Past All Forgetting (11 page)

Rian's face, dark and jeering, seemed to hang before her in the darkness, and she turned over on to her stomach, burying her face in the pillow and shutting the picture of him away from her.

It was thanks to him that this image of herself as a cool, rather frigid young woman had become the accepted one. Terrified at the dark byways into which her emotions had led her, she had clamped down on all that was young and warm and generous within her, subjecting it to the strictest discipline. With Colin, she thought, these restraints could be allowed to disappear in time. In loving him completely, there could be no harm.

It was disturbing to find how readily he accepted her coldness, how swiftly he had categorised her as a 'decent girl' who could not be expected to understand passion's bewitchment. He did not know her at all, she thought be, and when he did encounter the reality, might it not offend him? When they were married would he expect and be content with exactly the same cool passivity she had exhibited up to now? Was she going to be forced to carry this self-imposed deception throughout her entire life?

Oh, dear God; no, she thought. That couldn't be all Colin wanted—a dutiful wife, a gracious hostess and an intelligent mother for his children. Surely he wanted all of her—the reality along with the image.

She was almost glad when the weekend passed and school faced her again.

On Monday morning, she stood frowningly in her slip in front of her wardrobe, trying to decide what to wear. It didn't usually cause her such heart-searchings, she thought irritably, and bit her lip as she realised what this implied. With set lips, she seized her oldest skirt and zipped it up. She was furious with herself, aware now why she had hesitated so long. She knew that Rian would be at the school that morning to bring his child for her first day there.

My God, she thought savagely, I really let his cracks about my appearance get to me.

The skirt and the ancient sweater she teamed with it were an act of defiance intended for him alone, which she could not explain to her mother, who clucked reprovingly as Janna sat down at the breakfast table.

'That jumper's only fit for a jumble sale,' she declared.

'What were you thinking of this morning, Janna?'

'I haven't time to change now.' Janna spread a piece of toast with butter and marmalade and bit into it.

'Nonsense,' her mother said energetically. 'I'll go and look something out for you while you're finishing breakfast.'

'No, Mother.' Janna restrained her. 'These things are fine. I—I'm going to let the children paint this afternoon, and you know what a mess they make. Old clothes are safest. I should hate to ruin anything decent.'

Mrs Prentiss looked anything but satisfied, but she subsided.

Janna gulped down her coffee, said goodbye to her mother and set out to walk to school. The mists and rain of the half-term holiday had cleared, and the morning was bright and sharp with frost.

In spite of her inner turmoil, Janna felt a glow of well-being as she turned in through the school gates. No one could be totally depressed on a morning like this, she thought, relishing the pale washed blue of the sky through the delicate tracery of the bare branches of the trees.

Her footsteps faltered slightly when she recognised Rian's car. She hung around in the staff cloakroom, hoping that if she delayed long enough she would avoid a confrontation with him. But she was disappointed. When she eventually emerged, just before the assembly bell was due to ring, Vivien was waiting for her in the staffroom.

'Mrs Parsons would like to see you,' she said cheerfully. 'She has your new pupil with her.'

The headmistress's small room was warm with sunlight and the scent from a big vase of chrysanthemums when Janna entered. At her entrance Rian uncoiled himself from one of the two easy chairs that faced Mrs Parsons' desk and stood up. The deliberate act of courtesy was a pin-prick in itself, Janna knew, and she sent him a fulminating glance, uncaring whether Mrs Parsons observed it or not.

But Mrs Parsons was busy with the hundred and one items that occupy a headmistress on the first day back after any length of holiday. In between two phone calls, she managed to introduce Janna to Fleur, who was sitting perched primly on the edge of the other chair, and suggest she took both the child and Mr Tempest along to the classroom to show them round.

This was most unusual, Janna knew. Normally parents were gently discouraged from following their chicks to the classroom, as it was felt the children would settle better in their absence.

True, Fleur did not seem altogether disturbed by the situation, Janna thought as she preceded them rather stiffly along the corridor. She had a charming, gamine face, and slanting dark eyes that observed this new world in which she found herself with interest but without alarm. It was unusual to encounter such self-possession in such a young child, Janna thought.

