‘I don’t know…. Jen, there’s something I haven’t yet told you.’
Quietly she waited.
‘It’s David. He’s been taking money from a client’s account.’ Briefly he explained as Jenny listened in appalled silence.
‘Oh, Jon,’ she whispered in shock once he had finished. ‘How could he have done such a thing? What will happen? There’s no way we could pay it back even if we sold everything and—’
‘I know, I know,’ Jon agreed, reaching out for her and wrapping her in his arms. ‘There was a message waiting for me when I got back from Chester this afternoon to say that Jemima Harding had died early this morning. The accountants will have to be told now, and the bank.’
‘Oh, Jon …’ Jenny pressed her hand to her mouth. ‘Has David said …?’
Jon shook his head. ‘We haven’t discussed it. I couldn’t, not when …’
‘And your father?’
Again, Jon shook his head.
‘Oh, Jon,’ Jenny repeated sadly as she leaned her head against his chest.
It seemed to be a recurring pattern over the years that their moments of the most intimate shared joy were always overshadowed by David. But this time, he wasn’t merely casting a shadow over their lives; he was threatening to ruin them. Jon may not have said so, spelled it out in so many words, but she knew all the same. David might have been the one who had stolen the money, broken a trust, but it was Jon who would have to pay. It always was….
Obligingly Olivia broke off another piece of her sandwich for the bird watching her. She hadn’t been hungry anyway, she acknowledged glumly as she scattered the crumbs on the grass in front of her. It was a warm, sunny day and she had come into the square to have her lunch but she had no appetite for it.
The doctor had reported back to them this morning that her mother was stable and that she would be transferred to the clinic later in the afternoon. He would advise, he had added firmly, that at least for a few days, her mother not have any visitors.
‘She really isn’t up to it and sometimes it can be very distressing, both for the patient and the family.’
Jon had told her this morning about Jemima Harding’s death. A tear trickled down her face followed by a second. She bent her head protectively over her unwanted lunch as she fumbled in her handbag for a tissue.
‘Olivia?’
She tensed as she heard Ruth’s voice, but it was too late; her great-aunt had seen her tears.
‘Oh, Livvy my dear, I heard about your mother. I’m so sorry,’ Ruth began saying compassionately as she sat down next to her on the wooden bench and put an arm around her.
‘No, that’s not it, not why … I’m not crying for Tiggy. I’m crying for myself,’ Olivia told her miserably. ‘I miss Caspar so much. I hate myself for saying it but part of me wishes that I’d never offered to stay … that I’d just gone with him.’
‘Oh, Livvy … it’s not too late,’ Ruth responded consolingly. ‘You could—’
‘No, he doesn’t want me any more. He believes that loving someone means putting them first, you see, and he thinks that I don’t love him. At least not enough, because according to him I didn’t, and even though I do love him, I’m not sure that I can live like that … with that … I would always feel that it was hanging over me. I …’
She started to cry again, her throat aching from the effort of trying to suppress her tears.
‘And anyway,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t go now … not with Dad …’
‘Your father’s over the worst and, by all accounts, well on the way to recovery. He’ll be back at work within a month and then … Olivia my dear, what is it?’ Ruth asked in dismay as Olivia buried her head in her hands and started to sob in earnest.
‘Oh, Aunt Ruth …’
‘Olivia, what is it …? What on earth’s wrong? What have I said …?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ Olivia replied tearfully. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything … I …’
‘Of course you can tell me,’ Ruth admonished her robustly. ‘You can and you must, and I’m certainly not leaving this bench until you do. Neither one of us is.’
Olivia gave her a watery smile.
‘That’s better,’ Ruth encouraged. ‘Now tell me what’s wrong.’
Hating herself for being weak enough to give in to the temptation to unburden herself, Olivia did just that. Ruth let her speak without trying to interrupt her and when the younger woman had finished, Ruth looked across the small pretty square in silence.
‘I … I shouldn’t have told you. You’re shocked and—’
‘No, I’m not shocked,’ Ruth countered lightly. ‘I’m not even particularly surprised. Now I’ve shocked you. I’m sorry, Olivia, but then, you see, I rather think I know your father slightly better than you do. You find it hard to accept that he could do something so … dishonest. A child needs to be able to trust and respect its parent, so that’s no bad thing.’
‘Except that I’m not a child.’
‘Maybe not, but it isn’t always easy to cast off ingrained modes of behaviour and beliefs … ideals. Perhaps that’s why it’s easier for me to accept than for you.
‘You see, to me, your father always has been and always will be the self-willed and rather selfish little boy who always so skilfully shrugged aside his responsibilities and used his charm and his father’s unfortunate tendency to spoil him to his own advantage, leaving Jon to be his whipping boy.’ She sat quietly for a moment, seemingly deep in thought. ‘Has Jon actually seen the accountants yet?’
‘No, not yet,’ Olivia told her tiredly.
‘Good.’ Ruth turned round and looked across the square to Jon’s office window. ‘I’d better go and see him, then,’ she said purposefully, a smile warming her face.
‘Go and see him …?’ Olivia frowned. ‘But—’
‘Do you know what I think you should do, Livvy?’ Ruth interrupted. Without waiting for Olivia to respond, she continued, ‘I think you should go and ring that young man of yours. You do love him,’ she reminded Olivia when she saw her expression. ‘All right, he may not be perfect, you may have problems to resolve, but tell me this. Which is the worst alternative, living your life with him, problems and all, or living your life without them and without him? Don’t waste your life in useless regrets, Olivia my dear. Not like … Go and ring him. I insist.’
‘Ruth …?’ Jon stood up as his secretary ushered Ruth into his office. She might only live across the square but he couldn’t remember the last time she had actually come to the office.
‘Sit down, Jon,’ she told him crisply. ‘We need to talk. Olivia has told me all about David,’ she announced forthrightly. ‘I take it that as yet no one outside the family knows what’s happened?’
‘As yet, no,’ Jon agreed heavily.
‘Good. Now tell me, how much exactly did David borrow from Jemima Harding?’
‘Borrow …?’ Jon gave her a dry look. ‘David didn’t borrow anything. David stole—’
‘No, he did not,’ Ruth corrected him authoritatively. ‘David, rather unprofessionally