A Village in Jeopardy (Turnham Malpas 16) (15 page)

‘Good morning, doctor, good morning, sir! Good morning, Beth! Beautiful morning. Sun’s shining, what more could we ask?’

‘Good morning, Dottie. Come in, and close the door.’

When the kitchen door was safely shut Caroline explained, ‘Marcus March has spent the night with us in Alex’s room. He arrived last night looking for Alice and eventually Peter had to tell him the truth that Alice wasn’t in because she’d gone out with Johnny for a meal, and then the truth came out and he had a terrible shock as he’d no idea they’d . . . got together, so he’s spent the night with us in Alex’s room. He came home expecting to pick up his life with Alice, you see. I don’t know when he’ll be getting up but leave him be, will you, Dottie? If he gets up and wants breakfast would you get it for him, because Beth and Peter and I are all out for most of the day. In fact, we should be out of the house already.’

‘Leave him to me. I’ll give him breakfast and a cold lunch, shall I? Or not, doctor?’

‘Yes, give him breakfast and then see how things work out. He’s very low in spirits, Dottie, so he needs careful handling, but I know I can rely on you for that.’

Dottie nodded. ‘You most certainly can.’ She turned to Peter. ‘Will you be home, sir, before I go? Just wondering what to do with him when I’m ready to leave, you know. Leave him in the house?’

‘In the circumstances, I’ll change my plans and make sure to be back before you leave, Dottie. Thanks for being so helpful.’

‘Don’t want to do the wrong thing, that’s all.’

Caroline smiled at her, grateful she was back and looking so happy. ‘The usual today but there is rather a lot of ironing. I’m afraid it’s kind of mounted up.’

‘I don’t mind in the slightest; leave everything to me.’ She began clearing the breakfast table.

Beth came in to say goodbye before she left for Culworth. ‘I’m off now. Is there anything you need in Culworth, Dottie? I can easily shop during my lunch hour.’

Dottie looked up to smile at her. ‘You look bonnie this morning. Enjoying your job?’

‘It’s like paradise in Gilbert’s office. I honestly feel as though I belong.’

‘Good, better than being unhappy at Cambridge. There’s nothing I need, thanks.’

‘OK then. Bye!’

It was ten o’clock before Dottie heard Marcus stirring upstairs. She was getting close to the end of the ironing and she hoped he’d dillydally in the shower room while she finished the last few bits. She’d laid the table, and the kettle had been boiled so it wouldn’t take her a minute to get his toast done and sit him down. But what do you say to a chap when you’re not supposed to know what his problem is? You can’t come straight out with,
So you’ve found out she’s got a lover, have you? Are you surprised, because you shouldn’t be
.

The door burst open and there he stood.

‘Good morning, Mr March. Lovely day, isn’t it?’

All she got for her cheerfulness was Marcus glowering at her.

‘The doctor said I should make you breakfast. How about it?’

‘Tea and toast, that’s all. Two slices, brown if possible.’ He slumped down on the reverend’s chair looking defeated and shrunken, his clothes roughly thrown on, and unshaven. At least he’d showered, so that was a plus.

‘Did you sleep well?’ She felt she had to say something.

‘No.’

‘Sorry about that. Glad you’re home? I expect Alice will be. It gets lonely on your own and I should know.’ Then she wished she’d never said it.

He looked at her, trying to assess how much she knew. ‘I expected Caroline would have told you.’

‘No, she doesn’t tell me anything about the lame dogs that end up here. It’s none of my business. I only clean. My one other qualification is that I am a good listener, but that’s about all.’

She put down the teapot and covered it with the cosy, handed him a fresh jug of milk, pressed the lever on the toaster and got herself a cup and saucer so she could share the teapot with him. ‘Mind if I sit down? I won’t talk. It’s just that it’s time for my break, you see.’

They sat in silence while he struggled to eat a bowl of Beth’s muesli. He was halfway through it when he gave up trying. She poured him a cup of tea and offered him the sugar.

‘No, thanks. Toast ready?’

