Encounters (44 page)

‘Unpack?’ She looked at him shocked. ‘You knew? And you didn’t say anything?’

‘I’ve known about Bill for a long time. You had to make the choice yourself.’ He laughed, suddenly boyish. ‘Oh God, Molly, I’m so glad you chose me.’

‘… U
nless you give me the authority to attend to these matters, your father’s business will undoubtedly fail and you will be able to look no further than to yourself for the blame … Sincerely, Philip Dane.’

Helen looked up from the letter on her desk and gazed out of her office window at the London street below, where the dank grey morning teemed with traffic and people.

It was already three months since her father had died, three months since she had made her way to Leabrook and stood with strangers in the snow and looked down into the open grave. One of those strangers must have been Philip Dane. She must have shaken his hand and murmured something to him as, one by one, her father’s former employees made their way past her and stammered their condolences. Each one must have been wondering about her, wondering what she would do now that she owned the nursery, wondering about their future, their livelihood, their jobs. And she had said nothing. She had returned to the city.

Philip Dane’s first letter had reached her three weeks later. She read it and put it aside. He could cope. He had been her father’s manager. He must have been running things for those last months of her father’s illness. He could continue to look after the place for the time being.

Someone knocked on the door behind her. ‘Your coffee, Helen – and there was a telephone call for you while you were out.’

Helen looked back into the room, still thinking of the fragrance of the formal gardens in which she and her father used to sit sometimes as it grew dark, listening to the last bees bumbling their way through the clumps of melissa and she frowned. ‘Thank you, Sally. Who was it?’

‘Mr Spencer. He was wondering if you could meet for lunch.’

After all these months of knowing him the mention of Stephen Spencer’s name still made her heart do a quick somersault beneath her ribs. She sighed. Then slowly she stood up. ‘Tell him I can’t will you, Sally? Tell him I’ve been called away unexpectedly to the country for a few days. I’ll contact him when I get back.’

The bank of elder trees by the gate was full of half-opened sooty green buds. Below them the stream ran red and muddy after the rain, the gurgle of water providing an accompaniment to the pure whistling of the blackbird which sat on one of the top branches of the still leafless ash.

Helen stood for a moment and looked around her in the twilight. The air was clean and strong after the city. And it was quiet. In spite of the bird and the water, it was quiet.

She glanced towards the house. Smoke rose from the chimneys and she could see a figure bustling around in the lighted kitchen window. Someone must have gone in to light the fire after she had phoned, to try to provide some kind of a welcome in the cold empty house.

She glanced across at the glasshouses and the buildings beyond them. Behind the high box hedge lay the long terrace of herbs, sloping away towards the south. Her father’s whole life was represented by those buildings and the plants they contained. It had been a quiet, peaceful rewarding life as far as she could see. One which she had almost envied and sometimes despised.

She took a step onto the bridge which spanned the stream and looked back at her car. Leaving it there in the car park under the trees, its windows tightly wound up against the damp, its lights off, its engine quietly ticking as it cooled, she was leaving her link with the city behind her. And the link with Stephen Spencer.

When he had rung back that afternoon she had made Sally take the call. There was no reason to speak to him herself. There was nothing left for them to say to each other now.

She began to walk slowly up the path towards the house. It was warm and welcoming; womblike; clinging. It was so easy to feel at home there. Later, in front of the open fire she slowly unzipped her boots and sighed. The place would stretch out its arms and clutch, octopus-like, around her neck given half a chance. But she wouldn’t give it a chance. She would sell it and return to her job in London. Sell the sentiment and the memories. Sell the millstone. Sell the worries which had been her father’s life and which had eventually chased him into his grave. Sell her father’s pride and joy. Leabrook had no claim on her. None at all.

The knock on the door took her by surprise. She glanced at her watch. She must have been dozing, for it was getting on for midnight. She padded barefoot into the hall and peered through the glass of the front door.

‘Who is it?’

‘Philip Dane.’

Her hair was untidy, her skirt rumpled and her boots still lay flopped by the fire.

