Daughter of Riches (69 page)

Abruptly Deborah switched her mind forward again to the present. Some things were too painful to remember. Some things were best left alone. And they had been now, for years and years. Only the fact that Juliet was here now had resurrected it all. She was the reason, perhaps, for Sophia's deteriorating state of health. Sad though Sophia would be to see her go, at least when she had things would be able to return to normal. Perhaps in a way it had been all for the best that she had disillusioned Juliet about Dan Deffains. Even if he had not been an investigative journalist, digging up their secrets to make a fat buck, he would have been an uncomfortable addition to the family. His father had known too much – far too much. Who could say how much of it he had passed on to Dan?

As for Juliet herself, whether she had been egged on by Dan or not she had been asking far too many questions. Better that she should go home to Australia and leave the rest of them to return to the normal peaceful lives they had carved out for themselves.

Debbie plumped the pillows behind Sophia's head a little more and Sophia touched her hand lightly.

‘Never mind, if it doesn't happen I still have you, Deborah. I really don't know, my dear, where I would be without you.'

‘And I don't know where I would be if it weren't for you,' Deborah answered truthfully.

Juliet phoned home during the early afternoon; it was evening in Australia and she felt quite homesick as she heard her mother's voice coming down the line as clear, almost, as if she had been in the next room.

‘Juliet – darling – we'd almost given you up! I was only saying to Daddy this morning, we haven't heard a single word from Juliet!'

‘I know. Time flies. But you could always have rung me.'

‘Rung you? Where?'

‘Well –
here
. La Grange.'

‘Oh yes. I suppose we could. But I didn't want you to think we were chasing after you as if you were two years old again.'

‘No, you've never fussed me, have you – thank goodness!' But she was thinking: That's only half the story. They didn't want to ring here. They never do.

‘So – when are you coming home, darling?'

‘Next week. I'll confirm times.'

‘Yes, do. We'll meet you at the airport. Sean will be pleased. He's been here several times trying to find out if we had any news of you. You should have been in touch with him really, you know. He misses you dreadfully.'

‘Yes – and tell him I miss him.'

‘Juliet …' A strange loaded pause. Then Molly said awkwardly: ‘Everything is all right, is it?'

‘Yes of course. Why shouldn't it be?

‘Oh … nothing.' Molly laughed, a high, childish laugh. ‘I suppose they've been telling you all kinds of stories about us.'

‘What sort of stories?'

‘Oh – when we were young … that sort of thing!'

‘Not really. I must go, Mummy. I'll be in touch again.'

‘Yes, all right darling.' Juliet heard the relief in her mother's voice and wondered about it. Relief she would soon be home again, relief that she hadn't been raped, kidnapped or murdered – on the other side of the world? Or something else entirely?

An hour later Juliet parked her hired car outside Catherine's cottage. She had half expected to find her aunt in the garden but today she was indoors, listening to a radio play and ironing at the same time. As always Juliet was struck by the difference between the life styles of the two sisters – Sophia waited on hand and foot, living in the lap of luxury, Catherine living a perfectly ordinary, almost lonely life, doing everything for herself.

‘Juliet, how lovely to see you!' She reached across to turn the radio down. ‘ What are you doing here?'

‘I've come to see you, of course,' Juliet smiled, trying to appear more cheerful than she felt. ‘I'm probably going home next week so I thought I'd come while I had the chance.'

‘I see.' Catherine stood her iron on its heel, looking at Juliet slyly as she folded a pillowslip. ‘You haven't decided to stay on then? Last time we were talking I thought there was a romantic attachment in the offing.'

‘No, that's over now,' Juliet said quickly, ignoring Catherine's ill-disguised curiosity, and not even noticing the look of horrified guilt as her aunt wondered if perhaps her phone call to Dan was behind the sudden demise of what had seemed such a promising relationship. She did not want to talk about Dan and how he had used her, it was too painful. Besides which he had made a fool of her, she thought, and that was almost worse. ‘I shall be back again, though, you can bank on it,' she added. ‘Just as soon as I get some holiday and save up the air fare. I shouldn't like to leave it too long. You know Grandma had another turn the night before last?'

