Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
It was Wednesday morning, and as I entered the dining room for breakfast the sound of Louise’s digital radio came from the kitchen. It was a local news bulletin:
‘The two unexploded bombs located in the Loch Crawe area are to be detonated at lunchtime today. Bomb disposal experts attending the scene have confirmed that the devices are now safely contained inside the man-made sandpit construction. It has been confirmed that the bombs will be detonated at one o’clock this afternoon. ’
Oh. Wow! That was great news. It surely meant I could go home later on today. I could return to Strath Ross. I’d see my grandpa.
There was no sign of Evan, Dane, Alison or Bennett at breakfast, so I drank my tea, crunched on my oat cereal and slapped apricot jam on my toast on my own.
Louise sidled up to the table out of nowhere. ‘God, Louise! You made me jump!’
‘Sorry.’ She was carrying a small white paper bag. She handed it to me. ‘Some reading for you,’ she remarked cryptically before vanishing again.
I set down my slice of golden toast and wiped my buttery fingers on a napkin.
Inside the bag was a worn, brown leather notebook.
When I opened it, I was confronted by reams of neat, looping black handwriting and the name Montgomery Johnson on the inside left page.
I turned over a few more pages and saw Florence Menzies’s name mentioned over and over.
This must be the research notes Louise’s Dad made about Florence.
I darted back up to my room to spirit it to safety before returning to finish my breakfast. I couldn’t wait to dive in.
* * *
Outside the dining room window there had been spring rainfall, and now the sun was making the remaining raindrops shimmer on the tree branches and the top of the grass like dangling diamond earrings.
It was as I was about to clatter back up the staircase after breakfast so I could begin packing that I heard what sounded like frustrated sighs coming from inside the study. The door was ajar. I then heard a few annoyed murmurs. It sounded like Alison. I was certain of it.
I whirled round and down the few steps towards the partially closed study door.
This time, I resolved to knock like a normal person. I raised my hand and gave the door a light tap.
‘Come in.’
I stepped inside.
I hadn’t had the opportunity before to take a proper look around. Alison and Bennett’s office consisted of a semi-circular glass desk with a caramel-coloured, leather swivel chair and views of the gardens.
Potted plants sat on the surrounding shelves in between family photographs of Evan and Dane; everything from the two of them as podgy, cute, gurning babies to gangly school kids and shaggy-haired students, and then more modern photos of them.
There was one of Evan in a rugby kit, his hair tousled as he grinned down the camera, and another of Dane on stage, his head flung back as he belted a song into the mic. Both pictures took pride of place on a shelf behind Alison.
Her eyes were glazed with tears as I looked at her. She was hunched over behind the desk.
‘Oh, Alison. Are you alright?’ Daft question. I could see she wasn’t. She looked like she was carrying the world’s problems.
She brushed her face with the back of her hand. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine.’
I hesitated before clicking the door closed behind me and tilting my head to one side. ‘Really?’
Her mouth trembled. ‘No.’ She slumped back in her leather chair.
She picked up a pen and tapped it on some papers littered on the desk in front of her.
‘Invoices,’ she croaked. ‘Every year that passes we all get older, and so does The Ramblings. That means the maintenance and repairs become more serious and more frequent.’
I hauled up a chair that was stationed in the corner and sank down into it.
Alison continued to fiddle with her rose-gold pen. The sun shimmered down one side of her troubled expression. ‘This house is part of Bennett. Who he is. It belonged to his parents, grandparents and great grandparents.’
I had grown fond of Alison in this short space of time. I wished my mother had been like her: caring and kind instead of the self-absorbed, unfeeling woman I’d had instead.
Alison blew out a cloud of frustrated air. ‘We’re like ducks at the moment: serene on top but paddling like hell beneath the water.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said with genuine feeling. ‘Isn’t there some way that you could generate some extra income?’
‘We need additional, regular funds,’ answered Alison with the backdrop of the tree tops looming behind her out of the study window.
‘I feel so guilty that Evan keeps contributing to this place. He should be thinking about his own future, not trying to save what is essentially in the past.’ She gave a tiny nod.
‘I know if I said that to him he’d dismiss it, but still, it’s true.
’ She folded her arms on top of her desk.
‘His father and I aren’t prepared to keep accepting money from him like this.
We need to think of something else, because in the scheme of things, it doesn’t feel right taking it from him, and it isn’t making a huge difference in the long run.
’ She let out a dry laugh. ‘I know Dane would’ve offered to help too if he knew the extent of our problems, but he’s always on the road with Disciple and doesn’t make a massive amount of money with his music anyway.
’ She allowed herself a small smile. ‘He’s adamant that will change though.
Oh, listen to me wittering on. I’m so sorry, Daisy. ’
‘No. There’s no need to apologise.’
Alison tilted her chin onto one hand. ‘I just heard on the news that those two bombs are being deactivated shortly.’
‘That’s right.’
‘So, I take it that means you’ll be heading home to Strath Ross soon?’
I nodded. ‘Yes. Today.’
Alison leant forward. ‘Please don’t feel you have to dash off, Daisy. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.’ She blushed a pretty pink. ‘It’s lovely having another woman around. No disrespect to Louise, but you’re young and vibrant. You bring sunshine into this old house.’
