No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) (86 page)

‘You see, I just don’t think that is legally correct,’ said LM. She had no idea whether she was talking sense or not. But it seemed a very good arguing point.

‘What do you think, Mr Briscoe?’

‘I’m not at all sure,’ said Peter Briscoe. He looked annoyed. He clearly thought it was irrelevant to the discussion: which it probably was. They were not signing a final contract, after all: merely heads of agreement. But LM did know that, although this was not actually legally binding, it did form a very clear statement of intent, a commitment on both sides. It could only be reneged upon with difficulty. It would be a great deal better to avoid it.

‘Well, you see, I do think we should try and hammer this out now. Otherwise we may have a lot of very upset authors when the news breaks. They might even seek other publishers. Their contracts are with us; therefore do we renew them, with the new, merged company? Or with Brunnings, negotiating through us? It’s really very complex.’

‘Dear oh dear.’ Matthew Brunning pushed his hair back wearily. He looked at his watch. ‘Do we really have to settle it now? It doesn’t seem very central to me. Central to our agreement.’

‘Perhaps not to our agreement,’ said LM, ‘but to our authors—extremely so. And you know, Matthew, my father always said authors are the only true assets we have. Without them—’

‘Yes, yes, LM,’ said Oliver. Even he sounded exasperated. ‘I’m sure Matthew doesn’t really want to hear what Father thought about authors.’

‘Then he should,’ said LM sharply. She suddenly felt angry; very angry. This was their father’s company they were in the process of signing away; a fine, important publishing house. What he had thought about authors was hugely important. Matthews Brunning would have nothing to buy without it. If he didn’t want to hear it, then he was a fool.

‘I really think this is crucial. Let’s just look at it from the authors’ point of view, shall we? How they are going to feel, suddenly being published by a completely different firm. You see, I think—’

She was actually enjoying herself suddenly. It was rather like that party game. Talk on this subject for two minutes without repeating yourself. Only she was going to try to talk for a lot longer than that. And get Oliver talking, too.

Jasper Lothian looked at Guy.

‘Who are you and what do you want?’ he said.

‘I’m Guy Worsley and I want a conversation with you,’ said Guy, ‘that’s all. Not a lot to ask, I’d have thought.’

Lothian’s eyes were very hard, very hostile. But there was something else behind them: it was fear. Guy recognised and welcomed it; it meant that Lothian knew he might be dangerous. It meant he was going to win. He had no doubt about it. They were sitting in the lounge of the Basil Street Hotel. It was an odd setting, Guy thought, with its air of discretion and elegance, its fine furniture and paintings, its smattering of patently well-bred guests, for a scene which might well become violent.

‘Well,’ Lothian said, ‘I’ll give you—’ he looked at his watch—‘two minutes.’

‘Fine. I can do it one. Easily. I don’t want to take up your valuable time. Now then. I know about your relationship with the Bartletts. If you persist in trying to get an injunction on my book, I shall have to tell my lawyer. That’s all. Good afternoon.’

He stood up, smiled the particularly sweet smile at Lothian that he normally reserved for pretty young ladies and just occasionally rich older ones, and picked up his paper. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to pay for the tea, I only have half a crown left.’

‘No. Wait. Just a moment.’

‘No, honestly, there’s no need. There’s no need for anything more to be said. Any more time to be wasted. It’s perfectly simple. We shall look forward to getting your letter on Monday morning, giving the go-ahead to publication. Naturally, when we do, I shall consider the matter closed, and I will never speak of it to anyone. You have my word.’

‘Your word! For God’s sake. I’m supposed to believe that?’

‘Well, I think you should. Who would be interested, if the book does go ahead? You should be pleased if anyone does associate you with it, the master’s affair is highly heterosexual. Well you’ve read it. It’s awfully good, don’t you think?’

Silence: then, ‘Did you see Susannah?’

‘Susannah?’ Guy put on what his mother called his puzzled look. He wore it whenever he was protesting his innocence. She said that was how she—and she alone—knew he was guilty. ‘No, of course not. I did try to see her, but her mother sent me away; she’d gone out for the day. Ask her, if you don’t believe me.’

‘And why should anyone believe this preposterous story of yours?’

