Country Plot (13 page)

‘I live here,' he said. He was smiling down at her with what looked like genuine pleasure in the meeting, which warmed her heart considerably. Perhaps Patrick was not the only man in the world who would ever find her attractive. ‘I've got a flat in St George's.'

‘What's St George's?' she asked.

‘You
are
new to town,' he said. ‘It's a development, a bunch of old warehouses down by the river that've been converted into flats. It's the swishest place to live in Belminster, and I was trying to impress you.'

‘Sorry. Shall we do it again?'

‘Too late now,' he said, with a comical pout. ‘I'll have to try something else. I'll ask you to dinner and take you to the smartest, cleverest, coolest restaurant in the county.'

‘Which is?'

‘Mazo's. It's so fashionable it hurts. It's so rocking you'll get seasick. It's so hip it can't see over its own pelvis. Listen, it does
Congolese
food!'

‘Congolese? Why?'

‘Why not?'

‘I don't know what Congolese food is.'

He grinned. ‘Nor does anyone. That's the beauty of it. It's new. It's so new it makes a day-old chick look like Michael Parkinson. Don't you want to be at the cutting edge of the trend?'

‘It's my life's ambition,' she said solemnly.

‘Then hitch a ride with me, babe, and I'll take you to the stars. OK, Red, when's good for you?'

She laughed. ‘Boy, you've got enough brass to start a foundry!'

‘You don't get anything by not asking. Tonight?'

‘I can't.'

‘Tomorrow night?'

‘Look—'

‘Don't tell me – all booked up until the Second Coming?'

‘I'm very busy at the moment.'

‘Next week?'

‘Why do you
want
to go out with me?' she asked suddenly, intrigued.

‘You laugh in the right places. Some people – you may have difficulty believing this – some people don't find me funny at all. Shocking, isn't it? So, dinner next week? How about Thursday?'

‘Look, I genuinely don't know how I'm fixed at the moment,' Jenna said. She wasn't sure how being a live-in affected her dating rights. Kitty obviously liked her company in the evening. She needed to settle in before she could find out what the unwritten rules were. ‘Give me your number, and I'll ring you.'

He shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled out a bill of some sort, scribbled a number on the edge of it, tore off the strip, and handed it to her. ‘Don't lose it,' he said.

‘Why so nervous? You said it was a small place. You'd find me again.'

‘True,' he said. ‘But call me, all the same.' He gave her a farewell grin, jumped into the red car, and buzzed off, leaving Jenna feeling stimulated by the exchange. She put the scrap of paper into her purse for safe keeping, thinking that she really wouldn't mind a date with him next week, as long as Kitty didn't mind. Meanwhile, there was the agreeable business of buying a dress ahead of her. She headed down the Market Square towards Church Street where she had noted a couple of likely shops.

Jenna was up early on Saturday morning, ready to help out in any way she could. When she got downstairs, Fatty was already busy in the dining room. Jenna popped her head round the door to say good morning and found her preparing to polish the great table. ‘Quite a job,' she commented.

Fatty smiled, her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, revealing her strong forearms. ‘Nice job,' she said. ‘Nice to see old table shining. Nice to have lots of people come. I like very much parties.'

Jenna left her to it. Breakfast was laid outside on the terrace. It was cooler this morning and the sunshine was hazy.

‘Weather's changing,' said Bill, arriving with a huge basket of vegetables pulled from his garden for the occasion. ‘We'll have rain tomorrow. There's everything here but the asparagus,' he told Kitty, resting the edge of the basket a moment on the corner of the table. ‘I'll cut that later. If you need any help with the flowers, let me know.'

‘Thanks, Bill.'

He heaved the basket back on to his arm and went along the terrace towards the back door.

‘You must tell me what I can do to help,' Jenna said, sitting down to scrambled eggs and sausages. They were being kept hot in a chafing dish for self-service – Mrs Phillips was already busy on the dinner.

‘Thank you, dear. There are one or two things,' said Kitty, poring over the list she had made in her methodical way. It was a revelation to Jenna, who had never thought of applying method when she entertained. She had placed her faith in Chaos Theory – that in dynamic states the final shape is predetermined. Of course, she had never given a formal, sit-down dinner for fourteen. And Kitty's plans had started developing even as she made them: now half a dozen people were coming for pre-dinner drinks (how did you get rid of them when it was time to eat, Jenna wondered) and they were being ‘joined for coffee' after dinner by some neighbours. Altogether there was a lot of organization involved, which Kitty obviously relished, and a lot of work, with which she had expert help.

