by Margaret Way
“Never!” Jocelyn gave a shake of her beautifully groomed head, dark hair swept back off a high brow. “Kym suits Cal perfectly.”
“Kym suits you perfectly, Mum,” Meredith corrected. “There’s a big difference. The engagement didn’t work. It’s never going to work. Please don’t ask Kym over. It won’t be any nice surprise for Cal, believe me. He may have a few surprises of his own.”
Jocelyn, who had settled back, sat up straight, her unlined forehead suddenly furrowed. “Meaning what? Are you trying to tell me something, Meredith? If you are, I’d advise you to be out with it. You surely can’t be inferring Cal has someone hidden away?” She looked aghast at the very idea.
“Why don’t you wait until he comes home,” Meredith advised, and went to stand hesitantly by her mother.
“What is it, Meredith?” Jocelyn looked up to meet her daughter’s gaze directly. “You know I hate surprises. I like to know exactly what’s going on.”
Meredith let her hand rest on her mother’s shoulder. “Cal does have some news, Mum, but it’s not my news to tell. He’ll be home on Saturday. You’ll have to be patient until then.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THEY were all gathered around the long mahogany table in the formal dining room listening to Cal deliver his momentous news. It was an elaborate setting, Meredith thought. The table, for instance, had always reminded her of the deck of an aircraft carrier. Around it were ranged Georgian chairs, tied with elaborate silk tassels, convex gilded mirrors on the walls, a magnificent Dutch still life over the sideboard—fruit, vegetables, game birds. Only one of the great chandeliers was on. Even then the light was dazzling. The room was only used for gala occasions—but it seemed as good a place as any for her brother to tell his extraordinary story.
Cal told it simply, but movingly. He had to convey to them how powerfully Gina Romano had affected him from the very first moment he saw her. He had wanted no other woman. No way could he tell them in bringing Gina here he was bending her to his will. He had to stick to the charade. He must have been convincing, because Meredith’s expression was soft and tender. She looked thrilled.
And thrilled Meredith was. If Steven could feel the same way about her as Cal did about his Gina, what a priceless gift that would be! The rest of the family greeted Cal’s news with a ringing silence.
This was never meant to happen!
Meredith’s eyes flew to her brother’s, renewing her support. Still, the family continued to sit there as if they’d been turned to stone; or Cal had spoken in an unfamiliar tongue and they were struggling to decipher it. Meredith gritted her teeth, her throat aching with tension.
Their father, for once, was plainly at a loss. Nothing in response. He started to speak, then stopped. Their mother held her fingers to her temples as though she had suddenly developed an appalling headache, which, indeed, she had. Uncle Ed continued to stare down at the gleaming surface of the table as though amazed at the shine.
“I don’t believe this,” Jocelyn finally burst out, in evident anger and confusion. It tore at her, making her blind to anyone else’s feelings but her own. “This is the most appalling news. This Gina doesn’t sound the sort of girl you would bring home. Let alone marry.”
Meredith winced, hardly daring to look at her brother to gauge his reaction. “Mum, please!” she begged, excruciatingly embarrassed by her mother’s outburst.
Jocelyn ignored her, beginning to cry, but Cal’s handsome features showed no softening. They hardened to granite. He thrust back his chair and then stood up, addressing his mother. “How did you get to be such an appalling snob, Mother?” he asked, his voice tight. “I’m sure the Queen of England wouldn’t carry on like you. You’ve gone on with your PLU nonsense ever since I can remember. There has to be an end to it.”
He sounded so disgusted that Jocelyn, who was used to the greatest respect from her son, started to pull herself together. “Lorinda did warn me,” she said, in that moment of stress letting the cat out of the bag. “She was most concerned.”
Cal’s heart tightened up like a fist. “When was this?”
Jocelyn didn’t answer. Instead she made a small agitated flourish with her hand.
“Are you saying you knew back then?” Suddenly Cal had to confront the fact Lorinda, the aunt he had always trusted, had deceived him.
“Of course we knew, son.” Ewan McKendrick reached out to take his wife’s shaking hand. “And she had your child?” The question ended upwards in a kind of wonderment.
