'Live in it,' said Coll. `Do you mind?'
He sounded concerned, and Simon said, 'Mind? No. We'd be glad to see it being used as a home again.'
He was speaking for himself and Dora, but Dora murmured objections. 'It's very large—heating and that. And getting staff.'
'I'll manage,' said Coll, and with money of course he would. He said, 'I'm looking forward to being here, I enjoyed those old days very much.' He was still speaking to Simon, although he did glance briefly at Dora when he said, 'I hope you'll come to the Manor. I'd be glad if you'd look on it as another home. I hope we shall be friends again.'
`We certainly will,' said Simon heartily. He jumped up and clapped Coll on the shoulder, and Thea chimed in with matching enthusiasm,
'But of course, that would be lovely. Things couldn't have worked out better, could they? Are you married, by the way?'
'I'm afraid I never found the time.'
Simon stood back, looking at them all—except Neil,
he was no part of this group in Simon's eyes. 'Well, this is grand,' said Simon. 'This is really grand.'
Yes, thought Dora, if we want things livened up, stirred up, spoiled. All she knew was that her peace of mind was shattered, because she could never trust Coll Sullivan. He was wealthy now, with all the easy charm of affluence. But she knew what Simon and Thea didn't. Coll Sullivan might not need to steal any more, but under the skin he would always be the taunting thief who had taken her mother's pearls and defied her to prove it.
CHAPTER TWO
MOST of the rest of the evening went on reminiscences, with Simon recalling the old days as though Coll's coming had been a regular highlight of the long summer vacation. Although he had only come three times while they were boys, the last time they were young men.
'I often wondered where you went in the winter time,' said Simon. 'You always came in the summer, I remember, the sun always seemed to be shining.'
Dora remembered dark clouds and winds blowing her hair into her eyes. Strange, she thought, how different our images of those days are, and she wondered how Coll remembered them.
He laughed. 'We kept moving. We had to, we were always being moved on,' and Thea, always kind, always sympathetic, said,
'Well, no one will move you from the Manor, you'll
have a real home there,' as though it was only yesterday that Coll Sullivan had been ordered to pack up and go.
Dora said crisply, `But I'm sure you've had a home for years. You'd hardly be living in the trailer still, would you?'
His dark eyes seemed black, one corner of his mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. `The trailer was a write-off when my father was killed,' he said quietly.
He had told them the last time he came that he was no longer with his father, but no one had pressed him for details. Dora remembered what she had said and her cheeks flamed now. She muttered, `I'm sorry.'
`So was I.' After a moment he said, `I have an apartment in a hotel.'
`And now you want a house?' She spoke slowly, because it was a puzzle why a bachelor should choose somewhere as rambling as the Manor. 'I should have thought you'd have built to your own specifications,' she said.
`I want this house. For special reasons.' Perhaps Simon had been recounting them. The times he had spent here when they were children might have been an oasis to a tinker child.
`And we couldn't wish for a better neighbour,' said Simon, while Thea nodded smiling agreement and asked,
`You're not going back tonight, are you? We've got a spare room.'
`So has Dora,' Simon grinned, and Neil spluttered, and Coll's dark eyebrows rose.
`Is that an offer, Dora-Lily?' No-one else ever called her that and she had always hated it. Her name was Dora Lilias and Simon had told Coll, and Coll had
called her Dora-Lily, and when she flew into a tantrum, screaming, 'That isn't my name! ' he had said, It is. It's what I'm going to call you."Well, I shan't answer."Please yourself,' he'd said.
She could have screamed at him now, 'Don't call me that!' but she didn't fly into tantrums any more. At her age she hoped that she had her temper under control. She said coolly, 'What do you think?' and he sighed,
'I was afraid not.' And while they were all laughing but Neil, he stood up. 'Anyhow, I do have to get back tonight. It's only just over an hour on the motorway. I'll be back.'
He looked straight at Dora when he said, be
back,' and she remembered how he had done that, every time but the last. It had always sounded like a threat to her, and it did again.
