'No, love,' Jack shook his head and his eyes were sad. 'Not because I'm not interested in you, but because of Ginny and our kids. My eldest, April is a little older than you, Amanda is fourteen and full of all the devilment I was at that age. Little Lydia is eight. I can't let them be harmed by gossip.'
'But surely we could meet somewhere away from Littlehampton?'
Jack smiled ruefully. Camellia was nothing like her mother, either in looks or character, yet he could recall Bonny suggesting that very same thing back in 1949. Camellia's visit now was all tied up in that one night of weakness, and he'd lived with the guilt for years. He wasn't going to make a similar mistake again.
'People are so quick to gossip in these parts,' he said gently. 'Your mother is still mentioned in some circles. If they knew her daughter was around here and talking to me they'd soon be making a meal of it.'
Camellia got up. 'I have to go now.' She tried to smile, but her lips quivered. 'Thank you for your time, Jack.'
He had to hug her. Her face was registering all the sadness he felt inside, all the might-have-beens, the broken dreams.
'Look after yourself,' he said huskily as he held her tightly. As he released her he pulled a wad of notes from his pocket and handed her thirty pounds.
'Don't think that is a pay-off. I'm just trying to smooth your path a little, the same as I would with my daughters. Just promise me you'll drop me a line every now and again and let me know how you're doing and where you are.'
Jack watched Camellia going off to the station from his office window: a tall willowy girl with shining hair bouncing on her shoulders. If Lydia had still been alive she would have been thrilled to discover the funny little girl she liked so much had grown into a beautiful woman.
He felt saddened that he hadn't been able to tell Camellia anything which might have eased her sadness. But then he wished so many things. That Bonny had loved him as he loved her. That Lydia had never told him that on her last visit to Rye
she'd found Bonny drunk, half naked and entertaining two men, while Camellia was at school. That he could have been honest and told Camellia that Lydia had left Briar Bank, her beautiful house in Amberley, to him and Ginny, because of that day.
Jack sighed deeply and poured himself another large whisky. The studio in the basement where Bonny used to practise her dancing was now a playroom. Ginny cared for the lovely garden, every bit as enthusiastically as Lydia did. Sometimes he looked at the big couch in the sitting room and remembered that was where he first made love to Bonny when she was only fifteen.
Lydia had wanted him and Ginny to be happy there, to give their children all the advantages she'd had, and to use it as collateral for Jack to set up the car showroom he'd always dreamed of. She had always been there for him, just as she was for Bonny. It was she who first taught him about cars when he arrived down from London, a skinny little waif, in 1939. She had stimulated his desire for better things all through the war years, comforted him when Bonny packed him in, supported and encouraged him right through those first lean years when he opened his first garage.
But above all Jack wished he'd been able to tell Camellia that Lydia had deposited several thousand pounds in a bank for her. But she had entrusted Jack and her solicitors with the task of passing it on to her when she reached twenty-five, providing she hadn't turned out like her mother. He wished he could have told her about it now, if only to prove to her that Lydia had thought of her as a granddaughter right till the end. But that would be breaking his promise to Lydia. He hoped she would keep in touch. It might be hard to find her otherwise.
Two weeks to the day that Camellia had been to see Jack, she left the holiday camp for good. It had been a rotten job, for even worse money and Denise still wasn't back at her flat. But Camellia had a plan now, one that excited her far more than going back to London to find a job. She was going to Bath, to see Magnus Osbourne and to settle the past once and for all.
Thanks to the money Jack had given her, she had a small nest egg. She intended to hitchhike rather than waste money on fares. She had a long grey raincoat, a couple of warm sweaters and a pair of stout walking shoes, all courtesy of unclaimed lost property. If it wasn't for feeling a bit off colour, everything would be rosy.
She'd had a sore throat for a couple of days. She'd gone to bed the night before shivering and aching all over. This morning she felt even worse.
