Читать книгу Shadow Of Desire - Сара Крейвен, Sara Craven - Страница 6

GINNY CLAYTON packed the last carton of groceries carefully into the back of the elderly estate car and slammed the rear door shut, with a smiling word of thanks for Mr Murgatroyd who had helped her carry the boxes out of the shop. The sometimes reluctant engine started at the second attempt and the car moved away slowly, bumping over the cobbles before easing on to the road and disappearing out of the market square.

Mr Murgatroyd, dourly returning Ginny’s exuberant farewell wave, heaved a sigh before returning to the shop. His wife, busily pricing a new consignment of tinned fruit, looked up, and encountering his brooding look gave a sympathetic nod.

‘It just doesn’t seem right—a young lass like that, with all that responsibility.’ Mr Murgatroyd poked a cereal packet back into line on a shelf with quite unnecessary vigour.

‘There’s not many her age would take it on,’ Mrs Murgatroyd observed temperately. ‘The old aunt would have been put in a home, and foster-parents found for that young limb of a brother. She could have had a life of her own then.’

‘Instead of dogsbodying for that Mrs Lanyon,’ Mr Murgatroyd said fiercely. ‘That’s all she’ll be, Ida. A dogsbody.’ He seemed to relish the word in a gloomy way.

The Murgatroyds were both silent for a few moments, considering Ginny’s employer, Vivien Lanyon, the widow of the last of a long line of a once wealthy and powerful local family. The Lanyons had lost their power and most of their wealth long before Geoffrey Lanyon had been killed skiing in the Swiss Alps, and although no one in the locality was able to say precisely why such a deterioration in the family fortunes had come about, nevertheless everyone agreed that it was not because the Lanyons had ever been guilty of overpaying their staff, or treating their tenants too generously.

They were not nor ever had been a popular family, and although the local people admired the way Vivien Lanyon was hanging on at the Manor, and even making a go of her riding stables, they still agreed that she was a real chip off the old block and no mistake, more like a Lanyon born than a stranger who happened to have married into the family—and no one was under any illusion that this was intended as a compliment to the lady.

‘And that sister,’ Mr Murgatroyd continued. ‘What’s she doing about it all, I’d like to know?’

‘She’s an actress,’ Mrs Murgatroyd said, as if that explained everything. ‘I saw her on an advert on the telly last night. For hair spray.’ She affixed the last price label with an air of relief. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘it’s none of our business, when all’s said and done, and there’s a load of soft drinks want bringing in.’

Mr Murgatroyd nodded, and set off for the rear of the shop in search of the soft drinks, but his mind even then was still not completely on his mission. He sighed again. ‘It just doesn’t seem right,’ he muttered.

Ginny, driving home along quiet lanes, would have been surprised to learn that she was the object of anyone’s sympathy. For the past few months she had been unable to believe her own good fortune.

Yet ‘dogsbody’ would have had a familiar ring. It was the very word that their family solicitor Mr Robson had used when he had told her about the job at Monk’s Dower.

‘You’ll be little more than a glorified caretaker, Ginny,’ he’d said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know whether I’m doing the right thing in telling you about the position—only it does include accommodation, and I know this has been proving a problem for you.’

That, Ginny thought, was putting it mildly. The worry of trying to find a home for herself, plus an elderly lady, a small boy and a disreputable dog, had been keeping her awake at night, and deepening the shadows under her large hazel eyes.

It was incredible and frightening how life could change almost in the twinkling of an eye, so that the security she had always taken for granted was revealed as the fragile and tenuous thing it had always been in reality.

Security had been life in the tall Victorian house in the quiet country town where she had been born, with her parents and younger brother Tim, and with Aunt Mary, who had occupied the top floor of the house ever since her retirement from a career in teaching at a girls’ boarding school in the south-west of England.

It had been a quiet comfortable existence, and Ginny had found her progression from school to a secretarial course a peaceful one. She had never shared her older sister Barbara’s hankering for the bright lights, but then, as she would have been the first to admit, neither did she share Barbara’s dazzling good looks.

No one had really been surprised when Barbara opted for drama school in London, nor that when her course was finished she had stepped straight into a small part in a long-running hit in the West End.

Mr and Mrs Clayton had been delighted for her, and if they were disappointed that their glamorous eldest child so rarely found the time to come home to see them, they never admitted it. They seemed prepared to accept that Barbara now inhabited a different world, and took pleasure in her success, and the paragraphs that she now merited in the local paper.

But there had never been any question of Ginny following in her sister’s footsteps. Not that she had ever had ambitions in that direction, but if she had then a glance in her mirror would have quickly established a more realistic point of view. Her brown hair hung straight and as shining as rainwater to her shoulders, and though her eyes were large and heavily fringed with dark lashes, they were not otherwise remarkable, and nor were her other features. But, as she had often cheerfully remarked, one raving beauty in the family was quite enough, and she accepted without rancour the nickname ‘Mouse’ which her relatives bestowed on her.

