Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (54 page)

‘Hey! You! Get down off there, leave the horse alone, don’t you know nothing—’

A young man – not a boy – was running up the lane. He was very tall and thin, with brown hair which looked as if it hadn’t been brushed for several days, and fierce blue eyes. It was the eyes that did it; she knew it was him.

‘Joe! Isn’t it? I’m Jenna, remember me?’

‘It never is.’ He stared at her, his face wary.

‘It is. Hi. It’s so nice to see you again.’ She clambered off the gate, walked towards him, holding out her hand. He took it gingerly in his own large, bony one, as if it might break.

‘Hallo there,’ he said awkwardly.

‘And Lord B. He hasn’t changed a bit. My mother thought he might have died, I was just so relieved he was here—’

‘Is she here? Is Barty here?’

‘No, she’s in London. We’re over for the wedding. I heard you weren’t coming, so I decided to come and see you down here.’

‘Oh yeah?’ He nodded, a slight smile easing its way into his face. ‘You come on the train, then?’

‘Yes. And then a taxi. It was fun.’

He said nothing after that, just stood there, looking embarrassed.

‘Aren’t you going to take me to the house?’ she said after a bit.

‘Yes, of course. Sorry. Come on, this way.’

‘It’s lovely here,’ she said, ‘so pretty.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s all right.’

‘Are you – still at school?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Michael?’

‘He is too, yes.’

There was a long silence then, as they walked down the lane; Jenna couldn’t think what else to say. He walked very fast, and she had to half run to keep up with him. She had dressed carefully for the occasion, in jeans and sneakers, anxious not to appear too townie, as the Warwick children called it, with a big Sloppy Joe under her jacket, but she could see he thought she looked pretty strange. He was walking just ahead of her staring at the ground, and every so often he turned around and looked at her, as if half hoping she might have gone away. Each time he did it, she smiled at him encouragingly, but she had given up any attempt to talk.

They reached the yard in front of the house; there was no one about. It was very muddy, the yard and the house looked more battered than she remembered it; she supposed when you were eight you didn’t notice things like paint peeling off doors. It seemed smaller too; she had thought it was huge.

Joe led her round the side of the house, pushed open a door, dragging off his wellington boots.

‘In here,’ he said, then went in ahead of her, shouting ‘Mum! Mum! We got a visitor.’

The kitchen was exactly as she remembered it; big and white-walled, with a quarry-tiled floor and a great table in the middle, covered in an assortment of things, old newspapers, piles of letters, some jars of jam, a few onions, a box of apples, a shotgun, a head collar and, slung down in the middle of it, a hare that had clearly met its end fairly recently.

‘A visitor, you say, Joe? Who – well bless me! Jenna, isn’t it? My word, you’ve grown. And grown up. How lovely to see you. Joe, pull out a chair for her, there’s a good lad.’

It was Joan, exactly the same, smiling and comfortable, her wide face so lit up with pleasure that Jenna felt close to tears. She went over to her, gave her a hug, then handed her the primroses.

‘These are for you. I picked them in your lane, I’m afraid, I hope that’s OK. It’s lovely to see you, I just had to come. I couldn’t wait till after the wedding.’

‘Bless you, but how’d you get ’ere? And where’s your mum?’

‘Oh, in London. I came by myself.’

‘By yourself! All that way!’

Joan looked rather as if Jenna had announced she had arrived from the Antarctic or Australia.

‘It wasn’t very difficult. I just got the train. I’m not a baby any more, you know.’

‘I can see that. Quite the young lady you are, isn’t she Joe? Oh, but it’s lovely to see you. I don’t know what Billy’ll say. He’s out with the horses, but he’ll be back in a minute. You want a drink, my love, or something to eat?’

‘Something to eat would be lovely,’ said Jenna, realising she was starving. ‘Just – just a cookie or something.’

‘You had any lunch?’

‘No. No I haven’t.’

‘God bless you, you must be hungry. Let me see what I’ve got—’

She opened a door at the back of the kitchen leading into an enormous pantry, leaned in, produced a large ham on a plate.

‘There now, how does that look to you?’

‘Lovely. Really great.’

‘Right then, and I got some bread and some cheese, I think. Sit down, my lovely, let’s feed you up a bit. You’re very thin.’

She studied Jenna, her face anxious. ‘You ever eat?’

‘All the time,’ said Jenna, buttering a piece of bread, biting into it gratefully. ‘Cathy – she’s my stepsister – she’s always on some weird diet, but I can’t be bothered.’

‘Diet! How old is she, then?’

