Mr. Darcy Forever (27 page)

‘
Maybe we can come back again,’ Mia said.

Sarah nodded.

Half an hour later, the car was packed and Sarah had vacuumed, dusted and cleaned every surface in the house even though she didn’t need to. Mia had stopped telling her off for such things having experienced enough holidays with her in the past to know that Sarah couldn’t leave a place without making sure it was spick and span.

Finally, it was time to leave.

‘
Wonderful holidays are always laced with sadness because one knows that they can't last forever,’ Mia said as they closed the door of Barton Cottage for the last time.

‘
That’s very poetical,’ Sarah said.

Mia sighed. ‘It is a bargain we make when we book them. We expect perfection, relaxation, beauty and inspiration. Only then will we be content to go back to our humdrum lives.’

‘
Oh, dear,’ Sarah said, ‘that does sound depressing.’

Mia’s face did, indeed, look a little longer than usual. Her eyes weren’t quite as sparkly as normal and her pretty mouth was down-turned as she looked along the path by the estuary.

Suddenly, her whole face lit up and Sarah knew why without even looking. Alec was there.

‘
Good morning!’ he called up from the path as he picked up speed to join them at the garden gate.

‘
I thought we’d missed you,’ Mia said, running to greet him and flinging her arms around him.

‘
You didn't think I'd let you go without saying goodbye, did you?’

‘
Of course not,’ Mia said. ‘But you nearly missed us!’

‘
I can’t believe you’re going. You’ve only just arrived,’ he said, directing the statement at Sarah.

She nodded and looked away.

‘
I can’t believe you’ve got another whole week here,’ Mia said. ‘I’m sure there must be room for me in your cottage.’ From the tone of her voice, she was joking but Sarah knew that she was hoping for a last-minute reprieve so that she could stay with Alec.

Alec laughed lightly but didn’t offer to let her stay.

‘
We’d better get going,’ Sarah said.

‘
Then I’d better say goodbye properly,’ Alec said. Mia immediately launched herself into his arms and kissed him passionately on the mouth.

‘
I don’t want to go,’ she said.

Alec cleared his throat. ‘But you have your life in London to go back to.’

She glared at him as if he’d said the worst thing imaginable. But he didn’t seem to notice because he was looking at Sarah.

‘
Goodbye, Sarah,’ he said quietly, moving towards her and kissing her. Sarah took a step back, shocked that he had kissed her on the mouth in front of Mia. ‘Keep in touch,’ he said.

‘
Of course we will,’ Mia answered.

Sarah didn’t say anything but grabbed Mia’s hand and dragged her away from Alec before she could launch herself at him again.

‘
I can’t believe he kissed you!’ she said. ‘I suppose he didn’t want you to feel left out.’

‘
It was just a quick kiss,’ Sarah said, feeling herself blush.

‘
He’s a great kisser, isn’t he?’

‘
I – I wasn’t really thinking about it.’

‘
What else could you possibly be thinking about when he was kissing you?’

Sarah panicked. ‘I was thinking that we should get going.’

Mia laughed. ‘Oh, Sarah! You’re the least romantic person I know. It’s a good job Alec’s fallen for me and not you, isn’t it?’

Sarah didn’t answer and the two of them got into the car. Mia instantly fell silent as if the reality of leaving was finally hitting her. Sarah glanced quickly at her sister and could see tears brimming in her bright eyes and, at that moment, she hated Alec. Why had he had to be there that week of all weeks? And why did he have to make them both fall in love with him? He had spoiled everything and she would never forgive him for that.

Sarah started the engine and drove the car out onto the drive that would lead them to the end of the estate and out into the real world once again. Being at Barton Cottage had been like living in a beautiful, safe bubble but now that bubble had burst and it was back to normality.

‘
Ready?’ she said to Mia as Alec appeared behind them to wave them off.

She nodded which caused her tears to spill down her face. Opening her window, she madly flapped a hand out of it.

‘
Wave to Alec,’ she told Sarah but Sarah chose to ignore her. She merely lifted her eyes briefly to the rear-view mirror and saw him standing there. He was looking right at her.

* * *

Sarah was very good at getting over the holiday blues. She threw herself into her work, talking to new clients, sorting out accounts and dealing with the endless muddles people seemed to get themselves into when trying to keep their own books balanced.

She would have worked right through the whole weekend if it hadn’t been for Mia’s arrival. She’d popped down on the train from London to get away from a party that was taking place in the flat above hers.

‘
I don’t know what they’ve got to party about,’ she said, taking a sip of tea out of one of Sarah’s white china cups, ‘but they always seem to be having them and it always sounds as though my ceiling is about to come down at any moment.’

‘
Can’t you complain to the landlord?’

‘
He always seems to leave town whenever they happen. He’s probably got some luxurious country estate to retreat to that his tenants are paying for.’

‘
I wouldn’t be surprised.’

