Well, at least he wasn’t suggesting a one-way ticket to the vet, which under the circumstances Poppy thought showed remarkable restraint! She opened a bottle of red wine, poured him a glass and slid it across the table. ‘Not a lot of point, no,’ she agreed. ‘We did try, once, but it was absolute chaos. We were asked to leave after two terms because she was distracting everyone. She just got so over-excited she was ridiculous. Mind you, she was only five months old.’
James eyed Poppy sceptically. ‘But not at the end.’
She blushed. ‘No, not at the end. At the end we just had to admit she’s a waste of space.’
He gave the dog a look that was a mixture of exasperation and affection. ‘She’s very gentle and loving,’ he said in mitigation, and Poppy could have fallen off her chair.
Bridie, as if realising that this was her big chance, sidled over to James, put her damp head on his knee and gave him her most appealing hangdog look. Poppy had to turn away, because he was so readily taken in by the scoundrel’s transparent tactics.
Or was he?
‘You old fraud,’ he said lovingly, and scratched her soggy ears. ‘Don’t lean on me—oh, hell. Oh, well, it could have been worse. This towelling thing can always go in the washing machine. I don’t suppose my suits are back from the cleaners, talking of Bridie’s effect on my clothes?’
Poppy, biting the inside of her cheek, nodded. ‘Yes. I picked them up this morning.’
‘Perhaps I should buy a dry-cleaning chain next?’ he said deceptively placidly.
Poppy, almost afraid to consider what Bridie would dream up next, thought it might be a good idea...
The weather was getting milder. Warm spring sunshine started to brighten the days, although the nights were still cold, and Poppy borrowed her mother’s hatchback so she could take Bridie out in the middle of the day and go for long—and hopefully tiring—walks. She also found the hatchback useful for her junk-shop and auction finds for the drawing raflm, so much so that one day James told her to take her ‘company’ car in to the Memedes dealers and exchange it for an estate variant.
‘Obviously an estate car is going to be useful,’ he said with a shrug. ‘You must have what you need to do the job. Anyway, they hold their value well, so it’s an investment. Just don’t Braille park it too often.’
Poppy, who almost never felt her way into a parking space, managed to hide her indignation. It wasn’t hard. She was too busy being astonished. She took the car, changed it for a modest—by Mercedes standards—estate car, and took pains to ensure that Bridie travelled on rugs in the very back and didn’t ruin it.
In the meantime she shopped for the drawing room, kept Bridie and the boys on a short leash, and wished she could find some time alone with James. He was either in Birmingham, sorting out this new firm, or in New York or Tokyo at a convention, or staying late at the office for meetings. The promise in that kiss they had shared at her parents’ seemed destined to lie dormant for ever.
It was perfect. Poppy stood back and looked at the piece, and decided she couldn’t better it. A lovely little Davenport desk, with pretty drawers and gold-tooled leather top, worn and ink-stained and carrying its age gracefully, it was just what she needed for between the windows in the drawing room.
The finishing touch to her revamp, she thought, and, biting the bullet, she nodded at the auctioneer. Then again, and again, and again. She swallowed. Had James really meant her to pay this much for one piece? It was rare to find one so good, though, so genuine. She toughed it out, then, after it was knocked down to her, rang James from the foyer of the saleroom.
‘I’ve just almost doubled your budget for the drawing room,’ she told him.
‘Is it money wisely spent?’
She laughed. ‘I hope so—otherwise I’ll be working for you for months for nothing to pay it off.’
‘I hardly think that’ll be necessary. If you’re happy with it, Poppy, I’m happy with it. I told you that.’
Such trust. Was it unfounded? She hoped not She had the little desk loaded into her car, wrapped it in blankets and told Bridie to lie down in the gap beside it, then drove it home. Would James like it?
Mrs Cripps was there and helped her unload it.
‘Got brass handles,’ she sniffed. ‘Suppose I’ll have to clean them?’
