Daughter of Riches (6 page)

Oh Juliet, how much I have missed! she thought, unexpected tears blurring her vision. If only your mother had not felt the need to take you away … if only I had been able to visit just once or twice … when it was all over.

But it wouldn't have worked. Neither Robin nor Molly would have wanted to see her. Molly had never forgiven her and Robin.… No, it was best she had stayed away.

Now, at last, Juliet was here – here because she wanted to be.

Sophia turned to run downstairs. For the first time in many years she felt as if she were a young girl again.

‘I suppose,' Vivienne Carteret said, ‘ she'll be here by now.'

‘What?' Paul, Sophia's brother, looked up from his newspaper, peering over the top of his gold-rimmed half-spectacles at his wife who was pouring herself a pre-dinner gin and tonic. ‘Who?'

‘Well Juliet of course!' Viv tasted her drink, added a touch more tonic, then crossed the room to her favourite chair, a black leather lounger with enormous comfortable wings. ‘Your niece, my dear – or great-niece, to be more accurate. She was due to fly in from Australia today.'

‘Oh yes,' Paul said, returning to his newspaper. ‘David was saying something about it at the office. She's staying at La Grange, isn't she?'

‘Of course she is! Where else would she stay?'

Paul chuckled. He was a big man who had once been handsome; now his complexion gave away the fact that he, like his wife, drank a little more than was good for him and his once firm chin had sagged into heavy jowls. Life had thrown a good measure of traumas and disappointments in Paul's path. Now, in the calmer backwaters of middle-age, he had discovered the pleasures of self-indulgence, and both the earlier struggles and the more recent excesses of easy living as well as some wildly irresponsible patches along the way had left their mark on him.

‘So – the little fledgling is back in the family nest,' he remarked wryly. ‘ I'll bet Robin and Molly had something to say about that!'

‘Probably,' Viv agreed. Privately she had never had a great deal of time for either of them; Robin struck her as an ineffectual wimp and Molly was over-emotional and childish. She had a great deal to answer for, Viv had always thought. If she had faced up to her responsibilities things might have been very different. ‘I wonder if Juliet knows now about Louis and your sister?' she said reflectively.

Paul glanced up again, reaching for the whisky tumbler on the small occasional table at his elbow.

‘Well of course she knows.'

‘She didn't. When David and Deborah went over to visit Molly asked them not to say anything about it. She said she and Robin had decided it was best for Juliet not to be told.'

‘But that was when she was a child. She's a grown woman now, for God's sake. They must have told her!'

Viv twisted the tumbler between her hands so that the rings which she wore on almost every finger clicked against the glass.

‘I wouldn't bank on it. Molly was one of the most secretive women I ever met as well as being one of the silliest. And you know how she was about Louis. She must have been just about the only person who didn't think Sophia had done the world a service by shooting him.'

‘Viv, for God's sake!' Paul exploded. He should be used to his wife by now – after nearly fifty years of marriage there was nothing she could do that could surprise him, yet he still found himself shocked by her outspokenness.

‘It's true!' Viv smiled faintly, deep lines biting into her smooth plump face above the scarlet gash of her mouth. ‘Louis had so many enemies half the island would have been picked up for questioning about his death if Sophia hadn't confessed. I even wondered at the time if
you
had done it.'

‘I beg your pardon!' Paul's already high colour deepened a shade so that it was almost puce. Viv smiled again. She was never happier than when she was causing a sensation, mild or otherwise.

‘You had the opportunity. You were out that night I seem to remember and you always were very cagey about where you had been. And you certainly had the motive. We were going through an exceedingly bad patch if I remember rightly – and Louis was making things a hundred times worse. He couldn't have died at a better time for us, now could he? Admit it, Paul!'

