Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (75 page)

And then through it came the sound of the phone ringing, on and on; and the peace was broken into with horrible abruptness and the happiness almost shattered.

Elspeth had gone to have lunch with Marcus Forrest; she had intended not to, to tell him finally that she didn’t want to see him any more. Or at any rate, not for several months. Her life was difficult and dangerous enough without his presence in it; certainly until she had decided what to do about her marriage. The marriage was very bad indeed now; apart from the continual quarrelling and hostility there was no physical contact between them at all any more, she could hardly remember when Keir had last kissed her, even. She got into bed each night and he would join her hours later, after saying he had work to do; and when he did get in beside her, he lay very carefully and deliberately on his side of the bed and didn’t even touch her except by mistake.

She was relieved in a way; you couldn’t want someone who was so hostile to you, who you felt you hated sometimes in return, you couldn’t want them to make love to you. It would be truly a violation, the very thought of it made her cold, closed up to him.

It was horrible; if it hadn’t been for Marcus, she would have thought she had become completely frigid. Only that wasn’t quite right either; sometimes, when she lay in the darkness against Keir’s cold, hostile back, she felt a surge of wanting him, so strong that it actually hurt physically, and she would think perhaps, if they could only meet there in bed, perhaps things could still be mended. She tried, occasionally, put her hand out, felt for him, felt for a response, kissed the hostile back even, pressed herself close, but it was hopeless, he never responded, never stirred; then she would turn away, and cry herself, very silently, to sleep. And wake up angrier and colder than ever.

Somehow, because she was so lonely and unhappy, when Marcus did arrive in London, when he phoned her to ask if she would like to have lunch, to say that he had missed her, that he couldn’t wait to see her, it was so literally heart-warming, to be wanted, to be found desirable, that she had not said no, it was out of the question, that the whole thing had to end; but had heard herself, instead, saying feebly that yes, that would be lovely, lunch anyway, and she had missed him too, and couldn’t wait to see him either. Maybe she could say something today.

Mrs Wilson was just putting the children into their coats and hats after lunch, ready for a trip to Battersea Park, when the phone rang. She was half tempted to ignore it, and probably would have done had Cecilia, who had developed a penchant for telephone conversation, not picked it up and said, ‘Hallo.’

‘Hallo, my darling. It’s Noni.’

‘Hallo, Noni. Come and see me.’

‘I can’t, darling. Is Mummy there?’

‘No. Only Wilson.’

This was her rather grandiose name for Mrs Wilson; the ‘Mrs’ had eluded her, while the rather easier name of Wilson had stuck. Nobody minded, certainly not Mrs Wilson, but Keir felt it smacked of snobbery.

‘Can I speak to Wilson?’ said Noni.

Mrs Wilson was rather nervous of the telephone; she had never used one before going to work for the Browns. She took it and shouted, ‘Hallo?’ into it.

‘Hallo, Mrs Wilson. It’s Noni here, Noni Lieberman. When will Mrs Brown be back?’

Mrs Wilson was even more in awe of Noni, with her exquisite clothes and her fame, than she was of Celia. She virtually curtseyed into the phone.

‘Tea time,’ she shouted.

‘Ah. Well, can you get her to ring me, please?’

‘Let me get a piece of paper.’

Mrs Wilson wrote down the message very slowly and carefully in capital letters.

‘And tell her I saw her at lunch time at the Ritz with the lovely Mr Forrest.’

‘Mr who?’

‘Mr Forrest. No need to write that down, Mrs Wilson, probably best not. Just tell her, all right? Thank you so much. ’Bye for now.’

Mrs Wilson wrote the second half of the message down anyway. It might be very important, a lot of Mrs Brown’s messages were. And anyway, she might forget to tell her.

Venetia was working on her autumn schedule for Marcus Forrest when Lord Arden phoned. She was surprised when her secretary announced him, he had never phoned her in the office before.

‘Hallo Bunny. How are you?’

‘I’m very well. But—’

Venetia listened, half her mind initially still on her budget; five minutes later, eyes huge in her white face, she walked into Giles’s office.

‘Whatever you’re doing,’ she said, ‘it can wait.’

She went into Keir’s office as well, told him and said where she was going.

‘And get hold of Elspeth, for God’s sake. She’ll want to be there.’

Keir phoned home; and was told that Elspeth was still not back.

‘Not back from where, Mrs Wilson? I thought she was working at home today.’

Mrs Wilson felt very pleased with herself; as she thought the second part of the message had proved important after all. ‘Oh, no, Mr Brown. She’s having lunch. At the Ritz. With Mr – excuse me just a moment, Mr Brown, while I look – oh, yes. With Mr Forrest.’

