Kate's Progress (32 page)

He had approached the group, and having said something to Camilla, drew her a little out of the circle, talking to her with his head close to her ear.

‘Don’t tell me he’s one of her admirers,’ Kate said.

‘He’d better not be,’ said Jack. Kate glanced at him. He was frowning as if the sight of Camilla and Phil together was something he disapproved of. When she looked back, she saw, beyond them, the man she had seen him talking to earlier.

‘Do you know who that is?’ she asked.

Jack looked. ‘He looks familiar somehow – I don’t know why. Why do you ask?’

‘I saw him and Phil Kingdon having a discussion earlier. It looked important. I just wondered who he was.’

‘Dunno,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve got a feeling I’ve seen him somewhere, but I don’t know where.’

‘I’ve got the same feeling, but I know I don’t know him,’ Kate said. Suddenly she realized that the stranger was staring at her. She gripped Jack’s arm, turning him away. ‘He’s looking at me,’ she hissed. She edged away, taking him with her, until there was a group of standing people masking them.

‘Probably because you were looking at him,’ Jack said reasonably. And then, ‘What’s the matter? You’ve gone quite pale.’

She had tracked the memory down. It was not that she recognized the man. It was the shape of him, of his head and bulky shoulders, that seemed familiar. They reminded her of the shadow she had seen briefly standing outside her cottage, that night she had come home from babysitting. She peeped again through a gap between the shoulders of the protective group. Kingdon and the other man were walking away together, the smart man, it seemed, doing the talking. They disappeared into the crowds.

‘What’s the matter?’ Jack asked again.

It was hard to explain. She had felt safe at The Hall, and it was as if the trouble had followed her, had breached the defences and exposed her again. ‘He was staring at me, that’s all,’ she said at last. ‘This business – with the house – it’s got me all on edge. It’s stupid.’

‘No,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘you’ve got every right to be upset. But you’re safe with us. And I’m going to make some enquiries, like I promised you. In fact, I’m going to start right now.’ And he pressed her arm, and walked away, heading towards the marquees.

Back at The Hall, there were baths and dressing and then cocktails, a buffet supper, and a settling in for the evening. A card table was set up at one end of the room, and Camilla, Jeremy, the Brigadier and Felicity sat down to bridge.

‘Camilla’s mad about bridge,’ Jack told Kate. ‘She’s got into this high-playing group – it’s like the County set’s version of a poker school. You know, the tense, smoke-filled room, the hard faces, the narrowed eyes, big sums of money changing hands. It’s one of the reasons she gets into debt. Mind you,’ he concluded, ‘if she weren’t playing bridge she’d be out shopping and she can drop just as much money that way, if not more.’ He gave a short smile. ‘At least Flick will get some of it back for the family. She’s a demon at bridge.’

The rest of them gathered at the other end and played charades. Charlie had them in fits with his obscene rendering of
Grand Prix
. Addison got annoyed because nobody got her mime for
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
. Ed did
Casablanca
as ‘cash a blank her’ which Kate thought ingenious. He did it straight-faced, but with a gleam that hinted at suppressed laughter. She was glad to see him enjoying himself – he had seemed to get more grim as the weekend progressed. Jack was completely defeated by
Unforgiven
and demanded a redraw, saying it was impossible, upon which Addison jumped up and said
she
’d show him how to do it, and proceeded to perform what looked like exactly the same mime as for
Unbearable Lightness
.

They went from charades to paper games, which got sillier and sillier as the drink went down, until the bridge players complained they could not hear themselves shuffle. Then Greg offered to play the piano and Jack and Charlie rolled up the tatty old Turkish rugs and there was dancing. Kate watched Ed and Addison revolving in each other’s arms, not talking, but looking so good together, physically perfectly matched, that she felt heartsick.

Despite her good intentions, she had fallen for him. She was in no doubt about it now. All she could comfort herself with was being in his presence. It was painful, but it was better than nothing; otherwise she might have packed her bag and slipped out into the night, never to return. The time would come when she would have to leave Bursford, never to see him again, but it was not yet. While she could be near him and look at him, she would take those meagre crumbs. Ahead, she knew, was starvation.

She had been sitting one out, or rather standing it out next to the piano, allowing her dreamy gaze to follow Ed around the room. Now he had gone out of the room for a moment, so she chatted instead in a desultory manner to Greg as he obligingly tinkled away at old dance tunes.

