‘Yes. Felicity’s still living in our flat in Surbiton.’
‘And you came down here.’ Andrew dropped her hand, turning away with a strange expression on his face. Catherine studied him covertly, searching to find some resemblance between Andrew and his nephew. She could see none, although Andrew, who must have been nearly 80, was still a remarkably fine-looking man. Finally he turned back to her.
‘I feel I have to make you an apology, my dear ...’ he began, but just at that moment, James walked into the room carrying a somewhat battered tin tray, on which were three glasses, a decanter and a water jug.
‘I couldn’t find any ginger or soda, Andrew, so it will have to be water. That all right with you, Cat?’
‘Fine, ’ nodded Catherine, hoping Andrew would go on with what he was about to say. But apparently, the presence of his nephew inhibited him, for he began to talk brightly of the beautiful weather, the encouraging success of the country club and his garden. It was only when he asked Catherine how her own garden was doing that he faltered, his voice trailing off into silence. He looked speculatively at his nephew.
‘Exactly, Andrew.’ James answered the unspoken question. ‘I really do think you should tell Catherine all about it.’
The silence after this remark stretched long enough for Catherine to begin to feel distinctly uncomfortable. Finally, Andrew stood up and turned his back on Catherine and James, looking out over his twilit garden.
‘As I was saying earlier, Catherine, I believe I owe you an apology.’
His voice sounded suddenly older. ‘I seem to have been instrumental in muddling up your life for you.’
Catherine turned to James in puzzlement, but he shook his head at her and turned his eyes to his uncle’s back.
‘You see, Catherine, I had no idea that this would happen. I was guilty all along of accepting things as they were – sufficient unto the day – that sort of thing. It never occurred to me that Henrietta would die before me.’
‘Would that have made a difference?’ Catherine asked, when the silence once again threatened to overtake them.
‘No – of course it wouldn’t, I just wouldn’t have known anything about it.’ He looked round at her, guiltily. ‘It’s a common thing, you know, Catherine. As you get older, you subconsciously refuse to acknowledge any of the problems death can bring. Now I realise what I’ve done, and it’s up to me to make amends.’
‘But what have you done?’ said Catherine, now totally confused.
‘Well, left you with no security, for one thing.’ Now he had started on the explanations, Andrew seemed to straighten, become more in control. ‘James tells me you came down here to look after Henrietta when she became so ill?’
‘Yes– ’ began Catherine, but Andrew swept on.
‘I should have been here. Unfortunately, I had just made the estate over to James, moved in here and decided I could do with a holiday, so I went off to Bermuda for a couple of months.’ He sat down beside Catherine again. ‘I asked Henrietta to go with me.’
‘What?’ It came out as a whisper.
‘I asked Henrietta to come to Bermuda with me. She had been looking very down for some months and I thought it would do her good. She refused.’ Andrew turned his head away. ‘I thought it was just one more example of her proving her independence, but it must have been – well, she must have known. That she was ill. I don’t know if she knew ...’ His old voice broke. ‘That she was going to die.’
Catherine stared at the bent white head, a suspicion forming in her mind.
‘What did you mean by proving her independence?’ she asked gently.
Andrew looked up, his blue eyes a little watery. ‘I knew she never told you. She never told Frank either.’
‘You knew my father?’ Catherine gasped.
‘Only as a child. Oh, I saw him when he was grown up, obviously. I even saw you when you were little, my dear.’ He smiled tremulously and patted her hand. ‘You must have guessed by now?’
Catherine nodded, uncertainly. ‘I think so.’
‘Henrietta and I were – well, these days you would say lovers, but in our day you didn’t say anything at all.’ He sighed. ‘But she would never marry me. So all I could do was provide her with the cottage. She accepted that, and came to live near me, but she never married me and she never told Frank – or you, and yet she used to say she was closer to you than anyone, just as though you had been her ...’ He stopped and went back to the window.
