Season Of Mists. Anne Mather

her, as she rummaged in her handbag for their tickets. ‘There may be a bus at half past nine.’

      ‘I’m sure there isn’t——’ Abby was beginning, only to break off abruptly at the sight of the man standing ahead of them at the barrier. Tall and lean, his thin dark face was unmistakable beneath hair that was more black than brown. He had changed. He was older, and perhaps a little broader, but she recognised him instantly, as if his image had been engraved in her thoughts.

      She halted abruptly, and Matthew halted too, gazing at her impatiently. ‘Mum——’

      ‘Just a minute.’ She made the excuse of searching through her bag to give herself more time, but nothing could alter the fact that he was there, and waiting for them.

      Aunt Hannah shouldn’t have done it, she thought frustratedly. She wasn’t prepared, she wasn’t ready. The last thing she had expected was to meet him tonight, and she looked at Matthew anxiously, wondering how he would react to this.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ Matthew was looking at her strangely now, his fair brows drawing together as he identified her consternation. ‘What is it? Don’t you feel well? Mum, it’s nearly nine o’clock. Don’t you want to catch that bus?’

      Abby’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to find words to explain what was about to happen. ‘I—we—we may not need to catch the bus,’ she began, glancing towards the barrier, and Matthew swung round curiously, perplexed as to her reasoning.

      But even as Abby was trying to summon a stumbling explanation, something else happened, something that caused the hammering palpitation of her heart to pause sickeningly for a second, before racing unsteadily on. Piers was smiling at someone, speaking to someone who had emerged from the first class compartments of the train. And that someone was small and feminine, and, despite the mild September evening had a silky fur coat draped about her slim shoulders. Valerie Langton? Abby wondered, trying to control the giddy feeling of faintness that was sweeping over her, and Matthew looked from her to the barrier and then back at her again.

      ‘What is it?’ he demanded, as Abby endeavoured to keep her balance. ‘Mum, what’s going on? Is it that man? What’s he doing here? Do you know him?’

      Abby’s tongue circled her parched lips. ‘I—I thought I did,’ she murmured, realising she had to pull herself together. ‘My, it’s warm tonight, isn’t it?’ She fanned herself nervously. ‘I feel quite hot.’

      ‘You don’t look hot,’ declared Matthew, transferring the suitcase and her holdall to one hand and putting the other through her arm. ‘You don’t have any colour at all,’ he added, beginning to hustle her towards the ticket collector.

      ‘Oh—wait!’ The girl in the fur coat was still at the barrier, handing over her ticket, talking to Piers as she did so. ‘I—there’s no point in hurrying now, Matt. We won’t catch that bus.’

      ‘But you said something about us not needing to catch the bus,’ he exclaimed, his suspicions fully aroused now. ‘Mum, you do know that man, don’t you? Who is it? My father?’

      Abby wished she could have fainted then. It would have been so much easier just to collapse in a graceful heap and allow other people to take responsibility for what might happen. Even Matthew couldn’t ignore her if she lost consciousness at his feet, and anything was better than having to run the risk of Piers turning and seeing her.

      ‘Mum!’ Matthew was speaking to her again, and helplessly she shook her head.

      ‘All right,’ she said, ‘it is your father. But he hasn’t come to meet us, as you can see.’

      Matthew’s expression revealed a conflicting number of emotions in quick succession, and then he turned to gaze at the man by the barrier with wide incredulous eyes.

      Piers was moving away at last, Abby saw with relief. His companion had slipped her arm through his, and a porter had been engaged to carry her two suitcases. No doubt he had his car outside, she thought, trying not to feel bitter. No buses for Miss Langton. A comfortable ride home in the front of Piers’ limousine. Of all the bad luck, she fretted—that Piers should be at the station, tonight of all nights. Poor Matthew! How must he be feeling? Seeing his own father for the first time, and not being able to identify himself!

      She was handing over their tickets to be clipped when Matthew darted away from her. One moment he was there, standing beside her, holding their cases; the next, he had dropped the cases to the ground and was sprinting after Piers and the girl.

      Abby’s initial sense of horror froze any protest she might have made. It was like some awful nightmare. She was powerless to stop him, and with a dry mouth and quivering limbs she could only watch her son catch up with the other two. She saw him touch Piers’s sleeve, she saw him speak to him; and she saw the look of dismay that crossed the girl’s face as she looked incredulously up at the man beside her.

       CHAPTER TWO

      ABBY woke the next morning with a distinct feeling of disorientation. It was the silence that was the most disturbing aspect, the cessation of the sounds she had heard every morning for the past dozen years, and which generally awakened her before her alarm. Now there was no sound but the occasional cooing of the doves from the rooftop, and the argumentative chatter of starlings, quarrelling over the crumbs on the lawn.

      She was at Rothside, she remembered with sudden apprehension. She was lying in her own bed at Ivy Cottage, the bed she had slept in for more than fifteen years, before Piers, and their marriage, had destroyed that life for ever.

      Pushing back the bedcovers, she padded across the floor, her toes curling when they missed the rug and encountered the polished wood. Her window was set under the eaves, and she had to bend her head to look out of it, but the view that met her anxious gaze was as familiar as it had ever been.

      Ivy Cottage was set on the outskirts of the village, but if she turned her head, she could see the green some yards away, and the duckpond, where she used to sail her paper boats. It was not a large village. Apart from the post office and general stores, there were no other shops, and in winter it was not unusual for them to be cut off for days, when the snow was heavy. But it was home to her, much more her home, she realised, than the flat in Greenwich could ever be, and she looked rather wistfully at the grey stone buildings. If only she had never married Piers Roth, she thought, she might still be living here. If, instead of marrying a man not only older, but whose way of life had been so much different from hers, she had married Tristan Oliver, none of this would have happened. She wondered, with a pang, how she might have adapted to being a farmer’s wife. Certainly, Piers’ mother would have said it was more appropriate. She had never wanted Abby to marry her son. She had opposed their relationship in every way she could, and only Piers’ persistence had prevailed. But, as things had turned out, her fears had been vindicated, at least so far as the Roths were concerned.

      Turning from the window, Abby wrapped her arms tightly about her thinly-clad body. She had not wanted to think about the Roths, but after what had happened the night before, she could think of little else. That scene at the station was imprinted on her mind in stark and humiliating detail, and the remembrance of Matthew’s behaviour filled her with both anger and pity.

      It had all been so awful—so embarrassing—so absurdly comical. Not that she had found any of it funny. On the contrary, she had wanted to die a thousand deaths when Piers turned and looked at her with that cold calculating stare. Yet in retrospect, it had had its moments of humour, if any of them had been objective enough to see them.

      But none of them had, of course. Matthew’s impulsive self-introduction had robbed the scene of any amusement, and Abby had the distinct impression that Piers thought she had put him up to it.

      Oh, it had been terrible! Putting up her palms to her hot cheeks, Abby shuddered with revulsion, and unable to stand her own company any longer, she put on her dressing gown and made her way downstairs.