Lizzie Marshall's Wedding (20 page)

‘What are you talking about? I already know your mother ... unless ... are you –?’

‘No I’m not adopted or Victoria’s secret love child; Margaret is my mother.’ He opened the door, helped her off with her coat and led her towards the sitting room. ‘You’ve met her as Becky, the Events Organiser and someone her son knows. Now you’re going to meet her as Becky, her son’s girlfriend – and the woman he’s in love with.’

He ushered her in before she could fully digest his words and she found herself standing with her mouth wide open in front of Margaret, Victoria and an elderly gentleman of a similar age to them.

‘This is my girlfriend Becky everyone, Becky, you’ve met my mother Margaret, and her friend Victoria, I’d like you to meet Gerald a family friend of long standing and one of the best solicitors you’re likely to come across.’

Gerald held out his hand, took Becky’s in his, raised it to his lips and gently kissed it.

‘Honoured to meet you,’ he said, grinning at her ‘and I mean that most sincerely.’

Becky tried to make her brain work but it was still stuck on Max’s “and the woman he’s in love with” so she simply smiled, and blushed profusely. She had to think of something to say in response.

‘I’m sor ...’ she began then quickly changed it to, ‘so pleased to meet you. Do you live locally?’ She couldn’t think of anything else, on the spur of the moment.

‘No. I live in town. Margaret and Max have kindly invited me down for the weekend. I arrived this afternoon. You live in the village, I hear. I drove through it; it looks a very pretty little place.’

‘It is. I’ve lived here most of my life and the people are lovely; it’s a real community.’

‘Fifi, sweetheart, would you like some champagne? Gerald’s brought us some rather good news so we’re having a little celebration.’

Becky didn’t think it was possible for her face to get any redder but she felt she was giving her red dress and cardigan a run for their money. “Fifi” and “sweetheart”, in front of everyone. She smiled and nodded, her eyes searching his face.

He winked at her and handed her a glass of champagne. ‘Come and sit down,’ he took her hand and led her to the sofa, gently lowering her onto the seat beside him. Still holding her hand, he said, ‘Becky had a rather nasty fall yesterday Gerald and, although she says she is, I’m not convinced she’s fully recovered. I need to take good care of her.’

‘Quite right too,’ Gerald said, then as he remembered something, ‘Fifi. Wasn’t that the name of that gorgeous but rather temperamental poodle of yours Margaret? The one Max followed everywhere as though he were attached to her by a cord – and she wouldn’t let anyone near her except him. Oh! I’m so sorry my dear. That was rather tactless of me. That sounded as though I am comparing you to a poodle, how incredibly rude.’

A huge grin spread across Max’s face. ‘That’s precisely what Becky said when I first called her Fifi, well Madame Fifi to give her, her correct name.’ He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her to him. ‘She was furious, weren’t you?’ he looked her straight in the eye, ‘but I think she realises now that I mean it as a sign of my affection.’

Margaret and Victoria both gurgled with laughter. ‘You are incorrigible Max!’ Victoria said, shaking her head.

‘You should box his ears Becky,’ Margaret added.

‘But he did truly love that dog,’ Gerald said. ‘I’ve heard better reasons for giving someone a name as a term of endearment, but I wouldn’t hang him for it. It’s rather sweet.’

‘Thank you!’ Max said.

Becky looked into his eyes. ‘I rather like it now, actually. I just need to think of something suitable to call him, in return.’ Although the only word that sprang into her head was, darling.

‘You could always call me darling,’ he teased.

He clearly was a demigod – he could read minds too.

‘Becky,’ Margaret said fifteen minutes later, ‘would you give me a hand in the kitchen please? Dinner will be ready in about half an hour so if you two men want to go and sort out your business Becky, Victoria and I will finish dinner.’

Becky’s eyes shot to Max’s face in a look akin to panic but he gave her a reassuring smile and a kiss on her nose. ‘I won’t be long Fifi and mum won’t bite, I promise,’ he whispered.

She got up and followed Margaret and Victoria to the kitchen then Victoria said she was popping up to her room and would join them in a few minutes.

