Sins (30 page)

‘If I do have it, then it will be up to you to look after it because
I
certainly don’t intend to.’

Rose looked at her watch, and then increased her pace, shielding her eyes from the brilliance of the late afternoon autumn sun. Leaves from the trees in Cadogan Place had drifted up against the railings separating the private gardens from the pavement and Rose had a momentary childish desire to kick her feet through them to enjoy the crisp sound. Inside her head she could see herself as a little girl walking down the drive at Denham in the autumn, her hand placed trustingly in her aunt Amber’s hold as the two of them shuffled their feet through the crisp golden leaves that had fallen from the beech trees lining the drive. She could almost smell them now, their dry scent mingling with her aunt’s rose and almond perfume, the October sky bright blue overhead, and the sun shining down through the bare branches. She’d been off school with some childhood ailment–tonsillitis, Rose suspected, as she had been prone to it at one time–and so she had had the luxury of having her aunt to herself for a few precious hours. She could still remember how happy she had felt, so much so that she thought she could almost reach out and touch that innocent childhood joy. She had felt so safe then, with her hand in her aunt’s so secure, so sure that she had her love. Then! Now she would soon be seeing Amber. She had been on tenterhooks all week since she had made the decision to open her heart to her aunt and to beg her for her help and understanding.

She had known for weeks that she would have to do
something. She was missing the bond she had shared with Amber dreadfully, and now with her aunt up in London there could be no better time for Rose to put aside her pride and admit to her how desperately confused and unhappy she was and how much she needed to know why her aunt had kept from her the fact that she and John might be brother and sister. Her need for her aunt’s love was, she recognised, greater than her desire to reject her.

She hurried into Sloane Square, pausing automatically to examine the window displays in Peter Jones before crossing to the King’s Road and heading for home. She had deliberately taken the long way, nervous about what lay ahead and wanting to delay it, whilst at the same time walking faster to bring it closer.

When eventually she turned into Cheyne Walk she said a small prayer under her breath that all would go well, that her aunt would understand, and that they could be close once again.

Unusually, the familiarity of the Chelsea house, with its dusty, faintly musty smell of old building and Thames water, overlaid with the scent of the girls, failed to comfort Amber as she sank into one of the sitting-room sofas and tried not to let herself think about Emerald. She desperately wanted to think of something she could say or do that would ensure that her daughter had her baby, not for her own sake–never that–but because with a mother’s conviction she knew that Emerald would suffer terribly if she did not.

Amber had seen what going through the termination
of a pregnancy did to a woman’s body and her heart. She had seen it at first hand through a dear friend who had never quite recovered.

She heard the front door to the house being opened and sighed to herself. She loved her stepdaughters and her niece, but right now all she could think about was Emerald. If only Jay were here…

‘Aunt Amber.’

‘Rose.’ Amber gave her niece a distracted smile, as they exchanged hugs.

The familiarity of her aunt’s scent and the comforting warmth of her hold made Rose want to stay where she was, safe and protected, just as she had always believed she was as a child.

Was it her fault that Emerald was the way she was, Amber meanwhile worried. Had she given too much love to Rose and not tried hard enough to give just as much to the daughter who had always rejected that love? The burden of her own guilt was unbearably heavy right now.

‘Aunt Amber, I’m glad it’s just the two of us. You see, there’s something I want to ask you, something about my future. And…and my past.’

But before she could say more, her aunt had stood up and was shaking her head.

‘Not now, Rose, please. I’ve just seen Emerald and she’s…well, I’m just so dreadfully worried about her. In fact, I think I really ought to go and telephone Jay. Excuse me.’

Rose stared after her aunt as she went into the hall and picked up the telephone, feeling as though her heart had been turned to stone. No, not stone; stone didn’t
feel anything and her heart felt as though it was being ripped apart.

Well, at least now she knew one part of the truth. She couldn’t blame her aunt for loving Emerald more than she did her, could she? After all, Emerald was her daughter, and she was…she was nothing.

It was another month before Emerald finally put her mother out of her misery by announcing that she intended to keep the baby.

