Proud Harvest

It was a marvellous relief to sink down into the heated suds, and allow the softened water to probe every pore of her tense body. She needed to relax, to think coherently. She needed to restore every shred of composure before encountering her husband again.

It didn’t help to realise that seeing him again had upset her more than she had expected. In the early days after their break-up she had seen him on several occasions, but always in the company of her mother and Jeremy, and in the aftermath of that final devastating row which had ended with her bundling Jeremy into her car and leaving, a defensive numbness had coated the more vulnerable areas of her emotions.

Maybe if she had had warning of the meeting, if she had had time to gather herself, so to speak, so that when she faced him she had behaved with coolness and sophistication, and not given in to those entirely schoolgirlish taunts and provocations. Maybe then she would not be feeling so raw now, so exposed to all the pain and misery that had both preceded and followed her separation from Carne.

She lay in the bath too long and had to hurry with her dressing. Somehow she had accepted that she had to have dinner with him, if only to prevent her mother any more distress. That she had brought the distress on herself meant less than Lesley’s guilty neglect of her mother’s health, and after satisfying herself that she looked neither too young nor too sophisticated, she went into Mrs Matthews’ bedroom.

Her mother was lying on the bed reading a magazine, and judging from her appearance, she seemed to have recovered from her earlier upset. Lesley hesitated in the doorway, not quite knowing what to say, and then she casually flicked the skirt of her flared jersey dress.

‘Does this look all right?’

Mrs Matthews regarded her critically for a moment, over the top of the magazine. ‘Shouldn’t you wear a long gown?’ she enquired, and Lesley expelled her breath on a long sigh.

‘I don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘After all, I don’t know where we’re going, do I?’

‘I thought most young people wore long clothes these days,’ averred her mother rather peevishly, and Lesley wondered if she was being deliberately obstructive.

‘How are you feeling now?’ she asked, changing the subject, but Mrs Matthews was still looking at her dress.

‘I suppose it is pretty material,’ she decided grudgingly. ‘You always did suit blue and gold. But don’t you think those sandals are too high? You may have to walk. Carne will probably leave his car at the hotel.’

Lesley examined the slender heels of the leather strapped sandals on her narrow feet. ‘I thought they looked rather nice,’ she murmured doubtfully, then, as the doorbell rang: ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘Don’t start worrying about me now, Lesley,’ her mother retorted shortly. ‘You never have cared about anyone but yourself.’

The accusation was so hurtful that for a moment Lesley could only stare at her. Then the doorbell rang again, more peremptorily this time, and with a helpless shake of her head, she went to answer it.

But at least her mother’s barb had one effect. It stiffened Lesley’s failing resolve and the feeling of injustice that filled her gave her confidence to face whatever was to come.

Carne was leaning against the wall beside the door when she opened it, but he straightened at her appearance and she thought with a pang how like old times this was. Their attraction had been immediate and mutual, and every spare moment he had had, or could make, Carne had driven the two hundred or so miles to see her.

But that was all in the past. The Carne Radley who accepted her stiff invitation to step into the flat this evening was older and infinitely more mature, his dark brown mohair lounge suit as immaculate as his jeans had been casual earlier. A special occasion, then, she thought, with bitter humour. Carne didn’t put on his best clothes for everybody. His detached gaze barely registered her appearance and she wondered if she’d not bothered to change whether he would have noticed.

Mrs Matthews appeared as Lesley went to collect a lacy scarf to put about her shoulders. She greeted Carne warmly, and Lesley wondered if she had any real feelings for Jeremy at all. Didn’t her mother realise that by forcing her hand, she might create a situation none of them could control? Jeremy had a mind of his own, but he was too young to be forced to choose. Carne had bowed out of his obligations. Why wouldn’t her mother accept that?

When she came back, Carne was handing her mother a glass of the sherry she kept for special visitors, but Lesley noticed he wasn’t drinking himself. Mrs Matthews sipped the glowing brown liquid delicately and asked whether all the rain they had been having had caused any problems. Carne explained that the ground had been very dry from the previous year and the absence of snow through the winter that followed, but he agreed he had got tired of wading through acres of mud.

