Country Plot

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Oh, four, I’d say,’ Alexander said. ‘Excuse me, I must circulate.’ He gave them a nod that was almost a bow and moved away.

  Jenna turned to Jim, wondering what he’d say, prepared to thank him for intervening, but he was too well behaved to allow her to mention it. ‘I think the waiting is almost over, anyway,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I just saw Bill appear in the doorway, and it looks as though Kitty’s gathering her chicks. Allow me to escort you to your escort. Young Henry’s taking you in, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes – he’s over there.’

  ‘You’ll have a lively dinner companion, anyway. I think I’ve got Jean Longhurst on my other side, and she’s very deaf, poor thing. It must be an awful affliction.’

  He had talked her down to earth by the time he presented her to Harry, but he did it so naturally that she would have been left to wonder whether he really had effected a rescue, or whether it was pure chance, except at the last moment before he turned away, he whisked her champagne glass out of her hand and bestowed a fatherly wink on her.

  The food was delicious. They started with a cold watercress soup, then went on to the duck eggs, poached, with the asparagus and a hollandaise sauce.

  ‘My first grass this year,’ Harry said. ‘Bill always gets ahead in that walled garden of his.’

  ‘Microclimate,’ Jenna said.

  ‘Are you a gardener?’ he asked doubtfully.

  ‘Do I look like a gardener? But I can read. And we did a feature on walled gardens a couple of years ago, as I remember.’

  ‘What do you mean, “did a feature”?’

  She told him about her job, in which he seemed interested enough to keep the topic going to the end of the course. Then some movement seemed to ripple round the table, and Harry, who had turned away from her, turned back to explain in a whisper, ‘You have to talk to your other side now. It’s the rule.’

  Everyone had turned to talk to the person on their other side. It seemed a nice, polite thing to do, she thought, but fancy there being an absolute rule about it! And fancy that everyone knew the rule! So she got a go of her other dinner partner, a spritely old man who turned out to be called Brian and to be married to the deaf Jean Longhurst. Perhaps this accounted for the fact that he was bursting to talk, and also that he didn’t seem to require answers. He ran his sentences so seamlessly together, segueing from how jolly it was to be dining at Holtby House again, to how his dogs hated being left alone in the evenings and seemed to have a sixth sense about when it was going to happen, to the lunatic neighbours who had started feeding foxes at the back door and how they must be town people, to the shocking numbers of weekend homes there were nowadays and something ought to be done about it, to how the government interfered too much and didn’t understand the countryside. Jenna had only to nod and murmur agreement, which left her free to enjoy the next course, which was stuffed roast leg of lamb, which Bill brought in on a trolley and carved in front of them while Fatty carried the plates round. The lamb was delectable, the stuffing piquant, and the gravy could have got up and sung opera, it was so artistic.

  When the plates were cleared, Brian Longhurst laid a chalky hand over Jenna’s and said, ‘I’ve enjoyed our little chat. It’s a long time since I had the undivided attention of such a pretty woman. And your dress is beautiful, my dear.’ Then he turned away to his other neighbour, leaving Jenna to realize that he wouldn’t have said the last bit had someone not been criticizing it. She had a fair idea who it was. Caroline had been shooting ferocious glares at her down the table. Across from Jenna, Alexander had been giving her the occasional glance, which she was piercingly aware of even when she was looking elsewhere. Now and then, when she thought he wasn’t looking, she stole a glance at him. He was still shiveringly attractive – but what a stiff! Once when she was looking he moved his head and their eyes met, and it was like an electric shock. She jerked hers away, and felt herself blushing. She wished she were down the other end of the table, where things were much livelier, and Mad Enderby was defying protocol and talking to a whole group of people at once, interspersing her remarks with jolly laughter.

  ‘So,’ said Harry when they had settled down again, ‘why did you leave this job of yours? It sounds as if you enjoyed it.’

  ‘I did. But I got downsized.’

  ‘Wow.’ He looked down her cleavage. ‘I wish I’d met you before.’

  ‘Don’t be rude.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said with a grin, not seeming it. ‘And why did you leave London, that you say you’ve always lived in?’

