New Boss at Birchfields

by Henrietta Reid

  At work she was preoccupied and absentminded, and the girls joked about her being lovesick. But Briony knew that if she didn’t pull herself together and find out exactly where she stood with Jeremy she would indeed find herself out of work. She would go to Aberdeen, meet him and find out how he felt about her. This would force him to take some definite stand—especially if she were to tell him she had thrown up her job to be with him. It would be a desperate gamble, but anything would be better than her present dreadful uncertainty.

  When at last she told her mother of her plan Mrs. Walton was anything but enthusiastic. ‘It seems to me you’re not really giving Jeremy much time to establish himself, are you? You know, you may regret acting so hastily, Briony. Men hate being run after, and Jeremy is no exception.’

  ‘But I’m not running after him! Don’t you see that?’ Briony put in quickly. ‘I can easily get a job in the North. Jeremy told me it’s full of opportunities.’

  ‘Yes, but your real reason is to find out where you stand with him, isn’t it? What you want to do is keep an eye on him, as it were. You can’t deny that.’

  To a certain extent this was true, Briony knew, yet, knowing Jeremy as she did, she felt justified in trying to find out where she stood with him. All the same, her mother’s words had struck close to the truth, and when she told them at the office about her plans she was disconcerted to find how very well informed they were about her private affairs.

  ‘Are you not being a very foolish young lady to act so precipitously?’ the elderly man behind the big desk asked her. ‘The office grapevine tells me you’re leaving us to go to Aberdeen.’

  But Briony was adamant. By this time she was truly desperate. And she had a steely determination to use the fact that she had thrown up her job as a weapon in eliciting from Jeremy his real intentions.

  To her relief her mother, though still disapproving, had begun to accept the situation with resignation. All that remained now was to pack her bags, phone Jeremy and let him know when she would be arriving. She booked a place in a second-class sleeping compartment and before the train left she put in a phone call to Jeremy.

  But the call was not at all reassuring.

  ‘What are you thinking of?’ he asked sharply, when she told him of her plan.

  ‘Simply that your letters recently haven’t been very satisfactory, and I think we should meet and thrash things out.’

  ‘What on earth has come over you, Briony? What is there to thrash out?’

  ‘What I mean is that I’m taking the night train,’ she told him desperately, trying to keep her voice firm and even. ‘If you care for me at all you’ll try to meet it.’

  ‘Don’t do it, Briony!’ His voice was sharp. ‘Wait for my letter—I’ll explain everything.’

  ‘If I don’t rush I’ll miss my train,’ she replied, before slamming down the phone.

  Later on, as the train sped through the night and she dozed and awoke, she felt a sense of adventure alternating with hope and despair. What would have been in his letter? she wondered. Would it have confirmed her fondest hopes, or would the message have been that everything was over between them?

  The scenery changed from the warmth of the South to the desolate mountains of the North, made more frightening by the moonlight, and she knew she was moving into a strange and unknown world. The thought was both attractive and terrifying. Perhaps Jeremy had already made good and they would be able to get married right away. Even if this were not possible, perhaps she could stay in Aberdeen, be near him, see him every day. Jeremy with his talent for getting along with all sorts of people was bound to have plenty of contacts. He would be able to find her a suitable job so that they need never be parted again.

  Long before the train reached Aberdeen she was awake and dressed. She took particular care with her make-up and felt confident that her new tweed suit was eminently suitable for a Highland holiday.

  As the train slowed and drew into the station she stared out eagerly. There was no sign of Jeremy, but she felt certain he was somewhere in the crowd. Carrying her suitcase, she stood on the platform beside the carriage door. Sooner or later he would find her. But as time passed and chatting groups dispersed coldness struck at her heart. She felt isolated, as though deserted on a desert island. Her case in her hand, she stood searching the departing crowd, but there was no one even remotely resembling Jeremy. Perhaps, she thought, grasping at straws, he was delayed.

