‘Where were you working at the time?’
‘I wasn’t working.’
‘You didn’t have a job!’ The last word was emphasised.
‘No, I did not.’
‘But if you were not working, what were you doing?’
‘I was visiting.’
‘A fashionable young lady of leisure!’ The sneer was pronounced. ‘Well, as you had no work and had never had any work, let’s talk about your husband’s work.’
Andrea’s normally pale face was now slightly flushed.
‘How soon after your marriage’, Valerie went on, ‘did you go to Rome?’
‘Two years. During the first two years of our marriage Robin was in the office in London, the Foreign Office.’
‘And your son, Francis, was he born in Italy?’
‘No, in Shropshire, where my father and stepmother then lived.’
‘But he was conceived when you were in Rome?’ Andrea nodded. ‘Did you enjoy living in Rome?’
‘Very much.’
‘Were you very social, entertaining and being entertained?’
‘Quite a lot. It was part of his job.’
‘Did you enjoy that?’
‘Some of it. Some was tiresome. It always is.’
‘Dancing, wining, dining, that seems to have been the pattern of your whole life?’
‘That was part of our life in Rome. As I said, it was part of the job.’
‘But as far as I can gather, that has always been your life.’
‘Not at all. At the Embassy we were expected to entertain and to visit. I could speak Italian. When I was growing up I had learnt three languages, French, German and Italian. What languages do you speak?’
‘Only English.’ The question had annoyed Valerie. She’s a toffee-nosed, stuck-up little prig, she thought. She decided to play the Rome card.
‘May I ask you a personal question?’
‘If you want to.’
‘It is rather personal,’ Valerie went on. Andrea said nothing; merely stared at her. ‘Was your marriage to Robin Caverel a happy marriage?’
The slight flush had fled from Andrea’s cheek. ‘Of course it was. Why do you ask?’
‘I just wondered. So many marriages aren’t these days, and living in Rome, they say, can play havoc with Anglo-Saxon marriages.’ Andrea was sitting bolt upright, her hands beside her. Valerie went on silkily, ‘In Rome you must have had many good friends.’
Andrea remained silent. ‘Wasn’t one of your very best friends the socially famous – I was going to say notorious but that wouldn’t be quite fair.’ Valerie laughed and went on, ‘No, that fashionable lady, Isabella, the Marquesa di Bonavincini, so often featured in Hello!’ She paused, then added, smiling, ‘No, of course I’ve got that wrong. Isabella, I understand, was more a friend, indeed she was, they say, a very close friend of your husband. Do tell me about him and her.’
Valerie had looked down at her notebook when she spoke that last sentence so she did not see that Andrea had risen to her feet. Valerie was still smiling when she looked up and saw Andrea, white with fury, striding towards her. She stopped smiling when Andrea snatched the notebook from her hand and the tape-recorder from the arm of the chair. Ripping open the small machine and pulling out the tape, Andrea threw it into the fireplace and, tearing the pages from the notebook, flung the book at Valerie, hitting her in the face. ‘Get out,’ she said. Valerie put a hand to her cheek. Andrea tore in two the pages she’d ripped from the notebook and flung them over Valerie’s head. There was a spot of blood at the corner of Valerie’s mouth. ‘Get out of my house,’ Andrea said.
Valerie leaned down beside her chair and picked up her bag. Taking out a tissue, she dabbed the corner of her mouth. ‘That was very silly,’ she said. ‘I can remember all that was said and what I can’t remember, I shall invent.’
‘Get out,’ Andrea repeated, opening the library door.
Valerie rose. ‘Don’t bother to show me out,’ she said as she walked past.
In the hall she purposely spent time, looking up at the portraits on the staircase, watched by Andrea standing by the library door. Finally with her hand on the front door, she said, ‘You’re a very foolish woman. Now I shall do all I can to see that you get what is coming to you.’ Then she was gone.
When Andrea returned to the library, Nicholas Lawton was bent over the fireplace. He’d come through a door disguised with the false backs of books by the right of the fireplace. He retrieved Valerie’s pocket recorder and put it into his pocket. He put his finger to his lips and went over to the side table and took from behind one of the photographs in a thick silver frame a larger tape-recorder. He stopped the tape; rewound it in part and played a sentence or two of Valerie’s and Andrea’s conversation. Andrea was still by the door.
