Summer on the River Read online

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Evie loved the house. The bright, sunny rooms looking across the river. The terraced gardens with fruit trees growing against the high stone walls. The scent of lavender at the end of a hot day.

  It was a family house.

  As summer beckons, Evie’s family gathers once more at the beautiful old riverside house they all adore. But when Evie discovers a secret that threatens their future, a shadow falls over them all: this summer by the river could be their last together …

  For Charlie, a visit home to see his step-mother Evie is an escape from his unhappy marriage in London. Until a chance encounter changes everything: in the space of a moment, he meets a woman by the river, falls in love, and his two worlds collide.

  As Evie and Charlie struggle to keep their secrets safe, they long for the summer never to end … Can the happiness of one summer last for ever?

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Part Two

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  About the Author

  Also by Marcia Willett

  Copyright

  SUMMER ON THE RIVER

  MARCIA WILLETT

  To Miriam

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE LOGANBERRIES ARE nearly over. As she picks the soft crimson fruit, sun-warmed and so easily crushed between her stained fingers, Evie can hear the warning ‘tck-tck-tck’ of the blackbird half hidden in the ivy on the wall. She glances up at him, just able to spy a flicker of black wing and a flash of golden beak.

  ‘I know you’re there,’ she says. ‘You’ve been helping yourself, haven’t you?’

  She drops the berries into a wine glass, which also contains a few sweet peas, straightens up and looks out across the rooftops towards the harbour entrance where two tiny white boats seem to be slipping and sliding across the shiny blue silk of the sea, tacking this way and that in an attempt to catch the fitful breeze. The steep garden that rises up behind the old Merchant’s House is built in a series of terraces, surrounded by high stone walls, warm and sheltered from strong winds. On this highest level a white-painted wrought-iron table and four chairs stand on slate flags, half screened by a low lavender hedge: a small formal area set above a watercolour wilderness of flowers and shrubs.

  Evie sits down at the table, smiling with pleasure, reaching to run her fingers through the tall spikes of purple-blue lavender, breathing in its scent. Tommy loved it here, sitting with a bottle of wine open on the table, watching the traffic on the river streaming between the wooded cliffs out to sea. Privately, between themselves, she called him Tommy. Thomas David Fortescue: TDF. The Darling Fellow. His aunts always called him that: the darling fellow. They’d raised him, between the three of them, when his mother died young of cancer and his father was busy in London running the family wine import business. ‘Is it my turn for the darling fellow this exeat … half term … holiday?’ As time passed, two of the aunts – one a widow, the other unmarried – moved into the Merchant’s House, so that the darling fellow’s life should be as undisturbed as possible, and he grew up as his nature dictated: calm, optimistic, generous. His peers called him TDF though some, remembering with fondness the aunts and happy school holidays in Dartmouth, still referred to him as ‘the darling fellow’. He didn’t mind – enjoyed the joke – though his first wife, Marianne, occasionally found it irritating when this had to be explained to her own friends or to newcomers to their circle. She called him Thomas. Marianne always preferred London to Dartmouth, though it was convenient to be able to invite friends down to the Merchant’s House for a weekend party, for regatta, very occasionally for Christmas. With its elegant rooms, sweeping views of the river, the luminous quality of light and sense of spaciousness, it was the perfect house for celebrations.

  As their son, Charlie, was growing up Marianne became busier than ever, organizing his social life, entertaining his friends. More and more Tommy found that he was travelling down to Dartmouth alone.

  Sitting at the table on the terrace on this late August evening, Evie thinks of him: tall, lean, black hair, brown eyes. She first met him in the road outside the house as she climbed up the steep flights of steps from the converted boathouse that she was planning to buy. She reached the pavement, paused to catch her breath, and saw him coming out of the elegant townhouse opposite. He dropped his keys into his pocket, turned round, saw her standing there and smiled at her.

  Nearly twenty-five years later, Evie begins to laugh: that smile had wreaked its very own kind of havoc. It was friendly, almost amused, as if he somehow guessed that she was in a state of great excitement. Eyebrows raised, he seemed to be challenging her to tell him about it – and so she did.

  ‘Look,’ she said, beckoning him across the street, leaning over the wall so as to point down to where the small, newly converted boathouse stood at the river’s edge, poised above it, full of water-light and sunshine. ‘Isn’t it lovely? I’m going to buy it!’

  ‘Gosh!’ he said, eager as a boy – the darling fellow – entering into her joy. ‘Good for you! So we’ll be neighbours.’

  ‘Do you live there?’ She nodded across the road towards the Merchant’s House, impressed and, more than that, heart-thumpingly hopeful. He was rather nice.

  ‘In London mostly,’ he said ruefully. ‘Dartmouth whenever I can. My wife gets bored very quickly here, and she’s not a sailor. I love it, though.’

  Oh, damn, she thought. A wife. Oh, well …

  She found that she was walking with him down the hill towards Fairfax Place.

