Isla’s Affair

I think I’ve been putting this one off! Now where to start?

You might recall from an earlier post that Isla had set her heart on becoming a surrogate mother to Bernard’s motherless daughter, Sylvia. However, the unexpected arrival of Sylvia’s twin sister meant more work for Isla than she had bargained for and she was therefore hugely relieved when Bernard, Rita and the twin girls left the Stockbroker to live together in the Triang DH/D. All thoughts of motherhood were abandoned and Isla threw herself into a new hobby: collecting vintage and antique dolls’ houses.

With such an interesting and absorbing hobby to keep her busy, all might have been well had it not been for a letter that arrived one day from her good friend Sir Thomas Chutney of Chutney Towers, Greconville.

In the letter, Sir Thomas confided to Isla that his recent marriage to society belle, Marianne von Velden (now Lady Chutney) was failing. He asked her to meet him in London, saying that he craved a sympathetic ear. Isla had not forgotten the frustration she’d felt when, shortly after her own marriage to Cedric, Sir Thomas’ first wife, Lady Sadie had passed away, and how jealous she’d felt when he subsequently re-married. The lost opportunity to become Lady Isla Chutney and to live in Chutney Towers still rankled.

Lying to Cedric about the real purpose of her journey, Isla packed a bag and hightailed it to London.

There, the pair enjoyed lunch in the Gay Hussar and Sir Thomas opened up to Isla about his marriage, revealing that several months into it, he and his wife had failed to share a bed even once. Lunch was followed by a visit to The Museum of Childhood where they indulged their shared passion for vintage and antique dolls’ houses. However, apart from an intimate moment when their brollies became entwined and they almost touched heads as they fumbled to disentangle them, the day had been an innocent one and their goodbyes rather stiff and awkward. Nonetheless, Isla had travelled home with her head full of dreams of living the life of a wealthy socialite.

Sadly for Isla, her hopes were dashed when some months later she discovered that Lady Chutney had given birth to a baby girl and, believing that Sir Thomas had somehow managed to salvage his marriage, Isla fell into a pit of despair.

[In fact, Lady Chutney had been up to some extra-marital shenanigans herself and Sir Thomas was not the father of her baby. However, when Lady Chutney’s lover turned his back on her and the baby, and then the baby tragically died, she decided to make a go of her marriage. In an effort to please Sir Thomas and to show him she could mend her ways, Lady Chutney adopted twins. Sir Thomas was delighted with this turn of events and more than happy to forgive and forget the past.]

But Isla couldn’t forget and as time passed her anguish grew until one day she wrote to Sir Thomas, laying her soul bare and declaring her wish to leave Cedric and to throw her lot in with him. Since Sir Thomas had high hopes for his newly invigorated marriage, the letter came as quite a shock and he immediately hot-footed it to Grecondale, feeling that the sooner he disabused Isla of her ideas of elopement, the better his chances of saving both of their marriages.

Having believed that Cedric would be away from home, Sir Thomas arrived in Grecondale to find him very much at home and an awkward meeting between the three ensued. Sir Thomas narrowly avoided Isla confessing all to Cedric when he arrived and the penny dropped with her that he had come not to elope with her but to end their affair for good.

Put on the spot in front of Cedric, Sir Thomas quickly made up an excuse that he’d come to discuss a lucrative business opportunity. However, the tension between Sir Thomas and Isla soon became clear to Cedric who, not being born yesterday, began to see how the land lay. Perhaps feeling that he was too old and world-weary for a confrontation, Cedric politely but curtly excused himself and left Sir Thomas and Isla to sort things out one way or the other.

Isla’s deep sense of rejection and betrayal soon turned to fury and almost as quickly to revenge.

In a shocking turn of events, Isla sent Sir Chutney packing with a threat ringing in he ears: “You WILL bring Cedric in on that stock market deal and Cedric WILL make money on it. Cedric will make A GREAT DEAL of money on it. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?”

Isla has made several drunken phone calls to Chutney Towers since their meeting in Grecondale, reiterating her demands – pay up or I tell Lady Chutney everything. Sir Thomas is doing his utmost to keep up a pretence with his wife that all is rosy in the garden while trying to figure out how to deal with the situation.

Meanwhile, in Grecondale, Isla is convinced that she’s being followed by a stranger wearing a Crombie overcoat and a trilby hat but is there any connection between that and this sorry tale? We will have to wait and see…