Wild Grapes

by Elizabeth Aston

  Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. “Who is Sybil?” she enquired in nasty tones. “And this Harry, is he a friend? Do I know him?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but swept on. “I suppose this Bunch of Grapes is a pub. You’d better ring up right away, Fergus, and explain that you won’t be there.”

  Fergus’s inclination to do what Charlotte wanted, this being the easiest and least effortful course, fought against a strong desire not to be told what to do by Charlotte.

  For once, his lazy self lost the day.

  “Would you like to join us?” he asked Zoe. And then, to Charlotte, “I won’t ask you, because I know how you feel at present about alcohol, and I’m not planning to drink water.”

  Zoe longed to give a cheer for Fergus, but felt it would be unwise. “No, thank you,” she said, with a straight face. “I rather think Harry wants to talk to you about a private matter.”

  Charlotte had got her breath back. “Fergus! No!”

  “And meanwhile,” said Fergus, feeling he might as well be hung for a sheep, “I’m going over to Don’s; I’ll be back later.”

  He fled.

  Mild pandemonium reigned at Heartsease Hall. Preparations for the ball were intense. The weather forecasters had promised a continuation of the hot, dry weather, with a slight chance of thunder towards the end of the week, so the indoor contingency plans were shelved. The pavilion went up, Jarvis and Esme staggered to and fro with potted bays and palms and minifers. Prim worked through mounds of flowers, while schoolgirls co-opted from the village carried green buckets hither and thither and spent a happy hour or two dunking the Oasis. Harry was in high spirits, delighted at the thought of getting married, loving having a big secret which he wasn’t going to let out until the night of the ball.

  “That’s the time,” he said to Gina, with affection. “Midsummer’s Eve, we’ll never forget it, and a ball, very romantic and appropriate.”

  “It is Aimee’s ball, though. Aren’t you stealing her thunder?”

  “No one will ever steal Aimee’s thunder,” said Harry, stating a simple truth. “Besides, it’s very much a family affair, not a young thing’s rave-up. Just the time and place. We can let them think it’ll all go on in the usual way, notices in The Times, engagement, wedding lists, and meanwhile, we’ll pop off and get done.”

  Like taking a tom to the vet, thought Gina, who was still in a state of semi-shock.

  “Soon?” she asked.

  “Friday,” said Harry.

  “When are you going to tell them I’m not who they think I am?”

  “When we’re married.”

  “How can you explain it?”

  “We can pretend we did it so that we could be together without anyone realizing what was up.”

  More pretence, thought Gina. But at least I can be myself again. Only I won’t be, because I’ll be Mrs Harry.

  “I’m going into the office for a couple of hours,” said Harry, pulling on his leather jacket. “Then it’s back here to sort out the electrics.”

  “Isn’t Nicky getting professionals in?”

  “We are professionals,” said Harry. “Pa’s seeing to the fireworks; Hester sees the house is a haven of welcome to all the family and guests and oversees the food; Julia presides as wife and mother, although not of Aimee, which mars the picture a little; Prim sees to the floral do-dahs; Don’s arranging the wine, and I see to it that we sparkle and twinkle joyously beneath an immense midsummer moon. It’ll be full, you know.”

  Midsummer moonshine, Gina said to herself. How very.appropriate.

  “And what of the man-hating Dinah?” she asked. “What part does she play?”

  “She’s her twin’s emissary,” said Harry. “He’s arranged the music from London, she will see to it down here.”

  “Isn’t he coming?”

  “Of course he is. They’ll all be here on the night, every last brother, sister, aunt, uncle and what-have-you. Such fun.”

  “Your grandparents?”

  “Er, no, actually. Relations are still a trifle cool between them and Pa, and I don’t think he wants them on the prems. They might get ideas about coming back, you see, and that would never do. No, best for the old dears to stay up in the wild and woolly north; it’s not good for them to get upset at their age. I have to add that they have sent a lovely present for Aimee, so I reckon that the grandchildren haven’t incurred their wrath. Just as well, in the circs.”

