The Hidden Years (37 page)

Her mother had been a pioneer as far as being a woman in
control in a man's world went, and she had achieved this without
endangering either her femininity or her values. Her mother had never,
she recognised, played on the fact that she was a woman, had never used
it, as Sage had seen so many many women do, and yet nor had she become
a token male, eschewing her womanliness, contemptuous of her own sex.
Somehow she had found and followed her own way, remained true to her
own self. Her mother was rather like this garden, Sage recognised in
surprise: at first glance perhaps too quiet and muted. It was only when
one looked closer, observed in more detail, that one became aware of
the true beauty and perfection, of the true skill and knowledge that
made up the whole person.

Suddenly Sage had a sharp, aching longing to have her
here. She was frightened, she realised… not just frightened
of losing her, this woman whom she was only just beginning to
discover—to value, she accepted humbly—but
frightened of not being able to live up to her standards, her
ideals…

The road, with all its complexity of problems, had somehow
become a symbol of all that was lacking in their relationship. The
sheer grind and perseverance required to even get as far as mounting a
proper campaign against it required all the fine detailings of
character that were not in her gift. Her skills were different. Not
perhaps of less value, but different. She did not, she decided
despairingly, have those abilities which made her mother such a master
tactician… but it was to her that the role of stepping into
her mother's shoes, of protecting Cottingdean, had fallen. And if she
failed…

She shivered suddenly, briefly seeing, not Cottingdean as
it was: a perfect, almost magical, living, breathing reincarnation of
the house as it must have been centuries ago when it was first built,
lovingly preserved and cosseted by her mother—cosseted not as
a museum, but as a home, a home that was so evocative of its own past
that to step into it was to walk into a small piece of
history—but Cottingdean as it could tragically become: its
gardens destroyed, the house itself neglected…

Stop being so stupid, she told herself—the road
was not going to come anywhere near the house itself. It was the
village which was at risk, and of course to her mother the village and
the people in it were an extension of her field of responsibility. She
would see it as her duty to protect them. Now that duty was
hers…

Restlessly she moved back to the desk, absently glancing
at the framed estate map above the fireplace as she did so, and then
something caught her eye.

The map had different coloured sections to represent
different kinds of land; that which was not owned by Cottingdean was
coloured charcoal-grey, and there, to the north of the village, right
next to the proposed site for the new road, was a large block of
charcoal-grey. Sage paused and studied it, trying to visualise the
actual land. Her mother had more modern maps of the estate
somewhere… Sage found one neatly filed in an appropriately
marked file and sighed a little for her own confused mess of paperwork
on her own desk. Orderly she was not, as her secretary often
complained, but she liked her disorder—it felt comforting,
right.

As she unrolled the map she sat down, looking for the
boundaries of their own land, trying to isolate that section of
charcoal-grey. Whoever owned it would stand to make a good deal of
money from the new road. That piece of land, if she remembered
correctly, was right where one of the existing A roads would join the
new motorway. An ideal spot for future development… The kind
of development which would eventually run into and swamp Cottingdean
itself.

She soon found the appropriate section, and saw that it
was marked neatly in her mother's handwriting with the name of the
owner.

Agnes Hazelby… she nibbled the side of her
finger, remembering that her mother had surely mentioned that the
elderly woman had been seriously ill and had needed to sell in order to
move into a nursing home.

Had she done so? The best way to find out was to speak to
her mother's solicitor, which reminded her that sooner or later
someone, either herself or Faye, was going to have to go down to the
mill to see Henry Brading.

He was perfectly capable of running the mill side of the
business without any interference, but he had made anxious enquiries
about her mother's health, and she knew that in her shoes her mother
would have been quick to reassure him.

She picked up the phone and dialled the number of her
mother's solicitor.

He had no idea who owned the land in question, he told
her, but it should not be too difficult to find out. He remembered that
her mother had wanted to buy it, but that it had gone to auction, and
that the bidding had risen way above the price she had decided upon.

'I know it went for way, way above the price for
agricultural land. How is your mother, by the way? Any further news?'

'She's holding her own,' Sage told him, the words falling
almost automatically from her lips—she had repeated them now
so many times to so many anxious enquiries. 'They're hoping to operate
soon… Once she's stable. There's still some pressure on her
brain…'

She heard her voice faltering as she said the words,
knowing what they concealed. Her mother's hold on life was so very
fragile, a fine, fine thread that could so easily be broken.

'Don't worry, Sage,' he comforted her. 'Your mother's a
fighter. If anyone can pull through something like this, she
will… I'll ring you back just as soon as I've got that
information. Hopefully it shouldn't take too long.'

While she was waiting for him to ring back, Sage studied
her files again, trying to analyse what it was that the successful
campaigns had had in common.

A certain amount of influence in the right places, the
ability to bring their campaign to the attention of the media, and gain
the maximum publicity—but what stood out most of all was that
all of the successful campaigns had had something in their favour other
than the fervent desire of the campaigners not to have the road or
development on their territory: generally something of historic
importance, although there was a small village which had been saved
from the planners by virtue of the fact that it was an area of
outstanding natural beauty— one of only three places in the
country where a certain species of rare wild flowers grew.

Sage pushed her hand into her hair. As far as she knew, no
wild flowers of spectacular importance nor birds of rarity made their
home in Cottingdean or its environs, and the house and village,
although old, were not of any particular historical importance.

Looking at their case from an entirely unbiased viewpoint,
there was no reason why Cottingdean should not have its unwanted new
motorway other than the fact that—albeit with considerable
extra expense and work— the road could be diverted to run
harmlessly several miles away.

The phone rang as she was mulling over what she had just
read.

