He squinted in the strong sunshine and held a hand over his eyes as he looked up at Delia. “We bought a somewhat popular hotel and bar with a damned good turnover not long after we arrived, over in Grenada, near St. Georges. It was good for a while. We made money, quite a bit of money in fact but as fast as it came, even faster it went. We partied, we had long holidays … but not having a clue how to run such a place, we hired a manager. He robbed us blind for months, ran the business into the ground, and then cleared off with the takings. They eventually found him in St..Lucia, living it up, and now he’s languishing in a rotten Caribbean jail.”
“But if you had a good business … couldn’t you have turned it round?”
“No. It was too late for that. We had spent your mother’s divorce settlement and were living on the rapidly diminishing proceeds of the hotel. We didn’t have the expertise to run it and we couldn’t find anyone good enough to keep it going for us. In the end it was best to sell up and move on. So, we came here and with the little we had left, bought this ….”
“Oh,” said Delia quietly, wishing she could at least risk a glass of water. Her mouth was terribly dry and her head was beginning to throb. She needed a painkiller but it would have to wait. She had to get as much information out of Parfitt as possible now because there was no way she wanted to make a return visit.
Parfitt rubbed a hand over his eyes and took another long swig of brandy. “Your mother couldn’t stand it here. There’s little trade as most of the islanders aren’t interested in patronising our establishment and we’re not posh enough for the few tourists who tip up occasionally. So there’s little for us to do, nowhere to go and no bloody money if there was anywhere. We can’t afford air conditioning so the mosquitoes are a damned nightmare and the beach is somewhat of a let-down, covered in volcanic ash, and looks nothing like the golden stretches in holiday brochures. We have to be careful with the water as the only supply is from the sky and there’s little food in the shops. Your mother turned to drink in a big way. In fact, I can’t remember her being sober the whole time she was here.”
“Goodness,” said Delia, trying to imagine her beautiful, elegant mother coping with such a scenario. She must have been going crazy. “So, what happened to her?”
“Having polished off a whole bottle of cheap vodka, she decided she wanted to swim in the middle of the night, and fell all the way down those steps to the beach,” he waved a hand towards the corner of the overgrown grass trying to resemble a lawn in front of them. “One of the locals found her the following morning. She had broken her neck.”
“Oh God,” exclaimed Delia, her face contorted with horror. “Where the hell were you? Didn’t you realise she was missing?”
“No. Too inebriated myself. When she said she was going swimming I went to bed. She had been before. She always came back. But not this time.”
Delia walked across the overgrown grass to the steps. It was a long way down to the blackened beach, which didn’t look a bit inviting. She tried to imagine her mother prostrate at the bottom, with her neck snapped. She still felt numb, unable to feel any emotion. No pain; no anguish. The sea crashed onto the beach, a few more pelicans had joined the others to fish for their supper and Delia couldn’t weep for the woman who had stood and looked at this scene before her and finally fell down to her death to the black sand below. It was impossible to take it in. It was surreal.
She went back to Parfitt. “Have you told my family?”
“Yes. I sent a telegram to your father so I suppose he has told your brother and sister. How come you didn’t know?”
“Um … well, I left home a while ago. I’ve been in London for a few weeks and haven’t had any contact with them for a while.”
“So, what’s brought you here now?”
“I wanted to build some bridges I guess … but it’s too late now.”
“Actually, I’m glad you’ve come. You can help sort out her things … in fact you can take everything. There’s nothing of any use to me. What little she had left is in the bedroom, the door to the left of the bar. She sold all her good things to buy alcohol but there are a few papers and photographs you might want.”
