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“Think you’ll be okay on your own?” he asked her.

She laughed. “I hope so. Every strange noise I hear, I’ll tell myself that that’s the country for you and hope for the best!”

“You’ll probably be right,” he answered. “See you around!”

She went to the door with him and stood there for a moment watching him as he closed the gates and vaulted easily over them into the road that she shared with the Manor. She waved a tentative hand and went inside. There was a great deal still to be done to get the house ready for her father and she had yet to discover whether there were any sheets and blankets.

It turned out that there was plenty of everything. Her first urge was to put her father in the large circular room above the sitting room, but she knew that he would immediately resign it in her stepmother’s favour, although she was only to be there for one night in the week. The second bedroom had the better view, however, and she was glad of that. It looked over the Manor gardens, down to a small lake in the distance, and across a small walled orchard that she saw with delight was attached to the oast-house and was approached through their own tiny, but immaculate garden.

She could hardly wait to go down to the orchard and see what it consisted of, but she restrained herself long enough to make up the beds and to arrange her own few possessions in the third bedroom, which also, to her delight, looked out across the orchard to the Manor. She could even imagine that one of the windows she could see might be Robert’s room, but then she caught herself up with a start, trying to be amused by her own foolishness. It was something that she couldn’t understand, for she had never been concerned, even in idle moments, with thoughts of any man before.

She was glad to have the orchard to think about instead. It was every bit as lovely and romantic as she had thought it from the window upstairs. The trees were very old and probably didn’t fruit very well, but their gnarled, twisted shapes were perfect. Sarah decided in her own mind that there were at least four apple trees, two which she thought were pear trees, a fig beside the wall, and what she supposed was a cherry tree in one comer. They were enclosed by a high stone wall of golden stone that was warm from the sun. Sarah leaned against it, smiling a little, astonished by her mood of complete contentment. It would all be different when the inevitable rain came, she told herself, but even that prospect failed to disturb her pleasure in the trees and the curve of the Kentish ragstone wall.

How long she stood there, she didn’t know, but it was only slowly that she became aware of voices talking. She recognised them immediately as belonging to the Chaddox brothers.

“I hope none of your customers thought it was blood!” Neil was saying.

“It does look a bit like it—”

“A bit!” Neil’s laughter was raucous and infectious. “It wouldn’t be so funny on anyone else, but on the immaculate Robert Chaddox! I never thought to see the day when you’d drop your lunch all down your front!”

“Devil a bit! It was that ham-fisted new tenant of ours!”

“Miss Blaney? I didn’t know you’d met her!”

“She came into the restaurant where I have my lunch and shoved her way into the only vacant seat, that unfortunately happened to be at my table. This was the result!”

Neil laughed again. “Didn’t she apologise nicely enough?” he teased.

“She said she was sorry,” Robert admitted grudgingly. “Went on to say she was an actress. More like a bull in a china shop! Her mother—or stepmother, apparently— is obviously glad to find her something to do and has sent her down here with her father for a bit. She tried to tell me she was giving up some West End part, but can you imagine her on the stage? She hasn’t much-to recommend her, has she?”

“She’s all right,” Neil said without enthusiasm. “Not to be compared with the fantastic Samantha, of course!”

“Everyone falls for her!” Robert agreed. Sarah could tell by his voice that he was smiling. She longed to creep away before she could overhear any more, but then Robert was speaking again and she found herself rooted to the spot. “Don’t have too much to do with the Blaneys, Neil. Their kind of life and ours doesn’t mix.”

“Back to Mother?” the younger brother said sulkily.

“She was a good example of how they carry on,” Robert stated. “Our little Blaney may be plain, but she’s bitten by the bug and is probably as unreliable as all the rest of them.”

“Perhaps that’s why,” Neil suggested. “With a wig and make-up and somebody else’s character, she probably imagine’s she’s lovely when she gets on to a stage.”

“Blundering her way across the other characters and treading on their toes? No, I hardly think Sarah Blaney has much to recommend her as an actress. Her stepmother knows all the right people though and probably pulls a string or two.”

