Yet she supposed that in her most secret heart she allowed all kinds of little hopes to take root. Like the garden, they also wanted weeding out before too much harm was done, she thought, smiling a little ruefully at her own fancies.
The breeze from the open window suddenly struck a chill and she went across to close it. She heard the sound of voices below, and looking down she saw Carne and Antonia walking through the garden. Antonia's arm was through his, and she was smiling up at him.
A handsome couple, Rowan told herself, closing the window with exaggerated care. Whatever Carne's motives for inviting her here, she had no doubt that everything, would work out to Antonia's ultimate advantage. Looking back, Rowan realised with a pang that her father had been able to refuse her nothing. But that was the kind of tribute which beauty like Antonia's would always be able to exact, she supposed.
And if they were in the garden, it meant the kitchen was empty and she could start preparations for dinner. On your way, Cinderella, she thought with a tiny grimace. Carne had been mistaken. That was a far more appropriate fairy tale for her, if one could have such a thing without the usual happy ending. Perhaps she ought to write an updated version of one where the stepmother walked off with the prince and the wood cutter's youngest daughter went in for social work. Now try laughing at that, she told herself grimly, and went downstairs.
She took time and trouble over her goulash, and it was in the oven and smelling delectable when Antonia reappeared.
'Can you amuse yourself this evening, sweetie?' she asked casually. 'Carne's taking me out to dinner.'
'But I've cooked dinner,' Rowan protested. 'I told you I was going to.'
Antonia shrugged. 'Then you'll be able to eat it, won't you? Don't try and impress Carne with home cooking, darling, it won't work. He's used to an international cuisine, as I thought you'd have had enough sense to guess.'
'He seemed tired. I didn't think he'd want to go out tonight,' Rowan said doggedly.
'Then you thought wrongly.' Antonia's voice was acid. 'He needs reviving, not mothering, thank you, so there's no need to wait up for us-with cocoa,' she added contemptuously.
Rowan flushed. 'I've no intention of waiting up at all. I hope you enjoy your evening.'
'I shall.' Antonia smiled and turned to the door, then paused and looked back at Rowan. 'You know, darling, if I didn't know you better, I'd swear you were a teeny bit jealous-and that would never do, would it?' She smiled again and left the room.
Rowan was sorely tempted to take the food and throw it in the kitchen bin, but apart from such an action being thoroughly wasteful, she was hungry in spite of her disappointment. She had intended to lay the dining room table, and find candles for the tall silver candlesticks, turning the meal into a small celebration. She supposed she should have guessed that Carne would want to celebrate in his own way, and in the company of his choice. After all, he had admitted earlier that he hadn't taken her presence into account when arranging for Antonia to come to Raven's Crag.
She looked down at her jeans and shirt in sudden dissatisfaction. She might be going to dine alone, but she could at least do so in a little style. She'd change into a dress, do her hair, put on some make-up.
When she went upstairs there was steam on the mirrors and tiled surfaces in the bathroom she shared with her stepmother, and the air was heavy with Antonia's perfume. She stripped and took a leisurely shower, then went back into her bedroom and put on a dark green dress with long sleeves, and a deep square neckline. It was too sophisticated for a sixteen-year-old, out if she was alone in the house she did not have to continue with that charade at least, she thought rather bitterly.
She hung around in her room until she heard the subdued roar of Carne's car engine leaving, and realised that must have been the distant thunder she had heard in her dream. Bu t she resisted the impulse to go to the window and watch them leave.
As soon as 'everything was quiet she made her way downstairs again and went into the kitchen. Opening the oven door, she peered rather disconsolately at the simmering meat. She supposed she should have realised that Antonia would have made her plans as soon as she found out Carne was at home, and that it was too much to hope that her stepmother would have bothered to acquaint her with them.
And why should she? Rowan was forced to acknowledge. After all, Antonia had never made any secret of her intentions where Carne was concerned. And she, Rowan, had no right to feel any sense of resentment or isolation as Antonia pursued her objectives.
