The Mill House (53 page)

Deciding to take the book with her, she walked into the bedroom and was about to take off her coat when she came to a surprised stop. For a moment she thought her eyes were playing her tricks, so she blinked and looked again, but there

really was no bed. Then she remembered Tilde's young friends had arranged to take it today, so having no alternative, she went back downstairs to use the bedroom down there.

On her way through the kitchen she spotted a note, propped up against the kettle, and stopped to read it.

'Sally and Jeremy have bin to take bed. Hope that was all right. They left a cheque, which I've kept hold of for safekeeping. Found this book under the bed, didn't read none of it, but reckon it's your Dad's. Yours faithfully, Tilde. PS: Unloaded dishwasher and tidied away, in case you thought the fairies bin in.'

Julia wasn't quite sure whether it was the fairies or the 'yours faithfully' that brought tears to her eyes, but what did it matter? Tilde was a lovely old soul, and right now her emotions were running so close to the surface that almost anything could make her cry. She looked at the book that was lying flat in front of the kettle. It appeared to be another journal, though it was clearly much newer than those she'd found in the attic. A glance inside at the handwritten dates proved her right: it had been written in the weeks before her father died. Unable to deal with any more now, she simply added it to the other book, and clutching them both to her, she went to lie down on the other bed, and fell almost instantly asleep.

It was the middle of the afternoon when the sound of the phone began penetrating her dreams, until finally it sank deeply enough to wake her. With her eyes barely open, and not having any clear

idea where she was, she reached out to answer it, and knocked a small china pot from the nightstand. The noise brought her several more layers to the surface, and sitting up, she realised the phone that was still ringing was out in the kitchen. Throwing back the covers, she stumbled along the short hallway and managed to get to it before the caller rang off.

'Is this too early?' Josh said.

Warming to the intimate tone of his voice, she said, 'No, it's fine. How are you?'

'That's my question. I woke you, didn't I?'

'Yes, but it doesn't matter. I need to get up.'

'I just wanted to make sure you were OK, not sitting there alone, bottling anything up.'

'All I'm bottling up is how much I'm missing you.'

'We need to be together again,' he said. 'I'm going to have a chat with Shannon tonight, because I think it'll help her to know that I don't have a problem with what happened any more.'

Julia's heart turned over. She didn't want to have this conversation now, but knew she had to. 'Do you really mean that?' she whispered.

'Well, I confess, I wouldn't like it to happen again,' he replied, 'and as long as you can tell me you haven't developed a penchant for young ... Sorry, cut that, it was going to turn into a bad joke, so let's not go there.'

'The only penchant I have is for you,' she told him. 'It always was for you. Nothing's changed that, and nothing ever will.'

There was a moment before he was able to say. 'Same here.'

'Josh, don't cry. Please don't.'

'I'm not,' he said, but she felt sure he was.

Knowing how close to tears she was herself, she said, 'We can get through anything, can't we?'

'I think the last few months have proved that,' he answered. 'I was a fool to have done what I did, worse than a fool, but I'll never let anyone, or anything take you away from me.'

Tears were falling fast as she said, 'I wish you were here. I want to look at you as I tell you how much I love you.'

'Then save it until I'm there. Or you're here.'

'Call me again in an hour. I need to hear your voice.'

'I need to hear yours too. I'll be in a meeting, but I'll only be thinking of you.'

She spluttered with laughter. 'Now you've gone too far,' she accused.

'You're doubting me?'

'Would I?'

He laughed. 'I always knew I was the luckiest man alive to have you as my wife. You don't have to keep reminding me.'

More tears welled in her eyes. 'I'm the lucky one.' she said brokenly. 'I just don't ever want to lose you.'

'Then come home soon. We all love you and miss you, so it's time we were a family again.'

As she put the phone down she leaned over it and began to cry with more heartache than she'd ever felt in her life.

Chapter Twenty

Later that night Fen came over and helped to build a fire, which they settled down in front of with bottles of wine and water to read the newly discovered journal. To Julia it seemed right for Fen to share in her father's last recorded thoughts, because, in her way, she'd been as much a daughter to him as she had. And to do it here, in the cosy sitting room of his house, with a fire flickering in the hearth, and the curtains drawn against the wintry night, felt right too.

'I've already looked through it,' she said, curling into the corner of a sofa, 'so I want to read you the parts that I think really matter.'

Fen sank down on a feathery cushion beside the hearth and leaned back against the stone fireplace, one knee raised to prop up the hand holding her wine glass. She looked every bit the horsewoman she was, Julia was thinking as she regarded her. with her cloud of wild red hair, her lovely ivory skin cast warmly in the glow of the flames, and the obligatory jodhpurs and sweater.

'What?' Fen asked curiously.

Julia smiled and shook her head, then turned to the book. 'I'll start with 24th September this year,' she said, opening it at the page she'd marked. She glanced at Fen again, then to the gentle accompaniment of the wind outside and occasional crackle and shift in the hearth, she began to read her father's words.

'"Julia is mine. How can I even begin to express how happy that makes me? All these years of wondering and agonising, feeling certain one day, and doubtful the next ... Tears fill my eyes as I think of my beautiful girl, who is a woman now, and my heart fills up with so much love, the wonderful love a father feels for his precious only child. I keep thinking of all I've missed, and how truly fulfilled our lives would have been if only I'd made Alice and George prove their claim. I blame myself for not having more faith, but I was so afraid of what it would do to Julia if I'd discovered they were telling the truth.

