by Unknown
‘For what?’
‘For not asking.’
‘Not asking what?’
‘Stay and have a drink,’ she offered, still very much on edge, ‘and I might just tell you.’
‘Is everything all right?’ Ellen asked cautiously, looking at her deathly pale face.
Pheely stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another en route to the fridge. ‘Fine – I’ve just been working rather hard, and Dilly’s been ridiculously theatrical about everything. Then I ate some old mackerel pâté that gave me a terribly upset stomach and the stress rather got to me. I’ll be fine. Nothing compared to your heartbreak. Cheap White?’ She held up a bottle.
It was far too early in the day for Ellen, and she doubted Pheely was wise to booze on food poisoning, but she was too grateful for the reprieve to refuse.
They sat on the floor by the open terrace doors, looking out at the gathering rainclouds above the wooded garden. Ellen told Pheely about her confrontation with Hell’s Bells, and Spurs’ defeated concession. To her surprise, Pheely’s face lit up as she listened. ‘This might sound foolish, but I envy you,’ she said. ‘Knowing what it’s really like to be madly in love with someone who’s madly in love with you is a very rare experience. It’s what we all dream about, isn’t it?’
Ellen looked at her in bewilderment. ‘It doesn’t feel that great right now, I can assure you.’
‘But you don’t really think he’ll go through with it?’
She didn’t hesitate. ‘He’ll see it through. He has to.’
‘Really?’
‘He sees it as the ultimate sacrifice to make amends.’
Pheely whistled, pressing the cool wineglass to her pallid cheek. ‘He hasn’t found religion, has he?’
Ellen shook her head. ‘I’m sure his father-in-law will be working on that.’
‘Oh, yes, Ely the social-climber will not be satisfied until he makes it to heaven,’ Pheely said bitterly. ‘He once told me that religious devotion was three parts devil to one part emotion.’ Her eyes flashed.
Ellen watched her curiously. ‘You know him quite well, then?’
‘No better than anyone in this village. I can take him or leave him. In fact, I find him rather comical.’
And yet when Ellen told her about Ely gazumping the Brakespears and buying Goose Cottage for an inflated price, Pheely exploded. ‘The bastard! How dare he?’ she ground her teeth. ‘Ely is so damned conniving. You might think Hell’s Bells has her son in manacles, but she’s nothing on Pearly Gates. The pig. He told me he had hardly a penny spare, that the auction had almost wiped him out.’
‘Does he owe you money, then?’
‘And the rest! That bloody rat is refusing to put Dilly through university. I can’t possibly afford to, and I simply can’t bring myself to tell her that the pot is empty. She’s so looking forward to going.’
Ellen looked into the unsipped amber depths of her wineglass and felt her mind swimming up to the surface of self-obsession, hauling itself on to the bank and shaking itself dry.
‘Ely Gates is Dilly’s father, isn’t he?’ She tried not to laugh.
Pheely sucked in her lips and looked at her for a long time. ‘He seduced me when I was sixteen – and it’s not the first time. Don’t believe for a moment that he is the bastion of morality around here,’ she snarled. ‘He’s kept mistresses for years. Just ask yourself how Pru Hornton survives in that gallery without selling a thing. Ely keeps her. And he kept me. To my shame, he still keeps me.’
In sobs and gulps and shudders of embarrassment, the story was revealed. Pheely told of her unexpected pregnancy after a tipsy teenage night with Ely, not long after his marriage to wealthy but dull Felicity. The decision to keep the baby had infuriated him, and his subsequent financial input, sternly regulated and carefully overseen, had been under the strict proviso that their secret was never revealed.
‘Poor darling Dilly was so devastated when she found out who her father was – he completely rejects her on a personal level, and still has precious little to do with her. He might keep a close eye on her running costs, but he can’t bring himself to admit how wonderful she is. I’m such a pathetic woman, relying on his pitiful handouts.’ She sobbed harder. ‘Dilly is determined that we can get away from him, that we can somehow turn this place round and escape him. But how can we possibly do that, when he denies her the education she deserves? Sinking every damned penny he has into this wretched wedding, the cottage his mother loved and his dream of one day owning the manor.’
