The Shell Seekers (90 page)
"Where will you live meantime?"
"We've hired a caravan." Antonia could scarcely contain her excitement. "And Danus has bought a cultivator, and we're go-ing to plant an enormous crop of potatoes, just to clean the ground. And after that we'll really be able to start. And I'm going to keep hens and ducks, and sell the eggs. . . ."
"How far are you from civilization?"
"Only three miles to a little market town . . . that's where we'll sell our produce. And flowers and plants too. The green-house will be crammed with early blooms. And pot plants, and ... oh, Olivia, I can't wait to show it to you. When the house is finished, will you come and stay?"
Olivia considered the invitation. She had already drunk three glasses of champagne and had no intention of making rash commitments that she might later regret.
"Will your cottage be warm?"
"We're going to put in central heating."
"And it will have plumbing? I won't have to go down to the garden every time I need the loo?"
"No, we promise you won't have to do that."
"And there will be boiling-hot bath-water at all hours of the day?"
"Boiling."
"And you will have a guest-room? Which I will not have to share with human being, cat, dog, or hen?"
"You shall have it all to yourself."
"And the guest-room will have a wardrobe filled, not with some other person's fusty evening dresses and moth-eaten fur coats, but with twenty-four brand-new coat-hangers?"
"All padded."
"In that case"—Olivia sat back in her chair— "you'd better get busy. Because I shall come."
Later, on the pavement, they stood in the warm sunshine, waiting for the taxi that would take Olivia back to her office.
"What fun it's been. Goodbye, Antonia." They hugged enormously and kissed with much affection.
"Oh, Olivia . . . thank you for everything. But mostly, thank you for coming today."
"It's I who should thank you both for inviting me. I haven't had such a lovely surprise, nor such a delicious boozy lunch, in years. After all that champagne, I doubt if I shall be able to make any sense for the rest of the afternoon."
The taxi trundled up. Olivia turned to Danus. "Goodbye, dear boy." He kissed her on both cheeks. "Take care of Antonia. And lots of luck."
He opened the taxi door for her, and she got in and he slammed the door shut behind her. "
Venus
," she told the driver briskly, and as the taxi moved forward, she waved furiously out of the back window. Antonia and Danus waved back and Antonia blew kisses, and then they turned and began to walk in the opposite direction, away from Olivia, and hand in hand.
She settled back in her seat with a sigh of satisfaction. All, for Antonia and Danus, had ended well. And Mumma had been right in her judgement, because they were the sort of young people who deserved encouragement, and to be given, if necessary, a helping hand. Which she had done. Now, it was up to them, with their tumbledown cottage and their cultivator and their hens and plans for the future, and their marvellous, unshakeable optimism.
And what of Penelope's children? How would they handle their good fortune, and how would they fare? Nancy, she de-cided, would indulge herself in some way. Perhaps buy a Range Rover, hi which to lord it over her cronies at the local point-to-points, but that would be all. All else would go on funding the status symbol of the most expensive private education for Mel-anie and Rupert. At the end of which they would emerge ungrateful and probably unimproved.
She thought of Noel. Noel, as yet, still worked at the same job, but as soon as he was able to lay hands on his inheritance, Olivia had a fairly shrewd idea that he would chuck advertising and cook up some brilliant scheme for going it alone. Commodity broking, or perhaps some sky-high property dealings. As likely as not, he would run through his capital, and at the end of the day end up married to some rich, well-connected, and hideous girl, who would worship and adore him, and to whom he would be consistently unfaithful. Olivia found herself smiling. He was an impossible man but, after all, her brother, and in her heart she wished him well.
Which left only herself, and there were no question marks there. Olivia would invest Mumma's money prudently, with old age and retirement in mind. She imagined herself in twenty years' time—alone, unmarried, and still living in the little house hi Ranfurly Road. But independent, even quite comfortably off. Able to afford the small pleasures and luxuries she had always enjoyed. Going to the theatre and concerts, entertaining her friends, taking holidays abroad. Perhaps, for company, she would have a little dog. And she would go to Devon and stay with Danus and Antonia Muirfield. And when they came to London, bringing with them the brood of children which they would doubtless have, they would visit Olivia, and she would show those children her favourite museums and galleries, and take them to the ballet and the pantomime at Christmas. She would be like a nice aunt. No, not an aunt, a nice grandmother. It would be like having grandchildren. And it occurred to her then, that these grandchildren would be Cosmo's grandchildren too. Which was strange. Like watching a tangle of loose threads unravel and plait themselves into a single braided cord, stretching ahead into the future.
