‘Well,’ the woman answered dourly, ‘at least we’ll be spared one morning of those bloody scales!’
3
It amounted to a few weeks in July. That was all there was of it. Afterwards it seemed to Nicole that the time had been much longer because it had been so intensely lived. The sensation that she had suddenly stopped running remained, so that events seemed to flow past her. In her memory it was a bright and shining time, golden days of midsummer when it didn’t rain once, and she fell in love.
It hadn’t happened as Richard said it might, as a kind of thunderclap, but it was there, the feeling that everything was changed. She did not even try to think about the future, not to fix it or determine it, or to make a plan for it. It was simply enough that she had fallen in love with Lloyd Fenton and that the future would settle itself.
She knew she must have done other things besides seeing him every moment he was free from the hospital. There was Wimbledon during those weeks, and Test cricket at Lord’s. She thought she must have gone to those things with Richard, or Brendan or Gerry Agar ‒ or it might have been with Lord Freddie or the duke’s son, who had assumed little identity except that he was called Harry. She knew she did these things, and went to parties and Covent Garden ‒ the engagement book was full. What was not written down she did not have to remind herself of. There were quick, lunchtime meetings with Lloyd at an Italian restaurant near the hospital. After Wimbledon or Lord’s, and before her dinner engagement, there was often a swift, marvellous hour to meet for a drink at the Ritz. They chose the Ritz because they felt they were alone in its vast spaces. She never remembered much about what they said, or if they talked much at all. They went one afternoon to a harpsichord recital at Wigmore Hall. They visited Alexander Orekhov again, had tea and cakes with his mother-in-law, admired the baby. Some mornings she got up very early and they walked in Hyde Park while the strengthening sun slanted down between the trees, and the mist hung briefly in shreds over the Serpentine, and then vanished before the coming heat of the day. They walked hand in hand, and sometimes they stopped and kissed each other. Nicole felt the warmth of the kisses like some drug that crept through her, some totally new sensation, that made her look back on her former existence as if it had been a state of deprivation, of hunger which was now miraculously assuaged. She was no longer alone.
During those weeks she hardly went near the piano, and when she did it was to play the things that suited her mood, the bitter-sweet nocturnes of Chopin, the most romantic works of Schumann. This was no time for Bach. The household at Elgin Square noted the change, and each had his own interpretation. ‘Glad to see you eating so well, Miss Nicole,’ Henson said. ‘You’ve quite lost that peaky look.’ Except for the mornings she met Lloyd, she slept late, and Iris saw this. ‘Much more sensible,’ she said. ‘I really never have thought that looking as if one were wasting away was very attractive.’ Iris knew nothing about the meetings with Lloyd Fenton. Nicole doubted if she would have forbidden them, but she would have regarded them as a waste of time. Impecunious doctors were not on her list of eligible men.
Charles saw but remarked only to himself the kind of radiance that shone so newly from Nicole’s face. He heard her laugh about small things, actually heard her sing as she came down the stairs one morning. ‘I hope he’s right,’ he thought to himself. ‘God, I hope he’s right for her, whoever he is. I hope he loves her the way she loves him.’ Charles was not a religious man, but he heard himself muttering the odd half-prayer, half-threat. ‘She’d better not be hurt. Better not!’ He was ready to fight anything or anyone that threatened to shatter that look on Nicole’s face.
Iris thought she had discovered the reason for Nicole’s new light-heartedness, the easy gaiety, which was so much at odds with the seriousness that Iris deplored when she received a note from the Duchess of Milburn asking that Nicole be included in the house party she was arranging at their Scottish estate for the opening of the grouse-shooting season. ‘There will be a number of young people about Harry’s age,’ the note read. Harry was her elder son, and the Duke’s heir.
Nicole was not in the house when the letter arrived. Uncharacteristically, Iris rushed at once to Charles to tell him the news. ‘But, Charles,’ she protested when he didn’t seem unduly impressed, ‘Lord Blanchard is the most eligible man in England.’
‘What ‒ your horse-faced Harry? Just like his father ‒ a real idiot! Just as well he’s going to be a duke. He wouldn’t be any use at holding down a job. Besides, Iris, I rather thought the Prince of Wales was regarded as the most eligible man in England.’
