Man Of Stone

He looked down at his blotter and fiddled with his pen.

‘I believe at the moment you live in London?’

The question was addressed to Sara alone, as though he was well aware that it was she and not Cressy who would bear the burden of Tom’s welfare.

‘Yes,’ Sara agreed weakly.

He looked gravely at her. ‘One of the reasons Tom was sent here to school was because it was thought that city life was not good for his health. Our specialist has corroborated that view. He feels that Tom would fare best in a quiet country environment, at least until he is old enough and strong enough to combat his asthma with other means. I don’t need to tell you, I know, that he is a very frail little boy.’

Made frailer by the fact that he had received so little attention from his parents, Dr Robbins acknowledged, without saying as much. He knew quite well from his talks with Tom that it was his sister to whom the child most readily related, a sister who, by the looks of her, was almost at the end of her own fragile reserves of strength.

Sara’s body tensed, her heart beating rapidly. Was Dr Robbins trying to tell her… to prepare her… He saw her face, and instantly reassured her.

‘No… no, on this occasion, I assure you that he has pulled through the attack very well, but you know how weakening they are, how severely they restrict his life. Tom needs a quiet, secure background, Miss Rodney, at least for the next few years.’

He offered them tea, but Sara refused it. She was desperately anxious to see Tom and to assure herself that he was not more seriously ill than she had been told.

The little school sanatorium was bright and cheerful, but that could surely not lessen the loneliness for the little boy who was its sole occupant, Sara thought achingly as they were taken to see him.

He was sedated and drowsy with medication, but the smile he gave her made her heart turn over. He was her brother, and yet in many ways he was also her child. His parents had loved him in their careless way, but he was like her, vulnerable and in need of much more than the casual affection that was all they had time to give. She kneeled to kiss him, her throat closing up with love and fear. He was so thin, so pale, so much smaller surely than other boys his age.

They weren’t allowed to stay with him for very long. Dr Robbins had arranged for them to see the specialist, who merely repeated what he had already told them. By this time, Cressy was exhibiting obvious signs of impatience and, when they were finally free to walk out to the car, she complained irately, ‘Honestly, there was no need for him to go through it all again! I’m going out tonight, and now I’m going to be late.’

Sara couldn’t speak. She was too shocked and worried. How could Cressy even think about going out when Tom… She bit into her bottom lip, unaware that she had torn the tender flesh until she tasted blood.

‘It’s just as well you’ve got your grandmother to turn to,’ Cressy said casually as she started the car. ‘There’s no way you could stay in London now, is there?’

Hard eyes locked with Sara’s pained, bewildered ones, and all the objections she wanted to voice died unsaid.

‘I’ll write to my grandmother tonight,’ she said quietly, but Cressy shook her head and stopped the car.

‘Sara, don’t be such a fool. There isn’t time for that. You heard what that fool Robbins said. He wants to get rid of Tom. He wants you to take him away. And I thought you loved him,’ she added cruelly. ‘If you really did, you wouldn’t hesitate. Is your pride really so much more important than Tom’s health?’

There was nothing Sara could say. Numbly, she shook her head, while one part of her cried out in desperation that she could not simply turn up on her grandmother’s doorstep without an invitation.

She tried to reason, even to argue with Cressy, but the other girl wouldn’t listen.

‘Look, we’ll drive down and collect Tom on Friday, and then go straight up to Cheshire.’

Sara was too exhausted to protest. All she could think of was Tom’s white face; all she could hear was the specialist’s dire warnings about the necessity for a quiet, secure country life.

If her grandmother wasn’t wealthy, if there had been some past contact between them… But what was the point of ‘ifs’? She was caught in a situation not of her own making, and the strong sense of loyalty and responsibility bred deep in her wouldn’t allow her to abandon Tom now, when he needed her most.

‘Almost there.’

For the first time in weeks, Cressy sounded cheerful. Sara averted her head and stared blindly out of the window. She felt sick with nerves, desperately afraid of what was to come, and she wished she had done anything other than agree to Cressy’s plans.

