Chapter Six #2
“Is that a Yorkshire accent I’m hearing?” he asked. I noticed that their hands were still clasped together. “My mother’s Irish by blood, but she was raised just outside of York.”
“I’m from the Dales,” said Grace, her smile spreading into a grin.
“It’s nice to hear a voice like that in London,” said Dorian, finally letting her hand go. “Makes me feel at home.”
Colour flooded Grace’s cheeks. Maggie finished pouring the rest of the teas and glanced up at me from the tea tray, as if she was thinking the same thing. I cleared my throat and spoke before I could selfishly change my mind.
“Grace is new to London, Dorian – she doesn’t know a single soul around town. What do you say to taking her out for lunch and showing her around a little? How about this Saturday?” My voice didn’t sound my own, but at least I’d done the right thing.
Dorian beamed. “I’d be delighted to, if you’re up for that, Grace?”
She stuttered, glancing to me for help. It made my heart give a little tug to see her look to me for affirmation like that. I nodded, urging her to accept.
“Of course,” she said eventually, a little breathlessly. “I’d like that.”
“I’ve a function to attend, actually – just a little do in the afternoon with some old friends of mine. It’s a charity dinner, some dancing afterwards...does that strike your fancy?”
“It does,” said Grace, looking happy but flustered. “I’d love to go.”
My heart ached. I reminded myself she wasn’t mine in any sense of the word.
Certainly, I shouldn’t be feeling envy. But I did, and there was little I could do about that.
I was far, far too old for Grace, and now that I was her educational mentor, there was more than social expectation and age-appropriateness to consider.
There was her future, and what was good for her.
I had no right at all to pursue her, and that was that.
I clapped my hands together, smiling as if I was overjoyed to have paired them together.
“That settles it, then.”
Maggie left the room with a little smirk on her face, knowing just as I did that they had to be made for each other. She patted my arm as she passed, as if she was proud of me. Even if they weren’t perfect for one another, one of Dorian’s friends would be, and Grace would not be single for long.
I wondered, momentarily, if Grace had ever had a boyfriend. She seemed so innocent and yet also grown up, far beyond her years. She certainly looked virginal, with her strange, puritan dress sense.
“Shall we have our tea and then get to work, Dorian?” I asked. He seemed a little flustered, too distracted by Grace. He cleared his throat and came back down to earth.
“Right, of course,” he said. “Grace, will you be joining us?”
“She will,” I said, taking my cup of tea and standing by the fireplace. “She needs to learn the business from the ground up, and there’s no time like the present.”
?
Once Dorian had left, I took Grace into the office to go over some administration details.
I limped a little. Stress of any kind – even the irrational kind, like envying a young man for being so clearly enchanted by my apprentice – caused my back pain to flare up.
Not only did I have a slipped disc that caused sciatica, but I had knots and aches in my back from decades of working in the mortuary.
There was nothing to be done about it. Like most pain, I simply had to live with it.
Grace waited patiently beside me while I opened up our online banking and asked her to fill in the relevant details so I could pay her wages. She did so, her slight fingers typing her details out slowly.
“Did you have a computer at home?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Nothing of the sort. We had a small library beside our community school – I learned on that. My parents didn’t know.”
“They didn’t want you tapping into the modern world?”
She shook her head solemnly. “Not at all.”
“Were they religious?” I asked.
“No,” said Grace, wearily. “Just set in their ways, determined to keep the outside world as far from me as possible.”
She looked like she was holding something back, but I didn’t push her for more.
“Thank you for arranging for Dorian to take me out,” said Grace after a moment's silence. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Good,” I said, clenching my teeth.
I took over after she’d entered her bank details. Dorian kept our business accounts, but I was in charge of payroll. I immediately moved some money over to Grace, which made her eyes bulge.
“Nick, no, you don’t need to –”
“It’s just an advance, Grace, so you can get yourself sorted for the weekend.” I explained. “Though you look perfectly lovely the way you are.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
“There’s more to it, I’m afraid,” I said, getting back to business.
“You’ll also need to buy yourself three suits, some smart shoes, new blouses – I’m putting extra on top of what I’ve paid you as a business expense.
I’m going to give you the name of a tailor to visit, who will sort you out with everything you need.
You’ll be facing our clients soon, meeting with them to discuss details, attending the funerals to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Don’t look so scared, Grace, you’ll pick it all up in due course.
I’m also ordering you a work phone – have you used a smartphone before? ”
“I’ve seen them,” she said, toying with a stray piece of her white-blonde hair. “They weren’t common in the village. I’ve never used social media, nothing like that.”
“Good,” I said, finishing up my order of the phone on the website. “Those apps are cesspits. You’re better off keeping out of them.”
