Bertie saw again a familiar, haggard face, the visions that haunted his sleep, appetites that could not be quenched. His wife’s body, pure and white, that he dare not defile.
Somehow it all seemed to add up to the loss of his manhood. In that moment the failure became too great to bear. He pushed back his chair, rocking it on its back legs so that it almost fell over, put his hands to his head and began to keen softly, as if in great pain. Then as Margot put out a hand, he swung away from her to pace about the room, wanting to escape yet needing to stay and make them understand. Bertie knew that finally he must find the courage to face his father.
‘All my life I’ve wanted you to be proud of me, yearned for it. I thought I might impress you with my boat designs, hoping you might find one you’d want to build. But, no. You mocked them as some kind of foolish game, not work at all.’
Bertie’s eyes glistened with what Lily
recognised to her horror as unshed tears. If he broke down in front of Edward it would finish him for good. ‘But I never got my hands dirty, did I?’ he was saying, lip curling. ‘So it couldn’t be proper man’s work.
‘Now, when at last you are proud of me, it’s all false. I don’t deserve your damned pride. I’m not who you think I am.’
Margot again tried to catch his hand as he strode by, but failed. ‘Bertie dear, do calm yourself. Your father has every right to be proud of you. So am I. My son a...’
‘Don’t say it again. I’m no bloody hero! How could I be? Bertie Clermont-Read, the idle fool. Isn’t that how you’ve always seen me?’ He stopped his pacing, fury
making him punch the table with his fists as he yelled into their startled faces. ‘You’re right. I am a useless fool. You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you.’
He steadied his breathing, emptied his champagne glass in one swallow then turned to face them, eyes so cold and bleak that Lily’s
heart seemed to turn right over.
‘I hopped that damned plane over the line so many times I went dizzy with it. My job was to check where our artillery was stationed, and where the enemy was. I rarely got involved personally with any fighting. A lonely war, that’s what I had. So when I actually came down next to a German patrol, it stunned the life out of me. Would you believe it was my good fortune that it was Christmas, and they were all more in the mood for celebrating than for killing. Even greater good luck that I’d learned always to carry with me a few cigars. We have that in common at least, Father.’
Edward said nothing.
‘I owe my life to those damned cigars.’ Bertie almost smiled at the memory. ‘They were all right, those chaps. Thought I was nuts to walk over to them with a cigar in my hand instead of a pistol. I shouted
“
Joyeux Noel
”,
since I don’t know any German, and they burst out laughing. We shared their beer, my cigars and a few jokes, in French since it was the only common language between us. Afterwards they happily handed over their guns and surrendered without rancour. Jolly good sports, in fact. They were cold and hungry, I expect, and thought I might feed them.
‘I led them to a nearby battalion dugout that I’d spotted when flying in. So there you have it. Some bloody hero!’
Margot’s eyes shone with tears. ‘But you were so brave to walk towards them.’
‘They were singing Christmas carols, for God’s sake. I knew I was in no danger.’
Margot turned to Edward. ‘Tell him that he is a hero. It doesn’t make any difference that it was Christmas and they surrendered.’
‘They were still the enemy?’ Selene asked, her pretty face the picture of puzzlement.
‘They were drunk,’ Bertie said bluntly.
Edward stared at his son for a long moment without speaking, an expression of disillusionment on his face. It was so dreadful to see, it made Lily shudder. ‘You accepted a medal for that?’
Bertie shrugged. ‘My commanding officer wouldn’t hear otherwise. But it has blighted me, if you want to know. How could it not when more than half my mates have been blasted to bits or maimed?’
Edward ground out his own cigar in the remains of his strawberry meringue and stood up. Bertie watched with haunted eyes as he tossed aside his napkin and walked, head held high, from the room.
Margot got up too, all in a flurry, cast an angry glance upon all three of them, and seeking someone to blame, as usual focused her furious glare upon Lily.
