Shadow Of Desire

‘I see,’ Ginny said slowly, as she started the engine.

‘Well, I hope you do, ducky. No use in looking for trouble, is there? And she marked him down as hers the moment she laid eyes on him.’

Kathy might be appallingly indiscreet, but she seemed friendly enough, and Ginny laughed.

‘I’m not setting up in competition against her, believe me.’

‘You couldn’t, dearie.’ Kathy’s tone was dry. ‘You’d be left at the start. If she’d have thought there was the slightest danger you’d be looking for another job.’

As they drove down the narrow lane leading to Monk’s Dower, it occurred to Ginny that this was the first time her brown mouse looks had ever actually stood her in good stead, but this was not a particular comfort to her. A small flicker of rebellion stirred inside her at being so easily dismissed, but she stilled it. Her attractions, or lack of them, were the last thing that should be on her mind at this point in time.

Monk’s Dower was large and rambling, built on three sides of a courtyard in a variety of styles reflecting the periods when additions had been made. Her heart sank a little as she followed Kathy from room to room, because it was neither labour-saving nor convenient. There were open fires in the principal rooms, and wide expanses of ancient polished floorboards. Most of the furniture seemed old-fashioned without being antique, but there was a mellow air about the place which not even the slightly dank smell of disuse could dispel.

The kitchen was slightly more hopeful. It had been modernised and furnished with attractive pine units, and there was a modern wood-burning kitchen range as a centrepiece. The roomy walk-in pantry contained a large deep-freeze, Ginny noticed, and she supposed she would be expected to supply this with the kind of food a bachelor would need—whatever that was. Convenience food, she surmised vaguely, and chops and steaks.

‘The place smells damp.’ Kathy sniffed the air. ‘It wants living in—fires fighting. I told you it was a barn, didn’t I?’

‘Yes,’ Ginny acknowledged. ‘But it has character—and it could be lovely, if someone cared about it.’

Kathy’s lips twisted derisively. ‘The someone being you, I take it? Well, let me give you some good advice, ducky. Don’t knock yourself out—and don’t break your heart either. I’ve worked for her ladyship for years, but I’ve seen others come and go. Just do what you’re asked and take your money, but don’t make any special effort, because you won’t be thanked for it.’

Ginny tried to smile in reply, but Kathy’s cynicism disturbed her. She wondered how many years she had worked for Mrs Lanyon. Certainly she seemed to know her employer only too well.

She drove home feeling rather depressed when she should have been on top of the world, but when she arrived back at the house she was thankful that she had taken the job, because a social worker was waiting for her, being entertained rather stiffly by Aunt Mary who had been brought up to believe that Heaven helped those who helped themselves, and who disapproved of the Welfare State on principle.

The interview which followed was a rigorous one, because the children’s officer clearly did not believe that Ginny was old enough or responsible enough to be head of any sort of family. She listened with frank scepticism as Ginny outlined her plans and gave details of the new job.

‘You surely don’t expect to maintain yourself and a growing boy on a wage like that!’ was her immediate reaction.

‘Certainly not,’ said Ginny, who hadn’t even got around to considering the nuts and bolts of the situation. She cast round wildly in her mind for inspiration. ‘I—I’m going to be left with a lot of time on my hands, so I thought I’d—start a typing agency,’ she finished on a sudden gulp of relief, which she hoped had not been noticed by her inquisitor.

‘I see.’ The social worker looked frankly nonplussed, and after a few more rather desultory questions, took her leave, announcing brightly that she would ‘be in touch.’

‘I hope,’ Aunt Mary said reprovingly once they were alone, ‘that you haven’t deceived that unfortunate woman, Ginevra. Have you actually made enquiries into the need for such an agency?’

‘Well—no,’ Ginny said rather guiltily. ‘But I’m sure there are lots of people around who haven’t enough work for a full-time secretary. I shall advertise.’

‘Hm.’ Aunt Mary pursed her lips. ‘I hope your advertising is successful, my dear child. Our visitor’s remarks had a certain justice, you know. Tim is growing fast, and approaching the most expensive period in his life. It seems to me this post you’ve obtained is going to entail a great deal of work for very little return. Are you sure you’ve made the right decision?’

