Past Imperfect

by Julian Fellowes

  ‘No, but if he did it would wreck everything for him, so it would be rather self-defeating. Anyway, that night I got up and dressed and left, and I never saw Damian again. Finis.’

  ‘How did you know that Peniston was his? Presumably Andrew put in an appearance occasionally.’

  ‘Rather an unfortunate turn of phrase.’ Then she smiled, tenderly this time, as she thought of her son, the lovechild. ‘I knew because when he was born he was so like Damian. It was mainly gone before he was two. Isn’t there some theory that newborn babies resemble their fathers, so they’ll be looked after and provided for? His nose, his eyes… I used to thank God that no one noticed, although I did see my mother giving him an odd look right at the beginning. But I always knew.’

  ‘Why did you write the letter? Why didn’t you just go and see him?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was feeling sorry for myself. Andrew was being more tiresome than usual, so I’d come up to London to finish off the Christmas shopping on my own and I was drunk. I don’t why I wrote it at all. I wouldn’t have posted it if I’d waited until the next day, but someone picked the letters off the hall table before I got up and that was it.’

  I laughed. ‘Exactly what Damian thought had happened.’

  Now she was serious. ‘So what’s next?’

  ‘I tell Damian. He changes his will. Your son is very, very rich. The House of Belton rises in splendour.’

  ‘Eventually.’

  ‘I can assure you Peniston won’t have long to wait.’ I remembered one detail, which I supposed we should observe. ‘We’ll probably have to run some sort of DNA test. Would you mind?’

  Without a word she went to her desk, opened a drawer and took out an envelope which she handed to me. On the outside of it was written: ‘Peniston’s hair. Aged three.’ ‘Will this do?’ she asked. ‘Or do you need a newer piece?’

  ‘I’m sure it will be fine.’

  ‘Don’t use it all.’ But I could see something else was on her mind. ‘Does Peniston have to know? Is that one of the conditions?’

  ‘Don’t you want him to know?’

  She looked around the room. Over the chimneypiece was a portrait of a Victorian, female forebear of Andrew’s, ‘The Third Countess of Belton’ by Franz Xavier Winterhalter, painted with chestnut ringlets and a good deal of bosom. Serena sighed. ‘If he knows, he has to choose between living a lie or spoiling his father’s life by cutting himself off from the Beltons’ history and feeling a fool in front of everyone he’s grown up with.’

  ‘A rich fool.’

  ‘A rich fool. But a fool.’ She took a breath. ‘No. I don’t want him to know. I would like him to know that Damian was a wonderful man, I will happily say that we were in love. I want to. But I think that’s enough.’

  ‘I’ll tell Damian.’

  Serena had one more request. ‘I’d like to tell him myself. Can I? Would he allow that?’

  I looked at this woman, still healthy, still lovely, still in the middle of life, and I thought of that scarcely breathing corpse. ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘You could always write him a letter. You’ve done it before.’ We both smiled at this, but I could see that her eyes were starting to fill with tears. ‘I’m not sure he’s up to seeing anyone. Particularly anyone who hasn’t seen him since he was…’ I tailed off. I couldn’t quite find the right word.

  ‘Beautiful,’ she said, as the first droplet began its journey down her cheek.

  I nodded. ‘That’s it. Since he was beautiful.’

  I spoke to Bassett as I left, giving him the facts of the case and, on his advice, I drove straight from Dorset to Surrey. By the time I got there, two and a half hours later, there was already a lawyer in attendance who told me that a new will favouring the Viscount Summersby had been drawn up and signed. I was glad, even if it felt peculiar for a moment to take such pleasure in a name that I had hated for so long. Damian had asked for me to be shown up as soon as I arrived, and when I entered his bedroom I realised that we were racing against the clock. Damian lay in his bed, with a fearsome array of tubes and bottles, and leaking things on stands, all of which seemed to be connected to some portion of his emaciated, shrivelled carcase. Two nurses hovered around him, but at the sight of me he waved them away and they left us alone.

  ‘It’s done. I’ve signed it,’ said Damian.

