The Fairbairn Fortunes

by Una-Mary Parker

  Justin bent over her to kiss her on the mouth: a long, lingering kiss. And then, without a word, he hurried from the room, closing the door behind him, leaving Lizzie feeling shocked. She’d never seen him so emotional before. Getting dressed quickly she left the hotel just as another, rather tarty-looking woman entered the lobby. Giving Lizzie a knowing look she asked the concierge boldly, ‘Is it room twelve as usual?’

  He nodded and, startled by the woman’s cockney accent, Lizzie realized this hotel was where men met their mistresses. With flaming cheeks she hurried out of the building, appalled that Justin had chosen such a place to meet her. Once in the safety of Harrods, she found herself wandering from department to department, confused and troubled. Where could they meet in future? Should she rent a little flat?

  When she returned to their home in Kensington, she was surprised to see a telegram on the hall table addressed to her. Wondering if her mother had been taken ill, or whether one of her sisters was trying to alert her urgently, she ripped open the envelope, then collapsed to her knees, crying bitterly.

  Edinburgh, 1914

  Laura recognized Lizzie’s handwriting and quickly slipped her letter into her handbag before Caroline saw it. Once she was alone she opened the envelope with trepidation. Her advice to Lizzie had been quite stern and this was probably a missive telling her to mind her own business, but on the contrary the letter filled her with sympathy.

  I’m absolutely heartbroken and don’t know what to do. I’m in bed and Humphrey and the girls think I’m ill and having a breakdown because I can’t stop crying. The doctor has given me something but it’s not really working. I met Justin last week and I thought everything between us was all right. I told him that I didn’t think I could abandon Humphrey and the girls, but I suggested that we continue to see each other as we had been doing. I could see he was upset and he said he wanted to marry me and have children by me, but he’s said that before. Then he just left! When I got home there was a telegram for me. It was from him, saying he’d joined the army because we’d soon be at war. That was all. No goodbye. I was so shocked I collapsed on the hall floor. One minute we’re in heaven together and then I tell him I can’t leave Humphrey … and he’s gone. For ever. I’ve tried to get hold of him but it’s as though he’s vanished! What am I to do now? I fear I’ll never get over this terrible blow. Please, Laura, write back to me when you can. I’m despairing.

  Laura felt a mixture of sorrow and relief for Lizzie, who was obviously devastated. She remembered the fearful pain of her own loss when Rory had been killed. At least Lizzie had known the joy of lovemaking with the man of her dreams. That was something she knew she would regret all her life. She’d been seventeen at the time and her mother had instructed all her daughters that they must remain virgins until their wedding night.

  Justin had done the right and noble thing by removing himself from Lizzie’s life, and for that Laura felt grateful. A clean cut instead of a long-drawn-out farewell was for the best. This way there was no going back. Hundreds of young men were joining the army and the Fleet Air Arm because they knew war was inevitable, and Justin had killed two birds with one stone by signing up and ending the affair.

  Four

  Cranley Court, June 1914

  Laura felt an icy rush of alarm and her heart seemed to miss a beat.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she murmured aloud as she gazed at the newspaper headline.

  ‘What is it?’ Diana asked as she came down the staircase. Every morning the butler arranged the newspapers with precision on the hall table as if they were ornamental and not to be touched.

  Laura and Caroline were spending the weekend with Diana, where, as always, the atmosphere was serene and the setting luxurious.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Diana echoed her sister’s words as she saw the headline of the Daily Telegraph. ‘This will lead to trouble.’ The two women looked at each other as if they couldn’t believe their eyes.

  ‘Isn’t this terrible? This could lead to war.’ Laura’s gaze was glued to the headline.

  ‘“Crown Prince Franz-Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were assassinated yesterday as they watched a military parade in Sarajevo …”’ Diana read aloud. ‘This is what Robert feared at Christmas. Do you remember?’

  ‘I remember very well. I had a feeling the New Year was going to be troublesome,’ Laura said sadly.

