‘Oh my God, the package!’ Francesca exclaimed, also leaping to her feet. Earlier she had placed it on a chair near the door, and now she ran for it, took it to Nick. ‘This came for you when I was out this morning.’
He took it, ripped at the paper with shaking hands. ‘It’s Kath’s hand writing,’ he gasped. The paper was finally removed and he was holding an orange-coloured Hermes box. He recognized it immediately. The box had contained her favourite style of handbag, the Kelly she always carried, and he himself had bought it for her only a few weeks ago. He snatched at the lid. Inside were three small Tiffany boxes, three envelopes and, in the bottom, resting on a layer of tissue, a blue leather-bound book. He looked at the embossing on the front: To V.L. from K.T. He replaced the book, grabbed the letter addressed to himself, tore the envelope, searched for his glasses, stood reading, the tears welling, slowly trickling down his cheeks. ‘There are letters here for you,’ he mumbled, his voice cracked with emotion, and he moved to the far end of the living room, hiding his face from them, pain ripping through him. He was swamped by a sorrow he could not endure.
Victor collected the Hermes box and returned with it to the sofa, filled with sadness for Nick, and compassion and grief for Katharine, who had deserved a far better fate, whatever she had done to them all so long ago. He and Francesca read their letters, sat holding them, their faces vacant, not speaking, as benumbed as Nick, remembering so much.
The door opened and Val appeared. Francesca looked at her, shook her head, and the housekeeper quickly retreated. The sound of the door opening had roused Nicky, and he rejoined them near the fireplace. He said to Francesca, ‘Read the letter she wrote to you… I mean read it aloud. I want to know what she said. Please, Frankie.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She blew her nose, began shakily, in a quavering voice:
‘My dearest Frankie:
‘Nick will explain everything. Excuse me for not telling you myself, but I thought it would be easier on everyone concerned if I handled it this way. The blue leather book at the bottom of the box is for my daughter Vanessa. It’s filled with gentle thoughts, and impressions and internal meanderings of mine over the past four months. I would like you to give it to her when she is ready for it, perhaps in a year, or maybe two. I will leave that to your discretion. I hope she will come to know me better through my “hours of the day” and understand more about me.
‘Michael has been, and is, a good father, and for that I am so very grateful, having never really had a father of my own. At least who loved me. However, I do feel that Vanessa needs a woman’s influence and Michael has agreed that you can see her, be with her whenever you wish. Please be my daughter’s friend as you were mine, my darling.’
Francesca halted, her voice trembling uncontrollably. She wiped her eyes with Vic’s handkerchief, and went on:
‘And now, Frankie, I must address myself to you. Facing imminent death as I am now doing, I see life with the most blinding clarity, all sham ripped away, truths revealed to me as never before. And I see all of those whom I love with the same vividness, through the clearest eyes, see their priorities and needs perhaps more acutely than they do themselves. I see you, my darling, so loving and tenderhearted, filled with the kind of inner purity and goodness that is, sadly, very rare. And you are terribly alone now. Don’t be alone, Frankie. Loneliness is another form of death. I know that only too well. Nick and I thought we had another chance to right all wrongs. A second chance at life. We did not. But you do. Take it, Frankie, while you are still young. I say these things to you from my heart, with my heart so full of love for you.
‘Impending death gives me the licence to say these things to you, and so I know you will understand, and will excuse my bluntness.
‘Be well and happy, my darling friend. I shall think of you always, and you have my dearest love.
Kath’
Francesca wept unashamedly, and Victor’s eyes were full as he took her hand, held it tightly in his. ‘Can you light me a cigarette, please,’ Francesca whispered, turning a tear-streaked face to him.
He did so, and glanced worriedly at Nick, who was huddled in the chair. It seemed to Victor that his friend had atrophied before his eyes. He said, ‘Take a drink, Nicky.’
