The Piper's Tune (59 page)

The air had been fresh after the thunderstorm, a breeze shook the wet leaves on the trees along the river, and Miss Runciman, as they strolled the walks behind the perambulator, had told her with palpable glee that Forbes had been devastated by his mother's threatened departure although he had instigated it and knew it was the only way to get Lindsay back. Soon after Forbes had left for work, therefore, Kay, Blossom and Winn had swept off, bag and baggage, and to all intents and purposes, literally as well as figuratively, Forbes would return to an empty house with no one to boss or bully or provide a target for his wrath.

After lunch at the Hill, Lindsay left Miss Runciman and the children with Aunt Lilias and went to call on Cissie and Tom at Sandyford. There she learned that Sylvie and Gowry had also left for Ireland and that Forbes, apparently searching not for his wife or his mistress but for his brother, had dropped in at Sandyford on his way to the yard. He had been so agitated and contrite that, astonishingly, he had wept into Cissie's shoulder over porridge and toast and had told her, with something approaching sincerity, that he had always considered her to be the best of his cousins and the only one he could trust.

Tom had been disgusted, or just this side of it, by the outburst and had refused to share a ride to work in the big, damp Lanchester that Forbes claimed to have borrowed to make his desperate rounds.

‘You will go back to him, won't you?' Cissie said. ‘I mean, dearest, you
must
go back to him, for in spite of all he has done, he
is
your husband and he cannot live without you.'

‘Oh, I doubt that,' Lindsay said. ‘I think Forbes would manage very well without me.'

‘But what would he do? I mean, you're so – so close.'

It was not what Forbes would do without her that troubled Lindsay but what he would do with her. She feared that he would somehow re-knit the marriage to suit him, that his anxiety would quickly be forgotten and another girl, another woman, brought in to replace Sylvie. He would justify it by telling himself that he was too much of a man to be content with one woman and that he needed complexity, variety and spice. He would surely be more cautious next time too and appear to accommodate himself to marriage until his lies had taken root and he could safely renege on all his promises once more. In a word, Lindsay thought, how could she ever trust him again?

‘Close?' she replied to wide-eyed Cissie. ‘Yes, I suppose we are.'

‘There's a special meeting of the partners on Monday morning,' Tom said. ‘We're examining ways of acquiring more capital with a view to increasing our capacity. If your friend Paget's to be believed we might be in for a period of expansion, and we'll need to be ready for it.'

‘Will – will anything be said about…'

‘I hope not,' Tom said, ‘but I think it rather depends on you.'

‘On me?' said Lindsay, surprised.

‘On whether you'll be there in person, or whether you will not.'

She was tempted to give him an answer. Tom Calder was after all her friend too, a chap she should perhaps have married. Different worlds, different times, different projections: there was no crystal ball, no writing in the stars to tell you what to do for the best. You had only your heart to listen to and, perhaps, your head. Tom, she realised, had tactfully reminded her that Franklin's was her destiny, Harry and Philip her future; a future that sometimes seemed to stretch into a dazzling infinity of possibilities and at other times to be as preordained as the passing of the seasons and the rising of the tides.

She would not go off with Geoffrey, of course, would not run away from her responsibilities. But she would not tell Tom that, or Forbes. She would keep her decision a secret for just a little while longer.

‘Do you not think,' Lindsay said, ‘that it rather depends on Forbes?'

‘On Forbes?' said Cissie.

‘On whether he accepts my offer,' Lindsay said, ‘or whether he does not.'

‘What offer?' Cissie said.

*   *   *

‘Four sixty-fourths, Forbes,' Lindsay said. ‘A transfer of four sixty-fourths from your share of the partnership into my name.'

‘That can't be done,' Forbes said.

‘Indeed it can. All it requires is the agreement of a majority of the partners and that, given the circumstances, will certainly be forthcoming,' Lindsay said. ‘According to Mr Harrington there's no legal impediment to the transfer of shares between existing partners. He will draft the document and the board will nod it through.'

‘You have been busy, haven't you?' Forbes said. ‘Who put this idea into you head? Paget, was it? Is this what passes for pillow talk between you?'