Rian looked round the room with its groups of tables and chairs, its walls with gay displays of the children's own work painstakingly presented, and attractively set out library corner, with an enigmatic expression. Janna was unable to assess whether he approved or disapproved, and Fleur was equally impassive.

She calmly assented when Janna suggested where she might like to sit, and returned the stares and greetings of the other children quietly, and without any marked enthusiasm.

Janna turned to Rian. 'I'm sure she'll settle in,' she remarked, hideously conscious that her voice sounded forced and artificial and quite unlike her normal tones.

'I've no great worries on that score,' he returned equably. 'She's an adaptable kid. She's had to be.'

'I'm sure she has,' Janna said with more than a touch of acidity, and thanked her stars inwardly when the bell rang.

'I have to take the children to assembly now. Can you find your own way back to the entrance Mr—er—Tempest?'

'Undoubtedly, Miss—er—Prentiss. But I'm not leaving yet. Mrs Parsons has very kindly invited me to stay for assembly and see what happens.'

Janna nearly choked. This was an unheard of thing, again. What could Mrs Parsons have been thinking of? she wondered desperately.

She was only too aware of his mocking gaze as she marshalled the children into a line and set them off walking fairly sedately towards the school hall. As she made to follow them, he detained her with a hand on her arm. She gave him an outraged look and tore her arm free.

His grin was pure malice. 'Don't flatter yourself, my sweet. Have you looked in the mirror today? The drab spinster disguise is well nigh perfect. Is it in my honour?'

'I think it's you who flatter yourself,' she said in her most wintry tone, turning to follow the line of children before it disappeared round the corner of the corridor to the hall. 'I dress to please myself—no one else.

'If your present garb pleases you, then your taste is deplorable.' He began to walk down the corridor beside her. 'Once you caught a man's eye, Janna. Now you'd stick in his throat.'

'I don't have to put up with your insults,' she said angrily, but there was pain too, mingling with the anger.

He gave her an ironic glance as he pushed open the swing doors into the hall to allow her to pass through before him.

'I think you do,' he said silkily.

Fortunately, he did not' stand anywhere near her during assembly. From her place at the end of the row of children, she could see Fleur, her vivid little face turning constantly as she assimilated these new surroundings and happenings.

Janna felt an odd constriction in her heart as she studied the child. What kind of a life could it be for her, she wondered, dragged from pillar to post in the wake of a restless spirit like Rian's? And how did she feel about this separation from her mother? From today's showing, Rian seemed to have assumed total responsibility for the little girl. If she hadn't good and sufficient cause to hate him already, then his casual remark about Fleur's adaptability would have been enough, she thought. Any child, but especially one who had apparently spent her earliest years in the war-torn inferno of Vietnam, needed security and stability.

Perhaps Rian intended to provide this now. Maybe this was why he had come home to this small grey market town nestling in the slopes of the Pennines, but was this the right setting for Fleur? Could the little girl be happy in an environment so totally alien to everything she had been used to?

As she returned to the classroom with the children when assembly was over, she glanced round furtively, but Rian was nowhere to be seen. In this topsy-turvy day, it wouldn't have come wholly as a surprise if Mrs Parsons hadn't invited him to sit in on her classes for the rest of the morning, she thought, seething.

Once back in her room, she closed the door on the world and her problems and devoted her mind and energies to the children. While the other children worked and whispered in their groups, she gave Fleur a reading test, discovering that the child had an extensive vocabulary, although her fluency in stringing words together was poor. At the end of the test, she spoke encouragingly to Fleur, telling her she. had done well, and added a few words in French. She was rewarded by a flood of eager words in the same language, far too fast for her to follow, as she was laughingly forced to admit. Fleur looked disappointed but resigned, and Janna guessed she must be getting used to this reaction in this cold grey country which was now her home.