‘Part of the return is a roof over our heads,’ Ginny said gently. ‘That’s the most important thing.’

‘A roof, nevertheless, that’s dependent on the whim of others.’ Aunt Mary shook her head. ‘Not a comfortable situation, but we’ll have to hope for the best.’ She hesitated for a moment, then reached down for the capacious black leather handbag which accompanied her everywhere. ‘I’ve taken the precaution of writing away to a few places. You’re a good child, Ginevra, but I wouldn’t wish to inflict a greater burden on you than you’re able to bear.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ginny glanced at the sheaf of papers her great-aunt was extending to her. ‘The Sunny-view Home for the Aged,’ she read aloud in tones of disgust. ‘Oh, Aunt Mary, how could you! Your home is with us—you know it is.’

‘My home was with your dear parents,’ Aunt Mary corrected her, her back a little straighter than usual. ‘You’re very young, Ginevra, and you have every right to a life of your own.’ She paused. ‘I’m not by nature an eavesdropper, but I happened to come downstairs one night while your sister was here. I couldn’t avoid overhearing what she was saying, she produces her voice extraordinarily well—part of her stage training, I suppose.’

‘Aunt Mary!’ Ginny was aghast. ‘You—you really mustn’t take any notice of Barbara. We see things from completely different angles and …’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Aunt Mary said rather acidly. ‘If you shared her viewpoint, this conversation would probably not be taking place. But she was not entirely in the wrong, although I found her mode of expression rather hurtful. Are you quite sure that Tim is not more than sufficient responsibility for you?’

‘Quite sure.’ Ginny’s voice was firm. ‘Aunt Mary, you can’t let me down. I—I need you. No matter what I told that woman, I’m going to have my work cut out looking after that house. If you could help with the cooking and—just be there when Tim gets in from school,’ she ended on a note of appeal.

‘I shall be pleased to do whatever I can.’ Aunt Mary allowed her firm lips to relax into a smile. ‘And I’m not entirely decrepit, Ginevra. I daresay I could make beds and help with the dusting, as well.’

Impulsively Ginny put her arms round her great-aunt and hugged her. Aunt Mary did not, as a rule, welcome random demonstrations of affection, but this time when Ginny released her, she looked pink and pleased, even though she said robustly, ‘Go along with you, child.’

In the intervening two months, Ginny thought, things had worked out better than she had ever dared hope. The move to Monk’s Dower had gone quite smoothly, and Tim was now settled at his new school, with only the occasional nightmare reminding him of the tragic disruption his young life had suffered.

The job itself was proving rather easier than she had expected. Mrs Petty who came in from the village on an ancient bicycle twice a week turned out to be slipshod but willing, but fortunately, Ginny thought with satisfaction, her new employer was not the type of man to go peering in corners after a few stray cobwebs.

The colour deepened in her face as she thought about Toby Hendrick. He was altogether different from what she had expected. For one thing, he was much younger, and far better looking, with fair hair and smiling blue eyes.

He had arrived at Monk’s Dower without giving her any preliminary notice, and the first inkling she had had that the main part of the house was occupied was the gleaming monster of a car parked in the courtyard. She had gone across immediately, her heart sinking. This was her first test as a housekeeper and she’d failed it pretty comprehensively, she thought savagely as she let herself in. His bed wasn’t made up, for one thing, and there was no bread or milk in his part of the house, although they had plenty and could share with him.

She was quaking when she arrived in the kitchen and found him on his knees, trying, with a lot of muffled cursing, to get the range going. Ginny had taken over from him, stammering her apologies, but he’d waved them laughingly aside.

‘I didn’t know I was coming down myself until a few hours ago, I’m a creature of impulse, I’m afraid, Miss—–?’

‘Clayton,’ she supplied. ‘Ginny Clayton.’

‘Toby Hendrick.’ He shook hands solemnly with her. ‘As we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, shall we cut the formality? I’d much rather call you Ginny.’

She said, ‘That’s fine with me,’ letting a curtain of hair fall forward across her face to mask her embarrassment.

