Beggar Bride (31 page)

Of course, the one guest Honesty would love to come cannot possibly do so. Oh, what would he look like in a dress suit? She imagines Callister, so enthralling and gallant, transfixing all eyes at the ball, overwhelming even the women in their glittering dresses in the same way that Angela seems almost to bewitch her own surroundings with her beauty.

A magical charisma.

Over the years since she has known him Honesty’s passion for Callister has become almost unendurable. And lately she seems to be floundering along through life in an obsessive, clamouring torment for Callister gives his love as freely as his words and most women, entranced by him, aren’t slow in coming forward. Damn it.

‘Is something wrong?’

‘What do you mean?’ asks Angela, paling. ‘Should there be?’

‘You seem so jumpy, and you look pale.’

‘Too many late nights.’ Angela laughs it off, and seems relieved to find that most of the post consists of replies for Honesty’s party, nothing for her at all.

Because of her gnawing infatuation, even the horror of Daddy’s remarriage has assumed more of an ache in her side rather than the spear it felt like to start with, nothing like so bad as when he married Helena and Honesty was put out in the cold. In those days the only people she could confide in were the homely, kind Estelle, cook at Cadogan Square, and Grandmama and Grandpapa, of course, although they are of another, more stalwart generation, and could not properly appreciate Honesty’s pain. Once Fabian was married to Angela the birth of a son and heir seemed almost inevitable, and although her nose has been put out of joint, and her eventual income vastly reduced, even these things seem inconsequential now.

Although Callister doesn’t see it that way.

So Honesty can rest assured that something will be done. He has promised her he will do something, that their original plan is still relevant. He assures her it is, and Honesty has to believe him.

Well, look what happened to Helena.

Nearly four years ago.

How time flies.

It was the end of The Rudge summer holidays, and Honesty had been staying in London because everyone else, including Grandmama and Grandpapa, had gone to Scotland for the shoot. Even Helena, up in London for the night with the grotesque and graceless twins, had left this morning. She’d worshipped him in those days, too, ever since that day he seduced her—a craving for his mighty dominance, something to do with her father?—and she’s never wanted anyone else. All men are weedy compared with Callister, a man who embodies the primordial and unrestrained. ‘I’m in love with you,’ she remembers saying, surprised to hear the words, surprised that she knew what they meant, and wondering vaguely where they had come from, and how it had happened that they had been spoken in her voice.

Her young innocence was soon replaced by a tormented and eager woman.

Staying in London, away from him all those weeks, was purgatory. She was lonely, on a different level of being from her school friends with their silly, childish conversation and seventeen-year-old preoccupations. Oh she went along with them, parties, picnics on the river, shopping sprees, theatre visits, but she was never one of them and what is more, she didn’t want to be.

Honesty would probably see it all in a different light, now. Being obsessed is not pleasant, not when it goes on year after year. Knowing what she knows now she would have got out… there
was
a point when she could have pulled back, wasn’t there?

Anyway, back then she was spending the evening with Estelle and that dreadful man, Murphy, watching television in the basement because the house upstairs felt so lonely and empty with only her in it. After Murphy went to bed, with his habitual show of scratching and burping—how could his wife bear to go near him let alone share a bedroom?—Estelle got down to the nitty gritty.

‘You’ll never believe this and I shouldn’t be telling you now.’

‘What?’

‘Helena is pregnant. Isn’t that just dandy?’

Honesty was jolted by the shock. ‘How d’you know?’

‘Well, this part I know I ought to keep to myself, but it’s all been so harrowing I really need to share it.’

‘Go on!’ Bad enough that the twins had come along to take her place in her father’s affections, luckily Fabian never seemed to take to those children at all, probably because they are smelly and unattractive, brought up so far from the accepted Ormerod nursery code of Godliness and cleanliness. No one could really love them.

But Helena, pregnant again? Honesty felt like a handicapped creature, she turned cold inside, she hugged herself to get warm. What if Helena’s child was a boy, what if she lost all her prospects overnight and Callister disappeared with them?

‘She came to Murphy last night wanting him to find somewhere discreet where she could go to have an abortion!’ Estelle quivered with disapproval, her double jowls kept going after the rest of her body had stopped. ‘She sat on the sofa where you’re sitting now, Murphy here at the table, and made her request. Murphy said he would see what he could do. I just listened and said nothing.’

