A Paper Marriage. Jessica Steele

of hope should disappear, ‘But there will be…’ he paused ‘…by the time you get to your father’s bank.’

      ‘You’re—sure?’ she asked hesitantly.

      Jonah Marriott eyed her steadily. ‘Trust me, Lydie,’ he said quietly—and, strangely, she did.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said, and held out her right hand.

      ‘Goodbye,’ he said, and, with that wonderful smile she had remembered all these years, ‘Let’s hope it’s not another seven years before we meet again.’

      She smiled too, and could still feel the warm firm pressure of his right hand on hers as she waltzed out of the Marriott building and into the street. She remembered his blue eyes and…

      She pushed him from her mind and concentrated on what to do first. She had half a notion to ring her mother and tell her the outcome of her visit to Jonah Marriott. Lydie then thought of the cheque that was burning a hole in her bag. She had been going to take it straight to her father, to tell him everything was all right now. To tell him that Jonah Marriott had paid in full, with interest, the money he had owed him for so long. But, with Jonah saying that the funds would be there by the time she got to her father’s bank—presumably all that was needed was for Jonah to pick up a phone and give his instructions—would it not be far better for her to bank the money now and tell her father afterwards?

      Lydie decided there and then—thanking Jonah for the suggestion—that she would bank the money before she went home. Yes, that was much the better idea. As things stood she had plenty of time to get home, hand the cheque over to her father and for him to take the cheque personally to his bank. But who knew what traffic hold-ups there might be on the road. Much better—thank you, Jonah—to bank the cheque first and then go home.

      Having found a branch of the bank which her father used, it was a small matter to have her father’s account located, the money paid in, and to receive the bank’s receipt in return.

      Oh, Jonah. Her head said she should be cross with him for his tardiness in paying what was owed. But she couldn’t be cross. In fact, on that drive back to Beamhurst Court, she was hard put to it not to smile the whole time.

      The house was secure and, although with not so much land as they had once owned, it was still in the hands of the Pearsons. While her father was unlikely to start in business on his own account again, he no longer, as Jonah had put it, needed to bail her brother out ever again either. Her mother had hinted that her father had been looking into the possibility of some consultancy work. Surely all his years of expertise were not to be wasted.

      Optimistically certain that everything would be all right from now on, Lydie drew up outside the home she so loved and almost danced inside as she went looking for her parents. Had today turned out well or hadn’t it? She understood now why, when she’d asked Jonah not to tell her father she had been to see him, Jonah had replied, ‘I won’t—but I think he’ll know.’ Of course her father would know. The minute she told her proud father that his overdraft was cleared he would want to know where the money had come from. Jonah would not have to tell her father—she would. She could hardly wait to see his joy.

      ‘Here you both are!’ she said on opening the drawing room door and seeing her parents there—her father looking a shadow of his former self.

      Her mother gave her a quick expectant look, but it was her father who asked, ‘How was your great-aunt Alice?’

      ‘Actually, Dad, I lied,’ Lydie confessed. ‘I haven’t been to see Aunt Alice.’

      He gave her a severe look. ‘For someone who has lied to her father you’re looking tremendously pleased with yourself,’ he remarked. ‘I trust it was a lie for the good of mankind?’

      ‘Not exactly,’ she replied, and quickly opening her bag she took out the receipt for the money she had paid into his bank account. ‘I went to see Jonah Marriott.’

      ‘You went—to see Jonah Marriott?’ he asked in surprise. He took the folded receipt she held out, opened it out, read the very little that was written there, but which meant so much, and—his face darkened ominously. ‘What is this?’ he demanded, as though unable to believe that an amount of fifty-five thousand pounds had been paid into his account.

      ‘Your overdraft is cleared, Dad.’ She explained that which he seemed to have difficulty in taking in.

      ‘Cleared!’ he echoed, it passing him by completely just then that she knew about his financial problems, and his tone of voice such that, had she not known better, Lydie would have thought it was the calm before the storm.

      ‘I went to see Jonah Marriott, as I said. He gave me a cheque for the money he owed you. I paid it into your bank on my—’ She didn’t get to finish.

      ‘You did what?’ her father roared, and Lydie stared at him in astonishment. Her mild-mannered father never roared!

      ‘You n-needed the money,’ she mumbled anxiously—this wasn’t at all how she had imagined it. ‘Jonah Marriott owed you fifty thousand pounds—I went and asked him for it. He added five…’

      ‘You went and asked him for fifty thousand pounds?’ her father shouted. ‘Have you no pride?’

      ‘He owed it to you. He…’

      ‘He did not,’ her father cut her off furiously.

      ‘He—didn’t?’ Lydie gasped, looking over to her mother, who had told her that he did, but who was now more interested in looking at the curtains than in meeting her eyes.

      ‘He does not owe me anything!’ her father bellowed. ‘Not a penny!’ Lydie flinched as she turned her head to stare uncomprehendingly at the man who, prior to that moment, had never raised his voice to her in his life. ‘Oh, what have you done, Lydie?’ he asked, suddenly defeated, and she felt then that she would rather he shouted at her than that he should sound so utterly beaten. ‘Any money Jonah Marriott borrowed from me was paid back, with good interest, more than three years ago.’