‘Have another drink, Cat.’ James’s voice broke through the tension in the room and, with surprise, Catherine realised she had forgotten he was there.
‘And you, Andrew. And then I think you should tell Cat the whole story.’
Chapter Three
‘I MET HENRIETTA NEARLY 45 years ago, when she was about 30 and I was about 35.’ Andrew settled back in the corner of his sofa, his replenished whisky in his hand, a faraway look on his face. Catherine sat in the other corner, one foot tucked underneath her, nursing her own glass between both hands. James, almost forgotten, sat in the high-backed wing chair a little away from them, his legs crossed, an inscrutable expression on his rather forbidding face.
‘We were both married at the time, and without sounding as though I’m making excuses, neither of us were happy.’ He looked apologetically at Catherine. ‘I know this is your family I’m talking about, my dear, but please don’t be offended. I can only tell you what actually happened.’
‘I won’t be offended.’ Catherine assured him. ‘But I thought my grandfather died when he was very young?’
‘He did, my dear, but he was alive when we met. Do you know how he died?’
‘Some kind of industrial accident, I was always given to believe.’
‘It was, but I can see I’ll have to tell you how it came about.’ Andrew shifted his position and fixed his gaze on the ceiling.
‘I met your grandmother because your grandfather worked for me. Oh, not here,’ he added, seeing Catherine’s look of surprise. ‘Didn’t you know that our family owned what used to be Hamilton’s in West Sussex?’
‘But that’s who you–’ Catherine turned to James in surprise.
‘The family firm. Now you see why it isn’t that odd that I’m taking over here.’ He smiled slightly and looked back at his uncle.
‘Yes, exactly. James turned it into a computer company from being electronic engineering. At the time we were pioneers. During the war, we worked for the government, all very hush-hush. Anyway, your grandfather worked for the company as an accountant and we socialised occasionally, the four of us. We had no children, your grandmother had Frank, I desperately wanted children and your grandfather wasn’t really interested in his son. Did you know that?’
‘Yes.’ Catherine nodded. It was why her father had been such a good one to his own daughters.
‘So it was natural that I took an interest in young Frank. I began taking him out, fishing, that sort of thing. I even taught him to ride.’ Andrew smiled reminiscently. ‘He was a smashing little chap. Very quiet – studious, but enthusiastic about everything. Anyway, he and I became firm friends. And, naturally enough, so did Henrietta and I. And we both learnt about each other’s unhappy marriages. My wife didn’t want children, wanted nothing more than social acceptance and spending a vast deal of money, and your grandfather didn’t want children either, although he had one and was also more interested in money than his wife. Also – still, that came later. I must tell you as it all happened.’ He paused and sipped his drink. ‘You’re not shocked?’
‘No, just surprised. I never knew any of this.’ Catherine shook her head.
‘Well, after a time, the inevitable happened. Henrietta and I fell in love. Oh, we resisted it, of course, both of us married – we had to. In those days it was even more unthinkable than it would be now.’
Catherine tried not to look at James, but felt as if his eyes were boring into the back of her head. This was all far too close to home.
Andrew
went on.
‘Well, I tried to persuade Henrietta to leave, taking Frank, of course, and I said I would leave my wife. But she wouldn’t. She said it would be far more damaging to me – and financially of course, it would. My father was still alive then, and not only would my wife have copped the lot, as they say, out of a divorce, I would probably have been cut out of the will as well, and thrown out of the family firm. My father took a very high moral tone over this sort of thing.’ Andrew chuckled. ‘Probably because he was a bit of a rake himself in his young days. Anyway, it looked like stalemate. Both of us were desperately unhappy, but Henrietta was adamant. And then, one weekend, my wife had gone to London and Albert – your grandfather – was away on business for the firm. Nothing to do with me, I hadn’t arranged it, it just happened. And I went over to see young Frank – took him to the cinema, I think – and when I brought him back, Henrietta asked me to stay to supper and – well, I needn’t fill in the rest, need I?’ He cast a quick look at Catherine’s face and continued. ‘I stayed for the whole weekend. Frank was too young to realise what was happening, and I’m afraid we just cast caution to the winds. Then ...’ He heaved a sigh, ‘I went back home, Albert came back and life went on as normal. Only it wasn’t.’ As Catherine watched his bent head, she realised that the shadows had lengthened into darkness in the garden, and that at some point, James must have switched on a lamp in the corner of the room. She waited for Andrew to continue.
