Page 96 of One Cornish Summer With You
‘I’m certain he did. Thank you for – for not throwing me out … and being kind to me.’
‘Kind? I’ve merely been honest. Now, you rest easy. Enjoy your inheritance. I want no part of it. And if you’re worried about my Robert, don’t be. He’s done very well indeed – he runs his own very successful tech company and loves it.’
‘I’m very pleased to hear it. You must be really proud of him,’ Ruan said.
‘I am. He did it all himself, too, with no help from Walter.’ Kathleen swelled with pride, and then said, ‘You say another friend of yours should have Walter’s estate, though? Why don’t you share it with her, if you’re so troubled?’
‘I’d like to. I want to. She’s actually travelled up here with me to visit her mother but I’m not sure she will accept it.’
‘Then that’s between the two of you. You go and fix that. Maybe that’s why you really came all this way up here. To find your own future, not to look back at the past.’
‘I think you’re right.’ He rose and shook her hand warmly. ‘Thank you, Kathleen, for everything.’
‘I’ve done nothing.’ She kept hold of his hand and her eyes held a plea. ‘Keep in touch, won’t you? Let me know how you get on – and your friend.’
‘I will.’
He left her with a kiss on the cheek, feeling desperately sad yet also uplifted. He’d lifted the veil on Walter’s state of mind. Relationships, emotions, love – they were so complex and held so much power to bring joy and pain. Walterhad only learned to suppress his feelings in that cold home and at that brutal boarding school. No wonder he wasn’t equipped to deal with them.
Even with a loving upbringing, Ruan found it hard.
In some ways, Tammy had been through similar experiences. It wasn’t surprising she found it so very hard to trust anyone with her heart.
Yet Kathleen had told him to try, and he was determined to do just that, no matter what.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
It was mid-afternoon when Ruan finally arrived to collect Tammy from her mother’s. She’d messaged him to say that she wanted to spend more time at the house which he took to be a positive sign.
Kathleen had kept the letter and the proposal note but insisted he not delete the photographs of them “in case anything should happen to the originals”. After leaving, he’d picked up a sandwich and gone for a walk in the hills to pass the time and to think.
How could he have known that his inheritance would come with so much more than bricks and mortar? The house itself did matter, of course. Its financial value wasn’t to be dismissed in a place where homes were scarce and precious. Even so, he’d never dreamed how precious Rosewarne would be to one family in particular or what secrets it held – or that it would lead him on a literal and emotional journey that would challenge him in every way.
Kathleen had told him to make amends with Tammy if he could and he was now certain that he at least had to try. First of all, he needed to hear how Tammy had got on. Had she found the answers to her own questions?
He collected her outside the house and watched her mother wave her off from the door.
They drove in silence until they were clear of the outskirts of the village before he finally asked her, ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes. Yes, I am … thanks. Can you please take us back to the flat and we can both talk about it?’
‘So, Davey isn’t my dad,’ Tammy told him over a glass of wine. ‘He and Mum never even got on that well, according to her. She says Walter was seeking some kind of twisted revenge by accusing my mother of cheating.’
‘Why?’
She ran her fingers up and down the stem of the glass before answering. ‘He’d wanted my mum to … have an “arrangement” with him.’
‘Jesus …’ Ruan revised his opinion of Walter downwards again. Earlier today he’d thought he could feel some sympathy for the man, but this latest revelation had left his tolerance in tatters. ‘He didn’t actually try anything …?’ He found it impossible to voice his darkest fears.
‘No – thank goodness – and Mum told him where to go. Fortunately, he left her alone after that. He must have been desperate to try it.’
‘Or possibly losing his grip on reality completely. Kathleen gave me some more insight into his childhood. It was awful. His mother shut herself off and his father was vile to him. Kathleen said he didn’t know how to let himself feel and when the love of his life came along, he just couldn’t openup. He was either too afraid to let his emotions take flight or he didn’t know how. Kathleen said he seemed incapable of loving her, although she now thinks differently.’
‘Would it have changed her mind to have read it before she left?’
‘No. She says not. She was pregnant …’
Tammy gasped. ‘With Walter’s child?’
