On days like these I was profoundly happy for the necessary routine of the horses. Beechnut was willing and I was determined and, oblivious to the gusting breeze that was bringing in more heavy cloud, we ambled along the streaming road trailing our steady company of ponies. A raven gave its usual greeting of a croaking bark and I watched as it flew away hopefully searching along a tree-line.
The morning’s chores had whistled by in a haze of warm recollection and ignored foreboding until, having finally exhausted these tasks and still desperate for any distraction, I had been forced to resort to heartlessly chivvying Freddy into coming out on a ride with me. I couldn’t bear to sit at home simply meekly waiting until my car reappeared … or not, and even milking the goat had been unfortunately brief. The poor thing’s routine had been so extraordinarily disrupted in the past week that judging by the drastically reduced yield delivered into my pail, there was every likelihood that she was drying up.
“Will he come back to live with us after he’s finished with the police?” Freddy’s voice suddenly broke in from somewhere behind.
I smiled to myself. I had necessarily explained the reason for Matthew’s dawn departure but the depth of our late-night rediscovery of intimacy was a secret I had yet to share. “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “After all this is over he might prefer to spend some time on his own.”
“I don’t think he will,” Freddy said rather firmly. “He likes it with us, he told me so.”
His words made me smile once more in spite of the persistent shadow of tension and when the raven called again as I flung open the uppermost gate on the road up the hill from Washbrook, it appeared to almost be trying to confirm his view that everything was going to be all right.
“He can always have my room, you know.” Freddy’s voice drifted up the hill once more as we climbed towards the village.
I twisted in the saddle and grinned back at him. “But where would you sleep, eh? And what about all your things? I doubt very much that he’ll be quite so keen when he sees what squalor you call a bedroom.”
“I could tidy up; we could share,” he repeated stoically. “Or we could build a new room or something – he is an archee … um, a designer after all.” I laughed and he persevered doggedly, “If he wants to stay, will you let him? Please? I’m sure he’ll be quiet and not cause any trouble.”
“He’s not a pet, Freddy,” I said, laughing. “You sound like you’re asking for a new kitten … But yes,” I added, quickly pre-empting his protest, “If he wants to live with us, of course he can. I couldn’t think of anything better. And no, I don’t think you’ll have to share. I suspect I can find a more suitable arrangement.”
“Really?” Freddy’s tone brightened enormously, but then, clearly thinking deeply about the practicalities, he added, “But where? He can’t live on the settee and he won’t want to share your room, yours is worse than mine.”
“It isn’t!”
Freddy sniggered from the safety of his distance behind me. “If you say so.”
“Good morning.”
The voice most likely to wipe the smile from my face interrupted our happy little bantering and I twisted jerkily in the saddle towards it. I hadn’t noticed that we had entered the village but as I gave a startled turn, I recognised the wide expanse of the driveway to the Manor as it swept away from the road to our left; and beyond, through the dense scrub of dormant shrubs on the level ground before the front door, I could just make out the red and green livery of the horsebox, with John standing nearby.
“Good morning, Ellie.”
He repeated his greeting loudly, accompanying it with a cheerful lift of his hand and I had to wonder whether he even remembered his actions of the night before. On the whole, I suspected not; his jaunty walk as he sauntered over to intercept us was not quite in keeping with one who had anything playing on his conscience.
He skirted past a thick patch of particularly slushy ground and smiled. “On your way back from a ride?”
“As you see,” I replied, rather coolly. I wasn’t really sure how to play it. I knew I could no longer count him as a friend, but I didn’t think that I actually wanted open hostilities with him and I was thankful when Beechnut did her job nicely, and a toss of her head was enough to stop him from coming too close.
“Did you have a nice time last night?” John’s expression was the very essence of guileless innocence. I stared at him in amazement, wondering if he was being deliberately crass or truly had been very, very drunk. But then he blinked as he realised my mood and suddenly gave me a disarmingly sheepish smile. “You’re cross with me.”
“I wouldn’t say that, John.” I gathered up my reins. “But I do have a lot to do today so we’ll be on our way.”
“Wait a minute, Ellie, don’t leave it like that.” He made to step closer but then saw the look in Beechnut’s eye and thought better of it. “I behaved very badly last night and I want to have the chance to explain myself. Surely you can give me that at least, can’t you?”
I glanced at Freddy who was watching us curiously and knew that whatever John was going to say, I really didn’t want the boy’s delicate young ears to hear it. “You go ahead Freddy, I’ll be home very shortly.”
With a frowning look at me that was intended to communicate his intense distrust, and a scowl at John that was meant as a warning but only looked adorably fierce in the manner of a very small lamb, Freddy took the ropes I held out and trotted away up the road with my little cluster of ponies trailing obediently along behind him. I watched him go, calming Beechnut’s impatient stamp and wondering why politeness had made me choose to stay for an explanation that I knew could not bring me any cheer.
“Oh, don’t look like that, Ellie, I’m not going to bite,” John said wearily. He turned to lead the way back down the drive again and reluctantly I followed, reminding myself that regardless of what had come over him last night, I didn’t need to actually be afraid of him. But all the same, I was very glad of Beechnut.
I drew the horse to a halt by the lorry with as detached an expression fixed upon my face as I could manage, implying, I hoped, only aloof disinterest, and waited for the apology that was unlikely to save our friendship. To my surprise, however, instead of seeming appropriately contrite as I expected, or even remotely humbled, when he finally turned and looked up at me, he actually laughed. “Honestly, Ellie, you do make a fuss. It was only a kiss.”
I scowled at him silently and eventually he gave in, lifting his hands in a mock gesture of surrender. “All right, fine. I’m sorry. I behaved very badly and I’m a cad. Will that do?”
