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Kate looked down at her coffee mug as though it was a gypsy’s crystal ball; she hesitated, but only fractionally. ‘Yes, there’s something very wrong,’ she muttered. When she raised her eyes to Helen, there were no tears in them, but they looked drowned. ‘You remember telling me once that you thought Shirley wasn’t quite the victim I believed ’ She hesitated again. ‘Why did you say that, Helen? Had you any reason, any real reason? Did you know something I didn’t?’

Helen gently removed the mug from Kate’s unresisting fingers and set it down precisely on the table, making room for it among the squeezed tubes of paint and the jam jars full of brushes.

‘Observation, love.’ She looked up at Kate, her expression serious and compassionate. ‘I’m an artist, I look at people in a different way. I paint what I see, not only with these,’ she gestured at her own eyes, ‘but what I see with something inside me, something which cuts through the top layer and lets what’s inside show through. That’s the way I look at you, the way I look at everything and everybody, the way I looked at Shirley— and believe me, love, there were times when Shirley didn’t bear looking at.’ She drew a deep breath and plunged her hands into the pockets of her oversized cardigan. ‘All right, I’m going to say it, and if you walk out through the door and never speak to me again, I’ll just have to bear it. I don’t have anything concrete, Shirley chattered, but never about anything important. Didn’t you ever notice that? But I couldn’t ever forgive what she did to you, what she made you do so that she could be comfortable while she was with you.’

‘Did you know she was going back to Theo?’ Kate asked the question painfully.

‘It was obvious, wasn’t it?’ Helen shrugged. ‘Be honest, Kate. Could you see Shirley chucking all that money away? Your little sister was a conniving little so-and-so. She used you—but then I can’t blame her. She’d always used you, and you were always willing to be used.’ Kate’s smile was a travesty of the real thing. ‘Yes, I was always willing, wasn’t I?’

‘And are you going to walk out of the door and never speak to me again?’

Kate shook her head. ‘Never that, Helen. I wonder if you understand? It’s been one hell of a shock and I still can’t really believe it. It’s going to take some time to get things in perspective again.’

‘Love, for my advice, go back to your husband. Tell him about it, I’m sure he’ll help.’

‘You don’t understand.’ Kate hovered on the verge of hysterical laugher. ‘Tell him? He told me and I still can’t really believe it.’

Jerome came at six promptly and Helen let him in and led him to the studio. Kate was still sitting in the velvet chair and he came to take her hand.

‘Take her home,’ advised Helen, ‘get her to bed and give her something to make her sleep. She’s all at sixes and sevens.’

‘I think not.’ Jerome pulled Kate to her feet. ‘Kate has had some small shocks, but she’s young and healthy, she’ll soon get over them. Goodbye, Helen, Kate will write.’ And without any fuss, he took Kate down to the street where Tobias was waiting with the car. ‘There’s another shock in store for you tomorrow.’ He was quite cheerful as he helped her into the car and took the seat beside her.

She was woken by Mrs Davies at seven the next morning with a cup of tea and instructions to ‘hurry, please, madam. Mr Jerome wants to leave within the hour.’ Kate yawned and hoisted herself in the bed, fighting back an almost overmastering desire to go back to sleep.

‘I’ll have to pack my things,’ she muttered as she gazed owlishly at the housekeeper.

‘No need for that,’ Mrs Davies pushed back the curtains. ‘Mr Jerome tells me that you’re not going back until tomorrow.’

‘Then what’s all the rush?’ Kate felt herself growing stubborn and deliberately lingered over a bath and dressing before going slowly downstairs and helping herself to coffee from the pot on the breakfast table.

‘If we’re not going back to Derbyshire today, what’s all the panic about?’ she demanded mutinously. ‘I was having a lovely sleep and I don’t see why I have to be woken at the crack of dawn. The shops don’t open till nine.’

‘We aren’t going shopping.’ It was said absent-mindedly as if his mind was on other things, and he watched her butter a slice of toast with a patient resignation. ‘Hurry, please, there are some things, that wait for no man.’

‘I want to know where we’re going.’ Kate was growing belligerent. ‘I may not be properly dressed.’

Jerome’s eyes slid over her dark green trouser suit, lingered for a moment on her flat, sensible shoes and then came back to her face. ‘You’ll do, bring a jacket or a coat.’

