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‘Now, where did I put that list… ?’
‘I have a copy of it, Lord Stanton,’ Fern told him diplomatically as he started to search through the mass of papers on his desk.
‘Have you? My dear, you really are the most marvellous young woman—exemplary, in fact. Have we many more children to add this time?’
‘Three,’ Fern told him, ‘but we’re going to lose five; two who are moving away with their parents, and three who will be thirteen this year.’
‘Thirteen. Oh, dear. Eugenie always used to say that we should extend the age to fifteen, but children of that age do so hate to be grouped with those younger than themselves. I had to remind her of how much she resented being grouped with the children when we were young.
‘She was younger than me, you know, Fern. Ten years younger, and so full of life and laughter. I never thought…
‘It’s five years this week since she died, you know. Sometimes I still find it hard to remember that she’s gone. We were married when she was seventeen. We didn’t quite make it to our Golden Wedding…
‘We were talking about it the night she died. She wanted to have a big party… to invite all those we’d invited to our wedding, or at least those of them who were still alive…’
Fern smiled understandingly. She knew how much he had loved his wife. Nick grew irritated when Lord Stanton talked about her, claiming that he was bored with hearing the same old stories over and over again. Fern had tried gently to point out to him that it was the older man’s only way of dealing with his grief that he needed to talk about the woman who had after all shared virtually all of his life with him. They had been second cousins and had spent holidays together as children; she had always been there as part of his life and now he was finding it very difficult to cope without her.
‘You must miss her,’ Fern said softly now.
‘Yes. Yes, I do…’ He looked at her, emotion replaced by intelligent awareness as he studied her.
‘You have a very gentle touch, Fern, very compassionate… very soothing on one’s small sore places. You must be tired of hearing me talk so much about her.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Fern replied honestly. ‘I know how close you both were.’ Her own eyes shadowed slightly as she withdrew from making the uncomfortable comparison between the Stantons’ marriage and her own.
‘We had our difficult times as everyone does, but Eugenie wasn’t just my wife, she was also my best friend, my closest confidante. Oh, not at first, perhaps, in the early years… but later, once we had both settled into our marriage.
‘Friendship is a very under-estimated virtue in marriage,’ he added quietly, shaking his head. ‘These days so much attention seems to be focused on other aspects… but, as one gets older, one truly appreciates the importance of being good friends, and it is as my friend that I miss Eugenie the most. As a woman… as my wife, she may not always have approved of what I did; but as my friend she accepted my frailties and fallibilities and made allowances for them.’
He raised his head and smiled at Fern, shaking his head a second time when he saw the tears in her eyes.
‘There, now I have upset you,’ he apologised patting her hand, ‘and I certainly didn’t mean to do so.’
‘No, you haven’t upset me,’ Fern assured him, blowing her nose.
Her own parents had had a long and happy marriage, but they had been in their early forties when she was born, unexpected but very welcome. However, because of the age-gap between them, much as she had loved them and known that they loved her, she had never felt free to talk to them uninhibitedly, had always been conscious of a need not to disappoint them, not to slip from the high standards their own moral code set her. As a teenager and a young woman it had seemed to her that her parents inhabited a very different world from hers, and she had always been anxious not to disillusion them, not to bring the reality of her own life in to disturb the peaceful harmony of theirs.
Now she recognised that she had, perhaps naïvely, assumed that their lives had always been like that, not appreciating as she now did from listening to Lord Stanton that that harmony and peace could have been something which had grown with age and might not necessarily always have been there.
She had always found it difficult, impossible almost, to imagine her parents quarrelling or arguing, involved in the kind of turmoil, the kind of ugliness which sometimes seemed to pervade her own marriage, and certainly neither of them could ever have experienced the kind of guilt and shame which so tormented her.
But she was here to help Lord Stanton, not to brood on her own problems, she reminded herself sternly as she produced her own copy of the Christmas party list and started to go through it with him.
‘Sally Broughton’s presence will be sadly missed by the town this year,’ he commented sadly when they had finished. ‘Especially with the summer fete.’
‘Yes,’ Fern agreed, and was unable to stop herself from adding unhappily, ‘I do hope that Broughton House isn’t going to be demolished.’
‘Demolished? Surely not,’ Lord Stanton protested.
‘Well, Nick seems to think it’s a possibility, and Adam…’ She stopped and bit her lip.
‘Adam what?’ Lord Stanton pressed her.
‘Well, I saw him in the grounds of Broughton House earlier and he… he had what looked like a set of plans with him. Nick says that Adam is part of some consortium that’s hoping to buy the house and tear it down so that they can use the land for commercial purposes… a supermarket, shop units, that kind of thing.’
‘Ridiculous,’ Lord Stanton told her firmly. ‘I know Nick is your husband, my dear, but I very much suspect that he is wrong. If Adam is involved in some way with the purchase of Broughton House, you may be sure that the last thing he will want is to lend his authority to any plan to demolish it. I’m rather surprised that you should have any doubts on the matter yourself. Adam is a man of great probity and sincerity. I can’t think of anyone who is more committed to doing his best for the town and, in fact, for its residents. However, if you genuinely fear for the future of Broughton House, and if as you say Adam is in some way involved in that future, then I’m surprised that you haven’t discussed it with Adam himself.’
Fern knew that she was flushing slightly. Instinctively she dipped her head, seeking behind the heavy fall of her hair protection
