by Jilly Cooper
‘What a terrible secret you’ve had to keep.’ Raymond got out a purple silk handkerchief and wiped both their eyes. ‘But she’s come home, we’ve got all our lives to make it up to her. You can tell me the details later, but let’s go and meet her, and call the family into the library.’
‘But what about the party?’ wailed Anthea, quailing too at the prospect of her censorious stepchildren.
‘The caterers will keep the drink flowing. That lot have enough to squabble about till dawn anyway, and the band’s been paid double. Leave them to it.’
In the distance they could hear strains of ‘Hit me, baby, one more time’, and wild shrieks as a couple ran off across the lawn.
‘Oh Hopey, I can’t bear to think what you’ve been through.’
Anthea caught a glimpse of her red, swollen, grief-devastated face in the mirror. Nor could she.
‘I can’t cope with people at the moment,’ she whimpered, ‘I’m still in shock. Will you go and see her?’
‘Of course I will, don’t worry, wash your pretty face, and I’ll get Jean to bring you up a cup of tea.’
If Dr Reynolds had been invited, he was tempted to joke, he could have given Anthea a shot. He felt passionately relieved she was still his.
Buoyed up by champagne, a sense of adventure and the prospect of another daughter to love – what a wonderful seventy-fifth birthday present – Raymond went downstairs. There he found Green Jean, simultaneously avid to find out what was up and having difficulty keeping the team from Oo-ah!, who’d heard desperate sobbing, at bay.
‘Lady Belvedon is absolutely exhausted,’ Raymond told them firmly, ‘working her tiny self into the ground, making everything perfect for everyone else, so I’ve sent her to bed. I’m sure you’ve got enough material,’ he smiled at Harriet, ‘but if you need more, we can cobble it together tomorrow. And if you could bear to take her a cup of tea . . .?’ he added to Jean.
On the terrace, he met a stony-faced Jupiter.
‘Anthea’s told me, Jupe. Where’s your new sister?’
‘In the library.’
Neither of them noticed Barney, who’d been wondering what had become of Zac, lurking in the shadows.
Raymond almost danced across the hall.
‘“A fairy Prince with joyful eyes, And lighter-footed than the Fox,”’ he quoted happily as he slid into the library, which was one of the few rooms untouched by Anthea, and locked the door.
First editions, tall art books, leather-bound classics seemed to be falling out of their shelves in excitement. Characters in the paintings, which Anthea had banished from the rest of the house, and which included a Stanley Spencer miracle, and a homosexual threesome by John Minton, seemed about to abandon their activities to witness a more thrilling drama. Alone, on the faded threadbare crimson sofa, tiny as Anthea, huddled Emerald in her pretty dress, like a thrown-aside bunch of flowers. Her face was ashen, her eyes closed.
‘My dearest child, welcome home.’ Raymond’s voice was deep and tear-choked, then, in amazement: ‘Why, we’ve met before! I so hoped we’d meet again, where was it?’
‘At Rupert Campbell-Black’s,’ stammered Emerald. ‘You gave me your autograph. I had no idea that Anthea was my mother then. I hope you don’t . . .’
‘Of course I don’t.’
Raymond held out his arms; Emerald collapsed sobbing into them. Raymond’s handkerchief smelled faintly of Extract of Lime, his dinner jacket was wet with Anthea’s tears and streaked with her make-up. For a moment Emerald luxuriated in the warmth of his body, giddy with relief that he wasn’t angry.
‘You’re taking it so well,’ she mumbled, ‘I didn’t mean to upset Lady Belvedon, I hope it hasn’t wrecked your party, and it’s not too painful for you having her child rolling up.’
‘And my child too,’ said Raymond, proceeding to tell a flabbergasted Emerald that he was her father, and explain the nightmare through which Anthea had been. Emerald couldn’t take it in. For so long she’d imagined a father of Rupert Campbell-Black’s age, still fit and virile. Raymond must have been fifty when she was born. Now he was seriously old. But he was so kind, sitting beside her, his arm round her shoulders, patting her hand.
‘Anthea was only doing what she thought best for you, darling,’ he told her gently, ‘handing you over to a mother and father who longed for you and would adore you. When she and I finally got together after my first wife died, she felt she couldn’t disrupt your life. Anthea always puts other people first. You look so like her,’ he added, kissing her forehead.
