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‘Then we’ll have to be unfashionable,’ Kate smiled widely. ‘We’ll have what you’re best at.’

Mrs Davies’s voice followed her to the kitchen door. ‘You’ll please the men anyway. Men don’t like bits!’

There were four nurses and not one of them was under forty-five years of age. Kate hid her surprise very well. Somehow she had been convinced that Jerome would have wanted young, nubile girls, but from what she gathered as she conducted the interviews, it had been the exact reverse. His instructions to the Agency had been quite explicit—a children’s nurse, competent, reliable and past the first flush of youth.

With Philip in mind and trying to set aside her own prejudices, Kate chose the one who seemed to think that the little boy was of the first importance. The other three had demanded to see the accommodation first, so Kate found herself warming towards the one who did not enquire whether the bed had an orthopaedic mattress, whether there was a maid to attend to the nurse’s wants and how much free time would be available. This one was the least starchy and had not been at all disturbed when Philip had greeted her with a mouthful of biscuit and had sprayed her all over with crumbs in the process.

Mrs Davies had sent ‘our Ellen’ along to the study with a tea tray, and Kate asked, ‘When can you come?’ as she poured tea with a steady hand and acted as though she interviewed staff every day of the week.

‘Oh, at once, Mrs Manfred, if that’s what you require.’ The small, brisk woman nodded cheerfully, her round grey pork pie hat bouncing on her greying head. ‘I live with my sister while I’m between jobs and I can easily fetch my few things in a taxi. When would you like me to come?’

Kate felt no hesitation. ‘Today,’ she said firmly, ‘and as soon as possible—and there’s no need for you to get a taxi. I’ll send Tobias with you and he’ll bring you and your luggage back.’ And within an hour Miss Emily Hogg (such an unfortunate* name, Mrs Manfred) was installed and Philip appeared to be more than satisfied. Kate felt a tug at her heartstrings at Philip’s blithe acceptance of this replacement of herself, but of course, he was only a small boy, she excused his infidelity. He didn’t understand. All the same, it hurt a bit to think that she could be so easily replaced.

Helen greeted her with a hoot of pleasure. ‘How’s it going?’ she enquired practically after the first greetings and ‘do you remembers’ had been exchanged and they were sitting together in the big, untidy studio and drinking coffee from thick stoneware mugs.

‘So-so.’ Kate put a mental ban on her tongue and changed the subject. There were some things that couldn’t be talked about, even with Helen. ‘Thank you for the sketch. It’s one of the nicest wedding presents I could have wished for. Jerome likes it too, he’s already had it framed and it’s hanging in the sitting-room. There’s a load of other stuff as well, most of it’s not been unpacked yet. I’m going to have writer’s cramp doing the thank-you letters.’

‘I’m honoured.’ Helen looked very pleased. ‘Hanging already, you say? Well, you never know! It might lead to a few commissions now you’re mixing with the moneyed bracket. You don’t look estatically happy, I must say.’ Helen returned to the attack.

‘I’m tired,’ Kate admitted. 'It’s been a hectic three weeks and I think I’ve lost track of time. The cottage seems a lifetime away.’ Somehow the conversation was stilted and unnatural as if, in the space of three short weeks, she had grown away from Helen, but it wasn’t that, of course. It was that she was having to think of everything before she said it; there were so many things, important things, she just couldn’t talk about.

Helen watched the play of expression over Kate’s mobile face and leaned back in her chair, thrusting her hands into the deep pockets of her paint-stained smock.

‘Come on, love,’ she coaxed. ‘You’ve been sitting there looking martyred ever since you came in. It can’t be as bad as that, surely? Tell Aunty Helen all about it and she’ll advise you.’

‘I can’t do that,’ Kate protested. ‘Things are a bit upside down just at present and I’m still trying to work out which way up they ought to be.’

‘Uncertainty!’ Helen dismissed it airily. ‘Everything happened in too much of a rush for you. It’ll steady down in time. I think it’s a case of good old-fashioned “can’t make up your mindedness”.
De mortuis
and all that apart, I don’t think your little sister was quite the victim she liked to make out, and you’re trying to reconcile what she told you with what you’re finding out for yourself, and the two things don’t always add up, do they? There’s something else as well but I’m not going to pry into that. Why don’t you go home and forget what you know of the past, it was all second hand stuff anyway. Concentrate on what you find out for yourself.

