An Absolute Scandal

by Penny Vincenzi

  “You’re not, are you?” he said. “What is it, what’s the matter?”

  “Oh, nothing. Nothing serious anyway.”

  “Good. Well, I’ll call Simon now and get a bit more of a lowdown on his situation.”

  “Great. Well—” And then she thought of how extremely unlikely it was that she would speak to Simon ever again, and that made her feel terribly sad too, and this time the tears did start, and there was no stopping them, and no stopping Joel hearing them either.

  “Hey,” he said, “there is something wrong. Want to tell me about it? I owe you, that’s for sure. I’m free after work. Or do you have to get home?”

  “No,” she said, sniffing loudly, misery making her horribly truthful. “I don’t have to get home. There’s nobody there.”

  “Great,” he said. “Criterion suit you? At about six thirty?”

  “I really shouldn’t,” she said.

  “Nor should I. So let’s. Bye, Debbie. See you later.”

  Now why in God’s name had he done that? Very, very silly. Getting involved with a married woman. A not entirely happily married woman, if Simon was to be believed. Not that Joel was getting involved; he was just having a drink with her…

  Debbie spent most of the afternoon picking up the phone to cancel the arrangement, and then putting it down again.

  Chapter 31

  JULY 1990

  Annabel and Jamie were sitting on the beach in front of the Cartwright house on Cape Cod. Annabel loved Cape Cod, loved everything about it, its great stretches of white beaches, and long-grassed dunes, the woods, the cranberry swamps, the fishing villages, and the wild salty wind that filled the air. The house was charming, all sanded floors, white walls and brick fireplaces and French windows everywhere, opening onto the lovely air.

  It was “furnished comfy” as Jamie put it, lots of wicker chairs and low tables and carefully casual painted furniture; a verandah ran round three sides of it, there was a deck at the front, right on the beach, and a lush garden, with hammocks slung between the trees.

  “If I die and go to heaven, I shall expect it to be just like this,” Annabel told Frances, wandering round, her eyes shining; Frances smiled at her graciously and said she was glad she liked it.

  “Of course, the area’s not what it was, so touristy now, and the marshlands are constantly under threat; my husband gives a lot of money every year to the grass-planting project.”

  “This is where the Pilgrim Fathers first settled, you know,” said Jamie. “Well, not exactly here, of course, up there on the northernmost tip, near Truro. We can go there tomorrow if you like.”

  “I would like,” said Annabel.

  It was a different world down here; the Cartwrights all became easier, less watchful of one another. Even Frances’s hair seemed to relax a little. The days slipped by in an easy, sunlit chain, each one as happy as the one before. Hugely and happily energised, Annabel demanded Jamie took her everywhere; they rode the cycle trails, wandered the villages, walked through the dunes and the salt marshes, went on a whale-watching cruise, and crewed for Dana and Bif for two wonderful days.

  “This is the nearest to flying you’ll get on this earth,” Bif shouted at her, as they leaned backwards over the side of the boat, hanging onto the sail sheets, and indeed it was exactly like that, she thought, looking up at the tall sails and the blue sky and the clouds scudding beyond them. She suddenly thought of her father selling the Lizzie and realised how dreadful a loss it was.

  By the end of the week, she had eaten so much seafood in the endless fish restaurants and bars that she said she would turn into a fish. “A mermaid would be nicer,” Jamie said. That was at lunchtime though—even here there were strict Cartwright rules. Philip cooked every night on the barbecue; there was no question of going to a restaurant except on the last night.

  She didn’t mind that so much; it was very different from the formality of the dining room in Boston; they sat at a long table on the verandah, or the beachside patio, and felt the warm wind grow colder and then went inside and played games—Scrabble and backgammon—before being allowed up to bed. Even that was easier here; Frances seemed to have accepted their relationship: their rooms were side by side, with only a bathroom dividing them. And besides, she had grown used to the family by now. Being with them was like belonging to a club, and you knew you had to keep to its rather archaic traditions and customs, otherwise there was no point joining. And it was actually a nice club, close and rather protective; members were watchful for one another, wary of strangers, generous to those they had accepted.

