An Absolute Scandal

by Penny Vincenzi

  “Is this where you live?” he said, looking up at the house.

  “This is where I live. Come along in,” she said, rummaging in her bag. “I don’t seem to have my key, but Josie will let us in.”

  “Josie?”

  “Our housekeeper.”

  “Oh OK. Would you wait right here?” he said to the cabdriver. Annabel listened, half amused, as he made his phone call; he was clearly terrified of his mother. “Yes, Mother, I know, I know, and I’m sorry. But the traffic was just…What? Well, I know I should have, but…Yes, anyway. I’ll be about…Just a minute.” He put his hand over the receiver and turned to Annabel. “How long from here, do you think?”

  “Oh, the way things are going, about fifteen minutes max.”

  “Fifteen minutes max,” he said. “Anyway, tell Deidre I’m so sorry…Yes, OK, I will…Yes, sure. Bye, Mother. Phew,” he said, putting the phone down. “She wasn’t very pleased with me. Can I buy you a drink or something tomorrow, to say thank you? Maybe lunchtime?”

  “Lunchtime?” she said, grinning at him. “What’s lunchtime?”

  “Well, OK, evening then. Around six thirty? Come to the hotel, why don’t you?”

  “OK. Six thirty it is. Um—why don’t you buy your mother’s friend some flowers? There’s a lovely flower shop in the Fulham Road, near the cinema; the driver’ll know it.”

  “That’s a fantastic idea,” he said. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow. Have a good evening.”

  She waved the taxi off, went back inside, and shut the door, smiling. Prince Charming had finally happened along, it seemed.

  Alan Richards was extremely upset when he heard about Miss Thompson. Her death made a small paragraph in most of the papers; apparently she’d once been a modestly successful concert pianist and had given piano lessons to local children in the Hampshire village where she lived, completely free for those whose parents couldn’t afford to pay.

  “Musical philanthropist found dead in cottage,” it said, continuing that the whole village mourned her passing; he’d spotted it in the Sketch as he travelled to work one morning. She had been such a pathetic old bird, all alone in the world, obviously terribly upset and frightened—and what had they done to help her? Nothing, nothing at all. He kept thinking about her, about how desperate she had been; a neighbour had found her apparently—another old lady, who’d been looking after Miss Thompson’s cat. What must that have been like for her as well, the poor old soul? There was to be an inquest; there had been no suicide note left in the cottage, but the neighbour had said that in her view, Miss Thompson had definitely killed herself.

  “She’d been very depressed recently and she had money worries, I think, quite serious ones.”

  He suddenly remembered Joel Strickland and his conversation with him in the George and Vulture. Maybe he’d get in touch now; he felt that he owed it to Miss Thompson. And bugger Norman Clarke.

  He looked in his wallet; yes, Joel’s card was still there…

  Chapter 15

  APRIL 1990

  People were so complex, Debbie thought. You just never knew. Here she was, ready to fight for her professional life, proclaiming her rights both as an individual and a woman, and ready to argue that Richard should be recognising that rather than crushing her into submission—she’d been rehearsing the arguments for days—and instead he was smiling at her, telling her it would be fine if she worked another day, that he was quite enjoying being with the children more and that he was very proud of her success.

  “I’ve told you, being at work suits you. You seem happier. It’s working out very nicely, I think. And the house certainly looks tidier.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh I see. Well—that’s great. Fantastic. Thank you, Richard. So much.”

  “No need to thank me,” he said. “I was wrong the first time, and I don’t mind admitting it. Although I do think three days is enough. I wouldn’t be happy with any more. And maybe a little bit of the extra money could go towards a cleaner. Just once a week, say?”

  Debbie said of course it could, and kissed him and thanked him again, and then thought that there had been no need to arrange Easter in Wales after all. And then thought what a truly awful person she was, told Richard she’d like to go to bed early—thereby inducing the sheepish smile she’d once thought so sweet and now found so irritating—and set about tidying up the kitchen.

  Anyway, it had been fine so far. Flora was throwing herself into grandmothering with her usual enthusiasm which meant that she and Richard could actually have some time to themselves, go for walks, read, and even have some uninterrupted discussions.

