Authors: Kate Hewitt
‘You’re
my employee,’ Jacob replied calmly, ‘so, in point of fact, I am.’
‘Not
like that.’ He said nothing and Mollie knew there was something bigger going on
here, something that stretched back into the years, its roots going deep into
the spoiled soil of the Wolfe family. ‘It’s not your fault I fell down the
stairs,’ she said clearly. ‘It’s not your fault your father hit your sister, or
did any of the terrible things he did.’ She paused, for Jacob had gone utterly
still, his expression seeming to close in on
itself
,
blank and fathomless. ‘It’s not your fault,’ Mollie continued quietly, ‘
that
things fell apart when you left. You need to—’
‘You’re
going to tell me what I need?’ Jacob cut in. His voice was polite yet very
cold. Now Mollie was the one to still.
‘I
just—’
‘But
you blamed me as much as anyone else, Mollie,’ Jacob told her softly. ‘It’s my
fault your father didn’t have a job for so many years. It’s my fault the two of
you were struggling alone for so long, forgotten, invisible. Hell, maybe it’s
my fault that he suffered from dementia. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if I’d
stayed, if the manor had been something he could hold onto.’ Mollie stared at him,
what little colour she had draining from her face, too shocked to utter a word.
‘So,’ Jacob continued in that same soft, lethal voice, ‘why should I believe
you now? If you thought all that was my fault, how do you think my brothers and
sister felt?’
From
somewhere Mollie found her voice, hoarse and scratchy. ‘They’ve forgiven you,
Jacob. I know Annabelle has …’
‘I
know they have,’ Jacob told her. He sounded scornful. ‘I’ve seen every one of
them since I’ve been back. I’ve faced their anger and their confusion and their
hurt. And I’ve asked for their forgiveness.’ He paused, his breath coming fast
now. ‘Do you think that makes any
difference?’
Mollie
could only stare. His words were hammer blows to her heart, for she knew he’d
spoken the truth. She
had
blamed him.
They all had. Jacob had shouldered all the guilt and all the responsibility,
and they’d let him, they’d given it to him, even though she—and undoubtedly all
his siblings—had said they hadn’t.
‘I’m
sorry,’ she finally whispered, and shrugging a shoulder, Jacob turned away.
‘It
doesn’t matter,’ he said, his back to her, his voice low. ‘It’s not just about
what you see as my overblown sense of responsibility.’ He drew a breath. ‘I
blame myself, Mollie, because of who I am and what I did … not what I
didn’t
do.’ He turned to face her, his
eyes bleak. ‘There’s no escaping or forgiving that.’
Mollie
stared at him, speechless, unable to think of any comforting words. She felt as
if Jacob had retreated farther from her than ever before … and she couldn’t
help but wonder if this time it was her fault.
The
next day the hospital released her. Jacob drove her back to Wolfe Manor. When
he pulled up in front of the big house, Mollie made no objection. She followed
him into the house’s dim, cool foyer, knowing that after all that had been
said—all she’d realised—she wasn’t going to stand on her self-righteous pride
and indignation now.
‘I
chose one of the newly renovated bedrooms for you,’ Jacob told her. ‘I hope
it’s suitable.’ He spoke in that awful, distant voice that made Mollie want to
cry. It made it hard to believe that he’d ever kissed her tears or held her in
his arms, or that they’d made love.
‘I’m
sure it’s fine.’
‘The
doctor told you to take it easy for at least a few more days,’ Jacob continued.
‘I hope you will abide by that. I’ve made arrangements for some day labourers
to come in and do the heavy work in the garden.’
‘That’s
fine. I can give instructions from here. It’s just a matter of doing the manual
work, except for the Rose Garden.’
‘The Rose Garden?’
‘I
haven’t settled on a design,’ Mollie admitted.
Every
time she thought of it, the whole idea defeated her. The Rose Garden had been
her father’s idea of landscaping perfection. How could she change it, much less
design something of her own? ‘I think I’ll go rest now,’ she said, because she
couldn’t stand to be near Jacob when he was like this, cold and formal and so
very distant.
‘I
had your things removed from the cottage. They’re in your bedroom.’
Mollie
nodded and turned away. She felt Jacob watching her all the way up the stairs.
The
next few days fell into a disheartening pattern of impersonal solicitude. Jacob
excused himself to the study most of the time, and Mollie didn’t bother ever
going in there or even knocking on the door. She hated that room, and she had a
feeling Jacob did as well.
She
worked on designs for the Rose Garden, although every sketch she began she
ended up tossing in frustration. All her plans just seemed like a shallow
version of what had already been there.
Yet
the rest of the garden was nearly finished. From the window she saw the new
paving stones, the weeded flower beds, the pruned trees. The grass on the
terraced lawns glittered like emerald velvet. The house, too, was emerging from
its chrysalis of dust cloths and scaffolding; the downstairs was completely
finished, the paint fresh, the window coverings and carpets restored or
replaced as needed. It was beautiful, if impersonal, and Mollie wondered who
would buy the house when Jacob actually put it on the market. Who would live
there, love it? Even with its new patina of fresh paint, the house still
seethed with unhappy memories … or so it felt to Mollie, as she wandered its
empty rooms.
