Born of Woman (27 page)

Rowan was on to
something
—that was obvious. Why else should she be prowling round the site of Hester's girlhood home, interviewing servants? She hadn't mentioned the visit until Jasper let it out. That was odd itself. And how many of her suspicions had she already shared with Jasper who had driven her there in the first place? They were not only colleagues, but obviously good friends—maybe even lovers. Murdered bastard babies were just in Jasper's line. His favourite pastime was toppling the smug and shining from their pedestals. Even now, he was simpering upstairs with a star whose name had lit up Shaftesbury Avenue but whose latest role offstage in a smutty divorce case would soon fuse all those lights. He could do the same with Hester. Her story would have a strong personal appeal for him, since he owned a house in the area and had easy access to any local gossip.

Jennifer picked up her cup and put it down again. Even the coffee tasted tainted now. She had partly brought this crisis on herself. It was she who had persuaded Lyn into accepting Matthew's deal, and so made Hester public. True, she had insisted that the birth of the bastard child should be totally suppressed out of love for Lyn and loyalty to Hester. But if she had been truly loving, truly loyal, she should have joined her husband in his refusal to publish at all. Instead, she had swallowed Matthew's high-sounding adjectives—historical, educational, memorial—his stirring talk of tributes and tradition, and used them for her own ends. She had never wanted a gold mine, never presumed to oppose the feminists or tell women how to live, but she had to admit she had allowed her pregnancy to influence her judgement. She had been blind to everything but the welfare of her baby, fixed only on the need for its security. Matthew had been offering them security—or so it seemed at the time. If she hadn't been expecting, she might well have risked a poor and uncertain future, but how could she inflict it on a child? The irony was, that child had been coffined in an S-bend before the ink on the contract was dry.

A waiter removed her almost untouched toast. The restaurant was emptying now, people drifting off. She longed to escape herself, but Rowan was feeding a long new lead into her gold propelling pencil. She smiled across at them.

‘Actually, my Editor did suggest me doing a separate piece on Fernfield—a sort of general picture of the place with a bit of local tittle-tattle—you know—the odd murder or juicy scandal—the saintly postmistress who knocks her husband off and buries him in the cabbage-patch …'

Jennifer choked on the word murder. Was Rowan simply joking, or making an oblique and sinister reference to the fact that she did have certain suspicions and intended to follow them up? Matthew hadn't blanched. Was she over-reacting or imagining crimes where there were none? Rowan was still speaking, discussing the format of her article.

‘I might do a potted history of the old house itself, and everyone who lived there. I thought I could trace what happened to them all and …'

‘The sons were killed—all three of them.' Matthew was giving nothing away.
That
was in the book.

Rowan nodded. ‘What about the other daughter, though—Hester's sister Ellen?'

‘She … moved away—abroad.'

‘Didn't she return, though?'

‘Return?'

‘Yes, I heard a rumour fairly recently. It was probably total moonshine. One hears so many rumours in this job and most of them are way off-beam.'

Matthew jerked forward in his seat. ‘Who was it who told you?'

‘I can't remember now, to tell the truth. I meet scores of different people every week and …'

‘Not people who know Ellen, though. It wasn't Annie, was it—Mrs Croft?'

‘Good heavens, no! She hardly talked coherently at all. That's why I was so intrigued to hear of your little session with her. Did she mention Ellen then?'

Matthew paused. ‘Only in passing.' He pushed his chair back, gestured for the bill. ‘I'm sorry, Rowan, but I'll have to call a halt now. Jennifer's expected at Portland Place in less than fifteen minutes.'

‘Another round of radio? How
nice
! It's a pity to have to stop, though. I was so enjoying our chat.'

‘We could always meet again—just the two of us. Perhaps you'd allow me to buy you lunch next week? There's one or two things I'd like to touch on …'

Rowan snapped her handbag shut. ‘Next week's a stinker, I'm afraid. I'll give you a tinkle, though.' She swivelled back to Jennifer. ‘Thrilled to have met the Country Girl! I'm recommending the book to
all
my friends.' The smile was blinding. ‘Best of luck with your interviews. It'll be hard to top those tears!'

