Читать книгу The Perfect Hero: The perfect summer read for Austen addicts! - Виктория Коннелли, Victoria Connelly - Страница 8

Chapter One

That night, Kay Ashton dreamt of Mr Darcy again. It wasn’t the first time, of course, and it wouldn’t be the last. She often dreamt about her favourite fictional hero and she often daydreamed about him too. How many dull afternoons in the office had been cheered up by imagining the sudden arrival of Mr Darcy? He’d come striding in across the carpeted reception, his eyes fixed on Kay.

‘In vain have I struggled,’ he’d say, confessing his love to her there and then and sweeping her up in his arms, telling her to leave her desk behind and run away to Pemberley with him.

If only I could, Kay thought.

It was funny that she should be dreaming about Mr Darcy because she’d been drawing Captain Wentworth for the last few weeks now. Darcy had been the main subject of her last book – a collection of drawings in pen, and watercolour paintings of scenes from Pride and Prejudice.

She couldn’t remember the first time she’d drawn Mr Darcy but she’d been putting pen to paper all her life, sketching little scenes of handsome princes and fairytale princesses which, as she’d grown older, had become heroes and heroines from the books she read. It was a world she’d loved diving into because the real one around her had been a cold and cruel place.

Kay had been ten years old when her father had left her. She’d been upset and confused and had watched as her mother had crumbled before her. The two of them had clung to each other and had slowly built a new life for themselves but, just as they were getting used to being just the two of them, the unthinkable had happened. Her father had returned.

Life had been turned upside down once again and Kay was forgotten in the space of a moment as her parents had got on with the business of fixing their marriage. It hadn’t been easy. Kay often wondered how her parents had managed to stay together for so long because they seemed to spend most of their time fighting. She could hear them shouting from her bedroom even when she closed the door and hid her head under her pillow. They shouted at night too when they thought she was asleep, their voices only slightly dimmed by the thin wall that separated their bedroom from hers.

Her mother would always look washed-out and red-eyed in the morning whilst her father would be silent and morose, his eyes avoiding hers as she ate her breakfast before school.

Then, after a year of endless fighting, he’d left again. This time, it was for good. There was no forwarding address and he never rang. It was as if he’d forgotten that he’d ever been a husband and a father.

Kay, who already spent most of the time with her head in a book, had retreated into her fictional world like never before and had never really surfaced since. For her, reality was only made bearable by the existence of novels and her beloved stories and sketches had got her through the traumas of a dozen father-figures, the trials of her own string of disastrous relationships, and the boredom of her job at Barnum and Mason. It had been the one constant of her life.

The strangest thing was that Kay had never let the experience of her parents’ marriage affect her own views of relationships. She still believed in the possibility of love and that your soul mate was out there just waiting to be found. Maybe it was a notion she’d picked up from the books she read but she truly believed it. She looked at her collection of illustrations now. It had been sitting on her desk for weeks and she didn’t quite know what to do with it next. She supposed she should send it to a publisher but what if they rejected it? What if all her hopes and dreams of seeing it in print came to nothing? Leaving it sitting on the desk might not result in it seeing the light of day but at least her dreams remained intact that way.

The Illustrated Darcy she called it because, although she’d made sketches and paintings of all the main characters and major scenes, the emphasis remained on Darcy. He was a hero for all time, wasn’t he? Kay often wondered if Jane Austen had known that when she’d created him. Had she known the power of her very special hero? Had her sister, Cassandra, said, ‘Wow, Jane! You’ve done it! There will never be another hero to match this one!’

Kay often wondered what it was about Mr Darcy that fed the female imagination so much. There was something so special about Austen’s heroes that had never been matched in other fiction. Kay had once – very briefly – gone through a Brontë phase but pulling your lover’s hair out and then digging up their grave wasn’t really the mark of a hero, was it? You wouldn’t get Mr Darcy prowling around graveyards in the middle of the night.

Ah, could there ever be a hero to match Fitzwilliam? she wondered.

Getting out of bed, Kay grabbed a sheet of paper and sketched a few lines, desperately trying to recall the man from her dreams. It was always the face that eluded her. She could capture the stride, the movement of the man, and the clothes were always easy to remember but the face always seemed to hover on the outskirts of her consciousness. What did the perfect hero look like?

