by Janet Tanner
Mark threw himself into his work, spent as much time as possible away from England and never spoke of his innermost thoughts and feelings with a soul. One day perhaps he would no longer experience this sharp pain, this sick ache when he thought of her. One day perhaps there would be someone who would help him to forget her. But it hadn’t happened yet.
And now here was Harriet, telling him a story almost beyond belief, and suddenly pieces of the jigsaw that he had not even known were missing were falling into place.
A baby born secretly, not to Sally but to her sister Paula, whom the world had thought was dead. Not his sister. Not even a half sister. A cousin, perhaps, but that was permissible, wasn’t it?
He looked at Harriet, who was turning to him for comfort as she always had, and could only think that he had lost his love and all for nothing.
A baby – Paula and Hugo’s baby – who had inherited her father’s talent along with some of his looks (Mark knew now why she had seemed strangely familiar to him). A baby who had grown up into the most wonderful girl he had ever met.
Emotion overcame him. He buried his head in his hands.
‘Theresa,’ he said.
PART SEVEN
The Present
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sally returned from visiting Hugo in hospital just after seven.
When they heard her come in Harriet and Mark looked at one another, slightly apprehensive. Neither was looking forward to the inevitable scene. They had spent the afternoon fitting together the pieces of the jigsaw and trying to decide what should be done. Now, faced with telling Sally they knew the secret she had kept from them for the whole of their lives, both quaked inwardly.
In the hall Sally hesitated when she saw Harriet’s things, still waiting to be taken upstairs, but when she came into the room she was her usual poised self. Only her eyes, shadowed and wary, showed the trepidation she was feeling. Harriet and Mark here together. What had she told him? What was she going to tell him?
‘Harriet – you’re back!’ she said breezily – brazening it out, Harriet thought grimly. ‘Did you have a good trip?’
Harriet ignored the question, asking one of her own instead.
‘How is Dad?’
‘Doing well. He really does look much better today, thank God. He was asking for you, though.’
‘I’ll go and see him tomorrow.’
‘Yes, he’ll be so pleased to see you. Look, darlings, I must go and have a bath before dinner.’
‘Never mind about dinner,’ Mark said, levering himself up out of the chair where he had been sitting. ‘ We have to talk, Mum.’
She knew from his face what it was he wanted to talk about but still she could not bring herself to admit it.
‘Won’t it wait? I can’t bear it if I don’t have a bath this minute and get rid of the smell of hospital. What is it about that smell? It clings to everything and seems to get right inside you and …’
‘Mum!’ Mark said threateningly. ‘ Shut up.’
Sally held his gaze but she had turned pale beneath her make-up.
‘What is this? What has happened?’
‘I think you know very well,’ Mark said sternly. ‘It’s no use pretending any longer. Harriet has told me everything.’
‘You mean … about …?’ Sally could not bring herself to speak her sister’s name. She looked as if she were about to cry now, her control hanging on a knife edge.
‘Yes. Mum – how could you do it?’
Sally’s face began to work and her fingers plucked restlessly at one another.
‘I told Harriet. I explained. She needed peace and quiet. It was all that was left to her …’
‘But it shouldn’t have been your decision. Hugo was her husband. He had a right to know, for God’s sake. Especially in the circumstances.’
‘The … circumstances …?’
‘Leaving Paula there in the care of the nuns wasn’t the worst of it, was it?’
‘I don’t know … what you mean …’
‘I found out about the baby,’ Harriet said quietly.
Sally swayed. Mark was at her side in a moment, steadying her.
‘Sit down. I know this is a shock – it has been for all of us – but now we know it’s no use trying to cover it up any longer. Paula gave birth to a baby – Hugo’s baby. She was Hugo’s, wasn’t she?’
Sally shook her head, words almost eluding her.
‘I don’t know. I never asked. I assumed she was his – Greg Martin’s. I didn’t see any point in hurting Hugo any more. She’d hurt him so much! I just wanted him to forget all about her and the way she had treated him. I wanted him to be happy. I knew I could make him happy. I have made him happy.’