‘Not very often,’ Poppy assured her.
‘Good, because with that idiot dog about there isn’t time to do the basics, never mind any fancy polishing. If you ask me you’re mad havmg a dog like that about the place, great useless thing that she is.’
Poppy hadn’t asked her, but she had to say she agreed silently. Bridie was making an impact, all right, and it wasn’t all positive. Why she’d bothered to bring the bed Poppy didn’t know, because every night Bridie crept upstairs and slept on William’s bed. They had formed an inseparable bond, and every morning, after she dropped the boys off at school, Bridie would station herself at the front door and wait. Only the promise of-food or a walk would prise her from her vigil, and the second the boys were in she was glued to their sides.
She was at the door now, waiting, while Poppy polished the desk and slotted it into place between the windows.
It fitted perfectly, the wonderful patina of the wood set off to perfection by the pale walls and the warmth of the curtains. Poppy had relined them with a wonderfully rich floral fabric in a traditional country-house style, and they were held back so that the linings were revealed in a glorious splash of multicoloured splendour.
She just had the last window left to do, and after she’d settled the desk and admired it, she fetched the steps and put them up, then took down the last set of curtains. The linings were made and just needed to be slipped into place by hand, so she cleared the floor, banned Bridie to the other side of the doorway with a barricade and spread them out.
She had just finished the pinning when it was time to fetch the boys, and she brought them home, gave them a drink and a slice of fruit cake and sent them out into the garden with Bridie.
‘Can we go in the woods?’ George asked.
Poppy shook her head. ‘Stay in the garden, please, so I know where you are, and keep an eye on Bridie. I don’t want her running off.’
And she went back into the drawing room, settled herself down on a chair and began the job of handstitching the linings into the curtains. It wasn’t a long job and she sewed quickly, and with any luck she’d have it finished by the time James came back from work.
Not that he’d be early. There was another meeting, she gathered. She glanced out of the window and saw the boys run past, Bridie bouncing at their heels. She smiled to herself and carried on with her sewing, and inevitably her mind drifted back to James.
Their closeness in February seemed to have faded away. It was almost April, soon time for the boys to be on holiday, and their relationship hadn’t moved forward at all.
Well, not as far as she knew. She still caught James looking at her sometimes, with a brooding, slightly thoughtful look, and she knew he was never far from her thoughts or feelings, but that didn’t make a relationship.
She pricked her finger and swore softly, sucking it. Perhaps she’d stop now and go and check on the boys. She didn’t want to bleed all over the ivory silk. Bridie would wreck the curtains quickly enough, she was sure, without any help.
She set the fabric aside and went through to the kitchen, snagging a jacket from the back of the door and shoving her feet into her wellies. She had her hand on the knob when the door flew open and William burst in, blood pouring down his face from a cut over his eye, and clutched at her.
‘Poppy, come quickly, it’s George—he’s fallen out of a tree.’
And without letting go of her he set off at a run through the door, towing Poppy behind him. She tightened her hand on his and went with him through the gate at the end of the garden and into the woods.
Of course, she thought with a sigh, they would have gone in the woods. Why, oh, why couldn’t they do as they w
ere told?
William ran off the path and down a little track, and then slammed on his brakes and dropped to his knees beside his brother. Poppy, her heart pounding, dropped beside him and reached for George’s throat to feel his pulse. Lord, he was still and quiet and white as a sheet apart from a glowing purple bruise on his temple.
Bridie was lying beside him licking his face, whimpering softly, and Poppy rubbed her head. ‘It’s all right, Bridie. Good girl. Stay,’ she told the dog, and then, telling William, too, to stay with his brother, she ran for the house and grabbed the cordless phone, dialling 999 on her way back to the boys. She was almost out of range for the phone by the time she got back to them, but the ambulance station could hear her, just, and promised to send someone fast.
