by Penny Jordan
‘The very same,’ Sheila told her cheerfully, apparently oblivious to the fact that, far from sharing her delight in the news, Charlotte was looking decidedly unhappy.
‘Don’t worry,’ Sheila added. ‘I’ve warned him about the alterations et cetera and he says they won’t bother him. Apparently he eats out a good deal. In fact, he says you’ll hardly see him. He came in looking for a small property to rent, but I explained how seldom we get rented stuff, especially in the tourist season when everyone with a spare room to let is looking to make a bit extra from B and B.
‘He was just about to leave when I remembered what we’d been saying earlier, so I told him about your place. I explained all the disadvantages, don’t worry,’ Sheila went on, before Charlotte could interrupt and inform her that it wasn’t Oliver Tennant’s reaction to the disadvantages of becoming her lodger that worried her, but the fact that Sheila had actually made such a suggestion in the first place.
‘As a lodger he’ll be ideal,’ Sheila enthused. ‘He’s prepared to pay well above the norm. He did ask if it would be possible for him to have the use of a room to work in, and I immediately thought of your dad’s old rooms. Remember when he was first ill, how he insisted on trying to work at home, and we kitted out the adjoining bedroom with a desk for him?’
Charlotte’s hissed indrawn breath must have registered what she was feeling, although Sheila misinterpreted the reason for it, as she turned to her and said gently, ‘Yes, I know how you must feel, but your dad’s gone, Charlotte. I’ll bet you haven’t even been in those rooms since he died. I know when I lost my mother I couldn’t bring myself to go near her bedroom for months, but once I did… Well, once I’d sorted through her things and turned the room back into a guest room, I felt as though I’d finally come to terms with her death. I know it will be difficult for you having someone else in those rooms—’
‘Difficult?’ Charlotte exploded, unable to keep back what she was feeling any longer. ‘Sheila, you can’t seriously stand there and tell me that you’ve really invited Oliver Tennant…to become my lodger. Please tell me it’s just a joke,’ she implored grimly.
Sheila stared at her. ‘But I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘Pleased? Pleased!’ Charlotte was stunned. ‘How could you think that?’
‘Well, for one thing, it will give you an opportunity to keep an eye on him, so to speak,’ Sheila told her. ‘And for another…well, you couldn’t really find a more suitable lodger, could you?’
‘But, Sheila, I don’t want a lodger.’
Now it was Sheila’s turn to stare. ‘But only this morning you said—’
‘No,’ Charlotte corrected her ruthlessly. ‘You said. To be quite honest with you, I think I’d rather sell than share my home with Oliver Tennant—not that it’s come to that yet. You’ll have to telephone him and tell him that there’s been a mistake.’
She looked away from Sheila as she spoke, cravenly hoping that her friend wouldn’t see the emotions she was trying to hide.
Oliver Tennant…sharing her home. Her heart was still thudding like a sledgehammer, the shock of Sheila’s announcement reverberating through her body. She tried in vain to picture the two of them sharing the old house in cosy intimacy, but her mind refused to conjure up any such visions. Oliver Tennant might just be desperate enough to believe that the two of them could live alongside one another in harmony, but she couldn’t believe it. And besides, what on earth would people say? She closed her eyes in stunned dismay that Sheila, of all people, could actually have suggested that Oliver Tennant lodge with her.
Almost as though she had read her mind, Sheila said cautiously, ‘I suppose you’re worried about what people will think.’
‘That’s certainly one of my worries,’ Charlotte agreed grimly. ‘Honestly, Sheila, you know what people are like round here.’
‘Well, yes, but look at it this way—with both of you being unattached, people were bound to gossip, to speculate, to connect the two of you together. This way, the whole thing will be a nine-day wonder and then forgotten.’
Charlotte raised her eyes heavenwards and denounced, ‘I can’t follow your logic at all. You’ll have to ring him.’