  ‘Perhaps it will blow over. Foreigners are so excitable,’ Diana remarked as she led the way into the breakfast room. ‘But I’ve always said the Queen made a big mistake in getting each of her daughters married off to crown heads. Why didn’t she let them marry members of the British aristocracy? God knows, there are quite a few dukes and marquises who would have fitted the bill perfectly.’

  Laura looked at Diana scornfully. ‘Would any of them want the job? I can’t think of anything worse. All that protocol and bowing and scraping.’

  Later that day, as they walked in the vast grounds of Cranley Court accompanied by Bruno and Augustus, Diana’s two Labradors, she turned to Laura and asked, ‘Have you heard from Lizzie recently?’

  Laura hesitated before answering and so Diana continued hurriedly, ‘I know about Justin.’

  ‘You do? Thank heaven’s for that. The last I heard was that Justin had joined up.’

  Diana nodded. ‘Poor Lizzie. It must have been a terrible shock.’

  ‘Yes, but it was for the best. It wasn’t fair on Humphrey or their girls. And just think of the scandal. The tabloids would have gone to town about a middle-aged earl’s daughter running off with someone young enough to be her son. It would have ruined her daughters’ lives. I really don’t know what she was thinking to begin with.’

  ‘You’re not being very sympathetic, Laura,’ Diana said gently.

  ‘What do you mean? Why should Humphrey and those beautiful girls suffer so Lizzie can enjoy some brief fling? I think she was being terribly selfish. I told her she had to think about them and not just herself.’

  Diana looked slightly shocked. ‘You sound like Mama,’ she observed. ‘Did you also refer to hellfire and all that?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Di. This is no laughing matter.’

  Diana was silent for a moment then looked straight into Laura face. Then she asked, ‘Have you ever been passionately in love?’

  Laura’s pale skin flushed red and her hazel eyes brimmed with sudden tears. ‘Yes, I have,’ she shot back furiously. ‘You seem to forget that the love of my life was Rory Drummond, and he was killed before we were able to get married. But I don’t feel the need to bore everyone about it.’ Her voice broke.

  Diana immediately put her arm around her sister’s shoulders. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, dearest. Of course I remember that tragedy, but I was only twelve then and Beattie and Georgie and I were kept in the schoolroom most of the time. It was Lizzie who was there for you at that time. She even slept in your room.’

  Laura took a lace-edged handkerchief out of her pocket. ‘You think I’m being too harsh with Lizzie?’

  ‘I know you too well to think that. I realized you’re trying to prevent Lizzie from ruining her life and bringing misery upon her family but when you fall desperately and madly in love with someone it’s the hardest thing in the world to give them up.’ Diana’s eyes were over-bright and her lips trembled.

  Laura looked at her in astonishment. ‘You sound as if …?’

  Diana nodded quickly and pulled herself together. ‘I fell in love three or four years ago. He lived very near here and he asked me to go to London with him. He was a lawyer and very ambitious. He had money, a wonderful sense of humour …’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘Did Robert know what was going on?’

  ‘Absolutely not. We couldn’t see much of each other but when we did …’

  ‘Did you … you know?’

  Diana nodded. ‘Yes, we did, and it was wonderful.’

  ‘My word! Aren’t you a dark horse!’ There was a note of admiration in Laura’s voice.

&n
bsp; ‘I had to be strong. I had Robert and the children to think about. I told Lizzie she had to be strong, too. I just hope that between us Lizzie will recover.’

  Robert was very quiet at lunch that day.

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’ Diana inquired.

  He looked back at her with tired eyes. ‘How can any of us be all right now that war looks inevitable?’ he replied. ‘The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand is just what I feared. What’s the date today?’

  ‘June the twenty-eighth,’ Laura replied promptly.

  Robert nodded sombrely. ‘I’ll bet you anything you like that this will lead Great Britain into war by the beginning of August, or possibly even sooner.’

  The serious tone in which he spoke startled both his wife and Laura.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Diana said, looking shocked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘To begin with, I wouldn’t be surprised if Germany sides with Austria and Hungary, who will soon have fallen out with Serbia. And then Russia will get involved, and so it goes on until we are forced into it with France, against Germany. It’s what is known as the Domino Effect.’

