Lee awoke to the sound of running water and realised that Daniel was showering in the tiny bathroom. She yawned and stretched, feeling strong and well for the first time in weeks.
The telephone rang and she answered it, remembering the early call Daniel had booked. 'Thank you,' she murmured sleepily.
'Daniel Raife, please,' said a cool female voice.
She woke up. 'I'm afraid Daniel isn't available at the moment.'
The woman gave a 'tut' of annoyance. 'He wouldn't be! How familiar this is! Never there when you want him.'
'Excuse me, but who is this?'
'Caroline Jenkins. Ms. He left a message and I'm returning his call. Look, please tell him that I can be reached on this number-three, five, seven-'
'Hold on a moment.'
'Aren't you taking it down?'
'I will when I've got a pencil.' Lee found one and began to write. 'Three, five-'
Caroline Jenkins dictated the number slowly, as if dealing with an idiot. 'Are you sure you've got that?' she asked at last.
'Quite sure,' Lee said crisply.
'You'd better read it back to me. I don't want any mistakes.'
Lee did so, striving not to sound as annoyed as she felt.
'I'll be here for an hour,' Caroline Jenkins informed her. 'After that he can get me at home.'
'Does he know your home number?' 'Of course he does. Don't forget, will you?' She hung up.
Lee stared at the phone until enlightenment finally dawned.
'Good heavens!' she exclaimed. 'Caroline. Phoebe's mother!'
Daniel emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. 'Was that our call?' he asked.
'No, it was Caroline. She said you'd left her a message to call here.'
'She left me a message on my answering machine. I called her back last night but she was out, so I left this number. I suppose I'd better find out what she wants.'
'Then you didn't call her to tell her about this?'
'No.' Daniel gave a wry grimace. 'I suppose I should have done, but I didn't want to give her the satisfaction. She's never thought much of me as a parent.' He began to dial.
'Shall I leave?'
'Why? So that I can talk privately to a woman I haven't seen in the flesh for over two years? Stay with me, darling. I need you.' He was dialling as he spoke.
'Hello, Caroline? Daniel here. Why did you call me?' A burst of high-pitched talk, like gunfire, came from the receiver. Daniel listened with his face settling into a scowl. 'Hell!' he said at last. 'Yes, of course I've seen it. I didn't know that you… No, I wasn't concealing it, I just didn't think you'd be interested, frankly.'
He put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Lee. 'Someone faxed her that magazine piece about Phoebe, and she's foaming at the mouth. Yes…?' He returned his attention to the phone from which more angry sounds were emerging. 'Caroline, there's no need to read it to me. I've read it myself.' He sighed and held out the receiver for Lee to listen. Caroline was going through the piece very slowly, emphasising certain words on a note of outrage.
'How could you let this happen?' she shrieked.
Daniel took a deep breath, and Lee thought he would explode. 'Let it happen?' he demanded at last, through gritted teeth. 'Let it happen? Now you listen to me, Caroline. I didn't "let it happen". It just happened because it had to happen. And you know what? I'm glad of it. I've always been proud of our daughter because she's brainy, but now I'm proud of her because she's beautiful, too. What's more, she's not only brainy and beautiful but she's got the guts to make her own life in her own way, and not feebly let us make it for her. And that makes me prouder than anything.' He slammed down the phone.
Lee burst into applause and threw her arms about him. 'My hero!' she exclaimed. 'Oh, Daniel, I'm so glad.'
He kissed her, then said reluctantly, 'I have to be honest. That woman can needle me into saying things I don't really mean. I'm not sure…'
'I don't believe it,' Lee said stubbornly. 'It's when you get good 'n' mad that the truth comes out.'
'Maybe. I'll know what the truth is when I see Phoebe.' He drew her close, but almost immediately the phone shrilled again with their early call.
They took a quick breakfast and hurried out to the car. But at that point things began to go wrong. When Daniel turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened.
'My God! It won't start!' he said in horror.
He tried again and again, and finally got some result. But the car simply made revving noises, declining to spark into life.
'Oh, no!' Lee nearly wept. 'How can this happen?'
'Keep trying,' he said tersely, and leapt from the car.
Lee slid into the driving seat and spent several fruitless, agonising minutes without result. Daniel returned, looking tense.
'I've called a taxi,' he said. 'They promised to get here at once. We might just still make it.'
'I'm sorry,' she said frantically. 'If I hadn't made you stop here last night-'
'We'd have had an accident,' he said quickly. 'You did the right thing. If only that taxi gets here fast.'
But it didn't. It was twenty minutes before it arrived, and then the journey to Gretna seemed to take an age. Daniel fixed his gaze on his watch with terrible intensity, and Lee saw the hope drain out of his face.
'We're too late,' he said at last. "They must have started by now. By the time we get there it will be over.'
When they reached the register office they found a little crowd outside, but no sign of Phoebe or Mark.
They exchanged looks of despair, knowing that this meant the worst.
'They're coming out,' said someone. 'Aren't they a lovely couple?'
Lee and Daniel looked up as the bride and groom emerged. The next moment they gasped.
'It's not them,' Lee said. 'I don't understand. They were booked first.'
She ran inside and found an official. 'Excuse me, was there another wedding before this?'
'No, this is the first one of the day,' he told her.
'But-Phoebe Raife and Mark Kendall…?'
'Oh, them. They put their wedding off until this afternoon. Luckily the next couple had just arrived, so it was easy to change it around.'
'Put it off?' she said, hardly daring to hope. 'Did they say why?'
'Well, they didn't seem exactly the best of friends at the time. The young lady was more than a wee bit cross.'
'Daniel,' Lee called, running out. 'It's all right. They've delayed the wedding until this afternoon. They've had some kind of tiff. If we can only find them first-'
'How?' He asked urgently.
She reached into her bag and pulled out the copy of Woman Of The World with Phoebe on the cover. 'Show people this picture and ask if they've seen her.'
He took the magazine from her. 'You know Gretna. Where would they go?'
For a moment, Lee's mind went blank and then it came back to her. Just before their wedding she and Jimmy had also had a tiff, and she'd run away to be by herself-'Sulking like a baby,' he'd sneered. Barely looking where she was going, she'd taken the little country path to Gretna Green, and found the old Smithy where she'd stood watching the guide explain to a party of tourists how the old marriages had once taken place.
'They clasped hands and claimed each other,' he'd said. 'And the blacksmith struck the anvil and cried, "So be it!'"
She'd brushed back her tears. This was her wedding day. Things were so different from her dream of a romantic elopement. Jimmy had been critical and impatient, and the truth about him had crept into her mind. If her parents had found her then, there would have been no wedding. Instead Jimmy had reached her first, and had been shrewd enough to sweet-talk her enough to get her back to the register office. And her parents had arrived too late…
The smithy,' she said to Daniel now. 'Let's hurry.'
'But we'd have passed her on the road,' he said.
'Not if they took the country lane.'
They got into the car and in a few minutes were in the quiet little village of Gretna Green. Everywhere there were neat, white painted buildings surrounded by greenery and pale grey roads. The whole atmosphere was one of sleepy peacefulness that belied the desperate passion of young lovers and the frantic urgency of parents.