You’ve got it made, Kate,’ Helen said bracingly. ‘You hated the modelling bit and now you’re out of it. No more swishing along the catwalk with everyone’s eyes on you and no more photographic sessions in next to nothing. You are now a lady of leisure. Enjoy it! Be like me, if I paint something and I don’t like it, I wipe it off, forget it and start again.’

‘What do you do if the second try is as bad as the first?’ asked Kate.

‘Oh, love,’ Helen’s eyes grew troubled, ‘husband trouble?’

Kate nodded mournfully, and suddenly Helen grew brisk. ‘See,’ she grabbed a piece of paper and a stick of charcoal. ‘It’s all a matter of emphasis.’ Under her swift fingers the sketch grew until Jerome looked out of it, remote and arrogant. A couple of strokes and under Helen’s fingers the arrogance grew while a bit of extra shading about the mouth produced an insufferable sneer. ‘There, that’s what emphasis does for you. Now, if I do this ’ She started again and the face was quite pleasant this time; there was no sneer and the arrogance had been toned down.

Kate chuckled waterily. ‘He looks like that when he’s asleep,’ she offered.

‘Then only look at him while he’s sleeping!’ Helen made to screw up the sketch, but Kate stopped her.

‘May I have it? I’d like to give it to his mother. I think that’s the way she sees him.’

‘There!’ Helen crowed triumphantly. ‘What did I tell you? It’s all a matter of emphasis. If you dwell on the dark bits, you crowd out everything else.’

Coming back to the Kensington house, Kate felt much better, and even managed to greet Jerome with a smile.

‘I’ve been to see Helen. She’s very pleased you like her sketch and quite thrilled that it’s already hung. She’s hoping for a few commissions from it. I had a look, but I think it’s a bit idealised. She’s made me look patient and long-suffering! Have you met the nurse yet? She’s already installed. How’s that for an obedient wife?’ She thought she detected a flicker of humour in his eyes, but when she looked again they were shuttered and withdrawn.

Over dinner Kate heard herself being positively chatty, and when they went into the sitting-room she enquired brightly if he wanted to watch television. It turned out to be a horror film, full of vampires and ghouls with a great many corpses splashed with great gouts of blood, and she watched it avidly, trying to lose herself in the terror of it. When the last bloodstained victim had been avenged, Jerome switched off firmly.

‘Don’t make any plans beyond Friday.’ He was tranquil. ‘We’re going up to Derbyshire to stay with my mother.’

‘Oh no!’ Unaccountably, Kate felt disappointed. ‘We’ve only just got here and there’s a lot to be done, the bedrooms and the little drawing-room. I was looking forward to that. Why do we have to go charging off almost as soon as we’ve arrived?’

‘To collect Philip’s puppy, of course.’ He looked blandly at her and Kate’s pleasant mood vanished as if it had been wiped out with a damp cloth.

‘You’re suspecting me,’ she accused. ‘I told you, I’ve been to Helen’s. You can confirm it with Tobias, if you want. He took me there, parked outside the house where Helen lives and brought me straight back,’ and with a snort of disgust, she rose and flounced out of the room.

Halfway up the stairs, Jerome caught her up, swinging an arm about her to halt her progress.

‘You seemed very happy,’ he observed, ‘and you talked a lot over dinner. It’s unusual.’

She glared at him. ‘There’s a law against being happy? I’ll remember that! I’ll also remember not to talk. I’ll go about wearing a permanent scowl and speak in monosyllables in future.’ Angrily she tried to wriggle free of his encompassing arm, but without success.

‘Come to bed, Kate,’ he ordered.

‘I do not want to go to bed with you.’ She enunciated every word with clarity through lips stiff with dislike and was surprised at herself. This wasn’t the calm, quiet Kate Forrest who only twelve hours ago had thought that perhaps she was no longer hating her husband. She was hating now!

‘I stipulated an obedient wife,’ he reminded her.

‘Then you shouldn’t have married me,’ she flared at him as she held the banister firmly with one hand, defying him to move her. ‘I visited Helen and because I came home chatty, you’re ready to suspect me of anything your foul mind can dredge up. And to crown it all, you’re taking us up to the wilds of Derbyshire, which just proves that you don’t trust me. I suppose you think I’ve been seeing Gerald—well, I haven’t. Fetch Philip’s dog, indeed!’

