Chapter Twenty-Eight
The sisters were sitting in the solar, with the fire burning. It was June and the heating was off but a sudden cold snap had encouraged Seb to light a fire for the girls. He was naturally protective of Ari at the best of times, but now she was carrying his child he was permanently on tenterhooks. He was also concerned about Paddy; when she had come back from the doctors the previous month, she had looked so broken he thought she must have lost the baby. Ari filled him in about her fears and once again he was amazed at what his wife had gone through to keep her family together. Paddy had been shaky for a few weeks but over the last few days she had begun to perk up and he hoped she was through the worst of her fears and self-doubt. As Paddy recovered, Ari started to regain her happiness as well. Now she was flicking through the latest edition of Hello!
‘Oh dear. I’m not convinced by her choice of bridesmaids’ dresses, are you? It’s a definite sort of woman who chooses to make herself look better by making her apparent best friends look worse.’
Leaning over she showed Paddy the photograph of a beautiful bride surrounded by three friends that were desperately trying to overcome their turquoise ruffles. A perfectly fine look on a bikini in the Bahamas or an 80s theme party but rather harder to pull off on a full-length taffeta bridesmaid gown.
Paddy stared at the image in horror.
Oblivious to Paddy’s reaction, Ari continued, ‘I bet she’s the sort of bride that issues her guests with instructions. And would you look at her dress! I must be getting old.’
Surprised by her sister’s lack of response she looked at her, as Paddy’s face lost all its colour.
‘Oh God, are you going to be sick? Hang on.’
Ariana ran out of the room in search of a bucket. Paddy took one final look at Bianca’s smug face beaming in victory and threw the magazine on the fire. A huge wave of nausea overtook her that had nothing to do with her pregnancy and she retched into the pretty wastepaper bin. Upset that Ari would be furious, she couldn’t stop crying and then threw up again as Ari came in with a bucket.
‘I’m so sorry. I’ve ruined your bin.’ Paddy started to sob. ‘I ruin everything. My life is such a mess.’
Consoling her sister, Ari chided herself for being a fool. What sort of an insensitive idiot would show wedding photos to someone who desperately wanted her own happily ever after?
***
That evening, Seb came back from his meetings and asked Ari how the day had been. After she had filled him in, Seb could see Ari had once again lost her sparkle. She was the same when the boys were ill. She hated it when she couldn’t fix a problem. Grain yields, planning applications, legal disputes, these things were child’s play to his indomitable wife, but a bruised knee or a broken heart completely destroyed her. He was amazed she hadn’t shaken the father’s name out of Paddy and said so.
‘And what good would that do? Could I insist that he make an honourable woman of her? What would that solve? Just heap on more misery, why not. I can’t believe I was so stupid as to show her wedding pictures.’
Seb was about to point out that snapping at him wouldn’t fix anything either, but he bit his tongue. He could see his wife was utterly strung out.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I’ve been thinking about it all day and I think I’m going to invite her to move in with us. Not just for Christmas. What do you think? Tregiskey seems to be ticking along just fine and I think I’ve probably asked too much of Paddy. She always was the dreamer amongst us and the least able to handle bad news. Now with the baby, I want her amongst family.’ She looked at Seb, who was smiling.
‘I think it’s a super idea and was going to suggest the same thing. But if she continues to play Mahler at top volume maybe we could offer her the Summer Cottage?’
***
Ari was out in the gardens enjoying the sunshine. She’d picked some flowers for the house and was now inspecting the greenhouse to see if she could rustle up some fruit for this evening’s pudding. She was thoroughly enjoying Norfolk in the summer. She and Paddy had gone on lots of excursions with the boys and had enjoyed exploring the county. They had played in Norwich Castle dropping pennies down the well, visited the seals on the north coast and gone kayaking on the Broads. However, in amongst that she had to balance the fun with her job. In a minute she’d need to return to the office to carry on with the paperwork, but for now this was a little stolen moment of pleasure. As she stood up from the strawberry beds she saw Paddy approach her with a large smile on her face.
‘Ari. I think I need to go back to Cornwall. I need to set up a few things to get the project running. The change of use has been granted and there’s stuff to do. Plus, I’m also missing it. And I guess I need to speak to Baby’s father.’
Ari watched as her sister leant against the frame of the greenhouse. She wanted to get these planning development forms off, but she’d been waiting for this moment for weeks and she wasn’t about to put it off for something as tedious as paperwork.
‘Come on, let’s go for a walk. We can stop for lunch along the way as well.’
Paddy had had to give up breakfast completely, even the lemon water was making her sick. Handing the flowers and fruit over to one of the gardeners, Ari linked her arm through Paddy’s and the pair made their way down to one of the lower footpaths.
‘Right, let’s hear all about it. Where do you want to start? How much you love him and how miserable that’s making you? Or how you are planning to live when Baby arrives?’
‘Bloody hell, Ari. Don’t bother pulling any punches, will you?’
‘Well, okay. Does he want the baby? Is he going to support you?’
‘Don’t know. Don’t suppose his wife will allow that.’
Ari was confused. ‘But you’re his wife?’
Paddy sighed. She had managed to come to terms with it over the past forty-eight hours, although it had shaken her to her core. She had completely misjudged Hal.
‘He got married last week. I saw it in one of your magazines. They must have decided to go ahead with it anyway. He obviously hopes I’ll just fade away into the background. I was going to sign the divorce papers when I got back to Cornwall but I guess he just decided to jump the gun.’
