Man of Stone

by Frances Roding

  Listening to her, Sara made a vow there and then that she would do as much as she could to remove that burden from her grandmother’s shoulders.

  After breakfast, Harrison showed them round the gardens. How easy it would be to allow oneself to slip back in time here, if only in the imagination, Sara thought, marvelling at the intricacy and cleverness of a cleverly fashioned knot garden.

  There was an avenue of clipped yews and quiet, shadowed pathways that led to small, secret, enclosed gardens with old-fashioned, wrought-iron benches. In one was a sundial, engraved with quotations from Shakespeare’s sonnets, and in another a white-painted summer-house, shaped like a small pavilion.

  How could her mother have endured to leave all this? Sara could only marvel at the power of human emotions. Had she been brought up here, could she have turned her back on it and the love of her parents to go off with a man like her father?

  Perhaps it was the insecurity of her own childhood from which had grown this deep-rooted need for security. Her mother, the child of such security, might not have experienced its need quite so sharply. It was true that familiarity could breed contempt.

  The gardens had such serenity, such a sense of time and timelessness. She listened as Harrison told her how each individual garden had come into being.

  He had been with her parents for many years. His family came from the village, he told her. He was in his sixties, a wiry, weathered man with a quiet voice and very sharp eyes.

  Tom had taken to him immediately. Like her, Tom craved security… and love.

  ‘Do you have any dogs here?’ Tom asked earnestly, and Sara quailed a little, remembering Cressy’s unkind promise to him.

  ‘Not now,’ Harrison told him, shaking his head. ‘We did once, but your grandmother says she’s too old now for a young dog.’

  They saw the peacocks and their wives, strutting beside the lake, fanning their tales in rage as humans invaded their domain. Tom stared at them in awe, fascinated by the iridescent ‘eyes’ in their tails.

  ‘A present from Queen Victoria, they was,’ Harrison told them, and Sara knew that he referred to the birds’ original antecedents. How many stories this house must hold, how many secrets! But it lacked the brooding quality that hung like a miasma over so many old houses.

  With very little imagination she could almost believe she could hear the sound of children’s laughter; almost believe she could see all those long-ago children who must once have played in these gardens. As her children might, perhaps, one day play here.

  It was an odd thought to have, and one that made her suddenly immensely aware of a deep inner loneliness she had been experiencing for some time.

  She loved Tom and she loved Cressy. She knew she would love her grandmother as well, but Sara knew that that was not enough. She wanted to experience the same kind of love her mother must once have felt for her father; the kind of love that transcended everything else; the kind of love that was shared between a man and a woman.

  Tom dragged slightly on her hand and she checked herself immediately. He must be tired, although already there was more colour in his face, a new happiness in his eyes.

  ‘I don’t know about Harrison and you, Tom, but I’m ready for some of Anna’s coffee,’ she said diplomatically, knowing how sensitive Tom was about his fragility.

  She saw from the relief in his eyes that she was right, and that he was tired.

  ‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’ she suggested.

  ‘Do you know, Sara, I’m very glad we came here,’ he pronounced when they were sitting at Anna’s kitchen table, munching home-made biscuits and drinking coffee in Sara’s case and lemonade in Tom’s. ‘It makes me feel sort of happy inside being here.’

  Sara knew exactly what he meant.

  CHAPTER THREE

  FIVE DAYS PASSED, a calm oasis of time, during which Sara grew to accept that she was not living in some impossible daydream, but that this was reality.

  It was like watching a small, delicate flower bloom, Alice Fitton thought, watching her. She was too old now to harbour unforgiving feelings for anyone; life had taught her that it was too precious to be wasted in such fruitless emotions, but watching Sara exclaim over the beauty of a newly opened rose, seeing how hungrily she responded to every tiny gesture of affection, seeing her confidence grow almost in front of her eyes, she found it very hard indeed to understand her dead son-in-law.

