Unforgettable (Gloria Cook) - By Gloria Cook Page 0,40

his copious spare time driving fast cars, shooting game, playing golf around the county and pursuing women.

‘Thank you, Mr Newton,’ Verity replied. ‘I’ll be grateful to get home and freshen up.’

With his deep-set eyes he slowly looked her up and down. ‘I can see you’re overheated but you are prettily pink. Call me Jack. We’re on the same par.’

Verity was flattered he no longer saw her as a child and had now taken notice of her. It broke the chains Julius Urquart had clamped on her soul. Why shouldn’t men want her? She did not need to flirt to attract men. While in Wadebridge many a man had lifted his hat to her and glanced back at her, and a father and son cleaning shop windows had both wolf whistled at her.

‘I’ve just taken a peek at the hall. It’s going up nicely apace. Aunt Dorrie and I are going to help Jean and Jenna Vercoe to run up the curtains for the windows and the stage. There’s been a generous donation of blackout material. Jean is going to add some appliqué to brighten them so it won’t seem so dark.’

‘The hall is the best thing ever for the village,’ Jack said, slowing at a bend as if suddenly mindful of his passenger’s safety. ‘And with my second cousin’s ridiculous wife playing melodramatics it’s great not to have opposition. The vicar won’t bother to continue with his objections without Delia stirring him up.’

‘You think Delia is crying wolf? Aunt Dorrie sent her some flowers and Delia thanked her with a shakily written note. We were beginning to feel sorry for her and rather guilty for upsetting her that day.’

‘Don’t ever feel sorry for that woman!’ Jack’s handsome features radiated loathing with a passion, but it made him look empty and sad. Verity sensed he was recalling a personal slight to him. ‘She’s an out-and-out bitch. She’s feigning illness to make the rest of you suffer. She’s very good at that. Sorry.’ He shook his head to dislodge the negative rage, and smiled warmly again. ‘She has that effect on me. I was sorry to hear your engagement failed.’

‘I’m not sorry at all,’ Verity replied. ‘I would have had a miserable life. Lucky escape and all that, it’s in the past. Now I’m looking towards the future.’ She wondered if his harsh statements perhaps referred to the bitter, jealous Delia making life miserable for his tragic late wife. Delia delighted in that sort of thing; one only had to look at how she treated her own cousin, Lorna, a drab woman of humble circumstances, taken into Delia’s kitchen and wash house when Lorna had become homeless after her parents’ deaths.

‘Any idea what you’d like to do, Verity? I know you’ve done important office work.’

They were driving up to the crossroads. ‘I don’t mind really as long as it’s a bit of a challenge.’

‘A challenge? I can’t exactly promise you that, Verity, but I might have the very thing for you.’

Eleven

‘Have you got any brown sugar, Miss Barbery?’

‘Sorry, not a chance I’m afraid, Mrs Resterick,’ Lorna Barbery replied, glancing round apologetically at all the relatively empty shelves. Dummy items represented the foods the whole country would love to have back in plenty, but sadly post-war rationing was even tighter than during the duration.

‘Oh, what a shame, but I didn’t really expect any different,’ Dorrie said cheerfully. ‘We’ll have to settle for making rock buns again. Mr Newton must be finding you a godsend, having you to fill in behind the counter when he has a little break. I must say, if you don’t mind, that you’re looking very well and perky today?’

Lorna was of early middle age and clumpy in the body, and normally a flushed and breathless individual, but now she was holding herself up straight and was assertively calm. Villagers gladly remarked there was a pleasant atmosphere in the shop now that acid-tongued ‘old woman Newton’ and taken to her bed. ‘And let’s hope she stays there for a long while, stuck up old cow,’ or something of the like was often added on to the end. Delia had harassed Lorna, belittling her when she was out of earshot. Lorna wore her habitual print apron and tea-coloured, much-darned lisle stockings and thick-heeled brown shoes, her dull thin hair rolled up at the ends and secured with hair grips, yet she looked sparky and younger.

‘Any change in poor Mrs Newton’s condition?’ Dorrie inquired, successfully asking for bicarbonate of soda. ‘I was