  The two women looked at him in horror and Diana asked, ‘Why do you think this, Robert?’

  ‘My cousin, Mark Kelso, works in the Foreign Office. Whitehall has suspected for some months that something like this assassination would kick-off something that would be unstoppable. Before you know it Britain will succumb, and so will Australia and Canada, whether they want to or not.’

  There was a stunned silence in the room.

  ‘I had no idea things were so serious,’ said Diana, looking stricken. The Boer War had been bad enough – their younger brother Henry had been tragically killed. This conflict however, sounded as if most of the world was going to be involved.

  ‘Nothing will ever be the same again,’ Robert warned them. ‘But Great Britain will survive. We always do.’

  Five

  Edinburgh and London, 1916

  The carnage of war was at its peak, and Laura could no longer bear to read the newspapers. Every hour of every day, hundreds of young men were being killed. Those who were brought back to England were so terribly injured or shell-shocked that they would never recover, their memories of watching their fellow soldiers being slain as they charged forwards from the meagre protection of the trenches haunting them for ever.

  ‘How can this be happening in a civilized world?’ Laura asked herself in despair.

  As Robert had predicted, Canadian and Australian soldiers would come to help the mother country, and they had by the thousand. What made matters worse was that there was no end to the sacrifice they had made.

  Beattie’s husband Andrew had joined the cavalry and Georgie’s husband, Shane had volunteered and become a gunner, although he was Irish and would never have been conscripted. Due to his poor eyesight, Robert was exempt from service, and so he and Diana had turned Cranley Court into a convalescent home for the most seriously wounded in the hope that they would benefit from the peace and beauty of Scotland.

  Meanwhile, Laura was struggling to make money. None of her customers, even the wealthiest ones, were entertaining, and therefore there was no demand for beautiful clothes. Mostly they came to ask Laura for black clothes of mourning.

  Sometimes Laura had to fight back her own tears when a heartbroken young woman came to ask her for black clothes. It reminded her of Queen Victoria’s death, when she had rushed to buy all the black fabric she could before the suppliers had run out. That had been different, though. The Queen had been an old lady, but now the dead were as young as eighteen; killed before they were grown men.

  When a letter arrived from Lizzie, Laura immediately knew what had happened. The sisters were so close that she didn’t have to open the envelope. Her first feeling was acute sadness, and then she hoped that Humphrey was showing compassion and forgiveness. ‘Oh, God. Poor Lizzie,’ she murmured aloud as she tore open the letter.

  ‘I can’t believe it, my darling, but Justin is no more …’ There was no doubt that Lizzie had got herself into an impossible situation but this was the cruellest blow. This could break her spirit. Laura immediately went to her desk to write a letter of condolence. But as she agonized over what to write, she suddenly decided that it wasn’t enough.

  Late that afternoon when Caroline came home from school Laura told her, ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’

  Caroline’s face lit up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve arranged for you to stay for a few days with your dada. Aunt Rowena has to come up to Edinburgh tomorrow to see the dentist and she’s promised to take you home with her and then bring you back here next Tuesday. Isn’t that lovely?’

  ‘What are you doing then? Why aren’t you going to stay with Dada too?’

  ‘I’m going to London for a few days.’

  Caroline’s face fell. ‘But I want to go London too. I’ve never been to London. Why can’t I go with you?’ she demanded angrily.

  ‘It’s because Aunt Lizzie isn’t well, and—’

  ‘What’s the matter with her? Why do you want to go if she’s ill? You know I’ve always wanted to go to London.’ Caroline stuck out her bottom lip like a petulant baby.

  ‘Stop this nonsense at once, Caroline.’ Laura spoke firmly. ‘I’m not going for the fun of it. Aunt Lizzie needs me and that’s that. You always go on about not seeing enough of Dada, and you’ll have him all to yourself, which – God knows – you never stop badgering me about.’

  ‘No, I won’t. Aunt Rowena will be there,’ Caroline said sulkily.

