Authors: Stella Whitelaw
Jessica could hardly remember how she got herself to bed. The pretty primrose bedroom seemed a foreign place and there was no comfort in it. She left her track suit on the floor and curled up in bed, the tears welling up in her eyes. Lucas had copies of the hotel receipts and the page of the hotel registry in his briefcase.
And there was her signature on a line, right below Fraser’s. Jessica Harlow, her handwriting. And she had no idea how it got there. Amanda Burton had carried out her threat and faxed the incriminating documents to Lucas at the hospital.
No wonder Lucas was distraught. He had lost more than a patient. He thought he had lost her as well. Now she had another mountain to climb, to convince him that it was all some vile vengeance by a woman who would stop at nothing.
She did not fall asleep until the small hours, exhausted by a turmoil of thoughts and silent weeping. She wondered how she would get through the next day.
Lily woke her with her usual bounce and hug. Floppy Ears had come too. He did not look as if he had had a good night either.
‘Willdo, it’s morning. Wake up. Today is here. What are we going to do today? Have you got a surprise for us?’
‘Yes, I might not get up today,’ said Jessica. ‘That’s my surprise.’
Lily looked aghast. ‘Not get up? Willdo, you can’t stay in bed
all day. Daddy has already got up and gone to work. You must get up. We need you.’
Jessica heaved herself up. ‘Lucas has already gone?’
‘Yes, I heard his porch go very early.’ She pronounced it like it was the front of a house. ‘He has very sick children to look after, you know.’ Lily looked serious and worldly. ‘Daddy is a very clever man.’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ said Jessica. ‘He’s a wonderful man.’
‘Is that why you are marrying him?’
‘Yes, because he’s wonderful and clever and I love him.’
Lily’s face glowed. ‘He loves you too,’ she said. ‘We all love you.’
Jessica swung her legs over the side of the bed, feeling the softness of the carpet beneath her feet. She still had her job to do, whether Lucas threw her over or not.
‘Washing first,’ she said. ‘You, Lily, not Floppy Ears. He needs another five minutes sleep.’
‘Another five minutes’,’ she agreed, tucking him into Jessica’s bed. ‘Go back to sleep, Floppy.’
Jessica went into automatic mode. She got the children ready for school, breakfasted and onto the school bus. She ate no breakfast at all. Lady Grace received her usual attention, the exercises, the medication, a discussion of the state of the world.
Mrs Harris was as sharp-eyed as always. ‘No breakfast, miss? Off your food, are you? Not pregnant, are you?’
‘If only,’ said Jessica.
‘So what’s the matter with you this morning? Not had a row, have you?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘A misunderstanding?’
‘Sort of.’
Mrs Harris poured out a fresh black coffee. Jessica took it gratefully. It might keep her awake. She watched Mrs Harris toasting a slice of granary bread and spreading it with peanut butter.
‘Get this down you, miss, before you pass out on us. Your
face is as white as a sheet. I don’t like the look of it at all. It must have been something pretty awful.’
‘You remember Fraser? The unpleasant fair-haired doctor who came here?’
‘Tow-haired lout? The man I whacked with a rolling pin?’
Jessica nodded. ‘His wife turned up here yesterday with a pack of lies about me. And she has sent so-called proof of those lies to Lucas.’
Mrs Harris looked up from her pastry-making, her fingers covered in flour. She looked enquiringly at Jessica. ‘Proof? What sort of proof?’
‘Documents. One with my signature on it. It’s not true, of course. I didn’t do what she is saying I did.’
Jessica nibbled at the toast, to please Mrs Harris. Mrs Harris continued crumbling the pastry. She was a light-fingered expert.
‘I read a lot of books, you know,’ Mrs Harris continued. ‘Crooks can forge anything these days. They are pretty clever at it, make passports and identification tags. I’ll see what I can find out. If the wife is as nasty as the husband, then they deserve each other.’
Jessica found a wan smile. ‘Thank you, Mrs Harris. It’s Lucas I’m worried about. He seems to believe the implications.’
‘He ought to have more sense, not take the word of a pair of scoundrels.’
‘He was very tired last night,’ Jessica added. ‘Too tired to think.’
‘All the more reason for him to come home now and sort it out with you. Before it gets worse. And before you pass out for want of any decent nourishment. Look at you, skin and bone.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I shall certainly have some of that apple pie you are making. Your apple pies are famous.’
