An Open Door

by Claire Lorrimer

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

A heartfelt romance novel from the author of THE RECKONING and SECOND CHANCE which features Susan Parish who, after losing her husband in the war, is raising her son in the quiet seclusion of the country. Despite her better judgement she falls in love with Gareth Everett, her next-door neighbour and husband of her best friend.

Release date: March 27, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

“Have you ever thought of marrying again, Sue?”

The question ended the short silence that had until then lain like a comfortable cloak over the fire-lit room, broken only by the steady, regular clicking of the knitting needles held by Susan Parish. Watching Susan, waiting curiously for an answer to her question, Jane Everett studied her companion.

Susan was, she mused, in every way her own opposite. Perhaps that was one of the reasons that they had struck up such an easy friendship. Susan’s was a quiet, somewhat reserved nature whereas her own was impulsive, carefree, perhaps even a little irresponsible. And, of course, Sue was far more intellectual … went in for reading a more serious type of book, loved ballet and opera and things generally on a higher plane than she, Jane, enjoyed. For her, reading was the last resort to prevent boredom and then she preferred a brightly coloured woman’s magazine with a story on which one didn’t need to concentrate too much.

Even in looks they were opposites. Susan was dark with large, soft brown eyes and the kind of complexion that looked tanned even in midwinter. Sue had had her hair ‘short cut’ and the style suited her, making her look a little older perhaps than her twenty-six years, but more sophisticated. Somehow it suited her in a way that was both feminine and yet gamine.

“Now I could never wear my hair short!” Jane mused. Hers was the ‘little girl’ type of prettiness and she always wore her fair, silky hair in a long bob that fell over her shoulders. Sometimes she tied it back in a ribbon and knew that she looked about fourteen rather than her real age, which was but a month younger than Susan’s. With her tiny, slight figure she was fully aware that she attracted men as honey attracted bees. A smile from beneath her lashes, a pout of her curved lips and they were at her feet.

But Susan could attract men, too, Jane allowed her mind to run on its usual inconsequential meandering. Not any man, but certain types who liked a quiet, thoughtful manner, a rather deep, husky voice, and a tall, beautifully proportioned body. Sue would have made a good model. In really well-cut clothes she would look exotic. As it was, she could barely afford to buy a new Utility dress once a year. One way and another, life had been pretty hard for Susan Parish and Jane felt sorry for her. At twenty-six, Sue had already been a widow for five years and although this little old thatched and beamed cottage was hers, it couldn’t be easy trying to clothe and feed and educate a small boy on just a widow’s pension; and the little she earned doing part-time secretarial duties while young Teddy was at school could barely pay for her own personal necessities. Now if only Sue would marry again …

Jane’s mind came round to the completion of the circle, bringing her back to her question which Sue had still not answered.

“Have you thought about it, Sue?” she repeated.

Susan looked up for a moment from the intricate Fair Isle pullover which she was knitting for Teddy for his birthday next week … a brilliant red and blue and yellow affair he himself had specially chosen … and her large, gently curving mouth twisted a little into a half-smile.

“Yes, I’ve thought about it, Jane, but quite honestly, my dear, I don’t think there’s much likelihood of my meeting anyone who’d fill the bill. You see, my position is a little different from yours after your Hamilton was killed. You were more or less single again, weren’t you? But I have Teddy. Apart from having to choose the right kind of father for him, it isn’t every man who wants to take on a wife and a ready-made family. And then, again, I think I’d find it a little difficult to give to anyone else the same kind of love that was Edward’s. I could only offer second-best. And last, but not least, there aren’t any eligible young bachelors around here, are there? And as I’m pretty well tied with young Ted, I don’t think I should have much time or the opportunity to go husband-hunting.”

She was smiling properly now and laughing at herself even while she knew that every word she had spoken was true. Often in the last year or so … when the first shock and grief of losing Edward had worn off and he had become rather more a treasured memory than a pain in her heart … she had wondered about her future … hers and Teddy’s. At first she had been certain she would never marry again. With Teddy still a baby, she had had her time and her heart filled to capacity. But he had been growing up slowly and relentlessly and now her fat, chuckling little baby had developed into a tall, wiry boy. He had started to make friends at school, spent more and more time out of his home, growing independent of her as he was bound to do, needing her only to supply his meals, to answer his innumerable questions, mend his clothes, read to him or play with him when no one else was at hand.

