To Anna the first part of the journey home seemed entirely unreal, an interlude, of melancholic adjustment in which her confusion and dawning guilt wrapped her like a veil which little penetrated. She sat for hours, unspeaking, watching sightlessly the passing countryside, trying hard to forget that one face, that one voice, the feel of that one body. At first it seemed an impossibility. A train thundered by her window, streaming northward, and her heart went with it, back to the lighthearted laughter of Lemorsk. Back to Nicolai. But then, against expectations, her common sense exerted itself. What good to dream if the dream were totally impossible? And, even if it had been offered, which she knew it could never be, a life with Nicolai would be unthinkable: she could never leave her family, her country, her work. Victoria. Joss. Above all, she suddenly found herself thinking, Joss. Despite what had happened that she still truly loved her husband was undeniable. As they sped towards the Channel she forced herself to think of their life, of their relationship. How much of her disappointment was her own fault? She demanded too much; he gave too little. But if that were in the nature of the man now it always had been, and she must have known it. So, she must either learn to live with it or show him by example the satisfaction and joy of giving. Stoically she ignored the pang of physical pain that brought, remembering Nicolai and those brief moments that had shown her so much. Joss. She loved Joss, her husband. She would remember that. She would cling to it. And when she saw him, the very first moment, she would begin again. She must have learned something? She must use it constructively. Use it to build a future with Joss. During the blessedly calm crossing of the Channel she studied that thought, leaning on the ship’s rail watching the misty, smudged horizon that was England as it took firm shape, and colour and reality. Joss would be waiting for them at the station. Then and there she would begin anew. She would make it work.
But Joss was not at the station to meet them. It was Boris who stood at the barrier, his bright head unmistakable in the crowds, his face uncharacteristically and unconcealedly sombre.
After the greeting, Anna looked around, still half-expecting to see her husband. “Where’s Joss? Isn’t he here?”
“No. He was – detained—”
“But – I told him the train we were coming on—” She looked sharply at Boris. “What is it? Boris – what is it? Has something happened to Joss?”
He shook his head. “No. I promise you. Joss is all right.”
“Then what? Something’s wrong. What is it?”
Boris took her hand in his. “It’s your father, Anna. A heart attack.”
“What? Oh, God! Why didn’t someone tell us? Send for us?”
“Please – calm yourself. It was on Josef’s specific instructions that you were not informed. He’s ill, yes, but the doctor assures us that he will be all right. It was a mild attack.”
“I want to see him. Now. At once. Is that where Joss is? Why didn’t you tell us at once? Michael – quickly – find a cab—”
“There’s one waiting,” Boris said. “I guessed you’d want to go straight to your father. But – Anna—”
Anna, looking round distractedly for a porter, turned sharply at his tone. Michael appeared to have been struck dumb by the news.
“Joss is not at Bayswater,” Boris said.
“Then where is he?”
“I don’t know. At work perhaps—”
She stared at him. “Something has happened to Joss,” she said flatly. “Hasn’t it? Hasn’t it? You’re keeping something back.”
Michael found his voice at last. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Anna – he’s already told you Joss is all right. It’s Papa we should be thinking of – we have to go—” Michael raised his voice. “Porter! Here, please! Boris – where’s the cab?”
The journey to Bayswater, spent mostly in an awkward silence that was broken only by Boris’s stiltedly polite enquiry as to the trip and Anna’s equally stilted reply, was thankfully short. When the vehicle stopped outside the house Michael tumbled from it and took the steps to the front door two at a time. Anna about to follow him, found herself restrained by Boris’s hand. She stilled, and looked at him. “Tell me,” she said. “What’s happened to Joss.”
“It’s as I said. Nothing’s happened to him. It’s what he—” he hesitated “—what he appears to have done.”
“Done? What do you mean?”
“Anna, I can’t let you go in there – face them – without telling you—”
“What? Telling me what?” Her voice was sharp with apprehension.
“Joss – Joss seems – indirectly – to be the cause of your father’s illness.”
“What?”
“We can’t altogether discover what happened – your father absolutely refused to discuss it – but the facts—”
“What facts?” Anna’s voice was suddenly calm. The front door of the house had opened and Michael had disappeared inside. A figure appeared at the top of the steps – Alex, his face like the crack of doom. “What facts, Boris?” she asked, urgently.
Boris shook a helpless head. “You’ll have to come inside, Anna. Everyone’s there. They’ll explain.”
“Tell me something first. Are you saying that you believe that Joss – deliberately—” she stopped.
