The Winter Folly (31 page)

‘Oh.’ Delilah looked around, flushing with embarrassment. Lots of the mothers had come in smart summer dresses and designer sunglasses. Here she was, just in her jeans and a cheap
floaty top, her hair messy, and wearing a pair of old sandals. ‘Well, I’m not sure . . . I’m hardly prepared. And I’m a bit of a stranger to horses myself.’

Mr Harris grinned, his sandy eyebrows beetling. ‘Now, that doesn’t matter a bit. Please do come, we’d be so honoured.’

It would have been ungracious to refuse, so she said, ‘All right, if you’re sure you want me.’

She accompanied him up to the judges’ platform and took her place as it was announced over the tinny loudspeaker system that she would be presenting the prize. Feeling very out of place
next to the judges in their smart navy blazers, she took the little silver trophy in hand and said, ‘Well done,’ as she handed it over to a neatly turned-out young girl rider in
jodhpurs, jacket and a riding hat.

There was a round of applause that felt very much like the final huzzah of the day, and then the crowds began to disperse, heading towards the makeshift car park in the next field, or towards
the rows of horse boxes, leading tired ponies by the head while children trailed after.

Now that Delilah had been publicly identified, she was at once surrounded by people keen to introduce themselves, and she guessed by their enthusiasm that she had been the object of curiosity
for a while, but everyone was so pleasant and friendly that she rather enjoyed the attention. She talked politely until she felt it really was time to leave, so she excused herself and headed back
to the house, trying not to catch anyone’s eye.

‘Mrs Stirling!’ came a breathless voice from behind her.

She turned and saw a plump lady in a vivid flowery dress hurrying towards her across the hummocky grass of the outer field. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m so sorry to keep you but I felt I simply must introduce myself. My name is Grace Urquhart.’

‘How do you do,’ Delilah replied politely, her heart sinking. She had the feeling that a long and difficult-to-escape conversation was about to ensue.

Grace Urquhart reached her, panting and rather flushed from her dash across the field in unsuitable shoes. She caught her breath, flapping her hands in front of her face, and said, ‘Oh,
my, this heat! I’m dying from it!’ Beads of sweat stood out all over her nose and forehead and she blinked rapidly.

‘It is warm, but it’s been perfect weather for the gymkhana,’ Delilah said, giving her time to cool down.

‘Yes, yes, indeed . . . Oooh, I’m sorry. That’s better, I’m getting my breath. Now, I wanted to talk to you because my maiden name isn’t, of course, Urquhart . .
.’ She took a deep breath and her expression became almost triumphant. ‘It’s Sykes!’

Delilah waited for more explanation but when none came, she said a neutral, ‘Oh.’

The woman frowned. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘But your husband’s mother was married to my husband’s second cousin once removed. I’ve been doing the Sykes family tree. There’s a big landowning family up in
Yorkshire we’re distantly connected to but it was very exciting to discover that we’ve got a connection down here, so close to home.’

Delilah shook her head, puzzled. ‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’

‘Your husband’s mother was married twice – once to Lord Stirling, of course, but before that to Lieutenant Laurence Sykes in the Blues and Royals. Or just the Blues they were
then, I think.’ Grace Urquhart’s mouth turned down into an expression of sadness. ‘Of course, it didn’t end well, as I’m sure you know.’

Delilah’s heart was beating quickly and her breath came in shorter bursts. ‘I’m terribly sorry, I don’t know. You see, I’ve not been a Stirling long, and I’ve
not yet learned all the ins and outs of the family. What happened?’

‘I don’t know all that much myself but Laurence Sykes died in a car accident, going off a bridge and into a reservoir. The Dursford Reservoir, just a few miles away. A nasty
accident, apparently, poor man. But . . .’

‘But?’ prompted Delilah.

Grace coloured slightly. ‘Well, I don’t like to say if you’ve not heard it before.’

‘Please do, Mrs Urquhart,’ she said in what she hoped was a commanding tone and, sure enough, the other woman seemed to take this as an order.

‘There’s a rumour in my husband’s family that the death wasn’t exactly an accident. They think he may have’ – she leaned forward confidentially and said in a
loud stage whisper – ‘done it on purpose!’

‘On purpose?’ Delilah echoed, surprised.

