Chapter 24 #2
‘Well… it turns out that they are fake.’ Matty shook his head in wonder.
‘All this time, Mum and Clara and Estella showing them off… they’re fakes.
Good ones, I think. I mean, I think some of the stones might be real, even.
But a lot of them aren’t, and more to the point, they don’t have the historical provenance that Mum was always so happy about.
Being gifted them by a princess, back in the day. ’
‘Oh, no!’ Heather took a long, indrawn breath. ‘So where did they come from?’
‘Well… Mum had an expert look at them, and they said they were fakes. You can imagine that she’s absolutely mortified.’ Matty sighed. ‘Then she asked Dad about them. And he was quite evasive, but it turns out that he knew they weren’t real.’ Matty caught her eye. ‘I know. It’s awful.’
‘He knew, and he let her…?’
‘He let her carry on pretending to the world that they were real. Yeah.’
‘Why?’ Heather was flabbergasted. ‘Why would anyone do that?’
‘I don’t know. She’s really upset about it. She said that Dad said that no one would have known if she hadn’t shown off about the jewels. He says that his grandmother had them made to copy the famous set so that she could wear them at dinners and parties. He thought she knew.’
‘But she didn’t,’ Heather mused.
‘No, and now she’s mortified about it. I do feel for her.
Dad can be really thoughtless. He’s away a lot, he leaves Mum on her own, and they don’t really talk or spend any quality time together.
Sometimes I wonder if the whole TV show was just an excuse for Mum to be in the same room as Dad.
He’s just a bit clueless. I think he forgot that he hadn’t told her, and then when all this happened, he was probably embarrassed that he hadn’t told her, but then covered it up with some sort of bluff response. ’
‘But that’s not okay. Your mum is his wife and the mother of his children. She deserves more thought, even if she does like a bit of spectacle,’ Heather said. She found herself appalled for Elizabeth.
‘Yes. I know that about her. And I’m glad you do too, now.’ Matty hugged her. ‘I don’t want to be like that in my marriage with you. I want us to support each other. Communicate. Be a team, like you said.’
‘You really took that to heart, huh?’ Heather hugged him back.
‘I did. You were right.’
‘So, how’s your mum now?’ Heather asked. ‘Is it weird that I sort of feel fonder of her, knowing all this? It makes her more human.’
‘No. That makes sense.’ Matty held Heather to him.
‘Well, she’s really embarrassed. When I talked to her, she said she’s going to try and keep out of the press and step out of the public eye a bit, going forward.
There’s the tax thing to sort out, and the TV show’s finished filming now and Dad said he didn’t want to do another series. ’
‘Oh, really? It’s funny. When you watch the show – not that I ever have, much – you get the impression that your dad’s just this affable guy, going along with whatever Elizabeth tells him. It’s not really like that, though, is it?’
‘No. He’s away a fair bit on business, and she either goes along if it’s somewhere she can socialise and network for the foundation, or she just does her own thing.
That’s probably why she’s so close with Clara and Estella.
She spends a lot of time with my brothers and their wives because Dad tends to be a bit…
absent. Always has.’ Matty looked sad. ‘Also, I imagine that if he agreed to the TV show in the first place, it would be because he thought there was something in it for him.’
‘You’re not close with your dad?’ Heather asked gently. ‘I have noticed that, since they’ve been here, you’ve spent more time with your mum.’
‘Dad and I haven’t had a genuine, honest conversation in at least ten years.
’ Matty sighed. ‘I am closer to Mum. As difficult as she is, but I was always her favourite. Dad spends his life at his club in London, at the House of Lords, or travelling around to oversee his golf courses. He was the one who insisted we went to boarding school. Mum didn’t want to send us.
Her family never did that. It was so hard for her, sending Gerald and Charles off aged 6.
She refused to send me until I was older. ’
‘Annie told me.’
‘I didn’t know that she didn’t want me to go at the time. She told me, years later. She had to keep a brave face.’ Matty looked pensive. ‘I think that there were a lot of things that she compromised herself on, being married to Dad. But she did it, I guess for the money and the power.’
‘If she did, then that was a tough bargain to make.’ Heather felt sad for Elizabeth.
‘Yeah. But listen, enough of Mum and Dad. But in the spirit of bargains and parents, I’ve got a gift for you.’ Matty handed her an envelope.
‘What’s this?’ She turned it over in her hands. ‘Another gift? But this hot tub, the summer house…. this must have been so expensive! I don’t even know how you got it all down here.’
‘The lads in the van organised it.’ Matty waved at a large black van that sat on the access road, behind the loch.
‘There are benefits to being a Campbell. Mum has what she calls a “fix-it” team on hand who can generally get anything to anywhere, if the price is right. I gave them a call and they organised it.’
‘Wow. I’m impressed.’ Heather blinked. ‘I could get used to having a “fix-it” team on hand.’
‘Ha. I know. I don’t generally live the Campbell celebrity life, but you have to admit, sometimes it’s not bad. Anyway. This is another type of gift. Go on – open it.’ Matty smiled, watching her face.