by Anne Mather
Straightening, she looked down at him tensely, trying to dispel the unwilling sense of responsibility she was experiencing. Had his leg been paining him? Was that why he had come downstairs to find a book? And why had he needed the whisky? She had never known him get drunk before. But then, she acknowledged bitterly, there were a lot of things she had not known about him, so why should one more be of any surprise to her?
He was still fully dressed, in the dark green velvet pants and waistcoat he had worn over the white silk shirt for dinner. There was no sign of his jacket, which he had apparently shed upstairs, and his tie, too, had been abandoned, to facilitate the unfastening of his shirt. With his dark hair disordered and untidy, and his lean intelligent features softened in sleep, he seemed curiously defenceless, and Rachel steeled her heart. It was too soon after her recollection of what they had been to one another for her to view him objectively, and his reclining indolence reminded her vividly of the mornings she had awakened to find him beside her. She remembered him awakening her with kisses, making love before it was hardly light, then sleeping until mid-morning, when he would drag himself up and out to the studios. She could not imagine herself ever having that kind of relationship with anybody else, and even knowing him for the devil he was, she perceived the ache inside her, and knew what it presaged.
‘Merry Christmas!’
She was unaware his eyes had opened, and when he spoke to her she started away, folding her arms about the book and holding it half protectively to her chest.
‘M—Merry Christmas,’ she responded, moving her shoulders awkwardly. ‘I—why—you’re up early this morning.’
His expression conveyed that he knew that she was skating round the truth, and grimacing, he sat up, swinging his stiffened legs to the floor. ‘God, it’s cold!’ he muttered, as an involuntary shudder passed over him. ‘Is Maisie about yet? I could surely use a cup of tea.’
Rachel glanced over her shoulder. ‘I’ll go and see, if you like.’ Then, reluctantly: ‘You should have used a blanket. It’s crazy to fall asleep uncovered at this time of year. You could catch your death of cold!’
‘I thought I was just supposed to have got up,’ Jaime remarked laconically, and she shifted uncomfortably. And as if satisfied that he had disconcerted her, he added: ‘I was reinforced with a drop of the hard stuff.’ He frowned. ‘I guess I must have dropped off.’
‘Passed out, more likely,’ retorted Rachel vehemently. ‘There’s an empty bottle of Scotch beneath the sofa. I doubt there was just a ‘drop’ in it when you sat down.’
‘We have been a busy little bee, haven’t we?’ Jaime regarded her beneath lowered lids. ‘What business is it of yours if I choose to indulge my weaknesses? This is my home—and my Scotch!’
Rachel flushed. ‘It’s no business of mine, of course,’ she admitted stiffly, unfolding her arms from around the book and setting it down carefully on the edge of the bookshelf beside her. She hesitated. ‘I—er—I’ll go and see about some tea. I think I can hear—’
‘No, wait!’ With a stifled oath, Jaime struggled up from the sofa, and dragged himself with difficulty towards her. ‘What I said about this being my home wasn’t meant to sound the way it did. You know you’re as welcome here as I am, any time.’
‘Thank you, you don’t have to explain yourself to me,’ she responded tautly, holding herself rigidly in front of him. ‘I know how welcome your parents have made me. And I appreciate it. But it is your home, you’re correct, and I had no right to pass any criticism—’
‘Rachel, I’m tired, that’s all,’ he muttered roughly. ‘And I guess I don’t always choose the right words.’ He shook his head. ‘I drank because I couldn’t sleep, does that excuse me?’ He clenched his fists. ‘Just tell me, how the hell was I supposed to sleep after what happened yesterday afternoon?’
Rachel moved automatically towards the door. She didn’t trust him in this mood, and of a certainty, she didn’t trust herself. With a muffled word of explanation she went to find Maisie, and glimpsed, over her shoulder, the weary way Jaime hunched his shoulders, as he flung himself back on to the sofa.
Breakfast was a family meal, when all the presents were exchanged. Rachel, who had had no foreknowledge of Jaime’s presence, had only been able to buy him a box containing shaving soap and aftershave lotion at the village shop the previous day, but she had a scarf for Robert, some French perfume for Liz, chocolates for Robin and Nancy, and a cuddly toy for the baby.