  She helped him with his CV—“Don’t mind me wanting to, I see so many coming into the office, and of course while that’s a completely different world, you’re still trying to grab people’s attention”—acted as sous chef as he prepared an Easter cake as a surprise for Flora, and generally felt rather surprisingly content. Although she could have done without the arrival on Saturday of the Beaumonts. The daughter, Tilly, was all right, but the conversation would be so boring, all about horses and saddles and girths and feed and absolutely nonstop, right through most meals, with Emma listening shiny-eyed.

  They arrived at about lunchtime; Tilly tumbling out of the Range Rover and across the yard, taking Boy’s head in her hands and kissing his nose rapturously. Flora hurrying out to welcome them, giving Simon a quick kiss and then hugging Tilly. Simon was staying for twenty-four hours and then leaving Tilly until the end of the week; even though he’d lost weight, Debbie thought he still looked like a Ralph Lauren ad, what with the inevitable polo pony on his sweater and the new-looking tweed jacket.

  They had lunch in the kitchen and then Flora suggested that she and Tilly go riding. “You can go off on your own with Boy, darling, if you like, but I’d love to come with you.”

  Tilly said nothing could be nicer, and that when they got back, she’d give Emma a lesson; Emma went red in the face with excitement.

  “How long are you down for?” Simon said; and, “Just till Tuesday,” Debbie said.

  “That’s a shame,” said Tilly. “I’m here for a whole week and I could have given Emma lots of lessons.”

  “Well, she could stay,” said Flora, “even if you’ve got to go back. And is there any rush?”

  “Yes, there is, I’m afraid,” said Debbie. “I’ve got to go back to work.”

  “Oh yes, of course. Well, just leave Emma, then—it’s fine by me.”

  “Oh Mummy, please say yes, please…”

  “We could bring her back,” Simon said. “I’m coming down to get Tilly on Sunday, I could easily drop Emma off with you. No problem.”

  “Well, Richard, what do you think?”

  Richard had clearly taken against Simon Beaumont; Debbie had watched, half amused, half sympathetic, as Simon joked and chatted and flattered Flora, and teased the children, holding the table with his easy charm in exactly the way she knew Richard would have loved to do himself. Although he would die rather than admit it.

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said, “isn’t it a bit much for you, Mother?”

  “Of course not. Don’t talk like that, Richard, you make me feel like an old lady.”

  “What absolute rubbish,” Simon said. “I’ve never known anybody with quite such energy as you, Flora.”

  “Please, Mr. Fielding,” said Tilly, smiling at him, “I’d love Emma to stay. We’ll take great care of her, won’t we, Flora?”

  In the end, Richard gave in.

  “Alan, I really think you should ring that journalist,” said Heather. “What harm can it do? It might in fact do some good, not for that poor lady, all right, but maybe some of the others. Go on, give him a call. You could make it anonymous, if you liked. If you’re worried.”

  “Yeah,” said Alan. “Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “And from a public call box. Then there’d be no trace.”

  “Blimey, Heather,” said Al
an admiringly, “you ought to work for MI6.”

  Nigel read Lucinda’s letter twice before the full meaning of it sank in; then he put his head in his hands and started to weep. He would never have believed anything could hurt so much. Lucinda was having a baby: the baby he had wanted to give her. It was all terribly unfair.

  “And so,” the letter had ended, “as I am sure you will understand, I do now want a divorce, fairly quickly. I will obviously do everything I can to make it as painless as possible for you. Perhaps you could talk to your solicitor and let me know what you would like me to do.”

  He’d like her to come back to him, that’s what he’d like her to do. Not as she was now, of course, but as she had been, sweet, pretty, loving Lucinda, who had made him so happy and looked after him so well. Why had she gone, for God’s sake, why?

  “I have no excuse whatsoever,” she had said that dreadful night when he had found out. “You’ve been a perfect husband, Nigel, and I don’t deserve you.”

