A Multitude of Sins

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘It has been going on for quite a while,’ Julienne said knowledgeably. ‘Since before Jeremy’s birthday party.’

  ‘Christ! Tom said again. He had been so immersed in his affair with Lamoon that he hadn’t given a thought to his friends’private lives for months. ‘Poor old Adam.…’

  Julienne took his hand. ‘And poor Tom,’ she said gently. ‘There will be no more Lamoon, chéri. You are going to be very lonely.’

  His face tightened. ‘I can’t accept that yet, Julienne. I have to see her again! God damn it! I will see her again!’

  Julienne shook her head slowly. ‘No, chéri,’ she said regretfully, ‘I think not. I think your Lamoon is already very far from you.’ She rose to her feet, looking down at him compassionately. ‘Perhaps in a few days, if you are lonely, perhaps it might be a good idea to telephone me? Old lovers should be able to give comfort when it is needed. C’est compris?’

  Despite his grief he grinned. He understood very well. ‘You never know,’ he said, his heart breaking inside him, ‘I might just do that, Julienne.’

  She smiled and blew him a kiss. ‘Au revoir,’ she said, hoping very much that he would do so. ‘God bless.’

  Dusk had fallen and the lights were on in the corridor as she walked towards the sister’s office. She hesitated a moment outside the door that bore Raefe’s name. She wanted very much to go in and see him, if only for a few moments. A few yards away from her, in her glass-fronted office, the ward sister put down her pen and watched her with interest.

  A small frown puckered Julienne’s brow. Surely he would not mind if she went in and asked how he was? But she wasn’t sure. Nothing about Raefe was predictable. It was one of the reasons she found him so devastatingly attractive. She knew very well the kind of reaction she could arouse in Ronnie or Derry, or even Tom. But Raefe Elliot was different. And she didn’t want the humiliation of forcing her company on him if he preferred to be alone.

  ‘Another time, chéri,’ she whispered beneath her breath, smiling to herself as she continued to walk down the corridor towards the stairs. Elizabeth was a very lucky lady, and she didn’t blame her in the least if she was about to burn all her boats behind her. If she were in Elizabeth’s position, she would be very tempted to do the same thing herself. But tempted only. After all, she was married to Ronnie, not to Adam. And Ronnie was fun and made her laugh. She ran down the last few steps and into the foyer. She felt very sensuous and Ronnie was meeting Alastair at the Pen at seven o’clock. She would have to hurry if she wanted to detain him before he left the house.

  Adam stared at Elizabeth as she entered the drawing-room. He looked hunched and gaunt and suddenly very old.

  ‘You’re in love with him, aren’t you?’ he asked without preamble.

  ‘Yes.’

  The word fell between them like a bomb. She saw him stagger slightly and then regain his balance. He was standing in front of the flower-filled fireplace, his pipe clutched tightly in his hand, the tobacco long since burned out.

  ‘Oh, Adam, I’m so sorry,’ she said heartbrokenly, moving towards him. ‘So very, very sorry.’

  He fended her off with his arm. ‘No!’ he said, his voice thick with grief. ‘Don’t come near me, Beth! Don’t touch me! I can’t bear it! Truly, I can’t!’

  The tears were pouring down her face. ‘Sit down, Adam. Let me fetch you a drink.…’

  ‘I don’t want a bloody drink!’ he shouted explosively. ‘I want what I’ve always wanted! I want you, Beth!’ He raised his arm against his eyes. ‘I want you,’ he said again, brokenly. ‘God help me, Beth. I don’t know how to begin to live without you. You’re all I’ve ever wanted … ever since you were a little child.’

  She moved towards him once more, taking his arm and leading him towards a chair. ‘Sit down,’ she said gently, and as he did so she crossed to the table that held decanters and glasses, and poured a large brandy. ‘Drink this,’ she said, pressing it into his hand. ‘Oh, Adam, oh, my dear, if only you knew how hard I’ve tried not to let this happen!’

  He drained the brandy in one swallow, putting the glass down unsteadily, saying with sudden bitterness; ‘So you’ve tried to stay with me, have you? You’ve tried to love me and not him?’ His face was ashen with anger and grief. ‘I don’t understand it, Beth! I thought we were so happy together!’

