Fires in the Forest

by Oliver, Marina

  'It's not far to Brockenhurst. Robert is meeting us there.'

  They were passing through an area of heathland to the right and a plantation of young saplings on the left. In the distance were some small gnarled oaks in scattered clumps. A group of ponies grazed nearby, and several skittish foals raised startled heads to stare with their huge black eyes at the train hurtling past.

  'Oh, they're lovely!' Nicola exclaimed.

  'Robert says there are too many of them and they are half starved, but visitors love to see them,' Sarah replied. 'Years ago they used to wander right into the towns, but all the main roads have been fenced now, there's so much more traffic.'

  She began to collect together the magazines she had bought and stuff them into her duffle bag, and soon the train drew up at what was little more than a country halt. Several people got out, and a couple of them greeted Sarah casually and looked with interest at Nicola, but did not wait to be introduced.

  'Come on, Robert will be in the car park,' Sarah said, and led the way. Nicola followed as she weaved her way between the cars, and finally stopped beside an expensive looking, sleek low white convertible Mercedes. A man's dark head could be seen as he sat reading a newspaper.

  'Hi there, Robert!' Sarah called, and the man opened the door and slid lithely out of the car, turning towards them. He was casually dressed in fawn corduroy slacks and a yellow open-necked shirt, but Nicola scarcely noticed this, for her heart began to beat wildly, racing uncomfortably and making her suddenly breathless.

  The man surveying her, his expression a mixture of astonishment, suspicion and anger, was the same arrogant man with whom she had had that unnerving, unforgettable encounter.

  *

  Chapter 2

  Robert Wilmington's eyebrows were raised fractionally as he surveyed Nicola. There was a gleam in his eye she could not interpret. How supercilious he looks, she thought angrily, as he held out his hand towards her.

  'Miss Browne, I take it? You are not in the least what I was expecting. I am Robert Wilmington,' he added sardonically.

  Nicola's thoughts were chaotic. He obviously did not intend to refer to their earlier meeting, but that might be because Sarah was there. Confused, she murmured some incoherent words and allowed him to shake her hand, coolly and briefly.

  'Is this all your luggage?' he asked in surprise, looking at her somewhat shabby old leather case, one which her father had used for his frequent business journeys.

  'I've sent the rest on,' she answered defensively, angry at herself for appearing to apologise.

  He opened the luggage compartment and swung in the case, and then looked at Sarah's duffle bag.

  'You'd best put that object in too,' he remarked. 'I'd hate to stampede the cattle if they saw it!'

  Sarah giggled. 'It would take a bomb to stampede that lazy lot! How's Mother?'

  'Still feeling rather exhausted after her trip to London. She always overtires herself doing too much. She's planning to take you there to kit you out for Switzerland.'

  'But I don't want to go!' Sarah wailed as she scrambled into the back seat of the car.

  Robert looked at her as he opened the passenger door for Nicola. He was frowning and a muscle was twitching at the side of his neck. Nicola had to squeeze past him, for he had turned while the door was only half open, and she smelt again that subtle aftershave with its suggestion of heather and spice and tar as she slipped into the seat and, her heart still hammering uncomfortably, struggled to fasten the unfamiliar safety belt.

  'We have argued about that until I am tired of the very thought of it! You are going! I advise you not to plague Mother about it either, for she's as determined as I am. If you mention it again I'll send you there at once!'

  Sarah opened her mouth, but apparently thought better of arguing and slid down to almost lie across the back seat. Robert gave her a look of disgust and walked round to get into the driving seat.

  He swung the car out of the car park, turning right. Nicola caught a blurred impression of an automatic barrier, lines of waiting cars and a straggling cluster of buildings behind. She was only vaguely aware of the narrow winding road up which they drove to emerge onto a bare heath where ponies and cattle grazed, for her tumultuous thoughts were all of the angry scene in the shop, and the incredible realisation that the arrogant man whose behaviour there still caused her to shake with fury was the son of her new employer.

