Old Sins (118 page)

‘OK,’ said Miles. He looked at her consideringly. ‘You’re kind of an interesting person.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Tell me about the other one.’

‘Which other one?’

‘The one who has the other forty-nine per cent.’

‘Oh,’ said Roz. ‘Phaedria. The grieving widow.’

‘Sounds like you don’t have too much time for her.’

‘No,’ said Roz. ‘No, I don’t. Maybe you should get someone else to tell you about her.’

‘So she’s where?’

‘She’s in California. Taking an unconscionably long time to recover from having a baby.’

‘Why did she have it there?’

‘Because she’s a fool,’ said Roz.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Miles easily. ‘I would think it a pretty nice place to have a baby. I plan to bring my children up there.’

‘Do you now? Do you plan to have a lot of children?’ asked Roz, eager to draw the conversation away from Phaedria Morell.

‘Yup. Like all only children, I yearn for brothers and sisters. And like all only children, I yearn for a large family of my own.’

‘I see. Is this large family imminent?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Miles. ‘Candy – my girlfriend – is only eighteen. Her dad is pretty much against us getting married. He’s a rich guy,’ he added. ‘He has a big business.’

‘Really. What’s his name?’

‘Mason McCall.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Roz. ‘Sweeties.’

Miles looked at her with new respect. ‘You guys really all have got it together, haven’t you?’

‘We have to,’ said Roz.

When they got back to Dover Street, a pale blue Rolls was outside.

‘Goodness,’ said Roz. ‘News travels fast. That’s my grandmother’s car. She must have heard you’ve been found, and come to meet you.’

She was right. Letitia was standing at Roz’s desk, dressed in a cream silk suit, leafing happily through Roz’s in-tray.

‘Granny Letitia! How lovely to see you!’ said Roz, kissing her fondly. ‘How are you?’

‘Perfectly well, darling, thank you. I haven’t seen as much of you as I would like, or that great-granddaughter of mine.’ She looked at Roz critically. ‘You look very thin. And tired. You’ve been overworking.’

Only Roz could have fully appreciated the wealth of meaning and double meaning in Letitia’s voice; she smiled at her brilliantly. ‘Not really. You look wonderful. Whose suit?’

‘Do you like it? Thank you, darling. Bruce Oldfield. Such a charming young man. Speaking of charming young men,’ she said, turning the full force of her violet eyes, her dazzling smile on Miles, ‘you must be Miles.’

‘I am,’ he said, looking at her bemusedly, holding out his hand. ‘And it certainly is a pleasure to meet you.’

‘Thank you. I am Letitia Morell. Founding grandmother of this company. So they finally found you. My goodness, there is so much we want to know, and you must be worn out, poor chap. And hungry, I should think. Roz, why don’t we take him to lunch you and I? We could go to Langan’s.’

Lunch was a great success. Letitia grilled Miles through the first course, about his childhood, his growing up in California, and in particular his days on the beach (‘it sounds wonderful’), and then he grilled her through the second about her days as a debutante, life in London between the wars, and the Prince of Wales with whom she claimed an ever closer acquaintance with every year that passed. Eventually they parted – Letitia reluctantly to First Street, Roz to the office, and Miles to his much-postponed sleep.

Miles let himself into the penthouse again, and walked into the little bedroom. He felt utterly and unaccustomedly exhausted. He supposed it was a combination of the long night flight, the champagne at lunch and the considerable trauma of the morning.

This really was all something else. It was like some kind of a bad B movie. Billy hadn’t been so far off when he had said something about him being Lord Fauntleroy. What a mob to get mixed up with. It was dynamite. There was that nice sexy
bitch downstairs, nothing wrong with her, Miles thought easily, that a good screw and a bit of TLC wouldn’t sort out; the funny old lawyer, straight out of Dickens, and the marvellous old lady. She was something else. He would like to see a great deal more of her. And then there was the other one, the missing one, who Roz was clearly dying to feed ground glass to, three times a day before meals. What could she be like? The old lady was obviously very fond of her.

She was young, twenty-seven they’d said; either the old boy must have still been quite a goer, or she’d married him purely for his money. Probably the latter. That was obviously what Roz thought.

