‘Perhaps your father could have a word with Mr Marsh,’ she persisted. ‘If he explained Mr Marsh might…’
‘No, Mum,’ Storm said firmly. ‘Now stop worrying.’
‘I suppose it’s only natural that we should worry more about you than we did about the boys,’ Richard Templeton said from behind his paper. ‘Old-fashioned of us, I expect, in this day and age, but then parents are. This house can be very lonely in the winter. Your nearest neighbour is nearly half a mile away, after all.’
Storm’s heart started thumping erratically. Her nearest neighbour was Jago, and for some reason she found that she did not want him to know that she was going to be alone in the house. Fear that he might redouble his assault upon her defences?
‘Jago’s here,’ she said unnecessarily to her parents as his dark head passed the window. ‘I’d better go. At least travelling with the boss means that no one can bawl you out for being late!’
‘And gives me time to finish my breakfast,’ her father added. ‘Heard anything from David, by the way?’
‘He’s due back at the end of the week,’ Storm said, avoiding the question. ‘I expect I’ll see him then.’
The inside of Jago’s car smelled disturbingly masculine, and although she tried to relax she was unbearably aware of the man sitting next to her.
’Heard from David?’ he asked smoothly, unconsciously repeating her father’s question.
‘No. Not that it’s any business of yours,’ Storm told him.
His eyes left the road to rest coolly on her heated face. ‘Maybe there’s more to him than I thought,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘You’re showing all the signs of frustration this morning. Or isn’t David the cause?’
‘Don’t speak to me like that!’ Storm demanded, hating the way he seemed to get under her skin. ‘If you must know I’m feeling a little out of sorts because my brother’s getting married and I shan’t be able to attend the wedding.’ Now why had she told him that? She bit her lip and stared out of the car window.
‘Oh?’
His voice invited her to tell him more, but she refused, turning the conversation instead to the progress she was making with the Harmer advertisement.
‘I’ve got a dummy tape ready. Pete’s taking it over this morning.’
‘Pete? Can’t you go yourself?’
‘I could, but I’ve got an appointment at the local children’s home. We’re trying to set up a programme featuring some of the children—something for Christmas. Unless, of course, you have any objections.’
‘You might freeze David with that cool little voice, my dear,’ Jago told her lightly, ‘but it has no effect at all upon me. I’m surprised you aren’t following up the lead young Harmer gave you, though. He was definitely interested.’ He shot her a sideways look, but Storm stared rigidly ahead.
‘Well, I’m not,’ she told him. ‘Neither in him, nor you, nor anyone else, except David.’
She expected him to be annoyed, but was not prepared for the inimical rage leaping to life in his eyes.
‘Oh yes, you are,’ he told her suavely, ‘and I could damn well prove it to you here and now, if I wanted to. Or is that what you’re hoping for? Tough luck, Storm,’ he drawled. ‘The next time you’re going to be making all the moves and doing all the asking.’
‘Never!’ Storm gritted at him as he slid the car into the car-park. ‘Never, never, never!’
His laughter floated after her and she hurried into the building, her body on fire as though with a fever, but her hands as cold as ice. He was deliberately trying to break her, she thought bitterly. Well, he wouldn’t succeed!
The children’s home was on the edge of the town, but as it was a pleasant day, with the sun shining pale lemon in a soft blue sky and the leaves lying crisp and autumnal on the ground, Storm elected to walk there instead of getting a taxi.
The house had been left to the council by an eccentric local landlord, whose own sons had been killed during the First World War. Large and rambling, the huge Victorian mansion took a large slice of the council’s rate income in upkeep, but the money was well spent, Storm thought appreciatively as she gave her name at the gatehouse and waited to be admitted.
With the house were several acres of land and also a small home farm which provided eggs and vegetables for the home as well as giving the children a grounding in animal care and gardening.
Even so, despite the generous bequest of its original owner and the undoubted care of the local authority, the house had an unmistakably ‘institutional’ air, Storm thought as she was shown into a small waiting room. In the distance she could hear the muted hum of children’s voices. Chipped paintwork and shabby furniture bore mute testimony to the fact that money was obviously desperately needed, and Storm wondered what it must be like to be brought up in a place like this, without the love of a mother or father—in fact, with no one to call one’s own. Of course the staff would do their best—this was no Dickensian ‘workhouse’, and yet weren’t the children who inhabited this house as deprived as Dicken’s Oliver Twist had been, albeit in a different fashion? Storm wondered. It was a sobering thought. She was conscience-stricken to realise how little thought she had ever given to the plight of these children. Of course they were well fed, well clothed and properly educated, but what about their emotional needs? What about every child’s occasional need to come first?
These were questions she put to the Matron, when, eventually she was shown into her office.
‘You’ve hit the nail well and truly on the head,’ she was told. ‘An orphanage, no matter how well run, or how excellently staffed, can never hope to take the place of a real home. This is why we’re always so keen to find foster-homes for our children. With the babies of course there’s never any problem, but it’s the others—the older children, the ones with difficult backgrounds; these are the ones my heart aches for.’
Storm listened sympathetically. Mary Simmonds reminded her of one of her own junior schoolteachers, scrupulously fair, a disciplinarian who nevertheless recognised the children’s need for love and affection.