They all went downstairs together, and Coll got into his gleaming Mercedes and Simon said, 'Smashing car.'
'Smashing shop,' said Coll, 'and extremely smashing wife.'
They blushed becomingly and Simon declaimed 'Good luck comes in different packages.'
'Now that's very true,' said Thea. 'Where did you get that?'
It just came to me,' said Simon. `I'm thinking of having it done in pokerwork.'
They were laughing as Coll drove away, Neil without much enthusiasm, and Dora only with her lips, but they sounded a merry group, and Thea said, like him. Why hasn't anyone ever told me about him?'
Dora said, suppose we'd better be off too. It's work in the morning.' She would have preferred to walk home, through the quiet street that wended between
houses and fields. She lived the other end of the village. The shop fronted the green, with church and pub, the butchers, the post office, the general store, and a dozen or so houses; and Dora lived in what had once been the lodge of the Manor.
She lived there alone, except for one small dog, and in about two minutes Neil would deposit her and leave her alone, unless he came in for a while.
He thanked Thea and Simon for the meal, reminded them of his mother's invitation, and opened the car door for Dora. As the car pulled away from the kerb he said, 'I don't remember him at all.'
'I don't suppose you do,' said Dora. Neil lived about three miles away, but he had never had anything to do with the tinkers in his childhood. Mrs Hewitt would have gone into shock at the suggestion. If Neil hadn't been at that village fete, eighteen years ago, he had probably never set eyes on Coll.
Dora said, 'He was just a boy who came and went,' and Neil shot her a suspicious glance.
'You three seem to have had high old times together.'
'You sound as though we grew up together.' She moved impatiently in her seat. 'I was nine when he broke up my birthday party. I was sixteen when I saw him next, and that was only briefly. Then he went away and we've heard nothing of him since.'
She was silent for a moment or two. 'I don't suppose I've thought about him in ten years,' she said. 'And I don't suppose Simon has. Until tonight we've never talked about him at all.'
'He's a big number now.' Neil sounded envious, and Dora muttered darkly,
`So he says.'
'Oh, he is.' They stopped beside her house, and Neil said, 'Sullivan Properties—I've heard of them.'
'More than I have.' She flung him an irritated look, she could do without a build-up for Coll Sullivan.
'I could get jealous of a man like that,' said Neil mournfully.
'Well, don't,' she snapped. The future promised to be difficult enough without Neil imagining heaven knows what, and then she realised how peevish she was being and said, 'Please don't. Do you want to come in for a cup of coffee?'
He peered at his watch, and seemed surprised at what he saw there. 'Better not, I didn't realise it was so late.'
Mother would be waiting up, but tonight Dora could have done with some support, a promise that all would be well, that Coll Sullivan would spoil nothing.
'So goodnight,' she said, and got out of the car before he could kiss her goodnight. A quick goodnight peck wasn't going to help. She would have needed some real passion tonight to blot Coll Sullivan from her mind, and passion was not Neil's forte. He was a nice man, he really was, but she never came anywhere near forgetting the world in his arms.
Sh
e heard the excited yapping of her small dog as she turned her key in the door, and when she stepped into the house he came bounding to greet her.
He was a bright-eyed Jack Russell, quick to give the alarm if anyone was coming to the house. He had learned the difference between traffic up the drive to the Manor, and steps on the short flagstoned path to the front door of the lodge.
She took him around with her as much as she could, but he did bark a lot, he was a yapper, and as they
were supposed to be having a celebration dinner tonight, with Neil, it was important that Kiki wasn't woken up, so Tip had been left at home.
He spent most working days at the shop. He had been Simon and Thea's present to Dora on her birthday three years ago, arriving with a label attached to his collar which read, 'I am a FIERCE guard dog, I will protect you.' And maybe he would, if the need arose. In the meanwhile he was company for her and he adored her.
He slept on her feet, and she was quite sure that she wouldn't sleep a wink tonight. She was prepared for tossing and turning, and was astounded next morning to realise that she must have dropped off almost as soon as her head touched the pillow ...
