by Anne Weale
‘If you’re going to continue in that vein you may find yourself reading Vogue standing up for a few days,’ he said mildly. ‘Come down from your high horse, Flower. If a girl I have only just met invites me to dine at her flat it’s not an unreasonable assumption that anything goes.’
Her grey eyes flashed with anger as she tried to shrug free of the clamp-like grip on her shoulder.
‘The unreasonable assumption was that you would have been my only guest. I wasn’t planning a tête-à-tête. It was going to be a dinner party. But I suppose that wouldn’t have occurred to you, accustomed as you are to women falling like skittles if you so much as glance at them.’
‘You didn’t say it would be a dinner party.’
‘I didn’t get time. Dodo came back before I could go into details, and then you went to bed.’
‘Am I to take it the invitation has been rescinded now?’
‘I’m surprised you have to ask.’
‘What do you want? An apology?’
His blue eyes looked down into hers with an expression hard to interpret, but it didn’t look like contrition. That it wasn’t was confirmed when he went on, ‘I’m afraid you’re not going to get one. I’m not going to say I’m sorry for something I enjoyed, and you enjoyed too—if you’re honest.’
She lowered her lashes, finding it impossible to hold that penetrating gaze which seemed to probe the corners of her mind.
‘Why don’t we forget last night and start again?’ he suggested.
His hand was still on her shoulder, but the pressure of his fingers had slackened. She was conscious of his towering height and the ease with which, if he chose, he could swing her up in his arms. She had never been more aware of herself as a female than she was with this tall, powerful man.
‘Very well,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘I—I don’t think you’ll find any changes in the grounds since you lived here. Except for the loss of the elms. I expect you know about Dutch elm disease.’
‘Yes, and now other trees are being affected by something similar, I hear. Has your grandfather done anything about replacing the elms which had to be felled?’
‘He had a forestry expert to advise him about it, and I think he consulted your father’s solicitors before going ahead. He’s been a punctilious tenant.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ was all Roderick said. Nothing about being sorry he had to ask them to leave sooner than they expected.
Clearly he was a man with little regard for conventional politeness, or indeed any of the conventions.
Yesterday she had been so overwhelmed by his remarkable likeness, full-face, to Colonel Piers Anstruther that she hadn’t noticed the ruthless lines of his profile; the aggressive thrust of the chin below the wide sensual mouth. The aquiline nose and heavy eyelids reminded her slightly of a bird of prey.
No doubt Piers had had the same look, but it wasn’t apparent in the portrait, which showed only the charm of his face when he was relaxed and amused, and nothing of the strong driving force which had made him a colonel when he was several years younger than the man beside her.
Rather surprisingly, the part of the grounds in which Roderick seemed to be most interested was the kitchen garden. It was enclosed by a high wall of old rose-red bricks supported by massive buttresses, which formed sheltered bays for fruit trees and cold frames.
One of the gardeners was working there, and Roderick had a conversation with him to which Flower listened without really paying attention. She was vaguely aware that it was about fertilisers and pesticides, but she was more interested in studying Roderick while his attention was given to the elderly gardener.
The man was an old-age pensioner who worked part-time, and who knew that his services would be welcomed by the owner of every large garden for miles around if he chose to desert the manor. He was always civil to her, but Abel considered him a surly fellow who answered in monosyllables and whose manner was far from respectful.
He wasn’t sullen with Roderick, she noticed. Perhaps it was because Roderick spoke to him as an equal, not in the peremptory tone adopted by Abel when addressing his employees at the house, although not those in the works.
Or it might be that the old man had heard who was staying at the house and had a higher regard for the local landed gentry than for a jumped-up outsider.
The expression ‘jumped-up’ was one Flower had heard in the village shop when she had walked in on a conversation which had ended so abruptly, and in such a tangible atmosphere of embarrassment, that she would have been a fool not to guess who had been the subject of the discussion.
