A Village in Jeopardy (Turnham Malpas 16) (2 page)

Alice confidently placed her hand in his and tiptoed to kiss him; the fragrant, gentle, undemanding brush of her lips against his stirred him as always. His hands slipped around her shoulders and they stood embracing in the cool shade of the oak; illicit though it may be, neither could resist.

‘You didn’t see me? So deep in thought!’ Alice said. ‘I’m doing a recital for the students – just been to confirm everything.’

Johnny tenderly stroked her face, following the line of her nose, her cheek, her jaw and wondered in amazement how someone so beautiful could choose him as the light of her life.

‘No. Yes. I was. Deep in thought. Love you.’

Alice smiled up at him and straightened his hair where it had been blown awry by the wind, admired his adorable smile and wished, how she wished . . .

‘If you were free . . .’ Johnny got no further because it was futile to do so; he’d trod that path so often, dreamt about it, wallowed in the joy of what would never be.

‘Got to go. I have a pupil coming shortly. Be seeing you.’

Johnny bent his head and kissed her, gripping her to him as though their parting would be too hard to bear.

Alice pulled herself away, hating their parting as much as he, and dashed for home.

Home. Where she would find Marcus in his attic, writing. Marcus. She’d loved him since the day they’d met at university, except now, with their plans still on the back burner after twelve years of marriage and realistically likely to be forever shelved . . . the glow had gone. Marcus still loved her and never seemed to notice she acted differently. She recollected how they’d had to give up on having babies, give up on Marcus having success one day; perhaps next year this latest manuscript would be the one that finally made it. They both pretended to everyone what a brilliant writer he was, that one day a publisher would recognise the merits of his work enough to
buy
it. Alice felt the burden of being the only wage earner. Their food, their clothes, their daily living expenses all depended on her music and the interest on the capital her parents had left to her, and there were days when all inspiration left her and she hadn’t the heart to open up the piano, play an instrument, neither sing nor teach, not anything at all.

Then Johnny had arrived in the village and her whole world had changed overnight. She met him for the first time one evening when she and Marcus had gone to the pub. It was a cold, dark, miserable night. If she hadn’t been so bored by the thought of yet another evening reading through what Marcus had written during the day and worse, giving her opinion on it, she would never have bothered to persuade Marcus to go.

The bar was busy for a Monday, and Alice’s attention was immediately taken by the crowd clustered round a new face. They were all laughing and talking and admiring the man and she could see why. This new face had a certain grace which she found attractive. She liked the short spiky blond hair, the long, prominent nose that gave him a curious puckish look. His eyes were not blue as one would have expected with such fair hair, but very dark brown with a permanent twinkle as though he found life perpetually exciting. Who was he?

Harriet called across, ‘Alice! Marcus! Come and meet our new neighbour.’

Marcus trailed behind her, reluctant to meet new people.

Harriet said, ‘Now see here, Johnny, this is Alice and Marcus March. They’ve lived in the village for yonks and you must get to know them. Alice is our resident musician now, teaches singing mainly, but also piano and wind instruments, and this is her husband Marcus, who is a novelist. We wait with bated breath for the publication of his first novel!’

Harriet watched Johnny’s reaction to Alice. It was as she thought it would be: Johnny was worshipping at Alice’s altar immediately. How did she do it?

‘A musician? It’s the first time I’ve shaken hands with one and I must say you’re a very pretty one, a true English rose, and just the right kind of hands for a musician – long delicate fingers but with strength there too.’

Then he turned to shake Marcus’s hand and did so with enthusiasm, except Harriet noticed Johnny’s eyes were on Alice all the time. Marcus didn’t appear to notice this, so self-absorbed was he.

In a moment Alice was squeezed in beside Johnny, with Marcus left on the outside of the group. Johnny called across to Georgie to order their drinks and the joking and laughter recommenced. But for Alice it was the beginning of an affair she had never intended to start, let alone sustain, having her own strict rules about fidelity within marriage; she belonged to Marcus and no one else, for ever.