It wasn’t that he loved her any the less … merely that as he grew up, he needed her less. Only when he was ill did he become her baby again, someone for her to fuss over, to coddle and then he would nestle up against her and they would be close once more. But at present, he was a little ashamed of his ‘softness’ for his mother. It amused Susan even while it hurt her just a little bit. But she understood it … in the same way that she understood that he was beginning to need a father. At times he was quite beyond her control. She had always believed that it was wrong to chastise children, and until recently, she had controlled Ted fairly easily with small punishments, with an appeal to his honour, his age, his duty. Now, suddenly, he didn’t seem to care. He would stand before her, his lips, so like her own, set in a thin, hard line, his brown eyes glowing in anger, his small square jaw set in a determined line. And no matter what she said to him, if he wanted a thing badly enough, he would go ahead and do it and accept his punishment with seeming indifference. And there was no one of a higher authority … a father’s more frightening wrath, perhaps … to whom she could refer Ted in these unmanageable moods.

She turned now to look at the girl, curled up like a kitten in the deep armchair opposite her. Jane, so recently come to live down here, was the first friend she had made since Edward’s death had put an end to her ‘camp following’, and her casual friendships with other officers’ wives at the various stations where they made their homes. In a letter Edward had left for her in the event of his death, he had stressed that he hoped she would be able to make a home for herself and Teddy, in the little old-world cottage he had bought when they were first married; mainly so that they could have somewhere to spend their leaves. Neither she nor Edward had had any near relatives living. Ted had an uncle somewhere in the north of England, she, a cousin and an aunt in Australia. Edward had known that she would not want to make her home with them, and once she had adjusted herself, not without many bitter tears and much heartache, to living without Edward, she had been happy enough here in this remote Essex village. She had, of course, met one or two other neighbours, become almost friendly with these cheerful village folk. But their common interests were somewhat limited to domestic details … their children, their houses, their gardens. Friendship with them had never been intimate.

Then Jane and her husband, Gareth, had bought two cottages at the far end of the village, and Sue and Jane had met in the village store. That was only three months ago but in that time they were often in and out of each other’s houses. Jane, with her quick laughter, her impulsive ways, was so easy to get along with. Teddy had taken to her immediately, and although Jane was not the type of girl one might expect to get on well with children, she had a way with Teddy that was almost funny, it was so elemental. She appealed to him in exactly the same way as she would appeal to a grown man. She referred to his opinion as though he were an adult, spoke to him as an equal, asked him to help her lift heavy logs and such things, so that with her, he felt the man he longed to be.

Susan had wondered at first why Jane took such trouble with Teddy. Then, as she got to know Jane better, she realized that with Jane it was simply second nature to go out of her way to make people like her. Teddy was a charming little boy when he chose to be. He had beautiful manners, when he remembered them, and he seldom forgot them with Jane; opening doors for her, handing her plates at meal times, running small errands for her that Susan often had to bribe or cajole him into doing for herself! It pleased Jane to receive such attentions. Teddy’s obvious devotion flattered her insatiable vanity.

For all her vanity, however, and the more frivolous side to her character, Susan liked Jane. There was something clear cut and simple about her that made friendship with her possible. One always knew where one was with Jane … could understand what made her do and say things, know at first glance at her face what particular mood she was in that day; know the best way to cope with it. And Jane’s moods were seldom of lasting duration. Her main problem was her boredom. Having no very deep interest in life, she found it hard to stay long in her own company without being bored. She wanted always to be ‘doing’ something. Hers was, consequently, a restless nature, made more so by the life she was leading.

She and Gareth had lived in London for the first two years of their married life. Gareth was managing director of a large company and could afford to take Jane about a good deal, in the evenings. They had lunched together most days, too, at one or other of the more popular restaurants. Jane used to spend what was left of the morning after she got up, dressing for her luncheon appointment. In the afternoon she would fill in the time at a cinema, and when Gareth came home at five, she would start dressing up again for wherever they were going that evening; to a dance, a cocktail party, or the theatre.

But Gareth was a good deal older than Jane … nearly thirty-eight, Jane had told her. And he wanted to ‘settle down’.

“Jane, what made you finally decide to come down to the country?” Susan asked, following her own train of thought.

Jane tossed the fair hair away from her face and reached for a cigarette from the enamel and silver case in her handbag, both beautiful, costly presents which Gareth had bought her but which she scarcely seemed to value – she had so many beautiful things. Susan sometimes thought that on the money Gareth spent buying presents for Jane she could afford to send Teddy to the public school his father had attended!