The bedroom was a tip; dirty clothes all over the floor, an unmade bed with a torn mosquito net and a tatty wardrobe and chest of drawers serving as a dressing table. A cheap lipstick and a powder compact lay near to an ashtray containing a couple of cigarette butts. Delia remembered her mother smoking on the south terrace at home. She obviously hadn’t kicked the habit. She opened the top drawer of the chest of drawers and recognised the enormous delicately carved wooden jewellery box which belonged to her mother. Charles had bought it for her on their honeymoon and it had resided on her mother’s dressing table at Canleigh up until she left. As a child, Delia had been fascinated with it as it had several tiny drawers for earrings and trinkets and on the odd visit to her mother’s bedroom, she had been allowed to play with it. The more valuable pieces of jewellery belonging to the Duchess of Canleigh were either kept in the family safe or at the bank in Leeds.
Delia pulled it out of the drawer. It was hand carved and inlaid with mother of pearl. She opened it slowly. Nothing of value rested in its compartments apart from a broken pearl necklace, two odd gold earrings and a lot of dust. She coughed and automatically pressed the button on the inside which revealed the secret compartment. The last time she did this her mother had been in the room and flew off the handle, shouting at her to shut the drawer and leave it alone. Now, years later, there was no-one to stop her and Delia was riddled with curiosity, although expecting it to hold nothing of any significance. Surprisingly there was something there. Two crumpled pieces of paper, brown with age, giving the impression they had been scrunched up to be thrown away and then retrieved, lay inside. Delia pulled them out. One was a birth certificate for someone called Peter Percival, born two years prior to Delia and Richard. His father’s name was blank but his mother was Margaret Percival.
Delia stared at the name, trying to take in this information. It couldn’t be true. It was impossible. How could her mother have had another child and none of the family know anything about it? It was a sick joke. It had to be.
Curious of what else might be discovered Delia opened up the remaining sheet of paper. It was a letter, dated a month after the child’s birth from Elizabeth, her mother’s cousin. Delia had never met her mother’s family but was aware that they existed from photographs of her parents’ wedding. Elizabeth wrote that she and George had arrived safely in America with the baby, who had suffered no ill effects from the journey, and from then on there would be no further contact between her and Margaret.
Delia sank down on the unmade bed with the papers in her hand, wondering if her father knew about this other child. Would her mother have told him? If she had, he probably wouldn’t have married her and if Granny had found out she would have had a fit, being such a stickler for correct behaviour at all times. She would never have allowed her son to marry someone who had borne an illegitimate child. It would have been unthinkable. No, her mother had definitely kept this secret to herself for years. Delia had no real desperate need for a child, although she had always expected to have one or two with Philip but there was no real longing to be a parent. She tried to imagine having a baby and then giving it up. Keeping its existence a secret. It must have played on her mother’s mind. But then, thinking about how her mother hadn’t exactly been the maternal type, perhaps not … although she had kept these papers. How often had she pulled them out and looked at them? She had obviously screwed them up to throw away at some time. Why hadn’t she? Why had she kept them? If she had thrown them away Delia wouldn’t be sitting here now, startled to find out she had a half-brother in America.
Delia tucked the papers into her bag, stood up and looked around the room. There was nothing she wanted and her greatest desire was to get out of this grim place, take a long, cool shower and think about what she was going to do next.
She said a qui
ck goodbye to the pathetic figure of Parfitt, who nodded his head in acknowledgement and raised the bottle to his lips once more. It was obvious he was going to drink himself to death and for an instant Delia felt sorry for him. He was a useless man who had caused tremendous sorrow and heartbreak to her family but to end up here in that state, all alone with no cash and no-one to turn to was a pretty awful situation to be in. Delia had no reason to help him but inexplicably she set her bag down gingerly on the beer stained table, rummaged for her cheque book, scribbled quickly with her gold pen and handed him a cheque.
“Here. It’s enough to cover a flight back to the U.K. Take it as payment for what I did to your car all those years ago. Not that I regret for one moment what I did,” she added quickly.
Not giving him a chance to react, she almost ran back down the overgrown drive to the roadside where her taxi was waiting. The coolness of the air conditioning in the car was a great relief and by the time they reached her tiny hotel a few minutes later, she felt slightly better, although her head was now throbbing badly.
