Past Imperfect (60 page)

'Please.' I held out my cup.

There was more. 'So I got married and I was pregnant fairly soon and you know, all of that stuff is quite exciting when it's going on, and there's lots to do and lots to buy and lots of people making a fuss of you, and I sort of forgot how unhappy I was for a while, and then, when Mary was born, Candida came to see me and we started to talk. And she said something like it wouldn't have worked with Damian, not when my parents were so against him, or words to that effect, and I hadn't known they were against him. I mean, I could guess they weren't
for
him, I knew that from the dinner, but I didn't think they'd had a chance to be against him in any thought-out way, because he'd confessed his base motives and dumped me before they'd got to know him. And then I heard what had gone on. Do you know about that?' I nodded.

Serena was getting angrier. I could see it. Even though all her training was to keep such emotions under wraps, still she could not prevent a trace of her rage from seeping out. She put down her cup and stood, fiddling nervously with the ornaments and invitations that littered the mantelshelf. 'The more I thought about it, the more furious I felt at what had been done to me. Because now I understood why I'd been bundled up with Andrew. And eventually I decided I had to see Damian again. I had to.' She was almost panting. I would doubt she had gone over this ground in any detail for quite a time. 'You know the next bit.'

'I do.'

'Of course, once my parents had pushed in, let alone my ma-in-law, I should have cancelled, but I was so desperate just to set eyes on him, just to touch his hand, just to smell him that I didn't. In retrospect, I suppose they must have been afraid something of the sort was going on.'

'It certainly sounds like it.'

'But after I heard you were bringing him it was more than I could do to back out. I knew I should but I couldn't make myself. So that evening we arrived at your villa and we set off for the walk down the beach. And I asked him about what he'd said and he admitted it had all been a lie. None of it was true. He was in love with me, he said. He would always love me. And I told him that if he'd only told me the truth and not lied at the dance, I would have come away with him that night. I would have packed and left and married him the minute I was twenty-one, and we would have been together for the rest of our lives. He said that he thought he'd done the right thing, the honourable thing.'

'He had.'

She turned on me, her eyes flashing with fury. 'Had he? Then fuck your honour! Fuck his stupid honour! I don't care what his motives were. He lied to me and he ruined our lives!'

'That was the "deceit" you mentioned in the letter, I thought it was something else.'

She frowned for a moment, trying to make sense of this. 'Oh, you mean promising love to get me into bed?'

'Yes.'

'Well, he was the opposite. He feigned indifference. That was the lie.'

'Why didn't you leave Andrew? When you knew?'

Serena's anger appeared to be settling. 'That was my weakness,' she said sadly. 'That was the weakness I wrote about.' She returned to her chair and sat again. 'Damian asked me that. He said if I felt as I did it was the only thing we could do. He begged me to. But it was a different time. You know what they say: The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. I had a baby. I had family coming out of my ears. The scandal would have been huge, even in 1970, and while my parents were responsible in a way--'

'In a way?'

She nodded. 'All right. They were responsible, but they thought they were acting in my best interests.' She caught my expression. 'Well, they thought their best interests were my best interests.' She paused. 'And I was tired of being pushed and pulled, this way and that, but . . .' She almost groaned and I could feel her breath as it left her body. 'Of course, if it happened today I would have gone with him. I should have gone. I should have done it, but my nerve failed me when it came to it. Damian was half the reason for the waste of our lives. But I was the other half.'

'And later that night?'

Now she almost smiled at the memory. 'We were back at the house we'd rented, which wasn't very far, and of course everyone was absolutely reeling. They helped themselves to huge drinks, even Lady B., and staggered into the many bathrooms to de-fish themselves, and so did I. And after that we all collapsed. But when Andrew went off to bed I said I wasn't tired. I wanted to stay up. I waited until I knew he'd be asleep, then I walked back.'

'You walked?'

'I know. One wouldn't do it now, would one? Or perhaps you would, if you were young and in love and desperate. Perhaps some things never change. I knew which Damian's room was, lord knows, as we'd all seen him flounce into it. I'm not sure exactly what I'd have done if the door had been locked. These days it would be locked, wouldn't it?'

'You'd have woken him up.'

