More Than You Know (93 page)

“No, Mariella. No, we can’t. We agreed; you know we did; we promised each other and … and Giovanni, I suppose, although he doesn’t know it, and we have to keep that promise. It’s the only thing to do; we can’t go on like this; it’s so …”

“Yes, yes, I know. You are so, so good. So much more good than me.”

She sighed, a huge, heavy, tear-filled sigh; they were lying in bed in Jeremy’s apartment, had been there for what they had promised each other would be the last time, and now that the dawn was working its way most insistently into the room, the harsh, unforgiving dawn that would part them, they shrank from the task ahead.

“ ‘It was the nightingale and not the lark,’ ” said Jeremy suddenly, reaching out, tangling a great lock of her hair round his fingers, raising it to his lips and—

“What? I did not hear anything.”

“Shakespeare, darling one, Shakespeare,
Romeo and Juliet
. Like us, they had to part at dawn; like us they dreaded it, denied it had really come. Oh, Mariella.”

“Oh, Jeremy.”

She turned to him, clung to him, weeping; he could feel her sobs, feel them in his own body. How could they bear it; how could he bear it, so little happiness together, so much pain to come … 
It was over. That bit, at least. The whole thing seemed like a dream now, walking with Philip Gordon into that vast Victorian Gothic building with its great wrought-iron gates that she had seen a hundred times on the news and in corny old films. She followed Philip and his pretty, posh assistant, Caroline, into the huge cathedral-like atrium with alcoves on either side where people huddled, having clearly urgent conferences, and barristers berobed and bewigged strode about looking important. It was all totally … what? Terrifying. That was about it.

A glass-fronted, double-sided notice board stood just inside the cathedral entrance, with details of the day’s cases, and there it was, pinned up: “Court number 31, Mr. Justice Harris,
Shaw v. Shaw
.” That was her, and how had that happened, that her marriage, her really rather amazing marriage, entered into with such happiness and love and hope, had become
Shaw v. Shaw
and had been sent into court number thirty-one to be dismembered by Mr. Justice Harris? She felt her eyes fill—God, she must stop weeping all the time—brushed the tears impatiently away, got out a hanky and heard a crisp voice—“No bogies, please!”—and there was Toby Gilmour, not quite smiling, looking oddly older and more important in his gown and his wig.

“All right?” he said, and she nodded and managed to smile. “Good. We’re lucky in Harris, nice old chap, quite benign. Pity we won’t have him next time. He’d be ideal. Still … you OK?”

It was over in less than an hour; Mr. Justice Harris listened courteously to what was put before him, occasionally with a sharp glance at whoever was speaking, and once or twice at Matt or Eliza, and then opined that it would be a whole week’s case and that they would need at least six weeks to have it in shape, as he put it. “You will be required to have all your witness statements, medical reports you may want to rely on, documents, letters lodged in a month’s time. Your solicitors will then prepare your case. So I suggest the first week in July for the hearing commencing on, let me see, Monday the fifth, and that date will be in the court diary and cannot change. I hope that is clear.”

There was a murmur of “Yes, my lord,” and then the clerk of the court told them to rise and Mr. Justice Harris swept out without a further glance at any of them.

“Come along,” whispered Philip Gordon, taking Eliza’s arm, and she looked at him, slightly bewildered, feeling she wasn’t quite sure who he was, or indeed who she was, and they left the courtroom ahead of the others, and found themselves suddenly and rather wonderfully out of the building and into the sunshine by way of a side entrance, and thence into New Square.

Eliza’s legs suddenly felt rather weak and she sank gratefully onto one of the seats and said, “Oh, dear.”

And Matt, having refused the offer of lunch and its attendant postmortem with his legal team, and loathing the air of complacency draped almost visibly around them, said he had to get back to the office and went and drove very fast out of town, quite where he had no idea, merely struggling to escape from the demons that had attached themselves to him so firmly in the courtroom that morning; he bought himself a couple of beers and parked in the gateway of a field, and sat there for a long time, drinking and thinking, and then, as the long afternoon became evening, he turned the car back towards the city …

“Scarlett, this is Persephone. I would like to see you as soon as possible. And please don’t tell Mark.”

