The Love Letter (55 page)

‘I’ve spoken to them all in the last two days – both your parents, and Ros.’

‘You have?’

‘Of course. They’re all worried about you. Your father sends special love. He’s delighted to hear you came back to me.’

‘I’m not back,’ she croaked, wondering what sort of propaganda her father was spreading. ‘I’ve had a near-death experience.’

‘Now you’re just being a hypochondriac.’

She stared grumpily at the framed nudes cavorting across the opposite wall. Then her eyes narrowed as she spotted a familiar velvety crotch in their midst. Her gaze must have crossed over it every day for almost a fortnight now, but it was only now that she took in the implication of it still being here.

‘You didn’t sell the Freud to Vin Keiller-Myles after all?’

Francis looked edgy. ‘We’re in discussion.’

‘I thought Farcombe badly needed a cash injection for the festival to go ahead?’

‘We just have a couple of administration issues to iron out, that’s all,’ his voice had the monotone quality he always adopted when hiding something bad. ‘Nothing for you to worry about. Gordon Lapis’s appearance is bringing in plenty of new revenue.’

‘You can’t trust him!’ she bleated, thinking about the pressure on Byrne, and the very real possibility he was set on revenge. ‘It’s not safe.’

‘His welfare is no longer your concern,’ he pointed out, leaning forwards to tuck her hair behind her ears. Then suddenly he smiled, eyes still bluer than the sky, lighting up his handsome face
and reminding her how gorgeous he was. ‘I can tell you’re feeling better. You are getting argumentative again. It’s sweet.’

Gopi didn’t return to Legs’ bedside that afternoon.

Legs was well enough to be put in his sole care, Francis announced when he returned from the estate office, explaining that Gopi’s agency had asked her to transfer to a broken hip in Great Torrington.

‘Does that mean I can get up?’ she asked hopefully, although propping herself up on her elbows to look at him still felt like advanced pilates.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Francis plumped up her pillows to support her. ‘You have a long way to go yet.’

But the strength was coursing back through her. That evening she managed a bowl of clear soup without throwing up, and was proud to be able to venture to the loo unassisted at last. When she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror, she was shocked at the reflection gazing back, grey eyes huge in a shrunken white face, pimples rearing from her chin, and her filthy hair like a fright wig. The weight had dropped off her.

And her emotions were still wired up all wrong. Francis had brought up a CD player as a part of his concession to her need for stimulation and proceeded to play a compilation of all the most miserable Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell tracks they had indulged in as undergraduates. By the time they got to Leonard singing ‘Hallelujah’ she was howling like a baby and in need of the tissue box again.

‘Haven’t you got any Björk?’ she asked.

He compromised with Radiohead, which wasn’t much of an improvement. Humming along, still nodding off occasionally, Legs was itching for something more fun. She was starting to feel her isolation from news, friends and family. She had no means of communicating with the outside world, or at least her inner escape hatch.

‘I’d love to read the new Ptolemy Finch,’ she entreated.

Francis didn’t look up from
The Anatomy of Melancholy
which had now replaced
Ulysses
as his own current read. ‘There’s one in the house somewhere.’

‘Don’t tell me Poppy’s reading it in secret under the bedcovers with a torch?’ she asked, suddenly brightening at the thought that Gordon’s pages might be within her reach.

‘You know about that?’

‘Kizzy told me she was a fan.’

Francis looked disapproving but then let loose a chuckle: ‘She’s been quite unable to put it down for three days. Nobody can get a word out of her. It’s absolute bliss.’

‘Do you think I can read it after she finishes?’

‘I don’t see why not, although how one can tolerate such tosh is beyond me.’

‘You can go to bed, you know,’ Legs noticed him shifting uncomfortably on the wing chair. ‘You said yourself I’m much better. I’m not going to die in the night.’

‘I’d rather stay, thanks,’ he muttered. ‘You have no idea who might be out there.’ He nodded towards the dark window.

