Daughter of Riches (51 page)

Viv did not know whether or not she should go to the funeral. She wanted to go and yet she didn't want to. She was afraid of seeing the rest of Nicky's family, afraid of what people would say and, most of all, afraid of her own emotions.

In the end she decided she tould not stay away but neither could she go with Paul.

‘Why not?' he asked curtly when she told him this, because suddenly he felt secondary to Nicky again, and was ashamed of it. ‘Why shouldn't you come with …' he broke off. He had been going to say ‘with me'. Instead he substituted ‘the family'.

‘I don't think they would want me.'

‘Rubbish.'

‘It's not rubbish. They've never liked me. Now they will hate me.'

‘I'm sure that's not true. I don't hate you.'

She looked at him coldly. ‘That's different, isn't it? No, I can't come with the family mourners, Paul. I don't have the right. And the last thing I want is to cause an atmosphere and make it all worse than it is already bound to be.'

‘If you feel like that I don't suppose there is much I can do about it.'

‘That's right.'

‘And afterwards?'

‘We'll see.'

Paul experienced stirrings of the old familiar panic.

‘If you are going to marry me sometime or other the family is going to have to get used to seeing us together.'

‘Perhaps but this is not the time.'

‘You are still going to marry me, I presume?'

He had first asked her two weeks ago, just before he had written to Nicky. The letter had been by way of breaking the news gradually. He had asked her and she had said yes, seemed actually to want to marry him, but now this had happened and she was behaving oddly again so that all his old doubts were resurfacing – had she only accepted because he was the best prospect she had? She didn't appear to be very happy in the theatre – she had been ‘resting', waiting, without much enthusiasm, for the pantomime season – and it certainly was not keeping her in the manner to which she was accustomed. Her father, though he was apparently picking himself up from his crashing fall on the stock market, was not able to support her and on a limited income Viv the extravagant, who had never had to give a second thought to budgeting or economising, was a hopeless manager. Paul did not like to think about it but it was after he had told her of the planned expansion of the family business that she had begun to sit up and take him seriously. Though he hardly liked to admit it even to himself he had held off mentioning marriage until after he had told her of the plans he had made for his own future – when he left the RAF he would go back to Jersey and involve himself in the chain of luxury hotels that Bernard planned.

‘I think old Bernard might have something there,' he had said to Viv. ‘Holidaymakers are going to begin flocking to Jersey now that transport is so much cheaper and easier and we might as well think big and make the most of it.'

‘What would you do?' Viv had asked.

‘Help run the show, of course. I own a quarter share of everything there is, remember, and at the moment Nicky and Bernard are running everything between them. I'm not sure how able Nicky is these days and Bernard doesn't have the know how to aim the hotels at the really top class bracket. I mean, look where he was brought up, for God's sake. I'm amazed he even knows which knife and fork to use. But if I went in with them I could organise the best of everything.' He had given her a sly glance. ‘ With your help, of course.'

‘Mine?'

‘There's nothing you don't know about socialising and society, Viv. You'd be an asset in every way.'

‘Are you offering me a job?'

‘I suppose I am. Unless of course …'

‘Unless what?'

‘Unless you would consider marrying me.'

‘Yes.'

‘Yes?'

‘Yes, I would consider marrying you.'

‘Good lord!'

‘I'm twenty-eight years old, Paul, and I doubt I'll get a better offer now. I like the idea of overseeing interior decor for a chain of hotels, if that's the job you're offering me, and besides … I quite fancy you. There's only one thing bothering me – will I still fancy you when you are in civvy street or is it the uniform that sets me all a-tingle?'

He had laughed, not quite sure how much of what she said she meant and how much was a joke, but too delighted by her acceptance to worry over much. It was only later that he had begun to wonder. He didn't know what to make of Viv, he'd never known, that was part of her attraction. The only damn thing he was certain of was that he loved her so much it hurt. He wanted to show her off to the world as his but he had the awful sick feeling in his stomach that she never would be as completely his as she had been Nicky's.

