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Update time：2012-01-18 01:36 Authors：Serena

'At least I care about things,' she added with a challenging laugh of contempt. She pressed back against the luxurious padding of the seat, risking a sideways glance at his profile from under her long, curling lashes. 'I'm not afraid to champion what I think's right.' Her thoughts wound back to the acrimonious dispute with Guy over the Gainsborough painting.

It had, years ago, hung in the Grand Parlour of Aureole Court- a red brick Tudor manor house owned by a heritage association, where Adrian was employed as resident custodian - standing amongst woodland and rolling wheat fields. The heritage trustees had sold the picture to the Urquhart family to defray the mounting cost of remedying the ravages of rising damp and death-watch beetle. When Guy's parents moved from Golden Grove to settle in Monte Carlo as tax exiles, Guy had consigned the picture to a London sale room where it was knocked down for a record price to an Argentinian beef baron. Public opinion was outraged that Guy hadn’t offered it back to the nation and an appeal was launched to keep it in England. Char orchestrated the local action group, collecting signatures for the petition and rattling donation tins.

With the supreme confidence of youth, she’d tackled Guy at home in Golden Grove. He’d come into the oak panelled library, at her summons, in the middle of a game of tennis, panting a little from the exertion and resentful of her intrusion. The hardness of his jaw betrayed his impatience, his crisp, white shorts emphasising the length of leg and thigh, his powerful body moving with a fluid grace. It was a hot summer's day; Char’s arms were bare and rounded in the backless, strappy cotton dress and as she registered his warm, animal virility she could feel the onslaught of those grey eyes. He listened to her berating him for his City slicker ways and his indifference to the country's dwindling stock of art treasures and gradually his unresponsiveness gave way to amused tolerance. He’d laughed at her solemnity and she’d felt stung by what she regarded as his condescension.

'This is all so trivial.’ He dismissed her protest briskly, stepping forward so close that his breath was warm on her cheek. His hand trailed along the bare skin of her back to press against her spine her resistance flared out of control as desire arced through her and she was swept up in the unexpected bliss of the moment as he drew her against the length of him and his lips- intimate, demanding- devoured her mouth. Her own yielding response shocked her and from that moment Char sensed the danger in his maleness and made up her mind to cool it- keep her distance for anything else was bound to lead to complications and she couldn’t bear the idea of selling out to him, as she saw it.

But despite a bitterly fought campaign, Guy succeeded in obtaining an export licence and the painting passed into South American hands.

Guy flicked a glance at her, his fingers resting lightly on the steering wheel. They were beautifully shaped, the nails neatly trimmed. She remembered the sensation of those fingers against her spine and crazily wondered what it would be like to feel those fingers, those hands, his touch in her secret, intimate parts and the pleasure that the thought arouse in her made her feel as if she was dissolving.

'Right, left, or just plain loony, you're always there in the forefront, utterly indiscriminating. To you the cause is secondary to courting opposition.' His gaze dropped to her breasts.

She could’ve hit him. 'That's not fair.' Her voice rose shakily.' I’m not being perverse. I believe totally.' There was a grain of truth in what he’d said which she refused to admit to herself.

'Let me suggest an alternative battle cry.’

‘Yawn, yawn, administering more doses of unsolicited advice?’

‘Ella Wheeler Wilcox, an American poet, put it rather well and it goes roughly like this:

One ship drives east and another drives west

With the selfsame winds that blow

'Tis the set of the sails,

And not the gales,

That tell us the way to go.

Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate,

As we voyage along through life,

'Tis the set of a soul

That decides its goal,

And not the calm or the strife.

‘Oh!’ Char flushed, stung. 'You may’ve won the case but that doesn't give you the right to direct my life or criticise it. Look, just stop over there.' She braced herself for another confrontation.

'As you wish.' He’d become cool, remote but the veiled grey eyes were sharp and she wondered what lay behind the same quiet smile he’d worn when he guided her from the Law Courts.

They approached the tube station and Guy pulled over. Char got out, feeling rather foolish that her fragile poise had been stripped from her and blaming him for it. You jerk she whispered fiercely to the disappearing car but the pang she’d felt earlier hurt again and as she walked to the station entrance, glancing casually in the brightly lit shop windows, she saw her expression- flurried and irresolute. No man had ever made her feel the way he did.

