Resentment simmered, boiled, then died when it came to her that he could perhaps be right, and she did have to accept him, faults and all, if their marriage was going to survive—which only threw her into further confusion about what she was going to do.
She was still floundering on the question a week later when something happened which tossed all her other troubles into oblivion by comparison.
The twins disappeared.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RACHEL blamed herself the moment she realised they had gone. It had been a week to top all weeks for tension in the home.
Daniel had gone into a cold withdrawal, making no effort to hide his anger with Rachel, so the whole household heaved a sigh of relief when he went off a couple of days later on a trip to Manchester.
But that wasn’t all of it. It was the Easter break from school and the twins were at home all day. It didn’t help Rachel’s frayed nerves that they were excited about the coming move, that they seemed to be constantly under her feet, getting in the way so much that she caught herself snapping at them more often than was fair.
She was up to her neck in packing-cases when she heard the ring of the telephone and, on a muttered curse, she fought her way across the room on her way to answer it when it stopped.
That did her temper no good whatsoever, and her curses became
richer as she fought her way back to where she had been working and got back to her packing again.
She was still grumbling to herself when Sammy and Kate sidled into the room. ‘It was Daddy on the phone,’ Sam informed her sullenly. He had not forgiven her yet for shouting at him for spilling orange juice all over the kitchen floor. He saw the scolding as an injustice because he had been getting the juice for Michael at the time, in his way saving Rachel the trouble, but Rachel had only seen the sticky orange mess she had to clean up and lost her temper.
‘He said to tell you that he’s on his way back from Manchester.’ The small boy relayed the message with the same haughty coolness his father would have used in the same mood. ‘And that he has to go into the office first so he will be late home tonight.’
Well, bully for him! she thought grumpily. Let him hide in his office while she did all the hard graft! Playing the martyr, Rachel? She heard the acid echo of Daniel’s voice sound so clearly in her head that she actually jumped and glanced round, half expecting to find him standing right behind her. He was not, of course, but the taunt went reluctantly home.
‘I asked him to come home and play with us instead,’ put in a sulky Kate.
‘And he, I suppose, put the phone down quick—in sheer fright!’ She’d meant it as a sarcastic cut at Daniel, not at the twins, but they took it the wrong way, and Kate’s face went red with anger.
‘No, he didn’t!’ she cried. ‘He said he wished he could play with us instead of doing stuffy work! And you’re not a nice mummy!’ she added heatedly.
Rachel caught a suspicion of tears in her daughter’s eyes just before Kate disappeared, running back down the stairs with an equally disgruntled Sammy right behind her.
Sighing, she rested one weary hand on her swollen stomach and the other on her aching head, acknowledging that she’d probably deserved everything Kate had thrown at her, and fought her way back across the room to follow them down the stairs. The twins pointedly ignored her, pretending to be engrossed in the television.
She picked Michael up from the floor, where he had been playing quite happily with his bricks, glanced at the other two in the hope they would look at her so that she could say she was sorry, when they didn’t felt irritation swell within her yet again, and flounced out of the room with her youngest, leaving them to watch their TV programme in peace.
An hour later and she was going demented. She had looked everywhere she could think of. But the twins seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth! She had driven over to the park, hoping to find them playing on the swings. To Daniel’s mother’s houseknowing that Jenny was out for the whole day visiting friends, and equally sure that the twins did not know that and could well have walked around to her house in search of some sympathy and comfort. She had checked and double-checked the house, the garden and even rung the new house in the vague hope that they had somehow found their way there. But they hadn’t, and she was just reaching the stage when she knew she was going to have to call in the police when the telephone began to ring.
She snatched it up, white with strain and trembling so badly that she could barely hold the receiver to her ear.
‘Mrs Masterson?’ an uncertain voice enquired.
‘Yes,’ she whispered through chattering teeth.
‘Mrs Masterson, this is your husband’s secretary…’
Her heart leaped to her throat. ‘I-Is Daniel there?’ she asked.
‘No, he hasn’t arrived yet,’ the voice said. ‘But your children have turned up here just now asking for him and I—’
‘They’re there?’ Rachel cut in shrilly.
‘Yes,’ the voice assured gently, hearing her distress. ‘Yes, they’re here.’
‘Oh, God.’ An ice-cold fist went up to her mouth, stopping the well of tears. ‘Are they all right?’
‘Yes,’ she was assured once again. ‘They’re finereally.’