‘May I see her?’ begged Emerald.
A minute later, Emerald and Anthea fell into each other’s arms.
Poor Raymond had the less fun task of breaking the news to the family. The party was thinning out, but a lot of people were still dancing and drinking. Rosemary Pulborough, having endured seeing her husband flirting or caballing all evening, was extremely glad to have an excuse to leave: escorting a very merry Aunt Lily back to her cottage.
‘I’d like to have said thank you to my brother and his wife,’ protested Lily, ‘but they appear to have vanished upstairs to renew their conjugal vows.’
At least Anthea isn’t with David, thought Rosemary wearily.
Earlier, Dicky Belvedon, as a result of all that waltzing and a skinful of champagne, had just finished being very sick in the lupins, when he heard raised voices carrying across the hot night air. Stealing down to the boathouse, he had overheard most of the row, including the exchange with Jupiter.
Bolting back to the marquee, he found his twin sister talking to Sienna. Jonathan had nodded off like the dormouse in Alice in Wonderland. Visitor was waddling up and down the table finishing up.
‘Where’s Mummy?’ asked Dora. ‘Everyone’s asking for her.’
‘Probably being photographed on the loo in a YSL nightie,’ said Sienna.
‘She was down at the boathouse,’ panted Dicky.
‘Whatever for?’ demanded Dora. ‘Ugh, you’ve got sick on your shirt.’
‘Some girl’s saying Mummy’s her mother,’ gasped Dicky.
‘What?’ Jonathan was awake in an instant.
‘That dark girl you were kissing, Jonathan, she was screaming at Mummy that Mummy was her mother. Then Jupiter barged in and the girl told Jupiter, and he asked Mummy, and she said it was true.’
‘Don’t tell such wicked lies,’ said Dora, going very red. ‘Mummy wouldn’t do it with anyone else. We’re her first born, she said so in the Daily Mail.’
Sienna, trying to hide her excitement, dropped a napkin in a jug of water and wiped Dicky’s shirt.
‘Are you quite sure, Dicko?’
‘Quite. Mummy ran up the hill crying, I couldn’t keep up with her, she lost a shoe.’ He held up a tiny blue high-heeled sandal.
‘Wow!’ said Jonathan in delight. ‘It’s like discovering the Virgin Mary’s slept with the entire Nazareth rugger team. A new little stepsister and such a pretty one. Alizarin!’ he yelled over the din of the band to his brother, who was snatching a few moments of conversation with Hanna. ‘Come and hear the latest, Anthea’s got a love child.’
Returning to the table, catching sight of Dicky and Dora, both near to tears, Alizarin told Jonathan to shut up.
‘Who’s going to ring Dempster?’ demanded Jonathan unrepentantly, waving to a waitress to bring another bottle. ‘You’d better, Al, you need the money more than me and Jupiter.’
Jupiter arrived next, also very pale, outraged at being tricked by Emerald but in control of himself.
‘You’ve obviously heard. Dad wants us all in the library in ten minutes.’
‘Then fill up our glasses,’ said Jonathan.
‘I suggest Hanna puts those two to bed.’ Jupiter nodded at Dicky and Dora.
‘It’s way past our bedtime,’ chorused the twins.
‘We’re coming too – or I’ll go and tell Harriet from Oo-ah!,’ threatened Dora.
‘Does that mean I’ve got two sisters? Oh yuck,’ g
roaned Dicky.
‘She’s only like a half-sister, like I am,’ explained Sienna. ‘You share the same father with me and the same mother with what’s she called?’
‘Emerald. And I know which half of her I want,’ said Jonathan evilly. ‘Alizarin can have the top half.’
The Belvedons’ delight at Anthea’s embarrassing lapse after her hogging the moral high ground for so long soon evaporated when Raymond, with tears in his eyes, imparted the joyful news that Emerald was his and Anthea’s child.
Alizarin, who’d been gazing at the Stanley Spencer, swung round.
‘How old is she?’ he demanded.
‘Twenty-six in July,’ said an unguarded Jupiter, remembering how he and Emerald had discussed both being born in Cancer during dinner.
There was a long pause. Dicky sidled towards the calculator on Raymond’s desk.
‘So you were shagging Anthea while you were married to Mum,’ said Alizarin bleakly. ‘Mum always swore you were. I never believed her.’