She sent William to wait at the gate, and a few minutes later she heard the siren and the swish of gravel, then the ambulance came into view, picking its way carefully over the lawn with William running ahead. Really, she thought, he should have been sitting down, quietly, having his own cut attended to, not chasing round the garden, but she didn’t dare leave George. He was coming round slowly, still very groggy and weak, and Poppy was worried about him. She had never been so relieved to see anyone as she was to see the ambulance crew running over the grass towards them.
‘Hi. What seems to have happened?’ the ambulanceman asked.
‘He fell out of the tree on me,’ William told them. ‘He was trying to catch a squirrel and the branch broke.’
‘And you were underneath?’
William nodded.
‘Right, let’s get you two seen to, then.’
It didn’t take long to load George into the ambulance once they’d fixed him on a board in case his neck or back was damaged, and after Poppy had shut Bridie in the kitchen and grabbed her bag, she jumped into the ambulance with the boys and they were on their way.
There’d be plenty of time to ring James once she got to the hospital. The most important thing was getting George there fast. She put her arm round William and hugged him to her side, and silently promised them the biggest telling off in the world once they were both OK. For now, though, she just hugged and prayed and rehearsed what she would say to James.
Reality, of course, was unrehearsed and much more complicated. He was in a meeting, and the watchdog guarding him refused to disturb him. Poppy, remembering the last time she’d said the words, told the girl that the boys were in hospital and she needed to speak to him urgently.
A few moments later he came to the phone, his voice calm and unruffled. ‘OK, Poppy, you’ve got thirty seconds. What is it this time? Another bargain antique? Or has Bridie eaten the stairs?’
Poppy swallowed. ‘James, I’m sorry,’ she whispered, her voice deserting her. ‘They really are in hospital. George is with the doctors now, and William’s waiting for stitches. I think George is OK, but he was unconscious for a while—’
‘Unconscious!’
Poppy nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. ‘Yes,’ she managed. ‘But he’s come round now—’
‘Where are you, exactly?’ His voice was sharp and incisive, and Poppy knew without a doubt that he would be there in seconds.
‘Accident and Emergency department, the Norfolk and Norwich.’
‘Stay with them. I’m on my way.’
He cut the connection, and Poppy cradled the receiver of the payphone and went back to William, who was sitting with a dressing on his head now waiting for stitches.
‘I want to see George,’ he told her tearfully.
‘So do I. Let’s ask if we can.’
She went over to the triage nurse and asked if they could go through and be with George. Seconds later they were ushered through to a cubicle where George lay surrounded by medical staff and nurses.
‘Poppy?’ he said weakly, and started to cry.
She took his hand and kissed him on the cheek, just below the black eye that was begmning to spread colourfully across his face.
‘Are you his mother?’ the doctor asked, and Poppy felt a shaft of pain.
‘No,’ she said calmly. ‘I’m their nanny.’
I just want to be their mother...
CHAPTER EIGHT
FOR once in her life Bridie did nothing wrong. She was waiting by the door patiently when James and Poppy arrived back with a subdued and stitched William, and was overjoyed to see her young friend again.
While James packed a bag for himself and George, before returning to the hospital to spend the night at his son’s side, Poppy settled William in bed and quickly threw together a meal for James.
He came into the kitchen a few minutes later and stared blankly at the plate. ‘Poppy, I couldn’t eat—’
‘You have to.’ She shoved him down in his seat and pushed the plate in front of him. He toyed with the food for a few seconds. He even got one mouthful almost to his lips before dropping it and pushing the plate away. He propped his head in his hands for a moment, then with a weary sigh he dragged his hands down his face and met her eyes. His own were tortured, and her heart went out to him.
‘What if he develops a brain haemorrhage, Poppy?’ he said apparently calmly, but his voice had a slight tremor and his hands were shaking. ‘What if he—?’ He stopped and sucked in a deep breath. ‘What if he dies?’
She reached out and took his trembling hands in her own. ‘He won’t die,’ she vowed fervently.
‘Clare died.’