  ‘Lost my job, lost my flat, needed a holiday but couldn’t afford it. My brother said what you need is a job that’s like a holiday, and my other brother found me this.’

  ‘Ah, that accounts for the rumours that you’re here on a rest cure. I was imagining tuberculosis or a nervous breakdown at least.’

  ‘Do I look—?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he interrupted hastily. ‘But it’s better than Caro’s theory, that you’re here to lead Kitty to ruin.’

  ‘What has she got against me?’

  ‘You’re a rival.’

  ‘What, for Alexander? No thank you!’

  ‘Just generally. She’s used to being the centre of attention, the Belle of the County. Though it has to be said old Xander does keep looking at you an awful lot.’

  ‘Pure disapproval,’ said Jenna. ‘Why did you say you didn’t know what Caroline saw in him? He is terrifically good looking.’

  ‘But Caro’s never cared about that. What she wants in her men is wealth and power. You should have seen some of her past efforts! Gruesome in the extreme. No, Xander’s not rich or posh enough, with his piddling little furniture business, and his parents weren’t anyone. And I can’t believe she’s in love. So what’s she up to?’

  ‘You don’t like her much, do you? Shouldn’t you be loyal to your sister?’

  ‘Are you loyal to yours?’

  ‘I’ve two sisters and two brothers, and I adore them all, and we’re all loyal to each other. That’s what families are for.’

  ‘Someone forgot to tell mine that,’ Harry said lightly. ‘There’s only the two of us. And she’s only my stepsister, anyway.’

  ‘Really? And I was thinking you looked so alike.’

  ‘Her mother divorced her father and married my dad. She doesn’t look like her mother and I do look like my father, so I suppose her mother had a fixed taste in men.’

  ‘Hang on, I need a minute to work that out.’

  ‘Anyway, she was ten when I was born, so by the time the folks got together she was away at boarding school. I never really had much to do with her. She was just this bossy thing that appeared in holidays and nagged me for being dirty and noisy and annoying.’ He grinned. ‘So I’ve made a career out of being annoying to her ever since.’

  ‘What happened to your mother?’

  ‘Died,’ he said shortly. ‘I was just a baby, so you don’t have to say “sorry”.’

  ‘If Caroline’s mother married your father, how come you’ve got different surnames?’

  ‘Caro never dropped the Russell. Posher name, you see, and she needed that at boarding school, to keep her end up. Benenden – frightfully posh.’

  ‘I should have thought your father would have made her change.’

  ‘Oh, Dad didn’t care. He soon divorced Caro’s mum anyway, so it was just as well she stuck with the first name. Funny, though, even after the divorce Caro stayed friends with my dad. I think she spends more time with him than with her mum. Like calls to like, so they say.’

  Before Jenna could ask more, the course came to an end. They had been eating poached pears with meringue and warm coffee-chocolate sauce. The pears seemed to have been poached in Poire William liqueur, to judge by their boozy taste. Now as the dishes were cleared, she asked, ‘What’s next?’

  ‘Dessert,’ Harry said.

  ‘We just had that.’

  ‘No, dear, that was pudding. Dessert is cheese and fruit,’ he t
old her kindly.

  ‘God, the minefields!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m getting fork anxiety. And to think a couple of weeks ago I was sitting on the sofa in front of the telly eating rice pudding out of the tin.’

  ‘Sounds like heaven to me!’ He grinned. ‘You mustn’t think we go on like this all the time. Everyone enjoys the full fig now and then, but there are kitchen suppers too, with a huge bowl of spaghetti in the middle and help-yourself, and the Enderbys’ barbecue in the summer.’

  ‘It must be nice to live in a place with a real community,’ Jenna said. ‘In London you take your friends where you find them, and you hardly know your neighbours.’

  ‘Well, it’s good and it’s bad. You can’t keep anything secret,’ Harry said. ‘For instance, when you and I go out for dinner on Thursday next week, everyone within a ten mile radius will know about it.’

  ‘I haven’t said I’ll go out with you yet.’

