A Summer in the Country Page 22

  “Later. That would be quite delightful.” He rose too, smiling down at her, and she found herself smiling back. His force was irresistible: innocent, warm, focused. “You’re much more beautiful than I’d expected.”

  She gaped at him, suddenly distressed that he might be trying to flatter her, surprised at her whole reaction against it; at how much she was already valuing his directness.

  “… but far too thin,” he was saying, his brows suddenly drawn together as he sized her up dispassionately. “Are you usually this thin?”

  She laughed, relieved, wanting to say, “You can talk!” but instead, “Probably not,” she admitted. “It’s been too hot to eat.”

  “Has it?” He was following her into the cool hall and she suddenly realised how difficult it would be to lie to Alexander.

  “There’s not much to show,” she said lightly, ignoring his question. “These longhouses are rather odd. One room leads to another. Three rooms down and three rooms up.”

  He stood in the hallway, looking through the two rooms, as if he were reconciling them with his own ideas of the house.

  “Must be rather gloomy in the winter,” he observed.

  “Well, yes.” She was startled. Most people enthused over the house’s character and charm. “It’s damp and cold too. I’m used to it, I suppose. I’ve lived here for most of my life. The kitchen’s the best room. Come and see it.”

  “And the bedrooms lead off one another, too?”

  “Yes.” She answered more reluctantly, sensing danger, not wanting to admit to the boys’ quarters. “So how about some coffee.”

  He was looking about the kitchen with that interested air, taking in all the clutter of her life: the things that defined her. The flowered china on the dresser and the watercolour paintings on the walls; the brightly painted Henny-Penny on the working surface, the ivy-leafed geraniums in pots on the deep windowsill and the well-worn cookery books leaning together on their shelf. It seemed to her, in the brief few seconds of silence, that he was learning her, understanding her, seeing far more than she imagined might be possible in such a short time. She pushed the kettle on to the hotplate, feeling oddly nervous, thrusting her hair behind her ears—then changed her mind and reached for the cafetiere…

  “It can’t have been easy,” he was standing quite close to her, “with two small children.”

  She frowned. “Easy?”

  “The sleeping arrangements. Upstairs. Very little privacy, I should imagine.”

  “Oh, I see. No, it wasn’t… easy.” She stared up at him almost desperately, willing herself to stop there. After all, she wasn’t obliged to tell him everything. A short silence. “In fact,” she found herself adding, despite herself, “we converted half of the barn to make some extra space.”

  He smiled at her. “What a splendid idea. I must admit that I’m ready for that coffee. It’s the smell of it, isn’t it? Like frying bacon. Quite irresistible. Shall we drink it in your nice courtyard?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “Why not?”

  She put mugs and the cafetiere on to a tray—“No milk for me,” he told her, “or sugar“—and then, taking the tray, he carried it out into the sunshine with Brigid following, dazed and helpless in his wake.

  CHAPTER 25

  “Brigid’s got visitors,” said Frummie, peering through the windscreen. “No wonder she didn’t turn up for lunch. I wonder who it can be? I don’t recognise the car.”

  Louise smiled privately at Frummie’s blatant curiosity, wondering what her next move might be so as to satisfy it. She parked behind the unknown car: a small blue hatchback.

  “They know where we are if they need me to move,” she said. “But I think there’s room to turn.”

  “Not if the Prats come back,” said Frummie. “They’ll get blocked in. I’d better just go and warn Brigid.”

  “Good idea,” agreed Louise amiably, chuckling at the name. “Then you’ll be able to see who it is, won’t you?”

  “You’re not too old for a smack, you know,” said Frummie, grinning wickedly. “You could come too, if you like.”

  “No, thanks. There’s nothing of the Elephant’s Child in my make-up. But take care Brigid doesn’t pull your nose for you.”

  Laughing to herself, she turned away whilst Frummie headed purposefully for the courtyard.