She enjoyed her secretarial course. She was enjoying, with reservations, her first job in an accountant’s office. Even within the limitations of her environment, her life seemed to stretch away in front of her, full of possibilities as yet unexplored.

And then, one night of black ice, everything changed for ever. A coachload of football supporters veered across a dual carriageway and crashed into the Mini bringing Mr and Mrs Clayton home from the house of some friends. Mrs Clayton was killed instantly, but Ginny’s father lingered for a few days in intensive care.

Ginny coped because she had to, undergoing the ordeals of funerals and inquests. But there was a greater ordeal to come, one that no one had suspected. Mr Clayton’s small business had been heavily in debt, and he had borrowed from finance companies, not always wisely, using insurances and even his home as security. To her horror, Ginny learned that when all the creditors were paid, there would be hardly anything left in the way of money, and that they would no longer have a home.

In a way she was glad that her mother would never know just how flimsy the outward fabric of her life had been. Her father had never brought his business worries home with him, and for Mrs Clayton life had always been comfortable, with no shortage of little treats and luxuries.

But there was no escaping the fact that she, Ginny, was now responsible for finding accommodation for them all, and for earning sufficient money to pay the rent and support them.

Nor could she avoid the unpleasant truth that Barbara was not prepared to help in any way.

Her sister had made that more than clear during the brief time she had spent at home to attend the funeral.

‘I think you’re completely mad,’ Barbara had declared, stubbing out her cigarette in the saucer of her coffee cup. The sisters were in the kitchen having a bedtime drink the night before Barbara was due to return to London. ‘No one expects you to take on the responsibility for them all—a girl of eighteen. It’s ridiculous!’

‘But if I don’t, who will?’ Ginny asked mildly enough. Her head ached miserably and she felt drained of emotion. The last thing she wanted was an argument.

‘Well, I won’t for one,’ Barbara said bluntly. ‘There’s no room at the flat and I have my own life to lead—my career to think of, thank you very much. And so should you.’

‘I haven’t really got a career, just a job that I don’t much care about.’ Ginny carried the coffee cups over to the sink and began to rinse them under the tap. She looked round at the neat, bright kitchen with its tiles and new kitchen units which Mrs Clayton had been so proud of, and a sharp little pain twisted inside her like the turn of a knife. ‘But it’s been experience, and I can look for something that pays rather better now.’

Barbara’s lips twisted. ‘You’ll need something that pays like a bomb for what you have in mind. For heaven’s sake, Ginny, see sense. You’re biting off altogether more than you can chew. No secretary’s salary in this neck of the woods is going to pay the rent for the size of place you’d need—always supposing you found somewhere, and that won’t be easy. Where landlords are concerned, children and dogs are an anathema, take my word for it.’

Ginny turned off the hot tap with intense concentration. ‘Which do you suggest that I have put down—Tim or Muffin?’ she enquired.

‘Oh, don’t be a fool,’ Barbara snapped. ‘But you’ve got to be realistic. Just because Dad fancied himself as an amateur philanthropist, it doesn’t mean that you have to follow in his footsteps.’

‘You mean Aunt Mary.’ Ginny reached for the tea towel. ‘Doesn’t it matter to you that she’s losing her home as well?’

Barbara shrugged. ‘Of course,’ she said without any conviction. ‘But she can’t rely on you to provide her with another one. She must see that. After all, she has her pension, and there are plenty of places catering for elderly women in her position.’

‘Nursing homes, I suppose, and seedy private hotels.’ Ginny dried a cup and hung it from the appropriate hook. ‘Would you really condemn her to that, Barbie? She was Dad’s favourite aunt.’

‘But not mine,’ Barbara said coolly. ‘I don’t know how Mother put up with her all these years.’

There was a difficult silence, then Barbara picked up the thread again.

‘And as for Tim—well, has it occurred to you that the Social Services might take a hand?’

‘Yes, it has,’ Ginny said coldly. ‘It’s also occurred to Tim, and he’s worried sick about it. Some of the children at school have been telling him that he’ll be taken into care—you know what insensitive little beasts they can be.’

Barbara reached for another cigarette. ‘Would it be such an unthinkable thing?’

‘Barbie!’ Ginny was aghast. ‘You can’t be serious!’

‘I’m trying to be realistic,’ Barbara said sourly. ‘Face facts, Ginny. How can someone of your age be mother and father to an eleven-year-old boy? It’s just not on.’

‘It has to be,’ Ginny said. ‘I’ve given Tim my word that we won’t be split up.’

‘If you don’t find another job and somewhere to live, the choice may not be yours,’ Barbara had pointed out coolly and unanswerably.

It was a fact that was haunting Ginny now that the first shock and grief of losing her parents was beginning to wear off. In a way, she was glad that the harsh practicalities of life were beginning to assume such importance, and make such demands on her time and energy, because they stopped her indulging in bouts of useless emotionalism and self-pity. The very fact that Tim and Aunt Mary depended on her so heavily had lent her a strength and purpose she had never been aware of, but it had not blinded her to the realities of the situation.

