by Anne Fraser
‘Thank you.’
‘Come and say hello to my grandfather. He’s out in the garden, talking to Gemma.’
He led the way, his arm going lightly around her shoulders in a gesture that said she belonged, that she was part of their group and he was glad to have her here.
‘Louise, my dear, we’re just enjoying a fruit punch out here.’ Joseph was sitting by a table that was set out on the terrace in front of open French windows that led into the sitting room, and now he beckoned her over to him. ‘Let me pour you a glass.’
He reached out a shaky hand to the jug of iced juice, and James intervened. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘You sit back and rest.’
Louise was shocked by the old man’s condition. He was even more frail than usual, his cheeks pale and his eyes had a weary look about them.
‘Thank you, James.’ Joseph patted the chair beside him. ‘Come and sit down, Louise. Gemma has just gone to check on the children in the arbour. She worries about Nicola’s arm, but my great-granddaughter is quite oblivious to any problems. She seems to be recovering nicely, thanks to you.’
‘I expect she’ll be fine,’ Louise answered. ‘I wanted to tell you that I have the painting that you gave me in pride of place in my living room. It looks beautiful in there, and I’m so pleased to have it.’
He nodded, but then he frowned, putting a hand to his head momentarily.
‘Are you all right?’ James asked, a look of concern coming over his face.
‘Yes, of course. It’s nothing.’ He rested his hand in his lap and looked at James. ‘Would you tell Catherine that we’re ready to eat?’
‘I will.’
For the next hour they enjoyed a wonderful meal outside in the fresh air. Gemma told Louise about the landscape she was painting—a view of a lake from the vantage point of a hillside not too far away. Robert came to join them and talked about the new foal taking its first faltering steps around the paddock, and James came and sat next to her, making her smile with his accounts of his childhood at the Manor House.
‘We had an argument with my father one day over who had been digging up plants in the kitchen garden. We were only small children at the time, and all three of us were guilty of trampling over the newly planted seed-beds and tugging at the lettuce leaves that were beginning to sprout. Then he asked us who had been stripping the raspberry canes of their fruit and we all denied it. Of course we didn’t realise that our faces and hands were smeared with juice, and that there were lettuce leaves sticking out from the soil under our shoes.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Louise chuckled. ‘What happened? Were you banished from the garden after that?’
He shook his head. ‘He told us that we would have to spend time with the gardener and see how he worked there. It was actually a joy for us to do that. We all had a great time, learning how to plant vegetables and prune fruit stems, and I think that’s where Robert gained his love of farming.’
He glanced at his brother for confirmation and Robert nodded. ‘It didn’t occur to me back then that I would one day be managing the whole lot. I exchanged vegetable growing for crops, fruit farming and forestry.’
‘I don’t have any such tales to tell,’ she admitted. ‘Most of my foster parents had pocket handkerchief-sized gardens, and a good portion of those were taken up with lawn. I did help out with the garden at the children’s home occasionally, though. Mostly I liked to work in the greenhouse, pricking out the seedlings or potting flowering plants—very simple activities compared with what you have to do.’
She turned to Joseph to ask if he had strong opinions on how the land was farmed, but he was resting, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed and a line etched into his brow. He hadn’t touched any of the food.
‘I think my grandfather has a headache,’ James said. ‘I’ll go and fetch some painkillers for him from the house.’
‘I’ll show you my studio, if you like,’ Gemma said, glancing at Louise. ‘It was converted from one of the old barns near to where I have my house in the grounds. We get the sun in there for a good many hours of the day, and it makes the lighting perfect. My husband likes to sit in there and just take in the atmosphere.’
‘Sounds good to me.’ Louise stood up and followed where Gemma led, casting a quick glance in James’s direction. He looked worried, and she wondered if he thought his grandfather might be heading for a collapse.
Gemma’s studio was exactly as she’d said it would be, a large room filled with light, where conditions were just right for painting. Canvases were set out against the walls or on easels, wonderful splashes of colour that looked intensely busy close up and yet from a distance a splendid panorama opened up to delight the connoisseur. She was a truly magnificent artist.