  ‘We were…we are.…’

  She was crouching at his feet and he leaned forward, seizing her wrists with surprising strength. ‘Then, why?’ he howled. ‘In the name of God, Beth! Why?‘

  He was hurting her, but she couldn’t pull away. ‘I don’t know why …,’ she cried truthfully. ‘But when I’m with him I feel whole. Complete. I feel as if he is the other side of my personality. I want to be with him all the time.’ She saw the agony on his face but she couldn’t stop. ‘I want to share his life.…’

  He released his hold of her, springing to his feet with such suddenness that she fell on to her knees. ‘You’ve taken leave of your senses! Men like Elliot don’t marry the women they sleep with! You don’t mean anything to him, Beth! He doesn’t love you! I love you!’

  She pulled herself up against the chair, tears dripping down on to her hands, her dress, hating what was happening to them, hating herself for allowing it to happen. ‘No.…It isn’t like that, Adam. He does love me. He wants me to share his life with him.’

  He physically flinched, as if he had been struck. ‘You can’t mean that.… You can’t intend leaving me for him? For a man who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “faithful”? A man who is a killer?’

  The room was suddenly very still. She felt as if she were on a stage set. As if nothing that was happening was real. She said, unutterably wearily, all passion spent, ‘I have to leave you, Adam,’ and then, as he stared at her, refusing to believe her, she said with brutal simplicity: ‘I’m carrying his child.’

  His groan was deep and terrible. He put his hands out, like a blind man, seeking for somewhere to sit. ‘Oh, no …,’ he said as he lowered himself into a wing-backed chair. ‘Oh, no … no.… I don’t believe it I won’t believe it!’

  She walked across to the mantelpiece, leaning against it for support. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ she said bleakly. It wasn’t a cry for help; it was simply a statement of fact. ‘Raefe doesn’t know yet. Whatever I do, though, I can’t stay here, Adam. I’m going to move into the Pen.’

  He shook his head, struggling for words. When they came, he said desperately: ‘No! There’s no need, Beth! Stay here. Stay with me!’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, her heart breaking. She moved across to him, kneeling down in front of him, taking his hands in hers. ‘There is no way I can expect you to understand, Adam. But I love you. I’ve always loved you.’

  His eyes were tired in defeat, aged by pain. ‘But not the way you love him?’

  Her hands tightened on his. ‘No,’ she said, her voice cracking, ‘not the way I love him.’

  For a long time neither of them spoke; and then, at last, he said – a new note of desperation in his voice: ‘There’s no need for you to leave, Beth.’

  She raised her face to his.

  He was struggling inwardly, coming to terms with the most dreadful crisis he had ever faced. ‘You say Raefe doesn’t know about the baby? Don’t tell him. Don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Adam, I don’t understand.…’

  His thumbs pressed so hard on to the backs of her hands that she winced with pain. ‘We’ll have the baby, Beth! I’ll be the father! We can live together as we’ve always lived! We’ve been happy, Beth. You said so yourself! We can be happy again! Please, my darling. Please stay! Please let me take care of you both!’

  She began to cry, great racking sobs that could not be controlled. She had always known that he had loved her, but that he loved her so deeply that he would forgive her infidelity, accept another man’s child as his own, tore her apart. He was offering her all he could possibly offer, and it wasn’t enough. N
othing ever could be. Their life together had come to an end, buried beneath a carpet of hibiscus blossom.

  ‘No,’ she whispered brokenly, rising unsteadily to her feet, wondering if her life would be long enough for her ever to forgive herself. ‘I think you are the kindest, most loving man in the world, Adam, but I can’t do as you ask. I can’t live with you any more. I’m going back down to the Pen tonight.’

  He made no move towards her. He didn’t even try to rise from his chair. His world had collapsed around him. She was going, and there was nothing he could do to make her stay.

  ‘I love you,’ he said tonelessly as she walked towards the door. ‘God help me, but I still love you, Beth.’

