Encounters Page 40

  In the car he turned on the radio. Then he leaned over and kissed her. ‘Mine at last,’ he muttered, taking her hand. ‘Dearest Molly. I’ve waited so long for this moment.’

  She wormed her hand out of his grasp. ‘Not here, Bill, please. Someone might see.’ She patted her hair nervously.

  She should have left the note downstairs on the mantelpiece. The bed was too personal; too pointed. What if Mrs White came today instead of Friday? She would see it and guess. The wretched woman might even read it. Perhaps she ought to go back and move it – but already the car was driving away. She sat back and closed her eyes. It was too late to go back. She must stop thinking about James. It would probably be days before he even noticed that she had gone.

  She opened her eyes and watched the road through the labouring windscreen wipers.

  Bill glanced across at her. ‘I know how you feel, darling. It’s a big step. Are you scared now you’ve done it?’

  ‘If you know how I feel, why do you ask?’ She didn’t mean to snap.

  Don’t look so hurt, Bill, she thought to herself. You’re supposed to be carrying me off on your charger, remember? You’re taking me away from all this to a new life. You’ve swept me off my feet, remember?

  She groped in her handbag for cigarettes and then remembered she had given them up. How strange. She hadn’t made that mistake for weeks now. James had made her do it. ‘I can’t bear to hear you coughing like that, Moll,’ he had said. ‘Please darling, for your own sake.’ He had taken her hands and looked into her eyes with such tenderness.

  She shook her head angrily. Why did she keep remembering the good things about him?’

  ‘Have you got a ciggy, Bill?’

  ‘’Course.’ He changed gear expertly. ‘In my left hand pocket.’ He raised his elbow so she could reach.

  Didn’t he care about her health then? She lit one and took a long draw on it. It left her convulsed with coughing and she stubbed it out angrily.

  ‘Let’s stop for coffee somewhere, Bill, please.’ Her voice was more urgent than she had intended and he looked at her, quickly anxious.

  ‘Can you wait five minutes? There’s a roadhouse about four miles further on. A good place.’

  A roadhouse! James always took her to the best hotels for coffee so she could use the powder rooms in comfort. She wondered suddenly whether Bill would expect her to use public lavatories on their long drive north and she shuddered.

  The roadhouse was red brick, impersonal and crowded. A coach had just discharged its occupants outside the door and Bill and Molly had to wait half an hour before they were served with their coffee. Then at last they were on the road again.

  Bill sensed he had made a mistake. ‘I’ve planned a really good stop for lunch, Molly, in Grantham. Then I thought we’d stay tonight in a pub about ten miles further on. We don’t want to drive all day on our first day; or be too tired on our first night, do we?’ He felt for her hand and squeezed it gently. ‘I’m sorry about that last place. I’ve never seen it crowded before.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She smiled at him. She must make some effort. Poor Bill.

  Lunch was good. The restaurant was small and intimate and the food delicious. Molly relaxed at last, gazing into Bill’s eyes across the brandy he had insisted on buying her.

  ‘I shall fall asleep drinking like this in the middle of the day,’ she murmured. He had lovely eyes. They were what had first attracted her. An intense blue of the kind that usually faded in middle age, surrounded by thick black lashes.

  ‘Your ancestors must have been Irish,’ she had said to him once, but he had laughed.

  ‘As far as I know none of them have ever been further west than Hertfordshire,’ he had teased her. And she didn’t ask any further.

  She wondered briefly why she had never wanted to know about Bill’s family or his past. She should be curious about everything to do with the man she loved. Was it that she was afraid of what she might discover? Not that he was bad, but that he was good; too good. She wanted to imagine without being sure that there was something disreputable about Bill. It was not such fun being carried off by a respectable man. James was a respectable man.

  Bill had started well. He had brought her flowers and chocolates and a tiny filigree pendant and stolen her glove and her hanky. He had carried her to the summer house at the Barnabys, that first time they had made love, gently ignoring her half-hearted protests and he had stopped her conscience with kisses. He had phoned her and written and played games of hide and seek to meet her in London when she went up with James, giving her an orchid as her prize when she had found him.

