Second Time Around Read online

  Now, Isobel wondered if it had been Sally who had persuaded Helen to send the card. The humiliating thought made her clench her fists and bury her face in the quilt. She would rather not see Helen at all than to know that it was at Sally’s prompting. Such knowledge filled her with shame and tears forced themselves out of her eyes. After all, it was she who had wrecked her marriage; she who had abandoned her husband and child in a wild grab at happiness. What right had she to dictate terms now? In her head she heard Mathilda’s voice: ‘And did you find happiness?’ How many people, wondered Isobel drearily, refused to recognise the happiness at their own doorsteps and spent their lives searching for some mythical bluebird?

  Mathilda had injected a kind of strength into her, making it possible to both face the knowledge and bear the result of her mistake. Without her, Isobel felt as though she were drifting off course. She was not yet aware that she was beginning to look towards Will, as she had looked to Mathilda, for courage; but his coming had given her renewed hope which the letter had destroyed. She lay, listening to the continual music of the sea, watching the changing, trembling shift of light on the walls and ceiling, unable to summon the will or energy to get up. The sound of the telephone bell impinged upon her misery and, at length, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and went downstairs.

  ‘Yes?’ she said curtly into the receiver. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Hello, Isobel.’ It was Tessa. ‘Did I get you up? I’m awfully sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Isobel, peering at her watch and seeing that it was twenty past eleven. ‘I wasn’t asleep. What’s the problem?’

  ‘No problem really. I just wondered if Will had moved in.’ She sounded hopeful and excited, and Isobel felt her own troubles receding a little. ‘I had an idea, you see.’

  ‘Will’s in,’ said Isobel as cheerfully as she could. ‘He’s enjoying himself no end. What’s the idea?’

  ‘Well, I’m leaving here tomorrow morning and I’ve got a week’s gap. I was just wondering if I could come down to the cove instead of going back to London. What d’you think?’

  ‘Of course you can come,’ said Isobel warmly, as though she were the owner of the cove. ‘Why not? You have just as much right as Will, and I know he’d be delighted to see you. So would I. When will you be arriving … ?’

  Isobel replaced the receiver feeling perceptibly happier. She must air sheets, make up a bed and prepare a special supper. It was important that Tessa should feel at home in the house in the cove—and, anyway, it was good to have someone to plan for and to look after. She belted her dressing gown more tightly round her waist and went into the kitchen. Through the window she could see Will walking on the beach, and she paused in her act of filling the kettle to watch him. He pottered, as Mathilda used to; picking up shells or stones so as to examine them; collecting driftwood; stopping to watch the waves. He made no attempt to disturb her privacy or encroach upon her time, always waiting for her to approach him. Her heart warmed towards him and it was with a lighter spirit that, having switched on the kettle, she went running upstairs to dress. She must tell Will of Tessa’s imminent arrival and maybe they would go into Kingsbridge together to buy in some supplies, stopping off at Frogmore Bakery to buy some bread from Mary …

  Isobel pulled on leggings and a warm jersey, thrust her feet into thick socks and hurried back downstairs. The day that had stretched so emptily before her was filled with new purpose.

  Fourteen

  TESSA’S WEEK WITH WILL at the cove was an unqualified success. At first he had been anxious lest there might be some awkwardness about sharing the bathroom or appearing unexpectedly in his dressing gown but these fears were swiftly dispelled by Tessa’s own attitude. She had spent most of her life either at school or in other people’s homes and she was perfectly natural with him. This allowed him, in turn, to be easy and relaxed and soon it was as though they had known each other for years. They prowled about the house together, exploring, investigating, poking into cupboards and generally making themselves at home.

