Having expected to arrive at an ordinary small country house, Christie was taken aback when next day, about an hour's drive from London, the hired car turned in at a very large, impressive gateway with lichened stone peacocks on top of the tall brick gateposts, and the crest from a coat of arms incorporated into the design of the wrought iron gates which were standing open to admit them.
The long, well-kept drive was fenced off from the surrounding parkland, sheep grazing on one side of the drive, cattle on the other.
'This used to be a fine avenue of elms, but they all fell victim to Dutch elm disease, and Hugo has had to replant with these limes,' said Ash, indicating the new trees. 'In the spring these wide grass verges are thick with daffodils.'
'You didn't warn me your friends lived in a stately home,' Christie said, a little apprehensively.
'Does it make any difference?' he said. Then, before she could reply,
'It's not the most salient fact about them.
That
is that they have achieved what I hope you and I will, some day.'
'What do you mean?'
He gave her an enigmatic glance. 'You'll see for yourself very shortly.'
The house which now came into view was a battlemented Elizabethan manor, built in the 1560s of Kentish ragstone, although Christie did not learn these details about it till later.
Her first impression was of a very large yet somehow cosy-looking house, mellowed by more than four centuries of English summers and winters until it looked as natural to the landscape as the several splendid cedars of Lebanon growing on the lawns in front of the principal entrance.
When the car drew up Ash sprang out, and turned to help Christie step on to the gravel. Their arrival had been seen. An elderly man in black trousers and a grey alpaca coat had come out to greet them.
Ash grinned at him. 'Hello, Johnson. How are you?'
'Very well, thank you, Mr Lambard. You're in your usual good health, I hope?'
'Yes, thanks.' Ash turned to Christie. 'Darling,'— unaware of the pang the endearment caused her, he put an arm round her shoulders and drew her nearer to him—'this is Johnson who's been in charge of the household since Hugo and I were at prep school, and long before that, as a matter of fact. Forty years, isn't it, Johnson?'
'Forty-two years, to be precise, sir. Good morning, madam.' The butler inclined his head to her. 'Sir Hugo and Lady Emily asked me to express their apologies to you and Mrs Lambard, sir. They both had to go out this morning, but should be back very shortly. Lady Ffarington is in the family room and looking forward to your arrival.'
'Then we'll go up to her immediately.'
Taking Christie by the hand, Ash led her into the house and across the large hall where dark rose red walls gave a warm and welcoming atmosphere, and were a good background for the many gilt-framed family portraits slanting up the wall behind the wide stone staircase.
At the top of the stairs he led her along a corridor to a doorway where he paused to knock. Then, opening one of the tall double doors, he gave Christie an encouraging push into the room within.
The interior was not what she was expecting. In size and proportion it was a room of immense grandeur, with columns of marmalade-coloured marble dividing it into three sections, and some very elaborate classical plasterwork ornamenting the ceiling.
But the floor was covered with wall-to-wall natural jute matting, and the chairs and sofas—some modem, some eighteenth-century—were upholstered and cushioned in every shade of yellow from honey to banana, with one or two light blue accents.
A television set, a child's first tricycle, an easel with a half-finished painting, the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle all spread face up on a table—these were some of the things Christie noticed in her first glance around her.
Then, although it seemed no one was there, a woman's clear voice—a voice with a smile in it— said, 'My dear Ash, how lovely to see you!
Always so beautifully brown and now, at long last, with your bride.
Come and give me a hug, dearest boy.'
Then Christie saw, rolling towards them, a light metal invalid chair, its occupant a woman with curly white hair and a mesh of crow's-feet no doubt caused by and now accentuating the charm of their owner's smile.
'Aunt Diana—how are you?' He bent to kiss her on both cheeks.
'I'm well. We all are. And this is your lovely Christiana. Welcome to Peacocks, my dear. I've hoped for a long time that Ash would eventually find someone to make him as happy as my sweet daughter-in-law has made my son. You'll meet them both very soon.'
She extended a thin, mottled hand, but in spite of its fragile appearance her handshake was a firm one.
'How do you do, Lady Ffarington.'
