Now and Always

by Andrea Blake

  Mr. Hedge had advised them that, since it might be many months before they could touch the money Wilfred Parker had left, they must sell Laureldene before they bought another house.

  Less than five minutes after the telephone call, Jennifer heard a car turning in at the gate. Flushed with excitement, she ran downstairs. It was the car, not the driver, which arrested her attention when she flung open the front door.

  Her eyes widened. Instantly she was reminded of that carefree time—so long ago—when, in a beautiful powerful car such as this one, she and her father had whirled along a broad Continental motorway with the wind in their hair and the leather squabs hot from the summer sun. Louise had always been frightened of speed—even with Guy at the wheel. But Jennifer had revelled in it. Often, on those never-to-be-forgotten holidays, they had left her mother to bask on the beach, and had gone off for a drive together. Even now, years later, she could still recall every detail of those wonderful afternoons.

  Guy’s foot pressing gently on the throttle till the speedometer needle flickered up to the eighties ... the macadam shimmering in the heat ... fleeting glimpses of peasants working in the fields ... the roar of the slipstream from the windshield ... the gradual slowing down until they rolled to a gentle halt at some village cafe.

  Remembering that matchless exhilaration, Jennifer was only dimly aware that the driver had left the car and was walking towards her. When he said “Good afternoon,” she blinked at him.

  “Oh ... good afternoon,” she stammered. “What a superb car. It’s a Lancia, isn’t it ... a Zagato Flaminia?”

  “Yes, it is. How did you know?” He sounded surprised.

  Jennifer’s eyes were on the spectacular silver-grey sports saloon again. “I’ve seen a picture of it somewhere. I’m interested in cars. Could I have a closer look?”

  “By all means.”

  It was not until they had been discussing the car for several minutes that she remembered why its owner had called.

  “I’m so sorry ... you came to see the house, not for me to drool over your car,” she apologised hastily. “I’m afraid my mother is out this afternoon, but I can show you round and tell you all about it. Come in, won’t you?”

  As they walked back to the door, she took her first proper look at him—and wanted to laugh. There were not many girls who would be entranced by a car, however splendid, when a man like this one was around, she realised, studying him. He wasn’t strikingly handsome. But he looked the way a man ought to look: streamlined and powerful ... like his car. His dark hair was cropped close to his head, and he was deeply tanned. He had a strong square-cut chin, and a big bony masculine kind of nose. He was wearing a navy linen sports shirt and narrow Italian style trousers of pale khaki cotton gabardine.

  “I hope you’re good at seeing how houses could be,” Jennifer said, as she led the way into the hall. “Because if you judge it by the way it is now...” She gave him a rueful smile and gestured at the shields and assegais.

  His mouth twitched slightly. “Yes, I see what you mean, Miss ...?”

  “Alvery. Jennifer Alvery.”

  She waited for him to introduce himself, but he frowned and said, “Alvery? That’s an unusual name. It seems to ring a bell.”

  She opened the door of the drawing-room. “My father was Guy Alvery ... the racing driver. I expect that’s why the name seems familiar to you. This is the drawing-room. It could be rather lovely with a different wallpaper and white paintwork.”

  He glanced briefly round the large old-fashioned room. “So that’s why you’re interested in cars—and know so much about them.”

  Jennifer nodded. “But I can’t drive,” she said dryly. “My stepfather would never let me learn. He had a thing about women drivers.”

  “Most men have, I’m afraid. I’m not entirely unprejudiced myself,” the man said, with a smile. “But some women drive very well—much better than men.”

  Jennifer smiled. “But you’d hate to let a woman get her hands on your beautiful Lancia.”

  He laughed. “God forbid! I’d probably have heart failure.”

  Jennifer showed him the dining-room, the study, and the morning-room.

  “Would you care for a cup of tea?” she asked, when they reached the kitchen. “I was just making one when the agent telephoned to say you were coming. It won’t take a minute for the kettle to boil again.”

