Shadow Of Desire

‘But if I don’t, who will?’ Ginny asked mildly enough. Her head ached miserably and she felt drained of emotion. The last thing she wanted was an argument.

‘Well, I won’t for one,’ Barbara said bluntly. ‘There’s no room at the flat and I have my own life to lead—my career to think of, thank you very much. And so should you.’

‘I haven’t really got a career, just a job that I don’t much care about.’ Ginny carried the coffee cups over to the sink and began to rinse them under the tap. She looked round at the neat, bright kitchen with its tiles and new kitchen units which Mrs Clayton had been so proud of, and a sharp little pain twisted inside her like the turn of a knife. ‘But it’s been experience, and I can look for something that pays rather better now.’

Barbara’s lips twisted. ‘You’ll need something that pays like a bomb for what you have in mind. For heaven’s sake, Ginny, see sense. You’re biting off altogether more than you can chew. No secretary’s salary in this neck of the woods is going to pay the rent for the size of place you’d need—always supposing you found somewhere, and that won’t be easy. Where landlords are concerned, children and dogs are an anathema, take my word for it.’

Ginny turned off the hot tap with intense concentration. ‘Which do you suggest that I have put down—Tim or Muffin?’ she enquired.

‘Oh, don’t be a fool,’ Barbara snapped. ‘But you’ve got to be realistic. Just because Dad fancied himself as an amateur philanthropist, it doesn’t mean that you have to follow in his footsteps.’

‘You mean Aunt Mary.’ Ginny reached for the tea towel. ‘Doesn’t it matter to you that she’s losing her home as well?’

Barbara shrugged. ‘Of course,’ she said without any conviction. ‘But she can’t rely on you to provide her with another one. She must see that. After all, she has her pension, and there are plenty of places catering for elderly women in her position.’

‘Nursing homes, I suppose, and seedy private hotels.’ Ginny dried a cup and hung it from the appropriate hook. ‘Would you really condemn her to that, Barbie? She was Dad’s favourite aunt.’

‘But not mine,’ Barbara said coolly. ‘I don’t know how Mother put up with her all these years.’

There was a difficult silence, then Barbara picked up the thread again.

‘And as for Tim—well, has it occurred to you that the Social Services might take a hand?’

‘Yes, it has,’ Ginny said coldly. ‘It’s also occurred to Tim, and he’s worried sick about it. Some of the children at school have been telling him that he’ll be taken into care—you know what insensitive little beasts they can be.’

Barbara reached for another cigarette. ‘Would it be such an unthinkable thing?’

‘Barbie!’ Ginny was aghast. ‘You can’t be serious!’

‘I’m trying to be realistic,’ Barbara said sourly. ‘Face facts, Ginny. How can someone of your age be mother and father to an eleven-year-old boy? It’s just not on.’

‘It has to be,’ Ginny said. ‘I’ve given Tim my word that we won’t be split up.’

‘If you don’t find another job and somewhere to live, the choice may not be yours,’ Barbara had pointed out coolly and unanswerably.

It was a fact that was haunting Ginny now that the first shock and grief of losing her parents was beginning to wear off. In a way, she was glad that the harsh practicalities of life were beginning to assume such importance, and make such demands on her time and energy, because they stopped her indulging in bouts of useless emotionalism and self-pity. The very fact that Tim and Aunt Mary depended on her so heavily had lent her a strength and purpose she had never been aware of, but it had not blinded her to the realities of the situation.

She had wondered at first whether Barbara would be able to help financially, if in no other way, but she had soon been disabused of that notion. Her sister was about to go into rehearsal in yet another light comedy which would be taken out on tour before its West End opening, and no one could prophesy what its fate would be in the uncertain world of show business. It might provide Barbara with a steady income for many months to come, or, as she pointed out with unshakeable logic, it might fold almost at once, leaving her to join the dole queue. Whatever happened, she was in no position to commit any of her income.

Ginny was not altogether surprised. She had always been aware that there was a single-minded, almost ruthless streak in Barbara which set her apart from the rest of the family. Certainly their father had never possessed it, Ginny thought with a sigh, otherwise his affairs might not have been in the bleak state they were at the time of the accident.

At the same time, she knew that Barbara’s view of her situation was a realistic one, and this was brought home to her in the weeks which followed. There were other jobs, but none that paid the sort of salary on which she could support a ready-made family, and finding another home was quite a different matter.

None of the flats and small houses she saw were large enough to accommodate them all, and those that were she could not afford. And, as Barbara had prophesied, few prospective landlords were prepared to consider a tenant with a child in tow anyway, and after the first few rebuffs, Ginny did not even dare mention the existence of Muffin, the mongrel dog, past puppyhood it was true, but certainly not past such anti-social habits as burying bones under sofa cushions and scratching paint off doors to facilitate his exits and entrances.

She had been very near to despair and worn out with the effort of concealing it from Tim and Aunt Mary when Mr Robson had phoned to ask her to call and see him at his office. Ginny had supposed it was to do with some detail about the sale of the house, which was proceeding with almost frightening speed.

When he had mentioned the job at Monk’s Dower, she had hardly been able to believe her ears, even though he had warned her candidly that it would be no sinecure.

Vivien Lanyon, it transpired, was the client of a friend of his in the neighbouring market town. Monk’s Dower had been in the Lanyon family almost as long as they had occupied the Manor House. Local history said that the name recalled the bitter period following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when the Lanyon of his day had allowed some monks expelled from a nearby abbey to build themselves a shelter on a corner of his land. Here, it was said, they had settled, cultivating their plot of ground, and looking after the sick of the nearby parishes as they had always done. Eventually they died, one by one, and the house they had built reverted to the Lanyons who had used it as a dower house ever since.