Nearly two hours later he pulled the car into a small boatyard and hailed a man busy varnishing something which looked like a mast.

Kate heard the faint, returning shout. ‘Go on down, sir. She’s waiting for you.’ Then she was hauled from the car and practically frogmarched down a pebbly path and out on to a small jetty.

‘I’m not going a step farther until I know where we’re going and what you’re up to,’ she protested as her eyes took in the seemingly never-ending expanse of water, the white-capped waves and the little boat lying alongside the jetty and bobbing up and down in a very sickening way.

The hand on her arm didn’t slacken as she was forced nearer to the boat. ‘I’m sure Shirley must have told you about this,’ he was bland, ‘my private yacht. She didn’t ever see it for herself, but that didn’t stop her talking about it. Wasn’t I supposed to conduct amorous affaires aboard it under the light of a Mediterranean moon? Now, come and see for yourself.’ He pushed her along a swaying gangplank and on to the heaving deck, and Kate took a moment to look around her.

She wouldn’t have called this a yacht, to her a yacht was white and slim with a high prow which cut through the waves and with sufficient deck space for somebody to sunbathe and perhaps an awning for when the sun grew too hot. This boat didn’t come into that category. It wasn’t new, it wasn’t particularly graceful, there was no beautiful rake to the bows and there wasn’t room on the deck for a midget to sunbathe. She had little time to see more, because the hand about her arm was forcing her through a hatchway and down a steep companion into a small cabin.

‘Satisfied?’ he queried sardonically. ‘These are the palatial quarters available—-just the spot for erotic nights, don’t you agree? Here,’ he delved into a cupboard under a bunk, ‘here are the silk sheets,’ he tossed a dark blue, very hairy blanket at her ‘and the galley is through there.’

‘You didn’t have to do tips,’ Kate looked at him angrily, ‘and I wish you’d told me anyway, because there’s something I think you should know. I get seasick stepping over a puddle!’ And with great dignity she rose from her seat on the bunk, stepped past him, climbed the companion and made her way up the gangway to the beautiful steadiness of the stone wharf.

‘That was a wasted morning,’ she told him severely as they sat eating lunch in a pub near Maidstone. She attacked her steak with appetite and chewed reflectively. ‘I don’t understand why you did it.’

‘Did what?’

‘Wasted a day.’ She stole a look at him from under her lashes. ‘You’ve acted out of character.’

‘Mmm?’ There was a slight query in the sound, but his eyes were hooded and his face was enigmatic.

‘Haring off like that,’ she moved her slim shoulders restlessly and her fingers busied themselves rolling breadcrumbs into little balls on her plate. ‘Down to the sea—where was it, by the way? I wasn’t looking at signposts.’

‘Near Romney.’

She nodded. ‘It looked as though you did it impulsively, but you don’t act on impulse. You plan and calculate. As I said before, it was out of character. Driving all that way to show me a boat! It doesn’t make sense.’

‘We’re all human, Kate. Everyone does odd things sometimes.’

‘Not you!’ she was scornful. ‘You’re
not
human. You’re one of those logic machines.’

‘On the contrary,’ his eyes slid over her with an expression of intense appreciation, ‘I think there have been many times when you’ve found me very human indeed.’

The look in his eyes brought a swift, hot flush to her cheeks and she lowered her head and Concentrated on her apple pie to hide her embarrassment. ‘All the same,’ she muttered, ‘I don’t understand it.’

‘But understanding wasn’t on my list,’ Jerome pointed out gravely. ‘I stipulated a loving, obedient wife. I didn’t ask for understanding.’

At eight the next morning they left for Derbyshire. Eight o’clock—Jerome had been firm, he didn’t want to get caught up in the commuter traffic and by starting fairly early they would be at his mother’s house by lunchtime. Kate was striving to pretend that the past two days had never happened, and she hoped she was succeeding. As far as Jerome was concerned, they seemed to have made no difference, but for her, this couldn’t be. She felt different inside and went to great pains to conceal it. Whether or not she was successful was impossible to say. She stole a glance at his profile and sighed.

‘Sighing, Kate? Would you have preferred to stay in London?’ He didn’t take his eyes from the road.

‘No, of course not.’ For something to do, she rooted around in her bag. ‘I want to get back to Philip as soon as possible and I thought you said that you, had another visit to the States lined up. It will be much nicer at your mother’s. I shan’t feel so much like a prisoner.’

