by Susan Lewis
‘Thank you, but I can’t hold a candle to you,’ Andee informed her affectionately. ‘Retirement is obviously suiting you a lot better than I’m sure it’s going to suit the school.’
‘Oh, tosh,’ Rowzee exclaimed modestly. ‘They’ll get along just fine without me, but tell me about Alayna. I was so proud when she got into Bristol. Is she enjoying it? From her emails I’m thinking she is.’
‘You probably know more than I do,’ Andee admitted, ‘but yes, I think it’s working out. She asked me to send her love this evening and was wondering if she could pop in to see you sometime over the summer.’
‘Tell her I’d be honoured, if she can spare the time,’ Rowzee enthused. ‘I know how busy young people are. I shall want to hear all about everything she’s up to, including the boyfriends. Most especially the boyfriends.’ Leaning a little closer and lowering her voice, she said, ‘Before anyone interrupts us I’d like to say how relieved we all are that you’ve agreed to help Blake. Please don’t take that as pressure, I understand how difficult it is – well, I probably don’t, but it’s just too awful, what he’s going through. I know the police have done their best, but with all the budget cuts over the last few years . . . Oh, ssh, here he is . . .’
As Andee turned to greet Blake Rowzee took his arm, showing how very fond she was of him, but before a greeting could take place someone called out, ‘Andee Lawrence? Can that really be you?’
Recognising the voice immediately, Andee’s eyes lit up. ‘Charles Stamfield! How are you?’ she cried, returning the ardour of his embrace as he swept her into his arms. ‘I haven’t seen you in so long.’
‘Far too long,’ he admonished, drawing back to look at her. ‘As gorgeous as ever,’ he decided. ‘Actually, even more so.’
‘Look at you,’ she grinned, giving him an ostentatious once-over. ‘Still a heart-throb, I see.’ He was indeed an exceptionally handsome man in his mid-forties with deep brown eyes, a shock of dark wavy hair and the kind of smile that had always made women’s hearts melt. ‘Did you get my message after the last election?’ she asked. ‘We were all crushed in our house, but the region’s got what it deserved after voting in the twit we’ve got now and turning its back on you.’
‘I’ll second that,’ Graeme interjected, adding drily, ‘I take it you two know each other.’
Laughing, Charles slipped an arm round Andee’s shoulders. ‘Andee and I go way back,’ he answered. ‘In fact, we were at school together, in London, before her family moved to Kesterly . . .’
‘Where yours already were,’ she put in.
‘Right next door to here,’ Rowzee added, ‘in Burlingford Hall. Your dear parents, how we all loved them . . .’
‘In spite of them sending their kids off to college in the States,’ Charles teased.
‘Probably because of it,’ Rowzee insisted. ‘Charles went to Princeton,’ she declared proudly, for the benefit of anyone listening who might not already know.
‘But I came back,’ he reminded her.
‘You did indeed and with the most beautiful American wife – and you’ve made such a marvellous success of your life, in spite of the silly election thing.’
‘All started by my great-grandfather,’ he reminded her, referring to the financial institution of which he was joint chairman and managing director, as well as the Hall, purchased by the same great-grandfather at the beginning of the last century and completely restored. To Andee he said, ‘So you and Martin finally got married. Is he here? I don’t think I’ve seen you guys since his father’s funeral.’
Realising that it had indeed been that long, Andee said, ‘He couldn’t make it this evening, but I know he’d love to see you if you’re going to be around for a while.’ She was searching for signs of the ill health she’d heard about, and finding them well hidden in the slight grey pallor of his skin and unusual dullness of his eyes.
‘I need to be around for a while,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been neglecting my affairs in this part of the world and I intend to make good over the summer.’
‘Is Gina with you?’ she asked, looking around.
Charles’s expression turned grave. ‘I’m afraid not. It’s a long story, for another time, but she’ll want to know that I’ve seen you. As will Lydia, who’s turning twenty-five next month. I can hardly keep up with the time, it passes so fast.’
