My Dearest Darling

Chapter 46

She had already left most of the hallway behind her and reached the grand wooden staircase when the door she had just closed opened and clicked shut again. A second later, she heard her father shout after her: "Mary, wait! Can I keep you for a few more minutes until you go back to doing whatever you were about to do?"

"Well, yes, certainly. I am sorry, I thought everything was settled and wanted to give Mama and you the chance to rest again," Mary said apologetically when her father caught up with her.

Slightly out of breath from the jog down the hallway he had just demonstrated, he came to stand next to her as she waited up for him at the top of the stairs. "No, that is perfectly alright. She's resting now. I would not have mentioned this in there either way," he replied rather sheepishly and conspiratorially, alluding to what he held in his left hand by raising it ever so slightly.

It was only then that Mary caught sight of the file held securely in his hand. It was the same one he had been looking through when she had walked into her mother's bedroom earlier, she realised. She had assumed it had something to do with the estate after catching quick glimpses of a technical drawing on one of the pages in his hands. It only occurred to her then, as they were both standing out in the hallway, that this was quite strange since her father did not have anything to do with the running of the estate any longer, not since his ulcer had burst, so why should he be looking at such projects?

"Why don't we go to the library for this, then? If this is truly so clandestine?" Mary asked, her voice dripping with intrigue, as she began to descend the stairs with her father and his secret plans in tow.

"Now, what are those, Papa? I saw you studying them when I came in upstairs."

Mary was pointing at the file her father had just put on the table in the library. He was busy opening it, taking out several technical drawings and plans, and spreading out the many pages in front of them on the table.

"Could you take a look at these?" he asked as he turned to her. "It needn't be right now necessarily, but soon would be good."

While Mary's gaze quickly scanned the pages, her brows furrowed in confusion. "What are these plans for, Papa?"

Robert stood tall next to her, his eyes sweeping over the pages, as he heaved a deep breath. Of course, he should probably explain what this was all about. Suddenly, as he was about to relay his plans to someone else for the first time, he found he was quite nervous and could not keep the fingers of his left hand from drumming on the table as they stood there. What if this idea of his was completely ridiculous? Mary would be the first person to tell him, she was quite blunt most of the time.

"You see, your uncle gave me quite a lot of money when we were in America. He said I should use it to make your Mama happy, and I intend to do just that. With her birthday coming up in three months, I wanted to do something special. And I also want to use that occasion to celebrate our anniversary belatedly. This past year has shown me that I should not take anything for granted and that I should do things while I still can. And I feel like I have been given another chance with your Mama and her expected recovery. Spending that day in that hospital room was not something I ever thought would happen. And it is not what I wanted for the occasion of our 39th anniversary."

"Of course not. Even though she loved the photograph you gave her. It meant such a great deal to her. That was the first thing she told me when I came to visit."

"I hoped it would. But still, that was not my plan. What I ultimately came up with was all part of a bigger plan, and it started with asking local builders to come up with a few different designs."

Robert vaguely gestured to the pages on the table. Mary had been right, she had seen technical drawings in the folder her father had been looking through when she went upstairs, but she still had no idea what they were for and it puzzled her.