desk in the office, not in the library.”
“The library desk's been sold at auction,” she reminded him. He received the underlying message this time: The Britton family's financial condition was a perilous one; did Julian truly wish to jeopardise it further by committing his time and his energy to anything other than the rehabilitation of Broughton Manor?
“Yes. Of course. Whatever,” Julian said. “Go easy with Cass. She's going to be protective of the litter.”
“I expect she knows me well enough by now.”
Do we ever know anyone? Julian wondered. He rang off. Shortly thereafter, the doctor arrived. He wanted to give Nan Maiden a sedative, but she wouldn't allow it. Not if it meant leaving Andy to face the first terrible hours of loss alone. So the doctor wrote out a prescription instead, which one of the Grindleford women set off to have filled in Hathersage, where the nearest chemist was. Julian and the second Grindleford woman remained to hold the fort at Maiden Hall.
It was, at best, an effort patched together with Sellotape. There were residents wanting lunch as well as non-residents who'd seen the restaurant sign on the gorge road and had innocently followed the winding drive upwards in the hope of having a decent meal. The serving girls had no experience in the kitchen and the housekeeping staff had the rooms to attend to. So it was left to Julian and his companion from Grindleford to see to what Andy and Nan Maiden usually did themselves: sandwiches, soup, fresh fruit, smoked salmon, pâté, salads …. Julian knew within five minutes that he was out of his depth, and it was only when a suggestion that Christian-Louis might be called in supervened upon Julian's dropping a plate of smoked salmon that he realised there was an alternative to trying to captain the ship alone.
Christian-Louis arrived in a flurry of incomprehensible French. He unceremoniously threw everyone out of his kitchen. A quarter of an hour later, Andy Maiden returned. His pallor was marked, worse than before.
“Nan?” he asked Julian.
“Upstairs.” Julian tried to read the answer before he asked the question. He asked it anyway. “What can you tell me?”
Andy's answer was to turn, to begin heavily climbing the stairs. Julian followed.
The older man didn't go to the bedroom he shared with his wife. Instead, he went to the cubicle next to it, a part of the attic that had been fashioned into a small study. There, he sat at an old mahogany kneehole. It was fitted with a secretaire drawer, which he pulled out and lowered into a writing surface. He was taking a scroll from one of its three cubicles when Nan joined them.
No one had been able to prevail on her to wash or to change, so her hands were filthy and the knees of her trousers were caked with earth. Her hair was tangled as if she'd been pulling at it by the fistful.
“What?” she said. “Tell me, Andy. What happened?”
Andy smoothed the scroll against the secretaire drawer's unfolded writing surface. He weighed down the top end with a Bible. The bottom end he held in place with his left arm.
“Andy?” Nan said again. “Tell me. Say something.”
He reached for a rubber. It was stubby and marked with the blackened remains of hundreds of erasures. He bent to work. And when he moved, Julian was able to see the contents of the scroll.
It was a family tree. At the top were printed the names Maiden and Llewelyn and the date 1722. At the bottom were the names Andrew, Josephine, Mark, and Philip. With them were the names of their spouses and below that their issue. There was only a single name beneath those of Andrew and Nancy Maiden, although space for Nicola's spouse had been provided and three small lines branching beneath Nicola's name indicated Andy's hopes for the future of his immediate family.
Andy cleared his throat. He appeared to be regarding the genealogy in front of him. Or perhaps he was only garnering courage. For in the next moment he erased those
“The library desk's been sold at auction,” she reminded him. He received the underlying message this time: The Britton family's financial condition was a perilous one; did Julian truly wish to jeopardise it further by committing his time and his energy to anything other than the rehabilitation of Broughton Manor?
“Yes. Of course. Whatever,” Julian said. “Go easy with Cass. She's going to be protective of the litter.”
“I expect she knows me well enough by now.”
Do we ever know anyone? Julian wondered. He rang off. Shortly thereafter, the doctor arrived. He wanted to give Nan Maiden a sedative, but she wouldn't allow it. Not if it meant leaving Andy to face the first terrible hours of loss alone. So the doctor wrote out a prescription instead, which one of the Grindleford women set off to have filled in Hathersage, where the nearest chemist was. Julian and the second Grindleford woman remained to hold the fort at Maiden Hall.
It was, at best, an effort patched together with Sellotape. There were residents wanting lunch as well as non-residents who'd seen the restaurant sign on the gorge road and had innocently followed the winding drive upwards in the hope of having a decent meal. The serving girls had no experience in the kitchen and the housekeeping staff had the rooms to attend to. So it was left to Julian and his companion from Grindleford to see to what Andy and Nan Maiden usually did themselves: sandwiches, soup, fresh fruit, smoked salmon, pâté, salads …. Julian knew within five minutes that he was out of his depth, and it was only when a suggestion that Christian-Louis might be called in supervened upon Julian's dropping a plate of smoked salmon that he realised there was an alternative to trying to captain the ship alone.
Christian-Louis arrived in a flurry of incomprehensible French. He unceremoniously threw everyone out of his kitchen. A quarter of an hour later, Andy Maiden returned. His pallor was marked, worse than before.
“Nan?” he asked Julian.
“Upstairs.” Julian tried to read the answer before he asked the question. He asked it anyway. “What can you tell me?”
Andy's answer was to turn, to begin heavily climbing the stairs. Julian followed.
The older man didn't go to the bedroom he shared with his wife. Instead, he went to the cubicle next to it, a part of the attic that had been fashioned into a small study. There, he sat at an old mahogany kneehole. It was fitted with a secretaire drawer, which he pulled out and lowered into a writing surface. He was taking a scroll from one of its three cubicles when Nan joined them.
No one had been able to prevail on her to wash or to change, so her hands were filthy and the knees of her trousers were caked with earth. Her hair was tangled as if she'd been pulling at it by the fistful.
“What?” she said. “Tell me, Andy. What happened?”
Andy smoothed the scroll against the secretaire drawer's unfolded writing surface. He weighed down the top end with a Bible. The bottom end he held in place with his left arm.
“Andy?” Nan said again. “Tell me. Say something.”
He reached for a rubber. It was stubby and marked with the blackened remains of hundreds of erasures. He bent to work. And when he moved, Julian was able to see the contents of the scroll.
It was a family tree. At the top were printed the names Maiden and Llewelyn and the date 1722. At the bottom were the names Andrew, Josephine, Mark, and Philip. With them were the names of their spouses and below that their issue. There was only a single name beneath those of Andrew and Nancy Maiden, although space for Nicola's spouse had been provided and three small lines branching beneath Nicola's name indicated Andy's hopes for the future of his immediate family.
Andy cleared his throat. He appeared to be regarding the genealogy in front of him. Or perhaps he was only garnering courage. For in the next moment he erased those
Similar Books
