A Multitude of Sins

by Margaret Pemberton

  The maítre d’hótel knelt down at her side. ‘He has been sent for, mademoiselle. Please, sit down…a brandy.…’

  She ignored him, bending once more over her father. ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ she pleaded, her voice desperate. ‘Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?’

  Above her head the waiters looked at each other, lifting their shoulders in barely perceptible shrugs. It was obvious that Monsieur Kingsley was dead. That there was nothing anyone could do.

  She was keening now, cradling him in her arms, knowing that he would never hear her again. Never open his eyes and look at her with love and amusement.

  ‘The doctor is here, mademoiselle,’ the maítre d’hótel said in a voice of relief as the crowd parted and a pinstriped-suited gentleman knelt competently at Jerome’s side.

  ‘Daddy … Daddy … I love you so …,’ she sobbed, knowing that the doctor had arrived too late. That there was nothing that could be done. That in a matter of seconds, in the restaurant of one of the sumptuous hotels he had loved, she had lost him.

  The doctor knelt swiftly at Jerome’s side and for several minutes attempted to reactivate his heart. At last he leaned back on his heels. ‘It is over,’ he said regretfully. ‘I am sorry, mademoiselle. There is nothing that I, or anyone else, can do.’

  There were gentle hands at her elbows, encouraging her to rise. A stretcher was laid at Jerome’s side.

  ‘Please, mademoiselle,’ the maítre d’hótel Was saying in concern, and she knew that they were waiting for her to release him so that he could be put on the stretcher and carried from the room. She felt as if she herself were dying. It was impossible to hurt so much and live.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ the maítre d’hótel said again, and this time the pressure beneath her elbows was more insistent.

  She pressed her lips to his still warm cheek. ‘Goodbye, Daddy,’ she whispered, her breath ragged. ‘Au revoir, my darling.’

  She was helped to her feet, her ivory-pale hair spilling in dishevelled disarray around her shoulders, her eyes bleak. It was all over. There would be no more good times together. He had left her as once, long ago, her mother left her. She was seventeen, and she was alone.

  Chapter Three

  The manager of the George V telephoned Francine’s apartment an hour later. There had been no other telephone number that Elizabeth could give him. Jerome’s body had been discreetly taken from the hotel to the morgue. The dining-room was again functioning perfectly, as if the regrettable incident had never taken place.

  The elegantly dressed hotel manager pursed his lips as he waited for an answer to his call. Monsieur Kingsley had been like many other rich men he had known. Surrounded by an army of so-called friends and acquaintances in life, strangely lonely in death. If Monsieur Harland could not be contacted at the telephone number his charming and distraught daughter had given him, then he could envisage difficulties ahead. Princess Luisa Isabel Calmella, Monsieur Kingsley’s mistress, would certainly not relish undertaking his funeral arrangements. There were no relatives. No sons or nephews. No one but the sobbing girl who had given him the telephone number he was now ringing.

  Adam was appalled. At first he thought the telephone message was a cruel practical joke. It wasn’t possible for Jerry to be dead. He was only forty-nine, for Christ’s sake.

  ‘Mademoiselle Kingsley would very much appreciate it if you would come at once,’ the hotel manager finished smoothly. ‘She is very distressed.’

  Adam understood. He crashed the telephone receiver back on its rest, grabbing for his clothes as Francine sat up in bed, her hair tousled, her eyes wide.

  ‘What is it, chéri? What has happened?’

  His handsome face was bone-white, his lips tight. ‘Jerry’s dead. He collapsed in the George V restaurant an hour ago!’ He didn’t bother to button his shirt, ramming it down the waistband of his trousers, snatching hold of a tie and a jacket.

  ‘Mon Dieu!‘ Francine pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. ‘Oh, but that is terrible!’ Horror flared through her eyes. ‘Was Elizabeth with him?’

  Adam nodded, stumbling in his haste as he put on his shoes, blaspheming viciously.

  ‘La pauvre petite!’ Francine gasped, scrambling from the bed, searching for her négligé. ‘Quelle horreur.…’

  She was still slipping her arms into the gauzy sleeves when the apartment door slammed behind him.

