Fatal Inheritance

by Rachel Rhys

  Gloria Hayes bursts through the curtained doors in a blaze of light like the shooting star Eve saw just moments ago. She seems unsteady on red heels, and a thick line of mascara runs down each side of her face.

  ‘Here y’all are. My two very favourite people in all the world.’

  Gloria is clutching on to the door frame. She wears a red satin dress that has a dark stain down the front.

  She staggers the couple of steps towards them and collapses on to Sully’s lap, hooking her arm around his neck.

  ‘Is it a party? Shall we make it a party? Call the maid back and get her to bring us something to drink.’

  The maid.

  Eve’s eyes flick towards the interior of the house, hoping Mrs Finch didn’t hear.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she says, getting to her feet. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘I don’t know, surprise me. A glass of something wonderful. No, wait, what am I talking about, stupid Gloria.’ She holds out her own hand and slaps it. ‘Bring a bottle of something wonderful. Bring two.’

  But when Eve steps inside the house, she finds that Mrs Finch already has the situation in hand. The two of them meet at the foot of the stairs, the housekeeper carrying a tray on which there sits a bottle of whisky, a small bucket of ice and three glasses.

  ‘Might I suggest slightly more ice than liquid for Miss Hayes.’ Mrs Finch’s smile doesn’t quite meet her eyes.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Finch. I’ll take this out, shall I?’

  ‘Of course, if you like.’

  Eve cannot meet the older woman’s gaze as the tray is handed over. She feels ashamed, although it wasn’t her who’d used the word ‘maid’. She realizes she has been here in the house for almost a week and she has not had one meaningful conversation with the housekeeper. Has not made an effort to find out what path brought her here, or what she intends to do when the house is sold. How quickly she has fallen in with the Lesters’ view of the world, in which people are tiered just like Laurent Martin’s fairytale villa, and those in the uppermost tier don’t question their right to be there.

  Outside, she finds Gloria still seated on Sully’s lap, and he seemingly disinclined to have it otherwise.

  ‘Gloria is running away,’ announces Sully.

  ‘Yes. After our talk this afternoon I got to thinking about the wedding and Laurent and how he has a man who comes in twice a week to pluck the hairs from his nose and I was feeling kinda glum. Then I said to myself, “Gloria, you don’t have to go through with this.” And here I am. Aren’t you proud of me, Eve?’

  She is slurring her words so that they flow one into the other and the strap of her dress has fallen down her shoulder. Five grape-sized purple bruises bloom on the top of her arm.

  ‘Can I stay here with the two of you?’ Gloria says, nuzzling Sully’s neck. ‘I could fix you drinks and snacks while you work, Sully. I wouldn’t get in your way. You’d hardly notice I was here.’

  ‘Although perhaps the presence of the world’s press camped outside the door might just give you away,’ says Sully.

  She gives him a playful slap. And then buries her face in his neck and bursts into tears.

  Eve and Sully stare at each other over her shaking head.

  Now there is more disturbance. Another car arrives.

  Footsteps come not through the house but down the path to the side, past the swimming pool terrace. Two men appear, wearing dark uniforms and expressions that are impossible to read. Tall and broad across the shoulders, they do not speak. At first Eve is too surprised to be frightened. But now here comes Laurent Martin himself, small and slight, but so densely packed, a restless energy emanating from him.

  He contemplates the scene before him. His dishevelled bride-to-be sitting on the lap of another man, sobbing into his neck, the straps of her red dress slipping down her arms. Eve feels the first prick of alarm. Laurent stands so still. So silent.

  Finally: ‘Gloria, my sweet. It’s time to go home now.’

  His voice is quiet, measured.

  Gloria doesn’t respond, but her entire body goes rigid.

  ‘Come, Gloria. I am waiting. There is much to do tomorrow. Our guests will begin arriving. You need to rest, my love.’

  His voice is low and controlled, but there is something behind it, some tang of metallic sharpness.

  Gloria raises her head, the black lines of mascara now thicker and more shocking against her pale skin in the semi-light.

  ‘I think I might stay here with my friends,’ she says. But already her voice is wavering, uncertain.

