A Fatal Winter (4 page)

Randolph grunted, not really listening. He’d read somewhere Manet had failed the examination to join the Navy—twice. Luckily for posterity he’d rejected the life his father had tried to foist on him.

“The three of them look so much alike—Gwynyth and the twins,” Cilla was saying. “Scandinavian blood, at a guess. That type washes out on film, though.”

“Too bad she doesn’t take herself and her whey-faced brood over there for a long visit,” said Randolph, with sudden irritation. “Why is she here anyway?”

“Well, it
is
Christmas,” said Cilla. “And she’s rather stuck with the twins being out of school. I’d be willing to bet she played on Oscar’s finer feelings.”

“He has no finer feelings, that I’m aware.”

“She might ring the changes on the ‘poor fatherless tykes’ theme. More Dickens. I’m sure she’s mainly here to campaign for a bigger settlement. And Oscar may have felt it wiser to put up with them all for a few days than to have her petitioning the courts on the grounds the children are being neglected by their father.”

“Interesting you should say that.” Randolph drew closer, warming his hands by the fire. “It is certainly what I suspected—that he was strong-armed into this, rather than that he issued an invitation willingly as she claims. He’d rather avoid unpleasantness—unless he’s causing the unpleasantness, of course. In which case, he loves to stand by watching the train wreck.”

There was a pause while Cilla thoughtfully sipped her drink, hiding her expression. She said, “It will be interesting to see your cousin Jocasta. From what you said the other day, I’m wondering if she’s improved at all.”

“Her acting, you mean?” said Randolph slyly.

“God, no. There was never any scope for that, was there? I’ve sat through several of her films, I’m sorry to say. I meant, oh, as a person. You know.”

“Even less scope for improvement there. Jocasta is what Jocasta is and always has been. Oops! Bad pun there—‘Has been.’”

Cilla laughed lightly.

Just then there was a rustle on the steps outside, no more than the whisper of a footfall, no louder than the sound made by a mouse wearing house slippers. The massive door into the drawing room stood open, and one had to be careful what one said. It might drift out the door, spiraling down the stairs and into waiting, eager ears.

Strike the harp and join the chorus …

Lamorna had been drawn by the voices. She stood on the landing outside the drawing room, hidden behind the open door, one ear pressed against the jamb to hear what could be heard. It was not one of her more successful spying missions. Apart from the reference to Gwynyth’s Dickensian ambitions, the first indicator that Cilla was paying close attention to the maneuverings and jockeyings for position in the castle, there was little of interest to overhear. Nothing she hadn’t heard before. Now that Gwynyth and Oscar were divorced, everyone felt free to say whatever they liked about Gwynyth.

It was cold on the landing, the fingers of even such a massive fire not stretching to where Lamorna stood, and she opted for comfort, deciding there was no more to be learned by standing there freezing. Inside, all would be rich comfort and beauty: The windows overlooking the gardens had been widened during a restoration by a former earl as the centuries of need for defense gave way to decades of relative peace. Peering round the door, she could see that snow had collected in a lacy openwork effect on the windowpanes. She might have thought it a match for the pattern of the crochet around her neck if she’d been given to poetic flights of fancy.

She went into the room, feigning great surprise at finding anyone inside. She fooled neither of them; in fact, they both wondered why she bothered with the pretense, but that was Lamorna’s way. The sneaky, crablike approach was her default mode, her way through a life where hypervigilance was its own reward. Or perhaps, spying simply gave her something to do with her time beyond fetching and carrying for Lady Baynard.

The arrival of the family had been a boon for Lamorna in this regard—so many more conversations to keep track of, and to write down in her diary. That was the one good thing about having so many visitors—something to write about at last! Something to break the monotony. But that was really all she could label as a bonus. Mainly, she just wished they’d leave.

Randolph, sprawled across a sofa, was saying something about Paris, in that drawling, upper-class way he had. Lamorna had read (in reading aloud to Lady Baynard from one of the tabloid newspapers she so enjoyed) that Kate Middleton had started receiving elocution lessons from the moment her engagement to the prince was announced, presumably so she could sound more like Randolph. What a mistake. Randolph sounded like a donkey with adenoids. What was he saying now? Something about Lady Baynard.

