Second Time Around Read online

  Tessa was staring at him in horror, remembering Isobel’s story of Mathilda’s tenant with the drunken husband. James raised his hands and shoulders in a helpless gesture.

  ‘I agree it’s a risk. But it is a way of keeping the house.’

  ‘And where would Isobel go?’ asked Tessa somewhat belligerently.

  ‘Well, you might offer her accommodation in the house,’ suggested James, ‘although I think it’s unlikely that she’d accept. No doubt she’d find another cottage. I take your point about undesirable neighbours at very close quarters but every avenue has to be explored.’

  ‘I’ve had another idea,’ said Tessa. ‘It just occurred to me that if Mr … if Will—’ she spoke his name rather shyly and he nodded at her encouragingly—‘is prepared to sell his property in Switzerland and we put the proceeds together with my trust we might just raise the money for Matron. We’d probably have to take out a small mortgage but I don’t mind paying that if I can.’

  The men looked at her in surprise. ‘I thought your trust didn’t materialise for several years,’ said James.

  ‘Two years,’ said Tessa. ‘But do you think Matron might be prepared to wait if we asked her? She could use the house, of course, and perhaps we could pay her interest or something.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know the details but perhaps we might persuade her just to hang on. What d‘you think?’

  ‘It’s not a bad idea,’ said Will slowly. ‘Of course, she wants to buy her own place, doesn’t she? She might not want to wait.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ said James. ‘It might work. Certainly worth a try. But first I need all the details about this trust, Tessa.’

  Will sat back in his chair whilst the other two talked, watching Tessa. It was interesting that neither he nor she had questioned for a single moment their compatibility to share the house. It would be fun, he thought, to have such a bright, cheerful girl around and he could look after the house during her absences; make sure that it was a warm welcoming place to which she could come home. Home; that was the word, thought Will. Perhaps that was the link between them. They had both instinctively looked upon the cove as home; something neither of them had truly experienced. We must make it work, he thought. He was not yet prepared to admit to himself how important Isobel was to his plans but he was glad that Tessa had reacted as she had. Isobel belonged to the cove, too. She was part of the family …

  Tessa had been unaware of Will’s thoughts; she only knew that they were of the same mind and had been pleased to think that this man was her cousin, if a rather distant one. Now, as she lifted the tailgate so that Sidney and Harry could jump in, she thought about Will. She could see no reason why they shouldn’t share the house. After all, it was a very big place for one girl who spent most of the time in other people’s houses. To Tessa’s young eyes Will, the wrong side of sixty, was much too old to be considering any romantic entanglements and she could imagine them settling down well together. He would have Isobel for company when she, Tessa, was dog-sitting and he had already professed himself willing to undertake much of the work which was needed to restore the house and bring it up to date.

  The whole thing turned on Matron. Tessa, with boarding school not far behind her, had adopted James’s name for Bea with no difficulty at all. Tessa imagined a severe, starched, difficult individual who would have no compunction in overturning her hopes and dreams. She drove the car into the ramshackle wooden garage which clung to the side of the small cottage, released the dogs and went inside to make herself some breakfast. Sidney followed her, collapsing on to his beanbag as though he had walked miles. He watched, nose on paws, as she fetched muesli and toasted bread and, unable to resist the hope in his eyes, she gave him another Bonio which he crunched with great gusto.

  She heard the soft plop of letters on the mat and went out to fetch the post. Harry was barking at the postman and she opened the door to reprimand him, smiling an apology as she hauled Harry inside and slammed the door. Harry trotted into the kitchen and went at once to Sidney’s beanbag to investigate the crumbs. Because of his soft mouth, Sidney was a messy eater and Harry obligingly cleaned up after him, even licking round Sidney’s jaws, much to the clumber’s indignation. He looked to Tessa for support but she was opening an envelope. She had asked Cousin Pauline to forward her letters and, amongst them, was a postcard of Edinburgh Castle. She turned it over, puzzled. ‘Stuck up here in the frozen north,’ ran Sebastian’s scrawl. ‘How are things? Thanks for last time. See you soon.’

