by Anne Mather
Lesley’s eyes sparkled dangerously in Carne’s direction for a moment, before she said: ‘That’s meant a lot to him in recent years, hasn’t it. Or has he been seeing Jeremy behind my back, too?’
‘Lesley!’ Carne’s voice was grim, and briefly she felt ashamed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly, addressing her mother. ‘But you know as well as I do how often Carne has troubled to see Jeremy since I left Ravensdale—–’
‘You little bitch!’ In a stride, Carne had covered the distance between them and was gripping her upper arms with fingers that dug cruelly into her flesh. ‘You little bitch!’ he repeated, less emotively, his gaze raking her shakily resentful features. ‘You know as well as I do why I stopped seeing him. You’d confused him enough as it was. A father who appeared at weekends and holidays is no father at all to a toddler barely out of his nappies, and you know it.’
‘That—that’s your excuse, is it?’ she got out jerkily, and his brown eyes darkened to appear almost black, filling the area around the dilated pupils with ominous obscurity.
‘Yes, that’s my excuse,’ he agreed savagely. ‘How do you salve your conscience, I wonder?’
Lesley tore herself away from him, rubbing her bruised arms with fingers that trembled. ‘You always were a bully, weren’t you, Carne?’ she countered, but it was a defensive reaction, born of the desire to escape the physical awareness she had always had of him, an awareness heightened by the heated scent of his body and the raw sensuality of the man himself. It was an unconscious trait, but it was there, and she knew she was not the only woman to be aware of it.
Mrs Matthews was looking distinctly distressed now, and ignoring Lesley Carne turned to her. ‘Do you want me to go?’ he asked gently, but Lesley’s muffled ‘Yes’ was overridden by her mother’s hurried denial.
‘Lesley had to know sooner or later,’ she said, and pointed to the cigar box on the mantelpiece. ‘Please—could I have one of those? I really need it.’
Lesley stood by feeling childishly sulky and admonished as Carne lit her mother’s cheroot, but she couldn’t deny the fluttery feelings in the pit of her stomach. She wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t run the Mini into the back of the other car that morning, if she hadn’t got out of work early and come home and surprised them. When would her mother have mentioned Carne’s visit? When would she have revealed that her heart could not stand the demands put upon it by a child of Jeremy’s age and temperament? When would she have disclosed that she was actually negotiating arrangements without even consulting her daughter!
Panic gave way to angry indignation once more. It was as if she, Jeremy’s mother, had no say in the matter. And Carne was obviously a willing accessory. And why not? It was, no doubt, exactly what he wanted. Once he and his mother got Jeremy to Ravensdale they would have eight weeks to work on him, eight weeks to twist everything Lesley had ever told him, eight weeks to turn him against the woman who had borne him. Self-pity swamped her. Carne’s mother had always hated her, had always resented the fleeting hold she had had over her precious son. Jeremy was that son all over again, the grandson she had always wanted to be there to take over Raventhorpe when his father retired. The long tradition of the Radleys was weighted against her. What possible defence did she have against that?
Carne straightened from lighting her mother’s cheroot and regarded her coldly. ‘I suggest this matter needs further consideration,’ he remarked, toying with the heavy lighter. ‘I’ve arranged to stay in town overnight. I suggest we meet for dinner, like the civilised people we are supposed to be, and discuss what’s to be done.’
Lesley stiffened her spine. ‘So far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to discuss,’ she retorted icily, but his gaze never faltered.
‘I’m staying at the President,’ he went on, mentioning the name of a comfortable three-star hotel in Russell Square. He glanced down at his casual attire. ‘I need a drink and a shower, but I’ll be back here to pick you up in—say, an hour and a half?’
Lesley licked her dry lips. ‘You can’t force me to go out with you, Carne.’
‘For God’s sake!’ He swore angrily. ‘I should have thought you’d have got over that childish temper of yours by now!’
‘Why should I? You haven’t.’
