“What would you do?”
No long consideration this time. “I would get rid of it,” he said. “The man was a hero. He doesn’t deserve to be thought of as a murderer. Besides what good would it do to anyone? Sergeant Darlington had the right idea.”
That was over a month ago now and I still haven’t made up my mind.
Richard left me and Thomas so much. This house and the farm. The properties that are rented and the house and land in Ireland. According to Andrew, all that’s left of the original will is an amount to the Phoenix family and a considerable sum of money to his old regimental charity. Before, he had made a list of bequests to lots of charities both here and abroad. They have lost out and I feel guilty about it. Andrew says I shouldn’t.
I gave Andrew the duelling pistols. Maybe I should have saved them for Thomas, but I don’t think he will ever appreciate them. He’s a born farmer, my son. He’d see the pistols as nothing more than toys. Andrew was quite moved, I think, but he pretended to be casual. “Nice to have something from the old boy, but you shouldn’t have given it,” he said.
“I want to. I couldn’t have managed without you.”
He nodded then and gave me a kiss on the cheek. He has been a brick.
I have the jewellery too. It was in a box in the bank and we went one morning to collect it. The rings, some of which I think were Mother’s, are too small for me, but there are brooches and two diamond watches and of course, the blue and silver necklace. I’m wearing it now. It lies flat and heavy round my neck and I touch it and remember how Richard bought it from the gypsy woman. I’ll always wear it.
Jason has asked me to ‘name the day’ and Thomas keeps wondering when we’re going to move into Jason’s house. My son is spending more and more time over there and I don’t mind that. Jason has been so good for him. But I can’t, not yet. I had promised to marry him when I was free from looking after Richard and I am free now. The thing is that I am free, but different. I’m not sure what I want now.
Perhaps I’ll go away for a while. Get my head together. What I would really like is a sea trip. On a big white boat where I could have a cabin to myself and only talk to my fellow passengers if I felt like it. It would stop at Gibraltar, for perhaps, a day and then on through the Mediterranean. I’d make sure I was on deck to see the Suez Canal and watch men walking beside camels and not thinking that there is anything strange in what they’re doing.
And then we’ll sail out into the hot brown Arabian Sea and I’ll lean over the rails, letting the heavy spice-laden air waft over me. There’s a blue haze on the horizon and if I screw up my eyes I can just make out a line of land.
India.
We’d like that, wouldn’t we, Richard?
THE END
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Copyright © Mary Fitzgerald 2011
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The Love of a Lifetime Page 45