  His heart jack-knifed in his chest when he saw her. She was sitting on the edge of her father’s bed, her shoulders hunched, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. The doctor was still there. He had given her a sedative and had no intention of leaving her, not until she was more composed or until someone arrived with whom she could be safely left. An under-manager stood uncomfortably at the door, making sure that no curious undesirables entered the suite. A maid was removing an untouched tea-tray from a bedside table and depositing another in its place. The hotel manager was offering her his condolences, saying what a fine man Jerome had been, and how sadly missed he would be by them all.

  She was wearing the cream silk dress she had gone so happily down to dinner in, little more than an hour earlier. Her head was bowed over her hands, and her hair hung forward at either side of her face, the light from the chandeliers sparking the gold to silver. She looked terrifyingly fragile. Heartbreakingly alone.

  ‘Beth,’ he said, his voice catching in his throat as he stepped towards her.

  Her head whirled in his direction, and she sprang to her feet, running towards him, hurtling into his arms.

  ‘Oh, Adam! Adam! Daddy’s dead! He’s dead, and I can’t bear it!’

  Tears poured down her face unchecked. The maid slipped unobtrusively from the room. The hotel manager withdrew a discreet distance, waiting until he could intimate to Monsieur Harland that he would like to speak to him about the various arrangements that would have to be made.

  ‘Oh, Adam! I loved him so, and now he’s gone!’

  He held her tight, giving her what comfort he could as she clung to him, her body racked by sobs.

  The hotel manager cleared his throat. ‘Monsieur Kingsley’s body has been taken to the morgue,’ he said quietly. ‘His lawyers have been informed of his death and—’

  ‘Thank you,’ Adam said, cutting him short, disconcerted by his French practicality. ‘I’ll speak to you later, if I may.’

  The hotel manager bowed his head. ‘Of course. I can be found in my office. Good night, Monsieur Harland. Good night, Mademoiselle Kingsley. Once again, you have my most sincere condolences.’

  He left the room, and the under-manager followed him. A bellboy could replace him on duty at the door of the Kingsleys’suite, this time standing on the outside of the door. It was a mark of respect that the manager favoured.

  ‘Sit down, Beth,’ Adam said gently. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  As she leaned against him, no longer sobbing but crying quietly, the doctor judged that the time had come when he could decently leave. He placed a small bottle containing two tablets on the bedside table, saying to Adam: ‘I am leaving two sleeping tablets for Mademoiselle Kingsley. If more are required for tomorrow night and the night after, I will prescribe them, but they will only be dispensed one night at a time, you understand?’

  Adam nodded. The doctor checked Elizabeth’s pulse. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a nurse to stay with you?’ he asked.

  Elizabeth shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, drawing in a deep ragged breath. ‘Thank you for your kindness, Doctor.’

  The doctor picked up his bag, grateful that the Englishman he believed to be her uncle was both sensible and sympathetic. ‘I have left my telephone number on your night-table in case it should be needed,’ he added, walking towards the door. ‘Bonsoir, mademoiselle. Bonsoir, monsieur.’

  The door closed behind him, and Elizabeth sank down on to one of the chairs, her face deathly white. Adam poured her a cup of tea from the still hot teapot, stirring in two generous spoonfuls of sugar.

&nb
sp; ‘Here,’ he said, placing the cup and saucer in her hands and squatting down on his heels Indian-fashion before her. ‘Drink this, Beth. It will do you good.’

  She sipped at the tea with childlike obedience, and he said compassionately: ‘Now, tell me what happened, Beth.’

  Her breathing had steadied, and she said, her voice full of pain: ‘He was getting ready for dinner and he said he was cold.’ Her eyes were anguished. ‘I thought perhaps he might be starting with flu, but he wasn’t feverish and I thought the doctor could wait until morning.’ Her voice broke, and she began to cry again. ‘If only I’d realized! If only I had rung for the doctor there and then!’ Tea slopped over into the saucer, and he removed the cup from her hands.

