by Lorna Gray
“Just letting me know that he’s closing in on where Matthew is,” I said lightly.
“Ah? Is he indeed?” John didn’t look quite as enthused by this as I would have expected but then, given his mood, most likely nothing could have impressed him. “Are you ready to go? I’m sick of this place.”
I nodded. Sophie reappeared beside me and my suspicions had been right – she didn’t look very happy at all. It may have been my imagination but her large eyes glistened wetly and I was suddenly very aware that in spite of her alluring smiles she was, like me, just a simple farm girl at heart.
“Are you two leaving?” she asked brightly. “I’m leaving too as soon as I can find the others. I mustn’t be tired tomorrow as David is coming home; I told you about our plans didn’t I, Ellie?”
I was hit by a sudden and consuming rush of guilt; my little scheme had not included upsetting her. “You did. It all sounds lovely and I bet you can’t wait until the spring.”
She smiled suddenly and very genuinely. “You know? I really can’t. Goodbye, Ellie, so nice to see you again.”
She whirled off trailing coats and scarves behind her. She had barely looked at John and now he was watching her go with a very unpleasant smirk etched across his face.
“What on earth did you say to her?” I demanded more crossly than I intended as we climbed into the car.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, sounding amused. “Why? Are you jealous?”
“Not at all,” I said levelly, looking out of the window as the car pulled away with a crush of gravel under the tyres.
He gave a dry laugh. “Of course you’re not. She’s just some silly cheap bit anyway; there’s no competition.”
I was suddenly bitterly regretting not begging a lift home from someone else. His driving had not been improved by the evening’s dramas and a small squeak of alarm escaped as we shot around a corner narrowly missing a couple who were walking home. I twisted in my seat to look back at them in case they were hurt but bar an angry fist waving in the air at our wake, they appeared to have escaped unscathed.
I braved a glance sideways at him as we accelerated along a straight stretch which was still banked by high discoloured drifts. His face seemed flushed and distorted in the pale reflected light and the aroma in the car only confirmed what I already suspected. He was drunk. But I was not sure that he was so drunk that he was not fully aware of what he was doing and, unhappily, revelling in the barefaced recklessness of it. A flash of white caught in the headlights as we raced around a bend – the first long-suffering snowdrops to show their faces and a tentative sign of the belated spring.
“Did you have to say that?” The sudden snap of his question made me jump.
“Why? What did I say?” I asked, forcibly keeping myself from squeaking again as the car hurtled into another tight turn. When I looked over at him, his knuckles were white where his hands gripped the steering wheel.
“What you said to my father. About us just being friends.”
“But we are friends.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t a very nice thing to say was it? You made me look like a fool.” His tone was increasingly hard and I began to watch the road ahead with renewed enthusiasm as houses loomed in the headlights. A smithy smacked past; we were fast approaching the tight series of bends into Winstone.
Not far now, I thought as we span left and then sharp right. I was becoming increasingly aware that I really didn’t like him very much anymore; if his behaviour to me had not been enough, the look on poor Sophie’s face had decided that.
“I’m very sorry,” I said carefully. “I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Too late for that,” he snapped. “Although it’s not as if Father needs any excuse to be disappointed in me. I manage that all by myself.”
“He’s annoyed with you?” I was playing for time, hoping to appease his anger and distract it from me until we got home. I wasn’t very optimistic about my chances.
“Of course he is. You heard him tonight. What Father wants, Father gets. Unless there isn’t the money to do it, then he gets cross. He and my brother are both the same. They go off to fight their damned expensive wars and it’s the rest of us poor beggars that have to foot the bill. Have you any idea of how tight things are for me at the moment? And now dear brother Richard needs funds …” Here he uttered an ugly curse as a rabbit raced for safety.
“I had no idea things were so hard for you currently,” I murmured sympathetically. This, it turned out, was a mistake.
He fixed me with a furious stare and for a painful moment I thought he wasn’t going to look back at the road ahead again. But then, with an angry jerk of the wheel, the car twitched back under control once more and away from the hedge.
“Hard for me – you don’t say. You and your ponies and that idiot boy live an idyllic existence; you couldn’t possibly imagine what it is like for me.” The dim lights of the Mason’s Arms shot by as we launched out onto the brief stretch of the main road without so much as a glance to check for traffic. We sprinted past the dirty hulks of impossibly high drifts then we took a hard swing left onto the road towards home. He spoke again, his voice rising to a fevered pitch and blurring incoherently, “How would you feel having every move dissected, every hope crushed and every plan ruined? Taxes are sky high to pay for the fallout from that blasted war and I’m still being told that somehow it is all my fault. We’re practically bankrupt, you know.”
There was a certain grim irony in this given Sir William’s attempt at bribery, although I was in no mood to appreciate it.
John continued his wild monologue with full red-blooded ferocity. “And dear darling Uncle is no better, though he tries to help with his petty interferences. But all I hear is Bathurst, Gatcombe, Badminton, in an endless drone of social ambition. It’s driving me insane!”
After all that anxious watching of the road ahead, I hardly noticed when we stopped outside my house. I was watching him with a grim sort of fascination as he ranted out his fury.
