The Scarlet Thread (27 page)

“I hope you can trust him,” she said. “I feel rather uneasy about him now. Why shouldn't he try and cheat you in some way?”

Steven smiled down at her. “Because this job is his last chance. He'll never get a better opportunity. I've given him responsibility. I think I can trust him. So don't you worry. It'll work out fine for all of us. Now why don't we go up and try out our new bed?”

Upstairs, undressing her, he said, “Why don't we have another child?”

“If we go on like this, we'll have a dozen,” she protested.

He stroked her full breasts, molding them between his hands. “A girl next time,” he said, kissing them.

The curtains were open, and his body was silver in the light of a big cold moon. She drew him down and opened to him. “You're the sort that only has boys.”

It was taking shape. Even Angela could see the skeleton of the palace fleshing out. Every day she went with Steven, picking her way among the building materials, watching the plasterers and bricklayers moving from room to room, with carpenters repairing damaged paneling and doors. The marvelous ceilings were cleaned off and regilded, and the scaffolding was coming down from the facade.

Time passed quickly because there was so much to do. Maxton was everywhere, directing the work, closeted for hours with Steven, poring over plans and costs. Angela was designing color schemes. She'd turned one of the guest rooms into an office, pinning up samples and patterns. She traveled to Lyons to look at specially woven silks and velvets, and together she and Steven scoured antique shops along the coast: he didn't want modern reproductions in the grand salon. It was Maxton who persuaded him to invest in eighteenth-century Aubusson tapestries instead of pictures. Bad pictures wouldn't do, and genuine period works of art would cost a fortune. Tapestries were not fashionable and therefore cheaper. Maxton also had an eye for good furniture.

“How do you know so much about it?” Angela asked him once as he rejected a handsome black lacquer commode as a nineteenth-century copy of a Régence piece.

“Oh, we had a few nice things at home,” he said. “I suppose you get an idea when something's right. My mother was always banging on about it. Bored me stiff.”

“You must tell me about her one day,” Angela suggested.

He looked at her and smiled. “Not much to tell. She was quite sweet when you got to know her. Not that I and my brothers and sisters ever did till we were nearly grown up. We had full-time nannies.”

“How many brothers and sisters?”

“Two brothers, three sisters. All well married and respectable. Not a bit like me. Come and look at this. This is rather nice.”

He wouldn't talk about himself. Every attempt to draw him out was waved aside with a flip remark or a self-deprecating joke. He wouldn't let Angela come close, and yet she knew he liked her, as much as he disliked her husband. She couldn't explain why she sensed this, because the two men worked in harmony and were friendly on a superficial level.

Maxton was invited to dinner once a week. It was always on a Friday, at the end of a working week. And as he once said of someone else, he sang for his supper. He fed them scandals, named names, conjured up the great courtesans of the past and their rich protectors, and in the spring, when the coast began to come to life, he started introducing them to selected people.

He had an extraordinary memory for names and faces and could pinpoint the background and origin of anyone they met.

“You've got to start off on the right foot here,” he said. “We must make a campaign plan. It's called social climbing.” He laughed in his mirthless way. “The French are terrible snobs. And one never really gets to know them; not that you care. You want a good smart guest list to get our opening off the ground and some minor royals and film stars, and I'll have a go at getting Nettie Orbach to grace us with her presence. She always draws the press.”

“Who's Nettie Orbach?” Steven asked.

“Wasn't she a child bride or something?” Angela said.

“Quite right. Married some Bolivian at sixteen and went off with a few million smackers after a couple of years and hooked some Kraut prince with more millions. There've been five husbands in all, and she's on the prowl for number six. She eats gossip columnists for breakfast. And they just can't get enough of her. I'll see what I can do. Nettie does owe me a favor. More than one.”

“What sort of favor?”

“Nothing to worry about,” he told Steven. “She was in Monte a couple of years ago, and one of the paparazzi got hold of some photographs she didn't want published. I bought the negatives for her.”

Angela went back to England to collect Charlie and her father. They were coming out to spend Easter at the villa.

