was silent for a moment. ‘If you did think you could marry me at some point,’ he said hesitantly, ‘I wouldn’t want to—rush you into anything, afterwards. I’d be prepared to wait—as long as you wanted.’
Zoe bit her lip as she looked back at the kind, anxious face. ‘George,’ she said. ‘I truly do not deserve you.’ And meant it.
It was hard to think about anything else as the local bus jolted its way through the lanes half an hour later, but she knew she had to try. Because George’s extraordinary proposal was only one of her current problems. And possibly the least pressing, bless him.
She had come to Astencombe to share her mother’s cottage three years ago when she had left university, and not long before Gina Lambert’s condition had first been diagnosed. But the property was only rented. It had belonged to Aunt Megan’s late husband, Peter Arnold, and he had agreed the original lease with his sister-in-law.
Zoe suspected this had always been a bone of contention with his wife, and, since his death, Aunt Megan had raised the rent slowly and steadily each year, although as a wealthy and childless widow she could not possibly need the money. She had also insisted that maintenance and repairs were the responsibility of her tenant.
Gina, also a widow, had eked out her husband’s meagre company pension with her skill as a landscape artist, but it had been a precarious living, and Zoe’s salary as an English teacher had been a welcome addition to the household budget. Particularly when the time had come when her mother had no longer been able to paint.
Finding a local job and living at home was not what she’d planned to do originally, of course. At university she’d met Mick, who’d intended, after graduation, to travel round the world for a year, taking what work he could find to earn his living on the way. He’d wanted her to go with him, and she’d been sorely tempted.
In fact, she’d gone home for the weekend to tell her mother what she meant to do, but had arrived to find Gina oddly quiet, and frail-looking. She had stoutly denied there was anything the matter, but Zoe had soon learned through the village grapevine that Aunt Megan had made one of her periodic descents the day before, and, as Adele who lived next door had put it, ‘There’d been words.’
Zoe had spent the whole weekend trying to tell her mother about her plans, and failing. Instead, obeying an instinct she barely understood, she had found herself informing Mick that she’d changed her mind about the trip. She’d hoped against hope that he loved her enough not to want to go without her, but she’d been rudely disappointed.
Mick, she realised with shocked hurt, was not about to change his mind—just his choice of travelling companion. And the love she’d blithely thought was hers for ever had proved a very transient affair instead. Within days she’d been comprehensively replaced in his bed and affections.
But it had taught her a valuable lesson about men, she thought wryly, and maybe it was better to be dumped in England than the middle of the Hindu Kush. Since Mick, she’d had no serious involvement with anyone. And now she’d been proposed to by George, who did not love her either. History, it seemed, was repeating itself.
If I’m not careful, I shall get a complex, she told herself.
Looking back, however, she had no regrets about sacrificing her independence. The job and the village might have their limitations, but she was so thankful that she’d been there for her mother through the initial tests, the hospital treatments, and subsequent brief remission. And through her mercifully short final illness. Even at the last Gina’s warmth and optimism had not deserted her, and Zoe had many memories to treasure in spite of her sadness.
But the fact remained that she’d reached the end of a chapter in her life. And she didn’t see the rest of her life being devoted to Bishops Cross college. She had the contents of the cottage, and a little money to come from her mother’s will as soon as it was proved. Maybe this was her chance to move on, and make a new life for herself.
One thing was certain. Aunt Megan would not be sorry to see the back of her.
How could two sisters be so totally unalike? she wondered sadly. True, her aunt was the elder by twelve years, but there had never seemed to be any sibling feeling between them.
‘I think Megan liked being an only child,’ Gina had explained ruefully when Zoe had questioned her once on the subject. ‘And my arrival was a total embarrassment to her.’
‘Did she never want a baby of her own?’ Zoe asked.
Gina looked past her, her face oddly frozen. ‘At one time, perhaps,’ she said. ‘But it just—didn’t happen for her.’ She sighed briefly. ‘Poor Megan.’
Megan was taller, too, thinner and darker than her younger sister, with a face that seemed permanently set in lines of resentment. There was no glimpse in her of the underlying joy in living that had characterised Gina, underpinning the occasional moments when she’d seemed to withdraw into herself, trapped in some private and painful world. Her ‘quiet times’ as she’d called them wryly.
Zoe had wondered sometimes what could possibly prompt them. She could only assume it was memories of her father. Maybe their quiet, apparently uneventful marriage had concealed an intense passion that her mother still mourned.
Her aunt was a very different matter. On the face of it Mrs Arnold seemed to have so much to content her. She’d never had to worry about money in her life, and her husband had been a kind, ebullient man, immensely popular in the locality. The attraction of opposites, Zoe had often thought. There could be no other explanation for such an ill-assorted pairing.
In addition, her aunt had a lovely Georgian house, enclosed behind a high brick wall, from which she emerged mainly to preside over most of the organisations in the area, in a one-woman reign of terror. But not even that seemed to have the power to make her happy.
And her dislike of her younger sister seemed to have passed seamlessly to her only niece. Even the fact that Megan Arnold had once taught English herself had failed to provide a common meeting ground. Zoe couldn’t pretend to be happy about her aunt’s determined hostility, but she’d learned to offer politeness when they met, and expect nothing in return.
She got off the bus at the crossroads, and began to walk down the lane. It was still a warm, windy day, bringing wafts of hedgerow scents, and Zoe gave a brief sigh of satisfaction as she breathed the fragrant air. Public examinations always made this a difficult term at college, and she might unwind by doing a little work in the garden tonight, she thought as she turned the slight corner that led to home. She’d always found weeding and dead-heading therapeutic, so while she worked she could consider the future as well. Review her options.
And stopped dead, her brows snapping together, as she saw that the front garden of the cottage had acquired a new and unexpected addition. A ‘For Sale’ board, she registered with a kind of helpless disbelief, with the logo of a local estate agency, had been erected just inside the white picket fence.
It must be a mistake, she thought, covering the last few yards at a run. I’ll have to call them.
As she reached the gate, Adele appeared in the neighbouring doorway, her youngest child, limpet-like, on her hip.
‘Did you know about that?’ she inquired, nodding at the sign. And as Zoe speechlessly shook her head she sighed. ‘I thought not. When they came this morning, I queried it, but they said they were acting on the owner’s instructions.’ She jerked her head towards the cottage. ‘She’s there now, waiting for you. Just opened the door with