And of course she wasn't really alone in the house. It only seemed like that.
With sudden decision, she shut the oven door and went out of the kitchen. Feeling oddly nervous, she knocked at the door of Sybilla's flat. After a few minutes it opened, and Sybilla stood there leaning 'slightly on a stick and eyeing her gravely.'
'Did you want something, child?' Her voice was not unfriendly, but it wasn't particularly encouraging either.
'It's nothing really. Just that I've made a goulash for supper, thinking there would be three of us, and Carne has gone out with Antonia, and there's far too much food for me alone, and I wondered if-if you'd like to have dinner with me.' Rowan could feel a slight flush rising in her cheeks as she stumbled to the end after stilted little speech. It no longer seemed quite such a good idea, and she was regretting the impulse which had brought her here. It seemed more than likely that Sybilla would thank her politely, and shut the door. After all, she had never shown the slightest desire to seek their company after admitting them to the house two weeks before.
There was a marked silence, and she could feel Sybilla's eyes studying her appraisingly. Then a faint smile touched the corners of her mouth.
'Thank you, Rowan, I should be delighted. I had intended to have some cold meat and salad, but that will keep. Am I to infer that you've cooked this meal yourself?'
'Yes. I like cooking.'
'That is perhaps fortunate,' Sybilla remarked drily. 'I'll lay another place for you.' She accorded Rowan another small smile, then turned and went rather painfully back into the flat.
Rowan loaded a tray with plates, the tureen of meat, and a platter of crusty bread, then made her way back. This time the door was standing invitingly open, and after a quick knock she went in.
Sybilla's flat was situated in an extension to the house, and the entrance gave on to a narrow passage with doors on each side, and at the far end. Rowan found herself in a large living room, comfortably furnished in a more old fashioned style than the rest of the house; There were a number of pictures on the walls, and every gleaming surface had its complement of ornaments and curios.
A circular rosewood dining table was set at one end of the room, laid with linen place mats and well-polished rather heavy-looking silver cutlery, with a bowl of white narcissus in the centre, their subtle scent pervading the atmosphere. A small woodfire crackled on the hearth, and beside it Sybilla was sitting in a high-backed wing chair.
'What a lovely room,' said Rowan, looking about her. 'I enjoy it,' Sybilla agreed. 'I'm very fortunate to be able to have all my own things around me. But that was something Carne insisted on when he had this house built.' Something warmed in her face as she spoke. 'And is that your goulash, my dear? It smells delicious. We'd better eat it before it gets cold.'
It was the most enjoyable meal Rowan had had since she arrived at Raven's Crag. She still found Sybilla a little formidable, but the older woman was obviously going out of her way to be approachable without being patronising. But occasionally, when there was a silence, Rowan was aware that Sybilla was watching her, her delicate brows drawn together in a little frown. Yet she knew she had been careful, steering the conversation away from the subject of school, and other danger zones which might inadvertently give away her correct age. She hadn't realised until then how many no-go areas in ordinary conversation Antonia's airy deception could create, and it annoyed her.
The subject of Antonia herself, when Sybilla broached it o
ver coffee, seemed much safer ground. Sybilla asked about Rowan's father, and sympathised with her over the suddenness of his death.
'And he made Antonia your guardian, I understand,' she said, adding cream to her cup.
Rowan moved uncomfortably. 'Something like that,' she agreed cautiously. 'I don't really understand these legal terms.'
'Indeed?' Sybilla looked at her with lifted eyebrows. 'You don't seem to me to be devoid of understanding in any way, child. Perhaps you would like Carne to obtain details of your father's will and explain them to you.'
'Oh-no, thank you.' Rowan was secretly aghast. 'I-I know that Antonia and I have to live together until I'm twenty-one.' She gave an awkward smile. 'Unless I marry before then---or she marries again.'
'And if she should marry before you came of age, what would happen then?'
Rowan took a sip of too-hot coffee. 'I-really don't know. She--she may not want to get married again.'