‘You see, after that weekend, about a month or so after, Henrietta discovered that she was pregnant.’
Andrew stopped as Catherine drew in her breath sharply.
‘Shocked now, are you?’
Catherine shook her head again. Not shocked, just desperately sorry for that long-ago Henrietta and her terrible situation.
‘Well, then the fat really was in the fire. She didn’t tell me. Albert did, moaning that there was going to be another mouth to feed and he didn’t know how it happened. Well, I did, and I knew he would guess eventually, because, as he had said himself, he didn’t know how it could have happened. I knew what their relationship was, and I knew, and he soon would, that the child could not be his. I tried to get Henrietta to tell him and come away with me, but she still wouldn’t and, of course, eventually, Albert taxed her with it. She didn’t say who it was, and Albert became more and more angry until, in the end, he told her just what he had been doing over the last few years. Embezzlement from the company was just one thing – other women and gambling also came into it. Henrietta was so distressed she came to see me – at the office – and told me, and when I called Albert in, he told me to go to hell, went out and got drunk. Later that day he came back to the factory, went into the workshop and managed to get himself killed.’ Andrew was looking down the long tunnel of the years, oblivious now to his two listeners.
‘Henrietta just withdrew into herself. They lived in a rented house and she didn’t know how she would be able to cope, especially when the fraud was brought to light, and in the end, she went into labour prematurely. Well, of course, things were different in those days, and our daughter only lived for a few hours after she was born.’
Catherine discovered that her eyes were wet and surreptitiously put up a finger to wipe away tears.
‘I sorted it all out, of course.’ Andrew sighed. ‘I didn’t try to press any charges because Albert was dead and his widow could hardly pay, so we hushed it up. The rest of it, nobody knew. They assumed it had been Albert’s child and when I offered to take over the tenancy of their house in lieu of a sort of pension, everybody said how nice it was of me. And I felt so guilty I could have died.’ He pressed his fingers against closed eyes and then continued in a stronger voice.
‘But I let my wife divorce me. In those days it took a long time and you had to provide evidence of adultery, so I went to a private investigator who set it all up for me and my wife went off very happy with her enormous settlement. My father knew it was a setup, so didn’t blame me, merely tried to persuade me to remarry and have a family. But I didn’t, so my brother Philip’s son eventually took over.’ He smiled across at James and Catherine saw how tired he was.
‘Well, when your father met your mother away at university, I persuaded Henrietta to take on this cottage, and I took over management of the estate, leaving Philip in charge in Sussex. So, you see, it isn’t such a coincidence that James and you should both be here, is it?’ He smiled again, this time at Catherine and she managed a watery smile back.
‘Anyway, that’s nearly the end of the story. I insisted that Henrietta only paid a peppercorn rent; I felt I had ruined her life, you see. She had continued to refuse to marry me – said if we did that everyone would rake up the past – but I’m glad to say that once we were up here, our relationship resumed, or rather restarted, because apart from that one weekend there hadn’t been anything else. And we remained close right until the end. Only I didn’t know it was the end ...’ He stopped and then looked up at Catherine. ‘So you see, I had no intention of ruining your life as I had ruined hers – although I think she was happy here, she always said she was. I just wish she’d married me. Then none of this would have happened.’
In the silence that followed, Catherine was aware of James getting up and turning on another lamp. When he arrived by her side, she looked up and saw his unsmiling face, his dark brows drawn together over eyes hidden by the shadows.
‘Would you like another drink?’ he asked.
