Chapter 34
Thirty-four
The lane twisted like a ribbon through hedgerows heavy with cow parsley and hawthorn. Bluebells spilled like ink through the woods on the verge. Christina barely saw them.
She gripped the steering wheel hard, her hands shaking.
She should have told Hamish. Years ago. Over twenty years ago, in their first bright autumn at St Andrews, or at any of the golden points since – when he told her he would always love her, when they sat in front of the fire that first Christmas in the cottage, swearing they’d never keep secrets, when Elspeth was born and he said he was the happiest man in the world.
She should have told him when their marriage was strong, unshakeable. But she hadn’t. And now, just when she thought they had rekindled that closeness, Frank had ripped it apart.
She hit the steering wheel. ‘Idiot.’
Would Hamish believe she’d never touched a penny of the Pemberton fortune knowingly; that her mother waited until after the final exam before telling Christina where her ‘savings’ had come from – a ‘clean account’ her father had painstakingly created?
That after university, Christina had donated the balance of that account to charity, ￡75,000 – money her mother had urged her to spend to establish her jewellery business or buy a flat?
That she’d spent her whole married life cringing inside, knowing her father’s fraud had forced Flora to sell land to pay for Hamish to go to university.
Would it make any difference that for the last two years, she had swallowed her principles and started forging silver to repay the debt she inherited from her father?
For the same family who treated her with barely concealed disdain, who spoke in clipped tones when addressing her, who made it clear with every raised eyebrow and pursed lip that she would never truly belong in their world – no matter how carefully she had sculpted herself to fit their expectations, trading her natural boldness for timid deference, her sharp tongue for silence.
What cruel symmetry: her father, the thief who stole the Pemberton fortune, had left her no riches – only a razor-sharp mind, once quick with wit and quicker with a comeback.
But he also left her the weight of his disgrace, which settled on her like a birthright.
Debts that were never hers to pay, she carried as if carved into her spine.
The girl who’d once swaggered, loud and unafraid, had learned to mind her tongue in drawing rooms, to soften her vowels and lower her gaze. As if by shrinking herself – her voice, her fire – she might earn their acceptance.
But they never let her forget. Her blood was common. Her place, borrowed.
And so, while they muttered behind crystal and silver, she spent her nights hunched over forge and flame – not for beauty, but for penance.
Her hands, once meant for brilliance, became practiced in the betrayal of forgery.
Crafting fake silver to claw back some of the fortune her father had stolen – for the very people who would never forgive her for bearing his name.
Would Hamish understand any of that? She didn’t think he would.
Not once he knew she’d hidden the truth for so long.
Her eyes stung. Elspeth. What would happen to her daughter?
Would the discovery of her grandfather’s criminal past horrify her?
Christina thanked her lucky stars Elspeth was staying overnight at Penelope’s tonight.
At least her daughter wouldn’t have to witness Christina’s confession to Hamish.
Outside, the hedgerows were bushy, and the sea beyond the cliffs glittered like hammered glass. Gulls wheeled in the high blue sky, their cries sharp as salt on the wind. It was a perfect Spring Day, but it failed to buoy her spirits. She tried to call Hamish. Twice. Straight to voicemail.
‘Of course,’ she huffed. ‘Of course it’s off. That’s Hamish; why let the twenty-first century intrude.’ She imagined him, phone off, wallowing in Tudor politics, completely oblivious to the wreckage waiting for him.
The tyres grumbled over gravel as she pulled up outside the cottage. It looked cold, lonely, and unwelcoming.
What would Hamish do? Leave her? Probably. Wouldn’t she?
The car idled as she sat in the driveway.
A face came to her, unbidden – Lady Flora, with her ramrod straight back, gloves on, arranging flowers in the loving cup.
She wanted her mother-in-law to hear the truth before it twisted any further.
It was her father who had committed the fraud, not Christina; she was guilty only by association.
She had only been nine. But she could still apologize for her silence.
She turned the ignition off and sat, trying to convince herself those facts might alter Hamish’s reaction – then huffed.
Yes, if she’d told him decades ago. But what Hamish would find impossible to forgive was that she’d kept the truth from him for over twenty years.
And when you added in the forging of antique silver, the sentence became obvious – divorce. Their daughter’s greatest fear.
She would tell Flora about the cup’s real value.
And that she had done something good. For once.
That she’d found it. That she was striving to keep it from Ernest. That the family was still rich.
If Flora was lucid, she could verify her signature was faked and decide for herself what to do with the cup – but even if Flora didn’t understand, Christina wanted to tell her, anyway.
