by Penny Jordan
Awkwardly, Jessica gave her name, her tongue suddenly clumsy, her heart beating too fast with nervous dread.
‘My father—’ she began, and then broke off as the ward doors opened and her mother approached.
She hadn’t seen Jessica, and the shock of seeing her normally immaculately groomed and coiffeured mother without her make-up, her face drawn, her hair untidy, traces of tears clearly discernible on her face seemed to seize her body in a paralysis of dread, and then her mother saw her and opened her arms to her, saying tremulously, ‘Darling, it’s all right. Your father is doing very well. He’s over the worst now, and there’s every chance that he’s going to make a full recovery.’ She gave a rather watery chuckle. ‘His doctor says that this attack was a warning shot across the bows, and that if he takes heed of it…’ She hugged Jessica tightly. ‘Come in and see him for yourself.’
Shakily Jessica followed her into the ward, tensing at the sight of her father wired up to what seemed to be a formidable array of machinery, but he had seen her, and he was smiling at her, and suddenly she was overwhelmed with such a flood of love and awareness that it was impossible for her to speak.
‘So Daniel found you,’ her father said gently. ‘He said he would.’
Daniel…The sound of his name brought her crashing back to earth, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t, do anything to spoil this moment, so she smiled and held tight to her mother’s hand while the three of them shared the intensely emotional communion with one another.
Later, euphoric with relief, she went back to the Kensington house with her mother, surprised to discover how hungry she was, how suddenly alive and aware.
‘I thought Daniel was going to come to the hospital with you,’ her mother remarked as she made some coffee.
‘I didn’t want to disturb him,’ Jessica fibbed. In truth she hadn’t wanted Daniel to accompany her, and the note she had left him had been brittly polite and cold.
‘No, he must have been exhausted,’ her mother commented. ‘I can’t tell you how marvellous he’s been. It’s such a relief to know that the bank’s in such capable hands. I can’t help thinking that it’s the stress and strain of these last few months which have contributed to your father’s heart attack. The fear of the bank being taken over by some huge conglomerate whose ideology is totally different from your father’s…I know that when Daniel first approached him with his company’s offer, your father adamantly refused to consider it.’ She chuckled reminiscently. ‘He was furious when he came home. Outraged at this upand-coming entrepreneur who dared to believe he could take over. And then, when he’d calmed down, he admitted to me that there were problems with the bank, that some of the shareholders might be tempted into selling their shares to one of those corporations that specialise in dawn raids on people whom they see as their competitors, followed by a rapid take-over of the company and then its destruction. Daniel at least, he admitted, wanted to maintain the bank as a going concern, to improve and enlarge its business activities, but his pride was stung a little, I think, by the knowledge that such a young man had built up a company large enough to take over the bank.’ She smiled warmly at Jessica. ‘That’s something you and your father have always shared. Your pride.’
Jessica stared numbly at her.
‘Mother, are you trying to tell me that Daniel has taken over the bank?’
Her mother looked puzzled.
‘Well, yes, dear. I thought you knew that. Of course, there hasn’t been an official announcement as yet. After all, your father and Daniel only signed the formal agreement a few days ago. Actually your father was rather cross.’ She pulled a face. ‘Of all the things to happen, your cousin Emma arrived in his office just as the formal signing was taking place. She had apparently ignored his secretary’s request that she wait until your father had time to see her. Your father wasn’t very pleased, I’m afraid, especially when his secretary told him that she found Emma actually eavesdropping outside his office door.’
The kitchen had started to spin dizzily around her. Jessica clutched the edge of the table, feeling she had stepped into a horrific nightmare.
‘But I thought…I thought that Daniel was joining the bank as a junior partner.’
She saw her mother frown.
‘Oh, no. What on earth gave you that idea?’
Jessica couldn’t speak, and her mother mused maternally, ‘We were so pleased when we learned that Daniel had bought a house so close to your village. I’m afraid, between us, your father and I must have bored him to tears singing your praises, but we’re both so proud of you and all that you’ve achieved.’ She bit her lip and added a little uncomfortably, ‘Don’t be cross with me, darling, but I’m afraid I did rather overdo the maternal bit a little in suggesting he might care to get in touch with you, but your father and I both liked him so much. I think it must be the eternal curse on all mothers that, where their children are concerned, they just can’t resist matchmaking. I think he was rather uncomfortable about my suggestion, but obviously he did take me up on it.’
Her head whirling slowly and cautiously, Jessica began to question her mother, and what she learned made her tremble inwardly with sickening recognition of her own folly.
It was Emma who had lied to her, not Daniel. There could be no doubt about that, but, just to make doubly sure, she said as casually as she could, ’emma called to see me a few days ago. She seems to know Daniel quite well.’
Her mother pulled a face. ‘Well, that’s another small problem we’ve had. Daniel was here for dinner one night when Emma arrived unexpectedly. She said she knew Daniel, and I asked her to join us, and I’m afraid I put him in a very embarrassing position. It turns out, although I suspect he’s given us a rather sanitised version of the story, that Emma was introduced to him at a party some time ago, and that since then she’s been making rather a nuisance of herself. He was quite blunt about it, and told us that he doubted that her feelings were in any way involved, and that it had been obvious to him from the moment he was introduced to her that she was, as he put it, on the look-out for a wealthy husband.’