Grace nodded and said, ‘Yes. Because he’d been up at the house, you see, and Lady Northmoor was already there, living with Lord Northmoor, although she wasn’t Lady Northmoor
then, of course, she was still Mrs Sykes. And what are we to think when a woman is living with another man and her husband drives off a perfectly sound bridge to his death?’

‘What indeed?’ said Delilah, trying to absorb and make sense of what Grace Urquhart was saying to her. ‘How fascinating. Thank you so much for letting me know. I must get back
to the house now, but would you mind leaving me your number? That way I can reach you if I have any questions.’

‘Of course not,’ Mrs Urquhart said, pleased, the sting of Delilah’s departure softened by the idea that they would keep in touch. ‘Please call me any time. I’d be
delighted to help if I possibly can.’

‘Is the grim fiesta over?’ John asked, going to the fridge and pulling a beer from its cool depths. He popped it open and took a long drink.

‘If you mean the gymkhana, then yes,’ Delilah said. She had the laptop open on the kitchen table and was doing an internet search at the same time as preparing supper. ‘You
should have come up, you know. Everyone would have loved to see you.’ She gave him a look. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of
noblesse oblige
?’

He grimaced. ‘Heard of it? It’s been the bane of my bloody life. I wouldn’t be suffering with this damn place if it wasn’t.’

‘All right, but doing a little more of it wouldn’t hurt. I think you could forge local relationships, that’s all. People want to feel a connection to the house, they want to
belong to it.’

‘They wouldn’t if they knew what it really meant,’ he said, looking irritated. ‘They just see the beauty. They don’t understand it’s a front. It’s like
the make-up on the face of a raddled old harridan, designed to lure you in and then suck the life out of you.’

Delilah stared at him, startled by the bitterness in his voice. He was utterly sincere. Despite what he’d said before, she’d assumed that a part of him must love the house in a way
she never could. After all, his roots were there.

She remembered her encounter with Grace Urquhart and said carefully, ‘I heard an interesting thing today. A woman told me that before your mother married your father, she was married to
someone called Laurence Sykes. Did you know that?’

John went very still and his eyes widened with surprise. ‘What?’

‘Yes – she was married twice. And the first husband drowned in the Dursford Reservoir after a car accident.’

He stood by the fridge, the beer in his hand, not moving. He said in a cold voice, ‘Can that be true? I had no idea.’

‘The woman who talked to me seemed very convincing. She’s a Sykes, and has been doing the family tree thing that’s such a craze now. Do you think it’s likely?’

‘Who knows? And to be honest, who cares? They’re all dead now. Only my father is left and he can’t tell us.’

‘Perhaps we should ask him,’ she suggested. ‘He might find it easier to remember the distant past.’

‘I don’t see the point,’ John said shortly. ‘We wouldn’t know if he was telling the truth or not.’

‘All right. Well, do you mind if I do a bit of investigation myself? I’ve been looking on the net but I can’t find much. The records don’t seem to be on there. I think
it’s going to take quite a bit of poking about.’

John looked suddenly cross. ‘Why? What’s the bloody point? So my mother was married twice, so what? It won’t change anything! I can’t see why you’re so interested.
I don’t like you digging away like this. For Christ’s sake, Delilah, I didn’t marry you to go back to the past, I married you to get away from it!’

His words hung heavy in the air. She stared at him, stricken, as he breathed heavily under knitted brows.

‘I just want to understand you better,’ she said. ‘I want to help you. I thought that if I knew more about the past, I might be able to do that.’

‘Don’t waste your time,’ he said irritably. ‘I need you to help me face the future, don’t you understand that? I mean, for fuck’s sake . . .’ He walked
over to the kitchen table and slammed his palm down on it, making Delilah jump and her laptop judder. Then he muttered, ‘Oh God. Maybe I’m making a mess of the whole thing. It’s
probably better if we don’t have a baby.’

The words hit her like a hard punch to the stomach. ‘What?’ she whispered.

He shrugged. ‘Maybe the fates are telling me that a man like me ought not to have children.’

She stared at him, half frightened now, discomfited by the way he was almost echoing her own thoughts of earlier. She saw a flash of herself and Ben in bed, and quickly banished it. ‘What
do you mean?’

