Back in the village, in the safety of her sprawling old house, Aunt Sybil was understanding, welcoming, and sympathetic, her motherliness making Lori break down in floods of tears, that and delayed shock, so Jimmy, Rosie, and I sat in the kitchen with our coffee while Sybil put her in one of the bedrooms and generally fussed over her. She rejoined us after about 20 minutes.
“Well she’s asleep, David, and you could have told me she’s expecting, you know, count yourself lucky I don’t smack you across the back of your head! If you’d said something I’d never have let you take her back to that creepy horror-show; really, David, the very idea, I mean, what on earth were you thinking? She’s dog-tired, poor thing, she had hardly any rest last night, and then the shock this morning, well… anyway, let her rest for a few hours, and you can take us out to dinner tonight as your penance for dropping her unprepared into that horrible place. In the meantime, breakfast is going to be a little sparse unless you’d like to pop over to the shops, Rosie…?”
Rosie grinned and pulled Jimmy away from the table, ‘to escort her’ the hundred yards or so to the village grocery store. Sybil smiled after her, then turned to me when she and Jimmy had left.
“I’m glad she’s met someone at last; after that idiot dumped her for that empty-headed so-called ‘model’, I thought the poor girl was never going out again. Young James seems suitably smitten with her…”
I heard the question in her voice, and tried to avoid answering it, umm’ing and ahh’ing like an idiot; Rosie’s business was her business, and I wasn’t going to stick my tuppence-worth in, no sir, been there, done that, got the scars…
Sybil smiled at my hedging.
“I know where she spent the night last night, Davey, I’m not senile yet, you know. What I want to know is whether or not this young man is just playing with her or he means to stick around.”
I thought I probably knew the answer to that one.
“Aunt Sybil, as far as I know Jimmy’s sticking around; he works for me, well, Lori, and I couldn’t help but notice that he can’t seem to take his eyes off Rosie; that’s all I can say, but it seems like a good start…”
Sybil smiled and patted my hand.
“Then we’ll leave it there; you have good instincts dear, just like your father, and your Uncle Jerry, so if you feel good about him, then so will I; Daddy was a Royal Marine, and he turned out just fine. James seems like a very nice young man. And speak of the devil…”
Rosie and Jimmy came in just then, with eggs, bread, bacon, orange juice, the usual breakfast essentials, and the some letters, mostly for Sybil, but one for me, from Boston.
I tore it open excitedly, and yes, it was from Sophie. I read it through, then grinned and passed it over to Sybil. She read it and smiled as well.
“How wonderful, darling, Lori will be so pleased.”
I was so pleased that nothing would do but that I had to run upstairs and wake her. She looked so angelic, so young and vulnerable lying there fast asleep, barely breathing, so I gently kissed her awake, licking her lips and giving her time to rouse.
“Davey, what…?” she smiled blurrily, still more asleep than awake.
“Good news, baby-girl, great news. Sophie’s coming, look at this!”
Lori snatched the letter from me and quickly scanned it, tears brimming in her eyes, tears of happiness, her lips moving as she read through it again, then reached up for me and pulled me down for a quick kiss.
“Oh Davey, she’s going to be here in just a few weeks, I can’t believe it, it’s only been a few days but I miss her so much, it feels like forever since I saw her last, now I can relax. She must have sent this right after we left; I knew we should have waited a few days…”
She read through it one more time, then folded it and slid it under the pillow, smiling happily. I lay down next to her and wiped the tears off her cheek while she stroked my face.
“She’s so much like mom, Davey, it’s uncanny; everything about her screams “mom!” at me, it’s like having mom back when she’s around. Maybe I’m getting a second chance, a chance to have my mom back; if that’s the case, I’m not going to let a second go to waste.”
I smiled and held her hand, and stroked her hair until she dropped off again, that happy smile still on her lips when I left.
We’d just made short work of breakfast when there came from outside the throb of an immensely powerful car. Rosie looked up and grinned.