‘Yes, you have,’ Mark agreed. ‘ But don’t you see – it was terribly wrong, taking it upon yourself like that? And quite apart from deceiving Hugo, what about the baby? You deprived her of her birthright.’
‘No, I made certain she went to a good home. She was adopted by nice people. They are very fussy, you know, adoption societies …’ She looked up at Harriet, her eyes wild and puzzled. ‘How did you find out after so long?’
‘You know I went to Italy, Sally,’ Harriet said with more patience than she was feeling. ‘I spoke to one of the nuns who was there when my mother gave birth – Sister Maria Theresa. I assume you named the baby after her.’
‘Yes, I did. I had to call her something. As soon as she was born I took her to London and registered the birth there.’
‘As your child.’
‘I could hardly register her as Paula’s could I, when Paula was supposed to be dead? It was surprisingly easy. The registrar was just a bored looking girl. She accepted what I told her without question.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘But how did you know what I called her? Sister Maria Theresa couldn’t have told you that. No one knows – except me.’
‘I knew,’ Mark said.
Sally looked up at him with a flash of fear and total bewilderment. This was not her Mark, so laid back and charming and humorous. This was an angry young man with an edge of steel.
‘You?’ she asked helplessly.
‘Yes, me. I am going to tell you a story, Sally, about a guy who met a beautiful young woman named Theresa Arnold. He was crazy about her – he had even entertained thoughts of marriage.’ His mouth hardened, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘He’d already slept with her. And then one day she told him she had been adopted as a baby and her real name was the same as his – Bristow. She didn’t know who her father was but her mother’s name was Sally Margaret Bristow who had given her address as Kensington. Am I ringing bells, Mum?’
Sally was totally white now, every vestige of colour drained from her face so that her rouged cheeks and painted lips stood out in sharp relief. She bent her head, covering that blanched face with her hands. She could not speak.
‘I don’t have to tell you who that young man was, do I? It was me. I went through hell when Theresa told me the name on her birth certificate. I recognised it at once, of course, and jumped to the obvious conclusion – that Theresa was your child – my sister. God what a situation!’ Perspiration stood out in beads on is forehead now just remembering it. ‘ I broke with her at once, of course.’
Sally drew a long, shuddering breath.
‘You didn’t tell her – what you suspected?’
‘Bloody hell no! How could I have told her something like that? I was going crazy myself thinking I’d committed incest. But I hadn’t, had I? She wasn’t your child at all, but Paula’s.’
‘Yes,’ Sally whispered. She was silent for a moment then she seemed to gather herself together. ‘ How on earth did you come to meet her? Of all the girls in England …
‘I met her in Somerset, not five miles from where you and Paula were born and raised. I’d been to visit Granny Bristow, Theresa had been down there after a job. On my way back to London I picked up a hitch hiker on the road and that hitch hiker was Theresa.’
‘What is she
like?’ Sally asked after a moment, curiosity getting the better of her. ‘Has she made something of herself?’
‘It’s a little late in the day to show concern now, isn’t it?’ Mark said harshly. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact she is a lovely girl, in spite of everything. She had a happy childhood with parents who adored her and she was so secure and loved that even though she applied for her birth certificate when she was eighteen she didn’t feel the need to try to trace her natural mother – luckily for you. When I knew her she had just graduated with a degree in fashion design and now she is struggling to manufacture and sell under her own label. She’s Hugo’s daughter all right. She has his looks – and his talent. And I think it’s about time she knew the truth.’
‘Oh Mark, Mark …’ Sally rocked herself from side to side. ‘You can’t tell her! You mustn’t!’
‘Why not?’ Mark asked grimly.
‘Because of all the trouble it would cause! Oh, I’m really sorry you had to find out this way – I can understand you are shocked. But think how much worse it would be for Hugo.’
