And as she stared into eyes as silvery and as crystalline as mercury, nine years seemed just to slip away, like grains of sand running through her fingers.
NINE summers ago Kelly had been in the first year of her school’s sixth form, studying science, and studying hard. When other students moaned about the rigorous demands of the syllabus they were expected to cover, Kelly did not. Her study had been hard fought for.
Not many students had to fight their parents to stay on at school—it was often the other way round—but Kelly’s parents simply had not been able to understand why she didn’t want to leave school at the earliest opportunity to start ‘bringing a bit of money in’, as they put it. Which, loosely translated, meant—certainly in the culture which Kelly had grown up in—to help boost her mother’s already meagre income, made even more meagre by her father’s liking for a drink and a bet on the horses. What they had expected for Kelly was a local shop or factory job. But Kelly refused to be condemned to a life of drudgery before getting married to a man like her father and having to scrimp and save and hide her money from him.
Kelly had tried to hide her bitterness at the lack of ambition in the Hartley household, knowing that any hint of rebellion would seal her fate. And she was lucky in two respects. The first was that she had been born with an outstanding intellect, and the second was that she had an absolute champion in her chemistry teacher—a Mr Rolls. Not only did his passion for his subject inspire her to work as hard as she possibly could, but through him she learned really to love the discipline of science.
If Mr Rolls had never achieved his full potential, he was determined that Kelly should not follow the same pattern. In his late thirties, he had never married, instead devoting all his energies to his students. It was Mr Rolls who spoke to Kelly’s dazed parents, told them that it would be a crime if she were not allowed to pursue higher education. It was he who allayed their financial fears by telling them that all sorts of grants were available for gifted students these days, and that they would not be asked to provide money they simply did not have. The only thing he did not discuss with them, at Kelly’s behest, was her ambition to become a doctor.
‘Time enough for that,’ Kelly told him firmly.
‘But why?’ He was genuinely non-comprehending.
She stared back at him, her large green eyes already wise beyond their years, in so many ways. ‘Because it will honestly be too much for them to take in all at once,’ she told him gently. ‘To tell them that I want to become a doctor would be like telling them that I want to fly to Venus!’
But she had felt as though if she spread her arms she really could fly to Venus that August evening, as she walked up the gravelled drive of the enormous country house for the summer school in science which Mr Rolls had insisted she attend. He had even arranged for the school governors to sponsor the trip.
‘And Seton House is in the heart of the country,’ he told her smilingly. ‘Do you good to get out of London for a bit—put a bit of colour in your cheeks.’
Kelly had never seen such a beautiful place in all her life as Seton House. It was not quite as impressive as Hampton Court Palace, which she had visted on a trip with the Brownies years ago, but it came a pretty close second, with its sweeping manicured lawns in the most dazzling shade of emerald, and its carefully clipped yew trees, and its parklands.
She stared up at the house, slightly fearful of knocking, when at that moment the vast door opened and a man in his early twenties came running lightly down the steps, saw her, stopped, and smiled. He had thick, black hair and the longest pair of legs she had ever seen.
‘Well, hello!’ His eyes were sparkling—fine grey eyes with exceptionally long black lashes—as they looked Kelly up and down with open appreciation.
That summer she had grown used to the stares from men; it had been a liberating summer in more ways than one. She had grown her hair, so that it rippled in dark red waves all the way down her back, and the faded jeans and T-shirt which every student wore emphasised the slim curve of her hips, the gentle swell of her burgeoning breasts. If men ogled her, she soon put them in their place. But somehow she didn’t mind this man looking one bit. It gave her the chance to look at him, and he was, without exception, the most delectable man she had ever set eyes on. ‘Hello,’ she answered. ‘Who are you?’
He grinned. ‘Well, actually I’m wearing two hats this week.’
Kelly blinked. ‘Excuse me? Your head is bare.’
His eyes narrowed, and he laughed—the richest, deepest, most mesmerising sound she could imagine. ‘Sorry. What I mean is that I’m one of the medical students running the course, and I ...’ And then his gaze fell to the cheap and battered old suitcase she was clutching, and his eyes softened. ‘Come inside. You must be tired after your journey. Here, let me carry your bags for you,’ and he took them from her without waiting for her assent. ‘Come with me. I’ll show you to your room. You’re the first to arrive. We weren’t expecting anyone until this evening.’
‘I—caught the early train,’ faltered Kelly, as she followed him up the steps leading to the house. The cheaper train, the bargain ticket, planning to kill time looking around the village of Little Merton. Except that when she had arrived in Little Merton there had been absolutely nothing to see, so she had come straight on up to the house. ‘I can always go away and come back later,’ she ventured.
‘What to do? There’s not a lot to see in Little Merton!’
‘So I noticed,’ remarked Kelly drily, and he turned his head to stare down at her again, giving her another of those slow smiles. She wondered if he knew just how attractive those smiles were—he must do!
Kelly followed him into the vast entrance hall, with him still holding her bags. No one had ever carried her bags for her before; in her world, women struggled with the heavy items, like pack-horses for the most part. She rather liked this show of masculine strength, and of courtesy. It made her feel fragile and protected, and rather cherished.
She stared around the hall. She had never imagined that a place could be so large and so beautiful, without being in the least bit ostentatious. There was none of the over-the-top gold scrolling which had abounded in Hampton Court. Instead, just an air of quiet loveliness, and the sensation of continuity down through the ages, of treasures being treasured and passed on for the next generation to enjoy.
‘It’s quite perfect,’ said Kelly simply.
He looked down at her. ‘Isn’t it?’ he said quietly. ‘I’m glad you like it.’
It didn’t occur to her to ask why. She just assumed that, like her, he had an eye for beautiful things.
He showed her upstairs to her room, decorated in a striking shade of yellow with soft sage-green fittings. It was just like being at the centre of a daffodil, thought Kelly fancifully.
‘It’s rather small, I’m afraid,’ he apologised. ‘But we’ve put some of the boys in the larger rooms, sharing.’
Small? Kelly gulped. It was palatial! She had spent the last fifteen years sharing a shoe-box of a room with a sister whose idea of tidying up was to chuck all the mess into an already overflowing cupboard! ‘It’s lovely,’ she told him, wandering over to the window. ‘And oh—’ her gaze was suddenly arrested by the tantalising glitter of sunlight on water in the distance ‘—is that a lake I can see?’
‘Mmm.’ He came to stand beside her. ‘We have black swans nesting there. Very rare and very beautiful. I’ll show you later if you like.’
‘I’d like that very much.’
He smiled.
She