Free Still Waters by Katie Flynn Page B

many a path,’ he was fond of saying. ‘Just a word of thanks or a helping hand can make someone’s day brighter, sweetheart.’
    So now she stayed in the cart and jumped down when Janet did, seizing the nearest cardboard box in her arms and staggering up the path with it. It contained a great many jars of bottled shrimps – Mrs Thrower had not been idle during her holiday – and was extremely heavy, but just as Tess’s knees were beginning to buckle Luke overtook her and grabbed the box, so that was all right.
    Tess returned to the cart, but Mrs Thrower, turning round and catching sight of her, immediately ordered her off.
    ‘Off you goo, gal Tess,’ she said. ‘We’re enjoyed havin’ you, but fair’s fair. Go an’ see your dad, now. My lazy lot can manage here.’
    Tess didn’t need telling twice. She snatched up her bag and shouted her thanks, then ran along the dusty lane as fast as her legs could carry her, banging open the wooden gate of the Old House, scattering gravel as she skidded on the corner and arrived by the back door breathless, pink-cheeked.
    She pushed the door open and entered the kitchen, throwing her bag down on the kitchen floor, opening her mouth to shout ‘Dad! I’m home!’ and then stopping short.
    Peter was standing by the kitchen table with his hands resting on the shoulders of a strange young woman who was sitting at the table, with a recipe book open before her. Peter looked up as she entered, starting to smile, taking his hands quickly from the woman’s shoulders. He crossed the room to her in a couple of strides, enveloping her in a huge hug.
    ‘Darling! You’re early, how marvellous! What a good job I’d not started luncheon . . . oh, by the way, I’ve brought a friend to meet you.’ He turned Tess in his arm so that she was facing the strange woman. Tess saw that she had dark, fashionably bobbed hair, quite a lot of dark-red lipstick and powder and stuff on her pointy-chinned face, and very large black eyes. She was wearing a green, open-necked blouse and she had small gold studs in her ears. She wasn’t looking at Tess but at Peter, which Tess thought rather strange, especially when her father said: ‘Marianne, this is my daughter, Tess. Tess, Mademoiselle Marianne Dupré.’
    The woman stood up. She did this slowly and carefully – gracefully, Tess thought, rather puzzled. Why should one want to stand up gracefully, for goodness sake? But she didn’t say so, of course, she just said, politely, ‘How do you do, Mademoiselle?’ and held out a hand which, she immediately realised, was extremely dirty and also rather sticky; humbugs had been handed round with great prodigality during the return journey.
    ‘How d’you do, Tess? Your father often speaks of you.’ Mile Dupré said, and took Tess’s sticky paw in hers. A rather odd expression flitted across her face as she did so, but she managed to extract herself without actually exclaiming aloud, to Tess’s relief. As she turned away, however, Tess saw, with shame and glee mixed, that mademoiselle was wiping her palm surreptitiously across the seat of her short navy-blue skirt.
    ‘Tess has been on holiday with friends for a week, Marianne,’ Peter said. He spoke a shade too loudly, Tess thought. ‘I’m sure she’s longing to tell us all about it, but she’ll have to do so whilst I start the lunch, or we shan’t eat until dinner time.’ He turned to Tess. ‘Are you going to take your bag upstairs, darling? And – and freshen up?’
    Tess felt most peculiar, as though she was seeing everything through glass; she heard the words, but the meaning somehow eluded her. But she agreed that she would like to freshen up, picked up her bag and walked across the kitchen, opened the door, went into the hall, closed the door . . .
    Stood by it, her head a little bent. Listening. Heard her father’s much-loved voice, lowered, worried.
    ‘My God, I handled that badly! But it was such a shock . . . I could have sworn