Something Dangerous

by Penny Vincenzi

‘It wasn’t until Celia arrived with – well, you do know this part of the story – until she arrived with Jago’s letter, that I saw things absolutely differently. He had wanted the baby, he was intensely proud and happy about it. And immediately I felt my attitude towards Jay change. I wanted him too, I could feel proud and happy myself. I could see that by rejecting him, I was in a way rejecting Jago—’

  ‘LM—’

  ‘Please let me finish. Although you do know the rest. Jay has been the joy of my life.’ She flushed. ‘I love him more than I would ever have believed possible. When – when he nearly died, I wanted to die too.’

  Still the silence.

  ‘Sebastian, couldn’t you try to accept Isabella just a little? I know how dreadful you must feel. I know you see her as the reason for losing Pandora but—’

  ‘Please leave,’ he said, standing up. His tone was polite, but he was white and trembling violently. ‘Of course you don’t know how I feel. It’s outrageous you should even think so. Clearly you have no idea, and I find it insulting that you should imagine otherwise. And just to set the record quite straight I don’t see the child as the reason for my losing Pandora, as you put it, she is the reason. It’s as simple as that. Your – Jay’s father – died in the war. Very tragic, but it is hardly comparable to my own case. Now kindly don’t refer to this matter again. I’m disappointed in you, LM, I must say. I thought you of all people had more – sensitivity. Good afternoon.’

  She stood there facing him; it was quite hopeless. But – she might as well say it. It could make matters no worse.

  ‘Sebastian, have you not thought how much you are failing Pandora in this?’

  ‘What? What did you say to me?’

  His face was so white and so set with rage now that she could scarcely look at him, his voice shaking with the violence of his emotion. LM felt almost physically afraid at that moment; but she went on.

  ‘How do you think she would feel, if she could see Izzie growing up lonely, unloved? What—’

  ‘How dare you!’ he said, and his own voice was a great roar. ‘How dare you speak of Pandora to me, of what her attitude might be, of what she might be feeling. That is an outrage, LM, and one which you have absolutely no right to commit. I am astonished at you. At your insensitivity and what I can only describe as intrusion.’

  ‘I’m – sorry,’ she said quietly, ‘very sorry. I did not mean—’

  ‘I don’t care what you mean.’

  ‘Sebastian—’ Should she go on? Yes, she had to. ‘Sebastian, if you would only – only try to accept Isabella, she could be such a source of comfort to you. Have you never thought of that?’

  He walked to the door, opened it, clearly ushering her out.

  ‘I asked you to leave. And since you ask, no I have not thought of that. Frankly, it is unthinkable. Clearly, in spite of your sentimental little speech, you have no real concept of grief. There can be no comfort for me anywhere, LM, and certainly not – not from her. Absolutely the reverse. Please excuse me. Mrs Conley will show you out.’

  As LM sat in her car, trying to compose herself, she saw Izzie standing on the front doorstep, holding Nanny’s hand, her small face very solemn: a lonely, sad little figure.

  She had failed her, thought LM, they had all failed her. What would Pandora have to say to them, if she knew. LM did not believe in an afterlife; there were occasions when she had wished she did, but at this moment she was thankful she did not.

  ‘I’m beginning to feel like Queen Victoria,’ said Celia, ‘all these grandchildren. Too ridiculous at my age.’

  ‘Mummy, you’re years older than Queen Victoria was when she first became a grandmother,’ said Venetia. ‘Anyway, you’ve only got five.’

  ‘Five is quite a lot.’ She looked at Venetia. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, of course—’

  ‘Of course it isn’t. And I know what you’re going to say. So don’t say it.’

  ‘Venetia, I’m only thinking of you. Your life is completely given over to – well, to having babies.’

  ‘I know that, Mummy. But I like having babies. Boy likes children and he’s a wonderful father. And anyway, what else would I do? It’s the only thing I’m good at, if you ask me.’

  ‘Well that’s absurd,’ said Celia briskly, ‘since you have never tried to do anything.’

  ‘That’s unfair.’

  ‘It is not unfair.’

