'I'll exercise him while I'm here,' said Saul.
'All right.' He ran a hand down the horse's gleaming neck and Charlotte said, 'It's a crazy life isn't it? I wonder if we've still got your saddles.'
'One of them.' He looked up to where the tack was hanging on the wall and she said, 'Tom remembers you bringing them. He says you were looking at the house, and when he asked you what you wanted you said, "This'll do." He says it makes him wonder if you'd always planned to come back here and move in.'
Saul grinned, 'Not particularly. I could have said the same about Buckingham Palace.'
She made a small grimace. 'I hope not, as you always get what you want.' She wanted him to hold and kiss her the way he had on the patio, and the longing for him was so strong in her that she felt he must sense it. It had to be like a perfume or a cry. She looked at him and willed him to look back with some of her own desperation, then she would be in his arms. She croaked, 'How does it feel to always be a winner?'
'If you really want to know, bloody hard work,' he said crisply. 'I wasn't born with a silver spoon. I'm earning what I've got and I'd better get back to earning it.'
'Thanks for mowing the lawns,' she said.
'A pleasure.'
He went out of the stables and she closed her eyes and gripped her folded arms until her fingertips ached. She shouldn't have said that. She shouldn't have said anything and then he would have reached for her, she was sure of it. It was tactless to keep on harping about all his achievements being luck. He would have made it if they hadn't found bauxite on his land, working the way he did. No wonder he was beginning to get irritated, and it was positively the last time she would mention luck.
She spent what was left of the evening sorting out her wardrobe. Her life-style had changed drastically, she would have little use now for the high fashion clothes with the couture names, so she was taking them along to one of the nearly-new shops and hoping to turn them into cash. Her father was asleep, and Aunt Lucy and Nurse Betty had gone to their own bedrooms, when Charlotte got into the bathroom. She washed her hair and showered, and came out into the passage as Saul was walking down, towards the bathroom and her. He grinned at her, 'We'll have to stop meeting like this.'
She laughed, but she was very conscious of his nearness. This was the second naked man in a dressing gown she had encountered today. Jeremy's legs were whiter and thinner. Saul's were tanned and tautly muscled like the rest of his body would be, and from looking down at his legs she looked back down the corridor, because she couldn't quite make herself stare directly at him.
He looked down the corridor too. 'Is Miss Snowe lurking?'
Charlotte gurgled, 'She's rather too wide to make a successful lurker, but she's in two minds whether to move me to the end of the passage, and if there's too much chatting up in bathrobes she will.'
He roared with laughter and she laughed too, and Georgy at Charlotte's heels contributed a few yaps, and Aunt Lucy's door opened and her head popped out. At which Georgy yapped again and the door opposite opened and Nurse Betty's head appeared.
'My God,' exclaimed Saul, 'the house is alive with chaperones!' He bowed to them, 'Goodnight, ladies,' and both heads shot back.
Charlotte went on her way smiling. When she closed her bedroom door after her she hesitated. She had never locked the door in this house in all her life, but earlier today she had thought it might be wise. The key was stiff when she tried to turn it. It might stick, the lock should be oiled and she would do that tomorrow. She decided not to bother tonight because Saul wasn't coming in here, of course he wasn't.
She sat up in bed, in the darkness, and thought of Jeremy. She should have pressed one of the red roses he'd sent her after the car accident, a memento of a dead love, but the petals had fallen and the flowers had gone. She wondered what she would say if he phoned again and a gentle melancholy settled on her, in a silence broken only by Georgy's snores, until she heard footsteps coming down the passage and the floorboard that creaked outside Saul's door, and very softly the sound of his door closing.
Suddenly she was pierced with loneliness. Oh, Jeremy, she thought. All you said, all I thought we meant to each other. The tears came then, and she let them flow in the darkness because there was nobody near her to know or to care.
CHAPTER NINE
Her father was still sleeping on Monday morning when Charlotte left for work. Saul was in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading the headlines, and Charlotte who had come down earlier and taken a cup of coffee up to her bedroom said to Aunt Lucy, 'I'm off now.'
'You ought to have got up in time for a cooked breakfast,' Aunt Lucy scolded.
