The Cornish Affair (28 page)

Bea
looked at me in surprise and said under her breath, “You always did have a quick temper, just like Michael.”

I
gave her a murderous glance which she flinched away from.

She
put her hands up to ward me away from her, and said placatingly, “Take it easy… OK. Nancy is not my mother. Dorothea had an affair with Rasheed when Michael was in Australia. She went to Paris to stay with Nancy and gave birth to me. They concocted the story between them that I was-”

“
Impossible
!” I shouted. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life, what possible reason you could have to make all this up is beyond me…” as I was shouting and blustering I knew that it was true. Hadn’t I just seen the evidence with my own eyes? Jace and Bea were brother and half sister… so what was she now to me? A half sister too, I suppose.

I
sank down on the bed beside her. I found that I was trembling, though with what emotion I didn’t know.

Bea
stroked my back, and I pulled away from her.

“Don’t
touch me…I have to think. Tell me more,” I said shakily.

I
heard the story.

Dorothea
had met Rasheed in London at a party and instantly fallen for him. They had conducted the affair successfully, my father not once knowing about it. Then, my parents came back to Penmorah. Dorothea was heartbroken to have to leave her lover, and when the opportunity came for Michael to go to Australia, she had encouraged him to do so. Rasheed moved in with her, here.

Then
the unthinkable had happened, she became pregnant.

She
sent Rasheed back to his wife, Pritti and escaped to France and the safety and comfort of her sister Nancy. And somehow, somehow persuaded her to take the baby as her own. They made a vow that they would never tell anyone, and that Nancy would raise Bea as her own daughter.

“All
my life I knew that Dorothea didn’t like me, and I never knew why… I was so jealous of you as a child, you were everything that I wasn’t allowed to be. You ran wild here, whilst I was at school all the time–”

“You
loved it,” I interrupted.

Bea
laughed sourly, “I was making the best of it, I thought if I made school sound exciting enough you’d want to go and then I could come and live here as well.”

We
sat in silence for a while, till my heart beat was approaching normal.

“How
long have you known?” I asked.

“When
Nancy came out to visit last year, she told me,” Bea said, “And that put a lot of things into perspective for me, all my life I did the right thing. Married the right man, took the right job, became a perfect mom, none of it was done for me. Then it all kinda fell into place, I can’t explain it really.”

I
turned to look at her, her eyes were full of tears, and instinctively I put my hand out to comfort her. She gripped my hand, and we sat for a while like that.

“Why
did Nancy tell you? I mean, why then?” I said.

Bea
took her time in answering, I could tell that she was choosing her words with care, so I concentrated on what she was trying to say.

“It
had a lot to do with you. After Thea and Michael died, she thought that you wouldn’t survive without them. So, she stayed here with you, and I think, over the years it became
her
home too. She’s frightened, Fin.”

“Frightened
of what?” I said.

“Frightened
at what you’ll do without her. No, don’t look at me like that! She’s not dying or anything, but she’s getting older… and really, the one person that the promise was made for is dead. The sisters made the promise so that Michael would stay with Thea. There was never any question of him accepting another man’s child.”

I
had a lot to digest, and sat there slumped in shock for a while. My mind was racing furiously. I was murderously angry with Thea, why hadn’t she told me? Why did I have to hear it from someone else?

Then
it came to me, of
course
she would never have told me because I might have told my father, and that would never do… or maybe she just didn’t want me to know – ever?

I
laughed, and Bea looked at me strangely, “What is it?” she asked me.

There
was a knock on the door, and we both jumped. Bea got up and ran across the room to answer it. A very anxious looking Nancy was there, wringing her hands and looking nervously at both of us.

“There
you both are! Are you alright? There’s a party going on downstairs you know! Ready to come down yet?” her eyes darted between Bea and me.

I
felt a stab of pity for Nancy, none of this was
her
fault… Or was it? I was too confused to tell. Bea grabbed my hand and pulled me from the bed. “Give us five minutes, and we’ll be down,” she promised.

I
glanced at Bea and she gave me the ghost of a wink.

Chapter Twenty Eight

I sat in my bathroom, re-applying my lipstick. I’d sent Bea downstairs after promising her that I’d be down soon. I needed a few minutes by myself to sort out my mixed emotions before I faced anybody. Unanswered questions crowded my mind… then I realised that Jace was – what?
How
was he related to me?
Was
he related to me? He was my step brother, I suppose? No, my half brother! No, of course he wasn’t. Shit, it was confusing. I’d never understood those family tree things you get in front of clever, baffling books with tangled histories, like
I Claudius
.

My
champagne glass had long been empty and was of no help to me.

I
thought about the night of the picnic. Of the way that Jace had touched me, how I had loved being with him, how I had kissed him and – shit.

If
only Nancy had told me.

One
thing was certain, Jace didn’t know. I wondered if Pritti did? I doubted it.

What
a mess.