Suddenly Addison was by her side. She was in black sequins tonight, her hair up in a high chignon decorated with two small black feathers – Kate had thought briefly of Jack’s prediction about beads and feathers, but there was nothing laughable about her. She looked glittering, dangerous and beautiful.

‘Can I talk to you?’ she said. A hard hand gripped Kate’s upper arm and turned her away from Greg into the privacy of the space between the piano and the dusty-smelling velvet curtains. Addison’s face was smiling, but her eyes were hard. Kate looked into them, noting that they really were green, but with patches of blue and flecks of gold-brown – really rather remarkable.

‘It’s about your behaviour,’ Addison said in a low voice.

Kate was startled. ‘My what?’ You might hear those words from your mum when you were fifteen, but from one adult to another, in a third party’s house …? She couldn’t believe she’d heard right.

Addison sighed. ‘I don’t like to be the one to say anything, but someone has to, and as I’m Edward’s – well,
practically
his fiancée, I think it’s down to me. Because you’re making people uncomfortable.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Kate said in amazement.

The stare was
de haut en bas
. ‘It was bad enough your coming here at all, on some flimsy excuse, when you
really
don’t fit it.’ A quick, searing look up and down Kate said it all: clothes, hair, make-up – she just was out of her league here. ‘But you’ve developed a – well, a sort of
girly crush
on Edward. I can understand it – he’s very handsome, and I dare say someone like you hasn’t often come across a man like him. But I have to warn you that you’re being too obvious. Everyone’s noticed it.
Edward
’s noticed it, and it’s making him very uncomfortable. I’m sure that’s not what you want. And of course everyone else feels terribly sorry for you, but the fact is that you really ought to have more pride than to show your feelings so obviously when they aren’t reciprocated.’

Kate felt her face going scarlet, never a good colour with her hair. She was speechless. ‘Well, of all the—!’ was about all she could manage.

Addison patted her forearm kindly, with a smile that could have etched glass. ‘Now, now, don’t take offence. I mean it in the nicest way. You’re a sweet girl, and I’m sure one day you’ll find someone at your own level and be very happy. And believe me, you won’t want to look back on this weekend and remember that you’ve made a fool of yourself in public. So
do
try not to stare at him all the time like a lovesick calf. I’m just telling you as a friend.’

In such a situation, the only resource was irony. ‘Thank you so much,’ Kate said. ‘I really appreciate what you’re doing for me. I can’t think why you’d bother.’

Sadly, they didn’t have irony in Addisonland. ‘Atta girl,’ she said encouragingly. ‘You’ll be fine. I just had to give you a hint. We girls have to stick together, don’t we?’

‘We certainly do,’ Kate gushed, and gave Addison an adoring, hero-worshipping gaze upwards. She thought she might have gone too far, but Addison was so used to that sort of thing, it just rolled off her like requests for autographs off a film star. She gave Kate another pat and went away. Kate turned back to the piano, wishing she could play, because she’d certainly have liked to thump seven bells out of something just then.

The Buscombe ground was packed, under grey bank-holiday skies. But it was warm, and the cloud was high, and everyone hoped it wouldn’t rain. There was a flat area on the top of Buscombe Common where there was the car park, the horsebox park, the collecting ring, and the public area, hosting various tents, including refreshments, and an arena where there was going to be a dog agility competition and hound-racing. It was gay with flags and crowds, children and dogs, happy chatter, bookies calling odds, and the mingling smells of horses, bruised grass, fried onions and popcorn.

The course for the races started and finished on the common, which made a natural grandstand from which you could see most of the action. From there it went down a shallow descent, across some gently undulating ground and over a narrow stream, which had been made into a water jump, before turning back up the hillside to the common.

Kate stood with Susie looking down from the far side of the collecting ring. ‘Do I need to walk the course?’ she asked.

‘Some do, but I wouldn’t bother,’ Susie said. ‘You’ll see where everybody else is going.’

‘Suppose I’m in front?’ Kate said with a grin.

‘In that unlikely case, just keep looking for the flags. You won’t mistake the jumps for anything else – they’re obviously built, not natural.’ She looked at Kate. ‘We can walk it if you like, but I’d save my energy if I were you.’

‘Addison’s walking it,’ Kate mentioned.

