The Flower Garden

by Margaret Pemberton

  Syrie suppressed a smile. ‘Luke Golding, the author, is here with Lady Bessbrook. Apparently Lady Bessbrook has been looking very unhappy lately and from a remark of Mr Golding’s that I overheard when he was talking to Sonny Zakar, the film producer, he finds Nancy hypnotically alluring.’

  ‘If all this is true …’ The two pieces of card clicked savagely against his nails. ‘… maybe we should act differently.’

  ‘Her clear green eyes sharpened. ‘In what way?’

  ‘A divorce. On this sort of evidence I couldn’t possibly emerge the loser.’

  ‘No.’ Now it was Syrie who rose to her feet and began to pace the floor. ‘A divorced man would never be acceptable as president. No matter what the circumstances.’

  ‘What if she wanted a divorce? She says she’s in love with Sanford, and she knows about my affaire with you. If she wants to marry this half-breed playboy then she’ll need a divorce first.’

  ‘And have her name splashed over the world’s press with details not only of her affaire with Sanford, but also of those with Vasileyev and Meldon and innuendos as to scores of others? No. Nancy isn’t such a fool. Besides, if she’d wanted a divorce she would have asked for one before now.’

  ‘Then what do I do?’ Jack’s face was contorted with frustration and helpless rage. ‘I have to have a wife beyond reproach. One hint of this and everything I’ve worked for is finished.’

  ‘You separate her from Sanford. A week, two at the most, will do it. I looked up all his old press cuttings before we left. His affaires are always torrid and short-lived. As one lady moves out, another moves in.’

  ‘That I can well believe,’ Jack said bitterly. ‘But how do I separate them? Ask nicely? He’s not a beach boy, Syrie. I can’t pay him off. He has more millions than he knows what to do with.’

  ‘We dope her,’ Syrie said calmly. ‘We dope her and remove her from the hotel under sedation. We make her believe that she’s ill and we separate them neatly and easily and without fuss.’

  ‘What do we dope her with?’ Jack’s acquiescence was immediate.

  ‘Morphine-sulphate. It’s odourless and can be put in her drink. Once she’s semi-conscious we can inject her with an even stronger dose and that will induce a twilight sleep that will keep her unconscious until we reach Washington. And we can keep on giving it for as long as is necessary.’

  ‘What about Sanford?’

  ‘Sanford will have forgotten her in a week. Skilfully done, we can convince Nancy that she is genuinely ill. Her being ill, even if it’s for a long period, will have no effect on your chances of becoming president. Rather the reverse. It will get you a certain amount of sympathy. Roosevelt will serve another term after this. We’ve reconciled ourselves to that. But your turn will come eventually, Jack. You have very powerful men behind you. Men who want you to be president. The ultimate goal is one well worth waiting for. We must continue to plan and then, when the time is right, seize our chance.’

  He crossed the room and took her in his arms, kissing her fiercely.

  ‘Why the hell couldn’t you have been born the daughter of Boston’s mayor instead of Nancy?’

  ‘Because I was born the daughter of a miner,’ Syrie retorted, and he was too relieved at seeing a solution to his problem to notice the bitterness in her voice.

  She knew Jack Cameron better than he knew himself. She would have made a far better wife for him than Nancy. Nancy endured public life but did not enjoy it. Given the chance, Syrie would have revelled in it. She was naturally political. Nancy, for all her upbringing, remained aloof from the hurly-burly of the hustings. The intrigue and ruthlessness necessary for survival in the political arena left Nancy cold. She found such things distasteful. If she had known half the things her husband had done to further his career she would have been physically ill. Syrie had no such qualms. For the first twelve years of her life she wished she had been born a boy, and then she had come to terms with the cruelty of fate and used her sex to her advantage.

  She knew Jack’s flaws and weaknesses as well as his strengths. That he had lived with Nancy for seventeen years with so little knowledge of her was a frightening revelation. Usually his perception, if not his sensitivity, was acute. It was a good job that she had been the only witness to the debacle of the last few days. Syrie had been in Washington long enough to have gleaned the fact that a good president did not have to be superhuman or even perfect. He simply had to have the innate ability to choose sound advisers. Often the truly influential men were nondescript and without charisma. The president was the figurehead. He needed to look and act like a great leader. Jack had presence and charm and a wilyness that often took her by surprise; which is why his reaction to Nancy’s defection had been so out of character. Perhaps no man truly knew his wife, or wife her husband. Syrie had no idea. Marriage had never formed part of her plans for the future.