I
gazed at my refection. Despite the fake tan in my cleavage, I looked pale. I half heartedly poked at my hair which seemed to be coming down, despite all the pins that Nancy had stuck in there. I had a sudden longing to wipe all my make up off, change into my jeans and rescue Baxter and jump into the car for a drive. The moors would be good, then I realised that the roads were slick with mud and water. I could grab Baxter and take him on the beach maybe? Then the image of the coiled wire guarding the ruined cliff flashed across my brain - that would be impossible.

My
mother’s jade hair slide was digging into the back of my head, and with a sudden jerky movement I viciously ripped it from my hair, and hurled it across the bathroom. It clattered against the bath, and broke.

“Good,
I’m glad,” I said childishly.

My
hair, loosened from its moorings gently slipped down the back of my head.

The
trouble was, I didn’t know how I was
meant
to be feeling. A swirl of very different emotions were coursing through me, and it felt like having a bad dose of indigestion –

Betrayal,
anger, bewilderment, confusion… as well as, if I’m honest, a tiny thrill of excitement.

“If
you weren’t dead mama, I’d kill you!” I said aloud, making myself laugh at the wealth of childish emotion in my voice.

I
dragged a brush through my hair, and tried my best to repair the damage. I’d just go and check on the animals in the attic, and then I’d go down and join the throng. Maybe Oliver had arrived by now?

I
slipped quietly out of my room, and hearing a great roar of voices from downstairs ran as silently as I could with these daft party shoes on up to the attic. As I passed the Daisy room, I heard voices from inside, and guessed that Olga and Richard were getting better acquainted.

Baxter
stood to greet me, wagging his tail, and I bent down to stroke him. I glanced quickly around, glad to see that there was no fur or feathers drifting around. They’d behaved themselves, for once. The attic was a glorified junk room, it stretched across the house and was pretty full of unwanted and broken furniture. Sagging bed springs, broken frames, and collapsed dusty chairs made up the furnishings. I sat on a sagging wicker basket full of threadbare curtains and continued to stroke Baxter. I heard Nelson shift on his perch, and I got ready for a show of jealousy.

“Hello
cat’s eyes, hello cat’s eyes!” Nelson screeched.

I
smiled to myself; it had been my father’s name for my mother. I hadn’t heard Nelson say that for years. I decided that Nelson was either trying to comfort me, or the most likely explanation, parrots really don’t have any idea what they are saying, but certain phrases just lodge in their tiny brains and they just regurgitate them at random moments.

I
closed the door firmly to the attic, and walked down the stairs. The noise level was satisfyingly loud enough for me to know that the party was going well.

In
the library Jace was being DJ, and Will was coping as best as he could behind the bar, he poured me a glass of champagne without being asked, and I drained it and held out my glass for a refill. Actually draining the glass of champagne was a mistake, because I gave an almighty burp, which practically ricocheted around the room.

“Very
attractive darling!” Nancy said behind me.

I
turned to face her and saw that although her voice was gently teasing and full of laughter her eyes were worried.

I
gave her a hug. “It’s OK Nancy, everything’s going to be alright,” I whispered in her ear.

She
hugged me back, and we stood for a while with our arms round each other.

“I’m
so sorry Fin… I meant to tell you, but-”

“It’s
OK, really.” I said, squeezing her.

I
suppose things would be OK, they generally are, aren’t they? Even when we discover something that has the potential to make our lives very messy indeed, things tend to have a way of sorting themselves out. It’s quite humbling really, for us mortals. We think we are in control and in charge of our destinies, but we’re not. Not really. I saw Pritti in the corner of the room in a shimmer of golden silk, she was talking and laughing with Doris and Isaac. She was covering her mouth with her slim brown hand that jangled with bangles, giggling at something that Doris had just whispered to her. How would she feel about all of this? I was sure she didn’t know.

“Nancy,
does Pritti know?” I said quietly to her.

She
shook her head and followed my gaze.

“But
look at Bea,” I said, “She looks so like Jace!”

It
was true, before I’d known about it I had glimpsed something, but now – well…It was staggeringly obvious.

“She
looks like her father, too” Nancy said, smiling fondly at Bea.

“What
was he like?” I asked curiously. I didn’t remember him really. But he must have been something special to make my mother have his child – although I didn’t really know what alternative she might have faced nearly forty years ago.

Nancy
laughed, “He was charming! Too charming, if you know what I mean, but underneath all of that, there was something else, a passionate man, I would say. But oh, the heartache he caused…Dorothea was bewitched with him, couldn’t leave him alone. Your father never warmed to him, but it wasn’t through jealousy, he never knew about the two of them. He just didn’t like him… too lazy he said, he’d never had to work, he was a wealthy man, although he lost it all in the end.”

I
tried to imagine my mother being bewitched by the rich Indian prince like creature. It wasn’t too hard, if Jace had half his father’s looks and charms, I could well understand it.

