by Erica Brown
Max smiled. Nothing could break the bond between him and the man who had raised him.
The last question was the most delicate, the most painful of all.
What will your mother say?
He had to know the truth.
Chapter Twenty-One
Leaving the train at Bath Spa Railway Station, Edith led the way to where a row of cabs waited for business, the horses’ heads drooping and their eyes closed.
‘Ambassador Hotel,’ she shouted up at the first cab she came to.
The cab driver, who had also been dozing, awoke with a start. ‘Half a crown!’
‘One shilling or I’ll walk.’
He chewed his moustache. ‘One and six.’
‘Done.’
The two women climbed into the cab, their hearts racing. The wheels nickered over the cobblestone streets and soon they arrived at the Ambassador Hotel, which was built of the same honey-coloured stone as the rest of the city. Its name was etched into the stone pediment above its wide door.
‘I think he wants something else,’ said Abigail after Edith had paid the cabbie. ‘He doesn’t look very happy.’
‘One and six I said, and one and six I paid him.’
The inside of the hotel was cool and dark, a place of rich woods, damask-covered furniture and thick carpets. Maids and waiters bustled past with tea trays, newspapers, luggage and piles of newly ironed bed linen.
A man with a lofty expression, his hands clasped behind his back, stepped forward to greet them, at least that was what they thought.
‘If you’re looking for work, the servants’ entrance is at the rear.’
Edith bristled. ‘You misjudge us, sir,’ she said in her most superior voice. ‘We are looking for our mistress, Mrs Heinkel. We have been on an errand on which she is awaiting news.’
The expression of the concierge softened. ‘In that case, perhaps you would like to follow me.’
They trailed behind him, taking in the surroundings and the clientele as they passed.
An old man with white side whiskers snored into a newspaper covering his chest. A woman adorned with enough lace to stock a haberdashery knitted furiously, her needles clicking at breakneck speed. Two ladies clad in black sipped tea from tiny cups, their smallest finger held away.
‘Mrs Heinkel!’
Blanche was sitting in a chair by the window where she had a view of the bridge and the river. There was a tea tray in front of her set with Coalport china, a silver teaspoon and matching sugar tongs.
She started when she saw them. Edith fancied she turned quite pale.
‘Are these indeed your servants, madam?’ the concierge asked.
Blanche confirmed that they were.
‘Very well.’ He left.
‘What are you doing here?’
Edith ignored Blanche’s surprise, putting it down to her illness. People suffering as she was shouldn’t be exposed to shock, she thought, and immediately took two jagged pieces of sugar from the bowl and dropped them into her mistress’s teacup.
‘You’re going to need it,’ she explained in response to Blanche’s surprised expression. ‘I’ve got a letter here. That cow, Mrs Tinsley, didn’t want me to take it, but I persuaded her that she’d be doing the right thing – if you know what I mean.’ She thrust the letter into her hand.
Blanche was in no doubt of Edith’s persuasive powers. She might be a maid now, but she’d lived in the Pithay, one of the most notorious slums in the city. A woman that could survive there, and bring up a brood of children, had to be pretty resourceful.
Feeling her face grow hot, Blanche read and re-read the letter.
Dear Sir,
Would you please be advised that the dark-skinned child brought to you recently by one Daisy Draper is to be handed over to me, his natural father. Please take this letter as authority for his removal along with the sum of twenty guineas for your absolute discretion.
Yours most loyal,
Duncan Devere
Blanche stared at the name. Not the surname, Devere, but Duncan.
Duncan!
Her hand flew to her breast and she felt her heart dancing.
‘I can’t believe it. Twenty guineas for Mrs Tinsley’s discretion but not her efficiency. She never finalized the entry.’
‘The Ambassador Hotel,’ said Edith, spreading her hands and rolling her eyes as though to take in all the details of the room.
‘Yes,’ said Blanche, not comprehending exactly what Edith was getting at, and thinking it an improper time to consider the merits of the hotel.
Edith stabbed at the paper with a blunt finger. ‘The address,’ she exclaimed. ‘Read the address.’
Blanche looked again. The Ambassador Hotel was printed neatly at the top of the page. Suddenly it all made sense. Mary, the perambulator, the newly arrived baby…
Her eyes went back to the name. Mr Devere, the hotel owner she’d never seen.
‘Oh, my word!’ she exclaimed, and sat back in her chair, her whole body turned to jelly.
It was all frighteningly, terribly clear. Horatia. Duncan. Now she understood how a mother could brave her husband’s condemnation and given her baby away. The simple fact was: Tom was not the child’s father. The child was coloured because his father was.
Duncan had been a footman at Marstone Court, brought over from Barbados by Sir Emmanuel Strong. He’d been besotted with Horatia, and she had taken delight in manipulating his adoration.
To Blanche it had always seemed as though Horatia was merely playing with the man, just as she would a pet dog. Now it seemed that was not the case. There had been more than a mistress--servant relationship between them.