It was bad luck that she should be in the office with Neil when Coll rang her that afternoon. Often Neil had clients in and Dora was in the outer office, but at that time they were both there, and nobody else was, and Neil simply sat and listened from the moment Dora said, 'Oh, it's you.'
`Who's you?' said Neil's expression, and she should have explained, but her whole attention was riveted because Coll was telling her, 'It's all settled—the Manor.'
'Settled?' she shrilled. `Do you mean you've actually bought the house since you saw it yesterday?'
'Yes. I've been in touch with Simon, and I'll see you both on Sunday afternoon.'
'See us where?'
'At the Manor. Where else?' He rang off while she was stammering, and she took the phone from her ear and held it helplessly as though she didn't know what to do with it.
'See you where?' asked Neil.
'At the Manor,' said Dora, and slammed the phone down.
'He doesn't waste much time,' observed Neil. 'Who are you calling now?'
'John Redway,' she said, picking up the phone again. 'Is it really settled?' she asked when she got through, and she was assured that it was.
The surveyors had arrived early this morning and the conveyancing was proceeding at a record-breaking rate. 'The man moves, doesn't he?' said the estate agent happily. 'Mrs Wardour can't believe her luck.' She was the woman who had owned the Manor. 'She thought she'd got a white elephant on her hands there.' He chuckled. 'And she had. The Manor isn't the only barny old house we've got on our books, if you'll pardon the expression. I thought we'd have to come down a fair bit in price and even then it could have hung on for years. She couldn't believe it when I rang her at her daughter's and told her.'
'I'm glad she's happy,' said Dora.
'We're all happy,' chortled John Redway. He was very cock-a-hoop, and it was as well he couldn't see Dora's face. Neither could Neil, she had her back to him. 'You know,' John went on, 'I believe it was meeting you and Simon again that tipped the balance.'
'Why, for goodness' sake?' asked Dora.
'Well, you knew each other as kids, didn't you- ? He said he used to come down to your village years ago.' 'He did,' she said.
Last night he had acted as though there were only happy memories, but the last time he saw Dora before that he had said, 'You stupid over-protected little slag, it's time somebody took something away from you.'
He had meant the pearls, but was he enjoying taking the Manor now? It might just have tipped the balance that the Holcrofts were still here—Simon, for whom his audacity and vagabond ways had been a glorious romp during a few brief boyhood hours, and Dora who had never liked him.
He might be genuinely pleased at the idea of Simon as a neighbour, their changed status could appeal to his ego. And he might be considering Dora an amusing challenge; he had been laughing at her last night when he kissed her.
But it was a sour joke. If he thought his money would bring her to heel he was very much mistaken. She wouldn't be patronised by a jumped-up con-man who had started as a small time thief.
She said, 'I'm glad we helped to get the old barn off your hands.'
`Did I say that? It's a fine old Georgian house.'
She laughed. 'Come off it! It's an old barn. Wait till he gets the heating bills.'
Although heating bills shouldn't worry a man who was almost a millionaire, nor one who had spent all his childhood sleeping in a battered trailer or under the stars. She said, 'I don't suppose he feels the cold,' and while the estate agent was inquiring, `No, why not?' she hung up.
'Am I invited to the Manor?' asked Neil.
`What?' Dora turned with furrowed brow. 'Oh, I'm sure you will be, but that was for Sunday afternoon and there isn't likely to be much doing there on Sunday afternoon. I think we'll give that invitation a miss.'
Simon wasn't too pleased she wasn't going. He rang
her too at work to ask if she'd heard the news. 'I expect so,' she said.
'Coll's bought
'Yes, I've heard.'
'He wants us '
'I know that too. Look, I'm busy now, I'll see you this evening.'
She called in the shop before she went home after work and found both Simon and Thea overjoyed. She'd expected that, but she couldn't help saying to Simon, 'You're carrying on as though it was our house again. It isn't, you know, and it never will be.'
'Stating the obvious, aren't you?' Simon was polishing up a chiffonier in the little workshop behind the shop, and Thea, who had come down when she heard Dora's car, was bouncing Kiki in her arms. Kiki wanted to get down and crawl, and the flagstoned floor wasn't over-hygienic. 'But if somebody else had to get it I'm glad it's Coll,' said Simon.