She had wondered at first whether Barbara would be able to help financially, if in no other way, but she had soon been disabused of that notion. Her sister was about to go into rehearsal in yet another light comedy which would be taken out on tour before its West End opening, and no one could prophesy what its fate would be in the uncertain world of show business. It might provide Barbara with a steady income for many months to come, or, as she pointed out with unshakeable logic, it might fold almost at once, leaving her to join the dole queue. Whatever happened, she was in no position to commit any of her income.

Ginny was not altogether surprised. She had always been aware that there was a single-minded, almost ruthless streak in Barbara which set her apart from the rest of the family. Certainly their father had never possessed it, Ginny thought with a sigh, otherwise his affairs might not have been in the bleak state they were at the time of the accident.

At the same time, she knew that Barbara’s view of her situation was a realistic one, and this was brought home to her in the weeks which followed. There were other jobs, but none that paid the sort of salary on which she could support a ready-made family, and finding another home was quite a different matter.

None of the flats and small houses she saw were large enough to accommodate them all, and those that were she could not afford. And, as Barbara had prophesied, few prospective landlords were prepared to consider a tenant with a child in tow anyway, and after the first few rebuffs, Ginny did not even dare mention the existence of Muffin, the mongrel dog, past puppyhood it was true, but certainly not past such anti-social habits as burying bones under sofa cushions and scratching paint off doors to facilitate his exits and entrances.

She had been very near to despair and worn out with the effort of concealing it from Tim and Aunt Mary when Mr Robson had phoned to ask her to call and see him at his office. Ginny had supposed it was to do with some detail about the sale of the house, which was proceeding with almost frightening speed.

When he had mentioned the job at Monk’s Dower, she had hardly been able to believe her ears, even though he had warned her candidly that it would be no sinecure.

Vivien Lanyon, it transpired, was the client of a friend of his in the neighbouring market town. Monk’s Dower had been in the Lanyon family almost as long as they had occupied the Manor House. Local history said that the name recalled the bitter period following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when the Lanyon of his day had allowed some monks expelled from a nearby abbey to build themselves a shelter on a corner of his land. Here, it was said, they had settled, cultivating their plot of ground, and looking after the sick of the nearby parishes as they had always done. Eventually they died, one by one, and the house they had built reverted to the Lanyons who had used it as a dower house ever since.

‘I gather Mrs Lanyon plans to let the house on a long lease.’ Mr Robson stared down at the gold fountain pen he was holding. ‘It’s a large, rambling place—it’s been added to in all kinds of ways over the years, and her plan is to let it with—er—resident domestic help included, as it were. The servants’ quarters have been converted, I understand, into quite a pleasant self-contained flat, but the wages she is offering are far from generous. So far she has experienced considerable difficulty in finding anyone suitable to take on the job because of the poor money. The attraction as far as you are concerned, Ginevra, would be the accommodation. I am not personally acquainted with Mrs Lanyon, but I cannot say whether I could recommend her as an employer from what I have heard.’ He paused.

‘What exactly would I have to do?’ asked Ginny.

‘Make sure the house is kept clean and aired, and ready for occupation as and when the tenant required. But I would guess that covers a multitude of other sins as well.’ Mr Robson gave her a kindly but rather rueful smile. ‘Mrs Lanyon has the reputation, frankly, of demanding her pound of flesh and more. You might well find that you were little better than a dogsbody for her.’

‘Does she object to dogs?’ Ginny asked swiftly, not really taking in the implication of his words, because her heart was beating with sudden excitement. Compared with her present problems, coping with a difficult and perhaps demanding employer seemed a much easier option.

‘I hardly think so. She keeps a number of them herself, I believe, and shows them too. You could represent your dog in the capacity of a guard dog, perhaps. I understand her tenant is likely to be away a good deal.’

Ginny had a mental image of Muffin—he of the flopping ears and eagerly proffered paw.

‘I’m sure he’d make a very good guard dog,’ she said mendaciously. ‘Mr Robson, I could kiss you!’

He sighed. ‘Don’t be too grateful, my dear, until you find out more about it, but if you’re interested, I can arrange an interview.’

It only took half an hour in Vivien Lanyon’s formidable presence to warn Ginny that all Mr Robson’s forebodings were probably quite justified. She was tall, blonde and attractive in a hard way, and she made it clear at the outset that Ginny was far from being what she had in mind as a caretaker.

‘You’re far too young,’ had been her first, incredulous reaction and Ginny had had to bring all her persuasive powers to bear to ensure herself a fair hearing.

‘I wanted a couple really.’ Mrs Lanyon had flung herself down pettishly on one of the silk-covered sofas in her drawing room. ‘The man to do the outside work and look after the garden, of course, but people don’t want to work these days, it seems, and quite frankly I’m getting desperate, so I suppose I could give you a trial.’ She looked Ginny up and down and sighed. ‘The hours will be long, I give you fair warning, and rather uncertain, but the reduced rent you’d be paying reflects this, I think. The house itself has been taken for a preliminary year by a Mr Hendrick, and you’d be answerable to him rather than me. He’s abroad a good deal, and you’d have to see to it that the house was always ready for him at all times—fuel stocks replenished, staple foods and milk ordered—that sort of thing. I’d expect you to keep the house clean and tidy too, but the heavy work is being done by Mrs Petty from the village. As for the garden’—she hesitated, tapping a varnished nail against her teeth—‘I suppose I’ll have to let you have Simmons one day a week.’

