The Love Letter

by Fiona Walker

  She belted through the parterre, hurdling the box hedges and scratching her ankles on the rose bushes, sending pea gravel flying as she raced around the side of the house and bombed along the raised terrace.

  Francis was sitting in the kitchen with a pile of newspapers, blond hair flopping over his forehead as he flipped through them. There was more coverage of the Gordon Lapis story in almost every national that morning, along with lots of mentions of the Farcombe Festival. Speculation was rife about the true identity of the Ptolemy Finch creator.

  He looked up and smiled when she panted up to the open French doors from the courtyard, as though he’d been expecting her at just that moment. ‘There you are. Come in. There’s fresh coffee and Imee’s amazing pains au chocolat.’

  Stepping in through the doors, Legs was too puffed out to be able to speak properly. ‘My car!’ was all she managed to wheeze.

  ‘Is there something wrong with it?’

  ‘No – it’s lovely! Just lovely! It’s the loveliest thing imaginable.’

  ‘Well that’s all lovely then,’ he smiled humouringly then returned to the Mail, which had dedicated two pages to the Gordon Lapis true identity story and a list of suspects. ‘Christ, they’ve even got odds here on Lapis being Jeffrey Archer.’

  Legs had a brief and unpleasant vision of live-messaging ‘sleep tight’ wishes to Jeffrey Archer the previous night.

  Francis had already poured her a coffee and placed it in front of the chair beside him.

  She hesitated and then gave into temptation. It was so strange settling back into her old place at the Farcombe table as though the past year hadn’t happened. She couldn’t stop thinking about the car; such a romantic thing to do after he’d told her how worried he was about her safety in her red rust bucket last night. She felt a brief pang of loyalty to her old banger, but it was instantly eclipsed by happiness again, just as all thoughts of Conrad were shrouded in sea mist, increasingly reluctant to be blown inland. She and Francis could get back to their glory days, she was certain. They’d prove Byrne wrong, with his secrets and manipulative ways. Kissing Byrne had been a huge mistake. He had been right about that one fact, at least.

  She desperately wanted to talk to Francis about where they stood, but Édith chose that moment to reel into the room wearing a long silk dressing gown, her face putty grey behind huge dark glasses.

  ‘Legs, darling, back so soon – did you sleep on the doorstep?’ She headed for the fridge. ‘Christ I’m hungover. We really shouldn’t have started on the cognacs after Poppy went to bed. Jax says she’s paralysed, but I think she’s just still paralytic.’

  ‘Was there a terrible argument about the thing in the cellar then?’ Legs asked.

  ‘What “thing” in the cellar?’ Édith asked, pulling out a carton of tomato juice.

  Francis shot Legs a murderous look. ‘Just the dodgy fusebox, Dits; I’ll get someone in.’

  ‘There was a furious row last night,’ Édith said, alighting on a chair at the far end of the kitchen with a waft of flying silk like a heron. ‘But it was about your chum Jamie-go and Kizzy.’ She looked up, one eyebrow angled.

  Legs felt a chill run through her. ‘So they do know each other?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Francis snapped.

  ‘Jax thinks they’re rival bounty hunters,’ Édith sipped her tomato juice and pulled a face, closing her eyes and breathing to herself ‘think vodka,’ before shuddering and carrying on. ‘Both are after Poppy’s dough with their doe eyes and doggy bags.’

  ‘I don’t think Byrne’s after her money,’ Legs insisted, earning another dark look from Francis.

  ‘And Kizzy says she just wants her “lurve”,’ Édith sniped, casting her red juice aside, ‘but she’s a bright enough girl to know that’s impossible; Poppy’s no more capable of showing real love than she is of leaving this house. Her heart’s as agoraphobic as she is. She should never have played matchmaker between you two. Kizzy only went along with it to please her.’

  ‘Kizzy is devoted to me,’ Francis said stiffly, glancing at Legs.

  ‘Spare me!’ Édith laughed bitterly. ‘My guess is she’s always been part of Poppy’s masterplan; she’s been educated specifically for the job as Farcombe chatelaine. I’ll bet Yolande and Poppy have been plotting it for years.’