She got up and paced around the cluttered room. ‘For a man over-familiar with scripture, Ely covets everything from Hunter’s bloody chickens to Giles’s Aston. I always rather adored his ambitious, envious streak until my daughter started to suffer as a consequence.’
She buried her face in her hands, long black curls catching in her rings. ‘Oh, God – admit it, Ophelia, you still adore him. I think if he could only bring himself to love Dilly as I do, I would lay down my life for him. There! We’re both wretched bloody women in love.’ Opening her arms, she swept forward and captured Ellen in a tight hug. ‘Oh, God, I wish Ely and I loved one another as you and Spurs do,’ she bawled.
‘Are you still lovers?’
Pheely snuffled tearfully into her shoulder. ‘Not for years. He went off me. I was so insulted.’
They hugged tightly, and Pheely gradually pulled herself together, with a series of heartfelt sniffs, pressing her forehead to Ellen’s collarbone. ‘I shouldn’t have told you all this. You’ll probably try to use it to get Ely to put a stop to the wedding now, won’t you? By threatening to reveal his love-child to the village unless he puts the brakes on?’
‘Do you want me to?’ Ellen asked, sage enough to know that a part of Pheely secretly longed for her to do just that.
But Pheely wiped her nose on the back of her hands, leaning back to look Ellen in the face and shaking her head like a small child faced with a scary fairground ride. ‘I stand to lose everything if you do. We hardly make ends meet as it is. Without Ely’s love-child maintenance, we’d have to sell up.’
‘It might not come to that.’
‘I can’t risk it.’
‘So why tell me?’
‘Because you’re a friend – a true friend.’ Pheely stroked Ellen’s cheek. ‘I knew that the moment we met, just as I guessed that you’d fall for Spurs no matter what I said. He was right, you know – you were dying inside when you met him, I saw that. You so needed to know that your wings still work. And they do. That’s what he wanted for you. You have permission to fly away, can’t you see that? You can escape.’
‘Not without Spurs.’
‘He and I grew up here. We’ve been branded. I have no doubt that he loves you – it’s eating him away – but it won’t stop him going ahead for the sake of the family.’
‘Ely might stop it if we threatened him?’ Ellen suggested desperately.
‘He’d make us suffer all the more, believe me. Spurs would be lucky to walk away from it alive.’
Ellen felt a dozen hypodermics inject her veins with iced fright. ‘What are you talking about?’
Pheely avoided her eye. ‘Leave it with me, darling,’ she offered vaguely. ‘I have an idea – in fact, I’ve been working on it for a while now. I can’t promise anything, but it’s worth a go. Are you and Spurs meeting later?’
‘He’s been exiled,’ Ellen said angrily. ‘He’s working at Rory’s yard all this week, mobile confiscated. Hell’s Bells has rallied all Gladys’s spies and the warning klaxon sounds the moment I leave the village so that she can put obstacles in my way until he’s safely removed.’
‘You are kidding?’
‘No. When I tried to drive there this lunchtime, I found a herd of sheep in the road. Fifty yards further on, a horsebox had its ramp down in the middle of the lane for no reason. By the time I got to Springlode, the yard was deserted except for Sharrie, who said that Rory and his cousin had both been hustled into the bac
k of a Land Rover five minutes earlier. So I came here.’
‘Good old Hell’s Bells,’ Pheely gurgled, sounding more her old self. ‘I never knew she had it in her.’
‘Oh, she’s thought of everything. I can’t get beyond the manor gates, the shortcut via the old footpath is suddenly blocked with barbed wire and electric stock fencing.’
‘Amazing to think that two people can be kept apart in a small village, but if anybody can do it Isabel and Ely can.’
‘I can’t bear not seeing him.’
‘You’ll find each other,’ Pheely assured her. ‘You’re like two explorers with no sense of direction crashing around the same jungle. You might never find your way out, but I can guarantee you’ll cross paths again and again.’
When Ellen made her way woozily back to Goose Cottage, she hesitated beneath the shadow of the lime tree and looked back along the bridleway, wondering whether to turn heel and run to Upper Springlode.