She remembered Duncan as being over six feet tall, dark as mahogany, broad in the shoulders and fastidious with his looks and surroundings. He’d supervised the cleaning and maintenance of Marstone Court, as though he’d owned it. There was also the matter of the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Sir Emmanuel. He’d been found dead in an Egyptian style sarcophagus in a room resembling a pharaoh’s tomb. The tomb had been built inside the house as his final resting place when he died. On occasion he’d slept in it, prior to occupying it for eternity. But one night the lid had slipped, sealing him inside. No one could know for sure whether it was an accident, but Duncan had disappeared soon afterwards, was said to have been seen emerging from the room. Blame was easily levelled on an absent suspect, but there was no proof and he was not charged.
It seemed Edith had come to the same conclusion. ‘Of course, Duncan. Do you remember when—’ She stopped when she realized Blanche was no longer listening but had turned in her chair. Curious to know who or what she was looking at, Edith followed her gaze. Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Captain Tom!’
Tom greeted her warmly and also acknowledged Abigail.
Blanche was a bundle of nerves. What should she tell him? How should she handle this?
‘Tom,’ she said in the end. ‘I think you’d better sit down.’
Aware that something special had always been between them, and was more tangible at this moment in time than she’d ever seen it before, Edith nudged Abigail’s arm. ‘Let’s get a bit of fresh air.’
With a rustle of petticoats, the two women rose from their chairs and exited the room.
Blanche remained clasping the letter with both hands as Tom sat down.
‘Edith found out what happened to the child,’ she said, her voice sounding small and far away, even to her.
Tom’s look was intense. His eyes did not leave her face. ‘Where is he buried?’
Blanche shook her head. ‘He isn’t. This letter goes some way to explaining why Horatia wanted to keep his birth secret.’
The paper of the letter seemed oddly sharp. A two-edged sword could not have felt more lethal. On the one hand, it told the truth. Horatia had not been as unfeeling as they’d thought. On the other hand, she had not been a good and faithful wife, the woman without passion that Tom thought he knew.
‘You’d better read this,’ she said.
Tom took it, looked at her, then dropped his gaze.
Now here it is, he thought, his hands shaking but steadying as the frown on his face deepened. At last he gasped and fell forward. Resting an elbow on his knee, he supported his head in the palm of one hand, the letter dangling from the other.
It had to have been inspired by another letter. The man could not have known where the child was without Horatia telling him. He remembered Sears’s confusion about Horatia’s visit to the Post Office, and understood now. She’d done the right thing as a mother in an incredibly complex situation, but she’d had no thought as to how her husband would react. He hated her for that more than for her act of adultery.
Blanche studied him and worried about the way his breath seemed to catch in his throat. Was he relieved or angered? She couldn’t tell. Perhaps a mix of both.
At last he managed to find his tongue. ‘Well!’ His whole body seemed to heave up into his shoulders then diminish to its normal position. ‘It appears I have no son, but I do have an errant wife.’
Blanche felt obliged to point out the same detail that Edith had pointed out to her. ‘Did you note the address?’
He nodded. ‘I don’t think I will be staying here again. In fact, I don’t think I will be staying in England.’
‘You feel no urge to have this out with Duncan?’
He made a strangled sound, as if he should have known, as if he should have been more observant. Then he shook his head, and she fancied she saw a slight smile.
‘Strangely enough, I feel more able to look Horatia in the face now. Before, I could barely do that. The thought of her putting a child in that dreadful place was too much to bear. The notion of her renewing her acquaintance with Duncan is more easily bearable. I presume she set him up with this hotel. A paid lover.’
Blanche eyed him thoughtfully, uncertain of the conversation’s path, unsure of the truth and depth of his feelings.
‘So you’ve no wish to see the child?’
He shook his head. ‘No. He no longer needs rescuing. My conscience is at peace.’ His eyes turned the most sparkling blue they’d been for a long time. ‘But Horatia’s conscience is about to be stirred. She has allowed herself to be compromised, and in a strange way she has set me free.’
It was as if his face glowed with reflected light. Many months had passed since she’d seen him looking so happy, so at peace with himself and the world.
What he did next took her by surprise.
Smiling, he cupped her face in his hands, the letter crumpling against her cheek. ‘And now I can kiss you without feeling any trace of guilt whatsoever,’ he said, his fingers delicately caressing her face as he brought her lips close to his, paused, then kissed her.
A hum of condemnation ran like a train around them.
‘Do you hear them?’ said a breathless Blanche.
‘Yes, I do. And I don’t care. In consequence of this recent enlightenment, I have decided not to go home on this afternoon’s train. I’m going home tomorrow. With you.’
* * *
They had dinner that evening in a pretty little restaurant close to the Abbey. In view of events, their conversation should have sparkled. On the contrary, they ate their meal in silence as the truth sank in.
The future was going to be very different from the past. They both knew that as they fingered glasses of wine, each avoiding looking into the eyes of the other in case it wasn’t true, in case leaving for Barbados was just fantasy, that nothing they really wanted would ever happen.
‘Do you realize what we are saying?’ Blanche said to him.
He took her hand and stared at it, his thumb massaging her palm as he considered their options: what they wanted to do and what they should do. He raised it to his lips and kissed it. He tried to bluff it out.