  ‘Mummy, I’ve got four children. I had Henry when I was nineteen. Amy is only six months old. How am I supposed to do anything else?’

  ‘I had four children – five, to all intents and purposes. I had Giles when I was also nineteen. I seem to recall doing – other things.’

  ‘Yes, well, you’re not like most people,’ said Venetia irritably, ‘and I happen to think that what I’m doing is quite important.’

  Her eyes met her mother’s in a kind of challenge; Celia looked at her in silence for a moment, then said, ‘I recognise what you’re saying, Venetia. And of course I admit I had certain shortcomings as a mother. But I just think you could regret this rather – limited way of life you’ve chosen.’

  Venetia sighed. ‘I think I’d like to stop this conversation, Mummy. I thought you wanted to ask me about that ball.’ She looked at her mother and grinned suddenly. ‘Actually, I didn’t think anything of the sort. Since when did you come round here to talk about something you would regard as so absolutely unimportant?’

  ‘Well – I did want to ask you about it,’ said Celia, ‘but only if you’d like to get involved. I thought as you so clearly have time on your hands—’

  ‘Actually,’ said Venetia, ‘I don’t have much.’

  ‘Well, you should organise it so that you do. You have plenty of staff.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but I like spending time with my children. How do I get you to understand that?’

  Celia frowned at her. ‘The trouble with spending time with your children,’ she said, ‘is that they grow up and move away from you. Then you have nothing left. Look at that dreadful Duffield Brown woman. Always round at Giles’s house, trying to bring up their baby.’

  ‘I bet you wouldn’t tell Helena she ought to do something else with her life,’ said Venetia.

  ‘I wouldn’t, because she hasn’t got a brain to do it with.’

  ‘Mummy, that’s unfair. She’s terribly well read, much more so than me.’

  ‘Being well read is neither here nor there, Venetia. It’s pointless unless it’s backed by judgment. Anyway, your brain is twice, three times as good as Helena’s.’

  Venetia sighed. ‘Oh, Mummy! If Helena saved your life, dragged you from a burning building, you’d say she hadn’t done it in the right way.’

  Celia smiled. ‘Is it really that obvious?’

  ‘It really is. How’s Daddy?’

  ‘Worried about the business.’

  ‘He’s always worried about the business.’

  ‘I know. But things aren’t very good at the moment. And he’s so resistant to change, to doing the sort of things that might help. Like the book clubs, for instance, you know the sort of thing, people buy books cheaply by mail order; it’s such a good way of getting books out to the public, but he just says they’ll take people away from the bookshops. That we’ll lose business.’

  ‘Really? Well I can see his point, I suppose . . . oh hallo, Elspeth, my darling. I haven’t forgotten, I said we’d go for a walk, maybe Granny would like to come with us.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Celia, standing up. ‘I have to go, I’m terribly busy at the office. Hallo, Elspeth, that’s a very pretty dress.’

  Elspeth looked up at her, her dark eyes solemn.

  ‘So is yours,’ she said finally.

  ‘Thank you, dear. Now think about what I said, Venetia; I really do think you’d enjoy doing some work of some kind.’

  ‘I enjoy not doing any work of any kind,’ said Venetia firmly. She kissed her mother goodbye. ‘We’re not all like you, you know. Anyway, Boy’s wor
king much harder now. He’s thinking of founding some kind of antique business. A bit like Sothebys, I suppose. He does know an awful lot about it.’

  ‘He certainly does. How very – interesting.’

  ‘Well there you are. This family is not entirely idle after all. You can relax. Now give my love to Daddy and do tell him not to worry. I tell you what, why doesn’t Lyttons form its own book club? That way you’d win both ways.’

  Celia had been walking out of the room; she stood quite still, thinking for a moment: then she turned to look at her daughter and said, ‘Venetia, it really is too absurd to say you haven’t got a brain. I shall suggest that to your father as soon as I get home.’

  Venetia was actually feeling happier; she genuinely enjoyed caring for her large family, her social life kept her very busy and ‘Boy seems to be settling down,’ she said to Adele, ‘he’s home much more often these days, when he’s not busy with his various things.’

  ‘What is he busy with?’

