He went back to duty at the end of the week, but the big freeze continued until March, when Tatty’s school reopened and Lydia took Bobby back to Gresham’s. The snow was still piled up on the sides of the roads, some of it higher than the car, making her nervous. Driving along between the walls of snow, with black overhanging trees making it dark, she was suddenly back in Russia in the droshky with Ivan whipping up that great carthorse and Andrei laughing. He had not laughed for long and she shuddered at what had become a rare recollection. It was the snow, she supposed, and its menace.

Mentally trying to shake off the image, she drove faster than she ought to have done. As she turned into the drive, the car skidded when it encountered the ungritted surface and slid off the gravel into the shrubbery where it stalled in a heap of snow. Shaken, she leant forward over the steering wheel, thankful she was not hurt. ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ she said aloud. Then she picked up her bag, left the car where it was and trudged up the drive.

‘I’m back,’ she called to Edward, as she took off her coat and went into the drawing room.

He looked up from the newspaper he was reading. ‘I didn’t hear the car.’

She laughed. ‘No, I skidded turning into the drive and ran it into the bushes. It’s in a snowdrift. I’ll ring Andy at the garage to come and drag it out.’

‘Are you hurt?’

‘No, just feeling foolish. I should have known it was icy just inside the gate.’

‘I thought Percy had gritted the drive.’

‘So he did, but he ran out of grit before he got to the gate and the store didn’t have any more.’ She went back into the hall and telephoned the local garage.

‘Andy’s out with his recovery truck,’ she said when she returned. ‘There’s been a nasty accident on the Norwich road. Sue doesn’t know when he’ll be back.’

He stood up. ‘I’ll go and have a look at it. I might be able to back it out.’

‘No, leave it, Papa. It’s not doing any harm.’

‘If it’s in the way someone else might run into it and be injured.’ He went into the kitchen, donned coat and boots, picked up the car keys from the table where she had dropped them, and left the house. He fetched a shovel which was leaning against the stable wall where Percy had left it after clearing the paths after the last lot of snow, and went off down the drive. Lydia put her coat back on, found a spade in the shed and followed.

When she joined him, Edward was already tackling the snow behind the car, shovelling it to one side. She bent to do the same and by the time they had freed the car they were both exhausted. Edward, particularly, was finding it hard to breathe. ‘Get in the car, Papa,’ she said, putting the shovel and spade in the boot.

He did so and she drove carefully the four hundred yards to the house, when he got out, leaving her to take the car round to the garage. When she returned to the house, she found him collapsed in the rocking chair beside the kitchen hearth, one boot off and one on. His arms hung limply over the sides of the chair, his eyes were shut and his face all lopsided.

‘Papa!’ She flung herself on her knees beside him, and though she had no reply, she felt a flicker of a pulse when she picked up his hand. Thank God, he was alive. She rang for an ambulance and in no time he was on his way to hospital with her following in the Morris, praying with every breath she took that he would recover.

The doctors brought him round briefly and she was able to talk to him. She sat at his bedside holding his hand and told him how much she loved him, that she needed him to get well again, that the children needed him. He was not to give in, he had always been a fighter; now he had the biggest battle of his life. Understanding, he smiled with one side of his mouth, but did not speak. If she could have given him some of her strength and vitality, she would willingly have done it.

At three o’clock he drifted off again and she became alarmed. The ward sister came quickly when summoned, but said he had simply gone to sleep. Relieved, Lydia stayed a little longer watching him, then left to be at home when Tatiana came home from school.

She broke the news to her daughter and saw the usual happy face crease in a worried frown. ‘But he will be all right, won’t he? He isn’t going to die, is he?’ She had been quite little when her mother had explained her true relationship to Sir Edward. She had been shocked at first, but then accepted it. He was still Grandpa Stoneleigh, white-haired, a little crotchety, but always loving and generous.

‘I don’t think so. I pray not.’

‘So do I. I can’t imagine this house without Grandpa. Have you told Bobby?’

‘I rang the headmaster and he is going to tell him, but I don’t think he need come home. He’s only just gone back.’

The next few days were critical and Lydia’s time was taken up with visiting the hospital and trying to keep Tatty and herself cheerful. Robert was informed but whether he could get home she did not know. In any case, there wasn’t much he could do. It was a question of waiting and hoping and praying.

Her prayers were answered in that Edward rallied, but he was left severely disabled. She brought him home and employed Jenny Graham, a qualified nurse who had experience with stroke victims, to help her look after him. Coming home seemed to revive him. He managed a crooked smile for Tatty and Bobby, whom she had fetched home for the weekend, though his efforts to talk to them resulted in their confusion. ‘I can’t understand what he’s saying,’ Bobby said to his mother, after spending a few minutes at his grandfather’s bedside.

‘I know,’ she told him. ‘It’s his illness, but we will become used to his little ways and then it will be easier.’

She wondered if it would. It broke her heart to see the strong upright man he had been reduced to such helplessness, especially when it had been so unnecessary. The car would have been perfectly all right until Andy could come and deal with it. It did not help to be told the stroke could have happened at any time and she should not blame herself. Robert came home and was, as ever, a great comfort to her. She knew she could lean on him when she was overwhelmed with sadness and sheer tiredness. He seemed able to understand the invalid better than most and spent hours talking to him, stimulating him into a response. When he returned to duty, he left them all more cheerful and optimistic.

