Authors: Fiona McIntosh
‘Is that all we shall share?’ She hated herself for sounding needy.
Suddenly, they heard someone calling ‘Mr Ainsworth!’ repeatedly.
‘That’s Potter.’ Rafe frowned. ‘Over here! The side gate!’
‘Mr Ainsworth?’ Potter burst through the gate faster than they’d imagined he could. They parted as if burning embers had just landed on their hands. ‘Sir?’
‘Mr Potter? Is everything all right?’
‘Miss Stella,’ Potter said, lifting his cap. The poor man looked terrified.
‘It’s your daughter, Sir.’
‘Grace?’ They said it together and immediately Rafe began to run.
His stride lengthened as Potter yelled after him. ‘She’s had a fall, Sir.’
Stella grabbed Potter’s arm and they both trotted after Rafe, who had begun to put distance between him and them as he dodged around the gravel paths of the walled garden. ‘What’s happened?’ Stella asked.
‘I don’t know, to be honest. Mrs Boyd sent me to fetch Mr Ainsworth. We knew you were out walking on the Weald.’
‘Right, I’m going to hurry ahead. I suspect I’ll be needed.’
‘You go on,’ he wheezed.
Stella ran into the house and didn’t bother with salutations, hurrying past the parlour and up the back stairs into the main part of the house. She overtook Hilly on the carpeted flight, leaping up the stairs two at a time until she was on the landing of the nursery and dashing down the hallway. She could hear voices, which led her to Grace’s room. She burst through the doorway to find the adults – Mrs Boyd, Miss Hailsham and Rafe – bent over the bed.
Mrs Boyd was shaking a prone, seemingly unconscious Grace.
‘Come on now, Miss Grace,’ she was saying.
‘Stop that please!’ Stella ordered, her training from the department store kicking in. ‘Everyone step back.’
Stella shoved herself past a grey-faced Rafe. She glanced at the other woman, young and terrified. ‘Miss Hailsham?’
‘Yes? What should I do?’
‘I want you to call the hospital immediately. How close is it?’ Everyone was looking at the unconscious child, lost in their collective shock. ‘Mr Ainsworth! How far away is the hospital?’
He looked stung by Stella’s tone. ‘Three miles.’
‘Right, get the car started. It’s quicker for us to take her. Please – go now. I’ll stay with her, I promise.’ She glanced around. ‘Miss Hailsham, what the hell are you waiting for?’ The woman leaped away from the bed and fled, following Rafe out of the room. ‘Mrs Boyd?’
‘Yes?’ the housekeeper looked up, sounding tame for the first time since Stella had met her.
‘I need smelling salts immediately.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Hilly arrived. ‘Hilly, go and fetch the sal volatile. It’s quicker if you go into Mrs Ainsworth’s room. It’s in the top right-hand drawer of her dressing table,’ Mrs Boyd instructed.
‘Run, Hilly!’ Stella commanded.
She was now alone with Mrs Boyd. ‘What happened?’
‘Slipped on the bathroom tiles, hit her head.’
Stella raised the girl’s legs off the bed and held them above the mattress. ‘Do this for me, Mrs Boyd, please.’
The housekeeper immediately obliged as Stella moved to take Grace’s tiny wrist.
‘She’s got a strong pulse and she’s breathing so her air passages aren’t restricted but let’s turn her on her side to be sure. I presume she’s in a dressing-gown because she’d just got out of the bath?’ she said, smoothing back the child’s slightly damp hair.
Mrs Boyd nodded. She too had turned ashen. ‘What shall I tell her mother?’
‘It was an accident. Grace will be fine – just reassure Mrs Ainsworth so she doesn’t panic like everyone else around here. Over here, Hilly, please,’ she said to the maid who hurried back into the room. ‘You can put her feet down now, Mrs Boyd. Best you go make the phone call.’
Grace was shifted onto her side.
