Daughter of Dark River Farm (18 page)

‘Is the other man your father?’ I asked quietly.

Lawrence nodded, sobering for the first time since we’d left Will behind at the house. ‘They were the absolute best of friends. Uncle Jack planted this tree just after father died, and every time he came here he tended it. Our gardener, Shackleton, did his best, but he had so much more to do, and he didn’t have the same devotion to these two trees as Uncle Jack did.’

I remembered the garden at Lizzy’s mother’s cottage near the farm, and that Jack had taken it over while he’d been staying there. ‘He’s got green fingers, all right,’ I said with a smile. ‘Not the sort of thing you’d expect from a man like him.’

‘He always had an air of mystery,’ Lawrence agreed, ‘but we were lucky enough to see the other side of him too. I’m glad he’s happy.’

‘With your old scullery maid, so I understand. Does your mother know that?’

‘Pretty sure she doesn’t, actually. Evie did ask me not to tell her. I’m happy for him, though. Can’t see him married to that Wingfield woman he was engaged to before. But Lizzy…’ He looked uncomfortable suddenly, and I thought perhaps an unwelcome memory had resurfaced, then he shook it off. ‘Anyway, Evie says they’re happy, and that’s all that matters.’

‘Funny how things turn out,’ I mused. ‘Who can guess where lives will lead?’

‘Who indeed?’ he smiled back. But there was nothing behind the smile that suggested our own lives, be they separate or together, were on his mind just at that moment, and I turned to go back up the path, breathing a little sigh of relief.

‘I should like to show you Breckenhall,’ Lawrence said, catching me up after clearing away some dead leaves from the two trees. ‘They still have a market there sometimes. Perhaps when Will is recovered a little more we could all walk in together. Would you like that?’

‘I would, thank you.’ We walked quietly for a few minutes, then I broached something that had been on my mind since I’d arrived. ‘Lawrence, has your mother ever considered opening the house?’

‘Opening it?’

‘As a convalescent home. You know, for soldiers.’

He looked surprised that the thought had never occurred to him. ‘No, I don’t think so. Jolly good idea though, and one I might take up with her.’

‘Well you…’ I trailed off, hesitant to take him onto my path of thought, having known him such a short time.

‘Well what? Come on, you might as well ask,’ he said, then saved me the bother. ‘Oh, you’re thinking that, as heir to Oaklands it’s actually my decision?’

‘Well, isn’t it? I’ve never been too sure about the way these things go down through families,’ I confessed. ‘But if
you
choose to do it, surely that’s an end to discussion?’

He thought about it, blond brow furrowed. ‘I think you’re right, as it goes.’

‘And you agreed it would be a good idea.’

‘I did, didn’t I?’ He grinned at me, and caught hold of my hand. I didn’t pull away, but neither did I feel the way I did when Archie did the same. It was like holding my brother’s hand—comforting and friendly, but utterly lacking in anything deeper. Nevertheless I smiled back, and, as we walked up to the house I hoped Lily would be looking out of her morning-room window; her approval meant a great deal, and I wasn’t ready for that suddenly chilly glance to fall on me again just yet.

Inside Oaklands, Lawrence led me upstairs to the first floor, and down a long corridor. We stopped at the last-but-one door, and he pushed it open. ‘Father’s study,’ he told me.

‘What are we doing here?’ I looked around nervously; despite my own assertion that this was Lawrence’s house, it still felt wrong to be standing in the study of his deceased father. The room was surprisingly cosy, with two chairs by the empty fireplace, and a large, clean desk in front of the window. I wandered over to the window and moved the heavy curtain farther aside, letting more light in. Beyond the French window was a large, wide balcony; I’d seen it from outside and wondered what lay behind it, and now I knew. I felt a tickle on the hand that had remained on the edge of the curtain and jerked away, visions of spiders making me shudder. But it was only a piece of string. My eyes followed the string upwards, saw how it ran across the ceiling, and hung equally free at the other end, swinging down beside the door. What on earth was that for?

‘Aha!’ Lawrence’s exclamation swept the mild puzzlement from my mind, and I turned to see him holding up an envelope.

‘What’s that?’

‘Father’s will.’

I smiled. ‘Are you really thinking about it, then?’

