His glass now empty, he hauled himself up to go and order another beer and caught his foot on the leg of the table he was sitting at, nearly knocking it over. ‘Bloody stupid table!’ he cursed. Forcing his way through the crowd of men, who seemed to be making his passage deliberately difficult, he very nearly lost his balance again. Bloody stupid uneven ground, he thought angrily. Why couldn’t they flatten the field before erecting the ruddy tent?
He had the makeshift bar within his sights when he missed his footing once more, and, finding the ground suddenly rising up towards him, reached out to steady himself. His hand met with something pleasingly soft and rounded, and coincided with a piercing scream coming from a girl directly in front of him. To his amusement, he saw that his hand was clamped over one of her breasts. For the sheer hell of it, he laughed and squeezed it hard, eliciting an even louder shriek. As well as a slap to his cheek.
‘Bitch!’ he exclaimed, as much out of disbelief as pain.
‘What did you just call ’er?’ demanded a voice from behind him.
He turned to see a brute of a man staring down at him. He was an ugly, square-faced, square-necked Neanderthal beast who looked as stupid as he was big. ‘I called her a bitch, sir, if it’s any of your business,’ replied Arthur, staggering slightly.
‘It is my business,’ the beast roared. ‘She’s my girlfriend!’ And with that, he slammed a fist the size of a shovel into Arthur’s face. His legs instantly gave way beneath him, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground, breathing in the smell of crushed grass. He scrabbled to get up, but a vicious boot aimed at his ribs, followed by another and another, knocked the last breath of air from his lungs.
As he lay there with mocking laughter ringing out all around him, he heard a woman’s clear voice cut through the raucous jeers and laughter, and at once a silence fell on the crowd. A request was made to help him up, and it was only when he was on his feet, dizzy and spitting blood, that he realised the person who’d come to his aid was none other than his ruddy stepmother.
‘A misunderstanding,’ Romily repeated sarcastically as she applied a wad of cotton wool soaked in warm water to his face. ‘You really expect me to believe that?’
He pushed her hand away. ‘I don’t give a damn what you believe. It doesn’t concern you anyway.’
‘Of course it concerns me,’ she said impatiently. ‘You’re a guest in my house. From what I hear, you were in your cups and behaved disgracefully, and you got what you deserved.’
‘A guest in your house,’ he repeated. ‘Finally you dispense with the veneer of courtesy and reveal your true colours. I knew it wouldn’t take you long to start rubbing my nose in your good fortune.’
‘An unfortunate choice of words, given the current state of your nose.’
At the sound of the doorbell downstairs, Romily tossed the bloodied cotton wool into the bin beside the washbasin. ‘That’ll be Dr Garland,’ she said.
‘I told you there was no need to send for that quack.’
Ignoring him, Romily hurriedly washed her hands and went to let the doctor in.
‘So good of you to come, Dr Garland,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid the patient is not in the best of humours.’
‘I’m sure I’ll cope,’ he said. ‘How are you bearing up? It can’t be easy having a houseful right now.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Unlike Arthur. I don’t think his nose is actually broken, but it’s certainly swollen and he may well have a couple of black eyes in the morning.’
She led the way upstairs to the guest bathroom, where she’d left Arthur. When she pushed the door open, she found him with his shirt unbuttoned, examining the bruises on his body.
‘I want those louts arrested,’ he said, ‘and I want you to be my witness, Garland, that this is the state in which they left me.’
‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ asked Romily, before the doctor had a chance to say anything. ‘After all, there were plenty of witnesses in the beer tent who will all claim the same thing: that you were drunk and molested Bob Springer’s girlfriend, and he was doing nothing more than defending her honour.’
Even with his horribly swollen face, the cold, hateful fury in Arthur’s expression was plain to see. ‘No pretence now at family loyalty and putting on a united front, then,’ he said. ‘I might have known.’
‘Think yourself lucky I stopped the beating when I did,’ snapped Romily. ‘Dr Garland, I’ll leave you to your patient.’
Alone in the kitchen, Romily helped herself to a glass of Mrs Partridge’s home-made lemonade from the jug in the pantry and took it outside to the garden. She had lied earlier to Dr Garland. She did not feel fine. The burden of carrying on as normal this afternoon had left her completely drained. All that smiling and shaking hands and accepting yet more condolences had weighed heavily on her, and she had longed to escape back here to the sanctuary of Island House.
She had just seized what she thought was a quiet moment in which to slip away unobtrusively when Mrs Bunch, who always seemed to know exactly what was going on, sometimes before it had even happened, came and told her that there was trouble in the beer tent: that Arthur was drunk and had got into a fight. Approaching the tent, Romily could hear people saying that he had brought it on himself and deserved the pasting he was getting.
As tempting as it was to let the arrogant devil suffer the consequences of his folly, she couldn’t bring herself to turn her back on him. Jack had often said that Arthur was his own worst enemy; that if he could only channel his guile and intelligence into something of real worth, he’d be a lot more likeable. And perhaps happier in himself, thought Romily as she sipped at the cool, refreshing lemonade.
It took no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the worst aspects of Arthur’s character very likely stemmed from the loss of his mother when he’d been three years of age. The same was probably true of Hope and Kit. Their entire childhood had been overshadowed by bereavement, if not their own, then Jack’s grief for Maud, which had left him unable to be the parent his unhappy children had needed.
But understanding, if only partially, why Arthur behaved the way he did did not make him any easier to deal with. The question was, was it too late for him to change? And why, for heaven’s sake, did she care?
Jack. It all came back to Jack. Her love for him and her promise that she would try and unite the family. ‘Do what I failed to do,’ had been his last wish in those final days. ‘Be the one to make it right.’
‘Oh Jack,’ she murmured tiredly, staring over towards the beech hedge, on the other side of which his body lay in the churchyard. ‘I fear this might be a challenge too far for me.’
