Harriet shivered, physically chilled by what had happened to them all that day, what might happen yet; she pulled the cardigan on, noticing she ached, ached all over, and stood there patiently, waiting for Oliver.
He came out still looking slightly doubtful. ‘You sure this is all right? Because you don’t have to be kind – ’
‘Ollie,’ said Harriet, slipping her arm through his, ‘I think you’ve earned a bit of kindness. Actually. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.’
They sat on the bridge, staring up at the brightening stars. ‘Does this remind you of the desert?’ he said suddenly. ‘You know, when Merlin took us. God, we were so happy then. Life was so straightforward. I should have married you, Harriet, not Cressida. Well, not that I married Cressida.’
‘No,’ said Harriet, ‘and if this is a proposal I have to tell you I’m going to turn you down. I expect you wish right now Cressida had turned you down as well.’
There was a long silence, then he said. ‘There was no question of her turning me down, Harriet. She proposed to me. And there was no question of my turning her down either.’
Harriet stared at him, trying to make out if he was joking, but his face in the near darkness was very serious.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Why? What happened?’
‘Oh God,’ said Oliver, ‘I shouldn’t have started this. Sorry, Harriet. Forget it.’
‘Ollie, don’t be ridiculous. How can I forget it? You have to go on now. Why couldn’t you refuse her? If you didn’t want to marry her?’
‘Oh Harriet,’ he said, ‘the oldest reason in the world. She was pregnant.’
The bridge seemed to shake under Harriet. She put out her hand, but the parapet seemed reassuringly steady.
‘Oliver, I’m sorry, but you’ve lost me. I’m a simple soul. Could you start at the beginning please? I thought we were talking a year ago, not now – ’
‘Sorry, Harriet. I’m fairly lost myself. Go back a year. Nearly a year. Cressida and I had been having an affair for a while. I was very fond of her, she seemed very fond of me, she was pretty, fun – ’
‘Yes, all right, you don’t have to go into justifications,’ said Harriet impatiently.
‘Sorry. Start again. Cressida and I had been having an affair. She came over for a few weeks in August, do you remember, stayed with us at Bar Harbor, sailed a lot, had a lovely time. It wasn’t at all serious. We agreed it wasn’t. I honestly don’t think I was taking advantage of her in any way. She was twenty-six years old, for God’s sake. And – she certainly wasn’t a – a – ’
‘Virgin?’ said Harriet gently. She smiled at Oliver; it was so like him, like his serious, conscientious approach to life, that he shouldn’t be seen as a seducer, even of someone who had most efficiently and ruthlessly humiliated him that day.
‘Yes. I mean, she wasn’t. Well, anyway, in October she wrote to me, and said she had some holiday and could she maybe come over for a few days. I said of course. I was actually seeing someone else by then but not – well, you know what I mean?’
‘Yes, Oliver,’ said Harriet, putting her hand on his arm, ‘I know what you mean.’
‘So I met her at Kennedy, and I did think she seemed a bit – well, tense. But no more. That night we went out to dinner, all of us, Mother and Dad as well, and it was really good fun. When we got back we all had a nightcap and then they went on up to bed. Cressida suddenly said she had some news. She said she was pregnant, that it was definitely mine, and she thought we should hurry things along and announce our engagement. Harriet, I swear to God it had never ever been mentioned, never considered an option, even in the vaguest terms. I knew I didn’t really love her, and I knew I didn’t really want to marry her. I – well, I kind of said that. And she was terribly upset. She started crying and carrying on, then she rushed out of the room. She came back and said she’d been sick, that she was being sick all the time, that she felt terrible. I felt so awful, Harriet, so ashamed. I sat and talked to her for a long time, and said I would do everything I could to help her, but I really didn’t think we should get married, and she said didn’t I care for her at all, and I said of course I did. And she said what options did I see for her, did I think she should have an abortion? I said, quite carefully, that it was certainly something we should look at, and she started crying again, and saying how could I even think of getting rid of our baby. Then she was sick again, and then she came back and started all over. Christ, Harriet, it was terrible. Whenever I read about the police interrogating witnesses and making them confess to things they haven’t done, I know how they do it.’