An abortion? So there was some hope, after all. ‘Why does Helena want an abortion?’

‘I’m not sure I should tell you this. I swore myself to secrecy but perhaps it’s best you should know, she’ll need all the support she can get in the weeks and months to come. Apparently,’ and Estelle leaned further forward, ‘the child is not your father’s!’ Estelle jumped back from this dangerous revelation as if spattered by hot chip fat. ‘Now I’m not one to criticise, I pride myself that I can see the points of view of all parties concerned in an argument, and there are times,’ Estelle nodded mysteriously, she drew in a slow, deep breath, ‘there are situations when I can see that abortion would be the appropriate action to take. But not, certainly not, because it might make things awkward, merely because one might be involved in some petty deception which is what Lady Helena was implying.’

Petty deception? Hardly petty! Honesty held her breath. Why didn’t Estelle stop rambling and come to the point. ‘So she’s going to get rid of it?’

Estelle drew herself up. ‘No, she most certainly is not!’

‘She’s not?’

‘It took me nearly all night, but in the end, I am glad to say, I persuaded her! After all, Sir Fabian need never know. What does it matter who one’s father is?’

Honesty held herself tighter. ‘You changed her mind?’

‘Thank the good Lord, yes I did. Sometimes one’s principles have to be overridden and Helena is such a virtuous, honest person. And she told Murphy that she’d changed her mind this morning before she left, Lord be praised.’

Honesty’s eyes were big and bright and scared. She shuddered, a sharp, spasmodic shudder that began at her shoulders and travelled all the way down her body. For God’s sake.
‘But why?’

For Estelle the answer was simple, and she gave it slowly and clearly as if she were addressing a gormless child. ‘Because she saw that what she had decided to do was wrong!’

Honesty struggled furiously with her self-control. She lost the battle and shouted, startling the fat, complacent cook with her anger-distorted face, ‘But what gave you the right to interfere with Helena’s decision? It wasn’t up to you, Estelle,
it was nothing to do with you!’

‘Well, I say…’

‘How could you, Estelle, how could you? You’ve seen how badly they treated me…’

‘Excuse me, Honesty dear, but sending you away to school was merely…’

‘Shut up! Shut up, you blasted old fool. What do you know about it and what have you gone and done?
D’you realise what you have done?
Couldn’t you have let things alone, damn you! Of course Helena should not lie to my father. That sort of deception would be wicked, far more wicked than getting rid of a wretched foetus.’

Estelle, affronted beyond endurance, got up and moved to the sink. She stood with her back to Honesty, hands in her overall pockets, shaped like a child’s spinning top she turned a complete and enraged circle. ‘I don’t allow Murphy to speak to me in this way, let alone…’

‘I am your employer, Estelle, might I remind you, if you don’t mind…’

‘But I do mind, Miss Honesty, this is outrageous,’ said Estelle, proud and defiant, ‘and I’m afraid I am going to have to report this shocking rudeness to Sir Fabian.’

Honesty fell back, shattered and exhausted. She lowered her challenging eyes. ‘You can’t. You can’t tell him that Helena’s child isn’t his. He’d hate you if you told him that. He’d never believe you anyway and he’d tell you you’d been meddling where you have no right to meddle.’ To herself she admitted that Fabian wouldn’t believe her either.

‘I wish I’d never mentioned it, for my sins. Just goes to show. Here was I thinking you were a sensible grown-up young lady now, with some understanding of life and its problems, and here you are, nothing but a nasty, selfish little prig caring about nothing but your own greedy business.’

Warily, Honesty gave Estelle a sideways glance. ‘I’m sorry. OK? I’m sorry. I just lost my temper, that’s all. But just tell me this, is Helena planning to allow this child to inherit Hurleston if it’s a boy, in spite of the fact she knows it is not my father’s? And if he isn’t the father, who is? Did she tell you that while she was busily opening her heart?’

But it would take more than a few puny apologies to calm the flustered Estelle. ‘I don’t know if I want to carry on this conversation, Miss Honesty.’

