Brittle Bondage

by Anne Mather

  It happened so quickly, she didn’t really think either of them could have planned it. All she knew was, that when she grasped his hand, she felt an instinctive need to hold on. And Ben seemed to respond to her uncertainty. With a muffled groan, he dragged her into his arms.

  With one hand at her throat and the other behind her head, he brought her mouth roughly to his, kissing her as if he’d never let her go. Hard, and passionate, his lips took and possessed hers with uncontrolled hunger, letting her feel the frustration he’d been suppressing for so long.

  Rachel felt herself leaning into him, felt her limbs yielding and moulding themselves to the hard contours of his body. Time, place, even her reason, swam away from her. He kissed her as if there had been no past, would be no future, unless they were together.

  And then, as if the sound of a car door slamming, and the muted murmur of voices was one intrusion too many, he let her go. As Rachel struggled to come to terms with his withdrawal, Ben strode silently back to the car. By the time she had gathered what little composure she had left, dipped her head in embarrassed acknowledgment of the elderly couple, who had left their car to marvel at the depth of the escarpment, he had started the engine, and as soon as she’d scrambled inside, he drove away. The tyres spun on the stony surface of the parking area, as he performed a violent three-point turn, and then he swung out on to the country road that led back to Upper Morton and sanity.

  The sandwiches and the cans of Coke had been tossed carelessly into the back of the car, but Rachel couldn’t honestly say she was sorry. The smell of the food in the warm car was fairly nauseating to her outraged senses, and coming on top of what had happened, it caused a quivery feeling in her stomach.

  ‘I’ll be leaving in the morning,’ he said, as she was desperately trying to think of something to say, and her lips parted.

  ‘Leaving?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I’ll instruct my solicitor to give yours whatever assistance is necessary, and as soon as the papers are filed, I’ll have Ferrars send the deeds of Wychwood to you.’

  ‘What?’ Rachel was staggered.

  ‘Wychwood,’ said Ben tightly, concentrating on the road. ‘The house is yours. I had it put in your name just after the separation.’ His lips twisted. ‘I wanted you to have some sort of security. Just in case anything happened to me. Probate can take some time.’

  Rachel shook her head. ‘But it’s your house.’

  ‘It’s not. It’s yours. You can sell it, if you like. I don’t care. Tell Barrass it’s my wedding present to you. I daresay it won’t be much use to you after you’re married and you and Daisy are living at Kingsmead.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  RACHEL’S mother came to find her after supper that evening.

  Rachel hadn’t said much during the meal, but luckily Daisy had been full of excitement about the coming jumble sale at the school.

  ‘I gave Miss Gregory your note,’ she said, ‘and she was really pleased you’d offered to help out. Do you think Daddy might come, too? As he’s staying in the village, you wouldn’t mind, would you?’

  ‘He’s not staying in the village,’ Rachel answered quickly, meeting her mother’s eyes half defensively. ‘I—I spoke to him at lunchtime, and he says he’s going back to town tomorrow.’

  Of course, Daisy had been disappointed, and it had been left to Mrs Collins to comfort the little girl. But Rachel had been too much in need of comfort herself to console her daughter, and it had been that look of anguish in her face that had brought her mother to her bedroom.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mrs Collins asked, pausing in the doorway, and Rachel looked up half guiltily from the album of family photos in her lap.

  ‘Nothing much,’ she said, closing the book on the wealth of snapshots from their honeymoon. Ben had practically bankrupted himself taking her to Tahiti, but she’d never forget those velvet-soft nights in the Polynesian paradise.

  ‘Nothing?’ her mother echoed, stepping casually into the room. ‘Since when have you spent your evenings weeping over old photographs?’

  Rachel scrubbed the heels of her hands across her eyes. ‘I’m not weeping.’

  ‘All right.’ Her mother didn’t argue. She perched on the opposite side of the bed from where Rachel was sitting, cross-legged, and eyed the heavy album across her knees. ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘Not really.’ Rachel put the book aside. ‘Where’s Daisy?’

  ‘Watching television.’ Mrs Collins hesitated. ‘Um—what did Ben say at lunchtime? You weren’t very forthcoming about why he wanted to see you.’