  Should he perhaps have tried harder then, to make it work? Let her stay, have forgiven her? But he knew it was impossible. He couldn’t love someone who had deceived him as dreadfully and as relentlessly as she had. He couldn’t imagine now how he had got through those first few awful months: but somehow he had. Work had immunised him against the pain and the humiliation. While he was there he felt safe; worked doggedly for long hours and told no one that Lucinda had left him. The only person he confided in was his secretary, Lydia Newhouse. Lydia had worked for Nigel for almost ten years, and absolutely adored him. She was completely at a loss as to how Lucinda could have done such a dreadful thing: or such a stupid one. Her outrage was immensely soothing to Nigel; he imbibed it with every cup of coffee she made him, every perfectly typed folder of letters she laid in front of him, every gentle enquiry as to whether she could get him anything else before leaving for the night.

  But by that spring he was feeling a little better: was growing accustomed to his solitary state, was reverting, slowly if not pleasurably, to bachelorhood, and while he was often lonely and the sense of absolute foolishness that Lucinda’s adultery had bestowed upon him still woke him up in the smallest of the small hours, he could begin to contemplate at least a time when he might enjoy himself once more.

  Until now: when he felt he had reached a new level of raw pain. And by a most cruel piece of juxtaposition on the part of Fate, the day before the arrival of Lucinda’s letter, the next year’s results had arrived. With horrifying implications.

  Lucinda had been instructed by his solicitor to transfer all the assets into a holding account, where they were frozen while he worked out what to do. But the fact remained that her defection had inflicted another, terrible blow: his assets were no longer safe from the predators of Lloyd’s if Lucinda actually returned them to him. The dreadful irony of the situation was not lost on his lawyers; the errant wife holding the key to his financial salvation, or indeed the reverse.

  It was Lydia who found him weeping at his desk, over Lucinda’s letter—she had been instructed to write to him at work, rather than at home—and over a cup of very sweet coffee, she asked him if there was anything she could do. Emotionally weakened by being caught in such disarray, Nigel found himself telling her the latest sad chapter in his saga. “I can’t see her, Lydia, it would be more than flesh and blood could stand.”

  Lydia thought for a while and then said she thought it was essential he agreed to the divorce.

  “You can’t go on like this, Mr. Cowper. Things must be properly resolved. For financial reasons as much as anything else. And I think if you could bring yourself to meet her, face-to-face, it would all be so much simpler.”

  Nigel blew his nose, took another mouthful of the coffee. “Very well, you’d better set up a meeting with my solicitor. I’ll start with them and then maybe it won’t be necessary for us to meet. Here is Lucinda’s telephone number and address; perhaps you could write to her and tell her I’m seeing my solicitor, and that I’ll be in touch. I don’t think I could bear to speak to her until it is absolutely necessary. Just the same—the sooner the better, if you please.”

  He means before the baby starts to show, Lydia thought, her heart constricting with sympathy. Heavens, she’d like to give that girl a piece of her mind.

  Richard had gone for a walk in Richmond Park when Simon arrived with Emma and Tilly. Debbie had a feeling he’d gone there on purpose, in order not to see him, which really was a bit pathetic.

  Emma bore Tilly up to her bedroom to show her her collection of Julip horses, and Debbie invited Simon into the kitchen, wishing she’d thought to tidy it up first. His house would doubtless be a model of neatness.

  He wandered round it, admiring all the things she liked best herself—her collection of old jugs, the jumble of photographs, the children’s paintings she’d had framed—then sat down and drank the mug of tea she had given him.

  “Sorry, I don’t have any wonderful homemade cakes like Flora’s.”

  “I’m not allowed cakes, wonderful or otherwise; my tailor’s forbidden it. So how are things with you, Debbie? I think you’d got a new job last time we met. Do you enjoy it?”

  “I love it. Too much, really.”

  “You can’t love anything—or indeed, anyone—too much,” he said. “And anyway why shouldn’t you love it?”

  “Well, I feel a bit guilty, you know, leaving the children and so on.”

  “Oh, now that is ridiculous,” he said. “Tough little things, children, and anyway, as I used to say to Elizabeth, when she said the same, it’s not as if you’d sent them out to live on the streets.”

  “No, of course not. Um…did she really say the same, Elizabeth?”