Thinking of the help, and watching Bill disappear into the kitchen lobby, Jenna said tentatively, ‘It seems a shame that Bill and Fatty will have so much hard work and none of the pleasure.'

Kitty looked up. ‘But they
will
have pleasure. Bill loves being butler and barman, and Fatty likes serving, and they both like seeing me surrounded by guests.' She gave Jenna a shrewd look. ‘You mustn't think they ought to have been invited to dinner. I promise you, they'd absolutely hate to have to sit down with us. They'd refuse with all four feet. Did you think I was ashamed of them?'

Jenna blushed, her mind full of incoherent thoughts about servants and masters and social orders the modern world disapproved of. ‘No, not that, of course, but—'

‘They like to eat together in their own home. I've tried in the past to get them to join in, but they don't like it. Fatty's paralysingly shy, and while Bill is a good raconteur one to one, he clams up in company, and he's not happy if Fatty's uncomfortable, so there's no point in trying to force the issue for one's own selfish ends.'

Selfish? Jenna thought. That put it in a different light. She dipped a piece of sausage in mustard and said, ‘I was being selfish – I hoped to get Bill next to me at the table. Now, what can I do to help? Do you think Mrs Phillips would like me to peel the potatoes? I can't believe any cook enjoys that, however autocratic they are.'

Kitty laughed. ‘We'll ask her later. But first, after breakfast, I'd be grateful if you'd drive down to Parker's for the duck's eggs – you know, the farm shop just outside the village? They've put them aside for us. Mrs Phillips won't rest until she knows they're safely in the house. And then I'd like your help getting the glasses up from the cellar and washing them. And there'll be the flowers to do. I'd appreciate your help with that.'

‘I'll be happy to do anything you want. But didn't Bill offer to help with the flowers? I wouldn't like to tread on his toes,' Jenna said, with her new sensitivity. Having domestic help seemed like a minefield.

‘He meant he'd help me carry them,' Kitty said with a smile, ‘not choose and arrange them. We'll have to get the extra vases up too. I'm afraid they'll be dusty. I hope you have some old clothes you can put on.'

‘I don't own anything that dirt can harm,' Jenna assured her.

It was a nice, busy, useful day. Jenna drove out to Parker's, where a smart middle-aged woman, with an all-weather complexion and scarlet lipstick, pounced on her. ‘You're Kitty Everest's new help, aren't you?' She had two jolly little Border terriers, who dashed up to greet Jenna, dancing on their hind legs. ‘That one's Lucy, and that one's Juicy. He's Lucy's son. Starting to take an unfilial interest in her. We'll have to have him fixed. Shove them off if they're a nuisance. I've been hoping to meet you. Everyone's wild to get a squint at you, you know. How long are you staying? You've done some good already – Kitty hasn't given a party for I don't know how long. I heard that Bill said you've really perked her up. You'll be popular in the neighbourhood if you can persuade her to start entertaining again, like the old days. A village needs the Big House to put out, or there's a hole in the middle of it. The summer fête, for instance – everyone would like to have it start up again. And there always used to be a lawn meet at Holtby House on Boxing Day. Highlight of the year, that was. Do you hunt?'

Jenna answered as best she could, collected a dozen and a half duck eggs and two pints of cream and took them home. Mrs Phillips received them gratefully at the kitchen door, beyond which Jenna could see every surface covered with the preliminary labours for the dinner. She graciously agreed that Jenna could peel the potatoes, and set her up for the task in one of the sculleries, but she hovered and watched until Jenna had peeled and cut two to her satisfaction before she would leave her alone with the job.

