by Janet Tanner
‘Who knows nothing of all this.’
Warning-bells rang inside her, too late. She had counted on him being, in the last resort, a decent and honourable man. Too late she remembered Gordon’s hatred of the Brittains, his insistence that they were totally ruthless and unscrupulous where business was concerned.
Now, with a sinking heart, she saw the face of a man who had inherited those traits and nurtured them with his own power.
His lips set, curled slightly. ‘Prove it, Mrs Sanderson.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘My brother Gerald was a rogue and a wastrel. For all I know, the world may be littered with his illegitimate children. If I hand three-quarters of a million to all of them, Cormorant would be in the same position as your own company – on the verge of bankruptcy. If you wish your offspring to have the advantages due to their very wayward father – who, I may add, relinquished all his rights – then prove their parentage in the courts! And I wish you luck.’
She was trembling now. He had her beaten and she knew it.
Proof after all this time would be impossible. And besides, she would never subject Geraldine and Katy to such a public ordeal.
She lifted her chin, knowing instinctively that more pleading would be utterly useless. Her amber eyes blazed with a fury she had not felt for forty years. Slowly she crossed to the door, grasped the chrome handle with fingers suddenly dead.
‘Mr Brittain,’ she said coldly. ‘I hope you rot in hell!’
As she opened the door, holding on to it slightly longer than should have been necessary, a feeling of puzzlement escalated to panic.
Why did everything look so black and far away suddenly? The pain in her chest had become excruciating, cutting off breath …
She took a step into the foyer.
By the door two familiar figures were standing close together, laughing at one another – their eyes locked, their fingers linked. Mistily, her wondering eyes took them in: Katy and Stuart. Stuart and Katy. What were they doing here? And why were they looking at one another that way, oblivious of her – of everyone?
The answer hit her in the midst of the pain. Why didn’t I realise – even think that it might happen? Brit’s granddaughter and Brit – no, not Brit … Stuart … No matter …
It was like looking into a mirror image of the past – herself and Brit – a mirror image clouded by pain and shortness of breath, but clear, too clear …
‘Oh, no Katy … Katy …’
It was her voice, but it was breathless, rising, panicky.
What is the matter with me? Why is everything going away? Oh, the pain …
She swayed, felt her legs crumple beneath her as the shiny black floor of the foyer came up slowly but relentlessly to meet her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
On the runway at Kai-Tak airport, the hospital plane prepared for take-off. A doctor was aboard, also a highly qualified nurse, brisk and slightly intimidating in her starchy white uniform. The cabin was equipped with so much modern medical wizardry, Elise thought, that it looked a little like a starship in one of those science fiction films that Alex’s boys talked about so much.
‘This really is the most terrible fuss,’ she said, but her voice was tired and a little frightened.
To have had hardly a day’s illness in all her life and then to collapse with a heart attack in the foyer of the Cormorant building! It was ludicrous – idiotic – like all this performance to get her safely back to England. She had always been averse to disrupting other people’s lives and being the centre of such theatrical attention, and she hated it now, but … she certainly didn’t want another heart attack. For sheer, panic-making terror she had never experienced anything like those minutes when she hadn’t been able to breathe, when the pain had been an excruciating weight on her chest and she had fought against the blackness with all her might. Even now, the slightest twinge in her chest was enough to bring back the echoes of that terror, making her lie still, still, willing it to go away.
What a coward I am! thought Elise. All these grand thoughts about wanting to join Brit and when the chance comes, I run scared! But I can’t die yet – there are so many things I still have to do, like organising something to save Sandersons without Katy having to be involved …
And the knowledge returned from the depths of her, bobbing to the surface like a cork in water.
You failed – Charles Brittain would have none of it. You failed!
As the memory of the interview flooded in she cringed and the movement, coupled with rising emotion, caused sharp arrows of pain to dart in her chest. She froze, fear glazing her eyes.
