That Man Simon Page 5

  Then she remembered Elsie’s reference to ‘the new boy-friend’, and something her grandmother had said about it not being long before he was drawn into the Warings’

  social net.

  Jenny did not see Fenella greet him because, before he reached the door, she retreated to the lounge and joined in a conversation with two of her grandfather’s parishioners.

  But she did see Fenella bring him into the room and present him to her parents, and it was clear from her sparkling manner that she was out to make a conquest.

  The Warings’ lounge always reminded Jenny of a display in the window of the county town’s most expensive furniture store. It was opulently appointed with brocaded sofas and wing chairs, a wall-to-wall pale grey Wilton overlaid with Persian rugs, and expensive silk- shaded table lamps. But it had a curiously lifeless air, perhaps because all the furnishings had been selected in accordance with Mrs.

  Waring’s conception of gracious living, rather than to give comfort and visual pleasure.

  The reproduction Canalettos on the walls were there to demonstrate good taste, not because their owners delighted in scenes of old Venice. If Mr. Waring had smoked a pipe, he would never have been permitted to keep a collection of them in a pewter pint pot on the table by his favourite chair, as the Rector did. No knitting was ever tucked under the Warings’ cushions, no books or newspapers left lying about. The current issues of the glossy magazines were arranged on a side table beside a cut glass vase containing a stylized arrangement of flowers. But otherwise the lounge was as impersonal as part of a suite in an expensive hotel.

  With thirty people congregated in it - most of them smoking cigarettes and becoming increasingly animated as Elsie circulated with trays of drinks - the room soon became hot and stuffy. Jenny found her head beginning to ache, and it was difficult to concentrate on small talk when part of her mind was on James. Also, she was trying to keep out of the sight of Simon Gilchrist.

  Luckily this was not too difficult because, as he was half a head taller than any of the other men present, it was easy to keep a wary eye on him, and to move discreetly away if he seemed to be heading in her direction.

  The buffet supper was laid out in the dining-room across the hall. Jenny went in with the owner of the local garage and his wife. Then, as people crowded round the table, she became separated from them, and seized the opportunity to slip through the heavy velvet curtains and unlatch the glass door which led to a small conservatory.

  It was probably very impolite, she thought guiltily. But no one was likely to miss her, and she felt she had to get away from the babble of voices for ten minutes.

  The spring moon, shining through the glass roof, pro-vided ample light in which to eat the savouries she had chosen. Relaxing in a wicker chair, she bit into a crisp vol-au-vent filled with some delicious creamy shrimp mixture.

  But she had not been in her retreat for more than a few minutes when the curtains parted, giving a momentary glimpse of the crowded dining-room, and someone else stepped into the conservatory.

  ‘Good evening. May I join you, or did you come out here because you’re feeling anti-social?’ asked Simon Gilchrist, when he had closed the glass door behind him.

  ‘I was too hot,’ said Jenny stiffly.

  ‘Yes, it is very close in there.’ He sat down in the chair next to hers and crossed his long legs. He had brought a drink with him, but no food.

  Resenting his intrusion, and wondering why he had followed her - he must have seen her slipping between the curtains, and deliberately come after her - Jenny said, ‘Have you known Fenella long?’

  She knew that he had not, and she was not in the least interested in how they had met, but it was the first remark that came into her head.

  ‘I met her a few days ago in the Post Office. She seemed to know who I was, and very kindly invited me here to meet some of the other residents,’ he explained.

  ‘Then shouldn’t you be circulating?’ Jenny suggested coolly.

  ‘I believe I’ve already met everyone.’ Then, a note of laughter in his voice, ‘Still up in arms, Jenny Firebrand?

  What a pity. I was about to compliment you on that charming dress you’re wearing.’

  His casual use of her first name - the diminutive form, moreover! - made Jenny furious. ‘You overwhelm me, Mr.

  Gilchrist,’ she said, with chilly emphasis.

  He laughed aloud at that. ‘Oh, come now, am I really such an ogre? Consider how much worse the situation could be.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If the site had been bought by a firm of speculative builders, they would probably have razed the whole area and erected half a dozen of the worst type of boxy bungalow. Then you would have had cause for complaint.’

