A Mother's Love: An Exclusive Short Story Page 10

  But Phaedra’s mother plagued her thoughts. In her imagination she conjured up a woman not unlike the daughter—slim and feminine, with pretty gray eyes and flawless skin—and envied her beauty. Antoinette was not beautiful. Her father had called her “comely,” which was the closest he had ever come to a compliment. Her mother had told her she had a “sweet face” that reflected her “gentle nature.” She knew that she had unusual navy eyes and that her dark hair was thick and lustrous, but there was nothing remarkable about her features. She had been beautiful in only George’s eyes, which was really all that mattered—but perhaps she hadn’t been beautiful enough. Had Phaedra’s mother caught his attention during their courtship and taken him to bed for one fateful night? Could her beloved George have betrayed her like that?

  She must have drifted off to sleep, because when she woke up, Rosamunde was sitting on the armchair near the bed, doing her needlepoint. “I’m glad you’ve had a good rest. You look much better,” she said when Antoinette opened her eyes.

  Antoinette sighed. “Waking up is hard. For a moment I think it’s all a horrid dream. Then I realize it’s not. He’s gone, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes, Antoinette. He’s in a better place.”

  “If you believe that. I’m not sure I do.”

  “It’s a comfort.”

  “I’d like it to be true. I hope there is a heaven and that he’s there. Goodness, to think he might be with our parents. I’m not sure Daddy wholly approved of George.”

  “Only because he was suspicious of men who preferred to climb mountains rather than settle down to a proper job.”

  “George was never going to be a banker or an accountant. He was an adventurer. He adored the wild unpredictability of nature and the challenge of those terrifyingly high peaks. God knows I hated his going off all the time, and I worried about his safety when he was incommunicado for weeks at a time, but I’d have loathed him to be chained to a desk. He’d have been miserable working in an office like Joshua. Anyway, he wasn’t just a mountaineer, he was an entrepreneur. Do you remember how he imported cigars from Havana? And all those rugs from Nepal! He liked to support the communities he visited. He was such a free spirit.”

  “Daddy knew that, but he wasn’t flamboyant like George. I’m sure those things aren’t important where they are. What are you going to do about Phaedra?” Rosamunde asked, briefly halting her needlework. “Roberta’s adamant that you should contest the will.”

  Antoinette sat up. “I bet she is, even though she doesn’t know yet what’s in it.”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  “On what grounds would I contest it? If George wanted to provide for his daughter, I support him. I’m sure he was planning to introduce us, and at some point he would have told me about the will. I don’t believe he meant to keep a secret like that. He didn’t expect to die, did he?”

  Rosamunde saw the doubt in her sister’s eyes and was quick to dispel it. “Of course he would have told you,” she said firmly. “Roberta’s a greedy so-and-so.”

  “I’m going to do what I think George would have wanted and ask Phaedra to stay the weekend. If she’s a Frampton, then we must welcome her into the family. I know Margaret will be horrified, and I can’t say that doesn’t give me a little pleasure, but I want to get to know her. I have so many questions. I think we need to talk.”

  “You’re very generous, Antoinette.”

  “Well, it’s not like George had an affair with her mother during our marriage, is it? I’ve worked it out—the dates, I mean. It happened before our courtship. Just before, but certainly not during. George wouldn’t have been unfaithful, I know he wouldn’t. He just wasn’t that sort of man, and he wouldn’t have done it to me. I’m sure about that. He wouldn’t have wanted to hurt me.”

  “Of course he wouldn’t.” Rosamunde paused in her sewing.

  “I feel sorry for the poor girl. It must have been a short romance . . .” Antoinette frowned, as if the effort to convince herself of her husband’s fidelity was suddenly too much.

  “It must have been very brief and I suspect was over before she even discovered she was pregnant, which is why she never told him. She probably didn’t know where to find him, and in her heart she must have known that he didn’t care for her at all.”