  Rachel sniffed, wishing she wasn’t so transparent. ‘He—he just wanted to tell me he’s turned this house over to me. We can go on living here as long as we like.’

  ‘You mean—until the divorce?’

  ‘Yes.’ Rachel smoothed her fingers over her jean-clad knees. ‘He’s agreed to that, too.’

  ‘Ben has?’

  ‘Who else?’ She avoided her mother’s gaze.

  ‘But—the last time I spoke to Ben, I got the impression that was the last thing he wanted.’

  ‘Yes.’ Rachel sighed. ‘Well, he’s changed his mind.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, Mum!’

  ‘You might as well tell me. I’m going to sit here until I find out. Have he and—Simon—had a bust-up or something? I knew that man was trouble as soon as I laid eyes on him.’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Don’t be obtuse, Rachel. You know perfectly well who I’m talking about. Simon. Simon Barrass. Not content with upsetting you, he’s obviously made trouble with Ben as well.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t.’ Rachel propped her elbows on her knees, and pushed both hands into her hair. Then, because she knew there was no way she was going to convince her mother of what she was saying without telling the truth, she said wearily, ‘Simon and I are finished. We broke up last night, if you must know. My seeing Ben had nothing to do with Simon. He—I—oh, he insisted on rehashing all that old stuff about Elena. He says she was pregnant before she came to work for us. He says she came to our room deliberately. I guess, if his story is true, she hoped she could get him to make love to her, and pass the baby off as his.’

  Mrs Collins bent her head. ‘I see.’

  ‘Did he tell you that?’

  ‘Ben hasn’t talked about what happened to me,’ replied her mother evenly. ‘Though I have to say, if he had, I’d have been inclined to listen. He seemed genuinely cut up about you wanting a divorce. If he was half as bad as you believe, I’d have thought he’d have jumped at the chance to gain his freedom.’

  ‘Yes.’ Rachel said the word unhappily. ‘I’d have thought that, too.’

  ‘What about Elena? What happened to her?’

  ‘He says he doesn’t know. He says he hasn’t seen her since that morning I walked out.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Mrs Collins was thoughtful. ‘You only have his word for that, of course.’

  ‘I only have his word for everything. That’s the trouble,’ said Rachel vehemently. ‘Oh, what am I going to do? If he goes back to London, I’ll never see him again.’

  ‘And that matters?’ Her mother was tentative.

  Rachel hesitated, and then she nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, damn him, it matters.’ She lifted her head and gazed at her mother with tear-bright eyes. ‘What would you say if I told you I was thinking of taking him back? I can’t help it. I still love him. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped.’

  ‘I’d say, then why are you sitting here, moping over his old photographs, when you could be telling him what you’ve just told me? Oh, my dear, marriage is about trust, as well as commitment. And Ben has proved he loves you, by giving you your freedom.’

  ‘Now are you sure you’re going to be all right?’ Mrs Collins hesitated beside the taxi that had come to take her to Cheltenham station to catch her train. ‘I don’t like leaving you alone at present, but I’ve really got to start sorting out my own affairs.’

/>   ‘And I’m not alone,’ Rachel pointed out firmly, squashing the panicky feeling she felt at the realisation that her life had gone so drastically wrong. ‘I’ve got Daisy. And Mr Caldwell. And one or two good friends I can rely on. Besides, we’ll be coming up to London ourselves in a week or so. When Daisy has her mid-term break, I promise we’ll spend the holiday with you.’

  ‘Be sure you do.’ There were tears in Mrs Collins’ eyes as she kissed her daughter goodbye. ‘And promise me you won’t do anything silly, like allowing that ignorant farmer back into your life. And do think seriously about accepting our invitation. You heard what Ralph said on the phone last night.’

  ‘I know.’ Rachel smiled. ‘And I will think about it. Now, come on, you’ve got to get going. Do you want to miss your train?’

  She waved until the taxi had disappeared along Stoneberry Lane, and then turned and went back into the house. In spite of what she had said, it was horribly empty suddenly, and she wished now that she’d allowed Daisy to take the day off school as she’d wanted. But, since Ben’s departure, their relationship had been decidedly shaky, and she knew her daughter blamed her for Ben’s leaving as he did.