  He picked up his gloves, put his arm round Gina’s shoulders and gave her a warm kiss before donning his black winged helmet and kicking his bike into action.

  I don’t care if Zoe thinks I’m making a big, big mistake, Gina told herself. I feel positively carefree; I haven’t felt so untroubled for weeks.

  The decision had been made, her immediate problems had been solved. Perhaps she was laying up problems for the future, but the future could look after itself. Anything was better than having to go on battling round and round in her present muddle.

  Gina had cut the Gordian knot, in fact, and she was relishing the relief which decision-taking brings. She went off to give Nicky a hand. Lists and guests and chairs and where the band would eat were minor problems, no trouble at all, when you thought how she handled her own difficulties.

  There were slight hurdles remaining, such as Charlotte... but why shouldn’t she, in her Georgie persona, know Charlotte? And why should anyone tell Charlotte that she was at Heartsease as the hammy heiress, not as Gina Heartwell, American from Oxford?

  Nicky, pale and distraught, was coping very well in trying conditions. “I think everything’s straight, and then someone rings up, and they can’t come, someone else rings and says they’ll be late, or they’re bringing two dogs. I ask you!”

  She flapped her lists dramatically under Gina’s nose. “This is the latest, those people at Heartwell House now say they have a guest of their own staying at that time, and so one room the less. I think I’ll send them cousin Belinda and her fubsy-faced dogs, that’ll teach them. Could you ring them for me, kind Gina? Say please to bring this whatshisname.”

  “Okay,” said Gina obligingly. “What will you do about being a room short?”

  “I’ll arrange for Tara to stay with Don instead of at Heartwell House, since she’s at his house for dinner,” said Nicky, consulting her list. “I expect she’s sharing his bed in any case,” she said with some bitterness.

  “Don’t you mind?”

  “I’m past minding,” said Nicky. “My husband rang last night, my youngest has gone down with chickenpox, quite badly; Roger can’t cope on his own. So after I’ve got this lot sorted out, I’ll have to go home and see what’s to be done.”

  “I’ll ring Heartwell House right away,” said Gina. “Did they mention this guest’s name?”

  “Yes, hold on, I scribbled it down on the back of something... ah, here we are. Strange name, Aumbry. Alwyn Aumbry.”

  CHAPTER 23

  “Alwyn Aumbry?” Gina couldn’t believe her ears. “Dr Alwyn Aumbry?”

  “That’s the one. She was rattling on about how he’s going to become a television star, as if I cared. Do you know him?”

  “I do,” said Gina.

  Never mind, she thought, as familiar fears rushed back. Never mind, that’s all over now, it really doesn’t matter. I’ll waylay him and explain that discretion and secrecy are the order of the day. The only problem is getting him to himself for a quiet word; Gareth and Lori are bound to cling to him.

  Oh, well, just as long as Popplewell doesn’t come to the ball and denounce me before dragging me off to the cells, I’m safe, she told herself as she headed for the phone. On Friday I become Mrs C, Georgie’s British passport in hand, citizen of Europe, home and dry. Nothing can happen between now and then to change that.

  Safe! Gina breathed a sigh of relief as she walked across the springy turf of the lawn. This would be where she was going to live, among the hills and woods and lawns and terraces.

  She would even, with time, get to
like the owls.

  Nadia had been working flat out. She had been making things for the shop, and these were going extremely well. She was now looking into ordering extra goodies from outside suppliers. She had a large order from Maria for the ball. And she herself was going to the ball as a guest, and before that, to dinner at Heartwell House.

  That meant finishing early this evening in order to iron a shirt for Byron and get her own dress pressed and everything looked out ready; no easy matter when you lived in a building site like Oracle Cottage and hadn’t yet unpacked most of your things. Would Mrs Slubs’s niece, who was on trial for a fortnight, clear up properly at the end of the day if she left early?

  With all this on her mind, she was in no mood to be nice to Charlotte who came into the shop, quivering with disapproval, to enquire if Fergus was around.

  “Somebody told me he was at the vineyard,” she said. “This is the vineyard, I take it?”

