The Granville Affaire

by Una-Mary Parker

  Sophia started wailing. She always did when the atmosphere became tense.

  ‘You’ll manage,’ Rosie said slowly, as it sank in what Charles joining the army would mean. He’d be away from home. Earning regular money. Being forced to work. And no longer a liability and a thorn in her side. She picked up a knife and started peeling the potatoes for lunch.

  ‘I wonder how I can get out of it?’ Charles wailed, stricken. This was the most horrific thing that had ever happened to him; worse even than being sent to boarding school when he was seven.

  Rosie looked at him askance. ‘Perhaps, instead of joining the Army, you can volunteer for the Navy or the Airforce?’

  ‘That would be even worse. I get terribly seasick, and I don’t like heights.’

  ‘You’re going to have to do something, unless they find you medically unfit; which you’re not,’ she said cruelly, and then realized how unfeeling that sounded.

  ‘What am I going to do…?’ He grabbed her hand, though it was wet and muddy from the potatoes, and she felt a wave of revulsion; he was like a frightened child, clinging to its mother.

  ‘I think your mother’s right, Charles,’ she said slowly. ‘Join up before you’re conscripted. Everyone is having to join up, women too, unless they’ve got small children; you wouldn’t want anyone to think you were a conscientious objector, would you?’

  ‘No.’ His voice broke on a sob, and he turned and fled from the kitchen.

  As Rosie stood at the sink, hot tears trickling down her own cheeks. Her immediate feelings of relief that Charles would be away for a long time now gave way to feelings of guilt. A sense of shame overwhelmed her. Was she wishing him dead! He might be killed. He might never come back. And for the rest of her life she would be haunted by her wickedness at wishing him gone for good.

  Sophia tugged at her skirt. ‘Mummy?’

  Wiping her hands on a tea towel, Rosie swept the little girl into her arms and hugged her close. At least she had her babies as a result of her disastrous marriage, and she’d never let anything happen to them.

  But suddenly she realized, it was not going to be as easy to say goodbye to Charles as she’d thought. She’d be on her own, with no one else to blame if anything went wrong.

  * * *

  ‘Goodness…!’ exclaimed Liza, reading the new edition of the Tatler, dated September the sixth. ‘Listen to this, girls. “The crisis robbed Deauville of many of its most regular supporters before Grand Prix day, yet there was still a good attendance for a very exciting day’s racing.” Imagine that? I wish we’d been there.’

  The thought of living in the country permanently was making Liza restless.

  Juliet, instead of returning to Scotland immediately as she’d planned, had decided to drive down to Hartley for a few days, to say goodbye to the family. With a war on, she now had no idea when she’d be able to come South again.

  ‘That was probably written weeks ago,’ she pointed out. ‘It takes them ages to print the magazine, so it’s bound to be out of date.’

  Liza looked crushed. ‘It says here, Queen Mary has gone to stay with the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, at Badminton, for the duration of the war. She’s taken sixty-three servants with her!’

  Parsons came on silent feet into the room. ‘There’s a telephone call from His Grace, for Your Grace,’ he announced grandly to Juliet.

  Juliet left the room to take the call.

  ‘Hello, Cameron?’ she said, putting on a bright voice. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine, dear. But when are you coming home?’

  ‘At the weekend. It’s all a bit hectic down here. Charles is joining the Guards, so I’ve had to stay and comfort Rosie and her babies. Daddy’s in London and Granny thinks we should try and squeeze in a few evacuees, but Mummy won’t let her. Says we’ll all get nits and lice…’ Juliet chattered on, in an effort to cover up what she was really feeling; that life without Daniel, who she hadn’t seen since Sunday, was unbearable.

  ‘When at the weekend?’ Cameron asked, as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

  ‘I’ll let you know. Probably sometime on Saturday.’

  ‘You’ve been away for a long time.’ He sounded sullen and reproving.

  ‘Well, it’s been very chaotic. I’ve been shopping for clothes and silk stockings before they’re rationed. I’ve bought some furs because fuel is going to be rationed, too, and you know how cold Glenmally can get… Oh, yes – and war broke out! Quite a busy week in fact,’ she added sarcastically.