‘Oh! Yes. Here we are look. Lovely and brown and straight from the toaster; what more can a man ask?’ She smiled and got a snarl in return.

Dottie decided to speak out. ‘Whatever your problem is, ignoring it won’t help. I’m the soul of discretion; that’s why I can work here at the Rectory. I hear all sorts of tales but never a word passes my lips. Believe me. I’d be out on my ear if I told tales.’

Dottie waited and eventually when he’d eaten his toast and drunk a second cup of tea he looked directly at her and said, ‘Did you know about Alice and Johnny?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does everyone, absolutely everyone, know?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘That tells you something then.’

‘What exactly?’

‘That you didn’t care enough to realise things between you were going wrong.’

‘Of course I cared. She’s
my wife
.’

‘Not no more she isn’t.’ Dottie would have taken every single one of those words straight back, she should never have said it, but it was as plain as the nose on her face to her.

‘
She still is
.’

‘Well, on paper she is. But that’s all.’

Marcus shot her an angry look.

‘You’ve got to face a few facts. What you think isn’t so no more.’

He didn’t reply.

‘She’s found someone else and if you’d been a wonderfully satisfying husband she’d never have looked anywhere else. The idea would never have crossed her mind.’

‘I don’t think it was her
mind
it crossed.’ He leered at her and Dottie took offence.

‘If you’re going to talk like that you’ll have to leave. We don’t talk like that in this house.’ She stood and rolled up her sleeves as though about to manhandle him out of the house.

Marcus stared in disbelief. ‘I think you’ve misunderstood your position in this house. You’re the paid help; you don’t
live
here.’

Just in time Dottie remembered how hurt he must feel and that she just happened to be handy for him to lash out at.

‘Sorry if I’ve provoked you, Marcus, but a bit of straight talking wouldn’t go amiss this morning. You’ve spent the last ten years thinking day in and day out about writing and being a success and that poor wife of yours has worked all hours teaching music to keep a roof over your head, when what she wanted above everything was to have your babies. Not anyone’s, yours, but she couldn’t because you’d have had no food on the table and no roof over your head. But I don’t think you cared one teeny little bit about that. Finally, you, not anyone else, killed her love for you. She tried but she couldn’t try any longer and there came Johnny walking down her street. I don’t suppose either of them deliberately made it happen but happen it did.’

Marcus sat with his fists clenched on the table, rhythmically beating a slow tattoo. ‘I’m going to sit in Peter’s study out of your way.’

‘Sorry, but you’re not. It’s not my day for cleaning in the sitting room so you can go sit in there undisturbed till the Rector gets back.’

Tempted to get his own way about where he sat, Marcus almost challenged her about it, but changed his mind, because so much of what she said was true; he had in part brought it all on himself. But admitting that didn’t ease the dreadful loss he felt. His home, his refuge in the attic, his computer, his writing, to say nothing of his very soul. He had in fact lost everything essential to his existence and fallen to the very bottom of the ladder of life. Had he joined the great unwashed army of the homeless? Because that was what he was right now. Homeless.

Peter came home at twelve. Dottie and he had a quiet talk in his study about the morning’s events. He didn’t inform Dottie about what he’d been up to, but at least he did have a plan. ‘Make Marcus and me some lunch, would you? Then you go. I know today should be one of your long days, but it hasn’t been easy for you this morning and I think you’ve done your bit. He and I will have lunch together and I will outline my plan to him.’

‘Very well, I’ll do that. Thank you. Soup and fresh salmon sandwiches be all right? Piece of that cherry tart to finish?’

‘Sounds wonderful! Serve it in the kitchen, Dottie; don’t go to a lot of trouble.’

So Marcus ate lunch with a man for whom he’d never had much respect and found himself the recipient of a temporary solution to his problem.

‘So you see, Marcus, if you choose to go along with it for a week or two, Greta and Vince Jones have agreed to let you have Paddy Cleary’s old room, just till you get your life sorted. Greta will cook for you and you can have the use of her washing machine, if you decide to take up their offer. It would give you time to clear your mind and make some decisions.’

