No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) (68 page)

‘Leave it in the morning-room, Brunson. I have to find the letter, it’s terribly important. Has anyone else been in there?’

‘No, Lady Celia. No one at all.’

‘Oh, God,’ she felt furious suddenly, with herself, but more so with them.

‘It’s ridiculous. It must be found. It’s terribly important. Someone must have moved it. Susan, would you go and look for it at once. A large white envelope, it must have been knocked on to the study floor – I’ll go and look upstairs. Quickly now. I want it found.’

Fifteen minutes later the letter was not found. And Sebastian, telephoning again, anxious about her, heard her voice hysterically informing him that she couldn’t talk to him now and that she would not be up at lunchtime as she had said and – and then the phone being slammed down again.

She felt suddenly faint; she sat down in the dining-room, put her head betwen her knees. And then, wearily straightening up, saw Brunson looking at her anxiously.

‘Have you found the letter?’

‘No. Lady Celia, are you all right?’

‘I’m perfectly well, Brunson, thank you.’

‘Lady Celia – forgive me. I think perhaps Miss Barty might have taken the letter. It has just occurred to me.’

‘Barty! What one earth was she doing, taking my – Mr Lytton’s letters? Why was she in his study at all? Why did you allow it? That was terribly irresponsible of you, Brunson.’

‘She was in the study, taking a newspaper to read, and she was going to Lyttons, if you remember, Lady Celia.’ His face was courteous, but his voice was mildly reproachful. ‘It seems to me quite likely that she would have taken the letter to give to Mr Lytton.’

‘Oh – yes. Yes, I see. Well I suppose it’s possible. It was very naughty of her though, taking a personal letter like that. I’ll – I’ll telephone Mrs Gould, see what she says.’

They arrived at the concert hall about three quarters of an hour early. There was a small queue waiting outside; Daniels leapt out of his seat, opened the door for Barty with a flourish, half-bowed as she got out, handed her the music case. The small queue stared; Barty wasn’t sure if she was glad or sorry.

‘Good luck, Milady Barty. I’m sure it will go very well. I shall be waiting here for you afterwards.’

‘Thank you, Daniels,’ said Barty. If she hadn’t felt so sick, she would have giggled. ‘You can’t see Wol – Mr Lytton anywhere can you?’

‘Not yet. I should go in, if I were you. There’s a lady there beckoning to you.’

‘Oh – yes. It’s Miss Harris.’

Miss Harris was her teacher; she smiled and came over.

‘Barty dear, hallo. How nice you’re in such good time. We can go through, and even have a run-through if you like.’

‘That would be nice. Tell Mr Lytton, will you, Daniels, that I’ve gone in.’

‘Of course.’

Celia felt quite calm suddenly; the eye of the storm, she supposed. It was certainly going to get very violent again. She had to get the letter. After that she could allow herself to think, to work out what she wanted, what she might do. But she could not be pressured by Oliver’s unhappiness, Sebastian’s rage; neither could she even begin to think what she would tell either of them.

The concert started at two thirty; it was only quarter to two now. Oliver would probably get there at the last minute. She could wait outside for Barty and get the letter. It was the greatest luck, Oliver having to go to the printers. She ran down the steps and into her car and drove very fast towards Wigmore Street.

Barty came out on to the platform. She was the last to play before the interval. It had seemed a very long wait; all the others were terribly good. One boy had played an amazing violin solo: another girl a movement of the Elgar cello concerto. Hers was going to sound pretty silly. Miss Harris had kept smiling at her encouragingly, but it didn’t help much. At one point she thought she might pass out, her heart was beating so fast and her hands were sweaty with fright. How could she possibly do this? She wouldn’t even make it to the piano, never mind manage to play any notes at all.

