A Friend of the Family (3 page)

i've just had the most extraordinary letter from him. Do you know where he is?'

‘I understood from him that, wherever he is, he's incommunicado.' Esme's voice was cool.

‘He's been with you, though? I see the postmark is a local one?'

Silently Esme cursed her own short-sightedness and Felicity's perspicacity alike. ‘Fie came down for a few days to collect some things. I understand that he tried to telephone you but got no reply.'

Felicity gave a vexed sigh. ‘I've been away for a few days. How annoying. So you can't tell me where he is or when you expect to hear from him?'

‘I'm afraid not,' said Esme with perfect truth. ‘And now if you'll forgive me, I have visitors.'

She put the receiver down and stood thinking. There was no doubt that Felicity's voice had the confidence of a woman who had expectations. Whilst Mark was still alive she would never have telephoned George's mother, let alone demand information regarding him. Esme returned to her gardening with an anxious heart.

 

FELICITY SLAMMED THE RECEIVER
back on its rest and went into the kitchen. There had been something odd about George's letter and she couldn't decide quite what it was. Of course, she hadn't expected much change from George's mother. It was unlikely that she would want to be of any assistance to Felicity. On the few occasions that they had met, Mrs Lampeter had made it plain that she disliked her and that she held her responsible for George's part in their relationship. No doubt she would prefer him to marry and start producing children. She was exactly the sort of woman who would delight in being a grandmother. Felicity's lip curled in disdain. She glanced at the kitchen clock and decided to have a stiff gin and tonic before her lunch. As she went to the cupboard she found that odd phrases from George's letter were passing through her mind: . .all terribly hush-hush . . . no idea when I shall see you again . . . unlikely that I'll be in touch . . .' It was all too Le Carré for words. Felicity simply couldn't imagine George in the role of secret agent and had telephoned the base at Faslane only to be told that Commander Lampeter was away. She took her drink to the table and sat down, drumming her fingers irritably as she wondered whom she could pump to find out where he was and what he was doing. She hadn't liked the tone of his letter, apart from all the secrecy and silence nonsense. It sounded as if he couldn't give two hoots how long it might be before they were together again and there was no hint of regret or apology. He might have been writing to a casual friend and Felicity was annoyed. She knew that he was supposed to be starting at the MOD any time and found herself idly wondering which of her friends had husbands there at the moment. Tom Wivenhoe was there, of course, but she'd rather die of curiosity than telephone the Wiven-hoes
for information about George. It would be bad enough asking her friends. It would all have to be done very casually. Of course, George is at the MOD now. Has John seen him yet?' and so on. But why did she think that he would be at the MOD when his letter implied he would be doing something different? Felicity thought about this for some while as she sipped slowly at her drink. After a while she realised that it was because she simply didn't believe a word of it. Not a single phrase of the letter rang true. And it had been posted locally after she had returned from Exeter. He had been down but hadn't tried to get in touch with her, even knowing that he was going away and wouldn't be seeing her for a long time.

Felicity shook her head and got up to prepare her lunch. Even as she mentally worked out the amount of calories in her cream cheese, adjusting the size to counteract the gin and tonic, she was deciding how she could discover what George was up to and catch him out at it. She was already suspecting that it might be another woman although she would have thought he had already learned his lesson on that score. Felicity chopped chives with a vicious hand that boded ill for George and mentally reviewed her possible sources of information. No stone would be left unturned, no avenue left unexplored. She ate her lunch without tasting a single bite and rose girded for battle. Some infallible instinct told her that George had either cheated—or was about to cheat—on her and the scent of blood was in her narrow, haughty nostrils.

 

Three

 

CASSANDRA WIVENHOE BACKED HER
car out of the open-fronted barn that served as a garage and set off down the drive past the Georgian rectory that she and her husband Tom had bought eleven years before. She turned left into the lane and headed towards Plymouth. She quite enjoyed these drives to the station on Friday evenings to collect Tom from the London train although she knew it would not be so pleasant when the winter arrived and she would have to cross the moor in the dark, accompanied by driving rain or perhaps in a thick fog, not to mention the occasional blizzard.

She drove slowly, enjoying the new growth and unfurling of tender green leaves. Although the high moors were still gripped in the iron hand of winter, here in the deep sheltered lanes the banks were studded with primroses and violets, the hedges above them white with hawthorn blossom, and, now that the cold winds of April had backed to the warmer southwesterlies of early May, it seemed that summer might be on its way at last.

It was more than three years since their eldest daughter Charlotte had died in a riding accident. Accident? Or had it been suicide? Cass would never know. For months afterwards she had thought of her daughter, not quite sixteen, taking her pony out and riding off in the wild storm of that dreadful dav, up to the quarry which she knew to be a dangerous area even in good conditions. Was she running away from the terrible car smash, that she, in her innocence, had caused? Or was that simply the last straw in a series of emotional upsets? The
problem with the highly strung and sensitive Charlotte was that it was impossible to judge her actions.

