Scandals

‘It’s lovely to be here, Granny.’ Katie hugged Amber, firmly ignoring her stepcousin’s teasing.

Amber hugged her granddaughter back, their contact making her aware of the physical differences between youth and age. Whereas her own thinness represented a withering away, Katie’s slenderness was due to an abundance of youthful energy. Katie’s flesh felt firm against strong young bones, whereas Amber’s now hung slack and soft against bones that were thin and fragile. Katie even smelled of youth and freshness, Amber thought fondly.

‘It’s lovely to have you here,’ she responded. It didn’t do to have favourites amongst one’s grandchildren but Katie had an extra special place in her heart, perhaps because she shared Amber’s own passionate love for the history of the family silk business.

Katie was dressed in what Amber assumed was the current uniform of youth: black tights encasing her long slender legs, a short skirt, a skinny-looking jacket, which looked like something a seaman might wear, and thick, heavy-looking boots. Gold hoop earrings swung from her ears – Amber well remembered the fuss there had been when Katie had gone behind her mother’s back to have her ears pierced after being told she must not – her long thick nut-brown hair swinging on her shoulders.

Katie released her grandmother to turn and eye the bare branches of the Christmas tree.

‘It’s no use you looking at it like that,’ Emma reproved her sister, coming over to join them. ‘We can’t start decorating it until Robert comes back with Olivia. It wouldn’t be fair.’

It was typical of her sister to claim the moral high ground, Katie thought. ‘I wasn’t going to, Emma. I was just telling Harry that it’s my turn to put the fairy on the top.’

‘We can’t start but we can get organised for when Robert and Olivia get here,’ Harry pointed out. ‘We’ll need a couple of pairs of tall stepladders. Where did you put them after you’d put those curtains back up for Granny?’ he asked his younger brother.

‘Outside in the garage.’

‘Right, we’d better go and fetch them.’

‘Let’s go and sit down in the drawing room and you can both bring me up to date with all your news,’ Amber suggested to her granddaughters.

The kitchen at Denham was a big comfortable room with a table in the middle large enough to seat a dozen people, but with the six female members of the second generation of Jay and Amber’s family gathered round, all talking at once, it wasn’t just the soup simmering on the Aga that was giving off heat and filling the space.

‘Janey, you’ve done enough. Do let me help. I know you, you’ll have been working flat out for weeks getting ready for this,’ Rose pressed.

Although there was no blood relationship between them, Rose had grown up with Ella and Janey, gone to St Martins with them, lived and worked in London with them, and the two of them were the closest she had to siblings.

‘No, honestly, Rose, I’m fine. It’s only soup, after all. I would appreciate a hand, though, when we take the tea into the drawing room, and if you wouldn’t mind buttering the scones…?’ The two of them fell easily into the kind of efficient domestic routine that came from years of living together.‘…It makes it easier for Amber and Dad. They’re in those boxes, and the butter’s our own. John and Dad have been experimenting. John wants to open a farm shop at Fitton. I’ve brought a trolley from Fitton Hall so that we’ll have two. We won’t take it in, though, until Robert and Olivia get here.’ Rose made her way to the worktop and opened the first of the Tupperware boxes, whilst Janey looked at her a little enviously. Rose always looked so…so contained and calm. Even the way she dressed reflected that. In fact, everyone looked better than she did, Janey thought glumly: Emerald in her Chanel; Polly in what Janey suspected must be Armani; Ella, her own sister, in something that was chic and obviously Fifth Avenue, and even Cathy, who wasn’t in the least bit interested in fashion, was wearing a pretty dress. No one looking at them now would ever guess that she had been the one who had been passionate about clothes and design when she’d been young. Unlike the others, Janey recognised, she’d put on weight, but there was no point feeling sorry for herself or hard done by because her life meant that she simply never had either the time or the money to spend on herself. Maintaining Fitton Hall was like having an ever-open extra mouth to feed, which gobbled up money and always needed more. Fitton, it could be said, was the cuckoo in the nest of her marriage.

Janey knew that it hurt her husband, John’s, pride that her father paid him to manage their estate along with Fitton’s land, but without that money they could never have managed, despite all they tried to do to bring in extra income.

Her father and stepmother were both generous and tactful, discreetly paying both boys’ school fees, helping them through college and Sandhurst, and providing them each with a small allowance. They should be grateful to them, and she was, which was why she tried her hardest to repay their generosity by making sure that she was always on hand to help and keep an eye on them. John, though, sometimes chaffed resentfully against their need for what he called ‘charity’.

Things wouldn’t be so bad if John’s father hadn’t provided quite so generously in his will for his second wife. It irked John that, despite the fact that she was drawing such a generous annual income from Fitton, his stepmother still expected John to pay for the upkeep of the Dower House.

Janey tried not to feel too sharply aware of the difference between them as she looked from her own work-reddened hands and short unpolished nails to Rose’s discreet manicure. Rose was so fastidiously controlled in everything she did that she probably wouldn’t get so much as a smear of butter on the black dress she was wearing, whilst if she had been wearing it, no doubt it would already be covered in greasy smears…

Janey made a big effort to gather herself, to raise her game. She was just feeling down because Cassandra was being so very difficult at the moment, she told herself. It was hard to remember sometimes that Cassandra had been such close friends, not just with her own mother, but also with John’s mother, when Cassandra was constantly complaining and making life so unpleasant for poor John.

Goodness, but Janey was letting herself go, Emerald thought critically, glancing at her stepsister, before looking round the kitchen for her younger twin sisters and then heading determinedly in their direction.