But she did: she got there, to the piano and bowed, very slightly to the audience. And there, in the front row, was Wol; smiling up at her, looking so proud and yet so calm, so confident in her, and beside him, which was really lovely, was Uncle Jack, who grinned at her and gave her a huge wink. She suddenly felt quite different: calm and confident herself. She sat down at the piano, set her music down on the stand, and began to play.

‘Daniels! Hallo.’

‘Lady Celia. Good afternoon. Are you going in? The concert’s started, I’m afraid. They’ve shut the doors.’

‘Oh – have they?’ She felt like crying. ‘There was an accident on the Embankment. The car in front of me. The woman was hurt, the police came and I had to give a statement. I thought I’d never get here. Is – is my husband here?’

‘He is indeed, Lady Celia. And Mr Jack Lytton as well.’

Jack! what was he doing here?

‘I see,’ she said. Her voice sounded bleak, even to her.

‘Are you all right, Lady Celia? You look a little pale.’

‘I – well, no, I don’t feel terribly well, Daniels, no. So sorry. Perhaps I could—’

And for the second time that day, she almost fainted; Daniels was there, just in time, catching her as she half-slumped against him, making soothing noises, helping her to the car, easing her into the back seat.

‘You sit there, Lady Celia. That’s right. Put your head between your knees, gently now. Deep breaths. And again. That’s very good.’

Gradually the nausea eased, the faintness passed. She sat up, slowly and cautiously. Daniels was standing by the side of the car, looking at her, very concerned.

‘Is that better now?’

‘Yes. Yes, thank you, Daniels. Thank you so much.’

‘I have some brandy here.’ He produced a small flask from the cocktail cabinet in the car, together with a cut-glass tumbler and poured a little of the brandy into it.

‘Take just a few sips. Very slowly. It’ll do you good.’

‘I didn’t know you had medical training, Daniels,’ she said, smiling at him.

‘Well – not exactly. My mother was a nurse.’

‘I see.’ She took a sip and then another; she felt much better: so much better that she could feel the panic rising again.

She was too late. Oliver was inside the concert hall and so was Barty; Barty would have given him the letter, he might even have read it. Whatever the case, there was no way she could get it now. Short of having a scene and demanding it back. Either from Barty or from Oliver himself. It couldn’t be worse. It was a disaster. She was a disaster. Causing dreadful unhappiness whatever she did, wherever she went.

She sat back, leaned her head back wearily against the window. And suddenly saw on the dashboard, in front of Daniels, a large envelope. A large white envelope. With her own writing on it. Her own rather flamboyant writing, in black ink. Oliver, it said, Personal and Urgent.

It seemed to Celia the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Half-laughing, half-crying, she said, ‘Daniels, could you give me that letter, please. It’s for my husband. I’ll give it to him myself.’

Later, driving herself home, having assured Daniels that she was absolutely fine, she thought, with intense weariness, that in recovering the letter, she might have won a battle in the field of conflict that her life had become. But she didn’t see how she could win the war. Or indeed what form winning the war might possibly take.

CHAPTER 26

‘I’ll tell you anything I can, of course. But I don’t know how helpful it will be.’

‘Anything would help. Anything that would clarify matters even a bit.’

‘Yes, of course. I’m so sorry about this.’ Jeremy Bateson picked up his coffee cup. ‘I feel rather responsible.’

Peter Briscoe looked at him. He and Guy Worsley were astonishingly alike. They could have been brothers. Almost twins. Their mothers were sisters, of course, and they had grown up together; even so—

‘I don’t think you should feel responsible,’ he said drily, and then managing a rather wintry smile, ‘your cousin perhaps . . .’

‘Oh don’t,’ said Guy. ‘Please don’t. I feel bad enough already. Mind if I smoke?’

‘No, of course not. Help yourself.’

Briscoe passed him the silver cigarette box which stood on his desk, lit one himself, inhaled and blew out a line of smoke rings. They both gazed at him in awe. He smiled. ‘Party trick. Now then, Mr Bateson. The thing is, we really need to know a great deal about these people. So that we can assess how close the libel might be, and how likely they really are to go ahead with trying to get an injunction.’