  She swayed, one hand on the knob of the door, and then walked blindly out of the room. She packed only one suitcase, carrying it down the stairs herself, not calling for Chan or for Mei Lin. She paused in the mosaic-tiled hallway. The drawing-room door remained closed. She didn’t move towards it. There was nothing more she could say to him. The most horrible thing of all, the most horrible part of the whole dreadful scene that they had endured, was that, deeply as she cared for him, not once had she had any doubts about the decision she had made. She had none now as she walked tiredly towards the door, closing it quietly behind her, walking across the dark gravel towards the garage and her Buick.

  ‘My God, I don’t believe it!’ Helena said, thunderstruck. It was nine in the morning. She had driven over from Kowloon, determined to see either Elizabeth or Adam, worried sick by the repeated refusal of Chan to put through any of her calls.

  Adam smelt of stale brandy. His cardigan looked as though it had been slept in. ‘It’s true,’ he said bleakly. ‘She’s at the Pen.’

  ‘But she’ll come back!’ Helena cried in desperate reassurance. ‘When she has had time to think, she will come back!’

  Adam shook his head. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘She won’t come back, Helena.’ He paused for a moment and then said: ‘She’s pregnant by him.’

  ‘Holy God!’ She stared at him, so shocked that she felt physically ill. ‘Oh, Adam, my dear. I’m so sorry.…’

  ‘It isn’t pity I want,’ he said tautly. ‘I just want Beth back again.’ His eyes met hers urgently. ‘Talk to her for me, Helena. Try to make her see sense. I’ve told her I don’t care about the baby. I don’t care about anything as long as she comes back to me!’

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ Helena said, but her voice, even to her own ears, was defeated. Elizabeth’s decision would not have been taken lightly, and if she were pregnant with Raefe Elliot’s child, then Helena could not imagine her returning home. ‘Come along,’ she said to him. ‘You look ghastly. Have a shower and change your clothes and we’ll have breakfast together. I’ll ask Chan to put on some eggs and to lay the table.’

  ‘Thank you, Helena,’ he said gratefully, knowing through his pain that her maternal bossiness was exactly what he needed.

  He left the room slowly, his limp more pronounced than she had ever seen it before. ‘Damn you, Raefe Elliot,’ she whispered beneath her breath. ‘Why the hell couldn’t you have fallen in love with Julienne? Then no hearts would have been broken.’

  Chapter Ninteen

  She booked into the Peninsula, tired and drawn, asking for a single room and saying that she would want it indefinitely. She knew that Raefe, when he knew, would immediately want her to move in with him, but she had no intention of doing so. Not yet. She had not left Adam in order to live with another man. She had left him because she was carrying another man’s child. Because she could no longer give him the love and loyalty that were his due.

  She moved wearily around the room, putting her toilet things on a small glass shelf in the bathroom, laying her nightdress on the bed. There was a carafe of iced water on the dressing-table, and she poured herself a glass, drinking deeply. She didn’t want room service. She didn’t want a meal, a hot drink. She didn’t want to do anything but sleep.

  She undressed with slow tired movements. Her face was swollen from the tears she had shed, her head ached. She moved her clothes to the back of a chair, took a long cooling shower, and lay down on the bed.

  She had left Adam. She had left the one person who had never, ever, intentionally hurt her. Her agonized mind sought oblivion in sleep. The day began mercifully to recede, grow confused, grow dim, the sound of traffic on nearby Salisbury Road began to blur and fade.… She had done the only thing she possibly could do. She had told Adam of her love for Raefe. She had told him about the baby. And she was going to have the baby. The merest touch of a smile softened her lips as she closed her eyes and slept.

  The next morning she didn’t drive first to the hospital. She drove instead down Nathan Road and towards Li Pi’s Kowloon apartment. If she was embarking on a new chapter of her life, then her music was going to have first priority. It had taken a back seat for far too long.

  She looked ill and pale as he opened the door to her, but her eyes were burning with an expression he was all too familiar with and he wasted no time in upbraiding her for her absence. Neither of them had time to spare.

  He took her straight to the keyboard, but not in order that she could play for him as she had played previously. This time they were starting from the beginning. ‘I would like you to play for me a C-major scale in double octaves,’ he said to her without preamble. ‘As legato as possible and in one continuous gesture.’

  He stopped her after only the first note. ‘You must sit differently. You must sit on the thighs so that the pelvic and knee joints are mobile. Now, once again.’

