Helen smiled at her teasingly. ‘You can’t leave,’ she protested. ‘How are the locals to give dinner parties without you to cook for them?’
‘I promise I won’t go before I cater for your wedding reception,’ Lottie promised solemnly. ‘So can you please fix a date?’
‘I’ll make it a priority,’ Helen returned.
She was in a thoughtful mood when she walked home that night. There’d been a shower of rain about an hour before, and the air was heady with the scent of damp earth and sweet grass.
She was delighted at Lottie’s obvious happiness, but at the same time unable to subdue a small pang of envy.
She wished her own life was falling so splendidly and lovingly into place.
Yet Nigel seems to be managing perfectly well without me, she thought sadly. If only we could have talked today—really talked—then maybe we’d have had Lottie’s romantic kind of evening—and night—after all. And he’d have bought me a ring, and a dress, and taken me to Sussex. And he’d have told everyone, ‘This is my brand-new fiancée. I simply couldn’t bear to leave her behind.’
She’d started the day with such optimism and determination, yet now she felt uneasy and almost frightened. Nothing had gone according to plan. And miles away, in a glass and concrete box, her fate had probably already been decided.
I need Nigel, she thought. I need him to hold me and tell me everything will be all right, and that Monteagle is safe.
She walked under the arched gateway and stood in the courtyard, looking at the bulk of the house in the starlight. Half-seen, like this, it seemed massive—impregnable—but she knew how deceptive it was.
And it wasn’t just her own future under threat. There were the Marlands, George and Daisy, who’d come to work for her grandfather when they were a young married couple, as gardener and cook respectively. As the other staff had left George had learned to turn his hand to more and more things about the estate, and his wife, small, cheerful and bustling, had become the housekeeper. Helen, working alongside them, depended on them totally, but knew unhappily that she could not guarantee their future—specially from Trevor Newson.
‘Too old,’ he’d said. ‘Too set in their ways. I’ll be putting in my own people.’
You’ll be putting in no one, she’d told herself silently.
I wish I still felt as brave now, she thought, swallowing. But, even so, I’m not giving up the fight.
Monteagle opened to the public on Saturdays in the summer. Marion Lowell the Vicar’s wife, who was a keen historian, led guided tours round the medieval ruins and those parts of the adjoining Jacobean house not being used as living accommodation by Helen and the Marlands.
Her grandfather had been forced to sell the books from his library in the eighties, and Helen now used the room as her sitting room. It had a wonderful view across the lawns to the lake, so the fact that it was furnished with bits and pieces from the attics, and a sofa picked up for a song at a house clearance sale a few miles away, was no real hardship.
If the weather was fine Helen and Daisy Marland served afternoon teas, with home-made scones and cakes, in the courtyard. With the promise of warm sunshine to come, they’d spent most of Friday evening baking.
Helen had been notified that a coach tour, travelling under the faintly depressing title ‘Forgotten Corners of History’ would be arriving mid-afternoon, so she’d got George to set up wooden trestles, covered with the best of the linen sheets, and flank them with benches.
Placing a small pot of wild flowers in the centre of each table, she felt reasonably satisfied, even if it was a lot of effort for very moderate returns. However, it was largely a goodwill gesture, and on that level it worked well. Entries in the visitors’ book in the Great Hall praised the teas lavishly, particularly Daisy’s featherlight scones, served with cream and home-made jam.
For once, the coach arrived punctually, and as one tour ended the next began. Business in the courtyard was brisk, but evenly spaced for a change, so they were never ‘rushed to death’, as Mrs Marland approvingly put it. The weather had lived up to the forecast, and although Monteagle closed officially at six, it was well after that when the last visitors reluctantly departed, prising themselves away from the warmth of the early-evening sun.
The clearing away done, Helen hung up the voluminous white apron she wore on these occasions, today over neatly pressed jeans and a blue muslin shirt, kicked off her sandals, and strolled across the lawns down to the edge of the lake. The coolness of the grass felt delicious under her aching soles, and the rippling water had its usual soothing effect.
If only every open day could go as smoothly, she thought dreamily.
Although that would not please Nigel, who had always made his disapproval clear. ‘Working as a glorified waitress,’ he’d said. ‘What on earth do you think your grandfather would say?’
‘He wouldn’t say anything,’ Helen had returned, slightly nettled by his attitude. ‘He’d simply roll up his sleeves and help with the dishes.’
Besides, she thought, the real problem was Nigel’s mother Celia, a woman who gave snobbishness a bad name. She liked the idea of Helen having inherited Monteagle, but thought it should have come with a full staff of retainers and a convenient treasure chest in the dungeon to pay the running costs, so she had little sympathy with Helen’s struggles.
She sighed, moving her shoulders with sudden uneasiness inside the cling of the shirt. Her skin felt warm and clammy, and she was sorely tempted to walk round to the landing stage beside the old boathouse, as she often did, strip off her top clothes and dive in for a cooling swim.
That was what the thought of Nigel’s mother did to her, she told herself. Or was it?
Because she realised with bewilderment that she had the strangest sensation that someone somewhere was watching her, and that was what she found suddenly disturbing.
She swung round defensively, her brows snapping together, and realised with odd relief that it was only Mrs Lowell, coming towards her across the grass, wreathed in smiles.
‘What a splendid afternoon,’ she said, triumphantly rattling the cash box she was carrying. ‘No badly behaved children for once, and we’ve completely sold out of booklets. Any chance of the wonderful Lottie printing off some more for us?’
‘I mentioned we were getting low the other evening, and they’ll be ready for next week.’ Helen assured her, then paused. ‘We have had a good crowd here today.’ She gave a faint grin. ‘The coach party seemed the usual motley crew, but docile enough.’
Mrs Lowell wrinkled her brow. ‘Actually, they seemed genuinely interested. Not a hint of having woken up and found themselves on the wrong bus. They asked all sorts of questions—at least one of them did—and he gave me a generous tip at the end, which I’ve added to funds.’
‘You shouldn’t do that,’ Helen reproved. ‘Your tour commentaries are brilliant, and I only wish I could pay you. If someone else enjoys listening to you that much, then you should keep the money for yourself.’
‘I love doing it,’ Mrs Lowell told her. ‘And it gets me out of the house while Jeff is writing his sermon,’ she added conspiratorially.
