Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (72 page)

The documents containing the Heads of Agreement arrived in Lyttons’ offices on 7 March.

‘Right, lad. Here’s your big moment. First proper national story, eh?’ Like to look over the page proof?

Marks nodded, took the page proof. It even had a picture of the School House. The snap he had taken had come out. It was a bit dark and smudgy, but it was unmistakable. The caption read ‘Mountain or Mansion?’

He felt very happy.

The company secretary at BISC was about to add his signature to those of the chief accountant and the managing director on the Heads of Agreement, when his own secretary came into the boardroom.

‘Excuse me, Mr Dolland—’

‘Just a moment, Miss Curtis, I’ve got a messenger waiting downstairs for this.’

‘But Mr Dolland—’

‘I said just a moment.’

He signed the document, put it in the envelope, handed it to the post-boy who was waiting for it.

‘Right, off you go. Hurry now, this is extremely urgent.’

‘Mr Dolland—’

The post-boy had gone.

‘Right, Miss Curtis. What is it?’

‘It’s this, Mr Dolland. I thought you ought to see it.’

She handed him the newspaper she was holding. He took it, glanced at it, then gripping it more tightly, sat down, read it very fast and said, ‘Get that messenger back. Fast. Why on earth didn’t you show me this before?’

‘Publishers Humiliated.’

‘Fraud Discovered.’

‘Big Publishing Fraud.’

It seemed to be on every hoarding, that evening, the
Evening Standard
, and the
Evening News
, both carried it on their front pages as a teaser, both promised ‘details inside’.

Giles sat with his head in his hands, refusing to see anybody; every time anyone told him it wasn’t really so serious, it hadn’t harmed anyone, he felt worse, sank deeper into his despair. It had harmed him, it had harmed Lyttons . . . and what Marcus Forrest would be making of it he dreaded to think.

More to the point, BISC had pulled out. A short, terse note to Harold Charteris expressing their regret that in view of the revelations in the press, they no longer wished to enter into a permanent arrangement with Lyttons.

‘Anyone would think,’ said Jay, throwing the paper down on the drawing-room floor that night, ‘we’d been caught publishing pornography.’

Tory picked it up. ‘Can I read it?’

‘Of course.’

EXCLUSIVE: DOUGLAS MARKS DOWN FROM DEER MOUNTAIN

I established today that the author of
Deer Mountain
, the book that was the best-selling title last Christmas, a book that has gripped the country’s imagination, is not a tough, outdoors type, living on her own in a cabin on the mountains with only the deer for company, but a rich woman living in a large house in a village near Perth, and who has been in a wheelchair for twenty years.
Deer Mountain
was the brainchild of her daughter, Miss Fiona Scott.

Joanna Scott’s grandfather was a ghillie; she used to visit him as a child, staying in his croft in the mountains, getting to know the countryside and its inhabitants, most notably the deer. She is a talented artist, and even as a small girl, used to make sketches of the deer and the mountainside.

She married a school teacher and together they ran the village school in Tullydie; her back was broken in a riding accident and she has been confined to a wheelchair ever since. Fortunately, she had family money which enabled her and her daughter to remain at the School House and live there in comfort for many years, after her husband died. But the money was beginning to run out.

Two years ago, they began to plan the book about deer. Mrs Scott could remember many of the individual deer clearly, and could recall stories told by her ghillie grandfather. Her daughter sent an outline, purporting to be Joanna’s diary, to various publishers; Lyttons, the well-known family publishing house, bought it, and presented it to the public as a genuine story. It has sold in thousands, making a great deal of money both for the publishing house and for the Scotts. A children’s version is planned for later this year.

A source at Lyttons disclosed that Mr Giles Lytton, who bought the book and who had met Miss Scott, claims he had absolutely no idea about the fraud. He never visited Tullydie and it was the daughter who presented herself to him as being Joanna Scott on her trip to the London office. Another member of the firm met her from time to time in Glasgow or in London.

