He blew her a kiss, wicked mischief on his grinning face.
‘Impudent monkey. Get along with you.’ But Miss Henshaw was smiling. Derry Colwith brought a bit of much needed sunshine into this gloomy office.
Derry sat most of each day at an old high sloping desk where he could gaze out of the window dreaming of fame and riches. And one day, he was sure, he would find it. Letting out a wistful sigh at the thought, he winked at Vera and, swaggering to the inner office door, tapped on the glass with one knuckle and marched right in to lay the stack of letters on the blotter before his employer.
‘Thank you, Mr McArthur. I’m glad we are agreed. I think you will find it to be the wisest course. One moment, my clerk has entered.’ Philip covered the mouthpiece with his hand while he pushed a pile of bank books across the desk to Derry. ‘The McArthur probate. Take these books to the bank and inform the manager of Miss Amelia McArthur’s death. Her nephew is the main beneficiary.’
‘Right,’ said Derry, picking them up and turning at once to the door. This was the part of the job he liked best, wandering about town on some errand or other. If the bank didn’t take too long about it he could nip in to see Jan and Lissa, maybe have a quick coffee with them. He brightened at the prospect. He was getting nowhere with Lissa so far, but he still fancied his chances.
‘Did you hear me?’ Philip barked, with unusual impatience.
‘Sir?’
‘I said to call at the building society first, ask them to close the account and have the money transferred into the office account.’
‘The office account?’
‘Yes, you fool. In preparation for probate.’
‘Right you are.’
When Derry had gone, whistling happily and slamming the door too hard so that the ancient glass shook perilously, Philip removed his hand from the mouthpiece, carefully gathered his strained patience and continued with his conversation. He almost purred into the phone.
‘Sorry to have kept you, Mr McArthur. Where were we? Ah, yes, death duties. No indeed, no one should be obliged to pay more than is absolutely necessary. Certainly your aunt would not have wished her money to go to the government.’
A pause while the caller on the end of the wire expressed his thanks and Philip Brandon’s dark eyes took on a gleam as hard as the polished wood of his own desk.
‘Such a gesture would of course be entirely at your own discretion. I shall be in touch.’
He rested the receiver back in its cradle and allowed himself a rare smile. Everything was progressing most satisfactorily, most satisfactorily indeed.
Happiness did not come easily to him. Life had been harder than he had bargained for since leaving Oxford. He’d been lucky, he supposed, missing the worst of the war and young enough to make something of his life afterwards. But Philip had resented the way he’d had to pinch and scrape, the way austerity had gone on for so long. As a member of the professional classes it didn’t seem quite fair that he should suffer at all.
The initial pleasure he’d felt at finding himself in sole charge of the practice on the death of his father had soon dissipated when he’d learned the true state of its finances. It had given every appearance of a bustling, one-man practice, dealing with conveyancing, probate and estate work, inventories and valuations. Only a small amount of court work came his way, for which he was thankful. Litigation was rarely profitable and it gave a poor impression for a high class practice to be too involved with the nefarious goings on of the criminal classes.
He should have been a happy man. He loved his work, spent as many hours in his office as he possibly could, only reluctantly leaving it to return home in the evening to a plain meal served by his housekeeper. But he was not happy. Not at all.
The problem was that people were so lackadaisical about settling their legal accounts. Were everyone to pay him what they owed tomorrow, he would be a rich man, comfortable at least. But they did not. It had to be said that his father, John Crawshaw Brandon, had been somewhat dilatory on the work front. He’d been far more interested in catching char and pike from the lake than sitting at his desk. Fascinated by points of law he may have been, yet he had shown little head for business, certainly none for turnover. In consequence, matters had suffered interminable delays, clients had grown restless and ultimately taken their business elsewhere.
It had all been most unsatisfactory.
It had fallen to him, Philip, to build the practice up again. Not an easy task. Sometimes he was so busy he was fortunate if he had time to prepare any bills at all, let alone reminders. Even when he put Miss Henshaw on the task of ringing people up it brought a poor response. They were happy enough for him to solve their problems, their disputes with neighbours, convey their house or dispose of their dearly departed, but balked when it came to paying the bill.
