Daniel’s heart tripped and missed a beat and he felt the blood drain from his face. He’d immediately recognized the photograph when he’d opened his copy of the Financial Times as he travelled to work one spring morning. As he scanned the accompanying article a sense of disbelief swamped his senses.
Suddenly he instinctively knew what Liza had been doing down at Hartley, on the night Cathryn had been born two months ago. She never normally stayed in the country during the week unless she had a very good reason. Now he knew what it was.
The print danced before his eyes as he read the short piece a second time and tried to digest the appalling consequences.
Capital Assets Ltd, one of the largest property developers in the south of England, have purchased Hartley Hall and the surrounding thirty-five acres of land near Guildford, for £60,000. Formerly the home of wealthy banker, Henry Granville, who died last year, the Georgian building will be converted into luxury flats. Capital Assets Ltd also plan to build a hundred and fifty small houses on the land, to help meet the demand for housing, which has been acute since the end of the war.
As if in a trance, Daniel got off the tube, and once in the street, hailed a taxi to take him back to Park Lane.
The worst realization that occurred to him was that according to Henry’s will, Liza had done nothing legally wrong. Hartley had been left to her in its entirety, but none of them for one moment had suspected that she would do this. In fact the whole family had taken it for granted that the five sisters would inherit the family home eventually.
And what about Lady Anne? Who was due to return to her home of nearly seventy years, within a few weeks, for a surprise party that Louise and the others were planning?
‘Jesus Christ,’ Daniel murmured under his breath as the taxi rattled up Buckingham Palace Road towards Hyde Park Corner. This was morally speaking the greatest betrayal of trust he’d ever come across. Liza might not have liked Hartley herself, but she knew and had always known that her daughters adored the place. It was their spiritual home, their refuge in times of trouble, their shelter in war and peace, and their retreat when hearts were broken and death cast its shadow over them.
‘Oh, God!’ he said aloud, covering his face with his hands. Who knew about this so far? Were other newspapers covering the story in their financial or property sections?
Grabbing his bowler hat and rolled umbrella, he got out of the taxi and rushed up the front steps of their house. He must get to Juliet before someone else broke the news to her.
Juliet, slender once more after Cathryn’s birth, and wearing an exquisite black suit, was discussing the arrangements for a forthcoming dinner party with Dudley, when Daniel burst into the drawing room.
‘Darling! What are you doing back here?’ Juliet greeted him with delight. ‘You’ve come at just the right moment. Dudley needs to know which wine you’d like to serve with the saddle of lamb, on Thursday evening?’ Then she paused, seeing his pale face. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, rising quickly.
‘Dudley…?’ Daniel turned to look at the butler.
‘Of course, sir, madam.’ He turned away diplomatically and left the room on silent feet.
Juliet looked anguished. ‘What is it? Not Granny…?’
‘No, no,’ he assured her, taking her arm and leading her back to the sofa. ‘I read something in the FT just now, and it’s the most terribly bad news.’
‘Has the Market crashed?’
He shook his head, bracing himself. ‘I’m not sure it isn’t worse than that.’ He decided to give it to her straight. ‘I’m afraid Hartley’s been sold. To a property developing company, for sixty thousand pounds…’
‘What are you talking about?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Hartley’s the family home. It can’t be sold.’
He withdrew from his pocket the relevant sheet of the pink newspaper. ‘Here are the details,’ he said heavily. ‘I’m afraid it’s a done deal.’
She held the paper with shaking hands, mouthing the text as she read the article before gazing with tear filled eyes at the photograph of her beloved home.
‘But who sold it?’ she asked, in anguish. ‘How can it have been sold? It belongs to all of us.’
Daniel remained silent, letting her reach the obvious conclusion herself.
Suddenly she looked at him sharply and there was no need for words.
‘Mama?’ she said aghast. ‘No, Daniel. She couldn’t have sold it over our heads! She’d never do that.’
He bit his bottom lip, not wanting to be the one to point the finger of accusation at a mother-in-law he’d never liked, because he knew in her heart that Liza had never thought he was good enough for Juliet.
‘Why don’t you ring the lawyer, who came down to Hartley after the funeral to read your father’s will? He must know what’s happened.’