Various members of the book trade said today they were shocked that Lyttons, always a well-respected house, should stoop to perpetrate fraud in this way.

‘It is hard to believe they did not know,’ said Mr Anthony Huntley of Better Books in the Charing Cross Road, ‘although clearly the Scotts were a very cunning and devious pair. We will certainly be returning all our copies of
Deer Mountain
, feeling that we have been sold something under false pretences which we would not wish to pass on to our customers.

‘What I can’t understand,’ said Tory, looking up at Jay, ‘is how it didn’t get out via her own community. This village where she’s supposed to live . . . where she does live. There must have been some gossip, you know what villages are like—’

‘Apparently, there was real affection for her there,’ said Jay wearily. ‘She’d been a very good teacher, she’d done a lot for the community, still does. She’s put a fair bit of the money into a new village hall, there was a lot of sympathy when she broke her back, they’re all very strongly behind her.’

‘Well, good for them,’ said Tory. ‘I do like community spirit. It reminds me of the war, my darling, and meeting you.’ She returned to the paper. ‘I bet the shop will regret that,’ she said suddenly. ‘Returning the copies. I bet you’ll sell more than ever.’

Jay stared at her. ‘Do you really think so?’

‘Of course. It’s wonderful publicity, everyone will want to buy one now. You wait and see.’

‘Even if you’re right,’ said Jay, putting his arms round her, giving her a kiss, ‘and you could be, it won’t get us our money, that’s for sure.’

Keir took the same view as Tory. ‘So bloody what?’ he said to Elspeth that night. ‘So Lyttons has been found guilty of fraud? Really serious fraud! For God’s sake, it’s hardly fraud at all, and if it is, it’s piddling and it’s brought us some wonderful publicity.
Deer Mountain
will sell more copies than ever, you mark my words. You’re all looking at it the wrong way round.’

‘Maybe,’ said Elspeth rather vaguely.

Boy found it hugely amusing.

‘What a brilliant con,’ he said. ‘Wish I’d thought of it. Maybe I could do one of my own. I could write a book about sheep. From the point of view of the humble shepherdess. I’ll call it
Little Bow Creep
. Or how about
Little Boy Untrue
?’

‘Oh do shut up, Boy,’ said Venetia irritably.

Helena, while being sorry for Giles, was rather shocked.

‘It is fraudulent,’ she said, ‘you must admit that Giles. Presumably this woman came in to the office at one point.’

‘She did, yes,’ he said. ‘I met her. Well, not her, as it turns out. Her daughter.’

‘And what did you think?’

‘I thought she was a hugely disagreeable woman. But I thought the book was very clever.’

‘Well it turns out you were right on both counts,’ said Helena.

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he said, encouraged by this faint praise.

‘But I still think you should have checked on her more carefully. It can’t be so very difficult.’

‘Helena,’ said Giles, and suddenly his face was white and taut with rage, ‘when I ask you to come and do my job, you may. Until that day I would be grateful for your silence on matters of which you have absolutely no knowledge or understanding.’

Helena stared at him for a moment; then she said, ‘Sometimes, Giles, you’re so like your mother it is scarcely credible.’

The hurt he had inflicted on her was briefly eased; she left the room and most uncharacteristically slammed the door.

Celia, too, had bought the newspaper, but she did not have an opportunity to read it until she was on her way home from an appointment in Harley Street. The words meant very little to her; compared with the news she had just been given. The whole thing, indeed, seemed rather unimportant.

CHAPTER 37

There were lots of clichés about it: about electricity in the air, about charged atmospheres, about hostility which you could feel. Elspeth didn’t think she had ever actually experienced it before. Faint echoes of it perhaps, when Marcus Forrest came into the office, changing arrangements, cancelling advertising schedules, even occasionally when Celia and Giles had one of their head-to-heads, as Keir called them. But not like this: when all the Lyttons were almost visibly circling one another, wary, watchful, distanced from one another, not meeting one another’s eyes.

