The Hawthorne Heritage

by The Hawthorne Heritage (retail) (epub)

  ‘What? If they had only known what?’

  He hesitated. Then, ‘You do realize,’ he asked quietly, ‘what it is that I’m trying to tell you? What – what accusations were made against us?’

  She nodded, albeit a little uncertainly. ‘Yes.’

  He shook his head. ‘They tried to make out,’ he said, his voice grimly controlled, ‘that we – Sebastian and I – had a – a sexual relationship. Nothing – nothing! – could have been further from the truth. The truth is that this was one of the things that drew us together. One of the things that we agreed upon utterly. We both found the—’ he hesitated, avoiding her eyes, ‘—the very thought of physical love – repulsive.’

  She was struggling to understand. ‘You mean – all of it? I mean – men and women too?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes.’ Tensely he flicked with one thumbnail at the other. In the silence the clock ticked loudly. Jessica frowned, trying to assimilate this strange piece of information. Robert made a sudden, small violent movement. ‘I can’t help it! I hate the thought. It disgusts me. People would say that was unnatural. But what could be more unnatural than that – that horrible act—’ He made a small grimace of distaste.

  She sat in silence for a moment, still frowning. ‘I really don’t think I understand,’ she admitted at last.

  He lifted helpless hands. He looked suddenly tired. ‘Why on earth should you? How can you be expected to understand something that I can’t entirely explain to myself? I only know that it’s so. When I was a child—’ He stopped, and Jessica, puzzled, saw the quick lift of embarrassed colour in his face again.

  ‘What?’ she asked. ‘What about when you were a child?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing important. I only know that I can’t stand for another person to touch me.’ It was obvious that that had not been what he had started to say. He rushed on. ‘When – when I stayed with Paul Aloway – you remember?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘His sister – the elder one, Chrissie – she liked me. She kept - touching me – trying to hold my hand. It was horrible. One day – in the garden – she kissed me.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I was sick,’ he said. ‘All over her dress. It was awful.’

  She stuck her thumb in her mouth and nibbled at the nail.

  He was sitting tense as a drawn bowstring. ‘Women – all of them – frighten me. The way they look at you—’ He glanced at her and saw the expression on her face. ‘Oh, no, Jessie! Not you! You’re different. You’re my friend. Don’t you see – that’s just what I’ve been trying to tell you! Sebastian understood. We had a name for what we had – we called it—’ he hesitated, then continued half-defiantly, ‘we called it our passionate friendship. But that didn’t mean that we did anything wrong! It didn’t. We were as close as brothers. Closer.’ His face was alight now, suddenly soft with the shadow of remembered love. ‘We shared everything. Every single thought. And then they dirtied it.’ He closed his eyes as if at a spasm of pain. ‘It was the very fact that he was of my own sex that made our friendship possible.’ He said after a moment, his voice intense, ‘There simply cannot be that kind of relationship between men and women. Women want to touch, and to whisper. To kiss, and to—’ He trailed off and Jessica detected the faint shudder that shook him. ‘The Greeks understood,’ he said. ‘They knew about unsullied love. They didn’t drag everything down to the level of the gutter. But the English? Who would expect them to understand the purity of Platonic love? They accused us, and they shattered what we had. I’ll never forgive them. Never. If they wanted me back, I wouldn’t go.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But – you do see – why I can’t marry you?’ His voice was suddenly tired. ‘I’m no use to you, Jess. I’m no use to anyone.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ She reached a hand to his. He drew back from her, very slightly, avoiding her touch. She nibbled her lip. ‘Robert – please, don’t say such silly things. It isn’t true. You’re the best friend that anyone ever had. I hate them for what they’ve done to you! It isn’t fair!’

  For a fleeting moment she thought he would smile. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it isn’t. And it isn’t fair that my parents believe they have an unnatural son—’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh, yes. And who’s to blame them?’ He shook his head. ‘I suppose in a way they’re right. And you – what about you? Jessica, poor Jessica – you send to me for help and what do I do? I simply add to your problems by bleating about my own troubles, that are nothing to do with you—!’

  ‘Of course they are,’ she said, sturdily.