And in any case what good had it done Nicky in the end? When the chips had been down, when Nicky had ceased to be her golden hero, she had left him. Viv had no time for tarnished dreams. When the time came she would treat him just as ruthlessly.

The knowledge sickened him but it made no difference. She was an obsession with him; somehow he had to prove to himself that she would stay with him where she had not stayed with Nicky. And he had to begin proving it now. By having her by his side at Nicky's funeral. Only she wouldn't play ball.

The night before Nicky's funeral Paul went out drinking. He had discovered during the war that temporary oblivion came out of a bottle, that it was possible to relax stressed nerves and forget the loss of a friend and fear for one's own future when enough alcohol was running in one's bloodstream, and that night he set out to put the solution to the test on his peacetime problems. Not only did he drink, he also played a few hands of poker and pontoon with some old friends. Paul started off with just a few pounds and won handsomely. And he found that what problems the whisky bottle could not obliterate, the exhilaration of winning a card game did.

It was the first time in his life that he had taken such measures to ease his nagging feeling of insecurity. It certainly was not to be the last.

Juliet had been awake a good deal of the night. She was too hyped up to sleep, she supposed, her body roused, her senses swimming, confused and yearning, her conscience nagging her that she had betrayed – still was betraying – Sean. Then, as the responses Dan had awakened in her began to cool down, all the other events of the evening were waiting in the wings to pop into her mind like jumping beans and with them the unstoppable questions.

Viv's reaction to the mention of Louis's name was one of the unforgettable moments, Juliet thought – drunk as Viv had been there had been no mistaking the shocking strength of feeling that lay behind her outburst. She had hated Louis – still hated him almost twenty years after his death – with a passion that verged on obsession. Might
Viv
have had something to do with Louis's death? Paul had owed Louis a great deal of money, might possibly have been ruined if he had had to settle his debts, and Louis's death had saved him from that. Was one of them capable of killing him? Juliet shuddered. At least her grandmother had claimed the shooting was an accident. If Paul or Viv had been responsible it would have been cold-blooded murder.

But then there had been others who had hated him – this Raife Pearson, with whom he had quarrelled on the night he died, for one. Dan had said it was impossible for Raife to have killed Louis and Juliet herself had pooh-poohed the idea that he might have hired someone else to do the job for him. It sounded so ridiculously far-fetched. But if it
were
true, what a wonderful relief it would be! And the coincidence was enormous, a quarrel on the very night he died. If only I could find a link! Juliet thought. If only, after all this time, I could clear not only my grandmother's name, but that of the whole family.

Towards dawn she dozed, dreaming muddled but strangely vivid dreams, and when she woke full sunlight was streaming into her room. The clock beside her bed said almost nine o'clock; worried, Juliet leaped out of bed and dressed – she'd shower later.

Deborah was the only one in the breakfast room – David had already left for the office and Sophia, as usual, was having a light breakfast on a tray in her room. As Juliet came in she looked up from the morning papers, smiling, and Juliet thought again what a beautiful woman she was. With no make-up to distract and with her hair pulled back in a loose bunch and tied with a chiffon scarf, the perfect bone structure of her face was more evident than ever and beneath her silk wrap the lines of her body were revealed as equally perfect.

‘You look tired,' she said. ‘ Sit down and have some coffee.'

‘Oh yes please! I only just woke up and I do feel pretty grim!'

‘You were late home last night,' Deborah said, pouring the coffee and passing it to Juliet. ‘Did you have a good time with Paul and Viv?'

‘Lovely.' Juliet put a little milk into her coffee and hoped Deborah and Paul would not compare notes about what time she had left. Viv, she thought, had probably been too sozzled to know what time it had been. ‘They're fun, aren't they?' she added.

‘Mm. Well, Paul is. I'm not so sure I'd call Viv
fun
actually, although I understand she was quite a girl in her day.'

‘She's quite a girl now! It's hard to believe she is as old as Grandma.'