‘What do you mean?’ She pulled the covers up to her chin anxiously.

‘I’m looking after you, Legs,’ he assured her, putting his feet up on the dressing table ottoman and closing his eyes.

Legs lay awake, imagining a
Day of the Triffids-type
Devonshire disaster that she had totally missed through illness, and the hall now under siege by giant man-eating vegetables.

In the early hours of the morning, an enraged scream echoed through the first floor of Farcombe Hall followed by the distinctive sound of something heavy being hurled against a wood panelled wall. Francis shot off to investigate. Legs cowered groggily and fearfully in bed.

‘Just Poppy,’ he reported back a few minutes later. ‘She’s finished
Ptolemy Finch.’

‘Did you bring the book back here?’

‘I forgot to ask.’ He settled back in his wing chair. ‘But from Poppy’s mood, I wouldn’t say it was as good as the others.’

She lay awake for hours, feeling boxed in and out-manoeuvred. She didn’t need escapism, she decided. She needed to escape.

She was determined to get out of the room the next day.

No longer policed by Gopi, Legs had several hours to make good her escape the following morning while Francis was distracted in the estate office.

Her first obstacle was a lack of clothes. Her bag was still missing. She was even wearing a borrowed nightie which was far too short and heavily embroidered with Moroccan stitch-work and beads, so probably one of Poppy’s. She could find none of her own things in the room whatsoever, forcing her to raid the huge, ornate built-in wardrobes which appeared to contain nothing but ancient hunting gear and ball gowns that reeked of mothballs.

It seemed to take hours just to pull on a dress, her hands shaking with nerves and feebleness. She was mad at her body for still being so weak. Even though the sun was blazing outside, she found her teeth chattering.

Dressed in a twenties flapper frock and pink hunting coat, she stole out through the door and along the landing beneath the Glasgow School canvasses.

She had to take a breather at the top of the stairs, already lightheaded from her efforts.

She could hear voices in the hall below her; Poppy’s distinctive husky tenor and a man’s deep, angry bass, too low to be Francis.
For a moment her heart lifted, wondering if it was Byrne. But then she recognised Hector’s booming tone:

‘Poppy, this is quite ridiculous. You insist I come here and then make me wait on the doorstep for an hour. How
dare
you change the locks. It’s my home!’

‘You should have thought of that when you walked out to shack up with that frump. I was busy getting dressed. It’s a perfectly pleasant morning to sit outside. Hector, we have a situation.’

‘A situation so serious that it takes you an hour to get ready to tell me about it?’

‘You know I can’t function properly unless I am suitably attired. I must dress to suit my mood.’

‘So do I take it the situation involves you goat herding in Kurdistan?’

‘That is very cruel, Hector. I bought this kaftan from Liberty.’

On they scrapped.

Backing away, Legs tiptoed to the opposite end of the landing and slid through the old servants’ door to the back staircase.

She had to clutch on tight to the banister rail as she descended to stop herself blacking out. Her legs felt crazily wobbly, but she plunged on, making it as far as the back lobby.

She could hear Imee moving around in the kitchen, from which the smell of cake baking was wafting enticingly.

Legs’ belly let out an eager rumble. She crept in the opposite direction, along the narrow passageway that ran past the old butler’s pantry, cellar door and storage rooms to another service door, this one leading directly into the morning room which Hector had always used as an office.

Legs knew there was a phone on there, although to her shame the only numbers she had memorised were her childhood home and her father’s shop. She relied upon her mobile to know everything these days.

But just as she started to creep through the door, she let out a shriek as a wet nose was pressed to the back of her leg.

‘Fink!’ She gasped in delight as she recognised the basset hound.

The solemn eyes looked up to her beseechingly, long tail swishing. Legs stooped to hug him. Byrne would never abandon his dog. He was still nearby, she was certain.

‘Who there?’ Imee demanded from the kitchen.

Legs slipped quickly through the morning room door, Fink at her heels.