Upstairs
the bedrooms had been renovated as well; the photographs on Annabelle’s walls
had been removed, and Mollie wondered what Jacob had done with them. Perhaps a
decorator had thrown them out. Perhaps Jacob hadn’t cared about them at all.
Mollie
knew she was being contrary. A few weeks ago she’d been annoyed and embarrassed
that Jacob had seen all those revealing candids of her. Now she wanted him to
be a hiding a snap under his pillow? She was ridiculous.
One
rainy afternoon when even the labourers had to leave the garden work, Mollie
wandered upstairs to the third floor of the manor. From the peeling wallpaper,
a faded pattern of blowsy cabbage roses, to the cobweb spangling every corner,
it appeared this floor had not yet been renovated or even touched. Mollie
wondered if it had been completely forgotten.
Curious
and a little wary, she made her way up the narrow stairs, and pushed open the
door at the end of the hallway.
Pale,
watery sunlight, breaking through the rain clouds of earlier, streamed through
the long, narrow windows, revealing a thick layer of dust on the old wooden
floorboards. They creaked as Mollie carefully moved across the room, taking it
all in.
It
was a nursery. It looked like something out of a Victorian novel with a
moth-eaten rocking horse in one corner, an elaborate wooden dollhouse in
another. Rusted tin soldiers lined up on one windowsill, ready to march.
There
were some newer toys too—some building bricks, a few tatty board games, signs
that the Wolfe children had once lived and played here. The air was thick with
the dust Mollie had stirred up simply by walking across the floor, so with some
effort she opened the windows and breathed in the rain-damp air. Then she
turned back to the room.
A
few childish drawings and scribbles had been taped to the wall, and she moved
closer to inspect them. A princess drawing by Annabelle, an elaborate map of
the estate, laboriously inked in intricate detail, with two childish signatures
in the bottom corner:
Jacob and Lucas
Wolfe, ages 9 and 8
. On a rickety table in one corner there was a model of
the house, built, she saw, from lolly sticks and toothpicks. She smiled
faintly, thinking of how Jacob must have cherished architectural dreams even at
a young age. She imagined him here, concentrating on his precious model, the other
children looking on in interest. Perhaps this house did hold some happy
memories.
Another
paper taped to the wall had an important-looking list of everyone’s birthday,
as well as what kind of cake they preferred and what presents they wanted.
Mollie’s gaze ran down the list, stopping in surprise when she saw Jacob’s
birthday was, in fact, tomorrow. And when he’d been eight years old he’d wanted
a double chocolate cake and a chess set.
‘What
are you doing here?’
Mollie
whirled around, stirring up more dust. Jacob stood in the doorway, and from the
tone of his voice and the expression on his face Mollie didn’t think he was
very glad to see her here.
‘Sorry
… I was just poking around. I don’t think this place has been touched in twenty
years.’
‘More
like thirty. I saw the door to the stairs was open and wondered if the
renovators had finally made their way up here.’ Jacob glanced around the room
with a dispassionate air. ‘It’s filthy. I’ll have to get them to clear it all
out. Everything else is just about finished.’
‘Oh,
don’t,’ Mollie said impulsively. ‘There are so many memories here—’
‘I
know.’ The two words were clipped.
‘Good
ones though,’ she persisted. ‘At least, they feel that way to me. Look—did you
make this?’ She pulled on his arm, surprising them both by her touch, and after
a second’s pause Jacob reluctantly let her lead him to the corner of the room.
He glanced at the model of the house without any expression at all. ‘Yes, I
made it.’
‘It’s
amazing! You showed your talent even then.’ He shrugged, but Mollie persisted,
feeling some deep-seated need to show Jacob all these treasures, to help him
reclaim the good parts of his past. ‘Look at this … you and Lucas drew this
map?’
Now
he smiled faintly. ‘Yes … I’d forgotten about that. We spent ages on it. We
were measuring the lawns with a slide rule, trying to make sure we got it
exactly to scale.
One inch for every one hundred yards, if I
remember correctly.’
‘It’s
incredibly complex, considering how young you were.’ She glanced around again
at the dusty room. ‘Did you spend much time here?’
‘No, not really.
Holidays mostly.
Lucas and I went to boarding school when we were quite young.’ He paused, and
Mollie held her breath, knowing he was going to tell her more. Perhaps he even
wanted to. ‘My father never came looking for us up here,’ Jacob said softly.
‘Sometimes it felt like the only place we were really safe.’
Mollie
blinked, swallowed the sudden thickening of tears in her throat. Silently,
because there were no words, she reached for his hand. To her surprise and joy,
Jacob let her fingers slide through his, and held on.
After
a moment he nodded towards the old doll-house. ‘Annabelle could play with that
for hours. She used to rope me into playing with her. I was always the father.’
He smiled
wryly,
his eyes now alight with memories.
‘And Nathaniel loved the dress-up box.’ He gestured to a chest in the corner;
Mollie saw the dull gleam of a knight’s helmet and toy sword. ‘We used to have
mock battles.’ Lost as he was in a rare moment of nostalgia, Mollie knew he
didn’t hear the thread of love in his voice, or realize how he’d made sure all
of his siblings had memories they could cherish … memories he’d made happen.