Dead Man's Dinner - Una Gordon Page 0,42

school, but her parents refused to let her go off to university and in a way she was quite pleased that they did because she was a bit scared of leaving home. She had done a secretarial course locally, then got a job in the office of a local solicitor who was in fact Graham's uncle. Her life to some would have seemed dull, but she was easily contented. Her parents had not encouraged boyfriends, but when her employer, Frank Baines, had suggested she might like to help entertain his nephew when he came down from London, her parents found it difficult to object and after arming her with many warnings about young men from the big city she was allowed to go to the Baines' home to meet him. She had been a bit nervous, expecting him to find her dull after more sophisticated girls he'd probably met, but, as it turned out, he was a bit dull himself. In fact Rachel had found him a bit of a let down. He was handsome in a bookish sort of way, but he rarely laughed and his score at chitchat rated nil. It hadn't been so bad when they were in the company of the Baines, but later in his visit he had asked her to go walking and trying to make conversation with him took more effort than the cliff walks they went on. When he returned to London after two weeks she almost sighed with relief, but a few months later Mrs Baines wanted to go to London on a shopping trip and suggested taking Rachel with her. Rachel had little ingenuity in inventing excuses not to go especially when her mother fussily said she might offend the Baines if she didn't go. Her mother might not have been so keen to foster the idea of the visit if she could have foreseen the outcome.

Mrs Baines said she wanted a female companion with whom to go shopping and since Graham's mother was dead she had no suitable relation to accompany her. After two days shopping with Mrs Baines, Rachel felt she had been employed as a cart horse to carry parcels and to run errands. She was absolutely exhausted. When Graham had suggested taking her to the theatre she accepted thankfully, eager to escape from Mrs Baines' constant demands.

Graham seemed slightly more at ease on his home territory and the play had given them plenty to talk about over supper later. Rachel, in her simple green dress, was unaware how lovely she was. Hers were the type of looks that did not depend on makeup, but on good bone structure and natural elegance. Neither was aware that Rachel had been brought to London as a suitable match for Graham, his father having a constant fear that he would take up with some undesirable, young woman despite the fact there was no basis for thinking this because Graham's taste in all things was moderate and sensible.

By the end of he two weeks in London Rachel was aware that Mrs Baines was gently pumping her about her opinion of Graham. By this time he had become something of a romantic figure to Rachel, who forgot his dullness in Devon. What Graham thought of her she had no idea and still didn't on her return to Devon. He had asked if he might write to her and Rachel looked forward to his letters as if they were the greatest love letters ever written. She was a romantic at heart and absence did make the heart grow fonder. She didn't realise how lively her own letters were. She had the ability to make the most mundane details seem interesting and Graham eagerly looked forward to the arrival of her letters. Neither was aware that years later it was to be this ability to write so well that was to be Graham's downfall. The small town in which she lived boasted few young men of a suitable age to marry her and any who did were not thought to be suitable by her parents. She knew her parents were over protective. She would never even have hinted that she wanted to get away from them, but sometimes she admitted to herself that this was what she wanted.

It took two years of letter writing and visits before Graham proposed and a further six months to overcome Rachel's mother's objections to her leaving home. Her mother had wailed and moaned as if she were dying