by Janet Woods
‘So you think our sister will approve,’ she said.
‘It’s your life, and she doesn’t have to approve. I think Livia has learned that the hard way . . . so try not to judge her, Es. Besides, she’s met Leo a couple of times before, and often asks after him.’
‘Livia always struck me as being a good sort,’ Leo said amiably, and Chad and Esmé exchanged a grin.
As they were under way, Chad said, ‘By the way . . . Major Henry died a few weeks ago. His heart has been failing for some time, and he went quickly. There was a letter from the solicitor of his former wife, advising him of her death. They think the bad news was just too much for him.’
Esmé remembered the secret Meggie had sworn her to before she’d left for Australia. She hadn’t given her niece’s relationship with the old man much of a thought. She’d been too wrapped up in her own life. Now the reason behind her troubling behaviour was clear, and her heart went out to the girl.
Nineteen
Meggie had hugged Esmé when Meggie arrived, and although she gave a little squeal of delight it had been a restrained sort of hug.
Her niece had grown into her woman’s body over the last two years and was taller than both her mother and her aunt. She was graceful with it, Esmé thought, and she could see Richard Sangster strongly in the hauntingly delicate, fey quality of her face, and the brilliance of her smile.
‘Hello, Meggie Moo,’ she said.
Meggie’s smile was more polite than spontaneous. ‘Aunt Esmé, it’s wonderful to see you again. Mother will be surprised.’ Since when had Meggie started using the formal when referring to Livia? Her smile slipped and tears trembled in her eyes. ‘I’ve missed you so much, Aunt Es. You look happy.’
‘I’ve missed you too, my love, but I’ll be living in London for a couple of years. Perhaps you can come and stay with us now and again. Are you well, you look a bit pale.’
She flicked a glance towards the kitchen, lowered her voice and shrugged. ‘Oh, I’m perfectly all right. I daren’t be anything else in a house full of doctors.’
‘I’ve brought another one to add to it. You remember Dr Thornton, don’t you?’ Esmé looked up at him and smiled. ‘We were married a few weeks ago.’
Shock filled Meggie’s eyes and she gave a peculiar little smile. ‘Heavens, and without consulting Mother. What will her reaction be to that, I wonder?’
Leo kissed Meggie’s cheek and offered her a smile designed to charm. ‘Call me Leo, you always used to the other times I visited.’
Meggie dashed the tears from her eyes and her smile warmed. ‘You don’t want a hug as well, do you? If so you’ve come to the right place. It’s a hugging sort of household.’
‘I’ve noticed. I never say no to a hug, especially from a good-looking type of girl like you. By the way, was that a statement, or is it an offer?’
Meggie sounded more like her old self when she giggled spontaneously. ‘It’s an offer.’ She seemed to relax as she hugged him. ‘Welcome to the family, Leo.’
Livia appeared in the doorway, patting her hair into place. ‘I heard voices; has Dr Thornton and his wife arrived?’ Her eyes widened and a smile came and went, then came again. ‘Esmé? How wonderful a surprise this is. We weren’t expecting you.’ Her glance went to Leo, puzzled. ‘Where’s Mrs Thorn . . . ton? Es, how did you get here? Did you travel down on the same train?’
Esmé held out her hand and wriggled her ring finger, knowing the gesture was a sweet revenge for the way her sister had treated Liam. ‘Yes . . . I did. I am Mrs Thornton, Livia.’
Completely astonished now, Livia gave a little cry. ‘Oh . . . my goodness . . . Esmé has married Dr Thornton. Chad, why didn’t you tell me it was Esmé?’ Her eyes fell on her son, waiting in line for the duty hug. ‘Luke, where’s your father?’
‘In the attic playing trains with Adam.’
‘Go and tell him that Esmé is here and to stop pretending to be the station master for five minutes, and to come down at once. What a wonderful surprise for Christmas. Come and give me a hug, Es, and you too, Leo. I knew something was going on.’
