Proud Harvest Read online

‘Hmm.’ Lance sounded doubtful. He leant over and flicked the invitation aside. ‘Car going okay?’

  His change of subject was so abrupt that the sound Lesley was about to make became strangled in her throat. When she could speak, she said faintly: ‘My car?’

  ‘Whose else?’ He straightened. ‘Well? Is it?’

  Lesley sighed. ‘By that I gather you know it’s not,’ she exclaimed, and the heavy brow furrowed.

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘It was an innocent question. I just wondered why you were late this morning as well as Friday.’

  ‘Oh!’ Lesley’s cheeks went pink. ‘You were in earlier.’

  ‘I was here at nine-thirty, yes,’ Lance agreed, thrusting his big hands into the pockets of his jacket and consequently pulling it all out of shape. ‘So what’s happened with the Mini? Don’t I pay you enough to keep it in working order?’

  Lesley moved her shoulders apologetically. ‘I had a bump,’ she confessed. ‘I ran into the back of one of those foreign cars. I don’t know what it was, but I bent the fender.’

  ‘And that’s why you were late?’

  Lesley hesitated. ‘Well—no.’ She looked up at him honestly. ‘It’s Jeremy, actually.’

  ‘Jeremy?’ Lance looked concerned. ‘He’s not ill, is he?’

  ‘Oh, no. No.’ Lesley made a rueful sound. ‘If only it were that easy! No, he’s due home for the holidays in ten days’ time, and—my mother has decided it’s too much for her to have him around the flat all day.’

  ‘I see,’ Lance nodded. Like Lesley, he too had been married, but perhaps fortunately his wife had been unable to have children and when they split up, no one had been hurt but themselves. ‘I guess he is a bit of a handful for a woman of her age.’

  Lesley fiddled with the papers on her desk. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And there’s no one else who could care for him while you’re working?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘What about his father—–’

  ‘Oh, please …’ Lesley felt she couldn’t go through all that again. ‘Carne doesn’t want him. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to ask him. Not after all this time.’

  ‘Why not? Jeremy’s his son, too.’

  ‘I know, but—well, Jeremy would be unhappy.’

  ‘Why should he be? With animals to care for and all those acres to run free across! My God, it’s any boy’s dream, Lesley. He’d soon adapt, you’d see.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you mean—no?’ Lance stared at her consideringly for several unnerving seconds, then he uttered an astonished laugh. ‘Dammit, you’re scared!’ he exclaimed. ‘You don’t want to ask Radley because you’re afraid the boy will enjoy himself.’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk such nonsense!’ exclaimed Lesley, forgetting for the moment to whom she was speaking. Then: ‘I’m sorry, but—please, Lance, this is my affair. Let me handle it my way.’

  Lance gave a disgruntled snort. ‘You’re getting possessive, do you know that?’ he told her provokingly. ‘If you’re not careful, you’ll turn into one of those jealous old women who cling to their sons like leeches, and try to pretend they don’t need a husband!’

  Lesley gasped. ‘What a rotten thing to suggest!’

  ‘But apt, wouldn’t you say?’ he countered, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels and toes.

  ‘I’m twenty-eight, Lance. Not exactly in my dotage yet, you know.’

  ‘And Jeremy’s seven—I know. But in thirty years’ time, you mark my words …’

  Nodding annoyingly to himself, he went into his office and closed the door, and Lesley applied herself with unnecessary aggression to her typing. But her fingers kept hitting the wrong keys, and she was glad when Elizabeth came round with the tea-trolley and she could give herself a break before continuing.

  There was a production meeting at eleven, and as Lance’s secretary she was expected to take notes, so that filled the rest of the morning in. Then, in the afternoon, Lance gave her some dictation, and finished by apologising for criticising her that morning.

  ‘It’s all right,’ insisted Lesley stiffly, but Lance was determined to make amends.