She had drunk far too much wine, she realised, as she clutched her temples and gathered herself together. She was even starting to see things. Parading past on tippy-toes, a very fat and self-satisfied-looking black and white cat turned to wink at her, a dead rat in its mouth.
‘Oh, Fins!’ Ellen closed her eyes. When Snorkel let out a bark of recognition she snapped them open again. ‘Fins!’
The conceited piebald bottom swaggered through the gates opposite her and straight into Goose Cottage.
Ellen gave chase. But when she raced into the kitchen, a tall figure turned towards her, framed by the sunlight pouring through the windows.
Ellen let out a yelp of fright.
It was the matchmaker himself, Ely Gates, his clipped beard bristling with hostility.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.
‘I think you’ll find that I own it.’ He eyed her with distaste.
‘Not yet. You can’t just walk in here without permission.’ Ellen felt her tantrum touch-paper go up as though struck by lightning. Her blood started to boil, her ears to thrum with accelerating heartbeats, her chest to creak with deep, unexhaled breaths. Oh, God, she was going to explode any –
‘Indeed.’ Ely was still bristling. ‘And I telephoned your parents this morning and confirmed that I would be inspecting the property.’
‘Well, it’s not convenient.’ – second –
‘I’m afraid that you have no choice in the matter.’
—now!
‘You PIG! You total and utter pig! Get out!’
Caught unawares, Ely took a horrified step back, his eyes boggling as though she had just drawn a hasty pentagon around herself, lit a few black candles and started trying to summon Lucifer.
‘There is no reason to be—’
‘Uncivil?’ she raged. ‘Rude? Oh, I think there is. I think that right now I would be quite justified in ripping up the fucking floorboards and burying a whole set of dead badgers beneath them, along with a hundredweight of rotting kippers and a freshly bludgeoned property owner.’
‘Dear child, you may have grown attached to this little cottage during your brief stay here, but I’m afraid that—’
‘It’s not the cottage I’m attached to!’ she stormed, Snorkel barking in furious support behind her. ‘It’s Spurs. How could you blackmail him – and your own daughter? It’s inhuman.’
‘They are a young couple very much in love.’
‘Bollocks! At least Lady Belling has the honesty to admit that the marriage is nothing more than a glorified property deal. The only love story going on here is between you and the manor.’
He barked a great wolfs laugh and turned away to inspect the doorway through to the bootroom. ‘I believe my little girl will be very happy here.’
‘How can you possibly imagine that the marriage will last more than a week?’
‘I think you’ll find that marriages in this village last a great deal longer than the sort of sordid trysts that you are accustomed to.’
‘I got the impression that you were the one more familiar with sordid trysts,’ she spat.
He took a long time to answer, the blue eyes searing into hers and, just for a moment, Ellen glimpsed the towering sexual ego. But he wasn’t about to reveal his true colours and, apart from a streak of red on both cheeks, he remained stony-faced. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’
Ellen narrowed her eyes. ‘Have you no interest in your daughter’s feelings?’
‘I care for her future and for her welfare.’
She continued staring at him fiercely, refusing to back down. ‘You’re twisted. Seriously twisted. You think you can play God to this village, manipulating people with your wealth and influence – even your own family.’
‘Young lady, I—’
But Ellen had the bit between her teeth, forty-eight hours of sleepless anxiety and helplessness distilling into blind rage. ‘Supposing they do marry – what then? Do you expect him to fuck her? Do you?’ she yelled, over his outraged protests. ‘Are they supposed to have children and somehow bring up the poor wretches happily? Spurs might talk about duty and honour and atoning for the past while his mother’s alive, but the moment she’s gone, he’ll self-destruct. You must know he’ll turn in on himself, turn on Godspell and the village and anything he can damage. You might as well hold a gun to his head.’
There was a flicker of excitement in Ely’s cool blue eyes that made Ellen gasp. ‘Christ, that’s what you’re hoping, isn’t it? You want him to self-destruct, leaving your daughter with the Belling legacy!’
‘He will serve his purpose.’