‘Oh, come on, Estelle, I’ve said I’m sorry. It’s just that poor Mummy is suffering so much without a penny to her name, I hate it at The Rudge, I get so homesick, and the thought of another child being favoured over the rest of us… a child with no right to be…’ Honesty began to cry.

‘Well…’

‘It’s so unfair,’ sobbed Honesty.

‘Well…’

‘And I’m so unhappy,’ cried Honesty.

‘Well, perhaps…’

‘Nobody loves me.’

Slowly but surely Estelle’s mothering instincts and the need to swap the gossip overcame her hostility. But she started off reluctantly all the same. She didn’t want Honesty to think she’d been completely forgiven. ‘Well, Helena didn’t tell me who the father was, but she thought she would find it impossible to deceive Sir Fabian. I convinced her that a child’s life is far more important than a little deception.’

Honesty must try to keep calm. ‘And she listened to you, did she? Hah. Such a high moral outlook, so easily overruled!’

Estelle gave a vacant look. ‘Of course. In the end, she had to agree with me, if she had an abortion she’d be no worse than the terrible people she campaigns against, taking life so flippantly for selfish reasons of her own. And it won’t be you who’s mainly affected if I may remind you, Miss Honesty, it will be that terrible Giles who we hardly know. An American at that!’

Honesty said, ‘I see. So it was fairly simple to change her mind?’

Estelle looked attacked again. ‘It took some doing! It took me nearly all night. But she’s gone back to Devon now, a happier person, I hope.’

Honesty closed her eyes, put her hands over her ears, and crouched in upon herself.

The following morning, in spite of the fact that Helena and the twins were at Hurleston and Honesty mostly tried to avoid them, she took the train down to Devon, thinking and dreaming of Callister all the way. At Reading she thought she saw him on the platform, and called out, a little love cry, and the couple sitting opposite raised their newspapers higher. Horrors.

She set forth for the travellers’ camp, uncertain, as ever, as to what her reception was going to be. Those were the days soon after the atmosphere in the place changed, when Callister was taking over as leader where there had been no leader before. Helena, when the hippies first arrived, had been very involved with their innocent activities. The idea of a leader of any kind would have repelled her.

Anarchy, said Fabian, was more her theme.

But lately the initial troubles the travellers had experienced with the local landowners, a campaign close to Helena’s heart, and something well worth fighting for with any tool which might come in handy, had died down temporarily. She wasn’t needed there. She’d grown so busy she hadn’t the time to keep her eye on every operation. She should learn to delegate more, said Fabian in disgust. More often than not she was up in the Hebrides with the twins at her heels, fighting the barbaric inhabitants there who took against her gentle ideas of an alternative community of long-haired weirdos, seaweed and mushroom gatherers, worshippers of sea and moon.

Free love had always been one of the foundations on which Helena’s little communities grew, as did the myriad children who lived like poultry, scratching and clucking away round the vehicles’ wheels and making sandy hillocks to run their home-made toys along. This was an aspect of her desire which Honesty found hard to endure. Jealousy ate her up from within and there were many to feel jealous about. But Callister always reassured her whenever she became too upset. ‘We need you, Honesty, you are very special to us all.’

‘I don’t want to be special to you all,’ cried Honesty in despair, knowing he would think her absurd. She heard her own voice, pitiful and pleading. ‘I want to be special to you!’

‘And you are, you are,’ said Callister and only the edge of his straight white teeth were showing when he smiled at her.

‘Don’t lie,’ she said. ‘You care about the others as much as you care about me!’

‘And why shouldn’t I?’ he enquired in a reasonable tone, starting slowly towards her.

She watched him. With every step he took she found it more difficult to breathe. She felt that same old terror as he loomed larger and larger, that one day this man would crush and annihilate her completely. She tried to run away then, but he caught her in his arms and held her tenderly against him. When she raised her head he suddenly released her. He laughed and his black eyes glittered with malicious amusement.

This time she told him that Helena was pregnant while holding her breath for fear of his reaction.

‘How do you know?’

‘Estelle just told me.’

‘And if it’s a boy?’

He was making her spell it out. He knew the answer. ‘If it’s a boy it will inherit Hurleston and everything in it. Daddy won’t split the contents. My inheritance will shrink to less than half of what I am expecting.’