He stood and smiled. ‘I’ll see that the baggage is all there ‒ and collect your Henson, and all that. See you in the lobby …’
There had been too many lies, she thought, as she went to the booth to take the call. Why lie to people like David Ashleigh? Why say anything? Had it all begun with the lies she had told as a child at St Columba’s, the lies about living in Brooklyn, the lies that were told simply by saying nothing? Was that why she grew nervous at the thought of Lloyd Fenton, and the time when she would have to tell him the total truth, the truth that Anna and Iris said she must not tell? She picked up the receiver. ‘Lloyd,’ she said, unable to control the quaver in her voice.
‘Carl Zimmerman here.’ The heavy Germanic tone was bored, as if she had interrupted a more exciting activity, probably his medical reading.
‘Is Lloyd there? Could I speak to him?’
‘Fenton is not here.’
‘Then ‒ could I leave a message?’ She clung to the receiver and fought back tears. How did she get through to this man her desperation? ‘Or is he at the hospital?’
‘He is not at the hospital. A message you can leave. But already I have given the message.’
‘But he didn’t telephone. I waited … last night … all this morning.’
She could almost see his heavy shrug. ‘To telephone or not is Fenton’s business. Your message I have given him.’
‘But this is another message. I’ve left Carric … the place I was at. I’m taking the night sleeper to London. It gets into London at …’ Frantically she searched for the schedule. ‘It gets into London at seven-thirty tomorrow morning. Euston Station. Seven-thirty.’
‘You wish me to tell him this? Why not telephone when you arrive?’
‘Because … because I want him to meet me at Euston in the morning. Meet me. Euston Station. Seven-thirty. The night train from Edinburgh.’
‘All this I have already written,’ came the bored reply. ‘The message he will have.’
‘And something else ‒ please, wait a minute. Will you also tell him that I am not going to marry Harry Blanchard.’
‘You are not going to marry …?’
‘Harry Blanchard. B.L.A.N …’
He copied it word for word. ‘Miss Rainard is not going to marry Harry Blanchard.’
She began to shake with fury and frustration. ‘Oh ‒ for God’s sake, can’t you make it sound a bit better than that!’
‘What do you want of me? That I should write a love story?’
‘No!’ she shouted at him. ‘You wouldn’t be able to!’ And she crashed down the receiver. She spent several minutes more in the booth. When she emerged the traces of the tears which had started were gone, and the smile of greeting to David Ashleigh was fixed back on her face.
‘Lady Gowing would not approve, Miss,’ was what Henson said as she stowed the small bag with Nicole’s needs for the night in the sleeper. ‘Young Lord Ashleigh …’
‘Young Lord Ashleigh is a chance traveller on the same train … in a different coach,’ Nicole snapped at her. ‘You, Henson, are travelling in the next compartment, instead of sitting up all night in the third-class coach. I will keep my door locked. I’m quite safe. Perhaps unfortunately. I suspect Lord Ashleigh is a gentleman.’
‘Nevertheless, Miss Nicole, I won’t get a wink …’
‘That will be your fault, Henson. Not mine. Be thankful we’re not in Russia. Otherwise you’d have to sleep lying across my door all night …’
Now why had she said that? What on earth did she care about what they did, or had done, at one time, in Russia?
Whether or not Henson slept, Nicole herself slept very little as the train rushed through the night. She seemed to hear every click of the connection of the rails, seemed to roll in her bunk with every curve. She thought of Lloyd Fenton and the coming confrontation. Henson needn’t have worried. There was no discreet tap on the door from David Ashleigh. However eager he may have been, he wasn’t crude. She had the whole wakeful night to think of Lloyd, and for some reason she didn’t quite understand, she was afraid. And he wasn’t on the platform when the train shunted slowly into the platform at Euston the next morning.