  * * *

  Walking restlessly in the garden the next morning, Juliet met Louise, who’d been asked by her grandmother to pick some chrysanthemums and dahlias for the dining-room table.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Juliet asked. ‘You look miserable.’

  ‘Juliet, can I talk to you?’ Louise indicated a wooden bench set under a cherry tree. ‘Can we sit down for a minute?’

  ‘Yes, of course. What is it?’

  ‘There’s something I must tell you; I must tell someone, or I’ll burst,’ Louise blurted out.

  ‘What is it?’ Juliet asked sharply, looking at Louise apprehensively.

  ‘It’s a secret. A terrible secret. You must promise faithfully not to tell a soul,’ Louise beseeched.

  Juliet’s heart stood still for a moment. If what had happened to her had now happened to Louise, she’d kill… She forced herself to sound calm. ‘Sounds serious,’ she said, trying desperately to keep her tone light. She sat down on the bench and looked in the sweet young face of her sister. ‘Now, what’s it all about?’

  ‘When we were in Brittany…’ Twenty minutes later Louise finished telling Juliet all about Gaston being Grandpa’s illegitimate son.

  ‘The thing is,’ Louise concluded, ‘Aunt Candida doesn’t realize I know that he’s Daddy’s half-brother. She’s making out she was doing Madame St John Brevelay a favour by letting her son come to England with us, to escape the Germans.’

  Juliet felt quite weak with relief. Louise was all right. That was all that mattered. What she’d heard was a tale of adultery that had taken place forty years ago and now the pigeon, or should she say cuckoo, had come home to roost.

  ‘What shall we do?’ Louise implored.

  ‘I’ll think about it, darling,’ Juliet promised, feeling almost light-headed. ‘Don’t worry any more about it.’

  ‘You’ll never let on I told you, will you?’ Louise still looked pale with the strain of keeping this explosive knowledge to herself. ‘It might kill Granny if she knew Grandpa had had a lady friend.’

  Would it kill Daniel’s wife, if she found out about me? Juliet wondered, cynically. But still she couldn’t dredge up even an iota of guilt or feelings of pity for this other woman, with whom she was supposed to share Daniel.

  * * *

  ‘Ian and Helen are coming next weekend,’ Henry informed everyone at breakfast the next morning. ‘He’s up to his eyes in work at the Foreign Office, and this is probably the last time they’ll be able to get away for a little break.’

  Liza brightened. Everything was so gloomy at the moment, it would be nice to do a little entertaining. ‘Shall I invite a few other people for dinner, darling? Or Sunday lunch?’

  ‘Don’t count me in, I’ll be back in Scotland by then,’ Juliet remarked firmly.

  ‘Oh, darling, do stay until next Monday,’ Liza said. ‘Ian is your godfather; you haven’t seen him for ages. Not since your wedding, in fact.’

  ‘I must get back to Cameron. I’ve been away too long as it is.’

  Henry stared at her, puzzled by her vehemence. Lady Anne spoke in conciliatory tones. ‘Cameron must be missing you.’

  Juliet ignored the remark. Daniel had banished her nightmares. The demons that still caught her unawares at moments, filling her with panic, had abated. And she didn’t want them to recur.

  ‘Uncle Ian’s such a darling,’ Rosie remarked. ‘It’ll be nice to see him again.’

  ‘Why do you call him “uncle”?
He’s not a relative,’ Juliet snapped.

  Rosie looked confused. ‘We’ve always called anyone Mummy and Daddy’s age uncle or aunt,’ she protested.

  ‘For God’s sake, that was when we were children. I call all older people by their first name now.’

  ‘Well, I’m still going to call him Uncle Ian. I think it’s such a shame he and Aunt Helen have no children of their own.’

  ‘You seem to think children are the be-all and end-all of life, Rosie,’ Juliet retorted with mounting anger. ‘Some people should never have children.’

  Henry looked pained. ‘You’re being very harsh, Juliet,’ he observed. ‘I believe it’s been a great sadness to Ian and Helen.’

  There was an awkward silence around the table, broken after a few minutes by Liza, who was nervous of silences.

  ‘Well, Henry darling, who else shall we ask? We really should make an effort…’ she rattled on, but no one was listening.

