THE DEPARTURE
681 Words
Chapter Nine
She was up at five.
Five was when Dorothy got up. The fact that this day was unlike any other day in her sixty-two years did not change the time at which it began. She dressed. She went to the kitchen. She put the kettle on.
She thought about what needed to happen in the next four hours while she made the bread.
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The story was simple. Roland had been taken ill in the night. She had found him unwell in the early hours and called the surgery. The doctor had advised rest. The will reading would need to be postponed.
She tested it from every angle while she set the table. The doctor she could manage — a message left, a record created, no direct conversation required. The illness was vague enough to be plausible and specific enough to discourage questions. *He was very uncomfortable. His colour was poor.* All defensible. None of it checkable before the guests left.
The guests leaving was the priority.
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The others came down by half past eight. Dorothy brought eggs and said little. Margaret was last — impeccable, eight forty-five — and looked at Dorothy and said: "Is Roland not joining us?"
"He was unwell in the night. I've called the surgery. He's resting."
"What sort of unwell?"
"His colour was poor. He asked not to be disturbed."
She watched Margaret process this. Running calculations. Deciding what she knew and what she merely suspected.
"I'll give him until noon," Margaret said.
"Of course," Dorothy said, and went back to the kitchen.
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Clara came down at nine and went straight to the kitchen, as she always had.
"Where's my father?"
"Resting. He asked not to be disturbed."
"Dorothy." A pause. "Look at me."
Dorothy turned around. She looked at Clara — this woman she had known since she was three days old — and held her gaze and said nothing. Clara looked back. Reading her face the way she always had, looking for the thing underneath the thing.
"Is he all right?" Clara said.
"He's resting. You should have some breakfast."
A long moment. Then: "All right." Clara got up and poured herself coffee and Dorothy turned back to the sink and the moment passed.
It had been close.
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By eleven the minor guests were gone. By half past eleven the second cousin had followed. That left Clara, Margaret, and Dominic Crane.
Margaret came to the kitchen at five to twelve. "I'd like to see him now."
"I'll go up and check." Dorothy went upstairs, stood outside Roland's door for sixty seconds, came back down. "He's sleeping. His colour is better."
"I'll come back tomorrow," Margaret said. "Tell him I need his signature. It's time-sensitive." She held Dorothy's gaze one moment too long. Then she left.
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Dominic found her in the garden.
"I wondered if I might stay on a few days. Until Mr Hargrove is well enough to see me."
Dorothy looked at him. She thought about the woman in the photograph. The dark hair. The long hands.
"The corner room is yours until the end of the week," she said.
"Thank you, Dorothy."
"Dinner at seven," she said, and went inside.
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Clara found her at four, in the linen room.
"I'm going to stay. A few days."
"It's your father's house."
"It's your house," Clara said quietly. "More than it's ever been mine."
Dorothy said nothing. Shook the pillowcase flat.
"I'll stay in my old room," Clara said.
"It's made up. It's always made up."
She heard Clara's breath catch. She kept her eyes on the pillowcase.
"Dorothy," Clara said.
"I know," Dorothy said.
A silence. Then Clara left.
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Dorothy finished the beds. She worked her way down the corridor and went downstairs and started dinner. Outside the November light was failing. The moor was going grey.
In the west wing, behind the locked door, behind the key on the third hook in the pantry, Roland Hargrove was keeping the last secret he would ever keep.
Three of them now. She could manage three.
- Writer