‘You should have thought of that twenty years ago,’ Mark said. ‘Surely you must have known it would come out sooner or later?’
‘I don’t know … I hoped it wouldn’t. I convinced myself it wouldn’t.’ She hesitated, not wanting to admit to the shadow of fear that had haunted her through the years. ‘I did it for the best,’ she said stubbornly.
‘Best for who? Best for you?’
‘No – not just for me. For all of us. I wanted us to be a happy family and we have been. I bore the secret alone. I saved the rest of you from the consequences of what Paula did.’ She was looking at him directly now, with defiance, and Harriet thought suddenly how terrifying self-righteousness could be, distorting perception, excusing any course of action, however misguided.
‘What about Theresa?’ Mark asked. ‘Were you thinking of her best interests when you gave her up for adoption?’
‘Yes, I was!’ Sally retorted fiercely. ‘What sort of a life would she have had here, with us? If Greg Martin was her father, as I suspected, Hugo would have resented her – just seeing her every day would have reminded him of how Paula had deceived him and he’d have been bound to treat her accordingly. And she would have had to grow up knowing her mother had died insane – that’s a heavy cross for any child to bear. She’d be bound to wonder if the same thing might happen to her …’
‘Thanks a million!’ Harriet interposed drily.
Scarcely noticing the interruption Sally rushed on, justifying herself.
‘And as it turned out I was right, wasn’t I? She had a happy childhood – she is a successful well-adjusted young woman. Why spoil it all now?’
‘Because,’ Mark said, ‘I am in love with her. You don’t seem to realise I left her because of all this.’
‘But you don’t have to tell her the truth!’ Sally cried wildly. ‘Start seeing her again if you like. You know now she’s not your sister. But surely there’s no need to tell her all this? She never knew what it was you suspected, did she?’
‘Christ no. I didn’t want to hurt her more than I had to.’
‘So why does she have to know now?’ Sally wheedled. ‘ What good would it do? Don’t tell her, Mark – you’ve no need to.’
Mark’s mouth hardened.
‘Unlike you, Mum, I couldn’t live a lie.’
She recoiled as if he had struck her and he went on more gently: ‘Look, I don’t know if she’ll have me back. She may have found someone else by now for all I know. But if by some miracle she does still feel the same way about me as I feel about her I am going to marry her. Now, I can hardly introduce her to my family without telling her the truth, can I? For starters, when she meets you she is going to realise you were once Sally Bristow, who lived in Kensington. She is not stupid, she is going to come to exactly the same conclusion as I did. And where would that lead us? Besides as I said I couldn’t live with that son of deceit. You may look at it how you like, Mum, but as far as I am concerned it is an insult to your partner to keep secrets from them – important secrets, anyway – particularly if other people are in on them.’
‘I always knew you were chivalrous, Mark,’ Sally flashed. ‘I didn’t know you were also self-destructive.’
He did not answer. Clearly with Sally’s philosophy of life there was no way she could understand his deeply-held views on the matter.
Sally appealed to Harriet.
‘You haven’t said anything, Harri. You understand, don’t you? Talk to him, please, make him see the harm he’ll do.’
‘I can’t do that,’ Harriet said quietly.
‘Why not? Why are you ganging up on me like this?’ Sally asked, her voice rising a trifle hysterically.
‘Because there is something you seem to have forgotten, Sally.’ Harriet’s voice was gentler than Mark’s had been. In spite of everything she had a certain sympathy with Sally. She was not a bad woman, just misguided. Perhaps she had convinced herself that what she was doing was for the best – knowing her Harriet could not truly believe that Sally would have had it in her to hurt anyone, much less those she loved. Harriet looked at her now with compassion, seeing a woman who had given of herself freely over the years, a woman exhausted now from hours of keeping vigil at her sick husband’s bedside, a woman who could see her house of cards suddenly tumbling around her. But despite it all …
‘There is something you have forgotten,’ Harriet said again, even more gently.
‘And what is that?’