  It was empty, except for the doves, although a tray stood upon the table. Her curiosity now well and truly roused, she trod lightly over the cobbles and stood for a moment just inside the front door, listening. Voices drifted from the kitchen: Brigid’s, rather anxious, clipped as if with breathlessness, and then a deeper voice with a hint of amusement beneath its attractive drawl. She knocked sharply on the door, yodelled her familiar call and nipped across the hall and into the kitchen before Brigid could have any opportunity of forestalling her.

  A tall man rose courteously from the table as Brigid pushed back her chair and turned round. Frummie spoke to her daughter but her attention was riveted on the guest who stood waiting for an introduction.

  “I am so sorry to interrupt,” she said mendaciously, “but I just wanted to say that we might be blocking your visitor’s car.” She smiled blindingly at him. “If the Prats come back“—“Prouts,” corrected Brigid automatically—“he’ll be stuck.”

  “This is Alexander Foster, Mummie,” said Brigid, not in the least taken in by her unruly parent’s stratagems. “Humphrey’s father. Alexander, this my mother.”

  She hesitated, never quite certain as to which sobriquet her mother might wish to be known.

  “How do you do?” Frummie advanced, hand outstretched, smiling. “I’m Frummie. Freda, really, but Frummie to friends and family. How very nice to meet you at last. I’d begun to believe that you didn’t really exist.”

  Alexander swept aside Brigid’s embarrassed apologies and took Frummie’s hand in his own.

  “That’s quite understandable. I’ve left it very late to become part of the family and I’m touched by my welcome.” He glanced briefly at Brigid, who was staring wretchedly before her. “It’s been far more than I deserve.”

  “Well, that’s probably true,” agreed Frummie candidly. “You haven’t shown a great deal of interest, have you?”

  “Mummie, pleaser cried Brigid, scarlet now with humiliation—but Alexander shook his head, smiling at her.

  “She’s quite right,” he said gently. “I arrived without warning and you’ve given me coffee and made me a delicious lunch.”

  “I thought you weren’t coming for another week or two,” said Frummie. “Have you changed your plans?”

  “I seem to have mislaid my son’s letter/’ he answered.

  “This was the original date, you see, but things are somewhat confused. I shall have to find somewhere to stay.”

  “That won’t be easy,” Frummie told him brightly. “Not during Bank Holiday week.”

  She glanced at Brigid, who stared back at her coldly.

  “Brigid was explaining that to me when you arrived,” he said. “I’m afraid it was foolish of me to turn up unannounced.”

  “Well, you could sleep on my sofa,” she said, “until the Prats“—“Prouts!” said Brigid furiously—“leave. It’s only a few more days, isn’t it, darling?”

  “They go on Saturday,” agreed Brigid unwillingly, “but don’t forget that Louise has the cottage booked for the next fortnight.”

  “But Louise doesn’t need it,” exclaimed Frummie cheerfully. “She’s very happy with me.”

  “I thought,” said Brigid carefully, “that we’d agreed that it might be sensible for her to be on her own again. Just to break her in to it a bit before she has to leave us. Wasn’t that the plan?”

  “She’s coming on splendidly,” said Frummie. “She doesn’t need breaking in.”

  “Nevertheless,” Brigid was beginning to sound desperate, “I feel we should ask her. She always books the cottage for that fortnight and she’s paid a deposit. We can’t be quite so
high-handed as to assume she doesn’t want it.”

  “I’m causing a great deal of trouble,” said Alexander apologetically. “Please forgive me. I’m sure that I shall find somewhere to stay. Although, if your friend finds that she doesn’t need the cottage, after all, I should be delighted to have it. Naturally, I shall pay the normal rate.”

  “Please.” Brigid looked as if she might burst into tears. “Please try to understand that I’m not trying to be difficult. And I don’t care about the money. It’s simply …”

  She faltered, confused, unable to express her true feelings. It had been a pleasant interlude and she was surprised at her unwillingness to see Alexander leave. Nevertheless, it was simply out of the question to offer him the cottage without consulting Louise and there still remained the problem of the three days between and, at any moment, her mother might just suggest that—

  “What about the stable wing where the boys sleep?” cried Frummie. “It’s the obvious solution. Just until the weekend. What do you think, darling?”

