Читать книгу A High Price To Pay - Сара Крейвен, Sara Craven - Страница 5

‘THAT man—what’s he doing here?’

Alison Mortimer hoped devoutly that her mother’s angry whisper to her had been sufficiently drowned by the organ music to prevent it reaching the ears of the other mourners in the small church.

And particularly, she thought with embarrassment, the ears of the man in question, who was stationed only a few pews away.

She’d been conscious of him, of course, from the moment they’d arrived. Nicholas Bristow was a distinctive figure, not easily overlooked, and Alison had noticed his tall, black-haired figure with a twinge of alarm that she’d resolutely told herself was really surprise.

The notice in the paper had said firmly that the funeral service was to be private, and she hadn’t thought Nicholas Bristow a sufficiently close friend of her late father to ignore such a pointed hint.

She saw gratefully that Uncle Hugh had taken her mother’s hand and given it a comforting pat, while murmuring something soothing, and registering at the same time the uneasy look he exchanged with Aunt Beth.

She moved her shoulders restively. There it was again—that feeling, growing almost to conviction, that there was something going on—something wrong, over and above the appalling reality of her father’s sudden collapse and death, only a few days before.

If she hadn’t been so frantically busy, trying to run the house as usual, make the arrangements for the funeral, calm her mother, who was almost hysterical with shock, grief and rage at her loss, and comfort her younger sister Melanie, summoned home from boarding school for the funeral, she would have found out what was happening—pinned Uncle Hugh down, and made him tell her why he found it so apparently difficult to meet her gaze any more, she thought grimly.

But once the ordeal of the funeral was behind her, and the obligation of the buffet lunch waiting for them back at Ladymead had been fulfilled, she could start finding out.

She could also, she thought, a lump rising in her throat, get a chance to mourn for her father herself.

She glanced at her mother, ethereal in black, her thin hands nervously pulling at her handkerchief, and sighed. Catherine Mortimer had never been a strong woman, physically or emotionally. All her married life she had depended totally on her husband, and more latterly on her elder daughter as well. How she would cope with the everyday realities of widowhood, once the drama of the funeral and, later, the memorial service, was over, Alison hadn’t the faintest idea.

Mrs Mortimer had enjoyed her position as the wife of the area’s leading industrialist. She had loved being asked to take the chair at local organisations, presiding at dinner parties, and playing the hostess for housefuls of weekend guests, although the donkey work of these occasions had always been left to Alison.

Things would be very different from now on, she thought, although there would be no shortage of money. Anthony Mortimer had left his family well provided for from his shareholdings in the light engineering works which his grandfather had pioneered.

Her mother might have to step down from being the locality’s First Lady, but she would be able to maintain her comfortable existence, adding to her porcelain collection, and playing bridge with her cronies. She might even take a greater interest in the day-to-day running of Ladymead, Alison told herself without a great deal of conviction.

She knew perfectly well that the mundane details of housekeeping had never appealed to her mother. She had relied completely on the elderly and supremely efficient housekeeper, Mrs Wharton, who had been installed at Ladymead since her husband’s boyhood. And after Mrs Wharton’s death, the chores of making sure everything ran like clockwork, of engaging staff, and paying the bills had been handed over, charmingly but definitely, to Alison.

‘Such good practice for you, darling, when it comes to running a home of your own,’ Mrs Mortimer had said sweetly.

But Alison hadn’t been fooled for a minute. Her mother had been a dazzlingly pretty woman when she was younger, and Melanie was blossoming into real beauty with every month that passed, but Alison herself had been born, and remained, an ugly duckling. She was small and slight with light brown hair, clear hazel eyes, and a pale skin which had a distressing tendency to flush when she was disturbed or embarrassed, and as she was a shy girl, this happened far more often than she wished.

She had no idea why this should be so. Both her mother and Mel were miracles of self-possession, and her father had been a cheerfully ebullient man too.

‘You must be a changeling, darling,’ her mother had sometimes teased her.