Keir was sitting slightly apart from the rest of them, very self-contained himself, not communicating with anybody, his brilliant dark eyes fixed on some papers he was leafing through, his almost-black hair untidy as always, his large hands clasped together in unmistakable tension.

Suddenly, as all married people do from time to time, Elspeth saw Keir quite differently, almost as a stranger, rather than the person she lived with, slept with, took entirely for granted, saw him not as her difficult, demanding husband but as an interesting, dynamically attractive man. He had changed physically since she met him, in those far-off days at Oxford: he was still only twenty-nine, but he looked in many ways much older. He had put on weight; he was heavily built like his father, no longer a skinny boy, but a big, powerful man, with broad shoulders and strong arms which still looked too long for his body. He worried about not getting enough exercise, said he was heading straight for a heart attack, desk-bound, overstressed, eating too many good lunches. He had taken up boxing; went to train twice a week, at the Thomas à Becket gym in the Old Kent Road. He loved it, came back refreshed and better-tempered, his formidable energy released. And afterwards, he actually talked to her through supper, telling her about the men he had met there, many of them known to her by name at least, for it was where the pros went, people like Sugar Ray Robinson and Henry Cooper.

She was intrigued by this hobby, it seemed to her an interesting outlet for his aggression, and a return to his roots; one of his uncles had been a champion boxer in Glasgow, and Keir had often talked about him, of how brave he was and how strong, and how he could take on three men at a time in a street brawl and still win. When she said that it was hardly relevant to his life at Lyttons, he gave her one of his rare brilliant smiles and said she was wrong, physical fitness and courage were invaluable mental tools as well.

The expression on his face now, this stranger’s expression, was intriguing, she thought: not equable, not even entirely pleasant, but ferociously intent; when he spoke it was quickly, impatiently, as if he could hardly get the words out fast enough in order to have a response.

He was not in the least like Marcus Forrest, for sure; people said you were always attracted to the same type of person, but it was hardly true in her case, they were at opposite ends of the spectrum, the one so perfectly polished and smooth, the other so deliberately awkward and coarsegrained. Marcus always dressed as if for a fashion photograph, Keir, as if he had dragged on some clothes dropped the night before on the floor; however many nice clothes she bought him (from her secret budget), however well-cut his suits and coats and jackets, however well-made his shirts, he looked the same, untidy, rumpled, careless. Marcus talked with charm and ease, Keir with directness and passion. Marcus flattered, smoothed; Keir was blunt and confrontational and often caused trouble. They were both formidably clever; but Marcus’s intellect had been tamed, brought to order, Keir’s was still wild, and intractable.

What was intriguing, Elspeth thought, was that they admired one another; and (she allowed herself to think very briefly) they both admired her. Perhaps that was the most surprising thing.

Her life with Keir was not comfortable; he appeared actually to dislike her much of the time these days, returning her smiles with scowls, greeting her chatter at the end of the day and over the supper table with a request for silence, while he read something or made some notes.

He had never tried to flatter her or to please her, but he used to tell her how much he loved her and why; he never gave the usual lover-like reasons, but said it was because she ate too fast, or talked in her sleep, or stuck her tongue out when she was concentrating on something, rather like a child. He admired her courage, he said, her stoicism in childbirth, and on the hunting field, as deeply as he deplored her passion for it, and her imperfections, her slightly crooked teeth, and what he called her overrounded bottom. She couldn’t actually remember, she realised, when he had last said anything like that, or indeed when he had told her he loved her; it was very sad. All that passion, all that literally irresistible love: gone.

No wonder she had taken a lover; but it was a dangerous road she was travelling, quite apart from the perils of being found out. Having a lover meant endless and odious comparisons, a careful refusal to find pleasure in the marriage, a reluctance to make any kind of effort, and what amounted to a watchfulness for slights, unkindness, lack of affection, providing, as they did, the excuse for infidelity . . .