So he had taken the matter into his own capable hands. Here and there, not too much and only where there was no risk of it being noted, he managed to keep his pockets fat and his own bank account healthy.
It was while serving in the army that he had learned there were short cuts to everything. One did not have to tread the twisting and thorny path when there might be a smoother, more advantageous route. Great care of course, must always be taken.
The McArthur estate had been unusually easy since the nephew was as flexible in his code of conduct as Philip himself.
McArthur had no more wish than his solicitor to declare the true extent of his aunt’s estate. A sum had been agreed upon which would satisfy the Inland Revenue and leave the nephew nicely in pocket. Should the beneficiary of this good fortune choose to show his appreciation by way of a small gratuity, was that any fault of Philip Brandon? No indeed. It was no more than common business practice, after all.
Even were the client not amenable, he usually found a way to benefit, without ever stepping too far outside the grey fringes of the law. Thanks to the two wars there was no shortage of widows and probate always proved delightfully lucrative.
Certainly more so than divorce, which he disliked as it was messy and troublesome. Philip hated disagreement of any kind, and rarely recommended such a course of action for his clients. Divorce was bad for society. A woman’s duty was to her husband. Yet there was something about a vulnerable woman that appealed to him, and he was always happy to counsel and advise.
The day passed much the same as any other, sunnier than most which added to his unusually cheerful mood. It was one of those rare, brilliant Lakeland days when the lake glimmered, the mountains were wreathed in a soft blue mist, which made you think summer might actually arrive at any moment. It would be a pity, he decided, to waste it.
At lunchtime, instead of eating his sandwiches at his desk as usual, Philip decided to take them down to the lake.
On Fridays he usually treated himself to a ham salad at the Marina Hotel where one had a grand view of the lake. His budget, however, did not stretch to making this a daily ritual. One day he meant that to change.
He was sitting on a bench, quietly enjoying his fish paste sandwiches and trying to avoid the rapacious ducks, when he saw her.
She was not alone, but Philip cast the other girl scarcely a glance. His gaze was riveted upon a mass of black curls. Some attempt had been made to hold the hair back from her face with a scarlet ribbon but tendrils of curls were determinedly springing free, bursting joyously all across her brow and upon the curve of each soft round cheek. His gaze shifted to the smooth golden skin, the dark, violet eyes like great bruises in a perfect, heart-shaped face. She moved with such grace it was a joy simply to watch her.
He heard her voice, light and musical, sensed it like a thrill deep inside him as she laughed at something her friend had said.
They were climbing the wooden steps up to an old boathouse and the wind was pressing her straight black skirt about slender, shapely legs. Philip became acutely aware that he was holding his breath.
He sat for a full half hour waiting for them to come out, well past the tim
e he should have returned to the office, but he would have waited twice as long if necessary. An incongruous figure on the bench in his double-breasted, black pinstripe suit, fully buttoned as was right and proper, he tapped one polished toe and then the other.
When he had almost given up hope she burst out of the boathouse like a small explosion of colour. She wore a bright red duffle-coat, swinging open over her skirt and blouse, and he caught a tantalising glance of a slender figure, voluptuously ripe and blossoming. The outfit, obviously new, looked well against her black hair, and he felt a hard knot of excitement deep in pit of his stomach.
She was laughing as she locked the door, then as she swung round to hug her friend, he saw that she was younger than he had thought by a number of years. The realisation brought a sharp edge of disappointment. How very foolish of him. He should have realised at once. She couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen. Less perhaps.
Loneliness swamped him and he moved not a muscle as he watched her walk away.
He had to fight hard to pull back his shoulders and get up from the bench, dusting off his immaculate trousers. Carefully folding his empty sandwich paper, Philip slipped it into his briefcase, ready to use again tomorrow. He told himself he was scarcely into his thirties and not unattractive to women.
