Glittering Fortunes (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

S
EVERAL
THINGS
ABOUT
Barnaby made sense. His uncle’s frame as he sat in the armchair; the set of his mouth, straight teeth and a full lower lip; his keen, inquisitive gaze past which nothing went unnoticed. Memory was a cheat. Charlie didn’t know if these were traits he recognised, or simply parts of his mother that he longed to see again.

Cato flopped down on the sofa. He rested an ankle on his knee and folded his arms behind his head. He looked like a tourist on the deck of a cruise ship.

Charlie was grateful for his brother’s nonchalance. Despite the lost years, the brawls and the trickery, on some younger-sibling level he still believed Cato to know best. If Cato wasn’t worried, why should he be?

Barnaby motioned for him to sit.

‘There’s no easy way for me to do this,’ he opened.

‘Just get on with it, then,’ snapped Cato impatiently. ‘Spit it out, for heaven’s sake, man; before we all die of old age.’

‘There’s a reason why I haven’t. I’ve prepared this story a thousand times and there’s no avoiding it: the end is a blow and it’s going to strike hard.’

Cato glanced exasperatedly to the ceiling. A muscle twitched in his temple.

‘All I ask if that you listen very carefully.’

Their uncle closed his eyes. He was totally still.

‘What I’m about to say,’ he began, ‘will change your lives for ever.’

* * *

‘I
WAS
TEN
years old when your mother came along. All that time of being an only child, you’d think I might have been jealous. I wasn’t. Our parents were absent for long spells of time: Father had a factory in Ridgeway, just round the corner from where we are now, and worked all hours God sent, while Ma kept busy spending what little he took home on fancy coats and shoes. Rarely would she stay to look after me, help me with my homework or cook my tea. Mothering was dull. She was a spiteful, selfish woman—it’s taken me years to admit that, but there it is.

‘My childhood was passed largely with my grandparents. The adult world was everywhere. Everybody was older and everybody was wiser. I was bottom of the pecking order, always needing to behave, to mind my Ps and Qs, before finally a new person came along who
I
could look after. Your mother wasn’t planned and my own ma took it hard. Finances were tight and the last thing they needed was another mouth to feed. I remember thinking that if Ma didn’t have a wardrobe full of furs then perhaps the baby wouldn’t matter so much, but, as was habit, I kept my mouth shut.

‘From the get-go I was protective of your mother, though the word doesn’t do it justice. I’d have run to the ends of the earth for Beatrice. I’d have done anything for her. Our ma’s disinterest meant I was responsible, in many ways, for bringing her up—she was a bright and lively child, full of laughter. I took care of her and I loved her.

‘By the time she was eight, the family situation changed. Father’s factory had boomed and we were one of the wealthiest households in the area. Ma was rarely with us, lunching with friends or perusing shop windows, and, as for me, I was eighteen and being groomed to take over the business. Everything seemed settled.

‘Whenever you feel that way in life, it’s prudent to brace yourself. One day Father came home and told us that he planned to send Beatrice away to boarding school. He had worked long and hard to come into his fortune, and now he wanted the best education money could buy. She didn’t want to go, of course; she cried and cried and locked herself in her room, and Father and I fought viciously over it. We both believed we knew what was best for her and that the other was wrong. He told me it was no concern of mine; I told him he had made it my concern when he and Ma had washed their hands of us. He hit me and I hit him back. It wasn’t my place to behave like that, but I was passionate and I wanted to fight for what I believed to be right.

‘After that, there was no place for me at the house. Father demanded I leave and in the same blow hired my replacement at the factory. I moved out, sleeping at friends’, sometimes on the streets. It was a difficult time.

‘In a sense it was a relief when Beatrice went away to school, because then at last I could visit her—I hadn’t been allowed back to the house in months. She seemed happy in her new life. She told me who her friends were, and which teachers she liked and which ones were beyond the pale. She was clever and now she was meeting her potential. I saw I’d been selfish to demand what I had of my father.