  Tactfully, Isobel left them alone as much as possible and it was Will who showed Tessa the countryside, took her in to introduce her to Mary who made such delicious bread at Frogmore Bakery and drove her to Kingsbridge to shop. She exclaimed with pleasure as they passed over Bowcombe Bridge, where the river ran out from between its thickly wooded banks into the wider shining waters of the estuary. The small grey town which clung to the side of the hill, with its slate-hung houses and old cottages and the estuary at its feet, made her think of other small Devonshire towns. She was aware of a sense of timelessness—despite the bustle and the traffic—and a sense of belonging. The weather was cold and bright, with frosty mornings and starlit nights, and Tessa was happier than she had been for many years.

  As the week passed an idea was maturing at the back of Will’s mind. He was reminded of it by something Tessa was telling him as they sat by the sitting room fire one early evening, making toast. She had told him many stories of her dog-sitting adventures and described her employers and their houses so graphically that he began to feel that he knew them almost as well as she did. At the moment she was embarked upon a description of Mrs Carrington and her daughter in the Midlands. When she reached the part about the sale of the bureau, Will let out an exclamation. Tessa paused and looked at him enquiringly.

  ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt. Just reminded me of something. Carry on. So did the young man come and fetch it?’

  Whilst she buttered toast Tessa finished her story and, putting the plate in the grate to keep warm, she began to pour the tea. ‘Poor old thing,’ she said. ‘It’s really a squeeze to make ends meet and that daughter of hers knows she’s a soft touch. You can tell.’

  Will shook his head sympathetically but his mind was already busy with his new idea. ‘It made me think of something,’ he told her, pushing the logs back together so that they could begin to burn again. ‘You know, there are an awful lot of valuable pieces in this house.’

  ‘Pieces?’ Tessa looked puzzled.

  ‘Furniture.’ Will accepted his cup. ‘Some of it’s terrifically old. Now, it occurred to me that if we sold some of it and split the money three ways you and I could put ours towards buying Matron out.’

  ‘But they’re Mathilda’s things,’ said Tessa slowly. ‘Family things.’

  Will smiled a little. He wondered if it had ever occurred to Tessa just how well off she’d be if they were to sell up. ‘I appreciate that,’ he said gently. ‘But they’re our things now, too, d’you see? If it were a choice between selling some of the furniture or selling the house … ?’

  He let the remark hang in the air whilst he ate his toast, watching her. She sat staring into the fire, deep in thought: presently she looked about the room.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the same without her things,’ she observed wistfully.

  He bit back his impatience, realising that it was the sense of continuity that was important to her. He had seen her, touching the furniture, picking up ornaments, taking down a book, and had known that she was identifying with Mathilda and feeling part of the pattern. Here Mathilda had stood to watch the sea; here she had sat to write and work; here she had slept. Some of the furniture must have belonged to Mathilda’s parents, possibly even to her grandparents. There had been Rainbirds here for more than ninety years …

  ‘We might only need to sell two or three pieces,’ he said. ‘Don’t think I want to but I’d rather lose a few pieces of furniture than the house.’

  ‘Two or three pieces?’ She shook her head. ‘Mrs Carrington only got three hundred pounds for her bureau.’

  ‘Perhaps Mrs Carrington’s bureau wasn’t very valuable,’ suggested Will, who was interested in antiques and had a very good idea of just how valuable some of Mathilda’s things were. ‘It’s only a thought. To keep as an emergency. James is hoping that Matron will be prepared to wait.’

  Tessa drank her tea. ‘Perhaps as an emergency,’ she agreed at last.
/>   Will heaved a sigh of relief. ‘It will all have to be valued. Perhaps James has had it done already. I’ll talk to him. Let’s hope it won’t be necessary.’

  ‘I hope not but it would be silly to lose the house if we had the means to save it. Oh, I can’t tell you what it means to know that I’ve got this to come back to.’ She took a deep breath and nodded. ‘We simply must hold on.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with James.’ He cast about for something to distract her and his eye fell on Mathilda’s Scrabble board. ‘Ever played Scrabble?’

  She began to laugh. ‘Not for years and years. I used to play with Rachel and Sebastian. He always won but we said he cheated.’