‘I will. What was he called?’ She rose and hurried over to her desk where the white telephone stood. ‘What was his name?’
‘Mr Jones, of Jones, Kidd and Elmwood.’
She dialled directory enquiries, and a moment later was scribbling down the address and telephone number.
When she got through, having told him who she was, she asked him outright: ‘Do you know if my mother has sold Hartley Hall?’
There was a stunned silence. ‘Sold Hartley Hall?’ he echoed in a shocked voice. ‘I’m afraid I’ve had no dealings with Mrs Granville for some time, Mrs Lawrence. Not since the death duties were agreed with the Inland Revenue and your late father’s affairs wound up… are you sure it has been sold?’
‘There’s only one Hartley Hall in Surrey, and the sale has been reported in today’s Financial Times’ Juliet’s voice was tight with misery.
‘It might be a good idea to check on the accuracy of the story with the editor?’ Mr Jones suggested.
‘What I want to know is’ – Juliet spoke painfully – ‘has my mother the legal right to sell… to sell the house?’ Her voice caught.
‘I will study the will again, but if my memory serves me right, Mr Granville left everything to her, in entirety. As you know, I tried to persuade him to make a new will, on several occasions, but—’
‘I know. I know. But does that mean she’s legally able to sell…’
There was a long pause. When he spoke he sounded like a very old, very tired man. ‘I’m afraid it does,’ he said unhappily.
‘Mummy was never happy at Hartley; she’s never liked being in the country,’ Rosie pointed out, almost sympathetically.
Juliet and Louise glared at her in fury. The sisters, with the exception of Charlotte, who was being photographed for Harper’s Bazaar in Paris, had got together at Park Lane the next morning, Juliet having summoned them for an urgent meeting.
‘That’s not the point,’ said Juliet. ‘It’s obvious Daddy trusted her to pass it on to all of us, just as we were going to pass it on to our children. She’s betrayed that trust.’
‘That’s right,’ Louise agreed, sadly. ‘How could she have done such a thing? I wish Charlotte was here because she lives with Mummy and she must have known what was going on.’
‘I doubt it,’ Amanda scoffed. ‘Charlotte’s such an idiot she wouldn’t know if the ground was cut from under her feet, leaving her hanging in space.’
Rosie spoke plaintively. ‘It is sad, but Mummy’s been lonely since Daddy died, and perhaps it all became too much for her. You know how much she loves London.’
‘For God’s sake…!’ Juliet exploded. ‘What about Granny? Was she consulted? No doubt she was lonely, too, without Daddy being there every weekend, but she’d never have sanctioned selling Hartley in a million years.’
‘Do we know if it’s actually been sold? Have the contracts been signed?’ Louise asked, trying desperately to cling on to a vestige of hope that it might not be too late to save the place.
Juliet nodded. ‘My own lawyer spent most of yesterday getting to the bottom of it. Apparently contracts were exchanged last week and Mummy has promised Capital Assets Limited to vacate the house in six weeks’ time.’
‘So soon?’ Rosie looked thoughtful. ‘I wonder what’s going to happen to everything?’
Louise looked shaken. ‘Six weeks! Shane and I were there only last weekend, with Rupert and Daisy, making plans for the surprise party we were going to organize for Granny.’ She stopped abruptly, her fingertips pressed to her mouth for a moment. ‘My God, Rupert had a premonition months ago that Granny would never return to Hartley, and I thought it meant she’d die whilst staying with Candida. Never in a million years did I think it would be Hartley that would go!’
‘Do you think Mummy’s going to sell the contents as well?’ Rosie asked.
‘Why all this interest in the contents?’ Juliet snapped.
Rosie blushed. ‘Well, there’s so much stuff,’ she said lamely. ‘All the furniture and silver, dozens of paintings, God knows how much it’s all worth… what’s going to be done with everything?’
‘Hoping to grab what you can for yourself?’ Amanda asked cynically. ‘You’re in a small furnished flat, dear. Not an annex of Buckingham Palace. Mother will probably flog everything at Sotheby’s or Christie’s. Anyway, the days of families like ours, with great houses to keep up, are past. If Mother hadn’t sold Hartley, we’d all have been forced to, eventually.’
