The White House Connection Read Free Page A

pertained in London society.
     
     
Any help anyone needed, she gave. She attended church every Sunday morning and Hedley sat in the rear pew, always correctly attired in his chauffeur's uniform. She was not above visiting the village pub of an evening for a drink or two, and there, too, Hedley always accompanied her and, though you might not
     
     
think it, was totally accepted by those taciturn people ever since an extraordinary event some years past.
     
     
An incredibly high tide combined with torrential rain had caused the water to rise in the narrow canal that passed through the village from the old disused mill. Soon, it was overflowing into the street and threatening to engulf the village. All attempts to force open the lock gate which was blocking the water proved futile, and it was Hedley who plunged chest deep into the water with a crowbar, diving under the surface again and again until he managed to dislodge the ancient locking pins and the gate burst open. At the pub, he had never been allowed to pay for a drink again.
     
     
So, although it had lost its savour, life could have been worse - and then Lady Helen received an unexpected phone call, one that in its consequences would prove just as catastrophic as that other call two years earlier, the call that had announced the death of her son.
     
     
'Helen, is that you?' The voice was weak, yet strangely familiar.
     
     
'Yes, who is this?'
     
     
'Tony Emsworth.'
     
     
She remembered the name well: a junior officer under her husband many years ago, later an Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office. She hadn't seen him for some time. He had to be seventy now. Come to think of it, he hadn't been at either Peter's funeral or her husband's. She'd thought that strange at the time.
     
     
'Why, Tony,' she said. 'Where are you?'
     
     
'My cottage. I'm living in a little village called Stukeley now, in Kent. Only forty miles from London.'
     
     
'How's Martha?' Helen asked.
     
     
'Died two years ago. The thing is, Helen, I must see you. It's a matter of life and death, you could say.' He was racked by
     
     
coughing. 'My death, actually. Lung cancer. I haven't got long to go.'
     
     
'Tony. I'm so sorry.'
     
     
He tried to joke. 'So am I.' There was an urgency in his voice now. 'Helen, my love, you must come and see me. I need to unburden myself of something, something you must hear.'
     
     
He was coughing again. She waited until He'd stopped. 'Fine, Tony, fine. Try not to upset yourself. I'll drive down to London this afternoon, stay overnight in town, and be with you as soon as I can in the morning. Is that all right?'
     
     
'Wonderful. I'll see you then.' He put down the phone.
     
     
She had taken the call in the library. She stood there frowning, slightly agitated, then opened a silver box, took out a cigarette and lit it with a lighter Roger had once given her made from a German shell.
     
     
Tony Emsworth. The weak voice, the coughing, had given her a bad shake. She remembered him as a dashing Guards captain, a ladies' man, a bruising rider to hounds. To be reduced to what she had just heard was not pleasant. Intimations of mortality, she thought. Death just round the corner, and there had been enough of that in her life.
     
     
But there was another, secret reason, something even Hedley knew nothing about. The odd pain in the chest and arm had given her pause for thought. She'd had a private visit to London recently, a consultation with one of the best doctors in Harley Street, tests and scans at the London Clinic.
     
     
It reminded her of a remark Scott Fitzgerald had made about his health: 'I visited a great man's office and emerged with a grave sentence.' Something like that. Her sentence had not been too grave. Heart trouble, of course. Angina. No need to worry, my dear, the professor had said. You'll live for years. Just take the pills and take it easy. No more riding to hounds or anything like that.
     
     
'And no more of