It was conceivable that force of his violent anger might have led John Cunningham into killing the boy and girl with his bare hands. But, fortunately, the brutal punishment which he was inflicting on Lisa and Richard was interrupted by Kathleen before any serious injuries had been suffered by the children.
She came running out into the garden directly she heard their screams-a dressing gown donned hastily but concealingly around her body. After a strenuous blows from the man's wildly swinging fists, she succeeded in calming him down a little… sufficiently, at any rate, for Cunningham to stop beating the helpless, cringing young couple and lurch away towards the house; his body shaking with fury.
Kathleen managed to drive home the message that his violence would attract the attention of the neighbours, and it was this factor above all other considerations which persuaded Cunningham to desist. Whispering quickly to the children, urging them to keep out of the way while she talked to their father-and pleading with terrified eyes for them not to implicate her in the scandal which had erupted-Kathleen followed Cunningham through the French windows and into the lounge; waiting and trying to control the trembling of her knees while he poured himself several stiff brandies and gulped them back in swift succession.
He kept his back to the Governess while he drank, and when he finally turned to face the woman Cunningham's face was drained of colour-his normally ruddy complexion a pasty white. He sank heavily into an armchair. His eyes had lost their fire and seemed glazed; his voice was defeated and a mere shadow of its former deep timbre.
“Did you know about this?”
Kathleen shook her head, not trusting herself to speak just yet.
“I can't believe it!” Cunningham whispered. “They had everything! I did everything a man without a wife could do… they never wanted for a damn thing!”
Kathleen knew better than to contradict him. She hovered anxiously near the French windows, which were now closed, listening until the long tirade of his self-pitying monologue had exhausted itself. Cunningham eventually lapsed into silence, and she summoned up the courage to approach him. Tentatively, Kathleen suggested that perhaps the best-the only-solution might be to separate Lisa and Richard in the hope that their forbidden intimacy would be allowed to die a natural death.
“Please try not to be too hard on them, Mr. Cunningham,” she pleaded. “I realise what a terrible shock this discovery has been for you, but they aren't unique: oversensitive, introverted youngsters who don't form relationships outside their own family have unfortunately been mutually attracted before. History is full of-.”
“I don't give a damn about history-or your psychological explanations!” Cunningham roared furiously. “To think that children of mine could…” He broke off for a few moments, obviously close to tears. Then: “But you're right about separating them. By God!” Cunningham vowed, clenching his fists again. “I'm going to make sure that neither of them set eyes on each other again! Tell them to come in here-we're going to settle this right now!”
Nervously-more afraid now that either Lisa or Richard would expose her part in their sex-games-Kathleen pushed one of the windows open and called to the children.
There were bruises on their bodies and their mouths were bleeding where Cunningham's brutal fists had scored into the lips. But hey seemed strangely defiant, holding their heads high and looking their father in the face; although both Lisa and Richard took care to keep a distance from the seated, glowering man-and diplomatically stood well apart from each other as well. They had donned their swimsuits, and Kathleen had to turn her face from them in case she betrayed the involuntary excitement which she couldn't keep from her eyes at the sight of the half-nude bodies which her hands and her lips had known so intimately…
John Cunningham controlled himself with a visible effort. He stabbed an accusing finger at the guilty pair, his hand shaking.
“From this moment on you're strangers to me!” he thundered. “You'll be provided for, but I never want to see either of you again as long as I live! I don't want to hear explanations-there's nothing either of you can say, nothing you can do to defend yourselves! Just think yourselves damn lucky I didn't kill you out there in the garden…
“You, Richard!” The boy quailed as Cunningham turned the full force of his attention on him. “I'm sending you to a private boarding school. You'll go at the end of the week! It's something I'd been planning for you in any case, but now I can see I was foolish to hesitate.” He got up from his chair and towered over Richard, finding great difficulty in keeping his hands from striking his son again.
“They'll make a man of you there!” Cunningham pro-missed, tight-lipped and sneering. “They'll knock these filthy ideas out of your head! And when they've turned you into a healthy, red-blooded specimen-when they've beaten and disciplined you into shape-you'll be prepared for entry into Sandhurst military academy!
“Yes!” Cunningham nodded to himself with grim satisfaction. “And if you fail the entrance exams, my boy, do you know what will happen to you?” He leaned so close to Richard that his son could feel the spray of Cunningham's breath. “I'll have you committed to a mental hospital, that's what I'll do! I'll pull all the strings I can-not that it will be difficult to have you declared insane: not after your disgusting behaviour with your sister this afternoon!!”
Cunningham paused for breath. Nobody dared to speak, no one ventured to break the silence which had now fallen upon the room. The rays of the sun glinted through the French windows and then faded as a grey cloud drifted across its face; reducing the light to a pale shadow of its former glory.
“And as for you, you dirty little bitch!” Lisa flinched, her blue-gray eyes blinking rapidly as she awaited her father's decision…
“I don't know which one of you is more to blame, but both of you share the guilt-and the punishment!”
He creased his brow, apparently uncertain as yet of the most fitting retribution for Lisa's part in their “crime”. Kathleen Wynter glanced surreptitiously at the girl. Now, if ever, was the time for Lisa to reveal her participation in their sexual wrong-doing. Without doubt, John Cunningham's anger would then be deflected on Kathleen-as he would most certainly hold the Governess responsible for his children's misbehaviour, even if Lisa admitted that she and her brother were already lovers before Miss Wynter came on the scene…
But Lisa remained silent. A strange but honourable code seemed to exist between Richard and herself: and Kathleen sighed with profound relief as she momentarily met Lisa's eyes and understood that her secret was safe. The children were willing to accept all the blame themselves-and Kathleen felt the cold knife of conscience turning in her heart, a sharp stab of guilt resulting from her inability to own up and perhaps spare Lisa and Richard some measure of their father's wrath. But even if she couldn't bring herself to confess, surely there was something she could do to ease their punishment?
