The Fairbairn Girls (8 page)

‘Maybe that’s what Papa meant when he said Eleanor’s death was all his fault. Why was he fighting with that man in the first place?’

Beattie suddenly jumped to her feet, startling the others. ‘Don’t! That way lies madness. We all know Eleanor was a fanciful little girl and very impressionable. It was obvious she was worried about something. We should have forced her to tell us then none of this would have happened.’

‘We didn’t because we didn’t want to face the fact that something might be really wrong,’ Laura pointed out. ‘Looking back, Papa has been much grumpier since that man came here. What did he want? Why did Papa send him away like that?’

‘I wish I knew. What are we going to do?’ asked Diana. ‘I don’t want to go through life with a curse on my head.’

‘You won’t be the only one,’ Georgie remarked succinctly.

Caroline came hurtling across the lawn to where her parents were having afternoon tea. Pretty in a white lawn dress and bonnet, the three-year-old was smiling with excitement at being home again.

‘Mama! Dada!’ she shrieked, waving her arms. ‘Look what Aunt Di gave me.’ She was clutching a doll in her tiny hand. Her nanny came hurrying after her, trying to catch up.

‘I’m sorry, M’Lady. Sir. She’s that thrilled to be back and there’s been no stopping her since dawn,’ she panted apologetically.

Laura and Walter smiled as their child threw herself into Laura’s arms.

‘Hello, my darling. I believe you’ve grown,’ Laura exclaimed, settling Caroline on her lap. ‘Did you have a wonderful time with Aunt Di? And did you have fun playing with Nicolas and Louise?’

Caroline nodded vigorously as she pulled off her bonnet, revealing long, flaxen hair which fell into curls down her back.

‘I saw Punch and Judy!’ she squealed. ‘And I sat on a pony.’

‘What a busy little girl you’ve been,’ Walter observed warmly.

Caroline looked around. ‘Where’s Neil, Dada?’ He was her six-year-old half-brother by Walter’s first marriage; his mother had died five years ago.

‘He’s been away too, staying with his aunt,’ Laura said quickly, flashing a knowing look at Walter.

‘That’s right,’ Walter agreed. ‘You’ve been staying with your aunt Di and he’s been staying with his aunt Rowena.’

‘Why doesn’t she ask me to stay with her? Doesn’t she like me?’ Caroline’s eyes, so dark like her father’s, looked fretful.

‘She will when you’re a bit older,’ Laura assured her soothingly. ‘After all, Neil is six, nearly seven.’

Tears sprang to Caroline’s eyes and her mouth drooped at the corners. ‘I don’t want to be three.’ A dry sob caught in her chest. ‘Mama, I want to be seven!’

‘You will be but how about a slice of cake first? Shall Mummy cut you a piece?’

The child nodded sulkily.

Laura spoils her
, Walter thought.
Probably to compensate
. Neil was rather spoilt, too. It was what parents did when they felt guilty.

‘Shall I push you on the swing when you’ve had your cake?’ he asked gently.

Caroline jumped down from Laura’s lap, her cheeks bulging with sponge and jam cake.

‘Finish your cake first,’ Laura said, grabbing her by the arm and attempting to wipe her mouth with a table napkin, but the child was off, running defiantly on her little legs to where Greg the gardener had hung a home-made swing from one of the branches of a tree near his hut.

Laura watched her with anxious eyes.

‘Is everything all right?’ Walter asked.

‘Yes.’ What else could she say? Her voice was flat, though, and she sounded desperately tired. ‘Is Rowena bringing Neil back this evening?’

‘I suggested she might come to luncheon tomorrow and bring him with her. I thought that would give Caroline time to settle down.’

Laura looked at him directly. ‘Neil is going to ask questions, you know. He’s getting too big to have the wool pulled over his eyes any more. What are you going to tell him, Walter?’

‘Leave him to me, my dear,’ he said quietly.

‘This has been the longest time you’ve been . . . away,’ she pointed out.

‘I know.’

A silence hung over them like a poisonous cloud, stinging their eyes and breaking their hearts so they could scarcely breathe.

How much longer can I bear this situation?
Laura reflected bleakly.
As long as you have to
, answered the voice in her head.

‘Dada! Come on. I want to swing.’ The little girl’s childish voice floated across the sunny lawn.

Laura turned to look at Caroline and at that moment knew she was going to have to continue to do her best at playing Happy Families.

