The Midnight Rose

by Lucinda Riley

  Walking over to the bookshelves, he saw they were full of old copies of some of the British literary classics. The books Anahita had said she loved.

  Ari made his way up the narrow stairs and stood on the tiny landing before tentatively pushing open one of the two doors. He entered a neat bedroom, with faded flower-sprigged curtains at the windows and a worn patchwork quilt covering the brass bedstead. The pillows sat snugly in pillowcases and the sheets and blanket seemed prepared for its occupant to slide beneath them. On the dressing table stood various feminine lotions and potions, and a large bottle of perfume.

  Ari scratched his head, feeling unsettled. Everything he saw made it obvious that the cottage had a current resident.

  But who?

  The cottage was the perfect hiding place, Ari thought to himself as he left the bedroom to investigate the room on the other side of the landing. No one would possibly suspect from the exterior that anyone could be living in it.

  A new rush of emotion assailed him as he glanced at what this bedroom contained. A rusting iron cot took up most of the space in the tiny room, a moth-eaten baby blanket still covering the mattress. A pair of mournful eyes gazed up at him from within it and Ari reached for the ancient teddy bear and hugged it to him like a child.

  ‘My God,’ he whispered. He now believed that his great-grandmother’s story was true.

  28

  Jack hadn’t stirred when Rebecca had climbed out of bed the following morning. Blocking his behaviour from her mind, she pulled on a pair of tracksuit pants and went downstairs and into Make-up.

  It was a long, hard day’s shoot and she felt drained by the time she arrived back upstairs past six that evening.

  ‘Are you leaving?’ she asked in surprise as she entered her bedroom to find Jack re-packing his shirts into his overnight bag.

  ‘Yes, but only to go to London. My new best pal, James, let me know of a film that Sam Jeffrey is making. I used the telephone in the study and got my manager to call him this morning to say I was over here, and he wants to see me tomorrow morning. Isn’t that great, honey? The guy is a serious young director and already has a couple of BAFTAs under his belt. So I got a taxi booked to take me to London. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow evening.’

  ‘Right,’ Rebecca replied, startled.

  ‘Chasing across to England to find you is turning out to be a good move.’ He came over to her, put his arms around her and kissed her. ‘So wish me luck and promise me you won’t fall into the arms of my new best buddy while I’m gone,’ he said as he picked up his holdall and walked towards the door. ‘I know where he’s been. Love you, baby, bye.’ Jack winked at her and closed the door behind him.

  ‘I thought you’d come here to see me,’ she whispered to herself as she sat down in a daze on the bed. After a few minutes of getting used to the idea of Jack’s abrupt departure, Rebecca stood up and went to take a bath. It was a beautiful evening, and having been cooped up inside under the hot lights all day, she decided to take a walk and get a breath of fresh air. She met Mrs Trevathan on the main staircase.

  ‘Don’t pass me, Rebecca. It’s very bad luck to cross on the stairs,’ she said.

  ‘Really? I guess that must be an English custom.’ She shrugged.

  ‘I expect you’re right,’ Mrs Trevathan said. Rebecca thought she looked extremely flustered. ‘Has your young man gone now?’

  ‘Yes, but he’ll be back tomorrow.’

  ‘I see. So, will you be wanting supper tonight?’

  ‘No, thanks, I ate a big lunch earlier on set.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave you some sandwiches and the chamomile tea you like in your room for later.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Trevathan.’

  The crew had moved off to the village for the evening’s filming, so the house and gardens were quiet. Rebecca went to sit on the bench in the walled garden. The roses were coming into full bloom now and the smell was heavenly.

  ‘Hello.’ Anthony’s voice snapped her out of her reverie. ‘Your young man gone off to London, I hear?’

  ‘Yes. But he’ll be back tomorrow. Really, if it’s a problem, please say so and we’ll move to the hotel.’

  ‘No, it isn’t a problem, really. Although . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I suppose he wasn’t what I expected,’ Anthony admitted. ‘Forgive me, I’m hardly one to talk about relationships between men and women.’