'Yes. I suppose so. But it wasn't, so I slid in, climbed into bed and made love to him in the pitch dark for what I knew would be the last time. He was sort of awake after a bit, but not very, even then. I didn't mind. I was saying goodbye to the life I should have had. It was a private moment, really.'

'But why was it the last time? Even if you weren't prepared to divorce, you could have gone on with the affair.'

She shook her head. 'No. I couldn't have been his mistress, making up lunch dates with girlfriends and pretending to miss the train. That wasn't for us. That wasn't who we were. We should have formed a union that bestrode the world and frightened anyone who stood in our way. We weren't a backstreets number, with telephones being put down when the hubby answers. Absolutely not. Once I'd decided not to leave Andrew, from that second it was over.'

'I hope Andrew has some inkling of what he owes you.'

'No, but if he did it would wreck everything for him, so it would be rather self-defeating. Anyway, that night I got up and dressed and left, and I never saw Damian again. Finis.'

'How did you know that Peniston was his? Presumably Andrew put in an appearance occasionally.'

'Rather an unfortunate turn of phrase.' Then she smiled, tenderly this time, as she thought of her son, the lovechild. 'I knew because when he was born he was so like Damian. It was mainly gone before he was two. Isn't there some theory that newborn babies resemble their fathers, so they'll be looked after and provided for? His nose, his eyes . . . I used to thank God that no one noticed, although I did see my mother giving him an odd look right at the beginning. But I always knew.'

'Why did you write the letter? Why didn't you just go and see him?'

'I don't know. I was feeling sorry for myself. Andrew was being more tiresome than usual, so I'd come up to London to finish off the Christmas shopping on my own and I was drunk. I don't why I wrote it at all. I wouldn't have posted it if I'd waited until the next day, but someone picked the letters off the hall table before I got up and that was it.'

I laughed. 'Exactly what Damian thought had happened.'

Now she was serious. 'So what's next?'

'I tell Damian. He changes his will. Your son is very, very rich. The House of Belton rises in splendour.'

'Eventually.'

'I can assure you Peniston won't have long to wait.' I remembered one detail, which I supposed we should observe. 'We'll probably have to run some sort of DNA test. Would you mind?'

Without a word she went to her desk, opened a drawer and took out an envelope which she handed to me. On the outside of it was written: 'Peniston's hair. Aged three.' 'Will this do?' she asked. 'Or do you need a newer piece?'

'I'm sure it will be fine.'

'Don't use it all.' But I could see something else was on her mind. 'Does Peniston have to know? Is that one of the conditions?'

'Don't you want him to know?'

She looked around the room. Over the chimneypiece was a portrait of a Victorian, female forebear of Andrew's, 'The Third Countess of Belton' by Franz Xavier Winterhalter, painted with chestnut ringlets and a good deal of bosom. Serena sighed. 'If he knows, he has to choose between living a lie or spoiling his father's life by cutting himself off from the Beltons' history and feeling a fool in front of everyone he's grown up with.'

'A rich fool.'

'A rich fool. But a fool.' She took a breath. 'No. I don't want him to know. I would like him to know that Damian was a wonderful man, I will happily say that we were in love. I want to. But I think that's enough.'

'I'll tell Damian.'

Serena had one more request. 'I'd like to tell him myself. Can I? Would he allow that?'

I looked at this woman, still healthy, still lovely, still in the middle of life, and I thought of that scarcely breathing corpse. 'I doubt it,' I said. 'You could always write him a letter. You've done it before.' We both smiled at this, but I could see that her eyes were starting to fill with tears. 'I'm not sure he's up to seeing anyone. Particularly anyone who hasn't seen him since he was . . .' I tailed off. I couldn't quite find the right word.

'Beautiful,' she said, as the first droplet began its journey down her cheek.

I nodded. 'That's it. Since he was beautiful.'

I spoke to Bassett as I left, giving him the facts of the case and, on his advice, I drove straight from Dorset to Surrey. By the time I got there, two and a half hours later, there was already a lawyer in attendance who told me that a new will favouring the Viscount Summersby had been drawn up and signed. I was glad, even if it felt peculiar for a moment to take such pleasure in a name that I had hated for so long. Damian had asked for me to be shown up as soon as I arrived, and when I entered his bedroom I realised that we were racing against the clock. Damian lay in his bed, with a fearsome array of tubes and bottles, and leaking things on stands, all of which seemed to be connected to some portion of his emaciated, shrivelled carcase. Two nurses hovered around him, but at the sight of me he waved them away and they left us alone.