Sometimes she wondered if Keir had some idea about her and Marcus, so hostile had he become. But if he had, he would not have kept his suspicions to himself; he’d have confronted her, shouted at her, quite possibly attacked her physically. And confronted Marcus as well, threatened him with violence, refused to work for him for another hour. She had no idea what might become of her; she tried not to think about it too much, to live for the moment as much as she could. But in spite of the excitement and pleasure of her affair with Marcus, its soothing, healing effect, she knew what she really wanted was something much simpler, much more rewarding, much more important. She wanted to work, to do what she was best at in the world; and she wanted to be happily married. She had gone into her marriage deeply in love, desperate to prove herself a good wife and mother; it had taken a great deal of unkindness and neglect to shift her from that ambition. She had been dangerously in need of comfort and affection when Marcus had first directed his formidable charm at her; that might be an excuse, but it was also true.

She saw Keir’s eyes on her, thoughtful, brooding, and smiled at him; he didn’t smile back. He really was—

Celia caught her eye, frowned slightly. She had noticed her grand-daughter’s mind wandering; she didn’t like that. Elspeth shifted on her chair, gave her her full attention; and wondered again what this was about.

Celia had called the meeting – without even hinting as to the reason – and had especially requested Elspeth’s presence. Keir had made his usual heavy comment about the increasing number of meetings she was called to, but added that there was nothing he could do about it, since Celia had called it: and so she had gone. Marital disputes were hardly valid reasons for not attending meetings, least of all Celia’s.

It had all started quite well; Celia had arrived, looking particularly glamorous in a pale-blue suit and very high-heeled beige shoes. It was extraordinary, Elspeth thought, looking at her, how real beauty survived age. Her skin was lined, her dark hair was streaked with a great white wing going backwards from her brow, and she was very thin. But the dark eyes were still large and brilliant, the mouth perfectly curved, the cheekbones high and finely etched, the neck still long and elegant, in the pearl and diamond chokers she had made her signature; and she wore such wonderful clothes, always in the latest cut and hem-length and fabric, she always looked so truly stylish. Elspeth planned to be exactly like her when she was old.

Celia sat down at the head of the boardroom table, told Giles to move from where he was sitting at the other end, to the chair on her right – there was no reason for this that anyone could see, except to emphasise his wretched position – and then made Keir fetch some water for her, told Jay to stop talking to Venetia, and Venetia to stop giggling, and began.

The announcement came at once; and its effect was almost as powerful as the previous one, made only six years before. It seemed longer. Lightning could not only strike twice, Elspeth thought, it remained as dangerous.

‘I have decided,’ she said, ‘that the time has finally come for me to retire. And before any of you say or even think this is becoming tedious, I do assure you that this time I mean it. Don’t look at me like that, Venetia, please. Any questions?’

‘Well—’ Venetia, half amused, half stung by the maternal admonition, put down her coffee cup and looked at her mother levelly. ‘There’s only one and we all ask it. Why?’

‘It’s time,’ said Celia briefly.

‘You said that last time.’

‘I know. I was wrong. I misjudged it. This time I know. I shall leave Lyttons at once. After today, you will not be seeing me here. Unless you are kind enough to invite me to the occasional launch party, of course.’ They were silent now, absorbing her words. In fact, Elspeth thought, it was more definitive than last time. The announcement of her retirement that day was overshadowed by that of her remarriage; you could feel the impact of it now, it dented the atmosphere, no longer light-hearted, but solemn and formal.

‘Well – we’re very sorry,’ said Jay, and found to his astonishment that he was. It was one thing to wish her away, as he did every day of his life, quite another to find the wish granted, with such sudden and unseemly haste. ‘I should be saying all sorts of gracious things and in due course, no doubt, I will, but that’s all I can manage for now. From the bottom of my heart and indeed from all our hearts, I know. We shall miss you horribly.’

‘Oh, I dare say,’ she said, her smile rather brief, ‘and I shall certainly miss you. But – don’t worry,’ her eyes danced with sudden malice, ‘this time I won’t be back. You know what they say: quit while you’re ahead. I’ve always thought that a very sound philosophy.’

There’s something else, thought Elspeth, some other reason we don’t know yet. Perhaps it would emerge . . .