  Tessa waited for the surge of excitement with which she had greeted Sebastian’s missives over the years but it was not forthcoming. She felt a small glow of pleasure but it was oddly muted and she read the card again so as to work herself up to it. It was no use. Frowning, she looked through the rest of her post which consisted mainly of circulars, apart from a request from Mrs Carrington for a booking for Christmas and the New Year, and a letter from James. This was mainly to confirm all that she told him at their meeting in Plymouth, nevertheless she noted that her heart bumped much faster as she opened this envelope than it had when she’d read Sebastian’s card.

  As she sat down to her breakfast she castigated herself for putting the anxiety about the house above her love for Sebastian. Mentally she redesigned the house so that it could contain a married couple as well as Will. With Sebastian at sea and herself away so much, she was sure that it could be achieved without too much difficulty … Pushing her plates aside she folded her arms on the table and shook her head sadly. Marriage with Sebastian was as distant a dream as it had been when she was fourteen. Their day out together had been lovely but she was aware that, to him, she was still just a little sister. There was none of the excitement that should be there—well, certainly not on his part. It seemed that he needed to be partly drunk to feel that sort of thing.

  She found herself thinking about Giles and how differently he had treated her. The expression in his eyes had been flattering and oddly disturbing, giving her flutters in her abdomen. The lunch at the Church House Inn at Rattery had been great fun. True, Guy had been rather distant to begin with but, after a pint or two, he had soon thawed and Gemma was so friendly and funny. Giles had made sure that Tessa was never left out and for those few hours she had felt part of a family group.

  Family; she had an obsession about it. Despairingly Tessa began to clear away her breakfast things. She knew that it was this sense of family and deep affection that she saw and loved at the Roundhouse at Buckland-in-the-Moor where the Perrymans worked so happily together; the cheerful banter of the twins, Clare and Marie; the warm motherliness of Mrs Perryman; Sunday lunchtimes when Mr Perryman came in to chat to his regulars; young Colin old enough now to wait at table … these were the things that drew her back and gave her a feeling of safety.

  Tessa pulled herself together, propped Sebastian’s card on the windowsill and began to do the washing-up.

  Thirteen

  IT WAS AT JAMES’S suggestion—and with the permission of the other beneficiaries—that Will moved into the house in the cove. Will gratefully accepted the offer. He had enjoyed staying at the Royal Castle and exploring the busy town of Dartmouth but, as the autumn drew on, he found himself more at one with the countryside than with the urban scene. He drove home on a windy cold afternoon, through the coastal villages of Stoke Fleming and Strete, his eyes drawn again and again to the great sweep of coastline which embraced Blackpool Sands and Torcross beach and stretched away to Start Point, misty and ethereal in the autumn sunshine. He swung left, down the hill and on to Torcross Line where the sea crashed in against the long stretch of shingle to his left and the chilly breeze ruffled the calm waters of Slapton Ley on his right.

  He slowed to watch a flock of starlings sweep low over the Ley where two swans sailed, calm and indifferent to these noisy visitors, and ducks swam amongst the reedy edges and huddled together on the tiny beach. The flock of starlings, like a ragged cloud overhead, broke and re-formed and swept away inland. Will si
ghed with deep pleasure and drove on. The low sun sent long sharp shadows across fields whose red soil glowed richly in its rays, touching the dying bracken in the hedgerows with its fiery glance so that the whole countryside was bathed in brilliant colour.

  The entrance to the track was familiar to him but he remembered when he had first seen it in the hot August afternoon. There was no honeysuckle now; the red and gold berries of the black bryony trailed across bare branches which shivered and creaked in the cold rush of the wind and bramble leaves burned darkly in the ditch. Will drove gently down the track wishing that some conclusion could be reached. He had a very adequate pension—and some savings tucked away—but living in a hotel and using a hired car was expensive. Of course, if the house were to be sold then he need not worry about money ever again but if he and Tessa were able to keep it they would need every penny.