And sometimes she felt like it, Alison acknowledged ruefully.

Perhaps if her school exam results had been dazzling like Mel’s promised to be, rather than respectable, she might have broken out of the mould she could see being prepared for her, and insisted on university and a career of some kind. But with no very firm idea of what she would like to do with her life, it had been difficult for her to resist the pressure from her family to stay at home and run Ladymead for her mother. But she had been determined to achieve at least a measure of independence for herself, and had managed to find herself a part-time job in a local estate agent’s office. She had been hired in the first instance under the vague heading of Girl Friday, which Alison had silently translated as ‘dogsbody’, but she had amazed herself, and her new employer, by discovering an unexpected talent for actually selling houses. In spite of her shyness, she had the knack of matching properties to potential buyers, many of whom preferred her quiet efficiency to the ‘hard sell’ they were often subjected to. Simon Thwaite, her boss, had concealed his astonishment, given her a rise, and asked if she would be prepared to work full time, an offer she had regretfully had to refuse. He had also asked her out to dinner, which she had accepted, and they had enjoyed several pleasant evenings in each other’s company.

But that, she knew, was as far as it went. She couldn’t see herself having a serious relationship with Simon, or any of the other men she came across, and had come to the conclusion that she was probably one of nature’s spinsters.

And probably just as well, she thought without self-pity, because the evidence suggested that from now on her mother was going to need her more than ever.

Driving back to Ladymead after the service, Mrs Mortimer was volubly tearful.

‘So much to endure still,’ she said, clinging to her brother’s arm. ‘Dear Hugh—such a tower of strength! And now this dreadful lunch to get through somehow.’ Her brows snapped together. ‘I hope that Bristow man hasn’t had the gall to invite himself to that! If so, you must deal with it, Hugh. He must be made to see this is a very personal, family occasion, and that, as a stranger, he is intruding on our grief.’

Hugh Bosworth cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘It might be better not to say or do anything hasty,’ he said heavily. ‘After all, Anthony did a lot of business with the fellow.’

‘Did he?’ Mrs Mortimer dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘He never discussed business matters with me, of course. I’ve never had a head for that sort of thing.’ A fresh sense of grievance struck her. ‘And I don’t understand why Mr Liddell is insisting on going over poor Anthony’s will with me. I know what’s in it—he explained it all most carefully to me, and to Alison when he drew it up. There’ll be duties, of course, but apart from that, he made it all as simple as possible.’ She began to cry again. ‘Although I never thought … I was always sure I’d be the first …’

Hugh Bosworth patted her shoulder, looking, his niece thought judiciously, positively hunted. Again she felt that faint frisson of unease. She wished she could have spoken to Aunt Beth, but Mrs Bosworth was following in the next car with Melanie.

Back at the house, Alison swiftly checked that arrangements for the lunch had been carried out as impeccably as usual, then went upstairs to take off the jacket of her simple dark grey suit, and tidy her hair. As she dragged a comb through her neat shoulder-length bob, she heard the first of the cars arrive to disgorge its passengers at the front door. Mentally, she reviewed who should be arriving. As well as Anthony Mortimer’s closest friends, there would be a few of his co-directors from the works.

She gave a faint sigh. They would be worried. Anthony Mortimer had been the linchpin of the company, believing in it, backing it to the hilt always. She wasn’t sure how they would replace him.

She gave a last look at herself in the mirror, and grimaced. She could win a nondescript prize, she thought candidly as she turned away. And saw from the window Nicholas Bristow alighting from the last car and standing on the drive, staring at the house.

Alison groaned inwardly. Her mother had overreacted to his presence at the church, of course, but there was a certain amount of justification for her attitude. He was a stranger to them, no matter how close he might or might not have been to her father. He had been to Ladymead only once before, for dinner, and had annoyed Mrs Mortimer by spending the latter part of the evening closeted in the study with her husband.

‘So inconsiderate!’ Mrs Mortimer had complained fretfully to Alison. ‘A dinner party should be a social occasion, and your father knows how I feel about business being mixed with pleasure.’

