White Rose of Winter

by Anne Mather

  Mrs. Hudson hunched her shoulders. ‘Happen she does,’ she said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

  Pamela and Robert left soon afterwards, driving away in their separate cars, bound for Pamela’s parents’ home at Orpington. Sandra waved them off, but Julie kept out of the way. She wondered how Robert would react to Francis now.

  During the next few days, Emma started her lessons with Sandra. The girl had brought some textbooks and paper with her, sufficient to last them for the first couple of weeks, and she told Julie indifferently that if Emma progressed satisfactorily she would send to London for more.

  But Emma did not progress satisfactorily. From being a good-natured, mild-tempered little girl, she became a stormy, tearful tyrant, and even Julie had to reprove her.

  ‘I can’t understand it,’ she said to Mrs. Hudson one afternoon. ‘She used to say she wanted to go to school.’

  ‘Having a governess isn’t the same as going to school,’ said Mrs. Hudson in her calm, practical way. ‘The little one has no friends. She doesn’t get a chance to associate with other children, and she’s lonely. And she knows so long as Miss Lawson stays here, she’ll stay that way.’

  ‘But Robert won’t agree to anything else!’ exclaimed Julie exasperatedly, her own troubles swamped by her anxiety over her daughter.

  ‘What about Mrs. Pemberton?’ suggested Mrs. Hudson, frowning.

  ‘Oh, she’d never agree with me! Besides, Sandra is a friend of the family.’

  Mrs. Hudson shook her head. ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.’

  ‘What about Mr. Hillingdon? Couldn’t he talk to Mr. Robert? Maybe he’d listen to him.’

  Julie grimaced. ‘I doubt that. I doubt that very much.’

  The housekeeper sighed. ‘Well, I don’t know what else you can do. But something will have to be done, for the lassie is crying herself to sleep nights.’

  ‘I know.’ Julie sighed, now. ‘And Sandra keeps complaining to me about her rudeness in lessons. I’m sure she’d like to slap her.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m sure the feeling’s mutual,’ remarked Mrs. Hudson dryly.

  ‘I’m sure it is.’ Julie tugged worriedly at a strand of her hair. ‘All right, I’ll ring Francis.’

  She got through to him at the office. He sounded delighted to hear from her as usual. ‘When am I going to see you again?’

  Julie lifted her shoulders helplessly. ‘Actually, Francis, it’s your help I want.’

  ‘Help? In what way?’ Francis sounded surprised.

  ‘I want you to speak to Robert. To ask him whether he would reconsider his decision concerning Emma’s schooling. She wants to go to the village school, and she simply won’t behave. Sandra’s been marvellously patient with her in the circumstances.’

  ‘I see.’ Francis expelled his breath noisily. ‘Would you like me to come and talk to Emma herself?’

  ‘I don’t think that would do any good. She’d be delighted to see you, of course, but after you’d gone …’ Her voice trailed away.

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean.’ Francis sounded thoughtful. ‘But I ought to tell you that Robert and I don’t seem on the best of terms at the moment. He – well, last Sunday when he came over, he made some pretty rough remarks to me when we were having a drink together before dinner.’

  Julie gasped. ‘What about?’

  ‘Can’t you guess? You, of course. He told me to leave you alone – that he found my behaviour disgusting – and that he wasn’t going to stand by and let you ruin your life. You know the sort of thing.’

  Julie was horrified. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  Francis made an amused snort. ‘Yes, well, I was pretty mad myself at the time, but then afterwards I realized he was only talking in your best interests. He seems to feel a strong sense of responsibility for you – for you both. I don’t know how his marriage to Pamela is going to stand up in the face of such a commitment.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Julie was trembling.

  ‘Well, if I didn’t know him better, I’d say he felt more than a moral obligation towards you. But that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? After all, he called off your wedding, didn’t he?’

  ‘Y–e–s.’ Julie bit her lower lip, finding it difficult to concentrate on the real reason she had rung Francis in the first place. ‘But – will you speak to him?’

  Francis hesitated. ‘If it’s what you want,’ he said, at last.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Right. He’s coming to lunch tomorrow. I’ll try and have a word with him then.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Francis. Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t achieved anything.’

