'I don't want to stay without you.' She blinked open her eyes. 'Where are you going to?'
'I've got to go to church, OK? You'll come with me?'
She nodded.
Soon they were ready to go. Lucas was transformed into a pillar of respectability in a dark suit and crisp white shirt, his black hair groomed into order. Goldie wore a grey velvet coat—something she had bought with him in mind. On her head was a small pink hat, coquettishly smart.
'You look ravishing.' He pulled her into his arms and kissed her slow and long on the lips, already his fingers at the buttons of her blouse.
'Are we going or staying?' she asked, submitting instantly to the urgency of his need as it transmitted itself to every cell in her body. She was disappointed when he scowled at the clock.
'I have to be there, so let me go, you witch. We'll come back the instant it's over.'
Unsure of the propriety of such a remark, with a dreamy smile, she allowed him to fasten her buttons. The day would last forever in her memory. It would be hers for life. All she asked was that they spent every minute together.
When they reached the tiny church at the other end of the village, the bell was already concluding its final Sunday morning summons. Through the great oak door she could see all the pews full of people. There doesn't seem to be room,' she remarked. 'Do we stand at the back?'
Without replying he tucked her hand firmly in his and set off down the centre aisle, footsteps echoing hollowly so that heads turned to watch. Self-conscious at the entrance they were making, Goldie raised her head proudly, trusting Lucas to know what to do. He led them past the full rows, the curious glances, past the brass lectern in the shape of a golden eagle, down to the very front until, unfastening a wooden gate in a row of empty pews facing the small choir, he ushered her in. Here there was space, and suddenly she knew why. 'De Maine' it said in ancient script over the back of the wooden stalls. And there was an image of the heraldic animal she was beginning to understand was the sign of the de Maine family.
All eyes were on them still. She tilted her head. Rosemary Lancaster was sitting on the front row adjacent to them, first in the row of unmarked pews. Her lips tightened in disapproval at the sight bf Lucas and his mistress sitting so brazenly in the sight of God. Recognising this, Goldie raised her head proudly. If what she had done was wrong, then so be it. There was surely mercy enough in the world to forgive her the sin of loving Lucas de Maine? She slipped her hand into his as the congregation rose.
Not much later she understood his haste to be here, for he squeezed her hand once before letting it go. Then, rising to his feet, he made his way in the echoing silence to the lectern—handsome, erect and proud—and, in a deep voice of penetrating power, began to read the lesson.
Goldie felt that there was nothing so beautiful in the world as Lucas de Maine reading aloud in the hushed stillness of the ancient church. The syllables rolled around the stone vault with all the authority of the ancient line from which he descended. It made her sacrifice have meaning, for there was no way she could hope to join her wayward blood with his.
They were expected to leave first, after the vicar led the way, standing in the porch as if to advertise their love. If anyone had had any doubts about her presence by his side, Lucas's intentions were made clear by the looks he gave her. She felt naked under his sparkling gaze, proud to be so, though she heard the word 'brazen' and saw the whispers behind raised hands when Lucas wasn't looking.
They returned to the millhouse as soon as they could. He had stripped her before she reached the foot of the stairs. She felt his hardness penetrate the yielding core of her being, crying out in the joy of submitting to the demands of his male pride.
'Do you love me, Goldie?' he demanded as he possessed her body again and again. 'Say the words to me, darling, let me hear you say it aloud.' So far she had been unable to admit to what was closest to her, fearing it would bind her to him somehow, and her sacrifice would become impossible.
Even now, demand and cajole and curse as he did, she could not allow herself to say the words. She knew it was driving him to despair, that to possess her body was only half his desire, but her lips were sealed.
He asked her again in the stillness of the night. He asked her as dawn broke and, hours later, as she said goodbye at the airport, he asked her once again.
'I can't say what I know wouldn't be right to say,' she told him, turning her head. Her heart was breaking, but the life that would soon close round him, claiming him for the bride who waited for him, haunted her mind.