  “Thank you, I would. I’ve just driven down from London and I missed my lunch. Do you mind if I have a cigarette?”

  Jennifer lit the gas.

  “Of course not. No, I don’t, thanks”—as he offered his case. “That was something else my stepfather didn’t approve of.”

  “Quite right, too. I don’t like girls smoking either,” he said, leaning against the big oak dresser.

  “Well, I never really wanted to smoke—but I hate being forbidden to do things. Look, if you haven’t had any lunch you must be starving. Let me make you a sandwich.”

  “It’s very kind of you,” he said, as she opened the bread tin. “Is everyone in Midchester so hospitable?”

  Jennifer smiled. “I expect so—when they’re trying to sell their houses. Have you a big family? Is that why you want a large place?”

  “I haven’t any family at all. I’m not married.”

  “Oh... then wouldn’t a place this size be much too large for you?” she asked, puzzled.

  Before he could answer, the telephone rang again. “Excuse me a minute.” Jennifer went into the hall. It was a call from one of her school friends, now a secretary. She wanted to know if Jennifer would like to make up a foursome the following evening.

  “Yes, I’d love to, Sue. Thanks very much. Look, I can’t chat now. I’ve got a visitor. I’ll ring you back when you get home. Okay? ’Bye now.”

  The kettle had boiled while she was away. When she returned to the kitchen, the man was pouring the water into the teapot.

  “Tell me, Miss Alvery, why do you and your mother want to leave Laureldene?” he asked. “This is one of the nicest parts of Midchester and, as you suggested earlier, the house could be made very pleasant if it were modernised and redecorated. Surely, if the house is too big for you, the upper floors could be converted into flats.”

  “Yes, I suppose they could,” she agreed. “But it would cost a great deal of money and ... well, to be frank, the house doesn’t have very happy associations for us. Shall we drink our tea in the garden? There are some deck chairs out. It seems a shame to sit indoors on such a lovely day.”

  “I agree. Let me carry the tray for you.”

  “I gather you’ve been living abroad,” Jennifer said, when they were settled under the chestnut tree on the lawn. “Nobody could have acquired such a wonderful tan in England this year. This Indian summer we’re having is the first really hot spell since May.”

  “So I understand. I haven’t been living abroad, but I have been out of the country for several months.”

  Jennifer propped her sandalled feet on the rungs of the garden table. “Lucky you,” she said enviously. “We haven’t been abroad since my father was alive. I used to love travelling—especially when we didn’t make any plans but just followed our noses. It seems mad to go to the same deadly dull resort every year when one could be discovering somewhere new. But my stepfather was terribly conservative. Couldn’t possibly have gone without his bacon and eggs every morning, or his marmalade or his Times.”

  “I get the impression that you and he didn’t get on too well,” her companion said, looking amused.

  “No, we didn’t,” she agreed bluntly. Then she flushed and looked away, suddenly aware that her differences with Wilfred were not a matter to discuss with a total stranger. “Will you have some more tea?” she asked hastily.

  The odd thing was that she did not feel as if he were a stranger. There was something about him which instantly set her at ease. He was terribly attractive, she thought. The kind of exciting sophisticated man who one never normally met in a place like M
idchester.

  While she was pouring his tea, he turned his head to survey the back of the house. Studying his strong-featured profile, Jennifer suddenly realised that he reminded her of her father in many ways. Guy had been fair and blue-eyed, but this man had the same deeply etched lines round his eyes, the same generous good-humoured mouth, the same strong shapely hands.

  “Shall I show you the rest of the garden?” she suggested, when he had finished his second cup of tea. “There’s quite a big kitchen garden and orchard behind that hedge. There’s a paddock, too. It’s rented by some people up the road who keep a pony for their children.”

  “Where are you going to live when you’ve sold this house, Miss Alvery?” he asked, as they walked round the cinder path skirting the orchard.

  “We’re going to find a small modern bungalow,” she explained. “I’d like to go back to London where we used to live, but my mother wants to stay here.”