He thought of Felicity. Sweet, darling Felicity with her pale blonde beauty, her illness and fragility making him love her all the more. Felicity had been pure as well as beautiful. not like most of the women he came across through his work, who played fast and loose with some poor fool of a husband.
But Felicity had died, leaving him alone in an unfeeling world with a memory that remained a raw wound. What was he thinking of even to be looking at another girl, let alone one so young?
He had his practice, didn’t he? His home may be a touch too modest and further from the lake than he would like, but it was bought and paid for and one day he would improve upon it. No mortgages for him. Too disagreeable. Then there was his sailing dinghy. He was thinking of having a new one built, something classy and fast. He’d never yet won in the annual Yacht Club races but he meant to, very soon.
Philip Brandon told himself he was going places. All he needed was a touch more security.
He straightened his shoulders, replaced his trilby hat so as not to disturb his carefully combed dark hair, and without a backward glance walked smartly from the lakeside and back to the sanctuary of his office. He might make eating his lunch on the lakeshore bench a regular feature of his routine. When the weather was pleasant.
‘Leave? How can you leave? Your dad wouldn’t hear of it, I can tell you that for nothing.’ Renee’s orange mouth drooped at each corner, making her look like a comical clown as she gazed woefully from one girl to the other. The budgie in the corner started to squawk, reacting to the alarm in her voice.
‘I can please myself what I do,’ Jan said, flicking back her hair and raising her voice above the din. ‘You didn’t ask my permission when you moved in here, did you?’
‘I didn’t have to. Your dad wanted me to marry him, so that was that.’
‘You wanted an easy life.’ Jan stormed over to the cage and flicked the cover over it. Blessed silence fell.
‘What if I did?’ Renee dropped her voice to a belligerent mumble. ‘My dad thought it part of his daily routine to batter the walls with my head. So what if I did want to get away from that? It’s not a crime, is it? And Jimmy loves me.’ She gave a great gulping sob.
Both Renee and Jan were so close to tears that Lissa instinctively put out a hand to each of them, wanting to calm the situation. ‘Have you thought, Renee, that it might be for the best? You and Jimmy need more time on your own. We feel a bit in the way with you two so obviously in love.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Anyway, we won’t be going for a week or two. There’s a heap of work to do on the boathouse before it’s habitable. Cleaning it out for one thing, then painting it and finding something to sleep on and cook with. Simple things like that.’ She laughed as if she’d made a joke. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to get used to the idea.’
Renee’s eyes filled with a sudden gush of tears, the effect upon her mascara-coated lashes quite catastrophic. Black rivers ran down her face, adding to the clown-like effect. ‘What about me then, after you’ve gone? I can’t cook,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve never so much as boiled an egg in me life. Even me mother didn’t do much cooking. Bread and dripping, sausage and HP beans, that’s what we were brought up on. He’ll kill me, he will. You know how Jimmy likes his food.’ She opened her mouth into a wide orange oval and began to wail.
Incensed, Jan almost shouted her response. ‘He won’t do any such thing. My dad would never hurt a flea, let alone a woman. You should have realised you’d be expected to do cooking and cleaning and such like,’ she said, astounded by the state her teenage stepmother was getting into, howling like a banshee and shaking her head in despair.
‘He said I didn’t have to worry my pretty little head about such things,’ Renee sobbed, ‘cause you’d never get wed. You’re too plain, he said, what with your straight brown hair and squinting at folk all the time.’
There was a small stunned silence, although Renee, blithely unaware of the insult she had voiced, continued to howl, working herself up to a fine pitch. Her face looked like one of the new zebra crossings.
Seeing her friend quite bereft for words, Lissa spoke for her. ‘Jan is not at all plain. As for the cooking… well, I could teach you.’
The wailing stopped instantly and they all sagged visibly with relief. ‘Could you?’ Renee asked, wonder in her voice.