“And you – you sit there judging me, don’t you? Admit it. Just because some silly girl got upset when she got burnt. She should know better than to play with me. Silly bitch.” I had a feeling that this last comment was directed towards me.
He turned to face me, his eyes glinting in the darkness and I stared at the man before me with his angry tone of injured complaint and downturned mouth, and wondered how I had been so stupid as to ever think that I understood him. I waited for him to continue in a mesmerised trance, knowing with dismal certainty what he was going to say and likewise knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do to prevent it.
“We’ve been friends for years, you and I, and I’ve watched and waited while you mourned for that man. Patiently. Like a saint.” He smiled mirthlessly at some private joke.
“John, I—” My attempt was as ineffective as it was weak. He swept on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Only you’re not mourning any more, are you?”
I had feared it might come to this. But no matter what I had expected, I was not remotely prepared for the violence of his next words. He delivered them in a breathless roar that actually made me flinch. “I love you, Ellie, and I mean to have you. By God I do!”
He glowered at me, breathing hard with hands clenched in his lap looking so absurdly like a child in a fit of the rages that I might have laughed had it not been so extremely genuine. Instead, in defiance of the fury that lurked behind his eyes, I managed to force myself to speak.
“No, John,” I said with gentle firmness, much as an old friend might. “That’s not going to happen, I’m sorry.”
He nodded sagely, seeming to be taking in what I had said. His stillness gave me courage. I began to say something else, probably an innocuous attempt at a peaceful exit, but even as I started to frame the words, he made an odd little throaty noise and lunged at me, and crushed my mouth with his.
“Oh, Ellie …”
For a brief stupid moment I was so paralysed
by shock that I didn’t move. But then, with a sudden urgency of strength, I managed to shove him away.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded shakily, wiping my mouth on the back of my trembling hand.
“Nonsensical girl.” He gave me a silly drunken leer that conflicted oddly with the force of his presence. “You can’t tell me that you haven’t wanted this too.”
This time his lunge was more determined. With a strangled cry, I shrank painfully back against the doorframe. I put my hands to his chest, trying to ward him off but his weight crushed me so that I was pinned between him and the cold hard metal of the door as he leaned closer. Desperate, I gave a frantic twist and succeeded in wrenching my head aside so that his lips fell across my cheek. He pulled back, looking faintly confused…or was it offended? As I supposed he might. I doubted that many women had ever rebuffed his advances before.
Looming over me in the cramped space of the car he seemed for a moment affectionately amused by my resistance. He flashed me a big smile. “Now, Ellie. Don’t play coy.”
His mouth twisted to kiss me again and, panicked, I said the first thing that came into my head.
“I know about Union Star!”
He froze, with his lips barely a millimetre away from mine. “What did you say?”
“Union Star. I know you switched him.”
Abruptly he sat back into his seat. He took a deep breath. “And how did you figure that one out?”
“John, my father broke him in for you. I think I would remember him.” I was too upset to worry about what I was saying now. “Why did you do it?”
“Observant, aren’t you,” he said slowly. His voice was low and had an unusual note to it, and he suddenly seemed very sober indeed. “I wondered why you let him snatch at your pockets like that, and now I know. What else did you notice?”
“What do you mean?” I said helplessly. “I understand things are tight for you but why sell a dead horse? He is dead, I presume?”
“Oh yes, he’s dead. Damned thing dropped dead of a heart-attack last August. But because I had to pay for my father’s stay in London while he watched my brother butter up the men at HQ by pretending to be a war hero, I’d let my insurance premium lapse. Clever, eh? So then the damned horse dies and with just perfect timing I get some American with more money than sense wanting to preserve the bloodline. What would you have done? No, don’t answer; we know what Miss Prim would have done.” He gave a hard little laugh. Then he frowned again. “I found this beast at an auction. He looks the part and my American is never going to tell the difference so I just went ahead. Can’t see what the problem is really. Everyone gets what they want.”
“Do they?” I asked quietly. I moved my hand slowly to the door handle. I really didn’t care about the horse; I just wanted to get out.
“He told me I shouldn’t have you, you know.” His tone was suddenly lighter, it was almost conversational and I floundered in my desperation to keep up with the shifts and pitfalls of his mood. “Father said that tonight – he actually came straight out with it and told me that I should aim higher.” He laughed and, oblivious to the insult, I only wished that his mirth was a sign of an improving temper. “But interestingly Uncle says different, and for once I have to agree with him…He said—”
He stopped, casting a little sideways glance at me as he paused to focus his thoughts.
I realised then that I had never stood a chance, not when my only armoury was of stern looks and careful distance. No words of mine could have ever hoped to combat the power of his uncle, or the deep-driven urge to contradict his father. That was an impulse far more enduring than any claims of adult accountability. And now, all I had left were the ruins of a friendship and a pointless wish that I had not gone at all, had left with Matthew; that I was, in fact, anywhere but here.
He spoke out of the silence, a faint shadow of that hideous undertone still lurking in his voice. “I didn’t have a choice about the horse, you know.”
“I understand, John, I really do. I’d have done the same.”