  ‘The lawyer told me. You didn’t want to wait for the results of the test?’

  I pulled out the lock of hair, taking it from its envelope and handing it to him. But he shook his head. ‘No time. And it’ll be positive.’ I could see the hair itself was much more important to him. He pulled two or three strands from the twisted gold wire holding it together and gestured for me to take them.

  ‘Give them to Bassett. Now. That’s all they need.’ I rang and the butler came and collected the precious filaments. When I turned back towards the bed I could see Damian holding the rest of the child’s curl as, very slowly, he brought it to his lips. ‘So we made it,’ he said.

  ‘We made it.’

  ‘Not a moment too soon.’ His thin lips drew back in a kind of laugh, but it was painful to witness. ‘Tell me the story.’

  And I did. He made no comment except when it came to the account of his interview with Serena at the ball. I told him I thought his behaviour had been honourable, but he shook his head. ‘You are supposed to think it was honourable,’ he said. ‘But it was proud. I wanted them to want me. And when I drove down there with her I thought I could make them want me. But they didn’t, and I wasn’t prepared to be the family’s mèsalliance. That was just pride. I spoiled our lives through pride.’

  ‘She thinks she spoiled your lives through fear on the beach at Estoril.’

  For some reason this almost cheered him. ‘She’s wrong. But I’m glad, even now, to think she feels it as I do. That’s selfish, of course. If I loved her less selfishly I would want her to forget me, but I can’t.’

  ‘She doesn’t want the boy to know. That is, she wants to tell him about you, but not that you’re his father.’ He nodded, but without complaint. I could see he was prepared to abide by this. ‘She asked to come and see you, to explain.’ This produced something like alarm in the rheumy eyes on the pillow, but I shook my head at once to comfort him. ‘I told her no, but she sent you a note.’ I sat on a chair placed for visitors near the head of the bed and took the thick, cream envelope from my inside pocket. He nodded for me to open it. Beneath the embossed address in deep blue, Waverly Park, she had written in that thick, italic writing that I remembered well, ‘I have loved you since I last saw you. I will love you to the end of my life.’ It was signed with one word only: ‘Serena.’ I held it for him and he read it, again and again, his eyes flicking back and forth across the paper.

  ‘You must tell her you were in time for me to see it and that I feel the same,’ he muttered. ‘Just the same.’ And then, ‘Will you stay? They can sort out what you need.’ I can hardly believe that I hesitated, my head full of those ridiculous, irrelevant things that fall off the shelves into the centre of your brain at the most unsuitable moments, a dinner party I’d said I’d go to, lunch the next day with some friends over from Munich. What gets into one at these times? Before I could answer he reached for my hand, which was resting on the surface of the counterpane, ‘Please. I promise I shan’t detain you any more than this one time.’

  I nodded at once, ashamed it had taken me so long to speak. ‘Of course I’ll stay,’ I said.

  And I did stay. I was given dinner, together with the lawyer, a Mr Slade, who invited me to call him Alastair, and we made stiff conversation about global warming in the fourteenth century and the Curious Case of Gordon Brown, as we sat playing with our food in the splendour of the lifeless dining room below, until I was shown back into the bedroom I had occupied on that first visit, in what seemed like another era and was in fact only a couple of months before, where Bassett had found me things to shave with, and brush my teeth with, and wear in bed. ‘I’ll collect yo
ur shirt and the rest of your laundry and have them back with you for the morning, Sir,’ he said. In truth, Damian had spent his last years in Fairyland, but a lonely Fairyland. That I did know.

  It was Bassett who shook me awake in the early hours of the morning. ‘Can you come, Sir? He’s on his way.’ I looked into his face and I saw that his eyes were full of tears, and it struck me that when a man is dying, if his butler cries then some at least of his life must have been well done. I snatched up the brand-new dressing gown provided, and hurried along through the passages to the chamber of death. It seemed quite full when I got there, with both nurses and a doctor and Alastair Slade on hand, who had clearly been ordered to attend in case of any last-minute alterations, but he was not needed. The atmosphere was stuffy and anxious, and I thought of Louis XVI plunging his fist through a pane of glass to give his wife some air at her accouchement. They all turned to look when I appeared, then fell back so automatically, clearing the way to the bed, that I assumed this had been yet another preordained plan in this most ordered of departures.