A car stopped for her almost as soon as she was out of the holiday camp gates. By midday she was beyond Salisbury waiting for her fourth lift of the day and she reckoned she could be in Bath by three or four at the latest. But after she'd walked a mile or so in the rain, without anyone even glancing at her, let alone stopping, she had a feeling her luck had run out.
She was beginning to feel really ill now. Her throat was so sore she could barely swallow, and she was shivering as if in the depths of winter. Within an hour the rain had penetrated her raincoat and the stout shoes were giving her a blister. She stopped in a village shop, bought some more aspirin and a packet of plasters and asked if there was a bus to Bath.
'Not till five thirty, my lover,' the rosy cheeked woman behind the counter said cheerfully, in a rich Wiltshire accent. 'And I dunno rightly whether it runs this time of year anyways.'
There was no alternative but to trudge on, the rain growing steadily heavier, the wind stronger. Cars swished by her, spraying her with more water. A farmer with a lorry loaded with pigs picked her up eventually at around five thirty, but he was only going as far as Rode, the other side of Warminster, and over the noise of his old lorry, the rain outside and an untuned radio crackling away, Camellia couldn't even manage to tell him how ill she felt, or ask if he knew any bed and breakfast places nearby.
By the time they got to Rode it was pitch dark. She reckoned it was perhaps fifteen miles further to Bath. She plodded on, aware now that no one in their right mind would pick her up on such a dark, wild night. She just hoped she would come to a guest house before long.
It was scary walking in the dark. She veered between desperately attempting to flag down passing motorists and jumping into ditches to avoid being hit. She couldn't remember ever having felt quite so ill and cold.
She passed two pubs, and had a large whisky in both, but neither had rooms available. She was finding it increasingly hard to walk. The wind buffeted her from side to side, and several times passing cars blasted their horns at her. She was crying now, both her feet hurt and she was wet right through to her underwear, her soaked bell-bottom jeans slapping noisily against her shins.
As she came down a steep hill she saw a pub at the bottom all lit up with small lights. To her left she thought she could see a river, with what looked like a viaduct over it, but in the darkness and rain, in such a weakened state, it was hard to tell what anything was.
She summoned up the last of her strength and concentrated all her efforts on reaching that pub. There had to be someone in there who would help her. She no longer cared if she ever got to Bath, she just wanted to lie down somewhere warm and dry.
Heat enveloped her as she pushed open the pub door. As she took a couple more steps towards the bar, it seemed to grab her and squeeze her so tight she could no longer focus her eyes. She saw a bright light, then a dozen more spinning before her and she felt her legs go from under her.
'She's soaking,' Camellia heard a man say. 'Freezing cold and soaked to the skin. Call an ambulance!'
Her fear of authority made her open her eyes. 'I'm okay,' she managed to croak. 'It's just the heat in here.'
She was lying on the floor surrounded by men, country types with tweed jackets and ruddy faces.
'Give her a bit of air,' someone said.
'Where were you making for?' another person asked.
Camellia felt someone put a hand beneath her back and she was lifted to a sitting position.
'I was going to Oaklands, a hotel in Bath,' she said.
She had had no intention of trying to find Magnus before she'd found somew
here to stay in Bath. But the words just sprang out.
'Oaklands, eh! Well you were nearly there.' The man who'd helped her up knelt beside her and put a hand on her forehead. 'You're burning up my girl. Best get you there right now.'
Camellia was too dazed to think straight. As the man helped her to her feet she was so glad that someone had taken over, that she didn't care what happened next.
She was helped outside again by two men. She was vaguely aware of them putting her rucksack in the boot and a rug over the passenger seat to protect it from her wet clothes, then she found herself bundled in.
The cold air brought her partially back to her senses. The car was climbing a very steep winding hill with thick bushes and trees on both sides.
'Have you come far?' the driver asked. He wore a checked flat cap and a gabardine jacket. His voice was brisk and well bred.
'From Sussex,' she replied with difficulty.