‘It’s very late, Mr Dane.’

‘Not for you, surely.’ His voice behind the door was deep, with just a hint of the soft inflection of the hills.

She could see through the glass that he was tall.

Angrily she pulled back the bolt and drew open the door. ‘It is late for me, Mr Dane. I had a long drive down this evening.’

He stepped into the hall without hesitation. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. But I won’t keep you.’ No word of apology. ‘I merely wanted to welcome you to Leabrook and find out if you would like to come on a tour of the place with me in the morning.’

She looked at him. He was tall, broad shouldered, not handsome but ruggedly attractive in a weatherbeaten way, with a mat of untidy, straw-coloured hair.

She met his gaze steadily. ‘I know the place, Mr Dane. It was my home once.’

‘But not for some time, I think. Had I known you were coming, I should have been here to greet you properly.’ He leaned his shoulder against the wall. ‘You’ve come to sell up, haven’t you?’ He had not moved his gaze from her face. It was not a question. It was as if he could read her mind. She stepped back a little resentfully.

‘I haven’t decided what to do yet. There has been too little time.’

‘It has been nearly four months since the old man died. You’ve had time to make up your mind.’

She felt herself beginning to seethe beneath his stare. ‘There are many things to consider, Mr Dane. But I hardly think this is the time or the place to discuss it, do you?’

She reached for the door again, pointedly, opening it a little further, wanting him to go. He did not move.

‘He said you’d sell. He said you were too much of a town girl ever to come here to live. And he’s right. You wouldn’t fit in here.’ He swung on his heel and went towards the door. ‘I’ll collect you at nine, if that’s all right with you and we’ll walk round the whole nursery together.’

At half past eight she was already in the shop watching the staff sorting through the books and seeds, tidying the sachets of dried herbs, stirring the scents till they filled the old wooden building, carrying out the boxes of mints which were to be stacked outside on the nearly empty wooden benches. It was a misty morning, which hinted of sun later. Helen had dressed in jeans and a thick sweater against the cold. The ladies who helped in the shop were in large floral pinafores.

She could see Philip Dane through the window, making his way to the front door of the house and she watched out of the corner of her eye as he knocked and waited at the front door. It gave her considerable satisfaction to see him shrug and walk away. No doubt he expected her to lie in bed until mid-morning.

His expression as he saw her confirmed her suspicions.

‘Good morning, Mr Dane. Forgive me for not waiting in the house, but there was a great deal to do this morning. I couldn’t wait until nine to begin.’

He inclined his head slightly. ‘When you’re ready, I’ll take you round.’

The ladies were watching them. Helen suddenly wanted to giggle. ‘I’m ready now, thank you.’ Meekly she followed him out of the door and towards the propagation beds.

‘I handed in my notice this morning, Stephen.’ Helen looked up into his face and forced herself to smile. ‘I’m going to live at Leabrook. It’s all arranged.’

He stared at her, his lean features suddenly nakedly miserable and she felt a lump come to her throat. ‘We’ve had fun you and I, Stephen, I know, but it wasn’t working, was it?’ She looked away from him, studying the menu in her hands as though her life depended on it.

‘And everything there has been between us? It has meant nothing to you?’ He spoke stiffly, his voice lowered as though he were afraid someone would hear.

‘Of course it meant something to me. It meant a great deal.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Stephen, you and I have had a lot of good times. I’m …’ She hesitated. There is something missing between us. There always has been. You know it as well as I do. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always sensed it and I think you have too. This is the right moment to finish it. I’m going away. For good.’

Suddenly she had a vivid picture of the last time they had gone out together. They had been to the theatre and after it had eaten in a little restaurant in Covent Garden. Then they had gone back to Stephen’s flat and, gently, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her and later they had lain together, their arms around one another, their heads side by side on the pillows and she had been happy. Almost.

They were too tense together; too conscious of themselves. She knew that he was holding back. It was almost as if he were acting a part and she had felt a little chill of misery creep over her, an uncertainty which should not be there and she had wondered if he sensed the same in her. She did not know how to reassure him.