  ‘It’s okay, Anthony, really.’

  ‘As long as he looks after you and you’re happy, that’s all that matters.’

  ‘Yes.’ Rebecca refrained from comment; at present she didn’t trust herself not to say something negative.

  ‘So what do you think of our young Indian friend?’

  ‘I like him,’ said Rebecca honestly.

  ‘Yes, he seems like a nice chap, but personally, I’m struggling to believe his story. If I did, it would alter my perception of Donald and Violet, my grandparents, and I’d find that most upsetting,’ he confessed.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know the full story, but I can’t see why either he or his great-grandmother would make it up,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘No, not unless he wants something,’ muttered Anthony darkly.

  ‘What could he want?’

  ‘Money? A claim to the estate?’

  ‘Anthony, I haven’t read any more than the first hundred pages, so I can’t comment. But Ari seems to me like an honourable kind of guy. I don’t think he’s come here to cause trouble, just to find out about his own family’s past.’

  ‘Even if he was after money, he’s now fully aware there isn’t any to be had,’ Anthony replied morosely.

  ‘From what he’s told me, Ari is a very successful businessman. I really don’t think that’s why he’s here, Anthony.’

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  Again, Rebecca felt Anthony’s almost childish need for reassurance from her. ‘No, I really don’t.’

  ‘Then, in that case,’ Anthony said, visibly relaxing, ‘I feel I haven’t been terribly hospitable. He told me last night he has nowhere to stay around here as from tomorrow. So shall I offer him a room here until he leaves for India in a few days’ time?’

  ‘I think it would be a very sweet gesture,’ she agreed.

  ‘Goodness, this house won’t have seen so many guests within its walls for years,’ said Anthony.

  ‘Are you enjoying the company?’ she asked him.

  ‘Yes, I think I am. Although Mrs Trevathan doesn’t approve, of course. Well, now, thank you for your advice, Rebecca. I’ll go inside and telephone Mr Malik.’ He smiled briefly at her and walked off in the direction of the house.

  Rebecca turned towards the park at the front of the Hall. She wanted some time to clear her head and consider what to do about Jack. It had taken her less than twenty-four hours in his presence to remember why she had struggled to say yes to his proposal. As she wandered across the sun-dappled grass through the great chestnut trees that dotted the park, she realised that the two weeks she had spent here at Astbury had changed her. She was able to see things much more clearly, as if the physical space around her mirrored the space in her mind. And the honest truth was that last night, when Jack had turned up in the bedroom drunk and stoned, he had disgusted her.

  Against the backdrop of Astbury, everything about him looked and sounded like a stereotypical Hollywood cliché. In Tinseltown, Jack’s behaviour, his ego and self-indulgence might be seen as normal. But in the real world – in the world where ordinary people simply got on with their lives and struggled through day by day – it most certainly wasn’t. No matter how many times she tried to excuse it, Jack’s dependence on drugs and alcohol was not something she could live with. She knew from bitter experience it was a road to nowhere.

  There was simply no way she could accept his proposal. So what if the world didn’t understand? It wasn’t the world who had to live with him. Rebecca knew she must tell him it was no-go unless he cleaned up his act. At least
, she thought, if she told him now while she was staying at Astbury, she would be protected within its secure surrounds from the media fall-out. Her agent would go wild, but Rebecca was also beginning to acknowledge that too many other people – most of them men – had been in control of her destiny for the past few years. She had to be responsible for herself again, whatever it took.

  Perhaps her refusal to marry him would be the shot across the bows Jack needed to help him face his demons. But somehow she doubted it.

  She looked up then and realised she had wandered into a part of the park she had never visited before. In front of her, surrounded by a copse of trees, was a building reminiscent of a Greek temple, out of place in its pastoral English setting. Walking towards it, she climbed up the steps between the white marble columns. She expected the vast door to be locked, and was surprised that it opened when she turned the handle.