She stormed out in disgust, going at once to accept the Duchess’s invitation. Charles shook his head. He hoped it was not ‒ he did not believe it could be ‒ Harry Blanchard who had caused that new, wonderful look on Nicole’s face. If it had been sheer social ambition which drove Nicole, he knew her well enough to know that she would be more deadly serious than before, calmly having marked and stalked her quarry. She was too intelligent to have fallen head over heels in love with that useless, if amiable, young man. He wished Iris had waited to consult Nicole before sending her acceptance. It wasn’t really fair the way the girl was being pushed around. Then he reflected that Nicole had resisted all of Iris’s pushing until she had been ready herself to yield.
With Nicole herself Iris’s triumphant announcement of the invitation hardly registered. She would be in Scotland for a few days around the twelfth of August. They would be days away from Lloyd. That was all she thought. But for some reason Iris seemed to take this final crowner to the season as some kind of prize Nicole had won, and as such it was a legitimate part of the bargain she had made with her niece. Nicole thought that when she returned from Scotland, having done everything her aunt could possibly expect of her, she would then tell her about Lloyd Fenton. Surely by then, she and Lloyd would have begun to make their plans. She understood well enough why neither of them wanted to push those plans. There had to be a time of loving that was without bonds, a time to savour the sweetness of giving without actual gifts, the time of secrecy that belonged to them alone. Once they told the first person, they would be locked in the mechanics of engagement and wedding plans, plans of where to live, and how to love. So she did not worry that both of them held off for these last precious days of freedom. She did not worry about the fact that Lloyd Fenton had so far not even asked her to marry him. It was, for her, just an understood fact.
Only twice in those weeks did Lloyd accompany her as her invited partner to a dinner and a dance. And each time, before one o’clock, he delivered her into the arms of Brendan de Courcey and Richard. ‘Take care of her, will you, Rick?’ he said casually.
‘You have to be mad, man. Half of London wants to take care of Nicole …’
Lloyd smiled, and Nicole was delighted to see just the faintest air of proprietorship there. ‘We start operating at eight o’clock sharp at St Giles’s, Rick. The unfortunate patient who gets an unsteady hand hovering over him isn’t going to be very impressed by the dashing young doctor who danced the whole night through … S’long, Nicky. See you …’
‘Damn cheek,’ Brendan said. ‘Don’t know why you put up with him, Nicole. Now if I ‒’
‘But you wouldn’t, young Bren,’ Gerry Agar said. ‘When anyone wears his heart so obviously on his sleeve, a girl could be forgiven for thinking it might have been there an awfully long time and available. Now, Nicole, shall we dance?’
He ignored the crushed look his younger cousin wore. Brendan would have to learn some time not to be such a kid.
Gerry took her to the summer exhibition at the Royal Academy. He walked the halls wordlessly for half an hour, letting her look, and himself watching her being looked at. ‘Well, it’s clear that next year you’ll have your portrait hanging here by the latest dull painter the Academicians approve of. They always like fashionable subjects. It insures a lot of attention from the public who don’t know any better.’
‘And you’re implying I
should know better, Gerry? How do I learn?’
‘Only by looking, dear girl. Only by looking. Shall we begin?’
He led her out of the Academy and found a taxi in Piccadilly. ‘The Tate Gallery, please,’ he said to the driver. ‘It might be fun to show you my own little collection, Nicole. Of course, it’s down in the country. You’d have to come there …’
‘Some time soon, Gerry. Perhaps Rick and ‒’
‘Aren’t you tired of the mob yet, Nicole?’
‘Gerry, I haven’t got used to “the mob” as you choose to call it. Remember, I’m just literally out of school ‒ as ancient as I am for a schoolgirl.’
‘Yes, I do keep forgetting. You seem older. Or perhaps it’s myself who’s older. I have the itch to teach you. That’s a sure sign of age.’
‘Gerry, your family ‒ you never talk about any family.’
