For His Eyes Only(57)

                She’d been seven or eight when Tom was that age and he’d seemed like a god to her then, but when she’d been sixteen, seventeen, the boys in her year had seemed so immature, so useless. She couldn’t imagine any of them coping without their mother to do their washing, put food in front of them, provide a taxi service.

                She sat on the narrow bed, rubbed her hand over the old Welsh quilt that he’d slept under, then kicked off her shoes, leaned back against an impressive headboard, putting herself in his place, looking out of the window at the view he’d grown up with, trying to imagine what had been so bad that it had driven him away. And failing. It was so beautiful here, so tranquil.

                She sighed. No doubt her home life would have looked enviable to an outsider and in many ways it was. But she’d been older, an adult when she’d left. He’d been a boy.

                She let it go and, propping the folder against her thighs, began to read his grandmother’s history of Hadley Chase.

                Darius was right—nothing important had happened, no one of great significance was mentioned—and yet his grandmother had edited the journals, adding her own commentary and illustrations on events, providing an insight into the lives of those living and working in the house, on the estate and in the village since the seventeenth century. The births, marriages, deaths. The celebrations. The tragedies, changes that affected them all. Tash had reached the late eighteenth century when her phone rang.

                ‘Hi...’ she said, hunting for a tissue.

                Darius, pacing Mary’s living room while she packed a bag, heard the kind of sniff that only went with tears.

                ‘Natasha? What’s happened? Are you hurt?’

                ‘No...’ Another sniff. ‘It’s nothing.’

                ‘You’re crying.’

                ‘I was just reading about an outbreak of smallpox in the village in 1793. Seven children died, Darius. One of them was the three-year-old son of Joshua Hadley. He wrote about him, about the funeral. It’s heartbreaking...’

                She’d found the history. It had figured heavily in his education as the heir to the estate and the death of small children had been a fact of life before antibiotics.

                ‘It was over two hundred years ago,’ he reminded her.

                ‘I know. I’m totally pathetic, but your grandmother drew a picture of his grave. It’s so small. This isn’t just a history; it’s a work of art.’

                ‘And full of smallpox, floods, crop failure.’

                ‘Full of the lives of the people who’ve lived here. Not just the bad bits, but the joys, the celebrations. Your grandmother’s illustrations are exquisite. Clearly it’s in the genes,’ she prompted.

                He ignored the invitation to talk about his grandmother. ‘You’ll find Joshua’s portrait in the dining room.’

                ‘Actually, I’m looking at some of your early work right now,’ she said, not giving up. ‘Watercolours.’

                ‘Chocolate-box stuff,’ he said dismissively.

                ‘That’s a bit harsh. I love the drawing of your dog. What was his name?’

                What was it about this woman? Every time he spoke to her, she churned up memories he’d spent years trying to wipe out. The only reason he was even here, being dragged back into the past, was because of her.