Christie, not usually shy with strangers, knew that her response sounded stiff. It was caused by renewed embarrassment at being taken for a radiantly happy bride. She thought the adjective Lady Ffarington had applied to her must have been a compliment on her part, rather than a reference to anything Ash had said in his telephone talk with her son.
It was true that, when making love, he would tell her how beautiful she was, but she thought this was part of his technique, something he said to all the women he bedded.
'I think you should call me Aunt Diana as Ash does,' said Lady Ffarington.
As she spoke, a black pug trotted towards them, followed by a tall man and woman, both wearing navy blue fishermen's slops over sweaters and corduroy trousers. The man was fair, the woman red-haired. They were followed at a leisurely plod by an elderly golden retriever.
'So sorry we weren't here when you arrived, Ash.' The woman was the first to greet him, offering her cheek for a kiss.
Then the two men exchange hearty handshakes, and Sir Hugo clapped Ash on the shoulder. 'You look disgustingly fit as usual.'
His own face was far from pale, having the ruddy colour of someone outdoors in all weathers.
Christie stood by, waiting her turn, liking the look of these people, wanting them to like her.
Emily Ffarington didn't wait for Ash to present his bride to her. She said, 'Christiana—hello. As you realise, I'm Emily. We've been so looking forward to meeting you. We could hardly believe our ears when Ash rang up to ask if he could pitch up for the weekend, bringing a brand new wife.'
'As I should have been your best man, Ash, if you hadn't already done the deed, I'm going to insist on the right to give the bride a kiss,' said her husband. Having done so, he bent a very kind smile on Christie, saying, 'Ash didn't exaggerate when he told us to expect a stunner. As he's long past the age of being dazzled by a lovely face, I'm sure you're as nice to know as you are to look at, Christiana.'
'Thank you.' She returned his smile.
She noticed he had hazel eyes with green flecks while Emily's eyes were amber with golden flecks in them.
'Ah, Johnson, well done,' was his next remark, as his butler came in with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket.
It was not long before they all had a glass in their hand, and their host was completing his welcome with a toast to the hope that Christie and Ash might find marriage as agreeable an institution as he and Emily had done in their eight years' experience of it.
Presently, Emily said, 'I expect Christiana would like to wash before lunch. I've put you in the room at the end of the east corridor, Ash.
Will you show her where it is, or shall I?'
'I'll take her. I need a wash too.'
'We'll still be in here when you're ready. With a party tonight, we thought a light lunch would be enough.'
As he took her to the room prepared for them, Christie asked,
'Did
you tell Hugo I was a stunner, or was he merely being flattering?'
'I think knock-out was the word I used—as indeed you are. The first time I met you I saw your potential. By the time you'd been in Antigua a week you were starting to look a different person. Now the transformation is complete. There are not many flowers out in England, but it's certainly your blossom time. There's nothing like sexual fulfilment for putting a bloom on a woman.'
'Oh, hush . . . someone might overhear!' She looked nervously over her shoulder.
'There's no one to hear, or to see.'
Ash stopped, caught her to him, and kissed her. It began playfully, but before long she knew that he wanted to do more than kiss her.
She wrenched her mouth free. 'Please, Ash. . . not now . . . please!'
'No, there isn't time,' he agreed reluctantly. 'And after lunch they'll suggest a tramp in the woods. We shall have to wait until we come up to change for dinner.'
His embrace had slackened, and she was able to free herself.
She was provoked into saying, 'You may be impatient—I'm not.'
The moment the words were out, she wished she hadn't said them.
Ash recaptured her, pressing her close, making her feel the impatient surge of his desire for her.
'I could make you retract that jibe,' he said, with a punitive gleam.
'And you know it, don't you, little spitfire?' His lips to her ear, he added in a husky tone, 'I could bring you to the very brink, and leave you there—all afternoon. Don't try me too far, Christiana.
She knew it was no idle threat. In some moods, he was capable of anything. To make them both late for lunch because he had taken the time to force her beyond the point when she could resist him, to reduce her to the helpless victim of his infinite skill and her own unsuspected wantonness, would not cause him any discomfiture.