  Jack, his problem resolved, had disappeared into the bathroom. She sat at the dressing table and gazed at herself in the triple mirrors.

  They had been at Sanfords for forty-eight hours. In that time not once had she been able to emerge as Jack’s equal. Empty-headed socialites without the ability to pen a grammatical letter, had avoided her like the plague. She was neither fish nor fowl. She fell into no easy category. She was not a servant, a maid or a chauffeur. She was not even simply a secretary. She was Senator Jack Cameron’s personal assistant – whatever that meant. Whatever it was, it was simply a position: a post. Syrie Geeson was an employee and was to be treated as such. Syrie sat alone and watched and listened and built up a store of hatred against several members of her sex and nationality that would not soon be forgotten. Her day would come and then how they would crawl. Without her say-so there would be no admittance to the White House balls, to the lavish dinners and the grand receptions. She stared glittering-eyed into the mirror, no longer seeing her own reflection. Instead, she saw herself standing on the inaugural platform a few feet from Jack. She was chic and poised and there was no other woman at Jack’s side. Nancy was long dead. How, when or where, Syrie did not know. But she knew that when Jack placed his hand on his family Bible and took the presidential oath, she would be the wife at his side. In her imagination she heard the crowd’s adulation and it was not wholly for Jack. It was for her, Syrie Geeson, the daughter of a coal miner from Pittsburgh. Syrie had discovered long ago that everything could be put to good use. That handicaps could be turned to advantages. The world was changing though the cossetted and pampered inmates of Sanfords seemed blissfully unaware of it. The old order would be gone for ever in the upheaval that was about to overtake them. The world of the rich and royal was about to disappear, and when it did Syrie believed it would disappear for ever. There would be a new order and the American public would be more than ready to accept a woman from their own ranks as First Lady. A woman they could identify with. The cheers and clapping grew louder and she closed her eyes, her orgasm coming deeply and satisfyingly where she sat.

  There was a knock at the door and Nancy entered. Seeing her through the mirror Syrie at first thought it was her ghost, her imagination had taken her so vividly and clearly into the future. She rose to her feet, disconcerted.

  Nancy smiled, moving with the ease and self-assurance that, it seemed to Syrie, only wealth from birth could ever bring.

  ‘I hope you are enjoying your trip, Syrie. Where is it after Madeira? Gibraltar? Or did you call there on your way here?’

  ‘Athens, I think,’ Syrie said, recovering her composure and hating herself for having lost it.

  ‘Then do me a favour and make sure Jack travels with you. His continued presence here is making things very difficult. For him, not for me.’ The soft, throaty voice held only sincerity.

  ‘Jack isn’t the one whose reputation will suffer,’ Syrie said boldly. If Nancy Leigh Cameron wanted plain speaking she would be only too happy to oblige.

  ‘No,’ Nancy said, ‘but his career will suffer if my reputation is tarnished.’
r />   ‘What difference would his going away make? You haven’t been keeping your affairs secret.’

  ‘Nor you,’ Nancy said pointedly. ‘At least not any longer.’

  ‘Whatever Jack has told you, I can assure you there is no truth in it.’

  ‘Then you’re not his mistress?’

  ‘No.’ Syrie’s ice-green eyes met Nancy’s with ease.

  ‘The lady in Cohasset will be relieved to hear it,’ Nancy said drily.

  ‘What lady in Cohasset?’

  ‘The one he visits when he tells you he’s visiting me.’

  Syrie laughed. ‘I’m not so easily caught as that, Mrs Cameron.’

  ‘No, I dare say you’re not. Neither are you quite as clever as you think. I may not love Jack, but I’m extremely fond of him. I’d like to see him being loved for himself and not for his position in life.’

  ‘I don’t think anything further can be gained from this conversation,’ Syrie said and marched rather than walked from the room. The door closed loudly behind her.

  ‘What the hell …?’ Jack said, emerging from the steaming bathroom with a towel around his waist.

