The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [120]
Jess threw me a withering look.
“It’s how Madeleine sees you. Lily, too, if you’re honest.”
“I know.” She glanced back down a bleak corridor of time. “She treated my father like dirt until Robert died, then she was all over him. Do this…do that…and he did it. I remember telling him he was embarrassing us. It’s the only time he shouted at me.”
“What did he say?”
Her eyes narrowed in memory. “That he’d expect a remark like that from Madeleine, but not from me. God! Do you suppose that’s what he had to put up with—Madeleine screaming and yelling and calling him an embarrassment? Poor old Pa. He wouldn’t have known what to do. He always ran away from arguments.”
“Did he know Lily asked you to take the photograph?”
She nodded. “He put pressure on me to do it because he said it would be kind. Lily was at the farm one day and saw some of my other stuff. She asked if I’d be willing to do one of Madeleine before she left for London. She wanted a portrait shot—the sort of things studios do”—Jess injected scorn into the words—“but I said I’d only do it if I could have the sea in the background.” She lapsed into a thoughtful silence.
“And?”
Jess shrugged. “Madeleine spent most of the time scowling or simpering—all the other negatives are crap—but that one came out OK. It’s weird. I started off being halfway nice to her, but it wasn’t until I told her what I really thought of her that she turned and gave me that smile.”
“Perhaps she took it as proof that you didn’t know you were related to her. That would make her smile, wouldn’t it?” I raised inquiring eyebrows. “She was probably worried sick while you were being nice…particularly if it was out of character.”
Jess’s frown was ferocious. “Then she’s even more stupid than I thought she was. What makes her think I’d admit to having a talentless slapper for a cousin?”
I hid a smile. “So stop bellyaching. Move on. Let her go.”
“Is that what you’d do?”
“No.”
“What would you do?”
“Get her to retract every bit of slander she’d ever spread about me and my family, then tell her to go fuck herself.” I tipped my glass to her. “Personally, I can’t see it matters a damn whether you’re a Wright or a Derbyshire—to me you’re Jess, a unique individual—but if the Derbyshire name means something to you then fight for it.”
“How can I?” she asked. “The minute I admit I’m a Wright, the Derbyshires cease to exist.”
I don’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that I couldn’t identify with this view. I certainly wasn’t as sensitive towards her turmoil as I might have been, but I’ve never viewed labels as much of a guide to what’s in a package. “If you want to be pedantic, Jess, they ceased to exist when your father was born. The last surviving member was your great-grandfather, an alcoholic blackmailer who saw an opportunity to grab some land and took it. It was probably the single most effective thing a Derbyshire ever did, but I guarantee the farm would be a wasteland today if your father hadn’t come as part of the deal.”
She stared unhappily at her hands. “That’s worse than anything Madeleine’s ever said.”
“Except the Wrights are no better,” I went on. “The only one who had any get-up-and-go was the old boy who bought the house and the valley, but his successors were a useless bunch—lazy…mercenary…self-obsessed. By some fluke, probably because your grandmother’s genes were so strong, your father didn’t inherit those traits—and neither have you—but Madeleine has them in spades.”
“So? It still doesn’t make me a Derbyshire.”
“But it’s a good name, Jess. Your grandmother, father and mother were happy with it…your brother and sister, too, presumably. I don’t understand why you’re so unwilling to fight for it.”
She rubbed her head in confusion. “I am. That’s why I don’t want any of this to get out.”
“It won’t,” I said, “not if you keep it between you and Madeleine.”
Her unhappiness grew. “You mean blackmail her?”
“Why not? It worked