Another Home, Another Love

by Gwen Kirkwood

  ‘He’s guilty as hell,’ Douglas said as they heard Lambert drive away. ‘Otherwise he would have objected.’

  ‘Yes, I fear there’s more to this than we know,’ Catherine said in a troubled voice. She had prided herself on getting to know her staff, looking after their welfare, and having their loyalty in return. ‘I shall call to see the two young maids who left,’ she said. ‘They were good workers and pleasant girls and I need to know they are all right.’ She stifled another yawn. ‘If you don’t mind, darling, I’m off to bed.’

  ‘Right. I’ll get back to my office. I should be finished in a couple of hours or so. Rosemary will need to collect her key in the morning. Tell her I’ll be down for a coffee with her later in the day.’

  ‘Will do.’ Catherine shuddered. ‘I dare not imagine what might have happened if she had found Lambert waiting for her. He meant business and he sounded savage.’

  ‘Thank God she didn’t run into him,’ Douglas said. ‘Good night, darling.’ He blinked rapidly and rubbed his temple as he went back into his own office. He sat down at his desk but the words seemed to jump about on the page. He sat with his eyes closed and his head in his hands, willing himself to relax and concentrate on his work but his mind kept returning to Rosemary and the sly looking Lambert. Her instincts had been proved right. He opened his eyes and forced himself to concentrate. He couldn’t remember when he had last felt so tired, or when it had ever been such an effort to concentrate. He had always enjoyed his work.

  It was later than he had expected by the time Douglas dragged himself up stairs, shed his clothes and stumbled into bed in a state of utter exhaustion. He resolved he would go to see the doctor on Monday: it was time he faced facts and stopped procrastinating.

  The following morning Megan telephoned the hospital. Sam was as well as could be expected but he had had a restless night. The doctor thought there could be infection in the wound.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Rosie said. ‘What if it’s from something I did?’

  ‘You saved him from bleeding to death, lassie, or at least losing even more blood and being a lot weaker than he is already,’ Steven said.

  ‘Sam’s as strong as a horse,’ Alex said. ‘Don’t you worry about him, Rosie. I’m more concerned about you, Dad.’ He looked at Steven. ‘How will you manage Martinwold and Bengairney without both of us? I think I ought to leave college and come home to work.’

  ‘No Alex! You can’t do that,’ Megan protested. ‘You’ve only a few more weeks. As soon as you’ve done your final exams you’ll be home for good. I shall help your father with the milking. It’s a lot easier than it used to be now there’s no buckets to carry. I’m sure Joe’s wife will help me feed the young calves.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering how we’re going to manage,’ Steven said. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind turning out to the milking again, Megan? That would solve the problem here at Bengairney. As far as Martinwold is concerned, thank goodness Mr Turner had the foresight to give his men an inducement to stay until we get sorted out. The only problem will be the relief milking when Pete has his weekends off.’

  ‘I’ll take Sam’s place,’ Alex said. ‘It’s only every second weekend and Pete’s a good fellow. I reckon he’ll cooperate. If I come home on Friday nights I shall be here for the morning milking on Saturdays. I’ll go back to college after supper on Sunday evenings.’

  ‘And when will you do all your studying?’ Megan asked. ‘You’ve been doing so well and none of us know what the future holds. You might need your paper qualifications yet.’

  ‘I’m well up to date with everything, Mum. Don’t worry about it. Now, Rosie, I’ll hitch up the Land Rover and trailer and drop off the poles at Langton Tower.’

  ‘I’d appreciate that, Alex.’

  It was mid morning by the time Rosie arrived home and discovered her door locked. She looked at it in surprise then searched under the doormat, then under the two pots of pansies. There was no key. Daddy must have locked it, she thought. Of course she had not intended staying away overnight when she left yesterday. She shivered, remembering Sam lying there white-faced and bleeding. She went in at the front door of Langton Tower but there was no sign of her mother. Her father was not in his office either but that was not surprising as he rarely worked on Sundays, and never before midday. One of the maids came down the wide staircase carrying her basket of cleaning materials.