  ‘It’s not all right,’ he argued. ‘I don’t have any children, so how the hell can I pass judgment on anyone who has. Look, if it’s any help, you could bring him into the office a couple of days every week. So long as he sat quietly while you were working—he could bring books and crayoning pencils, couldn’t he? I guess you’re not working all the time, and maybe it would be possible for you to take an extra day off here and there …’

  ‘Oh, Lance!’ His unexpected understanding was disarming. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ he advised gruffly. ‘I’ll probably regret it bitterly. Now, will you get Manders on the phone? I want to know why The Mike Harris Show has dropped out of the top ten ratings.’

  For once there were no last-minute problems to attend to and when Lance came into her office at four o’clock it was to tell her that she could go and see about getting her car fixed, if she liked.

  ‘Go to Henleys and mention my name,’ he said. ‘Tell them you need it urgently. And I’m not joking. I expect you to be at your desk on time in the morning, car or no car.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Petrie.’ Lesley hid her smile, but for all that, she knew he meant it. Punctuality was one thing he demanded.

  Outside, the pavements were bathed in bright sunshine. Carrying her jacket, she got into the Mini and drove to the garage Lance had suggested. It wasn’t far from the studios, and the owner knew her employer very well. They were old drinking cronies, and a calculated examination of her car solicited the information that he could have it ready for the following afternoon.

  ‘Will it be very expensive?’ asked Lesley anxiously, recalling her mounting insurance premium, but the man shook his head.

  ‘Tell your boss I’ll make up the difference on that old banger of his next time he brings it in for a service,’ he retorted with a grin, but Lesley doubted Lance would appreciate such humour when it was directed towards the vintage Rolls-Royce he had rescued from the scrap heap. Still, she returned the man’s smile and thanked him for his help and then hurried away to Baker Street station to take the underground to Russell Square.

  It was still barely five o’clock when she turned into St Anne’s Gate and saw the soaring block of apartments where her mother had chosen to move six years ago. Once her daughter was comfortably married, Mrs Matthews had seen no reason to keep on the small house in Hampstead, or at least that was her story. Lesley knew that she had been finding it hard to make ends meet, and the sum the sale of the house had raised had given her a nice little nest-egg. The pension she received was not large, but that together with the interest from her capital had ensured she would not starve. What she had not bargained for was that Lesley might return home only two years after she had moved into the flat bringing with her a lively two-year-old who had been used to the kind of freedom a city flat could not provide.

  Lesley sighed. Perhaps she should have found her own place, maintained the independence she had guarded so jealously. But when she left Carne she had needed some place to hide, and her mother had seemed the most natural person to turn to. And indeed, Mrs Matthews had been very tolerant, she conceded, taking Jeremy to and from his nursery school, babysitting when Lesley had had to work late or at weekends. But they were all growing older, and as her mother had less patience, Jeremy demanded more.

  A dust-smeared Citroën station wagon was parked out front of the apartments and Lesley’s eyes flickered over it speculatively. Someone cared about their car even less than she did, she thought with satisfaction, noticing the clutter of maps and old cartons in the back, the magazines strewn haphazardly across the rear seat. Farming magazines they were, she saw in passing. She mounted the steps to the swing doors and smiled as the hall porter came to open the door for her.

  ‘How are you, Mr Peel?’ she asked, with genuine interest, and his mo
nologue concerning their Sandra’s grumbling appendix carried her into the lift.

  But as the metal casing hummed easily up to the fourth floor, her thoughts returned irresistibly to the station wagon outside. It was such a coincidence that it should be there today when every free moment seemed to have been filled with thoughts of Carne, and Jeremy, and the life she had run away from. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, refusing to admit that Lance’s accusation had scraped a nerve. She wasn’t afraid of Jeremy’s reactions to his father. Good heavens, he scarcely remembered him after all this time. They would have nothing in common—just as she and Carne had had nothing in common …

  The lift whispered to a halt and the doors slid open. Pushing her weight away from the wall of the lift, she stepped out into the corridor, smelling the familiar, if not particularly agreeable, smell of pine disinfectant. The flat she shared with her mother was several yards down and she sauntered towards it slowly, her brows drawn together in a frown. Why should she be letting Lance’s words disturb her like this? After all, Carne had stopped seeing his son, not the other way about. Why should she blame herself if he chose to ignore their existence, and most particularly, why should she feel any guilt because Jeremy was growing up knowing nothing of the land that was his heritage? His heritage was hers, a heritage of city things and city people. Everyone said that this was where it was all happening. People converged on London from all over the world. Jeremy might never know how to plough a field or wean a foal, but then he probably wouldn’t want to.

