‘And trying to work things out with Sally will stop me coming round here and pestering you… is that it?’
‘No… no…’ She could see the pain in his eyes. He deserved her honesty, Philippa recognised, both of them deserved it.
‘It would be the easiest thing in the world to let what’s started between us develop into… Until I met you I’d never thought of myself as a sexually hungry woman; far from it.
‘I don’t know whether to be ashamed of how much I want you or proud of it, but on balance feeling proud wins out. And I know myself well enough to guess that if a sexual relationship developed between us I’d become emotionally committed to you as well, emotionally dependent on you, and that wouldn’t be healthy for either of us. Can’t you see, Joel, that both of us, for different reasons, would be using what we have between us to cover up other problems, to avoid dealing with them…? We’d be using each other as a means of escape, and to me that would be the worst kind of betrayal—of ourselves and each other.
‘It isn’t that I don’t care, but that I’m afraid of caring too much and for all the wrong reasons. What was it that first attracted you to your Sally, Joel…?’
He paused and then told her quietly, ‘Her gentleness; the fact that she needed me… looked up to me, I suppose… it made me feel good… it made me feel…’
‘Valued and wanted,’ Philippa supplied for him. ‘And now it’s my need that your senses and emotions are responding to, but it’s still Sally you love.’
‘No,’ Joel denied, but his voice lacked the conviction it had held earlier when he had told her that his marriage was over.
‘It’s time for you to go,’ Philippa told him gently.
She walked with him to the front door and paused while he turned to her and took her in his arms.
‘We would have been good together, you and I,’ he told her huskily.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. Her throat ached and her mouth trembled as he lowered his own to touch it, but she didn’t try to turn away.
Tears burned behind her closed eyelids, her ears buzzing with the agonised cry of her silenced emotions. She neither moved nor touched him, making no attempt to hold on to him or keep him, but her lips clung betrayingly to his for a handful of seconds after their kiss ended, and she knew that if he pushed her now, if he begged her or pleaded, she wouldn’t have the strength to resist him. She suspected he knew it too.
But he didn’t say or do anything other than simply touch her mouth with his fingertips in a silent gesture of farewell before opening the door and walking away from her.
The phone started to ring as she walked back to the kitchen. She picked up the receiver, automatically forcing herself to sound bright and optimistic, using the lessons learned over the weeks of her widowhood. ‘Never mind love thy neighbour,’ Susie had once told her grimly. ‘It’s love thyself that really matters.’ Love herself, value herself, depend on herself, know herself—because her own self was all that stood between her and the rest of the world now, Philippa admitted.
She recognised Elizabeth Humphries’ voice before the other woman
gave her name, her stomach tensing with familiar apprehension. Like her mind, her body had learned to dread the arrival of unheralded visitors and telephone calls, of letters and bills.
‘The reason I’m ringing,’ Elizabeth told her, ‘is that the other evening at a dinner party I was talking with a colleague of my husband’s who has just moved into the area and he was telling me about the problems he’s having finding someone suitable to employ to take charge of both his orphaned god-daughter and his home.
‘He stressed that he didn’t want either a nanny or a traditional housekeeper but someone who could be to his goddaughter a sort of surrogate-mother figure, without usurping the role of the child’s dead mother… He wants someone who can act on her own initiative and who is used to dealing with children; someone the child can relate to and whom he can trust not just to look after her physically, but to help her emotionally as well.
‘It immediately occurred to me that you would be perfect for such a role.’
‘Me? But I don’t have any qualifications for that kind of thing,’ Philippa protested. ‘I’m not…’
‘You’re a mother,’ Elizabeth reminded her, and added drily, ‘And reading between the lines, as well as going on my own judgement, I’d say you are more than adequately qualified for the role he’s got in mind. He stressed to me that he considers it far more important that whoever he employs is more concerned about his god-daughter’s emotional welfare than running a spotlessly clean house; that he wants someone young enough to be a mother figure to the girl and old enough to be left completely in charge of her.’
‘You said she was orphaned…’ ‘Yes,’ Elizabeth agreed.
Philippa hesitated. She could all too easily imagine the trauma such a child must be experiencing and the anxiety of the man apparently responsible for her.
‘ I… I don’t know… A child like that would need someone who could make a long-term commitment to her. Has he—her godfather—has he no wife, no female relatives?’
‘Apparently not. I’m not trying to push you into something you don’t wish to do, and of course it will be the child’s needs that come first; her godfather was quite adamant about that. He did say, however, that if you proved suitable he would be quite willing for you to have both your boys with you during the school holidays; in fact he seemed to think that would be a plus point—company for his goddaughter. He’s got a large house with plenty of room to spare. The salary he mentioned is a good one; the girl is eleven and of course in full-time schooling so you would have some free time on your hands to study for that Open University course you discussed with me.’
‘I… I don’t know what to say,’ Philippa admitted. ‘It… it would solve a lot of my problems. I still haven’t heard from the bank about the house, though…’
‘Well, think about it,’ Elizabeth counselled her. ‘I’ve got his telephone number here if you want it; I left it with him that you’d telephone and make an appointment for an interview if you were interested. He knows something of your circumstances, by the way—not the full details, just the fact that you’ve recently been widowed and your financial situation; as a potential employer…’
‘Yes, yes, of course… a housekeeper. I’d never thought…’
‘Rather more than just a housekeeper,’ Elizabeth corrected her firmly. ‘I think you’ll find he will place far more emphasis on how you will relate to his god-daughter than how well you can run a home, although I suspect that, like most men, he won’t be averse to finding that his house is both well-run and comfortable; and, of course, his position at the hospital will mean that he could be involved in a certain amount of domestic entertaining, but that is something you would have to discuss with him if and when you meet him. It would be quite a challenge,’ Elizabeth remarked.