Hugh Drummond was reluctant to make the trip. He made excuses about leaving the house and the garden. Mrs. P. thought she was keeping an eye on him, but it was really the other way around. She was quite forgetful, he said, and might easily go off, leaving the gas on. Angela didn't take any notice. He wasn't a man you could bully, and she'd never known how to cajole him. She relied on Charlie to do that. And of course he came because his grandson urged him, and because he wouldn't see him otherwise during the holidays.

To Angela's surprise, Ralph Maxton had offered to fly back to England to bring her family out.

“But you hate flying,” she protested. “You said you did.”

“Not quite as much as you do,” he answered. “I'd be only too happy if it would help.”

“Wasn't that kind of him,” she said to Steven afterward. “I said no, of course. I've got to get used to small planes if we're going to live here for long periods. But I was very touched.”

“Yes, it was thoughtful. But he's paid to be thoughtful. He's paid to do whatever is needed. And very well paid, don't forget. So you don't have to be so grateful, or I'll get jealous,” he said teasingly.

She looked at him and laughed. “Oh, I wouldn't worry about Ralph, if I were you.”

It was a glorious spring. The villa gardens bloomed luxuriously, and Angela watched her son and his father play tennis and go riding in the hills together as the sunny days followed one another until the holiday was nearly over.

Her father preferred the garden and a book to the long walks she had associated with his spare time. He looked thinner, and she asked him if he was really as well as he maintained.

“Perfectly well.” He sounded irritable. “Don't know what you're fussing about. When will they get back, do you know?”

He missed the boy, and she could see that he was somewhat put out by Charlie's infatuation with his stepfather.

“They've gone down to look at the palace again. You
will
come and look round before we go back, won't you? I know Steven would like it.”

“Yes, all right. Not that it's going to mean anything to me. Must be costing a mint, by the way he was talking. Hope he knows what he's doing.”

“Oh, he knows,” she said. “One thing I've learned about Steven. He's got a head for business.”

“And you're happy,” he surprised her by saying. “You seem to be.”

“Daddy, you've no idea how happy I am with him. It just gets better and better. I wish you'd stay on here for a bit. Why don't you?”

“I've got to get home.” He shook his head. “The place'd go to pot if I wasn't there. That lazy old bugger John doesn't even weed the border at the front if I'm not after him. It's lovely here, and it's been very nice. Very nice indeed. But I'll be glad to sleep in my own bed. Ah, isn't that the car? They must be back.” He heaved himself up and went in search of his grandson.

Angela picked up his book, marked the page and placed it on his chair. Not so long ago she would have been hurt. But not now. She could be tolerant of the selfishness and insensitivity of old age because Steven's love was proof of her own worth. He had given her confidence in herself. She knew that her father loved her in his own way and within his capacity. He didn't have to show it, because Steven's love was enough. He's given me so much, she thought. Thank God I've given him Charlie. It helps to make it even. Then she got up and hurried out to find them.

“It's amazing, Mum,” her son said. “It's huge, isn't it? And so swish. Will I be able to have my friends over and take them along?”

“As soon as it opens,” his father promised. “You're coming to the opening, Charlie. You'll be there with your mother and me.”

“Have you fixed a date yet, Dad? When will it be ready?”

Steven had an arm around his son. He hugged him. “August,” he said. “At the height of the season. It'll be a gala evening, and I'm going to show them that anything the other casinos do, I can do better!”

“I bet you will,” Charlie declared. “I can't wait. Isn't it exciting, Grandpa? You haven't seen it yet!”

“No. But you tell me when, Steven, and I'd like to—er—have a look at what's going on. Is that chap Maxton coming round this evening? He plays a damned good game of piquet.”

It was odd how well her father got on with Ralph Maxton. They played old-fashioned games that Angela had barely heard of, and Ralph managed to let the doctor win. Steven thought it was amusing and rather spoiled the picture by telling her that Ralph had been a notorious cardsharp in his early years.

“When he wanted money he played bridge. If he wasn't winning, he palmed the cards. But he's being kind to your father, and that's good.”