Char collected the Pembrokes ageing Mini from a car park on the outskirts of London where she’d left it that morning, knowing she’d never find a parking space in town. Soon she’d joined the motorway heading northwards towards Aureole Court. Barring traffic black spots, she’d be home in an hour and a half. She switched on the car radio and a familiar piece of chamber music floated from it. Automatically she listened for the entry of the strings, humming the melody which she knew by heart.

At eighteen Char had enrolled at a music college in London, and for three exhilarating years played the violin, choosing the piano as her second instrument, interpreting the emotions of the great composers in her own inspired way. After the final exams, she auditioned for, and was amazed to be offered, a place in the second violins of a renowned national Orchestra. Adrian shared her pleasure but not her surprise. Your Mum played like an angel, he recalled fondly, his eyes turning again to the photograph of Char being danced on the knee of a slim, bright-eyed woman who’d died in a climbing accident in the Alps when Char was a toddler.

Despite the unsocial hours and the gruelling rehearsal sessions, the Orchestra was fun and the applause from appreciative audiences made Char feel as if she was walking on air. She enjoyed happy times with several men musicians that didn’t lead to any permanent romantic attachment. Concerts all over the country alternated with tours in Europe where after every performance she partied until dawn. But those halcyon four years were shattered when Adrian suffered a heart attack at the age of sixty. Resident curator at Aureole Court, his duties were to conduct visitors over the house on the days it was open to the public. He refused to let her abandon her music but seeing his chalky white face and the thin, scholarly man, now a shadow of his former self, shuffling from room to room, Char quit the Orchestra to show visitors round at Aureole Court combining it with a part-time job as general factotum with a local conservatory builder.

'I won't be able to carry on for much longer, even with your help,' Adrian admitted sadly one day. But the accommodation was tied to the job, and they’d scant savings. A chest infection developed after his coronary and that decided him. The heritage trustees reluctantly accepted his resignation, but assured him that until a successor was appointed the Pembrokes could remain in the small ground floor apartment tucked away in the north wing. But the urgent hunt for a home of their own gained fresh momentum.

Char turned off the motorway, her route winding by rich pastureland and churches with graceful spires. Beyond the stocks she could see Golden Grove in the distance slumbering under an autumn sun. It made her think of Guy and the way he could arouse in her desires she’d not known existed. But I must get a grip on myself, stop him riding over me. She had to, otherwise she was lost. She doubted if he’d have any scruples if the advantage was all his.

The villagers had seen very little of Guy lately owing to his business commitments, but with characteristic dynamism and disregard for convention he had, to universal consternation, delegated the running of his estate to a hard and aggressive farm manager.

She passed through wrought iron gates set in a high stone wall, smelling the cool scent of autumn in the air, and stopped the car in the pebbled yard of Aureole Court. To Char, the place was like an enchanted dream suspended in time. The old bricks glowed behind the moss and lichen. Mullioned windows winked in the October sunshine across lime arched walks, and rose terraces and flowering borders sloped down to the chain of lily ponds by the deer pavilion.

She let herself in through a studded side door marked Private by the old sycamore tree. There was the sound of scampering feet, as Jezebel, their black West Highland terrier, greeted her exuberantly.

Adrian heard Jezebel's welcoming gambits and called out. 'Everything all right, Char?'

She watched his face, grey with misery, as she reported the happenings in court that day as she clasped and unclasped her hands. Seeing Adrian’s pallor, she got up and poured him a glass of brandy. It wasn’t easy telling him how the Judge had been so scathing about his gullibility, describing him as penny wise and pound foolish for failing to seek legal advice at the time of the loan.

'Saville seemed trustworthy enough. Remember when he showed us round the place? He didn't look like a crook.' Adrian thumped the table with uncharacteristic violence.' But we can still sue him for the return of the loan can't we? What are we waiting for?'

She swallowed hard. 'Y-e-s, but Denzil says that unless we can trace him it’s pretty futile. It seems he’s done a bunk- gone somewhere abroad- it could be simply anywhere- with the sale proceeds.' She saw Adrian’s knuckles whiten over the tightly clenched thin hands and a cold anger reared up in her as irrationally she still blamed Guy for having brought them to this. And in that instant, her mind a jumble of conflicting and confused thoughts about him, she felt wretched and ashamed that her dislike of him was tinged with a desperate need to see him again.

