Country Plot (33 page)

‘I'm good at organizing
things
, but I haven't had much practice with people,' Jenna admitted. ‘And I was rather worried about the long term, how Kitty would keep it going, because of course I shan't be here for much longer.'

‘Won't you?' Gloria said, looking surprised. ‘I thought you were a fixture. Family, aren't you?'

‘Distant cousin,' Jenna said. This staccato delivery was catching. ‘Kitty asked me for a month, though we've extended that to cover the Gala Opening, but that's all.'

Gloria looked at her penetratingly, and then said, ‘Oh, well, let's wait and see how things pan out. You might find you want to stay longer.' After a beat, she went off on another tack. ‘I hear you're having a fling with young Harry Beale?'

Jenna blushed. ‘Hardly that. We had a date.'

Gloria overrode her. ‘I feel so sorry for that boy. He's virtually had to bring himself up, with his mother dying when he was so young, and his father – well, the less said about Roger Beale the better! The man's a disaster. And then when he does get Harry a stepmother, it's that ghastly Mona Russell woman. Caroline's mother.'

‘Ghastly in what way?' Jenna felt emboldened to ask.

‘Naked greed and ambition,' Gloria said succinctly. ‘Mona Dillinger she was – I was at school with her, God help me! Boarding school in Queen's Camel. She was one of those showy flowers that blooms early and only lasts a day. Not worth cultivating. Played on her looks to marry Phil Russell. Transferred her ambition to Caroline. Push, push, push. Like one of those frightful ballet mothers, you know?'

Jenna didn't, but she nodded as if she did.

‘Hardly a wonder that Caroline turned out the way she did. Mona and Roger Beale deserved each other, but Caroline was quite a sweet girl when she was six or seven. I followed her subsequent career with a sort of breathless horror. One bad hat to another.'

‘Alexander isn't a bad hat,' Jenna pointed out.

‘No, quite the contrary. He's perhaps a bit too bland.'

Jenna was shocked. ‘I never thought of him as bland.'

‘The egg without the salt,' Gloria said. ‘Men need a seasoning of drive and ambition. I didn't like the way he went to pieces when that girl Stephanie dumped him. Showed a lack of character. Of course, he was a child of divorce, but still. And now he's been caught by Caroline Russell.'

‘Don't you think perhaps she really loves him?' Jenna said, more in hope than belief.

‘I suppose she must,' said Gloria, frowning over the problem, ‘because he has nothing she could possibly want. But it won't last. Marriage for love never does.'

‘But don't you—?' Jenna stopped herself, but not quite in time.

Gloria's eyebrow went up. ‘Goodness, we are being frank, aren't we? Yes, of course Arthur and I love each other, but that sort of love comes later. It grows out of liking each other and getting on well and having the same interests. Remember that, when you come to marry. The romantic stuff's all right, but it's much more important to be friends. There's sex, of course – but your generation has it much easier that way. Fortunately Arthur and I clicked in that department, because our generation had no opportunity to find out beforehand. I wonder if Caroline and Alexander have tried?' she mused. Jenna had wondered the same thing and often wished she hadn't. ‘I suppose they must have, but it's an odd thing, somehow one can't imagine them doing it. Like a dog riding a bicycle – it doesn't seem natural.'

Jenna was intrigued by this insight; but they had reached the end of the garden and turned on to the path back and she thought that, since her hostess was in such a frank mood, she ought to get in a few questions of her own while she had the chance. ‘Do you know a man called Derek Sullivan?'

‘Unfortunately, yes. One of Roger Beale's shady chums,' she said promptly. ‘Why do you ask?'

‘I thought I saw him after the planning meeting the other day,' she said, stretching the truth a little. ‘I wondered what he had to do with it.'

‘Nothing, one hopes,' Gloria said. ‘Apart from Beale Cartwright, he has connections with another development company, English Country Homes – I wonder if that's who Benson was going to sell to if he got planning permission?' she added in parenthesis. She shook it away. ‘But the permission's been denied, so that's all over anyway. Benson will have to sell it as agricultural land, and that won't be enough for his villa in Tenerife, or whatever it was he wanted. Serves him right, the grubby little man. I took him on as a gardener when he got laid off from the atomic plant at Corvington, though I didn't really need him. Everyone in the village has helped him out in one way or another over the years, and that's the loyalty we get.'

