by Unknown
She knew exactly what she was looking for.
Quickly closing the door, she went immediately to the cupboard housing the meticulous account books that went back to her father's time.
It took her rather longer than she had hoped to find what she was looking for, mainly because she hadn't known which year she needed to look under and con-sequently had had to search through several before finding the item or rather items she had been search-ing for. When she did, she couldn't help giving a small, triumphant yelp of exultation as she read the entry she had turned up.
There it was as clear as day, in her father's elegant copperplate hand.
Account... To Thomas Berry, woodcarver, £2 10s 6d. each for the construction of a pair of matching desks in yew tree wood.
Two...a pair! So she had been right. She knew there just couldn't have been one. It would have been completely out of character for her father, a perfectionist in everything he did, to go to the trouble of having the Chester family's heirloom desks copied and only having one made instead of the matching pair they possessed.
So at least she knew there had been two desks, which meant that both Guy and Chrissie could be right in claiming different ownership, but what still rather intrigued her was the matter of how one of the desks came to be in the possession of Chrissie's family in the first place.
She heard the study door rattle and was just closing the account book when Ben limped in.
'Still here?' he grumbled, then tensed as he saw what she was holding. 'What are you doing with that?' he demanded harshly.
'I was just checking something in it,' Ruth responded calmly.
'You...you had no right,' he began to bluster.
'You—'
'Ben, I'm your sister,' Ruth reminded him firmly.
'You can't bully or frighten me. I have every right.
Now there's something I want to ask you...about the missing desk...or rather the two missing desks.'
She watched as he sat down very heavily.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' he declared with patent untruth.
'Oh, yes, you do,' Ruth argued cheerfully. 'You know very well what I mean. You really are naughty, Ben,' she chided him. 'You should at least have told the police that there were originally two desks.'
'No, I shouldn't.' Ben glowered at her. 'I gave my father my word it would never be mentioned... our
secret.'
'Well, I certainly didn't make him any such promise,' Ruth told him crisply, 'and I have every intention of telling them. Good heavens, Ben, what does it matter? So there were two desks. Anyone with a logical brain can work out for themselves that there had to be, especially once Rose Oldham can prove the identity of the one the police are holding. So come on...tell me...what happened?'
Ben scowled even more deeply.
'I mean to have the truth, Ben,' Ruth warned him,
'and I'm quite prepared to stay here until I get it. Our father commissioned a pair of matching desks, copies of the ones owned by the Chester family. I know that much. At some point or other, one of the desks became the property of the Platt family. How?'
Ben frowned and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other before telling Ruth hesitantly, 'Father gave it to the Platt girl as a dowry...a wedding gift.
She was working here as a nursemaid.'
'Our father gave a nursemaid one of a pair of desks he had specifically commissioned as a wedding gift?'
Ruth snorted. 'I'm not saying that he was a mean man, Ben, but I know he would never have done anything like that...not unless he had some definite reason.'
'I don't know how she came by it,' Ben grumbled.
'Perhaps she stole it...or...'
'Ben,' Ruth warned before adding thoughtfully, 'Of course, we can always wait until Chrissie's mother arrives. She probably knows how it came into her family.'
'No, she doesn't,' Ben returned swiftly. 'The girl knew what side her bread was buttered on. And old Platt, well, he would have kept quiet about it, as well.
Yes, and would most likely have taken it to the grave with him.'
'Ben...I'm sorry. I'm just not following you,' Ruth interrupted him, frowning.
'Told you plainly enough, haven't I?' Ben harrum-phed. 'The nursemaid got herself in the family way and had to be married off. Old Platt had already lost one wife and there were no children, so he was glad enough to take her on, but she insisted that she deserved something and threatened to kick up such a fuss that Father was forced to let her take the desk, otherwise...'
'You mean that the nursemaid, Chrissie's great-grandmother, was pregnant with our father's child?'
Ruth demanded. 'And that he married her off to Archie Platt...paid her off with a desk?