I shrugged. I had a horrible feeling that I was coming across as an old prude. “It’ll do,” I admitted grudgingly.
“Good. Now, will you come in and have a cup of tea? I can’t stand talking to you with you towering over me like that, particularly when that damned beast keeps looking at me with a hungry look in her eye.”
I shook my head. “I must get back.”
“Ellie,” he said sternly. “Don’t tell me that you’re the sort to bear a grudge. Just come in for five minutes, surely you’ve got the time for that. You could put that horse in a stable, couldn’t you? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
I shook my head again; I had no intention of going anywhere with him. By way of distraction I said, “You’ve finished the horsebox?”
But John was prevented from making a reply by the brisk interruption of one of his grooms and although I was tempted to make my escape, I could see that John was keeping a watchful eye on me and would inevitably make a fuss. So instead I waited patiently while he finished his business and allowed my gaze to gently pass over the very neat little coach-built lorry by my side.
He had clearly completed the refurbishment and at the top of the modern ramp with its new hessian matting, I could see a hay bag and the assortment of other bits and pieces that were essential for transporting a horse. I nudged Beechnut forwards so that I could see fully inside and couldn’t help admiring the new partitions which would nicely keep a pair of horses secure in their stalls during a journey along England’s rough and jolting roads.
“Lovely, isn’t she?” John had finished talking to his groom and had come as close as Beechnut’s determined man-aversion would allow.
I smiled, making an effort to be pleasant, “Very smart. Are you taking it out today?”
He nodded and cast a glance up at the brooding sky. “I’ve decided to send the horse to Southampton now, before this next bout of bad weather comes. Apparently melt-water made the Thames flood at Reading the other day and if it tracks up as far as Cricklade like they say it will, we might not be able to get out on Tuesday and I just can’t afford to lose this chance.”
I frowned again at the mention of the horse; I really didn’t like to be reminded of how we had last spoken about it, and I didn’t like that he could apparently mention of it without any shade of embarrassment.
“Oh, for goodness sake!”
John was suddenly and very genuinely exasperated. Repressively, his hand touched to his forehead, pinching the bridge of his nose before he dropped it again and looked up. “Haven’t you ever done anything that you were ashamed of? I got carried away, that’s all, and if you’d just stop sniping at me for a moment and get down from that blasted horse, we could talk about it like civilised people.”
He might have been about to add something else but at that very instant the grey-haired housekeeper hurried out and came to a breathless and abrupt halt in front of us. I believe she actually bobbed a very small curtsey.
“Yes?” snapped John impatiently, barely turning his head. “What is it?”
“It’s the telephone, sir.”
“Well, tell them I’ll call back, can’t you?” John crossly flapped her away as he turned back to me. He blinked. “What was I saying, Ellie?” Then he frowned as he remembered.
“But sir …” The housekeeper had not gone. She was a small timid woman who, as I had discovered over the years, it was impossible to be kind to. She responded to any attempt at friendly interest with exactly the same blank deference that she used to greet the Colonel’s barked commands. From as far back as I could remember, she had busied herself in unobtrusively hovering on that man’s periphery with servile hands clasped in front of the inevitable grey dress that fastened tightly at her neck, and it seemed to me that her whole life would be spent in waiting for whatever was next in his long line of abruptly delivered instructions. Whenever I met her I found it hard to decide if it was compassion, frustration or pity that most dominated my thoughts and now, as she stood there, blinking owlishly and anxiously lingering in unhappy defiance of the son’s sharp words, I still could not truly tell.
“What is it?”
John’s eyes had followed my gaze past his shoulder and he now twisted to face her when it was apparent that she wasn’t going to leave. “Do I have to do your job, too?”
She tightened her linked hands across the starched breast of her dress, looking very shocked by his tone. Her chin wrinkled a little as she persevered, “It’s not for you, sir … It’s for Miss Phillips.”
Both faces lifted in perfect unison to look up at me. One was very slightly flushed, the other pale.
“It’s definitely for you, Miss,” the housekeeper insisted, anticipating the obvious.
“Well then, you’d better come in and take it, hadn’t you,” John said waspishly in the face of my confusion. “Put your horse in a stable, she’ll be happy enough for a few minutes.”
If John hadn’t looked as equally surprised as I felt, I would have never believed the housekeeper. But finally I had no choice but to give in to the inevitable and slither down from Beechnut’s back. It only took a moment then to knot the reins securely on her neck and leave her merrily flirting with the would-be Union Star, and then I found myself following a pointedly gracious John into his office to take the waiting call. He left me by the drinks stand and, feeling absurdly nervous, I walked over to the desk.
“Hello?”
“Hello?” A woman’s voice answered. “Ellie, is that you?”
“Lisa!”
I caught John’s interested glance and turned away so that I had a little privacy. I lowered my voice. “What on earth are you calling me here for?”
“I called you at home but Freddy said you were there, so I thought I might as well try. You did say it was urgent.”
“Well, yes, I did,” I said very cautiously indeed. I didn’t want to give anything away to my listening audience; that was an explanation I couldn’t even begin to conceive. “Did you manage to track it down?”
“I did and it took me a while, I can tell you. You wouldn’t believe what trouble you’ve cost me, I almost feel like becoming a private eye – I’ve shown some talent, I should like to think.” She laughed and I think I managed to raise something in response. “Chasing that girl all over the place I was. And then, whenever I managed to corner her, the boss would appear and tell me off for gossiping during work time! If I’m dismissed over this, you’ll be the one who has to cover my wages.”
“Ha, ha,” I said weakly, wishing she would just get it over with. “Lisa, did you get the … what I wanted, then?”
“I did! And you’ll never guess what.”
“What?”
“You’re speaking on it.”