Sommersgate House

Epilogue Sommersgate House

Julia Ashton, Baroness Blackbourne, finally bested Douglas in the present giving stakes.

That evening they arrived at The Ritz (several hours earlier than expected) for their wedding night.

Their honeymoon flight to Fiji would leave early the next morning.

Sometime deep into the night, when the room was dark and they lay naked and replete in each other’s arms, in a low voice, Douglas explained his arrival during her wedding preparations. He expected her to have cold feet and was going to warn her that if she left him, he’d find her and drag her home. Upon her announcement that he should buy them a small island where they could live in sin, he realised she wasn’t going to leave him.

Julia rewarded him for this admission by giving him his wedding present.

She shared her secret with him and informed him she was pregnant.

He was, for Douglas Ashton, beside himself with delight.

They named their daughter Margaret Tamsin Fairfax Ashton.

A great number of happy years later, Douglas insisted to Roddy Kilpatrick that they lay his wife to rest in the family plot on the grounds of Sommersgate House.

No one, really, could think of anywhere more appropriate for Mrs. K to spend eternity.

Roddy joined his wife there shortly after.

Flowers were delivered to their graves, as well as the graves of Tamsin and Gavin Fairfax, on a weekly basis for as long as Douglas was alive.

Unfortunately, Margaret and Roddy’s version of heaven meant that their ghosts, forever, benignly and often hilariously haunted Sommersgate and all of its inhabitants.

Many, many, many years later, Sommersgate was inherited by William Fairfax as Douglas’s only male heir and because Douglas wanted his sister’s beloved home to go to her only son.

Will kept his father’s mellow, friendly ways but, after years spent with Douglas, acquired more than a hint of his uncle’s arrogance and commanding authority.

Will eventually married a beautiful woman named Rebecca (under rather romantic circumstances) and sired three children of his own.

Elizabeth Fairfax married for love, the son of some friends of her Aunt Jewel’s who had survived leukaemia many years before. Lizzie moved to Indiana and hosted the family Christmases there every third year and brought her ever-increasing family to Sommersgate for the other two.

Lizzie became a social worker, specialising in helping others to survive loss.

When she was in her teens, Ruby Fairfax helped Nick to investigate the murder of Lady Ruby Ashton (the children were eventually told of the lovers’ release but that was the only thing they were informed about regarding that night) and the Sommersgate House Curse.

As the trail was cold, they found very little but both agreed that it had something to do with a woman whose cottage was burned down with her in it. The townspeople thought she was a witch and police suspected arson but the inquest was inconclusive. Her son, however, was discovered to be serial murderer who strangled his victims. Most of those victims were unveiled at the trial but in his dying moments he hinted at another, the first woman who didn’t want him and, therefore, had to die.

In adulthood, Ruby followed (unknowingly) in her uncle’s footsteps, a noted clairvoyant and a very clever girl, she worked for MI6 (though never told her aunt and uncle, siblings, Ronnie or the Kilpatricks) and she did a variety of other things that would have caused distress or, indeed, heart failure.

After some rather significant troubles with a dashing agent, she married him and spent a great many years driving him delightfully mad.

Ronnie married her (fourth) English boyfriend and they travelled widely during all their vacations but she always worked at Sommersgate.

Although Ronnie looked on it more as taking care of her family.

She took over the role of Housekeeper after Mrs. K left this world.

Many years later, William Fairfax, Baron Blackbourne, insisted to her husband that she be buried in the family plot and he made certain flowers were delivered to her grave every week.

Nick never left the Gate House, never married (although he had a great deal of fun), spent most of his evenings at the dining room table at the main house and he watched over the Ashton family until he died in his sleep at the age of eighty-seven whilst having a particularly good dream.

Carter retired the year after the Baron and Baroness married and spent the rest of his days close to his daughter and grandchildren in sunny Devon.

Charlotte and Oliver Forsythe stayed the best of friends with the Baron and Baroness and Charlie and Jewel’s antics, for decades, were the cause of great hilarity amongst their set and in the media.

Charlie cried loudly and dramatically when both “Gregory” and Julia gave her stunning salutes at the retrospective honouring her contribution to fashion that was held at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Sam Thornton invested her life savings in some stock her boss had suggested, made an absolute fortune, quit her job and travelled the world.

She met an Australian who was the only being she’d ever known (besides her ex-employer) who couldn’t be cowed by her energy, intelligence and wit.

So she married him and had five children which quickly depleted her energy but lovingly challenged her intelligence and wit.

Patricia Fairfax moved into the Ashton Dower House in Clevedon and meddled freely in the lives of her family, the Kilpatricks, Veronika, Nick, Samantha and the Forsythes and anyone else who wandered through their tight circle.

She also let slip a family secret during a public altercation with Monique Ashton, calling her an unfit mother and a few (well maybe a number) of other choice words.

The stunned reaction easily read on the faces of the Baron and Baroness, both of whom witnessed this diatribe, laid testimony to the truth of Patricia’s attack.

Monique was disgraced (most people never liked her anyway) and she spent most of the rest of her life alone. This was until her son and daughter-in-law (mostly her daughter-in-law) insisted she be cared for at Sommersgate when she eventually fell ill and infirm.

She was also buried in the family plot, as was her due, but her delivery of flowers was much smaller than the rest.

At the permission of the current residents, Patricia’s ashes were sprinkled over the pond in the front yard of what used to be her family farm in Indiana.

The fish were very happy.

The Baron and Baroness only had one child as their home was already full of three others, three cats, a dog (a mastiff, not named Babykins), six horses (those in the stables, of course) and a number of beloved servants.

They felt that was enough to watch after.

Julia learned to enjoy riding horses.

Douglas learned to tell his deepest secrets.

Douglas never lost interest in his wife, indeed, year after year, he fell deeper and deeper in love with her.

Julia lived her life always about ready to expire from the rapture of being loved so splendidly by her husband and enjoyed living a life of doing the same right back.

Tamsin and Gavin’s vision of heaven did indeed mean they were somewhere beautiful and they could see their family. They watched over their loved ones with humour and delight (and, in the beginning, not a little bit of frustration), thrilled when Archie and Ruby finally joined them.

One, the other or all four of them would come to open the window to their family’s world at Sommersgate House, open it over and over, and watch their family grow in happiness and in love.

Precisely the purpose for which Sommersgate House was built in the first place.