Camellia (76 page)

She regretted that remark the moment she said it. Bonny's eyes turned dark with anger.

'You think you're so bloody clever, don't you?' Bonny leapt up and knocked over her bottle and glass. 'You sweep in here with new clothes and toys for Camellia, turn her head with all that attention, then have the cheek to tell me how to behave. She's my kid, not yours. I don't want you coming here anymore.'

All at once Helena saw this wasn't a tiff which could be smoothed over and laughed about later. Bonny's whole body was bristling with resentment, she'd clearly been working up to this for some time.

'You don't really mean that do you? What about the promises we made one another and our friendship?' Helena asked quietly, fear clutching at her insides. 'Doesn't that count for anything?'

'I've kept my side of it. I've loved Camellia, cared for her. She's my whole life,' Bonny spat at her. 'But you aren't satisfied with your side of it, are you? You've got the whole world falling at your feet. Now you want Camellia too.'

'Of course I'd like Camellia too,' Helena retorted. 'Every time I see her I regret what we did. Just becoming successful doesn't make natural feelings go away. But I know you and John love her, you are her mother and father. I wouldn't jeopardise her happiness.'

'Don't get smarmy with me,' Bonny yelled and struck Helena hard across the face.

Helena put her hand up to her cheek, it stung a little but she was more stunned by the viciousness in Bonny's voice than the blow.

'I wasn't being smarmy. I was sincere and I only want what's best for Camellia.'

'Well, get out of my life once and for all. I don't need you swanning in here reminding me that Camellia isn't really mine. You make me feel worthless.'

'That's silly, Bonny,' Helena lowered her voice, afraid Camellia would come in. 'You're such a good mother. You wanted marriage and a home and you've made a real success of it. You've got dozens of friends, people admire you. I might be famous, but it's empty, Bonny. You can't know how empty.'

'Too damned bad,' Bonny snarled. 'Just because your life turned out to be empty doesn't mean you can come down here and tamper with ours. Clear off and don't ever come back.'

'Surely you can't mean that, Bonny?' Helena began to cry, frightened by the sound of finality in Bonny's voice.

'Oh yes I do. And if you do come back I'll destroy you. I'll go to the newspapers and give them so much dirt on you and your precious, perverted Edward that all those Hollywood producers will turn their backs on you too.'

'Bonny, listen to yourself.' Helena caught hold of her friend's wrists and held them. 'Anything you might say about me will only incriminate you. All I can lose is money. You might lose a husband and child. I told you jealousy would turn up one day. I'll get out of your life if that is what you want, but don't threaten me.'

'It's not jealousy,' Bonny said stubbornly. 'I just want my daughter all to myself. I want peace of mind. I can't have it when every month I have to write to you, never knowing when you'll turn up. It's bad enough looking into Camellia's face and seeing you staring back at me. I don't want you here too.'

Helena slumped down in a chair and covered her face with her hands. She wanted to tell Bonny that Camellia was her life-line, that without contact with her she was afraid she might shrivel up and die. But she guessed this had all been coming for some time. Perhaps it even proved just how much Bonny loved Camellia.

'Okay, you win,' she said eventually. 'I'll get out of your life. Not for you, but for Camellia and John's sake, because they are innocent and I don't want them hurt. I won't come back unless you write and ask me to.'

'I don't want you sending presents either,' Bonny said, putting her hands on her hips. 'We don't need you.'

Those last words hurt the most. Helena just looked at Bonny, tears streaming down her face. In four little words she'd destroyed everything they once had. All the love, sharing and laughter. Edward was right. She was poison.

'Thank God it was John you married,' she said as she turned toward the door. 'At least I know he'll make sure Camellia grows up with the right values.'

Saying goodbye to Camellia was the hardest thing she'd ever done. When Helena walked into the child's bedroom she jumped into her arms and clung like a limpet. Clearly she'd overheard at least part of what had been said.

'Mummy doesn't mean to be nasty,' she said, her dark eyes glimmering with tears. 'She gets cross with me sometimes, but she always says she's sorry.'

Helena told her that it was nothing serious, that she had to go back to London anyway.

For one brief moment as she silently hugged the child to her shoulder, she imagined herself running off down the stairs with her daughter in her arms. She could afford fancy lawyers to reclaim her child. She could gain public sympathy if she told the whole story.