  But now?

  He had suddenly become diffident. Nervous. Almost half-hearted. Now that she was here with him she could sense all was not as it had been. He was not dashing any more.

  She glanced at his profile. ‘Let’s do something foolish, Bill. I want to be mad this afternoon.’ She put her hand on his knee, willing him to smile and mock and change his sober Rover into a rearing, bit-champing white stallion.

  ‘Careful, Molly. You’ll distract me while I’m driving. Wait till we get there.’ He was frowning through the windscreen. The rain hadn’t stopped.

  She slumped back in her seat, disappointed.

  They were registered as Mr and Mrs at the inn. It was a pretty room with pink chintz curtains and a wide bed. The ashtray on the dressing table had been emptied but not washed. Molly wrinkled her nose at the black film on the china. She threw herself down on the bed and kicked off her shoes. Bill came to her and kissed her tenderly. Then he brushed her hair back from her forehead. There was something slightly possessive about the gesture which she resented. He smelt of garlic from the lunch.

  ‘I want to run naked in the rain,’ she whispered to him, testing. ‘When it’s dark I’m going to explore the garden.’ She giggled.

  But he looked serious and kissed her again. ‘Silly Molly. You can’t possibly do such a thing. When it gets dark we’ll be here together.’ His deep blue eyes were close to hers. They were pleading and unsure.

  She turned her head away. ‘It’s not working, Bill, is it?’ Her voice was so soft she wondered if she had spoken aloud at all.

  ‘You haven’t let yourself make the break, sweetheart, that’s all.’ He stood up and walked away from her, hiding his face. ‘It’s not too late to go back, Molly. If that’s what you want.’

  She felt a tear roll down her face and brushed at it in surprise. She had not realized she was crying.

  ‘I think I do, Bill. I’m sorry.’

  He was looking out of the window, the chintz curtain partly obscuring his shoulder and his face. He turned and looked at her, his expression carefully impassive.

  ‘Think about it, Molly darling.’ He blinked several times, quickly like a child trying not to cry and she felt a wrench of love and pity. ‘If you want to get back before James finds your note we ought to leave pretty soon.’ He glanced at his watch although she knew he couldn’t see it. ‘I’ll be downstairs having a drink.’

  She sat for a while after he had gone, gazing at the pink and orange floral pattern on the carpet. Then suddenly she stood up.

  Bill was in the lounge looking at a paper. ‘I’ve squared the hotel,’ he said without looking up, his voice dull and subdued. ‘We can leave now.’

  ‘You knew, didn’t you, Bill?’ She stood before him. ‘Is that why you booked in here; why we didn’t go all the way?’

  ‘I had a feeling I might be driving you back, sweetheart.’ He threw down the paper and stood up. ‘You’re not the type to run out on your husband. I knew it before you did. I was resigned.’ He dropped a gentle kiss on the top of her head.

  ‘And you don’t mind?’

  ‘Hell! Of course I mind.’ He kicked savagely at some ash on the carpet. ‘If I could I would throw you over my shoulder and take you away and keep you locked up somewhere safe, just for me … But I can’t do that, Molly. You know it and I know it. You belong to James, I thought
perhaps you could break away; I hoped you could, but …’ he broke off shrugging his shoulders and turned away.

  She followed him out to the car and climbed silently in beside him. He started the engine and then turned to her suddenly, the familiar grin once more playing round his eyes. ‘Cheer up, Molly love. I don’t like drama scenes. We’ve had a lot of fun, you and I.’ He took her hand and kissed it gently. ‘We didn’t know when to stop, that’s all. No harm done.’

  He drove back very fast, retracing the journey of the morning. The rain had stopped at last and the afternoon sun turned the road into a ribbon of glass as the wet tarmac stretched before them. Trees, telegraph wires and fence posts were strung with diamond droplets.