“Your grandson, Dad,” Cal told him, strong emotions etched on his face. “It’s just as I told you. I never knew.”
“I’m certain you didn’t,” Ewan responded on the instant. “You’re a man of honour.”
“Honour short of marriage, you mean, Dad?” Cal asked bitterly. “Provide for her and the boy. Sweep it under the carpet. Get on with life. I’m afraid that’s not on. I’m going to marry Gina. I’m going to bring her and my son home.”
Jocelyn blew her nose exceedingly hard when she was always so dainty about such things. “But how can you love her after all she’s done to you?” she cried. “She’s a heartless woman. Not worth knowing. You probably wouldn’t look at her now,” she added, though it didn’t make a lot of sense.
Meredith rushed to support her brother. “Gina is a beautiful person, Mum. Anyone would be proud to welcome her into the family.”
Jocelyn burst into fresh tears. She had no desire whatever to meet this Gina person. But Gina’s son? That was a matter of great concern to her. The boy was Cal’s heir.
“Let me repeat I’m going to bring Gina and our son home.” Cal didn’t know it but he looked colder and harder than his father ever had.
“And is he going to be page boy at the wedding?” Jocelyn stopped her tears, to enquire with great sarcasm. “Where is this wedding going to be held, may I ask? Not here. I won’t be humiliated in front of the world. I couldn’t bear it.” She followed up that announcement with an exaggerated shudder.
“Steady on, Jocelyn.” Ewan held up a warning hand. He knew his son if Jocelyn didn’t. No way could he allow his son to take leave of the family. Ewan knew Cal would, if pushed.
“What do you think, Uncle Ed?” Cal looked across the table at his uncle who had remained silent throughout as though being seen was one thing, heard another. Not that anyone could get a word in with Jocelyn.
Ed spread his hands. His sister-in-law was behaving in a disastrous fashion but he was living in the family home. Hell, he had a right to it come to that! “Anything that makes you happy, makes me happy, Cal.” He said with obvious sincerity. “I’m sure your Gina is as beautiful as Merri says. I can see you’re stunned, but your mother and Lorinda have always been as thick as thieves.”
Jocelyn gasped. “Shame, shame, shame, Ed McKendrick. Lorinda is a loyal sister and she adores Cal,” she rebuked him. “Lorinda acted on the highest motivation, love and concern. It was your Gina who ran off, Cal, back to her own world. Is that how to love someone, deceiving them then running away? Utterly spineless I say.”
Cal strove to keep the fury and confusion he was feeling out of his voice. “I think the less you say, the better, Mum. This is a fait accompli. I’ve found the mother of my son. I’m finally going to bring them home. Her and Robert.”
Jocelyn’s green eyes gushed afresh. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” she cried, her whole body trembling under the force of her shock and anger. “No wonder you didn’t want Kym over, Meredith.” She turned on her daughter as though she were greatly to blame. “Kym will be devastated when she hears about this.”
“For God’s sake, my dear, you’re flogging a dead horse,” Ewan McKendrick groaned, raising a hand to stay his wife. “I have told you.”
Jocelyn stared back at her husband, feeling greatly undermined. “The point is you wanted Kym, too, Ewan. She was our choice. Not some young woman who won’t belong. Had Cal and Kym married, in time Lakefield would have been added to the McKendrick chain. It was all so
suitable.”
“Business is business and PLU is PLU, eh, Mum?” Meredith couldn’t resist the dig.
Her father turned cold blue eyes on her. “Please don’t speak to your mother like that, Meredith.”
“I’m only stating an evident truth, Dad. Why don’t you stop treating me like a child?”
Jocelyn broke in irritably. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for not warning me, Meredith. I’ve suffered a betrayal. I’m terribly, terribly wounded.”
“Then I’m sorry, Mum. But as I pointed out at the time, it was Cal’s story to tell.”
“Exactly! I told Meredith to leave it to me,” Cal confirmed in a clipped voice.
“What, keep the truth from me, Calvin?” Jocelyn asked piteously.
Ewan wasn’t attending to anything being said. “I haven’t met my grandson and he’s three years of age,” he murmured, very poignantly for him. “Who does he look like?” He turned beseeching eyes on his son.
