‘Hal, get back into your seat!’ Sage snapped, her tone uncustomarily sharp. Hal, however, could not hear her and happily continued to catch flies with Grouse as Rafe drove down the tree-lined drive, trying his best to avoid the many potholes while taking exceptional care not to unduly jolt the car as he watched the two blissful faces in his wing mirror.
The drive eventually opened out before a well-proportioned grey stone farmhouse, which sat behind an ivy-covered walled garden. A neat row of stables lay perpendicular to the end of the garden. Dickie Beaumont was long-reining a beautiful bay mare in the stable yard. The horse was well muscled but her delicate legs looked as though they were spun from silk. Her thick black mane was blowing in the breeze and her brown coat shone like a conker. Dickie was dressed in shorts and shirtsleeves, despite the cold; his feet were clad in wellingtons and a Russian fur hat was perched on his brown curls. He steered the horse into one of the stables and when Sage, Rafe and Hal got out of the car – leaving a disgruntled Grouse sitting mournfully on the back seat – and made their way over to the yard, he appeared to look back out of the stable doorway, holding the lunge reins and bridle in his brown, calloused hands.
‘Hi, Dad,’ Sage croaked, her voice breaking under a deluge of emotions.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again – my Life seems to stop there – I see no further.
John Keats,Letter to Fanny Brawne
Dickie’s craggy, handsome face instantly transformed from its initial mask of mild hostility to an expression of the utmost incredulity, then broke into a broad smile.
‘What the devil are you doing here?’ he cried. ‘Good gracious, is this my grandson?’ He turned from Hal to Sage in amazement. She nodded, unable to speak.
‘You’re my grandpapa?’ Hal asked curiously, eager to venture into the dark stable.
‘I sure am!’ he said proudly, then stuttered, guilt catching up with him. He looked to his daughter to check that he might presume to claim this title so readily. When she smiled generously, he felt his heart lift a fraction but he was still full of an almost overwhelming, uncomfortable sense of unease. Common sense took over. ‘Steady, child – you don’t want to go in there. She bites at one end and kicks at the other.’ He chased after Hal. ‘Would you like to come and meet my dog? He’s much more friendly. Come on, he’s in the house.’ Dickie held onto Hal’s shoulders and deftly steered him one hundred and eighty degrees so that he walked away from the mare and contentedly stumped off towards the garden instead.
The garden lay within a large dry-stone wall; half was set aside for vegetables in regimental raised beds beside two long greenhouses, and the rest was a riotous mass of wild flowers and tall grasses with herbaceous borders around its edge and little paths mown throughout. A pale blue dovecote stood in the centre of the garden and a large piece of slate atop a stone pillar served as a bird table. Upon this, numerous different types of songbird chattered away happily as they breakfasted on nuts and seeds that had been put out for them. Sage recognized blue tits, chaffinches, wagtails, bullfinches, robins and starlings but there were several others that she could not name. She recalled how her parents used to point out the different species feeding at their bird table in Newmarket; it was a memory that she had forgotten entirely until now.
Dickie noticed her surveying the scene. ‘There’s even a kingfisher down by the brook in the far field,’ he said gruffly. ‘The birds down here are terrific.’
Sage and Rafe caught each other’s eye and both tried to hide a smile. Sage thought how Dickie hardly seemed changed; he had more lines on his face but he was exactly as she remembered.
‘Dad – this is Rafe Dunbarton,’ Sage hastily said, realizing she had forgotten to make any sort of introduction.
‘Are you any relation to Walter Dunbarton?’ Dickie asked curiously, forgetting his shame for a moment, and peering at Rafe from beneath wild, unruly eyebrows.
‘Yes, sir – he’s my father,’ Rafe said, surprised. Dickie held out his rough hand to him, and he accepted it.
‘He’s a fine man, Walter. Good.’ Dickie looked appraisingly from Rafe to Sage and then back to Rafe again. ‘Good,’ he said again. He rubbed his hands together repeatedly, the only outward show of nerves. Neither Dickie nor Sage knew how to broach the enormous unspoken burden that sat between them like a mountain. Dickie could barely put his scrambled emotions into coherent thoughts let alone words.
