Stronger than Yearning

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Jenna assured her. ‘Who was on the phone?’

‘The bank. I said you’d call them back.’

As Jenna had suspected Gordon Burns was delighted to hear that she was marrying James. ‘I suppose now if I ask you for credit ..?’

‘The criteria remain the same,’ he told her firmly. But added with a smile in his voice, ‘However, of course with your husband’s guarantee…’

Jenna let the matter go, but in her own heart of hearts she knew she had come to a crossroad in her professional life. Originally when she bought the Hall, it had been her intention to keep the London end of the business going with Richard standing in her place. Now, with James’s financial backing behind her, she could afford to take on a fully qualified partner and do exactly that, but the problems she had recently experienced had soured her. If she was totally honest with herself she had preferred her business when it was small and newly emerging and when she herself was responsible for every aspect of a contract. She enjoyed talking to suppliers, buying, spending time combing antique shops for just the right item. She still wanted to specialise as she had planned when she originally bought the old Hall, but possibly on a much smaller scale.

As James’s wife she had no need to work for a living. He had told her as much, insisting that he intended to make her a generous personal allowance, even when she had told him she did not want it. Now she was beginning to accept that there would be a change of pace and direction to her life: she would need time to spend with Sarah, to spend on the house, to spend, too, with Lucy if she did transfer to a local school. The driving force that had motivated so much of her life—the need to earn sufficient to support Lucy and herself—was gone. She could still work but at a far less intense level. For some reason she had become acutely conscious of all that she had missed from life—all that she was missing. During the week she had spent a day at the old Hall as she had planned to, and she had found the slower pace of life the house itself enforced upon her strangely delightful.

Up until she and James married she would be very busy, but once they returned from the Caribbean she intended to reassess the situation vis-à-vis her business. Most of her existing contracts were nearing completion and there was no reason really for her to keep the London end of the business running. Even Maggie had mentioned that she fancied a change and that her sister in the States had asked her out there for a visit.

She was conscious of being carried by an unstoppable tide towards a new life, and instead of fighting against that current, she seemed to be allowing herself to be carried by it.

For Lucy’s sake she had no real option, she told herself, no alternative at all.

The day Jenna went to the Hall it rained. She called in briefly on Nancy and Bill in the morning. Both of them were openly thrilled about her engagement, although Nancy clucked over her lack of a ring. She stopped just long enough to have a cup of coffee and then hurried on to the Hall. By lunchtime she had surveyed the rooms she intended to turn into their living quarters, and had made an inventory of what furniture was there that they could use and what would need to be bought.

The rooms were in the Tudor part of the building and still retained their original panelling and parquet block floors. By the time she left for York later in the afternoon Jenna had a clear picture in her mind of how she intended their temporary apartment to look when they moved in. Although the accommodation there would only be temporary, she wanted to make it look as attractive and homelike as possible. Fortunately, because it was summer, the lack of central heating would not be too much of a problem. New bathrooms would have to be installed, but once again she could see no major difficulty since the room she had selected for Sarah’s bedroom was immediately under James’s room, and could share the drainage already in existence for the ancient bathroom off that room.

Her head buzzing with ideas, she parked her car in York, and hurried towards the architects’ office to drop off some specifications for the central heating in the Georgian wing that they had sent her, and to return some detailed plans they had submitted for the new larger kitchen and the attractive morning-room off it.

The partner Jenna had dealt with was not available, but she left the papers with his assistant, enquiring on impulse if he could direct her to a local antique dealer with a good reputation. What she wanted were some pieces of Jacobean oak furniture to supplement the odd bits she had already found scattered around the house. None of what she had found were particularly good pieces but they did have the virtue of being authentic. A rather battered Queen Anne bachelor chest had caught her eye, although the walnut veneer which had been laid on top of the oak from which the chest was made, was in need of some attention.

