Chloe lay back in her chair, nodding. ‘Benedict’s uncle and aunt gave me a meal. They wanted me to stay overnight with them. They’re awfully nice people, but—but I wanted to come back.’ The sight of the homely, familiar little room brought weak tears into her eyes and she blinked them away quickly. ‘Some coffee would be lovely, though.’
Over coffee she recounted the bare facts of the situation. ‘So, you see, my usefulness is over, really, now that Juana is free. Of course it won’t all come right at once, and there’s still Dona Elisa, Benedict’s grandmother, to consider, but I’m really an—an intruder in his life now.’ Not, she thought with sudden misery, that she had ever been anything else.
‘Oh, but that’s absurd,’ Jan said quickly. ‘I’m sure he doesn’t look at it like that.’
‘Of course he does,’ Chloe said sharply. ‘You haven’t seen Juana—you don’t know how lovely she is. Of course he wants to be free to be with her and look after her at this time. He doesn’t want me hanging around, getting under his feet. That’s why he sent me away so quickly. In a way, I think he imagined he was doing the kindest thing for me.’
Jan was silent for some lime. Then she said stubbornly, ‘I think you’ve got it all wrong.’
Chloe shook her head. ‘I know I haven’t,’ she said.
‘You mean you’ve talked about it? Benedict has told you that he wants to be free to be with this Juana?’
Chloe smiled wryly, ‘You never give up, do you, Jan? Of course he hasn’t told me in so many words, but there are other ways of saying things. And I just know.’
Jan opened a tin of biscuits and handed it across. ‘Well, what are you going to do now?’
‘Do the job I was engaged to do. I’m going to put Woodcotes back into what Benedict calls habitable order. Then I shall make my exit and leave it to them.’
Jan raised her eyebrows. ‘O.K., I can see you’ve made up your mind, so I won’t badger you any more. Just remember I’m here if you want me, won’t you, Chloe? And selfishly glad to have you back.’
The telephone rang across the room and Jan got up to answer it. ‘Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, she’s here, I’ll tell her.’ She held out the receiver to Chloe. ‘It’s your husband,’ she said with a pleased grin, and she went out of the room and closed the door.
Chloe’s heart was thumping in her throat so hard that she had to wait a moment or two before she said, ‘Hullo?’ in a tiny voice.
‘Chloe? You sound a long way away.’
‘It’s the line, I think,’ she said feebly, although he sounded as if he were standing at her elbow, and just to hear him made her feel as weak as water. She drew in a shaky breath. ‘I’ll—I’ll try to speak louder. Is that better?’
‘A little. I’ve just been talking to Uncle John. I thought you’d stay overnight with them in London.’
‘No. They asked me to, but I—I came back here.’ There was a silence and she tried to think of something to say. ‘How is—how is everything?’ she ventured.
‘Much as you’d expect.’ His tone didn’t encourage further questions. ‘Did you have a good trip?’
‘Oh yes, thank you, very good. Your uncle and aunt met me and they took me home with them and gave me a meal, then very kindly put me on the train for Coventry. I’ve only just arrived.’
There was another silence. This conversation was getting more and more stilted and horrid. ‘Benedict,’ she began desperately. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’m here.’
‘I—I wanted to ask you’—she began to improvise wildly—‘about Woodcotes. What do you want me to do there?’
‘Do? Do anything you like, so that the place is fit to live in.’
‘But it’ll take months—it all needs redecorating and—’
‘That can wait,’ he interrupted. ‘Get someone in to clean down, then order the bare essentials to go on with. You know, surely? Some chairs and a table, a sofa to sit on, beds to sleep in—surely you can cope with that?’ Even from across three countries she heard the irritated tone of a man confronted with domestic detail. ‘Of course I can,’ she said rather shortly. ‘I merely wanted to know what you expected.’
She heard his laugh. ‘Don’t get huffy, Chloe. I can’t bear it if you get huffy on top of everything else. What I’m trying to say is—just do the best you can and as soon as you can. I’m looking forward to getting back to Woodcotes. I’ve rung up Keith Dodds at our Birmingham office—you remember Keith at the wedding? He’ll arrange about the finance and help you in any other way he can. I’ve given him your phone number and he’ll be getting in touch. Now, is there anything else?’
