Kate's Progress (19 page)

‘I’d have thought
you’d
know exactly what I paid for it,’ she said, with a hint of annoyance. No-one likes to be told they’ve been sold a pup.

Now he looked at her again, and smiled. It was not a pretty sight. ‘I’m not trying to interfere in your business – just offering you helpful advice, from someone who lives here and knows about these sort of things. I’m just saying, Little’s isn’t a pretty cottage, the sort visitors like. And there’s a bit of a glut on the market, so prices are low, even when you can shift them at all.’ He seemed to think a moment. ‘Look here, when you decide to sell, come to me. I’ll help you.’

‘You will?’

‘I know everyone around these parts. I’ll help you find a buyer.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said, wondering if they had irony in this part of the world.

‘Not at all. My pleasure.’ Apparently not. ‘There’s no point in paying an estate agent’s bloated commission just for putting a couple of ads in the paper. These people don’t know the lie of the land the way I do. I can find you a local working person looking for a home. And if I were you,’ he added with a serious look, ‘I’d sell sooner rather than later. Prices are still going down. Don’t wait until the end of summer and the bad weather. Get out while you can, whether you’ve finished your renovations or not. Let the purchaser finish it off. Don’t throw good money after bad – that’s my advice.’

‘Well, thank you. I’ll take that on board,’ Kate said, and managed this time to escape, though she had to almost duck under his arm to do it. Now what was all that about? she wondered. Had she misjudged him? Was he really trying to be helpful? Perhaps he couldn’t help the way he looked – it would be galling to be misunderstood all the time when you were trying to be nice. Or was it in fact just basic old anti-Townie hatred raising its ugly head? Trying to get rid of her – Exmoor for Exmoorians, foreigners out?

He did make sense about the estate agent’s commission, though. When the time came to sell – and she felt a small pang at the thought of that – she might do well to swallow her instinctive dislike of him and ask his help, see what he could do for her. If he found her a buyer, well and good; if not, she still had the estate agent to fall back on. She couldn’t lose either way.

Some time later, when she had popped out to the loo, she was returning to the drawing room when a movement caught her eye, and she saw, down the side passage that led to the kitchen, Kingdon and Camilla standing talking. Kingdon had his arm resting against a door jamb above his head, which made him look rather threatening as he leaned over Camilla’s slim form.

Camilla was protesting. ‘But it was your idea in the first place!’ She sounded quite indignant. ‘You suggested it!’

‘For God’s sake, woman!’ Phil said explosively, making a movement of impatience which brought his arm down from the door jamb and had him half turning from her and towards Kate. Kate hurried on so that they should not see her, feeling slightly shocked that he should talk to Camilla like that, when he was an employee of the estate, no matter how important.

She decided she really didn’t like him, and wondered that Camilla should allow him such licence. But of course, she had not hung around to hear any more – maybe Camilla was tearing him off a strip for his rudeness at this very moment. She hoped so, anyway.

When people started to stir and go, Kate was sitting on a sofa with Jack. He had plonked himself down next to her some time ago, resting his arm along the back of it behind her in the classic first-date-at-the-cinema ploy, and sure enough by now it was hanging heavily over her shoulder. Fortunately, he wasn’t making any further amorous moves on her: she’d have felt awkward about that, in front of all these friends, and his stepmother. And Ed. Most of all Ed, though she managed not to ask herself why.

Jack had been drinking a great deal, and though he was not drunk in any obvious way, he seemed to have become rather somnolent, sinking bonelessly into the sofa, talking in a low voice to Annie Culverhouse, who was sitting catty-corner to him in the next armchair, about local matters, and entirely forgetting to flirt, entertain or be outrageous. The wolf in sheep’s clothing. It was rather a relief. It made Kate feel like one of the family, and she looked round this big, shabby, people-filled room with liking, remembering Sundays back home in Dublin in the past, before the first of them had left the nest.

Idly – as the conversation did not really include her – she thought what she would do with the room if it were hers. Clean it, for a start: wax and polish the panelling, mend the cracked and broken bits of the ceiling moulding – repaint the ceiling, for that matter. It was almost brown with generations of smoke: she couldn’t imagine how long ago it was last painted. And then—

Ed appeared in front of her, and she realized that people were getting up to leave, saying their goodbyes and thanks.