  He smiled.

  ‘It’s because we’re friends that I needed for you to come this evening.’ She paused for a moment. ‘It’s because we’re friends that I asked you to marry me. Silly, wasn’t it?’ She smiled a small, watery smile. Silence fell. Then, ‘Or was it ?’ she asked in a voice that was barely audible against the sound of the wind.

  She saw him stiffen and turn his head sharply towards her. Her eyes held his. ‘Was it?’

  He shook his head. ‘Jess – I don’t think you understand—’

  A slow conviction was growing. She interrupted him. ‘Robert – don’t you think that – perhaps you need help as much as I do? I asked you to marry me because I wanted you to help me. But – but don’t you think that I might be able to help you too?’

  He said nothing, but shook his head bemusedly.

  ‘You’re serious – about not going back to Oxford even if they allow you to?’

  ‘Absolutely. How could I go back after what’s happened – after the gossip, the rumours—?’ His voice was bitter. ‘Conviction by rumour is all but impossible to refute. They don’t need proof. They can sack me on suspicion with no questions asked.’

  ‘Suspicion that would be confounded if you married,’ she said, quietly.

  He became very still, watching her.

  ‘Doesn’t it make sense?’ The confidence of youth, that sees no obstacles that cannot be overcome, shone in her eyes. She in truth had only understood a part of what he had told her, but she had recognized another troubled soul, and the attraction was magnetic.

  He shook his head. ‘Not for you. You don’t understand what you’re suggesting. Jessica – you can’t marry a man who can’t—’ he stumbled over the words, ‘who can’t love you as you deserve.’

  She pondered that. ‘The way Giles loves Clara?’

  Some understanding flickered in his eyes. ‘It doesn’t always have to be like that.’

  ‘No, of course it doesn’t. Look at Caroline and Bunty. There’s a love-match if ever there was one.’

  ‘Jessica—’

  ‘They aren’t even friends! At least we’d start with that! Robert, I have to get away from here. I have to! The only way I can do that is to marry. My portion from the estate comes to me when I marry, and not before. I’m penniless without it. Where would I go? What would I do? And you? – You have as much a need as I have to get away from here. We could help each other. And I’m sure in time you’d leam to – to—’ she stopped, fiery poppies of embarrassment in her cheeks, ‘to love me,’ she finished, determinedly.

  ‘And if I didn’t?’ His eyes were very tender.

  She shrugged a bravado shrug. ‘It wouldn’t matter. So long as we were friends.’

  ‘You make it sound so easy.’

  ‘It is.’ She would not admit to her own misgivings. She could not.

  He stood watching her, chewing his lip.

  ‘I’ve quite a bit of money coming. We could go away. You could study music. Abroad. We—’ She threw in her trump card with a casual touch that might have done credit to a hardened gambler, ‘We could go to Italy.’

  ‘Your mother—’

  ‘—would be very happy to have me off her hands, thank you. Look at me. Hardly cut out for the routs of London, am I? What about your parents?’

  ‘They’d be delighted. More than delighted.�
�� His tone was heartfelt. For a week the look in his mother’s gentle eyes when she had looked at him had flayed him.

  ‘Well then.’

  The strain was lifting from his face. Against all good sense and reason her persuasive enthusiasm was winning him. He shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t let you do this.’

  ‘Try to stop me.’ She grinned an urchin smile that lit her tired, tear-stained face to devilry.

  ‘God Almighty, Jessica,’ he said.

  ‘It strikes me,’ she said, collectedly, ‘that He has very little to do with what goes on around here. Will you do it?’

  He stood for a long moment, the decision in the balance. Then he stepped to her, hesitated for just one short moment before gently lifting her small face in his hands and brushing her hot cheek very lightly with his lips. It could hardly have been called a kiss, but it was, she thought, a start. His mouth was dry and cool and utterly passionless. She liked it. There was no violence here. No threat. She let out a long, sighing breath of triumph. He lifted his head. ‘Jessica?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Will you marry me?’

