Old Sins (100 page)

‘You dress rather strangely,’ was all she said, ‘for a pregnant widow.’

‘Lady Morell, I have Mrs Morell on the phone. Can I put her through?’

‘Please do.’

‘Phaedria?’

‘Yes, hallo Letitia. Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. Feeling much better. How are you?’

‘Perfectly filthy, thank you. Were you sick when you were pregnant?’

‘No, I was very good at being pregnant. Just bad at giving birth.’

‘God, it’s awful,’ said Phaedria, ‘I don’t know whether it’s worth eating and actually being sick, or not eating, and just feeling even worse.’

‘Oh, I’d eat,’ said Letitia emphatically. ‘Every time. Do you feel hungry?’

‘Not really. Well, a bit. I do want certain things. Spicy things. Brown sauce. Did you ever hear of anything so unchic?’

‘Not really, darling, no. Well, I wondered if you’d like to have dinner with me tonight? I’ll have a big bottle of brown sauce on the table for you, I’ll send Nancy out to Harrod’s for it now. I presume they’ll have it?’

‘I expect so,’ said Phaedria, laughing. ‘It sounds lovely. Thank you, Letitia. I’d love to come.’

‘All right then, darling. About eight. There’s something I want to talk to you about. Apart from just wanting to see you.’

‘I hope I won’t be late. Roz has found herself called out of the office all day and can only begin an absolutely crucial meeting at five.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Letitia. ‘She obviously isn’t making things easy for either of you.’

‘Lady Morell, I have Mr Emerson on the line. Can I put him through?’

‘You certainly can. C. J., hallo. This is sad news about your resignation.’

‘Not for me.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Phaedria, I wondered if you could possibly have lunch with me?’

‘Well, I’d love to, but I don’t know if it would be very wise. I don’t think Roz would be very pleased.’

‘I don’t think I care.’

‘No, but I do.’

‘Well anyway, you really don’t have to. She’s just taken the helicopter up to Manchester. Says she has to see the guy at the communications company. We don’t have to go anywhere, I’ll come to the office.’

‘How very cloak and dagger. All right, yes, I’ll get Sarah to organize something. I have a new office, by the way. Immediately beneath Roz’s. I thought tactically beneath was better than above. See you here at one.’

‘Fine.’

He arrived with a bunch of white freesias and a bottle of white burgundy.

‘C. J., you are naughty, you can’t give me flowers.’

‘I can do what I like. Roz wants a divorce.’

‘Yes,’ said Phaedria, looking at him sadly. ‘I thought she might.’

‘Don’t look like that. I don’t really mind at all. I feel a bit – well, discarded, you know? But otherwise, it’s a great relief.’

‘Will you go back to New York?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to leave Miranda, and I have a book to write about London.’

‘C. J., how marvellous. I’m so pleased. Tell me about it.’ She
pressed the buzzer. ‘Sarah, could we have those sandwiches, and also could you bring a vase in?’

She started arranging the flowers while he talked; he looked at her and thought what a remarkable person she was, and wondered how Julian could possibly have done to her what he had. There must somewhere be an explanation; if only to provide it to the world, he was determined to help her to find it.

‘Phaedria, I’d like to help.’

She looked at him over her glass. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’d like to help you find Miles Wilburn.’

‘C. J., that’s sweet, but why?’

‘Because –’ He paused, trying to find exactly the right words. ‘Because I think you deserve it.’

‘Well, I could certainly do with it. But have you got the time? With your book and everything?’

‘Oh, I have at least a year to do that. The thing is, I shall have access to papers and things, I can come and go, talking to people as much as I like. I know everyone in the company, here and in New York. I just think I have a flying start on any detective agency or whatever.’

She looked at him doubtfully. She was touched by the offer, but she couldn’t help feeling an agency might do better. C. J. was hardly sharp. Clever, cultured, interesting but not sharp.

‘What about Roz? Don’t you think she might put ground glass in your coffee?’

‘Oh, she won’t have the opportunity. I’m moving out of the house in Cheyne Walk quite shortly. I’ve been looking at flats all morning.’

‘I see. Well, it certainly would be lovely to have your help. Don’t you think it’s a bit unethical, though, you helping me to win the race to get control, when you’re still married to the other horse, so to speak?’

He looked at her and smiled. ‘Look at it as adjusting the odds,’ he said.