No, Toby had certainly not been what she expected. Kathy’s descriptive phrase ‘all man’ had prepared her for someone rather different, although she was at a loss to know what. She was glad that the shadowy and rather formidable figure she had built up in her mind was only a figment of her imagination. He certainly wouldn’t have been as easy to work for as Toby, she thought, smiling to herself.

And Kathy had been wrong about Vivien Lanyon’s interest in him too. She had rung up a couple of times while Ginny was working in the house to make sure that everything was all right, but the exchanges between Toby and herself had been brief and formal in the extreme. Nor had she been over to Monk’s Dower, and Ginny told herself that if Mrs Lanyon had been really interested in Toby, she would never have been away from the door. Perhaps she had decided it was rather degrading to chase a young man who was patently her junior, Ginny thought.

After his first visit, which had lasted only two days, Toby had vanished for three weeks. Then one evening he had telephoned to warn that he would be coming for the weekend, and this time Ginny was fully prepared.

His room was ready, with fresh towels laid out in the adjoining bathroom, and a bowl of early daffodils set on the dressing table. The drawing room fire was lit, and the kitchen range was glowing, while the appetising aroma from a beef stew cooking in its oven crept through the house.

Cooking for Toby did not come within Ginny’s official list of duties, but she told herself rather defensively that as she was preparing the stew anyway, it took little effort to put some of the ingredients into a separate casserole. Aunt Mary had raised a caustic eyebrow as she had haltingly tried to explain this, but made no comment.

And Toby’s subsequent appreciative remarks had made the extra effort more than worthwhile, she decided smugly before she fell asleep that night. And perhaps it wasn’t altogether imagination that the warm gleam in his eyes when he looked at her hadn’t simply been prompted by gratitude for the food, delectable though it had been.

Since then he had been down to Monk’s Dower every weekend, and Ginny found she was looking forward to each visit with a strange intensity. She knew what was happening to her, of course. She had been vaguely attracted to men before, but it had never meant anything and such relationships as she had enjoyed had been casual in the extreme. But the feeling growing inside her was new to her, and she didn’t want to fight it, although common sense told her that she should. After all, she had not the slightest reason to think that Toby felt the same. He looked at her as if the sight of her pleased him, but reason told her that he might well look at any passably attractive girl that way. And he was practically a stranger to her. He worked in London, that much she knew, but she had no idea what he did for a living. She assumed his frequent absences were caused by his trips abroad, but he never mentioned them or any aspect of his life away from Monk’s Dower at all.

She sometimes wondered if he had a girl-friend. It was hardly possible that anyone as attractive and charming could still be unattached. She visualised the bleak prospect of his wanting to bring girl-friends down to Monk’s Dower with him, as he was perfectly entitled to do, she told herself. How would she feel about that?

There were all kinds of unanswered questions about Toby, she decided. One of the downstairs rooms had been fitted up as a study with a workmanlike desk and a large electric typewriter, but he made no attempt to use it, as far as she knew. Perhaps he went in there and worked during the night—but at what? she wondered.

Surely there was some easy way to find out, without sounding as if she was trying to pry, or get too close. Perhaps this very weekend—if he came down, because the expected message hadn’t arrived yet—she would get the opportunity to find out a little more about him, Ginny thought. Maybe he had telephoned while she was out shopping, and was on his way at that moment.

The weekends had begun to assume a kind of pattern. Toby would arrive some time during Friday evening and eat the food that she had left in the oven for him. Then he would come over to their part of the house and join them in their sitting room. Sometimes they would watch television, but at others they would play Scrabble, and Toby had taught Tim how to play gin rummy. He teased Aunt Mary outrageously, and scratched Muffin’s stomach with his foot, and behaved pretty much, Ginny thought, as if they were his family, and he had come home.

He was clearly a very social person, and enjoyed the company of others, and Ginny found it strange that he should choose to rent a house in a quiet remote corner like Monk’s Dower. She could only surmise that perhaps it presented the greatest possible contrast to his workday life.

On Saturdays he usually got up late and cooked himself an enormous breakfast combined with lunch. Then he went out during the afternoon. Once or twice he had taken Muffin with him for a walk. On another occasion, he had driven Tim into Market Harford and taken him to the cinema.