She had even suggested telephoning her grandmother, but Cressy had forced her to concede that a telephone call was not the best way to introduce herself to a grandmother whom she had never seen.

In the back seat, Tom was humming cheerfully. Even today, she might have found an alternative but, when they arrived at the school to collect Tom, Dr Robbins had detained her to tell her than Tom’s school fees had been paid for the year, and that there would be a refund to come to her. It was as though he knew how desperately short of money they were, Sara had reflected unhappily.

By the time she got to Tom’s bedside, Cressy was already sitting there, and she had been greeted with Tom’s excited, ‘We’re going to live in the country, Sara, with your grandma, and Cressy says that I might be able to have a dog…’

Sara had been appalled. She had been literally shaking with anger and fear as she sat down on the other chair. Cressy had had no right to tell him such things! Her grandmother might turn them away, and as for a dog… She grimaced to herself. There was no way that Tom, with his asthmatic condition, could have such a pet.

All the way up the motorway, Tom had been asking eager questions about their destination. Questions which she was completely incapable of answering.

‘Ah! Here’s our turn-off…’

As Cressy slowed down for the motorway exit, Sara found she was actually pressing her body back into her seat, as though she could will the car to turn round and drive back down to London.

The countryside around them was flat, with hills to the east and the west. The fields were full of early summer crops, the landscape broken up by the sprawls of half-timbered farmhouses and outbuildings.

It was easy to see why this part of the country had once been so rich in arable wealth.

‘Not far now…’

They drove into a small, picturesque village, and past large, turn-of-the-century houses with privet hedges and curling driveways. There were more trees here, and they grew denser as the road narrowed. Their directions had come from her father’s solicitor’s office, like all Cressy’s information.

They approached a pair of wrought-iron gates guarded by a small, obviously empty lodge. Tom’s eyes widened as Cressy turned in between the open gates.

The drive skirted a large, informal pond, green lawns stretched away into the shade of massive trees, and then Sara saw the house.

Tudor, without a doubt, it was larger than she had expected, and older. Its small, mullioned windows reflected the sunshine, and as she wound down the car window the harsh cry of a peacock made her jump.

‘What’s that?’ Tom demanded nervously.

She told him, watching his eyes, round with excitement, as he tried to catch a glimpse of the shrieking bird.

Cressy stopped the car.

With legs that felt as though they had turned to cotton wool, Sara got out, taking Tom by the hand.

The front entrance looked formidable, a heavy oak door, closed and studded against intruders. Before she could reach for the bellpull, the door opened, and a man strode out, almost knocking her over. She had an impression of angry, dark blue eyes and a very tanned face. A firm male hand grasped her, steadying her, and just for a moment she clung to the supportive weight of his arm, aware of its strength beneath the immaculate darkness of his expensive suit.

‘What the devil…’ His voice was crisp, authoritative and faintly irritated. ‘The house isn’t open to tourists,’ he told her, brusquely releasing her. ‘You’re probably looking for Gawsworth.’

He had already released her, and she stepped back from him, sensing his impatience. He had dark hair, very dark, and there was something about him that made her shiver slightly, some frisson of awareness that passed through her body as she watched him.

‘We aren’t looking for Gawsworth.’

Ah, now there was no impatience, Sara acknowledged, observing his entirely male reaction to Cressy’s blonde prettiness. She walked towards him, all smiling confidence, sure in her ability to draw and hold his attention.

‘Luke, you forgot your briefcase.’

Sara looked eagerly at the woman who had opened the door. Although well into her sixties, she was tall and upright, her silver hair immaculately groomed, her clothes elegant and understated.

This, then, must be her grandmother!

She smiled at them politely and then checked, the blood draining from her face.

‘Sara… Sara, it is you, isn’t it?’

Sara could only nod, dry-mouthed. Her grandmother had recognised her. But how?

And then all hell seemed to break loose around her as the man turned to study her, his eyes frozen chips of winter sky, his whole body emanating dislike and contempt as he asked savagely, ‘Is this true? Are you Sara Rodney?’

Too confused to speak, Sara nodded again.

