‘Of course I’ll help – anything you like. Though I’m not brilliant at cooking. But I can boil water without burning it.’
Kitty laughed. ‘Oh, my dear, Mrs Phillips will do the cooking. She’d never let anyone else use her kitchen. And Fatty will serve, and Bill will see to drinks. But I need you to help me greet people and chat to them. I’m not very good at circulating. Peter used to do all that. I tend to get buttonholed by someone who won’t stop talking, and I can’t seem to find a polite way to get away, which means the other guests are neglected. But I just know you’ll be brilliant at it.’
‘I don’t know about brilliant, but I’ll do my best.’
‘Any daughter of Annabel’s is bound to be good in company. Now, we’ll have Xander and Caroline, of course, and I thought I’d ask Harry for you – Caroline’s brother. He’s about your age.’
Jenna imagined what a brother of the Ice Queen would be like and said, ‘Oh, that’s not necessary—’
But Kitty was firm. ‘It’s nicer if the numbers are even. I thought I’d ask four other couples, so we’d be fourteen in all, not too many, but enough for variety. Oh, I’m quite excited about it – I’m so glad you came and gave me the excuse! We’ll have to plan a menu. Of course, whatever we choose, Mrs Phillips will want to do something different, but she likes to make believe she just cooks what she’s asked to cook, so we go through the motions. Are you good with wine? That’s one area she won’t argue about. I’ll show you the wine cellars when the menu’s set. Peter laid down a lot – he was the great wine buff. I just know what I like.’
‘I haven’t anything to wear,’ Jenna said.
‘It won’t be terribly formal,’ Kitty assured her.
But Jenna thought that if Caroline was coming, it wouldn’t be the most relaxed occasion. ‘I’ve only got cotton trousers and jeans and things,’ she said. ‘Nothing remotely suitable for dinner.’
‘There are a couple of dress shops in the village,’ Kitty offered helpfully.
‘Yes, I saw them,’ Jenna said. Well, the town was only five miles away. She’d have to manage a trip there some time before the fatal night.
It was only later, in bed, that she returned to Kitty’s arithmetic and realized that ‘fourteen’ meant Kitty was going to invite someone ‘for’ herself. She was intrigued; but after the Bill Bennett debacle, she refused to allow herself to speculate in Emma Woodhouse style. She’d find out soon enough.
Eight
The next day, Jenna made a start. It was wonderful to wake up in that lovely room, to get up in her own time, to dress how she liked and go down to a grand breakfast that she hadn’t had to get for herself. No dashing out of the house, through the din of rush-hour traffic, cramming herself into a train and strap-hanging into the crowded, stifling city. She had felt part of an elite when she commuted; now, breakfasting on the terrace with nothing but birdsong in her ears, and with only a few steps to take to her place of work, she wondered how she had ever stood it.
Kitty left her at the big table in the library, where the computer also lived, with a heap of books, photo albums, journals, diaries and other papers, to start making out a simple timeline on the house, to be filled in later with the most interesting details. It was tremendously absorbing, and she hadn’t even got beyond the building of the house (there were original letters between the owner and the builder, early sketches and plans, and invoices for materials and labour that gave a wonderful insight into what people earned and how hard it was to transport goods in those horse-drawn days) when Fatty, who was cleaning that morning, stuck her head round the door to say she was making coffee and did Jenna want a cup.
When she brought the coffee she said, ‘You should go outside for a bit, while the sun shine. Too nice to be indoor.’ And when Jenna hesitated, she added, as if it were her primary concern, ‘While you out I dust library.’
So Jenna drank her coffee (Fatty’s was even better than Mrs Phillips’s) and went out through the open front door. The dogs were hanging around looking bored, and were only too glad to accompany her. She went to the first walled garden, wanting another look at the fabulously ordered vegetables and perhaps a poke around in those marvellous old greenhouses, and found Bill Bennett there, tying in his espaliered fruit trees.
‘Hello,’ he said, instantly putting down his twine and scissors, evidently ready for a chat. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘Very badly,’ Jenna said. ‘I’ve only done a couple of hours work, and here I am skiving off again.’