‘No, thank you.’ Catherine continued to look up at him, wondering what he thought of all this, as, from his own admission, he had known nothing about it until this afternoon. His brows lifted and she saw a quizzical expression come into his face and quickly looked away. Whatever he thought, she wasn’t going to let him get as close to her as Henrietta had let his uncle.
‘So now, I had better get that old fool of a lawyer of mine draw up some sort of contract for you and you can stay in Garth Cottage.’ Andrew sounded exhausted and Catherine didn’t want to argue.
‘Let’s talk about it another time,’ she said gently. ‘You must be tired, telling all of this twice over today–’
‘Not all of it,’ Andrew interrupted. ‘James knew some of it, but not who or why. He had no idea my grand passion had been your grandmother.’
‘Well, anyway, we don’t need to talk about it any more tonight.’ Catherine got up and went to stand in front of him. ‘If it helps, I don’t think you were to blame for any of it, or my grandmother. It was one of those things that just happened. I’m sure you didn’t deliberately set out to have an affair with another woman’ – she felt, rather than heard, James’s reaction to this remark – ‘I think you genuinely fell in love. I think my grandmother was right given the tenets of society in those days, though I do wish she’d felt the world well lost for love.’ She put out a hand to Andrew and, as he took it, said, ‘I would have liked you as a grandfather.’
She was out of the room and the house too quickly for either of the men to react or stop her, her throat aching with the effort of not bursting into tears. She just about reached the middle of the bridge before her body took over, and she leant against the stone wall sobbing her heart out. Dimly, she was aware that she was crying for herself as well as her grandmother, but wasn’t really sure why, and had just got to the stage of berating herself soundly, when two strong arms swung her round and enfolded her. Much enraged as she was by this chauvinistic approach, she was still further appalled by the fact that she meekly laid her head on his chest and carried on sobbing with renewed enthusiasm.
Eventually her sobs subsided and she endeavoured to push herself away.
‘Don’t struggle, Cat,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘And don’t be embarrassed.’ When she became perfectly still, he held her away from him. ‘You are, aren’t you?’
Catherine didn’t answer, merely keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the ground. In the silence around them, all she could hear was the little river gurgling on its way under the bridge.
&
nbsp; With a muffled groan, James gathered her in again, this time using one hand to tip her face up to his before his mouth covered hers.
Time stopped still for Catherine. Her uppermost thought, before she stopped thinking at all, was that she should have known better than to allow herself to be manoeuvred into this situation and furthermore, to have known better than to have responded so automatically to his kiss. For this was no tentative kiss, no first foray to judge a doubtful response – this was the kiss of familiarity, of intimacy, a kiss that was assured of its reception. And it went on.
Finally, Catherine broke away, breathless. James let her go immediately, and she stood with her back to him, leaning on the parapet, trying to regain control of her errant body and her confused thoughts.
‘Come on, I’ll walk you home.’ His voice was enviably steady, thought Catherine. She turned, slowly, keeping her head averted.
‘No, it’s all right, James. You go back to your uncle. I hope I didn’t upset him, rushing out like that.’
‘No, he was more concerned that he had upset you. He told me to go after you.’
‘Oh?’ Catherine’s head came up sharply.
James smiled gently, stroking a long forefinger down her cheek. ‘I would have done anyway.’ He dropped the hand and drew her hand through his arm. ‘Come on. You’ve had quite a couple of days, haven’t you? I’d go home and get an early night, if I were you.’
Unresisting, Catherine turned and walked slowly at his side, very aware of her hand resting in the crook of his arm, close against the side of his body.
Neither of them said another word until they reached the gate of Garth Cottage. Catherine stopped and withdrew her hand.
‘Thank you for seeing me home, James. And thank your uncle for me.’
‘Andrew? For what?’ James seemed amused.
‘For telling me his story. It tired him out. And for sending you after me.’
‘I told you, I would have come anyway.’ The amusement had vanished from James’s voice.
Running Away Page 4