Julia took a sip of her coffee. “Did you know there are portraits of the two of them amongst the others in the stairwell?”
Mrs. K leaned forward in a small rush of excitement because she didn’t know. In all her years there, she’d never had the time to go sorting through the Sommersgate library (nor did she wish to get caught) to find information about the ghosts.
“Which ones?” she asked.
“Come on, I’ll show you,” Julia invited conspiratorially, grabbed her mug, they went out to the stairway, walked up to the landing and Julia pointed, “Those two.”
Mrs. K stared at two paintings she’d seen nearly all her life, even twice, in that time, had ordered taken down and cleaned.
They stood alone, the only portraits on the wall at the landing, while all the other walls were stuffed full of them, higgledy-piggledy arranged to get as many in the space allowed. They were also the grandest of them all, twice as big as any other painting. The man stood tall, looking a bit like Douglas, or at least he had a similar way about him even if the features were only a touch the same. The woman was dark-haired, fair skinned and lovely. He looked arrogant and haughty. She looked, as Mrs. K always thought, happy. She had a bit of what Mrs. K thought of as a Mona Lisa smile, as if she was content and had a secret.
“That portrait, according to one of the books, was finished only two weeks before her death,” Julia mentioned, indicating Lady Ruby Ashton’s portrait. “She doesn’t look like a woman who had an unhappy marriage, do you think?”
Mrs. K considered it. “I always thought, of all these portraits with their grim faces that she looked the happiest.”
At that point, Mrs. K and Julia could talk no more as the kids rushed through loudly, their voices ringing happily through the halls. Another change that Mrs. K welcomed but also caused great relief for it said the children too were adjusting to the changes Julia Fairfax was causing and, Lord knew, those beautiful children needed, finally, to adjust.
It was time for their homework and for her to start dinner and hopefully a quick apple crumble.
But later, when she walked around to put the house to bed, Mrs. K found Julia again on the landing looking up at Lady Ruby with a wondering gaze.
* * * * *
Julia sat at her writing desk going through her lists. Or, she was supposed to be going through her lists, but instead, she was thinking about him.
He’d done it again, left without a word or warning and now it had been a week since Douglas left.
This time, however, he’d called. Just once, but he’d called. Last night, when the kids were asleep, Ronnie and Mrs. K gone, the phone rang.
For a second, she didn’t know what to do. She was told by Mrs. K that the staff answered the phone unless it was in the study. In the study, no one touched it except Douglas. There was a complicated system of inter-comming via the phone, which meant you had to memorise which number rang to which person (which meant the phone rang everywhere with a specific ring that the member of staff knew meant them) or room. One was Mrs. K, two Carter, three rang only in the kitchen, four was Veronika and it went on.
Patricia always phoned when the kids were awake and not out at one of their scheduled classes so she could talk to them as well, so if it was her mother, it was an emergency.
Late Thanksgiving evening, her mother had the full briefing about Trevor Fairfax and Monique (not to mention Douglas’s actions, which elicited a “You’re joking! Well, well, who knew the boy had it in him?” and Julia thought only Patricia Fairfax would refer to Lord Douglas Ashton as “the boy”). Patricia had made her usual threats of arriving at Sommersgate House imminently to save the day and had been talked down by Julia at the last minute.
If it wasn’t Patricia, then who would be calling, Julia couldn’t imagine and how she should answer the phone, she didn’t know.
She was in her room, the phone on her writing desk (which could be called by dialling number nine) ringing insistently. She grabbed it nervously and said, “Sommersgate House,” as she suspected the staff would do.
“Julia?” It was Douglas.
She felt a rush of warmth in her belly at the sound of his deep voice and just stopped from letting out a little, happy sigh.
Then she shook some sense into herself. What was wrong with her? For goodness sake, he’d just said her name!
She tried to make her voice sound detached when she replied, “Douglas. Where are you?”
She assessed her tone and thought it sounded aloof and was somewhat pleased with it.
“How are the children?” He, she noticed, didn’t answer her question.
“Fine, in bed, asleep. It’s late, is something wrong?” It wasn’t late, it was nine thirty but she was trying to strike a mood.
There was noise in the background, people talking, just one or two and then they were muffled. When the muffling was gone, she could hear no more voices.
“Nothing wrong,” he replied belatedly and didn’t deign to explain the delay in answer.
“Then why are you calling?”