  She found her key and inserted it in the lock and the door opened silently into the tiny entrance hall of the flat. The hall was made tinier by her mother’s insistence on keeping an old chest, inlaid with ivory, which Lesley’s father had brought back from India, but it reduced the floor space to a minimum. Last holidays, Jeremy had hidden inside it and terrified them all by falling asleep and almost suffocating himself.

  Lesley was closing the door again when the sound of voices coming from the living room attracted her attention. It was so unusual for her mother to have callers. She seldom associated with her neighbours, and Lesley usually knew when one or other of her friends from Hampstead days was expected to call. Besides, Lesley hesitated, it sounded like a man’s voice …

  Her mouth went dry, and she deliberately closed the door so that they should not hear her. A cascade of staggering thoughts was tumbling through her head—the conversation with her mother that morning, the dusty station wagon outside, with the farming magazines spread over the seat, and now a man’s voice.

  It was Carne. She was sure of it. She would know his low husky drawl anywhere. Hadn’t she always admired his voice, its throbbing timbre which had had the power to send shivers of excitement up her spine. But no longer, she reminded herself severely. She was no eager student any longer, she was a grown woman, mature and she hoped, sophisticated. So what was he doing here? Had her mother sent for him? Of course, she was home earlier than they could have expected. It was usually nearing six by the time she had negotiated the rush hour traffic.

  She turned quickly, and as she did so she saw her reflection in the convex mirror hanging above the Indian chest. Wide, anxious eyes stared back at her, lips parted apprehensively. Impatience brought a frown to her forehead. Why did she look so anxious? Why should she be apprehensive? She had nothing to fear. So why did she suddenly feel like letting herself out of the flat again as quietly as she had come in?

  Biting her lips to give them a little colour, she ran a smoothing hand over the heavy curtain of her hair, and turned to the door. She put out her hand, hesitated, and withdrew it again. Unwillingly, she could hear their voices now, and shamelessly she was listening.

  ‘Lesley simply doesn’t know,’ she heard her mother saying, a sigh of resignation in her voice. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.’

  ‘Then you must.’ Carne was always so unfailingly practical, thought Lesley maliciously. ‘She’s not a child. She would understand.’

  ‘I don’t believe she would.’ Mrs Matthews paused, and Lesley grew impatient for her to continue. What wouldn’t she understand? And how could her mother discuss it with Carne and not with her?

  ‘Do you want me to tell her?’

  Carne was speaking again, and Lesley could stand it no longer. Whatever was going on, she was involved and therefore she had the right to know about it. With trembling fingers, her hand closed round the handle, and she propelled the door inward.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CARNE was standing on the rug in front of the marble fireplace. The fire was seldom lit, there being a perfectly adequate heating system supplied to the flats from a central generator, and besides, no one needed a fire in summer. In consequence, the grate was screened and Carne’s long, powerful legs were outlined against a ridiculously fragile tracery of Chinese fans embroidered on to a turquoise background. Lesley’s mother collected Eastern things, and the room was a conglomeration of Japanese jade and Indian ivory, and hand-painted Chinese silk. Their oriental delicacy made Carne’s presence more of an intrusion somehow, and his height and lean, but muscular, body seemed to fill the space with disruptive virility. Standing there in close-fitting jeans and a collarless body shirt, he was an affront to the ordered tenor of the room, and most particularly an affront to Lesley’s carefully controlled existence.