Jessica spent the morning walking Lady Grace round the garden. They did a little dead-heading. The flowers were coming to an end. Autumn was on its way, with more rain and cold fingers. Her patient was gradually becoming used to walking with a stick, sometimes quite briskly. She only used
Fred upstairs now, preferring to lean on him while she got her bearings first thing in the morning.
‘Pity he’s not better looking,’ she said once. ‘I might take a fancy to him.’
Jessica had to laugh. It was the first time Lady Grace had said anything that was almost flippant. She had a smart reply on the tip of her tongue but thought better of it. She still had to tread warily with Lady Grace. No crossing the social boundary without permission.
They had a light lunch together in the dining room but Jessica still could not eat. She was racked with worry about Lucas and wanted desperately to talk to him, to tell him her side of the prefabrication.
Lady Grace said very little during lunch. But while she was stirring cream into her after dinner coffee, she looked at Jessica with a piercing glance.
‘I have perfect hearing you know,’ she said.
‘Lady Grace?’
‘I can hear a pin drop. Yesterday afternoon, I heard that woman berating you. Of course, I couldn’t hear everything she said, but I got the general gist of it. What was she saying to you?’
Jessica was shaken that Lady Grace might have overheard what Amanda said. ‘She was accusing me of trying to steal her husband,’ said Jessica, barely able to get the words out. ‘She said I had been cheating on Lucas.’
‘And who is her husband?’
‘Doctor Fraser Burton. The tall, blond man who came here, who kicked your stick away, who tried to grab me. That’s him. He’s her husband.’
‘That piece of garbage? No woman in her right mind would want him, and certainly not you, Jess. What rubbish. What proof has she of this accusation?’
Jessica felt her face colouring. ‘She has hotel receipts and proof of my registering at a hotel with him. My signature is on the line.’
Lady Grace snorted. ‘And just when was this illicit
rendezvous
, may I ask?’
‘Sometime this week apparently. I don’t know. I didn’t see the dates.’
‘Absolute nonsense. You’ve been here at Upton Hall for weeks now, every night. I can vouch for that. Who else brings me my milk and digestive biscuits?’
‘I could have slipped out after you’d gone to sleep, driven to this inn outside Brighton,’ said Jessica, making it worse for herself. ‘It’s not that far.’
‘And been back in time for Lily to jump on you with Floppy Ears, first thing every morning? I told you I have very good hearing. It’s not possible. The woman is an outrageous liar. Like her husband.’
‘She is lying but Lucas believes what she has put before his eyes. He barely spoke to me last night. Left me without a word. It was awful.’
‘My son is a fool. A clever surgeon but a fool when it comes to women. He trusted his wife so I suppose he is worried that it could all happen again.’
Jessica didn’t ask although she wanted to know. The conversation had exhausted her. ‘Shall we have a game of cards before the children come home from school?’
‘Good idea. Whist or bridge?’
‘I don’t think my brain could cope with bridge today. A game of whist would be best.’
‘I shall certainly beat you then.’
The afternoon raced by till Daniel and Lily arrived home from school, but Jessica barely knew what she was doing or what she was saying. All she could think of Lucas coming home, of having to talk to him, having to convince him that he had been sent a pack of lies.
‘Don’t you want any tea?’ asked Lily at tea-time. ‘Floppy Ears says you are not eating anything.’
‘I had a big lunch,’ said Jessica, lying. It was the first time
she had lied to Lily. It was a horrid moment. But what could she say? Your Daddy thinks I’ve been cheating on him?
‘You can have some of my tea. I’ll save you some,’ said Lily. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then I wouldn’t eat so much.’
‘A very good idea,’ agreed Jessica. ‘I’d like that.’
‘And Floppy Ears will save you some of his lettuce.’
‘Wonderful,’ said Jessica faintly. She didn’t fancy
twice-chewed
lettuce.
Lucas came home early evening. She heard his Porsche coming up the drive with quite a determined sound. He didn’t put the car in the garage but parked it by the front door. He slammed the door and strode into the hall. He went straight into the kitchen and poured himself some coffee from the
percolator
on the Aga.
He leaned against a wall, sipping the coffee, his eyes
sweeping
over Jessica coldly. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what have you got to say?’