‘Granny?’ Katy’s voice. Katy had not left her side since the attack. Her brown eyes and small anxious face had been the one thing Elise had seen when the chrome and black had closed in around her, and during the two days at the hospital she had always been there, within calling distance if not closer. She looked tired now, Elise thought, with dark circles beneath her eyes and her skin almost translucent. She reached out her hand and Katy’s fingers twined with hers.
‘It’s all right, darling. I’m fine.’
‘Yes, you are. The doctors say that as long as you take your tablets and behave yourself, there is no reason at all why you shouldn’t be able to lead a virtually normal life. But ‘‘ normal’’ does not mean rushing about the world. Honestly, Granny, I think you forget you are not a young woman any more.’
Elise smiled ruefully. ‘Well, this has certainly reminded me. But oh, Katy, I’m sorry – I’ve made such a mess of things …’
‘You certainly worried us to death! I’ll never forget it – never! Hearing the commotion and turning round to find it was you …’ Her voice nailed away with the remembered honor. ‘ I never expected you to be there that early, anyway. You were going to do some shopping, you said. What luck it was that the Peak Tram was closed for cable renovations that day, so we had to come back and think again how to spend the afternoon.’ She paused, then – unable to keep back the question any longer – she asked, ‘Why were you there with Stuart’s grandfather?’
Elise sighed. There was no point in lying now. Just so long as she didn’t tell Katy the whole truth …
‘I went to see him because I thought I might be able to persuade him to bail out Sandersons,’ she confessed. ‘But it didn’t do any good. He’s a very hard man, is Charles Brittain – he’s not tai-pan of Cormorant for nothing. Now I shall just have to try thinking of something else.’
‘You will do nothing of the sort!’ Katy said firmly. ‘Worry is one of the things the heart specialist said is a definite no-no.’
‘And how am I supposed to stop worrying? Tell me that!’
‘You relax the reins and let other people do it for you. All you have to concentrate on is getting well.’
‘But the business … Sandersons …’
‘Sandersons is going to survive. Gunther Dietrich will give us the cash injection we need.’
Her voice was firm – too firm, too decisive, containing a hard note which Elise had never heard before, and her heart sank.
Katy knew what the deal meant, all right. She had had time to think about it and she had made her decision. She was going to sell herself for Sandersons and there was nothing Elise could do about it. She would have to stand by and watch it happen, while they all told her, ‘ You’re not to worry – worry is bad for your heart!’
‘Katy …’ Elise began, but she was interrupted by the nurse, who had come upon them unnoticed in the soft-soled shoes.
‘That’s enough talking for now, Mrs Sanderson. You’ve got a long flight ahead of you.’
‘I’ll stay with her,’ Katy said.
‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea. As long as you’re here, Mrs Sanderson is likely to talk. Later on, perhaps, for a little while?’
Even depressed as she was, Elise could not help but be amused by the mutinous look on Katy’s face. But nurses are figures of officialdom who defy argument
.
‘All right. Just let me give her something first.’
The nurse hovered and Katy glared at her with a flash of that fire which reminded Elise of her own hot temper and the arrogance it occasionally unleashed in her.
‘Alone, if you don’t mind!’
An expression of utter astonishment crossed the nurse’s face, but she withdrew and Katy’s grin was impish, as she turned back to Elise.
‘That fixed her!’
‘Not for long. As soon as she recovers from the shock she will be back in here with all guns blazing. What was it you wanted to give me?’
Katy reached into her bag and extracted something.
‘Stuart asked me to give you this. I’m not sure that I understand, but he said you had more right to it than anyone.’
Elise took the small package, puzzled, and opened the tissue wrapping. Then her breath caught in her throat and she uttered a soft ‘Oh!’
Brit’s AFC! The medal he had won in China. And Stuart had wanted her to have it …
Tears pricked her eyes as she looked down at it, tears of pride and love – added to a swelling happiness that Stuart should feel this way about her and Brit.
