The Cuckoo's Child (15 page)

On that day during his father's absence, that day which had lodged so particularly in Mr Tewson's mind, Philip had read the letter with its extraordinary request which had come from Ainsley Beaumont. He had previously met this gentleman, shaken hands with him, but any dealings with him had been his father's province, as was the correspondence between them; their meetings, always arranged for when the old man came to London to deal with wool business, had been conducted in private with Mr Carfax senior. But Philip, in his father's absence, was responsible for the firm's business and must therefore deal with this request.

The letter was straightforward enough, requesting that a certain proposition be put before Miss Laura Harcourt. The writer, Mr Beaumont, was quite specific as to her name, but as he had not deemed it necessary to give any more particulars, it was obvious that there were certain matters regarding Miss Harcourt to which Mr Carfax senior was privy. In the normal course of events, Philip would have waited until he could refer the matter to his father, but this was not something he was prepared to do after that name had jumped out from the page at him.
Laura?
Why Laura? What had Mr Ainsley Beaumont to do with her? And why the secrecy regarding the terms of her employment?

Clearly, he needed to inform himself about the background, beginning with all the correspondence between Mr Beaumont and the firm, which was kept in a small bank of drawers lodged in the outer office.

‘Do you have the keys for these drawers, Mr Tewson?'

‘I do, Mr Philip.'

‘Pass them over, will you?'

‘Those drawers, Mr Philip, are private to your father. He never allows anyone to open them but himself.' As you well know, his severe look said.

‘Dash it, don't be obtuse. How can I carry on the business without access to all the proper information? Give me the keys, there's a good chap.'

The old clerk began to look agitated. ‘I'm sorry, you know, but I can't. It would be as much as my job's worth.'

Philip tried to stare him out. ‘Are you refusing, Tewsey?'

‘Yes, Mr Philip. Not without your father's say-so.'

Tewson had been with the firm since before Philip was born. He kept humbugs in his pocket for the children when they came to see their father. He wasn't far from the age when he would retire, and he was obviously ill-at-ease with this conversation, but he remained adamant. He knew the business inside out, his loyalty was paramount, and as far as Philip knew he had never breached a confidence or done a single untoward thing in his hitherto unblemished career with the firm. On the other hand, when he had opened the post that morning, as he customarily did, he must have seen the letter which had come from Ainsley Beaumont, and so must be well aware what Philip wanted.

‘No, I'm sorry,' he said, adamant.

Philip cogitated. He had no doubt Tewson was as familiar with the background to all this as his father was. Drafting letters, wills, agreements, conveyances and all the rest in his fine copperplate handwriting, he necessarily knew everything that went on in the office. Philip doubted he would tell him what he wanted to know. The old codger was stubborn as the devil when he wanted to be, but Philip liked him and had no wish to antagonize him, or to force him to do something against his own will and the orders of William Carfax. He could not blame Tewson. His father was a martinet, as Philip had good reason to know and be wary of.

‘Very well, then, I must wait until I get my father's permission.' He was by no means certain of the outcome in his parent's present irascible state of health and temper, which gout was apt to inflict on a person, but for the moment he could not think of anything else he could do.

‘Thank you, Mr Philip.'

The morning routine wore on. An hour or so later, Tewson, famous in the firm for never forgetting the slightest thing, came into the office to make certain, he said, that he had got right something he had clearly understood perfectly well barely an hour ago. ‘You see, I'm having to be very careful, nowadays,' he admitted, looking exceedingly uncomfortable at having to make this unexpected and rather shamefaced admission. ‘My memory isn't what it was, I'm afraid. Dear me, I worry sometimes that I might even find myself forgetting to lock up properly.'

‘Well, it comes to us all, I suppose.'

‘Indeed, Mr Philip.'

When lunchtime arrived, the clerk announced with equal unexpectedness that he would go into the park to eat the sandwiches Mrs Tewson had packed for him, and which he usually ate at his desk. ‘Such a beautiful day. A pity to waste it indoors.'

