‘I’d like you to witness the signature of my will,’ Nancy said as they entered.
They signed below her signature and Mr Harding shook his head disapprovingly. Things were bad when a woman could will over two million dollars without consulting her husband. Of course, a codicil could always be added; but he disregarded the thought as soon as it entered his head. What was needed was a completely new will. There would be plenty of time to draw one up. In his professional experience women made new wills at least once a year. It formed a major part of his income. Mrs Cameron was beginning the hobby at an unusually early age, but it only meant greater fees for Harding, Harding and Summers. The prospect cheered him considerably and he smiled with genuine warmth as he bade her goodbye.
Nancy leaned back in her chair with a great sense of relief. For two days she had been inundated with facts and figures and a great deal of unwelcome advice. Now it was over and her will, made out to her own satisfaction and no one else’s, was safely on its way to the Harding vaults. Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s legacy of wealth would not be incorporated into the Cameron millions.
Dusk was falling and hundreds of seabirds wheeled around Ocean View, perching on the gables and settling themselves for the night. The house was empty except for the small permanent staff who stayed there the year round, and Maria and Morris. The log fire crackled, the pleasant smell of pine filling the room. She rose to her feet and without summoning Maria, donned an English camel coat over her warm sweater and the trousers that Mr Harding had so silently disapproved of. Her shoes were stiletto-heeled and she did not change them for her walk on the beach. She tied the coat belt tightly around her waist, turned the collar up, and with her hands deep in her pockets, slipped quietly out of the house.
At a brisk pace, she walked over the damp grass of Ocean View’s immaculately kept lawns and down to the wildness of the dunes and the desolate expanse of beach.
She had been seven when her grandfather died and she remembered him clearly. Her grandmother had died a year earlier and she was a much more shadowy figure. She remembered that Maura’s hair had still been dark and that her voice had been soft with a fascinating Irish lilt. Chips had been devastated when she died. It had been the only time in her life that she had seen him cry. It was Patrick who had perched her on his knee and regaled her with stories of Ireland. Nancy had listened enraptured, but they had not instilled in her the same sense of Irishness that had been her father’s inheritance. The opposing element of a mother who came from the very English class her grandfather so hated, had seen to that. She could never remember her mother and grandfather being in the same room together. When Patrick died, her mother had not even attended the funeral. As a child, she had found such behaviour strange – now she understood.
Patrick and Maura had been two of the hundreds of thousands who had fled a famine-stricken Ireland in the middle of the eighteen hundreds. Patrick had told her how the English, with a talent ages old, had ignored the devastation so near to their shores. His deep resounding voice had been bitter as he recounted how the British aristocracy had retreated from their Irish estates and waited in the comfort of their St James’s clubs for the time when their tenants no longer so inconveniently sickened and died.
Her grandparents on her mother’s side had been members of that aristocracy. It was no wonder that Patrick would not have his daughter-in-law’s name mentioned in his presence.
Gulls circled her head and the strong wind blowing in from the
sea stung her cheeks and blew her hair wildly around her face. Some of her grandfather’s stories had given her nightmares when she was a child; he had told her of the coffin ships that had ferried the starving to America. The way he had threatened the landlord’s factor with violence in order to receive what was due to him to enable him to buy tickets for the three-week crossing to a land he had scarcely heard of. Then the harsh lines of his face had softened as he had ruffled her curls and said with a chuckle that God had looked after those who looked after themselves.
Nancy had always thought that God should have looked after them a little earlier and then they would never have had to leave Ireland with its green fields and blue mountains and its lakes that were called loughs, and pixies and fairies. She had a vague idea that her grandfather would not mind her voicing this opinion, but her grandmother would, so she had kept it to herself.
It was on board the ship that Patrick’s fortunes had taken a turn for the better. Ramon’s father had fallen overboard and it had been Patrick who saved him. Nancy threw back her head and breathed in the salt-fresh air deeply. If he had not done so, Ramon would never have been born and she would not now be walking the darkening beach and counting the hours till she would be with him again.