‘No. No, nothing else,’ she said, and was painfully aware of just how much else there was—all the things she wanted to say to him and must not. ‘Look after yourself,’ she allowed herself.
‘And you,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a ring some time in the next week. Goodbye then, Chloe. Goodbye, chiquilla.’ She seemed to see the gleam of amusement in his eyes as he spoke the little endearment.
‘Goodbye,’ she said.
She replaced the receiver and was still sitting looking at it when Jan came back into the room five minutes later.
The following week had a most peculiar feel about it. Chloe had never been so busy in all her life. She worked like a beaver from the moment she dragged herself out of bed in the morning, in Jan’s little spare room, to the moment she sank back into it at night. Her face got paler and thinner and dark lines appeared under her eyes, for in spite of her physical tiredness she wasn’t sleeping well.
Jan worried about her. ‘Take a day off, love, give yourself a break,’ she pleaded, towards the end of the week.
‘Day off? You’re joking! I’ve got Mrs Croker’s niece and her friend coming in from the village to scrub the hall. Mr Croker is going to slap some emulsion paint on the bedroom walls. The men are supposed to be coming about the electric cooker and I’ve got to badger the telephone people again about repairing the cable and reconnecting the phone. I’m meeting Keith Dodds in Birmingham this afternoon and he’s going to take me along to the furnishing stores where he’s opened a credit account for me, and I’m going to have a lovely time choosing chairs and beds and rugs and things.’
Jan sighed. ‘By the time Benedict comes back he’ll find a ghost to greet him.’
‘By the time he comes back I shall probably be a ghost, but he won’t notice.’ She smiled brilliantly. ‘I’m enjoying myself, Jan. This is what I’ve always wanted to do—make a home for the man in my life.’ She looked away quickly, her mouth suddenly unsteady. ‘It’s just a pity that the man in my life has plans to share it with another woman.’
Jan said uncertainly, ‘It’s not like you, love, to talk like that. I hardly know you any more.’
‘I don’t know myself,’ Chloe told her, making her voice even and ordinary. It was childish to use flippancy as a defence, and it didn’t really help. ‘When all this is over I’ll put it down to experience and go in search of a new personality. The old one doesn’t seem to have got me very far.’
‘Rubbish,’ Jan told her briskly. ‘All you need is a bit of confidence. You’re all that any man could want—you’re pretty and kind and—well, you’re a really nice girl.’
Chloe gave her sister a small, wry smile. ‘Thank you for those kind words. Benedict told me I was a nice girl. But you ought to see Juana.’
Almost in spite of herself Chloe enjoyed the afternoon in Birmingham. She liked Keith Dodds with his red hair and his wide grin. He made her laugh, and that helped a lot. ‘I’m taking you along to the most select emporium in the city,’ he told her. ‘Nothing but the best for the boss!’
The showrooms were like no other showrooms Chloe had ever seen, each piece of furniture unique and beautiful, both in material and design, while the hangings and covers were such a feast of colour that she felt as if she had walked into a dream—except that she had never furnished her dream home in an atmosphere such as this.
‘But the prices!’ she whispered to Keith, during the temporary absence of the dignified salesman, ‘they must be simply fantastic. I daren’t even ask.’
‘You go ahead, Mrs Dane. You know what the boss said to me? He said, “Don’t let my wife see the prices on the tickets, Keith. She’s a girl with a conscience.” That’s what he told me, cross my heart.’
He grinned his lopsided grin and Chloe was sure that Benedict had never used those particular words, but she got the message. The man she had married was very rich indeed. After that she went ahead and chose what she liked herself, without asking the price.
It would be enough, she had decided, to furnish three bedrooms and the small study downstairs. That, together with kitchen furniture, would do for the time being. The drawing room could be left until later. A drawing room ought to be a personal thing, reflecting the taste of the woman of the house, and as she wasn’t going to be that woman she would have nothing to do with it. She closed her mind resolutely upon the thought of Benedict and Juana together at Woodcotes when she herself had gone, and set about the task of choosing beautiful things that would be happy in the old house.
