by Davis Bunn
“So I’ve heard.”
“Well, of course you have, since I have personally written you nineteen letters to that effect. Nineteen, Mr. Blackstone.” The accountant eyed him from the heights of power. “I’m rather confused. Precisely why has it taken you two years to finally respond?”
“I’ve been away.”
“Away.”
“That’s right.”
“For two years?”
“Yes.”
“Rather a bizarre manner to see to your duties as heir, wouldn’t you agree? Or were you not informed the place was bequeathed to you?”
“I thought it was being handled by a local property agent.”
“Ah.” The news took her back around to her padded executive chair. “You did not feel it was worth your while to check matters out for yourself?”
Brian rose to his feet with a swiftness that drove the accountant back in her seat. He took no pleasure from the flicker of unease in her eyes. At that moment, all he could think of was that to remain meant telling her about Sarah, and that was not going to happen. Not with this woman. Not ever. “Thank you for your time.”
“Enjoy your brief visit to our town, Mr. Blackstone.” Her icy tone followed him through the door. “Castle Keep is to be auctioned off five days from today. And I for one will not be the least bit sorry to see the back of you.”
The first thing Cecilia heard when entering the clinic on Friday was Maureen declaring, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was greeting a woman in love.”
She was vastly relieved to see that no one else was there to observe her turn crimson. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Well, let’s see.” Maureen had a way of cocking her head that made whatever she said sound comic. “Your face is shining like a little lighthouse.”
“I’ve never heard—”
“And you’re carrying the funniest smile, like the world’s told you a joke and you can’t quite decide whether to laugh out loud.”
Cecilia slammed the outer door hard enough to make the panes rattle. “Maureen Dowd, you are positively the most irritating woman it has ever been my misfortune to work with.”
“Let’s see.” Maureen pretended to pat her curls into place. “Could it be that your landlord is no longer a beast with scales, rising from the swamps?”
Cecilia’s denial was halted by Maureen’s knowing smirk. “If you must know, I had a chat with Brian this morning in the garden.”
Maureen declared smugly, “So I heard. Gladys Wainwright stopped me in the marketplace this morning. Seems she observed your two heads together for quite a while.”
“That does it, then.” Cecilia walked over and slumped onto the corner of the counter. “If Gladys knows, then so does the whole town.”
“Have a fling with the man if you want, dear, but take care who you trust your heart to.”
Cecilia toyed with her keys. “I’ve pretty much given up hope of ever finding someone to fling with at all.”
“Oh, come now. A lovely thing like you?”
“A woman with a very clear idea of what she wants out of life,” Cecilia corrected. “I’ve been in love. Three tries, three strikeouts. Twice with young men who were certain that if I learned to love them enough, I’d give up on my dreams of becoming a village doctor. The third try was the worst mistake of my life. I guess I got tired of being hurt by men who accused me of putting my dreams before love.”
“I didn’t know. Not about them all. Of course I’ve heard . . .” Maureen’s smile was no longer in sight. “I’m so sorry, dear.”
Cecilia found her thoughts circling back to the morning’s talk. “I told the vicar I’d speak at the town meeting.” Maureen showed genuine surprise. “I didn’t know you felt so strongly about the bells.”
Cecilia’s thoughts on that were so confusing it was easier to reply, “I’m terrified of standing up in front of people.”
“Then why on earth did you say you’d do it?”
She thought of Brian’s words and answered with a conviction that surprised even her. “Because I belong here.”
“Well, of course you do, dear.” Maureen rose to her feet. “Now, you just settle yourself back in your office, and I’ll bring you a nice cup of tea.”
But before Cecilia could move from her perch, the front door clicked open. As soon as she heard the sound, she knew who it was. Before turning and seeing the overly small child and his desperately frightened mother, she knew and felt a rightness that defied all logic and her own quaking heart. So she was able to rise and greet Tommy Townsend with a heartfelt smile and say, “I’m so glad you came.”