“I don’t know, Sue. I think I must have been a bit bored with life in town. After all, we’d been doing the same round of parties for two years. When Gareth said he wanted to buy a cottage in the country it sounded rather fun. I thought we’d make a lot of new friends, give weekend parties and go to point-to-points and all that sort of thing. And then Gareth said I could have a free hand with the furnishing. That was fun, I’ll admit. But quite honestly, Susan, I wish we hadn’t come. It’s just not working out the way I thought it would. Gareth’s home so much later now with the trains being what they are, and by the time he gets home, he’s too tired to do much – or so he says! And now he’s so garden-mad he doesn’t even want to do the things I want at weekends. I’m not like you, Susan. I can’t fill my life with bottling fruit and making jam and all that sort of thing. I don’t know how you’ve stuck this way of life so long.”

Susan laughed. Jane’s pretty face was so screwed up with distaste.

“Well, I’ve got Teddy,” she said. “He keeps me pretty busy. There’s always a mass of washing and mending and sewing to do. And meals to get. And then I’m at work quite a bit during the day.”

Jane sighed.

“Perhaps I’d be happier if I had a job,” she said without conviction. “But it would be a bit silly, wouldn’t it, Susan, when Gareth has so much money?”

“The idle rich!” Susan teased.

“Oh, but we’re not rich!” Jane said quickly. “I mean, Gareth’s often saying we can’t afford to do this or that. I wanted to go abroad this winter but we couldn’t afford it. And he’s put so much into the house.”

“You’ve made it beautiful!” Susan said with real admiration in her voice. The pair of tumbledown cottages had been entirely restored, rebuilt and installed with all the most modern luxuries. There was even a washing machine which Jane never used, as she still sent most of her things to a laundry! Practically every labour-saving device had been bought for the place without in any way detracting from its old-world charm. And struggling round her own home, Susan had wondered how Jane could have thought it necessary to have someone in from the village to “do” for her. That was part of Jane’s trouble … her discontent. She hadn’t enough to do to keep her busy.

“Jane, aren’t you and Gareth going to start a family soon?” she asked. “A few babies would keep you busy enough.”

A slight frown creased Jane’s smooth, white forehead.

“Don’t mention that subject,” she said, and typical of Jane, promptly proceeded to elaborate on it. “Gareth’s always on to me about it being time to start a family. Honestly, Susan, I don’t mean to be selfish, but I really don’t like babies. Now if they began at Teddy’s age, I wouldn’t mind. But babies!”

Susan couldn’t restrain her laughter.

“Jane, you really are a ninny! Babies are wonderful, they really are. You’re just judging other people’s, but you’d feel quite differently if you had one of your own. I’m sure you would. They’re so cuddlesome and sweet and endearing. I wish I’d had another one before … before it was too late.”

Jane’s eyebrows shot up in amazement.

“You don’t really mean that, Sue. Why, whatever would you have done with two of them to bring up?”

“One wouldn’t have been so much more since I had Teddy anyway,” Susan said. “I might have had a little girl.”

Jane shook her head.

“I don’t understand you, Susan, but I certainly do admire you. I suppose we’re just about as different from one another as we could be. I must be abnormal. At any rate, Gareth’s beginning to think so. He says all women want children if they’re happily married.”

“Perhaps you’ve just not reached that stage yet,” Susan said, meaning that maybe Jane hadn’t really grown up sufficiently yet. “I’m sure you will want kids eventually. And you know, Jane, Gareth is bound to be a bit impatient. After all, he’s a good deal older than you.”

Jane’s lips pouted a little, and reminded Susan of a small girl who wasn’t having things her own way.

“I sometimes wonder if I ought to have married Gareth,” she announced, but in such a matter-of-fact tone that Susan recovered a little from the implications of her words. “I thought I might be happy with an older man and Gareth was so persistent. I used to know him before the war, Susan, did I tell you? I was only a schoolgirl then, of course, and Gareth was a young man of twenty-eight or so. He used to tease me then and tell me he was waiting until I was old enough to be proposed to! I never took him seriously but he was serious, although I didn’t find out till later. Then, soon after the war broke out, I met Hamilton. There was something about the Americans … I don’t know what it was … that was so much more attractive than the Englishmen, don’t you agree, Sue?”

Susan shook her head, smiling.

“Frankly, no! But then I married an Englishman, Jane.”

Jane returned the smile.