  And she had been accepted, in spite of the terrible first night, and she felt almost one of them by that last evening, as they sat at a long table in one of the endless local seafood restaurants, laughing, teasing one another, tired out by the fresh air and the sun; she was between Bif and Jamie, and Philip twinkled across the table at her.

  “We shall miss you, Annabel. Shame you can’t stay.”

  “I wish I could,” she said, and meant it from the bottom of her heart. She had to leave at midday, to catch her flight from Boston in the evening; the last night with Jamie was sweetly sad. They made love rather quietly and gently, their bodies now easily familiar, and then lay in each other’s arms, and the last thing she heard him say as she drifted off to sleep was, “How am I going to get through the rest of the summer without you?”

  She remembered thinking it would be easier for him, with the cool white beaches and brilliant skies to console him, but was too sleepy to say so; she slept dreamlessly and woke up to find him sitting up looking at her.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said, “so lovely. I’m going to miss you so much. Look at what colour you are, pale honey,” and he picked up a tress of her long sun-streaked hair and kissed it, kissed her hands, her breasts, her flat brown stomach. She felt something close to grief. Jamie had become part of her, part of herself.

  “Oh Jamie,” she said, “I can’t bear it, I can’t be without you, it’s horrible even to think about. We’ve been so happy and now we’re going to be so unhappy.” And she looked at days, at weeks, at months without him, without him holding her hand and kissing her and making love to her and talking to her and laughing with her, looked at being alone and lonely and it was impossible to see any point in any of it.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” he said, and they got dressed and walked down the garden and onto the beach. It was very early—“Only six o’clock,” she said, surprised, and she gazed into the distance across the water, the distance that was another place in every sense, where she had to go, where she would be so very alone, and she started to cry. That was when Jamie said he wanted to ask her something.

  He had even bought a ring, a diamond ring, from Shreve, Crump & Low, he told her, and indeed gave her the box; she sat staring at it, on her finger, on the proper finger, laughing and crying at the same time.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m engaged to you, that you know you want to marry me.”

  “Of course we have to wait a while,” he said. “You’re so young, your parents don’t even know me, I’m only just qualified. It will be at least a year, probably two, but I wanted to get it settled. I wanted to know I had you, that you were really, really mine.”

  “I’m really, really yours,” she said, smiling, kissing him. “Make no mistake about that.”

  And then thoughts began to come into her head. “Jamie,” she said, and she felt oddly frightened suddenly, “have you told your parents?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you wanted it first. But they’ll be so pleased, they love you, they all love you, and—”

  “Could you not tell them? Could it be our secret—just for now? I want to go away from here today with only us knowing. It will help me, help me not mind so much. I don’t want fuss and celebrations today; it would be too much, too difficult. This is our day, our very own; and it’s not so sad now, it’s a special, special day. Let’
s keep it that way, can we?”

  He was clearly disappointed. “I wanted us to tell them together,” he said.

  “But are you sure they’ll be pleased? Won’t they think we’re too young and all that?”

  “No, no,” he said, “we have a tradition in our family for marrying young. Bif was only twenty-two when he and Dana got engaged, and Kathleen only twenty. And Father was only twenty-two when he married Mother. Who was only twenty. So they’ll think it’s totally normal. I’m not worried about that at all.”

  She digested this for a moment, this dutiful following in the Cartwright family tradition, and her being an appropriate part of that, and then said, “Maybe we can tell them together, but another time, another day. Please, Jamie. It’s about us, isn’t it? Just us?”

  “Well, not really,” he said. “It’s about our families too.”

  “Yes. But it’s us who love each other, us who are going to get married. My God. I can’t believe that. You and me, getting married. How very grown-up.”

  “Very grown-up, yes,” he said, and laughed. “My lovely Annabel. You are just so perfect. The perfect Mrs. James Cartwright.”

