The Flower Garden

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘Because I do not suffer from the disease that afflicts you and your kind. Hypocrisy.’ The contempt in Ramon’s voice was crushing. ‘I am not a married man. I have never vowed to love and cherish one woman above all others. When I take that vow I will keep it.’

  ‘There’s as much chance of you being faithful to one woman as there is of Madeleine Mancini becoming a nun,’ Jack said savagely.

  Ramon’s smile was in his voice. ‘Ah, so you have already noticed the talents of Miss Mancini? What a pity that you are unable to take advantage of them. That would not be at all suitable. Miss Mancini is not at all accustomed to conducting her affaires with the secrecy and stealth the women of Washington are. I had always been under the impression that you were a man of sound judgment. Now I see that you are not. Neither, more fearfully, are the men who believe in you as a future world leader. However, I’ve not the slightest doubt that they will realize their mistake in a very short time whether Nancy leaves you or not. What amazes me now, is that you still appear to be labouring under the impression that I am about to spend a month, months or even a year with your wife and then discard her. I have no such intention. Nancy is going to marry me and neither you nor anyone else on God’s earth is going to stop her from doing so.’

  Syrie felt the nape of her neck tingle at the power and passion in the deep, rich voice.

  ‘She’s returning with me,’ Jack said stubbornly, and in comparison his voice held an underlying note of weakness.

  ‘I understand you can charm the birds from the sky when you so desire,’ Ramon said, regarding Jack as he might a curiosity in a zoo. ‘That is what has gained you the position you now hold. That, and a certain amount of slick cleverness and a never-ending supply of money. I have never thought of charm as a dangerous quality before, but if it can be switched on and off with the dexterity you exhibit, then I find it an extremely dangerous quality. I wonder how many people really know you, Jack Cameron? Do your political allies? Does the ambitious and accessible Miss Geeson?’

  ‘Get out!’ Jack hissed. ‘Get out before I throw you out.’

  This time Ramon’s laugh was genuine. ‘Bad judgment again, Senator. You are under my roof. It is I, not you, who has the power to issue the orders. If it wasn’t for Nancy I would never have allowed you over the threshhold. As it is, my patience has come to an end. The Aquitania sails in the morning and you will be aboard her.’

  Syrie could hear him moving towards the door.

  ‘By the way, what will happen to the loyal Miss Geeson when Nancy divorces you? Won’t a wife without an impeccable social background be a little of a handicap in those tight-knit and illustrious Washington cliques?’

  ‘No wife of mine will ever handicap me,’ Jack said fiercely. ‘Not even Nancy. If she doesn’t come to heel I’ll make a laughing stock of both of you.’

  ‘And marry Miss Geeson?’ Ramon asked, amused.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Camerons don’t marry coal miners’ daughters. If Nancy thinks she’s the prop of my political life, she’s been over-estimating herself. I can marry where I want and far more suitably than the daughter of a lace-curtain Irish mayor who’s going to lose his next election by a landslide.’

  The insults as to Nancy’s background were lost on Syrie. She heard nothing after Jack’s flat statement that Camerons did not marry coal miners’daughters. Of course they didn’t. Why then had she believed that some day … Sometime …

  She didn’t move. She sat perfectly still and schooled herself to breathe in and out, slowly and steadily. In. Out. Her head was clearing. In. Out. She thought she had been using him, and she had. She wore expensive clothes, had a flat on Madison Avenue and drove her own Pontiac. She had never mentioned marriage because she had known that Nancy was necessary to Jack if he was to gain the ultimate in political power. Yet, womanlike, she had subconsciously believed that he would have married her if the way had been clear. If Nancy had died … He wouldn’t, of course. A child of three could have seen that. He would have remained a widower for an acceptable length of time and then chosen a suitable bride from amongst his own set. She would continue as mistress and confidante. It was, after all, her role. She would still be the one to wield unseen power. The wife, Nancy or otherwise, would be nothing but an ornamental trapping. It would make no difference: but it did. It made a difference because of the crucifying tone of Jack’s voice when he had referred to her as ‘a coal miner’s daughter’. That was how he saw her and would always see her. A coal miner’s daughter who would never, in a hundred years, be allowed to sit at the same social dinner table as the Cameron family. A coal miner’s daughter who had brains that he could put to use and a body that was convenient.

