‘It was a long time ago,’ Angus replied, but I could tell it didn’t seem that way to him sometimes. Perhaps Christmas reminded him of her as it reminded me of my mum.
After dinner, Rory said he would clear up and Angus said he needed to check on a few things but I knew he really just wanted to be alone in his cottage so I didn’t press him. He had come for dinner, that was enough for him. I put on Arthur Christmas for Harry to watch while we waited for Rory to play a game, and then I showed my dad the letter I had found. ‘I have been waiting for the right time to show you, I didn’t want to upset you. It was such a shock finding it, and I haven’t been able to open it…’ I said while he stared at her handwriting.
‘I had no idea she had written a letter for you,’ he said finally. He looked up at me. ‘But it doesn’t surprise me either. You were what she worried about the most when she realised that she wouldn’t get better. She said she wasn’t scared for herself. She also said that I would be fine because she had taught me everything she knew,’ he said with a smile. ‘But she hated knowing she wouldn’t be there for you in case you needed her one day. She said that sometimes you just needed your mum. She said she still missed her mother even though she had passed away when you were little.’
I sighed. ‘It’s true. Sometimes I just wish I could hear her voice or have a hug. I especially wish she could have met Harry.’ I swallowed the lump that had lodged itself in my throat.
‘I know, love. She would have loved to know him and Rory. And to have helped you with protecting the farm. She would have been so proud of you trying to save the land out here. She always said Glendale was the most beautiful place she had ever seen.’ He passed the envelope back to me.
‘It really is,’ I agreed, looking at it. ‘How did you know she was The One for you?’
‘As you know, we lived close to one another but it wasn’t until university that we really got to know one another. She was, of course, studying history, and I was doing engineering, we couldn’t have been more different,’ he remembered with a chuckle. ‘I went into the library one evening and there she was sitting with a big pile of books, her long curly hair everywhere, and she looked up and saw me and said “Did you know that this library has been burned down twice? Once is bad luck but twice just seems like bad judgement to me,” and I was hooked. She was beautiful, of course, but so bright and clever, she loved debating everything and anything, and she was so passionate about the things she loved.’
I loved seeing my mother through my father’s eyes. It reassured me that I didn’t have her on a pedestal because she was no longer with us, she really had been special, and we’d both been lucky to know her. ‘I want to be as good a mother to Harry as she was to me.’
‘Well, of course you will be. You already are. I wish you could see how much you are like her. Your passion, your loyalty, your love, your honesty, and your smile too.’
I smiled, pleased. ‘But she was never as anxious as me.’
‘You know what, she did used to be. When we met, she used to get really anxious about exams, worrying that she’d fail but she never did. After we moved to Glendale, when we were married, and then she fell pregnant, she told me that she really didn’t have anything to be anxious about anymore. She had everything she had hoped for so nothing else really mattered.’ He reached over to squeeze my hand. ‘What’s important is having people to love and who love you, everything else can be sorted out. As long as you have that, then you’ll be just fine. You need to remember that more, that’s all.’
He was right, of course. Rory and Harry were what mattered, and my dad, and our family and friends – the people we had in our lives were the ones who would carry us through everything. ‘I will,’ I promised. I turned to him then. ‘Have you thought anymore about moving in here with us permanently?’ I asked him. He belonged here with us, I knew my mum would have agreed with me.
‘I wasn’t sure about leaving the home that I built with Carol, leaving the memories we made there, but what I just said to you… being with family is the important thing, not where you are. My memories are in here,’ he said, touching his chest. ‘I would love to live here, if you’re sure I won’t cramp your style.’
I leaned my head on his shoulder and giggled. ‘You always have but I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ I replied.
‘The cheek of it,’ he said but he kissed the top of my head, and my heart swelled.
Chapter Thirty-One
I opened my mother’s letter on Christmas morning.
I had crept down to the kitchen to prepare a breakfast for everyone while the others still slept. A stocking waited for Harry at the end of his bed, and outside the snow had continued to fall during the night and now a thick layer of white was spread over the farm. I was less worried than I thought I’d be to see the blanket of snow covering everything when I looked out of the window because I knew Angus had salted the yard and Rory had parked the jeep at the end of the drive by the gate so we would be able to drive to Glendale Hall, and all the animals were safely under shelter. We also had enough supplies if we were stuck for a few days, and it really did look like a picture-perfect scene outside, like something lifted off of the front of a Christmas card.
After making myself a coffee, and putting the pastries in the oven to warm, I sat down at the table and with shaking hand, slit the envelope open. I pulled out the two sheets of paper inside, and let out a little gasp at the sight of my mother’s neat, slanted handwriting. Smoothing the paper on the table, I had to take a deep breath before starting it. My heart was hammering inside my chest. I really hadn’t thought I’d ever hear her voice again, but here I was five years after her death about to read her last words, hearing her speaking them to me inside my head.