‘We should never have let her come,’ he said.
He took Andrea by the arm and led her to a chair. ‘They like to hurt, especially people like us. At least they will not be able to print any lies. I’ll telephone Oliver.’
Valerie drove fast to the village. In the pub Graham gave her a drink. ‘I’ll crucify her,’ she kept saying. All the way back to London she thought up the arrogant, racist phrases that she would put into Andrea’s mouth about blacks and natives and servants. But when she’d got back to the office, the editor said Goodbody’s, the solicitors, had been on.
‘They have a tape,’ he said. ‘I’m spiking the story, darling, for the time being. Sorry for the waste of a day but at least you haven’t done any writing.’
Valerie had not written. It was all in her mind, where it remained. She’d bide her time. And the time, she knew, would come.
20
Since she had been settled in the luxurious suite in the hotel in Kensington, in what Willoughby called ‘the bosom of the family’, Fleur was inevitably more and more in his company. He saw to her appearance and wardrobe and took her to restaurants and first nights at the theatre and cinema where they were seen and photographed together, telling her it was all part of the presentation of her. Willoughby alone was allowed to be seen with her in public and in every report he made sure she was described as ‘the Caverel Claimant’. Every day he enquired what she was doing, where she was going. If she went out on her own, Mrs Campion was meant to chaperone her. All telephone calls to the suite were routed through Mrs Campion’s room. Willoughby kept impressing on her that over the next months all their efforts must be concentrated on preparing for the case, and that included public appearances in his company. Not that he didn’t enjoy their outings, he said, but it was business. There’d be time enough to enjoy themselves when the case was won. So Fleur did not dare to get in touch with Greg. When it was over, she kept telling herself, she’d be with him.
One evening after they had returned from supper at the Groucho, they were in the sitting-room while Willoughby smoked a final cigar. He asked her what she planned to do when the estate and Ravenscourt were hers. Sell, she said, if I can. And then go away. And the barony, he asked, what about the barony? She had made a gesture with her fingers. He took her hand and smiled sympathetically.
She still spent days in bed nursing her migraine, but not so many as before, and now and then she’d elude Mrs Campion and slip away to some fortune-teller she’d been told about. One, a medium, she paid to make contact with Paul. But Paul, inconsiderately, was not there. Or if he was, he was keeping himself to himself.
Fleur had not visited the Senora, who was still in the clinic where she was said to be improving from her broken jaw. Willoughby said he hoped her stay might help dry her out. Mrs Campion kept silent. All the pocket money Willoughby gave the Senora was passed on to Mrs Campion so that even in the clinic the flask got filled – and emptied.
Jameson was away in the States, tying up loose ends, Willoughby said, getting Fleur’s birth and her father’s marriage certificates and arranging for the witnesses who would bring them to court. Fleur was glad Jameson was not with them. She didn’t like Ja
meson. His stillness and silence unsettled her.
Over lunch at Boulestin his friend Harry Price, the editor of the Daily News, told Willoughby about the interview of Andrea Caverel by Valerie Spencer and that the News was now ‘looking after’ a couple of the Ravenscourt staff, Headley, a forester, and his friend and drinking companion, Mason. They were now on the pay-roll. He also reported that Major Lawton had been christened the Gauleiter. ‘We’ll use that when we get another Caverel story to hang it on,’ he said.
Willoughby said he’d not have long to wait and two days later he announced to Fleur that he was taking her on an outing. ‘It’s time for you to become acquainted with the home of your ancestors,’ he said. ‘You and I are going to pay a visit.’
So on a fine morning in the last week in September, Willoughby and Fleur climbed into the back of a large black limousine which was followed out of London by a Ford Granada from the fleet of the Daily News, bearing Graham, the photographer, and Harold, a reporter.