‘Why?’ Louise demanded angrily. ‘If we’d all pulled together we could have kept Hartley going? Perhaps it would have meant selling some of the land, but we’d never have sold the house, would we, Juliet?’
Juliet stood up and reaching for the cigarette box, placed a black sobranie in her jade holder. Walking restlessly around the drawing room as she lit it, she finally went and stood with her back to the fireplace.
‘Do you know the most goddamn awful aspect of the whole thing, apart from Mama’s betrayal?’ she asked.
The others looked at her in silence.
‘If Mama had told me she hated Hartley and wanted to get rid of it, I’d have raised the money and bought it myself just to keep it in the family, for all of us to share. Even if it had meant selling this house. Daniel would have helped me. I’d never have let it go – not even to a nice family and certainly never to a property developer,’ she added despairingly.
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Amanda said accusingly. ‘You’d have wanted to be the Lady of the Manor, like you are in this house. You’d have patronized the poor people in the village, and opened the garden for Conservative fêtes, and become even grander than you are now.’
White with rage, Juliet turned on her. ‘How dare you talk to me like that? You’re so busy trying to be a fully paid-up member of the Labour Party that you’ve become ashamed of your own background, which is far worse.’
‘Shut up, you two,’ Louise intervened. ‘This is not getting us anywhere. Where’s Mummy now? Has anybody spoken to her since we found out about Hartley?’
‘Yes,’ Rosie agreed. ‘Here we are, saying dreadful things about her behind her back and we haven’t even heard her side of the story.’
Juliet sat down beside Louise on the sofa again. The atmosphere in the room was bristling with animosity and tension.
‘Right now Mama is in Paris with Charlotte,’ Juliet said calmly, ‘and I for one can’t wait to hear what she has to say. All I know is she’s utterly betrayed Daddy’s trust, after all he did for her and for all of us, and she also went behind Granny’s back, and frankly, I’m going to find it very hard to forgive her.’
Louise twisted her hands nervously. ‘Does Granny know yet?’
Juliet shook her head. ‘Candida is saying nothing at the moment, until we’ve talked to Mama. It’s going to break Granny’s heart, especially the thought of a hundred and fifty houses being built on the wonderful garden it took her sixty years to create.’
Amanda sniffed loudly, and crossed her legs which were encased in unbecoming brown lisle stockings that wrinkled around the ankles.
‘Typical! Bloody typical!’ she exclaimed. ‘Forget the homeless! Forget those who have nowhere to go because their houses were bombed. Forget the people who can’t afford to buy a garden shed, just so long as the rose garden remains unscathed, and the lavender borders flourish! You lot make me sick,’ she continued. ‘All you think about is your privileges as a member of the upper classes. A hundred and fifty families are going to be housed because of this scheme, and a lot more can get flats in the main house.’
Juliet looked at her scathingly. ‘Amanda, are you as stupid as you sound? These houses will be sold to well-to-do middle-class people, not given to the poor. Don’t you know that Surrey and Sussex have become known as the “stockbroker belt” because they’re a quick train ride from the city? Capital Assets will make a fortune, selling each house when it’s built for a very profitable sum.’ She paused. ‘And the poor will still be homeless.’
Amanda grunted with annoyance. ‘Well, we didn’t need to have such an ostentatious place. You and Louise have already got houses, and I’ll soon be getting my own flat. It’s obscene for one family to own so many properties when there are others without a roof over their heads.’
‘When are Mummy and Charlotte coming back?’ Louise asked Juliet, ignoring Amanda’s tirade.
‘According to Charlotte’s agent, not for a couple of days,’ Juliet replied. ‘Shall I arrange for her to come here? And invite Mama, too, so we can talk to her?’
Rosie gave a little gasp. ‘Oh, poor Mummy! We can’t do that. It would be dreadful for her, like walking into a trap.’
‘As opposed to her selling us down the river?’ Juliet retorted. ‘I’m sure Mama can stand up for herself. We just want to know why, not to mention how, she could have sold Hartley behind our backs.’
The following evening, as Juliet and Daniel dined alone, she turned to him with a troubled expression.