‘You’ll work better for a breath of fresh air,’ he said comfortably.
‘Fatty said she wanted to dust the library. I don’t know how long that gives me.’
‘As long as you like,’ he said, laughing. ‘She just wanted to get you out of doors. She thinks you’re too pale.’
‘But I’m not supposed to be here for a rest cure,’ Jenna said.
‘I thought that was exactly what you were here for. But don’t worry – you’ll get the work done. Every job has its rhythm. Once you find it, it’ll romp away.’
It was a nice philosophy, which office life in the great metropolis had entirely failed to mention to her. ‘What are these?’ she asked of his trees, taking a reciprocal interest.
‘Plums,’ he said. ‘This one is Czar. He’s an old variety, good for pollinating others. I grow him among the greengages. Plums and gages can be tricky if they’re not self-fertile, like Blue-tit over there, or good old Victoria. They only have a window of about ten days when they can be pollinated, and if they don’t get fertilized in that time, that’s it.’
‘I know how they feel,’ Jenna said.
He looked amused. ‘But you’re so young!’
‘Maybe, but you’ve got to meet a man first, which is hard enough, then go on dates, get to know him, build a relationship and wait for him to ask you to marry him, and all that takes years. It took me four years to get to where I was with Patrick, and now I’ve got to start all over again from scratch. Not even a suitable man on the horizon, and the biological clock ticking away like a metronome on speed. I’d sooner be a plum any day! I wish I was self-fertile.’
‘Oh, poor girl!’ He laughed, but kindly. ‘Don’t despair. The thing about life is that everything can change in an instant.’
‘I know that. A couple of weeks ago I thought I was sitting pretty.’
‘Yes, but it can change for the better just as quickly. I thought my love life was over when Gill, my first wife, died. I thought no woman would ever look at me again. And then I went with a friend – just to please him – into the last place I would ever think of looking for a bride, and met Fatty. Six weeks later we were married.’
‘Really? Six weeks?’
‘Well, it was dark in that club, so she probably didn’t realize what I looked like,’ he said. ‘And by the time she saw me in daylight, she was too kind-hearted to say she’d made a mistake.’
Now Jenna laughed. ‘You don’t fool me! You’re bloody good-looking and I bet you’ve had women falling over you all your life. I even thought—’ She caught herself up and blushed to her hair roots.
He eyed her knowingly. ‘Thought what?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Golly, look at the size of that bumblebee.’
‘Come on, what did you think?’ he insisted. ‘That Kitty and I had something going?’
She yielded. ‘Well, I didn’t know you were married. She showed me the door to your house and said you both had a key.’ He was laughing again. ‘Listen, it was just because I like her so much and I wanted her to have a love interest, that’s all.’
‘She does have one, don’t worry. It just isn’t me.’
Jenna seized the moment. ‘I did wonder, because when we were talking about the dinner party she said it was nicer if the numbers were even so I thought she must have invited someone for herself. But she didn’t say who it was, so it’s a mystery.’
‘Not to me,’ Bill said. ‘Though she does try to keep it quiet, so don’t tal
k about it to anyone else, will you? Here, catch hold of that twine for me, and I’ll tell you about him while I work.’
Jenna picked up the ball of twine and handed it to him. ‘Fire away.’
‘His name’s Jim Lancaster. He was a sea officer, and he lives in Barford, the next village, in a house called Barford Lodge. If you go out from here towards Belminster, you’ll see it on the right-hand side as you go through Barford. He’s a really nice chap, retired from the Navy now, of course, but he does a bit of consultancy work for the Admiralty now and then, which gives him trips up to town, all expenses paid. He makes ships in bottles for a hobby, and tends his garden. He’s got a nice garden at the Lodge – only about half an acre, but he’s crammed a lot in. Mad about it. He and Kitty can talk gardening for hours together.’
‘I was wondering when you’d get on to Kitty. If he’s so nice and wonderful and comfortably off, what’s the problem? Why does she have to keep him a secret?’
‘Well, it’s not a secret that they’re friends, of course,’ Bill said, ‘but they don’t want it known that it’s more than that, because there’d be a scandal. He’s married, you see.’