  Stepping into the cool, shadowy interior, Rebecca shivered as she remembered Anthony mentioning that his ancestors were buried in a mausoleum in the grounds. Her instinct was to leave immediately, but as she looked around the walls at the great stone plaques naming those whose bones lay behind them, she was intrigued. She read of Astbury ancestors dating back to the sixteenth century; husbands and wives interred together for all eternity. Rebecca moved to the more recent tombs and stood in front of Lord Donald and Lady Violet Astbury’s resting place.

  DONALD CHARLES ASTBURY

  b. 1 December 1897 – d. 28 August 1922

  aged 25

  VIOLET ROSE ASTBURY

  b. 14 November 1898 – d. 25 July 1922

  aged 23

  A frisson ran up Rebecca’s spine as she double-checked the date of Donald Astbury’s death. He’d died so young . . . and only a month after Violet. Was it a coincidence? Rebecca wanted desperately to know. Next to Donald and Violet’s memorial stone – having survived for thirty-three years longer than her son, dying at the age of eighty-three in 1955 – was Lady Maud Astbury. She was interred with her husband, George, who had predeceased her by forty-four years, dying in 1911. The most recent stone was that of Anthony’s mother:

  DAISY VIOLET ASTBURY

  b. 25 July 1922 – d. 2 September 1986

  aged 64

  ANTHONY DONALD ASTBURY

  b. 20 January 1952 – d.

  The final date below Anthony’s name had not yet been carved.

  Below the stone stood a large vase full of fresh roses. Rebecca knelt down and smelt their scent, pondering the fact that Anthony’s father was obviously not buried with Daisy, his mother. Instead, it would be Anthony’s bones that would eventually lie with her. Shivering suddenly from the chill, Rebecca left the mausoleum wondering why Anthony had chosen twenty-five years ago to be buried with his mother, rather than alongside a possible wife he might take in the future.

  As she walked back across the park towards the Hall, Rebecca thought again that Anthony must surely be gay. Or perhaps he was simply not interested in either sex and had always known it.

  Whatever his predilections, the visit to the mausoleum had confirmed one thing in Rebecca’s mind, and that was that life was too short to worry about the consequences of doing the right thing. When Jack returned from London, she would tell him what she had decided.

  29

  The following morning, Rebecca felt the now-familiar nausea and the beginnings of another headache. Taking two ibuprofen with the cup of tea Mrs Trevathan had brought her, she went downstairs into Make-up.

  ‘You’re looking peaky again, Becks,’ James commented as they walked towards the drawing room together to shoot their next scene.

  ‘I just can’t get rid of this headache,’ she said, ‘but I’m okay.’

  ‘You know, I really think you should get Steve to call the doc to come and check you over. You’re not yourself at all, are you, sweetheart?’

  ‘Please don’t say anything,’ Rebecca pleaded. ‘I don’t want them thinking I’m a typical hypochondriac American.’

  ‘I doubt anyone would think that, given your current state,’ said James, reassuringly. ‘You have goosebumps all over you, even though it’s boiling in here.’

  ‘I promise I’ll see a doctor if I don’t feel better soon.’

  ‘When’s my new mate Jack back from London, by the way?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I heard you had a fun night out together,’ she replied sarcastically.

  ‘We did indeed. A man after my own heart, your fiancé. Mind you, on the alcohol front, I take back all I said about the Hollywood crowd not drinking. Jack makes me look like an amateur.’ He grinned.

  After lunch, Rebecca was at a loose end until the evening, when the cast would be having a special dinner together on the terrace for Robert Hope’s birthday. She wandered downstairs and, on a whim, headed for the library. Entering it, she walked to the fireplace and stared at the portrait of Violet Astbury above it.

  ‘Yes, the likeness is extraordinary,’ said a voice from behind her.

  Rebecca turned round and saw Ari Malik smiling at her from behind a high-backed leather chair.

  ‘You startled me, I didn’t see you there.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Ari stood up and came towards her. Standing next to her, he gazed up at the portrait. ‘The obvious question is: are you related to Violet Astbury?’