  Just for a second then, the sliver of a second, she felt—what? Alarm. No, not alarm, but nerviness. Not at the thought of being Annabel Cartwright, but of being Mrs. James Cartwright. And of having to be a perfect Mrs. Cartwright, like Frances, like Dana, like any of them. A perfect member of this perfect clan. Because that is what she’d have to be. And it might be…difficult.

  And then it passed, as swiftly as it had come.

  Flora and Richard were just finishing supper when the phone rang. “Do you mind, darling, if I take it? I think I know who it is.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Ah,” he heard her say, “Edward. Yes, thank you, how nice of you to call…Well, as I said, anything you could do…Oh. Oh, I see. Well, even advice would be helpful. Yes, very. I mean, do I have to sell the house, for instance, or…look, I’m busy at the moment, but I’m coming up to town again next week, probably on Wednesday. Maybe we could meet then. I could even buy you a return lunch, to show my gratitude…What?…Oh well, that’s very kind. Look, I’ll call you after the weekend, when my plans have firmed up a little…Yes. Fine. Thank you, Edward.”

  “So was it who you thought?” said Richard.

  “It was indeed. Nasty little rat, responsible for all my troubles.”

  “You weren’t talking to him as if he was a nasty little rat.”

  “No, I know. I’m being a bit devious. Think I might be able to get some information out of him, which might help Simon Beaumont in this lawsuit he’s mounting.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “He was William’s cousin. If he was a relative of mine, I’d disown him. Dreadful man. Oily, self-satisfied little creep.”

  Richard had avoided so much as mentioning Simon; had simply told his mother that Debbie was working all week and it would be immensely helpful if the children could come down two days early. But now…

  “You seem to know Beaumont rather well,” he said.

  “Quite well. I’m very fond of him. He’s been a tower of strength through this whole thing, and not just to me. Nothing gets him down, it seems; although he’s been fired now from Graburn and French—the bank he works for. Very harsh, that. Poor Simon. Something to do with his contract and bringing the bank into disrepute.”

  “Shame,” said Richard. He sounded singularly unsympathetic, even to himself.

  Flora looked at him. “He’s not really your sort of person, I know. Your father wouldn’t have liked him very much. Bit flashy, he’d have said. But as I say, I have grown fond of him. And he’s helped many people. Given that poor girl Catherine Morgan a job at his bank, advised another man who’d tried to kill himself, can you imagine. And of course he’s Tilly’s father, so I would feel fondly towards him. And he is very charming, very good company.”

  This was more than he could bear, having to listen to praise being heaped on Simon Beaumont’s head.

  “I’ll just—just go and see the kids,” he said, “make sure they’re OK. If you don’t mind.”

  “Of course, darling.”

  “And then I’ll come and help you clear up.”

  “No need. You look tired. Have an early night, why don’t you?”

  He did feel tired. He wasn’t sleeping, and a terrible paralysis seemed to have overtaken him. He had to phone Morag Dunbar, say something; if only that he wasn’t coming. Or that he would be coming up alone. Or…

  “No. No, I’ll come down again in a minute.” He did; she had made him some of the hot chocolate he loved.

  “There you are. Lots of sugar in it. Like your father didn’t allow. I do lots of things he didn’t allow these days. It helps.”

  “Do you still miss him so much?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Oh Mother.” He looked at her, his grey eyes so exactly like his father’s, very concerned. “You shouldn’t be so—so brave. It makes us forget. Well, no not forget, but forget to worry about you.”

  “Richard, I’m fine. You know I am.”

  “You’re not really though, are you?” he said. “You’ve got this awful thing to cope with, all on your own. I’m so sorry. I wish I could be with you more.”

  “Oh Richard, don’t be ridiculous. You have your own life. And I’m very happy, really I am. Apart from all this wretched business, of course. Now look, would it be OK with you, and Debbie of course, if I get Mrs. Connor to look after the children just for one day next week? She’s very firm with them, I promise, and she knows them all. And Tilly will be here, she’s very sensible, and extremely grown-up. It really is important to me, this meeting.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said. “Of course it is. Do you really think you’ll have to sell the house?”

