As they all did, Isabella had many affectionate memories of thebig-hearted woman who had presided over the kitchen here at Island House for as long as she could remember. Sadly, she had died peacefully in her sleep two years ago.
‘Mrs Collings is all right,’ said Edmund, indicating everyone should sit down, ‘her curmudgeonly manner is merely an act. She’s a pussycat really. You just have to know how to handle her.’
Hope rolled her eyes. ‘And you would know all about handling women, wouldn’t you? You have every woman in the village of a certain age at your beck and call.’
‘Not quiteeverywoman,’ replied Edmund lightly. As light as his voice was, Isabella caught the frown on his face. They were quite used to Hope’s occasional bouts of crabbiness, but her remark, along with a couple made last night during dinner, seemed unusually sharp. Perhaps she was working too hard. That was the excuse they all used for Hope when she became tetchy.
Isabella clearly wasn’t alone in thinking Hope had been unnecessarily unkind to Edmund, because the room had gone deathly quiet. It was as if nobody knew what to say. In the awkward silence, Mrs Collings bustled back in with the requested pot of mustard. Edmund thanked her and she huffed her way out again as though she had just been forced to tramp across the Himalayas.
Hope issued another tut, but before she could say anything, Edmund said, ‘It’s lovely to have you girls home for the weekend. We don’t see enough of you these days. Not nearly enough.’
‘Oh, please don’t make me feel any worse than I already feel,’ said Annelise. ‘This term’s just been so busy. I would have come home if I’d been able to.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Edmund, don’t nag the poor girl; you said much the same thing last night. She has her own life to lead in Oxford.’
‘I’m not nagging anyone. I wouldn’t dream of it.’
Once more Isabella saw the frown crease Edmund’s brow. Something was going on. Had Hope and Edmund had a row?
Ignoring her husband, and while they all began helping themselves from the dishes, Hope turned to Stanley. In a classic example of there being no such thing as a free lunch, Hope had invited him to join them so that she could go over some detail or other about the new house.
Observing Stanley across the table, Isabella acknowledged that longer hair suited him, as did the blackpolo-neck sweater he was wearing. There was a markedly more urbane air about him these days. She wondered if Annelise had noticed it. Possibly not. It was obvious to Isabella that Stanley worshipped the ground Annelise walked on, but Annelise being Annelise, she was completely blind to it.
The conversation around the table had now moved on to America and the Soviets battling it out over Cuba. Isabella took the view that if the world was about to end, she would make damned sure she enjoyed her last days on earth. Trying to lighten the mood again, and interrupting Hope, she asked Stanley if he was taking anyone to the party at Meadow Lodge that evening.
He looked uncomfortable at her question. ‘No,’ he replied, his eyes downcast, lost behind his fringe.
‘Well, you are now, you can escort Annelise and me.’
‘Isabella!’ remonstrated Annelise. ‘You can’t railroad him like that. Now he’ll feel obliged. And anyway, I’m quite capable of attending a party unaccompanied.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, I haven’t railroaded anyone. Do you feel obliged, Stanley?’
He looked uneasy. ‘If Annelise would rather I didn’t take her,’ he said, ‘I’d quite understand.’
‘Why did you have to make me look so ungracious?’ Annelise demanded when lunch was over and she followed Isabella upstairs to what had been her old bedroom before she went to live with Elijah. Downstairs Hope was still bending Stanley’s ear, and Edmund had returned to his surgery.
‘I think you’ll find you did that all by yourself,’ said Isabella. ‘Honestly, why did you have to be so churlish? I was just trying to make lunch a bit jollier. What’s going on between Hope and Edmund?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Goodness, Annelise, for such an intelligent girl you can be remarkably obtuse. Hope keeps sniping at Edmund. She did it last night too.’
‘You know what Mums is like when she’s under pressure; she gets all cranky. As soon as she’s finished this latest book she’ll calm down. She’s a perfectionist, that’s the trouble.’
‘No,’ said Isabella, joining Annelise at the window where she was looking down at the garden, ‘the real trouble is, she doesn’t know how to relax. When was the last time she cleared her diary long enough to go on holiday with Edmund? Or even go to the theatre for that matter? She does nothing but work. It’s like a drug for her. An obsession.’
‘It’s her passion. It always has been. I would have thought you of all people would understand that.’
‘Of course I’m passionate about what I do, but I still want to have fun in my life. Otherwise what’s the point? And you know what, Romily used to have fun too, but I’ve noticed lately that work dominates everything she does. Look how she was meant to be home this weekend for the party, but she’s allowed work to keep her there in America.’
‘We don’t know that it’s work.’
‘What else could it be?’
‘Even if it is, you and I would have done the same. It’s called seizing an opportunity. As women we have to work that much harder in our chosen professions to get where we want to be.’
Isabella hated it when Annelise was right, but unable to let her have the last word, she said, ‘And where do you want to be, Annelise, in, let’s say, five years’ time?’