  'The quickest way is through Sandy Down,' Robert said, breaking the long uncomfortable silence as he indicated an almost hidden road on the left, 'but I'll take you through Lymington. It's very popular in the summer, and all the year with the boating crowd.'

  She was only half aware of the rest of the journey, passing through the prosperous looking outskirts of Lymington, and trying to respond suitably when Robert, casting her an occasional amused glance, pointed out the old cottages and stately wisteria-clad Georgian houses which still remained amongst the shops of the High Street. Afterwards she could just recollect the churchyard filled with huge lime and chestnut trees at the top of the hill and the busy market in the wide main street through which Robert had guided the car. Most of her thoughts were taken up with recalling their previous meeting when she had seen him from the top of that unfortunate stepladder.

  *

  Hastily she had begun to scramble down, slipped as the steps rocked, and felt herself falling. For a brief moment she felt strong arms tightly about her as the man clasped her against his chest, then he almost pushed her away. Her pulses raced at the unexpectedly close contact and colour suffused her cheeks. She glanced up apologetically as she stepped away from him and encountered a blaze of fury in his eyes. Involuntarily she took another pace backwards.

  'I'm sorry, I slipped,' Nicola said breathlessly.

  'Indeed?' he asked scornfully. 'What a conveniently unstable pair of steps!'

  Nicola's temper rose. 'Are you implying I did it deliberately? How dare you?'

  'Don't be childish. I want to speak to the proprietor.'

  'Mrs Cooke is out. Can I help you?'

  'No, but you might be able to explain. Did you write this impertinence?'

  He thrust towards her the gilt-edged card with its romantic message.

  Nicola swallowed. They had muddled up the cards after all. It had been roses for Rosen. Nervously she suppressed a giggle.

  'Yes, I did, but – '

  'So you find it amusing, do you, inventing silly compromising messages for your customers? Does it give you a cheap thrill to imagine poor women reading rubbish like this? As cheap a thrill as falling off a ladder into the arms of a complete stranger?'

  Nicola's face flamed. 'Of all the abominable things to say! It was an accident, they both were.'

  'Accidents are convenient alibis when things go wrong,' he sneered.

  'But it's true! Why can't you listen for a minute? There was another customer and Sharon got it mixed up, she – '

  'So now you are trying to shift the blame onto someone else, although you admit that you wrote the card.'

  'I wrote the card but I did not serve you, and I did not muddle the order,' Nicola said coldly, trying to be as dignified as she could. He looked unimpressed.

  'We'll sort that out with your employer.'

  'Mrs Cooke will be in this afternoon,' Nicola said shortly, turning away to hide her fury.

  'Please tell her Mr Wilmington will call. She will know me. You could also inform her that an old family friend has been grossly, deeply insulted. More pranks like this by her idiotic assistants and she can expect to lose all her customers. I shall recommend that she dismisses you both before that happens,' he added blightingly.

  'She has more sense than to sack someone for a silly mistake which can't have done any harm except wound your pride!' she stormed at him, too angry to care what she said. Her glance fell on the card still clutched in her hand. 'Are you afraid of being accused of kissing anyone? Is that what has annoyed you?'

  At the look on his face she step
ped back again, but collided with the shelves. As he advanced on her she saw that she was trapped, unable to evade him.

  'You need teaching a lesson!' he said curtly, and before she could move he seized her shoulders and jerked her roughly towards him.

  Nicola, astonished and indignant, braced herself for the shaking which she thought he meant to give her, and opened her mouth to protest. The expected shaking did not, however, come.

  He stood there instead, his strong lean hands gripping her so firmly that she was unable to move, and a look in his eyes that terrified her in a strange manner. Her protest died on her lips and her limbs seemed to turn to jelly. Without that punishing grip on her shoulders she would have sunk to the floor.

  His face was so close to hers that she could see the tiny flecks of green in his eyes. A subtle heathery tang of an expensive aftershave wafted towards her, and then, as suddenly as he had touched her he moved away, turning and abruptly leaving the shop. Nicola had almost fallen onto the nearest chair and it had been several minutes before she had been able to resume her work. To her immense relief he had not returned to the shop.