‘When you say “connection” to English Country Homes . . .?' Jenna said.

‘Sullivan was a local councillor for Wenchester,' Gloria said tersely. ‘The government demanded every county build so many new houses. Once the land was designated, he made sure English Country Homes got the contract to build them.'

‘And what did he get in return?'

‘English Country Homes gave a large donation to the Labour Party, and now of course Sullivan's been adopted as their candidate for the next election. Not possible to prove any connection between the two, of course.' She looked thoughtful. ‘If he's to run for MP, he'll need campaign funds. I wonder if he was hoping to repeat his coup with Benson's land? If so, he's fallen on his face.'

They had reached the house. The thoughtful look vanished and Gloria was straight back into social mode. ‘Fascinating talking to you. We must find a way to keep you here, my dear, because you're a definite asset to our community. Find some suitable young man to bed and wed you.
Not
Harry Beale, though – too much of a lightweight, as I suspect you know if you're half as sharp as I think you are.' She smiled, like a light switching on. ‘Come in and let Arthur top you up.' She looked around for someone to scrape Jenna off on to, and her eye alighted on Xander, who had arrived meanwhile and managed to get himself into a corner out of the way where he was scowling at the company as if he wished he were anywhere but here. ‘Oh, there's Alexander. I'll leave you in his capable care because I
have
to speak to Dolly Cornwall about the retaining wall in Deeps Lane. If she doesn't do something about it we'll have it falling on someone's pushchair or pet dog, and then we'll be in the papers for all the wrong reasons. Alexander – delighted to see you, dear boy!'

Arthur arrived at the same time, filled both their glasses anew, and then both Buckminsters disappeared, with an effect like two vast liners departing: the backwash drove Jenna practically into Xander's arms.

‘They displace a lot of water, don't they?' she said, in the hope of making him laugh. His gloom didn't lighten one whit. ‘Look, we only have to be polite to each other. Shall we talk about the weather? Or I could move away,' she added when this elicited no response.

‘This scheme of yours,' he began.

‘Oh dear. What now?' she said wearily.

‘Everyone's talking about it as a done deal. Why wasn't I consulted?'

She was surprised. ‘If Kitty had wanted to consult you there was nothing stopping her.'

‘It's put me in a very embarrassing position. Everyone thought I knew all about it. I suppose that was
your
doing, keeping me out of the discussion stages?'

‘Of course not. It was nothing to do with me. Why would I want to keep you out of the discussions? I'd have assumed you'd be all for it.'

‘It's a crackpot scheme,' he said. ‘In the first place, it can't work. And in the second, have you even considered the strain it will put on Kitty? A frail, elderly woman, trying to shoulder a burden like that? The responsibility, the work, the endless worry – and when it fails, it will make leaving Holtby all the harder for her. You've gone into this for your own glory – if you haven't got other, more sinister reasons – without giving a thought to the effect it will inevitably have on an old lady who's shown you nothing but kindness.'

‘And that's Caroline's opinion, I take it?' she said shrewdly.

‘Yes, and she—' He pulled himself up, realizing the trap she had set for him, and he coloured angrily. ‘It's my opinion, with which she happens to agree.'

‘I'll bet,' Jenna said. ‘Look, if it's your opinion, go and express it to Kitty. Have it out with her. Why throw it at me, as if she hasn't a mind of her own? She isn't a frail old lady, and I think if you go and tell her to her face that she is, she might well deck you with a clout to the side of the head, which you will thoroughly deserve.' He opened his mouth to answer and she carried on quickly. ‘Everything I have done, and everything I am doing, is entirely at her request. She can change her mind or pull out at any time. Why don't you try and talk her out of it if you feel so strongly? I'm sure your influence must be stronger than mine – and Bill's, because she's discussed everything with him, you know.'

‘Oh, Bill,' he said witheringly. ‘Who has a vested interest in keeping her at Holtby House.'

She eyed him curiously. ‘I might well ask why you're so keen to get her
out
of there,' she said quietly.