‘I wanted to apologise,’ Margaret said when they were alone, ‘and to show you this. It doesn’t forgive my appalling behaviour of yesterday I know but it may, in some small way, explain it.’

She handed Becky a worn and crumpled piece of paper; it was a letter dated December 31st, 1944. The ink was smudged and faded with age but it bore the Beckleston crest.

Becky read it aloud.

“Miss Pollard, it pains me to write these words but I feel I must. It appears you have formed an inappropriate attachment to me and for this I am sorry. I have given you no cause to feel thus and believe it is in both our interests to cease all and any contact. Your employment at the Hall has been terminated with immediate effect and I shall not see you again. I offered you friendship, you hoped for more and this I could never give. Our stations are far removed and you must surely know that I could never return your affections. Please do not attempt to contact me. It would not give me pleasure to humiliate you. Horace Beckleston.”

Becky stared at Margaret in disbelief.

‘It was 1944 when he wrote that. Times were changing rapidly. Most of the stately homes were being sold off. My parents were both killed in the war; I had no other family. I was working at the Hall as a housemaid having left school at twelve with little education. My prospects were limited but I always believed I was destined for better things. Horace was sent home that June, after being injured, you might know that, you said he kept diaries.’

‘Yes. I read that it took him several months to fully recover.’

‘It did. He was nineteen, I was fifteen – and very pretty, even if I say so myself. We met and fell in love; at least, I thought we had. We saw each other whenever we could and then, in November I discovered I was pregnant. I know that means nothing now but these were different times Becky. But people were dying in the war every day; there was a “live for today” mindset. He was surprised, of course, but he said he would find a way for us to be together. The old order was being swept away. The First World War had changed things greatly, the Second, more so. Perhaps people like us could marry. When you are fifteen and naive, you believe anything is possible. Then on New Year’s Eve Edward came to find me, and said Horace wanted to meet me in the stables at eleven that night and that I should pack a bag. I thought it meant we were eloping or something. Instead, I found Edward waiting. He gave me that letter.’

Becky waited for her to continue but she didn’t ‘And that was it? You believed Edward!’

‘It’s in Horace’s hand, I recognised it but no. I said there must be some mistake, that I would find Horace and ask him. Edward ... stopped me. I knew he was attracted to me but ... well. He was sixteen and a cruel, vain boy but he was as strong as an ox. I ... I couldn’t ...’

‘Oh my God! Are you saying Edward forced himself on you?’

Margaret gulped down the contents of the glass she had been holding and nodded. ‘And he beat me. He told me to get out and never to return or that would seem mild compared to what he would do, he added, with Horace’s blessing. I stumbled from there and ran. I didn’t know where I was going. I had no money, no family, and no job, nothing in fact except the child I carried. A child unwanted by the father. A father who could have given it everything. A Beckleston of Beckleston Hall,’ she said, dramatically.

‘But, it’s not true Margaret! He did want it; well, when he thought it was his, he did. You must read the diaries. I’ve brought them with me. He didn’t know. Edward deceived you both. He told Horace a completely different story.’

‘What? What do you mean Edward told him a different story?’ Victoria had been standing in the doorway. She strode across the room and placed a comforting arm around Margaret’s shoulder. ‘It’s okay. I know the whole thing. Well at least Margaret’s side of things. What do the diaries say?’

Becky shook her head in disbelief. This was like something from a television drama and she was having trouble comprehending it.

‘Edward told Horace that you and he were planning to elope, that you had been having a love affair for several months before Horace had returned, that you had tried to keep it a secret even from Horace but that Edward was trusting Horace to help you both run away. He said you were pregnant with his child. He ... he made Horace believe that you were, effectively, playing one off against the other. That you had made a play for Edward but when the elder brother and heir had returned you’d transferred your “affections” to him. Edward didn’t say that of course, but he made it perfectly clear.’

‘So Horace wrote the note cutting Margaret off?’ Victoria said in stunned comprehension.

‘No! Horace wrote no such note. The words don’t even sound like his, not if you read his diaries. Edward wrote that note, forging his brother’s hand! It’s the only explanation. Horace says that you packed a bag and left without a word that night. He thought you knew what Edward had told him and rather than face them, you fled.’