She sketched on, covering sheet after sheet, her stomach rumbling in a bid to be fed but nothing was more important than her drawing. Food could wait, drink could wait but art could never wait.

It was then that the telephone rang. Why did the telephone always ring when one was in the middle of something very important? Kay dropped her pen and sighed.

‘Hello?’ she said.

She didn’t recognise the voice on the other end but, as soon as the woman said where she was calling from, Kay knew that it wasn’t good news.

Peggy Sullivan had died.

* * *

Denis Frobisher’s face was, perhaps, the longest face Kay had ever seen. It reminded her of a basset hound but he had a warm smile that made his eyes twinkle and she understood why Peggy had chosen him as her solicitor.

‘But I don’t understand,’ Kay told him. ‘She left me everything?’

Mr Frobisher nodded. ‘It’s very simple. There were no siblings, no children. Nobody. Just you, Miss Ashton.’

‘But I only knew her a short time.’

‘Then you obviously made an impression.’

Kay shook her head. ‘This is crazy.’

‘Her husband left her very comfortably off. Of course, the nursing home fees made their dent over the years but she still left a sizeable chunk.’

‘Yes,’ Kay said. It was all she could say.

And then something occurred to her. Their last conversation. What was it she’d said to Peggy when they were talking about dreams for the future?

‘If only it was that simple,’ Kay said.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Mr Frobisher said.

‘I made this happen,’ Kay said, her voice quavering. ‘I wished things were simple and that dreams could come true and now Peggy’s dead. I didn’t mean to wish her dead! Oh, dear!’

‘Miss Ashton!’ Mr Frobisher said. ‘You’re upsetting yourself unnecessarily. Mrs Sullivan was an elderly woman who’d been seriously ill for many years. It was her time. You didn’t bring this about, I can assure you.’ He pushed a box of tissues towards her and she took one and dabbed her eyes.

‘Oh, Peggy!’ she said. ‘I never expected this. I never imagined . . .’

‘Of course you didn’t,’ Mr Frobisher said.

They sat quietly for a moment whilst Kay recovered her composure.

‘There’s a letter too,’ Mr Frobisher said gently. ‘One of the nurses at the home wrote it for Peggy but she managed to sign it herself.’ He handed her the white envelope and, with shaking hands, Kay opened it and took out the folded sheet of paper.

My dearest Kay, I hope this doesn’t come as too much of a shock to you but I’ve left you a little bit of money. Kay stifled the urge to laugh at the understatement.

You see, I don’t have anyone close to me and, unlike most elderly ladies, I don’t have an affinity to cats so I won’t be leaving my worldly goods to any rescue centres.

I know your mother didn’t have much to leave you and I know you’ve got a whopping mortgage and an unfulfilled dream. Well, my dear, if you use my money wisely, you can fulfil that dream right now and I will feel that I am living on through you. Is that silly of me?

I’m going to miss you, dear Kay. I always loved your visits and thank you so much for the wonderful hours of reading. I hadn’t read Jane Austen for years but your beautiful voice brought all those stories back to life for me again and for that I am truly grateful.

So this is your chance, isn’t it? Do something amazing!

Your friend,

Peggy.

Kay looked at the scribbled signature in blue ink. It looked more like ‘Piggy’ really and Kay could imagine Peggy’s arthritic hand skating over the paper, determined to leave its mark, and the image brought more tears to Kay’s eyes.

‘So you see,’ Mr Frobisher began, ‘she wanted you to have everything. We’ve been in the process of sorting things out. The house was being rented for the past few years – that’s what brought in most of the income to pay the nursing home – but the tenant has gone now so the house is yours.’

Kay nodded, desperately trying to follow everything.

‘Mrs Sullivan thought you’d want to sell it straightaway.’ He paused, waiting for her reply. ‘But you probably want to think about things for a while,’ he added.

‘Yes,’ Kay said. ‘Think.’

‘And you have my number. I’m here if you have any questions.’

‘Questions.’ Kay nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’ve been very kind.’

‘Not at all,’ Mr Frobisher said. ‘Simply doing my job and carrying out the wishes of my client.’ He stood up to escort Kay to the door. ‘Dear Mrs Sullivan,’ he said. ‘How she will be missed.’

Kay nodded as she stood up and she felt her eyes vibrating with tears again. She turned back round to the desk and took another tissue from the box – just to be on the safe side.