My darling Heather,
I have been thinking about writing this letter for a week now. I wasn’t sure though if it was the right thing to do, or to be honest if I had the strength in me to be able to write it. You came home at the weekend, and the look in your eyes was more painful to me than this illness. The thought of not being with you anymore hurts so much sometimes I can’t even breathe.
I’ve been so worried that I’ll forget to tell you something important, that we won’t know when our last conversation will be and miss telling one another something that we need to. So, I decided to write you this letter. Just in case.
Now though sitting here with blank paper and a pen in front of me, I am stuck. How can you even begin to tell someone you love as much as I love you everything you want to? I thought we’d have a lifetime together. How can I fit all those words into just one letter?
I had to look up then. My eyes were too blurry from tears to read her words. I wiped them and took a long gulp of my coffee. The thought of her writing this when she had just weeks left to live filled me with a stabbing pain as bad as when my father had called to tell me I should come home before it was too late. I had tried not to let her see my pain when I walked in through our front door but clearly I had failed miserably, she had seen it, as she had seen everything when it came to me.
Gathering myself, I read on.
But then I thought about all the times we watched a wedding on TV, or read about one in a magazine, how much we enjoyed discussing the dresses, the flowers, speculated on how funny the best man’s speech was… and I thought about how we’d never really talked about our own weddings.
My wedding day was the day I needed my mother more than I would have guessed. It breaks my heart to know that I won’t be there for you on your wedding day whenever that might be, but I can try to help you in the same way that my mother helped me.
The night before my wedding, I was gripped by fear, panic and anxiety, and I sat in with my mother in the kitchen I had grown up in while she made us a cup of tea (what else?), and talked to me. I want to pass on what she said to me that night to you now.
I turned the paper over to continue reading. My grandmother was only a vague memory, she had died when I was so young, I only rea
lly knew her from photographs but my mother had always spoken of them being close, as we had been. It made me feel better to know that my mother had also been worried before her wedding, even though I knew she had loved my dad with all her heart, and she was right that her not being around for mine would worry me. Enough that I hadn’t been able to accept Rory’s proposal. My mum had known me better than myself so much of the time. Sniffing loudly, I carried on reading.
She said ‘you’ve found someone you want to build a life with and it won’t be easy. Life never is. But as long as you never lose sight of who you are, and the love and admiration you feel right at this moment, there is nothing you can’t get through together. I married someone who I thought had better qualities than I did and I spent my life trying to live up to them.’
When she said that, I thought, me too! I always thought your father was a better person than me. So sensible and calm, and so kind, so supportive of me, nothing has ever ruffled him, and he was an excellent father just as I knew he would be. I hope the man you’re about to marry is someone you admire as much as I admire your father, and as much as my mother admired my father.
I was calm after our conversation. I knew I had picked the right man and even if life wasn’t easy, we could get through it because of the people we were and the love we had for one another, just as my mother said we would.
Your father and I didn’t have much money when we got married, we wanted to spend the money we had to buy our house in Glendale, so we had a small wedding. We got married at Gretna Green, as you know, and if there is one tiny regret I have, it’s that I never got to wear a white dress. I dreamed of getting married at Broomwood Castle, and so I hope that whatever your dream is you can make it come true. I want all your dreams to come true. I want you to be happy and loved and feel special every day because you are special. So special.
Heather, you have been the great joy of my life. Growing up, I didn’t dream of a husband and a baby. To be honest, my head was too stuck in books, and I was just focused on my career, but when they came along, they seemed even more special because they weren’t planned. Don gave me more love than I could have ever imagined, and you made me happier than I could ever have thought was possible. I hope the same happens for you.
I know you worry. You always have. I know you’re unsure of yourself and your place in the world sometimes but we all are. I also know that once you find your place, you will do everything you can not to lose it because you are someone who loves deeply and true, just like me.
It breaks my heart that I won’t be there to help you find that place, but I know you will because no one deserves it more, and I’ll be looking down on you and smiling with great joy when you do find it.
And it’s okay if you find this letter and read it before your wedding day. Remember when you opened all your Christmas presents when I left you alone one afternoon? Or the fact that you always read the last page of a book before you reach the end? You have always wanted to know what was in store. Unfortunately, none of us really know. I never thought that my ending would come as soon as it’s going to. But try not to worry, my darling. Because life really isn’t about the ending, is it? It’s about what you do, and who you meet, before you get there.
I’ll always be with you, and you’ll always be with me. I promise you that.
So, be happy my darling, and be open to things that come your way that are unexpected, they have for me turned out to be the best things, and I’m certain that they will for you too.
I can’t put into words how much I love you, or how much I’ll miss you, but I can tell you that the time we had together was the best time of my life.
Mum xxx
I turned over the last page of the letter and read her last words and then I put my head into my hands, and sobbed.