But she wiped out the idea almost instantly. John didn't deserve that kind of hurt and Camellia's happiness and security would be shattered. It would be as wrong as the pact she'd made initially with Bonny.

Helena shifted in her chair, reaching out to catch Camellia's hand.

'You came hurtling down the stairs just as I was walking out with my case,' she said. ' "One more kiss", that's all you said. It felt like someone had driven a stake through my heart.'

Mel had been crying silently through much of the story as fragments of it came back to her. She could remember chasing those paper boats, the water squelching inside her Wellington boots. A golden memory that had stayed in her mind, though she had lost the image of her companion that day. But Helena had evoked other equally old memories, ones that must have taken place in the ensuing weeks. Memories of Bonny crying, sitting indoors for long periods with a drink in her hand and a mournful expression on her face. And perhaps the most poignant one, of her going through a big scrapbook of papers and photo-graphs, tearing them out and throwing them on the fire, sobbing as she did so.

Mel understood everything now. Why Bonny had never told her about her famous friend, why drinking became a habit, and why she'd tried to get Jack and Magnus's attention that summer. This time she didn't push away Helena's hand, but silently held it in hers.

'I did write, even though I said I wouldn't, but the letters were always sent back marked "Not known at this address", in her writing,' Helena said eventually, wiping her mascara-streaked face with her hanky. 'I wanted to know about how you were, what you looked like and things so badly, but there wasn't anyone I could get information from, not without making people suspicious. I just wish now I'd gone back to England and Rye sometimes. But I thought by staying away I was doing the right thing for all of us.'

'What was Bonny going to expose about you?' Mel asked tentatively. That seemed to be the last remaining secret.

'That Sir Miles Hamilton is my father,' Helena said.

Mel's mouth fell open. 'He's not! He can't be!'

'You aren't the only one with muddled parentage.' Helena half smiled. 'Until I was eighteen, I thought my father was Tom Forester, a docker who'd been killed at work just before I was born. My Aunt Marleen told me the truth when she was ill in hospital, long after Mum was killed. Secrets seem to run in our family, don't they?'

'That's incredible. But why didn't your mother tell you?'

'Polly was a dancer too. She fell in love with a married man who also happened to be titled. When she found she was pregnant she ran off and hid to save him from scandal, and brought me up alone pretending she was a widow. But Miles wants to tell you his side of this himself. At the time when Bonny threatened to expose this, Miles had no idea that I was his daughter. I was just his protégé. He learned it pretty soon afterwards, Bonny wrote and told him.'

'So that explains his letter,' Mel gasped. 'Good God. He's my grandfather! Magnus said that Nick had seen a resemblance, he was convinced he was my father.'

'I know,' Helena smiled ruefully. 'The day I came here to see Magnus, all my chickens came home to roost. I was always so sure I'd done the right thing by keeping quiet about you and Miles, but in fact all the time I thought I was protecting you both, I was putting you in danger.'

'It's all so muddled,' Camellia sighed. 'I can't get my head round it. I still don't see exactly why Edward had to kill Bonny.'

'Until Edward's caught and he makes a confession, we won't know it all for sure,' Helena said. 'But there is one thing more I must tell you, because Edward's reasons for doing what he did almost certainly rest with it. I got myself into a terrible mess after I returned to America after seeing you and Bonny that last time. I suffered from depression right from the time I left you with Bonny and John. In those first four years I could cope with the bad days because I was hearing about you from Bonny each month and I could phone whenever I wanted reassurance. But once I lost that life-line I got really screwed up. Edward kept me going then – he was the truest friend anyone could ever have. But I guess when he discovered about your birth, he thought it was fear of being exposed which made me that way. Of course if he'd admitted he knew about it, I would have told him that my mental problems were caused by grief, not fear. The story might have had a different ending then.'

'And Bonny told Jack and Magnus they were my father just for attention?'

Helena's expression held both surprise and warmth as if she was touched by Mel's perceptive-ness.

'Yes, I think so, honey. You see, I was the one she'd always turned to before when she had a problem or just needed reassurance she was loved. It's sad to think she felt compelled to turn to her old men friends, and make up something so damaging for all of them, just for a measure of comfort, especially when she had a husband who worshipped her. Bonny was Bonny – impulsive, flighty, ridiculous, and a dramatist sometimes. Yet I think I understand why she did it. I hope you do too?'

