A Friend of the Family Read online

  Thea, meanwhile, was busy providing for her father’s future. Here luck was on the lovers’ side even if it were in the form of a personal tragedy to somebody else. A local widow had lost her only son in a motorcycle accident and was no longer able to support herself properly without him. Since she was a faithful member of the congregation Thea, after careful consideration and consultation with her father, approached the woman and asked if, in return for a home, she might be prepared to accept the position of housekeeper.

  It seemed to be a sensible and even a happy resolution to several problems and Thea was grateful. It is always difficult to enjoy happiness at the expense of those we love and Thea, sensible enough to know that she couldn’t stay with her father for ever and that he would not have wished it, felt that she had done all that was possible and could look to her own future with a clear conscience.

  George began to receive occasional letters from Felicity, re-addressed from Faslane, and wondered how long it would be before his cover was blown. Slowly, with dragging feet, the summer passed and the day of the wedding drew nearer until one warm September afternoon George cleared his desk, left London and headed for Shropshire.

  ‘SO HE’S MADE IT.’ Kate leaned across Cass’s kitchen table for the sugar. ‘I have to say that I’m amazed. I can’t believe that no one’s spilled the beans.’

  ‘It’s just sheer luck that none of Felicity’s cronies are in London. Mind you, only about eight of his friends know. It’s the world’s best-kept secret.’ Cass sat down and Kate pushed the bowl towards her. ‘I’m glad. Thea’s perfectly sweet and quite in love with dear old George and he’s totally besotted. It would have been too tragic for words if Felicity had managed to break it up.’

  ‘She’s going to find out one day and when she does she’s going to come down on them like Genghis Khan and his boys.’

  ‘Dear Kate.’ Cass stirred her coffee and smiled to herself. ‘I always did say that it was you who should have been named Cassandra.’

  Kate shrugged. ‘I haven’t met Thea yet but do you honestly think that she’ll be a match for Felicity? George never was. My God, Cass! Imagine how angry she’s going to be when she finds out what he’s done. And for once in my life I can’t say I blame her. After all those years. It’s a bit thick, you’ve got to admit.’

  ‘I do admit it. I said so to Tom but at the same time I have a sneaking sympathy for George. It’s one hell of a situation. I think he had visions of her tearing Thea limb from limb or putting arsenic in the champagne. I wish you were coming to the wedding.’

  ‘I hate weddings,’ said Kate. ‘All those innocent young things making solemn vows without having a clue what might be going to leap out of the woodwork at them to prevent them from keeping them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call George an innocent young thing.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But Thea sounds it. Twenty-three.’ Kate shook her head and began to laugh. ‘How on earth did George manage it?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t think he knows himself. Tom says he goes about in a haze of gratified amazement.’

  ‘Well, I wish him luck. I’m not saying that he should have married Felicity but I do think he should have had the guts to tell her the truth.’

  ‘Oh, come on! You know George. He can’t stand scenes and confrontations. And he was always scared stiff of Felicity. Oh, Kate! What wouldn’t I give to see her face when she finds out!’

  They looked at one another and began to laugh.

  ‘Let’s hope that she hasn’t already or she’ll be lying in wait at the church tomorrow. Perhaps I wish I was coming after all.’

  ‘I shall tell you all when I get back. And when we’ve finished our coffee I shall show you my hat.’

  FELICITY’S SEARCH FOR TRUTH had been impeded by the deterioration in health and subsequent death of her mother. This elderly if indomitable old lady had been in a nursing home for some years and had finally chosen this moment to breathe her last. Felicity chafed over the lack of consideration exercised by her aged parent and fumed silently about the hours spent at her bedside and in consultation with the doctor and matron. Felicity and her mother had fought and argued all their lives. Like her daughter, Felicity’s mother preferred the male of the species, and blamed Felicity for not being the son she had always wanted. After a series of miscarriages she sank into a tyrannical invalid’s existence, expecting Felicity and her father to be at her beck and call, and her disappointment in her daughter increased tenfold when she discovered that Felicity had no intention of supplying her with grandsons. When her husband died, she felt that Felicity should move back and take his place, fetching and carrying for her, and that Mark should commute from wherever he happened to be based if he wished to see his wife. When they made it clear that they intended to do no such thing the relationship deteriorated further and when she and Felicity were together they spent their time arguing and recriminating, a state of affairs that continued until the old lady went into a coma.

  Thereafter, Felicity found her mind more often occupied with George’s unusual behaviour than with anxiety for her mother’s physical or spiritual welfare. If her state of mind could have been summed up as she left the crematorium in Plymouth it would probably be fairly accurate to say that she was thinking, Thank goodness I can get on!

  She had received no answers from her letters to George and no joy from his mother, who persisted in the ridiculous fiction that he was engaged in some mysterious exercise and was still incommunicado. By the time she was back on the trail it was rather cold and the truth finally arrived in the form of a letter from George himself, now safely married, telling her that during his sojourn—the whereabouts of which he was not at liberty to disclose—he had met a young woman to whom he had become very attached and who had consented to become his wife.