Her mother spread her hands. ‘What could I say? We all know that it’s true. Of course, I apologised for putting him in an embarrassing position, but since then I’m afraid your cousin has been virtually hounding him. Your poor father was furious that she took advantage of her relationship with him to turn up at his office like that, and it was obvious she knew Daniel was there. I’m afraid he had to speak rather severely to her, and I also think that it was his interview with her that was at least partly to blame for his heart attack.’
She gave a faint sigh. ‘I’m afraid there are people in this world who, like your cousin, can never be content with their lives, and so must always be searching for something more. I feel very sorry for her. Now tell me, darling—what do you think of Daniel?’ she invited eagerly.
Jessica gave her a wan smile, her face totally devoid of colour. ‘I’m sorry, Mum, but I’m not feeling very well…I…’ She stood up unsteadily and raced for the downstairs cloakroom.
‘It’s just the shock of everything,’ she muttered feebly once she was back in the kitchen with her mother fussing anxiously over her. She wasn’t lying, after all—just not explaining exactly what kind of shock it was she was enduring.
‘You must be exhausted,’ her mother sympathised. ‘I ought to be myself, but I think the relief of knowing your father is going to be all right has put me on some kind of elevated plateau.’
‘I think it’s called euphoria,’ Jessica teased her weakly. Oh, how she wanted to be alone—needed to be alone—but she owed it to her mother to stay here with her. For once in her life, it was time to put someone else’s feelings before her own. She was here to help her mother, not to burden her.
* * *
Later she was thankful for the constantly ringing telephone, for the people who had to be advised of her father’s progress, for the hundred and one small jobs her mother found her to do, because they kept her
physically occupied, kept her from being left on her own to dwell on the enormity of her misjudgement of Daniel.
‘I can explain,’ he had said, but she wouldn’t let him, and now it was too late. She remembered the money she had thrown at him, the words she had said…
For three days she managed to keep up a pretence of normality, but on the third morning she answered the telephone and, on hearing Daniel’s voice on the other end of the line, started to tremble so violently that she dropped the receiver and then fled to her room.
She wasn’t surprised when her mother followed her there and said quietly, ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
Surprisingly, she discovered that she did, grateful for the fact that her mother listened in silence, not interrupting until she had finished.
‘Oh, Jessica,’ she said sadly.
‘Yes, I know,’ Jessica whispered hollowly. ‘He’ll never forgive me. How could he? I’ve destroyed…what…whatever there might have been. But why didn’t he tell me?’
Her mother was watching her pityingly, and she hadn’t even told her the very worst of it—that shameful, irrational gesture of high drama that was now rebounding on her so cruelly.
‘Perhaps he tried,’ her mother said tentatively. Jessica started to deny it, and then remembered that there had been an occasion on which Daniel had seemed on the verge of saying something to her. And then, of course, afterwards, he had tried to explain, but she had refused to let him. ‘If he still loves you—’ her mother continued, but Jessica made a gesture of dismissal and said bitterly,
‘Why not say, if I had loved him? I did…I do…but love on its own isn’t enough, is it? I mistrusted him. I believed Emma without stopping to question what she was telling me. I refused to give him the benefit of the doubt, to listen when he asked me to. How much contact is Daddy likely to have with him, once…once he’s back on his feet?’ she asked obliquely.
Her mother sighed. ‘Well, the plan is that Daniel will take over as chairman, but he has asked your father to stay on in an advisory capacity, and, of course, your father will retain his seat on the board. I’m afraid there will be rather a lot of occasions when he’s likely to be a part of our lives. Of course, you no longer live here—’
She broke off, remembering just how close to Daniel Jessica did live, and it was left to Jessica to say quietly, ‘Yes, well, in the circumstances, I’m sure it would be the best thing all round if I found somewhere else to live.’
There was a sad silence, and then her mother offered, ‘Perhaps if your father or I were to explain?’ But Jessica shook her head firmly.
‘No. No more running. No more evasion. No more not facing up to the truth. I’ve learned that much, at least. No, there’s only one thing I can do—must do.’ She bit her lip and asked quietly, ‘Do you…do you have a telephone number where he can be reached?’
Her mother frowned. ‘Yes, I think so. It should be in your father’s diary.’
It was, but the efficient secretary Jessica spoke to could offer her no other information than to say that her boss was unobtainable and taking a few days’ leave of absence.
That left her with only one option.
She wasn’t going to deceive herself. There was no going back, no remote chance of undoing the wrong she had done him, but at least she could apologise, admit her error, make it easier for her parents in their business involved with Daniel and make it clear to him that, whatever her private feelings, she was not, like her cousin, going to make a nuisance of herself. In fact, she was going to make sure that after she had delivered her apology—paid her debt, so to speak—there would be no chance of their paths ever crossing again. If they didn’t she might, somehow, find the strength to go on living without him, but if she was subjected to the torment of seeing him…Her body shuddered with pain, her face deathly white.