  ‘It would never have been allowed,’ she retorted with conviction.

  ‘On the contrary, I happen to know that such a project was actually mooted. It didn’t come to anything because of certain technical snags, but I can assure you it could have happened. So don’t you think it would be sensible to reconcile yourself to the much lesser evil of my advent?’

  ‘Does my adverse opinion upset you?’ she asked him sweetly.

  ‘Not unduly. In my profession, uninformed prejudice is an occupational hazard, although one doesn’t normally encounter extreme conservatism amongst the young. It’s usually older people who set their faces against anything unfamiliar.’

  Jenny said crisply, ‘It’s not a question of being conservative. I simply don’t think this village is a suitable place for an ultra-modern house. Old and new don’t mix.’

  ‘That’s a remarkably illogical argument. The whole village is an architectural hotchpotch. The church is sixteenth-century, the houses round the green are mainly Georgian, and the Rectory is typically Victorian. You seem to approve of the existing medley. Why exclude a twentieth-century element?’

  Before she could answer, the door opened again and Fenella appeared.

  ‘Oh, here you are, Simon. I couldn’t think where you’d got to.’ She did not add, ‘What on earth are you doing out here with Jenny?’ but it was what she was thinking, Jenny felt sure.

  Simon rose to his feet, but Fenella said, ‘Don’t get up. I’ll join you. I suppose I shouldn’t say so, but after living in London, I find Mummy’s parties rather trying. Everyone is so madly parochial here. They think Farthing Green is the centre of the universe. What have you two been talking about? Not selective weed killers, I trust?’

  ‘A local scandal,’ he told her.

  ‘How fascinating. Which one?’

  ‘The Gilchrists’ House one. Miss Shannon is convinced that I am perpetrating a blot on the landscape.’

  ‘Really? I think it sounds fabulous. I do hope I’m at home when you give your house-warming party. But my agent rang up this morning about a new TV series which is starting in the autumn. So I may be tied up in London.’

  Fenella leaned back in her chair, crystal ear-drops glinting against her throat, the silver suit accentuating the graceful slenderness of her figure. By moonlight she looked so glamorous that Jenny thought suddenly that they might have underestimated her. Perhaps she was destined for stardom.

  ‘When do you expect your house to be ready for occupation, Simon?’ asked Fenella.

  ‘Before the end of the summer. If it were a conventional structure, it would probably not be habitable until late October,’ he replied. ‘But the design, and the fact that I’m using direct labour, should speed matters up considerably.’

  This led to a discussion of holidays. Fenella and her parents always went abroad. So, it seemed, did Simon Gilchrist. For a time, therefore, Jenny was excluded from the conversation - which, perhaps, was why Fenella had steered the talk to this topic.

  But presently, after remarking that the supervision of his house would preclude his going far afield that year, Simon added, ‘I might possibly manage a week at the White House.’

  At this Jenny, who had been wondering how best to excuse he
rself and leave them together, alerted. ‘The White House?’ she exclaimed. ‘You don’t mean the hotel at Herm, do you?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Do you know it?’ he asked.

  ‘Only from the outside. We’ve never stayed there.’

  ‘I didn’t realize that you and your grandparents had ever been abroad, Jenny,’ said Fenella, as if she suspected the younger girl of making something up in order not to be left out of the conversation.

  ‘Herm isn’t abroad. It’s one of the Channel Islands,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Fenella dismissively. ‘Yes, I remember now. You went on a package holiday to Guernsey some years ago, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, and from Guernsey we took a day trip to Sark, and two or three excursions to Herm,’ answered Jenny cheerfully. She knew that Fenella’s reference to the

  ‘package’ nature of the holiday had been as calculated as her earlier remark about Jenny’s dress being ‘one of your home-mades’. But such sly digs, although not lost upon Jenny, were wasted on her. They could only have humiliated anyone who, like Fenella and her mother, valued everything by how much it cost.

  ‘What did you think of Sark?’ asked Simon Gilchrist.