  The door closed behind Ramon Sanford and she heard the clink of a glass against a decanter. Slowly she rose and was appalled to find that her legs were trembling. With infinite care she opened the door and slipped out of Jack Cameron’s suite. Sanford had disappeared. She began to walk with increasing briskness down the long corridor: through the acres of public rooms and out into the fresh air. She needed to think. Now, of all times, she must not act hastily.

  Careless laughter floated from the direction of the swimming pool. Syrie paused, hands deep in the pockets of her dress. Georgina Montcalm and Venetia Bessbrook were sunbathing. Georgina reached a languid hand towards champagne chilling in a silver ice bucket. Almost instantly a white-coated waiter materialized and deferentially refilled her glass. Syrie’s eyes narrowed. She hated them and all women like them. Rich, idle women who had never worked in their lives. Where she came from the women worked – hard, back-breaking work from early morning to late at night. Cooking, mending, cleaning. Scrubbing floors out of pails of pan-boiled water. Old at thirty from too many babies, too much worry and too little attention. Syrie had never been ashamed of her background. She had risen above it because she had been born with brains and the kind of amibition that would have elevated her in whatever environment she had been born in.

  She had gravitated towards politics because politics was power and power was what she needed to change the living conditions of people like her parents. Now she saw that she had been grossly misguided. Jack Cameron would have made promises for votes, but he would never have cared on any deep level for the hundreds and thousands of small-town Americans who coped daily with the kind of poverty that he had no conception of. She hated these people – the thoughtless rich, the grand coterie who allowed no one into their ranks unless an accident of birth made them eligible. She knew what she was going to do. She was going to exact revenge.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It had been a perfect day. In the morning, after going over the list of new arrivals with Senora Henriques, she had spent several hours with Salli Nedeco, Zia’s dressmaker, discussing details of both her own costume and those of the guests for the fancy dress ball. It was imperative that no two ladies adopted the same costume.

  Bobo was going as a Persian princess; Venetia Bessbrook, capitalizing on her Christian name, as a Venetian court lady. Lavinia Meade, for reasons that defeated both Salli and Nancy, was going as a Chinese empress. Marisa Moreno had not needed the services of Salli and her minions, she was going as herself, dressed in the magnificent costume of a matador. Nancy’s own costume was that of Anne Boleyn and Salli had made her a magnificent gown of crimson velvet edged with pearls.

  She had given detailed instructions for the next ball and had chosen the colour pink as a theme. The decor, the food, the champagne, the clothes: all would be pink. Then, satisfied with her work, she had personally greeted Prince Felix Zaronski and his magnificent white stallion. The stallion, having been led by a bevy of the prince’s liveried aides up the steep narrow road from the harbour, had pawed the ground wild-eyed, its mouth foam-flecked. Nancy decided it was too potentially dangerous to join the peacocks and doves, and after admiring it to the prince’s satisfaction, had had it led away to the magnificent, but not often used, stables.

  The prince’s admiration of his
hostess’ appearance had been blatant; after his eyes had slowly travelled from the top of her head to the tip of her feet and back again he asked after his fellow guests. On being told that Prince Nicholas Vasileyev was also in residence, the fiery eyes in the high-boned face had lit with new light. The Vasileyevs and Zaronskis were linked by a mutual grandmother. Nancy grinned and wondered if it had been the one born on the wrong side of the royal blanket. On mention of the Szaparys the prince had looked nonplussed. The name meant nothing to one of Romanov blood. On being told that Lady Bessbrook was staying until the end of the month, enthusiasm had returned. He had met Lady Bessbrook on the Adriatic the previous year. Unfortunately she had been infatuated with a nonentity millionaire. Nancy, rightly deducing from his none too flattering description that the millionaire was Reggie, had the unfortunate task of informing the prince that the gentleman was also in residence, adding casually that though the two were still friends, a breach had occurred over the last few months. Of Mr Luke Golding she said nothing. Unless Mr Golding found himself another amoureuse prepared to pay for his bed and board, Mr Golding would have to be asked to settle his account and leave. In Villiers’vast experience this would have to be done speedily as he did not think Mr Golding had the price of a motor fare into Funchal.

