A Professional Marriage. Jessica Steele

home, to rail against the man she had married, Chesnie had soon known that she wanted no part in marriage. She had attended college most evenings, doing most of her studying at the weekends. She had not lacked for potential boyfriends, however, and occasionally had gone out on a date with either someone she had known previously or had met at college. On occasions, too, she had experimented with a little kissing, but as soon as things had looked like getting serious she’d put up barriers.

      She’d become aware she had started to get a reputation for being aloof. It had not bothered her—nor had it seemed to stop men asking her for a date.

      Chesnie had been working in an office for two years when her studies came to an end. She’d taken more courses, and done more study, and two years later had been ready to take a better-paid job. She’d changed firms and begun work as a secretary and she’d been good at it.

      What she had not been so good at was handling the traumatic friction that seemed to be a constant feature in her family home. She’d told herself she was being over-sensitive and that everyone had their ups and downs. The only trouble was that in her fraught home, the animosity was permanent.

      Having been brought up to be self-sufficient, she had thought often of leaving and had soon felt she could just about afford a bedsit somewhere. Only the knowledge that her mother would be furious should she leave her commodious and graceful home for some lowly bedsit had stopped her.

      Matters had come to a head one weekend, however, when all three weeping sisters, and crying babies, had descended. From where Chesnie had viewed it, each sister had been trying to outdo the other with reports of what a rotten husband her spouse was.

      When Chesnie had felt her sympathy for the trio turning into a feeling of weariness with all three of them, she’d gone out into the garden and found her father inspecting his roses.

      ‘You came to escape the bedlam too?’ he asked wryly.

      ‘Dad, I’m thinking of moving out.’ The words she hadn’t rehearsed came blurting from her.

      ‘I think I’ll come with you,’ he replied. But, glancing at her to see if she was smiling at his quip, he saw that she wasn’t. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ he asked.

      The words were out; she couldn’t retract them. ‘I’ve been thinking of it for some while. I’m sure I could manage a small bedsit, and…’

      ‘You’d better make that a small flat, and in a good area, if you want me to have any peace.’

      Two days later her mother sought her out. ‘Your father tells me your home isn’t good enough for you any more.’

      Chesnie knew that she loved her mother—just as she knew the futility of arguing with her. ‘I’d like to be—more—independent,’ she replied quietly.

      Ten days after that, and much to her astonishment, her mother told her she had found somewhere for her. Chesnie was so overjoyed that her mother, having slept on it, had decided to aid her rather than make life difficult, that she closed her eyes to the fact that the rent of the flat was far more than she could afford.

      Furnishing the flat was no problem. What with bits and pieces from her parents and her grandparents, and with her restless sister Nerissa always changing her home around and getting rid of some item of furniture or other, Chesnie soon made her small flat very comfortable.

      She had been resident for two months, though, when she had to face up to the reality that she just couldn’t afford to be that independent. Her mother would be horrified if she went downmarket and found herself a bedsit. And from Chesnie’s point of view she would be horrified herself if she had to give up the peace and quiet she had found to return to her old home.

      When Browning Enterprises advertised for a senior secretary she applied for the job, and got it. It paid more, and she earned it when she started taking on more and more responsibility. The only fly in the ointment was Lionel Browning’s son. But Hector Browing had his own business, and apart from visits to his father, usually when Hector’s finances needed a cash injection, Chesnie saw little of him. She was aware that he resented her, but could think of no reason for his dislike other than the fact that he knew that she knew he was as near broke as made no difference.

      She was happy living in a place of her own, but since she lived in the same town as her parents she popped in to see them every two or three weeks—and always came away glad she had made the decision to leave.

      Then, a year later, her paternal grandmother died, and after months of living in a kind of vacuum her grandfather sold his home in Herefordshire and, with her parents having ample room, moved in with them.

      Chesnie adored her grandfather. She seemed to have a special affinity with him, and had feared from the beginning that life with her bickering parents would not suit her peace-loving Gramps. She took to ‘popping in’ to her old home more frequently.

      She knew he looked forward to her visits, and knew when he suggested he teach her to drive that he was looking for excuses to get out of the house.

      She and her grandfather spent many pleasant Saturday afternoons together, and when she passed her driving test she took to taking him for a drive somewhere. Three months ago she had driven him across country to Herefordshire, and to the village where he had lived prior to moving in with her parents.

      Six days later she had arrived home from her office to find her grandfather sitting outside her flat in his car. ‘I’m not such a good cook as my mother, but you’re welcome to come to dinner,’ she invited lightly, watching him, knowing from the fact of him being there as much from the excited light in his eyes that something a touch monumental was going on.

      Over macaroni cheese and salad he told her he had noticed a ‘To Let’ sign in the garden of a small cottage on their visit to his home village last Saturday. He hadn’t phoned the agent because, knowing the owner, he had phoned him instead. The result being the tenancy was his straight away on a temporary let while he waited for something in the village to come up for sale.

      What could she say? ‘It’s what you want, Gramps?’ she asked quietly.

      ‘I should never have left,’ he answered simply, and she could only think, since he had never parted with his furniture but had put it in store, that perhaps without knowing it he had always meant to return.

      ‘What do my parents think?’

      A wicked light she hadn’t seen in a long while entered his eyes. ‘Your father’s all right about it—er—your mother’s taken it personally.’

      Chesnie knew all about her mother taking it ‘personally’—she would go on and on about it, and Chesnie suspected he would want to move out sooner rather than later. ‘When are you leaving?’ she asked.

      ‘I was wondering if you’re free to drive me there tomorrow?’ he asked, looking positively cheeky.

      He had got everything arranged so quickly! She had to grin. ‘I’d love to,’ she answered, and was thinking in terms of availability of trains for the return trip when her grandfather seemed to read her mind.

      ‘You wouldn’t care to look after my car for me, would you? I’ll seldom need it, and it will only be until I can find a property in the village with a garage. There isn’t one at the cottage.’

      That had been three months ago. Chesnie missed her grandfather but had driven to see him several times. When, six weeks ago, Hector Browning had accused her of having an affair with his father she had known she couldn’t possibly work at Browning Enterprises any longer.

      Knowing she was going to part company with Lionel Browning, and having just received a letter asking her to vacate her flat, it had been decision time. She needed somewhere new to live and work; she could do both anywhere.

      When Chesnie had seen the advert for the PA’s job at Yeatman Trading, and subsequently passed the first and second interviews, she’d crossed her fingers and hoped…

      She still had a wide grin on her face when she drove up