He was sprawled on the sofa in the ground-floor drawing-room, legs crossed and hands behind his head. He did not appear to be at all distraught. Cissie, no doubt, would have been disappointed to find him so recovered but it came as no surprise to Lindsay. In fact, she would have been disappointed if he had been anything other than his sly, old arrogant self, for she had learned how to deal with that aspect of his character and had no wish to alter it. For this reason she had warned him of her arrival and had made sure that Eleanor, Arthur and the children would all remain at Harper's Hill.

Although Forbes had dressed with care, he could not quite manage to hide the bruised shadows under his eyes, or the wariness in them, and beneath the wariness she sensed an unusual fragility. He was, she realised, unsure of her, vastly and manifestly unsure.

‘It was Paget, wasn't it?' Forbes said. ‘He put you up to this, didn't he?'

‘No,' Lindsay said, and left it at that.

Forbes smiled, and dandled his foot in mid-air. ‘Where is your sailor boy right now? Is he waiting outside in a motor-cab to cart you back to his bed?'

‘No,' said Lindsay again.

‘You're staying in a hotel, aren't you?'

‘I am.'

‘How long are you going to remain there?' Forbes asked. ‘I mean, sweetheart, haven't you got everything you want by now? I mean, you've got rid of my mother, my sisters, probably even my brother. You've got me all to yourself at last. Isn't that enough for you?'

‘How much did you have to pay Gowry to take her away?'

Silence for a moment: ‘I didn't know he had taken her away.'

‘Well, he has,' Lindsay said. ‘He's taken her to Ireland, I believe, where the baby will be born.'

‘Really? So that's where old Gowry-Wowry's disappeared to, is it?' Forbes said. ‘Who told you?'

‘Tom. They called on Tom and Cissie before they left.'

‘Scrounging the price of the fares, I expect.' He shook his head. ‘I might have guessed it. Bloody Gowry just wanted Sylvie for himself. God knows why!'

‘For the same reasons as you wanted her, probably,' Lindsay said.

‘For your information I gave her up ages ago,' Forbes said. ‘Haven't clapped eyes on her in months. So Gowry meant what he said, did he?'

‘Good for Gowry,' Lindsay said.

Forbes brought his arms from behind his head. ‘I didn't pay him to run off with her, you know. I didn't know he'd skedaddled until this very minute. I've been looking for the bugger for half the day.' He cocked his head. ‘Did you have anything to do with this, Linnet? Did you shell out, too?'

‘No.'

‘All right,' Forbes said. ‘That's my brother gone. You've cleared my family out good and proper, Lindsay. Isn't that enough for you? Do you have to ruin me financially as well?'

‘That isn't my intention, Forbes.'

‘What is your intention then?' Forbes said. ‘To have more to spend pampering your sailor boy?'

Lindsay did not deny his allegation. She wanted him to believe his own insinuations, to convince himself that she was no better than he was, that one black did make a white. She felt disloyal to Geoffrey and yet – the little ticking mainspring within her was working well – she felt so close to him that she was almost sorry for Forbes who had nothing left to cling to now except the hope that she would allow him back into her life.

Forbes would never understand how she cared for Geoffrey or what there was between them. How could Forbes possibly know that without the knowledge that Geoffrey believed in her, even loved her, she would not have presumed to push him so far? She had not taken up with Geoffrey just to punish Forbes for his callous infidelity, however, for that long, ragged betrayal meant less to her than anyone, even Forbes, might imagine. What she did now she did out of pride, Franklin pride, to correct the mistakes that Pappy had made and to set her own course for the future for herself and her sons and, perhaps, for their sons too.

‘Those are my terms, Forbes,' she said. ‘Take them or leave them.'

‘Terms. You're my wife, Lindsay. You don't make terms. No matter what you think I've done,
you
don't make the terms of our marriage.'

‘In that case,' Lindsay said, rising, ‘we will leave it to the lawyers.'

‘What? Old Harrington?'

‘To the court.'

‘I see,' Forbes said tightly. ‘It's a nice little threat, Linnet, a nice little bit of blackmail, but it isn't going to wash, not with me.'