* * *
The drive which led to Ravenscourt began beneath a tall, eighteenth-century arch and ran between stone walls banked by tall rhododendron bushes which at that time of year were long past their vivid summer flowering. At the end of the walls, the drive wound through open park land bordered by an iron fence with herds of deer scampering under great oaks, while further up the slopes of the down cattle and sheep were grazing. As they drove through the park, Fleur saw swans sailing majestically on a long sheet of water.
‘The work of Capability Brown, my dear,’ Willoughby said. ‘This is said to be one of his best.’
The drive bent sharply in a curve to the right, and Fleur had her first sight of the huge Palladian house.
‘Ravenscourt,’ Willoughby said, taking her hand. ‘Your father’s home.’
Fleur stared, astonished. Greg Rutherford had called it a barracks. To her it looked like a palace.
As they got nearer the drive forked. To the left was a notice on a triangular stand: ‘No entry. Car-park to the right at the rear of the house. Entry to the house by the side door only.’ The driver began to follow the directions and take the right fork but Willoughby called out, ‘Pay no attention to the notice. Take the left fork and drive to the front of the house.’
The driver stopped and reversed. There was just room for the limousine to slip between the notice and the grass verge. The Ford Granada followed.
‘Pull up at the bottom of the steps.’
Taking Fleur by the arm, Willoughby led her up the broad stone steps to the great front door. Graham and the reporter ran before them, Graham snapping away with his camera. On the wide stone platform outside the door, Willoughby bowed. ‘Your ancestral home, Lady Caverel,’ he said.
She giggled. ‘No,’ he said, ‘be serious, he’s taking pictures,’ and he motioned to Graham to take one of Fleur with her back to the door.
A man came running from the side of the house. ‘Hey,’ he shouted. ‘You can’t go in there. You can’t park those cars there. The car-park’s at the back.’
Willoughby ignored him and pointed to the bell on its long chain hanging beside the front door. ‘Pull it,’ he said.
Graham took another photograph, with Fleur’s hand on the bell. Mason opened the door. Willoughby had Fleur by the elbow. He winked.
‘The official tour of the house’, Mason began loudly, ‘starts at the side door by the car-park.’
Willoughby winked again. ‘I know, old son, I know,’ he said, ‘but this lady’s special. She’s family.’
He propelled Fleur forward. For a moment Mason stood his ground and Willoughby wondered if the News was paying him enough. Then Mason stepped aside. Once inside, Willoughby saw why Mason had spoken as he had, for around the sides of the circular hall, bordered by a blue rope erected on public opening days, was the tourist line-of-route which led from the public’s entrance at the side door near the car-park, along a corridor, into the hall and finally to the foot of the great staircase. Because of the publicity about the Caverel Claim, visitors had flocked to Ravenscourt all summer and today, the last open day of the season, the line-of-route was packed. More tourists were crowded on the stairs beneath the family portraits as they made their way to the state rooms on the first floor. When Willoughby’s party entered the hall, many recognised Fleur from her pictures in the papers and nudged each other and pointed.
‘Your ancestors, my dear,’ said Willoughby loudly, pointing to the portraits.
An elderly woman with a guide’s badge pinned to her chest was at the foot of the stairs. She called out, ‘Mr Mason, who are these people? What are they doing?’
Willoughby answered her, loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘It is Miss Fleur Caverel and her party, come to visit her father’s home.’
Graham was busy with his camera, the reporter with his notebook. Fleur looked up at the portraits with the tourists looking at her. The elderly woman called shrilly to another guide at the top of the staircase, ‘Fetch Lady Caverel and the Major.’
‘Come along, my dear,’ said Willoughby stepping over the rope and leading Fleur to the foot of the stairs. ‘Excuse me,’ he said genially to the elderly guide, pushing past her. ‘Excuse us,’ he said to the tourists as he pushed past them. ‘Sorry to inconvenience you but we’re family and we’re going up to the family rooms.’
The crush on the stairs was such that it took time for the party to get past, and they paused every now and then while Willoughby chatted up some of the tourists or pointed to a particular portrait and Graham photographed Fleur studying it. By the time they had reached a few steps below the head of the staircase, Andrea was on the landing.