‘Same as me. I wanted her to come too, but she wouldn’t. She had some shopping to do.’

‘Oh yes? Pity. I’d have liked to meet her. And how do you get on with your stepfather? Charlie, isn’t it?’

‘He’s just great,’ said Jenna, ‘we’re really happy, mother and me.’

‘But he hasn’t come over with you, is that right? That’s what Lady Celia, or whatever her name is these days, that’s what she said.’

‘No, Cathy’s grandmother, her mother’s mother, is dying and Charlie had to stay with her. He’s like that, really kind and good. But you’ll meet him soon. I was looking forward to bringing him down here.’

‘It’s so lovely you came,’ said Joan. ‘Oh now, here’s Bill. Bill, look who’s arrived, just like that, it’s Jenna!’

‘Well I never,’ said Billy. ‘Well I never did.’ He looked just the same, very tall and heavily built, with wide shoulders and thick arms, his hands gnarled from a lifetime of working out of doors, dark hair only a little more grey, moving with extraordinary ease on his wooden leg.

‘Little Jenna. Hallo, then. My word, you’ve grown.’

‘Well I would have done,’ said Jenna patiently, ‘it’s five years since I was here.’

‘I know. I shan’t forget that visit in a hurry. And don’t you go riding no horses this time, will you,’ said Billy severely.

‘Why ever not? I can’t wait. I’ve already seen Lord B, he looked really great. And I want to meet his daughter, and all the others too, Lucy said she had a pony here, and I’m dying to see Fergal’s horse—’

‘You didn’t bring none of them with you then?’

‘No,’ said Jenna, ‘I like doing things on my own. It’s so much less bother, nobody saying there isn’t time, and let’s go tomorrow or the next day.’

‘Well where’s your mum, where’s Barty?’

‘She’s not here either.’

‘She’s not here? You came all on your own?’ He seemed as astonished as Joan.

‘Yes. It really isn’t very far.’

‘Good gracious! Well, I never! But she knows you’re here, I hope?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Jenna airily. ‘I left her a note.’

‘I just didn’t think you’d care,’ she said sulkily, several hours later. Barty had just arrived, was standing in the farmyard, her face taut with rage. The same taxi driver who had brought Jenna was parked at the gate, unashamedly enjoying the drama.

‘Jenna, how can you say such a thing? I was worried out of my mind.’

‘I thought you said you left a note,’ said Billy suspiciously to Jenna.

‘I did. It’s not my fault if she couldn’t find it.’

‘Oh really? Stuck into the frame of the bathroom mirror? After I’d left for the office?’

Jenna was silent.

‘You really are so naughty, Jenna. I still can’t believe you did this.’

‘Mother, you knew how much I wanted to come. You knew how I’d been looking forward to it. I didn’t have anything else to do. So I just – came.’

‘Did Cathy know?’

‘Yes,’ said Jenna sulkily.

‘She didn’t tell me.’

‘Well, I told her not to.’

‘She was certainly obeying orders,’ said Barty grimly. ‘I couldn’t get a word out of her. And she could see how worried I was—’

‘Look – ’ Billy’s big face was troubled ‘ – look, I think we’re all agreed Jenna’s been naughty. But no harm’s been done. And I can’t help being pleased she wanted to come so much. I think you should calm down, Barty. Why don’t you come into the house, have a cup of tea? Joe and Michael can take Jenna up to the parlour. It’s milking time, maybe she could even help a bit. Michael’s a rare one with the milking,’ he said to Jenna, ‘he’ll teach you.’

‘She’s not to go anywhere,’ said Barty. ‘She’s coming straight back to London. Now.’

‘And where’s the sense in that?’ said Billy. ‘My word, Barty, you looked just like Mum then, when she was in a paddy. You’ve both come a long way, you have some food and a rest and then you might as well stay the night—’

‘We are not staying the night,’ said Barty. She sounded disproportionately angry, Jenna thought; what on earth was the matter with her?

‘It isn’t Billy’s fault, Mother,’ she said, ‘there’s no need to be angry with him.’

‘True enough,’ said Billy, ‘and besides, don’t you want to see us? Seems to me you don’t, all you’re bothered about is Jenna and how naughty she’s been.’

Barty stood there in the yard, staring at them all, and then suddenly ran into the house. Jenna followed her. She found her mother sitting at the kitchen table, staring in front of her; she suddenly put her head into her hands and burst into tears.

‘Mother, don’t. Don’t cry. I’m sorry I upset you, really I am. I just wanted to come so much, and I thought you were so busy, you wouldn’t mind.’ She put her arm around her mother’s shoulders and thought how much thinner she had got.

