“I think I know where you can get some,” he told her, lifting her spirits immediately. “They’ve got some for sale at Whitegates Farm. They’re from a barn that was struck by lightning and had to come down.”
Whitegates Farm—the name rang a bell, and then Diana remembered Mr. Soames telling her that it was the home of his cotrustee.
“Will they sell them to me?” she asked uncertainly.
The builder smiled at her. “I should think so. You’d better telephone first to make an appointment though,” he warned her. “This is a busy time for farmers. I’ll negotiate the sale for you myself if you prefer it.”
In some ways she did, but she was going to be living in this new environment, and it was up to her to make contact with its inhabitants.
“I’ll ring the farm as soon as I get back to the pub,” she promised him.
A woman answered the phone, but when Diana put her request to her she explained that she was only the housekeeper.
“You’ll have to come out and talk to Mr. Simons about that,” she told Diana. “He’ll be here in the morning if that’s any use to you?”
Confirming the appointment, Diana got directions from her and then hung up.
The weather had turned pleasantly mild. She closed her eyes, seduced by the warmth of the sun coming in through the window. Next summer she could sit in her garden and watch her baby crawling on the lawn. She put her hand over her stomach and smiled to herself. The man who had fathered her child had melted into the mists of all those things she preferred not to think about. Before leaving London she had had a doctor’s appointment, and they had frowned over her lack of knowledge about her child’s father. There were medical details they needed for the records, and Diana had been made to feel like a thoughtless and rather stupid child.
The stock owned by the previous owner had been packed away in several large cases, and Diana spent the afternoon checking through them. Apart from a few handfuls of books of curiosity value to collectors there was very little that was salable. Some of the books had very nice leather bindings, though, and she resolved to keep them for display purposes on her own bookshelves.
Before leaving London she had visited various wholesalers to discuss the type of stock she wanted to carry. No firm orders could be given until the restoration and redecoration work was completed, but she had learned the value of good PR work whilst working for the television company, and on her list of things to do was a visit to the offices of the local newspaper, plus a tentative question mark against the idea of an opening party.
In the children’s section of the shop she intended to have a mural painted, depicting a variety of fairy-tale and animal creatures. The same firm she and Leslie had employed to decorate their London flat would attend to that for her … perhaps she would have a mural in the nursery as well.
She was doing it again, she derided herself, she was slipping away into her private daydream, all too content to let the rest of the world slip by. Were all pregnant women like this? She tried to think of the ones she had known, all of them busy career women with homes and husbands to care for. How on earth had they coped with this almost total slowing down, this change to a life at a much different tempo?
With her pregnancy had come a sense of tranquillity quite unlike anything she had previously experienced. She could not even do more than mildly berate herself for the manner in which her child had been conceived; her rare flashes of guilt totally overwhelmed in the following rush of delight that flooded her every time she thought about the baby.
This would be her child, and hers alone, and she was quite happy that it should be that way. This new life had been started accidentally, and she could only look upon it as a god-given gift to show her that death, however painful, is merely another chapter of life, and not its end.
The morning sickness which had plagued her on and off since the start of her pregnancy returned with full force in the morning, and briefly she contemplated canceling her appointment at Whitegates Farm. However, after a cup of tea and two dry biscuits, she began to feel a little better, and by ten o’clock she was quite looking forward to the drive out to the farm.
It was another warm day, with the sun shining and, knowing how hot it would be in the car, she dressed comfortably in a loose white cotton T-shirt top, and a gently gathered matching skirt.
Although to the discerning eye her pregnancy was beginning to be visible, and she herself could certainly see the changes in her body, she was still able to wear her normal clothes. Bright espadrilles, the same deep pink as her nail polish, adorned her feet, and matching sunglasses shaded her eyes.
It wasn’t until the landlady gave her a rather startled second look that Diana realized how very different her clothes were from those worn by the locals. Working in TV she had naturally adopted the same attitude toward fashion and design as her colleagues, and she coordinated and chose her clothes with this in mind almost automatically.
On the way to her car she collected a few more appreciative glances, mostly male. It was rather flattering to be studied with such interest, in London her appearance would have merited no more than the briefest glance.
As she had known it would be, the car was like an oven with the sun beating through the glass, so she opened the windows and turned the fan on to “cold”.
The directions she had been given were easy to follow, and soon she found herself driving along a road bordered by rich farmlands, both arable and pasture. Fields, heavy with crops, and crisscrossed by hedges, stretched away to the horizon, their colorscope of greens and golds occasionally broken up by a sprinkling of cattle.
The farm was larger than she had anticipated, a mingling of Tudor and Queen Anne, and very beautiful.
She had not expected the gardens that surrounded it either, and she realized the moment she turned into the open white gates and drove down the immaculate gravel driveway that this was more than merely a working farm. This was a showplace, she thought breathlessly, as she parked and admired the view in front of her.
The morning sunlight glittered on the mullioned windows set amongst dark beams and sparkling white plasterwork. It turned the red brick of the Queen Anne walls deeply rosy, and shimmered on the surface of the ornamental pond framed by willows and green lawns.
The drive had brought her to the front of the house, but now she could see that it continued around the side, and she frowned, wondering if perhaps she ought more properly to have driven round there. When she set out she had not envisaged that she might be coming to the sort of place where it mattered whether one chose the front or the back entrance.
Just as she was pondering her dilemma the front door opened and a tall stately woman in her late fifties came out, and called her name.
“I saw you drive up,” she said, when Diana stepped forward. “I’m Mrs. Jenkins, the housekeeper. I’m afraid Mr. Simons is going to be delayed for ten minutes or so. If you’d like to come inside, I’ll take you to his study.”
The elegant rectangular hallway was in the older part of the building, the stairs going up from it were dark oak and very warm. A richly patterned carpet in reds and blues emphasized the cream walls and dark woodwork. A refectory table in oak gleamed with polish, reflecting the copper bowl of roses standing on its surface.
“If you’ll just come this way, miss.”
A traditional latched door led down a step to a flagged stone passage. Through a tiny window Diana caught a glimpse of buildings and a cobbled yard, and realized that the passage must lead to the back of the house.
At the end of the passage was another door. The housekeeper opened it and stood to one side to allow Diana to enter the room.
“This is the most beautiful place,” she murmured appreciatively, unable to hold