  “Oh, without doubt, I’m afraid. I’m so sorry, I had hoped it would be yours one day. And I love it so much, as you know. But—needs must and all that, while the devil drives. And the devil is certainly driving.”

  “He does seem to be.”

  Richard was in something of a state, Flora thought: both edgy and down. And he’d lost weight.

  “Richard, darling, would you like some more wine? I can easily—” The phone rang again. It was Simon.

  “Sorry, Richard, won’t be long. How are you, Simon?”

  “Oh, not great. Discovering what boredom’s about. And loneliness—that’s been hard, not being surrounded by people all day.”

  “Of course,” said Flora, “but it will be all right. You’ll make it so. Now I mustn’t be long, sorry, got Richard here, we’re chatting. I’ve spoken to William’s cousin, and he’s still a Working Name. Yes. And do you know, he had the gall to tell me to trade through—said it was like the races, run of bad luck.”

  “And what was his explanation for your troubles?”

  “Oh, he said he couldn’t understand it. I asked him if he’d put me in the same syndicates as himself, as William had requested, and he said yes, of course. I asked him if he was still in the same ones, and he became a bit shifty, said he’d had to move some of the money around, but generally speaking, yes, he was. Simon, I know there’s something going on. There must be. He’s living in Chelsea, he’s got a couple of racehorses, and a villa in some dreadful place in Spain. If he really was in the same syndicates as me, he wouldn’t have any of that.”

  “Baby syndicates,” said Simon, “must be. Buggers. What’s his name?”

  “He claims it’s Edward Trafford Smythe.”

  “What do you mean, ‘claims’?” said Simon, laughing. “God, you’re like a tonic, Flora. I feel better already.”

  “What I mean is, I’d bet anything he’s called just plain Smythe and some uncle or other was called Trafford. So common, that sort of thing. Anyway, I’ve arranged to have lunch with him next week. On Wednesday, at the Savoy. Are you free?”

  “Free every day, unfortunately. Something for me to look forward to.”
<
br />   “So what do you want me to do?” asked Flora.

  “I want you to act totally dumb, act like you’re really impressed by him. I’ll be there, apparently lunching with someone, and you can introduce us. Very casually. Ask me to join you. I’ll take over after that see if we can trick him into saying something damning. It’s worth a try, anyway.”

  “Fine. How exciting. I shall feel like Miss Moneypenny.”

  “Well, I don’t feel too much like Bond, I’m afraid. So who’s there with you—Debbie?”

  “No, no, Debbie’s in London. Working. But Richard’s here. Going back on Sunday, I think.”

  Great, thought Richard. She was only telling Debbie’s lover her husband was away and for how long. Although surely he’d have known. It was probably a clever ruse on Beaumont’s part, to appear totally innocent in front of Flora. Debbie might even be with him now, egging him on, the pair of them laughing at him. A sudden lump rose in Richard’s throat; he felt rather sick and very, very sad. He got up, turned away, started loading up the dishwasher. He was dangerously near tears.

  “Sorry, Richard.” Flora put the phone down. “But our solicitor says we have to find a smoking gun if we’re to have a hope of bringing these people to justice, and Simon and I think we might be able to, with the help of Trafford Smythe. Oh, and a tape recorder.”

  “A tape recorder!”

  “Yes. We think he’s running some of these baby syndicates and we’re going to try and trick him into saying so.”

  “What on earth are baby syndicates?”

  “Usually they’re little self-contained cells, inside the main syndicate, created for the underwriter’s friends and relations. So they’re nominally still in the Bloggs Group, or in our case Westfield Bradley, but when a particularly attractive bit of business comes along, they write it into the baby syndicate. It’s absolute skulduggery. Richard, are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine.”

  “Good. Yes, poor old Simon, he’s taken a terrible pasting. It’s so hard, having held a prominent position as he did—”