I'll Get By (13 page)

Meggie told her, ‘He told me he was born in a deluge, so his mother called him Rainard. Not that I believe him, since his mother doesn’t look like the type who would possess that ironic sort of wit. She’s sort of vague, with a sinister undertone.’

Livia shrugged. ‘None of that helps me to find him somewhere to sleep. There isn’t an inch of spare room left in the house.’

Denton chuckled. ‘What about the hen house.’

‘Denton Elliot, it’s you who’ll be sleeping in the hen house if you’re not careful.’

‘Don’t worry, my love. He’s going home on the evening train. I intend to show him round Foxglove House later. Meggie, you can come with us if you like, so you’ll know what’s happening with your legacy. He hasn’t seen what he’s been lumbered with yet. Here comes Sylvia, doesn’t she look lovely?’

Preceded by two young nieces dressed in pink velvet with white fur trim, Sylvia looked sweet in a simple white damask gown with a pleated yoke and sweetheart neckline with pearl buttons. A shoulder length veil with pink embroidered rosebuds scattered on it was attached to a flower-filled wreath and matched a spray of pink carnations.

Meggie’s Uncle Chad had a tender smile on his face as he watched his bride approach, and there was a collective smile and exclamations from the congregation when he took her white, gloved hand in his and kissed it in rather a romantic fashion.

But then, she wouldn’t have thought her rather ordinary Uncle Chad would fall in love. And although he was Aunt Esmé’s twin, and although his sister had inherited all the elegance and beauty of the pairing, there was an air of quiet dependability to him that brought tears to Meggie’s eyes.

Beside her, Aunt Es gave a barely repressed sort of sniff that was stirred into a giggle when Chad turned to catch her eye and winked at her. Es blew her brother a kiss and Meggie took her hand.

‘We are gathered together in the sight of God to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony . . .’

When the jollity was over and the couple had left for a week’s honeymoon in Cornwall, which was all the time Chad could afford to take off from his practice, Meggie accompanied her stepfather to Foxglove House and they wandered from room to room.

‘There’s just enough light to show you around, Rennie,’ he said. ‘My wife has been busy organizing the clearing out of the cupboards, and everything will be placed in storage until after the war.’

Meggie had her say. ‘I told Mummy she should make a bonfire of it, except for the grand piano. I’d like to have kept that, but it’s too big to put in a suitcase and carry from place to place.’

‘Not everything is rubbish. Some of it is family history and might be worth keeping for when you have children, Meggie, especially if you decide to write a book, as you once mentioned you might. There is quite a lot of your grandmother’s stuff here too. Richard loved this place, and I don’t think he’d like you to treat it with less than the respect it deserves.’

‘I do understand that, Daddy, but I’m not Richard Sangster. I feel like an alien, rather than part of his family, and an alien in my own family because of the connection.’

‘You’ll never be that to me, Poppet.’

‘But don’t you see, Daddy. This house anchors me to a life I don’t want to live, and keeps me there. I don’t want to be responsible for it, and I’m truly sorry that you and Rennie have wasted your time trying to keep it viable, when I intend to give it to charity as soon as I’m able.’

‘Don’t be too hasty,’ Rennie said. ‘There were new laws passed regarding entailed estates, like yours. I’m making enquiries.’

‘Who did that Sinclair ancestor think he was, insisting the legacy be passed down from Sinclair to Sinclair, as though we had no free will of our own? How dare a man who died a couple of hundred years ago try and inflict his will over his descendants?’

Denton shrugged. ‘God help anyone who tries to inflict their will over yours, Meggie.’

Rennie chuckled. ‘You needn’t feel sorry for me, Margaret. My firm gets paid a fee from the estate.’

‘Which is more than I get,’ Denton said with a grin.

‘And probably more than the allowance I get as well. But you got me to raise instead, Dr Denton, so you got the best of the bargain.’ She gave him a fierce hug. ‘And so did I. I’d rather have you for a father than Richard Sangster, or a dusty old heap of bricks full of someone else’s memories. You know, I think the heart left Foxglove House with my father.’

‘You could be right.’

Rennie laughed. ‘I’m glad you sorted that out. Thanks for showing the place to me . . . it does give me a better idea of what I’m dealing with. Now I must go because the light’s beginning to fail.’