‘Old friends planning their future together. And you’ll be living at Rivermead. Horatia’s transferred the plantation into my name. No one else wanted it – not at the price she was asking anyway. I think she felt that I needed something to occupy my time, even though it meant being away from her.’
‘Once she finds out, she won’t take kindly to our close proximity.’ She shook her head and stared at her hand, willing it to pull away from his but finding it impossible. ‘Two people who love each other are about to scandalize society.’
Tom’s eyes twinkled. ‘You say it so matter-of-factly. Most women would blush at the thought of it.’
‘I am not most women.’
‘No,’ he said softly. ‘You’re not.’ And he took her hand, kissed her palm and then each finger.
She looked at his bent head, the unruly dark hair, the way it curved into his neck. Casually handsome, confidently dressed, yet almost untidy, he sat easily in his well-cut clothes as she saved the moment to memory.
He’d seemed thoughtful all evening. She presumed it was the prospect of lying together again tonight. She would not stop it happening. What would be, would be. But she sensed there was something else, something he would tell her all in his own good time.
They took a cab back to the hotel, the harness jingling and hooves clip-clopping along the cobbled streets. She didn’t feel guilty. Live life to the full. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Make hay while the sun shines. All those little sayings sounded as though they’d been made for her. She intended following their advice.
They alighted outside the hotel, the light from the door throwing their shadows across the pavement. Tom paid the cab driver then caught her by the waist before she could enter the hotel.
She laughed like a young girl, in love for the first time in her life. ‘What are you doing?’ His expression made her legs weak.
‘We either go through this door one by one, preferably with a few minutes between us, or we go through together. Once we have decided which, that will be the way it will be – for ever.’
The night promised rain, enough to dampen the daytime dust.
For what seemed like eternity, but was no more than seconds, they looked at each other.
At last, Blanche said, ‘Give me your arm.’
There was a moment’s hesitation then Tom raised his arm. His sleeve was speckled with raindrops. Blanche slipped her arm into his, enjoying the smell of damp wool. Together they entered the hotel.
* * *
It was after midnight when he came to her room.
She watched him as he peeled off his nightwear and leaned to turn down the oil lamp.
‘Leave it on.’
Her demand seemed to surprise him.
‘I want to see you,’ she said.
He understood her meaning and stood there, his body hard with desire, pulsating with every indrawn breath.
Having him there was almost like drowning. All the pent-up desires of the last few years flooded over her. The buried longings resurfaced. Taut with desire, breathless with pleasure, she was wanton beneath his hands, arching her naked body towards his, surrendering to his hands, his mouth, his body, her pleasure soaring like a swallow in summer, reaching high enough to touch a cloud, then diving slowly, languorously back to earth.
They held each other afterwards. After any ordinary day, Blanche was ready for sleep, but tonight it didn’t come.
Tom also lay awake, his head resting on one arm. ‘I meant what I said. I’ve decided to leave Horatia,’ he said. ‘I’m going to Barbados with you.’
Although he prided himself on being a man who never broke a promise, she couldn’t help wanting him to repeat his intentions again, and again, and again.
It all seemed so simple. Horatia was in danger of having her reputation ripped to shreds.
‘I won’t divorce her,’ he said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘There’s no need for that. We have a child to think of, but I’m certain she will agree to whatever I demand. She can threaten those that I love, but now I can ruin her more cruelly than she can me. So long as we are discreet, no one will be hurt.’
/> Blanche caught her breath, which instantly brought on a fresh bout of coughing. Tom helped her into a sitting position, his arm around her naked shoulder.
‘You do want me to go with you, don’t you?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
He lay her gently down on the soft pillows and pulled the bedclothes up over her so she wouldn’t catch cold, then paused, his brow creased with concern.
‘You’re thinking of Emerald.’
He nodded and swallowed in a way that made her think he was fighting some inner turmoil. She knew he loved the child. Emerald was the one thing that might make him have second thoughts.
‘Could… she come with us?’
‘Would you mind?’
‘More to the point, would Horatia mind?’
He frowned. ‘She’s always been threatening to send her away to school. Horatia was never meant to be a mother. Perhaps in a future world, no one would expect her to be if that wasn’t what she wanted.’
‘But this is now.’
He nodded. ‘I think that, under the circumstances, she could be persuaded. There are new opportunities in the port and the sugar industry is expanding to global proportions. Horatia will want to be part of that expansion. I can see her eyes glowing when she talks of it. Yes.’ He sighed and nodded. ‘Yes. I think she might agree.’
‘Good,’ murmured Blanche, closed her eyes and dreamed of azure surf breaking on a golden beach.
* * *
They caught the train the next morning.
‘I can’t wait to tell her,’ he said before kissing Blanche goodbye. ‘And you must tell Max.’
‘I don’t relish your task.’
‘Have a care. Perhaps Max will be less amenable to our plans than Horatia.’
She laughed. Max could never be as vindictive as Horatia. It wasn’t in him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Max had not thought to see Darius Clarke-Fisher again, but here he was, demanding to talk to him in private.
