Chapter Eighteen
Feeling terrible about having left it so long, Imogen whipped up a batch of walnut-studded brownies and made the most of a
brief cessation in the rain to drop in on Winifred with them.
“My dear, what a lovely surprise,” said the older woman.
The two women settled in the neat, overcrowded little sitting room with tea and brownies still warm from the oven. Imogen
was shocked at how much more gray and frail Winifred looked. It was poignant that there was no snoring, hairy lump of chestnut
brown taking up all the space in front of the fire.
“I do miss the old boy,” admitted Winifred, seeing Imogen looking. “I’m a silly old fool, but I only managed to steel myself
to get rid of his bed, lead, and bowl last week.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Imogen. “I’ve been meaning to say—”
But Winifred wasn’t interested in hearing Imogen’s list of her own failures. “Ah, well, we must buck up,” she announced. “It’s
nearly Christmas, after all, and there’s such a lot to do, with cards and baking and—of course—all the volunteering with the
school refurbishment. But enough about me, my dear, tell me about you!”
Imogen obediently told the story of her extraordinary breakthrough in Rowena’s representation. Sensing Winifred was keen on distraction, she led her through the exciting developments. Imogen plastered on a happy face at the thought that Tango and Ruth were soon to be released on the world, if only Rowena would update her on what potential publishers were saying about her work.
“It all sounds so splendid, and yet... What is it that is troubling you, my dear?” said Winifred, fixing her with calm,
all-seeing gray eyes. “You are far too miserable for a soon-to-be debut author with the world at her feet. Tell me, what is
amiss?”
And so, Imogen did. As soon as she mentioned the obligation in the house deeds, the old woman’s intelligent eyes focused sharply
on her, and she went still.
“You know about this,” said Imogen. It wasn’t a question.
Winifred sighed. “Oh, my dear,” she said. “It sounds like the Middlemass Hall curse strikes again.”
Imogen inclined her head, urging Winifred to disclose what she clearly knew.
“My lovely friend Deirdre, sadly passed now,” Winifred began. “She lived in the Old Rectory, you know the one? Old red-brick
house with a huge, beautiful garden, just at the bottom of the hill that leads to Paddy’s shop?”
Imogen nodded. “A barrister guy lives there with his family now?”
“That’s right, well—until a couple of years ago—it was the home of Deirdre and her family. Her husband died eons ago, and her children are all grown-up—she was ninety when she died. The same as for you, there was a let ter from the Middlemass estate demanding an unimaginable sum, just a few years ago. I blame that flibbertigibbet child, Louise, who is always demanding this and that, just because her company has some hiring agreement with the place.”
Much as Imogen enjoyed hearing Louise being bitched about, she was keen for Winifred to get on with the story.
“So, anyway, Deirdre was terribly shocked, of course,” Winifred went on. “She came from a good family—old money—and she wasn’t
poor, but she led a life of relative genteel poverty. The money she did have was mostly in the house. She certainly didn’t
have the kind of sum they were demanding just sloshing around in the bank. And—in any case—the expectation was that she was
going to leave the house to her grandchildren, to give them a jolly good start in life, to pay for university and suchlike.”
“So did she have to move out?”
“No,” said Winifred decisively, causing Imogen’s heart to give a little leap of hope, but then Winifred continued.
“She was in her late eighties before all this came up, and she had inherited the house from her own grandmother, raised all
her children there, lived there for decades with her husband until he died... and darling Lord Havenbury made an agreement
with her that she could continue to live in the house for the rest of her days,” said Winifred, her eyes shining. “Wasn’t
that kind?”
“Very,” said Imogen bitterly. She could think of lots of things to call it, but “kind” was not the first word to spring to mind. And Gabriel had so far made it quite clear the same accommodation was not to be extended to her. Even though Deirdre’s family had only enjoyed what she wanted for herself, to be able to raise her child in that house, to make it her home forever. Albeit she was bound to live for longer, only being thirty-two to Deirdre’s late eighties.
“So, what happened in the end?” she asked, hoping against hope for something she could take some comfort from.
“When Deirdre died—it was only a couple of years later—the house was sold to pay the debt to the Middlemass estate,” explained
Winifred gloomily.
