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For once there were no last-minute problems to attend to and when Lance came into her office at four o’clock it was to tell her that she could go and see about getting her car fixed, if she liked.
‘Go to Henleys and mention my name,’ he said. ‘Tell them you need it urgently. And I’m not joking. I expect you to be at your desk on time in the morning, car or no car.’
‘Yes, Mr Petrie.’ Lesley hid her smile, but for all that, she knew he meant it. Punctuality was one thing he demanded.
Outside, the pavements were bathed in bright sunshine. Carrying her jacket, she got into the Mini and drove to the garage Lance had suggested. It wasn’t far from the studios, and the owner knew her employer very well. They were old drinking cronies, and a calculated examination of her car solicited the information that he could have it ready for the following afternoon.
‘Will it be very expensive?’ asked Lesley anxiously, recalling her mounting insurance premium, but the man shook his head.
‘Tell your boss I’ll make up the difference on that old banger of his next time he brings it in for a service,’ he retorted with a grin, but Lesley doubted Lance would appreciate such humour when it was directed towards the vintage Rolls-Royce he had rescued from the scrap heap. Still, she returned the man’s smile and thanked him for his help and then hurried away to Baker Street station to take the underground to Russell Square.
It was still barely five o’clock when she turned into St Anne’s Gate and saw the soaring block of apartments where her mother had chosen to move six years ago. Once her daughter was comfortably married, Mrs Matthews had seen no reason to keep on the small house in Hampstead, or at least that was her story. Lesley knew that she had been finding it hard to make ends meet, and the sum the sale of the house had raised had given her a nice little nest-egg. The pension she received was not large, but that together with the interest from her capital had ensured she would not starve. What she had not bargained for was that Lesley might return home only two years after she had moved into the flat bringing with her a lively two-year-old who had been used to the kind of freedom a city flat could not provide.
Lesley sighed. Perhaps she should have found her own place, maintained the independence she had guarded so jealously. But when she left Carne she had needed some place to hide, and her mother had seemed the most natural person to turn to. And indeed, Mrs Matthews had been very tolerant, she conceded, taking Jeremy to and from his nursery school, babysitting when Lesley had had to work late or at weekends. But they were all growing older, and as her mother had less patience, Jeremy demanded more.
A dust-smeared Citroën station wagon was parked out front of the apartments and Lesley’s eyes flickered over it speculatively. Someone cared about their car even less than she did, she thought with satisfaction, noticing the clutter of maps and old cartons in the back, the magazines strewn haphazardly across the rear seat. Farming magazines they were, she saw in passing. She mounted the steps to the swing doors and smiled as the hall porter came to open the door for her.
‘How are you, Mr Peel?’ she asked, with genuine interest, and his monologue concerning their Sandra’s grumbling appendix carried her into the lift.
But as the metal casing hummed easily up to the fourth floor, her thoughts returned irresistibly to the station wagon outside. It was such a coincidence that it should be there today when every free moment seemed to have been filled with thoughts of Carne, and Jeremy, and the life she had run away from. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, refusing to admit that Lance’s accusation had scraped a nerve. She wasn’t afraid of Jeremy’s reactions to his father. Good heavens, he scarcely remembered him after all this time. They would have nothing in common—just as she and Carne had had nothing in common …
The lift whispered to a halt and the doors slid open. Pushing her weight away from the wall of the lift, she stepped out into the corridor, smelling the familiar, if not particularly agreeable, smell of pine disinfectant. The flat she shared with her mother was several yards down and she sauntered towards it slowly, her brows drawn together in a frown. Why should she be letting Lance’s words disturb her like this? After all, Carne had stopped seeing his son, not the other way about. Why should she blame herself if he chose to ignore their existence, and most particularly, why should she feel any guilt because Jeremy was growing up knowing nothing of the land that was his heritage? His heritage was hers, a heritage of city things and city people. Everyone said that this was where it was all happening. People converged on London from all over the world. Jeremy might never know how to plough a field or wean a foal, but then he probably wouldn’t want to.
She found her key and inserted it in the lock and the door opened silently into the tiny entrance hall of the flat. The hall was made tinier by her mother’s insistence on keeping an old chest, inlaid with ivory, which Lesley’s father had brought back from India, but it reduced the floor space to a minimum. Last holidays, Jeremy had hidden inside it and terrified them all by falling asleep and almost suffocating himself.
