Chapter Ten

‘SO YOU SEE, there’s not really enough room for a big party. But I don’t want anything too formal,’ she went on. ‘You do catering?’

Hetty and Mrs Makepiece were seated in the hall, on the sofa normally occupied by dogs. They were having the ‘little chat’.

‘Er – yes,’ said Hetty, trusting fervently that with contacts in the WI she could.

‘And how much will it cost?’

Hetty cleared her throat. ‘To hire the hall – the whole house, really – would be in the region of a thousand pounds.’ She waited for an exclamation of horror. There wasn’t one. ‘Catering would be extra. It would depend on the menu.’

‘And would you provide the wine, or would we?’

She thought quickly. Would they need a licence? Perhaps there was time to get one. ‘We would. But we’d get you a special deal, and not charge you through the nose for it.’ This was Jack’s territory. He was bound to know how to organize that sort of thing.

‘Right then. I’ll come along one day when you’re open – look the place over. And then, when I’ve thought what we’d like to eat, we can sort out prices.’ Mrs Makepiece got up. ‘There’s just one other thing . . .’

Hetty spotted Connor coming from the dining room through to the sitting room, where coffee was being served. ‘Which is?’

‘Entertainment.’ Mrs Makepiece made a gesture with her hands. ‘I think a little entertainment to break the ice is a good idea, don’t you? Just to get people going, you know.’

Hetty gulped. ‘If you say so.’

‘I was wondering what you could offer in that line?’

Insane suggestions such as karaoke, balloon-sculpture and conjuring sliced through her mind like paper darts. All equally unsuitable, but what other sort of entertainment was there?

‘Cabaret,’ said Connor from behind her. ‘Hetty does cabaret.’

‘What?’ squeaked the cabaret artiste.

‘Oh, she’s terribly modest about it,’ Connor went on. ‘Doesn’t like to suggest it. But she’s got a lovely voice, a wide repertoire, and comes very reasonably.’

‘It sounds ideal! Why didn’t you say you sang, silly girl? A few songs and a piano, what could be nicer? Oh!’ Mrs Makepiece’s attention had been caught by something going on over Connor’s shoulder. ‘Someone can’t flush the lavatory and they’ll have the handle off if they keep trying. Do excuse me. I’ll get back to you about this one, Hetty. It’s all right,’ she called out to the cloakroom, ‘I’ll do it!’

When she was out of earshot, Hetty turned on Connor. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’ She was shaking with fright and rage. ‘How dare you tell Mrs Makepiece that I sing when I don’t?’

‘But you do, I’ve heard you. You’ve got a very sweet voice.’ She waited for a sting in the tail, something on the lines of, ‘You’ll get them going all right – going straight home.’

When this didn’t come, she went on. ‘But I don’t sing in public – at least, I haven’t for ages. And then, not on my own. I had a friend with me, and a pianist. You had no right to suggest just me doing it.’

‘She wanted entertainment, I was just providing it. It’s called adding value to the package.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! My “hits from the shows” hardly counts as value! I’m not Cleo Laine, you know.’

‘Don’t be so modest. And you’re the one who’s so determined the house can earn its own living. It’s only fair that you should help it.’

‘Me singing will not help! It’ll hinder! The windows might break!’

‘Now you’re fishing for compliments. You know you sing very well.’

‘There’s still the little matter of an accompanist! Even if I could drag my friend over, our pianist has emigrated.’

Connor narrowed his gaze. ‘I’ll accompany you.’

Hetty’s head spun for a few, sick-making moments. Then she remembered. ‘But there isn’t a piano at Courtbridge House!’

Dizzy with relief she beamed at Mrs Makepiece as she returned from the downstairs cloakroom. Finding another form of entertainment would be a happy dream compared with providing it herself.

Mrs Makepiece beamed back, possibly a little surprised by the breadth of Hetty’s smile. ‘Do go and have your coffee, you two, or there won’t be any left.’

There was plenty of coffee, but very few seats. Connor’s dinner partner had saved one for him, which she patted urgently as he appeared. Hetty saw that she would have to perch on the arm of James’s chair, though he gallantly offered it to her, but she declined, preferring to perch than disappear into a mire of cushions. ‘I’ll be fine, really,’ she assured him, pulling her skirt down.

‘If you won’t have my chair, let me get you some more coffee.’

