Old Sins

by Penny Vincenzi

  She was young, twenty-seven they’d said; either the old boy must have still been quite a goer, or she’d married him purely for his money. Probably the latter. That was obviously what Roz thought.

  And he held the balance of power between them. The thought made Miles feel quite sick. No wonder they’d wanted to find him. What on earth was he going to do? He had been speaking the truth when he had told Roz he just wanted to give it all away again. The last thing on earth he wanted was to get mixed up in some power struggle. He didn’t want to hold any, and he didn’t want to assist anyone else to hold any. It held about as much charm for him as joining a monastery. But he could see even giving it away wouldn’t be that simple. Whoever he gave it to, there would be trouble. Besides, Roz had a point. Why give it?

  No, the best thing would be to sell it, and then go home to Candy, and persuade Old Man Mason to let them get married. Roz would buy his share, that was for sure. He liked her, he thought she was really nice under that hard front of hers, and it would obviously help her. Why go into it all any more?

  God, Julian Morell, whoever he was, must have been a funny old buzzard. Why do this to all these people? And why involve him? He supposed really he ought to wait until Lady Phaedria or whatever her name was came home, and talk to her as well. It was only fair.

  He looked around. The room was bare, except for a bed, a coat stand, a cupboard, and a small bedside table.

  There were a few photographs on the wall: an aerial view of a big house in the country, and several pictures of horses. No people. He sat down on the bed, took off his jacket, slung it on the floor, looked round again.

  His eyes fell on the bedside table. It had a couple of drawers in it. He tugged the top one tentatively. It was empty. But the second one had a small silver frame in it. He took the frame out, turning it over and looking at the picture in it; and for a moment the face in front of him meant nothing at all to him. Then his brain connected with what he saw; the picture first blurred, then clarified with extraordinary vividness. He stood up, and then slowly, his eyes fixed on it, his mind a whirring, confused mess, he walked out of the penthouse and took the elevator down to Roz’s office. She was on the phone and reading letters at the same time; she looked up at him, smiled, waved to him to sit down in the chair in front of her desk. Miles sat there looking alternately at her and the photograph in his hand.

  When she had finished talking she put down the phone and said, ‘What is it? Couldn’t you sleep?’

  ‘I haven’t tried,’ said Miles. ‘Not yet. Look, Roz, I don’t know quite what’s going on around here, but why do you all keep saying you don’t know Hugo Dashwood when there’s a picture of him up in your dad’s office?’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Los Angeles, London, New York, 1985

  FATHER KENNEDY WAS a little worried about Lady Morell. She seemed such a fragile little thing, and seeing the photograph of Hugo Dashwood with Miles had obviously given her a big shock. She had tried very hard not to show him what a shock it was, had managed to smile and say what a nice picture, and it was wonderful to know what they both looked like at last, but she had turned very pale and he had insisted she sat down and had a drink of tea before she left again.

  She had told him she had to get back to the hotel, that she had a friend coming to see her; that was a good thing, Father Kennedy thought, she had obviously had far too much time on her own at the moment and whatever it was about the photograph that had upset her so much, then she could talk to this friend about it.

  ‘Would you like to take the picture?’ he had said to her, and she had said yes, please, she would get a copy made of it and then send him the original back if that would be all right.

  And holding her baby rather closely to her, she had walked to her car and then driven off without another backward glance.

  Well, she clearly didn’t want to talk about it. In Father Kennedy’s experience, people always talked in their own good time. He was not about to press her. He only hoped he had not gone too far in showing her the picture.