Her grandfather had cherished Leo Sanford’s friendship deeply. Nancy could not remember his reaction when his son and Leo’s had fallen out so irrevocably, but she could imagine the hurt it had caused him. He would have been pleased that Leo’s grandchild and his own had found the kind of love that had bound him so devotedly to Maura.
She picked up a handful of flat pebbles and began to skim them across the leaden waves.
She was leaving a husband to be with Ramon, and it would be natural to assume that Patrick’s Catholicism would have been outraged at such an act. Strangely enough, she felt he would have sympathized. There had been a strong streak of unconventionality in Patrick O’Shaughnessy. Her father had inherited this in a richer and more eccentric form, and she had thought herself to be free of it. Now she wondered. She was not going to indulge in a clandestine affaire: she was not going to be cautious or discreet or level-headed. She was going to abandon everything that made up the fabric of her life – her home, family, friends, reputation – all for a man she had spent only eighteen hours of her life with. Already, the previous thirty-five years seemed inconsequential and unreal. Ramon was reality.
It was dark now and in the distance the lights of Hyannis glimmered like a string of fairylights.
She turned for home. Tomorrow she would write to Verity: it would be a difficult letter, but she no longer shrank from the task. Verity had made her own life and had not been deterred by the knowledge that it had caused Nancy much anxiety and heartache. It would doubtless come as a shock to her to realize that her mother had a life of her own, but it was one she would have to bear. She would write a second letter to her daughter: one to be opened after her death.
Like an animal that instinctively knows its way, she climbed the pitch-black dunes. Ocean View stood white and welcoming against its background of trees. Nancy paused to look at it before entering. When she left at the end of the week she knew she would never return. Seagulls clustered beneath the roof, and the blinds at what had been Verity’s room were drawn, with no light to indicate a little girl reading in bed. She dug her hands deeper into her pockets. Home was where the heart was and hers was no longer at Ocean View: it was with Ramon and wherever Ramon chose to take her.
The next morning Dr Lorrimer telephoned. Nancy was curled up in a window seat, a writing case resting on her knees, a blank piece of paper in front of her. It was almost a relief to turn her attention elsewhere.
‘Perhaps five days in the clinic? No longer, unless you wish it.’
‘But why?’ Nancy asked for the third time in ten minutes. ‘You said that nothing had changed. Why should I enter the clinic?’
‘We must keep an eye on you,’ Dr Lorrimer said, with what he thought was comforting joviality. ‘Monitor the disease and take some fresh blood samples.’
‘Will they show anything different?’
‘Different? In what way different?’
‘Different in that I may be perfectly healthy,’ Nancy snapped.
‘No, no. The diagnosis was conclusive.’
Nancy said exasperatedly, ‘I’m sorry, Dr Lorrimer, but I can see no point in spending five days having useless blood tests taken.’
‘But the disease must be …’
‘… monitored,’
Nancy finished for him. ‘I can see no point in it, Dr Lorrimer. I want to be reminded of my illness as little as possible and having frequent blood tests would make that impossible. I’m also leaving the country in a few days’time, so it would be highly inconvenient and impractical.’
‘A cruise?’ Dr Lorrimer asked happily, and wondered why he hadn’t prescribed it himself. Most of his clients sought solace in a world cruise, though sadly only a few completed the trip. ‘A very sensible decision, Mrs Cameron. I feel sure, however, that Mr Cameron will want to take the extra precaution of having a doctor as well as a nurse in attendance.’
Nancy resisted the urge to tell the good doctor that her husband had still not telephoned her from Chicago and was in blissful ignorance of her condition. Instead, she said sweetly:
‘I believe my husband has made all the necessary arrangements, Dr Lorrimer.’
‘But is he a blood man?’ Dr Lorrimer began.
‘Extremely bloody,’ Nancy said and ruthlessly replaced the receiver.
Dr Lorrimer hesitated and wondered whether he should call her back. He decided against it. Terminal patients were apt to be extremely temperamental. Mrs Cameron had adjusted beautifully and he could congratulate himself on the handling of the affair. ‘Next, please,’ he said to Nurse Duggan, and wondered if he could get the next marlin he hooked, stuffed and displayed for the benefit of his patients.