  “But she did know where to find him, Rosamunde; otherwise, Phaedra would never have tracked him down.” She blanched. “Do you think they kept in touch? Do you think Phaedra’s mother and George remained in contact all these years? What if he knew he had a daughter all along and kept her secret and only now decided to come clean?”

  “Antoinette, you’re letting your imagination run away with you,” Rosamunde said in a soothing voice. “Listen, he changed his will just before he died. If he had known all along that he had a daughter, he would have included her in his will years ago. No, I think that Phaedra is telling the truth and that she came to London to find him.”

  Antoinette was at once encouraged. “Poor George. It must have been a shock to find out that he had fathered a child. I’m sure he kept her secret because he didn’t want to hurt me. His love for his family was a priority. I know his intentions were good and honorable.”

  “Oh, there’s absolutely no doubt about that,” Rosamunde agreed. “No one doubts his integrity, Antoinette.”

  “What do the boys think?” Her face crumpled with anxiety. “Do they doubt their father? I’d hate them to think badly of him . . .”

  “David and Tom want to honor his wishes, as you do. Josh . . .”

  “Well, he’ll stand by his wife, of course. There’s no doubt who wears the pants in that marriage!”

  “I do hope David finds a nice girl to settle down with,” said Rosamunde, changing the subject. “It would be nice to see the next generation of Framptons growing up here, now that David is Lord Frampton.”

  “A title that carries great sorrow.”

  “I can’t see David taking his seat in the House of Lords, can you?”

  Antoinette climbed out of bed. “David just wants a simple life. How different my children all are from one another. David so laid back, Josh so aspirational . . .”

  “He wasn’t, before he married Roberta.”

  “Be that as it may, they’re very social. Out all the time at parties; I daresay they see something of little Amber. Then there’s Tom.” Her face softened, and she smiled tenderly. “Tom, so wild and so lost.”

  “And now you have a stepdaughter,” Rosamunde added, rather enjoying the turn of events.

  Antoinette reached for her trousers and sighed. “The irony is that both George and I so wanted a daughter.”

  That evening Joshua and Roberta departed for London. Roberta planted a cold little kiss on her mother-in-law’s cheek before climbing into the front seat of the shiny black BMW 4x4 and crossly belting up. Joshua looked worn down.

  “I’ll let you know when we’re meeting,” said Antoinette, kissing her son warmly.

  “Yes, Mum, fine,” he replied, wishing the whole business of Phaedra and the will would just disappear. He knew he was going to get an earful all the way up to London.

  “I’m going to ask Phaedra to come and stay one weekend. I’d very much like you and Roberta to be here.”

  He shrugged helplessly. “I’ll do my best, Mum.”

  “I know you will. Drive carefully.” She watched him climb into the driver’s seat and start the engine with a roar. He waved solemnly and motored off into the dusk.

  “Ridiculous woman,” said David, after they had gone.

  “Ridiculous weak man,” Tom added mischievously.

  “I agree with Tom,” said Rosamunde. “I blame Josh for letting her get away with that sort of spoilt behavior.”

  “He should whip her into submission,” said Tom jovially.

  “I wouldn’t go quite that far,” Rosamunde replied with a chortle. “But I do think she’s being very mean-spirited. If Antoinette is big enough to accept Phaedra, then Roberta should just toe
the line and keep her opinions to herself. She shouldn’t forget she’s a married-in.”

  “She’s never considered herself just that, Rosamunde,” Tom reminded her.

  They settled down for supper in the kitchen, after which David would return to his house at the other side of the lake, and Tom would stay the night with his mother and leave for London in the morning. Rosamunde, being a spinster and having little to get home for besides her quartet of beagles, had set up residence with her sister for the foreseeable future. In her hometown in Dorset there was little on offer besides Bible groups, bridge nights, and the local Women’s Institute, where ladies met to sew, bake, and socialize. All to be avoided like measles, she thought resolutely. Here she felt needed and useful, two things she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  “I confess I’ve dreaded reading the will,” said Antoinette, taking out of the Aga the cottage pie that Mrs. Gunice had left for them. “I put it off. But now the funeral is over, I’m left no option but to face it.”