  She took a seat on the platform, determined to sit it out. But as time passed, she realised with sick dismay that Jeremy was definitely not going to greet her. There was no sign of his blond hair and laughing eyes. There was only one thing for it—she would have to go to his office. He would probably have a simple explanation for his absence and all her silly worries would evaporate.

  She checked in her suitcase and took a taxi to his business address. She was immediately overawed by the size of the building. For a moment she stood in the palatial entrance with its gleaming polished granite walls and mosaic floor wondering where in this vast office building she could locate Jeremy. But now her spirits were rising. It was plain that Jeremy was doing well. He must have many important appointments and commitments..

  She turned into the building and was crossing the wide floor when a lift door opened and Jeremy, preceded by an extremely elegant-looking young woman carrying a file, got out. The girl was speaking over her shoulder intimately to him, and Jeremy, Briony could see with a little twinge at her heart, was as usual turning on the charm. How ordinary her new tweed suit seemed in comparison to the restrained elegance of this tall young woman, her dark hair swept back and gathered into a glossy chignon!

  With a few parting words and a brilliant smile the girl went off along a corridor, and Jeremy caught sight of Briony.

  His face stiffened as he hurried towards her. He took her by the arm and led her outside. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ he grated. ‘I thought I told you on the phone not to come.’

  ‘But I told you I was leaving on the overnight train,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, I simply couldn’t believe it,’ he told her. ‘What could you have been thinking of, to do such a mad thing?’ He looked at her keenly. ‘You haven’t by any chance flung up your job, have you?’

  Briony could feel her cheeks grow pale at the tone of contempt in his voice, but she pulled herself together. This was no time to show weakness. ‘Yes, I have,’ she retorted. ‘And what about it?’

  ‘What about it!’ he repeated incredulously. ‘Just what do you think is going to become of you now?’

  ‘But there must be loads of jobs in Aberdeen,’ she faltered. ‘You said in your letters that there are unlimited opportunities and—’

  ‘There are loads of opportunities for qualified people, especially for people with very unusual qualifications,’ he grated. ‘But as far as ordinary run-of-the-mill people, well I’m afraid, Briony, you’ll have to face the fact that there’s no future for you here.’

  ‘So you don’t care any more,’ she said through stiff lips.

  He hesitated. ‘Well, if you want it straight from the shoulder, no, I don’t care any more!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘So you’ve met someone else,’ she said tonelessly after a long moment of silence. She nodded towards the door through which the girl with the shining dark hair had disappeared. ‘She’s beautiful—and wealthy too! Isn’t that it?’ At last the veils had been taken from her eyes. She saw Jeremy as he really was and she no longer hoped.

  ‘Do you know who that girl is?’ he asked in a low tone. ‘She’s the sister of Slim Morgan, a Texan with more money than you’d dream about in a thousand years! He’d promised me a place in his organisation. It’s world-wide and growing every moment.’

  ‘And there’s no place for me in your life any more,’ Briony said disconsolately. ‘I can see, Jeremy, that I didn’t understand you. I thought you were warmhearted and that everything was for laughs. You understand yourself better—you sai
d you were going ahead. Well, this is the end, isn’t it?’ She pulled the ring from her finger and handed it to him.

  ‘And what am I to do with this?’ Jeremy asked, looking down at the cheap little ring lying in the palm of his hand.

  ‘You can give it to Miss Morgan,’ Briony said in a low voice. ‘And I only hope she’ll appreciate it as much as I did.’

  She swung around and marched towards the door, her head held high.

  Once on the pavement she felt her eyes cloud with tears. She hurried along, mixing with the crowd in Union Street, gazing into the shop windows through a blur of tears.

  Gradually she got a grip on herself. She would cry later. After all, this was something that had been a dark cloud on her mind for a long time.

