Voice of the Heart (112 page)

Francesca did not answer, and Nick said in a dim voice, ‘Francesca and Victor were very much in love eleven years ago, and Vic was planning to marry Frankie when his divorce came through. She split with him that summer, giving a number of reasons. Apparently phony reasons, as I now understand it. And she did it because of you. It just about broke her heart, and that’s one of the reasons she hid herself away at Langley all those years.’

‘Oh darling, I didn’t know! I didn’t know!’ Katharine cried, leaping to her feet, taking hold of Francesca’s arm. ‘
I didn’t know
. Honestly, I didn’t. I would have kept my problems with Victor to myself if I had been aware of the facts. I would never have hurt you.’

‘But you did hurt me.’ Francesca lifted Katharine’s bejewelled hand off her arm and dropped it quickly. She glided slowly to the refectory table, leaned against it. ‘Did you he about Victor, Kath?’

‘No, I certainly did not.’ Katharine ran to her, embraced her, clung to her. ‘I’m telling the truth. It’s Nick who is lying.’ She began to weep hysterically. ‘Frankie, Frankie, you’re my dearest friend.’

A great revulsion for Katharine swept through Francesca, stunning her with its force and virulence. She pushed her away. ‘It’s Nicky I believe, not you.’

Katharine looked at her aghast, her face streaming. ‘No, no, you mustn’t believe him. I love you, I need you,’ she sobbed brokenly. ‘Please don’t look at me like that, with such hatred in your eyes. I can’t bear it. Oh Frankie, darling! Darling, I love you.’

‘Stop saying that!’ Francesca snapped. ‘You don’t love anyone. Only yourself. You’re a monster.’

‘Oh Frankie, please don’t be cruel. And don’t stare at me as if you think I’m something foul.’ Katharine teetered, grabbed the chair back to steady herself. ‘Don’t turn against me. Not you, I couldn’t bear it.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to,’ Francesca said in a cool monotone, picking up her cape. ‘I will never speak to you again as long as I live. I never want to set eyes on you again as long as I live.
You ruined my life.’
She threw the cape over her shoulders, glanced at Nick. ‘I cannot stay in this dreadful house a moment longer, Nicky. Can I borrow your car to drive back to Manhattan? I’ll get it back to you tomorrow. Somehow.’

‘You don’t think
I’m
staying here, do you?’ He pocketed his cigarettes and matches and strode across the floor, brushing past Katharine indifferently, and without uttering one word to her. Katharine snatched at the back of his jacket, held on to it, pulling him back. He wrenched himself free.

‘Nick! Nick!’ she screamed, running after him. ‘I love you. I love you. Don’t go. Oh darling, I’ll make everything all right. I promise you. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I did it for you. I had only the best of intentions.’

He swung around so fast, so forcefully, he almost knocked her over, and she staggered back, fell against the wall. ‘I second everything Francesca just said,’ he told her unemotionally. ‘And, as you once told your brother, I’m leaving you to God. And Michael Lazarus. He’s welcome to you.’

Trembling and frightened, the tears gushing out of her eyes, Katharine moved to the doorway, braced herself against the jamb. Her gaze was riveted on Nicky and Francesca. The
dog had trotted out, and Francesca was fastening the collar and leash around her neck. Nick opened the front door and carried out their bags, which had remained in the hall since their arrival. Francesca followed on Nick’s heels. Neither looked back.

Katharine stood there for a long time as rigid as if she had been turned into a statue sculpted from marble.

***

They drove back to Manhattan, enshrouded in misery. Nick talked intermittently, but for the most part Francesca was silent. From time to time the tears would start, and she wept and dried her eyes and wept again. And they tried to console each other, tried to ease their mutual pain.

At one moment, Nick said, ‘I don’t know about you, kid, but I’m thinking of beating it out of New York. I have a feeling she’s going to be banging on my door in a few days. And on yours. We’ve not seen or heard the last of her. Look, why don’t we go somewhere together? Take a winter vacation?’

‘I’m sure she
will
attempt to patch things up, Nick, and it’s sweet of you to ask me. However, I’ve decided to go to Langley. It’s almost the end of November, and I’d planned to leave on the tenth of December anyway, for my usual Christmas holiday with the family.’

‘What about the fluffball? Want to leave her with my mother?’ he volunteered, taking a hand off the wheel to pat the dog.

‘Thanks, Nick, but Val will take her out to Forest Hills. I’d already arranged it.’

