Wednesday evening, now 3 shopping days to Christmas
Lady Barbara was fuming once she was able to close the door on Daniel. He had kissed her on both her cheeks, of course, he always did, and she had tried to squeeze him hard into her but she already knew that all was lost. His physical lack of response was evident.
He offered to help her relight her fire while he was there. It was natural for him to do so, the little cottage was so cold and the fire she lit this morning had gone out. She declined his help, she wasn't helpless, she almost snapped at him, regretting her anger almost immediately.
"Why not check on Mavis, Daniel, while I get the fire relit? I have plenty of dry wood and kindling in here. If I do have any problems, I can give you a shout before you set out back up the hill to the Grange,"
Once again he smiled that gorgeous slow smile of his, said goodbye and closed the door behind him. Barbara was able to stumble to the fireplace, getting down on her knees and started crying while she stacked kindling, newspaper and a couple of the thinner logs and struck a match. She sat back on her haunches, watching the fingers of flames lick hungrily at the wood. Floating wisps of paper ash were drawn up the chimney, flaring aglow in the rush of air. She watched, her mind numb for a few moments, trying to forget that she was now completely and utterly alone, so far from the city life where she was once able to glow. There was no husband, or at least one that hadn't cheated on her or cared a fig about her or was even prepared to fight to keep her. There was no lover and now, clearly, no potential lover. That was why she was crying.
Daniel didn't desire her, that much was clear to her now. He probably never did. Like this potential fire in front of her, she had harboured hopes of a blaze of passion between them. She had wished for that eventuality, to her shame, even before poor Penny passed on. She had been prepared to wait, to be patient, until the embers she gently, carefully fanned into flames caught, rendering them both hot and horny. She leaned forward and placed three thick logs from the basket onto the fire, carefully, so as not to snuff out the delicate flames. There was no need to be so careful and attentive or ... available ... for anything that Daniel might want any more. There was no need at all.
He loved what's-her-name. It was clear by the looks on his face. And what's-her-name wasn't even bloody well aware of it. Lady Barbara saw it plain and simple. Between herself and Daniel, it was rarely ever Daniel who started any conversations, it was always Barbara who had to make all the running. She and Daniel, both so full of their own thoughts, had barely exchanged a word on the twenty minute walk downhill from the Grange, a house that she had once cherished as her own one day. That would never happen now. She would only ever be a guest in the future, if she had any kind of future.
'What was it he said? That's it, she, what's-her-name ... Marina ... she was his old friend, while I,' she was surprised to allow a sob to escape, 'was Penny's old friend. I wasn't even counted as his friend, even though I had known him almost as long as Penny had, and loved him almost as long as Penny had.'
The new logs were catching now and the heat coming off was becoming too hot to sit so close. She adjusted the damper, closing it half way and tried to get up. She was stiff, she ached all over from falling off the horse.
'Oh shit!' she thought, 'that was the final ignominious straw. Me, Lady Barbara Sands, been riding all my life, falling off a bloody horse!'
She had been riding since she was about five. All right, not so much recently, and certainly not regularly for probably twenty years or more. When she married Sir Philip, back when he was just plain Philip Sands, they had the whole two houses thing; the riverside apartment in London, close to his office, and the grand Georgian mansion in leafy Surrey, with the paddock at the back. She had intended getting a stable block built and teaching the children to ride. But Philip Junior wasn't remotely interested in horses and, while Nattie went through the learning process at the local stables and took part in the junior gymkhanas, her heart was never really in it. To Natalie, horse riding was a chore to keep her occupied on Saturday morning, and as soon as she was old enough to rebel, she was able to give the occupation up. Not like Penny and her two girls, of course. Penny initially taught Daniel to ride and, when Penny inherited Underhill Grange, had one of the old barns converted to stables. The farm had dispensed with horses a long time before the war but it looked like they were kept in the barn at that time and was a simple matter to convert back as they were.
