'If you want him to invest in the business and he wants to that's splendid, I suppose, but I don't really want to see him again. I don't suppose I made much of an impression on him last night, but he made a big impression on me. Just sitting at the same table- with him gave me a headache—like thunder in the air, you know, before a storm.'
'Don't over-dramatise.' Her father sounded weary and she was piling on the agony. 'You're getting bad habits from your theatrical friends. All I'm asking you to do is behave in a civilised fashion. You were sulking like a child last night. I've never known- you carry on like that before.'
He was shocked and disappointed in her, and she had been childish. She asked, in a rush of contrition, 'What do you want me to do?'
'There are several properties Saul's looking over today, I said you'd go with him.'
'Me?' she squeaked. 'Why me?'
'Because you've lived in the Cotswolds all your life.' He gave a small wry smile. 'Because I thought you'd enjoy it.'
Charlotte did enjoy looking round houses. She had helped several of her friends when they were house-hunting, and she would have been delighted to go along with anyone else. But the thought of spending most of the day with Saul Laurenson was a daunting one.
'I don't—' she began to protest, then her conscience took over. It was no big thing. If the recession was beginning to bite she must help in every way she could. She said, 'All right, if I go along what do you want me to do?'
'Give your opinion if you're asked for it.' He drained the coffee in his cup, although it looked cold, got up and said, 'I'll see you later. He's at the Blue Boar in Chipping Queanton, he's expecting you about half past nine.'
Charlotte couldn't see Saul Laurenson asking for her opinion. Her father must have volunteered her company, because she was sure it wasn't Laurenson's idea, and although she still had three-quarters of an hour to kill she had no appetite for breakfast.
She walked Georgy round the garden, then left him in the care of Aunt Lucy. 'I'm going house-hunting,' she explained, 'with Mr Laurenson, who's decided he'd like to live around here, and he scares me, so he'd probably give Georgy convulsions before we were through.'
'Scares you?' Aunt Lucy was in the drawing room, dusting a plump white porcelain Cupid. 'Why should he scare you?'
'I don't know,' Charlotte admitted as Aunt Lucy replaced the Cupid on the shelf of a corner cupboard. 'Except that my father says we could use his backing in the business, and that scares me because I think he might take over.'
'Your father knows what he's doing,' said Aunt Lucy. 'Don't you fret.' She went on with her dusting and Charlotte said, 'Of course he does.' But she was convinced that Saul Laurenson was a ruthless man, and the prospect of getting into his debt scared her sick…
The Blue Boar Hotel, which had once been a small manor house, was on the outskirts of town. The coat of arms of the defunct family, painted in bold bright colours above the great stone fireplace in the main hall, sported a blue boar. Charlotte gave her name and Saul Laurenson's to the clerk at the reception desk and got an admiring smile in return.
Some men had all the luck, the clerk decided. Not only was Mr Laurenson obviously rolling in money—he'd booked into the best suite in the hotel—but he had this fantastic bird after him. Class she was too, anyone could see that.
'Ask her to come up,' said Saul Laurenson when he was informed that Miss Dunscombe had arrived, and the clerk passed on the message with instructions how to reach the master-suite.
Charlotte would have loved to say, 'Tell him to come down,' and seat herself in one of the leather armchairs and let Saul Laurenson do the running. But she wasn't to antagonise him, so she smiled and said, 'Thank you,' and took the stairs rather than the little gilt birdcage of a lift. With her luck, when he was around, the lift would probably have stuck between floors, and he would have watched her being hauled out like a sack of potatoes.
He answered the door when she tapped on it. Today he wore an open-necked beige shirt and a beige jacket of thin supple chamois. Casual dress, with dark brown slacks, but he looked no more approachable than he had in last night's formal suit. His smile was nothing like the clerk's bright-eyed admiring grin, although after he had said, 'Good morning,' he did add, 'This is very civil of you.'
Charlotte shrugged, 'Looking at houses is no trouble,' as she stepped into a sitting room, attractively furnished, period pieces combined with comfortable chairs and a TV set concealed in a corner cupboard. Some papers on a round inlaid table looked like estate agents' circulars.