Stella took the tiny crystal bottle with its silver stopper from Hilly; even in her hurry she had time to think that Beatrice managed to make even smelling salts appear elegant. She opened it and gave a gentle sniff from a distance. In spite of her caution the ammonia made her head snap back. ‘Hmm, very fresh.’ She held the small bottle well beneath Grace’s nostrils and soon enough the little girl coughed and spluttered back to life, pushing at Stella’s hand.
‘There you are, dear Grace,’ she murmured gently.
Grace’s eyelids batted open but only a slit and she looked frightened. ‘What happened, Stella?’ she lisped.
Stella smiled for her, grateful that her student’s wits were intact. ‘I think you slipped over, darling. Does anything hurt?’
Grace nodded. ‘My arm. My head.’
‘Which arm, this one?’
Grace nodded. ‘A lot.’
Its alignment looked odd and swelling had begun. Stella suspected a break but didn’t want to add more alarm. ‘I won’t touch it, I promise. Your head. Is it hurting because it feels like you bumped it, or is it feeling blurry?’
‘Both,’ Grace replied and her eyes watered.
‘Grace, I think we should go to the hospital and have a doctor just check you over.’ As she said this, Rafe returned.
‘Gracie,’ he breathed and was suddenly kneeling down beside her. He took her uninjured hand and kissed it. ‘Oh, Skipper, you worried me.’
Stella could smell his fear; even though it was a cool afternoon, he was perspiring and it was the scent of things woody as though his exertions had warmed up his shaving cologne. She suddenly wanted to kiss him again as she watched him stroke his child’s head with his long fingers and whisper something that made the little girl grin shyly in spite of the pain.
‘The car’s ready. Come on, Skip, I’m going to carry you down the stairs.’
‘Be careful,’ Stella whispered for his hearing. ‘I think her arm is broken and she may have concussion.’
He gave her a soft look of despair. ‘Can you come with us?’
She nodded.
‘Mrs Boyd?’
‘Yes, Sir?’
‘Phone my wife immediately. She should probably come home.’
‘Miss Myles told me to do that and I’ve already phoned, Sir. Shall I ask Mr Potter to leave now for London?’
‘No, the train is probably quicker. Have him pick them up from Tunbridge Wells Station.’
She nodded and stood like a guard at the door as they moved carefully with Grace. Mrs Boyd followed them down the stairs and again acted as sentinel until she saw them seated in the back of the car.
‘Oh, Miss Myles, you’re going too?’
‘Yes, I’ve asked her to accompany me. Grace won’t be parted from Stella,’ Rafe lied, to throw the curious housekeeper off. ‘Now, drive on, Potter – Pembury, I’m presuming. Close the window, please.’
John Potter rolled the car on the gravel and headed around the great circular drive, reaching backwards to close off the glass window between the back and the front of the car.
‘Is that wise?’
‘It’s normal, Stella.’
‘Is it normal to have staff in the back of the car with you?’
He gave her a sidelong look of reproach. ‘These are unusual circumstances, you’d agree.’
‘Tongues will wag.’
‘Let them.’ He pushed his hair back. ‘Bloody hell!’
She flinched. ‘Grace will be all right, I promise.’ Stella wanted to reassure him by touching his hand, instead she moved as close as she dared by stroking the little girl’s forehead. She seemed to be dozing.
‘How can you promise that? Have you seen the egg on the back of her head?’
‘Yes. It does look tender.’
‘I’ve seen those sorts of injuries kill grown men.’
‘This is not a war zone,’ she admonished softly. ‘Even so, we should not let her sleep.’
They roused Grace, who stirred and mumbled at them.
‘Don’t sleep, Grace, darling. Why don’t you recite your daffodils poem for your father?’
Grace began muttering her poem and they shared an indulgent smile.
‘We’re not going to the hospital, by the way,’ Rafe said. ‘It’s all at sixes and sevens there because there’s a new one being built. And I don’t need any attention being focused on us.’
