He hates me now—he hates me and there’s nothing I can do to make him not hate me. Because what he accused me of is true.
She could tell herself all she liked that she had had no choice but to collude with her father or he would have forced her grandmother to lose her home—that still didn’t take away what she had done to Leon. Deceived him and betrayed his trust in her.
In her head, anguished, she heard his voice, low and intense—’I would have given you the world …’
She closed her eyes, feeling wave after wave of pain wash over her, crying his name in her head.
On leaden limbs she dragged herself up, forced herself to go downstairs. Out in the garden, the sun had long gone, and twilight was gathering in the shadows. Limply she sat down on a bench looking out over the silent lawns. How often had she seen her grandparents, sitting here, hand in hand, looking out over the gardens? They had loved each other deeply. With needle pain she envied them with all her heart.
Now they were both gone, and only she was left. She had lost them, one by one, and now she had lost the man she knew she loved.
She did not cry—there were no tears left to weep. Instead she heard a small, anguished voice inside her cry out.
What am I to do—what am I to do?
And as she sat it was as if she could hear inside her head the calm, wise voice of her grandmother.
‘When you wrong someone, child, you must put it right.’
She gazed out over the place she loved most on earth. The place she had tried to protect for her grandmother’s sake. But her grandmother did not need her home any more.
The cry from her heart pierced Flavia.
But I need it! I need it—I love it so much and it’s all I have left! I’ve lost everything else—only this is left to me! Only this!
Yet the voice in her head came again. ‘You must put it right, child—whatever it costs you. Then and only then can your conscience be clear again.’
Wind winnowed the hairs at the back of her neck. A last songbird called from the high bushes. The scent of roses caught at her.
‘You must put it right, child …’
She closed her eyes, hearing her grandmother’s voice, bowing her head. A strange kind of peace filled her. Then slowly, very slowly, she got to her feet and went back indoors. She had wronged Leon. And she had lost him. But she would put it right—the only way she could.
In her head his voice sounded again. ‘I would have given you the world …’
She did not have the world—but she knew what it was she must give him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘THERE you go, Mrs Peters. That’s more comfortable, isn’t it?’
Flavia’s voice was cheerful, and she smiled down at the elderly lady in her bed, whose pillows she had just rearranged, even though Mrs Peters only went on staring ahead of her blankly. But that didn’t stop Flavia chatting away to her as she tended her the way she had her grandmother. Carefully she brushed her patient’s hair, gave her some sips from the glass of barley water on the bedside table, which Mrs Peters took docilely, if wordlessly.
Her tasks done for the moment, Flavia bade her patient a kindly leavetaking, and went out of the room. Time to look in on her next charge.
It wasn’t difficult work, though seeing elderly women so similar to her grandmother could make her heart ache with loss at times, but it took energy, and patience, and endless cheerfulness, and a great deal of kindness and consideration to look after her charges. Given all her experience caring for her grandmother, it had seemed the obvious work for her to do, and the job also had the huge benefit of providing live-in accommodation at a residential care home.
Just how long she would go on working here she wasn’t sure—she couldn’t think very far ahead yet. It was enough simply to have a steady job and something useful to do each day.
And to be far, far away from everywhere and everything she’d known. And everyone.
It was what she wanted. All that she could do right now. To get right away from her past and leave it all behind her. Eventually, she knew, she would feel strong enough to lift her head up from the daily round and try and think what to do with the rest of her life.
But that time hadn’t come yet, and in the meantime this was enough.
She was just about to go into the next room on the corridor when one of the other carers spotted her.
‘Oh, there you are. Someone phoned, asking about you.’