‘Yes. Read your letter to me, Vic, please. I must know…’
Victor picked up the letter Katharine Tempest had written and scanned it again, almost afraid to begin. He took his horn-rimmed glasses from the end table, put them on, cleared his throat:
‘My very dear Victor:
‘First of all I want to thank you again for absolving me of the terrible wrong I did you so long ago. Your generosity of spirit last week was remarkable, and your understanding and forgiveness touched me deeply. As I told Nick after our meeting, I can now die with a peaceful heart, knowing I have made my peace with you and with Francesca.
‘I know you love Nicky as much as I do, in a different way, of course. And so I ask you to look after him for me. He is going to need you and Frankie, and your loving friendship. The two of you will give him some of your strength, and so will help to pull him through these difficult months ahead. I do not want Nicky to be alone, Victor. Please take him back with you to Che Sarà Sarà this week, with little Victor and Frankie. My heart will be at ease if I know he is with his child and the two of you.
‘Finally, do not let Nicky try to find me. I am going to a place where I will find tranquillity and repose, and where I will be safe and cared for at all times. It must be this way. I could not bear to see Nick suffering. And if he is with me I know he will suffer. That became so very clear to me last night. Only the three of you and Michael Lazarus know of my condition. I want it to remain confidential.
‘Good-bye, my special friend, with my love always.
Katharine’
Victor placed the letter on the table, took off his wet glasses and went to Nick. He put his arm around him, held him close. ‘I trust her, Nicky. Wherever she has gone she will be safe. Please don’t try to find her. Let it be the way she wants it.’
Nick nodded. His throat ached with suppressed tears and the tearing pain inside him was monumental. He began to pace the floor, oblivious to Francesca and Victor, trying to think, his mind reeling with shock and despair. He could not conceive that he would never see her again, never hear her laughter, or gaze into her glorious turquoise eyes, or hold her in his arms. So absorbed was he in his inner conflict he was not aware that Francesca and Victor had left the room.
When they returned some fifteen minutes later he was still roaming around the room, looking lost and stricken.
Victor said, ‘I think we should do as she wishes, Nicky. So does Ches.’
Nicky stared at them, drawn at last out of his benumbed state. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes.’ He went to the Hermes box, took out the blue Tiffany boxes, each one marked with a name. He handed them to Francesca and Victor. ‘She wants me to give you these. She asked me in her letter.’ He swallowed. ‘Thank you for reading yours. I cannot read mine to you… it’s very personal.’
‘Oh Nicky, we don’t expect you to,’ Francesca exclaimed softly. She opened her box. There was a tiny diamond heart on a chain, similar to the one Katharine often wore. Last week, she and Kath had gone to Tiffany’s to buy an identical heart for Vanessa, and she had admired it. Francesca held it in her hand tightly, incapable of speech, and she wept again for her friend.
For Victor, Katharine had found old Roman coins which had been dipped in gold and made into cufflinks. He stared at them blindly, his black eyes awash with sorrow. What a tragedy, he thought. Poor sweet Kath. Only forty-four.
Nick said dimly, ‘She was always after me to get a pair of lapis lazuli cufflinks. To match my eyes, she used to say.’ He opened his hand, displayed his gift, and turned away, remembering suddenly the story she had told him about the two old biddies in London.
Victor lifted Francesca’s hand, and patted it tenderly, folded his own around it. ‘We must have strong and happy memori
es of Katharine, and I say again, we must do all she wishes. Nick, you’ll come to the ranch, won’t you?’
‘Yes, I will. And I’ll bring my son. Just as my beloved Kath wanted it.’
‘Will you come with us too, Ches?’ Victor asked.
‘Of course, Vic. Nicky needs me.’
Victor inclined his head, and he smiled at Francesca. His eyes held hers for the longest moment. He thought: I was her first love. Perhaps, with a little luck, I will be her last. Later, when all this is behind us. And then, under his breath he said: Che sarà sarà… what will be will be.
Finale April 1979
‘But when the days of golden dreams had perished,
And even despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened and fed without the aid of joy.’
EMILY BRONTË
The gardens at Ravenswood were so vibrant with colour and life, and fragrant with the mingled scents of the varied flowers, Katharine caught her breath as she walked down the lawn towards the bosky glade. She passed the giant pink floss tree and paused to admire its beauty, touching a rosy blossom gently. How tender it was, and perfectly made.