Lesley was closing the door again when the sound of voices coming from the living room attracted her attention. It was so unusual for her mother to have callers. She seldom associated with her neighbours, and Lesley usually knew when one or other of her friends from Hampstead days was expected to call. Besides, Lesley hesitated, it sounded like a man’s voice …
Her mouth went dry, and she deliberately closed the door so that they should not hear her. A cascade of staggering thoughts was tumbling through her head—the conversation with her mother that morning, the dusty station wagon outside, with the farming magazines spread over the seat, and now a man’s voice.
It was Carne. She was sure of it. She would know his low husky drawl anywhere. Hadn’t she always admired his voice, its throbbing timbre which had had the power to send shivers of excitement up her spine. But no longer, she reminded herself severely. She was no eager student any longer, she was a grown woman, mature and she hoped, sophisticated. So what was he doing here? Had her mother sent for him? Of course, she was home earlier than they could have expected. It was usually nearing six by the time she had negotiated the rush hour traffic.
She turned quickly, and as she did so she saw her reflection in the convex mirror hanging above the Indian chest. Wide, anxious eyes stared back at her, lips parted apprehensively. Impatience brought a frown to her forehead. Why did she look so anxious? Why should she be apprehensive? She had nothing to fear. So why did she suddenly feel like letting herself out of the flat again as quietly as she had come in?
Biting her lips to give them a little colour, she ran a smoothing hand over the heavy curtain of her hair, and turned to the door. She put out her hand, hesitated, and withdrew it again. Unwillingly, she could hear their voices now, and shamelessly she was listening.
‘Lesley simply doesn’t know,’ she heard her mother saying, a sigh of resignation in her voice. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.’
‘Then you must.’ Carne was always so unfailingly practical, thought Lesley maliciously. ‘She’s not a child. She would understand.’
‘I don’t believe she would.’ Mrs Matthews paused, and Lesley grew impatient for her to continue. What wouldn’t she understand? And how could her mother discuss it with Carne and not with her?
‘Do you want me to tell her?’
Carne was speaking again, and Lesley could stand it no longer. Whatever was going on, she was involved and therefore she had the right to know about it. With trembling fingers, her hand closed round the handle, and she propelled the door inward.
CHAPTER TWO
CARNE was standing on the rug in front of the marble fireplace. The fire was seldom lit, there being a perfectly adequate heating system supplied to the flats from a central generator, and besides, no one needed a fire in summer. In consequence, the grate was screened and Carne’s long, powerful legs were outlined against a ridiculously fragile tracery of Chinese fans embroidered on to a turquoise background. Lesley’s mother collected Eastern things, and the room was a conglomeration of Japanese jade and Indian ivory, and hand-painted Chinese silk. Their oriental delicacy made Carne’s presence more of an intrusion somehow, and his height and lean, but muscular, body seemed to fill the space with disruptive virility. Standing there in close-fitting jeans and a collarless body shirt, he was an affront to the ordered tenor of the room, and most particularly an affront to Lesley’s carefully controlled existence.
She barely glanced at him, yet in those few seconds she registered everything about him. He hadn’t changed, she thought bitterly. He was still as imperturbably arrogant as ever, caring little for people or places, showing a fine contempt for the things she had always held most dear. In spite of a degree in biochemistry, when his father died Carne had been quite prepared to give up a promising scientific career to take over the farm that had been in their family for generations, but Lesley, when she learned this, had been horrified. It had been one of the many arguments she had had with Carne’s mother, yet hardly a conclusive factor in her final decision to leave him. She knew deep inside her that there had been much more to it than that, an accumulation of so many things that clutching at his lack of ambition was like clutching at a straw in the wind. They had been incompatible, she decided, choosing the most hackneyed word to describe the breakdown of their relationship.
Now, looking at her mother, who had risen rather nervously from her chair, she exclaimed: ‘Exactly what must I be told, Mother? What is it that I wouldn’t understand?’
By ignoring Carne, she hoped she was making plain her resentment at finding him here, but it was he who spoke as her mother struggled to find words.