Cal sat down again, sighing heavily. “Like you, Dad, like me. He’s a McKendrick, but he has Mum’s green eyes.”
“My green eyes!” Jocelyn spluttered, as though only one other person in the world was entitled to them. “You’re the one with my green eyes, Calvin. It’s impossible, I tell you. She can’t come here.” Jocelyn’s small face started to crease up again. “I won’t be grooming a total stranger, to take over from me. Not that she could,” she added scathingly. She stared back at her son. No adoration there, only anger and condemnation.
“If Gina isn’t welcome here, I don’t stay.” Cal laid down the ultimatum, looking grimly resolute.
There was no question in at least three people’s minds he meant it. “I can wait it out until it’s my time to inherit. You don’t own Coronation Hill, Dad. You’re the custodian. Just as I will be for my son, my son Robert.”
But Ewan McKendrick was way ahead of them all. “As though I would ask you to go,” he cried, exhibiting great dismay, and not looking at his wife. “When is it you want to bring Gina and the boy home?”
Oh, thank God, thank God! Meredith gave silent praises. When the chips were down, their father always chose the smartest course.
Cal shot a wry glance at his sister, reading her mind. “By the end of this month. This house is big enough to swallow up the lot of us. We wouldn’t have to see one another if we didn’t want to,” he added satirically, though it was perfectly true.
“Good God, son, we don’t want you to go into hiding!” Ewan exclaimed. “Dear me, no. What’s happened, has happened. Now we must move forward. The sooner the better.”
“Thanks for that, Dad,” Cal said, the severe tension in him easing fractionally. “In view of what I’ve just heard I need to have a talk with Aunt Lorinda.” Anger and disillusionment flinted from his brilliant eyes.
“Well, you’ll just have to wait now, won’t you!” Jocelyn cried in a kind of triumph. “She’s in Europe.”
“She’ll be back,” Cal answered shortly. It was important he get to the bottom of the matter. Gina hadn’t said anything that implicated Lorinda in her decision to flee the island, but the fact his aunt and his mother had discussed their blossoming romance had suddenly opened up a Pandora’s Box.
“So when do you plan to take your marriage vows?” Ewan was asking, busy looking at the situation from all its angles in his head. Wouldn’t even make a nine day wonder he shouldn’t be surprised. Times had changed dramatically, if only Jocelyn could see it!
“I’m not entirely sure.” Cal glanced across at his sister. What better sister could a man have? Yet he couldn’t tell her Gina wasn’t exactly ecstatic about marrying him. He was forcing her into it. He wasn’t happy about that, but he was determined on his course. Robert was a McKendrick. His place was on Coronation Hill. Robert needed his parents together, not apart, two people to love and raise him. He couldn’t risk Gina marrying someone else, providing an alternative father to his son.
“If you’re going to go ahead with this it will be better if you marry her at some register office. Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, whatever,” Jocelyn said bitterly. “I’m sure your sister will be delighted to act as a witness.”
“Absolutely! I’d be honoured,” Meredith said. “I think it’s a miracle Cal and Gina have come together again.”
“With your help!” Jocelyn bitterly accused her daughter, so often the scapegoat.
“No register office,” Ewan broke in, his stern glance silencing his daughter who was about to respond to her mother. “The wedding will be here on Coronation.”
Jocelyn looked at her husband with betrayal in her reddened eyes. “You can’t mean it, Ewan.”
“All the McKendricks have been married from here,” he answered, with blunt force. “Including you, Ed. We’ve all had huge weddings, great celebrations. We’re going to do things right.”
“And if I refuse to be here?” Jocelyn threw down the challenge.
Ewan reached out to pat her shoulder. “But you won’t refuse, will you, my dear? You’ve always been an excellent wife.” He turned his arrogant, handsome head towards his son. “Would you like that, Cal?”
“That’s what I want, Dad,” Cal said. “But nothing big.”
“Frankly I don’t see how we can avoid it.” For the first time Ewan smiled. “You’ve been through a tough time.”
“Gina has been through a tough time,” Cal said, mustering up his most caring tone.
“That’s absurd.” His mother might have seen through him she gave such a scoffing laugh.