  ‘Congolese food,’ he reminded her seductively. ‘You can’t go to your grave never having found out what it is.’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, all right, if Kitty doesn’t mind. Shouldn’t we change sides again?’

  ‘Once dessert’s on it’s a free for all. But I think poor old Brian Longhurst would love another go of you, if you’re feeling charitable.’

  So she turned and talked to her other neighbour, who did seem delighted; and while she listened and nodded she thought that Harry was really rather sweet. He pretended to be terribly hip and cool and careless, but he was kind and thoughtful towards an old man who was nothing to him but a neighbour. Maybe there was something in this country living.

  The dessert stage didn’t last long, as there were after-dinner guests coming, and everyone soon decamped into the drawing room for coffee and a welcome injection of new conversation.

  Suddenly and surprisingly, Jenna found Alexander standing before her again. ‘How times have changed,’ he said. ‘Just a few years ago, this stage of the evening would have included the smoking of cigars. Now nobody except a few of the farm workers smokes.’

  ‘And presumably they don’t smoke cigars,’ Jenna offered. His tone had been pleasant, social, and he was obviously trying to make amends, so she did the same.

  ‘Maybe they do, in the privacy of their homes, but I’ve never seen them do it in public,’ he said. He smiled. It was a cautious, wary smile, but a smile nonetheless, and it transformed his face. Jenna had to take a deep breath to withstand it. ‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ he said. ‘That was bad form.’

  ‘I don’t know what happened,’ Jenna said. ‘I’ve absolutely no desire to quarrel with you.’

  ‘One thing you said did hurt me,’ he said gravely. ‘About my not helping Kitty with the cataloguing.’

  Jenna waved it away. ‘Not my business. I shouldn’t have said it.’

  ‘You were entitled to wonder. But my own business takes up all my time. And my expertise is strictly with furniture. Of course, when the time comes, I’ll help her to sell the better pieces of furniture – though the market’s depressed at the moment and prices are down. And some of the items, like that dining table, will be very hard to find a buyer for. Nobody wants these big pieces nowadays.’

  ‘It’s a terrible shame to think of selling them anyway,’ Jenna said more warmly. ‘They should stay where they are, where they belong. And Kitty should stay, too. It’s what she wants.’

  He cooled a little, seeming to take that as a criticism. ‘You have no idea how much it costs to maintain a house like this. Nobody wants them any more. They’re a millstone round people’s necks.’

  ‘But surely there are rich people always looking for big houses – footballers and pop stars and Arab sheikhs, anyway. Millionaires have to live somewhere.’

  ‘These days, millionaires want to build their own houses, from scratch. New house, new furniture. They don’t want antiques.’ There was a hint of bitterness in his voice now. ‘They want everything new. Haven’t you seen them popping up everywhere, these ghastly gin-palaces with their electronic gates and floodlighting and indoor swimming pools and gyms? Horrible blots on the landscape.’

  Jenna said, ‘Well, it’s sad, but if that’s what they want, aren’t they entitled to have it?’

  ‘The wrong people have the money these days,’ he said.

  She laughed. ‘Meaning, not you or me? Well, I agree with that.’

  They seemed to be getting along quite well, but just then one side of Jenna went cold all the way down to her ankles, and Caroline was there, the mobile open freezer. ‘Agree with what?’ she asked brittlely. ‘You two are having quite a chinwag, it seems.’

  She slipped her hand through Alexander’s arm as she spoke, and his face seemed to cool and set, too, into the old mask of faint disapproval. Jenna shivered involuntarily.

  It gave Caroline her opening. ‘I’m not surprised you’re cold. There isn’t much to that dress, is there, Jenny? Shouldn’t you go and get a cardigan? It would make things very difficult for Kitty if you were to get ill. It would be inconsiderate of you to expect her to nurse you.’

  ‘My name’s Jenna, as I told you before,’ Jenna snapped.

  ‘So you did,’ Caroline said in a kindly voice. ‘I have difficulty remembering it, because it’s not a proper name, is it? It must be so annoying for you when people keep getting it wrong. Perhaps you should think about changing it by deed poll.’

