Instant Father

by Lucy Gordon

  “As a matter of fact he paid rather more.”

  “More?” Gavin couldn’t believe his ears.

  “Mr. Ackroyd felt that had Strand House been unoccupied the value would have been higher, so he insisted on paying his wife an extra thirty thousand pounds on top of the fifty percent.”

  Gavin felt as though the roof had caved in on him. This was far worse than anything he could have imagined.

  “This surprises you?” Angus asked, looking at him intently.

  “Well, yes. Somehow you don’t think of a naturalist as being a-a solid man. I wonder how he persuaded anyone to give him a mortgage.”

  “Oh, there was no mortgage. He paid cash. He was an extremely wealthy man. As a naturalist his reputation was second to none, and his books earned him a fortune. As for his being a ‘a solid man’-in these ‘green’ days I sometimes feel that naturalists are the only solid men. They seem to rake in cash while people in the more traditional money-making occupations are losing it. It’s a topsy-turvy world.”

  “Yes,” Gavin said with an effort. “It is, isn’t it?”

  Chapter Eight

  When Angus had departed, Gavin went into Tony’s study, seeing it with new eyes. For the first time he noticed the multitude of books that lined the walls, all with Anthony Ackroyd stamped on the spine. They’d always been there, but he’d been too annoyed to notice them before.

  He returned to the living room and sat down heavily. He felt stunned. All his life he’d measured success in money, and by that standard it seemed Tony was a more successful man than he was. The lawyer’s last words lingered in his mind. “Naturalists seem to rake in cash while people in the more traditional money-making occupations are losing it.” Everything he’d worked for was slipping through his fingers, while a man he’d refused to take seriously had become “a solid man.”

  And she had seen this coming, and laughed as she thought of his discomfiture. He groaned, resting his arms on his knees and burying his head in his hands. Suddenly the weight of his problems was too much.

  Norah came into the room a few moments later, ready to enjoy her triumph. She was bitterly angry with Gavin, as much because of her own disillusionment as in response to what he’d done. She’d awakened that morning feeling self-conscious, and the sensation had been with her all day. At the strangest moments, when she was feeding or tending animals, she would have the unnerving sensation that the present had vanished and she was once more being held firmly in Gavin Hunter’s arms, his lips hard and demanding on hers.

  It was true that he’d backed off at once, but it had been too late to take back the feelings she’d sensed in his embrace. They were there, and if they were there they could be aroused. And she didn’t hide from herself the fact that she wanted to arouse them. The discovery that he was secretly trying to raise money on Strand House had been a brutal revelation and she’d lashed out in pain.

  Now she’d come to confront him, to enjoy seeing him worsted. But something was wrong. She stopped in the doorway, disconcerted by what she saw. Gavin became aware of her and looked up. She saw the confusion of emotions that chased each other across his face: first the instinctive desire to put up a brave front; followed by a weary resignation. She realized how exhausted and strained his face was, as if he never slept properly.

  “All right,” he said. “You made your point. I had no idea that-I just had no idea. You should have told me earlier that I was fooling myself.”

  “There’ve been so many other things to think of. Besides, it never occurred to me that you’d misunderstood. I still don’t know why you took it for granted that Dad hadn’t paid properly.” She came and sat beside him on the sofa.

  “I didn’t think naturalists had that kind of money. It seems I’ve been wrong about a lot of things. I’d pictured your father-I don’t know…” he shrugged, unable to find the words.

  “I do. You thought he was a sponger,” she said, but without rancor.

  “It’s more than that. I thought he was a lightweight. It seems I was wrong.”

  “Because he made a lot of money?” she asked, wrinkling her brow.

  “It’s one yardstick. Maybe not the only one, but it does matter. It means he wasn’t sponging on Liz, the way I thought. A man who could pay that kind of price without needing a mortgage-I have to respect that, especially since I…” he checked himself.

  “Especially since what?” Norah prompted curiously.