  ‘I’m sure your friends have plans of their own, darling. It is time to come back home now. Remember the medicine that nice doctor prescribed to help you sleep? You wouldn’t want to have to face the night without that, would you?’

  Gloria shakes her head almost imperceptibly. Her eyes are wide and fixed on her fiancé, even while she clutches Sully’s shoulder. Eve’s heart buckles at the sight of her.

  ‘You don’t have to go,’ Sully says gruffly, focusing on Gloria. ‘You can stay here. Mrs Finch will make you up a room.’

  ‘That’s very kind, Mr Sullivan,’ says Laurent. The oil on his slicked-back black hair glints when it catches the light from the lantern suspended overhead. ‘But my bride needs to get home to rest. She has a busy few days ahead. The excitement has been too much for her. I’m sure you can understand.’

  When he smiles, his teeth shine white in the moonlight.

  Sully tries addressing Gloria again directly, as if Laurent isn’t right there with his two henchmen.

  ‘Gloria, you don’t—’

  But already she is getting to her feet. Swaying and blinking as if she has no idea how she has come to be here in this place, with these people.

  ‘Gloria—’ Sully tries again.

  She turns towards him and smiles politely. ‘Thank you. I’ve had a most lovely time.’

  It is as if she is excusing herself from a society tea party. She walks unsteadily over to Laurent. Docile. Her shoulders slumped. He takes her arm.

  ‘Come, my darling.’

  Eve’s gaze is drawn to the point where Laurent’s hand, with its perfect nails, wraps itself around Gloria’s wrist, his fingers digging into her skin.

  Fear makes her mute.

  Gloria and Laurent start climbing the steps back up towards the road, the uneven click of her heels ringing out in the night. Now the black-clad bodyguards turn to leave, their set expressions betraying nothing.

  After the others are gone, after the sound of the car engine has faded into the warm night air, Eve and Sully remain out on the terrace, not speaking. Nor do they look each other in the eye, as if they are both afraid of seeing their own cowardice reflected back at them.

  21

  9 June 1948

  EVE IS WOKEN by the sound of raised voices, but when she arrives downstairs there is no one there. She searches in the sitting room and out on the terrace. She hesitates before braving the kitchen in case of bumping into Mrs Finch. But the room is empty.

  She heads out to the swimming pool. It is one of those fresh, clear Riviera days when the world seems to be retouched in Technicolor, the sky the rich blue of cornflower petals, the green of the laurel bush leaves as vibrant as the jewel in the ring Bernard gave her, which she now wears on her finger as a constant reminder of the answers she still seeks.

  Sitting down on a wooden steamer, she breathes it all in as if she might somehow absorb it, down through her airways and into her lungs, until it is a part of who and what she is.

  She looks at the great expanse of sea, studded with the nodding black dots of the yachts and the fishing boats; at the low smudge of Cap Ferrat across the water to her left and beyond it the mauve tips of the Maritime Alps; and straight ahead hundreds of miles of nothing at all, and again she senses a weight being lifted. I am the merest speck of nothing, she thinks. But it makes her feel relieved rather than unhappy.

  By the time she dives into the pool, every nerve bursting i
nto life at that moment of impact when her body hits the cool water, she is feeling greatly cheered and full of equanimity. She settles into a swim, moving smoothly and steadily from one end to the other, enjoying how her heightened heartbeat thrums in her ears. At first she keeps count of her lengths but finally she gives up.

  So engrossed is she in her exertions that she doesn’t at first notice the presence of someone else on the terrace. In fact, it is not until she has stopped swimming – and hauled herself inelegantly out on to the side of the pool, blown the water from her nostrils, first one and then the other, and reached out towards the steamer for her towel – that she realizes she is not alone.

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb you when you seemed to be having such a fine time.’

  Noel holds out the towel that she had left on the cushion upon which he now sits.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that exactly.’ Eve snatches the towel, aware of her saggy swimming costume and her bare, goosepimply thighs. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’ she asks, aware of how rude she sounds. This is what the Riviera has done to her, rubbing as if with sandpaper at her polite veneer, revealing the coarseness underneath.

  ‘My stepmother, the Goddess Diana, has invited you for lunch at the Hôtel du Cap. She has sent me to fetch you so that you cannot say no. That is, unless you have other plans?’