‘There isn’t any, dear girl. None that count. I’ve one sister, whom I never see. She was the deb of the year ten years ago, just when things were beginning to hot up into the jazz period. She was supposed to be frightfully daring and modern. In fact, she was ‒ is ‒ a dead bore. Not a brain in her head. Happily she married an equally brainless Royal Navy chap, who will probably end up an admiral if we get a war. They think I’m completely decadent and they never come near the place in Wiltshire. She got a handsome share of money from my father’s will, and I think she’s really praying I won’t ever get married so one of her stream of strapping sons will get the title and the estate. That would please her.’ He sighed exaggeratedly. ‘Ah, families …’ The cab drew up before the Tate Gallery.
There was an exhibition of paintings bewilderingly modern and strange to Nicole’s eyes. Some of the names she knew ‒ Picasso, Modigliani. Others were quite new, although they seemed old and loved friends to Gerry. Soutine, Survage, Miro, Leger, Kokoschka, Klee. She stared at them silently, and finally shook her head. ‘You’ll think me as much a bore as your sister. I don’t understand half of them. I really don’t think I’ve gone beyond Renoir.’
‘Not a bad place to pick up,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and have a drink. The Ritz?’
‘No, not the Ritz,’ she said quickly.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, I wonder why not? Well, never mind. The Savoy, then?’
She had champagne, and he had a dry martini. He sipped it appreciatively, quickly looking round the crowd that was beginning to gather for drinks. ‘The Americans know a thing or two. Yes ‒ quite a lot. More than how to make a good martini. I hope our rulers wake up in time and don’t feel too grand to ask for a little of their expertise in a few areas. Sorry, Nicole ‒ you don’t like that subject. Well, now, I think that Lloyd Fenton is going to be one of those very expert Americans. Probably is already. They have a way of applying themselves. There’s no one else I can think of who would walk out on you at a dance, and strangely enough, still leave you smiling. Yes, very strange. He’s either very sure of himself, or he knows he hasn’t a hope. I wonder which it is. Is it true what they’re saying about you and young Blanchard?’
Her gaze, which had been wandering around the room, snapped back to him. ‘What about me and Harry? What are they saying?’
‘That you’re all set to announce your engagement.’
She slammed down her glass, and when the liquid spilled, she licked her fingers like a child. ‘I’ve never heard such rubbish. I hardly know Harry Blanchard.’
‘You’re seen with him constantly. You’re going to stay with the Milburns in Scotland ‒ so they say.’
‘A few days.’ She let her first anger give way to amusement. ‘Oh, all this talk. Gossip writers have to have something to write about. If it isn’t there, they invent it. You know that, Gerry.’
‘I should. I seem to have been the victim of the same thing myself several times. So it isn’t Blanchard. You don’t plan to become a duchess.’
She plunged, ‘I’m going to marry Lloyd Fenton. And that is not for repetition, Gerry. We’re not talking about it yet.’
‘Fenton? You’re sure of that, Nicole? You’re not just trying on the idea to see if it fits?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know how to say it, Gerry. I don’t really think I’ve ever believed in people being in love before. I’ve never believed how it changes everything …’ He watched her expression, which had so often been cool and wary, always in control, slowly melt into the radiance of an almost shy smile. The creature before him was transformed, and he experienced a swift surge of envy of the man who had made that happen. ‘I’m so happy, Gerry. I’ve never felt like this before. It’s so marvellous I almost don’t trust it. I expect it all to vanish. But people like Lloyd don’t vanish. He’s … he’s so much like a rock. He’s a real New Englander, and for the first time in my life, I want to be frail and clinging. I’ll do anything he wants me to do ‒ go anywhere, live anywhere. Anything just so that I can be with him. As soon as this nonsense of a season is over, we’ll make our plans. Gerry ‒ I’m so happy. I hope you’re happy for me.’
He held his glass up to her, and his face carefully masked the disappointment that surged through him. The smile he gave her was as urbane and inscrutable as ever. ‘Of course, dear girl, I’m happy for you. It’s just bloody marvellous to see someone happy. Here’s to you, Nicole. Happiness, dear girl.’