The others were jolted. Since Galena’s death, Alizarin had never spoken her name.
‘That means Emerald’s like three months older than me,’ said Sienna furiously.
Jonathan took a book of Sickert’s drawings off the top shelf. ‘Dad the stud,’ he drawled, ‘humping Mum and Anthea at the same time but still posing as the wronged husband.’
Raymond, appalled at such antagonism, stumbled on.
‘Your mother and I were going through a bad patch,’ he stammered. ‘Anthea came to the gallery and comforted me. I swear I only made love to her about once on the office sofa.’
‘You naughty man!’ said Dora in horror.
‘Galena, or rather your mother found out, not about the sleeping together, but that I was very fond of Anthea, so Anthea unselfishly left the gallery and only afterwards discovered she was expecting a baby and not believing in abortion—’
‘Correct-shun,’ interrupted an enraged Sienna, ‘what about the one she made me have when I was sixteen?’
‘My dear,’ said Raymond faintly.
‘Did you?’ Dicky looked up from his calculator in amazement.
‘You naughty woman!’ thundered Dora.
‘Anthea had the baby,’ ploughed on Raymond, ‘longed to keep little Charlene, but felt she couldn’t let the adopting parents down, and kept this terrible secret for twenty-five years.’
Three branches of purple lilac, shrivelled up in the heat, were shedding their petals on the polished table. Hanna sat with her head in her hands. Jonathan got up and poured himself three fingers of sloe gin.
‘That’s because you’re not the dad, Dad,’ he drawled. ‘It’s the tallest story from the shortest person I’ve ever heard. You may have pulled the assistant, but you’ve been conned. Emerald and that male model boyfriend, who’s a hood if ever I saw one, have cooked up the whole thing to get their thieving hands on some Belvedon cash.’
‘Jonathan, please.’ Raymond was nearly in tears again. ‘I promise you it’s all true.’
‘You’re covering for Anthea. How did Emerald get in here anyway? Who invited her?’
‘Jupiter did,’ said Sienna.
Alizarin, who’d moved on to Rossetti’s drawing of Tennyson, glanced quickly round at Hanna.
‘I liked the head Emerald did of me,’ snapped Jupiter, ‘I wanted Dad to meet her. She’s got great talent, and I asked her boyfriend as well. Where is he, by the way?’
‘Thought he was probably de trop,’ mumbled Raymond. ‘He’s retreated to the Mitre in Searston. Going to ring in the morning. Nice chap.’
‘And she brought my brother’s head in on a platter like John the Baptist,’ said Jonathan. ‘I do not believe that girl or her boyfriend are legit.’
‘She’s the image of Anthea,’ pleaded Raymond.
‘Nothing like you,’ said Sienna beadily.
‘She’s got Granny Belvedon’s wonderful green eyes. It’s miraculous we’ve found her again. I do so want you to love and accept your new sister.’
‘Not until she’s had a DNA test,’ persisted Jonathan.
Dicky, who’d been laboriously pressing buttons, finally looked up from his calculator.
‘If it’s your twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Dad,’ he said in a shocked voice, ‘you must have put it into Mummy before you were married. Why didn’t you use a condom?’
Jonathan’s shout of laughter was interrupted by a bang on the door, which Alizarin unlocked to find David Pulborough, unable any longer to contain his curiosity.
‘Family confab? Terrific party. Everything all right?’
‘Fine,’ snapped Alizarin, who detested David, ‘now bugger off.’
‘I thought you’d like to know,’ said David, pretending to be concerned, ‘that Casey Andrews, feeling rather neglected by our host and hostess, is threatening to batter Somerford to death with a cricket bat. And there’s an urgent call for you, Raymond.’
Jonathan grabbed the handset. After thirty seconds, he began to laugh.
‘It’s the Daily Mail, Dad. They want to know all about Anthea’s love child. Can they have an exclusive?’
Just for a second, the colour drained from David’s flushed face.
‘Of course they can,’ cried Raymond. Anything to get away from the collective disapproval of his children. ‘I want the world to know our beautiful daughter has come home.’
‘Someone must have tipped off the Mail,’ said Jupiter, keen to regain the ascendancy, glaring accusingly round the room.
Dora, however, had folded her arms in fury.