‘I don’t know. Why should they read anything into the one in the book? Equally unlikely, it seems to me. But someone might. A good journalist. Someone might look into it. You’re a very well-known figure in the academic world, after all. There must be people who were around at the time, who’d have suspected, and then—well, it wouldn’t look very good for you, would it? I think you should do what I suggest. Let the book go ahead. I honestly think you’re making a mountain of a molehill about it. I don’t think there’s the slightest danger that anyone will connect it with you. Not really. I think you’re being over-anxious. Guilty conscience, perhaps. Anyway—I’ll leave you to think about it over the weekend. No great rush. But we will want a letter. By Monday morning. After that—well I have a great friend on the
Daily Mirror
—’

‘Jasper! There you are. I thought you were going to wait in reception. Oh—’ Vanessa smiled at Guy. ‘Who are you?’ She was flushed, her green eyes brilliant. She really was a very beautiful woman.

Guy smiled back, held out his hand. ‘Mrs Lothian? I’m Guy Worsley. I wrote the Buchanan book.’

‘Oh, did you?’ She looked at him and her expression hardened. Less beautiful suddenly.

‘Yes. I’m sorry it’s caused you such a lot of worry. Absolutely not intended.’

‘Really?’ she said coldly.

‘No, of course not. My cousin, Jeremy, he was at St Nicholas you know, in 1915, he was a huge admirer of your husband. Huge. He said he became a sort of role model for him. He got to know all his students, tried to find out as much about him as he could. He told me he was a sort of blueprint for the perfect academic.’

He smiled at her: the innocent smile. She didn’t smile back.

‘I see. I’m afraid I don’t remember him. Jeremy who?’

‘I do,’ said Lothian. ‘Jeremy Bateson. Not very bright, as I recall.’

‘No?’ said Guy. ‘He’s doing awfully well now,’ God, he was enjoying this. ‘He’s a teacher, very successful. But he does a bit of writing here and there. Under a pseudonym, of course. As a result he knows an awful lot of journalists and so on. Anyway, I mustn’t keep you. Thank you for tea, Professor. I’ll look forward to hearing from you. On Monday. By—shall we say—ten?’

‘Wait!’ Lothian was standing up himself now. ‘Just a minute.’

‘I can’t, actually,’ said Guy, ‘sorry. I’m in a fearful hurry. I thought you were, too. Now—’ he walked over to the reception desk, ‘I wonder if I could possibly use your phone.’

‘Excuse me, Mr Brunning. Lady Celia Lytton is on the telephone. She would like to speak to her husband. Just for a moment. She says she is really terribly sorry to interrupt your meeting, but it’s very important. Very important indeed.’

‘But suppose,’ said Oliver, sinking down into his chair, pushing his hands wearily through his hair, ‘suppose Lothian doesn’t deliver. Doesn’t write this letter.’

‘Guy is absolutely certain he will.’

‘Guy was absolutely certain it wouldn’t matter if he took a slice out of Lothian’s life and turned it into fiction.’

‘I know. But this is different.’

‘But how, why?’

‘He wouldn’t tell me. He says he can’t. But he says he is absolutely convinced, indeed that he knows, that Lothian will write the letter. By Monday morning. I really think we can trust him.’

‘Well,’ said Oliver with a sigh, ‘I certainly hope so. We’ve lost Brunnings anyway now. They’ll never come back to us.’

‘Good,’ said LM, ‘they’re insufferable.’

‘Insufferable and rich. Well, I shall believe it all when I have Lothian’s letter in my hand.’

‘You will. On Monday morning. By ten at the latest, Guy says.’

‘How on earth does he know that?’

‘I have no idea. But he sounded totally confident. Please, Oliver, please don’t fret. I know it’s going to be all right. Oh, talking of letters, LM, there’s one for you. I took delivery of it personally. From a very nice, very tall, very attractive man. Here it is.’

‘Thank you,’ said LM. She flushed slightly, took the letter and walked out of the room. Oliver raised his eyebrows at Celia; she smiled at him.

‘Totally suitable. Too good to be true.’

‘Excellent,’ he said and smiled. Rather complacently, Celia thought. ‘She must have taken my advice.’

She went back into her own office and sat down at the desk. She felt terribly tired. She looked at her watch. Almost three. The ship would have sailed. Sebastian was gone.