‘This is going to drive the family apart,’ she said. ‘All sorts of issues have emerged between us, far deeper than I’d expected.’
Daniel looked across the polished table at her exquisite face, her skin looked luminous in the candlelight and her blonde hair gleamed, but her aquamarine eyes were dull with despair.
‘What kind of issues, darling?’
‘I honestly believed that beneath the skin we were all basically like-minded. Now, apart from Louise, I realize I hardly know Amanda, and as for Rosie, she is much more like my mother than I thought. Whatever the outcome of losing Hartley, we’re never going to be a united group again. The Granville sisters are a thing of the past. It’s going to be Louise and me; we’ve always been close. Rosie is going to side with Mama every inch of the way. She’s always been a mummy’s girl. And apart from that I have a horrible feeling that now that my mother has pocketed sixty thousand pounds, Rosie may be hoping she’ll get to see a bit of that money.’
Daniel nodded in understanding. Rosie hated being poor and living in a rented furnished flat, and Liza would be certain to help her financially.
‘And Amanda?’ he asked, his full mouth forming a little quirky smile.
‘I think she’s almost glad Hartley’s gone,’ Juliet said flatly. ‘I imagine coming from a semi-stately home has done nothing for her credibility in the circle she moves in at Oxford. She’d probably be happier if we all lived in council houses.’
‘Well, there’s nothing you can do to stop Amanda waving the Red Flag.’ Daniel chuckled. ‘I just wonder how her convictions would stand up if your mother were to offer to give her a couple of thousand pounds? Now, what about Charlotte? How do you think she’ll take the news?’
Looking thoughtful, Juliet sipped her glass of Burgundy. ‘I don’t know. I’m beginning to wonder if I actually know my family at all. I never thought Mama would betray us like this. I never thought Rosie would side with her, either. And I never realized Amanda was actually embarrassed at being a Granville. As for Charlotte, I think she’s so wrapped up in modelling and she’s finding her life so exciting, it may not register at first.’
‘So you’re meeting your mother the day after tomorrow?’
‘I’ve asked her to lunch, and to bring Charlotte. Amanda can’t make it which is perhaps just as well; her political views are irrelevant, anyway. Rosie and Louise are coming and’ – she gave him a little wry smile – ‘I can’t tell you how much I’m dreading it. Fancy having to accuse our own mother of stealing our inheritance from right under our noses?’
‘I’ll be here if you want me to be.’
She stretched out her slender arm, and gripped his hand. ‘You’re so sweet, my darling, and thank you, but this is Granville business, and I have a feeling it is going to be very unpleasant.’
Daniel groaned in sympathy. ‘If only your father had made a new will then none of this would have happened. I still can’t understand why he didn’t. He was a banker, for God’s sake. He understood about money and property and trust funds. He must have advised hundreds of people over the years about keeping their affairs in order, and although he didn’t expect to die when he did, I was shocked to find he hadn’t made a will since 1914. It’s ludicrous!’
‘I never knew he was so superstitious, like Mr Jones said.’
‘On the other hand,’ Daniel continued, glancing at Juliet’s sad profile, ‘he trusted your mother. He’d never have expected her to do this. He probably felt there was no need to state in his will that Hartley was left to her for her lifetime only, after which it would automatically have gone to her children.’
‘God, I’m dreading having to face her with this. Why am I the one to feel nervous and embarrassed, Daniel?’ She turned to him, her face perplexed. ‘For some absurd reason I feel as if I am the guilty one.’
‘That’s because you’re embarrassed for her, sweetheart. It’s never easy when a close member of the family betrays you like this. I’m sure she’ll be very ashamed of herself when it all comes out.’
Sitting very upright at her dressing table, Liza studied her reflection in the mirror, as she got ready to go to lunch with Juliet. She’d spent the morning at Elizabeth Arden’s beauty salon in Bond Street, having her hair arranged into tight blonde curls around her ears. They had also done her make-up, which was pale, with a hint of blue eye-shadow and a bright red lipstick. Wearing her new cerise Norman Hartnell dress and matching coat, all she needed now was her pearls, and the stylish hat she’d picked up from Madam Vernier’s salon. It was small and had a coquettish cerise ostrich feather that curved downwards, framing her face on one side.
