‘Anyway,’ said Alice, with typical optimism. ‘I’d much prefer a winter wedding. Everything all frosty and glittery. Lots of ivy and lots of candles.’
She was to marry Hugh Pettifer, a handsome hedge fund manager who set hearts a-flutter when he raced through the lanes in his white supercharged sports car, bounding from polo match to point-to-point.
If Sarah had her doubts about Hugh, she never voiced them. He was perfect on paper. And utterly charming. She supposed it was her maternal need to protect Alice that made her wary. She had no evidence that Hugh was anything other than devoted. His manners were faultless, he mucked in at family events, he was thoughtful, and if he partied hard, then all Alice’s crowd did. They were young and beautiful and wealthy – why shouldn’t they have fun? And Hugh worked hard. He earned good money. He wasn’t a freeloader. And anyway, if he was looking for a meal ticket, he wouldn’t get one from the Basildons. They were classic asset rich/cash poor. If anything, they needed him more than he needed them.
So Sarah kept any doubts about Hugh to herself. She had to learn to let go. It was time to hand Alice over. She would still be very much part of life at Peasebrook Manor – it would fall apart without her – but she was a woman in her own right. And Sarah wasn’t gold-digging on Alice’s behalf. It would be nice for her to have a husband who could support her when the time came for her to have children. Sarah was in no doubt of her daughter’s capabilities, but she knew how deep the pressures dug. And nobody could deny that money didn’t make things easier, especially when it came to motherhood.
‘I’ll put a gate up, shall I?’
Dillon’s voice startled Sarah and dragged her back to the matter in hand.
‘Yes. And put a lock on it for the time being. I don’t think the folly’s safe. We don’t want anyone getting injured.’
Dillon nodded. But he was eyeing her with interest. Sarah started to doodle on the edge of one of the planting plans. She couldn’t quite look at him. He knows, she thought. How she wished she could talk to someone about it, but she knew the importance of keeping secrets. And if you couldn’t keep your own secret, how on earth could you trust someone else to keep it?
‘Right.’ Dillon stood up. ‘I better get on. It’s starting to get dark early. The days are getting shorter.’
‘Yes.’ Sarah couldn’t decide which was worse. The days or the nights. She could fill her days with things to do but she had to pretend to everybody, from Ralph and Alice down to the postman, that nothing was wrong, and that was wearing. At night she could stop; she didn’t need to pretend any more and she could sleep. But her sleep was troubled and she couldn’t control her dreams. He would appear, and she would wake, her face wet with tears, trying not to sob. Trying not to wake Ralph because what could she say? How could she explain her distress?
She sighed, and took another custard cream. Her brain had no respite these days. Everything whirled around in her head, day and night; a washing machine filled with thoughts, fears, worries that seemed to have no answer.
And she missed him. God, she missed him.
She picked up their used mugs and took them back to the kitchen. On the kitchen table was a copy of the Peasebrook Advertiser. Ralph must have been reading it, or one of the staff. Sarah kept her kitchen open to the people who worked for her, because she felt it was important for them to feel part of the family. The kitchen was enormous and there was a back door out into the courtyard so they didn’t have to traipse through the rest of the house, and there were just less than a dozen full-timers working in the estate office and the tea room and the shop, and in the grounds. They were usually all gone by five o’clock so it wasn’t too much of an imposition, and she was convinced it was an advantage.
She looked down at the paper. There was a picture of him on the left-hand page. His dear face; his kind smile; that trademark sweep of salt-and-pepper hair.
Memorial service to celebrate the life of Julius Nightingale …
She sat down, reread all the details. Her head swam. She knew about the funeral – it was a small town, after all. It had been tiny, but this memorial was open to anyone who wanted to come. Anyone who wanted to do a reading or a eulogy was to go and see Emilia at the shop.