Somewhere in the background she could hear Cressy speaking, her voice unfamiliar with its husky, faintly uncertain tone. Cressy had never sounded uncertain in her life. But she had forgotten that Cressy was an actress, and little chills of disbelief mingled with her shock as she heard Cressy saying uncomfortably, ‘Oh, Sara, I told you you should have written first… I’m so sorry about this—er—Luke. But Sara insisted… I think she felt that she could hardly be turned away if she just turned up on your—her grandmother’s doorstep. Of course, things have been hard for her lately.’

‘You must come inside.’

A gentle hand touched her wrist, and Sara looked painfully into her grandmother’s face.

At her side, Tom clung desperately to her hand.

‘And who is this?’

‘It’s Tom, my half-brother…’

Somehow she was inside a comfortable, half-panelled hall. Rich jewel-coloured rugs glowed on the well-polished parquet floor. The room was full of the scent of beeswax, and of fresh flowers from the vases on the table.

Outside, she could still hear Cressy talking. Why was she saying those things? It had been her idea, hers… and yet now she was saying…

‘Are you all right?’

Again that anxious, faded-blue-eyed look. Sara summoned a reassuring smile.

‘A little tired. I’m sorry to arrive like this, without any warning…’

‘My dear, I’m your grandmother. You’re so like your mother—I recognized you immediately!’ Tears shimmered in the pale blue depths for a moment. ‘You can’t know how much I’ve longed for this moment, how often I’ve imagined opening the door and finding you there. Luke…’

‘I must go, otherwise I’ll miss my flight.’

As the tall, dark-haired man embraced her grandmother and then looked coldly at her, Sara wondered what his relationship to her grandmother was. Too close to be merely a friend, to judge from the way he had embraced her. He had not struck her as a man who was free with his affections.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cressy walk towards the car with him, talking earnestly to him. What was Cressy telling him? she wondered worriedly.

She knew her stepsister well enough to realise that the younger girl was hardly likely to want to paint herself in a bad light in the eyes of a personable male, and a tiny thread of fear spiralled inside her.

She dismissed it quickly. Luke, whoever he was, was not important. It was her grandmother whom she had to convince that she had come here only under duress and out of concern for Tom.

‘I shouldn’t have turned up like this,’ she whispered as she was led into an elegantly comfortable sitting-room. How could her mother have endured to turn her back on this house of sunshine? she wondered, blinking in the golden dazzle of it as it poured in through the mullioned windows.

A portrait above the fireplace caught her eye, and she stared at it, transfixed.

‘Your mother,’ her grandmother told her quietly. ‘Painted just before her eighteenth birthday. It wasn’t long afterwards that she… she left us. Come and sit down. I want to hear all about you.’ She saw the concern and apprehension cloud the hazel eyes which were so like her own late husband’s, and said gently, ‘Sara, something’s wrong. What is it?’

How quickly and easily it all tumbled out! Her father, Cressy… and Tom. Most of all, Tom… Her love for him, and also her fear.

She badly wanted to cry, but she was so used to controlling her feelings for the benefit of others that she wouldn’t allow tears to fall.

‘Cressy is right,’ her grandmother said when she had finished. ‘You had to come here. And I’m so pleased that you have.’

Later, she would try to find out why this grandchild of hers had never responded to her constant pleas that she at least agree to see her… Her late son-in-law had a good deal to answer for, she suspected. She had never liked him, never considered him good enough for her daughter. But selfishness was not something that was restricted to other people’s families, as she had good cause to know. For now, it was enough that Sara had come home. And home was where she was going to stay.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE TOLD SARA as much over dinner, and was shocked by the look of agonised relief in her granddaughter’s eyes. Alice Fitton had spent many long hours wondering about this grandchild of hers, trying to understand why it was that she had rejected their every overture of love and regret.

She had thought that Sara must be like her father: strong-willed, self-centred, uncaring of the emotional needs of others through a lack of ever having experienced them for herself. But less than half an hour in Sara’s company had been enough to show her how wrong she was.