‘You should have warned me! You must have known what Bertie meant to do. You’ve allowed him to destroy his poor father.’
As she hurried after Edward, the three young people remained where they were, an unmoving tableau. Selene shocked into silence for once, Bertie frozen in his pacing, standing stock still the middle of the room, and Lily unable to think of a word to release them all.
But the silence did not last long. It was broken by an ear-splitting scream which brought them all from their paralysis and running out into the hall.
Margot stood at the foot of the wide staircase, face white as a ghost, swaying slightly as she put one shaking hand on the banister rail. Selene was the first to reach her.
‘Mama? What is it?’
She didn’t really need to ask. For there was Edward, halfway up the stairs. He lay crumpled like a rag doll, and it was perfectly clear to all of them that he was going nowhere, not ever again.
‘My darling Edward is gone. What am I to do?’ And the redoubtable Margot put her face in her hands and began to sob.
The funeral took place with all the pomp and circumstance that Margot, at least, considered necessary. A hearse drawn by no fewer than six horses with plumes in the grand old style bore her husband to the cemetery, and a marble monument to his memory was ordered to be placed on his grave with all speed.
Edward’s friends and neighbours, together with members of his extended family, were invited to the house afterwards for one of Margot’s famous luncheons. Salmon patties, Edward’s favourite, were served together with chicken legs, game pies, potted char and anchovy butter. The finest Madeira was offered to the ladies, port for the gentlemen, and not a single person present could dispute the fact that no expense had been spared to give him a good send-off.
‘Say what you like about her,’ the gossips said, ‘snobby and arrogant though she may be, there’s no doubt she loved that soft-hearted husband of hers.’
‘Aye, good pair they were, stuck together through the years. Worked hard and made a fortune.’
‘He’ll cut up pretty well, no doubt about that.’
Margot refused to have any truck with reading the will on the day she buried Edward, and gave the family solicitor short shrift for daring to suggest it.
‘What with Selene locked in her room refusing to speak to anyone, Bertie in a sulk and the servants weeping all over the place, I really cannot permit it,’ she said.
Margot did not mention Lily, to whom she had not spoken since the day of Edward’s untimely demise. For wasn’t she the one to blame for not warning them of Bertie’s intentions?
‘I shall call first thing in the morning then, Mrs Clermont-Read.’
‘No.’ Margot was wondering why solicitors were always so thin and sour-faced when they supposedly earned so much money. ‘Not before two in the afternoon, if you please. I might have the strength by then.’
Arthur T. Groves, of Groves, Sutton & Barnfather, inclined his head and thankfully took his leave. He was in no hurry to face Mrs Clermont-Read. But the following day, at two o’clock precisely, he arrived as instructed, conducted his business and found no joy in the prospect.
When he had gone the family sat stunned, no sound but that of the doleful ticking of the grandfather clock.
It seemed that Edward had left nothing but debts.
There were a few shares in the Public Steamer Company, worth a very little, but his freight business was close to collapse and Mr Groves graciously but firmly explained that it could not be saved except by a further investment of capital, which they themselves did not possess. Not only were they no longer rich, they were in fact exceedingly poor. Could even lose the roof over their heads. It was Margot’s nightmare come true.
‘What nonsense,’ she bravely riposted. ‘Edward had recently expanded, rented extra premises, built a new ship - all on the strength of new business from Marcus Kirkby.’
‘Indeed he had, and given time I’m sure the project would have proved a sound one. Unfortunately his borrowings were huge, far outstripping the profits at this stage in the venture. Your husband’s name was well respected in business and banking circles. His word was his bond, you might say. Now that he is dead, that trust dies with him.’
Everyone tacitly understood him to mean that Bertie was not to be trusted with continuing the family business as soundly.
‘All loans have been called in. A sad but frequent occurrence, Mrs Clermont-Read. I’m afraid Mr Clermont-Read’s assets will not be sufficient to meet his debts.’