  Molly was thinking of the house. Supposing it was too late. Supposing James had come home and found the note. Supposing Mrs White had been in and seen it? She found her hands were shaking in her lap. Bill was gazing ahead. Glancing across at him she saw his jaw set in a hard line.

  The house looked strangely empty when the car at last drew up by the gate. Bill didn’t move, so she opened the car door and slipped out herself, reaching over for her case.

  ‘Will I see you again?’ Her voice sounded timid, uncertain. She saw him swallow. Then he turned and smiled.

  ‘If you want to, Molly; I’ll be there. See how it goes, darling.’ He raised his hand and then he had gone.

  She went into the house quickly. She knew in her heart she wouldn’t meet him again. It was over.

  She put down her case in the hall and ran up to the bedroom. The envelope still lay on the pillow where she had left it. Clasping it to her thankfully she tore it slowly into a hundred tiny pieces, letting each bit drift into the waste paper basket.

  She was still in the bedroom when she heard James’s key in the lock. Her heart gave a little extra bump and she glanced in the mirror anxiously, patting her hair, then she ran downstairs. He was standing in the hall, looking blankly at her case.

  ‘Oh James,’ she held out her hands to him. ‘James, darling.’

  ‘Hello Molly.’ He opened his arms as she ran to him and gently he kissed her hair.

  ‘Oh James, I nearly did a silly thing today.’ She buried her face in the breast of his pin-striped suit.

  He held her away from him and gazed into her eyes. Then he smiled and kissed her again. ‘I’m so glad you didn’t, Molly. So very glad.’ He stopped and handed her her case. ‘Unpack, Molly. Then come and have a drink with me. I’m going to open some champagne.’

  ‘Unpack?’ She looked at him shocked. ‘You knew? And you didn’t say anything?’

  ‘I’ve known about Bill for a long time. You had to make the choice yourself.’ He laughed, suddenly boyish. ‘Oh God, Molly, I’m so glad you chose me.’

  The Heart Will Understand

  ‘… Unless you give me the authority to attend to these matters, your father’s business will undoubtedly fail and you will be able to look no further than to yourself for the blame … Sincerely, Philip Dane.’

  Helen looked up from the letter on her desk and gazed out of her office window at the London street below, where the dank grey morning teemed with traffic and people.

  It was already three months since her father had died, three months since she had made her way to Leabrook and stood with strangers in the snow and looked down into the open grave. One of those strangers must have been Philip Dane. She must have shaken his hand and murmured something to him as, one by one, her father’s former employees made their way past her and stammered their condolences. Each one must have been wondering about her, wondering what she would do now that she owned the nursery, wondering about their future, their livelihood, their jobs. And she had said nothing. She had returned to the city.

  Philip Dane’s first letter had reached her three weeks later. She read it and put it aside. He could cope. He had been her father’s manager. He must have been running things for those last months of her father’s illness. He could continue to look after the place for the time being.

  Someone knocked on the door behind her. ‘Your coffee, Helen – and there was a telephone call for you while you were out.’

  Helen looked back into the room, still thinking of the fragrance of the formal gardens in which she and her father used to sit sometimes as it grew dark, listening to the last bees bumbling their way through the clumps of melissa and she frowned. ‘Thank you, Sally. Who was it?’

  ‘Mr Spencer. He was wondering if you could meet for lunch.’

  After all these months of knowing him the mention of Stephen Spencer’s name still made her heart do a quick somersault beneath her ribs. She sighed. Then slowly she stood up. ‘Tell him I can’t will you, Sally? Tell him I’ve been called away unexpectedly to the country for a few days. I’ll contact him when I get back.’

  The bank of elder trees by the gate was full of half-opened sooty green buds. Below them the stream ran red and muddy after the rain, the gurgle of water providing an accompaniment to the pure whistling of the blackbird which sat on one of the top branches of the still leafless ash.

  Helen stood for a moment and looked around her in the twilight. The air was clean and strong after the city. And it was quiet. In spite of the bird and the water, it was quiet.