The other girl, now—Cressida… But Cressida was no concern of hers, other than that Sara seemed to be overly concerned about her welfare. Sara was speaking to her now.

‘Cressy, why don’t you stay the night?’ she urged her stepsister. ‘Gran is right. It’s a long journey back at this time of the evening. And, besides, if you stay, it will help Tom to feel a little more settled.’

It was the wrong thing to say. Cressy frowned, an acid sharpening of her eyes and mouth dimming her normal prettiness.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, stop fussing, Sara. Tom will be perfectly all right. Anyway, I have to leave. I have an appointment first thing in the morning, and then there’s an audition for a day-time soap.’

Cressy had quickly realised that there was no way she would ever be able to charm Alice Fitton. The older woman had seen right through her, but Luke…

She smiled secretly to herself.

‘I could always drive up at the weekend,’ she offered tentatively.

‘Oh, yes…’

Sighing faintly to herself, Alice said nothing. Perhaps she was being very uncharitable, but there was something about Cressy that she just didn’t like or trust. But Sara, her heart full of happiness and relief, could only remember that if it hadn’t been for Cressy’s insistence she would not be here. And Cressy had been right to urge her to come; her grandmother had made her welcome. Already there was a rapport between them that Sara had never known with anyone else. Already she felt at home in a way she had never experienced before. Unlike her father, her grandmother did not despise her.

‘After we’ve finished eating, I’ll take you and Tom upstairs, and you can choose your own bedrooms. Luke will be pleased when he knows you’re going to stay. He’s always telling me I’m too old to be on my own.’ The way she smiled robbed the words of any unkind intent, but Sara could not help feeling resentful on behalf of her grandmother. Who was this Luke to dare to tell her what she should and should not do?

‘What’s the matter?’ her grandmother asked perceptively.

‘Who exactly is Luke?’ Sara asked her uncertainly.

‘Of course, how could you know? Silly of me! It’s just that he’s been a part of the family for so long now that I forgot that you wouldn’t realise. Luke Gallagher was married to your cousin Louise.’

Her cousin? Of course, Luke was the widowed husband of the cousin Cressy had told her about.

‘He has very many business interests, both here and in Australia, which keep him very busy,’ her grandmother sighed. ‘Too busy, I sometimes think.’

It was becoming increasingly plain to Sara that her grandmother held this Luke in the greatest affection, and she was equally sure, from that one hard, encompassing look he had given her, that Luke was not going to be inclined to favour her arrival.

What her grandmother chose to do was no concern of Luke’s, Sara told herself staunchly, and yet she was left with the lowering feeling that, if Luke chose to do so, he could make her life acutely uncomfortable for her. But why should he? He probably only visited her grandmother at irregular intervals, when he was in the country.

Sara didn’t care for all this talk about Luke. It was making her feel acutely edgy. She didn’t know why the very thought of the man had such an unwarranted effect on her; she was normally the calmest of creatures. Men had never figured very largely in her life. At twenty-three, her experience of them was limited to the odd date, mainly with sons of friends of her father’s, young men she had always felt uncomfortably sure had been dragooned into taking her out, and for that reason she had usually ended up tongue-tied and awkward in their company, knowing that given the choice they must surely have preferred to take out someone like her stepsister.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like the opposite sex, it was simply that there had never been much time for her to get to know any of them on her own terms.

‘Well, my dear, if you really do want to leave this evening, we mustn’t delay you.’

She realised that her grandmother was inviting Cressy to leave. She and Tom went out to the car with her. Even though she and Cressy did not always see eye-to-eye, she was reluctant to see her go.

Harrison, her grandmother’s chauffeur-cum-handyman, had already removed their luggage from the car.

‘Well, with a bit of luck I’ll see you both next weekend.’

Sara stepped forward to hug her, but Cressy moved back, grimacing faintly.

Unlike her, she had always been sparing with her gestures of affection, especially to Tom and herself, Sara acknowledged a little unhappily.

‘I thought you were going to be busy getting ready for your trip to America,’ she reminded Cressy, a tiny frown puckering her forehead as she remembered her stepsister’s glib explanation for the unseemly haste with which she had insisted they all come up here.