  Laura turned away. ‘I’ve told your headmistress you’ll be returning to school on Wednesday. Let’s go and do your packing. Aunt Rowena is picking you up tomorrow at eleven o’clock.’

  Caroline shrugged but there was a glimmer of a smile on her face at the thought of seeing her father.

  Laura travelled to London by train. There was no way she could afford to go first class so she sat throughout the night in a second-class carriage, unable to sleep because a baby belonging to a young woman cried on and off the whole way. At one point Laura walked along the corridor looking for a spare seat but the train was packed. By the time they steamed into King’s Cross Station Laura felt cold and stiff as she carefully stepped on to the platform. Carrying her suitcase, which suddenly felt very heavy, she was startled to hear her name being called.

  ‘Laura? Laura!’

  She looked around and was shocked to see a familiar face struggling to get to her through the crowds heading for the exit.

  ‘Humphrey!’

  ‘Hello, my dear.’ He kissed her on the cheek and grabbed her suitcase. ‘I’ve got a car to drop you off at Cornwall Gardens but then I’ve got to get to work at the War Office. Sadly I’m too old for active service so I’m stuck behind a bloody desk all day.’

  Laura smiled warmly. ‘It’s so kind of you to meet me.’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear. It’s good of you to come to see Lizzie. The poor old girl needs cheering up.’

  ‘It’s the least I could do,’ she replied quietly. It was obvious he knew about Justin but it would be unseemly to mention it now or in the future.

  ‘How is Caroline?’ he asked when they were seated in the Rolls-Royce.

  ‘Very well, thank you. She’s spending a few days with her father, which she’ll enjoy.’

  Humphrey nodded. ‘How is Walter these days?’

  ‘He seems to have stopped drinking but his health is frail. He nearly died when he was declared bankrupt and his liver has never worked the same again.’

  ‘I know. That was all ghastly,’ Humphrey said sympathetically. ‘You Fairbairn girls are remarkable, though. You picked yourself up and look how well you’ve done! Given time, Lizzie will pick herself up too,’ he added robustly.

  ‘Of course she will. Time is a great healer,’ Laura replied, although she privately wondered if it would be true in the case of Lizzie.

  Laura felt a momentary pang of envy for the
luxury of Lizzie’s life, with servants to do her bidding and Humphrey’s wealth and devotion that enabled her to have whatever she wanted. For Laura things had been different. Broken-hearted at seventeen when her fiancé was killed in an accident had been hard enough to bear, but realizing ten years later that her husband was an alcoholic who had spent all their money as a result of his drinking was another matter. Bankruptcy had stripped her of everything. The loss of their lovely house and every single thing in it, even her gold wedding ring, had been enough to break anyone’s spirit. For a time she’d been successful with her dressmaking business but the war had reduced her work by more than half. There were moments when she still had to scrape together a few shillings to get something for Caroline’s supper.

  They’d arrived at the stately house in Cornwall Gardens, and as if by magic the door was opened by the butler as soon as their car drew up outside.

  ‘You go right in, my dear,’ Humphrey told Laura, ‘and I look forward to seeing you this evening.’

  ‘Thank you for meeting me,’ she replied gratefully, thinking him to be one of the nicest men she’d ever met. The trouble was that Lizzie didn’t appreciate him.

  At that moment the housekeeper, Mrs Hughes, came forward to show Laura to her room. ‘Her Ladyship told me to ask if you could see her as soon as you arrived.’ She smiled blandly.

  Laura was longing for a hot bath and a rest after sitting up all night on a rattling train with a baby crying at intervals, but instead she nodded and said, ‘I’ll go and see her right away.’

  ‘Would you like me to send up a breakfast tray for you? A cup of tea and some toast perhaps?’

  ‘That would be very nice.’

  As soon as Laura saw Lizzie she realized the depths of her grief. Not only were her eyes puffy and red but her whole face was swollen.

  ‘Oh, Laura!’ Her voice was husky. ‘Thank God you’re here.’

  Laura hurried over to the bed and kissed her sister on both cheeks.