‘Lovely.’ After he had refilled her cup she went on, ‘Sorry to be so furtive, but I don’t want the man I came with to see me talking to you.’

James shot an agitated glance towards Connor. ‘He’s not going to get possessive, is he? I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of him in a fight.’

‘It’s not like that. I said, we’re not a couple. But I need an architect – to tell me whether this house where I live – he lives there too actually – is really in such bad repair it would be better – cheaper anyway – to pull it down.’

‘It would have to be pretty bad for that. Where is it?’

Hetty gave the address. ‘It’s not in danger now, but my great uncle is old and in hospital. His heir,’ she avoided looking at Connor in case he caught her eye and sensed he was being plotted against, ‘is planning to pull it down and sell the site for a theme park.’

‘Well, isn’t it listed? The house?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Old buildings, even quite dull ones, are usually listed – Grade II most often – to stop people from pulling them down or doing anything dreadful to them.’

‘You mean, pulling it down would be against the law?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good God! Why didn’t I know about this sort of thing?’

He struggled to find an excuse for such ignorance. ‘Well, I suppose if you’re not in the business, it’s not something you pick up until you start house-hunting.’

‘Some were born in houses, some acquire houses, some have houses thrust upon them,’ she misquoted glibly. ‘I didn’t exactly hunt Courtbridge, rather the reverse.’ The same being true for Connor, it might mean he was similarly ignorant. ‘Does it mean he – it couldn’t be turned into a theme park either?’

‘Not necessarily. It would depend on what the developers planned to do. But I should think the house is safe.’

‘Listen, the house is opening to the public this Saturday. I don’t suppose you could come along, have a quick look, and tell me what you think about the house’s condition? I wouldn’t mind your opinion on whether or not it’s architecturally interesting enough for people to come and see.’

‘Well I could, but it would be better if I could bring some equipment with me and get a proper look. Besides, I’m busy on Saturday.’

Instantly remorseful, Hetty put her hand on his sleeve. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so involved with the house I forget other people have different lives.’

‘Is it open on Sunday too?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Hetty. ‘It’ll have to be open pretty much all the time. I’m dreading showing people round, I know so little about it. A million times more than I did when I first went there, of course . . .’

He smiled. ‘Sunday it is then.’

‘Brilliant. And I’ll do my best to get Connor out of the way.’ If he thought he might not be allowed to pull it down he might panic and sell it immediately before anyone could stop him. And she was still extremely angry with him for offering her singing as entertainment. Not for the first time she regretted her misplaced morality, which meant she hadn’t murdered Connor when she had the chance.

‘Why must you get him out of the way?’

‘Oh – he’s the one who wants to pull it down.’

‘Oh my God.’ said James, instantly regretting his generous impulse.

‘It’s all right. He won’t be there.’ She smiled at him, trying to make him feel better, wishing she wasn’t so hot.

A quick glance around showed her that most of the other women had already removed their jackets, but on the whole their black dresses were not nearly as little as hers. But she was also aware that by now her cheeks must be clashing violently with the scarlet silk.

‘You look awfully flushed,’ said James. ‘Can I take your jacket?’

The decision was made for her. She was too embarrassed to admit her fear of exposing too much flesh: besides, such a remark would only draw attention to it.

‘Thank you. That would be kind.’

The dress did at least have sleeves – small, short ones – and, at the front, it showed only a little more than an average amount of cleavage. But it had no back at all. And, owing to some law of physics which had passed Hetty by, Caroline’s backless bra had pushed up her front, adding a couple of letters to her cup size. The consequence of it all was that Hetty felt very well-endowed, and naked.

This seemed to attract male attention as if she were a moth sending out pheromones. Alistair’s gaze veered towards her like a searchlight, ignoring the blonde who could quite easily have been the one Hetty had seen him in bed with, and leaving her delivering the punch-line of the joke she was telling him to the side of his head.

Connor, too, looked up from James’s unattached female to turn his lazy gaze in her direction. His gaze stopped being lazy the moment it made contact. Hetty smiled weakly at him, and put her shoulders back.

James was fetching Hetty another cup of coffee when Alistair came over. Hetty sat up very straight, and wished her position, back against the wall, wasn’t so symbolically significant.

‘Hello.’ She fixed him in the eye, daring her dress to move an inch.

‘You really do look wonderful, Hetty. Far better than I expected. For a moment there, in the winter, I thought I broke your heart.’

