‘Very funny.’ Melinda too smiled, but even as she smiled she sighed too. ‘The point is if there are going to be problems we’d better see what we can do to help.’
‘Any suggestions?’
‘When Aunt Rosabel comes home we had better do our Florence Nightingale bit. I mean, if you’re right, she’s the one with the power, isn’t she? And the reason why we’re all here in the first place, so that Dads could inherit Hatcombe? Because of us all not being boys.’
As arranged, once home for Christmas from the hospital, something which for some reason seemed to cheer their parents, Aunt Rosabel became the focus of the Merriott sisters’ attention.
Not wanting to stay in bed any longer than was strictly necessary, the old lady was soon down and sitting in front of the drawing room fire in quite the old way, albeit much quieter and more given to falling asleep, and they were all able to agree that Aunt Rosabel seemed happier and more at ease than for some time.
A new routine became hers, part of which was being read to by Melinda in the afternoons, and it was during one of these sessions that she interrupted Melinda by saying suddenly, ‘You look very much like my mother when you sit beside me reading by the fire, you know? Very much like my mother. Some sort of family likeness there.’
Melinda had not the vaguest idea what Aunt Rosabel’s mother had looked like, but since the old lady was smiling in a warm sort of way she took it as a compliment, which was how she felt it was intended.
‘Very pretty. Beautiful, in fact, small face, large eyes, very much the same type as Mamma.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You must remember to take care of your beauty. Never let anyone take it from you. Don’t let them take those inner bits that make you beautiful away, Melinda. They count more than you can imagine. And of course, when you get to my age, they are invaluable. My mother married well. She lived in a house just like Hatcombe. So should you. Here would suit you. Now, where were we?’ She looked pointedly at the book. ‘I like to re-read A Christmas Carol every year at this time. It is a story of such genius. It never palls, does it? Never.’
Melinda picked up her book. ‘Here’s the bookmark, Aunt Rosabel, and if you remember we were just at the bit when Scrooge meets the Ghost of Christmas Future. I always like this bit.
‘They left the high road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach houses and sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candlelight …’
Melinda paused when she saw Aunt Rosabel’s eyes closing, what with the warmth of the fire and the newly working central heating.
‘No, no, do go on, please. You have such a pleasant voice, so unusual nowadays, if I may say so.’
‘They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self …’
‘Poor man,’ Aunt Rosabel murmured. ‘Poor man, such a wretched childhood. After such a childhood what could one expect? Only a poor wretched creature with miserly habits. Only to be expected in the circumstances, if one thinks about it, poor Scrooge.’
Melinda glanced at the old lady, who was frowning deeply as she spoke, and wondered whom she was thinking of. Perhaps Uncle Harry, or someone else that she had loved?
‘Carry on, my dear, carry on.’
‘Not a latent echo in the house,’ she read. ‘Not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed waterspout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.’
‘Poor Scrooge,’ sighed Aunt Rosabel, and for a second it seemed to Melinda that he was not the only person with tears in his eyes.
Finally it was Jack who came to the Merriotts’ rescue by playing Santa Claus. Before Christmas Day itself, before the last box on the advent calendar in the kitchen at Hatcombe could be opened and revealed to be a rocking horse with streamers, he had thrown a small family party at the Mill House for what he affectionately termed the boppers, and then again afterwards, for New Year’s Eve, he arranged another event, a much bigger one, for all the young of the neighbourhood to come and enjoy themselves, thus not only giving them a good time, but freeing their parents to enjoy themselves in their own way.
Naturally all the girls were asked and, equally naturally, they all went, Alexander driving them while Hope stayed behind to look after Aunt Rosabel and Letty. Waving her mother goodbye Melinda felt a pang of guilt, but the Mill House was so packed with young people of her own age, all equally determined on enjoying themselves, that it was difficult to stay regretful for long. And besides, there was Josh.
As Melinda had previously noted, Jack’s son was tall, dark, handsome, but strangely monosyllabic, always absenting himself from the room on the least pretext, and walking off towards the stables or down to the river which ran past the Mill House as if he had other, better things to do than to talk to people like herself. This had intrigued Melinda and also earned her admiration. Just as she instinctively liked animals because they did not waste time on anything that did not really matter, and showed their emotions with sincerity, so she felt for human beings who were the same. She liked people who did not want to socialize, who were loners, who, like Joshua Tomm, seemed to gallop off in the opposite direction.
Knowing all this already Melinda danced with everyone except their host’s son, and as Jack and his group played for them all in the old barn that had been turned over to partying, naturally Melinda pretended that she had not really noticed Josh, any more than she had noticed anyone else, feigning to herself as to everyone else that she was just there to have fun, which was true, in a way, and untrue in another way, because she had every intention of making Josh notice her, if only because she was wearing her best velvet strapless bustier and had spent hours on her hair.