'It was what she wanted,' Ben defended, 'and damn lucky to get it, too, yes, and a husband.'
'A nursemaid, Ben,' Ruth protested. 'She wouldn't have been much more than a child...seventeen or eighteen at the most. Oh, the poor girl, and she probably loved him, I imagine.'
'Who? Archie Platt? I doubt it. He must have been twice her age and—'
'No. Father,' Ruth corrected him. 'The poor girl.
So Chrissie isn't just a Platt. She's part Crighton, as well.' Ruth smiled.
'Now don't you go telling anyone that,' Ben urged
'I gave my word.'
'I doubt it's a relationship she will particularly want to lay claim to herself,' Ruth informed him tartly, mentally reflecting that she could guess now where Charlie Platt had got his less attractive characteristics from. There was a certain very selfish and greedy streak that notoriously manifested itself every now and again in the male Crighton line.
Jon's twin brother, David, had it. Jon's own elder son, Max, most certainly had it. Her own father, she suspected, had had it, too, and from the sound of it, Charlie Platt had inherited it in full measure, but of course, that was simply a private opinion and could never be proved.
Chrissie and Guy would both have to be told and so would the authorities—the police. Ruth doubted that Ben would react well to this news. She frowned a little.
Whilst there was now a logical explanation for Chrissie and Guy believing that they knew the rightful ownership of the desk, Ruth was too wise and knew too much about life to believe that this knowledge could instantly make everything right between them.
No, the reasons for them both doubting one another, for them both perhaps subconsciously wanting to doubt one another went far deeper than the issue of the desk.
Mutual fear of commitment would perhaps be the fashionable media explanation; a mutual fear of allowing themselves to truly trust another person was, in Ruth's view, closer to the truth. But then, who was she to blame them for that?
For the sake of their unborn child, she hoped their differences could be resolved, but with love rather than by necessity. A sterile relationship without trust was no relationship in which to bring up a young life, no relationship at all, but she was perhaps old-fashioned in her outlook, Ruth acknowledged, and of course, she had the benefit of her own mistakes, her own wrong judgements, to guide her.
CHAPTER TEN
C h r i s s i e wakened abruptly, sitting up in bed, her hand on her stomach, her heart beating fast, not knowing what had brought her so immediately out of her deep sleep, only relieved to discover as she came fully awake that the anxiety that had tugged at her subconscious forcing her to wake up had nothing to do with the new life all her maternal instincts told her was perfectly comfortable and happy in its protected environment.
So what then had made her wake up feeling so fearful and anxious? Even through the curtains and as early as it was, she could see that the sun was already shining, the ambience within Laura's comfortable guest room was as relaxed and welcoming as it always was, and so far as she could tell, yesterday's unpleasant experience had left her remarkably physically un-scathed. In fact, she suspected, of the two of them, that Guy...
Guy... Her heart suddenly lurched so heavily against her che
st wall that she could feel the physical shock of it. By the corresponding tightness within it, the struggle she had to catch her breath and without even knowing how, she knew immediately that something was wrong with Guy, knew it so overwhelmingly and intensely that she was already out of bed, hurrying into Laura's bedroom to shake her awake.
'Chrissie...what is it, what's wrong? The baby...?'
Laura mumbled as she opened her eyes and saw Chrissie bending anxiously over her.
'No, not me. I'm fine,' Chrissie assured her. 'It's Guy.'
'Guy...?' Frowning, Laura started to sit up.
'Why...what...has he...?'
'I'm not sure. I can't explain it. I just know something is wrong,' Chrissie told her urgently. 'Laura, something is wrong...I know it. I...I feel it.'
'What makes you think so?' Laura asked her doubtfully, fully awake now. 'I know what happened yesterday must have given you a bad shock, and a woman in your condition...'
Her condition! Chrissie grimaced. In a way, Laura was right; it was her condition that was responsible for making her feel so concerned. But the condition making her feel so anxious, so sure that something was wrong, was not the fact that she was carrying Guy's child as Laura seemed to think, but the fact that she loved him. Her love for him was the condition that was giving her this feeling. This knowing...