Listening to them, Lesley felt a pang. When she first went to Raventhorpe paddling about in Wellingtons had been all part of the marvellous sense of freedom she had experienced. After years of academic slog, it had been fun to help bring in the cows or feed a motherless lamb with a baby’s feeding bottle. She had tramped the fields with Carne, and gone with him to market. She had drunk halves of bitter in the Red Lion, and listened to the talk about crops and feed stuffs and if she had had to share Carne’s attention with the other men, she had cherished the thought that when their bedroom door closed that night, she would have him all to herself for hours and hours and hours …

Those were the days before she had Jeremy to care for, when she hadn’t had the time to listen to Mrs Radley’s continual barbs or care if she ridiculed her naïve attempts to accomplish some task Carne’s mother tackled without effort. She had been free to come and go as she pleased, and only as her pregnancy began to weigh her down was she forced to spend more and more time in the house. She had a hard time having Jeremy, and although Carne had insisted she have the child in the maternity hospital in Thirsk, it was weeks before she felt physically strong again. Another black mark against her, she thought now, remembering how Mrs Radley had jeered because she had not been able to feed the baby, and maintained that she had had her four children without complications and been out in the fields again with them sucking at her breast. Lesley hadn’t disbelieved her. Carne’s mother seemed capable of anything. Except liking her … Maybe if he had married the daughter of one of the local farmers, she would have felt differently. Marion Harvey had obviously expected to occupy Lesley’s position, and even though Carne was married had lost no opportunity to spend time with him. They had had a different set of values from her, Lesley decided coldly. No doubt Marion was still around. The wonder was that Carne hadn’t asked for a divorce before this and married her. Unless she had married someone else, of course. That was always possible. And it didn’t necessarily mean there would be any drastic change in their association. Marion had lived on a farm all her life. She knew all there was to know about the relationship between the male and the female of the species. No doubt she’d learned it first hand from an early age, thought Lesley spitefully, remembering how Marion and Mrs Radley had laughed when she had asked why the bull spent its days tethered while the cows ran freely in the pasture. No, she had been all wrong with Carne. She was city born and city bred and, in Mrs Radley’s opinion, too soft to cope with life in the Yorkshire dales.

She dragged her thoughts back to the present as Carne’s cool eyes turned in her direction. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked quietly, and she inclined her head. She doubted she would ever be, but she looked at her mother and murmured: ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘Don’t hurry back on my account,’ Mrs Matthews averred, apparently determined to be awkward, and Lesley’s twitching lips scarcely formed a smile as she walked towards the door.

She walked quickly along the corridor to the lift, and to her relief it was already occupied when it stopped at their floor. She and Carne squeezed inside, and the door closed behind them creating an absurd intimacy that would have been suffocating without the presence of other people.

It was an escape to cross the entrance hall and emerge into the cool evening air. It was pleasantly warm now, not so humid as it had been earlier in the day, and Lesley allowed the scarf to fall loosely about her waist and over her forearms.

Realising she could not continue leading the way as she had been doing, she looked up at Carne as they reached the bottom of the apartment building steps, eyebrows raised in polite question. There was no sign of the station wagon she saw apprehensively, and she was very much afraid her mother was going to be right about him leaving it at his hotel.

‘I’ve booked a table at a small Italian restaurant in Greek Street,’ he informed her. ‘Do you feel up to the walk, or shall I hail a taxi?’

There was a challenge in his eyes, and before she could help herself Lesley exclaimed: ‘I can walk!’ although her feet quailed at the anticipation of nearly a mile in the sandals she was wearing. She should have accepted her mother’s advice for the good sense it was instead of assuming she was just being obstructive, but she determined that Carne should not suspect she had doubts.

By the time they were passing the railed environs of the British Museum, she was almost ready to concede defeat. Carne had kept up a blistering pace, striding along beside her with a complete disregard for the length of her legs when compared to his. She was not a small girl, but she was not an Amazon either, and she was not accustomed to walking much anywhere, although she would never admit it to him. She should have dressed in a sweat shirt and cords and Wellingtons, she thought resentfully. Obviously he imagined he was out on the Fells, and that his dinner would get cold if he didn’t get back in time to eat it!