Jenna’s heart sank. ‘Oh no! Poor Kitty!’
‘Wait, it isn’t what you think. His wife, Rose, has Alzheimer’s disease, poor thing. She’s in a home, in Belminster. Been there, oh, six years now. She doesn’t remember anything or know anyone. She hasn’t a clue who Jim is when he goes and visits her.’
‘How sad. But can’t he divorce her?’
‘He’s too nice. He thinks it would be letting her down.’
‘If she doesn’t know him, how would it hurt her? He could still go and visit her.’
Bill shook his head. ‘I know, but he still won’t do it. Besides, the County would never forgive him. They’d think it was too tacky by half. Especially if he did it to hook up with another woman. Poor Kitty would cop it worse than him if he went that route.’
‘Surely not?’
Bill grimaced. ‘You don’t know country communities. She’d be labelled the scarlet woman who dragged a good man from the paths of rectitude, and betrayed a helpless invalid in the process. She’d be ostracized. They both would, but she’d be the one who was blamed. It doesn’t help that Jim has a daughter. Erica. She’s grown up, of course, and married, with children of her own, but she’s still a daddy’s girl, and jealous of any other female. She looks pretty sharply at his friends to make sure no one’s going to take her mother’s place.’
‘Ridiculous! How old is she?’
‘Oh, forty-ish, I suppose. One of those big-boned, lanky girls who was never popular at school. I suppose she was sort of in love with her father when he was a glamorous sea-captain, coming and going, and never grew out of it. She’d kick up a stink if he ever hinted at divorcing her mother or bringing a new woman into the house. So Kitty and Jim keep it quiet. Just good friends, who only meet at church, and village do’s, and other people’s dinner parties – all above board.’
Jenna frowned. ‘Then how do you know there is anything else?’
‘I saw them together one day in London. Jim had gone up on one of his consultancy things, and Kitty officially went up to stay with an old school-friend. Unofficially, of course, they were having a dirty weekend – except that it was midweek. Well, seeing the cat was out of the bag, Kitty confided in me, and told me all. They meet up in town a few times a year, and manage on away-days otherwise, and simply hope not to get spotted. And try not to hope that poor Rose dies – though who could blame them if they did? But Alzheimer’s victims seem to live for ever, and Rose is only the same age as Kitty.’
‘Oh, poor Kitty! What a tragedy,’ Jenna cried, really distressed. Then she thought of something. ‘But should you have told me, if it was a secret?’
‘Oh, don’t worry, I haven’t betrayed anything. The other way they meet is for him to slip over here now and then under cover of darkness, so Kitty told me she was going to tell you, because you’d be bound to find out anyway. She was agonizing over how to spill it to you – worried you’d disapprove, you see – so she’ll be relieved I’ve done the job for her. Don’t worry, I know Kitty very well.’ He smiled. ‘In fact, if it weren’t for Fatty, I could have given the Admiral a run for his money. In another life. I’m very fond of her.’
‘I’m glad. So am I.’
‘I’ll tell her I’ve told you, so don’t worry about it. Just don’t say anything to anyone else.’
‘Of course I won’t. And I suppose I’d better get back to work now.’
‘If you insist. What are you working on?’
‘History of the house.’
‘Oh, that’ll take you a while! A lot went on in this place. A lot of famous people came here, one way and another – as you can tell from the artefacts around the house. Have you come across Churchill’s inkstand? That’s in the library somewhere.’
‘Churchill came here?’ Jenna exclaimed.
‘Oh yes. You obviously haven’t got up to the Second World War yet.’
‘I haven’t even left the eighteenth century. What happened in the Second World War?’
‘Holtby House was a spy school,’ Bill said, with a tight, teasing smile. ‘But I won’t spoil it for you.’
‘Oh, no, of course I don’t mind Bill telling you. I was going to myself this evening. I should have said something last night when we were talking about the party, but I – well, chickened out.’ Kitty looked up at her appealingly. ‘I was afraid you’d think badly of me.’
‘Of course I don’t!’ Jenna exclaimed. ‘It’s perfectly understandable, just very sad for both of you.’
