Christmas for the Halfpenny Orphans. Cathy Sharp

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ charity I represent, but I don’t have to spend time with him otherwise.’

      ‘Not like you at all,’ her father said, puzzled. ‘Ah, here’s Adderbury. You’re not going to brush him off too, I hope?’

      ‘No, certainly not,’ Angela said, but smiled hesitantly as Mark came up to them. ‘You almost missed us. We had a successful afternoon.’

      ‘I had hoped to be here sooner, but I was delayed. I’m glad it all went well for you.’

      ‘Yes, it did.’ Angela smiled at him. ‘Please call me when you can, Mark. We should talk sometime, but you’re always so busy.’

      ‘I’ll find the time,’ he promised. ‘Have a good evening. Nice to see you, Edward. We must catch up soon.’

      ‘Drop by for a drink one weekend, when you’re in the country.’ The two men shook hands and they parted.

      Angela opened the door of her car. She didn’t often bother to drive in town but she’d had several bits and pieces to bring over earlier.

      ‘Well,’ she said as she eased the car into the steady stream of traffic. ‘I think you’ve got something to tell me, Dad?’

      ‘It’s about your mother,’ he said. ‘Good news and … well, rather odd news too, but I’ll explain when we get to your apartment. You need to concentrate on the traffic, Angela …’

      Angela installed her father in one of the most comfortable chairs, gave him a drink and then sat down opposite, looking at him expectantly. He sipped the wine, nodded his approval, placed it on the small table at his side and assumed a serious expression.

      ‘Your mother wrote to me. She says she feels much better and doesn’t think she needs to stay at the clinic any longer, but … she doesn’t want to come home.’

      ‘What do you mean, she doesn’t want to come home?’ Angela was puzzled. ‘If she feels better, why wouldn’t she come home?’

      ‘Apparently she wants to stay with a friend she met in Switzerland. She’s been invited to say in a villa in the South of France and that’s what she wants to do.’

      ‘Not come home to you? Is she cured, after only a few months?’ Angela couldn’t believe she was hearing this properly. ‘Have you been invited to this villa too?’

      ‘No, there was no mention of it – and I’m not sure I’d want to go if there had been.’ He hesitated, then, ‘I’m not sure she is cured yet – but the clinic is voluntary. I can’t force her to stay if she wants to leave, Angela.’

      Her father was looking tired, his skin grey and his whole manner defeated, as if he was finding it all too much to bear. She hadn’t noticed at the Church Hall, but now she could see that his youthful air had left him. He’d always seemed so much younger than her mother, still a handsome man and full of vitality, but now he looked drained.

      ‘Are you ill, Daddy?’ she asked quietly. ‘Is it your heart?’

      ‘Well, you know I’m not the man I was.’ He forced a smile. ‘I’m feeling a bit upset, that’s all. I thought when your mother left the clinic she would come home to me – but her letter was that of a stranger, someone writing out of duty …’

      ‘Does she know you’re not well?’

      ‘No, and I don’t want her to,’ he said, giving Angela a direct look. ‘It’s nothing serious, my love – and if she’s happier staying with her new friends … Well, we must let her have her life. It seems that your mother was disappointed in me. I couldn’t give her what she wanted. So now … she’s decided to go her own way.’

      ‘It sounds as if you think she isn’t coming back.’

      ‘I’ll be surprised if she does. You see, the friend she’s going to stay with is a man. Quite a wealthy man, I gather.’

      ‘Oh, Daddy!’ Angela was shocked at the implication in her father’s news. ‘After all you’ve done for her – for us …’ Angela felt anger rise up inside her. How could her mother have done this to him, especially when he was unwell.

      ‘Perhaps it is for the best, my love. You mustn’t worry about me. Someone comes in twice a week to clean and she does a bit of shopping and cooking for me, so I’m well looked after and I still have you – don’t I?’

      ‘You know you do,’ she said, but her eyes stung with tears and her throat was tight. Her head was running the whole gamut of emotions: love and hurt for his sake, and anger with her mother for behaving so callously. ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I think she is being very unfair.’

      ‘She thinks we’re the ones who’ve been unfair to her. Your mother believes I love you more than her – and she might be right. In truth, our marriage has been over for some years, but I tried to hold it together for everyone’s sake and the result was disaster. Mark explained it all to me; it seems that the drinking, the shoplifting and spending sprees were all symptoms of an illness that was created by deep depression.’

      ‘But you gave us both so much, Dad.’

      ‘I tried, but it wasn’t enough for her … Perhaps what I gave was only money, at least as far as she was concerned. Had I loved her enough, I might have seen her despair years ago, but I was too busy – and I must admit, selfish too. Don’t imagine I shall go into a decline even if it comes to a divorce. I’m sorry for your sake though, Angela; we’ve let you down, and people will talk.’

      Angela got up and went to kneel at his side, looking up at him earnestly. ‘You’ve never let me down, Daddy. If you need me, I’ll come home,’ she promised. ‘Remember that, dearest. You are the most important person in the world to me.’

      ‘I’m managing, my darling girl,’ he said, tenderly stroking her hair. ‘I thought you should know and it isn’t the kind of thing I wanted to say on the phone or in a letter.’

      ‘No, better to hear it from you,’ she agreed, but inside she was fuming. Her mother had sent him a letter rather than tell him to his face and that made her furious, but there was no point in saying more. He had accepted it and to make a fuss would only cause him more strain. ‘Now you must excuse me while I go and get ready for dinner. Tonight we’re going to have a lovely evening together, Dad, no matter what.’

       NINE

      ‘I took Sarah’s pinafore skirt to be washed,’ Wendy told Angela as they sat drinking coffee in the staff room a few days later. ‘That dirty old pipe was in the pocket and I was tempted to throw it out, but instead I gave it a bit of a wash and put it in the locker by the side of her bed.’

      ‘That was good of you,’ Angela said. ‘To us it’s only a dirty old thing, but it means something to that child and she doesn’t have much.’

      ‘She’s a bit backward …’ Wendy twiddled a strand of her light brown hair round her finger. She was growing it longer so that she would be able to put it back in a knot under her nurses’ cap, but felt it was dull and unremarkable, and envied Angela her pale blonde locks. Angela had such lovely eyes too, the colour of an azure sky. ‘Have you СКАЧАТЬ