Catherine nodded, looking anxious. ‘You found her downstairs, I understand.'

‘Yes.'

‘In the very spot Louis was murdered. That must have given you a dreadful fright.'

‘It did.' Juliet hesitated, suddenly realising the way Catherine had worded that comment: ‘ the very spot Louis was murdered', not ‘the spot where she killed him'. Juliet frowned. It almost sounded as though Catherine
knew
Sophia had not done it. But that wasn't possible, surely? She shook her head. Better not to go down that path. Catherine had warned her off. Perhaps she had been right to do so. But there was something Juliet wanted to know, something that had been puzzling her not just since she had been here but, in one form or another, for as long as she could remember but which she had not felt able to raise with her grandmother, especially in her present state of health.

‘Can I ask you something, Aunt Catherine? Why did Mum and Dad go out on a limb so completely after … what happened? The rest of you seem to have closed up into a tight family unit but they cut themselves off instead. And Grandma never came out to visit, rarely wrote or telephoned, to them anyway. She hardly even talks about them. It seems really strange. I've wanted to ask her about it but I haven't liked to – I don't want to upset her. Do you know the reason? Did she think they had abandoned her?'

‘Oh, I don't think it's that …' Catherine's face was in shadow. ‘No, I don't think it's that. She wanted them to go. It was her suggestion, I seem to remember.'

‘But why?'

‘Well mainly I think because she wanted a good future for you. Poor Sophia, she never wanted anything but the best for any of her family, but things had a habit of turning sour for her. It's strange, when you come to think about it. She bore three sons. One of them is dead, another is on the other side of the world. But at least she has David and Deborah. They have been very good to her.'

Against her will Juliet found herself remembering what Sophia had said – ‘I couldn't let him take the blame' – and the terrible suspicion it had aroused in her. No wonder David had been good to his mother if she had taken the blame for something he had done! Supporting her would be the very least he could do!

‘Did David get on with Louis?' she asked before she could stop herself.

Catherine pulled another pillowslip out of the ironing basket.

‘Oh I think so. David has always got on with just about everybody. And he never really had the chance to fall out with Louis. He was much younger, remember, and if anything he hero-worshipped Louis. It was a very different story where your father and Louis were concerned, though. They were always fighting from the time they were children. It was inevitable really, I suppose, the way things were. Your grandma did her best, just as she always did, but I'm afraid she just made things worse.'

‘I don't understand,' Juliet said.

‘Well now I am really going to tell you some family history.' Catherine put down her iron. ‘Maybe I shouldn't, but I will. Bernard – your grandfather – was not Louis's father.'

‘You mean Grandma …?'

‘She was already having him when she married your grandfather. Most people never knew the truth, of course. It was at the end of the war and everything was in chaos. Louis was passed off as Bernard's son and most people accepted it without question. I'm not even sure if your father knows what I'm telling you – that Louis was only his half-brother. I know Sophia did her best to forget, and I honestly think Bernard tried too, but it wasn't so easy. He favoured Robin, naturally – or at least, your grandmother thought he did. Every time he corrected Louis she was there, rushing to his defence, taking up the cudgels on his behalf. The result was that the family split – Bernard and Robin, Sophia and Louis. From the time they were children that was how it was and when the boys grew up it just got worse. They squabbled over everything – toys, pocket money, who should do what, and then, later on over more adult things like the business. Louis had big ideas, Robin was like Bernard. Louis and Bernard fell out over it and Louis went off to London, though I never saw him there – we lived in two very different worlds. Then Bernard died and the trouble really started.'

She broke off, remembering the misgivings she had experienced when she had heard the terms of Bernard's will, dividing everything equally between the three boys. She had known it would cause trouble and she had wished heartily that Bernard had not done it, though she could understand his reasons perfectly. He had wanted, in the end, to show Louis that there had not been any preferential treatment for Robin, however it may have seemed. He wanted to prove he loved all his sons equally. And in so doing he had set up an explosive situation.