‘Right-o. Fire away.’

‘Well – first of all, this man, Lothian, what was he really like?’

‘Oh – rather ridiculous, I’d say.’

‘Ridiculous!’

‘Yes. Dressed for an audience. All the time. Flowing cloaks, huge bow ties, that sort of thing. Long wavy hair. And he smoked through a long cigarette holder. I tell you, if it hadn’t been for the wife and children, you might have thought he was, you know, queer.’

‘Yes, I see. And what was the wife like?’

‘Oh – rather grand. Very good-looking. Dark red hair, green eyes. Wore marvellous clothes. Even had a little car of her own. Always dashing about. She was the talk of the college. Most of the masters’ wives were rather dowdy. Lot of money of her own.’

‘And in the book,’ said Guy, ‘she certainly wasn’t very attractive. She was rich, and all right, quite well-dressed and so on, but there the similiarity ends. Mrs Buchanan has a rather severe, forbidding personality. Although the students all like her, once they get to know her, especially the girls. Which is how it was this particular one, the one he has the affair with, comes to be at the house so often. And of course, she does leave Buchanan, when the affair comes to light. Mrs Lothian’s still there, isn’t she?’ he added. His voice sounded rather desperate.

‘Yes. And I certainly don’t think people liked Mrs Lothian,’ said Bateson, ‘she didn’t seem to have many friends. Certainly not in the university. In fact if anyone was having an affair in the family, it would have been her.’

Briscoe looked at him. ‘Interesting. I wonder – well, let’s get back to the facts. The children? What were they like?’

‘Well, the daughter was a very nice girl. She was about twenty, I suppose in 1912. That’s when I went up,’ he added.

‘And you completed your course? Left in 1915?’

‘Yes. There wasn’t conscription in those early years and I thought I would like to finish, get my degree. I took a bit of stick for it, even then.’

‘That’s why I made the son a conchie,’ said Guy, ‘They came under a lot of fire, those chaps, people said they were cowards. I thought it was really interesting.’

‘Anyway,’ said Bateson, ‘Lothian’s son certainly wasn’t a conchie. He enlisted, went off to the war the minute he could. I remember seeing Lothian in the town, the day he went. He was sitting on a bench, and I said, “Hallo, sir”, and he looked at me and his eyes were full of tears. I felt quite upset.’

‘Did Lothian have much of a following? Among the students?’

‘Yes, he was quite charismatic.’

‘Let’s get back to the children. This daughter, was she pretty?’

‘No, not really. Shame, because both the parents were attractive. She was very shy, too. Everyone was quite surprised when she got engaged. Anyway, they never married, of course. He – well he got both his arms blown off.’

‘How appalling,’ said Briscoe.

‘Yes. Quite early in the war, about 1916, I’d say. I’d gone by then, but we all kept in touch, and a friend who joined up after me, who was still there, told me. She still wanted to marry him, but he absolutely refused, said she’d be sacrificing herself. He went to live with his parents in Scotland or somewhere.’

‘How very sad,’ said Briscoe. ‘What a lot of tragedies the war caused.’

‘Indeed. Anyway, she’s buried herself in her work, lecturing at one of the women’s colleges. Lady Margaret Hall I think.’

‘I made her a musician, of course,’ said Guy ‘and had the boyfriend killed, not injured. It seemed more – appropriate.’

‘Mr Worsley, I have read the book. I am aware of the dissimiliarities, thank you.’ Peter Briscoe was beginning to find Guy Worsley and his self-justification very trying. ‘Mr Bateson, was there any real talk about Lothian having an affair?’

‘A lot of talk, yes. He had a rather flirtatious manner. And he was the sort of person who attracts gossip. And about one girl in particular. She was at the house a lot. And he was seen with her, out for walks and in the town and so on. But then, she was originally befriended by Mrs Lothian, as I said.’