Alison had thought wryly that probably her father’s wishes has not had a great deal to do with it. She had had Nicholas Bristow as her dinner partner, and had found him arrogantly intimidating.

He was the kind of man, she was forced to admit, that most women would find very attractive. Coupled with that unmistakable aura of wealth and power which fitted him as well as his elegant clothes, he possessed an individual brand of compelling, almost insolent good looks. He probably had charm too, only Alison hadn’t been privileged to encounter it. Eyes as blue and chill as a winter’s sky had travelled over her, remembered with difficulty that she had been introduced to him on arrival as the daughter of the house, and made it clear he found her wanting in every respect.

He had responded to her conversational overtures civilly, but without enthusiasm, and it was obvious that his thoughts were elsewhere most of the time.

If it hadn’t been so hurtful, it would almost have been amusing, Alison decided, hating him cordially.

She had no time for that kind of sexy male arrogance, and she couldn’t understand what he could possibly have in common with her genial, outgoing father.

For starters, Nicholas Bristow was at least twenty-five years her father’s junior. One of the City’s boy wonders, she could remember reading about him somewhere. A whizz-kid financier with the Midas touch. In his thirties now, of course, but still apparently printing his own money.

It was—heartening to believe that he had thought highly enough of her father to come to his funeral, even without an invitation. Only Alison didn’t believe it. According to the items about him in the various gossip columns which appeared with such monotonous regularity, Nicholas Bristow didn’t give a damn about anything except making money. He wasn’t married, but he certainly wasn’t celibate either, seeming to change the ladies in his life as frequently as his expensive suits.

She might have contempt for his lifestyle, but at the same time Alison had him mentally filed as someone it could be dangerous to offend, and she decided it could be wise to intervene before he came face to face with her mother.

He was in the hall, as Alison came downstairs, in the act of handing his coat to Mrs Horner, the daily help.

Alison said with a coolness she was far from feeling, ‘It’s all right, Mrs Horner. I’ll deal with this.’

At the sound of her voice Nicholas Bristow turned, his brows rising interrogatively as he looked at her. Once again the sheer force of his attraction struck her like a body blow. How fortunate that his personality didn’t match, Alison thought stonily as she walked down the last remaining stairs.

She said, ‘Good morning, Mr Bristow. I don’t suppose you remember me.’

‘Indeed I do, Miss Mortimer.’

She prayed she wouldn’t blush like a schoolgirl and ruin everything. Aloud, she said quietly, ‘This is rather embarrassing for us, Mr Bristow, but it seems there’s been a slight misunderstanding. It was kind of you to come to my father’s funeral service, but this lunch is restricted to family and close friends, and unfortunately …’

‘Unfortunately, I don’t fall within either category,’ Nicholas Bristow supplied calmly. ‘I’m aware of that, Miss Mortimer.’

‘Then I’m sure you won’t wish to intrude,’ Alison said, lifting her chin a little. ‘My mother, as you can imagine, is in a very nervous and distressed condition, and can’t be expected to cope with uninvited guests.’

‘Yes, I can well imagine.’ His firm mouth twisted slightly. ‘But the misunderstanding is yours, Miss Mortimer. As it happens, I have been invited here. By Alec Liddell, and also by your uncle, Colonel Bosworth.’

Alison’s lips parted helplessly in a little gasp. ‘They—did? But why?’

‘I suggest you ask them,’ he drawled. ‘And while you’re conducting your little interrogation, I’ll wait quietly somewhere where the sight of me won’t cause your mother any problems.’ As she hesitated he added quietly, ‘I’m no gatecrasher, Miss Mortimer. I do have a reason to be here.’

She said levelly, ‘I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on, but perhaps you’d wait in the study while I speak to my uncle.’ She led the way across the hall and opened the door. It was quite a small room, panelled in oak, the heavy curtains still drawn out of respect. It was the first time Alison had entered the room since her father’s death, and it seemed at once still so redolent of his personality that she checked abruptly in the doorway, her whole body tautening.