‘Oh Oliver,’ said Harriet, ‘oh Ollie, I’m so sorry.’
‘Yes, well. Maybe our parents were right when they told us not to sleep around,’ he said with an attempt at a laugh. ‘It certainly doesn’t make for an easy life. You can imagine the rest. I lay awake all night, thinking what a heel I was, what a lovely girl she was, how fond of her I was, what a wonderful time we’d had in the summer, what a good wife she’d make me, how happy everyone in the family would be, and about the alternative, and in the morning I went to see her in her room and said that of course I’d marry her, it was a very good idea, I’d just been a bit taken aback the night before, that was all. And she went flying down to my parents and told them, and of course they were pleased – well, Dad was pleased, Mother seemed a little reserved about it – and then she put in a call to your parents and – well, you know the rest. It’s a very heavy steamroller that, Harriet, and it’s very hard to get out from under it.’
‘But Ollie, I don’t know the rest. What happened to that – baby?’
‘Oh,’ he said, and his voice was heavy, infinitely sad. ‘No, of course you don’t. Sorry. She lost it. A couple of weeks later. She hadn’t even broken the news to our parents, we were trying to decide what to do, how to handle it, whether we should get married quickly and quietly or – well, anyway, she lost it.’
‘What, when she was back in London?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ said Harriet and her own voice was bitter now, ‘how very convenient for her.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘no, I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong. She really was pregnant, she really was feeling terrible, she – well, she had all the symptoms. I’m a doctor, Harriet, not so easy to deceive, and she had a letter from the hospital. You don’t remember her being – well, ill? Away from home? Anything like that?’
‘No,’ said Harriet, stifling her doubts, her suspicion that it would have been quite easy, with her connections, for this new, devious Cressida, the one they had never known, to fake a hospital letter. ‘No, I don’t, but then, to be fair, I’m away a lot. Last autumn I was in Paris practically all the time. But Mummy never said anything – oh for God’s sake, what am I talking about? This is a girl who has just disappeared on her wedding day piloting her own plane when none of us thought she could even ride a bicycle, who sold her flat months ago and let us think she was still living in it. (‘That explains the mysterious legacy at least,’ James had said when she told him.) I guess a little miscarriage would hardly seem very difficult to conceal. But then, why didn’t you – ’
‘Call it off? I couldn’t, Harriet. I thought I would, of course, it was a huge relief to me, actually, but she was so miserable, so depressed. She came over the week after, and she did look awful, so thin and pale, and she was crying a lot and she said the only thing that was keeping her going now was the thought of our being married. She – well, she really did seem to love me. And need me. It’s not the best time to dump someone, you must see that. And then – well, you know, I’m actually quite an easy-going guy. I had a lot to worry about, my research work, my first big job. I went along with it, and just kept telling myself how lucky I was.’
‘Oh, Oliver,’ said Harriet. The story was making her flesh creep slightly; she felt sick. ‘What a nightmare.’
‘Well it was a bit. But not bad enough, you know? For me to do an
ything. I think I just kept hoping for a miracle. And my parents seemed so pleased, and yours were delighted, it’s a tough one that, Harriet. Don’t ever get into anything like it.’
‘I don’t think it’s very likely,’ said Harriet with a sigh. ‘But then, here you were, getting married, and she was pregnant for real. And presumably by then it didn’t matter – ’
‘No,’ he said heavily. ‘It didn’t matter. Or doesn’t now.’
‘And when did she tell you?’
‘When I arrived here,’ he said briefly. ‘Last week.’
Harriet looked at him, and saw on his face the same anger, the same sick distaste that had been there when he had made his announcement earlier, and the strange sense of wrongness, of disorder resurfaced, and she said, ‘Oliver, forgive me, but – ’
And ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know what you’re going to say. It doesn’t make sense. I just kept trying not to think about it. The dates don’t work, don’t fit in with the times we were together recently. She swears they do, but they don’t. She should either be quite a bit further along, or – what? – three weeks at the most. Hardly pregnant. I mean I have to believe her, well, I had to, there didn’t seem to be an alternative, but – I knew it wasn’t right. It just wasn’t. I’m sorry, Harriet, I know she’s your sister and you love her and you’ve always been terribly close, but –’
‘I’m not sure that I do actually,’ said Harriet. ‘Love her. In fact,’ she added in a rush of courage, ‘most of the time I don’t even like her very much. And we certainly aren’t close. We just pretend, act out this stupid charade.’