  ‘As I told Anthony when he first showed me the painting, my folks hail from Chicago and they weren’t wealthy. So, as far as I know, I’m not.’

  ‘One way or another, poor Anthony must really feel that his family’s past is coming back to haunt him just now.’ Ari sighed.

  ‘Yes, I spoke to him last night and he’s definitely unsettled by it all. He seems to worship the memories of Violet and his mother, Daisy,’ Rebecca said. ‘Are you meeting him here today?’

  ‘At some point, yes, I should think, although I haven’t actually seen him since I arrived. I received a call out of the blue from him yesterday evening to invite me to stay here until I left for India. Mrs Trevathan didn’t look too happy when she showed me to my bedroom earlier, mind you.’

  ‘Did you find what you were searching for here?’

  ‘I’ve seen enough to be pretty certain my great-grandmother was here and that most of her story is true. I didn’t come here to upset any apple carts, and understandably, Anthony is very sensitive about revealing too many facts about his family’s past. I think he believes I have some kind of ulterior motive in all this.’

  ‘And do you?’

  ‘No,’ Ari said, shaking his head, ‘other than to confirm my great-grandmother was here at Astbury and her son really did die in childhood as his death certificate states.’

  ‘Do you think Anthony knows more than he’s telling?’

  ‘Sometimes I think he does, but on the other hand, when I saw him for dinner after he’d started to read the story, he told me he couldn’t bear to read on and I believed him. The whole affair was a tragedy for everyone involved,’ Ari sighed. ‘I actually think that Anthony might be right when he talks about the death of his grandparents, Violet and Donald, being the catalyst for the fall of the Astbury fortunes.’

  ‘Ari, I don’t know the full story, but from what I’ve read so far, I’d guess that maybe Anahita and Donald’s relationship was at the root of everything that happened afterwards. Would I be right?’

  ‘You would,’ Ari said in agreement.

  ‘I don’t want to pry, but does it mean that you and Anthony are somehow related from way back when?’

  ‘It’s complex, Rebecca. It opens the door to so many questions.’

  ‘The first one that springs to my mind is whether the fact that you may be related means that you could have a legal claim on this estate,’ she ventured.

  ‘That’s not something I’ve even contemplated,’ Ari said, a genuine expression of surprise on his face.

  ‘Well, maybe Anthony has. It might be an idea to reassure him. As you can see, Astbury is his life.’

  ‘You’re right. To be honest, I can’t wor
k Anthony out at all.’

  ‘Maybe the subject matter is just too painful for him. Sometimes the past is,’ Rebecca replied.

  ‘I promise I’m not going to push him any further. At least there are some lines of investigation I can follow myself. Anyway, enough of me and the mysteries of the past. How are you? Is the film going well?’ Ari asked her.

  ‘I’m okay, and yes, filming has been going well. Although I’ve been suffering from some bad migraines since I’ve been here.’

  ‘That’s strange. Are they something you’ve experienced before?’ he asked, gazing at her thoughtfully.

  ‘No, it’s the first time I’ve ever had them. But I’m determined not to let them ruin my stay in England.’

  ‘And how is your fiancé?’

  ‘He’s in London just now, seeing a director about a film. If I’m completely honest, Ari, we’re not in a good place.’ She sighed.

  ‘I thought you said that things seemed better between the two of you when he got here?’

  Rebecca shook her head slowly. ‘I think that’s just what I wanted to believe. And I guess that I have to start trusting myself and making my own decisions.’

  ‘You’ve more or less just quoted a line from a poem I read recently. “If” by Rudyard Kipling. It’s my father’s favourite. Do you know it?’

  ‘No,’ said Rebecca, ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

  ‘Well, you should have a read sometime. The poem’s all about being true to yourself.’

  ‘I’ll look it up,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I’d better get going. There’s a big dinner on the terrace tonight for our director and I need to get ready.’

  ‘I’m off to investigate the local graveyard to see if I can find any sign of Anahita’s son there and then on to Exeter to see if his death was officially registered.’ He walked towards the door and Rebecca followed him.