  “Nothing. I’m just disoriented. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “Is business not so good?” she asked gently.

  Gavin sighed. “Business is awful,” he admitted. “You may as well know the truth. I’m at my wits’ end. Nothing else would have made me try to raise money on Strand House. I’ve explored every other avenue and they’re all cut off.”

  “I thought Hunter and Son was a big empire.”

  “Oh yes, it’s big, all right. It’s just that the foundations are rotten. I’ve fought as hard as I know how to keep up a good appearance, and suddenly I don’t care any more. It’s finished.”

  “What’s finished?” she asked.

  “I’m finished. There’s nothing else left to try. I shall have to start selling soon.”

  Norah was silent. She knew little about big business and had only the vaguest idea of the reality Gavin was trying to describe, but she understood that he’d learned to respect her beloved father. In her opinion he respected him for the wrong reasons, but she appreciated the way he’d been willing to shift his point of view and this softened her toward him.

  She went to the cupboard and returned with a glass bearing a measure of brandy. “Here,” she said.

  “Trying to get me drunk again, huh?”

  “Well, it improves your disposition, I seem to remember.”

  “You mean it makes me talk. I say all sorts of things I shouldn’t.”

  “Does it? Or do you say the things you should?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you need to confide in someone about the burdens you’re carrying, and you won’t do it unless a drink loosens you up first.”

  Gavin managed a wry grin. “I thought your recipe for trouble was to put my arms around an animal?”

  “Buster’s not up on financial matters,” she responded gravely. “Besides, that only works if your heart’s in it.”

  “And according to you I have no heart.”

  “Did I say that? I don’t remember.”

  “Oh, no, you said I was a man whom nobody loved. It was Liz who said I had no heart. Strange how I confuse you with her. You remind me of her in some ways.”

  “Well, I came under her influence a lot. Not as much as she’d have liked, though,” Norah added with a rueful smile.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, she was so elegant and beautiful. Even when she was cleaning out a pen or grooming an animal, she contrived to be elegant and poised. She tried to teach me the secret, but I was a disappointment to her.”

  “What’s wrong with you as you are?”

  “A lot, according to Liz. She said I didn’t make the best of myself.”

  “She didn’t know what she was talking about,” Gavin growled.

  “Well, perhaps she didn’t know what she was talking about with you, either,” Norah suggested. “I think you have a heart, but it’s barricaded like a hedgehog, and if anyone dares approach the prickles come out in force.”

  He felt a strange sensation, almost as if he were blushing. It embarrassed him to be understood. He muttered “amateur psychologist,” and she laughed, not in the least disconcerted.

  “Look, Gavin,” she said after a moment, “you’re not going to like this suggestion, but think it over before you reject it. Why don’t you let me buy out your share of Strand House.”

  “No, thank you,” he said before she’d finished speaking.

  “But it would suit both of us. It would make the sanctuary safe, and you’d have some money to-to use for what
ever you need money for, prop up your business or whatever.”

  “It’s good of you, Norah, and believe me I’m grateful. But I could never sell Strand House. I had to steel myself to try to raise a mortgage on it, but sell it-never.” He added involuntarily, “The old man would kill me.”

  “Who’s the old man?”

  “My father. He started Hunter and Son, and he was determined to add Strand House to it for as long as I can remember. He worked here as a boy for the family that owned it then, and he never gave up the dream of buying it. He didn’t manage it, but I did.”

  She looked at him curiously. “But that was his dream. What was yours?”

  As he wasn’t an analytical man, Gavin had to think about this. “To be a son he could be proud of, I suppose,” he said at last.

  Norah pounced on this tidbit of information. Gavin usually revealed so little about himself. “And his pride was important to you,” she prompted. “Was he really that wonderful?”

  “He was one of the most outstanding business brains of his generation and he raised me to think I could beat his achievements-”

  “But that’s not what I meant,” Norah interrupted with a puzzled frown. “Was he a wonderful father?”