  “It’s very final, isn’t it,” Rosamunde agreed sympathetically. “But you’ve got nothing to be afraid of. It’s only money.”

  “I thought that if I avoided the whole thing, I could prevent it happening, somehow. I could pretend George was still here.” She put the pile of plates on top of the Aga and stood back to let everyone help themselves.

  “Are you going to ask Phaedra to join us when we read the will?” David asked, digging the spoon into the steaming potato crust. Even the mention of Phaedra’s name gave him a forbidden thrill.

  Antoinette looked at her sister. “I suppose I have to ask her, don’t I?”

  “You don’t have to,” Rosamunde replied, sitting down at the table. “But I think you should. If she’s George’s daughter, it would be correct. I suspect Mr. Beecher will insist upon it.”

  “Ah, the oleaginous Julius Beecher, keeper of all Dad’s secrets,” said Tom.

  “If I’m not mistaken, Tom, there’s only one,” said Antoinette, indulging him with a smile. Tom had always been prone to exaggeration.

  “I don’t know why Dad chose him to look after his affairs,” Tom continued. “He makes my skin crawl. Something about his greedy little eyes.”

  “Yes, but he worshipped Dad,” said David. “He’d do anything for him. If you spend your time traveling, you want to be sure that the man looking after your businesses back at home is as loyal as a dog. Beecher is that dog.”

  “He’s a good lawyer,” Antoinette defended him. “Your father trusted him with everything, and he never let him down. And don’t forget, your father was not an easy man to work for. He was so impulsive. One minute it was cigars, the next rugs, then herbal tea from Argentina, and God knows what else. Your father would get a crush on something and toss it at Julius, knowing that he’d do all the hard work while George set off to climb another peak. Most lawyers would have thrown up their hands in exasperation, but not Julius. He rose to the challenge. He was more than a lawyer: he was George’s right hand.”

  “And I suspect he rather admired George’s flamboyance,” Rosamunde added.

  “Oh, he did,” Antoinette agreed. “He thought the world of George.”

  They began to eat, acutely aware of the empty seat at the head of the table.

  “Mum, I want to go and spend some time out in Murenburg,” David began carefully. Antoinette’s face darkened as she was confronted once again with the gritty reality of her husband’s death. “I want to go to where it happened. I don’t think I can find peace until I’ve done that.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Tom suggested.

  Antoinette lowered her eyes. “I don’t think I can ever go back,” she said quietly.

  “Of course you can’t,” Rosamunde agreed. “It was never your cup of tea in the first place. George is home now. There’s absolutely no reason for you ever to return.”

  “I never wanted to be in a position to say ‘I told you so,’” Antoinette added.

  Tom noticed his mother’s shining eyes and reached across the table to touch her hand.

  “Mum, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said.

  Skiing had been one of George’s passions that Antoinette had never understood. It was one thing to ski gently down pistes, but quite another to descend parts of the mountain where even chamois dared not tread. She hadn’t grown up with the sport as he had, and she had found it hard to accept his infatuation and the risks it demanded. But George had laughed off her fears and told her that he was much more likely to die in a car on the M3 than on the mountain.

  Soon after they married he had bought a chalet in Murenburg, a small, picturesque village a couple of hours from Zurich, where he had skied all his life. He passed his enthusiasm on to his sons, who had all been accomplished skiers by the age of ten. For Antoinette, besides enjoying the process of decorating a pretty home, skiing holidays were riddled with anxiety as she remained in the valley, gazing up at the mountains and trying not to imagine the worst.

