Camellia

by Lesley Pearse

  'I did write, even though I said I wouldn't, but the letters were always sent back marked "Not known at this address", in her writing,' Helena said eventually, wiping her mascara-streaked face with her hanky. 'I wanted to know about how you were, what you looked like and things so badly, but there wasn't anyone I could get information from, not without making people suspicious. I just wish now I'd gone back to England and Rye sometimes. But I thought by staying away I was doing the right thing for all of us.'

  'What was Bonny going to expose about you?' Mel asked tentatively. That seemed to be the last remaining secret.

  'That Sir Miles Hamilton is my father,' Helena said.

  Mel's mouth fell open. 'He's not! He can't be!'

  'You aren't the only one with muddled parentage.' Helena half smiled. 'Until I was eighteen, I thought my father was Tom Forester, a docker who'd been killed at work just before I was born. My Aunt Marleen told me the truth when she was ill in hospital, long after Mum was killed. Secrets seem to run in our family, don't they?'

  'That's incredible. But why didn't your mother tell you?'

  'Polly was a dancer too. She fell in love with a married man who also happened to be titled. When she found she was pregnant she ran off and hid to save him from scandal, and brought me up alone pretending she was a widow. But Miles wants to tell you his side of this himself. At the time when Bonny threatened to expose this, Miles had no idea that I was his daughter. I was just his protégé. He learned it pretty soon afterwards, Bonny wrote and told him.'

  'So that explains his letter,' Mel gasped. 'Good God. He's my grandfather! Magnus said that Nick had seen a resemblance, he was convinced he was my father.'

  'I know,' Helena smiled ruefully. 'The day I came here to see Magnus, all my chickens came home to roost. I was always so sure I'd done the right thing by keeping quiet about you and Miles, but in fact all the time I thought I was protecting you both, I was putting you in danger.'

  'It's all so muddled,' Camellia sighed. 'I can't get my head round it. I still don't see exactly why Edward had to kill Bonny.'

  'Until Edward's caught and he makes a confession, we won't know it all for sure,' Helena said. 'But there is one thing more I must tell you, because Edward's reasons for doing what he did almost certainly rest with it. I got myself into a terrible mess after I returned to America after seeing you and Bonny that last time. I suffered from depression right from the time I left you with Bonny and John. In those first four years I could cope with the bad days because I was hearing about you from Bonny each month and I could phone whenever I wanted reassurance. But once I lost that life-line I got really screwed up. Edward kept me going then – he was the truest friend anyone could ever have. But I guess when he discovered about your birth, he thought it was fear of being exposed which made me that way. Of course if he'd admitted he knew about it, I would have told him that my mental problems were caused by grief, not fear. The story might have had a different ending then.'

  'And Bonny told Jack and Magnus they were my father just for attention?'

  Helena's expression held both surprise and warmth as if she was touched by Mel's perceptive-ness.

  'Yes, I think so, honey. You see, I was the one she'd always turned to before when she had a problem or just needed reassurance she was loved. It's sad to think she felt compelled to turn to her old men friends, and make up something so damaging for all of them, just for a measure of comfort, especially when she had a husband who worshipped her. Bonny was Bonny – impulsive, flighty, ridiculous, and a dramatist sometimes. Yet I think I understand why she did it. I hope you do too?'

  Mel could only nod. A lump was growing in her throat. Helena was everything Magnus had said – a woman with a big heart, loyal to a fault and generous too. That last statement about Bonny said so much: the kindest, truest epitaph.

  'Can we be friends now?' Helena asked in a small voice. She was looking at Camellia as if her life depended on the answer.

  'I'm not sure what we can be,' Mel said truthfully. 'Reason tells me I ought to be overjoyed. I've got a new mother and a grandfather and there's nothing to stand in the way of Nick and I becoming lovers either. But I just feel stunned, and a bit bruised.'

  'I'm sure you do. Finding you have a new family doesn't take away the hurt of knowing why Bonny was killed – and it can never replace her.'