  ‘So what about you?’ he was asking. ‘I haven’t seen you in the town, have I? Are you local?’

  ‘No, not a local,’ she said. ‘I’ve been renting a house near Totnes for the last five years. I taught History at Bristol University. The Civil War was my speciality. And then I began to write a novel about it and …’

  She hesitated, unwilling to say too much – about how successful the books were, how she’d decided to give up her job so as to concentrate on her writing – but he was looking at her even more keenly.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re Evelyn Drake?’

  She laughed at his excitement. ‘I am. But don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘But I love your Civil War books,’ he said. ‘I’ve read every one of them. And what’s this I’ve heard about a television series?’

  She nodded, thrilled and embarrassed in equal parts. ‘It’s unbelievable luck. And now an American publisher has offered me a contract for the first two books, so that’s why I can afford to buy the boathouse. To be honest, I don’t quite know whether I’m dreaming the whole thin
g.’

  He studied her more closely. ‘Husband?’ he enquired lightly. She shook her head. ‘Anyone special?’ Another shake of the head. ‘So I shan’t be treading on anyone’s toes if I offer to buy you a drink?’

  ‘I must take the keys back to the estate agent and then I’d love it,’ she said – and that was the beginning.

  Evie raises her glass, full of loganberries and sweet peas, and silently toasts him and their years together: ten as his mistress, twelve as his wife after Marianne died. During that time they’d continued to live between the Merchant’s House and the boathouse but, when the darling fellow died in Dartmouth Hospital two days after an aortic aneurysm, she’d moved back into the boathouse and let out the Merchant’s House to friends who were relocating and between houses.

  Now, she puts the glass on the table and looks down across the terraced garden to the house from which a figure emerges. The tenants have gone and Ben is living here whilst he is recovering from the recent breakdown of his marriage. Ben’s father and Tommy were cousins and it is with Ben that she’s been sharing the bottle of wine that stands on the table. He and Charlie are so alike they could be brothers: spare, tall and dark, just like Tommy. She loves them both equally.

  What am I to do? she wonders, not for the first time.

  Ben, who has come up through the garden to rejoin her, looks at her glass, raises his eyebrows. ‘Not much room for wine.’

  She shakes her head and gets up. ‘No more for me, darling. Will you come over to the boathouse for supper?’

  ‘Not tonight, I’ve got an assignment to finish off, but thanks.’ He indicates the loganberries and the sweet peas. ‘Do you want something to put those in?’

  ‘I’ll find something in the kitchen as I go through.’

  He stoops to kiss her and she goes carefully down the zigzag of steps through the garden and into the kitchen.

  The Merchant’s House has never truly been home to Evie. Even when she was living there with Tommy she was too conscious of the family tradition, too aware that her tenure was merely temporary, to be able to relax and enjoy it properly. The Fortescues had always lived between Dartmouth and London but, once the aunts had died and Tommy married Marianne, the Merchant’s House became less and less a family home and more and more a bolt hole. Marianne sometimes brought friends and clients down to impress them and, as boys, Charlie and Ben spent a few weeks each summer in Dartmouth, so it was at the boathouse that Evie and Tommy talked, and laughed, and learned each other’s history. It wasn’t an affair in the usual sense of the word, though the sex when it happened was good; there was none of the illicit thrill of it being secret to fan the flames of attraction. It was much simpler: as if they’d each found someone necessary, who filled an aching gap and made sense of life. It was something quite separate from Tommy’s life in London. They were discreet, and if any of the locals guessed, nobody was telling. There had been Fortescues in Dartmouth for generations, and affection for the aunts and Tommy was still very strong and very loyal.

  All the same, thinks Evie, as she puts the sweet peas and the loganberries into a little pottery bowl, it was wrong, I suppose. It’s just that I can’t regret it. He was so grounded. Though, given that was true, I wonder why he needed me. There was something we both lacked, I suppose, that we gave each other. We were so completely on the same wavelength – books, music, films – it was extraordinary; almost as if we had been brought up together and had a whole shared reference of knowledge and experience. It was so easy, being with him.

  She suspected that Charlie guessed afterwards – once she and Tommy were married – that there was already a long-standing romantic relationship. Much later Evie was able to talk to him about it, but during those early years she kept well out of the way on the few occasions when the family were in Dartmouth.

  ‘It’s a pity,’ Tommy said once. ‘Marianne’s a terrific scalp-hunter. She’d be utterly thrilled to have you at one of her weekend parties.’

  But Evie shook her head. ‘No chance. I couldn’t play the part. Nor could you. And it’s not fair on her or Charlie. Especially Charlie. I like the sound of Charlie.’

  Charlie, like his mother, prefers London. He is happily settled there now in the family house in Kensington, running the wine import business. He was delighted when Evie and his father got married; not long married himself, a proud father, and generously disposed for everyone to be happy. He and Evie quickly adopted an easy, light-hearted relationship. Charlie would roar with laughter at her jokes and his wife would smile tightly, baffled by Evie’s casual approach to life and her indifference to people’s opinions or criticism.

