Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (44 page)

She was talking an awful lot, Izzie thought, more than usual, and she seemed terribly over-excited.

‘And I thought if I just arrived, appeared on his doorstep, with no children to distract us, we’d be able to talk, you know, really talk and—’

‘Adele, I wonder if you could excuse me just for a moment,’ said Izzie, ‘I’ve just remembered I’ve got a letter that absolutely must catch the post, work, you know the sort of thing, I won’t be more than five minutes, would you be all right? I can give you a magazine to read and—’

‘Darling, of course. Don’t be silly. You’ve got
A Certain Smile
, I see, I’ve been wanting to read it, I’ll make a start. And then when you get back maybe you’ll let me take you out to dinner?’

‘That would be – lovely. Well, I’ll just—’

But it was too late; there was the sound of a key in the lock, of the door opening, the door into the lobby, of the door being pushed closed, too late now, too late to do anything. Izzie stood there, just waiting, waiting—

‘Darling, here you are, three bottles of wine, should be enough, put them straight in the fridge, it’s—’

And then silence; he stood absolutely still, frozen in time, his eyes dark and horrified in his suddenly white face, just staring and staring at her. And then he said, in a voice that was almost frighteningly normal, ‘Adele! What on earth are you doing here?’

CHAPTER 23

Cathy wouldn’t stop crying. On and on it went, helpless, hopeless crying; Jenna looked at her in despair. She had tried everything: cuddling her, soothing her, offering her sweets, Coca-Cola, even a glass of wine (Cathy had rather taken to wine that summer). Nothing did any good.

‘You don’t understand,’ she kept saying, ‘it was hearing them quarrelling like that, shouting at each other, it was exactly like when Mummy was alive, shouting and shouting, I hated it so much.’

Jenna was surprised; Cathy had never mentioned the quarrelling before; she had always imagined a perfectly happy little threesome. And envied them. Jenna adored her mother and she was very happy now, of course, but she did often wonder what it might be like to live with your two parents, in a normal way.

‘I’m so afraid of what might happen,’ Cathy moaned, reaching for yet another tissue.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well that they might get divorced or something.’

‘Cathy, your parents didn’t get divorced.’

‘They couldn’t. My mother died. But people do. I couldn’t bear it, Jenna, it’s so lovely, the four of us. Daddy’s so happy—’

And she started to cry again.

Jenna stood up.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To get some cocoa. Want some?’

‘No thanks.’

Jenna walked down the corridor to her mother’s room. The one that had been her mother’s room before. Where she seemed to have settled for the time being. She knocked on the door.

‘Who is it?’

‘Jenna.’

‘Oh, Jenna. Just a minute. Wait there, darling.’

There was quite a long pause; Jenna could hear the taps running in the bathroom. What was going on in there?

Her mother appeared in the doorway; she had obviously been crying.

‘Hallo,’ she said, with the brief smile which meant she was having to try rather hard to produce it.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Of course. Everything all right?’

‘No. Cathy’s crying and crying. I can’t stop her.’

‘Why?’

‘She heard you quarrelling with Charlie.’

‘Oh. Well, I’m sorry—’

‘She says it’s like when he was married to her mother and they quarrelled.’

‘Really? I’m surprised she can remember, she was only three or so—’

‘Well she says they shouted at each other a lot. And she hated it, and I guess it’s brought it all back. And now she’s scared you’re going to get divorced. You’re not, are you, Mother?’

Her mother looked at her; very seriously for a long time. Then she said quite light-heartedly, ‘One quarrel hardly means a divorce.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

‘All right. We certainly have no plans for divorce. At the moment, anyway.’ She managed another smile. ‘All married people quarrel, you know.’

‘I told Cathy that. But then I began to get worried myself. I would so absolutely, absolutely hate it. It’s so great now, all of us together, everyone’s happy, everyone’s having a really good time.’

‘You’re very fond of Charlie, aren’t you?’

‘Terribly. He’s so sweet to me, I never feel he’s Cathy’s dad and not mine. The other night I got my period, you know, and it really, really hurt. Cathy was asleep, and he was just so kind, got me a hot water bottle, and some Excedrin, and tucked me up under an eiderdown in the den and let me watch TV with him. I think he is just the nicest man in the world and I think we’re really lucky.’

‘Yes,’ said her mother, ‘yes, I can see that. Well – good.’

