‘Money and Wills and legatees! Money and Wills and legatees!’ he chanted and the child laughed again, as the room sank into an expectant silence.
‘Fenton!’ Amy was on her feet now and staring at him. ‘Fenton, I will be told! I will not have this — this — what are you talking about?’
‘Why, Amy, my little love, how are you this afternoon?’ Fenton set James on his feet and smiled easily at Amy. ‘I did not see you there — ’
‘Fenton!’ She almost shouted it. ‘What are you talking about? Why are you so — so sleek and self-satisfied? You look like the cat that stole the cream!’
‘Oh, I have stolen nothing! Nothing at all!’ He opened his eyes wide with mock innocence. ‘Quite the reverse, I promise you. I have been stolen from. And you, my dear, and you!’
‘I? Stolen from?’ Her lips felt stiff suddenly. The premonition of trouble which had so filled her a couple of weeks ago when Wyndham had first spoken of ‘those fellows’ and which had since become fainter, suddenly flared up so that she felt sick for a moment. ‘No one has stolen anything from me!’
‘Oh, indeed they have, indeed they have,’ Fenton drawled. ‘But your loving brother is going to put it all right, every bit — ’
‘I really don’t know what all this is about,’ Gideon Henriques said suddenly. He had been sitting in a deep chair on the other side of the fireplace dozing, and now got to his feet and stood, tall and thin, straddling the hearth-rug. ‘Am I being stupid? I am not usually so. I do not understand this conversation yet everyone else appears to be listening to it. Will someone explain? I think perhaps I fell asleep — ’ and he smiled so that his cheeks cut themselves into long crevasses.
‘I will explain, Mr Henriques!’ Fenton said and his voice was now silky and yet full of cold anger. ‘I will tell you! I have discovered that my sister and I have been sorely misused. And by whom, you may ask? That is the question I had to ask, and the answer I have obtained has made me very, very sad. It will make you sad too, Mr Henriques, because, you see, the people who have taken from my sister and from me our rightful dues are members of your own family.’
Gideon stared at him for a moment and then shook his head. ‘I must have been asleep for longer than I realized,’ he said petulantly. ‘I don’t understand a word of it. Will someone explain?’
‘I think Mr Lucas had best explain his own words, Gideon,’ Freddy said in a quiet voice and stepped forwards, his hand on Phoebe’s shoulder and his eyes fixed watchfully on Fenton’s face. ‘Immediately!’
Fenton was still beside the door, and now leaned against the jamb with both hands set insolently in his pockets. His chin was up and his hair flopped on his brow in a most beguiling way, and again Amy looked up at Isabel. But she stood there silent and very still, showing no hint of emotion of any kind.
‘Well, gentlemen, and of course, ladies, I guess I’d better tell you all I’ve discovered. It’ll come as no news to you of course, though it will to my poor sister, I think.’
Again his eyes flicked over Amy, refusing to lock into her direct gaze. ‘The facts are, little sister, that while we are living in penury, scratching our living as best we can, a large fortune which is ours by right has been filched from us. It is not too strong a word I think, filched —’
‘You had best watch your tongue, Lucas,’ Freddy said sharply, but Fenton just smiled at him and went on cheerfully as though he were talking of nothing more interesting than the weather.
‘Well, we discovered all this by accident. It seems that our grandmamma, Lilith Lucas, died exceedingly rich in strange circumstances, sad to say, in the middle of a war. She was in Constantinople. Imagine that — so far away from home and family, and dying! A piteous state to be in, indeed! And then what happens? Why, along come two people to help her make her Will — and who should benefit most by the terms of that will? Why, a close relation of one of the helpers. Who, mark you, later on increased her involvement with the whole affair by adopting the son of the other helper, after he died. I find it all a very strange circumstance — ’
There was an icy silence and Amy tried to turn her head to look at Martha, wanted to run to her, to tell her that she had indeed meant to keep her promise never to mention Lilith Lucas again, that she did not know why Fenton was being so dreadful and making such hateful —
‘Well, there you are!’ Fenton said and his tone was all sweet reasonableness. ‘What would you do in my shoes if you discovered such a thing? Why, exactly what I did do, I am sure! I went to my lawyers. Splendid people they are, splendid. Quite indignant about the injustice that has been perpetrated, and ready to fight in every court in the land for justice to be done!’
