An Eligible Bachelor

by Veronica Henry

  Guy didn’t answer, because he didn’t know what to say. Richenda was pacing up and down the room, excited.

  ‘It would be wonderful. A Christmas wedding! And personally, I don’t want a huge affair. I’ve got no family here, after all. My parents would much prefer us to go out and visit them in Australia after the event, than for them to come over here.’

  It came out so glibly. Richenda found that she almost believed in her fictional parents; she could almost imagine booking the tickets here and now.

  ‘I’ve got hordes of cousins and aunts and Mother’s got stacks of friends that will need inviting,’ Guy warned gloomily.

  ‘Well, that’s OK. I’ve got the cast and crew of Lady Jane. I suppose they’re my surrogate family’ Richenda rolled her eyes with a grin.

  ‘So when you say small, you’re talking about…?’

  ‘Two hundred? Ish? That’s small these days.’ Richenda was anxious to reassure Guy, who looked momentarily horrified. She wound her arms round his neck, smiling coquettishly.

  ‘Please say yes,’ she wheedled.

  Guy had learned from his father that there was little point in protesting when a woman had made her mind up about something.

  ‘No problem,’ he said amiably. ‘Just tell me when and where and I’ll tip up on the day’

  At six o’clock on the dot, Madeleine Portias glided into the small sitting room. She was wearing a dove-grey cashmere sweater, wide-legged tweed trousers and soft suede loafers. Three gold bangles on her left wrist emphasized her tiny bones. She looked the epitome of elegance.

  Guy was hovering. Nervously, Richenda thought, which was interesting, because she’d never seen him nervous. She herself had dressed in a simple black wrap dress, her hair smoothed into a low chignon. She was wary of looking too showbiz. Someone had once mistaken her for Martine McCutcheon, and it had been an early warning for Richenda. Too much make-up and not enough clothing and she might one day be mistaken for a Slater sister if she wasn’t careful.

  Guy opened a bottle of champagne and Madeleine proposed a very gracious toast.

  ‘I hope you’ll be as happy together here as Tony and I were.’

  The three of them exchanged kisses and hugs and smiles. A little awkwardly, because none of them could be quite sure what the others were thinking. Then Madeleine perched herself gracefully on one of the sofas, and indicated Richenda should sit opposite. Then she turned to Guy.

  ‘Darling, please go and do something useful in the kitchen. There’s a fish pie in the Aga. Why don’t you make a salad to go with it? I want to talk to Richenda.’

  The bracelets jangled as she shooed her son away. She turned to Richenda with a smile.

  ‘Now, I need to talk to you about your wifely duties.’

  Richenda looked at her aghast. Her future mother-in-law wasn’t going to talk to her about sex, surely?

  To her amazement, Madeleine broke into peals of delighted laughter.

  ‘Heavens, don’t look like that! I’m not talking about bed. I’m sure you’ve been road-tested already, knowing Guy’

  Richenda coloured furiously, not knowing where to look.

  ‘I mean that as the lady of the house there are certain things expected of you. And I’m afraid that the responsibility will fall on you, once Guy takes over at the helm. I’ll be here to guide you, of course. But you will be the one they all look to. And it can be quite a daunting task, I can tell you. Almost a full-time job in itself.’

  She smiled brightly. Richenda looked at her warily, not sure what the message was.

  ‘What sort of things?’

  Madeleine opened a leather notebook, drawing a tiny pencil out from the spine.

  ‘First and foremost is the village fête. We have it in the grounds here every July, and I’m afraid it’s a political minefield. You have to be very diplomatic; make sure none of the committee members railroad you. Just be firm…’

  Richenda nodded. She thought she could handle the village fête committee.

  ‘The annual crisis is who to get to open it. It’s usually a toss-up between a celebrity gardener and a children’s TV presenter. But obviously that won’t be a problem any more. You can wield the scissors.’

  Madeleine flashed her a quick smile before referring back to her list.

  ‘Then the May Day bank holiday the gardens are traditionally open to the public. Via the National Gardens scheme. I’ll introduce you to Malachi. He does all the planting here. He’s a bit of a law unto himself. And he spends half of his time inside. Very light-fingered, I’m afraid. Not that he’d ever steal anything from us, so don’t worry about that. The important thing is he’s a genius in the garden. Though no doubt you’ll have your own ideas.’