'No time this morning. Wish me luck.'
'All the luck in the world,' said Saul, 'but remember—'
Charlotte pulled a face. 'I know, luck is a matter of bloody hard work,' and Lucy Snowe's face registered strong disapproval.
'Sorry,' said Charlotte, 'I seem to be picking up bad habits from somewhere.'
'Or from somebody.' Lucy Snowe glared at Saul, who went on reading his paper.
Charlotte was waiting outside the Gift Box when Monique Morris arrived to open the shop, gave her a cheerful smile and said, 'I've got a hunch you're going to make a super saleswoman.'
'I do hope so,' said Charlotte. She had worn Dunscombe jewellery that had been for sale, but there had been no effort in that. Serving customers in the Gift Box could be a tougher task.
The other assistant walked in while Monique was going through her mail and Charlotte was looking around and trying to memorise the merchandise. Monique was a Junoesque young woman, in a flowing red Indian cotton caftan and jangling bangles and earrings. Tessa Adams was neater, in navy skirt and powder blue blouse, and her greeting for Charlotte was an offhand, 'Oh, hello.'
Tessa was Benjy Hart's girl-friend and she had always resented Charlotte Dunscombe. Although this was a comedown if you like, the Dunscombes losing everything like this, although even in jeans Charlotte managed to look like a film star.
It was that hair, Tessa decided, and she said, 'I always wondered, is your hair real? I mean, do you wear a piece?'
Charlotte tugged at the roots and said ruefully, 'It's real all right. I wonder if I could cut it off and flog it.' 'Are you that hard up?'
'Oh yes,' said Charlotte, and Tessa saw the shadows under her eyes as though she hadn't been sleeping, and felt a glimmering of sympathy.
Trade was brisk. The Gift Box was having a ten per cent reduction sale as the season was almost over. But with the sunshine back the town was still crowded, and a continual procession of tourists ambled through the shop.
Monique watched Charlotte and was impressed, because nothing seemed too much trouble for her, and the customers liked that. She had a smile for everybody, and as the morning wore on even Tessa was talking to her. When Monique had first mentioned that Charlotte was coming to work here Tessa had said, 'I can't stand her,' but by lunchtime Tessa was admitting, to herself, that when you got to know her perhaps Charlotte Dunscombe wasn't so bad after all.
Saul walked into the shop just before one o'clock. Tessa was near Charlotte, and as Charlotte gave a little gasp of surprise Tessa opened her eyes wide and asked, 'Who's he?'
'Saul Laurenson,' said Charlotte. He hadn't seen her yet. He was looking around, but she was partly obscured by a trellis partition.
Tessa had heard about Saul Laurenson from Benjy, and everybody knew he was buying the Dunscombe house and staying there. Tessa giggled softly, 'Now I know why you look as though you haven't been sleeping,' and the woman who was buying the photograph frame that Charlotte was wrapping up goggled.
'If I haven't,' muttered Charlotte, 'it's nothing to do with him.' But she hurried across with her heart pounding because the last time Saul had come looking for her he had brought bad news. She asked 'Is anything the matter?' and was relieved when he smiled.
'I've come to take you to lunch,' he said, 'unless you've made other arrangements.'
Her lunch hou
r was one till two, although she hadn't mentioned that to him, and she said, 'Thanks, I'd like that.' She looked at Monique for permission and Monique said, 'Of course,' very graciously and gave Charlotte a wink and a grin as they walked out.
'Busy morning?' Saul asked, as they went along with the crowds.
'Very busy. Wouldn't you know I'd start on Sales week?'
'The glow suits you.'
'You mean I'm sweating?' She dabbed her warm cheeks with the back of her hand. They were nearing the theatre and she asked, 'Where shall we eat?'
'I thought here,' he said. 'Where you'll be working on Saturday nights,' and he was guiding her through the swing doors of the Stage Door before she could protest, although this was the last place she would have chosen. Even if Jeremy was not here some of his colleagues would be, and she made for a wooden bench in the shadows where she hoped she could pass unnoticed.
