The Twisted Way (41 page)

‘Felicity, you must do what you think best,’ he stammered after a few pregnant moments.

Marianne looked embarrassed. She stood up, stiff and awkward, tucked her voluminous handbag under her arm with a flourish and took several swift, almost eager, steps toward the lounge door. She glanced at Robbie and Felicity over her shoulder and a puzzled frown appeared on her wrinkled forehead. It was unbelievable.

‘Well, I’ll be going. Let me know, Felicity. There’s no hurry. I ’ll let myself out.’

She left with a bewildered expression on her face. She had expected Felicity to jump at the chance to live with her. Robbie, she thought, would be overjoyed to lose the uninvited guest that had been foisted upon him by the vicar, a guest that she thought must have outstayed her welcome several times over. His hesitation and reluctant stance was incredible to her.

‘Robbie,’ Felicity said, ‘I really do want to stay. I’m happy here but it is your cottage and you have been very good to me. I know that I have behaved badly in the past, with Auntie and Ronald. Could you forgive me and let me stay with you?’

She looked at him with an earnestness and sincerity he would not at one time have believed her capable of. He felt himself soften and warm towards her.

‘I will think about it,’ Robbie replied, relief flooding through him. ‘Let us both sleep on it for a day or two.’ He did not want to appear too eager. He did want a day or two to think further about the situation because he felt that would be the sensible thing to do, but he knew the answer already. Perhaps he was being a fool. Could she really have changed so much? He would have to take a chance on that if he let her stay. Did a leopard ever change its spots? Money was the crux here. John Lacey had, he now understood, known what was the most important thing in life – love and affection, companionship and warmth, not wealth. The majority of people were driven by greed and lust for money and he would, until recently, have classified Felicity as one of them. Having her around did of course make his life more comfortable and that was something he would not have thought possible when she first moved into his cottage. Her morals had been lax; she had spent Janet’s money on clothes and frippery without a second thought, but Janet had not been very concerned about that so why should he? Janet too, he guessed, had come to see that worldly goods were of little real value when John had died and she was struggling with old age. She had not protested when Felicity had spent so much of her money. Although she had started to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease she must have realised what her niece was doing and made a conscious decision not to object. Felicity had tried to eliminate some of the other contenders for Janet Lacey’s worldly goods but had not it seemed actually committed the murder of Peter Mace, though at one time he believed she had! He would always be suspicious about the circumstances surrounding Matthew’s unfortunate drowning but she was needed, yes he needed her, she must stay now because he could not imagine what life would be without her. He concluded that she was a dreamer and that her lust for money and some of her silly schemes to eliminate the beneficiaries of her Aunt’s will had been little more than figments of an overactive imagination. It was what he now wanted to believe and his study of ADD confirmed that belief.

He was a sick man and knew he would be glad of her help as his health deteriorated. Perhaps he was being selfish. He would change his will to ensure that she could live in the cottage for the rest of her life if he died before her, which was likely, if that was what she wanted, and he guessed with his usual astuteness that she would jump at the chance. It would be his way of paying her back for companionship and care.

During the next few days Felicity became withdrawn and worried. Would Robbie want her to leave? She found tears welling in her eyes when she least expected it and moped round the cottage like a lost being. She found sleep impossible and longed for him to tell her she could stay. She believed that they had become friends and she had not had much experience of true friendship in her life. She didn’t want to marry him and money was no longer important –that amazed her –but she did want his companionship.

She did not have to wait long.

Robbie set some ground rules. They would just be friends. ‘I am too old and don’t want another wife or girlfriend,’ he made quite clear. ‘I enjoy your company, something I did not think at one time that I would, Felicity.’

‘Dear Robbie, I enjoy being with you too. We will be able to help each other,’ she said in a contrite tone.

‘A trial period only, you must understand,’ he urged as he mopped the sweat off his brow. What had he taken on? He wanted to keep her with him but a feeling that he was being foolish was hard to dispel.

