To Be the Best. Barbara Taylor Bradford
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his loving disposition compensated for so many things and endeared him to the family, and certainly he brought out the best in all of them.
An afflicted child is like a bruise on the heart, one never quite gets rid of the aching pain, Paula thought, and she sighed under her breath and held herself very still, pressing down on her sadness, continuing to watch the two dark heads bobbing around in the water. Her husband, her son. Oh how she loved them both, and with a love that was heartstopping at times.
It did her good to see how much they were enjoying their nautical games. Shane could be very gentle and tender with Patrick, or roughhouse with him, as he was doing now, and from the joyous shrieks and the whoops of delight filling the air, she knew the little boy was having the best time with the father whom he worshipped. A great rush of happiness filled her to the brim, displaced the sorrow she had felt a moment ago.
Paula lay back and closed her eyes, feeling a measure of contentment, but she lifted her lids almost immediately and sat up at the sound of Winston’s voice.
He walked into the pool area carrying a large tray of plastic tumblers, and trotting dutifully behind him was his nephew, Giles Standish, second son of his sister Sally, the Countess of Dunvale. Giles was carefully holding a large jug of lemonade with both hands.
‘Bonjour, Tante Paula. Voilà! Ici citron pressé pour toi,’ the nine-year-old Giles said, showing off his little bit of French, as he had been doing all through the summer. He was having special tutoring in the language and made a point of speaking it whenever he could, much to the irritation of the other children, who were not as fluent as he was becoming. But their constant ribbing rolled off his back; he was independent by nature, so he paid no attention and went on speaking French whenever he felt like it.
Giles put the jug down on one of the tables in the shade, and politely stood aside to make way for his uncle.
‘How delicious it looks, Giles dear,’ Paula said. ‘Just what I need, I’m getting quite parched from this heat. Did your parents get off all right?’
‘Yes, but Nice airport was jammed, wasn’t it, Uncle Winston?’ Giles said, reverting to English.
‘It was bloody awful, Paula,’ Winston asserted, pouring lemonade into a tumbler and bringing it to her. ‘Chaotic. I’ve never seen so many people. Sally and Anthony were thankful they were returning on Shane’s private jet, and I must say, that plane’s turned out to be a real godsend. I’m certainly glad Emily and I will be able to use it to get the mob back home at the end of the week. Now, Giles, do you want a glass of this?’
‘No, thank you very much.’ Giles glanced around. ‘Where are Jeremy and India, Auntie Paula?’
‘I believe your brother and sister decamped to the beach. With the rest of the troops.’
‘Oh goody! I bet they’re all fishing or looking for oursins. I’m going down there too!’ Giles squealed excitedly. ‘Please excuse me, Auntie Paula, Uncle Winston,’ and so saying he took off, leaping across the grass in great bounds, making for the long flight of steps.
Winston stared after him, and said to Paula, ‘That kid’s got the best manners of the whole bunch of them. If only some of the others – mine in particular – would borrow even half a page from his book I’d be happy.’ He lowered himself onto a nearby chair, took a long swallow of lemonade, and continued, ‘Emily told me every single one of them was raising hell earlier, driving you crazy.’
‘It did start to get a bit out of hand, actually, Winston. But Emily finally put a stop to their bickering with that wonderfully effective gong.’ She glanced at her cousin through the corner of her eye, and chuckled. ‘Trust Emily to come up with something ridiculous like that. Still, it really works and I must admit, I wish I had a handle on them the way she does.’
Winston grinned. ‘Don’t we all.’
‘I adore old-fashioned hotels, especially when they’re in the belle époque style and have a grandiose splendour,’ Emily said to Paula as they turned into the Place Casino in Monte Carlo later that afternoon. ‘You know, like the Hôtel de Paris here, the Negresco in Nice, the Ritz in Paris and the Imperial in Vienna.’
‘Not to mention the Grand in Scarborough,’ Paula said, laughing, tucking her arm through Emily’s companionably. ‘I can well recall how attached you were to that place when we were little. You never stopped pestering me to take you there for afternoon tea, and you couldn’t wait to stuff your fat little face with cucumber sandwiches and cream puffs and scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream,’ she teased, her violet eyes dancing merrily.
Emily shuddered at the remembrance and made a gruesome face. ‘My God, all those fattening things! No wonder I’ve had to work so hard to keep my weight down ever since. Too much ballast as a child, methinks!’ She grinned at Paula. ‘You shouldn’t have let me eat like that.’
‘How could I stop you! I tried very hard to keep you out of the Grand Hotel, using every kind of ruse, even pretending I didn’t have any money on me. But you always had an answer for everything, even for that … “scribble on the bill like Grandma does,” you used to tell me. You were a very enterprising child, you know.’
‘And so were you.’
They both stopped at precisely the same moment and automatically swung to face each other and they shared a smile, thinking of those lighthearted happy days when they were growing up together in Yorkshire and London. There was a brief and loving silence before Emily said, ‘We were lucky, weren’t we, Paula? We had such a wonderful childhood, and especially when we were with our Gran.’
‘Yes, it was the best,’ Paula agreed. ‘And she was the best.’
They started walking again, lost in their own thoughts as they crossed the pleasant square, heading in the direction of the Hôtel de Paris, which was situated in the far corner, opposite the renowned Casino de Monte Carlo.
It was a lovely afternoon, filled with dappled sunlight and soft white clouds scudding across the azure-blue sky, and there was a refreshing breeze blowing up from the sea; it ruffled the skirts of their summer dresses and puffed them out like tulip bells, and made the white sails on the boats in the harbour billow about and the brightly-coloured flags on the masts ripple and dance gaily.
Emily had driven them down to Monte Carlo in her powder-blue Jaguar, after a family luncheon on the terrace at the villa, and the burial of the dead bird in the garden afterwards, which everyone had attended, much to Patrick’s satisfaction.
Once they had arrived in the Principality of Monaco they had parked the car and gone to Jules et Cie, the antique shop where Emily frequently bought old porcelain, to pick up a Limoges plate Jules had repaired for her. The charming old man had chatted to them at length about antique china and glass, and had shown them his private collection of rare items, and they had browsed for a while before leaving the antiquaire’s to stroll around the main streets and window shop on their way to the famous hotel for afternoon tea.
‘It’s impossibly grand, even a bit gingerbready, but it’s irresistible, at least to me,’ Emily said, pausing on the pavement outside the Hôtel de Paris, looking up at it, beginning to laugh at herself as they climbed the front steps. Almost instantly the laughter died in her throat, and she grabbed Paula’s arm so tightly her cousin winced and followed her gaze.
Heading towards them down the steps was a tall woman with an abundance of flaming red hair and the kind of elegance that was indisputably French. She wore a white silk dress, very chic and severely tailored, with a black silk rose pinned to one shoulder, black-and-white high-heeled shoes, a matching bag, and white gloves. She carried a black straw picture hat, and she was holding the hand of a little girl of about three years, also dressed entirely in white, who had the same natural, bright red hair. The woman was bending over the child, saying something to her as they moved forward,