Pandora (35 page)

‘My child? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

‘I only discovered I was pregnant after I’d left the gallery. I knew how much you adored Galena, how desperate you were to mend your marriage. I loved you so much, we’d had our one night – or perhaps two – of love together, then Galena came back and told you she loved you, I couldn’t break up your marriage.’

Anthea’s hairpiece woven with gold leaves and rubies was all askew like a fallen halo, her face streaked with blue mascara and eyeliner. Although she shivered frantically, sweat was darkening the armpits of her dress.

‘Galena would have gone bananas if she’d found out. So I gave my baby, my little Charlene up for adoption. I wanted to keep her so badly.’ Anthea clasped her tiny trembling hands to her face. ‘The adoption society were so fierce and disapproving, they said I’d be punished by God if I changed my mind. Mummy and Daddy had chucked me out. Oh Raymond . . .’ She was sobbing so much she had again become incoherent.

‘Oh my precious child.’ Raymond was crying too.

Dragging the blue checked duvet off the bed in his dressing room next door, he wrapped it round her shuddering little body.

‘Why didn’t you tell me when we got together again? We could have gone to court.’

‘I couldn’t do it to Charlene’s replacement parents. They’d sent me such a lovely letter and a beautiful shawl. I’ve still got it. I couldn’t break their hearts. I wanted to tell you so badly. Don’t think I haven’t cried every day inside.’

‘What a terrible secret you’ve had to keep.’ Raymond got out a purple silk handkerchief and wiped both their eyes. ‘But she’s come home, we’ve got all our lives to make it up to her. You can tell me the details later, but let’s go and meet her, and call the family into the library.’

‘But what about the party?’ wailed Anthea, quailing too at the prospect of her censorious stepchildren.

‘The caterers will keep the drink flowing. That lot have enough to squabble about till dawn anyway, and the band’s been paid double. Leave them to it.’

In the distance they could hear strains of ‘Hit me, baby, one more time’, and wild shrieks as a couple ran off across the lawn.

‘Oh Hopey, I can’t bear to think what you’ve been through.’

Anthea caught a glimpse of her red, swollen, grief-devastated face in the mirror. Nor could she.

‘I can’t cope with people at the moment,’ she whimpered, ‘I’m still in shock. Will you go and see her?’

‘Of course I will, don’t worry, wash your pretty face, and I’ll get Jean to bring you up a cup of tea.’

If Dr Reynolds had been invited, he was tempted to joke, he could have given Anthea a shot. He felt passionately relieved she was still his.

Buoyed up by champagne, a sense of adventure and the prospect of another daughter to love – what a wonderful seventy-fifth birthday present – Raymond went downstairs. There he found Green Jean, simultaneously avid to find out what was up and having difficulty keeping the team from
Oo-ah!
, who’d heard desperate sobbing, at bay.

‘Lady Belvedon is absolutely exhausted,’ Raymond told them firmly, ‘working her tiny self into the ground, making everything perfect for everyone else, so I’ve sent her to bed. I’m sure you’ve got enough material,’ he smiled at Harriet, ‘but if you need more, we can cobble it together tomorrow. And if you could bear to take her a cup of tea . . .?’ he added to Jean.

On the terrace, he met a stony-faced Jupiter.

‘Anthea’s told me, Jupe. Where’s your new sister?’

‘In the library.’

Neither of them noticed Barney, who’d been wondering what had become of Zac, lurking in the shadows.

Raymond almost danced across the hall.

‘“A fairy Prince with joyful eyes, And lighter-footed than the Fox,”’ he quoted happily as he slid into the library, which was one of the few rooms untouched by Anthea, and locked the door.

First editions, tall art books, leather-bound classics seemed to be falling out of their shelves in excitement. Characters in the paintings, which Anthea had banished from the rest of the house, and which included a Stanley Spencer miracle, and a homosexual threesome by John Minton, seemed about to abandon their activities to witness a more thrilling drama. Alone, on the faded threadbare crimson sofa, tiny as Anthea, huddled Emerald in her pretty dress, like a thrown-aside bunch of flowers. Her face was ashen, her eyes closed.