Beirut! The private school in the Lebanon!!
Quickly, before Cunningham could make his decision, Kathleen came forward and discreetly plucked at the man's sleeve, drawing him aside so that they could confer in one corner of the room-out of the children's hearing.
She made the proposal in a hushed voice, reminding Cunningham that, although she had perhaps been remiss in not appreciating Lisa and Richard's terrible intimacy, she would certainly be on her guard in future-and would ensure that the girl, under her chaperonage, was kept under the strictest possible guard: never let out of her sight for an instant…
Kathleen managed to look the man directly in the eyes as she spoke, putting such a burning conviction in her gaze and in her words that Cunningham eventually nodded his tentative approval.
“Mind you,” he told Kathleen gruffly. “I'll have to fly out there myself to inspect the place before I let her enroll. But on the face of it, your plan seems to be the best solution in the circumstances. And you say that you won't be returning to England for a vacation?”
“Not for at least three years,” Kathleen assured him. “And there are, of course, several other English teachers at the school who will also keep a close watch on Lisa. It's naturally a highly-respectable establishment: run mainly for the children of diplomats who are based in Beirut. There won't be any possible danger of bad influences on the girl…”
“She's already been subjected to bad influences!” Cunningham growled. “Her damned brother!” He ran a hand through his thick black hair, ruffling it and giving himself a boyish, tousled look that gave Kathleen a brief glimpse of the kind of man Cunningham might have been… if he hadn't suffered in the past and allowed himself to grow bitter and puritanical. Insanely, she thought for one fleeting second of attempting to seduce him-overcoming his hatred of sex and showing him that his intense indignation was misplaced…
The madness of such a scheme made Kathleen tremble again. She couldn't hope to undo the years of ingrained loathing for female flesh with one gesture, however tempting the notion appeared! No, her only chance now was to salvage the children's' future…
“I don't know whose fault it is really,” Cunningham was saying-more to himself than to Kathleen. “I can't blame you any more than I can blame myself for what has happened. If only they'd inherited my personality, instead of their mothers' traits! Like Phyllis and Judith, their minds are sickly; their souls are weak and inbred…”
Kathleen stopped herself as she was on the brink of blurting out that it was precisely because Lisa and Richard had inherited their father's earlier character-his amoral, inquisitive lust-that they had succumbed to the temptation of turning to each other for relief. The urges which possessed them could find no alternative outlet, thanks to the restrictions and prohibitions which their father had imposed on them. But it was both useless and stupid to tell Cunningham where his error lay: and Kathleen contented herself with the knowledge that she would at least have one of the children under her continued care-though Richard, she feared, would have to be left to the tender mercies of the private school selected for him by his father…
Within a month, the last tearful goodbyes had been exchanged. Cunningham had moved with his customary swiftness, taking an overnight flight to Beirut and thoroughly checking every detail of the school, returning to England and signing the papers which would commit Lisa to a three-year term-expressly forbidding the school's authorities to permit her to take a vacation outside the Lebanon during this period. He also stipulated that his daughter must be under constant supervision-not only in school hours, but at evenings, weekends and during the holidays.
Visas and tickets were issued in record time, and Richard's enrolment at Fernleigh Preparatory School a secluded and very expensive establishment situated deep in the heart of the Kent countryside-was arranged with equal speed. Cunningham applied himself to the operation with the single-minded thoroughness which he had used to such devastating effect in his business life; no detail was overlooked, no formality neglected…
He had expressly forbidden the children to see each other or speak even over the telephone prior to Lisa's departure. They were kept under keen surveillance, night and day, but Richard nevertheless managed to snatch a few brief moments with his step-sister on the eve of their separation-vowing to her in a voice shaky with emotion that he wouldn't be broken by the discipline of his new school; that he would find some way to be with her again… before the eternity of the three years had elapsed.
Cunningham remained at the house with Richard while Miss Wynter supervised the loading of her luggage and the packing of Lisa's pitifully few belongings into the private car which was to take them to London Airport. He refused to bid farewell to his daughter. John Cunningham confined both Richard and himself to the upper storey of the house until the girl's heartbreaking sobs had been drowned by the car engine-as it picked up speed and scrunched noisily down the driveway.
During the long, miserable week which followed, he also refused to speak another word to his son. And when the day at last arrived for Richard to set off on the journey to his boarding school (in the charge of a burly and well-briefed valet), the boy experienced a sense of relief: almost welcoming the isolation and the forthcoming atmosphere of discipline and quasi-military training. It wouldn't-it couldn't! — be worse than the terrible oppression he now felt in his father's presence…
When he was finally alone in the house, its strange emptiness and its tangible mood of guilt and perverted desire pervading every room, Cunningham knew that to save his sanity he had to obliterate from his mind all memory of the terrible sin which his children committed. Some men would have turned to alcohol. Others to drugs or suicide. But Cunningham found a safer means of erasing his pain and his crushing though largely subconscious-sense of failure.
Having placed standing orders with his bank to meet all necessary payments in respect of Lisa and Richard's education, he plunged furiously into a new phase of work: starting fresh companies, taking on more and more responsibilities, never pausing except for hastily snatched meals and irregular sleep.
And soon, by deliberately contrived effort, he succeeded in forgetting that his children were incestuously attracted-succeeded almost in forgetting that he had a son and a daughter at all. School reports were scanned quickly and given to his secretary for filing. Any other mail with a Beirut or a Fernleigh postmark was destroyed unopened..