She was hardly aware of the sharp look from the man beside her, but she heard him say, ‘I think the situation would be improved by some daylight, don’t you?’ followed by the rattle of the rings along the poles as he drew back the curtains, allowing some watery spring sunshine to permeate the room.

She was back in control again. ‘Thank you,’ she said huskily. ‘There—there’s some whisky in the corner cupboard, if you’d like to help yourself.’

‘You’re very hospitable.’ The dry note in his voice wasn’t lost on her. He walked across the room, and looked down at her, frowning slightly. ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ he said at last. ‘I liked him.’

‘Thank you.’ Her voice was firmer this time. ‘Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I have to see to our—other guests.’

She closed the study door behind her quietly, and stood for a moment, forcing herself to think rapidly. It was an awful day, but it seemed to be getting worse with every moment that passed. She was more than uneasy now; she was getting frightened. From the chaos of the past week, some kind of monstrous pattern seemed to be emerging. She didn’t understand it, nor did she want to. She wanted to run away somewhere and hide.

The atmosphere in the drawing room was inevitably subdued, but as Alison moved from group to group, thanking people for coming, and accepting their condolences, it occurred to her that everyone seemed abnormally gloomy and abstracted. Or was she being stupidly over-sensitive? she asked herself, making her way towards her uncle.

But before she could reach him, she was grabbed by Melanie.

‘Who’s the dish?’ she hissed. ‘And where have you hidden him?’

‘I can’t think who …’ Alison began, but Mel gave her a little shake.

‘Oh, don’t be pompous, Ally! Tall and dark, with eyes like Paul Newman’s. I saw him arrive.’

‘You would,’ Alison sighed. ‘Well, his name’s Nicholas Bristow, and he seems to be here on business.’

Melanie rolled her eyes in mock-lasciviousness. ‘Do you think he’d do a deal with me?’ She caught Alison’s eye, and subsided. ‘I’m sorry, Ally,’ she muttered reluctantly. ‘I know I shouldn’t be making jokes at a time like this, but everything’s so—so bloody!’

Alison put her arm round her sister’s shoulders and gave her a swift hug. ‘Yes, it is,’ she said fiercely. ‘And you make all the jokes you want. Now, I’ve got to talk to Uncle Hugh.’

‘Hullo, my dear.’ His voice was awkward. ‘May I get you a drink?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not thirsty. I just want to know what’s going on. Nicholas Bristow tells me you invited him here.’

‘Well, it was Liddell’s idea really.’ He didn’t meet her gaze. ‘He felt it might make things—easier.’

‘What things?’ Alison’s eyes narrowed. ‘Uncle Hugh, you can’t keep dropping hints like this. You’ve got to tell me!’

There was a silence, then he sighed heavily. ‘Perhaps you have the right. I just don’t know any more. And together, we might be able to cushion your mother …’ He paused again. ‘Did your father ever talk to you about money?’

She shook her head. ‘I used to ask him, from time to time, especially about the works—if the company was being affected by the recession, but he always said everything was fine.’

He pulled her into a corner. ‘Well, it wasn’t fine,’ he muttered. ‘In fact, Ally, it was just about as bad as it could be. For the last two years he was pouring every penny he could raise into the firm, but it was never enough. Oh, he could have cut back, I suppose, but it would have meant laying men off, and he wouldn’t do that. Said it was a bad sign, and reduced public confidence. Said he felt—responsible.’

Alison nodded. ‘He did. Mortimers has always been a family company. Daddy hated the idea of redundancies. He felt it was a betrayal of people who trusted him.’ She smiled sadly. ‘A rather patriarchal attitude, I’m afraid.’

‘A rather naïve one in this economic climate,’ her uncle said grimly. ‘And there was this house, of course, and your mother’s—expenses.’

Alison hands clenched into fists at her side and she looked at him levelly. ‘Uncle Hugh, are you trying to tell me that Daddy was broke?’

