The Collared Collection (25 page)

Chapter Thirty-nine

On Thursday afternoon, two days after the funeral, Elizabeth ended her call to Callie. ‘That’s settled then; I’ll meet you at Victoria tomorrow for the 4 p.m. to Brighton. See you there.’

She hung up with a sigh of relief. It would be good to put some palliative miles between her and David and she felt The Lyon-Smiths’ country pile was just the place to do that – which was why she’d accepted Elizabeth’s invitation to spend the weekend there with her. She’d assured Callie she didn’t need to get herself kitted out in tweeds and a deerstalker, just to take comfortable clothes and some warm sweaters to ward off the draughts that whistled through the big old house, even when the weather outside was hot.

She crossed the room to Susan’s desk. ‘Elizabeth has invited me down to Sussex for the weekend, but that doesn’t mean you can’t stay on at Ginny’s.’

She shook her head, ‘No, it’s OK, thanks – I have stuff to do at home now I’m allowed back. I’ll probably meet up with friends too. You haven’t buried the hatchet with David yet then?’

‘Not even close – it’s been a trying week, what with the funeral and Sally, and I don’t seem to be able to say the simplest thing to him without getting pissed off and putting his back up – and I don’t know why, because he really hasn’t done anything wrong.’

‘You just need to get away from everything and relax – you’ll have a great weekend by the seaside. Changing the subject, Anthony Brewer was rather nice, wasn’t he?’ She did a funny sort of coy smile, tilting her head.

‘I suppose, too bad he was on a flying visit.’

‘Just my luck.’

She frowned. ‘He’s a happily married man, with dozens of kids, I hear.’

Susan tossed her head, ‘Huh! Story of my life …’

‘Will you be back at Ginny’s on Sunday night?’

‘Oh, yes, but not until late probably, is that a problem?’

‘Not at all. Are you in for dinner tonight? Mike is coming over.’

‘I’ll be around, but I have swotting to do for tomorrow, so don’t cater for me.’

Elizabeth was waiting for her on the platform, as she hurried along, clutching the only First Class ticket she’d ever bought – and at that price, it would be the last. They had a disappointingly dingy carriage to themselves and after only about an hour, the train pulled into Brighton and Hove Station, where they were to be met by Elizabeth’s brother, St John.

‘Buffy!’ exclaimed a large chap, galumphing toward them in ragged sage corduroys that were covered in paint splashes – and a threadbare checked shirt, ditto. ‘Wonderful to see you, old thing. Let me take that for you.’ He turned to Callie and proffered a smooth, meaty hand – there were rainbow shades of paint under his fingernails too. ‘You must be Callie, so glad you could come; Buffy has told us a lot about you.’ He grabbed the handle of her pull-along case and marched off toward the car park.

St John was the epitome of an upper-class chinless wonder, but she couldn’t fault the welcome he gave her and he blatantly adored his big sister. He stashed their luggage into the back of an old, rusty Land Rover and they began the white-knuckle ride to Cassocks Manor. Without the benefit of a belt to secure her onto the bench seat in the rear, she was thrown from side to side and was thankful when they turned off the main road onto the long gravel drive, which led up to the big house. And it was huge.

The place was magnificent, though dilapidated, with an air of gentile poverty permeating its walls. Callie stood in the entrance hallway (would that be vestibule, in such a port-out-starboard-home pad, she wondered?) with her mouth open, admiring the intricately carved, galleried staircase – but being a peasant, all she could think of was how long it would take to dust the thing. ‘I’ve put you in the Bluebell Room,’ said St John, ‘it’s one of the more comfortable guest rooms and has the best views over the Downs.’ He beamed and she noticed his kind eyes. He struggled up the stairs with her baggage.

‘Tea, I think,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Follow me to the kitchens.’

There was more than one?

‘Well I never, Miss Buffy! What on earth have you done to yourself?’ asked a florid woman in a flowered pinafore, when they entered a room that was considerably bigger than the whole of the ground floor of Callie’s house.

Elizabeth waved off her concern. ‘A stupid accident, nothing to worry about, Mrs Cross; I’d like you to meet my friend, Callie Ashton – we work together. Any chance of a pot of tea?’

Mrs Cross smiled broadly, dimpling her chubby cheeks. ‘Pleased to meet you, miss, I hope you’ll find everything you need in your room. I’ve aired it and I lit the fire for you – these old places can be a bit damp, you know.’ She nodded her head, agreeing with herself. ‘The kettle’s just boiled.’