‘That’ll do,’ she thought with satisfaction, picking up her cream kid gloves and black crocodile handbag.
‘Are you ready, darling?’ she called down the corridor, towards Charlotte’s bedroom.
‘Just coming, Mummy.’ A minute later she came hurrying out of her room, in a pale grey coat over a flower-patterned dress. Hatted and gloved like her mother, they got into the lift together.
‘Is Juliet giving a luncheon party?’ she asked, checking her own make-up in the mirrored walls.
‘I don’t know whether there’ll be anyone else there, or not,’ Liza replied, frowning slightly. ‘She just said “come to lunch and bring Charlotte”, so I’m not sure.’
‘You’re looking very smart,’ Charlotte pointed out. ‘Are you going on anywhere afterwards?’
‘I may be. I think we should get somewhere bigger to live, don’t you? The flat’s awfully cramped.’
‘Cramped?’ Charlotte tucked her grey clutch handbag under her arm, as they scanned the heavy traffic in Brompton Road for a free taxi. ‘No, I don’t think so. After all, there’s only the two of us now, isn’t there?’ she added dolefully. ‘If anything I think we should get a smaller place. Somewhere really cosy.’
Cosy was not what Liza had in mind. ‘I don’t agree,’ she said decisively. ‘Ah, here’s a taxi.’ She raised her hand and a black cab swerved and stopped by the kerb. ‘Ninety-nine Park Lane,’ she told the driver grandly.
Charlotte looked curiously at Liza’s profile as they headed for Hyde Park Corner. The change in her mother since her father’s death was astonishing. At first she’d been shocked and tearful like the rest of them. She’d spent a lot of time going on about her own future, asking anyone who would listen, what was she going to do now, without Henry? How was she going to manage on her own? She even went so far as to wonder if anyone would invite a single woman, like her, to dinner parties any more? She wailed that her life was over and all she had to look forward to was to being buried in the country.
Then suddenly, as if someone had pressed a switch, she became strong and confident.
Charlotte, the only sister still living at home, watched this transformation with relief. Liza no longer appeared to feel sorry for herself. In fact her manner had become quite ebullient, almost as if she’d been released from some burden.
Of course when Granny went to stay with Candida, Charlotte reflected, Hartley must have been quite a lonely place for Mummy to be on her own, especially in the middle of winter, so it was not surprising that she’d been staying for longer and longer periods in town.
Nevertheless, it was as if Liza was enjoying some kind of strange freedom, almost as if she was able to do as she liked for the first time.
In truth, Liza had gained in confidence since Henry’s death, because for the first time in her life she’d realized there was no one there to make her feel vulgar or inferior. No longer did she feel inadequate. And however sweet, kind and supportive Lady Anne had always been towards her, the charming manners did not always hide the fact her mother-in-law was also being slightly patronizing. Lady Anne would have liked an aristocratic wife for her son, someone who ‘spoke the same language’ as she was wont to say about like-minded people; someone who knew that wearing diamonds in the morning was not done, and that any show of ostentation was crass. Someone who wasn’t impressed by people who had titles, and who was comfortable whether they were talking to the Queen of England or the local road sweeper. Someone who wasn’t a snob, or a social climber.
And Liza knew in her heart she was all of those things. She’d loved Henry very much when they’d first married and she’d marvelled at her good fortune in meeting him when she was a paid companion to his aunt. She was nineteen, the daughter of a seamstress and a teacher, with hardly any money. She’d been pretty, sweet and dizzy, the Great War had started and Henry had fallen madly in love with her.
Like the story of Cinderella, Henry had been her Prince Charming and she’d worshipped him.
Things underwent a change when, in 1920, they’d moved from Hartley to London and he’d joined Hammerton’s Bank. She’d been put on her mettle from the start, having to socialize with him and his old school friends and act the part of a sophisticated society lady.
Lady Anne had presented her at Court and she was expected to hold her own among the highest in the land. Not that she didn’t want to succeed. She wanted to so badly, because she loved the grand life Henry was giving her, that she went all out to impress.
