Storm In A Rain Barrel. Anne Mather

nodded slowly, not sure how to take his sarcasm.

      ‘Good. Then I suggest we begin to make a start towards that end. Are your cases still packed?’

      She nodded again, and he walked to the kitchen door and summoned Graham and proceeded to give him minute instructions as to the manner of explanation he should give to people who would be likely to call. Obviously, from the explanations he was giving, he had told his immediate associates what was going on, and it was only a question of supplying information to uninformed business acquaintances. Yvonne Park’s name wasn’t even mentioned, and Domine puzzled over this. Then they carried their cases to the lift which transported them down to the basement which housed the cars belonging to the tenants who occupied the apartments. Graham left them here, wished them a good journey, and took the lift back upstairs.

      The previous day Domine had been too overwrought to take a great deal of interest in her guardian’s car, but today she noted with interest that it was a sleek luxury sports car of a continental variety with a speedometer that climbed to alarming heights of speed. However, she climbed inside obediently, and smoothed the skirt of her gaberdine over her knees. She was intensely conscious now of the limitations of her clothes, and realized that the overcoat James Mannering was wearing was lined with real fur and not a nylon imitation.

      They drove out of the garages up a ramp on to the main thoroughfare, and eventually headed north up the Edgware Road towards Hatfield. It was still raining steadily, and the windscreen wipers swished continuously, while the tyres hissed on the wet road. In the environs of Greater London, Mannering did not speak, concentrating on the road ahead, and controlling the powerful engine he had beneath the car’s bonnet. They stopped for traffic lights and occasionally he swore as another car swung dangerously across his path, but eventually they reached the motorway and he relaxed a little and gave the car its head.

      He glanced at Domine, and said, ‘Not much of a day to see your new home, is it?’ and she shook her head.

      ‘Is it my new home?’ she asked curiously. ‘I mean—have you made any plans for my future?’

      He shrugged, the wheel of the car sliding through his tanned fingers as he overtook a slow-moving furniture wagon. ‘Not exactly plans,’ he replied slowly. ‘To begin with, you look as though you could do with a holiday, a real holiday, I mean, not those stiff visits you made to Crompton’s Hotel.’

      ‘You knew about them?’

      ‘Sure. While you may have been kept in the dark about us, we were certainly not kept in the dark about you. You were my father’s redeeming duty. You were the force that was to alter the selfish pattern of his life hitherto.’

      Domine frowned. ‘Tell me about your mother,’ she said.

      ‘What about her?’ His voice was less relaxed when he spoke of his mother, as though he expected some kind of repudiation of her actions.

      ‘Why didn’t she marry Great-Uncle Henry after his wife and her husband died?’

      Mannering gave a harsh mirthless laugh. ‘My mother wouldn’t marry Henry Farriday!’ he exclaimed contemptuously. ‘Not after everything that had happened.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      He sighed. ‘Oh, you’ll learn soon enough, so I might as well tell you. My mother was not married when—when she became pregnant. She was working at Grey Witches then as a kind of assistant-housekeeper. Henry’s wife was still alive, as I’ve told you. She held the reins of household affairs, and my mother liked her. Unfortunately, she succumbed to Henry’s charm. Oh, he had charm all right, when he chose to exert it, and eventually the inevitable happened. I was the result!’ He glanced at her wryly. ‘It’s shocking to you, isn’t it? A kind of bitter pill to swallow, being made the ward of Great-Uncle Henry’s—’

      Domine put her hands over her ears. ‘Don’t say it!’ she cried, half angrily. ‘It’s not your fault!’

      He shrugged. ‘Well, anyway, when she found she was pregnant, she went to old Henry for help. Who else could she turn to? Who else was responsible? And do you know what he did? He turned her out! Just like that! Alone and friendless!’

      ‘Oh, no!’ Domine pressed a hand to her throat.

      ‘Oh, yes. If it hadn’t been for my father—for Lewis Mannering, that is—she’d probably have killed herself. As it was, Lewis married her, knowing all the facts of the case. My mother is nothing if not honest. I suppose in that respect I may take after her. I’ve never had any time for subterfuge.’ He drew out some cigarettes and dropped them in her lap. ‘Do you want one?’

      Domine nodded, and lit one, her hands trembling a little as she used the lighter he handed her. Then he continued:

      ‘It wasn’t until years later that my mother became Henry’s housekeeper, and by this time his wife was dead, of course.’

      ‘But why did she do that?’ Domine was puzzled. ‘I don’t understand why she should have gone back to him after the way he treated her.’

      ‘Don’t you? Well, perhaps not. But you’ll learn as you go through life that there is such a thing as vengeance, and that was the reason why my mother went back. Old Henry didn’t suspect, of course, when he employed her. It wasn’t until afterwards when he saw me that he realized why she had done it.’

      Domine was still bewildered. ‘But where was your father?’

      James Mannering sighed. ‘My father was a farmer. He only had a smallholding, but it was quite prosperous in its way, and when my mother married him she left Hollingford and went to live with him near Beverley. I doubt very much whether Henry Farriday realized she actually had the child, you see. But unfortunately my father contracted cancer of the throat, and he died when I was only fourteen. That was when we went back to Grey Witches.’

      ‘Oh, I see!’ Domine began to understand. ‘And Great-Uncle Henry recognized you.’

      ‘Oh yes. Unfortunately, although I resemble my mother in temperament, my physique is wholly Farriday. You can imagine the stir it caused in the village, our living there, at Grey Witches, and nothing old Henry could do about it.’

      ‘Why? Couldn’t he have dismissed your mother?’