  ‘Unfortunately the weather was not very good the day we went there, so we didn’t get the best impression of it.

  We preferred Herm.’

  ‘Sark is very fine. But, like you, I like Herm the best,’ he said. ‘My grandparents retired to Guernsey. For years, my sister and I spent the greater part of our holidays with them.’

  ‘I daresay the Channel Islands are very pretty, but I prefer islands like Majorca where one can be certain of sunbathing every day,’ said Fenella.

  ‘It’s an advantage, I agree, but one can enjoy oneself without the sun,’ remarked Simon Gilchrist. ‘A couple of years ago I spent a wet but enjoyable week in a place called Les Eyzies in the Perigord region of France.’

  ‘Oh, really? What is the attraction there?’ she inquired.

  ‘Prehistoric cave drawings and rock shelters. The National Museum of Prehistory is there, and also several caves full of strange crystals.’

  ‘It wouldn’t appeal to me, I’m afraid,’ said Fenella. ‘I hate damp, dark underground places.’

  ‘Is Lascaux in that area?’ asked Jennifer.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Oh, I wish you would tell my grandfather about it. He’s very much interested in prehistory,’ she said unguardedly.

  Immediately afterwards she regretted allowing her guard to slip, and made the need for a handkerchief, left in the pocket of her white coat, a rather feeble excuse for escaping.

  She left the party as early as possible and, as she walked home, her thoughts reverted to Susan Ellis’s suggestion that Jenny should join her on the Spanish island when school broke up in July. Perhaps it would be a good idea to get away from Farthing Green for a few weeks, and see life in a new perspective.

  What Susan did not know was that, in a sense, her stay-at-home friend was far more widely travelled than she was.

  Jenny’s father had been in the Foreign Service. Jenny had been born in Washington D.C., had learnt to walk in South Africa, and to read and write in Italy. It was during the Rome posting that her parents had come to England for Christmas, and died there. Jenny had not been with them on the fatal shopping expedition because she had had a cold. Instead, she had spent the afternoon making paper chains. Shortly before tea time, the local policeman had brought the terrible news that the Rector’s son and his daughter-in-law had been killed in a collision at the crossroads just outside the village.

  Now, years later, Jenny could see some mercy in the fact that she had lost both of them. From what her grandparents had told her, and her own dim memories, she felt sure that Peter and Cathy Shannon had been so happy together that her childish grief had been nothing to what either of them would have suffered if bereft of the other.

  ‘Children grow away from their parents. It’s natural and proper that they should,’ Grandpa had said to her once. ‘But husbands and wives grow together and become indivisible.’

  This train of thought led to her own eventual marriage.

  But she was no nearer to knowing whether she and James could achieve that marvellous state of indivisible harmony than she had been on the night of his proposal. If anything, she felt less sure.

  One evening she was waiting at the county bus stop when she saw a silver Jaguar approaching. Quickly she turned her back to the road, hoping the driver would not spot her. But the car slowed down and stopped beside her, and the driver tooted his horn to attract her attention.

  Forced to turn round to face him, Jennifer searched wildly for some feasible excuse for refusing a lift. But there was none.

  ‘Hop in, Miss Shannon. I’m going your way,’ said Simon Gilchrist, leaning across to open the nearside door for her.

  ‘It’s very good of you,’ she said stiffly, climbing in beside him.

  ‘Not at all. I’ve been hoping for a chance to have a word with you.’ He glanced in his driving mirror, and waited for some cars and a lorry to pass before he pulled out.

  ‘What about?’ she asked.

  ‘You don’t like me, do you?’ he said casually.

  She flashed a startled glance at him, and saw a gleam of amusement in his eyes, a slight quirk at the corner of his mouth.

  ‘I hardly know you, Mr. Gilchrist.’

  ‘Is it because you can’t forgive me for felling the beech tree? Or is it one of those instinctive antagonisms?’

  Jenny floundered for a moment, feeling her cheeks growing hot. Finally she said, ‘As I’ve already told you, I don’t think you’re improving Farthing Green by slapping an ultra-modern house in the middle of it.’