“My mother,” and here he clasped his hands behind his head to add to the illusion of languor, although Lamorna could see he was rather het up. “My mother is complaining of ill health and may not be joining us, I’m afraid. Perhaps—she wasn’t sure.”

“When,” asked Lamorna, “has she not complained? She harps on about her health day and night. Well, to me, she does,” she added resentfully. “I don’t know why you’re spared.”

“We’re not,” said Cilla mildly.

“Come in, Alec and Amanda, for heaven’s sake,” Randolph called out.

The twins entered, as furtively as Lamorna had done. She, in a case of calling the kettle black, suspected they often did this—listened outside of doors. Especially Alec. Alec was always up to something.

“What?” he demanded now, suspiciously.

“You always sound like I’m about to ask you to wear a dress or something, Alec,” said Randolph in his indolent way. “Why do you always do that?”

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do. I was going to ask you to go and ask your father if he’d be joining us for dinner.”

Ignoring him (for although Alec didn’t dare go up against Randolph—not quite yet—he was determined to show his independence in small and annoying ways), Alec turned to find someone to torment. He didn’t have to look far. Lamorna was always there.

“
Dear
est Cousin,” he said, in much the same voice as Randolph’s—languid, impeccably well-bred, condescending. The sort of Etonian voice only money combined with an ancient pedigree can buy. “We know how hard your life is. Do
you
have to harp on about it so?”

His twin joined in. She usually did.

“Yes,” said Amanda, with studied patience. “If you’re so unhappy, why don’t you leave?” But she wasn’t really waiting for a reply. A split end marring the perfection of her silken hair had caught her eye.

Because, thought Lamorna mulishly. Because I don’t look like you. Because everything isn’t just handed to me.

“I mean, no one’s making you stay, really, are they? You could get a job.”

That was rich. This spoiled young heiress, at the tender age of fourteen, handing out career advice. But for once, Lamorna held her tongue, nodded, pretended to agree.

“I hadn’t really thought of it.” She rustled around in a basket she’d retrieved from behind one of the sofas, and pulled out her knitting. She’d been making new sweaters as Christmas presents for the twins, but wisely she’d kept this surprise to herself. Old habits died hard—she used to love knitting little booties and things for them when they were small. She clicked her needles, unaware that her efforts always ended up in the rubbish bin by Boxing Day.

“Perhaps after Christmas I’ll see what’s available.”

Follow me in merry measure …

“And as for your mother—well!” Felberta was saying. “It’s the Leticia station, twenty-four/seven. Bringing you all the news from the center of the fucking universe—Leticia, Lady Baynard herself. Plus a Weekend Update on the state of her fragile—but not fragile enough—health.”

“Felberta!” her husband admonished.

“But isn’t it the truth?”

“This is not a family given over to speaking truths, if you must know. And really, that’s most unwise. The walls have ears around here.”

Lester and his wife, Felberta, had decided to take advantage of the cocktail hour at Chedrow Castle by having a little look round. They had been at the castle since the end of November, so anxious to take Oscar up on his invitation before it was withdrawn they’d practically hopped the next plane out from Australia. An invitation so capriciously and unexpectedly issued could just as easily be withdrawn, as Lester said to his wife.

“This is an opportunity that won’t come along often. She’s getting older, my mother. They both are.”

“Opportunity for what, exactly?” Felberta asked, although she could have guessed. She had been attracted to her husband in the first place because he always had an eye out for what her own mother had called “the main chance,” and what she herself preferred to think of as advancement.

“To look around, to size up what’s here. Randolph’s going to try to grab everything, of course. But I want to know what there is to grab. And then I’ll have a word with Mother about making sure he doesn’t get it all. Do you have the camera?”

She nodded, holding out the mobile phone with its camera feature.

“Good. Then follow me. That painting in the corridor upstairs might well be a minor Reynolds. And that Rembrandt! I wonder where Oscar got it from.”