‘Fenton,’ Amy’s voice seemed to croak in her own ears. ‘Fenton, what have you done?’
‘What have I done, my dear? Why, set out to improve your future comfort, dear sister! I have filed a case which will be heard at Doctors’ Commons in Westminster Hall. I am contesting the Will made by Lilith Lucas on the grounds of undue influence by the witnesses. I have every hope that there will not be too great a delay before the matter comes before the judge.’
His glance slipped easily about the room, from Felix’s white face to Martha’s rigid stillness and from the expression of cold horror on Phoebe’s face to Gideon’s blank amazement. But not once did he look at Amy. Or at Isabel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘She is a bad girl, Felix! You cannot make me believe that she did not know perfectly well what her brother was about, and indeed egged him on with his plan! That you should be so — so beguiled by such a one — it is that which causes me most distress, not this nonsense about the Lucas woman’s Will!’
Martha was standing with her back to the dying fire, staring across the room at Felix with her head up and her face very white. Even as the words came tumbling out of her she regretted them; she was not even sure she believed what she was saying. But still they came, words full of rage and hurt and misery.
‘She is a fortune-hunter — came here from nowhere, from some gutter or other, and set out to captivate you by what means she could, and all to get her hands on whatever she could by any means she found. She has no conscience, no morals, no feeling, no —’
‘Martha! I know you are upset, and I make allowances for it.’ Felix too looked tight and strained and there was a white line round his mouth, but his control was absolute and his words came as quietly clipped as they ever did. ‘You have suffered considerable embarrassment because of Fenton’s inexcusable behaviour. I share your anger with him, and I will be doing all I can to deal with him. But however you or I may feel about Fenton, that does not excuse your hurling such unjust accusations at Amy. She did not know what he was planning, of that I am certain, and the promise she made to you about not speaking of her grandmother was one she had every intention of keeping. Indeed, has kept. It is her brother, not she, who has caused all this brouhaha.’
‘So you say! But how can you know? Who is she? What is she? Where does she come from? How can you be so certain of her veracity? You have seen the misery she and this brother of hers have caused to this family. They must be cut from the same piece of cloth — how could it be otherwise? Yet you defend her against me, against us —’
‘I will tell you who she is, and what she is and where she comes from,’ Felix’s voice was quieter than ever but the ice in it crackled in her ears. ‘She is Miss Amy Lucas of Boston. In due course she will be Mrs Felix Laurence of London, the wife of my choice, the woman I love above all others. As for what she is — she is at heart good and loving and full of intelligence and kindness. Yes, she has faults. So have I and so have you. Her faults may seem large to you since she has an exotic quality about her, coming as she does from another country. But none of that gives you licence to so abuse her. I love her and know her and I tell you from my love and knowledge that she is good. She has not brought this distress on your head. And if you cannot believe me and trust what I say about the woman I love then the years
we have spent together have been a lie. I thought you loved me and cared for me as your son. If you truly did, then you could not give voice to such ideas as you have here this evening. I said before and I say again, I make allowances for your distress. But stop now and think — and take back what you said about Amy. You must.’
‘Must? Why must I? Why should I?’
There was a silence and then he said with a note of real sadness in his voice, ‘Because of me. Because of the love you say you have always borne me. For if you do not take back your words, I must reject you, as you have rejected her. There is nothing else I could do—’
‘You are asking me to choose? Between you and her?’
‘No! I am asking you to allow your own good sense and loving nature to have sway over your present natural distress. Oh, Martha, you are usually a kind and good woman! Do not behave like — like some ordinary female who cannot think, but always allows her stronger, baser feelings to rule her life! Use your common sense. Amy is not to blame for this débàcle — her brother is!’