‘Because it—' he began hotly, and then stopped, with an arrested expression in his eyes. ‘Get her out?'

‘She wants to stay in her home. I'm trying to help her to do that. Why would you think it's such a bad idea, unless you wanted her out of there for some reason?'

‘I don't,' he said, in a faint, distant voice. Evidently there was some hard thinking going on behind those dark brows. ‘I'm – concerned for her welfare.'

Jenna shrugged. ‘I don't know anyone who isn't. Do you?'

He turned abruptly and went away, pushing through the deafeningly chatting crowds like someone who was about to throw up and had to get to the bathroom before he did.

Jenna, left alone, stared at the space he had left. ‘Nuts,' she addressed the wallpaper. ‘Completely and utterly out to lunch.'

It was a couple of days after this that Fatty came in to the library, where Jenna was working on the computer, and said, ‘Visitor for you.'

‘Who is it?' Jenna asked without enthusiasm. There was so much to be done. She was working on the room notes for the drawing room, and it was not as easy as it sounded. Getting stuff in the right order, deciding what to put in and what to leave out, getting the balance between being interesting and overloading the reader with information, was tricky stuff. And hanging over her was the selection and cataloguing of the china for the cabinets – she was just realizing what a huge task that would be. She really didn't want to be disturbed. Registering the silence, she looked up and saw Fatty struggling with something mentally. ‘Who is it?' she asked again.

‘Mr Acorn,' Fatty said at last, with desperate certainty.

Jenna frowned. ‘It can't be.'

Fatty looked defeated. ‘Maybe Mr Harpoon.'

‘Fatty, nobody's called Acorn or Harpoon.'

Fatty shrugged expressively. ‘He say his name, but I don't understand him good. It sound like Haycorn.'

‘Can't Kitty see him?'

‘He ask for you,' Fatty said, and made a little gesture of her hands which implied that having gone thus far she was turning over all responsibility to Jenna.

‘Oh, all right.' Jenna sighed, standing up. ‘I'll go. Where is he?'

‘I put him in drawing room,' Fatty said, and made herself scarce.

There was no one in the drawing room or the hall. She glanced into the sitting room, and then tried the dining room.

Patrick (whose surname was Á Court – all was now explained!) was standing opposite the fireplace with his hands clasped behind his back, examining the ceiling.

‘You look like John Betjeman,' Jenna said, to cover the jittering and booming that was going on inside her. Shock, she told herself, that was all. Suddenly seeing him where she did not expect him.

‘This is the original plasterwork,' he said. ‘Unusual to see it in such good condition, not even touched up. Nice fireplace, too – not overdone. Georgian simplicity. When was the house built? Seventeen-seventies, seventeen-eighties?'

‘Seventeen-ninety, they think. What are you
doing
here?'

‘And that staircase is magnificent. Unusual to find a place like this that hasn't been vandalized. It's a gem.' He lowered his gaze to her at last. ‘I came to see you, of course. To tell you to come home.'

‘
Tell
me?'

‘Ask you. Beg you, if you like.'

His presence, his handsomeness, old associations, were playing havoc with Jenna's willpower. Now, as he smiled and gazed into her eyes contritely, she was afraid she was a goner.

‘I was an idiot,' he said. ‘I was well out of order. You can tell me off as much as you like, but please come back. I need you.'

If he had said, ‘I love you,' she might have cracked right then. As it was she found the strength to ask another question.

‘How did you find me? I know for certain Sybil would never have told you.'

‘She didn't. She was quite obdurate. I told her it was for your own benefit – I mean, this is no way to run your life. The longer you're off the career ladder the harder it will be to get back on, and I've got a delicious job waiting for you, right up your alley, and I'm pretty sure I can swing it for you. I'm not without influence in certain circles,' he said modestly. ‘But Sybil wouldn't say a word, though I think she wanted to. I suppose you made her promise? I know you were mad at me, and I understand, but this nonsense has gone on long enough. Now be a sensible girl and come home.'

He smiled at her, and tilted his head slightly, giving her a beguiling look. Jenna's heart was slowing to normal speed, and this look left her cold. It was the look you might give a little girl of, say, ten or eleven.
Let's stop being silly and go and get an ice cream.