Camellia

But it hadn't taken long before everyone, even Sophie, realised what a valuable employee Mel had really been. Oaklands simply didn't run so smoothly without her, however hard Joan Downes tried to cope with the extra workload. That quiet, unruffled way Mel had of working disguised how many different jobs she'd taken onto her shoulders. She was the one who silently filled in where necessary, darting from helping to prepare guests' rooms, to providing an extra pair of hands in the kitchen, making a few sandwiches and a pot of tea for a new arrival, or doing stock checks in the bar. No one had ever noticed that she saw to the flower arrangements, until they saw them wilting once she had gone. Nor had they observed before that the cutlery gleamed because she polished it. And now smears remained on mirrors and windows, with everyone insisting it wasn't their job.

  Nick's anger hadn't eased the nagging sorrow inside him, or his fear about what his father would say when he found out. He could see that Sophie's waspish remarks about Mel had divided the staff into two groups: Antoine and Mrs Downes stoutly refused to believe she was guilty of any wrong doing; but Sally and the other part-time staff were delighting in scandalous tittle-tattle.

  Magnus looked up at his son and saw anger burning in his eyes. 'She told you didn't she? And you threw her out?'

  'Yes,' Nick admitted. He was very glad his father's mind was still so sharp, but his expression made Nick feel like a louse. 'And if you weren't so damned ill I might hit you. How could you have let something like this happen? Never mind about your children's feelings. It's an insult to Mum.'

  Magnus turned his head away. It was the first time he could recall being afraid to meet another man's eyes. Only a few years earlier he had lectured Nick about treating women with sensitivity and respect; now he would have to admit his own failings in that department.

  'I'm so sorry you're hurt,' Magnus whispered. 'It was all such a long time ago. If I hadn't had the stroke I would've sat down and explained it all to you.'

  'So it's true then?' Nick's voice rose an octave. He'd hung onto the slim hope that Mel had been lying.

  'I wish for your sake I could deny it,' Magnus said. It was an effort to talk but he knew he must. 'But I can't, Nick. I did have a child by another woman, and although I'm not proud of myself for being unfaithful to your mother, I can't say I'm ashamed to find Mel is that daughter. But you must believe one thing. She didn't come to Oaklands to make mischief. She just wanted to get to know me. If I hadn't forced her hand she would've left without saying a word. I know now why she wanted to leave: she'd fallen in love with you and it was tearing her apart.'

  Nick's mouth fell open in shock. All this week he'd seen himself and his father as the victims, and Mel as a parasite who had preyed on them both. Now for the first time it dawned on him that she was as much hurt as himself.

  Magnus closed his eyes again with weariness. He had to find the strength to tell his son how it was, even if by doing so he alienated Nick even further.

  That afternoon after his talk with Mel, he had sat down at his desk intending to write down all his thoughts to try and clarify his feelings. He wasn't sure then if it was wiser to let Mel go and start a new life elsewhere, or to admit the truth to all three of his other children.

  But that strange fuzzy sensation had come suddenly. He remembered going into the bathroom thinking he would take a mild sedative and lie down.

  He was confused for some time after he came round. The events before he went to hospital were cloudy then, much like a half-remembered dream. But slowly as the days passed memories began to come back to him and with them the sense that things weren't quite right back at Oaklands. The card on the huge bouquet of flowers from the staff hadn't been signed by Mel, and it was odd that she hadn't come to see him, if only for a minute or two. Sophie and Stephen seemed unusually pleased with themselves and their insistence that everything was fine back at the hotel seemed too pat, when they were normally full of complaints. But Nick was the oddest of all: he was too damn hearty, as he'd always been when something was troubling him, and he hadn't referred to Mel once.

  'Tell me exactly what happened?' he asked. He felt nauseous, knowing Mel would never have blurted out something so damaging until she was cornered. 'Were all of you involved?'

  'No. Just me. It happened before Sophie and Stephen arrived and I haven't said anything to them.' Nick's lips quivered. 'Mel was gone before they came, they just think she ran out on us. But I don't want to tell you how it happened. Let's just say we had a row and in the heat of the moment it came out.'