Again there was a silence as she tried, very hard, to allow the wisdom of his words to enter into the maelstrom of feeling which now filled her. At a deep level she knew he was right. Amy had been as distressed as anyone else at Fenton’s announcement. In the stormy quarter-hour which had followed it, in which many cruel and abusive words had been spoken by everyone in the Bedford Row drawing-room, her voice had been as loud in condemnation as anyone’s. Fenton had stood there, laughing at them all, even mocking them a little, and Amy—had made it clear that she stood on the side of her betrothed’s family. She had wept and been almost inconsolable, and Felix had had to take her back to Long Acre in a cab as the afternoon had broken up in a tangle of tears and loud words and children crying at the unexpectedness of all this adult emotion.
But all the time he had been away from her, while she tried to restore some semblance of order to her thinking, the feeling had been there, rising and simmering and eventually boiling up into the tide of furious words with which she had greeted him on his return. Jealousy. The hateful emotion with which she had been plagued all her life, and yet which she usually managed to control, took hold of her and washed over her in great sickening waves.
And even now, as she stood there staring at him and trying to push the feelings away, even now though she knew how much she had to lose in giving way, she could not succeed.
‘You are asking me to choose! You are telling me that unless I do take her and her hateful brother, unless I believe her and trust her as you do, that you will reject me! Well, if I must make such a choice then I must — and I tell you she is wicked and cruel and — and bad. She set out to ensnare you and steal you away from me, and she has done it, and I hate her, I hate her —’
He shook his head and his face seemed to be infinitely sad rather than angry; but his tones were clipped and cold.
‘If that is your decision, Martha, then there is no more I can say. I hope you will think better of it, eventually. You know where to find me if you wish to. Good-bye.’ He took his hat and coat from the chair upon which he had thrown them on his return and went to the door.
‘What do you mean — I know where to find you? You live here!’
He shook his head. ‘No. I cannot live here any longer. I shall move into the hospital. They will find a set of chambers for me, I daresay. I regret that our — happy years should end like this, Martha. But you know how to mend matters.’ He paused again, his hand on the door-knob, and looked at her very directly.
‘I must tell you that it will be you who will do the mending. I will never step towards you again, until you make the move towards me. And Amy. We are now an indissoluble pair. Somehow you must learn to understand that.’
And he was gone, leaving her alone in her quiet drawing-room staring at a closed door.
‘Oliver! Have you taken leave of your senses altogether? How can you possibly think that —’
‘It is very easy, Phoebe, and if you will stop speaking and start listening then perhaps you will understand.’
‘I understand well enough!’ Phoebe said vigorously. ‘That wretched female has addled your brains, that is what I understand. I saw the way you ogled her the first time you saw her at my house — and bitterly do I regret the day I agreed to entertain such a scapegrace pair of ne’er-do-wells — and I need little more to —’
‘If you cannot contain your tongue better than that, Phoebe, then there is no more to be said. And anyway, keep your voice down. Do remember that we are among my servants here and I would not wish them to hear one jot of business that does not concern them! They are avid enough with curiosity as it is.’
Phoebe looked up and saw an alert waiter ostensibly cleaning silver at a table on the far side of the big room in readiness for the customers who would come when the Supper Rooms opened its doors in a couple of hours’ time and obediently dropped her voice. ‘Well, why ask me to come here to talk to you if it is all so private? You could have come to my house, for heaven’s sake, and —’
‘I have no time to pay visits like that. I wished to speak to you, yes, and since you, I believe, have far more leisure than I enjoy, I saw no harm in asking you to come to me. After all, Phoebe, allow me to remind you that although you enjoy a half share in the profits of the Supper Rooms, I do all the work here! It is little enough I ask of you, after all. And anyway, it is the end of the month and the books are ready for your perusal.’