“She must be a strong person.” Ewan cut in, frowning on his wife. Ewan McKendrick was every inch the diplomat whenever an occasion demanding diplomacy arose. “Bring Gina home, son. We’ll make her welcome.” He ignored his wife’s bitter exclamation, but turned on her a rare, cold eye. “I can’t wait to meet my grandson. Especially if he looks like me.”
Would a little granddaughter have fared so well, I wonder? Meredith thought, then immediately chided herself for being so mean.
“Thank God that’s over,” she said an hour later, after she and Cal made their escape to the garden. “It was a bit of a surprise learning Aunt Lorinda was busy informing Mum of everything that went on at the island. Do you suppose she had anything to do with Gina’s abrupt departure? Now that I think about it, I wouldn’t put it past her, though she was always sweet to Gina.”
“Yes, she was.” Cal was forced to admit it, but inside he was hurting badly. He had blamed Gina for years, when it now seemed he didn’t know the full story.
“Gina didn’t explain why she left?” Meredith read his mind.
“She certainly didn’t say Lorinda made any decision for her.”
“So what was Gina’s decision based on?” Meredith frowned. “Wouldn’t she say?”
Cal stared up at the brilliant clusters of stars. “Merri, Gina made it quite plain she wants to shut the door on the past. She refused to get into any discussion, but I gathered she thought at the time she wasn’t good enough for me. Pretty damned silly, I know. But I suppose looking at it from her side she was made aware there was plenty of money being splashed around. She came from an ordinary family with I imagine little money to spare on luxury holidays. Perhaps she felt overwhelmed. People do. You know that.”
“But Gina gave no sign of it,” Meredith said. “Her manner couldn’t have been more natural. Gina could take her place anywhere.”
“She was so young,” Cal said. “Maybe that accounts for it. She got frightened off.”
“Did you ever mention Kym to her?” Meredith persisted. “The fact Mum and Dad cherished hopes the two of you would marry?’
“God, no!” Cal protested violently. “I never gave Kym a thought. There was only Gina. But she found out later about Kym. She saw a photo of us in some magazine. Kym and I were engaged at the time.”
“Oh!” Meredith gave a little anguished moan. “Do you suppose Aunt Lorinda might have told her about Kym? She saw a grand love affair unfolding right under her nose. Time
to put a stop to it. We now know she contacted Mum.”
“I’ll get to the bottom of it, don’t you worry,” Cal said with quiet menace. “Gina had her opportunity to denounce Lorinda. If there was anything to denounce. She didn’t.”
Meredith pondered it all in silence. “So what happened to Gina’s boyfriend? I imagine the marriage was well and truly off when Gina discovered she was pregnant?”
“Now that’s the strange thing. Gina claims there was no boyfriend,” Cal answered. “She must have gone into denial. I’m fairly sure she was frightened of her father. He’s dead, by the way.” He held back a curling palm frond from his sister’s face. “Did you get around to telling Steve any of this?”
She nodded, grateful for the cloak of darkness. “You said I could. He was very sympathetic. Steve’s on your side. He’s had a hard life. He understands a great deal.”
“You like him, don’t you?” Cal spoke directly.
She felt the heat rush into her skin. “I do.” Meredith was beyond pretence. She had to get a life. “He’s quite a guy. But can you imagine if I’d told Mum and Dad tonight I was pregnant and Steve was the father, what their reaction would have been? Krakatoa! Do you really think Dad would have jumped in to say we must be married on Coronation? The crazy ironies of life, brother. We live by a different set of rules.”
“They’re not my rules, Merri,” Cal said, with the greatest regret, knowing her assertion to be true. “Dad and Mum—especially Mum—have to lighten up.” He broke off to stare down at her. “Say, you’re not telling me in a roundabout way you are pregnant?”
“What would be your reaction?” she asked, confident she knew what it would be.
They kept walking. “If he loved you and you loved him I could only be happy for you, Merri. Love is all that matters.”
“Tell that to Mum,” Meredith replied. “No, I’m not pregnant, though Mum has recently told me I’m leaving it almost too late to have kids. She wanted to invite Shane over this weekend. Shane and Kym.”
