A Summer Promise (36 page)

Seeing that pretence was useless, Maddy sat up, rearranged her pillow and pointed to the bedside chair. ‘Hush, Gran, and sit down,’ she said in a low voice. ‘That wall is only a wooden partition and for all I know Alice might be a light sleeper. I can’t answer for Tom, of course, but I’ve already told you I would put all my effort into bringing the old place back to what it was in Grandpa’s day, if I got the chance. Only there’s no use talking, because you gave it to the O’Hallorans, and if they mean to sell it they’ll be asking a much higher price than all of us together could afford.’

Gran sniffed. ‘Until quite recently I thought Tom was going to marry that flighty blonde piece, or go for the money and take on the Thwaite girl,’ she said. ‘But remember, Eileen and Declan can’t sell Larkspur and go because the Deed says they must look after me.’

‘Huh!’ Maddy said explosively. ‘They could disappear like a teardrop in a puddle, and you with them. They could take you away from here and then abandon you. All they’d have to do is swear you left them. Has it never occurred to you that that might happen? They’d make sure the money had been handed over and just go, and if you think we could get the place back you’re completely wrong; it would legally belong to whoever had paid them for it. Oh, Gran, didn’t you think of that?’

‘Eileen wouldn’t . . .’ Gran began, but looking at her across the candlelit bedroom Maddy saw the doubt on her face. It was all very well to assume that Eileen would keep her word, but now Maddy could see that Gran was beginning to realise the Deed was a double-edged sword. There was nothing to stop the O’Hallorans leaving provided they took Gran with them.

Gran tightened her lips and got to her feet. ‘I’ve a good mind to tackle Eileen right away,’ she said crossly. ‘If I could lay my hands on that Deed it’d be confetti two minutes later. So you think they mean to cheat me? Well, I’ll see they regret it. But aren’t we rather jumping to conclusions? I signed that Deed so long ago that I might have forgotten bits of it. Let’s have this meeting with the O’Hallorans and anyone else concerned. Your Tom’s a sharp young feller; do you think he ought to be included just in case the Deed isn’t as waterproof as they think?’

‘He’s not my Tom,’ Maddy said automatically. ‘But you’re right; I’d like him to come to the meeting with the O’Hallorans. We’ll have to wait until he’s discharged from the rehabilitation place, of course – Matron said it should be quite soon – but I’m sure the O’Hallorans won’t run until they’ve got the money for the property. It’s not even on the market yet, so we’re safe for a bit.’

Gran nodded grimly. ‘Tell Tom to give us a date and we’ll make sure the O’Hallorans agree to it.’

Maddy nodded also. ‘Then we’ll have to get the Deed of Gift from the solicitors . . .’

‘It’s not at the solicitors,’ Gran cut in. ‘I remember now, the O’Hallorans rented a deed box at the bank, the one on the corner of Skellgate and Westgate; they said it would be safer.’

Maddy’s brow furrowed. ‘I wonder why they thought it would be safer in a bank rather than in a solicitor’s office?’ she murmured. ‘Well, never mind; I’ll telephone Tom tomorrow and find out when he’ll be free.’

Gran grinned and headed for the bedroom door. ‘I feel much better now that we’ve sorted everything out. I’ll probably sleep like a log,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ll tell Eileen what we’ve decided, and let her know that if she tries any funny business we’ll have the authorities on her before she can say knife. Not that she would; she’s an honest woman is Eileen, though Declan may be a little quick off the mark.’

Snuggling down again once Gran had left, Maddy thought how strange it was that two people could have entirely different opinions of another. She thought Declan reasonably truthful and reasonably trustworthy, but she would not have trusted Mrs O’Halloran further than she could throw her – which was not far. Yet Gran, who knew both husband and wife a good deal better than she did, had complete trust in the woman and openly avowed that she thought Declan a slippery customer.

Well, they would soon find out who was right, and with a lovely warm glow inside at the thought of seeing Tom quite soon, Maddy slipped into sleep.

Maddy and Tom had agreed to meet at the Hall, and the previous day she had received a letter from him saying that he would be arriving this very afternoon. Now, as she waited impatiently for his arrival, Alice was explaining how Mr Thwaite still did not approve of her marriage to Jim Browning. ‘My father’s still being very silly about my marriage,’ she told Maddy. ‘But he’s coming to England some time in the next two or three months, and I’m sure once he meets Jim his whole attitude will change. Not that it really matters, because when you love someone all you want is to be with them, and my father can’t prevent our marriage once I’m of age, which is only a few months now.’

