‘It would only have been natural if he was, wouldn’t it? Perhaps he might even have felt that he was betraying his own mother by trying to like yours. And might your mother not have been a little bit jealous of him too? All of us feel insecure when we form a new and important relationship,’ she went on, before Sarah could leap to her mother’s defence. ‘I know if I was marrying someone who had a child or children from a previous marriage, I would be a little bit nervous about how they were going to react to me: would they be comparing me to their own mother? Would they make things awkward for me and my new husband? Just because we’re “grown-up” it doesn’t mean our feelings completely change, you know.
‘In fact, you should be able to understand exactly how James felt. Like you he had to go and live far away from his friends and his father…’
‘He went to live with his grandfather,’ Sarah told her, ‘but I always thought that was because he wanted to go.’
‘Maybe he did because he felt that he wasn’t welcome in his father’s new marriage,’ Jenna said as gently as she could. ‘Everyone has their pride, you know, Sarah, and we all try to hide it from others when we’re hurt, sometimes even to the extent of pretending we don’t care at all.’
‘I know, I pretend that I don’t mind about being in this chair but I do, and I hate it when the doctor says that there’s nothing wrong with me. If there wasn’t I’d be able to walk, wouldn’t I?’
‘And so you will,’ Jenna soothed her. ‘When the doctor says there’s nothing wrong, he means nothing wrong physically, but our minds exert a tremendous power over our bodies, you know. You were involved in a dreadful accident, and now your mind is telling your body not to move because when it moved it got hurt. But some day when your mind stops being frightened it won’t tell your body that any more.’
‘And then I’ll be able to walk again.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘I have to have physiotherapy twice a week and I hate it.’ She looked away from Jenna and started plaiting the fringed hem on her jumper.
‘What will happen to me when you and James get married and you move to Yorkshire?’
‘Oh, Sarah, you’ll come with us of course. Surely you didn’t think ..?’ She saw the tears glistening in the blue eyes and tugged Sarah’s hair gently. ‘James cares an awful lot about you, you know. One of the reasons he wants to get married is because he wants you to have a secure family background again.’
It would do no harm to tell her the truth and might even help to break down her antipathy towards her step-brother, although quite why she should want to do anything to help James, Jenna could not understand. Because it sprang from her own innate sense of fair play. He had helped her with Lucy, so she should help him in turn.
‘I didn’t even know you and Lucy existed until yesterday,’ Sarah whispered, having digested her comment.
‘Well, it all happened a long time ago and I never thought that…’
‘That you would fall in love all over again. It’s just like a movie.’
Jenna couldn’t help but laugh, even though she was thinking privately how shocked both Lucy and Sarah would be if they knew the truth.
‘Doctor’s here.’ Lucy pushed open the door and came in, her eyes anxious. ‘Are you okay, Sarah?’
‘I think so. I just get so impatient with myself when I can’t do things.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Lucy comforted her, ‘you’ll soon be out of that thing and until you are, I’ll chauffeur it around for you. We’ll
have to do plenty of shopping before we move to Yorkshire, Ma,’ she told Jenna. ‘Nearly everything Sarah’s got is too short for her now, and there are no decent shops in York. I’m dreading it,’ she groaned theatrically to Sarah. ‘No Top Shop, no Oxford Street…’
‘No eternal requests for advances on your allowance,’ Jenna chimed in, standing up as James and the doctor walked in.
‘I’ll go and wait outside,’ she offered, but Sarah clutched her arm. ‘Please stay with me,’ she begged.
Across the small space that separated them Jenna’s eyes met James. The expression in his was wryly enigmatic and Jenna wondered what he read in her own. Compassion for Sarah.…but did he also know that some of that compassion was for him too? Talking to Sarah she had experienced a tiny surge of fellow-feeling for him, when she realised that he wasn’t as totally removed from the nagging problems of life as she had first imagined.
‘Well, now, young lady, let’s have a look at you.’
Jenna waited while the doctor examined Sarah, relieved when he pronounced that no damage had been done.
‘Can’t run before we can walk, can we?’ he tut-tutted when he had finished his examination.
Sarah grimaced. ‘Just walking would be enough for me right now.’
‘It will come in time, never fret.’
‘James tells me wedding bells are in the offing,’ he said to Jenna as she escorted him back to the drawing-room.
Her mouth compressed a little. James was being remarkably talkative about their marriage, especially in view of the fact that she had not yet agreed to it.
When they dropped Lucy off at her school later on that afternoon Jenna thought her niece looked happier than she had for a long time. During the long drive she had chattered to both Jenna and James impartially, bouncing about excitedly in the back seat whenever she talked about the wedding, plaguing James to tell her when it was going to be, but all he would say was that she would be the first to know once they had decided.
‘And this time, stay put. Is that understood?’ he demanded sternly as Lucy threw her arms round his neck to kiss him goodbye.