Paul set his glass down. Little beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead as memories returned to him, clear as yesterday. Viv was quite right, it had been a terrible time for them and Louis had been his chief tormentor. For one thing Paul had owed him a great deal of money. He had had no one but himself to blame for that, of course – he had a weakness for gambling and Louis had exploited it. Then, just to make matters worse, Bernard had died and when the boys came into their father's shares Louis had tried to squeeze Paul out of the business. He could never have done it in Bernard's lifetime – though it had been Bernard, in truth, who had been responsible for building up the hotel and leisure empire he had never forgotten that he had owed his start to Paul's – and Sophia's – parents, Charles and Lola. Without them there would have been nothing and Bernard had recognised that; whatever Paul's shortcomings he had covered for them. Not Louis. Louis was ruthless and hard as well as clever and sly. He would have disposed of Paul with the same lack of compassion that he might crush a wasp that irritated him– no, not just with lack of compassion but with an obvious pleasure too.

Louis had loved power, he had enjoyed making people squirm. But the cocky little bastard had died at exactly the right moment. The debts had been put to one side and forgotten – Paul had discovered to his relief that Louis had not made any record of them beyond the casual IOUs he had deposited in the office safe and Paul had disposed of them by simply flushing them down the lavatory. Since Louis had not left any dependents this had not troubled his conscience over much. As for Paul's position in the company, he had suddenly realised it was sounder than it had been at any time since Bernard's death. With Louis no longer there to run things, Sophia in prison, Robin emigrating to Australia and David still too young for serious responsibility Paul had found himself in the driving seat. From that moment on he had made the most of his opportunities. Fate, he knew, would never deal him a better hand. By the time David was old enough to take up his heritage and become the figurehead of his father's empire, Paul had established himself as elder statesman. David had never suggested, as Louis had, that his services would no longer be required and if he questioned Paul's decisions he did so with a certain amount of deference and respect. Not that he was weak like Robin either. No, David had managed to steer a course between the extremes of his two elder brothers.

Perhaps, Paul thought, of the three boys David was the most like Bernard – clear-sighted and even-handed, tempering decisiveness with tact, able to implement even unpopular innovations with the minimum of resistance from the staff, and with the knack of eliciting loyalty from each and every one of them because each believed he was an important cog in the organisation who also mattered as a private individual.

Man-management was the secret of David's success, Paul decided; with it he did not need to be a financial genius or even; a brilliant businessman, for there were always those who would carry out these tasks for him willingly and well. But it did not occur to Paul that in David's handling of him, Paul, lay perhaps the most skilful piece of man-management of all!

Paul folded his newspaper and put it down on the table beside his glass, then he removed his half-spectacles, folding them and putting them into the soft leather case in his breast pocket. His hand was shaking slightly.

‘Do we have to talk about Louis?'

Viv shrugged and ran her fingers through her hair in a gesture that had remained unchanged since the days of her youth. Her hair had been her crowning glory in those days, luxuriant, flaming red, and she had been very proud of it. For a long time after it had begun to fade she had continued to have it dyed to something approximating its original shade, then one day she, had caught sight of herself in the mirror and realised that it no longer made her look stunning but old – a harridan, she had thought in disgust. The next day she had asked her hairdresser to do whatever was necessary to achieve a more natural colour and now only a silver rinse brightened the head of hair that had once been the talk of Jersey. But old habits die hard; Viv still tossed her head as she had used to do, still flicked her fingers through her hair as a careless gesture which nevertheless rarely failed to attract attention.

‘No, dear, we don't have to talk about Louis if it makes you uncomfortable. But it might be a good idea to brush up on all your pretend responses when his name is mentioned – the ones you perfected twenty years ago.'

‘What the hell do you mean?'

‘Exactly what I say. Twenty years ago you were very good at hiding just how much you hated Louis. Now I'm afraid you're out of practice. You really have become quite transparent.'

‘For God's sake, Viv, I don't understand.'

‘Don't you?' Her green eyes, clear as chips of emerald glass, regarded him coolly. ‘Then let me spell it out for you. Robin's daughter is in Jersey. We are going to meet and socialise with her – we are going to dinner at La Grange tomorrow night, remember? It is quite on the cards that she is going to want to talk about Louis.'

‘Over dinner, with Sophia sitting there? Surely not!'