When it came to choosing beds Keith tactfully said, ‘Look, Mrs Dane, you go ahead and I’ll take myself off and fix up about delivery with the office downstairs. Then I’ll wait there for you and we’ll have tea at the Grand before you go back home.’
Chloe smiled and thanked him and wondered what he would think if he knew the truth that his rather touching delicacy in the matter of beds was quite wasted, as she had no intention of sharing one with her husband.
The sun was setting when, much later, they came out of the hotel into Colmore Row, to the clamour of roosting starlings. Keith found a taxi and they drove to New Street Station, where he saw her ceremoniously on the train to Coventry.
‘You’re quite sure you can manage when you get to Coventry?’ he enquired with anxious concern.
‘Quite sure,' she told him, smilingly. ‘My car’s parked there and it’s only four or five miles to Kenilworth.’ His solicitude was rather amusing, but she was warmed by it, as she was by the obvious admiration in his eyes and the pressure of his hand-clasp as they said goodbye on the platform. The furniture would be delivered in two days, he told her, and he would come over to Woodcotes himself to make sure that everything was in order.
Later on, recounting the events of the afternoon to Jan, Chloe grinned and said, ‘I think Keith fancies me, you know. He’s rather a sweetie.’ She wasn’t aware that there was a sparkle in her blue eyes that made Jan quite thoughtful.
By Thursday all was ready for the furniture to arrive and Chloe, in jeans and with a red and white spotted scarf tied round her hair, stood in the hall at Woodcotes with Mrs Croker, and looked round with satisfaction.
‘You’ve all been marvellous,’ she said to the woman beside her. ‘I honestly don’t know how I could have coped without you.’ She looked round the empty hall, sweet-smelling now with its wood panelling polished and its tiled floor immaculate and Orlando asleep on the windowsill. Since the house had been re-opened he had done his best to move in again permanently, and had had to be persuaded to return to Mrs Croker’s cottage each evening.
Mrs Croker looked round too, with all the pleasure of a good job done. ‘I’ve enjoyed it, Miss Chloe,’ she said. ‘I mean, Mrs Dane. I can’t get used to you being married, you know, you still seem like a schoolgirl to me. Like you were when I used to come here to work for the Colonel and your mother. And now you’re a married young woman, and you’ve come back to live at Woodcotes yourself. It’s all like a fairy tale, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, perhaps it is,’ said Chloe, and her smile became somewhat fixed.
‘And when is your good man coming back from Spain?’ Mrs Croker enquired conversationally.
‘As soon as his business there is finished.’ That was the message he had left with Jan when he had telephoned three days ago, when Chloe was out. She had heard nothing of him since and she had told herself that he had probably chosen that particular time because he had guessed she wouldn’t be at home. She had almost managed to convince herself that it had been better that she shouldn’t have had to speak to him, although the ache of disappointment still persisted.
On the windowsill Orlando sat up and pricked his ears and Mrs Croker went to the front door. ‘A gentleman in a green car,’ she said, and Chloe froze to the spot. But the man who appeared at the door was Keith Dodds and the car was a little spring-green Renault and not a low-slung olive-green monster.
‘Hullo, all.’ He grinned his cheerful grin. ‘I just passed the van on the way. They’ll be here any minute.’
That evening Benedict phoned again and this time Chloe was at home. Things were straightening out, he said in answer to her enquiry. Grandmother had taken the news incredibly well and was insisting upon having a say about choosing Luis’s successor. Juana was better and was being allowed out of hospital tomorrow. ‘How are you managing your end?’
‘Quite satisfactorily,’ she told him in a prim, secretary’s voice. ‘The furniture came today. I hope you’ll be satisfied with it. We’ve opened up about half the house to be going on with, and at least there’ll be somewhere to eat, somewhere to sit and somewhere to sleep. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?’
‘Exactly. You seem to have excelled yourself.’ He sounded very dry. ‘I can see I chose well when I offered you the job.’