And when they ended up dancing opposite each other Melinda could not wait to show off just how good her dancing, under Rose’s tuition, had become, just as Josh, it seemed, once on the dance floor showed none of the inhibitions that he obviously felt in company, when he left what Rose called rabbiting to his younger brother and sister.
Alexander was meant to be going to stay and enjoy the party with Melinda and the other two, while Hope, having put Letty to bed and seen to Aunt Rosabel’s needs, was only too happy to be left alone, to sew, to listen to music on her old Roberts radio in the kitchen, to try to think about what had to be done, and to welcome in the New Year in her own way.
And so when she heard the all too familiar sound of Alexander’s expensive car returning long before midnight – a car which she had every intention of making him put up for sale – Hope’s heart sank.
Thinking the party must have been either a terrible flop or cancelled and that Alexander had returned early with the girls, Hope went at once to the front door and waited, suddenly feeling tired beyond reason at the thought that she could not even snatch a few hours of quiet after all the work and tensions of a Christmas where not only the turkey and the other food, but every present too, had been bought in the certain knowledge that all too soon she would
have to pay the bank back with goodness only knew what added interest, and that she would probably have to sell her car, certainly whatever jewellery she still had, to repay everything she had spent to keep the girls from knowing just what was about to happen to them.
But when the front door eventually opened it was only Alexander, and he was quite on his own, and smiling, which made Hope frown.
‘Is everything all right?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, darling. I just came home to be with you.’ He smiled even more broadly. ‘Came back to enjoy New Year with you, in our old way, the way we always used to in West Dean – remember?’
Hope stared at him, trying to remember and failing, and at the same time hearing Jack’s voice in her head saying, as he had done when they were last together, You know you’ve got to end it and come to me, don’t you?
As Hope tried desperately to recall how she and her husband had used to spend New Year when the girls were out partying she realized just how right Jack was. She had to end it. Now.
‘Want to come to the stables and see our first rescue – c-case?’
Melinda was standing outside the now very hot barn sipping a cool glass of wine and lemonade. She stopped staring up at the clear, beautiful night sky and put down her glass without any hesitation.
‘I’ll get my coat,’ she said, because they both knew what our first case meant without having to add any more, just as they both could appreciate the trust that such a very private sort of invitation implied.
Melinda grabbed at the new fleece-lined coat that her mother had given her for Christmas – which, since it must have cost a fortune, had gone a great way towards relieving any fears that Mellie might have been harbouring for the family’s future – and hurried off towards the stables with Josh, both giving each other those particularly secretive smiles that people who share the same passion for horses will give, knowing just from the immediacy of each other’s reactions that they would far prefer to be in the stables than in the barn, however enjoyable the music and the dancing.
Josh turned on the stable lights and led the way to the new horse’s box. He turned and smiled at Melinda.
‘Come – on – Mellie.’
That was all he said, but as he went to say something else and stopped Melinda realized just what it was about Josh that she had never realized before, and no-one had ever mentioned, probably because they must have imagined that she already knew. Why he had always, on previous occasions, and as soon as he could, just bolted out of doors and headed off somewhere on his own whenever they were all together. He had what Aunt Rosabel always tactfully called a ‘hesitation’. Apparently the old gardener at Hatcombe had used to have just such a speech impediment, Aunt Rosabel had told Melinda once, and later, when the subject came up, long before they met Josh, she had instructed the girls never, ever, to try to fill in a pause, or butt in ahead of someone with such a problem.
‘Hesitations occur far more frequently in boys than in girls, and need the most exquisite sensitivity at all times. They are not a laughing matter, although the Lord only knows there are all too many people quite capable of holding their sides laughing when they meet someone with such a handicap.’
Melinda had not really paid much attention to the old lady at the time, but now, as her heart went out to this tall, handsome boy with his long, faded green Barbour covering his purple silk party shirt who was trying so desperately to cover over his inability to speak fluently, Aunt Rosabel’s words came back to her great-great-niece as if she had just uttered them, and Melinda waited calmly for his next words.
‘She’s called …’ a long wait, and then finally but without a problem, ‘Grey Goose.’
Melinda stared in at the mare in the box as Josh removed her rugs and stood back against the wall, waiting for her verdict.
‘I heard she was a rescue job, your father told me before Christmas that he’d rescued a racehorse, but I didn’t realize it was a mare. That makes it much better because she can have foals even if she flops at whatever you want to do with her.’
‘Eventing.’
‘She’s in need of a bit more on top, isn’t she?’ Melinda eyed the grey mare appreciatively, adding, ‘Yup, a bit more on her top line’ – she patted the mare’s quarters – ‘and next stop Badminton!’