And he held the balance of power between them. The thought made Miles feel quite sick. No wonder they’d wanted to find him. What on earth was he going to do? He had been speaking the truth when he had told Roz he just wanted to give it all away again. The last thing on earth he wanted was to get mixed up in some power struggle. He didn’t want to hold any, and he didn’t want to assist anyone else to hold any. It held about as much charm for him as joining a monastery. But he could see even giving it away wouldn’t be that simple. Whoever he gave it to, there would be trouble. Besides, Roz had a point. Why give it?

No, the best thing would be to sell it, and then go home to Candy, and persuade Old Man Mason to let them get married. Roz would buy his share, that was for sure. He liked her, he thought she was really nice under that hard front of hers, and it would obviously help her. Why go into it all any more?

God, Julian Morell, whoever he was, must have been a funny old buzzard. Why do this to all these people? And why involve him? He supposed really he ought to wait until Lady Phaedria or whatever her name was came home, and talk to her as well. It was only fair.

He looked around. The room was bare, except for a bed, a coat stand, a cupboard, and a small bedside table.

There were a few photographs on the wall: an aerial view of a big house in the country, and several pictures of horses. No people. He sat down on the bed, took off his jacket, slung it on the floor, looked round again.

His eyes fell on the bedside table. It had a couple of drawers
in it. He tugged the top one tentatively. It was empty. But the second one had a small silver frame in it. He took the frame out, turning it over and looking at the picture in it; and for a moment the face in front of him meant nothing at all to him. Then his brain connected with what he saw; the picture first blurred, then clarified with extraordinary vividness. He stood up, and then slowly, his eyes fixed on it, his mind a whirring, confused mess, he walked out of the penthouse and took the elevator down to Roz’s office. She was on the phone and reading letters at the same time; she looked up at him, smiled, waved to him to sit down in the chair in front of her desk. Miles sat there looking alternately at her and the photograph in his hand.

When she had finished talking she put down the phone and said, ‘What is it? Couldn’t you sleep?’

‘I haven’t tried,’ said Miles. ‘Not yet. Look, Roz, I don’t know quite what’s going on around here, but why do you all keep saying you don’t know Hugo Dashwood when there’s a picture of him up in your dad’s office?’

Los Angeles, London, New York, 1985

FATHER KENNEDY WAS
a little worried about Lady Morell. She seemed such a fragile little thing, and seeing the photograph of Hugo Dashwood with Miles had obviously given her a big shock. She had tried very hard not to show him what a shock it was, had managed to smile and say what a nice picture, and it was wonderful to know what they both looked like at last, but she had turned very pale and he had insisted she sat down and had a drink of tea before she left again.

She had told him she had to get back to the hotel, that she had a friend coming to see her; that was a good thing, Father Kennedy thought, she had obviously had far too much time on her own at the moment and whatever it was about the photograph that had upset her so much, then she could talk to this friend about it.

‘Would you like to take the picture?’ he had said to her, and she had said yes, please, she would get a copy made of it and then send him the original back if that would be all right.

And holding her baby rather closely to her, she had walked to her car and then driven off without another backward glance.

Well, she clearly didn’t want to talk about it. In Father Kennedy’s experience, people always talked in their own good time. He was not about to press her. He only hoped he had not gone too far in showing her the picture.

What she clearly had no need to know at all was the true relationship between Dashwood and the boy. That had been something entirely between Lee, himself and the Almighty, entrusted to him in his capacity as priest, and nothing on this earth, or indeed anything that might be waiting for him in the next, would drag it from him. And besides, and he had often thought this down the years, who was to say that Lee had been right in her absolute certainty that Hugo Dashwood had fathered Miles? The boy had certainly looked sufficiently like Dean, and Father Kennedy had learnt quite early in his priesthood that guilty women were particularly skilful at deceiving themselves, at distorting facts, to their own advantage or otherwise, depending on their characters. So the doctors had all told Dean he was sterile; well since when had doctors not been known to make a mistake? Small miracles of this kind took place all the time. Look at all the babies that were conceived the moment their parents adopted someone else’s child. No, the parentage of Miles Wilburn was not something Father Kennedy was prepared to discuss with anybody, anybody at all.

He put it determinedly out of his head and fell to wondering how he was going to feed up to thirty hungry people that night with one small ham. Jesus had managed it, of course, or its equivalent, but then he had had powers denied to Father Kennedy.