He slanted a dark glance down at her flushed, angry face and his eyes hardened. ‘I’m also going to New York in seven to ten days’ time, Kate, and I shall be away at least a week. I thought you’d be better with Mother than here on your own. You and she get on quite well, don’t you?’

Kate refused to be mollified, a burning sense of injustice filled her, but despite her struggles she was drawn willy-nilly up the stairs and along the passage to the bedroom door. Jerome opened it and pushed her inside, where he clamped one arm about her, holding her firmly while his free hand tangled in her hair.

It was all too familiar by now. Kate knew what was going to happen. He would kiss her until she went limp in his arms. She would fight the animal warmth which uncoiled inside her, she would fight it until it grew too strong for her, until she wanted him to hold her, wanted to be closer to him, wanted to be a part of him. A sob rose in her throat as she felt herself softening and she knew that in a very few moments she would be a quivering mass of eagerness, that her arms would be round him and that he could do what he liked with her. She also knew that the laugh he would give would be full of triumph. She cursed her own weakness until it didn’t matter any more, until his mouth and hands had reduced her to pliancy. Then there was only the smooth touch of his skin under her hands and against her body and a wild exaltation that made her mouth greedy and contented at one and the same time while his lips traced a scorching path from her mouth to her breasts.

Kate woke to a grey dawn and decided mournfully that she was no better than any of his other loves, except of course that she was married to him. It was a consoling thought until she tried to be honest with herself and discovered that marriage in itself possibly wouldn’t have made very much difference. Jerome could make her want him, married or not. That was a depressing thought, and she frowned at it and wished she wasn’t so weak.

‘Practising your scowl, Kate?’ He asked the question quietly without raising his head from the pillow, and she turned to look at him.

‘I’ve a bit of a headache,’ she muttered. ‘I think I’ll go and make some tea.’

His arm collected her and the grasp tightened about her waist. ‘Later,’ he murmured. ‘Go back to sleep now, it’s far too early.’

But she couldn’t sleep. Something was knocking at the doors of her mind, trying to get out. She knew very well what it was, but she wasn’t going to let it out because it would hurt her—hurt her more than she had been hurt already, and it would go on hurting for ever and ever. In an effort to stop herself thinking about it, she examined his sleeping face. It wasn’t really harsh, it was more like Helen’s sketch, the nice one. He looked much younger asleep than this thirty-five years and his mouth was no longer a straight, hard line. It curved rather nicely and his eyelashes were long, thick and almost feminine. Even his hair was tumbled out of its normal brushed-back severity. Kate moved very gently so as not to wake him again because she didn’t like his face so much when he was awake.

She finished writing her fifteenth letter of grateful thanks for a wedding present. This time it had been a Georgian silver salt cellar, it said so on the neatly typed list. Kate hadn’t seen the article in question, but that didn’t matter. She had written that it was beautiful and that she and Jerome would treasure it all their days. It was all true, she justified the letter. Georgian silver salt cellars were always beautiful and it ought probably to be locked up in a safe. The letter writing exhausted her, it was much more tiring than marking exercise books, and she laid down her pen and thought longingly of having a nice cup of tea and putting her feet up when Nanny mentioned in passing that Master Philip seemed to be growing out of all his clothes.

‘But he can’t be!’ Kate was aghast. ‘He had everything new just before the wedding, and that was only three weeks ago.’

‘There, Mrs Jerome,’ Nanny looked sickenly superior. ‘Those were clothes for his holiday in Italy, they won’t do for Derbyshire in March.’

Nanny Hogg was quite correct, the cuffs of Philip’s winter jumpers no longer covered his chubby wrists and his dungaree-type trousers were definitely strained around his portly middle.

Nanny surveyed him with pride. ‘A nice solid little boy,’ she enthused. ‘That’s how I like my babies!’

Kate took comfort as she realised that she was no longer bounded by a limited income and let Tobias whisk them off to a large department store where one thing led to another and she turned quite pale at the amount of money she had spent. Things were arranged to tempt the buyer, and after kitting Philip out and purchasing sufficient wool to keep Nanny knitting for six months or so, Kate fell for the temptation of pure silk underwear, cashmere twin sets, soft wool dresses, silk shirts, tailored suits and two soft, easy-fitting gowns for evening wear at home. She came down to dinner in one of them with a sheaf of bills in her hand and something suspiciously like guilt on her face.