‘Of course it could be argued that we are not ahead. We’re still in thrall to the Americans, still forced to tug our forelocks to Mr Forrest. But we are doing well. As you know, that wretched business with the newspapers has had no effect on the sales of
Deer Mountain
, rather the reverse; I think we can breathe a sigh of relief on that one. Clementine’s new novel is being very well received, and I have just commissioned – my legacy to you – a biography of Lillie Langtry. Fascinating creature, she has everything from the publishing point of view, she was an actress, a king’s mistress, and one of the great beauties of her day. It will be published next autumn. General Dugdale is also very much better and getting back to work.’ Another pause; she looked very serious suddenly. ‘Now – to business.’

‘If that was the pleasure,’ said Keir, ‘I don’t know that I can cope with the business.’ He was looking more shaken than anyone; with good reason, thought Elspeth, he’s losing his champion. Do him good.

‘Oh nonsense. You’ll like the next bit. It’s about my editorial commitments. I want to hand them over to the right people. That is very important to me. I didn’t do that last time. Probably significant.’ A pause. God, she’s milking this for all it’s worth, Giles thought. Not missing a trick.

‘I would like Keir, working with Elspeth, of course, to be in charge of what I have always called young fiction, the books by new, unproven writers. Many of those have become very well proven, as you know; but it is absurd for a woman of my age, or even an age approaching it, to be editing writers as young as my grandchildren.’

This was a point very often made by both Jay and Giles to her face and by several other editors behind her back; the fact was that she edited all fiction, by both young and old with a flair and vitality that was breathtaking. A hard act to follow, thought Elspeth, a lump suddenly in her throat: but we’ll do our best for her, keep up her standards. She looked at Keir, smiled hopefully. He should be, he must be pleased, thrilled, even; but his face, meeting hers, was blank, his eyes stony. God, if he was going to fight this—

‘Biographica, on the other hand – ’ Celia paused here, and the expression on her face was oddly touching; Biographica, perhaps the greatest imprint in autobiography and biography in English publishing, was something that was absolutely her own, she had created it as a young woman, before the twins were born, and she loved it passionately and possessively, almost as if it were another child. It would not be handed over lightly. ‘ – I would like Jay to take Biographica on,’ she said finally, and the smile she gave him was very sweet suddenly. ‘If he felt able.’

That was good, Elspeth thought: very good. It would have been dreadful if she had not asked him; but she was more than capable of it, of dealing him the mortal blow.

And Jay, openly delighted, said that of course he felt able and that he would do his best to take care of it.

‘I know you will. And I know it will be in the best possible hands. Don’t let Marcus Forrest get his over-manicured ones on it.’

They were a bit over-manicured, Marcus’s hands, Elspeth thought, she had often noticed them, just a bit too neat-looking, the nails perfectly filed and buffed; it was very American that, rather like his over-pressed suits and always new-looking ties . . .

‘Celia!’ said Jay. ‘As if I would. I shall fight to the death to keep them in my own rather gnarled ones.’

Even Giles laughed; the tension suddenly eased. And then returned. Celia took a sip of water.

‘And now, my shares.’

An absolute silence fell over the room; everybody so still it was as if they were not actually there at all, as if a photograph had been taken, freezing the moment in time.

‘I have thought about this very hard,’ Celia said, her eyes resting thoughtfully on each of them in turn, ‘and it has not been an easy decision to make. Of course the shares are not very many in number; the days when Oliver and I, together with LM, owned Lyttons seem very far away. But times change. Within Lyttons London, they represent a degree of power. And although I am very aware that, in spite of what I said earlier, the company is going through a difficult time, that we are not our own masters, that we feel permanently unable to work with any degree of confidence, this is the wrong way to look at things. The Americans in general, and Mr Forrest in particular, may be making our lives difficult,’ – her eyes rested on Elspeth: does she know, thought Elspeth, she must – ‘but we have to remember one very important thing. They need us. They could not run Lyttons London without us.