A Winter's Child (80 page)

Compared to all that it would be a pleasure to see
her
daughter married to a butler, particularly now that he was an hotelier in his own right, and had treated her like a duchess no less when she had gone up to Wansfell Water with Claire for his gala opening. She liked Kit. Not that she hadn't been anxious, in fact downright alarmed, when she'd found out that Claire had put money into Wansfell Howe. Not all she had, by any means, but quite enough to ensure a proposal of marriage. Particularly when one remembered how she had been running her blood to water for him ever since he'd taken on that old ruin and converted it – very nearly with his own hands and Claire's – into what looked and felt bike a comfortable family home. Full every weekend, even at this dismal after-Christmas season, and doing very nicely Monday to Friday too.

Claire would do very well with him. And for that reason she'd chosen to ignore not only that he and Claire had certainly shared a bed on his opening night – she'd easily worked it out by simple arithmetic – but a remark she'd overheard her daughter make the next day. ‘You may not be husband material, Kit, but you're a good friend – and a wonderful lover.' And giving Claire what Dorothy had thought a most affectionate little kiss on the tip of her nose and ruffling her hair, very playful and self-possessed, very much a man who had everything he wanted, he'd said ‘You always know where to find me.'

Dorothy had not really understood that. Not at all, as a matter of fact. But then, this younger generation often puzzled her. And one ought not to forget that they had gone through the war, facing issues of life and death at an age when she had not been thought capable of choosing a new hat. Sometimes she envied them their independence. Sometimes she pitied them for the burden of choice it gave them. She had been told, in infancy once and for all, what was right and what was wrong. They had to see it for themselves, and decide.

And Claire had been steadier lately, much more purposeful, since Edward had died and she had made such short work of Richmal Lyall. Busy too, with Wansfell Howe to get ready and Arnold Crozier constantly dashing over from Bradford to make her tell him how things were going on at the Crown.

Steady and busy and clever. And most attractive, particularly in her long net dress covered with those shiny jet beads. Yes, Dorothy Lyall rather liked her daughter.

The Crown was busier than anyone had expected that night, gratifyingly so, thought Claire, particularly when it had already been reported to her twice that
Chez Aristide
was not more than half-f, Aristide himself in one of the smouldering tempers that usually meant they would be having Amandine back again for a week or two. Happily John David's successor, an almost equally neurasthenic Welshman, found and presented to her by Kit, had proved popular with civic appetites, his style of cooking rather more in keeping perhaps with the ‘plain fillet steak and dover sole' atmosphere Kit had seen coming. Although one had only to step into the cocktail bar to see that money, as yet, was by no means in short supply. Glancing through the door she nodded to MacAllister, checking that the jazz and the gin were still flowing, girls with long legs and cropped curls like Polly still dancing, flirting, hoping; neither Toby nor Arnold Crozier nor Roger Timms to be seen any more, nor Roy Kington, a major now in the Black and Tans, she'd heard; nor Kit. And then she walked at leisure through the restaurant as she did every evening, pausing and giving each table her full attention, all the time in the world for each and every honoured guest as Kit had taught her. ‘Is everything all right for you, sir? Lovely to see you, Mrs Redfearn. What a stunning dress, Mrs Timms. Did you enjoy the trifle, Mr Greenwood – and can I tempt you to a little chocolate
mousse.'

The war was over. It had taken her a long time to realize it, to understand that what she did today could have a bearing on tomorrow, because for so long ‘tomorrow' had been a luxury, a prize one ought not to think too much about in case one did not win it. Now she had finally succeeded in believing that, in most cases, there was a good chance that it would follow, fairly naturally, upon today and must, therefore, be planned for or, at the very least, taken into some kind of consideration.

But when she had written to Euan to tell him so, he had not answered.

Her investment in Wansfell Howe was safe and sound. Her investment in Kit's friendship too. They had worked out a formula which suited them and she hoped it would never be necessary to explain it to Dorothy.

She went into her office – Kit's office – and sat down at the desk, a letter from him at the top of her pile, bills and account books beneath it and a long envelope full of Arnold Crozier's crabbed, illegible instructions.

Mr Clarence came in and very pleasantly, knowing his feelings to be tender, she cleared up with him certain flaws in his arrangements for accepting advance bookings.

Mrs Tarrant came in for authorization to replace certain items of damaged linen which Claire granted, thanking her at the same time for her kindness in keeping Dorothy company over all those plates of scones and pots of tea.

The new chef, John Michael, put his head around the door to say goodnight, hoping for applause which she gave in full measure.

She read her letters, replied at once to Arnold Crozier, adding an appropriate message for Polly, and then, lifting the telephone, catching the gleam of her lily bowl sitting under the lamplight as she did so, she asked the far-from-enthusiastic voice of the operator for the number of an atrocious modern matchbox on Lawnswood Hill.

This, too, was something Dorothy would find hard to understand.

‘Swanfield here,' he said.

‘And here,' she replied, hearing his low chuckle over the wire.

‘Of course. Who else would ring at this advanced hour of the night.'

‘Am I disturbing you?'

‘You always have.'

‘What are you doing, Benedict?' Almost – and then very clearly – she could see him.

‘I'm being alone. And finding it rather pleasant. Would you care to come and be alone with me – when shall we say?'

‘Tomorrow? Eight o'clock?'

‘Fine.'

‘Are you all right?'

‘Yes. Are you?'

She knew that he was busy and steady – happier.

‘Tomorrow then. Goodnight.'

MacAllister came in, furious and none too sober, complaining about the new pianist, Miss Sidonie, who gave herself more airs than Mrs Roger Timms. She calmed him down, laughed at him until he was laughing at himself, sent him away feeling ‘understood'.

She was busy and steady. She was recovering, learning how to grow. She was waiting, not
for
Benedict but
with
him. Waiting, quite patiently, as sure of herself as-she had ever been and getting surer. Trusting him. Her lover who was her friend. With time, she rather thought, on their side, not Miriam's. Time, which would ripen his children to independence, hopefully to understanding. Time for Nola's feet, which were almost there, to reach the ground. Time, in itself neither an enemy nor a healer but which, quite simply, would pass. And in the meanwhile she was the Manageress of the Crown Hotel.

`

First published in 1984 by Collins

This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

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ISBN 978-1-4472-2700-7 EPUB
ISBN 978-1-4472-2699-4 POD

Copyright © Brenda Jagger, 1984

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