Chapter 2
Roxie wanted to put her head on the steering wheel and burst into tears.
She never cried usually, but she felt totally exhausted by the strains and stresses of the past five weeks, all culminating with today’s dreadful events.
She had not even reached her destination yet.
She was anxious. She was frustrated. She had probably ruined her little car.
She had encountered the rudest, most abrupt and bad-tempered man existing on the planet.
Worse, it seemed he was the son of her employer!
Worse still, he had preferred some other applicant.
She couldn’t turn round and drive home. She couldn’t drive anywhere.
She shivered, remembering she didn’t really have a home of her own anymore.
It belonged to Tommy and his pregnant new wife, Gilda, who resented her without even knowing her.
‘It’s your fault, Ciaran.’ Jenny called to Ciaran as he came rushing to see what had caused such a noise. `We keep telling you to shift those pesky stones.’
Roxie lifted her head to see Ciaran standing, hands on hips, mouth pursed. He strode right up to her car. She wound down the window with a resigned sigh.
‘Competent driver, eh? Didn’t you see the boulders? They’re to stop people like you driving over the grass.’
‘You mean those grassy-looking bumps in the long grass? Are they boulders?’
‘Of course they’re boulders — well, big stones anyway. Really big stones.’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t see the first one. It was a tighter turn than . . .’
‘There must be something wrong with your eyesight.’
Jenny exclaimed in dismay. ‘Ciaran! For goodness’ sake! It’s not like you to be so bad-tempered! You’ll have the poor girl heading for home before she has even met Aunt Amy, and she is so looking forward to her arrival.’
‘I know she is,’ Ciaran muttered. ‘Now I know why.’
‘It’s not Roxanne’s fault your dairyman has broken his leg playing football and left you in the lurch. Or that the relief man has let you down at the last minute,’ Jenny added in a milder tone.
Roxie groaned softly. She didn’t want to cause a family row, but she was worried about the damage to her car after that awful grating noise.
‘Nobody would see that first stone if they didn’t know in advance,’ Donald said amiably.
‘It’s a tight turn round this end of the house and they’re all covered in moss now.
Bring me your lorry jack, Ciaran, then you can get on with milking your cows.
I’ll jack up the car and see what the damage is.
It may be possible to rock it off the stone and back onto four wheels. ’
Ciaran snorted, reminding Roxie of an angry bull, but he went off in the direction of the farm buildings and quickly returned carrying a sturdy-looking jack, muttering under his breath. ‘I’ll do it myself. I can’t imagine dental surgeons ever using a jack, no matter their strange instruments.’
Roxie had a suspicion he was swallowing a lot of angry swear words. He might have been better getting them off his chest as her brother would probably have done in the circumstances.
She climbed out of the car to lessen the weight while he worked the jack. She moved to stand beside Jenny and saw Donald wink at his wife.
‘I swear I never saw a huge stone,’ she said quietly.
Jenny patted her arm. ‘You wouldn’t have time to see it. Anyway, they’re not so obvious now they’re covered in moss. Ciaran placed them along the side of the drive so delivery lorries would use the entrance into the farmyard and not turn in by the front of the house.’
‘The avenue is overgrown anyway,’ Donald said. ‘Dear Ciaran maybe a good farmer but he doesn’t keep the garden very well, not like your aunt Amy used to do.’
‘Aunt Amy loves her garden.’ Jenny sighed. ‘She made the one at the bungalow and it’s beautiful, or it was until she had her accident. Do you like gardening, Roxanne?’ she asked. ‘I’m assuming it’s all right to use your first name, is it?’ She grinned.
‘Of course. My friends usually call me Roxie. Yes, I like gardening but I’m no expert.
My mother was the gardener in our family, when she was able.
Even later, when she became frail, a walk around her flower beds always cheered her up.
My father took over the vegetable garden as soon as we knew she had leukaemia.
I’m not sure what will happen now as the garden is now in my brother’s care and I don’t think he, or his new bride, have much interest in gardening. ’
‘Ah, I’m sorry about your mother,’ Jenny said thoughtfully. ‘My mum died about six years ago. I suppose that’s why you’re up here to be a companion chauffeur to Aunt Amy?’
‘My mother died five years ago when I was eighteen,’ Roxie said.
‘My father was terribly lost without her, so I stayed at home and did my best to take her place. Even when she was physically frail, she still handled the banking and the farm accounts on the computer, as well as all the records farmers have to keep these days.’
‘Can you do all that sort of thing, then?’
‘Oh, yes, of course. I enjoyed it, and my father loved his pedigree herd so I helped him with that too. If I hadn’t had a brother, I would have taken over the farm.’
‘I see . . .’ Jenny exchanged a strange look with her husband. ‘Does Aunt Amy know?’
‘Oh, yes, of course. We had a long telephone conversation. I would never be anything but honest with her. It wouldn’t have done to try to deceive her.’
‘No, you don’t seem the deceitful kind anyway. People always get caught out.’
‘Yes, they do.’ Roxie smiled ruefully, ‘Believe it or not—’ she gave a wry grimace — ‘I even have an advanced motoring certificate.’
‘Good for you!’ Jenny chuckled. ‘I don’t suppose they take you over drives with moss-covered boulders.
I’m beginning to see why Aunt Amy set her heart on choosing you instead of the middle-aged widow, or the other older applicants Ciaran was convinced she should consider.
