Daisy sniffed. ‘I don’t care,’ she muttered, making no attempt to do as she had been told. At nearly nine years of age, she was just beginning to show some independence, and Rachel thought it was a pity she had taken a dislike to Simon before she’d really had a chance to get to know him.
‘Go and get ready now,’ she ordered, suppressing the impulse to try and reason with her once again. And, although Daisy still looked mutinous, she responded to the tone of her mother’s voice. But, it was obviously going to take some time to convince her that moving to Kingsmead would be best for all of them. Yet Daisy needed a father, and Simon was an ideal candidate for the job.
And, thinking of Daisy’s father reminded Rachel of the other unwelcome task she had to do today. At some point, she was going to have to ring Ben and tell him what she intended to do. And ask for a divorce, she acknowledged tensely. She’d never thought she’d be the first to say that.
Daisy came back into the room wearing her navy school coat and carrying her duffel bag. Whatever happened to satchels? thought Rachel ruefully, realising anew how her daughter was growing up. When she was her age, she’d been considered a child and nothing more. Daisy was a young adult, with all the doubts and hang-ups of an adolescent.
‘Ready?’ Rachel tried to instil some optimism into her voice, but Daisy was in no mood to respond to it.
‘As if you care,’ she mumbled, digging into her pockets for the fingerless gloves she’d brought back from London on her last visit. ‘Oh, Miss Gregory asked me to give you this,’ she added, discovering a slip of paper advertising for helpers for a jumble sale there was to be held at the school. ‘As you helped last year, she thought you might want to help again. I told her you’d probably be too busy, what with Mr Barrass and everything, but Miss Gregory said to tell you anyway.’
Rachel’s mouth turned down at the corners. She didn’t believe for one moment that Daisy had been discussing her affairs with her teacher. Particularly not anything that involved Simon Barrass. As with her father, Daisy chose to bury her head in the sand and hope the problem would go away. She was just trying to provoke her mother, and it was simpler to play along.
‘Oh? What did Miss Gregory say to that?’ Rachel enquired now, and had the doubtful privilege of seeing her daughter’s face suffuse with colour.
‘I don’t remember,’ muttered Daisy sulkily, going into the hall and peering out of the window. ‘Here’s the bus. I can’t talk now. I’ve got to go.’
Rachel kissed her daughter goodbye and watched as Daisy ran down the path, and climbed aboard the yellow minibus, which would take her to her private school in Cheltenham. There was a primary school in the next village, but it had been Ben’s idea to send Daisy to Lady’s Mount Academy and, as he was paying, Rachel had found it difficult to object. Besides, around the time Daisy was starting school, there had been rumours that the school in nearby Lower Morton was going to close. The fact that it hadn’t, yet, was no surety that it wouldn’t in the future. And Daisy was happy at Lady’s Mount, even if it was going to be harder to get her there once they had moved to Kingsmead.
Closing the door, Rachel paused a moment to look around the pleasant entrance hall of the house. Panelled in oak, with exposed beams and an inglenook fireplace, it had been the first thing that had attracted them to the house seven years ago. And, even after everything that had happened, Rachel knew she would miss the place terribly when they moved. It was such a friendly house, warm and south-facing, with plenty of room for the expanding family they had planned when they came to live here. Now, she and Daisy rattled around like peas in the many spacious rooms, and for all her many misgivings, it was time they moved on.
Refusing to get maudlin about it, Rachel dried the few breakfast dishes she and Daisy had used, and then ran up the dog-leg staircase to put on a little make-up. She didn’t use much—just a touch of eyeshadow and a smear of blusher. And a coat of amber lipstick, to go with the tawny highlights in her hair.
A door opened from the stairs, at the point where the small landing created the right angle. Beyond the door was a room set into the eaves of the adjoining garage, with a partially sloping roof, and wide dormer windows.
Although she didn’t really have the time to waste, Rachel opened the door on to what had been Ben’s study, and stood for a few moments looking in. When Ben moved his desk out, she had moved a work table in, intending, at that time, to use the study as a sewing-room in future. But she never had. Such sewing as she did do, she did in the family-room downstairs, and, apart from looking emptier than it used to do, the room was much the same as when Ben had worked there. His books were gone as well, of course, and the hi-fi system he’d sometimes played while he was working. Now it was just a junk-room really, not an office at all. There was no lingering trace of Ben’s occupancy. A conscious choice on her behalf.
All the same, she knew she would find it a wrench parting with the house. Although Ben had insisted she live in it after the separation, she was fond of the place. But it was still Ben’s house. She was still Ben’s wife. And that was something else she had to deal with. As Simon had said, the sooner the better.
A watery sun appeared as she was leaving. So far it had been a wet spring, and although the daffodils and crocuses were out they were all waterlogged in their beds. At the weekend, she’d have to make an effort to prune the roses, she thought, passing the prickly patch of bushes on her way to the garage. And the greenhouse needed cleaning, if she hoped to grow any decent tomatoes this year.
Except that she wouldn’t be cultivating the greenhouse this year, she reminded herself. Simon had suggested she should move into one of the tied cottages on the farm, while they were waiting for her divorce to be final and they could get married. It was more sensible, he said, pointing out that it took him a good twenty minutes to get to Upper Morton, where she lived, and a further twenty minutes to get back.
‘Just think of all the petrol I’ll save, when I can walk home after seeing you!’ he had exclaimed, and although he had smiled when he said it, she didn’t really know if he was serious or not.
In any event, there were other advantages as well. Not least the fact that she wouldn’t have the upkeep of this house making a drain on her wages. Simon had said she could live at the farm rent-free, and she couldn’t deny that lately keeping their heads above water had become a constant strain.
She could have asked Ben to increase her allowance—the allowance she got for Daisy, and which was far more generous than the upkeep of one small girl warranted—but she had her pride. If she could have afforded it, she would have supported Daisy herself. But it wasn’t fair to expect Daisy to suffer, just because her mother had some misguided desire for independence. It was Ben who had betrayed his family; Ben who had destroyed their marriage. He deserved to pay something for the privilege. The fact that what he did pay her hardly made a dent in his small change shouldn’t concern her. Until now they had had the house, and just enough to live on. If Ben felt any emotion at her changing circumstances, it should be one of relief. After all, it would be to his advantage if she didn’t have to rely on him for anything.
But, as she drove through the stone gateposts that marked the boundaries of Wychwood, Rachel couldn’t help the unwilling thought that Ben was unlikely to see it that way. He was amazingly possessive when it came to his daughter, and she doubted he’d take kindly to the thought that some other man was going to take his place in their lives. He hadn’t put up any opposition when she had applied for custody of Daisy, and he had been charitably disposed to allow her to make what visitation rights she thought fit. But that had been two years ago, when, so far as Rachel was concerned, there had been no one else on the horizon. How Ben would react to the news of Simon’s entry into their lives was anyone’s guess, but Rachel doubted he would applaud the fact that she was upsetting Daisy’s life once again.
Well, that wasn’t her fault, she told herself now, turning out of Stoneberry Lane and driving swiftly through the village. Upper Morton was the twin of its rival, Lower Morton, and when she and Ben had first seen the two villages they had been hard