  “This is the shop, and the offices are here as well. If you want the vineyard itself, where the vines grow, then that is about a quarter of a mile along that track there.”

  “And have you seen my friend? He’s tall, with...”

  “I know Fergus very well, thank you.” Nadia gave an expressive shrug. “No, I haven’t seen him today, I am too busy to notice who comes and goes. But I’m sure he’ll be here today. Why not? He’s here every other day.”

  “What, Fergus is? Nonsense, how could he be? He spends his time studying; he’s working very hard on his doctorate.”

  “Not unless he’s going to be a doctor in viticulture. He helps Don all the time. Don owns the vineyard,” she explained. “I think also he is a family connection of Fergus’s. Now, do you want to buy anything? Food, or wine?”

  Charlotte gave a shudder. “No, I don’t, thank you.”

  “Fergus particularly likes these venison sausages. For his breakfast? You’re his girlfriend, I think. So you cook him breakfast, I expect.”

  “Not sausages, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Nadia lost interest; her thoughts turned back to her work. “Then I can’t help you. I’ll see you tomorrow evening, though, I think. You and Fergus are having dinner at Heartwell House; so am I and my husband.”

  Charlotte didn’t look overjoyed at the news. She gave Nadia a thin and distant smile, and set off at a brisk pace along the track which led to the vines.

  Nadia watched her through the window of the shop as she wiped down the counter. Very English, that one, she thought. Good-looking, but no animation. And too thin. Elegant, but ungenerous looking. The kind of woman Byron should have married. One of his own, and with a heart as cold and unmelting as his was. She sighed, gave the counter a final wipe, and went back to check the mincer.

  Byron would have been very surprised to hear himself described as cold. Nor had he ever been interested in tall, chilly Englishwomen. When he had come back to England with Nadia, his brother had teasingly said that he had been born to marry a Russian.

  “You never cared for all the ordinary types, not even when you were at school,” he pointed out. “And look at the girls you went out with at university. Different, every one of them. Bohemian, or foreign, or both. All with tempers and a sense of drama. Must be compensation for being a quiet and dreamy type,” he had added. “Or are you just afraid of your own kind?”

  Perhaps he should have opted for a lean, green English wife. At least he mightn’t have made her as unhappy as he had Nadia. He had been lost the minute he set eyes on her; had known at once that she was the woman he was going to marry. If he had known how things were going to turn out, would he have hesitated, behaved any differently?

  “No,” he said out loud as he propped the floorboard up against the wall alongside the others. He looked at his watch. Late. And he’d promised Nadia to bring down those suitcases, and he hadn’t. And at any moment she would be back, and he would have to admit that, yet again, he had forgotten to do something for her.

  She might look at him with those flashing eyes, full of reproach. He couldn’t bear that. Or she might shout and rage and throw things about. He couldn’t bear that, either. He heard her footsteps coming up the path, the door opening.

  Too late, he thought sadly. Always too late.

  Charlotte’s encounter with Fergus among the Müller-Thurgau grapes had not been a success. She had always bent Fergus to her will, and didn’t know how to handle this new, assertive Fergus.

  No, he would be at the vineyard for some time yet.

  Yes, he knew his computer wasn’t plugged in; that was because he hadn’t been using it.

  No, if he went on like this, his thesis wouldn’t be finished by Christmas.

  Yes, he was going to have a drink with Harry.

  No, even if there was a vegetarian restaurant somewhere in the neighbourhood, he wasn’t going to take her there this evening. If she wanted to go, she could use his car.

  It was a disconsolate Charlotte who returned to Kingfisher Cottage. However, there was her ball dress, an expensive and becoming designer creation, to be hung out, and she could wash her hair and do her nails. And when she had finished that, what about Fergus’s clothes?

  “Where is Fergus’s dress kilt?” she demanded of Zoe.

  Zoe blinked at her. “I haven’t a clue. Did he bring it with him from Oxford?”

  “He must have done; he knew there was this ball.”

