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The memories came in swift, dazzling pictures now, and she was forcing herself, like a rider ramming an unwilling horse at a jump. With every step the horse tried to retreat, knowing that what lay ahead was misery and horror. But the rider drove it on.
The dinner party in her honour. Simon crowing that Jason had given in, silencing her instinctive knowledge that Jason would never give in. Puzzled. Fearful. Wondering what Jason was planning.
On the day of the party, a team of caterers arrived and started preparing the dining room, carrying in baskets of food and wine. In the midst of the bustle the two brothers withdrew to Jason’s study and had a furious row from which each emerged set-faced and grim.
‘It’s nothing, darling,’ Simon said when she asked. ‘Just Jason throwing his weight around. Forget him. Go and make yourself look beautiful for tonight.’
But there was something preoccupied about his manner that worried her. Several times that day she caught him looking at her in a thoughtful way.
The twenty guests all smiled and greeted her with interest but with little half glances at Jason, as if curious as to what he was thinking. She, too, wondered what there was behind his smile. In the midst of festivity she felt her apprehension growing.
After dinner someone sat down at the piano and there was an impromptu dance. She danced with Simon, to applause.
Then Jason stepped forward and held out his arms, inviting her. Only it was more command than invitation.
She was surprised at how skilfully he danced. It would have been a pleasure to partner him if she hadn’t been so much on edge.
‘Smile,’ he said. ‘This is your night of triumph.’
‘I don’t feel triumphant,’ she assured him gravely. ‘Only happy. I really do love Simon. If only you could believe that.’
Unexpectedly he said, ‘I find it all too easy to believe. I only wish I didn’t.’
‘Then if you believe me—’
‘Has it ever occurred to you that Simon isn’t the man you think him?’
Enlightenment dawned, and a smile broke over her face. She felt filled with sudden light.
‘What is it?’ he demanded sharply. ‘Why do you look like that?’
‘Because now I understand what’s really bothering you?’
‘Really!’ he said ironically. ‘Then it’s time we had a talk.’
He steered her towards an open door, and led her into the library.
The pictures flickered as Elinor flinched back from what came next. She didn’t want to remember. Leave it there. Surely there was no need to relive the pain?
But some perverse imp of memory forced her to look again, and watch herself go into the library with Jason. She saw not only their two figures, but her own foolish confidence that at last she’d got the better of this ruthless man. She wanted to reach out and snatch that silly little innocent away from the danger she was heading into so blithely. But nothing could do that now.
In the library they faced each other.
‘So tell me about this wonderful insight that’s come to you,’ he said ironically.
‘I’ve just realised—you know Simon’s dark side, don’t you?’
He was startled. ‘So you do recognise that he has a dark side?’
‘Of course. Everyone has.’ A growing confidence made her add, ‘You certainly have.’
Instead of being offended he gave his wolfish grin, and said, ‘Go on. I can’t wait for the next bit.’
‘All right, I don’t know his dark side. But then, he doesn’t know mine.’
‘Your what?’
‘Oh, I do have one,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’m terribly grumpy in the mornings. I can’t imagine Simon ever being grumpy, but I’m prepared to find that I’m wrong. When you really love somebody, you love everything about them—even their faults, because those faults are part of them.’
And so she went blundering on, reciting the confident words, playing into his hands, watching the derision on his face, not understanding it.
As well as scornful, he was furiously angry. ‘You think you know it all!’
‘I know about love, Jason. I love Simon and he loves me, and nothing will ever part us. We’ll stand by each other through the worst that you can do.’
As she grew more exalted she smiled up into his face. He drew in his breath and his brow darkened.
‘You simpleton!’ he grated. ‘You baby! You stupid, pretty little idiot! You naive, gullible—Heaven give me patience!’
He gripped her shoulders, looking at her intently. Suddenly they heard Simon’s voice outside in the hall. She saw the tension come swiftly into Jason’s face as though he’d made a lightning decision, and the next moment he pulled her hard against him, sliding his arms about her body, lowering his head and crushing her mouth with his own.
Abruptly the pictures flickered out into blackness.
Time and again her memory stopped at this point, and only resumed several moments later, with the sight of Simon’s face, white and distraught.
‘You cheating little bitch,’ he cried. ‘You scheming, deceitful—All this time I thought you loved me, but you had your eyes on a bigger prize, didn’t you? I trusted you!’
She tried to protest, but he cut her short. ‘I loved you. I’d have given my life for you, and the moment my back’s turned you go straight into my brother’s arms. What else have the two of you been up to?’
‘Nothing,’ she screamed. ‘Simon, please—it’s not what you think.’
‘It seemed clear enough to me. Oh, God, Cindy, how could you do this?’
All the guests seemed to be there behind him, listening to his heartbroken accusations, witnessing her shame.
‘Listen to me,’ she begged through her sobs.
‘Listen to you! I never want to listen to or even think of you again. Get out of my sight.’
‘That’s enough!’ Jason intervened. ‘You’ve made your point, Simon. Now leave it. It’s over.’
‘Yes, it’s over,’ he choked. ‘Over, Cindy, over! And I thought you and I were for ever.’
He turned and fled upstairs. She followed him, but found his door locked against her, and her frantic hammering produced no response. At last she slid to the floor, sobbing in despair.
She didn’t know how long she stayed there, but eventually Jason came to tell her that all the guests were gone.
She looked up at him through eyes blurred with tears.
‘You—you did this on purpose,’ she choked.
‘Yes, I did it on purpose. Come on, get up.’
