Ah, could there ever be a hero to match Fitzwilliam? she wondered.
Getting out of bed, Kay grabbed a sheet of paper and sketched a few lines, desperately trying to recall the man from her dreams. It was always the face that eluded her. She could capture the stride, the movement of the man, and the clothes were always easy to remember but the face always seemed to hover on the outskirts of her consciousness. What did the perfect hero look like?
She sketched on, covering sheet after sheet, her stomach rumbling in a bid to be fed but nothing was more important than her drawing. Food could wait, drink could wait but art could never wait.
It was then that the telephone rang. Why did the telephone always ring when one was in the middle of something very important? Kay dropped her pen and sighed.
‘Hello?’ she said.
She didn’t recognise the voice on the other end but, as soon as the woman said where she was calling from, Kay knew that it wasn’t good news.
Peggy Sullivan had died.
* * *
Denis Frobisher’s face was, perhaps, the longest face Kay had ever seen. It reminded her of a basset hound but he had a warm smile that made his eyes twinkle and she understood why Peggy had chosen him as her solicitor.
‘But I don’t understand,’ Kay told him. ‘She left me everything?’
Mr Frobisher nodded. ‘It’s very simple. There were no siblings, no children. Nobody. Just you, Miss Ashton.’
‘But I only knew her a short time.’
‘Then you obviously made an impression.’
Kay shook her head. ‘This is crazy.’
‘Her husband left her very comfortably off. Of course, the nursing home fees made their dent over the years but she still left a sizeable chunk.’
‘Yes,’ Kay said. It was all she could say.
And then something occurred to her. Their last conversation. What was it she’d said to Peggy when they were talking about dreams for the future?
‘If only it was that simple,’ Kay said.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mr Frobisher said.
‘I made this happen,’ Kay said, her voice quavering. ‘I wished things were simple and that dreams could come true and now Peggy’s dead. I didn’t mean to wish her dead! Oh, dear!’
‘Miss Ashton!’ Mr Frobisher said. ‘You’re upsetting yourself unnecessarily. Mrs Sullivan was an elderly woman who’d been seriously ill for many years. It was her time. You didn’t bring this about, I can assure you.’ He pushed a box of tissues towards her and she took one and dabbed her eyes.
‘Oh, Peggy!’ she said. ‘I never expected this. I never imagined . . .’
‘Of course you didn’t,’ Mr Frobisher said.
They sat quietly for a moment whilst Kay recovered her composure.
‘There’s a letter too,’ Mr Frobisher said gently. ‘One of the nurses at the home wrote it for Peggy but she managed to sign it herself.’ He handed her the white envelope and, with shaking hands, Kay opened it and took out the folded sheet of paper.
My dearest Kay, I hope this doesn’t come as too much of a shock to you but I’ve left you a little bit of money. Kay stifled the urge to laugh at the understatement.
You see, I don’t have anyone close to me and, unlike most elderly ladies, I don’t have an affinity to cats so I won’t be leaving my worldly goods to any rescue centres.
I know your mother didn’t have much to leave you and I know you’ve got a whopping mortgage and an unfulfilled dream. Well, my dear, if you use my money wisely, you can fulfil that dream right now and I will feel that I am living on through you. Is that silly of me?
I’m going to miss you, dear Kay. I always loved your visits and thank you so much for the wonderful hours of reading. I hadn’t read Jane Austen for years but your beautiful voice brought all those stories back to life for me again and for that I am truly grateful.
So this is your chance, isn’t it? Do something amazing!
Your friend,
Peggy.
Kay looked at the scribbled signature in blue ink. It looked more like ‘Piggy’ really and Kay could imagine Peggy’s arthritic hand skating over the paper, determined to leave its mark, and the image brought more tears to Kay’s eyes.
‘So you see,’ Mr Frobisher began, ‘she wanted you to have everything. We’ve been in the process of sorting things out. The house was being rented for the past few years – that’s what brought in most of the income to pay the nursing home – but the tenant has gone now so the house is yours.’
Kay nodded, desperately trying to follow everything.
‘Mrs Sullivan thought you’d want to sell it straightaway.’ He paused, waiting for her reply. ‘But you probably want to think about things for a while,’ he added.
‘Yes,’ Kay said. ‘Think.’
‘And you have my number. I’m here if you have any questions.’
‘Questions.’ Kay nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’ve been very kind.’
‘Not at all,’ Mr Frobisher said. ‘Simply doing my job and carrying out the wishes of my client.’ He stood up to escort Kay to the door. ‘Dear Mrs Sullivan,’ he said. ‘How she will be missed.’
Kay nodded as she stood up and she felt her eyes vibrating with tears again. She turned back round to the desk and took another tissue from the box – just to be on the safe side.
Chapter Two
Kay sat at her desk in the office at Barnum and Mason. It had been three months since Peggy’s funeral and Kay still couldn’t believe that her dear friend had gone and that she could no longer visit her at the nursing home, a pile of books in her bag ready for reading.
Peggy’s funeral had taken place in the same church as that of Kay’s mother on a May morning that was sunny but bitterly cold. The snow had melted and everything had seemed wonderfully green but there’d been nothing to rejoice about that day. Kay had sat shivering in the same pew that she’d occupied only a few sad weeks before, watching the service through a veil of tears.
And now here she was sitting in the office as if nothing had happened. How callous time was, she thought. It hadn’t stopped to mourn the passing of a dear friend but had marched onwards and had dragged Kay along for the ride.
She hadn’t sketched for weeks now, choosing to read instead. There’d been the usual diet of Jane Austen with Kay choosing Northanger Abbey in the hopes that Catherine and Tilney’s company would cheer her up. She’d also been trying to find out more about preparing her illustrations for publication and had raided the local library. There was one very useful book full of tips for the first-timer and she’d sneaked it into work in the hope that she’d be able to photocopy some of the pages in a quiet moment.
‘Which is possibly now,’ she said to herself, looking around the office. It was a small open-plan office with four desks occupied by her colleagues. Paul and Marcus were out at lunch and Janice was on the phone laughing. It obviously wasn’t a work-related call; none of the business at the solicitors was stuff that provoked laughter.
Opening her bag, she took out the book and walked over to the communal photocopier. She only hoped she could get the pages copied before the silly old machine pulled