Everyone began to laugh.
Leo seemed to fit into the household like an old shoe, becoming one of the males found in the hall removing their coats and scarfs, or lounging in an armchair hidden behind the daily newspaper, or in the kitchen reaching for something from the tall shelf.
Or indeed, they could be found playing unseasonal cricket on the lumpy lawn, with the two boys, yelling ‘howzzat’ every time someone hit the ball, or sent the bails flying, or reaching a long arm into the air to pluck the ball from its trajectory in mid-flight.
Sometimes they gave each other fiercely challenging stares over the chessboard before a move, or managed inscrutable smirks if they won.
They stole newly-baked mince pies from the kitchen table, chased house spiders back up into the attic, fixed punctures, carried in the coal, drove to the shop for previously forgotten groceries, and were generally useful in a fiercely competitive way, giving each other no quarter when there was a task to be done.
Shadow hung around them, leash in his mouth, tail flagging hopefully, in case someone took pity on him.
Esmé found a little time to be alone with Leo, who seemed to enjoy being part of the family.
They were using her usual room, a space to sleep that was now only on loan. It was tidy. The paraphernalia Esmé had left behind had been packed into a box and stored in the closet in order to make room on the dressing table for the mythical Mrs Thornton they’d been expecting.
She could either take it with her when she left, or store it in the attic, never to be seen again. She would take it. Esmé had lived three lives. One had been in the orphanage, gone, but not forgotten, because she’d learned she couldn’t escape from the past. The second had been with Livia, who’d wrapped her so tightly in love that she’d almost smothered in it. Now she had found herself. She belonged with Leo, and their life together had just begun. Marriage had reclassified her status. This was no longer her home. She was a visitor.
The room was about to become Luke’s private domain. He would move in when it was emptied of her existence, and he would fill every available nook and cranny with his boyhood treasures and young man’s dreams.
She felt a wrench at the thought of having been evicted from her own bedroom.
Luke offered her a bone. ‘Of course, you can use it the next time you come to visit if you like, Aunt Es. That’s if you want to. Mummy said that now you’re married to Uncle Leo, it might be easier all round for you to sleep on the new couch in the sitting room. It unfolds into a bed, you know. It’s a jolly clever idea.’
‘Yes, it is . . . and that would be fine.’ She kissed his cheek to reinforce the concept that, being a permanent member of the household, his comfort took precedence over hers.
Luke looked like his father. Both of the boys did, but Adam had a strong dollop of the Carr family in him. He sometimes reminded her of Chad. She wondered if they’d become doctors too, and carry on the tradition.
Leo helped her open her cards. There was one of skaters on a lake. A photograph was enclosed of Liam Denison in a sailor suit. He was leaning on a ladder, one foot on the bottom rung, and casually, but obviously posed. Across the bottom of the photograph in a carefully constructed scrawl was the name: Denison Williams. On the back was written: First step on the ladder, chorus line . . . on the set of ‘Follow the Fleet’.
‘So you finally made a name for yourself, even though you gave it a twist,’ she whispered, pleased that he’d possessed more grit than anyone had given him credit for, including herself.
Leo raised an eyebrow when she smiled.
‘It’s my former dancing partner. He went to Hollywood to try his luck and it looks as though he succeeded.’
‘And you didn’t want to go with him?’
‘It would be fairer to say he didn’t want me to go. My dancing wasn’t up to his standard.’
‘Was this the man you w
ere getting over when we met?’
‘I was getting over the break-up, not the man. It was messy. It left him embarrassed, and me feeling inadequate.’
He drew her into his arms and kissed her. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘I was in a position where I had to choose between Liam and my family. It doesn’t make me feel any better knowing they were right. And I don’t think it made my sister feel any better either.’
‘Livia takes her responsibilities seriously.’
‘And doesn’t know when to let go of them.’
‘Do you wonder what your life might have been like if she’d been less responsible?’