Fleur had been enjoying herself, smiling back at the tourists, joking with Willoughby, but now her smile faded and she halted abruptly, a few stairs below Andrea. The two women stared at each other.
Willoughby, on the stair below Fleur, called out over Fleur’s shoulder, ‘Good afternoon, ma’am, may I present Miss Fleur Caverel? We thought we should call as I believe this is the last open day of the season and as Ravenscourt is open to the general public, all the more must it be open to the family.’ He laughed his stock, genial laugh.
Andrea could see Graham busy with his camera photographing her and Fleur, the reporter behind him taking notes. The tourists, squeezed against the wall, listened, fascinated. Andrea, her face very pale, stared fixedly at Fleur. Fleur dropped her eyes.
‘Leave,’ Andrea said at last. ‘Leave my house at once.’
‘Come, come, ma’am,’ Willoughby said. ‘I don’t know why you should say that, unless it’s because we haven’t paid to come in.’ He laughed. ‘But we didn’t think there was any need for tickets, seeing that Miss Fleur is family.’
Andrea called down to the guide, ‘Make sure that Major Lawton is on his way.’ The guide disappeared down the corridor.
‘Mason,’ Andrea called to Mason who was standing in the hall, ‘have these people removed immediately.’
She raised her hand and pointed her finger so that it was only inches from Fleur’s face. ‘Leave my house,’ she repeated.
Fleur half turned to Willoughby at her elbow. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘please, let’s go. Please, let’s leave.’
‘If that’s your wish, my dear,’ Willoughby replied, ‘of course we’ll leave.’ He looked up at Andrea. ‘I’m sorry you’re so inhospitable and that you find it necessary to be so rude.’
‘Get out,’ said Andrea. ‘Get out of here at once.’
‘We shall do as you ask, ma’am, but perhaps sooner than you care to think, it will be you and not Miss Caverel who will have to get out.’ He took Fleur’s elbow. ‘Come along, my dear. You don’t seem to be very welcome.’ And then he said louder for the benefit of the tourists. ‘One day, however, you will. One day, all this will be yours. Then no one will turn you out as you have been turned out today.’
The people on the stairs behind them stood aside as Willoughby, with his hand on Fleur’s arm, began to descend. Andrea stood
like a statue on the landing. In the hall Willoughby turned and waved good-humouredly to the crowd. Many waved back and called, ‘Good luck.’ Mason opened the door, Willoughby winked at him once again and they were outside.
‘Did you get everything?’ Willoughby asked when the door had closed behind them.
‘Perfect,’ the photographer replied, ‘quite perfect.’
Fleur began to run down the steps ahead of them. On the last step she tripped and fell, landing heavily on her hands and knees, sprawling full length on the gravel. The chauffeur came from the car; the other three down the steps.
‘Are you all right?’ Willoughby cried.
‘Just a graze,’ she said, ‘nothing.’
But there was blood on the palms of her hands and on her knees. They helped her into the car; she began to wipe the gravel from her with a handkerchief and dab at the blood. The chauffeur produced a first-aid kit.
As the cars moved off, Fleur turned and looked back at the house through the rear window. A man had come out of the front door, a tall man with a moustache. He stood there, his hands on his hips, looking at the cars. In the dream with the Gypsy, Fleur remembered, there had been no man. Only a woman.
‘I hope that didn’t distress you, my dear.’ Willoughby patted her on her thigh. ‘But it was important that we paid a visit.’
‘She was…’ Fleur began.
‘She is Robin Caverel’s widow, the woman who calls herself Lady Caverel, your aunt by marriage. Her child is your first cousin.’
Switching on the air-conditioning, he lit a cigar and took her hand in his. Fleur lowered the window beside her. She thought of Paul’s Gauloises and the sweet scent of the Gypsy’s cigarette when she had woken from her dream.
* * *
Next day, under a banner headline ‘Thrown Out!’, the Daily News carried pictures of the heiress being confronted on her visit to her ‘ancestral home’. The piece, accompanied by many photographs, was written by Valerie Spencer from the notes taken by the reporter and from her own notes of her interview with Andrea Caverel.
The Caverel Claim Page 12