A Village Affair

'Oh yes-'

'Drink?'

'Please-'

He put his briefcase down and went to the drinks tray on the sofa table. He poured a gin and tonic and took it back to her.

'Alice any better?'

'Alice,' Cecily said with some edge, 'was looking fine.' She paused, took a swallow of her drink and then said carelessly, There was really no chance to talk to her.'

'No chance?'

'She has a new friend. The youngest child of Pitcombe Park. Seemed very much at home-'

Richard, perceiving at once what was the matter, picked up his papers again and said, 'You should be pleased she has found a friend locally. I thought you were worried she was lonely-'

Cecily got up, rattling the ice in her glass.

'Of course I'm glad.'

Richard said quietly, without looking up, 'Alice had to leave home some day.'

Cecily said angrily, 'Richard, she isn't well.'

He said nothing.

'I can't talk to you about it,' Cecily said. 'You can't relate to humankind at all, only to business. I don't suppose you give Alice any thought at all. I don't suppose you ever have.'

He said, in a perfectly ordinary voice, 'How do you know what I think?'

'The evidence of my eyes and ears.'

'I'm a patient man,' Richard said, 'but sometimes you try me to the limit. You don't know what I think because in forty years you have never once asked me.'

Cecily was close to tears. She still stood by her armchair holding her drink because she had meant to walk out on some Parthian shot and go off to the kitchen to grill trout for their dinner.

Then I'll ask you. I am asking you-'

'What I think about Alice?'

She subsided on to the arm of the chair.

'Yes.'

'My feelings for her are considerable. I am fond of her and I admire her. But I think she has taken a long time to grow up. If she is being awkward now-'

'I didn't say she was being awkward.'

'-if she is disappointing you-'

'I didn't say-'

'Shut up,' Richard said, suddenly angry.

Cecily got up.

'I don't want to hear any more. You haven't a clue. But then you have no idea what women are like or what they need. You never have.'

'Is that so?'

She almost ran to the door.

'I'm going to get supper.' She waved an angry hand at his papers. 'You go back where you belong.'

When the door had shut, Richard sat for a moment and looked ahead of him without seeing anything. Plainly, Alice had in some way defied Cecily, and although he was sorry for Cecily, he was also glad. He sighed and went back to his papers. The considerableness of his feelings for Alice were a self-forbidden luxury.

'Juliet?' Cecily said into the telephone.

It was a quarter to eight. Juliet Dunne had just read the last word of the last bedtime story and had come down to find that the dog had eaten most of the shepherd's pie she had left by the cooker for supper, and then the telephone had rung. So she had answered it with a snarl.

'Oh, Cecily,' Juliet said, 'so sorry to be cross but really. Sometimes I hate domestic life so much I am not responsible for my actions. The fucking dog. And, frankly, fucking Henry for needing supper at all. I'd give anything to be a kept woman at this minute.'

Cecily made soothing noises.

'I really rang to talk to you about Alice-'

'Allie? Why, is something-'

'Well, I'm not sure-'

'I thought she was looking miles better,' Juliet said. 'I saw her on Tuesday. We had a tots tea party.'

'Do you know Clodagh Unwin?'

'Clo? All my life, practically.'

'She seems,' Cecily said, 'almost to be living there.'

'Whoopee,' Juliet said. 'Best thing in the world. She's the most lovely fun. She'll cheer them all up. Oh Lord, Cecily, here comes Henry. He'll have to have dog food, there isn't anything else. If you'd had daughters, Cecily, would you have encouraged them to get married?'

'Probably not-' Cecily said, thinking of the briefcase in the drawing room.

'Of course, with sons, I can't wait to be shot of them. But I'm stuck with Henry. Look, I think it's brilliant about Clodagh and Alice and I should think the Unwins are thrilled. They always want Clo to settle down, so a nice dose of happy family life-'

'Is - is she safe?'

'Safe?' Juliet said. 'Safe? Clo? Heavens, no. What do you want a safe friend for Alice for? Henry's safe and he bores me to tears, don't you, darling? Cecily, I must go and open his tin of Chum.'

Ill Cecily put the telephone down. Then she went over to the refrigerator and took out the trout that Dorothy had left, ready gutted, on a plate. She looked at their foolish dead fish faces. Tomorrow, she resolved, she would telephone Martin. He was, after all, her son.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Martin Jordan and Henry Dunne met for lunch in the White Hart in Salisbury. Henry had telephoned Martin at his office and said, rather mysteriously, that he had something to discuss and could they meet somewhere that their crowd didn't frequent. Martin said what about the White Hart as it was so large, and so they met there in the foyer, conspicuous in their moleskin trousers and tweed jackets among two busloads of spring tourists, one checking in and one out, in a welter of nylon suitcases and quilted coats in pastel colours.

Henry found them a table in the corner of the bar and went away for two pints of beer and several rounds of prawn sandwiches. When he came back he said, 'I sneaked a look at The Grey House the other day. I must say, you're doing a great job. John's a wonderful fellow, but of course he never much minds how things look.'

Martin was extremely pleased. He had worked tirelessly at weekends in the garden, and was allotting himself four hours' outside painting a week. Alice said 'Oh well done' rather absently to him, quite often, but he didn't feel she quite took in the scale of his achievements, and anyway, he liked other people to appreciate the improvements he was making. He shrugged his shoulders self-deprecatingly.

"Those mahonias had really had it-'

'Awful things. Only worth it for the scent of the flowers in March-'

'Absolutely.'

Henry took a large bite of sandwich, chewed, swallowed, took a pull at his beer and said, in a much more solemn voice, 'Martin, nice as it is to see you, this isn't just a social lunch.'

'I rather gathered that-'

'Fact is, I'm here as Sir Ralph's emissary. To test the water. To put something to you.' He took another bite. 'A proposition.'

Martin immediately and wildly thought that Sir Ralph might want to buy back The Grey House. For all the difficulties involved in getting there, now he was there he felt extremely possessive about it as well as being conscious that living there added several social cubits to his stature. He put on a soberly considering expression.

'I won't beat about the bush,' Henry said. Thing is, Sir Ralph needs a new solicitor. He's decided he must have local advice, particularly for the estate and - this is strictly in confidence - I think he's fallen out with the London lot, naming no names. He wants to change a lot of things - I'll tell you about that later - and he asked me who I would recommend. I suggested your outfit. He thought for a bit and said why not you.'

Martin was scarlet.

'I - I'm not a senior partner-'

'I said that. He said he didn't mind about that, and that one day you would be. Fact is, I think it's your living in The Grey House that's done it. He feels it would be keeping everything in the family, so to speak.'

'I haven't any experience in estate work-'

'I have.'

'I say,' Martin said, and beamed.

'Like it?'

'I'll say. That is - if I can do it-'

'Nice piece of business to brandish at your senior partners. I wouldn't like to promise, but it's my guess that estate business will lead to all personal business too in the end, Lady Unwin and all. Pitcombe Park's pet lawyer. Thing is,' he looked at Martin over the rim of his beer glass, 'it'd help me a lot, having you on my side. He can be the devil to handle, used to having his own way. Clodagh takes after him.'