  She paused in front of a big dress shop trying to look interested in the window display. What was she to do now? To think that she had relied on Jeremy to help her to find a job! Why she wasn’t even fixed up with accommodation for the night. There was, of course, her godmother, Hettie Gillies. She had promised her mother she would visit her. But Briony had visualised herself accompanied by Jeremy. It would have made a pleasant day’s outing, for Hettie lived in a beautiful wooded village along the valley of the Dee. Now she would be visiting her in very different circumstances. How would Hettie receive her? She remembered holidays at Birchfields when she was a child and recollected that Hettie could be a little sharp-tongued at times. But there was nothing for it but to fling herself on her godmother’s mercy and hope for the best.

  Recklessly she decided to travel by taxi. The driver gave her a faint look of surprise because Abergour was some distance from the town, but she felt she simply could not economise that day. Better to know how things stood as soon as possible. If Hettie was unable to put her up then she would be forced to take the next train home. In a few days it would be common knowledge among their friends and acquaintances that she had thrown up her job for a man who had rejected her. She shrank back in the seat of the taxi at the very thought.

  As the taxi moved out through the suburbs she hardly saw the granite houses with their pretty well-tended gardens, and as they left Aberdeen behind the beauty of the countryside meant nothing to her. She stared blankly at the loveliness of birches and rowans, the rushing streams and wooded slopes.

  It was only as they drew near to the village of Abergour that she pulled herself together and looked about for her first glimpse of Birchfields. For a moment her view was obscured by a giant hoarding on which was written ‘Lennox Riding School’ in enormous lettering. Then, once again, she craned her neck seeking the untidy grounds that surrounded Birchfields.

  Roy and Hettie Gillies had bought Birchfields, which had once been the home of a wealthy Aberdeen merchant. They had not had money enough to keep the large Victorian house in good condition, and Briony remembered it as rather shabby, the carpets worn and the curtains slightly dusty. But Hettie had the gift of making the house a warm and welcoming place, and Briony looked back with happiness to the holidays she had spent there as a child. Into her mind flashed the memory of the scent of baking in the large old-fashioned untidy kitchen. Roy and Hettie, childless themselves, had opened their hearts to the eager little girl with the bright red hair who had romped in the garden with the dogs and helped to pick the sun-ripened strawberries and had helped to pack the bunches of flowers that the Gillies had sold in Aberdeen.

  Roy had managed a market garden with the help of a boy, Hettie helping out when they were particularly busy. But now Roy was dead and Hettie would be alone in the big house. Briony felt a little stab of recognition as she caught a glimpse of the village church with its great clock still stopped at ten past six. ‘The gate of Birchfields is somewhere along here to the left,’ she told the driver. But she felt confused. Instead of the familiar wall with its lichen-covered stones they were passing white railings through which she could see a paddock in which ponies were grazing.

  ‘Perhaps we’d better stop here,’ she said doubtfully to the driver.

  She gazed about in bewilderment. Where were the great iron gates with the word Birchfields worked in wrought-iron? It had disappeared. Now all that appeared was a low gate that matched the white rails which now enclosed the grounds. Although ‘enclosed’ was hardly the word, because the rails were so widely spaced as to afford a full vista of grounds completely flat on which were stabling, paddocks, and in the background a house which seemed not at all to resemble the sprawling outlines of the house she had known as a child. It had a neat, freshly-scrubbed look with shining windows and formal flowerbeds, and in the background could be seen a gigantic Dutch bam only half erected, on which workmen were still busy.

  To one side of the gate was another of those huge signs with ‘Lennox Riding School’ written on it. This time there was also a hand pointing along the broad gravelled driveway.

  Briony gazed at the scene uneasily. There was something almost nightmarish about this strange metamorphosis, as though the house she had remembered had been nothing more than a dream.

  ‘You’d better wait,’ she told the driver. ‘I’m not sure this is the right place.’

  Slowly she opened the gate and walked along the drive. On either side the grass was trimly mown and everything seemed smooth and orderly. Much too orderly to belong to Hettie, she thought with growing dismay.

  Off to one side was a row of stables, and these too had a severity of outline and complete lack of disorder that somehow added to her unease.

  As she drew level a boy emerged from one of the half-doors. He closed and bolted the top portion and turned towards her enquiringly.