  Brigid bit her lip, schooled her lips into a smile and looked at Alexander.

  “The problem is that it’s not self-contained,” she said rapidly. “That’s why I hadn’t offered it. There’s the playroom— well, it’s a sitting room now—and two bedrooms and the bathroom and loo. But there are no cooking facilities, you see.

  “Does that matter?” asked Frummie. “Couldn’t you muck in together for a few days? I tell you what. I’ll go and have a word with Louise. See how she feels about the cottage. If she’s willing to stay with me then I’m sure we could all cope together until Saturday. Shan’t be long.”

  She hurried out and there was a silence.

  “You’ve made a conquest,” said Brigid bitterly.

  “She seems very… generous with your accommodation.”

  Brigid glanced at him quickly. He was watching her, smiling a little, his eyes warm with affection. Suddenly she wanted to burst into tears.

  “It’s not that I want you to go,” she said stiffly. “It’s just not that simple. And she always makes me look… ungenerous.”

  “Not to me,” he said. ‘Tell me what you want to do, Brigid.”

  “I want you to stay,” she said, and caught her breath, astonished at her uncharacteristically unguarded response. “But I’m not good at having people in the house with me. I’m a private kind of person and it makes me nervous.”

  “Supposing,” he said thoughtfully, carefully, “supposing I were to buy a little camping stove. Do you think I might manage in the boys’ quarters?”

  “We could have supper together,” she said, anxious to show friendship. “Anyway, I expect Mummie will be only too pleased to look after you.”

  ’Well then. Shall we try it? If it’s just until Saturday. If Louise wants her cottage that’s perfectly reasonable and I’ll go off now and find a hotel. But if she doesn’t?”

  “I expect,” said Brigid, with a return to her normal self, “that Louise has already been talked out of her cottage. But yes. If she doesn’t then we’ll give it a try.”

  JEMIMA WOKE first. Watery reflections danced upon the wall, shifting and wavering, shot through with sunshine. She could feel his warmth, radiating beside her although he was turned away, his long bare back exposed, his face almost hidden. She longed to touch him, yet feared to wake him. Resting on her elbow, she stared down at him: smooth pale skin patched with tiny, golden freckles across his shoulders; red-brown hair, tousled, beginning to curl a litde, needing a trim; an angle of determined bristly jaw; lips swollen with sleep crushed against the pillow. He had become so important to her, so necessary, that it was impossible now to imagine how she had lived before his arrival. They’d spent every spare moment together—“Some of us have to work,” she’d said as he’d begun to demand more and more of her time— but during this last week since the Bank Holiday weekend she’d spent the minimum amount of time in her office.

  “I’ll catch up later,” she’d promised herself, “after he’s gone back to London“—and now this moment was upon her. Today, when he woke, after some breakfast, he’d be driving back to London. He’d already packed up at the cottage, spending the last night with her in Salcombe, planning to leave early.

  “Must you go on Friday?” she’d asked, sinking any pride left to her after this last glorious week. “I know you’ve got to be out on Saturday morning but you could stay with me.”

  He’d shaken his head, smiling at her. “No, no,” he’d said. “I remember the roads when I came down. It was hell. Imagine what it must be like on the Saturday after the Bank Holiday week!”

  “Fridays are terrible too,” she’d argued. “Wait until Sunday.”

  “I shouldn’t think there’s a good day to travel,” he’d said. “I expect Sunday is as bad as Friday or Saturday. But, anyway, I need to get back in time to sort myself out for Monday. I don’t know yet how Annabel’s left the place.”

  She’d tried not to plead with him—reaching desperately after the cool composure, the quirky humour which attracted him—and had managed to agree, lightly, that perhaps it was best after all. She’d been rewarded by his affectionate reaction, his ready admittance that he was hating the thought of going back.

  “I shall have terrible withdrawal symptoms,” he’d said. “I’ve been here too long. It seems more like home than … home.”

  She’d made certain that he’d spent as much time as possible at the flat with her; subdy showing him how good it could be together, hoping to erase the memories of Annabel. Impossible, of course, to wipe away five years in barely four weeks, but she’d done her best. She was also hoping that returning to an empty, depleted flat might underline all that he was missing.

