Camellia (47 page)

'Bonny suggested meeting me for lunch the next day. I can't explain why I went, I knew it was folly.'

'I understand all that,' Nick said quietly. 'What I don't understand is why if you loved Mum you didn't break it off.'

'I think if you'd seen Bonny you would've understood that. I knew I was being a fool,' he whispered to Nick, tears trickling down his lined cheeks. 'I was over forty, she was just seventeen. I loved your mother and I never wanted to leave her, but Bonny was like a drug I couldn't resist.'

'Did she love you?' Nick asked. He didn't know why this was important to him – perhaps because he didn't want to believe his father had been a complete fool.

'That was part of it I suppose. I could never be entirely sure. She was devil and angel all rolled into one. She took me to heights I'd never reached before and depths of misery too. I worked like crazy at that time to try and get her out of my system, but that didn't work either. I finally made the break from her when your mother was expecting you. It was only then that I realised Bonny really did love me, in as far as she was capable of true love anyway.'

He moved on then to explain as he had to Mel about her conception and how over four years later Bonny had claimed that Magnus was her child's father. Finally he described the financial arrangement he'd made after John Norton died.

'But how can you say just by looking at blood tests that she was your child?' Nick said indignantly, tossing back a lock of hair from his flushed face. 'You must know as well as I do that one blood group might rule out John Norton being the father, but it's not proof that you were! There could've been other men she went with. Mel doesn't look a bit like you.'

'Since I've been lying here I've thought about that a great deal. There is a strong family resemblance,' Magnus said slowly. 'When Sophie lets her hair down it's just like Mel's. My mother had dark hair and almond eyes – if you go home and look in the old photograph album you'll see it for yourself. Your cheek bones too, Nick, they are just like Mel's.'

Nick was trying to find some argument against this. He still couldn't believe it but he could picture Sophie in her early twenties, her dark hair long, straight and gleaming. Before she took to wearing such matronly unflattering clothes her figure had been curvy too, just like Mel's.

Nick broke down then. He put his head on the pillow beside his father, holding the older man tightly, and cried.

In the past year he'd thought of little else but Mel. There had been many women in his life, but never one who had captivated him so completely. It wasn't just her looks, even though those dark eyes haunted his dreams. It was her character he loved most. She really cared about people, and she was always willing to help anyone. Yet she wasn't a goody-goody: there was a wicked glint in her eyes sometimes, she enjoyed a good argument and her sense of humour was earthy. She could put a man down with a brisk one-liner that cut right to the core, and just now and again her mimicry of people could be a little too incisive. More than anything he missed the friend she'd become. Oaklands felt empty without her.

'What do I do now?' he whispered. His father's honesty had killed his anger, but now he felt deeply ashamed. 'For a whole year I've wanted her. I never felt quite like this about any other woman. I feel so dirty now.'

'You haven't done anything wrong.' Magnus stroked his son's hair, tears rolling down his cheeks. 'I'd like to believe that now you know she might be your sister, the side of you that desired her will just cut out.'

'Maybe it will. But I've got to find her,' Nick whispered, his voice croaky with emotion. 1 can't bear to think of her out there somewhere alone, after the things I said to her.'

Magnus felt that Ruth's spirit had suddenly entered the room. Nick had been a difficult teenager, often seeming to care so little about others that Magnus felt he had none of his mother's genes. But this burst of compassion proved Ruth was alive inside him.

'That could prove difficult,' Magnus said softly. 'In the two years she's worked for me she rarely talked about her past. I wouldn't have a clue where to start looking. She's proud too. I think she's probably hidden herself away somewhere we'll never find her.'

"Then you've got to tell me absolutely everything you do know about her. Any friends she mentioned, even in passing. There's bound to be someone or somewhere which was special to her. People go back when they are hurting.'

Magnus put one hand on Nick's cheek and smoothed it, the way he had when he was a small child. He could see Ruth in the boy's face, her quiet determination and surprising inner strength. 'Is that wise?' he said softly. 'Mel didn't talk about her past partly because it was too painful. Ask yourself whether it's going to hurt you still more before you dig into it.'