‘Whilst you’re both here,’ she began without preamble, ‘there’s something I wanted to discuss with you about Walton Street.’

‘Emerald, it’s Christmas,’ Polly protested, ‘and I haven’t seen Cathy for over six months.’ ‘This is important. London’s booming, thanks to the banking industry. There’s been a big influx of Americans buying up property. Robert’s inundated with commissions from them, but Walton Street hasn’t seen a corresponding increase in sales—’

‘That’s because everyone wants polished cotton for their curtains, preferably from Tricia Guild,’ Cathy interrupted her.

‘I know that, Cathy. What I’ve been thinking is that we should try and get into the American interior design market, with Ella’s help, make a move away from the private homes market over here and think instead about targeting the corporate market. We should expand into commercial soft furnishing, specifically hotels. There’s a huge demand for top-quality hotel accommodation at the moment, and that’s going to increase. If we can get in on the ground floor of that kind of development it would give us a huge advantage. I was at a cocktail party the other week and one of the other guests was complaining that he simply can’t find anyone of the right calibre to oversee the soft furnishings side of a new hotel he’s building.’

‘Well, it’s certainly worth thinking about,’ Cathy agreed. ‘But we’d need larger premises, and more staff. And you’ll have to sweet-talk Rose into agreeing. She’s the one who co-ordinates the interior designs, after all.’

They all looked across the kitchen to where Rose was buttering scones.

‘What are you three up to?’ Ella’s amused voice broke into their conversation.

Of all of them, Ella was the one who had changed the most, Emerald reflected, turning from a plump, anxious and defensive young woman, who never bothered much with her appearance, into the elegant soignée New Yorker she was now. In fact, it was almost as though, with regard to their appearance, Ella and Janey had changed places so that now it was Ella who dressed fashionably and Janey who didn’t. But then, Emerald acknowledged, it would be next to impossible to live in New York and be married to a man like Oliver, who had once made his living photographing beautiful women and clothes, and not be affected.

She eyed Ella’s effortlessly elegant draped cream jersey top and skirt with a definite twinge of lust.

‘It’s Donna Karan,’ Ella answered her unspoken question, looking amused, her English accented with a faint American drawl that was as sensual as her clothes. ‘Perfect for travelling as it doesn’t crease. Olivia bought the darlingest pieces from her leisurewear collection when we went out shopping together.’

Although she was speaking to Emerald, Ella’s real attention was on her sister. Janey worked so hard, Fitton Hall was a demanding mistress, and she certainly wouldn’t have wanted to share her husband with it. They’d flown over first class and she’d taken advantage of the extra luggage allowance to fill a large case with clothes for her sister. In New York, heading up a charity meant attending a constant succession of society events and maintaining a high profile, and that meant a constantly renewed wardrobe. She’d have to wait until she could catch Janey on her own, so that she could do things discreetly. Janey had her pride, after all, and no one was more prickly about this than John. ‘We were just talking about the business,’ Emerald told her. ‘We really need to get a foothold in the American interior design market.’

Emerald had always had a good head for business, Ella acknowledged.

‘If we go ahead, with profits being so low at the moment it will mean us not taking anything out of the business this year, especially if we do expand,’ Polly pointed out.

‘Well, that’s all right, isn’t it?’ Emerald shrugged impatiently.

‘For us, yes,’ Cathy agreed, ‘but it might not suit Janey’

Amber had made the business over to all of them in equal shares shortly after Jay’s heart attack, and although neither Ella nor Janey worked in the business, their share was the same as everyone else’s – a mutual decision from everyone concerned.

‘I can sort something out about that,’ Ella said quietly. ‘And I’ll speak to Rose,’ Emerald told them.

‘Right that’s the scones done,’ Rose told Janey. ‘What’s next?’

‘There’s some cream for those who want it, and some homemade jam. I don’t want to overface everyone now, otherwise no one will want any supper, which I thought we’d make help yourself this evening.’

‘Good idea.’

‘Heavens, who on earth is going to eat all these scones?’ Emerald demanded.

‘The children,’ Janey and Rose said together, both laughing.

‘Speaking of children, I take it, Rose, that Nick and Sarah have gone up to Scotland?’ Rose’s heart sank a little. She didn’t really want to discuss the failure of Nick’s marriage but she didn’t have much option.

‘Sarah has, but Nick’s gone to the Bahamas. Things haven’t been very good between them for a while and they’ve decided to separate for a while to give one another some breathing space. Sarah’s father never approved of her marrying Nick and I suspect that she feels torn between the two of them.’

‘Oh, well, he wouldn’t. Sarah’s mother came out the same season as me, and I remember him from then. Aunt Beth was touting him as one of the debs’ delights but there was nothing remotely delightful about him. He was frightfully dour, as they say in Scotland, with red hair and dreadful skin. And he was a terrible snob, always going on about his title.’ Emerald pulled a face. ‘I was astonished that Sarah actually defied him to marry Nick in the first place…Rose, there’s something I want to discuss with you about the Walton Street business.’

Rose nodded. ‘And there’s something else we should all discuss whilst we’re here, perhaps.’

‘What’s that? Ella queried.

‘Well, it will be Amber’s eightieth birthday next November. I know that’s nearly a full year away, but since we’re all together it seems a pity not to take the opportunity to discuss how we might celebrate the event.’

‘Well, of course we shall have a family party,’ Emerald agreed. ‘Drogo and I could host it.’