Now they sat and pondered on these words, letting the reality of their situation slowly sink in. After ten whole minutes of silence, during which time Lily could feel nothing but admiration for Margot’s stoicism throughout the whole awful proceedings, Selene began to scream. She screamed so loudly and for so long that she had to be carried upstairs to her room and dosed liberally with Extract of Poppy.
Bertie announced he was going down to the Marina Hotel for a glass of something comforting. ‘Perhaps even a whole bloody bottle of champers. Or a dozen strong whiskies.’
‘How will that help exactly?’ Margot sourly enquired, but he merely adjusted his hat to a rakish angle, collected his kid gloves and declared that it would at least make him feel a whole lot better.
The two women sat alone. Margot’s eyes met Lily’s, an accusing glare urging her to do the same. ‘Go on,’ she said at last. ‘Leave the sinking ship, why don’t you?’
Lily stood up, and calmly reached for the bell pull. ‘I think we’ll have another pot of tea, don’t you? Then we’d best put our thinking caps on.’
Margot not only declined to follow this suggestion, but refused to discuss the matter at all. Nor, it seemed, had she any intention of economising. So far as she was concerned life must continue as normal, as if all the clocks had stopped on the day of Edward’s demise.
‘I will not believe it,’ was her perpetual cry. ‘I am perfectly sure that when the estate is properly settled, we shall find silly Mr Groves to be entirely wrong.’
It was the most miserable winter at Barwick House that Lily could ever remember. Glowering mountains blended seamlessly into clouded skies while rain battered the bay windows and ran down the soaking lawns into a slate grey lake. The cold was merciless, penetrating every room since fuel was in short supply and bedroom fires were banned. The coal merchant had apparently refused to deliver any more coal until his account was settled.
‘The ingratitude of the man!’ Margot stormed.
George was persuaded to cut logs for them, but most of the servants packed their bags and walked out, some of them with wages still owing.
Unperturbed, Margot ordered winter gowns for herself and Selene, looking askance when Lily refused even to consider one this year. ‘There’s nothing to be gained by turning into a drab,’ was her immediate response.
‘I’m not short of clothes to wear,’ Lily pointed out. In fact she’d never been so well dressed in her life. ‘I really think we should consider where our future income is to come from before we spend another penny. It isn’t simply coal we’re short of, Margot. How are we to pay the grocer or the butcher, for instance?’
‘Or the candle-stick maker? Heavens, Lily, haven’t you yet learned to set aside your working-class limitations? They shall wait, of course, as they have always done.’
‘They won’t wait forever.’
‘How can I go to dinner in last season’s gown?’ Selene, still quietly harbouring a fierce resentment towards Lily, seemed to grow ever more sour and spinsterish, curling her once pretty mouth down into a perpetual line of discontent. Losing a fiancé had been unfortunate, but becoming poor was another matter entirely. ‘It is utterly unbearable,’ she declared in her pettish way. ‘I refuse to tolerate it.’
She had, in fact, already entered into discussions with Marcus upon her dire dilemma. Selene had even asked him to leave his sickly wife, but held out little hope that he would do so.
‘I really do not see how you have the right to tell us what to do, Lily. Our little difficulties need not concern you at all.’
Frustration bubbled up in her at the wanton way in which Selene was prepared to squander money, without a thought for where the next penny was to come from. ‘Of course it concerns me. I have Thomas to think of, don’t I? He needs food in his mouth, a home to live in. He is Bertie’s
son
.’
Margot opened her mouth to make some acid comment along the lines that she only had Lily’s word for that, but thought better of it. Thomas seemed to be the only heir to Barwick House she was likely to see in her lifetime, certainly the way things were at present.
If she lost him, she would have no one to inherit the house and the Clermont-Read fortune.
A voice inside her head reminded Margot that the latter had vanished and the former may not be hers much longer, but she paid it no heed. Moving out of her home was quite out of the question. ‘It’s too dreadfully common to be always discussing money. I will not permit it,’ she said, closing the subject yet again.