by Miranda Lee
‘Were you, Uncle James? Oh, look. There’s some horses. Can I go look at our horses when I get home, Uncle James?’
‘Whatever you like, sweetie. Here, come and sit up on my lap for a minute so you can see better out of the window.’
She scrambled up onto James’s lap straight away, hands and nose instantly glued to the glass.
Marina resisted the impulse to feel jealous.
‘You have horses too?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘I inherited them from my brother, who was racing and gambling mad. They’re not riding horses. They’re thoroughbred brood mares. Laurence’s wife, Joy, was also mad about jumpers, and she had a whole stable of hacks. I eventually sold them, because there was no one left who wanted to ride and they cost too much to keep properly fed and stabled for nothing. But I kept the brood mares as an investment. We have plenty of good grazing land and my estate manager said it would be foolish to sell them up. He said some of the foals would bring in a small fortune. And he was right, thank God.’
‘Why do you say, “Thank God”? Was the estate in financial trouble when your brother died?’
‘That’s putting it mildly. Laurence had run up an overdraft a mile high, the house and land had a second mortgage and several of my father’s prized paintings had been exchanged for copies—the originals sold to South American millionaires. A good number of antiques had also already found their way to Sotheby’s—just to support two wastrels, flitting around the world.’
‘What’s a wastrel?’ Rebecca asked, reminding them both that there was a child listening.
‘A good-for-nothing person who spends money and doesn’t work,’ James answered bluntly.
‘Well, you’re not one, Uncle James. You’re always working at the bank. And Marina’s not one because she’s a teacher!’ The little girl frowned, then. ‘I’m not one, am I, Uncle James? I mean, I don’t work, and I know it costs a lot to keep me in hospital.’
James gave the serious-faced child a hug. ‘Children can’t be wastrels, sweetie. That’s only for grown-ups. And I wouldn’t care how much it cost me to make you well.’
‘You won’t have to pay much more, Uncle James, because I’m going to be perfectly well in no time.’
Marina’s heart turned over. She prayed that would be so with all her heart. The thought that the transplant might not work in the end brought a lump to her throat. She glanced out of her window, willing away tears by concentrating on the passing countryside.
It was nothing like anything you would ever see in Australia. So ordered, and so very green, despite James saying earlier they’d been having a drought. Marina had smiled at that. She doubted the English knew the real meaning of the word ‘drought’. Let them travel out into the outback during a drought and see what years—not a single season—without rain could do. Let them see bone-dry creek-beds and the bleached skeletons of long-dead animals on the banks. Or the rotting carcasses of newly dead ones.
She shuddered herself at the image, which had actually confronted her once during a camping trip into the red heart of Australia.
Not that Australia was all like that. It was only the interior deserts which were so merciless. The capital cities and large tracts of pasturelands along the coastlines came as a pleasant surprise to some overseas visitors, who thought Australia was one big outback.
Marina especially loved Sydney, with its many trees, its beautiful harbour and beaches. Unfortunately, her mother’s house and ten-acre property was right on the rural outskirts of Sydney, quite some way from the ocean which might have tempered the soaring summer temperatures. Bringelly reached the high thirties with regular monotony during the summer months.
Marina had to admit she was not fond of such heat. Now that she was more used to England’s cooler climate, she much preferred it. She’d grown to like London, too. And she certainly liked what she was seeing of the countryside.
They were on the A3 something-or-other, travelling south-west of London at considerable speed, as were all the other cars, heading wherever they were heading for the weekend. Actually, they’d been on various A3 something-or-others since leaving the M3 motorway some time back.
‘You didn’t want to go and see Stonehenge while you were down this way, did you?’ James asked politely from his corner.
She looked over and noted that he had sensibly re-fastened Rebecca into her seat belt. ‘No, thanks. I saw it last time and thought it highly disappointing. Maybe if you could walk amongst the stones themselves in the moonlight, you might get some of the right atmosphere. But not in broad daylight from behind a roped-off section where you walk around like sheep in a queue longer than Pitt Street.’