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘Merry Christmas, darling,’ I said when Harry stood up in his cot, yawning sleepily as he reached for me to pick him up. ‘Guess what, it’s snowing and Santa has been! Do you want to open your stocking downstairs with us?’ I hugged him close to me, not wanting to let him go. I had stopped crying, put my mother’s letter away carefully and prepared breakfast. Rory had headed outside to check on the animals, and my dad had shuffled in the kitchen for tea so I had come up to wake Harry.
I thought of my mother’s words about how much I had meant to her. I hadn’t realised that like me she hadn’t planned for marriage and a baby, but both had brought her joy, and it was the same for me with Harry. I had fixated on the fact that I had things I hadn’t planned for but what did that matter? I had them now, and they made me happy just as she had promised they would. I wondered if marriage would be the same. She had known I would need her on my wedding day. And, like always, she had found a way to be there for me, telling me exactly the words that I needed to hear.
Although her words had broken my heart, they had also healed it as well.
Picking up his stocking, I carried Harry down into the kitchen where my dad was tucking in to tea and croissants at the table, the radio playing Mariah Carey behind him. ‘There he is! Merry Christmas, Harry. What have you got there?’
‘Santa,’ Harry said cheerfully, as I put him in his chair.
‘That’s right – presents from Santa because you’ve been a good boy, haven’t you?’ I sat down and opened up the stocking, handing it to him to reach into. Harry pulled out a toy truck with glee.
The back door burst open. ‘We have a problem,’ Rory said grimly. ‘The cows have got out.’
‘How?’ I asked, startled.
‘I don’t know. The gate to their field was wide open when I went to feed them. We need to round them up before we lose any.’
‘I’ll come,’ I said, scrambling to get up as he left as quickly as he had appeared. A sinking feeling settled in my chest as I pulled on my coat, boots and gloves.
‘Can I help?’ Dad asked me.
‘It’s okay, stay in the warm with Harry. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ I glanced at Harry but he was playing with his new toys, oblivious, so I didn’t feel too guilty about having to leave him on Christmas morning.
I hurried out and saw Angus leading a cow out of one of the barns. Rory was riding Duke out to the field. ‘I’ll get the ones who are out in the fields,’ he called as he jumped into the saddle, the best way of getting up the hill in the snow. I saw two of the cows were by the horses’ paddock so I went to get them. I didn’t understand how they could have all escaped – there was no way Rory wouldn’t have locked the gate last night.
I grabbed a handful of hay from the stables and went to the paddock, holding it out to the two cows there. They looked as stunned as we were to see them there, picking their legs through the snow, and clearly struggling. ‘Come on boys,’ I said, holding out the hay to lead them back towards the field. Once in the yard, we moved faster as it had been gritted but back on the snow-covered grass, we made slow progress. Angus joined me with the cow he had found in the barn and Rory was up the hill trying to lead the ones up there back to the lower field where there was a shelter and food and drink. Even though they were a hardy breed, it was too cold for them to be up on the hill today.
Angus shut the gate quickly when our cows had gone in, and I told him I’d check the driveway to make sure none had wandered that far. He spotted one standing by the farmhouse front door and hurried off.
I trudged through the snow to the yard and then onto the winding driveway, which was blanketed in snow. At the end was our car ready to take us to Beth’s for Christmas lunch, covered over last night to protect it. Light snowflakes fell on top of me as I walked towards it.
The snow that had fallen on the driveway was pristine, my footsteps making the first prints into it after the night of snowfall but then I spotted something under one of the trees that reached over the driveway close to our front gate. I heard hooves behind me and turned to see Rory coming up behind me on the horse. ‘Any cows this way?’ he called out to me.
‘Not that
I can see, but look at this,’ I said, gesturing for him to come over to me. He climbed out of the saddle and landed with a light thump in the snow, taking the reins and leading Duke over to me by our front gate. ‘See that?’ I asked, pointing to the distinct footprints I could see under the tree. ‘The other footprints were covered by the snow but not those. You’d make them if you jumped the front gate.’ I looked at him. ‘Someone opened the gate in the field deliberately.’
‘Someone?’ He arched a brow. I sighed. Would Stewart really try to do us this much damage? Those cows were our livelihood. Rory touched my arm. ‘It’s okay, nothing bad has happened thankfully. We’ve found them all, and I think the snow stopped them wandering as far as they might have done, none came down here, and we always lock this gate so he wasn’t able to let them out into the road. The ones that went up the hill are hungry and thirsty, but they’ll be fine. We’re lucky that Stewart knows nothing about farming life, I guess.’
I wrapped my arm around his waist and he slung an arm over my shoulders. ‘Is he really that angry with us for the council putting his planning proposal on hold?’ I smiled as Duke gave my hair a little nudge and with my free hand, I reached up to pat him. Thank goodness the animals were okay. I dreaded to think what could have happened to them.
‘He was pretty pissed off when he turned up here shouting the odds. And from my limited knowledge, I’d say he’s definitely the type to hold a grudge. Look at how low he’s already stooped…’
Hopeful Hearts at Glendale Hall Page 21