‘So you see, Marcus, I really really think perhaps this ought to end, it’s been perfectly lovely, I’ve adored every minute of it, but – well, my life is so difficult and Keir is so impossible and—’

‘My darling Elspeth, I thought that was the whole point. I thought that was how I had managed to persuade you to – well, to yield to me.’

She giggled; one of the things she most loved about Marcus was his absurd turns of phrase. She decided she would just enjoy the day and discuss it all further next time.

‘You do a lot for my insomnia, you know,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘I fall sweetly asleep every night, counting your various assets. Modesty forbids my telling you quite what I count, here in this public place, but it is a most formidable list, I do assure you. Now then, eat up? Or are you feeling nervous?’

She laughed and said she wasn’t; somehow being with him made her feel so much better about everything. She was in the middle of telling him exactly that, toying with the stem of her wine glass as she did so, when she looked up and saw Keir standing in front of the table.

Expecting abuse, she received none; braced for rage, she saw none; ready for violence, she felt none. Only Keir’s face, harrowed with pain, only his voice, heavy with grief: as he told her that Celia had been in surgery all morning to remove part of her right lung, riddled as it was with cancer, that the cancer had been far more extensive than the surgeon had expected, that she was still unconscious and although she had forbidden Lord Arden to tell anybody, he had acted on the surgeon’s advice to notify her family without delay.

CHAPTER 40

Charlie insisted on going with her; Jenna was grateful, really, although she kept telling him that she’d be all right, that she’d have Izzie to look after her, but he insisted; having witnessed her last panic attack, he said, he was afraid of it happening again.

‘I won’t be a nuisance once we’re there, I promise,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep out of the way, unless you need me.’

‘Of course you won’t be a nuisance. And – it would be nice,’ she said with a feeble smile.

She was very shaken; she might not have known Celia very well, but as far as she was concerned, she was almost her mother’s mother, almost her own grandmother, one of the people in whom her own rather sparse personal history was rooted.

And Celia had been very important to her. She had been the only English Lytton at her mother’s wedding to Charlie, a wonderful comfort and strength when her mother had died, an example of courage ever since. She loved the way Celia’s personal history was woven into Lyttons, working there, fighting for it, caretaking it during two world wars; it was just as much her creation and achievement as her family. And now it seemed she was going to leave them: leave her family, leave Lyttons, leave everyone who loved her.

‘Why didn’t she tell us she was ill?’ she said to Izzie, clinging to her hand as well as to Charlie’s, her teeth chattering as the plane rose into the air, seeking to distract herself from the hot panic, the cold nausea.

‘She wouldn’t,’ said Izzie, ‘she’d hate to have to tell us, she was never ill, she disapproved of it, she thought it was feeble. She wouldn’t even let anyone be tired.’

‘My mother was like that,’ said Jenna. ‘How strange. When they weren’t even properly related.’ She released Charlie’s hand, but continued to hold Izzie’s, took a deep breath. ‘I feel a bit better now. Now we’re up here. What were we saying? Oh yes, I guess some of all that just rubbed off on my mother. God, it’s like a bad dream, all happening again.’

‘I know, Jenna,’ said Izzie, ‘I know. I’m so sorry.’

‘I just hope we get there in time. In time to tell her goodbye. I’ll never get over not saying goodbye to my mother.’

Izzie looked at her helplessly.

‘I’m sure we will,’ was all she could say.

Nick and Mike had both come to see them off; Nick had offered to come too, but Izzie felt it was best he wasn’t there, that in a way she would rather deal with it on her own, and help her father through what would be quite dreadful grief.

‘OK. If you say so. I’d have rather liked to bid her farewell.’

‘I’ll do it for you.’

‘It’s so sad. She was the greatest lady I ever met.’

‘She was the only lady you ever met,’ said Mike.

‘That’s not very nice. Don’t insult my girlfriend,’ said Nick. ‘Goodbye, Princess. I love you. Call me if you can. And keep looking up at the stars.’

She was crying so hard when she said goodbye to him that she could hardly see his long, lugubrious face through her tears. But she had to pull herself together for Jenna. Poor, poor little Jenna.

Venetia and Adele sat side by side in the waiting room; they were holding hands, little girls again in this great crisis of their adult life, communicating in their truncated language. ‘Do you—?’

‘Didn’t think—’

‘Should we—’

‘Let’s ask—’

‘He mightn’t—’

‘But you never know—’

On and on it went, irritating Giles almost beyond endurance. How could they not have guessed, he wondered, how, when it had been the first thing they had all thought of the first time, the first time she had announced her retirement? Especially as they all knew she had been ill. But somehow – it seemed too obvious, too likely. Or maybe they had assumed she would have told them this time; would wish to avoid any misunderstandings, another set of mistaken rumours.