'Laura, please,' Chrissie pleaded, glancing at the telephone beside the bed. 'Just ring him.'
'All right,' Laura agreed, 'but I doubt he's going to be very pleased at being woken up at six o'clock in the morning.'
Chrissie didn't care; she was being driven by a knowledge, an instinct, that simply couldn't be ignored.
She watched as Laura dialled Guy's number, then waited as she heard the telephone ring and ring and ring...
'He's probably so drugged by the stuff the hospital gave him that he can't hear the phone,' Laura reassured her. 'I know you're worried about him,' she told Chrissie gendy as she finally replaced the receiver.
'But you heard what they said at the hospital...he's fine.'
'Laura...please...please,' Chrissie pleaded again, her voice quivering with the intensity of her emotion.
'I know there's something wrong.'
As she turned away and started to head for the door, Laura asked her tiredly, 'Where are you going?'
'I'm going to get dressed and drive round to Guy's,' Chrissie informed her determinedly.
Behind her, she could hear Laura sighing.
'All right...wait...I'll come with you,' Laura con-ceded, 'but I warn you now, I doubt he's going to welcome us with open arms or thank us for disturbing him.'
It was an unfamiliar sensation to be out and abroad when the day was so young and fresh. In other circumstances, Chrissie acknowledged she would have enjoyed the breathlessly clean newness of the day and the sense of being in tune with nature and the world around her, but much as it gave her pleasure to watch a pair of geese taking off from a small lake as they drove past it, that pleasure was only fleeting and marred by the dark current of her underlying concern for Guy.
'For someone who claims not to love him, you're certainly showing an awful lot of anxiety over Guy,'
Laura remarked dryly as they drove into the empty streets of Haslewich.
'I...I do love him,' Chrissie admitted huskily. 'But I can't have a relationship with a man who doesn't trust or respect me and who...' She stopped abruptly, unable to go on, shaking her head slightly.
'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you,' Laura apologised gently.
'You didn't,' Chrissie returned ruefully. 'I upset myself.'
'We'll have to park here,' Laura told her.
The church walk was empty and quiet as they entered it. Chrissie looked anxiously towards the house; the upstairs curtains were closed but those downstairs were open.
Laura knocked briskly on the door and then rang the bell, wincing as it pealed loudly through the house. 'Well, that should wake him,' she commented wryly, but although they waited for several minutes, there were still no sounds from within.
'Perhaps we should ring again,' Chrissie urged her, but Laura shook her head.
'I've got a better idea,' she declared firmly, rooting in her handbag and producing a small bunch of keys.
She rummaged through them and, with a pleased smile, selected one.
'Guy gave me a key so that I could keep a check on things when he goes away,' she explained. 'Come on,' she instructed Chrissie briskly as she inserted it in the lock and turned the handle.
As she followed Laura, Chrissie shivered. The house felt so quiet, deathly quiet.
Laura began to climb the stairs, Chrissie close behind her. The door to Guy's bedroom was closed.
Calling out his name, Laura turned the handle and went in, the somewhat irritated scepticism she had been exhibiting from the moment Chrissie had woken her up suddenly abandoned as she reached the bed and exclaimed in a shocked voice, 'Oh my God!'
'Laura, what is it...what's wrong?' Chrissie asked anxiously as Laura's body blocked her view of the bed and of Guy.
'I'm not sure, but it looks like blood poisoning,'
Laura answered faintly, moving to one side so that Chrissie could now see Guy's arm.
Even in the shadowed light of the curtained room, Chrissie could see quite plainly how swollen and in-flamed the arm was. She could also see the tell-tale red line running towards his armpit.
'Guy. Guy,' Laura called, shaking her brother gently by the shoulder, but although he muttered and frowned, moving uncomfortably beneath her touch, he didn't open his eyes.