With Kitty she hauled up boxes of glasses, and they set up in the larger scullery, with Jenna washing and Kitty rinsing and drying. There was a spectacular number of them: champagne glasses, red wine, white wine, water tumblers, whisky glasses, brandy glasses, liqueur glasses. They were all loaded on trays and had to be carried out to a big stone room which Kitty said had been the game larder, and which would act as the butler's pantry for the evening. It contained a large refrigerator which Kitty said was ‘the spare' and was only used when they entertained. She had switched it on rather anxiously that morning, hoping it would still work. ‘It's one thing I didn't have on my list, to check the fridge,' she confessed. ‘We'll never have room for the champagne and everything if it doesn't.' But fortunately, though it rattled and vibrated alarmingly at first, it settled down to a steady chug, and when they carried in the last glasses, Kitty checked it again and it was down to temperature. ‘I'll tell Bill – he'd better get the champagne in now or it won't chill enough.'

They left Bill hauling up bottles, and went down together to the walled garden to cut flowers. Jenna had not understood why Bill had offered to help carry them. How much help was needed for a couple of posies? But Kitty's flowers, she discovered, were on a very different scale. The drawing room and the dining room would be decorated, plus a big arrangement in the hall, and three low ones on the dining table. By the time they'd brought back what Kitty wanted, it was time to snatch a quick lunch – cheese and crackers, since the kitchen was otherwise occupied. After lunch they did the flowers and laid the table, moved the furniture around in the drawing room and introduced some extra little tables from elsewhere in the house for people's drinks, and then it was time to go upstairs for a bath, and to change for the evening.

Jenna was quite tired after the day's activity, and was looking forward to the evening with mixed feelings. On the one hand, she was a social soul, and it was her first party for ages; and every girl liked dressing up and putting on her warpaint. It was exciting to be going to a dinner party which promised to be unlike anything she had attended before, and she could be sure the food and drink would be good. On the other hand, she was going to have to be presented to a lot of strangers, probably all much older than her, who might very well be achingly dull; and the highlight of the evening was going to be another meeting with the Ice Queen, with lots more opportunities to be insulted, snubbed and generally looked down upon. Oh yes, and the Ice Queen was bound to have given her ghastly brother a poisoned report of her, so he was going to be furious that he'd been asked ‘for' her and would spend the evening making her uncomfortable. Yippee!

She had been in a quandary when choosing a dress, having no idea what everyone else would be wearing. She didn't even know whether the women would be in ‘short' or ‘long'. Kitty had said it wouldn't be very formal, but she had no idea what Kitty's baseline was, so ‘not very' wasn't much help. In the end she had decided to look for calf-length, which would pinch-hit either way, and for something reasonably plain, feeling that being overdressed would be much more embarrassing than being underdressed.

She had found a dress the right length with a full skirt and a fitted bodice, which the shop had in black, blue and cyclamen pink. Hair the colour of hers had to be catered to: since you couldn't disguise it or tone it down, you had to make a feature of it. The blue she discarded at once. Some shades of blue just made her look washed out. The black was superb, and her hair showed up wonderfully against it. She had thought the cyclamen wouldn't work, but when she put it on, it was amazing. The colour didn't clash with her hair; it was a statement in itself. She hesitated a long time between the two. The black was the safe choice: nobody could criticize black. On the other hand, she would knock the Ice Queen's eye out in the cyclamen. If she was going to be sneered at, she might as well go down with her colours flying.

In the end, she'd chosen the cyclamen just because she loved it so much. She wasn't going to be at Holtby House for ever, so she might as well have something she was going to want to wear again back in the real world. When she put it on in her bedroom, however, she felt a qualm. It was very eye-catching, and with her hair brushed out into a red-gold cloud it was even more so. Not only that, it was much lower cut than she had realized in the shop. With the proper bra on, it pushed up her bust into quite an interesting display – not vulgar, by any means, but – well, let's say you could tell she wasn't on her way to Sainsbury's to do the shopping.
Hello, boys!

She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment, liking what she saw, but wondering how it would go down with Holtby's elite. But then she thought, what the hay, it
was
a dinner party. If they couldn't cope with a bit of décolletage, to hell with them. She caught up the sides of her hair with glittery clips so that it rampaged down the back, put on plain gold earrings and a thin gold chain round her neck. She inspected her make-up (not the full warpaint – after all, she wasn't going on the pull, given that the only two unmarried males were going to be the Ice Queen's snotty fiancé and her probably even snottier brother – but enough for her self-respect, and to balance out the dress) and went downstairs.