‘She’s my mother, I should have been allowed to tip off the press. They might have paid me enough to buy Loofah a new saddle.’
Suddenly everyone seemed to be hissing Raymond the pantomime villain. Then a whipcrack of lightning followed by a cannonade of thunder sent Grenville diving under the sofa, with fat Visitor practically con-cussing himself trying to follow. Opening the royal-blue velvet curtains a fraction, Jonathan saw couples racing in from the garden. The heavens had finally opened.
Upstairs Anthea and Emerald were opening their hearts with equal lack of restraint. Chattering, weeping, embracing, they couldn’t stop looking at each other as, like picture restorers, they filled in the gaps of the last twenty-five years. Warmed by endless cups of Earl Grey, buoyed up by more glasses of champagne, they kept laughing and finding their laughs identical, discovering they were both left handed, suffered from migraines, loathed clutter and wearing trousers, and that violets were their favourite flower.
Curled up amid the dolls in the cream-linen four-poster, admiring the porcelain, the pastels of Dicky and Dora, the needlepoint cushions (blurting out she did embroidery too), Emerald thought she had never been in a prettier room.
Anthea had banished Raymond’s blue checked duvet to the dressing room and taken off her rainbow-woven dress and her hairpiece. Now in a white smocked dressing gown, with her blond curls brushed off her tear-stained face, she looked about fourteen. Giddy with relief that the skeleton had finally emerged from the closet and turned out so pretty, talented and nicely spoken, she was now busily re-editing events to show what humiliation and dreadful deprivation she had suffered to ensure Emerald a better life.
‘Ay was only nineteen and a virgin when Sir Raymond seduced me. After one night of love-making to comfort him, I fell pregnant. My parents threw me out, I had no home, no money, all I wanted was you to have a better chance in life than me. Single mothers were treated like scum in those days. Nurses in the maternity ward, social workers, the nuns at the adoption society were all the same.’
Anthea’s voice was rising, her fingers drumming on the bedside table in time to the deluge outside.
‘You poor thing,’ wailed Emerald. ‘But tell me about the rest of the family. You’re so pretty, I must have loads of glamorous cousins, uncles and aunts.’
‘Not very exciting,’ said Anthea firmly. ‘My grandmother was dying of cancer at the time, everyone was terrified she’d find out. Ay
had to visit her in hospital in baggy jumpers.’
‘Where was I born? How much did I weigh?’ Emerald was desperate for information.
‘Four and a half pounds. The birth was dreadfully long and difficult. I was utterly exhausted. I remember catching a last glimpse of your tiny hands through the window but I don’t recall signing the papers or driving away. I blocked out the whole heart-rending experience.’
‘You poor thing,’ moaned Emerald, patting her new mother’s shoulders. But a faint voice of disquiet kept saying, I suffered too, I’ve had a terrible time.
Anthea seemed more interested in learning about Patience.
‘Well, they certainly didn’t match us physically,’ admitted Emerald disloyally, ‘she’s large, red-faced and horsey. There was usually a bridle hanging from the bed, and dogs in it.’
‘Ugh!’ said Anthea, who only allowed Nina Campbell’s toile de Jouy monkeys and parrots into her bedroom. ‘What did she tell you about me?’
‘Your name, and that the adoption society said that you were beautiful, young, very brave and er – working in a gallery.’
‘I was brave,’ agreed Anthea, topping up Emerald’s glass. ‘I sustained myself through the dark days in a ghastly bed-sitter, dreaming of you growing up in a lovely airy home with the sun pouring through the windows, probably designed by your father.’
‘Daddy was in the army,’ said Emerald, perplexed.
‘They lied to me!’ Anthea pleated the counterpane in fury. ‘The adoption society swore you were going to a charming architect and his wife, who’d never need to work, but did a lot for charity. I’d never have signed the papers if I’d known you were going to be shunted from one army billet to another.’
She’ll flip if she finds out Daddy’s driving a minicab and Mummy’s working in a pub, thought Emerald. Then, desperate to change the subject: ‘I always found it difficult to talk to them about adoption.’
‘My parents would never let me mention you,’ countered Anthea. ‘I couldn’t even discuss you with Raymond. Having Dicky and Dora made me realize the extent of my loss. I had to pretend they were my first babies; everyone gave me advice. I wanted to scream, “I’ve been down that road”, but I had to bite my tongue.