  ‘At least they have the estate’s best interests at heart. Farcombe needs its successors in place. Poppy made it clear that she’d never let Dad sell the estate while Kizzy and I were together to run it. She even spoke once or twice about changing her will in Kizzy’s favour, but of course Jamie-go turning up will have put paid to that.’

  ‘She wanted to trap Kizzy here like one of those butterflies in her portrait,’ Édith’s voice shook, ‘but now the Monarch’s returned, the Painted Lady is liberated.’

  ‘Farcombe must be protected,’ said Francis. As he reached for his coffee, Legs noticed his hands were far from steady.

  She furrowed her brows, remembering him telling her two days ago that Farcombe was all that mattered. If his entire relationship with Kizzy had been based on keeping the estate in the Protheroe name, he must feel really exposed right now. The enormity of what he’d sacrificed for her struck her afresh.

  ‘Where is she now?’ Legs asked anxiously.

  ‘With her parents, I imagine,’ said Francis.

  ‘Doubtful,’ Édith was flicking a fingernail tetchily against the rim of her glass. ‘They’ve only just started talking again. There was a big fall out between them all about six months ago,’ she told Legs. ‘Kizzy moved out of the Hawkes’ holiday house to a room in the village.’

  Legs now remembered Nonny talking about it, along with the strange fish diet and Kate Bush shanties. She had also said that Kizzy was close to Édith and Jax before getting together with Francis.

  ‘I told you it was foolhardy to let her go before we got to the truth,’ Édith was sniping at him.

  ‘What truth?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘If we knew that, we wouldn’t need to find out,’ Édith snapped.

  ‘We know Kizzy isn’t Yolande and Howard’s daughter by birth,’ Francis said flatly.

  ‘It was a private adoption, but it’s always been fearfully hush-hush,’ Édith went on, seeming to know more. ‘Even Kizzy was never told the full story.’

  ‘Poppy was involved, but none of us can get to the bottom of it.’ Francis’s fingers were drumming on a headline about a royal scandal.

  ‘Kizzy’s slavish attitude to Poppy all dates back to that,’ Édith hissed angrily.

  There was a curious sibling rivalry going on as brother and sister lobbed each line of Kizzy’s story out like a tennis player returning the ball faster and faster, but their delivery was secondary to the picture it created of the redheaded orphan turned femme fatale and her desperation to be a part of the Farcombe hierarchy.

  ‘She’s devoted to this house and the festival,’ Francis intoned.

  ‘She always wanted to work in London,’ Édith countered. ‘It’s Poppy she’s devoted to.’

  Legs’ brain went into overdrive, her original suspicions reigniting. Even if Kizzy wasn’t a transsexual avenger, there was a secret history which surely placed her at the centre of Poppy’s life. Why else would she consider making Kizzy her successor at Farcombe?

  ‘Are you saying they might be related?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Francis closed the newspaper in front of him with an angry swish.

  ‘We think Kizzy uncovered the truth earlier this year,’ said Édith. ‘It’s what she argued with Yolande and Howard about.’

  ‘Dits became a confidante and encouraged her to snoop, then blew it by picking a catfight.’ Francis shot his sister a withering look. ‘They stopped talking for weeks.’

  ‘We fell out about something entirely unrelated,’ Édith cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘Afterwards, Kizzy would only ever say that what she’d heard could ruin this family.’

  ‘That bad?’
<
br />   ‘Seems so,’ Francis drummed his fingers on the sugar bowl. ‘But those in the know, like our father, Poppy, the Hawkes and your mother, aren’t telling.’

  ‘Mum?’ She nearly choked on her coffee.

  ‘We gather Lucy was the one who introduced Poppy and Yolande in the first place,’ Édith ran a delicate fingertip along her lower lip to remove a drop of vampirish tomato juice resting there. ‘She must know more.’ She sucked her fingertips coyly, eyebrows raised.

  She and Francis were both looking at her intently, and Legs realised what was being asked. ‘Wouldn’t Hector be able to tell you much more?’

  ‘That bastard!’ Édith exploded, knocking over her juice so it spilled gorily across the table. ‘Maman should have pushed him off the balcony in Manhattan when she had the chance.’