Tom had moved away from them and they were virtually standing alone. Sara felt her skin burn as Cressy taunted unkindly, ‘What’s wrong? Would you prefer to have Luke all to yourself, is that it?’ She had driven off before Sara could make any response. She didn’t usually let Cressy’s bitterness upset her so much, but for some reason her final comment had made her eyes sting with hot tears.

‘Come inside. It’s getting quite cool. I think we’ll get Harrison to light the sitting-room fire.’

There was a firm dependability about her grandmother, Sara recognised, and a gentleness that made her aware of all that she had missed in not knowing her while she was growing up. It would have meant so much to her to have this woman, this house, as a bolt-hole during the often turbulent and uncomfortable days of her teens; days when she had felt so at odds with her father and his values; days when she had felt so alone and unloved.

She knew instinctively that here she would not have experienced those feelings, and that she and her grandmother would have been attuned to one another.

‘Sara, you are so different from what I’d imagined,’ her grandmother commented as she led her upstairs. ‘When you never replied to any of our letters—’

Sara stopped and stared at her.

‘There were no letters,’ she told her, shocked into unguarded speech.

‘But, my dear, there were… Every birthday, every Christmas, at holiday time… Up until the day you were eighteen. They were sent to your father, of course.’ She paused diplomatically, while Sara clung to the polished wood of the banister, trying to take in what she had just heard.

‘You wrote? But…’

‘But your father never told you!’ Alice Fitton guessed intuitively. ‘Well, perhaps he had his reasons. I must confess that there was a good deal of bitterness between him and my husband, especially when he refused to allow your mother to come home to have you… We knew how fragile she was, you see, but he insisted on taking her to Italy with him.’

‘He was in the middle of his first book,’ Sara whispered, her eyes dark with shock.

She had heard the story so often. How her father had been working on his first book, how he had needed to do research in Italy, and how she had been born there. She had never once heard him say that her mother had been invited to stay with her parents. Quite the contrary. Without saying so in as many words, he had nevertheless implied that his in-laws had cruelly refused to have anything to do with their daughter, even when they knew she was carrying their grandchild.

She looked into her grandmother’s eyes, and knew that she was telling her the truth.

‘But why?’ she asked painfully. ‘Why not tell me?’

‘Perhaps partially to punish your grandfather and I, my dear. You see, I don’t think your father ever really forgave us for not considering him the right husband for our daughter.’ There was sorrow and pain in her voice, and Sara couldn’t help thinking her father’s resentment must surely have been fuelled by the knowledge that they were probably right. No one liked to admit that their judgement was surpassed by some other’s, especially not a man like her father. But even understanding what had motivated him did not make it entirely easy for her to forgive him. It would have meant so little to him, and so much to her. She thought of all the holidays she had spent, either alone, or farmed out with friends, because her father had better things to do than to entertain a small child.

It was those memories of pain that made her so protective of Tom, she acknowledged, glancing at her half-brother now.

‘Yes, he looks tired,’ her grandmother agreed.

‘It was for his sake that I allowed Cressy to persuade me to come here,’ Sara told her. ‘He suffers from an asthmatic condition that makes a quiet country life-style imperative.’

‘Don’t worry, Sara. This house is more than big enough to accommodate one extra child. I’m sure we shall hardly notice that Tom is here. My dear, did you really think for a moment that you would be turned away? Oh, Sara! How guilty you make me feel that we didn’t try harder to make contact with you.’

Tom chose a small room with a dormer window and a sloping roof. The window looked out on to a patchwork of fields, stretching away into the purple distance of the hills.

Already he seemed happier, more relaxed, more the way a boy his age should look, thought Sara, watching him covertly.

She elected to have the room next to Tom’s.

‘This is mine,’ her grandmother told her, indicating a further door. ‘And this one is Luke’s. He insists on sleeping close at hand, in case I need anything during the night.’ She pulled a wry but indulgent face. ‘I keep telling him that I’m far from that decrepit yet.’ And then her smile faded as she turned and caught Sara’s rebellious expression.