Heirs and Assigns Read online

  There’s a bright fire burning in the grate of the room that serves as both living room and kitchen and a warm, delicious smell issuing from the oven in the old fireplace range. Someone has left bread and milk, eggs and butter, and she doesn’t have to guess who: she had left her keys with Anna. The lamp on the old-fashioned little dresser has been lit, helping to hide the dreariness of the room. There is also a bottle of wine on the table, places set for two, and two glasses. Not from Anna, this. She rarely drinks anything stronger than tea, copious amounts of it during the work she’s doing on Pen’s garden. A competent woman, Anna, calm and quiet. In her late fifties, she is still running her small business as a garden designer, besides running her home and being an excellent cook. Nor will the wine be from Carey’s friend, Kate Ramsey. Wine is not something a young war-widow can afford. She has left a small posy of autumn leaves and berries in a pottery vase on the table and a note saying she’ll be around tomorrow.

  So who has left the wine? And two glasses? Which guest is she to expect?

  Ten minutes later, having dumped her suitcases upstairs, washed her hands and face and changed from her travelling clothes, Carey goes downstairs again, makes a cup of tea and collapses into a chair by the fire. It’s a strange homecoming, and despite the signs of welcome she feels the silence and a loneliness she hadn’t been prepared for. She would almost welcome the sound of her mother’s stick banging on the bedroom floor … Well, no, she’s deceiving herself. To her shame, she has felt more relief than sorrow since her mother died, though by then she was at the end of her tether and everyone has told her repeatedly that she more than did her duty. It’s no secret that Muriel Brewster was neither a patient nor an appreciative invalid, whom Carey had nursed for thirteen years, ever since leaving school. She’d been querulous and demanding and, as Carey knows, often cruel in private.

  ‘You should’ve married Jimmy Bickerstaffe while you had the chance, before he got himself killed. He’d have left you nicely off,’ was an oft-repeated strain, to which Carey had been determined not to seem shocked, though she was. Jimmy Bickerstaffe had been killed in the very last desperate throes of the war, fighting for his country. She hadn’t been much more than eighteen then, and still felt unbearably saddened when she thought of him and how much he’d wanted to marry her, though she could never have loved him in return.

  ‘Too choosy, my girl, that’s you. And now you won’t have the doctor, either! What’s wrong with him? He’s a lovely man.’

  Gerald Fairlie was indeed. Likeable and kindly, if a little dull. Hard-working and conscientious, a heart as big as his large frame. He’d been a tower of strength during those last few exhausting years with Muriel. There is in fact little or nothing wrong with him – just not enough that is right. At least not for her, Carey.

  ‘Well, being a doctor’s wife isn’t for everybody, I’ll grant you that,’ Muriel had droned on. ‘So what about Pen Llewellyn, then? Play your cards right there and you’ll be in clover.’

  ‘Mother, stop it. Stop it! He’s old enough to marry you!’

  Muriel cackled at that, but even she knew when she’d gone too far, though she hadn’t been able to resist a parting shot. ‘You have another think. Better an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.’

  She’d been a ridiculous, nasty-minded old woman. Pen had been no more than good-natured, giving up time to sit and play cards or dominoes with Muriel in order to give Carey an occasional break. He no more wanted to marry Carey than she would have considered marrying him.

  Well, no more taunts now, anyway, no more of the demands which might have sucked her life away, had she let it. Muriel had been a creaking and complaining gate for years, but in the end cancer had claimed her. Now, refreshed and on the brink of a decision about her future, Carey is just back from a long stay in Paris with her friend Monica who has a rich French husband and a large and noisy family. The children had cried to see her go and Monica had said, ‘You’ve such a way with children, darling. Must you go just yet?’