  Henry looked at Juliet closely, wondering what had caused her outburst.

  Lady Anne, however, was sure she knew the cause. Juliet’s irritable outburst suggested she was pregnant herself, though she might not yet realize it.

  * * *

  Juliet found the old dowager lying on the library sofa, suffering from a sprained ankle. Dressed in tartan, she looked as if she was resting among the well-worn rugs of a dog’s basket. Hairs and the odd spray of biscuit crumbs lurked in the folds, amid the hot sweaty smell of sleeping Labradors.

  ‘So you’ve decided to come back, have you?’ Iona Kincardine asked querulously.

  ‘This is my home,’ Juliet replied spiritedly. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m in pain, but why should you care?’

  ‘Can I get you an aspirin or anything?’

  Iona looked at her sourly. ‘Cameron’s looking after me.’

  ‘Of course,’ Juliet smiled sarcastically. ‘I’m sure he is.’ Iona moved restlessly, trying to prise herself into a sitting position. ‘What on earth were you doing in London all that time?’

  ‘I wasn’t in London all the time. I was staying with my family. Where’s Cameron?’

  Juliet had telephoned to say she’d be arriving at noon, but there was no sign of him anywhere.

  ‘Seeing to things on the estate,’ Iona replied, averting her eyes. It was the answer she always gave.

  Juliet looked out of the window at the view. The mountains were hazy mauve with heather, and tumbling grey clouds obliterated their peaks. In the foreground, a bleak lawn stretched to a forest of pine trees. The melancholy atmosphere of the landscape was almost palpable; she felt it closing in around her, paralysing her with its slowly choking grasp. Robbing her of the desire to do anything, except creep into a corner and hibernate until she could get away again. Glenmally was oppressive and, worse, it had an evil atmosphere.

  I’ll go out of my mind if I have to stay here for ever, she thought with a flash of desperation. She wanted to be back in the little Chelsea house with Daniel. She wanted to hear the gentle roar of the traffic, and see the crowds jostling along the pavements. She wanted to know that five minutes away were cocktail bars, and places to dance, restaurants galore, and amusing companions.

  The awful thing was she’d only been back at the castle for a few minutes, and yet she already regretted returning.

  Aloud she said, ‘I’m taking the dogs for a walk. Come along, boys and girls.’ At the command, there was a mass disturbance of black fur on the hearth, as the dogs leapt to their feet, jostling to be first out of the door. The dowager glared balefully at them for deserting her side with such alacrity.

  Juliet set off briskly, her mind in turmoil. This is not what I’d planned to do with my life, she reflected. Cameron had led her to believe they’d divide their time between London and Scotland; why else would he have bought the Park Lane house?

  She had not expected to be isolated in a fifty-roomed castle either, with no one to talk to – except for an old witch of a mother-in-law, and a desultory husband who was out all day, and who only occasionally came to her room at night. She was about to be twenty-one, and already her life seemed to be over.

  As she stood stock still under the pine trees, this seemed like a defining moment in her life, as the dogs scurried about, and she considered her future.

  Saddest of all was the thought that she and Cameron had been good friends before they’d married, but now they weren’t even that. It made her realize, even if she took Daniel out of the equation, that she’d reached for the most valuable card in the pack, grabbing its riches, its position, and its power, only to find it had turned out to be the Joker. And now it seemed as if the joke was on her. What a stupid, meaningless prize she’d sought so cleverly. And what a hollow vessel it had proved to be.

  Juliet walked on, searching for answers. The onset of war had already provided Rosie with a perfectly acceptable reason to be separated from Charles; why shouldn’t it provide her with the perfect exit from Glenmally, too?

  She would volunteer to do something; maybe train to be a nurse? Or drive an ambulance. She wanted to do something that was dangerous, in the thick of things, because she was no longer afraid to die. Why should she be – when life without Daniel wasn’t worth living?

  ‘So how was London?’ Cameron asked genially, as he poured glasses of sherry before dinner that evening. ‘Is the house all right?’

  ‘The house is fine,’ she replied, smiling amicably. There was no need to get Cameron’s back up before she’d laid her plans. The house he’d bought in Park Lane was a vital factor for her future. ‘London’s ready for a bombardment. And at night there’s a complete black-out of course.’