They should have known better, should have read her more clearly. But she had always been so very hard to read.

Kit and Clementine had arrived; Kit sat motionless, holding Clementine’s hand, only releasing it when she hurried from the room white-faced, and returned a little later, looking better. Nobody knew why, until she confided in Venetia that she was pregnant. Venetia smiled with pleasure.

‘We must tell Mummy. She’ll be so pleased.’

And then became silent as she realised they might never tell her mother anything ever again.

Sebastian sat in a corner of the room, silent, quite motionless, hunched over a book; every time the door opened he looked up, an agony of fear in his eyes, and every time it wasn’t a doctor or a nurse, he returned to the book. He had not said anything at all, except to greet Kit and Clementine when they arrived. Adele, looking at him, wondered how he was going to bear it.

Lord Arden was also there; pale, but quite calm, greeting people courteously as they arrived, rather as if they were coming to dinner.

She can’t die, she can’t, she can’t, Elspeth kept thinking: over and over again, like a mantra, feeling somehow, absurdly, that as long as she kept it up, Celia would remain with them, where she was needed, where she was loved. The prospect of life without her was so unlikely, it was not really a prospect at all, it was a bad dream, a ghostly fear, a dreadful unreality.

She was sitting next to Keir, holding his hand, clinging to it, as she had been, ever since he had told her, standing there in the absurd over-gilded dining room of the Ritz, apparently unsurprised to see her sharing a table (and clearly quite a lot more) with Marcus Forrest. Suddenly, in that moment, the misery and misunderstanding and anger of the past few months were wiped out in a great sweep of grief and shock and fear; retribution, she knew, would come, must come, but for now, the situation was too urgent, too extreme to allow for anything else.

They went together to the hospital. It seemed quite late; but she was not aware of being either tired or hungry, simply lost in a white-out of emotion which she supposed was fear. Every so often she would catch her mother’s eye and they would smile at one another, but they had not spoken, apart from when she arrived; no one was saying anything, the silence as absolute as the fear.

None of her brothers and sisters were there; it was agreed there might be too many, that they would all drive one another mad.

Boy was to meet Izzie and Jenna at the airport; they would arrive late that night. She has to live till then at least, Elspeth thought; she has to, they have to be able to say goodbye to her.

And then it happened; the door opened, and Mr Cadogan, the surgeon, came in, no longer in his gown. Nobody moved, nobody spoke; only Sebastian rose, very slowly, his face haggard.

‘Well,’ Cadogan said, and unbelievably, almost shockingly, he smiled. ‘Good news. At least – better news. She has regained consciousness, in fact, she’s quite alert. Asking to see people, even . . .’

He seemed surprised; her weary and traumatised family were less so. Celia could confound most predictions, get the better of most things. Including, at the moment it seemed, death.

‘And – can we?’ asked Venetia tremulously. ‘See her, I mean?’

‘Very, very briefly. And only immediate family. Of course, with an operation like this, there are no guarantees, and – ’ he sighed portentously, lest they might not take his news entirely seriously ‘ – and of course the fact remains that she does have lung cancer. We have not been able to remove all the tumours, and she is extremely frail. However, for the time being, she appears to be out of danger. Lord Arden, if you would like to follow me—’

Lord Arden looked round at them all apologetically; Adele gave him a gentle push. ‘Go on, Bunny. Give her our love.’

Sebastian spoke for them all; heaving first a tumultuous sigh, then breaking into his sudden, radiant grin.

‘Old she-devil,’ he said.

The twins were allowed in, just for a moment, and then Giles and Kit. Celia was surprisingly alert, demanding to see everyone else. The nurse said she had had quite enough for one day: ‘Tomorrow, perhaps.’

They were told to go home, after their brief visits.

‘You all live nearby,’ the surgeon said, ‘we can contact you at once if there is – well, if there is any need.’

Gratefully, with a slight sense of anti-climax, they went.

Only Lord Arden and Sebastian said they would stay, refused to be dismissed; Elspeth, leaving the room reluctantly, for she had not been allowed to see her grandmother, looked at the two of them and thought how extraordinary it was that they could be there, keeping vigil together, without hostility, without jealousy even, simply and determinedly stating the same desire: not to leave Celia, under any circumstances, not to risk her dying alone, but to be with her until their respective duties as her husband and her lover were properly and finally done.

It had been decided that Izzie, Jenna and Charlie would stay at Berkeley Square. Izzie should not be alone in her father’s house, and Jenna didn’t want to be parted from her.