Philip waited until five minutes after he and the other clerks had gone, then tried the drawers. The top one, the lock of which controlled the others, opened straight away. He grinned. Good old Tewsey! Nevertheless, it was the guiltiest moment in Philip's otherwise blameless life as he extracted the papers he wanted.

When Tewson came back he was sitting with his feet up on his father's desk, reading the newspaper. But his thoughtful expression wasn't due to the fluctuations of the stock market, or the sensational report of a more than usually alarming eruption of Mount Etna and a warning that further possible eruptions could result in a disaster on the scale of Pompeii; or even the sensational report of passengers being flown across the Channel to Paris in under four hours. He was endeavouring to accommodate the staggering implications of what he had read in that correspondence, and running over in his mind the consequences of doing what Mr Ainsley Beaumont had suggested.

Well, he had done what his conscience told him to do, his father was now back in harness, his temper and gout temporarily assuaged by the curative waters of Bath, and it did not seem to have occurred to him yet to ask why Philip, without needing any more explanations, had so easily agreed to Mr Beaumont's odd request to put that proposition before Laura. Then, last week, Mr Beaumont himself had come into the office and Philip had been requested to add his signature to a new will he had made. Followed by the shock of that telephone message, yesterday, telling them that the old man was dead. Had the old boy had some inkling of his impending death? Had Laura's arrival at Farr Clough House anything to do with it?

This, he thought, was what came of dissembling, even if only a little, of not revealing to Laura that Mr Beaumont had specifically asked for her, but letting her believe the request for someone to deal with his library had been a general one. Philip was left with an uneasy feeling at the pit of his stomach.

He had just rounded off his lunch with a generous portion of the jam roly-poly and custard that was a speciality of the little chop-house where he liked to eat, and wondering if he ought to have given in to the soporific temptation in view of his proposed dutiful visit to the Academy, when he looked up and saw Laura herself threading her way between the crowded tables towards him. At the sight of her face, her colour high and her sharp little chin raised, his heart felt as heavy as his stomach.

He stood up and kissed her cheek. ‘Laura! This is an unexpected pleasure! What are you doing here? How did you find me?'

‘It seems your plans for the afternoon were well known in the office.'

‘Ah, yes. Yes, of course, I did mention them to Tewson. My, you're looking well,' he added nervously. ‘Yorkshire must suit you. I've just finished my lunch, but may I offer you some – or some coffee – while you tell me all about it?'

‘Never mind Yorkshire, Philip. Or rather, we must mind it – that's what we have to talk about, don't we? I don't want any coffee, thanks, so let's go somewhere else, where you can tell me just what is going on. Somewhere private.'

Eleven

It had turned very warm for the time of year and the heat rose from the pavements in the stuffy London streets. All over the city, the parks were blossoming, and on the Embankment the planes with their silvery flaking bark were thrusting out new green leaves. Everyone was rushing and hurrying along as usual, as if they had a train to catch, even though it was Saturday, but there were smiles on people's faces, somewhere an organ grinder played and the flower sellers were doing a brisk trade in bunches of tulips and mimosa.

Laura felt hot and bothered in the saxe-blue tweed travelling costume, and the brown velour-felt hat was anathema to her amongst all the frothy spring hats other women were wearing. Despite this, she was fully attuned to what she had to do. Philip was destined for an acutely uncomfortable half-hour, if she had anything to do with it.

‘Now, Philip,' she began in a very severe voice, as they reached an empty seat on the Embankment. ‘Why didn't you tell me?'

Philip sat down beside her and looked across the river. A Thames steamer hooted, trams clanged behind them, a sandwich-board man advertised boots for four shillings a pair. ‘What do you want to know, Laura?'

‘Oh,' said Laura, with a sigh, ‘I just want to know the truth, Philip. Why has Mr Beaumont left me that enormous amount of money?'

