It had been another glorious summer at Chalton Manor, three years after Peter had brought Alice there, persuaded her to stay and make it not only a new home for herself but also one for him too. After a while it seemed that they had always been together.
His precious garden had, over time, proven more and more difficult for him to maintain by himself, so a succession of garden labourers came and went, carrying out the more laborious tasks, which allowed Peter to preserve his dwindling energy and focus on his vegetable patch and greenhouse.
For her part, Alice kept the house immaculate. She had honed her cooking skills to gourmet level and had overseen redecoration of the drawing room, the hallway and spiral staircase, as well as both main bedrooms, his and hers, the latter undergoing significant and necessary modifications.
Alice had become aware of Peter’s increasing fragility, and although he never talked about his condition in great detail, she knew enough to be careful about what she fed him and to monitor his activities lest he try and do anything too strenuous. But she had her hands full in more ways than one.
This Sunday afternoon, she was in the kitchen preparing a roast lunch, Peter’s favourite, and he had gone out to pick some potatoes. She heard the grandfather clock in the hallway strike twelve noon and then, from afar, a familiar voice: “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!” followed by the patter of tiny feet.
She listened and smiled, and knelt down as a little blonde girl ran up to her clutching a sweet pea.
“Mummy, Mummy!” she shouted.
“What’s that, Lucy?” said Alice, crouching to the level of her three-year-old daughter and holding her by the waist.
“Grandad gave me a sweetpea!” she shrieked excitedly.
“Ooh – isn’t that lovely,” said Alice before she was interrupted by another small voice.
“Mummy, Mummy, Grandad gave me a sweet pea too!” Another little blonde girl, identical to the first, appeared and muscled in on the act.
“Ooh, Sophie, isn’t that lovely too?” said Alice. The twins continued to shriek with delight and wave their flowers in the air, which began to wilt under their indelicate treatment. “Come on. Let’s go and see if Grandad has found us some potatoes.” Alice took her twin daughters, one in each hand, and led them out of the kitchen towards the garden.
***
Peter had reached the vegetable patch at the far end of the garden and decided to stop and catch his breath before wielding the fork. His left upper arm was aching to buggery and he rubbed it vigorously to try and get rid of the tingling. He wasn’t due another pill for four more hours but decided he would have to bring the dose forward a bit, and he was looking forward to a glass or two of Bordeaux Superieur with his lunch, which always helped. His phone rang and he fished it out of his pocket, scanning the display. He smiled and put it to his ear.
“How’s my favourite lawyer?” he said. Michael, calling on a Sunday? Must be a personal matter.
“We found her.” A statement. All he needed to say. The colour drained from Peter’s face as his eyes widened like saucers and his mouth dropped open.
“Michael? What?”
“We found her and she’s okay,” said Michael.
“But … but …” Peter was stammering and he knew it, and although he had a thousand words in his head, none of them would come out in a coherent fashion.
He sat down on the old wooden bench next to his vegetable patch. Four years. Four years since he had given the instruction. It was barely credible. He had never forgotten, and in the first few months, Michael had reported back on progress regularly, even if there had been none, and the bills had quickly totted up. But after time there had been little to report, and once the overseas leads had all but dried up, it had been left to a hard core of special services veterans, Jackson and Rutherford, to do the legwork. It had been less expensive but seemingly interminable. Michael was speaking again.
“It’s been in the offing for a while,” he continued, “but I wasn’t sure until I got the call this morning so I didn’t want to tell you sooner in case it all came to nothing. But we made the final payment, the deal was done and she’s on her way back.”
“And are you sure she’s okay?” said Peter, desperately trying to visualise what was unfolding five thousand miles away.
“I’m told so. I haven’t seen her or spoken to her and, as you can imagine, communications are very poor in these primitive areas. But Jackson’s on the ground and his sources assure him she’s in good health and in good spirits. I won’t be able to tell you anything more for a couple of days, and then I’m afraid it may be two weeks before she gets home.”
“Two weeks?” spluttered Peter. “Why so long?”
“Passport,” said Michael. “We need to get her a passport. And to get one that quickly will take a little more cash.”
“Oh,” said Peter, deflated but accepting. “When will I be able to talk to her?”
“As soon as she’s back in civilisation.”
“But where is she now?”
“I‘m not sure, but apparently she’s travelled a fair distance already. They came across the foothills. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles.”
“My God. They walked?”
“It’s what they do. There are no roads out there, you know.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Rutherford’s with her and they’ve got a guide.”
“Michael. I knew it. I knew it!” said Peter triumphantly and then, suddenly remembering his manners, added, “I can’t thank you enough for this. I can’t ever thank you enough.”
He felt the pain rising in his chest again, exactly the same way he had felt when he was in the Langtang Valley four years ago. The same crushing tightness, the overwhelming urge to cry out, stifled by his emotional discipline and the determination to stay calm, suppressing the waves of fear and darkness; but this time, instead of dark, finally there was light.
“It’s okay, old man. You have lots of others to thank. Go and have a stiff drink. I’ll call you the moment I know more.” And he hung up before Peter could say anything else.
Peter sat for a moment, stunned, trying to make sense of the conversation he had just had, barely believing it to be true, but knowing, having always known, that one day it would be.
But now, other thoughts moved in to occupy his mind. He had to weigh up the consequences of what he had done and the ramifications that would follow. He began to question, with mounting concern, whether he had done the right thing.
But he had had to do it. For her sake. For all their sakes. Yet in the midst of the euphoria, there was a terrible uncertainty, a terrible foreboding. Their lives had been made perfect again, as perfect as they had been before, and now the spectre of change was upon them. Change for the better, he could only pray.
He turned his tired eyes towards the house and in the distance saw Alice and her daughters playing on the grass, and his heart filled with joy at the sight of them, happy and contented, confident and loving.
But what was done was done and there was no going back. He stared out over the fields of wheat that bordered the western boundary of Chalton Manor, the Jeffries family home for over three hundred years, and watched the long yellow stalks swaying in the summer breeze as they had done for centuries. This had always been the Jeffries’ home and he had made sure it would remain so in the future. His eyes filled at the thought, and for only the second time in his life, he opened up his heart.
“Oh, Lisa,” he said, his voice trembling with pain and fear and joy. “Forgive me. I can’t wait to see you again.” His left arm was numb and the vice closed on his chest, but before he lost the power to speak, he was able to say that which he had never been able to say before.
“I love you.”
***
Alice took Sophie and Lucy by the hand, the girls skipping and squealing and laughing as they set off down the lawn towards where Peter was sitting motionless on the bench. They were still a hundred yards away when Alice stopped. She knew. She turned around and knelt down.
“Sophie. Lucy. Hold hands. Stay there.” The girls did as they were told and she turned and took several steps in Peter’s direction, her pace quickening, breaking into a run, her fears rising as she drew closer. She got within ten feet and stopped. Peter was indeed motionless, his head tipped forward on his chest, one arm hanging limply at his side.