by Janet Tanner
The first passengers from the Jersey Airways flight came through customs and Deborah glanced at them critically. When she had offered to come and meet her husband’s niece she had had no doubts she would know her; now, suddenly she was not so sure. The photograph Sophia, her mother-in-law, had shown her might bear little or no resemblance to the girl from Australia. Photographs could be very deceptive. Juliet might even – heaven forbid – resemble her mother! A muscle in Deborah’s stomach tightened at the thought and she felt again an echo of the dismay which had been her first reaction when Sophia had told her Juliet was coming to Jersey.
Oh no. Not Molly’s daughter …
She had hidden her feelings, of course. To allow them to show would have been to let Sophia – and more importantly, David – know that for her the past was not dead but only dormant. It was almost twenty years since she had seen Molly but the hatred she felt for her – and the jealousy – remained as strong as ever. Never mind that she was happy and successful now, never mind that she knew she had been very fortunate indeed in the way things had turned out. Once Molly had hurt her so much that the wound could never quite heal; the thought of her could get beneath the skin of elegant sophisticated Deborah Langlois and turn her, like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight, into the girl she had once been – frightened, desperate and madly in love with a man who no longer cared for her. To all intents and purposes Deborah had put it all behind her and she had seldom if ever spared a thought for Molly in years. But the news that her daughter was coming to Jersey had brought it all back as fresh as if it had been yesterday.
The tide of memory had disturbed Deborah for a few days. She had even considered taking a holiday in order to avoid Molly’s daughter. She had been promising herself a trip to New York for ages; she had only to telephone her friends there and she could hop on a plane and put the Atlantic ocean between her and Juliet. But even as the thought occurred to her she knew she could not do it. To leave Jersey just now, with Juliet arriving, would be far too pointed. Sophia and David would be bound to know what was in her mind and Deborah knew her pride would not allow that. So with characteristic directness she had decided to take the bull by the horns. When the family had discussed who should meet Juliet at the airport Deborah had offered. ‘It will be much nicer for her than being met by Perry. A chauffeur might be impressive but also very impersonal,’ she had said, and hoped that neither David nor Sophia had seen through her and guessed her real motive – to get that initial meeting over with sooner rather than later and lay the ghost.
Now, however, as she watched and waited, Deborah’s throat was dry and she felt a little sick with apprehension.
The trickle of passengers continued – not too many, for it was not yet the time of year when every plane would disgorge a full complement of holidaymakers on to the tarmac. There were one or two businessmen, a young man with a child, several middle-aged couples taking early holidays but no one who could be by the remotest stretch of the imagination Juliet. Perhaps she had missed the plane, Deborah thought. It was possible her flight from Australia had been delayed and she had arrived too late to make the connection, too late even to telephone La Grange and explain what had happened. She moved a trifle restlessly, betraying her nervousness by the way she was suddenly fiddling with the earpiece of her sunglasses.
She isn’t coming. All this for nothing. I’ll have to go home and tell Sophia she wasn’t on the plane …
And then suddenly there she was.
The moment she came into view Deborah knew it was her though she did not look too much like her photograph and mercifully she didn’t look like Molly either. She was taller, slimmer, fairer. She wore a mini skirt, a cropped jacket in lemon denim and the sort of flatty sandals Deborah would have spurned but which, on her long legs, looked just right. Everything about her was young and vibrant and with that tan she could only have come from Australia or a holiday in a sunspot such as the Bahamas.
Deborah’s fingers tightened around her bag. Then her lips curved, hiding the nub of nervousness she was still feeling, and she crossed the airport lounge.
‘Hello – you must be Juliet. I’m Deborah.’
The car was a white Mercedes coupé and it suited Deborah perfectly, Juliet decided – they had the same elegant lines and touch of class. But the car also felt as if it wanted to go a great deal faster than the winding lanes permitted. Was that also true of Deborah? She somehow thought it might be, but she liked her anyway. With all that glamour she could have been off-putting but somehow she was not. She had a nice smile and a nice voice, not in the least plummy but light and musical and Juliet, used to laid-back Sydneyside drawl, thought she could have listened to it forever.
‘You’ll like La Grange,’ she was saying now as the Mercedes swung down a steeply sloping and curving lane between banks of hydrangeas, big as small trees. ‘ It’s a beautiful house in a beautiful spot.’
‘Dad has told me about it,’ Juliet said. ‘He says the thing he liked best about it was that there was nothing but woodland and fern-covered cliffs between the house and the sea. When he was a little boy he used to sneak out on summer evenings when he was supposed to be in bed and go down the valley, through the woods and onto the cliff path. Then he’d pretend he was a smuggler or something. He was never caught – he said his mother doesn’t know about it to this day.’
Deborah laughed. ‘Well well! Robin never struck me as a rebel.’
‘He isn’t. He’s a romantic’ She paused. ‘It’s funny, when he talks about his home in Jersey he always means La Grange, though he had a house of his own after he married Mum, where I was born and lived when I was a little girl.’
‘Green Banks. Yes. That is very nice too. Do you remember it at all?’