  The fact that Rachel had been as shocked by his sudden departure as anyone meant nothing. In Daisy’s eyes, Rachel was to blame, and nothing her mother could say would convince her that it wasn’t so.

  Yet Rachel had suffered terribly when she discovered Ben had left the afternoon after their visit to Crag’s Leap. Although she had confessed how she felt about Ben to her mother, it had taken an enormous amount of courage to go to the hotel to tell him so. And then, when she’d got there, she’d found that he’d already left the Old Swan. As far as Charlie Braddock knew, his famous guest had returned to London. ‘Didn’t even leave a forwarding address,’ he grumbled. ‘Though I guess you’d know where he lives, wouldn’t you, Mrs Leaning?’

  And, of course, she did. But she also knew she didn’t have the courage to go and seek Ben out in London. She’d never been to the house he owned in Elton Square, and it was far too late to think she ever could.

  Of course, her mother had tried to persuade her. She had even stayed on over the weekend, so that she could attend the jumble sale at Daisy’s school in Rachel’s place, should her daughter decide to go to London. But, in spite of her mother’s pleas, and Daisy’s belligerence, she hadn’t left the village. Except to help out at the jumble sale on Saturday, she conceded. When she’d been half afraid that Ben would join them, and half afraid he wouldn’t.

  He hadn’t. She hadn’t really expected he would. So far as Ben was concerned, this particular episode of his life was at last over. All she was waiting for now was the letter from his solicitors, informing her that he was sueing for a divorce. She had the feeling he’d do it that way. Rather than wait for her to make the first move.

  She glanced at her watch. It was nearly one o’clock. Cyril had given her an extended lunch hour so that she could see her mother off, and she wasn’t due back for another hour at least. Time enough to run a Hoover over the spare bedroom carpet. And to strip off the sheets, and put them in the washer, she thought firmly.

  It didn’t take long. Her mother was not an untidy person, and in no time at all Rachel had removed the sheets and hoovered the carpet. Perhaps she should do Daisy’s bedroom carpet and her own as well, she reflected, well aware that she was keeping busy to avoid thinking of other things. But she’d got over Ben before, she told herself severely. She’d get over him again.

  It was as she was vacuuming her own bedroom carpet that she found the photograph. It must have fallen from between the pages of the album, when she was looking at it the other evening. She couldn’t believe it had ever occupied a permanent place in the album, but she remembered Elena sending it to them at the time she applied for the job.

  It was hard to look at the girl who had caused such a disastrous upheaval in her life, but Rachel forced herself to do it, telling herself, quite objectively, that Elena was no longer to blame for their estrangement. She was. It was her fault that Ben had gone away, her fault that he had lost the will to care. She had had her chance; two chances, actually, and she had blown them both. Her love had been so brittle, it had shattered at the first sign of a flaw.

  Blinking, she held the picture up to the light. It showed a girl standing in front of a house, with the sun slanting down on to a stone basin at her side. The snapshot had been taken with a wide-angle lens, and it was possible to see quite a lot of the house, too. Strangely, the building looked familiar, and it wasn’t until she’d studied it more closely that she realised she’d seen it before.

  It was the house at Watersmeet, the house Ben had taken her to see last week. My God! The name he had used when he told her who owned the house suddenly came back to her. And it had been some people called Armstrong who had given Elena a reference.

  She trembled, as something else Ben had said flickered in her memory. He’d mentioned that one of the Armstrongs’ sons was divorced, because of some trouble with an au pair. She’d thought he’d been joking at the time, and she’d never taken him up on it. But now she couldn’t help the suspicion that he’d had some other reason for taking her to see the house.

  What was it he’d said? That he’d taken her there to tell her what he’d eventually told her that day at Crag’s Leap? But that things had got out of hand and—well, she knew very well what had happened then. He must have hoped she would make the connection. He must have hoped she would realise what he had done. But, oh, God, she had been so wrapped up in him and what he was doing, she hadn’t even remembered the family’s name.

