he listened while she told him Dora’s story. Two days later Maggie had a break-in, and among the things taken were the notes of her conversation with Colin Younger. She was annoyed, even a little frightened at her own vulnerability, but she didn’t think it was anything more than a straightforward burglary until she asked Colin to repeat his allegations and he refused, categorically denying he had ever said anything against George Kennett and she must have misunderstood him. Far from discouraging her, it made her all the more determined.
Barbara stood at her studio window looking out onto the garden. The golden hues of autumn had gone; now it looked bleak and bereft waiting for spring to bring it back to life. The trees that were left on the other side of the fence had lost their leaves and she could see the manor roof through their bare branches. She had accepted a part in the hydro project and the alterations were being done to the main house and the coach house, which was to be converted into a home for Isobel, marketing strategies were being worked out, equipment and soft furnishings being discussed. Simon hadn’t come; she supposed he had stayed away for her sake. He probably supposed her marriage still meant everything to her and didn’t want to upset her.
She would need to call on her courage later, not only to face Simon and treat him as a friend and fellow director, but to tell George what she was doing. He wouldn’t be pleased, he’d tell her she didn’t know the first thing about business; he might even want to take over. She would have to deal with that. But what worried her most was that people might say it was just another scam of George Kennett’s and there was bound to be something dodgy about it.
She was worried sick by the rumours. She could see every little twist and turn of George’s business deals, the bribes, their first house, the arson, the deals over the industrial site, being splashed all over the pages of the Melsham Gazette and probably the nationals too. It would devastate the children. And Elizabeth, too. And what would happen to her own life? Some of the dirt would be bound to rub off on the hydro project. She’d tried talking to George and been told it was nothing to get steamed up about, she was making a mountain out of a molehill. He’d got very angry and shouted at her, which just proved he was worried too; he hardly ever raised his voice. And because there was nothing else on her mind, probably on his either, if he were honest, they stopped talking about anything at all. They dealt coolly and politely with each other, but now even the pretence they had a happy marriage had been dropped in private, though they maintained it in public. They were two people living under the same roof and that was all they had in common.
A few flakes of snow drifted down from a slate-grey sky as she turned from the window and picked up the box of Christmas tree decorations, which was the reason she had come up here, and took it downstairs where she put the box on the drawing room table and began taking out the shiny, fragile baubles, the lights, the silver tinsel and attaching them to the tree. When the children were young they had all done it together, laughing and trying to guess, from the shape and size of the wrapped parcels they put beneath it, who had been given what, looking forward to the day, to the year ahead. Now all she could do was get through one day at a time: looking ahead terrified her. But whatever was happening around them, Christmas could not be postponed. She had done the shopping, made the pudding, iced the cake, pretended they were going to have a lovely time, all the family together.
She wasn’t so sure of herself when Christmas Day came. George had been absent until after midnight the night before, and whatever he said, she was sure no one did business that late on Christmas Eve. He had been with her, whoever ‘her’ was, preferring the company of his mistress to that of his family, no matter that three of them were children. From loving him, she had almost come to hating, except that she was not the kind to hate anyone. And not half a mile away,