Several times Mrs Myson had started to ask Robin about herself but Robin had answered briefly and got Maybelle back to her memories. They were fascinating and, to Robin, Robin’s own life was not. She would much rather hear how a bridge had been built over a raging river in a jungle than talk about herself. Although, after their second cup of tea and when most of the sandwiches had gone, Maybelle Myson said firmly, ‘Now, tell me about yourself.’
‘What do you want to know?’ Robin asked.
‘Well, where do you live?’
‘At home. With my aunt and uncle. They’ve brought me up since I was five, when my mother died. She was my mother’s sister.’
Maybelle Myson said, ‘Like Marc’s grandmother and me.’ She went on gaily, ‘I always approve of aunts.’
You would not approve of mine, thought Robin, but she managed to keep her voice light and bright, asking, ‘Are you really eighty-two? You don’t took anywhere near that.’
She was not trying to flatter. Maybelle Myson could have knocked ten or more years off her age and got away with it easily, and now she said, ‘Thank you,’ and laughed. ‘Most of the time I feel, say, fifty-something, although there are days when I am every minute of my age, but don’t tell anyone that.’ Robin laughed with her. ‘How old are you, Robin?’ she enquired.
‘Twenty.’ Robin thought for a moment before she added, ‘Today,’ because it had been a grim birthday.
Of course Maybelle said, ‘Twenty today? How lovely for you. You must be very happy.’ Robin kept on smiling although bitter laughter was churning inside her. ‘I was married before I was twenty,’ Maybelle reminisced. ‘He was so handsome.’ She got off the sofa and went to a drawer. Robin expected photographs and leaned forward, but she came back holding something in the palm of her hand.
‘Happy birthday,’ she said, and into Robin’s hand she dropped a heavy chain bracelet. Three chunky charms hung from the fastener-ring: a cross, an anchor and a heart. ‘Faith, hope and charity,’ said Maybelle. ‘With those you can’t go far wrong.’
It looked like gold, and a gift had been the last thing that Robin had expected. She felt tears welling in her eyes and blinked them away fiercely. She never shed tears in front of anyone, but after this morning, and after Marc Hammond, she was vulnerable to kindness and this was such a generous gesture.
‘That is so kind of you,’ she said. ‘I do appreciate it and it is beautiful, but of course I couldn’t take it unless—’ She bit her lip. This was awkward. ‘Is it gold? Is it as real as it looks?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then no, thank you. Please, I’d feel awful taking something this valuable.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Maybelle briskly, but when Robin shook her head and gave the bracelet back she took it, keeping hold of Robin’s wrist. ‘Well, try it on.’
There was no harm in that. It was weighty on Robin’s slim wrist. She had never worn anything like it before and it should surely have been an heirloom. She said again, ‘It’s beautiful but I can’t take it.’
Maybelle did her mischievous twinkle. ‘Wear it while you’re on duty.’
‘What? Oh, we can forget that. I’m not going to be on duty here.’ As she spoke she had a pang of regret because she could have been the right one for this job, given half a chance. Which she would not be getting from Marc Hammond.
‘Marc is going to make me have a driver,’ said Maybelle. ‘And a companion. A minder is what he has in mind. He’d wrap me in cotton wool if he could and sometimes that can be comforting.’
Sometimes it must be, thought Robin, who had never had a protector who did not ask more from her than he offered. ‘So,’ said Maybelle Myson, ‘we must bring him round to accepting you.’
‘He won’t.’
Robin was sure of that. The vibes between them had been as threatening as a collision course. When she was alone she would remember how he had looked and sounded, even the touch of him, although only his eyes had touched her, and she would shake inside.
But Maybelle couldn’t know this. Now she said, ‘We’ll go through my appointments for the next few weeks and show him how far I’ll be driving and tell him how useful you would be.’
‘We’re wasting our time,’ Robin said, and then asked, because she was curious, ‘If you’re the one who’s getting a companion why does it have to be his say-so?’
‘Because Marc’s the boss,’ Maybelle Myson replied cheerfully.
She was a thoroughly modern woman in all but age but Marc Hammond made the rules, although it was a tender bullying Maybelle Myson got. He thought she should be kept safe from the likes of Robin Johnson. But it would be his fault if Maybelle went on turning down the other applicants and driving herself. She was a menace on the roads and before Robin left here she would tell him that.
‘Your legs are younger than mine,’ said Maybelle. ‘Would you go downstairs? Through the first door on your left as you come into the house there’s a bureau, and in the top drawer of that, right on top, you’ll find a notebook with a red cover. Would you fetch it for me?’
‘Of course.’ Although going over Maybelle’s appointments wasn’t going to change Marc Hammond’s mind.
Robin ran down the stairs. She would have liked to linger and look at the paintings. There was one of blue horses that made her pause for a moment but she wasn’t on a sightseeing tour. The door was ajar and this looked like a dining room, dominated by a long oval mahogany table with chairs around it—lovely antique stuff—and a big carver chair at the head.
You could have a company board meeting in here, Robin thought, and she could imagine Marc Hammond sitting in the carver chair, the other chairs filled with folk, their faces turned towards him, drinking in every word while he issued orders and laid down the law. As this was a private house it was more likely that the dining room was used for dinner parties. Although Hammond would still be at the head of the table—as the host—the company would, instead, be guests having a wonderful time. He would be smiling and friendly and that was harder to imagine.
The bureau stood against the far wall, beside one of the long windows with their midnight-blue velvet curtains. It was smooth and polished in a warm, mellow wood inlaid with marquetry. She found the redcovered book in the top drawer. Then she stroked the top flap of the desk, tracing the pattern with her fingertips. The workmanship was incredible. There was a rose, every petal in a different shade of golden wood, and she breathed deeply, almost savouring a perfume.
Then she looked up from the marquetry rose to the photograph in a silver frame on top of the bureau, and all the sensuous pleasure of stroking the rose went in a flash. Here was Marc Hammond again, his dark hair springing back from a peak, his eyebrows heavy. If he lived in this house whoe the hell would need his photograph around the place? Even if he didn’t live here it wasn’t a face you’d be likely to forget.
She took a step back and glared at it—and he was looking straight at her, demanding, ‘What are you doing in here?’
Only, of course, it wasn’t the photograph asking. The man was framed in the doorway, coming into the room, and she was desperate to get away from him, out into the hall, so that she went in a rush and he caught her by the wrist as she tried to pass. ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘What were you doing?’
She had the appointments book in her other hand. All she had to do was wave that at him but he was holding her and when she jerked instinctively his grip hurt, and for the second time this afternoon her blood pounded in her temples, so that she dropped the book and raised a hand and was within a hair’s breadth of hitting him across the face. For a split second his face swam in a red haze, but while she still had her hand held high her blurred vision cleared and she gritted her teeth.