Ellen was hardly able to believe his calm, calculated bloodlessness. Reining in her fury, she tried to match his tone, but her voice caught with emotion. ‘I guess it’s rather fitting that your daughter already dresses like a widow, then, isn’t it?’
Ely rubbed his white beard and drew in his hollow cheeks. Just for a split second a look of such hatred passed between them that it almost knocked Ellen back off her feet.
‘You think that you’re an astute judge of character, don’t you, young lady?’
‘I think you’re a charlatan, yes.’
‘And do you think you would know a murderer if you met him?’
Suddenly Ellen was acutely aware of the knives poking from their block within his reach. She watched his face, her skin crawling with icy fingers of trepidation. ‘Why?’
The spots of colour on Ely’s cheeks darkened and he clenched his bony hands into tight fists. ‘Spurs didn’t leave Oddlode a decade ago simply because he had driven the villagers to despair with his wretched hooliganism.’ His level gaze didn’t leave hers. ‘Spurs left because he couldn’t live with the guilt of a young boy’s death.’
Ellen started to shake her head, but he held up a finger. ‘Please don’t call me a charlatan. I am a religious man, Miss Jamieson, and I believe in forgiveness. I also believe in divine justice. God will decide what fate befalls young Belling. I am simply his humble servant.’
Ellen turned and fled, Snorkel at her heels.
The hood of Ellen’s sweatshirt was whipped right across her face by the wind as she climbed towards Broken Back Wood, stumbling blindly over ruts and rabbit-holes, wrapping her arms around her to keep out the chill. The wind was chasing away all the warmth of the sun, and when the scudding clouds covered it, it felt like a winter’s day.
Ahead of her, Snorkel’s ears blew inside out as she scooted along.
They passed the strange mound that had broken Ellen’s fall when she had flown her kite down the hill – a curious man-made grassy knoll that could have been anything from a Bronze Age burial mound to modern landfill. She didn’t want to remember that day, the day she had let Richard go, acknowledging the anger, regret and finality of it all. Richard had been safe. Spurs was pure danger.
Now her reckless freefall seemed like a small step in the dark compared to the Armageddon taking place all around her. She kicked the mound and screamed at it. Her dreams seemed to be buried in th
ere, far from her reach.
It was a long, long walk. She abandoned running and staggered on as best she could, hardly noticing when the rain started to lash down.
Rory was in the tackroom soaping a hanging straggle of bridles when she finally burst in, her lungs burning. ‘Where’s Spurs?’
He looked up in shock, blond locks tangled in his eyelashes. ‘He set off about an hour ago – along the bridleway. I told him not to, but he said he had to see you.’
‘I came that way. I’d have seen him.’ Ellen noticed a vodka bottle propped beside him.
‘Shit!’ He dropped his sponge and jumped up. ‘I told him Hercules had no brakes.’
‘Oh, God, is Hercules a horse?’
‘No.’ Rory dashed for the door. ‘It’s Sharrie’s mountain bike.’
They searched the bridleway, looking in ditches and behind walls. The ground was too hard for tyre-tracks, and there was no obvious sign that Spurs had passed along it. As they looked, Rory filled Ellen in on the extraordinary curfew under which his cousin was living.
‘He’s moved into the manor – his parents won’t let him stay in the flat above the kennels in case he tries to creep off to see you. They have him under close arrest, poor sod.’ He offered her a swig from his hip flask
Ellen refused. ‘But he can come and go when he’s with you at the yard?’
‘Not likely.’ He took a gulp, then screwed the lid back on. ‘She’s a canny old bat, Bell – always popping by to check on him, sending all her cronies to me for lessons, telling her chums in the village to keep an eye out for him. Every time we hack past the Old Vicarage, Marjory Whittaker logs it in a notepad, then makes a call to HQ.’
‘HQ?’
‘The manor.’ Rory pocketed the flask. ‘Aunt Bell’s done everything short of having him electronically tagged. The only reason he got away today was because he borrowed Sharrie’s old mackintosh and bush hat, along with about ten of my sweaters to make him look fat. He was sweating like a pig.’