Jennifer could still smell Chanel and Cartier as Rowan whirled through the revolving doors and out into the sunshine. She and Matthew were standing in the foyer, awaiting Jonathan's Porsche.

‘Matthew, what's she
up
to? I don't like the sound of it. I mean, if she's been pumping all the locals, they might well have …'

‘She's simply bluffing, I suspect.' Matthew ran a finger beneath his collar. There were beads of perspiration on his neck. ‘I've told you already, no one up in Fernfield knows anything at all.'

‘Yes, but Annie worked for Mrs Ainsley, lived in the same house. She can't have missed much, surely? Anyway, what if Rowan's simply guessed—put two and two together, or followed a hunch or something? And how about the sister? I mean, she's bound to know about the baby, and if she has come back to England, then …'

‘Impossible! Ellen's almost eighty now and when I made my own enquiries, I was told she had some chronic ailment and rarely went out at all. She's hardly likely to travel five thousand miles when she can't even make it to her nearest village shop. Anyway, why should she return after all these years? She made her home in India, permanently.'

‘Then how d' you explain the rumour?'

‘There'll always be rumours, Jennifer—as long as there's human beings. Rowan admitted herself that most of them are groundless. The trouble is with journalists, they have so few hard facts to go on, they often resort to the flimsiest sort of hearsay. Rowan herself was pumping me, in fact—trying to see what I knew. She's obviously in the dark herself, just groping about for any straw she can.'

‘Yes, but she must be suspicious, Matthew, or why should she bother at all? And it's worse in a way to have no facts because it gives her an excuse to start spreading rumours herself. It's not just Hester I'm worried about—it's Lyn as well. If he picks up some sordid story after all we've done to …'

‘Look, my dear, you concentrate on your interviews and leave Rowan Childs to me. I'll follow the matter up, of course—invite her to my Club and try and pump her. But I doubt if she's heard anything at all beyond the harmless local chit-chat she's collecting for her article.'

‘Well, what about that business of Hester leaving home? You could
see
she smelt a rat there! I mean, she actually said …'

‘
Leave
it, I said.' Matthew sounded sharp. ‘Journalists are a law unto themselves, Jennifer. Asking awkward questions is simply part of their job. Now, let's go over my Golden Rules for Radio. The voice is all-important, don't forget, so … Ah! Here's Jonathan. I've asked him to drive you back to Putney when the interviews are over. Anne has planned a celebration dinner.'

‘Celebration?' The single mouthful of toast Jennifer had swallowed seemed to have swollen in her stomach and set solid like cement. ‘What are we … celebrating?'

‘How can you ask? The book has sold twenty thousand copies already and looks set to beat all records. We've just negotiated a sale of another fifty thousand copies to the Book Club. And you and Lyn are coming to stay with us at Putney.'

‘Oh, I … see. That's … er … settled then?'

‘Yes, my dear. There's too many problems at Hernhope, and you've enough on your plate at the moment without rushing into property negotiations somewhere else. You want to take your time, find a place you really like. You'll be better off at Putney, anyway—at least for a while. It's closer in to London, so you won't have so much travelling to your interviews.'

‘But they're finished, Matthew. You said only a week or so, and I've done double that already.'

‘That's marvellous, Jennifer. It shows how much interest you've aroused. It's only a matter of days now, anyway. Every book reaches saturation point and then one
has
to stop, but it would be very foolish not to see it through. Now hurry up, my dear. Jonathan's being hooted by at least a dozen .taxis. Best of luck and remember to relax. I've arranged Radio Merseyside after Radio Ireland. Jonathan's got the details. He can phone me at the office when they're over and let me know how you got on. I'll see you later this evening, back at Putney. Anne's bought a
splendid
turkey.'

‘I don't
like
turkey.'

‘You hogged enough at Christmas.'

‘That was different. I'm a vegetarian now.'

‘You can't be a vegetarian. You're always eating sausages.'

‘Sausages aren't meat.'

‘Yes they are.'

‘They're not.'

‘They are, aren't they, Auntie Jennifer?'