Neil’s laughter came thundering over the wall. “Why do you dislike her so much? I thought her nice enough for a casual acquaintance. Not much to look at, but not ugly either.”

“Unremarkable,” Robert said, and he sounded angry. “Except when she smiles,” he added surprisingly.

So much for any illusions she might have been harbouring about Robert Chaddox, Sarah thought ruefully. Well, now she would know better than to think about him at all. In fact she wouldn’t think about him at all— if she could help it. It meant nothing that he had only to look at her for her to tingle all over. It had probably been no more than a figment of her imagination! Why, if anyone was going to bowl her over, it would have been Alec Farne. He at least looked the part!

Sarah crept along the wall and made a final dash out of the orchard back into her own garden. She was too late. Two pairs of astonished eyes watched her progress with interest, as the two men leaned on the gate that was at right angles to the path she had chosen. She glared at them both, suddenly angry because she felt ridiculous and knew that they were laughing at her.

“Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves!” Neil remarked, his eyes lit with amusement.

“I-I d-didn’t mean to overhear,” Sarah stammered. “I was just here!”

“Evidently!” Robert remarked. She thought he might have had the grace to look embarrassed when she thought of what he had said about her, but the grey eyes that met hers gave nothing away.

“And you’re wrong! My stepmother doesn’t pull strings for me! I stand on my own two feet and I always shall!”

“Then what are you doing here?” Robert retorted.

“What do you mean?”

“Not many young actresses would pass up a West End part unless they were sure of picking up where they left off.”

“I hadn’t any choice!” Sarah said, stung.

Robert had the effrontery to grin at her. “I believe you mind being called a Plain Jane,” he teased her.

“Well, I don’t! Far from it! Neil was right, as a matter of fact. My undistinguished features are the best stock in trade I have. And if you really want to know, I’m a bloody good actress!” It was seldom that Sarah swore and when she did it didn’t trip lightly off her tongue as it did with other people. It embarrassed her quite as much as it surprised her audience and she coloured, her anger collapsing into awkwardness.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Robert said in clipped accents. “I seldom go to the theatre myself.”

“We go to the Marlow Theatre sometimes, in Canterbury,” Neil added. “Why don’t you get yourself in a play there and we’ll both come and cheer you.”

“Because you’d more likely boo!” Sarah snapped at him.

Robert laughed. “You haven’t much faith in your spellbinding talents if you think that,” he pointed out. “Never mind, Sarah, I’m sorry you heard us talking about you. You’ll have to smile more often and then perhaps we’ll change our opinion of you.”

To his surprise, she did smile then, her anger completely forgotten. “I was already feeling prickly because I didn’t want to come,” she said. “The orchard was like balm to my soul, it’s so beautiful and peaceful, and then you spoilt it all.”

Robert glanced at her sharply. “I’m sorry for that,” he said again. “It’s one of the joys of living in the country that I wouldn’t be without myself. There’s nowhere to stand and think in London, or if there is, I’ve never discovered it.”

“There are the parks,” Sarah told him. “But it isn’t the same. May I go into the orchard occasionally, or is it forbidden to the oast-house tenants?”

“And refresh your spirit? Use it all you like, nobody else goes there.” He stood upright, pushing himself away from the gate with his hands. “We must be going,” he added. “I hope you settle in all right, Miss Blaney.”

It had been Sarah a minute ago, she thought sadly, touched by the instant of sympathy between them that had revived the feeling of trembling excitement within her again, just as though he had never said that he found her plain.

“Thank you, Mr. Chaddox.”

He sketched her a quick salute and was gone, Neil by his side, already talking of some other matter. She could smile like the Cheshire Cat, she told herself, but she would never make any impression on him. And then she found herself wondering who Samantha was and what she was to Robert Chaddox. The ‘fantastic Samantha’, Neil had said, and she wished with all her heart that someone would find her fantastic, someone with the electric attraction of Robert Chaddox.