  ‘Let’s have a game.’ Will was clearing away the tea things. ‘Look, here are the score cards.’ Together they studied Mathilda’s small precise writing; the two columns of figures headed M and I. ‘She must have been quite a player,’ he said, chuckling. ‘Beat old Isobel nearly every time by the look of it.’

  ‘There are more in the box.’ Tessa picked them up. ‘These columns are headed M and N. I wonder who N was?’

  ‘Sounds like the old Catechism,’ said Will cheerfully, setting out the board and the racks on the low table. ‘“What is your name? N or M?”’

  Tessa fingered the yellowing paper thoughtfully. Will glanced up at her, surprised at her silence, and felt a sudden surge of affection for the small figure with the serious down-slanted face and its aureole of bright hair. Sensing the slight change of atmosphere, she looked at him and they smiled at each other with deep satisfaction and contentment.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ he told her confidently. ‘Come on. You can draw first.’

  SUNDAY MORNING. THE CHAPEL was full but the faint warmth from the heaters had not yet dispelled the chill of the frosty December morning. The boys’ breath appeared in smoky puffs and they rubbed their hands together and blew out their cheeks, exaggerating the cold. Bea sat at the back of the chapel, trying not to feel superfluous. Her arrival back in the environs of the school had received a mixed response. At first her old friends had greeted her welcomingly and with affection but, when they realised that she was not just on a visit but had rented a flat in the town, their reactions altered. There was a certain raising of eyebrows which indicated surprise and, in some cases, faint disapproval. Bea hid her disappointment and anxiety and tried to make herself feel at home. The shopkeepers knew her and were friendly enough but, now that she was no longer officially attached to the school, there was a very real sense of exclusion.

  As she tried to make her new flat comfortable she told herself that she was being oversensitive. After all, she’d lived close to the town for fifteen years and had as much right to retire here as anyone else. She looked critically at the indifferent furniture with which the flat was furnished and tried not to feel lonely. She had not been ready to deal with the impression that, to her ex-colleagues, she was already an outsider. On the odd occasions when she’d popped into the school for a chat there had been an undercurrent of suspicion; a ‘What’s she doing here?’ atmosphere which had made her feel uncomfortable. The new matron, fresh from a school in the north, was openly hostile and even the headmaster, when he saw her chatting to the boys as they came off the playing fields, seemed reserved. Although he offered her tea he looked relieved when she refused, and hurried the boys away to the changing rooms.

  Bea spent hours wandering round her three rooms, fiddling with the small personal possessions which gave the flat a less bleak look, and trying to decide how she could overcome this hurtful sense of hostility. The boys had been pleased to see her, waving when they saw her coming down the drive from the school so that she’d strolled over to watch the game. She’d stood with them on the sidelines whilst they cheered their team on and they’d talked easily and naturally with her, as though she were still part of their lives.

  No one could have guessed what courage it took for her to make this appearance at the Sunday morning service. She sat just inside the door, dressed in her grey flannel suit and navy felt hat, and stared at the back of Tony Priest’s head. She had seen him briefly and only at a distance. He had noticed her as she passed out through the hall from the secretary’s office—mercifully June was just as friendly as she’d ever been—and he had raised a long arm in greeting before turning back to the small boy who stared earnestly up at him. She’d paused, pretending to study some photographs pinned to the notice board, but pride had made it impossible to hover there indefinitely.

  This morning his wife sat beside him, thin and elegant in soft lambswool, her fine fair hair cut in a short bob. Bea clasped her hands on her grey flannel lap and stared down at her ample, cotton-covered bosom. She had surprised a disapproving stare from Marian, the headmaster’s wife, and a glare from the new matron and she felt as miserable and alone as any new boy. She knew now that Norah had been right but she simply could not go back to Winchester. She would rather stay here and risk the snubs …

  The headmaster’s voice, reading the lesson for the first Sunday in Advent, caught her attention. ‘“ …it is high time to awake out of sleep … The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light …”’

  Bea, moved as always by the Epistle for Advent, thought that this was probably the most exciting time of the whole school year. Christ- . mas loomed ahead with the promise of the carol service and the Christmas party; the decoration of the tree that stood in the hall and the rehearsals for the nativity play which took place in the chapel. The Advent hymns had always thrilled her with a sense of anticipation and there was an ongoing atmosphere of happy expectation. Surely they would not exclude her from all that lay ahead? There must be some part she could play; some area in which she could make herself useful?