With the aid of a long, cooling shower, two painkillers, and the gentle humming of the air conditioning in the adequately furnished but hardly luxurious room, she managed a few hours sleep and woke early the next morning, relieved to find the headache had disappeared and she felt rested. She lay on the bed and thought about her mother, remembering vivid scenes from her childhood; Margaret coming and going from Canleigh, bringing lavish presents but giving no real love and showing little interest in her children’s daily lives or wanting to join in their activities. Tears, or even a tinge of sadness, still eluded Delia. It puzzled her. Surely she should feel something? This was her mother for goodness sake. She should feel devastated, as if the world had ended, but she didn’t. All she did have was a massive curiosity about her half-brother. Did he know about his parentage and that his mother had married into the British aristocracy? Was he aware he had half siblings? What was he doing with his life? Was he married? Did he have children? What did he do for a living? Endless, endless questions.
Having had enough of her bedroom and needing to be active, Delia rose early, before the real heat of the day. Wearing her new sparkly white swimsuit, matching beach wrap and flip-flops and popping a hotel towel into her canvas beach bag she ventured outside into the already warm air, pleased to see the sands on this side of the island were free of volcanic ash and far more like those in the advertisements for a vacation in the Caribbean. Still thinking about her mother and the existence of her secret son, Delia enjoyed a long swim in the clear blue water and then lay for a while on her towel on the sand but once the temperature began to rise and there was no shade to protect her, she walked back to the hotel. Showered and dressed, she picked up the two crumpled pieces of papers from the dressing table, where she had left them the night before, and took them out to the veranda outside her room, where there was a fabulous view of the beach. She slowly ate a breakfast of cereals, toast, pineapple juice, and black coffee while staring thoughtfully at the information about her half brother. Suddenly she knew exactly what she was going to do next. Go and find him
Not wanting to remain on the island for longer than necessary she packed, paid her bill and took a taxi to the catch the ferry back to Grenada where she booked into a luxury American hotel near to St. Georges and the famous Grande Anse beach. The lovely young black woman on the reception desk helped her to find out what time the next flight took off to New York and having purchased her ticket over the phone, Delia settled into a double room overlooking the beach with well-maintained air conditioning, a king-size bed and a marble tiled bathroom. She had two days to wait so took the opportunity to swim in the glittering ocean and relax on the golden sands on a comfortable sun lounger, complete with parasol, to shield her from the boiling rays from the sun. Cruise ships docked and their tenders disgorged swathes of tourists onto the shore. Many of them settled on loungers near to Delia and she spent an amusing few hours listening to their varied languages and watching the beach sellers move among them trying to sell their wares. She had taken a book down to the beach so if any of them came near her she buried herself in it so all but the most persistent took the hint and left her alone.
Then it was time to leave Grenada and she wasn’t sorry. It was so noisy, especially at night when everyone seemed to be out partying, every dog in the neighbourhood barked until they were hoarse, and drivers seemed to want to leave their hand permanently on their car horns …, and then there were the tree frogs. Koo-keeee. Koo-keeee. It drove Delia crazy. They never let up all night. She pined for the soft sound of rustling trees and hooting owls at Canleigh. But she couldn’t go back yet. She wasn’t ready. She hadn’t a real plan in place. No, New York it was and she would see if she could track down this mysterious half-brother.
Feeling extravagant, thanks to Granny’s legacy, she took a suite at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan. Granny had stayed at the top-notch hotel once and enthused about it to Delia on a number of occasions so to the Waldorf Astoria Delia went, eager to keep up any connection with her beloved Granny, however small and remote. She settled into the suite with a fabulous view of New York, went to bed early, and by dawn was wide-awake and eager to get cracking. She soaked for a long while in the bath, deliberating on her next move in her quest to find Peter Percival. Feeling more relaxed in her opulent surroundings than she had been for weeks and too excited to eat breakfast, she poured a cup of black coffee, sat down on the well-upholstered sofa in her lounge, and commenced the search for a private detective to track down this person, who would now be twenty-three years old.