'Why?' demanded Dora, and Simon slapped down his polisher in exasperation.
'Because he likes us, doesn't he? We like him. He'll do the old place proud, and it's the next best thing to having it, isn't it, having the run of it?'
'I suppose so,' she agreed grudgingly, 'but you're carrying on as though our long-lost brother's come home.'
'Oh, don't act so wet,' said Simon. 'We're meeting him there on Sunday afternoon.'
'Not me.'
He sighed, rolling his eyes at Thea, appealing for her support, and Thea said mildly, 'I'm sure it doesn't matter if you've got something else fixed up. He did say if we could manage it he'd be there and he'd like
to see us and perhaps we could have a meal together. I'm sure he's not going to take offence if Dora can't make it. He's not going to think it's personal.'
She swung Kiki towards Dora and the baby held out dimpled arms, chattering in unintelligible baby tongue. Dora took her and nuzzled nose to nose, and Kiki gurgled and dribbled with delight.
Simon, polishing hard, muttered, 'A pity he isn't our long-lost something. We could do with a relation like him.'
'Come and have a cup of tea,' said Thea, leading the way upstairs to the flat, leaving Simon still polishing.
She thought she understood. She thought that Dora was hating losing her old home a second time, resenting anyone who moved in, and that probably did have something to do with it. A cup of tea later Dora was saying, 'It's going to take some getting used to, him in the Manor, but they say you can get used to anything in time.'
'You got used to it being a hotel full of strangers,' Thea pointed out.
`Mmm.' But it was less the house than the man that was worrying Dora. How long was it going to take her to get used to him?
On Sunday she went to Neil's home to tea. There were places she would rather have gone, Mrs Hewitt was always a strain, and today she was full of the news about the sale of the Manor.
Everybody local knew by now, and that Coll had been a tinker child in his day and was now rolling in money. It was a rags to riches story, and although very
few could remember him i
t had the makings of a good gossip.
Mrs Hewitt, presiding over her usual elegant Sun-day tea-table, wanted to know just what was Dora's connection with this man. Neil must have been regaling her on Simon's reminiscences, but she wanted to hear for herself.
'You and your brother used to play with him, did you, when you were children?'
'Yes,' said Dora, sipping China tea from a beautiful china cup.
always feel sorry for the children,' said Mrs Hewitt sanctimoniously, 'but I never let Neil mix with them.' She sipped her tea, looking smug. 'But then of course you didn't have a mother, did you, dear, and your poor father was such an easy-going man.'
So easy-going that he'd got through a sizeable estate before he died of a coronary in his mid-forties. But Dora had loved him very much and she resented Mrs Hewitt's tone of voice. She said sweetly, 'Perhaps my father wasn't too bad a judge of character. After all, Coll has made more headway than anyone else we knew in those days, and it's nice that he still remembers us.'
Mrs Hewitt's lips thinned and Dora wished she could have recalled her words. That wasn't a tactful thing to say to Neil and his mother.
'He's a bachelor, I hear,' said Mrs Hewitt, as if that was highly suspect, although so was Neil, and she had always been happy about his single state. 'And I suppose you'll be seeing quite a lot of him while you're living in the lodge.'
don't know,' said Dora. Mrs Hewitt was doing this deliberately, and the thought crossed Dora's mind, not
for the first time, that it would be a rare girl who
would be happy with Mrs Hewitt as a mother-in-law.
All through tea Mrs Hewitt wouldn't let the subject of the new owner of the Manor alone. No matter how Dora tried to talk about something else, and Neil made a few half-hearted attempts, Mrs Hewitt came right back to Coll Sullivan, worrying away until Dora could have hit her.
And Neil too. Mrs Hewitt simply brushed his words aside and, apart from smiling apologetically at Dora, he let her go on with her endless insinuations as though it was all right and a pleasant enough way of passing a Sunday afternoon.
The black Hunter Page 3