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to keep pace with him, but she was never so relieved than when St Giles Circus hove into view. The towering mass of Centre Point was ringed by traffic lights, and they crossed with a crowd of other people to go down Charing Cross Road.

Antonionis was not a new restaurant, but Lesley had not been there before. She couldn’t help wondering how Carne had known about it, but she had no intention of asking. It was no business of hers how often he chose to come to London, but she did wonder if he came alone.

The lighting in the restaurant was low and discreet, the tables set between trellises twined with climbing shrubs and vines. There was music provided by two men who played an assortment of instruments between them, but mostly arranged for piano and guitar.

Seated on the low banquette that made a horseshoe round the table, Lesley surreptitiously slipped off her sandals and pressed her burning soles against the coolly tiled floor. She closed her eyes for a moment, the relief was so great, but opened them again hurriedly when Carne asked: ‘Are you feeling ill?’

‘What?’ Lesley’s response was guilty. ‘Oh, no. No.’ She swallowed. ‘I—er—I’ve never been here before.’

Carne studied her slightly embarrassed features for a few moments longer, and then transferred his attention to the white-coated waiter hovering at his side.

‘We’ll have the wine list,’ he said, speaking with the cool assurance Lesley had always admired. ‘And bring us two Campari and sodas to be going on with.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The waiter withdrew and Carne’s attention turned back to Lesley. But she had had a few seconds to compose herself, and to shuffle along the velvet seat so that now they were seated at right angles to one another. It was easier than facing him, although she was conscious that if she moved her feet too recklessly they would touch his ankle.

‘So,’ he said, toying with his dessert fork. ‘Isn’t this civilised?’

Lesley decided there was nothing to be gained by antagonising him again, and forced a faint smile. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘And how is he?’

‘How is who?’

For a moment her mind had gone blank, but Carne patently didn’t believe her. ‘Well. I don’t mean Lance Petrie,’ he retorted coldly. ‘Or your latest boy-friend.’

‘I don’t have a boy-friend!’ exclaimed Lesley indignantly, and then cursing herself for allowing him to get under her skin, went on more evenly: ‘I’m sorry, I was miles away. You mean Jeremy, of course.’ She paused, striving for control. ‘Well—he’s fine. So far as I know.’

‘What do you mean? So far as you know?’

Lesley sighed. ‘I mean I get a weekly letter from him. All the boys are expected to write home at least once a week. It’s not much of a letter usually,’ she reminisced, forgetting for a moment to whom she was speaking, and then recovering again, added: ‘He was all right when he wrote a week ago.’

Carne’s eyes glittered in the muted lights. ‘It never occurred to you to suggest that he might write to his grandmother and me, did it?’ he demanded, and she flushed.

‘You showed no interest in him,’ she exclaimed defensively, and ignoring his angry oath, finished: ‘Besides, it’s possible the boys at school imagine his parents live together. Jeremy might not have confided in them. And writing two letters would create—difficulties.’

The waiter reappeared with their Camparis, and accepting the wine list Carne said they would order their meal in a few minutes. The waiter smiled, and after bestowing a warm glance on Lesley, departed once more.

Carne cradled his glass in his hands, warming its frosted surface with his fingers. ‘What have you told him about me?’ he asked at last, and Lesley chose her words carefully.

‘He—he doesn’t remember you at all …’

‘You haven’t told him I’m dead, have you?’ Carne demanded savagely, and she hastened to reassure him.

‘No. But—well, since he’s been old enough to understand, you’ve not been around, and—I don’t suppose he’s had time to formulate any ideas.’

‘Did you tell him you walked out on me?’

Lesley concentrated her attention on the ice in her glass. ‘I—I told him we weren’t—happy together. Until recently, he was just a baby, remember?’

‘So as soon as he was old enough to start asking questions, you packed him off to boarding school.’

‘No!’ Lesley was horrified. ‘What else could I do?’ Then, realising this could lead to all kinds of alternatives, she added: ‘I went to boarding school myself.’

‘I didn’t,’ remarked Carne dryly.

‘No, well, that’s nothing to do with me.’

‘I know. But what kind of education my son gets is to do with me.’

Lesley took a gulp of her Campari and soda before asking doubtfully: ‘What—do you mean?’

