Page 110 of The Christmas Invitation
It was probably a sign, though I’d no idea of what. And now I came to think of it, I hadn’t thought about my near-Icarus over the precipice for at least half an hour.
Clara
Married life heralded a new phase in our relationship.
Henry’s mother had left him what money was secured to her, since George would inherit the Underhill estate, an arrangement that must have seemed eminently fair at the time.
Henry had entrusted his legacy to an old school friend to invest. His trust had not been misplaced and we were able to buy a tiny flat near the British Museum, where I now worked. We even had household help, in the form of our good friend Den, who had attached himself to Henry during one of his trips to Greece.
Having absorbed from the wider world all that he needed, Henry began to focus more on the past: he was continually drawn back to Starstone Edge – indeed, it always exerted a pull on both of us.
I consolidated my professional standing and wrote papers, articles and books, while frequently being called in for my opinion by museums, galleries, private collectors and archaeological digs.
I had another string to my bow, too. In the first year of our marriage I had written, purely for fun, a crime novel, my heroine being an epigrapher not entirely unlike myself. It had found a publisher and my subsequent yearly offerings built up a surprising following.
Henry, for the most part, divided his time between the flat and Underhill, while his father still lived, though he avoided Underhill when George was visiting, so far as possible.
Henry’s first poetry collection had been met with wonderful reviews and great acclaim and he was embarking on the second. His reputation as a poet grew, despite his refusing to do any kind of public event, other than radio broadcasts, reading his own works.
We had many friends in London and our years spent living there were extremely happy.
As our careers took off, we were aware from the media that so too did Nessa Cassidy’s, in the States. She espoused a militant form of feminism, lived openly with a female lover, Suzanne Dell (also a writer), and her book, The Butterfly Kiss: A History of the Suppression of Female Love,became a runaway bestseller.
It did bring back the past and made us think of that little girl out there in the world, whom we would never know. But we were pleased that Nessa appeared to have found love and forged a career for herself. The book was well written, though I felt she often relied on conjecture, rather than fact, when dealing with the past. However, the dead could not sue her, of course.
Henry’s father died suddenly and George inherited the Underhill estate, which made visiting difficult. It was not that we weren’t welcome to stay, but we were not keen on the company of George and his cronies, especially one, Piers Marten, who seemed to encourage George to drink and gamble to excess. Not that he needed much encouraging. There were also some unsavoury tales about what the pair of them got up to abroad …
Now a widower, George spent a lot of time on the Riviera or at Monte Carlo, where the money ran through his fingers like sand.
He fancied himself an expert on investments, and though Henry advised him to let his own broker handle them, it was to no avail.
30
Advent
With everything that had happened – more than enough not only to make my head spin, but entirely rotate like something fromThe Exorcist– I hadn’t expected to sleep well that night. But I must have been exhausted by all the emotional turmoil, because I went out as soon as my head touched the pillow and the next thing I knew, it was early morning.
I lay there, mentally shuffling through the events of the previous day like a deck of cards and picking out a random selection.
Did I fall, or was I pushed?
The ceremony had been a strangely surreal experience, as if we’d all passed through a portal into a darker and more mysterious past, where anything might happen. But unless the villagers harboured a homicidal maniac among their number (probably something they would have noticed by now), my imagination must have gone into overdrive.
The unwelcome appearance of Rollo while I was still in a state of shock had only added to the element of unreality. Then there were Flora’s relationship issues with Mark and what seemed like his renewal of an uncousinly interest in me …
Sybil, too, had definitely been hinting that she hoped Mark and I had a future together … Perhaps she felt if we married it would neatly legitimize my place in the family?
But real life tends not to tie itself into pretty ribbon bows with swallow-tail ends and, unfortunately for her plans, I didn’t fancy Mark in the least.
I know who you do fancy – you always did, whispered a tiny demon in my head, and I told it to shut up and go away, because life was complicated enough already.
I hoped – but doubted – that Flora had had sense enough to return Rollo to the pub last night, because there was a certain still, heavy silence about the morning that told me, even before I hopped out of bed and looked, that the world was blanketed in thick, white snow.
I got back in bed again, snuggled under the duvet and this time let myself think about Lex and last night.
River had been right: forcing Lex to look back at the most painful time of his life and re-evaluate my part in it had been cathartic. But then, as River often said, wounds never healed until they’d been cleansed.
But what my mind had really been skittering round the edge of was Lex’s bombshell revelation that he’d once had feelings for me; had even been jealous of my relationship with Rollo!Andthat that night at the flat he’dwantedto kiss me, his inhibitions washed away by alcohol.
