Kate's Progress

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  And Addison and Ed were missing. She thought of them curled up in Ed’s bed, sleeping after a night of passion – she bet Addison was a real athlete in the pit and knew lots of new positions – but dragged her thoughts away from that determinedly. She helped herself from the sideboard and went to sit down by Susie. They chatted about this and that, but finally Kate couldn’t contain it any longer and asked if Ed and Addison had stirred yet.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Susie. ‘Eric told me before he went on his walk that they were up really early – well, neither of them drank much last night, did they? – and they’ve taken Gracie and Henna out for a long ride so Addison can get used to her.’ She looked at Kate curiously. ‘I must say, I was surprised that you volunteered to give her up, when you’d put in so much hard work. And you seemed so keen to ride in the point.’

  ‘I was,’ Kate said. ‘But I didn’t exactly volunteer, did I? Addison said that Ed wanted me to give her up, because he wanted her to ride on Monday. So what could I do?’

  Susie frowned. ‘Wait, wait, Addison said it was Ed’s idea?’

  ‘She said he wanted Henna to have a chance, because Addison’s a better rider than me, more experienced.’

  ‘Well, not having seen her ride, I can’t say if either of those things is true. But I do know it wasn’t Ed’s idea. I was there when the subject came up. It was after you went up to bed, and Addison came over and said you were worried about riding on Monday and you’d asked her to ride Henna instead, as long as Ed didn’t mind. She said you’d said you didn’t want to offend him when he’d taken so much trouble, so would she sound him out? So of course he said he didn’t mind, and if Addison was going to ride they ought to have a practice this morning.’

  Kate didn’t know what to say. Her mind felt numb. She stared at Susie helplessly. ‘I didn’t say that. That wasn’t what happened.’

  Susie was less paralysed. ‘I believe you,’ she said vigorously. ‘It’s all of a piece with her domination of the conversation last night. I don’t say she hasn’t plenty to say, but she obviously has to be queen bee in everything, never mind anyone else’s feelings. But this …! What a manipulative bitch! She couldn’t just ask straight out.’

  ‘She might just as well have. Ed would have said yes, I’m sure,’ said Kate glumly.

  ‘He might not have. He’s very loyal, and if he’d given his word to you he’d want to keep it.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘He’s in love with her. He’ll give her anything she wants.’

  ‘He might not be so in love with her when you tell him how she’s behaved,’ Susie said grimly.

  ‘No,’ Kate said. ‘I can’t do that.’ Susie began to protest, and she went on, ‘Think how that would make me look – petty and spiteful, a troublemaker. And I don’t want to be the one to come between them. That wouldn’t be right. I’m just a guest here. She’s going to be family.’

  ‘You’re terribly forgiving,’ Susie said. ‘I wouldn’t be.’

  ‘Not forgiving, but – well –’ she shrugged – ‘no sense banging your head against a brick wall. Leave well alone, that’s the best thing. You won’t say anything, will you? Please, Susie.’

  ‘If you say so,’ Susie said with a sigh. And then she brightened. ‘I tell you what! I’ll lend you Magic.’

  ‘Magic?’ Kate was puzzled for an instant.

  ‘Magicman, my dear old horse. He’s not so old he wouldn’t like a little dash round the jumps, and you’re very light in the saddle.’

  ‘You mean – ride Magic in the point-to-point?’

  ‘You’re very slow, dear! That’s exactly what I mean. I’ve seen you ride; you’ve got nice light hands and a good seat. And Magic’s a much easier ride than Henna. All you’ve got to do is sit there and he’ll do the rest.’ She was beaming now. ‘Do say yes! I’d so like to scotch that cow’s triumph. You ought to have a ride, after working so hard. It’s only a matter of changing the entry. You’re already registered, and Magic’s well qualified – I hunted him all last season. Say yes! Say yes!’

  Kate began to laugh. ‘Yes. I can’t resist you when you’re so determined.’

  ‘No backbone, that’s your trouble,’ Susie said wisely. ‘You give in too easily.’

  ‘“Yes” to what?’ Jack asked, looking across the table. ‘What are you two hatching up?’

  ‘Kate’s going to ride Magic for me at Buscombe,’ Susie said.