Perhaps that had been her downfall, she reflected now, as the taxi drew up outside Juliet’s house. She’d tried too hard, now she was determined only to please herself, and by doing what she’d done, she felt she’d evened the score, though her own children weren’t going to like it.
All that mattered to her now was that no one was ever going to be allowed to belittle her again.
They were gathered in the black, white and silver drawing room. Juliet rose and stepped forward when Dudley showed Liza and Charlotte into the room.
‘Dudley, I’ll ring when we want lunch,’ Juliet told him briefly.
He nodded in silent understanding and left, closing the door behind him.
‘Hello, darlings,’ Liza said, her voice ice brittle. She gave a tight smile, more like a puppet’s grimace, as she glanced at Rosie and Louise, who sat, pale and rigid.
‘A drink, Mama?’ Juliet offered her politely. ‘Gin and tonic?’
‘Thank you. That would be lovely.’ Liza looked awkwardly around the room, as if she was a visitor who had never seen it before.
‘Charlotte, help yourself to a drink, and take a perch,’ Juliet told her sister.
‘Are we celebrating something?’ Charlotte asked, bewildered. ‘It’s not an anniversary of anything, is it?’
Juliet gave a wintry smile. ‘You don’t know then, sweetheart?’
Charlotte stared back at her, anxiously. ‘Know what?’
There was silence. Everyone looked at each other and then they all looked at Liza.
‘I haven’t had time to tell anyone,’ Liza snapped pettishly. ‘But you’ve all obviously heard on the grapevine that Hartley has been sold.’
Charlotte uttered a sharp cry. ‘Sold? Hartley? How can it be sold?’
Juliet gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘Ask your dear mother. She was the one who went behind all our backs and sold it to a property developing company for sixty thousand pounds. They’re going to turn the house into flats, and build a hundred and fifty houses in the grounds.’
‘I don’t understand!’ Charlotte burst into tears. ‘It’s our home. What about Granny? Where’s she going to go?’
Louise jumped up and put her arms around her younger sister. ‘We’re all cut up about it, but there’s nothing we can do. The sale’s gone through. It’s too late,’ she explained gently.
‘Mummy, how could you…?’ Charlotte sobbed, covering her face with her hands.
‘Obviously very easily,’ Juliet interjected.
‘Now listen to me, and stop being so hysterical.’ Liza raised her voice angrily. ‘You’ve all taken Hartley for granted, since you were small. You treat it like a hotel and you always have. None of you say “can we come and stay?” You just turn up, willy-nilly, with your husbands and children and friends sometimes, expecting to be fed and looked after, and I’m telling you now, I’m sick of it! Don’t you realize how much work it involves having the house full? Someone has to change the beds and see to the laundry, someone has to do the catering and cooking…’
‘And not once, since I’ve been born, has it been you,’ Juliet pointed out with equal anger. ‘There’s no good you pretending to have slaved away, taking care of us all, while you ran Hartley single handed. In fact, you used to gripe because Granny still lived there, organizing everything, so you had no say in the matter.’
Liza was white with fury, her mouth a narrow scarlet curve of rage. ‘I never said I had to see to everything personally, but since your father died, and Granny’s gone to Candida’s, the house has become an intolerable burden.’
‘Oh, poor Mummy!’ Rosie exclaimed, going over to Liza, and hugging her. ‘We’ve been so selfish. Of course it must have been terrible for you, all alone and having to cope with everything without Daddy.’ She turned to Juliet accusingly. ‘Stop being so utterly beastly to Mummy. You know she hates being buried in the country. Why didn’t you tell me, Mummy? We could all have gone to stay with you in turn, so you wouldn’t have been so lonely.’
‘What?’ demanded Juliet. ‘And then be accused of using the place like a hotel? Stop being an idiot, Rosie. The house didn’t have to be sold.’ She swung round to glare at Liza, just as she’d done as a defiant debutante. ‘Why didn’t you close it down until Granny went back? Have you any idea what this will do to her? Have you any idea what it is doing to all of us? Daddy would have been heartbroken if he’d known that the minute he died, a property developer was going to wreck the house and turn the land into a housing estate.’
