by Wilbur Smith
At home on the family estate of Weltevreden she called the shots on the maids and house-servants and field-girls with an uncanny accuracy. Nanny bathed her when she was at home, and the only surprise was that she hadn't already latched on to Isabella's change of condition.
That evening Ramsey had tickets for the Festival of Flamenco at Drury Lane, but she rang him at his private number at the bank.
"Ramsey darling, I don't feel like going out tonight. I just want to be alone with you. I'll cook dinner. I'll have it ready by the time you get back to the flat, and we can listen to the new von Karajan disc." She could hear the reluctance in his voice. He had been looking forward to the flamenco dancing all week. He was so aggressively Spanish at times. He had even insisted that she begin learning the language, and had given her a set of Linguaphone records. However, she wheedled him shamelessly, and finally he succumbed.
On the way from the embassy to the flat, Isabella doubleparked the Mini and picked up a bottle of Pol Roger and another of Montrachet from her father's private bin at Berry Brothers, the wine merchants in St. James's Street.
Then in the food-hall at Harrods she selected two dozen Whitstable oysters and a pair of perfect veal cutlets.
She was watching from the front window as Ramsey turned the comer and came striding down the pavement towards the front door. He looked so English in his threepiece suit. While in London, he even carried a rolled black brolly and sported a bowler, the epitome of the young merchant banker. It was a peculiar gift he had of fitting perfectly into any environment, no matter how diverse, as though he were born to it.
She opened the champagne and as soon as she heard his key in the front door she poured their glasses and placed them beside the silver tray of crushed ice on which she had arranged the open oysters. She restrained herself from rushing wildly through into the tiny hall and instead met him as he came into the living-room. Then her restraint faded and her kiss was long and melting.
"Special occasion?' he asked, with his arm still around her waist, as he saw the tray of oysters and the two longstemmed tulip glasses softly seething with the yellow wine. She went to fetch a glass and placed it in his hand, and then she looked at him over the rim of her own glass." "Welcome home, Ramsey. I wanted to give you just a little taste of what it's going to be like when you are married to me." She saw his eyes flinch; it was more poignant in that she had never seen it happen before. His gaze was always level and steady.
He did not taste the wine and set his glass aside, and she felt an awful premonition of disaster.
"Ramsey, what is it?' she asked.
Before she could drink, he took the champagne-glass from her hand and placed it upon the walnut table.
"Bella.' He turned back to face her, and took her hands in his. "Bella,' he said again, softly, with deep regret, and he turned her hands and kissed the open palms.
"What is it, Ramsey?' She could barely draw breath, so tight was her chest with dread.
"I can't marry you, my darling.' She stared at him, and felt her legs tremble and go weak with the shock. 'I can't marry you, at least not yet, my darling." She drew her hands out of his grasp and turned away from him. She went slowly to the armchair and sank into it.
Why?' she asked softly, without looking at him as he came and knelt in front of her. 'You want me to bear your child, then why can't you marry me?" 'Bella, there is nothing I want more in this life than to have you as my wife, and to be father of our child, but..
"Then, why?' she repeated almost listlessly.
"Please listen to me, my darling. Don't say anything more until you have heard me out." Now she lifted her eyes and looked at his face, but she was very pale.
"Nine years ago, I married a Cuban girl in Miami." Istibella shuddered, and closed her eyes.
"The marriage was a disaster from the very beginning. We spent only a few months together before we parted, but we are both Catholics...' He broke off, and touched her pale cheek. She pulled back from his caress, and he sighed softly.
"I'm still married to her,' he said simply.
"What is her name?' Isabella asked without opening her eyes.
"Why do you want to know that?" 'Tell me.' Her voice firmed.
"Natalie.' He shrugged.
"Children?'she asked. 'How many children do you have?" 'None,' he replied. 'You will be the mother of my firstborn.' And he watched the petals of rose return to her cheeks. After a moment she opened her eyes again, but they were shadowed with such despair that the blue had turned to black.
"Oh, Ramsey! What are we going to do?" 'I have already begun to do all I can,' he told her. 'When we returned from Spain, I knew then, even before you told me about the baby, I knew that above all else in my life I must have you as my wife." 'Oh, Ramsey.' She blinked hard, and tightened her grip on his hands.
"Natalie is still living in Miami, with her family. I was able to contact her. We spoke on the telephone, more than once. She is very devout. There is nothing, she said, that would persuade her to divorce me." Isabella was staring at him hard, and now she shook her head miserably.
