Campaign For Loving

‘Why doesn’t he go himself?’ Sarah asked forthrightly. ‘Really, the man is a fool. I honestly believe he’s terrified that Caroline would seduce him.’

Jaime grinned at her mother’s percipience. ‘He did say that he thought the initial approach would be better coming from me—a “woman to woman appeal”,’ Jaime quoted.

‘“Woman to man eater” doesn’t he mean?’ her mother quipped. ‘Really, Charles is impossible. I don’t know why you bother with him.’

‘Because he’s an old friend and he’s my solicitor.…’

‘And he’s also a very safe wall to hide behind. Jaime, you’re twenty-six, and a very attractive woman, but you behave as though you’ve voluntarily gone into purdah.…’

‘You were even younger when you were widowed.…’

‘Yes, but I didn’t eschew all male company because of it.…’

‘But you’ve never remarried.’

‘No, because I preferred being single. You don’t. You need marriage, Jaime, I never did. I was too independent to commit myself to the sort of relationship marriage was in my day. I loved your father and I missed him terribly, but I didn’t live like a nun the way you do. Blake.…’

‘I don’t want to talk about him.…’

Jaime turned away, hoping that her face wouldn’t betray her. Her mother didn’t know that she still loved Blake, and every time she mentioned him, Jaime retreated from the conversation like a flower curling protectively back on itself. Her mother had liked Blake. They had got on well together, chatting with an ease that had left her envious when she heard Blake’s deep laughter mingling with her mother’s. She had been jealous of the ease with which they became at home with one another, just as she had been jealous of anyone who got close to her husband. It was no wonder he had lost his temper with her, she reflected as she went into the kitchen on the pretext of wanting a drink. When she thought about it, it was a miracle he had stayed with her so long as he had. No man likes jealous scenes, and on occasions she had behaved like a spoiled child, demanding more and more of his time and attention because of her deep-rooted insecurity, her inability to believe that he loved and needed her with the same intensity with which she loved and needed him. She had created an atmosphere which must have been claustrophobic, driving him away from her in her frantic attempts to keep him with her. No one would ever know how much she regretted her behaviour, or how much she longed for a second chance, she thought as she reached automatically for the coffee. Her mother thought the subject of Blake was taboo because she hated him. That was what she had claimed when she first came home, driven to say so because she couldn’t admit the truth, and she had never corrected that misconception.

When Charles commiserated with her about her marriage she had to grit her teeth to stop herself from telling him the truth—that the faults were all on her side. There had hardly been a night in the three years since Fern’s birth when she hadn’t longed for Blake’s presence, and yet she couldn’t regret Fern who had, in her way, been the reason for that final argument. Knowing that she might be pregnant, and that her pregnancy had been the result of her deliberate carelessness, she had panicked when Blake had declared quite firmly that he didn’t want children. But what was the use of raking over the past?

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said to her mother when she carried the coffee tray back into the small sitting room. ‘Perhaps I ought to tell Charles to start divorce proceedings.’

Because she was bending over the tray, she missed the brief frown that touched her mother’s forehead, and when she looked up it was gone, the older woman’s face enviably serene.

‘Charles is organising a committee to formally protest against any plans to pull down the Abbey,’ Jaime told her mother. ‘He wants me to be the secretary.’

‘Will you do it?’

‘Umm, I think so. It’s a beautiful old building.’

‘Talking of beautiful old buildings, I’ve booked my holiday at last. Ten days in Rome, in a month’s time.’

‘You mean that Henry is actually letting you go on your own?’

Henry Oliver was her mother’s partner in the antique business, and had been her faithful admirer for as long as Jaime could remember.

‘That’s one of the advantages of being independent,’ Sarah pointed out with a smile. ‘I don’t have to ask him.’

A week later, carefully noting down the minutes of the meeting Charles had called to discuss ways and means of preventing the Abbey from being destroyed, Jaime pushed a wayward strand of dark curling hair out of her eyes.

‘You look about sixteen, poring over that notebook,’ an admiring male voice whispered in her ear. ‘How about letting me take you out for dinner when this is over?’

‘No thanks, Paul.’

Paul Davis was their local celebrity, the Managing Director of their local radio station. He was also married, although he made no attempt to hide his many affairs from his wife.

‘Spoilsport.’

Jaime returned her attention to the meeting. Charles was speaking, and she groaned inwardly, knowing his propensity for long and dull speeches. Fern was with Mrs Widdows next door, as Sarah Cummings was also out that evening, and Jaime had promised that she would be back by eight. It was seven now. Paul Davis was also glancing at his watch, and when Charles paused he made full use of the opportunity to stand up and bring the meeting to a rather abrupt halt. Charles looked pained and flustered. ‘Rather like an irritated St Bernard,’ Jaime thought watching him.

‘I hadn’t finished speaking,’ he complained to Jaime in aggrieved accents later. ‘Have you been to see Caroline yet?’

‘No, I’ll go tomorrow. But she and I were never friends, Charles, and I don’t think an approach from me will do the slightest good.’

‘Perhaps not, but at least she’d know that we mean to do something. It is a listed building after all.…’

Jaime thought of other listed buildings which had become piles of rubble in dubious circumstances, but said nothing—if she didn’t leave soon, she’d be late for Fern.

Her route took her past the entrance to the Abbey. As she drove past, a car was turning in at the gates, and she caught a glimpse of a male outline before the car disappeared. One of Caroline’s lovers? If so, this man must be rather more wealthy than they usually were. He had been driving a menacing-looking black Ferrari.