Poppy closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear to see the pain etched into his features at those two quiet words.
‘That was different,’ she reminded him. ‘She had a serious medical condition which you didn’t know about. It was unavoidable.’
‘This wasn’t, but it could still kill him.’
There was a hard edge to his voice that cut Poppy to the bone. She released his hands and stood up, going over to the window and staring sightlessly down the darkened garden towards the woods. ‘I know. I’m sorry. Do you want me to leave?’
He was silent for a while. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t think so, but I don’t know.’ There was a crash as he brought his hand down on the table which made Poppy jump. ‘Damn it, Poppy, what were they doing in the woods? Why weren’t you there with them? That’s what you’re paid for!’
Her eyes slid shut, blocking out his pain because it hurt her even more than her own.
‘I know,’ she whispered. There was nothing else she could say, and another apology was so inadequate.
He picked up his plate and threw it into the sink, shattering it and spraying gravy all over the window. The fork bounced out and skidded across the kitchen floor, but Poppy left it, rooted to the spot by the anger and pain on James’s face. He didn’t look at her, just turned away. ‘I have to get back to him. I’ll talk to you later when I feel calmer.’
He picked up his bag and strode out, slamming the front door behind him with a resounding crash. She shut her eyes, the lids squeezing down and spilling the tears which had hovered on her lashes for hours now. ‘Please don’t let him die,’ she whispered silently. Guilt swamped her, waves of pain and fear washing over her as she cleared up the mess in the sink and threw out the broken plate.
Then she went up to William, who was sleeping, and sat beside him, fondling Bridie’s ears and staring sightlessly across the room. George’s things lay scattered all about, his uniform thrown on the floor, his teddy half hidden under the bed.
She picked it up and hugged it to her chest, wrapping her arms round it and clinging to it like a lifeline. It was only concussion, she reminded herself. It wasn’t serious. They were both being overdramatic, but because Clare had died so suddenly of a brain haemorrhage it was hard to criticise James for his concern.
She kissed William, tucked the quilt closer round his skinny shoulders and went back downstairs, leaving Bridie standing guard over him.
Why had she sent them out into the garden? She might have known they’d disobey her and go in the woods. Common sense di
ctated that she couldn’t watch them every second, but if anything happened to George common sense would be small comfort in her guilt.
The phone rang and she scooped it up. ‘Hello?’ she said breathlessly, hoping that it would be James with good news. It wasn’t, it was Helen, imperious as always.
‘Oh, Poppy, put James on, would you?’ she ordered casually.
Poppy counted to five. ‘I’m sorry, he’s at the hospital.’
‘Damn. Has he got his mobile? I’ll ring him there, otherwise I’ll have to phone the ward. Which ward is the child on?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Poppy lied, ‘but in any case I don’t think you can contact him tonight.’
‘Why ever not?’ she asked, astonishment evident in her voice.
‘Because this is more important,’ Poppy gritted crossly.
Helen laughed. ‘Not than me, dear. I’ll ring him there—’
‘Don’t. He hasn’t got time for whatever you want to talk to him about.’
The silence was cold and stretched endlessly. ‘Are you trying to prevent me from contacting him?’ Helen said at last.
‘Yes. Is it more important than the life of his son?’
Helen’s brittle laugh made Poppy want to scream. ‘Well, of course not, but there are shades in between, you know, Poppy dear. You young things are always so dramatic—’
‘You’re talking like a grandmother,’ Poppy said calmly. ‘Whatever it is you need him for, why can’t you just do it yourself?’
‘Because I need to talk to him—to sound him out. I know you’re trying to protect him but there are things to decide, things you couldn’t possibly understand,’ she told Poppy, sounding like a patronising social worker talking to a delinquent.
‘So decide, but do it on your own,’ Poppy said ruthlessly, irritated by the woman’s tone. ‘I’m sure you’re qualified to do so—why else would James have employed you and given you a position of such authority?’
Just Another Miracle! Page 12