Stuart! He was such a nice young man, not like the rest of the family at all, just like Brit. Only with more ambition, she qualified. And he and Katy …
Why should it have shocked her so to see them there together and realise they were attracted – maybe more than attracted? For a moment it had seemed that anything between them would be almost incestuous, but of course that was ridiculous. Their relationship was far too distant for that. It must have been the shock of seeing Stuart and thinking it was Brit standing with Katy. And she had been overwrought from her interview and ill already – about to collapse. No, it would be wonderful to see Katy and Stuart together – like giving herself and Brit a chance all over again.
But it couldn’t happen like that. Katy was going to go against the inclinations of her heart and sell herself to Gunther. And there was not a single thing Elise could do about it.
‘Can you leave your grandmother alone now, please?’ The nurse had recovered her equilibrium and taken charge once more, and Katy got up.
‘I’ll be back as soon as they let me come, Granny,’ she promised. Then she leaned over to drop a kiss on Elise’s cheek and was gone.
The cabin was quiet and in the stillness Elise lay back against the pillows, sleepy again. Brit’s medal was clasped in her hands, the most precious thing she would ever own now – maybe the most precious thing she had ever owned.
It had been worth coming to Hong Kong just for this, she thought. And I shall keep it by me always. Oh Brit, how lucky I was to love you! How lucky I am to love you still! Some people live their lives without finding love like ours; some find it only to see it fall apart, desecrated, in their hands. That didn’t happen to us. My feelings for you are as deep and real as ever they were.
Contentment stole over her then, erasing the anxiety and easing the path to drowsiness; with the medal clasped close to her heart, Elise drifted into sweet, refreshing sleep.
‘Tai-pan, there are some questions I would like answered.’
Stuart stood in the doorway of the penthouse apartment at the apex of the Cormorant building and with a sense of shock Charles Brittain recognised his striking resemblance to his great uncle. As tall, with those broad shoulders, he almost filled the doorway, and the expression of determination on his lean, tanned face warned his grandfather that he was in no mood to be fobbed off with anything less than direct answers.
‘You’d better come in, Stuart. I expect you’d like a drink?’
‘No, thank you.’ The steel in his eyes was reflected in his voice. ‘I won’t waste your time by turning this into a social occasion.’
‘So don’t waste my time by beating about the bush either. What do you want?’
Stuart dug his hands deep into his pockets.
‘What happened between you and Elise Sanderson to give her a heart attack?’ he asked bluntly.
A muscle in Charles’s face tightened. ‘Nothing that was said between us caused her to have a heart attack. Clearly it had been brewing for some time.’
‘And the stress of the interview triggered it off! All right,’ Stuart raised a hand dismissively, ‘we won’t bother to argue about that. But why did she come?’
Charles reached for the flat-bottomed decanter, pouring Glenfiddich into a tumbler.
‘She came for the very reason I told you she had come – to try to arrange a deal by cashing in on the past. That is the kind of thing little people do. When you are tai-pan …’
‘I would hardly call Elise Sanderson ‘‘ little,’’ and Sandersons is a very large company indeed.’
‘And it’s in difficulties. They need an injection of three quarters of a million and she had the brass-faced cheek to ask me for it. Oh, it was well wrapped up – advance payment for components she wanted us to order from them. She seemed to know a great deal about our dealing with Roydell, too,’ he added meaningfully.
‘Not from me. But I don’t understand why she came to you. She knew I was in charge of the contracts with Roydell, even if she didn’t know the details. There’s more to this, tai-pan, than you have told me – a damn sight more! Why did you find convenient business the night I invited her to dinner? And why did she find it necessary to see you when Katy and I were safely out of the way?’
‘All right!’ Charles banged down his glass on the table and turned to Stuart with a set and angry face. ‘ If you want the truth, you shall have it. Your Great-uncle Gerald, as I have told you before, was a no-good adventurer. Elise Sanderson was a married woman he became involved with. She was one of many, for all I know – her husband was in business here, had some footling little factory you wouldn’t have looked at twice. Gerald made a fool of himself over her and it cost him his life – had it not been for her, he wouldn’t have been on the beach that night when the bomb dropped. Does that satisfy you?’