“Well, of course. All the same, I liked them, and Ham was just everything I’d ever dreamed about. Gosh, Sue, I was so happy with him I just didn’t know how to hold so much fun inside me. One glorious mad year and then he went abroad. Even then I didn’t feel too miserable. I had cables and letters and gorgeous parcels and Ham was always talking about getting leave. Then quite suddenly, nothing, no letter, no cable, days and days of silence until I thought I’d go crazy. I tried to get news but all I could find out was that his regiment – he was in the Tank Corps in Italy then – had gone into action. Then suddenly I heard he was missing. I kept on hoping he’d turn up, Sue. I prayed and prayed and hoped and hoped and the months went by until finally I got notified that he was presumed killed. It was awful.”

“You never heard what happened?” Susan asked gently.

“No! They never found his body. He was just one of the many who disappeared. Blown to bits. I didn’t believe it even then … went on hoping until the war ended. I thought he might have been a prisoner, lost his memory … anything like that and he would turn up. He always called himself the bad penny. In the meantime, of course, I’d met Gareth again. After Ham was presumed killed, I went home on leave … we were living in London at the time … and started doing some war work. I got a job as secretary to one of the wallahs in the War Office. One day who should walk in but Gareth. He was a colonel then. He’d been fighting abroad and had got the M.C. along with a bad leg wound. That was how he got the job in the War Office.

“Of course, he started taking me out a bit and was very sympathetic and understanding about Ham. I told him I was waiting for the war to end … that I wouldn’t believe the worst until the war in Europe was over. So he never proposed, although he’s told me since he wanted to often and often. Finally, of course, the war did end and I heard nothing, and then Gareth asked me to marry him. It seemed the sensible thing to do. I told him I’d never feel the same way towards him as I had to Ham, but he seemed to understand. He said he’d help me to forget and start again. He was always very kind. I’m terribly fond of Gareth but I don’t think I make him a very good wife.”

Susan carefully turned a row in her knitting as she considered Jane’s outburst. There was something a little pathetic in someone of Jane’s inconstant nature, to have gone on hoping and believing for so long. It had been easier for herself. Edward had crashed in his plane in this country, had been killed outright and she had been forced to accept the truth from the first. Perhaps for that reason, she had found it easier to start life again.

“Gareth adores you, Jane,” she said. “And he takes such care of you. He wouldn’t be so devoted if you were the bad wife you’re trying to tell me you are to him.”

“I’ve never said this before to anyone, Sue,” Jane said, in a low, confidential voice, “but I think that’s the whole trouble. Gareth takes too much care of me. It’s as if he were sorry for me and is trying to make it up to me all the time. I can be perfectly beastly sometimes, bad tempered and horrible and thoroughly nasty, but he never turns round on me. I wish he would. I wouldn’t feel so guilty then. Besides, it’s no fun having a bust up if it’s only you letting off steam!”

“That’s just Gareth’s nature,” Susan said. “He’s more controlled than you are, Jane.”

“I know, and more sensible. Honestly, Susan, I think you’re more suited to him than I am!”

Susan laughed.

“I’m sure Gareth wouldn’t like that idea!” she said. “I don’t think he likes me very much. He hardly ever says two words to me.”

“Oh, but you’re quite wrong, Sue,” Jane cried, uncurling her legs in their beautifully tailored slacks and stretching them out before her. “Gareth thinks you’re wonderful. He’s always saying he never knows how you manage the way you do. He respects you enormously.”

“Gareth respects me!” Susan said. “It doesn’t make sense, Jane. I honestly believe he doesn’t even like me. At any rate, he always seems to avoid coming round here with you.”

“That’s just because he’s so gardening mad,” Jane said. “And he’s shy, Susan. Lots of people think he’s unfriendly because he’s shy. Only of women, I mean. He’s really much better with men. In fact he’s the sort of man one expects to be a bachelor.”

“But men like Gareth often make wonderful husbands,” Susan argued. “I think you’re very lucky, Jane.”

Jane stood up, yawning and stretching her arms above her head.

“Uh-huh. I guess I am. I suppose so, anyway. I ought to be going, Sue. It’s nearly teatime and young Teddy will be home from school.”

“Won’t you stay and have tea with us?” Susan asked, putting down her knitting and stooping to give the log fire a poke, so that the embers burst into small flames and the room became noisy with the sharp crackling of the wood.

“I’d love to, but for once we’re going out tonight. Gareth’s getting an early train and we’re going to a dance at the Mayflower. It’s a special ‘do’… evening dress and all that. So I want to have plenty of time to get dolled up. I wish you were coming too, Susan. I feel mean leaving you behind.”

Susan put her arm round Jane’s shoulders.