That Robbie had invited Felicity to stay on in his cottage soon became common knowledge and astounded most of their friends and acquaintances, Joyce Skillet among them.

‘It won’t last,’ she pronounced to her family and close friends, but even she had to admit as the months passed that it seemed as though it might and indeed the arrangement was proving to be, as far as any of their acquaintances could tell, successful.

Felicity placed a wreath of scented white lilies on the grave of Robbie Thomas Barker. He was buried as he wished in Enderly churchyard next to Janet Lacey and her parents. He had arranged to have his plot many years earlier.

A distraught and shocked Felicity made the funeral arrangements. Robbie had drawn up a list of old colleagues and friends he wished to attend his funeral and left instructions about the hymns and music he wanted. He had told Felicity about his wishes some time earlier. At first she had not wanted to listen because she could not bear the thought of life without Robbie.

‘You will live a long time yet Robbie,’ she insisted when he broached the subject of his death. ‘You must not leave me, we need each other. I really do not want to think about it.’

Robbie sighed. ‘All right, we won’t discuss that at present.’ If she was happy to bury her head in the sand, so be it. He would ensure she was cared for after his death. That they had come to depend upon each other was something he would not have believed possible.

Felicity knew that sooner or later his illness would take over and she had to admit he was right to express his wishes and promised to carry out his instructions should he die before her.

His death was sudden. Robbie died from heart failure, peacefully, when sitting one evening companionably in his favourite armchair next to Felicity. They had eased themselves into the habit of quietly sitting in the lounge together and reading after supper if they did not go to the Green Man or one of the bridge clubs. The cancer that he thought might claim his life in a few years’ time was not after all the culprit and that could have been a blessing.

The funeral in Enderly church was well attended. Robbie was a popular and respected resident of the village and the Enderly and Little Brinton bridge clubs. John Elk, one of his old colleagues from Oxford and the vicar had addressed the congregation in the church and outlined the life and virtues that pertained to Robbie. Many of the villagers were surprised to hear that Robbie had lived in Enderly as an evacuee and had been a revered college professor. Gasps of amazement were heard as this information was relayed to the congregation.

Refreshments had been arranged for the mourners in the Green Man after the service and many of his friends were invited by Felicity to attend. The room at the back of the pub where they normally played bridge had been set aside for the meal and was packed with the friends, villagers and old colleagues who wished to pay their last respects.

‘He was a lovely man,’ the vicar said to Felicity as he sipped a glass of good white wine and piled his plate with sandwiches and other delicacies. ‘We have been privileged to know him.’

He hoped that Robbie would leave some money to the church. They certainly needed it.

Felicity for once in her life could not think of anything to say. She was stunned and silent as though a mute button on a television control pad had been pressed and her voice had disappeared. She had lost the only man she had ever really cared for, and more importantly come to respect, something she would not have believed possible when she first came to Primrose House in 2004. She was not hungry, indeed her stomach churned with rebellion as she mingled in a trance-like state with the guests. Her voice later returned and emerged as no more than a husky whisper. She thought she gave the right answers when spoken to but was not sure.

Joyce held her arm at one point. She was concerned that Felicity would faint before the meal had been eaten and the guests had departed. She had never liked the woman but felt sorry for her now and an admiration for Felicity was surfacing against her natural instincts and common sense. She could not explain the latter.

‘If there is anything I can do ...’ she said, ‘... just phone me or come round and see me at any time.’ She, like Robbie, was surprised that she could offer friendship to Felicity but she did now believe that the woman had changed. Without any doubt Felicity was a much more pleasant individual than she had been in the past.

Several of Robbie’s old friends from Oxford whom Felicity had never met attended the funeral. A reporter, nosy and brash, pushed himself into the mourning group. He was anxious to obtain a good write-up on the brilliant professor who had abandoned his academic life in Oxford to work as a handyman in Enderly. The once tough and turbulent Felicity continued to be subdued. She hoped they would soon all go away and leave her in peace. Her head ached and her face was white and drawn.