As she turned her back, Sheila and Sophy exchanged glances. Clearing her throat, Sophy said quietly, ‘It’s no business of mine, I know, but I think Sheila did the right thing. People round here love a bit of intrigue and mystery; if they think that you and Oliver Tennant are going to become deadly enemies fighting for the major share of the local property market, you’ll both become subject to all kinds of speculation. This way, people will just assume that you’ve come to some harmonious agreement. The fact that he’s sharing your home will raise a few eyebrows at first, but once people realise—’
‘How unlikely that a man like him would be interested in someone like me,’ Charlotte supplied bitterly for her. ‘Yes, well, I suppose you’re right about that, but neither of you seem to have stopped to think that I might not want a lodger at all…any lodger.’
‘But you agreed earlier that it would be a good thing. Personally I’ll feel a lot easier in my mind if he is there. I’ve been worrying about you ever since Henry died and I don’t mind admitting it. You are off the beaten track, you know, no matter how much you might deny it,’ insisted Sheila.
Biting back the acid comment that a bedridden father would surely have been no defence against any would-be attacker, Charlotte struggled to preserve her temper. She couldn’t understand what had got into Sheila. She was normally so circumspect…
‘I can’t understand why Oliver Tennant should have agreed with your suggestion.’
‘Agreed? He nearly bit my hand off,’ Sheila told her, with what Charlotte suspected was an exaggeration. ‘I only mentioned it idly really, as you do, but he insisted that I tell him more about the house and the more I told him, the more he seemed to like the idea.’
‘He might, but I don’t!’ Charlotte retorted.
‘Well, he’s going to see about getting a tenancy agreement drawn up,’ Sheila continued. ‘It seems that, because they deal with rented property such a lot in London, he knows a solicitor who’s familiar with the ins and outs of such agreements. He said he’d call round with it tomorrow.’
Charlotte stared at her. She couldn’t believe what was happening.
‘Look, why don’t you sleep on it before making any decision?’ Sheila counselled. ‘He struck me as being very pleasant…and very trustworthy.’
‘Well, I’m certainly not worried that he’s going to be driven mad with lust for me,’ Charlotte told her forthrightly, making Sophy giggle.
‘Well, what are you worried about, then?’ Sheila asked her.
For someone who was normally so astute, Sheila was being remarkably obtuse. Surely it was obvious why Charlotte didn’t want the man living with her? He was her competitor, for one thing, and for another…well, for another… Well, she just would not feel comfortable about sharing her home with such a very male man, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to voice these feelings to her friends.
‘Look, think it over, and if you still feel tomorrow that you don’t want him as a lodger then I promise I’ll tell him,’ Sheila suggested.
‘Very magnanimous of you,’ was Charlotte’s sour response. She’d no intention of changing her mind, no matter what Sheila might think, and she’d have preferred her friend to telephone Oliver Tennant and tell him her decision right away, but Sheila was behaving as though the matter was settled, leaving her little option but to grudgingly accept her suggestion or telephone him herself.
She wasn’t sure why she should feel it was impossible for her to do that; she only knew that it was.
For the rest of the day she could not concentrate properly on what she was doing. Leaving Sophy in Sheila’s charge, she went off to value a pair of semi-detached cottages belonging to a local farm. With so much mechanisation and less need for agricultural workers, the cottages had been empty for some time. Now the farmer
wanted to sell them.
They were in a very dilapidated state, nearly a mile off the main road, with no gas and no mains drainage. With planning consent to turn them into one larger house, and an offer from the farmer to supply some land with them, they might just appeal to someone with enough money and enthusiasm to take on the job of remodelling them, but Charlotte doubted that she would be able to sell them as two separate homes.
The farmer proved surly when informed of her misgivings. Typically, he wanted to achieve the most money for the least output, and Charlotte wasn’t surprised when he told her that he was going to try ‘yon new agent’, adding insultingly, ‘Women…they don’t understand nothing about business.’