Marcus shook his head. ‘I can’t. I’ve no money, not till I get my advance for my book.’

‘I’ve taken care of all that.
You
don’t need to find the money. It’s just temporary till your advance comes.’

To accept money from this man whose way of life was anathema to him? Absolutely not. He damn well wouldn’t eat humble pie; he’d been through enough. He, Marcus March, the author, would go back to London, use an overdraft facility he knew he still had to live on and go live with that other member of staff who’d been as sick as a dog that he’d chosen to go live with what’s-er-name instead of her. Lauren, that’s right, that was her name. She wasn’t too awful, quite pleasant in fact, though not a patch on Alice; no one would ever come up to her standard. Marcus paused for a moment to think about Alice and briefly, but only briefly, he regretted his neglect of her. He remembered the good years, the laughter and the happiness and the togetherness before he got the writing bug and wished . . . but it was too painful and he quickly turned his back on it, knowing he’d had to choose a different path. Here I come, Lauren, just hope you still feel the same about me.

Marcus stood up. ‘That’s what I’ll do, shake the dust of Turnham Malpas off my shoes and make a new start.’ His ego needing a boost, he added, ‘You might see news about me in the press or see me on TV once I get published. A whole new life I’ll make.’

‘You’ll divorce Alice then?’ Peter asked.

Marcus sat, thought for a moment. Maybe she deserved for him to be difficult about it, make life hard for her, maybe not. ‘Of course.’ This blasted man brought out the best in him. The sooner he left the better. ‘I’ll go, right away. Collect all my gear and go. Thanks for all your help. I think, perhaps, I didn’t deserve it. I’ll go back to London. I know someone who’ll greet me with open arms. I might as well say goodbye to Turnham Malpas now I haven’t even got a wife here any more.’

Suddenly he lost his appetite. He pushed his bowl away saying, ‘Sorry. Nice soup, but no appetite for it.’

‘Don’t worry. Dottie will never know.’

‘Don’t know why you should bother about her feelings; she only does your cleaning, for heaven’s sake.’

‘The contribution she makes to the smooth running of our lives means we have respect for her. She’s also been instrumental in helping our daughter Beth through a very troubled time in her life and for that we are eternally grateful. What about a sandwich? Fresh salmon.’

‘Thanks.’ Better eat something, especially seeing as he didn’t know where his next meal would be coming from.

They ate in silence, deliberately so on Peter’s part. As for Marcus, he was silent out of desperation until the words, ‘What the hell am I going to do?’ burst unexpectedly from his mouth. ‘Without Alice?’

‘I rather imagined, from what you said just now, you weren’t interested.’

‘I am. I am. I know she’s left me for Johnny. This mess is entirely my fault. I’m to blame. I can’t face everyone in the village. They’ve always despised me. But I’ve won out, haven’t I? I’ve got a publisher and they never expected that, did they? Oh! No. Marcus March was too stupid to get a book published, they thought, but I’ve won out in the end.’ He punched the air in triumph, got to his feet, picked up his hold-all from the kitchen floor and left. The front door banged shut.

Then after a moment’s silence it opened again and Marcus appeared back in the kitchen. ‘Thank you for your help, and the bed for the night. You’re the one who’s come out of this mess the best, and I rather imagine you always will come out best, you’re that kind of chap.’

But as he drove away hatred took possession of his soul. Somehow, some way he’d get his own back for what had happened to him. None of it was his fault; it was that moneybags smart alec of a Johnny who was entirely to blame. Alice would never have left him if he hadn’t tempted her. Well, watch out Johnny, one day I shall have my revenge . . .

Chapter 12

Everyone knew by the following day that Marcus March had gone for good. But one prominent person in the village had more catastrophic matters to occupy his mind, for Jimbo, opening his morning post, had received a letter from Craddock Fitch on company notepaper. ‘Craddock Fitch Enterprises’ it said at the top in eye-blasting lettering. Its contents made Jimbo break out in a sweat.