‘There’s plenty of room, and we’ll all be together,’ said Venetia. ‘Then if – well, if we have to go suddenly to Wimpole Street, it will only take minutes. Adele is coming too, aren’t you darling?’

Adele nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘Now I’ve got something for you, Jenna.’

‘For me?’ She appeared half asleep, exhausted by the long flight, by fear and sadness; holding Charlie’s hand, as they sat in the Warwicks’ vast drawing room, Charlie drinking whisky, Jenna and Izzie – rather surprisingly – hot chocolate.

‘I know you don’t think you want it, Jenna,’ said Venetia, when the housekeeper brought it in, ‘but it’s the most comforting thing in the world, and it’ll do you both good. Just try.’

‘You’d better,’ said Izzie. ‘She always used to make me drink it, got really cross if I didn’t.’

Jenna sipped it, not wanting it at all, wanting to be at the hospital, then found the sweet richness surprisingly comforting.

‘Are you quite sure we shouldn’t be there?’

‘Quite, quite sure. I just phoned. She’s a little better, she’s sleeping. She could go on like this for days. Sebastian is there, of course, and Lord Arden, but we were just getting in the way in the end.’

‘Does Father know I’m here?’ said Izzie.

‘Of course he does. Now, Jenna, this is it, what Mummy wanted you to have. Apparently it was the last thing she said to Lord Arden as they were leaving for the hospital. Just in case anything’ – her voice shook – ‘happened to her. She said it was very important. He remembered while we were there, said he’d have it sent over.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s your mother’s jewellery box. She – well, she left it behind, when – oh, darling, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. Come here, darling, darling Jenna, there, it’s all right, cry as much as you like, how stupid of me, I should have thought—’

She was distraught herself, most unusually so. Venetia, who was always so calm and in control, always saying and doing the right thing.

Jenna managed to stop crying and even to smile at her. ‘It’s all right, I do want it, of course I do, it’s lovely to have it. It was just – just a bit of a shock. I’ll – I’ll look at it by myself, if that’s all right. Up in my room.’

‘Of course it is. Charlie, more whisky?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Charlie.

Sebastian looked at Lord Arden; and spoke for the first time for hours.

‘I hope this is – all right,’ he said. ‘My being here.’

Lord Arden had been dozing, propped against the wall; he squinted across at Sebastian, shifted himself upright. Centuries of self-control and English breeding spoke.

‘Of course it is,’ he said, ‘of course. My dear chap, how could I possibly object?’

‘Quite easily,’ said Sebastian, managing a smile, ‘I would have thought.’

‘Good Lord, no,’ said Lord Arden. He smiled back and they continued to sit there, two old men in love, oddly at peace with one another.

An hour later, Charlie was just settling into bed when there was a knock at the door.

‘Come in.’

‘It’s me.’ Jenna’s face was apologetically anxious. ‘It’s this box, Charlie, I can’t open it. And I really want to.’

‘Here, give it to me.’

He took it; pushed at the lid. It was locked. Firmly. Surprisingly firmly for such a small box.

‘No key?’

She shook her head.

‘You got a hairpin?’

‘A hairpin! Charlie, you are funny. Why would I have a hairpin? And what do you want it for?’

‘You’re a female, aren’t you? What about Izzie? She’s got long hair.’

Izzie did have a hairpin; she had a fistful and was just, in fact, pinning her long mane of hair up, about to have a bath.

Jenna took one to Charlie.

‘OK. Here we go.’ There was a minute or so’s silence; then the lock clicked and he eased the lid up gently.

‘Charlie, wherever did you learn to do that?’ Jenna’s voice was awed.

‘Let’s just say it was one of the more useful things I learned at my school.’

‘Your school!’

‘Well – yes. Anyway, sweetheart, there you are. All right?’

‘Yes, thank you. I’ll – I’ll open it on my own, if you don’t mind.’

‘Of course I don’t mind.’

Lord Arden and Sebastian were both half asleep again when a nurse came in.

‘Lord Arden!’ She spoke to him; he was, after all, the husband. What the other man was doing there she had no idea. ‘It’s your wife. She’s asking for you.’

‘Me! You sure it’s me?’

It seemed to her an extraordinary question. ‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Quite sure.’

‘How is she?’

‘She’s doing as well as can be expected.’

He followed her; Celia had woken from quite a long sleep. She was very drowsy with the morphine, as well as the other drugs she had been given; but she managed to smile.

‘Bunny, hallo.’ She took his hand.

‘Hallo, my dear. Feeling all right?’

‘Oh yes. Fine.’ Even in her confusion, she managed to smile at the absurdity of the question.

‘They say you’re doing pretty well.’