It would be she, and only she, who would sit through the meal hardly able to swallow for embarrassment; afraid that one of the others would sense the pitch of voluptuous excitement to which he had driven her.
'I didn't mean it,' she said hurriedly.
Ash gave a short, humourless laugh. 'You meant it—but it wasn't true.'
He let her go and walked on.
Their bedroom was decorated in shades of terracotta, and dominated by a tester bed with curtains of printed cotton at its four corners, and the same cotton, quilted, as a cover.
The air was deliciously scented by a fragrance emanating from the small golden flowers on the otherwise naked branches in a vase on one of the windowsills. Later Emily told her this was witch hazel, although she, being a gardener, used its botanical name,
Hamamelis
mollis,
and the popular one for Christie's benefit.
Their cases had been unpacked for them, and her hairbrush and some of her make-up arranged on the dressing-table which stood in the angle of the two window walls. The bedroom, being on a corner, overlooked two sides of the house, one pair of windows looking out on a large lake amid parkland, and the other pair giving a view of the gardens.
'I learned to sail on that lake,' said Ash, in his normal voice, not the impassioned tone he had used to her in the corridor.
Relieved that his ardour had subsided, she said, 'Do I take it Hugo is a baronet?'
'Yes, it's a hereditary title. Emily's father is a duke, so she's always been Lady Emily, which saves the confusion of there being two Lady Ffaringtons. She was twenty when Hugo married her, so she's four years older than you are.'
'Have they children?'
'Three—twin sons of seven, and a younger boy of just three whose trike you may have noticed in the family room. They'll have been out of doors all morning, as the weather's good. We'll meet them at lunch.'
Christie used the bathroom first and when she came out, replacing her rings on her left hand, Ash said, 'Don't wait for me. You can find your own way back, can't you?'
'Yes. All right, I'll go on ahead.'
She was nearly back to the family room, as he had called it, when she paused to admire a fine painting of a battle scene. While she was standing there, not three yards from the door which Ash must have left partially open, she heard Lady Ffarington say, 'How very unfortunate that Celia is coming tonight. I can quite see you couldn't put her off, but it's not an ideal situation—a man's bride and an old flame at the same dinner party.'
'Particularly when the old flame is Celia, who will flirt outrageously with him just to be tiresome.' This was Emily's voice.
'She won't get any encouragement. He'll soon make it clear that that party is long since over.' Now it was Hugo speaking.
'That will only egg her on,' was Emily's answer. 'She's like Ash himself used to be. Celia adores a challenge. If a man appears to be indifferent, she can't rest till she's made a conquest. I should think that's what attracted him about Christiana. She's rather reserved, isn't she?'
'Yes, but that may pass off when she gets to know us. Do you think she'll hold him, Hugo? Do you think Ash really has changed?' The question came from his mother.
'I don't know, Mama. Perhaps. It's a side of his life I've never really understood, not being the type women fling themselves at.'
'Nonsense! You're just as attractive as he is.'
'You're prejudiced, Emmy. Ash always had a hell of a lot more opportunities than I ever did, but whether he made the most of them because womanising is his nature, or because he hadn't then encountered the one absolutely right girl for him, I honestly wouldn't know. He's never discussed women with me.'
'I have a sinking feeling the leopard doesn't change its spots. I hope I'm wrong. I like what I've seen of his wife so far,' was the comment made by his mother.
At this point the sound of children's voices coming from another direction roused Christie to an awareness that the conversation she had heard had not been meant for the ears of any but the three people inside the family room.
There was no time to wonder when, and for how long, the unknown Celia had been Ash's bright new flame before the Ffaringtons' three sons and a pleasant-faced woman in her forties appeared round a corner and approached her.
'You must be Mrs Lambard. I'm Nanny Mait- land. How do you do?'
They shook hands, and then the twins, Harry and Ranulf, and the little boy, Duff, were introduced.
Lunch was eaten round a large table at one end of the huge family room. Although simple, it was delicious, beginning with pureed chicken livers baked in a buttery
brioche
dough. This was followed by garlicky hamburgers with a tomato sauce and spinach. The pudding was poached pears.