Back inside the house, Lori had an announcement to make.
“Aunt Sybil, Davey and I think it’s time we struck out on our own. The house in Little Brooking has been surveyed and there’s no issues, so I want to start getting moved-in; the stuff from back home will go nicely in there; all my stuff, my mom & daddy’s stuff is already in storage in Oxford, so I think it’s time we stopped imposing on you and got our own house settled. Thank you so much for helping us settle down, and for making us feel so at-home with you, Aunt Sybil, but now I think it’s time to be in our own home, instead of cluttering-up yours. I know you need your privacy as much as we do, and much as I’ve loved living here in the middle of Davey’s family, I think it’s time to go.”
Aunt Sybil was smiling through all of this.
“I agree, dear; you two, and the one who’s coming along, need your own home now, and even though I’ll miss you, you’re still only a short way away. It was lovely having you here, and it will be nice having family close by again; now that Richard and Sophie are back for good, and with you here, this part of the world will once more be a Denham enclave.”
Lori also had a surprise for Rosie.
“Rosie, I know how much you mean to Davey, and I know you and Jimmy are planning to get married one day, so Davey and I have a little gift for you; call it an early wedding present. The two cottages next to the house are of no use to us, we have all the space we’ll ever need in the main house, and more, and I know you and Jimmy want a place of your own, so please accept Stone Cottage and Rose Cottage as a gift from Davey and me. With just a little work, they can be turned into one larger house, whether you do that is up to you. We love you and Jimmy, and we want you both near us, so now you will be, in a home of your own, if you want it. And don’t worry; when Adam has finished university, there will be something for him, too, a gift from Davey and me in memory of his Uncle Jerry.”
Rosie was wide-eyed with astonishment, as was Jimmy, both of them speechless. Rosie got up and walked over to me, hugging me harder than Lori ever had.
“Thank you, Robin Hood!” she murmured. I hugged my favourite cousin and playmate just as enthusiastically; I may have been gone a long time, but most of my earliest memories revolved around Rosie and her parents, and she was the closest thing I’d ever had to a sister before Lori came along. I wanted her and Jimmy to be happy and secure, in their own home somewhere near, as I knew Lori needed her, and I knew for certain the baby would need his or her Aunt Rosie in days to come. Perhaps all that money in those trust funds could be of some use to the entire family, not just me, as my father had intended; times change, after all.
*
Epilogue.
Lori and I were married formally in the stately, cathedral-like gothic chapel of Kings College, my father’s old college at Cambridge University, two months after Sophie returned to England. As she’d promised, Aunt Sophie sat on the Bride’s side and wept almost theatrically, along with Aunt Sybil, and Uncle Richard gave Lori away as though he was handing me the rarest of Stradivarius violins, his face beaming with paternal pride when he placed her hand in mine, before scowling at me like I was some incipient rapist about to deflower his pristine little girl, just as Aunt Sophie had predicted so long ago…
Richard Junior and Hugo, along with two of my oldest friends from school, Harry Waterfield and Andrew Edgeworth stood with me as my groomsmen, while the fourth member of our quartet from school-days, Jack Cameron, was my Best Man, while Jimmy acted as Usher. Rosie, my cousin, my childhood playmate and best friend, was Lori’s Maid of Honour, and two of Lori’s childhood friends from Des Moines were her bridesmaids, but more about them later…
Our first child, a gorgeous, golden-haired little boy with Lori’s arresting blue-violet eyes, was born 4 months later, almost to the day. It really looks to me like Lori’s plan to catch a baby worked, in the best possible way; it got me the most beautiful girl in the world, and she gave me a beautiful son, who looks amazingly like me when I was that age; maybe that’s a good sign.
Charlie is over a year old, now, and Lori is pregnant again, with a girl this time, and we live in our elderly, rambling dream house, complete with big, comforting fireplaces, warm chimney corners, reassuringly solid polished wood floors and an abundance of interesting little rooms to explore and get lost in, big friendly dogs, a duck pond and apple orchard, and a paddock with two mild-mannered little donkeys and a gentle giant called Tiny who occupies a large part of Lori’s heart.
Thankfully the house is not too far from the hospital in Oxford where I now work as a consultant surgeon on the Cardiothoracic surgical intervention team. Jimmy and Rosie and their baby live a minute away in their own sprawling, comfortable conversion of the two redundant cottages on the piece of land we bought; my favourite cousin and her husband, and the cutest little girl in the world, secure in their own home, and close-by when we need them. They’re my family, too, after all, and I feel better for having them near; Jimmy even added “Denham” on to his name so little Gemma would always carry the family name, along with his own, a compliment to Lori and me that won’t be forgotten.
We live a simple life, my salary is more than enough for our needs, and I have all I could ever want right there when I get home from work. I have no intention of missing out on a second of my children’s lives, so work takes a back seat to Lori and our boy, plus the daughter to-be, little Sophie when she finally gets here.
Uncle Richard is de-facto head of the family and arbiter of all disputes, not that there are any; he and Aunt Sophie live not far from us, and Charlie thinks they’re his grand-parents; he calls them “Gampa” and “Nana”; they both dote on Lori, and she feels like she has parents again; she even calls Sophie ‘Mom’, and Richard is ‘Papa’. Charlie is really their property, I only get to see him fleetingly on weekends, as he seems to spend most weekends either sleeping at his grandparents’ house, or perched on Sophie’s hip as she carts him around, apparently afraid to let him out of her sight for even a second.