Sunday came almost before Sarah was ready for it. In answer to the steadily tolling bell, she walked across the field, finding her way into the churchyard. The church itself was almost empty of worshippers, but the sound of the organ filled the Victorian-restored interior, delighting her with the familiar, measured tunes of the well-known hymns and psalms of Morning Prayer. When the service was over, she shook hands with the vicar, agreed that it was yet another lovely day, and then walked slowly home again. She had thought that Robert might have read the lessons, like the great landowners she had read about in books, but there had been no sign of either him or his brother in the church and she had not liked to ask after them.

She had barely taken off her hat when she heard the scrunch of her stepmother’s car in the drive. With a whoop of joy, she rushed out to greet her parents, aware of a peculiar feeling of relief as she saw Madge at the wheel.

“You’re earlier than I thought!” she told them, kissing her grey-faced father on the cheek. “This is a perfect place, Dad! Did you have a good journey?”

“Terrible!” Madge replied for him. “I thought we’d never get here. I hadn’t realised it was quite so far out of London. Daniel says anything nearer is now considered to be commuter country, but there are limits! Nobody, but
nobody,
has ever heard of Chaddoxboume, or anything like it, even in Canterbury!”

“Only because you asked for a converted oast-house, dear,” Daniel said fondly. “There are very likely more than one, you know.”

“So you kept saying! Well, here we are! Put the kettle on, Sarah, for some tea, will you? I’m parched!” Sarah cast her father a swift look of concern, but although he looked terribly tired he smiled and winked at her. “That’s only the beginning,” he told her. “We finally asked the way of a young man who said he’s our landlord’s brother—”

“Neil Chaddox?”

“I wouldn’t know, my dear. Madge has asked them both, and somebody called Samantha, to have dinner with us tonight. I hope you have some food in.”

Sarah jumped. “Not enough!” she sighed. “I’ll have to spin it out somehow, I suppose. At least there are piles of vegetables and fruit in the garden. Doesn’t that sound grand?” she added.

“It does indeed.”

He leaned heavily on her arm as they went into the house, wheezing painfully all the way. “So you like it here, do you?” he said, lowering himself into the nearest chair.

“Yes, I do. It’s rather nice not to have to race everywhere all the time. Of course the sun can’t always shine, but it has so far, and everything in the garden, and the orchard too, is
lovely
!”

“Good girl,” said her father, amused.

But Sarah’s mind was on the unknown Samantha as she went into the kitchen to make the tea for her stepmother. She looked anxiously at her small stock of food and began to plan the meal for that evening. She could make soup, she thought, from the vegetables in the garden and, at a pinch, the leg of lamb would run to six, though it wasn’t as big as she would have wished, and she could follow that with a gooseberry fool, also made from fruit from the garden.

Samantha would be beautiful, she knew that, and she would resent her because she was almost sure that Robert Chaddox was in love with her. She sighed deeply. Perhaps if she made up very carefully and was madly witty and smiled a lot she would outshine Samantha’s beauty? But that was only another silly dream and better forgotten, only she did wish that it didn’t hurt quite so much to resign herself to the inevitable.

When she went back to the circular sitting room, Madge was busy trying out all the chairs with a view to finding the most comfortable for her own use.

“Ah, tea! Sarah, my love, are you going to die of boredom in this dreary hole? What have you done with yourself these last few days? I nearly fainted when I saw how isolated it is here.”

Sarah forbore to say that she had spent much of the time dreaming that she had been transformed into an outstanding beauty overnight, and laughed. “I like it,” she said. “I’ve spent most of my time in the garden. I never knew it was such a fascinating occupation before. I don’t know the names of anything, or which are the weeds, but everyone who passes gives me advice and marvels over my ignorance. One man even offered to keep the lawn mowed for me. I think he means to use the Manor’s lawn-mower, but I’m not enquiring too closely into that! When I tried, it took me nearly an hour with the machine I found in the shed, and he does it in about ten minutes flat!”

Her stepmother stared at her in astonishment. “But your hands!” she said faintly.

Sarah glanced down at her neat, well-kept hands and smiled. “They seem to be tougher than they look. Where’s Daddy?”

Madge shrugged. “I couldn’t bear him wheezing over me any longer. I told him to go upstairs and get into bed. By the way, darling—” she paused significantly as Sarah poured her father out a cup of tea and prepared to take it up to him—“I suppose my room is the one above here?”