‘Rejected and insulted, haughtily ordered from the house like a dishonest servant, the Caverel Claimant was driven sadly away. When she left the home of her ancestors,’ Valerie’s account concluded, ‘Fleur Caverel was weeping. I shall return, she said through her tears. One day I shall return.’
21
‘Wherever I go nowadays,’ said Jason West, ‘I hear or read about that young woman who talked to you about the Caverel family. I’ve never really understood, Gregory, why you didn’t bring the young lady to see me.’
You old fart, Greg thought. You didn’t think that when you saw her. ‘You weren’t at the office,’ he said, ‘and I thought I’d speak to you when you got back. Then she said she didn’t want any help and left.’
‘A Chancery action over such an important inheritance would have been most intriguing – and a good advertisement for the firm. It would not have been altogether in our line, of course, but I expect we could have managed. From what I hear, she has an excellent case.’ He paused. ‘And from her picture, she looks most personable.’
Greg kept his cool, but only just. A very demonstrative young lady! Embracing in the hall! Not at all our type of client! ‘She had no money,’ was all he said.
‘In a negligence case you can act for an impecunious plaintiff with an agreement to be paid out of the damages. It may have been stretching a point, but I don’t see why we couldn’t have done the same for a young woman who has a very respectable claim to an inheritance.’ He examined his nephew over his glasses. ‘Your reluctance, Gregory, wasn’t, I hope, because of any prejudice on account – on account of her colour? I know that in Australia –’
Greg thought of her in his flat lying naked on his bed. ‘Of course not,’ he said angrily. He strode to the door.
‘Where are you going?’ Jason asked querulously. It was early afternoon.
‘Out. I’m going out.’
Jason thought yet again that the sooner the young man went home, the better. He would call Sydney to tell them. But he put it off. His brother-in-law would not be pleased if he packed off the son and heir after so short a time under his tutelage. He’d have to put up with the boy for a little longer.
Greg wandered across the park. He’d heard nothing from Fleur. Like Jason, all he could do was read about her. He’d been told by a journalist friend that all enquiries had to go through Willoughby Blake Associates and that she was living at the Kensington Park Hotel. But, the friend said, even at the hotel calls were monitored and put through one of Blake’s staff. ‘They own her,’ he added.
Greg was so irritated by the conversation with Jason he decided that nevertheless he’d try the hotel himself. Mrs Campion answered and when he asked for Fleur, she asked him his business.
‘I’m a personal friend. Tell her to call me.’ He left his telephone number, not his name. Mrs Campion passed on the message to Willoughby.
That evening Willoughby said to Fleur, ‘An Australian has been asking for you. He didn’t leave his name.’
‘An Australian?’
‘That’s how he sounded to Mrs Campion.’
‘Oh, then that’ll be the actor, Henry Proctor.’ She was glad to have her back to him. ‘We had bit parts in an advert last year in Paris. I suppose he’s been reading about me. What did he want?’
‘He wants you to telephone him.’
She shook her head. ‘He’s a bore.’
Willoughby decided that when Jameson got home in three days’ time, he’d have him check out ‘Henry Proctor’ and the number of the caller.
Later that same evening Stevens was put through to Fleur. She took the call in her bedroom.
‘I have to take you soon to see your counsel, Sir Percy Braythwaite QC,’ he began, ‘so I must get from you what is called your proof. I have the notes of what you’ve told me but I need more about yourself and your early life. I’m having my notes typed up and put in statement form and then I’ll send them round. You must check the statement and please add the early part and anything else you wish. It will form the basis of your evidence on oath at the trial.’
‘My evidence?’
‘Yes, what you will swear to and on which you’ll be cross-examined.’
For a time there was no reply. ‘Are you still there?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I understand.’
‘Sir Percy must have your proof in good time before I take you to see him.’
After Stevens had rung off Fleur sat on her bed, thinking.
Very early next morning she slipped out of the hotel. She rang Greg from a café at the corner of the Old Brompton Road. ‘This evening, five o’clock at your flat.’