‘And how do you think the odds look at the moment?’ she asked with a heavy sigh.

‘Fairly even. But I’ll tell you one thing. You’re the favourite.’

‘Oh, good. You’ll have to excuse me a minute, C. J. I don’t think I should have drunk that wine . . .’

She arrived at First Street that night well after nine.

‘Letitia, I’m so sorry. The meeting went on and on, and then I had letters to sign. Please forgive me.’

‘Of course I do. It couldn’t matter less. Drink?’

Phaedria shuddered. ‘No thank you. I had some at lunch time, and it was extremely unwise. Could I have some Perrier?’

‘Of course. What does your doctor say about all this?’

‘I haven’t seen her since –’ Her face clouded, drained of colour; she sat down and looked at Letitia, suddenly very white and shaken.

‘Darling, what is it? Are you all right?’

Phaedria tried to smile, and failed; she shook her head, unable to speak. Letitia crossed over to her and took her hand.

‘Tell me. What is it?’

‘Oh – I don’t know. I’m sorry. It’s stupid really. It’s just that – well I haven’t seen my doctor since the day before Julian died. I haven’t even thought about it. You asking made time telescope suddenly, if you know what I mean, I felt I was back in her room. It was a sort of ghostly feeling.’

Letitia looked at her keenly. ‘It isn’t easy, is it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Being alone in a pregnancy.’

‘No, no it isn’t. How do you know though, Letitia? I didn’t think you ever were.’

‘Well, I was in a way, my darling. In a way. Let me tell you about it. It might make you able to feel you can talk to me, turn to me. That I’ll understand.’

‘I do anyway. But yes, please do. I’m intrigued.’

‘Well,’ said Letitia, ‘it’s a long story. I’ll try not to make it too long. When I was only seventeen years old, I was engaged to someone called Harry Whigham. He was a captain in the Guards. He was terribly handsome and charming, and I loved him very much. Very much. Well, he went away to France, in the war, and he was killed. I was – distraught. Of course. And lonely and lost and terrified that I would never find anyone else. All the boys I knew were going to France, and most of them were not coming back. I had a horror of being a spinster. Like most young girls then. Well, I met Edward Morell – Julian’s father – and he was kind and good, and he adored me, and I thought – well, I suppose I managed to think I loved him. And
he wasn’t going to go away to France because he was a farmer. So I married him. That was in 1916. James, Julian’s brother, was born a year later. And we were perfectly happy. Well, perfectly content.

‘Anyway, in 1919, after the war, I went to stay in London for a few days with my grandmother. She had always been very opposed to the marriage with Edward. She thought he was –’ her lips twitched – ‘very middle class. I suppose I inherit my dreadful snobbery from her. Anyway, we went out to the theatre one night, and when we came out, we were waiting for a cab when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round, and it was Harry Whigham. Only of course it wasn’t, it was his younger brother, Christian, but he was just terribly terribly like him. It was the most dreadful appalling shock, I felt absolutely ill, fainted in fact; I came round lying on the pavement, with everybody fussing and Christian fanning my face. He was just looking at me very very intently and I was in his arms, his coat over me. I remember it all so clearly, he had on a black evening coat over his dinner jacket, he looked so handsome, so unbelievably handsome and – well, that was it, really.’

Phaedria sat absolutely motionless, her eyes fixed on Letitia’s face. She hardly dared to breathe for fear of interrupting her.

‘Well, anyway, my grandmother, who had always liked Harry, asked Christian back for supper. It all seemed like a dream, all I could think of was that I was with Harry again. Or nearly. And before he left he asked if he could come to call the next day. My grandmother not only encouraged him, she arranged to be out and for half the staff to be out as well. She was very wicked, I’m afraid. And so was I.’

‘So – so what happened?’

‘Well, darling, I’m afraid a great deal. It was all very disgraceful. Of course everybody nowadays thinks affairs and adultery are the invention of the late twentieth century, but I do assure you, they have always gone on. And so Christian and I had a wild affair. Oh, it was wonderful. Aided and abetted by my grandmother. I stayed in London for another week. And was with him every day. Very often alone. He begged me to leave Edward and run away with him. But of course I couldn’t. I said it was impossible, that we must never meet again, that
Edward was a good, kind man, that I did love him, and that Christian must go away and never ever see me again. I remember my words still. I said, “There is nothing for us, absolutely nothing at all.” Only I was wrong, of course.’ She was silent for a moment just looking at Phaedria. ‘There was Julian.’

