Alexander seemed anxious to draw Mary into the conversation, but he was unsuccessful. Her unease was almost palpable. At her side Pieter Heering also made many attempts at conversing with her, but was met either with monosyllabic replies or blank stares. Alexander appeared increasingly uncomfortable at her obvious inability to cope with her guests or simply relax and enjoy the evening. Her food remained mostly uneaten. He dispensed with the custom, which had been continued by Lally from the old days, of leaving the men to their port and after the meal all the guests went into the drawing room where the men lit cigars and Dora and Irene smoked black Sobranie cigarettes. Coffee and liqueurs were served and the conversation continued, on a more or less serious level, until Mary suddenly excused herself, saying she felt tired.
Everyone looked apologetic as if somehow this was their fault. Alexander solicitously accompanied her from the room, returning after a few minutes.
“I’m afraid Mary is terribly tired. She is five months’ pregnant, you know.”
“Quite an ordeal for her,” Pieter said expelling cigar smoke. “All these people.”
“Oh no, she enjoys them,” Alexander insisted. “It is just that ... well,” he looked around, “she is not used to entertaining. But she will learn in time.”
“Anyway we must be going.” Reuben looked at his watch and glanced at his wife and daughter. “Irene, too, is very tired.”
“I do hope I see you again,” Dora said as they got up. “I enjoyed our conversation.” She was referring to a talk she and Irene had had before dinner about German art and how everything was being driven underground by the Nazis.
The Sydlings too called it a day. Roberts was summoned and the guests escorted to the door by Alexander while Pieter remained behind finishing his cigar.
When Alexander returned he looked tense and unhappy and immediately poured himself a brandy.
“That was a difficult evening,” Pieter said. “I thought Mary was going to faint halfway through dinner.”
“She will get used to it,” Alexander replied brusquely. “She will have to. She knows quite well that I have to entertain.”
“But she is very young,” Dora insisted, also rising and pouring herself a brandy. She wore a long-sleeved couture evening gown of heavy gold satin designed on a slip-over princess line. With her cropped blonde hair and tall, slim figure she looked poised and elegant, the very antithesis to her young cousin. “After all she should still be in the schoolroom.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that,” Alexander looked annoyed.
“But it is true.”
Pieter suddenly threw the butt of his cigar into the fire.
“I really should go and have an early night.” He looked affectionately at Alexander. “Your wife is a very sweet little lady, and I am sure that in time she will learn to be the perfect hostess, but I can’t help thinking of the splendid occasions Lally used to host here, and I miss her.”
“What a perfectly beastly remark,” Alexander said angrily as he came back to the drawing room after seeing Pieter to the door. He went over to the table and poured himself another brandy.
“I don’t think he meant it unkindly.”
“Well what do you think he meant?” Alexander lit a cigarette and threw himself into the chair opposite Dora.
“Well, I think he misses Lally, naturally. He’s very fond of her and she had some marvellous parties here.”
“In time so will Mary. Don’t forget Lally was young once. I shall protect Mary by not having these dinners again for a while. They’re clearly an ordeal for her. It’s not fair.”
“Then your business will suffer.”
“No it won’t. I can take people out.”
“It’s so nice to entertain at home.” Dora finished her drink and went and perched on the arm of Alexander’s chair, tentatively placing a hand on his arm.
“Alexander, you know I love you.”
“Yes, I do.” He reached out and took her hand. “And I love you.”
“I love Lally too,” Dora went on. “All this has made her very unwell. She’s changed a great deal in the last few months. She’s even let her hair go grey. I really fear for your mother, if ...”
“She is not my mother, Dora, don’t forget that!” There was a distinct note of warning in Alexander’s voice.
“You have thought of her as your mother since you were a tiny baby. I don’t know how much closer a mother can become.”
“And what of my real mother? That poor woman whose only glimpse of me, her own son, came as I rode by her window? How would you feel Dora if you never knew your mother? If someone told you Eliza was your real mother and you had been brought up by someone else?”
“I can’t compare –” Dora began but Alexander interrupted her savagely.
“Because you’re a Woodville too, Dora. You can’t begin to put yourself in another person’s place. I saw you tonight looking pityingly at Mary.”
“I was not looking pityingly at her.” Dora’s voice rose heatedly.
“Yes you were. She didn’t talk, she didn’t understand what was going on. She didn’t tell Roberts when to serve. She just sat there. Don’t think I wasn’t aware of it. But I love her. Mary gives me happiness and stability. I used not to know who I was, and now I know all too well and, believe me, sometimes I wish I didn’t. But for the unselfish love that Mary gives me, I would go to pieces altogether. She is a sweet, good, wonderful person; she is simple but not simple-minded. You devious Woodvilles could learn a lot from her.”
“I object to being called ‘devious’ Alexander,” Dora said stiffly. “Every family has its skeletons. Maybe we have more than most, I don’t know. All I do know is that my mother acted for the best over Elizabeth, and Lally and Prosper certainly acted for the best over you.”
“Well, sometimes I wish they hadn’t.” Alexander almost spat out the words. “Sometimes I wish that I had grown up with my real mother, the mother who bore me, whatever the hardship, and that I had never been turned into the sort of person I was obviously not meant to be.”
“But you’re happy, surely?” Dora looked around her. “You have a beautiful home, money, work you like and a lovely wife. You’re going to be a father. What more could you want. I ask you Alexander what more?”
“I would like to have known my real mother and to have kissed her and helped her through the disease that killed her, Dora, when she was a younger woman than you are now.
“I find it very hard to forgive the Woodvilles for denying me that.”
Part Two
A Great Tradition
Chapter Eight
April 1934
“Ah, Sir Carson, how very nice to meet you.”
