That Would Be a Fairy Tale (4 page)

‘I’ve tried everything I can think of, miss,’ said Gibson unhappily, ‘but it won’t heat the water properly and it keeps going out.’

‘What did Mrs Crannock used to do?’ Cicely felt as helpless as Gibson in the face of the uncooperative range.

‘I don’t rightly know, miss,’ said Gibson. He drew himself up a little as he spoke.

‘Of course not,’ said Cicely soothingly. She realized that she had, unwittingly, ruffled Gibson’s feathers. At the Manor, Gibson had been a person of consequence. As the Haringays’ butler he had been at  the top of the servants’ hierarchy, and it would have been beneath his dignity to enquire into such menial matters. ‘If only Mrs Crannock was still at the Manor we could ask her, but Mr Evington has brought his own servants down from the city with him and as Mrs Crannock has taken a well-deserved position with Lord Boothlake, she is no longer here for us to ask.’

‘No, miss,’ said Gibson.

Cicely looked helplessly at the range. ‘We must have hot water. There’s a copper-load of clothes to be washed, and on top of that we will need the range if we are to have a hot meal.’ She picked up the poker and, opening the small door at the front of the range, she poked hopefully at the coals. ‘It is worse than I thought,’ she said. ‘There is no spark at all. It has completely gone out. Well, we must simply light it again. You pump the bellows, Gibson, whilst I get it alight.’

‘Very good, miss,’ said Gibson.

Ten minutes later, Cicely at last succeeded in lighting the range. Gibson pumped manfully with the bellows and the small glow began to grow larger until the range was well and truly alight.

Cicely gave a sigh of relief and straightened up, pushing a strand of dark hair out of her eyes. Keeping her hair in its fashionable pompadour style was not easy when she had so much work to do. Stray strands would keep working free of their pins and falling in soft tendrils around her face.

She had just pushed it back into place when there came a knock at the front door.

‘Are you at home, miss?’ asked Gibson. He slipped on his frock coat and prepared to answer the door.

‘Yes, Gibson,’ said Cicely. ‘I will go through into the sitting-room. You may show the visitor in there.’ She went over to the sink and washed her sooty hands, shaking off the excess water and drying them thoroughly on one of the kitchen towels before going into the sitting-room.

The sitting-room was a pretty apartment at the back of the house. It was well-proportioned, though far smaller than anything Cicely had been used to at the Manor, and had a variety of nooks and alcoves which gave it character and charm. French windows looked out over the gardens and filled the room with light. A faded sofa was set in front of the windows with another one facing it. A collection of inlaid console tables, brought from the Manor, were arranged artistically, and the far wall was adorned by a fireplace.

It will be Mrs Murgatroyd, thought Cicely as she settled herself down on the sofa. She will have come to talk to me about the arrangements for the Sunday school picnic.

But as the door opened, it was not Mrs Murgatroyd who walked in. It was the man who had knocked her from her bicycle!

He was looking every bit as attractive as he had looked the day before. His clothes - the trousers with their turned-up cuffs, and the jacket open to reveal the fob-strewn waistcoat - showed off the lean yet muscular build of his body. His dark brown hair was cut short, accentuating the strongly-defined planes of his face, and was shot through with gleams of chestnut. His eyes were a velvety brown, and something about the way he looked at her gave her the most peculiar feeling inside . . .

But this would not do. She was allowing her thoughts to run away with her. She needed to gather her wits, for with this provoking man she knew she would need them.

And yet, perhaps not. For on seeing her he stopped dead, and looked just as surprised as she was.

‘I was looking for Miss Haringay,’ he said uncertainly, turning to Gibson.

‘Thank you, Gibson,’ said Cicely quickly. She did not know what the driver was doing in her sitting-room but she decided to send Gibson away as quickly as possible. She had no desire for any of the distressing details of her previous encounter with him - or with the duck pond! - to leak out.

Gibson, his mouth open in the act of announcing the visitor, closed it again. ‘Very good, miss,’ he murmured, and backed out of the room.

‘My apologies,’ said the driver. His eyes flashed, sending a shiver up and down Cicely’s spine, and a wicked smile touched his mouth. ‘I seem to have come to the wrong house. I was looking for Miss  Haringay.’

‘I am Miss Haringay,’ she said, standing up. She did not know why, but she felt she would be better able to hold her own if she was standing. But what on earth could he wish to see her about? Did he want to apologise, perhaps, for his earlier rude behaviour?

‘Miss
Cicely
Haringay,’ he said, as if to make the matter clear.

Already he was turning to walk out of the room.

‘There is only one Miss Haringay,’ she said, ‘and I am she.’

‘
You
are Miss Haringay ?’

‘I am. What is your business here?’ she asked. ‘I take it you had a reason for calling?’

‘Indeed I did. I wanted to introduce myself . . . ’

Not to apologise, but to introduce himself! she thought, startled. Whatever next?

‘And invite you to a ball.’

Her eyes flew open in astonishment. A
ball
?

She glanced at the door, wondering how long it would take Gibson to enter the room and throw him out, as he had clearly run mad.

‘You don’t need to call for your butler,’ he said, his eyes dancing again as if he could read her mind. ‘I’m not mad, and I haven’t wandered in off the streets for the purpose of asking you to an imaginary dance, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m Alex Evington. I have bought the Manor. We are neighbours, Miss Haringay, and I am here to make your acquaintance, and to invite you to my housewarming ball.’ He went on to explain. ‘I want to get to know my neighbours, and holding a ball seems the best way of doing it.’

‘Mr Evington?’ asked Cicely faintly, sinking down onto the sofa. Things were getting worse and worse.

‘Yes.’