  ‘It would have made no difference, Beth,’ he said with certainty. ‘A heart attack, or an embolism as severe as the one your father suffered, couldn’t possibly have been averted. There was nothing you could have done.’

  ‘But I could have tried!’ she said, her face ravaged. ‘It was so awful, Adam. We were having dinner and making plans. He wanted to leave Paris and travel south, to Morocco. Suddenly he said that he felt most odd and then he … he just keeled over on to the table.’ Her voice was barely audible. ‘He never spoke again,’ she said, her eyes wide and dark and tragic. ‘He never said my name. He just lay there, and people came running and someone – the maítre d’hótel, I think – loosened his collar and tie, but it was no use.’ Her voice was disbelieving. ‘He was dead, Adam. Daddy was dead.’

  He stayed the night with her, sleeping on the sofa while she slept deeply, mercifully sedated. He had left her for only a few moments, and that was when he had paid his visit to the hotel manager and discussed with him the arrangements that would be made. To the hotel manager’s relief, Elizabeth had no desire for any arrangements to be made at the hotel for family and friends. There would be no reception after the funeral. No wake. Other hotel guests would have no further reminders as to the frailty of human existence. The body would remain at a funeral parlour until the funeral service. After that, it would be shipped back to England for burial next to Serena in Kensal Green Cemetery.

  A maid had stayed with Elizabeth during his absence, and he was relieved to see, when he returned, that she had persuaded Elizabeth to eat some scrambled egg and toast.

  ‘I must telephone Luisa Isabel,’ she said tiredly to him. ‘Other people can wait until morning. I’ve made a list of everyone who should be informed, and their telephone numbers, and also a list of all those who must be cabled.’

  He took a list from her, determined to save her the anguish of such a task and to undertake it himself.

  ‘Telephone Princess Luisa Isabel,’ he said, hoping that the Princess would not be histrionic in her grief. ‘I’ll send down for a pillow and blankets and make a bed up for myself on the sofa.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Her voice was thick with relief, her eyes telling him how very grateful she was that she was not to be left alone.

  If the under-manager regarded it as odd and unseemly that a single, middle-aged gentleman should ask for bedlinen in order that he might share the room of a bereaved seventeen-year-old girl, he gave no indication of it. A death on the premises was anathema to all hotel staff. It disquieted the clients and created a host of minor and sometimes major difficulties. If all that had to be endured as a result of Monsieur Kingsley’s sudden death was the irregularity of his friend sleeping on the sofa in Mademoiselle Kingsley’s room, then the irregularity could, just once, be overlooked.

  Jerome had been a non-practising Anglican, and the funeral service

  was held at St George’s Church in the rue Auguste Vacquerie. Princess Luisa Isabel wore black sable with a tiny hat and a wisp of black veiling to cover her eyes. She had been Jerome’s mistress for four years and, though she had not been so heedlessly in love that she would have forgotten her position and married him, she had been deeply fond of him.

  Other friends were there: business friends from London and Geneva; fashionable friends from the Riviera; titled friends that he had met as a consequence of his affair with Princess Luisa Isabel. It was a simple service, short and dignified, and Adam was vastly relieved when it was over. Francine clung to his arm, weeping into a diminutive lace edged handkerchief. Elizabeth stood a little apart from them, her face as still and pale as a carved cameo, her silver-blonde hair wound into an elegant chignon at the nape of her neck, her narrow-skirted black wool suit emphasizing her pallor and her willowy slenderness.

  He had been terrified that she would break down. That she would find the service and the sight of the coffin, submerged beneath its blanket of flowers, unendurable. She had not done so. Jerome would have wished his funeral service to be conducted with style and good taste, and she was determined that his wishes would be carried out. Her grief was a private thing and not for public display.

  Later that day Adam left Paris with her, as she accompanied Jerome’s body back to England. The next morning, in the large impersonal cemetery in which they had stood seven years previously, when Serena was buried, Jerome was laid to rest. Adam was unashamed of the tears that stung his cheeks. Jerry had been a good friend, and he had died, like Serena, too young.