‘I’ll run Kate home,’ Ed said, addressing it mainly to Jack.

He struggled to extricate himself from the cushions. ‘Nice try, bro, but no chance. I’m doing it,’ he said.

‘You’ve had too much to drink,’ Ed told him firmly.

‘Don and I can drop her off,’ Annie said.

‘You’re the other way,’ Ed said.

‘It’s quite all right, I can walk from here,’ Kate said, feeling a bit like a parcel.

Ed looked at her. ‘It isn’t safe to walk about these lanes at night. There are no pavements, you know, and the way local people drive – especially when they’ve had a few …’ He gave Jack a quelling look. ‘I’d feel happier if I drove you.’

Kate was about to protest again, and then shut her mouth.
What am I thinking? Trying to avoid being in a car alone with Ed, even if it’s only for a few minutes?
‘Thank you,’ she said meekly.

She went to thank Camilla, who was – she was glad to see – deep in conversation with the Brigadier. Camilla stood up and air-kissed her, and said, ‘Drop in any time – we don’t stand on ceremony here – do we, Harry?’

‘Not very often,’ he replied, with that twinkling smile at Kate.

‘In fact,’ Camilla went on, ‘you do seem to have had a civilizing effect on Ed. I wish you didn’t have to go – he’ll probably attack as soon as we’re alone.’ She thought a moment. ‘What are you doing next weekend?’

‘Nothing that I know of,’ Kate said, with a lift of the heart. Was she about to be invited to Sunday lunch again?

‘Well, I’m getting a house-party together. Dinner Saturday night, the show at Cothelstone on Sunday, and Buscombe on the Bank Holiday Monday.’

‘Buscombe – you mean the point to point meeting?’ Kate said. She had sometimes been to it when she was a child – Buscombe was not far from Exford.

‘Yes,’ Camilla said. ‘Ed’s entered for something, and Jocasta will be in the junior open. Would you like to come?’

‘To the point-to-point? Yes, very much.’

‘No, I meant for the weekend,’ Camilla said impatiently.

‘You mean – to stay? But I live so close.’

‘Well, you don’t want to be driving back and forth. It breaks up the party, and it’s so dreary to have to watch what you drink. It’s much better if you stay over. There are plenty of bedrooms. So that’s settled, then? Good. Come at teatime on Saturday and stay until Tuesday morning.’

Kate managed some thanks, though her mind was already busy wondering whether her wardrobe would stand the strain; and also what sort of tensions and social difficulties she would encounter, staying under the same roof not only of Camilla and Jack but Ed as well, and presumably a host of friends into the bargain.

And now Ed was waiting to drive her home, jiggling his car keys on his forefinger as if impatient to be off. She hurried to him. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘What for?’ He sounded surprised.

‘Keeping you waiting.’

‘Oh, not at all. Did you have a coat?’

‘Just a jacket. Yes, that’s it.’ She let him help her into it, and followed him to the front door. ‘Your stepmother just invited me for next weekend,’ she said as he held the door for her. ‘To stay,’ she added, so there should be no misunderstanding.

‘Yes, I thought she might,’ Ed said. They stepped out into the dark. It was surprisingly cold, and she shivered in reaction. ‘She seems to have taken a shine to you, inviting you to lunch the instant she met you.’

She wondered whether he could really think that, and looked back at him. He seemed grimly amused. She felt there was nothing to be gained by havering. ‘She thought I might distract you from her.’

‘Yes, I thought that was it,’ he said. ‘She made a point of seating us together at lunch.’ He didn’t sound upset about it. She wished she could keep looking at him to judge his feelings, but she was picking her way in almost complete dark over uneven ground towards the car and had to watch her step.

‘Did it work?’ she asked boldly.

‘You
are
quite a distracting person,’ he said. Now she absolutely had to look at him. She stopped and turned. He was closer behind her than she had expected, and she found herself looking up at him almost vertically, their bodies only inches apart. He looked down at her, and she felt vertigo – though that may simply have been the angle of her neck. The moment and the silence that went with it seemed to go on for a long time; then he put out a hand to steady her, touching her elbow. He said, quite neutrally, ‘She may find it didn’t work as well as she hoped.’

‘Why?’ she asked faintly.

He used the touch on her elbow to turn her. The car was only a step away. He reached past her to open the passenger side door.

