A Place of Hiding

Along with the Abbotts, the Duffys were present. Kevin—estate manager, groundsman, caretaker of Le Reposoir, and apparently whatever else that Guy had needed him to be at a moment’s notice—hung back from everyone and stood at a window where he made a study of the gardens below him, adhering to what was evidently his policy of never doing more than grunting at anyone. His wife Valerie sat by herself with her hands gripped together in her lap. She alternated between watching her husband, watching Ruth, and watching the lawyer unpack his briefcase. If anything, she looked utterly bewildered to be included in this ceremony. And then there was Frank. Margaret had been introduced to him after the burial. Frank Ouseley, she’d been told, longtime bachelor and Guy’s very good friend. His virtual soul mate, if the truth be told. They’d discovered a mutual passion for things relating to the war and they’d bonded over that, which was enough to make Margaret observe the man with suspicion. He was behind the whole benighted museum project, she had learned. This made him the reason that God only knew how many of Guy’s millions might well be diverted in a direction that was not her son’s. Margaret found him particularly repugnant with his ill-fitting tweeds and badly capped front teeth. He was heavy as well, which was another mark against him. Paunches spoke of gluttony which spoke of greed. And he was speaking to Adrian at the moment, Adrian who obviously didn’t have the sense to recognise an adversary when he was standing in front of him breathing the same air. If things worked out the way Margaret was beginning to fear they might work out in the next thirty minutes or so, she and her son could very well be at legal loggerheads with this dumpy man. Adrian might be wise enough to realise that, if nothing else, and to keep his distance as a result.

Margaret sighed. She observed her son and noted for the first time how much he actually resembled his father. She also noted how much he did to play down that resemblance, cropping his hair drastically so Guy’s curls weren’t visible, dressing badly, shaving close to his skin to avoid anything that remotely resembled Guy’s neatly trimmed beard. But he could do nothing about his eyes, which were so like his father’s. Bedroom eyes, they’d been called, heavy-lidded and sensual. And he could do nothing about his complexion, swarthier than the average Englishman’s. She went to him where he stood near the fireplace with his father’s friend. She linked her arm through his. “Sit with me, darling,” she said to her son. “May I steal him from you, Mr. Ouseley?”

There was no need for Frank Ouseley to respond because Ruth had closed the drawing room door, indicating that all relevant parties were present. Margaret led Adrian to a sofa that formed part of a seating group near the table on which Guy’s solicitor—a reedy-looking man called Dominic Forrest—had set out his papers.

Margaret didn’t fail to notice that everyone was attempting to look as unanticipatory as possible. This included her own son upon whom she’d had to prevail to attend this meeting at all. He sat slumped, his face expressionless and his body a declaration of how little he cared to hear what his father had intended with his money.

This made no difference to Margaret because she cared. So when Dominic Forrest put on his half-moon spectacles and cleared his throat, she was all attention. He’d made sure that Margaret knew this formal reading-of-the-will situation was extremely irregular. Far better for beneficiaries to be made aware of inheritances in a setting that allowed them the privacy to absorb the information and to ask any questions they might have without the delicacy of their situation being revealed to parties who might have no vested interest in their individual welfare. Which, Margaret knew, was legalese for how much Mr. Forrest would have preferred to be able to make arrangements to see each beneficiary separately in order to bill each one individually later. Nasty little man. Ruth perched birdlike on the edge of a Queen Anne chair not far from Valerie. Kevin Duffy remained at the window, Frank at the fireplace. Ana?s Abbott and her daughter came to sit on a love seat where the one wrung her hands and the other tried to tuck her giraffe legs somewhere where they wouldn’t seem so obtrusive.