‘Louis was a rather unsavoury character from what I can make out,' Juliet said. ‘Did he take after his father?'

‘I don't know. Sophia never knew for certain who his father was. The only thing she was sure about was that he was a German. The island was occupied at the time and Sophia had a German boyfriend, Dieter, someone she'd been in love with before the war when he was a waiter at the guest house. He could have been Louis's father, but I don't think so. However much we might have hoped that it was so, I don't think so.'

‘Then who?'

‘She was raped by another soldier who took advantage of the fact that she already had a German boyfriend. It was a matter for terrible shame, you see. ‘‘Jerry-bags'', they used to call the girls who consorted with the Germans, and to this day they are looked down on as collaborators. That is why Sophia was so anxious to keep it quiet when she was pregnant – and why Bernard pretended for her sake that the baby was his.'

‘Poor Grandma!'

‘Yes. I often wonder what she must have suffered every time she looked at Louis. Before he was born she wouldn't get rid of the baby in case it was Dieter's, but afterwards she must have known, I'm sure, that he had been fathered by that pig. All his childhood years she tried to make something of him but it's hopeless, going against nature. Everything she and Bernard did for him was thrown back in their faces, even Bernard's last gesture in splitting the business equally between the boys in spite of all their differences. Louis was simply taking advantage of it, using his position as the eldest to try to do things to the company that would have had Bernard turning in his grave.'

‘No wonder Dad hated him!' Juliet said. ‘If he was trying to take over and do things Dad believed to be wrong who could blame him?'

‘And it wasn't only that, I'm afraid. There was Molly too …' Catherine broke off, horrified as she realised what she had said.

‘Molly? You mean my mother? What has she got to do with it?'

‘Oh my dear …' Catherine was thoroughly distressed now, desperate to remedy the situation but not knowing how. ‘I didn't mean … Well, not like that … my tongue runs away with me, it always has. Please don't think for a minute …'

‘Aunt Catherine, stop blathering for goodness' sake! Are you saying my mother was involved with Louis?'

‘Well no, not exactly … it wasn't like that …' But her face was telling a different story, flushed with embarrassment at her gaffe, anxious, concerned, indecisive.

‘I see,' Juliet said grimly. ‘Yes, believe it or not, I really do begin to see. Louis and my mother. That's what is behind it all. Not the business at all. I thought there was something that didn't ring true. I mean, it really is not easy to imagine Dad getting so steamed up about the business. But if Mum was involved then it's a whole different ball game. He would certainly get very worked up indeed. But I still don't really see why they went to Australia. A future for me – yes, I suppose so. But I would have had a future here. And Louis was dead by the time they went. There would have been no danger of anything starting up again.' She broke off suddenly as the first terrible hint of suspicion flashed into her mind. ‘Oh my God! Oh no!'

‘Juliet – stop it this instant! Stop it, please!' Catherine said insistently, but her distress only served to remind Juliet of how desperately Catherine had tried to warn her off investigating when she had first come. She hadn't been able to understand her aunt's impassioned plea then, hadn't known why she should have tried so hard to make her leave the past well alone. Now the first glimmerings of comprehension were coming and she did not want them to.

‘Aunt Catherine – you're not trying to tell me …' She stopped again, unable to voice her fears. Her throat was dry and going into spasm; she thought she might be going to be sick.

‘I am not telling you anything, Juliet, except that you must stop this here and now!'

Juliet's throat closed again. Catherine did not need to say a word. It was all there in her eyes.

‘Thank you. I think I'd better go now.'

‘Juliet!'

‘No! Not now!'

She had to get out of here. If she didn't she would choke. Or faint. Or both.

‘Juliet!'

She fled to her car. The engine fired first time. Juliet let out the clutch with a jerk and drove away from Catherine's cottage, tyres screaming.