‘It’s the only thing we
should
be doing with Oaklands. I really have no idea why it’s never been mentioned before. Embarrassing, really, that I didn’t think of it myself.’ He pulled out the document and spread it on his father’s desk. I didn’t speak, while he absorbed its contents, and just continued to look around the room and out across the wide sweep of lawn. After a few minutes, he beckoned me over.

‘You’re right. It looks rather as if the decision’s mine.’ He stepped back so I could read the will and, despite not having known the man, to see the words and wishes of one who had once been happy, vibrant and loving, set up a strange, sad echo in my heart.

‘Well that’s good news, then,’ I said, trying to smile, but Lawrence caught the tremble in my voice, and touched my arm.

‘Uncle Jack has always been more of a father to me than Henry Creswell,’ he said quietly. ‘I was very young when Father died, but Jack was here…even when he wasn’t. If you understand what I mean.’

‘I do, yes. I don’t know Jack very well, but I do know his nephew Archie. Evie says they’re very alike, in more than appearance.’

‘Well that’s the best compliment your friend Archie could hope for,’ Lawrence said. ‘Evie worships Uncle Jack, even more than I do if that were possible.’

‘Archie has that same way of…just being with you, when he can’t be,’ I ploughed on, and as I talked I felt some of the weight peeling off my shoulders. Speaking his name aloud, telling someone who didn’t know him how his gentleness equalled his strength, how he could make me laugh by the way he twisted people’s names around, how he sat a horse with effortless grace, and rode with the skilled abandon of a wild west cowboy… It all came spilling out and I barely heard my own voice as Archie solidified in the room with us. Eventually I stopped for breath, and I saw Lawrence looking at me with his mouth open. Abruptly my face flamed and I cast about for something to say, but everything I thought of sounded limp and pointless. So I just shrugged.

‘How long have you loved him?’ Lawrence asked gently.

‘For ever, I think,’ I admitted. ‘Hopeless, isn’t it?’

‘On the contrary, sweetheart.’ Lawrence put his arm around me. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past two years, it’s that you must seize every speck of joy that drifts your way. Provided the one you love hasn’t placed their heart elsewhere, there is no reason,
no
reason, why you should deprive one another other of that joy.’

He sounded sombre again now, and I wondered who he’d fallen in love with, who had given her heart to another. I felt him take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Then he gave my shoulder a squeeze and let me go.

‘I don’t understand why mother is so insistent on us hitting it off,’ he said, his face twisting in a wry smile. ‘It’s not as if it makes a jot of difference now, whether or not I have children.’

So he’d guessed as well, then. It was a relief not to have to bring the subject up. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, now the Kalteng Star is gone.’

‘The Kal…what star?’

‘Ah, you haven’t heard of the Kalteng Star? Good!’

‘Why good?’

‘Because now I shall have a fascinating story to tell you, and it will make you forget how you’ve just opened your soul to a complete stranger.’

I laughed. ‘Let’s hope so.’ In truth, although I should have been embarrassed, I wasn’t. It had been more than a relief to talk about Archie. It had allowed a trickle of the deep pleasure and pride I held in knowing him to seep through the cold parts inside me.

‘The Kalteng Star was, is, a blue diamond,’ Lawrence said. ‘It was stolen several years ago. They thought it was Lizzy who took it. Jack’s Lizzy, who works at Dark River Farm now,’ he clarified, seeing my stunned expression. ‘She went to prison for it. Ah, I see you didn’t know that.’

‘No!’
Lizzy in prison?
‘Who really stole it?’

‘Chap named Markham. At least, he made his girlfriend do it. It’s a long story, and actually it’s mostly not very nice, but I’m sure Evie will tell you the details. She knows much more about it than I do.’

‘What has that got to do with whether or not you have children?’

‘The will stipulates that the diamond goes with the eldest daughter of the house, but only until the Creswell line ends, when it’s to be returned to Borneo. I’m the last Creswell, so, no daughter, no Kalteng Star.’

‘But your mother still seems very keen to see us together.’

‘Yes, doesn’t she? Embarrassingly so. Presumably now it’s just for the same reason as anyone normal: because she wants grandchildren.’

I could understand that, but apart from Lizzy’s part in it, it all seemed rather trivial when held up against what was going on all over Europe, all the people who had married at the start of the war but would never have children, never mind grandchildren. I wasn’t prepared to give up my life to fulfil Lily’s wish, any more than I was prepared to do it to fulfil my mother’s.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘Evie and Will are sure to give her heirs, once he’s recovered, and since there’s no diamond it doesn’t matter if they’re called Creswell or Davies does it?’