Flicking through the telephone book she was amazed at how many private detectives were available for hire. Eventually she settled on one who seemed to work alone. His advertisement was plain, simple and to the point, unlike the bigger firms who made a meal out of all the services they provided. Her call was answered on the fifth ring. Just right, she smiled. Not too eager to indicate he was desperate for work and not too drawn out to frustrate potential clients. She liked the sound of the young man who confirmed his name was Paul O’Connor. She explained quickly what she wanted and they arranged to meet later that day.
“My office is on 59th street, not far from the entrance to Central Park,” he told her.
“Oh, great,” replied Delia. “I’ll have a walk there before I visit you.”
“Is this your first visit to New York,” he asked, intrigued to hear his new client’s posh British accent. He was keen to meet her and find out exactly how he could help her.
“Yes. It is. I can’t say I enjoy cities … not my cup of tea I’m afraid … I’m a country girl at heart and I dearly want to see some proper trees.” A painful yearning for sight of the beautiful old oaks, sycamores, and beech trees at Canleigh washed over her.
“Well, please don’t go into Central Park on your own. It’s really not safe, not even in daylight.”
“Oh, right,” she said, noticing the headlines on the newspaper on the coffee table in front of her advising its readers that two murders had taken place in the park the day before. It made her long even more for the security and safety of Canleigh. Even though it had only been a few weeks, it felt like years ago that she had driven recklessly out of the gates to escape the rejection she had suffered from her father, Richard and Philip. Her time in London was a bit of a blur, no doubt because she was in total shock at how her life had changed so dramatically in such a short time and all the alcohol she had consumed. The Caribbean hadn’t turned out to be as wonderful as people made out but yet again, she was thrown off balance by the news of her mother’s premature death and now it seemed, New York wasn’t going to be much of an improvement. The sooner she got back to Canleigh the better, although exactly how and when, she still wasn’t sure.
After lunch and dressed casually and comfortably in jeans and a white cotton top, Delia took a yellow cab to Paul O’Connor’s office, arriving five minutes before the appointed time. It wasn’t plush. Just a room in a bloc
k of other rooms with his name and title on a brass plate on the door. ‘Paul O’Connor. Private Investigator,’ it said simply. She knocked and entered.
He stood up as soon as she walked in and smiled. He was taller than her but slightly younger; fresh faced and eager to please. Delia liked the look of him immediately.
“Paul?” she asked, walking towards him and holding out her hand. “Delia Canleigh,” she announced. She hadn’t given him her title. There was no need for him to know anything more than necessary. His hand was cool and the shake was firm. He nodded to a chair on her side of the desk.
“So, Your Ladyship. How can I help you?” he asked with a grin.
“How did you ….”
He laughed. “I like to know exactly who I am working for, so I looked you up. You are the daughter of the Duke of Canleigh. You have a twin brother, the Marquess of Keighton, and a younger sister, Lady Victoria Canleigh. Your mother, the former Duchess of Canleigh, died in the Caribbean a few weeks ago. You have my deepest sympathies.” He also knew that she had been rejected by her fiancé for another woman only days before their wedding and he sensed her vulnerability and wanted to help her, even though she possessed the annoyingly haughty, superior air of the British upper classes.
Taken aback, Delia sat motionless for a moment but found she was pleased he was so thorough. It boded well for her quest to find her half-brother with so little information to go on. She explained exactly what she wanted, handing him the birth certificate and letter from Elizabeth.
He examined them carefully. “Hum. I don’t think this will be too much of a problem. Just give me a couple of days,” he reassured her and smiled, giving Delia a bit of a jolt. An image of them in bed together was vivid and she wondered if he was thinking the same. Not at the moment though. He had work to do and would keep until later.
Rejection Runs Deep (The Canleigh Series, book 1: A chilling psychological family drama) Page 40