She drifted on, down the sloping lawn and past the swimming pool, until she came at last to her favourite spot. She settled on a rustic wooden chair, took a new packet of cigarettes from her pocket and lit one. Her doctor in London had asked her to cut down on her smoking. But she had wondered, for the last few months, what difference it made now.
She closed her eyes, but for only a moment, wanting to drink in the loveliness surrounding her. The house gleamed white and shining in the distance, and somewhere birds lifted their voices in warbling song and there was a rush of wings as the flock swept upwards into the lucent air, soared towards the incandescent azure sky. She sighed. It was peaceful here, so far away from the noise and clatter of the turbulent world.
Soon Beau would return. She had not let him know she was coming. And Beau had gone to play golf, so Tabella, his housekeeper, had told her when she had arrived a short while ago from New York. Her decision to come here had finally been made last night, as Nick had lain in an exhausted sleep in her arms. She thought of her most beloved Nicky and her heart stirred softly within her. She prayed he would go with Victor and Frankie to the ranch. He, too, would perhaps find a kind of peace there with them and his son. And her own child would join her next week, to stay as long as it was appropriate. Mike had promised. A smile flashed across her exquisite face. For weeks she had hidden her secret from Nick, from everyone. It had been the best acting of her life. And now it must continue for a while, this, her last performance. For Beau. He must not know. Not yet. Her gaze settled on the house. She had come to Ravenswood as a young bride. She had come back now to die.
Katharine squinted in the brilliant sunlight and shaded her eyes with her hand. Beau was running down the terrace steps, moving with speed across the lawn, hurrying, hurrying. To her. And then he was standing in front of her, a joyous expression flooding his face.
‘Hello, Monkey Face,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’
Standing up, Katharine took hold of his hand, and laughed her tinkling girlish laugh. ‘I’ve come home at last, Beau.’
He hugged her to him, overcome with happiness, his own laughter bubbling in his throat. And then he held her away, his face sobering, a frown knotting his brow. ‘Yes, Monkey Face, but for how long?’
For half a second Katharine did not answer. She looked up at him, and her wondrous eyes, not blue, not green, but a curious unique turquoise, filled with sudden radiant light.
Her smile was sure. ‘For the rest of my life,’ she said.
An Excerpt from A Woman of Substance
By Barbara Taylor Bradford
CHAPTER ONE
Emma Harte leaned forward and looked out of the window. The private Lear jet, property of the Sitex Oil Corporation of America, had been climbing steadily up through a vaporous haze of cumulus clouds and was now streaking through a sky so penetratingly blue its shimmering clarity hurt the eyes. Momentarily dazzled by this early-morning brightness, Emma turned away from the window, rested her head against the seat, and closed her eyes. For a brief instant the vivid blueness was trapped beneath her lids and, in that instant, such a strong and unexpected feeling of nostalgia was evoked within her that she caught her breath in surprise. It’s the sky from the Turner painting above the upstairs parlour fireplace at Pennistone Royal, she thought, a Yorkshire sky on a spring day when the wind has driven the fog from the moors.
A faint smile played around her mouth, curving the line of the lips with unfamiliar softness, as she thought with some pleasure of Pennistone Royal. That great house that grew up out of the stark and harsh landscape of the moors and which always appeared to her to be a force of nature engineered by some Almighty architect rather than a mere edifice erected by mortal man. The one place on this violent planet where she had found peace, limitless peace that soothed and refreshed her. Her home. She had been away far too long this time, almost six weeks, which was a prolonged absence indeed for her. But within the coming week she would be returning to London, and by the end of the month she would travel north to Pennistone. To peace, tranquillity, her gardens, and her grand-children.