  But she remembered it now. Remembered the glowing reference they had given their erstwhile helper. They must have been heartily glad to see the back of her, thought Rachel bitterly. If she’d known what was going to happen, she’d have written her a glowing reference herself.

  With a feeling of despair, she tore the picture into shreds now, and going into the adjoining bathroom, she flushed it down the toilet. So much for Elena Dupois, she thought painfully. If only she’d believed Ben instead of her.

  There was a phone message from her mother, when she got back from work that evening, saying she had arrived home safely, and that she had had a good journey. ‘I wish I could go and stay with Nana,’ said Daisy sulkily, pushing the peas and carrots round her plate. ‘Then she might take me to see Daddy. It’s awful living here when he’s in London.’

  Rachel suppressed her own feelings, and forced a tight smile. ‘It’s never bothered you before.’

  ‘Yes, it has. Only then I used to think that if you and Daddy could get together again, you’d realise it had all been a mistake. The—the separation, I mean. Hazel Kendrick says you probably split up over another woman. Her father and mother are divorced, because Mr Kendrick was found in bed with his secretary.’

  Rachel was appalled. ‘Hazel had no business discussing such things with you,’ she exclaimed, but Daisy was unrepentant.

  ‘Why not? It’s what happens, isn’t it? Hazel says it’s going on all the time.’ She shrugged. ‘But I said it was you and not Daddy who’d found someone else.’

  ‘Daisy!’ Rachel was horrified, as much by the revelation of her daughter’s worldliness, as by any sense of indignation on her own behalf. ‘Anyway, if you must know, my relationship with Simon—with Mr Barrass—is over. We won’t be selling this house, and we won’t be moving to Kingsmead.’

  ‘Do you mean it?’

  Daisy was clearly delighted, and Rachel supposed it relieved a little of her own misery to see her daughter looking cheerful once again. It was a small price to pay to keep her happy.

  And during the next couple of days, Rachel did her best to maintain a cheerful disposition. Even though Cyril’s digs about Ben soon getting bored in Upper Morton began to get on her nerves. It was as if her being proved right over the Russian icon was a constant irritation, and he did everything he could to make her feel small.

  Then, on Thursday, she had
a bad fall.

  As usual, the room at the back of the shop was crammed with boxes and bric-a-brac, and Rachel had been balancing on a rickety pair of steps when they gave way. With a startled cry, she fell among an assortment of Chinese vases and picture frames, twisting her back quite badly, and cutting her arm on one of the vases.

  The noise of pictures falling, and the steps crashing down among a pile of model cars, brought Mr O’Shea rushing in from the warehouse. Cyril, who had been attending to a customer at the time, came through just as Rachel was getting to her feet, and predictably, his first concern was for his stock.

  ‘Whatever were you doing?’ he exclaimed, hurrying forward to rescue the remains of the porcelain vase. ‘Good heavens, do you know how much this was worth?’

  ‘As it’s Qianlong, I’d say about half a K,’ replied Mr O’Shea shortly, before Rachel could offer any apology. ‘The girl’s hurt, Cyril. Shouldn’t you be worried in case she asks for compensation?’

  ‘Oh, really——’ began Rachel, flexing her back muscles with tentative care, but Cyril’s attention had been caught by the old restorer.

  ‘Half a K,’ he echoed. ‘Oh, I don’t understand all this modem jargon.’ He examined the broken vase ruefully. ‘It could have been Kangxi.’

  ‘But it’s not,’ said Mr O’Shea impatiently. ‘Here: take Rachel’s other arm. We’ll help her on to the sofa.’

  ‘But that’s a George III sofa,’ protested Cyril, before Mr O’Shea’s expression had him hurrying to obey. ‘Oh, dear, Rachel, you haven’t really hurt yourself, have you? I’ve warned you about overreaching yourself. You should have moved the canvases out of the way to make it easier.’ Rachel forbore from mentioning that she would have had to move the picture frames, the canvases, and all the other bits and pieces lying about the floor, before she could have put her steps near enough to reach the shelves she was clearing without a struggle. And, as the floor was already overflowing with stock anyway, it would have been virtually impossible to find an empty space.