  Cameron nodded, frowning with concern. ‘I read about that in The Times.’

  ‘Look what I’ve got!’ She held out an identity card, a ration book and a book of clothing coupons. Then she went over to a table, piled high with books and picked up a square cardboard box. She pulled out a black rubber gas mask, with a round nozzle to cover the nose and mouth, and a clear panel across the eyes.

  ‘I look like a black pig in it, with a great snout,’ she joked, ‘and it smells horrid.’ She stuffed it back into the box.

  ‘What are we going to do now there’s a war, Cameron?’

  He blinked, bemused. ‘Do?’

  ‘We’re both going to have to volunteer to join up,’ she continued cheerfully, testing the ground with deliberate flippancy, indulging in a fantasy to watch his reaction. ‘I rather like the idea of joining the Women’s Royal Naval Service; gorgeous navy blue uniform with brass buttons. And black stockings! Really terribly sexy! What about you? Will you go into the Army, like Charles?’

  Cameron shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable.

  ‘I’ll have to stay here, running things,’ he replied, rather too quickly.

  ‘Stay here? Surely you’ll be called up?’

  ‘I’d never be accepted, because of my bad back.’

  ‘Since when have you had a bad back?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘Since I was ten,’ he said stiffly. ‘I was thrown from a horse. My spine was damaged.’

  ‘You’ve never mentioned it before; are you joking?’

  He flushed angrily. ‘Of course I’m not joking. Why should I be joking? You’ve got to be A1 to get into the forces; I’ve already been told I couldn’t qualify.’

  ‘Not even for a desk job?’

  ‘What is the matter with you, Juliet?’ His hand shook as he put his sherry glass down on the table. ‘You’re acting as if you don’t believe me.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s just so…’ – she nearly said, ‘convenient’, but changed it to – ‘… so surprising. I’ve never heard you complain about your back. Personally, I can’t wait to do something.’

  ‘I don’t think we’ll be much troubled with the war up here.’ His manner was cold now, and wary.

  ‘So you’re going to stay here, all safe and cosy in this fortification, letting everyone else in the countr
y get on with it? Fighting the Germans for you?’

  ‘I’m not a conscientious objector, if that’s what you’re inferring?’ he retorted angrily.

  No, just a Mummy’s boy, Juliet thought in disgust, but decided if she wanted to get her own way, insulting him wouldn’t help. ‘I never said you were, but I’m told there’s likely to be an invasion. We can’t sit back and do nothing.’

  Cameron gave her a strange look. ‘You seem almost excited at the prospect of war.’

  Juliet didn’t answer. She’d no experience of war. Couldn’t visualize the reality of it. But whatever happened it was going to be an experience, a new adventure, being a part of history in the making… and a way of escaping from her husband.

  ‘Of course I’m not excited, but I can’t bear to be out of things,’ she admitted at last. ‘I also think it’s our duty to defend our country.’

  The only sound in the room was the chink of glasses as he topped up their drinks, and the whisper of the logs, as they crumbled into red hot ash in the fireplace.

  ‘I need you here, Juliet,’ he said, breaking the silence.

  ‘What for, darling?’ she asked lightly, adding mockingly, ‘you have your mother to look after you; what more do you want?’

  He turned and stared, unblinking, into her eyes. ‘I need a son.’

  ‘One day, yes, but what’s the hurry? In fact, I think it would be better to wait until after the war, when everything’s settled and things are back to normal, don’t you? Would it be fair to bring a child into the world, in the middle of a war?’

  ‘I want a son, and I don’t want to have to wait until you feel like it, Juliet. I think you owe it to me.’ He walked over to his desk, and dropped heavily into the chair behind it, distancing himself from her, taking up a position of power behind his heavy silver topped ink wells, and framed family photographs. Almost as if he were her employer.

  ‘I’ve given you everything you ever wanted, Juliet, and I think it return you should try and give me the one thing I want, the only thing I want; an heir to carry on here, after I’m gone.’ Juliet looked at him, with false coquetry. ‘And to think I thought you’d married me because you couldn’t resist me!’ He looked away, unamused, not answering.