Whisper Of Darkness

by Anne Mather

  ‘Making supper,’ she answered smoothly, refusing to be ruffled by his dark, aggressive countenance. ‘I was going to cook the chicken Matt plucked for me, but it’s a bit late now to prepare a proper meal, so we’ll have to make do with tinned soup and gammon.’

  ‘I did not employ you to cook my meals,’ Jake averred, his expression twisted with irritation, and Joanna looked at him squarely.

  ‘Then who is going to do it?’ she asked, tilting her head, and his eyes narrowed at the implied criticism.

  ‘I’ll go into the village,’ he said shortly. ‘There’s a fish shop there. We can have fish and chips this evening, and tomorrow I’ll try the employment exchange in Penrith.’

  Joanna sighed. ‘I for one don’t want fish and chips,’ she declared, her nose wrinkling at the thought of all that grease. ‘And I don’t think Anya should have such a thing before bed. I can easily heat the soup, and if I grill the gammon, there are tins of pineapple——’

  ‘Thank you, but I do not require you to practice your culinary abilities on me,’ Jake retorted coldly. ‘And while we’re discussing food, I should point out that we do not shop at the village store. Whatever you thought we needed could have waited until I go into Penrith tomorrow, and in future——’

  ‘There was no bread,’ Joanna had interrupted him, then, her eyes sparkling. ‘No bread, no butter and no flour. Your housekeeper was as good at keeping a full larder as she was at everything else! And I do not intend to starve just to please you!’

  Jake’s eyes were glacial now, and she realised she was once again going too far.

  ‘And you did pay for this food, didn’t you?’ he demanded, glancing around. ‘I prefer not to appear a pauper in fact as well as appearance. How much do I owe you?’

  ‘I paid,’ said Joanna, a little shortly. ‘But you don’t have to worry——’

  ‘Thank you, but I prefer to pay my debts,’ he retorted coldly. ‘In spite of your obvious opinion of my financial situation, I am reasonably solvent, and if this place denies that assumption, put it down to a disappointing lack of interest on my behalf.’

  Joanna licked her dry lips. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, Mr Sheldon——’

  ‘But you’ve made it so,’ he countered bleakly, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. ‘Here,’ he tossed several five-pound notes on to the table. ‘That should cover it, and anything else you need in the immediate future. And now—if you’ll excuse me,’ and he left before she could either thank him or deplore his extravagance.

  He appeared once more as she was carrying a tray containing Anya’s supper out of the kitchen, on her way to the child’s room. With a curt: ‘I’ll take that,’ he lifted it out of her hands, and she returned to the kitchen and her own lonely meal with a feeling of intense frustration.

  Now, lying in the darkness, she couldn’t help wondering where Jake was and what he was doing. She had heard the Land Rover depart as she was taking half-hearted mouthfuls of celery soup, but although she had waited, as she had done the night before, he had not returned. She hoped he had got himself something to eat. She doubted he had had anything all day, and the realisation that she was beginning to feel a sense of responsibility towards him made her bury her head in the pillow and silence her thoughts.

  There was no one to wake her the following morning, but surprisingly, Joanna was awake at seven a.m. Despite the fact that it was a dull morning outside and the light was still grey and uninspiring, she felt no remorse at getting out of bed, and after a hasty sluice in the bath with delightfully hot water, she dressed in jeans and a sweater and went downstairs. She really would have to find time to unpack today, she thought ruefully, her overflowing suitcase catching her eyes as she brushed her silky hair before the dressing table mirror. And to write to her mother, too, she determined, feeling a pang of compunction at the realisation that she had hardly thought of her own family since coming to Ravengarth.

  Deciding she did not have time to secure her hair in the knot, which had proved unsatisfactory the day before anyway, she merely tied it back with a black ribbon and restricted the use of cosmetics to a colourless lip lustre. Somehow it seemed pointless spending ages on eye make-up when she intended to spend the morning cleaning up the kitchen. She was totally unaware that the curling bronze lashes had a beauty all their own, without the darkening accent of mascara, and her skin was smooth and pearly soft, and required little but a moisturiser to keep it so.