‘We ought to have waited,’ Kitty went on sadly, ‘but there’s no hope that poor Rose will ever recover, and at our time of life, one feels the need to seize happiness. I know that’s wrong—’
‘I don’t think there’s anyone who would condemn you for that,’ Jenna said.
Kitty laughed, breaking the mood. ‘Oh my dear, you clearly don’t know country people!’ she said, echoing Bill. ‘Condemning others is exactly what they like best. What else is there to do, after all? It isn’t like London, you know. Country life, especially village life, is one long soap opera. Well, now you know about Jim, I can feel more comfortable – oh, except, you won’t mention anything to Mrs Phillips? Fatty knows, of course, but Mrs Phillips only knows Jim and I are friends. She wouldn’t approve of anything else. She’s Nonconformist. They’re terribly strict.’
‘I shan’t say a word.’
‘How did you get on today?’
‘I found I was reading everything in too much detail for a first pass,’ Jenna said. ‘It was all so interesting. So I made myself skip on a bit, and I’ve got up to Disraeli.’
‘Oh yes. He came here quite often. He gave the Lady Everest of the time a book of poetry, inscribed and dated. It’s in the library somewhere.’
‘I’d like to see it,’ Jenna said.
‘I’ll find it for you later. Now –’ Kitty sighed – ‘if it had been a first edition of one of his own books, it might have been worth something. But it’s just a collection of English poetry. He was a tremendous gallant, so even the romantic inscription doesn’t mean much. There must be thousands of them all over the country.’
‘One thing puzzled me,’ Jenna said. ‘There was a reference in one of the journals to the Centurion’s Grave. Did they find Roman remains here at some point? I know they’ve dug up some mosaic floors and so on in the area. And isn’t there a Roman villa at Belminster?’
‘Yes, they’ve got footings, a hypocaust and part of a bath house, and a rather lovely bird mosaic. But we don’t have any Roman remains here,’ said Kitty. Her eyes were dancing. ‘I’m afraid you misread it. It’s not the Centurion’s Grave or even a Centurion’s Grave. Centurion was a horse. Have you noticed that rather ghastly ink-pot made out of a hoof on the table in the sitting room?’
‘Yes – I did think it was a bit gruesome,’ Jenna said.
‘It wasn’t
meant to be at the time. Sir Edward Everest was in the Tenth Hussars during the Crimean War. That’s his portrait in the library, in the left-hand alcove, in the blue coat. He took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade – one of Lord Cardigan’s staff. He was wounded in the thigh but his horse, Centurion, carried him safely back.’
‘Don’t tell me! Centurion was killed?’
‘No, no, they both survived. They fought the rest of the war together, then Sir Edward brought Centurion back here and retired him in a field down by the river. Holtby had a lot more land then – it was all sold off between the wars. Sir Edward was devoted to the horse, and went down to visit him most days. Centurion lived to be thirty, which is a good age for a horse, as you know. After he died, Sir Edward had one of his hooves made into an inkstand – which he used every day until he died – and he buried the old boy in the garden. The grave is down in that rough area between the woodland and the bottom hedge – what we call the wilderness. There’s a cairn over the grave and a folly next to it. You evidently didn’t get that far when you were exploring.’
‘It looks a bit overgrown, and I haven’t been in bushwhacking mode,’ Jenna confessed.
‘Well, you must go and see. The inscription on the cairn is very touching. It always makes me cry. And the folly’s most entertaining. If you didn’t know, you’d think it was a medieval ruin. They knew how to build in those days.’
‘I’m beginning to feel that nothing in this place is what it seems,’ Jenna said.
‘Oh dear, don’t say so. Are we disappointing you?’
‘No, just the opposite. It’s all very stimulating. I can’t wait to find the secret passage behind the panelling that leads to the ruined abbey. And to have the ancient treasure map fall out of an old book.’
‘And meet the mysterious stranger who takes such an interest in Uncle Quentin’s work? Or didn’t you read the Famous Five when you were a girl?’
‘Couldn’t get enough of them.’
Country Plot Page 9