Return Match

Those paintings which had not been sold previously to cover death duties had been auctioned at Sotheby’s eighteen months ago, along with the few good antiques they had left.

Now the house had a forlorn, neglected air, almost an air of desolation and desertion. What on earth Saul would do with the place she had no idea. Sell it most likely; she could not see how he could do anything else.

Sighing faintly she turned away from the view and surveyed the packing cases. She had written in chalk on each one what it contained, meticulously refusing to pack the Meissen dinner service or what was left of the family silver. Those went with the house and she was determined that they would stay with it.

Whatever wealth the Martin family had once possessed from trade and a sugar planation in the West Indies had been dissipated by the time of the First World War, and since then the family had survived by gradually selling off its assets. It was true that her father had held several directorships which had brought in a reasonable income, but the house simply devoured money.

The same Martin who had added the Georgian frontage to the house had also commissioned the Dower House, and its Georgian elegance had always appealed to Lucy. She knew their solicitor found it strange that it had been left to her and not to Fanny, but Lucy understood the reason why.

Her father had thought that the security of the family would be safer in her hands than Fanny’s and indeed her stepmother was, in some ways, very much another child. She had leaned on George Martin during their marriage and Lucy suspected that now she would lean on her.

Fanny didn’t really care for the country and spent as much time as she could in London, staying with friends. Neither was she particularly maternal, allowing Lucy to take day-to-day charge of her half-brother and sister. Fortunately the three of them got on well together, but it was typical of Fanny’s nature that she should not consider that a single woman of twenty-five might not want the responsibility for a stepmother and two children.

The one thing she would miss about the Manor was the library, Lucy reflected half an hour later as she went downstairs. Her book, although fiction, relied heavily on information she had discovered among the family papers and diaries and she was hoping that Saul would allow her to use these for her work. She could of course simply take them and he would be none the wiser, but her own strict code of ethics would not allow her to do that. The unhappy, shy teenager, who had allowed her older male cousin to bully her into being unkind to their colonial relative, had long since been superseded by a woman who knew her own mind and how to stick to her own decisions and assessments.

She grimaced faintly as she stepped into the kitchen. This was one room she would not miss. Large and old-fashioned, it was ill-lit and ill-equipped, unlike the kitchen at the Dower House which had been installed by one of their tenants.

After her father’s death, in an attempt to cut back on costs, Lucy had been obliged to let Mrs Jennings, who had acted as their cook-cum-housekeeper, go. She had been eager to retire and more than happy with the generous cheque Lucy had given her, but Fanny had not stopped grumbling, complaining that it was too much to expect her to provide meals for all of them.

Because of this Lucy had discovered that she was the one doing the cooking, something which in other circumstances she might not have minded, but which in addition to all her other responsibilities had the effect of making her heart sink every time she entered the kitchen.

Tonight they would have to make do with beans on toast, she decided ruefully, anticipating Oliver’s objections to this meagre fare. Tomorrow night she would make it up to them, she decided, but for tonight a snack would have to do. She wanted an early start in the morning and was already far too tired to start preparing a large meal.

This physical and mental exhaustion was something which seemed to have dogged her since her father’s death, exacerbated by the discovery of Oliver’s true parentage. In many ways it shocked her that her father should have been so imprudent, and what of Oliver himself? Telling herself that now was not the time to start worrying about the future, she started laying the table.

Tara came in just as she was finished.

‘Mummy says she’s got a headache,’ she informed Lucy, ‘and she wants to have her supper in her room.’

Stifling the exasperated sound springing to her lips, Lucy said nothing. She tried to be patient with Fanny, telling herself that after all her stepmother had lost a husband, while she had merely lost a father who had not been particularly close to her. She could still remember the acute devastation of losing her mother, whom she had truly loved, and if Fanny was experiencing just one tenth of the anguish she had experienced then, then she did indeed deserve her sympathy and patience.

Fanny wouldn’t want beans on toast anyway. Perhaps if she boiled her a couple of eggs …

‘Go and tell Oliver to wash his hands and come down to eat, will you, Tara?’ she instructed the younger girl. ‘I want you both to have an early night tonight because we’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.’

‘Yes. I’ve already told Harriet all about her new paddock,’ Tara responded importantly. ‘Do you think she’ll really like it there, Lucy? She’ll miss Cinders, won’t she?’

Cinders was the small tabby cat who lived in the dilapidated stables; suppressing a smile, Lucy said seriously, ‘Oh, I think we can take Cinders with us.’

‘But you said that we couldn’t take anything that belonged to the Manor.’

So she had, but privately Lucy could not see that her cousin was going to object too much to the removal of one small cat, and, as Tara had said, her pony was very attached to the little animal.

‘Is he really horrid, Lucy?’

‘Horrid? Who?’

She turned away from what she was doing, her attention concentrated on the little girl.

‘Your cousin. The one who’s coming to live here.’