But Stuart’s face was dangerous still. ‘ I thought you said you didn’t know her.’
‘Some things are best forgotten.’
‘Really?’ Stuart said coldly. ‘Perhaps you also choose to forget that there was a baby. She was pregnant, wasn’t she – very pregnant! Her baby was born days later in the Philippines. Whose baby was it, tai-pan?’
For a long moment Charles did not answer, but his face told Stuart all he wanted to know.
‘It was his, wasn’t it – Great-uncle Gerald’s! And you knew! You’ve known all along, haven’t you?’
Charles leaned forward, banging on the desk with his fist.
‘All right, I knew she was pregnant! Her husband made enough fuss about that when he came looking for her. He had left her at the Peninsula Hotel while he was doing his duty with the Volunteers, and when he went back for her the place was in uproar and she had gone. The first thing he did was come to my father – he must have known, I suppose, that she was carrying on with Gerald, and thought she might be at Shek-o. She wasn’t there, of course. She had already gone, on oar yacht – commandeered by Gerald, I may add, without the tai-pan’s permission. Yes, her husband said she was going to have a child, but I didn’t stop to wonder whose it was. With a woman like that, it could have been anybody’s.’
‘That, tai-pan, is still not the whole truth and you know it.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
Stuart leaned on the desk too, his face level with his grandfather’s.
‘As you know, I have always been fascinated by my Great-uncle Gerald. I wanted to find out as much as I could about him. So one day I went to talk to the old Chinese fisherman who was first on the scene when the bomb fell. Gerald wasn’t killed outright, was he, although he was terribly wounded. There was enough life in him to think about the ones he loved. He said something before he died, Lo Chan told me – a strange thing for a single man to say. ‘Look after Elise and my baby. Let them have what’s mine.’ Lo Chan
didn’t understand – he naturally didn’t know Gerald had a woman, let alone a baby.’ He paused and his face hardened. ‘But he passed on the message to you. When you came to collect Gerald’s body, he told you what Gerald had said. But you did nothing about it. All these years, you’ve done nothing about it!’
While he was speaking he had seen his grandfather’s face change. The leathery skin was the same mahogany hue as before, but Stuart was aware that the blood had drained away from his cheeks. For a few brief moments he looked every year of his age – haggard, drawn and old. Then he gathered himself up into his familiar composure – the lines setting, the lips taut.
‘And what the hell would you expect me to do? Would you expect me to give away part of Cormorant? Don’t you know how this family has worked for it? How much blood and sweat has been spilled for it? Cormorant belongs to the Brittains. We don’t part with anything that is ours.’
‘My God!’ A kind of sickness was coursing through Stuart now, alongside the anger. ‘Now I know why Gerald divorced himself from you and your father. It was because he couldn’t stomach your principles. And neither can I!’
‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘As if you didn’t know – grandfather!’ He slung the name at the older man almost like an insult. ‘All these years you have kept quiet about what you knew. You never troubled to find your brother’s woman and her child, to make sure they were all right, although it was his dying wish that you should do so. And when they do come to you for help, you turn them away.’
‘She came to cash in …’
‘For Christ’s sake, she’s had forty years to ‘‘ cash in’’ as you call it if she had wanted to do so. She didn’t even ask you for a gift now – just a contract. And what she is asking for is Katy’s birthright.’
‘Katy! Ah – we’re coming to it now, aren’t we?’ Charles sneered. ‘She’s got you just where she wants you – the same kind of bitch as her grandmother!’
‘Don’t you dare talk like that about Katy – or Elise!’It was the control Stuart exerted that startled Charles Brittain almost more than the obvious depth of feeling. Authority emanated from him suddenly – authority and power.
