Turning back to the room she carried on. ‘I realised shortly after the last board meeting that a kind of trust was the only natural progression for our corporation if we were to keep it in our possession – and I began to make contingency plans. Of course I can go no further until I have the board’s approval, so I would appreciate your full attention.’
Silence fell as everyone watched her. The tension was almost unbearable.
Cordelia eased forward in her chair, her hands lightly clasped on the Huon pine table. ‘I have listened to all the arguments and found things to agree with in all of them – but each has its flaws, each relinquishes our hold on our inheritance. We are Australian and should remain so. This is a family corporation and should look to itself for rescue, not to the stock market or the French.’
She paused to take a breath and put her thoughts in order. She had rehearsed what she was about to say, but now, in the moment of truth, she was almost afraid of the consequences. for if the vote went against her, it would be the end of all she had ever known, all she had ever believed in.
‘I propose we sell off the supermarket chain and the bottle shops. They will bring in enough capital for us to reinvest in the shipping and road transport side of the business as well as pay off our most pressing debts.’ She held up her hand for silence as a storm of voices rose around her. ‘Let me finish,’ she demanded. ‘Then you can argue all you want.’
Silence fell again and she carried on. ‘Jacaranda Vines made more profit this year than ever before and much of that is owed to the twins, James and Michael. Coolabah Crossing has also made a healthy profit this year with overseas sales steadily rising. But let us look at the wider picture. Let us examine the rest of my portfolio.’
She opened up the folder in front of her, fully aware she had everyone’s attention. ‘Jock might have thought he knew everything but no man is infallible,’ she said firmly. ‘His interest lay in Jacaranda, nothing else – so I was free to nurture my own little empire.’
She shoved a stack of papers towards Sophie. ‘Pass them around, dear. There’s enough for everyone.’
Cordelia waited and smiled as she saw the look of astonishment on their faces. ‘As you can see, Great-grandmother Rose left me the vineyards that Muriel Fitzallan willed to her. I have added some over the years, but the core remains, and each of them has flourished. During my stay at Coolabah, John Jay was kind enough to contact each of the tenant managers for me, and after lengthy discussions over the telephone, I had these agreements drawn up in Sydney.’
Another sheaf of papers went the rounds and Cordelia waited until their contents were read before resuming. ‘Daisy’s idea of a trust is close to my own. But I would prefer a co-operative where the shareholders hold a real stake in their investment, not just a proportional voting right. Jacaranda and Coolabah are the largest of the fifteen vineyards and I propose the chairman be chosen from one or the other. But the rest of the vineyards will have their spokesmen, and like Daisy’s pyramid idea, those spokesmen and women must be listened to, their advice and opinions taken seriously. A referendum and vote will be taken to elect the board of directors who will be monitored closely by all of us.’
She looked around at the stunned faces. ‘By uniting in this way, and by keeping our rail and shipping companies working for us, we will become a force to be reckoned with. Some of our competitors might have sold out to the French – but we won’t need to. Let’s give them a run for their money, let’s show ’em the Aussies haven’t lost their spirit for a bloody good fight.’
Bankrupt of energy, the spirit almost knocked out of her by the effort of speaking for so long, Cordelia slumped in her chair and waited. She had done all she could.
*
The applause was led by Sophie and swiftly rose to a thunder of approval and respect for the grand and determined old lady. Mary resolutely kept her hands in her lap and wondered if anyone would notice if she took a nip from her hip flask.
‘Are we ready to vote now?’ Edward called above the hubbub.
‘Don’t let all this sentimental tosh go to your heads,’ Mary warned loudly. ‘Just remember what it’s been like all these past years. Things aren’t going to change – we’ll still be tied to Jacaranda – still have to live in its shadow. Vote for reason and common sense. Vote to take the money and run. Get a life.’
‘Have you quite finished?’ Edward raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘Then let’s take the vote. All those in favour of flotation?’
There was silence in the room as they looked at one another. No hands were raised.