But it all happened so easily. Because her hours were haphazard, fitting in with her Ladies’ Choir requirements, individual piano lessons sometimes after school or during the evening, concerts occasionally in the evenings, she was out and about at odd times of the day so Marcus, who never particularly noticed her whereabouts anyway, had lost track of her comings and goings. If she had an instrument with her or her music case he accepted without query that she was teaching. So Alice’s freedom of movement aided and abetted their affair, and Johnny, free as air, neatly fitted in. Within weeks Johnny was established in Sir Ralph’s old house, now finally refurbished after the fire, sparsely furnished to be sure, but enough to please two lovers vastly more interested in each other than the decor.

At first Alice felt guilty, but that fell away as the weeks advanced due to the pure joy Johnny’s lovemaking gave her. There’d been nothing so fulfilling in her life before, so amazingly, so beautifully glorious, that she wondered how she had thought that Marcus was satisfying her. The first time with Johnny had been the biggest hurdle because of her obsession with fidelity but after that it got easier and easier.

Occasionally guilt reared its ugly head and Alice spent days thinking about where this was leading and wished he’d never come to the village, and then was overwhelmingly glad he had, because this was
living
like never before.

That evening she and Marcus dined on steak, fresh green salad and sauté potatoes followed by raspberries and cream. Marcus sat back replete, drank down the rest of his wine, dabbed his mouth and said, ‘You seem to have a lot of pupils at the moment. Especially ones who want teaching in their own homes.’ He raised an eyebrow at her, a habit that had set her heart racing at one time.

‘I have a crop of young ones whose mothers find it easier if I go to them, because they have other children and can’t leave the house easily. Sometimes it goes the other way and they all want to come here, which is a pest for you when you want to write.’

Marcus shrugged. ‘I don’t mind, not really. Tucked away in the attic with the door closed it doesn’t bother me.’

‘We need the money, Marcus dear.’

Marcus heard the criticism in her voice and sighed impatiently. ‘Alice! Don’t you think I know that already? I’m very conscious of being beholden to you. If your parents hadn’t bought this house for you I couldn’t be doing what I’m doing. The expense of a mortgage would be beyond us.’

Alice didn’t pick up on this obvious opening gambit of Marcus’s because it inevitably led to a terrible row. Instead she changed the subject. ‘I’ve got a new pupil in Little Derehams who looks rather promising. He’s eleven, suddenly decided to learn the piano, and lo and behold I do believe he’s going to be brilliant. I mean really brilliant, if he can stick at it.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Lucas Nightingale, a relative of the Nightingales at the farm. He’s such a dear boy and so keen. I haven’t told either him or his parents what I think about his talent. I’m leaving that to his first exam results. I’m so excited about him.’

‘You’ve never mentioned him before.’

‘Couldn’t quite believe my luck. It makes it all so worthwhile when you get a pupil like him.’

‘Well, he’s being taught by the best.’

‘Thank you, Marcus, that means a lot to me.’

‘I’m not much good at anything.’

‘You do yourself down.’ Alice stood up to clear the table, knowing if she didn’t that she’d be given the familiar tirade about how no one in their right mind would pass up the chance of publishing his novels. Didn’t publishers
want
to make profits nowadays? ‘Pass me that dish, please.’ Marcus ignored her, so in overreaching to pick up the dish herself she dropped it and it smashed on the floor. It was her granny’s favourite vegetable dish, filled with memories of Granny and eating glorious meals with her army of cousins at the refectory table in Granny’s huge kitchen. Alice burst into tears. Marcus tut tutted and stirred himself to get a dustpan and brush because he hated untidiness. Alice cried aloud for the mess she was in, thinking . . . if only . . . if only . . .

But crying achieved nothing, for she’d wake up in the morning still in the same position she was in now, unless she took serious steps to change her life . . . but she baulked at that because she’d promised to stay with Marcus till death did them part.