  It was exactly what she needed. For three hours she did not think of Adam once. Or of Raefe. Or even of the baby.

  At lunch-time, as they shared a light meal of fish and rice together and before she had returned to the keyboard, she told him how difficult she always found Bartók’s second piano concerto. He smiled, his old Oriental face-creasing into a hundred lines.

  ‘There is no such thing as a difficult piece, Elizabeth. A piece is either impossible or it is easy. The process whereby it migrates from one category to the other is known as practising.’

  She had laughed, knowing that he was right, loving the feel of once again working, of having achieved something of worth.

  ‘You will be here tomorrow?’ he asked, when at last he escorted her to the door.

  ‘I shall be here every day,’ she said, and her beautiful face was no longer etched with strain. She felt clear-headed, confident.

  ‘Remember,’ he said to her. ‘Remember when you practise that in performing the scale, the tempo must not be too slow, otherwise it will break down into a series of isolated impulses; nor must it be too fast, or staccato emerges.’ He gave her his gnome-like grin. ‘Till tomorrow. Joi Gin. Goodbye.’

  It was late afternoon, and the streets were crowded as she drove back towards the ferry and Victoria. She felt almost light-headed. Her life was not lying in pieces all around her. It was beginning to take shape. She no longer felt as if she were being manipulated by emotions outside her control. She felt in command of what was happening, and the feeling brought with it a heady sense of freedom. When she walked into the hospital it was with the swing of new-found confidence.

  ‘Is Mr Elliot feeling stronger?’ she asked the ward sister as she passed her in the corridor.

  The ward sister raised an eyebrow slightly. It was because Mrs Harland hadn’t visited earlier in the day that Mr Elliot had been demanding he be discharged.

  ‘If his temper is anything to go by, he is,’ she said drily.

  Elizabeth grinned. Raefe wouldn’t make an easy patient. ‘Can I see him now?’ she asked.

  ‘The sooner the better,’ the ward sister said practically, ‘but if he tells you he’s discharging himself dissuade him. He won’t be fit to go anywhere for at least another week.’

  Elizabeth nodded. She was wearing a full-skirted dress of pale eau-de-nil silk, and the skirt rustled against her legs as she walked into his room.

 
His head spun towards the door. ‘What the hell time do you call this?’ he demanded, but his eyes told her his anger was only feigned. They blazed with pleasure at seeing her. ‘It’s nearly six, God damn it!’

  ‘I had things to do,’ she said mischievously, walking across to his bed and sitting demurely on the stiff little chair beside his locker.

  ‘Come here, woman!’ he growled. ‘Where I can get my hands on you!’

  She did as he demanded and, despite the saline drip and his heavily bandaged chest, it was a long time before either of them spoke again. When she finally pulled herself gently away from him, she said hesitantly: ‘I have something to tell you.’

  ‘I know.’ She was sitting on the bed, her hands imprisoned in his. ‘Adam knows about us. Helena told me.’

  There was unconcealed satisfaction in his voice. She withdrew her hands from his and rose from the bed, walking across to the window.

  His brows flew together. ‘What is it, Lizzie? He had to know some time. What’s the matter?’

  ‘I didn’t want him to know so suddenly, so dreadfully.’ She paused for a moment and then said: ‘I’ve left him. I had no choice. I’ve taken a room at the Pen.’

  His elation was tempered instantly by the realization that there was still something she hadn’t told him. He waited, every muscle in his body tense with expectancy.

  At last she turned to face him, the sunlight streaming through the window behind her, burnishing her hair to silver. ‘I’m having a baby,’ she said simply.

  He didn’t even ask her if it was his. He didn’t need to. ‘The devil you are!’ he breathed exultantly. ‘Come over here where I can kiss you!’

  A smile curved her lips. ‘Are you pleased?’

  ‘Let me show you,’ he said, reaching his hand out towards her, pulling her down against him. ‘Why on earth did you move into the Pen? You should have gone straight to the apartment.’

  ‘No.’ She pulled away from him a little. ‘I’m not moving into the apartment, Raefe. Not yet.’

  He stared at her, as if she had taken leave of her senses. ‘Why ever not? It’s large enough.’