  By now, Sara knew almost all about the history of the house and her family; she was as familiar with its layout as her mother once must have been. She had pored over all the old family albums, and listened to most of her grandmother’s stories of her own and Sara’s mother’s childhood.

  Today, they were going to Chester. She must have some new clothes, her grandmother had insisted, and Tom, too.

  They were going to have lunch at the Grosvenor as a special treat, and then, later on in the afternoon, on the way home, they were calling on some of her grandmother’s friends.

  Sara had demurred that she didn’t need new clothes and that her existing wardrobe was perfectly adequate, but her grandmother hadn’t listened, and now she and Tom were comfortably ensconced in the back of her grandmother’s very old-fashioned Bentley, with her grandmother beside them and Harrison at the wheel.

  There wouldn’t be time on this trip to see much of Chester.

  ‘But Luke will take you round, I’m sure. He knows almost as much about the area as your grandfather did.’

  ‘How did he and Louise meet?’ Sara asked curiously. It seemed such an odd combination, the energetic, successful Australian businessman, and a girl brought up here in this tranquil, unspoiled Cheshire countryside.

  ‘Your uncle was very interested in farming. As you know, we don’t have any land other than the gardens. He went to agricultural college, and from there to Australia, to work on one of the sheep stations there. The idea was that he would come back to this country and buy himself a farm, but while he was out there he met the woman he wanted to marry and he stayed on out there.’

  ‘So Louise didn’t actually grow up here?’

  For some reason, she had imagined that her cousin must have been brought up in Cheshire, and had actually felt rather envious of her.

  ‘Oh, no, but she did go to school over here and she spent most of her holidays with us. She wasn’t like you, Sara, she didn’t have your instinctive love for the house. Louise was very much a modern young woman,’ her grandmother sighed. Sensing that she was reliving old, and perhaps not very happy memories, Sara quickly changed the subject.

  ‘Your friends…’

  ‘You’ll like them. They don’t live very far from us, but since I’ve had this little heart problem I haven’t seen them as much as I should like. Gerald is confined to a wheelchair, I’m afraid—a riding accident some years ago.’

  Harrison had stopped the car in the middle of a very busy shopping area. While he helped her grandmother to alight, Sara ushered Tom out of the car.

  Her grandmother didn’t waste time in window shopping, but instead took Sara straight into a small and, to judge from its single window, very exclusive boutique.

  The assistant quite obviously knew her. Sara was introduced, and found herself being thoroughly assessed by a pair of warm brown eyes.

  ‘What exactly are you looking for?’

  ‘Everything,’ her grandmother said before Sara could demur, and when she tried to object she was told firmly, ‘My dear, please let me do this for you. Think of it as all the birthday and Christmas presents I was never able to buy you. It will give me a great deal of pleasure to see you dressed in pretty clothes.’ She looked so excited that Sara hadn’t the heart to deny her.

  An hour later, as she walked out of the shop, Sara’s head was reeling. She had more clothes now than she had ever possessed in her entire life.

  Beautifully tailored linen skirts in soft, muted pastels that did miracles for her colouring; matching crunchy cotton knits to go with them; silky dresses so elegant tha
t seeing herself in them was like confronting a stranger.

  When she had protested that she would have no call to wear such elegant garments, her grandmother had been almost affronted.

  ‘Of course you will! There’s Ascot, for one thing.’ And Sara had been amused to realise what a very different world she had stepped into.

  There was a tailored linen suit, a set of matching separates, and even a very daring and, to her mind, totally unnecessary evening dress.

  ‘You must have it,’ her grandmother had insisted, naming half a dozen local events for which she insisted Sara would receive invitations.

  ‘If I can make a suggestion,’ the sales assistant had offered before they left. ‘Your hair is so very pretty, it would be a shame to cut it, but have you thought of copying the way the Duchess of York wears hers?’ Before Sara could object, she had produced not just a very decorative satin bow, but also a pretty snood, into which her caught-back hair could be tucked for special occasions.

