Cruel Legacy (2 page)

'He doesn't provide than for us.. .he does it for himself,' Rory had said bitterly when Andrew had slammed out of the house.

Philippa knew it was true, but she had shushed her eider son ail the same. Their friends... what friends? she had wondered later. They had no real friends, only people he thought were useful... people he either wanted to impress or who impressed him. Her one and only real local friend he dismissed contemptuously, claiming that she and her husband were simply not their financial equals.

Status was something that was very important to Andrew. It was, for instance, no secret to her that, despite the fact that he never lost an opportunity to criticise her brother Robert and his wife, Lydia, secretly he was eaten up with jealousy of Robert; eaten up with jealousy and bitterly resentful of the fact that Robert's marriage to Lydia had allowed him to enter a world which remained closed to him.

Robert had married Lydia because of who she was, because of her family connections and their money, he had declared.

Philippa had said nothing. How could she? After all, hadn't Andrew married her for exactly the same reasons? And hadn't she, deep down inside herself, known it... known it and refused to listen to the small, desperate inner voice which had begged her to reconsider what she was doing?

She had been too angry to do so.. .too angry...too proud and too hurt. Since it was obvious that she had no worth, no value as herself, as the person she knew herself to be, since it seemed she was not even to be allowed to define the kind of person she was, then she might as well be the daughter her parents, and most especially her father, wished her to be. That person was the kind of person who would automatically marry someone like Andrew...the other Philippa. Her Philippa... her Philippa no longer existed, had been destroyed a long time ago; she had not been strong enough to fight for survival... not without love to sustain her.

Love. There was certainly no love in the relationship between her and Andrew.

Andrew and Robert had been at school together, Robert the son of the area's most successful and respected businessman, Andrew the son of elderly parents who had produced him late in life. Both of them, Philippa suspected—Andrew's elderly, scholarly father whose main interests were his books and his fossil collection, and Andrew's mother, a timid, quiet woman who had been much in awe of her own mother—had never quite got over the shock of producing a child who was so different in outlook and ambition from themselves.

It was typical of Andrew that when Robert had been appointed chairman of the family company Lydia's uncle owned Andrew had immediately started lobbying for promotion to the board of his own employers.

When that had proved unsuccessful, the last thing Philippa had expected was that he would suddenly decide to resign from his job and buy his own company, his own chairmanship.

She could still remember her feeling of dismay when he had told her what he was doing. His mouth had started to twist with bitterness and, recognising what was coming, her heart had dropped even further.

'Of course if that stupid old bag hadn't gone and left what should have been mine to someone else, I wouldn't need to work at all.'

Philippa had said nothing. There was no point in reminding him that his great-aunt Maud had had every right to leave her money to whomever she chose, even if that someone had turned out to be a six-foot-odd itinerant, a New Zealander who had knocked on her door one summer asking for casual work and who had stayed on over the winter to nurse her when she fell ill and broke her hip-facts of which they had known nothing until after her death, until Andrew, in his rage and disbelief, had virtually accused Tom Forster, twenty-nine to Maud Knighton's eighty-odd, of being his great-aunt's lover and of having seduced his, Andrew's, inheritance away from him.

'How could she do this to me... to our sons?' Andrew had demanded, after he and Philippa had left the solicitor's office.

'Perhaps if we had visited her more...' Philippa had suggested hesitantly.

'What, go traipsing up to Northumberland? How the hell could we have done? You know how impossible it is for me to take time off work.'

Andrew
had,
of course, typically, threatened to take the matter to court, to have
his
aunt declared
insane and
the New Zealander guilty of forcing or threatening
her
into dispossessing him, but to Philippa's surprise and relief Tom Forster had quietly and calmly offered to share his inheritance with Andrew on a fifty-fifty basis.

Andrew hadn't wanted to accept. He had insisted that the very fact that he had made the offer proved that he knew Andrew would win any court case, but Philippa's father and Robert had put pressure on Andrew to accept.

Robert's emerging political ambitions made it imperative that his background, his family and their histories were all squeaky-clean; the last thing he wanted was the full distasteful story of Andrew's quarrel with Tom Forster splashed all over the less savoury tabloids.

Philippa, sensitive to her father's reactions, had been aware of the way he had distanced himself from Andrew afterwards, but Andrew, she suspected, had not. He was not that sort of man; other people's feelings and reactions had always been things outside his understanding.

The last thing Philippa had expected, after all his complaints about how difficult life was going to be for them now that his expectations of what he would inherit had been so drastically diminished, was that he would actually part with some of the money. Not some of it, she reminded herself now, but all of it and more beside: money he had borrowed from the bank, boasting to her about the size of the loan the bank had given him, saying that showed how highly they regarded him and his business ability. She on the other hand had felt sick at the thought of their owing so much money.

'How on earth will you ever be able to repay it?' she had asked him.

He had laughed at her, telling her she knew nothing whatsoever about business, reminding her scornfully that she had no aptitude for it. 'Your father was right; all the brains in the family went to your brothers.'

Philippa had winced. She had borne the burden of knowing she was a disappointment to her parents all her life. Ideally, they would have preferred another boy, not a girl, and then, when they had discovered that their third child could in no way compete intellectually with their elder two, they had turned away from her, concentrating instead on her brothers. She felt that they had been relieved when Andrew had asked her to marry him. She had only been nineteen, inexperienced and confused about what to make of her life.