‘I’m sure when he meets Mr Browning he’ll change his mind . . .’ Maddy was beginning, then stopped short as the front door was flung open to reveal Tom, in a rather uncomfortable-looking suit.

He came across the hall, his eyes fixed on Maddy, with a slow, delighted grin spreading across his face. Maddy barely had time to notice that he was walking with scarcely a limp before she found herself in his arms. ‘Oh, Marigold, I’ve missed you dreadfully,’ he said. ‘I’ve thought of nothing but your voice, telling me that I’d be all right. You gave me hope, which I thought had gone for ever. I wanted to write, but I didn’t dare, in case you had changed your mind and didn’t mean to come back to the dales.’ He held her away from him, smiling. ‘When you left you said you’d come back for
me
. Oh, Marigold, does that mean that you love me as much as I love you?’

Madeleine felt that with almost no encouragement at all she could have climbed Everest, or jumped clear over the tallest tree in the woods. Ignoring the interested gaze of Alice and various helpers, she snuggled, purring with pleasure, into Tom’s embrace. ‘It means whatever you want it to mean,’ she said huskily, ‘as long as you remember I’m not Marigold, I’m Madeleine! Oh, Tom, when you called me Marigold in hospital I was so unhappy because I thought it meant you really did love her, and would be heartbroken when you found she was engaged to someone else. What on earth made you think I was her?’

‘Oh, darling Maddy, I’m so sorry! When I was just coming out of the concussion, and I was falling in love with your voice you kept saying Marigold, and I thought you were talking about yourself,’ Tom said. ‘But it was you I was thinking of – I never muddled you up with – well, with Marigold. I love you, Maddy.’ He pulled a rueful face. ‘And I’ve so little to offer you!’

‘Don’t care,’ Maddy mumbled against his neck. ‘Oh, Tom, this is the happiest day of my life!’

ONCE THE EUPHORIA
of their first meeting as civilians was over, practical things came to the fore. Maddy and Tom left Alice at the Hall and went, with their arms about each other’s waists, to the summer house where they sat on the old rustic bench, Maddy cuddling as close to Tom as she could get. Their conversation began with ‘Do you remember . . .’ but eventually, after they had reminisced and also done a good deal of kissing and cuddling, it occurred to Maddy that she was supposed to be telling Tom all about the Deed of Gift which had stripped her of her rights to Larkspur.

‘I need to know the terms of the Deed and Gran’s forgotten some of the details,’ she explained, ‘but we can only look at it when the O’Hallorans are present too, as the other interested party. Gran suggested we might ask you to come with us to check that everything’s above board.’

Tom nodded seriously. ‘She was right, because I’ve a good deal of common sense, even if I’m not a legal buff,’ he said. ‘Are you hoping that the Deed is somehow invalid? Or have you some other scheme in mind to cheat the cheats, so to speak?’

He looked at her hopefully but Maddy was forced to shake her head. ‘I’ve thought and thought, but I’ve not had any bright ideas,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘I’ve begged Gran to try to remember if there were any peculiarities in the document and though I’m sure she’s done her best, she’s not thought of one single thing. Do you want more time, Tom, before we have the meeting? Only I can’t see the O’Hallorans taking kindly to much more waiting about. You see, I’m convinced they’ll want to sell Larkspur as soon as they can – it’s bursting at the seams already and Mrs O’Halloran seems to have an inexhaustible supply of relatives looking for somewhere to live. If the land is theirs to sell as well they’ll be able to afford a much bigger place.’

‘I see,’ Tom said thoughtfully. ‘I suppose we couldn’t buy it back? All of us, I mean – you, me, Dad, and my new stepmother? We’ve all saved like billy-o . . .’ He stopped, for Maddy was regretfully shaking her head.

‘No, I’m afraid not,’ she said. ‘It’ll be far above our touch, so we might as well arrange to see the document tomorrow and get it over with. It’s been kept in the bank, though I’m not sure why.’

Tom frowned thoughtfully. ‘If you were to say you thought the Deed had been signed by your gran under duress, might it become null and void?’

Maddy grinned at him, but shook her head. ‘If only it were that simple! But Gran signed the Deed in front of a solicitor, so there’s no get-out there.’

‘Right. Then let’s have a look at it as soon as possible,’ Tom said. ‘We might as well know the worst.’

‘Are you all right, Gran? We can easily push the bath chair inside and round to the room where they will have the O’Hallorans’ deed box,’ Maddy said next morning as they approached the bank.