‘Lesley …’
Mrs Matthews’ fretful protest silenced any cutting retort Carne might have been about to make. Instead, controlling his anger with admirable skill, he said: ‘I’ll give you two hours, Lesley. That should be long enough for your mother to convince you that you can’t go on running away from life’s unpleasantnesses.’
‘Like you, you mean?’ she taunted, and then turned away, despising herself for behaving like a shrew. But it had been quite a day, and it wasn’t over yet.
She heard Carne bidding her mother goodbye, and half turned as he let himself out of the apartment. His brooding gaze swept over her and found her lacking, and she concentrated her attention on her clenched fists as he closed the door behind him.
The room was strangely empty after he had gone, but her mother was there and her eyes were full of reproach.
‘How could you, Lesley?’ she exclaimed, pressing out the half smoked cheroot with unsteady fingers. ‘Making a scene like that! I never thought you could be so—so vindictive!’
‘Vindictive?’ The word brought a sound of protest from Lesley’s lips. ‘Me? Vindictive?’
‘Well, what would you call it?’ Mrs Matthews demanded. ‘I asked Carne to come here, and this is my home, after all. How could you speak to a guest of mine in such a fashion?’
‘A guest of yours?’ Lesley stared at her ludicrously. ‘Mother, Carne is my husband? Separated, it’s true, but husband, nevertheless! You can’t accuse me of being rude to my own husband!’
‘I can, and what’s more, I do,’ declared her mother, with a sniff. ‘I think Carne showed remarkable restraint in the face of outright provocation. Jeremy is his son as well as yours, Lesley, whether you like it or not. And any court in the land would grant him custodial rights if he chose to make a case of it.’
Lesley trembled. She couldn’t help it. It sounded so coldblooded somehow, and her mother had put her finger on the one thing she had always fought against considering.
‘Carne—Carne doesn’t need Jeremy,’ she said now. ‘I do.’
‘Try convincing a magistrate of that.’
‘Mother!’ Lesley stared with anguished eyes. ‘Mother, what are you trying to do? To make me give Jeremy up?’
Mrs Matthews shrugged. ‘I’m just pointing out that Carne has been very patient, but I shouldn’t push him any further if I were you.’
Lesley pressed her lips together for a moment. ‘You mean—I should have dinner with him?’
‘I mean that if Carne is willing to give the boy a home for the holidays, you should be glad to let him go.’
‘But, Mother, the only time I see Jeremy is in the holidays!’
‘That’s nothing to do with me.’ Mrs Matthews rose painfully to her feet. Her lumbago was troubling her today and so far as she was concerned, the discussion was over. ‘I’m going to my room—–’
‘Wait!’ Lesley took an automatic step forward. ‘You—you still haven’t told me about—about the angina.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘But what did Dr Forrest say?’
‘He said I should rest more. That I shouldn’t get excited,’ she added, with a returning look of reproof.
‘Oh, Mother!’ Lesley linked and unlinked her fingers. ‘If you’d only told me …’
‘What, and have you speak to me as you spoke to Carne!’
‘That’s not fair …’
Her mother made a dismissing gesture. ‘I’m going to lie down. Don’t bother about making me a meal. I’ll get something later, if I’m hungry.’
Lesley watched her mother’s progress across the room with troubled eyes. Not least among the many things that troubled her was the realisati
on that her mother could hide a thing like that from her—and for how long? That was another of the questions that still needed answering. With a despairing sigh, she sank down on to a low couch and pushed back the heavy weight of her hair with both hands. Was she really so unfeeling? Was she so wrapped up in her own affairs that she had no time for anyone else? She had never thought so, but now … It seemed incredible that that morning she had had no notion of what plans her mother had been nurturing, or indeed that even as she lunched in the staff canteen at W.L.T.V. Carne was at that moment driving down the M.1. from Yorkshire, intent on keeping an appointment which must have been made days ago. It hurt to think her mother could deceive her, and while she didn’t seriously believe there had been other meetings, nevertheless a little of her trust had been undermined.
