Anne Mather - Hell Or High Water

Jarret faced her wearily, irritation giving way to endurance as he regarded her appealing features. ‘When will you learn that I prefer to do my own hunting, house or otherwise,’ he told her steadily, and she plucked wretchedly at his sleeve, unwillingly inciting his sympathy.

‘Won’t you at least consider the suggestion?’ she ventured, encouraged to transfer her hand from his sleeve to his cheek, gazing up at him limpidly. ‘It really is a gem of a place, and Alice wouldn’t be selling at all, if the upkeep of it wasn’t so prohibitive.’

Jarret’s mouth twisted. ‘So what makes you think I needsuch an extravagance?’

‘Darling …’ She reached up to touch his unshaven jaw with her lips. ‘You can afford it, you know you can. And King’s Green is the ideal spot for you to work.’

Jarret put her firmly away from him, and ignoring the wounded look she gave him, walked half resignedly across the room. ‘Where is this place?’ he demanded, massaging the back of his neck with impatient fingers. ‘Is King’s Green a village or a house or what?’

‘It’s a house,’ Margot offered, at once forgoing her pride in her eagerness. ‘Queen Anne, I think. Oh——’ this as he started to protest, ‘—it’s in excellent condition. A little damp in places perhaps, but that can easily be rectified, and it’s in an absolute dream of a setting.’

‘Where?’ Jarret distrusted Margot’s enthusiasm, but her next words allayed his suspicions.

‘A place called Thrushfold in Wiltshire. On the Wiltshire-Dorset borders, actually. Near enough to London to drive up in a matter of hours, but not near enough to attract casual visitors.’

Jarret acknowledged this with a faint inclination of his head. ‘Wiltshire,’ he murmured reflectively. ‘I see.’

‘You’d love it!’ Margot pressed her advantage. ‘It’s got everything—half a dozen bedrooms, two or three reception rooms, and a library! You could work in there. It overlooks the paddock. And the grounds themselves are just big enough to ensure privacy.’

‘How big?’ enquired Jarret dryly, and Margot moved her shoulders in a little offhand gesture.

‘I don’t know exactly,’ she prevaricated. ‘Does it matter? Forty—maybe fifty, I’m not sure. What’s really important——’

‘Forty or fifty what?’ Jarret interrupted her. ‘ Acres? Margot, you must be out of your tiny mind! I’m no land-owner!’

Margot pouted. ‘That doesn’t mean you couldn’t be, darling. I think you’d make a marvellous squire! And King’s Green hasn’t had one of them for—oh, ten years or so.’

‘Let me get this straight.’ Jarret pushed his thumbs into the low belt of his denims. ‘You’re suggesting I buythis—this King’s Green from some—friend of yours?’

‘A school friend, yes. Alice Chase.’

‘And she’s a widow?’

‘Hardly your taste, darling,’ retorted Margot spitefully. ‘She’s twelve stone if she’s an ounce!’

Jarret ignored her. ‘That’s the proposition you came to put to me,’ he continued. ‘That I buy—King’s Green.’

‘Why not?’ Margot was forced to put her maliciousness aside. ‘It is what you’ve been looking for, isn’t it? A place in the country. Somewhere you can work—in peace.’

‘Mmmm.’ Jarret sounded as though he was extremely doubtful.

‘Well, at least come and see it,’ she urged him. ‘There’s no harm in that, is there? I mean, you’re not committed to anything, are you? And I’m sure you’ll be—enchanted, when you see it.’

‘Enchanted?’ Jarret stifled his rather wry humour. ‘Oh, Margot, you don’t know me very well, do you?’

‘Well enough,’ she murmured huskily. ‘But not as well as I’d like.’

Jarret sighed. ‘Look, I guess you thought you were doing me a favour, coming here and letting me know about this place, but—well, I can’t make a decision just like that. I—need to think about it.’

‘Of course.’ She sounded as if she had never doubted it. ‘But you will make up your mind soon, won’t you, darling? I mean, I told Alice I’d let her know within a couple of days.’

‘A couple of days,’ echoed Jarret irritably. ‘Hell, I can’t make that kind of decision in forty-eight hours!’

Margot hesitated. ‘Come and see it,’ she suggested again. ‘It’s only an hour or two’s drive. We could go tonight, and come back tomorrow.’

‘ We? ’

‘Of course, darling. I promised Alice I’d introduce her to you. She’s one of your fans, you know. She has all the books you’ve written.’

‘All three of them?’ mocked Jarret cuttingly.

Margot flushed. ‘Will you come?’

‘I can’t,’ he stated flatly. ‘Not today. It’s out of the question.’

‘Tomorrow, then,’ she persisted, only the tightening of her lips indicating her reaction to the inevitable reasons for his refusal. ‘Jarret, you owe it to yourself——’

Jarret cut her off without preamble. ‘Tomorrow morning,’ he specified abruptly. ‘It’s Friday. We can drive down before lunch and be back in town in time for dinner.’

‘Are you making me an offer?’ Margot probed, but Jarret’s expression was not encouraging.

‘I have work to do,’ he reminded her, and she made a sulky gesture of acceptance.

‘What time tomorrow?’

‘Nine o’clock.’

‘So early!’ Margot was horrified.

‘If I can make it, surely you can,’ he averred dryly. ‘Is it a date?’

‘How could I refuse such a gallant proposition?’ she retorted, showing a little of the humour which had attracted his attention in the first place. ‘All right, darling, nine o’clock it is. Will you pick me up?’

‘Promptly,’ he affirmed, with a bow of his head, and forced to the conclusion that for the present this was all she could expect of him, she put down her glass and moved towards the door.

‘Until tomorrow,’ she murmured, lingering long enough for him to respond if he chose, but Jarret remained where he was.

‘Tomorrow,’ he agreed shortly, and the door closed rather heavily behind her.

With her departure, Jarret breathed a sigh of relief. Then, raking back his hair with aggressive fingers, he went to take one of the narrow cigars he favoured from the carved box on the bookshelves. He was already regretting the impulse he had had to give in to her, and impatience carved its identity across his dark features. Why the hell had he agreed to such a wasted outing? It was only her way of getting him to spend the day with her. Why on earth hadn’t he told her to go to hell, and shut her out of his life once and for all? He shook his head. A country estate was not for him, and she knew it. A house, maybe. That had possibilities. But forty or fifty acres of arable land …

He slumped down into the chair beside the typewriter and propped his head on his hand. What had he done that morning? Two, maybe three pages! He wasn’t even satisfied with what he had written. It was vacuously amateurish, he thought, with savage criticism, ignoring completely the incisive prose which had made a bestseller of his first novel and subsequent successes of his second and third. Nevertheless, the meaningless words and phrases were not Jarret Manning at his best, and the horrible suspicion that he had nothing more to say stirred in his stomach like a corpse in its tomb.

It was useless to pretend he was working at the moment. He was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate, and where once these minor distractions would not have troubled him, lately he was inventing reasons for not sitting down at the typewriter.

Would a change of surroundings help? He suspected it might. Margot had been right when she had said he was too accessible in London, too open to distraction, and maybe for his own good he needed a change. Too many parties, too many drinks, too many late nights … The indictment was endless, and he had no one to blame but himself. He had let the fruits of his success dictate his style of living, and for a writer that was professional suicide. Maybe if he got away from town for a while, he would have time to think. In the clean, unpolluted air of the countryside his brain would reassert itself, and recover from the crippling effects of too little stimulation and too much apathy.