‘Perhaps Mr Hendrick will take an interest in the garden,’ Ginny ventured.

Mrs Lanyon gave a short laugh. ‘I hardly think so. He isn’t the type to bother about such mundane affairs, but he likes the house and that’s all that matters.’ She gave Ginny a long, hard look. ‘It’s very quiet out here. The village is very small, and it’s a long way to the nearest town. What will you do with yourself—a girl of your age?’

Ginny was tempted to reply that she felt her time would be fully occupied with the programme Mrs Lanyon had outlined, but she curbed her tongue.

‘I have my family to look after,’ she returned with a dignity which sat oddly on her youthful shoulders. ‘I shan’t be bored.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of that.’ Vivien Lanyon took a cigarette from the box on the table in front of her and lit it. ‘You realise you’ll be sharing a house with a single man. I wouldn’t want you to get—ideas.’ Face and voice were equally unsmiling as she said it, and Ginny felt a swift surge of temper rising within her which again she had to control. Instinct told her that Vivien Lanyon would not countenance an employee who answered back, and she needed this job and what it promised.

‘I can safely say that my only idea is to do the job well and provide a home from my brother and my aunt,’ she said quietly.

Vivien Lanyon shrugged slightly. ‘I’m pleased to hear it. At least with your responsibilities, you should be dependable. You won’t be likely to flit away as soon as the novelty wears off. Very well then, Miss Clayton—Ginevra.’ She glanced down at the letter of introduction which Ginny had brought. ‘What an extraordinary name!’

‘I believe it’s a form of Guinevere,’ Ginny said rather bleakly. ‘My mother used to love all the Arthurian legends.’

‘Really?’ Mrs Lanyon looked and sounded blank. ‘How fascinating. Now, when do you think you could start? Mr Hendrick’s tenancy begins next week, although he won’t be taking up occupation immediately.’

‘I’m working out my notice now,’ Ginny told her. ‘I could start on Monday, using the weekend to move in—if that was all right?’

‘Quite satisfactory.’ Now that everything was settled, Vivien Lanyon’s voice was almost indifferent. ‘Call in at the office as you go out and Kathy my head girl will show you round the house. You have transport, I presume?’

‘Yes.’ Ginny thanked heaven inwardly for the driving lessons which had been her father’s seventeenth birthday present to her. She had passed the test at her first attempt and had been used to driving both the Mini, which had been A write-off after the accident, and the rather battered estate car which her father had used for work, and which she was determined to hang on to at all costs.

The term ‘girl’ was something of a misnomer when applied to Kathy, Ginny discovered, when she was confronted by a large middle-aged woman who regarded her with something akin to pity on her weatherbeaten face.

‘How do you do.’ She extended a hand which could have encompassed both Ginny’s slender ones. ‘My word, she saw you coming and no mistake! How’s a slip of a girl like you going to see to a great barn of a place like that?’

Ginny bit her lip. ‘I’m not afraid of hard work.’

‘You don’t need to be, working for her.’ Kathy got up from the desk where she was working with account books and ledgers. ‘I suppose you want to see round the place—see the worst, eh?’ She took a bunch of keys from a board by the door. ‘Mind you,’ she went on, leading the way through the stable yard round to the front of the house where Ginny had left the car, ‘it’s a wonder to me that her ladyship has taken you on at all—but I suppose she can’t afford to be choosy at the money she’s offering.’

‘Thank you.’ Ginny did not know whether to be amused or insulted at the older woman’s forthright remarks. ‘I assure you that I’m perfectly capable.’

Kathy shrugged. ‘Makes no matter to me, dearie, whether you are or not. As for her, you could be Mrs Beeton the second, and she still wouldn’t take you on. She likes her female staff to be battered old warhorses like me, not clear-skinned young girls—especially when there’s a man around.’

Ginny was startled. ‘You mean Mr Hendrick?’

Kathy gave an exaggerated sigh as she settled herself into the passenger seat. ‘None other. He’s all man, believe me. Madam there couldn’t wait for him to sign the lease.’

‘I see,’ Ginny said slowly, as she started the engine.

‘Well, I hope you do, ducky. No use in looking for trouble, is there? And she marked him down as hers the moment she laid eyes on him.’

Kathy might be appallingly indiscreet, but she seemed friendly enough, and Ginny laughed.

‘I’m not setting up in competition against her, believe me.’

‘You couldn’t, dearie.’ Kathy’s tone was dry. ‘You’d be left at the start. If she’d have thought there was the slightest danger you’d be looking for another job.’

