Beggar Bride (27 page)

‘There’s something not right with that woman,’ said Murphy darkly. ‘I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s definitely something not right.’

‘Take no notice of him,’ said Estelle, bustling about in the kitchen as usual and taking little notice of her husband sitting at the table, in her way, with his newspaper.

‘Not only her ladyship, but that nanny and her man, they don’t smell right to me.’

‘Nothing smells to you,’ said Estelle severely, ‘because of your heavy smoking and unless you cut down it never will.’

‘This all sounds very sinister, Murphy,’ said Honesty, wishing Estelle would keep quiet. She half doubted Murphy’s information, he never failed to insinuate something about somebody, he spent his life suspecting intrigues and plots and reading cheap and gory murders, as bad as Maudie Doubleday. He took the
Sunday Sport
and believed every item in it, he claims to have seen Elvis Presley himself, in the food hall at Harrods dressed as a sheikh.

‘She has no post delivered here.’

‘She does,’ said Estelle, ‘of course she does.’

‘Only lately,’ said Murphy. ‘Only in the past few months, and nothing like you’d expect for a person in business. No personal letters either.’

‘I thought her mail was going to her aunt’s house in Hampstead.’ Honesty remembered some vague arrangement like that.

Murphy ignored her. ‘And no phone calls, none. She used to get them on that mobile phone of hers, but whatever’s happened to that I don’t know.’

‘She’s cut down on her work since the baby, and you know that, Murphy,’ said Estelle. ‘I do wish you’d stop seeing trouble when there’s none there. I mean, what on earth are you insinuating? That the woman is an impostor? Good heavens. And anyway Nanny Barber likes her.’

‘And how she convinced Sir Fabian to employ that little
whore I’ll never know. And her with a family in tow.’

‘Tina Tree is an extremely nice young woman,’ said Estelle, refilling a crab shell with inordinate skill. ‘And wonderful with those children. The patience of Job.’

‘I’ve heard that woman’s language, you haven’t,’ Murphy told her. ‘And who else d’you know who has all new clothes?’

‘Well I do, mostly,’ admitted Honesty. ‘When I get fed up with something I take it straight round to the nearly new.’

‘Mark my words,’ said Murphy, ‘there’s something fishy going on.’

‘There is, Murphy, there certainly is. I am filling a crab shell for a start. But I give you this—it was rather odd that nobody of hers came to her wedding. Not even the favourite aunt.’

‘I’m so pleased you decided to come and have a talk, Honesty,’ says Angela. ‘And perhaps, soon, you will feel able to move back here.’

Perfect, just like a doll. Too perfect? The cow doesn’t mean a word she says. It’s strange, it’s mystifying, but something about Angela reminds Honesty of Joanna Lumley. God, just look at her, so insincere sitting there in a chair which was once Ffiona’s. She’d be horrified to hear what Callister is saying about her, suggesting the lady of the manor is having it off with the gardener. ‘There’s no real point. I’ll be twenty-one next year, and everyone says it’s time I had a flat of my own. Perhaps I’ll ask Daddy for one for my twenty-first birthday.’

‘Are you happy staying at Ffiona’s?’

Poking and prying as well. You wait,
your time will come, you little minx,
thinks Honesty with pleasure. Although the fear is that now Fabian has the son he has always longed for, perhaps he will settle with this wife for good.

‘My mother and I are very close.’ Honesty is not prepared to give anything away. Tabitha and Pandora seem to have been taken in by this scheming woman, but Honesty is made of sterner stuff. ‘Just like you and your aunt. You must miss her terribly. How often do you get to see her?’

‘I make sure I go down to Surrey at least twice a month.’

‘But it’s not the same, is it? When I grow old I am never going into a home. A living death, cast out from the mainstream of life, I would rather die.
What did you say the place was called?’

‘I didn’t,’ says Angela quickly, ‘and I’d rather not. Your father is kindly paying the bills and I have to make quite sure my aunt never finds that out. The fewer people who know where she is, the safer our secret will be.’

‘I expect it’s much easier now you have the Range Rover, and a driver to take you.’

Angela looks uncomfortable. Perhaps Honesty’s questions are too intrusive, too personal. ‘It does make it simpler, actually, yes.’

‘How old is your aunt?’ Honesty goes on, making polite conversation. Why is Angela being so defensive?