  As the organ played the opening bars of ‘Lo he comes with clouds descending’, Bea rose to her feet determined to make a very great ef.fort to be integrated back into her old familiar world. She had yet to collect her few odds and ends from the headmaster’s attic and, whilst doing it, she would talk to Marian and let them see that she was no threat. On reflection, she realised that she should have thought of this before. Perhaps the new matron felt that she might be undermined by Bea’s presence; perhaps it had been a little thoughtless to turn up unannounced … Encouraged, Bea held her hymn book higher and, with her eyes on Tony Priest’s broad shoulders, sang the well-known words with new-found confidence.

  GILES STRETCHED OUT HIS hand to the telephone, dithered and, folding his arms across his chest, tucked both fists into his armpits. His stepfather, seated at the kitchen table, maintained a tactful silence but Kate drew in her breath and closed her eyes in frustration.

  ‘Giles,’ she said in a low dangerous voice, ‘will you please pick up that telephone and talk to Tessa?’

  Giles looked at her. ‘The trouble is …’ he began but stopped as Kate slapped both hands flat on the table and gave a cry of anguish. David courteously but silently drew back his newspaper and Kate glared at him briefly before returning her attention to Giles.

  ‘And don’t tell me what the trouble is,’ she said warningly. ‘You’ve already told me what the trouble is. Once on the phone from London. Again on your arrival yesterday lunchtime and all over again last night after supper. We know how you feel about it. We know that your photographic business might not be able to support a wife; we know you feel that you’re not in a position to enter into an ongoing relationship; we know that Tessa has a crush on Sebastian Anderson. We decided, on the telephone and again when you arrived yesterday, and for the third time last evening—or rather at two o’clock this morning—that none of these things matter since you are merely going to invite her out to lunch.’

  The word ‘lunch’ came out on a rather high note and Kate paused and cleared her throat. Giles and David watched her anxiously.

  ‘The thing is, old chap,’ said David after a moment of pregnant silence, ‘that the girl probably won’t give a
hang about your job or your bank balance. You’re not proposing marriage. Just lunch.’

  ‘I don’t believe this.’ Kate sat down at the table and ran both hands through her hair. ‘No wonder you’re thirty years old and not married, Giles. Do you ever manage to ask any girl to go anywhere? I thought that young girls were free and independent and self-sufficient. Why the third degree?’

  ‘Tessa’s special,’ said Giles simply.

  Kate stared at him, her irritation evaporating. ‘Oh, darling,’ she said. ‘I know. At least, I think you could say we suspected. Oh hell! Can’t you see that’s why we want you to phone her?’

  Suppressing a desire to howl with frustration she fetched a bottle of wine and the corkscrew and put them down on the table in front of David.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Giles miserably. ‘Only it means a lot and I’m afraid of cocking it up. I know she’s very independent and all those things and I seem to be a bit old-fashioned where women are concerned and they don’t care for it much … And then there’s Sebastian.’

  David and Kate exchanged a glance and David pushed a glass of wine across the table towards Giles where he stood, leaning against the dresser, hands now thrust deep in his trouser pockets.

  ‘Giles,’ said Kate carefully, ‘please try to be sensible about this. It’s one thing being honourable and another being stupid.’ David winced and looked quickly at Giles, who was staring into his wine glass. ‘Tessa has had a schoolgirl crush on Sebastian for years and, because she rarely gets the opportunity to meet any other young men, she hasn’t grown out of it. From what I’ve read between the lines he treats her like a little sister and has never given her a serious thought. If you’re going to let that stand in your way then you’re a twit. For heaven’s sake, give her the chance to choose for herself.’