They were parted soon by officialdom. His face looked grey, standing out in a sea of strangers, diminishing, soon impossible to discern. Then she was airborne; the airport, soon England itself, diminished and faded from view.
CHAPTER TEN
Goldie returned home and took up life much where she had left it. The four months in the mountains turned out to be only two, as a part came her way that she felt was just right, and after she'd worked on that she felt drained and retreated to the mountains again. Ravella saw the rushes and rang her straight away.
'I didn't know you had it in you, darling. I'd got you down as a light-comedy actress. You have real dramatic power. I'm so proud.'
'Don't get too pleased about it. I'm thinking of giving it up for good.'
'Darling, I think I'm coming to see you.'
'I thought you were in the middle of a film?'
'So what?'
Two days later Ravella came walking up the stony path that led to Goldie's cabin, wearing peacock-blue beach trousers, a matching shirt over a bra top, and lots of gold chains. Goldie, lying on the sun-deck in a scrap of a bikini, heard her before she saw her, and raised herself on to one elbow, but didn't get up.
'You're looking beautifully golden, but aren't you rather thin?' Ravella sank down into one of the loungers, depositing a pile of presents at her feet. 'That's quite a walk up from the village. I must be older than I look.'
'You've always been older than you look.' Goldie lay back and closed her eyes.
'I suppose it's a man,' Ravella began. 'I would think I'm just about the best person to turn to for advice on that topic.'
Goldie smiled grudgingly. 'I expect you are.'
Ravella got up and went into the house, and came back with two gin fizzes. 'I can't imagine who he is. Not a breath of rumour has come my way.' She frowned. 'I wonder if I'm getting out of touch?'
'I doubt it. There's no way you could have heard about us.'
'Ah . . .' Ravella sipped her drink. 'Not one of the film crowd, then?'
'Emphatically not.'
'I suppose,' said Ravella carefully, 'that means England ... I heard you'd been over there just after Eva died.'
'Oh, shut up, Mother! I don't want to talk about him. I knew it was impossible from the minute I set eyes on him. I'll get over him in time.'
'I really don't see why you should have to if you really want him. What's the point of that?'
Goldie didn't answer.
'You're not trying to tell me this mystery man is unattracted to you?'
'For goodness' sake!' She scowled. 'That doesn't really come into it.'
'Ah . . .'
'And will you stop saying "ah" every few minutes, like some third-rate detective?'
'Listen to me, child.' Ravella smiled, knowing she was playing up to her role as mother, but genuinely concerned by the unhappiness she saw in Goldie's face. 'The best advice I can give you is go back to him. If he reacts favourably, tell him you care.'
'He must know how I feel,' she mumbled, 'but feelings can't alter facts.'
Ravella looked out over the valley that fell away beyond the terrace. It was so beautiful, it hurt the eyes. But Goldie seemed oblivious to her surroundings.
'Does that mean he's married?'
'Of course not, for heaven's sake!'
Ravella seemed to give a sigh of relief. 'Then I can't see how the problem can be serious.' When Goldie didn't reply, she went
on, 'Darling, I'm here to help. I do know what you're going through, really I do.'
'You? That's rich! What do you know about real love?' A memory of something Lucas had said when they had first met came back to taunt her. She sat up, glaring across at her mother with all her misery showing in her eyes.
That could be hurtful, Goldie,' replied Ravella softly, 'if I thought you knew the truth.'
'What truth?'
A faraway look came into her mother's eyes. 'It's true I have flitted from man to man until recently, and I suppose I haven't been a good example of fidelity for you. But one thing I can put my hand on my heart and say—if your father hadn't been killed in that car crash before you were born, I would have been the most loving, faithful, one-man wife ever.' She paused and her voice thickened. 'When he died, my life seemed to end.'
Goldie picked up the sun-tan oil and started to dot it over her legs. 'You hardly ever talked about him when I was little. I grew up knowing next to nothing about him.'