  As he negotiated the sharp bend to the right and saw that first tantalising glimpse of the sea his heart knocked fast in his breast. He parked the car beside the Morris and climbed out, hearing the boom of the surf as it thudded against the sand shelf out at the mouth of the cove. The beach was deep in shadow but the sea reflected back the blue of the overarching sky above it and, as he walked out on to the beach and looked up at the house, he saw that lights were shining out from the kitchen and the study.

  Isobel; at the thought of her his heart became even more unruly and he pushed open the kitchen door eagerly. The room was empty but the smell of casserole assailed his nostrils and he saw an apple pie placed in the middle of the Georgian table. He looked about him; at the scratched but polished table, at the delicate china newly dusted on the dresser shelves, at the battered Rayburn and the beautiful glass bowl of the old paraffin lamp which stood on an oak trolley. On the lower shelf of the trolley was a pile of books. Curiously, Will bent to read the titles. He took the top book out in disbelief.

  ‘The Hunting of the Snark,’ he murmured with amusement and sank into Mathilda’s chair beside the Rayburn …

  Isobel found him some moments later. The shock of seeing him there, looking so like Mathilda as he gazed up at her with a book in his hand, rendered her momentarily inarticulate. She wavered between delight, at seeing him here where she felt he belonged and at the easing of her own loneliness, and rage at giving her a fright and making her think—for one brief wonderful moment—that Mathilda had returned to her. Delight won.

  ‘Oh, Will,’ she said, stretching out her hands to him. ‘Welcome home.’

  BEA SWEPT THE IRON rhythmically to and fro across the board, carefully but insistently pressing out the creases of her best white shirt. Norah sat behind her at the kitchen table, her voice pressing just as insistently at Bea’s mind, forcing itself into the corners of her thoughts, exactly as the iron pushed relentlessly into the stiff cotton of Bea’s shirt.

  ‘Never go back, Bea. It’s always disastrous. These old sayings may be clichés but there’s a lot of truth in them. I was saying as much to Andrew. He feels that you’ll be making a mistake …’

  Bea clenched her teeth on a spasm of irritation as she thought about Norah discussing her private affairs with Andrew Owen, priest or not.

  ‘ …and we agreed that this is exactly the trouble with Miss Knowles. Because she lived here as a girl she feels she has the absolute right to come back, now that she’s retired, and behave as though she’s been here all her life. She has a most unpleasant air of complacency …’

  Bea peeled her shirt from the ironing board and hung it on a coat hanger. She selected a nightgown from the pile of laundry on the table beside her and stretched it out across the ironing board.

  ‘ …of course, the man’s a saint. He’d never noticed that smug look on her face but I was able to point out that I’ve come up against a very stubborn streak in her character. Absolutely determined to read one of the lessons at the carol service. I know that one member of the congregation is always asked but I flatter myself that I have a better reading voice than most …’

  Once again, Bea found herself thinking about Bernard; understanding those smiling silences, the disappearances to the pub. Why had she allowed herself to be drawn in to this trap? When she told Norah how much she was missing her friends at school and in the nearby town she had brought a deluge round her ears. This was their third conversation on this subject and Bea, though exhausted and sorry for Norah, was standing firm.

  ‘ …simply because her father was curate forty years ago she feels that the church is her property. Unless I’m mistaken it will lead to a great deal of heartache. She should have remained where she was, among her own friends. She simply doesn’t belong here any more. And that’s what you’ll find, Bea. You simply don’t belong there any more.

  ‘If that’s true,’ said Bea, speaking for the first time, ‘then at least I shall have discovered it for myself. I did tell you at the beginning that we must have a trial run. I’m very fond of you, my dear, but I had no idea how much I would miss the school … and the town. You must let me make this experiment.’

  Norah exhaled noisily. Without looking round, Bea envisaged her face; chin drawn in, mouth turned down, a self-pitying expression in her eyes.

  ‘Well, if you insist.’ She emitted a short mirthless laugh. ‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’

  ‘Try to understand,’ said Bea gently. ‘Retirement has come as a bit of a shock. I need time to adjust. The lease on this little flat I’ve found is for six months. By then I should know one way or the other.’