“But it can’t have been worth anything?” said Imogen, remembering Duncan’s and Richard’s gloomy faces when she proposed doing
the same.
“I suppose not,” said Winifred. “I don’t know the detail, but I think Lord Havenbury came to an arrangement with them so it
could happen.”
“And the grandchildren?”
“They got a little something,” conceded Winifred. “Not really enough to transform their lives as she had hoped. She would
have been very distressed about that aspect of things.”
“Do you think it’s fair?”
“Would it make a difference if I did?” asked Winifred gently. “I have some sympathy for Lord Havenbury. It’s not easy running
these huge country estates. Society has changed so dramatically, really it’s difficult to say what these enormous, expensively
crumbling houses are for anymore. But blood is blood, isn’t it?” she said, putting her head on one side and regarding Imogen
sadly. “People will do anything for those they love, won’t they?”
In the end, after days trapped in the house by torrential rain, watching the telephone crouching silently in the hall, and cursing Rowena’s insistence on refusing her mobile number—although the signal was rubbish in the house anyway—Imogen nearly missed the call.
Nervous about her approaching driving test and horrified at the thought of being in a car with Gabriel again, she had booked
a couple of emergency lessons with a kindly sounding local instructor called Trevor. Waddling out to greet him, because a
waddle was required nowadays, she was inserting herself clumsily into the driving seat when a sound, or even just an echo
of a sound, told her the telephone was ringing in the house.
Cursing, she apologized, extricated herself with difficulty, and galumphed back to the door at an almost run. Knowing for
a fact that if it was just her mother she would be forced to drive to Surrey, driving license or no, and strangle her, Imogen
grabbed the telephone.
“Imogen speaking,” she said breathlessly.
“Rowena,” boomed the voice at the other end.
“Oh, hi!” she squeaked, checking her reflection in the hall mirror and frantically smoothing hopelessly rain-frizzed hair
as if the call were about to convert to Zoom.
“Hi,” replied Rowena in kind, with faint sarcasm.
Imogen cringed.
“Good news, darling,” she continued more warmly, “splendid, actually...” She paused for effect.
Imogen waited.
“I spoke to the usual crowd about you, obviously.” She reeled off a few imprints that Imogen had heard of. “But it was Tiger Books I really wanted for you...”
Imogen was unable to prevent herself giving a tiny squeal of excitement. Tiger Books was huge. She had submitted to them—un-agented,
of course—years before and been rebuffed by an echoing silence.
Tiger Books was synonymous with most of the children’s classic books. Her childhood bookshelves had groaned with the weight
of them, and when the hugely successful pop star Angel had decided to write a children’s story last year, it had been Tiger
Books who scooped her up and hyped the truly execrable Curly the Caterpillar series with champagne launches and podcast interviews.
“...so anyway, they agreed, of course,” Rowena was saying.
“Sorry?”
“They agreed! Well, I say they agreed—they did more than that, actually. Far be it from me to blow my own trumpet”—at this
Rowena laughed conspiratorially—“but I can’t remember the last time I struck a keener deal.”
“You are marvelous,” responded Imogen fervently.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, my dear,” she replied with false deprecation. “Anyway, as I was saying, are you sitting down?”
“Yes, yes!” she lied impatiently.
“Well, they instantly took Autumn in the Park , but only if they can have one for spring, summer, and winter as well—a set of four just to launch with, my dear—I am sure
I don’t need to tell you this is quite exceptional for a new author. Of course, they want their own writer...”
Imogen’s pang at the rejection of her own words was fleeting.
“And in fact, they already have someone looking at Autumn , although I did say I reserved the right for you to do your storyboard first, words second, for the others too. They seemed
to find that perfectly acceptable. You really are a bit of a hot property, my dear!”
By this time, Imogen had sat down, sinking onto the hall chair and staring blankly ahead. After years of rejection and self-doubt,
success was destabilizing. It was a disconcerting sensation of opening a familiar door into a familiar room only to discover
that something quite astonishingly wonderful unexpectedly lay beyond. A slow smile crept across her face as she half listened
to Rowena boom on about advances, launch marketing strategies, and revenue from overseas rights.
Eventually, noticing the still-open front door, Imogen gasped, “Trevor!”
