‘Mum.’
‘It’s a perfectly natural desire, Kay, and you are a grown woman of twenty-six.’
‘I know how old I am, Mum.’ She didn’t believe this!
Leonora looked at her daughter’s troubled face and her own softened as she put a hand on Kay’s arm. ‘Come into my room a moment, love. I want to talk to you properly.’
For a second it was on Kay’s lips to refuse. She felt so battered and bruised emotionally she didn’t feel like talking, and especially not on the Mitchell subject with his most ardent fan.
‘Please, Kay?’
She nodded grumpily, and once inside Leonora’s bedroom walked across to one of the two easy chairs positioned under the window and sat down. ‘Well?’ Her tone wasn’t conducive to a heart-to-heart and she knew it. She just hoped her mother would take the hint.
Leonora seated herself in the other chair before she spoke, and then her voice was more matter-of-fact than persuasive when she said, ‘Speaking as a third party, this is how I see it. You meet, he chases after you—’ as Kay went to interrupt, Leonora held up her hand ‘—let me finish, Kay, please. I repeat, he chases after you, even after he discovered you have a family. He makes it clear he wants you and then, when you don’t want to see him, he suggests you date as friends.’ Her mother arched her eyebrow at this point. ‘Kissing-cousin type of friends, I’m sure, but, nevertheless, he doesn’t press his cause. Right?’
Kay nodded. She didn’t need this. She really, really didn’t need this.
‘You get ill and he removes the whole lot of us to his home for Christmas, and, I might add, makes an enormous effort to give the children as good a Christmas as is possible in the circumstances. Right again?’
Her mother could be the most irritating person on planet earth when she wanted to be. ‘So, what’s your point?’
‘My point is, whatever he said to you in the beginning, I think he’s a different man to the one you think he is.’
‘Oh, Mother. For goodness’ sake.’ Kay shut her eyes, putting a hand to her brow. ‘It’s your most endearing quality, but also one that makes me want to scream at times like this, that you always insist on seeing the best in someone you like. Look, I know you mean well, but I think I know Mitchell better than you.’
‘Has he told you how Henry came to be working for him?’
‘Henry? No—no, he hasn’t. I did ask once but he said it was Henry’s story to tell,’ Kay said flatly, wondering why on earth her mother had brought it up now.
‘Well, Henry told me his story,’ Leonora said, ‘and I know he wouldn’t mind me telling you.’
Kay wasn’t so sure about this but with her mother in full flow there was no stopping her. Besides which, she admitted contritely, she was curious.
‘Henry used to be one of the best-paid chefs in the country,’ Leonora said with such pride that it made Kay wonder again how deeply her mother liked the tall, aristocratic housekeeper. ‘He has worked in Italy, France, America—all over the world, in fact, and because he remained single he indulged in a lavish lifestyle: wine, women and song. Twelve years ago he was contacted by one of his old girlfriends. It appeared she’d had a child, a son. Henry’s son. She’d never told him, they had only been together a few weeks and it was just one of those things that burnt out very quickly. She was wealthy in her own right and hadn’t seen the need to inform him he was a father because she didn’t need anything from him.’
Leonora sniffed here, one of her more eloquent sniffs, and Kay surmised her mother hadn’t agreed with the girlfriend’s decision.
‘Only she did need something,’ Leonora continued. ‘Something it appeared only Henry might be able to give. The child was ill, very ill, and needed a bone-marrow transplant, but in spite of this woman and her family’s wealth no matching donor had been found. Henry agreed to see if he could help and in so doing met the child, his son. He was a lovely boy apparently, eight years old and the image of his father. Henry’s bone marrow matched but before they could do the operation the boy died.’
‘Oh, Mum.’ Kay was horrified, her mother’s heart instantly putting herself and one of the twins in that position.
‘It broke him, Kay.’ Leonora stared at her daughter and they both had tears in their eyes. ‘He came back to England from America where the boy had been and resumed his life, but he felt it was like his spring had snapped. He started to drink, had days off work, generally fell apart. He lost his job; got another and then lost that, and then the word went out and he was unemployable. His so-called friends didn’t want to know. He’d got as low as he could go, when Mitchell saw him one day and recognised him as a chef he’d once known. Mitchell picked him up out of the gutter—literally—and took him home.’
Kay was sitting forward in her seat now, hardly breathing, transfixed as she was by the unfolding drama.
‘Henry said Mitchell gave him shelter, clothes, food, but most of all friendship, even when he was at his worst. Mitchell’s doctor diagnosed a breakdown and the recovery was slow, but one day Henry found he wanted to live instead of wanting to die.’
‘Like Mitchell,’ Kay breathed softly. And then, as her mother raised questioning eyebrows, she said, ‘It doesn’t matter. Go on.’
‘There’s not much more to tell. Henry didn’t want to go back to his old life—even if he could have found places to hire him, which he probably could have done with Mitchell backing him—and as his recovery coincided with the purchase of this place Mitchell offered him a home and a job for as long as he wanted to stay.’
‘You’ve fallen for Henry, haven’t you?’ Kay said gently.
Leonora blushed, an answer in itself. ‘He’s a good man at heart, Kay. Like Mitchell.’
They were back to Mitchell again. Kay sat back in her seat, trying to assess what was nagging at her now Henry’s heartbreaking story had come to a conclusion. And then it dawned on her.
‘I’m not denying he has the capacity to be amazingly kind on occasions,’ she said very slowly, trying to formulate her thoughts as she spoke. ‘Like he was with Henry, and with us this Christmas. But don’t you see? The fact that he was so good to Henry negates your argument that I’m in some way special to him, different to the rest, and that was what you were trying to say, wasn’t it?’