With the help of a physiotherapist and a speech therapist, Edward’s condition improved, though he was never the robust man he had been. He wandered about the house using a couple of elbow sticks, and he liked to watch the television, particularly the news and politics shows. Churchill stepped down as prime minister in April after fifty years in politics. He had inspired the nation with his stirring speeches during the war and his retirement was marked by radio, television and film producers with recollections of the dark days of the war. A film about Churchill’s life was the last thing Edward saw. He died in the early hours of the next morning after another stroke.

Lydia, who found him, was so shocked she could not take it in for several seconds, then she threw herself across him and sobbed her heart out. Her beloved papa, who had taken her in as a waif and loved her as well as any natural father, who had fed her and clothed her and educated her, put up with her naughtiness, her wicked betrayal of him and still loved her, had gone from her. It was too much to bear.

It was Jenny Graham who came and gently lifted her from the body and closed the dead man’s eyes. Lydia was angry and turned on her. ‘You should have been here, you should have seen it coming. Where were you?’

‘Mrs Conway, it is six o’clock in the morning,’ she said patiently. ‘He was all right when I went to bed. I could not have foreseen it, and even if I had, there was nothing either you or I could have done.’

Lydia gulped and pulled herself together. ‘I know. I woke early, and something, I don’t know what it was, told me to come and look at him. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. Will you ring for the doctor? I’ll stay here a few minutes. No need to wake Tatty yet.’

Jenny left her and she sat beside the bed and took her father’s hand. It was already drained of blood, the white bone of his knuckles showing through the thin skin. ‘Papa, I shall miss you dreadfully,’ she murmured. ‘You have been the backbone of my life and now I have to stand on my own.’ Even as she spoke, she thought of Robert. She was not alone; she had a husband who was an unfailing support and children who needed her. And they must be told. Tatty would wake soon and want her breakfast, happily eager for life and the day ahead. She was going to have to shatter that happiness. Should she defer it, send her to school and tell her later? That would be a cowardly thing to do and she would hate her for it later. And she must ring Bobby’s school and get in touch with Robert. He had been on his way to Gibraltar when she last spoke to him by phone.

‘The doctor is on his way.’ Jenny had returned; Lydia in her grief had not heard her. ‘I’ll stay with him, if you like. I thought I heard Tatty about.’

Lydia stumbled to her feet and went in search of Tatiana who was singing ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ in the bathroom as she showered. Lydia waited for her to come out, wrapped in a bath towel and rubbing her hair. ‘Tatty, sit down, I have something to tell you.’ She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her daughter down beside her. ‘You have to be very brave.’ She found herself overwhelmed with tears again and for a few moments could not go on.

Tatty looked at her in bewilderment. ‘Mummy, what’s wrong? Why are you crying? Have you hurt yourself?’

‘No, I am not hurt.’ She managed a weak smile. ‘At least, not outside. Inside I am hurting a lot. You see, it’s Grandpa. He’s… He fell asleep in the night and… and I’m afraid he isn’t going to wake up again.’

Tatty stared at her. ‘You mean he’s dead?’

‘Yes, darling. But it was a peaceful end.’ Oh, how she hoped and prayed that was true, that he hadn’t been calling out for help and none came.

‘I don’t believe it. He was all right yesterday, shaking his stick at the television – you know, how he does when he’s agitated.’

‘I know. But he was an old man and he had been ill a long time.’

‘I don’t want him to go,’ Tatty said, her lip trembling. ‘I want him to stay here with us. It’s not fair.’

‘I know, I’d like it too,’ Lydia said, then as Tatty began to sob in earnest, she gathered her into her arms and put aside her own grief to comfort her.

Jenny returned to tell them the doctor had arrived and Lydia gently disengaged herself and went to her father’s room to meet the doctor.

The nurse had laid Edward out straight, washed his face, combed his white hair and crossed his hands on his chest. Lydia almost gave way again at the sight of him, but remembering her children, she straightened herself up and prepared to deal with practicalities, after which she decided to go and fetch Bobby home. She shouldn’t leave it to the headmaster to break the news.


The funeral took place in a crowded Upstone church a week later. Sir Edward’s work colleagues were there in force and so were the villagers. A handful of Russian émigrés whom Edward had helped came to pay their respects, as did some of Lydia’s friends and colleagues who had also known Sir Edward. The local vicar, the Reverend Mr Harrington, took the service and Lydia was asked to say a few words. How she got through it without breaking down she never knew and she didn’t have Robert to support her. He was on his way back but had not arrived in time. She ended with the hope and belief her father had joined his beloved wife and invited everyone back to Upstone Hall for refreshments.

They left the church behind the pall-bearers for a short committal service at the graveside. As they stood about the newly opened grave, with heads bowed, Lydia caught a glimpse of someone standing in the shadows of the great yew tree which stood close to the lychgate. Her heart did a crazy somersault and then began to beat so quickly she could not breathe. She took a half step towards him, her legs buckled under her and she fell to the ground.

She came to her senses lying on the grass beside the grave with her head in Claudia’s lap. Her eyes took in Bobby’s legs clad in his dark-grey school trousers and she raised her head to find him looking down at her, his face screwed up with worry. Tatty was kneeling beside her, clinging to her hand. She scrambled into a sitting position and stared towards the yew, but there was no one there. Had she seen a ghost? She must have. He was dead, had been dead fourteen years. And yet he had seemed so real, albeit older, grey-haired and very thin.