The query was redundant, for Ruby came past the maid into the room. ‘My music-master has gone on holiday,’ she said, ‘so I thought I would pop down for a day or two, abuela.’
‘Sit down, Ruby,’ said her protector testily. ‘I am about to read my Will. Well, not to read it word for word. It is full of lawyer’s jargon. What it amounts to is this: that you are all to do as I please, not as you please, if you wish to enjoy the benefits I have assigned to you. I shall not mince my words.’
‘So our simple understanding will not be clouded by false quantities and doubtful meanings,’ said Fiona.
‘I am not going to mention quantities,’ said Romula, ‘I must keep some surprises in store. I shall tell you who will benefit, but not by how much. I have become aware of some strange cross-currents in this family’s relationships. They must cease. I will explain my meaning as I go along. This is a time to speak plainly.’
‘But you say that is not what you are going to do,’ said Gamaliel. Bluebell brought her hand down with a stinging smack on his thigh. Gamaliel took the hand and kissed it and then grinned cheekily at Romula. ‘God bless you, dear old mysterious lady,’ he said. ‘Your God, of course, not mine.’
Chapter 8
Speculations and Near Certainties
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‘So now we know,’ said Bluebell, when she was back in her own home. ‘So much for Fiona. She has preferred the birthright to the mess of pottage.’
‘She has no birthright, my dear,’ said Parsifal, ‘and you may have paid the penalty, I’m afraid, for having taken her to your bosom.’
‘She is saying “ha ha among the trumpets,” ’ said Gamaliel. ‘I am glad she is gone. Now we can be ourselves again.’
‘You seemed fond enough of her when she was here,’ said Garnet.
‘Oh, yes, but absence does not make the heart grow fonder. It is better now she is not with us.’
‘I wonder who tipped Ruby off that there was another dinner party with something in the wind?’ said Parsifal.
‘Oh, don’t you think it was merely coincidence that she turned up when she did?’ asked Garnet.
‘No. I have a sixth sense about these things.’
‘It would have been Mattie who told her,’ said Bluebell. ‘They went to school together.’
‘I went to school with a boy named Bracknell,’ said Parsifal, ‘and if I met him again I’d murder him.’
‘Would you know him if you met him again?’
‘Possibly not.’
‘Was he cruel to you?’
‘He used to twist my arm.’
‘You point him out if ever you see him,’ said Gamaliel, ‘and I will twist his neck.’
‘I don’t care for all this talk of murdering and twisting necks,’ said Bluebell. ‘Let us have done with it. Gamaliel, it is high time you were in bed. Who would like a cup of cocoa before we all turn in?’
‘The Will is only a draft, I think,’ said Parsifal to Bluebell, when they were in bed, ‘and, in any case, she did not tell us anything definite.’
‘It seems that Garnet and I may hope to benefit, but I thought she made more threats than promises. Of course Gamaliel will not adhere to this ridiculous idea of becoming a professional boxer, so there is no fear of his losing any small share she may have allotted to him.’
‘If he loses it, then you may also lose yours, which seems to me very unfair. She expects us to nullify his plans.’
‘You don’t think he will really go his own way, do you? He is headstrong and very sure of himself, you know.’
‘He envisages glittering prizes and I have a feeling that he may prove obstinate. He told us boastfully that your grandmother’s fortune, whatever it may turn out to be, is chickenfeed (his word) to what he will make in the ring.’
‘Yes, I know he did. He said it to the whole company. He added, I am sure sincerely, that we shall want for nothing once he is fully launched, but I must confess, as I did to him, that I would rather rely upon my share of what grandmother will leave me.’
‘Then we must exert all our influence to make certain that you get it. What of Diana and Rupert? A divorce would be Rupert’s undoing.’
‘Where could grandmother have heard such a rumour?’
‘Oh, from Ruby of course. What Ruby does not know she invents and in this case I am not so sure that invention comes into it. I don’t know how much Garnet makes from his books, but no doubt it is sufficient for him to be able to provide for a wife and the liaison with Diana has gone on for a good long time.’
‘I suppose if he married he would want this house for himself and his wife.’
‘And turn us out? But that is unthinkable! Besides, he would never part from Gamaliel, and where our adopted son is, there must we be also.’
‘A biblical sentiment! Gamaliel is turned sixteen. In two years’ time he will be of age.’
‘Oh, well, she will hardly die before that.’
‘It might be better, from everybody’s point of view, if she did, of course, but one baulks at that kind of wishful thinking.’
‘Yes, indeed. It may do for one of Garnet’s plots, but it will hardly do for people of our moral stature.’
‘So now you realise what the consequences would be if you divorced me or I you,’ said Rupert, handing Diana a weak mixture of whisky and water. ‘I am surprised that I am mentioned in the Will at all, considering what she thought about my father.’
‘Oh, blood is thicker than water. Does her money mean more to you than happiness?’
‘How can I be sure I would be happy with Fiona?—or make her happy, come to that? Besides, she is under the same ban as I. If she married me she would be cut off automatically from her share of my grandmother’s fortune. Without that, at grandmother’s death she would be destitute.’
‘No, she would not. She would be married to you.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘Nothing. We must be content to rub along together, I suppose. Even if I were prepared to deprive you of your inheritance by divorcing you or allowing you to divorce me, I could not be the means of depriving Garnet of his. A fine start to a new-married life that would be!’
‘Do you love him?’
‘I suppose I do. Do you love Fiona?’
‘Not enough to lose everything, hers and mine, for the sake of connubial bliss.’
‘Of course, nothing really definite came out, did it? Could I have another dollop of whisky in this penitential drink?’
‘Yes, of course. You know, Diana, it’s a pity we can’t make a go of things. We were all right until you were carrying the twins.’
‘I didn’t want children. I didn’t want to go about looking like a captive balloon. I didn’t want nappies and losing sleep at nights and babies’ caterwauling and bringing up wind and having to be taken to the post-natal clinic and having measles and whooping-cough and all the other childish ailments to deal with and not being able to have exciting holidays and having to spend all that money on school fees and clothes for the brats. And then to have two! As though one baby at a time is not one too many! I lost seven years out of my life bringing them up! Seven years that can never come again.’
‘You’re tired and her oblique hints about her Will have upset you,’ said Rupert in a gentler, more considerate tone than he had used, when he spoke to her at all, for some years. ‘Why don’t you drink up and go to bed? My grandmother isn’t dead yet.’
‘If wishes were horses—’
‘Pigs might fly and you told that black boy they don’t. Would it benefit anybody if they did? Even the pigs themselves might not like it.’
‘It seems that Maria and I are the only ones with an assured future,’ said Ruby, meeting Fiona in the hall at Headlands on the following morning. ‘My training is to be paid for, chance what, and Maria is to have this house.’