‘I’m not sure, to be honest. She never went in much for ages, or birthdays for that matter. There were many times when she even forgot mine.’

‘How dreadful.’ Honesty’s answer is quite sincere. The thought of her father missing, or forgetting a birthday, even though it is mainly Ruth Hubbard who reminds him and chooses the gift, is horrifying to put it mildly. ‘And you can’t be many years older than me. Strange to get married so young. Not a good prognosis, according to the statistics. I’d rather see some of life first, before I finally settled down.’

‘I think I saw all I wanted to see…’

‘Yes, you travelled a good deal, didn’t you?’

Does Angela look uneasy? Is she an impostor as Murphy suggests? Does a troubled look cross her face? Or is it just that Honesty is thinking of Murphy’s dark insinuations? ‘I did. But not in the right kind of way. My life was spent rushing from one capital to another, from hotel to hotel. You don’t get much idea of a country doing that.’

‘I suppose not, no.’ Should Honesty go further and try and trap the bitch, here and now, find out if she is an impostor? Ask which hotel chain she prefers, which shops in which cities, the time it takes to reach Milan or Geneva by air, whether she’s ever heard of Dolce and Gabbana? No, she isn’t confident enough of her ground for that and Callister might not want her to appear so obvious, not at this early stage. Callister likes to work slowly and thoroughly.

As he did when she first met him.

‘Why are you so afraid?’ he’d asked her.

‘I’m not afraid,’ said the seventeen-year-old girl on her birthday, her attention focused solely upon him.

‘Sex is wicked and sinful, is it not?’ he asked her scornfully.

‘I never said anything like that.’

‘You don’t need to.’

She had come to the clearing to see what her father referred to as the scum of the earth. The scum of the earth whom Helena had invited onto private Hurleston land. Fabian was going to get rid of them, he’d already applied for a court order. She found the camp deserted save for this man, this Callister, a stranger, who slowly moved towards her, slowly, almost thoughtfully. A sensation of incredible warmth and delight flowed through her body so that even her throat turned hot and her wrists seemed to burn. She twisted her bracelet uncomfortably. What was happening? Honesty, surely the last virgin in her class, was totally mystified by her reactions. Their breathing came and went simultaneously, there as they stood together in the clearing. Suddenly he laughed and shouted, shocking her, ‘Oh, lust is a wonderful, wonderful thing!’ She was shocked. She waited as his face moved towards her, wearing that faint, now familiar, smile. His mouth touched hers, lightly and softly, but in the next second he had forced her lips apart and threatened to devour her with compulsive greed. Suddenly terrified, gripped by a remorseless energy, her hands reached up to push him, her foot stepped backward to move away. But his arms were round her and she was locked hard against his body.

There was one moment of awful fear as, caught and helpless, her control over her emotions, her sensations, was snatched away. There was a sense of profound and agonising despair, then the plain premonition that in another moment she would disintegrate, sacrificed to a stronger, indomitable will.

Gradually her terror and suspense turned into a hunger as great as his own. It was shameful. Quite shameful. To her shame her arms strained to hold him closer as he touched her, her head turning restlessly from side to side. Lightly, expertly, his hands undid her clothing and she moaned and groaned, lost in his wild embrace, as her clothes fell in a heap round her feet. Eagerly they faced each other, she painfully, avidly female, he ravishing and victorious.

He seized her wrist in a strong grip and twisted it, and then she was lying on the floor at his feet. He seemed to loom gigantically above her, his face in darkness against the background of trees but before she could move he had knelt across her, jerked her arms above her head and held them there. Their bodies moved with the same rhythm, all sense of time disappeared under these new and fantastic sensations. He was a ruthless rider, despoiling and unmerciful, he drove her on to the most unendurable excitement. She caught a glimpse of his face, dark and shining, wearing a strange triumphant smile.

Oh yes, Honesty knows all the signs. She only has to think of Callister and all of a sudden her entire being fills, like this, with an awareness of him so intense and strong and absolute that wherever she is and whatever she happens to be doing seems trivial and superficial compared with his wonderful power. She remembers the crispness between her fingers of the black curly hairs of his chest. She smells his breath and tastes his mouth. She recalls every sensation with such intensity that she is swept by waves of feeling, her entire body surges with erotic longing. Deeply and slowly and luxuriously she sighs. She is going down to Devon tomorrow, only fourteen hours between them and she will be revived, taken, back in his arms again.