The kitchen was empty, apart from the two of them. Mrs Harris had gone home. Lady Grace was reading in her sitting room. Both Lily and Daniel were already in bed, drawing and crayoning. It was a treat.
Jessica had been clearing up the tea things and making a salad supper for Lady Grace. She was slicing tomatoes and beetroot before making a light dressing. She remembered the day she had arrived at Upton Hall when Lucas met her at the station in the pouring rain. She had stood up for herself then. She would do it again, even if it meant losing Lucas, the man she loved.
‘What have I got to say?’ she repeated. ‘Good evening, Lucas, would be a polite start. Are you talking to me this evening? Or is this going to be more of the cold shoulder that I endured last night?’
‘Don’t you deserve the cold shoulder after the way you’ve been behaving? You really fooled me. The cool young nurse who is really a rampant sex-pot. Not exactly the right person to be looking after my children, and certainly not the right person I want to marry and to be my wife.’
Jessica started to lay a tray for Lady Grace’s supper. She put a lace cloth on the tray and laid it with pretty china, the dressing in a jug, the cottage cheese salad on a plate. She put a fresh wholemeal roll on a side plate with some butter.
‘It would be interesting to know why you have changed your opinion of me,’ she said. ‘I remember a dinner at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, quite recently, when you asked me to marry me, gave me a ring. A beautiful ring. A ring which you see, I am not wearing. I thought it was hardly appropriate after your behaviour last night.’
‘My behaviour last night was that of a man who thought he loved you, who thought you loved him. Who believed you when you said this Fraser meant nothing to you, but then I find you have spent two nights with him, this week. In some inn at Brighton, of all places.’
He said it as if Brighton had some special significance. As if she could only go to Brighton in his company.
‘Right on our doorstep,’ he went on. ‘Under my nose. When you knew I was working late, staying overnight at the hospital, because of the burns cases. You took advantage of the fact that I was not here. It’s a wonder that Super Stud didn’t sleep in the yellow bedroom with you.’
Jessica listened to the tirade, trying to keep her own temper. It wouldn’t help if she lost her temper. She put a ripe peach and a little knife on a dish on the tray.
‘If you’ll excuse me a moment, sir,’ she added the ‘sir’
deliberately
. ‘I’ll give your mother her supper and then we will continue this conversation. If you can call it a conversation. It’s more like an indictment, a charge of criminal wrongdoing. I believe it is my turn to say something.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Lucas said bitterly.
Jessica took the tray in the sitting room, putting it on the sideboard while she arranged a side table closer to Lady Grace. She put the tray carefully on the table, making sure that Lady Grace could reach everything. There were such awful stories of elderly patients in hospital not being able to reach their meals,
and starving to death.
‘Very nice, thank you,’ said Lady Grace, glancing over the tray. ‘Would you approve of a glass of sherry before I have my supper? It would be civilized.’
‘Of course,’ said Jessica. She went to the decanter of sherry and poured out a glass of dry. Lady Grace always used exquisite cut glass glasses. ‘Very civilized.’
‘Bring over two glasses,’ said Lady Grace.
Two glasses? Lady Grace was hitting the bottle this evening but Jessica did as she was asked. She put them on the side table.
‘One of them is for you, Jess. Get that sherry down you and you might not look so peaky. Now tell me, how are you getting on that awkward son of mine?’
‘Not very well.’
‘He needs some sense knocked into him. Send him into me, here. I’ll tell him that you never left Upton Hall for one minute.’
‘I want to prove to him that the documentation is false. That none of it is genuine. That I have never cheated on him. That it is all some ghastly scheme cooked up by the Burtons. Some sort of revenge.’
Lady Grace sipped at her sherry. ‘I have a plan,’ she said in a voice that brooked no rejection. ‘I phoned Arthur earlier today and he is coming over for a game of bridge this evening. You were hardly concentrating on that whist this afternoon. We can keep an eye on Daniel and Lily for a couple of hours, though I draw the line at reading them stories.’
‘So?’ Jessica could not guess what was coming.
‘Lucas can drive you over to this hotel, or whatever it is in Brighton, and sort it out, once and for all. Someone must remember whether they saw you. Take the documents, see if they are genuine or not. Mrs Harris told me this afternoon that they can do wonders with photocopying these days. She read it in a book.’