Juliet shook her head. ‘ Not really. Snatches, perhaps. But I was only four when we left.’
‘Yes of course. Well, we’ll go over one day and have a look at it if you like. From the outside, of course. I don’t actually know the people who live there now. I think it’s changed hands a couple of times in the last twenty years. Perhaps when you see it it will jog your memory.’
‘Perhaps it will. Sometimes I think I can remember a big sunny room with a rocking horse. And there are certain smells that kind of tickle my memory – furniture polish is one, lavender is another.’
‘I think there was a lavender bush in the kitchen garden. Yes, it was a very nice house. Not in the same class as La Grange, though. David and I are very lucky that Sophia allows us to share it with her.’
Sophia. Hearing her grandmother referred to by her Christian name was a slight shock. ‘Mama,’ Robin always said, and Molly never called her anything but ‘your mother’.
‘Have you and Uncle David always lived there?’ she asked.
‘Yes. It seemed only sensible. It would have been much too large for just one person and in any case I don’t think Sophia wanted to be alone. She suggested we should stay.’
‘I see.’ Again Juliet felt a slight jar of shock. She knew instinctively that Deborah meant that Sophia had not wanted to be alone after what had happened and to hear her refer to it so casually, albeit obliquely, was disconcerting. But then of course to Deborah it would be a fact of life, something she had lived with for so long that it no longer caused so much as a ripple on the surface.
The lane curved steeply and as the Mercedes rounded the bend a vista opened suddenly, a glimpse of blue sea framed by bright fresh greens and yellows. The sight was so unexpected and so beautiful it took Juliet’s breath away, then, as quickly, it was gone, lost behind the high hedgerows which were already burgeoning into the new season’s life.
‘Almost there,’ Deborah said.
She turned the Mercedes into a tree-lined drive. Renewed nervousness made Juliet’s mouth dry again. And then, through the trees, she saw it – an impressively large Regency style house of Jersey granite. Six casement windows protruded from the great slate roof directly above the six upper storey windows; the tall arched door
and five ground floor windows completed the perfect symmetry of the design. A small ornamental fountain played on the lawn that fronted the house and twin box trees stood sentinel. The blend of formality with the wild beauty of the wooded area beyond was stunning; for the second time in almost as few minutes Juliet caught her breath.
So this was La Grange. This was the family home she could scarcely remember. And also the scene of the murder that had changed all their lives including, of course, her own. The enormity of it was more overwhelming than Juliet could ever have imagined it would be and she sat in complete awestruck silence as the strange pot-pourri of half-forgotten, dreamlike familiarity teased her senses.
I might have been only four but part of me does remember. There were raised voices, there were tears. I was very frightened. I knew something terrible was happening but no one would tell me what it was. And then they took me away.…
Deborah pulled on the handbrake and switched off the engine. She smiled at Juliet, seemingly unaware of the turmoil of emotions.
‘Shall we go in?’ she suggested.
From the window of her sitting-room on the first floor Sophia Langlois had seen the Mercedes turn into the drive. She rose swiftly from the chair which she had positioned especially for that purpose and went through the connecting door into her bedroom to tidy her already immaculate hair and collect her jacket. Then she hesitated in the doorway, waiting.
Sophia would never have admitted to anyone that she had been watching eagerly for her granddaughter’s arrival; she had hardly admitted it to herself. Always poised, always in complete possession of herself, it was totally out of character that she should be peering out from behind the curtains, taking her eye off the drive only to check the time by the anniversary clock which Bernard had bought for her to celebrate the first year of their marriage. But today was different – and very special. Today Juliet was coming home.
A tiny pulse of excitement beat in Sophia’s throat beneath the elegant tie neck of her violet silk blouse. Many terrible things had happened in her lifetime; she had had her share of tragedy and trouble, and they had left their mark on her. But she did not brood over them now. It was in the past, all of it, and no longer mattered. But Juliet mattered, Juliet was the future and because of what had happened she had lost Juliet. It was the one aspect of the whole business she still regretted – had ever regretted if it came to that – and there had been plenty of times when she had thought she would never see Juliet again. But now she was here.
Suddenly Sophia could not wait a moment longer. She hurried to the window, not caring whether she was seen or not. The Mercedes had drawn up on the gravel turn around and Deborah was getting out – Deborah who had been so much more than a daughter-in-law to her, Deborah, to whom she was perhaps closer than anyone in the world. What would I have done without her? Sophia often wondered, and blessed the day when she had taken pity on a young and frightened girl. But today even Deborah had faded into insignificance.
At first glance as she came around the rear of the car Sophia could scarcely believe her eyes. She had known, of course, that Juliet was a young woman now. She had photographs which Robin had sent her from Australia to prove it. The snapshots and the portraits which were always tucked inside her birthday and Christmas cards had marked the passage of the years – Juliet on the beach – cooking steaks on the ‘barbie’ in the garden – dressed for a grand ball in a fairytale gown of emerald green trimmed with black lace – on the arm of a young man with long hair and an easy open smile – drinking a champagne birthday toast. But photographs were oddly unreal. In spite of them it was still a shock to see Juliet as she now was.
