Page 111 of One More Christmas at the Castle
But at least now I understood why Mrs Powys had seemed to dislike me from the start, even if expediency and sheer curiosity had been enough to make my presence in the house bearable to her.
‘So, where do we go from here?’ asked Nancy.
Mrs Powys looked faintly surprised. ‘We carry on as before,of course. I expect Dido won’t now assume she’s here in any other capacity than her professional one, or presume on this unfortunate relationship.’
‘Certainly not, Mrs Powys,’ I assured her. ‘I’m here to do a job and I’ll continue to carry it out to the best of my ability. The relationship remainspurelyprofessional.’
‘In that case, I don’t think there’s anything more to discuss,’ she said coolly. ‘And I see no need to inform Lucy – or indeed, anyone else – about any of this.’
Nancy opened and closed her mouth a couple of times as if struggling to get words out.
‘But, Sabine, you can’t possibly—’ she finally began.
But Mrs Powys said to me, as if nothing of any moment had passed between us, ‘I suppose weareto have tea at some point this afternoon?’
And then she turned and swept out.
‘Oh,honestly!’ exclaimed Nancy, and hurried after her.
Sabine
Nancy followed me back into the sitting room and closed the door to the hall behind her.
‘Really, Sabine! I knew you were keeping something from me, but I never imagined it was anything like this! I assume Asa had no idea Faye had had a child, either?’
‘No, I couldn’t see any point in telling him. After Faye vanished we barely mentioned her again anyway, just got on with rebuilding our lives and settling down to the new order. Once Asa was well enough, he threw himself into the temple excavations and we were happy again, even if it wasn’t quite the same.’
‘I know you told him when Faye turned up again to collect her father’s legacy,’ Nancy said. ‘You just left out the bit about the child she’d had!’
I shrugged and then sat down by the fire. ‘I don’t think even Timothy Makepeace, my present solicitor, knows about it, because it was his uncle who managed our affairs back then.’
Nancy planted herself in front of me.
‘Still, you were curious enough at the time to obtain a picture of the child – Dido’s father – and again, more recently, to find out what had become of him?’
‘After my diagnosis, I suddenly felt I wanted to tie up all the loose ends in my life … and, yes, I wondered what had become of him.’
‘And discovered he’d carved out a very successful career for himself?’
‘He does appear to be an expert in his field,’ I agreed. ‘My detective found that Dido was the result of a brief liaison he had while at university and Celia Sedley Jones became her guardian and brought her up. Keeping it in the family, as it were.’
‘And presumably the detective told you about Heavenly Houseparties, too?’
‘He did and sent me the link to the website and, as I said, since Maria’s husband had had the stroke and she was finding it hard to cope with her work here even before that, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and hire them.’
‘If you expect me to believe that curiosity and the desire to have someone to cater for your guests were your main incentive, then you have vastly underrated my intelligence,’ Nancy said acutely, though at least she now sat down.
I gave a wry smile. ‘I knew you’d see right through me! So yes, I admit I had an ulterior motive and once I knew about Heavenly Houseparties, I went all out to obtain their services over Christmas. I even paid the woman who’d already booked them to cancel!’
‘Butwhy, Sabine?’ she asked more gently.
‘For what you’ll think the worst of reasons. I wanted to revenge myself on Faye for what she did, through her grandchild. And employing Dido in a menial capacity in what had once been Faye’s home seemed a good way to do it.’
‘No, it was abadway, but I’m sure, in your heart, you already knew that,’ Nancy said. ‘And it was in any case doomed tofailure, since I’m certain neither Dido nor Henry thinks their work is menial. It’s their profession and they are very good at it!’
‘Dido was not at all what I expected,’ I confessed. ‘I could see nothing of Faye in her.’
‘She is a dear girl and, even now, her only concern is to continue with her work as before, and give you the Christmas you really want.’