  “You don’t care for Midchester?”

  “Not much. It’s all right for married people who don’t want to go out. But it hasn’t much to offer the single ones. In fact there aren’t many people of my age in the place. They all go off to see the world and make their fortunes. What brings you here?” she asked curiously.

  “I’m going into partnership,” he said.

  But he did not add what kind of partnership, and somehow he did not strike her as a man who made his living behind a desk, a lawyer or an accountant or someone like that. Could he be a doctor? No, not with that car.

  As they returned towards the house, Jennifer was surprised to see her mother coming round the side of it. She was accompanied by a thin, grey-haired man of about fifty.

  “Oh, there you are, darling. I forgot my latch-key again,” Louise said, as they met. “Colonel Fletcher, this is my daughter.

  “It was lucky I came home early,” she went on, when Jennifer had shaken hands with him. “The Colonel had been ringing the bell for ages, and was just going away again, Jenny. He’s here to look over the house. He says Mr. Datch did warn you he was coming.”

  “I expect you wondered where I had got to,” Colonel Fletcher said pleasantly. “I would have been here sooner, but on the way I remembered I had to go to the bank, so I was delayed.”

  Jennifer stared at him in astonishment. “Then who are you?” she demanded, turning to the man beside her.

  There was a glimmer of amusement in his dark eyes as he answered. “My name is Parker ... Neal Parker.”

  Louise was the first to recover from this announcement.

  “You mean you’re Wilfred’s nephew?” she exclaimed.

  “Yes, Mrs. Parker.” He held out his hand to her. “I’m sorry you had no warning I was coming, but I only returned to England late last night. I did telephone from London this morning, but there was no reply.”

  “I see,” Louise said, smiling. “How very amusing—Jenny taking you for a house-hunter, I mean. Colonel Fletcher, will you excuse me for the moment while I take Mr. Parker indoors. After driving down from town, I expect he’d like to have a wash and unpack his things. Jenny can be showing you the garden, and then you might like some tea before we take you round inside.”

  Twenty minutes later, Jennifer was making another pot of tea in the kitchen—she had left Colonel Fletcher in the drawing-room—when her mother reappeared.

  “Do you think he likes the look of the place?” she asked eagerly.

  “I don’t know,” Jennifer said shortly. “All I do know is that I could kill that wretched man for deliberately making an idiot of me. He was here for at least half an hour before you came back, and he never even attempted to say who he was.”

  “Oh, darling, don’t be so stuffy. I think it’s all rather a joke. Anyway, you should be delighted. I am.”

  “Delighted? What do you mean?”

  “Because he’s so nice—and very attractive. Incidentally, he intended to put up at the Crown, so as not to inconvenience us. But I insisted he should stay here. I’ve put him in the room over the study. We can make up the bed later on. Now I’d better go and attend to Colonel Fletcher. Oh, what are we going to have for supper now that Neal’s here?”

  “Neal?” Jennifer queried with raised eyebrows.

  “He asked me to call him that. ‘Mr. Parker’ is rather absurd in the circumstances.”

  “Oh, Mother, how can you take his part? I think he’s behaved disgustingly. He must have seen the sale board at the gate, realised the conclusion I’d jumped to, and used it as a chance to pump me.”

  Her mother looked puzzled. “Pump you? About what?”

  “About us ... about everything. Why else should he hide his identity?”

  “I suppose the situation amused him. Did you say anything indiscreet?”

  “No, I didn’t—but I might have done if you hadn’t come home when you did,” Jennifer answered crossly. Then, regretting her sharpness, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. Don’t worry about supper, I’ll cope with it this evening. You go and persuade Colonel Fletcher that this house is exactly what he wants.”

  About forty minutes later, when Jennifer had put a cheese and bacon pie in the oven and was making mayonnaise for the salad, her mother returned to say that the Colonel had left.

  “He’s gone to bring his sister to see the house. He’s a widower and she looks after him, so the decision is really up to her,” Louise explained. “He has three children, but the elder two are away at training colleges most of the year, so I think he feels this place is rather too big for them. Now I’d better go and make up Neal’s bed. Is he still in his room?”