“Mr. Blackstone? Nigel Gelding, assistant manager of Barclay’s Bank. I understand you’re interested in applying for a loan?”
“Well, a mortgage is more like it.” Brian watched the young man take in his pressed khakis and the faded denim shirt and knew he was wasting his time. “I’m not sure what you call it here.”
Chubby cheeks pressed back in a banker’s smile. “Let’s just step into my office, shall we?”
When the door was closed and Brian was seated across the polished desk, the banker drew out a series of forms, lined them up carefully, selected one of his trio of silver pens from the holder, then gave Brian yet another bland smile. “Just how much were you wishing to borrow?”
“I’m not sure.”
The banker lacked a single sharp edge. He possessed the round face of someone who had grown from a chubby childhood into overweight maturity. His cheeks pushed forward, drawing his mouth into a little cherub’s bow, which opened now into an O of surprise. “You don’t know?”
“Not for certain.”
“Mr., ah . . .”
“Blackstone.”
“It is, well, customary in this country for someone who wants to borrow money to have some idea of the amount required.”
“I know it’s going to be more than six hundred thousand pounds.”
“Six . . .” The brow managed to wrinkle somewhat. “That’s rather a lot.”
“It will probably be more. I want to bid on my house when it goes up for auction.”
Clearly the man did not like surprises. “You what?”
“I’ve just inherited Castle Keep, and—”
“Oh, yes. Now I understand.” He slipped the pen back into the holder. “You’re that fellow, are you.”
“Yes. The house is to be auctioned next week, and I want to bid for it.”
He gave brief inspection to Brian’s rumpled form. In addition to his two sweaters, Brian wore a knitted jacket that had seemed fine when he had purchased it in a Malay street market. For three dollars American. The banker asked, “Could you tell me what exactly it is that you do?”
“Until two years ago, I managed a wholesale supply company.”
The banker made no move to write this down. “And since then?”
“I’ve been traveling.”
“Ah.” Two chubby, manicured hands gathered the forms and stacked them neatly. “Is there a great deal of money in traveling?”
“None at all.”
“No. I thought not.” This time the smile held all the warmth of a locked vault. “Mr. Blackstone, it is also customary in this country for someone who wishes to borrow money to be able to show how it will be repaid.”
“But I thought I could use the house as collateral and—”
“I’m afraid not.” The banker stood and offered his hand. “Thank you so much for stopping by.”
Little Tommy Townsend had been through the routine so many times he climbed straight onto the examination table and began unbuttoning his shirt. As always, Angeline Townsend parked herself in the corner, crossed her arms, and clenched her upper body so tight the flesh puffed up around her collar, like a balloon being squeezed out of shape. Cecilia fitted the stethoscope to her ears, listened to a heartbeat she had come to know so well she heard it in her sleep. The chest was far too small for a four-year-old boy, the weight well below t
he norm, the skin so translucent she could trace the little blue veins with her fingers. The lungs sounded slightly congested—nothing new there, either. “Do your joints still ache?”
“My knees.” The boy was all skin and bones and eyes. His voice was just barely above a whisper, his features sad. And scared. “And my neck.”
“It was your ankles last time, wasn’t it?” She did not need to check her patient’s notes. The vague swelling of his joints, and the way this symptom moved randomly about his body, was one of the many enigmas about Tommy Townsend. Gently she probed the offending knees.
“Does that hurt?”
“Yes.”
She hated the way he sounded resigned to his pain. Hated even more her inability to do anything about it. “Have you had any fever?”
Angeline answered for him. “Not last night. But the night before he was bathed in sweat. I had to change his nightshirt.”
Cecilia’s gaze fastened upon the child’s upper arm, and she felt her gut clench tight. The limb was as light as a bird’s and scarred by countless needles. The little veins were discolored and bruised, and the three latest marks had stained the fresh Band-Aids with blood. Cecilia ran one finger down the inside of the boy’s arm, and Tommy shivered in response. He knew what was coming and could do nothing about it.