  After the prince, she had entertained the ebullient, earthy Miss Polly Watertight of Boston, Mass.

  Nancy reflected that she had been leading a sheltered life. That she and Miss Watertight could have shared the same home town and never met showed that her own existence had been cloistered. Miss Watertight was well into her eighties, had a magnificent bosom that she still enjoyed exhibiting and a laugh that could be heard in Funchal.

  When Kate Murphy had also arrived, Nancy found her presence irrelevant. It transpired that one of Mrs Murphy’s ex-husbands had also been an ex-gentleman friend of Miss Watertight. Gales of laughter had followed as they had discussed with relish the poor man’s faults, failings and the more eccentric of his foibles. Nancy, hardened to the malicious gossip and witticisms of Washington and New York, had blushed to the roots of her hair at the bawdy reminiscences of the two octogenarians, and escaped, ordering that they were to be kept supplied with champagne and not disturbed until they wished to leave of their own accord.

  She had spent a full hour with Miss Nina Correlli and found that off-stage the great operatic star was torturously shy. A bellboy had been despatched in search of the Montcalms, inviting them to join Nancy and Miss Correlli for mid-morning iced coffee.

  By the time Nancy was discreetly informed that her presence was needed elsewhere, Miss Correlli, faced with the Montcalms’ easy friendliness, was thawing out and even beginning to look as if she was enjoying herself.

  Senora Henriques told Nancy that the English debutante to whom everything was ‘blissikins’had lain in her morning bath and calmly slashed both her wrists. When Nancy hurriedly arrived, the smell and sight of blood lingered so that the erstwhile pretty lavender and gold bathroom resembled a butcher’s shop.

  The girl was now laying on her bed, covered with a quilt, and Sanfords’doctor was rapidly bandaging the second of her bleeding wrists. The girl’s face was so white it was indistinguishable from the sheets.

  ‘She nearly did it this time,’ the Portuguese doctor said grimly. ‘Another ten minutes and it would have been too late.’

  ‘Does this happen often?’ Nancy asked, horrified.

  The doctor shrugged. ‘Once or twice a season. Usually late at night after too much drink and the breaking-off of a love affair.’

  The bandaging was completed. The maids had finished cleaning the bathroom. The girl’s eyelids fluttered open and gazed at the doctor, dull-eyed.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Nancy asked. The girl was no older than Verity.

  ‘Give her a sedative,’ the doctor said unsympathetically, lifting the girl’s head from the pillow and placing a small tablet on her tongue, raising a tumbler of water to her lips. She swallowed unprotestingly.

  The doctor packed his bag. ‘She won’t do it again. At least, not for a few months. They never do.’ He nodded deferentially to Nancy and left the room.

  ‘I will see to it that a maid is left at her bedside,’ Senora Henriques said, preparing to follow the doctor.

  ‘Yes.’ Nancy continued to stand at the foot of the bed and gaze at the still features before her. ‘I was to meet Mrs Honey-Smith for a welcoming drink. Will you please give her my apologies?’

  The housekeeper nodded and closed the door behind her. The maid, overawed by Nancy’s presence, sat discreetly by the door.

  The girl’s eyes remained closed. Nancy walked slowly around the bed and sat at her side, reaching out gently with her hand and puting it warmly over the girl’s cold one.

  Lady Helen Bingham-Smythe: daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Dentley; accompanied to Sanfords by an aunt who so far had been uncontactable.

  ‘I’m sorry you are so unhappy,’ she said. There was an imperceptible change in the rhythm of the girl’s breathing. ‘I know you won’t believe me, but whatever it is, however bad it is, this time next year you will have forgotten all about it.’

  A small tear slid down the childlike face.

  ‘If someone told you you were going to die whether you wanted to or not, you would fight with your last breath to live, no matter how unhappy you were.’

  The eyelids fluttered open once again, this time curiosity replacing the glazed dullness. ‘I wouldn’t. I would be glad.’