'"It's tempting to ramble on with all my disjointed thoughts now, as memories come back, and regrets keep surfacing, but I want to write this down as it happened, to tell how I found out this most important and joyful of truths. Perhaps it will help me come to decisions that are eluding me now. It began with a curious visit I had last week from a woman who claimed Rene had sent her. At first I had to struggle to remember who Rene was - had she given the surname I'd have known immediately, of course, but so many years have gone by now that I will forgive myself the rather surprising lapse. She was talking of Rene

Hope, George's wife. A dowdy little creature, as I recall. Never used to say much, but always seemed to know more than she should. That was my perception of her, anyway. I remember writing to her begging for news of Julia after I left, but she never wrote back. Now, all these years later, she sends a stranger to see me, who I believe must be a private detective of sorts, and it's from this stranger that I finally learn that Julia is my daughter, my own flesh and blood. As I write those words I feel so much relief and happiness that my hands are shaking. If only I'd challenged them, but if I'd been wrong, it would have meant abandoning Julia to the horror of knowing that George was much more than her uncle. I couldn't do that to her, so I kept silent to protect her, as they knew I would.

'"I try never to remember the day I caught them together, but the images of that terrible scene are indelibly printed in my mind. It changed my life completely, and I believe I knew, almost from the instant I came upon them, that it would be me who ended up losing everything and I turned out to be right.

'"I'd always known Pam wasn't mine, she was born even before Alice and I met, and though it would be easy to say now that I suspected who her real father was, I don't really believe I did. With Julia, there had never been any doubt - until they planted it. Alice and I had been (I thought) happily married at the time Julia was conceived, and I was there at the birth. It was only later that I felt things starting to go wrong between me and Alice, and even wondered if she was involved with

Pam's father again - the mysterious salesman who'd captivated her as a teenager, and left her broken-hearted and pregnant. It turns out I was right of course, she was indeed involved with Pam's father again. It would seem that whatever compels her and George to flout everything, from God's word to the law of the land, was clearly too strong for them to resist.'"

Keeping her eyes lowered, Julia reached for her glass and took a sip. Though she'd read these words earlier, they seemed to be having a far greater impact now, and she could only wonder what Fen was thinking, if her mind was recoiling as strongly as hers was.

Putting her drink down again, she turned over the page and continued to read.

'"I'm not sure when I first really started to suspect them, I think it just rose up gradually from the darkest corners of my mind, until finally the terrible reality of it was hard to ignore. But still I said nothing, and still I told myself I was wrong. How could any man think such a thing of his wife, or of a conscientious church-goer like George? I confess, I'd never warmed to the man, but for a long time I detested myself for my own depraved thoughts, rather than detesting him for what I feared to be true. I watched Rene, trying to work out what she might know, or what she was thinking, but I never could.

'"Then one day, the fateful day, I turned up at the house unexpectedly, and there they were. Clearly believing themselves safe, they hadn't even taken themselves off to the bedroom. They were to engrossed in each other that they didn't

even hear me come in. For a while I could only stand, frozen in shock, unwilling to accept what my eyes were seeing. Two naked bodies coupling on the floor in front of the hearth. The scene that followed, as I grabbed him away from her and knocked him half senseless, was ugly in the extreme, though nothing could surpass the ugliness of what I had seen. Alice shrieked and wept and begged me to stop, but I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill her too, but I'd never raised my hand to a woman before, and I didn't then, though perhaps she deserved it.

'"I will relive no more of it, because it distresses me still, all I will say is that the days that followed took me deeper and deeper into a nightmare from which I could find no escape. Alice was unrepentant, even unashamed. She became a woman I hardly knew, nor did I want to. She refused to give him up, and even accused me of being the one who was sick, because I was so obsessed with a child who she then claimed wasn't mine. She threatened to tell the world what I got up to with Julia and I was so appalled I barely knew how to defend myself. I had never laid a finger on Julia in that way, nor would I. Then George started adding his threats to Alice's, and claiming his paternal rights and I soon realised that if I didn't go, Julia's suffering was likely to be even greater than mine.

"'So they used my love for my daughter to protect themselves. They knew I would never want to put her through the shame of finding out she was a child bom of incest, or the stigma of having to live with it after. I didn't even want the word to touch her, never mind the reality, so I

never told another living soul what I'd seen that day, apart from my darling Gwen of course. I still wonder how I'd have survived had she not come into my life when she did. God knew I was close to the end of my tether by then, but He must have been smiling on me that day, as He hadn't smiled on me since the day I'd last seen my girl.'" Julia stopped and took a breath. 'Are you OK?' Fen asked softly. She nodded, then looked around the walls, into the comers and up to the rafters. 'I keep feeling as though he's here in the room, do you?' she said.

Fen smiled. 'Maybe he is,' she responded.

Julia smiled too, and turned her gaze to the photograph of her father and Gwen on the table next to her. Then going back to the journal she started to read on.

'"It has taken me almost a week to come to terms with the terrible feelings I have felt towards Alice and George since learning the truth. At first, I wanted nothing more than to take a bloody and bitter revenge for all the years they have stolen from Julia and me, but as the days have passed I've discovered that Gwen's gentling influence on my life and my heart has been as lasting as it was profound, because I now find myself more rational in my thoughts and able to cope. I no longer have much time in this world, so I have chosen to try and forget their treachery, to let go of all feelings of hatred and vengeance, and think only of my girl. Alas, Rene's messenger didn't bring photographs of her, but she brought some of my grandchildren, and to look at them brings indescribable joy to my heart. A girl and a boy. Shannon and Daniel. So

beautiful and so handsome. I feel so very proud of them. To think, I am a grandfather. It is the greatest possible source of happiness a man could know. I only wish I could meet them before I go."'