Cass drove through Clearbrook and on to the open moor. Slowly, very slowly, she had come to terms with it. She had always lived on the principle of ‘live now, pay later,' enjoying lighthearted flirtations and affairs while Tom was at sea, suspecting that he was also taking his pleasure where he found it. She had taken risks and chances which had added spice to life, and then payday had arrived. Her lifelong friend Kate Webster, another naval wife whose marriage had finally ended in divorce, had always warned her that it would. It was Cass who had first dubbed it ‘playing Russian roulette' and Kate who had told her that one day she would get the bullet. But it was Charlotte who had got the bullet: serious, quiet little Charlotte who had adored her father and loved her smaller brothers and sister and who had been terrified that Cass's infidelities might lead to trouble and break up the family. She had got the bullet meant for Cass.

For both Cass and Tom it was not just the death of their daughter that they had to come to terms with but their own guilt. During the appalling days and weeks after the funeral they had attempted to comfort each other whilst remorse and shame hammered away at the back of their minds. If Tom hadn't been with Harriet, if Cass hadn't been with Nick, would things have been different?

For Tom, the Falklands War had come at exactly the right moment and he had become deeply involved in strategic planning, relieved to have something else to distract his mind. Cass was thankful, too. Occasionally, overwhelmed by guilt and misery, Tom had tried to push the weight of it on to her. Cass held her own but, understanding his pain and what drove him to try to blame her, she also held her peace and did not question him in turn. She knew very well that he had been with Harriet but could see no future in their tearing each other to shreds. And, after all, it was she who had pushed him into Harriet's ready arms, hoping to hide her own affair with Nick. The blame was hers and she took it to herself and attempted
to deal with it. She spent as much time as she could with her other three children and, by the end of the war, time had played its part in healing all of them to the extent that they could start again.

There were still anguished moments, agonised feelings of loss, but at least now, more than three years on, they were able to cope with that loss and with each other and they had once again picked up the threads of their lives together. Life went on.

Cass drove into the station and looked for Tom. He was waiting outside the plate-glass doors and he raised his hand as he saw her approach. Cass pulled in and watched him hurry across the road to her. It was still a little odd to see him in his London suit instead of naval uniform. The last few years had added lines to his face and grey to his brown hair, which was as thick as ever, but today there was something different about his demeanour, the way he walked and the expression on his face, and Cass looked at him expectantly as he got into the passenger's seat. He leaned across to give her the customary peck on the cheek and they exchanged the usual greetings.

‘Good week?'

‘Not too bad. You?'

‘Fine. Train's on time for a change.'

Cass headed for Tavistock and waited.

‘I've got some amazing news. You'll never guess what it is.'

‘What?' Cass negotiated the lights and crossings of Mutley Plain with care.

Tom waited until she was through the worst before he spoke.

‘George is getting married.'

‘Good God! So she's got him at last. Well, it's not all that amazing, darling. It was only a question of time once Mark died. I'm only surprised that they waited this long.'

‘Aha! But that's the whole point. He's not marrying Felicity.'
‘What?
'

‘Careful! You nearly had that cyclist. You'll never believe it. It
seems that he went on leave to see his old mum and met this girl at some friend's house. He's fallen for her, hook, line and sinker.'

Cass drove for some moments, grappling with this information while Tom observed the effect of his news with immense satisfaction.

‘Incredible, isn't it?'

Cass shook her head. ‘Felicity will never let him,' she said at last. ‘She'll kill him first. Don't tell me she knows about it?'

‘No, she doesn't. And poor old George is like a cat on a hot tin roof.' Tom chuckled. ‘Poor old boy. I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. He's absolutely shit-scared that she's going to find out. He's sworn me to secrecy.'

‘How stupid. Of course she'll find out. What an idiot he is. Why did he tell you if he's so scared?'

‘He wants me to be best man,' explained Tom. ‘So I had to know. Which means you have to know. But he trusts us both not to breathe a word to another soul. He's asking one or two others to the wedding and swearing them to secrecy, too.'

Cass burst out laughing. ‘Oh, honestly, Tom. What a farce! Only George could imagine that he'll get away with it. What's he going to do? Carry on with Felicity as if nothing's happened until the eve of the wedding and then send her a little note thanking her for her kind hospitality which will no longer be required?'

‘He's not seeing her at all. He's told her that he's been sent away on some top-secret stuff and hopes to keep a low profile until the wedding's over. He thinks that it will be too late then for her to put a spoke in the wheel.'

Cass laughed then in earnest. She laughed so much that Tom found himself laughing with her between his admonishments to watch her driving.

‘Top secret!' she said, when finally she could speak and they were driving through Roborough. ‘I've heard it all now. If he thinks that Felicity will believe that then he's even more of a twit than I realised.
She'll hunt him down in no time. And the girl. Who is she? Do we know her?'