‘That’s only so that she can be alone with Ed,’ Susie said robustly. ‘And show off her technical knowledge to anyone who’s listening.’

Kate smiled, as there had already been a bit of that this morning, over breakfast: talk of take-offs, ground lines, optimum approaches and so on.

‘It’s a nice course and you’ll enjoy it,’ Susie went on. ‘The only place you need to be careful is down there.’ She pointed. ‘Where you take the turn to come back up the hill. A lot of people – the ones who are really competing – will try to cut the turn really sharply to get an advantage. They’ll be jumping as far to the left as they can and there might be a scrum. You don’t want to get mixed up with that. Just make sure you stay on the right.’

‘Keep right at the turn. Got it.’ Kate said.

‘I feel sick,’ Jocasta wailed. ‘Absolutely chukkers.’

The pony races were first on the schedule: one open, and one Exmoor ponies only.

‘It’s supposed to be fun,’ Kate reminded her.

‘I know, and it is, but you can’t help feeling sick when you see the opposition. Some of those ponies in the open are as big as elephants.’

‘Never mind, Daphne’s good and he’s fast. And it doesn’t matter anyway if you don’t win.’

‘Might not matter to you, but it matters to Daphne,’ Jocasta said darkly. ‘And there’s no point in going in for it if you don’t try to win. Have you got any money on you?’

‘A bit – why?’

‘There’s an ice-cream van over there.’

‘I thought you felt sick.’

‘Ice cream’s the best thing for stopping it. I’ll pay you back.’

‘No need. Here.’

‘Oh, thanks! You’re the best. Shall I bring you one?’

‘I’m not nauseous,’ Kate said.

‘You will be later,’ Jocasta assured her, and dashed off.

In fact, Kate did feel the onset of butterflies when she saw Jocasta line up at the start. A lot of the other riders looked like professionals despite being juveniles, and there was a certain amount of jostling and some hard glares. Once they were off, there was just excitement and a lot of shouting. Kate hadn’t thought of herself as one for shouting, but in about two seconds she was yelling her head off like everyone else. Daphne came in fourth, which Ed said was pretty good, given the competition; and since in the pony classes there was a highly-commended as well as first, second and third, he ended up with a rosette after all, a white one, which Jocasta was very pleased with.

They watched the dog agility, which was great fun. The local foxhounds made an appearance, with the master and two whips mounted and pink-coated. They did a circuit of the ring, with hounds escaping at every juncture to mug the crowds for crisps, biscuits and bits of bun, and a couple of helpers went round with a collecting tin. Then the ring was cleared, the brush hurdles put up, and the hound steeplechase was run.

And after that it was time for Ed’s first class. He was riding Gracie in the restricted and the men’s open, which he said were far enough apart to rest him between them.

‘This’ll give you a chance to see the course properly,’ Susie said. They watched together, with Jocasta on Kate’s other side gripping her arm so tightly she left fingermarks. She had thought the pony race fast, but this was faster, the horses making a thunder you could almost feel come up through your feet. She fixed her eyes on Ed’s figure, trying to keep him in sight all the way round, but at the farthest part of the course she lost him in the melee. He came fifth, and rejoined them at last saying he was well pleased with that, Gracie being a young horse and inexperienced. Addison descended on him with gracious words, and they led Gracie off to box him for his rest.

‘I see now why everyone kept saying I wasn’t expected to win, only get round,’ Kate said, watching them go. ‘If
Ed
can only make fifth …’

‘He mightn’t even make that in the open,’ Susie said. ‘The competition will be stiffer. But Gracie’s young, I think he’s really going to be something in a year or two. I’m starving,’ she added. ‘It must be time for lunch.’

‘I couldn’t eat a thing,’ Kate said.

‘Feeling sick?’ Jocasta said with interest. ‘You need an ice cream.’

They lunched on hot dogs from one of the tents – chunks of crusty French bread stuffed with fat, sizzling local farm sausages – followed by apple pie topped with a slice of Wookey Hole Cheddar from another, all washed down with plastic cups of real ale or cider or, in the case of the children, apple juice. They ate sitting on the grass looking over the course and chatting relaxedly. Kate sat with Eric and Charlie who talked cattle breeding and kept her mind off the race, but did not quite stop her from noticing that Ed and Addison were sitting together a little way off and talking – or at least Addison was talking and Ed was listening – as if no-one else existed.