  ‘Not precisely in the middle,’ he said mildly.

  ‘Well, anywhere in the village. Old and new just don’t mix.’

  ‘They can - if they’re the best of their kind.’ At last he set the car in motion. ‘I take it your taste inclines to stockbrokers’ Tudor, Miss Shannon?’

  ‘Not at all,’ she countered sharply. ‘I just don’t think a lovely unspoilt village is the place for ... for a glorified goldfish bowl. I’m sorry if that sounds rude, but it’s something I feel quite strongly about.’

  ‘Evidently. But how do you know it will be like a goldfish bowl?’

  ‘Well, that’s what we’ve heard.’

  ‘And from what you know of me, you can well believe it.’

  Jenny bit her lip, and let that pass.

  They drove a couple of miles in silence, and then he said,

  ‘I gather you work in the city. What do you do for a living, Miss Shannon?’

  ‘I’m a nursery schoolteacher.’

  ‘At one of the State primary schools?’

  ‘No, at a private kindergarten and prep school.’

  ‘Whereabouts is it?’ he asked.

  Jenny told him. She felt sure he was not really interested, and wished he would not bother to make polite conversation. The drive home had never seemed so long.

  On the straight stretch which had once been a bad place for accidents but which was now widened into a dual carriageway, he took one hand off the wheel and offered her a cigarette.

  ‘No, thank you, I don’t smoke.’

  He lit one for himself from a lighter built into the dashboard. Watching him use the gadget, it flashed through her mind that he had beautiful hands; strong and shapely, with long supple square-tipped fingers. Then because she did not want to admire anything about him, she turned her head away and looked fixedly out of the window.

  About a quarter of a mile from the village, a small boy suddenly burst through the hedgerow ahead of them and made frantic stop signals.

  ‘It’s Billy Hunter,’ said Jenny, as her companion brought the car to a standstill. She wound down the window.

  ‘What’s the matter, Billy?’

  ‘Oh, miss, come quick. Bert’s fell down the cliff and I think he’s dead!’ The boy began
to sob with shock and terror.

  From the brink of the small disused quarry which was a favourite play place for the local children, they saw Bert lying motionless below them.

  Simon Gilchrist was the first to reach him. He was already kneeling by the boy when she and Billy scrambled down beside him.

  ‘Don’t worry, Billy. He certainly isn’t dead,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Look, he’s coming round.’

  It seemed that Bert’s only injury had been the blow on the head which had knocked him out. He did not appear to have any broken bones.

  With an ease which surprised Jenny - Bert was a solidly-built lad of ten - Simon carried him up to the top of the quarry, and across the field to the road.

  ‘I doubt if Mrs. Bagley will be home yet. She’s a widow and she works at the chocolate factory in the city,’ Jenny said, as they drove Bert home.

  At Willow Cottage, Simon sent Billy to fetch the doctor or, if he was out, the district nurse.

  ‘I think the boy will have to go to hospital to have his head X-rayed,’ he said, after Jenny had found the latch key under a pot of geraniums in the porch, and they had laid Bert down on the front room sofa.

  It was only a few minutes before Billy came back with Doctor Mason.

  ‘Lucky you caught me. I was just starting out to a maternity case, so I can’t spare much time,’ he said briskly.

  After a brisk examination of the boy, who was still very dazed and pale, he confirmed the need for an X-ray.

  ‘I’ll get an ambulance straight away. You’ll stay with him until it arrives, or until his mother gets back, won’t you, Jenny? I’m sorry I can’t stop myself, but Mrs. Barnes is in labour. It’s her first baby, so it may not arrive till midnight, but you can never be sure of these things.’

  The nearest hospital was on the coast, six miles west of Farthing Green. It was not long before the ambulance arrived, and Bert was put into it, watched by a small crowd of neighbours and passers-by.

  ‘There’s no need for you to wait, Mr. Gilchrist,’ Jenny said, when it had driven off.

  ‘The boy’s mother will want to go to the hospital. I’ll run her over there,’ he said. ‘Let’s make a pot of tea, shall we? I don’t think Mrs. Bagley will mind in the circumstances.