Charlotte was furious, but hid her anger, saying smoothly that of course it was his decision. She couldn’t regret losing the sale—the farmer would have been an awkward client to deal with—but she couldn’t help acknowledging that without Oliver Tennant to turn to the farmer might have been more disposed to consider her suggestions.
Well, good luck to him, and good luck to Oliver Tennant if he told the farmer that he would be able to secure sales as two separate houses. She didn’t envy him that task, she thought sourly, and yet the farmer’s parting insult about her sex rankled, and for some reason as she drove home it was Oliver Tennant who was the object of her acid thoughts of the male sex and its arrogance, rather than the farmer who had made the comment.
The Volvo was still playing up, and on impulse, instead of returning to the office, she drove to the local country town some twenty miles away where she knew there were several reputable dealers.
She wasn’t sure just what sort of car she should get—something reliable…another Volvo perhaps, but a smaller model.
The salesman proved to be very informative and helpful. When she left the showrooms half an hour later, she had several brochures and a fairly clear idea of what she was going to buy.
On the way home she had to pass another car showroom. This one had several immaculate gleaming Jaguar saloons in its window. She sighed a little enviously, looking at them. The Oliver Tennants of this world might be able to afford such unashamed luxury, but she could not.
He must be desperate indeed for somewhere to live if he was prepared to consider lodging with her, but then, she reflected contemptuously, he probably considered that she would make a far better landlady than someone like Vanessa, whose ego would constantly need massaging, and who would expect far more from him than the simple payment of a set sum of money each month. It would be obvious to him that a woman like herself would never dare to imagine that a man like him would consider her in any remote way desirable.
Sheila would describe him rather old-fashionedly as ‘eligible’. Charlotte knew that he wasn’t married, but he was a man in his mid-thirties, who must surely have had at least one long-standing relationship, and perhaps more. She wondered if there was anyone special in his life right now, and then caught herself up. What possible concern could that be of hers?
Frowning fiercely, she forced herself to confront what was in her mind. All right, so he was a very attractive man, a man to whom she seemed to be far from as immune as she should be, but the matter started and ended right there. She had long ago learned the folly of dreaming impossible dreams, and anyway she was far too sensible these days to imagine that loving someone and being loved by them was enough to guarantee perfect happiness.
Marriage, especially these days, was something that required hard work and complete commitment from both parties. When she had finally abandoned any idea of marrying, she had consoled herself with the knowledge that even the best relationships of her friends were sometimes fraught and difficult. If she did not have the closeness that came from sharing her life with a partner, then neither did she have the trauma and pain that such closeness inevitably brought.
When she eventually left the office an hour after Sheila and Sophy had gone home, it had started to rain. The house, when she turned into the drive, seemed to lift an unprepossessing and austere outline towards the sky. The rhododendron-lined drive, pitted with holes in places, suddenly seemed forbidding and almost frightening. Until this morning, she had never even thought about the house’s remoteness, nor the fact that the drive so effectively sheltered it off the road, but this evening for some reason she was acutely conscious of the silence around her—conscious of it and vaguely alarmed by it.
Once she had stopped the car, she didn’t linger, but instead hurried to the back door, suddenly anxious to get inside the house. When she was in, although it was something she rarely did, she found herself slipping on the security chain as she closed the door.
Heavens, she wasn’t going to turn into one of those timid types expecting the worst to happen at every corner, was she?
While she waited for the coffee to filter, she played back the messages on her answering machine.
The joiner had telephoned to say that he was able to start the kitchen sooner than planned, and there was a message from the decorator Sheila had recommended. She would phone him later and ask if he could obtain the wallpaper she liked.
As she drank her coffee and ate her evening meal, she found herself wondering what Oliver Tennant would think of her new kitchen. Would he find her choice of décor overly feminine or…?
Abruptly she put down her coffee-mug, revolted by her own weakness. It didn’t matter what the man thought. For one thing, he wasn’t going to get an opportunity to voice his thoughts, because first thing tomorrow morning she was going to make Sheila telephone him and retract that idiotic suggestion that he become her lodger.