***

During the weeks that followed, Char logged on to the To Let sections in various websites, viewing dingy rooms in the back streets of the county town and even sleazier ones in London, but to no avail.

'Decent housing at an affordable price is damned hard to come by,' she sighed mournfully as she sat in Denzil's office. She reached for another chocolate biscuit. ‘And it'll be odd eventually moving out of Aureole Court- I've lived there all my life. I've never known another home.'

'You know the Judge gave you just one year in which to repay Guy's legal costs? That's pretty tight. How's Adrian taking it?'

'Philisophic. He's a firm believer in divine intervention. Oh why can't I be like him, calm and serene?' she cried.

'Is that a rhetorical question? The trouble with you is that you just crash on like a steamroller hoping to flatten everything in your path. Things don’t work like that. I hate to say it again but I will - whilst you were locked in combat with Guy you should’ve been considering your fall-back position.'

'I was so sure right was on our side,’ Char confessed. She was beginning to feel remorseful.

Denzil sighed. ‘It was Guy who was in the right.’ How many times do I have to tell Char that?

Char sniffed disparagingly. She signed a few papers and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. 'Is that the time? I’d better head back.'

'Go carefully now,' Denzil cautioned and she sensed that he meant it in more ways than one.

Char checked in as usual at her part-time job. Her boss had started out designing conservatories in the Victorian style moving onto Regency and Edwardian. He came in, slamming the door behind him with more than usual force, impatiently opening and shutting the drawers of the filing cabinet and craning over her shoulder at the monitor to see what she was doing.

‘Cool it.’ Char said exasperated.’ You’ve very jumpy today. What’s the hell’s got into you?’

‘That swine of a bank manager's not prepared to extend any more credit. Business is at a standstill and I've no new orders on the books. I've no option but to pack it in.’

She stared at him, round- eyed with horror. It was far worse than she’d imagined having opened some of the stroppy letters from the bank, but then that was routine.

‘I have to let you go.' The man opened his cheque book. ‘I know I'm supposed to give you a month's notice but I can't afford more than two weeks pay in lieu.' He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. 'It's the best I can do.'

Char said nothing, her thoughts whirling at the clumsy revelation. Mistaking her silence for dissent, he said querulously, 'It's no good asking me for more. I’m skint.'

'And what’ll you do?' She slipped the cheque into the pocket of her worn, brown leather jacket. The creep- it’s typical of him to leave things until they’d reached crisis point. Why hadn't he given me due warning so that I could’ve started looking for something else?

‘I’ve signed on with one of our competitors,' he mumbled sheepishly.

She could’ve known he’d look after Number One. Well, there’s nothing to hold me here and I’m damned if I’m going to serve out my notice. Her hand closed over the doorknob. 'Bye, ‘she said breezily, a temporary sense of elation infusing her as she saw him standing in the doorway, his face shapeless with confusion.

'You're home early. Anything wrong?' Adrian had heard her firm footsteps on the path.

Char set the kettle to boil. ‘Early and for good, Dad.' She told him about being fired. ‘I’d better present his cheque immediately in case it bounces.' She dropped into a chair and picked up the local paper. On an inner page was a photograph of Guy at a local fund raising function, his Armani dinner jacket moulded to the lines of his lean, hard body. The woman accepting his bank's donation to a children's playgroup gazed at him besotted. A sudden spurt of jealousy like blood from an artery spilled over Char and her heart began to hammer with the remembered feel of his closeness, the hardness of his thighs against hers as her body curved into his. She stuffed the paper behind a cushion and mentally upbraided herself. This was madness- she had to rid herself of this fixation for him otherwise she was trapped – a victim of his sexual attraction.

Over the next few weeks Char followed up many job leads that came to nothing and although, for Adrian’s sake, outwardly she remained cheerful and optimistic, her inner turmoil was growing and she felt as if her world was tumbling about her ears. If only, if only - the refrain beat like a drum in her brain- she’d not tangled with Guy, if only there was a way out of this mess.