Michael Browning arrived at Phaedria’s bungalow at six o’clock that evening. It was dark, and there was no light inside; he thought perhaps she might still be out at the hospital and went into Reception to ask.

No, they said, Lady Morell was there, she had been there all
afternoon, perhaps she was asleep? Should they ring through? No, Michael said, he would go himself and knock on the door; she was expecting him. Probably they were right and she was asleep.

He went back and knocked; Phaedria’s voice answered. She sounded strained, odd. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s the serenading team,’ he said. ‘Only we left the violins at home. Can we come in?’

The door opened; Phaedria stood before him, ashen. Her eyes were swollen, and there were deep shadows under them. She was shaking. ‘Oh, Michael,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

‘Phaedria, honeybunch, what on earth is it? It’s not – not.’

‘No,’ she said, and there was just an echo of a smile on her stricken face, ‘no, Julia’s fine.’

‘Then what is it?’

She walked through to the sitting room, picked up a photograph from the table. ‘Look.’

He looked. ‘It’s Julian. Who’s that with him?’

‘Oh, that’s Miles.’

‘Oh. So he did know him. Nice-looking boy.’

‘Yes. But that’s not the point. This isn’t Julian. Well it is, but it isn’t.’

‘Phaedria, you’re not making any sense.’

‘None of it makes any sense,’ she said, and there was a sob in her voice. ‘Well, no, that’s not true. It’s beginning to. This is Hugo Dashwood, Michael, Julian was Hugo Dashwood. He was obviously leading a completely double life. That none of us knew about.’

‘I don’t care if Miss North is in a meeting with the President, or Lord God Almighty. Get her on the phone, for Christ’s sake.’ Roz, her hand shaking, gripping a large whisky, was on the phone to New York.

Miles, a little disconcerted by the monumental hornet’s nest he had disturbed, sat watching her, silent, not knowing what to do.

‘Ah, Camilla, yes, I do realize you were in a very important meeting and I am very sorry, I really am, but I simply have to talk to C. J. Do you know where he is? No, it’s nothing to do
with Miranda, but it is desperately serious. I just have to talk to him. OK, fine. Thank you. He’ll tell you about it himself, I expect. Goodbye, Camilla.’

She put the phone down, dialled another number, taking gulps of the whisky. ‘C. J.? Oh, thank God I found you. I just had to talk to someone in the family. No, Miranda is perfectly all right. Yes, I know this is Camilla’s private number, she gave it to me herself. What? Michael’s out of town, Christ knows where. C. J., I don’t know quite where to begin on all this, but please please just listen and tell me what I ought to do. We know who Hugo Dashwood is. What? Miles has solved it for us. Miles. M-I-L-E-S. Yes, he’s here. He turned up this morning. God, it seems years ago now. Yes, of course it was a shock. I’m sorry, of course I was going to tell you. Well he’s very nice. Oh, I can’t go into all that now. That’s not why I’m ringing you. Well, not exactly. C. J., Hugo Dashwood was my father. What? Yes, of course Julian Morell was my father. They were one and the same person. He was leading some kind of a double life. Oh, C. J., I feel so terrible, and I don’t know where to turn or what to do. I can’t, simply can’t tell Letitia, or Mummy, not yet. It would be too shocking for both of them. It’s all so horrible. No, I haven’t told Henry Winterbourne. Do you think I should? All right. What about Phaedria? Oh, C. J. Could you please come home?’

Phaedria had booked herself on to a flight a day earlier, with Julia, having insisted Michael return to New York.

‘We have enough problems and traumas on our hands already,’ she said, smiling at him rather wanly over her packing, ‘without Roz deciding we are having the love affair of the century.’

‘Don’t you think maybe we should at least try it out?’ he said. He was sitting watching her, holding the baby on his knee with one hand, and the telephone in the other, trying without success to get through to his secretary in New York. ‘Christ, this girl has to have the opposite of a raise. What would that be, do you think?’

‘A fall? I don’t know. Try what out anyway?’

‘Having the love affair of the century. Or at least the week.’

‘No, I don’t. Do you think you could try getting Richard
Brookes for me on that line? Oh, no, it’s hopeless – it’s still only six o’clock there. God, it will be nice to be back in the same day as everybody else.’