That Would Be a Fairy Tale (3 page)

‘Such news,’ said
Alice
without preamble, throwing herself down on the bed. ‘You’ll never guess – goodness, Cicely, what happened to your clothes?’ she asked, seeing the muddy clothes in the corner.

‘I had an accident. I fell off my bicycle.’

‘That’s not like you,’ said
Alice
.

‘It wasn’t my fault.’ Cicely’s desire to confide in her friend overcame her pride. ‘I was coming down the hill by the forge and I’d just turned the corner when I saw a motor car right in front of me. I had to swerve to avoid a crash, and I ended up in the duck pond.’ It was too much. The memory of the accident, now that she was dry and fresh and safely back at the Lodge, was so ridiculous that she had to laugh.

‘Oh, Cicely, how awful!’ laughed
Alice
. ‘You must have looked a sorry sight!’

‘I was drenched. There was water everywhere. And pond weed. It was sticking out of my hair. And when I rescued my hat and put it on –’

‘Don’t tell me. The water poured down your face! Oh, Cicely! How dreadful. I wish I’d been there!’

‘I’m glad you weren’t! It was bad enough that that man –’ she stopped short.

‘Man?’
Alice
looked at her enquiringly and then broke out laughing again. ‘You don’t mean to say that someone saw you like that?’

Cicely pulled a face. ‘The driver of the car.’

‘How awful!’ laughed
Alice
, torn between amusement and horror. ‘What did he say?’

‘He didn’t say anything. He laughed at me!’

‘What a cad.’

‘I know, and you may believe I told him so, in no uncertain terms. “Had you been a gentleman you would now be apologizing for causing an accident and doing everything in your power to make amends, but as you are obviously nothing of the kind I will have to help myself.”‘

Her mouth twitched.

‘Oh, Cicely, you didn’t!’
Alice
collapsed into laughter again.

‘I did.’

‘You mean, you didn’t laugh?’ asked
Alice
, pulling herself together.

‘Of course not – although at one point I was tempted. But I was too cross.’

Alice
’s face was sympathetic. ‘You poor dear. Did anyone else see you – apart from the monster, that is?’

Cicely had a brief vision of the owner of the Daimler: dark hair, athletic build, long legs and an infuriatingly mocking smile. A monster? No, he hadn’t been a monster. Unaccountably, the strange sensation she had experienced when he had put his arms round her, the tingling feeling, which had made her body feel strangely alive, came back to her. She shook herself in an effort to drive it away.

No, he hadn’t been a monster, she thought again. More was the pity. Because if he had been a monster, his laughter would have been so much easier to bear.

‘No one else, thank goodness,’ she said, answering
Alice
’s question. ‘I was sure I would bump into someone in the village, but fortunately I managed to get back here without seeing a soul.’

‘That’s a relief! If the village boys had seen you, you would never have heard the end of it. But now, tell me, how did the rest of your afternoon go?’

Cicely sank down on the bed. She felt deflated suddenly, as though the events of the early afternoon had finally caught up with her. Rousing herself, she said at last, ‘As well as can be expected. I cycled over to Oakleigh and signed the final document as arranged, and then I cycled back again.’

‘It was very brave of you to sell the Manor,’ said
Alice
. She put her hand consolingly on Cicely’s arm. ‘I don’t think I could have done it.’

Cicely sighed. ‘I had no choice, in the end. The debts were too large. Selling the Manor was the only way to pay them. Father was a dear, but he was very absent-minded. I always knew it, but I didn’t realize at the time just quite how bad he was. I’d always assumed he paid the bills, at least, but when he died I realized he hadn’t paid anything for years. He always meant to, I’m sure, but he simply forgot about them five minutes after they’d arrived.’

‘His head was always full of some enthusiasm or other - usually bicycles,’ said
Alice
.