I don’t believe she has told him that her youngest applicant has interests the same as her own once were. ’
‘Amy’s are still the same, if you ask me,’ Donald said. ‘She always seems to know what Ciaran is busy with down here.’
‘She has a good view of the farm from some of her windows and it’s only a couple of hundred yards away if you cut across the fields. Unfortunately, she can no longer clamber over the garden fence or walk on the rough ground since she broke her hip.’
‘Ah, Ciaran has the car jacked up,’ Donald said.
‘I’ll go and help him, see if we can ease it off the stone and onto the drive.
I reckon if it had seriously damaged the petrol tank there would be a pool by now.
If you’re lucky, Miss Carr, it will only have caught the exhaust.’ Roxie crossed her fingers as she watched the men slowly release her little car.
‘Is your father living with your brother and his wife now?’ Jenny asked in her friendly manner.
‘Er . . . no . . .’ A look of pain passed over Roxie’s face. She bit her lip.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jenny said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to pry. I-I was . . .’
‘It’s all right. My f-father died five weeks ago.
’ She gulped. ‘It was an accident. He slipped coming down the steps from the hotel after my brother’s wedding.
He hadn’t even had a drink, except the champagne toast. There were some wet leaves lying around.
My father slipped. He banged the back of his head on the edge of a step above.
It was all so simple. He — he never regained consciousness. He died ten days later.
‘Oh, how terrible! I am so, so sorry, Roxie. Does Aunt Amy know?’
‘Yes. My application was very last minute. I decided on the spur of the moment when I saw her advert. It was just after the funeral and I knew Tommy’s new wife, Gilda, resented my presence in the house.
There was no point in not being honest about my reason for suddenly wanting to get away and take a job when I had never been away from home before.
Gilda has finished college and was supposed to start her teacher training year but — but it seems she is pregnant.
I have wondered if my father guessed, especially when they were in such a rush to get married.
Tommy had not known her long. He only returned from Australia at the end of July. ’
‘Oh, my word!’
‘I felt they needed to have their home to themselves, especially when Gilda has so much to learn about running a farm. She knows nothing about farming. Tommy, my brother, wanted me to stay and carry on milking the cows as Father and I had done, but I knew Gilda didn’t want me there. Tommy didn’t understand.’
‘Sounds as if it would have been an awkward situation.’
‘Gilda looked relieved when I told her I was taking a job until I decide whether or not I still want to go to university, as I had intended when mother was alive. If I did go, I would be a mature student now, though.’
‘What would you study?’ Jenny asked curiously.
‘I previously had acceptances for a couple of university places to study pharmacy,’ Roxie said slowly.
‘I’m not sure I would do that now. To tell the truth, this spell away from everything familiar will give me a chance to find myself, to decide what I do want in the future.
Your aunt knows this. I think she understands.
Our solicitor at home suggested I study law, but I don’t fancy that. ’
‘What about boyfriends? Any broken hearts left behind?’ Jenny asked with a smile.
‘I don’t think so. I felt one of them had his eye more on the farm than on me,’ she said wryly.
‘That was when my brother was in Australia and we’d begun to wonder whether Tommy would ever return home and settle down at Willowbrook.
Some of our neighbours thought the same.
He had been to agricultural college, but felt my father was old-fashioned and set in his ways by the time he finished.
We have a milking parlour and pedigree Holsteins.
My brother wanted to change to robots for the milking and have a commercial herd.
He had only been home from Australia for about ten days when he met Gilda.
Then, in what seemed a very short time, he was getting married.
Everything seems to have happened so quickly I hardly know what I want. ’
‘Are you two going to stand and blether all day?’ Ciaran called out to them. For the first time, Roxie saw him give an attractive grin. He looked genuinely pleased as he viewed her little car now sitting on all four wheels.
‘Oh, you have managed it!’ she cried in relief. She could have hugged him at that moment and Roxanne Carr was not in the habit of hugging men, especially cantankerous strangers.
‘We think you’ve been lucky. No damage to the petrol tank and I think the exhaust is still in one piece. I’ll have a listen when you turn the engine over.’
‘I don’t know how to thank you.’
‘Look, I have an inspection pit,’ Ciaran said. ‘If you bring it down tomorrow morning, we’ll take a proper look underneath to make sure everything is all right.’ Roxie opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand. ‘I don’t want you driving my mother out and breaking down,’ he said.
‘I will bring it then — if Mrs Baxter agrees it is convenient. I must get away. I hope the police managed to contact her or she’ll think I am never coming.’
‘The police?’ Ciaran’s brows rose up to his curly hair.
‘I told you, I couldn’t get a signal after the traffic accident.
A policewoman offered to contact the local police station up here so they could telephone Mrs Baxter and explain the delay.
I had no way of knowing that she had family living close by, or how badly she may be incapacitated.
I was anxious about being so late in case she was in need of help. ’
‘I forgot, you’ve never met my aunt,’ Jenny said. ‘She’s not actually incapacitated. I’m sure the two of you will get on splendidly. Donald and I are staying at Ciaran’s for the weekend so we may see you tomorrow.’
Roxie climbed into her car and started the engine. She gave them all a big grin of relief when everything sounded normal. She drove carefully back onto the farm track and went on her way, hoping Mrs Baxter would be more understanding than her son and a lot less critical.