  Mel nodded. 'I suppose that's it. I loved her. She wasn't a good mother, not after Dad died. But we had times together that were so sweet, and good.'

  'So did I,' Helena said softly, and her hand reached out to caress Camellia's scarred cheek. 'I loved her too. You and I both saw the other Bonny behind all that greed and scheming. She was like a sparkler – too hot for comfort, but bright and beautiful. Both of us have suffered deeply, because we cared for her, but perhaps that common ground will help us now.'

  'She wouldn't have liked to grow old and wrinkled,' Mel sighed. 'And if she'd lived she would have destroyed us all, one way or another.'

  'Wherever she is now I bet she's laughing about this,' Helena smiled. 'Maybe if we can think on that we'll get over it too.'

  A silence fell between them. Mel remembered that night in Fishmarket Street when she was fifteen and she'd cried because she was so fat and plain. Bonny had comforted her by saying she'd once had a friend who'd been fat too and that she turned into a beautiful woman. Now she knew Bonny hadn't hardened her heart towards her old friend. Edward must have convinced her he would reunite them.

  'I want to hug you, but I can't,' Mel said bluntly. She turned her head slightly so she didn't have to see those big sad eyes.

  'The world wasn't made in one day. I carried you for nine months, and held you in my heart and mind for another twenty-four years,' Helena said in a tremulous voice. She stood up and stepped away from where Camellia sat on the bed. 'We've got the rest of our lives. But there's something you need more than a new mother right now.'

  'What's that?' Mel looked up. Helena was smiling again.

  'A love affair,' she said, and her eyes glinted with wickedness. 'My Auntie Marleen, who was a character and a half, always advocated that remedy for everything from falling hair to sore feet. Perhaps it's not what a mother should say to her daughter, but then I haven't earned the right to that title yet.'

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sir Miles sat in a high-backed chair by the fire in the ground floor drawing room, Mel on the settee a few feet from him, her bandaged foot up on a padded stool, covered by a thick sock. It had turned very cold and a high wind sent flurries of autumn leaves past the windows, so even at the risk of appearing rather casual about meeting her grandfather for the first time, Mel had chosen to wear jeans and a red sweater.

  The Westminster clock on the mantelpiece had just chimed eleven o'clock and though the old man had talked almost continually since arriving at ten thirty, it was clear from his brusque manner that he found confessions difficult.

  'There's no need for you to feel awkward or embarrassed Sir Miles,' Mel said gently. 'I do understand.'

  She was finding it hard to digest the idea that he was her grandfather. He looked and sounded so much like Winston Churchill – the same kind of round face, fleshy jowls and lack of neck, not to mention a manner of speaking that commanded attention. But his rather flamboyant green tweed jacket and his green and gold cravat pleased her, and she felt that at heart he was a nonconformist.

  'You don't have to use my title,' he said stiffly. 'Miles is perfectly acceptable to me. Helena privately calls me "Smiley", but as we haven't found a great deal to smile about yet, that doesn't seem particularly appropriate.'

  Mel took heart at this, since it implied he too wished for an easier rapport with her. She felt deeply for him. He had stayed at Helena's cottage the night before and it was only then that the suspicions which had started when Nick called on him earlier in the year were finally confirmed, and his daughter told him the whole story. From the pride in his face when he spoke of Helena, Mel could tell that it had been a source of
joy for him to discover he was a father late in life, but she didn't think he'd yet accepted the idea that he was also a grandfather.

  Miles's age and background made it very hard for him to speak of his illicit love affair with Helena's mother. He had told the story in a crisp, unemotional way, but Mel could see some parallels to the affair between Bonny and Magnus. Miles had met Polly, a chirpy little Cockney chorus girl, when she was in a show at the Catford Hippodrome in 1925, and fallen deeply in love with her despite his marriage and social position. When she disappeared without trace some eighteen months later, he said he had been devastated but had to assume she'd met another man who was free to marry her.

  When he moved on to relate the sequel to Polly's story, told to him by Helena, his voice shook. Clearly some forty odd years later he was still troubled by the knowledge that the mistress he loved had chosen to turn her back on the stage and bring up his daughter in poverty, rather than subject him to any scandal or disgrace.

