Something Dangerous (Spoils of Time 02) (97 page)

Barty sniffed, managed to smile.

‘Silly Mummy. It’s not as if it mattered. Not really. What would I want being on their stupid board anyway. And at least I haven’t got to be grateful. Oh Jenna. I feel so—so lonely. So absolutely alone. I wish your daddy was here. I do, I do wish that. So very, very much . . .’

CHAPTER 48

Only two more weeks. And then she’d be sixteen. Grown up. Old enough to be married.

Married! And she was going to be. Actually married. To Kit. Whom she loved so much. It was just—well, it was almost too much to bear, she felt so happy. So excited. And it was all going to be so easy . . .

Of course they wouldn’t be too pleased at first. It would take a bit of getting used to. They’d say she was too young, and that Kit wouldn’t be able to look after her properly. But it wasn’t true. She wasn’t too young, she hadn’t been too young to love Kit all her life, and help him through all his unhappiness, to be the only person who really understood how he’d felt all those years. And of course he could look after her; they’d be looking after each other anyway. He was making quite a bit of money with his books now, they did very well, he’d just written a third and it was a bit like Sebastian, he was asked to give talks to children at school and in libraries and bookshops and after the first few when he’d been a bit feeble, he said, he’d proved really good at it, just as Sebastian was. He was always very nervous beforehand he’d told her, but once he stood up and got going, he quite enjoyed it.

Anyway, they’d be all right, they’d be fine. And they wouldn’t need much, not a big house or anything, the smallest cottage would do. Of course later when they had children it would be different; but they’d talked about that and agreed it should be a long way into the future. Kit seemed to know all about that sort of thing; Izzie was relieved. She was a bit hazy about it, the nearest she’d got to finding out exactly what happened was by way of a slightly garbled version from the girls at school. But she was sure that when the time came it would be wonderful. Judging from the way she felt when Kit kissed her, it certainly would. He was terribly good at kissing.

It was all arranged. She’d bought the train tickets, and kept them in the one place she knew they’d be safe, in the drawer in her room where she kept her underwear and her sanitary towels and things like that. Well buried, of course, but there was no way her father would ever ever look in there. And she had put her own laundry away ever since she was six or seven; Mrs Conley just put things on her bed for her. Anyway, Mrs Conley was so short-sighted now that she’d hardly know a train ticket from a magazine. And come to that, the same could almost be said of her father.

She hadn’t booked the taxi yet, she thought it was best to leave that until the day before. You never knew, her father might ring up and they might refer to it in some way.

She’d packed her case though, not much of course, a few jerseys and skirts and a jacket. And some underwear. She’d actually bought a beautiful grown-up silky night-dress; it had taken a lot of her coupons, but she had plenty, because Venetia had started to give her lots of her lovely clothes when she got bored with them. And she had wanted just one thing for what was after all going to be her honeymoon. She might not be going to have a wedding, well not a proper wedding, but she was going to have a honeymoon. And she had also got some really lovely perfume, a new one by Schiaparelli called Le Roy Soleil which Barty had given her, brought back from New York. There was lots of everything, Barty had said, in New York, no rationing at all. She’d love it. Izzie had said yes, she was sure she would.

Anyway, it was the most wonderful smell and very grown up, and she was sure Kit would like it. His sense of smell was very acute: like all blind people. So was his hearing. ‘I could hear you coming all down the street,’ he would say, or ‘Listen! Front door’ or ‘Careful, someone on the stairs.’ When she couldn’t hear anything.

Anyway, her case was packed, and put casually on the top of her wardrobe, where she kept her school case in the holidays. She really didn’t think anyone would bother to get it down and look in it. And she had some money, some cash. She had gone to the post office and drawn out most—but not all—of her savings. Kit had given her the money for the tickets; he had a bank account of course. She hadn’t got one yet, but her father was opening one for her for her birthday.