“Nick,” she began, softly.
“Yes?”
“Why did you invite that man to take me out?”
I paused as I was typing, unsure of what to say. I decided honesty was the best policy. Well, partial honesty. I turned to her in my chair.
“Because I want you to have everything you need, Grace, and that includes friends. I want you to have the life you deserve here. If you’re happy, then I get to keep you for longer,” I said, regretting that last part, but it was too late to take it back.
She seemed satisfied, at least, with my answer – though she looked down at her hands in her lap.
“You don’t want to be stuck spending your whole life around an old git like me,” I said, with a neutral smile. “Working together in close proximity with me is quite enough of a prison, I’m sure. You need space and freedom to be with people closer to your own age.”
“If that’s what you call prison then I’d gladly throw away the key,” she said, with a gentle laugh. “I’ve never been happier than I have been these last few days with you.”
I didn’t know my frozen heart could still hurt after all those years. I almost winced at the pain as it throbbed. I wanted to pull Grace toward me, hold her against my chest, and never let her go.
“You had a difficult start to your life, Grace. To lose your father, and then to take care of your mother for so long in her sickness, hidden away in that house in the Dales, all alone...my god, I couldn’t even imagine it.
It’s a privilege to give you this opportunity.
I want you to take everything life has to offer you,” I said, moisture stinging my eyes. “You need never be alone again.”
She looked up at me when I said that, her eyes flooding with tears. She held them, on the cusp of falling, but didn’t let them go. Instead she ducked her head when the moment passed, and blinked several times to encourage the tears to abate.
“I’ve noticed your difficulty walking, sir. Does your back hurt?” she asked, after a short pause.
“A little,” I said, remembering, then, what we’d talked about the night I met her. “But please, don’t – ”
“Will you lie down on this couch for me, sir, and remove your shirt?”
She asked me so plainly, gesturing to the long, deep red couch with mahogany feet and arm rests. My mouth went dry.
“Grace, it’s not necessary.”
“You won’t regret it. I’m very skilled at massaging the muscles. My mother would get terrible cramps, and I had to learn how to do it or else she’d be writhing in agony. You saw how I massaged the blood from Mr Lloyd?”
I had seen. She was very skilled with her hands. I nodded, though still very unsure.
“Then please, sir, let me do this for you. You’ve done so much for me,” she said.
“That doesn’t mean you owe me anything,” I said, trying to block the image of Grace massaging my back from my mind. “It wouldn’t be professional.”
I couldn’t ignore my pain, however, and it had worsened over the course of the day. If I wasn’t careful, I’d be struggling through tomorrow's schedule in agony.
“I’ll call my own massage therapist,” I said, wincing as another muscle in my back gave a sharp twinge. I grimaced, holding a hand to it, hunching.
“Nonsense,” said Grace, standing up. “I can fix that in minutes.”
Minutes? I looked up at her, wincing against another stabbing pain.
“Do you really mean it?”
“Trust me, sir,” she said.
Grace had certainly put a lot of trust in me, just by staying in my home and taking me at my word. I decided I owed her this as a gesture of my faith in her; our mutual trust and respect for each other.
Not just because I would so dearly enjoy her hands on my back.
I took off my shirt, unbuttoning it slowly to give her the chance to change her mind.
I folded it gently over the back of my office chair and laid, as instructed, face down on the couch.
It wasn’t my therapist’s massage chair, but it would do.
I was glad for my midnight weight-lifting, too, when I couldn’t sleep.
Not only did it while away the hours, but it ensured I was in my best physical shape for her.
Grace alarmed me by straddling my body, her legs either side of my thighs.
She began at my shoulders, her small warm hands working at the muscles like an expert.
She made her way down, focusing on each muscle, working out the knots.
It took all my strength not to groan into the cushion, it felt so soothing.
When Grace worked her way down to the slipped disc, I tensed up. Pain shot down my right thigh.
“Relax, sir. You’ll make it harder to massage,” she said.
The sound of her voice, and the feel of her legs surrounding me – not to mention her hands massaging me – was too much to bear.
I stiffened, grateful at least that I was face down, and she couldn’t see what she was doing to me.
I took deep breaths, in and out, and tried to relax.
Grace massaged with her fingertips, changing pressure when she saw fit, releasing it again when required.
I realised she hadn’t been lying. She really did know what she was doing. I was feeling so much better already.
When Grace began to rub my back in big, wide circles, a heaviness came over me.
My eyelids began to droop. I muttered into the cushion while Grace smoothed my back with her hands, caressing the whole space, sending me into a sleepiness.
My eyes closed a final time, and I found myself drifting away, into the best sleep I’d had in years.