The Girls in Blue (23 page)

‘But it’s got to be lies. I’m a Beddoes through and through. I even look like the old man.’ He stared into the mirror above the mantelpiece, frowning.

‘Of course you do.’ Miranda hoped she sounded more convincing than she was feeling. It was quite possible for Jack’s dark hair and eyes to be a throw-back to a distant ancestor, even though the rest of the family were on the auburn side of fair. ‘Please go and find Izzie. She must be feeling dreadful. It’s been a ghastly evening and the poor girl has had a terrible time.’

‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘Yes, I will. We’ll get over this, Miranda. Unfortunately I have to be back at the aerodrome tonight, but Mother should have warned me about this, or at least have cut Ivy off her Christmas card list. I can’t think why she panders to that woman.’

‘Neither do I, but you need to calm down before you talk it over with Granny. If you start shouting at her you’ll only make things worse.’

‘You’re right, of course. I’ll take Izzie home and hope that she doesn’t finish with me after this debacle.’

‘I’m sure she won’t. Anyway, I’ve got to head off for East Anglia tomorrow, so it might be some time before I see you again. Goodbye, Jack, and good luck.’

He bent down and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Take care of yourself, Miranda.’

Overcome with exhaustion, she sank down on the sofa. She heard the door close softly and she was alone, but the atmosphere was still charged with emotion. The evening had been a total disaster and
she
realised sadly that nothing would ever be quite the same again.

It was some time before she could summon up the energy to go upstairs to her room. As she mounted the stairs she could see a sliver of light beneath the door to her grandfather’s study and she was tempted to run to him as she had done when she was in trouble as a child, but this problem was bigger than anything she had encountered in the past, and she wondered how much or how little he knew. She could only hope that he had never heard the spiteful gossip. She could not imagine a world where her grandparents were anything but the solid rock to which the family still clung.

It came to her in the early hours of the morning. The one way to discover the truth would be to ask Annie, who had worked at Highcliffe since she left school. She went back to sleep determined to get up early and be downstairs when Annie arrived to begin preparations for breakfast.

She found her next morning collecting eggs from the hen house. Annie glanced up from her task. ‘You’re up early.’

‘I wanted to speak to you in private.’

‘If it’s about Elzevir I’ve already given him a good telling off. He won’t do anything like that ever again.’

‘I’m sure he’ll have listened to you, but that’s not what I wanted to ask you.’

Annie straightened up, gazing at the eggs in her basket. ‘The hens don’t lay much this time of year. I’ll be glad when spring comes. What was it you wanted to know?’

Miranda took a deep breath. ‘There was a bit of a scene last night, not the one where the chaps got drunk, but after that. Ivy had had quite a lot to drink and she told Jack that …’ She hesitated, searching for the right words.

‘So it’s come out at last.’ Annie started back towards the house. ‘I can guess what she said.’

‘About Granny and Max Carstairs?’

‘She should have told you all long ago. These things have a habit of popping up when you’re least expecting them to.’

‘Annie, I’ve got to leave after breakfast. I haven’t got much time to find out the whys and wherefores. Tell me, did Granny really have an affair with Mr Carstairs, or is it just spiteful gossip?’

‘Of course she did. Who wouldn’t in the circumstances? It would have taken a saint to refuse him when he was younger. He was better looking than all those Hollywood film stars and twice as charming. They first met when he studied medicine with your grandfather in London, and he turned up again in Kenya. Then he arrives on the doorstep here: she was lonely and he was single. That’s about it.’

Miranda did not know whether to be shocked or amused by Annie’s matter-of-fact attitude to an
affair
that might still wreck the family. ‘And was he Jack’s father?’

Annie shrugged her shoulders. ‘Who knows? I certainly don’t, and I doubt if your gran does either. The major came home just in time if you ask me. It would never have worked with Max and your gran. They were too much alike; both of them had a wild streak, but your gran needed someone solid and dependable like the major. I don’t see as how it matters now after all these years.’

‘Jack brought Isabel Carstairs with him last night. He announced their engagement, and then he overheard Ivy telling me about the affair, and so did Izzie. It’s all a terrible mess, Annie. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Nothing is the answer, my girl. Tell Ivy to keep her mouth shut and leave it to Jack to work things out for himself. That’s my advice.’

‘Ivy probably won’t remember a thing about last night anyway.’