‘So – everything’s all right, then? I can tell Cathy?’

‘You can tell Cathy there are absolutely no plans for a divorce. Well, not as far as I know.’

Barty managed a smile; she did look dreadfully tired, Jenna thought, tired and actually a bit – old. She was quite a bit older than a lot of the mothers at school of course. And right now, she looked a lot older than Charlie. They must try to persuade her to stay a few more days, have a rest. She’d been talking about going back on Monday.

Jenna gave her a kiss.

‘Night, Mother. Love you.’

‘I love you too, Jenna.’

Jenna ran back to their room to tell Cathy the good news.

‘I think it would be absolutely marvellous,’ Celia’s voice was at its most peremptory. ‘We should do it for the summer. I’ve already had two meetings with General Dugdale and he assures me he can meet a March deadline.’

‘Celia – ’ Jay hesitated ‘ – Celia, I’m sure the General’s memoirs will be marvellous. But do we really want to do them now? It’s eleven, no, twelve years since the war ended. Will people really want to read any more about it?’

‘Of course. They’re still obsessed with it. If you talked to ordinary people, as I do, outside the publishing industry, you would realise that. People are still immensely proud of the way we won the war, of the spirit of this country during the Blitz, the wonderful sense of comradeship that existed through those years—’

‘I don’t think that’s quite the same as wanting to read military memoirs,’ said Keir, cutting in. ‘I’d agree with you on people’s feelings about the war, Celia, but I think you’d do much better with a book about exactly that, what happened here, to people in London – and Glasgow, for that matter – during the Blitz, that sort of thing. Possibly even as fiction.’

Giles’s face promptly set in the kind of frozen distaste he reserved for Keir Brown.

‘I really can’t agree with you,’ he said. ‘What this country endured during the last war was hardly the stuff fiction is made of—’

‘Oh really?’ said Celia. ‘How fascinating. Would you say that applied to any war?’

‘Yes, broadly.’

‘So how do you regard
Gone With the Wind
?
For Whom the Bell Tolls
?
War and Peace
, even? As mistakes, aberrations by their publishers? I agree with Keir, it would make a marvellous theme for a novel. We should think about commissioning it. But I also feel very strongly that we should do these memoirs. George – that is, General Dugdale – has submitted a synopsis, and a couple of chapters about his time in Tripoli, before he went out to the desert.’

‘So he’s a friend of yours, is he?’

‘He is. Sebastian Brooke and Nancy Arthure are none the worse as writers for being personal friends. Perhaps you think they are, Giles.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘no, of course not. But—’

‘I’ve brought a copy of the synopsis with me, you can see how well he writes—’

As always, she was right; the writing was vivid, amusing, stirring even, despite some grammatical eccentricities.

‘And if you really want proof that the public will buy it,’ said Celia, ‘look at
A Sailor’s Odyssey
by Viscount Cunningham. Hutchinsons have done wonderfully well with that.’

‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ said Jay, ‘we should invite the General to come in, discuss terms and dates.’

‘I hope you’re not going to be penny-pinching about General Dugdale’s advance,’ said Celia. ‘He could command a very large sum and has already been offered ten thousand pounds by Heinemann.’

‘We can discuss that with him,’ said Jay firmly, ‘but I really don’t think summer is feasible Celia, it will be a huge book, the editing alone will be a massive task, although I agree he does have a wonderful turn of phrase. I also think’ – he looked at Keir – ‘that your idea of a novel set in the war is very well worth considering. Let’s talk about that in a minute. Now I am a little worried about – yes, Susan?’

Susan Clarke, Venetia’s secretary, was standing in the doorway, looking agitated. It was an unbreakable rule that publishing meetings should not be interrupted; flood, fire and haemorrhage, Sebastian had said long ago, were the only acceptable excuses.

‘I’m so sorry to interrupt, but – Mrs Warwick, could you come to the phone, please? It’s your sister, calling from New York. She says it is very urgent. She sounds a little upset.’

It was very hard trying to soothe a hysterical person across thousands of miles and down a telephone line. Venetia listened, half disbelieving, half horrified, to Adele gasping out words between sobs, trying not to ask her to repeat things, trying to find out what she could do. Finally she said, ‘Look, darling, shall I come out there? I could get on a plane tonight.’