  It was certainly chilly as she ran down the stairs, but she found to her relief that the kitchen was deliciously warm. Evidently Jake had fed the Aga the night before, and it was glowing brightly, the obvious reason for the hot water she had enjoyed earlier.

  Despite his objections to her buying food in the village, someone had cut bread from the fresh loaf and spread it with butter from the pack she had purchased. She guessed from the plate and cup left to dry on the draining board that Jake had already had toast and coffee, and the faint aroma of burnt bread seemed to confirm this. She plugged in the electric kettle to make herself some coffee and pondered the possibility that Jake might eat a more substantial meal later, and then decided she had no authority to act on this presumption, and concentrated instead on getting the place clean and tidy.

  Unused as she was to housework, it wasn’t easy deciding which chore she ought to tackle first, but eventually she set about the most obvious tasks of cleaning the sink and working surfaces, and washing the floor which had about a month’s accumulation of dirt on it. She ate her breakfast as she worked, stopping every now and then to take a mouthful of toast and a swallow of coffee before getting on, and by the time Anya dragged her feet into the room she had made a distinct improvement in its appearance.

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’ Clearly Anya saw nothing of note in her efforts, and rinsing her hands at the sink, Joanna endeavoured not to feel aggrieved.

  ‘I’m not sure where he is,’ she replied, adopting a bright air of competence, ‘but if you want breakfast, then you’d better tell me what you’d like.’

  Anya frowned. ‘Isn’t Mrs Harris coming back?’ she asked, and this time Joanna guessed she was not being obscurely critical.

  ‘No,’ she replied, refilling the kettle and plugging it in again. ‘Your father’s going to employ another housekeeper, but until he does, I shall do what I can.’

  Anya sniffed, a habit Joanna was sure now she had picked up from Mrs Harris, and rubbed her nose on the sleeve of her sweater. It was rather a nice sweater, or it would be if it was clean, and it reminded Joanna of the pile of dirty washing still waiting to be done.

  ‘Did you make my supper last night?’ Anya asked now, her expression brooding, and when Joanna nodded: ‘Don’t you know how to do anything else but open tins?’ she exclaimed scornfully. ‘I could make the meals you make. Anyone could!’

  Once again Joanna kept her temper with difficulty. ‘As you probably are aware, I intended to make a proper meal for all of us last night,’ she said pleasantly, ‘only a certain person who shall be nameless gave me faulty directions to the village in the hope that I’d fall into the stream!’

  Anya’s thin face flushed. ‘I didn’t hope that at all,’ she denied hotly. ‘There is a path to the village alongside the stream——’

  ‘—which you knew was flooded!’ Joanna declared steadily. ‘Look, I don’t intend to get involved in arguments over the whys and wherefores of what might have happened. Fortunately, Matt had warned me of the dangers——’

  ‘You let me think you didn’t know the way,’ Anya protested indignantly. ‘You tricked me!’

  ‘And isn’t that exactly what you were trying to do to me?’ Anya bent her head. ‘I came back. I looked for you. But you’d disappeared.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry.’ Joanna had not known this. ‘But if you will persist in lighting fireworks, you have to be prepared for them to backfire.’

  Anya hesitated. ‘You went to Trevors’, didn’t you? Daddy told me. He said you’d been there all the time. Why did yo
u go there? Do you know them? Did you intend to go there all along?’

  ‘Heavens, no.’ Patiently, Joanna explained how she had climbed up through the wet grass and met Paul Trevor, and why he had suggested she came home with him. She glossed over Jake’s arrival, and their subsequent journey back to Ravengarth, and merely let the child know the facts of what happened.

  Anya hunched her shoulders, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans. ‘Daddy was furious,’ she declared, though not with any pleasure at the recollection. ‘He said you might have drowned. You wouldn’t have drowned, would you, Miss Seton?’ She paused as if to give more emphasis to her last statement. ‘Witches always float—I read it in a book.’