  Norah shrugged—but her reply was lost in the ringing of the telephone. Bea sighed as she folded the nightgown. She had acquiesced to James’s request that Will should reside in the house whilst he waited for the outcome to this new suggestion. Bea selected a Viyella skirt from the pile and turned the iron’s dial to a lower heat. It was true that she was not desperate for the money from the sale of the house and cottage; nevertheless two years was rather a long time to wait. Thoughtfully Bea smoothed the soft folds. One thing was certain: that she could not live with Norah. It was odd, almost prescient, that Mathilda had left her house to the three of her relatives who had no homes. Of course; that was not strictly true, Will had his flat in Geneva and Tessa had her base in London. As for herself … Bea shook out the skirt and slipped it on to its hanger, remembering that James had told her that they were the only three surviving relatives; all three single or alone. For a moment she pictured the cove and heard Will’s voice saying, ‘It all depends on what you mean by nothing.’

  Surely it would be quite impossible for them all to live there together? Perhaps if the cottage were to be vacated … She recalled Isobel’s anxious face and Will’s eager one and laughed aloud as she thought of James’s cry of, ‘Good grief! It’s Matron!’ He had been an earnest and very endearing little boy and it was plain that he was just as keen as these others that their hare-brained scheme should come to fruition. James, in his letter, had suggested that she might like to use the house for weekends and holidays during those two years and, meanwhile, Will and Tessa had felt that she should be recompensed for being deprived of her share whilst they waited for Tessa’s trust to mature.

  Norah was back, clucking with a kind of delighted impatience over some poor soul’s inadequacy concerning the preparations for the Townswomen’s Guild’s Remembrance Sunday’s buffet lunch. Bea hardened her heart, grateful that she’d had the sense to leave the bulk of her belongings in the headmaster’s attic. She could probably slip away under cover of the new burdens which Norah, with so much joy, was preparing to shoulder. She would write to James, agreeing to his proposal, and settle into the little flat near the school. Bea took her pyjama jacket from the pile. She smiled at Norah, her thoughts elsewhere. Soon she would see Tony Priest and all her boys …

  ISOBEL LAY IN BED staring at the ceiling. Her pleasure at Will’s arrival in the cove had been overshadowed by a letter from Simon asking for a divorce. He and Sally wanted to get married, he wrote, and he felt this would be no difficulty now that he and I
sobel had been living apart for nearly four years. Isobel had sat for some time, staring at the letter where it lay on the table: nearly four years. She tried to remember that year with Mike—to recapture the madness, the excitement, the fun—but it eluded her, remaining just beyond her mental grasp. Was it really she, Isobel, who had danced and laughed and made love with the energy of a twenty-year-old? She shook her head. The affair seemed to belong to some other person’s remote and distant past but the reality was that, because of it, she had lost Simon—and Helen.

  Now, the next morning, she rolled over in bed, huddling into the quilt, thinking of her daughter who was a stranger to her and of her husband who now belonged with Sally. Isobel lay quite still, her eyes shut. Mathilda’s death and the arrival of her descendants in the cove had enabled Isobel to keep her own heartache and loneliness in abeyance. It closed in again as soon as she was alone but, though she tried to talk herself out of it, she knew beyond doubt that it was Simon whom she still loved, and the idea of him married to Sally was a dreadful one. Just as she had relied on his unchanging love all through her affair with Mike, so she had hoped that one day he would come back to her. Despite her head’s certainty that he was irrevocably lost to her, her heart insisted that he still loved her.

  The letter had come as a blow to her hopes. Isobel wrapped her arms about herself, squeezing her eyes closed against the morning light. She knew, with heart and head alike, that once he married Sally he was lost to her for ever. And what of Helen? Why should Helen ever bother with her again? Simon had not succeeded in changing his daughter’s mind, although she had received a prim little birthday card with her daughter’s signature scrawled across the bottom; no message of love, no best wishes, but Isobel had seen the card as a breakthrough and had carried it with her for weeks and, even now, used it as a bookmark. She had comforted herself with the thought that perhaps Sally wasn’t quite so wonderful as everyone thought she was. Perhaps Simon was tiring of her and Helen was realising that she was not a substitute for her own mother …