  Richenda looked alarmed. She didn’t have a clue about gardening; didn’t know a dahlia from a dandelion.

  ‘Then there’s the Boxing Day meet.’

  Richenda frowned.

  ‘I don’t know that I approve of hunting.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter whether you do or you don’t. The hunt’s met here on Boxing Day since 1611.’ Madeleine had plucked this date out of nowhere, but she wasn’t going to let the girl get any anti-hunting ideas. ‘It’s perfectly simple. I’ve done the same thing for years. Vin chaud and devils-on-horseback. And for the past three years I’ve used styrofoam cups. Get one of the kennel lads to go round with a black bin bag afterwards. Saves on the washing-up and no one cares, as long as they go off nicely anaesthetized.’

  ‘Right,’ said Richenda, who had absolutely no idea how to make vin chaud or devils-on-horseback, or even what they were. Though she would rather die than admit it.

  ‘Then the school have a Teddy Bears’ Picnic in about June; we usually do a summer concert in the grounds in August – a sort of bring your own picnic, Glyndebourne on a smaller scale sort of thing; then I do mulled wine and mince pies after the crib service on Christmas Eve…’

  Richenda was looking utterly appalled.

  ‘But I am going to be away a lot of the time. Filming.’

  ‘You’ll just have to work round it, I’m afraid. It is a big responsibility, you know, being a mistress of a house like this.’ Madeleine softened momentarily. ‘Don’t worry – I won’t throw you in at the deep end straight away. I’ll be here to help, for the first year at any rate. Though I have to admit I’m rather looking forward to stepping back. I’ve been doing it for nearly forty years. It’s definitely time for some fresh blood – I’m sure you’ll have all sorts of wonderful new ideas.’

  She closed her notebook with a satisfied snap and picked up her glass.

  ‘Anyway, many, many congratulations. I’m utterly delighted. Here’s to the two of you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ murmured Richenda, somewhat shell-shocked.

  ‘Fish pie, anyone?’ asked Guy hopefully from the doorway.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Madeleine.

  ‘Did Richenda tell you that we’ve settled on a date?’ asked Guy.

  ‘No,’ said Madeleine, looking from one to the other for enlightenment.

  Richenda rose gracefully to her feet.

  ‘December twenty-third,’ she announced. ‘After all, why wait? What would we be waiting for?’

  And she swept out of the room with a brilliant smile, leaving Madeleine uncharacteristically speechless on the sofa.

  3

  The woman’s breasts were spilling out over the top of her basque, her cherry-red nipples just visible. She was sporting a black G-string embroidered with rosebuds, and a matching suspender belt held up her fishnet stockings, revealing an expanse of smooth, creamy thigh.

  Honor McLean picked up her icing nozzle and wrote ‘Happy Birthday Nigel’ carefully on the cake board underneath. The floozy cake was one of the most popular in her range: the freezer in her little outhouse was packed with sponge torsos awaiting decoration. They were fairly labour intensive – the criss-crossing on the fishnets took hours and a steady hand – but at sixty quid she didn’t mind. She needed all the cash sh
e could get these days. Who would have thought a decent pair of Startrites would eat up more than half of that? Six-year-old boys were seriously high maintenance: Honor couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent that sort of money on herself. Not that she was going to start sawing away on a violin in self-pity. She’d learned to do without; weaned herself off the adrenalin rush that a new purchase used to bring. There was a time when she wouldn’t have thought that was possible. Major expenditure had been part of her raison d’être. Two hundred quid on a jumper; double that on a suit – she’d never thought twice about passing the plastic.

  Now she didn’t even have a credit card. She didn’t allow herself one as she knew how easy it was to slide it across the counter, ignoring the fact that fifty-six days later would come the day of reckoning. She only spent cash, because that way she kept an eye on how much was slipping through her fingers. Only the household bills and the council tax were paid by direct debit, because it was marginally cheaper. And when money was this tight, margins made all the difference.

