Chapter Eleven
It was hard to know who was more startled, Venetia or her young neighbour sitting on the fallen tree, the spot where Venetia always sat while Bon-Bon, on his extendable lead, poked around in the leaves.
‘You have a dog,’ said Cassie as Bon-Bon stood stock still in the soft beam of light, emitting a low growl, his ears pricked. She didn’t say it in an accusatory voice, more a simple statement of fact.
‘Yes,’ said Venetia, equally matter-of-factly. ‘His name is Bon-Bon.’ Then as if the necessary introductions had been completed satisfactorily, the dog went to inspect Cassie. Standing close enough to be petted, he tilted his head back expectantly.
‘If he’s being a nuisance, or you’re not a fan of dogs, just ignore him,’ Venetia said.
‘How can I ignore him when he’s so adorable?’ Cassie responded. ‘Come and sit with me and tell me all about him. Presumably he’s the reason for your late night and early morning walks, isn’t he?’
‘Guilty as charged,’ Venetia said when she was seated next to Cassie. ‘Are you going to report me to the management company?’
‘Of course not. I’m not a snitch.’
‘You’d be perfectly within your rights to do so; after all, it does say quite clearly in the management rules, no pets allowed.’
‘But who could possibly object to this little cutie?’ After he’d been pawing at her, Cassie now had Bon-Bon on her lap, and he was plainly loving the attention. ‘But as totally gorgeous as he is,’ Cassie went on, ‘why have you moved here, where, to put it bluntly, he isn’t welcome?’
‘I have my reasons.’
‘I’ve noticed you have a habit of never really answering a question,’ the younger woman said when a few seconds had passed. ‘You did it at the drinks party.’
Thinking that it was quite an astute observation, Venetia said, ‘I answered your questions about my dog.’
‘True, and I do appreciate I scarcely know you, but it seems to me that you do tend to evade anything of a personal nature.’
Venetia smiled to herself. ‘Maybe it’s because I’m inherently dull and have nothing of worth to share. I’m much more interested in knowing why you’re here alone in the dark.’
‘There,’ said Cassie, ‘that’s a classic example of misdirection.’
Venetia turned her head to look at her companion. ‘Really? And there was me thinking I was just being a good neighbour.’
A small smile appeared on Cassie’s face. ‘You are, but you have to admit, you are giving the impression that you have something to hide, quite apart from this delightful little chap.’
Venetia laughed lightly. ‘We all do, don’t we? I’m no different to anybody else.’
‘What will you do if it becomes known by other people here that you have a dog?’
‘I’ll fight tooth and nail for him to be allowed to stay.’
‘And if you lose the fight?’
‘Then they’ll have to carry me out kicking and screaming. I shan’t go quietly, I can assure you.’
‘Well, you can count on me to help man the barricades to stop them doing that. I love a rule-breaker.’
Venetia smiled back at her. ‘How about in return for that kind gesture, you tell me what’s troubling you?’
Cassie frowned. ‘What makes you think something’s trou-bling me?’
‘Why else are you here on your own in the dark? Or are you communing with nature? Or maybe moon-bathing?’ She turned her gaze upwards. ‘Not that there’s any chance of any moonlight making its way through the thick canopy of leaves above us.’
A long moment passed while Cassie played with Bon-Bon’s fluffy ears. Venetia waited. She was good at that.
‘It’s nothing really,’ Cassie said at length. ‘Just me being my usual idiotic self.’
‘You don’t strike me as being idiotic.’
‘I promise you, I am. I have this infuriating habit of leaping to conclusions and usually getting it absurdly wrong.’
‘And why might that be?’
‘Because I’m an—’
‘Please don’t say it’s because you’re an idiot. I won’t countenance that.’
‘Okay then, it’s pretty simple really; I have trust issues. And the person I should be able to trust one hundred per cent, I don’t seem able to.’
Venetia let a moment pass before saying, ‘Would that person be Ben?’
Cassie sighed deeply. ‘Yes. And don’t jump to any conclusions yourself about him, you mustn’t do that. Ben’s never given me any cause not to trust him.’