  She hesitated for one mischievous moment. It was like the games they had played a hundred times before. Then, ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Well—’ Gravely, yet with the faintest gleam of amusement, Maria Hawthorne looked from Robert to Jessica and back again, ‘—so, willy-nilly I am to acquire a new son-in-law as well as a new grandson?’

  ‘If you’ll have me. I’ve decided not to return to Oxford, and my parents have agreed,’ Robert said, adding evenly and without glancing at Jessica, ‘I think perhaps that I’m not suited to the academic life.’ They had approached Maria together on her return from Cambridge. Their own decision firmly taken they had both been eager to gain her consent as soon as possible. For three days Jessica had talked and reasoned, her determination growing with every objection that a still-worried Robert had put up. Now, for both of them, it had become the thing that each most wanted from life; to marry, to escape, to start anew.

  Maria nodded, accepting the explanation at its face value. ‘As a matter of fact I think it an entirely suitable match, and one of which Jessica’s father would have approved.’ Her astute gaze moved, reflectively, to her younger daughter. ‘Though you do seem to have taken matters into your own hands to a quite extraordinary degree.’

  Though the reproof was mild, Jessica flushed a little. ‘I’m sorry, Mama, but—’

  ‘But you’re as headstrong as the rest of the brood and will have what your heart is set on despite the conventions.’ There was, unmistakably, open and tolerant humour in the words. Jessica, at last, allowed herself to relax. The thought occurred to her that whatever her mother had discovered in Cambridge it had evidently not displeased her. Maria folded her long, pale hands in her lap and tilted her head enquiringly. ‘And may I ask if you’ve gone so far as to put a date to the event?’

  ‘As soon as possible,’ Jessica said without thought and before Robert could open his mouth.

  The fair head shook. ‘Oh, no.’ Maria’s voice was absolutely firm. ‘No, no, no, Jessica! No daughter of mine gets married with the indecorous haste of a fallen scullery-maid! We’ll have no talk of hasty weddings, if you please. Unless, that is—’ she added, voice and eyes suddenly steely as she fixed her gaze on Robert, ‘—there is need for such haste?’

  Jessica’s mouth dropped open.

  Robert flushed deeply and painfully, but he kept his composure and his voice was even. ‘No, Mrs Hawthorne, I assure you there is not. Only Jessica’s and my eagerness to get the thing done.’

  She held his eyes for a moment then, satisfied, she laughed a little. ‘Lord, lad – you make it sound like having a tooth pulled!’ Lightly she turned to Jessica, ‘Springtime, my dear,’ she said, firmly. ‘You’ll marry in the spring. And that’s my last word on the matter.’

  Jessica knew better than to argue. Disappointed, but relieved to have met so little opposition where there might have been so much, she nodded, accepting the decision with as good grace as she could muster. ‘Very well, Mama.’

  Robert stood. ‘Thank you, Mrs Hawthorne. You’ve really been more kind than we deserve. You won’t regret it, I promise you. I’ll take good care of Jessica.’

  Maria inclined her head with a smile.

  ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll go to my own parents.’

  ‘They don’t know yet?’

  He shook his head. ‘We wouldn’t say anything to them until we’d spoken to you. But I know they’ll be delighted.’ He smiled one of his rare, warm smiles that lit his serious face like sunshine. ‘They already think of Jessie as a daughter, I know. That we should marry will be more than they dared hope for, I think.’ Jessica caught the double meaning of that at the same moment that Robert himself did, and looked away quickly from the sudden painful flicker of guilt that she saw in his face. He bent over Maria’s hand. ‘Thank you again, Mrs Hawthorne. May I perhaps beg Jessica’s company at Old Hall for supper this evening? I’m sure my parents would love to see her.’

  ‘But of course. And some time soon – next week perhaps – we shall all get together for a celebration supper. I’ll call on Lady Sarah tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll tell her.’ Robert turned to Jessica and formally bowed over her hand also. It was all that Jessica could do not to explode into laughter at the sight of Robert FitzBolton, with whom she had had more stand-up fights than she cared to remember, kissing her hand like a courtier. ‘I’ll ride over for you at three,’ he said.

