Justine Elyot (23 page)

‘But it should have been. Come into the bedroom. I know just the necklace to wear with it.’

‘I feel like a thief,’ she said shakily, glorying, despite her reservations, in the way the skirt whispered around her as she walked. She also felt like a goddess. A thief-goddess – was there one?

‘You don’t look like one,’ remarked Charles, glancing up from Lady Deverell’s jewellery box. ‘I don’t think Fagin would accept you into his gang wearing
that
. Here, this is the one.’

Between his fingers diamonds glittered.

Edie put her hands to her throat, suddenly afraid.

‘It’s too much, Charles,’ she said. ‘I can’t.’

‘You can. Turn around.’

She hesitated.

‘Turn around,’ he repeated, with soft but unyielding pressure.

She obeyed, shuddering at the weight of them. They seemed to imprint themselves into her skin in their setting of loops and teardrops and she wondered how any lady of fashion could forget she was wearing them. The point, presumably, was to be constantly aware of her value.

It struck Edie, quite suddenly, as a little disturbing – a display intended to reflect glory on the man who kept one, who bought one the diamonds. They felt like a collar.

‘Lord Deverell gave these to her?’ she asked, fingering them.

‘A wedding gift,’ replied Charles, fastening the clasp.

‘Why did she marry him?’

Charles laughed. ‘I think the answer is upon you, sweet one.’

‘I cannot believe that she is so mercenary.’

‘You do not want to believe it.’

‘No,’ Edie agreed, her voice low. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘What size shoe do you wear?’

‘A five.’

‘So does she. Let me find you some slippers.’

‘Charles,’ she said, stopping him en route to the dressing room.

He turned around, waiting for her question.

‘Do you hate her so much?’

His cheeks flamed and he gazed at her almost abstractedly, as if it were not really her that he saw.

‘I’m jealous of her,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s it. And angry at her.’

Edie waited for him to say more, but he did not, ducking instead into the dressing room and returning with a pair of dark-blue satin slippers.

‘Put these on,’ he said blandly, ‘and we’ll go. Tom will be waiting for us. I ought to do something with your hair, but I’m no coiffeur. I can brush it and pin it, but no more. It’ll have to do. Put a feather in it or something.’

He pinned a decorative jewel-clipped peacock feather into her neat housemaid’s bun and took her arm.

‘Now, shall we?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, pleading for respite with her eyes. ‘I feel that this is wrong. I’m terribly nervous of dining with your brother and his … friend.’

‘I’ve told you. You’ve nothing to fear from Tom.’

He put his arm around her waist and compelled her towards the door.

‘What if Giles talks?’

‘Do you think Giles wants the details of his real relationship with Tom uncovered?’

‘No, but all the same …’

‘But all the same nothing,’ said Charles resolutely. ‘We’re taking cocktails in the Blue Drawing Room. Giles will do the honours. He mixes a sensational highball.’

‘How long have you known?’ asked Edie, tripping down the stairs on Charles’s arm. ‘About Sir Thomas, I mean. And Giles.’

‘Ages. Before the end of the war. They were in the same unit, you know, at Wipers.’

‘Ypres?’

‘Yes, yes, Ypres.’

‘I see. Were you there?’

‘Yes. He left after getting his leg shot to pieces at the Somme. I stayed out there until ’18.’

‘You were lucky to survive.’

‘I don’t need you to tell me that.’

‘No, of course. I’m sorry.’

‘When Tom was invalided out, he asked me to look after Giles for him. I kept an eye out for him for the next two years, made sure he was never to the fore of the front line. So you see, you have nothing to fear from Giles. Nothing whatsoever. He’s absolutely to be trusted.’

‘Yes.’ Edie felt sobered and foolish, trying once more to imagine what these men had suffered during the horror of war. She had heard stories, mainly from her friend Patrick McCullen, for few of her father’s circle had been anywhere near the trenches. Patrick himself had gone to sea, but he had lost many of his boyhood pals to that barbed-wired patch of hell, and been told the brutal truth of things by those that survived. ‘I do see that.’

‘Good.’

***

They halted before the drawing room door, Charles putting a hand on Edie’s shoulder and sweeping a gaze of approval from her crown to her toes.

‘They’ll wonder whom I’ve invited,’ he murmured, pulling her in for a kiss.

Edie, too nervous of being seen by a stray member of staff, wriggled out of his embrace.

‘Let’s go in,’ she suggested.