  ‘Have you seen Mrs Palmer-Farr, Amy?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes, Miss. She is finishing up in the kitchens and preparing for the dinner this evening. Six of the guests are staying on until tomorrow.’ Rosie raised her eyebrows in surprise but she walked down the hall and pushed open the door leading to the kitchens. True enough Catherine was giving the gleaming surfaces a final scrutiny.

  ‘Hello Mum, what are you doing in here on a Sunday morning?’

  ‘Ah, Rosemary Lavender,’ Catherine came towards her and hugged her. Rosie was astonished. Her mother had never been a demonstrative person, even when she was small and needed comfort. ‘We should have listened to you. Now I understand why you detested Lambert.’

  ‘Lambert?’ Rosie gazed at her wide eyed. ‘What about him?’

  ‘We dismissed him. He left last night.’ She shuddered. ‘After you phoned I went to lock up the cottage. Lambert was lurking inside, waiting for you to return.’

  ‘Lambert was in my home?’ Rosie’s face flushed with anger and her blue eyes sparked. Catherine told her the rest of the story. Even in her anger Rosie couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of the greasy little chef pouncing on her mother. What a mistake that would be.

  ‘It was no laughing matter,’ Catherine said, but she smiled too. ‘I shudder to think what he might have done to you. I am bigger than you and he was stronger than he looked. You must lock your door in future.’

  ‘I do lock it when I go to bed. I hadn’t intended to be away overnight.’

  ‘Ah yes. How is Samuel? What happened? I’ll make us a cup of coffee and you can tell me.’

  ‘All right,’ Rosie agreed, sighing. The morning was passing, but she was grateful to her mother for dealing with the odious Lambert. ‘I’m not surprised to hear he made a nuisance of himself with the young maids,’ Rosie reflected. ‘I hope he didn’t do anything awful to them.’

  ‘I intend to call on the two who left. I feel responsible for their welfare. It’s almost midday. Will you stay and have a light lunch with us, Rosemary Lavender? Your father must be awake by now. He must have been exhausted by the time he came to bed because he stepped out of his clothes and left them lying beside the bed. I’ve never known him do that. He is always particular about folding his trousers and hanging up his jacket. Boarding school training, I suppose. Will you waken him dear while I put together a ham and chicken salad?’

  ‘All right,’ Rosie acquiesced with a smile. ‘I didn’t see him yesterday. After lunch I do want to get to work putting the rustic panels together so that the arbour is ready for Mrs Caraford’s birthday.’

  Minutes later Rosie ran downstairs, white faced and almost incoherent.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter? Rosemary Lavender?’ Catherine demanded, her voice sharpening with panic at the sight of her daughter’s eyes, wide with shock.

  ‘It’s Daddy. I-I c-can’t waken him,’ she gasped in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘What? What do you mean? He can’t be….’ Catherine was already on her way to their bedroom. Rosie followed with dragging footsteps, her heart pounding. She had seen dead animals often enough. There was no mistake. Her beloved father looked so peaceful with the familiar smile lifting the corners of his mouth. It was hard to believe, but she knew he was dead.

  ‘Oh Daddy….’ she whispered. She felt a lump of ice was taking possession of her chest.

  Her mother was kneeling beside the bed, holding one of his hands in both of hers and pleading with him to waken up.

  ‘You can’t leave me, Douglas. I c-can’t manage without you,’ she murmured, her head bowed over their c
lasped hands. Rosemary watched them. This was a different side to the mother she thought she knew, a softer, more dependent side. Her face was white and she looked distraught.

  ‘D-do you want me to telephone the doctor?’ she asked, her own voice husky with tears.

  ‘The doctor?’ Catherine looked up at her askance.

  ‘He will need to – to come, Mama.’ Her mother bowed her head again over the hand she held so despairingly. Rosie looked at her parents then crept from the room.

  All her tears for her beloved father were frozen inside her. There would be no more discussions, no more little jokes, no more comforting presence. She walked down the wide staircase in a daze. In their private sitting room she lifted the telephone and dialled the doctor’s number. She had left the door open. Crossing the hall, Mrs Dixon heard her conversation. She stopped, rooted to the spot. Mr Palmer-Farr couldn’t be dead – he couldn’t. Rosie came out of the room and the woman saw by her face that her worst fears were confirmed.

