young to marry, and probably they were right. The danger of marrying young and then losing one’s partner is that one sees the deterioration of one’s peers’ marriages while one’s own remains perfect and inviolate. Who knows, had your father lived he might have become entrenched in the same male role I see so often in the husbands of my friends … he might not have wanted me to write … I’m a very selfish woman, Christy … women have to be selfish to do what they want because there are so many other pressures on them, both emotional and social. If I have not married again perhaps it is because I relish my right to make my own decisions, to do as I please. As a man’s lover I retain that right and he respects me for it, as his wife, a subtle re-arrangement of priorities takes place and most men, whether they are prepared to admit it or not, want their wives to conform to a certain image. Perhaps with your generation it will be different, I don’t know, but I should hate to commit myself to a relationship and then find it soured by habit and familiarity.’
Christy had understood what her mother had meant. She had looked long and hard at the marriages of her mother’s friends, and realised why her mother might prefer a lover to a husband. And undoubtedly there must have been lovers, although her mother had always been discreet. There had been no procession of ‘uncles’ through Christy’s life, and although her mother had been a loving, caring parent, she had also instilled in Christy an independence which she herself shared; a subtle reminder that both of them had rights as individuals which they must respect in themselves as well as in one another.
Earlier on in the week her mother had gone to London to see her publisher, and had decided to stay there a few days in order to do some shopping and catch up on old friends. Christy could have gone with her but had elected to remain at home. The city in the May heat was not something that appealed to her. She stretched out luxuriously and yawned. Her skin, after so many hours spent in the garden, was tanning a warm gold. In looks she was completely unlike her mother. Her gypsy dark skin and hair had been inherited from her father, her long, heavily lashed grey eyes from her maternal grandmother; her height and slenderness, like her colouring, from her father. At twenty-four, without a scrap of make-up on and her shoulder-length hair curling wildly round her face she looked more like eighteen, although those with the experience to see it would know that pain had at some time touched her and left its indelible mark, and that having once touched her, would not be allowed to do so again.
If she had one thing in common with her mother it was a shared strength of will that both cloaked skilfully. Georgina with her vagueness, and Christy with her relaxed almost lazy approach to life. Those who didn’t know her well marvelled at her lack of ambition and said pityingly that no doubt it sprang from being overshadowed by her mother, but the real explanation lay simply in the fact that there was nothing in life that Christy found worth competing for. An only child, she had a deeply romantic vein to her personality and had grown up daydreaming of fairy tales; stories of valour and heroics and later, tales of bitter-sweet and indestructible love. Her mother had gently tried to warn her that life was vastly different, but she had chosen to ignore that warning—and had paid a price for it. In one brief summer she had tasted all the pleasure life could hold, but the sweetness of it had turned to acid in her mouth when she realised she had simply been living a daydream. She had been eighteen then, now she was twenty-four. She had long ago come to terms with her disillusionment and her memories of the man who had caused it. Now she was content to accept life for what it was … now she did not daydream. One day perhaps she would find a pleasant man whose company she enjoyed enough to marry … they would have children, and a placid life, but for now she was content with her life the way it was.
The sound of a car coming down the narrow lane that led to the vicarage made her get up. From the noise it was making it sounded as though it was their one and only local taxi, which meant that her mother was back.
Brushing the grass from her shorts she walked lazily towards the house. Her trips away always fired her mother into frantic bouts of work, although before she left Georgina had said that she didn’t intend to start work on her next children’s collection until the autumn. She had even talked about going away on holiday—something almost unheard of for her mother. Smiling to herself, Christy walked into the kitchen and filled the electric kettle.
‘Marvellous—you heard Sam’s car. I’m dying for a cup of tea … London was stifling … you were wise not to come.’
There was a note in her mother’s voice that Christy picked up on but didn’t respond to, concentrating instead on making the tea.
‘Outside, or in the conservatory?’ she asked her when she had set a small tray with cups and her mother’s favourite biscuits. Neither of them had a weight problem, but both of them were sparse eaters.
‘The conservatory,’ Georgina replied, grimacing faintly as she added. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are not to have inherited my wretched Celtic skin.’
‘Being pale and interesting is coming back into fashion,’ Christy responded. Her mother burned at the slightest touch of the sun, the pallor of her skin emphasising the warm golden brown of her own.
‘I should have called you gypsy …’ Georgina responded wryly, taking the tray from her and leading the way to the house’s old-fashioned and delightfully overgrown conservatory. It boasted a vine that ran wild much to Harry’s disgust, but which both women loved, and a profusion of other plants that Georgina spent part of each morning crooning to. It helped her to collect her thoughts, she claimed.
Following her mother barefoot, her long legs slender and brown Christy sank down into one of the comfortable, ancient chairs. Georgina raised her eyebrows slightly as she observed her daughter’s bare feet. They could represent no greater contrast, Christy reflected, studying her mother’s immaculate slate grey skirt and toning blouse; her silk stockings and elegant high-heeled shoes.
‘No shoes?’ Georgina commented. ‘You could cut your feet.’
‘It’s healthier for them,’ Christy responded with a lazy smile, ‘and you know how big they are. Put them in delicate shoes like yours and I’d look like an elephant.’
It wasn’t true and they both knew it. Christy could, when she wanted to, look supremely elegant; she wasn’t her mother’s daughter for nothing, but she preferred not to copy, instead developing her own style; her clothes casual and comfortable.
Sipping her tea Georgina studied her daughter covertly. Had she done the fight thing in teaching her to be independent and self-reliant …? Christy had a vulnerability she herself had never possessed; underneath her indolent exterior she hid emotions and uncertainties that tortured only those who possessed natures that were both romantic and idealistic. Never a joiner, Christy’s individuality had become more marked over the years. A distinctly attractive young woman she seemed to prefer to be alone rather than out dating. Georgina sighed. How inconvenient the mothering instinct was; and after all the time she had put in teaching Christy to respect her own privacy and that of others, she herself could scarcely now intrude, and question. She put her cup down quickly, unaware that her daughter’s quick eye had picked up on the betraying uncertainty of her movements.
‘Okay, spill it out,’ Christy commanded laconically. ‘You’ve got to produce three new books by autumn, is that it?’
When her mother didn’t respond, Christy frowned. ‘There is something, I know. Please tell me …’
Putting down her cup, Georgina said quietly, ‘Darling, Simon’s back.’
Christy was proud of her lack of reaction. Not even her expressive grey eyes were allowed to mirror any feelings.
‘Returning in triumph no doubt after the success of his American tour. Mum, I’m not eighteen any more,’ she added gently,