‘Can’t you tell?’ Irritation seemed to surge through him. He twitched angrily. ‘For one thing, this house is bloody well killing me, so why I ought to inflict that on
some poor innocent child is completely beyond me! And for another—’ He broke off, took up his beer and gulped another mouthful.

‘What?’ she pressed. A tumult of emotions was rushing through her: fear, astonishment, surprise and horror. Was he really having second thoughts about wanting children?
‘What’s the other thing?’

When he spoke it was in a low, determined voice. ‘This family is miserable. We’re destined to suffer. My father is probably happier than he’s ever been now he’s forgotten
the past. He used to be something else – drunk most of the time, permanently despairing and the loneliest man you’ve ever seen.’

‘But that’s not you,’ Delilah replied, her lips dry. ‘We can change the pattern of the past. We’ve got each other now. There’s no need for you to suffer like
your parents. And I’m not going to die like your mother did.’

John stared at her, frozen, his face a study of horror. Then he said in a cold voice, ‘What did you say?’

A wave of fear went over her. ‘I-I-I said I wasn’t going to die like your mother. You don’t have to worry about me leaving you.’

John’s expression became agonised. ‘You don’t know anything about it!’ he said, his voice raw.

She leapt to her feet, pushing herself away from the table. ‘But I want to know! I want to understand you! Why do you keep so much of yourself closed off from me when all I want is for us
to be close to each other, to help one another?’

‘It’s nothing to do with you! I’m trying to escape it all, not drag you into it too!’ He slammed down his beer bottle on the kitchen table, and it spouted a little
fountain of foam. ‘I thought you would be my fresh start, but I can see now that you’re going to be cursed by all this just like I am.’

‘That’s not fair! You have to give me a chance. I have no idea what I’m up against because you won’t tell me anything!’ She was panting now, furious. ‘You
won’t let me in, John! I can’t just be here for the bits you choose, I have to live this life completely with you, or it just won’t work. I can’t help you if you don’t
let me!’ Her rage was growing with her sense of impotence and thwarted hope. ‘You don’t let me build a relationship with your father, you won’t talk about your mother, or
what happened here to make this house such a miserable bloody place! How am I supposed to live like this?’

His eyes had turned dark and fierce. ‘What are you going to do now?’ he said. A muscle twitched in his jaw, revealing the strain he felt. ‘Are you going to leave me?’

‘I don’t want to leave you, you stupid man! I love you! I don’t want you to drive me away!’ She felt tears of rage, frustration and despair building up behind her eyes.
‘I want
you
and I want us to be a family. But I can only do that if you let me help you.’

‘I can’t promise you that,’ he said flatly.

‘Clearly.’ She raised her eyes to him, his image beginning to blur. She tried to stop the tears; she wanted very much to stay strong in front of him. ‘I just wish you’d
open up to me. Not because I want to leave you but because I want to understand what you think and feel.’

John said in his strange, cold voice, ‘But just by being here, you’re stirring things up. Making things worse.’

She recoiled, gasping with the hurt of his words. ‘What? How can you say that?’ She felt a sob rising in her throat, turned and stumbled for the door. All she had done for almost a
year was try to make John happy. Had she only succeeded in making him more miserable? She didn’t believe it – she
knew
they’d been happy together once. Surely they could
be again. But then, what did he mean?

He mustn’t see me crying and weak
, she thought, almost blinded by the hot water in her eyes. The sobs were coming now, pushed out of her lungs in horrible, convulsive waves, as
she opened the back door, longing for the fresh air beyond and the release of the outside from the stifling atmosphere in the house. She saw the darkening blue of the sky, a flash of green and then
dashed straight into something hard and warm with an ‘Ouff!’

‘Delilah? Are you all right?’

She had run into Ben, she realised, dazed. He had taken her by the arms to stop her falling back after they’d collided, and was staring down into her tear-streaked face.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I’m fine,’ she said, in the teary quaver of someone on the brink of breaking down.

‘No, you’re not! Come here.’ He wrapped her in his arms, pulling her tightly against his broad chest. She smelt the musky aroma of his skin with the tang of sweat. The tears
fell again and he murmured, ‘There, there, you’re okay now,’ which made a sound deep in his chest that buzzed against her ear. After a moment, she got control of her crying and
pulled away, sniffing.