‘Oh, Callister,’ she whispers in her thoughts, ‘let me go… let me…’

As she says her farewells the smile she gives to Angela is sincere. Does the woman not feel some cold premonition? No, it would seem not. And Honesty feels almost genuinely sorry for this little woman who, so like poor Helena, is unaware of the forces which now work against her, the cold and powerful forces of darkness conjured up by a black, primordial magician.

T
HE FAT IS IN
the fire and the cat is out of the bag.

‘That’s it. We scarper, pronto.’

OK, it had to happen, but why now? Why now?

It is August 12th, Jacob’s second birthday, and now he manages to walk up stairs unaided, throw a ball without falling over and tear the wrapping off his presents. Ange, so concerned that he make good progress, notes his little achievements in a special diary. What a joy it is to give him the kind of splendid presents they give him today, a Fisher-Price garage that he just sat and gawped at with a beautiful smile on his face, a pull-along dachshund that yaps and wags its tail, and dozens of little brightly coloured treats, books, and a cuddly pink elephant.

Ah yes. And just look at these staggering surroundings! Out of this world. The nursery wing at Hurleston is a little palace, a shrine to the fantasy of childhood; a playroom with built in cupboards, climbing frames, play houses with gingham curtains and a bright red slide. Dots and stars in loud primary colours splatter the cushions and rugs, there’s a frieze of ducks and geese and chickens, the chairs and sofas are covered in the same cheery material. Tina and Petal share the bedroom that was once used by the nursery maid, Billy and Jacob share Nanny’s room while the Hon. Archibald himself sleeps in the night nursery in a frilly white cot from Harrods. There’s a special back staircase they can use to save disturbing the rest of the household when they go out for walks, or rides to the beach or the moor together.

‘We get out of here, NOW!’

Tina and Billy stare at Ange, totally stupefied, aghast at this sudden panic.

This is the first chance she has had to speak to them alone since she arrived back from London by train yesterday. Dear God, it is all happening just as she has foreseen in her worst dreams and the strain of it is awful. ‘Listen to what I am saying,
she knows, Billy, Honesty knows!
Else why would she ask me all those questions, and it wasn’t just that, it was the tone of voice she used, sarcastic, secret smirks behind her smiles, knowing eyes. We’ve got to get out before they arrest us because if Honesty knows then who else knows? Fabian himself? Elfrida, Evelyn? My God, perhaps we are all playing the same great deception game together…’

‘Hey, cool it, use your nous, Ange,’ says Billy in his paper hat. It annoys her that he looks like a clown in this kind of emergency, but Ange listens, all alert, desperately wanting to be convinced. ‘If that cock Fabian even suspected we would be banged up by now, he’s not going to bother to play bloody games, not for a moment.’

But that answer’s not good enough.
‘Honesty knows.
Don’t look at me that way, you really
have
to believe me, and if she knows then Ffiona knows, and those two are quite likely to do anything to punish not only Fabian but me as well.’

Tina, disbelieving, as if she knows best, even has the nerve to try and play it down. She starts to light Jacob’s birthday cake candles and Ange wishes she wouldn’t because she can’t concentrate on anything but this awful conversation and she would have liked to light the candles herself. What the hell has she got to do or say to convince them? ‘God, Ange,’ says Tina. ‘You talk as if your very life is at risk!’

Hysteria rises, and a sense of fury. ‘Listen you prat, according to Fabian himself it might well be! And this is really funny.’ She holds Jacob up to the cake before Tina can get hold of him and do it for her, ‘Blow, Jacob! Blow hard for Mummy! This is damn bloody funny, coming from you, Billy, who couldn’t wait to get out of this whole sodding mess. How you moaned when I suggested this might take two years! You moaned! Well, we’ll soon be there, Fabian and I have had our first anniversary and since then four more months have gone by…’

‘Did it occur to you, Ange, that Honesty might just have been trying to be spiteful?’

‘Don’t come these comforting arguments with me! Stop it, sod you both! If we got out now we would have enough money…’

‘Split three ways it wouldn’t be,’ Tina butts in. ‘You did promise, and when you divide it by three it doesn’t add up to all that much!’