  When they left the cemetery the hired Rolls took them, not to Eaton Place, but to the suite that Elizabeth had reserved for herself at the Savoy. Beneath the weight of his grief, Adam was vaguely amused, wondering if she intended to live as Jerry had lived.

  ‘Will you be moving into Eaton Place or returning to France?’ he asked her as they entered her suite and she flung her coat on to a chair.

  ‘Neither.’ Tea was waiting for them on a silver tray. She crossed the room towards it, pouring Earl Grey into two wafer-thin cups and handing him one. ‘I’m going to sell Eaton Place and buy something smaller and more manageable, something in the country. Kent or Sussex, I think. Somewhere that has no memories.’

  Her dress was a narrow sheath of black wool crépe with long arms and a high neck, the skirt stopping just short of black suede shoes, her hair once again in a glossy chignon. She looked incredibly chic, more French than English.

  ‘Won’t you be lonely?’ he asked, moving abruptly towards the window and the view of the Thames.

  ‘I shall be lonely wherever I live,’ she said quietly.

  He didn’t say anything, but the muscles at the corner of his jaw clenched.

  He heard her put down her cup and saucer, and then she said: ‘I shall never be able to thank you enough for all that you’ve done, Uncle Adam. I truly don’t think I could have managed without you.’

  The childhood appellation made him wince. She rarely used it now, and she had chosen to do so just when he had been about to make an almighty fool of himself. When he had been about to say that she needn’t be lonely. That she could live with him in London. That he would adopt her, marry her. Anything, as long as he could keep her with him.

  ‘I’ll send you the address of wherever I move to,’ she said, crossing the room towards him and slipping her arm through his. ‘And in June I shall be in Paris for your wedding. I wouldn’t miss that for the world.’ Her voice was warm and loving.

  She was not to be a bridesmaid. Francine had apologetically explained to her that she had an army of young nieces all eager for the honour. What she had not put into words was that Elizabeth, as a bridesmaid, might be considered by some people to be more beautiful than the bride, and that was a risk Francine was not prepared to run.

  Adam forced a smile. There was no further excuse for him to stay. Jerry had left her abundantly provided for, and there was a score of lawyers and business advisers to shield and protect her.

  Even so, turning to her and saying goodbye to her was the hardest thing he had ever done.

  She had walked with him along the thickly carpeted corridor to the lift. ‘I shall miss you,’ she had said, squeezing his arm.

  ‘I shall miss you,’ he had said, and his lips had brushed her hair-line and then he had stepped into the lift, a
handsome man with a thick shock of hair who looked much younger than his forty-two years.

  The metal-meshed doors closed between them, and five minutes later he walked out into the rain-washed Strand, trying not to think of how fragile and vulnerable and achingly beautiful she had looked as they had said goodbye, but of how in eight weeks’time he was to be married. And how little he was looking forward to it.

  Elizabeth walked slowly back into her suite. Now she was really alone. Adam could no longer act as her support. She had to learn to live by herself, and she had to learn to do so bravely.

  She stood in the middle of the luxurious room. Silence. No Jerome asking her to book him on a last-minute flight to Zurich; to arrange a luncheon-party; to find him his collarstud, his cufflinks. No one to care for. No one to fuss over. No one to love.

  The chill April day was drawing to a close. The daffodil sky of evening paling to dusk. She stared out through the windows to the broad grey sweep of the Thames. She was luckier than most people, and she knew it. She had money. She had financial security, even if she no longer had emotional security. Jerome’s lawyers had explained to her the terms of his will, the value of his estate. Until she was eighteen she would be under their guardianship, and there would be restrictions that could not, by law, be lifted until she was twenty-one. However, any of her requests, providing that they were reasonable, would be acceded to, and that included the selling of Eaton Place and the purchase of an alternative residence in southern England.

  She sat on the sofa, curling her long legs beneath her. She wanted a house of her own. Somewhere she could lick her wounds like an injured animal and adjust herself to a new way of life. Somewhere she could plan her future and come to terms with her loss.

  She drew the mass of literature that had been sent by London estate agents towards her. She knew exactly what she wanted, and only hoped that she would be fortunate enough to find it.