‘Yes, it’s hard to cook just for yourself, when you’ve been used to doing it for others,’ Mrs Dacre told her a little wistfully. ‘I miss cooking for your father; he always appreciated his food, Mr Livesey did.’
She saw the look on Rue’s face and said a little sharply, ‘In my day a girl was brought up to take care of her menfolk, and I don’t see anything wrong in that. Of course, I know it’s different these days.’
The way she said it, and the expression on her face, suggested that she did not altogether approve of that difference, but Rue coaxed her until the old lady’s ruffled feathers were soothed, and she bustled away into her small kitchen to make them both a cup of tea.
Rue listened with half an ear while Mrs Dacre chattered about various village events, her attention wandering a little, until the old lady said sharply, ‘So you’ve got a new neighbour, then? I heard in the post office as how someone new’s moved in to the big house. Met him yet, have you?’
‘Just briefly,’ Rue told her, knowing that the village was probably very well aware of Neil’s visit to her, in that unique and almost unfathomable way that villages had of garnering news.
‘Mmm… Not married, so I’ve heard,’ Mrs Dacre commented, looking speculatively at Rue.
‘I believe not,’ Rue said coolly, and then, seeing the look in her late father’s housekeeper’s eyes, she added firmly, ‘He came to see me to ask if I was interested in selling my land.’
‘Aye, well, he would want it, wouldn’t he,’ Mrs Dacre agreed, ‘seeing as how it was once part of the estate? Which reminds me, you’ll have heard that Bill Jennings has sold off part of his land to that builder who was pestering to buy your land from you.’
Bill Jennings owned and farmed what had once been the Court’s home farm.
‘It’s the ten-acre he’s sold, so I’ve heard,’ Mrs Dacre continued, and Rue’s frown deepened. The ten-acre was in fact several fields, the corner of one of which just touched on the boundary of her own land.
‘How will the builder get access to it?’ she questioned.
It was true that there was a dirt track to the farm, but that did not give direct access to the piece of land the builder had apparently acquired, and if he actually planned to build there he would surely need some means of access to the main road. Her frown deepened as it suddenly struck her that the easiest way for him to do this would be through Vine Cottage itself.
‘He wouldn’t be told that he’d bought himself a pig in a poke,’ Mrs Dacre continued. ‘‘That land’s no use to him as it is. He’s no way of getting to and from it, not by road leastways, and Bill’s laughing all the way to the bank. Says it’s the worst piece of land on the whole farm.’
Rue stayed with the old lady for another half-hour and then, judging that her hostess was beginning to get a little tired, she said her goodbyes and made her way back to her car.
It seemed odd that the builder should have bought that land, inaccessible as it was. He had been furious with her when she had refused to sell him her home and her field, far more furious in many ways than Neil Saxton, she recalled now with a sudden start. And yet she had not felt one tenth of the apprehension and dread she was suffering now.
No, it was not his desire to possess her home and land that intimidated her so much where Neil Saxton was concerned, it was the man himself. Pushing this disturbing thought to the back of her mind, she drove home.
Horatio gave her an ecstatic welcome, bounding at her side as she took him for his walk. When they got back to the cottage the telephone was ringing. Rue picked up the receiver a little reluctantly, only to deride herself for her foolish belief that it must be Neil telephoning her when she heard the voice of her friend Hannah.
‘Are you doing anything tonight?’ Hannah asked her.
Used to her friend’s sudden and impulsive plans, Rue said drily, ‘You are joking, aren’t you? You do know what time of year this is, I hope?’
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ Hannah agreed overriding her, ‘but surely you can give yourself the odd evening off? You work far too hard, Rue.’
‘Look who’s talking,’ Rue teased her.
‘No, seriously,’ Hannah intervened, ‘how long is it since you’ve actually had an evening off?’
Rue wondered what her friend would say if she told her the truth, and then wondered again, a little starkly, why it was that she was not telling her friend about Neil’s invitation to dinner, or what lay behind it.
‘Look, I only want you to come for dinner, and you won’t have to stay late. We’re doing some business entertaining and I think I’m going to need your support, not to mention the fact that there could be something in it for you.’
‘Tell me more,’ Rue began, but her friend refused, saying only,
‘I can’t right now. I’m frantically trying to get the house tidy and something organised for dinner. Just tell me that you’ll come.’
With Neil’s taunts that she was too isolated from the rest of the human race, too eager to cut herself off from all contact with it, Rue found herself agreeing that she would.
‘Eight for eight-thirty, then,’ Hannah told her, her voice rising to a scream as Rue heard a resounding crash somewhere in the distance. ‘If that’s one of my best dinner plates, I’m going to strangle the little monster,’ Hannah announced, quickly saying goodbye and replacing the receiver.
Rue was smiling as she put hers down. Despite the fact that at times she claimed she loathed her daughter, Rue knew quite well that Hannah was the most devoted mother, and the little girl was engaging. Rue felt a tiny, disarming tug somewhere in the region of her heart as she remembered how eagerly Hannah’s little girl climbed into her own lap and hugged her. There was something about holding the trusting weight of a child in one’s arms…
Thoroughly irritated by her own train of thoughts, Rue derided herself for giving in to such sentimentality. If she was going to go out to dinner, she would have to finish the work she had started this morning, which meant at least a couple of hours spent in the drying shed.