She worried about her father a bit; he would be very upset at first. He did love her very much, she knew that, and now that she was older, he liked doing things with her, going to the theatre and to concerts and just talking to her over dinner. But once he’d got over it, they could all be friends and she could see lots of him. And he was so fond of Kit, he always had been, he’d forgive him in time she was sure. Anyway, if there hadn’t been all this stuff about going to New York, none of this would have been necessary. They’d been going to tell them when she was sixteen anyway. It was his own fault for treating her as if she were some kind of troublesome child, just announcing she had to go away with him without finding out if she was even remotely interested.

No, it would all be all right. It would all be wonderful.

‘Mother’s in the pudding club again. God, it’s disgusting. Honestly, how can they? At their age.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because she’s written and told us. Here you are, it’s to both of us. Listen, “I hope you’ll be pleased to hear that I am going to have another baby. Due in October. I know you said you’d rather there weren’t any more babies, but Father and I both feel that Fergal is rather one on his own and it would be nice for him.”’

‘Nice for him! What about us?’ said Roo. ‘Yuk, just think of it, it’s hideous. I mean Father’s forty, over forty, you’d think they’d have got over it by that age.’

‘I know. And what are we going to tell the other chaps?’

‘We could not tell them.’

‘Don’t be daft. She must be—God, four months already. She’ll be all fat at the Fourth of June. She says the girls are really thrilled.’

‘Well they’re welcome to it. Bad enough having Fergal all over our rooms and records and things, I’m just not going to have anything to do with it.’

‘Nor am I.’

‘So that will be—good heavens, Celia, ten grandchildren. How amazing you are. You don’t look old enough to have even one.’

‘Sebastian, don’t be ridiculous. Of course I do. You above all people should know better than to flatter me. Now then, this birthday party of Izzie’s. Do you need any help?’

‘Oh yes, please. Lots. Mrs Conley is getting far too decrepit to be any use at all. I’ve got a catering company doing the food, but—’

‘What about flowers? Have you got enough chairs? Are you going to have a marquee? The size this family is now, especially the Warwicks, we just won’t all fit into your house.’

‘I told you I needed help,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t thought of a marquee.’

‘Well start thinking. I’ll give you some telephone numbers. They’ll sort out chairs and tables for you as well.’

‘Thank you. And certainly I can’t do flowers. Can you do that? Or suggest someone who could?’

‘I’ll do them. It’s the one domestic chore I like. And I’m tolerably good at. I’ll come over after lunch on the day.’

‘Bless you. It’ll be quite a day, won’t it?’

‘It will, Sebastian, it will. Quite a day.’

‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ Barty’s face was very serious as she walked into Celia’s office.

‘Yes?’ Celia whipped off the spectacles she now had to wear for really close work; vanity made her deny their existence as much as she could.

‘I’m—well, I’m going to New York.’

‘Again? You’ve only just got back.’

‘No, I mean, permanently.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I said permanently,’ said Barty patiently.

‘Oh for heaven’s sake. What are you going to do there?’

‘Work.’

‘Work where?’

‘At Lyttons.’

‘But—I don’t understand. Why, for God’s sake? Barty, you can’t, not now, when—’

‘When what, Celia?’ Barty looked at her very steadily. ‘When you might miss me rather? When my presence is more necessary than usual?’

‘Yes. Precisely. I shall need all the support I can get, when Oliver goes and—’

‘Well I’m sure you’ll get plenty. From Jay and Venetia and Giles of course and—’

‘Ah. So that’s it.’

‘What?’

‘You’re leaving in a fit of pique. Because you didn’t get any shares. Is that it? I’m surprised at you, Barty. I can understand Giles walking round like a bear with a sore head, although as I told him, he was fortunate to get what he did, but you . . .’ She looked at Barty intently. ‘Surely, Barty, you can understand—’

‘Not quite, Celia, no. It’s more important than that. I was very—hurt, yes. Perhaps it was silly, but I’d thought that—well, let’s say it made me realise I would never be anything but an employee here. Which of course is up to you. But I want to get to the top of my profession, Celia, surely you can understand that. I don’t want to work somewhere where I keep coming up against such a very low ceiling. I want to feel that one day I could be on the board of some company. Not made to feel an outsider.’

