Faith - Lesley Pearse [189]
I’ve got Laura down for Brodie Farm, but I intend to give her it soon as a gift, so by the time you read this, that will be a fait accompli. She is to inherit any dosh left over too, though I intend to spend as much of it as I can! You’ll also know by the time you get to read this that I’ve shot off to live happily ever after with Ted Baxter, who I love to pieces. But just on the off chance my life is cut short I’ve left him two cottages so he will be financially secure. You’ll understand about Roger and the London property, I’m still fond of the old bastard, and I wouldn’t have got started without him. Toby and the house in Kensington is equally understandable. What may surprise you is that I’m leaving nothing to Belle and Charles. Believe me, I didn’t make this decision lightly. They’ve taken from me for years, and I suppose I want to show them I wasn’t quite the sucker they took me for. I let them have Kirkmay House to run when they were broke, but all they did was take the piss. You wouldn’t believe the bills Belle dumped on me for the furniture and soft furnishings! I think she thought she’d be having royalty staying there. Right from the start they only played at running it as a guest house, neither of them had any aptitude for work, much less running a business that requires diplomacy and a modicum of grovelling to the public.
Lately they haven’t even kept to the original agreement that I was to have twenty per cent of the takings. They turn guests away, and she’s out buying new clothes and drinking, while Charles lords it at the golf club. There’s a lot more too, but I can’t even begin to tell you about that. I have already warned them that if they don’t shape up I’ll throw them out, so the chances are you won’t have to do anything with them anyway.
Yes, I’ve given you something too, because you were a loyal friend and the most trusted of my employees. It will probably come to you too late for you to find a croft up in the Highlands and get a couple of dogs. You’ll probably attend my funeral on a zimmer. But I kind of hope you might have already made your dreams come true anyway.
Finally Meggie and Ivy. You don’t know them, and neither do I. But they are Laura’s sisters. I snooped until I found them. She hid them away for reasons only she could explain. I think I know the reason and understand it. Tell Laura that for me, and say I never thought any less of her because of it. I know that with all she went through when Barney died, she finally came to understand that riches and family background don’t mean a bag of beans. What counts is the kind of person you are, and to me who knows her better than anyone, she is the tops.
By giving Meggie and Ivy Kirkmay House I hope they and Laura will draw close to one another and have the kind of loving relationship I never had with Belle.
My love and best wishes for your future,
Jackie x x
David looked up from the letter and saw tears rolling down Stuart’s cheeks. He had never seen his friend cry before and wasn’t sure what to say or do.
‘That letter sums her up entirely.’ Stuart’s voice was husky with emotion. ‘She was always so generous and understanding of people and she had such a great sense of humour. What I can’t understand though is why such a switched-on person would entrust her will to that particular solicitor. She could normally spot a wrong’un at fifty paces!’
He told David how he’d seen Robbie Fielding leaving the solicitor’s office, and that Calder tried to pretend he didn’t know him. ‘Where do you think Fielding fits into this?’ he asked.
‘I can’t see that he fits in anywhere.’
‘Nor me,’ Stuart agreed. ‘But all the same, I’ve got this gut reaction that he does. It’s too much of a coincidence that he was there just before me. I’d bet anything Calder called him as soon as he’d put the phone down on Goldsmith. But why? What kind of jiggery-pokery could those two have been up to?’
‘It must have been something to do with Laura getting Brodie Farm,’ David said.
‘What if Fielding was one