On the previous weekend, he had taken Ginny herself out for a drive. She’d enjoyed sitting beside him in the big, powerful car. He drove well, she thought judiciously, trying to be objective, but took too many unnecessary risks, relying on his extra speed to get him out of trouble. He hadn’t spoken much, and Ginny didn’t attempt to break the silence, quite satisfied that he had chosen her company. She hoped secretly that when the afternoon ended he would say, ‘Don’t let’s go home yet. I know a place where we can have dinner and dance afterwards.’

But he didn’t, of course. He just drove her home in the ordinary way. It was dusk as he turned the car through the gates into the courtyard, and the lights were on welcomingly in Ginny’s part of the house. She said, trying to sound casual, ‘Would you like to come in and have some supper with us?’

He turned and looked at her in the gathering darkness, and for a moment she had the oddest feeling that he hadn’t been with her at all. Then he smiled and said easily, ‘Not tonight, Ginny love. I have to get back to town. But I’ll be down again soon, so hold my invitation over, will you?’

He helped her out of the car, and she was absurdly conscious of his hand under her arm. She stood very still. Their bodies were almost touching, and if she lifted her face and he lowered his head, their mouths would touch, and she wanted it to happen more than she had ever wanted anything in the world. Something inside her was crying, ‘Toby, kiss me,’ so wildly that she was momentarily afraid she might have spoken aloud.

Then the door opened and the light streamed into the courtyard, and the magic moment had gone, and Aunt Mary was calling, ‘Ginevra, are you there, child?’

She thought she heard Toby mutter something under his breath and hoped very much that it might be a curse of frustration.

He said lightly, ‘In with you, love. I’ll see you.’

During the past week, she’d lived on that—the unspoken promise behind, ‘I’ll see you.’ And the fact that he had called her ‘love’ twice. Surely that must mean something, she thought.

All week she’d hoped that Toby might phone her—not just to say that he was coming for the weekend, and would she have the house ready—but simply to speak to her privately, even if it was just to ask how she was. But the phone had remained inimically silent.

Ginny pressed down on the accelerator, anxious to get home in case there was a message now. As she turned into the lane which led to Monk’s Dower, and then on to the Manor, she saw Vivien Lanyon coming towards her on the back of a tall mare. Ginny slowed at once, and pulled in well to her own side of the road. To her surprise, Mrs Lanyon reined in her horse and dismounted, looping the reins over her arm. Ginny felt a quick flutter of alarm. Over the past weeks she had seen very little of her employer, and she had been quite content for it to be so. She leaned over to the passenger side and wound down her window with some reluctance. Perhaps Vivien Lanyon had decided that Toby was to be her exclusive property after all, and had heard about last weekend’s outing. But her employer’s expression, though cool, was not particularly unfriendly.

She said, ‘So there you are. I’ve been trying to ring you at the house.’

‘I’ve been shopping for the weekend’s food in Market Harford,’ Ginny felt obliged to explain. ‘Tim’s at school and Aunt Mary usually has a rest in the afternoons. She doesn’t hear the phone from her room when the door’s shut.’

Vivien Lanyon’s brows rose. She said languidly, ‘Spare me the domestic details. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve heard from Mr Hendrick, and he’ll be down this weekend. Make sure everything is ready, will you.’

She gave Ginny a slight nod, then moved away from the car before re-mounting.

Ginny sat and watched her departure in the rearview mirror. She felt as if she had been abruptly showered with very cold water. So Toby was in contact with Vivien Lanyon after all. Perhaps he liked sophisticated older women. Whatever his tastes, she thought, re-starting the engine with a hand that shook slightly, country mice would come a very poor second each time.

On the other hand, she reasoned as she drove, perhaps he too had been telephoning Monk’s Dower and been unable to make Aunt Mary hear, and had phoned Mrs Lanyon as a last resort. Her spirits rose perceptibly at the thought. And all that really mattered anyway was that he was coming down for the weekend and perhaps this time they would really be alone and no one would interrupt or switch on a light or call out, and he would really kiss her.

Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright as she hurriedly unloaded her groceries. The kitchen was full of a savoury smell. Aunt Mary had been busy making one of her special chicken casseroles. Ginny decided that she would wait until Toby arrived and take his helping across to him in a covered dish. Then the choice was his. He could either dine in solitary splendour, or come across to their side of the house and join them for the meal.