  By ‘other plans’ he is referring to Victor. Her certainty of this causes her to answer far too quickly. ‘No, of course not.’

  And now she is stuck with it.

  ‘Why does Diana want to see me?’

  Noel shrugs. ‘Perhaps she just likes your company.’ Then he seems to relent. ‘She’ll be wanting to size you up, to find out exactly what you intend to do about the house. Diana likes to be in control, if you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘What was she like?’ Eve’s curiosity makes her forget momentarily about her dripping hair and her irritation at the ruination of this perfect morning. ‘I mean, when you were growing up. It must have been hard losing your mother and then having her replaced by someone so … cold.’

  Noel lies back on the steamer. Looks down at the ground. Looks up in the air.

  ‘She was very young. Not much older than me. And she was afraid of getting things wrong and, more importantly, of being seen to get things wrong. She tried with Duncan and me, in her own way, but we were determined to resist and she did not have the nerve to bulldoze her way through. She had very little sense of who she was, if you know what I mean, so she had to keep trying to prove that Guy loved her more than he did us, which wasn’t terribly endearing. Now I understand it more, but at that age you’re so wrapped up in yourself.’

  He has picked up a leaf from the ground and is turning it over carefully between his thumb and forefinger. Eve has the strangest, strongest wish to be that leaf, held in his hand. She pushes it from her mind. This man could turn out to be her brother.

  She forces herself to focus on what he has just said, about Diana not knowing who she was. It ties in with what Sully told her about Guy’s widow’s background. Yet it doesn’t excuse her behaviour. Eve isn’t someone who automatically thinks the worst of others, but once she has taken such a view, she is liable to cling stubbornly to it.

  ‘I remember one night coming across her crying,’ Noel continues. ‘Guy had gone to bed and I’d been out somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be and was trying to sneak back in and she was outside on the terrace, sobbing. And when I asked her why, she said a really curious thing. She said, “A word of advice. If you’re going to have a dream you’d better make damned sure it’s unattainable.”’

  ‘What did she mean?’

  ‘At the time I didn’t have a clue. The next morning she was back to her usual frosty self and we never referred to it again, to my great relief.’

  ‘And now?’

  Noel pauses. Looks down at the leaf in his hand and then crushes it between his thumb and finger.

  ‘Now I don’t bother with dreams. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.’

  Eve feels her stomach drop with disappointment and is instantly cross with herself. What exactly had she been hoping? That Noel Lester would share his innermost secrets with her, perhaps open up to her about his dead fiancée? She remembers that day in Diana’s attic when she’d tried to talk about Archie, how quickly Noel had cut short the conversation, as if her grief could have nothing to do with his own.

  On the way to the hotel, Noel is terse, as if regretting giving too much away. Eve, wearing the brown dress once again, feels the sun burning her arm and the side of her face. These convertible cars are all very well, but they leave one so terribly exposed. She finds herself thinking about Diana and what she’d said to the young Noel. How must it be to dream of a life of luxury and society lunches and charity balls and a handsome, wealthy husband, and then to get it all and more? How great a vacuum must the loss of that dream leave in a life that has been entirely geared up to its attainment?

  Unaccountably, Eve finds herself thinking of her mother. The great unfathomable well of her disappointment. How bizarre to imagine a connection between these two polar opposite women.

  The Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc is approached through a set of gates along a wide, tree-lined drive. The building itself sits on top of a slight hill, all the better for visitors to appreciate the grandeur of its ivory-coloured facade with its rows of windows flanked by blue-grey shutters and its elegant mansard roof.

  ‘Diana thought you might be more comfortable lunching outside on the terrace.’

  Noel is not looking at her when he says this, but she is burningly aware of the frumpy provinciality of her dress, and her hair, which, following her swim, has dried in curls that spring out from her scalp. In desperation she had rolled up her silk scarf into a fat ribbon and tied it around her head, hoping to emulate Clemmie Atwood, but the ends hang limply down on either side and she now feels it to have been a mistake.

  A man in white uniform hurries down the steps that lead from the main doors of the hotel. At first Eve thinks he has come to greet them and remains seated with a smile, but when Noel springs out of his seat and comes around to hold her door open, she realizes this is a valet come to park the car.