She frowned, his rationale was odd, but now she was concerned for Grace. ‘So where are we going?’
‘To our family doctor. Hawkin will know what to do.’
‘Your wife is going to blame me.’
‘I don’t see how,’ he replied tonelessly, looking out as they began to snake through a valley cutting through the Weald in an area of steep-sided slope.
Stella made a soft clicking sound. ‘Men. You can be so naïve sometimes. Beatrice doesn’t like that I’ve shaken her off. And don’t think I didn’t catch her murderous expression earlier today when you ingeniously brought me back into your employ and entirely under your control. Now she has yet more reason to consider me a threat to her family.’
He didn’t answer because they were emerging into a hamlet, rounding a large village green with a sign that read ‘Copingcrouch Green’ with an enormous horse chestnut tree dominating proudly.
‘Looks like a Turner painting, doesn’t it?’ he murmured.
Grace had fallen quiet again, her eyes opening and then looking heavy as she once more fought her doziness.
Stella didn’t answer, looking instead to the south side of the big expanse of the green and where the brass on an ‘Autombile Association’ sign on the Camden Arms Hotel glinted in the last gasp of the sun.
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ he said, turning.
Stella blinked. ‘I was just thinking – ridiculously, of course – what a romantic village this is, out of the way, and . . .’ She shook her head.
‘Perfect for a rendezvous?’ he muttered.
‘No, I . . . just . . . wish my life were normal.’
‘You’re the most normal person I know.’
‘Then I meant, I wish my life had more freedom.’
He smiled sadly. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Rafe,’ she whispered, glancing at Potter who was busily signalling a turn. ‘I can’t be the other woman.’
He didn’t look at her, turning towards the window. ‘You already are.’
‘I don’t want to feel this guilty but I don’t ever want to stop holding you.’
‘We are guilty. But it’s my fault, not yours.’
Potter was pulling into a long driveway of a large Victorian-style house. He crunched the handbrake, turned around and flipped back the connecting window. ‘Here we are, Sir. Shall I help you carry Miss Grace?’
‘No. I need you to head back to the house because my wife is going to need picking up from the station shortly. Check with Mrs Boyd. Stella, would you please go and get the doctor? I’ll bring Grace.’
Within minutes they were in Dr Hawkin’s rooms and he was frowning and tutting around Grace. Stella stood by the door, feeling redundant, but trying not to be distracted by the series of college certificates or fine paintings adorning the walls as well as various photographs. Hawkin with a pipe in his mouth and standing with jolly-looking people adopted a far more avuncular air for the camera than he did in his office where he stared into Grace’s eyes with his thin beamed torch.
He straightened and looked at her. ‘You’re Grace’s nanny, are you?’
‘Er . . .’
Rafe explained Stella’s role. ‘Miss Hailsham is Grace’s nanny.’
‘I see, well, it might have been better to have brought this Miss Hailsham who was with her when Grace fell? I mean just so I could ask questions, get the full picture, you see?’
Again Stella felt stumped for the right answer but she couldn’t let Rafe speak for her again. ‘I suppose I’m here because I helped revive her, Dr Hawkin, and Grace was determined I come with her.’ Rafe stole a glance at her at the smooth lie. ‘Miss Hailsham was really too upset to be much help,’ she added.
‘I see. Well, you were wise to bring her to me. Concussion can be subtle; the symptoms can look like all sorts of other minor ailments, from headache to feeling a bit nauseous. But it can also lead to amnesia, ringing of the ears, delayed responses and far more serious consequences.’
Rafe nodded. ‘What’s our next step?’
‘Where’s Beatrice?’ Hawkin queried.
Stella could tell from the doctor’s familiarity that they all seemed to know each other well.
‘On her way back from London now.’
‘Right, well, Grace is to be kept quiet. No running around, no horse riding or sports. She is to be watched. Any signs of slurred speech or unnatural drowsiness, vomiting or acting as though she’s in some sort of infernal fog must be addressed immediately. Don’t wait because it could mean there’s pressure building in her head – straight to hospital and call me too.’