A strange thin elderly woman wearing a smart black suit edged nearer to her. ‘I am Julie Barker,’ she said, peering at Felicity as though she was observing something that had been dragged out of the gutter. She fidgeted with her expensive slanted glasses, from which artificial diamonds glittered at the hinges, and clutched her large ostentatious black and silver leather bag closer to her side with a movement that suggested that Felicity should not touch it. Felicity felt like a leper. She could not remember sending an invitation to the funeral to a Julie Barker. The solicitor must have invited her. She had made a list of names in an effort to estimate the numbers for the catering but … she sighed. It was all too much.

‘Should I know you?’ Felicity muttered. ‘I am Robbie’s ex-wife my dear, divorced, but I wanted to pay my last respects.’ Her eyes roved over Felicity with an unpleasant sharpness.

The dislike was mutual. Felicity woke up. What was this woman’s game? She was after his money and the cottage. The will was to be read later that day. This vile woman must have been summoned by Mr Wilkins. She hoped Robbie had not been stupid enough to leave the bitch any of his hard-earned money. She was without any doubt a leech. That she had once craved her aunt’s fortune did not enter into the equation. This was quite different.

‘Really,’ Felicity said, her voice gaining strength. ‘Robbie has not mentioned you to me. He did say he was married a long time ago but that the marriage was short and disastrous. Divorce was a blessing.’

She looked innocently at the odious Julie Barker whose face was now flushed and unpleasant.

‘We were once very happy,’ she retorted, spite spiralling in her thin upper-class voice. ‘We were just too young to know our own minds.’ She turned her back on Felicity, patted her brassy dyed hair with a well manicured hand, and moved away to help herself to the delicious salmon delicacies on a nearby plate together with another glass of fine white wine.

The proprietor of the Green Man had excelled himself; the spread for the guests and the drinks were the best he could produce. Nothing was too good for Robbie’s wake. He was going to miss him as a customer in the pub and in his role of chairman overseeing the bridge club. Producing a good meal in his honour was the least he could do.

Julie Barker strutted over to some of Robbie’s old colleagues. ‘I am Robbie’s ex-wife,’ she announced in loud tones to ensure Felicity would hear.

They were taken aback but not impressed which pleased Felicity. It gave her the courage to mingle and make herself known to these strangers. After all, she had been his close companion for the last two years and they had, although it had taken a little while to achieve, been happy. She was told by one Oxford don that Robbie had written to him and told him about her and how much he was enjoying the company of his new woman partner. Felicity was intrigued and the pain of losing him eased a little. Robbie had in the end appreciated her company and that was wonderful.

Mr Wilkins and his young assistant were due to arrive at the cottage at 3.30 p.m. to read the will. There were only a few people summoned by Mr Wilkins and they were keen to hear the contents. The vicar’s daughter, the once-gormless Lily, had attended Robbie’s funeral and made a point of commiserating with Felicity. She had telephoned Felicity the week before as soon as she heard about Robbie’s death.

‘I have left home now,’ she said, a catch in her usually steady voice, ‘and I‘ve almost completed a catering course in Russhampton where I’ve lived for the past two years. I specialized in bakery and hope to set up in business for myself soon. My aunt has left me a small legacy which will enable me to buy a small tea shop in Russhampton. I would like to help you with the funeral catering,’ the girl continued. ‘I’ll make some biscuits and cakes for the guests at the will reading, that is, if you would like that. It will be my contribution. Mr Barker was always so kind to me. I realize that the main lunch will be held in the Green Man.’

Felicity was surprised. She hoped that her acceptance of the offer would not prove to be a mistake when she thought back to the plain and quiet little girl who had come to help in Primrose House. She was, however, intrigued to see how much Lily had changed when she met her a few days before the funeral to discuss the offer further. Lily looked quite presentable and efficient. She was dressed in a pale blue well-cut suit with smart matching accessories and Felicity accepted her offer with a pleasant smile.