‘You need some of Joan’s food,’ she said, ‘you’re all skin and bone.’

‘I’m not,’ said Barty, shaking her off; but Jenna knew her rage was easing. In another minute she’d look up at her and half smile; then they’d be friends again.

‘I’m really sorry,’ she said again, ‘it’s only because I love your family so much, your family and mine, I just had to be with them.’

Barty looked up at her and half smiled.

‘You are so horribly like your father,’ she said.

‘It’s so lovely there,’ said Jenna to Cathy after lunch next day. They were sitting in the reception of Claridges, thumbing through magazines, trying to decide whether they would go out shopping yet again, or stay in the hotel and listen to the radio and read. ‘I wish you’d come. The countryside is so – so perfect, so green, so many trees and hedges and the fields cut up like a patchwork quilt, well, that’s how they look from the top of a hill. And their house is – not pretty, exactly, but so welcoming and warm, and busy. Well, it’s warm downstairs where there are fires. Mother and I had to share a bedroom, they only have one spare, and it was just freezing, we piled our coats on to the bed, and even some rugs we found in a cupboard, but it still wasn’t very warm. Anyway, we had such fun, Joe and Michael took me up to the milking parlour and showed me how to milk a cow. It’s really hard until suddenly you get it, like riding a bike, and—’

‘What are they like? Are they good-looking?’

‘Sort of. I specially like Joe, he’s so serious and really thinks about everything, a bit like Billy—’

‘Does he like you?’

‘Oh Cathy, I don’t know,’ said Jenna impatiently, ‘if he did he wouldn’t say.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he’s so shy. Anyway, he’s my cousin, obviously he wouldn’t like me in that way.’

‘Oh yes, of course, I’d kind of missed out on that. It seems so strange, you having a cousin here. Do you think I’d like him?’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Jenna firmly. ‘Where was I? Oh yes, so then we had supper in the kitchen and almost everything came off the farm, chicken—’

‘Fergal kissed me,’ said Cathy in a dreamy voice.

‘He didn’t.’

‘He did.’

‘What, properly? French kissing?’

‘Yup.’

‘What was it like?’

‘Great,’ said Cathy. ‘Really great. We were in what they call the study and he told me I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, and tonight we’re going to the movies, with some other people as well, of course, Lucy and Lucas, and you can come too.’

‘Thanks,’ said Jenna, ‘can’t wait.’

‘Anyway, Fergal might be coming to New York this summer, to work with his uncle Robert and I said he must come to South Lodge and—’

‘Cathy,’ said Jenna, ‘you can’t just ask people to South Lodge, it isn’t yours.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What I say. It belonged to my father. Now it’s Mother’s. Mother’s and mine.’

‘Your mother is married to my father,’ said Cathy, two red spots rising on her cheeks, ‘and everything is shared now, between all of us, it belongs to us all. Daddy said so. So I can ask to South Lodge whoever I like—’

‘You can not,’ said Jenna, realising she felt terribly angry and upset suddenly. ‘You can do nothing of the kind. Not without asking Mother and—’

‘Oh you’re so – so mean,’ said Cathy, ‘so mean and selfish and – and arrogant. Why on earth shouldn’t I ask someone to South Lodge if I want to, it’s big enough. Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I didn’t have to live with you, I wish I wasn’t your sister—’

‘In which case,’ said Jenna coolly, ‘you certainly wouldn’t be able to ask people to stay in my house. And I do assure you I often wish you weren’t my sister either. Very often, actually. Anyway, I’m going to my room. And I do hope you enjoy the film and that Fergal kisses you some more. Mind you don’t get pregnant, won’t you?’ she added, in a flash of sweet inspiration.

In her house in Montpelier Street, Adele sat alone in the bathroom, counting her pills. She actually counted them every night; it was the only thing she really enjoyed doing. Making sure she had enough, checking them over, imagining taking them and then drifting away from it all for ever. It had been worth going without sleep all those endless nights to have them; worth lying there alone, staring into the darkness, counting the quarter hours as they were chimed by the hall clock. Just to know that she could finally get away. Away from the hurt and the humiliation, away from the wedding, away from having to face everyone, away from having to see Izzie.

She was definitely coming; Noni had cabled to say they were travelling together. Of course Noni didn’t know, although in her worst moments Adele imagined the two of them talking about it, laughing at her behind her back, saying was it so surprising it had happened, really, when Adele was so old-looking and miserable and dull. And who could blame Geordie?