“You’re a bad liar, Ellie,” he said, finally sounding calmer. I said nothing. “This has ruined any chances I ever had with you, hasn’t it? You’ll never have me now, what with your damned high morals. You sit there in judgement, I know you do.”
“I don’t, John, really I don’t.” I started to ease back the door latch.
“Oh, shut up,” he snapped, anger flaring again in an instant. “I’ve noticed your habit of collecting those you deem needy and worthy, that idiot boy and that wretched horse being prime examples, but you’ve never bothered to extend that care to me, have you? And why? Because I don’t fit your special little ideas of purity? Is that it? You have no right to judge me, you know, little Miss Superior – you’ve got more vanity than anyone. You hide yourself away behind all that ridiculous reserve and believe we don’t notice that all the while you’re thinking. You disgust me. In fact, I think I might hate you after all.”
“I’m sorry you feel like that, John,” I said quietly. The door catch lifted.
He threw me a wild look. “I don’t hate you, Ellie. Really I don’t. Oh, Ellie …”
I threw the door open and practically fell out in my haste to get away as he lunged again. His kiss fell on empty air and he stared up at me, open-mouthed and ugly as I carefully shut the door and turned away. I walked quickly. It took a lot of self-control not to break into a run but as I reached the shadows of the kitchen door, I heard a reassuring roar as the car kicked angrily into life. I turned and caught the reflected blaze of red as his lights finally sped away towards the village, and it was only when the sound had faded to silence that I briefly allowed reaction and cold to have its say. I stood there for a few precious seconds, staring vacantly into space while my body was wracked with a violent and uncontrollable shivering. Then I straightened my flimsy wrap, brushed the hair back from my face and wiped the smudged lipstick from my mouth. I wondered if Matthew had been watching out for the car to pull up and if he had seen what had followed. I dreaded to think how it must have looked if he had.
I took a deep breath and opened the door.
“You’re back!” yelled Freddy. “Just in time to join us!”
They were in the living room. Matthew must have repaired the gramophone because Freddy was vigorously giving the handle a turn so that one of my father’s old records blared out. The sudden heat of the fire and the deafeningly crude music were such an assault on my senses that I almost staggered but instead I stopped and put a supporting hand on a chair-back.
“Oh Freddy, that’s wonderful!” I cried merrily, while feeling anything but. I desperately wanted to know if Matthew had seen but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Instead I fixed a bright smile on my face and walked steadily over to Freddy and his gramophone.
Matthew had started up when I had come in but almost immediately returned to his position near the fire where he was now leaning a shoulder in easy comfort against the wall. I could feel his eyes on me. Determined to avoid him, I beamed madly at Freddy and picked up the record sleeve to examine it with concentrated interest only to have to swiftly put it down again when my hands almost betrayed me.
“Did you have a nice time?” Freddy asked. I couldn’t help glancing at Matthew then, his face looked shuttered and carefully wiped of all feeling. He had seen, oh, he had definitely seen.
“Freddy? Isn’t it time you were in bed?”
Matthew’s suggestion was ignored by both of us, Freddy because he wanted to stay up and play with his gramophone and me because I couldn’t bear to be left to face this argument alone.
“I danced with all sorts of people tonight, Freddy. You would have loved it.” I was speaking to the boy but I couldn’t help the snatched glance that fell once more on Matthew. He had been true to his word and had shaved and changed his clothes, and suddenly the man in my house was very much like the man I remembered, only older, wiser and considerably more … formidable.
I fe
lt wretched. And hid it with a smile. “By the way, the Inspector gave me a message for you, Matthew.”
Matthew roused himself at this and pushed himself upright away from the wall. “What did he say?”
“That the Turford brothers gave a false statement. He wants to see you to hear your side of the story. He’ll be in his office from nine tomorrow.” I spoke quickly and eagerly.
“Can we trust him?” His tone betrayed nothing.
“I think so. He sounded genuine.”
“Well, this is good news then, isn’t it? This could all be sorted by this time tomorrow.” His voice lifted to sudden warmth and he actually smiled. “Your life could get back to normal before you know it; you’ve been wonderful as usual.”
He was trying to be kind and I knew it. His voice held that hideously positive note of one who was deeply disappointed but was trying very hard to hide it; he would not forgive me for this.
Before anyone could say anything else I lightly said, “Yes, well, I’m only the messenger. And anyway I’m feeling very tired so I’ll go to bed now. Goodnight all.”
Freddy was oblivious to anything but the wonder of the gramophone and I heard him start it up again as I ran up the stairs. The door shut and I threw myself down on the bed; I would have sobbed my heart out but for the fact that the tears just wouldn’t come. Instead, with my face pressed to my pillow, eyes tightly shut, I lay there and hit it repeatedly with my fist while I concentrated really hard on not screaming.
Chapter 24
The house was quiet. Freddy had stumbled up to bed nearly an hour ago and in the peace that followed in the wake of the music, the house had settled gently to a slumbering silence. If I had not been desperately thirsty I would have stayed hidden away in my room, but telling myself that Matthew was bound to be asleep, I braved slipping soundlessly down the stairs and out into the light.
He wasn’t, of course. He was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me.
I walked past without even a glance. “I just wanted some water.”