‘For a moment there, you did. But spring came, and I got over it.’

‘And who is it you’re with now?’

Hetty opened her mouth to say she wasn’t ‘with’ anyone, but remembered Connor’s possessive behaviour when they’d first arrived. She didn’t want to dismiss it as never having happened, in case she needed it to again.

‘You met him.’

‘He looks like a gorilla.’

Hetty wanted to jump on his feet with Caroline’s heels. Connor was not conventionally handsome, she would be the first to admit. But he wasn’t a gorilla. ‘No,’ she said silkily, ‘he’s just a little less effete than your friends. He doesn’t need to watch his weight, or work out. Unlike you, he doesn’t spend twelve hours a day behind a desk.’ Hetty actually had very little idea what Connor did, but she was fairly sure desks were only a small part of it.

‘You seem harder,’ said Alistair. ‘You were a sweet little thing when I knew you.’

‘Was I? Well, people change.’ She tried hard not to sound sarcastic, but he’d obviously expected to find her a heap of damp brown feathers, and was curious to know why she wasn’t.

James appeared, holding her coffee cup.

‘But, on the whole,’ went on Alistair, ignoring James, ‘it’s an improvement.’

Hetty took the cup from James and took a sip, wishing she could spit it in Alistair’s face without causing either a scandal or a stain on the carpet. She wanted to deny his compliment, it was so insulting. And yet she and Caroline had gone to a lot of trouble to make her look as unlike a broken-hearted wretch as possible, and she’d been furious when Connor hadn’t commented. She swallowed the coffee, and bared her teeth in an artificial smile.

Their enthusiastic hostess bustled into the room. ‘Right now, everyone, we’ve cleared the hall. I want to see all you people dancing.’

Most of the people froze into immobility as their collective heart sank into their collective, uncomfortable shoes.

Except Hetty. She owed Mrs Makepiece. She was going to risk vast sums of money and her reputation as a hostess by using Courtbridge House. If she wanted Hetty to dance, that was what Hetty would do. ‘Come on, James. Let’s hit the floor.’ She took him by the hand and led him out of the room, her bare back hot from the gaze of every pair of male eyes. She caught a glimpse of Connor looking surprised, and not pleased. Serve him right, telling Mrs Makepiece she could sing.

Startled, but sheeplike, the rest of the guests followed her and James into the hall. Music burst out from somewhere, and James took Hetty into his arms.

It was difficult for him. There was no way he could avoid touching her bare flesh, but he was shy, and reluctant to do this on such brief acquaintance. He compromised by placing one finger where her dress started again, a couple of inches below her waist. But as the floor became more crowded, and he relaxed more, he pulled her closer, and let his hand drift down. Hetty didn’t care. The whole evening had been a series of nightmares anyway. It couldn’t get worse.

It could. Alistair cut in and tried to re-establish old territories. It was hateful, but Hetty didn’t want to make a scene. How could his touch ever have turned her to jelly? Now it felt like jelly on her flesh, though, to be fair, it was hot.

‘I really think it’s time we were getting home,’ said Connor loudly, in her ear.

Hetty had been tired before the party, and now felt drained from being sparky and outgoing. But she didn’t want to obey Connor’s summons absolutely immediately. ‘OK. I just want to dance with James one more time.’ She disengaged herself from Alistair and went over to James, who was leaning against the wall, looking in need of a little positive reinforcement from a friendly woman.

‘James, would you mind? Just one last dance?’

Connor practically forced her jacket on her while her fingers were still entangled with James’s. ‘Come along. Let’s say our goodbyes. And make them brief,’ he added, when they were out of earshot.

Mrs Makepiece was in the sitting room, her shoes off and a glass of whisky in her hand. ‘Are you off, dear? So nice of you to come. I am looking forward to seeing Courtbridge House. I’ll be in touch about when.’

‘Goodbye, Felicity,’ said Connor smoothly, kissing her cheek. ‘It was a splendid evening. Fabulous food.’

Hetty couldn’t possibly call Mrs Makepiece Felicity, although she had been invited to. ‘It was lovely. All of it. I just hope you’re not too exhausted.’

Her hostess made a face. ‘I shall go up soon, and leave these young things to themselves. But I am glad you enjoyed yourselves. And Hetty, I am so looking forward to hearing you sing.’

