Keeping Aunt Grace company had not always been easy. Her godmother was an imperious woman belonging to a very different generation. She did not believe in Women’s Lib, even in its mildest form, and it was her openly expressed view that every woman needed a man to look after her and protect her from what she darkly referred to as ‘folly’, though she invariably refused to be more specific.
Her own form of male protection, for she had never married, came in the substantial shape of Mr Frith, her family solicitor, whose advice she followed almost religiously on every problem, except apparently in one instance—that of Christina’s future. Mr Frith told Christina frankly after the funeral and the reading of the will that he had tried on a number of occasions to persuade Miss Grantham to alter her will and make some provision for her, but without success.
‘She pretended she couldn’t hear me,’ he told Christina regretfully, and Christina, who had often been subjected to the same treatment herself when presenting Aunt Grace with some unpalatable piece of information, had to sympathise with him.
All Christina could surmise was that Aunt Grace had intended to make provision for her, but had not been able to decide what form it should take. And now, of course, it was too late and there was no point in wondering what this might have been.
It was clear from the very start that Mrs Webster was not prepared to be magnanimous in any way. Christina was merely an encumbrance to be shed as soon as possible, and she did not even pretend a polite interest in the future of the girl who had been her aunt’s ward. Christina was allowed to infer that Mrs Webster thought she was extremely lucky to have lived in such comfort rent-free for so long, and that it would do her no harm to stand on her own feet for a change. Nor did she show any great interest in the cottage or its contents. She did not want to give up her life in London for a country existence, and she made it plain she was only interested in converting her inheritance into hard cash as soon as possible.
Christina had hoped forlornly that the Websters might want to retain the cottage as a weekend home, and might be prepared to employ her as a caretaker in their absence, but she was soon disabused of that notion. And when she quietly asked if Mrs Webster knew of anyone who might need a companion to perform the sort of duties that Aunt Grace had demanded, Mrs Webster had merely shrugged her shoulders and talked vaguely of agencies and advertisements.
Mr Frith and his wife had been extremely kind, and had promised to provide her with suitable references when the time came. They had even invited her to stay with them when it became clear that she would have to move out of the cottage without delay so that it could be auctioned with the contents. But Christina had refused their offer. Perhaps, she had told herself, the Websters had a point and it was time she did try to gain some independence. After all, she couldn’t be cushioned against life forever. There were other places outside this little village and outside her total experience, and she would have to find them.
It was taking the first step that was always the hardest, she decided. Her own first step had been a room in the village’s one hotel, but she knew this could not be a permanent arrangement. Her small stock of funds would not permit it, for one thing, and besides, it would soon be high summer and Mrs Thurston would need the accommodation for the casual tourists passing through the village on the way to the coast. As it was, the temporary arrangement suited them both.
Once the auction was over, there would be nothing to hold her here. It was an odd sensation. She felt as if a gate had closed behind her, and she stood alone in the centre of an unfamiliar landscape, unknowing which way to turn.
It was a lonely feeling and she felt tears prick momentarily at the back of her eyelids. It had occurred to her more than once that Aunt Grace might have expected her to marry and find sanctuary that way. Certainly she had always been quite encouraging when any of the local young men showed even a random interest in Christina. But such dates as she had had were few and far between. Christina had felt uncomfortably on several occasions as though her escorts were doing her some kind of favour, and she would not have been human if she had not resented this. After all, her mirror showed that she was not unattractive with her long straight fall of honey-blonde hair, and her thickly lashed grey-green eyes. In deference to Aunt Grace’s stated preferences, she had never worn extravagantly trendy clothes and she had wondered sometimes whether outsiders considered her dowdy.
Since Aunt Grace’s death, it had occurred to her that the attitude of some of the boys who had dated her might have sprung from the fact that they knew how poor her financial prospects were. It was an unpleasant thought, but it had to be faced. Many of the local families were well-to-do and would expect any future daughter-in-law to be drawn from approximately the same financial background and social standing as themselves. They might be kind, but they would not lose sight of the fact that she was only Aunt Grace’s companion.
It was a depressing thought and one she did not feel too inclined to pursue. She glanced at her wristwatch. The sale was barely half over as yet, but she thought it might be best if she slipped away. For one thing, she wanted to avoid another encounter with the Websters, who would be bound to inquire in carrying voices if she had managed to find another job yet. Christina sighed. She did not want to have to admit the humiliating truth—that her few diffident applications for posts so far had not even reached the stage of being invited for an interview.
Besides, she still had the rest of the day in front of her. She could catch the afternoon train to London perhaps and go round some of the agencies that Mrs Webster had mentioned. Perhaps in cases like hers, the personal approach was best. Anyway, time was growing short and she had to find some means of earning her living before her small savings ran out altogether. She had to shake herself out of this painful dream world and take up her life again. There was nothing here for her now, and maybe it had done her no harm to be convinced of the fact.
She took one last and rather sad look at the garden and turned away towards the door.
Then she saw that she was not alone and a startled involuntary ‘Oh!’ broke from her lips. She had not the slightest inkling of any approach, and there was something in the stance of the woman in the doorway that suggested rather uncomfortably to Christina that she had been there quietly for quite some time.
She was not a tall woman, but she had a definite presence, aided by the fact that she was exquisitely dressed in a hyacinth-blue Italian knitted suit. Her shoes and bag looked handmade, and she leaned on a slender ebony cane with a silver handle.
‘Miss Bennett?’ Her voice was calm and low-pitched with more than a trace of some foreign accent.
Christina hesitated for some reason that she could not herself have defined. Then ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged in a low voice. ‘But I’m afraid I don’t know …’
‘As you say, we have never met.’ The other woman smiled slowly, revealing white and even teeth. Yet I assure you, mademoiselle, that I do not in the least regard you as a stranger. In many ways, I feel we are old friends.’ She gave another faint smile at the bewildered expression on Christina’s face.
‘I see that I must explain myself more fully. I am Marcelle Brandon, mademoiselle. Did your godmother never speak of me to you?’
‘Never, as far as I can remember,’ Christina told her honestly. ‘You—you were a friend of hers?’
She found it difficult to credit in many ways even as she spoke. Aunt Grace had been so thoroughly