Chapter 26 #2
Michael was away in Brussels for the week as he so often was.
After a busy day in the office and in court, I went home, showered and changed into a pair of jeans and navy sweater, deliberately dressing down.
This was no date, I reminded myself, remembering the time I’d spent in the past, hair washing, making up and dressing just for Theo Mandeville.
It might have been March, and the clocks about to go forward, but it was jolly cold out, sleety and miserable, the sky leaden with the promise of more bad weather to come. I found my warmest jacket, pulled on my coveted pair of Uggs, picked up my car keys and set off.
I knew exactly where I was going – I could have taken you there blindfold – and pulled up behind a black Range Rover on the drive of Theo’s house. Was it actually Theo’s? I wondered. Was Sir Hugh still alive, or had it all been passed on to Theo?
Oh, heavens, Theo looked absolutely divine.
He came to the door, barefoot, and like me, dressed in jeans and a navy sweater and my heart stood still.
This isn’t happening, I censured my traitorous heart that was now beating wildly somewhere at the top of my chest: get back down where you belong and behave yourself.
I was saved from stuttering hello because, before I could speak, a bundle of black had me up against the wall, a black tail lashing excitedly at my knees.
‘Florence,’ Theo shouted. ‘Get down. So sorry, she’s still fairly young and not had the best training.’
‘I thought you lot trained your gun dogs to the nth degree,’ I said, recovering my balance and bending down to greet the quivering excited creature.
‘My lot?’ Theo raised an eyebrow, but I didn’t feel he was in any position to manoeuvre at this early stage in the evening and just gave him a look. ‘I rescued Flo here from someone down in the village – she hadn’t been well looked after. She needs a firm hand.’
‘I’m amazed you brought her down with you,’ I said, following him into a sitting room, standing somewhat awkwardly to one side as he bent to calm the dog. ‘Away from the countryside and into the big city?’
‘I enjoy her company. My wife’s off skiing and the boys are away at school.’
Of course they were.
‘Did you marry Susannah?’ I knew perfectly well he was married to Honor Double-Barrel but didn’t want Theo to have the satisfaction of knowing that I knew.
‘Who?’ Theo frowned.
‘That old girlfriend of yours in Leeds,’ I said, holding his eye. ‘The last time we saw her was in Len’s Bar when I came on one of the many weekends to your student house. She told me to watch out, that you’d break my heart.’
Theo stared and then burst out laughing. ‘Did she? Goodness, I can’t imagine why. Susannah? Oh, of course.’
‘Actually, Len’s Bar wasn’t the last time I saw her. While I waited all night, and most of the next day to see you at the hospital, she waltzed in with your brother-in-law.’
‘Susannah Donaldson. Goodness, you’re going back almost twenty years, Anna. She’s some sort of cousin twice removed from James, my sister’s husband. Lives in Canada now, I believe. Married to some high-up policeman over there, I heard.’
‘Susannah of the Mounties,’ I said, remembering the much-loved book Miss Ramsden had read at the end of each day to the class when I was in Year Five.
‘Sorry?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you staying, Anna?’
‘Am I staying?’ Was he asking if I was staying the night, for heaven’s sake?
‘May I take your coat?’ he asked politely. ‘It is quite warm in here.’
‘Oh, sorry, yes, of course.’
‘And what can I get you to drink? Wine? Gin and tonic?’
‘Tea would be good,’ I said. ‘Earl Grey if you’ve got it?’
‘I’m sure we have somewhere.’ He disappeared with my coat, Florence immediately following after him. Did everyone fall in love with Theo Mandeville, even the bloody dog?
‘So,’ I said, once he’d returned with tea for me and a glass of white wine for himself. ‘What did you want to explain?’ When he didn’t reply, I went on, ‘You said you wanted to explain?’
‘Anna, I wasn’t in a good place.’
‘Well, I know that,’ I said crossly. ‘But you shut me out. Totally.’
‘All I wanted was to play squash professionally.’
‘I know that too.’
‘But without that, without that career, what on earth was I going to do? As a squash player, I could have made my own way in life. Let Vivienne and James take over at the helm on the estate. You know I never wanted to take over from my father. I didn’t get on with him.
That’s why I’d gone to New Zealand the first time round. ’
‘But you could have let your sisters run the estate anyway.’
‘And what would I have done with myself?’
‘Found a career? Lawyer? Doctor? Vet? Like other people do. We all have to work to earn a living.’
‘With half a history degree, half a hand and a shattered arm?’
‘History teacher?’ I said, determined to find something Theo could have done.
‘I knew I didn’t want to stay on at Leeds. I didn’t particularly enjoy academia. Can you just see it? Sir Theo Mandeville teaching at the local comp? A posh bloke with a disability.’
‘Oh, don’t give me that,’ I said crossly. ‘You could have got a job near me teaching at one of the schools you lot go to.’ Theo gave me a look at the ‘you lot’ words again.
‘Anna, I didn’t want to be a bloody teacher. My fallback, if I hadn’t made it as a squash player, was always to farm.’
‘Yes, on the estate,’ I said.
‘But you’d never have come and lived on the estate.
You know that and I know that. If I hadn’t made it as a professional squash player, I’d have returned to New Zealand and become a sheep farmer.
That’s why I went back to Christchurch after the accident.
I hoped maybe that somehow you’d find your way – if I could have made a success of it out there – to come out to join me. Do your law stuff out there…’
‘What? In the middle of a whole load of sheep?’ I smiled at that.
‘Exactly!’ Theo said almost in triumph. ‘You never would have, Anna.’ Then he sighed.
‘Anyway, with this bloody hand and arm, I just couldn’t hack it.
I stayed eighteen months and, knowing there was no way I could build a life for myself – and for you – out there, I had to come home, tail between my legs. Extremely depressed.’
‘Theo, we all have to compromise at some point in our lives,’ I said now.
‘You haven’t.’
‘Theo, I lost you. I got on with my life. One big compromise!’
‘OK, so tell me honestly,’ he now said. ‘Knowing that I was going to be taking over the estate as my parents always envisaged, would you have stayed with me? Stayed with me and lived on the estate with my parents? Would you have married me and eventually become Lady Mandeville?’
‘We could have lived in a cottage in the village,’ I said mulishly.
‘Anna, you were heading for London. Nothing was going to stop you doing that.’
‘We could have seen each other at weekends,’ I went on.
‘Would you have come up to the hall, knowing you weren’t welcome? That my parents and sisters blamed you for how I ended up?’
‘Sometimes you just have to stand up to people,’ I said. ‘We could have worked it out.’
‘I guess, if I’d been thinking properly, we’d have found a way.’ Theo looked terribly sad and I wanted to touch him, hold him.
‘I loved you, Theo. I’d have done anything to stay with you.’
‘Given up your master’s degree, your law studies? Given up your London dream? You’re not a country girl. We’d have ended up living separate lives. I’d have lost you.’
‘So you thought it best to make a clean break from me?’
Theo nodded miserably. ‘I didn’t know what else to do, Anna.’
‘I loved you, Theo.’
‘Anna, I’ve never stopped loving you.’