‘Well,’ said Oliver, ‘she’s good at acting. Very good.’
‘Yes. As Merlin said earlier. Dear Merlin. Oliver, you should have said something, you shouldn’t have gone along with it all, you really shouldn’t. It would have been so terrible.’
‘Oh, I know,’ he said, his face pallid in the moonlight, ‘and of course even now I can’t imagine why I didn’t, why I let things go on. But it’s not an easy thing to do, Harriet, disrupt things, stop arrangements on this scale, publicly humiliate someone –’
‘She has,’ said Harriet. ‘My God, she has.’
‘Yes, well. I’m going to be grateful. I know I am. I took an overdose last night,’ he added conversationally.
Harriet stared at him. She felt very sick.
‘You did what?’
‘I swallowed a bottle of aspirin. With some whisky. Oh, it was only a yell for help. I knew that. And Rufus and Mungo took care of me. They were fantastic.’
‘Oh, Oliver,’ said Harriet and she suddenly burst into tears. ‘Oh, Oliver, I feel so ashamed for her. So sad for you.’
‘Well don’t be,’ he said almost cheerfully, putting his arm round her, ‘because it’s actually going to be all right. I mean I don’t have to marry her now, and when this awful day is over, I can get on a plane and fly back to New York and get on with my life, and we can tell some cosmetic lie about the whole thing. I’m very lucky I don’t live here, it would be a lot more difficult. Honestly, Harriet, I am beginning to feel much better. Certainly better than the way I’d feel if we were on the plane en route to a honeymoon.’
‘I suppose so. Oh God.’ She sniffed loudly. ‘What a day. What a bitch of a day. Sorry. Have you got a handkerchief?’
‘Sure. Are you all right?’
‘Not really,’ said Harriet and burst into tears again.
‘Harry, darling, don’t cry. There’s something else, isn’t there? What is it, tell me?’
‘Oh, Oliver, I can’t. Not all of it. It’s too horrible, and too humiliating and – well, I just don’t think I can face talking about it now. I’m sorry. Maybe tomorrow. Or something.’
‘OK,’ he said equably. ‘But please do tell me if you want to. And if there’s anything I can do –’
‘How are you on murder?’ said Harriet briefly.
When they got back to the house, James was in the kitchen making some tea.
‘Your mother’s gone to bed,’ he said heavily. ‘I’m making her this.’
‘You’d better give her something to help her sleep,’ said Harriet.
‘I have. Your parents are moving off,’ he added to Oliver, ‘do you want to go with them? You’re very welcome to stay here, of course.’
‘No, it’s kind of you, James, but I think I should go,’ said Oliver. ‘Harriet is that all right with you –’
‘What? Oh, yes,’ said Harriet. ‘Yes, of course. Ring me in the morning.’ She looked at her father coldly. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, ‘wait up for a while. In case there’s still some news. Merlin and Janine still aren’t back, I think I should check them in,’ he added with the echo of a smile. ‘And I have to run Susie back to the Beaumonts’, of course.’
‘Of course –’
‘Harriet, I think perhaps we should talk –’
‘Daddy, there’s nothing to talk about. I’m not stupid, I can see what’s been happening. And I don’t want to hear any more about it. OK? I think I’ll go up and say goodnight to Mummy.’
‘All right,’ he said.
Maggie was lying in bed, awake but very still. She put out her hand and smiled weakly as Harriet looked round the door. She looked rather as if she had had a serious operation, Harriet thought, and went to kiss her. Maggie took her hand gently.
‘You’ve been wonderful today,’ she said, ‘so good. Thank you.’
‘Mummy, it was no more than anyone else did. Honestly.’
‘Yes it was. You’ve kept me sane.’ She sighed. ‘Where do you think she is, Harriet, why do you think she did it? What could have happened to her, was it our fault, do you think?’
‘So you do think now that she – chose to go?’ said Harriet carefully.