Carne hesitated a moment, and then shook his head. ‘Later. Right now, let’s get back to why we’re here, shall we?’

‘Mother’s—illness?’

‘Among other things.’ Carne frowned into his glass. ‘Look, Lesley, I think I ought to come straight to the point.’

‘To the point?’ she echoed faintly.

‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘I want you to agree to letting Jeremy come and spend his summer holidays at Raventhor—–’

‘No!’ She interrupted him before he could finish. ‘No, I won’t agree to that, and you have no right to ask me.’

‘No right?’ He made a sound of annoyance. ‘My God, you’re a great one to talk about rights! Well, okay, maybe I have let you have your own way for so long that you’ve come to the entirely inaccurate conclusion that I intend to let you go on that way. But deep down, you must have known that sooner or later I’d want my turn!’

‘Your turn!’ She forced herself to return his cold gaze. ‘Jeremy’s not a toy you can pick up or put down at your leisure.’

‘I know that.’ Carne glanced round as if afraid their raised voices were being overheard. ‘But I was fool enough to believe that given time you’d come to your senses.’

‘To my senses?’

‘Stop repeating everything I say, for heaven’s sake!’ He took a deep breath. ‘Lesley, you might as well know, I’ve been corresponding with your mother ever since you left Ravensdale.’

Lesley gulped. ‘Corresponding with—oh!’ She broke off abruptly as she realised she was repeating him yet again. ‘Checking up on me?’

‘In a manner of speaking. I wanted to be sure you were all right. You and Jeremy both.’

Lesley stared at him contemptuously. ‘You can’t seriously expect me to believe that.’

‘Whether you do or whether you don’t is immaterial,’ he retorted. ‘But like I keep telling you, Jeremy is my son. I haven’t forgotten that, even if you have.’

‘Oh, I haven’t forgotten,’ she exclaimed bitterly. ‘What part has my mother been playing? Watchdog? A spy to let you know if I went out with another man so that you could gather a case to take Jeremy away from me? Your mother would like that, wouldn’t she? She was always jealous that there was one person who preferred me to her!’

‘Stop it!’ His jaw had hardened angrily. ‘I expected you’d have grown out of such childish ideas by now. Why bring my mother into it? This is between you and me.’

‘Oh, no.’ She shook her head. ‘It was never just between you and me. She was always there to take your side, to assure you that you could do no wrong.’

‘Oh, God!’ He raked back his hair with long impatient fingers. She noticed it was longer than he used to wear it, brushing his collar at the back, but still as thick and straight as ever. He had never worn a hair dressing, and she had loved to slide her fingers through it …

Now, he controlled his features, and said: ‘The fact remains that I stayed out of Jeremy’s life when it seemed that you could do most for him. Coming down to London to see him wasn’t a satisfactory arrangement, and you know it. So I decided to wait—–’

‘Like a vulture!’ she muttered, but he ignored her.

‘—until he was older and could be told the truth.’

‘And you think that time has come?’

‘I don’t know. All I know is, your mother wants out of the present arrangement. So far as I’m concerned, the boy can come for a holiday and nothing need be said. It’s up to you.’

Lesley’s mouth felt dry in spite of her steady sipping of the Campari and soda. ‘Let—let me get this straight,’ she got out unsteadily, ‘you’re saying that if I let Jeremy come to you for the holidays, you’re prepared to take it no further?’ She put a confused hand to her head. ‘What do you intend to tell him?’

‘I’ve told you, that’s up to you.’

‘Oh, no.’ Lesley moved her head slowly from side to side. Raventhorpe meant Mrs Radley, and Mrs Radley would not be prepared to say nothing. ‘Your mother would see that Jeremy was told exactly what a poor substitute for a wife I had been. Somehow she’d make him believe that I was the guilty party.’

‘And weren’t you?’ demanded Carne violently. ‘I didn’t walk out on you—take your son away from you!’

Lesley shifted uneasily on the banquette. ‘You know, this is getting us nowhere …’

‘I agree.’ He finished the liquid in his glass, and summoned the waiter. ‘I suggest you consider the alternatives. Either you give me the temporary custody of my son willingly, or I’ll take you to court and prove that I can give him a better home life than you ever could!’

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