‘Well no, obviously not then. But we are two of the only people who knew exactly what happened. It is my bet that at some point Juliet's curiosity is going to get the better of her. So, my darling …', she raised her glass to him, ‘I suggest you had better be prepared!'

‘Oh Juliet, my dear, you have no idea how good it is to have you here!' Sophia said.

Dinner was over, a pleasant informal meal when Juliet had felt surprisingly at ease in the company of the three relatives who were also virtual strangers. Now David and Deborah had tactfully withdrawn to their own apartments, leaving Sophia and Juliet alone.

‘It's lovely to be here. I only wish I'd come a very long time ago,' Juliet agreed, sipping coffee from a tiny gold-rimmed bone china cup and enjoying the comfortable glow that had begun with a glass of celebratory champagne and spread along with her share of a bottle of fine wine from David's well-stocked cellar. ‘But being here, in this house, is the strangest feeling … I don't
really
remember and yet I do. Do you know what I mean?'

‘I do indeed. And one thing I promise. Practically nothing has changed – on the ground floor at any rate. Deborah has redecorated the rooms she and David use, of course. Several times over. But down here even when the paint is freshened or the wallpaper replaced the overall effect remains the same – mainly, I suppose, because rightly or wrongly I cling to the stubborn belief I could not improve upon it.'

‘I'm sure you couldn't,' Juliet said.

‘Well that, my dear, is praise indeed! After all, you are a professional, aren't you?'

Juliet laughed. Yes, she was a professional now – but it still amused her to hear someone actually say it, and besides she was not at all sure that she had looked at La Grange through professional eyes. The moment she had stepped into the entrance hall with its granite flagstone floor, sculptured plaster ceiling rose and mouldings and sweeping staircase she had been transported back in time. It was not only the sight of the place that had done this but the smell – beeswax polish on the bannisters and the beautiful carved wood table, mingling with the slightly musty, though not unpleasant, smell that emanated from the enormous arrangement of dried flowers that filled and brightened one corner. Standing there Juliet had almost been able to hear the patter of a child's sandals on the flagstone – her own sandals, the smart but functional leather Claries she had worn when she was little.

From the hall she had been taken to the drawing-room, less familiar because she had spent less time there. But she could appreciate it all the same, and enjoy the luxurious yet restful feel that came from the careful blending of shades of cream and apricot. Her practised eye had taken in the velvet curtains and watered silk wall hangings, the furniture which mixed the elegant with the comfortable – a peach chaise, an intricately carved love-seat, and a sofa and easy chairs so deep and inviting that she wished she could immediately sink into them. One wall was lined with book shelves; rich leather bindings bearing the lettering of rare first editions rubbed shoulders with well-loved childrens' classics –
Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows, The Water Babies.
The lamps – table lamps and standards – were shaded in watered silk and all around were the treasures of a lifetime's collecting – graceful art nouveau looking not the least bit out of place alongside Regency silver and Oriental jade. Only the carpet jarred slightly – wall to wall cream, deep, luxurious and immaculate. Somehow Juliet would have expected an enormous and beautiful Aubusson or something similar, gracing a floor of polished woodblocks.

Into the dining-room and here her instinct had proved correct. The floor was indeed woodblocked and carpeted with a sweeping circle of rich red, strong enough to complement the dark oak furniture, a long sideboard displaying a whole array of chafing dishes, chairs beautifully fashioned and upholstered in a red Regency stripe silk and a huge rectangular table laid now with crisp white linen, heavy silver and fine sparkling crystal. Yet impressive as every piece in the room was, it was totally dominated by the portrait which hung over the Victorian mantel.

‘Grandfather!' Juliet had exclaimed.

‘Yes, that is Bernard, your grandfather, but he never saw his portrait, I'm afraid. I had it painted after his death,' Sophia said, then, seeing Juliet's puzzled expression, she chuckled, a hint of mischief creeping into her poised demeanour. ‘He‘d never have been able to sit still long enough for anyone to paint him. Bernard was a do-er, and he'd have considered it a terrible waste of time. But I felt it was only fitting, as the founder of the family firm, that he should have his portrait in a place of honour, so I commissioned an artist to paint it from a photograph.'