“I beg your pardon, my dear?” replied Rowena, interrupted in midflow.
“I’m so sorry, Rowena, my poor driving instructor is waiting to give me a lesson, I really must go.
“Absolutely, and I think you had better start thinking about what car you would like to buy when you’ve passed your test.
I have a very good feeling about this. In my estimation, Tango and Ruth are shaping up to be the new Tiger Who Came to Tea .”
The driving lesson was not one of Imogen’s best. Trevor was sweet and kindly thrilled at her news. However, even he was impatient when she tried to pull away in reverse for the third time. And when she shocked herself by trying to go round a roundabout anticlockwise, causing a formidable lady driving a Land Rover to swerve onto the central island, Trevor asked Imogen to pull into the lay-by.
“On the whole, my love, you’ve got some good skills. You did a beautiful three-point turn earlier, and your hill starts are
definitely improving, but we can’t afford to be making mistakes like that, can we?” He smiled encouragingly.
Imogen hung her head.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get you through the test all right. I’m just a bit concerned that it’s coming up so soon. We only have
a few lessons, after all,” he said, kindly ignoring the appalling display of attention deficit she had shown that day. “I
don’t need to tell you how much you’ll need to be able to drive, living around here, once the little one arrives.”
Imogen nodded dumbly.
“The main thing is to get you into your little Ford in between our lessons,” he continued briskly. “I want you to find someone
you can drive with for at least an hour every day from now until the test.”
“Oh no,” she groaned. Only one person had offered, and that was the man she now thought of as the devil incarnate. She couldn’t
ask Gabriel. She just couldn’t.
“I would absolutely love to help, sweetheart,” said Genny sympathetically later that day, “but I just don’t know when we would
do it. School is just ridiculous at the moment.”
“How’s it all going?” asked Imogen, ashamed that she was thinking of herself when this was all going on.
“Well, okayish, although this half of term we have to get through a huge amount of curriculum stuff, just in case we don’t have all the facilities back after the Christmas refurbishment. Gabriel’s been practicing driving with you, hasn’t he?”
“I don’t think driving lessons with Gabriel are good for the mental health at the moment. His or mine,” said Imogen gloomily.
“Ah yes,” said Genny. “The repairs clause. I can tell he’s feeling really bad about it.”
“That’s a great comfort to know,” said Imogen with a wry smile.
Genny sighed. “It’s so tricky, though,” she went on. “He is under a huge amount of pressure. I know the conference company who rent the Hall are
really demanding. It’s probably them who are insisting on the repairs. I mean, there’s always stuff to do on an estate that
big, but it’s a case of waiting until there’s the money to do it.”
“If he gets what he wants from me, he’ll certainly have a useful repair budget,” said Imogen, unable to keep the bitterness
out of her voice. “Given what you are saying about the conference company putting the pressure on, he’s probably doing it
to show off to his girlfriend.”
“Louise?” Genny grimaced.
Imogen’s stomach fell. Even if she hadn’t admitted it to herself, referencing Gabriel’s “girlfriend” had been fishing. And
now Genny had confirmed her suspicions.
“Not anyone’s favorite person,” Genny was continuing. “It’s weird how she seems to have some sort of a hold over him... She’s got a nerve, being so brazen, don’t you think?” She looked at Imogen for backing. “There she is chucking herself at him, and let’s face it, he could pretty much have anyone he wanted, after all.”
“I actually thought he was a little bit fond of me,” admitted Imogen.
There, she had said it.
“He is,” said Genny. “I’m sure of it.”
“I mean, obviously he treats me like a bit of an idiot—”
“Yeah, obviously,” agreed Genny, a bit too readily in Imogen’s view.
“But no, clearly money is what drives him,” Imogen went on. “He would rather see me ruined and on the street than have his
precious estate wall go another few years without repointing.”
“I just can’t believe Gabriel would do that,” said Genny. “You should talk to him. Although he’s in a funny mood at the moment.
Now I think we know why.”
In the end, Imogen had no choice but to swallow her pride and ask Gabriel to help her practice her driving. Now the worst
of the situation was out in the open, he seemed keen to see her and certainly very keen to be helpful. It was probably guilt.