She blinked back the tears, wiped her eyes and pottered about in her little kitchen, putting the kettle on for tea for a start. She thought about preparing something to eat, but found she was devoid of all appetite. She brought her pot of tea through to the sitting room again and sat in the chair nearest the fire. It was only then that she noticed the blinking red light on the phone, to indicate she had received a message. She was sitting comfortably now, adjusting her position from time to time because her bum and right hip were bruised; in a day or so she was sure to be decorated in colourful bruises to pile onto her mountain of woes. The message or messages could wait until she was good and warm, and ready for her bath and bed, before she played it back. It was probably cold callers. If it was a genuine message, it could only be Nattie, although she seemed to be unsympathetic to her mother, having made it clear she was taking her father's side in all this, so she didn't relish hearing the playback.
The only dignified way out of her separation from Sir Philip was a simple divorce settlement. Using her share of her husband's fortune to buy or lease a reasonable apartment in London and start getting back into the society in which she had thrived not so long ago. She had let all of that slip away and, it turned out, it was all for nothing.
'I'll speak to the lawyers after Christmas,' she thought, 'get the ball rolling. Six months tops, and I could start rebuilding my life.'
She snorted, thinking about the fall from the horse again.
'I suppose it was funny, and Daniel and Marina did have the good grace not to laugh openly. I'm sure if the reverse had happened, I'd've laughed myself hoarse. Daniel and Marina, oh dear, the way they worked together, him opening the gates, while she shut them behind us. It took three or four gates before I even realised,' she thought. 'What a dumb stuck up bitch I was, huh! What a dumb stuck up bitch I am! Even then I couldn't do anything at all about it. That bloody horse had a mind of its own, it only followed Daniel because it knew it was the best way of getting back to the warm stable, the bloody rider sitting on him was just an incidental inconvenience.
'I'm ready for a sandwich now,' she thought, 'I am going to be all right, I am a strong, determined, independent woman. Decisions have been made. Yes, and there's still a couple of slices of that nice ham left and the bread should still be all right, if not, I'll freshen it up in the microwave. Then a long soak in the bath and bed.'
She put her empty cup down, struggled to her feet, her hip stiff, and limped to the kitchen to prepare her supper.
***
There was no WWAG meeting that evening. With the heavy grey clouds blanketing the sky, it was completely dark in Mark's dingy flat by 3.30 in the afternoon. Therefore Lauren decided it was time to lock and bolt the door and enjoy a quiet night in, wrapped up warm as the flat was freezing. Mark raised his eyebrows and smiled questioningly as she padded back to her armchair. It was a smile that Lauren recognised as a signal that she was unwilling to reply to in any way other than negatively.
"Don't look at me like that, Mark. You know how angry I am at the way WWAG seems to be leaning. I am not at all happy with all this talk of taking Councillor Medcalf out of the equation by unlawful means. That Andy seems to have his own agenda in this regard and I don't like it. I don't like it one little bit."
"Hey, what's this all about, anyway?" Mark was suddenly angry himself, "I thought you were all for stopping the road building through those ancient woods?"
"I am, but you can't use a wrong to right another wrong. Besides, that Daniel Medcalf came over clearly as being on our side in this issue. We should be supporting him because he has the same objective as we do, plus he already has the local support."
"You are only on his side because he's rich and handsome, even if he is screwing the wife of that bloody road builder."
"Don't be childish, Mark. I think that Daniel Medcalf is an asset to our joint campaign of saving those woods because he is a smart and experienced politician, who knows the arguments and has a long track record of protecting the local environment in Sussex. His private love life has absolutely nothing to do with it. He's been single for two years and needs to stop grieving, while she's been separated from Sands for several years, and that was only because her husband was screwing some young bit of fluff, who turned to be a call girl, according to the gutter press. It's all in the dossier we built up, as ammo if we ever needed it, remember?"
Mark just mumbled in reply as he unlocked and walked out the front door, filling the room with cold air again. Lauren thought she heard him say something about "goin' up the pub".
'Sod him!' she thought. Then she picked up her phone and started calling a few friends.