Amber broke the news to Ella, Janey and Rose on a wet early November afternoon. Rose had to swallow against her own bitter feelings. No wonder her aunt no longer had any time for her.

‘But Mama, won’t it be really uncomfortable for Emerald to have a baby and no husband?’ Ella pointed out anxiously.

‘Their marriage may have been annulled for religious reasons but that doesn’t alter the fact that Emerald and Alessandro were married,’ Amber answered, sticking to the line that she and Jay had already agreed upon. ‘Emerald will have her family to support her, and her situation won’t be so very different from that of the many young widows with small children the war left behind it. Now, you’ll all be coming home to Denham for Christmas, of course, and we shall have an extra special celebration this year with a new baby to welcome into the family in February.’

Rose dipped her head. The last thing she wanted to do now was spend Christmas at Denham.

Upstairs alone in her bedroom, Janey sat on the edge of her bed with her knees knocking together, feeling grateful relief. Her period had started–nearly a week late. A week during which she’d hardly eaten or slept for fear that she might be pregnant. Every night she’d prayed for her period to start, and three days ago she’d actually been contemplating hurling herself from the top of the stairs in the hope that the resultant fall would result in ‘sorting things out’, as she’d heard that it could.

If that had failed her next attempt would have meant sitting in as hot a bath as she could stand for as long as she could bear it whilst drinking a bottle of gin. However, thankfully it had not come to that. And now, as she sat doubled over with the wonderfully familiar pains cramping her stomach, she felt like crying with joy and thankfulness.

Never ever again would she take such a risk. Never.

It had all seemed so exciting and grown up that very first night she had given in to Dan’s insistent urgings and had lost her virginity to him. At the time she had believed the experience to be the most beautiful thing, perfect in every way and a symbol of the love they shared. Only now Dan had left her for someone else, a girl who was an actress and who he had met at a casting session. Janey was heartbroken, but she hadn’t said so to anyone else, particularly not her elder sister, as Ella was bound to ask her if Dan had repaid her the fifty pounds she had inadvertently let slip she had loaned him a few days
before the split. The last time they had had sex. Although Janey hated admitting it even to herself, in some ways it was a relief not to have to have sex any more. The excitement of the first time had soon given way to frustration and disappointment so that she had somehow always ended up feeling thoroughly miserable and something of a failure, especially when Dan had told her that all his previous girlfriends had told him what a wonderful lover he was. She, of course, had felt obliged by her pride to do the same. Perhaps, though, he had guessed that she didn’t feel as responsive and sexy as she had claimed? Perhaps that was in part why he had left her for someone else? Janey didn’t know.

The money she had loaned him hadn’t been repaid and Janey suspected that it never would be.

Now, of course, it was impossible for her to tell Ella or Rose about what she and Dan had done. Ella wouldn’t understand and would fuss and be shocked and disapproving and go on at her, and whilst she felt that Rose would be more sympathetic she could hardly tell Rose and not her own sister. It simply wouldn’t be fair.

At least she wasn’t pregnant. It would have been different had she been in Emerald’s shoes, of course, and married. Having a baby didn’t matter once you were married. In fact, it was expected. Janey knew that she would never get married now. How could she when her heart had been broken? Her sketchbook was full of small drawings of girls with big sad eyes wearing tiny little black dresses trimmed with purple rickrack braid and felt-leaved flowers. The colours of mourning. Perhaps she would make up a dress like that for herself.
If she did, she could cut out a series of purple felt hearts that she could appliqué to the sleeves, or maybe even a broken heart. Janey reached for her sketchbook, her mind working overtime as her creative instinct took over.

She had had such plans–plans she had discussed endlessly with Dan. There was so much she wanted to do, like opening her own boutique. She and a couple of the other girls had talked about it but they had agreed that that ambition would have to wait until after they had graduated. In the meantime Janey had been hoping to get a Saturday job working at Bazaar. She’d heard on the grapevine that Mary Quant might be looking for extra sales staff over Christmas, but now that Amber had wrung a promise from them to go home for Christmas that might not be possible. Besides, what if Dan were to come into Bazaar with his new girl on his arm? Janey’s tears fell onto the sketchpad, smudging the line of the drawing she had just made.