“No.” He could not hold her eyes. “That is – I don’t know, Anna. Joss won’t say anything. Neither will your father. Joss refuses to defend himself. And on appearances, I have to say—”
Alex was beside them. “Anna.” His voice was heavy, and held no greeting. “You’d better come in. Father heard the cab. He’s asking for you.”
Everyone was gathered in the drawing room – Alex and Alice, Boris and Louisa, Ralph and Michael – waiting for Anna when she came downstairs from seeing her father. As she entered the room the heavy silence of antagonism rang in her ears. Boris stood by the window, his back to the room. Alex, feet astride, hands behind his back, stood before the fireplace. He was putting on weight, Anna noticed, and his face was florid. Alice and Louisa sat one each end of the long sofa, as far from each other as possible. The two had not spoken unless absolutely forced to it by social necessity since the quarrel some months before, as indeed neither had Boris and Alex. Ralph sat in an armchair upon whose high back Michael leaned, his usually carefree face dark with worry. He it was who broke the silence. “May I go up now?”
Anna shook her head. “I’m sorry. He’s gone to sleep. The nurse said perhaps in half an hour or so.”
Michael turned away abruptly. Ralph put out a gentle hand. “He’s going to be all right, Michael. It wasn’t a bad heart attack.”
Anna surveyed the room, sensing the hostility, hurt and confused by it. “How did it happen?” she asked flatly.
“Father didn’t tell you?” Ralph asked.
She shook her head. “He absolutely refused to speak of it. Simply said he’d guessed it was coming and should have taken more care of himself.” She looked to where Boris stood. “He didn’t mention Joss.” Her eyes moved then to Alex, sensing that it was from him that the greatest hostility emanated. “Will someone please explain?”
Boris turned from the window. Alex stepped forward. “Are you telling us that you truly have no idea?”
She made an impatient movement. “I? How should I have? It may have escaped your notice, Alex, but I have been away. A very long way away. For nearly three weeks. Hardly a lifetime, I know – but long enough.”
“Long enough for your husband to ruin our father and bring him to death’s door.”
Anna could not have been more shocked had he struck her. “No,” she said, her voice shaking.
“And do you really expect us to believe that you knew nothing of what was going on? That you didn’t connive with Joss to inveigle Michael away from father so that he’d have no one to turn to?”
“What are you talking about? No!”
“Alex, that’s enough!” Boris lifted his head sharply. “You’re jumping to conclusions. We’ve no proof of anything—”
“Proof? How much proof do you need? My father is lying up there, his business – my sons’ inheritance – gone, the very roof above his head gone – and you talk of proof?”
“Will someone tell me what is going on!” Anna’s control was all but gone. Tears were rising. She swallowed them fiercely. Louisa’s eyes were sympathetic, Alice’s totally hostile.
Alex lifted a finger and stabbed it at his sister like a prosecuting counsel. “I’ll tell you. In words of one syllable. Father had seemingly got himself into some financial difficulty – God knows how, or why, but that apparently was the case. To recoup he borrowed heavily on the house and the business. From Joss. He then invested the money he had borrowed in some dud shares that Joss advised him to buy—”
“Joss did not advise him. I keep telling you that.” Boris’s voice was sharp with anger. “Josef himself insists on that. Joss did not advise him. Josef overheard something that Joss said to someone else, and thought to use the information to recoup his losses. He must have misinterpreted what he heard. You can hardly blame Joss for that.”
“Overheard?” Anna’s voice was faint. She saw again that scene in the hall, her father’s stealth, Joss’s voice, unusually loud – something stirred uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach. “Boris is right. I don’t see how you can blame Joss for that.”
“You can blame him for foreclosing on the loan when the shares crashed,” Alex said, grimly. “For that’s what he’s doing.”
“I don’t believe it!” Anna was stone-white. She looked at Boris in desperation. “There must be some mistake. Joss wouldn’t—”
Boris shrugged helplessly. “I’m afraid so. The house – the business – Joss, quite legitimately, is claiming them both. Then – Josef became ill—”
Alex turned on him. “You speak of it as if it were an act of God – instead of the direct result of your brother’s dastardly underhand actions—”
“That’s not fair!” Louisa snapped. “How was Joss to know what might happen?”
“The same way we all would.” It was Alice, her sweet, cultured voice vitriolic. “Father-in-law had been unwell for years and we all know it. What would you expect to happen?”