‘How about a couple of boiled eggs for breakfast? I’m not wasting them on that troublemaker Ivy Kirk. She’s got more skeletons in her cupboard than anyone in the town.’ She stomped off towards the house, almost bumping into Maggie as she came flying round the corner.

‘Did the gypsies get my hens? Or was it the fox?’

Annie gave her a pitying look. ‘Nothing’s happened to your precious chickens.’ She held the basket under Maggie’s nose. ‘No gyppos, no foxes. See.’

‘Thank goodness for that.’ Maggie held her hand out to Miranda. ‘Come and have some breakfast, darling. It’s such a shame you have to leave today.’

‘Coming, Granny.’ Miranda went in to breakfast feeling much more hopeful.

Her grandmother’s cheerful mood made everything that had happened the night before seem like a bad dream. It had been a shock to realise that Granny and Max had been lovers, but perhaps the rest was just Ivy being spiteful, and hopefully Jack would have managed to convince Izzie that it was small town tittle-tattle. Miranda finished her boiled eggs and soldiers. ‘That was lovely, thank you, Annie.’

‘I’ve packed some Marmite sandwiches for you.’ Annie cast a sideways glance at Maggie. ‘We’re out of cheese until Farmer Drake is in a generous mood or needs some embrocation.’

Maggie frowned. ‘I’m not stupid. I know what was going on last night. I could hear them as we came out of the air raid shelter.’

‘It was something and nothing, Granny,’ Miranda said hastily. ‘We put a stop to it.’

‘And thank God you did. If Judge Walters had caught a whiff of that beastly stuff he’d have had no choice but to report your grandfather to the police. I’ve told George that it has to stop. He’s to dismantle the still and forget about making benzene, or he’ll end up in prison.’ She paused, listening. ‘There’s someone at the front door. I can’t think who
it
would be at this time of the morning. Go and see who it is, Miranda. I’m going to take a cup of tea up to your grandfather. If it’s gypsies selling pegs or lucky heather, tell them to go away.’

Chapter Thirteen

MIRANDA OPENED THE
front door and stood transfixed, staring at Raif with a mixture of shock and disbelief.

He took off his peaked cap and tucked it under his arm. ‘May I come in?’

He did not look angry, but his impassive expression made it impossible to gauge his mood. ‘If you’ve come to make trouble, then I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘I haven’t come to make trouble as you put it, but I would like to speak to your grandparents.’

‘No. I’m sorry, but I won’t let you upset them. This has nothing to do with you.’

‘It has everything to do with me. My sister is in a terrible state, and I want to know why. She won’t tell me anything, but I know it has something to do with Jack. She let it slip that they’d been here last night.’

‘I think you ought to speak to Izzie again, or have it out with Jack. It’s got nothing to do with Granny and Grandpa.’ She was about to close the door but he put his foot over the sill.

‘I’m not the enemy, Miranda. Believe me, I’m sick and tired of the family feud, but when it affects my sister then I have to act. It’s no good asking Jack.
He’ll
just give me a load of bull; he’s good at that.’

Miranda could hear her grandmother’s footsteps approaching from the direction of the kitchen and she stepped outside, closing the door behind her. ‘I’ll tell you anything you want to know.’ She led him to the shrubbery where they could not be seen from the house. ‘What did Izzie say exactly?’

‘She was in floods of tears last night when I came home, but she refused to tell me what went on here. I was hoping for some answers.’

‘Izzie and Jack are in love. Can’t you understand that?’

He met her angry gaze with a steady look. ‘I’m not as unfeeling as you think.’

‘But you hate Jack.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t hate him, but I don’t think he’s right for Izzie. Do you?’

‘I think they make each other happy. Isn’t that enough?’

‘There’s something you’re not telling me, and I’m not leaving until I know exactly what happened last night.’

Miranda shivered, wishing that she had thought to put her greatcoat on over her uniform as sleety rain began to fall from a pewter-coloured sky. ‘Come round to the veranda. We can talk there without getting soaked.’

‘Lead the way.’ He followed her to the relative shelter of the veranda.

She wrapped her arms around her body in an
attempt
to keep warm. ‘I suppose you know that my father died in action,’ she said, raising her voice to make herself heard over the crashing of the waves and the wind soughing in the pine trees at the side of the house.

‘No. I didn’t, and I’m truly sorry.’

