The Flight of Swallows Read online

  ‘I’d better answer it. Johnson wouldn’t know what the hell to do and anyway it’s bound to be for me. It might be Wallace with one of his waifs.’ He pulled on his dressing gown and Charlotte had a moment to think that his naked body was quite beautiful in the soft glow of the candles before he galloped downstairs.

  It was Wallace.

  ‘Brooke, I’ll come at once to the point. I’m at the Mount and I’m sorry to say . . . or perhaps not sorry, but in a bit of a quandary on how to tell you . . .’

  Brooke felt a small shiver creep down his spine as though a feather had outlined the bones of it. Somehow, later, he could never understand why, he knew what Wallace was going to say and his heart was filled with a mad desire to shout with joy but was instantly ashamed of it. Then again he was not, for this was an answer to his and his beloved and unique wife’s prayers.

  ‘Drummond?’

  ‘Yes, Drummond’s dead.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘What caused it?’ doing his best to keep the triumph from his voice.

  ‘I’m not sure and of course there will be an inquest as there is on any sudden, unexpected death, but it looks like a heart attack. That is what I shall say, anyway.’

  ‘Thank you.’ When he said it Brooke wondered why. It was as if Wallace, and he himself, although he had nothing to do with it, knew there was more to it than was immediately obvious. But then what did he care? The man deserved to die for the wickedness, the pain and fear he had inflicted, not just on Charlotte but on all his children.

  ‘Thank you, Wallace. Let me know if . . . well, if we are wanted for anything. Perhaps Charlotte and I should ride over?’

  ‘There is no need unless you wish to pay your respects.’

  Brooke laughed in great amusement. Pay their respects! He couldn’t wait to get back upstairs and break the wonderful, miraculous news that her father was gone. That their lives could now be lived out in peace. That their children could roam their small world, ride their ponies when the time came, without fear. That he and Charlotte could allow them to roam without the terror that had stalked them for years.

  He was somehow not surprised when he replaced the receiver and turned to go back to his wife to find Kizzie at his back. She was wrapped in a white shawl over her nightgown and she was smiling in a strange but loving way.

  ‘Not bad news, I hope, sir?’

  ‘No, Kizzie, the best.’

  The inquest took several weeks to be concluded, with a verdict that Arthur Drummond had died from a heart attack, confirmed by the evidence of the respected Doctor Chapman. The funeral was attended by dozens of the gentry, all packed into the small church where Charlotte and Brooke were married. The Armstrongs, though a strange pair, she with her shop and the girls she had taken into her life and he because he allowed it, were, after all, gentry, both of them from their social strata. The funny thing was they both appeared quite cheerful in an odd sort of way. Charlotte didn’t even wear the long veil of mourning that one would expect and her face was serene. Their servants and those from the Mount were all there at the back of the church but there was none of that gloom and dolour that one associated with a death. It seemed that Charlotte had found positions for all her dead father’s servants and there was talk of her old home being sold. They went back to King’s Meadow where, to their consternation, champagne was served.

  ‘I do hope we will see more of you now, Charlotte,’ Patsy Ackroyd told her, ‘if you can spare time from your many activities. I quite envy you, really I do. That shop of yours seems to go from strength to strength even though I heard you are not there as much as you used to be.’

  ‘No, I have a very good manageress now. Jenny Todd. She is married to our coachman and my girls are all very competent so I shall probably spend more time with my children. And my husband.’

  ‘You . . . you love him, don’t you?’ It was said enviously.

  ‘More than life.’

  They had all gone, mouthing their polite farewells and sadness at the passing of such a dear friend and much loved father, holding Charlotte’s hand, and shaking Brooke’s.

  Charlotte and Brooke stood on the terrace under the porch, then as the last motor car and carriage disappeared down the shaded drive, he put his arm about her shoulder and she leaned her head against him.

  They smiled at one another in perfect understanding of how things would be and he dropped a kiss on her hair. Kizzie, who stood in the hallway behind them, smoothed down her immaculate black skirt, rattling the chatelaine at her waist that proclaimed her position in the house. She too smiled, turning to the kitchen where her staff were already clearing up after the reception.

  On the terrace Charlotte and Brooke were gazing with dreaming eyes at their garden.

  ‘Do you know how much I love you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, thank you.’

  ‘Thank you?’ He looked down into her upturned face in astonishment. ‘What is there to thank me for?’

  ‘For bringing me to this. This peace, this place, this world of ours.’

  The sunshine washed the front of the house and the lovingly cared-for garden with golden-edged brilliance and as though they had been waiting for this moment of release from some malignant situation, John and Ned sauntered round the corner of the house, Ned trundling a wheelbarrow, laughing at something one of them had said. When they saw their master and mistress, they stopped abruptly and put a respectful finger to their caps. Though they had not entirely understood the intricacies of it they knew a great cloud had been lifted from this home.

  They were followed by Aisling with Lucy and Ellie, running and skipping, Lucy trying to do cartwheels, and Toby tumbling about the lawn on his as yet unsteady legs. The dogs were with them, four of them circling the children protectively. Taddy, with his nose to the ground, was following some scent made by a creature that had meandered across it during the night.

  The gardeners watched them all indulgently, neglecting the task they were about to perform, and the children’s parents did the same.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Brooke said suddenly.

  ‘Oh, let’s. Down through the wood to where we met.’

  He took her hand and they ran together like their own children, unnoticed, round to the side of the house, past the vegetable gardens, the greenhouses and the paddock, ignoring the welcoming whinnies of the horses. They reached the woodland, turning for a moment to see if anyone had noticed them, then vanished into the green tunnel beneath the motionless canopy of trees. They ran lightly across the soft bed of grass and wood anemones until they reached the thicket that guarded the glade where she had fallen beneath the hooves of Brooke’s horse.

  ‘I think I loved you even then,’ he said, drawing her down into the wide spreading roots of an oak tree, ‘and I wanted to do this.’

  They made love with tender thankfulness, watched only by a squirrel who was busy about his own business and as they lay tranquilly afterwards she told him she was pregnant again.

  ‘That was quick.’ He laughed. ‘Twenty minutes must be a record.’

  She turned in his arms and laid her head on his bare chest, for they were divested of most of their clothing. ‘It doesn’t take long,’ she murmured. ‘Not where love is.’

  About the Author

  Audrey Howard was born in Liverpool in 1929. Before she began to write she had a variety of jobs, among them hairdresser, model, shop assistant, cleaner and civil servant. In 1981, while living in Australia, she wrote the first of her bestselling novels. She lives in St Anne's on Sea, her childhood home.

 

 

 
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