  ‘Syrie,’ Nancy said smoothly. ‘She’s wisely terminated our rather fruitless conversation.’

  The thought of any conversation between Syrie and Nancy made Jack feel ill.

  ‘I didn’t expect you for another fifteen minutes.’

  ‘No. I gathered that.’ Her voice was so pleasant and soft that he wasn’t sure whether there was a hidden barb in her words or not. With only a towel for covering he felt at a psychological disadvantage.

  ‘Pour yourself a drink while I dress,’ he said, trying to sound master of the situation.

  ‘Where’s Shelby? Did you lose him between New York and Funchal?’

  ‘He’s aboard the Aquitania. I didn’t want him knowing what was going on. No employee is ever trustworthy.’

  ‘Maria is.’

  ‘You’re naive, Nancy. You always have been.’

  ‘No.’ She poured herself a fresh orange juice. When it came to retrieving precious stones from the hearts of flowers, she trusted Maria a darn sight more than she would have trusted Jack. His fingers would have been yellow with pollen dust.

  When he re-emerged, struggling with his own bow tie, she went across and helped him. He was buoyant and confident again, full of boyish charm.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve reconsidered, Nancy. It’s time we took a trip together. When was the last one?’

  ‘Our honeymoon,’ Nancy said with a faint trace of amusement. ‘And I haven’t reconsidered.’

  ‘Sure you have.’ He was cajoling. ‘Think of your name. Think of my future. Think of your father’s health. Think of Verity.’

  ‘You really are pulling out all the stops, aren’t you?’ Nancy said, her amusement fading to be replaced by a wave of deep depression. ‘Why won’t you simply listen to me Jack, and believe what I say?’

  ‘Because it’s crazy. You’re behaving like Marisa what’s-her-name who fights the bulls. You’re Nancy Leigh Cameron and before that you were Nancy Leigh O’Shaughnessy. You come from strong religious Bostonian stock.’

  ‘My grandparents were lace-curtain Irish,’ Nancy said, her amusement returning. Jack always chose to forget what he had no wish to remember. He was making her sound like a Winthrop or a Whitney.

  ‘New England doesn’t breed nymphomaniacs,’ Jack said authoritatively.

  Her mouth twitched and she raised her eyebrows. ‘Am I to understand that I now fall into that category?’

  ‘No, of course you don’t. Though to listen to what some people are saying …’

  ‘What are they saying?’

  Jack squirted soda into a generous measure of scotch.

  ‘That it isn’t only Sanford that you have been screwing around with, but Meldon and Vasileyev as well.’

  ‘Why do you have to use such coarse expressions, Jack? Screwing is a horrible word. Why not simply say “making love”?’

  ‘Hell, Nancy,’ Jack said with rising irritation. ‘Stop splitting hairs. They’re both the same thing.’

  ‘They’re not. There’s a world of difference between them.’

  ‘If there is, I don’t see it.’

  ‘No. I know you don’t.’ Her voice was sad.

  ‘Well the least you can do is be angry and deny it.’

  ‘No I can’t, because it’s true. At least, where Nicki is concerned.’

  Jack stared at her incredulously. ‘You’ve only been here a God-damned week!’

  ‘I was lonely.’

  ‘Lonely? There are a hundred people here! How on earth can you be lonely in a crowd of people?’

  ‘Easily.’

  He shook his head uncomprehendingly. ‘I don’t understand you, Nancy. I don’t feel I even know you.’

  ‘You never did know me, Jack. You never took the time or the trouble to get to know me.’ Exasperation and helplessness crept into her voice. ‘We’re going round in circles, Jack. This is the same ground we covered yesterday.’

  ‘And we’re going to cover it again tonight. I want you aboard the Aquitania with me. I’m …’ He searched for the right words. He had a professional speech-writer in Washington. He could have done with him now. ‘… I’m concerned about you.’

  She laughed weakly. ‘For goodness sake, Jack. When have you ever been concerned with anyone else? With their sins, their griefs, their happiness? Your only concern is yourself and the future you envisage.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘It is. That future may never materialize, Jack. There’s a thousand obstacles between even the most favoured candidate for the presidency, and the deciding election. I wish you weren’t so sure of it. There’s no humility in you, no room for self-doubt.’