  Jemima leaned closer, almost touching him, but not quite. If he were to wake they might share a few moments in love-making but then he would be gone. All the time he remained asleep she could keep him. She slipped carefully from the bed and went out into the hall and into the kitchen. Pouring some orange juice into a glass, she drank thirstily, refilled the glass and carried it into the sitting room, closing the door gendy behind her. MagnifiCat came to her, stepping carefully, then drew away from her, fastidiously.

  “You don’t like the smell of him, do you?” murmured Jemima, drawing her hand down over his head. “Well, you might have to learn to lovie it. You’re just being difficult.”

  He twined and weaved about her bare ankles as she went out on to the balcony, leaning as usual on the rail. Below her a sleek, modern ketch, with a woman at the helm, was approaching the anchorage. As she turned the boat into the wind, her companion on the foredeck threw the anchor over the side. The water rose and sparkled in the sunshine as the chain payed out and the boat came to a rocking, swinging rest, the sails crumpling gently on to the deck. They called to one another cheerfully as they tidied up, coiling ropes, checking fenders, and presently the woman disappeared below— probably to cook some breakfast. Jemima watched them, wondering whether they’d sailed round from Dartmouth or from a further port; envying them their easy companionship, their evident pleasure at this delightful landfall. How romantic to sail into Salcombe; to be a part of this charming scene. She sighed a little. Soon her legacy would be gone and she would no longer be able to afford this place which had become so special to her. Yet how could she bear to leave it? It was going to be an impossible act to follow. Perhaps it would have been more sensible to have put a deposit on a more affordable fiat; something which she could have continued to maintain. Of course, if there were two salaries coming in then there would be no problem…

  She thought: Anyway, if we were together I don’t think I should mind too much where we were. We could buy a little cottage and do it up together. Ohmigod! I want him. I want to do all those corny things I used to despise—be together, decorate rooms, have babies …

  “Oh!” She gave a small startled yelp as his arm encircled her waist. “My God! Don’t do things like that.”

  “Sorry. Really sorry. I di
dn’t hear you go. You should have woken me.”

  She saw that he was dressed—no more lovemaking then—and shaved. How quick he’d been. In his chinos and cotton shirt he looked casual enough but, somehow, more London casual than holiday casuaL There was a whole new look about him: sharper, distanced.

  “I needed a drink,” she said casually, suppressing her instinctive desire to fling her arms about him and beg him to stay. “I had no idea what the time was, to tell you the truth.”

  “It’s later than I meant to be.” He too was staring out across the harbour. He sighed, turned back to her with a quick shrug. “How on earth am I going to do this? Leave you, I mean?”

  Her heart ricocheted about, bouncing off her ribs, up into her throat. Yet, even now, some deep instinct warned her to be cautious.

  “I shan’t be going anywhere,” she said lightly. “You can come back any time you want to.”

  “Promise?” He kissed her for a long, breathless moment, then hugged her tight. “Like next weekend, for instance?”

  “Next…?”

  “You did say any time? Is that too soon for you?”

  “No. Oh, no. That’s … that’s simply great. You’re sure?”

  She thought: Don’t ask that, you silly cow. Don’t put doubts in his mind.

  “Quite sure.” He was kissing her once more—but quickly now. “Do I get coffee before I go?”

  “You certainly do.” She could be bright again: wacky, fun, flirty. He would be back; in seven days he would be back. “You could even have toast, orange juice.”

  He was shaking his head. “No. I never eat when I’m travelling.”

  “Fine.” She must remember that, along with all the other tiny, vital things she’d learned about him. No mumsy attempts at persuasion. No fussing. “Coffee it is.”

  He held on to her, now that she was making no attempt to detain him. “It’s great to be with a woman who doesn’t make every thing into a drama,” he murmured. She raised her eyebrows as if to say “So what’s there to make a drama about?” and, releasing herself, went into the kitchen, leaving him to lean on the rail, having a last look.