THE HIGH LIFE [Part 5]

 THE HIGH LIFE   [Part 5]

By Richard Banks

With Neville on his way to the station and Mildred back downstairs, reading a book in the conservatory, there’s next to nothing going on, so I take the tour with Joe Public who are allowed in two days a week at £10 a head. It’s all very entertaining although I suspect the man hired to do the guiding is making it up as he goes along. According to him Wellington planned the battle of Waterloo in the room named after him and Richard the Lionheart was a frequent visitor to the house which, I know, wasn’t built until fourteen-seventy something. However, no one seems to know better and, unchallenged, he concludes the tour on the roof where there’s a tea room and a gift shop.

         “Are there any ghosts?” I hear someone ask, and he comes up with some baloney about a long dead Earl who walks the battlements in search of a treasure that’s been hidden there. That’s a yarn I’ve heard before and Neville has too because he spent most of last summer hunting for it. But for now the only ‘treasure’ to be found is in the gift shop which does a surprising amount of business before our guests depart and things are made ready for the afternoon tour.

         Neville would make a very good ghost. He glowers with a malevolence that few other men could match, and given a few chains to clank and reason enough to moan and groan would be a star turn at any seance he chose to attend. Mildred, on the other hand, could only be an insipid ghost, hardly worth a mention, but that’s not the point, my children’s fate depends on her unborn child not being a boy.  

         I go for a long walk around the grounds and by the time I return to the house I know exactly what I’m going to do. But for now there’s nothing I can do but wait for Neville to return from London with his briefcase full of bank notes and a self satisfied look on his face that, given present tensions, is unlikely to last past dinner. But that’s not until Sunday. Until then I’m at leisure with my girls. Nurse takes good care of them and they seem happy enough. I too will do my best for them. I want to tell them that everything will be alright, but don’t. Best they neither see nor hear me. So, I quietly observe Huberta trying to stand, Lizzie chasing pigeons, Isabel crying for no obvious reason and Cassie returning from school. On Saturday all five of them play ball in the grounds, have a picnic and stray further than they’re supposed to. On Sunday it rains, and all except Huberta depart for Sunday school. They return, have dinner before Cassie goes to a birthday party and is driven back to the Gatehouse by someone in a Mini Cooper. 

           An hour later Neville’s car sweeps past the gates and continues on to the house. I follow him there and arrive just in time to see him on the stairs en-route to his study. He opens the door and I’m through it almost before he is. There’s just one more thing I need to be sure of and, once I am, it’s back to the Gatehouse where the children are at their tea. They chatter animatedly to each other, and while the others watch TV Cassie belatedly does the homework she was suppose to do the previous day. I see them put to bed and watch them sleeping until nearly 1pm. With a heavy heart I whisper my goodbyes and return, one last time, to the house.

 

  [to be Continued]

         Copyright Richard Banks