Sue for Mercy - Veronica Heley Page 0,59
finger to help J.B. if I didn’t want to, and J.B. apologised for trying to browbeat me, and gave me a pearl necklace. So I went to Mary Ashton for advice, and between us we cleared some of the antiques out of the house, found a gardener who didn’t mind growing flowers for cutting, and a cook who didn’t mind preparing plain dishes as well as doing the fancy stuff on occasion. Gradually Whitestones lost its fusty smell and began to feel more like a house. When I finished the sweater for Charles, I started on another for J.B., but after that it was baby clothes all the way.
Oliver Ashton came home with the first of the spring flowers, a gentle, white-haired, walking skeleton. All his family were there to greet him, including David and Inge with their three little imps. Free of disguise, David was a dapper, brown-haired man with an incisive way of speaking, while I liked Inge at sight for her calm, comfortable manner. I don’t think Oliver Ashton ever quite grasped how much Charles had done to obtain his release. I saw them greet each other, and my heart ached for Charles, because Oliver looked at his youngest son as if slightly afraid of him. I even heard him chide Charles for leading Ronald and David into criminal ways, at which Charles bent his head and agreed he’d been much in the wrong.
I cried on the way home. Charles tried to comfort me, saying he’d always known himself the least loved of his father’s sons, and that he’d never expected thanks for what he’d done. J.B. was waiting for us in the hall at Whitestones; before I could stop myself, I flung my arms around him and started crying all over again. Then we had some champagne and got down to making plans for the future.
Jane’s baby was stillborn, and she has been told it would not be wise for her to have another. I grieve for her and Ronald. When she comes to visit me I put my knitting away and hope my son will not demand too much attention while she is with me. I think Ronald will work her round to the idea of adopting a child one day, but at the moment she won’t hear of it. They have stayed on at Green Gables, and the firm of Ashton and Ashton prospers.
Oliver Ashton slipped away from life with the first of the autumn frosts, and all three of his sons wept as they stood by his grave. Mary Ashton did not weep, but lost so much of her previous sharpness of manner that Charles swears she has inherited her husband’s meekness of character. I did wonder whether Mary might console herself by marrying J.B., but Charles says she wouldn’t be interested, particularly since J.B. is so deeply in love with me. I do wish he wouldn’t say such things!
Our firstborn came into the world yelling for attention while Charles and J.B. paced up and down the corridor outside, telling each other that there was absolutely nothing to be worried about. Oliver John is nicknamed “Noll”, but he is all Charles to look at, and in character, too. There never was such a greedy, loving little beast. I tell Charles that this next child we’re expecting is to be a girl, but I expect he’s right, and we’ll just go on having boys.
I still see Bessie now and then. She is married and living in the house she picked out for herself long ago, but I don’t suppose we shall see much of each other in future, since we are to move to Brussels in six weeks’ time. Charles has landed himself a job on some Commission or other there; J.B. is coming, too, and we are to share a big house and employ a “bonne” to look after the children. Charles works a twelve hour day, and in his free time has started learning to fly. J.B. proposes to construct a hangar in the paddock and lay out an airstrip beyond, so that we can commute back to Whitestones at weekends.
Outwardly I suppose I’ve changed; I wear good clothes now, own a big estate car and have an account at three shops in town, and also at Harrods. Occasionally I borrow J.B.’s Rolls and the chauffeur to go shopping, and I’ve got over being sick with fright before big social functions. Basically I’m still the same. Charles and J.B. knew what they