“He
always wore a white suit and carried that ebony and silver cane around with him… he’d been to Eton, and always had wads and wads of cash on him that he would casually throw on the table,” Nancy said reminiscently. “We never even knew that he was married, Pritti was a very poor distant relative, he kept her well out of the way. That’s how the Rampersauds ended up in Cornwall really… Rasheed sent for them, so that he could be near Dorothea, but then he died, quite suddenly. Pritti never left here.”

I
tried to conjure up the times that I had met Pritti in the company of my mother, trying to catch the attitude that my mother had had with her, but I couldn’t. They had always been on speaking terms, but not close. Pritti wasn’t the sort of woman that my mother would have been friends with. With a start, I realised that she’d had no woman friends, really, other than her sister.

Nancy
nudged me, “Fin, I really think you should go and mingle, you know! This is your party, after all!”

I
agreed, and dutifully plastered a smile on my face and went to say hello to everyone, but my heart really wasn’t in it. I glanced around the room, checking that the London group hadn’t slipped in unnoticed. Where were they? It was getting late.

People
were dancing now, and I had to squeeze past them to get into the hall. Isaac and Pritti were jigging around, whilst Miranda was hurling herself around the room like a demented moth. Jace grinned at me, and I waved back. An elderly man with his shirt open to his waist, showing off grey chest hair, a beer belly and a nipple ring bellowed at me over the music, which had crept up in volume.

“You
must be Fin, you look just like your mother! I was a very, very good friend of hers, if you catch my drift?”

Eeow…
I looked at him with mild distaste.

His
nipple ring was glinting in the candlelight from a drooping mans breast, and as he spoke he spat. His head was balding and he had a droopy bushy, badly trimmed moustache. He put his arm round my waist and shouted over the music, “I wonder if I can rely on the legendary, umm,
hospitality
of Penmorah to put me up for the night?”

From
the unmistakable look in his eye I knew exactly where he wanted to stay the night. I tried to edge away from him, but he tightened his grip on me.

I
pushed him away from me, as hard as I could and registered the look of surprise on his face. I stormed out to the hall, pushing past groups of people who were laughing and holding glasses to their lips. All of them tried to speak to me, and I replied as best as I could, but my face was set in a frozen smile.

I
was searching the hall, looking for a quiet place to escape to, away from all these people when my eye was caught by a still, silent figure. She stood out in this sea of movement, by her very immobility. It was Judith.

I
went to move towards her, surprised, yet pleased that she’d come. I threaded my way through the groups of chattering people, as I dodged a woman who was shrieking with laughter and demanding another drink, Judith saw me. She beckoned me towards her, and opened the door of the dining room. I saw it was blissfully empty, and followed her inside.

We
sat down, opposite one another at the table. Nancy had filled a bowl with leaves, and lit the candelabra. Judith sat in silence, looking at me with wide dark untroubled eyes.

“I’m
very glad you could come,” I said, “I hope you’ve got a drink? Is Kev with you? How is he after the –”

”He’s
fine.” She said, “But what’s happened to you? Found out, ‘ave you?”

“Found
out what?” I said sharply.

Judith
laughed. “Don’t be daft! It’s me you’re talkin’ to!”

We
studied each other in silence, by the light if the candles. She smiled at me, and I noticed that her eyes were almost golden in this light.

“I’ve
known about your mother an’ Rasheed from the start - most people do, down ‘ere. Mind you, I’m not sayin’ they know about Beatrice bein’
her
daughter and not Nancy’s because they don’t. But you really think that she could get away with havin’ someone like that that Rasheed, stayin’ ‘ere an’ no-one notice?” Judith said scornfully.

I
knew she was right, it would have been impossible.

“Did
you hate my mother?” I asked suddenly.

Judith
smiled again. “I didn’t like ‘er fancy ways, an’ how she carried on up ‘ere. Some people thought she was a whore, but then, the gentry ‘ave always behaved like cats on heat… And don’t give me no nonsense about speakin’ ill of the dead. They can take care o’ things, indeed they can.”

My
mother a whore! My mind reeled with the implications of what she’d said. It didn’t matter that I reminded myself that Judith was a solitary, bitter woman, who could possibly have been jealous of Dorothea, jealous of her looks, and money and position. The insult stung.

Judith
laughed, “Now you listen to me Finisterre Spencer. Your mother was who she was, an’ that’ll never change. Your father now, he was a good man, an’ so is Nancy. But you, well… I saw you an’ Jace that night. No good can come outta that!”

I
blushed violently, but Judith ignored me and continued.

“Your
mother chose what she did. She came to me, she thought she might want to get rid o’ the babe, that’s how I know…Still, she didn’t, in the end. I reckon you should be right glad, you’m got a sister now.”

I
stared at her. She was right.

I
made a move to leave the table, but she snaked a hand over the polished wood and grasped my arm.

“One
more thing, ‘an then I’ll leave you be. I came to tell you this, if you want me to. It’s the only reason I’m up ‘ere. I know what people say about me, some of ’em are right, some of ‘em are wrong, but what I have got is the gift… The second sight, we call it.”