A High Price To Pay. Sara Craven

in his voice wasn’t lost on her. He walked across the room, and looked down at her, frowning slightly. ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ he said at last. ‘I liked him.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Her voice was firmer this time. ‘Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I have to see to our—other guests.’

      She closed the study door behind her quietly, and stood for a moment, forcing herself to think rapidly. It was an awful day, but it seemed to be getting worse with every moment that passed. She was more than uneasy now; she was getting frightened. From the chaos of the past week, some kind of monstrous pattern seemed to be emerging. She didn’t understand it, nor did she want to. She wanted to run away somewhere and hide.

      The atmosphere in the drawing room was inevitably subdued, but as Alison moved from group to group, thanking people for coming, and accepting their condolences, it occurred to her that everyone seemed abnormally gloomy and abstracted. Or was she being stupidly over-sensitive? she asked herself, making her way towards her uncle.

      But before she could reach him, she was grabbed by Melanie.

      ‘Who’s the dish?’ she hissed. ‘And where have you hidden him?’

      ‘I can’t think who …’ Alison began, but Mel gave her a little shake.

      ‘Oh, don’t be pompous, Ally! Tall and dark, with eyes like Paul Newman’s. I saw him arrive.’

      ‘You would,’ Alison sighed. ‘Well, his name’s Nicholas Bristow, and he seems to be here on business.’

      Melanie rolled her eyes in mock-lasciviousness. ‘Do you think he’d do a deal with me?’ She caught Alison’s eye, and subsided. ‘I’m sorry, Ally,’ she muttered reluctantly. ‘I know I shouldn’t be making jokes at a time like this, but everything’s so—so bloody!’

      Alison put her arm round her sister’s shoulders and gave her a swift hug. ‘Yes, it is,’ she said fiercely. ‘And you make all the jokes you want. Now, I’ve got to talk to Uncle Hugh.’

      ‘Hullo, my dear.’ His voice was awkward. ‘May I get you a drink?’

      She shook her head. ‘I’m not thirsty. I just want to know what’s going on. Nicholas Bristow tells me you invited him here.’

      ‘Well, it was Liddell’s idea really.’ He didn’t meet her gaze. ‘He felt it might make things—easier.’

      ‘What things?’ Alison’s eyes narrowed. ‘Uncle Hugh, you can’t keep dropping hints like this. You’ve got to tell me!’

      There was a silence, then he sighed heavily. ‘Perhaps you have the right. I just don’t know any more. And together, we might be able to cushion your mother …’ He paused again. ‘Did your father ever talk to you about money?’

      She shook her head. ‘I used to ask him, from time to time, especially about the works—if the company was being affected by the recession, but he always said everything was fine.’

      He pulled her into a corner. ‘Well, it wasn’t fine,’ he muttered. ‘In fact, Ally, it was just about as bad as it could be. For the last two years he was pouring every penny he could raise into the firm, but it was never enough. Oh, he could have cut back, I suppose, but it would have meant laying men off, and he wouldn’t do that. Said it was a bad sign, and reduced public confidence. Said he felt—responsible.’

      Alison nodded. ‘He did. Mortimers has always been a family company. Daddy hated the idea of redundancies. He felt it was a betrayal of people who trusted him.’ She smiled sadly. ‘A rather patriarchal attitude, I’m afraid.’

      ‘A rather naïve one in this economic climate,’ her uncle said grimly. ‘And there was this house, of course, and your mother’s—expenses.’

      Alison hands clenched into fists at her side and she looked at him levelly. ‘Uncle Hugh, are you trying to tell me that Daddy was broke?’

      Unwillingly, he nodded. ‘There’s your mother’s annuity, of course, that’s safe. But as for the rest of it …’

      ‘Oh, God!’ Alison felt dazed, but she made herself think. ‘But there are his shares in Mortimers, they must be worth something.’

      ‘Only if the company itself has any value,’ Colonel Bosworth said gloomily. ‘And there’s every chance of a receiver being put in.’

      She bit her lip. ‘Well—there’s this house. I know it’s big, and inconvenient, but Daddy had it valued not long ago, and if we sold it, and found somewhere smaller …’

      He was shaking his head. ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you, my dear.’ His voice was awkward with compassion. ‘The house, I’m afraid, he used as security for a considerable loan. Mortimers needed new machinery for a potential order from China—engineering components, I understand. It could have been the salvation of the place, and Anthony gambled everything on getting it.’ He looked very old suddenly. ‘Only he didn’t. He got the news just before—just before …’

      ‘His attack,’ Alison said. She felt very cold, her body trembling uncontrollably. ‘I—see. So—Ladymead doesn’t belong to us any more. I—I can’t quite believe it.’ She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Poor Mummy? Where can she go? What can she do?’

      ‘That is something we all have to discuss. But there need be no hasty decisions. I’m sure she’ll be treated with every consideration by the—er—new owner.’

      ‘New owner?’ Her bewildered eyes searched his face. ‘But you said the house had been used as security. It belongs to a bank, doesn’t it?’

      ‘Not as such.’ Uncle Hugh looked more uncomfortable than ever. ‘Your father had trouble in raising the money he wanted. It was felt, I think, that his proposition wasn’t a good risk—as indeed it proved. The eventual loan was a—private arrangement, although perfectly legal, of course,’ he added hastily.

      Alison’s nails scored the palms of her hands. She said unsteadily, ‘It’s—Nicholas Bristow, isn’t it?’

      Uncle Hugh nodded wretchedly, ‘Yes.’

      She whispered, ‘Oh, God. So that’s why …’

      She couldn’t say any more. She turned away, fighting her emotions, struggling to retain some rags of self-control as the full force of everything that had happened broke on her.

      Crazily, a line from Shakespeare kept echoing and re-echoing in her head: ‘One woe doth tread upon another’s heels, so fast they follow.’ And the upshot was that Ophelia was drowned, and she was drowning too, in anger and outrage and bewilderment.

      At last she said brokenly, ‘How could Daddy? How could he—mortgage our home to a stranger?’

      ‘Because he was a gambler,’ her uncle returned sombrely. ‘Oh, not with cards or horses—that might have been easier to deal with. But he liked to take risks in business—unnecessary risks, like investing in these new machines without any guarantees from the Chinese that they’d ever be needed. I don’t think the possibility of losing his gamble ever occurred to him. And give him his due, if Mortimers had won that contract, it would have been just the boost the works needed. He’d have been able to pay off the loan too, and neither your mother nor you and Melanie would ever have been any the wiser.’

      ‘Only it didn’t work out like that,’ said Alison with a small mirthless smile. ‘The problem now is—how do we break the news to Mother? How do we tell her she’s not only penniless, but homeless too? And at the hands of a man she doesn’t like. Or has Mr Bristow come to serve his notice to quit in person?’

      ‘On the contrary.’ Uncle Hugh looked almost affronted. ‘You’re doing him an injustice, Ally. He is most concerned.’

      ‘How kind of him!’ She pushed her hair back from her face with a shaking hand. ‘But it doesn’t change anything. He’s not going to give us back our home, is