  Harry joined them at that moment, and Jenna looked at him gratefully and fought down the urge to say, ‘Get me out of here.’

  ‘Admiring Jenna’s dress, Sissy?’ he asked of Caroline. ‘Something like this would suit you, you know. But you’d have to wear a padded bra, of course.’

  ‘Don’t be vulgar,’ she snapped. ‘And don’t call me Sissy.’

  Jenna made the mistake of laughing, and the freezing air now coming from the two of them was making her nipples stand up. She slipped her arm through Harry’s and leaned against him, and was gratified to see Caroline’s nostrils flare in annoyance.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think this dress would suit your sister at all,’ she told him. And to Caroline: ‘It really isn’t your style. You’re much more—’ She paused, as if searching for the right word, giving her the opportunity to look Caroline up and down consideringly. The nostrils began to resemble the entrance to the Channel Tunnel. She felt Harry holding his breath. Alexander was beginning to look alarmed. ‘Grecian,’ she concluded pleasantly.

  Harry let out his breath in a snort of laughter, and Jenna took the opportunity to say, ‘Excuse me, I must go and see what Kitty wants,’ and take her leave. Pure theatre, she thought, using Jim’s words. That girl loves to make an exit.

  She hoped she hadn’t gone too far. But she was only going to be here a month, so it was hard to care.

  Eleven

  The rain Bill promised arrived as the last guests were leaving, and Jenna woke the next morning to a misty world of gurgling gutters and dripping trees. After all the excitement – and, it had to be said, all the wine – of the previous evening, she had slept later than usual, and went downstairs to find the place empty except for the two dogs, sitting by the front door looking hopeful. What’s a bit of rain, they urged, wagging their extremities and making little suggestive movements towards the outside world.

  ‘Where’s the missus?’ she asked them. They weren’t telling, but she found a note Sellotaped to the sitting-room door. Gone to church. Didn’t want to wake you. Back about 9.30. Don’t wait to eat if you’re hungry. No Mrs P today, so it’s cornflakes, I’m afraid!

  It was a quarter past nine already. Feeling guilty, Jenna went along to the kitchen – which was spotless, though the sculleries were still piled with things for washing-up – and by the time Kitty got back she had breakfast almost ready.

  ‘What’s that nice smell?’ Kitty said, stepping into the back lobby and starting to shed wax jacket, shapeless hat, welly boots and dripping umbrella, every movement hampered by joyfully bouncing dogs. ‘Can it be toast?’

 
‘I couldn’t let you come back to cold cornflakes,’ Jenna said. ‘I’m doing us scrambled eggs, toast and coffee.’

  ‘What a rock of a girl you are,’ Kitty said, seeming more delighted than the small service warranted. ‘I knew I was right to ask you here.’

  ‘Isn’t it early for church? I thought services started about half past nine or ten,’ Jenna said, stirring the eggs.

  ‘There’s Matins at ten o’clock, but I like to go to the eight o’clock service. There’s something about being out early on a Sunday. The feeling that you have the world to yourself.’

  ‘I must come with you next week,’ Jenna said. ‘I’m sorry I slept in this morning. The eggs are ready now. Do you like them on the toast, or to the side?’

  They carried everything through on two trays and ate in the conservatory, with the rain pattering steadily on the roof above. Kitty opened the door so that the smell of the wet world could come in, and the dogs went and lay down by it with their paws on their noses. Only their eyebrows moved as they followed every movement of the human hands, but they sighed gustily from time to time.

  ‘It was a marvellous do last night,’ Jenna said.

  ‘Did you enjoy it? There were times when I looked around and thought what a dull lot of friends I have. Of course, they’re my age and not yours, which is only natural. Next time we entertain, we must do something we can invite more young people to. But Harry seemed to be entertaining you all right?’ There was a faint question mark at the end of the statement, and Jenna responded to it.

  ‘He was fun. He’s very different from his sister, isn’t he?’ she asked cautiously. She really wanted to know what Kitty thought of the Ice Queen.

  ‘Well, they’re only stepbrother and sister, of course,’ Kitty said. She hesitated, as if on the brink of something, and then took another forkful of egg instead of speaking.