Oh, God
. This was it. Mark had told her they were engaged, and she was obviously displeased. He had been very quiet when he got back from the interview, and refused to say anything, except that yes, it had gone fine.

“And did you tell her we wanted to be married on Trisos?”

“Yes, of course. And it was fine.”

“And did you ask about writing the … the—”

“Epithalamium? Yes.” An epithalamium, it transpired, was a poem celebrating a marriage.

“And is she going to do it?”

“Yes, I think so.”

It was like being back with the Mark Frost she had first met. And now … 
“Ah, there you are. Lovely flowers, but actually next time, I’d rather have chocolates. If you don’t mind. Dorothy, put these things in water, would you? And bring us some tea.”

Scarlett sat silent. She had obviously fallen far from favor.

“Cake?”

“No, thank you.”

“You should eat more. You’re very thin.”

“I like being thin,” said Scarlett firmly.

“Very well. If you think you look better that way.”

“I do.”

She was beginning to get the measure of Mrs. Frost. She was a bully, and you dealt with bullies by facing them down. But …

“Now, I’m not going to tell you I’m pleased about this marriage, because I’m not. You’re a very nice girl, and I like you very much. But you are simply not Mark’s intellectual equal. I’m sure everything is hunky-dory now. Lots of lovey-dovey talk, lots of sex, lots of excitement. But in the years to come, then what, eh? What are you going to talk about?”

“What we talk about now, I expect,” said Scarlett.

“And that is? Certainly not the subjects that truly interest him.”

“Which are?”

“Oh, my dear girl, if you have to ask that’s extremely indicative.”

“Of what?”

“Of the yawning chasm between you.”

Scarlett felt the tears rising, crushed them, and said, quite quietly, “You must excuse me, Mrs. Frost. I don’t have all afternoon; I have a business to run.”

She saw herself out; as she passed through the hall she saw Dorothy hovering in a doorway, and could have sworn she saw an expression of approval on her pinched, pale face, and even the shadow of a smile.

Just the same, and in spite of her rage and indignation, she knew Mrs. Frost was actually right, and when Mark rang her that night, she said she was very sorry, but she had a lot of work to do, and that it would probably extend into the next evening as well; clearly hurt, he said he
would wait to hear from her; he wouldn’t bother her again. And maybe, she thought, it would be better for both of them if neither of them ever bothered the other again.

A brief note, in her unmistakably foreign-looking writing:

Giovanni is coming to London when I come to be a witness for Eliza, and he has suggested you join us at the opera on the Wednesday night. Please, please tell him you are to be away; I could not bear to see you
.

M
.

Jeremy read this through eyes blurred with tears. And understood and felt the same and told Lucilla he wanted to make a trip to New York the week of Eliza’s custody case.

“Jeremy, you can’t. I’m sorry. It’s the week of the European conference and all the CEOs are coming to London; it’s been in the diary for months. I’ve fixed meetings, dinners, the opera—”

“The opera? Which night?”

“The Wednesday. Jeremy, you can’t have forgotten; it’s
Traviata
; oh, dear, you’re so tired, aren’t you? Why don’t I clear the diary for the following week and book you into that hotel on St. Bart’s you like so much?” Lucilla’s large brown eyes looked at him with concern; he managed to smile at her.

“No, no, I don’t want to go then, too hot. I might take myself down to Norfolk, though, that week, if you could see your way to facilitating that. Bless you, darling.”

Now how in God’s name did he tell Mariella? He could hardly write. And he had to warn her, say when he would be at the opera house. Maybe, maybe … yes, the one person in the world he could trust …

“Oh, Jeremy, darling, darling Jeremy, I’m so sorry. How sad, how dreadfully, dreadfully sad. For both of you. I can’t imagine how much it must hurt.”

“Unbearably,” said Jeremy with a heavy sigh.

“Oh, God, what a tragic story. Yes, of course I’ll write to her; I’ll wrap it all up in fashion gossip and I’ll just say you’ll be at the opera house on the Wednesday and you asked me to tell her. She’ll understand and then she can ring me if she wants. Poor Jeremy. You look so tired.”