“Please, please!” Anna put a hand to her head. “I’m sorry.” She was battling hard to hold her composure. “I still can’t believe what you’re saying. You’re trying to tell me that Joss lent Father money, accepting Rose and Company and this house as surety? And that – oh, no – it simply isn’t possible. There’s some mistake.”
Ralph shook his head. “There’s no mistake, Anna.”
“What we want to know—” It was Alex again, aggressively quiet, “is how much you knew about all this before you packed Michael off to Russia with you, leaving the old man alone—”
Anna stared. “What are you saying?”
“That’s a bit thick, Alex.” Michael made a dismissive gesture. “What on earth makes you think—”
Anna interrupted him, turning fiercely upon her older brother, “And what of you? Where were you whilst all this was happening? This hasn’t blown up over three weeks! Couldn’t you have helped Papa? Lent him the money? Why did he go to Joss in the first place? Why did he accept the terms?”
Ralph stood up. “That’s one of the things none of us can understand, Anna. Father didn’t approach any of us. He didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t ask anyone’s advice. We didn’t know what was happening until it was too late. You saw yourself – he won’t speak of it, won’t explain. He appears simply ready to accept what Joss has done with no argument and no attempt to defend himself. The business he’s spent a lifetime building up – the house—” Ralph made a small, defeated gesture, “it seems to mean nothing to him that Joss has taken them.”
Anna shook her head. “I knew nothing of this.” Her voice was intense. “I swear it. I never would have gone away if I had guessed—” Small, sharp images pricked like nettle stings in her mind. Joss’s unexpected determination that she should go to St Petersburg. His challenge to her, that he knew her pride would force her to accept. His unusual generosity. His choice of Michael as her escort. “What does Joss have to say about it all?”
“Absolutely nothing.” Boris turned from her, avoiding her eyes. “He refused to speak of it.”
“There’s nothing he can say,” Alice said. “What can excuse what he’s done?”
In the silence that followed the words children’s voices called from the garden. Down by the little pool Anna could see two sturdy, handsome small boys, Alex’s twin sons, with their nanny. Not far from them Louisa’s Sophie stood, a little apart, watching, her thumb in her mouth.
“Someone tell Nanny to keep those boys quiet,” Alex’s voice was brusque.
Wordlessly obedient, Alice stood up, brushed down her skirt and left the room.
“I think,” Anna said, very quietly, “that I’d better go home.”
He was waiting for her, as she had expected. With unfeigned delight she greeted her daughter with hugs and kisses and watched her open the presents she had brought her, then sent the child into the garden with Mary and followed Joss into the small parlour. They faced each other across the room, unsmiling. “Well?” Anna said.
“You’ve been to Bayswater?”
“I have. Boris was at the station.”
“I thought he would be.”
“And you were not.”
“No.”
“Joss – I want to know what’s been happening.”
He almost shrugged. “I suspect you’ve been told.”
“I’ve been told something, yes. Something that I can’t – won’t believe. I’ve been told that you’re trying to ruin my father. Trying to take away from him everything he has, everything he cares for—”
Joss remained silent.
“Well? Aren’t you going to say anything? Explain anything?”
“No.” The word was brutally blunt.
The sudden rise of temper almost choked her. “You can’t mean that! You can’t mean that you aren’t even going to try to explain what you’ve done and why you’ve done it.”
He took a short, impatient-seeming breath. “What I’ve done is more or less what you’ve been told I’ve done. Why I’m doing it is between me and Josef. Ask him.”
Anna was looking at him as if at a stranger. “I did. He won’t talk about it.”
“That’s his choice then, isn’t it? It’s a pity a few others don’t follow his lead.”
She looked at him for a long moment, suspicions crystallizing in her mind with a terrible clarity. “Tell me something,” she said quietly. “How long have you been planning this? And how much responsibility do you bear for Papa’s difficulties in the first place? You’ve been advising him for years – he trusts you implicitly – yet you’ve made money and he has apparently lost it. How is that? You’ve been saving every penny you’ve made. What for? To do what you’ve now done? To take over the business? To take, God preserve us, the very roof from over his head?” Her voice was rising. “He told Boris he overheard a conversation about some shares. Was that all a part of it? Did you know he was listening? Did you trick him into believing what you were saying? Did you?”
Her husband said nothing. His dark eyes were implacable and totally without warmth. She hated him. Hated him. The memory of her father’s face, grey upon the white pillow, skeletal, defeated, rose in her mind.
She stared at Joss. “They’re right, aren’t they? Alice and Alex – they’re right! You manipulated the whole thing. You did want to ruin Papa. To take from him everything he had. Joss – in heaven’s name – why? And why has he let you do it – with no protest, no attempt to defend himself?”