  Jack looked puzzled. ‘But I thought she was riding Henna?’

  Kate saw Susie draw breath and kicked her warningly under the table. ‘No, Addison wanted a ride, so she’s having Henna,’ Susie said neutrally.

  ‘Oh,’ said Jack, ‘I heard her talking last night about what a good rider she is – does eventing in America, apparently. Won loads of prizes. I suppose she was building up her credentials ahead of asking.’

  ‘Don’t you like her?’ Flick asked, giving him a curious look.

  Jack seemed to embrace caution at the last minute. ‘She’s – rather a powerful character,’ he said finally. ‘Put it this way, I find a little of her goes a long way.’

  ‘Well, be careful,’ Flick said. ‘It’s whether Ed likes her or not that matters. And if he does – which seems to be the case – you don’t want to make him choose between you and her. Because that’s one you can’t win.’

  ‘I think she’s marvellous,’ Camilla said, catching on to the end of the conversation. ‘It’s so funny to think that if she and Ed get married, she’ll be my stepdaughter. Won’t that be weird? Of course, it’s already ludicrous that Ed and Jack are my stepsons!’

  ‘You said it,’ Jack muttered, and Flick reached across and rapped the back of his hand with her butter-knife.

  There was just time for a quick dash across to Northcombe after breakfast by Kate and Susie so that Kate could try out Magic and put him over a few jumps. He was a very comfortable ride, quite different from Henna, and she soon found that he knew exactly what he was doing, looked carefully at each jump on approach and picked his own take-off.

  ‘Just keep your leg on him and keep contact with his mouth all the time, so he knows you’re awake,’ Susie said, ‘and he’ll do the rest. You’ll be fine.’

  ‘He’s wonderful,’ Kate said. ‘I hope Ed doesn’t mind.’

  ‘Why on earth should he?’ Susie asked robustly.

  Kate couldn’t think of an answer – she didn’t know why he might, she just had an uneasy feeling about it.

  But when they got back to The Hall, he only replied to Susie’s explanation, ‘Yes, Jack told me.’ And to Kate, ‘I’m glad you’ll be getting a ride. Magic’s an old hand. I’m sure you’ll be safe on him.’

  But he looked, Kate thought, disappointed in her; and no wonder, if Addison had said she was scared. She blushed with annoyance and humiliation – and with hurt when Ed turned away, dismissing her and the subject. She had let him down; she wasn’t the person he had thought her; and she would have to live with that judgement, however much it burned her.

  The afternoon’s entertainment had been arranged: they all went off, in various cars, to the country fair in the Quantocks, near Cothelstone, taking with them a picnic put up by Mrs B (and the girl who had come to help in the kitchen for the weekend) and a case of champagne. The fair had stock classes, and marquees housing a flower show, a dog show, and various crafts.

  There was a field set aside for picnicking, which was obviously a large part of the ritual. Rather like Glyndebourne, Kate thought: people seemed to be competing to display the most sumptuous picnic, and to be seen to be having the best time. Some of them had gone overboard with picnic furniture and accessories of extraordinary elaboration, and one or two had even brought servants with them to set up and hand round.

  The Blackmore picnic was not quite in that league: there were thick tartan rugs to sit on, but no table and only two folding chairs, seized at once by Camilla and Addison. But the cold collation was excellent, and they drank champagne out of proper glasses.

  There was much
to-ing and fro-ing as people visited and were visited from other groups, friends catching up with friends – which was obviously an important part of the occasion. The field echoed with the bird-cries of greeting and exclamation, and hummed with happy conversation.

  When the major part of the eating was over, no-one seemed eager to go and see the show, preferring to sit and smoke and chat and pour more champagne. Eric and Dan did eventually walk off to look at some cattle classes, and the children, who’d been growing increasingly restless, finally begged Kate to go with them and look at the marquees. Kate, resigned now to her role as childminder, got up and went.

  By an extraordinary coincidence the route Jocasta picked led right by an ice-cream van, so to offer to buy them one seemed, in all decency, the only thing she could do. It was while they were standing in the queue that she spotted Phil Kingdon standing a little way off, deep in conversation with a tall, smartly-dressed man who seemed somehow out of place in this setting. It was, she decided, because he looked such a product of the urban scene: an expensive business suit, shiny town shoes, immaculate haircut, a lean, hard face you’d expect to see across a table in the boardroom of a multinational, rather than in a field surrounded by the smell of bruised grass and cattle dung.