Becoming conscious of Blake standing awkwardly to one side, Graeme put an arm round his shoulders and pulled him in. ‘Blake, have you met Charles Stamfield? Amongst his many other claims to fame he’s my sisters’ next-door neighbour. Blake Leonard,’ Graeme said to Charles. ‘He’s working with me at the shop.’
‘I feel I know your name,’ Charles said, shaking Blake’s hand, and glancing at Andee. ‘Have we met before?’
‘I’m sure I’d remember if we had,’ Blake told him.
Since now wasn’t the occasion to remind Charles of how or why he might recognise Blake, Rowzee said, ‘We must get you a drink, Blake. Did Matt come with you?’
‘He had other plans,’ Blake replied, taking the glass Rowzee swiped from a passing tray.
Turning back to Andee, Charles said, ‘This is such a wonderful surprise, but you know, I was intending to call you later this week. There’s something I’d like to get your thoughts on, if you can spare the time.’
‘Always for you,’ she assured him. ‘I can come up to the Hall if you like. It’s an age since I was last there.’
‘It doesn’t change,’ he chuckled. ‘Still costing me a fortune in upkeep, but Lydia’s idea to open the gardens to the public at weekends is lessening the burden.’
‘How is Lydia?’ Rowzee asked. ‘Is she still running the UN?’
Laughing, Charles said, ‘Not quite running it, but yes she’s still there, doing her best for human rights. Katie, Lucie,’ he declared warmly as Pamela’s daughters, elbowed their way in.
‘Charles, it’s so good to see you,’ Katie beamed. ‘How are you? You look fantastic, so I’m hoping all the health issues are behind you now.’
‘I’m happy to say they are,’ he confirmed with a smile. ‘And how are the children? You know, I haven’t even met your little one, Lucie. Is he here? I hope you’re going to introduce me if he is.’
‘Come this way,’ Lucie responded eagerly, taking his hand.
As they moved off through the crowd with Pamela and Katie following on, Andee turned to talk to Graeme and Blake, while Rowzee seized another glass of champagne as it passed and went to greet some new arrivals.
Minutes later Pamela was whispering urgently in Rowzee’s ear, ‘You have to rescue me. That blasted man keeps grinning at me.’
Knowing immediately who she was talking about, Rowzee hid a smile as she looked over to where Bill Simmonds was clearly engaged in chat with Charles. ‘He’s got his back to you,’ she pointed out.
Pamela peered over her shoulder and grunted, grudgingly, ‘How rude.’
As she laughed Rowzee managed to disengage with a breeziness she was far from feeling, and headed for the stairs. Her vision was starting to blur, brought on no doubt by a little too much champagne, so she needed to go upstairs for a few minutes to allow it to pass.
Outside on the terrace Andee was saying to Graeme, ‘If I remember correctly, the last time we met you’d found a house in Umbria you were interested in restoring.’
His grey eyes shone with surprise. ‘You’ve a good memory,’ he told her. ‘The place is now mine, but still in need of some serious work.’
‘Is it habitable?’
‘Only in a very basic sense. My boys and I manage to have a great time while we’re there, but everything leaks and we’re often not the only residents.’
Andee frowned.
‘Think wildlife,’ he grinned. ‘Nick and I, that’s my eldest, are hoping to get over there sometime this summer to make a serious start on the renovation.’
Remembering how he’d once asked her to come and view the place with him, and how very much she’
d wanted to go, she said, ‘Is he still at uni? No, he must have left by now.’
‘He has and is taking a gap year before deciding what he wants to do with his degree. I have a feeling, as international law is his thing, he’s going to end up in Paris, or possibly New York.’
‘Such a high-flyer.’
‘That’s certainly how he likes to see himself. How are your two? Both at uni by now, I’m sure.’
‘They are. They seem to be doing quite well, but you never know for certain until the results come in.’