  At the end of the day they’d return with pink cheeks and sparkling eyes, wet clothes and cold noses, and Antoinette would hang everything over the radiators to dry and make them hot chocolate to drink in front of the fire. She’d listen to their stories without ever really understanding their language. It was impossible for her to appreciate the breathtaking views from the mountain peaks, where they stood alone with nature; the thin, clean air burning their lungs; and the bright snow glittering like a million diamonds, for she had little experience to draw on. They’d try to explain the thrill of hopping down narrow gullies where it was almost too tight to turn, and gliding over undulating meadows of untracked snow, but Antoinette had only ever skied on piste, and even that had terrified her.

  “I’d be happier if you went together,” she said to her sons. “Perhaps Josh will join you.”

  “Roberta won’t let him off the lead,” said Tom disdainfully. “And we’re absolutely not having her!”

  “It would be nice to ask him, just the same,” their mother insisted.

  “I have no reservations about telling him that we won’t tolerate his wife,” said David. “It’s about time he stood up to her.”

  “I don’t think she’d want to go, anyway,” interjected Rosamunde. “Doesn’t she prefer to ski in Gstaad?”

  “That’s because she can’t ski,” said Tom. “Serious skiers don’t go to Gstaad!”

  “And because Murenburg isn’t glamorous enough for her,” David added. “No designer shops or celebrities.”

  “It’s understandable that she should want to carve her own niche. Murenburg is very much Frampton territory. I don’t blame her for that,” said Antoinette, trying hard to keep the family united.

  “But Josh is a serious skier; he must be bored rigid in Gstaad,” Tom mused. Then he laughed mischievously. “But then again, he must be bored rigid being married to Roberta.” David laughed with him while Antoinette and Rosamunde tried not to look amused.

  “Shame on you, boys, you’re too much!” Rosamunde exclaimed, her mouth twitching at the corners. She caught her sister’s eye. “But really, Antoinette, we do need something to laugh about!” Antoinette’s face broke into a smile. She glanced at the head of the table and discovered that it was possible to laugh and cry at the same time.

  After dinner, David walked across the garden to his house, positioned on the other side of the large ornamental lake his father had built for floating his collection of miniature boats. It was a pretty red-brick lodge, built in the same Jacobean style as the main house. Inside, the walls were lined with bookshelves, but many books lay piled on the floor for lack of space, and magazines were strewn across the surfaces. David loved to read, especially history, and spent many evenings in front of the fire with his dog, devouring books he had ordered on Amazon.

  He opened the door, and Rufus, his golden Labrador, bounded out of the kitchen to greet him. Trevor, the farm manager, had taken him off for the day, returning him home after a long walk at six. Ruf
us loved Trevor, who had two mongrels and a garden full of chickens, but he loved David most of all, and jumped up in his excitement to see him.

  David let him out to stretch his legs, and the two of them walked briskly around the lake. The moon was bright, lighting up the water so that it shone like hematite. The air was damp and sweet with the smell of regeneration. He heard the mournful hooting of a tawny owl calling to its mate, followed by the tinny cough of a pheasant as it was awoken by Rufus and driven into the sky in alarm. David loved the mystery of the night. He looked about him, at the thick shrubs and bushes, and wondered how many eyes were quietly watching him through the darkness. He enjoyed walking through their secret world and forgetting himself.

  As he strode on, his mind wandered to Phaedra and the embarrassed look on her face when Julius had brought up the subject of his father’s will. She was clearly aware she might appear moneygrubbing and keen to show that she wasn’t. Julius, on the other hand, had no shame. As executor of the will, he was concerned only with making sure that George’s wishes were carried out. David wondered whether Phaedra would show up for the meeting—or indeed for the weekend his mother intended to invite her to stay. She had scurried out of the library like a frightened rabbit. He knew there was a good chance he’d never see her again.

  He returned home and made himself a cup of tea. Content in his routine, Rufus curled up on his blankets in the corner of David’s bedroom, closed his eyes, and fell asleep instantly. David showered then climbed into bed to read his book. But his gaze meandered, and he lost track more than once. It was no good. He was unable to concentrate. He put his book on the bedside table and turned off the light. A wave of apprehension washed over him. The world seemed so much bigger without his father in it.