Out with him the following day, with neither of them acknowledging the elephant in the car, she was feeling pretty chipper about her driving, at least. Under his surprisingly calm instruction, she had even gone all the way to Exeter with him and buzzed confidently around mammoth roundabouts with multiple sets of traffic lights and more lanes than an American highway, as well as doing a series of competent hill starts on the fearsomely steep road out of Portneath. Tootling through the narrow, high-sided lanes that led back to Middlemass, she allowed her speed to rise to a carefree forty miles an hour. She swung around the final corner of the switchback into the village. Then she froze, eyes fixed on the sea of sheep filling the road in front of her. A millisecond later, she stamped hard on the brake and wrenched the wheel, sending the car into a sideways slide, taking her the remaining yards toward the nearest animals and stopping inches short of their noses.
Gabriel muttered furiously under his breath.
“Sorry,” said Imogen, and then, just to make conversation, “Are they yours?”
“Yes,” he said heavily. “Although funnily enough, it’s not a good idea to plow a car into a flock of sheep, even if you don’t
have the owner sitting next to you.”
Jumping out, Gabriel waved and shrugged placatingly at the shepherd on the far side of the dusty, milling river of bleating
wool still filling the lane. He came around to the driver’s side and opened Imogen’s door.
“Out you get, then,” he said impatiently. Imogen got.
He jumped in and restarted the stalled engine. Making to drive off, he looked with irritated surprise at Imogen standing hunched
on the steep bank.
“Staying here?” he asked sarcastically.
Imogen scuttled around the back—the sheep were now filling the lane to the front of the car, jostling against the bonnet,
spilling down the sides of the lane—and levered herself into the passenger seat.
Gabriel nodded curtly, put the car into gear, and rested his arm along the back of her seat, reversing confidently along the lane with just one hand on the wheel.
She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the sheep until they were lost to sight as Gabriel reversed skillfully around a bend and
continued, aiming for the gateway they had passed some hundred or so yards back. She was acutely aware of his hand, hanging
relaxed just an inch from her jaw. In her mind, his thumb ran caressingly down her cheek, his strong, tanned fingers stroking
her neck as she ached for more and then, suddenly, they were closing convulsively around her throat, clenching shut, stopping
the air, choking her... Imogen recoiled, gasping as if it were real, sitting rigidly upright in her seat, staring through
the windscreen.
Gabriel appeared not to notice anything unusual. He merely braked when he reached the gate, executed a perfect three-point
turn using the extra width provided by the gap in the hedge where the gate was, and then jumped out of the car again to swing
open the gate in readiness for the sheep as they appeared around the bend.
Climbing back into the driver’s seat and restarting the engine, he said, “I’ll take us back now—unless you want to drive again.”
But it was a statement, not a question.
Pulling up alongside his Land Rover at the front of Storybook Cottage, he killed the engine but then just sat, hands on the
wheel, staring through the windscreen.
She waited.
“So, you talked to your solicitors in London?” he said at last.
She nodded mutely.
“And?”
“They said... well, basically, they said I’m stuffed,” she admitted.
“Our guys say you should claim on your insurance.”
“Well, I can’t,” she retorted. “There isn’t any.”
“Of all the bloody idiocy!” he fumed. “You should sue them for incompetence.”
“Yes, all right,” she snapped back. “Not sure where to send the papers, though. Heaven or hell? Do say which... To be honest,
I have a few issues I’d like to raise with my dead husband at the moment. I’ll add this to the list.” She threw open the car
door and stomped out.
By the time she got to the front door, Gabriel was already there, barring her way.
“You’re doing this to me,” she said. “It’s not Nigel. It’s you. And you’re doing it because your precious Louise is telling
you to.”
She glared up at him, furious that he could see her eyes filling with tears.
“You’re wrong, that’s not it at all,” he said, clutching his temples. Then, taking a deep breath, he held out his arms. “Imogen,”
he said, gently. “Come here. I’m sorry.”
“No,” she said, pushing past him. Inside the house, she leaned against the front door, legs trembling. She had been mad to
think she could cope with seeing him just so she could practice her driving. It was agony. She waited, motionless. After several
moments, she heard his car door slam and the engine start. As she heard him go, her knees gave way, and she sank to the floor.