  Accustomed to his sister’s fiery outbursts, Francis blotted the stain with the Mail. ‘Dad’s never hidden his mistrust of Kizzy, but if he knows anything, he’s not saying.’ He took Legs’ hand. ‘All we want to know is how Poppy fitted in with the Hawkes’ adoption.’

  ‘Mum and I aren’t exactly on friendly terms right now.’

  ‘You’re on much friendlier terms than we are with Poppy after last night’s row,’ Édith pointed out. ‘Not that she gives a stuff about us two now that the prodigal son is back.’

  ‘Is he here right now?’ Legs felt her heartbeat turn staccato at the thought that Byrne might be in the house and she hastily removed her hand from Francis’s grip.

  ‘Thank God not yet,’ Francis rolled his eyes. ‘You know Poppy – she rarely gets out of bed before midday. But no doubt he’ll call by later with his Irish eyes sparkling, ready to plant his little crock at the end of the rainbow.’ He hammed up a cheeky leprechaun accent.

  ‘You don’t like him very much, do you?’

  ‘Do you blame us?’ Édith snapped. ‘Springing a trick like that. Christ knows what he’ll do next – wheel in his father, probably; make it a proper family reunion. That’s why it’s vital we know more about Kizzy’s birthright. We need to work out exactly who is a part of this bloody family and where their loyalties lie. And that includes you, Legs.’ She gave her a long, hard look. With her cold, military-blue eyes, she was a great deal scarier than her brother.

  Francis walked Legs as far as the ha-ha.

  ‘You mustn’t mind Dits. She’s very protective these days, and she’s fond of Kizzy. They were firm friends before—’ He looked out towards the cliffs uncomfortably, ‘before she and I …’

  ‘Of course,’ Legs turned into the coast wind too, grateful for its cool, embarrassed that he felt the need to behave so apologetically when Conrad was still in the picture, his fingerprints all over the frame they now found themselves in.

  The sea ahead was tufted with foaming eddies and swells, the wind yet to settle upon a direction. A lone runner was pounding along the cliff path on the horizon, a dog at his heels. Legs’ heart hammered as she squinted to see whether it was Byrne, but Francis put a strong arm around her and pulled her to his chest before she could identify him.

  ‘Call me as soon as you get to London, and let me know what you’ve found out.’ He placed a kiss on top of her head, which made her acutely aware that she hadn’t yet washed her hair. Yet his embrace was brotherly and comforting rather than passionate, for which she felt grateful relief.

  She stared at one of his shirt buttons, ‘Where do we stand, Francis?’

  ‘You must do what you feel is right.’ His voice was stiff with formality.

  She nodded, inadvertently socking him in the mouth a few times with her skull. She could feel his heart beating against her collarbone through layers of cotton. Her own guilty heart was so hopelessly overworked from its weekend of being bashed about, she now felt as though she had permanent indigestion. He had to be talking about Conrad. Was this a case of ‘I’ve dumped mine, now you dump yours?’ she wondered, an extension of the dare games they’d played as teenagers.

  ‘Francis, do you think you can ever really forgive me?’ she asked urgently.

  Francis was looking over her head, presumably at the runner.

  ‘“Your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty”,’ he started quoting Shakespeare.

  Legs tuned out, blood rushing in her ears as she realised that she was expected to supply the answer to her own question from the clues given. It was classic Francis, back on familiar ground, his feelings set between quotation marks.

  ‘Did you mean it last night when you said you loved me?’ she tested again.

  ‘“I did love you once”,’ he breathed obediently. ‘Hamlet again, as you know.’

  She supposed she should be grateful that he wasn’t quoting Kizzy de la Mere at her, although the urge to scream ‘yes, but what exactly are you feeling, Francis?’ was almost overpowering.

  ‘You just have to say the word, Legs,’ he urged.

  She remembered Byrne’s cruel lesson beneath the lamp-post again and said nothing. She’d filled in far too many missing words for Francis during their time together. She used to believe that she could read meaning into his every gesture and silence, his cryptic poetry recitals, but now she just saw confusing gaps and misunderstandings in the way he expressed himself. Was it really that she had once understood him so well, or perhaps it was that she’d simply always read far too much into his brooding silences and endless quotations? She found herself longing for straight-forward, shoot-from-the-hip honesty, even if it hurt her to listen to the truth of it. It was one of the things she liked most about Byrne, she realised.