And as they finished their drinks, Gerry Agar kept up a flow of talk, and in his mind he revised some plans which had begun to form over the last weeks. He put aside the thought that Nicole would ever come to Wiltshire except as the wife of another man. He put away the picture ‒ he admitted now that he had spent some time adding details to that picture ‒ of showing her the place in Wiltshire as if it were to be her own home. He was never going to witness the flowering of this dark grave beauty sitting opposite him as mistress of that house, his pupil, his wife and his lover. He had wanted to teach her so much, and he still believed she would infinitely have repaid the teaching. Like Nicole, he had himself never believed people actually fell in love. If the sudden ache of disappointment inside him was any guide, he had been dangerously close to a state which he had not thought existed. Perhaps he was already over the line. If that was so, he would have to pull himself back somehow, and no one would ever know he had crossed it.
‘Well, dear girl, if you’re looking for a witness at short notice, remember me. I’ve a feeling that Fenton isn’t the sort who’ll sit still for a big, fashionable wedding. There’s the place in Wiltshire for a honeymoon if you want it. There’s never anyone there …’ On the surface he had already begun to reshape the picture of Nicole in Wiltshire. And while he approved the cool command he had of himself, he was astonished to find that he was experiencing something amazingly like a sensation of pain.
He raised his glass again, and it was a sort of leave-taking, although Nicole would not recognize it as such. ‘Good luck, dear girl. Good luck!’
The next day Gerry Agar presented himself, by appointment, at a house exactly like its neighbours in Grosvenor Terrace, near Victoria. A brass plate gave it the identification of a firm of specialist optical lens importers. He was, after a short wait, admitted to the office of a man he had never met before, but whose underlings had been busy, over the past year, trying to recruit the interest and services of Sir Gerald Agar.
The two men talked for over an hour. ‘Your way of life will be seen to change as little as possible. It’s fortunate you’ve established yourself in Paris, and the pattern of travelling on whim. Very useful cover. The race track and the art dealer … Yes, very good. Very few could suspect …’
Gerry finished the sentence. ‘That Agar was capable of anything remotely … well, shall we say, unselfish?’
The other man nodded. ‘Use that word if you like. This is not pleasant or easy business. None of us may like what we have to seem to be to the rest of the world. But you’re needed. You’ve already penetrated, through Comte Antoine Tourney, exactly the world we want to know better. He knows you as a man who’s seriou
s about making money, if very few other people do. Go further into it. Get us figures. We want to know the flow of armaments. The quantities. From where to where. Get yourself invited to Germany. The Nazi party likes to show off its successes. Continue just as you’ve been doing. Go to parties. Give parties. Just keep edging nearer to the sources. Now these …’
They talked for almost an hour more, intense, concentrated talk of which Gerry was allowed to make no notes. ‘All you will appear to be interested in is the money side of it … and a little reflected power, should they win …’
As Gerry prepared to leave, the man asked one more question. ‘You’re not married. Is there any chance you’ll be getting married in the near future? Wives can be security risks. Of course, she would know nothing …’
‘No chance,’ Gerry said briefly, and finally.
Thereafter the briefing sessions were carried on at different times and at different places. Gerry never saw the man in the house in Grosvenor Terrace again.
Two nights later Lloyd Fenton walked into the Travellers’ Club at about ten o’clock. He had left the hospital late; there had been an amount of paperwork to catch up on, and reports from Pathology to consider and digest. He knew Nicole was at the theatre and it was useless ringing the house in Elgin Square in the hope of finding her at home. Sometimes, in these last few weeks, he had cursed his job. It would be all right when they were married, but being tied to the uncertain hours of a hospital job made the conventional courting of the season’s most sought-after débutante nearly impossible. To Lloyd it was merely that ‒ a convention. He was certain in his own mind of what was going to happen. It didn’t seem to matter at this point that they had never even begun to make any plans. He was prepared to see these last weeks of the season that Nicole went through with an indulgent eye. It was a once-and-for-ever situation. It was amusing to see her go through the paces, and still know that she was prepared to get up very early to walk in Hyde Park with him. As he ordered a drink and thought of her, he was conscious of weariness, but not that his weariness was leading him towards the beginning of a mistake.
The Lynmara Legacy Page 19