'Perhaps you'd like to glance at those,' he suggested as he went through another door, leaving it open.
She raised her voice to ask, 'What do you want me to tell you? If they're in residential areas or if a river's likely to rise? I mean, you can see those kind of things for yourself, can't you?'
'Maybe, but local knowledge can be very useful in property buying.'
When she didn't see him she found it easier to talk to him. 'Why do you want to live round here?' she asked.
'Beautiful countryside, don't you agree?'
Of course she agreed, but her father thought that the business and the decision to buy a house went together, and she picked up the top sheet of paper and whistled at the price and said, 'It's a lot to be spending to put a roof over your head.' He'd get super luxury for this kind of money, and she thought of Jeremy's little flat, half a flat as he was sharing, and it didn't seem fair.
'Is that how you would describe a home? Your own, for instance?' Saul Laurenson was back in the room, a briefcase under his arm. Charlotte didn't look at him again after a first quick glance, but he went on looking at her and her small Georgian home was in the upper income bracket and she had no call to be snide about what he was prepared to pay.
'Talking of money,' he said, 'I presume your father's mentioned our business discussions?'
She nodded, although all she knew was that Saul Laurenson was rich and astute and Dunscombes had need of him. She said slowly, 'We've always been a family business. I should hate to see an outsider join us.'
'Today's economic climate makes strange bedfellows.' Before she could stop herself she had spat out, 'I hope you don't imagine you're speaking literally,' and could have bitten her tongue, because of course he laughed and said, 'Nothing was further from my mind. Shall we go?'
His car was drawn up in front of the hotel, hers was in the parking area behind, and as they walked through the main entrance she asked, 'Whose car are we taking? I know all the short cuts. Shall I drive?'
He declined promptly, 'No, thank you, you might drive like you ride.' He opened the passenger door for her and she muttered, 'I'm as good a rider as you're likely to come across, matey.' She hadn't expected him to hear, he was walking around to get into the driving seat, but as he settled himself in he said, 'I'm sure you are, but you do have this little habit of not looking where you're going. Fasten your seat-belt.'
She had been about to do just that, but her fingers stiffened and she sat back, announcing, 'I prefer to feel free.' No way would she do what he told her. He didn't argue. She didn't think he did much arguing. She could imagine him giving orders in crisp incisive tones: Do this. Do that. This is how the situation will be handled. And she remembered him sitting at her father's desk in her father's study, and she visualised him in her father's office at Dunscombe's, and thought, oh lord, I hope I'm not psychic. I hope it could never come true.
She said suddenly, 'I don't have anything to do with the financial side of the business. I'm a designer.'
'Of course you are,' he said. He didn't believe she worked, but she did have talent even if he reckoned she was of no value to the firm. Oh, she wished they didn't need him, and tonight she must ask her father exactly what the position was and how Saul Laurenson was likely to feature in her future.
The car was coming to the traffic lights and the theatre. She had told Jeremy she would see him today, he would be expecting her around lunchtime. Now she might not make it, and she s
ighed, taking advantage of the red signal to look up and down the pavement, checking passers-by. This was where he worked, he might be coming or going.
But he wasn't, and Saul Laurenson was watching her, so she said, 'It's a theatre,' which was obvious.
'So I see,' he said, and as the lights changed and the car moved, 'Do you act?'
'It isn't an amateur theatre, it's a very good professional one. They put on some marvellous shows. While you're here you should go and see one of them.'
Then she spotted Jeremy's flatmate coming out of the small supermarket, with both arms around a loaded carrier bag, and began to wind down the window. 'Can't you stop?' she asked, and yelled, 'Peter!'
'Not here I can't.' There wasn't an inch of parking space and the traffic was moving in a steady stream.
'Peter!' she bellowed, getting her head through the window and attracting the attention of the crowds but not of the portly bearded actor ambling along with his groceries.