  To her relief they walk around the side of the building rather than through it. As they round the corner at the back, she lets out an audible oh at the sight of the straight gravel path bordered by pine trees on each side, at the end of which the sea rolls itself out into the distance. Floating on the horizon, there appears to be a series of hazy hills.

  ‘That’s the Île Sainte-Marguerite there in the distance,’ says Noel, disconcertingly answering the question she hasn’t even asked. ‘There’s a prison fort there. Have you heard of the Man in the Iron Mask? That is where he was kept. In a cell, in a fort on an island in the middle of the sea, and in a metal mask, quite alone. Can you imagine the horror?’

  ‘But that is a myth, surely?’ asks Eve, feeling chilled despite the warm sun on her face.

  Noel shrugs. ‘It used to give me nightmares to think about it, when I was growing up. Perhaps it doesn’t appear so terrible now in the warmth of a June day, but when it’s winter and the Mistral wind is churning up the sea and everything is the colour of grey cement, it’s the bleakest place on earth.’

  They pass two people in large hats and beach gear trudging up the path from the sea. Eve recognizes the squat woman with all the rings who’d called Sully a bad man and whisked him away at the reception for Gloria Hayes that first night in Antibes, what seems like a lifetime ago.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Lester,’ the woman says, nodding her head so that the brim of her hat wobbles ferociously.

  Behind her trails a younger woman, whose correspondingly square shape leads Eve to believe she must be her daughter. She has plump pink cheeks and large myopic grey eyes through which she blinks at them both.

  As they draw level, the younger woman slows as if she is about to speak.

  ‘Come along, Beatrice,’ snaps her companion, w
ho has walked some way up the path towards the hotel. ‘Why must you always lag?’

  The girl’s cheeks grow even pinker under her yellow hat and she smiles unhappily and moves on, clutching a basket in which are piled books and magazines and a large jar of cocoa butter such as women use to help their skin tan quicker, although Beatrice doesn’t seem to have the type of complexion that takes kindly to the sun.

  ‘Who was that?’ Eve asks, watching the girl lumber away.

  ‘Beatrice Ryder. Her father made a fortune from luxury hotels, and at one stage she grew very attached to Duncan, though I don’t expect he was very kind to her.’

  ‘That seems to be a family trait,’ Eve retorts.

  ‘What’s that supposed to—’

  ‘You’re here. I’m so glad. Mummy’s been so horrid.’

  Libby Lester throws her arms around her brother’s waist so violently that Noel has to take a big step back to stop them both tumbling to the floor.

  ‘What’s been going on, Libs?’

  ‘She’s so mean. She won’t let me go on the trapeze. She says it’s too high. Daddy used to let me. Oh Noel, I do really miss him so much. I feel like I could die from missing him.’

  Eve looks away, suddenly acutely reminded of her outsider status.

  ‘What trapeze?’ she asks when the two of them finally break apart.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ says Libby, suddenly cheerful, seizing Eve’s arm to lead her down the path. All but hidden from view by the pines to the right, a low white building is spread out along the cliff, descending perilously down the rocks in long restaurant terraces that overhang the sea, their wooden decks shaded by canvas canopies, the horizontal white railings seemingly all that stand between the diners and the deep waters beneath.

  But rather than head that way, they turn to the left where there is a narrow concrete sunning platform laid out with deckchairs and umbrellas, and in front of it, several sets of stone steps that lead, to Eve’s amazement, to a swimming pool seemingly growing out of the cliff face. Prone sunbathers on towels vie for space in the cramped area around the pool, beyond which there appears to be a sheer drop down to the sea. A row of bathers, their tanned skin drying in the sun, perch on the far side of the swimming pool. Eve at first believes them to be dangling their legs over the cliff and her chest tightens in panic, until she realizes that the side of the pool is raised off the ground and there is a short platform before the edge. A couple of diving boards overhang the drop, making Eve feel dizzy just looking at them. And beyond that, jutting way out over the water, is a beam from which hang a knotted rope, a rope ladder, a trapeze with a wooden bar, and, in the centre, a pair of rings of the type gymnasts use to perform impossible feats of strength and control.