Rising, she slipped her hand through Walter’s arm and as they strolled towards their daughter, she said, ‘We should start entertaining again. Why don’t we have a house party next month? Say we invite a dozen friends from a Saturday morning until after lunch on Monday? We used to do that at home before Papa died and it was good fun.’

‘As long as it’s not too much for you I think it’s a great idea,’ Walter enthused.

What’s too much for me is being cooped up in the house with you and the children, holding my breath and wondering when the next episode is going to be sprung on me when I’m least expecting it.

Aloud, she said, ‘It won’t be too much for me at all. I enjoy entertaining.’

‘They used to be known as the Fairbairn girls, you know,’ Celia Brownlow chattily informed her husband Hugo as they were driven in their carriage to join a house party just outside Edinburgh given by Laura and Walter Leighton-Harvey. Keen on social climbing, Celia had nurtured this friendship for some time, taking advantage of when they met at the school attended by Laura’s stepson and Celia’s son.

‘You know she’s the daughter of an Earl, don’t you?’ she continued excitedly. ‘Now remember to address her as Lady Laura, not Lady Leighton-Harvey, because her husband hasn’t got a title.’

Hugo nodded patiently. He didn’t have a title either and never having met this Lady Laura he hoped she was kinder to her husband’s lack of nobleness than Celia was to him. ‘The world is yours if you have a title’, Celia always said and it was obvious she deeply regretted her husband’s lack of being listed in the peerage. His fortune, self-made by manufacturing terracotta chimney pots, went some way to alleviating her desperation to ‘arrive’, but he knew it would never be enough.

‘Who else has she invited for the weekend?’ he asked, to humour her.

Celia turned to stare at him, her large blue eyes registering shock.

‘You must never call it a “weekend”,’ she whispered, although the coach driver was unlikely to have overheard.

‘But it is a weekend? Saturday morning to Monday morning is certainly the end of the week in my world.’

‘I know, but it’s common to call it a weekend. Lady Laura specifically invited us to spend a couple of days with them at the end of the week. Those were her exact words in her letter.’

‘I wonder what her husband – the one without the title – calls it then,’ Hugo retorted sarcastically.

‘Now don’t be like that, Hugo,’ she said sharply. ‘Don’t go letting me down. This could lead to lots of things. She might even invite us one day to stay at her ancestral home, Lochlee Castle.’

He smiled, amused now that he could score a point. ‘I doubt that very much,’ he said smugly.

‘Why?’

‘It no longer belongs to the Fairbairn family.’

‘Come and meet the others,’ Laura said in welcome when they arrived. ‘We’re having drinks on the lawn before luncheon. Thank goodness it’s stopped raining.’ She led the way, an elegant figure in a long, dark red skirt and a cream high-necked lace blouse with long sleeves puffed to the elbow. Ropes of priceless pearls hung to her waist, and drop pearl earrings quivered when she moved. Celia, covertly admiring the rings on Laura’s fingers, noted her aristocratic hands and well-kept nails. The hands of someone who had never scrubbed floors, she told herself, resolving to keep her gloves on for as long as possible.

‘We have rather an invasion of family today but they’re not all staying because we don’t have enough rooms,’ Laura continued gaily. ‘This is my sister, Diana, and her husband, Lord Kelso, and this is another sister, Lizzie. That’s her husband over there, Sir Humphrey Garding. Have you met Mary and Theo, the Duke and Duchess of Melrose? Well, come along and meet them too. They’re mad about dogs. Do you have dogs? Here’s another sister of mine, Beattie and her husband, Andrew Drinkwater.’

Laura prattled on, the perfect hostess, busy introducing everyone to each other, and Celia thought this is what Paradise must be like. She’d never met so many titles in the space of twenty minutes and she couldn’t wait to tell her mother all about it.

Bursts of laughter coming from the far end of the lawn where some of the men had congregated attracted Hugo Brownlow’s attention and he realized the revelry was due to Laura’s husband, who seemed to be recounting some amusing incident.

Hugo strolled over to join them, leaving Celia in animated conversation with Sir Humphrey, who looked exceedingly pompous and boring.

Walter stepped forward to shake his hand. ‘You must be Hugo Brownlow – my wife told me you were coming today. How very nice to meet you. Do you know . . .?’