  Jennifer shrugged. “I suppose so.”

  Her mother left the kitchen, but returned a moment later to say, “Open a bottle of sherry, will you, dear? We’ll all have a drink before supper.”

  A few minutes later Jennifer heard Neal Parker come downstairs and cross the hall to the drawingroom. She waited until her mother had joined him before she carried in the sherry.

  Neal rose to his feet as she entered, but she did not look at him. Presently, while he was chatting to Louise, she watched him, ready to flick her glance away.

  He had changed into a pale grey lounge suit made of some light weight synthetic material, the kind of thing Americans wore, with a white shirt and a grey silk bow tie. When her mother said something which amused him, the lines round his eyes formed deep crinkles and he gave a low chuckle.

  Conscious charm! Jennifer thought sourly. Perhaps that was why he had not told her who he was at once. No doubt he had guessed that she and her mother would be wary of him, and had thought he would soften her up before he revealed himself. Well, it had worked—for half an hour. But he would need more than charm to bamboozle her a second time.

  She took little part in the conversation during the meal, but neither her mother nor Neal seemed to notice her silence.

  “May I lend a hand with the washing up?” he offered, when they left the table.

  “No, thank you,” Jennifer said coldly, and she stalked out of the room to fetch a tray.

  All the time she was doing the dishes and making coffee, she could hear the murmur of their voices from the drawing-room. Now and then there came the sound of her mother’s laughter. In any other circumstances, Jennifer would have been delighted to hear Louise enjoying herself. There had been very little gaiety in the house while her stepfather was alive.

  But, tonight, far from being pleased, she was irritated and worried. Quite obviously Neal was putting himself out to gain her mother’s confidence—and it was equally clear that he must have some ulterior motive.

  Her suspicions about him were intensified when, as she carried in the coffee tray, he said, “You know, Louise, I’m not sure that you’re wise to sell this house just at the moment.”

  So it was ‘Louise’ now! Jennifer bristled.

  “Is that any of your business, Mr. Parker?” she asked frostily, setting the tray on a table with a force which nearly overset the cream jug.

  “
Jenny!” her mother protested.

  Jennifer flushed. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to sound rude. But we’ve decided to sell, and that’s that.”

  “There’s nothing to stop us changing our minds, dear—if Neal feels we’ve acted too hastily. Personally I should be very glad of your advice, Neal,” Louise said, with an apologetic smile at him.

  “Well, as your daughter says, it’s entirely up to you what you do,” he said smoothly. “You may be lucky and find a buyer pretty quickly. But, in general, houses of this size and style are not in great demand nowadays, particularly if the structural condition is dubious. I hope you don’t mind, but I went up to look round the attics earlier on, and I noticed signs of dry rot in the apple room. There also appears to be a good deal of woodworm about.”

  “Oh dear, is there?” Louise murmured worriedly.

  “On the other hand,” Neal went on, “this site could be worth a lot of money. Perhaps building land in Midchester isn’t as scarce as it is in many places, but this is the town’s best residential district and—unless the planning authorities clamped down on the idea—nearly a couple of acres of matured garden and paddock should be a very profitable acquisition for some enterprising developer. With this house pulled down, there’d be room for three or four good-class chalet-bungalows.”

  “Yes, I suppose there would. We never even thought of such a thing,” Louise said, looking rather excited by the suggestion.

  But Jennifer’s reaction was to stick out her chin and say fiercely, “No, we haven’t—because we’ve no desire to make our fortune by selling out to some beastly speculative builder. How do you think our neighbours would like it if their outlook was ruined by some ghastly jerry-built development here? Or don’t neighbours matter to you, Mr. Parker?”

  “Evidently you don’t know very much about real estate,” Neal told her calmly. “A builder of that type would probably crowd at least eight houses on this ground. What I was suggesting would be quite in keeping with the tone of the area.”