“Don’t feel any such thing. I’ve plenty to do tonight, believe you me …”

“All the same, it would be rather fun. I must see if I can find a boyfriend for you, Sue. In fact, I’ve just got a wonderful idea. My brother, Jim, has been promising to pay me a visit. He’s great fun and a lot of girls find him very attractive, but so far he’s not been trapped. I’m going to do a bit of match-making and throw you two together.”

“We shall probably hate each other on sight!” Susan laughed. “Besides, who’ll look after Teddy while I go gadding?”

“My Mrs Mendall will baby-watch!” Jane said airily. At the door, she turned and called back to Susan. “Jim’s fair, like me,” she said.

“But I like them dark!” Susan called back, laughing.

“Then you can have Gareth,” Jane called back from the open door. “Jim’s a better dancer. ’Bye, now. See you tomorrow.”

The door closed behind her and the room suddenly became quiet again. It was a silence Susan usually did not notice … a gentle peace that seemed to pervade the room until Ted returned from school, filling it anew with noise and laughter and chatter. But today, for some reason, the silence grated on Susan’s ears. The fire had sunk once more into a cone of red embers, and with Jane’s departure, twilight had given way to dark.

Slowly Susan lit the oil lamp and placed it on the beam above the fireplace. Beside it, the mirror reflected the soft glow, and with unaccustomed impulse, Susan leaned over and stared at her reflection in the mirror.

How pale and sad her face looked, how dark the brown pools of her eyes! She traced her finger along the lines of her forehead, smoothing out the frown, considering with sudden sharp fear that she looked older … so much older than Jane, and yet they were of an age. Was it living alone that gave her this maturity … or just motherhood? Was she lonely? Had a little of Jane’s restlessness transferred itself to her?

She turned away from the mirror and went slowly towards the kitchen, carrying the oil lamp. Automatically, her hands started to cut and butter bread for Teddy’s tea. But her mind remained poised, aloof from her actions. It was as if there were another self watching above her, seeing for the first time the loneliness of her life. Soon Teddy would be going to boarding school, living away from her. Soon she would be quite alone here, during the evenings as well as the day. And there would be less to do, with him away, less to keep her hands busy and her mind occupied.

‘I should have had other children!’ she thought in sudden desperation. ‘I want more children, another baby in my arms.’

The thought brought back her conversation with Jane … Jane’s refusal to grant Gareth’s wish for children. At the time it had seemed unimportant … a whim of Jane’s, like many of her other light-hearted remarks. But now Susan felt a swift, deep compunction for Gareth … for the man who had so much materially but so little of the spiritual needs he craved. He must know that Jane was restless, if not actively unhappy, must wonder if he were to blame … he, who gave her so much.

‘You don’t recognize the value of what you have, Jane!’ Susan thought silently. ‘Gareth is a wonderful person. He’d make a wonderful father for your children.’

She had a sudden flash of memory, of Gareth on the lawn in her garden last autumn soon after they had arrived. She had been in the kitchen and looking through the low, diamond-shaped window, had seen Teddy sprawled on the grass, and a long, lithe figure standing over him, laughing down at him.

“Now who’s king of this castle, my lad?” Gareth’s voice, low, deep, full of quick laughter.

“Let me up. Let me up.” Teddy’s shrill, high tones.

“I’ll have to give you some boxing lessons or you’ll never be able to hold your own at school. Up you get, then. We’ll have one more bout.”

Teddy’s small figure, arms squaring up to the man towering above him. A quick movement of those long arms and the small boy was lifted high into the air and swung head downwards in a dive-bombing movement. A screech of delight from Teddy and then his shrill voice as he came scampering into the kitchen.

“I say, Mum, that new man is nice. He’s going to teach me to box properly and next summer he says he’ll teach me cricket, too. I say, Mum, he’s ever so strong. He lifted me right up in the air. Did you see me? I was a dive-bomber. Were you watching? Gosh, I wish that man was my daddy. Why can’t he be, Mummy?”

“Well, he’s married to Aunty Jane, dear.”

“Then you marry him, too. I’m hungry, Mum. What’s for tea?”

And later, on the lawn, when Jane and Teddy were down by the stream at the bottom of the garden, the look on Gareth’s face when she said, “My son seems to think you’re perfect, Mr Everett. In fact he considers you’re nice enough to be his daddy. That’s a high compliment from him.”

“He’s a nice little chap,” Gareth had said, obviously pleased but embarrassed.

Since then, Teddy had been constantly in Gareth’s company, helping in the garden, running errands. And Gareth had given him the p. . .