Page 87 of The Christmas Retreat
‘It doesn’t really sound as if he has any claim on your estate at all,’ Timon said. ‘He’s just trying it on.’
‘He’s still coming down on Friday and wants me to meet him at the Star and Stone at eleven,’ I said. ‘He told me I’d be sorry if I didn’t. That’s when I told him to get lost and put the phone down, but he seems to have it all planned so I’m sure he’ll turn up anyway.’
Evie said, ‘I don’t suppose he knowsI’mhere; he just thinks you’re on a retreat with strangers, with no one to back you up.’
‘Then he’s going to find out he’s wrong,’ said Rhys, looking grim. ‘I think we should have a little reception committee waiting for him at the pub.’
‘Good idea,’ approved Evie. ‘You and I can be there. That should do it, Rhys.’
‘And tomorrow we can consult the family solicitor who lives in St Melangell,’ suggested Nerys. ‘Perhaps he ought to be at the meeting too, because I think Will saying he has consulted a solicitor of his own sounds like pure bluff.’
While we were talking, Tudor had been bringing in a great tureen and Nerys began to fill plates with goulash and pass them round the table.
When Rhys said softly to me, ‘Don’t worry, Ginny – we’ll sort it all out and get rid of him for you,’ I smiled at him and then, looking round the table at the others, felt I was not alone, but supported by friends.
*
Noel went home after dinner, and when Evie went with him, saying blithely as she left that she would take a key from the garden hall drawer and not to wait up for her, I gazed anxiously after her, feeling like the mother of a wayward teenager.
Arwen
Letter from Arwen Madoc to Milly Vane, Tuesday 15 July 1919
My dearest Milly,
I have something so awful to tell you that I will have to lead up to it by degrees, but I have certainly paid a heavy price for my three days of freedom.
Cosmo returned on Sunday evening. He and Mr Jones have found several men and women willing to move here to work in the new pottery, some permanently and others just to train the local people. They will take lodgings for them in the village and in St Melangell.
Cosmo asked me what I had been doing and I told him that I had been painting outdoors in oils for the first time. He seemed satisfied with this and suggested that I show him the fruits of my labours the next day. He and Mr Jones would be busy in the morning, but he would come to the studio after lunch.
I took the opportunity to go out again, but just to walk andbreathe in the fresh air, for the day was dull and a fine mist of rain had made my early morning expedition a damp and short one, full of troubled thoughts. I very much feared that, gossip spreading so quickly here about even the smallest things, word of my expedition into St Melangell might very soon come to Cosmo’s ears.
He was not at lunch, but when I went to the studio afterwards, one look at his face told me that the worst had happened. The extent of his cold anger was daunting: he said I had broken my word to him – which in fact I had never given! – and demanded to know exactly whom I had spoken to and what I had said to them, which I angrily told him I would not do.
Nor, when he then forbade me to go into St Melangell alone in future, did my refusal to agree to an edict so ridiculous make him any less irate. But it was when I told him that he was behaving like a Victorian papa that he became quite white with fury and demanded to know if there was some young man there who had taken my fancy, to make me so rebellious!
When I laughed scornfully and said no, of course not, he took me by the shoulders and said grimly that he hoped not, for I must by now be aware that he had a regard for me that made him jealous of other suitors!
I was still staring at him aghast at these words, when he added that I had given him certain encouragement to believe this was not unwelcome to me!
I was so stunned with horrified amazement at this that I could not speak – and then, the most awful thing – he pulled me so close I could not escape him and kissed me, extremely roughly!
I struggled, although to no avail, but wrenched myself away the moment he loosened his hold.
Deeply shocked, I stammered that I had never thought of him in that way, or encouraged him to think I had, so that his advanceswere repellent to me. He just laughed, his good humour seemingly restored, and said I was a tease.
Then he said that he had not meant to speak to me so soon, for my being so young and his ward made his position difficult.
I had regained my wits – and my temper – by this time, and told him that any encouragement he thought he had received from me was a figment of his imagination, for I had never thought of him in that light, and never would.
He said, with an odiously complacent smile, that I protested too much, but that he shouldn’t have spoken of it yet … It was just the thought of me encouraging other men, and he would say no more about it for the present.
Then he flicked my cheek with his finger in that casual and annoying way he has and added, ‘After all, you did agree with me that a marriage of mutual affection and interests was one that worked well, and isn’t that the kind all you modern young women want?’
Then he looked at his watch and told me he had to get back to the pottery and would look at the work I had done in his absence on the morrow.
I had to go out and walk about the clifftop, I was so agitated, and the damp air was soothing to my blazing cheeks.