‘Your work takes my breath away,’ Louise told her, gazing around. ‘These are all so carefully done, and I can just picture myself standing in some of these woodland glades. The tree bark is so lifelike that it makes me want to reach out and touch it.’
Gemma laughed. ‘Feel free. I do like working in oils. There’s such a depth to the images you can create, but equally I like the softer look of watercolours.’
They spent some time looking at the canvases, until Anne-Marie came to find her mother and drag her back to the house.
‘I want you to show me how to set up the wooden village toys and the railway track,’ she said. ‘Nicola keeps trying but she can only use one hand and she keeps knocking things over. Uncle Robert’s too busy and he’s gone off to see what’s going on in the hen house. He says that so-and-so fox is sniffing about and if he catches him he’ll take a shot at him.’
Gemma stifled a chuckle. ‘Oh, dear, that’s not good, is it? What about your Uncle James? He usually helps out with these things, doesn’t he?’
Anne-Marie put on a serious face. ‘He says Grandad is feeling poorly and he thought me and Nicola should go and play in the summerhouse. I told him I’d help him to look after Grandad but he said no, he would do it by himself.’ She was thoughtful for a moment. ‘I think he wanted to be left on his own.’ Then she looked at her mother. ‘Why would he want us to go away? We weren’t being naughty.’
Gemma frowned. ‘I don’t know, Anne-Marie. Perhaps Grandad needed to be quiet for a while.’
Anne-Marie seemed to accept that well enough, and they all left the studio shortly after that, with Gemma heading for the summerhouse and telling Louise, ‘I’ll come and join you on the terrace in a minute or two.’
‘That’s all right. I’ll see if James needs a helping hand.’
James, though, didn’t respond to Louise’s offer of help when she arrived back at the terrace. He didn’t acknowledge her in any way, but simply sat in the chair by his grandfather’s side, staring straight ahead.
‘James, what’s wrong?’
He didn’t answer and then, as she sent a quick glance towards Joseph, she could see why he was acting in such a strange manner. ‘Oh, no,’ she said in a broken voice. ‘Oh, James, I’m so sorry. What happened? He seemed fine most of the afternoon.’
‘I think it was a stroke,’ James said at last. ‘He died in my arms just a few minutes ago, but I don’t think he was aware of what was happening. It was so quick…and so final. A whole lifetime of endeavour and experience wiped out in a matter of seconds.’
She knelt down in front of him, clasping his hands in her own. ‘I’m so, so sorry. Is there anything I can do?’
He shook his head and didn’t even look at her. ‘I just need to be on my own for a while.’
‘Yes…yes, of course.’ Somehow, she hadn’t been expecting that, and she struggled to take in the fact that he didn’t want her around.
Logic told her that of course he wanted to be left alone to take in this awful event, but her instincts warned her that he was pushing her away in his hour of need, and that was no easy thing for her to accept.
‘I’ll leave you be, then,’ she said in a husky tone. ‘Perhaps it would be best if I go and watch over t
he children for a while, so that you can all take this in.’
He didn’t answer her and she got to her feet, glancing once more at Joseph, who was at peace now, with a gentle smile frozen on his lips. An unbearable feeling of sadness washed over her.
CHAPTER NINE
‘I THOUGHT James was looking particularly subdued this morning,’ Jenny murmured. She carefully adjusted the amount of fluid that was to be infused into her small patient, while Louise checked the dressing on the three year-old girl’s chest. The child’s skin was reddened from a nasty scald. ‘In fact, I’m surprised that he has been able to come in to work at all over these last few weeks, because I know how sad he was over his grandfather’s passing…and I imagine he’s had a lot to do, with putting his grandfather’s affairs in order.’
‘Yes, I noticed that he was a lot quieter than usual today,’ Louise agreed in a quiet tone, ‘but when I tried to get to the bottom of things, he said he had to go over to the resuscitation bay and didn’t have time to talk. As to coming in to work, I know that he doesn’t want to take any more time off than is necessary.’