‘Because I’ll have her to myself when I get home from dropping you off,’ he answered.

She felt a jab of disappointment, and got into the car.

They drove in silence along the dark lane. She racked her brain for something to say – can’t waste this opportunity! – but found herself unusually tongue-tied. His presence, so close to her and in such a confined space, was robbing her of normal intelligence. She felt the heat and power of him next to her, looked at his big, strong hands on the wheel and shivered, imagining them –
no, no, no! Don’t go there!

When he halted at the crossroads, she took the opportunity, under the guise of scanning the road, to look at his face. His profile, she thought, was even better than his full face: profiles are designed by nature to be grave rather than smiling. She realized suddenly that she knew nothing about him. It seemed he wasn’t married – there had been no wife at the house, nor any mention of one – but had he ever been? She couldn’t imagine someone like him remaining single to this advanced age. She wished she could ask him, but she couldn’t – she
really
couldn’t, even with her famed blurting-it-all-outness. Difficult divorce, she thought: surely that must be it. The ex’s fault – hence his grimness. Broken heart – no longer trusted women.

But if the whole County was all over Jack, why weren’t they even more all over Ed, the elder, after all, and the better looking (in her opinion)? He had said he didn’t have the knack of getting on with people: did he actively drive them away?

The car moved off, turning right, and he said, ‘You and Jack – is it serious?’

Well, that was blunt all right, she thought. Did he want it to be serious or not? Even as she wondered what the right answer would be, she had come out with the truth. ‘It hasn’t had time to be serious. I’ve only had two meals with him – or three if you count lunch today.’

‘Do you count it?’

‘Well, it was a family meal, wasn’t it, not a date.’

‘But you like him?’

‘He’s very likeable,’ she said, wondering if that sounded evasive. She felt evasive. She might well have taken things further with Jack, had she not met Ed. Now she was wondering how committed to the younger brother she would find herself to be.

Ed seemed to give vent to a small sigh. ‘He is. Everyone likes him.’

There was nothing she could easily respond to in that. She racked her brain for something safe to say. Finally she managed, rather feebly, ‘So you’re competing in the point-to-point next weekend?’

‘Yes,’ he said. Then, ‘Oh, we didn’t get to go to the stables. I said I’d show you. You should have reminded me.’

‘Everyone was talking too much,’ she said.

‘Yes, that’s true. Well, another time.’ He glanced sideways at her. ‘Next weekend, for sure, if not before.’

‘Before?’ she queried with hope in her heart.

‘You’re going riding with Jocasta, aren’t you? She can show you.’

‘Oh. Yes. Of course,’ she said, hope sinking again.

The following silence lasted all the way to her door. He stopped, and sat for a moment, staring at nothing, while she tried to make herself move, open the door, say, ‘Thanks for the lift,’ in a normal, casual voice. Then, still not looking at her, he said hesitantly, ‘About Jack …’

‘Yes?’ she encouraged him cautiously.

‘Everyone likes him. He’s very easy to get on with. But he’s something of a flirt.’

‘I was warned about that before I ever met him.’

‘Were you? Well, I just wanted to say – to tell you … I don’t mean this in a bad way – I don’t know what goes on between you—’

‘Just say it,’ she suggested to get him out of trouble. ‘Whatever it is.’

He looked at her. ‘It’s easy to read more into what he says than he really means. He’s very open and full of fun, and sometimes people think – women think … Well, he’s broken a lot of hearts, without in the least meaning to. I just wanted to put you on your guard.’ In the darkness inside the car she could not read his expression; there was just the warm black velvet of his voice. She wanted desperately to touch him; and as if in answer to her thought, he laid his hand over hers, and she almost started at the sudden warmth. ‘I hope you aren’t offended.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not offended.’

He withdrew his hand. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Well, goodnight, then.’

And so there was nothing to do but say goodnight and get out. Her moment with Ed alone was over.

She woke on Monday to a grey world, low cloud and fine, drifting rain – what her grandfather used to call an Exmoor Special. Kate moved her activities indoors, and spent the day filling in the cracks and gaps in the sitting room, to ready it for the lining-paper – the walls were not good enough to paint straight on to them. She worked in a languorous, almost listless rhythm, the radio on in the background, her thoughts far away, and not very coherent.