‘How could you do that to me?’ Hetty began, as soon as they were in the car. ‘How could you commit me to singing without even consulting me?’

‘I didn’t think consultation was much in your line. You haven’t bothered to consult me about the house once.’

She dismissed this. ‘You weren’t there! I had to make all those decisions by myself. Besides, you’re not interested in the house, except as a means of making money.’

‘It seems to me your interest is exactly the same. Why else would you be opening it for ruby weddings? You’ll be having medieval banquets with “pinchable wenches” next.’

‘You know perfectly well why. I just want to get Samuel out of debt. And to make it profitable so you won’t tear it down.’ She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Did he know that this was probably not an option?

‘You should be grateful to me for enabling you to add another couple of hundred to the bill, then.’

‘I won’t do it. Besides, as I said, there isn’t a piano. You don’t know much about your inheritance, do you?’

Connor shot her a look of triumph. ‘There’s a grand piano, actually.’

‘There bloody well isn’t! And even if there is’ – there was the remote possibility of there being one in a disused out-building she hadn’t properly explored – ‘it’ll be in such bad condition it would be unusable.’

‘That’s all you know.’

Hetty sighed deeply. ‘You’re being very childish. Why say there’s a piano when there isn’t?’

‘I keep telling you, there is.’

‘But where, for goodness’ sake?’

‘Phyllis Hempstead’s got it.’

‘What!’

‘Samuel lent it to her on permanent loan because he knew it would deteriorate if it stayed in the house.’

‘Good God! Really? Still, if it’s at her house, we can’t use it. Unless you’re suggesting the guests all troop a couple of miles and cram into her parlour.’

‘It was moved out, we can move it back.’

‘It’s not just a question of moving it. Even if Phyllis has kept it in tune, moving it will put it out again.’

He changed gear and made the engine growl. ‘Just which of us is the pianist here? I’m playing for you, don’t forget.’

Hetty buried her head in her hands and groaned.

She dozed on the journey home, and when they arrived she awoke with an awareness that she and Connor had been quarrelling, and that she was going to have to thank him profusely for taking her. In many ways she was grateful. He’d been wonderful with Alistair. It was just everything else he’d done that made gratitude hard to express.

They fought their way past the welcoming dogs, and Hetty pulled the kettle across to the hotplate. She took off the jacket and hung it where it couldn’t get stained, and quickly pulled on her cardigan, which was hanging on the back of a chair. It felt odd next to her bare skin, and inadequate. She pulled it closely around her.

Refreshed from her nap, she felt too jizzed up to go to bed immediately. Besides, she needed to woo herself into seeing Connor as someone she was grateful to, and not someone she wanted to kill, slowly and painfully.

‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked him.

‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’

‘No! And what’s it to you how much I have to drink?’ Oh God, this wasn’t what she’d intended to happen. ‘I meant tea, or cocoa.’ She was lying. She wanted the kettle for her hot-water bottle, the offer was purely symbolic.

‘Just as well. You ought to drink a couple of pints of water, or you’ll have a hell of a hangover in the morning.’

‘What on earth makes you think I’ve had too much to drink? I only had a couple of glasses of wine at dinner.’

‘Really? I thought you must be drunk the way you threw yourself at that man.’

‘Which man?’ she asked, before she realized how much worse this made her look.

‘So many you can’t tell them apart, eh? I meant the man you sat next to at dinner. Though Alistair got a good look-in, so to speak.’

It occurred to Hetty that Connor was physiologically incapable of talking to her without enraging her. Perhaps he should have hormone-replacement therapy.

‘I did not throw myself at anyone,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘Certainly not at Alistair.’

‘OK, I absolve you of flirting with Alistair, but that other man didn’t know what had hit him!’

‘Nonsense! We were just chatting.’ It was the chatting that had so unnerved poor James.

‘You let him put his hand on your bottom.’

‘Only when we were dancing! He had to put it somewhere, for God’s sake! And anyway, what’s it to you? If it was your bottom you might have grounds for complaint.’

‘You mean you had no objection?’

‘No, I meant that you have no right to have any.’ She was getting a bit confused as to what she did mean. Perhaps she had had too much to drink.

Connor crossed the kitchen and, before she realized what he was going to do, he picked her up and sat her on the narrow cupboard next to the stove. ‘Now, listen you . . .’