'It's done. I've signed it,' said Damian.

'The lawyer told me. You didn't want to wait for the results of the test?'

I pulled out the lock of hair, taking it from its envelope and handing it to him. But he shook his head. 'No time. And it'll be positive.' I could see the hair itself was much more important to him. He pulled two or three strands from the twisted gold wire holding it together and gestured for me to take them.

'Give them to Bassett. Now. That's all they need.' I rang and the butler came and collected the precious filaments. When I turned back towards the bed I could see Damian holding the rest of the child's curl as, very slowly, he brought it to his lips. 'So we made it,' he said.

'We made it.'

'Not a moment too soon.' His thin lips drew back in a kind of laugh, but it was painful to witness. 'Tell me the story.'

And I did. He made no comment except when it came to the account of his interview with Serena at the ball. I told him I thought his behaviour had been honourable, but he shook his head. 'You are supposed to think it was honourable,' he said. 'But it was proud. I wanted them to want me. And when I drove down there with her I thought I could make them want me. But they didn't, and I wasn't prepared to be the family's
mesalliance
. That was just pride. I spoiled our lives through pride.'

'She thinks she spoiled your lives through fear on the beach at Estoril.'

For some reason this almost cheered him. 'She's wrong. But I'm glad, even now, to think she feels it as I do. That's selfish, of course. If I loved her less selfishly I would want her to forget me, but I can't.'

'She doesn't want the boy to know. That is, she wants to tell him about you, but not that you're his father.' He nodded, but without complaint. I could see he was prepared to abide by this. 'She asked to come and see you, to explain.' This produced something like alarm in the rheumy eyes on the pillow, but I shook my head at once to comfort him. 'I told her no, but she sent you a note.' I sat on a chair placed for visitors near the head of the bed and took the thick, cream envelope from my inside pocket. He nodded for me to open it. Beneath the embossed address in deep blue, Waverly Park, she had written in that thick, italic writing that I remembered well, 'I have loved you since I last saw you. I will love you to the end of my life.' It was signed with one word only: 'Serena.' I held it for him and he read it, again and again, his eyes flicking back and forth across the paper.

'You must tell her you were in time for me to see it and that I feel the same,' he muttered. 'Just the same.' And then, 'Will you stay? They can sort out what you need.' I can hardly believe that I hesitated, my head full of those ridiculous, irrelevant things that fall off the shelves into the centre of your brain at the most unsuitable moments, a dinner party I'd said I'd go to, lunch the next day with some friends over from Munich. What gets into one at these times? Before I could answer he reached for my hand, which was resting on the surface of the counterpane, 'Please. I promise I shan't detain you any more than this one time.'

I nodded at once, ashamed it had taken me so long to speak. 'Of course I'll stay,' I said.

And I did stay. I was given dinner, together with the lawyer, a Mr Slade, who invited me to call him Alastair, and we made stiff conversation about global warming in the fourteenth century and the Curious Case of Gordon Brown, as we sat playing with our food in the splendour of the lifeless dining room below, until I was shown back into the bedroom I had occupied on that first visit, in what seemed like another era and was in fact only a couple of months before, where Bassett had found me things to shave with, and brush my teeth with, and wear in bed. 'I'll collect your shirt and the rest of your laundry and have them back with you for the morning, Sir,' he said. In truth, Damian had spent his last years in Fairyland, but a lonely Fairyland. That I did know.

It was Bassett who shook me awake in the early hours of the morning. 'Can you come, Sir? He's on his way.' I looked into his face and I saw that his eyes were full of tears, and it struck me that when a man is dying, if his butler cries then some at least of his life must have been well done. I snatched up the brand-new dressing gown provided, and hurried along through the passages to the chamber of death. It seemed quite full when I got there, with both nurses and a doctor and Alastair Slade on hand, who had clearly been ordered to attend in case of any last-minute alterations, but he was not needed. The atmosphere was stuffy and anxious, and I thought of Louis XVI plunging his fist through a pane of glass to give his wife some air at her
accouchement
. They all turned to look when I appeared, then fell back so automatically, clearing the way to the bed, that I assumed this had been yet another preordained plan in this most ordered of departures.