Phaedria said nothing for a while; then she put her arms round Letitia. ‘How did you bear it a second time?’ she asked.

‘Oh, you bear what you have to,’ said Letitia. ‘There was nothing else to be done, nothing at all. When I found I was pregnant, I did think of trying to tell him, but what would have been the point? It would only have made trouble, caused pain. So I kept silent. Edward had no cause to suspect. He was over the moon at the thought of another baby. I found my comfort and happiness in Julian. But then – well, he did look very different from James and Edward. And nobody in Wiltshire, in Edward’s circle of friends, liked me very much. I didn’t fit in. Someone had seen us in London, there was talk. Of course I tried to laugh it off, when people made remarks about Julian and his brown eyes and so on, when Edward and I were both fair, and had blue eyes. But it was – difficult. Then when he was about nine or ten weeks old, I was still frail, Edward came in, sat down at the table and burst into tears. It was dreadful. He said someone had been drunk and come out with it, said Julian was not his son. He clung to me, and begged me to tell him that he was, that it was a lie; he was sobbing, he was drunk himself. So of course I said that it was a filthy lie, that people were jealous of him, of both of us, that Julian was his son, that there was no truth in any of it; and he was still crying, still so unhappy, and so – well, to comfort him, to reassure him, to show how very much I loved him, and I did Phaedria, in my own way, I did, I seduced him, there and then on the floor by the fire. I knew what a risk it was, to myself, but I had to do it, there could be no pause for sense or – well, for precautions, and of course the poor little twins were conceived that night, and I was simply too weak to bear them. They were born prematurely, and they only lived a few days. But it worked, it made him believe, and even when I was so unhappy, I was comforted, because those dead babies had healed Edward’s heart.’

She was silent then for a long time, her eyes filled with tears; Phaedria sat utterly still, her eyes fixed on Letitia’s face.

‘But that is just extraordinary,’ she said. ‘How awful for you, how sad, and how brave you had to be. How did you do it? How did you get through?”

‘Oh, very much as you are,’ said Letitia briskly. ‘By just getting on with life. It’s the only thing to do.’

‘I suppose so.’ Phaedria was pale, almost awed. ‘So Julian was actually illegitimate. Did he know?’

‘Yes, he was and yes, he did. Not until he was grown up. When he came back from France. I told him then. I’m not sure that I should have done, in a way.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, I don’t know that it served any useful purpose. And I think in a way it encouraged his extraordinary instinct for intrigue. And for deceit. I don’t know.’ She sighed. ‘One makes a lot of mistakes in one’s life. And they become clearer as you get older. There’s an old Irish saying, you know, which my father used to quote. “Old sins cast long shadows.” It’s true. You think something is far far away, buried in the past, and it isn’t at all, it travels with you always, ahead of you even, into the future. I feel that sin of mine certainly did that. And now, you see, some sin of Julian’s is casting its own very long, dark shadow.’

‘But Letitia, why does it have to be a sin? Why shouldn’t this Miles person be someone Julian wanted to help, to benefit?’

‘Well, darling, if he is, why didn’t we all know about him? Why all this mystery and cloak and dagger nonsense? It really is quite extraordinary. So unnecessary. Oh, I could shake him.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘It helps me to get cross with him. I don’t hurt so much.’

‘You must hurt terribly,’ said Phaedria, reaching out her hand and taking Letitia’s.

‘Yes, I do. Terribly. There is nothing, no pain, like losing a child. And now I’ve lost four. Take care of that baby, Phaedria. I still ache with the death of those twins, over sixty years later. Not a day passes but I think of them, see their faces, feel them in my arms. There is no love, nothing, that has the strength, the power of the one a woman feels for her child.’

‘I will,’ said Phaedria, looking at the sad suddenly old face before her. ‘I will. For your sake, I will. And thank you for telling me. It helps, I don’t know quite why.’

‘I hoped it might; and I thought you ought to know now. Tell me, darling, how do you feel? Apart from physically? Any better at all?’

‘No. Not really. But I feel so rejected, somehow. As if Julian has just – oh, I don’t know, thrown everything in my face. And I can never, ever, have the comfort of thinking he trusted me, loved me at all. And nobody else could think that either. It’s awful. Letitia, I don’t know what to do. I simply don’t know how to bear it.’