Chapter Fifty-Seven
Nobody cared about Lucien disappearing.
The medical staff at the hospital had apparently been glad to see the back of him because he’d been so rude. The police certainly weren’t bothered, to them he was just another runaway who’d decided he’d had enough of institutions. In their eyes, Lucien was old enough to make his way in the world.
Mr Grafton and Miss Selby weren’t interested either, they were too busy covering themselves in readiness for Lady Constance’s arrival home with her husband, Mr Butler.
It was only Edie who cared about Lucien but as she and Venetia had no way of knowing where he could have gone, searching for him would be a Herculean task.
Terry’s death and the burning down of the cottage at Hope Hall had held barely any interest for the local newspaper, giving it no more than a column inch.
The paper was far more concerned with a scandal that had broken about the Master of one of the Cambridge Colleges who had been revealed to be a Russian spy.
Edie had promised Venetia that she fully intended to complain to Lady Constance on her return about the way Mr Grafton and Miss Selby had treated Lucien, how they’d believed Terry’s word over his and how he’d been forced to apologise for something he hadn’t done.
Venetia hadn’t had the courage to tell Edie the awful thing that Terry had made poor Lucien do, she wasn’t sure that Edie would even understand, and besides Venetia had promised her friend never to tell anyone.
‘I can’t see that speaking to Lady Constance will do any good,’ Venetia had said miserably.
‘Mr Grafton will claim he was right, he might even say Lucien had confessed to him that he had taken the money which was why he then made him apologise. And that’s why he’s run away, because of the shame of being caught out. ’
‘He won’t say anything of the sort,’ Edie had said, ‘because I shall make Mr Grafton tell the truth.’
‘How?’
‘I have my ways,’ the woman had said mysteriously. ‘You just have to trust me.’
It was some years later that Edie had admitted to Venetia that her way of making Mr Grafton and Miss Selby tell the truth was because not only had she observed the two of them snooping through Lady Constance’s private things in her office, but she had also caught them having sex in one of the store cupboards.
Understandably Miss Selby had been mortified and had begged Edie not to say anything to anyone, especially not Lady Constance.
Hearing this from Edie, Venetia had finally understood why Mr Grafton had said what he had the night of the fire – This is the last bloody thing we need.
When Lady Constance had finally arrived home from her extended honeymoon with Mr Butler, everyone was shocked at the news that followed: she was desperately ill and had been given just months to live.
She’d thought her lack of energy was due to all the travelling and sightseeing she and her husband had been doing, combined with a chest infection which had stubbornly refused to budge.
It was only after she’d begun coughing up blood that Mr Butler had insisted she see a doctor at a hospital in Florence and she was then told that she had an aggressive form of lung cancer and it was beyond treatment.
The advice was that she should travel home as soon as possible.
Venetia was devastated at the news, and by the sight of Lady Constance, who looked a shadow of her former self.
She died in July of that year and her funeral was held at Farleigh Fen Church.
The older children from the Hall were allowed to attend and Venetia sat with Edie, both holding back the tears as Mr Butler gave the eulogy.
Standing at the lectern, his voice shaking with emotion, he’d looked utterly broken.
More bad news followed in the days after the funeral when Mr Butler announced in morning assembly that Hope Hall would have to be sold. Edie explained to Venetia that it was to do with death duties and that by the time these had been paid there would be hardly anything left to keep the place going.
‘But it’s our home,’ Venetia had cried, ‘it can’t be closed! What about all the children here, where are they supposed to go? And you, Edie, this is your home too, what will you do?’
‘You mustn’t worry about me,’ the woman had assured her. ‘I have my savings, and I’m sure I can find another job without too much difficulty. And anyway, it won’t be long before I’ll have to retire. I shall find a cosy little flat in Cambridge to rent and live very quietly.’
‘Take me with you!’ Venetia had begged. ‘I promise I won’t be any trouble and then I can look after you, you know, when you’re old, or if you get ill like Lady Constance.’
‘Now don’t you go fretting yourself about me, dear girl, I’m as fit as a fiddle, nothing’s going to happen to me.’
‘That’s what Lady Constance probably thought and look what happened to her!’ Venetia had said wretchedly.
In the end, and after Venetia kept up a steady stream of promises that she wouldn’t be any trouble to Edie and that she’d get a job and help pay her way, the woman gave in.
Venetia had thought Lucien’s running away and then Lady Constance’s death were the saddest things she would ever have to deal with, but leaving Hope Hall, her home since she was a baby, and even though she had a new home to go to with Edie, was just as painful.
Never again would she sleep in the dormitory with the girls she’d known for so many years.
Never again would she spend a quiet few hours reading in the library.
And never again would she play in the idyllic grounds, walk along the river, or hide out in the woods with Lucien, her best friend and soulmate.
‘That was your old life,’ Edie said when they set up home together in a small flat, not in Cambridge as originally planned, but in London where Edie had a job in a home looking after disabled children. ‘Now begins your new life.’