‘Listening at keyholes again, Lesley?’ he taunted, and she could not argue with that.
‘You’re home early, dear.’
Her mother had clearly chosen to avoid a direct answer, but Lesley refused to be put off by Carne’s attempt to disarm her.
‘Why is Carne here?’ she demanded, returning to the attack, and she sensed rather than saw the look Mrs Matthews exchanged with her husband. There was a pregnant pause, then he spoke again.
‘Your mother has angina,’ he told her flatly, despite her mother’s cry of protest. ‘A heart condition that’s not improved by the company of a boisterous small boy!’
Lesley’s legs felt suddenly weak, and she sought the back of her mother’s chair for support. ‘Angina?’ she echoed stupidly. Then: ‘But why wasn’t I told?’
‘I imagine because your mother hoped you would notice she wasn’t well,’ Carne remarked cuttingly. ‘It’s one thing to shout about independence, and quite another to expect someone else to help you to accomplish it!’
Lesley stared at him indignantly, hating him for his calm pragmatism. His returning stare had all the emotion of a hawk poised above its prey, and she guessed he felt no sympathy for her feelings of outrage and betrayal. How could her mother have confided in him? In the one man who in all Lesley’s life had been capable of making her feel mean and selfish, and spoiled out of all measure.
‘Why have you come here?’ she demanded again now, and this time her mother chose to answer.
‘I asked him to,’ she spoke fretfully. ‘Oh, Lesley, don’t be angry. I had to confide in someone.’
It was incredibly difficult for Lesley not to show how upset she really was. ‘Why not me?’ she exclaimed, with feeling. ‘Why not me?’
‘I believe your mother thought that if she could persuade you to let Jeremy spend his holidays at Raventhorpe, it wouldn’t be necessary to worry you,’ put in Carne dryly. ‘But I gather that hasn’t met with any success.’
Lesley refused to answer that. Instead, she concentrated her attention on her mother. ‘Look,’ she said carefully, ‘I’ve—I’ve managed to make some—arrangements for the holidays—–’
‘What sort of arrangements?’
It was Carne who asked the question, pushing back the dark chestnut hair from his forehead, unwillingly drawing her attention to the fact that when he lifted his arm, his shirt separated from his pants and exposed a welt of brown midriff. Carne’s skin had always been brown, but as he often worked in the open air with only a pair of cotton pants to protect his lower limbs, his chest and shoulders and the width of his back were bronzed and supple. In spite of all the bitterness that had gone before, she could still remember the feel of that smooth skin beneath her fingers and her nails digging into the strong muscles when they made love …
Dragging her eyes away from him, she forced herself to look only at her mother. ‘I—I spoke to Lance today,’ she began, and felt a certain squalid satisfaction as she sensed Carne’s stiffening. ‘He—he’s quite willing for me to take Jeremy to the office with me. He can read or use his cray—–’
‘No.’
Carne’s rejection was low, but succinct, and Lesley was forced to acknowledge it. ‘I don’t think it’s anything to do with you.’
‘Which shows how wrong you can be,’ he retorted smoothly.
‘Oh, please …’ Mrs Matthews sought her chair again. ‘I never intended this to degenerate into an argument. I know how you feel about Jeremy, Lesley, never doubt that. But Carne was the right person to turn to, can’t you see? He is the boy’s father!’
Lesley’s eyes sparkled dangerously in Carne’s direction for a moment, before she said: ‘That’s meant a lot to him in recent years, hasn’t it. Or has he been seeing Jeremy behind my back, too?’
‘Lesley!’ Carne’s voice was grim, and briefly she felt ashamed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly, addressing her mother. ‘But you know as well as I do how often Carne has troubled to see Jeremy since I left Ravensdale—–’
‘You little bitch!’ In a stride, Carne had covered the distance between them and was gripping her upper arms with fingers that dug cruelly into her flesh. ‘You little bitch!’ he repeated, less emotively, his gaze raking her shakily resentful features. ‘You know as well as I do why I stopped seeing him. You’d confused him enough as it was. A father who appeared at weekends and holidays is no father at all to a toddler barely out of his nappies, and you know it.’
‘That—that’s your excuse, is it?’ she got out jerkily, and his brown eyes darkened to appear almost black, filling the area around the dilated pupils with ominous obscurity.
