10. Geoffrey
10
That had been more difficult than he’d anticipated. Geoffrey pulled in a deep breath as he sat ramrod straight in the drawing room armchair that faced the fire.
Today the temperature was nudging 27°C outside so it was unlit. But sitting in front of the stone fireplace, where huge fires roared in the winter, felt comforting somehow. Would he still be here this winter to warm his toes?
He closed his eyes for a moment, hardly able to bear the thought of his wonderful house being knocked about by the developer who would buy it. But Bartie was right, there was no other option.
Sadly, Geoffrey hadn’t inherited his father’s business acumen, and the business deals he’d made a few years ago had recently come back to bite him. So, in reality, the fault was his. Brellasham Manor would have to be sold because of him.
You’ve failed, Geoffrey. That’s what his father would say if he were still here, his nostrils flaring with disappointment. But then I never did hold out high hopes for you.
The door to the drawing room was open and Geoffrey noticed Clara walk past towards the front door. He waited to hear it open and close but silence stretched and contracted around him.
Suddenly, she appeared in the doorway. ‘Can I get you anything? A drink of water, maybe?’
Geoffrey shook his head. ‘I’m all right, thank you.’
‘Mum is busy cooking your lunch.’
There was an edge to her tone that Geoffrey didn’t recognise. But he and Clara rarely spoke these days. When she was younger, he’d avoided her because she reminded him of River and what he’d lost. He’d asked once if she was still in contact with his son and she’d said no, although he hadn’t been sure she was telling the truth.
In more recent years, after growing used to River’s absence, he’d liked having Clara around. She brought some life to the house. But the damage was done and she often seemed to avoid him, as he’d once avoided her.
Clara was still standing in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot.
‘Was there anything else?’ Geoffrey asked, pushing himself out of his chair.
Clara stared at him for a moment before stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. Geoffrey blinked, unsure what was going on.
‘First of all, I’m very sorry that you have to sell this house,’ she said, swallowing as if she was nervous. Did he make her nervous? He hoped not.
‘Thank you. It’s very sad and, of course, I regret that it means your mother will lose her job.’
‘And her home, too.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, that’s another source of huge regret for me.’
He did regret it, deeply. Mostly for Julie, but partly for himself because it would be strange to live in a place that didn’t have her in it.
‘This has all come as a great shock to her,’ said Clara, clasping her hands together.
‘I’m sure it has.’ He tried to imagine how shocking the news must have been for his housekeeper. ‘How is your mother doing? Perhaps I should have talked to her in private about what was happening, rather than have her hear it with everyone else.’
‘Yes, you should have.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘My mum has given you years of loyal service, as her mother did before her, and she’s devastated by today’s news that you didn’t have the decency to tell her about beforehand.’
Clara swallowed loudly and clasped her hands so tightly her knuckles blanched white.
‘I mean,’ she continued, ‘first, your family wrongly accuse my grandmother of stealing, and then you upend my mother’s life without giving her any warning of what was coming. It’s not an acceptable way to treat people.’
Geoffrey narrowed his eyes. Not many people criticised him, especially not his staff, although Clara wasn’t technically in his employ. She helped her mother out sometimes and she was currently back living in the grounds’ cottage. Which meant that she would lose her home, too.
Geoffrey sighed, any fight suddenly going out of him. The whole situation was awful and this girl was right, he hadn’t handled it as sensitively as he might have.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sinking back into his chair. ‘I’ll apologise to your mother the next time I see her.’
‘Oh.’ Clara blinked, seemingly surprised by his apology. ‘Right. Well, I’m sure that would be appreciated, though if you wouldn’t mind not telling her that I…well, you know…’ She tailed off, twisting her mouth.
‘That you collared me in my drawing room and tore me off a strip?’
The corner of her mouth lifted. ‘Yeah, something like that.’
‘I think I can manage that request.’ His mind flitted back to Clara’s admonishment. ‘What did you mean about your grandmother being accused of stealing?’
Clara blushed pink and pushed a hand through her fringe. ‘I didn’t mean to mention that. Though I don’t suppose it matters now we’re all leaving.’ She paused before continuing. ‘My grandmother, Violet, was accused of stealing the diamond necklace that went missing at the same time as your stepmother, Audrey.’
‘Was she?’
Geoffrey, only a child at the time, was so sad and confused after Audrey’s death, he’d hardly registered what was happening around him.
‘She didn’t do it, of course,’ said Clara, frowning.
‘Of course she didn’t.’ He remembered Violet – a tall, thin woman with kind eyes – baking cakes for him and asking how he was in the aftermath of the tragedy. Had his father really accused her of stealing the necklace? ‘Violet was always loyal to my family and very good to me after the death of my stepmother.’
‘I’m glad to hear that she helped you.’ The anger was gone from Clara’s voice and there was a look of her grandmother about her when she said quietly: ‘It must have been a terrible thing for a child to go through – someone you cared about simply disappearing.’
‘It was…’ Geoffrey fought to control the emotions rising inside him. ‘It was a difficult time.’
Clara gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m sorry to have brought it up again.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, I’ve said what I wanted to say and you’re going to have a word with Mum so I’ll leave you in peace.’
She’d reached the door before Geoffrey said softly, ‘I saw her, you know.’
He hadn’t intended to tell her. He’d never told his wife or River or Bartie. But they’d never really asked about Audrey and that tragic day.
Clara stopped and looked back. ‘Who did you see?’