The taxi halted. She looked, and saw, in some surprise, that they had arrived, were parked alongside the prestigious building that housed the offices of
Venus
. Cream stone and plate glass glittered with reflected sunlight, and the topmost floors pierced the starch-blue sky.
She got out and paid the driver. "Keep the change."
"Oh. Thanks very much, love."
She went up the broad white steps that led to the massive entrance, and as she did so, the commissionaire stepped forward to hold open the door for her..
"It's a lovely day, Miss Keeling."
She paused, to turn upon him a smile the brilliance of which he had never seen before.
"Yes," she said. "It's a particularly lovely day."
She went through the door. Into her kingdom, her world.
******
Also by Rosamunde Pilcher
Novels
As Jane Fraser
Half-Way To The Moon (1949)
The Brown Fields (1951)
Dangerous Intruder (1951)
Young Bar (1952)
A Day Like Spring (1953)
Dear Tom (1954)
Bridge of Corvie (1956)
A Family Affair (1958)
The Keeper's House (1963)
A Long Way from Home (1963)
As Rosamunde Pilcher
A Secret to Tell (1955)
On My Own (1965)
Sleeping Tiger (1967)
Another View (1969)
The End of Summer (1971)
Snow in April (1972)
The Empty House (1973)
The Day of the Storm (1975)
Under Gemini (1976)
Wild Mountain Thyme (1978)
The Carousel (1982)
Voices in Summer (1984)
September (1990)
Coming Home (1995)
The Key (1996)
Shadows (1999)
Winter Solstice (2000)
Omnibus
The Day of the Storm / The End of the Summer (1979)
Three Books by Rosamunde Pilcher (1989)
Rosamunde Pilcher: Under Gemini/the Empty House/the Day of the Storm/Another View/Boxed Set (1990)
The Rosamunde Pilcher Collection: Wild Mountain Thyme, Empty House and End of the Summer (1991)
The Shell Seekers / Wild Mountains Thyme / The Day of the Storm (1994)
Three Complete Novels/September/Voices in Summer/the Carousel (1995)
The Shell Seekers Collection (1996)
Rosamunde Pilcher: A New Collection of Three Complete Books (1997)
Rosamunde Pilcher: A Third Collection of Three Complete Novels (1999)
Another View / End of Summer (2000)
End of Summer / September (2003)
The Blue Bedroom / The White Birds (2005)
Collections
The Blue Bedroom and Other Stories (1985)
Rosamunde Pilcher: Wild Mountain Thyme/Sleeping Tiger/the End of Summer/Snow in April/Boxed Set (1990)
Rosaminde Pilcher: Flowers in the Rain: And Other Stories (1991) Sequel to Blue Bedroom (above) – NEL (New English Library – UK)
The Blackberry Day: And Other Stories (1992)
World of Rosamunde Pilcher (1995)
Christmas with Rosamunde Pilcher (1998)
About The Author
Rosamunde Pilcher OBE (born 22 September 1924) is a British author of romance novels and mainstream women's fiction.
Early in her career she was also published under the pen name Jane Fraser. Pilcher retired from writing in 2000.
T
O
A DELL BOOK
Published by
Dell Publishing a division of
The Bantam Doubleday Dell
Publishing Group, Inc.
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New York, New York 10103
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to quote from "Where or When" by
Richard Rodgers
and
Lorenz Hart
. Copyright © 1937 by
Chappell & Co., Inc
. Copyright renewed. International Copyright secured.
All Rights Reserved
. Used by permission.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to quote from "You're the Top" and "I Get a Kick Out of You" by
Cole Porter
. CopyrighJ © 1934 by
Warner Bros., Inc
. (renewed).
All Rights Reserved
. Used by permission.
Excerpts from "Autumn Journal" by
Louis MacNeice
reprinted by permission of
Faber and Faber Ltd
. from The Collected Poems of
Louis MacNeice
.
Cover illustration ©1987
Hermes, Paris
.
Copyright © 1987 by
Rosamunde Pileher
All rights reserved
. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: St. Martin's Press, New York, New York.
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ISBN
: 0-440-20204-3
Reprinted by arrangement with St. Martin's Press
Printed in the United States of America Published simultaneously in Canada February 1989
30 n n n
KRI