  But Francis was as chivalrous as ever; her wounded fairytale prince who spoke through noble gestures and recitation at times of high emotion, not plain English. He’d given her a car and quoted Hamlet at her. In his mind, she was supposed to know exactly what to do and not spoil the moment by checking each detail.

  ‘Take as much time as you need,’ he told her now, holding her very tightly to his chest so that she could smell that familiar cologne and a great waft of fabric conditioner. ‘Think about us. You promise?’

  ‘I promise.’ Her voice was muffled by crisp Oxford shirt collar and Lenor fumes. She couldn’t believe how gallant and self-controlled he was being, or how ungrateful she must be for secretly wanting him to simply shout very loudly that she’d been a bloody fool, yes, but she was now forgiven and the clocks would go back five years with immediate effect.

  She pulled back at last, looking up at him. ‘That car means so much to me, you know.’

  ‘So you keep saying.’ He flashed a wary smile. Then he looked at her for a long time, eyes bluer than the sky as always. ‘If you feel the same way I do, you’ll do the world a favour and drive it over Conrad. Which reminds me – I have that surprise I promised you.’ He felt in his pockets. Pulling out a small padded box, he dropped it in her hand and closed her fingers over it before kissing their tips and walking away.

  Legs pulled open the little case. Inside was her old engagement ring.

  Chapter 20

  Legs walked through the woods from the hall, her head still jumbled with nostalgia as she passed the Tree of Secrets and the locations of old campsites and dens where she and Francis had first worked out what love was all about and why they were so lucky to have found it with one another.

  In Spywood Cottage’s little clifftop garden, Lucy and Hector were sitting in deck chairs drinking green tea. They were listening to Porgy and Bess blasting out through the open windows from the stereo in the sitting room. Both were naked.

  Not hearing Legs arrive, they carried on talking animatedly about the Trevor Nunn production of the opera that they had both seen in London.

  She hastily retreated behind the cottage wall and clattered around loudly, calling ‘anybody home?’ She then waited patiently behind a water butt for them to throw on a kaftan and the undersized kimono respectively and give her the all clear.

  Having now had sight of Poppy’s oversized stone depiction of Hector, Legs could hardly bring he
rself to look at him, although she braved a quick peek at his exposed chest and legs and realised that the tattoos, at least, had been a fiction, if not the varicose veins.

  While he was inside the cottage making coffee, Legs quizzed her mother:

  ‘Tell me about Yolande and Poppy’s friendship.’

  ‘Has Francis put you up to this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  After a pause for reflection, Lucy looked pleased. If her daughter was playing detective for Francis then she clearly took it to mean they were partners in crime once again, although whether those were pretty fraud or crimes of passion went uninvestigated. She’d still not forgiven Legs’ outbursts during their most recent conversation in the cove, and was reluctant to break her stand-off silence as she underwent a grilling that was all-too-familiar from years sharing a home with her quizzical, excitable youngest child, yet she was being asked about a time she recalled only too well and involved people that she had cared deeply about.

  ‘It was Nigel Foulkes who introduced Yolande to the Protheroes, not me,’ she finally relented a little after a barrage of questions.

  ‘How did Daisy’s father know the Hawkes?’ Legs demanded.

  ‘Yolande was something big in the City at the time, and bought a lot of art from him. Dreadful old bag.’

  ‘Do you remember her coming here for the first time?’

  She looked increasingly shifty. ‘Nigel invited the Hawkes down to Spycove for a weekend one summer. We were all here.’

  ‘And that’s when Yolande met Poppy?’

  The cold front slipped a little more as Lucy giggled, remembering: ‘Yolande was the one who encouraged Poppy to sculpt, and even got hands on for the first few works of art. I remember them looking like two little girls with a snowman. It can’t have been long after Poppy and Hector married.’

  ‘But Kizzy would have already been three or four by then. Did the Hawkes bring her along too?’