Cicely smiled. ‘Yes, his beloved bicycles. Not that I was ever allowed to call them that, I had to call them “velocipedes”, although "boneshakers" is a better description, if you ask me. He loved riding them, collecting them, inventing them . . .’ She gave a sigh as she thought of her dearly loved but completely impractical father.  Then she rallied herself. ‘But it’s done now. The Manor is sold and the papers are signed. Never mind, at least I have a few weeks to adjust to the idea of the Manor having a new owner before Mr Evington takes possession.’

There was a pause in the conversation.
Alice
stood up and strolled round the room. She stopped in front of Cicely’s dressing table. She picked up Cicely’s silver-backed hairbrush, before putting it down and picking up the hand mirror, then putting that down and picking up the hairbrush once more. Without looking at Cicely she asked nonchalantly, ‘How would you feel if the new owner arrived earlier than expected?’

‘Earlier?’ Cicely’s eyebrows rose. ‘How much earlier?’

‘Oh . . . ’
Alice
hesitated. Then she put down the hairbrush with a clatter. ‘The thing is, Cicely,’ she said in a rush, ‘it turns out he’s already here.’

‘Mr Evington? Here? Oh, no. He can’t be,’ she said in dismay. Suddenly, losing the Manor was even more real. But one look at
Alice
’s face convinced her it was true. ‘Are you sure?’ she demanded, wondering suddenly whether
Alice
could be mistaken. ‘He’s not meant to be here until the start of next month.’

Alice
nodded. ‘Quite sure. He changed his mind about waiting, that’s all. But he’s definitely here. Mrs Sealyham’s seen him, and she told me all about him.’ She added nonchalantly, ‘He’s young, handsome, and charming, she says.’

‘Mrs Sealyham thinks every bachelor is young, handsome and charming,’ said Cicely.

‘Even so.’
Alice
paused. ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he really is?’

‘Why?’ asked Cicely.

‘Because . . . because then you could marry him, and you could go back to the Manor and raise your children there, as you always wanted to,’ said
Alice
with a sigh.

‘That wouldn’t be real life, that would be a fairy tale. And besides, he is the last man in the world I would want to marry. He isn’t like us, you know, he doesn’t have a heart and soul. He’s a brash businessman who sees everything in terms of profit, loss and investment. He didn’t even bother to look at the Manor before he bought it.’

‘You might change your mind once you meet him,’ said
Alice
.

‘And pigs might fly!’

‘Ready to face the Gorgon in her lair?’ asked Roddy with a twinkle in his eye.

It was the following morning, and he and Alex were talking over the breakfast table.

The dining-room in which they were eating was an elegantly-proportioned room with high ceilings and elaborate plaster mouldings, giving evidence of its Georgian origins. It was painted in a pale shade of biscuit which, despite its shabbiness, gave the room a pleasant feel.

Tall windows flooded the room with light. Long fawn curtains, topped with shaped pelmets, were swept back to reveal the splendid view. The gravel path beneath the window was dotted with weeds, it was true, and the lawns beyond it were unkempt, but across the ha-ha, that useful ditch which separated the house from the park and prevented the animals from wandering too close, the deer at least kept the grass short.

Above them large oaks, fully leaved, rippled in the breeze.

‘Ready,’ said Alex, looking up from his meal. ‘As soon as I’ve finished my breakfast, I am going to visit Miss Cicely Haringay.’

‘I’m glad to see you’re building up your strength.’ Roddy looked meaningfully at Alex’s plate of bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes and fried eggs.

Alex laughed. ‘Something tells me I’m going to need it. Charitable spinsters are not my favourite people, and charitable spinsters who were born with silver spoons in their mouths . . . ’

He let the sentence tail away.

‘She may not be so bad,’ said Roddy, spreading a thick layer of marmalade on his toast.

‘Oh, no? She’s already interfered with my running of the Manor, and I haven’t even met her yet.’

‘How on earth has she done that?’ asked Roddy, pausing with his piece of toast half way to his mouth.

