A cheerful nurse with pink hair and a name tag that readLoumet her at reception.
‘I’m here to visit Lady Flora.’
Lou looked up, ‘Aw, that’s nice, she hasn’t had anyone call by yet today.’
No,thought Christina,they’re all too busy gloating about my downfall.
‘She’s in her room; I’ll take you there,’ said Lou.
She followed her escort down the brightly lit corridor, past fake tulips in plastic vases and framed watercolours of innocuous subjects, no doubt chosen for their blandness.
Lady Flora’s room was near the end of the corridor, beside a wide window overlooking what had once been a rose garden but now resembled a battlefield between weeds and memory. The roses themselves – those that had survived – seemed to nestle within the wilderness as if seeking shelter, their buds peering out shyly from between the coarse leaves of nettles and the broad stalks of hogweed, like Victorian ladies hiding behind their fans at a scandalous gathering. The door was open. At a small table, Flora was carefully arranging lilies in a crystal vase, her movements precise and deliberate. The flowers were expensive – someone must have sent or brought them, though Christina doubted it was Hugo or Amy.
Her heart started racing. If Flora was arranging flowers, she must be lucid.
Flora looked up, her eyes sharp as January frost. ‘Christina.’ The name dropped from her lips like something mildly distasteful. ‘Again ...’
‘Hello, Flora.’ She said, stepping into the room without invitation and closing the door behind her.
‘Hamish the darling boy sent me these flowers. But this vase isn’t tall enough for lilies.’ Flora’s voice carried its usual aristocratic drawl. She turned back to her flowers, snipping a stem with a pair of scissors, ‘how are Hamish and dear Elspeth?’
She smiled, yes, Flora was definitely lucid; she wasn’t enquiring after Christina’s wellbeing.
Christina pulled up the visitor’s chair, sitting down before Flora could gesture for her to do so. ‘Actually, I’ve come to tell you something. Something I should have told you years ago.’
Flora’s hands stilled on the flowers. ‘Oh, really, Christina. Must we go through a scene? I thought you put aside your gift for the theatrical when you married my son.’
She ignored that taunt, too. ‘I haven’t told Hamish this. Not yet. But I need to say it out loud to someone ... might as well be you.’
Flora sniffed. ‘Flattering.’
‘My father ... Robert Miller ... he was one of the bankers behind the Wexley & Co scandal. The big City fraud case in the 1990s. Your family’s money was–’
‘Stolen, yes,’ Flora said, eyes narrowing. ‘By your father. We were hardly the only ones, though we lost the most.’
Christina gasped ‘You knew?’
‘Not at first. I found out a couple of years ago.’
Christina felt the floor move. ‘But ... why didn’t you say anything?’
‘Because my son loved you. And because, frankly, I admired your gall, marrying Hamish after what your father did.’
Flora stepped away from the table, her eyes fixed on the flower arrangement. She teased out a flower, turned and waved it at Christina. ‘But don’t get me wrong. I didn’tlikeyou. Not at first. Cheap shoes. That awful haircut like you’d lost a bet. You always had an opinion. You never seemed to mind if others didn’t share it. It used to drive me mad, though I confess I was a bit envious. I had been brought up in a world where a lady’s presence shouldbe felt, neverasserted.’
Christina laughed, the sound catching in her throat. It was such a Flora thing to say – sharp, honest, and weirdly generous. ‘Well ... that’s a relief to hear,’ she said. ‘That you knew about my father. Thank you.’
Lady Flora sniffed, as if regretting giving her daughter-in-law a favourable impression, and Christina took the hint and changed the subject. ‘I have some good news.’ She gestured at the flowers, ‘The silver cup ... the one you always use for flower arrangements, technically it’s called a loving cup.’
Flora turned back to the flowers, thrusting a stem back into the vase in a slightly different place. ‘And this is your idea of good news, to give me the technical name for a piece of family silver?’
‘It was made by a very famous silversmith ... and it’s worth a small fortune.’
‘I did always suspect the cup was worth something,’ Flora went on, eyes glittering. ‘It was a protected asset. That wasn’t by accident.’
Christina sat upright. ‘You knew?’
‘Of course I knew. I may be slipping, dear, but I’m not dead. And I know what I married in Ernest. What better way to keep my eyes on it than ensuring it was always full of flowers?’