Once more, a silence fell between them as they burrowed down into their distressing thoughts, endeavoured to come to grips with their agony. As the car slid into Manhattan, Francesca lit another cigarette and touched Nick’s arm lightly. ‘I wish I had known the truth years ago, even last year. I might have been able to put things right with Victor, clear up the misunderstanding. And who knows—’ Her
sentence was left unfinished, and she exhaled wearily. ‘But he’s married now. It’s too late.’

‘Yes, kid, it is. And it’s too late for me.’

***

One morning, at the beginning of December, Nick came down to breakfast at Rancho Che Sarà Sarà, feeling better than he had in weeks. He found Victor on the sun porch, his dark head buried in the
Los Angeles Times
.

Hearing Nick’s swift steps, Victor glanced up, quickly folded the newspaper in half, placed it next to his plate. ‘’Morning, old buddy. You’re looking great. Sleep well?’

‘Yes, I did, thanks,’ Nick replied, sitting down at the table. ‘I guess I was more exhausted than I realized when I first arrived. And the air’s marvellous here and the pace so relaxed, it would be pretty strange if the tension hadn’t left me.’ He grinned. ‘And you and Lynn have been wonderful.’

Victor nodded, then stared out of the window, his expression reflective. Eventually he brought his black eyes back to Nick. ‘Brace yourself, kid. I don’t know how to break this to you, so I’m going to give it to you straight. Katharine Tempest married Mike Lazarus yesterday. At his house in Bel Air.’

The laughter in Nick’s eyes faded, and he stiffened in the chair. ‘That’s what you were reading so carefully in the paper, isn’t it?’

Victor handed him the
Los Angeles Times
.

Nick read the story with rapidity, gave the photograph of the newlywedded couple a cursory glance. Then he folded the paper, passed it back to Victor without any comment.

‘Che sarà sarà,’ said Victor.

‘’Tis time this heart should be unmoved,

Since others it hath ceased to move;

Yet though I cannot be beloved,

Still let me love!’

G
EORGE
G
ORDON,
L
ORD
B
YRON

She had come back to Ravenswood.

Once, a long time ago, for a brief and shining year, she had been happy here. The memory of that year had remained untarnished in her mind, undiluted by the passing of the years, and the memory had beckoned, had proved too compelling and irresistible to ignore.

Almost three weeks ago, on a chilly day in December, on that lonely pier in Santa Monica, she had suddenly understood that here she would find a measure of peace, the strength to begin her life again. She had never doubted for one moment that she would be welcomed; nevertheless, she had recognized that by returning to Ravenswood she was taking her first step into the unknown, into the future. She had stepped out boldly and intrepidly. She did not regret having done so.

Beau Stanton had been overjoyed to see her, touched that she had chosen to seek sanctuary with him, and gratified by her need for him and his loving friendship. And she herself had been overcome when she had first arrived, and most especially when he had led her into her bedroom. It was the room she had decorated as a young girl, as his bride, and to her amazement he had not changed one thing. It was exactly the same as it had been on the day she had left this house. Oh yes, he had redone it a number of times, Beau had told her, but he had always repeated her original scheme right down to the minutest detail.

It was an airy room of mingled whites and pale pastel tints, delicate fabrics and French country antiques. The four-poster bed was hung with a drifting cloud of white muslin, which matched the curtains at the many tall windows, and the walls
were graced with exquisite water-colours. That afternoon she had moved slowly around the room, touching so many well-remembered, well-loved things… The pieces of blue Bristol glass on the étagère, favourite books on shelves flanking the white marble fireplace, old porcelain plates in an illuminated niche in one corner. And on the long mirrored dressing table there were her Baccarat crystal perfume bottles, the silver-framed photograph of Beau and herself, the antique vinaigrettes she had collected, each item as precisely placed as she had once positioned it herself.

Katharine sat at the dressing table on this Sunday morning, carefully applying make-up. She concealed the faint mauve smudges under her lower lashes with foundation and powder, dispelled her pallor with a touch of rouge, highlighted the unique eyes with turquoise liner and a few strokes of brown mascara. Deciding to leave her abundant chestnut hair loose, she ran a brush through it several times, stood up and dressed rapidly. She selected a tailored rose silk shirt with long sleeves, cream trousers and high wedged cream espadrilles, then added minimal jewellery. As an afterthought she sprayed herself with Diorissima scent, and left the bedroom.

