Although it was less than three-quarters of a mile from the row of cottages to the main house, and she had wrapped up pretty warmly, Lady Barbara was pretty puffed after fighting her way through the thick snow drifts. She rang the front door bell and failed to get any answer. Damn it, she thought, I am virtually a part of this family, I should have a key to the place. Determined not to depart without registering her prior claim with the newcomer at the earliest opportunity, she walked around the side and found the kitchen door open and shouted a greeting up the stairs, still no answer.
She was livid, and Lady Barbara was not the person you'd want to meet when she was in a belligerent mood. Beautiful, sophisticated and charming she might be, but she could be hell on wheels when conditions warranted. After satisfying herself that at least the two potential acquaintances (she refused to grant them the status of potential anything else) weren't in the house, she felt she was able to relax, at least a little. There was nowhere to drive to, she reasoned, and they hadn't walked out the front as there was only one set of prints in the driveway, presumably Sophie's, which were walking away. This meant they were somewhere out the back, in the market garden or the stables or further out if they had taken the horses out with them. She sat in the kitchen with a cup of tea, looking cool, managing to settle herself to be collected and calm, anticipating the imminent arrival of both the object of her affection and her apparent rival.
Lady Barbara was a class act, a still-glamorous former model, a trophy wife who was currently trialling a separation from her multi-millionaire and knighted husband. She removed her boots and coat, hat and gloves and waited patiently, dressed in classic designer labels in which she was supremely confident that she wore so well.
Daniel and Marina entered the kitchen through the back door self-absorbed in each other's company. They were laughing and talking away animatedly, shaking off their coats and helping each other discard their wet boots. Then, as he hung up the pair of coats by the door, Daniel noticed the cool lady sitting quietly and bolt upright at the deal table, with a grim set look on her face.
"Barbara!" Daniel exclaimed with a broad grin, walking straight over to her and welcoming the long-time family friend with a warm embrace as she rose to her feet with a scraping of the chair feet against the stone flags.
"You're the last person I expected to see tramping through all this snow to see us. Everything at home alright, you still have power, heating?"
"No, I'm fine, darling, I just wanted to check that you and Soph were all right, see if you needed any help."
"Oh, Barbara, you are so good to us, what would we have done without you, these last couple of years?" Daniel beamed at her, having dropped his hands to her elbows while she held him by the shoulders.
'Yes, what indeed?', Barbara said to herself.
Marina was a little taken aback by the appearance of this tall, elegantly slim, well-dressed, clearly glamorous and thoroughly sophisticated woman. She looked to be in an intimate relationship with the man of the house, who Marina was only in the last two hours beginning to feel comfortable in the company of once again. The woman actually kissed Daniel warmly on both cheeks as they separated their comfortable embrace. And she called him 'darling'. It was only to be expected, of course, thought Marina, with more than a degree of chagrin. She was shocked at her own reaction to the embracing greeting. Surely she could not be feeling jealous, after such a short introduction into their reacquaintance. Anyone in a relationship with such a hunk as Daniel would have to be on her mettle, of course. No doubt his beloved wife Penny had managed to secure and hold onto him because she was so beautiful as well as evidently confident and distinguished in her chosen field.
His devotion to his late wife seemed so solid, but how long should any man grieve after losing his wife? How long indeed would he? He was clearly a man in his prime, fit, handsome, confident and charming. Was two years sufficient when compared to the premature curtailment of a lifetime's companionship? Now this woman seemed to be cut from exactly the same cloth as his late wife. Beautiful, tall, slim, graceful and dressed exceedingly well. Just the outfit she had on now, which she apparent threw on just to stamp her way through knee-high snow, probably cost more than Marina's entire wardrobe. Damn! What chance did a common and plain dumpy woman of nearly fifty have compared to this lissome apparition? As this particular thought passed through her mind, in the midst of a whirl of emotions, which she appeared to have been orbited by since the day before yesterday, Daniel released his arms from around the glamorous interloper and turned towards his house guest.
"Can I introduce you to a very old friend of mine ..."
'Less of the very old,' thought Marina, trying her hardest to put on her best customer service face, previously reserved for furious mothers who hadn't got their welfare cheque from the Post Office counter this week, or complaining that the half-price margarine offer running for the past fortnight had ended or sold out of stock, to decorate her face with the most disarming of her retinue of false smiles.
"... Marina Shaw, who is staying with us for a few days. This is Lady Barbara, she was Penny's oldest and best friend."
Marina suddenly felt deflated. She felt like the home help rather than any potential home maker in comparison to this veritable vision. 'Lady Barbara, huh!?' she thought to herself, her resolve visibly shrinking like morning mist faced with hot bright sunlight. 'How could a shop girl, currently unemployed unwanted, compete with an actual Lady of the Realm?'
That was Marina's thought until Daniel actually completed the introduction. It didn't go unnoticed by either woman that Lady Barbara was described as his dead wife's best friend while Marina was described as Daniel's very old friend. It was only a small thing, but for both women the devil was in the fine detail.
Lady Barbara's first impression of Marina was, she had to say, a bit of a relief. Keeping her eyes open to the barest of slits she had examined this interloper from head to foot while indulging in an extravagant tactical cuddle with the common object of desire, clearly, of both the otherwise unattached women. A poor, dumpy creature, Barbara thought, little if any make-up, hair a natural nothing lifeless colour with a few gleefully-observed traces of grey. Definitely no make-up on closer observation, her cheeks simply overly reddened by the cold without the protection of essential moisturising oils. Her clothes were a joke, Lady Barbara thought she had seen better in the Worthing charity shops, where she often deposited her own last season-dated designer cast-offs. Just as she was thinking that elimination of this pathetic creature as a rival was going to be too easy, Daniel introduced Barbara as his dead wife's friend, not his particular friend or even by any close association with the present family.