Unwillingly, he nodded. ‘There’s your mother’s annuity, of course, that’s safe. But as for the rest of it …’

‘Oh, God!’ Alison felt dazed, but she made herself think. ‘But there are his shares in Mortimers, they must be worth something.’

‘Only if the company itself has any value,’ Colonel Bosworth said gloomily. ‘And there’s every chance of a receiver being put in.’

She bit her lip. ‘Well—there’s this house. I know it’s big, and inconvenient, but Daddy had it valued not long ago, and if we sold it, and found somewhere smaller …’

He was shaking his head. ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you, my dear.’ His voice was awkward with compassion. ‘The house, I’m afraid, he used as security for a considerable loan. Mortimers needed new machinery for a potential order from China—engineering components, I understand. It could have been the salvation of the place, and Anthony gambled everything on getting it.’ He looked very old suddenly. ‘Only he didn’t. He got the news just before—just before …’

‘His attack,’ Alison said. She felt very cold, her body trembling uncontrollably. ‘I—see. So—Ladymead doesn’t belong to us any more. I—I can’t quite believe it.’ She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Poor Mummy? Where can she go? What can she do?’

‘That is something we all have to discuss. But there need be no hasty decisions. I’m sure she’ll be treated with every consideration by the—er—new owner.’

‘New owner?’ Her bewildered eyes searched his face. ‘But you said the house had been used as security. It belongs to a bank, doesn’t it?’

‘Not as such.’ Uncle Hugh looked more uncomfortable than ever. ‘Your father had trouble in raising the money he wanted. It was felt, I think, that his proposition wasn’t a good risk—as indeed it proved. The eventual loan was a—private arrangement, although perfectly legal, of course,’ he added hastily.

Alison’s nails scored the palms of her hands. She said unsteadily, ‘It’s—Nicholas Bristow, isn’t it?’

Uncle Hugh nodded wretchedly, ‘Yes.’

She whispered, ‘Oh, God. So that’s why …’

She couldn’t say any more. She turned away, fighting her emotions, struggling to retain some rags of self-control as the full force of everything that had happened broke on her.

Crazily, a line from Shakespeare kept echoing and re-echoing in her head: ‘One woe doth tread upon another’s heels, so fast they follow.’ And the upshot was that Ophelia was drowned, and she was drowning too, in anger and outrage and bewilderment.

At last she said brokenly, ‘How could Daddy? How could he—mortgage our home to a stranger?’

‘Because he was a gambler,’ her uncle returned sombrely. ‘Oh, not with cards or horses—that might have been easier to deal with. But he liked to take risks in business—unnecessary risks, like investing in these new machines without any guarantees from the Chinese that they’d ever be needed. I don’t think the possibility of losing his gamble ever occurred to him. And give him his due, if Mortimers had won that contract, it would have been just the boost the works needed. He’d have been able to pay off the loan too, and neither your mother nor you and Melanie would ever have been any the wiser.’

‘Only it didn’t work out like that,’ said Alison with a small mirthless smile. ‘The problem now is—how do we break the news to Mother? How do we tell her she’s not only penniless, but homeless too? And at the hands of a man she doesn’t like. Or has Mr Bristow come to serve his notice to quit in person?’

‘On the contrary.’ Uncle Hugh looked almost affronted. ‘You’re doing him an injustice, Ally. He is most concerned.’

‘How kind of him!’ She pushed her hair back from her face with a shaking hand. ‘But it doesn’t change anything. He’s not going to give us back our home, is he?’

‘You have to be realistic, my dear.’ Her uncle looked horrified. ‘No one could be expected simply to write off a debt of that magnitude. No, I’m afraid your poor father knew what he was risking when he entered into the arrangement—much against Alec Liddell’s advice, I may say.’

‘Bravo, Mr Liddell,’ Alison said wearily. ‘He’ll be here soon, I suppose.’

‘In about half an hour.’ He nodded in affirmation. ‘The others should be leaving by then. I thought we could all have a quiet chat—a family conclave, to decide what’s best to be done.’