  *

  Now all had changed. He had not referred to that episode when he had greeted her but surely when he had overcome his own astonishment he would say something. She shivered and realised they were crossing a long bridge spanning a river.

  To the left the river was narrow, but the estuary was wide, crossed by a railway bridge leading to the car ferry, filled with hundreds of boats, small dinghies, large expensive cruisers, and a massive ferry from which they could see cars unloading.

  'That's the boat to the Island,' he remarked. 'We can get to The Lodge past the terminal but it's more interesting along the Beaulieu road.'

  They began to climb up a narrow twisting road and rattled over a cattle grid into the open Forest. After a couple of miles Robert turned towards the sea and drove along a bewildering maze of narrow lanes through a belt of farmland, finally turning into a private road which stopped at an imposing gateway of tall stone pillars, with a small brick and tile-hung house nestling amongst dense rhododendron bushes just inside it.

  'That was the old lodge,' Robert remarked. 'I built the new house nearer to the shore for the view across the Solent. Mr and Mrs Trotter live there. She housekeeps and cooks, he drives and is general handyman, and does the garden. The only other staff are the stable grooms.'

  They were driving along between clumps of rhododendron and laurel bushes bordering a thick belt of trees, and then suddenly emerged into an open space. Nicola's eyes widened in appreciation. Wide lawns velvet smooth, sloped gently away from where the drive curved round, and set in the middle, framed by some tall dark fir trees, backed by the glistening sea beyond and with a distant view of the low hills of the Isle of Wight, was a long single storey building with brilliant white walls and green tiled roof.

  A flight of shallow brick steps, half-moon shaped, led up to the front door which was set in the right-hand half of the house. Two wide windows were on its right, and half a dozen on the left. At either end of the house walls extended beyond the building, curving gently away from where they sat in the car. Archways provided glimpses of paths leading to the back of the house.

  Robert stopped the Mercedes beside the steps and looked briefly at Nicola. In the silence she could hear the soft cooing of pigeons and the harsh cry of seagulls.

  'It's a sloping site, so it's an upside down house to take advantage of the views,' he explained. 'The living rooms are on this level with the bedrooms beneath, under the terrace at the back. Those small windows at ground level are store rooms.'

  Nicola had not even noticed the windows, barely a foot high, and hidden behind clumps of brilliantly flowering hydrangea shrubs.

  'What lovely flowers,' she murmured.

  Beside her Robert tensed slightly and cast her a swift look, but she did not seem to have any thought but admiration for the display and he laughed shortly.

  'My mother's department, that. She's training clematis and wistaria and magnolia and all possible climbing plants round the house. There's not so much here because it's north facing but in ten years she has almost buried the rest of the walls!'

  Sarah had scrambled out of the car and taken out both cases.

  'I'll carry your case in, Miss Browne,' she interrupted and before Nicola could answer had run up the steps and into the house.

  Robert seemed about to say something but then shrugged and began to get out of the car. Nicola tried to unfasten the safety belt but could not operate the unfamiliar mechanism. She exclaimed in annoyance and Robert paused, then looked back at her enquiringly.

  'I think the belt has caught somewhere,' Nicola explained, flushing with mortification and lowering her eyes from his as she saw the contemptuous look in them.

  'Has it indeed?' he asked softly, and had to lean across her to reach the belt which had become twisted round a lever beside the seat.

  Nicola shrank back from the close contact, her heart beating in remembered terror as once again his face came within inches of hers as he disentangled the belt. He seemed about to say something when it was free, but instead silently opened the door and then turned away from her and sat with his fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

  *

  Hastily Nicola got out and followed Sarah up the steps and through the wide double doors. The girl was standing at the side of a large square hall, her hands inside a big Chinese bowl which stood on a low lacquered table, stirring the contents and sniffing appreciatively.

  'Isn't it heavenly?' she said, bending towards the bowl. 'Mother makes tons of pot-pourri every year and it's the thing I remember most about home, especially when we get boiled cabbage perfume wafting up from the school kitchens.'