She put the last tape in place around the dressing. ‘I offered him the chance to take an extended leave, but he turned me down. Once the funeral was over, he made up his mind that he wanted to keep busy, and he said that coming in to work would help to keep him focused.’
She looked down at the child she was tending. ‘Does that feel more comfortable, sweetheart?’ she asked her and, when the toddler nodded, she said with a smile, ‘That’s good. You’re doing very well.’
She went to search in a nearby cupboard, and came back to the bedside holding a teddy bear. ‘Would you like to have him next to you in bed?’ she asked. ‘I think teddy hurts too, and I expect he needs a cuddle.’
The girl nodded and held out her hands to the silky bear, a smile hovering on her mouth.
The child’s mother gave a relieved sigh as the little girl settled back against her pillows, winding a protective arm around the bear, her fingers stroking his soft fur. ‘Will the skin heal without any scarring?’ the mother asked, looking anxiously at Louise.
Louise nodded. ‘Hopefully, there won’t be any permanent damage, although it will take around three weeks for the skin to repair itself. This is a second-degree burn, and the dressings will help her to heal. With any luck she won’t need to be on the drip for too long. In the meantime, I’ll arrange for her to be admitted so that we can keep an eye on her for the next day or so.’
Coming away from the observation ward a few minutes later, she waited for Jenny to catch up with her.
‘It must be very difficult for James right now,’ the nurse chatted on. ‘His whole world must have changed with his grandfather’s passing. He has to take over the running of Ashleigh Manor, and after the meeting with the solicitor the other day his family must be wondering how they are going to go on. I heard his sister telling you about it. The reading of the will must have come as a shock to all of them.’
‘Yes, I think it did.’ Louise pressed her lips together, remembering how Gemma had responded to the details contained in the will. She had brought Nicola to the hospital for her follow-up examination, and had confided her news to Louise. ‘James has been very tight lipped about everything. I think they had expected to have free rein with the running of the place, but it turned out that a lot of the money that had been put in trust for them was tied up with conditions.’
She added her signature to the girl’s chart and placed it down on the desk. ‘I would have thought there was some way they could get around the restrictions, but apparently not. Their grandfather wanted to keep the property sacrosanct, and had the lawyers draw everything up tight as a drum. Of course, he didn’t appear to take into account the impact that death duties would have on the estate.’
‘What will they do? I don’t suppose James and his sister will be too concerned, but his brother was never very happy with the situation, was he?’
‘No, he wasn’t. Robert wanted to run things his own way.’
Louise glanced at her watch and saw that itwas close to lunch time. Things had been so busy around the unit up to now that she hadn’t even found time for a morning coffee break. ‘I think I might grab a takeaway lunch from the staff restaurant and head over to the park for a while,’ she said. ‘Tim will be on hand here if anything crops up, but you can page me if there are any problems.’
Jenny nodded. ‘Okay.’
Louise started for the exit, coming across James as he left one of the treatment rooms and was beginning to make his way towards the locker room. ‘Are you going off for your lunch break?’ she asked him.
‘Yes. I thought I would take it now while things are relatively quiet.’ He studied her thoughtfully. ‘Why? Is there a problem? Do you need me to stay?’
She shook her head. ‘No, but I wanted to warn you that the press are out in force at the front of the building again.’ She made a rueful face. ‘I organised a survey amongst people who used the A&E department and a lot of the parents of children who were treated here have decided to get involved with our cause. So you might want to use a different exit.’ She smiled gently. ‘I don’t think you’re in any mood to deal with them right now, are you?’
‘That’s true. I’m not,’ he acknowledged, giving her a brief narrowed glance, noting that she was wearing a light jacket over her skirt and top. ‘Are you going out?’
‘Yes, I thought I would go and eat my lunch in the park. Would you like to join me? We could probably both do with getting away from here for a while, and it’s a bright day out there. It seems a shame to miss out on the sunshine.’
He hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. ‘That sounds like a good idea. We could escape through the back exit, couldn’t we?’
They stopped off at the staff restaurant to pick up some food for lunch, and then walked towards the nearby park.
‘I sometimes come out here and eat my sandwiches at a bench table overlooking the lake,’ she told him. ‘I find it really peaceful, and there’s a lovely sunny spot close to the pavilion. It helps me to unwind, looking out over the surface of the water and watching the wildfowl dart among the reeds, especially if I’ve had a particularly bad morning.’
James scanned the landscaped gardens as they walked through the park gates. ‘My grandfather loved this place,’ he said. ‘I think he told you that when you first met him in here. Like you, he enjoyed the tranquillity, and when he was younger he would come here to think things through whenever he had a problem he needed to solve. I suppose he had so many things on his mind, things he never talked about to us, but as head of the Ashleigh estate he must have had a great many concerns to occupy his thoughts.’
‘He probably found that if he stayed on the estate he would become sidetracked. Sometimes it’s better to get right away and look at things from a different perspective.’ Louise pointed out a bench seat in the distance. ‘We can sit over there, if you like,’ she murmured. ‘There’s no one else around, so we won’t be disturbed.’
‘Okay.’ They crossed the sweeping meadow grass and laid their packages out on the rustic wooden table. Between them, they had a variety of crisp bread rolls and ready prepared dishes of salad, along with a mayonnaise dip. Louise had bought a bowl of fresh fruit salad for dessert, and they both had bottled drinks to wash it all down.
She sat down opposite James and sent him a surreptitious glance. ‘I imagine that you were surprised when your grandfather insisted on maintaining his control over the property even after he had passed on.’
She helped herself to lettuce and sliced tomato. ‘Gemma explained how he was determined to keep visitors from invading the property. She said it was one of the ideas that Robert had in mind for increasing the revenue of the estate, and now his plans have been dashed. What do you think about it? Has it caused a lot of trouble for you?’
James broke off some of his bread and savoured it, along with a round soft cheese. ‘It isn’t a problem for me particularly
, in as much as I tended to agree with my grandfather. Ashleigh Manor is our home, and I didn’t particularly want to see it opened up to the public. Robert, on the other hand, is always looking to the future, and he was hoping that one day he might put some of his ideas into practice. The will came as something of a blow to him, because now he feels that his hands are tied.’
Louise grimaced. ‘I’m sure that your grandfather was doing his best for all of you. Hewas such a thoughtful, kind man, and he must have felt his obligations very strongly. I was surprised when he gave me the picture of my house, and I was afraid that he might have been acting on a whim. But when I got to know him better, I realised that he gave everything deep consideration and he was very sincere in everything that he did.’
‘Yes, that’s true. The sad thing is, we all loved our grandfather very much, and he was only doing what he thought was best to ensure the future for all of us. We know why he did what he did, and mostly we can appreciate it, but for Robert it has been almost too much for him to handle.’
She sent him a quick look, sensing that there was more that he was not telling her. ‘Has something happened?’
He nodded. ‘Robert walked out over the weekend. He said that he’d had enough, that it was a constant struggle for no real gain, and he had to go away and spend some time on his own. He packed a case and drove off without telling us where he was going.’
Louise gave a small gasp. ‘Do you think he will be in touch some time soon? Surely he can’t mean to stay away for very long?’
James lifted his shoulders briefly. ‘I’ve no way of knowing. He’s been gone for a couple of days already. I’ve been trying to call him, but he must have switched off his mobile phone.’ He winced. ‘I just wish that he had stayed long enough for us to talk things through. We would have come up with a solution between us, I’m sure.’
She reached out and lightly touched his hand in a sympathetic gesture. It was a brief contact, but she wanted, more than anything, to show him how much she cared, and when he squeezed her fingers gently in return she was content. ‘You’ll be able to track him down eventually, though, won’t you? If the police were to look for him, they would know if he uses his credit card, and then he could probably be traced.’