‘All those in favour of accepting the French offer.’
Three hands went up.
Mary scanned the faces of those who had not yet voted. She was outnumbered. ‘Put your hand up, Jane,’ she ordered. ‘We all know you were only in this for the money. Why spoil the habit of a lifetime?’
Jane’s face paled but her hands remained resolutely in her lap.
‘Come on, you bitch!’ screamed Mary. ‘At least have the balls to show us your true colours. This is your chance to line your pockets – you won’t get another one.’
‘I’ll vote as I see fit,’ she said calmly. ‘And I vote for the co-operative.’
‘All those in favour,’ said Edward hastily.
A resounding ‘Aye’ echoed round the room as all other hands were raised.
*
Sophie gathered up her papers and returned them to her briefcase. With a smile of triumph at her grandmother, she rounded the table and gave her a hug. ‘You did it, Gran,’ she murmured. ‘Well done.’
‘I didn’t do it on my own, Sophie. Rose was behind me, as well as John Jay and the others. Without them, we could never have saved Jacaranda.’
Sophie glanced across the room. Jay’s dark gaze was fixed on her, the smile on his lips for her alone. She smiled back and was unaware of the noise around her as he pushed back his chair and made his way towards her. Perhaps now they could talk. Perhaps now they could start to pick up the pieces and begin again.
As Jay stood before her she looked into those dark eyes and knew that this was the moment she had been waiting for. He held out his hand and she took it. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he murmured. ‘We need to talk.’
She nodded and let him lead her to the door.
*
The crash of a fist against the table startled everyone. Sophie and Jay turned in the doorway. The silence was absolute, the electricity of Mary’s rage filling the room.
‘You two-faced bitch,’ she hissed at Jane. ‘Not satisfied with stealing my inheritance, you’ve ruined my chance to make some money and get out of this bloody business.’ Her nails were like claws as she reached across the table. ‘I hope you drop dead before you get a penny more out of us.’
Mary heard Cordelia’s mewling efforts to pacify her and ignored them. She was suddenly fascinated by the strange, almost fearful expression on Jane’s face.
‘And I wish you’d never been born,’ Jane said quietly. ‘You were trouble from the moment you were conceived. I should have done what your father ordered and had you aborted.’
Mary gasped as she felt the colour drain from her face and the hatred was replaced with shock. She must have misheard. ‘What did you say?’ Her voice was strangled, the effect of the alcohol making her mind sluggish.
‘You heard,’ said Jane clearly. ‘Jock refused to have anything to do with me once he discovered I was expecting his child. He ordered me to have an abortion – said he didn’t want a bastard in the family. I wish now I’d taken his money and his advice, but how was I to know what a vicious bitch you’d turn out to be?’
‘You’re lying!’ Mary shouted. ‘You’ve just thought this up to get back at me.’ She gasped for breath, making an enormous effort to regain some kind of control. ‘It’s not clever and it’s certainly not funny. I demand an apology.’
‘What’s the matter, Mary? Afraid to face the truth?’ Jane retorted. ‘You so nearly got it right in that magaz
ine article – and if you’d stopped to think instead of just venting your spite, you might have realised the truth in the old adage of no smoke without fire.’
Mary’s confidence faltered in the face of Jane’s cold calm. ‘Mum?’ she said, looking to Cordelia for support. ‘She’s lying, isn’t she? She’s got to be.’
Cordelia’s face was a mask, her eyes pleading for understanding as Sophie put a protective hand on her shoulder.
‘She’s not your mother – I am,’ said Jane sharply. ‘Cordelia never formally adopted you, but she gave you her name, brought you up as if you were her child. And look at the thanks she got. Look at the way you’ve treated her over the past years with your drinking and your men, your temper tantrums and constant scandals in the gossip columns.’
Mary sat down with a thump, the fear dark inside her as she looked from face to face in an urgent quest for support. ‘But how?’ she stammered. ‘You were Dad’s mistress, she was his wife – you should have hated one another.’