  Mrs. Hudson was pleased when Julie told her what she had done. ‘Mr Hillingdon has a persuasive way with him, as you should know,’ she commented dryly.

  Julie smiled slightly. ‘Yes. But apparently Robert has taken him to task for taking me out last week-end and they’re not on such good terms as they were.’

  The housekeeper raised her eyebrows. ‘Indeed?’ She smiled. ‘Well, well.’

  Julie looked sharply at her. ‘What do you mean? Well, well?’

  Mrs. Hudson shook her head, studying the balance of the scales as she weighed out the ingredients for the cake she was making. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, Mrs. Pemberton.’

  ‘You can’t say that, having already commented.’ Julie perched on the high stool. ‘Oh, if only Robert will agree to Emma attending the village school. She’ll make some friends of her own age—’

  ‘And yon governess will be out of the house!’

  ‘That, of course,’ agreed Julie, sighing. ‘I can’t understand Emma. She’s always been so good before.’

  Mrs. Hudson sieved flour into a basin. ‘I expect having her grandmother and Mr. Robert and that Mr. Hillingdon making a fuss of her has gone to her head. She’s only five years old, Mrs. Pemberton. And just think of the changes of circumstances she’s had to adapt to during the last few months!’

  ‘Do you think she’s spoilt, then?’ Julie was concerned.

  ‘Bless you, no! She could do with a bit of spoiling, if you ask me. No, it’s just she’s trying to find her feet and there’ve been so many people around.’

  ‘Do you think that’s why she makes such a fuss of Robert when he comes?’

  Mrs. Hudson pulled a wry face. ‘Not altogether. I think she sees him as a kind of security, of course, but it’s more than that I think. She seems – well, attached to him. She’s always talking about him, you know. She talks about Mr. Hillingdon, too, of course, but Mr. Robert’s her favourite.’

  Julie pressed her palms to her cheeks, feeling the unwelcome prick of tears behind her eyes. ‘I see.’

  ‘He would be, wouldn’t he, Mrs. Pemberton?’ Mrs. Hudson spoke in such a low voice that Julie scarcely heard what she said.

  ‘What was that?’ she asked.

  Mrs. Hudson coloured now. ‘I said – well, he would be her favourite, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Why?’ Julie’s voice was jerky.

  ‘Well, being Mr. Michael’s brother and all, and looking like him.’

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean.’ Julie sounded relieved.

  ‘What did you think I meant?’

  Julie made a helpless movement of her shoulders. ‘Why – nothing.’

  Mrs. Hudson wiped her floury hands on her apron. ‘You should have married Mr. Robert, ma’am. Then he’d have been Emma’s father, wouldn’t he?’

  Julie stared at her. ‘It wasn’t to be,’ she said tightly.

  ‘No. Because you wouldn’t marry him before he left for Venezuela, would you, ma’am?’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  Mrs. Hudson sighed. ‘Mr. Robert told me, the other evening. We were talking about the days when he used to go on those assignments.’

  ‘I see.’ Julie slid off the stool. ‘What – what else did he say?’

  ‘Nothing much. Just that you’d been u
pset about him going.’

  Julie bent her head. ‘That’s not unnatural.’

  ‘You could have gone with him, as his wife.’

  ‘I know.’ Julie felt frozen inside. ‘But we had a row …’

  ‘About him going just a week before the wedding?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, I realize it was stupid now, but at the time it seemed important.’ She sighed. ‘I was only nineteen.’

  Mrs. Hudson measured out some sugar. ‘And afterwards?’

  Julie made an impatient gesture. ‘What’s the use of dredging it up now? No good can come of talking about it.’

  ‘It sometimes does you good to talk,’ remarked Mrs. Hudson quietly, ‘and from the way you’re acting now, I shouldn’t think you’ve talked about this much.’

  ‘Only to Michael,’ murmured Julie reminiscently.

  Mrs. Hudson nodded. ‘I see.’

  Julie heaved a sigh. ‘Did Robert tell you what happened the night we split up?’

  ‘No.’ Mrs. Hudson began beating up some eggs. ‘Can you imagine Mr. Robert confiding his troubles to me?’