  ‘I’m looking for Mrs. Gillies,’ she told him. ‘She used to live at Birchfields, but somehow I can’t—’

  She paused and he said, ‘This is Birchfields, or used to be, but it’s Mr. Lennox’s place now.’

  ‘So I see,’ she replied a little acidly. ‘I saw the notice at the gates.’

  ‘Yes, he bought it from her, and now the old lady lives at Amulree Cottage. It’s the second from the end after you pass the shop.’

  Briony heard the news with a sense of relief. So at least Hettie still lived in Abergour. She had had a curious superstitious dread that in some mysterious way Hettie had disappeared off the face of the earth.

  ‘Oh, I’ll find it all right,’ she said quickly. ‘I used to live here when I was a child. I don’t suppose the village has changed much.’

  But she was to find that this was not entirely true as, once again in the taxi, she was driven through the village. It seemed to her now that it was rather a busier place. Outside’ several of the cottages there were signs—‘Teas’, ‘Bed and breakfast’. And in place of the old tiny village shop there was now a larger double-windowed erection, hanging in the doorway of which she spotted a big bunch of fisherman’s waders.

  Set back from the street was the old parish church of weathered stone, the stained glass of the windows looking dull from the outside. But she remembered how wonderfully brilliant it could look on a Sunday morning when the sun was streaming through and sending down shafts of blues and greens, reds and golds on the mosaic of the aisles. Eventually as the village petered out they came to the few remaining detached cottages. At first glance it would have been hard to tell which of these belonged to Hettie Gillies. Each had an untidy garden with untrimmed shrubs and wandering roses and tangled country flowers. But on one of these was the name Amulree Cottage on a slatted wooden plaque.

  ‘Here we are!’ Briony paid off the taxi, took her case and walked quickly along the short brick pathway.

  The door stood slightly ajar as she knocked and from the interior came the delicious scent of oven-fresh pastry. She knocked again, but the only response was the sound of an oven door being banged somewhere at the back of the cottage, and a faint humming of someone going about their work in a preoccupied manner.

  Briony poked her head inside and immediately found herself in the living-room of the little house.

  A small wood f
ire crackled in the black-leaded grate. A comfortable chintz-covered armchair was drawn up on either side of this. Then her eyes lit upon the familiar china cabinet. She put down her case and crossed over to it.

  Yes, there were the little Dresden vases covered with tiny blue forget-me-nots: the pair of clouded yellow bonbonneries with golden butterflies. There were other items well beloved from the days of her childhood—the serried rows of antique paperweights and the Chelsea ornaments—a boy playing a flute, and wearing a black hat with pink ribbons and a pink tunic with yellow flowers. Hettie, in days gone by, had permitted Briony to take them out and even to wash them if she was especially careful. They had delighted her when she was a child and now it was somehow comforting to see them again. It helped to alleviate the horrible feeling of rejection she had experienced after she had parted from Jeremy.

  She straightened up and looked about the small cosy room. It was untidy, of course—Hettie’s rooms always were! A sewing-basket spilled to one side and a pile of magazines tossed untidily on a sofa table! This was Hettie’s cottage all right, and for the time being she was safe and at home.

  A moment later there was the sound of footsteps and Hettie came into the room. She gazed for a moment in blank amazement at the girl who stood in the middle of the floor smiling at her, then she ran forward, flung her arms about her godchild and kissed her warmly. ‘My, how you’ve grown! I wouldn’t have known you if it hadn’t been for that wonderful red hair of yours. I always said you’d grow up pretty, and now I see I was right!’

  Briony had been regarding her godmother, seeing her with new eyes now that she herself was an adult. It was strange to discover that Hettie was not as tall as she had imagined her, but was in fact rather petite. Nor was she as old as she had appeared to the child, although her dark hair was sprinkled with white. She had bright high colouring and a resolute expression about her mouth and immediately gave the impression of being a little lady whom it would not be wise to trifle with.