This thought cheered her immeasurably and she relaxed in her seat, the tension that had built up over the last few days diminishing until it had evaporated. She was bone tired from the raging battles that had punctuated these last few days of board meetings at the Sitex corporate headquarters in Odessa; she was supremely relieved to be leaving Texas and returning to the relative calmness of her own corporate offices in New York. It was not that she did not like Texas; in point of fact, she had always had a penchant for that great state, seeing in its rough sprawling power something akin to her native Yorkshire. But this last trip had exhausted her. I’m getting too old for gallivanting around on planes, she thought ruefully, and then dismissed that thought as unworthy. It was dishonest and she was never dishonest with herself. It saved so much time in the long run. And, in all truthfulness, she did not feel old. Only a trifle tired on occasion and especially when she became exasperated with fools; and Harry Marriott, president of Sitex, was a fool and inherently dangerous, like all fools.
Emma opened her eyes and sat up impatiently, her mind turning again to business, for she was tireless, sleepless, obsessive when it came to her vast business enterprises, which rarely left her thoughts. She straightened her back and crossed her legs, adopting her usual posture, a posture that was contained and regal. There was an imperiousness in the way she held her head and in her general demeanour, and her green eyes were full of enormous power. She lifted one of her small, strong hands and automatically smoothed her silver hair, which did not need it, since it was as impeccable as always. As indeed she was herself, in her simple yet elegant dark grey worsted dress, its severeness softened by the milky whiteness of the matchless pearls around her neck and the fine emerald pin on her shoulder.
She glanced at her granddaughter sitting opposite, diligently making notes for the coming week’s business in New York. She looks drawn this morning, Emma thought, I push her too hard. She felt an unaccustomed twinge of guilt but impatiently shrugged it off. She’s young, she can take it, and it’s the best training she could ever have, Emma reassured herself and said, ‘Would you ask that nice young steward—John, isn’t it?—to make some coffee please, Paula. I’m badly in need of it this morning.’
The girl looked up. Although she was not beautiful in the accepted sense of that word, she was so vital she gave the impression of beauty. Her vividness of colouring contributed to this effect. Her glossy hair was an ink-black coif around her head, coming to a striking widow’s peak above a face so clear and luminous it might have been carved from pale polished marble. The rather elongated face, with its prominent cheekbones and wide brow, was alert and expressive and there was a hint of Emma’s resoluteness in her chin, bu
t her eyes were her most spectacular feature, large and intelligent and of a cornflower blue so deep they were almost violet.
She smiled at her grandmother and said, ‘Of course, Grandy. I’d like some myself.’ She left her seat, her tall slender body moving with grace. She’s so thin, Emma commented to herself, too thin for my liking. But she always has been. I suppose it’s the way she’s made. A leggy colt as a child, a racehorse now. A mixture of love and pride illuminated Emma’s stern face and her eyes were full of sudden warmth as she gazed after the girl, who was her favourite, the daughter of Emma’s favourite daughter, Daisy.
Many of Emma’s dreams and hopes were centred in Paula. Even when she had been only a little girl she had gravitated to her grandmother and had also been curiously attracted to the family business. Her biggest thrill had been to go with Emma to the office and sit with her as she worked. While she was still in her teens she had shown such an uncanny understanding of complex machinations that Emma had been truly amazed, for none of her own children had ever displayed quite the same aptitude for her business affairs. Emma had secretly been delighted, but she had watched and waited with a degree of trepidation, fearful that the youthful enthusiasm would be dissipated. But it had not waned, rather it had grown. At sixteen Paula scorned the suggestion of a finishing school in Switzerland and had gone immediately to work for her grandmother. Over the years Emma drove Paula relentlessly, more harsh and exacting with her than with any of her other employees, as she assiduously educated her in all aspects of Harte Enterprises. Paula was now twenty-three years old and she was so clever, so capable, and so much more mature than most girls of her age that Emma had recently moved her into a position of significance in the Harte organization. She had made Paula her personal assistant, much to the stupefaction and irritation of Emma’s oldest son, Kit, who worked for the Harte organization. As Emma’s right hand, Paula was privy to most of her corporate and private business and, when Emma deemed fit, she was her confidante in matters pertaining to the family, a situation Kit found intolerable.