"I called her again, on three consecutive evenings. At last, we found something that was more important to her than her God and her confessor." 'What was that?" 'Money,' he said, with a shade of contempt in his voice. 'I still have most of the winnings from the pigeon shoot. For fifty thousand dollars, she finally agreed to move to Reno and file for divorce." 'Darling!' Isabella whispered, joy blooming in her eyes again. 'Oh, thank God! When? When will she go?" 'That is the catch. It takes time. I can't push her too hard. I know Natalie. If she found out about you, and guessed why I wanted the divorce, she would exploit her advantage to the utmost. She promised to leave for Reno at the beginning of next month. She says that she has her job and her family to consider. Her mother is not well." 'Yes, yes,' Isabella cut in impatiently. 'But how long will it take?" 'There is provision in the Nevada state laws for the period of residency in Reno. Three months before they will grant the divorce." 'I'll be six months gone by then.' Isabella bit her knuckles, then her expression changed. 'And Daddy and so I are booked to leave for Cape Town. Oh, Ramsey, what a mess!" 'You can't go back to Cape Town," Ramsey told her flatly. 'I couldn't live without you and, besides, your pregnancy will be obvious to all your family and friends." 'What do you want me to do?" 'Stay with me until my divorce is final. I love you too much to let you go.
I don't want to miss a day of my son's life." She smiled at last. 'So it's definitely a son, is it?" 'Of course.' He nodded with mock gravity. "We must have an heir to the title, must we not? You will stay with me, won't you, Bella?" 'What will I tell my father, and my grandmother? Papa is a pushover, but my grandmother... !' Isabella rolled her eyes. "Centaine Courtney-Malcomess is the family dragon. She actually breathes fire and crunches up the bones of her victims." 'I will tame your dragon,' he promised.
"I truly believe that you might.' Isabella felt gay and light-headed with relief. 'If anyone can charm Nana, it would be you, my darling."
The fact that Centaine Courtney-Malcomess was six thousand miles away did make the task a little easier. Isabella prepared the ground with great care.
She worked on her father first. Overnight she became once more the dutiful daughter and consummate hostess. She plunged headlong and with all her previous panache into organizing the final few weeks of social engagements that marked the end of Shasa Courtney's ambassadorial term.
"Welcome back from wherever it was you disappeared to,' Shasa told her drily at the end of one of her more successful dinner-parties. 'I missed you, you know." They were standing arm-in-arm on the front steps of 81 Highveld, watching the limousine pull away, bearing the last departing guest.
"One o'clock in the morning.' Shasa glanced at his wristwatch, but Isabella forestalled him.
"Too early for bed.' She squeezed his arm. 'Let me fix a nightcap and a final cigar for you. We haven't had a chance to talk all evening." That afternoon Davidoffs had delivered a dozen of his cigars from t
he stock they kept for him in their specially humidified storage in St. James's. She held one to her ear as she rolled it between her fingers.
"Perfect,' she murmured.
Shasa lolled in the buttoned-leather armchair across the room. Earlier the company had done full justice to the claret and the port, but his single eye was still clear and bright. The black silk patch over the other eye was as pristine as the perfectly constructed bow at the throat of his snowy shirt-front.
He watched her with undiluted pleasure, as though she were a blood filly from his stables or the gem of his art collection. She was the most beautiful of all the Courtneys, he arrived at that considered verdict.
In her youth his own mother had been a celebrated beauty. The years had dimmed Shasa's memory of the zenith of her beauty, but there was a portrait of her in her prime by Annigoni in the drawing-room of Weltevreden. Even allowing for the artist's kindly eye, she must have been an extraordinary woman. The force of her character shone out of the portrait's dark eyes.
She was still, at sixty-nine years of age, a magnificent woman, handsome and vigorous, but at no time in her life could she have equalled her grand-daughter who now stood in the bright noonday of her youth.
Isabella cut the tip of the cigar with the gold cutter from her father's desk. She lit the cedarwood taper from the fire and held it for him until the cigar was drawing evenly. Then she extinguished the taper and went to dribble a little Cognac into the crystal balloon glass.
"Professor Symmonds read the latest section of my thesis this morning." 'Ah, you are still gracing the University with your presence, are you?" Shasa studied his daughter's bare shoulders in the soft light of the fire.
She had inherited that skin from her mother, as lustrous and unblemished as ivory.
"He thinks it is good.' Isabella ignored the jibe.
"If it is up to the same standard as the first hundred pages that you let me read, then Symmonds is probably correct." 'He wants me to stay on here to finish it.' She was not looking at him.
Shasa felt the sick little slide of dread in his chest.
"Here in London, on your own?' His response was instantaneous.
"On my own? With five hundred friends, the staff of Courtney Enterprises' London office, my mother... !'She brought the brandy balloon to him.
"Not really abandoned completely in a strange city, Papa." Shasa made a noncommittal noise in his throat and tasted the Cognac, searching desperately for some better reason why she should accompany him back to the Cape.
"Where would you stay?' he grumped.
"That wasn't even a good try,' she laughed at him openly, and took the cigar from his hand. She drew upon it with pursed red lips, and then blew a feather of smoke into his face. 'In Cadogan Square there is a flat which cost you almost a million pounds. It is standing empty.' She gave him back the cigar.