'A pity you're not on the stage,' remarked Saul Laurenson, 'you'd have no trouble making them hear up in the gallery. Is your friend deaf?'
'Seems like it. Damn!' She could have given Peter a message and Jeremy wouldn't have hung around waiting for her to turn up. She flopped back in her seat with an exasperated grunt, and Saul Laurenson turned left down a side street, drew up and said, 'If you don't mind running after him now's your chance.'
'Thanks.' She was out of the car, dodging pedestrians, haring down the main road until she could reach out and grab Peter's arm. 'Peter, hi! Give Jeremy a message for me, will you?' She gasped for a few seconds, getting her breath. 'Tell him I can't make lunch but I'll ring him this evening, would you do that?'
'For you, my beauty, anything.' Peter Stubbs leered at her and she said, 'You are nice. I've got to fly. I just hopped out of a car round the corner.'
Saul, double-parked, was talking to a policeman, and Charlotte thought, That's done it, I've got him booked! Then she realised from the policeman's gestures that Saul was being given directions, and as she walked up Saul said, 'Let me see if I've got it. First left, second right, straight on till I come to the Public Library and then…'
Charlotte went on walking. The car passed her before the first turning and she hurried after it. He was waiting outside the Library, and as she ran up he opened the door and she got in gasping, 'I thought he was booking you.'
'It was a near thing. Did you catch up with Peter?'
'Yes, thank you.'
'All satisfactory now?'
'Thank you, yes.'
'It didn't take long.'
'Just as well,' she said. If he had to drive off and leave her she wouldn't have minded, and she was sure he wouldn't. She didn't like his grin and she said tartly, 'He didn't hear me call after him, you know. He wasn't avoiding me.'
'What man would?' he murmured, and she knew he was sending her up and she didn't appreciate his sense of humour.
'Anyway,' she muttered, 'I only wanted him to give somebody a message. I had a date for lunch that I can't keep now I don't have a car, and I probably won't be able to get a taxi, and I can't be sure of getting back here by one o'clock.'
'I apologise,' he said gravely. 'You should have explained that this was interfering with your plans.'
'It doesn't matter.' She was here and she had to be civil. 'Well,' she went on, 'it's a nice day for house-hunting.' That was pretty trite, but he agreed, 'It's a nice day for almost anything,' and Charlotte thought, so who cares if he thinks I'm dumb? It was better than being tonguetied like last night. She asked, 'Where are we going first?'
The address was about five miles away. Two houses were being built in what had been a meadow. Behind them rose green dappled hills where sheep grazed, and it was altogether a pleasant pastoral setting.
One house was almost completed, the other was in an earlier stage of construction with builders still at work. As their car drew up a man came to meet them, beaming from ear to ear. 'Mr Laurenson? Good morning.' He gave Charlotte the look she expected, tribute to her beauty, but respectful because she was with the man who had come to inspect this very pricey property.
The estate agent began his spiel at once, pointing out the open views, the weathered tiles and bricks, the genuine old oak door. It was a new house fashioned from materials cannibalised from demolitions. When the churned-up rock-hard earth around had been cultivated into a garden these houses were going to look as though they had been here for anything up to a hundred years.
Inside the staircase was of fumed oak and the hall was flagstoned. 'Perhaps the lady would like to see the kitchens,' the estate agent suggested. 'Apart from the overhead beams they are, of course, completely modern.'
Charlotte didn't want to be taken into what might become Saul Laurenson's kitchen by a man who thought she might be doing the cooking there. 'The lady,' she said, 'would like to wander around if she may.' Alone, she would enjoy this. It was a charming house, a bit of a cheat, but what did that matter when the old materials were so beautiful? These doors and staircase could have ended up on a demolition bonfire. A little while ago they would have done, but now nostalgia was coming into its own and most of the people she knew would be happy living here.
Saul went off with the estate agent and she wandered into another room, playing her game of pretending that she was shopping for a home for herself and Jeremy. This would be wonderful, near enough to the theatre and Dunscombes, not too far from her father. If only a couple of noughts were knocked off the price this would be perfect.