  ‘It canna be true?’ She had been with them for ten years. The Palmer-Farrs were good employers.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Dixon, m-my father must have died in his s-sleep.’ Rosemary looked at the older woman’s shocked expression and remembered there were guests in the hotel. They would expect the usual care and attention, at least until tomorrow. Rosie realized it was beyond her mother to consider anything except her father’s death. ‘C-can you manage?’ she asked. ‘I – we…cannot take it in.’

  ‘No wonder, lassie. Your father was fine last night. He dealt with Lambert.’ She clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘There’ll be the dinner to cook to night. Thank God we’ve only six guests until tomorrow. Shall I telephone Finn? He’s young but he’s a capable chef and he’s always obliging. I know he’ll come in. He’ll be as relieved as the rest of us to hear Lambert has gone. But the master…’ she shook her grey head in disbelief.

  ‘I will leave the kitchens to you,’ Rosie said. ‘Come to me if you have any queries. Mother is—’ She broke off and looked at the older woman, her blue eyes still dark with shock.

  ‘I understand, lassie. We’ll all do what we can to help.’

  It was well over a week before funeral arrangements could be made. Rosie had hated the idea of a post mortem but the doctor had explained that as he had not attended him as a patient for several years, it was necessary. Sudden deaths had to be reported to the coroner. Rosemary depended on Paul to supervise the work in the gardens while she attended to any queries which came from the hotel side and she helped her mother make arrangements for the funeral. Her eyes had a haunted look in her white face but she was outwardly calm. Inwardly she felt frozen, unable to shed the tears which were like a heavy weight dragging her down.

  ‘The lassie is too calm,’ Mrs Dixon said to Finn.

  ‘It’s a good thing she is. We need someone to keep things going. I would never have believed Mrs Palmer-Farr would go to pieces the way she has. I hope it will be all right when she learns my brother is coming to take Lambert’s place.’

  ‘Miss Rosemary seemed to think it was a good temporary arrangement all round. He’ll be needing work when he returns from his year in France and we have a three-day conference booked for the end of the month. We shall need two of you for that.’

  ‘John is good. My parents have a guest house in Blackpool so we were brought up to work hard. My middle brother trained as a hotel manager. He owns a small hotel on the south coast.’

  ‘It’s in the family, then,’ Mrs Dixon nodded.

  ‘It is that. We have a group of businessmen for a long weekend before the conference?’

  ‘Aye, we do. We’ll all have to do our best. Right now though Miss Rosemary has asked me to get several rooms ready. Mr Gray has been here most days since Mr Palmer-Farr died. He’s a relation of Mrs Palmer-Farr and he was a surgeon. He thinks there will be people coming from a distance for the funeral and they may want to stay. Miss Rosemary says some of them were at university with her parents. She doesn’t know them. In fact she looked bewildered by it all. “Why can’t we just lay him to rest in peace?” she said.’

  Rosie was grateful for Lindsay’s help and advice, in dealing with her mother.

  ‘She depended on your father more than people realized,’ he said. ‘He was a brilliant academic, you know, but he was always modest about his own achievements. Languages came naturally to him. He gave Catherine the reassurance she needed right from the beginning of their friendship at university. She had never known security from her parents and Douglas gave her a sense of belonging and self worth. She was the business woman here but your father was the quiet strength and support she needed to succeed.’

  ‘I have never seen my mother show emotion before,’ Rosie said. ‘She is distraught. She has no interest in the hotel. I don’t know whether I’m making the right decisions or not.’

  ‘You’re doing well,’ Lindsay assured her. ‘We’re all proud of the way you’ve coped, Rosemary. We know how you will miss your father too, but may I give you a little advice? Don’t let your mother become too demanding, or too dependent on you. After the funeral she must get back to taking up the threads again. The hotel is her business. However hard things are, however deep our grief, life does go on.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rosie said, meeting his eyes, ‘I know.’ No one knew that better than Uncle Lindsay, she thought. He had loved Ruth dearly but she had died just the same. Avril too had grieved for her mother. They understood how bereft she felt.