Ari looked appalled. ‘But that’s illegal! Is he mad? He can’t do that. And you’re having his child for God’s sake. What sort of a man is he!? I’ll call the police!’
Looking over at her sister, Paddy looked tired and miserable, her smile slipping into the strawberry beds.
‘Oh I’m sorry. But honestly, you are so much better off without him. Trust me.’ She linked her arm through her sister’s and continued on through the fields. ‘Come on, tell me what your plans are.’
***
‘Ari, did you hear that?!’
Ari looked up; she was trying to wipe baked beans off Leo’s face, feed the dogs, and round up all the various bags for school. Thursdays always seemed to require more kit than a Sherpa could manage. Now William remembered that they needed eggs for science, with Leo contradicting him, and saying it wasn’t eggs. They didn’t need anything for science but they did need something round for art. It was the final days of the summer term and the boys were looking forward to their holidays. It was getting increasingly harder to keep them focussed on the tasks ahead.
‘No sorry, must have missed that. Something else must have been on my mind.’
Seb knew when his wife was having a dig and jumped up, heading in search of eggs and tennis balls.
‘Harringtons has gone into liquidation.’
‘Need more clues,’ she called out as she pulled out some tennis balls that Dragon liked to hide under the kitchen units.
‘Harrington’s. It’s a big private bank. Like Coutts? But older.’
‘Really? How does a bank run out of money?’ she paused. ‘Isn’t that the whole point of banks.’
‘No idea. Look do you mind taking the children in this morning? I’m going to change my plans and speak to Geoffrey.’
Ari finally caught up with Seb’s worried tone.
‘Is this going to affect your family?’
‘No idea. And look I’m sure Hiverton is okay, but you will need to speak to Nick as well to see if you are safe.’
‘Safe?’ Seb’s level of worry was infectious.
‘I’ve seen people lose their entire fortunes and estates when a bank collapses. Remember the Lloyd’s Names?’
Ariana looked alarmed. ‘No. What does that mean?’
‘Darling, I don’t mean to alarm you, but this is serious. There will be people out there who have just lost everything.’
***
Ari dropped the children in the playground giving each a quick hug and a kiss, reminding them not to drop the eggs and hurried back to the car. Sitting in the car park she tried to get through to Nick, but the line was engaged. She drove through the countryside getting increasingly alarmed, when her phone finally rang, she heard Nick in business mode.
‘Are you driving? Pull over. Everything’s okay but I need to talk it through with you.’
Ari quickly found a spot by a field gate and switched off her engine, pulling out her notepad and pen as Nick started talking.
‘Have you heard of Harrington? Good. First things first, we had no direct money or investments with them. I moved our money out when we first inherited. Didn’t like their systems. Far too much trust. A gentleman’s word and all that bollocks. But some of our other investments are impacted.’
Nick went on to explain how she had been feeling twitchy for the last few days and had started to move money quite dramatically. Sometimes at a loss. ‘I didn’t catch everything but I would say we’ve been impacted about five per cent through knock-on investments. There’s going to be some massive reverberations over the next few days and I want your blessing to move large amounts of money hard and fast without running it past you first.’
Promising to update her that evening, she hung up and Ari stared out the window at the wide green fields. Getting out of the car, she stretched and looked around. She had become so used to having money that the thought of losing it all made her feel quite giddy. Only Nick’s words had made it seem real. Thank God she had moved the money out. Once again, she threw up a little word of thanks that she had such clever sisters. Her sense of panic had lessened but she had no idea who Seb’s family banked with and hoped they were going to be okay. With a shock she realised they hadn’t even discussed Paddy.
As she got home, she headed out to the offices. Her uncle had renovated a nearby stables and they now worked as the Estate offices. Seb was on the phone, all his screens were open and his hair was a mess. Making a coffee for the pair of them she waited until he had finished listening to the other end and then with a ‘will do’ he hung up and looked at his wife.
‘Not great news. I think we’ve lost about a quarter of our estate; Geoffrey is beside himself. He’s blaming himself for our losses. I’ve never heard him so upset. He just doesn’t do emotions. Father’s blaming the government, the EU, the Chinese, the bankers, anyone. Thank God, you’re okay.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Ari, handing Seb his coffee.
‘Nick apparently called Geoffrey at the beginning of the week. She wasn’t happy about a small deal that a subsidiary of Harrington’s was making, so she asked his opinion on it.’ Seb sighed and sipped his drink. ‘Turns out she’s never rated Harrington’s and removed all your money as soon as she took over. Geoff trusts your sister’s instincts, says she has no veneer clouding her eyesight. Anyway, he started to investigate her concerns, agreed that potentially there was an issue. He moved all our liquid assets, but the long-term investments were locked. He surrendered those that he could, at a loss. But like I said there was about twenty-five per cent he couldn’t touch.’ He sighed again. ‘And it looks like that has gone. Uninsured losses.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, darling.’ Going over to Seb she wrapped her arms around him and gave him a huge hug and kissed him on the head. Then she pulled out a chair. ‘Let’s start planning and see what is going to affect us and what we can do to help your folks.’
Seb leant over and picked up her hand kissing her fingers. ‘It’s silly but even with this loss I still feel blessed to have you. Even if I’d lost the whole bloody lot, I’d still have you. Some poor buggers though are waking up to find they have nothing left at all.’