Reaction hit her; her courage suddenly failed. She felt the tears rising again, a great lump of pain in her breast. She got up, strode round the room, sat down again. It didn’t help. Nothing helped. Nothing could ever help. She buried her face in her hands, began to cry; and having begun, could not stop. The pain overwhelmed her, possessed her. How was this to be borne, how was she ever to recover, to be herself again?

‘Celia! Celia, my dear. There, there,’ It was LM’s voice, gentler than usual, tender even. Celia took a great breath, threw her head back, looked at her. LM’s eyes, watching her, were no longer accusatory, no longer hostile. Just full of sympathy and affection.

‘I’m—so sorry,’ she said.

‘Thank you, LM. I don’t deserve it, I know. But it helps.’

‘Well,’ said LM, stroking her hair, ‘well, we don’t always get what we deserve. Either the good or the bad.’

‘No, I know. Poor Sylvia certainly didn’t,’ she added irrelevantly.

‘No. Poor Sylvia. You were such a good friend to her. As you have always been to me.’

‘Oh—I don’t know, I stole her daughter—’

‘Celia! Don’t you think she would have fought you for her, if she’d wanted her?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Celia with searing honesty, ‘possibly not. She was very—in awe of me.’

‘She seemed a pretty strong character to me. I think she would have done. Anyway, you’ve—’

‘Don’t tell me I’ve done wonderful things for Barty, because I don’t know that I have.’

‘All right. I won’t tell you. I’ll keep it to myself.’

Celia managed to smile. ‘It’s over, you know,’ she said, ‘the—the affair. I—just wanted you to know that. That’s why I was crying. Why I keep crying.’

‘I see. Well, thank you for telling me. I appreciate it. Obviously I’m glad. For—’ she hesitated, then went on—‘for the family’s sake. All our sakes.’

‘You were going to say for Oliver’s sake, weren’t you? I did it only for him actually. Not the family. He’s so good, so loyal, he loves me so much. I don’t deserve him.’

LM was silent. Celia looked at her. ‘I feel so guilty about him,’ she said, ‘so desperately guilty, LM. Even now, I can’t begin to forgive myself. His loyalty is absolute. I—oh God. I feel so ashamed. So—disgusted with myself. To think I could have done that. All in the pursuit of my own happiness. Self-indulgent happiness.’

‘Well,’ said LM carefully, ‘well, he is very—difficult. Oliver, I mean. Especially since the war.’

‘No, no,’ said Celia, ‘I mean, I know he is. But it’s no excuse. Not really. I used that, but I was deceiving myself. Telling myself it made it all right. Of course it didn’t. Of course not. I’m a rotten person, LM, through and through, I’m afraid.’

‘Celia, you are not rotten,’ said LM. She sounded stern. ‘I can’t let you think that.’

‘I am, I am,’ said Celia. She had begun to cry again, felt it getting out of control. ‘I go through life hurting people, look at the damage I’ve done to Sebastian as well as to Oliver. How long will he take to recover from my—selfishness? Self-indulgence.’

‘A fairly self-indulgent person himself I would have thought,’ said LM drily. She hesitated. ‘Celia—’

‘Yes?’

‘I think perhaps, there is something you ought to know. That might help you. It’s not for me to tell you, really, I’m not even sure if I should but—well the circumstances are very extreme. And it can’t do a lot of harm.’

Celia’s tears were staunched. By curiosity. She sat back in her chair and looked at LM.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘well go on. Tell me.’

It was extraordinary how much it helped. Eased the guilt, the selfloathing. She sat there, thinking about it, about the fact that her husband, who she always supposed totally faithful, absolutely committed to her and in love with her, had had an affair with another woman and she felt a great rush of relief. She was not the shoddy, cheap adulteress she had thought: well, she was of course, but there was at least some excuse for her now. She could go back to Oliver, ask his forgiveness, albeit tacitly, knowing that he had something to be forgiven for as well. Possibly more important, she could forgive herself. A little at least. It felt very sweet. Absurdly so. And it explained so much: his refusal to discuss things, to confront her situation; obviously thinking, fearing indeed, that it would lead to confession, revelation, increased hostility, to a greatly increased chance that she would leave him. And of course it would have done; she would have seized her excuse, her permission for adultery and run with it. That hurt: but oddly, not for long. Oliver would still have loved her, unquestioningly, unreservedly; she would have found that out, too, through the storm with Barty, and stayed with him just the same.