She tried to keep a step or two behind Charles but he steered her forwards on his arm, towards the two dinner-jacketed men sitting at the far end of the room beneath an astonishingly huge depiction of a hunt.

Sir Thomas stood immediately and made a formal bow, Giles scrambling up in his wake and copying him.

‘May I present Miss Prior?’ drawled Charles.

‘I say, it’s Edie, the new girl,’ said Giles, but he was silenced by uncompromising glares from both Deverell brothers.

‘Miss Prior,’ repeated Charles. ‘Meet Mr Salter, Sir Thomas Deverell.’

‘Oh, I do beg your pardon,’ mumbled Giles, shamefaced. ‘How do you do, Miss Prior?’

Sir Thomas echoed the greeting, adding a ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’

Edie allowed each man to kiss her fingers, horribly aware of how they tried not to stare. It was clear that they were noting the resemblance between her and Lady Deverell.

‘What a beautiful gown,’ said Thomas faintly, backing away towards the drinks cabinet. ‘What would you like to drink?’

‘Whiskey sour for me,’ said Charles. ‘Edie?’

‘Oh, just … I don’t know. Something with orange juice, perhaps?’

‘A screwdriver?’

‘Lovely.’

She sat beside Charles on a deep leather sofa, opposite the other pair of lovers, sipping at the cocktail Sir Thomas had handed her.

‘Do you like Dublin Bay prawns, Miss Prior?’ asked Sir Thomas. ‘I believe a fresh catch was delivered this morning.’

‘I hardly know,’ she said. ‘I don’t eat much fish as a rule.’

The heaviness of the atmosphere pressed like a weight against Edie’s chest. A mass of unasked questions and unspoken assumptions thickened the air into an awkward soup.

Charles broke the silence, throwing back the last of his cocktail and replacing his glass on a solid mahogany occasional table.

‘Shall we speak freely?’ he said. ‘Miss Prior and I are both aware of the nature of your relations, and I daresay you could hazard an accurate enough guess as to the state of ours. Let us be a duet of respectable married couples for the evening, shall we? Or, preferably, bohemian lovers who have run away to Italy or somewhere of that kind.’

‘Suits me,’ said Giles, taking one of Sir Thomas’s hands and squeezing it. ‘It’s so tiring, all the bloody secrecy – pardon my French, Miss Prior.’

‘It must be,’ she said sympathetically. ‘And do call me Edie.’

‘How long has this little
tendresse
been going on?’ asked Thomas of his brother. ‘I did think something was in the wind, but did not care enough to enquire.’

‘Edie and I have an understanding,’ said Charles, getting up to mix himself another cocktail.

‘Oh, don’t say that, it makes me sound like a –’

Edie stopped short. What did it make her sound like? Somebody bought and paid for, somebody no better than she should be. Was that not, after all, what she was?

‘I don’t mean to insult you, my love,’ he said, returning with his second cocktail and lighting up a cigarette. ‘The understanding is that you tolerate my attentions because you’re an angel. And I give them because I can’t help myself. That’s right, isn’t it?’

He gave her a smouldering glance to match the glowing end of his cigarette.

‘Something like that, perhaps,’ she admitted. ‘But I’d make a very poor angel.’

‘Your hair’s like a halo,’ said Giles gallantly. ‘Such a colour. It’s just like –’

Sir Thomas patted his hand rather sharply, interrupting him.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Charles. ‘Mere mention of Lady Deverell isn’t enough to induce a choleric fit any more. I won’t say I’ve accepted her as papa’s wife quite yet, but I have other concerns with which to occupy myself now.’

‘Your objection to her was always more about having your nose put out of joint, anyway,’ said Thomas with an edge of malice.

‘Shut up, Tom.’

‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it?’

‘Talk about lousy timing,’ said Charles with a sigh. ‘I get back from the Front with a broken head and an infected graze wound and instead of parental sympathy and attention I’m left to my own devices while papa wines and dines actresses about town.’

‘Poor ickle Charley,’ said Thomas.

‘Did you not hear me when I told you to shut up?’ Charles’s words, though aggressive in themselves, were spoken with a weariness that took out much of the sting.

‘Well, I think Ruby Redford is good for pa,’ said Thomas, smiling slightly at the shaking of Charles’s head. ‘You’ve forgotten how he was after mama died. You were busy gadding about town, I know, but for those of us who stayed here at the Hall … well. He needed female company. He pined for it.’