'1 can't imagine the widowed state holding much appeal for Antonia,' Sybilla said rather repressively. 'If she had been left a wealthy widow, that might have been different.' Rowan bent her head. 'I suppose so. And she ought to get married again. She--she's very beautiful.'
'I tend to agree with Shakespeare, who said that beauty lives with kindness.' Sybilla drank her coffee. 'Therefore, although I agree your stepmother has great physical attraction, I would not, I fear, call her beautiful.'
As she spoke, her eyes wandered round the room lovingly, and Rowan thought with sudden intuition, 'She knows that if Carne marries Antonia she'll try to get rid of her. That's if Sybilla would even want to stay.'
Sybilla's eyes focussed on Rowan once more. She said gently; 'I should apologise to you, my dear, for speaking in such terms of your stepmother. I wouldn't wish to impose any kind of strain on your loyalty.' She frowned as she saw Rowan's hand go up to her mouth. 'And please don't bite your nails-it's an ugly and distressing habit. Years ago, bitter aloes would have been applied as a prevention. Has Antonia never thought of it?'
'I don't think Antonia notices that I bite my nails.' Rowan regarded them ruefully. 'I don't do it as often these days---only when I'm upset or nervous about something.'
'Dear me,' Sybilla said drily. 'I'm sorry to have had such an unhappy effect on you.'
'Oh, it isn't that.' Rowan gave a little sigh. 'It's been quite a day, what with Carne coming home unexpectedly like that.'
She looked up and surprised an odd flicker of expression in Sybilla's eyes and wondered if his return had in fact been quite so unexpected where one member of his household was concerned. And if so, why hadn't Sybilla warned them? Rowan couldn't imagine her guilty of petty spite, and the only other answer was that she had been acting under Carne's instructions.
She said carefully, 'It was a good job we were prepared anyway.'
'Yes,' Sybilla agreed with a kind of grim amusement. 'A very good job. Carne, I think, was impressed.'
And no doubt, Rowan thought dismally, the dinner tonight was thanks for services rendered. Carne, naturally, would assume the state of readiness he had found was _ Antonia's doing. And yet, if the truth were told, over the past two weeks she had barely lifted a finger.
She said, 'He told me he intended to stay for a while.'
'You sound surprised. After all, child, this is his home.'
'Yes.' Rowan cleared her throat. 'But it hasn't been, has it-up to now. He travels the world.'
'He has been very successful in his chosen profession, even though some members of his family were against it at first,' said Sybilla. 'His kind of life may seem very glamorous and exotic to someone of your-age, but it can pall in the end, you know. Carne bought this land and built this house in order to put down roots. Perhaps the time has come for I him to do that.' Her eyes surveyed Rowan calmly.
And that's why he's invited Antonia here, Rowan thought. He must still love her if he wants her after so many years, and knowing her as he does, there won't be any shocks or disappointments as there were for Daddy.
She stopped, realising this was the first time she had openly acknowledged to herself that all had not been well' in her father's second marriage. A much younger Rowan had tried to mask her own feeling with the litany, 'But Daddy loves her. Daddy thinks she's wonderful.' But as she had approached adult life, she had no longer seen their relationship with the eyes of a child. She had absorbed the lack of caring on one side and the disillusionment on the other almost without knowing it.
She looked back at Sybilla with stricken eyes, but that lady was calmly collecting up the coffee things. 'Come, my dear. It's getting late. We'd better do the washing up.' She gave Rowan a tranquil smile. 'And don't worry. Things have a way of working out for the best which you may not have discovered yet.'
Later, as she lay sleepless in her green-sprigged room, Rowan tried to tell herself it would be for the best if Antonia and Carne were married. But the only advantage she could think of was that she herself would obtain her independence. I could go away, she thought, and never to see either of them again. But it was a pitiful effort at self consolation, when she knew in her heart that simply not seeing Carne would do nothing to erase him from her memory. '
It was very late when she saw headlights rake the window and heard the sound of the engine. She lay, every nerve of her body tense, listening, and hating herself for doing so, and eventually she heard Antonia's heels dick past her room, and her door open and close quietly. -She had been alone. No heavier masculine tread had accompanied her, or even followed later. But that, Rowan told herself wryly, trying to find a cool place for her cheek on the pillow, was a very small mercy for which to be thankful.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHEN Rowan got down to the kitchen the next morning, there were signs that someone had breakfasted and gone, but she did not somehow think it had been Antonia, who rarely rose before nine-thirty.
