Penny Jordan - Man Of Stone

A portrait above the fireplace caught her eye, and she stared at it, transfixed.

‘Your mother,’ her grandmother told her quietly. ‘Painted just before her eighteenth birthday. It wasn’t long afterwards that she… she left us. Come and sit down. I want to hear all about you.’ She saw the concern and apprehension cloud the hazel eyes which were so like her own late husband’s, and said gently, ‘Sara, something’s wrong. What is it?’

How quickly and easily it all tumbled out! Her father, Cressy… and Tom. Most of all, Tom… Her love for him, and also her fear.

She badly wanted to cry, but she was so used to controlling her feelings for the benefit of others that she wouldn’t allow tears to fall.

‘Cressy is right,’ her grandmother said when she had finished. ‘You had to come here. And I’m so pleased that you have.’

Later, she would try to find out why this grandchild of hers had never responded to her constant pleas that she at least agree to see her… Her late son-in-law had a good deal to answer for, she suspected. She had never liked him, never considered him good enough for her daughter. But selfishness was not something that was restricted to other people’s families, as she had good cause to know. For now, it was enough that Sara had come home. And home was where she was going to stay.

SHE TOLD SARA as much over dinner, and was shocked by the look of agonised relief in her granddaughter’s eyes. Alice Fitton had spent many long hours wondering about this grandchild of hers, trying to understand why it was that she had rejected their every overture of love and regret.

She had thought that Sara must be like her father: strong-willed, self-centred, uncaring of the emotional needs of others through a lack of ever having experienced them for herself. But less than half an hour in Sara’s company had been enough to show her how wrong she was.

The other girl, now—Cressida… But Cressida was no concern of hers, other than that Sara seemed to be overly concerned about her welfare. Sara was speaking to her now.

‘Cressy, why don’t you stay the night?’ she urged her stepsister. ‘Gran is right. It’s a long journey back at this time of the evening. And, besides, if you stay, it will help Tom to feel a little more settled.’

It was the wrong thing to say. Cressy frowned, an acid sharpening of her eyes and mouth dimming her normal prettiness.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, stop fussing, Sara. Tom will be perfectly all right. Anyway, I have to leave. I have an appointment first thing in the morning, and then there’s an audition for a day-time soap.’

Cressy had quickly realised that there was no way she would ever be able to charm Alice Fitton. The older woman had seen right through her, but Luke…

She smiled secretly to herself.

‘I could always drive up at the weekend,’ she offered tentatively.

‘Oh, yes…’

Sighing faintly to herself, Alice said nothing. Perhaps she was being very uncharitable, but there was something about Cressy that she just didn’t like or trust. But Sara, her heart full of happiness and relief, could only remember that if it hadn’t been for Cressy’s insistence she would not be here. And Cressy had been right to urge her to come; her grandmother had made her welcome. Already there was a rapport between them that Sara had never known with anyone else. Already she felt at home in a way she had never experienced before. Unlike her father, her grandmother did not despise her.

‘After we’ve finished eating, I’ll take you and Tom upstairs, and you can choose your own bedrooms. Luke will be pleased when he knows you’re going to stay. He’s always telling me I’m too old to be on my own.’ The way she smiled robbed the words of any unkind intent, but Sara could not help feeling resentful on behalf of her grandmother. Who was this Luke to dare to tell her what she should and should not do?

‘What’s the matter?’ her grandmother asked perceptively.

‘Who exactly is Luke?’ Sara asked her uncertainly.

‘Of course, how could you know? Silly of me! It’s just that he’s been a part of the family for so long now that I forgot that you wouldn’t realise. Luke Gallagher was married to your cousin Louise.’

Her cousin? Of course, Luke was the widowed husband of the cousin Cressy had told her about.

‘He has very many business interests, both here and in Australia, which keep him very busy,’ her grandmother sighed. ‘Too busy, I sometimes think.’

It was becoming increasingly plain to Sara that her grandmother held this Luke in the greatest affection, and she was equally sure, from that one hard, encompassing look he had given her, that Luke was not going to be inclined to favour her arrival.

What her grandmother chose to do was no concern of Luke’s, Sara told herself staunchly, and yet she was left with the lowering feeling that, if Luke chose to do so, he could make her life acutely uncomfortable for her. But why should he? He probably only visited her grandmother at irregular intervals, when he was in the country.

Sara didn’t care for all this talk about Luke. It was making her feel acutely edgy. She didn’t know why the very thought of the man had such an unwarranted effect on her; she was normally the calmest of creatures. Men had never figured very largely in her life. At twenty-three, her experience of them was limited to the odd date, mainly with sons of friends of her father’s, young men she had always felt uncomfortably sure had been dragooned into taking her out, and for that reason she had usually ended up tongue-tied and awkward in their company, knowing that given the choice they must surely have preferred to take out someone like her stepsister.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like the opposite sex, it was simply that there had never been much time for her to get to know any of them on her own terms.

‘Well, my dear, if you really do want to leave this evening, we mustn’t delay you.’

She realised that her grandmother was inviting Cressy to leave. She and Tom went out to the car with her. Even though she and Cressy did not always see eye-to-eye, she was reluctant to see her go.

Harrison, her grandmother’s chauffeur-cum-handyman, had already removed their luggage from the car.

‘Well, with a bit of luck I’ll see you both next weekend.’

Sara stepped forward to hug her, but Cressy moved back, grimacing faintly.

Unlike her, she had always been sparing with her gestures of affection, especially to Tom and herself, Sara acknowledged a little unhappily.

‘I thought you were going to be busy getting ready for your trip to America,’ she reminded Cressy, a tiny frown puckering her forehead as she remembered her stepsister’s glib explanation for the unseemly haste with which she had insisted they all come up here.

Tom had moved away from them and they were virtually standing alone. Sara felt her skin burn as Cressy taunted unkindly, ‘What’s wrong? Would you prefer to have Luke all to yourself, is that it?’ She had driven off before Sara could make any response. She didn’t usually let Cressy’s bitterness upset her so much, but for some reason her final comment had made her eyes sting with hot tears.

‘Come inside. It’s getting quite cool. I think we’ll get Harrison to light the sitting-room fire.’

There was a firm dependability about her grandmother, Sara recognised, and a gentleness that made her aware of all that she had missed in not knowing her while she was growing up. It would have meant so much to her to have this woman, this house, as a bolt-hole during the often turbulent and uncomfortable days of her teens; days when she had felt so at odds with her father and his values; days when she had felt so alone and unloved.