With a wry smile he said, ‘Isn’t that the truth? My youngest hasn’t done anywhere near as well as he’d hoped so far, but I don’t know what he expected when he doesn’t do the work. He’ll have to knuckle down a bit harder for his final year if he wants to get through.’ He turned to Blake as he came to say goodnight.
‘I need to get back.’ Blake shook Graeme’s hand. ‘It’s been a lovely evening, please thank your sisters for me.’
‘Of course,’ Graeme assured him, looking around for Rowzee who he knew would want to say goodnight, and spotting only Pamela apparently giving Bill Simmonds a good telling-off. Leaving her to it, he said, ‘Have a good weekend, won’t you, and see you on Monday.’
‘Bye,’ Andee said softly, giving Blake a hug. ‘I’ll be in touch soon.’
As he walked away, Andee noticed Charles on the terrace, watching him, either absently or with peculiar intensity, she couldn’t be sure. Catching her eye, he waved and came to join them.
‘You know, I haven’t seen Rowzee for a while,’ Graeme said, putting down his drink. ‘If you guys will excuse me I think I’ll go and find out what she’s up to.’
Chapter Six
Charles Stamfield was alone in Burlingford Hall – the magnificent home he had inherited from his father over twenty years ago at the age of twenty-six. He was standing at one of the wide, limestone-framed windows gazing down at the beech and lime avenue where, legend had it, medieval virgins used to exercise their unicorns – a beast visible only to pure damsels.
In spite of the house not dating from those times, making the legend even more unlikely, he was wondering about those virgins now, or more accurately the real women who’d lived here down the centuries and what lives they must have led, what joys and hardships they’d have known, what secrets they might have kept or shared. Whatever their unspoken dreams, or whispered confessions, they were all lost to the world now, forgotten, vanished like unwritten words in the mists of time. They no longer had the power to injure or please, to tantalise or terrify, or destroy.
That was what time did. It rendered everything powerless in the end.
The inherent kindness in Charles’s eyes was clouded by the troubling nature of his thoughts; the easy smile that was so infectious for many had yielded to a mask of quiet but deeply felt strain.
If he took his own secret to the grave would it finally set him free, or send him straight to a Dante-esque hell?
Wasn’t he there already?
But to that second circle of sad hell,
Where ’mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kiss’d, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.
John Keats, imagining what Dante never revealed, the thoughts of the errant Paolo Malatesta: the Second Circle of Hell, especially for those who’d allowed their appetites to sway their reason.
Would the burden of his secret be any easier to bear if he alone knew it? Would it have had the power to break him the way it had over the past two years, rendering him incapable of normal human relations? Who, looking at him now, would ever guess at what he was hiding, could even begin to imagine that he was still broken, damaged beyond any possible repair?
He’d never felt cut out for the life he led; it wasn’t money that excited him, though thanks to his forebears he had plenty of it, it wasn’t business or property or any amount of material assets, all of which were his in abundance. He wasn’t like the Stamfield men who had gone before him, yet he could play the part – or he had been able to until his weakness had been exploited and he’d been moved aside in the company and voted out of Parliament. He lacked the drive and ambition of those around him, the killer instinct that kept men in his position at the top. He was too gentle, too ready to see the other side of an argument, too appalled by the ruthlessness of cutting a deal that might put hundreds out of work, or destroy their investments, or take away their homes.
After the breakdown his old self had finally stepped forward to carry him through each day the way it always had, but the torment of his conscience, the knowledge of what he’d done, continued to do, was always waiting to fill each unguarded moment.
There was a note in his hand, arrived that morning; a single page of instructions that only differed from the others in the postmark it had been sent from. The amount required to keep his secret safe remained the same.
Pamela was Internet dating. Rowzee was sure of it. All this business about cosmetic surgery, new dresses coming by courier and costing heaven knew how much – two more had arrived that morning and very lovely they were too, though considerably more casual than the first one. Then there were the curious phone calls (‘Don’t come in, I’m on the phone,’), the mystery of where she’d been for the entire day yesterday, coming home in a worryingly good mood. Rowzee hadn’t dared to comment on that, she knew if she did she’d get her head bitten off. And apparently Pamela was going to be late home most evenings this week so Rowzee wasn’t to worry about supper for her.