Meggie glanced at her watch. ‘I’ll walk with you to the train station, just in case you miss the train. Though we can fit you in somewhere, I’m sure, even if it’s in a sleeping bag in the attic.’

Rennie nodded. ‘Good . . . because I’ve got a favour to ask you, Mags.’

They’d been striding – for that’s how Rennie walked – for only a few seconds when he took her hand is his and said. ‘I’ve enlisted in the army.’

‘Slow down Rennie,’ she said, almost breathless from the exercise. ‘I can’t keep up with you in these shoes.’

‘Sorry.’ Bringing her to a stop he gazed at her and smiled. ‘I’d forgotten how lovely you were until I saw you at the church.’

Her heart seemed to cease its beating, and there was an extraordinary quietness inside her, as though she no longer existed, except as a beautiful spirit twisting and turning in the currents of air. She wanted to cry, but knew she mustn’t, at least, not in front of him, so she pulled on a smile.

‘You’re prone to exaggeration, and rather abrupt, Rennie. But thank you for the compliment. I’ll treasure it. And I’ll miss you.’

He gave a faint smile. ‘You didn’t strike me as a sentimental sort of girl who would have a treasure box. The compliment will probably have to last you until the war is over.’

‘Not if you put it in writing. And I shall start a treasure box just to keep it in. What will happen to your legal firm while you’re away?’

‘There is a cousin on my mother’s side available. He’s too young for retirement and too old to go to war. He’s a barrister. Mother will take up practice again.’

‘It was your mother working in reception that day I called on you, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes . . . but she’s qualified to practice law. Didn’t I tell you? The thing is, Margaret, I thought you might like to work for the firm in reception, and doing secretarial tasks.’

‘But I’ll be going in the WRNS before too long. I want to do my bit, as well.’

‘Not before you’re eighteen. Even a month or two in a law office will give you some valuable experience of how things work in the legal world. You’ll be able to gain experience, and our law books will be a valuable reference for your legal studies as well as your grading, should you join the WRNS. What do you think?’

She smiled. ‘I think I’m going to give you the biggest hug you’ve ever had, and don’t resist.’

He didn’t, just hugged her back, her head folded into his shoulder and his breath warm against her back. Then he gently made a space between them and their eyes met, his were a foxy amber in the gloaming light.

‘Kiss me goodbye,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘Are you intent on turning this into a romantic ending to put in your treasure box?’

‘Yes . . . but not an ending . . . a treasured memory that will always be remembered. Please kiss me. I’m going to feel a fool if you walk away leaving me standing here with my lips pursed, a rejected old maid, and at my young age.’

‘That would be cruel,’ he said, his voice quite serious. So he did kiss her, and his lips were warm and teasing, but disappointingly, pressed against her forehead in a very circumspect manner.

Somewhere in the distance the train whistled.

‘I’ll wait for you,’ she said.

‘No, don’t wait, Mags. I don’t want you to make a decision you’d come to regret, and I don’t want the responsibility of knowing you have. Be young and carefree while you can, and know that I’ll always be your friend.’ He placed a small flat box in her hand. ‘An early birthday present. Give my mother a ring in a day or two and discuss the position with her, but don’t leave it too long.’

Then he was gone, striding through the gloom towards the station, which was in darkness. The windows of the houses of England were all dressed in depressing black, not even a chink of candlelight shone through the blackout curtains hanging in the cottage windows. In the sky, the stars seemed to weep tears. She wished one would drop into her hand. She could do with some reassurance that eventually the world would be right again.

A cold wind circled her legs and body with a whiplash rattle of fallen leaves. The world seemed to shiver . . . and had an air of waiting.

Because she was curious as to what a man like Rennie would give a girl like her as a birthday present, she opened the little box and aimed the thin gleam of her torch on it for a moment. She smiled. She’d got her star – in the form of a small twinkly diamond that dangled from a mother of pearl, crescent moon brooch set in silver. It was so very pretty.

Meggie made her first wish on them both. ‘Bring Rennie back safely. And when you do, make him realize I’m not too young for him, unless you think I am, I suppose.’

