A Second Chance (43 page)

‘So you’ll be staying in New Zealand, but
with the requirement that Miss Sarah be assured of your incapacity
to do further damage. That means leaving Auckland—’

‘Oh, that’s out of the question,’ Jimmy
interrupted. ‘All my business contacts are here.’

‘That hardly matters, considering that very
shortly you will no longer have a business.’ Henry sat back and
waited for his comment to sink in.

‘Eh? What the devil are you talking
about?’

‘Miss Millish informed me that she spoke to
you after the first of these unfortunate incidents. She told you
that the consequences of any further lapses on your part would
include being ruined financially. It was not an idle threat, Jimmy.
She took steps to ensure she’d have the ability to follow through
if necessary. She holds various debts against the company, either
directly or through some of her financial interests, and they’re
substantial enough to bring down the business if called in. Which
is exactly what she’s in the process of doing.’

‘She can’t do that!’ Jimmy protested. ‘I
won’t allow it! Surely we can put a stop to it?’ He looked outraged
rather than concerned; Henry could see that Jimmy had not yet
comprehended just how grave a situation he had created for
himself.

‘No, we can’t. And that’s your doing—you’ve
allowed the business to get into such a state that it’s vulnerable
to such action. Without Charlotte’s assistance to prop it up, it
would probably collapse even without Miss Millish’s intervention.
Although she’s hastening the process somewhat.’

‘That’s not true! I’ll admit we’ve had
trying times lately, the market hasn’t been the best, but—’

‘Don’t waste your breath, Jimmy. I’ve a fair
idea of the state of your books. If we manage the process
carefully, what assets the business has should clear the bulk of
its debts. And speaking of debts, we’ll need to see what we can do
about your personal liabilities. I’m going to need a comprehensive
list of your creditors. I realise it might be rather long. How much
do you have in the bank?’

‘Ah… not a large amount,’ Jimmy said,
looking away as he spoke.

That meant somewhere from a zero balance
downwards, Henry was sure. ‘Any other assets? Apart from the
business, that is, which we must assume to be worthless.’

‘Not really,’ Jimmy admitted. ‘There’s…
well, some of the furniture belongs to me. Things from the old
house.’

‘Hmm, you’ve one or two nice pieces. I’ll
see we use a reputable dealer so you’ll get a fair price.’ If
Constance had a sentimental attachment to any of the items from her
childhood home, Henry thought, he might well buy them off Jimmy
himself. ‘I doubt if that’ll cover your debts, given your style of
life, but I’ll do my best to persuade your creditors to accept so
many shillings in the pound. I don’t particularly want a bankrupt
for a brother-in-law, either.’

‘Bankrupt! But… look here, Henry, I’m not
going to put up with this. I don’t see why I shouldn’t defend
myself in court. Let a judge and jury hear this nonsense of
hers—surely there’s a fair chance it’d be thrown out?’

‘It’s not easy to predict the outcome of any
particular case with certainty. But I’d give you an extremely low
chance of success. Miss Millish has convincing evidence, and quite
frankly she’d cut a more impressive figure in court. A young woman
alone in the world, trying to defend herself against an
unscrupulous businessman, et cetera, et cetera. You’d be battling
against their natural sympathies before you even stepped into the
courtroom.’

‘I’m inclined to chance it. I don’t see how
it could make things much worse. Even if I lost and got some sort
of fine—’

‘A fine! Jimmy, have you still not got it
into your head how serious this is? We’re not talking about a
fine—you’d be thrown in jail, man!’ Henry took a grim pleasure in
seeing Jimmy’s composure slip. ‘Yes, jail,’ he repeated. ‘With hard
labour, I’d imagine. Do you know what that means? I expect you’ve
seen men working at the harbour reclamation—pick and shovel work,
breaking rocks and hauling them about in barrows. How long do you
think you’d last at that sort of work?’ Henry was aware that he was
painting the worst case scenario, but he felt no compunction in
doing so.

Jimmy looked badly shaken. ‘The little bitch
would do that to me? What sort of unnatural creature is she?’

‘Unnatural?’ Henry echoed, startled.
‘Whatever do you mean by that?’

Jimmy paused for a moment as if deciding
whether or not to speak, then his mouth curled into a grimace.
‘What else do you call it when a girl plots something like this
against her own father?’