From her post against the opposite wall, Angeline asked tightly, “Have the lab results come in?”
“They were negative as well,” Cecilia replied.
“Then Tommy doesn’t have cystic fibrosis?”
“Definitely not.” She lifted the boy’s shirt and helped him slide in one arm, then the other. She brushed his little hands aside and began doing up the buttons herself. “The results were absolutely conclusive.”
“Well, that’s good, I suppose.” But she did not sound the least bit happy. And Cecilia could well understand. They had run the gamut of diseases, and with each series of tests, Angeline Townsend suffered. “So what do we do now?”
Cecilia sat down beside Tommy on the padded couch, steeled herself, and met Angeline’s tormented gaze. “That depends on you.”
The pale features blanched. “Me?”
“That’s right. If you insist, we can put Tommy into the hospital and have him run through more tests.”
As the mother studied her for some signal, Cecilia heard Tommy give a tiny whimper. It was the most natural thing in the world to reach over and draw the little boy into her lap. As Tommy turned so that he could rest his head on her chest, Cecilia realized that it was the first time she had touched the child for anything more than an examination. She had tried hard to hold herself removed from the boy, and for all the right reasons. But now, as she stroked the feather-soft brown hair and felt his skinny arms reach around her, she found herself missing what she had denied herself.
“But that’s what we should do, isn’t it?” Angeline’s face screwed up with all that had happened and now all that was to come. “It’s the way forward, wouldn’t you say?”
Cecilia hugged the child tighter, met the mother’s gaze, and said firmly, “No. I wouldn’t.”
“But . . .” She gestured at the child in Cecilia’s lap. “We don’t know what’s the matter!”
“That’s right. And in trying to put a name on it, we’ve subjected this child to far too much already.” She continued to stroke the hair, feeling her confusion diminish in the process. “I think we should gamble that Tommy has something called postviral syndrome. It’s a sort of catchall term for any number of symptoms. The records show that Tommy had a bad chest infection several months before this started.”
“That’s right. He was in bed for almost two weeks.”
“And he hasn’t felt right since then?”
“He’s lost weight, he’s had fevers, he seems to catch everything that goes around.”
“Well, we’ve eliminated all the real threats—meningitis, hepatitis, leukemia.” Cecilia halted her list. There was no need to repeat the worry. “If Tommy goes into the hospital, they will start by repeating all the tests we’ve already run.”
The little arms tightened around Cecilia’s waist, and the child whimpered, “Don’t let them hurt me anymore, Mommy.”
The mother’s lip trembled, and the words came out choked. “But I have to know!”
“I need to know also. But at what price? And if it is postviral syndrome, there is no cure except time and rest. Admittedly Tommy is younger than most, but it isn’t unknown for a child of his age to come down with it.”
Angeline Townsend wrenched herself off the wall and collapsed into one of the chairs by Cecilia’s desk. “I can’t take much more of this.”
The child whimpered in agreement. Cecilia said, “I understand.”
“You can’t. You don’t . . .” She forced herself to take a steadying breath. “I had three miscarriages before Tommy.”
Cecilia nodded. She had seen the woman’s records. Her heart burned with what the woman had not actually said. No, it was true. She didn’t know what it was like. She couldn’t.
“Every time you start on another of those tests, I spend the nights in agony. Every test is another disease, and in my heart Tommy has suffered them all.”
Cecilia felt the child stirring. She released him and watched as he slid from her lap and walked over to his mother and hugged her and whispered, “Don’t cry anymore, Mommy.”
“That’s why I feel that we should stop altogether,” Cecilia replied and felt an uncommon ache where the child had been. Perhaps that was what the professionals had always warned her about. But in all of the moment’s honesty, she could not call the sensation unwanted. “The tests have worn us all out and given us nothing but conclusive evidence of what Tommy does not have.”