‘That's what Geoffrey said you'd say.'

‘Did he now?'

‘That's what he hoped you say.'

‘Did he?'

‘He predicted that you would take profit over marriage.'

‘You're lying to me, Lindsay. He said nothing of the kind.'

‘Oh, but he did,' said Lindsay. ‘Do try to understand, Forbes, that I don't particularly wish to come back and live with you. I'd prefer a new life with Geoffrey Paget – and make no mistake, I have that choice – but I do have the children to consider and for that reason I'm prepared—'

‘You'll never get the children.'

‘I already have the children.'

‘What? Jesus!' He looked up at the ceiling, wariness finally tinged with panic. She glimpsed in him now something of what Cissie had seen; not tears, not contrition but the bizarre vulnerability of a man trapped by his own hubris. ‘Where are they? What have you done with the boys?'

‘They're perfectly safe,' Lindsay said. ‘They will always be perfectly safe with me, Forbes. Besides, what do you want with them? Are there not plenty more to come, here or in Ireland?'

‘Bitch!' he said, without much rancour.

‘I want the transfer of four points from the sixty-fourth part of your stake in Franklin's,' Lindsay said calmly. ‘I do not want to ruin you or deprive you of income. You will continue to share in annual profits and take a salary, and you will still be a partner, of course, very much a partner.'

‘But you'll have the lion's share?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you really believe that all I care about is money?'

‘No, I think you care more about power.'

‘I didn't marry you for your money, Linnet.'

‘Why did you marry me, Forbes?'

‘Because I thought you'd make a good wife.'

‘How disappointed you must be,' Lindsay said. ‘I suppose that a good wife would be satisfied with an apology, some show or sign of remorse from her husband, an assurance that he really loved her and that no one else mattered.'

‘I do love you, Linnet, you know that.'

‘Do I?' Lindsay said. ‘No, Forbes, I don't think I do.'

‘What are you going to do with the kiddies?'

‘Nothing. Eleanor and my father will bring them home shortly and put them to bed,' Lindsay said. ‘By your definition I may not be a good wife, Forbes, but I'm not wicked enough to use the children against you. All I want is a larger share of the partnership just in case you decide that the next girl you take up with is worth the sacrifice of your home and family.'

‘God, that's calculating.'

Lindsay felt her resolve beginning to crack. She strove to bear in mind that she had Geoffrey behind her and a legion of new possibilities, that she did not need Forbes now or require him to bend to her will. It could not be a contest, a struggle between equals. She had never quite grasped the fact before that what had made Pappy, Donald, her father and her cousins too, so different, was that they were males, born with the knowledge of how to compete without compromise. She, like most decent women, lacked that knowledge, that instinct.

‘I have to be calculating, Forbes,' she said, ‘otherwise you may take me for a soft mark again.'

‘You were never a soft mark, Linnet,' Forbes said.

‘And Sylvie Calder, what was she?'

‘How the hell can I answer that one?' Forbes said. ‘If I tell you she was just a bit of fun you'll think even less of me than you do now. And if I tell you I really cared for her…'

‘Did you?'

‘At first, yes. I did. I cared for her quite a lot.' He made as if to rise, to reach for her, but Lindsay stepped quickly away. ‘I didn't care for her the way I cared for you. No, that's not just sweet talk, Linnet, that's the truth.'

‘You just got tired of her and wanted a change, is that it?'

‘She wanted me to marry her.'

‘Ah, I see. That was never part of the bargain, was it?'

‘I had no bargain with Sylvie,' Forbes said. ‘I had an understanding, I suppose, an arrangement that I thought she understood perfectly well. But no, no, no, she had to have me all to herself.'

‘What was your understanding with me, Forbes? Do you remember?'

‘Oh, God! Not the love, honour and obey song-and-dance, Linnet. You're not going to warble that old tune, are you? You knew what you were getting into when you married me.'

‘No, Forbes, I did not,' Lindsay said. ‘But
you
thought
you
did.'

‘Is Paget really waiting outside for you?'