He put his hands under her arms and hauled her firmly to her feet. She went with him because there was nothing else to do. She had nobody but Simon, and now he’d turned against her.
Jason led her to her room, and said curtly, ‘Pack your things. You’re leaving in the morning.’
She clung to the hope that she could see Simon before she had to leave, but in the early hours she heard a car start up beneath her window. She ran and opened it, and was just in time to see Simon drive away.
He’d gone out of her life for ever, disillusioned, believing that she’d betrayed their love.
But the true betrayal had come from his brother, who had forcibly kissed her, knowing that Simon was about to come in and see them. Why, oh, why couldn’t Simon understand that? Why had he believed the worst of her so easily?
Jason insisted on driving her to the railway station. She left behind every gift, every last tiny piece of jewellery that Simon had ever given her.
But she left behind much more than that: youth and dreams, hope, love, and a belief that the world was good. She’d been brutally robbed of them all.
As she stood now, looking at her own tense, sad face in the wardrobe mirror, she understood for the first time how totally these things had been drained from her, and how empty was the woman they had left behind.
She shut the door abruptly and went downstairs.
The kitchen had changed since she was last here. The old one had been a monument to antiquity. The new one paid lip-service to tradition, with oak beams on the ceiling and copper pans on the wall. But the gadgets were modern, as Hilda demonstrated with pride.
‘I had to talk him into it,’ she said, pointing at the ceiling to indicate Jason. ‘He likes the old ways, and the old values. But I told him, this kitchen may have been good enough to cook for Queen Victoria, but it ain’t good enough for me.’
‘Did Queen Victoria ever visit Tenby Manor?’ Elinor asked.
‘So they say. Wouldn’t surprise me. Anyway, I put up with it as long as I could, then I said, Either that ancient kitchen goes, or I do.’
‘And what did Mr Tenby say to that?’
‘He said, “Hilda, Tenby Manor would go to pieces without you.” And there was a man in here, taking measurements, the very next day.’
Elinor was surprised. Even discounting the story’s more colourful details, the bottom line was that Jason Tenby had listened to Hilda. But of course, by modernising, he’d improved the value of the house.
The outer door, which had been slightly ajar, was pushed open and a muddy black spaniel scampered into the room.
‘Bob, you rascal,’ Hilda called, ‘where have you been hiding?’ She offered a titbit, which the spaniel pounced on. ‘He’s Jason’s. Nobody’s got much time for him now, poor little thing, so he spends his life wandering around the grounds.’
‘Mr Tenby’s? He didn’t—’ Elinor checked herself on the verge of saying that Jason hadn’t had a dog when she was last here, and substituted, ‘He didn’t seem the kind of man to keep a pet.’
‘He’s more than just a pet. He wins prizes at all the dog shows. Pedigree as long as your arm. Not that he looks it now, because he’s covered in mud. But he’s actually Lord Robertson Winstanley Mooreswell of Hatley Place,’ Hilda pronounced triumphantly, adding as an afterthought, ‘The eighth.’
I can believe that, Elinor thought. Even this man’s dog has a pedigree.
Bob bounded towards her.
‘Stay away from me!’ she said sharply. Then she coloured and added, ‘His paws—’
‘Yes, you don’t want them on your nice clean uniform,’ Hilda said.
Elinor agreed, but not without a touch of shame. For a moment her hostility to all things Tenby had extended to the innocent animal who’d been welcomed because he had the pedigree she herself had lacked.
To cover the moment she began to ask about the house. ‘It’s a big place to manage on your own.’
‘I’m not exactly on my own. I clean Jason’s room because he doesn’t like strangers in there, but, for the rest, a couple of cleaning women come in from the village. My Alf does odd jobs and looks after the kitchen garden.’
She concentrated on the supper she was preparing, and told Elinor that it would be ready in an hour.
‘Meat and two veg, with plenty of gravy,’ she announced with pride. ‘I do it for him every day. And a good solid pudding for afters. If only he did more than pick at it! Never mind. I’ll build him up.’
Elinor forbore to comment that Hilda wouldn’t build Jason up by cooking meals that obviously didn’t tempt him. The time wasn’t right.
From outside she could hear someone coming down the stairs, leaving the house and driving away.
‘That’ll be the factory manager,’ Hilda said. ‘He’s been getting his orders.’
‘You mean he’s been up with Mr Tenby?’ Elinor asked, startled.
‘He comes here twice a week. Dr Harper—that’s Jason’s GP—tried to stop him, but Jason got into such a fury he had to back down.’
‘I think I’d better have a word with Mr Tenby.’
She found Jason lying still and silent. It was hard to tell if he was awake or not.
‘What are you staring at me for?’ he demanded irritably.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was.’
‘I knew you were. Don’t you realise that’s one of the worst things? People who stare at you, thinking you won’t know. People who think being blind is the same as being stupid.’
‘Mr Tenby, I don’t want you to think of yourself as blind—’
‘Sure! Fine!’ he snapped. ‘I’m not blind, it’s just that I can’t see anything.’
‘For the moment. It may not be permanent, and it’s better if you don’t get into a “blind” state of mind.’
He gave a snort. ‘You nurses should get your act together. The last one told me exactly the opposite; never stopped twittering on about adjusting to reality.’
‘Adjusting to reality before you’re certain that it is reality is just giving in,’ Elinor said calmly.
There was a silence.
‘So you can talk sense about something,’ Jason grunted.
‘You’d be amazed at the things I can talk sense about,’ Elinor told him crisply.
‘Good. You can stay here for the moment. But there’s one thing.’