She did not ask him why Ainsley Beaumont had sent for her. That was now quite obvious to her: the work on the library had been a smokescreen, a ridiculous reason for getting her to Wainthorpe and Farr Clough, where no doubt he could look her over and decide whether she was worthy of his bequest. ‘
You'll do, Laura Harcourt
,' he had said. You'll do. Not to fulfil the non-existent need to catalogue his library, but to be the recipient of his . . . his
charity
! That was the word which had burned in her brain ever since she had heard the solicitor, Broomhead, read out the will. The word choked her. Charity. But
why
? Yet she knew where her thoughts were inevitably leading, perhaps towards the answers to questions which had plagued her all her life, though she suspected the truth might not be as palatable as she might have wished.

Philip was staring down at his gleaming polished boots, looking mightily as if he wished himself elsewhere. Ever since he had dealt with Ainsley Beaumont's request, he had been only too aware that he might well have overstepped the boundaries of his temporary responsibilities and it had given him uncomfortable moments. But whenever he thought of
why
he had done it, he had felt better – until yesterday, when it became very evident that he might have made a grave mistake. He was not, however, about to make another. He remained silent until he could find the diplomatic answer to her question. But the truth, not diplomacy, was what she wanted. And who was he to know what that was?

‘Laura, I am not the person to tell you.'

‘Then who is – your father?' He shook his head. ‘Oh, really, Philip, someone must know!'

He looked very downcast at the accusing way she was speaking to him, and she began to feel a little guilty, and was glad as she watched him to see a firmer resolution come to him, more like the old Philip. She was sorry that she had hurt his feelings – he had, as usual, meant well.

‘I wouldn't have upset you for the world, you know – you, of all people, Laura.'

She leaned over and kissed his cheek gently. ‘Forget me, Philip. I've told you before, we can never be anything to one another. I mean it.'

‘You've met someone else,' he said flatly, sensing a difference in her.

She couldn't answer that. Instead, she said, ‘Well, Philip? What's it all about?'

‘Look.' He felt desperate. ‘I'll tell you all I know, but I warn you, it isn't much.' He reached out for her hand, more to reassure himself than her, and she didn't draw it away. It was white again now, the oval nails smooth and rounded with delicate half-moons. ‘There's no compulsion on anyone,' he began, ‘to give the reasons for why and where they want to leave their money. So . . .'

Laura's unexpected arrival home a couple of hours later caused a great stir of excitement in Chetwyn Square. It was five o'clock and Lillian arrived five minutes after Laura, pulling off her light chiffon scarf and wafting waves of Floris ‘Bouquet'. Screaming with delight when she saw Laura, she embraced her with joy and stood back to examine her, with a look on her face that fought not to say ‘I told you so', which was quickly replaced by one of dismay when she learned that this was to be only a flying visit.

‘Are you going out this evening?' Laura asked, though the question was rhetorical. Lillian considered an evening at home as the mark of social failure.

‘Well, the Endicott's have reserved theatre seats . . . but my dear, it's
Julius Caesar
! I must confess I will not be entirely sorry of an excuse to miss that.'

‘I wouldn't ask, but I have something very particular I want to talk to you and Uncle George about, and I'm going back to Wainthorpe by an early train tomorrow.'

‘Tomorrow! Then we certainly cannot forego this evening with you. I'll see what Mrs Denning can do for us in the way of something nice. I know there's a chicken . . .'

‘Oh, pot luck will do.'

‘It won't do for me, or your uncle. I'll see about it now.'

It was good to see him again, her Uncle George, a spare, careful man, deceptively unassuming, and the rock of her childhood. She was grateful that neither he nor her aunt seemed to notice her reticence amidst Lillian's ceaseless chatter about mutual friends and acquaintances, accounts of the social whirl she lived in, which kept the conversation going throughout dinner, during which she fended off difficult questions about the Beaumont family and her work in the library, and concentrated on telling them about the wonderful scenery of the moors, the air like wine, the water like silk . . .

George, too, talked about his two latest acquisitions and invited her comments on them: a spare Japanese print he had hung above the copper-tiled fireplace, and the delicate Satsuma porcelain jar with fu-dog handles which now stood on the mantel. But it was not until they were settled in the drawing room with their coffee that he said directly, ‘Now then, what's all this, Laura? What's gone wrong, that makes you come back so unexpectedly?'