At last, Jane looked at her host and smiled mirthlessly. ‘He’s going to resist. As you know him well, that won’t surprise you. Martin fights hard against any rearrangement of the world he has set up for himself.’
Vanda was relieved to see signs of animation in the thin white face which had until now resembled a mask. ‘That sounds like a very good summary of your husband. You may know that I am a junior partner in Abbey Vineyards. I have been trying to divest myself of that investment and take my money out of his firm. But I find that his lawyers hedged it about with so many clauses that it is proving almost impossible for me to do so.’
Again that thin smile. ‘That does not surprise me, Ms North.’
‘Vanda, please.’
‘Vanda then. Probably he took care to act in his own interests, whereas you were trusting and heedless. That would be in the early part of your relationship with him — when passion ruled, perhaps.’ There was just the faintest stress on her recall of Vanda’s own word. But if she enjoyed turning the mistress’s earlier excuse against her, it was not apparent in the taut face.
‘That is exactly what happened.’ It was quite bizarre, but in the intimate, low-ceilinged setting of this familiar room, Vanda felt a bond of sympathy extending itself between the two of them. ‘I was totally trusting of Martin. I felt I could safely put my interests in his hands. It wasn’t until later that I found everything in his life was totally subsumed in Abbey Vineyards. He had been quite ruthless in pouring my money into that and in making sure that I could never extract it.’
It was a relief to say it, to state openly what she had long since decided was the truth of the matter, but had been unable to confess to anyone else. Jane Beaumont was nodding almost eagerly, showing for the first time a little pleasure, as she recognized this account of a husband she had grown to detest. ‘That would be a fair summary of my marriage, Vanda. I was a rich woman at the outset of it. Martin used the fortune I had inherited to set up Abbey Vineyards. He also used his lawyers to make it virtually impossible for me either to extract my money or to exercise any degree of control over the enterprise which had been founded on my capital. Everything in his life revolves around the firm. Even his sex life, apparently.’
The last phrase should have been full of acid, but she said it almost sympathetically. They were sisters united by the man’s inhumanity rather than women bitterly divided by being his bedfellows. Vanda said, ‘We seem to be agreed on that. The scales have fallen from both our eyes when it is rather too late for us. But you said I could help you.’
Jane Beaumont paused to drain her cup. She was aware of her movements and her audience now, no longer the chilling automaton she had been when she first accepted a seat in this room. ‘I came to warn you that I might have to hurt you. That you might be called upon to give evidence in a messy divorce. He’s sure to contest it.’
‘You are going to cite me as a co-respondent. As evidence of his adultery.’
‘Yes. If those old-fashioned terms are still the correct ones.’
‘You can do that, if it should be necessary. I don’t think I would have to appear in court. Our affair went on for several years, so he could scarcely deny it. He was supposed to be moving in with me, finishing with you and remarrying. It all seems quite unreal now, knowing him as I do.’
Vanda glanced at the wife Martin had said he was going to leave, then refilled her cup and offered her another biscuit, as if they were friends meeting happily after a long interval. ‘I’m sorry to say that; I realize it must be hurtful. At the time, I was taking care to know nothing of you, to have no picture of you in my mind. I suppose I hoped such ignorance might mean that I was hurting you less. I realize now how cowardly that was. I was merely protecting myself.’
‘It might have been hurtful, once. A long time ago. But not now. You were in a long-term relationship, as I was supposed to be. I feel we’ve suffered similar fates. You didn’t have a piece of legal paper, as I had, but each of us was promised what she was never going to get.’ Jane took another bite of biscuit, realized for the first time that she was enjoying the taste. She could not remember whether she had eaten today before coming here. ‘It might not be necessary to involve you at all. No doubt there are other and more passing fancies of Martin’s we could cite.’
‘There certainly are. I could provide you with chapter and verse on some of them, if you would like it. It mattered to me at the time, though I don’t give a damn whom he beds now.’ Vanda could scarcely believe it, but the mistress and the wife he had cheated were working now as partners against a common enemy. ‘He won’t make divorce easy, if he doesn’t want it.’
Jane smiled ruefully, but this time with a small, companionable humour. ‘I’m well aware of that. He wouldn’t mind losing me, but he can’t afford a divorce. As things stand, it’s very difficult for me to take anything out of Abbey Vineyards because of the way I passed everything over to him to invest, but any divorce settlement would surely give me rights I don’t have at the moment. He might even be forced to sell the firm to pay me out.’
‘I’m sure he would. And that might also mean that I could retrieve my investment and end the partnership. Look, let me have your telephone number and give me three or four days. I’m pretty sure I can get you quite recent evidence on some of his women. Martin’s always been a goat — more fool us for not seeing that when we got involved with him, I suppose. That’s not going to change. It’s almost his only weakness.’ Vanda thought for a moment, then spoke almost to herself. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if he’s had a go at Sarah Vaughan — I doubt whether he’d be able to resist it. Sorry, you don’t know Sarah. She’s a pretty woman in her early thirties who’s one of the bright sparks at the vineyard. I’d be surprised if Martin hasn’t tried to seduce her. I’m sorry, this must be distressing for you.’
‘It isn’t. Our marriage was over a long time ago. Getting Martin to acknowledge that is the only thing that concerns me now.’ Jane sipped her second cup of tea, set it carefully down in the saucer and stared at it for a long time. ‘There’s something you ought to know. I didn’t expect to be telling you this, but if we’re going to work together, you’ve a right to know it.’
Vanda wanted to reach across the low table and take the other woman’s hand, to establish some sort of physical contact which would assure Jane of her support. But she knew that it was much too early for that, that this most unexpected liaison must be allowed time to develop. She said very quietly, ‘Are you sure you want to tell me this now? I’m sure we shall be seeing each other again. Maybe the time-’
‘No, I must tell you now. You have a right to know, if you’re going to help me. I have a bipolar disorder. It’s relatively mild, the doctors tell me. Most of the time I control it with drugs; occasionally I need treatment in a specialist unit for a few days. At present it isn’t a problem, but you need to know that I have the condition, because Martin will use it. He fights dirty when he’s under pressure; I suspect you already know that. If his back is against the wall, he’ll make out in court that I’m a raving lunatic, or at best a highly disordered personality, whose evidence is totally unreliable.’
Vanda didn’t want to admit that when her own judgement had been undermined by the excitement of sex, Martin had hinted something of the sort to her. She had accepted these vague hints of a wife like Mr Rochester’s in Jane Eyre, probably because at the time it was what she wanted to hear. She said, ‘He’ll have two of us to contend with, if it comes to anything like that. We’ll get our own medical evidence in, if we should need it.’
Jane Beaumont had been planning ahead, even to the extent of deciding upon the medical specialist she would call. But it gave her immense confidence to hear this sturdy woman of the world declaring her allegiance. Almost thirty years of marriage to Martin as well as her bipolar problems had ensured that she rarely felt confident. To have not only her resistance but her tactics endorsed by such a robust ally was more heartening for Jane than she could begin to express.