Everything to Gain and a Secret Affair (32 page)

I would never feel better. But I nodded; it was the easiest thing to do.

She bent over me, kissed me on my cheek, and then
went and stood with her back to the fire, as she often did, just as Andrew had done. Saying nothing, she surveyed me for a few moments. As soon as Hilary had put the tea tray down and departed, she said, “What is it, Mal? You look as if you have something to tell me.”

“I do,” I replied. “David called me a short while ago. There's been a break in the case at last.”

“Tell me all about it!” she exclaimed. She came and sat down next to me on the sofa.

Her eyes did not leave my face as I recounted my entire conversation with David.

When I finished, her reaction was the same as mine had been. “Thank God,” she said quietly. “But it won't bring my son and my grandchildren back to life . . .” Her voice wavered slightly, and she took a moment to regain her composure, then she added, “But at least we know that justice will be done, and that those responsible will be punished.”

“It's small comfort,” I murmured. “But it's better than knowing they are free.”

“And that they might kill again,” Diana said.

“I
have to go to Paris on Wednesday,” Diana said. “Why don't you come to London with me tomorrow? And then we'll go to Paris together. I think it would do you good, Mal.”

Diana and I were sitting in the library on Sunday morning, reading the newspapers. Or rather, she was reading; I was merely glancing through them.

Looking up, I shook my head. “I don't think so. I'm still feeling a bit debilitated after the flu.”

Diana stared at me for the longest moment, and then she said, “Nonsense, Mal, you're much better, and you have been for the last week. Your problem is your mental apathy.”

Startled by her brisk, matter-of-fact tone as well as her words, I recoiled slightly, then said, “Maybe you're right.”

“I know I am,” she replied and put down her newspaper. Leaning forward, focusing every ounce of her attention on me, she continued, “Mal, you can't go on like this.”

I returned her steady gaze, but I remained silent.

“What are you going to do? Sit on that sofa in this library for the rest of your life? Is that your plan?”

“I have no plans,” I said.

“But you do have a
choice.
Actually, you have three choices. You can sit around forever, as you're doing now, letting your life drift away from you. You can kill yourself, which I know you've contemplated more than once,
from the things you've said to me. Or you can pull yourself together, pick up the pieces and go on from here.”

“Go where?” I muttered. “I just don't . . . don't know . . . what to do . . . what to do with myself,” I began hesitantly, at a loss in more ways than one.

Diana sat studying me, her eyes full of love, her expression sympathetic, as it always was. Her voice was caring when she murmured softly, “I know only too well what you've lost—those you loved with all your heart, those most precious and dear to you. But as hard as it may seem, you must begin again. That is your
only
choice, Mal darling. Trust me, it is. God knows, you've nothing to lose, you've already lost it all, but you do have everything to gain.”

“I do?”

“Yes. Your
life
, for one thing, a new life. You must try, darling, not only for yourself, but for me.”

I sighed and looked away, and then I felt the tears rising to flood my eyes. “I can't,” I whispered, fighting the tears, the pain, and the grief. “I'm weighted down. My sorrow is unendurable, Diana.”

“I know, I know. I'm suffering too . . .” Diana could not finish her sentence. Her voice choked up, and she came and sat next to me on the sofa. Taking my hand in hers, she held on to it tightly and said finally, “Andrew wouldn't want to see you like this, Mal. He always said you were the strongest woman he'd ever known, other than me.”

“I can't live without him. I don't want to live without him and the twins.”

“You're going to have to,” Diana said in a voice that was low, suddenly quite stern. “You've got to stop feeling sorry for yourself, right now. Do you think you're the only woman who has ever lost loved ones? Lost a family? What about me? I've lost my son, my only child, and my grandchildren, and before that I lost a husband when I
was still a young woman. And what about your mother? She is as grief-stricken and heartbroken as we are.”

Taking a deep breath, she added, “And what about the millions of other people in the world who have had to survive the loss of their families? You only have to think about the survivors of the Holocaust—those who lost husbands and wives and children and mothers and fathers in the death camps, to realize we are not alone. Loss of loved ones is part of life, I'm sorry to say. It's terrible, so difficult to accept—”

Diana could not continue speaking. Her emotions got the better of her, and she began to weep, but after only a moment or two she said through her tears, “There isn't a day goes by that I don't think about him, think about my Andrew, and about little Lissa and Jamie. And my heart never stops aching. But I know I can't give in, that I mustn't. And so I try to keep myself together, the best way I can. Mal, listen to me. You can't throw your life away. You have to try, just as I try.”

The tears trickled down her cheeks, and she looked at me helplessly. I put my arms around her and held her close to me. And I wept with her.

Her words had found their mark, had touched the core of me, and I realized with a small shock how badly I had behaved; I had thought only of myself.

“I've been so selfish, Diana,” I said at last. “Very selfish. You're right, I've only thought about my feelings, about
my
loss,
my
pain, not yours or Mom's.”

“I didn't mean to sound harsh, darling,” she murmured, extricating herself from me, sitting up on the sofa and drying her cheeks. “I was only trying to make you see . . . see things a little more clearly.”

I didn't say anything for a few minutes, then glancing at Diana, I asked quietly, “What did you mean when you said I had everything to gain?”

“I told you, your
life
, primarily. But that also means your health, your well-being, your sanity. You're only thirty-three, Mal, still so very young, and I simply won't allow you to become a vegetable, a blob sitting around doing nothing except mourning and feeling sorry for yourself. It's vital that you mourn, yes. We must do that, we must get the grief out. But I can't, I
won't
permit you to throw your future away.”

“Do I have a future, Diana?”