They made their way into the house through a large portico front door and left their boots in the stone-paved hallway, into which flooded bright shafts of morning light. They moved through to a welcoming kitchen, which had underfloor heating beneath its sandstone tiles and was likewise bathed in sunshine. A beautiful blue whippet lay curled up on a woollen Witney blanket. He rose to greet them, languidly stretching his graceful iron-grey body. He yawned widely, showing lots of white, pointed teeth, and his long tail waved lazily, but in a friendly manner. On light feet, he padded over to inspect Hal, reaching out his long nose to smell the child; the dog’s tail signalled his approval and he returned to his blanket with precise, fluid steps. He lay back down, erect and unmoving like a statue of a sphinx, one paw elegantly placed on top of the other. Hal followed him, entranced, and sat down companionably beside him, stroking the dog’s silken ears.
‘Hello, Remington, my dear boy. Be nice to Hal, please. He’s my grandson.’ Dickie spoke more easily to the dog than a human, his voice full of affection. He motioned for them to sit at the scrubbed pine table, before sitting down himself. The whippet, seeming to understand, placed his noble head on Hal’s leg and closed his eyes peacefully.
Dickie started uneasily. ‘Are you going to tell me why you’ve come? Or … perhaps you’d like a tour of your house first?’
Rafe’s mobile rang. He quickly turned it to silent, anxious for it not to irritate anyone.
‘Myhouse?’ Sage asked, confused.
‘Well, it’s yours and Casper’s. How is your brother?’
Sage answered, ‘Casper is great. He’s really wonderful. But … What do you mean that it’s our house?’ She was confused.
‘This place, it’s all yours.’ Dickie held out his arms expansively. ‘I have been trying to restore the place to its former glory.I inherited it from my Uncle Claud before your mother died but it was such a wreck that we didn’t know what to do with it at the time. Our plan was to renovate it and live here but it was so far from Newmarket and the business that we never began the process while … well … We talked about it endlessly though.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I’ve done all the work with my own hands, in what I hope is the way Iris would have wanted. It’s all in trust for you both. You can have it to live in, holiday in or sell whenever you like. I am just the custodian.’
‘Dad … it wasn’t a house we needed. It was you.’ Sage’s voice was thick in her throat.
‘I … I know that leaving you both – abandoning you – when you needed me most was wicked. I am full of shame. I try to justify it to myself, saying I would have been no good to you in the state I was in. But I know it was unforgivable.’ He paused and looked down at his hands. ‘This house is a monument of penance. I thought that if I could finish it, only then could I begin to try and find a way back into your lives. It was finally time to set up the trust in your names, so I tried to make contact. I wrote Casper a cowardly email but he didn’t reply. I suppose he’s not ready yet. I wanted to reach you too, then when Dennis told me how you were being treated it seemed like my chance to protect you, to prove myself.’
‘But why now, after all this time?’ Hurt and anger rose in Sage’s chest.
‘I’m afraid it took me such a long time to actually start the work on the house. I was a complete selfish mess after Iris died. I spent my days drinking and walking the self-loathing off along the coastal paths, and slept in the little flat above the stables. I only just finished the house this winter. I should have tried to reach you both sooner but …’ For a moment he faltered, emotion overcoming him now that the floodgates were finally open. ‘I felt that I needed to finish the house so that I hadsomething to offer you, so there was something good to come from the awful, shameful act of leaving you. My nerve failed me again and again, every time that I wanted to make contact – but I was so certain you both must have hated me, Sage. Truly, it has been so often, darling, I’ve thought of you both every day …’ Dickie trailed off, resting his elbows on the table and cupping his chin in his hands. ‘And, well, now you’re here.’
Sage stood up and moved over to a handsome Georgian oak dresser. Several silver frames sat upon its shelves. She picked one up with trembling hands; it held a black-and-white photograph of Casper and Sage, aged about six, both sitting on an Exmoor pony, with their mother holding the lead rope and laughing into the camera. Sage could feel tears stinging behind her eyelids. She remembered that day so clearly. Their father had been holding the camera and had said something to make the children smile, causing their beautiful, joyous, angelic mother to laugh so rapturously that Bang Bang the pony had taken advantage of her distraction and cantered back to his field. The twins had tumbled off and gentle chaos had duly ensued. As neither child had cried, they had each been rewarded with a shiny pound coin.