Tom shook his head. ‘She's not local. Her name's Thea and she's only twenty-three, apparently. Old George is like a dog with two tails.'

‘Dear God! If Felicity finds her she'll eat her alive. It's too bad of George. God knows, I can't stand Felicity, but I think he should have told her the truth. I think she deserves that after twenty-odd years.'

Tom looked uncomfortable. Manlike, he felt that if Felicity had been prepared to deceive her husband all those years, she deserved what was coming to her at the end of it. He felt that George had a perfect right to marry whom he wished and if a charming and attractive girl twenty years his junior was prepared to take him on then good luck to him. He had sympathised openly with George and encouraged him. He shifted a little in his seat and Cass glanced at him.

‘I suppose you urged him on,' she said, accurately assessing his discomfort. ‘Well, I can't really say that I blame you. I simply think that it will be worse for George when Felicity finds out he's lying and deceiving her than if he'd told her the truth. But either way he hasn't got a hope. Poor George. And poor Thea. Oh well, can't be helped. So come on. Spit it all out. You haven't told me half of it yet.'

 

KATE WEBSTER WAS RATHER
surprised when Cass telephoned her on Monday morning as soon as she had dropped Tom at the station and got back home. Her news was too riveting to wait, she said, and no, it couldn't be told over the telephone.

‘I want to see your face when I tell you,' said Cass.

‘Honestly, Cass . . . '

‘No, I won't hear any excuses. I don't care about your old dogs and anyway I haven't seen you for ages. Shall I come to you or will you come here?'

‘Well, I was just dashing into Tavistock to do some shopping . . . '

‘Even better. I'll meet you in the Bedford for coffee. Half an hour?' And without waiting for a reply she'd hung up.

Now, sitting in a corner of the hotel lounge, Kate smiled to herself. No one can be the same after the death of a beloved child but even with the traumas of the past years Cass hadn't really changed. She'd kept her strikingly beautiful blonde beauty and underneath she was still the same lighthearted, fun-loving girl that Kate had met at boarding school twenty-eight years before.

It was to Kate that Cass had poured out her innermost feelings. They had, by then, been through so much together, marrying so young and having to deal with naval life. Cass had supported Kate through the unhappy years of her marriage with Mark Webster and Kate had watched anxiously as Cass juggled with her lovers and with Tom. They had brought up their families, moving them from one base to another, with their husbands away at sea, and had comforted each other when first Kate's mother died and then Cass's father, the General, who had been such a tower of strength to them both. Cass had been on hand when Kate's affair with Alex Gillespie had foundered on the rock of her twin boys' antipathy and Kate had been there when Cass had fallen in love with Nick Farley and everything had crashed round her ears when he had rejected her only days before Charlotte died. The tragedy had the effect of making Cass and Tom turn back to each other, to see the foolishness—and danger—of their playing around and to resume the close, loving relationship that had always been there underneath. They had learned their lesson the hard way and they were taking no more risks.

Kate poured herself some coffee. She looked all of her forty years. She had pulled a hasty comb through the rough short curls that were well dusted with grey but had made no effort to change out of her old navy-blue cords or the rugby shirt which had once been Guy's—or was it Giles's?—and was in their old school colours of black and red. Both Cass's sons were now at Blundell's, the twins' old school: Oliver was working for his A levels and Saul was in his second year. The twins were away at university and Kate, who was always short of cash, was working her way slowly through their cast-off school clothes.

She glanced up as someone came in and saw not Cass but Felicity. Although all their three husbands had been good friends these three women had never hit it off and Kate was surprised when Felicity came over to her table rather than giving her the usual frosty nod.

‘Hello, Kate,' she said in her rather abrupt way. ‘Waiting for someone?' Her eyes ranged over Kate's somewhat unkempt appearance and Kate smiled a little.

‘For Cass, actually,' she replied. She was sure that this would frighten Felicity away quicker than anything else and was very surprised, therefore, when she sat down in one of the other chairs at the table.

‘That's rather lucky,' she said. ‘You don't mind if I sit for a moment? I'd like a word with Cass.'

Knowing that it was probably three years since Cass and Felicity had exchanged speech, Kate could only nod and was even more taken aback when Cass, arriving moments later and seeing Felicity, assumed an expression of undisguised horror far greater than the situation warranted. Almost instantly she controlled herself and by the time she arrived at the table Kate was aware that she was suppressing some overwhelming emotion.

‘Well, well, Felicity,' she said, looking down at her. ‘It's ages since I saw you. How are you?'

‘I'm well, thanks. And you?'

‘I'm fine.' Cass embraced Kate. Oh, good. You've ordered the coffee. Oh, dear, only two cups.'

‘Don't worry about me,' said Felicity. ‘I'm meeting a friend. I just thought that I'd say hello.'