  Joanna shook her head, regarding Anya with mild exasperation. ‘Now don’t pretend you think I’m a witch,’ she stated firmly. ‘You’re far too intelligent to believe a thing like that, and if I were, do you think I’d be here, washing floors and cooking meals? I’d just wave my magic wand and get some genie to do it for me, wouldn’t I? So let’s stop this silliness and get down to plain speaking. Do you want any breakfast or don’t you? And where does your father keep your textbooks?’

  Anya tipped her head on one side. ‘Do you really think I’m intelligent?’ she exclaimed, and Joanna realised that of all the things she had said, that had had the most impact.

  ‘Of course I do,’ she said now, setting a clean plate and cup and saucer on the table. ‘Now, would you like some ham and eggs, or poached egg on toast, or just toast and marmalade?’

  Anya was still regarding her doubtfully. ‘The others—the other governesses I had, they all said I was backward,’ she declared slowly. ‘One of them even said I was men—mentally retracted.’

  ‘Retarded,’ Joanna corrected flatly, and she shook her head. ‘Well, you’re not, take my word for it. But if your school work is poor, that can only be remedied by your own efforts, no one else’s.’

  Anya pulled a face. ‘I don’t like school. At least, not the schools here. And they didn’t like me.’

  Joanna shrugged. ‘If you make a nuisance of yourself …’

  ‘I didn’t. Not all the time, anyway. They just make me so mad!’

  Joanna knew she was treading on tentative ground now. ‘Did they?’ she asked quietly. ‘Why?’

  But Anya wasn’t listening to her. ‘It was different before, in London. I liked school then. Daddy used to drive me to school every morning, on his way to work——’

  She broke off suddenly as if remembering to whom she was speaking, and Joanna, eager not to destroy that tenuous beginning, quickly asked her what she would like to eat again, thus preventing any backlash.

  She decided to have poached egg on toast, and was swallowing the last morsels when her father came in at the back door. The morning had turned to rain, and the steady drizzle had left droplets of water gleaming on his dark hair, dampening the shoulders of the brown tweed hacking jacket he was wearing. Joanna, used now to those dark scarred features, found his appearance disturbing, and she turned back to the dishes she had been washing in the sink, hoping he did not suspect the emotion he aroused in her. It was crazy, she thought irritably, scouring a saucepan more vigorously than it demanded. He was a man almost twenty years her senior, with a grown-up son to boot, she reminded herself severely, recognising the symptoms of physical attraction and resenting them. She was allowing the unavoidable intimacies of the situation to influence her reaction to him, and the sooner he employed another housekeeper, the better. Then she could take her proper place in the household, and direction all her attentions to the task for which she had come here.

  Now, Jake’s eyes narrowed as they took in the domestic scene before him, and his first words helped Joanna to dispel the sense of awareness she was experiencing.

  ‘I thought I asked you not to interfere in matters which don’t concern you, Miss Seton,’ he declared, closing the outer door and advancing into the room. He cast his daughter a reproving look and then added: ‘Anya is quite capable of preparing her own breakfast, and while I appreciate your looking after yourself for the moment, I would prefer it if you didn’t behave as if I’d hired you as a home help.’

  Joanna turned, wiping her soapy hands on a towel and then resting back against the sink behind her. ‘Why shouldn’t I help, Mr Sheldon,’ she asked, refusing to give him the pleasure of provoking her. ‘I’m not entirely useless, as you can see, and if I’m not complaining, why should you?’

  ‘I don’t want you writing home to your mother, telling her that I’ve turned you into some kind of drudge,’ he snapped. ‘My sister already imagines we live like peasants: imagine her satisfaction if your mother confirms that supposition!’

  Joanna gasped. ‘You don’t suppose I’d complain about doing something I chose to do, do you?’ she exclaimed. ‘And in any case, if I were to explain the situation here, my mother would probably insist I returned home right away!’

  His mouth twisted. ‘That’s the truth!’

  Joanna sighed. ‘Is it? I don’t think you quite understand——’

  ‘Oh, I understand very well. If you described the state of this place to your mother, I’ve no doubt she would be horrified——’

  ‘I’m not talking about the state of this place!’ Joanna interrupted him, unable to keep the note of exasperation out of her voice. ‘But you are a widower, Mr Sheldon, and therefore unmarried, and it might seem—improper to my mother that we should be sharing the same house.’