She was right of course. Since the official ambassadorial residence went with the job, the family flat had been unused. He was silent, driven to the ropes, and Isabella gathered herself for the coup de grdce.
"You are the one who was so frightfully keen on my doctorate, Pater. You won't deprive me of it now, will you?" Shasa rallied gamely. 'Since you have obviously thought this all out so carefully, you must already have spoken to your grandmother." Isabella stooped over him as he sat in the armchair and kissed the top of his head.
"I was hoping that you would speak tonana for me, my darling Daddy." Shasa sighed. 'Witch,' he murmured. 'You make me a party to my own undoing." She could rely, on her father to take care of Nana, but there was still Nanny to consider. However, Isabella softened her up for a day or two beforehand by reciting the names and virtues of all seventeen of the grandchildren who so eagerly awaited her return to Weltevreden. Nanny had been away from home for three years, and three long English winters.
"Just think of it, Nanny. It will be spring at the Cape when the boat docks, and Johannes will be waiting on the pier.' Johannes was the head groom at Weltevreden and Nanny's favourite son. The old woman's eyes shone.
So when Isabella finally broke the news Nanny threw her hands around and wailed about ingratitude and the decay of the modern generation's sense of duty. Then she sulked for two days but without real venom.
Isabella went down to Southampton to see them all off. Shasa's new Aston Martin was hoisted on board the Union Castle liner by one of the giraffe-necked cranes, and then the servants lined up on the pier for their farewells. She embraced them all, from the Malay chef to Klonkie the chauffeur. Nanny burst into tears when Isabella kissed her.
"You'll probably never see this old woman again. You'll miss me when I've gone. Think of how I nursed you when you was a baby..." 'Go on with you, Nanny. You'll be there to nurse all my babies for me.' It was a dangerous subject to broach, but Nanny's perceptions were dulled. The promise drove off the shadow of her imminent demise, and she cheered noticeably.
"You come home soon now, child, you hear, where old Nanny can keep an eye on you. All that hot Courtney blood - we'll find you a good clean South African boy." When Isabella came to say goodbye to Shasa, unexpectedly she found herself also dissolving into a salty wash of tears. Shasa handed her the crisp white handkerchief from the pocket of his double-breasted blazer. When she had dried up and given it back to him, he blew his own nose loudly and then dabbed at his single eye.
"Damned wind!' he explained. 'Got a bit of grit in it." As the liner pulled away from the wharf and headed down-river, he was a tall and elegant figure at the ship's rail, high above her; but he stood alone, slightly separated from the other passengers. He had never remarried since the divorce. She knew that since then he had been seeing literally dozens of women, all elegant and talented and nubile, but he always walked on alone.
"Doesn't he ever feel lonely?' she wondered, and waved until he was an indistinguishable speck on the ship's deck.
On the drive back to London, the road kept dissolving before her eyes in a glassy mirage of tears.
"It's the baby,' she tried to excuse herself 'He's making me all gooey and sentimental.' And she clasped her belly and tried to find a lump, and was vaguely disappointed that her muscles were still flat and hard. "God, what if it's all just a false alarm!" The possibility heightened her melancholy, and she reached for the packet of Kleenex in the cubby-hole of the Mini.
However, when she climbed the stairs to the flat, the door opened before she touched it and Ramsey reached out and drew her into his arms. Her tears were forgotten.
The family flat in Cadogan Square occupied the first two floors of a listed red-brick Victorian house. There were five double bedrooms, and the walls of the master suite were clad with powder-blue and antique silver panelling that had reputedly graced the boudoir of Madame de Pompadour. The plafond was decorated with dancing circles of naked wood-nymphs and leering satyrs. Much to Shasa's chagrin, Isabella referred to the decor as 'Louis Quinze bordello'.
She used it merely as an accommodation address, and called round on Fridays to pick up her mail and have tea with the full-time housekeeper in the ground-floor pantry. The housekeeper was an ally and fielded all the long distance telephone calls from Weltevreden and other parts afar.
Isabella made her true home in Ramsey's tiny flat. When the wardrobe that he allocated to her proved to be inadequate, she rotated her clothes between it and the cavernous storage at Cadogan Square. She found a dainty little lady's writing-bureau in an antique shop in Kensington Church Street which just fitted into the comer beside the bed, and made that her study.
Like a married couple, they settled into a routine. They were up before dawn for gym or riding; Isabella's gynaecologist had forbidden jogging.
"It's a foetus not a milkshake that you are brewing, my dear.' Then, when Ramsey left for the bank, she settled down at her bureau and worked steadily on her thesis until lunchtime. They met at Justin de Blank or the health bar at Harrods, for Isabella had given up alcohol and put herself on a strict diet for the baby's sake.