  ‘It’s time for me to leave anyway, and this invitation …’

  The surprise invitation from Pen had perhaps been a signal that her lotus-eating should end. It was a birthday party invitation, where the Llewellyn clan would apparently be assembling in full force. Pen was not so fond of his relations that he got them all together very often – and to invite her, Carey, and forty other guests as well … it must be important to him. It was time to make the break anyway. Otherwise, she might have been tempted to stay in Paris and put off making decisions on how to spend the rest of her life. About which there were not many options. Nursing? Certainly not, she’d had enough of that. A nanny? She did like children, especially Monica’s, but not enough to look after them as a vocation. Teacher training? Secretarial work? No appeal there, either. But at last, faced with the stultifying prospect of spending her life doing any of those things, an idea had begun to take root. She would sell the little house and its contents, to none of which had she any attachment, only too many sad memories. The sale wouldn’t bring in much, but enough to travel somewhere for a while. There was nothing – nor ever would be – for her in Hinton, she thought with a plunge of sadness. And afterwards? Afterwards could take care of itself. Suddenly, excitement had filled her and she’d felt a taste of what it might be like to be free. Free to take charge of her own life at last.

  It had all seemed so easy, viewed from a distance. But now, coming back … She is beginning to dither again, and knows it.

  She gives a start as there is a knock on the door. The brisk rat-tat doesn’t indicate Anna. It isn’t Anna, it’s her son, Jack Douglas, whom Carey has imagined halfway across the world by now. He laughs at her surprise, embraces her in a big, friendly hug, overtopping her by a head, then stands back. ‘You’ve changed,’ he says in surprise as he releases her. ‘For the better,’ he adds, making her blush, and before she has time to reply he hands her the envelope he’s been holding. ‘From Pen, via my mother. We’re all bidden to supper tomorrow – his family, you, me, Ma and Doc Fairlie.’

  ‘With the party so soon after? That’s overdoing things a bit, even for Pen.’

  ‘Well, you know what he’s like.’ His eyes crinkle as he smiles. Brown eyes, like his mother’s. Thick, dark hair like hers once was, too, but a bit unruly. He resembles Anna to some extent, though there is nothing remotely feminine about him. And where Anna gives out quiet and peace, the air around Jack always seems to vibrate with energy and purpose. He is confident, well educated, at home anywhere, with anyone. No dithering for him. He always knows what he is doing, where he’s going, and drives straight for it.

  ‘What are you doing here, Jack? I thought you’d be in parts unknown by now.’

  ‘My gammy leg, curses be on it. It doesn’t bother me in the least now but the medics aren’t satisfied I’m ready just yet to risk another fall.’

  Jack Douglas has followed something of his mother’s professional inclinations and is now a botanist turned plant hunter. His job takes him away for long stretches at a time, to the furthest parts of the world, from the highest mountain regions of Tibet to the steamy jungles of South America, in search of rare botanical specimens to bring home to Kew Gardens, by whom he is employed. He would dearly love to finance an expedition of his own, but that prospect is so remote he knows it will never happen. Meanwhile, what he does is an exciting but sometimes dangerous occupation which satisfies his roving instincts and still allows him to work in the field for which he is well qualified, to gain satisfaction in contributing something to the developing and expanding knowledge of the plant world. He’ll be off again the minute his doctors allow, but at the moment he looks, Carey thinks, slightly … preoccupied, is that the word? You can’t always tell with Jack. Relaxed and charming, his nature has undercurrents that he rarely allows to show. Very likely, though, the prospect of his career being so long on hold is bothering him more than he’s letting on. He was one of the daredevil fighter pilots in the Royal Naval Air Servi
ce during the war, had fought in all the war theatres and having miraculously come through without a scratch, it seems hard that this unlucky fall down a mountainside in China should have happened now.

  ‘Oh, and Kate will be there too,’ he throws out casually.

  Jack and Kate. Kate Ramsey, ex-schoolteacher, around the same age as Jack, early thirties, but already a widow. One of Carey’s best friends, she is tall, her hair even fairer than Carey’s own, she’s athletic and has tremendous energy. An outdoor type, she loves tennis and long walks … Climbing mountains, no doubt, if she gets the chance.

  ‘Well,’ Jack says, ‘aren’t you going to invite me to share that hotpot my mother’s left? The bottle’s from me, by the way – I suspect you might have acquired a taste for wine while you’ve been in France.’

  ‘Somewhat,’ she admits with a smile. ‘Thanks – and you’d be more than welcome to share.’

  ‘Sit down and I’ll serve. Don’t argue – all this time on my hands has made me quite domesticated.’

  ‘But no less bossy, Jack Douglas.’

  ‘Organized, you mean. Come and sit down.’