She was surprised and touched by the present the Shards gave her. It was an oval cameo brooch, obviously very old, but in beautiful condition, with the words: ‘To Amy, with love’ engraved on the back.
‘It’s been in my family for generations,’ Liz confided, after Rachel had given them both a rather emotional embrace. ‘It belonged to my great-grandmother, originally, and it’s been passed down from mother to daughter for the last hundred years or so.’ She smiled. ‘And as I don’t have a daughter to give it to, I thought you might like to have it.’
Rachel was overwhelmed, but she glanced rather doubtfully at Nancy, and Liz intercepted her uncertainty.
‘We’ve given Nancy Grandmother’s pearls,’ she said, understanding perfectly how Rachel must be feeling. ‘But I wanted you to have the brooch. I was sure you’d appreciate it.
‘Oh, I do,’ Rachel found Jaime’s eyes upon her, but couldn’t meet their intent appraisal. Indeed, she had not seen him since his impassioned denunciation in the library. She had asked Maisie to take him his tea, while she peeled mushrooms in the kitchen, and if the housekeeper found it strange that their guest preferred such a menial task to serving her employer’s eldest son, she kept her opinion to herself.
But now Rachel could not avoid his attention, and she was relieved when Liz exclaimed at the present Jaime had brought her, and passed the delicate gold wristwatch around the table for everyone to see.
Robin and Nancy gave Rachel some handkerchiefs, and she thanked them warmly before turning to the final package beside her plate. She knew from the handwriting on the card that accompanied it that this was tumbled with the fastening, apprehensive of what it might be. He had given his father and his brother cuff-links, and Nancy a silver bracelet, and she couldn’t imagine what he could have bought her, when he hadn’t even known she would be here until five days ago.
It was a ring. After the wrapping paper had fallen aside to reveal an incongruously large box, Rachel suspected it might be an ornament of some sort, possibly a souvenir from his unfortunate trip to Masota, but she was wrong. When the cardboard lid was removed, and the tissue paper proved to be only packing, she eventually discovered her quarry at the bottom of the box, wrapped simply in a scrap of blue velvet.
The ring was made of gold, with a ruby at its heart, and a handful of small diamonds to serve as its mounting. It was evidently valuable, and judging by the looks his family were exchanging, as much of a surprise to them as it had been to her, and Rachel felt hopelessly embarrassed.
‘Do you like it?’
It was Jaime who posed the question, and she looked at him reluctantly, striving for inspiration. ‘I—it’s very nice,’ she murmured, ‘but—but I can’t take it,’ she added quickly. ‘I never thought—I mean, I never expected anything like this, and—and honestly, I don’t know what to say.’
‘Try it on,’ advised Jaime flatly, pouring himself more coffee. ‘At least give me the satisfaction of seeing if it fits you.’
Rachel glanced doubtfully at his mother, but Liz nodded. ‘Yes, try it on, Rachel,’ she urged, ignoring Nancy’s disapproving expression, and with a helpless shrug of her shoulders, Rachel complied.
It was a tiny bit tight. The fingers of her right hand were infinitesimally broader then her left, but although the implication was obvious, Rachel refused to acknowledge it. She had no idea how or why Jaime should have bought her such an expensive present, and no matter how much she liked it, she could not keep it.
‘Oh, darling, it looks lovely!’ L
iz hadn’t an atom of envy in her body, and she stretched out her hand across the table to tilt Rachel’s fingers towards her. ‘Rob, isn’t it beautiful?’ Then to her son: ‘I bet you didn’t get this in England!’
‘It’s from Tiffanys, actually,’ remarked Jaime, throwing away the name of the famous New York jeweller’s without a second thought.
‘Tiffanys!’ exclaimed Nancy enviously. ‘Robin, why don’t you ever buy me anything like that?’
Rachel tugged off the ring again, as Robin made some good-natured complaint about over-paid journalists, and wrapped it back up in the blue velvet. ‘It—it was very kind of you, Jaime,’ she murmured, speaking with difficulty, ‘but really, it’s not anything I could accept.’
‘Why not?’
His brown eyes had darkened, putting her on the spot, and she realised he had given it to her in front of the others deliberately. ‘Because—well, because it’s too—expensive,’ she demurred uneasily. ‘You—you shouldn’t have spent your money on me.’
