Jill Mansell: Sheer Mischief

But Veronique could not forget. All children were supposed to have grandparents, and her enduring dream was that her own children should know and love the only living grandparent left to them. As the years passed and the rift remained as deep and unbridgeable as ever, she became quietly determined to do something about it. Both her husband and her father-in-law were clearly too proud to make the first move but for Josh and Ella’s sakes she was prepared to take the risk.

If Oliver Cassidy were to come face to face with his grandchildren, she reasoned, the rift would instantly be healed. It would be a fait accompli, following which human nature would take its course and all would be well.

Knowing that her fiercely protective husband would never allow her to make the initial move towards reconciliation, however, she planned her campaign with secretive, military precision. Oliver Cassidy was at that time living in Bristol, so she waited until Guy was away on a two-week assignment in New York before booking herself and the children into an hotel less than a mile from her father-in-law’s address.

By the time of their arrival at the station, Véronique’s head was pounding and she was feeling sick with apprehension, but there was no backing out now. For the sake of Josh and Ella she struggled to maintain a bright front. At their hotel, overlooking the Clifton Suspension Bridge, she treated them to ice-cream sundaes on the sweeping terrace and said gaily, ‘Eat them all up, and don’t spill any on your clothes. We’re going to see a very nice man and he might not be so impressed with chocolate ice-cream stains.’

Josh, six years old and enjoying the adventure immensely, said, ‘Who is he?’

But Véronique, whose headache was worsening by the minute, simply smiled and shook her head.

‘Just a very nice man, my darling, who lives not far from here. You’ll like him, I’m sure.’

Josh wasn’t so sure he would. The big house to which his mother took them was owned by a man who didn’t look the least bit pleased to see them. In Josh’s experience, very-nice-people smiled a tot, hugged you and, perhaps, gave you sweets. This man, with fierce grey eyebrows like caterpillars, wasn’t even saying hello.

‘Mr Cassidy,’ said Véronique quickly. It was an unpromising start and her palms were sticky with perspiration: ‘I have brought Josh and Ella to see you . I thought you would like to meet them ... your family--’

Oliver Cassidy didn’t like surprises. Neither did he appreciate emotional blackmail. A man who seldom admitted that he might be in the wrong, he saw no reason to revise his opinion of his only son’s French wife. In her flowered dress and with her straight blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders, she still looked like a teenager, which didn’t help. And as far as he was concerned, the fact that she thought she could simply turn up out of the blue and expect some kind of fairytale reunion proved beyond all doubt that she was either stupid or staggeringly naïve.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said coldly, eyeing her white face with displeasure and ignoring the two children at her side. His gesture encompassed both the Georgian house and the sloping, sculptured lawns. ‘Afraid they’ll miss out on all this when I’m gone?’

‘No!’ Appalled by her father-in-law’s cruelty, Véronique took a faltering step backwards.

‘No,’ she cried again, pleading with him to understand. ‘They are your grandchildren, your family! This isn’t about any inheritance snapped Oliver Cassidy as Ella, clinging to her mother’s hand, began to cry. ‘Because they won’t be seeing any of it anyway.’

‘I feel sick,’ Ella sobbed. ‘Mummy, I feel—’

‘And now, I have an urgent appointment.’ He glanced at his watch in order to give credence to the lie. Then, with a look of absolute horror, he took an abrupt step sideways.

But it was too late. Ella, who had eaten far too much chocolate ice-cream, had already thrown up all over her grandfather’s highly polished, handmade shoes.

It wasn’t until they were back at the hotel that Véronique realized she was ill. The headache and nausea which she had earlier put down to nervousness had worsened dramatically and she was aching all over.

By early evening a raging fever had taken its grip and she was barely able to haul herself out of bed in order to phone downstairs and ask for a doctor to be called. Summer flu, she thought, fighting tears of exhaustion and the shivers which racked her entire body like jolts of electricity. Just what she needed. A fitting end to a disastrous visit. Had she been superstitious she might almost have believed that Oliver Cassidy had cast a malevolent jinx in order to pay her back for her impudence.

The doctor, however, took an altogether more serious view of the situation.

‘Mrs Cassidy, I’m afraid we’re going to have to get you into hospital,’ he said when he had completed his examination.

‘Mais c’est impossible!’ Véronique cried, her fluent English deserting her in her weakened state. Wes enfants But it wasn’t a suggestion, it was a statement. An ambulance was called and by midnight Véronique was being admitted to the neurological ward of one of Bristol’s largest hospitals. The hotel manager himself, she was repeatedly assured, was contacting her husband in New York and had in the meantime assumed full responsibility for her children who would remain at the hotel and be well looked after for as long as necessary.

By the time Guy arrived at the hospital twenty-seven hours later, Véronique had lapsed into a deep coma. As the doctors had suspected, tests confirmed that she was suffering from a particularly virulent strain of meningitis and although they were doing everything possible the outlook wasn’t good.

‘Mummy said we were going to see a nice man,’ said Josh, his dark eyes brimming with tears as Guy eased the truth from him ‘But he wasn’t nice at all, he was horrid. He shouted at Mummy, then Ella was sick on his shoes. And when we came back to the hotel Mummy wasn’t very well. Daddy, can we go home now?’

It was as Guy had suspected. He didn’t contact his father. And when Véronique died three days later without regaining consciousness, he saw no reason to change his mind. Oliver Cassidy might not have caused Véronique’s death but he had undoubtedly ensured that her last few waking hours should have been as miserable as possible. For that, Guy would never forgive him.

Chapter 7

Guy watched from the kitchen window as Maxine’s Jaffa-orange MG screeched to a halt at the top of the drive. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking doubtful. ‘I’m still not sure about this.

Somebody tell me I’m not making a big mistake.’

Berenice followed his gaze. The girl climbing out of the car was wearing white shorts and a sleeveless pale grey vest with MUSCLE emblazoned across her chest.

She also possessed a great deal of gold-blond hair and long brown legs.

‘Just because she doesn’t look like your idea of a nanny,’ she replied comfortably. Then, secure in the knowledge that by this time tomorrow she would be a married woman, she added with a slight smile, ‘She certainly doesn’t look like me.’

There really wasn’t any diplomatic answer to that; the differences between the two girls were only too evident. But Berenice had been such relaxing company, thought Guy, and it had never occurred to anyone who’d met her that there might possibly be anything going on between the pair of them.

The arrival of Maxine Vaughan, on the other hand, was likely to engender all kinds of lurid speculation.

‘I don’t care what she looks like.’ His expression was deliberately grim. Above them came the sound of thunderous footsteps as Josh and Ella hurled themselves down the staircase. ‘I just want her to take care of my kids.’ He was about to continue but his attention was caught by the scene now taking place on the drive.