‘No! No, I want to get away from this horrible, horrible place. I don’t want to stay any longer.’

‘Have you booked a flight?’

‘No. No, I couldn’t.’ The voice was weak suddenly, whispery. ‘I just couldn’t seem to – to do it.’

‘But—’ Venetia stopped. ‘Look Dell, where’s Barty?’

‘Out at Southampton.’

‘Well can’t you ask her to come back?’

‘No. No, I can’t, I don’t want to tell anyone, I’m so ashamed, so miserable—’

‘Darling you’ve nothing to be ashamed about. What about Uncle Robert? He’ll do it all for you.’

‘I don’t want to tell him either. I don’t want to tell anyone. That’s what I was doing all yesterday, just trying to manage, trying not to tell anyone—’

‘All right. Look, get the concierge to book you on to a flight. Then you don’t have to explain anything, just say it’s an emergency. And get him to arrange a cab to the airport, everything. Let me know when you’re coming, and I’ll be there to meet you. All right?’

‘All right.’

‘And I’m going to ring you in half an hour to make sure it’s all fixed. Stay in your room, don’t go out, will you?’

‘No. No, of course not.’

‘’Bye darling, darling Dell. I love you.’

‘I love you too.’ Her voice was very frail; Venetia hoped to God she would cope with the arrangements. Maybe she should ring the concierge herself.

How could she have done that? Izzie, of all people, Izzie, who was so sweet and so good, Izzie, who had always been so close to Adele, who was one of Noni’s best friends, Izzie, who Adele had helped so much in her own crises. Who would have thought that behind the angelic face, the soft, sweet voice, such treachery could lie?

Izzie sat at her desk at Neill & Parker, staring at the piece of paper with the brief which Nick had handed her an hour ago. It might as well have been written in Chinese for all the sense it made to her.

She felt very odd: not part of the world at all, cut off from it by some steely, impermeable barrier. On the other side were normal people, lucky, good people who had not done dreadful things, people who had not slept with one of their best friend’s husband, who had not betrayed their best friend’s daughter. People who could look the world in the face and not be ashamed, people who could walk down a street thinking about ordinary things like their jobs or what they might cook for dinner.

She had completely destroyed her life, in that dreadful, selfish, absolutely treacherous act; there was no one she loved, no one she cared about who would understand, who would be able to begin to forgive her. Not Barty, not her father, not Celia, not Jay, Tory, Venetia, Noni – they would all unite in judgement against her. Never in her life, even when she had lain in agony on the abortionist’s table, when she had been in her room, bleeding, it seemed, to death, not even when she had discovered who Kit actually was, had she felt so alone, so utterly isolated and afraid.

Barty was sitting on the verandah when Geordie phoned. She had agreed to stay on at South Lodge for another couple of days, rather than do the great trek back on Sunday night; partly because she felt so exhausted and partly because the girls were still anxious about the row she and Charlie had had, and the ongoing tension between them.

It had been a very bad row; she had not only shouted, she had hit him and scratched his face, overcome by such blinding rage at what he had done that she felt only hurting him physically would ease it. It did; but only briefly.

She knew why she was so angry; just as she could explain the sense of
déjà vu
she had felt, confronting Charlie with what he had done. She was a deeply honest person, and she loathed any kind of dissembling or deceit. It had been Laurence’s deceptions that had driven them apart: his secrecy about owning half of Lyttons had shaken her as profoundly as if she had discovered he was having an affair. Still worse had been his inability to understand her rage. At least Charlie could see why she was upset; he had sensitivity enough for that.

She felt confused and she felt uneasy, as if she didn’t know who she was any more; and she felt terribly, terribly angry.

And she had no idea what she was going to do about it all.

Geordie’s distressed voice, his desperate request to see her, therefore, was something of a relief. He said he would do anything, come out to South Lodge, meet her in Manhattan, but he had to talk to her. It was terribly important, he couldn’t discuss it on the phone, but he felt that she would understand.

‘I’ve done something fairly – appalling,’ he said, ‘and I need your particular brand of common sense to tell me what to do. Even if it’s to throw myself into the Hudson River.’

Barty told him not to do that, it was unlikely to solve anything, that she would be back in Manhattan on Tuesday, or, if he was truly desperate, he could come out to Southampton.

‘But I wouldn’t recommend it, the girls are of an age when any intrigue is almost more than they can bear.’