Old Sins (78 page)

They spent Christmas alone at Marriotts; Julian invited Roz and C. J. and the baby, but Roz said, sickly sweet, that this was their first Christmas as a family and they wanted to spend it together, just the three of them. She was sure he would understand.

They also invited Letitia, but she said Eliza and Peveril had asked her up to Garrylaig, and she couldn’t resist a Scottish Christmas and Hogmanay; and they asked Augustus Blenheim, but he said he would be better in the company of Charles Maturin, who was claiming most of his attention; so in the end there were just the two of them.

Phaedria didn’t mind; she had always experienced Christmas as a fairly solitary, peaceful time, and besides she was still sufficiently newly in love with Julian not to want to share him. She insisted he got rid of all the staff, and after they had been to church in the village (also at her instigation) and tramped over the downs, cooked Christmas dinner herself;
moules marinières
she served up, and duck in cognac, and a marvellous cherry bombe; they drank two bottles of sancerre and a great deal of armagnac, and sank exhausted and bloated on to the rug in front of the fire.

‘I’d like to make love to you,’ said Julian, ‘but I think I might be sick if I did. You’ll make some man a wonderful wife, you know.’

‘Maybe.’

‘What I suggest is that we have a little nap, and then I want to give you your presents.’

‘Presents? Plural?’

‘Mmm.’

‘I only have a singular present for you.’

‘That’s all right. I have more money than you.’

‘That’s true. I love you.’

‘Not my money?’

‘No,’ she said, surprised, ‘of course not your money. It’s the last thing about you I love.’

‘Good,’ he said, ‘then I love you too.’

Phaedria fell asleep wondering at his question, and how much and how often he had wanted to ask it before.

It was seven o’clock and quite dark before she woke up; Julian was standing in front of her with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

‘Only cure for a nasty hangover.’

She sat up. ‘Ugh! I hope it works. I feel vile.’

‘It will.’

She tried it; he was right.

‘Let me give you your present first.’

‘All right.’

‘I thought and thought,’ she said, ‘about what you could give to the man who has everything. Very difficult. In the end, I thought it should be something that would mean a lot to both of us, and I thought of horses, and I ended up with this.’

She hauled a package out of the darkness behind one of the sofas where she had hidden it before lunch. He opened it slowly. It was a very early edition of Stubbs’
The Anatomy of the Horse
; he looked through it in silence, clearly enchanted.

‘What a marvellous present. I’ve always wanted this book. He did the engravings himself, you know, actually engraved the plates.’

‘I know.’

‘How on earth did you get it?’

‘The book department at Sotheby’s helped me. They sent me off to a little old man in the Charing Cross Road. He got it for me from some contact of his. I’m so glad you like it.’

‘I love it.’ He kissed her. ‘But you didn’t have to get me anything. You’re all I want these days.’

‘That’s a lie.’

‘Well, let’s not argue today. It’s a lovely present. My turn . . . Now then, this is the most important.’

He handed her a small box. Phaedria opened it slowly.

‘Oh, my God,’ she said, ‘oh, Julian, they’re glorious.’

They were a pair of matching diamond and emerald rings: the emeralds cut into oblongs, the diamonds set neatly, geometrically round them.

‘One for the left hand, your engagement ring. I’m sorry it’s been so long, but I couldn’t find what I wanted. One for the right hand, because I love you. Put them on.’

She put them on. They fitted perfectly.

‘How did you manage that?’

‘Took that little gold thing of yours and measured it. Had them sized.’

‘I like that little gold thing. But oh, Julian, these are so lovely. I can’t wear them. They’ll get lost.’

‘Nonsense. They’re safer on your hands than off them. I want you to wear them all the time. I got them from Cartier and
they are making you a necklace to go with them for your wedding day. That will be fake, I’m afraid, well that is to say, modern, but these are genuine twenties deco.’

‘Oh, I love them so much. Thank you.’

‘Right. Now I have some more things for you. Come into the hall.’

In the hall, under the tree was a pile of parcels; Phaedria looked at it in awe. ‘Are those all for me?’

‘They certainly are.’

‘Oh, Julian. I – well, I was going to say I don’t deserve them, but I expect I do.’

‘I think you do. Go ahead. Open them.’