Jane sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Mary. I should never have told you. I promised Cordelia long ago that I’d keep it a secret.’ She hung her head. ‘But now you know, you should be told everything. You deserve the truth after all these years.’
‘How could you, Mum?’ Mary turned to Cordelia in a last desperate attempt to make sense of it all.
‘I did what I thought was best,’ she replied quietly. ‘but it’s Jane’s story – not mine.’
Jane was talking, her voice low and devoid of all emotion. Mary reluctantly turned back to her.
‘Your father and I had a long and happy relationship. I knew he was married, knew he had children. But he swore it was a marriage in name only and that one day we would marry – only his wife was religious and it could take some time.’
She raised her head and Mary was chilled by the agony she saw in her eyes. Her dislike for this woman was intense but she recognised and understood the suffering she was going through. It echoed what she’d experienced when her father banished her.
‘We lived in a different world from the one you know, Mary. Divorces weren’t easy, there was a lot of disgrace and dishonour attached to everyone involved. I was happy to go on being his mistress all the while I thought I knew the truth about his marriage.’ She fell silent, almost unaware of the others in the room.
‘Then I got pregnant. He flew into a rage, lashing out at me, quoting the Bible, calling me names. I was terrified, never having seen him that way before, and when he threw a wad of money at me and ordered me to “get myself seen to before I came back to him”, I left the money and ran.
‘But where could I go? I was twenty-five years old, pregnant and unmarried, with no money and no home. My parents disapproved of my career, and would certainly have shut the door on me if I’d appealed to them. All I could do was try to convince Cordelia that a divorce from Jock would set her free. In my youthful naivety, I thought he would change his mind and make me and his child respectable with marriage.’
She gave a bitter smile. ‘How wrong I was. I saw Cordelia, and she was gracious and kind and so very understanding. But she had valid reasons for not divorcing Jock. Once she’d explained the situation, I understood more clearly how he’d been leading me on. Yet that meeting led to another and another. We forged a friendship that has lasted to this day. I will always treasure it.’
‘That doesn’t explain how Mum got away with pretending I was hers,’ said Mary bitterly.
Jane rubbed her forehead with trembling fingers. The memories were painful, but she knew she had to bring them out in the open if she was ever to exorcise them.
‘I went and stayed in a rented trailer down on the southern coast of Tasmania. Everyone there and at the hospital where you were born, knew me as Mrs Witney. Which is why you couldn’t find any misleading birth certificates or adoption papers. Witney is a fairly common name, after all.’
She took a sip of water before carrying on. It was a painful exorcism, remembering those lonely days and nights in that caravan at Snug. Remembering how the gulls sounded so mournful as the sea crashed on the rocks and bent the trees as winter tore up from the Antarctic. There had been on one to confide in – no one to share her fears – for she’d had no idea of what to expect when the time came, and was terrified of not getting to the hospital on time. It wasn’t an age of childbirth trusts and helpful clinics that explained the process of giving birth. Not an age when a single woman could hold her head high and feel little shame. It was a time of suspicion, of gossip and scandal, with mouths chattering behind hands, watchful eyes and constant speculation. Her disguise as a young widow had probably fooled no one.
‘It was easy for Cordelia to do what was necessary to fool Jock into believing she could be pregnant. You see, after her twins were killed in the Spanish Civil War, she and Jock had grown closer – a reconciliation in the face of tragedy. First Kate then Daisy were born from that reunion and if it hadn’t been for me... who knows? Cordy and Jock might have stayed together. But she was truly hurt to discover he was still up to his old tricks, and this was her chance to get her own back. They still slept together occasionally when he was in town, even though he’d sworn to me they hadn’t – and to this day neither of us can forgive him his lies and deceit.’
She fell silent. The atmosphere in the room was electric as they all waited for her to resume.
‘He went away to Europe on business and Cordelia waited for me to contact her. She came over to Tasmania when I did and once I was released from hospital, she brought you home as her own.’