As they drove down the narrow lane leading to Monk’s Dower, it occurred to Ginny that this was the first time her brown mouse looks had ever actually stood her in good stead, but this was not a particular comfort to her. A small flicker of rebellion stirred inside her at being so easily dismissed, but she stilled it. Her attractions, or lack of them, were the last thing that should be on her mind at this point in time.

Monk’s Dower was large and rambling, built on three sides of a courtyard in a variety of styles reflecting the periods when additions had been made. Her heart sank a little as she followed Kathy from room to room, because it was neither labour-saving nor convenient. There were open fires in the principal rooms, and wide expanses of ancient polished floorboards. Most of the furniture seemed old-fashioned without being antique, but there was a mellow air about the place which not even the slightly dank smell of disuse could dispel.

The kitchen was slightly more hopeful. It had been modernised and furnished with attractive pine units, and there was a modern wood-burning kitchen range as a centrepiece. The roomy walk-in pantry contained a large deep-freeze, Ginny noticed, and she supposed she would be expected to supply this with the kind of food a bachelor would need—whatever that was. Convenience food, she surmised vaguely, and chops and steaks.

‘The place smells damp.’ Kathy sniffed the air. ‘It wants living in—fires fighting. I told you it was a barn, didn’t I?’

‘Yes,’ Ginny acknowledged. ‘But it has character—and it could be lovely, if someone cared about it.’

Kathy’s lips twisted derisively. ‘The someone being you, I take it? Well, let me give you some good advice, ducky. Don’t knock yourself out—and don’t break your heart either. I’ve worked for her ladyship for years, but I’ve seen others come and go. Just do what you’re asked and take your money, but don’t make any special effort, because you won’t be thanked for it.’

Ginny tried to smile in reply, but Kathy’s cynicism disturbed her. She wondered how many years she had worked for Mrs Lanyon. Certainly she seemed to know her employer only too well.

She drove home feeling rather depressed when she should have been on top of the world, but when she arrived back at the house she was thankful that she had taken the job, because a social worker was waiting for her, being entertained rather stiffly by Aunt Mary who had been brought up to believe that Heaven helped those who helped themselves, and who disapproved of the Welfare State on principle.

The interview which followed was a rigorous one, because the children’s officer clearly did not believe that Ginny was old enough or responsible enough to be head of any sort of family. She listened with frank scepticism as Ginny outlined her plans and gave details of the new job.

‘You surely don’t expect to maintain yourself and a growing boy on a wage like that!’ was her immediate reaction.

‘Certainly not,’ said Ginny, who hadn’t even got around to considering the nuts and bolts of the situation. She cast round wildly in her mind for inspiration. ‘I—I’m going to be left with a lot of time on my hands, so I thought I’d—start a typing agency,’ she finished on a sudden gulp of relief, which she hoped had not been noticed by her inquisitor.

‘I see.’ The social worker looked frankly nonplussed, and after a few more rather desultory questions, took her leave, announcing brightly that she would ‘be in touch.’

‘I hope,’ Aunt Mary said reprovingly once they were alone, ‘that you haven’t deceived that unfortunate woman, Ginevra. Have you actually made enquiries into the need for such an agency?’

‘Well—no,’ Ginny said rather guiltily. ‘But I’m sure there are lots of people around who haven’t enough work for a full-time secretary. I shall advertise.’

‘Hm.’ Aunt Mary pursed her lips. ‘I hope your advertising is successful, my dear child. Our visitor’s remarks had a certain justice, you know. Tim is growing fast, and approaching the most expensive period in his life. It seems to me this post you’ve obtained is going to entail a great deal of work for very little return. Are you sure you’ve made the right decision?’

‘Part of the return is a roof over our heads,’ Ginny said gently. ‘That’s the most important thing.’

‘A roof, nevertheless, that’s dependent on the whim of others.’ Aunt Mary shook her head. ‘Not a comfortable situation, but we’ll have to hope for the best.’ She hesitated for a moment, then reached down for the capacious black leather handbag which accompanied her everywhere. ‘I’ve taken the precaution of writing away to a few places. You’re a good child, Ginevra, but I wouldn’t wish to inflict a greater burden on you than you’re able to bear.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ginny glanced at the sheaf of papers her great-aunt was extending to her. ‘The Sunny-view Home for the Aged,’ she read aloud in tones of disgust. ‘Oh, Aunt Mary, how could you! Your home is with us—you know it is.’

‘My home was with your dear parents,’ Aunt Mary corrected her, her back a little straighter than usual. ‘You’re very young, Ginevra, and you have every right to a life of your own.’ She paused. ‘I’m not by nature an eavesdropper, but I happened to come downstairs one night while your sister was here. I couldn’t avoid overhearing what she was saying, she produces her voice extraordinarily well—part of her stage training, I suppose.’

‘Aunt Mary!’ Ginny was aghast. ‘You—you really mustn’t take any notice of Barbara. We see things from completely different angles and …’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Aunt Mary said rather acidly. ‘If you shared her viewpoint, this conversation would probably not be taking place. But she was not entirely in the wrong, although I found her mode of expression rather hurtful. Are you quite sure that Tim is not more than sufficient responsibility for you?’