  She glanced towards the house. Smoke rose from the chimneys and she could see a figure bustling around in the lighted kitchen window. Someone must have gone in to light the fire after she had phoned, to try to provide some kind of a welcome in the cold empty house.

  She glanced across at the glasshouses and the buildings beyond them. Behind the high box hedge lay the long terrace of herbs, sloping away towards the south. Her father’s whole life was represented by those buildings and the plants they contained. It had been a quiet, peaceful rewarding life as far as she could see. One which she had almost envied and sometimes despised.

  She took a step onto the bridge which spanned the stream and looked back at her car. Leaving it there in the car park under the trees, its windows tightly wound up against the damp, its lights off, its engine quietly ticking as it cooled, she was leaving her link with the city behind her. And the link with Stephen Spencer.

  When he had rung back that afternoon she had made Sally take the call. There was no reason to speak to him herself. There was nothing left for them to say to each other now.

  She began to walk slowly up the path towards the house. It was warm and welcoming; womblike; clinging. It was so easy to feel at home there. Later, in front of the open fire she slowly unzipped her boots and sighed. The place would stretch out its arms and clutch, octopus-like, around her neck given half a chance. But she wouldn’t give it a chance. She would sell it and return to her job in London. Sell the sentiment and the memories. Sell the millstone. Sell the worries which had been her father’s life and which had eventually chased him into his grave. Sell her father’s pride and joy. Leabrook had no claim on her. None at all.

  The knock on the door took her by surprise. She glanced at her watch. She must have been dozing, for it was getting on for midnight. She padded barefoot into the hall and peered through the glass of the front door.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Philip Dane.’

  Her hair was untidy, her skirt rumpled and her boots still lay flopped by the fire.

  ‘It’s very late, Mr Dane.’

  ‘Not for you, surely.’ His voice behind the door was deep, with just a hint of the soft inflection of the hills.

  She could see through the glass that he was tall.

  Angrily she pulled back the bolt and drew open the door. ‘It is late for me, Mr Dane. I had a long drive down this evening.’

  He stepped into the hall without hesitation. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. But I won’t keep you.’ No word of apology. ‘I merely wanted to welcome you to Leabrook and find out if you would like to come on a tour of the place with me in the morning.’

  She looked at him. He was tall, broad shouldered, not handsome but ruggedly attractive in a weatherbeaten way
, with a mat of untidy, straw-coloured hair.

  She met his gaze steadily. ‘I know the place, Mr Dane. It was my home once.’

  ‘But not for some time, I think. Had I known you were coming, I should have been here to greet you properly.’ He leaned his shoulder against the wall. ‘You’ve come to sell up, haven’t you?’ He had not moved his gaze from her face. It was not a question. It was as if he could read her mind. She stepped back a little resentfully.

  ‘I haven’t decided what to do yet. There has been too little time.’

  ‘It has been nearly four months since the old man died. You’ve had time to make up your mind.’

  She felt herself beginning to seethe beneath his stare. ‘There are many things to consider, Mr Dane. But I hardly think this is the time or the place to discuss it, do you?’

  She reached for the door again, pointedly, opening it a little further, wanting him to go. He did not move.

  ‘He said you’d sell. He said you were too much of a town girl ever to come here to live. And he’s right. You wouldn’t fit in here.’ He swung on his heel and went towards the door. ‘I’ll collect you at nine, if that’s all right with you and we’ll walk round the whole nursery together.’

  At half past eight she was already in the shop watching the staff sorting through the books and seeds, tidying the sachets of dried herbs, stirring the scents till they filled the old wooden building, carrying out the boxes of mints which were to be stacked outside on the nearly empty wooden benches. It was a misty morning, which hinted of sun later. Helen had dressed in jeans and a thick sweater against the cold. The ladies who helped in the shop were in large floral pinafores.

  She could see Philip Dane through the window, making his way to the front door of the house and she watched out of the corner of her eye as he knocked and waited at the front door. It gave her considerable satisfaction to see him shrug and walk away. No doubt he expected her to lie in bed until mid-morning.