  Magnus winced. He could imagine the scenario. His fingers stole across the sheet to Nick's hand still clenched into a fist as he leant down over the bed. He wasn't a man given to tears, but even so he felt them welling up in his eyes. How cruel fate could be! One little seed carelessly sown years ago now threatened his son's happiness, and his own. 'Will you believe me when I say I'd have done anything to save you this pain?'

  Nick looked at the big hand fondling his fist and felt his anger fading. His father was almost a legend in his own time. He'd bought a ruin of a house in acres of overgrown wilderness, and worked eighteen hours a day alongside his labourers restoring it. So many people had expected him to fail, but failure wasn't a word in Magnus Osbourne's vocabulary. Many of the young nurses here in this hospital had smilingly told him how their mothers had spoken of the big, handsome man who took Bath by storm all those years ago with his daring. Back at the hotel old friends spoke of his courage and his honour. But none of them had Magnus's full measure.

  Magnus was the yardstick Nick measured all other men by, and found most of them wanting. His sensitivity, humour, passion, commitment and imagination were all still there, masked by white hair and wrinkled skin. Once he could have leapt over any obstacle, turned foes to friends by the sheer force of his personality. Now death was the only challenge awaiting him. How could Nick let him go to that without at least trying to understand?

  'Tell me about Mel's mother?' Nick pulled up a chair and sat down, taking his father's hand in his. Nothing could take away the dejection he felt inside, but the truth might just make some sense of it. 'From the beginning.'

  Magnus shut his eyes for a moment. He could see Bonny's face dancing in front of him, her golden hair, peachy skin and those vivid turquoise eyes. It was strange how even after so many years he could recall every last detail about her.

  'It was in Oxford in 1947,' he said haltingly, hating the sound of his slurred speech. 'I was with my old RAF mate, Basil.'

  He told Nick the story in much the same way he'd told Mel, but from a masculine viewpoint. Two old chums out on the town, hanging onto their evening together out of sentimentality because they both sensed it would be years before they saw each other again. The two dancers who'd captivated them, a few laughs and dances, a few more drinks. Taking the girls home to their digs.

  'Bonny suggested meeting me for lunch the next day. I can't explain why I went, I knew it was folly.'

  'I understand all that,' Nick said quietly. 'What I don't understand is why if you loved Mum you didn't break it off.'

  'I think if you'd seen Bonny you would've understood that. I knew I was being a fool,' he whispered to Nick, tears trickling down his lined cheeks. 'I was over forty, she was just seventeen. I loved your mother and I never wanted to leave her, but Bonny was like a drug I couldn't resist.'

  'Did she love you?' Nick asked. He didn't know why this was important to him – perhaps because he didn't want to believe his father had been a complete fool.

  'That was part of it I suppose. I could never be entirely sure. She was devil and angel all rolled into one. She took me to heights I'd never reached before and depths of misery too. I worked like crazy at that time to try and get her out of my system, but that didn't work either. I finally made the break from her when your mother was expecting you. It was only then that I realised Bonny really did love me, in as far as she was capable of true love anyway.'

  He moved on then to explain as he had to Mel about her conception and
how over four years later Bonny had claimed that Magnus was her child's father. Finally he described the financial arrangement he'd made after John Norton died.

  'But how can you say just by looking at blood tests that she was your child?' Nick said indignantly, tossing back a lock of hair from his flushed face. 'You must know as well as I do that one blood group might rule out John Norton being the father, but it's not proof that you were! There could've been other men she went with. Mel doesn't look a bit like you.'

  'Since I've been lying here I've thought about that a great deal. There is a strong family resemblance,' Magnus said slowly. 'When Sophie lets her hair down it's just like Mel's. My mother had dark hair and almond eyes – if you go home and look in the old photograph album you'll see it for yourself. Your cheek bones too, Nick, they are just like Mel's.'

  Nick was trying to find some argument against this. He still couldn't believe it but he could picture Sophie in her early twenties, her dark hair long, straight and gleaming. Before she took to wearing such matronly unflattering clothes her figure had been curvy too, just like Mel's.