For a man who had once made a fortune in high-tech communications, Hector was profoundly old-fashioned when it came to his work space, preferring to surround himself with the gadgetry familiar with the era when his business empire was at its height. Thus his computer was a vintage Sony that belonged in a museum, as did his printers, a scanner the size of a small sunbed and a telephone system which would make anyone at Smile Media these days weep.

Legs regarded the huge old-fashioned fax phone on the baronial desk with suspicion, having never seen anything quite so archaic in her life, and that included her father’s ancient mobile phone from which he refused to part. She approached it nervously, certain that it would whirr into life beeping a lot if she pressed the wrong button, and she could hear Poppy and Hector arguing in the entrance hall just beyond the door. She was starting to go hot and cold in rapid succession and was feeling horribly weak. She knew she had to hurry before a coughing fit overcame her.

As she lifted the receiver, she dislodged a transmission poking out of it, sending pages fluttering. Hastily picking them up to restack them, she caught sight of the first line of the covering page and baulked. Unable to stop herself, she read on in astonished horror. It came from the Protheroes’ decrepit family insurance brokers whom Hector adored because like him they had yet to master scans or email and preferred to communicate by the slowest, most gentlemanly means possible, preferably involving lunch.
The fact this had been sent by fax showed the urgency of the missive.

The festival was in serious trouble. To satisfy new industry regulations, the insurers had this year been obliged to conduct a safety survey using an independent assessor. The resulting report highlighted no less than six ‘life-threatening hazards’ to the paying public, in addition to the thirty-nine ‘serious dangers’ and almost two hundred ‘urgent recommendations’.

These had to be the ‘administration issues’ Francis had referred to. He’d known about it for weeks and had clearly been trying to rectify the situation; there was mention of private underwriters and guarantors, but none had been forthcoming and the situation was now so critical the insurers had withdrawn all cover just days before the big event. The fax made it clear that the words ‘death’ and ‘trap’ went hand in hand with ‘Farcombe’ and ‘Festival’, urging the family to cancel the event.

Legs looked up in alarm as footsteps approached the door. Still clutching the fax, she dived under the desk’s foot well just as somebody entered the room.

‘I can see you, you smelly monster!’ Poppy screeched, rumbling an intruder straight away.

About to crawl back out, Legs felt anger flare in her infection-weakened chest. That was really a bit personal, even for Poppy. But, shooting a long-suffering look at her over his shoulder, it was Fink that padded out into open view to take the flack.

‘Shoo! Shoo! Put him outside will you Hector? Dog hair plays havoc with my asthma.’

There followed a lot of scraping of claws on polished floors and the sound of the front door being opened and closed with Hector’s muffled voice commiserating with the basset: ‘know how you feel, old boy.’

Beneath the desk, Legs quaked, now shivering uncontrollably.

‘Jamie’s dog keeps hanging around the house.’ Poppy had moved across the room, calling over her shoulder to Hector, whose
shadow Legs could just see framed in the doorway. ‘I don’t think he’s quite taken to a life under canvas.’

‘Owner still keeping his distance?’ Hector asked with obvious satisfaction.

Legs cocked her head with interest, then ducked it again as she saw a Liberty’s kaftan flapping around just inches away from her hiding place.

‘You shouldn’t have got involved, Hector. You overreacted terribly as usual. Your rages are quite uncalled for.’

‘Wish I’d fired a couple of shots to see him back across the Irish Sea,’ Hector said unapologetically. ‘He had no right to force you out of the house like that. What he did was cruel, Pops,’ his voice softened slightly. ‘Thank God I was there to protect you. He’s unbalanced. You heard how he spoke to me.’

‘How odd,’ Poppy was leaning over the desk on the opposite side. ‘I’m sure I heard the fax come through just now. Bother. It must be out of paper. I’ll call Rex and ask him to send it again, but he made it quite clear on the phone last night that we shouldn’t be going ahead under any circumstances. The festival is doomed, I tell you!’ She sounded just like Private Frazer in
Dad’s Army.