  She grinned at him, mischief in her eyes. How many times had she ridden to Old Hall alone? And Robert hated riding. ‘Thank you,’ she said demurely, and searched his eyes for the glint of fun that must surely be there at this grown-up charade. But disconcertingly she found none. His face was strained and sober. Her own smile faded a little. She watched him, neat and erect, as he left the room, a small furrow between her brows.

  ‘Well, my dear,’ her mother said mildly as the door closed behind him, ‘I suppose I might have known you would make your own arrangements and not wait for any plans I might have had?’

  ‘Oh, Mama – you aren’t angry? Not really? You said yourself that Papa would have approved. And – oh, you must know how I hate it all – London, those silly balls, those awful, mindless young men­—’

  Maria laughed gently and shook her head a little. ‘The arrogant condemnation of the young!’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it to sound like that. You know I didn’t. I suppose they can’t all be as bad as they seem. It’s just – there’s something so awful about it all – it’s like a cattle market! This one has such-a-fortune, that one doesn’t—! Robert and I have known each other for ever. We’re friends. We’re good for each other. Isn’t that a better reason for getting married than land, or title, or money?’ Her voice was impassioned.

  Maria eyed her indulgently. ‘Some would say so. Some not. Your sister for example—’

  ‘I’m not Caroline!’ Jessica snapped too sharply, and then blushed a little at her own presumption as her mother’s brows lifted.

  There was a short silence. Then ‘No,’ Maria Hawthorne agreed, thoughtfully, ‘That you certainly are not.’

  Jessica fidgeted uncomfortably, looked down at her hands. Her thumbnail was ragged and broken. Valiantly she resisted the urge to nibble it.

  Her mother watched her. ‘Tell me, my dear,’ she said at last, making no attempt to disguise the gentle hint of amusement in her voice, ‘Is it the latest modern trend that the word love should not be mentioned?’

  Jessica’s head snapped up like a startled hare’s. ‘What do you mean?’

  Maria shrugged a little, elegantly; but there was real and mildly amused curiosity in her eyes. ‘You talk of friendship. Of being – what was it? – good for each other. Robert talks of getting the thing done as if he is to have a broken bone set! I have to declare myself a little confused by a young couple ready to face parental rage
and disapproval with arguments of such practical good sense!’ She made a small, oddly self-deprecating grimace. ‘You make me feel an ageing romantic!’

  Jessica said nothing.

  ‘Why, when William asked my father for my hand—’ Suddenly Maria’s still-lovely face was distant, the sharp blue gaze soft. She laughed, quietly, the sound a mixture of amusement and sadness, ‘—I was dramatically poised to kill myself had his suit been refused!’ She drew herself back from the memory, eyed her daughter with a bland and half-exasperated humour. ‘I’m filled with admiration! I’m perfectly sure that such level-headed arguments as yours would have swayed my father more than all my passionate declarations of undying love!’

  She was teasing, and Jessica knew it. Yet there was that small, sharp edge of curiosity in her voice and something uncomfortably perceptive in her words. Jessica suppressed a faint twinge of – what? Regret? Dissatisfaction? With what? She had what she wanted. She would not look further. ‘Of course we love each other,’ she said. ‘That’s why we’re getting married.’

  The pause was infinitesimal. ‘Of course,’ her mother agreed, her voice tranquil, but her eyes were still questioning. ‘So—’ she continued after a moment, brightly, ‘—the wedding will be in the spring. April, I think, don’t you? The daffodils will be out, and the celandines. You’ll be married at St Agatha’s, of course, and then – what? With the wars over at last you could take a marriage trip to Europe before settling at Old Hall. It will be nice to have you so close—’

  It was only later that the quite astonishing motherliness of that struck Jessica. At that instant, taken unawares, she stumbled a little over her reply. She had hoped that this subject, much discussed between herself and Robert over the past few days, would not be broached until later. ‘I – we—’ she stammered, ‘that is – well, we haven’t exactly—’ she stopped. Then said in a determined rush. ‘We’re going to live in Florence. To begin with, anyway.’

  Very slowly Maria turned her head. Her face was an absolute picture of astonishment. ‘Live in Florence?’ She said it as if the very idea were an outrage to nature.