They both laughed. It was a joke. Imagine winning Badminton with a rescued racehorse.
But everyone can dream, and as Melinda started to help Josh replace the mare’s rugs, she found to her surprise that she was no exception, and that by the time the last buckle was done up she could hear the cheers in her ears as she completed a clear run at the end of the three days. And as they both turned to check the bolts on the mare’s stable door, she was quite sure that she could also feel Josh swinging her round, as, her clear round completed, she flung herself from the Grey Goose and into his arms.
Alexander had bought Hope and himself a secret picnic from a nearby delicatessen and was laying it out on the kitchen table in front of the old Aga.
‘Just like old times,’ he said gaily as he removed a ready-made game pie, a bottle of wine, some French bread and a wedge of Brie from their separate carrier bags. ‘Do you remember our feasts once the children went back to school after Christmas? They were always such fun. I was remembering them only the other day, the good old days, at West Dean. How lucky we were to have that time.’
Hope stared at the picnic for two laid out on the table. It was a nightmare. Alexander, having behaved like a funeral director all over Christmas, was not only back in her life, but for some reason suddenly once more all sweetness and light and wooing her with gaiety and fun, while all the time she knew, absolutely, that she had to tell him that they must separate, immediately. That whatever happened he could not be part of her life again, or she part of his, that it was over, that she and the girls would make out somehow, that Jack had promised to lend her a cottage in the Mill House grounds. Part of her could not wait until the removal van actually did arrive for their things, but this time one paid for by her, because Jack, knowing how proud she was, had found her a job working as a personal assistant to a composer friend of his who lived nearby and was badly in need of what Jack called ‘organization’.
It seemed that everything might be coming right for Hope at last, and it had all happened over these last days. In between the wrapping and the unwrapping, in between everything else, Jack had, since that awful night when he had found her with the bailiffs, stepped in and given Hope a torch to light her way out of the dark tunnel that she was in. The reason why she had so resented seeing Alexander coming back early from the party was because it meant that she could not start to make lists, to organize everything so that she could leave him as painlessly as possible.
At that moment, Hope, to her horror, found that she cared about the father of her daughters about as much as she might care about a stranger she had just read about in a newspaper, or some friend had told her of, someone of whom they would both say, Thank heavens she had the courage to leave him.
‘You’re looking really beautiful, do you know that, Hope? Really lovely. I’ve been watching you all over Christmas and thinking how pretty you’ve become while I’ve been away so much. Country life seems to suit you. I’m amazed the difference it has made to you.’
Hope stared at the plate of food that Alexander was putting in front of her, knowing already that she could not possibly eat half of it, but also knowing, without any doubt at all, that somehow or another he had found out about her and Jack.
Alexander knew.
And she knew he knew, just as she had known that Alexander had been having affairs when he had not wanted to answer the telephone in front of her. In case. That was the trouble with knowing each other so well, despite all that had happened, or not happened, between them. Knowing each other as well as they did, it was impossible, finally, not to know.
Chilled at the very idea of how much else he might know, Hope raised her eyes to her husband’s, and finding him smiling
down at her she saw that she was right. He did indeed know everything, and this little feast that he had laid on for her was in some way a trap, and yet she still raised the glass of wine he had just poured for her to his, and even as her heart sank they clinked glasses, and smiled.
‘Would you like to ride the Grey Goose, bring her on, eventing, with me, Melinda?’
If Josh had proposed marriage to her it could not have been a more exciting moment for Melinda. Nevertheless, out of long ingrained habit, she hesitated, knowing that she should really ask her mother before she accepted such an offer. She always did ask Hope about everything first. It was something she had always done, just as her sisters always seemed to ask Melinda herself for advice.
But there again, her mother was not present, and if she waited and asked her in front of her father, now that he was home, he might step in and say no for all sorts of reasons, and she would lose what she knew would be the chance of a lifetime.
‘Have you asked your father about this, Josh?’
Some strain of good sense, probably because she was the eldest of four, always reasserted itself, so that even when Melinda would have liked to say ‘yes’ she found she always played for time.
‘Have I asked my father?’ Josh turned and looked down at her. They were both poised on the threshold of the barn where Jack was still playing his heart out for the crowd of dancing, laughing teenagers. ‘It was his idea! From the moment we bought this house he’s always thought we should help to rescue horses who had been flung aside, you know, rejected by the uncaring world of racing, and as soon as he heard about Goosey, that was it. But the first person he thought of to bring Goosey on was you. He thinks girls are brilliant with sensitive horses, and people!’
Melinda looked across at Jack and then back at Josh. She could not imagine having a father who actually thought of doing things like rescuing horses. All her father ever seemed to think about was money. She smiled up at Josh. ‘I tell you what, though.’
Love Song Page 21