After lunch Mrs Campion was arranging the flowers on the table by the window, her back to Fleur.
‘I’m going shopping,’ Fleur said, walking to the door of the suite.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Mrs Campion replied over her shoulder.
‘No, I’d rather be alone. I’m going to Harrods. Then a movie.’
Before Mrs Campion could turn, Fleur was on the landing. She ran down the main stairs, through the foyer and out into the street and into a taxi. At Harrods she walked through the store and took another taxi to Leicester Square. Half-way through the movie she left.
He was waiting for her, and as soon as she was inside the flat, he took her in his arms. This time it was he who led her into the bedroom and it was he who led the love-making. She lay, twisting the curls on the head above her, staring up at the ceiling, letting him do as he wished. She did not come with him, she did not even pretend, just moved, acquiescent, passive, very different from their first time.
He rolled on to his back and lay beside her. ‘All right?’
‘OK,’ she said, ‘OK,’ and took his head on to her breast so that he could not see her face. After a time she said suddenly, ‘Are you rich?’
He turned his head and looked up at her. ‘Rich!’ he asked. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just curious,’ she said.
‘The family is.’
‘Very rich?’
‘I suppose so. Why?’
She heard the suspicion in his voice. ‘I wanted to know if you could afford me.’ She pulled his head back on to her breast.
‘That depends,’ he said.
‘On what?’
‘On what you expect.’
‘Five hundred pounds.’
‘That wouldn’t keep you for long.’
‘No, but I want it now.’
He sat up. ‘What do you want five hundred quid for?’
‘I just do.’
He stared at her. ‘Something to do with your bloody case?’
‘Yes.’
He rolled off the bed and sat with his back to her, his head in his hands.
‘Why on earth are you going on with it? Why don’t you chuck it? Why do you want to become a bloody baroness and live in a bloody barracks in this bloody country with a lot of bloody bores who stick up their noses at you?’
She put her hand on his back. ‘You said I should fight for my rights. And I want to be rich, like you.’
‘Five hundred quid isn’t going to make you rich. If you need money, why don’t you ask your lawyers or the PR man?’
‘I don’t want them to know.’
He turned and faced her. ‘Is it that important?’ She nodded. He got up and stood, naked, looking down at her. ‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. Cash.’
At the hotel that evening she was very silent and went early to bed. Next morning, just after ten, she slipped out again. At his flat in Fulham, she stayed in the cab and got the driver to ring the bell. When Greg appeared he got in and kissed her.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ was all he said.
Outside the bank she waited in the taxi. When he reappeared, she held her hand out through the window. Standing on the pavement, he handed her ten fifty-pound notes. She stuffed them in her bag.
‘You’ll get it back,’ she said.
She leaned
through the open window and kissed him on the lips. ‘You’re great,’ she said. She tapped on the driver’s window. Greg watched as the taxi drove away.
When Fleur had not returned after several hours, Mrs Campion tried to find Blake and warn him. But he was not in his office. By the time Mrs Campion got to him, Fleur was half-way across the Atlantic.
22
When Clover Harrison had returned to Charleston, he did what he could to put his rooms into order. The lock of the front door had been smashed, the contents of every cupboard emptied on to the floor and the locked drawer in the desk forced. But little if anything appeared to have been stolen.
Before he had gone away, Mr Rogers had been scrupulous to settle up with Clover Harrison for his time and expenses, and now at the drug-store there was an envelope waiting for him. It had been posted in Atlanta. In it were three one hundred dollar bills. But Clover Harrison didn’t use the money on his rooms; he spent most of it on his ancient car. He reckoned wheels were more important, even though he’d been told that the sandy-haired Englishman had left Charleston for South America.
He was not long home, however, before he learnt something which he knew he must pass on to Mr Rogers. He had been given a London number through which, Mr Rogers had said, he could always be reached. It was Oliver Goodbody’s flat in Kensington. Harrison called London and spoke to Oliver. Then, as later he learnt that the sandy-haired Englishman was back in Charleston, he left town, relieved that the Chevrolet was purring so happily as he drove north along US Highway 95.