Hugo found himself being introduced to some more people but then Walter didn’t move on as Laura had done. He turned to Hugo and spoke with genuine charm. ‘How was your journey? You’ve come over from Glasgow, haven’t you? Has Laura shown you where you and your wife are sleeping or were you just flung to the wolves?’ His dark eyes twinkled good-humouredly. ‘Laura is the most marvellous hostess once you’ve pinned her down, which is about as easy as nailing a butterfly, but it really is most good of you to have come all this way just for a couple of nights.’

Melting under Walter’s personable manner, Hugo reflected that Celia would have been prepared to travel the length of Britain just to be in a room full of people like this.

‘It’s our pleasure. You have a lovely place here.’ Hugo glanced around at the large garden.

‘Yes. I’m very lucky. Laura is the most wonderful woman, too.’ He spoke with such depth of feeling – almost sadness – that Hugo raised his eyebrows, wondering if this splendid house and all that went with it was Laura’s dowry. Yet Walter had a confident, prosperous air about him.

Curious to know more, he asked, ‘So, are you in business?’

‘I was in the army,’ he replied briskly. ‘Now I’ve got a couple of directorships. Keeps me busy, you know.’

‘Do you have children?’ It struck Hugo there was something missing in Walter Leighton-Harvey’s life, although he looked like a man who had everything.

‘A son by my first wife and Laura and I have a daughter,’ he replied briefly before turning to greet some new arrivals. The moment of intimacy was over, leaving Hugo vaguely puzzled, pondering on his enigmatic host.

At dinner that night twelve guests were seated around the beautifully laid table and Celia was in a fever of excitement and nerves as she took her seat next to Lord Kelso. ‘So you’re married to Lady Laura’s sister?’ she gushed.

‘Yes. Di and I got married a few years ago. Just before the Boer War, actually.’ She found him to be a mild-mannered man with kind eyes and a quiet voice. ‘How long have you known Laura and Walter?’

She longed to say, ‘Oh, ages . . .’ but fear of being found out forced her to admit, ‘Not that long. We met at the Children’s Aid Society to discuss raising funds for orphans. Lady Laura said she’d write to our local MP. She thinks he should tell the Prime Minister that they should do more for orphans.’

Robert Kelso smiled and glanced at the head of the table where Laura was talking animatedly to the Duke of Montrose. She was wearing a purple chiffon evening dress which showed off her smooth white shoulders and diamond drop earrings that quivered when she moved her head. Whatever she was saying was causing the Duke and those sitting near her much laughter, but Robert detected an undercurrent of desperation in her manner that worried him. Her gaiety this evening was brittle, which was unlike her, and her smile too brilliant to be genuine. Diana had been shocked by the way Laura had run off and married Walter, whom she’d barely known. She’d seemed genuinely happy at first but tonight she was showing signs of strain, as if she was covering up something, though he’d no idea what.

‘She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?’ Celia remarked.

‘Yes. Have you met her other sister, Lizzie?’ he asked conversationally. ‘They’re the image of each other but their characters are completely different.’

Celia looked intrigued. She longed to know all about the famous Fairbairn girls of whom she’d heard so much. ‘In what way?’

‘Laura is more resilient. Stronger. She’s a great survivor.’

Celia blinked. She wouldn’t have thought Laura had anything to survive, what with her money, her status and her position. Then she glanced across the table to where Lizzie was sitting in cream lace, talking quietly to the man on her left. ‘They do look alike,’ she agreed. ‘Quite fascinating.’

‘Lizzie is probably the most pragmatic one. My wife Diana is the most sensitive of them all.’ There was a pause, then he spoke again, thoughtfully this time. ‘Some have risen above the tragedies that have fallen on their family . . . and some haven’t.’

Celia stared at him. Was he referring to the loss of Lochlee Castle? Rather than appear ignorant she nodded sadly, as if in understanding.

‘That’s what happens with large families,’ he added with finality. Then he raised his head, a look of alarm in his eyes. ‘I can smell burning. Can you smell something?’

Celia sniffed the air like a busy little terrier. ‘Yes, I can!’ she exclaimed, wide-eyed.

One of the parlour maids came running into the dining room at that moment. ‘Fire!’ she shrieked. ‘Fire!’

Walter bounded to his feet, pushing his chair back roughly. ‘Where’s the fire?’ he demanded.

‘Upstairs,’ she wailed, pointing with a trembling hand.

Hobbs, the butler, appeared. ‘I think your bedroom is alight, sir,’ he blurted out, panicked.

A commotion broke out, with people jumping to their feet, all talking at once; some running into the hall, others going into the garden through the French windows.