He turned from her, took a cigar from a box on the table, applied himself to the task of cutting it. “I told you. You must ask him that. If he wants you to know then I suppose he’ll tell you.” His voice was perfectly contained; they might have been discussing the weather.
She shook her head dazedly. “I think I must be going mad. I just don’t believe any of this. I can’t.”
“Believe it. It’s happening.” He did not look at her.
She took a breath, trying to calm herself. “And what of me?” she asked quietly. “Have you thought at all of me? Do you know that half the family suspects that I’ve had a hand in all this?”
He lifted his eyes to hers. “I’m sorry for that,” he said.
“But nothing else?”
He shook his head.
“Why, Joss? Why?” she asked again.
“Ask your father.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “You want him to tell me,” she said at last, slowly. “You won’t tell me because you want to force him to do it. Because whatever it is – it will hurt him to tell me. And you haven’t had enough yet, have you? You want to hurt him, don’t you? You must really hate him. But how can that be? He gave you everything – you, your brother, your sister – he treated you all as his own sons and daughter. You above all. What can he possibly have done that is bad enough to deserve your hatred?”
The dark eyes did not falter. Joss lit the cigar. Fragrant smoke drifted in a cloud between them.
“Don’t expect me,” Anna said then, when it became clear that he was not going to answer her, “to live with you in the house that you’ve taken from my father.”
“I suppose you must please yourself in that.”
She stared at him, sick at heart. “You don’t care. You don’t care if I stay or go. Live or die. Or anyone else either for that matter. Do you?”
He looked directly at her through the drifting cigar smoke. “Would you believe me if I denied it?”
She had to hurt him somehow, make some kind of point no matter how small. “No,” she said, flatly.
He gestured with his free hand. “Then there’s little point in a denial, is there?” His voice was soft.
She watched him for a long time. “You’re detestable,” she said, slowly. “Absolutely detestable. And I hate you for what you’re doing. For what you are.”
That barb went home and he flinched at it, but she did not see it. She turned from him to the door.
“Anna.” His voice was sharp.
She stopped, her back to him.
“If you went. Where would you go?”
“I don’t know. With Papa, perhaps – wherever that might be.”
“Think carefully,” he said. “A mother’s bond with her child is hard to break. You’d miss Victoria.”
She turned slowly. “You’d do that?” She knew as she said it that she had lost.
“I would,” he said, the words tranquil.
She stared at him in silence, pale eyes silvered with impotent rage before she turned and left the room, shutting the door very quietly behind her.
A couple of weeks later Josef himself, his health much improved, still absolutely refusing to discuss what had passed between him and Joss, urged her against rash action.
“Leave? Leave your husband, your daughter – oh no, child. Don’t think it. Where would you go? What would you do? Rose and Company is your life—”
“As it was yours.”
He sighed, shifting in his chair.
“I thought I might come with you,” she said, stubborn to the end. “Help you. Try to make up for what Joss has done.” She knew how absurdly childish it sounded.
He shook his head. “I shall be perfectly all right. I promise you. In the end it would have come to something like this anyway – with my health so frail I should have had to give up the business.”
“And your home?” Her voice was bitter as his was not.
“Anna, Anna—”
“Why did he do it Papa? Why?”
Josef looked down to the hands that were clasped in his lap. Upon his thumb still could be seen the brand of his trade. Half-unconsciously he folded the thumb into his hand, hiding it.
She dropped to her knees beside him. “You know, don’t you, you know why he did it.” Her voice was urgent.
He took her hands. “Anna. Child. Please listen to me. Believe me when I say that the best thing you can do for me is to stop questioning me so. Joss did what he did and it is done. I have told the others and I tell you – I don’t want trouble in the family because of it. To have seen you turned one against the other would have broken your dear mother’s heart. Joss has what he wanted – the business. And that means that Rose and Company is in good hands and your work can go on. If I can find satisfaction in that, can’t you? As for this house – it’s far too big for an old man alone. Boris and Louisa are leaving, Michael is hardly ever here. I should so have hated to see it go to strangers.”
“Michael’s staying with us,” Anna said, her voice subdued. She had hardly spoken to her husband since that first evening except upon this one matter of her young brother. His ready capitulation had been the last thing she had expected, giving as it did the impression that Joss, for all his implacability regarding her father, had already decided in his own mind to offer Michael a home. “I spoke to Alex yesterday,” she continued. “He said you’re going to Bissetts—”
“That’s right. To a cottage on the estate. You see how well it’s all worked out? I shall have a little home in the country, and you will all come to visit me—”
“But – how will you live?”