Although she was not on playground duty, she kept a wary eye open out of the staff room window when playtime came to see how the other children reacted to this stranger in their midst. Fleur was engaged in a game of hopscotch with the girls at her work-table, but watching her across the expanse of tarmacadam, Janna got the oddest feeling that although she was joining in the game, Fleur would have been just as happy on her own. She had none of that eagerness to be accepted that so often marked newcomers to the school. She accepted the other children's overtures, but if they had not been made, she would have been equally unconcerned Janna thought, puzzled. Yet it was impossible to feel sorry for her. She gave an inward sigh, and turned her attention back to Beth, who had spent a few days in London during the holiday and was eager to regale her with the details, including a visit to the Festival Hall.

During the afternoon break, someone remarked how the first day after the holidays always dragged, but Janna could not join in the general chorus of agreement. She felt the day had flown by, after the awkwardness of its beginning. After the promised painting session, she was glad to have an excuse to stay behind in the classroom and finish clearing up. Rian Tempest would almost certainly be collecting his daughter from school, and she wanted to keep out of his way as much as possible. She was terrified that he would make some excuse to seek her out. He seemed to have Mrs Parsons' permission to come and go as he pleased in the school, she thought crossly. But the only masculine footsteps to pass her door were those of the caretaker, Mr Reynolds, and when she left the school a quick glance around assured her that Rian's car was nowhere in sight. She breathed a quick sigh of relief and hurried home.

Her mother had a neatly laid tea tray waiting
for
her in the sitting room, and the house was full of baking smells and the promise of a casserole. Janna sniffed appreciatively as she sank down on the sofa and accepted the steaming cup her mother handed to her.

'Thanks, Mummy.' She pointed with mock-dismay to a vivid splash of yellow at the side of her skirt, the result of a piece of short-lived action painting by one of the boys. 'See what I meant about old clothes?'

Mrs Prentiss' reply was noncommittal as if her thoughts were elsewhere, and Janna gave her a surprised glance. But the explanation was soon forthcoming.

Mrs Prentiss set her untasted cup back on the tray and said quietly, 'You didn't tell me you were getting a new pupil, Janna.'

Janna felt herself flush involuntarily, and kicked herself.

'It—it didn't seem important,' she improvised desperately, but her mother swept that aside with a wave of her hand.

'Not important that it's Rian Tempest's illegitimate child —and a little Eurasian girl at that?' Her voice was full of reproach.

'Who told you that?' Janna was frankly amazed.

'Deirdre Morris. She called round this afternoon. Said that Beth had talked of nothing else last weekend, and was surprised that you hadn't thought it worth mentioning.'

'I see,' Janna said grimly. She was only too well acquainted with Beth's mother, an inveterate gossip. And she had not realised that Fleur's family history was so generally known in the staffroom. She'd had the impression from Vivien that Mrs Parsons wanted the whole thing treated in confidence. Now, it seemed, it was among the titbits to be passed on by Carrisford's most indefatigable newshound.

She put her own cup down with a faint feeling of nausea.

'I suppose I might have known that the faintest breath of scandal would bring Mrs Morris sniffing round,' she said coldly.

Mrs Prentiss sighed. 'Nine times out of ten, I would agree with you,' she said. 'But, Janna, even you can't deny that it's the Tempest name involved here, and that's what makes it so—interesting.' She shook her head. 'I'm only glad poor Mrs Tempest isn't still alive to see what her precious nephew has made of his life. She had such a strong sense of family pride, and what was due to it. And the Colonel even more so.'

Janna hesitated. 'Colonel Tempest is dead too,' she said. 'And—and Rian has bought Carrisbeck House, it seems. He's going to settle here.'

Mrs Prentiss digested this further piece of information in silence for a moment.

Eventually, she said, 'Well, it seems to show a blatant lack of concern for other people's feelings to me. This isn't a big, sophisticated city where one's peccadilloes are viewed with tolerance. It's a small old-fashioned place—yes, a backwater if you like, where people still care about things like morality. I know you thought the Tempests were stuffy, Janna, although heaven knows they were always very kind to you, but the fact remains they were held in very great esteem here, and Rian's behaviour will be viewed by many people as an insult to their memory.'