Her mother willingly agreed to lend her her car when Jessica explained what she had to do, although she expressed concern about her physical health.
Jessica gave her a wan smile. ‘I have to do it, Ma,’ she told her. ‘Please don’t try to dissuade me.’ She pulled a wry face and admitted shakily, ‘If you did, I’m afraid I’m all too likely to succumb, and if I did that…’
Her voice tailed away, and she saw from the sympathetic way her mother was looking at her that she understood how important it was to her pride and self-respect that she admitted her error to Daniel—not because she entertained any foolish idea that he would forgive her, not even because she wanted to be forgiven, but because her own self-respect demanded that she do so.
It was going to be hard enough to build a life for herself without Daniel in it. It would be even harder if she also had to live with the knowledge that she had once again run away, found excuses for herself, refused to face up to her own responsibility for her own life.
* * *
She knew that Daniel wasn’t still staying at the hotel to which he had taken her when he had brought her back from Northumberland. She knew he wasn’t in his office. But that did not necessarily mean that she would find him at Little Parvham.
Nevertheless, she drove there, parking her mother’s car outside the Bell and forcing herself to walk into the bar and ask the landlady if she knew where Daniel was.
The landlady of the Bell was a voluble, cheerful woman who enjoyed talking. After she had questioned Jessica about her own recovery from the shock of being in the post office when the would-be robber walked in, she informed her that Daniel was, to the best of her knowledge, out at his house.
Thanking her, Jessica made her way back to her car, battling against a cowardly impulse to find some reason for delaying the moment when she would have to face him and admit how she had misjudged him…when she would have to apologise to him and beg his pardon for the inexcusable insults she had thrown at him.
It was probably just as well that the road was empty of any other traffic, because her concentration was certainly far from exclusively focused on her driving.
She was shaking inwardly with tension and nausea when she eventually turned into the drive. There was no sign of Daniel’s car when she haphazardly parked her own, but, assuming he had parked it to the rear of the property, she walked in through the open front door, hesitantly calling his name.
The silence of the dilapidated building was vaguely unnerving, but Jessica forced herself to walk into the middle of the hall, knowing that in reality her tension was not caused by the house, but by her own reluctance to see Daniel.
When her tentative call brought no response, she walked slowly upstairs.
What must have once been a very attractive gallery ran around three sides of the hallway, so that from below it was possible to look up to the roof and admire the ornate plasterwork of the domed ceiling above her, but where there must once have been an ornamental balustrade surrounding the gallery there were now yawning gaps, and as she reached the landing and glanced back down into the hallway below Jessica had a sickening sensation of giddiness. She had never liked heights, but, oddly, when she had been round the house with Daniel she hadn’t been aware of the potential danger of the unguarded landing, and, frowning a little, she felt sure that when they had come round there had been some sort of protective rail running round the gallery at waist height.
If there had, it was now gone, and, keeping well back from the edge, she called Daniel’s name again.
Silence…Frowning, she pushed open one of the bedroom doors and went to look down out of the window at the rear of the house. There was no sign of Daniel’s car. He wasn’t here.
Not sure whether it was relief or disappointment that was her sharpest feeling, she turned on her heel and walked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
The floorboards on the gallery were uneven and warped—rotten in places, she recognised, frowning as she noticed the betraying signs of damp and decay when she really studied the floor.
Still frowning, she suddenly remembered that Daniel had not shown her this side of the gallery,
explaining that the floorboards were in a very dangerously advanced state of decay, and that one of his complaints against his original builder had been the fact that he had removed the supporting beams from the hallway below without taking the trouble to shore up the floor with the appropriate props.
As she remembered Daniel’s warning, Jessica moved forward quickly—too quickly, she realised, gasping with shock as the floor beneath her suddenly gave way, causing her to lose her footing and fall heavily.
The sensation of the floor falling away beneath her was one of the most terrifying she had ever experienced. She clung desperately to it as it tilted and then dissolved around her, crying out sharply in shock.
‘Jessica! Don’t move. Lie still.’
Daniel was here. She drew a shaky sob of relief and opened her eyes, quickly closing them again when she saw how much of the floor had given way beneath her, and how very precarious the one remaining strut was that supported her.
‘Jess…Are you all right? Have you broken anything?’
Daniel was standing at the top of the stairs, his face unexpectedly strained, only yards away from her, but between where she was clinging to her strut and where he stood in safety was a yawning, empty gap where the floor had once been.
‘Jess!’
She tried to concentrate. Her fall had winded her, her arm ached, but she was sure nothing was broken.
She started to shake her head, stopping when Daniel called out quickly, ‘No, don’t move—not yet…’ but it was already too late. Jessica heard the ominous creak, felt the deathly ripple of movement that warned her that the joist couldn’t support her for much longer. She looked down at the floor so far below her, and wished sickly that she hadn’t, all too easily picturing what would happen to her vulnerable body if it plummeted on to it. Below her, the wreckage of the first fall had thrown up sharp spears of broken wood, and she shuddered, imagining them piercing her flesh, her organs…