She grinned at him. ‘Often. I probably wouldn’t have met you.’
‘That’s my girl.’ He kissed her and there was no more to be said.
Christmas came and went and they headed towards the New Year.
Meggie, it seemed, had learned the art of dumb insolence towards her mother, usually when the men were out of earshot. She’d developed a casual shrug, a cutting line of sarcasm. Livia put up with her daughter’s barely disguised rudeness with remarkable patience, but now and again mother and daughter argued, and Livia was forced to lay down the law. When that happened, Meggie stormed off.
Then there were the dreams. Meggie’s room was next to Esmé’s, and she’d been jerked from sleep by muffled whimpering on several occasions. Esmé had gone to her, and she’d been trembling.
On the couple of times Meggie had woken, she’d said she’d had a nightmare, and on this occasion her eyes were wide and staring and she was rigid. Coming awake when she spoke soothingly to her, Meggie said in a panicked voice, ‘Thank goodness you’ve come. He was coming for me, and I couldn’t move.’
‘Who was coming?’
‘I don’t know, but I was scared. Will you stay with me tonight, Aunt Es? Please.’
It was nearly dawn. Leo had turned into her warm patch after she’d vacated the bed, and he was still sleeping soundly so wouldn’t miss her.
Things came to a head later that day.
The men had gone down to the local, and the boys were up in the attic, adding bits of rail and landscape to the model railway. Esmé had bought them a second station with an extension of rails that led to a siding – a bridge, and some black and white cows to populate the hills with.
Esmé found her sister in the kitchen after voices had been raised, in tears. Throwing caution to the wind, she said, ‘What on earth is going on between you and Meggie, Livia?’
‘Oh, she objected to helping me with the vegetables, said that she was being used as a slave. Denton said it’s just her age, and she’ll get over it.’
‘People say that when they don’t know how to handle the problem. It’s a convenient fob off.’
‘Yes . . . I know. But Denton has enough on his plate with his job, without me bothering him with family problems. Meggie has always been a bit on the rebellious side. But she’s been like this since Major Sangster died. I’ve suspected for some time that she’s been visiting him behind my back. It was the stamps, you see.’
‘Stamps?’
‘The American ones in the boys’ stamp collection. They told me they came from Meggie. I think they were on the letters that Rosemary Mortimer wrote to the major. There were several of her letters in the drawer. They hadn’t been opened, but the stamps were missing. And when the major died, they found a letter from her solicitor that had dropped from his hand. It was to advise him that she’d died. The stamp was missing from that envelope too, and Denton said there was a tray of tea with two cups on the table. I found the stamp in the pocket of Meggie’s skirt. There was also a picture of Richard on the major’s chair. Meggie had sketched it.’
‘Why didn’t you have it out with her then? She knew Major Henry was her grandfather.’
‘Yes . . . she did. But I told her that she mustn’t visit him. She’d been seeing him for some time behind my back, I think.’
‘Perhaps you kept Meggie on too tight a rein, Livia. She was bound to be curious, and was seeing her grandfather so bad?’
‘You know how unstable he was. He tried to kill himself.’
‘That was after Rosemary Mortimer left him, and Richard kicked him out. If you thought he would do any harm to her, why did you allow him to live in the cottage?’
‘It was Denton’s idea. The major was a friend of old Dr Elliot, as well as being Richard’s father. They both felt some responsibility towards him. So they asked me if I’d let him live in the cottage. The alternative was a home for the mentally ill. I couldn’t really say no, after all he was my former father-in-law, and people would have talked.’
‘People have always talked. You worry too much about what other people think. What was the real reason you didn’t want Meggie to get to know him?’
‘I don’t know what you mean?’
‘Yes you do. Not once did you go to see the old man, and you nearly had hysterics every time he was mentioned. What did he do to you, Livia? Why did Richard send him packing?’
‘Do to me . . . I don’t know what you mean.’