  The style suited her, revealing a delicate purity of her features. Normally Sara didn’t bother with make-up, but today she had made a special effort, and she felt almost like a different person as she and Tom accompanied her grandmother to the Grosvenor Hotel where they were having lunch. She was wearing one of her new outfits, her hair still caught back in the style shown her by the sales assistant.

  Lunch was a leisurely affair, the visit to her grandmother’s friends informative and entertaining. Although of her grand-mother’s generation, the Armstrongs were a couple who took a keen interest in current affairs. They had a nephew apparently, who worked in Chester as a solicitor, and who was living with them while waiting for his own new house to be completed.

  Tom fell asleep in the car on the way home and, rather than wake him up, Sara lifted him out of the car, ignoring Harrison’s offer of help.

  By the time she came downstairs, having put him to bed, her grandmother was sitting in front of the sitting-room fire, pouring them both a cup of tea.

  ‘A most rewarding day. I like you in that colour,’ she approved. ‘Jeans are all very well in their place, but you have such a lovely figure, it’s a shame to hide it behind those thick, bulky sweaters.’

  Her grandmother didn’t have a television in the sitting-room, but most evenings she went to bed at nine and then watched the news on her bedroom set. There were times when Sara wondered worriedly just how serious her grandmother’s heart condition actually was. She seemed so spry and active, but sometimes in the evenings there was a faint blue tinge to her skin, a weariness in her eyes that tugged frighteningly at Sara’s heartstrings. She would hate to lose her now, having only just found her.

  Sara didn’t mind being left on her own. A companionable silence settled around her, and she picked up the paperback book she had bought in Chester.

  Anna came in at ten o’clock to ask her if she wanted anything. She shook her head and smiled.

  ‘You’re spoiling me, Anna,’ she protested. Shortly after that she must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, she was being woken up by someone calling her grand-mother’s name with sharp anxiety.

  It was dark outside, an indication of the passage of time, only the firelight illuminating the room, and she was too sleepily disorientated to make any vocal response.

  ‘Alice! Alice, are you all right?’

  The voice was familiar, and yet unfamiliar in its anxiety and concern, and then Sara froze as Luke stepped into her line of vision.

  His face registered shock and then relief, quickly followed by contempt.

  ‘Oh, it’s you!’

  ‘My grandmother’s gone to bed,’ she told him. Her mouth had gone dry, and she couldn’t stop herself from flinching away from him. There was something about this man that intimidated her; a sexuality that rasped at her senses and made her all too uncomfortably conscious of him.

  Only yesterday she had been looking at photographs of him with her cousin. Even in those, he had possessed that same hardness, as though not even love was capable of softening him.

  ‘You’re still here, then?’

  ‘My grandmother has invited me to make my home with her for as long as I wish,’ she told him with dignity.

  Quite clearly, her voice told him that she was not and never would be answerable to him.

  ‘How very convenient for you. You had it all planned, didn’t you—descending on her like a wide-eyed waif, clutching a child whom both you and I know very well you don’t give a single damn about? Well, be warned. I’m not fooled by you, and if you do anything—anything to hurt or upset Alice, I promise you I’ll make you regret it.’

  Sara stared at him. What was he talking about? The very last thing she wanted to do was to hurt her grandmother.

  ‘You know that she’s very, very ill, don’t you?’

  The heavy seriousness of his voice tore at Sara’s heart. She had known that her grandmother wasn’t well, but Alice always made light of her condition, brushing Sara’s concern aside.

  ‘I know that she has a heart condition.’

  ‘A very serious heart condition,’ he stressed. ‘Your grandmother is a woman I love and admire very much, and if you do anything—anything to hurt her…’

  Mixed with her fear at his implied threat was surprise that this hard, bleak man could care so deeply for any other human being.

  Her shock must have shown in her eyes, because he laughed harshly.

  ‘Oh, save the injured innocent act. I know all about you. Cressida let slip by accident what a hard time you’d given the family. Oh, she didn’t want to tell me,’ he added, looking at her with disgust. ‘She’s tremendously loyal to you—far more loyal than you deserve.’