Armed with the information she had requested, Jenna set out in the direction she had been told. The antique shop she was looking fo

r was tucked away down one of York’s many attractive narrow alleyways—or wynds as they were called locally. She was just about to push open the door when a man emerged, almost knocking her over as he stepped backwards out of the shop. The moment he was aware of what he had done he began to apologise. Laughter lines crinkled the corners of his eyes, plain ordinary hazel eyes, Jenna noticed, but kind eyes for all that. She guessed he was somewhere around forty, tall, with a lanky, lean frame and the kind of soft brown hair that flopped over his forehead. His smile was wry and very sincere and he had, she reflected, a certain boyish charm that had its own appeal.

‘Are you looking for something special, or just browsing?’ he asked Jenna when she had assured him that she was unhurt.

‘Jacobean furniture,’ she told him coolly. ‘In particular a bookcase and a gateleg table.’

‘Well, I don’t have anything like that in at the moment.’ He frowned, obviously deep in thought which gave Jenna time to study him with renewed interest. She had not realised when he first bumped into her that he was the owner of the shop. He would be quite successful, she conceded, watching him. He had the sort of manner that was reassuring to old ladies and young children.

‘I think I know where I might be able to get the gateleg table. The bookcase is something else. We do get them, but they don’t come cheap. What do you want it for?’

Jenna explained briefly.

‘You’ve bought the old Hall? Lucky you,’ he told her enviously. ‘It’s a magnificent house.’

‘Yes, and my fiancé wants us to move in in just under two months’ time, so I’m trying to get a small apartment sorted out as quickly as I can.’ She went on to explain to him that they would only be living in it on a temporary basis while the Georgian wing was renovated.

‘Well, I’ll certainly keep my eyes open for a bookcase. Would you care to see the table?’

Jenna followed him back inside and studied the table he showed her. It was a reasonable example of what she wanted, and quite reasonably priced as well. She paid him for it, and arranged that he would keep it for her until she was ready to have it delivered.

By the time she was ready to leave she had the address of a man who he assured her would bring the dull linenfold panelling back to life and the names of several other local antique dealers of repute who might be able to help her in her quest for a bookcase.

It was too late for her to visit them all now, but Jenna decided to give them a ring from London.

She got back late, just in time to hear the dying rings of her telephone as she raced to pick up the receiver. Knowing that it had probably only been James who had said that he would ring her that evening she was surprised by her own feeling of disappointment. No doubt it was because she was buoyed up about her plans for the house, Jenna told herself as she prepared for bed. It was only natural that in her excitement she would want to share them with someone.

By the end of the next day she had organised curtains for all the rooms: bedhangings for the four-poster in what would be James’s room and fabric to re-cover the window seats in hers and James’s bedroom and the downstairs sitting-room. She had also bought carpets for all the rooms—James had told her to spare no expense in preparing their temporary apartment but Jenna had been cautious about spending money, choosing carefully. The Persian rugs she had selected were soft and silky, brilliantly hued in rich reds and blues which would set off the heavy oak and the linenfold. Only on James’s four-poster had she been what she herself considered outrageously extravagant ordering a very traditional and very expensive heavy brocade in a fleur de lis pattern which had been very much in vogue in the Stuart period.

The brocade was hand-embroidered in the traditional manner, gold thread gleaming against a soft cream background. She had brought all the measurements back with her, plus photographs, and the firm she was using was one entrusted with work by the National Trust on many of their historic properties. A small footstool and a comfortable winged chair were to be covered in the same fabric and Jenna had selected plain, cream silk curtains in exactly the same shade as the brocade.

There was also a four-poster in her room although not as large as the one in James’s; for that she had selected a less expensive brocade, again in cream, but this time with a design worked on it in blues and greens. She had chosen a toning blue silk for the lining of the bedhangings and the trim of the bedcover—the ones in James’s room would be lined in a dull, rich gold and would have a truly masculine ambience, while hers was brighter, more feminine.