It seemed both sad and unfair that her grandfather, despite his lavish donations to local good causes and other efforts to win popularity, would never achieve what he sought. Whereas Roderick, after years away, could at once command the esteem and deference enjoyed by his father.
They were on their way to the orangery, now used as a greenhouse, when she heard a small child’s voice and saw her two-year-old nephew Matthew scampering towards her, followed, some way behind, by his mother.
Wondering what Roderick and her brother’s wife would make of each other, she said, ‘Here comes my sister-in-law,’ before she ran to meet Matthew and scoop him up in a hug.
They had exchanged smacking kisses, and his small arms were round her neck as she said, ‘Hello, Sharon. This is Sir Roderick Anstruther, who arrived from America yesterday.’
Before her marriage Sharon Dursley had been a packer at the factory and a local beauty queen. Abel had opposed the match, wanting Stephen to do better for himself. But Flower thought Sharon was perfect for him. She was still, after four years of marriage, amazed at her luck in capturing the boss’s grandson. In her eyes he could do no wrong, which helped to bolster his ego against Abel’s constant criticisms.
Although now the mother of two children—she would have left the baby at home with her au pair-she had kept the curvaceous figure of her beauty-contest days, and was wearing a pale blue flying-suit with the legs tucked inside silver cowboy boots and the top unzipped to reveal a clinging pink tur-tleneck sweater. She was always heavily made up, with false eyelashes and—for the time being—red hair set in the latest style. In spite of her tarty appearance, she was a nice cheerful girl and an excellent cook.
‘How do you do, Mrs Dursley?’ said Roderick, shaking her hand with its long plum-red nails.
A little of Flower’s antagonism subsided as she noted that his attitude to Sharon was neither subtly patronising nor in any way predatory.
‘Pleased to meet you. Goodness, aren’t you tall?’ said Sharon with a nervous titter.
He said, ‘Yes, it’s a nuisance sometimes, as you’ll find out if your son grows up to be a beanstalk. I was as tall as my father by the time I was fourteen. Finding clothes to fit me was quite a problem.’
‘I shouldn’t think Matt will be tall. Steve’s not, is he, Flow?’
Sharon never used anyone’s full name if it could be abbreviated.
Inwardly Flower winced every time her own name was shortened to rhyme with cow. But she hadn’t said anything to her sister-in-law, who received enough strictures from Abel. In spite of his frequent claims to be a man of the people, it was a sharp thorn in his side that his grandson’s in-laws ran a mobile fish-and-chip shop which, every other Wednesday, came to the village near the manor.
‘We’re just going to look at the orangery, and then we’ll go back to the house and have coffee,’ she explained to Sharon. Then, remembering what Roderick had said as they’d left the breakfast table, ‘or perhaps we’ll have milk, like Matthew.’
She set him on his feet. Like his father, he was heavier than he ought to have been, rather a lump to hold for more than a few minutes.
The child held up his arms and began to whine, which invariably made his parents give in to him.
‘Be a good boy, Matt,’ said Sharon, but her tone lacked the gentle authority which Flower could exert when she had her nephew to herself.
He ig
nored her, continuing to grizzle until he was swept off his feet and perched high on Roderick’s broad shoulders. For a moment it seemed that, finding himself such a long way from earth, he might begin to howl in earnest. Then, his chubby legs firmly held and his small hands grasping his steed’s dark hair, he recovered his good humour.
‘I always think this place would make a super indoor swimming-pool and Jacuzzi,’ said Sharon as they approached the orangery, built in 1818 to house orange and lemon trees and other exotic plants.
‘You’re right. That’s an excellent idea,’ Roderick agreed with her, much to Flower’s surprise. ‘Are there many Jacuzzis in England? They’re extremely popular in America.’
‘Saunas are nice too.’ Encouraged by the success of her suggestion, Sharon relaxed, and began to chatter with her usual vivacity.
About an hour later when she was leaving, and Flower was seeing her to her car while Roderick was escorted round the staff’s part of the house by Watson, Sharon said, ‘I think he’s smashing. Not a bit toffee-nosed. Is he married?’
