Shadows Of Yesterday. CATHY WILLIAMS
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dully. Her intense anger had evaporated and she felt drained and hopeless. ‘Thank you so much for that, at least. How good you’ve been, what a true gentleman.’
His lips tightened and he stared at her as though he would have liked to have shaken her and was only controlling himself with extreme difficulty.
She stood up and walked slowly towards the door. Inside, she felt dead and lifeless. This was the first time that she had ever exploded like this with James, with anyone for that matter. She was not a girl who liked arguments; she had always preferred to take the path of least possible resistance. Perhaps because her parents had so seldom argued, quarrelling perturbed her, made her feel awkward and uncomfortable.
‘I can’t compete with your wife,’ she said quietly, her hand on the doorknob. ‘I just wish that you’d liked me enough to tell me about her sooner.’
‘Liking,’ he said coolly, not trying to stop her from leaving, ‘had nothing to do with it.’
‘How can you still be so affected by the past?’ she heard herself ask, desperately, and the shutters clamped back down over his eyes. She preferred him cold, angry, biting, anything but this closed expression that gave her no inkling as to what he was thinking.
He took a step towards her and she cringed back, like a wounded animal.
‘Is it ever really possible to escape the past?’ he asked smoothly, an acid, humourless smile on his face. ‘You’re a child. I should never have given in to my impulses; I should have left you to play out your little infatuation.’
‘Thank you for that,’ she whispered, hating herself for loving this man when he was capable of being so utterly hateful. ‘But it’s not too late to be rid of me.’ She opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. ‘I’m leaving now and this is the last you’ll see of me, so you can carry on with your life and I can finish playing out all my stupid, childish games.’
She shut the door behind her and flew down the corridor, gaining momentum as she ran down the staircase as if there were baying hounds behind her, when in fact he hadn’t made even the slightest effort to stop her in her tracks.
Why should he? she thought as she let herself out of the front door. I’ve only ever been a little bit of fun on the side. He’s still in love with Olivia.
CLAIRE had been only just twenty when she’d met James Forrester.
It had been on one of those depressing winter days when the sun never seemed to rise and darkness fell like a shutter in mid-afternoon. Not a day to be wondering for how much longer she would be able to afford the rent on her poky bedroom in the house she shared with three other girls. Money was low and she was loath to mention the problem to her parents because they would immediately insist on helping her out. Even at twenty, they still thought of her as their baby, their little girl who should be protected.
Not to mention the fact that her parents would have been hard pushed to bail her out of her financial troubles. Her father wasn’t exactly rolling in money and although they had some savings, it was common knowledge to both their daughters that this money was being carefully put aside for a rainy day.
So she had continued scouring the newspapers, anxiously looking for jobs and wondering whether she would have been better off remaining in London instead of moving to Berkshire where the rent was much lower and where she had optimistically thought that the job situation would be good.
Six weeks out of work, with nothing hopeful on the horizon, was not doing much for her self-confidence, though.
Two of the girls who rented the house with her bluntly told her that she ought to find a job as a secretary, invest her time in a short typing course which would reap its rewards in the years to come; after all, they earned good money, thank you very much, working as secretaries in two of the larger companies in nearby Reading.
But Claire had not jumped at their suggestion. She had worked hard for her art diploma and to throw away everything she had studied for, to abandon her love of art in favour of a nine-to-five routine in front of a typewriter, did not hold much appeal.
But as she had sat at the kitchen table, scanning the job columns, she had been forced to admit that a love of art was not going to pay the bills.
She also doubted whether her landlord would smilingly accept her need to be creative and overlook the little matter of unpaid rent on his house. He was sharklike at the best of times, and she shuddered at the prospect of trying to engage his sympathy for her cause.
Then she had spotted it. Just when she had been about to crumple the newspaper into a ball and admit defeat. Cleaner wanted, it said, excellent rates of pay for the right person. More to the point, she would be working at Frilton Manor.
She had telephoned the number on the advertisement immediately and had been given an interview only hours later.
And she just knew that this was going to work out. She would be earning money, she would be able to keep herself in room and board until the sort of job she really wanted came along, and, best of all, she would be surrounded by all that magnificent beauty at the manor— because it would be beautiful, she could tell just from what she had seen of it from the outside: large, imposing, set on a hill and looking down on the rest of the world with a mixture of grandeur and contempt.
She had been right. She had got the job because, she was told by the head housekeeper, she looked trustworthy and she could start the following morning.
Then she had been shown around the manor, or rather part of it because some of the rooms were closed and besides it was simply too massive to be viewed in the length of time available.
Claire had been awestruck. Her own family home had been a small three-bedroomed cottage, with just enough space for four people and a dog, and even the dog had a tendency to get underfoot now and again. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to actually live somewhere as vast as Frilton Manor.
‘Are there any children?’ she had asked the housekeeper, who had given her a curious look.
‘Children? Of course not. The master lives here on his own. Not that he gets down here that often. His work is in London, you see, and he has a flat there, but when he does come here it has to be in spotless condition. It’s not that he’s a stickler for cleanliness,’ she had hurriedly continued, ‘but I am.’ She looked around her proudly. ‘There’s four of us whose job it is to make sure things keep ticking over, and I do the cooking as well when the master is at home. George, that’s my husband, is responsible for the garden. He employs some local lads to help him. The master trusts us,’ she said, holding her head high, making Claire smile, ‘we’re responsible for who works here and we have to be careful. There’s a lot of valuables in this house. The antiques, the pictures.’ She made a sweeping gesture, and Claire nodded appreciatively.
‘Priceless, I should think,’ she contributed helpfully, but she was really only half listening to what the housekeeper was saying. Her eyes were roaming around the place in open delight, taking in the graceful curves of the staircase which dominated the massive hallway, sweeping up to branch into two long corridors which formed a huge square and off which the bedrooms were located.
And on the walls were a mind-boggling array of paintings, some of them portraits, others landscapes, all original. For an art lover, it was sheer heaven.
There was even a magnificent library, which she had briefly seen, and which had lived up to all her expectations of what a library ought to be like in a grand, old house. Dark, with rich deep colours, and sombre paintings on the walls, and an impressive display of books, most hardbound, but some, she was interested to see, modern classics.
‘Of course priceless!’ the housekeeper said haughtily, making Claire smile again.
They were back in the hallway when the telephone began ringing, and the housekeeper hurried