  Julie tugged at a strand of her hair. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Tell me how you got to know him.’

  Julie shrugged. ‘I worked for the company. My boss introduced us, actually. I had heard of Robert, of course. He had quite a reputation.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I wanted nothing to do with him. I wasn’t – well, that kind of a girl, to coin an old-fashioned phrase.’

  ‘I see.’ Mrs. Hudson’s smile was gentle. ‘Go on.’

  Julie grimaced. ‘Oh, well, Robert was very insistent. He used to make excuses to come to Mr. Harvey’s office where I worked; he’d offer to drive me home, take me out to lunch, that sort of thing. The other girls used to warn me about him, but it wasn’t necessary. I already knew what he was like. He was used to getting his own way. But he didn’t try anything after the first time.’ She sighed. ‘I thought that would be that, but it wasn’t. He asked me to marry him!’ She shook her head helplessly. ‘I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was some kind of elaborate ploy to get me to go to bed with him. But it wasn’t.’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘The usual things. He took me to meet his mother. She had a house in Richmond in those days – oh, of course, you’d know that. Well, anyway, she never liked me, but I think she realized that Robert was serious and therefore she’d have to make the best of it. And all the arrangements for the wedding were made. I was brought up in a children’s home. My parents were killed in a car crash, and I was an orphan, so I had nobody to arrange things. Mrs. Pemberton dealt with everything. Then the Venezuela job exploded!’

  ‘And it was all off?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Julie turned away. She didn’t want to talk about it any more. It was all too painful to remember even now. Mrs. Hudson, with her innate perceptiveness, realized Julie’s dilemma and changed the subject, and Julie was grateful to her.

  But later that evening, when Julie was in the bath, the conversation came back to her and with it the realization that no matter what happened now she would always regret the past.

  Soaping her legs, she recalled the events of that evening, the evening Robert had to tell her that he was having to go to Venezuela to take charge of the Guaba project.

  But he hadn’t told her at the beginning of the evening. They had met in town as usual, and had dinner together at one of the small intimate restaurants they favoured. If Robert had seemed a little silent and morose Julie had scarcely noticed it, too happy and excited at the knowledge that in exactly a week she would be Mrs. Robert Pemberton.

  But when the meal was over she had had to acknowledge that something was wrong. A twinge of fear had touched her heart, and when Robert had suggested they should drive down to his mother’s house in Richmond Julie had agreed, wondering whether, despite everything that had been arranged, this was the moment when it was all going to be called off.

  In the car she had searched her thoughts, trying to find some incident, some disagreement in her memory which might have led to this disturbing state of affairs. But there was nothing. She must be wrong, she told herself, to become alarmed unnecessarily.

  The house Robert shared with his mother in Richmond was comfortably large, a family house, set in its own grounds, with tennis courts and a pool out back. It was the house Robert’s father had had built for his own use, and both Robert and Michael had been brought up there. Julie had visited it only seldom. Lucy Pemberton was always in residence and Julie knew she was not ever really welcome. That was what made it so strange that Robert should be taking her there this evening.

  However, when the car drew to a halt at the front door, she saw the house was in darkness and looked inquiringly at Robert.

  ‘My mother’s away for the week-end,’ he explained, sliding out of the car and walking round to help her out.

  Julie got out reluctantly. ‘Why have you brought me here, Robert?’

  Robert slammed her door. ‘Come on in. I could do with a drink.’

  Inside the comfortably furnished hall, he closed the door and led the way into the lounge. As he did so, Mrs. Hughes, his mother’s housekeeper, appeared from the kitchen and looked in some surprise at them.

  ‘I thought you were staying in town this evening, sir,’ she commented queryingly.

  ‘I was.’ Robert was abrupt. ‘Don’t alarm yourself, Mrs. Hughes. We shan’t require anything. You can go.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Mrs. Hughes had looked doubtfully at Julie before going out and closing the door behind her with obvious disapproval.

  Julie stood behind the couch, watching Robert pour himself a Scotch, and then he turned irritably and said: ‘Take off your coat. Sit down. We shan’t be disturbed.’