‘Good heavens, of course he isn’t horrid. Whatever gave you that idea?’ Heavens! The very last thing she wanted was for the children to take an anti towards Saul, and she had better nip that idea of Tara’s very firmly in the bud.

‘Oliver said he was,’ Tara told her determinedly, ‘and Neville told him.’

Mentally cursing her maternal cousin, Lucy said airily, ‘Oh I expect Neville was just joking. I promise you Saul is very nice.’

Behind her back she crossed her fingers. Tara’s scowl relaxed. ‘And he won’t take Harriet away from me?’

‘Of course not. Now go and tell Oliver to come down for supper.’

CHAPTER TWO (#u62d09216-3d05-5c49-ae5d-26804c4ed1b1)

IT was another three very hectic days before they were able to actually move into the Dower House, and as she surveyed the now empty ballroom Lucy reflected that she was more tired than she had ever felt in her life.

Fanny had alternated between bouts of weeping, shutting herself away in her bedroom, and an almost frenzied desire to have her children beside her.

Both of them were unsettled by their mother’s half-hysterical behaviour, especially Tara, but, now that they had actually physically left the Manor, Lucy was hoping that Fanny would start to make a recovery.

An odd kind of melancholy engulfed her as she wandered through the familiar rooms, stopping every now and again to touch some familiar item of furniture. She loved the old house, but felt no possessive desire to live in it. She had grown up after all knowing that it was entailed and would never be hers. A small smile curled her mouth as she thought back over the years, remembering that Neville had been more upset than she was herself when her father had curtly explained to both of them what the entail involved.

That had been the year before Saul had spent the summer with them. Up until then Neville had always claimed that when they grew up he intended to marry her. Even as a child Neville had had a keen eye for the main chance, she thought, wryly amused that she could ever have been taken in by her cousin’s shallowness.

How long would it be before Saul arrived? A familiar sliver of tension spasmed through her stomach and she pushed it aside, annoyed with herself. What was there to feel apprehensive about? Her ownership of the Dower House was secure enough after all and, even if he wished to do so, Saul could not dislodge her. But why should he want to? The fact that they had not got on as children could hardly influence his attitude towards her now … could it?

It was disconcerting to realise how little she knew about him. Her aunt, his mother, had left home just after the war to marry her American. Much against their parents’ wishes, her mother had told her once when Lucy had pressed her for more information about her aunt who lived so far away.

About Saul’s father she knew very little, only that his mother had divorced him. It struck her uncomfortably that her father had been rather remiss in not making any attempt to get to know the nephew who would succeed him, but, knowing her father as she had done, Lucy recognised that he had probably hoped right up until the end that somehow he would be able to prevent the inevitable and pass the Manor on to Oliver.

In his own way her father had been as much of an ostrich as Fanny. Still, it was too late to regret her father’s omissions now. Even to her accustomed eyes, the house looked shabby. She hoped that Saul wasn’t expecting too much of his inheritance. She remembered he had not allowed himself to be overly impressed with it on his one visit, grimly ignoring all her heavily embellished boastings about secret stairways and haunted rooms.

As she walked past the giltwood mirror over the drawing-room fireplace she saw that her face was streaked with dust, her hair curling wildly about her face. Her hands and clothes were filthy, too. She needed a bath. There was nothing left for her to do here apart from locking up. Tomorrow she and Mrs Isaacs could set about cleaning the place properly.

As she slipped out into the courtyard at the back of the house she remembered that she had promised to feed Harriet, who was still in her stable. They had been too busy as yet to take her down to her new home in the paddock. Thank goodness it was summer and they would have time to build her a new stable in the paddock before winter came.

The fat little pony whickered a greeting as Lucy opened her door, Cinders winding herself sinuously round her ankles. She dealt quickly with the feed before wandering disconsolately back to the Dower House.

The next morning she was awake early, disturbed by the unfamiliar pattern of the sunlight across her face. Groggily she opened her eyes and then winced as her stiff muscles made their protest. At least here in the Dower House she would not have to coax a sulky range into life before she could have any breakfast.

It was too early to wake the others and, once showered and downstairs, Lucy found herself enjoying the unfamiliar solitude. The kitchen, so airy and well equipped after the Manor’s, made her spirits lift slightly, and as she sipped her fragrant hot coffee she went over her plans for the day. She had arranged to meet Mrs Isaacs up at the Manor at nine, which meant that for once Fanny would have to get the children’s breakfast. Shrugging away a faint feeling of guilt, she reminded herself that after all Fanny was their mother.

By eleven o’clock the clean jeans and T-shirt she had come out in were streaked with dust and grime. Her skin felt hot and sticky, her body was aching.

‘I think we’ll take a break,’ she suggested to Mrs Isaacs.

‘A good idea. I’ll go down and make us both a cup of tea.’

Mrs Isaacs had been gone for about five minutes when Lucy heard the car, the shock of the unexpected sound drawing her to the window.