Henson was supervising the unloading of Nicole’s luggage and David Ashleigh’s valet was doing the same farther along the train. ‘Hallo ‒ did you sleep at all? Horrible things, trains, aren’t they? I never seem to close my eyes.’ And David Ashleigh looked at her with wide-awake blue eyes that she suspected had not missed any sleep. He was freshly shaven and immaculate, rather different from the way she felt, as if the ancient soot of the Great Northern was deeply engrained in all her pores. ‘You look rather tired,’ he said, his voice dropping into a lower tone. ‘You certainly don’t look as if you’d just had a week of bracing Highland air. You should be going straight down to the country, not holing yourself up in London.’ His face brightened, as if he had had a sudden idea, but she knew it wasn’t sudden. ‘Tell you what? Instead of going back to your aunt’s, why don’t you just give her a ring and tell her you’re coming down to Lynmara with me? Do you a world of good to be in the country for a while. No house party, or any of that stuff. Just very quiet. Granny will be delighted to see you ‒ and my father, of course. Do say you’ll come …’
She looked at him, that fresh young face, heard the beguiling words, the smiling entreaty that had behind it the quiet assurance that the hearer would never be able to reject his plea. He was a darling, golden boy, and life had dealt with him easily. And here he was, inviting her to the place of her mother’s ultimate humiliation with the confident words … ‘Granny will be delighted to see you …’ A kind of rage and longing stirred in her.
‘I have a telephone call to make.’
‘Yes, of course. Your aunt. I’ll help you find a telephone. Have you any money … coins?’
She wasn’t used to public telephone booths, and the paraphernalia of putting in the coins and waiting for the operator. She was conscious of David Ashleigh’s presence outside, of his polite distance away from the booth, but also that her face, if he cared to look, was visible. But he didn’t look. Eventually she did everything the printed instructions told her, and she was connected with Lloyd’s flat. The remembered New England voice answered.
‘Lloyd, it’s Nicole! Did you get my messages?’
‘Yes, Carl has written me bulletins.’
‘But you didn’t come to Euston.’
‘Obviously not, since I’m still here.’
‘Lloyd, why … why not?’
‘Because I have more to do with my time than chasing about after silly little girls.’
‘But Lloyd … didn’t he tell you? I’m not going to marry Harry Blanchard.’
‘That was spelled out in very plain words. It makes absolutely no difference. I still don’t go chasing about after little girls who not only are silly, but also spoiled. I must have been out of my mind. Midsummer madness. I suppose it was a good lesson for me. I’m not immune from the infection any more than the next guy is. I’ll try to steer clear of the sources of the infection in future.’
‘Lloyd! You’re not being fair. I haven’t had a chance to explain. You’ve never given me a chance. Lloyd … I love you. Do you hear? Do you hear that! I love you. That has to mean something to you. A few weeks ago it did.’
‘A few weeks can be a long time in any man’s life, and even if you do think you love me, it really doesn’t matter a damn. If I ever thought I loved you, that doesn’t matter a damn either. I’ve been in love before, I suppose I will again. The way I see it, there’s a hell of a long step between being in love and getting married. I thought I wanted to marry you. The few weeks in between, which you don’t seem to think are so important, were just long enough to make me open my eyes. If you hadn’t gone to Scotland, I could have gone on believing that we could marry and make a go of it ‒ that you’d be able to accept the sort of life I have to live, and been glad to live it with me. I ‒’
‘I will live it with y
ou, Lloyd. Every part of it ‒ however you want it. That’s what I had to say to you. I’ve kept my promise to Aunt Iris. It’s all finished now. I can do what I want.’
‘You don’t really expect me to believe that, Nicole! You went to Scotland because you wanted to. What went wrong, I wonder? Didn’t Blanchard finally come around to asking you to marry him? Did you have to salve your pride now by pretending you never meant to marry him? If you never meant to marry him, then you did a rotten and cruel thing to that guy. And if you didn’t know what you were going to, then you’re stupid ‒ which was something I didn’t think you were. You’re a shallow and silly little girl, and I’ve been even more stupid than you for ever imagining that we could have made a go of it.’
She blazed with anger and shame. ‘You arrogant, pompous idiot! Here I’ve come back to say I’m free of everything now, and I want to marry you. And all you can say is that we’ve both been stupid, but you’re even more stupid than I. Well, that isn’t good enough! If you want to apologize, well, I’ll accept it. I have a lot of things to tell you, but only after an apology. I’d do a lot of things for you, Lloyd Fenton, but I can’t let you walk over me.’
