Rutherford Park (16 page)

As if he had read his mind, his father said, “Charles was born in Paris a year before your mother and I were married.”

“In Paris,” Harry had repeated. He’d clenched his fists at his side. “And you were not…” He struggled to find the words. “Not married…”

“There was never any question of that,” William said.

“Why not?”

“Because she was poor,” Octavia said bitterly.

Harry rounded on her in astonishment.

“That is incorrect,” William said. “Helene was not the type of person…I was not sure…”

“Of what?” Harry demanded.

An expression of awkward distaste crossed William’s face. “Madame de Montfort had many acquaintances.”

To Harry’s horror, his mother began to laugh. In the circumstances, it was an awful sound. He saw that, at last, his father had begun to blush—if blush it was—the dull red tide flooding his face. Anger. Embarrassment. It was hard to say which.

“Oh, yes, a great many
acquaintances
,” Octavia said. “Despite wanting to be called Madame, she was always very keen to impress her popularity upon us, if I remember. Or to impress it upon me.” Octavia shuddered. “Madame de Montfort, who was no
Madame
at all, and how very scandalous she was as a result. How very fascinating that made her! There was so much talk. No one ever knew if it was true….”

“I doubt that it was,” William said.

Octavia turned a ferocious, scathing gaze on her husband. “And you know that for a fact, I suppose?” she asked. “That she was perfectly well behaved? In the face of all talk to the contrary?”

“That is all it was. Talk, hers and others.”

“You defend her, even now,” Octavia hissed softly. She bit down hard on her lip. William said nothing at all. Octavia looked back at Harry. “She had a patron,” she told her son. “That much I know. That much I was
told
,” she said, glancing at William. “This
hearsay
maintained that she had a patron with a house in Bergerac. An estate there. She had taken herself off and we heard nothing of her, and then when she reemerged it was said that this man had committed suicide.”

Harry looked back at his father. “What for?” he demanded.

“I really can’t say.”

“He discovered that she had a son,” Octavia said. She had begun to cry again, soundlessly.

“My God.” Harry breathed out. “When was this?”

“In 1893, or 1894,” Octavia said.

“And you heard this then? What, from others?”

“I heard the gossip. I heard the rumor she had a child. But I never thought that…” She left the sentence hanging; then, straightening her shoulders: “She had never mentioned a child to me.”

Harry got up from his mother’s side, walked halfway across the room, and turned to William. “She had your son; she kept it secret, hoping to…what? Marry this other man? He found out, and…”

“It is hearsay. I have no idea what happened.”

“But why didn’t you marry the woman?”

“This is not your business.”

“I should jolly well say it is,” Harry expostulated. “I should jolly well like to know why you wouldn’t acknowledge a son. I should say that was of some profound interest to me.”

“It was not discussed.”

“A bastard! Not discussed!”

William’s face froze. “I’ll remind you that your mother is present before you use such language.”

Harry laughed out loud in surprise. Then he took a breath. “Do excuse me,” he answered with excruciating emphasis.

William was glaring at him. “It was not…such an outrage—if you like, if that is what you would imply—in Paris. Such were the times. Such was the society. And Helene did not want to live here. She wouldn’t have me. I was never entirely sure…not entirely sure that the boy was mine. But she told me that he was.”

“You asked her to marry you?”

“It was never the case that she would accept me. It was not the life she wanted.”

“But you…” The blood was beating in Harry’s temple. “So, for one reason or another, you came home. And married Mother and never told her.” He looked between the two of them. “That is a disgrace.”

“Harry,” Octavia murmured. “You are judging something that you know nothing about.”

He looked at her, hearing the grief in her voice. “What does one need to know,” he asked, “other than that?” He turned away, saying—almost to himself—“She’s been here a lot. I remember her even when I was little. She…she played boules with me out there once, on the lawn at Rutherford; she taught me…and I showed her cricket, when I was beginning to play cricket….” His voice trailed away. His father’s mistress had been coming to the house for years, watching him. When she had a son of her own hidden away. His father’s son. His half brother.

He looked at William. “You kept this secret,” he said. “All these bloody years.”