'I've got to,' Nick buried his face in his father's chest. 'Not only for me, but for you too. I know how much she means to you.'

Magnus lapsed into thought. He hated to think of Mel out there somewhere, with no one to turn to. But despite his concern and affection for her, his first priority had to be for his son's wellbeing. Nick had never discussed why his career had taken such a nose dive four years earlier, or what happened to the vast amount of money he'd earned then, or why sweet little Belinda walked out on him. Magnus had his suspicions, but he hadn't liked to look too closely.

It was possible that without some sort of rudder in his life Nick might drift back into his old ways again. The question was whether looking for Mel would be that rudder? Or whether Nick would dissipate the energy he should be putting into his work in a fruitless and perhaps heart-breaking search?

'Did she take the Morris Minor?' he asked.

Nick shook his head. 'She went off with only one small bag. The rest of her stuff is still up in her room. Perhaps she'll send word where we should send it on,' he added hopefully.

Magnus shook his head.

'I doubt that son,' he said sadly. 'She's not the materialistic type. My guess is that she's taken all the blame on her own shoulders and decided to close the door for good, hoping it will make things better for us. But when I get home we'll look in her room. Maybe we'll find something to give us a clue.'

'Sophie wants to clean it all out,' Nick sighed. 'What are we going to tell her and Stephen?'

Magnus was too tired to make any momentous decisions yet. 'Nothing for now,' he said wearily. 'Tell Sophie and Mrs Downes that Mel's room is to be left locked and untouched until I come home. We'll decide what should be done then.'

After Nick had left, Magnus found himself crying and thinking back to the day when Nick was born. He had taken that wizened little scrap into his arms and made a silent vow that he would be the perfect husband and father. Perhaps it was partly because when Sophie and Stephen had been small he'd always been tied up with work, and then the war had come along and prevented him from spending as much time with both them and Ruth as they needed. But mostly his vow was tied up with guilt about his affair with Bonny.

Yet only eighteen months later he forgot that vow when he had one more fling with Bonny.

Now over decades later he was being made to pay dearly for that two hours of lust. Nick was badly hurt, Mel was out there somewhere all alone, and he was trapped in here, unable to help either of them.

Chapter Eighteen

Nick did not get an opportunity to search Mel's old room thoroughly until two months after Magnus's stroke. He couldn't do it in the first couple of weeks, not without arousing Sophie's suspicions, then just as Magnus improved enough for her to go back to her home in Yorkshire, Nick was offered a part in a play in Leeds, and had to leave Oaklands himself.

There had been no word from Mel, not even a request for the rest of her clothes to be sent on. Nick knew the staff joked amongst themselves about her room being 'Bluebeard's room' because it remained locked. But Mrs Downes who still retained her affection for Mel, despite all the rumours and speculation, had stoutly stuck by her employer's instructions. If she wondered why Magnus didn't want the room emptied and made ready for a new member of staff, she made no comment.

But now Magnus had been discharged from hospital and Nick had come home to help. Christmas was only two weeks away and both the hotel and restaurant were fully booked. With Magnus still very frail and unable to walk, and the staff already overstretched, Nick was needed here. Today however, he was determined to find some clues as to where Mel had gone.

Nick opened the wardrobe first, and a faint waft of her familiar perfume took him by surprise. Instinctively he reached for the red crepe dress she had been wearing the first night they met in the bar. His fingers closed around the soft fabric and he drew it to his cheek, as a child would hold a comforter.

'I'm so sorry, Mel,' he murmured. 'I didn't mean those cruel things I said to you.'

Nick had been in here twice since she left. The first time he'd been alone, just checking to see what she'd done with her other things when he saw her rushing up the drive with only one bag. The second time had been when he caught Sophie snooping a day or two later. She had been taken aback by the neatness of the room. Of course his suspicious-minded sister had insisted this was because Mel was an accomplished confidence trickster, who knew how to cover her tracks. But then Sophie believed the worst of almost everyone.