  Damian was only just alive, but when he saw me his lips began to move, so I knelt down and leaned over him, holding my ear as near to his mouth as I could. And I did hear him quite clearly. ‘Please tell her I feel the same,’ he said. Then it was over.

  The test was positive, as he and I had known it would be, so there was no doubt that justice would be done when Damian’s affairs were settled. Alastair gave me a copy of the will before we left and invited me to read it through, in case there were any immediate queries he could satisfy, but it was all pretty straightforward, if overwhelming in its sheer magnitude. As I knew, Damian had no surviving close relations and so there was never any chance of a challenge to his some would say eccentric dispositions, and the document was clear enough. I discovered I had been allotted the onerous task of executor. This had been made slightly more bearable in two ways, the first being that I was sole holder of the office, so every other manager, banker, committee member, financial advisor of Damian’s vast empire had to defer to me. The second sweetener of the unwieldy pill was that Damian had left me a large amount of money ‘in gratitude for his kind execution of a tedious task,’ which I had not looked for, but for which I was, and am, extremely grateful. I have no hesitation in saying that the bequest altered my life enormously for the better.

  He had also set aside what seemed to me a huge sum to be disposed of by me between, and I quote, ‘the others on the list, as he shall see fit. He will understand this designation. I make no recommendations as to how this should be done, since he is the philanthropist, not I.’ I was shamelessly partisan in the distribution, giving Dagmar the lion’s share which, I am happy to relate, resulted in her leaving William almost at once. I could not forget that she alone had been treated kindly by Damian during his terrible tirade, and I decided this must mean that her happiness was in some way important to him. I gave a sizeable lump to Candida, which she was very grateful for, and another to Lucy, which Philip lost within three years on ill-judged business ventures. Terry, surprisingly perhaps, invested her share well and now enjoys the proceeds. I did not give money to Kieran, since he didn’t need it, but I saw him as the legitimate heir to Joanna’s goodwill, so I purchased the Turner seascape, which I had admired in the library on my first visit, out of the estate and gave it to him. He was pleased, I think. The only other bequest for which I was personally responsible, but which, as executor I was fully entitled to make, was a substantial sum to Peniston’s sister, Mary. This was partly because I felt a twinge of guilt, knowing that she, in truth and unlike Peniston, had the blood of the Beltons running in her veins and partly to substantiate the anodyne notion, helped by the lesser legacies to the other women, that Damian had decided to split his money between those he had loved and their offspring. There was so much money that none of the above made more than the faintest dent in the whole, and the gifts helped the legend that Serena was happy, indeed eager, to foster and promote. Naturally, I needed the promise of silence from Candida and Terry, the only other two who knew, but Candida was Serena’s cousin and was never a risk. I was more concerned at having been indiscreet with Terry and I did think of somehow tying the money to a gagging clause but there was a risk this could prove insulting and counter-productive so I decided to rely on what remained of her decency. Thus far, at least, I have not been disappointed.

  The funeral was small and simple, and Damian’s body was laid to rest in the graveyard, fittingly, of the Church of St Teresa of Avila, which had benefited so much from his benevolence during his lifetime. A few months after that, we had a grander and well-attended memorial at St George’s, Hanover Square. The will was public knowledge by this time, and had provided a good deal of conversation in London drawing rooms and at London dinner tables, so there were many faces from the past among the crowded pews, I hope not entirely because the luncheon afterwards, for all the attendees, was to be held at Claridge’s. Serena was very helpful with the arrangements and at her suggestion Peniston read a piece. It was that one about death being ‘nothing at all,’ which I always find rather irritating, but apparently it had been specified. He spoke about his mother’s admiration and love for Damian, which I thought rather courageous and good, and I must admit I was also impressed that Andrew turned up and maintained throughout both service and reception a grave, pompous solemnity, which I assume was the nearest he could come to any manifestation of sorrow. Given the circumstances, even the little he was allowed to know, he could hardly be expected to feel much of the latter. Of course, the enormous inheritance had propelled his dynasty overnight to a place among the top twenty families in England, so it behoved him not to look ungrateful, but still, good manners may never be counted on under any circumstances and I was glad of them from him.

