‘Only if you stay and have a drink with me afterwards, then!’ he demanded. ‘There’s a nice bottle of Mateus Rose in the cupboard – or gin and tonic if you prefer it.’
‘Would you like a glass of wine with your meal?’ she asked and without waiting for a reply she jumped up and got the familiar round, flat bottle and two glasses. Pouring one for Richard, she half filled another and sat quietly on the other side of the table, watching him devour her cooking with satisfaction.
Between mouthfuls and sips of wine, he told her of the latest developments in the Brecon case. Then, as he finished the last morsels of pie, he toasted her with a raised glass.
‘That was great, Moira. You’re very kind to me!’
She blushed slightly. ‘You’ve been so kind to me, you and Dr Bray. Taking me on has made such a difference to me. I feel alive again after losing my husband.’
She got up to fetch his trifle and then put the kettle on the Aga to make coffee. When she sat down again, he had refilled both their glasses with the pink wine.
‘I don’t drink much. I’ll be giggling after this,’ she said archly as they again raised their glasses to each other.
They talked about matters other than the business as they waited for the kettle to boil. Moira told him of the factory explosion that had taken her husband from her and the several years of numb despair that followed. Thankfully, her parents were still alive and living in Chepstow, where she was brought up.
‘I don’t think I could have survived without their support,’ she said sadly. ‘But I feel much more alive now that I have Garth House and you nice people to look after every day.’
As she went to make coffee, Richard wondered if one glass of wine was making her open up like this, as normally she was very reticent about her own affairs.
‘Let’s sit in comfort in the staffroom,’ he suggested, picking up the glasses and half-empty bottle. ‘The springs are gone in some of the chairs, but they’re softer than these in the kitchen.’
Moira brought the coffee on a tray, and they sat in the twilight coming through the window that faced up the valley, until she switched on an old table lamp with a faded silk shade that Richard still remembered from the days when he stayed with Aunt Gladys.
Emboldened by a glass or two of wine, Moira cautiously probed into Angela’s background, as even Sian’s talents at worming out gossip had left some blanks.
‘Dr Bray’s gone home to her parents,’ she said. ‘I gather it’s some sort of big farm?’
‘Her father breeds horses and her mother breeds golden retrievers, as I understand. There’s a younger sister as well, but I haven’t heard that she breeds anything!’ he added whimsically.
‘Sounds a very grand family, real Home Counties stuff!’
Richard nodded as he finished his coffee. ‘Her father was a top civil servant, I gather, until he retired at the end of the war and took to horses.’
He leaned across the low table between them and topped up her wine glass. ‘May as well finish this, it won’t keep,’ he said. Moira looked a little apprehensive but made no protest. She was always a neat woman, petite and shapely, but this evening she seemed to have taken more trouble than usual with her appearance. Her glossy black hair shone in the lamplight and she seemed to be more carefully made up. When she took off the white apron she wore for serving the food, Richard saw that she wore a smart blue linen dress, tightly cinched at the waist, with a flared skirt. He had always had an appreciative eye for an attractive woman and thought that Jimmy was quite right when he had commented on the trio in Garth House.
Moira ventured again to bring the conversation around to personalities. ‘I’m surprised that Dr Bray isn’t married, though Sian mentioned that she had been engaged.’
Richard didn’t want to break any of Angela’s confidences – not that he knew all that much himself, though he suspected that Sian knew as much, if not more, than he did.
‘She was, until just before she moved here. Her fiance was a senior detective in Scotland Yard, but it seems it didn’t work out.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Just as my own marriage didn’t work out, I’m afraid.’
Moira’s brown eyes widened. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, doctor! I had heard that you had been married, but I didn’t want to pry.’ She added this with a pang of conscience at being mildly untruthful.
Richard grinned at her. ‘There’s no secret about it. It was one of those impulsive wartime things. She was five years younger than me. I met her in the military hospital in Colombo, where she was a civilian-attached radiographer.’
‘Did you get married in Ceylon?’ asked Moira, seeing in her mind a romantic wedding under a tropical sun, with a handsome major in uniform and a bride with frangipani flowers in her hair.
‘Yes, then the bloody Yanks dropped their atom bomb and I was posted to Malaya when the Japs surrendered. Miriam was left behind for a year, which was a bad start. Then she came to Singapore, but never really liked it.’
He forbore to explain that she had found solace in frequent affairs with a number of expatriates in the Colony, which led to a separation and eventually divorce. Moira couldn’t think of anything useful to say, so she took refuge in sipping her wine, while she wondered if Miriam had been that much younger than Richard.
Thinking that he had better change the subject, he asked if she knew whether Sian had a boyfriend. ‘I suppose I can still call it that at twenty-four,’ he said. ‘I always think it sounds a bit odd applied to mature people.’
Moira smiled, feeling a happiness that Richard sensed, for he beamed back at her. Perhaps it was the Mateus Rose, he thought.
‘Yes, I think there’s a gap in the English language,’ she agreed. ‘There needs to be something between boyfriend and fiance. Perhaps we can invent a word!’ She giggled, not something that she normally did.
‘So is Sian courting, as we used to call it?’ he asked again.
‘She did mention a boy in her biochemistry course in Cardiff, but I don’t know if it’s at all serious. She’s so keen to get on in the world that I doubt she wants to settle down yet.’
They talked on easily for another hour, finishing the wine, though Richard drank the lion’s share. As it got dark outside the window, Moira’s sense of decorum seemed to overcome her desire to stay in this lovely man’s company and she rose from her chair, feeling slightly unsteady.
‘I must go. Whatever would the neighbours think if they knew I was sitting drinking with you in an empty house, doctor?’
He got up and opened the door for her. ‘The only neighbour for quarter of a mile is you, Moira!’ he said cheerfully. ‘And frankly, I don’t give a damn what they think.’
Promising to fetch her tray and dishes in the morning, she was about to say goodnight when Richard went to the hallstand and took Angela’s raincoat and draped it over Moira’s shoulders.
‘It’s dark and chilly out there,’ he said. ‘I’m going to walk you home to see you safe.’
Going down the drive, he put her arm under his, partly because she was tottering a little on her high heels, but also because he wanted a little feminine contact. She kept it there for all the four hundred yards along the main road until they reached her gate, where she released him.
‘Thanks for a lovely meal, Moira – and your company, it’s made my evening,’ he said.
‘Thank you for everything, Dr Pryor, it was lovely. Even for getting me a little tipsy – I feel quite naughty!’
Before he could decide to say anything he might regret, she turned and clipped up the short path to her front door.
They called their goodnights and she vanished to the sound of a yapping welcome from her Yorkie. Richard turned to walk back home and sighed heavily. He enjoyed the company of women, especially such an attractive one as Moira.
‘Perhaps I should have given her a goodnight kiss,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Though she is my cook and secretary. It would complicate matters, wouldn’t it, Richard my lad?’
ELEVEN
The journey to Gloucester from Tintern was just under an hour, and on a fine morning it was a pleasant drive along the north bank of the River Severn. The tide was in and once again promising himself to come down to see the Severn Bore one of these days, Richard Pryor felt contented to be back in Britain after fourteen years in