‘I gather Mrs Lanyon plans to let the house on a long lease.’ Mr Robson stared down at the gold fountain pen he was holding. ‘It’s a large, rambling place—it’s been added to in all kinds of ways over the years, and her plan is to let it with—er—resident domestic help included, as it were. The servants’ quarters have been converted, I understand, into quite a pleasant self-contained flat, but the wages she is offering are far from generous. So far she has experienced considerable difficulty in finding anyone suitable to take on the job because of the poor money. The attraction as far as you are concerned, Ginevra, would be the accommodation. I am not personally acquainted with Mrs Lanyon, but I cannot say whether I could recommend her as an employer from what I have heard.’ He paused.

‘What exactly would I have to do?’ asked Ginny.

‘Make sure the house is kept clean and aired, and ready for occupation as and when the tenant required. But I would guess that covers a multitude of other sins as well.’ Mr Robson gave her a kindly but rather rueful smile. ‘Mrs Lanyon has the reputation, frankly, of demanding her pound of flesh and more. You might well find that you were little better than a dogsbody for her.’

‘Does she object to dogs?’ Ginny asked swiftly, not really taking in the implication of his words, because her heart was beating with sudden excitement. Compared with her present problems, coping with a difficult and perhaps demanding employer seemed a much easier option.

‘I hardly think so. She keeps a number of them herself, I believe, and shows them too. You could represent your dog in the capacity of a guard dog, perhaps. I understand her tenant is likely to be away a good deal.’

Ginny had a mental image of Muffin—he of the flopping ears and eagerly proffered paw.

‘I’m sure he’d make a very good guard dog,’ she said mendaciously. ‘Mr Robson, I could kiss you!’

He sighed. ‘Don’t be too grateful, my dear, until you find out more about it, but if you’re interested, I can arrange an interview.’

It only took half an hour in Vivien Lanyon’s formidable presence to warn Ginny that all Mr Robson’s forebodings were probably quite justified. She was tall, blonde and attractive in a hard way, and she made it clear at the outset that Ginny was far from being what she had in mind as a caretaker.

‘You’re far too young,’ had been her first, incredulous reaction and Ginny had had to bring all her persuasive powers to bear to ensure herself a fair hearing.

‘I wanted a couple really.’ Mrs Lanyon had flung herself down pettishly on one of the silk-covered sofas in her drawing room. ‘The man to do the outside work and look after the garden, of course, but people don’t want to work these days, it seems, and quite frankly I’m getting desperate, so I suppose I could give you a trial.’ She looked Ginny up and down and sighed. ‘The hours will be long, I give you fair warning, and rather uncertain, but the reduced rent you’d be paying reflects this, I think. The house itself has been taken for a preliminary year by a Mr Hendrick, and you’d be answerable to him rather than me. He’s abroad a good deal, and you’d have to see to it that the house was always ready for him at all times—fuel stocks replenished, staple foods and milk ordered—that sort of thing. I’d expect you to keep the house clean and tidy too, but the heavy work is being done by Mrs Petty from the village. As for the garden’—she hesitated, tapping a varnished nail against her teeth—‘I suppose I’ll have to let you have Simmons one day a week.’

‘Perhaps Mr Hendrick will take an interest in the garden,’ Ginny ventured.

Mrs Lanyon gave a short laugh. ‘I hardly think so. He isn’t the type to bother about such mundane affairs, but he likes the house and that’s all that matters.’ She gave Ginny a long, hard look. ‘It’s very quiet out here. The village is very small, and it’s a long way to the nearest town. What will you do with yourself—a girl of your age?’

Ginny was tempted to reply that she felt her time would be fully occupied with the programme Mrs Lanyon had outlined, but she curbed her tongue.

‘I have my family to look after,’ she returned with a dignity which sat oddly on her youthful shoulders. ‘I shan’t be bored.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of that.’ Vivien Lanyon took a cigarette from the box on the table in front of her and lit it. ‘You realise you’ll be sharing a house with a single man. I wouldn’t want you to get—ideas.’ Face and voice were equally unsmiling as she said it, and Ginny felt a swift surge of temper rising within her which again she had to control. Instinct told her that Vivien Lanyon would not countenance an employee who answered back, and she needed this job and what it promised.

‘I can safely say that my only idea is to do the job well and provide a home from my brother and my aunt,’ she said quietly.

Vivien Lanyon shrugged slightly. ‘I’m pleased to hear it. At least with your responsibilities, you should be dependable. You won’t be likely to flit away as soon as the novelty wears off. Very well then, Miss Clayton—Ginevra.’ She glanced down at the letter of introduction which Ginny had brought. ‘What an extraordinary name!’

‘I believe it’s a form of Guinevere,’ Ginny said rather bleakly. ‘My mother used to love all the Arthurian legends.’

‘Really?’ Mrs Lanyon looked and sounded blank. ‘How fascinating. Now, when do you think you could start? Mr Hendrick’s tenancy begins next week, although he won’t be taking up occupation immediately.’

‘I’m working out my notice now,’ Ginny told her. ‘I could start on Monday, using the weekend to move in—if that was all right?’

‘Quite satisfactory.’ Now that everything was settled, Vivien Lanyon’s voice was almost indifferent. ‘Call in at the office as you go out and Kathy my head girl will show you round the house. You have transport, I presume?’

‘Yes.’ Ginny thanked heaven inwardly for the driving lessons which had been her father’s seventeenth birthday present to her. She had passed the test at her first attempt and had been used to driving both the Mini, which had been A write-off after the accident, and the rather battered estate car which her father had used for work, and which she was determined to hang on to at all costs.

The term ‘girl’ was something of a misnomer when applied to Kathy, Ginny discovered, when she was confronted by a large middle-aged woman who regarded her with something akin to pity on her weatherbeaten face.