Margaret dropped onto a chair. ‘All these years,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears. ‘All these years I’ve hated him, thought he had used me then tossed me aside and all the time, he believed that I had lied to him and used him.’ She shook her head in disbelief and sorrow.

‘And the child? What ...?’ Becky’s voice trailed off. This was none of her business.

‘I lost it. When I ran from here I had no idea where I was going. It was a dreadful night with torrential rain and no moon. I could hardly see a thing but I kept running, blindly running. I fled across the fields; trying to get as far away from Beckleston as I could. I remember reaching the brow of a hill and I thought I could see a road below so I started to make my way down but I slipped and fell, hitting my head on a rock. Then Fate intervened. Royston, Max’s father was on his way home and had seen me fall. He took me to a hospital nearby and when I eventually recovered, he found someone to take me in. I told him the whole story a few months later. He wanted to kill both of them but then I would have lost him too. He got me a job in a shop and we married a year later. I was seventeen. He was twenty-one. He told me that he knew he was going to marry me the moment he saw me. Perfect man, perfect timing. We were very happy and very much in love until the day he died.’ She sighed deeply. ‘Max is the spitting image of him.’

Becky thought for a moment. ‘Margaret, if you hated the Becklestons so much why ... why did you buy Beckleston Hall? Surely this place holds terrible memories for you? Why would you want to come back here? Especially after living such a happy life with Royston.’

‘Because of Edward’s final words to me. He said that I was nothing and that I would never be the Lady of Beckleston or anywhere else for that matter. And, oddly enough, I had always loved this house; I still do. Royston passed away ten years ago and when the house came back on the market, last year, I saw it. I was actually at the dentist at the time. It was in one of those Country House type magazines and it was Fate. I am now the owner of Beckleston Hall, albeit it, more than sixty years later.’

‘Everything comes around that goes around,’ Victoria said. ‘To discover, after all these years, that Horace did love you, though. That is truly incredible.’

‘But he would have hated me if he believed what Edward told him, and if he didn’t why wouldn’t he have tried to find me? What ... what do the diaries say?’

‘You need to read them Margaret. Basically, he didn’t know whether to believe Edward or not. He loved you, so he didn’t want to but – this is rather personal – you have a birth mark that ... well Edward told Horace about it and Horace knew that ... ’

‘That only someone I had been intimate with could possibly have seen it! Oh Good God! When Edward ... ’

Becky nodded. ‘I must admit, when I read the diaries I believed Edward. Of course, I didn’t know you then but that sort of clinched it for me. It seemed to for Horace too. Although he didn’t stop loving you, even then. He was sent back to the front, for the final few months of the war and when he returned, he sort of shut himself off – and he remained that way until the day he met my mother.’

Margaret squeezed Becky’s hand. ‘Thank you so much for telling me this. Of course, I want to read the diaries but until tonight, I thought ...well, that he felt nothing for me. So many years of hatred and all because of one cruel and evil boy. Becky, this makes me feel even worse about my treatment of you yesterday. Can you forgive a foolish old woman?’

Becky smiled warmly, ‘Of course I can, if you can forgive a foolish young one.’

‘There’s nothing for me to forgive.’

‘I ran away and fell in the pond! I must have caused all sorts of mayhem yesterday.’

‘Oh. That wasn’t your fault. Actually, I think, in the strangest way, that may actually have been a good thing. Not you falling of course, I don’t mean that. Fate intervening; Max rescuing you.’

Becky blushed. ‘Speaking of Max. Do ... do you mind about us. I know it’s only been a few days and I know it may not last but –’

‘Good heavens no! I couldn’t be happier. It’s none of my business so I won’t interfere but I will just say one thing. Max has just introduced you as his girlfriend to Victoria, to Gerald and to me and I can say without even the slightest doubt, we are the only three people living whose opinions matter to him, other than yours, of course. Think about that Becky. And remember what I said, Max is the spitting image of his father.’

‘Thank you so much for tonight Max,’ Becky said when she got into the car and Max headed down the drive. ‘I had a wonderful time.’

He smiled at her. ‘I get the feeling it wasn’t quite what you’d expected.’

She shook her head and smiled back. ‘The complete opposite. I thought you were going to tell me it was over.’