William stiffened. “I don’t intend—”

“But she came to our house!” Harry exclaimed. “Came here, and to Rutherford. She sat and ate our food and lorded it over the bloody servants…”

“Be quiet,” William said.

“Be quiet!” Harry repeated. “Is that what a gentleman does? Be quiet about it?”

“I should think you have little room to maneuver on the subject of being a gentleman,” William retorted.

“What?” Harry said. “What?”

“Harry,” Octavia warned.

“I mean, I beg your pardon, sir?” Harry shouted. “I am at fault in some way?”

“You have behaved…” And William, at last, seemed to grasp
the folly of his argument, which was about to be based on his son’s profligate spending. He literally backed away as Harry strode forward.

“Are you to lecture me, sir?” Harry demanded. “Perhaps on women of a certain kind? Spending one’s money on them? Following the horses? What? Do tell me, sir.”

“Please,” Octavia said, unheard.

Harry’s face was livid. “And this…son…came here last night to say what?” he continued in a dangerous monotone. “To do what? To ask what?”

“He won’t come here again,” William said.

And, almost in the same second: “He came to ask for money,” Octavia replied. “For what he believes is his inheritance. And your father has refused him.”

“What else would you have me do?” William said.

Octavia looked at her husband levelly. “What did he mean by what he said to you as he left?”

“What was it?” Harry asked. “What did he say?”

His mother glanced at him. “He said that he would make your father understand what it was to be ruined.”

William gave a derisive snort. “The boy has inherited his mother’s dramatic gifts,” he said. “He is not ruined, and neither is she. There are plenty of those willing to support her.”

Neither Harry nor Octavia replied to him. Octavia dropped her gaze, and, when he saw her distress, William’s stiff-backed dignity briefly deserted him. He leaned towards Octavia, put out his hand. “My dearest…”

She shied away from him, and looked up again at Harry. “Helene came to Rutherford at Christmas to demand money for Charles. Your father refused her. And so she sent her son…their son…to see
me
.”

William’s hand dropped to his side. Harry walked up to his father until he was barely an inch or two from him. “You subjected my mother to this humiliation,” he said.

“It was never my intention.”

It was as if Harry had not heard him at all. “You subjected my mother to this humiliation,” he repeated. “On top of your deceit.” And he had turned back to the sofa, and taken his mother’s hand.

* * *

I
t was at this remembered moment, at the very moment when he saw himself again walking out of the room and out of the house all those weeks ago, that Harry noticed a cab stop on the intersection of the Strand with the Square. A man got out and paid the fare, and shielded his eyes against the sun.

He was wearing a top hat, all right. The last man in London to wear a top hat in daylight, by Harry’s reckoning. Harry watched him objectively until William’s gaze lighted on him and the older man raised his hand.

He waited while his father walked over. In the time it took for William to reach him, Harry had the chance to consider that there was something different in William’s walk, his bearing, some hesitancy. Perhaps he was nervous, Harry thought with satisfaction.

William drew level with him. He held out his hand, and, after a moment, Harry reluctantly took it. If William had an opinion on Harry’s clothing, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he gave a small, polite smile. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Not remotely.”

“Shall we go to Brown’s?”

“I don’t care,” Harry said.

William eyed him almost with distrust. Then he gave a slight
wave of his hand towards Brown’s and, after a long moment, Harry followed him.

* * *

T
hat afternoon in Rutherford, Octavia was thinking of the very same evening in February that Harry had been remembering.

She was alone in her bedroom, and had been asleep, and had woken up to see the long voile curtains billowing gently in the breeze from her open window. Octavia had lain there while a dream rapidly escaped her: something concerning the Ponting exhibition of the year before—of standing before the photographs of Scott’s exploration in a gallery where the national grief was tangible. The Antarctic landscapes had made an impression on her of such bleakness and extraordinary beauty; they were scenes that needed no titles. She sat up, conscious of the coldness in the dream, and its loneliness, and she put her hands to her eyes.

