lurked another, less agreeable, personality.
‘Anya wants to apologise, don’t you?’ prompted Jake now, pushing his hands into his jacket pockets, and the girl, if she really was of the feminine gender, nodded.
She was smaller than Joanna remembered, or perhaps in retrospect she had just appeared taller, and her night in the shepherd’s hut had not improved her grubby appearance. The cap she had been wearing the previous afternoon was still pulled down about her ears, making the ends of her dark hair stick out almost comically at the sides. She wore an old anorak, with leather patches at the elbows, jeans, and an old woollen sweater, with cuffs that hung down over her wrists. Wellington boots completed her outfit and Joanna found it amazing that a girl of her age should care so little about how she looked.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Seton.’ Anya was speaking now, and Joanna was amazed at the attractiveness of her voice after the coarse language she had used the day before. ‘It was silly, running off like that. It didn’t solve anything.’
Joanna digested these words rather doubtfully. There was something wrong here. She didn’t know why she felt so sure, but she did. Last night Anya had been slapped and put to bed after behaving quite appallingly. She had sobbed and screamed, and shown every indication of anger and resentment, even to the extent of actually running away. Now she was apologising, saying she was sorry, that she had been silly, that it hadn’t solved anything. Solve was a curious word to use. Finding any kind of solution in the circumstances had an ominous ring to it, and Joanna looked rather blankly at her employer, wondering if he had detected anything unusual about his daughter’s behaviour. But he apparently had not. He was obviously waiting for her to make the next move, and with a grimace she said:
‘You didn’t expect me to leave, did you, Anya? I’m not that easily deterred. Your father and I only want what’s best for you, and I’m sure you’re not going to disappoint us.’
Joanna didn’t quite know why she used that particular approach, or indeed why she should attempt to antagonise the child with her first words. She was aware that Jake was looking at her in some irritation, and evidently he would have preferred a more conciliatory tone, but Joanna had already sensed that with Anya, one had to stay one jump ahead. Even so, she felt a certain ripple of apprehension slide along her spine as she glimpsed the sudden anger that filled the child’s eyes, and guessed that her deliberate linking of herself and Anya’s father had aroused that instinctive response. So she was right, she thought, without any of the exhilaration she should have been feeling. Anya was only bluffing, but what kind of an advantage did that give her?
‘I think Anya is beginning to realise that these stupid, childish pranks are just a waste of time,’ Jake pronounced heavily, his breath vaporising in the chilly air. ‘She’s growing up. She has to learn to take responsibility for her actions. And now I suggest we go back to the car. Anya needs some hot food and a change of clothes, and then perhaps we can start behaving like civilised people.’
Joanna was glad of the leather gloves going down the hillside again. She was not used to the steepness of the slope, and she soon learned the advantages of squatting down on her heels and controlling her slide with her hands. Anya, of course, had no such fears. She and the dog, Binzer, bounded down the loose shale with complete confidence, and even Jake kept his balance without apparent effort. It was a little annoying for Joanna to have to complete her descent under Anya’s intent appraisal, but she managed to get to her feet near the bottom and meet the girl’s gaze with bland enquiry, hoping the trembling uncertainty of her knees could not be detected.
There was no argument about who should sit where in the Range Rover. Jake ordered Anya and the dog into the back, and Joanna got into the seat beside him with some relief. It had been quite an exhausting trip, one way and another, and she slumped rather wearily against the upholstery as he started the engine. The journey back to Ravengarth was completed almost in silence, but Joanna was aware all the way of the physical presence of Anya’s knees digging into her back, and the not-so-physical awareness of her resentful gaze boring into the back of her head.
As they neared the house, however, Joanna remembered she was still wearing the gloves he had given her, and tugging them off her now sweating palms she dropped them on to the shelf in front of her.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, glancing sideways at her employer, and a vaguely amused quirk tilted his eyebrow.
‘I saw you made use of them,’ he said, with a wry grimace. ‘You’re no fell-runner, I think.’
‘I’m not the outdoor type,’ retorted Joanna shortly, forgetting for a moment that they had an audience, and the amusement deepened in his eyes.
‘That’s the truth,’ he confirmed, turning off the lane on to the track for Ravengarth, and she was dismayed to find she wanted to laugh. It had been such a curious morning, and it wasn’t half over yet, and she could picture her friends’ reaction if she confessed to them that she had been climbing grubby hillsides before nine o’clock and sliding down them again on the seat of her pants.
‘You’re supposed to run down the shale,’ said a clear scornful voice behind them, that completely dissipated the humour of the situation. ‘That’s how you keep your balance. Only dogs and babies slide on their bottoms!’
‘Thank you, Anya, that will do.’
Jake’s curt remonstrance was immediate, and Joanna wondered why the girl had so quickly forgotten the role she had intended to play. If she imagined she could delude her father into thinking she was a reformed character one minute, and then revert to her objectionable self the next, she was very much mistaken.
However, Anya was already restoring her image. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy,’ she was saying, adopting a wounded tone. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. But it’s true, isn’t it? You are supposed to run down the shale. It’s not half as dangerous as it sounds.’
‘Experts run down the shale, Anya, inexperienced climbers don’t,’ Jake retorted, pulling up at the gate that gave on to the copse and pushing open his door. ‘No one could call Miss Seton an experienced climber, and I expect you to show a little more respect.’
He went to open the gate, and Joanna waited resignedly for the retaliation she was sure would come. She wasn’t disappointed. Anya only waited until the door had closed behind her father before saying in a low, venomous voice:
‘Don’t think I’m going to let you stay here, just because you think you’ve won the first round! I can get rid of you any time I like, and I will!’
Joanna listened, but as she did so her own anger flared, and she turned on the child without consideration for her age or her inexperience. ‘Now you listen to me, you little hellcat,’ she spat furiously, ‘no one, but no one, speaks to me like that! Just who do you think you are? Dressed like a scarecrow, with brains to match! Do you think I want to teach you? Do you think I want to stay here in this hole, living in a house that pigs would find offensive? You’re a joke, do you know that? A living, breathing joke, and if it was up to me, you wouldn’t be able to slide down shale on your bottom! You wouldn’t even be able to sit on it!’
Anya shrank back in her seat as she spoke, and if Joanna had been less incensed, she would have seen much sooner how her outburst was draining all the colour out of the child’s cheeks. As it was, she had barely registered the fact before another angry voice broke into her tirade.
‘What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?’ Jake had jerked open his door and was climbing savagely back into the Rover. He glared incredulously at Joanna before turning to look at his daughter, and then shook his head disbelievingly