  She allows him to pull her chair out. He touches her hair and ruffles it. ‘It’s good to have you back, Carey.’

  FOUR

  Extract from Kate Ramsey’s journal, written the following evening:

  I should be getting on with my work, but important as that is to me and women like me, writing more of those letters seems wearisome tonight, in view of what has happened. Coming into my silent, empty house after the supper party, when Carey, Jack and his mother had left me after walking me home, was an anticlimax. I stood at the window before drawing my curtains, watching their receding figures along the dark lane until they had disappeared out of sight. Then, pulling the curtains together, my heart jerked painfully as I saw – oh, not again! – walking along the lane … my husband, who has been dead for more than ten years now. But as always, walking away from me, sidling in the shadows so that he was only half seen, a mere shadow that dispersed in the headlights of Gerald Fairlie’s motor car on the road beyond the lane, as he, too, headed towards home. My heart resumed its normal beat but I’m too wide awake now, not ready for sleep. So perhaps bringing my journal up to date and recording the supper party at Bryn Glas might banish ghosts and even ensure my dreams are just that, and not nightmares.

  Pen was in great form tonight. He’s always at his best in company. There were eleven of us – Anna Douglas and Jack, Carey, myself and Gerald Fairlie. All Pen’s family, too – except, thank goodness, for those two supercilious boys of Theo’s that no one can stand, the younger, we were given to understand, doing very well in his last year at Winchester, the other a fledgling banker. There was also the mysterious newcomer, the younger brother, Huwie. The black sheep of the family, I gather, unheard of for years and now appearing out of nowhere. Someone, who even on a first meeting, I wouldn’t trust any further than I could throw him. Ida was there, of course, dressed to kill, and Claudia, indolently beautiful, upstaging her, as usual. And not least Verity, pale and sullen, pushing her food around her plate, eating practically nothing. What is the matter with her lately? Under that belligerent exterior she’s actually very pretty (might even be beautiful, if she took the trouble) with thick, creamy white skin and eyes of an unusual greeny-gold, thickly lashed. A full, sensual mouth. Ida has no idea how to deal with her and I’m afraid other people are becoming impatient with her, too. She was always such a nice child. It wasn’t until after her parents’ divorce that she started to be difficult.

  Carey was looking well tonight. These few months in Paris have changed her. She has lost that hopeless air of being resigned to her fate with that dreadful mother and found a new confidence. She looks different, too. A new smooth haircut, very becoming, and a simple dress – very French, a dark smoky blue and exactly the same colour as her eyes. Gerald couldn’t take his eyes off her. Poor Gerald! I suppose she could do worse, but being a country doctor’s wife, even one so socially well placed as Gerald, won’t do for Carey. She has been desperately in love with Jack Douglas for years, though she believes no one suspects this. He won’t marry her – or anyone, I think. Too much of a gentleman to leave a wife and possibly children at home while he’s roaming the world – unless he can bring himself to give that up, which is as unlikely as it’s unfeasible. He should give her the chance to make up her own mind, but he’s blind, like most men, when it comes to matters of the heart.

  The dining room at Bryn Glas is two small rooms knocked into one to accommodate the long, black oak table. It was supposed to be a friendly meal tonight, informal dress requested, but it was still a civilized occasion. Mrs Knightly, Pen’s cook-housekeeper, had done us well with some of her good, plain food, excellently cooked. Candles flickered on the table’s gleaming patina (the sort that’s only achieved by generations of beeswax and elbow-grease and a succession of maidservants to apply it!) and on the huge chest, laden with heavy old silver, bottles and decanters, that serves as a sideboard. Wine glowed in old cut glass. The logs in the fire blazed and sparks flew up the chimney. It’s a pleasant room; in the daytime, there’s a view from the diamond-paned windows of the grassy slope down towards the cliff above the river; although the room is panelled in dark wood, there are gleams of sunlight brought in by way of new yellow silk curtains and cushions, and last night a copper vase of tawny and gold chrysanthemums. Uncharacteristic of Pen, not renowned for his imagination. Mrs Knightly? Absolutely not.