Leaving the cluttered paraphernalia of the living room, Lesley went into her bedroom, the room she shared with Jeremy when he was home. She supposed that situation would not be approved by a court of law, but as the flat only had two bedrooms, there was no other alternative. Short of sharing her mother’s bedroom, of course, but naturally Mrs Matthews wanted a room to herself. If Lesley had thought of what might happen in the future, as Jeremy got too old to share her room, it was along the lines of them perhaps acquiring a larger apartment, but she had never really considered what she would do if her mother should object. Carne was right, in one way. Her independence did depend on her mother to a large extent at the moment, but once Jeremy was old enough to be left alone, she supposed there was no reason why they shouldn’t get a flat of their own. But all these things had been hazy, nebulous, distant possibilities that would work themselves out in the natural order of things. Now all that had been changed, and suddenly she was faced with the practicalities of the present, and with the disturbing realisation that her mother had put all their futures into Carne’s hands.
The bathroom was vacant and she turned on the taps to silence the frenzied screaming of her nerves. Sprinkling essence liberally into the bath water, she watched the deep green liquid melt and dissolve, to rise again as balls of foam that made a fluffy white carpet over the surface. What could she say to Carne to make him see that by reappearing in Jeremy’s life now, he could only confuse the boy again? Confuse? Her lips twisted. She was confused. Carne already knew that. By springing her mother’s illness upon her, he had successfully diluted her arguments, just as the bath water had diluted the essence.
It was a marvellous relief to sink down into the heated suds, and allow the softened water to probe every pore of her tense body. She needed to relax, to think coherently. She needed to restore every shred of composure before encountering her husband again.
It didn’t help to realise that seeing him again had upset her more than she had expected. In the early days after their break-up she had seen him on several occasions, but always in the company of her mother and Jeremy, and in the aftermath of that final devastating row which had ended with her bundling Jeremy into her car and leaving, a defensive numbness had coated the more vulnerable areas of her emotions.
Maybe if she had had warning of the meeting, if she had had time to gather herself, so to speak, so that when she faced him she had behaved with coolness and sophistication, and not given in to those entirely schoolgirlish taunts and provocations. Maybe then she would not be feeling so raw now, so exposed to all the pain and misery that had both preceded and followed her separation from Carne.
She lay in the bath too long and had to hurry with her dressing. Somehow she had accepted that she had to have dinner with him, if only to prevent her mother any more distress. That she had brought the distress on herself meant less than Lesley’s guilty neglect of her mother’s health, and after satisfying herself that she looked neither too young nor too sophisticated, she went into Mrs Matthews’ bedroom.
Her mother was lying on the bed reading a magazine, and judging from her appearance, she seemed to have recovered from her earlier upset. Lesley hesitated in the doorway, not quite knowing what to say, and then she casually flicked the skirt of her flared jersey dress.
‘Does this look all right?’
Mrs Matthews regarded her critically for a moment, over the top of the magazine. ‘Shouldn’t you wear a long gown?’ she enquired, and Lesley expelled her breath on a long sigh.
‘I don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘After all, I don’t know where we’re going, do I?’
‘I thought most young people wore long clothes these days,’ averred her mother rather peevishly, and Lesley wondered if she was being deliberately obstructive.
‘How are you feeling now?’ she asked, changing the subject, but Mrs Matthews was still looking at her dress.
‘I suppose it is pretty material,’ she decided grudgingly. ‘You always did suit blue and gold. But don’t you think those sandals are too high? You may have to walk. Carne will probably leave his car at the hotel.’
Lesley examined the slender heels of the leather strapped sandals on her narrow feet. ‘I thought they looked rather nice,’ she murmured doubtfully, then, as the doorbell rang: ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘Don’t start worrying about me now, Lesley,’ her mother retorted shortly. ‘You never have cared about anyone but yourself.’
The accusation was so hurtful that for a moment Lesley could only stare at her. Then the doorbell rang again, more peremptorily this time, and with a helpless shake of her head, she went to answer it.