‘My grandmother took it badly. She decided to hold a sort of wake in his memory. I didn’t think it was a particularly good idea, but it wasn’t up to me to tell her so.’

‘I don’t quite understand what this has to do with my sister.’

‘Granny must have told Jack about the party and he decided to bring Izzie and announce their engagement.’ She could see that this shocked him and she laid her hand on his sleeve. ‘Didn’t she tell you?’

‘No.’ His lips twisted into a wry smile. ‘Izzie doesn’t tell me anything these days.’

‘Granny was pretty horrible to her, but Jack wouldn’t let it go, and then there was an air raid, and to cut a long story short, at the end of the evening Izzie overhead something that upset her.’

‘Which had to do with Jack?’

‘It’s just spiteful gossip.’

‘Go on, please.’

‘It seems that years ago my grandmother and your father had an affair, and it’s just possible that Jack is your half-brother. I’m sorry, I can’t dress it up.’

He was silent for a moment, staring at the roiling
waves
crested with white horses, and then he turned his head slowly to meet her anxious gaze. ‘Who told you this?’

‘That’s not important, but first thing this morning I asked Annie if it was true. She’s worked for my family for more than forty years, and there’s almost nothing that escapes her. Anyway, she admitted that my granny and your dad had a thing going while Grandpa was serving abroad. I’m sorry, Raif.’

He took her in his arms, holding her in a passionless gesture of mutual comfort. ‘I am too, Miranda. I was rotten to you, and I apologise unreservedly. We’re all victims in this, but it’s how we deal with it that really matters.’

‘You’re not angry?’ She drew away, gazing into his eyes.

‘I don’t know what I feel. If my father and your grandmother had an affair it must have been quite a long time before he met Mother, although that doesn’t excuse his behaviour. I always knew that he was a ladies’ man, but I didn’t think he’d go so far as to seduce the wife of a former colleague.’

‘You knew that Grandpa and your father studied medicine at the same hospital?’

‘Yes, he made no secret of that. He let us think that George Beddoes had somehow cheated when they both applied for the same job, although he was never specific. I realised that it must have been something pretty serious, but it never occurred to me that my father was the wrongdoer.’

‘Izzie must be in a dreadful state.’

‘That’s putting it mildly, but I suppose she’ll get over it in time.’

‘That sounds very heartless.’

‘I’m just being practical. Izzie hasn’t had many boyfriends, and Jack is quite a few years her senior. I can’t help hoping that this will finish it; in fact I’m going to have a word with Jack and tell him just that.’

‘He’s devastated, Raif. He really loves Izzie.’

‘Then I’m sorry for him, but if there’s the slightest reason to suppose that we’re related he’s got to end it with my sister.’

‘There are blood tests,’ Miranda said hopefully. ‘They could prove who isn’t the father.’

‘To do that might destroy two marriages, Miranda. My parents have been together for more than twenty-five years and your grandparents have been married for much longer. Would Jack be prepared to go that far?

‘I don’t know.’ Miranda looked away. ‘I just don’t know.’

He dropped his hand to his side. ‘Neither do I, and I’m sorry you got involved in all this. I know you’re fond of Jack and that you like Izzie. I wish I’d been more understanding from the start.’

There was no doubting the sincerity in his voice or the sympathetic expression in his eyes. ‘It’s all been a bit of a mix-up,’ she said softly.

He smiled and the tension between them seemed
to
evaporate. He held out his hand. ‘Friends?’

His warm fingers closed over her cold hand and she felt as though the icicle in her heart had just melted. ‘Friends,’ she said, smiling shyly. ‘It’s such an odd way to make up for past misunderstandings.’

‘I must go now. I’ve got to be back at the aerodrome before nine.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘And I’d better get a move on. Goodbye, Miranda.’

‘Goodbye, Raif.’ She watched him walk away and she felt a sudden sense of loss, but he had gone and it was unlikely that she would ever see him again. Her senses were numbed by the revelation of what had occurred all those years ago. She could understand a little of what her grandmother must have felt for the dashing Max Carstairs, and the over-powering passion that had led her to risk everything for an affair that would have been doomed from the start. Neither of them could have foreseen or even imagined the repercussions that would echo down the years to affect the lives of their children and grandchildren. Miranda could only imagine how Izzie and Jack must be feeling. She went back into the house preparing herself to act normally as she said her goodbyes.