  “Actually it’s ‘is,’ not ‘was.’ My father is very much alive, although he talks as though he were at death’s door. He’ll probably outlive me.”

  Norah noticed that he’d avoided her question, but she refrained from mentioning it. She was discovering that what Gavin suppressed was as significant as what he revealed. “And he wanted you to get Strand House, for him?” she mused. “And when you did, that must have been a thrilling moment for you both. He must have showered you with praise.”

  “That’s not his way,” Gavin said, staring into his glass. “Putting half of it into Liz’s name was a pretty dumb move, according to him, and when she claimed her half-” he shrugged, wondering what possessed him to be lowering his guard like this, but unable to stop himself.

  “He blamed you,” Norah said. “And he’s still blaming you, isn’t he?” Gavin shrugged. “What about your mother? You said she died when you were young, but you must remember something about her.”

  “Hardly anything. She left him before she died.”

  “And took you with her? So he claimed you back after her death?” Norah asked, almost holding her breath at the idea of such an uncanny parallel.

  But Gavin said, “Oh, no. I stayed with him.”

  “She left you behind?” Norah asked, scandalized.

  “I suppose so. I was only five at the time. I didn’t know much of what was going on between the adults. Anyway, she went, and I stayed with my father. It was what I wanted.”

  “I can’t imagine a child of five choosing to be parted from his mother,” Norah said emphatically.

  “I told you my father is a remarkable man. I must have known that even then.”

  “I suppose so,” she agreed, sounding unconvinced. “Did you have much contact with your mother after that?”

  “I never saw her again. I didn’t even know she was dead until six months after it had happened.”

  “What?”

  “I’d just started a new school, and my father didn’t want to unsettle me.”

  “He sounds like a monster.”

  “He had his own ways of doing things, but understand this: I’m proud to be his son. I’m proud of his achievements and of the chance to build on them.”

  “But you haven’t been able to build on them,” Norah pointed out, not unkindly, but simply to make him tell her more. “Hunter and Son is slipping away from you.”

  “I’ve been unfortunate,” he conceded. “Property has slumped and…” he smiled wryly, “‘nature’ has risen. It was a possibility I never even considered.”

  “But these things are outside your control,” Norah said. “Surely your father will understand that?”

  “He lives in his own enclosed little world in his nursing home. He reads the papers, but he takes in what he wants and ignores the rest. His advice is always impractical.”

  Norah felt as though a wall between them had suddenly vanished, enabling her to see deep into his heart. And what she saw there hurt her almost unbearably. Why, he was no different from Peter, she realized; a mass of unhappiness and confusion and divided loyalties. In his reluctant description of his relationship with his father he’d unconsciously shown her a tragedy, but he’d also shown much more-how frighteningly close the tragedy was to being repeated. Now she could understand many things about Gavin and his behavior to his own son, things that seemed unpleasant until she traced them back to their source in Gavin’s father. After that they seemed merely sad.

  He glanced up and saw her looking at him closely. Perhaps he guessed that she was beginning to understand him, because he drew back abruptly and the line of his mouth tightened. “It’s kind of you to want to help me,” he said, “but I’ll manage.”

  Norah realized she’d been firmly shut out again, but she didn’t try to protest. It would have been useless. She knew now that there was only one way to get near Gavin, and that was slowly, inch by careful inch. “What about this Elsemore character?” she asked, matching his cool tone.

  “Forget him. You’ll have no trouble with him, I promise. You can trust me on this.”

  “I didn’t doubt it. And remember, my offer’s still open, if you change your mind.”

  “Thank you, but I won’t need to. Now that I come to think of it, I’m sure I was taking too gloomy a view. Things aren’t really that bad.”

  Gavin was doing as much work as possible from Strand House and going to London only when necessary. Eventually he slipped into a routine of driving to London every week, staying overnight and returning late the following day. As the summer slipped away and the nights began to draw in, the weather turned nasty. One afternoon on the way home he found himself caught up in a storm. It had been threatening as he started the journey, and by halfway it was in full blast; a real theatrical showstopper of a storm, with bellowing thunder, lashing rain and fierce winds that tore the trees sideways.