She would be very lighthearted and casual about it, she told herself. She would say laughingly, ‘I’ve brought your supper, but that invitation still stands,’ and see how he reacted.

There was a mirror beside the kitchen dresser and she caught a sudden glimpse of herself, and paused, dissatisfied. Why did she have to look so—so damned ordinary? she asked herself despairingly.

Basically, she could change very little in the time available, but she could at least have a bath and wash her hair. She had some special cologne she had been saving. She would use that too.

‘He won’t know what’s hit him,’ she told the mirrored reflection defiantly.

Her plans were delayed by the discovery that Muffin had been sick in the sitting room. She had just finished with the cloth and disinfectant when Tim arrived in from school, complaining of imminent starvation, and she sat him down at the kitchen table with a thick crust cut from the end of a new loaf indecently loaded with butter, and a glass of milk.

Then Aunt Mary appeared, complaining that she had lost her reading glasses, and insisting that everyone stop what they were doing immediately and help her search. The glasses, safe in their case, eventually came to light down the side of Aunt Mary’s favourite chair in the sitting room, where she swore she had looked already, and Ginny gave an unobtrusive look at her watch and smothered a faint groan. Toby could be arriving at any moment. Her bath would have to be the quickest dip on record if she was to complete her chores before his arrival.

Not that it really mattered, she reassured herself as she ran the water into the bath and tossed in a handful of the bath salts Tim had given her for Christmas. He would be sharing their supper, so it wouldn’t matter if the range wasn’t lit. And she would have plenty of time to make up his bed while he was playing cards with Tim.

She towelled her hair briskly, then stroked it dry, using a brush and a hand-dryer. It was still slightly damp as she stood looking through her meagre wardrobe for something to wear. Not a dress, she decided with regret. That would be too obvious altogether, but her best jeans and the white ribbed sweater which made the most of her slender curves. She shook her head and watched her hair swing silkily around her face and was satisfied.

All the time she had been listening for the sound of the engine of his car, but not closely enough, it seemed, for when she went downstairs into the kitchen she saw the car drawn up outside the main door.

She bit her lip vexedly, snatching a handful of cutlery from the drawer and strewing table mats on to the kitchen table at random. She fetched a dish and spooned a helping of the chicken, vegetables and gravy into it, adding potatoes from the pan on top of the stove. It smelled wonderful.

‘Almost as good as I do,’ Ginny said half-aloud, and laughed. She took a last look at herself in the mirror—eyes wide and bright with expectancy, the lines of her mouth softened and vulnerable. She looked more like the child she had been than the woman she wanted to become, but there was nothing she could do about that, and she let herself out of the kitchen door and walked across the courtyard carrying her casserole dish.

It was a cool evening for spring, and the breeze made her shiver a little—or was that only excitement?

She didn’t call out as she usually did when she entered the hall at Monk’s Dower, but stood listening for a moment. From the kitchen she could hear an exasperated rattling sound, and guessed he was trying to light the range. It was quite simple really—a question of knack, but Toby hadn’t mastered it. And he’d be wondering why there was no supper either.

She walked quickly and quietly to the kitchen door, and flung it open, She said gaily, ‘Surprise—did you …’ and stopped, her jaw dropping with shock and fright.

Because the man kneeling in front of the range—the man rising to face her—wasn’t Toby at all. He was taller and very dark—dark as a gipsy with a thin arrogant face. He needed a shave and a haircut, and he was wearing faded denims and a dark roll-collared sweater which had seen better days, and she registered all these things as if she was seeing them in slow motion, and it was vital that she master every detail.

Ginny was shaking suddenly. The car was here. Toby should be here. Then who was this disreputable-looking stranger?

She said on a high breathless note, ‘Who are you? And what have you done with Toby?’

She saw him react to that, dark brows drawing together above the thin high-bridged nose, then he moved towards her—one step, that was all—and she was terrified, seeing Toby lying somewhere covered in blood while this man robbed the house.

She heard herself scream something, then she threw the casserole dish straight at his head across the kitchen.