She pulled a tissue from the box by the table and handed it to Angeline. “I simply cannot recommend that we put Tommy through anything more. Or you.”
Angeline held her child with one hand and wiped her eyes with the other. “How long before we know?”
“It could be weeks, it could be months. Postviral syndrome affects different people differently. What we need to do now is put Tommy on a high-protein diet and see if we can help him gain some weight.”
Angeline stroked her child’s head. “Steak and ice cream for you tonight. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?”
“I’ll want to see you every ten days or so, just to chart his progress and make sure there aren’t any new symptoms.” Cecilia walked to her desk and began writing on her pad. “We’ll try to help things along with a few vitamin supplements you should mix with his milk, morning and night.”
The young mother rose to her feet, accepted the pages, and said to the child, “What do you tell the doctor, sweetheart?”
Tommy turned toward her and sang shyly, “Bye-bye, Cecee.”
“Take care,Tommy. And grow strong.” Cecilia walked them out, shut the door behind the little boy, and smiled a greeting to the crowded waiting room. On her way back to her office, she stopped by the counter and leaned over to quietly tell Maureen, “I’ve just been renamed.”
“Yes, children will steal your heart if you let them.” But Maureen’s gaze remained on the now-closed door. “Do you know, I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever seen Angeline Townsend smile.”
Cecilia took that bit of news back into her office, buzzed for the next patient, and cast a glance at the sunlit window. What a grand day it was turning out to be.
Thirteen
IT TOOK BRIAN THE BETTER PART OF FRIDAY AFTERNOON TO admit defeat over the latest clue and accept that he needed help. Even so, he was reluctant to take Cecilia’s suggestion of asking Arthur. He could not imagine how the stern old gentleman would view a foreigner popping up on his doorstep and asking for advice about a riddle from his dead aunt-in-law.
His visits to the village finance office and bank had left him resigned to the fact that he was going to lose the house. The tall grandfather clock in Heather’s upstairs corridor had been stopped
for years, yet as he descended the right-hand staircase, it seemed to Brian that he could hear a ticking echo in time to his tread. He had no choice but to ask the old man. He needed help, and he needed it now.
Arthur’s response to his request could not have been more astonishing. The old gentleman lit up with an incandescent flash. “My dear boy! You don’t mean to tell me Heather has left you puzzles!”
“Well, yes. I’m sorry to bother you, but—”
“Bother? Why, nothing could be further from the case!”
Brian handed over the note and explained, “Apparently my wife and Heather planned these clues together. On her good days, I’d come into Sarah’s room and find her giggling with Heather on the phone. When I asked her what they were doing, all she’d tell me was, ‘Planning.’ It was so good to see her laugh, I never had the heart to push for more.”
His words halted Arthur in the process of opening the letter. “My dear fellow, how tragically touching.”
“I just thought you should know,” Brian finished. “Some of the letter is pretty personal.”
Brian studied Arthur as he read. Age had softened his features and planted a few spots on his neck and left cheek, but Arthur Wainwright remained both virile and handsome. The timeless polish was intact as well, for Arthur exuded the air of one who could command without raising his voice. He wore no-nonsense glasses with heavy black frames, which only heightened the luster of his white hair. Very strong features, sharply focused eyes, prominent ears, strong chin. Big hands and shoulders to match. If ever a man had been born to rule, it was Arthur Wainwright.
He finished reading the brief letter, let his hand drop to his side, and took a long breath before sighing, “Poor Heather.” Another shaky breath, then, “Life can be such a dreadful bother.”
Brian let the silence of accord rest between them.
“I must thank you for sharing this with me. It is like she has returned to grace these old walls once more.” Arthur lifted the letter and mused over the final sentences aloud, “‘Yet it was in this place of supposed darkness that she found not only a turning, but a healing. Seek where the darkness gathers, and find wings for your own renewal.’”
