Of all the people she had thought might be responsible, not once had Romily considered Miss Casey. The woman had been as good as invisible to her. Was that the problem? Had she taken offence at people not treating her better? But wasn’t that of her own devising?
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if my father is involved,’ said Ralph. ‘I caught him and Miss Casey in flagrante delicto last night.’
‘Dear God, poor Julia. Does she know what she wants to do next?’
‘No. The only plan we had, and at my instigation, was to get away as soon as possible.’
Romily risked taking her eyes off the road to smile at him. ‘I remember you being impulsive as a boy; you haven’t changed then?’
‘In that respect, no. What will you do if Arthur contacts you to ask if Julia and Charles are with you?’
‘That rather depends on how long they stay. I can’t keep him from seeing his son indefinitely.’
‘You won’t have to. With the right help and encouragement, Julia will be able to find somewhere of her own to live. I’ve extracted some money from Dad which he assumes I’ve asked for myself, but it’s actually for Julia and Charles.’
‘What if she decides to return to her husband?’ asked Red. ‘It’s not uncommon for a woman who has been ill-treated by a husband to want to return to him.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ replied Ralph. ‘But she’d be mad to do it. Do you know, my father even brought in a so-called nerve specialist from London who drugged her to keep her from leaving the house. That’s how dangerously warped he is.’
Red let out a long exhalation of breath. ‘What kind of a monster is this man? And how has he been allowed to get away with acting this way?’
Neither Romily nor Ralph had an answer.
Forty-five minutes later, and when Romily carefully turned in at the driveway, never had Island House been a more welcome sight. What an extraordinary Christmas Day it had been, she thought.
And what on earth would tomorrow bring?
Chapter Eighty-Five
Fairview, Melstead St Mary
January 1963
Annelise
In the days and weeks that followed Hope’s recovery on Christmas Day, life had taken on a surreal quality. Fresh snow blew in almost daily, carried on an icy Siberian wind, and the temperature plummeted well below freezing.
Every morning when Annelise drew back the bedroom curtains at Fairview, she was greeted by an endlessly white landscape with hedges buried deep beneath snowdrifts and tree branches drooping with the weight of so much snow. Today, as she stood at the sink in the kitchen washing up the breakfast things and gazing out at the garden, she was entranced by the snow glistening in the bright sunlight. The sky was the purest of blues and the snow, so dazzlingly white, made her squint to look at it.
The weather had caused chaos up and down the country, particularly when it came to travelling anywhere. Thanks to the local farmers in the area, the main roads were passable, but it was a relentless and Herculean task to keep them clear. In some places, where the snow had been repeatedly pushed back and piled on either side of the road, it was akin to driving through a narrow gorge cut into cliffs of ice. Comparisons were continually being made to the winter of 1946 and 1947.
When Hope had been allowed home on New Year’s Eve, the journey to Fairview had been only marginally less precarious than the one they had made on Christmas Day with Romily at the wheel of the borrowed Land Rover. Three weeks on from that most memorable of days, Hope was still fragile from both her injuries and the effect of being in a coma. She suffered terrible headaches and her emotions went from high to low in a heartbeat. She tired easily and that made her crochety and impatient to resume her life as it was before. Privately Annelise and Edmund were of the same opinion, that Hope would need to accept that the pace at which she had pushed herself for so many years put too much pressure on her.
The washing-up now dried and put away, Annelise turned her attention to the coffee percolator. It was nearly eleven o’clock and Hope liked a cup of coffee and a piece of shortbread at this time of the morning. She had always liked routine and even more so now when she was banned from doing any work and had so little to do.
Under normal circumstances, Heather, their housemaid, would have washed up and made the coffee, but the poor girl had slipped on the ice walking home one day and twisted her ankle badly. There had been numerous such casualties in the village and Edmund had been inundated at the surgery. Their cook, Mrs Foster, had gone down with flu, so Annelise was holding the fort as best she could. She didn’t object.
Being busy kept her mind off the baby. Term didn’t commence in Oxford until next week and while normally she would have gone back well ahead of the start of it, she was in no hurry to return. If in fact she did.
Edmund’s reaction to the news that she was pregnant had been far from the horror and disappointment she had dreaded. He had immediately declared himself a fool for not spotting the signs. ‘Some doctor I am!’ he’d said. He really couldn’t have been sweeter. Which was not how he felt about the man who had been party to putting her into this situation.
With everything that had happened since Annelise had left Oxford to return home, Harry had barely registered in her thoughts. He had surprised her by telephoning Island House on New Year’s Day to speak to her. It was the only contact number he had for her. Romily had taken the call and said that she would pass on any message he had for Annelise. Romily had known that Annelise had no desire whatsoever to speak to him and had informed him of the fact.
Annelise didn’t care if it was unfair of her to keep Harry from knowing he was the father of the child she was expecting; she had to do what was best for her, not him. Had he really loved her, things might be different, but as it was, she had hardened her heart to him. Unlike her feelings for the baby. Every day that passed she grew more attached to the tiny life she was carrying. On the one hand it seemed irrational that she could feel anything for something she couldn’t see or touch, but sometimes as she lay in bed at night, she found herself resting her hands on her abdomen and assuring the baby that he or she would be loved and cherished.
The coffee now ready, she took a tray through to the sitting room where Hope spent most of her time. Stanley had designed this part of the house, with its large picture windows and French doors, to catch the sun from morning to mid-afternoon. Such was the brilliant whiteness of the snow outside in the sunlight, the room felt artificially lit up.
With a pair of binoculars pressed to her eyes, and in her usual armchair with a blanket over her legs, Hope was observing the birds pecking at the crumbs of bread Annelise had earlier scattered on the snow-covered terrace.
‘The blackbirds and robins have been fighting again,’ she said, when Annelise placed the tray on the table next to her, carefully moving Hope’s sketch pad out of the way. With her left wrist still in plaster, and her typewriter withheld from her, Hope spent most of her days reading the newspaper, listening to the radio and sketching. She had used up two pads already with delightful drawings of the view from her chair.