I let out an embarrassed laugh. ‘That’s very kind of you to say, but I haven’t felt very vibrant recently.’ I smiled. ‘And believe me, I appreciate your offer of allowing me to stay on, but I think I’ve availed myself of your hospitality for long enough. And I really do want to see my grandfather.’
‘Oh, of course you do.’
I stood up and made my way back towards the closed study door. ‘Can I bring you anything, Alison? A cup of tea or something stronger? A nip of whiskey perhaps?’
‘How about a solution to our mounting money issues?’
‘I wish I could.’
I slipped out of the study, feeling wretched on Alison’s behalf, and looked up to see Evan striding across the hall. It looked like he’d had a later breakfast, as he was coming from the direction of the dining room.
He spotted me and gave me one of his dark, unfathomable looks.
My stomach performed an impersonation of a washing machine on full cycle.
He’s a prat, remember? I told myself. A moody, stubborn one.
I gathered myself and brushed past him on my way towards the stairs. ‘Morning,’ I clipped.
‘Morning. Off out anywhere?’
I set one hand down on the top of the ornate bannister. ‘I’m just off to start packing.’
He blinked at me. ‘Packing? Why?’
‘Haven’t you heard or seen the news this morning? Those two bombs are being safely detonated at lunchtime today, and then the road will be clear up to Strath Ross.’
A strange expression clouded his features. ‘Oh. Right. I see. No, I didn’t know.’
I took in his blue-black hair and the way his brows gathered like storm clouds.
‘Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got things to do.’
I hurried up the stairs to my room, wishing that I wasn’t feeling conflicted like this.
I had to get a grip. Yes, it was ok to fall for a pair of irresistible dark brown eyes, but it was everything else that went along with it that I had to watch out for.
I was relieved to closet myself behind my bedroom door.
As I began to pack, fetching my toothbrush, toothpaste and body lotion from the en-suite bathroom, I thought again about Alison’s pale, distracted expression. The Lords had made me feel so much at home here. I just wished I could do something to help them.
I returned to the bathroom and gathered up my packet of flossers, deodorant and moisturisers next. I slipped everything into my big, quilted toiletry bag, before placing it inside the front cover of my case and zipping it back up.
What a hectic and surprising few days these had been.
If someone had said to me last week that I’d be sleeping in a grand, four-poster bed in a Highland mansion owned by a lovely couple and having my emotions put through the wringer by their gorgeous but moody eldest son …
and then, of course, there was Cayla. I had hoped I’d be able to reignite her passion for acting with my pep talk, but instead I’d made her dig her trainers in.
Cayla.
Just like this poor Florence, whom Louise had mentioned. Also a keen actress, who had worked here at The Ramblings before being sacked for something she didn’t do.
My hand stilled as I unzipped the main section of my case to start packing up my clothes. Montgomery Johnson’s journal sat on my bed, enticing me over.
I stopped packing, flopped onto the bed and picked it up.
I eased it open with the utmost care and began to read. His words about Florence’s vulnerability and her struggle to throw off the shackles of being a servant gnawed at me: the stigma of being blamed for stealing a vase from this very house and how that had overshadowed the rest of her brief life.
Her desire to be an actress.
Her tragic and untimely death at eighteen from pneumonia after having had to clean people’s steps in the freezing, damp cold when she lost her position at The Ramblings.
I forgot I was supposed to be packing and got lost in the contents of the journal and the tragic recollections of Florence and her past. I was catapulted back in time to the draughty Ramblings, imagining Florence’s raw hands as she cleaned and her love of the theatre with its mixture of jolly performers and the smartly dressed, moustached men of the orchestra.
I turned page after page, devouring the account Louise’s father had put together in so much detail.
My mind drifted from Florence to Cayla again.
If the two of them had met, I bet they’d have hit it off; two young women, keen to reach their theatrical potential, but finding themselves held back by injustice in Florence’s case and jealous school bullies in Cayla’s.
I reckoned Florence would have had more luck talking Cayla round than I had.
I stopped reading the journal and fiddled with the zipper of my case beside me on top of the bed.
Even though I had no idea what she’d looked like, my imagination conjured up pictures of Florence with long, conker-coloured hair and a dash of freckles over her pert nose.
She was dressed in an ankle length, grey, cotton dress overlaid with a white apron.
Her hair was secured underneath it at the nape of her neck in a tight bun.
Beside her appeared Cayla looking pretty, young and trendy with her loose, strawberry blonde hair and cropped jeans, decked out in a sparkly T-shirt and platform trainers. Both young women from very different times, but both chasing the same dream.
I gazed down at my case and then back at the open journal in my lap, the pages fluttering in the spring breeze.
Wait a minute.
I had a thought; very much a fledgling of an idea, but what triggered it had been Florence. It would capture a time in The Ramblings past.
The more I turned it over in my head, the more it took flight. This could work and bring in some extra income for The Ramblings.
It could be a regular event.
With growing excitement bubbling inside me, I picked up the journal and made for my bedroom door.
I dashed back downstairs.
I needed to speak to Louise, Alison and Bennett right away.