‘But there was never any real scandal?’

‘No. Well, nothing concrete. Not while I was there, anyway. Or afterwards, as far as I know. And – if you were having an affair with a student, you’d be a lot more discreet than that. I mean with hindsight, I’d say he rather worked the whole thing up. Out of a sense of mischief, you know?’

Briscoe looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I think I know,’ he said.

‘So what we’re left with,’ he said to Oliver later, ‘is a skeleton of similiarity. The master is horribly like your hero, and there was talk of an affair: apart from that, and the wife’s money, there is very little they could point to. Well, a broken-hearted daughter, but for a very different cause.’

‘So are you saying we don’t have so much to worry about?’ asked Oliver. He sounded hopeful. Briscoe looked at him; he looked weary almost to the point of sickness. The temptation to reassure him was almost overwhelming.

‘I’m afraid we do have a considerable amount to worry about,’ he said, ‘It would be very wrong of me to tell you otherwise.’

‘Mr Brooke to see you, Lady Celia.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t see him now. Tell him – ask him to wait in reception, please, Miss Scott. I’ll come down in about quarter of an hour.’

‘Certainly, Lady Celia.’

She had scarcely put the phone down when her door shot open and Sebastian came in. Celia could not remember seeing anyone so angry in her entire life: not her father when she had left a gate open to one of the fields and all the cattle had got out on to a main road; not her mother when she had told her she was pregnant and had to marry Oliver; not Oliver when he came back from the war and saw what she had done to Lyttons in his absence. On all those occasions she had felt able to face the anger, accept it, deal with its consequences, defend herself even. Today she was quite simply frightened. He slammed the door behind him, leaned against it. His voice was low, but violent.

‘What exactly, in the name of God, do you think you’re doing?’ he said.

She was silent.

‘You tell me you love me. You tell me you are going to leave your husband for me, you tell me you have told your husband the samething . . .’

‘Sebastian, be quiet. This is no place for this discussion—’

‘I am being quiet and this is the place for it. You tell me you are going to leave him, and on a particular day, at a particular hour. I wait for you, all day. For many, many hours. I telephone you and you tell me you will telephone me back. You don’t. All day and all fucking night.’

‘Sebastian, stop it.’

‘—All fucking night I wait for you. Every car, every footstep I hear, I think is you. No message, no phone call, nothing. Absolutely nothing at all—’

‘Sebastian, please—’

‘And then today, you instruct me through your receptionist to wait another fucking fifteen minutes. Or fifteen hours. It would be all the same to you, no doubt. How dare you, Celia, how dare you treat me like this.’

‘I—’

‘No, don’t. I don’t want to hear explanations, or justifications, or pleas for time, or any other fucking, bloody filthy nonsense. Your behaviour is disgraceful, you are disgraceful. You lack courage and you lack integrity and you lack humanity and you even lack courtesy. I am disgusted by you, absolutely disgusted.’

She sat silent, staring at him, looking into the face of rage. He walked over to the sofas, sat down on one of them suddenly.

‘I simply do not understand you, Celia. I do not understand you at all. What is the matter with you, how have you come to this?’

‘Sebastian, please—’

‘I’m going away,’ he said, ‘I’ve decided.’

‘Going where?’

‘To America.’

‘America?’

‘Yes. On an extended lecture tour. I’ve had an offer from an

American publisher. I’ve had enough of this. Of this and you. I hadn’t told you, because I wasn’t even prepared to consider it, thinking in my infinite foolishness that you might mean what you said, that you might actually be intending to come and live with me. There was always enough to discuss – all about you, needless to say. Sweet Jesus, was there a lot to discuss, Celia. Your husband, your children, your career, your life. I don’t recall more than a phrase or two being thrown in my direction. I should have taken some kind of hint from that, I suppose. It should have given me some kind of clue to your self-obsession, to your total lack of interest in anything to do with me. Anyway, I’m going. And as soon as I possibly can: I cannot wait to get out of this city, this country, away from you and anything to do with you. Rather fortunate I hadn’t actually signed that contract for
Meridian Times Two
. Macmillan have made me a very generous offer, and Collins are waiting with an even higher bid, I’m told. Paul Davis has been urging me to accept it. Of course I had said it was out of the quesiton. I find myself oddly eager to consider it now.’