However, next morning, their affair, which until that day they had miraculously managed to keep secret from everyone, became known. Beth Harris, who was having a few days at home in the Rectory to recuperate from a bad attack of flu, was standing at her bedroom window looking out at her favourite view across the fields towards Turnham House. Suddenly she saw a movement closer to home and saw Alice using a key to slip in to Johnny’s house, next door but one, via his back door.

Her mother came in. ‘Beth! Here’s your breakfast! Get back into bed, darling; you don’t want to make matters worse for yourself standing by that cold window.’

‘Mum! Is Johnny Templeton having piano lessons?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. I know for a fact he hasn’t a piano. Why?’

‘Maybe it’s singing lessons, then.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve just seen Alice March popping in through his back door using her own key, carrying her music case.’

‘Alice March?!’

‘The very same. This breakfast looks lovely. Thanks.’

‘Well, I never.’

‘You don’t suppose . . .?’

‘Beth! Really, there’ll be some perfectly reasonable explanation for it. After all, she’s married to Marcus.’

‘You can’t be supposing Marcus is God’s gift to Alice March. He’s so boring, so full of himself, so hand on heart whilst gazing heavenward with a soulful expression on his face, saying “I am a writer” when he obviously isn’t, otherwise his books would have been snapped up. Compared to him, Johnny is the absolute gift. This tea is just right; why is it mothers make the best tea ever?’

‘Because they make it with love.’ Caroline took a mock bow and then left, shouting, ‘I’m going – see you lunchtime. Bye!’ from the bottom of the stairs.

Beth would have given anything to have been a fly on the wall next door but one, because Johnny was the best in her opinion. Handsome, wealthy, charming, amusing, with fascinating twinkling eyes that said anything and everything. As for Alice, she was beautiful, inside and out. Beth paused for a moment considering exactly what quality it was that made her so. The perfect balance of her features? Her figure – which any man in full possession of his faculties, no matter his age, would consider alluring – her singing voice? Exquisite! Yet she was modest, sweet natured, quiet, genteel. They were in fact the perfect couple, and if she left Marcus for Johnny Templeton, Beth Harris for one would applaud her.

If Beth
had
been a fly on the wall in the house next door but one, she would have witnessed the two of them in each other’s arms, hugging as though they were about to part for ever.

‘Darling! Darling! I’d marry you tomorrow, believe me, I would. You just have to say the word,’ Johnny murmured.

‘Is nothing impossible to you? No mountain too high to climb? No river too wide to swim, no problem too difficult to resolve?’

‘All it needs is decision. Positive thinking on your part is all that’s needed.’

‘I do believe you are filled with so much conviction you’d fly without wings.’

‘I would, if I needed to. Leave him. Come to me.’

Alice stepped away from him. ‘I can’t. He’s so vulnerable.’

Johnny threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘For heaven’s sake! Too vulnerable! What is he? A man or a mouse?’

‘Both.’ Alice laughed at herself. ‘But what would he do without me?’

‘Alice! He’s not ninety years old and infirm, he’s forty whatever. That’s the new thirty, didn’t you know?’

‘But who’d read his manuscripts? With me not there?’

‘Maybe if he started meeting people, travelling around, being busy, his writing might improve, because he’s not very successful doing what he’s doing, is he? How long’s he been trying?’

‘He gave up work two years after we married to give himself time to write. So that’s ten years.’

‘How many times has he got close to being published?’

‘Once, they asked for the rest of the novel, but when they read it they turned it down. We were foolish enough to celebrate when they asked to see the whole manuscript. The disappointment somehow, instead of discouraging him, made him more determined to succeed. More certain he was doing the right thing.’

‘Is it not painfully obvious to him that he’s not doing the right thing?
Living off you?
That’s not a man’s way of doing things.’ As he spoke Johnny knew he was in the wrong and should have kept his opinions to himself.