Gran, however, shook her head. ‘Park the damned thing on the pavement; I don’t mean anyone to believe I can’t walk twenty yards,’ she said brusquely. She got slowly out of the bath chair and clicked her fingers at Tom, much as though, Maddy thought, he were some sort of servant. ‘Come along, young man, and lend me your arm. I want to get this over as soon as possible.’

Tom winked at Maddy but gave Gran his arm as requested, and the three of them progressed in a stately fashion into the echoing hall of the bank, where the O’Hallorans awaited them. ‘Shall I be taking your other arm, Mrs Hebditch?’ Declan asked in a conciliatory tone. ‘We’s promised to look after you for the rest of your natural life, same as we always have done.’ He beckoned to his wife. ‘You tek one arm and I’ll tek the other. Might as well continue as we mean to go on . . .’

‘You can leave my grandmother in my charge,’ Maddy said frostily. She bent to whisper in her grandmother’s ear. ‘Keep your pecker up, Gran, and as soon as this is over we’ll go to the café in the square and have coffee and biscuits, maybe even scones; you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

Gran sniffed. ‘Wait and see,’ she said gruffly. ‘There’s many a slip twixt the whatsit and the doodah.’

The bank manager went ahead of them to open the door into an office, and was only just in time to escape being dug in the back by Gran’s walking cane. He had already introduced himself as Mr Rankin, and on the large desk in front of the window stood a deed box with the name
O’Halloran
written on it. Mr O’Halloran lifted the lid with as much care as though it contained gunpowder, and withdrew a most impressive-looking document. It was written on some sort of parchment and bore a number of seals of scarlet wax.

Eileen O’Halloran looked at Gran. ‘Is this the document you saw drawed up and signed?’ she said. ‘Would you care to read them words aloud so that everyone can hear that you weren’t tricked or bullied into it?’

Gran sighed. ‘All right, all right; I admit I made a dreadful mistake and signed the wretched thing without thinking first,’ she admitted. ‘Here, Maddy – and you, Tom – you’d best just check that your grandmother is a silly old fool and handed her inheritance to a pair of fair weather friends in exchange for that there mess of porridge, like what it says in the Bible.’

Everyone leaned forward and Maddy, remembering the number of times that in the early days Declan had addressed her grandmother as Mrs Hebdyke, went eagerly to the name at the bottom of the page, only to be disappointed. Declan, aware of his weakness so far as writing was concerned, had got someone else, presumably the lawyer, to fill in the space and there it was, plain as a pikestaff,
Eleanor Mary Hebditch
, printed neatly beneath Gran’s own copperplate signature.

There was perhaps two minutes’ silence before Gran broke it. ‘Well, that’s that,’ she said resignedly. ‘Larkspur is yours, and provided you keep me in good health . . .’

But Tom was clearing his throat loudly, and Maddy looked at him curiously. His cheeks were very flushed and he was grinning broadly. The bank manager had been asked to stay in the room to act as witness to the proceedings, and now he looked from Tom to the Deed of Gift, and then from the Deed of Gift to Tom. ‘If there’s an irregularity . . .’ he started, and Tom put his finger on the first sentence of that noble document and read it aloud.

‘
I, Declan O’Halloran, hereby make a Deed of Gift of Larkspur Farm and all its land to Eleanor Mary Hebditch. I shall keep her in good health . . .
’ He stopped speaking as Maddy gave a crow of triumph, closely followed by a shout from Gran, whilst Declan O’Halloran stared in complete bewilderment at the words he could not read.

Mrs O’Halloran looked from face to face and then stared at the Deed of Gift as though, if she stared hard enough, it might speak to her, tell her what, if anything, had gone awry. Then she turned to the bank manager. ‘What have we been and gone and done wrong?’ she said aggressively. ‘We had it drawed up and checked over by my brother-in-law what knew a lawyer before it were copied all legal-like by that there Mr Tebbit. Eoin swore there was no mistakes, so why’s them Hebditches lookin’ so bleedin’ pleased with theirselves?’

Tom explained to Eileen that her brother-in-law must have been too intent upon getting the legal wording right to check that he’d got the names in the intended order. ‘The Deed should have read
I, Eleanor Mary Hebditch, hereby make a Deed of Gift of Larkspur Farm and all its land to Declan O’Halloran
, whereas your brother-in-law muddled the names so that Declan is making a Deed of Gift to Mrs Hebditch.’