REFLECTIONS

The kitchen is heaving with angry performers, shrill girlfriends, burly minders, random roadies and hangers-on, everyone pushing and shouting, flinging down wet clothes and demanding food and drinks. Anneke is nowhere to be seen as Margaret confronts Luke.

‘You’ll just have to cope with them, Luke – and don’t you dare let them into the rest of the house. It’s too much!’ Fighting tears, she hobbles out, slamming the door behind her.

Across the quiet hall, she unlocks the heavy doors to the ballroom, deliberately closing them again behind her and switching on the few remaining lights in the dusty chandelier. At last, some peace. She is exhausted. Her fields are full of shrieking youngsters, her ears are ringing with the raucous repetitive beat of modern music, and the smell of street food is repellent to her.

She walks over to the French windows overlooking the terrace, caressing their sad, tattered velvet curtains, once so lovely. Outside, the wind is battering the aged cedar tree and howling through the gaps in the clattering window frames.

Was this what she had spent all her married life and inheritance trying to save? All she had ever wanted was for Edward to love her, for their son Roly to be alive and happy, and for her family and friends to enjoy this beautiful old house. But it had always fought her, rejected her efforts, and demanded more repairs. Even the ancestral portraits glared down disapprovingly.

She had arrived beloved and secure, from her own family where she had been surrounded by adoring friends. Then she had met Diana who never accepted her as good enough for her son or society. Worse still, she had never been enough for Edward after the first few heady months. To the village, she would always be an outsider from up country, tolerated for her generosity and energy, supporting every local event, but never truly befriended.

And the children – life had been bliss when they were young, so happy and mischievous. She remembers the picnics by the lake, Jo teaching Roly to ride, and all the wonderful parties in this room, Jo and Roly skipping about among the guests, everyone dancing and laughing. She had delighted in being an indulgent mother. And she remembers being in Edward’s arms for that first dance at their wedding celebrations.

Why was she punished so harshly? Why was Roly taken so young, his whole life before him? Why had Edward seemed lost to her long before he died? And now only Josephine left, hating her.

Chapter 43