‘All right. That bump?’
‘It’s going to be very sore and she could feel sick. No hair brushing or shampooing. She’ll need 24-hour watching – can you arrange that?’
‘I can do that, Dr Hawkin,’ Stella offered. ‘I have a current St John’s Ambulance Certificate in first aid.’
‘Excellent. Well, Miss Myles, your job is simply to observe and any worsening of any symptoms – even marginally – just pull the trigger and make her parents bring their child to the hospital.’
‘I’ll do that.’
‘Right. She’s probably going to be teary and potentially irritable but nothing that a bowl of ice-cream couldn’t help with. As for the studies you were brought on to assist with, there’ll be none of that for a while. I would cancel any holiday tutoring, Ainsworth; young Grace is going to need peace and calm days. This could take a week to settle down and another week or two to heal fully,’ he said. ‘Children are amazingly resilient but I think lessons are out of the question in this instance.’
Rafe shared another glance over the shoulder of the doctor, this time looking as dismayed as she also felt.
Hawkin gave them a ride home in his car as he was en route to some house calls in their district. This time Grace sat curled up in Stella’s arms while her father listened to the amiable chatter of the doctor. Stella watched Rafe’s profile, the square line of his jaw grinding as he politely paid attention to Hawkin’s opinion about the West Indian cricket team that was touring from this month.
‘. . . and of course Sussex is playing Cambridge next month – that will be interesting.’ Hawkin said, taking a puff on his pipe.
‘Yes,’ Rafe answered and Stella thought he sounded so far away that she wondered how his body remained upright in the car.
‘Here we are, old man,’ Hawkin finally said, his wheels grinding gently on the gravel of the Harp’s End drive. ‘Good luck with Beatrice.’
Rafe returned to the present she noted as he smiled weakly. ‘Thanks, Howard.’
It was another confrontation – broken only by the memory of a kiss that needed no words either side of it – and here they were again. The simmering anger was identical to this morning, all of it emanating from Beatrice, and Stella’s only sense of relief was that the smirking Georgina was surprisingly absent.
They were clustered in Grace’s bedroom, a large and, Stella thought, draughty chamber, but it reminded her of the nursery with its eclectic clutter that was displayed on every surface. She could see that beneath the shells and pebbles, the teddy bears and finger puppets, the drawings and jars of crayons, necklaces of dried flowers and a crude tea set made of clay with a child’s fingerprints dried into the terracotta, that Beatrice had once hoped Grace would be a girl of the magazine-style stereotype. Whatever image her mother had planned for, with her candy-floss pink-striped room, satin bows, pink toile furnishings and cream enamelled iron bed with flounced white muslin so it looked as though Grace slept in a cloud, her child possessed Rafe’s curiosity and love of the outdoors. And as much as Stella could tell that Grace enjoyed ballet, she suspected she far preferred horse riding, boisterous sport and running wild on the Weald if given the chance, to anything her mother had in mind for her.
Right now the child looked small and pale, sleeping in that cloud of a bed, and her mother’s face was equally pale with lips marshalled into an unhappy line of disapproval.
‘I suppose you were on the wretched Weald, were you, Doug?’
‘I was,’ he said and Stella looked up in surprise that he didn’t stammer as she’d come to expect around his wife. He wasn’t even wearing his glasses, which she didn’t think Beatrice had noticed yet either.
‘Typical! And where were you, Stella?’
‘She was with me, Bee,’ he answered for her. His glance towards the pinch-faced housekeeper standing near the door told Stella that Mrs Boyd had likely already told Beatrice everything she knew.
‘I see.’
‘Do you? Thank you, Mrs Boyd. We’ll call if we need you.’ The housekeeper opened her mouth to say something but Rafe cut her off by speaking first. ‘Close the door, please, behind you.’ Mrs Boyd had no alternative but to leave though not before she gave Stella a look of deep disapproval.