‘Do I make you feel like a prisoner?’ He sounded surprised.

‘What else would I feel like? I’ve got a mental list of do’s and don’ts a mile long. It’s the nice thing about your mother. When you’re not there to lay down the law, I have her as a jailer, and she’s much more elastic than you are.’ And pinning a smile of what she hoped was content on her face, she sat back in her seat and gave all her attention to the passing countryside.

The
weather was still cold, and here in Buxton it felt even colder. Kate had come in her old Morris 1000 and the heater was not as efficient as in the car’s younger days. It was the one thing which Jerome’s garage hadn’t improved. Kate had dithered with excitement when the telephone call came. Her car was ready for collection or—the man’s voice at the other end of the wire had been most obsequious—it could be delivered anywhere that Mrs Manfred wished. Mrs Jerome Manfred had wished it to be delivered to her in Derbyshire. She said so, rather hesitantly, and had been reduced to near silence by the very matter-of-fact ‘Tomorrow, Mrs Manfred. Will that be convenient?’

Whoever it was had been assured that it would be
most
convenient, and she had found the car on the drive when she had come back from a walk with Philip and they had examined it carefully. It looked just like new. The rusting bits had been removed and someone had given it a complete respray which would have done credit to a Rolls-Royce. The seats had been either replaced or re-upholstered and the carpets had been renewed. A peep under the bonnet disclosed what looked like a new engine and Kate, seeing the keys still swinging in the ignition lock, had been tempted to try it out; not anywhere far, not with Philip with her, just up and down the drive a few times. All the squeaks and rattles had disappeared, it was just a matter of the heater, but that only meant wearing a warm coat, boots and gloves; it wasn’t important.

Jerome had been with them over Easter, but now he was away again for a few days and Kate had determined to try out her car on a long drive. Mrs Manfred thought this a splendid idea.

‘Nanny and I are going to Matlock, we’ll take Philip with us. Why don’t you have an afternoon off?’

‘Jerome said....' Kate demurred.

‘Just Jerome being over-careful,’ his mother waved it aside airily. ‘He always was a very responsible little boy. You’ll be quite all right, won’t you? You’re not going to try to cross the Gobi Desert, just have a little run round. You can go to Eyam, that’s the place where they quarantined themselves during the Plague, then you could go on through to Buxton and come back via Peverill Castle along the High Peak road. You’ll enjoy it. Don’t pick up any hitch-hikers, though.’

Despite her sheepskin coat and knee-length fur-lined boots, Kate shivered as she opened the car door in the car park at Buxton and then remembered a welcoming- looking cafe which she had passed on her way to the car park. She would go and get herself a nice cup of tea and possibly a bun, lunch had been a long time ago and she was beginning to feel hungry. She glanced at her watch and frowned, there wasn’t a lot of time, not if she wanted to get back before lighting up time, so she locked up the little car and pulling on her sheepskin mitts, marched back along the street to the cafe.

It was pleasantly warm inside and Kate took a seat by the window where she could look out on the passers by. The tea, when it came, was hot and refreshing and the toasted teacakes looked and smelled delicious, golden brown and dripping with butter. She shrugged herself out of her sheepskin coat and sat back to enjoy herself. Somehow she had the feeling of being very wicked and her lips curved in an involuntary smile as she thought of what Jerome would say if he could see her now—but he couldn’t. He was off somewhere— London, she thought, although she wasn’t sure. He rang each evening, and when he rang this evening she would tell him what she’d been up to and he could make what he liked of it!

She poured herself another cup of tea and looked with regret at the empty teacake plate, wondering if she should be greedy and order some more, when her attention was attracted to a lone hiker—possibly, she thought, because the red knitted cap the man was wearing contrasted so violently with his red hair. Overlong hair which curled a bit on the collar of his nylon jacket. Her eyes left him, sliding across to two young girls in jeans and anoraks who were coming the other way, and then with a feeling of dismay she turned back to the hiker, taking in the short, rather thick neck, the wide shoulders, barrel chest and the confident walk. He paused to adjust his small pack and Kate went rigid. What on earth was Gerald doing up here? At almost the same moment he looked into the cafe window and saw her sitting there. He didn’t smile or even look pleased to see her, but started moving towards the door with his ‘dedicated’ look on his face.