She rubbed her forehead as if her head hurt before continuing. ‘Daddy was a part of Hartley,’ she continued, ‘and Hartley was a part of Daddy. He worked so hard to keep the place, to maintain the old building, to replant the orchard, to help Granny design a larger rose garden. In one fell swoop you’ve destroyed the Granville legacy, and I, for one, will never forgive you,’ she ended with finality.
Liza put on a bored expression, as if she were an actress in a Noel Coward play. ‘How you dramatize everything, Juliet. You all live in London, and that’s your choice, so… go somewhere else at the weekend if you crave the countryside that much.’
‘You don’t understand, Mother,’ Louise said, with quiet firmness. ‘We live in London because of work. Shane’s career as a doctor, Daniel’s at MI5, Rosie’s new job on Society, Charlotte’s modelling career… but Hartley has always been home. What you’ve done has been unbelievably thoughtless and selfish. Were there money difficulties after Daddy died and you had to pay the death duties?’
‘Money has nothing what so ever to do with it,’ Liza said airily. Although she knew she was cornered and morally in the wrong, and no one except Rosie was going to forgive her, thirty-nine years of having to mind her Ps and Qs had ended, and that made her new-found freedom a heady experience. I don’t care what they say, a voice in her head kept repeating, as she watched her boats burning.
‘So you’re going to live in Princes Court?’ Louise asked.
‘Certainly not. It’s much too small.’ Liza turned to Charlotte. ‘I said that to you earlier today, didn’t I? We’re quite cramped in those boxy little rooms. I’m moving, quite soon actually, and I expect you to come with me, darling. You’re far too young to be living on your own.’
Rosie, who’d drawn up her chair next to her mother, looked intrigued.
‘Where are you moving to, Mummy?’
Liza’s moment of supreme triumph had arrived. She was about to announce that she was going to do what she’d wanted to do, from the day their Green Street house had been bombed.
‘I’ve bought a very nice house in Cadogan Square,’ she said calmly. ‘Mayfair is passé now; there are too many commercial properties; Knightsbridge is the best residential area in which to live.’
Juliet looked stunned. ‘Those houses are enormous,’ she exclaimed, ‘some are even bigger than this house…’ Her voice trailed away, knowing exactly what was on her mother’s mind. Liza had always been torn between pride and jealousy as far as she’d been concerned; thrilled that Juliet had married a duke, yet jealous that she herself didn’t have a title. Proud that Cameron had bought Juliet the most beautiful house in Park Lane, but jealous that she and Henry lived in a block of flats because he refused to buy another London house.
‘Cadogan Square,’ Charlotte echoed, adding in the understatement of the day, ‘it won’t be very cosy, will it?’
‘Those houses have ten or twelve bedrooms!’ Louise pointed out incredulously. ‘What on earth are you going to do with a house that size?’
Rosie brightened, having a vision of herself moving in with Mummy and Charlotte, and Sophia and Jonathan, too, in the school holidays. Perhaps they could create Green Street all over again? There was all the furniture from Hartley, as well as the stuff Daddy had put in storage at the beginning of the war; she became flushed with excitement at the prospect of what might happen. A Knightsbridge address would be so much more suitable for a society columnist than Holland Park.
‘Mummy, that’s so thrilling! When do you move in?’ Rosie gushed.
Juliet’s eyes narrowed. Rosie was so desperately transparent that surely even Liza wouldn’t fall for it?
‘When it’s been redecorated,’ Liza replied catching Juliet’s eye. ‘And in case you think I’m running off with the Granville money,’ she continued, her voice suddenly bitter, ‘I’ve already made a will, leaving the house and the contents to you all, to be split five ways, so don’t go accusing me of squandering your inheritance.’
‘It’s never been about the bloody money.’ Juliet’s voice was weary. ‘It’s been about selling the family home we all loved so much, it’s been about betraying Daddy and Granny, and it’s been about going behind our backs and not telling us what you were planning. I’d have bought Hartley from you, for the rest of us to share, if I’d known what you were doing.’