‘My dearest child, welcome home.’ Raymond’s voice was deep and tear-choked, then, in amazement: ‘Why, we’ve met before! I so hoped we’d meet again, where was it?’

‘At Rupert Campbell-Black’s,’ stammered Emerald. ‘You gave me your autograph. I had no idea that Anthea was my mother then. I hope you don’t . . .’

‘Of course I don’t.’

Raymond held out his arms; Emerald collapsed sobbing into them. Raymond’s handkerchief smelled faintly of Extract of Lime, his dinner jacket was wet with Anthea’s tears and streaked with her make-up. For a moment Emerald luxuriated in the warmth of his body, giddy with relief that he wasn’t angry.

‘You’re taking it so well,’ she mumbled, ‘I didn’t mean to upset Lady Belvedon, I hope it hasn’t wrecked your party, and it’s not too painful for you having her child rolling up.’

‘And
my
child too,’ said Raymond, proceeding to tell a flabbergasted Emerald that he was her father, and explain the nightmare through which Anthea had been. Emerald couldn’t take it in. For so long she’d imagined a father of Rupert Campbell-Black’s age, still fit and virile. Raymond must have been fifty when she was born. Now he was seriously old. But he was so kind, sitting beside her, his arm round her shoulders, patting her hand.

‘Anthea was only doing what she thought best for you, darling,’ he told her gently, ‘handing you over to a mother and father who longed for you and would adore you. When she and I finally got together after my first wife died, she felt she couldn’t disrupt your life. Anthea always puts other people first. You look so like her,’ he added, kissing her forehead.

‘May I see her?’ begged Emerald.

A minute later, Emerald and Anthea fell into each other’s arms.

Poor Raymond had the less fun task of breaking the news to the family. The party was thinning out, but a lot of people were still dancing and drinking. Rosemary Pulborough, having endured seeing her husband flirting or caballing all evening, was extremely glad to have an excuse to leave: escorting a very merry Aunt Lily back to her cottage.

‘I’d like to have said thank you to my brother and his wife,’ protested Lily, ‘but they appear to have vanished upstairs to renew their conjugal vows.’

At least Anthea isn’t with David, thought Rosemary wearily.

Earlier, Dicky Belvedon, as a result of all that waltzing and a skinful of champagne, had just finished being very sick in the lupins, when he heard raised voices carrying across the hot night air. Stealing down to the boathouse, he had overheard most of the row, including the exchange with Jupiter.

Bolting back to the marquee, he found his twin sister talking to Sienna. Jonathan had nodded off like the dormouse in
Alice in Wonderland
. Visitor was waddling up and down the table finishing up.

‘Where’s Mummy?’ asked Dora. ‘Everyone’s asking for her.’

‘Probably being photographed on the loo in a YSL nightie,’ said Sienna.

‘She was down at the boathouse,’ panted Dicky.

‘Whatever for?’ demanded Dora. ‘Ugh, you’ve got sick on your shirt.’

‘Some girl’s saying Mummy’s her mother,’ gasped Dicky.

‘What?’ Jonathan was awake in an instant.

‘That dark girl you were kissing, Jonathan, she was screaming at Mummy that Mummy was her mother. Then Jupiter barged in and the girl told Jupiter, and he asked Mummy, and she said it was true.’

‘Don’t tell such wicked lies,’ said Dora, going very red. ‘Mummy wouldn’t do it with anyone else. We’re her first born, she said so in the
Daily Mail
.’

Sienna, trying to hide her excitement, dropped a napkin in a jug of water and wiped Dicky’s shirt.

‘Are you quite sure, Dicko?’

‘Quite. Mummy ran up the hill crying, I couldn’t keep up with her, she lost a shoe.’ He held up a tiny blue high-heeled sandal.