  She lifted the cake board carefully and placed it in a white cardboard box, closing the lid with a sigh. She could really do with putting her feet up in front of the telly tonight, but she had to go through Ted’s spellings with him – he always had a test first thing Thursday morning – and make sure his PE kit was ready before forcing him into the bath. Then it was her favourite part of the day, when he snuggled up on her lap in his pyjamas and they read together – he would do one page, and she would do two, usually Dr Seuss or Roald Dahl. Once he was tucked up under his duvet, then she could flop down on the sofa and select her evening’s viewing – a pointless ritual, because she would always fall asleep after two minutes.

  Her days were long. Every morning she got up at six to put wood on the wood-burning stove so the house would be warm by the time Ted got up. Then she made her daily batch of three dozen scones: she supplied a local craft centre with freshly baked goods for the lunches and teas they served in their café. While the scones were in the oven she had a shower; she had it timed to perfection so that they were pale gold in the time it took her to wash her hair and rough dry it with a towel. Having extricated the scones, she made porridge or boiled eggs for breakfast, then she and Ted raced each other to get dressed. A ritual search for an essential item ranging from a Pokémon card to a plimsoll usually ensued, then Honor walked Ted down through the village to the school gates, where he joined the rest of his mates in the playground. Once she was back home, she embarked upon the rest of the day’s orders, which the craft centre phoned through at about quarter past nine.

  She often thought about going back to work properly, but she never wanted to have the dilemma of Ted being off ill. And she liked to pick him up at three fifteen. She didn’t like the thought of him trooping into aftercare, even though many of his peer group did. And she’d want the holidays and half-terms off. Apart from teaching, which she was hardly qualified to do, there were few jobs that would allow that flexibility. So she muddled through with her scones and her birthday cakes, as well as dinnerparty puddings for overworked hostesses who couldn’t quite face the ignominy of serving up a Marks & Spencer cheesecake, but it was a lot of labour for the money – she seemed constantly to be covered in flour, hot from the oven. Or tearing round trying to deliver on time – once she’d dropped Ted at school she had a two-hour window to bake whatever else was needed and deliver it to the craft centre in time for lunch.

  Today she’d done three quiches and two pissaladières and dropped them off at the craft centre, then rushed back to finish the birthday cake, which was going to be picked up later that afternoon by the wife of the unsuspecting Nigel. Taking off her apron and stuffing it into the washing machine, she looked at the clock. It was five to three – not long enough to do much about her appearance. She double-checked the calendar on the cork noticeboard to make sure there was nothing she’d forgotten. She was meticulous about writing things down because otherwise she’d never remember. Ted’s social and sporting diary was hectic – certainly more than hers was. Beavers, swimming, football on a Saturday, parties most weekends, someone for tea at least once a week in order to help out some other working mother, and all of this underpinned by a complicated rota of lift-sharing. It was a social whirl, and Honor had to keep careful track of it all to make sure that she didn’t forget to give another child a lift or take them home for tea. Once she’d forgotten to collect one of Ted’s friends from a party, and she’d taken a long time to get over the trauma and the stigma.

  Today, however, was clear of commitments. Honor breathed a sigh of relief, then looked along the squares of the calendar to the weekend ahead. In big red letters on Saturday was written CHARITY BALL. Her heart sank and rose simultaneously. She couldn’t help feel excited by her first proper social engagement for nearly seven years. She’d been something of a recluse since she’d had Ted, and to be honest, once you got used to not going out, you didn’t miss it. Which was why the prospect of the ball was so terrifying. Once, glittering social occasions had been the norm for her. The rails in her wardrobe had groaned with appropriate outfits. She had at one time suffered from ball fatigue, swearing that she couldn’t face another evening of Buck’s Fizz, chocolate roulade and insincere toastmasters raffling off trips to the local beauty salon. Those days, however, were long gone.

  It was Henty Beresford who insisted she come and join their table. The moment Honor had met Henty at the school gates on Ted’s first day at school the previous September, she’d known she was a kindred spirit. Henty was small and curvaceous and bubbly and spoke like someone out of a Famous Five adventure – ‘golly’ and ‘crumbs’ and ‘crikey’. But her sweet nature was saved from sickliness by an acute observation and a wicked sense of humour. Ted and Henty’s son Walter were as thick as thieves. They looked as if they’d stepped out of a cartoon strip: Walter with his white-blond pudding-bowl hair cut and wide blue eyes, and Ted with a thatch of red curls and freckles that looked as if they had been painted on.