‘What you don’t seem to realize,’ Liza reposted plaintively, ‘is that Hartley represented everything I hate about the aristocracy and their basic way of life. I was consistently shown up as a middle-class urbanite. I don’t hunt, or fish, and I loathed following the guns. I don’t even play tennis. I hate country clothes and country pursuits, like walking the dogs. God!’ She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, revealing a flicker of honesty about herself that she’d spent nearly forty years trying to hide. ‘I did it for your father’s sake,’ she continued heavily, ‘and I did it because it was expected of me. But I was never happy at Hartley. However, I promised your father we’d base ourselves there when the war ended and we did. I don’t have to keep that promise any longer now.’
For the first time she took a sip of the gin and tonic, only the faint tremble of her hand betrayed her nerves.
The murmur of the traffic in Park Lane, like the sound of a restless sea shore, was the only thing that broke the silence.
‘Is there no way we can get Hartley back?’ Charlotte asked eventually in a small voice.
Juliet lit another cigarette and drew deeply on it. ‘I’ve tried.’
‘And?’
‘They wouldn’t budge. They’re sitting on a gold mine and they know it.’
Louise sighed heavily. ‘Then that’s that.’ She rose lethargically to her feet. ‘Juliet, do you mind if I leave? I don’t think I could sit through lunch, making polite conversation.’
Juliet nodded in understanding. ‘Run along, darling.’
‘I think we should leave, Charlotte,’ Liza said, raising her chin. ‘Nothing is to be gained by staying here.’
Charlotte looked obstinate. ‘I want to stay and talk to Juliet.’
Liza rose and placed her glass carefully on a side table. ‘As you wish.’
‘I’ll come with you, Mummy,’ Rosie jumped in immediately. ‘Let me take you to lunch at the Berkeley. You’ve had a horrid morning.’ She looked at Juliet. ‘I think it’s despicable the way you invited Mummy to lunch, then let everyone gang up on her like this.’
‘Then why are you here?’ Juliet asked with sarcastic surprise. ‘You agreed we should all get together today and have it out with Mama.’
‘I didn’t know you were going to handle everything in such a hurtful way, though,’ Rosie said huffily.
‘You’re just trying to curry favour because you want to move into this smart London house with Mama! Bored with slumming it in the flat I found for you in Holland Park, are you?’
Rosie flushed with embarrassment. ‘Of course I’m not. The thought never crossed my mind.’
‘Rosie, don’t lie to me,’ Juliet scoffed. ‘I know you too well. You’ll always put yourself first, no matter what. Can’t you see what a treacherous thing Mama has done? She’s gone behind our backs over this whole matter. Surely even you can’t condone that!’
‘Daddy left everything to Mummy. She could do what she liked with Hartley. She hasn’t done anything illegal, so stop accusing her of swindling us, because she hasn’t,’ Rosie shrieked heatedly, her eyes brimming with tears of anger.
Liza spoke imperiously. ‘Will you please stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here. Rosie is right. I was left everything. I was perfectly within my rights to sell Hartley. My lawyer has assured me of that. I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but there it is. It’s my turn now to enjoy my life, especially,’ she added looking at Juliet, ‘since it’s the only thing you’ve ever done, so there’s no need for you to take the high ground.’
‘I’ve never suggested you’d done anything illegal,’ Juliet said coldly. ‘I merely think that selling Hartley secretly is morally corrupt.’
‘You’re a bitch, Juliet!’ Rosie stormed. ‘Who are you to talk of morality, with all the lovers you’ve had?’
The two sisters stood glaring at each other with hostility. Positions had been taken up in the last few minutes; they were now on opposite sides of the fence in this family dispute. But then Juliet had always been on Henry’s side over everything, while Rosie had seen things from her mother’s point of view. But this was the most serious rift that had occurred between them and the chasm that was now splitting their relationship asunder related to an issue of morality, and that went much deeper than filial jealousy or mere rivalry.
As Liza turned to leave, she stopped and looked back at Juliet.
‘Where’s Amanda? Didn’t she want to stab me in the back, too?’
‘Now who’s being dramatic, Mama?’
‘I just wondered what her feelings were?’
‘Oh, come on, Mummy, let’s get out of here,’ Rosie urged. ‘You know what Amanda’s like. If she saw an opportunity to feed the starving masses, she’d cut off her own right hand.’