She went ahead. There was a very big parcel which turned out to be a long grey blond wolf coat (‘I remembered you warned me never to buy you mink, but I thought this would be all right’); there was a smaller one which was a red silk dress from St Laurent (‘Now you must promise me never to wear anything underneath it, at all, because it’s very clingy indeed.’ ‘Not even knickers?’ ‘Least of all knickers’); there was a big heavy square one which was bound copies of
Vogue
from the twenties and thirties; there was a very big bottle of Jicky (‘It must be half a pint’ ‘I forced them to sell me the showroom sample bottle, but it’s the genuine stuff inside, I promise’); there was a painting by James Lavery of a horse show; and there was a tiny box, with a key in it.

She looked at it. ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s the key of the Bugatti. I want you to have it. I think you earned it that night. In several ways.’

‘Oh, Julian. Now that
is
love.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is. Especially as I know you won’t really appreciate it. But you look marvellous driving it.’

‘I feel marvellous driving it.’

‘Good. Now come outside.’

‘Outside?’

‘Yes. Put a coat on. And don’t take your sweater off.’

‘I just might. For old time’s sake.’

‘Well, you’ll have to wait a minute. Come on.’

He took her hand, fetched a huge lamp and led her out to the stables.

‘Julian, now what have you done?’

‘Wait and see.’

Grettisaga, happily ensconced in her new home, whinnied with pleasure at the sight of her mistress; Phaedria kissed her nose.

‘Happy Christmas, angel.’

Julian walked to the end of the stableyard, and into the covered area where there were several more loose boxes. He switched on the light. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I know this is dodgy. A bit like buying someone a dress when she hasn’t seen it. But you liked the dress. I hope you like this. Look in there.’

Phaedria looked. A black head looked back at her. A calm brilliant pair of eyes. A long, silky mane. A delicate, gently arched neck.

‘Oh, Julian. Oh, God I can’t bear it.’

‘I hope you can. She’s three years old. A thoroughbred. But you can see that.’

‘I can, oh, I can. Oh, she’s beautiful. Can we bring her out?’

‘Yes, I’ll get a head collar. She has a very nice temperament. I think you’ll like her.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Spring Collection.’

‘How very suitable. Or did you christen her?’

‘No. I just found her. Well, Tony found her, and I approved her. Look, here’s the collar, lead her out.’

Spring Collection stepped out into the yard quite willingly. She walked with a fluid grace; but she was relaxed, she did not dance or prance.

‘She is absolutely lovely,’ said Phaedria, running her hand wonderingly down the fine back, gazing at the delicate, long long legs. ‘I can’t believe anything so beautiful could be mine. I want to ride her now.’

‘Well, you can’t. I think, even for you that would be reckless. But tomorrow you can. I know how much you love Grettisaga, but she is a hunter, after all, they can occupy different places in your life. And your heart.’

Phaedria looked up at him. ‘I don’t think there’s much room left in my heart for anything but you, really.’

‘Nonsense. There’s always room in a heart for a horse. Now put her back and let’s go indoors. What was that you were saying earlier about taking your sweater off?’

The wedding date had been set for the first of June. On the night of Phaedria’s flight in the Bugatti, after they had reached home (towing the Bugatti, to the accompaniment of much swearing from Julian, who refused to leave it in the lane), after they had gone back to bed and made love again, after Julian had begged her to forgive him again and again, after she had said (without believing it for a moment) perhaps she had been mistaken about Roz, after they had slept briefly and Phaedria had woken first to a still, cold day, she had decided, and told Julian, that she had decided that January was perhaps a little soon for the wedding. That maybe they should know each other a little better first. That it would do no harm to wait. And that besides, the weather would be nicer, they could have a marquee, the gardens would look beautiful. And Julian had been quite unable to change her mind.

Towards the beginning of March Julian went to see his dentist. Sitting in the waiting room in Weymouth Street, leafing idly through copies of
Country Life
, he saw an advertisement for a house and his heart was as startlingly stopped as it had been when he had first seen Phaedria Blenheim four months earlier.

The house was on the corner of Piccadilly and one of the small streets tipping down the hill towards St James’s, just east of Fortnum’s; it was tall and grey and beautifully proportioned, and it had been in use for the past few years (said the advertisement) as a hotel. The leasehold was for sale for three million pounds and it would easily (so went on the advertisement persuasively) convert into offices, or flats. Julian had other ideas for it.