  He knew the sensible thing would be to stop at a hotel, but he wanted to get home and so he pressed on, driving as fast as he dared, which wasn’t very fast. One fear haunted him, that the storm would frighten the animals and Norah would have everyone out caring for them. Including Peter. At the thought of his son working in this terrible weather, fear gripped him and he stepped on the gas.

  Even so, it was past midnight when he arrived. As he turned the corner of the drive he saw an ambulance standing outside the front door and he felt as if his heart would stop. He yanked on the hand brake and dashed out of the car, hurling himself at the rear door of the ambulance. One of the ambulance men tried to bar his path. “Sir, if you’ll just-”

  “Get out of my way,” Gavin raged. “That’s my son in there. Do you hear me? Let me get to my son.”

  He thrust the man from his path and frantically seized the rear door, yanking it open. Then he stopped, frozen, staring at the face that looked back at him from the stretcher.

  “It seems I got me a Daddy,” Grim said, grinning. “That’s cool, since I never knew the real one.”

  “I…” Gavin swallowed. “I’m sorry, I thought-”

  “Hey, no problem. Peter should count himself lucky to have a father who cares.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Gavin asked, recovering himself.

  “Tree fell on me. Broke my leg. So what? I’ve got another one,” Grim declared blithely, although his pain showed.

  “Then I’ll let you get on. Yes, I’m sorry…” This was to the ambulance man he’d manhandled, and who was now trying to close the door.

  He turned to see Peter standing on the front steps in his pajamas and robe, holding a small mongoose. He was watching his father closely, but it was impossible to say how much he’d heard. “Are you all right?” he asked. Peter nodded. “Better get back to bed, then.”

  But the boy sh
ook his head and went to the door to the back room. A motley collection of wet and bedraggled animals was in there. Iris appeared. She was soaking wet, and looked pale and exhausted. “Norah got as many of them into the house as she could, and she made Peter stay here to look after them,” she explained. “The rest of us went out to help, and Grim had his accident.”

  “Where’s Norah now?”

  “The storm’s ripping the place apart and there’s still a lot to do. She made me come in. I’m not as young as I was.”

  “But where is she?” Gavin demanded.

  “She went back out.”

  Gavin swore under his breath and hurried out into the storm. A flash of lightning ripped the sky. The brief light showed him the sanctuary, where the wire pens were being lashed this way and that. “Norah,” he called. “Norah.”

  He thought he heard a faint answering cry and ran in her direction, bent almost doule against the wind. Through the driving rain he could just make out a figure kneeling on the ground by the animal pens. “What are you doing?” he roared as he reached her.

  “The wire’s ripped,” she yelled back. “I must mend it or they’ll get out, but I can’t see what I’m doing. Can you hold the torch for me?”

  “Wait, I’ve got a better idea.” He tore back to the car and brought it around to where she was, training the headlights directly on her. Osbert immediately appeared out of the dark and apparently remembering that he was a guard goose attacked the car. Gavin shooed him away and Osbert nipped his leg before retreating, honking wildly.

  “Thanks,” Norah yelled. She didn’t seem to have registered who was with her. She was working frantically with a pair of pliers, twisting wire, trying to make the pen safe.

  “Give them to me,” Gavin yelled, trying to make himself heard over the noise of the elements and Osbert at full blast. “Give them to me.”

  She did so, and he fought to bring the edges of wire together and fix them. The wire seemed to fight back, jabbing him with sharp spikes until he was bleeding, but at last he finished the job. He found he was breathing hard and sat back for a moment. He could see her in the headlights, her dark hair plastered to her skull by the rain, and to his startled gaze she seemed to be naked. Then he saw that she was wearing a short nightdress that was soaked and clinging to her body, hiding nothing. With a slight start he realized that she was beautiful. Then he pulled himself together and averted his gaze.