Mr Rogers himself was in Milan. It was not until well after Sarah Wilson, as she had been calling herself, had been seen off at Charleston airport by Judge Jed Blaker on a flight for London escorted by Richard Jameson, that Mr Rogers learnt of her visit to Charleston. The young woman, Clover Harrison had reported to Oliver, had gone about the country in and around the parish of St John’s visiting places and talking to people – until Judge Blaker and Richard Jameson had finally caught up with her.
* * *
It was in the early morning after an all-night flight that Fleur was reunited with Willoughby Blake in the sitting-room of the Kensington hotel.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why?’
‘I needed to go back.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I needed to see the places again and I wanted to do it alone.’
He looked at her. ‘Had you forgotten what you call the places?’
‘I left there a long time ago. I was a child. When Stevens said he needed details, I had to remind myself.’
‘Why did you need to remind yourself? Why did you not tell me you needed to go back?’
‘I said, I wanted to do it on my own.’
‘You mean you didn’t want to confess that you needed to remind yourself, is that it?’ He flung himself into a chair.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! I need space. Can’t you see I need space?’
‘I thought you trusted me.’
‘I do.’
‘Then you should have told me. What do you think I’ve been through when I was told you had disappeared?’
‘I didn’t tell you as I thought you’d stop me, or make someone come with me.’ She paused. ‘Or come with me yourself.’
‘Would that have been so terrible?’
‘Yes it would. I needed to do this by myself, to see the places again where I was raised.’
‘You could have left a note, you could have called from the airport –’
‘I didn’t think you’d be so upset.’
He pushed back his silver hair. ‘Of course I was upset. I was worried.’
‘Worried it was all over, worried you’d lost the money you’ve spent on me.’
‘Don’t be absurd. Worried about you. You and I are partners, Fleur.’
‘Are we?’ she said. She turned away. ‘I’ve a headache. I must get to bed.’
As she was walking to the bedroom door, he said, ‘How did you get the money?’
‘From a friend.’
‘The Australian?’
‘Yes.’
‘His name’s not Proctor, is it?’
‘No, it isn’t. I’ve promised to pay him back.’
Next morning at his flat in Fulham, Greg opened an envelope. It contained a bundle of banknotes. There was no message.
23
From her bed Eleanor Braythwaite could see across the garden to the hedge and beyond it the trees which bordered the churchyard. They were now entirely bare of leaves and through the boughs she could see the Norman tower of the parish church. There had been a heavy frost but she was warm in bed and it was Sunday morning. In another hour or so, she’d hear the bells and see Percy cross the lawn and go through the gate into the churchyard. Their house had once been the rectory, which was why, Percy used to say, he had to be so regular an attender at the eleven o’clock service each Sunday morning.
Eleanor settled herself more comfortably against the pillows and took up her book. Downstairs Percy would be having his usual boiled egg. Now that their two sons were grown up and gone, Eleanor was excused Sunday breakfast, coming down only when Percy was at church. When he got back, he always went to his study and worked on his briefs while she prepared the lunch. Afterwards they would go for a walk, accompanied in the old days by the boys and a series of labradors. After a cup of tea, Eleanor would pack the car with the remains of the food she’d brought down on Friday evening from London. By supper-time they’d be in their flat above Percy’s chambers in Gray’s Inn.
That was their routine while the courts were in session. During the vacations, Christmas was spent at the rectory, to which the boys and their families would come for Christmas day; at Easter, Percy and Eleanor would go to Venice; in the summer to Switzerland to walk. Year in and year out this was the pattern of their lives and Eleanor did not complain. She had lived happily with Percy for thirty years. He was a handsome man in his early sixties, slim with a full head of white hair. Friends who knew them both said that he and Oliver Goodbody could be taken for brothers, although Oliver was in fact some years older.