  He realised, he wrote with masterly understatement, that this would come as a great shock to her as, indeed, it had to himself but he hoped that she would not grudge him this chance for happiness and would wish him well.

  Anyone knowing Felicity would have regarded this as a very vain hope and far from wishing him anything of the sort she prayed that all the plagues of Egypt—plus a few more of her own invention that were a great deal more fiendish than anything the Almighty had dreamed up—would visit George and his unknown bride. Rage, hurt and jealousy rose in a huge black tide that positively foamed and lapped at the back of her eyes and for several days she was prey to one of the blinding migraines that had dogged her life. Presently, however, though rage still knotted her stomach, she was able to present an outward show of calm. Her seething brain stilled and grew thoughtful and she made one or two enquiries which were met with a certain measure of success.

  One January day she drove across the sodden moor lying dank and dark beneath the swollen, weeping sky and made her way to the Old Station House. The five-bar gate was shut and Felicity, leaving her car outside, opened it and made her way across the tarmac forecourt. She noticed that George’s Rover was parked in the garage and that there was no sign of his mother’s little hatchback and guessed that her information was correct. She rang the bell and waited. After a few minutes she heard movements within and the door w as opened by a tall girl with vivid colouring and an open smiling countenance.

  Confronted by this vision of almost aggressive youthfulness, Felicity was visited by yet another violent stab of unadulterated jealousy.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, summoning a smile with an almost visible effort. ‘Is Mrs Lampeter in?’

  The girl smiled at her. ‘1 am Mrs Lampeter,’ she said in a tone which invited congratulation. ‘Can I help vou?’

  ‘You must be George’s new wife,’ said Felicity, controlling with difficulty the urge to leap upon Thea and rend her with her bare hands. ‘The Mrs Lampeter I know is rather older.’

  ‘She’s not here, I’m afraid. Will I do?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Felicity softly. ‘I’m sure you’ll do very nicely indeed. My name’s Felicity Mainwaring. She
watched closely for any signs of reaction but Thea’s expression remained friendly and enquiring. ‘I’m a friend of the family. I heard that George was married and I came to offer my congratulations to his mother. My own mother has just died and I’ve been rather out of the swim of things.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Thea looked concerned. ‘Won’t you come in? George’s mother has got a little bungalow in Tavistock now. This all got too much for her. I’ll give you her address. What a pity that you missed the wedding.’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ said Felicity and hastened to lighten her grim tone as she followed Thea into the house. ‘I’m hoping that you’ll tell me all about it. And about George.’

  ‘I should love to,’ said Thea, leading the wav into the kitchen. ‘Perhaps you’d like to see the photographs? I’ll make some coffee.’

  ‘That would be lovely. And I want to hear every little detail. How you met and so on. It must have been so romantic. It’s just what I need after these rather sad months with my mother.’

  ‘You poor thing,’ cried Thea sympathetically. ‘I’ll put the kettle on and get the photographs and we’ll have a good chat. It’s sweet of you to be so interested.’

  ‘I promise you,’ said Felicity as Thea disappeared to find the photographs, ‘nobody could be more interested than I am.’

  AFTER FELICITY HAD GONE, Thea continued to brood over the photographs. Her father had conducted the ceremony and his closest friend, Thea’s godfather, had given her away. She looked affectionately at the smiling faces, at her and George standing beneath the arch of swords with his brother officers very smart in their uniforms. She moved the photographs about reflectively. Felicity, she recollected, had looked rather strange when Thea had asked her if she knew the best man and his wife. Felicity had stared fixedly at the picture of Tom beaming into the camera with Cass looking elegant in a wonderful hat. After a moment she said that she did indeed know them and told Thea that her own husband had been a naval officer and had only recently died of cancer. Thea was shocked, imagining that Felicity’s slightly odd behaviour was due to the fact that these pictures must be calling up old and painful memories, but when she tried to sweep them away and talk of other things Felicity had quite firmly insisted on looking at them all. It naturally did not occur to Thea that she was mentally compiling a hit list of her enemies: those people who had known all about George’s defection and had aided and abetted him in it.