Nancy returned to her window seat and wrote boldly.
Dearest Verity: then she sucked the top of her pen and studied a flock of terns winging their way out to sea, before continuing.
I know this letter will come as something of a shock to you, darling, but I’ve thought long and hard about the decision I’ve taken.
She stopped again and watched as a lone walker threw a ball to his yapping terrier. She had thought long and hard about it. For three days she had thought of nothing else and she had never wavered in her decision. She knew what she was going to do, and why. But how could she make Verity understand when she could not tell her of the medical report lying in Henry Lorrimer’s office?
It was an impossible task. In the end she wrote simply: I have fallen in love with Ramon Sanford. We are going away together in a few days’time. Where to, I still don’t know. I will write to you as soon as I have an address for you to reply to: that is, if you want to. I hope that you do, Verity. You will understand one day. Until then, all I can say is that I love you. She signed it simply, Mummy, and then began the longer yet easier task of writing a letter that would not be read until after her death.
She made no excuses. She did not refer to Jack’s long line of mistresses. Jack had always been too preoccupied with first the bank and then politics to be an involved father, but perhaps after her death he would draw closer to his daughter. She hoped so and wrote nothing that would hinder such a relationship.
When the letters were sealed she telephoned her father in Boston.
‘I shall be coming to Boston tomorrow. I need to talk to you.’
‘Not tomorrow,’ Chips said hastily. The next twenty-four hours in the O’Shaughnessy home were not going to be pleasant ones, and he didn’t want his daughter involved. ‘I’m up to my eyes, sweetheart,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘Can you make it later in the week?’
He sounded tired and Nancy could well understand it. The months and weeks preceding an election were exhausting ones.
‘Will Friday be all right?’ It would give her time to see Jack; it would be better that way. Her father would not treat the matter seriously if he knew she still hadn’t told her husband. He would have to listen and believe her once Jack had been told.
Telling her father would be the hardest task. She had always been his blue-eyed girl, the apple of his eye. She had never disappointed him. When her mother had made her dislike of electioneering clear, Nancy had replaced her at his side. She had been bright and pretty and she had been his girl. He had never shown the slightest disappointment at not having a son because he had never felt any. Nancy was enough for him, and she had known it. Now he was in the middle of a drive to be re-elected mayor of the city that he had served all his life. Adverse publicity would kill that ambition stone dead. Nancy thought she had found a way of avoiding public scandal. Her alliance with Ramon would be for months only. Perhaps less. For that length of time they could live quietly. It had been Ramon himself who had suggested retreating to Acapulco or Tobago.
‘Fine, sweetheart. It’s the firemen’s dinner. I’ve a speech prepared that will rock old Flynn to his roots.’
Nancy laughed. ‘I’ll be there,’ she said, and rang off.
Jack was uncontactable. His Washington secretary gave her the number of the Chicago convention hall and they gave her his hotel number. It was only after she had spent twenty minutes trying to determine her husband’s whereabouts that she realized how truly apart they had drifted.
The convention was in full swing. The senator could not be disturbed. Nancy left a message asking him to ring her at their Cape Cod home. At three-thirty she rang again, only to be told that the senator had been given her message.
At six-thirty Nancy rang again. The convention had wound up for the day. ‘Perhaps,’ a kindly voice suggested, ‘the senator could be contacted at his hotel suite?’
Nancy curbed her temper and waited patiently to be reconnected to Chicago. The senator was at dinner. Nancy asked to speak to his personal assistant. Miss Geeson was accompanying the senator.
Nancy replaced the receiver and poured herself a Courvoisier. Her anger was not for herself. Jack’s behaviour no longer had the power to hurt her. It was the knowledge that if Verity had had an accident Jack would have been oblivious to it for days. She had never in her life tried to contact him when he was in the middle of important discussions. The fact that she had persistently tried to do so over the last few days was surely indicative that the situation was serious. She denied herself her usual walk and sat in front of the log fire, waiting for him to return from his evening out and finally turn his attention homewards. The slim volume of poetry on her lap was open at Emerson’s ‘Give all to love’. She was going to do just that.
