The Lavender Garden (40 page)

“I’m sure.”

“He kept saying over and over that he’d written letters home with a forwarding address, but we never got them, love, we really didn’t.” Norma sighed. “Any road, perhaps it was the shock of losing Constance, but after that Alex stayed put here and began to get himself back on track. He talked of perhaps training to become a teacher. He was a changed soul. Or should I say”—Norma smiled through her
tears—“back to the soul he’d been as a boy. Sebastian was off in London, and I were glad Alex was back to sort things out, because I’d have had no idea what to do. Then, one weekend, not long after Constance died, your husband turns up from London. They had a flaming row over something or other, and I saw Alex get in his car and start the engine. Before he could leave, Sebastian had climbed in next to him. The car shot off down the drive, and the next thing I know, there’s another call from another hospital and both the boys are in it this time. As I’m sure you know, your husband escaped with minor injuries, but it was Alex who was so badly hurt.”

“Alex was drunk again, wasn’t he?”

“No, love”—Norma shook her head—“you’re getting confused. That was the
first
time he had a crash. This time, it were the other driver who was drunk. When it went to court, hospital records showed Alex’s blood was clean and he was in the clear. Except, of course, he wasn’t, being paralyzed for the rest of his life. I sometimes wonder if tragedy follows that young man around. Anyway, when Alex finally came back here from hospital, your husband told me very clearly that he was to be in charge of his brother’s care. I’d like to point out that I said I were quite happy to look after Alex, but he insisted I had enough else to do.”

“So why did you finally decide to leave the house?”

“If you want the truth, I know your husband tried to do his best by his brother, but he’d employ carers I wouldn’t have given the time of day to.” Norma wrinkled her nose in disgust. “And certainly Master Alex didn’t, either. It were almost as though your husband chose the worst he could find. And then, if there were a good one who Alex liked and began to trust, Sebastian would find fault and sack her. I can understand in the beginning that Alex needed full-time care, but he’s much stronger and more capable now. I happen to know your husband himself is getting a full carer’s allowance for Alex. Maybe he felt he had to use it or something.” She shrugged.

Emilie sat silently, digesting the facts. So Sebastian was taking money for Alex’s care.

“As I said, I must believe”—Norma looked at Emilie guiltily—“
must
believe that your husband has his brother’s best interests at heart. After all, he was often away in London. But besides the fact I
was always there, all that chopping and changing of carers did no one any good, especially not me. And the last one . . .” Norma rolled her eyes. “If Master Alex hadn’t chucked a cup of coffee at her, I think I would have done. Blind drunk, she was, on many an occasion. I tried to tell your husband, but he didn’t listen. And that was when I decided I’d finally had enough.”

“I see.”

“And now”—Norma sighed—“you have to cope with it all. You have my sympathy, love. You really do.”

Emilie didn’t know how to reply. “Thank you for telling me. I appreciate your honesty.”

“Well now, I hope I haven’t said anything out of turn about your husband. I’ve just told it how it is. They’re both good men at heart,” Norma added feebly.

The two women sat in silence, Emilie knowing there had been a lot of subtle diplomacy used in the telling of Norma’s tale.

As if reading Emilie’s mind, Norma said, “I watched them grow up, you see. And I love them both, however they’ve behaved.”

“Yes. Thank you for the coffee.” Emilie rose from the table, feeling suddenly exhausted. “I must go home now.”

“Of course.” Norma led her to the door and put her large, roughened hand on Emilie’s shoulder. “I hope I haven’t set the cat amongst the pigeons.” When Emilie looked at her questioningly, she added, “I mean, told you things it would be better for you not to know.”

They both knew what she meant.

“I can only be grateful for what you’ve explained to me. I needed to understand and now I do.”

“Good. And just you remember, love, there’s always a brew waiting for you here.”

“I will.” Emilie stepped over the threshold and pulled her bicycle away from the wall.

“Look out for Alex, won’t you? He’s very vulnerable.” Norma’s eyes said everything as they entreated Emilie to realize what she meant.

Emilie nodded in response, climbed on her bicycle, and cycled off back to Blackmoor Hall.