‘There’s female company and there’s female company, Tom. Why couldn’t he have kept her in a little place in St John’s Wood, like any sane man would?’

Edie inhaled sharply.

‘Perhaps she had more pride than to accept such an arrangement,’ she said.

‘Yes, I daresay that was it. Pride. She had too much and pa didn’t have any.’

‘Perhaps you might try living her life before you condemn her.’

‘Yes, Edie, yes,’ he said, his cheeks flushed as he turned to her. ‘And perhaps you might try living mine.’

‘I can’t think of too many people who wouldn’t kill to swap places with you, actually, Charles,’ she said.

‘Damn them to hell if they would,’ he said. ‘Damn them if they’d kill. I’ve had my fill of killing.’

Dinner was a repressed affair, too much mannered passing of salt cellars and offers to pour wine, when what really needed pouring was oil on to the troubled waters. Edie felt ridiculous in the gown, hardly able to connect with her own self and thoughts. She certainly had not inherited her mother’s easy talent for slipping into alternative identities, even if she was closer, in her own life, to a lady than to a parlourmaid.

‘I suppose we can’t make Edie go out while the gentlemen remain for brandy,’ remarked Charles, giving her a languid flicker of a glance. He had barely spoken to her since the little spat over cocktails. ‘So you’ll have to tolerate the cigarette smoke and brandy. Perhaps we’ll have to tone down the off-colour anecdotes, eh, chaps?’

Giles laughed but Tom looked exasperated.

‘I think perhaps both of you should leave the room,’ he said. ‘And talk to each other.’

‘Oh, do you? Well, then, I’m taking the brandy with me.’

He picked up the decanter and stalked out towards the terrace.

Edie, tempted for a moment not to follow him in this mood, looked at the other two men, as if begging them for their advice.

‘He’s a spoiled child,’ said Tom. ‘Let him sulk.’

‘You don’t half look like her,’ blurted Giles suddenly. ‘In that get-up. Lady Deverell, I mean.’

‘Giles …’ demurred Tom.

‘I, er …’ Not knowing how to respond, Edie got up and swept away after Charles. At least, she intended to sweep, but she tripped on the hem of the gown and ended up staggering.

As she put her hand on the door, she heard Tom castigating his lover in a low tone, saying something about being more tactful. Of course, they would think that Charles’s relationship with her was some sort of obscure revenge against Lady Deverell. And why would they not, everything being as messy and complicated as it was?

He had put the decanter on the balustrade beside him. He did not turn around to greet Edie but remained in morose silence, gazing out at the darkened park and woods beyond.

‘Look,’ said Edie. ‘I didn’t mean to make light of your experiences at war. That was the last thing I would ever intend to do. I just think – and I’m clearly not alone – you should get over this bitterness you have towards my … towards
her
. It’s futile.’

He turned his face to her as she came alongside him.

‘They think this is about revenge,’ he said. ‘I should have realised they would.’

‘Isn’t it then?’

‘Edie,’ he said, sounding anguished. ‘If only it could be that simple. If only.’

‘That was what you wanted?’

‘At first. I admit it. I thought it would make me feel better.’

‘You callous bastard.’ Edie flared up with rage.

‘Yes, yes, I know. You looked so like her, like a younger, fresher, innocent version of her, and I knew it would wound her ego to see that she’d been put aside for you.’

‘It wounded more than her ego. She loves you. And I was to be a pawn in a twisted game. Well, thank you very much.’

Charles unstoppered the decanter and took a swig directly from the Waterford crystal neck.

‘You can hate me if you like, but it won’t come close to how much I hate myself. I hate myself and now I love you and it’s too much, too much, much too fucking much.’

He laid his head on the flat stone of the balustrade and covered his ears with his hands.

‘And you’re her daughter,’ he howled, muffled but still perfectly audible. ‘Dear God, help me.’

Edie, all her rage dissipated by his frank distress, put her hand on his back and rubbed it.

‘You really think you love me?’ she whispered.

He raised his head at that, and his eyes were bleary and a little bloodshot.

‘I know it,’ he said. ‘It’s the only thing I
do
know. You needn’t think you can make me give you up. I can give up anything else, but you have bagged me like a bloody grouse. The bullet’s in me, Edie, and it won’t come out.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, floundering.

‘Sorry, are you? Then get it out of me, Edie. Get the bullet out. Take it out. Do whatever you have to.’