She swung her legs out of bed and went to the window and let the sun stream in on her face. She was aware of the significance of the dream; she was aware of this cold great gulf that had opened up in her life. She sighed, and thought that she must pull herself together. Wasn’t that what her father might have said? “You must pull yourself together, Octavia.” For a second, his grip was on her arm and his cigar breath streaming over her face. “What the devil are you crying for? You must shape yourself. Stand straight.” My God, her father. Of all the memories that she wanted in her life at that precise moment, he was the last—he, and his selfish admonishments ringing in her ears.

And yet she knew that she must try to rouse herself out of her lethargy; she was succumbing to it all too readily. Depression was
in danger of drowning her, and she must resist it. She kept going back, over and over again, through the scene in the house with William and Harry after Charles de Montfort had left. And she kept returning to her conversation with Hetty de Ray some forty-eight hours later.

Hetty had not railed against William; she had not even seemed surprised. She had sat listening calmly as Octavia had stuttered out the truth.

“You must understand something of what I’m feeling,” Octavia had murmured.

“You mean my own dear husband’s Italian menagerie?” Hetty had responded. “Ah, well, my dear, of course it is maddening. But what is one to do?”

Octavia had bitten her lip in an effort not to cry. “But William,” she had whispered. “Of all people.”

Hetty had smiled sadly. “You mean that he is so respectable?” she had said. “Darling, they are quite the worst.”

“And with such a woman!”

“Well,” Hetty had replied equably, “what other sort of woman would it be, after all?” She had shrugged disdainfully. “You ought to really thank God it is someone like that. Imagine if it were some pretty little thing of a good family who was desperately in love with him. How much
worse
would that be!” She had nodded sagely. “It’s much better that Helene is already disgraceful.”

Octavia had shaken her head. “I can’t be sanguine about it, like you. I don’t find it funny.”

“You’re quite mistaken if you think I do,” Hetty had told her.

The traffic had streamed past Hetty’s drawing room window; and at that second Octavia had felt a sudden and violent rush of loathing for the city. She had felt claustrophobic, as if at any moment she might leap up and run from the room. Hetty must have seen
something in her expression, for the older woman had got up and crossed to the sofa where Octavia was, sat down next to her, and held her hand.

“The worst of it is, I feel that everyone must know,” Octavia whispered. “All of society. When I go out with Louisa, I sense everyone’s eyes on me. Perhaps they’ve always known. Perhaps it’s been common knowledge, and I’ve been an utter fool.”

Hetty had shushed Octavia into silence. “You must put such ideas out of your head at once,” she had retorted. “My dear, I pride myself on gleaning as much gossip as possible out of our dreary days, and I have to tell you that I’ve never heard a word about William and Helene de Montfort.”

“It might have been going on for years,” Octavia had replied. “I simply don’t know. I can’t bear to ask William.” She had raised her eyes to Hetty’s. “In fact, I can’t bear to speak to him, or even to be in the same room.”

Hetty had nodded. “Of course you can’t.”

“And he’s going to Paris almost immediately.”

“What on earth for?”

“Some visit to the embassy.”

“And to see this woman?”

Octavia had nodded. “I suspect so.” She sighed. “I can’t stand the Season anymore,” she had murmured. “I want to scream at it all. I’ve little patience with Louisa; I shall spoil it for her, I’m sure.”

The two women had sat in silence for a while. Then Hetty had rung for tea to be served, and the silence continued all the while it was brought. When the parlor maid had at last vanished and left them alone, Hetty had turned to Octavia. “If you can’t bear it here, go to Rutherford,” she had said.

Octavia had looked at her, surprised. “Leave London?”

“I rather think you should,” Hetty had said decisively. “Dearest,
you look like a perfect wet weekend. People haven’t talked about you yet, but they surely will if you persist in drooping about. Leave Louisa here with Florence and me. Go home and recover. Don’t wait about here for William to return; let him find you.” She had leaned forward and smiled conspiratorially. “And make sure that you exact a very heavy price for his indiscretion. A month in Monte Carlo at least, and a rather important piece of jewelry.”

Remembering now, Octavia smiled to herself. Of course, Hetty knew that it was all so much more serious than an indiscretion. But if she was anything, Hetty was the flagship for fortitude. “You must be dignified,” had been her parting wisdom. “Rise above it.”