying his face, trying to judge if there was any difference in his manner. The existence of her overdraft might be paltry in comparison with her own discovery, but hers was one she had to keep to herself.
He kissed her in greeting and was apparently normal, but when they were preparing for bed and she emerged from the bathroom once more in her nightdress, he observed acidly, 'Either it's time you saw a doctor or you're telling me something.'
Unable to meet his eyes, she flushed. For over a week she had clung to the nightdress, using the unspoken signal to keep him at arm's length and postpone the moment she must eventually face.
'Which is it?' he demanded.
Feeling the colour flare higher, she said, 'Neither.' Grant's gaze became coldly assessing and she shrugged. 'It was different in the apartment where there were only the two of us. I don't feel comfortable at the thought of sleeping in just my skin with Mrs Matthews in the house.'
'That doesn't answer the real question,' he pointed out grimly.
For a second the urge to tell him the truth was almost uncontrollable. Wild, rash sentences formed in her brain. She wanted to attack him—to ask how he expected her to feel desire in this house, in this room, where the very air she breathed reminded her that she was only a substitute for another woman—to tell him it made her feel sick to sleep in the bed he had shared with his ex-wife, knowing he need only half-close his eyes until her features were blurred to him and he could imagine it was Julia still.
With a superhuman effort she forced the thoughts dow
n. Once spoken they could never be withdrawn and there was no hope for their marriage at all if she goaded Grant into abandoning his pretence and telling her things she had no wish to hear.
Still waiting for her reply he said, 'Well?'
Defeatedly she muttered, 'I don't know,' and his face enigmatic he watched her a moment longer then carried on undressing. She could sense anger beneath his controlled facade and when he got into bed it was all she could do not to flinch away from him, yet he wooed her as if she had been a reluctant virgin, at first only holding her, then kissing her throat and ears before covering her mouth with his. As he parted her lips a small spark lit in her and she returned the kiss. He smiled and began to caress her, moving his hands over her gently in the way that had always brought a slow build up of passion.
Perhaps if it had been dark the familiar tide would have enveloped her again, but she found herself staring at the red brocade curtains above her head and closed her eyes too late against the reality of where she was. The tiny flicker died and Grant felt the change. His lips became more urgent, his touch more coaxing as he used all his expertise, every art at his command, to revive her response and arouse her.
But her brain froze all reaction in her. After a while he raised his head, searching her face, and she touched her lips to his shoulder and whispered, 'It doesn't matter.'
When he moved to enter her she found she had been wrong—it did matter. Where previously her body had welcomed him, now it resisted, and what had been so easy was difficult and uncomfortable. She could not prevent an involuntary movement of retreat and Grant swore under his breath as he realised he was hurting her. She said, 'It's all right,' but he still hesitated until she drew him down on her. If she had shown any other sign of protest she knew he would not have continued.
Afterwards she suspected he wished he hadn't. Lying in the darkness he said harshly, 'My apologies for the rather juvenile ineptitude. The truth is that I've never made love before to a woman who was merely obliging me. We all live and learn.'
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