‘Bee, Stella is not employed to bathe our child or even babysit her. She is here to tutor – that is all. This accident occurred under the paid watch of Miss Hailsham, whom you have personally appointed.’
‘Why are you speaking to me like this when you can see how upset I am?’
‘Forgive me, Bee. It is not my intention to upset. I note Georgina wasn’t upset enough to return home.’
Stella watched Beatrice’s hackles rise fully now. ‘Why don’t you try and force home a teenager who has, only hours earlier, been given some freedom in London?’
‘You are her mother, Bee. And she’s not an adult yet. You just order her home.’
Beatrice shook her head with closed eyes. ‘You don’t understand, Doug.’
He sighed as though he did understand but Stella could tell he wasn’t going to have that argument now. Besides, it had been his idea to send them to London. She suddenly felt horribly guilty. Until now she hadn’t but it was as though an invisible hand had reached into the room, its insistent finger now tapping her on the shoulder as if to say that she was the reason he’d sent the Ainsworth women away, she was the reason he was defending himself, she was the reason Mrs Boyd had been banished. Was she the reason that Grace was now lying hurt?
‘Miss Hailsham left the bathroom, Grace slipped and here we now are. No one is to blame, Bee, but as her mother I would like to think that you are not angry so much as relieved that our child is going to be fine.’
Stella stepped back surreptitiously, hating to share this tense, intimate conversation, and found the shadows. She stood like a sentinel, holding her breath, determined not to interrupt.
‘Of course I am. But, Doug, you know how I struggle with Grace. She’s like a mad puppy, always cavorting around and getting into mischief. I can’t stand the way she’s always humming odd tunes as you do. What’s worse, she’s added numbers or coordinates or something to them now. I have no idea what she’s thinking. Georgie wasn’t like that.’
‘Grace is a normal nine-year-old.’ Stella watched his mouth flatten in a way she was coming to recognise as a giveaway sign of his controlling irritation. ‘Actually, I suspect she’s probably more intelligent and curious than the average nine-year-old, but what would I know?’
‘What would you know about anything in this household?’ she snapped. He blinked and Beatrice stood her ground. ‘I do everything for Harp’s End,’ she continued. ‘You’re barely here, always secretly rushing off somewhere. To be honest, I don’t even know what you do. I tell people you work in the city but I’m also sure I tell everyone something different . . . he’s in finance, he’s a developer, he’s good with money, he’s doing special projects with the government. You see, Dougie, you keep me at arm’s length about your secretive life and yet you have the audacity to take me to task over the care of our children.’
‘I didn’t know that was what I was doing,’ he replied calmly. ‘But let’s both be clear that I would never take you to task over the care of Georgina – in that you are unblemished for you take exceptional care of her. So much care, in fact, that you’re afraid to confront her about much at all. Her behaviour this morning towards Stella was difficult to stomach but you let it go anyway.’
Stella wished he hadn’t steered his wife’s wrath towards the shadows.
‘Georgina’s attitude is fast becoming intolerable but you do not wish me to interfere. However, with regard to Grace, I think your mothering does come up wanting.’
Beatrice gasped, her expression filled with injury but also guilt.
‘Miss Hailsham is not equipped and never was to look after the needs of Grace. But she’s pretty and I realise that being around beautiful people is important to you.’
‘And you, darling,’ Beatrice countered, casting a sharp glance Stella’s way.
‘You are well aware that Suzanne Farnsworth chose our tutor.’
‘Do I? How come I never saw a shortlist? How come you did all the organisation with Suzanne?’
His expression didn’t flicker. ‘Because Basil Peach is my acquaintance and Suzanne is known to him, as you are also well aware.’
‘I’ve had Basil for dinner on several occasions. Heavens – didn’t we only have him over last spring trying to matchmake for him over cocktails?’