‘And do you now count Nicholas Bristow as part of the family?’

There was an edge to her voice, and her uncle frowned rather reprovingly as he answered, ‘No, of course not, child. But I’m sure it would be better for all concerned if matters were conducted on as—amicable a basis as possible. I know he’s anxious to reassure your mother that he has no immediate plans to take possession.’

She winced. ‘Don’t!’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Ally, but it’s something you’re going to have to come to terms with. Ladymead belongs to Nicholas Bristow now.’

She said softly, fiercely, ‘Over my dead body.’

As she got to the study door, she heard Melanie’s voice, and groaned inwardly. She turned the handle and went in. Melanie, flushed and bright-eyed, was draped decoratively across the arm of one of the big chairs, clearly in the middle of some anecdote which Nicholas Bristow was receiving with amused appreciation.

Alison said clearly and precisely, ‘Would you go up to your room, Melanie, please. I have something I wish to say to Mr Bristow.’

For once Melanie didn’t stop to argue. She took one look at Alison’s stormy eyes, at the bright spots of colour burning in the pallor of her face, and went without a word.

Alison closed the door behind her, then drew a deep breath before turning back to face him.

He said softly, ‘Don’t be angry with her, Miss Mortimer. You can’t expect a kid of her age to join in day after day of undiluted gloom.’

He was seated on the edge of the big desk, glass in hand, swinging one elegantly shod foot. He had even, she noticed, loosened his tie slightly, and it was that detail which set the seal on her rage and bitterness.

‘Get off my father’s desk,’ she said, her voice quivering. ‘Get away from his things. They don’t belong to you yet.’

He finished what was left in his glass and put it down, then got to his feet without haste.

‘So he told you,’ he observed expressionlessly.

‘Yes, he told me.’ She threw back her head defiantly, staring at him with disgust. ‘I thought you were a financier, Mr Bristow, not a cheap money-lender!’

‘Oh, I’m certainly not cheap, Miss Mortimer,’ he said. He was smiling derisively, but there was anger simmering underneath, and she knew it. ‘But do go on. I’m sure you can think of something appropriate about me preying on widows and orphans, if you really put your mind to it. Come on, sweetheart, let it rip. Don’t leave a cliché unturned.’

‘You bastard,’ Alison said unevenly.

He clicked his tongue reprovingly. ‘Not very inventive, or even true. Try again.’

She wrapped her arms round her body, shivering. ‘You’re vile,’ she said quietly, after a pause. ‘You’ve robbed us of everything, and you can stand there—taunting me!’

The blue eyes flicked over her, swift and cruel as an arctic wind. ‘Let it be a lesson to you, Miss Mortimer. Never begin what you’re not prepared—or equipped—to finish. Now, you mentioned something about my having robbed you. That’s not only a slander, but a lie. I did my damnedest to talk your father out of the whole thing, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He called it a calculated risk—I called it madness.’

‘But you still went ahead and loaned him the money.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Because he might have pulled it off. By all accounts, he’d dragged Mortimers back from the brink more than once. If the Chinese deal had come off, I’d have been repaid, at a handsome rate of interest. Why should I have turned him down?’

‘But you can’t really want this house,’ she said, almost feverishly. ‘It’s been in our family for generations. It’s old-fashioned, and a nightmare to heat, and staff and keep clean. It’s probably got woodworm, and dry rot, and—and deathwatch beetle.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Although it needs a certain amount of renovation and improvement, it’s basically sound. Your father had a survey and valuation done not long ago—at my behest, naturally,’

‘So you always recognised the possibility …’

‘That your father might not be in a position to repay me? Of course.’ He gave a slight shrug. ‘Although I couldn’t predict the present tragic circumstances, of course.’

‘Of course,” she echoed bitterly. ‘And how long do we have, Mr Bristow, before you start to recoup your losses by putting Ladymead on the market?’

‘Oh, I’m not going to sell it,’ he said casually. ‘I’m going to live here.’