She made herself some toast and brewed a fresh pot of coffee, but she had barely sat down at the table before Antonia drifted in looking ravishing in a peignoir of pale green chiffon.
'Is that coffee?' she demanded, sinking down on to the bench. 'Really, Rowan, you might have brought me some. No, I won't have any toast, I've never been able to understand this passion for scorched bread at breakfast. Croissants would be nice if we could get some.'
'Wonderful,' Rowan agreed ironically. 'Where do you suggest we start looking?'
'Well, of course there isn't anywhere in this benighted hole, I know that.' Antonia stirred her coffee moodily.
'How is your campaign to get Carne to move going?'
'It isn't yet. I thought I'd give him a few weeks to find out for himself how stultifyingly boring the rural life is.' She gave a satisfied little smile. 'It shouldn't take long. Carne's far too used to the high life to take kindly to isolation. Although.1 must admit I was impressed with the restaurant he took me to last night. It was just like a theatrical production, sweetie. They even lowered the lights between courses and . . .' Her voice went on outlining the food they had eaten, but Rowan had switched off. Her sleepless night had done nothing for her looks, and; she discovered, even less for her temper.
Antonia relapsed into silence after a while, her enthusiasm apparently quenched by her companion's lack of response, and Rowan, glancing across the table at her, saw that her lovely face was setting in lines of petulance, as if her present thoughts were not nearly as pleasing as her reminiscences of the previous night's pleasures. Rowan sighed inwardly. She knew that look. She had seen it before on a number of occasions-when her father's will had been read, for one, and when the boutique finally closed its doors for another. It was a look which said that Antonia had suddenly been brought face to face with some form of unwelcome reality, and Rowan found herself wondering whether last night's food and wine had in fact been the sugar-coating on a somewhat unacceptable pill.
But whatever had happened, or been said, she knew Antonia would tell her sooner or later. It was not in her stepmother's nature to k
eep bad news to herself for long.
Eventually Antonia said abruptly, pouring herself more coffee, 'Carne wanted to send you back to school. I had a hell of a job to dissuade him.'
'I can imagine.' Rowan drank some of her own coffee, but it was lukewarm and bitter and she grimaced slightly as she set the beaker back on the table. 'What did you say to him?'
Antonia shrugged. 'Oh, that you'd had a belated reaction to your father's death, and you needed careful handling,' she said, avoiding Rowan's gaze.
'That's almost disgusting under the circumstances,' Rowan said at last. 'Wouldn't the truth have been easier, and cleaner?'
'Perhaps, but I'm committed to the fact that you're an adolescent now,' Antonia said moodily. 'Frankly I hadn't bargained for Carne's sense of family responsibility. It certainly wasn't so evident in his early years. He practically put me through an inquisition last night on the 'subject of you. God knows what Sybilla's been telling him.' She gave a long-suffering sigh.
'Why should she have been telling him anything?' Rowan stared at her.
'Because she loves to interfere, and nothing would please her more than to put a spoke in my wheel,' Antonia replied sharply.
'Perhaps she recognises that you plan to put a spoke in hers,' said Rowan, remembering Sybilla's loving glance round her home last night.
'Hm, well that's something else which isn't going to be as easy as I thought,' Antonia said tartly. 'Carne's changed. He was always the outsider, the rebel in the family, but at times he can display signs of typical Maitland stubbornness. This business of Sybilla is a case in point. It seems inevitable that she's going to become a virtual cripple, and a suitable nursing home is the obvious answer.'
Sara Craven - Summer of the Raven Page 7