After she had finished her meal, she stared disconsolately out into the rainswept garden. She had planned to do some work in it this evening. Whenever she felt on edge or bad-tempered she found an hour or so spent pulling up weeds excellent therapy. Tonight she was denied that release, and instead she wandered aimlessly around the house.
It was a family home really, with its large high-ceilinged rooms and its funny little passages…a house that should be filled with noise and laughter.
When she walked into the drawing-room that was never used, she sniffed the stale air with distaste and went to open the french windows.
The fresh, clean scent of the rain filled her nostrils as she eyed the dull beige walls and carpet with distaste. Why had she never noticed before how hideous this room was? She looked up at the ceiling, trying to imagine the plasterwork picked out in different colours, and then studying the rather attractive period fireplace. This room faced south, and she tried to imagine it decorated in shades of soft yellows and blues…
Restlessly she left the drawing-room and walked round the house, ending up outside the door to her father’s old suite of rooms. Beyond the door lay the room her father had used as his study-cum-sitting-room at the start of his illness, his bedroom and his bathroom.
Since his death she hadn’t been inside them. The vicar’s wife had arranged for his clothes and personal effects to be removed, and Mrs Higham had gone through the rooms giving them a thorough clean. Now, with her hand on the door, Charlotte felt a deep shudder of pain go through her.
Their relationship should have been so different, she acknowledged. She had loved her father, but had never been able to express that love because she had always known that she was not the son he had wanted. On the surface they had got on well enough, but under that surface there had been a distance between them, a lack of closeness which had hurt her deeply when she was child, but as she had grown up she had learned to accept it, just as she had learned to accept that in her father’s eyes she would never be what he wanted.
Was that why she had always felt so inferior and vulnerable with other men—because she expected them to reflect her father’s disappointment in her?
It was a disturbing thought, and one she did not want to pursue. It was too late to go back now, looking for motives, for reasons to explain away her lack of appeal for the male sex. She had long ago come to accept that she was the way
she was. Too late now to look back and wonder if perhaps things could have been different.
Gordon had after all laid it on the line for her when they had broken their engagement. He did not find her desirable, he had told her; he liked her as a person, but as a woman… Those words were still buried inside her, sharp slivers of steel that still ached and hurt, that had left a wound long after she had got over the loss of Gordon himself.
When she finally steeled herself to walk into her father’s rooms she was disconcerted by her lack of emotional reaction. They were simply rooms, furnished with heavy but good furniture, their décor dull and uninspiring, although her father’s desk and the comfortable armchair behind it gave one room a certain austere masculinity.
She tried to picture Oliver Tennant sitting behind that desk, holding her breath tensely, relieved when she found it impossible to conjure up his image and superimpose it on to her father’s chair. In the morning she would insist on Sheila’s telephoning him and telling him that it was impossible for him to lodge with her.
Her mind firmly made up, she went back downstairs. She had some paperwork to do, which would fill her time far more profitably than mooching about the house the way she was doing at the moment.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE next morning the Volvo refused to start once again. This time Charlotte had to call out the local garage, and only arrived at the office after the mechanic had spent over half an hour coaxing the reluctant engine to fire.
In consequence she was both out of temper and out of patience when she eventually hurried across the square and opened the office door, and the last person she wanted to see standing there, somehow looking far taller than she remembered, was Oliver Tennant.
He had his back towards her as he studied their property brochure displays, but as she walked in he swung round, his eyes crinkling a smile that made her stomach somersault dangerously.
‘Mr Tennant.’ She said his name in as crisply professional a manner as she could. He was holding an envelope in his hand and her heart sank. This must be the tenancy agreement. He hadn’t wasted any time, but, in all fairness to him, she had to acknowledge that the chance of his finding somewhere else to rent at this time of the year was very small.