Chloe’s hand closed convulsively on the receiver. It was stupid to let that hurt. ‘Thank you very much,’ she said crisply. ‘But I’ve had plenty of help, you know. And Keith Dodds has been absolutely wonderful. I don’t know what I should have done without him.’
‘Good. Now—as to plans. Today’s Thursday. I’ve made tentative arrangements to come back next Tuesday. I’ll probably stay over Monday night in London and drive up to Woodcotes next day, on my way to the Birmingham office. There’ll be a lot for me to catch up on there.’
‘I’ll expect you Tuesday, then.’ Chloe was concentrating so hard on thinking of him as the overworked boss and herself as the helpful secretary that she almost added, ‘—Mr Dane.’ She steadied herself. ‘Perhaps you’ll give me a ring to confirm, nearer the time? They haven’t managed to get the phone connected at Woodcotes yet, but you can always leave a message with Jan if I’m not in.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll do that.’
There was an uncomfortable little silence. Then he said, ‘Chloe…’
‘Yes?’
‘Chloe—this is rather difficult. The fact is—well, would you mind terribly if I brought Juana back with me? I know it would be putting a lot of extra work on you, but she has nobody here to go to, and she’s had a tough time. What she needs is somewhere peaceful like Woodcotes where she can rest for a while. Is it asking too much of you?’
Chloe’s hand went to her throat. Too soon, it was too soon. She had known it would come, but not as soon as this. No time to arm herself, to prepare what she would say.
‘What do you think?’ Benedict’s voice was strange—it couldn’t be easy for a man like that to plead for anything.
‘Why, of course, it’s a lovely idea.’ Chloe heard her own voice, high and light, as if it were floating away into the air. ‘Yes, bring her here by all means. My Mrs Croker —you know, from the cottage near Woodcotes—has got a “nice body” lined up to help me in the house, so Juana will be well looked after. It must be getting very hot where you are; it’ll be much better for her to convalesce here. It’s been lovely today, warm and sunny but springlike too, with a fresh breeze.’ She sounded like the weather forecast, she thought, choking back a desire to burst into wild laughter.
‘Thank you, Chloe, that’s taken a weight off my mind. Is there anything else?’
‘No, nothing else,’ she said quite firmly. Nothing else. This is the end of the road.
‘Goodbye then, Chloe. And thank you for being so understanding.’
‘Goodbye, Benedict.’
Sh
e put the receiver back on its cradle. My husband is bringing his girl-friend home, she told herself. This was the way some people managed their lives, she knew. She’d heard about it, read about it, and marvelled that any wife could accept such an arrangement.
‘Not for me,’ she said aloud to the empty room.
She would have to explain that, so that there was no misunderstanding, By now Benedict would have told Juana the whole story and no doubt they would all talk the thing out, like modern, sophisticated people. She shivered at the thought. Benedict could make his own plans for the divorce. Or should it be an annulment? she wondered painfully. Wasn’t that what they called it when a marriage wasn’t a marriage at all, and never had been?
She pressed her hands against her heart. She felt a physical pain, as if something were actually breaking. So it was true, the old saying, and not just a sentimental, outworn cliché. Hearts did break, after all. She was afraid it was going to be a long, long process. Tears dragged at her throat, but she swallowed them. If she started to weep she wouldn’t be able to stop, and Emma might come in, or Jan. She remembered that Jan had hardly wept at all when Derek walked out on her; but that was different. Derek hadn’t left Jan for another woman. And somehow—Chloe couldn’t imagine how—Jan had never stopped hoping, trusting, knowing, that Derek would want to come back to her and the children when he got tired of being free.
Jan’s voice came down to her from upstairs. ‘Chlo-e! Can you come and say goodnight to the horrors?’
‘Coming!’ Chloe called back.
Soon Jan was going to have to know the truth about Benedict. Poor Jan, she was going to have to admit that this was one happy ending that went wrong. Soon, but not tonight. Tonight Chloe couldn’t talk about the conversation that had just churned up her world like some great subterranean explosion. The fact that it had been threatening ever since she first saw Benedict—growling and muttering deep inside her, hadn’t helped. Now that it had actually happened she was shattered and broken.
A Very Special Man Page 16