Mel could only nod. A lump was growing in her throat. Helena was everything Magnus had said – a woman with a big heart, loyal to a fault and generous too. That last statement about Bonny said so much: the kindest, truest epitaph.

'Can we be friends now?' Helena asked in a small voice. She was looking at Camellia as if her life depended on the answer.

'I'm not sure what we can be,' Mel said truthfully. 'Reason tells me I ought to be overjoyed. I've got a new mother and a grandfather and there's nothing to stand in the way of Nick and I becoming lovers either. But I just feel stunned, and a bit bruised.'

'I'm sure you do. Finding you have a new family doesn't take away the hurt of knowing why Bonny was killed – and it can never replace her.'

Mel nodded. 'I suppose that's it. I loved her. She wasn't a good mother, not after Dad died. But we had times together that were so sweet, and good.'

'So did I,' Helena said softly, and her hand reached out to caress Camellia's scarred cheek. 'I loved her too. You and I both saw the other Bonny behind all that greed and scheming. She was like a sparkler – too hot for comfort, but bright and beautiful. Both of us have suffered deeply, because we cared for her, but perhaps that common ground will help us now.'

'She wouldn't have liked to grow old and wrinkled,' Mel sighed. 'And if she'd lived she would have destroyed us all, one way or another.'

'Wherever she is now I bet she's laughing about this,' Helena smiled. 'Maybe if we can think on that we'll get over it too.'

A silence fell between them. Mel remembered that night in Fishmarket Street when she was fifteen and she'd cried because she was so fat and plain. Bonny had comforted her by saying she'd once had a friend who'd been fat too and that she turned into a beautiful woman. Now she knew Bonny hadn't hardened her heart towards her old friend. Edward must have convinced her he would reunite them.

'I want to hug you, but I can't,' Mel said bluntly. She turned her head slightly so she didn't have to see those big sad eyes.

'The world wasn't made in one day. I carried you for nine months, and held you in my heart and mind for another twenty-four years,' Helena said in a tremulous voice. She stood up and stepped away from where Camellia sat on the bed. 'We've got the rest of our lives. But there's something you need more than a new mother right now.'

'What's that?' Mel looked up. Helena was smiling again.

'A love affair,' she said, and her eyes glinted with wickedness. 'My Auntie Marleen, who was a character and a half, always advocated that remedy for everything from falling hair to sore feet. Perhaps it's not what a mother should say to her daughter, but then I haven't earned the right to that title yet.'

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sir Miles sat in a high-backed chair by the fire in the ground floor drawing room, Mel on the settee a few feet from him, her bandaged foot up on a padded stool, covered by a thick sock. It had turned very cold and a high wind sent flurries of autumn leaves past the windows, so even at the risk of appearing rather casual about meeting her grandfather for the first time, Mel had chosen to wear jeans and a red sweater.

The Westminster clock on the mantelpiece had just chimed eleven o'clock and though the old man had talked almost continually since arriving at ten thirty, it was clear from his brusque manner that he found confessions difficult.

'There's no need for you to feel awkward or embarrassed Sir Miles,' Mel said gently. 'I do understand.'

She was finding it hard to digest the idea that he was her grandfather. He looked and sounded so much like Winston Churchill – the same kind of round face, fleshy jowls and lack of neck, not to mention a manner of speaking that commanded attention. But his rather flamboyant green tweed jacket and his green and gold cravat pleased her, and she felt that at heart he was a nonconformist.

'You don't have to use my title,' he said stiffly. 'Miles is perfectly acceptable to me. Helena privately calls me "Smiley", but as we haven't found a great deal to smile about yet, that doesn't seem particularly appropriate.'

Mel took heart at this, since it implied he too wished for an easier rapport with her. She felt deeply for him. He had stayed at Helena's cottage the night before and it was only then that the suspicions which had started when Nick called on him earlier in the year were finally confirmed, and his daughter told him the whole story. From the pride in his face when he spoke of Helena, Mel could tell that it had been a source of joy for him to discover he was a father late in life, but she didn't think he'd yet accepted the idea that he was also a grandfather.