‘That Theresa is my sister.’
The silence stretched on and on. Sally looked startled now, as if the fact had somehow escaped her all these years. She had only seen Theresa as a tiny baby, for a few hours only – the duration of the flight from Italy to London – and had never thought of her as a person at all, only as a problem that had to be overcome. Now, with a sense of shock she realised for the first time it was true. Harriet and Theresa were sisters, just as she and Paula had been. Separated by upbringing, maybe, on different sides of the Atlantic, one with all the privileges that wealth could bestow, the other having to struggle for everything – but still sisters, not even half-sisters as she had suspected but, if Mark was to be believed (and Mark’s truthfulness was not something she had ever had cause to doubt) full flesh and blood.
‘Mark is right, Sally,’ Harriet was saying gently. ‘We can’t keep this hidden any longer. Don’t you see – lies and deceit grow and grow. The whole bloody edifice gets bigger and more unwieldy until in the end it has to come tumbling down.’
Sally stared at her hands, still twisted together in her lap. ‘ Oh what a tangled web we weave,’ her mother had used to say, long ago, in another life, ‘when first we practise to deceive’. Yes, it was true. As Harriet had said the web had grown more and more tangled. In some ways it would be a relief not to have to sustain any more. But there were other things to be considered. All very well to indulge in an orgy of truth. All very well to dream about how nice it would be to leave pretence behind. There were still problems to be faced and the revelations would tear her world apart. What her friends in the Shiny Set would think of her when they learned the truth, she did not know. She would be ostracised, probably, pointed out as a wicked scheming woman by those who would not even try to understand. But that was not the worst of it. The worst was thinking of the man she loved – the man for whom she had done it all – and going cold at the thought of what the truth would do to him. Bad enough if he had been fit and strong, but as he was …
‘What about your father?’ she asked. Harriet was silent, and gaining courage Sally went on: ‘This would kill him. You must know that.’
‘It is a big problem,’ Harriet agreed. ‘Mark and I have been talking about it most of the afternoon. Of course he can’t be told just now. It would upset him too much – he couldn’t take it. But when he’s well enough we are going to have to find a way.’
‘No! No!’ Sally raised her knotted fingers to her
mouth, pressing hard as if to stop the sobs, but they escaped anyway. ‘He mustn’t know – he mustn’t!’
‘Harriet and I both think it’s the right thing but clearly it is going to have to wait until he is strong enough,’ Mark said firmly. ‘In the meantime I am going back to London to see Theresa.’
‘Oh Mark – think carefully about that!’ Sally wailed. ‘You don’t know how she would react. Suppose she makes a splash – tells the newspapers? She could blow the whole thing wide open. It will kill him – it will!’
‘Theresa wouldn’t do that,’ Mark said confidently.
‘How do you know? She’s a designer, you say. It would be wonderful publicity for her to tell the world she is Hugo Varna’s daughter. You can’t be sure she won’t do it, Mark.’
‘I can. I know her.’ Her broke off, thinking that until this afternoon he had also thought he knew his mother. A lifetime’s knowledge set against a matter of months. But what hope was there if in spite of everything one could not trust? ‘If I’m wrong then I’m sorry. But I don’t think I am wrong. Anyway,’ he added bitterly, ‘ she may not even want to see me after the way I walked out on her without explanation. Just think, Mum, there’s hope yet!’
Sally’s eyes flicked up, full of pain.
‘Do you hate me so much, Mark?’
He shook his head wearily. ‘I don’t hate you. I just don’t understand how you could have done it.’
No more do I, Harriet thought, but I can guess.
‘I don’t think there’s any more we can usefully discuss now,’ she said. ‘We’ll end up going round in circles. If you still want that bath we’ll hold dinner for a while.’
‘Yes,’ Sally said shakily. ‘I do want that bath – and I have more than the smell of hospital to wash away now, don’t I? To listen to you two I could be like Pontius Pilate, forever washing my hands, but the stains would still be there.’