‘No… look, you do it this way.…’ Fern’s clear, high-pitched voice reached her as she knocked on Mrs Widdows’ door.

‘I was just showing Airs Widdows how to make a house,’ she explained when she saw Jaime. ‘A man telephoned after you’d gone out and asked to speak to Granny. He asked me what my name was, and I told him. He was nice.’

It was rare for Fern to make any comment on other adults, but as her mother was out Jamie was unable to question her about the unknown male who had won her daughter’s approval.

It was perhaps cowardly of her to take Fern with her the following afternoon when she finally plucked up the courage to go and see Caroline, but Charles had telephoned in the morning, insisting that she go, and having Fern with her gave her something else to worry about other than the coming interview.

Caroline had never liked her; Jaime knew that they were worlds apart for all the similarity in their ages. Caroline had come to her wedding, and she could vividly remember the predatory look in her eyes when she saw Blake. There must be very few women immune to Blake’s wholly male, sexual aura. During their brief marriage she had soon come to recognise the look in other women’s eyes which said that they were imagining him as their lover. It had driven her into paroxysms of jealous insecurity. How could Blake genuinely prefer her to these sexy, assured women?

As it was a pleasant day she had elected to walk to the Abbey, her decision in no way connected with the fact that walking would delay the inevitable confrontation with Caroline, she taunted herself as she fastened Fern’s sandals.

One day her daughter was going to be an extremely attractive woman, and when she was Jaime was determined that she would have far more self-confidence than she had ever had.

‘I like this green dress,’ Fern told her complacently. ‘It’s my favourite.’

‘It matches your eyes,’ Jaime told her. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yes, I like your dress too, Mummy.’

It had been a present from her mother the previous year. It was quite simple, white crinkle cotton, with shoe-string straps and an A-line skirt, the ideal dress for a hot, sunny afternoon. Her skin tanned well and the white fabric showed off her smooth golden arms and shoulders. She had taken more care than usual with her make-up and hair. When she looked happy, her eyes glowed like sapphires, Blake had once told her, and he had bought her a sapphire engagement ring to match them. She still had it, but could not wear it because of the memories it brought with it. She felt her heart contract with pain and regret.

Fern was an entertaining companion, chattering away at her side as they headed for the Abbey, Jaime matching her steps to her daughter’s slower ones.

‘It’s a very big house, isn’t it?’ Fern commented when they turned into the drive, ‘but I think I like Granny’s cottage best.’

Fern moved with a natural grace Jaime noticed, watching her daughter, unaware that her lithe delicacy had been inherited from her. Jaime had always enjoyed dancing. The discipline of teaching others, of helping them and watching their own appreciation grow with ability gave her an intense feeling of satisfaction. Fern tugged on her hand as she bent to examine a clump of ragged robin, and not for the first time Jaime gave mental thanks for the fact that her daughter had such an equable and sunny temperament. Fern would never suffer as she had done from an excess of sensitivity and over-emotionalism. ‘You’re too hard on yourself,’ her mother always said when she voiced this fact. ‘You have many things to recommend yourself, Jaime, you just don’t realise it.’ It sometimes seemed to Jaime that her mother had been trying to bolster her self-confidence all her life, but she had just never possessed the sturdy independence which characterised both her mother and her daughter.

The Abbey loomed before them, grey and ivy-coloured. Although not a beautiful house, it possessed a mellow air of continuity that had always appealed to Jaime. It had once been an Abbey, although little of the original building remained. It had been rebuilt during the reign of Charles the Second and, although Caroline complained that she found the panelled downstairs rooms gloomy and depressing, Jaime loved them.

Mrs March, Caroline’s housekeeper, answered the door, beaming at Fern, who responded with a happy grin of her own.

‘Why don’t I take her into the kitchen and give her some of my home-made gingerbread?’ she suggested, not realising that she was depriving Jaime of the emotional support she felt she needed. ‘Miss Caroline’s in the drawing room,’ she added.

No doubt Mrs March knew quite well why she was here, Jaime reflected, watching her daughter follow the housekeeper without a backward glance. The panelling had been removed from the drawing room by Caroline’s father, but the graceful stucco ceiling remained, and the Adam fireplace added by a Georgian owner. Caroline had completely refurnished the house when she inherited it. Personally, Jaime loathed the cold starkness of the modern Italian furniture she had chosen, but there was no doubt that it made a stunning setting for her startling beauty. Dark red hair framed her face in an aureole of curls, the leather trousers and silk blouse she was wearing being a soft khaki colour which emphasised her colouring. As always, she was immaculately made-up. She had played at modelling when she first left school and had picked up enough tips to achieve what always seemed to Jaime to be an effortlessly glamorous look. She reminded Jaime of the women who had pursued Blake, both before and after their marriage. Brittle, expensive, beautiful predators who lived by their own rules. Women she could never hope to compete with. ‘Why bother?’ her mother had once said lightly when she had tried to confide her fears to her. Blake had chosen to marry her, but she had never been able to rid herself of the conviction that, somehow, she had coerced him into marriage and that had been something she hadn’t been able to tell her mother. She had been too deeply ashamed to admit to her that she didn’t have the strength to be as independent as Sarah was. She had always felt that, secretly, she must have been a disappointment to her mother; that although she had never shown or expressed any impatience, there must have been some. ‘You underestimate yourself too much Jaime.’ That was what she had always said, and Jaime would have been surprised if she had known that, far from comparing her with Caroline to her own discredit, most people would have found far more appeal in her own natural beauty and quiet intelligence than in Caroline’s showy, pushy manners.