‘Apology ‒ nothing! I’ve no intention of walking over you because I don’t intend to see you again. It’s finished, Nicole. Can’t you understand that? You’re not really so stupid.’
‘Finished? ‒ why? Just because I went to Scotland? You’re more than arrogant and pompous, you’re selfish as well.’
‘It was what going to Scotland implied that made the difference. Call me anything you like. It may be the truth. In that case we’re both lucky to be out of it. Marriages that don’t work out are a waste of time and energy. I have neither to waste. I’ve spent a summer chasing around after a silly little girl, and I should have known better. Let’s not waste any more time, shall we? Perhaps you can now telephone Blanchard and tell him you’ve reconsidered. You may yet be a duchess, Nicole. As far as I’m concerned, he’s welcome to you, but I feel sorry for the poor guy. Goodbye.’
Unbelievingly she listened to the dial tone after he had hung up the receiver. With trembling, furious fingers she jiggled the hook in a hopeless attempt to recall him. Then she found more coins and dialled the number again. It rang and rang, ten, twenty, thirty times. She counted all of them. He wasn’t going to answer. Her fury overcame the sickness she felt inside her. This high-minded Boston aristocrat, who never had scruples because he had faced no problems of moral importance, had dared to lecture her without knowing the whole story. Well, she was well rid of him. He would never have understood about Anna ‒ about herself, the reason for the silence, the bargaining with Iris. To hell with him, she thought. In another minute she was dialling the number of Elgin Square. Briskly she gave the butler a message for Iris when she came down to breakfast. Then she rang off, waited long enough so that the angry spots of colour should have faded from her face, then she stepped out of the telephone booth and went smilingly to join David Ashleigh. ‘Yes, I think I would love to accept that invitation to Lynmara.’
3
At the gate-house a man swept off his cap and called, ‘Good morning, Lord Ashleigh. Didn’t expect to see you so soon …’ and stared at Nicole in frank and open curiosity. The drive wound on between beeches and oaks, wound on for several miles before they saw the house. The house was more than she had expected. It was beautiful enough, in the moment of seeing its golden stone warm in the summer sun, to make her gasp. It would be, she guessed, of the high- and late-Elizabethan Renaissance, perfectly symmetrical as they approached its south forecourt, its end wings coming forward to form the classic H design of the period. The sun glinted on its thousands of window panes, on the fresh green of the ivy which girded it. Its chimneys stood above a lacy frieze of stone. She caught a glimpse of walks below stone terraces, clipped yew and boxwood which led the gaze farther on and on until it caught the distant glint of a river. There was a deeply shaded portico where the car stopped, and the butler greeted David with the words, ‘Good morning, my lord. Lady Manstone is in the Long Room. She is expecting you.’
There was a great hall and a carved staircase which split in two and led to a gallery. David took her hand in his and raced up the stairs, his limp seeming to disappear in his eagerness. Nicole had only a swift and fleeting impression of the ornate carving of the gallery rail itself, the many pictures that hung on the staircase, the faded banners that recalled regiments and battles and far-off wars. The gallery led them back to the front of the house, and opened out into a huge stretch of open space, where the midday light poured in, gleaming on the polished floor, picking out the detail of the moulded ceiling, throwing up the colour of the glowing alabaster mantels of the two fireplaces they had to pass before they approached the third, and last. A thin, elderly woman sat there in a carved chair covered with gold brocade. Her slender hands were clasped about the silver top of a cane. She wore a very plain high-necked brown dress, severely elegant. The bright blue eyes which gazed steadily at Nicole wore no film of age; they shone as hard as jewels. Even on this day in August a fire burned in the grate. She leaned a little towards its warmth, but those bright eyes were fixed relentlessly on Nicole. The two women looked at each other for a second before David’s voice broke through.
‘Granny, this is Nicole Rainard. And even if she doesn’t know it, this is the girl I’m going to marry.’
The old woman seemed not to blink an eyelid; she extended her thin hand, as if this was any ordinary occasion, and Nicole any ordinary guest. ‘Welcome.’ The hand was cold, but the grasp was firm. Nicole was flushed from the run up the stairs, she was conscious of the grime of the long train journeys, and yet she was totally at ease. Her eyes met those bright blue ones steadily.