‘What’s the problem, then?’
‘Long story short, it’s my inability to believe Ben won’t treat me the way my ex-husband did. He was a serial cheater and dumped me when our daughter, Emily, was born.’
‘Ah,’ said Venetia, ‘that would understandably have a destruc-tive effect on you. So how long have you and Ben been together?’
‘Ten years. Time enough for me to have shrugged off the doubts, you’re probably thinking, aren’t you?’
Venetia shook her head. ‘Not at all. Something like that would never really leave a person. Trust is such an integral part of a relationship, perhaps the most fundamental part. So what’s happened to cause you to have a momentary wobble, if I can put it that way?’
Cassie ran a hand the length of Bon-Bon’s body, then repeated the movement before saying, ‘I overhead Ben talking to someone on the phone earlier and it was a conversation I plainly wasn’t meant to hear, and though I’m sure it was perfectly innocent, no more than him organising a surprise for my birthday, it caught me off guard.
It was a reminder of all those times I’d caught my ex cheating on me. ’
‘And the memory caused a bit of you to leap to the conclusion that Ben was doing the same?’
Cassie nodded. ‘It all sounds so pathetic, doesn’t it?’
‘Far from it. Does Ben know how you feel?’
‘Yes. Although perhaps not the full extent. I know it annoys him intensely that I can’t let go of the past and trust him completely, so I try to hide my true feelings.
I once accused him of having an affair. We’d only been together for a couple of years, and I’d somehow convinced myself that he was being unfaithful and sneaking off to see an ex-girlfriend of his.
It drove me crazy imagining him with her.
He was doing nothing wrong, of course, the ex had merely contacted him to ask if he had the phone number of a mutual friend as she’d lost her mobile.
The mess I made of things could so easily have ended our relationship. ’
‘But it didn’t,’ said Venetia, with what she hoped sounded like gentle but no-nonsense firmness, at the same time thinking that Cassie was clearly a lot more insecure than at first she appeared, or how she liked to portray herself.
But then wasn’t that often the way? We each have our Achilles heel, and for Cassie it was obviously how she’d been made to feel all those years ago.
Some things stayed with you forever, you simply had to learn to live with whatever had left its mark on you.
‘If I could give you one piece of advice,’ Venetia said, ‘it would be this; don’t ever let the past get in the way of your future.’
Seemingly lost in thought while absently stroking Bon-Bon’s head, Cassie eventually turned to face Venetia. ‘You’ve been very kind, listening to me babbling on. I’ve probably shared way too much with you. Another crime I’m guilty of. You won’t tell anyone what I’ve told you, will you?’
‘Absolutely not. The last thing you need is people gossiping about you and I sense that there could be a few here who might derive pleasure in a bit of neighbourly gossip.’
Cassie smiled. ‘The Enforcers definitely would.’
‘Who?’
‘The cabal of Cheryl and Joanne who enforce the Hope Hall rules. You need to watch them. If they find out about Bon-Bon’ – Cassie covered the dog’s ears with her hands – ‘they’ll come for you with pitchforks and flaming torches.’
Venetia smiled. ‘Thank you for the advice, I’ll be sure to heed it. Now, why don’t you go back home to Ben while I take Bon-Bon for a wander so he can stretch his legs and do his euphemistic business.’
‘If you don’t mind,’ Cassie said, ‘I’d like to walk with you and then we can go back together. Is that okay?’
‘More than okay, I shall enjoy your company.’
They’d only gone a short distance, following what had become a regular route for Venetia, when Cassie asked her the question Venetia had known she would.
‘What really brought you here to Hope Hall?’ asked the younger woman.
Why not tell her? Venetia pondered. It was always going to come out in the end.
It was just that old habits die hard. Her natural inclination was always to say as little as possible while encouraging the other to do all the talking.
As she just had with Cassie. She’d learnt that as a child, to keep things to herself, to lock them away in her heart so they couldn’t be taken or destroyed.
‘This was where I grew up a very long time ago,’ Venetia said. ‘I lived here when it was a children’s home.’