“What about Annabelle? How does she feel about Charlotte?”
“She doesn’t want her either, and even if she did, I don’t think Leslie Collis would let her have the child. Call it sour grapes if you will, but it’s the best thing that could happen to Charlotte.”
“Why?”
“Because, my darling Prue, if Leslie Collis doesn’t want Charlotte and neither does Annabelle, then the way is clear for me to adopt her as my own.”
I sat still as stone, staring at him in incredulous disbelief.
“But they won’t let you.”
“Why not?”
“You’re not married.”
“The law has changed. Now a single person is allowed to adopt. It takes longer to get through the courts; there’s obviously a bit more red tape to be cut, but it is eventually perfectly possible. Provided, of course, that Annabelle agrees to it, and I honestly don’t see why she shouldn’t.”
“But you haven’t got a house. You haven’t got anywhere to live.”
“Yes I have. Lewis Falcon is off to the south of France to work there for a couple of years, and he said he’d rent me his house at Lanyon and the studio if I wanted them. So I’ll be around. I don’t suppose I’d be able to have Charlotte to live with me until the adoption is through the courts, but I’m hoping that Phoebe might be able to continue as her official foster mother until then.”
“It sounds … Oh, Daniel, it sounds too good to be true.”
“I know. And as I said, the extraordinary thing was that by the end of all this, it was almost as though Leslie Collis and I had made friends. We seemed to understand each other. Finally we went out to lunch together, to a scruffy place where none of his colleagues would spy him with a down-and-out like me. And at the end of the meal, there was another ludicrous pantomime while we both tried to pick up the bill. Neither of us wanted to owe the other anything. So in the end we split it down the middle and each paid half. And then we went out of the restaurant, and we said good-bye, and I promised to be in touch. And he walked back to his office, and I got into a taxi and went back to the gallery to see Peter Chastal.
“I knew I had to get a good lawyer, and I’ve never even had a bad one, because Peter’s always done everything for me. I’ve never even had an accountant, either, or a banker, or an agent. Peter’s handled everything ever since that first day when I went to him, raw and inexperienced, sent by Chips. He was marvellous. He put me in touch with his own lawyer, and he went and found out how much money I had put away, which is about ten times more than I thought I had, and then he said it was about time I matched up to this new family-man image and got over my dread of anything mechanical and bought myself a car. So I went out and did. And then Peter and I had dinner together, and after that I knew I couldn’t wait another moment to see you all, so I got into the car and drove back to Cornwall.”
“And now Phoebe and Charlotte aren’t even here.” I couldn’t bear it for him.
But he only said, “I’m glad they’re not. Because the most important thing I’ve got to tell you concerns you. Actually, it’s not so much telling you as asking you. I’m going to Greece. For a holiday. In about ten days’ time. I’ve told you about the house on Spetsai, and I’ve already asked you to come with me, but now I’m asking you again. I’ve got two seats booked on a flight to Athens. If Lily and Phoebe can cope with Charlotte, will you come with me?” The sugar-cube house that I had told myself I would never see. The whitewashed terrace with the geraniums, and the boat with a sail like the wing of a gull. “Come with me, Prue.”
My mind raced ahead. I would have to do things, arrange things, tell people. My mother. Marcus Bernstein. And, somehow I should have to write a letter to poor Nigel Gordon.
I said, “Yes.”
Down the length of the table our eyes met and held. He suddenly smiled. He said, “How little we know each other. Was it you who said that, or I?”
“It was you.”
“After two weeks in Greece we’ll know each other so much better.”
“Yes. I expect we will.”
“And after that—after we get home—perhaps we could think about coming back to Lanyon together. We’d have to get married first, but we don’t need to think about that just now. It’s better that way. After all, we don’t either of us want to commit ourselves, do we?”
I knew that there was nothing I wanted more. And from the way Daniel was looking at me, I had a pretty good idea that he felt the same way.
I smiled, too. “No,” I told him. “We don’t want to commit ourselves.”
* * *
When Mr. Thomas’s taxi returned bearing Phoebe and Charlotte and all their shopping, we were still in the kitchen, though no longer sitting at either end of the table. We heard the ancient vehicle come grinding down the road and turn in at the gate, and we went out together to greet them.
Mr. Thomas was flummoxed by Daniel’s car, which, unexpectedly parked in front of the house, had left him no room to turn. Phoebe was already out of the taxi, dramatic in her best brown tweed cape, and trying to give him directions.
“Left hand down, Mr. Thomas. No, I don’t mean left, I mean right…”
“Phoebe,” said Daniel.
She turned and saw him.
“Daniel!”
Mr. Thomas and his problems were forgotten. Disgusted, he switched off his engine and sat there, brooding, trapped, the radiator of his car nose-to-nose with Daniel’s, the back wheels hard against the red brick kerbstone that protected Phoebe’s border.
Daniel moved to meet her halfway. They embraced enormously, and her hat was knocked sideways.
“You wicked villain.” She thumped his shoulder lovingly with her good fist. “Where have you been?”
But she did not give him time to tell her, because just then, over his shoulder, she caught sight of me standing there in Lily’s apron and with a smile on my face that I could do nothing about. She let go of Daniel and came to me, and although she had no idea of what had happened, what was happening, what was going to happen, I saw my own happiness reflected in her face, and we held each other very tightly and laughed together, because Daniel had come back, and everything was suddenly so completely all right.
And Charlotte. At the same instant we remembered Charlotte. We looked and saw her cautiously alighting from the back of the old car, her arms filled with a perilous pile of wrapped boxes and packages. I knew that she had watched us all, was holding back, probably telling herself that she, Charlotte, had no place in all these loving reunions. Carefully, with her foot, she closed the door of the taxi. When she turned, her chin clamped over the topmost parcel, she found herself confronted by Daniel. Slowly her face tilted up to stare into his, her eyes unblinking behind the owlish spectacles. For a moment there was silence as they looked at each other. And then Daniel smiled and said, “Hello, my love. I’m back again.”
He held wide his arms. It was all she needed.
“Oh, Daniel…”
The parcels began to slip. She let them go and flung herself at him, and he caught her and swung her up in his arms, round and round, and the packages lay unheeded where they had tumbled, higgledy-piggledy onto the gravel.
Read all of Rosamunde Pilcher’s wonderful novels
The Shell Seekers
The Carousel
Voices in Summer
The Blue Bedroom and Other Stories
September
Flowers in the Rain and Other Stories
Coming Home
Wild Mountain Thyme
Under Gemini
Sleeping Tiger
The Empty House
The End of Summer
Snow in April
The Day of the Storm
Another View
Winter Solstice
THE CAROUSEL
“DELIGHTFUL … It exudes comfort as it entertains.”
—Publishers Weekly
“ENORMOUS CHARM AND WARMTH!”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A romantic tale imbued with several comforting lessons on loving, friendship, and family ties.”
—Booklist
“Enjoyable and satisfying.”
—Chattanooga News-Free Press
“A romance with some mystery and considerable depth to commend it.”
—Tulsa World
“[An] agreeable compound of beautiful scenery and warm and loving relationships.”
—Library Journal
“A tender story of age, and youth, friendship and love … LOVELY!”
—Romantic Times
THE CAROUSEL
Copyright © 1982 by Rosamunde Pilcher.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-5629
ISBN: 0-312-92629-4
EAN: 80312-92629-8
St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition published 1985
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / December 1986
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
eISBN 9781466824935
First eBook edition: February 2013
Rosamunde Pilcher, The Carousel
(Series: # )
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