'I'm sorry, darling, it was simply too painful to mention his name. He was the best,' she said quietly. 'That was my own personal nightmare, and I fought my way through it. I had to, I had to bring you up. You were the most precious thing in the world to me—a part of him I would always have.' She picked up a pair of dark glasses and slipped them on. 'I was lucky in that I had Eva and Brendan.
Together they helped me pull through.'
'Brendan?' Goldie looked up. 'Yes, I heard something about Brendan from --' She stopped abruptly, unable to say his name in the detached tone the conversation warranted.
Ravella gave her a swift glance. 'When Eva rejected Brendan, he turned to me,' she said. 'We were lovers, then good friends—at least, that's all it seemed. I realised when it was too late that for Brendan it had meant much more. That last summer must have been hell for him. The de Maine men are really quite something, and by then I'd known them all such a long, long time, it was natural to share myself between them.' She went on, 'You won't remember Willett, though I expect you met Martin when you were over there?' It was a question tacked on so skilfully that Goldie nodded before she could think.
'And Willett's son?' asked Ravella gently.
Goldie turned away. 'Did you have affairs with all three of them, then?' she demanded in a tight voice.
Ravella laughed. 'Willett was married and adultery isn't my style, though I knew he would always be there for me if the time was right. But, yes, after the thing with Brendan seemed to fizzle out, I had a brief fling with Martin. He'd always played the disapproving older brother, and it was fun to get him to thaw. It was quite a revelation to discover what a wicked devil he was on the quiet. He was the type who never had any intention of marrying. He never did marry, and he never wanted to. Some men are like that. Some women, too, because Eva was the same. The two of them should have split their differences and lived together, but of course in those days that wasn't done. Oh,' she stretched her arms to the sky, 'what a tangled web we weave.'
'There's a message from Martin for you,' remembered Goldie with a start of guilt. 'I forgot about it till now. Something about lilacs and dooryards.'
'Whitman.' Ravella quoted the line and the rest of the poem in her husky actress's voice. 'The darling,' she said softly. 'I hope I'll be able to go over soon. It's good to go back into the past sometimes. It helps to root out old ideas that have gone wrong.'
She leaned forward, removing the sunglasses, but Goldie could still see the moisture on the dark lashes. 'What was his name?' she asked. 'I'm not sure I can remember.' Goldie saw her frown, the clear green eyes on her own.
'Whose name?' she asked, dropping her glance.
'Willett's son's name, of course.'
Goldie picked up the sun-tan oil and screwed the cap on more firmly before mumbling, 'Lucas, actually.'
'Ah, yes, Lucas.' Ravella fell silent.
'Well, what about it?' asked Goldie truculently.
Ravella puckered her brow. 'Isn't he rather young for you? He's surely only about fifteen.'
'Mother, time has passed since you were there, and not everybody keeps on having the same birthday like you.'
Ravella ignored this and said, 'So he's now around twenty-six or twenty-seven?'
'Twenty-seven next month.' Goldie wished she could have bitten off her tongue. Why else would she remember some man's birthday unless she had a more than passing interest? It was no use now. She gave her mother a look of resignation. 'You may as well have it. I just happen to love him,' she mumbled. 'I can't help it. It's horrible. I want to die.'
Ravella came to sit on the edge of the sun-bed, taking Goldie in her arms and holding her as if she were a little girl.
'I went back for the auction,' she mumbled into her mother's peacock-blue blouse. 'I thought I might be able to rescue that painting of us. Do you remember it? But Lucas bought it for some mysterious client, and—well, that's how we met.'
'If he's anything like his father, he'll be a handsome devil. But the faithful type. A good man. Rare these days. Goldie, what can I say?
There's only one thing to tell you. Go back. Risk it.'
'It's no good, he's got to marry some girl who'll look after Burgh Hall.'
'They can afford a housekeeper, surely?'
'Of course. But everybody says he needs somebody who'll look the part. An English rose.'