  She barely glanced at him, yet in those few seconds she registered everything about him. He hadn’t changed, she thought bitterly. He was still as imperturbably arrogant as ever, caring little for people or places, showing a fine contempt for the things she had always held most dear. In spite of a degree in biochemistry, when his father died Carne had been quite prepared to give up a promising scientific career to take over the farm that had been in their family for generations, but Lesley, when she learned this, had been horrified. It had been one of the many arguments she had had with Carne’s mother, yet hardly a conclusive factor in her final decision to leave him. She knew deep inside her that there had been much more to it than that, an accumulation of so many things that clutching at his lack of ambition was like clutching at a straw in the wind. They had been incompatible, she decided, choosing the most hackneyed word to describe the breakdown of their relationship.

  Now, looking at her mother, who had risen rather nervously from her chair, she exclaimed: ‘Exactly what must I be told, Mother? What is it that I wouldn’t understand?’

  By ignoring Carne, she hoped she was making plain her resentment at finding him here, but it was he who spoke as her mother struggled to find words.

  ‘Listening at keyholes again, Lesley?’ he taunted, and she could not argue with that.

  ‘You’re home early, dear.’

  Her mother had clearly chosen to avoid a direct answer, but Lesley refused to be put off by Carne’s attempt to disarm her.

  ‘Why is Carne here?’ she demanded, returning to the attack, and she sensed rather than saw the look Mrs Matthews exchanged with her husband. There was a pregnant pause, then he spoke again.

  ‘Your mother has angina,’ he told her flatly, despite her mother’s cry of protest. ‘A heart condition that’s not improved by the company of a boisterous small boy!’

  Lesley’s legs felt suddenly weak, and she sought the back of her mother’s chair for support. ‘Angina?’ she echoed stupidly. Then: ‘But why wasn’t I told?’

  ‘I imagine because your mother hoped you would notice she wasn’t well,’ Carne remarked cuttingly. ‘It’s one thing to shout about independence, and quite another to expect someone else to help you to accomplish it!’

  Lesley stared at him indignantly, hating him for his calm pragmatism. His returning stare had all the emotion of a hawk poised above its prey, and she guessed he felt no sympathy for her feelings of outrage and betrayal. How could her mother have confided in him? In the one man who in all Lesley’s life had been capable of making her feel mean and selfish, and spoiled out of all measure.

  ‘Why have you come here?’ she demand
ed again now, and this time her mother chose to answer.

  ‘I asked him to,’ she spoke fretfully. ‘Oh, Lesley, don’t be angry. I had to confide in someone.’

  It was incredibly difficult for Lesley not to show how upset she really was. ‘Why not me?’ she exclaimed, with feeling. ‘Why not me?’

  ‘I believe your mother thought that if she could persuade you to let Jeremy spend his holidays at Raventhorpe, it wouldn’t be necessary to worry you,’ put in Carne dryly. ‘But I gather that hasn’t met with any success.’

  Lesley refused to answer that. Instead, she concentrated her attention on her mother. ‘Look,’ she said carefully, ‘I’ve—I’ve managed to make some—arrangements for the holidays—–’

  ‘What sort of arrangements?’

  It was Carne who asked the question, pushing back the dark chestnut hair from his forehead, unwillingly drawing her attention to the fact that when he lifted his arm, his shirt separated from his pants and exposed a welt of brown midriff. Carne’s skin had always been brown, but as he often worked in the open air with only a pair of cotton pants to protect his lower limbs, his chest and shoulders and the width of his back were bronzed and supple. In spite of all the bitterness that had gone before, she could still remember the feel of that smooth skin beneath her fingers and her nails digging into the strong muscles when they made love …

  Dragging her eyes away from him, she forced herself to look only at her mother. ‘I—I spoke to Lance today,’ she began, and felt a certain squalid satisfaction as she sensed Carne’s stiffening. ‘He—he’s quite willing for me to take Jeremy to the office with me. He can read or use his cray—–’

  ‘No.’

  Carne’s rejection was low, but succinct, and Lesley was forced to acknowledge it. ‘I don’t think it’s anything to do with you.’

  ‘Which shows how wrong you can be,’ he retorted smoothly.

  ‘Oh, please …’ Mrs Matthews sought her chair again. ‘I never intended this to degenerate into an argument. I know how you feel about Jeremy, Lesley, never doubt that. But Carne was the right person to turn to, can’t you see? He is the boy’s father!’