'Bad throat?' he asked solicitously. 'How long have you been out in the rain?'
She tried to reply, but it was just a wheezy croak. She held onto her throat and looked at the man hopelessly.
'Magnus will call a doctor for you,' he said. 'Were you going there for a job?'
Camellia nodded; it was easier than attempting anything else. But she was distracted as the man slowed down on a bend and a large wooden board with Oaklands came into the car headlights. It was fixed to an imposing old stone wall beside massive, open wrought-iron gates.
Her heart plummeted. In her imagination Oak-lands was a largish house converted into a small tourist hotel. But this drive was through a dense woodland of huge great trees which met overhead in a thick canopy. Without even seeing the house she knew it wasn't going to be the sort of hotel the average tourist stayed in and they were hardly likely to welcome someone as bedraggled as her.
'Magnus is a man with great foresight,' the driver said. 'When he bought this place it was almost a ruin, we didn't expect him to make a go of it. Just looking after the grounds is a huge headache.'
As the car came out of the overshadowing trees, Camellia saw the imposing Georgian house floodlit before her and wished she was anywhere but here, anyone but herself.
In that second, before the car stopped by the front door, she knew she couldn't possibly reveal her identity tonight. She needed time to think.
A tall dark girl came forward as Camellia swayed on her feet.
'Quick, get her a chair,' she heard the man supporting her shout. 'Call Magnus.'
She must have blacked out again. The next thing she knew a strong male hand was holding her head down between her knees and asking questions.
'Did she say who she was, or why she was coming here? I wasn't expecting anyone.'
'She's come from Sussex,' the man with the car answered. 'About a job she said, but she was losing her voice.'
Camellia waited a moment before showing she was coming round. To the right of where she sat she could hear male voices and the clinking of glasses.
'I expect she's been walking all day,' he said in a growling voice. 'Soaked to the skin and probably hasn't eaten for a good while. She's got a fever, let's hope it doesn't turn to pneumonia. I'll give her a bed for the night Fred, and call the doctor, you get on back to your pint.'
Camellia moved then, fluttering her arms so he would release the pressure on her neck.
'Hullo, she's coming to,' the deep growly voice said. 'Well, girl, can you tell me who you are?'
As Camellia sat up he crouched down in front of her. It was like coming face-to-face with a lion. He had a mane of thick fair hair, a broad nose with two deep channels beside it, bushy eyebrows and penetrating speckly eyes of an indeterminate colour. She had expected to see the man in the photograph with Bonny and the other girl, but he seemed too young, hardly more than fifty-five at the most. The man in the picture had looked suave and debonair; this man was more rugged, as if he spent all his time outside. Instinct told her he'd be hard to fool.
'Mel,' she croaked. 'Amelia Corbett,' she said as an afterthought. It was the name of a girl she'd met in Ibiza and close enough to her own that she'd remember it. 'I heard you wanted a . . .' her voice gave way again and she merely mouthed the last two words 'kitchen maid'. It was a lame excuse but the best she could think of on the spur of the moment.
'Okay, Mel. Don't try to speak if it hurts you.' His voice was gentler now, and with that the driver of the car said his goodbyes and left. 'Just nod or shake your head,' he went on. 'Are you in pain?'
Camellia shook her head.
'You've walked a long way?'
A nod.
'Well, let's get you out of those wet clothes and into a hot bath.'
Magnus took her downstairs to the basement. He ushered her into a small bathroom, handed her a towelling dressing gown, and ordered her to take off her clothes.
'You must have a hot drink and some soup before the bath,' he said. 'I don't want you passing out in here alone.'
It was bliss to take off her sodden clothes, to hug the thick warm towelling around her and by the time she'd come out again, Magnus was coming down the passage with a bowl of soup and a mug of tea on a tray.
He sat her down at a small desk in the passage and she drank down the soup greedily despite her sore throat. Magnus disappeared again but she could hear him rustling things in a room further along the passage by the bathroom. There were other voices, coming from the direction of the kitchen, a male one with a French accent and a woman's, but neither of these people looked out at her.