  Thea put the photographs back in the envelope and glanced round her new home with satisfaction. She was very happy. She had started off in London at the flat with George but she found the city noisy and smelly and the pavements hard beneath feet that were used to springy turf. The rented flat was small and the furniture indifferent and, having toured the usual ‘sights’, Thea began to find the days long and boring. By the time they got back to the Old Station House on Friday evenings of the long winter months, they were tired and the house was cold and unwelcoming. It was just getting warm and cosy and feeling like home when they had to pack up again and leave. George had Christmas leave and at the end of two wonderful weeks when the Old Station House was full of warmth and redolent of the smells of delicious food and log fires, they decided that Thea should stay behind when George went back to London. They would try a compromise. George would come down at weekends and Thea would go up midweek, arriving in London on Tuesday afternoons and catching the train back on Wednesdays. It was working quite well although George would have preferred to have his bride waiting for him every evening and Thea wished that they could have settled down together in their new home. Well, her new home. It had been George’s home for the last twenty years. Thea had been perfectly content to take it over lock, stock and barrel when Esme had departed for her little bungalow, taking with her only a few of her very favourite possessions and delighted that the rest of her belongings would stay in the family to be cherished by Thea. Thea much preferred to take over the well-loved pieces than to start anew, feeling a sense of continuity in caring for things that had been loved and tended by other hands for so many years. So much nicer, she felt, than rushing out to buy new things or even old things whose history was unknown. Here she felt among friends. Esme had taken her round introducing her, as it were, to the companions of her married life and, before that, her childhood: her mother’s old bureau, the Georgian breakfast table that had been Esme’s grandmother’s, a bow-fronted chest that had graced the bedroom of George’s paternal grandmother and lovely old rugs that an uncle had brought back from India. The Rectory was filled with such treasures that would one day belong to Thea; meanwhile she was delighted to become the custodian of these and Esme yielded them to her with confidence and gratitude.

  Thea took the photographs upstairs to the little room that had been Esme’s sewing room and was now Thea’s study. Here she had set out some of her own personal possessions and one of these was a large deal table set beneath the window that looked out across the grassedover railway track and away towards Dartmoor. The table was covered with the paraphernalia of the artist, for Thea loved to sketch and paint and the results were scattered about, some pinned to a fibre-board panel attached to the wall. There were pen and ink drawings and tiny watercolours of flowers and birds and animals and babies, all charmingly done. A closer look showed that what redeemed these works from the clinical or merely twee was an almost cartoon quality about them that lifted them right out of the commonplace and made the observer want to look again and again. One of the subjects, and obviously a favourite, was Hermione’s African Grey parrot, Percy. On a shelf some notebooks were stacked. These contained children’s stories that Thea loved to write and illustrate and which she hoped one day to read to her own children. Having tucked the photographs away in a drawer, Thea wandered over to the table and looked at her work. Presently she picked up a piece of charcoal and moments later was lost to the world.

  FHLICITY DROVE HOME THOUGHTFULLY. Thea had very nearly overwhelmed her and she felt weakened, almost helpless. She had not expected someone like Thea. When she had read George’s letter and the red mist of rage had finally receded from her eyes, she had pictured this woman by whom George had so obviously been taken in. She had imagined a woman in her thirties who had, perhaps, missed the matrimonial boat and saw George as an easy meal ticket. After all, an unmarried naval commander was quite a catch if you wanted a secure middle age and retirement: no ex-wives and children littering the landscape and eating into the substantial salary or, later, the generous pension. Or perhaps this harp ν was a widow like herself, frightened of facing the future alone and seeing in George an easygoing generous companion. It would be simple enough to captivate George. He’d always had a weakness for a charming pretty woman and was easy prey to flattery. Felicity’s lip had curled but the little warning bells were telling her that she could have been nicer, more loving, less ready to point out his weaknesses. If she had . . . But it was no use repining. She had never wasted time in regrets and might-have-beens. It was much more sensible to use her energies more positively. Accordingly, she had plotted and planned, preparing to come face to face with an equal, a woman like herself who would be perfectly happy to fight it out. But Thea . . . Felicity saw again the youth, the warmth, the generosity and felt again the sensation which was almost fear. It was nonsense, of course. She should be able to take a child like Thea and crush her with one hand. So what was making her feel that she should withdraw and summon all her abilities before she made an attack?

  She brought her mind to bear on it, remembering her feelings and sensations. It was as if there were something behind Thea, some strength or power that she couldn’t define. Felicity shook her head as if trying to clear her sight. She was imagining things. Much more likely that the shock of seeing so young and vital a girl had thrown her off-balance. And, naturally, the sight of George beaming so complacently and foolishly out of the photographs was not likely to make her feel better. And Cass and Tom . . . She felt a wave of fury rising and deliberately willed it back, clenching the steer
ing wheel and setting her jaw. She would not lose control. She simply must not think of them laughing and plotting; that way madness lay. She had seen the opposition and must lay her plans more carefully. Nothing crude or unpremeditated must happen in this campaign, no matter how long it took. Felicity parked her car and let herself into her house. Never in all her life had she been more in need of a stiff drink.

  ‘OH, BY THE WAY. A friend of yours called in this week. Felicity something. Mainwaring, was it? Yes, that’s it. Felicity Mainwaring.’

  George, who was sitting at the kitchen table watching Thea make the custard to go with his apple pie, gave a tiny start and was silent. He swallowed once or twice and tried to control the irregular behaviour of his heart. After a moment she glanced over her shoulder at him and then turned back to her stirring.