  ‘Oh – you know,’ she said vaguely, ‘the gallery, this new venture—’

  ‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’

  ‘Well, I suppose so. I hadn’t really thought much about it at all.’

  Boy had asked her the same thing: if she approved of the salesroom, if she had any ideas about it. She had been very surprised, had said that no, she didn’t. ‘But it’s not really my sort of thing, is it?’

  ‘Well – no. But you might have a view on where it was, perhaps, on whether it should trade in pictures as well as furniture, even on its decor.’

  ‘Boy, I don’t know anything about that sort of thing. You know I don’t.’

  ‘You could learn.’

  ‘Now you know I don’t have time,’ she said lightly, ‘four children, quite a lot of work and organisation, you know.’ She went over to him, gave him a kiss. ‘It’s sweet of you to ask, Boy. But I think really it’s far better if you concentrate on your things and I on mine. Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he had said.

  ‘Well,’ said Adele now, ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea. I was talking about it to him the other evening.’

  ‘You were! What do you know about things like that?’

  ‘Oh – a bit. Through work, you know. There are some wonderful salesrooms in Paris that I was telling him about, I said I’d get some catalogues and things for him—’

  ‘Well I suppose you’ve got time,’ said Venetia. She felt rather put out that Adele should be able to talk to Boy in such terms.

  ‘Maybe. Anyway, I’m pleased you’re happier.’ She smiled at her sister. ‘He was flirting like mad with Freda Dudley Ward the other night, I have to say.’

  ‘Oh, I know. I noticed. Only because she’s so down about the fearsome Wallis. The Prince has just – abandoned poor Freda. God, that woman’s a nightmare. Wallis, I mean. Frightfully chic of course, but apart from that. She’s making him give up hunting, you know, when he loves it so much, it’s so cruel, he had his own flat at Melton Mowbray, just for the season, Grandmamma was telling me about it. She said he always looked so wonderful, in his buckskin breeches and top hat. She said it was altogether like a little Mayfair down there, too marvellous, anyway, he’s not allowed to do it any more, it’s awful, I think.’

  ‘Terrible. She’s not even very nice to him, as far as I can make out. Mummy says she treats him like some kind of a lapdog.’

  ‘Mummy sees quite a lot of him, I believe. Ever since she got mixed up with Lord Arden and his crowd. She actually attended—’

  ‘I know. And she’s on the committee of that ball Diana Guinness is giving to raise money for the BUF. It’s all a bit—’

  ‘It is a bit. Maybe it’s her age. Anyway, darling Dell, what of you today and the divine Monsieur Lieberman?’

  ‘The divine Monsieur Lieberman is coming to London next week, to see Daddy.’

  ‘Not to—’

  ‘Of course not. You know he’s married. Strictly business. But – there’ll be a little meeting or two. I hope. It’s so – complicated. So difficult. I do so adore him though, you can’t imagine.’

  ‘I think I can,’ said Venetia soberly.

  Luc arrived the following week, and booked himself into a small hotel in Bloomsbury.

  ‘It was difficult, my darling,’ he said, kissing Adele tenderly as he led her up to his room, ‘persuading your father that I could not stay in your beautiful house as usual. He knows I have no money and I cannot afford the Ritz. But – I said I wanted to be near Lytton House. And so I am. And the most beautiful Lytton.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s true,’ said Adele, and then regretted it; the nervy, blinding happiness that encompassed her whenever she was with Luc seemed to inspire such silly, flirtatious remarks.

  ‘Of course you are. Well, you and your other self, of course. I hope I shall see her.’

  ‘Venetia? Yes, of course. She wants you – us – to have supper with her tomorrow. You can meet Boy, I’m sure you’ll like him.’

  She wasn’t actually sure at all; she had an uneasy feeling they would rather dislike one another.

  ‘I would enjoy that very much. Please thank her for me.’

  ‘I will. But tonight, you have to come to Cheyne Walk. Three-line whip.’

  ‘What is this whipping? It sounds exciting.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Adele laughing, ‘not exciting at all. Not in the way you mean. It’s an expression used in parliament. If you’re an MP you get a notice underlined three times telling you to come and vote.’