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’ Julie was concerned and couldn’t hide it.

  Robert’s expression softened. ‘Don’t look so alarmed, Julie. I wanted to talk to you somewhere where I knew we shouldn’t be disturbed, that’s all. Come and sit down, please.’

  Julie unbuttoned her coat and taking it off laid it across the back of a chair. Then she came round and seated herself on the soft brocade-covered couch.

  ‘Do you want a drink?’ Robert indicated the bottles.

  ‘No, thanks.’ Julie shook her head. She wished he would say what he had to say and be done with it. Whatever it was!

  Robert seemed to sense her misgivings and came to stand on the hearth before her, looking down at her with those intense grey eyes of his. It made her want to stand up and wrap her arms around him, she badly needed to feel the warmth of his reassurance, but until she knew why he had brought her here she was constrained.

  At last he said: ‘I’ve had some bad news, Julie.’

  ‘Bad news!’ Julie felt a cold hand squeeze her heart. ‘What kind of bad news? It – it’s not Michael, is it?’ At that time Michael was abroad with his ship and for a moment she thought he might have been injured or even killed.

  Robert shook his head, however, relieving her of that anxiety only to replace it with another. ‘No, it’s not Michael. Moran was killed in Venezuela yesterday.’

  Julie had a hand to her throat, but now her brows drew together in puzzlement. ‘Moran?’ she echoed. ‘You mean – Dennis Moran?’ Dennis Moran was an engineering consultant working for the Pemberton company. She had met him once or twice at the office, but she hardly knew him and certainly had no idea where he might be working at the moment.

  ‘That’s right,’ Robert was saying now. ‘He was working on the Guaba river valley project.’ He considered a moment. ‘Have you heard of it?’

  ‘Vaguely.’ Julie tried to think. ‘Wasn’t that the project you began initially?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Robert nodded.

  Julie made an expressive movement of her shoulders. ‘Even so – well, I’m sorry, naturally, but apart from the fact that the death of any individual is distressing, I don’t see how—’

 
‘You don’t see how it affects us? Is that it?’ Robert’s face was sombre.

  ‘Well, yes.’ Julie swallowed hard. ‘Is – is that all?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ Robert heaved a sigh. ‘This project is already overdue. The rains are expected soon and the dam has to be in position before then.’

  Julie held her breath. ‘So?’

  Robert uttered an expletive. ‘You’re not making it very easy for me, Julie.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ Julie stared at him. ‘I don’t see how this man’s death affects us!’

  ‘Don’t you? Or don’t you want to see?’ Robert turned away, resting his arm on the mantelpiece and leaning his head on his arm. ‘Surely it’s obvious,’ he went on in a muffled voice. ‘I’ve got to go out there and supervise the completion of the work!’

  Julie got to her feet then. ‘You’ve got to go to Venezuela?’ she exclaimed, in dismay.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But why you?’ For the moment Julie had forgotten the wedding only days away.

  ‘Because, as you so accurately put it a few moments ago, I began the work initially. Moran took over from me.’

  Julie shook her head. ‘But even so, there must be other engineers—’ She broke off suddenly. ‘What does this mean? What are you trying to say? When do you expect to leave?’

  Robert turned back to her and his face was grim. ‘I have to leave in – two, maybe three days—’

  ‘But you can’t!’ Julie was horrified. ‘Robert, have you forgotten—’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, how could I forget?’ he muttered fiercely. ‘That’s why I brought you here, isn’t it? That’s why I’m telling you straight out. I want you to try and understand my position—’

  ‘Your position!’ cried Julie. ‘What about my position?’ She made a helpless gesture. ‘You can’t do this. Why can’t someone else go? Why does it have to be you?’

  Robert made a calming movement with his hands. ‘Cool down, Julie,’ he said heavily. ‘Try and look at the situation logically. Do you suppose I want to go to Venezuela?’

  ‘I don’t know what you want,’ snapped Julie chokily. ‘I – I can’t think straight.’

  Robert sighed. ‘Of course you know what I want,’ he bit out harshly. ‘I want to stay here, I want to be with you, I want to marry you! I’ve wanted you long enough. How do you think I feel?’