Disorientated, Sophia found herself remembering the last time she had seen her granddaughter. She had been wearing a plaid kilt and frilly white blouse, long white knee socks and black patent ankle strap shoes and her hair had been a cap of shining gold. Sophia had gazed at her, imprinting the image on her memory to last her through the years, and now suddenly it was there again like a well-worn photograph superimposed on the image of a tall young woman in a cropped lemon denim jacket and mini skirt.
Oh Juliet, how much I have missed! she thought, unexpected tears blurring her vision. If only your mother had not felt the need to take you away … if only I had been able to visit just once or twice … when it was all over.
But it wouldn’t have worked. Neither Robin nor Molly would have wanted to see her. Molly had never forgiven her and Robin.… No, it was best she had stayed away.
Now, at last, Juliet was here – here because she wanted to be.
Sophia turned to run downstairs. For the first time in many years she felt as if she were a young girl again.
‘I suppose,’ Vivienne Carteret said, ‘ she’ll be here by now.’
‘What?’ Paul, Sophia’s brother, looked up from his newspaper, peering over the top of his gold-rimmed half-spectacles at his wife who was pouring herself a pre-dinner gin and tonic. ‘Who?’
‘Well Juliet of course!’ Viv tasted her drink, added a touch more tonic, then crossed the room to her favourite chair, a black leather lounger with enormous comfortable wings. ‘Your niece, my dear – or great-niece, to be more accurate. She was due to fly in from Australia today.’
‘Oh yes,’ Paul said, returning to his newspaper. ‘David was saying something about it at the office. She’s staying at La Grange, isn’t she?’
‘Of course she is! Where else would she stay?’
Paul chuckled. He was a big man who had once been handsome; now his complexion gave away the fact that he, like his wife, drank a little more than was good for him and his once firm chin had sagged into heavy jowls. Life had thrown a good measure of traumas and disappointments in Paul’s path. Now, in the calmer backwaters of middle-age, he had discovered the pleasures of self-indulgence, and both the earlier struggles and the more recent excesses of easy living as well as some wildly irresponsible patches along the way had left their mark on him.
‘So – the little fledgling is back in the family nest,’ he remarked wryly. ‘ I’ll bet Robin and Molly had something to say about that!’
‘Probably,’ Viv agreed. Privately she had never had a great deal of time for either of them; Robin struck her as an ineffectual wimp and Molly was over-emotional and childish. She had a great deal to answer for, Viv had always thought. If she had faced up to her responsibilities things might have been very different. ‘I wonder if Juliet knows now about Louis and your sister?’ she said reflectively.
Paul glanced up again, reaching for the whisky tumbler on the small occasional table at his elbow.
‘Well of course she knows.’
‘She didn’t. When David and Deborah went over to visit Molly asked them not to say anything about it. She said she and Robin had decided it was best for Juliet not to be told.’
‘But that was when she was a child. She’s a grown woman now, for God’s sake. They must have told her!’
Viv twisted the tumbler between her hands so that the rings which she wore on almost every finger clicked against the glass.
‘I wouldn’t bank on it. Molly was one of the most secretive women I ever met as well as being one of the silliest. And you know how she was about Louis. She must have been just about the only person who didn’t think Sophia had done the world a service by shooting him.’
‘Viv, for God’s sake!’ Paul exploded. He should be used to his wife by now – after nearly fifty years of marriage there was nothing she could do that could surprise him, yet he still found himself shocked by her outspokenness.
‘It’s true!’ Viv smiled faintly, deep lines biting into her smooth plump face above the scarlet gash of her mouth. ‘Louis had so many enemies half the island would have been picked up for questioning about his death if Sophia hadn’t confessed. I even wondered at the time if you had done it.’
‘I beg your pardon!’ Paul’s already high colour deepened a shade so that it was almost puce. Viv smiled again. She was never happier than when she was cau
sing a sensation, mild or otherwise.
‘You had the opportunity. You were out that night I seem to remember and you always were very cagey about where you had been. And you certainly had the motive. We were going through an exceedingly bad patch if I remember rightly – and Louis was making things a hundred times worse. He couldn’t have died at a better time for us, now could he? Admit it, Paul!’
Paul set his glass down. Little beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead as memories returned to him, clear as yesterday. Viv was quite right, it had been a terrible time for them and Louis had been his chief tormentor. For one thing Paul had owed him a great deal of money. He had had no one but himself to blame for that, of course – he had a weakness for gambling and Louis had exploited it. Then, just to make matters worse, Bernard had died and when the boys came into their father’s shares Louis had tried to squeeze Paul out of the business. He could never have done it in Bernard’s lifetime – though it had been Bernard, in truth, who had been responsible for building up the hotel and leisure empire he had never forgotten that he had owed his start to Paul’s – and Sophia’s – parents, Charles and Lola. Without them there would have been nothing and Bernard had recognised that; whatever Paul’s shortcomings he had covered for them. Not Louis. Louis was ruthless and hard as well as clever and sly. He would have disposed of Paul with the same lack of compassion that he might crush a wasp that irritated him– no, not just with lack of compassion but with an obvious pleasure too.