‘As we grew older, the importance of our age gap diminished. Our lives, however, matured in different

directions—-if you can attribute the word “direction” to mine. Beatrice left school and won a place at Cambridge. I was travelling, through Europe, Asia, America, meeting women and finding work in fits and starts, and never home for more than a couple of months at a time, but I sent postcards and we wrote to each other when we could. If I ever had a problem, my first call was always to your mother—the same for her. We had wound up so unalike, and yet so much the same.

‘On one occasion I returned, Ma made contact for the first time in years.
There’s someone Beatrice wants us to meet.
She told me an hour and a place.
Have a shave
, she instructed.
Wear something reasonable.

‘When I arrived at the restaurant I could tell this was no ordinary lunch. Ma was done up in her finery and fidgeting with a napkin, her eyes darting to the door. Father was stiff: we shook hands as if we were strangers. Only Bea greeted me warmly, squeezing my hand to let me know she was glad I had come.

‘As soon as Richmond Lomax walked into The Coachman’s Arms, I could smell the money. He was there before I turned. Perhaps it was that scent of fortune, perhaps it was Ma stumbling up from the table, flattering him and garbling her introductions, perhaps it was Beatrice who stood to receive his chaste kiss, perhaps it was my father who was dwarfed in the mighty eclipse of this prosperous gentleman.

‘As for Richmond and me, we encountered one another as you might expect: he was my age, my height; we could have stepped into each other’s shoes. He was as dark as your mother but with a cruelty about his mouth, the canines sharp, and a heavy brow that brought his looks just short of being polished. He wore a suit of the sort I had only seen in museums. He was tall, muscular around the shoulders and his eyes were black, like a Transylvanian prince who lives in a castle in the forest.

‘The impression, it turned out, wasn’t far from the truth. Richmond Lomax was a viscount, heir to a great property in the West Country and, he informed us starkly, seeking a wife to share it with. I’ll never forget Beatrice’s deference, so unlike the Bea I knew. She’d looked straight down into her soup. The Beatrice I had grown up with could look anyone in the eye. This man, this strange, exotic man with his jewellery and the oil in his hair, stifled her.

‘From the start I was never Richmond’s favourite person.
What do you do
,
old bean?
I
hear you’re something of a drifter.
Ma had laughed at that. When I explained where I’d travelled, he chewed his pheasant placidly, boring me down, daring me to utter something that would snag just a corner of his interest. He dismissed me because I posed no threat. Nor was I enamoured with him, and less for those reasons as for in some strange paternal way it felt as if I had finally met the person who would take her away from me. Richmond Lomax had the air of a man seldom denied, and I knew then that if he had set his sights on my sister then it was my sister he would have.

‘When news of the engagement arrived I was far from ecstatic, but by that time I had a marriage of my own to focus on: to a sweet girl called Daphne. Beatrice wed and moved down to Cornwall—we visited often but Daphne found the house intimidating. We disliked how Richmond holed himself up in the library for the duration of our stay, absent but all the same there, a hulk of latent disapproval.
I
feel as if I’m on an island in the middle of the sea
, your mother would joke of Usherwood, making a point of ingratiating herself with the community at Lustell Cove.
I
have to have friends or I’ll go mad!
Richmond didn’t agree. His fortress was enough.

‘After two years, Daphne and I parted ways. We had tried for a baby, we had miscarried, and our fondness for each other couldn’t stand the distance. She returned to Ipswich and I decided to move closer to your mother. By that time our parents were gone, there was little to stay for, and my skills as a labourer were easily transferrable. I found a cottage close to the cove and set about rebuilding my life.

‘As it happened, the timing turned out to be perfect. Your mother had fallen pregnant, and, some months later, Cato arrived. Richmond named you after an uncle of his, who had fought in the Great War. Naturally, he was delighted you were a boy. We all fell in love with you, Beatrice especially. You were the apple of her eye.

‘The seasons passed and on every occasion I visited, you had grown into more of a man. As soon as you could stand, you could ride; as soon as you could run, you could race; as soon as you could talk, you could argue. Richmond raised you in his own mould. You were his prized son, his
raison d’être
, his moon and his stars.