Ravella laughed. 'Is that all that's stopping you?' She stroked Goldie's hair back from her face. It had grown quickly, and now almost reached her shoulders. 'You're an actress, aren't you?' she whispered. 'Put it to good use,' and before Goldie could protest she went on, 'And, anyway, it's type-casting—look at this place. You love it up here. You're in your element in the countryside.'
'I know. But Lucas doesn't know that.'
'Then go back and tell him. Go back, Goldie. Look beautiful for him. And if he's half the man the rest of the de Maines were, you won't have to do a thing.'
Goldie was more than half persuaded, but she couldn't help saying, 'If he really wanted me, he'd have come after me.'
'Nonsense. He probably thinks you have half the film moguls in Hollywood at your feet. And, anyway, he's a farmer first. Had you forgotten? What time of year is it over there?'
'Mid-summer, I expect.'
There you are, then. One of the busiest times of the year. He can't just walk out on it all. Crops won't stop growing just because Lucas de Maine wants a rest.'
'I'd forgotten about all that.'
'You'll have to start remembering.'
Goldie felt more cheerful than she had for months. 'It'll be better to do something, instead of sitting up here wishing,' she told her mother. She kissed her on the forehead. Thanks, Mum.''
When she arrived at Heathrow she was feeling less sure of herself than when she'd been sitting on the sun-deck of her mountain cabin. It was easy to be swept along on the tide of Ravella's enthusiasm, she realised, as she made her way through Customs. But what if Lucas had married in the time that had elapsed? What if he really had seen her as just another sex-obsessed starlet? And what if that grey, haggard look on his face as he had said goodbye was simply the effect of a couple of sleepless nights?
Oh, let him love me, God, she prayed as the taxi carried her across London to the railway station.
She hadn't stopped to work out a plan of campaign, and when she eventually alighted at York station where a hire car was waiting she still didn't know how she was going to approach him. Should she ring first and ask to see him? Or would it be best to turn up on his doorstep? Either way, she could see it might lead to awkwardness, for there would be no way she could make it look like a casual call.
Still undecided when she reached the village soon after lunch, she drove slowly down the main street, hoping against hope that he would suddenly emerge in her path and her worst fears would be quickly allayed. But the street was empty, the only signs of life a few ducks emerging from the pond on the green.
As she had told Ravella, it was mid-summer in England. The trees
she remembered for their spare angularity were now swathed in the full beauty of high summer, and the fields shone with the brilliance of new life, pregnant with their annual bounty and softly bound by hedgerows made hazy with sweet umbrils of Old Man's Beard. Its beauty made her ache with a renewed sense of time passing, taking all with it.
Deciding her safest approach would be to call on Hetty Woollard first, she reasoned that Hetty would be sure to let her know at once whether her journey had been wasted or not. At the same time she could hand over the little present she had brought with her for the new baby.
Carefully she accelerated up the lane made narrow by rampantly flowering verges, turning into the drive opposite the millhouse without daring to cast her glance in that direction. She pulled up and switched off the engine.
In the deep silence of the countryside, rooks set up a sudden clamour in the elms, and from a distant farmyard a dog began to bark.
Suddenly another nearer sound caught her attention. Climbing out of the car, she crossed the drive to the house. A pram stood outside the front porch and she bent to look inside. Hetty's grandchild gurgled happily within. Goldie felt something tug deep at the core of her being as she watched the tiny hands flail at the gaily coloured baubles strung from the hood.
'Goldie! Bless my soul!' It was Hetty standing in the doorway, a bunch of cut flowers from the garden in her arms.
'Isn't she adorable?' Goldie sighed still bending over the pram.
'I've got her to myself today.' Hetty looked pleased. 'You couldn't have come at a better time. But what a surprise, you should have warned us!' She gave her a quick hug. 'Mother all right?'
'Fine.' Goldie looked back at the pink and white bundle in the pram. 'I didn't realise they were so tiny.'
'Nearly six months now,' Hetty told her proudly. 'Would you like to hold her?' She extracted the kicking infant from the pram, and together they went over to the wooden seat on the front lawn. Goldie took the baby gingerly in her arms.
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