Halfway down the circular staircase she heard Beau’s voice echoing up to her as he talked on the telephone. She paused when she reached the bottom of the stairs, her hand resting on the newel post. From this angle she had a glimpse of him whilst remaining invisible. For a moment she studied him unobserved, thinking yet again how truly marvellous he looked for his age. He was seventy-three, appeared a good fifteen years younger, and certainly behaved as if he was in his prime, had none of the infirmities of the aged. He held his body erect, and his physique was strong, solid, trim, his handsome face firm and tanned, the healthy nutbrown complexion in striking contrast to his silvered hah. Beau Stanton had taken care of himself over the years and so he was physically fit and agile
of mind. And young in heart, Katharine added to herself.

Beau shifted in the chair unexpectedly, lolled back, lifted his legs and stuck his feet on the desk, crossing them at the ankles. He saw her then. His face lit up and he waved.

She went and leaned against the entrance to the den, her vivid smile filling her face with incandescence. Automatically, her gaze drifted to the full-length portrait of herself, which Beau had commissioned twenty-two years ago. He had first seen her in the screen test for
Wuthering Heights
and had fallen in love with her instantly, before he ever met her. At Beau’s request, the artist, Pietro Annigoni, had depicted her as Cathy Earnshaw. He had painted her against a background of heather-covered moors, and a fading sky filled with thunder clouds which was unearthly and eerie introduced a brooding aspect to the portrait. The dark implacable landscape threw the girl into bold relief, and Cathy-Katharine seemed to leap out, exuding life and energy and fire. The long white dress billowed around her legs and her chestnut hair streamed out behind her, as if blowing in a northern wind, and there was a wild ecstasy in the beautiful, compelling face that stared back at her now. It startled her, and she asked herself wonderingly if she had really been so lovely, so radiant. She was not sure. Perhaps the artist had exaggerated. With an imperceptible shrug she discarded these thoughts, brought her eyes back to Beau.

Silently she mouthed, ‘I’m going outside.’

He nodded, smiled his understanding, and continued talking to Scott Raphael, his business manager in Beverly Hills.

As she walked down the broad white steps to the gardens, Katharine thought how strange it was that Beau had kept her portrait all these years. But then he had also kept her room intact, had not discarded even the smallest of the possessions she had left behind. And he had never remarried. She knew he still loved her. She loved him, as a dear and treasured friend and a wonderful companion. And, as in past years, she felt
safe with him, unthreatened and completely at ease. These were the other reasons which had propelled her back to his house near San Diego.

When she reached the middle of the gently sloping lawn, Katharine hovered near a giant silk floss tree whose pink-blossomed branches dipped down to touch the ground. She swung around, gazed up at Ravenswood. It was a double-galleried house, with six soaring columns punctuating the façade, and its architecture was reminiscent of the great plantation homes of the pre-Civil-War South. Gleaming white, it shimmered in the January sunshine, under a stainless sky of the brightest blue. Beyond the rooftop, the rolling dusky hills of Rancho Sante Fe formed a semi-circular collar around it like a Tudor ruff, and to the left there were wide, green arcadian pastures, the long grass rippling under the warm breeze. Katharine blinked, and shaded her eyes against the light, drinking in the loveliness of the landscape.

A long sigh escaped her lips. Of all the places she had lived, Ravenswood was the one she had loved the most, from the moment she had set eyes on it to this very day. It had not only afforded her peace and tranquillity but had enriched her soul as well. She wished, and fervently so, that she could stay at Ravenswood for ever. But that was not possible. Soon, very soon, she would have to leave.

Katharine meandered across the lawn and down another flight of stone steps, bypassed the swimming pool and followed a narrow winding path to the end of the gardens. Here, a bosky glade was ringed with whispering palms and exotic species and eucalyptus trees that tinged the air with a pungent smell faintly reminiscent of camphor. This semi-tropical glade was cool and sequestered even on the hottest days, and it was a favourite corner. Seating herself at the rustic wood table at the edge of the glade, she relaxed, retreated into her myriad thoughts, her eyes fixed on the great house glimmering in the distance. A smile of remembrance glanced across her face. Beau had brought her here for a
weekend, just after she had arrived in Hollywood to make the film with him. And he had been amused and delighted by her astonishment. ‘Unexpected, ain’t it, ducks?’ he had asked, the faint Cockney twang more pronounced. ‘Who’d expect to find the son of an East End docker, born within the sound of Bow Bells, living in a mansion that smacks of Southern gentility?’ She had told him the house suited him perfectly, that she could not picture anyone else living in it, and he had been pleased and flattered. And he had made love to her for the first time that weekend. A very romantic and special weekend, one she had never forgotten. He had asked her to marry him on that Saturday night. She had agreed, bowled over by this sophisticated, suave, elegant man of immense style and humour and gentleness.