She went poking around in cupboards, passing the men from time to time but doing her best to dodge them, ending in a bedroom at the back that would look over the garden and the hills. Roses would grow well, foxgloves, poppies, wild flowers. She would like to make a garden from the bare earth. She would like to make a home.
A walnut tree grew at the far limits of the 'garden' and she would put a bench under that where they could sit on warm evenings, like tonight would be, and she could listen to Jeremy learning his lines, read out other parts and help , him. Then they would come up here together. She closed her eyes, hands clasped together, and thought, I love you, my love; I wish you were with me now.
She was so deep in her dreaming that she didn't hear the footsteps, but she felt the touch on her shoulder and her heart leapt into her mouth. For a wild moment she half expected to see Jeremy, but it was Saul, of course, and shock jerked her against him, colour draining from her face as she gasped, 'Oh, lordy, you frightened me! I didn't hear you coming, I was miles away.'
She wished she was, instead of being held between his steadying hands. Finding herself so close to him, with his hands on her, was like being torn out of Jeremy's arms, all her senses ran amok. She didn't know how she was feeling or what she was saying. She leaned back against the window frame and began to babble, 'I didn't hear you, I was planning a garden out there and I got a bit involved. My head's swimming.'
'Do you get many headaches?'
'It isn't aching, it's swimming—I never get headaches.' Except last night. 'Except last night,' she corrected herself. 'And it's hot in here and I came out without breakfast.'
She was getting herself together fairly fast now that he had stopped holding her. He had strange eyes, dark enough for Dracula. It was all of a piece, his face. Some men had thick fierce eyebrows and weak mouths, or lovely mouths and shifty eyes. But there wasn't a weak feature in Saul Laurenson's face. The lines, of laughter and thought, were deep, and the mouth was hard. But it wasn't a thin-lipped mouth, she had noticed that before.
They were alone, she noticed that now, and asked, 'Where's the man who's doing the selling?'
'Gone back to his office.'
'What—' She had to stop to moisten her dry lips.
'What do you think of it?'
'I'd like to see others,' he said, and she went on chattering, 'New houses feel empty, don't they?' Of course they did when they were empty. 'Strange,' she added. 'Echoing. You have to put your own imprint on them.'<
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She had imagined herself down there in the garden, and in this room, with Jeremy, but now she couldn't see Jeremy for Saul. For a disloyal moment she felt that he might dominate Jeremy, even if Jeremy was an actor, trained for and loving the spotlight.
'Where now?' she asked.
'There's a flat in Stratford.' Six miles away. 'And then we'll look around for lunch. If you skipped breakfast, and I've ruined your date, the least I can do is feed you.'
Charlotte started to say, 'Well, thanks, but I'm not really hungry,' when her tummy gave a hollow rumble and she grinned instead and said, 'I think I'm getting a message.'
The men on the scaffolding next door got a better look at her this time, and set up a chorus of wolf whistles. She laughed and as she climbed into the car called across, 'I think you're building two super houses.'
'You're a pretty super build yourself!' one shouted back, and Saul closed her door and got into the driving seat and she wondered if his silence meant disapproval or simply lack of interest.
The flat was a penthouse overlooking the river, very luxurious in every way, furnished by the present occupants, who were abroad so that again they were conducted around by an estate agent, and again Charlotte removed herself from the men and did her own rambling and dreaming. She could imagine Jeremy here all right, but the trouble was that Saul was here. His voice seemed to carry, no matter how hard she tried not to listen, and when she couldn't see him she could feel him like vibrations in the air. He was too powerful a personality by half.
She came downstairs and stood by the car and watched the river until he joined her. 'Getting bored?' he asked.
'No, it's a highly desirable residence. I'd like it. I'd like the last one too.'
'You planning on leaving home?'
She said, 'No, but nothing stays the same for ever.' Nothing stayed the same from day to day. The day before yesterday she had been happy and secure, then came the row with her father and she had learned that the business was in trouble and Saul Laurenson had cast his shadow over her life. She added with fervour, 'More's the pity.'
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