Chapter 16
‘You OK?’ Theo, standing to one side of the Great Hall, had a strange look on his face as I came off the dance floor where I’d been grabbed and whirled around by Hugh Mandeville.
After a rigorous bout of dad dancing to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, whose exhortations to us all to ‘Relax’ appeared to go unheeded, Theo’s father had clutched me to his red jacket.
The tempo slowed and the dulcet tones of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross crooning ‘Endless Love’ reduced the pace, with everyone now swaying a drunken slow dance.
Hugh certainly knew how to enjoy himself, although I could see the amount of alcohol he’d downed had a lot to do with it.
He must have once been just as good-looking and charismatic as Theo, I surmised, but now, in his fifties, his fair hair was receding and broken veins on his nose and cheeks suggested a full-on sybaritic lifestyle.
When a damp paw was deliberately placed on my backside as we moved, I wriggled to free myself from it but that only appeared to encourage him further and I was only able to extract myself once Lionel and Diana came to a soulful conclusion.
‘Thank you so much,’ I murmured, a smile plastered on my face as I walked towards Theo.
‘You OK?’ Theo said once more. ‘I’m sorry…’
‘Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?’ I might not have appreciated his dad fondling my bum, but I wasn’t going to call him out and complain to Theo. ‘Goodness, your dad’s got some energy.’
‘Hmm.’ Theo took my hand but said nothing further as he led me out of the hall.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I want to show you something.’
Something?
‘Come on, I’m going to take you to my favourite place in the world.’ He smiled. ‘Apart from Lake Matheson in the South Island of New Zealand, of course. I don’t think anywhere can beat that.’
‘Oh, it’s getting light.’ I gazed towards the east where dawn was just breaking. I stopped and just stood, watching as the night’s darkness yielded to the burgeoning light of a new day, painting the Yorkshire skies in a veritable rainbow of greys, pink and orange.
Theo smiled. ‘Well, it is four thirty. It’ll be fully light in half an hour. Looks like we’re in for another scorcher.’ Theo took off his red jacket, placing it round my shoulders. ‘Chilly now though,’ he added. ‘I hope it’s not been too, you know, over the top for you?’
‘No, no,’ I gushed, hating Theo to think I’d not enjoyed myself. ‘It’s been, well, different.’
‘Yes, it’s not something I want to do more than once a year.’
‘Honestly, Theo, thank you so much for inviting me.’ I felt suddenly shy as I removed my shoes once more, and we set off walking across the huge expanse of verdant lawn.
Theo stopped, stooping to pluck a buttercup before threading it through my hair.
‘I thought you were supposed to hold it under my chin… you know, to see if I liked butter?’
‘I just needed to touch you,’ he said seriously.
He stopped again, clearly self-conscious at what he’d just said, but nevertheless reaching both hands gently into my hair which was coming down from its up-do.
He brought me towards him, kissing my mouth.
Softly at first, kissing each upper and lower lip in turn, his breath, despite the alcohol we’d both drunk, sweet.
He moved me back slightly, looking into my open eyes as if questioning whether this was something he should be doing.
As if!
I leaned in, kissing him back, running my tongue lightly across his lower lip, emboldened as, with lust coursing through every bit of me, my hands reached around his waist, feeling the heat of him through his white shirt and waistcoat.
Any embrace, any kiss I’d had in the past, was nothing, mere amateurish child’s play compared to kissing Theo Mandeville, standing on the dewy grass in my bare feet with the sun making its glorious appearance over the horizon.
‘Come on,’ Theo finally said, taking my hand and my abandoned shoes. ‘I want to show you this before anyone else has the same idea.’
We walked for a good ten minutes, talking only a little, happy with the companiable silence, but stopping every now and again as Theo pointed out a constellation sitting milkily in the lightening sky, an owl swooping into a giant oak in front of us or a plane making its way to Leeds Bradford airport on the horizon.
‘Oh, wow.’ I stopped short as the early-morning mist hung and shimmered over a vast expanse of water. ‘Your lake?’ I asked. ‘Graham told me there was one.’
Theo nodded. ‘I loved coming down here as a child. Still love it. I’m not convinced my family come to the lake much any more.
It’s a big hit with the visitors – they come to picnic here.
We’ve managed so far to keep away from the idea of renting out boats and punts and the like, but needs must – Dad’s apparently now open to the Trust’s idea of doing just that. ’
‘Needs must?’
‘Not easy finding the funds to keep this place going.’
‘Well, I sort of get that,’ I said, nodding.
‘Your parents’ electricity and gas bill must be ridiculous.
