In Vino Veritas by J. M. Gregson Page A

of that period, she realized that he had invested the whole of her inheritance in a new and exciting project he decided should be called Abbey Vineyards. It was done not without Jane’s knowledge but without her real awareness. Martin assured her repeatedly in the long years which followed that this was no one’s fault but her own. Because she had been completely trusting or, as her husband put it, had shown no real interest, Martin had walled in her participation in his enterprise with all sorts of restrictive clauses from his lawyer. The implication throughout the documents was that the capital which fed the firm had been provided by the man who drove and controlled it.
    All this was of no matter, Martin assured Jane. They had agreed marriage for better or for worse, hadn’t they? What was his was hers, and vice versa, of course. That meant that when it emerged when she was thirty that Jane was suffering from bipolar disorder, there was no question of her long-suffering husband choosing to renounce the burden. If she had to be treated in specialist hospitals rather than at home during the periodic attacks which were part of her disorder, that was unavoidable and only showed his concern to do everything possible to alleviate her suffering.
    The suggestions from Jane’s few remaining friends that Martin had provoked and exacerbated this disturbing condition in his wife were both mischievous and ill-conceived. Surely anyone with even rudimentary medical knowledge knew that the condition was genetic? It had been there from birth, Martin reasoned, but had probably been disguised in childhood and adolescence by the obsessively sheltered upbringing which the then Jane Montague’s parents had visited upon their only daughter.
    Martin took his sexual pleasures elsewhere, of course. Some of his male acquaintances nodded their heads and said that was surely to be expected. The man was behaving like a saint in refusing to renounce his unfortunate wife, and there were bound to be a few consequences. A man had his needs, after all, they said. It was one of those vague clichés which are designed to keep people at a comfortable distance from suffering.
    Jane Beaumont became more lonely and more desperate with the passing years, but very few people were aware of her plight.
    On a still, cloudless evening in early May, Jane sat on the patio at the back of the house for a very long time. She heard her husband come into the hall, but he did not come through to greet her. It was an hour after this, as twilight moved into darkness, that Jane came into the house. She studied Martin without speaking for a moment and then said without preamble, ‘I think we should get divorced.’
    â€˜No, Jane. We’ve discussed it before and it’s not on.’ He had the resigned air of a parent dealing kindly with a difficult child.
    â€˜Why? Because I might want my share of the loot?’
    â€˜There isn’t any loot to be had, my dear. Everything is ploughed back into the business – it always has been. There’ll be profits in the future, but not now.’
    â€˜I could make you sell the business.’ It was the first time she’d threatened that, and it gave her the little thrill that came from unwonted aggression. Hit him where it hurts, she thought. That precious business is all the man cares about.
    Martin didn’t think she could make him sell, without his consent, not with the business legally protected from just such a move. But the last thing he could stand at the moment was the messy and expensive business of a protracted lawsuit, especially with all the unwelcome publicity that would bring to Abbey Vineyards. All he said aloud was, ‘It would be a very bad time to try to sell any business, darling, at the height of a major recession.’
    â€˜I’m not your darling. I haven’t been that for a long time. It’s time we put an end to the sham. Are you frightened of the