The Hidden Years Read Online Free Page B

but David had been dead for
over fifteen years, and, as far as she knew, in all that time there had
never been another man in Faye's life.
    Why did she choose to live like that? In another woman,
Sage might have taken it as a sign that her marriage held so many bad
memories that any kind of intimate relationship was anathema to her,
but she knew how happy David and Faye had been, so why did Faye choose
to immure herself here in this quiet backwater with only her
mother-in-law and her daughter for company? Sage studied her
sister-in-law covertly.
    Outwardly, Faye always appeared calm and
controlled—not in the same powerful way as her mother, Sage
recognised. Faye's self-control was more like a shield behind which she
hid from the world. Now the soft blue eyes flickered nervously, the
blonde hair which, during the days of her marriage, she had worn
flowing free drawn back off her face into a classic chignon, her eyes
and mouth touched with just the merest concession to make-up. Faye was
a beautiful woman who always contrived to look plain and, watching her,
it occurred to Sage to wonder why. Or was her curiosity about Faye
simply a way of putting off what she had come here to do?
    Now, with both Faye and Camilla watching her anxiously,
Sage found herself striving to reassure them as she told them firmly,
'Knowing Mother, she probably wants us to read them because she thinks
whatever she's written in them will help us to run things properly
while she's recovering.'
    Faye gave her a quick frown. 'But Henry's in charge of the
mill, and Harry still keeps an eye on the flock, even though his
grandson's officially taken over.'
    'Who's going to chair the meeting of the action group
against the new road, if Gran isn't well enough?' Camilla put in,
making Sage's frown deepen.
    'What road?' she demanded.
    'They're planning to route a section of the new motorway
to the west of the village,' Faye told her. 'It will go right through
the home farm lands, and within yards of this side of the village. Your
mother's been organising an action group to protest against it. She's
been working on finding a feasible alternative route. We had a
preliminary meeting of the action group two weeks ago. Of course, they
elected your mother as chairperson…'
    The feelings of outrage and anger she experienced were
surely wholly at odds with her feelings towards Cottingdean and the
village, Sage acknowledged. She'd been only too glad to escape from the
place, so why did she feel this fierce, protective swell of anger that
anyone should dare to destroy it to build a new road?
    'What on earth are we going to do without her?' Faye
demanded in distress.
    For a moment she seemed close to tears, and Sage was
relieved when the door opened and her mother's housekeeper came in with
the tea-trolley.
    Afternoon tea was an institution at Cottingdean, and one
which had begun when her parents had first come to the house. Her
father, an invalid even in those days, had never had a good appetite,
and so her mother had started this tradition of afternoon tea, trying
to tempt him to eat.
    Jenny and Charles Openshaw had worked for her mother for
over five years as her housekeeper and gardener-cum-chauffeur, a
pleasant Northern couple in their mid-fifties. It had been Charles's
unexpected redundancy which had prompted them to pool their skills and
to look for a job as a 'live-in couple'.
    Charles's redundancy money had been used to purchase a
small villa in the Canaries. They had bought wisely on a small and very
strictly controlled development and, until they retired, the villa was
to be let through an agency, bringing them in a small extra income.
    Sage liked them both very much; brisk and uncompromising
in their outlook, they had nothing servile or over-deferential in their
manner. Their attitude to their work was strictly
professional—they were valued members of the household,
treated by her mother, as they had every right to be, with the same
respect for their skills as