If Rowzee were the sort of person to take a sneak peek at someone’s computer she’d be surfing her way around Pamela’s laptop like an electronic Poirot right now. It was sitting there on the centre island, seeming to taunt her with its secrets; however Rowzee only had to think of what she was hiding on her own computer to know how upset she’d feel if anyone invaded her privacy that way.
Maybe she should follow Pamela, shadow her, as they called it, like Sam Spade. After all there were some very strange people out there, and a lot of them came disguised as very normal men.
‘What are you going to do if she spots you?’ Graeme had wondered, clearly torn between amusement and concern when she’d rung to ask for his advice.
What indeed? Pamela’s wrath would be unholy, Rowzee could be sure of that, and the likelihood of her being spotted was so high she might as well fly a kite to pinpoint her movements.
Maybe she could hire a detective. Not Andee, she was helping Blake and that was much more important, but there was a good chance Andee could put her in touch with someone.
Did she have Andee’s number? Probably not, but Graeme would.
Starting as the phone rang, she put aside the vase she was washing and quickly dried her hands.
‘Rowzee, it’s Jilly Ansell.’
Rowzee’s insides performed a dramatic somersault. Jilly had been one of her star pupils back in the nineties; these day she was her GP. ‘Hello Jilly, how are you?’ she asked cheerily.
‘I’m fine, thank you. Your second lot of results are back, and rather than go through them on the phone, I wondered if you could come to the surgery.’
Rowzee’s mouth turned dry. She didn’t want to go. How could she get out of it? ‘Is it urgent?’ she asked. ‘Should I start cancelling my subscriptions?’
Wryly, Jilly said, ‘I don’t think you need to do that. I’ve made a slot for you at the end of the day on Wednesday. Does six o’clock work for you?’
‘Yes, that’ll be fine.’ She could always cancel whatever else she was supposed to be doing – a meeting of the local history society, she thought. Seeing Jilly was obviously more important.
‘If you want to bring someone with you,’ Jilly said, as though it was going to be a bit of a social.
Rowzee became very still. There was only one reason Jilly would suggest she
didn’t come alone . . .
After ringing off Rowzee went to sit at her computer, still too shaken to turn it on, or to think of anything beyond the feelings that were rising up inside her. She knew they were all rooted in fear, for it had been lurking for weeks now, a bit like a niggling ache that sometimes flared up in a shooting pain, only to fade away again. When it was at its worst she usually managed to settle it down with platitudes and scornful admonishments. ‘You’re getting everything out of perspective as usual,’ she’d tell it. Or: ‘You’re jumping to conclusions without knowing what on earth you’re dealing with.’ It was like giving directions to a cast that wasn’t listening, but she usually got through to them in the end.
She could find no words for the fear now, or nothing that would soothe it and make it go away. It was far more likely to become worse, even turn into some sort of horrible inferno, and tears weren’t going to drown it out so she really ought to stop that silly little flow right now.
Keep your fears to yourself, Rowzee, but share your courage with others. Dear Robert Louis Stevenson; she hadn’t read anything by him in far too long. She must put that right straight away, for already just recalling his words was making her feel strong.
As Andee let her children into the flat she was listening intently to what Blake was telling her on the phone.
‘So have you seen him again since?’ she asked him, waving Luke and Alayna towards the sitting room and ignoring Alayna’s pointed look at her mobile. We’ve come to see you, as requested, and you’re on the phone!
‘Actually, I think I might have spotted him today,’ Blake was saying, ‘which is what prompted me to call. He was on the square again, over by the florist so further away, meaning I didn’t get a good look. He was standing there, staring at the shop, or he seemed to be, but when I went to the door he shot off through the arcade.’