‘I didn’t!’
His response was careless, and Rachel glanced awkwardly round at the faces of his family. ‘What—what do you mean?’ she ventured. ‘You must have done. Unless—’ She forced a tight smile. ‘Unless you stole it.’
Jaime looked at her over the rim of his coffee cup, and she could not read his expression. ‘It’s like the brooch,’ he said at last, putting his cup back on its saucer. And as she arched her brows in some confusion, he added: ‘It’s not new. I’ve had it for—some time.’ He paused. ‘I forget why I bought it now.’
‘Even so—’ Rachel pushed the box towards him, but his superior strength propelled it back.
‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘It’s of no use to me. It fits you. Wear it—with my blessing.’
Rachel’s face was burning, and realising she could not go on arguing with him in front of his parents, she allowed the box to remain beside her plate. But her eyes still battled with his arrogance, until the mocking gleam of his defeated her.
After the breakfast dishes were cleared away, and baby Lisa had been fed, Liz suggested that the young people should go for a walk. ‘Jaime can’t of course,’ she said, looking at her elder son, who was still sitting at the table, ‘but you could go with them, Rob, while I help Maisie.’
Robert agreed, and the four of them set off, with the baby safely ensconced in her pram accompanying them. They took the cliff path this time, following the track which led around the curve of the headland, and trekked across an area of wild gorse and scrubland, that eventually gave on to a sandy cove. It was a way Rachel had once known intimately, having walked this way with Jaime many times in the past, and it took a deal of will power to keep those thoughts at bay, with the incident of the ring still uppermost in her thoughts.
Robert had charge of the pram, and as he started to ask Robin some questions regarding the steel works, Rachel found herself walking behind, with Nancy. The path was only wide enough for two to walk abreast, so the two girls fell into step together, neither of them being given much choice.
It was a cold frosty morning, but the sky was high and clear, and the sun made a little impression. It was invigorating to walk with its warmth on their backs, and the shifting waters of the North Sea beside them, and deciding it was up to her, Rachel tried to be friendly.
‘Lisa’s quite big for two months, isn’t she?’ she tendered, not really knowing much about babies, but impressed even so by the baby’s energy. ‘I expect she’ll be quite a handful when she gets older. Do you think she takes after Robin?’
Nancy shrugged, pushing her hands deeper into the pockets of the dark fur coat she was wearing. With her blonde hair, it was quite a contrast, and Rachel guessed she considered her appearance quite a lot.
‘I don’t know what Robin was like as a baby,’ Nancy retorted at last, when Rachel had begun to think she wasn’t going to answer her. ‘We’ve only been married for fifteen months. I didn’t even want to have a baby!’
‘Didn’t you?’ Rachel tried to be sympathetic. ‘You mean—straight away, I suppose.’
‘No. I’m not the maternal type!’ Nancy was scornful. ‘But men are so beastly selfish, and before I knew where I was, she was on the way.’
‘I see.’ Rachel absorbed this thoughtfully. ‘Well, never mind, I’m sure you’ll know better next time.’
‘Yes.’ Nancy hunched her shoulders. ‘Only it’s such a rotten business. I think men should take care of that sort of thing, don’t you?’
Rachel controlled her colour with difficulty, and made a dismissing gesture. ‘I suppose it depends on the individual,’ she said carefully. ‘You can always get advice on the subject.’
‘Advice!’ Nancy was contemptuous. ‘Oh, I’ve had advice, all right. But who wants to take their ghastly pills? I don’t. They make me feel so sick.’
Rachel bit her lip. ‘Well, I think you ought to take more advice,’ she said seriously. ‘There are various pills on the market. What you’ve been taking obviously isn’t your type. I should try again.’
Nancy eyed her maliciously. ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Did you and Jaime—you know?’
Rachel squared her shoulders. ‘I’d really rather not discuss it,’ she declared firmly. ‘Is that an oil tanker out there, do you think?’
Nancy didn’t take the hint. ‘Robin says you and his brother used to be really close,’ she persisted slyly. ‘I don’t blame you, you know. He’s really attractive, isn’t he? Sort of—sexy, but clever with it.’