“I have enough. Enough to live comfortably, if quietly. He left me that.” His face was suddenly, sombrely intense. “Remember that, Anna. He could have taken everything. But he did not.”
She stared at him in bafflement.
He reached a hand to her. “I say it again, Anna. I have told the others – and I tell you – there is no place for bitterness. I want no rift in the family. I want no one digging and prying. If my family is destroyed – and Joss, and his brother are still part of that family in my eyes, no matter what has happened – then I truly have nothing left. And whatever I deserve, I don’t believe that I deserve that.”
“Deserve? Papa – what are you saying? After all you’ve done for us all – all you’ve given us – you deserve nothing but love and respect!”
“Anna—”
She rushed on. “And most especially from Joss. You took him and Boris in when they had nothing. You cared for Tanya as if she had been your own—”
“Anna!”
The tone of his voice stopped her. She got to her feet, a little shakily, put a hand to her head. “I don’t understand.”
He looked at her in quick concern. “Anna – are you all right?”
She shook her head. “I – no – I’ve been a little unwell lately. If you would please excuse me, Papa? I think a little air—” She left the room on unsteady legs and fled to the bathroom where she was extremely sick. For the fourth time in three days.
Her pregnancy seemed, to Anna, to crown a misery that just a few short weeks before would have seemed inconceivable. There was, she knew, no possibility that the child could be Joss’s. She plodded through the days, wretchedly sick, haunted by anxiety. At last and in near despair she confided in Arabella Dawson one late September afternoon when a wind that skittered coldly through the London streets, presaging autumn made it chill enough to light the first fire of the season. Arabella looked at her with sympathy. “I suspected that something was wrong.”
Anna took a long breath. “I’m at my wits’ end. I don’t know what to do. I have to tell Joss. I can’t keep it secret for much longer. And I’ve no idea – absolutely no idea – what he’ll do. He seems not to care – but this—” She lifted helpless hands and let them drop to her side. She looked pale and thin and her eyes were shadowed. “He might – he could – turn me out.”
“It couldn’t be his?”
Anna shook her head.
“And you couldn’t—” Arabella paused, delicately “—arrange it? Make it look as if—”
“No.” The word was flat.
“I see.” Arabella tapped her teeth thoughtfully with a long polished fingernail. “If you’d like,” she said after a moment, “I might be able to put you in touch with – someone who might be willing to help.”
It took a moment for the meaning of the words to sink in. Anna looked up in shock. “No! Oh, no, Arabella – I couldn’t! Don’t you see? This is a child – Nicolai’s child! Whatever happens – whatever Joss does – I couldn’t kill it! I couldn’t!”
“Then you’re just going to have to face it out,” the other girl said simply. “And soon. It isn’t going to get any easier—”
The confrontation with Joss, though he neither ranted nor raved nor threw her from the house was, if anything, worse than Anna had anticipated and she had expected it to be bad. The news itself he greeted with no trace of surprise. She stared at him. “You knew?”
“My dear Anna—” his voice was cold, slightly impatient “—your pregnancies being what they are I should imagine that the whole world knows. You look like death.”
“And – you haven’t said anything?”
He lifted scathing eyes. “Should I have? Is it any of my business?”
She flushed, painfully, to the roots of her hair. “I’m sorry.” she whispered, stammering with mortification. “I – it was—”
“No!” He held up a sudden, imperative hand, “Spare me that. I don’t want to know who, or where. Or why.”
She stood dumb with mortified humiliation. “What – what will you do?” she asked at last, quietly; and none of her efforts could keep the miserable trepidation from her voice.
He kept her waiting for the space of a dozen hammered heartbeats. “Do?” he asked at last. “What would you expect me to do? Throw you from my house?”
“I – thought you might – yes – I – suppose you could not be blamed—”
He stood and walked to her, his step light, his face hard. With enormous effort she stood her ground and did not shrink from him. In the clear second before he struck her it came to her that since he had guessed at her pregnancy he had had time to plan this scene, and her humiliation and punishment, in advance. Beneath her guilt pride and fury stirred and she lifted her head. His hand caught her sharply high on her cheekbone – not with the full force of his strength, as in anger, but crisply and stinging; a chastisement and a gesture of contempt.
“Have your bastard, Anna,” he said, softly, “I wish you joy of it.” And in the moment that she registered the savage pain deep in his eyes he turned and left her alone.