If we have a fight, which is very rare, I must admit, Lori goes to see Richard and weeps on his shoulder, and before I know it, I’m having a father/son chat with him while Lori stands to one side smirking, but I have to be honest, he is scrupulously fair in his dealings with us, refusing to take sides and encouraging us instead to kiss and make up, something I find extremely easy to do. It’s immensely comforting to have family of their calibre to fall back on when we need it. Sophie is still the most formidable lady I’ve ever met, I’m just constantly grateful she’s on our side, because I really can’t contemplate the sheer awfulness of having her as an adversary.
Lori and Sophie have a business together, organising weddings and country-house events, and they’ve browbeaten, terrorized, cajoled, and emotionally blackmailed poor Jimmy into working with them, or for them, I’m not sure which; I do know that Sophie scares him pale; this from a man who once strangled a Rottweiler attack dog in Sarajevo with one hand, while simultaneously shooting the shit out of the sniper-nest it was guarding with a Glock and a single clip of ammo in the other hand.
They pay him well, though, and so they should, considering the hoops they make that poor man jump through. At least he has Rosie and the baby to make up for being continuously terrorized by Aunt Sophie, and of course the fact Sophie absolutely dotes on baby Gemma and Rosie goes a long way toward keeping him sweet, plus he also adores Lori, and would walk through the fire for her; Richard was right; Ladies Who Organise are the best sort to have around.
Jimmy also runs a very successful holiday cottage business, having renovated all the cottages on the Denham Hall grounds, and built a few more to take advantage of the rolling scenic views of the Oxfordshire plain. He stays scrupulously far away from the hall itself, though; memories of what we saw there ensure he gives the place a very wide berth.
My cousins Hugo and Richard are both godfathers to Charlie; he’s the apple of their eye, they even installed super hi-tech child-seats in their Aston Martin’s so they can take him joy-riding, which gave Lori some serious concerns, but a stern word from Aunt Sophie seems to have curbed their urge to see how thrilled they can make him…
Both of them have already staked claims on Sophie, when she eventually chooses to make her grand entrance, so our children will be growing up surrounded by family who dote on them and adore Lori.
All that money in those trust funds is staying there; perhaps one day Charlie and Sophie and any other brothers and sisters, or other family will need it; I don’t, I’m perfectly content to live here, like this, with my family around me; if Charlie taught me anything growing-up, it was that hard work and the fruits of your own labour are the best reward of all; I didn’t earn that money, it was set aside to ease my life, but my life is perfect just the way it is, so maybe the kids will think of something worthwhile to do with it when they grow up.
Lori and I have agreed on one thing though; they’re not finding out about it until they’re legally adults; Lori doesn’t want them growing up entitled, trust-fund brats, so they’ll have to have a plan for their lives before they get anything from those funds. That’s that pragmatic mid-Western work-ethic showing through, something Charlie and mother would have been proud of.
Denham Hall is still in a state of near collapse; Lori’s concerned that the family stuff in there will get damaged or lost, and is having the place stripped and everything put in storage; it’s taking time, though, because there’s such a lot of stuff in that huge, sprawling neo-gothic madhouse, and nobody will work there after dark, I wonder why…?
I never wanted that scary place, and the thought of living there after what happened still fills me with an overwhelming urge to be somewhere else entirely. We offered the paintings to the National Portrait Gallery, but they took one look at my villainous ancestors, shuddered, and politely declined.
We loaned the cars to the National Motor Museum, except for my great-grandfather’s Bentley; we gave that to Uncle Richard, as it’s his grandfather’s car, and he is the oldest son of my grandfather, it felt right that he should have it; I think father would have liked that it went to his big brother and boyhood best friend. My father’s and Charlie’s motorcycles stayed with us, though; there are some things I will never let go of.
Maybe the kids will do something about that ugly place in the fullness of time; I won’t. English Heritage and The National Trust have both hinted that, as the place has no architectural, historic or aesthetic significance, public funds really wouldn’t stretch to buying up and shoring up that hideous relic, and as the number of potential buyers could be counted on the fingers of one foot, they’d look the other way if we ‘accidently’ demolished that hideous eyesore, hmmm…
In the meantime, neither Lori or I have any urge to build another monument to bad taste like that place; our egos will never be that bloated, and with Lori’s good, straight-shooting Iowa morality and common-sense to guide them, I don’t think our kids will either.
Richard and Hugo did attempt to cook up a “Business Trip” to Des Moines, and they asked Lori for the numbers of some of her friends; at first she was outraged; she wasn’t pimping-out her school friends for those two, family or not, and she let them know it in no uncertain terms; Richard and Hugo were silently awestruck as Mount Lori erupted, but after she’d calmed down, they apologised and asked her properly to introduce them to some nice girls of her acquaintance, as they wanted to meet real girls, with real values, just like her, etc, etc. I learned a lesson that day in the fine and delicate art of buttering-up from two masters of the art, remind me to shake their hands, once they wash all the grease off…
As it happens, two of Lori’s friends from Des Moines, girls I’d known since they were out of diapers were Lori’s bridesmaids, Sara and Josie, and Richard and Hugo’s jaws hit the floor with a resounding ‘clang!’ when they saw those girls. They may not have looked like Lori, but they came from the same kind of background, they’d known Lori and me all their lives, they had the same accent, attitudes and outlook as my Lori, and my two playboy cousins fell like a piano down a mountainside.
Aunt Sophie is of course busily gleefully planning the weddings. Good old Richard and Hugo; at last, two pairs of green eyes tempted them head-first into the noose their mother’s been dangling in front of them for years, but you know what? I don’t think they care…
My life with Lori is loving and rewarding, and we have immense fun as a family, so perhaps keeping it in the family really was my best move, ever!