Hope’s heart contracted at the sight of Annelise’s anguish and she saw all too clearly that she had to do all she could to help. There was no point in being angry or disappointed. What Annelise needed was her help, not her condemnation.
‘Edmund might accuse me of not being capable of thinking straight right now,’ Hope said, ‘but I have a suggestion. I think you should request ayear-long sabbatical from St Gertrude’s and just as soon as I’m deemed well enough to go abroad to convalesce, the three of us should go away together. Given my situation, the Dean is hardly likely to refuse your request, and not if I make a sizeable donation to the college.’
Her eyes wide, Annelise stared at her. ‘But ...’
‘But what?’
‘But then what do we do? Or rather, what doIdo?’
‘Goodness, you can’t expect me to have all the answers after being in a coma for so long! But first things first; you must tell Edmund.’
‘I can’t bear the thought of disappointing him. Can I tell him in a few days, when he’s recovered some of his old self? He’s been so worried about you. As have we all.’
Thinking how she had wanted to give up on life, for it simply to be over, Hope succumbed to a shameful wave of guilt. It had been selfish of her to wish for her death. She had convinced herself that Edmund, and everybody else, would be better off without her. Now, knowing the torment that Annelise had been suffering and how scared she had to be of the future, Hope felt an overwhelming sense of love and responsibility to help the girl. She may have let Annelise down in the past by not always being as supportive as she could have been, but she would not fail her now.
‘You’re not to worry, Annelise,’ she said, ‘Edmund won’t be disappointed in you. He loves you very much. Just as I do.’
With another wave of guilt, and her eyes beginning to close with exhaustion, Hope acknowledged that these were words she hadn’t said often enough to Annelise. That would have to change.
ChapterEighty-Three
Melstead Hall, Melstead St Mary
December 1962
Julia
Ralph had told Julia to wait for him in her parlour but the longer she waited, the more Julia’s nerve went.
Could she really leave Arthur and the life she had here at Melstead Hall? And for what? To scrimp and save just as she had before Arthur came along? Maybe she could bear that for herself, but not for Charles. Wouldn’t it be better to stay and try harder to please Arthur? Wouldn’t that be a sacrifice worth making?
He had cared for her in the beginning, she was convinced of it. But at some point, that must have changed. She must have failed him in some way.Failed to do her duty ...
That must be why he had sought his pleasure elsewhere, and with Miss Casey of all people. Had it been Miss Casey who had encouraged him to lie about the accident with Hope and then to threaten Julia by saying he would tell the police it was her behind the wheel of the car? With what she now knew, Julia wouldn’t put anything past that woman.
What if she found a way to get rid of Miss Casey and then apologised to Arthur for all the upset she had caused him; would life then go back to how it once was? When it was bearable. When all she had to do was her duty.
No, no,NO!What was she thinking? She had done nothing wrong. Arthur was a brute! A brute from whom she had to escape. She had to do it for Charles’s sake, just as Ralph had told her.
But was escape really possible? Could she do it right this time?
When she was a child she had tried running away from home. She had filled a shopping bag with an apple from the garden, a clean nightdress, her toothbrush and hairbrush and a change of ribbon for her hair. Lastly, she had added her most treasured possession, a small doll called Polly. Her mother had given it to her a few months before she died.
The bag hooked over her shoulder, Julia had quietly opened the front door while her father was in his shed in the garden. She ran to the park and hid behind the pavilion. From her hiding place she watched the park keeper locking the gate. After tucking the key into his jacket pocket, he fastened on his cycle clips, climbed onto his bicycle and disappeared off down the road.
She made herself comfortable in the pavilion and hugging her doll close, she nibbled on the apple from her bag. It wasn’t long before it was dark and cold and she regretted that she hadn’t thought to pack a blanket or even another cardigan, but her decision to run away had been on the spur of the moment. She missed her mother so very much and her father always seemed cross with her.
To this day she couldn’t remember how her father had found her in the park and got her out, but it was that night, at home, after he’d put her in the bath and dressed her ready for bed, that it started.
‘I know you miss your mother,’ he said. ‘Just as I do. But you see, running away won’t help. It makes thing worse. And it was a very naughty and selfish thing for you to do. You were only thinking of yourself, weren’t you? What about me? Don’t you care about my happiness?’
‘I don’t know why I did it,’ she said, ashamed of herself. ‘I just wanted to stop feeling the way I do.’
He’d stroked her hair. ‘I understand. But whatyouhave to understand is that you’re old enough now to do what your mother did to make me happy.’
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘It’s your duty to replace your mother,’ he explained, his large rough hand now stroking her shoulder. She could smell the tobacco from his pipe on his fingers, combined with the earthy smell from what he’d been doing in the potting shed. ‘Your mother wouldn’t want me to be lonely,’ he went on, ‘so now that you’re a big girl, it’s your duty to make me happy. It’s what your mother would have wanted. Do you think you can do that?’