‘The years rolled forward. Your mother confided they were hoping for a second child, but none came. As time went on I noticed her growing distant. She would drift in and out of conversations. I would catch her staring out of windows, gazing at the same page of her book for minutes on end, stopping mid-sentence as if a new, entirely unrelated thought had just occurred to her. I was worried. Richmond’s temper was fierce. But she assured me that everything was well and I had to trust her.

‘A little after Cato turned five, the longed-for sibling arrived. Bea’s pregnancy had taken us by surprise. She hadn’t suspected until late in her term and informed Richmond only a handful of months before the child was due. The boy was named Charles, but this time, Bea struggled. She hadn’t been happy and the birth exacerbated things, leaving her ravaged by depression. She was tired all the time, sad and short-tempered. Believe she loved you, Charlie; she just didn’t know how to show it.

‘I took you off her hands. We put together jigsaws in my cottage, we paddled in the sea, we played with my dogs and I showed you how to stroke them and to keep your fingers away from their ears and eyes, and never to pull their tails. You were so different to your brother: careful and thoughtful, a quiet evaluator. Where Cato was rough and tumble, and would leap head first over a cliff, you would slide a toe over the edge, assess the drop and ponder the descent. You were happier by yourself.

‘Richmond struggled to engage with you. He didn’t know how to be with a son with whom he had nothing in common, and so left you to your own devices, hoping you would grow into it.

‘The marriage strained. Beatrice was deteriorating. Richmond had always snapped at her over the slightest thing—now it was worse than ever. My sister began ignoring my telephone calls; hardly saw the friends she had taken such care to make. Some days I would drop Charlie home and she wouldn’t be dressed, the curtains closed, her breakfast untouched on the dresser.

‘I begged to know what was making her unhappy—whatever she told me couldn’t possibly make a difference. It was Barney and Bea, for ever and always.

‘And then, one day, I was granted my wish. We were outside on the lawn. In faltering bursts, and with a great many tears, she revealed her secret.

‘Bea had met a man. When she said his name her body caved, as if it was tension alone that had been holding it up. He was a farmer, and she was in love—madly, deeply, irrevocably in love. She told me she had never loved anybody else in the way she loved him, had never believed that kind of love was in her to possess.

‘She confided that as a husband Richmond could be cruel. He would belittle her in front of acquaintances, he would laugh off her opinions and he would strangle her dreams; the years of their union a slow, simmering schedule of oppression. In the bedroom he was cold, they had never connected properly in a physical way, their desire for one another beginning and ending in the manufacture of their children. With this man it was different. He adored her. He respected her. He set her alight. He spoke to her fibre, of all the things she loved that were in her soul. The passion she had uncovered with him was without comparison. It was worth every second.

Worth risking everything?
I asked.
Yes
, she replied,
worth risking it all.

‘I had to pledge that I would never tell a soul. She vowed to leave Richmond but she was afraid. If he found out, he would kill her and her lover. Did her farmer love her equally? Yes, and he was a single man. They had made their promises.

‘Now I knew about the affair I was looking for it in every private smile, every letter delivered, every outing made, and I protected you boys from it with all my strength. I couldn’t bear that you should be wounded by a bitter separation.

‘Time marched on and Charles turned five. I’ll never forget the night of your birthday. It was November 1992...the night that everything came to a head.

‘There had been a party. I found Bea at midnight, locked in the bathroom. She wept that she could not go on. One more day with Richmond would surely kill her.

‘She would do the right thing. She would confess all to her husband—tonight.

‘And this, my poor Cato, my poor Charles, is where you enter the story, for it was in her confession about the two of you—the one of you, if I am brutal about it—that the truth at last comes free. Such a pitiful creature she was, slumped on the floor with her head in her hands, explaining that the affair had been happening for longer than I knew, longer than she’d told me...and how the farmer she loved had given her more than his adoration... There was more to her tale than what she had confessed.