‘By customarily allowing the Sunday school children to hold their annual picnic on my lawns. I had a visit from a Mrs Murgatroyd yesterday afternoon,’ Alex explained to Roddy, ‘shortly after I arrived. She told me - told me, mind you, didn’t ask me - that the Sunday school picnic, which is in a few weeks’ time, will be held, as usual, at the Manor. And when I told her that it might not be convenient she fixed me with a gimlet eye and said the Haringays had always allowed the Sunday school children to hold their picnic here, and that she knew Miss Haringay would be most put out if the custom did not continue.’

Roddy laughed. ‘You’ll have to expect some of that sort of thing, you know,’ he said reasonably.

‘But I don’t have to like it. Nor do I have to like the idea of mixing with the Mrs Murgatroyds of this world.’

‘Was she really that awful?’

‘Worse. I’ve no use for her kind. They’re rich and idle, and they think they have the right to tell everyone else what to do. It would be bad enough if their own lives were perfect, but they’re not. Far from it. The landed classes have all kinds of faults. They run up debts and never bother paying their bills - Haringay’s a prime example. The man’s family had lived here for time out of mind, but did that mean he paid his way? No. He thought he was too good for such things, I’ve no doubt, like the rest of his kind. Bought everything on credit and the poor shopkeepers who supplied his goods were put out of business.’

‘Be fair. You don’t know Haringay put anyone out of business.’

‘And you don’t know he didn’t,’ returned Alex.

‘And anyway, his daughter can’t be so bad,’ said Roddy, between mouthfuls of toast. ‘She
did
pay all his debts when he died. That’s why she had to sell the Manor.’

‘And was mighty glad to get rid of it, I shouldn’t wonder.’ He looked round the beautiful but neglected room. The paintwork was shabby and in the far corner it had peeled off, whilst round the fireplace it had become discoloured with smoke from the coal fire. The windows, having shrunk and expanded many times over the centuries with the damp and the heat, did not fit properly and rattled gently in the breeze. ‘It’s a draughty great barn of a place with no modern conveniences. Miss Cicely Haringay knew what she was doing when she sold the Manor. She got rid of a white elephant and settled herself snugly in the Lodge.’

He turned his attention back to his breakfast.

‘I hope you were polite to her. Mrs What’s-her-name from the Sunday school, I mean,’ said Roddy, reaching for another piece of toast.

‘Mrs Murgatroyd? Yes, I was polite. Though it stuck in my throat to be polite to someone like that.’ He grimaced. ‘She’s exactly the sort of woman who made Katie’s life such a misery when she was a parlour-maid. And exactly the kind of person who was so eager to believe that Katie was a thief when the Honourable Martin Goss’ – he gave a mirthless laugh at the idea of Martin Goss being
honourable
– ‘dropped the bracelet
he
had stolen into Katie’s apron so that his guilt should not be discovered. If there’s one thing I’m grateful for, Roddy, it’s that I managed to earn enough money to rescue our sister from that life, otherwise what would have become of her? She was turned out onto the streets without a reference, with no way to prove her innocence, and all because of Goss. But we’ll catch him, Roddy. We’ll nab him red-handed. We’ll show him up for the liar and thief he is.’

‘And to that end, you’ll have to be nice to Miss Haringay,’ Roddy reminded him. ‘Charm her. Win her over. We need her on our side. If she accepts us, then the rest of the county will do the same. They’ll be delighted to come to our balls and entertainments, and then we have only to tempt the thief with the kind of jewels he likes and we have him.’

Alex pushed away his empty plate. ‘You’re right. What does eating a little humble pie matter if it means we can clear Katie’s name? I’ll be as charming as the day is long to Miss Haringay, and I won’t return until she’s promised to come to our first ball.’

Cicely was in the kitchen of the Lodge, looking at the range. It was a large, black contraption which at the moment reminded her of a sleeping dragon. Which was a pity, because what she really wanted to see was an angry dragon, all heat and fire and dancing flames. Because then, and only then, would she be able to get some hot water and have a proper bath.

The range was, without doubt, the most contrary thing she had ever encountered in her life. And yet the range at the Manor had always been so obedient. Mrs Crannock, the cook, had never had any trouble with it, and had made the most delicious meals on it. But the range at the Lodge seemed to have a mind of its own.