‘Thank you very much, Mrs Cross. Please call me Callie.’

‘Yes, miss. Now Miss Buffy, did Mr St John tell you his Lordship won’t be dining with you this evening? He’ll be back early tomorrow.’

Elizabeth nodded, ‘Yes, he did – we’ll grab something ourselves and eat on the patio, I expect. No need for you to stay late, Mrs Cross – you get off home and spoil that gorgeous grandson of yours.’ She turned to Callie, ‘Father is having dinner with a publishing contact – he’s working on a book and is hoping to land a mega-bucks deal to earn some refurbishing money for the house.’

‘How exciting, what’s the book about?’

‘Oh, I’ll let Father tell you all about it tomorrow; I don’t want to steal his thunder.’

‘I’ll look forward to that – I don’t think I’ve met a real-life author before.’

A shared look of amusement passed between Elizabeth and Mrs Cross, before she busied herself pouring their tea into cheap mugs.

‘Shall we take our drinks into the garden, Callie?’ Elizabeth suggested.

They sat on wobbly wooden chairs which didn’t match the wobbly wooden table. St John emerged from a barn, carrying a large abstract canvas. That explained the paint, at least.

‘St John is trying to be an artist,’ Elizabeth explained quietly, ‘another cottage industry aimed at keeping this place afloat.’

She laughed. ‘Goodness, I had no idea it was such a hard life being an aristo.’

Elizabeth shook her head. ‘It can be terribly stressful, Callie; please tell him you like his painting. A little white lie to spare his feelings – he really is hopeless, poor ninny.’

‘Wow, St John, that’s a colourful piece – what have you called it?’ she asked, wishing she had sunglasses to lessen the glare of great slashes of red, yellow, and purple – with a dash of cobalt – which covered the cloth.

His chest swelled with pride. ‘
Tortured Times
. Does it speak to you?’

Talk about being put on the spot. ‘Well … yes, I believe it does; particularly the central area where all the colours merge.’ She was winging it. The only thing the painting said to her was that the artist had but a miniscule trace of talent.

‘Would you like to buy it? I give a very generous discount to friends of the family.’

His eagerness suggested he didn’t get many compliments about his work – she could understand why. ‘Um … I don’t know, really.’ He looked so deflated, she felt as guilty as if she’d snatched a Zimmer frame from the hands of a crippled war veteran. ‘Oh … um … I suppose … yes, alright, how much are you asking for it?’

‘£750, that’s with discount. I’ll wrap it for you.’

She gasped and looked at Elizabeth, whose eyes were like saucers. ‘Err … could you keep it here for me? My house is being renovated and the place where I’m staying at the moment isn’t big enough to show it off to its best advantage.’ Which would be in a pitch-black room, she thought.

St John puffed out his chest. ‘Certainly. A small deposit secures the sale – shall we say one hundred?’

‘Err … right.’ She’d been fleeced – she wondered where she was going to find even the deposit money, as she hadn’t yet received the insurance cheque, let alone her inheritance from Ginny. St John returned to his ‘studio’ to slap a ‘SOLD’ ticket on her newly-acquired work of ‘art’.

‘Bollocks, Callie!’ snapped Elizabeth, when he was out of earshot. ‘I only asked you to be encouraging, not buy the hideous thing! Don’t worry, I’ll persuade him to knock a few quid off for you.’

Quite a few quid, Callie hoped. A reduction of about £749 seemed only fair.

Callie made three omelettes with home-grown mushrooms for dinner, Elizabeth threw together a salad, and St John poured glasses of cheap wine: a perfect division of labour. By the size of her drinks, she could tell she’d be St John’s friend for life, now she’d been daft enough to invest in his talents.

They ate late, under the stars, and it was so idyllic, she was able to shelve all thoughts of Balaclava Man and David and death to the back of her mind for a blissful few hours.

Chapter Forty

Callie’s new best buddy insisted she go riding with him early next morning, before breakfast.

Elizabeth greeted her brother’s childishly enthusiastic request that she join them with, ‘Bollocks can I go riding, you ninny, just look at the state of me! I’ll see you both back here in an hour, or so. Have fun.’ She waved them off as St John aimed the Land Rover toward neighbouring stables and they took off like an Exocet missile.