  They were talking hard, heads close together. It pleased her slightly that, from their body language, the stranger seemed the top dog of the two. There was something she just didn’t like about Kingdon.

  Jocasta said something and she turned to her to reply. When she looked again, the two men had gone.

  The displays in the marquees were very good, of a professional standard. The children were most interested in the tent where the dogs were waiting in their cages for the dog show judging; that, and the WI tent where there were displays of cakes among the jam and pickles. Kate was trying to answer Theo’s wistful query about what happened to the cakes after the competition, when Jack joined them, much to Theo’s delight. It was nice, Kate thought, though a bit sad, that he adored his daddy so much. The four of them went off to see the rest of the show, Theo holding Jack’s hand and Jocasta with her arm linked through Kate’s. A stranger, Kate thought, would have taken them for a family.

  When they returned to the picnic field, the rest of the party were back there – or perhaps had never moved – and tea and coffee were being poured from flasks. Camilla, Kate noted, had given up her chair to an older woman who was deep in conversation with Addison, and for once Addison seemed to be getting the worst of it, listening while the other woman talked fast and determinedly, her tight jaw going up and down and a finger jabbing points in the air like a political debater.

  Jack nudged Kate. ‘The biter bit,’ he sniggered. ‘That’s the ineffable Mrs Murray, head of every committee known to man, organizer supreme and hard rider to hounds. She’s tamed Princess Pocahontas all right. What a hoot!’

  ‘Maybe Princess P is just having a rest,’ Kate suggested. ‘Any minute she’ll leap back into the fray refreshed.’

  Jack shuddered. ‘The thought of her with even more energy …’

  Kate was looking at Camilla, who was holding court. As well as the Brigadier and Jeremy, she had two other men standing in a little group round her, and she seemed to be managing to charm all of them, and was giving four glad-eyes at once with effortless skill. ‘Your stepmother’s having a good time,’ she said.

  ‘Good luck to her,’ Jack said tolerantly. ‘I’m all for flirting. Flirting is good for people.’

  ‘So you’ve taught me. I never thought—’ She broke off. ‘Oh, there’s Phil Kingdon.’

  He had approached the group, and having said something to Camilla, drew her a little out of the circle, talking to her with his head close to her ear.

  ‘Don’t tell me he’s one of her admirers,’ Kate said.

  ‘He’d better not be,’ said Jack. Kate glanced at him. He was frowning as if the sight of Camilla and Phil together was something he disapproved of. When she looked back, she saw, beyond them, the man she had seen him talking to earlier.

  ‘Do you know who that is?’ she asked.

  Jack looked. ‘He looks familiar somehow – I don’t know why. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I saw him and Phil Kingdon having a discussion earlier. It looked important. I just wondered who he was.’

  ‘Dunno,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve got a feeling I’ve seen him somewhere, but I don’t know where.’

  ‘I’ve got the same feeling, but I know I don’t know him,’ Kate said. Suddenly she realized that the stranger was staring at her. She gripped Jack’s arm, turning him away. ‘He’s looking at me,’ she hissed. She edged away, taking him with her, until there was a group of standing people masking them.

  ‘Probably because you were looking at him,’ Jack said reasonably. And then, ‘What’s the matter? You’ve gone quite pale.’

  She had tracked the memory down. It was not that she recognized the man. It was the shape of him, of his head and bulky shoulders, that seemed familiar. They reminded her of the shadow she had seen briefly standing outside her cottage, that night she had come home from babysitting. She peeped again through a gap between the shoulders of the protective group. Kingdon and the other man were walking away together, the smart man, it seemed, doing the talking. They disappeared into the crowds.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Jack asked again.

  It was hard to explain. She had felt safe at The Hall, and it was as if the trouble had followed her, had breached the defences and exposed her again. ‘He was staring at me, that’s all,’ she said at last. ‘This business – with the house – it’s got me all on edge. It’s stupid.’