‘Barty, that is so unfair. Nobody’s making you an outsider.’

‘I don’t think it’s unfair, Celia. It may be naive, but that’s different. I know you’ve done everything for me, I know, you’ve given me all the wonderful opportunities I could never have dreamed of, a marvellous education. And huge scope here to develop editorially. But I also know that I’m very good at my job. Very good. And there’s this stopping point. And it seems so—hopeless. So yes, I’m going. Sadly, of course, but I am determined.’

‘I can’t believe this, Barty. I really can’t. And what Oliver will say I cannot imagine.’

‘I hope he’ll understand. As I hope you will in time. I feel—undervalued. I’ve done a lot for Lyttons, I know I have. And supported you in all your decisions, all your battles with Oliver.’

‘For which I’m supposed to be overcome with gratitude, I suppose.’

‘No, of course not. I of all people know how uncomfortable that can be. I just want you to recognise it. Not just verbally, but formally. And you know, it’s a bit of a one-way traffic all this, I stayed on here when Wol begged me to, at the beginning of the war, I was considered family enough for that.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Celia coldly.

‘No, I know. But I did. It was when Kit first went and—well, never mind. I was happy to do it, even though I longed to go. And so many things since, and, God, I’ve just acquired the one big seller Lyttons is going to have this year—’

‘Yes, Barty, how exactly did you manage that?’ said Celia.

‘I – paid for it myself.’

She hadn’t actually meant to tell her that; damn. But the temptation to jolt her out of her complacency was suddenly overwhelming. She was successful; Celia’s face was ashen, frozen into shock.

‘You paid for it yourself?’

‘Yes. Of course, in time I would want to recoup it. It must be built into the budget. But it seemed the only way of getting it, and I knew we had to have it.’

‘But you haven’t got any money. The offers for that book were very high—’

‘Well I – did have some. I’d rather not debate that now. The point is that I was prepared to put my own money, albeit temporarily, into Lyttons—as you have done more than once, Celia, as you’ve told me many times—and in return I’ve got no formal recognition of that. So—I’m sorry. But I’ve made up my mind. I shall be very sad in lots of ways, but at least I shall still be in close contact with you—’

‘And when are you going?’

‘The week after Izzie’s party. I was going to leave sooner, but she begged me to come.’

‘And they have a job for you?’

‘Oh yes. Absolutely.’

‘I can’t understand it. How you can go off there, with a small child, uprooting her—’

‘I feel her roots are more there than here.’

‘And where do you think you’re going to live? In a hotel, I suppose, initially. Your nanny won’t like that.’

‘I’ve got somewhere to live.’

‘Oh you’re going back to the Brewers, I suppose. Very unwise. For more than a few days. She may seem very charming and pleasant, Felicity Brewer, but she’s not all she seems. I would go so far as to say I find her a rather—what shall I say—an unreliable person. And not even entirely trustworthy.’

‘Oh really? I think she’s absolutely marvellous.’

‘Well you are entitled to your opinion. As I just said, she’s very good at dissembling. I think you would very quickly find yourself disillusioned.’

This was interesting, Barty thought; this hostility towards Felicity. Very interesting. It had always been there, a certain scorn whenever her name was mentioned, a dismissal of her wifely ways. She suddenly heard Felicity’s voice saying that Wol was a very special person, to give him her special love; and wondered if perhaps once . . . What a thought.

She hauled herself back into the present.

‘Anyway, I’m not going to stay with the Brewers. I have somewhere to live.’

‘You do? Where?’

‘Oh Celia, you don’t want to know that. Let’s just say it’s perfectly satisfactory.’

‘Some wretched little downtown place, I suppose. Well, clearly you’ve thought it all out.’

‘Yes, I have. And I’m quite determined.’

‘Oh, Barty—’ Celia sounded quite different suddenly; gentler, frailer even. ‘I wish you wouldn’t go. I shall miss you—very much.’