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As Eleanor strained eagerly to study the garden, she tried to imagine how it must once have looked with rows of neatly cultivated vegetables, all healthily free of chemicals, all deliciously organic and wholesomely grown. She remembered her grandmother’s store cupboard with its rows of fruit-packed Kilner jars, the home-made soup she made in the winter.
Upstairs the bedrooms were well proportioned, although the bathrooms were in need of refitting, and the attics, although dusty and dirty, did give the promised view of the grounds.
It was a pity they were shrouded in rain and looked so dismal that even the boys seemed less than enthusiastic at the prospect of exploring them, and since they still had the garage block to look over, a tour of the whole grounds would probably have to wait for another day, Eleanor acknowledged reluctantly as they all trooped back downstairs.
The garages had originally been stables, and comprised a long run of buildings, with an upper storey with steeply sloping eaves and small dormer windows.
‘These would make offices for us,’ Eleanor enthused as she watched Marcus having to bend to avoid bumping his head on one of the low door lintels.
‘For us?’
‘Mmm… You know, I’ve been thinking, Marcus… You know how you already do some work at home; well, if we bought this place, you could work from home two or three days a week. That would cut down the amount of time you would need to spend commuting; and you would have more time to spend at home with us.’ She turned towards him, taking advantage of their privacy—the agent and the boys had gone back downstairs.
‘Last night and this morning…’ She leaned closer to him, resting her head briefly on his shoulder. ‘I was thinking on the way here this morning… it’s been so long since we had time to… to be together like this… to be able to concentrate exclusively on one another. Living here… I want us to be a real family, Marcus, close and supportive of one another. All of us,’ she emphasised.
‘And it isn’t just the time, it’s the privacy as well,’ she added. ‘There’ll be enough space here for all of us. The children will get on so much better if they have their own rooms… their own space, I’m sure of it. I know how much Vanessa resents the fact that Tom and Gavin use her room, and it is very disruptive having to move them out every time she comes to stay. I thought we’d let Vanessa choose her own room. She’s at that difficult, sensitive stage and…’
‘Don’t hope for too much where Vanessa’s concerned,’ Marcus warned her. ‘You can’t bribe her, Nell.’
‘Bribe her?’ Eleanor moved slightly away from him, looking indignantly at him, her face flushing slightly. ‘Is that what you think I’m trying to do… bribe her? I just want to make her feel that she has a real place here with us. I know from my own experience how difficult things can be for a girl of that age. I know how unhappy and miserable it made me when I was growing up, not having a stable home, somewhere that was really mine. Every time I left school to join my parents, they were living somewhere else. I loathed it.’
‘Vanessa isn’t you, Nell,’ Marcus told her. ‘I know how disruptive she can be… but she is only a child, and sometimes I think that you—’
He broke off while Eleanor continued to frown at him.
‘That I what? You can’t stop there, Marcus,’ she told him quietly, her euphoria suddenly vanishing, leaving in its place a sharp, chilly feeling.
She knew how much Marcus hated arguments and scenes, how much he disliked the quarrels and tension which seemed to erupt whenever all three of their children were together. He never interfered, nor favoured his own child above hers, but she was well aware that he was not the kind of man who enjoyed that kind of domestic disturbance.
That Vanessa knew it too and sometimes deliberately provoked her own sons into arguments and quarrels was a suspicion that Eleanor kept to herself.
She was not, she had already decided, going to be the kind of stepmother and second wife who was constantly finding fault with her stepdaughter and constantly demanding the support of the girl’s father against her.
Not that it was always easy; there were times, like last year in Greece, when Vanessa’s attitude towards her had brought her perilously close to the edge of her self-control.
Who would have thought that a teenage girl had the power to make a grown woman feel so vulnerable about herself that she could actually bring her almost to the verge of tears? And yet last year that was exactly what Vanessa had done.
Before Eleanor could take the subject any further Gavin and Tom came rushing up the stairs, bursting into the room, Tom demanding excitedly, ‘If we come to live here, can we have a puppy?’
She was so relieved to see their enthusiasm that Eleanor responded immediately without thinking, ‘Yes, of course you can.’
As she turned around, she saw that Marcus was shaking his head.
‘Vanessa is allergic to dogs,’ he reminded her tersely.
Immediately Eleanor felt guilty. Of course she was. Why on earth hadn’t she remembered that?
Quickly she corrected herself, explaining to Tom that it would be impossible for them to have a dog inside the house because it would make Vanessa sick, but to her dismay, instead of accepting her explanation, Tom kicked moodily at the floor and demanded accusingly, ‘Why is it that she can always have what she wants and we never can? She always gets what she wants,’ he added sullenly. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘Tom, that isn’t true,’ Eleanor protested.
‘Yes, it is. Otherwise we wouldn’t have to move out of our bedroom every time she comes to stay.’
‘Tom, you know that that room was Vanessa’s and you know why you have to sleep in the attic when she comes to stay. But it won’t be for much longer. When we move here, you’ll be able to have your own room.’
‘I don’t want my own room. I want a puppy.’
‘Time we left, I think,’ Eleanor said wryly to Marcus, but instead of returning her slight smile he had turned his head away and was looking through the window.