  The blood running up under his skin darkened the already swarthy cast of his features as he stared at her. It was the first time she had seen a man colour like that, and it disturbed her almost as much as his words did.

  ‘You’re young enough to be my daughter, Miss Seton,’ he got out at last, harshly, pushing impatient fingers through his hair. ‘And despite my obvious shortcomings, I’m not a complete Philistine! Your—virtue, if that isn’t too old-fashioned a word, is safe with me!’

  Joanna’s face burned now, and she was glad when Anya, who had watched this interchange with evident interest, asked: ‘What’s a Philistine, Daddy?’

  ‘It’s not important,’ he muttered, glancing broodingly about the kitchen, as if just noticing how much cleaner it looked. ‘I’ve got to go into Penrith this morning, and before I go, I want your assurance that you’ll not give Miss Seton any more trouble.’

  Anya swallowed the remains of the orange juice Joanna had given her to finish, and wiped her mouth with her hand. ‘Can’t I come with you?’ she demanded in a plaintive voice, but he shook his head.

  ‘I’ve got to try and find another housekeeper,’ he explained, his tone softening slightly. ‘I should be back by tea time. But if I’m not, try and behave yourself. I don’t want to have to punish you a third time, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Daddy.’ Anya hunched her shoulders defensively, and Joanna hoped she intended to keep her promise.

  ‘Would you like some coffee before you go?’ she asked Jake now, hoping to delay the moment when she and Anya would have to come to terms with one another, but he shook his head.

  ‘I’d better get started,’ he replied, his eyes avoiding hers after that unsettling personal exchange. ‘However, I want to see Matt before I go, so if there’s anything you’d like me to get for you, please make a list.’ He paused. ‘You might start the lessons today, if you have the time.’ His tone was sardonic. ‘That was something I intended to discuss with you last night.’

  ‘There is something I have to ask you,’ Joanna ventured, casting a doubtful look in Anya’s direction, and he faced her reluctantly, the tawny eyes veiled by the long lashes that were the only incongruous aspect of that harsh visage. ‘Where do you keep Anya’s school books? The textbooks she uses? Only I’d like to find out how advanced she is in English and arithmetic before we begin any formal lessons.’

  ‘They’re in my desk, in the library,’ he replied, turning away as soon as he decently could. ‘You can find them for yourself. There’s nothing
private in there. You can even use the library to work in, if you like. That’s up to you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Joanna nodded, and with evident relief, he turned towards the door once more. ‘Oh——’ She remembered one last thing, and he turned half impatiently. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s milk,’ Joanna explained. ‘I mean, you obviously don’t get a regular delivery——’

  ‘We have a cow!’ It was Anya’s scornful young voice that answered her. ‘Matt looks after her. Her name’s Gertrude. He fetches the milk for us. You just tell him what you need, and the rest he uses himself or sells to Mr Page at the pub.’

  ‘That will do, Anya.’ Jake gave her a silencing look, and she relapsed into brooding melancholy. ‘But it’s true, we do provide our own milk and eggs, and it was my intention to buy a deep-freeze and store our own meat and vegetables, too.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps I will now. Mrs Harris always refused to have anything to do with frozen food.’

  Joanna didn’t say anything, but she guessed the late housekeeper would have maintained it was too much trouble. Mrs Harris probably found it much easier, shop ping in the supermarket in Penrith, buying ready-cooked foods that required the minimum amount of preparation.

  ‘Is that all?’ Jake was opening the door as he spoke. ‘A I said, write down anything you want and leave the list ir here.’

  Joanna nodded. ‘Drive carefully,’ she said, almost as an afterthought, and glimpsed the sudden hardening of his fea tures as he closed the door behind him. It wasn’t until late that she realised exactly what he must have been thinking.

  CHAPTER SIX

  DESPITE the miserable weather, Joanna refused to fee downhearted. She had Anya’s company, at least, and whik that might be a dubious blessing, she was determined no to let the little progress they had made slip away. It wasn’ going to be easy, always knowing how best to approach the child, but she intended to take each minute as it came, and deal with the problems accordingly.