‘Well, my dear, I have to say that I think you are very brave,’ Jeannie de la Salles told Emerald as they sat sipping tea in Claridge’s, dressed in winter furs to protect them from the cold wind whipping through the city streets. ‘I shouldn’t care to be in your situation myself.’

Emerald affected a heavy sigh. ‘My mother says that it is no different really than if I had been widowed, but it
is
different, knowing that Alessandro is alive but knowing that neither I nor our child can ever see him. I was so foolish, thinking that love would be enough.’

Emerald paused to judge the effect of her carefully prepared admission of ‘heartache’ on her friend. Jeannie
was such a sentimental fool that it should be easy to convince her that Emerald had a right to claim the high moral ground for herself and Alessandro’s child. Emerald had no intention of allowing the fact that she was to have a child become a bar to her being accepted in society.

‘I should perhaps have agreed to convert, but darling Daddy was vehemently C of E and it would have felt like a betrayal of everything he stood for to have done so.’

‘Oh, no, you did right. I do so admire you, Emerald. I believe the Countess of Bexton is due to give birth around the same time as you. Her husband was at Eton with Peter. I must introduce you to her. She is the sweetest person, and frightfully well connected. Oh, and Newton was asking after you the other day.’

Emerald gave a theatrical sigh. ‘I’m afraid that all I can think about at the moment is how much I miss Alessandro and how much I wish…’ She placed her hand on her body and gave another sigh, whilst inwardly amusing herself, imagining Alessandro’s mother’s fury when she read in the gossip columns of Emerald’s own Madonna-like bravery as she proudly carried Alessandro’s child despite the pain he had caused her.

Once the brat was born, of course, she fully intended to return to the entertaining life she had been beginning to live before she had realised that she was pregnant. Her mother, who had been so keen to plead with her to have the child, could repay her by keeping it out of her way at Denham.

Well, at least she wasn’t going to have to go home to Denham for Christmas now because she had the perfect
excuse for not doing so, Rose acknowledged. Secretly she hadn’t wanted to go, dreading the difference there was bound to be between this Christmas and all the wonderful Christmases before. However, she had been unable to come up with an adequate excuse for not doing so until today, when she had been told that because of the amount of work they’d got on and Mrs Russell’s insistence on having her extended revamp completed for her New Year party, they were all going to have to work late Christmas Eve and then be back at work again the day after Boxing Day.

Rose looked at her watch and started to walk a bit faster. She was supposed to be meeting Josh in the Golden Pheasant for an after work drink and if she didn’t hurry she’d be late.

‘Had to use the hatpin much lately?’ Josh asked her after he had ordered their drinks.

Rose began to deny it, only to stop and admit, ‘He just won’t accept that I’m not interested. I’ve even threatened to tell his wife but he just laughed and said that she wouldn’t believe me.’

‘Bastard,’ Josh castigated vehemently. ‘Have you thought of telling your boss?’

‘I don’t think there’d be any point. The Russells are just about his best customers and they’ve recommended him to several of their friends. Plus, I don’t know for sure but I don’t think that the Russells have paid anything yet for this new work they’ve commissioned, so Ivor won’t want to offend them. And besides…’

When she hesitated Josh demanded, ‘And besides
what
?’

‘Well, you know, Josh, people seem to think…that is to say, some of the other girls make certain remarks and I’m not sure that Ivor would believe that it isn’t something I’ve done that’s encouraged Mr Russell to think that I might be available. He’s said as much himself.’

She felt miserable and self-conscious even telling Josh, who was so open about the most personal of things himself that he had gradually taught her to be equally open with him.

‘I’ve never known a girl less likely to give a bloke a come-on than you,’ Josh responded. ‘The man’s a bad hat, Rose. No one gets as rich as he’s done without getting his hands dirty. He might have managed to keep himself on the right side of the law but I’ve heard that he does business with a hell of a lot of men who aren’t.’