While I tell of Yuletide treasure …

Leticia, Lady Baynard, wrapped against the cold, was walking toward the hothouse on the castle grounds, where she planned to do triage on some plants she thought were becoming pot-bound. In truth, she loved working with plants and the soil so much she sometimes found excuses to move one plant here, another there, and thus experiment with the different feeds and light she thought her darlings might like.

There are some things the National Trust can’t touch, she thought. The loss of the front garden, paved over to create a large parking area for the avid history-seeking public—the great unwashed—had been a cruel blow, from which she had never quite recovered.

At the unwanted memory of the National Trust and its place in her life, Leticia felt her heart constrict. How far the mighty had fallen!—or words to that effect. Tourists in tattered jeans and trainers gawping at the priceless treasures accumulated by Footrustles over centuries, with hardly a one of the gawpers knowing the true value of a
thing
. Still, compared with what had happened to her husband’s family’s estate, she supposed the Footrustles—her family of birth, after all—had been lucky. As for the Baynards—well. Their stately home put on the market and sold like a common two-up, two-down to some American actress and her family. The
real
family packed off. Gone. It was the reason she herself was here now at Chedrow.

To make matters worse the actress, finding the upkeep all a bit too expensive—Leticia could have told her a thing or two about
that
—soon moved out. The place was sold again and turned into an asylum, of all things. A posh and pricey asylum, but still. Leticia couldn’t—wouldn’t want to—even visit. Drug and alcohol
rehab
they called it. In her day, the wealthy dipsos simply got on with it—they generally were sent abroad by their families, Africa or somewhere where no one had to deal with them. Well, presumably the people of
Af
rica had to deal with them but the families were spared the disgrace. Now it was rehab, with half of them writing their memoirs about the experience. Honestly. To what had the world come?

She decided after all to join the unwanted guests for a drink before dinner. What choice did she have? She lived in an asylum now, she thought, but this one was named Chedrow Castle.

*   *   *

A short time later Lady Baynard sat with her knitting, surrounded by family. The togetherness was giving her heartburn. She looked about her with a barely concealed contempt, like the Queen watching a performance by the Duchess of York as captured by hidden video camera and wondering where, oh, where in her long reign things had begun to go so dreadfully wrong.

There was Randolph, her eldest. A photographer. What sort of profession was that? Yes, yes, of course, everyone mentioned Antony Armstrong-Jones, First Earl of Snowdon. But he wasn’t
born
into a title, was he? He was created Earl of Snowden and then given a life peerage. It’s simply not the same thing. He was born (and here she gave a little shudder of distaste) a
commoner
. But a British princess couldn’t have a child by a
commoner
and they’d had to fix that up, tout de suite.

So photography was all right for someone like Snowden as a little hobby—kept him busy, one supposes, but not out of trouble, if the rumors were true.

And then there was Lester, her second son—second in more ways than one. She sighed, a long exhalation of disappointment. Lester’s dealings always struck her as that little bit dodgy, a bit hole in corner
and
under the table, although she understood nothing about finance and could not have said why she felt that way. As for that wife of his—merciful heaven. An Australian—of all things to have married, an Australian.

Here she paused for a good snuffle into her handkerchief. No, it simply didn’t bear thinking about.

And as for Lamorna—the least said the better. Not a trace of Lea’s graceful bearing, which one would think might have been inculcated somehow by example, even if her looks could not be passed on. Lea, who rode to hounds like a proper lady—for her to come home with this foundling, this, this …
crea
ture who looks like Rasputin and who furthermore shows every sign of incipient religious mania—well.

Breeding
tells
, and Leticia couldn’t ever
quite
forgive her daughter for adopting this mutt from nowhere and then dying, leaving them stuck with this—this whatever it was. (
Sniff.
) Breeding
tells
.

But here they all were, and worse! The blonde and her two urchins—Oscar’s Folly, in the flesh. And that daughter of Oscar’s, and her husband, from America. The husband is much too young for her—that’s what comes of becoming an
act
ress and surrounding oneself with all
man
ner of people. Sneaking a glance over to the Joneses, who had managed to drape themselves all over one corner of the room, she saw that Simon’s role as courtier to the Great Queen of Hollywood might be growing a bit thin, judging by his set expression—worn to a veneer from the days when the pair of them were, and very briefly, tabloid darlings.