  What she clearly had no need to know at all was the true relationship between Dashwood and the boy. That had been something entirely between Lee, himself and the Almighty, entrusted to him in his capacity as priest, and nothing on this earth, or indeed anything that might be waiting for him in the next, would drag it from him. And besides, and he had often thought this down the years, who was to say that Lee had been right in her absolute certainty that Hugo Dashwood had fathered Miles? The boy had certainly looked sufficiently like Dean, and Father Kennedy had learnt quite early in his priesthood that guilty women were particularly skilful at deceiving themselves, at distorting facts, to their own advantage or otherwise, depending on their characters. So the doctors had all told Dean he was sterile; well since when had doctors not been known to make a mistake? Small miracles of this kind took place all the time. Look at all the babies that were conceived the moment their parents adopted someone else’s child. No, the parentage of Miles Wilburn was not something Father Kennedy was prepared to discuss with anybody, anybody at all.

  He put it determinedly out of his head and fell to wondering how he was going to feed up to thirty hungry people that night with one small ham. Jesus had managed it, of course, or its equivalent, but then he had had powers denied to Father Kennedy.

  Michael Browning arrived at Phaedria’s bungalow at six o’clock that evening. It was dark, and there was no light inside; he thought perhaps she might still be out at the hospital and went into Reception to ask.

  No, they said, Lady Morell was there, she had been there all afternoon, perhaps she was asleep? Should they ring through? No, Michael said, he would go himself and knock on the door; she was expecting him. Probably they were right and she was asleep.

  He went back and knocked; Phaedria’s voice answered. She sounded strained, odd. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s the serenading team,’ he said. ‘Only we left the violins at home. Can we come in?’

  The door opened; Phaedria stood before him, ashen. Her eyes were swollen, and there were deep shadows under them. She was shaking. ‘Oh, Michael,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘Phaedria, honeybunch, what on earth is it? It’s not – not.’

  ‘No,’ she said, and there was just an echo of a smile on her stricken face, ‘no, Julia’s fine.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  She walked through to the sitting room, picked up a photograph from the table. ‘Look.’

  He looked. ‘It’s Julian. Who’s that with him?’

  ‘Oh, that’s Miles.’

  ‘Oh. So he did know him. Nice-looking boy.’

  ‘Yes. But that’s not the point. This isn’t Julian. Well it is, but it isn’t.’

  ‘Phaedria, you’re not making any sense.’

  ‘None of it makes any sense,’ she said, and there was a sob in her voice. ‘Well, no, that’s not true. It’s beginning to. This is Hugo Dashwood, Michael, Julian was Hugo Dashwood. He was obviously leading a completely double life. That none of us knew about.’

  ‘I don’t care if Miss North is in a meeting with the President, or Lord God Almighty. Get her on the phone, for Christ’s sake.’ Roz, her hand shaking, gripping a large whisky, was on the phone to New York.

  Miles, a little disconcerted by the monumental hornet’s nest he had disturbed, sat watching her, silent, not knowing what to do.

  ‘Ah, Camilla, yes, I do realize you were in a very important meeting and I am very sorry, I really am, but I simply have to talk to C. J. Do you know where he is? No, it’s nothing to do with Miranda, but it is desperately serious. I just have to talk to him. OK, fine. Thank you. He’ll tell you about it himself, I expect. Goodbye, Camilla.’

  She put the phone down, dialled another number, taking gulps of the whisky. ‘C. J.? Oh, thank God I found you. I just had to talk to someone in the family. No, Miranda is perfectly all right. Yes, I know this is Camilla’s private number, she gave it to me herself.
What? Michael’s out of town, Christ knows where. C. J., I don’t know quite where to begin on all this, but please please just listen and tell me what I ought to do. We know who Hugo Dashwood is. What? Miles has solved it for us. Miles. M-I-L-E-S. Yes, he’s here. He turned up this morning. God, it seems years ago now. Yes, of course it was a shock. I’m sorry, of course I was going to tell you. Well he’s very nice. Oh, I can’t go into all that now. That’s not why I’m ringing you. Well, not exactly. C. J., Hugo Dashwood was my father. What? Yes, of course Julian Morell was my father. They were one and the same person. He was leading some kind of a double life. Oh, C. J., I feel so terrible, and I don’t know where to turn or what to do. I can’t, simply can’t tell Letitia, or Mummy, not yet. It would be too shocking for both of them. It’s all so horrible. No, I haven’t told Henry Winterbourne. Do you think I should? All right. What about Phaedria? Oh, C. J. Could you please come home?’