You see,’ I went on, ‘that’s why you need my dad and brother back down the mine, bringing up the coal, to make the electricity.
If the mines are not being productive, then obviously light and heating are all going to cost a lot more. ’
‘Apparently, it makes more economic sense to buy the stuff from abroad.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ I scoffed. ‘You’ve been influenced by your sisters’ husbands.’
‘Well,’ Theo said mildly, ‘I didn’t like to tell you, when you were talking to Duncan, that he’s a financier bankrolling the National Coal Board. His company are financing the NCB, apparently, to the tune of over a billion.’
‘Right.’ I didn’t quite know what to say to that. I mean, I could have said plenty, could have rattled off statistics, but I found I didn’t want to. Didn’t want to spoil the atmosphere of being on the shore of this magical lake, in these heavenly gardens and with this more than beautiful man.
‘Come on.’ Theo took my hand, leading me past a copse of trees to a small, sheltered sort of bay area. ‘I used to hide down here when I was home from school and Dad was wanting me to help out in some way, or Mum was wanting to know why my school report wasn’t up to scratch.’
‘Not up to scratch?’ I gave a little mocking laugh at the very idea that Theo Mandeville might not have been in the A stream. ‘I bet it was.’
‘OK.’ Theo laughed. ‘It wasn’t bad. My French and Latin were both pretty atrocious, but everything else passed muster.’
‘And the sport?’
‘Oh, the sport, absolutely.’ Theo grinned down at me. ‘Football! I coveted dreams of becoming the next Trevor Brooking or Emlyn Hughes.’
‘I thought you public-school lot only played rugby union?’
‘Absolutely. Footie was frowned upon – not seen as a gentleman’s game.
I used to skive off and kick a ball around with the local lads.
I was all right, you know. Could have gone far.
’ Theo picked up a large pebble, demonstrating a rather impressive feat of keepy-uppy on his white trousered knee. ‘But then, I discovered squash.’
‘And?’
‘And I want to go as far as I can with it.’ Theo’s voice was animated. ‘I want to be the next Jonah Barrington or Gawain Briars.’
‘And what do your parents think to that?’
‘Not much.’ Theo frowned. ‘I don’t tell them how much I’m playing. You know, I bet if it was tennis I’d got into, they’d have been OK with it. John Lloyd and Wimbledon and all that. They see the mania for squash that everyone seems to have at the moment as a ten-minute wonder.’
‘Talk to them,’ I urged, taking Theo’s hand in my own. ‘You never know. They might be really proud of you if you managed to go far with this dream of yours.’
‘Oh, it’s all too new, not established. I reckon Dad sees it as something like playing darts or snooker – not quite the done thing. My father is somewhat old-fashioned.’
‘You’re joking.’ I took Theo’s hand. ‘Your dad was listening to the Stones as he trimmed your mother’s bush…’ I broke off, laughing as I remembered, and Theo gave a rueful grin.
‘Sorry about that. He likes to think he’s a bit of a comedian. Especially when he’s had a drink.’
‘Well, he was boogying on down to Frankie Goes to Hollywood – I wouldn’t call that old-fashioned. I bet your dad would love to have a famous squash player for a son.’
‘He wants me back here eventually, taking over this place. He’s determined it won’t go to the local authority like your Cannon Hall has done. Me gallivanting all over the world playing squash, instead of taking over the running of Mandeville Hall, isn’t something he’d consider.’
‘You should talk to him…’ I started again.
‘I don’t know why we’re talking about my dad…
Hang on…’ Theo pulled the red jacket closer around my shoulders as I shivered in the cool morning air.
‘I’ve often made a fire down here…’ He moved off, gathering dry bracken, dead grass, twigs and larger pieces of wood, expertly building a triangle on a sheltered spot where there’d clearly been previous fires built.
‘Matches?’ I asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘Yep.’ Theo produced a small book of matches from the back pocket of his breeches, tearing off and striking a match from the cardboard and, squatting, attempted with much blowing at the flame to light the dried tinder.
I started to laugh at his exertions. ‘You could do with some Rothersley coal.’ And then, when he didn’t reply, ‘Do you always carry matches on you? Or had you planned to bring me down here? You know, to light a fire, to show me your lake?’
‘First time I’ve ever had it called that,’ Theo muttered through one final blow. He laughed then, sitting back on his heels before fishing into his pocket once more. ‘Have to hold up my hands!’
‘To your intention of bringing me down here?’
Theo brought out a rather squashed cigarette. ‘Nope! To this! I’m a reformed smoker. Got into it at school. Still fancy one occasionally.’
‘And you a sportsman?’
‘I know, I know. I allow myself one every now and again.’