  What had Cressy told him? Sara wondered bleakly. And, more important, why?

  Pride prevented her from asking him to be more exact. It was obvious that he had formed the very worst kind of opinion of her.

  ‘Well, you’ve managed to get what you were scheming for,’ he told her curtly. ‘A free meal-ticket and a very comfortable way of life, but if I get one hint—just one that you’re upsetting Alice in any way, you’ll be out of here so fast…’

  Much as she longed to challenge him as to his rights to evict her from what was, after all, her grandmother’s home, Sara held her tongue. She was getting angry now. No matter what Cressy had told him, surely he was adult and intelligent enough to make his own judgements?

  ‘If you really think I’m so disreputable, why don’t you warn my grandmother?’ she asked him acidly instead.

  ‘I don’t want to disillusion her,’ came his crisp response. ‘Your grandmother is in a very fragile state of health. I’ve seen what it’s done to her over the years when you’ve continued to ignore her overtures to you, especially since Ralph died. As I’m sure you’re already well aware, it’s a measure of that need that such a normally astute woman is prepared to accept your, if I may say so, risibly false change of character.’

  Change of character? What on earth did he mean? Sara wondered indignantly. It was hardly her fault that her father had kept from her any information concerning her grandparents, instead allowing her to think that they had turned their backs on her.

  And yet, couldn’t she have pushed him a little harder, taken it upon herself to perhaps get in touch with them?

  Guilt shadowed her eyes, the same guilt that had been growing in her ever since she had come here and discovered how much her grandmother loved and needed her.

  How could she explain to a man as obviously strong and inviolate as this one was the very deep-seated lack of confidence that had been instilled in her at an early age? A lack of confidence that had made it impossible for her to question her father’s judgements or statements.

  All her life had been shadowed by the knowledge that she was not the daughter her father had wanted, she admitted unhappily. Cressy was more his idea of what his daughter should have been. Always sensitive to the feelings of others, she had known when she was quite young that he did
n’t love her, not as she had wanted him to love her; and she had consequently spent far too much of her life trying to measure up to the person she felt he wanted her to be.

  Instinct made her turn her face into the shadows, so that Luke wouldn’t see the pain reflected in her eyes.

  Why did he have to live here in this house? she wondered miserably. Why couldn’t he stay permanently in Australia? He loved Alice, that much was obvious, and that should have formed an immediate bond between them, but instead…

  Perhaps if she’d been pretty and blonde, like Cressy, prepared to massage his ego with flattery and flirtation—and lies—he might have viewed her differently, she thought acidly.

  Well, she wasn’t going to let him get to her. She had as much right to be in this house as he did, she told herself sturdily, standing and facing him, her face and eyes shuttered against his hard inspection as she told him quietly, ‘The relationship I have with my grandmother is private, and not something I intend to discuss with… outsiders.’

  She should have felt triumph at that quickly controlled burst of rage that had flashed through his eyes, she told herself as she went upstairs, but all she could feel was a worrying frisson of fear that warned her that she was a fool to risk making an even greater enemy of such a man. But what could he really do to her? Nothing, surely?

  Already, after only a few days with her grandmother, Sara had started to feel a resurgence of her old energy, and she was downstairs—as she had been on the previous two mornings—at the same time as Anna, ready to help her with her morning chores.

  Sara was no stranger to domestic work. She had run her father’s household since she was in her early teens. Laura, though never actively unkind or unpleasant to her, had never been domestically inclined, and had been more than pleased to hand over the reins of household management to her young stepdaughter.

  Sara possessed an instinctive tact and consideration for the feelings of others, and consequently Anna was slowly allowing her to share some of the work. In particular, Sara insisted on preparing her own and Tom’s breakfasts, placidly pointing out the first morning she had done this and Anna had objected that Tom, with his asthma, required a special diet.