Book 5 Teaser
“I’m worried about Uncle Stolid, Timonthy.” Paris said as they sat together drinking hot chocolate, settling down for the night. “No-one knows where is he is. He went to Scotland to try for a job before Xmas. He e-mailed me that,”
“And me,” Timonthy interrupted.
“That’s the last anyone’s heard of him,” she continued and bit her lip. “He’s never been the same since Uncle Johnathon died. I’m worried that he has done something stupid.”
“Well, that has always been a possibility,” Timonthy admitted. “He is not a strong minded man. He has always looked for the easy way out. There was that other time when he disappeared for a few days. We thought that we’d never see him again but we did. He said he’d been swimming, in the Solent, in the middle of winter. I know he likes swimming but that did seem quite odd. Strangely enough though he seemed better after that as if he had tried to kill himself, thought better of it and became stronger in the process.”
Timonthy thought carefully. He believed that is what had happened. He remembered the shock of the disappearance, the gentle realisation that perhaps life could return to something more like normality afterwards. Paris watched him patiently, waiting for him to speak again so he tried to gather his thoughts together and continued.
“This time seems different. It is too elaborate to be the sort of off-the-cuff impulse he is subject to, and I can’t believe that he would bring others into an elaborate plan to kill himself, and there were others. You know we spoke to that gardening lady, Miss Gregg was it, on the phone? She said that a man offered him a position. She was convinced it was above board. She was waiting for an invitation to go and see what his new garden looked like.”
“I wonder if she ever got one?” Paris said eagerly. “I think I will ask her? That would relieve my mind.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so bothered about it?” Timonthy shrugged.
“I don’t understand why you’re not,” Paris replied with bright eyes. “I thought you liked Uncle Stolid. You looked after him so brilliantly after Uncle Johnathon died.”
“I did, didn’t I,” Timonthy said almost sadly. “But it was like looking after a coma victim. There was no personality there at all. It was torture to me. I hoped that he would forgive me, perhaps even begin to like me but I got nothing back.”
“Forgive you for what?” she asked curiously.
“I tried to separate them when they first met. I didn’t know Stolid then. I thought he was just a passing ship who would make trouble for Johnathon. He’s never really forgiven me for that although I tried to explain.”
“It would always have been too soon, even if there had been a possibility, you know that.” Paris was talking to him as if he were a child. He knew he deserved it. Yes he understood the words she was saying, the truth that they held but he had blocked out common sense and hoped that Stolid would have loved him back as he had, at least he believed so, always loved him without hope.