‘Older, I think. But of course in spite of all that has happened to her, Sophia is ageless.'

‘You are very fond of Grandma, aren't you?' Juliet said, buttering a piece of toast.

‘I adore her,' Deborah said simply. ‘If there was one person in the whole world I wish I could be like it would be Sophia.'

Then won't you help me clear her name? Juliet almost said before she remembered. No more questions. No more probing. Except, perhaps, one visit to one man to try and discover what he and Louis had quarrelled about on the night Louis died …

‘More coffee?' Deborah enquired. ‘There's still some left in the pot, I think.'

‘Thanks.' Juliet passed her cup and swallowed a mouthful of buttery toast. ‘Do you know the Jersey Lily Nightclub?'

For a fleeting second Deborah seemed to freeze. Her eyes widened with what might almost have been shock or fear, the expression caught as if by a camera, then as quickly it was gone and Deborah was her usual calm and smiling self.

‘Why on earth do you want to know that?'

‘Oh, I heard it mentioned somewhere. I thought it sounded interesting,' Juliet said evasively and thought: Shit, I'm lying again!

Deborah relaxed visibly. ‘ Yes, it does sound glamorous, I agree. It's quite tame though as nightclubs go – Jersey nightspots always are. We're very staid here. But I think it puts on some good floor shows – it's very popular with the summer visitors.'

‘Where is it?'

‘On the outskirts of St Helier. You practically pass it driving into town from here. It's got an enormous Jersey Lily in neon lights on the side. Appalling taste, but it seems to attract the customers.'

‘It's no competition to the Langlois empire then?'

‘Heavens no! It's in a totally different class. Though you may very well have heard that Louis was keen to move into that kind of thing. It was one of the bones of contention between him and the rest of the family.'

She said it very lightly but Juliet could see the wariness still there in her eyes and the tiny tremble in her hand as she set down the coffee jug and knew that she had only made the point about Louis as a defensive measure. She had realised Juliet had been told something about Louis's connection with the club and had come in quickly to scotch any speculation. But her very defensiveness proved one thing – there
was
something she wanted to keep hidden.

‘You mean Louis wanted to open up a nightclub?' Juliet asked.

‘Heaven knows what he wanted!' She glanced at her watch. ‘Juliet, you are going to have to excuse me. I'm due at the hairdressers in just under an hour.' She stood up, slim and elegant in a peach silk wrap and matching high heeled mules that might have escaped from a thirties Hollywood movie. ‘Will you have time to look in on your grandma later?'

‘Well of course.' Juliet felt a momentary irritation. Wasn't that the reason she had come halfway round the world – to spend some time with her grandmother and the rest of the family? But the flash of annoyance passed as swiftly as it had come. Deborah meant no harm. She shared a special relationship with Sophia and felt responsible for her. It was nice to know that one of her daughters-in-law cared so deeply, nice to know that Deborah and David, at least, had stood by her when she most needed them.

‘Don't worry, I'll make sure she's all right,' Juliet assured her.

‘Good morning, Grandma.'

‘Juliet! Good morning!' Sophia, like Deborah, had not dressed yet, but her full length housecoat was of rich blue velvet and she was seated at the window in her room sorting through the day's mail, making notes in a huge leather-bound desk diary and consigning the envelopes to the wastepaper basket. She looked perfectly well now with no sign of the pallor that had followed her ‘heart turn'. ‘We missed you at dinner last night. I'm dreading you going home to Australia, you know.'

‘I shall come back to visit really often,' Juliet promised. ‘It certainly won't be another nineteen years. I'll make sure of that.'

Sophia smiled sadly. ‘It's easy to say that when you are actually here. When you get home it will be a different matter. You'll have your job for one thing. And your young man for another. He may have something to say about you jetting off around the world too often.'

‘He won't mind. We don't have that kind of a relationship,' Juliet said but her heart had sunk at the very thought of being tied down by Sean. He wouldn't run her life, of course, she wouldn't let him, but the very idea of being with him permanently made her feel claustrophobic.