“Looks like all the family’s here today.”
The sound of the back door opening was followed by a voice calling out.
“Rosie! Aunt Sybil? Anyone home? Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
“In here, dears!” called out Sybil, and two tall men, a little older than me, but with the Denham identity stamped all over them, tramped into the kitchen.
“Hello dears, pull up a pew,” smiled Sybil. “David, meet Richard, and the pretty one over there is Hugo Denham-Grant, Sophie’s sons. Boys, this is your cousin, David Denham.”
The two of them came over to shake hands, looking at me curiously.
“Hello David, Richard, pleased to meetcha.” smiled Richard; his handshake was firm and definite, and I decided I liked him; he looked an awful lot like Uncle Richard, and a lot like my father, they both did. Hugo shook hands with me as well and gratefully accepted the mug of tea handed him by Rosie, tweaking her ear as he did.
“So you’re the much-maligned David Denham, sole owner and proprietor of Hill House; Aunt Sybil says you had a run-in with Bella the Beast yesterday, sorry Rosie, I hope you gave her both barrels?”
I grinned back at his infectious grin.
“I certainly did; she came looking for a fight, instead she got an earful and an order to go away and stay away; I don’t know why she persists in demanding that dreadful place; if she asked nicely I’d probably give it to her…”
Hugo looked sideways at me at that.
“Chrissake don’t do that, David! All that land? The first thing she and that arch-bitch Maude will do is sell it for re-development; that’s been their plan all along; 50 acres of prime development land in the middle of a Green-Belt zone? She’ll think Christmas has come early, and so will the other developers once the word gets out. I don’t know if you’ve been keeping current with land prices in this part of the world, so let me clue you in; around here, one acre of development land with Outline Planning Consent is worth something under a million quid, that’s why those two scheming harridans are so keen to get their hands on the place. Denham Hall and the village are out of the way and off the developer radar, I think we should keep it that way. I know there’s no English Heritage listing on the place, even they think that eyesore has no historical, cultural, or architectural merit, so why don’t you just tear it down and rebuild it the way you want?”
Richard was nodding as Hugo spoke.
“He’s right, you know; once they’ve granted development access to Denham Hall, the rest of the area will follow; precedent will have been set, and the planning committee will bow to pressure from the developers. My advice is, leave it as it is, or pull it down and rebuild it, but don’t sell up or give it away. Bella will probably drop dead soon, although I personally believe she’d survive an Apache attack, World War 3 and a direct meteorite strike, just like the cockroach she is. Maude doesn’t have the brains to pull-off any schemes by herself; she’s all ambition and no ability, she barely knows what day of the week it is on any given day. With Bella out of the way, Maude will have to try and marry those horrible daughters of hers into money.”
He turned and saw Jimmy for the first time.
“I do apologise, I never saw you there, I was so fascinated meeting yet another Denham. I’m Richard, this is Hugo, you are…?
Jimmy grinned at his tone, and introduced himself. Richard noted the way Rosie slipped her arm through Jimmy’s and winked at her before grinning at Jimmy. Just then Lori walked in.
“What’s all the noise, baby, it woke me… oh!”
Richard and Hugo both spun and stared at her, while Lori blushed under their combined stares.
“Richard, Hugo, this is my wife, Lori. Lori, these are my cousins, Richard and Hugo, Uncle Richard’s sons.”
The brothers were looking sandbagged, and I couldn’t blame them; Lori had elected to wear a figure-hugging top and her skin-tight leather jeans, complete with her silver-heeled cowboy boots, and she looked cute and wholesome, yet devastatingly sexy, like a Playboy centrefold before she starts the strip.
Lori came and stood next to me, her arms around my waist, looking from face to face and back at me.
“Davey, they look just like you; my God, they could be your big brothers…” she breathed.
Richard was the first to recover.
“Lori, hello, I’m Richard. Mother said you were… striking, she didn’t say you were her double, I mean, look at you, bloody hell! Are you sure you’re not our long-lost sister or something?”