Hugh Drummond was impressed by him. “He's a gentleman,” he said to Angela. “It makes all the difference. I know that place in Derbyshire. I went there one year when your mother and I were on a walking tour. Magnificent house. They're the old aristocracy. He's a very charming chap. Very charming.”

It made her smile to realize that her father was a snob.

“You know, Ralph,” Hugh Drummond said to him one evening, “I've really enjoyed my time out here. I didn't want to come at all.”

They'd finished their piquet, and the doctor was lighting a pipe before bedtime. Steven, Angela and Charlie had gone for a late swim.

“I'm glad you did,” Maxton said. “And the weather does make a difference. I always found the rain so depressing at home.”

“Never noticed it,” Hugh said. “Don't like it too hot myself. Funny, that's just what Steven said when he stayed with us at home. He didn't like the English weather. I suppose most Americans feel like that. I was rather annoyed, to be honest.”

He leaned a little toward Maxton. He felt mellow and in the mood to confide. It was a rare impulse for him, and a sign of age, as he reminded himself. Old men turned into chatterboxes if they weren't careful. But it was pleasant to speak one's mind now and again.

“I wasn't all that struck by him at first,” he said. He puffed happily away on his pipe.

“Oh?” Maxton was careful; curious, but cautious not to say anything critical of his employer that might be repeated. “Why not?”

“Too foreign,” Hugh Drummond said. “Not just American, but rather sort of … Italian. I suppose it was because of the name I thought of him like that. After he changed it to Lawrence, it was easier. Silly how a detail can make so much difference.”

“I suppose so,” Maxton answered. Changed his name. So he wasn't Steven Lawrence. He smiled easily at the old man.
Careful now. It's none of your business if he calls himself something else. You've got a long nose, Ralph, as your old bitch of a nanny used to say, twisting the end of it to make you cry. So don't go sticking it into other people's business
.

“Lawrence is a good old-fashioned name,” he said after a pause. “Was it difficult to pronounce—his real name, I mean? I had a Polish friend who called herself Browning because nobody could get their tongue around the Polish. Can be a nuisance for a businessman.”

“Yes, I bet it can,” Hugh Drummond agreed. “It wasn't a real tongue twister: Fal-something-or-other; can't quite remember, because I hardly ever heard it. But I must say, he's made Angela very happy. And he loves my grandson; that means a lot to me. One more hand, Ralph, before I take myself off to bed?”

“Why not?” Ralph agreed. “I expect you'll beat me again.”

When the doctor had gone up to his room, Ralph let himself out and drove down to his flat on the coast. Lawrence wasn't Lawrence. Odd. Then he firmly dismissed his curiosity.
Nothing to do with you. If he wanted you to know, he'd have told you. Stay in line, Maxton. Stay snug in this extremely agreeable gravy train and mind your own business
.

The time came for packing up and going home, and Steven came with them. They spent a few days in the house at Haywards Heath. It was cool and it rained.

Steven said, “Darling, I'm missing the sun. Let's go home.”

She realized that she was missing it too. Missing the villa, which seemed less than ever like a rented house; missing the excitement of helping him create the new casino.

“I'll tell Daddy. He won't mind, now that Charlie's gone back to school.”

“It would make sense if he moved over with us,” Steven said. “I think you worry about him, don't you?”

“A little bit. He's got very old suddenly. But he wouldn't dream of it. He's a very self-contained man, very independent. He wouldn't be happy out of his own environment. But thank you for offering.” She reached up and gave him a kiss. “I do love you,” she said, and then hurried out to find her father.

The maid, Maria, watched Clara. She was frightened of her mistress. She had such bad moods, when she lost her temper and shouted for no apparent reason. She was always finding fault. She prowled around the house like a caged tigress—restless, bored, unhappy. No husband and no children, Maria thought sourly. All her beauty treatments couldn't soften that face. And she couldn't find herself another man yet. It wouldn't be proper. Maria missed Steven Falconi. He was a real Don, like his father. A good man, kind to his own people. A man you respected. She wondered if she could go and see Don Lucca and ask if she could get a job with someone else.