'I've managed to discover who now owns the lands,' the
solicitor told her drily. 'I suppose it shouldn't have come as quite
the surprise it did. Does the name Hever Homes mean anything to you?'

'No,' Sage told him truthfully. 'Apart from the fact that
they're obviously builders.'

'Mmm…they have a reputation in the City for
snapping up first-rate building sites—not for large estates;
they seem to specialise in small developments of individually designed
homes, and as builders they have a surprisingly good reputation.
However, that's not the interesting point. Hever Homes is in actual
fact a small division of a much larger company—Cavanagh
Construction.'

Sage gripped the receiver.

'But that's Daniel Cavanagh's company—the one
building our section of the new motorway.'

'Exactly… Too much of a coincidence, wouldn't
you say, that Mr Cavanagh just happens to buy a piece of land, as yet
without planning permission for the type of development favoured by his
company, but very conveniently placed for the new motorway and its
feeder road? And with the Government's present attitude to the
releasing of agricultural land for house building, I shouldn't think Mr
Cavanagh will have too much difficulty in getting the planning
permission he needs.

'Very astute of him, of course, to have got in ahead of
the field, so to speak, and snapped up the land, and quite a risk. If
another route had been chosen… As it is, he, or rather his
company, stands to make a good deal of money from such a venture. If
they can break Agnes Hazelby's stipulation about leaving the Hall
intact. The motorway will encourage people to move further out of
London, and the appeal of moving to a brand new luxury house on the
outskirts of a village like this one will add to that attraction. Of
course it will mean that the village will cease to exist in its present
form… I know your mother hopes to fight off the road
proposal, but she's got an awful lot of power ranged against
her…'

And a good deal of influence, Sage recognised sickeningly,
remembering that possessive feminine hand on Daniel's arm. Which had
come first, she wondered cynically, his purchase of the land or his
relationship with the woman from the Ministry?

As she thanked the solicitor for his help and replaced the
receiver, she wondered why it was that she should feel so shocked by
what she had just learned. She ought if anything to feel contempt,
especially when she remembered the arrogant way in which Daniel had
once thrown at her accusations of duplicity, of deceit, of using others
for her own ends.

She was prowling restlessly round the room when the door
opened and Camilla came in.

'Ma not back?' she enquired. 'That's odd—she and
Gran are normally back by this time. You don't suppose something's
happened to her, do you?' she asked, outwardly nonchalant, but Sage had
seen the shadow of apprehension darkening her eyes, and guessed with
intuitive sympathy that the shock of Liz's accident had left the young
girl feeling vulnerable and insecure.

'I'm sure she's fine. She probably got
involved—I expect people will have asked her what's happened
to Mother, and that's probably delayed her… Where exactly
are these meetings?' she asked, glad to have something to distract her
from dwelling on the subject of Daniel Cavanagh. Why did it have to be
his company that was involved in building this section of the motorway?
It would have made her role in all of this far easier if she didn't
have to deal with him, but rather with an anonymous and unknown
stranger.

'I don't know.' Camilla frowned. 'In fact, I don't really
know where they go… it's just sort of something that always
happens. Neither Ma nor Gran talks about it really.'

Sage watched her curiously. In other circumstances, with a
different woman, and if Faye hadn't always been accompanied by Liz on
these trips, she might have imagined from the secrecy that shrouded
them that Faye was meeting a lover; and then she checked a tiny frown
scoring her forehead, wondering why it was that she should feel with
such certainty that Faye would not have a lover.

Surely not because she chose to play down her beauty, to
wear dull clothes and little make-up? Surely she was not so stupid as
to believe that men only found attractive women who made an effort to
attract them?

She had seen for herself on enough occasions, surely, the
effect of a woman who to the rest of her sex might appear ordinary,
even plain, and yet who had that certain indescribable something that
drew men to her like flies to amber? Yet Faye did not have that
unmistakable sex appeal, she was quite sure of it. But Faye had been
married when she was still a comparatively young woman… had
had a child, and, although Sage was prepared to admit that no one
outside a marriage truly knew what went on inside it, she was
reasonably confident that her brother was not the kind of man who, for
whatever reason, would treat a woman—any woman, but
especially his wife—in such a way that after his death the
memory of their relationship was so abhorrent to her that she now
eschewed any kind of relationship with another member of his sex.
Neither did she believe the opposite: that, having loved David and lost
him, Faye could not endure the idea of putting another man in his
place. She might not wish to remarry, but sexually…

A mature woman would have to have a powerful ability for
self-deceit indeed if she truly believed that it was impossible to feel
sexual desire without being deeply in love. And if there was one thing
that Sage prided herself on it was her honesty.

She was not Faye, though, as she was the first to
recognise, and the idea of Faye stealing away to spend time in the arms
of an unknown lover was so impossible to imagine that she instantly
dismissed it.

So why did she have this niggling, nagging feeling that
there was more to these monthly disappearances than there seemed? The
very fact that her brain should automatically pick on the word
disappearance underlined that feeling.

She looked at her niece. Camilla was still looking
worried, and she immediately tried to reassure her. 'As I said, Cam,
I'm sure that your mother has merely been delayed. I promise you bad
news always travels fast. If there'd been an accident…' She
saw Camilla wince, but went on firmly '… if there had been
an accident we'd know about it by now.' What she didn't say was that
she was surprised that Faye hadn't said anything to her about her
plans—that she hadn't suggested leaving a telephone number
where she could be contacted, especially in view of her anxiety about
Liz—but Faye was an adult, not a child, and certainly Sage
did not feel that she had any right to question her movements.

'What's that?' Camilla asked, glancing at the map she had
unrolled.