'I don't want my wife working,' Andrew had told her importantly once they were married, and she had resigned herself to giving up ideas of a career.

All he wanted her to do was to be a good wife and mother, Andrew had told her. He was the breadwinner, the wage earner. He didn't like these strident modem women who seemed so out of touch with their femininity.

On their first wedding anniversary he had given her a diamond bracelet.

'For my good, pretty girl,' he had told her and then he had made love to her with the thing glittering on her arm. He had spent himself quickly and fiercely, leaving her slightly sore inside and unsatisfied. She remembered that when she had opened her eyes he had not been looking at her but at the bracelet.

She had worn it for the birthday meal he had insisted she invite her parents to. She had felt sick and headachy; she had just been pregnant with Rory, although she hadn't known it at the time.

Andrew had lost his temper with her because the souffle he had told her to make hadn't risen, his mouth thinning into an angry, tight line.

He had never been a violent husband, but he had always resented anything that challenged his authority in even the smallest way. Her inability to make a perfect souffl6 had been a challenge to that authority. His authority over her. His desire that she at all times reflect his success... his power... his massive ego.

When the children had been born it was just the same. They had to be a credit to him... always.

No, he had never been an easy man to live with, although no one else seemed to be aware of it. She was lucky to be married to him, other people told her. He was a good husband, her family said...adding approvingly that he had done well.

Just lately, though, he had seemed increasingly on edge, his temper flaring over the smallest thing. One moment he would be complaining about the amount she had spent on housekeeping, or protesting furiously about money she had spent on plants for the garden, the next he was announcing that he was buying a new car.. .that they were going on an expensive holiday.

When she had protested bewilderedly at his attitude, he had told her harshly that it was important to keep up appearances.

Appearances... Appearances were all-iinportant to Andrew. She might not have much intelligence but at least she was pretty, her father had once said disparagingly.

Pretty...

'Why do I want to marry you? Because I love you, pretty little thing,' Andrew had told her when he proposed, then, 'I can't wait to show you off to everyone,' he had told her when they got engaged, and, looking back, it seemed to her now that he had enjoyed her company in public far more than he had ever done in private.

Pretty... How she had grown to dislike that word.

She could hear a car coming up the drive. She got up, sliding out of bed and pulling on her housecoat. It was silk... a Christmas present from Andrew, 'To wear when we stay with the Ronaldsons,' he had told her with a smile.

'I feel so sorry for him. That wife of his isn't just plain, she's downright ugly.'

'He loves her,' she had told him quietly.

'Don't be a fool. No man would love a woman who looks like that. He married her for her money; everyone knows that.'

The car had stopped. She frowned as she opened the bedroom door. The engine had sounded different from Andrew's new Jaguar.

At first when he had started coming home later and later, she had assumed he was having an affair, and she had been surprised at how little she had minded, but then she had discovered that what he had actually been doing was working.

She had begun to worry then, but when she had tried to talk to him he had told her not to pester him.

'For God
's
sake, I've got enough on my mind without you nagging me,' he had told her. 'Just leave me alone, will you? TTiis damned recession...'

'If things are that bad, perhaps we should sell the house,' she had suggested, 'take the boys out of private school.'

'Do what... ? You stupid fool, we might as well take out an advertisement in
The Times
to announce that we're going bust as do that... have you no sense? The last thing I need right now is to have people losing confidence in us, and that's exactly what will happen if we sell this place.'

Last weekend they had gone to see her brother and Robert and Andrew had played golf, leaving Philippa and Lydia to a rather disjointed afternoon of talk. When the men had got back there was a strained atmosphere between them and Andrew had announced that they had to leave.

Philippa hadn't been sorry to go. She and Robert had never been close. She had always been much closer to her other brother, Michael, and Lydia she had never liked at all. Andrew still hadn't come in. She went downstairs, thinking he must have forgotten his keys. When she opened the door and saw the police car outside, she tensed.

'Mrs Ryecart?'

The policeman came towards her. There was a policewoman with him. Both of them had grave faces.

'If we might just come in...'

She knew, of course...had known straight away that Andrew was dead, but she had thought it must be an accident ... not this... not a deliberate taking of his own life. They had tried to break it to her gently. Found in his car... the engine running... unfortunately reached the hospital too late.

Suicide.

WPC Lewis would stay with her, the policeman was saying quietly. 'Is there anyone else you'd like us to inform... your husband's parents,.. ?'

Philippa shook her head.

'I'll make you a cup of tea,' the WPC was saying. 'You've had a shock.'

Suicide...

She started to tremble violently.

'M
um
, Paul's still in the bathroom and he won't let me in.'

Sally paused on the landing, grimacing as she stooped down to pick up the sock she had dropped on her last trip downstairs with the dirty washing. Her back still ached from working yesterday.

'Paul, hurry up,' she commanded as she'rapped on the bathroom door.

'He
knows
I'm going to Jane's and I'm going to be late now,' Cathy wailed.

'No, you won't,' Sally soothed her daughter. 'He'll be out in a minute.'

'He's doing it deliberately. I hate him,' Cathy announced passionately.

Sally had just finished loading the washing machine when Paul came into the kitchen. Was he never going to stop growing? she wondered. Those new jeans she had bought for him last month were already too short.