Loving - PENNY JORDAN

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is part and parcel of village life; when you get to my age it’s one of the few pleasures left. He did take it very hard when she left, though, and that’s a fact. Never seemed to have seen it coming like the rest of us. Of course, with him being away so much … He has a manufacturing company in Bath and they do a lot of business abroad. I’m not sure what they make, but she was the sort of woman who needs a man’s constant attention, and when he wasn’t there to give it to her she looked for it somewhere else. She never struck me as the sort who was suited to village life—or to marriage, come to think of it. Little Heather was only a few months old when they moved in. That father of hers ought to find someone better to take care of her than Amy Roberts, though. Not keen on kiddies, isn’t Amy …’

      That was the second time today that someone had made that observation, reflected Claire a little later as she returned home, and it was one she agreed with. However, the person they should be telling wasn’t her but Heather’s father. It seemed ridiculous that one brief visit should give the village the idea that in some way she was responsible for Heather’s welfare. Nothing like this had ever happened in the block of flats; no one cared or noticed there who went in or out of someone else’s front door. But here it was different … people did care, and they certainly noticed!

      CHAPTER TWO

      CLAIRE HERSELF HAD not expected that Lucy would receive an invitation to have tea with Heather, but it was very difficult to explain to her little girl why she could not bring her new friend home with her every afternoon.

      ‘But Mummy, Heather likes it with us,’ Lucy protested one afternoon when Claire had gently but firmly refused once again to allow Heather to come home with them.

      ‘Lucy, Heather has her own home, and her daddy will be waiting for her.’

      Privately Claire thought it was appalling that the little girl should be left to walk home from school on her own, and she had got into the habit of walking Heather to her own gates first and then taking Lucy home. From her own point of view she was more than happy to feed Heather every tea time; she always had plenty, and the two little girls played happily together. She didn’t want Lucy to grow up as a lonely only, and since she herself was never likely to have any more children, friends were something she wanted Lucy to have plenty of.

      It tore at her heart to see the woebegone and hurt expression in Heather’s eyes, but how could she explain to a six-year-old that she couldn’t encourage her visits because her father would put the wrong interpretation on them—not to mention half the village. She did notice, however, that Heather was losing weight and gradually becoming worryingly withdrawn.

      Two weeks after her confrontation with Jay Fraser, Claire relented and agreed that Heather could stay to tea the following day, provided that Mrs Roberts agreed.

      Everything went very well until it was time to take the little girl home, and then to Claire’s dismay Heather burst into tears and clung to her, sobbing pitifully.

      ‘I don’t want to go back,’ she wept. ‘I want to stay here with you and Lucy!’

      ‘But Heather, your daddy …’

      ‘He’s gone away again. I wish I could come and live with you and Lucy and then you could be my mummy and Daddy could be Lucy’s daddy …’

      ‘Yes Mummy, don’t you think that would be a good idea?’ Lucy piped up. She had gone very quiet when Heather started to cry, but now her brown eyes sparkled excitedly, and the unmistakable contrast between her bright, happy daughter and the little wan face of the child burrowing into her lap caught at Claire’s tender heart.

      She tried to tell herself that it wasn’t all Jay Fraser’s fault—a man had to work—but surely he could do better for his daughter than to leave her in the care of someone as plainly unfeeling as Mrs Roberts? Even she herself had quailed a little before the older woman’s sternness, and she could well imagine the effect it would have on someone as shy and insecure as Heather. She suspected that Mrs Roberts wasn’t above bullying the little girl, and, like all bullies, the more frightened Heather seemed, the more bullying she would become.

      ‘Please, can’t I stay here tonight?’

      If only she could say yes, but she couldn’t, and neither could she explain why not.

      ‘Not tonight, Heather,’ she refused gently, softening her refusal by adding, ‘perhaps another night, if your daddy will let you. Come on now, let’s dry those tears and then we’ll take you home.’

      She could tell that Heather was reluctant to go, but what could she do? She saw her safely inside the gates, but didn’t go up to the house with her, mainly because she didn’t want to run the risk of running into Jay Fraser, should he have returned.

      Later she was to curse herself for that bit of selfishness, but as she watched Heather’s small figure trudging miserably towards the house she had no premonition of what was to happen, only a tender-hearted sadness for the little girl’s misery.

      The following day, when she went to meet them from school, Claire found that both little girls seemed rather subdued. She left Heather after seeing her safely inside the gates to her home, and although Lucy was quieter than usual, there was nothing in her small daughter’s silence to worry her.

      They had almost reached their own cottage when Lucy suddenly asked, ‘Can Heather come and live with us, Mummy instead of with Mrs Roberts?’

      Sighing faintly, Claire shook her head. ‘Heather’s daddy would be lonely if she came to live with us,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘Just as I’d be lonely if you went away from me.’

      ‘But Heather’s daddy is always away, and she doesn’t like Mrs Roberts. She didn’t like her mummy either; she was always cross and smacking her.

      Claire was too aware of how Jay Fraser would react if he ever learned that his daughter had been passing on these confidences to encourage Lucy to say any more. His comments to her on the one occasion on which they had met still stung.

      She hated the thought that other people besides himself might consider that she was on the lookout for a husband. A man in her life was the last thing she wanted, especially a man with the legal right to share her bed and her body. She felt herself tense, the familiar sense of nausea sweeping through her.

      After she had had her tea, Lucy asked if she could go and play in the garden. Claire agreed readily enough; Lucy knew that she was not allowed to go outside its perimeters.

      Mrs Vickers had commented to her earlier in the day that soon it would be autumn. She had remarked on the likelihood of autumn gales and the damage they might do to the cottage roofs. Her cottage, like Claire’s badly needed re-roofing, but unlike Claire it seemed that she had enough money put on one side to cover this expense. She had mentioned a sum that had frankly appalled Claire, who had not realised that the age of the cottages and their country setting meant that they had to be re-roofed in the same traditional hand-made tiles as had been originally used.

      She hadn’t realised how long she had been sitting worrying about the roof until she heard the church clock chiming seven. She went to the back door and called Lucy, frowning slightly as she scanned the garden and realised there was no sign of her daughter.

      She was just wondering if Lucy could possibly have slipped round to see Mrs Vickers, when she suddenly appeared.

      The guilty look on her face was enough to alert Claire’s maternal instincts. It was her private and most dreaded fear that the same thing that had happened to her might happen to Lucy, and it was because of this nightmare dread that she was so strict about not permitting her to stray outside the garden. Now, however, the guilt in her daughter’s eyes made her hesitate before getting angry with her. Her ‘Where have you been?’ brought a pink flush to Lucy’s face.

      ‘I went for a walk …’

      ‘Lucy, you know I’ve told you never to go out of the garden without me. Come on now, it’s bedtime.’ How on earth could one describe to a six-year-old the

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