  'I haven't made any apart from one year when we stayed with a friend of my mother's, and she had a huge garden. I never have enough flowers from my window boxes,' Nicola said, laughing.

  Nicola looked about her. The hall was light, the walls of white panelled wood, with white rugs on the polished golden oak floorboards. Several surrealist paintings hung on the walls.

  'That's the dining room.' Sarah indicated an archway, one of two to the left of the front door, and through it Nicola glimpsed a thick white carpet, a modern black glass table and black leather chairs. Bowls of huge yellow and orange chrysanthemums provided dramatic splashes of colour.

  'That's the cloakroom, Robert's study, the library and the drawing room,' Sarah rattled off, pointing at the doors on the far side of the hall and then the back. She picked up the cases and led the way through the rear archway.

  'Come on, we're downstairs. It always takes visitors a while to get used to going down to bed,' she added, giggling. Clearly her sulky mood was over and Nicola breathed a sigh of relief. Prolonged sulks would have been wearing, but however often Sarah had black moods they did not appear to last long.

  Nicola followed her down shallow, richly carpeted stairs which led to another rectangular hall below, lit only by the gentle glow from concealed lights in the ceiling.

  'Mother's rooms are at that end, Robert's this. We are next door to one another,' Sarah said, opening a door facing the stairs and going into a luxuriously furnished bedroom, all pink and grey and a deep rich green. 'Your bathroom's through there. These doors lead straight outside. We call it the patio to distinguish it from the terrace above. Come on, we'll go back up this way.'

  Nicola followed her, admiring the view of lawns sloping straight down to the beach. In the sea were several small weed covered islands and beside a landing stage a number of boats were moored.

  She turned and looked at the house. It was, as Robert had said, covered with climbing plants. There were pink and purple clematis, delicate honeysuckle, russet virginia creeper, mingled with dark green ivies around the four sets of french windows opening onto the patio. Above, a small stone parapet was visible edging the terrace and more plants trailed over this.

  To one side of the house a raised area w
ith deckchairs and sun umbrellas indicated a pool, and behind it was a tennis court. The whole was screened by a surrounding belt of pine trees.

  Sarah led the way up a flight of stone steps which curved round, fan-like, to the terrace, and as they reached it a small, pleasant-faced woman in her mid fifties appeared from one of another row of french windows, carrying a huge silver tray with a highly polished silver tea service and delicate Rosenthal china cups.

  'Trottie!' Sarah exclaimed, and when Mrs Trotter had placed the tray on one of the white iron scrolled tables that were scattered about the terrace she turned and held out her hands to Sarah.

  'Why, my dear, how well you look!' she said as she kissed Sarah. 'And you must be Miss Browne,' she added, turning to survey Nicola with friendly eyes. 'I don't envy you the job of keeping up with this one,' she said with a smile as she hugged Sarah to her. 'She was the bane of my life before she went away to school!'

  Sarah grimaced and laughed. 'But now I am a reformed character, Trottie. Don't give Miss Browne the wrong idea. Where's Mother?'

  'Picking strawberries. She sent Trotter off to get another turkey for tomorrow. Unexpected guests.'

  'I'll go and find her after we've had tea. Ooh! Some of your special scones. Miss Browne, this must be in your honour. Trottie said last holidays she wouldn't make me any more. That was because I was on a diet and she disapproved.'

  'I should think so, you've no need to lose weight. And won't you call me Nicola, both of you? It makes me feel ancient to be Miss Browne.'

  *

  They had tea and the delicious scones with homemade strawberry jam and then Nicola went back to unpack and inspect her room. The close-fitting carpet was of pale green, and a deeper green duvet patterned with pink flowers was on the bed. Pale grey furniture and a pink and grey wallpaper, with dark green curtains, and dark splashes of green in cushions and vases and lamp shades made a charming and restful room. A door at the side led to a bathroom with pale grey tiles and deep pink towels and carpet.