‘Of course. Meg taught me. She’s a very good cook is Meg. Steak and game pie, Cumberland sausage, mutton and tatie hot pot. Gingerbread. Oh, and her Rum Nicky Pudding is to die for.’ Lissa stopped. Both girls were standing gazing at her open-mouthed.
‘You a chef or summat? How can anyone have so much food with the war and the rationing and all?’
‘I lived on a farm. We produced our own.’ Her mouth was watering and her heart beating fast at the memory of the big warm kitchen at Broombank. She was back sitting at the huge scrubbed pine table, Meg laughing as she whipped and stirred, Tam tasting and teasing.
What was she doing here? She belonged with them, on her very own fells where the wind blew free. Where you could swim in the tarn, stay out all night, and drive your foster mother to a miscarriage. Lissa shook the image away. This was her new life and she meant to make it a good one.
Over the following weeks Lissa taught Renee all she knew. It became clear that no one had ever troubled to teach the girl anything in her life before. And judging from what Lissa learned of her home background, was it any wonder if she had grabbed the first kind man who had come along?
Lissa searched her mind for Meg’s recipes and soon Jimmy thought himself the luckiest man in Carreckwater.
‘All I want is a quiet life,’ he kept saying, tucking into his food with relish. To be fair, he was most appreciative of Renee’s efforts, patting her cheek fondly if she burned something or the meat was tough. ‘Better next time, my poppet.’ Which increased Renee’s confidence and made her more adventurous.
‘I’ll have to buy meself one of those striped pinnies like Philip Harben,’ she said.
In an odd sort of way, seeing their happiness made Lissa feel more insecure. Would anyone ever love her so completely? Jan was happier though, as she no longer felt so put upon.
A letter came from Meg, asking her to visit, but Lissa wrote back saying that she was too hard at work renovating the old boathouse and converting it into a flat.
They scrubbed and scoured, painted window frames and doors and sewed rag rugs from scraps of old clothing. The panelled walls needed little more attention than a good sweep, banishing cobwebs and running spiders by the score.
Furniture was still hard to come by so Lissa scoured house sales and auction rooms and came up with a bed each, two chairs, and a small table which they covered with green oil cloth
. The cooker was the most difficult but they found an old one on a stall in the market, along with a few pots and pans.
It was well into the summer season by the time the boathouse was ready for occupation and they moved in with great anticipation. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ Jan cried, pink cheeked with excitement. ‘I’m so glad you came to Carreckwater, Lissa. So glad we’re friends.’
‘Me too,’ she said, pleased with their efforts, wondering if at last she had found somewhere to put down roots. Lissa could scarcely believe their good fortune in finding it. She loved it already. They could sit in their tiny living room and gaze out across the lake to Wetherlam, Tilberthwaite Fell and the Langdales. They could watch the visitors bobbing up and down in their clinker-built boats, see families picnicking on the small island. Life was suddenly fun again and Lissa wanted to sing with joy.
‘I just know we are going to be happy here.’
‘Oh, me too,’ echoed Jan, giving her impish, triangular smile. ‘This is a new beginning, a new life.’
Yes, thought Lissa. A new beginning sounded good.
A second letter came from Meg and this one made Lissa sit up and take notice. She read it in the stock room while she had her morning coffee break and found herself gaping with shock. She had to read it twice more to be sure that she had it right.
Ashlea belonged to her. Meg had written, plain as day. Jeffrey Ellis, the man she had always referred to as an honorary uncle but was in fact her grandfather, had left her the freehold.
Meg’s letter gave the details:
It has only this moment come to light as the family solicitors, as trustees, have written to ask if you wish the rent to be reviewed. It is a safe tenancy, still in my father’s name of course, and he couldn’t be got out unless you wished to live there yourself. I know, darling, that you would never deprive Sally Ann and her family of a home. But it could be purchased for Nick, in Sally Ann’s name of course, and she wonders if you would consider selling? Are you planning on coming on a visit soon? I do hope so. It seems so long since we saw you. You could tell us your decision then. Are you enjoying your new job? I must come and see your boathouse.
Wishing Water Page 7