Another View by Rosamunde Pilcher

Author:Rosamunde Pilcher
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

7

Jane Marshall, her hand curved round a half full tumbler of Scotch-on-the-rocks, said, “… so what happened then?”

“Nothing happened. She didn’t want to come out to dinner, and she looked as though she was going to have a bilious attack, so I put her to bed, and gave her a hot drink and an aspirin, and then I went back to the hotel and had dinner on my own. Then, the next morning, the Sunday, I went down to the cottage to say good-bye before I drove back to London. She was up and about, rather pale, but she seemed to be all right.”

“Did you try again to make her come back with you?”

“Yes, I did, but she was adamant. So we said good-bye, and I left her. And since then there has been no word.”

“But you can surely find out where she is?”

“There is no way of finding out. There’s no telephone, never has been. Marcus wrote, of course, but Emma seems to have inherited Ben’s built-in aversion to answering letters. There hasn’t been another word.”

“But this is crazy. In this day and age … there must be someone who can tell you…”

“There’s no-one. No-one Emma ever talked to. There was no daily woman, coming in to clean, she did it all herself. That was the big reason for going back to Porthkerris in the first place, so that she could keep house for Ben. Of course, after two weeks of frigid silence, Marcus could stand it no longer, and put through a telephone call to the landlord of the Sliding Tackle, which was the pub Ben used to frequent, but Ben had been gone for six weeks, anyway, and Emma never went near the place.”

“Then you’ll have to go down to Porthkerris and ask around.”

“Marcus isn’t prepared to do that.”

“Why not?”

“For reasons. Emma isn’t a child. She’s been hurt, and Marcus respects the fact that if she wants to be left alone, he has no right to interfere. He’s asked her to come to London and live with Helen and himself … anyway until she’s found her feet again. He can scarcely do more. And there’s another reason, too.”

“I know,” said Jane. “It’s Helen, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” said Robert, hating to admit it. “Helen has always resented the hold Ben has over Marcus. There have been times when she would gladly have seen Ben at the bottom of the ocean. But she’s accepted it because she had to, because wet-nursing Ben’s career is part of Marcus’s job, and without Marcus to keep him, more or less on the rails, God knows what would have happened to Ben Litton.”

“And now she doesn’t want him to start killing himself over Emma.”

“Precisely.”

Jane rocked her glass, letting the ice clink against its side. She said, “And you?”

He looked up. “What about me?”

“Do you feel involved?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“You sound involved.”

“I scarcely know the girl.”

“But you’re worried about her.”

He considered this. “Yes,” he said at last. “Yes, I suppose I am. God knows why.

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