‘Her father divorced her in the end, and Sondra said it was obvious why. He’s married again now to someone much younger and she and Sondra get on really well together…’
Eleanor was trying not to lose her sense of humour, but the fear was there that, despite Marcus’s assurances, he was not as indifferent to Sondra as he had said.
‘You haven’t forgotten that it’s this weekend I’m going to The Hague, have you?’ Marcus asked her as he came into the kitchen.
‘No, I haven’t.’
She kept her back to him, her voice registering tension. Despite the fact that they had made up their quarrel and that she believed him when he said there was nothing between him and Sondra, she still couldn’t stop herself from feeling hurt.
‘Look, Nell…’
She tensed as he came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders, turning her round to face him.
‘Why don’t you come with me?’ he suggested gently. ‘I know I won’t be free to spend much time with you, but there are some wonderful galleries and museums in the area, and we’d have the evenings together. There’s a reception being given by our ambassador one night; you’d enjoy that… it would give us—’
‘Marcus, I can’t,’ she protested, her voice shaking a little as she acknowledged how much she would have liked to be able to go with him.
His hands lifted from her shoulders, his face hardening.
‘I can’t leave the boys,’ she told him. ‘And then there’s the house… Charles phoned earlier and—’
‘Forget the damned house,’ Marcus interrupted her furiously. ‘For God’s sake, Nell, can’t you think about anything else? All I ever hear is the house, the house. It’s only a pile of bricks and mortar, for heaven’s sake, and not even a particularly attractive or stable one at that. I know how much the place means to you, but the way you’re carrying on about it… It’s almost as though it’s become the most important thing in your life.’
Eleanor stared at him, shocked by his explosion of anger. ‘That’s not fair, Marcus,’ she told him. ‘I want this house because I know how much better it will make things for all of us. I…’
‘Will it?’ Marcus asked her cynically. ‘Or will it just make them better for you? I’ve seen plenty of instances where property can destroy a relationship, Nell, but none where it can mend one. What is it you’re really hoping to achieve? A better relationship with Vanessa? She doesn’t want to move, she’s told you that, but you won’t listen. More freedom and space for the boys? But at the same time you’ll be removing them from schools where they’ve already established themselves, from friendships they’ve already made. They’re only just beginning to adjust to our marriage… security doesn’t come from living some story-book, romanticised idyll of childhood in the country; it comes from the people you live with; from knowing you’re loved and valued by them.
‘Right now the message you’re giving off is that Broughton House is a lot more important to you than they are. Think hard, Nell. Do you want this house for them or do you want it for you…?’
Eleanor looked at him silently for a moment and then said shakily, ‘You don’t want to move there, do you? You never have.’
‘No,’ Marcus agreed quietly. ‘I don’t. It’s too far away, for one thing, Nell—I’d spend more time than I want to commuting; for another, I don’t think we can afford it. Ultimately, there’d come a time when perhaps both of us would resent the amount of time and money we’d need to spend on it.
‘I’m not even sure it would provide the kind of environmental benefits you seem to think. And it isn’t just the practical things. You’re investing far too much hope and importance in the effect it will have on the rest of us. It’s a house, Nell, not a magic formula for instant family happiness.’
He paused as he saw the way she was
looking at him.
‘All this time,’ Eleanor told him huskily, her eyes almost blank with pain. ‘All this time you haven’t wanted it and yet you said nothing. What were you going to do, Marcus? Wait until we were on the point of exchanging contracts, or were you just going to let me go ahead and then turn round later and say, “I told you so” the minute anything went wrong?’
She was trembling now, pale with emotion and anger, her reaction causing Marcus to curse himself under his breath for his lack of timing.
‘Well, look, I…’
He stopped as Tom and Gavin came noisily into the kitchen, arguing over the ownership of some pencils.
‘We can’t talk about this now,’ he told Eleanor quietly. ‘I have to go… This evening…’
Stiffly Eleanor turned away from him, ignoring him as she spoke to her sons.
He had hurt her and made her angry, Marcus acknowledged as he pulled on his jacket. He hadn’t intended or wanted to, but, if she had been less engrossed in the house, surely she would have recognised for herself that he didn’t share her enthusiasm for it? After all, he had given her enough hints.
As he walked out to his car he was uncomfortably aware that somewhere at the back of his mind, beneath his regret at hurting her, was a small, slyly sanctimonious voice that whispered egotistically that if she had not been so wrapped up in the needs of others she would have recognised his feelings long before now. Angrily he squashed it, refusing to acknowledge what its existence was telling him.
* * *
‘What about this?’ Eleanor suggested tiredly, holding up a pretty apple-green cotton seersucker shorts-suit.