  He is an excellent host. No one’s glass was allowed to be empty and he kept the good-humoured conversation flowing, himself centre stage as per usual, though no one minds that because he’s so entertaining. At some point during the meal he began reminiscing about the escapades he and his siblings had got up to when they were children, living in that house with their parents – climbing on the forbidden hill-fort ruins, scrambling down the equally forbidden cliffs to the river bank below the house to construct a makeshift raft which didn’t work. He and Theo one day lighting a fire which had singed his trousers so they’d had to be pulled off before they burst into flames, and having to run to the house in his underwear, in full view of guests. Even Theo, not much given to smiles, added his share to the amusement. Mostly, it had been the two older boys who got up to mischief, it seemed. Ida, as a girl, presumably wasn’t included in the more memorable exploits and Huwie, younger than the others by so many years, didn’t appear to have done anything worthy of mentioning.

  We were just about to leave the table when Pen tapped on his glass for everyone’s attention. I had guessed there was something in the wind, with this impromptu supper party, and I wasn’t too surprised when he went on to say he’d meant to make the announcement later, at the official birthday party, but Anna had persuaded him it would be more appropriate to tell the family first, without all those other guests, that they were to be married before Christmas.

  It wasn’t to be expected that such a statement could be made without causing surprise. Consternation even. A dropped bomb, followed by a small silence, during which Pen kept his eyes and his smile on Anna, Anna looked at Jack, and Jack met my glance with a look that said his mother had already told him. Then everyone began to talk at once. Smiles. Congratulations, slaps on the back, kisses. Looks that could kill. Pen calling for champagne. And then Verity, white as a sheet, pushing her chair back from the table and rushing from the room.

  Ida looked alarmed and made an attempt to follow. ‘I’ll go,’ I told her, and she seemed relieved to let me.

  Verity had locked herself in the downstairs cloakroom. I knocked on the door and asked if she was all right. There was a mumbled answer which I couldn’t make out so I waited a few minutes. The two of us have always got along, right from when she used to come and visit her uncle as a little girl and I was still teaching at the school. I like to think she looks on me as an older sister she can trust, but if that’s correct, she hasn’t seen fit to confide in me recently. Presently, the door opened and s
he came out, looking a little better. ‘Something I ate,’ she mumbled. Seeing that she’d eaten practically nothing, it was more likely to be what she’d drunk, though I didn’t think that had been much, either. Shock at what she’d just heard? ‘I think I’d better go straight up to bed, Kate.’

  I thought she was probably right. She still looked rotten. She squeezed my hand and then scuttled up the stairs to the little room under the eaves which has always been ‘hers’. I went to rejoin the rest of the party, assuring Ida there was nothing to worry over. She looked relieved and didn’t ask any more.

  By now Pen was standing with Anna’s arm tucked through his. He looked a little flushed, but that wasn’t surprising – the room had grown very warm with that huge fire and all those people. Gerald, however, seemed concerned and murmured a few words in his ear. Pen favoured him with a quizzical glance, but after a moment confessed himself rather tired with all the excitement and agreed that perhaps an early night was indicated.

  ‘I’ll come up and see you settled, old boy,’ Gerald said. It seemed to be a signal for the party to begin to break up.

  Living as I do in such proximity to Anna and to Pen, and having drawn my own conclusions some time since, the announcement hadn’t really come as a surprise (those yellow silk cushions and curtains, after all, those prettily arranged chrysanthemums!) though I suppose to most of the others it was a shock. It’s easy to underestimate a woman like Anna. She is a good woman, and a strong one, having very creditably brought up alone a son of whom she can be proud, while at the same time carving a career out for herself; no mean feat for any woman, however unfettered we now feel ourselves: as I know to my cost, we are still facing opposition at every turn. She and Pen will be good for each other. I believe it’s not only friendship and understanding that exists between them, but genuine affection, so why shouldn’t they marry? But of course, that’s not the point as far as Pen’s family is concerned. He is a very wealthy man and all of them, I suspect, live up to or well beyond their means, and the only thing they will be able to see is that this marriage will necessarily lower their expectations. There’s always the possibility that they might, in fact, have been sponging off him for years, though on second thoughts, I would actually doubt that. Pen is generous, in so many ways, but you don’t amass a fortune like his by giving it away. He was hard-headed when he was in business and there is a strong streak of ruthlessness in him. He’s used to getting what he wants and doesn’t take it kindly if he doesn’t.