‘Yes, that’s my excuse,’ he agreed savagely. ‘How do you salve your conscience, I wonder?’
Lesley tore herself away from him, rubbing her bruised arms with fingers that trembled. ‘You always were a bully, weren’t you, Carne?’ she countered, but it was a defensive reaction, born of the desire to escape the physical awareness she had always had of him, an awareness heightened by the heated scent of his body and the raw sensuality of the man himself. It was an unconscious trait, but it was there, and she knew she was not the only woman to be aware of it.
Mrs Matthews was looking distinctly distressed now, and ignoring Lesley Carne turned to her. ‘Do you want me to go?’ he asked gently, but Lesley’s muffled ‘Yes’ was overridden by her mother’s hurried denial.
‘Lesley had to know sooner or later,’ she said, and pointed to the cigar box on the mantelpiece. ‘Please—could I have one of those? I really need it.’
Lesley stood by feeling childishly sulky and admonished as Carne lit her mother’s cheroot, but she couldn’t deny the fluttery feelings in the pit of her stomach. She wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t run the Mini into the back of the other car that morning, if she hadn’t got out of work early and come home and surprised them. When would her mother have mentioned Carne’s visit? When would she have revealed that her heart could not stand the demands put upon it by a child of Jeremy’s age and temperament? When would she have disclosed that she was actually negotiating arrangements without even consulting her daughter!
Panic gave way to angry indignation once more. It was as if she, Jeremy’s mother, had no say in the matter. And Carne was obviously a willing accessory. And why not? It was, no doubt, exactly what he wanted. Once he and his mother got Jeremy to Ravensdale they would have eight weeks to work on him, eight weeks to twist everything Lesley had ever told him, eight weeks to turn him against the woman who had borne him. Self-pity swamped her. Carne’s mother had always hated her, had always resented the fleeting hold she had had over her precious son. Jeremy was that son all over again, the grandson she had always wanted to be there to take over Raventhorpe when his father retired. The long tradition of the Radleys was weighted against her. What possible defence did she have against that?
Carne straightened from lighting her mother’s cheroot and regarded her coldly. ‘I suggest this matter needs further consideration,’ he remarked, toying with the heavy lighter. ‘I’ve arranged to stay in town overnight. I suggest we meet for dinner, like the civilised people we are supposed to be, and discuss what’s to be done.’
Lesley stiffened her spine. ‘So far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to discuss,’ she retorted icily, but his gaze never faltered.
‘I’m staying at the President,’ he went on, mentioning the name of a comfortable three-star hotel in Russell Square. He glanced down at his casual attire. ‘I need a drink and a shower, but I’ll be back here to pick you up in—say, an hour and a half?’
Lesley licked her dry lips. ‘You can’t force me to go out with you, Carne.’
‘For God’s sake!’ He swore angrily. ‘I should have thought you’d have got over that childish temper of yours by now!’
‘Why should I? You haven’t.’
‘Lesley …’
Mrs Matthews’ fretful protest silenced any cutting retort Carne might have been about to make. Instead, controlling his anger with admirable skill, he said: ‘I’ll give you two hours, Lesley. That should be long enough for your mother to convince you that you can’t go on running away from life’s unpleasantnesses.’
‘Like you, you mean?’ she taunted, and then turned away, despising herself for behaving like a shrew. But it had been quite a day, and it wasn’t over yet.
She heard Carne bidding her mother goodbye, and half turned as he let himself out of the apartment. His brooding gaze swept over her and found her lacking, and she concentrated her attention on her clenched fists as he closed the door behind him.
The room was strangely empty after he had gone, but her mother was there and her eyes were full of reproach.
‘How could you, Lesley?’ she exclaimed, pressing out the half smoked cheroot with unsteady fingers. ‘Making a scene like that! I never thought you could be so—so vindictive!’
‘Vindictive?’ The word brought a sound of protest from Lesley’s lips. ‘Me? Vindictive?’
‘Well, what would you call it?’ Mrs Matthews demanded. ‘I asked Carne to come here, and this is my home, after all. How could you speak to a guest of mine in such a fashion?’