‘Oh, as to that, pooh!’ Phoebe said, but her voice was less sharp and she smoothed her gloves carefully on her brown silk taffeta lap with an air of great nonchalance. She was looking particularly fetching this afternoon in her newest gown and summer pelisse, trimmed with feathers, and well she knew it. She had come to the Supper Rooms from a visit to her milliner, where she had been quite shocked by the size of the bill she had allowed to run up; indeed she had considered, as the carriage had brought her from the elegance of Belgravia to the bustle of Covent Garden, the possibility of asking Oliver for some extra money; Freddy was a loving, even uxorious husband, but he was also a careful one as far as money was concerned and could be very acid when she exceeded her allowance. And money at the moment was tight in her purse, and it would be agreeable to have access to more. But even so — she shook her head again, quite determinedly.
‘No, Oliver. You are wrong. I cannot see that there is any sense in espousing this nonsensical cause. Just think what it will do to the family! There will be such trouble and such — well! Look at what happened at Aunt Martha’s yesterday! Was that not enough?’
Oliver was leaning back in his chair, staring down at his fingers tapping on the table. Ever since last night his mind had been in a turmoil, and even now he was not sure quite where his thinking was leading him. So he spoke slowly, trying to organize his mind as he went along.
‘I can quite see that the family is annoyed. Grandfather Abel’s family that is —’
Phoebe stared at him. ‘How do you mean, Grandfather Abel’s? That is us — all of us —’
‘Indeed it is — but we, you and I, we are different, are we not? We had another grandparent. In addition to Abel. The same one as Amy and her brother. We too, remember, are the grandchildren of Lilith Lucas.’
‘And from all accounts that is not something we need to be especially proud of!’
‘Aye, indeed, so we have heard, when the matter has been broached at all, from Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha. But you must remember that they are Abel’s daughters. Are they not? They would not be likely to be sympathetic towards anyone he — disapproved of.’
He stopped and looked up at her and took off his glasses with that familiar gesture of his and began to polish the lenses as he peered at her and he looked naked and very vulnerable suddenly. ‘Phoebe, do you remember your mother?’
She frowned and then shook her head. ‘I do not know,’ she said shortly. ‘I recall only living with Aunt Abby and Uncle Gideon. They gave us a good and happy home and —’
&nb
sp; ‘I know all that. I asked only if you had any memory of — before.’ His eyes seemed shadowed suddenly. ‘I am but two years your senior, Phoebe, but I seem to recall so much more. I remember Papa —’
‘Yes,’ Phoebe said quietly. ‘I remember Papa. Of course. Poor dear Papa —’
‘And Mamma.’
Phoebe stiffened and then shook her head.
‘She was very beautiful,’ Oliver said. ‘She had dark hair, curly, you know, and grey eyes. She was not unlike Amy to look at —’
‘There you go again! I tell you, that girl is trouble! You create nothing but misery if you allow her to beguile you any more than she has already! Isn’t it bad enough she has ensnared poor Felix? Aunt Martha must be — well, I can only imagine how distressed she must be, poor dear! And now you —’
‘Mamma was Lilith Lucas’s daughter, Phoebe. That is the point I am trying to make —’
‘I know you are. And I do not wish to pay any attention to you. I am not interested in any part of it. We have enough money, surely! You are making a good income from the Supper Rooms, and —’
‘Indeed I am. But are you? I daresay you will be seeking more money from me soon enough — you usually do at this point of the month! Freddy is a careful man, for all his wealth and —’
She stood up in a sussuration of taffeta and with great determination drew on her gloves.
‘No! I will not hear of it! If this Fenton Lucas wishes to create such a scandal by suing over this Will, that is his affair. But if you attempt to join in on his side, why, Oliver, you will be mad! And alone, for I will never speak to you again, and that I promise you! And nor would anyone else in the family.’
‘Would they not?’ Oliver said and blinked up at her. ‘Well that is possible. But our other cousins would. Amy and Fenton —’
‘You’re a fool!’ Phoebe said and her voice was so scathing that the waiter looked up, unable to hide his curiosity any longer, and Oliver frowned sharply. ‘Yes, you are. A fool. Do you think that — that female will be interested in you any more than she is simply because you join in their squalid grubbing for money to which they have no right? No, do not argue with me! Money to which they have no right! Any more than you or I have. Grandmother she may have been but we did not know her, and she left her money elsewhere. It is not any concern of ours!’
Long Acre Page 26