'I've rung the doctor and run your bath,' Magnus said, when he came out again to find she'd finished the soup. 'Don't lock the door in there just in case you pass out. I'll be waiting out here if you need me.'
Gratitude that she'd been rescued was all she felt while she was in the bath. She felt too ill to contemplate the next day, when she would need to make explanations; for now it was enough to be warm. But as she climbed out of the bath, before she could even wrap herself in a towel, she was violently sick.
It was a horrible experience. It seemed to be coming out of her nose as well as her mouth and the stench of tomato soup mingled with the earlier whisky made it even worse. Magnus came rushing in, as she was leaning over the toilet bowl, giving her no time to cover herself. He picked up the dressing gown, put it round her shoulders, and pulled her wet hair back from her face.
'The soup was clearly a mistake,' he said in that now familiar growly voice. 'I suppose you've been starving for days while you slept rough.'
She couldn't speak to tell him this wasn't so. She managed to get her arms into the dressing gown and wrap it round her naked body, while he picked up her sodden clothes one by one from the floor, holding them distastefully between thumb and forefinger.
'I don't have any time for hippies,' he said, glaring balefully at the string of love beads around her neck. 'The doctrine of hitching rides, conning food, avoiding work and numbing your mind with opiates is anathema to me. However I wouldn't turn a dog out on a night like this, especially not a sick one. You can stay here until you are better, but I do not want to find you wandering upstairs for any reason. If you have any drugs in your possession, I suggest you flush them down the lavatory now.'
Camellia was soon safe in a warm bed, piled high with extra blankets, but although she was exhausted, she still couldn't sleep, for shame and embarrassment.
Camellia felt tears roll down her cheeks as she lay there. The room felt like a prison cell. There was just one small window high up in the wall and it had bars over it. The room was bare except for a plain small chest of drawers and a single upright chair.
She had blown it again. If she had let those people in the pub call for an ambulance she'd be safe in a hospital now. Well she wasn't going to tell Magnus who she really was. Let him think she was just a dirty hippie passing through on the lookout for a handout. She'd stay until she was better, take the pills the doctor had given her, then go. She didn't need a father who was as blinkered and bigoted as him.
Chapter Thirteen
Camellia came up the steps from the basement, skirted round the side of the house, then crossed the flagstone terrace to the wide stone steps which led to the lawn.
Once down there, partially concealed by bushes, she paused to look back at Oaklands. Soon Magnus Osbourne would be summoning her and this might be her only opportunity to look around before she was thrown out.
She had been in his hotel for six days. For the first two she'd been too ill to worry any more about what he or anyone else thought of her. She vaguely remembered Magnus coming into her room along with a doctor, but once her temperature returned to normal he made no further appearances. Mrs Downes, the housekeeper, and the French chef Antoine, who looked after her, said he asked how she was daily, but Camellia felt that only meant he wanted shot of her as quickly as possible.
Even down from the basement, Camellia had felt the house's magic and beauty. Now that she was at last outside, she saw it was even more magnificent than she'd imagined.
Looking at it from this position, across the lawn in weak autumn sunshine, was to see its best aspect. Like most Georgian country houses, it had been designed with its best side facing the view. And there couldn't be a finer one in all England.
The house sat proudly at the top of a lush green rolling valley. Below was the river Avon, the canal, the viaduct and the tiny village of Limpney Stoke, where Mrs Downes lived. Beyond that the hills rose up again. She could just make out the road she'd stumbled down before getting to the pub where she was rescued.
Camellia turned to look at the house again. Virginia creeper in its full autumn fiery beauty enhanced the golden-yellow stone, but she had a feeling that whatever the season there would be other climbing plants to take its place. She knew from Mrs Downes that behind the long elegant windows to her right was the dining room, that the ones on the far left belonged to the drawing room and that the room in the middle with doors leading onto the garden was the bar.
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