‘A guest of yours?’ Lesley stared at her ludicrously. ‘Mother, Carne is my husband? Separated, it’s true, but husband, nevertheless! You can’t accuse me of being rude to my own husband!’
‘I can, and what’s more, I do,’ declared her mother, with a sniff. ‘I think Carne showed remarkable restraint in the face of outright provocation. Jeremy is his son as well as yours, Lesley, whether you like it or not. And any court in the land would grant him custodial rights if he chose to make a case of it.’
Lesley trembled. She couldn’t help it. It sounded so coldblooded somehow, and her mother had put her finger on the one thing she had always fought against considering.
‘Carne—Carne doesn’t need Jeremy,’ she said now. ‘I do.’
‘Try convincing a magistrate of that.’
‘Mother!’ Lesley stared with anguished eyes. ‘Mother, what are you trying to do? To make me give Jeremy up?’
Mrs Matthews shrugged. ‘I’m just pointing out that Carne has been very patient, but I shouldn’t push him any further if I were you.’
Lesley pressed her lips together for a moment. ‘You mean—I should have dinner with him?’
‘I mean that if Carne is willing to give the boy a home for the holidays, you should be glad to let him go.’
‘But, Mother, the only time I see Jeremy is in the holidays!’
‘That’s nothing to do with me.’ Mrs Matthews rose painfully to her feet. Her lumbago was troubling her today and so far as she was concerned, the discussion was over. ‘I’m going to my room—–’
‘Wait!’ Lesley took an automatic step forward. ‘You—you still haven’t told me about—about the angina.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘But what did Dr Forrest say?’
‘He said I should rest more. That I shouldn’t get excited,’ she added, with a returning look of reproof.
‘Oh, Mother!’ Lesley linked and unlinked her fingers. ‘If you’d only told me …’
‘What, and have you speak to me as you spoke to Carne!’
‘That’s not fair …’
Her mother made a dismissing gesture. ‘I’m going to lie down. Don’t bother about making me a meal. I’ll get something later, if I’m hungry.’
Lesley watched her mother’s progress across the room with troubled eyes. Not least among the many things that troubled her was the realisation that her mother could hide a thing like that from her—and for how long? That was another of the questions that still needed answering. With a despairing sigh, she sank down on to a low couch and pushed back the heavy weight of her hair with both hands. Was she really so unfeeling? Was she so wrapped up in her own affairs that she had no time for anyone else? She had never thought so, but now … It seemed incredible that that morning she had had no notion of what plans her mother had been nurturing, or indeed that even as she lunched in the staff canteen at W.L.T.V. Carne was at that moment driving down the M.1. from Yorkshire, intent on keeping an appointment which must have been made days ago. It hurt to think her mother could deceive her, and while she didn’t seriously believe there had been other meetings, nevertheless a little of her trust had been undermined.
Leaving the cluttered paraphernalia of the living room, Lesley went into her bedroom, the room she shared with Jeremy when he was home. She supposed that situation would not be approved by a court of law, but as the flat only had two bedrooms, there was no other alternative. Short of sharing her mother’s bedroom, of course, but naturally Mrs Matthews wanted a room to herself. If Lesley had thought of what might happen in the future, as Jeremy got too old to share her room, it was along the lines of them perhaps acquiring a larger apartment, but she had never really considered what she would do if her mother should object. Carne was right, in one way. Her independence did depend on her mother to a large extent at the moment, but once Jeremy was old enough to be left alone, she supposed there was no reason why they shouldn’t get a flat of their own. But all these things had been hazy, nebulous, distant possibilities that would work themselves out in the natural order of things. Now all that had been changed, and suddenly she was faced with the practicalities of the present, and with the disturbing realisation that her mother had put all their futures into Carne’s hands.
The bathroom was vacant and she turned on the taps to silence the frenzied screaming of her nerves. Sprinkling essence liberally into the bath water, she watched the deep green liquid melt and dissolve, to rise again as balls of foam that made a fluffy white carpet over the surface. What could she say to Carne to make him see that by reappearing in Jeremy’s life now, he could only confuse the boy again? Confuse? Her lips twisted. She was confused. Carne already knew that. By springing her mother’s illness upon her, he had successfully diluted her arguments, just as the bath water had diluted the essence.