  Nancy shook her head. ‘I’m dying. There’s nothing I can do to stop it and no matter how desperately unhappy I was, I would prefer to live and fight my unhappiness than die. Many people say dying is the cowardly way out. I’m not too sure of that. It seems to me it requires a great deal of courage. But it is the defeatist’s way.’

  She now had the girl’s full attention.

  ‘You can’t possibly be dying! You’re too young!’

  ‘I am, and it’s hideous. It’s also my secret and yours.’

  Fingers tightened on Nancy’s, as if offering comfort. Nancy smiled. ‘Now, you wouldn’t truly want to change places with me, would you?’

  Slowly, the girl shook her head.

  ‘What happened?’ Nancy asked, the first battle over. ‘What is making you so unhappy?’

  Unbelievably the beautiful, ethereal Mrs Nancy Leigh Cameron seemed at that moment to Helen Bingham-Smythe more comforting and maternal than her own mother had ever done.

  ‘My aunt,’ she said briefly. ‘I came here to meet Piers. We’ve been in love for simply ages but Mummy disapproves of him. She said it would be a good idea if I left London for a while. She thought I would forget him.’ Another tear made its way down her face. ‘Naturally Piers and I were not going to be separated like that, so we thought that I would come here chaperoned by my aunt and Piers would come as well. It was all going to be such fun.’

  ‘What went wrong?’ Nancy asked, feeling a certain amount of sympathy for the gullible duchess.

  ‘It was yesterday. Piers had gone into Funchal. At least he said he was going into Funchal. My aunt was playing bridge with Lady Meade and the Carringtons. I was sunbathing but then Bobo … Do you know Bobo?’

  Nancy nodded.

  ‘Well, Bobo asked if I’d like to have a game of tennis so I came up to my room for my tennis things and there they were, in my bed!’ Sobs choked her.

  Nancy felt a cold murderous rage at the man who had played so carelessly with a young girl’s heart, and the duplicity of an aunt who could put herself in the position of chaperone, and not only abuse that but willingly seduce or be seduced by her charge’s lover.

  ‘If it hadn’t been your aunt, it would have been someone else. Some men are like that. Perhaps your mother was not so unreasonable in trying to break up your relationship as you thought.’

  ‘But he loved me. We were going to elope …’

  Nancy gave silent thanks to the unscrupulous aunt.

  ‘Do you like Sanfords?’ sh
e asked unexpectedly.

  Helen looked surprised. ‘Oh yes, it’s the first time I’ve ever been away on my own – or nearly on my own. Finishing school was no fun at all. Mummy’s quite religious and they were very strict.’

  ‘And you like Bobo?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ the pale face grew quite animated. ‘She’s terrific fun.’

  ‘Would you like to stay if your aunt and Piers left?’

  ‘But I can’t stay without my aunt. Mummy and Daddy would never allow it. And I don’t ever want to see her again. I hate her. When I walked in on them she … She … laughed.’

  Nancy’s eyes glittered. Helen’s aunt had spent her last night under Sanfords’roof.

  ‘And perhaps Piers does still love me, really.’

  ‘No, he doesn’t, but lots of other young men will. Nice young men who wouldn’t dream of treating you the way Piers did. I shall contact your parents and assure them that you are under good supervision. The Montcalms are here and one word from Georgina Montcalm seems to work wonders with British aristocracy from the king down. Your aunt and Piers will have to go. And within the next fifteen minutes. I want no tears from you on their behalf. I’ll see to it that Sanfords’dressmaker makes you lots of pretty dresses with long sleeves and I shall expect you to enjoy yourself with Bobo and the Montcalms and lots of other people I shall introduce you to. But no more tears. Understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ a meek little voice said, ‘and thank you.’

  Nancy smiled. Her maternal instinct was strong and she had been able to exercise it to the full. If only she had been able to have more children … She dashed the thought from her mind. It was one that had crept in unbidden many times since her interview with Dr Lorrimer. It was almost as if having a brood of children would have compensated her for an early death. It was a ridiculous idea and she had no time for ridiculous ideas. She had to track down the Duke of Dentley’s sister and inform her that she was leaving along with the young man whose company she found her in.