Inheritance

Chapter Twenty-five. Reconciliation.

"No it's not that. Not that at all. As soon as I saw the notice I thought you had met someone better than me, and it was over for us."

"You silly man. If only you knew."

"What was that?"

"Nothing John. I was just thinking out loud. By the way, how did you come to see the announcement? I didn't think you were the type to read the society pages."

"I don't. Rachel Atkinson told me about it."

"Presumably she didn't tell you about the retraction."

"No. I guess she never saw it."

"I don't believe it for one minute. She so desperately wants me out of the picture."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play the innocent with me, John Gregson. She's set her sights on you and nothing is going to stand in her way. I bet she was all over you when she learned I was away for the summer."

John couldn't bring himself to reply and hid his guilt in a vigorous stirring of the float.

"I knew it, and I suppose since you thought I was otherwise engaged that you haven't exactly been a lost soul at University either."

"And what about you? Am I to assume you were pining away in your little study at Ampleforth?"

It was the wrong thing to say, and the wrong way to say it. Sheila's normally serene façade crumbled, her shoulders shook, and tears began to flow. John reached over to console her.

"Please stop, Sheila. Please. We're like a train wreck waiting to happen. Let's just forget this mix-up ever happened and try to start over again."

The weeping stopped. Sniffle followed sniffle as she regained composure. "Are you sure,John, really sure?"

"I've never been surer of anything in my life."

A smile broke across her tear stained face. "I'm so glad."

John reached across the table lifted her hand to his mouth, removed the tissue and gently kissed her on the fingertips.

"Things are going to be fine," he murmured. For a while nothing more was said. With hands interlocked, they gazed into each other's eyes, their floats forgotten. Sheila eventually broke the spell.

"Can Kaiser and I expect to see you on the Flan again?"

"I would think that's an odds-on certainty," John replied, with a grin.

"And how about coming to tea on the fifth?"

"To tea? But what about your Dad? He doesn't exactly approve of me."

"Well I think my father is starting to rethink a lot of things. This marriage between Sue and Heinrich is causing a real family quarrel. My grandfather fought in the First World War and he is so anti-German he won't even buy goods made in Germany. He claims just the thought of his favourite granddaughter marrying a Bosch makes him ill. He's not coming to the party tomorrow, and has threatened to disinherit father if he continues with this plan."

"Will Sharon be there?"

"That's another story. She showed up yesterday with some Frenchman in tow. Father was expecting to be introduced to some Comte de wherever, and it turns out he is some out of work musician she met in a bar in Marseilles."

"That doesn't make me seem so bad then."

"True, but what's better is later I overheard him saying to Mum that maybe they should reconsider the idea of sending me to finishing school."

"Really? Then what would you do next year?"

"I thought, maybe Sheffield."

John gulped. Next year was Finals, and there was Gillian. The last thing he needed was a complicated personal life.

"I don't think your father would approve of that."

"Probably not, right now, but I've time to work on him. Wouldn't it be great though? The two of us together, no parents...."

John, sensing that this was not the time to dissuade her, squeezed her hand and nodded in agreement,

"So will you come on the fifth? There'll just be you, me, and Mum. Everyone else will be away."

"That'll be great. What time?"

"About four, and Mum promises she won't try to seduce you."

John laughed just as Susan entered. She must have realized things had gone well.

"Time to go, Sis, or they will be wondering what we've been up to."

"Just tell them Sheila has hooked up with a temporary postman in an ice cream parlour," said John.

The two girls laughed.

"Actually some of the family will be relieved to hear that," Susan replied.