James laughed. ‘You’ll never make a tourist if you don’t like sightseeing queues.’
‘I agree with you. That’s why my last touristy trip over here was my one and only.’
‘You haven’t travelled anywhere else?’
‘Not outside of Australia. I’ve been into the outback and down to Tasmania.’
‘So you haven’t been to Paris? Or to Rome?’
‘No.’
‘Would you like to go?’
She gave him a suspicious look. Surely he wasn’t going to suggest he take her? Surely not!
His smile was wry. ‘Just answer the question, Marina. It’s not a trick.’
‘I’d go if I could go first class,’ she said truthfully. ‘My days of economy travel are behind me. I’m very much a once-bitten, twice-shy girl.’ And make of that what you will, Your Lordship!
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ he murmured, and fell irritatingly silent.
Marina scowled to herself.
See what you get for magnanimously planning to let him sleep with you tonight? came the predictable taunt in her head. Now he thinks you’re a cheap, two-timing tramp. No, not cheap. An expensive two-timing tramp who can probably be bought for illicit weekends in Paris and Rome and God knows where. Next thing you know he’ll suggest you fly back to Australia via Paris and Rome with him as tour guide. But the only sights he’ll want you to see are plenty of hotel bedrooms!
You don’t have to sleep with him tonight, her conscience piped up. You didn’t say you would in so many words. If and when he tries to take delivery of what he thinks you promised, you can claim he misinterpreted that look, that you had no intention of doing any such thing!
Marina closed her eyes and shook her head. She couldn’t do that. The truth was that she wanted to sleep with him. The extent of her desire had kept her awake all night. Even now, inside, every nerve-ending was tingling in anticipation of the coming evening. Although exhausted from her sleepless night, she felt more alive than she ever had before.
Did James feel like that? she wondered, and turned her head just enough to look at him out of the corner of her eye.
He was wearing the most casual clothes she’d seen him in this past week. Pale grey trousers and a lightweight crew-necked sweater in broad horizontal stripes of grey and navy. His casual loafers were navy. He still looked a million dollars—his black hair perfectly groomed and that tantalising pine perfume wafting from his body.
She, herself, was wearing the tailored black trousers which went with her take-anywhere black suit, teamed today with a cream V-necked cashmere cardigan which she’d thrown into her luggage at the last moment in case the evenings were chilly. Although the sun was shining, Marina still found the air crisp.
Rebecca had insisted on wearing a rather tomboyish outfit of white T-shirt and khaki overalls, completing it with a white baseball cap.
She’d told Marina in confidence that she wasn’t going to wear girl clothes until she had hair and looked like a girl. Marina could see her point. Rebecca’s bald head would have looked incongruous above a frilly dress. And she simply refused to wear a wig. She said they were hot and itchy and made her look silly!
Marina glanced up from her survey of Rebecca’s clothes to find James watching her. For a moment the air between them was fraught with a sizzling
tension. But then he smiled, and for a single marvellous moment Marina felt as she might have felt if they had been a real family—husband, wife and daughter—going for a drive in the countryside.
Her heart swelled with a brief burst of happiness, only to contract fiercely when she realised such a fantasy would never come true. It would be Lady Tiffany who would sit here in future years. James’s wife. The Countess of Winterborne. Not silly slept-with-and-discarded Marina.
Her face must have betrayed her thoughts, for James’s smile faded abruptly, to be replaced by a troubled frown. They stared at each other and Marina could have sworn that the misery in her eyes was reflected in his, that they both longed for the same thing, but both knew it would never come about.
‘We’re nearly there!’ Rebecca suddenly shrieked. ‘Look, there’s the gates, Uncle James. Oh, just you wait and see this, Marina. It’s the prettiest place you’ll ever see!’