Henry did not often find himself lost for
words, but this was one such occasion. ‘You… you’re Sarah Millish’s
father?’ he said at last. ‘I knew she was adopted, of course, but…
you?’

‘Yes, though you’d hardly know it from the
way she’s carrying on,’ Jimmy said bitterly.

Henry gave his head a small shake in an
attempt to clear his thoughts. ‘And may I ask who the unfortunate
mother is?’

‘You met her when she was staying with the
girl. Amy—Mrs Stewart, she is now.’

Henry frowned, struggling to recall the
name. ‘Mrs Stewart? You mean that sweet little creature from
Ruatane, or whatever it’s called?’ The woman was surely a good deal
younger than he was; she had looked far too young to be the mother
of the self-possessed Sarah Millish. ‘How old was she, for heaven’s
sake?’

‘Fifteen.’

Fifteen. Laura’s age. Henry’s memory of the
small figure from the yacht, tiny alongside Sarah, merged with
Laura’s face to give him all too clear a picture of a frightened
girl betrayed and abandoned. When old Mr Millish had spoken of the
young girl who had been Sarah’s mother, Henry had known that the
man involved must be a scoundrel. But he had never suspected it
might be a member of his own family.

‘I wasn’t very old myself, you know,’ Jimmy
said when he saw Henry’s expression. ‘It was that summer I went and
stayed with Jack and Susannah. I was only twenty.’

The mention of Susannah brought to mind
further implications. ‘Good God, Jimmy, she’s your sister’s
stepdaughter! She’s more or less your niece!’

‘Not by blood—we’re not related at all.’

‘You’re morally her uncle—if the concept of
morality means anything to you. And I’m sure you were more than
willing to take advantage of the relationship. No doubt it allowed
you unsupervised access to her.’ He studied Jimmy, all sullen
resentment and wounded dignity. ‘Why didn’t you marry the
girl?’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous.’

‘And exactly what is ridiculous about
marrying a girl you’d got with child?’

‘She had nothing, Henry! I could see that
her father wasn’t in a position to help me get established. And
Father would have made an awful fuss about it, with me getting her
with child, and her being Susannah’s stepdaughter and all that. It
would have held me back dreadfully—I’d already had the idea of
trying my hand in Melbourne, but getting myself set up there with a
wife and child in tow, especially if Father had decided to be
difficult about it all… well, it just wouldn’t have done.’

He glanced at Henry, who was making no
attempt to hide his disgust. ‘It wasn’t an easy decision, I’ll have
you know. I was very fond of Amy. I wish I
could
have
married her—in fact I’ve sometimes wished I had, in spite of all
the bother it would have caused me. I expect I’d have been a good
deal happier than Charlotte’s made me. And I wouldn’t have allowed
Sarah to turn out the way she has, if she’d been under my
authority,’ he added grimly. ‘But it just wouldn’t have been
sensible, not with my position at the time. I’d have been doing Amy
no favours, either, dragging her up here for Mother to look down
her nose at.’

Henry did not waste his breath attempting to
make Jimmy see the feebleness of his arguments. ‘I certainly hope
that Stewart fellow she married treated her well.’

Jimmy gave him a quick, suspicious glance,
then looked away. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said with an unconvincing
air of casualness. It was enough for Henry to see that Jimmy did
indeed know something of the matter. He did not press the point,
knowing that there was little chance he would be told the
truth.

He dragged his thoughts back to the present.
‘I find I must return to my original question—what made you
suddenly decide to try and profit from your connection with Miss
Sarah, after all these years?’

‘I had no idea she was my child. It was at
your house that I found out, as it happens. When Susannah was
staying with you, and you started talking about Sarah—about her
being adopted, and her mother being a girl from the country. I put
two and two together, especially when I saw that Susannah knew more
than she was letting on. And I knew Amy had been staying with Sarah
earlier in the year—I saw her one evening after a concert, and I
managed to get her to meet me the next day.’

‘You met Mrs Stewart? Why ever did you
distress the poor creature by doing that?’ Henry was rapidly
replaying events in his head; no wonder, he realised, Mrs Stewart
had become so suddenly shy on the yacht when they had discovered
their connection.

Again he saw Jimmy’s gaze shift away from
his. ‘That’s none of your business. A fat lot of good it did,
anyway—every time I tried to visit her after that, I’d get some
maid telling me she was out, or indisposed, or some other story.
Sarah must have poisoned her against me.’