The silence in the room had been broken that last time by the sound of a car drawing up in the echoing street below. She heard the doors being opened and banged, voices and then, slowly, the silence again. But it was too late. Their aloneness was broken. She had not found out what was wrong. And now she never would.

She looked at him again now and was relieved to see that he was once more in complete control of himself. His handsome face was impassive above the stiff collar, the discreet silk tie, the dark city suit.

‘You’ve obviously made the decision, Helen,’ he said quietly. ‘I can see that there would be no point in trying to dissuade you.’

She bit her lip. There would. Of course there would. If he were to shout and rant at her, or hit her and drag her out into the street, or hurl the wine bottle across the room so that it smashed against the plate glass mirror on the opposite wall and splattered the decor with the musky Lambrusco – that would dissuade her. All or any of that would dissuade her and she would know that he cared.

She forced herself to smile. ‘No, Stephen. There is no point in trying to dissuade me,’ she said.

She saw him only twice after that before she moved. Both times they were like business acquaintances rather than people who had once been lovers. There was no acrimony, no heat; no terrible sorrow. Just a strange, deep regret. As a parting gift he gave her a Hermès scarf and a tight, distant kiss on the cheek. ‘Let me know how you get on, Helen,’ he said. ‘I’ll always want to know.’

And that was that.

She piled the last of her things into the back of her car, posted her flat key through the letter box for the landlord, slammed the lower door and climbed into the car. Stephen’s scarf still in its glossy wrapping was in the glove pocket in front of her. She did not put it on.

Philip Dane came over that evening, not long after the van which had brought her few pieces of furniture from town had pulled away up the lane. He was carrying a bottle of wine.

‘I thought you might like to celebrate or drown your sorrows. Now that it’s all over and there is no turning back,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow perhaps we can go out to dinner. They do a good meal at the White Swan.’

She stared at him. Then she smiled. ‘It’s been one hell of a day,’ she said.

‘No regrets so far?’

She frowned. No regrets. Not for the job or the flat or the people. Just one aching memory. Stephen. He was watching her closely. Seeing the doubt on her face. But she shook her head. ‘No regrets. None at all.’

At her invitation he sat on the sofa beside her, stretching out his legs towards the fire.

‘You know, I thought you were going to give me the sack.’ He squinted down at her. ‘You were, weren’t you?’

‘It crossed my mind.’

‘That’s what you came down here for, wasn’t it, originally? To sell up and collect the money and go.’

‘I suppose it was.’

‘And instead you’re going to take over and make decisions above my head?’

‘And you don’t like that idea?’

‘Not one bit.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve run this place too long to have some pint-sized town girl lording it over me.’

‘Not so much of the pint sized!’

He chuckled. ‘You’re not such a bad businesswoman from what I’ve seen so far. You must have been pretty good at that job in London.’

‘I was.’ It was her turn to smile. ‘And I’ll be good at this one too. And I’ll lord it over you if I have to.’

‘I realized that weeks ago.’

‘Philip, did my father really say I was too much of a town girl to fit in here?’ She twisted herself round so that she could see his face.

He laughed. ‘Of course not. He said you could never resist a challenge. So I made sure I presented you with one. And you rose to the bait beautifully!’

She and Philip worked well together, his training and skill with the plants combining with her flair for business. They recognized one another’s strengths and of necessity grew close in the lengthening hours of daylight as the spring matured into early summer and grew warm. In the evenings they would inspect the herb beds walking slowly back towards the buildings as the last of the daylight lingered. And as they walked together, sometimes their hands would touch and she would glance at him and feel the strength of his attraction reaching out towards her. When at last he kissed her by the dew-wet sundial in the formal gardens where she used to sit with her father, the action had a kind of inevitability she could not resist. She was not prepared, however, for the wistful longing which came with the kiss and the thoughts, not of Philip, his strong arms round her in the dusk, but of Stephen.