searchlight-bright blue gaze rested on me in a way that would probably have totally disconcerted me, had I not had a grandfather like Grumps.
‘Gregory Lyon’s granddaughter? We have already met, I think – briefly.’
‘Hello, Miss Winter,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Isn’t it a lovely day for March?’
‘I expected nothing less,’ she stated, then turned on her heel and strode off, the greenish tweed of her cape blending with the shrubbery. I’d have liked to have known what she had in the cloth-covered basket over her arm, because it was moving.
Back at the stables, while Poppy was still fussing over Honeybun, her mum, Janey, cornered me in the tack-room.
Though you wouldn’t think it, she was a lot closer to sixty than fifty, like Mags and my missing mother, Lou, and slim and attractive in a haggard sort of way. She was wearing buff-coloured, skin-tight breeches and a checked shirt unbuttoned to just south of decent. Her hair is golden, rather than sandy like Poppy’s, and although her eyebrows and lashes might once have been pale, she kept them tinted dark brown. I wished Poppy would, because it would take away that permanently startled look.
And it was Poppy she wanted to talk about, which made me feel a bit uncomfortable because since she’s my best friend I felt I couldn’t really discuss her, even with her mother. So mostly I just listened while Janey chain-smoked in an edgy sort of way, and told me how she wished Poppy could find a decent man.
‘She’s the marrying-and-settling-down-with-a-family kind, but she’s never going to find someone if she doesn’t bother more about clothes and makeup, or listen to any of my advice, is she?’
‘She’s been going on quite a few dates lately, through the dating column in The Times,’ I said defensively, though two hardly counts as a lot.
Janey shrugged. ‘If she has, I bet she’s never been out twice with the same man. They don’t ask her again, do they?’
‘One of them did, but it turned out he was interested in the wrong sort of outdoor pursuits. Still, you have to get out there and look, if you want a partner, don’t you?’
‘I’m not convinced that the sort of man she needs puts adverts in newspapers,’ Janey said, flicking ash about in a way you really shouldn’t do in riding stables. I only hoped their insurance was fully up to date and entirely comprehensive.
‘Perhaps not, but it’s going to work out OK: I’ve read the Angel cards and Zillah read both the Tarot and the leaves for her the other day, and they all say that she’ll find love closer, and sooner, than she thinks.’
Janey looked at me through a haze of smoke. ‘Then I only hope it isn’t one of my ex-boyfriends, because I don’t think any of them are her type.’
‘I’m sure it won’t be. Poppy couldn’t possibly go out with a man that you had gone out with. She would find it really weird.’ And since most of the eligible men in the neighbourhood were Janey’s cast-offs, it materially had to lessen her chances of ever finding someone.
‘Would she?’ She gazed at me rather blankly. ‘I don’t know why it is, Chloe, but I feel sort of guilty that she hasn’t found anyone. I mean, I’ve always been nice when she’s brought a boyfriend home in the past, haven’t I?’
Too nice, that had been the problem! Twice when she was younger Poppy had found some pleasant and innocuous boy who seemed to be on the same wavelength, but they always completely lost interest once they came within Janey’s orbit.
‘I don’t think I’ve been a terribly good mother, on the whole,’ Janey confessed, viciously grinding the cigarette stub out under one booted heel.
I was surprised by this rare moment of introspection. None of the former Wilde’s Women were prone to look at their innermost deep feelings, even supposing they had any. I’m pretty sure my mother didn’t.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Janey – at least you were always around when Poppy needed you, which was more than Mags or Lou managed. And she had ponies and birthday parties, and you let us camp in the paddock and have midnight feasts and things like that, a bit like the children in an Enid Blyton novel.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks, Chloe, I hadn’t thought of it like that.’
‘I suppose you don’t want to tell me where Mum has got to, do you?’ I asked hopefully, thinking I would try my luck while she seemed to be in an unusually forthcoming mood.
But a shutter seemed to come down. ‘Me? Why should you think I would know?’
‘Because I’m sure Mags does and when one of you knows something, you all know it. Only she won’t say either, although I suspect it’s Goa.’
She neither confirmed nor denied this, simply changed the subject back. ‘Do you know what the cards meant about Poppy?’
‘I’m starting to have an inkling, but we’ll have to wait and see if I’m right.’
Now I could see that Poppy and Felix were made for each other, I only wondered why I hadn’t spotted it before. The only problem was making the two of them look at each other with fresh eyes…
I’d have to work on it.
That evening Chas Wilde phoned up again, this time to say he would be in the north soon and would like to pop in for a quick visit.
‘It’s ages since I’ve seen you, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘How are you settling into your new home?’
‘Oh, I love it,’ I said abstractedly, then on a sudden impulse took the plunge and added, ‘and I’m glad you rang, because there’s something I want to talk to you about.’
‘That sounds ominous!’ he replied cautiously.
‘No, not really, though it is difficult. You see, when I was packing up to move, I found some of Mum’s old letters.’
He sighed. ‘I think I can guess what you want to talk about, then, and it’s long overdue, after all. You want to know how your mother and I…came together?’
‘Not exactly. Knowing Mum, I can imagine. I also know she got pregnant with me on purpose, as a sort of insurance policy after Wilde’s Women disbanded, because she told me so.’
‘She would. But I did a wrong thing in a weak moment and I had to pay for it, though I never grudged one penny I gave her to support you, Chloe,’ he said sincerely.
‘I know that,’ I answered, because Chas is a kind, decent man, weak moment or not. ‘But the thing is, I’ve discovered that she also told another man that he was my father too, so you might have spent eighteen years paying out for a child that wasn’t your own!’
In the long silence that followed I could hear my heart thumping. ‘Chas? Are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’m here. Look, Chloe, the thought that you might not be mine had crossed my mind from time to time – you look nothing like me, for a start. But as I said, I made a mistake and so it was right that I should pay for it. Anyway, I’ve grown fond of you – you feel like my daughter.’
‘And I’m fond of you too – which makes it all the harder not knowing for sure what the truth is!’
‘Well, we could find out with a DNA test, if it matters to you?’ he suggested. ‘I could organise that.’
‘Would you? It would be something to know one way or another. And if you aren’t, then I’ll have to assume it’s this other man, though I suppose she could have been lying to him too!’
‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we? And we’ll hope the test is positive. I’ll see about it and I expect you’ll have to send a swab or a hair sample or something off to a lab in the post. I’ll let you know.’
‘Thank you, Chas, and for being so understanding