  Henty had been gently persuasive at first, then positively begged her.

  ‘Please! I need someone to have a giggle with. Everyone takes these dos so seriously. And it’s in a really good cause – the children’s holiday farm. They give terminally ill kids and their families a chance for a break they’d never have otherwise.’

  The emotional blackmail had clinched it, and Honor had given in, even though the fifty-quid ticket was more than she could really afford. Somehow Henty had sensed that, but she hadn’t patronized Honor by offering to pay for her ticket. She’d ordered two cakes instead – one for her eldest daughter Thea’s fourteenth birthday, in the shape of a sweetheart with ‘Text Me’ written in sugary pink, and one for her mother-in-law – which had covered the fifty pounds. Ted was to stay the night at the Beresfords’, on a camp bed in Walter’s room, and was unfeasibly excited. Honor hoped that the babysitter would cope, but – as Henty reassured her – they had mobiles and were only three miles away, and if anyone was going to cause trouble it was Thea.

  Honor had contributed a prize to the auction as well – a bespoke cake done to the bidder’s specification –because everyone who donated a prize had a free advert in the programme and as Henty pointed out it wasn’t often that one had a roomful of potential customers.

  ‘All these mothers buy their children’s birthday cakes from Tesco, and wouldn’t mind forking out a bit extra for something special.’

  As she pulled on her duffel coat, Honor couldn’t help feeling that the ball represented a turning point for her. With the cake business flourishing, her friendship with Henty, and Ted becoming more independent as each day passed, Honor found that after years of self-imposed isolation she was growing in confidence.

  All she had to worry about now was what to wear…

  As she approached the gates of St Joseph’s, her heart sank. The only other mother waiting was Fleur Gibson, and she’d already seen her, so she couldn’t turn round and go into the post office in order
to avoid standing with her. Honor wasn’t one to judge, but she’d taken an instant dislike to Fleur.

  Fleur had opened a florist’s in the nearby town of Eldenbury two years ago. After a slow start, Twig was now doing phenomenally, even though it was well known that it was Millie Cooper who had all the talent, a young girl she’d scooped up from the nearby college who was bursting with flair and imagination. Fleur just did all the deals, all the talking, while Millie sat in a freezing cold room at the back of the shop, hidden from view, creating wonderful bouquets and arrangements that ranged from the exotic to the fantastic. Honor imagined Fleur wafting about, poking the odd gerbera into place and taking all the credit, and couldn’t help feeling it was unfair. But then Millie would never be able to afford to set up on her own. The overheads in Eldenbury were extortionate. She didn’t have the contacts, the social connections. One day, Honor comforted herself, Millie would shoot to fame after being discovered on daytime television and would become the next Paula Pryke. Honor was a firm believer in fairy-tale endings.

  She sidled up to the school gates, conscious that she looked less than glamorous in her duffel coat and wellies. Fleur was in faded jeans, a pristine white T-shirt with the Twig logo, and a cream mac, her razored bob perfectly in place and her matt lipstick freshly applied. She always managed to look crisp and chic, even though one would have thought the work of a florist was necessarily grubby.

  Fleur gave Honor a tight smile, an insincere ‘hi’, and didn’t even bestow an appraising glance on her outfit – Honor was clearly no competition. The mothers at St Joseph’s were on the whole a sensible lot – jeans and muddy estates were pretty much the order of the day – but there was a small contingent who arrived in their convertibles fully made up and dressed to the nines. And Fleur liked to think of herself as leader of this pack, setting trends, dictating by example what should be worn, what car should be driven, what diet should be followed and what exercise regime adhered to. She repeatedly boasted that she was a size six, so tiny she had to shop in Gap Kids for her jeans. Not her tops, though, because on top she was a 36DD. She didn’t mind telling anyone that she’d got her tits for her thirty-fifth birthday. Honor was desperate to ask her which birthday she’d had her nose for, because no one was born with a tiny little retroussé button that tilted up slightly at the end. But Fleur wasn’t yet admitting to facial surgery.