She wondered now why she had not thought of it before. The man who had so carelessly knocked her from her bicycle was of course the same man who had so carelessly bought her beloved Manor, it was all of a piece.

He stood looking down at her with an amused air. ‘Is it such a terrible shock?’

It was indeed, but she was not about to admit it.

She noticed that he was still standing, and remembering her manners she bid him sit down. He sat down opposite her, putting his hat on a side table, and the action gave her time to recover her composure.

‘I take it you will accept my invitation?’ he asked.

Cicely pulled herself together. ‘Oh, no, I’m afraid that’s out of the question.’

‘May I ask why?’ he enquired, eyebrows raised.

‘I don’t see that it’s any of your -’ she began, before stopping herself.
I don’t see that it’s any of your business
, she had been going to say, but realized belatedly that it would be rude. For some reason he seemed to provoke her to rudeness. ‘That is, I’m afraid I have a prior engagement,’ she said.

The one thing she did not want to do was to visit her beloved Manor now that it was no longer her home.

‘But you don’t know when the ball’s to be held,’ he pointed out, and his good humour vanished, to be replaced by something harder and more cynical.

Cicely was caught, but thinking quickly she said, ‘My diary is fully booked.’

‘Is it indeed? Perhaps it would not be so fully booked if I were a gentleman,’ he said.

There was suddenly something hard and predatory about him. His body was tense, and beneath his even tone of voice there was a note of steel.

‘That has nothing to do with it,’ she replied, wondering how he had managed to put her in the wrong.

‘No?’ he asked with the same cynical look in his eyes. ‘Then the landed classes do not look down on those who have made their money through honest work?’

‘You forget, Mr Evington, you are one of the landed classes now,’ she replied. ‘Be careful how you speak of them, lest you blacken your own character along with theirs.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said tightly.

‘I doubt if you have ever begged for anything in your life,’ she returned, nettled by the angry gleam in his eye, and by the rudeness concealed beneath his polite words.

‘Oh, you are mistaken there,’ he said; and for a moment she had a glimpse of something much deeper than a well-dressed man with nothing better to do than knock people off their bicycles.

It reminded her of another similar change of atmosphere the previous day, when he had been about to pull her bicycle out of the mud, and had said, "I’ve been dirtier". She had the strange feeling there was more to Mr Evington than met the eye.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

‘Well, Mr Evington,’ said Cicely at last, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the stillness. ‘You have made my acquaintance and issued your invitation. If there is nothing further, I have some letters to write.’

She spoke awkwardly, feeling she was being rude to dismiss him in such a hasty manner, but knowing that she was not equal to continuing the conversation. There was something about Mr Alex Evington that she found profoundly disturbing, and she did not trust herself to be in his company another minute. She went over to the mantelpiece and pulled the bell.

He stood up.

‘Very well. But I must warn you, I have not accepted your refusal. I am a stubborn man, Miss Haringay,’ he said, picking up his hat.

‘In that we are alike,’ she retorted, as Gibson entered the room. ‘Mr Evington is just leaving, Gibson,’ she said.

‘Very good, miss.’

Mr Evington made her a bow. ‘Miss Haringay.’

And then, turning, he followed Gibson out of the room.

Cicely sank onto the sofa. She felt as though she had just been involved in a sparring match, instead of a formal visit. Mr Evington was like no one she had ever met. He seemed to resent the landed classes on the one hand, and yet by buying the Manor he had become one of them on the other. It was most strange.

Strange, too, was the effect he had on her. And not only by setting her skin tingling in the most disconcerting way, but by causing her to forget her manners. She had had a lot of training at keeping a civil tongue in her head, whatever the situation. She had been involved in many charitable works around the village, and was an active supporter of the Sunday school, and whilst she did not always see eye to eye with the other ladies and gentlemen who were involved in the schemes, she always managed to be polite. And yet with Mr Evington she found it almost impossible.

She thought inconsequentially of the way his eyes had flashed when she had refused his invitation. It had made them very attractive, and set her insides to dancing in the most exhilarating way.

She quickly squashed the thought. He may be young, handsome and charming, as Mrs Sealyham had said, but he was still an avaricious
cit
without heart or soul, and therefore a man to be avoided.

She was just about to return to the kitchen when the door opened and
Alice
showed herself into the room.

Alice
was looking particularly well this morning. Her grey panelled skirt swirled about her ankles, and she was wearing a becoming lace-frilled blouse.

‘Have you got one?’ she asked without preamble.

‘Got one what?’ asked Cicely inelegantly.

‘An invitation. To Mr Evington’s ball,’ said
Alice
.

‘No. I haven’t,’ said Cicely.

‘I’m sure you will. It’s probably on its way here even now.’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Cicely. ‘You see, I don’t need one. Mr Evington has just been here, and he asked me to the ball himself.’

‘You’ve seen him?’ demanded
Alice
, eyes wide. ‘Well? What’s he like?’

She threw herself onto one of the sofas and looked at Cicely expectantly.

‘He is the most infuriating man I have ever met,’ said Cicely. ‘He seems to spend his time either insulting me or laughing at me. It was bad enough yesterday -’

‘Yesterday?’ demanded
Alice
.

Cicely gave a wry smile. ‘Mr Evington is the man who knocked me into the duck pond.’

‘Oh, no!’ exclaimed
Alice
.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Poor Cicely!’ laughed
Alice
. ‘You’ll have to be extra careful at the ball, and make sure you don’t fall into the punch bowl!’

‘I shall not be going to the ball,’ said Cicely decidedly.

Alice
looked astonished. ‘No? Oh, but Cicely . . . ’

‘No, Alice. It’s more than I can bear. To see him walking round the Manor as though he owns the place - to have to remind myself that he
does
own the place - will be too terrible for me. I have told him I cannot go.’