  'Well, let's find something to smile about,' Mel said brightly. She was feeling sparkly today. She and Nick had spoken for nearly an hour on the telephone the day before and he was coming down from London this evening. Although she'd only been at Oaklands for two days, her foot was less painful now and being able to talk over with Magnus everything Helena had told her, had put it all into perspective. She saw Miles's past as rather romantic; it didn't disturb or shock her in the way Helena's revelations had.

  Now she wanted to clear up all the debris from the past and start afresh. Early this morning she'd written a long letter to Conrad about it all, though now she thought she'd better open it again and add the part about Miles. It was the kind of juicy story he loved and she knew he wouldn't pass it on to anyone else.

  'Helena's new film sounds so exciting, and I'm dying to see her thatched cottage too. Magnus said it's very pretty.'

  He did smile then at the sudden switch to lighter topics. Helena had been so sure last night that Camellia would never accept her as even a friend, let alone a mother.

  'You are a sweet girl,' he said generously. 'Just as Magnus and Helena said you were. I hope in my clumsy way that I've managed to explain how things were for me back in those days. I would hate you to think I knowingly abandoned a woman who was carrying my child. I couldn't have married Polly, but I would have supported her and Helena. It was a great sadness to me that Mary and I never were blessed with children,'

  'They aren't always a blessing,' Mel said wryly. 'But tell me about my early days. I know you were a guest at Bonny and John's wedding, and I imagine you and your wife must have come to our house before John died?'

  'Many times in the first two or three years of your life. We came to the house in Somerset too,' he said and at last there was a real smile on his lips. 'It was in spring of 1950, you were just a few months old and Mary never stopped cooing over you. She insisted on us taking you out for a walk in your pram. The hills were so steep I was forced to push you myself. It was the first and last time I ever pushed a pram.'

  Mel liked this image, even though she could no more imagine him behind a pram than dancing in a tutu. 'Was I a nice baby?'

  'Wet and squawky as far as I remember,' he said gruffly. 'But Mary thought you were an angel. Of course, had I known you were my granddaughter then, I certainly would have taken a much closer interest. But that weekend was a very jolly one. John and Bonny were excellent hosts. I remember we had pheasant for dinner and I was astounded that someone as giddy as Bonny could cook so well. She loved her garden too. It was a mass of spring flowers, quite lovely.'

  'So you liked her then?'

  He gave Mel a sharp look. 'Yes, I did like her, then,' he agreed, if somewhat reluctantly. 'She was such a child – excited, happy, full of bounce and vitality. I had my reservations when John married her; she had something of a reputation you see and I thought she was after John's money. But that weekend I saw exactly why John adored her. She was delightful.'

  'And your opinion changed when she wrote to you about Helena?'

  'Yes, I was profoundly shocked – not only by the revelations which knocked me sideways, but by the viciousness of the letter. Of course now I know the background I realise it was written in a moment of spite, out of grief that she'd lost her dearest friend, but that is no excuse. My feelings as I read it must have been similar to yours when you discovered John Norton wasn't your real father. All those years I had imagined Polly left me for another man. Now I hear that the young actress whose career I've been pushing is in fact my daughter.'

  He paused for a moment, as if to gather himself, and wiped his perspiring brow with a handkerchief. He shot an odd sort of look at Mel, as if unsure how far he should go in his confessions. He cleared his throat and went on.

  'Bonny didn't demand any money. Her motive appeared to be purely to cause maximum distress. She threatened to take the story to the newspapers.'

  'Then she didn't tell you I was Helena's child?'

  'No, not that. I do wish now that she had. She hinted at knowing something even more damaging, but I assumed this was that Helena had been involved in something illegal or criminal. My fears at the time were all for my wife. Mary was a very kind, caring woman, who'd supported me loyally my entire married life. It wasn't fair that someone should destroy her peace and happiness out of sheer malice.'