  ‘No weakness,’ he added for good measure.

  She was about to tell him that there was a lot of weakness but stopped herself in time.

  ‘I just don’t want to see you at sixty, your life’s ambition unfulfilled, and nothing, not even a family, for comfort.’

  As soon as she had said it she realized the idiocy of it. According to Henry Lorrimer, she would not be around in six months’time, let alone when Jack was sixty.

  ‘The only obstacle between me and my lifetime’s ambition is you.’ His voice was no longer cajoling. He was on the verge of anger. He checked himself in time. ‘What can Sanford give you that I can’t?’

  ‘Love.’

  ‘If Ria Doltrice is to be believed, he’s given that to half the women in Europe already!’ There was a limit to human patience and he had reached it. The fact that Nancy remained perfectly calm only incensed him further. He took three deep breaths and tried again. ‘You didn’t like it when I made love to you!’

  ‘You made love to me only with your body.’

  ‘How else does anyone make love?’ he shouted exasperatedly.

  ‘With their hearts.’

  There was no reciprocal anger in her voice – not even any irritation; only the profound sadness he had caught traces of before.

  ‘What the devil do you think I was doing?’

  She didn’t want to answer him. It was a long time before she replied.

  ‘Masturbating, Jack,’ she said quietly. ‘When you were making love to me you were making love to no one. You don’t know how.’

  His face paled and he was shaking. ‘Don’t you ever, ever use such filthy language to me!’

  Jack, who blasphemed at every other word when not in public! If it wasn’t so tragic it would have been laughable.

  She put down her empty glass of orange on the drinks trolley and moved towards the door. ‘You’re right, Jack, I shouldn’t use any language to you. We don’t speak the same one and we never have done.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ He caught her wrist.

  ‘To Ramon.’

  ‘A million dollars,’ he said.

  She blinked.

  ‘A million dollars if you return to Washington as i
f nothing had happened and behave as you always did.’

  She stared at him and fought down rising nausea. It seemed impossible that she could ever have believed herself in love with him. Her head throbbed and her limbs ached. It was as if Jack’s very presence was enough to trigger off all the symptoms of her illness.

  ‘No,’ she said, and her voice seemed to come from a long distance away. There was pressure behind her eyes and a curious buzzing noise in her ears.

  ‘Nancy …’

  ‘No, Jack. I’m sorry.’ Unsteadily she moved past him towards the door.

  ‘Nancy!’ He caught hold of her arm and swung her round and as he did so the blood began to pour.

  ‘Nancy!’ He fumbled urgently for his handkerchief but it was too late. By the time she had clutched it to her nose, her silk white dress was spattered with ugly, spreading stains.

  ‘Nancy, for the love of God …’

  She was choking on blood. It ran through her fingers, trickling down her bare arms. As Jack stood horror-struck, she pushed past him, rushing into the bathroom, her face a bloody, unrecognizable mask.

  When Ramon hammered on the door and flung it open Jack almost felt relieved to see him.

  ‘Nancy,’ he said inarticulately, a shower of red seeping into the pristine whiteness of his shirt.

  Ramon took in his shock, the sight and smell of blood, the table lamp that had fallen in Nancy’s panic-stricken dash, and wasted no words.

  He hurtled into the bathroom, calling out as he did so, ‘Ring for the doctor, for Christ’s sake!’

  Dazed, Jack obeyed. ‘A nosebleed,’ he heard himself saying. ‘A nosebleed …’ Then he gazed in disbelief through the open bathroom door to where Nancy hung over the washbasin. There was so much blood it looked like a world war battlefield. Ramon had turned the cold tap on full and plunged Nancy’s wrists into the icy water. The blood continued to flow and the water foamed a ghastly red as he soaked a towel in its depths and pressed it against her forehead.

  ‘It’s all right, darling. It’s all right.’ His voice was low and calm and even to Jack, reassuring.

  Sanford would sort it out. Sickness and accidents were not in his line. The sight of blood turned his stomach. His face registered distaste as he slipped off his jacket and began to remove his marked shirt. She had given him her answer and he had made his decision. The morphine-sulphate it would have to be.