Julian Fellowes - Past Imperfect

‘That lot? No chance. They do not care to make column inches. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed.’ We were nearly at our destination. There seemed to be nothing left to do but tie up the loose ends. ‘Shall I go and tell her about her son’s good fortune?’

‘Why not? Then come down here. I want to hear what she says.’

Candida was quite content to get my call this time and equally content to let me invade her for a cup of coffee that very morning. She lived in the same old Fulham-type house that so many of her tribe have come to occupy since I was young. Harry had obviously made a decent living and she had fixed the place up very attractively. She greeted me with her usual, if to me newfound, calm, good manners, and took me into a pretty, chintzy drawing room, carrying a tray of coffee things. On the table behind a sofa was a large, framed photograph of, I assume, the late Harry Stanforth. He had a bluff, chunky, smiling face, rather an ordinary one really, but that is the great and timeless miracle of love. I saluted him silently, as Candida poured cups for the pair of us. Then she looked at me. ‘Well?’ she said.

I explained about Damian’s search and my part in it. ‘I didn’t want to do it but even I could see he didn’t really have a viable alternative.’

She sipped her coffee. ‘I knew it was something. Though I’m not sure I guessed it was that. So, how do I come into it?’ Then she just sat, patiently waiting for me to continue. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t making the connection.

‘We think it’s you. We think Archie is Damian’s son.’

For a moment she said nothing but just looked puzzled. Then she gave a little snort of laughter. ‘How? I’m not an elephant.’ It was my turn to look puzzled. ‘I last slept with Damian almost two years before Archie was born.’

‘But, when we talked, you implied that you had a fling with him after the end of your affair.’

‘And so I did. In the summer of 1969. I felt rather sorry for him, the way things had finished with Serena, and when she sent out the invitations to her marriage I looked him up to see how he was coping. We met a few times after that. But then I lost touch with him. That’s why I used you to get him to Portugal a year later. I wasn’t completely sure he’d want to hear from me again, although I don’t now think I need have worried.’

‘But you slept with him on that night.’

‘What night?’

‘When Damian went mad and covered us all with fish stew. Surely you remember?’

‘Are you nuts? Of course I remember. Who could forget? But I didn’t sleep with him.’

‘He woke up in the middle of the night and you were there next to him, in his bed.’

‘And this isn’t an extract from a novel bought under the counter?’

‘You left a note in his room saying you loved him.’

This did bring her up sharp, as she concentrated. She nodded briskly. ‘I did do that. I thought he must be feeling so ghastly after what he’d put us through and I scribbled a note saying… I forget now. “I forgive you,” or something like that-’

‘“I still love you”.’

‘Was it? Anyway, that sort of thing, and I pushed it under his door before I went to bed.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t sleep with him?’

I could see she was on the edge of becoming indignant. ‘Well, I know I’ve been a bit of a slapper in my time, but I think I’d have remembered if I’d gone to bed with Damian Baxter on that ghastly evening. I cannot believe I would have forgotten any detail about that particular night.’

‘No.’ I stared at my cup. Was I back at square one? It didn’t seem possible.

My words were still running round her brain. ‘He woke up and found a woman in his bed, making love to him?’ I nodded and she threw back her head, laughing. ‘Trust Damian. Just when life couldn’t get any lower, he finds himself in the middle of a scene from a James Bond film.’ Her mirth had subsided into chuckles.

‘But it wasn’t you.’

‘I can assure I would remember if I made a habit of that sort of thing.’

And then I knew.

Lady Belton was upstairs, apparently, but she would be delighted to see me if I wouldn’t mind waiting in the Morning Room since, rather illogically to my mind, this was apparently where her ladyship always had tea. I would be delighted.

The Morning Room was one of the prettier rooms at Waverly, cosy rather than grand, but with some of their best pictures and a really beautiful, ladies’ desk by John Linnell, which I would say was currently used by Serena, since it was covered in papers and letters and invitations waiting to be answered. The nice woman from the village who had let me in was settling the tea things as Serena arrived. ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Burnish.’ She had already acquired that slightly heartless charm that is assumed by the well-bred to ensure good service, rather than because of any touching of their heart strings. In fact, I could see in her poise and her clothes and even in her smile, that Serena was well on the way to being what is still sometimes called a great lady. ‘How lovely to see you again so soon,’ she said and kissed me on both cheeks. The fact that the last time we’d met we had made love, and not just love but the most passionate love of my entire life, was somehow, in a way that I cannot exactly define, boxed up and removed to a safe distance by her manner and tone. She was warm and friendly, but I knew then it would never be repeated.

‘I can’t believe you don’t know why I’m here.’

She had poured herself some tea and now she sat, carefully smoothing the folds of her skirt as she did so. She took a sip, then looked at me and gave rather a shy smile. ‘I bet I do. Candida rang to tell me what you’d said.’ Unusually, she seemed rather embarrassed, an emotion I would not naturally attribute to her. ‘I don’t want you to think I always go around sliding into the beds of sleeping men.’

‘You told me yourself it was only with men who are in love with you.’

She nodded. ‘Thank you for remembering that.’

‘I remember everything,’ I said.

She started to talk again. It was obviously a relief finally to let it out. ‘I wasn’t sure at first, because I felt, if he were interested, he would have done something when I sent that idiotic letter. But he did nothing. Nothing at all and I know, because in those days, twenty years ago, I was still in touch with quite a few of the girls who might have written it. What’s changed?’

‘He’s dying.’

Which brought her down to earth. ‘Yes. Of course.’ She looked at the ceiling for a moment. ‘I want to explain. About that night in Estoril. I’ve felt guilty for so many years, particularly over you.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because you were the one who got it in the neck. All you’d done was ask him to a few parties, and suddenly you were labelled a crawling, social-climbing toady and Christ knows what. It must have been awful.’

‘It wasn’t great.’

‘More to the point, it wasn’t true. Most of all what he said about your feelings for me. I know that. I knew it then.’ Serena gave me a slightly secret smile, the one open acknowledgement of what we had enjoyed together, and I was rather glad of it. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing. ‘How much have you heard about what went on at my ball?’

‘Most of it, I think. But only now.’

‘Damian told me he’d used me, he wasn’t in love with me, I was better off without him, all of it. And I just stood there because I couldn’t believe the words he was saying. The music was still playing and some girl was laughing in the anteroom just beyond the door, and I remember thinking how can you be laughing when I’m in here having my life shattered? I loved him with every fibre of my being, you see. I wanted to run away with him, to be with him, to love him to the end of my days and if it meant breaking with everyone I would have done it. But when he started to talk I just froze. I suppose I was in shock, as they say now, but I don’t think we had “shock” in those days. I think you were just supposed to go for a walk and get on with it. Anyway, he stopped and he waited for me to speak. And after a bit I looked at him and said, “Well, if you really think it’s for the best.” And when I was silent he nodded and he gave a funny little bow. I’ve thought of that so often. I can picture it now. A little bow, like a waiter or some assistant at the embassy who’s been sent to make sure you change trains properly, to escort you from the Gare du Nord to the Gare d’Austerlitz or something. Then he left. And I went out on to the terrace, and after a bit I came in again and danced with you.’