Flower shook her head.
‘Then, if I was you, I’d snaffle him before Lady Prudence and her stuck-up friends get to hear he’s back.’
‘They’re welcome to him, Sharon. He’s not my type.’
‘That’s like saying Richard Gere isn’t your type. Some men are everyone’s type. You could be the next Lady Anstruther if you put your mind to it. Then you wouldn’t have to leave here. You know it’s going to upset you. Your grandad won’t mind, not really. But you will. You love the manor.’
‘When did Dodo tell Stephen? Last night?’
‘No, Steve heard about it at work this morning. He rang up to tell me to come over and have a look at him—Rod, I mean. With the old man being riled about the way Steven handled things yesterday, there wasn’t much chance of him being invited to meet him. Poor old Steve: he’s doing his best, but you’d never think it the way your grandad goes on at him. There are times when I think we’d be happier living in a council house, like Mum and Dad did when they was our age. Oh, I like having my own car and everything, but not if it’s going to make Steve old before his time. He comes home washed out... not a bit like he used to be.’
She began to cry.
Flower put both arms round her and hugged her. ‘Poor Sharon. Try not to cry. You’ll worry Matthew... not to mention ruining your make-up.’
Fortunately the little boy was some distance away from them, picking up pieces of gravel.
Sharon pulled herself together. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, sniffing. ‘But I love Steve, Flow. I really do. I know some people make snide remarks about me being a gold-digger, but I’d have fallen for Steve if he hadn’t had a penny. I hate the old man for what he’s doing to him. Why can’t he retire and leave us in peace? I don’t know how you stand living with him. Mum was only saying the other day you must have the patience of a saint.’
‘He doesn’t badger me as much as he does Stephen. If we do have to leave the manor perhaps I can persuade him to take me on a world cruise and give Stephen a breathing space and a chance to handle things his way,’ said Flower.
After her sister-in-law had driven away she walked slowly back to the house, wondering what her grandfather’s lawyers had recommended him to do.
Sharon’s advice to snaffle Roderick before the daughters of various aristocratic families in the area got wind of his return reminded her that yesterday, in her bath before dinner, she had felt that her life up to date had been merely an overture and now, at last, the curtain was rising. If she hadn’t consciously thought of marriage the idea had been there at the back of her mind.
Apart from what had happened later, in the morning-room, she saw now there could never be anything between them but a short-lived liaison. Marriage was out of the question.
Roderick might be less of a snob than her grandfather in many ways, but even so he would never encumber himself with her motley collection of relations. Not many men would be able to stomach Dodo, she thought gloomily. Even his own grandson couldn’t.
The thought of going on a long cruise on a liner full of elderly people—for who else had the time to spare nowadays?—depressed her almost as much as the thought of vacating the manor.
Never again to see the drifts of daffodils in spring. Never again to hear the cuckoo calling from the beech woods, or to have tea on the terrace where, between the mellow old flagstones, there grew mosses and little creeping plants.
Where else, if they moved from the manor, would they have an old-fashioned Christmas with a tall tree and crackling log fires, and home-grown holly and mistletoe?
There was something about this old house she would always miss if she left it. She had known that one day she must leave it when she married. But she hadn’t guessed what a painful wrench it would be to have to leave for another reason, without the compensation of being in love.
As she paused in the hall to check that some plants had been watered—a task which was sometimes neglected if she didn’t keep an eye on them— John came to tell her there had been an accident.
‘But Sir Roderick is dealing with it, miss. It appears he’s a qualified doctor.’
‘I know. What’s happened, John?’
‘Mrs Wood was standing on a chair in the pantry and she fell off and hit her head.’
‘Poor Mrs Wood seems to be accident-prone. It’s not long since she sprained her wrist and before that she scalded her leg at home.’