Saul acquired a menu which she knew by heart. 'The pate, please,' she said, 'and half of lager.' The place was almost full of strangers, but she could see Peter propping up the bar with the electrician and assistant producer of the Little Theatre, and she kept her head down and turned away. Through the window, sitting at a table in the garden, she glimpsed Lesley and thought, I can't work here. She would have to give the landlord some excuse because she couldn't stand behind that bar chatting with Jeremy's friends.
When Saul came back, with her pate and half and a ploughman's and a pint for himself, she told him about her morning, mimicking the customers, making him smile. He sat on the arm of the bench, and the crowds seemed to fade away leaving her and Saul all alone. 'What have you been doing this morning?' she asked him.
'Booking flights,' he said.
'For you?' He nodded, and everything seemed to go quiet. 'When?' she asked.
'A week today.'
'Where are you going?'
'Canada.'
'How long for?' Her voice was so breathless that it might have sounded eager, because he told her, 'You'll have your home to yourself for quite a while.'
'That should please Aunt Lucy.' Charlotte made herself smile, and asked him about his Canadian interests. She listened, but the gaiety had gone out of her and the outside world was rushing in until the noise and crush in here were becoming almost unbearable.
'I'll have to be going,' she said, as the theatre crowd trooped through from the garden, Jeremy among them. He spotted her as she saw him and took a step towards her, then noticed Saul and shrugged and went out of the pub. She gave him a few minutes to get away and then stood up. 'Back to work,' she said. 'Thank you, I enjoyed that.'
All but the last ten minutes! If Saul hadn't been with her Jeremy would have spoken to her and perhaps they could have ended up friends again. Only friends, because she would never again trust him, but of course she had missed him.
She would miss Saul too. A week today and Saul would be gone and her home would be her own again. But he would leave a void. She was astonished to find that, try as she might, she simply could not imagine the house without him.
In a few days Charlotte had settled into the routine of work. Her father's improvement was steady and life was not too bad at all. She was enjoying her job. She brought sandwiches for lunch and ate them in the office, that way there was no risk of bumping into Jeremy. Saul didn't come to take her to lunch again, but Tessa asked if she would like to eat with her and Benjy.
'Benjy's always had a crush on you, you know,' Tessa confided. 'I used to be really jealous of you, I suppose I still am a bit, but you've got Mr Laurenson, haven't you, so you wouldn't be bothering about Benjy.'
'Nobody's got Mr Laurenson,' said Charlotte, 'but I've brought a packed lunch. Another time, maybe?'
Jo-Ann probably thought she had Saul, although Charlotte could have told her that wouldn't last. He was out most nights, he never suggested Charlotte going with him, and from the looks of it he was seeing Jo-Ann, because when she came into the Gift Box on Friday morning she had that sickening simper on her face. She affected surprise, gasping when she saw Charlotte helping a customer, 'You're never working here! Well, I know Saul's taken over your father's business, but I didn't realise you were actually going out to work.'
Of course she did. She had only come in to put on an act, and Charlotte said, 'Wasn't I lucky? Jobs don't grow on trees these days.'
'You'll never stick it,' said Jo-Ann.
'Watch me,' said Charlotte, putting the purchase into a bag, ringing up the sale and thanking the customer. 'Now, what can I do for you?'
Jo-Ann bought a scarf in a swirl of colours, one of which was blue, and holding it up to her face she said, 'Blue to match my eyes. Saul says I have the loveliest eyes he's ever seen.'
Charlotte said nothing. Tessa and Monique were occupied and Jo-Ann had Charlotte cornered, which was obviously her, objective, because she was almost whispering, 'Folk are saying you and Saul are having an affair because you're living in the same house.'
'Rubbish!' said Charlotte crisply.
She and Saul sparred with words each time they met, mostly cheerfully, sometimes edgily, but she saw little of him; and she kept telling herself that she couldn't wait for next Monday. Then the house would be empty of that electricity he generated. As much thunder as lightning really, making her get up in the night and open windows because he was crowding in on her dreams.
'I know that.' Jo-Ann sounded so smug that Charlotte could have hit her. 'Well, I would know, wouldn't I? You don't get out much since your father came home from hospital, do you?'