‘Wow!’ said Jonathan in delight. ‘It’s like discovering the Virgin Mary’s slept with the entire Nazareth rugger team. A new little stepsister and such a pretty one. Alizarin!’ he yelled over the din of the band to his brother, who was snatching a few moments of conversation with Hanna. ‘Come and hear the latest, Anthea’s got a love child.’

Returning to the table, catching sight of Dicky and Dora, both near to tears, Alizarin told Jonathan to shut up.

‘Who’s going to ring Dempster?’ demanded Jonathan unrepentantly, waving to a waitress to bring another bottle. ‘You’d better, Al, you need the money more than me and Jupiter.’

Jupiter arrived next, also very pale, outraged at being tricked by Emerald but in control of himself.

‘You’ve obviously heard. Dad wants us all in the library in ten minutes.’

‘Then fill up our glasses,’ said Jonathan.

‘I suggest Hanna puts those two to bed.’ Jupiter nodded at Dicky and Dora.

‘It’s way past our bedtime,’ chorused the twins.

‘We’re coming too – or I’ll go and tell Harriet from
Oo-ah!
,’ threatened Dora.

‘Does that mean I’ve got two sisters? Oh yuck,’ groaned Dicky.

‘She’s only like a half-sister, like I am,’ explained Sienna. ‘You share the same father with me and the same mother with what’s she called?’

‘Emerald. And I know which half of her I want,’ said Jonathan evilly. ‘Alizarin can have the top half.’

The Belvedons’ delight at Anthea’s embarrassing lapse after her hogging the moral high ground for so long soon evaporated when Raymond, with tears in his eyes, imparted the joyful news that Emerald was his and Anthea’s child.

Alizarin, who’d been gazing at the Stanley Spencer, swung round.

‘How old is she?’ he demanded.

‘Twenty-six in July,’ said an unguarded Jupiter, remembering how he and Emerald had discussed both being born in Cancer during dinner.

There was a long pause. Dicky sidled towards the calculator on Raymond’s desk.

‘So you were shagging Anthea while you were married to Mum,’ said Alizarin bleakly. ‘Mum always swore you were. I never believed her.’

The others were jolted. Since Galena’s death, Alizarin had never spoken her name.

‘That means Emerald’s like three months older than me,’ said Sienna furiously.

Jonathan took a book of Sickert’s drawings off the top shelf. ‘Dad the stud,’ he drawled, ‘humping Mum and Anthea at the same time but still posing as the wronged husband.’

Raymond, appalled at such antagonism, stumbled on.

‘Your mother and I were going through a bad patch,’ he stammered. ‘Anthea came to the gallery and comforted me. I swear I only made love to her about once on the office sofa.’

‘You naughty man!’ said Dora in horror.

‘Galena, or rather your mother found out, not about the sleeping together, but that I was very fond of Anthea, so Anthea unselfishly left the gallery and only afterwards discovered she was expecting a baby and not believing in abortion—’

‘Correct-shun,’ interrupted an enraged Sienna, ‘what about the one she made me have when I was sixteen?’

‘My dear,’ said Raymond faintly.

‘Did you?’ Dicky looked up from his calculator in amazement.

‘You naughty woman!’ thundered Dora.

‘Anthea had the baby,’ ploughed on Raymond, ‘longed to keep little Charlene, but felt she couldn’t let the adopting parents down, and kept this terrible secret for twenty-five years.’

Three branches of purple lilac, shrivelled up in the heat, were shedding their petals on the polished table. Hanna sat with her head in her hands. Jonathan got up and poured himself three fingers of sloe gin.

‘That’s because you’re not the dad, Dad,’ he drawled. ‘It’s the tallest story from the shortest person I’ve ever heard. You may have pulled the assistant, but you’ve been conned. Emerald and that male model boyfriend, who’s a hood if ever I saw one, have cooked up the whole thing to get their thieving hands on some Belvedon cash.’