Marina dragged herself out of the black pit in a valiant effort to respond to the child’s enthusiasm. She could not for a moment imagine that one of England’s ancestral homes would be ‘pretty’. But then, a seven-year-old girl would not have too many adjectives at her command. One only had to look at the ancient wall and gateposts that the more modern electronic gates were attached to in order to get a hint of what the house would be like. Dark and grey and forbidding.
They passed through the gates, which had opened and begun closing behind them as if by magic, but presumably by a remote control operated by William. On one gatepost sat a small security camera, and below, attached to the post, was a black box with a big black button which no doubt callers pressed so that they could be vetted before the gates were opened.
Just inside the gates on Marina’s side stood a simply awful old house, which looked dilapidated and deserted. Although two-storeyed, it was small and narrow and gloomy. It had tiny windows and two black chimneys and ivy growing all over the walls. There was no garden to speak of. Just rambling rose bushes.
‘That isn’t the gatehouse Henry was sent to live in, is it?’ she asked, aghast.
James nodded. ‘Now you know why I had to bring him to London. The only reason I haven’t had the damned thing torn down is because it’s protected by a well-known charity. I ask you, what and who are they protecting it for?’
‘Not me,’ Rebecca said, shuddering. ‘It’s creepy.’
‘I suppose it has a long history,’ Marina ventured.
‘Undoubtedly,’ James agreed. ‘But it is my gatehouse, isn’t it? I should be able to do what I damned well please with it! I thank my lucky stars I’ve been able to pull the estate out of the red, or else I might have had to hand over the place to just such an institution, who would undoubtedly open the place to the public and have me spend every summer weekend standing on the front steps and smiling at those long queues of tourists you adore so much.’
Now she looked at him, more aghast. ‘But you’d hate that!’
‘Life can be full of doing things you hate,’ he returned, and she had a feeling he was no longer talking about houses.
‘I hate needles!’ Rebecca piped up. ‘And I still have to have them. Stop talking to Marina, Uncle James. We’re coming to the pretty bit.’
The narrow, winding road dipped unexpectedly, plunging with amazing speed from open fields into a type of forest. Huge trees on either side stretched up and over, meeting in the middle of the road. The summer sun attempted to pierce the canopy of leaves but could only manage a dappled light. Fractured rays of yellow danced across the shadowy avenue, creating a magical and quite fanciful atmosphere.
Suddenly they were in another world, where it was possible to believe in fairies and elves, in Robin Hood and Maid Marion, in Prince Charmings and Sleeping Beauties and happy ever after.
‘It’s the enchanted wood!’ Marina exclaimed.
As quickly as they had descended into the fairyland they burst out of it, and there, on a rise at the end of a long straight driveway, stood Winterborne Hall.
It wasn’t dark or forbidding. Not at all. The walls were made of a creamy grey stone, the roof of a shiny grey slate. It was three storeys high, with a very wide façade.
Not a castle by any means. But a most impressive mansion. Georgian in design, Marina guessed, with its clean lines and the symmetrical placement of windows on either side of the entrance.
‘What do you think?’ James asked as the Bentley moved with considerably less speed over the now gravel driveway.
‘It’s magnificent,’ she praised.
‘So it darned well should be! I’ve sunk a damned fortune in fixing up the place after Laurence didn’t spend a penny on it for years. I had the ivy stripped off the outside and the walls sandblasted last year. You don’t think it’s too stark now, do you?’
‘Oh, no. It’s breathtaking! And so are the grounds.’ As far as the eye could see there were rolling green hills, like parkland, with clumps of stately trees. Closer to the house, the wide expanses of lawn gave way to more ordered gardens, with beds of flowering bushes bordering the driveway—possibly hibiscus and definitely fuchsias and oleander—all of them in full bloom. They were covered in masses of gloriously coloured flowers in reds and pinks and white.
And then there was the fountain in the middle, where the driveway parted into two and went round in a circle. It was dominated by a great bronze statue of a chariot, horse and driver, and the circumference of the stone pond was rimmed with bronze archers shooting not arrows, but jets of water at the invading warrior, whoever he was.