Geoffrey stared out at the garden bathed in bright sunlight. The weather had been very different that day. ‘Audrey. I was sitting at the library window and I saw her walk into the sea. That was how we knew what had happened to her when she disappeared.’
Clara was looking at him, with her mouth open.
‘I shouldn’t have been in the library at all, he added. ‘I was meant to be having dinner with my father but was excused to read a book because I felt unwell.’
‘Was Audrey on her own at the cove?’ Clara asked.
‘Yes, quite alone.’
Outside, a chaffinch was calling, and there was the distant hum of a lawnmower. But time was reeling backwards for Geoffrey.
‘She was standing at the water’s edge with her back to me and I could hardly make her out. I remember it was getting dark and a storm was coming in. I watched her for a while, and then she began to walk into the waves, fully clothed.
‘She was walking quickly and, by the time I’d got to my feet, I could only see her head and shoulders above the water. I called out for her to stop and she turned towards the house for a moment. But she couldn’t hear me, of course, and she began to move away, further out to sea.’
‘What did you do?’ asked Clara.
‘I ran to find my father, who accused me of seeing shadows, until he couldn’t find Audrey in the house. Then he believed me but it was too late. She’d been swallowed by the waves by the time we got to the cove. It was dark and had started to rain so visibility was poor. My father got local people out searching in boats and along the shore but her body was gone, pulled out to sea by the current.’
Geoffrey’s shoulders slumped. He had watched something unfold that he couldn’t fathom. Something that he still didn’t understand.
Clara took a step towards him. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago.’
But time suddenly held no meaning for Geoffrey. He was a child again, being sent back to boarding school soon after the loss of Audrey. His father had mourned his wife for a while but had soon married again. He wasn’t a man prone to displays of emotion.
Just like me, thought Geoffrey, suddenly seeing himself through the eyes of this young woman in front of him, who, somehow, was bringing up memories that he’d buried deep. But he couldn’t focus on them or he would be lost.
He couldn’t afford to relive the heartbreaking moment when Lucia and River had driven away from him and this house for the last time. He couldn’t dwell on the years of togetherness that he and his son had lost since.
‘Why are you so interested in my stepmother?’ he asked, his tone harsher. ‘You mentioned her the other day when you saw her photograph in the library.’
‘I’m not quite sure.’ She hesitated. ‘The truth is I feel a kind of…connection to her.’ A connection? With a woman she never knew who had died almost seventy years ago? Geoffrey noticed that Clara was blushing again, as she well might. ‘I’m really…I mean, I’m sorry,’ she stumbled. ‘I know that probably sounds ridiculous.’
‘It does, rather.’
Clara’s expression hardened. ‘I’m interested in her life, that’s all. But I am sorry if I’ve overstepped the mark.’
Geoffrey held her gaze for a moment, then looked away, past the voile curtains that were billowing gently in the breeze coming through the windows.
‘Perhaps it’s a good thing that Audrey is still remembered sometimes. However, I’ve learned that it’s best not to focus on negative events of the past. It’s far better to let sleeping dogs lie. And now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a lot to do, as I’m sure you can imagine.’
He stood up and strode through the room, past Clara, and let the door bang shut behind him.
How did other people cope with emotions? he wondered. How did they deal with tragedy and heartbreak? He’d learned from an early age to push his emotions down. It was either that or end up like his father. Though it was clear that, business acumen aside, he’d turned out just like his father in many ways.
Geoffrey walked through the hall to the grand stone porch and stood on the front steps that led down to the gravel drive.
He tried to still his mind by focusing on the trees bending in the breeze. The gardens brought him solace – they always had, from an early age – but soon those gardens would belong to someone else, along with the cove where Audrey had walked into the sea.
Geoffrey breathed in and out slowly and pushed his emotions down until he felt like himself again. There was such a lot to organise and he couldn’t afford to fall apart. He had coped with adversity at the age of nine and, later, when his wife and son had left him, and he would cope again.
Clara knew she should be working. She should be arranging flights to Geneva for the business team who had hired her freelance services. But she was currently at the cove, sitting on the rocks that jutted out into the ocean. The sea was lapping around her bare feet but she barely registered the chill of the water.
Her mind, instead, was filled with snapshots of what had just happened in the drawing room: speaking her mind, Geoffrey apologising, his surprise that her grandmother had been accused of theft, then his bombshell that he’d seen Audrey walk into the waves that night.
Clara looked around her, at the seagulls wheeling overhead and the sun-warmed sand. Today the cove seemed benign, as if nothing bad could ever happen here. But, once upon a time, Audrey Brellasham had stood right there, at the water’s edge, and made the decision to keep on walking.
What a terrible thing for a young child to have witnessed, and it haunted him still. Geoffrey had tried to hide it but she’d glimpsed strong emotions beneath his perpetually cool fa?ade.
Clara pulled the diary from her bag and ran her fingers across its leather binding. She should give this book to Geoffrey, whatever her mother said. It would upset him but he deserved to read his stepmother’s words.
She turned to the last entry: I’m cruel to leave Geoffrey. He won’t understand my actions at first or that his life will continue well without me in it. But Edwin will care for him, I’m sure of it. That’s the only reason I feel able to leave this life.
Perhaps knowing that some of Audrey’s last thoughts had been about him would bring him comfort.
‘Hey, Clara!’ Bartie’s voice drifted across the cove and Clara turned quickly. He and River were walking towards her across the sand.
Pushing the book into her bag, she returned Bartie’s wave and steeled herself for the awkwardness to come.