E
milie did not visit Alex that night. Instead, she sat by the fire in the drawing room and wrote down everything Mrs. Erskine had told her so she wouldn’t forget it.

It was hard to doubt the housekeeper’s perception of the brothers, as it completely mirrored her own. Sebastian’s ability for convincing others that black was white was a phrase she had herself used to describe him. Twisting the facts to put a different slant on any subject was, she knew from experience, something he was a past master at.

Was her husband, as Mrs. Erskine had hinted, a liar, a cheat, and a bully, who would stop at nothing to destroy his own brother? And if it
was
true that Sebastian held a grudge against Alex, did that mean he was a bad person overall?

Emilie thought back to the mobile-phone disaster, when Sebastian had convinced her that she was being ridiculous for becoming upset when he hadn’t contacted her. And although he’d assured her that he’d mentioned going to the château to make a start on the library, she knew he hadn’t.

And why didn’t he want her to accompany him to London or on his travels, but left her—his new wife of only a few weeks—alone here in Yorkshire?

No!
She had to stop this, her imagination was running riot now. It was what her father had always called “small houritis”—when the human body was at its lowest ebb and the mind lost all logic and ran away with itself.

Upstairs, Emilie rooted in her toilet kit for one of the sleeping tablets the doctor had prescribed for her after her mother’s death and swallowed it down. She needed to sleep more than anything. And, tomorrow, she would take further steps to find out the truth.

•  •  •

Emilie tapped on Alex’s door at six the following evening. She had spent all day trying to process the facts into some kind of logical order. Armed with a bottle of red wine, she heard his voice welcoming her into the apartment.

“I’m at my computer,” he called. “Some of my children have suffered considerable losses today, due to the disastrous sugar crop in Fiji. Come through.”

“Hello, Alex.” Emilie stood in the doorway of his study, fascinated by the screens that blinked red and green and moved constantly in front of him.

“Hello,” he replied, his attention still on the screens. “Long time, no see.”

“I brought this.” Emilie proffered the bottle. Alex turned his head toward her, saw the bottle, and looked suitably surprised.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, this is a pleasant treat.” He wheeled himself backward and turned toward her. “You, I mean, not the wine.” He smiled at her.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been in to see you before.”

“That’s all right, I’m used to being a pariah. But still, I’m very happy to see you, Em. Shall I get the glasses or will you?”

“I will.”

“Thanks.”

Finding a corkscrew and two glasses in a kitchen cupboard, Emilie followed Alex into the sitting room and watched as he leaned forward to stoke the fire. She uncorked the bottle, poured the wine into the glasses, and handed him one. She watched his intelligent eyes appraising her with interest.

“Santé,”
said Emilie, then taking a sip.

“So”—Alex was still staring at her—“spit it out, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have something to say to me, or possibly ask me. I’m all ears.”

“Yes.” Emilie set her wineglass down on the table and sat on one of the fireside chairs close to him. “Alex, are you a liar?”

“What?!” He chuckled. “Well, of course I’m going to say no. To be fair, I probably was when I was on the hard stuff during my addict years, but then that’s normal.”

“Sorry, but it felt like the right thing to say, given that I must ask you, indeed beg you, to tell me the truth.”

“Yes, Your Honor, the whole truth and nothing but. Em, what’s going on?”

“I went to see Norma Erskine yesterday.”

“Oh, I see.” Alex sighed, then took a sip of his wine. “And what did she have to say for herself?”

“She told me only because I asked,” Emilie added quickly, “about your childhood here.”

“Right. And?” Alex said guardedly.

“She was very diplomatic, but I have some questions I want to ask you because of our conversation, to help me make sense of the confusion I feel.”

“Okay . . . I think I can see where we’re headed. And it’s toward a conversation I’ve purposely steered clear of,” Alex said somberly. “Are you sure you wish to continue? I’ll only be able to tell you the truth. But, like all of us, the truth will be from my perspective, which may well be warped. And biased.”

“Then I think it would be simpler if I asked you short questions first. I believe they have a yes or no answer.”