  “She really did. But I encouraged her to work anyway, she’d have been miserable at home. It’s all very well, this ideal of Mum being at home, baking cakes and making finger puppets. It’s a different world now, and people like you and Elizabeth aren’t bred for domesticity. You don’t fit the mould, and it’s unfair to try and force you into it.”

  Tilly and Emma appeared in the doorway. “Tilly says I must go down to Wales next time she’s there,” Emma said, beaming.

  “Well, that’s very kind,” said Debbie, “but I’m sure Tilly would like a bit of peace and quiet with her horse.”

  “Tilly?” said Simon. “She wouldn’t know peace and quiet if it came up and hit her. Would you, darling?”

  “Daddy, that’s so silly. How could peace and quiet come and hit you?”

  “OK, sneaked up on you then. Anyway, we should go home, poppet, and see Mummy. She’s missed you.”

  “Well, thank you so much for bringing Emma home,” said Debbie, “and for playing with her all week, Tilly. It was very kind indeed.”

  “Mummy! We weren’t playing. Horses are hard work.”

  “They certainly are,” said Simon.

  “Daddy! You don’t know. All you ever do is look at them.”

  “True. And I’ve had some very happy days doing that. Now Debbie, any time you want Emma driven down or brought back, just ring me. Here’s my card.” She looked at it. Simon Beaumont, it said. Director, Private Clients Division. Graburn and French.

  “Thank you,” she said, pinning it up onto the board. “I really appreciate it.”

  He walked out into the hall, bent and kissed Emma, and then, clearly on an impulse, leaned down and kissed Debbie too.

  “I’ve enjoyed our chat,” he said. “Bye, Debbie.”

  “Bye, Simon. So have I.”

  When Richard got back, she saw him peering at Simon’s card. “What on earth is that doing there?” he said.

  “Simon gave it to me. In case we wanted him to drive Emma down again. Or bring her back. Wasn’t that kind of him?” she said, well aware of what she was doing and unable to resist the temptation.

  “Not particularly. If he’s driving down anyway…” He was clearly jealous; it was rather nice, Debbie thought; she couldn’t remember when she’d last been able to do th
at.

  The first date had been perfect: he’d bought Annabel champagne cocktails at the Carlton Tower and then said would she like to have dinner, and was there anywhere she’d like specially to go; she’d suggested Rumours in Covent Garden, because she’d thought he’d find it fun, and it wouldn’t be too expensive if she had to pay for herself: although she didn’t think she would, he was too much of a gentleman and clearly very well-off. Or at any rate, his parents were.

  They were over on a fortnight’s trip; his father had business in London, he said, and his mother liked to shop, and he’d had some vacation owed to him, so he’d come along too. He was a lawyer, “just a trainee, actually,” pretty fresh out of Harvard; his father was also a lawyer, and had his own firm in Boston, where they lived, and which Jamie had recently joined. He loved the law; he said it fascinated him, creating order out of chaos, making people’s lives better. He spoke about it rather as if it was something very noble, and didn’t mention the considerable rewards it clearly brought the family.

  They seemed to be extremely rich. They lived just off Beacon Hill, which was the very best area in Boston, her father said. He’d met Jamie on their second date when he came to call for her and had been rather taken by him. Jamie was the youngest in the Cartwright family; there was an elder brother called Bartholomew (known as Bif) and a sister called Kathleen; they were both married. Bif was also a lawyer with the family firm. “He’s so great,” Jamie had said, “such a perfect big brother. All my life he’s looked out for me, still does; don’t know what I’d do without him. And his wife, Dana, she’s very, very beautiful. She works in real estate, makes a lot of money. And Kathleen works in an art gallery. She’s an agent for the artists.”

  “Do either of them have children?”

  “Not yet. My mother worries that they’re both waiting too long.”

  “How long have they been married?”

  “Oh, Dana and Bif three years, Kathleen almost two.”

  “But that’s nothing,” said Annabel, adding, “is it?” not wishing to sound rude or in any way possessed of the sort of opinions Kathleen—or more possibly, her mother—might consider unsympathetic.