‘Quite sure.’ Ginny’s voice was firm. ‘Aunt Mary, you can’t let me down. I—I need you. No matter what I told that woman, I’m going to have my work cut out looking after that house. If you could help with the cooking and—just be there when Tim gets in from school,’ she ended on a note of appeal.

‘I shall be pleased to do whatever I can.’ Aunt Mary allowed her firm lips to relax into a smile. ‘And I’m not entirely decrepit, Ginevra. I daresay I could make beds and help with the dusting, as well.’

Impulsively Ginny put her arms round her great-aunt and hugged her. Aunt Mary did not, as a rule, welcome random demonstrations of affection, but this time when Ginny released her, she looked pink and pleased, even though she said robustly, ‘Go along with you, child.’

In the intervening two months, Ginny thought, things had worked out better than she had ever dared hope. The move to Monk’s Dower had gone quite smoothly, and Tim was now settled at his new school, with only the occasional nightmare reminding him of the tragic disruption his young life had suffered.

The job itself was proving rather easier than she had expected. Mrs Petty who came in from the village on an ancient bicycle twice a week turned out to be slipshod but willing, but fortunately, Ginny thought with satisfaction, her new employer was not the type of man to go peering in corners after a few stray cobwebs.

The colour deepened in her face as she thought about Toby Hendrick. He was altogether different from what she had expected. For one thing, he was much younger, and far better looking, with fair hair and smiling blue eyes.

He had arrived at Monk’s Dower without giving her any preliminary notice, and the first inkling she had had that the main part of the house was occupied was the gleaming monster of a car parked in the courtyard. She had gone across immediately, her heart sinking. This was her first test as a housekeeper and she’d failed it pretty comprehensively, she thought savagely as she let herself in. His bed wasn’t made up, for one thing, and there was no bread or milk in his part of the house, although they had plenty and could share with him.

She was quaking when she arrived in the kitchen and found him on his knees, trying, with a lot of muffled cursing, to get the range going. Ginny had taken over from him, stammering her apologies, but he’d waved them laughingly aside.

‘I didn’t know I was coming down myself until a few hours ago, I’m a creature of impulse, I’m afraid, Miss—–?’

‘Clayton,’ she supplied. ‘Ginny Clayton.’

‘Toby Hendrick.’ He shook hands solemnly with her. ‘As we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, shall we cut the formality? I’d much rather call you Ginny.’

She said, ‘That’s fine with me,’ letting a curtain of hair fall forward across her face to mask her embarrassment.

No, Toby had certainly not been what she expected. Kathy’s descriptive phrase ‘all man’ had prepared her for someone rather different, although she was at a loss to know what. She was glad that the shadowy and rather formidable figure she had built up in her mind was only a figment of her imagination. He certainly wouldn’t have been as easy to work for as Toby, she thought, smiling to herself.

And Kathy had been wrong about Vivien Lanyon’s interest in him too. She had rung up a couple of times while Ginny was working in the house to make sure that everything was all right, but the exchanges between Toby and herself had been brief and formal in the extreme. Nor had she been over to Monk’s Dower, and Ginny told herself that if Mrs Lanyon had been really interested in Toby, she would never have been away from the door. Perhaps she had decided it was rather degrading to chase a young man who was patently her junior, Ginny thought.

After his first visit, which had lasted only two days, Toby had vanished for three weeks. Then one evening he had telephoned to warn that he would be coming for the weekend, and this time Ginny was fully prepared.

His room was ready, with fresh towels laid out in the adjoining bathroom, and a bowl of early daffodils set on the dressing table. The drawing room fire was lit, and the kitchen range was glowing, while the appetising aroma from a beef stew cooking in its oven crept through the house.

Cooking for Toby did not come within Ginny’s official list of duties, but she told herself rather defensively that as she was preparing the stew anyway, it took little effort to put some of the ingredients into a separate casserole. Aunt Mary had raised a caustic eyebrow as she had haltingly tried to explain this, but made no comment.

And Toby’s subsequent appreciative remarks had made the extra effort more than worthwhile, she decided smugly before she fell asleep that night. And perhaps it wasn’t altogether imagination that the warm gleam in his eyes when he looked at her hadn’t simply been prompted by gratitude for the food, delectable though it had been.

Since then he had been down to Monk’s Dower every weekend, and Ginny found she was looking forward to each visit with a strange intensity. She knew what was happening to her, of course. She had been vaguely attracted to men before, but it had never meant anything and such relationships as she had enjoyed had been casual in the extreme. But the feeling growing inside her was new to her, and she didn’t want to fight it, although common sense told her that she should. After all, she had not the slightest reason to think that Toby felt the same. He looked at her as if the sight of her pleased him, but reason told her that he might well look at any passably attractive girl that way. And he was practically a stranger to her. He worked in London, that much she knew, but she had no idea what he did for a living. She assumed his frequent absences were caused by his trips abroad, but he never mentioned them or any aspect of his life away from Monk’s Dower at all.