“Emilie, have you ever thought of a career as a lawyer? I think you’d be remarkably successful.” He smiled, trying to break the tension.

“Alex, this is serious.”

“Well, Your Honor, nothing in life is
that
serious, as long as you’re alive and kicking.”

“
Please
, Alex.”

“Sorry. I will answer yes or no and not elucidate unless you ask me to. Fire away.”

Emilie looked down at her list. “The first question: When you were a child, were you bullied by your brother? And did he constantly lie about who caused an argument or a fight to get you into trouble?”

“Yes.”

“When you won your scholarship and went to the same school as your brother, did he again try to make it look as if you were to blame for bad things that happened there? For example, did he start the fire that got you expelled from the school?”

There was a slight hesitation from Alex. Eventually, he said, “I have to believe so, yes. It certainly wasn’t me, although four boys and a master swore they saw someone who
was
me making a hasty exit from the gym once I’d started the fire. And, from a distance, Seb and I could definitely be physically confused.”

“Why didn’t you defend yourself?”

“I thought you wanted yes or no answers?” Alex raised an eyebrow. “Well, I was hardly going to point the finger at my brother, was I? Besides, no one would have believed me. Seb had somehow managed to garner a reputation for being whiter than white. He’s always been like Macavity from the poems of T. S. Eliot. When there was trouble, he simply wasn’t there. But there’s no proof it
was
him, so the jury is out on that question.”

“I understand. Okay, next question: Did you drink alcohol the night the two of you went out in your car together when you were eighteen, and you ended up being charged with dangerous driving?”

“Not that I knew of, no. I asked for orange juice at the pub, as I always did.”

“Do you believe that your brother spiked your drink?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation on this one.

“Did you ever confront him?”

“No. How could it be proved?”

“Do you think he did this to stop you going to Cambridge?”

“Yes.”

“Did you leave Yorkshire and go abroad to escape from a brother who you realized was so consumed with jealousy, he’d stop at nothing to sabotage anything you achieved?”

“Yes.”

“When you went out on the night of your accident, you and Sebastian had already had a dreadful argument. Was it because he wanted to sell Blackmoor Hall and you did not?”

“Yes.”

“Do you blame Sebastian for the accident?”

“No,” Alex said firmly. “The accident was an accident and nothing to do with him.”

“Are you sure?”

Alex paused, then sighed heavily. “Well, put it this way. I was furious with him and we continued to argue because he wouldn’t get out of my car. I’d parked up on a grass verge along a country road and was about to turn the car round to head home when a maniac came round the corner and smashed straight into us. So”—Alex shrugged—“you could look at it either way; normally I wouldn’t have been sitting on a grass verge if I hadn’t been having a rabid argument with my brother. But then one can say that about anything. The upshot is, it was simply bad luck, and I can’t lay the blame at your husband’s door. Pray continue.”

“In your opinion, since the accident, has your brother gone out of his way to make life as difficult as possible for you? For example, employing carers whom he knows you don’t even need any longer and you’ll dislike. And getting rid of the ones you did like?”

“Yes.”

“Is he doing this, in your opinion, simply because he can, or because there’s another reason? Does he wish to make life as difficult as possible for you here so you’ll agree to sell this house?”

Another pause. Alex took a sip of his wine and looked at her thoughtfully. “Probably. The house is in our joint names and he has to have my agreement to sell. For all sorts of reasons, I don’t want to. Is that everything?”

Emilie glanced down at the list in front of her. She had written out another section—a brutal list that related very personally to her relationship with Sebastian. She was too disturbed by what she’d heard to even begin to tackle those questions. She nodded. “It is.”

“You do realize, don’t you, that if you were to put the same questions to my brother, you would get the polar-opposite answers?”

“Yes. But please remember, Alex, I have eyes and ears . . . and a brain too.”

“Poor Em,” Alex said suddenly, “dragged into a game of cat and mouse, not knowing who or what to believe.”

“Please don’t patronize me, Alex,” Emilie said irritably. “I’m simply trying to work out the facts. I already know that neither of you are quite what you seem.”