The door creaked open and Meggie stood there, her face pale and determined, as if having Esmé involved had given her courage. ‘Tell her, mother. Tell her what the major did to you.’
‘Meggie . . . this is none of your business.’
‘Of course it’s my business. After all, the major is my father. He told me so.’
Her sister dragged in a breath so painful that it reached out to Esmé, who was almost floundering with her own amazement at hearing such a statement coming from Meggie.
‘He lied to you.’
‘Did he? I’ve always known there was something about me that wasn’t quite right. You didn’t treat me the same as you did the boys, and you used to gaze at me, as though I was a stranger.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘Did the saintly Richard Sangster know you were having a relationship with his father as well as him?’
When Livia’s hand connected with Meggie’s face the girl cried out and her eyes widened with the shock of it. So did Livia’s.
‘Livia, that’s enough,’ Esmé spluttered, moving between them.
Mother and daughter stared at each other, bristling like cats, then Livia said, ‘That’s what comes of listening at keyholes.’
Meggie placed her hand against the reddening patch on her face, and between sobs, choked out, ‘I think I hate you.’
Ashen-faced now, Livia whispered. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying. Meggie. I’m sorry . . . so sorry.’
The girl turned and walked away. The front door slammed shut.
Livia lowered herself into the nearest chair and buried her face in her arms.
Pouring a measure of brandy into a glass, Esmé handed it to her sister and waited until the colour returned to her cheeks before saying, ‘I’ll go after her.’
‘No . . . she’ll come back when she’s cooled down. I’ll tell her then.’
‘Tell her what?’
‘Something that only Richard, Denton and myself have ever been aware of . . . that the major raped me when he was drunk, when I worked at Foxglove House. I’ve never been there since. Neither have I been to Nutting Cottage. I hated allowing him to live there. We were happy living there, and now, it’s as though everything the major touched was soiled. I was scared he’d do the same to Meggie – harm her in some way. And he did; only, he got to her through her mind.’
‘You’ve been carrying this with you for all this time. I wish you’d told me. What will you tell Meggie when she calms down?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure which of them fathered her. Richard married me to provide her with a name. He wanted to be her father so much, and despite his medical report, he did manage to be a husband to me on occasion. I closed my mind to the other possibility, and convinced myself that Meggie is Richard’s daughter. She looks so much like him at times that my heart aches. That can’t just be my imagination, can it?’
>
Esmé didn’t want to wreck Livia’s conviction. ‘She does look like Richard, except for her eye colour, and she looks like you, as well. She’s a good mix. Oh my God! I never suspected all that had taken place there without me noticing.’
‘You were only young.’
‘You can’t tell her that her parentage is in doubt . . . that will just help to confirm in her mind what the major told her. Meggie’s only sixteen. It will ruin her life.’
‘What else can I do? Not content with encouraging her behind my back, that horrid old man decided to ruin her life as well as mine, by laying claim to her. If he wasn’t dead already, I think I could kill him myself. I’m not sure what to do.’
‘You can invent a lie. You’ve got to, Livia. And it’s got to be convincing enough for her to believe it. I can’t bear seeing you estranged from her like you are. With Meggie so angry and upset, and you so remote from her, things can only get worse unless a solution is found.’
‘I don’t know how to close the gap.’
‘Remember when she was a baby? Meggie was such a sensitive and curious child. We all loved her so much. You can’t ruin her by leaving such an uncertainty on her shoulders . . . you mustn’t. She needs to be reassured, and made to feel as though she’s loved.’ She placed a hand over Livia’s. ‘Would you like me to talk to her first. It might be easier for both of you.’
Livia drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and a wry smile twisted her mouth. ‘We had an argument the last time you advised me on how to raise my daughter.’
‘I’m willing to risk another one to bring together two people I love so much.’
Livia kissed her cheek. ‘This time I’m listening, but no, Es. This I must do for myself and for my daughter. I just have to run her to ground.’
‘Try Foxglove House . . . you’ll need a torch.’