She found Mrs Wood, one of the corps of part-time cleaners, being attended to in what had been the housekeeper’s sitting-room until the last one had left and Flower had decided to take the reins of the household into her own hands.
Roderick’s shirt-sleeves were rolled back from sinewy forearms, and he was applying a thick pad of gauze to one side of the woman’s forehead.
There was blood on her face and spattered on her nylon overall. She kept saying, ‘Oh, dear...oh, dear,’ in a faint voice.
‘It looks worse than it is,’ he said as Flower went to the other side of Mrs Wood and took her hand in a comforting clasp. ‘Head injuries always bleed a lot. It’s not a very large gash. I’ve applied two temporary sutures made from twists of plaster, but I think she should be seen by her own doctor. What’s the set-up here now? Is Dr Kerr still going strong?’
‘No, he’s been retired for some years. There are three young doctors in group partnership. I’ll ring up the surgery and tell them I’m bringing her in. Watson, would you have my car brought round, please? And we’ll need a couple of rugs to keep Mrs Wood warm. What about a cup of tea for her?’ she asked with an interrogative glance at Roderick.
‘It’s being made.’
Having finished fixing the pad in place, he dipped a swab of cotton-wool in warm water and began to wipe the blood from the cleaner’s face.
‘I’m sorry to be a nuisance, sir...miss,’ she murmured anxiously.
‘Don’t apologise, Mrs Wood. You didn’t do it on purpose. You must spend the rest of the day in bed...letting your family wait on you for a change,’ said Flower, still holding her hand. ‘Isn’t it lucky we happened to have a doctor in the house?’ She was watching the swift expert way he was dealing with the smears.
There wasn’t room for Mrs Wood and Roderick in the Ferrari, and when Flower came back from the surgery she found him returning to the house from near the main gate. She stopped to pick him up.
‘How long have you had this?’ he asked as the red car moved forwards.
‘Nearly a year. It was Dodo’s surprise for my last birthday.’
‘The girl with everything.’
‘Is that a jibe?’
‘A statement of fact. It must be difficult for your friends to find something to give you that you haven’t already got.’
‘My close friends don’t have any problems,’ she said, thinking of the presents given to her by Emily and Andrew, none of them costly but all of them chosen with love and understanding so that their Christmas and birthd
ay presents were among her dearest possessions.
‘Do you have many close friends?’
‘Only two... a girl who was at school with me, and her husband.’
‘It’s the same for me, in reverse. My closest friend was an intern with me. He was killed in an automobile accident last year.’
‘Oh...I’m sorry.’ Flower spoke sincerely. She knew what a horrible void it would leave in her life if anything happened to either of the Fairchilds.
‘What made it worse for his parents and his wife was that he was exceptionally gifted and would have done a lot of good, and the man who killed him— and survived—was a drunken politician, a species I don’t much care about even when they’re sober,’ he said in a biting tone. ‘He and Kim had planned to start their family this year. But at least she has an interesting job which has helped her to get through the worst months.’
Something in his tone made her wonder if, in sharing Kim’s grief for his dead friend, he had come to feel more than friendship for her.
‘What does she do?’ she asked.
‘She’s a nutritionist. So was George. They both took their Master of Science degrees in biochemistry at the University of California Medical School. Then they came east and I met them.’
‘I’m not sure what a nutritionist does.’
‘She prescribes diets for people suffering from nutritional deficiencies. For instance, you said this morning—perhaps not seriously—that you worried about the state of your nails. If you consulted Kim she might advise you to take two or three teaspoons of powdered kelp every day.’
‘What’s kelp?’
‘It’s a type of seaweed full of minerals, notably iodine, which, among other things, can help to cure splitting nails. Although we’re polluting the seas now, the ocean bed is still richer and less contaminated than the soils on land. Therefore undersea flora contains lots of chemical elements we no longer get from land-grown crops.’
‘I must try it. My nails aren’t as strong as I’d like them to be.’
It sounded as if he had spent a lot of time listening to Kim talking about her work, she thought.