Saul had probably told her, although it could have come through somebody else, that Charlotte went home from work and walked the dogs and rode her horse and worked in the house and the garden. She turned down invitations because she didn't want to go out. She just wanted to get good and tired before she fell into bed, because it was at bedtime that she got the miseries. She was still hurt by the easy way Jeremy had given up. He hadn't even tried to phone her again.
'My father hasn't been back a week,' she said, and Jo-Ann asked abruptly, 'What are you doing tomorrow night?'
Charlotte should have been working at the Stage Door, but she had phoned the landlord on Monday night and said she was very sorry but she couldn't take the job after all. Now she murmured, 'Nothing really,' without stopping to think, and Jo-Ann said, 'Come round for a drink, about eight o'clock. Just for a chat, just the two of us.'
There is nothing I would like less, thought Charlotte, than a cosy little chat with you, swapping confidences. She said, 'Thanks, I'll try,' and Jo-Ann said, 'That's a date, I'm relying on you,' and paid for her scarf and went off smiling as though she had the bargain of a lifetime.
It was a date that Charlotte had no intention of keeping. She was dog tired when she got home from work next day, and when she phoned Jo-Ann her excuse was genuine. 'I've just got in and I'm absolutely shattered. Could we make it another night?' But Jo-Anne wailed, 'You promised! I've cooked a flan and Mary's coming.' Mary was an old friend of Charlotte's, an hour or two with her she wouldn't mind, so she said, 'Well, all right. Will you let me put my feet up, and can I come just as I am?'
'Of course you can,' cooed Jo-Ann. 'Come in any old thing.'
So Charlotte stayed in her jeans, changing a limp white shirt for a fresh one, and just before eight o'clock she drew up, in her little red car, outside Jo-Ann's family home, an architect-designed modern bungalow.
There were plenty of cars parked along the road, but none in Jo-Ann's drive. Charlotte rang the bell and Jo-Ann answered, wearing a gold hareem suit that made Charlotte whistle, 'That's a knock-out! I feel like a ragbag beside that.'
'Just a little thing I picked up in the sales,' said Jo-Ann nonchalantly. 'Lovely to see you. Mary's in there.'
She pointed towards a closed door. The hall was empty and everything was very quiet. Charlotte moved ahead, increasingly apprehensive that she had been manoeuvred into some scheme of Jo-Ann's. So much so that she stopped in front of the door, reluctant to open it, until Jo-Ann trippe
d forward and flung the door wide.
The room was full of people, and the moment they saw Charlotte they started to sing, 'Happy birthday to you,' at the top of their voices.
'Surprise, surprise!' trilled Jo-Ann. 'Surprise party.' She threw her arms around Charlotte and kissed her, and these were friends who had come to Charlotte's birthday parties in past years. She was surrounded by them, overwhelmed by their kindness, as one after the other wished her happy birthday.
She wished she had dressed up. She wished she had had an inkling that this was going on. They were sorry for her this year, and this was a charity as well as a kindness. There was a buffet filling a long table, bottles in a corner bar.
'We all chipped in,' said Jo-Ann. 'They all brought bottles and the girls did the food, but I was the one who thought about it. Wasn't I?' She appealed to Mary Whitehead, the girl who ran the riding school, who said, 'Yes, you were,' as though she was still surprised about that, and looked at Charlotte and added, 'It was Jo-Ann's idea.'
Not what Mary would have expected from Jo-Ann, and not what Charlotte would have expected either. Charlotte said huskily, 'How kind of you all! I don't know what to say.'
She didn't understand Jo-Ann's part in this. Right from schooldays anything that Jo-Ann did usually had a selfish motive, and throwing a party for Charlotte seemed very out of character. Even if the guests were providing the food and drink.
'All my idea,' Jo-Ann repeated, and this time it was Saul she was smiling at. He stood, apart from the crush, by the wall, and a little shock ran through Charlotte as it always did when she saw him unexpectedly, like touching a live wire.
Jo-Ann left her then, to cross to Saul, and Charlotte wondered if this was intended to show him what a caring, friendly person Jo-Ann was. Whatever her reason here was a party, and here were Charlotte's friends, so Charlotte said, 'I think you're lovely, all of you. If I'd known I'd have dressed up.'
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