  Nick broke down then. He put his head on the pillow beside his father, holding the older man tightly, and cried.

  In the past year he'd thought of little else but Mel. There had been many women in his life, but never one who had captivated him so completely. It wasn't just her looks, even though those dark eyes haunted his dreams. It was her character he loved most. She really cared about people, and she was always willing to help anyone. Yet she wasn't a goody-goody: there was a wicked glint in her eyes sometimes, she enjoyed a good argument and her sense of humour was earthy. She could put a man down with a brisk one-liner that cut right to the core, and just now and again her mimicry of people could be a little too incisive. More than anything he missed the friend she'd become. Oaklands felt empty without her.

  'What do I do now?' he whispered. His father's honesty had killed his anger, but now he felt deeply ashamed. 'For a whole year I've wanted her. I never felt quite like this about any other woman. I feel so dirty now.'

  'You haven't done anything wrong.' Magnus stroked his son's hair, tears rolling down his cheeks. 'I'd like to believe that now you know she might be your sister, the side of you that desired her will just cut out.'

  'Maybe it will. But I've got to find her,' Nick whispered, his voice croaky with emotion. 1 can't bear to think of her out there somewhere alone, after the things I said to her.'

  Magnus felt that Ruth's spirit had suddenly entered the room. Nick had been a difficult teenager, often seeming to care so little about others that Magnus felt he had none of his mother's genes. But this burst of compassion proved Ruth was alive inside him.

  'That could prove difficult,' Magnus said softly. 'In the two years she's worked for me she rarely talked about her past. I wouldn't have a clue where to start looking. She's proud too. I think she's probably hidden herself away somewhere we'll never find her.'

  "Then you've got to tell me absolutely everything you do know about her. Any friends she mentioned, even in passing. There's bound to be someone or somewhere which was special to her. People go back when they are hurting.'

  Magnus put one hand on Nick's cheek and smoothed it, the way he had when he was a small child. He could see Ruth in the boy's face, her quiet determination and surprising inner strength. 'Is that wise?' he said softly. 'Mel didn't talk about her past partly because it was too painful. Ask yourself whether it's going to hurt you still more before you dig into it.'

  'I've got to,' Nick buried his face in his father's chest. 'Not only for me, but for you too. I know how much she means to you.'

  Magnus lapsed into thought. He hated to think of Mel out there somewhere, with no one to turn to. But despite his concern and affection for her, his first priority had to be for his son's wellbeing. Nick had never discussed why his career had taken such a nose dive four years earlier, or what happened to the vast amount of money he'd earned then, or why sweet little Belinda walked out on him. Magnus had his suspicions, but he hadn't liked to look too closely.

  It was possible that without some sort of rudder in his life Nick might drift back into his old ways again. The question was whether looking for Mel would be that rudder? Or whether Nick would dissipate the energy he should be putting into his work in a fruitless and perhaps heart-breaking search?

  'Did she take the Morris Minor?' he asked.

  Nick shook his head. 'She went off with only one small bag. The rest of her stuff is still up in her room. Perhaps she'll send word where we should send it on,' he added hopefully.

  Magnus shook his head.

  'I doubt that son,' he said sadly. 'She's not the materialistic type. My guess is that she's taken all the blame on her own shoulders and decided to close the door for good, hoping it will make things better for us. But when I get home we'll look in her room. Maybe we'll find something to give us a clue.'

  'Sophie wants to clean it all out,' Nick sighed. 'What are we going to tell her and Stephen?'

  Magnus was too tired to make any momentous decisions yet. 'Nothing for now,' he said wearily. 'Tell Sophie and Mrs Downes that Mel's room is to be left locked and untouched until I come home. We'll decide what should be done then.'

  After Nick had left, Magnus found himself crying and thinking back to the day when Nick was born. He had taken that wizened little scrap into his arms and made a silent vow that he would be the perfect husband and father. Perhaps it was partly because when Sophie and Stephen had been small he'd always been tied up with work, and then the war had come along and prevented him from spending as much time with both them and Ruth as they needed. But mostly his vow was tied up with guilt about his affair with Bonny.

