‘And you will paint, we’ll find a way, I promise. Everything is going to be all right.’
‘Are you sure, Katie?’
‘Yes, trust me, honey. Now try to sleep.’ She loosened his arms gently, and made him nestle down in the bed, tucking him in. She sat stroking his hair for a while, murmuring softly to him, until he began to doze. As she stood up, he suddenly roused himself, and clutched her arm, ‘Katie, what did Da mean when he said you’d told him lies about Uncle George?’
‘Shush, honey,’ Katharine whispered, ‘it’s nothing. Now go to sleep.’
‘Yes, Katie,’ he said with his usual obedience. He closed his eyes and curled up into a small ball, and Katharine slipped out.
Long after she had returned to her own room, Katharine was still wide awake, her mind filled with the hateful memory of that day when George Gregson had come to the house. It had been a Sunday. All the servants were off, except for Annie, the housekeeper, who was taking her afternoon nap. Ryan was out with Aunt Lucy, her father was playing golf, and her mother was in the hospital. She had been alone in the house, except for the sleeping woman upstairs. Katharine tried to block out the disgusting details, but they came flooding back, were relentless and distressing, and she lay, mute and shaking, covered in a cold sweat. She saw his ugly congested face. It was drawing closer to hers. She felt his hand on her small breast and the other one sliding up her dress, probing and pinching between her legs.
Katharine now experienced the same revulsion which engulfed her when George Gregson had unbuttoned his trousers and pushed her face down into his lap. She leapt out of bed and flew to the bathroom, staggering to the washbasin, filled with nausea. She leaned over it retching, and she threw up again and again, just as she had vomited on that terrible Sunday, all over George Gregson’s trousers.
Katharine had not told anyone Gregson had molested her, for she was too ashamed and embarrassed, and also curiously afraid. But when he had attempted to waylay her on several succeeding occasions, she had endeavoured to communicate some of her mounting fears to her father. She could not confide in her mother, who was far too sick. Haltingly, choosing her words carefully, Katharine had informed her father about the incident as delicately as possible. To the girl’s amazement, and immense shock and distress, her father had not believed her. He had called her a damned liar. As he had done that very afternoon in the nursery.
Katharine shuddered, wiped her face and drank a glass of water. She ran a bath, pouring in great quantities of the bubble bath her Aunt Lucy had given her. She lay in the water for a long time, and afterwards, when she had dried herself, she covered her entire body with talcum powder and cleaned her teeth three times. Only after this long ritual of cleansing was she able to return to her bed, and finally, as dawn was breaking, she fell into an exhausted sleep.
Contrary to what Katharine had expected, her father made no reference to their altercation at breakfast the next day. Nor did he bring it up in the days which followed. Slowly, things drifted back to normal, and although Ryan was not given new paints, the two children were allowed to spend their days together, and Katharine found herself breathing a little easier. But at the end of the summer vacation their father moved with efficiency and speed, and, to Katharine, with an awful finality. Ryan was packed off to a military academy on the East Coast, and she herself was enrolled as a boarder in the convent where she had previously been a day pupil. One year later Rosalie was dead and buried. Katharine was devastated by grief, and inconsolable; there were times when she so yearned and fretted for her mother that she made herself violently ill physically. It was her Aunt Lucy who eventually brought the thirteen-year-old girl a measure of peace and a semblance of security, through her understanding, compassion and love. The two drew closer together as the next few years passed, and when Katharine was sixteen it was Lucy who prevailed upon Patrick to send the girl to school in England, as Katharine wished. Patrick had readily agreed, as Katharine had known he would. She was well aware that he could not stand the sight of her, or bear her silent accusations, or face her condemning gaze.
After Katharine left the English boarding school, she had gone to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, again through Lucy’s intervention with Patrick. In all this time she had rarely heard from her father, or from Ryan. She attributed her brother’s silence to fear of reprisals from their father if he communicated with her, convinced that he was under Patrick O’Rourke’s thumb. But her Aunt Lucy was a diligent and regular correspondent, and kept her well informed about their activities, and a cheque from her father arrived promptly every month.
Katharine blinked, and straightened up on the white sofa. It was patently obvious her father was paying her to stay away from Chicago. He was glad to be rid of her. Apart from the fact that she knew too much, he was afraid of her influence over Ryan. He would not let anything, or anyone, obstruct his schemes for Ryan, schemes which she had never once been foolish enough to discount, even when she was a child. Her father fully intended to carry them through no matter what the cost, for he craved power, and he believed that Ryan was the key to the greatest power in the land, the Presidency of the United States.
Katharine’s mouth twisted contemptuously. Well, she thought grimly, I’ll show him yet. And when I’m a star and have enough money of my own to support Ryan, I’ll send him to study art in Paris, or wherever he wants to go. This thought galvanized her. She had much to accomplish before that day came, and she could not afford to waste a single moment dwelling on Patrick Michael Sean O’Rourke. The bastard. As far as she was concerned, the die had been cast years before. And she herself had been set upon a course from which she could never deviate, even if she so wished. Saving Ryan and thwarting her father had been intricately interwoven into the fabric of her destiny, had become integral threads in her excessive ambition for herself.
Katharine now picked up the breakfast tray and took it into the kitchen. Automatically, her thoughts turned to the impending screen test, upon which so much depended, and for which she had one week to prepare. She was not especially worried about her performance. What concerned her more was the material she would use. She knew exactly what this should be, but it must be adapted and written out as dialogue, and for this task she needed a professional writer. Her mind began to work with its usual avidity and an illuminating smile spread itself across her face. Why, she could surely solve that little problem over lunch. Providing she was persuasive enough.
At the other side of London, on this same lovely February morning, David Cunningham, the Earl of Langley, sat at his desk in the library of his Mayfair town house, drinking a cup of tea. The Times, and various other daily newspapers, lay unopened, since he had neither the inclination nor interest to peruse any of them. A variety of matters occupied his mind, not the least of which was the large and ominous-looking pile of bills stacked on the leather-bound blotter.
Hell, he thought, I might as well tackle these blasted things first. I certainly can’t deal with any of my other problems just now. Sighing, he began to sort through the pile, pulling out the most critical and pressing. He wrote a number of cheques, made a few calculations and returned the remainder of the bills to the drawer. Most of these were also urgent, but he felt they could safely wait until next month. They would have to wait. ‘I’m always robbing Peter to pay Paul,’ he muttered out loud. A gloomy expression dulled his fine intelligent eyes, and there was an unfamiliar droop to his mouth.
David Cunningham scrimped and scraped and economized in every conceivable way, and yet he was always beset by the most acute financial worries. Income from the estate and farming, as well as other holdings, was continually swallowed up by general overheads, maintenance of the castle and the estate and new farming equipment. He was gradually replacing the old and outdated machinery with more modern pieces, but this