  ‘What a lot I am learning through our relationship,’ said Luc, kissing her gently.

  ‘Not as much as me.’ Adele returned the kiss, trying to remember what she had been saying: he really was turning her into a complete imbecile. ‘Anyway, LM will be there too. And possibly her son, Jay. He’s down from Oxford, doesn’t know what to do all summer. He’s lovely, you’ll really like him.’

  ‘You are all lovely. Toute la famille. So – we have only a little time. Let us not waste it. Would you be so good as to remove that rather severe little suit, mon ange – here, let me help you.’

  Sitting at her parents’ dinner table only three hours later, somehow reassembled from the fractured, joyous, crying, clinging, abandoned creature she could scarcely recognise as herself even in memory, Adele tried to eat and to follow at least some of the conversation and almost entirely failed. She could think only of Luc, of the pleasure he had led her to, of the intensity of her feelings for him, of the words he had spoken even as she settled back into quietude and released him slowly and reluctantly from her.

  ‘I love you,’ he had said. ‘I love you very much and very truly. Remember that, won’t you, Adele. Always, whatever you do.’

  She had been silent, afraid to speak a word, lest it break the spell.

  ‘I am looking for something solid, something large to publish,’ her father was saying. ‘It’s too long now since we launched the Buchanans, even the early Meridians. I want not so much a sensation now, rather a work that will become a classic.’

  ‘I fancy Clochemerle, the most important book in France this year, however amusing, will fit into that category,’ said Luc. ‘It is truly a sensation.’

  ‘Indeed. I would have loved to have got that one. Anyway, we’ve been fighting the Depression with cheaper books, all the crime novels have been a huge success, but now we need something more – prestigious. A major novel, perhaps, successful both critically and commercially.’

  ‘The holy grail, in a word,’ said Celia. ‘Oliver never stops searching for it.’

  ‘And why not, what better thing to search for?’ said Luc. ‘I imagine your Antiques Dictionary will be much admired,’ he added into the silence.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Oliver, ‘but that is hardly a major innovation, however much Celia would like to think so.’

  He looked at her; she met his eyes almost coldly.

  There’s something wrong between them, Adele thought, it’s not the usual bicker
ing, they seem really hostile.

  ‘I have two very strong biographies coming out,’ Celia said, ‘Madame de Pompadour, you would enjoy that, Luc, we will certainly want to publish that in France, and a book on royal mistresses. Nell Gwynn, Lillie Langtry, Mrs Keppel—’

  ‘And Mme Simpson? I imagine she would give your book a contemporary flavour.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Oliver. ‘She is, we are assured, merely a friend of the Prince of Wales. A most unlikely story, I grant you, but – there are strict laws governing publication of such matters. Not even the Daily Mirror has dared to speculate on the subject.’

  ‘What absurdity,’ said Luc, ‘of course she is his mistress, what else would explain her constant presence at his side? In France a great deal has been written of the matter.’

  ‘I know, I know. But—’

  ‘I thought there was supposed to be freedom of the press in this country,’ said Jay. He had been quiet, now he leaned forward, his dark-blue eyes brilliant, ‘I can’t understand this nonsense. Why should the Prince of Wales be allowed such treatment? He’s carrying on with a married woman, a twice-married woman, and we’re all supposed not to notice. It’s a conspiracy, if you ask me.’

  ‘It is indeed something of the sort,’ said Oliver. ‘The Prince has Beaverbrook as a friend, for a start. And as I understand it, he has persuaded the others, Rothermere and so on, to join him in his voluntary silence.’

  ‘Jolly good of them. Think of the papers they’d sell,’ said Jay.

  ‘Jay, there is more to life than profit,’ said Oliver mildly, ‘even in newspapers.’

  ‘Maybe. But there’s also more to it than pussyfooting about someone, just because they’re royal.’

  ‘Oh now come along, old chap,’ said Gordon Robinson, ‘royalty has its own mystique, you know. Won’t do to get rid of that. Very dangerous, I’d say.’

  ‘I don’t see why. So they’re royal. So what. A lot of inherited privilege and wealth and non-existent power. It’s medieval. I think they should be done away with.’