  ‘I can’t help wondering,’ Evie said to Tommy, ‘whether Angela is quite the right girl for your Charlie.’

  ‘Oh, Ange is OK,’ he said tolerantly. ‘Very sensible. She’s an asset where the business is concerned. Very switched on and efficient.’

  Evie made a face. ‘He could get a PA with those qualifications.’

  He looked thoughtful. ‘Funny chap, Charlie. He’s got his head well and truly screwed on but he’s not always quite as confident as he looks. His mother had great influence over him. Marianne thoroughly approved of Ange – we’ve known the family for years – and I think he’s simply grown used to her. He could see that she’d be good at making sure everything runs smoothly.’

  And so she did. Like Marianne before her, she knew the right people, made the right kind of friends and was good with the clients, though she lacked Marianne’s generosity. Nevertheless, the business continued to flourish, and Charlie’s prospects with it.

  So what did I know? Evie asks herself, closing the front door behind her and crossing the road. Tommy was right and it was none of my business.

  But it is her business now: Tommy has made it her business. Charlie has inherited the house in Kensington, the wine import business, the assets; but the Merchant’s House has been left to Evie. Charlie is puzzled but courteous; Ange is furious.

  ‘Rather unusual,’ she said to Evie after the will was read. ‘The house has been in the family for generations.’

  ‘Evie is family,’ Charlie reminded her gently, and Ange flushed that unbecoming red that flows up from her chest and over her face each time she is annoyed.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she muttered.

  Evie wanted to agree but was obliged to remain silent: she was as shocked as Ange. It never occurred to her that Tommy would do such a thing.

  Clutching the bowl, Evie descends the steep flights of steps that lead down to the shared paved area behind the boathouse and lets herself in. River-light flows across the polished wood floor, trembles on the white walls, washes up into the high-raftered roof of this huge living space. She sets the bowl down beside the Belfast sink, crosses the length of the room to the big glass doors, which open on to the wooden balcony, and steps outside. If she turns her back on the river and looks up she can see the Merchant’s House standing in its elegant row across the road high above her. All around her are other converted boathouses, jumbled amongst fishermen’s cottages built below the level of the road, backed into the rock and huddled above the river. Some have ports with heavy wooden doors that can be closed against the tide and where small boats can be kept. A few owners have built tall stone columns into which lifts have been installed to avoid climbing steep steps to the road above. Some of the cottages have tiny courtyards surrounded by high stone walls. These walls are bright with flowers: valerian, feverfew, mallows, lacecap hydrangeas spring from the crevices in these stones and flourish in the salty air.

  If she looks across the river Evie can see Kingswear with its tier upon tier of houses stacked on the hill above the marina: narrow terraced houses the colour of ice cream: mint, vanilla, bubblegum, coffee.

  The sun has slipped away behind the hill and the balcony is in shadow. This is when she misses Tommy most: early evening when work is done and it’s time to light the candles, to prepare supper, to talk over the events of the day. In the winter sh
e will pull down the pretty hand-painted blinds over the windows that face northwards upriver and south to the sea, and close the curtains across the big glass doors. She will go through the connecting door from the utility room behind the kitchen, into the small adjoining fisherman’s cottage where she works and where there is the den, cosy and warm, sheltered from winter storms and the high spring tides that race in from the sea. The bedrooms are here, too: not very big but quite adequate. The contrast is extraordinary: the higgledy-piggledy cottage with twists and turns and unexpected steps, and the huge light-filled space that feels like an extension of the river.

  Evie opens a cupboard and finds a vase for the sweet peas; she empties the loganberries into a smaller dish. The bowl must be returned to the Merchant’s House. She is always most particular that there should never be any muddle.

  ‘It’s yours too, now,’ Tommy would say after they were married, but she’d shake her head.

  ‘It belongs to your family, not to me.’

  ‘But you are my family,’ he’d protest. ‘This is our home, darling Evie. Relax into it. Don’t be so independent. You are happy, aren’t you? I know you love your boathouse but you like this old place, too, don’t you?’

  And she did love it: the Merchant’s House was graceful, elegant, and yet warm and friendly. She loved the big comfortable breakfast room, which led off from the kitchen, and the bright, sunny drawing-room on the first floor with its big sash windows looking across the river. She loved the sheltered terraced garden, with its amazing views, the fruit trees growing against the high stone walls, and the scent of the lavender hedge at the end of a hot day. It was a family house, but it wasn’t her family, as Ange always made sure to underline. Whenever she and Charlie visited, with Alice as a tiny baby – and later with Millie, too – Ange took opportunities to assert her position as Tommy’s daughter-in-law, wife of his beloved son, mother of his adorable granddaughters. She’d visited Dartmouth when Marianne was still alive, knew the house intimately, and never missed the chance to make Evie feel that she was an outsider. Not in front of Charlie or Tommy – she was too clever for that – but by subtle hints and actions Ange indicated her rights of possession.