‘Really, Nancy, I don’t think—’
‘Oh, don’t get on your high horse with me, Rachel. Robin’s told me all about you. How you and Jaime went around together for almost three years. How he brought you up here to meet his parents. You can’t tell me you kept his interest for that long without getting into bed with him! I just won’t believe you.’ She laughed rather enviously. ‘And who’d want to stop him?’ She paused, then added in an undertone: ‘Is he good?’
‘Nancy!’ Rachel was astounded, but the younger girl only pulled a face.
‘Well! At least you kept your figure. Have you any idea how awful it is to swell up like a big balloon!’
Rachel had to smile. In some ways, Nancy was still very naïve. And besides, she acknowledged with a pang, there was a time when she had been tempted to let herself get pregnant. She had wanted Jaime’s baby so much, and contrary to Nancy’s supposition, he had relied on her completely in that way. But common sense, and her father’s frailty, had prevailed, and afterwards it was too late…
‘That’s a beautiful ring he gave you, isn’t it?’ Nancy continued now, as they began the descent to the cove. ‘It must have cost a lot of money.’ She hesitated. ‘Are you two back together again?’
‘No!’ Rachel spoke vehemently, glad that the colour in her face could be attributed to the wind, and was unutterably relieved when Robert turned and urged them to catch up with him and Robin.
Lunch was ready by the time they got back, a cold buffet-type meal, served in the morning room. Christmas dinner would be served that evening, after the Shards’ other guests had arrived, and Liz explained to Rachel that they would be fourteen altogether.
‘You haven’t met Rob’s director, Bernard Hylton, have you?’ she asked, as Rachel was helping her to lay the dining room table, specially extended for the occasion. ‘I think you’ll like the Hyltons. They’re a nice couple. And their daughter, Angela, must be about your age.’
‘Is she coming with them?’ Rachel enquired, sorting knives and forks, and Liz nodded.
‘They have a son, too, but he won’t be joining us. He got married a few months ago, and he and his wife are spending Christmas with her parents.’
‘Well, that’s nine,’ said Rachel, counting the six of them, and the three Hyltons. ‘Who else ought I to know?’
Liz stopped what she was doing to consider. ‘You know Mr Conway, of course. He and his wife will be joining us. And the Mannings.’ She mentioned
the name of the local doctor. ‘Oh, and their son, Patrick. Just to even the numbers.’
Rachel inclined her head. ‘What time are they likely to arrive?’
Liz began folding napkins. ‘Well, the Mannings and Mr Conway won’t be here until after seven, but I should think Bernard and Alice will be here in time for tea.’
‘That’s—Mr and Mrs Hylton?’ Rachel was trying to remember names.
‘And Angela,’ agreed Liz, smiling, and patted the girl’s arm affectionately as she went towards the door. ‘You’re being a big help, darling, and I’m grateful. What with the baby and everything, Nancy doesn’t have the time to help out. But I know I can rely on you.’
Rachel returned her smile. ‘It’s the least I can do,’ she replied, really meaning it. ‘I could have spent Christmas alone.’
Liz hesitated. ‘So—you and Jaime; it’s not been as bad as you expected?’
Rachel bent her head. ‘We’re civil to one another.’
‘I noticed that.’ Liz paused. ‘But I also noticed that you left his gift on the table in the morning room. I put it in your room before lunch.’
‘Oh, Liz—’
‘At least, leave it there for the time being,’ Liz appealed urgently. ‘I’d rather not leave a valuable ring like that lying around, and I know Jaime won’t take it back.’
Rachel sighed, but Jaime’s mother looked so anxious, she could not disappoint her. ‘All right,’ she said, without rancour, and Liz squeezed her shoulders before hurrying away.
The table was finished, and Rachel admired their handiwork before leaving the room. The centre piece of holly and mistletoe, and white Christmas roses, was flanked by tall red candles in silver candlesticks, just waiting to be lighted. There were red napkins, vivid on white damask, silver cutlery, polished and gleaming, and long-stemmed crystal glasses, cut to diffuse the light. When the food was served and the wine was poured, it could not look any better then it did at present, she thought, with some satisfaction, and decided there were pleasures to be found in simple things that she had hardly apprehended.