She wiped her eyes, squared her shoulders, turned the engine back on, and swung the car around.
A cheerful nurse with pink hair and a name tag that read Lou met her at reception.
‘I’m here to visit Lady Flora.’
Lou looked up, ‘Aw, that’s nice, she hasn’t had anyone call by yet today.’
No, thought Christina, they’re all too busy gloating about my downfall.
‘She’s in her room; I’ll take you there,’ said Lou.
She followed her escort down the brightly lit corridor, past fake tulips in plastic vases and framed watercolours of innocuous subjects, no doubt chosen for their blandness.
Lady Flora’s room was near the end of the corridor, beside a wide window overlooking what had once been a rose garden but now resembled a battlefield between weeds and memory.
The roses themselves – those that had survived – seemed to nestle within the wilderness as if seeking shelter, their buds peering out shyly from between the coarse leaves of nettles and the broad stalks of hogweed, like Victorian ladies hiding behind their fans at a scandalous gathering.
The door was open. At a small table, Flora was carefully arranging lilies in a crystal vase, her movements precise and deliberate.
The flowers were expensive – someone must have sent or brought them, though Christina doubted it was Hugo or Amy.
Her heart started racing. If Flora was arranging flowers, she must be lucid.
Flora looked up, her eyes sharp as January frost. ‘Christina.’ The name dropped from her lips like something mildly distasteful. ‘Again . . .’
‘Hello, Flora.’ She said, stepping into the room without invitation and closing the door behind her.
‘Hamish the darling boy sent me these flowers. But this vase isn’t tall enough for lilies.’ Flora’s voice carried its usual aristocratic drawl. She turned back to her flowers, snipping a stem with a pair of scissors, ‘how are Hamish and dear Elspeth?’
She smiled, yes, Flora was definitely lucid; she wasn’t enquiring after Christina’s wellbeing.
Christina pulled up the visitor’s chair, sitting down before Flora could gesture for her to do so. ‘Actually, I’ve come to tell you something. Something I should have told you years ago.’
Flora’s hands stilled on the flowers. ‘Oh, really, Christina. Must we go through a scene? I thought you put aside your gift for the theatrical when you married my son.’
She ignored that taunt, too. ‘I haven’t told Hamish this. Not yet. But I need to say it out loud to someone . . . might as well be you.’
Flora sniffed. ‘Flattering.’
‘My father . . . Robert Miller . . . he was one of the bankers behind the Wexley her lips parted in a faraway smile. Christina’s heart stuttered. Not now, please don’t leave me now, Flora, just a few more minutes. She rose and crossed to the older woman.
Flora blinked, then patted Christina’s hand gently. ‘I’m sorry if I was unkind. All those years. You weren’t what I had hoped for him. But you . . . you were what he needed.’
Christina could hardly breathe. She filed away the apology – the first she could remember from those haughty lips – but the truth, so close, had slipped away again.
‘Flora, please – did you sign the deed or not?’
A knock on the door punctuated their conversation. ‘Come in,’ said Flora imperiously.
Lou bustled in, carrying a small plastic tray. ‘Time for your tablets Flora.’
Flora pursed her lips, making Christina wonder if the matriarch was about to correct Lou for her informality.
‘Flora, did you sign the—’
‘You’ll have to speak to Percy about signatures,’ Flora said brightly, wafting a hand at Christina as if dismissing her. ‘Where’s my tea, I can’t be expected to manage without morning tea. And I don’t want it in that horrid pea-green china.’
Lou put her tray down on Flora’s flower arranging table, chatting away about the weather, and what was on the lunch menu.
For a moment, Christina sat processing what had just happened.
Flora had known about her father. The knowledge should have been devastating, but it felt oddly liberating – like finally setting down a weight she’d been carrying for decades.
More puzzling was Flora’s insistence that she had known the cup was valuable – she’d seemed genuinely lucid when she’d said it, before that strange moment when her eyes had gone distant and lost their focus and then the nurse had come in.
Christina pushed the thought away rose and gave Flora’s hand a grateful squeeze before leaving.
She’d achieved what she’d come for even if that had landed on confused ears.
Walking to her car, she reflected on Flora’s mumbled apology; however fleeting, that had been more than she’d ever expected to receive.
She slid into the driver’s seat, pulled out her phone and dialled Percy.
‘Percy? Hi. It’s Christina. Can we meet?’
‘My office. Five o’clock?’
‘Yes, to the time, but I think I need a drink. Could we meet in the pub?’
She hung up, started the car, and headed for Brambleton.