‘Absolutely right,’ Lawrence said with a smile of approval. ‘And I would adore to be an uncle, so much less aggravation than being a parent, I would think. Come on.’ He put the document back in the drawer, and held out his hand. ‘Let’s go and see if Mrs Hannah’s made any cakes. Oh! That reminds me, I must tell you what poor Lizzy did to my sister’s birthday cake.’

The days passed by too quickly. Several visitors, curious family members for the most part, called in, claiming they were ‘just passing’, in order to get a closer look at the man who had caused Evie to defy convention and marry so far beneath her. I could see them eyeing him, and, while they outwardly acknowledged his courageous acts in France, I could see them making their judgements. Evie could too; her face would often tighten, and I’d see a muscle flickering in her jaw as she fought to keep her tone even in response to questions about his peacetime occupation. Will himself was every bit as aware, but his was the soothing hand on her arm, the quiet voice in her ear and the smile that so often held her eyes and earned her smile in return, just when I thought she was about to say something terrible. I ached for the two of them after everything they had been through, and more than once I too had to restrain myself from speaking out, but I took my lead, as always, from Evie, and managed to avoid disgracing myself on their behalf.

More than once, too, I was touched, and, it must be said, a little envious, as Lady Creswell herself spoke up in Will’s favour, silencing the more vocal critics. I remembered his insistence that she had been kind to him before, and wondered why my own mother could not bring herself to show the same sensibilities with my situation. But the letter I’d sent, in reply to her orders for my return, had been polite, apologetic, but firm. And remained unanswered.

On the day before Lawrence was due to go back to Courcelette, I went into the sitting room to see him pouring himself a hefty dram from the whisky decanter. His hand shook, although he smiled at me and saluted me with his tumbler before taking a large gulp.

‘Ah, here’s sweet Kitty,’ he said, and I realised that wasn’t his first drink of the day. Not that he could be blamed. ‘Would you like to join me?’ He waved at the decanter, and I shook my head.

‘I was going to ask if you wanted to take that walk into Breckenhall.’

‘Splendid idea!’

‘Shall I ask Evie if she and Will would like to come?’ I half turned to leave the room again, but Lawrence surprised me.

‘No. I’m sure they’ve got other things to do.’

‘I know Evie wanted to visit the market,’ I said, ‘And Will’s doing ever so much better. I think he’d like to pop in and see Martin. His best man,’ I added, seeing the blank look on Lawrence’s face.

‘I see. Well, then yes, of course. I’ll wait out the front. Join me when you’re ready.’ He swallowed the rest of the drink down. The fresh air and exercise would do him good, and I was glad I’d sought him out, or he might have spent his last day in a stupor and suffered for it the following morning. I hurried upstairs to tell Evie our plans.

‘Lovely. We’ll be downstairs in ten minutes,’ she said. ‘Tell Lawrence he’ll have to walk slowly though. I know what he’s like.’

I waited by the front door, and kept Lawrence chatting about anything except the war. It was hard, ignoring what so clearly occupied his thoughts, but I managed to make him smile, and to recall some of his childhood adventures.

‘There was an amazing fight, right there on the lawn,’ he pointed. ‘With my cousins David and Robert Wingfield. That was the night the diamond was stolen. We got absolutely drenched in mud, and Lizzy was the one who broke it up.’ He sighed. ‘I wasn’t very helpful to her when they accused her of stealing the Star, I’m afraid. Most of the evidence against her was down to where she’d been when that fight took place.’

That explained his discomfited expression when we were looking at the trees and talking about Jack and Lizzy. I tried to imagine Lizzy breaking up a fight between three sturdy young men, and it only took the memory of her tearing me off a strip for my treatment of Evie to convince me she could have done it quite easily.

Lawrence was smiling again now. ‘In a minute I’ll show you where Will crashed the butcher’s van. We’ll be walking past the very spot.’

‘He
crashed
it?’

‘Tipped the bally thing right over on its side. Evie was with him. I should have realised then that something was afoot, but I was only fifteen. That was the first time he spoke to me, and come to think of it, the rogue wasn’t nearly humble enough, considering I was such a fancy little lordling at the time.’