She thought suddenly of Fred. He would have been chauffeuring Mr Longfield home from his office. If it was a motor car accident, had he too been hurt? No one had mentioned him, being too distressed about the master. As the driver he could have been killed, but no one had even said what had happened.
Please, she prayed silently, let them be all right.
Already filled with this new anxiety, for she and Fred had always got on well together, each in their separate jobs, Martha shuddered and tried to turn her mind to other things.
She had hardly begun to clear the preparation table when the front doorbell sounded. She closed her eyes in a gesture of despair. What a time for young Chester Morrison and his parents to arrive. Poor Julia, her special dinner utterly spoiled.
No doubt they’d be going to the hospital together. Thinking this she removed the soup from the kitchen range and put it to keep warm in the oven. The family would need a little nourishment to sustain them when they returned. Maybe the master would be with them, not badly hurt after all, and Fred as well, she hoped. Maybe Chester and his family would return with them. Dinner might be on after all. A cook had to be prepared for all eventualities.
Mary almost yanked the front door open to her employer’s guests. For a brief second she stared. Then with a rush of incomprehensible words, she shut the door in their faces in panic, not knowing what to do, leaving them standing, mouths agape, while she ran to the parlour door.
‘Madam, the people are ’ere.’
Julia looked towards the girl, confused for a moment, seeing her through a mist of tears. ‘What?’
‘The people at the door – what do I tell them?’
Sense dawned on Julia. ‘Oh, God! Chester! Mary, go away! I’ll take care of it.’
‘Go where miss?’
‘Just…’ Julia broke off, leaping up from where she’d been kneeling, arms about her mother as she rocked the weeping form as if she were a baby. ‘Just go down to the kitchen and tell Cook what’s happened.’
‘You mean to the master?’
‘Mary, please just leave!’
The girl withdrew as if yanked from behind.
Her back erect, Julia followed, leaving her sisters with their mother. She went out to the hall, hastily brushing away tears in a bid to regain her composure, needing to appear in control of herself, even if she felt quite the opposite.
A little of her father’s reluctance to bare his soul to the world came to the fore as she took a deep breath and opened the front door to their guests, even managing a tight, polite smile.
Chester and his parents stood there with expressions of affronted bewilderment at Mary’s odd behaviour.
‘Julia?’ Chester began. ‘What on earth… Your maid just shut the door on us. We were left…’
‘Please forgive us,’ Julia managed but her voice trembled despite her resolve to keep a firm grip on herself. ‘We’ve had some terrible news. You had all best come in and I’ll explain. We’ve just been told… just this minute been told…’
Her words died in her throat as she stepped back to let them in. Tears glistened in her eyes. Seeing Chester, her body suddenly seemed to lose all strength and she began to shake all over. The next minute he was holding her in his arms.
‘What is it, darling? Whatever’s the matter?’
Following their son into the hall, Chester’s parents looked lost with no maid to take their outdoor clothes. Realizing that something was very wrong, his father removed his own hat, coat and scarf, before turning to his wife to help her out of her fur coat, and then draping the whole lot in a bundle over his arm, leaving his wife still wearing her gloves and deep-brimmed velour hat. Chester, still in trilby and coat, held on to Julia who felt as if all strength had gone.
His troubled gaze was trained on her tearful face. ‘Darling, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’
She seemed to hear his voice from a long way off. She let herself fall against him, as if the strength she’d been holding on to for her mother’s sake had deserted her.
She told them about the hospital’s phone call. ‘They said it was a heart attack, sudden,’ she managed to explain as he held her. ‘They said they couldn’t save him. We’ve been too distraught to find out more.’
She felt him gently kiss her brow. ‘We must get in touch with them again,’ he said quietly.
Never had she felt such need of him as she did now. As they all gathered in the parlour, with his parents appearing somewhat ill at ease, he instantly took charge of everything, leaving her to sit quietly nursing her grief while her mother continued to sob in the arms of her two younger, weeping daughters.
Prior to his arrival she had been expected to pull herself together for the sake of her mother, who seemed incapable of doing anything other than weep. Now she had someone to take over and the relief was indescribable. For the first time, through all her grief, she realized just how much she loved him.
After Chester had gone out to the hall to phone the hospital, they had all sat in silence except for the sobbing of the bereaved woman. It had seemed an eternity until he returned. Suddenly looking so much older than his twenty-four years, he looked directly at Julia.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked and as she nodded, he continued in a steady tone, ‘I shall go with you and your mother and your sisters to the hospital. I’ve telephoned for a taxicab. I think it best my parents return home in the car.’ He glanced towards them and his father nodded almost as if with relief.
‘Our chauffeur is in the kitchen,’ Chester went on, talking directly to Julia. ‘Your cook has given him a cup of tea. He’ll go out to make sure