This weekend Eleanor knew which brief Percy was working on, and it was a brief which fascinated her. At breakfast on the Friday morning in London he had told her that in the afternoon he was to have his first meeting with the Caverel Claimant to go through her statement with her. She was being brought to his chambers by Michael Stevens of Stevens and Co., a firm whose practice did not usually include the kind of work in which Sir Percy Braythwaite QC was so prominent. For Percy was a Chancery lawyer of distinction, one of the old school who could have been a judge had it not been his choice to remain at the bar. He had received his knighthood for presiding over several departmental enquiries, including one into patents and trademarks which had taken many years. The practice of Stevens and Co., on the other hand, was in the field of divorce, criminal law and libel, very lucrative work, well publicised in the popular Sunday papers but considered by some in the profession as only marginally respectable. Percy’s clerk had accordingly been surprised when some weeks ago Mr Michael Stevens had delivered a retainer for Sir Percy to represent Miss Fleur Caverel. When the clerk showed in the client and her solicitor in the afternoon of that Friday, Percy had never met either before. Later that evening he and Eleanor had driven to the rectory. Percy had been preoccupied and unusually silent. She always drove and she resisted asking the question she was dying to ask until they had been going for three quarters of an hour when she could resist no longer.
‘What did you think of her?’
‘Shy, very tense, delightful to look at.’
‘Could she be who she claims she is?’
‘She could, I suppose.’
‘Tell me more about her.’
‘Dark, of course, but not very, with small, regular features. Obviously one of her parents was white.’
‘You liked her?’
‘I did. She’s very highly strung. I only hope the strain of the case won’t be too much for
her.’
‘Might it?’
‘Not if she’s looked after, but the solicitor told me she has no family to support her, except for a weird old grandmother. I wasn’t much taken by the solicitor.’
‘Are you glad to be representing her?’
‘I am. It’s an intriguing case, and as I said, I liked her. I think her claim is genuine.’ He paused. ‘But it’s distressing that if she succeeds a young widow and her child will be thrown out of their home.’
‘But if she’s the rightful heiress, she’s entitled to everything. After seeing her, do you think she is?’
‘If the evidence they talk about stands up in court, she is the heiress. She impressed me, and I liked her. From the way she carries herself and her manner she could well be a Caverel. I met the grandfather once, old Walter Caverel, many years ago when I was a young man staying with friends at Cap d’Antibes.’
‘Was there any family resemblance?’
‘I couldn’t say, but what I can say is that she has the grace of someone who could have come from a long line of such ancestors. But I’m sorry she’s got into the hands of that solicitor.’
‘Why do you think they have briefed you?’
Percy laughed. ‘If you want me to be frank, it’s because I am what I am.’
‘Who you are, you mean.’
‘Yes. I suppose they think I’m respectable and it’s sensible to have someone like me as their counsel.’
‘Who is representing the family?’
‘That old rascal, Mordecai Ledbury. I don’t think he’s ever appeared in the Chancery Court. I’ve never been against him, only heard about him. He’s renowned for picking quarrels with opposing counsel and the judge, so it should be quite a contest.’
A battle of opposites, she thought. For the Caverel family, the controversial Mordecai Ledbury; for the girl and her questionable advisers, the respectable Percy Braythwaite. Eleanor made up her mind that come what may Percy must get her a seat in court when the case came to trial.
24
Andrea took Francis into the walled garden. It had been snowing and the snow was lying nearly three inches deep. The sun was shining but it was bitterly cold. The child scampered ahead of her along the path which ran up the centre of the garden, followed by Max, the liver-and-white spaniel. On either side of the path, now buried beneath a blanket of white, were the flower beds which Andrea had planted when she had first come to Ravenscourt. Before Robin had inherited, she had never set foot in Ravenscourt. She had seen it once from a distance from the edge of the park before they were married and they had looked at the empty and shuttered house. When they arrived from Rome and she had seen it close to, the size and scale of it had taken her breath away. She had not recovered when she walked through the vast rooms with the furniture covered in dust-sheets and looked out of the window at the pleasure garden which was a tangle of weeds and the park which was unmown and even uncropped by sheep. At first she felt daunted by all that would have to be done to make it their home, but she was happy to be there.
The Caverel Claim Page 13