  'You were very brave calling Bonny's bluff,' Mel said. 'What would you have done if she'd gone ahead and exposed everything publicly?'

  'I don't know,' he admitted, again wiping his brow. Mel hoped she wasn't submitting him to too much stress: he was after all over eighty. 'I spent a few sleepless nights thinking on that of course. I wasn't entirely convinced it was true at that point. Polly Forester might not have been "my" Polly. Even if she was, Helena might have been another man's child. So I went over to America to see Helena.'

  'Why hadn't she told you before?'

  'Helena said it was because she hadn't absolutely believed the story her Aunt Marleen had told her. But in my opinion, she is just very like her mother – unable to make waves which might hurt others. We checked on everything together; we even had blood tests. But even before it was confirmed, we both knew that Marleen was right. Helena has the Hamilton colouring, the mouth and nose. You have inherited those too, along with my eyes, which come from my mother's family.

  'Anyway, I felt less anxious after talking to Helena. She convinced me Bonny wouldn't make good her threats, that her intention was just to cause friction between the two of us, nothing more. As it turned out she was right, and I bitterly regret that I took Manning into my confidence about it. But at the time I thought it best that we should be prepared for a scandal, and as Manning was Helena's manager I believed he had a right to be forewarned.'

  Another piece of the puzzle dropped into place for Mel. She could see now how faced with strong evidence of her maliciousness Edward's antagonism towards Bonny had accelerated into hate. It was even understandable, given that he didn't know the whole story, that he held Bonny responsible for Helena's unhappiness and depression.

  'When do you think Edward discovered the truth about me?' she asked.

  Sir Miles sighed deeply. 'Helena believes it was well before he killed Bonny, but I don't think that's right. In the light of what we know now, he most certainly would have found a way of disposing of you too if that had been the case. I have to admit that I inadvertently fuelled his rage by feeding him information over the years. I've been a doddering, interfering old fool.'

  Mel smiled: he couldn't often have admitted such things. 'Tell me?'

  'As you know it was two years before John's death that I received that dreadful letter from Bonny, and as you can well imagine I didn't pay any further social calls to Rye. But I met John alone twice for lunch in London in those two years, and I allowed him to think I was getting too old to go visiting. When John died, Mary and I were on holiday in Kenya. That was fortunate for me as it meant I had the perfect excuse not to attend his funeral and come face to face with Bonn
y. We did of course send flowers and a message of sympathy.

  'Manning called on me in London some four or five months later. I showed him John's obituary in The Times and we discussed whether or not Helena should be told. We decided, bearing in mind that she had just begun a new film, that it would be in her best interests to say nothing.'

  'That was very wrong of you,' Mel said.

  'With hindsight, it was,' he agreed, rubbing his hand thoughtfully around his several chins. 'But believe me, Camellia, I was, like Edward, only attempting to shield Helena from any distress. We guessed she would want to go and see Bonny, and bearing in mind how acrimoniously her last visit had ended, we felt she was better off in ignorance.

  'My wife died two years later. I notified Bonny because Mary had been fond of her. Mary, of course, knew nothing of my change of heart towards Bonny and had continued to send you cards and presents for birthdays and Christmas, right up till her death.

  'But Bonny ignored my letter; she neither came to the funeral nor sent a letter of condolence. I felt perfectly justified then in severing all links with her. I certainly didn't want Helena to become involved with the woman again.'

  Mel could remember getting many cards and presents from her parents' old friends when she was little. Then like the visitors they'd once had, they all gradually stopped coming. She wondered if Bonny managed to upset all those people, or whether she had in fact distanced herself purposely.

  'I saw Manning many times in the subsequent years,' Miles went on. 'Twice or three times in London, but mainly over in Hollywood when I went to see Helena. She was in a bad way at that time and both of us were desperately worried about her. It was during one of these visits about three years ago when I asked Manning if he and Helena had heard about Bonny's death. I had only learned about it myself from the newspaper reports about you and that friend of yours who died from a drug overdose in Chelsea, and I'd taken the cuttings with me to show him.'