  Zoe thought for a moment. “I have seen a kilt hanging up in the cupboard under the stairs,” she finally admitted.

  Charlotte rummaged, found the kilt, and unearthed Fergus’s dress shirt - dirty and crumpled - and one sock. With satisfied, clicking noises, she returned to the bathroom, suds flying, remarking that it was lucky she had thought about it tonight, otherwise what would Fergus have done?

  Worn his grubby one, or gone out and bought a new one, thought Zoe, but she said nothing.

  “Are you going to the ball?” Charlotte enquired. “No? What a pity. Of course you don’t know the family, do you? Have you been to the house at all?”

  “I have ventured to the back door, on an errand,” said Zoe. “Too grand for me,” and she returned to her book.

  “What are you reading?” asked Charlotte.

  I hate people who ask what I’m reading, thought Zoe, as she held up the book’s garish cover so that Charlotte could see the title.

  “Coming at Corinth,” she read aloud in measured tones. Then her eyes took in the detail of the cover illustration. “That’s pornography!”

  “Not at all,” said Zoe. “Erotic fiction, quite different.”

  “I thought you were an intellectual,” said Charlotte. “You’ve got a university degree.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” said Zoe. “The person who wrote this has a degree from Cambridge.”

  “I doubt it,” said Charlotte complacently.

  “Doubt away. It’s true. She’s a classicist.”

  “Then she should be ashamed of herself.”

  Zoe wasn’t fooled, she could see the underlying glint in Charlotte’s eyes. “Try one,” she said, as though offering a tasty plum. “There are several on that shelf there. Don’t take Hadrian’s Harlot, though; I haven’t read that yet.”

  Charlotte was sorely tempted, resisted, then succumbed. “I didn’t bring a book with me,” she said defensively.

  “There you are, then,” said Zoe. “Start it quickly, then you can shock Fergus in bed tonight.”

  “Really,” said Charlotte, going pink. But Zoe had gone back to her engrossing read, and didn’t notice.

  The book did Charlotte no good. Perhaps Fergus was the one who should have read it, because he found himself quite unaroused by the smooth, naked, white body beside him in bed. He tried hard, for he was always a gentleman, but it was no good. He rolled over on to his back and cursed, then got out of bed, muttering about the bathroom.

  Locked in there, he opened the window, and leant out, soaking up the heavy, fragrant air. I want to live in the country, he
thought with a terrible self-awareness. I don’t want to live in London or Paris or New York. I want this.

  Lucky Harry, a younger son, but likely to inherit at least some of these rolling acres. While he, Fergus, had an older, farm-loving brother who would take over the family farm in due course. But he didn’t want to grow wheat or raise cows and sheep. No, what he wanted to do was have a vineyard.

  There, the thought was out. Clear as the moonlight streaming across the grass below. That was it, that was what he was going to do.

  His mind came back to Harry. Lucky Harry, marrying Gina. Did he want to be best man or chief witness or whatever it was at Harry’s wedding, when the prospect of his own nuptials filled him with such distaste?

  Distaste? Yes, distaste.

  Revelation.

  He didn’t want to marry Charlotte.

  He had to marry Charlotte. He wasn’t going to let her down after all this time; he couldn’t. Just think of the fuss. And he might as well marry her as not, it wasn’t as though he wanted to marry anyone else. Did he?

  Fergus’s mind drifted to Harry. Harry just didn’t know how lucky he was. He was getting married to someone he wanted to marry, and to someone who was so attractive and such good company, although she had been a bit strange recently. Harry didn’t deserve Gina. Gina shouldn’t marry someone she hardly knew. And was Harry in love with Gina? Or Gina with Harry? Were they sleeping together? Oh, hell.

  He splashed his face with water, rubbed it with a towel, unbolted the door and made his way back towards his room. Back to bed. Back to Charlotte.

  Charlotte had also been thinking, but not to very good effect. What demon was it that over-rode her normal good sense and drove her to point out the obvious about Fergus’s non-performance? And then to go on and attribute his failure to a hopelessly wrong diet and a guilty conscience?