Mia sighed and flopped dramatically into a chair, looking as if she was about to spout a speech from a Shakespearean tragedy.

‘
It’s not just the party,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a crappy week. I went for this audition for a dreadful play that I didn’t even want to be in and I didn’t even get a call back.’

Sarah frowned. ‘Well, isn’t that a blessing if you didn’t even want to be in it?’

‘
That’s not the point!’ Mia said with a gargantuan sigh. ‘But that’s not the worst of it. Alec hasn't called me. Don't you think that’s strange?’

‘
It hasn't been that long.’

‘
Sarah, it's been over two weeks!’ she said, twisting around in the chair, her forehead wrinkled in consternation. ‘I gave him my number. I gave him
all
my numbers – even my neighbour’s number. I thought he would have called by now.’

‘
Maybe he's been busy. His job’s pretty stressful, you know.’

‘
Did he talk to you about his job?’

Sarah bit her lip. ‘Erm – not really. Just, you know – that he’s always kept busy.’

‘
But a phone call doesn’t take long, does it? He should have called me by now. It’s really mean of him to keep me waiting like this.’

‘
Do you want another cup of tea?’ Sarah asked, escaping into the kitchen. She felt awful because Alec has been calling her every day since they’d left Devon. At first, the calls had been one a day but the number had slowly increased and, just yesterday, he’d called her four times. In fact, she was a little worried that the phone might go whilst Mia was there.

Last night, they’d been on the phone for hours. In fact, Sarah had just started watching the 2005 adaptation of
Pride and Prejudice
when Alec had rang and the film was long finished before they’d hung up.

How easy it was to talk to him. They never seemed to run out of subjects. Sarah hadn’t had such an easy relationship with a man for ages.

‘
Not ever,’ she corrected herself.

‘
What?’ Mia called from the living room.

‘
Nothing,’ Sarah quickly said. ‘I’m just talking to myself again.’

Mia appeared in the doorway. ‘I’ve called his home number and his mobile and I've left messages everywhere but he hasn't called me back. What's going on?’

Sarah hated hearing the pain in her sister's voice but, more than that, she hated hiding the truth from her. She could offer no words of comfort for her sister because, if she did, they would be lies and she couldn’t do that.

‘
How’s your job?’ she asked instead.

‘
Sarah! I don’t want to talk about my job. I want to talk about Alec.’

Sarah switched the kettle off and turned her full attention to her sister.

‘
I can't stop thinking about him,’ she said. ‘We got on so well. I found it so easy to talk to him, do you know what I mean?’

Sarah nodded, knowing
exactly
what her sister meant.

‘
It sounds so corny but I really felt like we'd connected and that doesn't happen very often, does it?’

‘
No,’ Sarah said, ‘it doesn't.’

Mia threw her head back and groaned at the ceiling. ‘Why are all men so horrible?’

‘
Not all men are. Just most of them are.’

Mia gave a tiny smile. ‘It must be genetic - perhaps they don't even know that they’re all horrible.’

‘
Perhaps.’

‘
It’s so unfair. No matter how hard I search, I always seem to end up with a Wickham or a Willoughby rather than a Darcy or a Wentworth.’

‘
That’s the unwritten law of love,’ Sarah said. ‘We all have to suffer our share of cads before we find our hero.’

Mia looked at Sarah for what seemed like an age.

‘
What is it?’ Sarah asked.

‘
I don't know what I have to complain about. I mean, you’ve never found your hero, have you? And you’re so much older than me.’

‘
Well, thank you, dear sister! I can always rely on your honesty!’

‘
Oh, you know what I mean.’

‘
You mean my chance of happiness has long passed and I'll remain an old spinster like Miss Bates from
Emma
.’

‘
I don't mean that at all! Oh, I don't know what I mean.’

‘
I think you mean that you’re impossibly impatient and that you expect to fall in love with the perfect man and to find your dream job before you reached the old age of twenty-two.’

‘
That’s not so unreasonable a request, is it?’ Mia said with a little laugh

There was a pause and Sarah wondered what to say next. Part of her wanted to end the masquerade right there and then but the other part - the greater part - wanted to keep it a closely-guarded secret for as long as possible. It was prolonging the agony, of course, but she was kind of hoping for a miracle to come along. What that miracle was, she had no idea, but she was hoping it would solve the problem of them both being in love with the same man.

Just then, the telephone rang.

‘
I’ll get it,’ Mia said, seeing that it was right next to her.

‘
No, don't!’ Sarah said but it was too late – Mia had lunged for the phone and picked it up.

‘
Hello?’ she said.

Sarah swallowed hard and looked at the clock. Alec had never called this early before but there was a first time for everything, wasn't there? She watched Mia’s expression and saw her frown. Was it Alec? What was he saying to her? How would he explain ringing Sarah? Perhaps he would say that he'd lost Mia’s contact details -
all
of them - and was ringing her sister in order to get in touch.