“Oh, yes, you do. Of course you do. That's another thing you have to gain. Your future. But you must reach out, grab life with both hands and start all over again. It will be the hardest thing you've ever had to do, the most painful, even, but it
will
be worth it, I promise you that.”

“I don't know what to do. How would I begin again?” I asked, my mind starting to work in a more positive way for the first time since Andrew's death.

“First, I think you have to get yourself completely fit physically. You're far too thin, for one thing. You must start eating properly, and walking and exercising, so that you regain your strength, that vigor and energy of yours which I've always admired. And then you must think of the kind of job you'd like to find. You must work, not only because you need to earn money, but because you must keep yourself busy.”

“I wouldn't know where to start.” I bit my lip and shook my head. “I realize I have to begin to support myself, and very quickly. I can't let my mother and Dad go on helping me. But I don't have any idea what I could do. Or what I'm capable of doing, for that matter.”

“You wrote advertising copy once,” Diana reminded me.

“That was a long time ago, and I'm not sure how good I was, even if Andrew did say I was brilliant. Besides, I don't think I'd enjoy working in an office, and I know I
can't live in New York. So we can forget Madison Avenue.”

“You could live in London,” she suggested, eyeing me intently. “I'd like that. You're all I have left, Mal, the only family I have.”

I nodded. “I know, Diana, and you're very much a part of me, part of my life. It's a possibility, living in London, I mean. I suppose I could always sell Indian Meadows.”

“What's happening with the apartment? You haven't said anything lately about Sarah's cousin and her plans.”

“Vera wants to buy it, and she's agreed to the price my mother asked. But she hasn't gone before the board yet, the board of the cooperative. I think she's supposed to be interviewed by them this coming week. I'm not worried though, Diana; I know she'll pass.”

“Getting back to a job for you, if you stay in London, you might consider working with me at the shop. You do love antiques, and you know a lot about them. I could certainly use your expertise. And your obvious talents as a decorator.”

When I said nothing, Diana sat back, stared at me for a few seconds, and then reached out and took my hand in hers. “I'd like you to become my partner, Mal.”

“Oh, that's so generous of you! Thank you, Diana. I'm not sure. Can I think about it?”

“Yes. Take your time.” She half smiled and then reached out, touched my cheek. “You're like my daughter. No, you
are
my daughter. And I love you.”

“I love you, too, Diana. You're very special to me.”

“I started to say I could use your talents as an interior designer. You're awfully good at decorating, and I have a lot of clients who don't just want to buy antiques from me. They also want me to put together whole rooms for them. Whole houses, in fact.”

“I do enjoy decorating, but I'm not sure I'd want to do it for other people,” I said. “But it is a possibility, I guess.”

“We could always have a trial run. We've nothing to lose.”

“What do you mean?”

“There's no good reason why you shouldn't stay on in London for a few months. You could work at the shop, travel with me to France on buying trips, even make trips on your own. Then you could spend weekends up here with me. It's always lovely at Kilgram Chase in the summer months. At the end of the summer you could go back to Connecticut, if you wanted to, if that's what you decided was best for you.”

“There's nobody like you, Diana, you're so kind, so loving.” I leaned my head against the cushions and closed my eyes. A small sigh escaped me.

She said softly, “I won't press you anymore, but do think seriously about it, Mal. And remember, it would please me enormously to have you as my partner.”

That night when I went to bed, I lay awake for a long time, watching the light from the fire flickering across the ceiling and the walls.

Here in this room that had once been his as a boy, Andrew was always close to me. And tonight I felt his presence more acutely than ever. It was as if he stood at the foot of the bed, keeping watch over me.

I talked to him, asked him what I should do, and it seemed to me that he was telling me to stay here with his mother at Kilgram Chase. If that was what he wanted me to do, then I would do it. Here in Yorkshire I was far away from New York and the terrible violence that had claimed my family. I felt safe here, just as I felt safe in London. Yes, perhaps it would be best to stay in England, best to start my new life here.

I turned this thought over and over in my mind until I finally fell asleep.

D
iana had gone off to London en route to Paris, and I was alone at Kilgram Chase once more.

The library had become my sanctuary in the last few weeks, and now as I sat here on Monday morning, glancing at the newspapers and drinking a cup of coffee, I thought of the things Diana had said to me over the weekend.

She had been right, had spoken only truths.

I had acknowledged this to her and to myself. Self-delusion was not one of my faults. Nonetheless, I knew already that it was going to be hard for me to come to grips with my grief, that it would take me a long time to get it totally under control. The pain inside me was relendess, never seemed to diminish; my sorrow was overwhelming; my loneliness filled me with desolation.

The memory of the terrible violence that had taken my family from me and changed my life forever would always be there in my heart. That was a given. But I
would
try to make a new start. Somehow. I had promised Diana I would; I owed it to her and to myself. And that, at least, would be some sort of a beginning.

I still did not know what I was going to do with the rest of my life, where I was going to live or how I would earn a living. The first thing I had to do was pull myself up out of my despair, rise above it if I could. I was not sure how to do this.

Earlier this morning it had occurred to me that I ought
to find something to focus on, if only for a short while, something to take my mind off my troubles, take me out of myself. Going back to my painting, as Sarah had suggested before I left Indian Meadows, did not particularly interest me now, and therefore, it was not a solution.

However, there
was
one thing that had fascinated me when I was here at Kilgram Chase last November, and that was the diary I had found in this very room. I realized, as I thought of it again, that the seventeenth-century Lettice Keswick still intrigued me. And I could not help wondering, as I had last year, whether or not there was another volume, perhaps even volumes of her writings somewhere in this house.

The diary had no monetary value as far as I knew, and certainly it had nothing to do with my earning a living. On the other hand, looking for another volume, a continuation of the first book, would give me something to focus on. And that in itself would be a step in the right direction.