Chapter 27
Eighteen Years Earlier
They were in the kitchen when Blythe told her.
She’d only just found out. Well, she’d known for a few days, in her heart apparently, and Rae wondered if, when her time came, she’d just know.
Later, Rae thought, she’d never forget that moment, crumbs on the floor, old Beanie, their black and white tom circling Rae’s legs in the hopes that she might sit for a while and take him on her knees and scratch his belly while he fell asleep near the warmth of the Aga.
It was the song on the radio that she really remembered the most. Radio one.
Her father’s station. Abba. Waterloo. That radio station was a constant background to the goings-on in this kitchen for as long as Rae could remember, it felt as if their parents had gone off that night and no one ever thought to switch the radio off.
‘Turn that blessed thing off,’ Blythe said and Rae reached up to the shelf where the radio sat between bills to be paid, and old plates arranged that they never used either.
Pappy descended into a morose silence. He nodded or shook his head, more than spoke, since Blythe told him the news. Blythe, for her part, seemed to have almost lost the power of speech – well as much as she was capable of such a thing.
Rae couldn’t see what the problem was – Blythe was pregnant, surely this was something to celebrate? Rae wanted to have lots of children, some day. With Marcus. Not that they were anywhere near getting married or starting a family. All that stuff was years away yet.
Pappy called Blythe’s pregnancy, putting the cart before the horse. It was all too obvious that he felt Blythe had let herself down and more damning – had let the Scott good name down.
‘I don’t care what either of you think or say, I think it’s the best thing that’s happened to this family in as long as I can remember,’ Rae said, as she dished out sherry trifle that it seemed no one had an appetite for this Sunday afternoon.
‘I can’t eat this,’ her grandfather said, and he pushed his chair back from the table and headed for the door. His car on the gravel drive outside was enough to let them know he’d gone back to Hope Square, where he could ignore Blythe more easily.
‘Oh, Rae, what am I going to do? He can’t stand to look at me,’ Blythe said, and if she was anyone but Blythe she might have crumpled then.
Rae thought she cried, at night, just as they were all falling off to sleep.
She’d heard the muffled sobs through Blythe’s door, but when she’d poked her head into her sister’s room it was in darkness.
So dark it was hard to make her form out in the bed, much less figure out if she was crying in her sleep or crying while awake.
Which was worse? Rae couldn’t tell for sure, but either way, it tore her up to see her sister so upset.
‘Look, we’re not living in the times of Jane Austen – these are modern times. Pappy will get over it when the baby arrives. You’re getting married, what more does he want?’
‘Hmph, yes, but to Kip.’
‘You do want to marry Kip, don’t you? I mean, you don’t have to, not if you don’t love him. I’ll help you take care of the baby if you don’t want to go through with it.’
‘Oh Rae,’ Blythe reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘You’re so sweet, never, ever change,’ she smiled sadly. ‘I adore Kip, but it’s hardly a secret that Pappy has never been keen on him, he told me himself that he hoped I’d do better.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Don’t be silly, it’s not Pappy who’s marrying him, the only thing that matters is that you love each other.’
There had not been a Scott Family wedding in the village since their parents, and even if Jack Scott was sullen and disappointed at home, as far as anyone outside his immediate family was concerned, there wasn’t a prouder man on Pin Hill Island.
He set about throwing as much money as he could at Blythe’s big day. His granddaughter might be pregnant – maybe not yet showing, but she would have the very best that money could buy. From knockout flowers to an expensive wedding dress – Pappy wanted a fairy tale wedding for Blythe.
‘It seems like a lot of fuss over just one day,’ Marcus said softly when Rae gushed excitedly over the arrangements.
She was storing a wine order in the open dresser that stood in a closed-off nook in the dining area of the hotel.
Marcus, of course, was helping her. He had begun by emptying out the stock already there and now, they were placing the bottles carefully by some system that made sense to him, but not to Rae, although, she wouldn’t admit that to another living soul.
Occasionally, Marcus studied a label, and she could tell immediately if he was impressed or if a bottle somehow didn’t meet his standards.