  ‘No,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘you’ve got every right to be upset. But you’re safe with us. And I’m going to make some enquiries, like I promised you. In fact, I’m going to start right now.’ And he pressed her arm, and walked away, heading towards the marquees.

  Back at The Hall, there were baths and dressing and then cocktails, a buffet supper, and a settling in for the evening. A card table was set up at one end of the room, and Camilla, Jeremy, the Brigadier and Felicity sat down to bridge.

  ‘Camilla’s mad about bridge,’ Jack told Kate. ‘She’s got into this high-playing group – it’s like the County set’s version of a poker school. You know, the tense, smoke-filled room, the hard faces, the narrowed eyes, big sums of money changing hands. It’s one of the reasons she gets into debt. Mind you,’ he concluded, ‘if she weren’t playing bridge she’d be out shopping and she can drop just as much money that way, if not more.’ He gave a short smile. ‘At least Flick will get some of it back for the family. She’s a demon at bridge.’

  The rest of them gathered at the other end and played charades. Charlie had them in fits with his obscene rendering of Grand Prix. Addison got annoyed because nobody got her mime for The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Ed did Casablanca as ‘cash a blank her’ which Kate thought ingenious. He did it straight-faced, but with a gleam that hinted at suppressed laughter. She was glad to see him enjoying himself – he had seemed to get more grim as the weekend progressed. Jack was completely defeated by Unforgiven and demanded a redraw, saying it was impossible, upon which Addison jumped up and said she’d show him how to do it, and proceeded to perform what looked like exactly the same mime as for Unbearable Lightness.

  They went from charades to paper games, which got sillier and sillier as the drink went down, until the bridge players complained they could not hear themselves shuffle. Then Greg offered to play the piano and Jack and Charlie rolled up the tatty old Turkish rugs and there was dancing. Kate watched Ed and Addison revolving in each other’s arms, not talking, but looking so good together, physically perfectly matched, that she felt heartsick.

  Despite her good intentions, she had fallen for him. She was in no doubt about it now. All she could comfort herself with was being in his presence. It was painful, but it was better than nothing; otherwise she might have packed her bag and slipped out into the night, never to return. The time
would come when she would have to leave Bursford, never to see him again, but it was not yet. While she could be near him and look at him, she would take those meagre crumbs. Ahead, she knew, was starvation.

  She had been sitting one out, or rather standing it out next to the piano, allowing her dreamy gaze to follow Ed around the room. Now he had gone out of the room for a moment, so she chatted instead in a desultory manner to Greg as he obligingly tinkled away at old dance tunes.

  Suddenly Addison was by her side. She was in black sequins tonight, her hair up in a high chignon decorated with two small black feathers – Kate had thought briefly of Jack’s prediction about beads and feathers, but there was nothing laughable about her. She looked glittering, dangerous and beautiful.

  ‘Can I talk to you?’ she said. A hard hand gripped Kate’s upper arm and turned her away from Greg into the privacy of the space between the piano and the dusty-smelling velvet curtains. Addison’s face was smiling, but her eyes were hard. Kate looked into them, noting that they really were green, but with patches of blue and flecks of gold-brown – really rather remarkable.

  ‘It’s about your behaviour,’ Addison said in a low voice.

  Kate was startled. ‘My what?’ You might hear those words from your mum when you were fifteen, but from one adult to another, in a third party’s house …? She couldn’t believe she’d heard right.

  Addison sighed. ‘I don’t like to be the one to say anything, but someone has to, and as I’m Edward’s – well, practically his fiancée, I think it’s down to me. Because you’re making people uncomfortable.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Kate said in amazement.

  The stare was de haut en bas. ‘It was bad enough your coming here at all, on some flimsy excuse, when you really don’t fit it.’ A quick, searing look up and down Kate said it all: clothes, hair, make-up – she just was out of her league here. ‘But you’ve developed a – well, a sort of girly crush on Edward. I can understand it – he’s very handsome, and I dare say someone like you hasn’t often come across a man like him. But I have to warn you that you’re being too obvious. Everyone’s noticed it. Edward’s noticed it, and it’s making him very uncomfortable. I’m sure that’s not what you want. And of course everyone else feels terribly sorry for you, but the fact is that you really ought to have more pride than to show your feelings so obviously when they aren’t reciprocated.’