‘I simply love it all,’ Marina praised, ‘but especially that fountain. There again, I do so like water.’
‘Wait till she sees the lake, Uncle James!’
‘Lake?’
‘The grounds roll down a slight hill to a lake at the back. There are swans and ducks, and we have a couple of boats you can take out. It’s very pleasant down there on a summer evening. There’s even a gazebo on a small point jutting into the lake.’
‘I have parties with my dolls there,’ Rebecca said. ‘I’ll show it to you after I’ve shown you the horses.’
‘I haven’t seen any horses yet,’ Marina said, glancing around.
‘They’re not close to the house,’ James explained. ‘I have a motorised golf-cart we can use to get to them.’
‘Don’t tell me you have a golf course here as well?’
‘No. Just the cart. But we do have an indoor heated swimming pool and an indoor tennis court.’
‘And how many acres?’ She might as well know the whole awful truth. Might as well let it sink in as just who and what she was dealing with here. It would keep her feet firmly on the ground.
‘Around a thousand.’
Marina knew that was a huge acreage by English standards. ‘My God, your next-door neighbours aren’t exactly at leaning-over-the-fence-for-a-chat distance, are they?’
He smiled. ‘No. Not exactly.’
‘How ever do you get to meet them?’
‘At polo matches and dinner parties and balls.’
‘Polo matches and dinner parties and balls,’ she repeated slowly, thinking this world was a far cry from a drink at the pub on a Friday night and McDonalds and a movie on Saturday. And yet, strangely, as she looked around she didn’t feel at all like a fish out of water. If she hadn’t known better, she might easily have pictured herself living here, with James by her side. In a weird kind of way her mother had prepared her for just such a life. She was well educated. She had an appreciation of art and fine things. She could ride…
She was almost tempted to tell him she was not totally working class, to say, Hey, half of me is Bingham blood. You know the Binghams, don’t you? Smashing good family. They go back centuries. I don’t know where they live, and they did give my mother the boot more than twenty-five years ago, but other than that I’m sure they’re right up your alley!
‘Uncle James doesn’t like parties much,’ Rebecca chimed in. ‘Do you, Uncle James?’
‘Not any m
ore, sweetie.’
‘Henry said you’d changed,’ the child offered, giving additional information which had James’s eyebrows lifting. ‘He said you used to be a “right royal raver” in your younger days. But that nowadays you had “settled down nicely”.’
Marina couldn’t help a small laugh, for the child had imitated Henry’s pompous manner to perfection.
‘Henry said that to you?’ James asked his niece in a disbelieving tone.
The child suddenly looked guilty. ‘Well…um…no. Not exactly. He and William were having a cup of tea in the kitchen one day and I…I…’
‘You eavesdropped,’ James chided. ‘You know that’s not right, Rebecca.’
‘I don’t think it’s so bad,’ she defended herself. ‘It’s the only way I can find out interesting stuff. No one ever tells us kids anything!’
Marina struggled not to smile. And so did James, she saw. The corners of his mouth were definitely twitching. The car stopped at the front steps and Rebecca demanded to be let out immediately. William took too long to open doors these days, she confided to her uncle.
‘All right, but don’t run,’ James warned, before he unzapped her seat belt and opened the car door. Rebecca jumped out and immediately raced up the front steps. Already a plump grey-haired lady was emerging from the house and holding her arms out to the child.
‘That’s Mildred,’ he explained, sighing. ‘She’s been the housekeeper here for a hundred years. Or so it seems. She’s actually only about sixty, and very attached to Rebecca. I don’t know what she’ll do if this transplant doesn’t take. God, I don’t know what I’ll do, come to think of it,’ he finished wretchedly.
Marina didn’t stop to think. She simply reacted, reaching out to touch his nearest arm. When he looked up at her with still sad eyes, she knew she would do anything to comfort him, regardless of the personal cost.
‘You mustn’t worry,’ she said softly. ‘And you mustn’t fuss. Treat her like a normal child with a future. Have faith, James.’