  Yet only eighteen months later he forgot that vow when he had one more fling with Bonny.

  Now over decades later he was being made to pay dearly for that two hours of lust. Nick was badly hurt, Mel was out there somewhere all alone, and he was trapped in here, unable to help either of them.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nick did not get an opportunity to search Mel's old room thoroughly until two months after Magnus's stroke. He couldn't do it in the first couple of weeks, not without arousing Sophie's suspicions, then just as Magnus improved enough for her to go back to her home in Yorkshire, Nick was offered a part in a play in Leeds, and had to leave Oaklands himself.

  There had been no word from Mel, not even a request for the rest of her clothes to be sent on. Nick knew the staff joked amongst themselves about her room being 'Bluebeard's room' because it remained locked. But Mrs Downes who still retained her affection for Mel, despite all the rumours and speculation, had stoutly stuck by her employer's instructions. If she wondered why Magnus didn't want the room emptied and made ready for a new member of staff, she made no comment.

  But now Magnus had been discharged from hospital and Nick had come home to help. Christmas was only two weeks away and both the hotel and restaurant were fully booked. With Magnus still very frail and unable to walk, and the staff already overstretched, Nick was needed here. Today however, he was determined to find some clues as to where Mel had gone.

  Nick opened the wardrobe first, and a faint waft of her familiar perfume took him by surprise. Instinctively he reached for the red crepe dress she had been wearing the first night they met in the bar. His fingers closed around the soft fabric and he drew it to his cheek, as a child would hold a comforter.

  'I'm so sorry, Mel,' he murmured. 'I didn't mean those cruel things I said to you.'

  Nick had been in here twice since she left. The first time he'd been alone, just checking to see what she'd done with her other things when he saw her rushing up the drive with only one bag. The second time had been when he caught Sophie snooping a day or two later. She had been taken aback by the neatness of the room. Of course his suspicious-minded sister had insisted this was because Mel was an accomplished confidence trickster, who knew how to cover her tracks. But then Sophie believed the worst of almost everyone. br />
  Nick was an untidy person himself, whose clothes stayed where he dropped them, but he found Mel's orderliness appealing. Her dresses were hung on padded hangers, their zippers and buttons fastened, her shoes beneath in a row. There were surprisingly few clothes: five dresses in all, two suits, a few odd skirts, blouses and the plain black dress she wore for waiting at tables. He flicked through them all, checking pockets, but aside from a spare button in one, he found nothing. They were all recent 70s fashions: no old miniskirt, kaftan or fringed suede waistcoat from the 60s kept for sentimentality. Every woman he'd ever known had kept something from the past. But the day Mel became Amelia Corbett she seemed to have renounced everything that had gone before.

  He moved on then to the chest of drawers and ran his hands over the contents. Everything was folded neatly: white pretty underwear from chain stores, not the kind of decadent frippery Sophie must have expected. Only the bottom drawer revealed a slightly different image: a white feather boa in a cotton bag, a minuscule spotted bikini, ragged denim shorts and a brilliant turquoise and pink sarong.

  The drawer in the dressing table held nothing of interest: a few cosmetics, some odd pieces of cheap costume jewellery and coloured hair slides. He found a bundle of letters and sat down on the bed to read them, but was once again disappointed. They were all addressed to her here at Oaklands, from old members of staff, mostly students who'd helped out in the summer holidays. They were typical student letters, full of talk of parties, being behind with studies, the kind written in a nostalgic moment to someone they liked, but without the bond of lasting friendship. As each came from a hall of residence, and none had invited Mel there to see them, it was doubtful that she had made tracks to any of them.

  When he found her post office book tucked under a drawer lining, he gasped in astonishment. She had a balance of over six hundred pounds. He looked at the entries: ten pounds paid in almost every week since she started work here. The only time she'd withdrawn any was the previous Christmas, presumably to buy presents. It made him feel more uneasy to think she was out there somewhere without even her savings to fall back on.