Thank God she'd followed her instincts, Chrissie fervently thought ten minutes later as a grim-faced ambulance man confirmed that Guy needed immediate hospital treatment.
Four hours of waiting while Guy went into surgery to have a sliver of wood removed had taken their toll on Chrissie, and if Laura had entertained any doubts about the strength of Chrissie's feelings for Guy, these past hours would have determinedly routed them.
If ever she had witnessed a woman deeply in love, then Chrissie was that woman, and Laura hadn't forgotten that if it hadn't been for Chrissie's insistence, Guy could have been even more seriously ill than he already was.
Outside the door of his room, Chrissie hung back, telling Laura huskily, 'You go first.'
Wisely Laura didn't argue. As she opened the door, she saw the way Guy's eyes lit up with hope and expectation, which quickly faded when he saw her.
'I hope you're up to having more than one visitor,'
she told Guy cryptically as she beckoned Chrissie into the room. This time, she noted with satisfaction, the intense emotion in Guy's eyes didn't fade as he watched Chrissie walk uncertainly towards his bed.
'How...how are you feeling?' Chrissie asked him tritely, her throat so dry with tension and the aftermath of her fear for him that she could hardly get the words out.
'Sore and apparently fortunate to be here,' he commented wryly.
'Well, you've got Chrissie to thank for the fact that you are,' Laura informed him matter-of-factly, ignoring the warning glance Chrissie was giving her. 'I must admit, when she woke me at six o'clock this morning claiming you were ill, I took an awful lot of persuading that she was right. It's just as well she's so tenacious, otherwise...'
She had her reward in the look Guy gave Chrissie as he whispered, 'You knew...but...'
'Chrissie, I really think you should sit down,' Laura insisted firmly. She turned her attention back to Guy.
'She's been pacing the waiting-room floor for the past four hours,' she explained. 'I felt exhausted just watching her, which reminds me, there's a phone call I have to make. If you two will just excuse me...'
She was gone before Chrissie could open her mouth to protest. Her heart started to thump very heavily and she turned uncertainly towards the door.
As though he sensed what she was feeling, Guy held out his good arm to her and pleaded, 'Don't go, Chrissie. Please...'
When she turned back in res
ponse, he told her quietly, 'The surgeon tells me I'm lucky to be alive.
Another few hours and the septicaemia could have been so bad it would have meant amputation at best and at worst...'
The look in Chrissie's eyes and the small sound she made in her throat told him all he wanted to know.
'Oh God, Chrissie,' he said roughly. 'What have we done to each other? Why have we made such a mess of things? I can remember thinking last night just before the fever made it impossible for me to think, that if anything happened...you'd never know just how much I love you...just how much I wish this whole sorry business of that damned desk had never come between us, or how much I wish I'd never let my idiotic prejudice against your uncle—'
'Laura told me what he did to you when you were a child,' Chrissie interrupted him huskily, 'how he bullied you. He did the same to my mother even though she was much older than Charlie. She...she told me once that she used to feel so guilty because she hated him so much.'
'Yes, it must have been hard for her,' Guy agreed quietly, 'but not as hard as I've made things for you.'
Somehow or other without Chrissie being aware of how it happened, they were holding hands, their fingers entwined, their body language giving away all the things that logic and suspicion had urged them to suppress.
'You're having my baby,' Guy whispered rawly.
'When the surgeon told me how close I'd been to...
I couldn't bear to think that our child would come into the world without my knowing...without my being there to share the miracle we've created between us. Without my being there to look after and protect the both of you the way... I want to be there, Chrissie, not just for our baby, but for you, as well.'
'I want you to be there, too,' Chrissie heard herself admitting as her tears started to fall. Guy, ignoring her protests, heaved himself up in the bed and, using his good arm, drew her down against him, gently kissing her head and trying to comfort her.
'I know there are still problems,' he admitted when she finally lifted her head from his chest. He smiled lovingly down at her and smoothed her damp hair back off her face. 'But somehow we'll find a way to work them out.'