‘Sebastian, you can’t do that.’

‘Ah! So now we have it. That would be serious, wouldn’t it? Never mind losing your lover. Losing your bestselling author, your discovery, your protégé. That would really hurt. Well, I hope it does, Celia. I hope it hurts you horribly and terribly. Hurts and humiliates you as much as you have hurt me.’ He looked at her, then said more gently, ‘I loved you so much. I would have done anything, anything in the world for you. I would have died for you, if you had asked me. Do you know that?’

She said nothing.

‘I really don’t think,’ he said finally, ‘that you know what love is at all. Except for yourself, of course. You are pretty well besotted with Lady Celia Lytton and that’s about the beginning and end of it, as far as I can see.’ He stood up. ‘Goodbye, Celia. I do apologise for having taken up so much of your time. It must have been extremely inconvenient for you.’

‘Celia, there is something I would like to talk to you about.’

‘I’m sorry?’

She looked at Oliver across the dinner table; the day had passed, somehow, in a terrible haze of pain. She had no idea what she had done in those hours after Sebastian had gone; she had obviously remained in her office for the rest of the day, because Daniels had driven her and Oliver home together, and she must have signed some letters, because at one point a pile of them had been there, and then later had gone again, and she could see she must have checked some proofs for the same reason. She remembered dimly talking to Lady Annabel, and to Edgar Green, and she had obviously smoked several cigarettes, because her ashtray was rather distressingly full at the end of the day. Dr Perring would not have approved.

She had also, somehow, eaten some dinner; she had looked in surprise at her plate as Brunson had removed it and seen that it was at least halfempty, and the same applied to the wine Oliver had poured for her, it was no longer in the glass. But what she had eaten and what the wine had tasted like, even whether it had been red or white, she could no more have said than she could have walked on the surface of the Thames or flown through the air.

She looked at Oliver now, said, ‘I’m sorry?’ again, trying to make sense of his words.

‘I said there was something I would like to discuss with you.’

Not now, dear God, not now, when it was finally too late; not now when the right moments, the proper opportunities had come and gone too many times; not now when everything was so desperately and dangerously changed; not now when she lacked the strength or the courage for any discussion at all, even the likelihood of an improvement in the weather.

‘Oliver, I really am terribly tired,’ she managed finally to say.

He looked at her intently. ‘You look very pale.’

‘I’m fine. Really.’

‘Good. You must go to bed early, try to get some sleep. But before that, there is something I really think we should consider.’

‘Yes?’

Not a holiday, please God, not even a weekend away with him, not time alone with him, misery, loneliness undiluted by work, the staff, the children.

‘I think we have to discuss the condition of Lyttons with LM. Urgently.’

‘With LM!’

‘Yes. We are in considerable difficulties, I’m afraid. As a partner, she is entitled to know. And in any case, her views are always so sound, I would appreciate having them.’

‘Considerable difficulties?’ she said stupidly, incapable of imagining what they could be. ‘What sort of difficulties, Oliver?’

He sighed, looked irritated. ‘Well – this action of the Lothians obviously. For a start. That will cost us very dear, unless they drop it completely. Which is highly unlikely.’

‘Yes, I know.’

This was better: distraction. Anaesthesia for the pain. It was real pain, like childbirth, coming in waves. Every now and again so bad she thought she must cry out with it, then receding again, leaving her exhausted, but briefly easier.

‘And then – well I hadn’t liked to trouble you today, you were obviously so very busy. But I fear we are about to lose Brooke.’