‘So Dad never knew?’ Mary was unaware of the mascara streaking her face, just the chill of shock, the almost numbing sensation that the world was slipping away.
‘You were his daughter,’ said Cordelia. ‘He thought I was your mother. It was the best revenge I had on him for all the years he was such a bastard to me, and I was determined you would want for nothing. I love you, Mary, even though you try my patience to the limit and do your best to destroy us as well as yourself. There’re a lot of your father’s less lovable characteristics in you, but I chose to ignore them, to guide you on a less destructive course. I held you in my arms when you were just a few hours old, and I felt the same love for you as I did for the others. That hasn’t changed. I might not have given birth to you but I still feel I have the right to call myself your mother.’
Mary looked from Jane to Cordelia and burst into tears. ‘I don’t believe this,’ she sobbed. ‘I just wanted to be loved, to be your and Daddy’s favourite. Then he banished me, Sophie’s father left and … and …’ She stared from one face to another, her thoughts in a swirling dark cloud.
Cordelia struggled out of her chair and hobbled around the table. She put her arthritic hand on Mary’s shoulder and slowly drew her into an embrace. ‘It doesn’t matter, darling. I know. I understand the demons troubling you. But you have me and Jane, and your own daughter who loves you very much if only you’d give her the chance. Let that be enough for now.’
Mary breathed in the familiar perfume and closed her eyes. Everything would be all right. The clouds were thickening, becoming darker, swirling in her mind as the sounds of the board room faded and she withdrew into her own world.
23
The private nursing home was on the Mornington Peninsula, elegant bay windows overlooking the sea, lush gardens meandering down to a sandy cove. Sophie parked the car and, armed with flowers, hurried to the suite of rooms her mother had been allocated for her stay. It had been four weeks since her breakdown but there were finally signs of improvement, both in her health and in her attitude to the rest of the family.
She opened the door and smiled. Philip was here again, reading to Mary from the gossip columns, making her laugh with his outrageous mimicry of the celebrities being lambasted by Sharon Sterling. Who would have thought it? Sophie mused as she kissed her mother’s cool cheek and arranged the flowers in a vase. Philip and Mary. Yet perhaps they had more in common that she’d once thought for, afte
r all, they had always been the outcasts of the family, the ones who stood apart from it.
‘Phil and I have been talking about you,’ said Mary as she eased herself up the pillows.
‘Nothing bad, I hope,’ Sophie replied lightly.
Mary eyed her thoughtfully. ‘I might not be the perfect mother, Sophie, but I can see you have a lot of good points. Working to the exclusion of everything else is not one of them.’
Sophie looked from one to the other and frowned. ‘There isn’t time for anything else but business,’ she said regretfully. ‘What with setting up the co-operative and getting everything back on line, I don’t have a minute to myself.’
Mary lit a forbidden cigarette and shared a secret exchange of looks with Philip. ‘Then it’s time you did,’ she said firmly. She began to cough and hastily stubbed out the cigarette. ‘Run downstairs and see if Mum’s on her way. She’s going to need a hand getting up here.’
Sophie frowned. Cordelia had visited every day and had managed the elevator quite easily. But she saw the impatient tightening of Mary’s lips and decided she had her reasons.
The gardens were lovely, the scent of roses filling the still air with their perfume. She breathed deeply, content with the way things were working out between her and her mother. They would never be close, she realised, but the tentative threads of friendship were enough for now.
Yet the contentment was marred by the fact that she and Jay had had little time together since the board meeting. Mary had been rushed to hospital, and he’d been needed back in the Hunter. A few telephone calls had kept them in touch but it wasn’t the same as seeing him. Sophie sighed. She supposed she couldn’t have it all – not now she was so busy with the family business – but Mary was right. She had to take time out to see to her own needs, and those of Jay.
The Rolls-Royce purred up the gravelled drive, black coachwork gleaming in the sun. Sophie smiled and waited until it drew up beside her. Cordelia was making her entrance in style.
Jacaranda Vines Page 39