She sometimes wondered if he had a girl-friend. It was hardly possible that anyone as attractive and charming could still be unattached. She visualised the bleak prospect of his wanting to bring girl-friends down to Monk’s Dower with him, as he was perfectly entitled to do, she told herself. How would she feel about that?

There were all kinds of unanswered questions about Toby, she decided. One of the downstairs rooms had been fitted up as a study with a workmanlike desk and a large electric typewriter, but he made no attempt to use it, as far as she knew. Perhaps he went in there and worked during the night—but at what? she wondered.

Surely there was some easy way to find out, without sounding as if she was trying to pry, or get too close. Perhaps this very weekend—if he came down, because the expected message hadn’t arrived yet—she would get the opportunity to find out a little more about him, Ginny thought. Maybe he had telephoned while she was out shopping, and was on his way at that moment.

The weekends had begun to assume a kind of pattern. Toby would arrive some time during Friday evening and eat the food that she had left in the oven for him. Then he would come over to their part of the house and join them in their sitting room. Sometimes they would watch television, but at others they would play Scrabble, and Toby had taught Tim how to play gin rummy. He teased Aunt Mary outrageously, and scratched Muffin’s stomach with his foot, and behaved pretty much, Ginny thought, as if they were his family, and he had come home.

He was clearly a very social person, and enjoyed the company of others, and Ginny found it strange that he should choose to rent a house in a quiet remote corner like Monk’s Dower. She could only surmise that perhaps it presented the greatest possible contrast to his workday life.

On Saturdays he usually got up late and cooked himself an enormous breakfast combined with lunch. Then he went out during the afternoon. Once or twice he had taken Muffin with him for a walk. On another occasion, he had driven Tim into Market Harford and taken him to the cinema.

On the previous weekend, he had taken Ginny herself out for a drive. She’d enjoyed sitting beside him in the big, powerful car. He drove well, she thought judiciously, trying to be objective, but took too many unnecessary risks, relying on his extra speed to get him out of trouble. He hadn’t spoken much, and Ginny didn’t attempt to break the silence, quite satisfied that he had chosen her company. She hoped secretly that when the afternoon ended he would say, ‘Don’t let’s go home yet. I know a place where we can have dinner and dance afterwards.’

But he didn’t, of course. He just drove her home in the ordinary way. It was dusk as he turned the car through the gates into the courtyard, and the lights were on welcomingly in Ginny’s part of the house. She said, trying to sound casual, ‘Would you like to come in and have some supper with us?’

He turned and looked at her in the gathering darkness, and for a moment she had the oddest feeling that he hadn’t been with her at all. Then he smiled and said easily, ‘Not tonight, Ginny love. I have to get back to town. But I’ll be down again soon, so hold my invitation over, will you?’

He helped her out of the car, and she was absurdly conscious of his hand under her arm. She stood very still. Their bodies were almost touching, and if she lifted her face and he lowered his head, their mouths would touch, and she wanted it to happen more than she had ever wanted anything in the world. Something inside her was crying, ‘Toby, kiss me,’ so wildly that she was momentarily afraid she might have spoken aloud.

Then the door opened and the light streamed into the courtyard, and the magic moment had gone, and Aunt Mary was calling, ‘Ginevra, are you there, child?’

She thought she heard Toby mutter something under his breath and hoped very much that it might be a curse of frustration.

He said lightly, ‘In with you, love. I’ll see you.’

During the past week, she’d lived on that—the unspoken promise behind, ‘I’ll see you.’ And the fact that he had called her ‘love’ twice. Surely that must mean something, she thought.

All week she’d hoped that Toby might phone her—not just to say that he was coming for the weekend, and would she have the house ready—but simply to speak to her privately, even if it was just to ask how she was. But the phone had remained inimically silent.

Ginny pressed down on the accelerator, anxious to get home in case there was a message now. As she turned into the lane which led to Monk’s Dower, and then on to the Manor, she saw Vivien Lanyon coming towards her on the back of a tall mare. Ginny slowed at once, and pulled in well to her own side of the road. To her surprise, Mrs Lanyon reined in her horse and dismounted, looping the reins over her arm. Ginny felt a quick flutter of alarm. Over the past weeks she had seen very little of her employer, and she had been quite content for it to be so. She leaned over to the passenger side and wound down her window with some reluctance. Perhaps Vivien Lanyon had decided that Toby was to be her exclusive property after all, and had heard about last weekend’s outing. But her employer’s expression, though cool, was not particularly unfriendly.

She said, ‘So there you are. I’ve been trying to ring you at the house.’

‘I’ve been shopping for the weekend’s food in Market Harford,’ Ginny felt obliged to explain. ‘Tim’s at school and Aunt Mary usually has a rest in the afternoons. She doesn’t hear the phone from her room when the door’s shut.’

Vivien Lanyon’s brows rose. She said languidly, ‘Spare me the domestic details. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve heard from Mr Hendrick, and he’ll be down this weekend. Make sure everything is ready, will you.’

She gave Ginny a slight nod, then moved away from the car before re-mounting.