‘Yes, I do. The second message, from your friend Tilly, that really did confirm it. But I think I knew really, as soon as I heard about the plane. It’s all so strange, such a nightmare. She must have been so desperate, so unhappy. And pregnant too. Oh God, who will be looking after her now?’
‘Mummy, try to be calm,’ said Harriet. ‘The new Cressida, the one we didn’t know about, she’s able to look after herself I think. She’ll manage.’
‘Yes, but – pregnant,’ said Maggie again. ‘And what can she be doing for money?’
‘Well, I should think she had plenty of that,’ said Harriet. ‘She got a hundred thousand for her flat, don’t forget. That should pay for a bit of looking after.’
‘Darling, don’t sound so hard.’
‘Sorry,’ said Harriet. ‘I feel a bit hard.’
‘Yes, well, you always were a lot tougher than she was,’ said Maggie, ‘she was so easily upset always, so sensitive. She felt so bad, you know, about your puppy.’
‘What puppy?’ asked Harriet.
‘There you are, I told her you’d forgotten all about it. Biggles. The sweet little puppy who was run over. She always felt it was her fault, you know, because she’d left the gate open. Nanny told me that night, she saw her, and of course we did speak to her about it, and she was so upset, just couldn’t stop crying, begged me not to tell you. We told her we wouldn’t, that it was just an accident, it could have been any of us, and of course it was much better that you didn’t know, but –’
‘Oh God,’ said Harriet, ‘oh my God. I always knew, I knew it wasn’t me.’
‘Now, darling, don’t start getting upset about it. It wasn’t anybody, I just said it was an accident.’ She was getting drowsy now, her eyes closing. ‘Goodnight, Harriet, thank you again. Let’s hope tomorrow is a better day.’
‘Poor little Biggles,’ said Harriet. ‘Oh God, poor sweet little Biggles.’ And of all the things she had learnt about Cressida that day, this was the most shocking: that anybody, anybody at all, least of all a small child, could deliberately, cold-bloodedly, arrange things so that a round, golden, velvety-pawed and totally trusting puppy should be sent to a certain and most horrible d
eath.
She went into Cressida’s room and looked around it; she felt like smashing it up, hurling all its charming accessories, its lace-covered pillows and Victorian pin-cushions and antique scent bottles out of a broken window. And then she went into her own room and got out the photo of Biggles that she still kept, in its old leather frame in the top drawer of her desk, and he looked at her adoringly, with his squashed puppy face, his floppity ears pricked up, his fat paws hooked over the arm of the big chair he was sitting in, and even after all that time it hurt, it hurt so much, more than ever in fact, knowing now that it hadn’t been an accident, need never have happened. ‘Oh, Biggles,’ she said to the photograph, seeing it through blurred eyes, ‘oh, Biggles, I’m so sorry.’
It suddenly seemed very hot; she opened the window wider to air the room and then realized she was still wearing the thick cardigan. She pulled it off and started to straighten it out; it was still covered in bits of grass clippings from when her father had been cutting the grass ready for the marquee. He always cut it himself; he took an immense pride in his lawn, Cressida always said he regarded it as another child, so concerned was he over its welfare. She began to brush the grass off and as she did so saw a piece of paper in the top inside pocket. Probably nothing, she thought, pulling it out, a shopping list or a vet’s bill, probably been there for years, but you never knew –
And ‘Cressida,’ she said aloud, staring at the note, reading and rereading it, as if the words might vanish if she looked at them long enough, ‘oh, Cressida. What was the matter with you, for God’s sake, what were you up to?’
For it was not a shopping list or a vet’s bill, it was a letter from a gynaecologist at somewhere called the Brompton Clinic, dated the previous October.
Dear Miss Forrest (it said),
This is just to confirm what I told you on the phone this morning, that although your pregnancy test showed a negative result, I see no reason to suppose there is any cause for anxiety. Many women have some difficulty in conceiving, and you are extremely healthy and have time on your side. I suggest that if after six months you are still not pregnant, you come and see me again, perhaps with your fiancé, and we can discuss whether some investigations might be appropriate then. But I really think that for the time being you should just try to relax and enjoy your forthcoming trip to New York.
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