The telephone rang and she laid the book down.
‘What did Lorrimer have to say?’ Jack asked across the crackling line.
‘He said I was suffering from anaemia,’ she had to shout, the line was so bad.
‘What’s the answer? Dr Pinkerton’s little pink pills?’
It was unlike Jack to be humorous. She wondered if he had been drinking.
‘I’ll be home by the end of the month. If you’re worried we’ll get a second opinion.’
Nancy didn’t bother to point out that Dr Lorrimer was the world’s leading expert on blood diseases and that any second opinion would only corroborate what she already knew – or would be valueless. Her illness was not what she wished to discuss with him.
She said, ‘It’s not Dr Lorrimer’s diagnosis that I want to talk to you about.’
‘Fine, Nancy. I’m glad you’re keeping well. I’ll see you very soon.’
‘I won’t be here, Jack.’
‘What do you mean? Are you going to Boston?’
‘No. I don’t know where I’m going.’
‘You’d better tell me in case I need to get in touch with you.’ He didn’t sound as if it would be likely.
‘Please come home so that we can talk. We never have, not for years. I don’t want to finish this conversation off over the telephone.’
‘You’ll have to, Nancy, and you’ll have to be quick. I have reports to dictate.’
She had wanted to sit down with him and try and establish some form of genuine contact. She wanted him to understand why she was behaving like this. It wasn’t her fault if it had been made impossible.
She said helplessly. ‘I’m leaving you.’
‘It would be more convenient if you took a vacation in March. I’ll need you to accompany me on the Texas trip. After that there’s only the usual round and Sy
rie can stand in.’
‘Yes,’ Nancy said swiftly, ‘she’s very good at that, isn’t she?’
There was a stunned silence at the other end of the line. ‘I don’t think I heard you correctly, Nancy.’
‘You did, and I’m not going to apologize. Neither am I going to talk about it. Syrie Geeson has nothing to do with my going away. Nor, any more, do you.’
‘You’re talking in riddles, Nancy,’ her husband said coldly. ‘It’s late and I’m tired. I’ll see you soon at the Cape.’
‘I’m leaving the Cape this weekend,’ Nancy said steadily. ‘I’m packing my bags and I’m leaving the country with Ramon Sanford. I’ve already written to Verity. I’m sorry, Jack.’
She meant it. She was sorry and she was sad, but not for her actions. Her sadness was for the wasted years and the final death of the major part of her life.
‘With who?’ He sounded incredulous.
‘Ramon Sanford,’ Nancy said tightly. ‘I’m in love with him.’
There was a sharp intake of breath, and then a long pause. When at last he spoke there was a cruel edge to his voice. ‘He’s way out of your league, Nancy. Only yesterday Ria Doltrice ran a full column on his impending engagement to Princess Marinsky. The princess is a fledgling of twenty-five and still seven years older than most of his companions. I’ll phone Lorrimer in the morning. Perhaps there’s more to it than anaemia. Perhaps you’re suffering from an early menopause …’
‘Friday,’ she said between her teeth. ‘I shall be here until Friday. Goodbye, Jack.’
She replaced the receiver and stood for a few minutes hugging herself, as if for warmth. Then she turned out the lights and went to bed. She tossed restlessly, trying to still the doubts that Jack had raised. She was not experienced in extra-marital affairs. What if she had read more into Ramon’s words than had been intended? Perhaps he had told Princess Marinsky and Lady Linderdowne and a hundred others that nothing would ever be the same: that he loved them. Certainly he had made love to them. He had never made any secret of that. She closed her eyes against unwelcome images. Tomorrow she would pack. It would not take long. There was very little she wanted to take with her. On Friday she would go to Boston and see her father. On Saturday she would join Ramon in New York. Three days. Sixty hours. She closed her eyes and began to count the minutes.
The Flower Garden Page 9