She looked down from a terrifying height, when she finally managed – to the detriment of every shred of dignity she possessed – to haul her way up into the saddle of a piebald mare. In theory, she’d never minded horses – but now she was up close and very personal with ‘Milly’, she wasn’t so sure. The mare seemed to splutter and whinny a lot; perhaps she wasn’t sure whether their relationship would work either.

‘Hold the reins like so, Callie,’ said St John.

She followed his instructions and threaded the leather strips through her fingers, though she’d have felt safer winding them round and round her hands and hanging on to them for dear life.

‘Milly’s a gentle old dear, won’t give you any trouble,’ he assured her.

Yeah, right, she thought.

His mount was an even bigger black stallion, of goodness knows how many hands, and very frisky. But St John appeared in control; she had a vision of the Lyon-Smith kids being thrown into the saddle even before they could crawl. A few too-quick instructions on how to sit and rise and use her knees and they were off.

Good old Milly; she was indeed a gentle soul and they ambled along quiet, winding country lanes at a very decorous pace, following the swishing tail of St John’s horse, Mamba. Although her head felt uncomfortable in the hard hat she’d been loaned and the sun was starting to beat hot on her back, Callie began to relax and see the appeal of riding; man and beast, at one with nature. At one, that is, until a speeding car overtook them way too fast, almost collided with St John and Mamba, and spooked Milly so badly she reared to vertical and decided to gallop across the fallow field they were passing.

‘Help!’ she screamed, ‘St John! Help!’ She was pitched forward, gripping Milly around her long neck, absolutely terrified at the sudden change of pace. She couldn’t envisage any scenario where she wouldn’t end up falling off and either break her neck or be trampled to death. Milly crossed the rough grass at the speed of light, while Callie slipped and slid and bounced painfully up and down in the saddle, trying to stay with her. When she saw a high hedge looming fast, she screwed her eyes tight shut, knowing she would imminently feel a lot of intense pain somewhere on her body – and that’s if she were lucky enough to survive.

They seemed to come to a halt quite suddenly. Callie was jolted even further forward, eventually daring to open her eyes. Brushing Milly’s mane from her face, she realised St John had caught up with frightened horse and even more frightened rider, and grabbed hold of Milly’s bridle to stop her, in the nick of time. They were so close to the hedge, she could see over it.

St John patted her mount’s neck. ‘There, there. Everything is alright. You can calm down now …’

‘I’m OK,’ she said breathlessly, slowly detaching her arms from their stranglehold.

‘I was talking to Milly,’ he explained matter-of-factly. ‘That’s not a local car – some damned stupid weekender, thinks he’s still on the motorway. Are you alright, by the way?’

She had to laugh, having experienced the truly scary near-death experience of being St John’s passenger, ‘I’m fine, really. Though I think my riding lesson ends here, if you don’t mind?’

‘Not at all, Callie, old thing. We’ll take a gentle stroll to the stables and then tootle back to Cassocks for breakfast. Pa will probably be home by now, after his night on the tiles.’

‘Do you think it was Balaclava Man?’ Elizabeth asked discreetly.

‘No way of knowing – I prefer to assume not.’ Well, maybe it was just a coincidence … a reckless townie, as St John had suggested.

As if reading her mind Elizabeth sighed, ‘St John is right, you know; we do get our fair share of city slickers, too dumb to ease off the accelerator when they hit the boondocks. Total disregard for the country code,’ she tutted.

‘And the Highway Code,’ she mused.

St John booting the door open to help Mrs Cross bring in laden trays interrupted their conversation in the breakfast room. They were followed through by an elderly, distinguished-looking man sporting a fluffy white handlebar moustache, to compensate for an almost-hairless head. He was tall, though slightly stooped and he shuffled his feet.

‘Callie!’ He bellowed, ‘Lovely to meet you, m’dear.’

She shook the gnarled arthritic hand he offered. ‘Hello, sir. It’s good of you to invite me – you have a lovely home.’

‘Pah! Damned place eats money, but it’s been in my family for generations, so one has to do one’s best. My wife was very good with the financial gubbins, but since she passed away …’ He looked sad, his mouth as frayed as the cuffs of his Herringbone jacket.

It was Elizabeth who suggested, ‘Shall we sit?’

Callie was placed next to her, with his Lordship at the head of the very long table, to her right. St John sat opposite. They occupied only a small area of the highly- polished mahogany.

‘Heard about your scare on the filly, m’dear; nasty business, but not an isolated incident, I’m afraid.’