She heard the clank of metal bones and the breathless chuff of the train as it pulled out with Rennie on board, taking him to God-only-knew what hellhole he was destined for. ‘Just make sure you look after him,’ she said.

She jumped when a wet nose touched her knee. It was the black curly-coated retriever who owned the Elliot family. ‘Shadow, what are you doing here? Did you follow after me?’

‘No, but Luke and I did.’ It was Adam’s voice. ‘We didn’t want you to have to walk home alone in the dark all by yourself.’

‘Thank you, that’s thoughtful of you . . . I appreciate it.’ Though she’d rather have been left with her solitude and the soft blanket of night sky after the busy clamour of the day. She wondered if they’d overheard her conversation with Rennie, or had seen him kissing her. Either way it didn’t matter. She was grown up, and at last she felt grown up.

She would take the job with Andersen and Stone. Rennie was right. It would give her an insight into the business, and was an opportunity not to be missed. And if it turned out that Rennie would never be more than a friend, so be it.

Meggie was glad to leave the hospital with its air of emergency, where everyone walked the corridors at a hundred miles an hour, and telephones constantly rang. Stretchers rushed here and there with squeaking wheels, and with patients hidden under bloodstained sheets.

Everybody except herself was so efficient, and looked it. In her element, Meggie’s aunt was every inch the authoritative ward sister in her starched apron, cuffs and hat with its knife-edged creases. Very different from the ethereal figure she presented at home.

Meggie had been slapped down on the very first day by a woman nearing retirement age. ‘Don’t leave the files there, put them in the cabinet as soon as they come back. You do know your alphabet, don’t you? Dearie me . . . what are we being sent these days. Schoolgirls?’

‘Every problem is practical by nature and nothing is left for the imagination of a lowly clerk to wrestle with, unless I happened to book two patients into the same bed,’ Meggie told her aunt, thankful that she hadn’t.

Leaving had been a relief.

She felt more comfortable here at the legal office. They recognized and respected her intelligence, and that she needn’t be told twice what to do.

Meggie eyed her territory with proprietorial interest. She buffed the desk with beeswax until it resembled polished toffee and installed her own aspidistra in a brass pot she’d found in the yard and polished to a gleaming shine. Soon the waiting room looked professional and welcoming.

Within a week she’d sorted out the files, mastered the typewriter, ordered some office supplies, and discovered where the law books were kept.

She took to the job in the legal office like a duck to water, and ran around being indispensable to everybody.

It began to occur to her that Constance Stone’s impression of vagueness was a front for a mind that was as sharp as a recently honed carving knife. Mostly she did the desk work and research.

When she’d been interviewed by Constance, Meggie had received a look that had peeled off any pretensions she might have absorbed about legal work in general, taking in everything about her from her head to her shoes. ‘Rennie told me you intend to study at Girton College, Margaret.’

‘I can afford the first year, I think, thanks to a legacy.’

‘And then?’

‘If I can’t afford a second year I shall have to cram everything into my one year. It will be hard, I imagine, but I learn quickly.’

Constance’s nod was accompanied by a little grin, but not one of disbelief. ‘I trod that path myself. I’m sure you’ll find a way if you want it enough, though you’ll have to sacrifice a large part of your youth, when you should be married and laying down the foundations of a family . . . then it’s all put aside.’

‘Yes . . . I’ve thought of that, of course.’

‘This will be the first time we’ve had a client as an employee working here, you know. It will not, of course, negate the administration fee. I will be handling your estate in conjunction with your guardian. Have you met Rennie’s father?’ She turned when Meggie shook her head and called out, ‘Come out of your cave and meet Margaret Elliot, Robert. You as well Cousin Ambrose.’

There was an air of combined intellectualism lingering about them, like the smell of oregano, parchment and mahogany stirred into one brew. Their eyes were astute, spotlighting her in their collective gaze. The stare was prolonged, as though they were examining a new specimen of humankind, and she did her own examination of them, wondering if cultivating a legal-type stare would get her anywhere.

‘Hmmm,’ they both said together.

‘Hmmm,’ she said back.

Constance gave a dry and dusty laugh. ‘Gentlemen, you won’t stare her down so you can abandon the double act. I’ve already tried it. Now, hasn’t anyone got something more sensible to say besides hmmm?’