Nick was an untidy person himself, whose clothes stayed where he dropped them, but he found Mel's orderliness appealing. Her dresses were hung on padded hangers, their zippers and buttons fastened, her shoes beneath in a row. There were surprisingly few clothes: five dresses in all, two suits, a few odd skirts, blouses and the plain black dress she wore for waiting at tables. He flicked through them all, checking pockets, but aside from a spare button in one, he found nothing. They were all recent 70s fashions: no old miniskirt, kaftan or fringed suede waistcoat from the 60s kept for sentimentality. Every woman he'd ever known had kept something from the past. But the day Mel became Amelia Corbett she seemed to have renounced everything that had gone before.

He moved on then to the chest of drawers and ran his hands over the contents. Everything was folded neatly: white pretty underwear from chain stores, not the kind of decadent frippery Sophie must have expected. Only the bottom drawer revealed a slightly different image: a white feather boa in a cotton bag, a minuscule spotted bikini, ragged denim shorts and a brilliant turquoise and pink sarong.

The drawer in the dressing table held nothing of interest: a few cosmetics, some odd pieces of cheap costume jewellery and coloured hair slides. He found a bundle of letters and sat down on the bed to read them, but was once again disappointed. They were all addressed to her here at Oaklands, from old members of staff, mostly students who'd helped out in the summer holidays. They were typical student letters, full of talk of parties, being behind with studies, the kind written in a nostalgic moment to someone they liked, but without the bond of lasting friendship. As each came from a hall of residence, and none had invited Mel there to see them, it was doubtful that she had made tracks to any of them.

When he found her post office book tucked under a drawer lining, he gasped in astonishment. She had a balance of over six hundred pounds. He looked at the entries: ten pounds paid in almost every week since she started work here. The only time she'd withdrawn any was the previous Christmas, presumably to buy presents. It made him feel more uneasy to think she was out there somewhere without even her savings to fall back on.

He checked all the books next, bemused by the variety of taste. Several Harold Robbins, George Eliot's
Mill on the Floss,
a biography on Florence Nightingale, another on the potato famine in Ireland,
Great Expectations, Jane Eyre
and several poetry and cookery books. There were no letters tucked into them, no interesting inscriptions.

Nick sat for a moment in the pink buttoned-back chair by the window. Just the way it was placed suggested this had been her favourite spot. The view over the valley wasn't at its best: it was a dismal, damp day, the kind that made everything seem as grey and dull as the sky. Nick was very disappointed by his search. It seemed inconceivable that anyone could have so few possessions and no sentimental clutter. If it hadn't been for finding her post office book he might've thought she'd purposely stripped the room of clues. But someone careful enough to leave no evidence behind would have remembered to take their money.

As he sat considering what his next move could be, a tiny raised tuft of carpet in the corner of the room by the skirting board caught his eye. In the days when Nick had been snorting cocaine and smoking grass he had often hidden his stash in such a place.

He was on his feet and over to it in a second. As he pulled at the tuft, the carpet peeled back effortlessly and he saw a green cardboard envelope file beneath it.

His heart raced as he opened it and found the old letters his father had spoken of. It was further evidence that she'd been too upset when she left to think clearly.

There was a photograph of a stunningly beautiful blonde on the top of the pile of letters. He didn't need to be told it was Bonny: she looked exactly how his father had described her. She was wearing a twenties-style short fringed flapper dress, but it had clearly been taken in the early sixties; not only was she doing the Twist, but her hair was set in an elaborate curled beehive and she had the Cleopatra black-lined eyes and very pale lipstick of that period.

'You were right, she was gorgeous,' he murmured studying it carefully.

Magnus's letters came next, fastened together with a paperclip. Just one glance at the bold, familiar handwriting confirmed they were genuine. Beneath these were some from another man, but just as he was about to start reading them, he heard Mrs Downes out on the landing. She was speaking to Betty who was cleaning the guest rooms. Afraid she might come in to see what he was doing, Nick closed the file, slipped it down the waist of his trousers, covered it with his sweater and left the room.