But at least her mother’s barb had one effect. It stiffened Lesley’s failing resolve and the feeling of injustice that filled her gave her confidence to face whatever was to come.
Carne was leaning against the wall beside the door when she opened it, but he straightened at her appearance and she thought with a pang how like old times this was. Their attraction had been immediate and mutual, and every spare moment he had had, or could make, Carne had driven the two hundred or so miles to see her.
But that was all in the past. The Carne Radley who accepted her stiff invitation to step into the flat this evening was older and infinitely more mature, his dark brown mohair lounge suit as immaculate as his jeans had been casual earlier. A special occasion, then, she thought, with bitter humour. Carne didn’t put on his best clothes for everybody. His detached gaze barely registered her appearance and she wondered if she’d not bothered to change whether he would have noticed.
Mrs Matthews appeared as Lesley went to collect a lacy scarf to put about her shoulders. She greeted Carne warmly, and Lesley wondered if she had any real feelings for Jeremy at all. Didn’t her mother realise that by forcing her hand, she might create a situation none of them could control? Jeremy had a mind of his own, but he was too young to be forced to choose. Carne had bowed out of his obligations. Why wouldn’t her mother accept that?
When she came back, Carne was handing her mother a glass of the sherry she kept for special visitors, but Lesley noticed he wasn’t drinking himself. Mrs Matthews sipped the glowing brown liquid delicately and asked whether all the rain they had been having had caused any problems. Carne explained that the ground had been very dry from the previous year and the absence of snow through the winter that followed, but he agreed he had got tired of wading through acres of mud.
Listening to them, Lesley felt a pang. When she first went to Raventhorpe paddling about in Wellingtons had been all part of the marvellous sense of freedom she had experienced. After years of academic slog, it had been fun to help bring in the cows or feed a motherless lamb with a baby’s feeding bottle. She had tramped the fields with Carne, and gone with him to market. She had drunk halves of bitter in the Red Lion, and listened to the talk about crops and feed stuffs and if she had had to share Carne’s attention with the other men, she had cherished the thought that when their bedroom door closed that night, she would have him all to herself for hours and hours and hours …
Those were the days before she had Jeremy to care for, when she hadn’t had the time to listen to Mrs Radley’s continual barbs or care i
f she ridiculed her naïve attempts to accomplish some task Carne’s mother tackled without effort. She had been free to come and go as she pleased, and only as her pregnancy began to weigh her down was she forced to spend more and more time in the house. She had a hard time having Jeremy, and although Carne had insisted she have the child in the maternity hospital in Thirsk, it was weeks before she felt physically strong again. Another black mark against her, she thought now, remembering how Mrs Radley had jeered because she had not been able to feed the baby, and maintained that she had had her four children without complications and been out in the fields again with them sucking at her breast. Lesley hadn’t disbelieved her. Carne’s mother seemed capable of anything. Except liking her … Maybe if he had married the daughter of one of the local farmers, she would have felt differently. Marion Harvey had obviously expected to occupy Lesley’s position, and even though Carne was married had lost no opportunity to spend time with him. They had had a different set of values from her, Lesley decided coldly. No doubt Marion was still around. The wonder was that Carne hadn’t asked for a divorce before this and married her. Unless she had married someone else, of course. That was always possible. And it didn’t necessarily mean there would be any drastic change in their association. Marion had lived on a farm all her life. She knew all there was to know about the relationship between the male and the female of the species. No doubt she’d learned it first hand from an early age, thought Lesley spitefully, remembering how Marion and Mrs Radley had laughed when she had asked why the bull spent its days tethered while the cows ran freely in the pasture. No, she had been all wrong with Carne. She was city born and city bred and, in Mrs Radley’s opinion, too soft to cope with life in the Yorkshire dales.
She dragged her thoughts back to the present as Carne’s cool eyes turned in her direction. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked quietly, and she inclined her head. She doubted she would ever be, but she looked at her mother and murmured: ‘I’ll see you later.’