‘How do you do, Lady Manstone? I’m afraid David’s statement is a trifle … premature, shall we say?’
The woman leaned closer, her hand fumbling for the pince-nez which hung from a gold chain. When it was in place, she scrutinized Nicole for several seconds in silence. ‘But we’ve met before, surely?’ she said. ‘Where was it, I wonder?’
‘No ‒ Lady Manstone, we’ve never met. I should have remembered.’
The pince-nez came off. ‘You’re right, I’m sure. It is one of the penalties of age that one remembers the wrong things, or forgets the important ones …’
‘Oh, Granny, you’ve seen her picture in all the magazines and newspapers this season. That’s why you think you’ve met her.’
‘No doubt … no doubt. Well, please sit down, Miss Rainard. It was a pleasant surprise when David telephoned me that he was coming down this morning. I’ve been spoiled this summer, having him here for so long ‒ selfish, no doubt, since it meant a broken leg for him. Now, will you have some sherry before you go to your room? Lunch isn’t for an hour yet … Sweet or dry?’
The sun shone in the cut crystal decanters, turning the wine to gold and golden red, gleamed off the silver tray with the glasses and the pale, thin biscuits.
‘Dry, please, Lady Manstone.’
‘Yes …’ she poured and Nicole noticed that her hand trembled slightly. ‘For myself, I start with sweet, then go to dry. Many years ago I was in Jerez in Spain where the sherry comes from. There they always start with an oloroso first, then go to a fino. “It cradles the stomach” they say ‒ and they all live to great old age. How wonderful it was in Jerez and Seville at that time … the wine and the horses. It was a wonderful time to be young … Ah, here comes my son. He always tries to join me at this time each day. We have what the Spanish call a “copita” together ‒ a little cup.’
Nicole turned slightly and watched the advance, down the long sunlit space, of the man her mother had called ‘Johnny’.
That evening Nicole played the piano in the Great Saloon of Lynmara, a room all golden and crimson, with three Van Dycks, a magnificent Turner, a Constable and some lesser paintings on the wall, a room whose carpet had been woven in Belgium to fit its great space and whose ceiling James Thornh
ill had painted and Grinling Gibbons had laid his hand to the cornices, a room whose mirrors reflected the others’ silver-gilt frames, and the silver-gilt sconces shone softly back upon themselves. A room of beauty as well as magnificence, Nicole conceded. And she could too well imagine Anna’s paralysing fright when she, in her turn, had sat here.
David and his grandmother walked on the terrace outside. ‘Leave the windows open,’ the old woman had said, ‘I like to hear the piano. You are very gifted.’ So the old woman and the golden young man walked on the terrace below the windows open to the summer night, with the scent of stock and lavender growing stronger as the dusk came down. The last of the sun was caught on a high point of the downs, the river at the end of the long descent of formal gardens had turned dark and silver. And Nicole played the Chopin nocturnes, and watched, across the piano, each turn of the old woman and the golden-haired young man on the terrace. His head was bent close to hers. They were deep in conversation. The sound of the old woman’s stick punctuated the music.
And as the shadows gathered in the corners of the great room, she saw in one of the mirrors John Ashleigh’s cigarette glow from the far corner where he had placed himself. She saw, as if from a vast distance, her own reflection, white gown and Iris’s pearls, hair brushed and coiled into a shining chignon by Henson. No rings were on her fingers, but David Ashleigh would shortly put one there. She was all the polished perfection that Anna had never been able to achieve in the presence of the old woman she had hated and feared; but Nicole, watching the reflection fade and grow dim as the light also went, knew that she would never be as beautiful as that young girl of a generation ago.
She paused at the end of a nocturne, feeling suddenly cold as if a breeze had blown too sharply up from the river. Then, closing the book of nocturnes, her hands strayed deliberately to their own melody, the notes indelible on her memory. At first it seemed a silvery trickle, the sounds almost tentative. ‘Für Elise’ … the first piece that Anna had ever played alone for her Johnny, the girl behind the palms at that London party of long ago.
The Lynmara Legacy Page 23
