It was seeing how devastated Roddy was by Jack’s death that had helped Romily to find the strength to face each day. She had wept on his shoulder, pouring out her grief. ‘Dear girl,’ he had soothed, his own tears mingling with hers. Sharing their grief had helped both of them.
Florence had been a godsend, bringing meals upstairs to Romily’s room – the room that she and Jack had shared as lovers, and then as husband and wife. Initially Romily had not been able to eat so much as a crumb, and no amount of coaxing on Florence’s part could persuade her. But eventually, and at Dr Garland’s insistence, she had forced herself to try some of what Mrs Partridge had so solicitously prepared in order to tempt her.
As well as trays of food, Florence had brought her updates on Jack’s family, as had Roddy. It was no surprise to know that Arthur had immediately assumed the role of head of the household, and in so doing had offended Mrs Partridge by making unreasonable demands and rebuking Florence for not polishing his shoes as he’d instructed. So incensed was Romily by his high-handed rudeness that she emerged briefly from her room to put the upstart in his place, but was greeted with the news that both Kit and Arthur had just left for London and would return for the funeral. They had both done so yesterday – Kit to Island House, and his brother and Irene opting to take a room at the Half Moon Hotel in the village.
Their return coincided with Allegra and Hope’s arrival: Allegra in the afternoon, having travelled from Venice, and Hope in the evening with the surprise of a child in her arms. The selfless act of kindness Hope had carried out in bringing this poor infant to safety from Germany had given Romily cause to think well of her. Here was someone who cared, who had a heart; unlike Arthur, who had iced water running through his veins, and a stone where a heart should be. He was probably the sort of man who, as a boy, had enjoyed taunting small animals and found pleasure in pulling the wings off butterflies. But if he thought he could treat Romily with the kind of arrogant rudeness with which he treated everyone else, he was in for a shock: this was her house now, as Roddy had informed them during the reading of Jack’s will.
While he still had the power of speech, Jack had told Romily that he had made a new will while she’d been away in Europe, and that as well as leaving her an impressive portfolio of stocks and shares, he wanted her to have Island House and all it contained. At no stage had she let on to the family that she knew this, deeming it better for it to come formally from Roddy’s lips. She was touched that Jack had gifted her this beautiful house, a place that she had loved on sight. But she would happily live in the meanest little hovel if it meant Jack was still alive. That their happiness had been cut short so soon, and that he had died alone and without her by his side, broke her heart.
With tears filling her eyes, she turned to look out at the garden through the open window, remembering her first visit, how perfectly idyllic it had seemed. ‘But it’s not actually an island, is it?’ she’d said to Jack when he was showing her around.
‘You sound disappointed,’ he had responded.
‘No, not at all, only the name suggests it is.’
‘Well, I’m told some Georgian wag who had the original part of the house built decided it had the feel of an island, with the stream feeding the pond and then skirting around the house down into the next valley, and named it accordingly.’
The more Romily saw of the house, the more she came to regard it as a real island, set apart from the rest of the world, an oasis to which she and Jack could retreat.
Staring out at the garden now, and at the pond beyond with its spectacular display of flowering water lilies, she recalled the warm evening last month when Jack had taken her down to the boathouse, helped her into the wooden dinghy and rowed her into the middle of the pond. Without warning, he had thrown the oars into the water, startling a pair of moorhens. ‘What did you do that for?’ she’d asked, amused.
‘Have I ever told you that you have the most beautiful violet eyes?’ he’d replied.
‘Yes, you have. And you haven’t answered my question.’
‘I’m going to ask you to marry me, and until you say yes, we’re marooned here.’
She had laughed and watched the oars drift slowly away from the boat on the current that fed the pond. ‘And if I accept your proposal, how do you plan to get us back onto dry land?’
‘First tell me your answer,’ he’d said, leaning forward, his expression now intensely serious.
‘Oh, it’s a yes, of course it is. I’m just surprised it’s taken you this long to get around to asking me.’
His expression softened. ‘I needed time to pluck up the courage. But are you sure you want to throw in your lot with a man so much older than you?’
‘My darling Jack, I threw in my lot with you the day we met at Brooklands. Now then, have we dispensed with the small talk? Are you going to kiss me to seal the deal?’
He had, and with a long and very sure kiss. When they finally drew apart, she said, ‘On the basis that we’re now officially betrothed, I’m eager to hear your plan for getting us back to the bank.’
He smiled. ‘Oh, that’s easily done.’ Slipping off his shoes, he stood up, causing the wooden dinghy to rock precariously, then with a cry of ‘Geronimo!’ threw himself into the water, splashing her comprehensively into the bargain.
‘You’re mad!’ she called out to him when he surfaced some distance from the boat.
‘Mad with love for you! Are you coming in?’
‘Just you try and stop me.’ In seconds flat, she had stripped off down to her underclothes and dived in too.
The memory of that evening, of the two of them drying off in the boathouse and making love on a blanket on the floor in the soft glow of a storm lantern, made her close her eyes, both to recapture the moment entirely, but also to stop the tears that were once again threatening to expose her pain. When she deemed it safe to open them again, she saw a fat bumblebee buzzing drunkenly amongst the roses immediately in front of the window, the fragrant scent of the dusky pink blooms discernible on the warm air.
She sighed, tempted to go outside to escape the sniping of this querulous family at war. Behind her, and with the angry exchanges continuing around the table, she could hear Hope trying unsuccessfully to settle the crying child.
On impulse, Romily rose from her seat. ‘Hope,’ she said, ‘why don’t I take Annelise for a walk around the garden? She must be bored out of her mind. I know I am.’
Hope looked back at her with a stunned expression on her face, as though Romily had just suggested she throw the child into the pond with a heavy weight tied around her neck.
‘I would have thought you of all people would want to stay here and enjoy the spectacle of our humiliation right to the bitter end,’ commented Arthur, regarding her with his unpleasantly pale grey eyes.
‘I imagine there’ll be plenty of opportunity for that in the coming days,’ Romily said smoothly. ‘The bitter end is indubitably a long way off yet.’ Ignoring the intake of breath from both Arthur and his wife, she reached for the fractious child. Finding no resistance from Hope, who, to put it bluntly, looked exhausted from trying to comfort the distressed infant, she settled Annelise on her hip.