  Rosie was astonished and dismayed at the crowd of people who attended the funeral. At the church all she saw was a blur of faces and they all seemed to be strangers. The Palmer-Farrs had been well known and respected in the area for generations and many of the local gentry and landowners were present. Douglas was a young man and his death was a shock to those who had been fellow students with him at boarding school or university. Many had been drawn to pay their last respects. Lindsay had expected this and had given Catherine a mild sedative to help her face the day’s ordeal. Standing beside Rosemary she seemed calm and more like her usual competent self as she greeted the people who had come to Langton Tower for the lunch, which Chef Finn and his elder brother, John, had prepared.

  Rosemary was relieved to see Megan and Steven. Her eyes widened when she saw Sam behind them with Tania. She had thought he was still in hospital. He looked pale in his dark suit with his arm in a sling. For a moment her mind went back to the day of the accident and she prayed he did not recall any details.

  She didn’t know he had insisted on getting home to attend the funeral, or that he wanted to hold her close and comfort her. He had never dreamt there would be so many people but he remembered Rosie’s father had been well connected with the local gentry, and there were many other people he had never seen before.

  ‘I’ve never seen so many toffs,’ he muttered to Tania. ‘We’re out of place here.’

  ‘I know,’ she whispered back. ‘Half the county seem to be here but Lindsay insisted we should come for the meal for Rosie’s sake. He says she will need her own friends more than ever now. Anyway there’s Avril and Dean over there. Look. Callum and Craig are with them. They must have come home for the funeral. What smart young men they are. Avril must be proud of her twin brothers.’

  ‘Thank goodness,’ Sam said. Most of the people there were his parents’ generation but there were four or five well dressed younger men and he eyed them as they greeted Rosemary. He was unaware that he was as good looking and well dressed as any of them, even if he didn’t have their air of assurance.

  As they drew nearer his heart sank. Rosie looked so different in her smart black suit and court shoes. Her cloud of blonde curls was brushed neatly to frame her oval face. Her expression was tense and to Sam she seemed like a stranger, elegant, aloof, typical of the way Sam thought of the gentry. He didn’t know how hard Rosie was struggling to keep her emotions under control to get through this ordeal of greeting everyone as her mother had insisted they must. As he drew close, Sam saw
she was thinner and he thought he glimpsed a vulnerable look in her blue eyes as she met his gaze. His heart contracted. He longed to hold her and comfort her but her greeting was brief and polite and he thought he must have imagined that fleeting look of need. Only when she saw Tania did Rosie show any reaction.

  ‘Save a seat for me at your table,’ she whispered. Tania was startled. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked, casting an uncertain glance towards Catherine. Although he was not greeting everyone Lindsay was hovering nearby and he stepped forward.

  ‘Yes, keep a seat for her, Tania. I will look after Catherine, Rosie has done more than her duty. She needs her own friends from now on.’

  ‘Alex wanted to be here but he has an oral examination as part of his finals today,’ Tania said.

  ‘There will be other days.’ Lindsay gave a faint smile and stepped back to his former position.

  ‘They’re lucky to have your father’s help and support,’ Tania said to Avril when she reached the table where she and Dean and the twins were already seated.

  ‘Yes. He and Catherine are only half cousins but he is the only relative she has. He has been staying up here at Langton Tower for the past few days,’ Avril said. ‘He says Rosie has shown tremendous strength but he fears the reaction will set in once today is over. She has bottled up her own feelings. She has handled everything, including hiring the new chef, the staff and the funeral arrangements, but my father says she’s as tense a fiddle string.’

  ‘Poor Rosie,’ Tania sympathized. ‘She will miss her father. They had grown very close.’

  ‘How could anyone not love Rosie with her beaming smile and pretty face. I suppose he forgot the stiff upper and showed his feelings.’ Avril said. ‘Catherine has always given me the impression she considered it a weakness to show emotion but Rosie must often have longed for a little tenderness. No wonder she spent all her spare time at Bengairney with your family, Tania.’