He cancelled his appointment, tore out of the building and got a taxi down to Piccadilly. He got out and walked down to the building, half afraid to confront it, to look at it, lest it was not as the advertisement said, lest once again he should be disappointed, robbed of his prize. But he wasn’t. It stood graceful and unspoilt, so far as he could see; five storeys tall, not unlike, not at all unlike the house on 57th Street, with a fine arched doorway, and beautiful stonework. Inside it was a nightmare; the staircase had been ripped out, lifts installed, most of the panelling stripped out, the ceilings lowered. The perfectly
proportioned big rooms upstairs had been halved, quartered, the doors lined, the walls covered with fitted cupboards. What the hotel chose to call bathrooms had been crammed into corners; the decor was fifties kitsch, with a heavy slug of baroque glitz.

Julian didn’t care. It could be restored, made beautiful again, brought back to life. And it was exactly what he had been looking for, waiting for, for nearly twenty-five years. He felt as if he had come home.

‘I have a present for you,’ he said to Phaedria that night. She was sitting at her desk in the room she had adopted for herself in Regent’s Park, the one that had been Eliza’s parlour; it looked a little different. The walls were white, the ceilings were white, the floor was white; there were black blinds at the window, and a big black desk in the middle of the room. There were books on floor-to-ceiling shelves on one of the walls, and a stereo system with a huge mass of tapes and records on another. On a low table by the window was a mass of magazines, not just English, but French, American, Italian, German. And the room was full of flowers, a huge extravagant mass of colour: on the desk, the table, the shelves, even in a giant vase on the floor.

Here for several hours a day Phaedria sat working; she had not yet managed to get a fashion job, although she wrote the occasional freelance article; but she had been commissioned by the Society of British Fashion Designers to write their history from year one, and was deeply engrossed in it. She was also surprisingly, and rather charmingly, busy with plans for her wedding.

‘What’s that, Julian?’ she said slightly absently. ‘Have you ever heard of someone called David Bond?’

‘Of course. Big name in the sixties. Very good commercial designer. Nice fellow too. Got the spot in the Bath Fashion Museum one year.’

She looked at him and smiled. ‘What a lot you know, don’t you?’

‘Well, I’ve had lots of time to learn.’

‘I suppose so. Listen, do you think it would be nice to drive to the church in a landau? Grettisaga could pull it.’

‘As long as it didn’t rain.’

‘No, but we could get one with a hood. I think it would be divine.’

‘You sound like Eliza.’

‘Sorry.’

‘I don’t really mind. I was very fond of her. Still am.’

‘Well anyway, what do you think?’

‘I think it would be divine too. Don’t you want to know what your present is?’

‘Sorry, yes of course I do.’

‘Here you are.’ He handed her a key.

‘Julian! Not another car?’

‘No. Something bigger.’

‘What?’

‘Come with me, and I’ll show you.’

He pulled her impatiently by the hand, down the steps and out on to the terrace. She looked around. ‘I can’t see anything.’

‘It’s not here. Get in the car.’

He refused to say a word as they drove down Baker Street and Park Lane and turned into Piccadilly; as they reached Fortnum’s he slowed down, pulled in to the side of the road.

‘There you are.’

‘What?’

‘That. There. That building.’

‘I can see. It’s very nice. But what about it?’

‘It’s yours.’

‘Mine! But I don’t need a building.’

‘Yes, you do. It’s going to be the London Circe. It’s your wedding present.’

‘Oh, my God,’ said Phaedria. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake . . . Oh, Julian.’

London and New York, 1983

ROZ WAS SO
angry when she heard about the store she actually threw up. Julian had told her about it over lunch at the Ritz,
presenting the event as something to be celebrated, and explained he was giving it to Phaedria for a wedding present, and that he was sure they would be able to work together on it amicably if they put their minds to it. He had said much the same thing to Phaedria the night before; for probably the first and last time in their lives Phaedria and Roz were in total agreement. This, they could both see, was the beginning of a very long war. They also both had great difficulty in believing that Julian could actually think they would be able to work together. There was a particular expression in his unfathomable brown eyes, which Roz had grown up with, and Phaedria had begun to recognize, which meant danger, meant games were being played, meant checkmate. It was there now.