‘I expect you did that without any
assistance,’ Henry remarked.

‘Oh, don’t go thinking I forced her. She was
a willing participant, I can assure you. Positively eager, in fact,
once I’d introduced her to the pleasure of the whole business. Such
an affectionate little thing she was,’ he said, smiling as he gazed
into an invisible distance. ‘It really was a dreadful waste that I
couldn’t marry her.’

‘You had a choice in the matter, unlike the
poor girl in question. I daresay she believed marriage was a
possibility when she allowed you to ruin her.’

‘Spare me the sermons. I’ve no appetite for
them.’ Jimmy’s brow furrowed in thought. ‘I’ve a good mind to try
it,’ he murmured. ‘That might give the little bitch something to
think about.’

‘What idiocy are you plotting, Jimmy?’

‘I may just have a way to make Miss Sarah,’
Jimmy gave the title a scornful edge, ‘sit up and take notice. She
might decide to think again about this whole business of pressing
charges.’ He leaned forward eagerly. ‘Henry, if Sarah persists in
this idea of a court case, how would it be if we were to threaten
to call Amy as a witness?’

‘What in the world has Mrs Stewart to do
with the matter?’

‘If we could find some way to get Amy
involved in the case, it might be enough to frighten Sarah out of
taking it any further. And if she did decide to go ahead anyway,
for all she claims to be so fond of Amy, surely that would only
help my case? It would all come out in court—about Sarah being my
daughter, I mean. The chaps on the jury would think a girl owed her
father something. They’d hardly find me guilty of some crime just
for wanting her to show me a little proper respect. And I wouldn’t
allow her to get away with painting me so very black regarding Amy,
either. If it’s a matter of defending my reputation, I don’t see
why I shouldn’t let slip a few details about Amy’s behaviour. That
would show Sarah what comes of defying me. If they heard—’

‘Enough!’ Henry thundered. He rarely
shouted, but he had a strong voice, and the room rang with it.
Jimmy’s head jerked back, and he stared at Henry in shock.

‘I won’t listen to another word of such
talk,’ Henry went on in a lower voice. ‘And I won’t attempt to
appeal to your better nature, as I’d clearly be wasting my breath,
so I’ll confine myself to pointing out the likely consequences of
such actions. I said earlier I’d give you a low chance of success
if it came to a trial. If you chose to divulge your link with Sarah
Millish, and even more so if you chose to drag Mrs Stewart before
the court, you’d change the outcome in only one way—you would make
it even more certain that you’d be found guilty. And you’d impel
the judge towards choosing the harshest sentence available.’

Jimmy was frowning in confusion. ‘Why should
that be the case?’

‘Because a good half of the men on the jury
are likely to have daughters of their own, and we’ve all spent our
share of time worrying about some scoundrel getting his hands on
our girls. They’d see their own daughters’ faces when they looked
at little Mrs Stewart cowering in the witness box, with filth being
spouted against her. And when they looked at Miss Sarah, they’d see
the child you abandoned when you’d ruined her mother—the child you
wanted nothing to do with until you saw that she could be of some
use to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if they asked whether hanging
was an option in this case. It’s not,’ he added, seeing the
question on Jimmy’s lips. ‘Some people might say that’s
unfortunate.’

Jimmy was silent for several moments. ‘I
suppose I’ll have to take your word for all that.’

‘Since there’s no way of allowing you to
bring the well-deserved wrath of the court down on yourself without
causing harm to innocent parties, then yes, I’d urge you to proceed
no further. In which case, let us get on with making new living
arrangements for you.’

‘Because the dear girl says I must leave
Auckland.’ Jimmy scowled. ‘I must say I’m feeling no great
affection for the place, with all the trouble I’ve had lately. I
suppose I could try Wellington. Your boys seem to be doing well
there, and I could probably get some sort of government job.’

Henry shook his head. ‘No, Wellington won’t
do. That would be far too comfortable an option. Miss Sarah was
quite adamant it had to be a small place, somewhere out of the way.
One with no scope for you to do further harm, because there won’t
be much you
can
do there.’ He was relieved that there was no
need to risk any close contact between his sons and their uncle;
Jimmy’s was not an influence he would like to see them exposed to.
‘I went over several possibilities with her, and we settled on one
that was acceptable.’ He patted a folder on his desk. ‘You’re to go
and live in Russell.’