Ginny sat and watched her departure in the rearview mirror. She felt as if she had been abruptly showered with very cold water. So Toby was in contact with Vivien Lanyon after all. Perhaps he liked sophisticated older women. Whatever his tastes, she thought, re-starting the engine with a hand that shook slightly, country mice would come a very poor second each time.

On the other hand, she reasoned as she drove, perhaps he too had been telephoning Monk’s Dower and been unable to make Aunt Mary hear, and had phoned Mrs Lanyon as a last resort. Her spirits rose perceptibly at the thought. And all that really mattered anyway was that he was coming down for the weekend and perhaps this time they would really be alone and no one would interrupt or switch on a light or call out, and he would really kiss her.

Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright as she hurriedly unloaded her groceries. The kitchen was full of a savoury smell. Aunt Mary had been busy making one of her special chicken casseroles. Ginny decided that she would wait until Toby arrived and take his helping across to him in a covered dish. Then the choice was his. He could either dine in solitary splendour, or come across to their side of the house and join them for the meal.

She would be very lighthearted and casual about it, she told herself. She would say laughingly, ‘I’ve brought your supper, but that invitation still stands,’ and see how he reacted.

There was a mirror beside the kitchen dresser and she caught a sudden glimpse of herself, and paused, dissatisfied. Why did she have to look so—so damned ordinary? she asked herself despairingly.

Basically, she could change very little in the time available, but she could at least have a bath and wash her hair. She had some special cologne she had been saving. She would use that too.

‘He won’t know what’s hit him,’ she told the mirrored reflection defiantly.

Her plans were delayed by the discovery that Muffin had been sick in the sitting room. She had just finished with the cloth and disinfectant when Tim arrived in from school, complaining of imminent starvation, and she sat him down at the kitchen table with a thick crust cut from the end of a new loaf indecently loaded with butter, and a glass of milk.

Then Aunt Mary appeared, complaining that she had lost her reading glasses, and insisting that everyone stop what they were doing immediately and help her search. The glasses, safe in their case, eventually came to light down the side of Aunt Mary’s favourite chair in the sitting room, where she swore she had looked already, and Ginny gave an unobtrusive look at her watch and smothered a faint groan. Toby could be arriving at any moment. Her bath would have to be the quickest dip on record if she was to complete her chores before his arrival.

Not that it really mattered, she reassured herself as she ran the water into the bath and tossed in a handful of the bath salts Tim had given her for Christmas. He would be sharing their supper, so it wouldn’t matter if the range wasn’t lit. And she would have plenty of time to make up his bed while he was playing cards with Tim.

She towelled her hair briskly, then stroked it dry, using a brush and a hand-dryer. It was still slightly damp as she stood looking through her meagre wardrobe for something to wear. Not a dress, she decided with regret. That would be too obvious altogether, but her best jeans and the white ribbed sweater which made the most of her slender curves. She shook her head and watched her hair swing silkily around her face and was satisfied.

All the time she had been listening for the sound of the engine of his car, but not closely enough, it seemed, for when she went downstairs into the kitchen she saw the car drawn up outside the main door.

She bit her lip vexedly, snatching a handful of cutlery from the drawer and strewing table mats on to the kitchen table at random. She fetched a dish and spooned a helping of the chicken, vegetables and gravy into it, adding potatoes from the pan on top of the stove. It smelled wonderful.

‘Almost as good as I do,’ Ginny said half-aloud, and laughed. She took a last look at herself in the mirror—eyes wide and bright with expectancy, the lines of her mouth softened and vulnerable. She looked more like the child she had been than the woman she wanted to become, but there was nothing she could do about that, and she let herself out of the kitchen door and walked across the courtyard carrying her casserole dish.

It was a cool evening for spring, and the breeze made her shiver a little—or was that only excitement?

She didn’t call out as she usually did when she entered the hall at Monk’s Dower, but stood listening for a moment. From the kitchen she could hear an exasperated rattling sound, and guessed he was trying to light the range. It was quite simple really—a question of knack, but Toby hadn’t mastered it. And he’d be wondering why there was no supper either.

She walked quickly and quietly to the kitchen door, and flung it open, She said gaily, ‘Surprise—did you …’ and stopped, her jaw dropping with shock and fright.

Because the man kneeling in front of the range—the man rising to face her—wasn’t Toby at all. He was taller and very dark—dark as a gipsy with a thin arrogant face. He needed a shave and a haircut, and he was wearing faded denims and a dark roll-collared sweater which had seen better days, and she registered all these things as if she was seeing them in slow motion, and it was vital that she master every detail.

Ginny was shaking suddenly. The car was here. Toby should be here. Then who was this disreputable-looking stranger?

She said on a high breathless note, ‘Who are you? And what have you done with Toby?’

She saw him react to that, dark brows drawing together above the thin high-bridged nose, then he moved towards her—one step, that was all—and she was terrified, seeing Toby lying somewhere covered in blood while this man robbed the house.

She heard herself scream something, then she threw the casserole dish straight at his head across the kitchen.