  Phaedria had booked herself on to a flight a day earlier, with Julia, having insisted Michael return to New York.

  ‘We have enough problems and traumas on our hands already,’ she said, smiling at him rather wanly over her packing, ‘without Roz deciding we are having the love affair of the century.’

  ‘Don’t you think maybe we should at least try it out?’ he said. He was sitting watching her, holding the baby on his knee with one hand, and the telephone in the other, trying without success to get through to his secretary in New York. ‘Christ, this girl has to have the opposite of a raise. What would that be, do you think?’

  ‘A fall? I don’t know. Try what out anyway?’

  ‘Having the love affair of the century. Or at least the week.’

  ‘No, I don’t. Do you think you could try getting Richard Brookes for me on that line? Oh, no, it’s hopeless – it’s still only six o’clock there. God, it will be nice to be back in the same day as everybody else.’

  ‘Phaedria, do you feel nothing for me at all?’ said Michael, his dark brown eyes looking at her gloomily over the baby’s head.

  ‘You know what I feel for you,’ she said, suddenly serious. ‘And I don’t know how I would ever have got through last night without you. But I just can’t let myself think about it, and neither should you. Besides I’m not at all convinced you don’t still love Roz. There are some pretty strong emotions running between you and her, if you ask me.’

  ‘Well,’ he said with a sigh, ‘you may be right. I don’t think so, but you may be. I tell you one thing, if she’s set a private detective on me, we don’t stand much of a chance. I mean, who is going to believe I spent an entire night in your bedroom simply holding your hand? It’s against nature. I can hardly believe it myself. Here, I think your daughter is looking for something that I can’t provide.’

  Phaedria looked at the small head rooting hopefully against Michael’s chest and laughed, unbuttoning her shirt, taking the baby; they both looked at her tenderly as she started sucking greedily, her little fists clenching and unclenching with pleasure.

  ‘And there’s another thing,’ he said gloomily. ‘You will keep flashing those amazing tits at me, and then letting her have all the fun. It just isn’t fair.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘and thank you for everything. Maybe – well, let’s not talk about it.’

  ‘All right, we won’t. Not yet. Anyway, you do look much better.’

  ‘I feel better,’ she said, almost surprised. ‘Now the worst of the shock is over. Or maybe it’s just numbness. Somehow a lot of the guilt has gone.’

  ‘It has?’

  ‘Yes. Discovering that Julian was – well, more devious than I’d ever imagined.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ he said, a look of mild triumph on his face. ‘He didn’t deserve you. He didn’t deserve any of you. Sorry,’ he added hastily at a warning flash in her eyes.

  ‘Maybe not. But maybe we all contributed. That’s what we don’t know. I can only think this life here – there, God knows where else it went on – was some kind of desperate escape.’

  ‘My darling, you’re too loyal by half. He was a lunatic. He had it made from birth. There was nothing to escape from.’

  ‘Michael, you don’t know that. You just don’t know. Please don’t make these judgements.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ he said and there was genuine anger now in his face. ‘I’ll shut up. I know when I’m beaten. But if and when we ever know the truth behind it all, and I’m right, you won’t be able to hear yourself think for me yelling out “I told you so”.’

  She smiled at him, put out her hand. ‘All right. And then I’ll listen. Meanwhile, what I do feel, and what I suppose is making me feel better, is that this has been going on so long, it can’t possibly have been all my fault. Or even all Roz’s.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll tell you the other thing that really made me feel less awful,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You, yes, and in particular you asking me if something had happened to Julia. I suddenly realized nothing mattered terribly compared to her.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad I contributed something.’

  ‘You contributed a lot.’ She looked at him and sighed, suddenly very weary, very sad. ‘Well, I certainly shan’t forget yesterday. First the photo of Hugo, from Father Kennedy, then Miles turning up in London.’