  Lucy was there, in a peculiar approximation of mourning dress, with a black, silk evening coat and a huge, plastic, purple flower pinned to its collar. Candida arrived with Dagmar, both of them looking elegant and genuinely upset, which warmed my heart, so far had I come in my estimation of the deceased. And even Kieran turned up, though it might have been to confirm that Damian really was dead. Terry did not make the journey from California. That would have been a lot to ask, but she sent a bunch of those fashionable and hideous flowers, beloved of urban florists, that look as if they feed on flies. One woman rather interested me. She was tall and large, but rather chic in her way, wearing a beautifully cut suit and one of the best diamond brooches I have ever seen. She looked at me and smiled and nodded, so clearly I knew her, and in case she came over to say hello I sought the assistance of Serena as to who she might be. Serena was rather surprised by the question. ‘Surely you remember Georgina Waddilove,’ she said.

  ‘Fat Georgina?’ I couldn’t keep the astonishment out of my face. ‘What happened?’

  ‘You have been out of the great world.’ She smiled. ‘She married the Marquess of Coningsby.’

  I had been out of the great world indeed. ‘When?’

  ‘About fifteen years ago. I can’t believe you never heard, although they are in Ireland a lot of the time. It was her first and his second, but the miracle was that he only had girls before and Georgina whacked out two boys, the first when she was forty-three, and the second a year later. So she’s the mother of the heir and the spare.’

  ‘And is he nice?’

  ‘Lovely. Exactly like John Thaw to look at and so grateful to Georgina for rescuing him. Number One took off with a friend of his, and he was very cast down when they met, but now he’s as happy as a sandboy.’

  Actually, this was a really joyful moment for me. I looked at the smiling and almost quite attractive Marchioness of Coningsby, and I knew that gloom is not universal, even in this misery-memoir age. For some people things do come right. ‘How wonderful,’ I said. ‘I hope her mother was alive to attend the wedding.’

  ‘She was. But if she hadn’t been, I expect she’d have risen from the tomb to get there.’ Serena laughed and so did I, bef
ore the other guests at the party claimed her.

  So Damian’s quest was done and I was not unhappy at the outcome, nor, in the end, about what I’d learned on my travels through my lost youth. I had thought that the secret love story of 1968, had been my own hidden and one-sided worship, which had ended in my exile, but I had discovered instead that Serena Gresham and my betrayer had been the lovers of choice for any true romantic. Even so, I cling to my belief that in rediscovering and recognising the workings of my own heart, and in having finally made love, albeit once, to the object of my passions, I had endorsed my life, in retrospect and for the future, to the end of my days. Whatever may yet come to me, something or nothing it remains to be seen, I have known what the poets write about and I am duly grateful.

  I was standing in the hall of the hotel, with its wonderfully vivid, black-and-white marble floor, when Peniston Summersby touched me on the arm. Together we walked out on to the pavement, into the still bright, autumn day, as we discussed what had to be done next, since an estate like Damian’s is bound to be a work in progress for many years, but then he hesitated and I knew he wanted to say something to show me that he was aware of his good fortune. ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity. I mean to try to be worthy of it,’ he came up with at last.

  ‘I’m sure you will be.’

  ‘And I want to go on with the things that mattered to him. Then there’s cancer research, of course, and. I thought we might look at setting up some new scholarships in his name.’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t think he’d really care much about perpetuating his name, but I agree with you. Let’s do it.’

  It was time to part, but I could see he hadn’t quite finished. Poor fellow, he looked rather awkward, and in the last analysis there is something a bit odd about being left a kingdom worth more than the National Debt because some bloke was in love with your mother forty years ago, which is all he would ever hear about it. ‘Mummy says he was a marvellous man. She wishes I’d known him.’