Jennifer laid her fork down. Matthew's two elder boys were both appealing to her, often used her as a referee. It was hard to be fair, when Charles was her favourite, a second, smaller Lyn. ‘Well, you can get meatless ones.'

‘Oliver's weren't meatless. They were prime pork. It said so on the packet.'

‘What's prime pork?'

Anne tapped a serving spoon sharply on the table. ‘Be quiet, boys. Your father will be back soon and he won't want all this noise.'

‘It's not fair. Daddy almost kills us if we turn up late for meals, yet he's always late himself.'

‘That's different, Hugh. He's working. Eat nicely, please. We don't spend all that money on your school fees just to watch you pig yourself like that.'

Jennifer looked anxiously at Lyn. He had hardly said a word. The boys distrusted him because he couldn't joke or chatter or relax. Too much like their father, in that respect. Lyn hated family gatherings, the strain of being surrounded, the effort of smiles and small talk. She wished she could reassure him, catch his eye or squeeze his hand, but they had a mile of mahogany table looming between them. Disconcerting for him to move from a Cobham doll's house into a London mansion, to swap his peace and privacy for a table set for nine. It was easier for her. She
wanted
a family and Anne's was at least a substitute—the only family she had ever really had.

She glanced around the table at the four dark heads. Outwardly, they were grave and solemn children like their father, sitting straight in their neat school uniforms with their short-cropped hair and earnest, formal names. Yet it amused her, somehow, that Anne and Matthew, with all their seriousness, all the drive and effort of their combined and forceful genes, could still produce children who muffed exams or squandered their allowances on horror comics or made silly, flagging jokes.

‘Auntie Jennifer, what's another name for a vegetarian cannibal?'

‘I've no idea, but I expect he'd soon be hungry.'

‘Susie's boyfriend's a vegetarian. He told me so.'

‘That's
not
her boyfriend, stupid. She hasn't got a boyfriend.'

‘Who is it, then?'

‘Some man who brought her home.'

‘If he brought her home, where is she now?'

‘She went for a ride on his motorbike. He's got a Kawasaki Z 400.'

‘Cor! I wish he'd give
me
a ride.'

‘You're not allowed to say ‘‘cor''. Daddy says it's vulgar.'

‘Susie says it all the time.'

‘Well, Susie's vulgar, then.'

‘She's not.'

‘Is.'

‘That's enough now, boys.' Anne frowned them into silence. ‘You haven't met Susie, have you, Jennifer? She's helping me out in the house. I can usually manage on my own, but I seem to be working later and later at the moment and with the school holidays approaching, I'll need someone to look after the boys. She should be here, in fact. I like her to be in for meals, but I'm afraid she's not the most punctual of people. She needs a little … training, I suppose. More turkey for you, by the way?'

‘No thanks.' Jennifer mopped her forehead with her napkin. It was far too hot to eat. Although it was evening, the close muggy stupor of the afternoon still hung like a tarpaulin over the house, the smell of turkey fat entangled with the scent of roses. Matthew's Crimson Glories were shadowed by the dark swarthy trees which patrolled the garden—dense and ancient yews with distorted trunks, scraggy conifers shutting out the sun. Even in the summer, the place was sombre. Every window had its blinds and shutters, its heavy velvet curtains, double-barred with nets. The furniture was Victorian mahogany, formal and oppressive, the floors and walls panelled in dark oak. You could enter the house in August from a light sun-dappled street and feel gloom and winter close around you. It was worse with Matthew there. When he came in, the whole house stood up straighter; jokes and chatter faded into silence.

Jennifer could see Anne listening for him now, like a dog trained to greet its master. She had never got to know Anne, or only her exterior. That seemed pleasant enough—always welcoming, polite, subservient to Matthew, but sometimes she suspected hidden depths in her sister-in-law, hidden resentments, even, towards the man she lived her life round

‘Ah, there he is.' Anne got up to greet him, take his briefcase, pour his glass of Perrier.'

All four boys stopped talking as Matthew took his seat at the head of the table—the only chair with arms—smiled across at Jennifer, nodded at his sons.