  ‘I wonder how Roz is,’ Michael said suddenly. ‘This can’t have been exactly good for her either. Did you speak to her?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you didn’t.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘She will be beside herself,’ he said, ‘she adored her father.’

  ‘I know she did. Maybe I should call her.’

  ‘Well, it would be a pretty big olive branch. Just about the whole tree. But it would be nice.’

  ‘I’ll call her in an hour or so. She’s probably asleep.’

  Roz wasn’t asleep. She felt as if she would never sleep again. She was possessed of a feverish, almost hysterical restlessness; every time she had felt her eyes closing she had seen Miles looking at her over her father’s photograph and her mind snapped into frenzied activity again.

  She wasn’t quite sure what she felt: pain, confusion, disbelief, outrage. She felt as if everything that her life had been based on had been shot at, and was steadily and relentlessly crumbling away underneath her. She had made Miles go over his story about Hugo Dashwood and the part he had played in his life a dozen times; there were still no clues as to why her father should have done such a thing, and how he could have kept it from them over all these years. His mother, his child, his wives, his mistresses – all of them had known him so little, that he could perpetrate this deceit upon them; it was monstrous, obscene.

  She shrank from having to tell Letitia: maybe she wouldn’t have to. Perhaps they could keep it from her. No, that was. impossible. She would have to be told that her son had been a devious, unscrupulous monster, and it was going to fall to her, Roz, to tell her. There was no one else in the family who could take that responsibility, was close enough to her, cared for her enough. Except – Roz suddenly thought of Susan. Susan and Letitia had always been very close. And Susan was so wise and calm. She might be able to handle it. But then the thought of having to tell even Susan about her father and his other life hurt her so much she shut that escape route off as well. Her mother would also have to be told. Eliza would be less deeply hurt, but it would still be damaging, humiliating. Thank God they had managed to keep the whole thing more or less out of the press. What a field day they would have with this. And how horribly that would add to the hurt of everyone who had loved and trusted Julian. God, thought Roz, sitting up in bed for what seemed like the thousandth time that night, why, how could he have done it? And how many other people had known him as Hugo Dashwood, surely it wasn’t just Miles and his family, there must have been others, people everywhere, who had known her father, and yet had no idea at all who he really was, who his real family were, his true ho
me, his proper self. How extraordinary that Phaedria should have made the discovery on the same day, almost at the same time. Henry had phoned her to tell her about Miles’ arrival in England and said she had been almost hysterical and slammed the phone down. It was only when he had phoned her the second time, to tell her about Hugo’s identity, that she told him she had known, that had been the reason for her earlier grief. For the briefest moment Roz felt a flicker of sympathy for Phaedria; she suppressed it fiercely. Of them all she deserved the least sympathy over this. She had only known Julian Morell for less than three years; she did not have a long, happy, private piece of history with him, that she was now being forced to surrender, to have to realize there had been another life, possibly, probably, even other loves, that she had no place in, no part of.

  ‘What was he like?’ she kept saying endlessly to Miles. ‘What sort of person was he, did you like him, what did he do, how did he talk, what did he say to you?’

  And Miles, anxious not to make her pain worse, to reassure her, began to rewrite history too; Hugo Dashwood had been very kind, very generous to them all: to his dad, he had helped his dad with his business a lot, his mother always said, and he had been very good to his mother, he had visited her when she was dying, and of course to him and his grandmother. His grandmother had really really liked him, depended on him, looked to him for everything, and he had been wonderfully good to her; she had talked to him much more in the last few years than he, Miles, had. Roz should talk to her.

  And had he never even hinted of a family in England? Well yes, he had, but it had not been this family, of course; he had told them (very little, very very little) about a wife called Alice, and two little boys, Miles thought, or maybe it was three. (And oh, God, thought Roz, was that family somewhere too, was that a real family or a second fantasy, were they living somewhere, wondering what had become of their father, waiting for him to come home? The nightmare grew and grew as she thought about it, lived through it.)