‘Well, you only do it once…’ she said then, because she thought she caught something in his tone, but when she looked at him, he was smiling at her.
‘Of course, don’t mind me, it’s just… you know Blythe…’
‘She’s not the sort of girl you could imagine having a big meringue dress and a string quartet during the wedding feast?’ Rae spotted another bottle with a matching label, picked it up and handed it to Marcus.
‘No, not that, but…’ He took it from her, brushed her hand and caught her eye for a moment.
‘But what?’ she was waiting now, because she had a feeling, he had somehow put his foot in it.
‘I just never imagined her to be someone who would be so laid-back about anything,’ he stopped, looked towards the shelves and then back onto the floor, trying to figure out what should go next.
‘In college, she was so sure of herself, so set on striking her own path. Blythe Scott was the last person I’d imagine taking a back seat and letting someone else make the decisions…
’ He shook his head and smiled, almost shyly. ‘Well, nothing like you.’
‘Is that a good thing or a bad thing?’ She was shamelessly fishing for compliments, hated herself for it, but there was something about him, she needed his approval more than anything.
She looked at him now, so serious in sorting out the wines, his long slender fingers wrapped around each bottle, handling each one so carefully.
He was like no one else she’d ever met before.
‘It’s a good thing, of course it’s a good thing, my darling,’ he said.
‘So, in what way was she nothing like me?’ Because she knew they were chalk and cheese, but she loved it when Marcus complimented her – it was like oxygen to her these days.
‘Well, put it this way, if she and I were here today, she’d be telling me how to do this job, even though I’m the one with the degree in hotel management,’ he laughed then.
‘I much prefer the way our relationship is even-handed, and you know…’ He shrugged.
‘I suppose, you’re more feminine, you know pure, more… ’
‘Ah.’ Rae wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she desperately wanted to take it as a compliment.
‘So, I’m more submissive.’ She giggled at the notion of it.
He wasn’t serious, of course he wasn’t, the days of gender inequality were coming to an end.
Marcus knew that as well as anyone. Of course, he was right about the hotel – Rae never wanted to be the boss here, whereas Blythe enjoyed ordering people about, making sure everything was just so, exactly to her standards.
Sometimes, it annoyed Marcus, and more than once, he’d told Rae she must stand up for herself.
After all, she too was a Scott, she should have an equal share of everything, but Rae just smiled at him.
He was so sweet, but she had no interest in the hotel.
‘Blythe has been around more, trust me, a man likes to be a man, likes to be the one to take care of things,’ he said then, a small smile playing around his lips and she felt her stomach tumble over for him. God, she fancied the pants off him, like she’d never fallen for anyone before.
‘Blythe is no man-eater, if that’s the subtext to what you’re saying,’ she laughed at the very idea of it.
‘She’s always been first and foremost about the hotel and the Scott family – even Kip has had to wait in line until she was good and ready.
’ Had she always known that about her sister?
She must have, because that was the truth.
‘How well do we really know anyone?’ Marcus said giving her an uneasy feeling that he knew far more about who Blythe really was, than she did. But he couldn’t be right, could he? The Hope Square sisters knew each other better than anyone. Didn’t they?
‘I think I know my own sister pretty well,’ she said then, because she loved Blythe, this whole conversation was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable.
She looked around the floor at the remaining bottles, decided Marcus could sort out the last of them and took up the box cutter to break down the cardboard that littered the dining area.
‘And yet, you were surprised when she told you she was pregnant.’ He moved closer to her now, whispered it in her ear.
‘Well, of course, I mean, it’s Blythe and…’ she stopped, watched as his expression changed to one of kind forbearance.
‘Exactly, Rae, that’s exactly what I mean,’ he said in his most soothing voice, and he placed his hand on her cheek, leaving it there for a long second before leaning forward and kissing her forehead.
She never wanted anything more than she did now for him to fold her into his arms and tell her that her world was exactly as she’d always believed it to be.
Instead, he inclined his head as if all he could do was feel a deep pity for her na?veté.