Carson bowed slightly and shook hands with the tall, grey-haired, distinguished-looking gentleman who, casting aside the copy of The Times he’d been reading, had risen to greet him.
“How do you do, Count?” Carson said in a rather formal manner, as Paolo Colomb-Paravacini pointed to a chair. He sat down and crossed his legs.
“Did you have a good journey, Sir Carson?” the count enquired as he, too, resumed his seat.
“A little stormy, but I enjoyed the train.”
“Yes, train journeys are fun,” the count mused, his English almost without accent. He looked towards the door. “I believe the children are nearly ready. My wife is with them now. They will be delighted to see you.”
Carson winced at the word ‘wife’. He had not been looking forward to this visit, but it had to be done. If he wanted to see more of his children he had to go and get them. Yet it meant facing Connie and the man she had recently married, Paolo Colomb-Paravacini, seventeen years her senior.
How, he wondered, could Connie have married this elderly gentleman with grey hair, thin on top, wrinkly, liver-spotted hands and parchment-coloured skin?
There was no doubt that he looked like the aristocrat he was: a scion of one of the oldest families in Venice. He was wealthy too, but wealth didn’t count with a wom
an as wealthy as Connie.
At that moment the door opened and three small bodies hurled themselves at Carson, who took them in his arms one by one: Toby, nine, Leonard, eight and little Netta, his darling, his pet, just seven years old.
His eyes filled with tears as he kissed them. When he put them down, Netta clinging on to one hand and Leonard to the other, he raised his eyes and saw that Connie had silently entered the room. She had tucked her arm in that of Paolo’s in a close, proprietorial gesture that was not lost on her ex-husband, who wished paradoxically at that moment that he had done more to try and keep her.
Connie, elegant and dignified, had also acquired a kind of beauty in her middle years that she had not possessed in her youth. She was dressed in a white linen suit and white calf shoes. There was a jewel of some kind in her lapel, otherwise nothing but the gold wedding band whose shining newness told Carson what he knew already. It was not the one he had placed on her finger ten years before. No longer Lady Woodville, she was now Contessa Colomb-Paravacini.
Her skin was brown and vibrant. Her glances towards Paolo were loving, but when she looked at Carson he saw only indifference in her eyes. Releasing the children Carson went over to Connie. She freed her hand from Paolo’s arm and politely shook his, as though she was greeting a stranger or, at the very most, a mere acquaintance, not a man she’d been married to and by whom she had three children. It was very mortifying, very wounding.
“How are you Carson?” Her expression was polite, impersonal.
“Very well thank you, Connie. And you?”
“Wonderfully well.” She glanced lovingly again at Paolo. “We had the most marvellous honeymoon in the Balkans. Have you been to the Balkans, Carson?”
“No,” Carson said stiffly, unable to resist the feeling of jealousy and resentment that swept through him at the idea of his wife sleeping with this old man.
He wanted to be gone from the exquisite Venetian Palazzo Colomb-Paravacini which was now Connie’s home, as quickly as he could. He glanced at his watch.
“If the children are ready, Connie?”
“Oh, so soon?” Connie looked surprised. “We hoped you’d stay for luncheon.”
“I’m afraid I can’t. I have other plans.”
“Oh, very well. Nanny is ready. I’ll tell her you want to leave at once. Come along children.” She held out her hand, and obediently the little group trotted after her as she left the room, only Netta looking fearfully behind.
“See you in a minute, darling,” Carson said giving her a little wave, a smile of reassurance. “Run along and get your things.”
“Don’t forget dolly,” Paolo called out with a smile. “She’s a darling.” He turned to Carson after she’d left the room. “They all are. I couldn’t be more fond of them if they were mine.”
“But you have children of your own I believe?” Carson said thickly.
“Two, and they both have children. I am a grandfather four times over.”
“Fancy.” Carson looked out of the lofty windows of the palazzo across the waters of the Grand Canal.
Fancy, he thought, Connie marrying a grandfather.
And then he realised that very soon he would be one himself.
“I found I deeply resented the fact that Connie had married someone so much older than she was,” Carson said a week later. He was sitting on the terrace with Dora as the children played on the lawn. “It seemed to reflect on me.”
“Did you feel jealous?” Dora looked at him with concern.
“Yes.”
“Do you think you still love Connie?”
“Well,” Carson stroked his chin, “I don’t know that I love her exactly. I’m quite bewildered by my emotions. I don’t think I expected her to marry so soon after the divorce. Of course, this chap wanted to marry her before.”
“Do you think she loves him?”
“She was certainly looking very fondly at him. Whether it was to annoy me or not, I don’t know. Anyway, no use crying over spilt milk. It’s over and done with and that’s about all one can say. I hope she will be very happy.”
Dora reached out and Carson slipped his hand in hers.
“Poor old thing,” she said. “I believe you do still love her.”
“Oh, the whole thing was such a mess.” Carson found that, to his embarrassment, tears were pricking the backs of his eyes. “If Connie had been more understanding about Nelly none of this would have happened.”
“But you did let her go.” Dora tried to make herself sound reasonable. One could see Connie’s point of view. If Carson had behaved charitably towards a former mistress he had certainly been misunderstood by his wife.
“I was angry. I felt guilty. Was it too much to ask my wife to understand me? No, she took off, with my children, left me. Then, before any time had passed at all, said she wanted a divorce. I was still grieving for Nelly. I don’t think Connie ever really loved me, you know. I think she hankered after this Colomb-Paravacini chap all along. She says they have an awful lot in common: opera, art, antiques. They were off to Egypt the day after we left.” Carson rubbed his chin again feelingly. “No, on the whole I think I am well rid of Constance, but I miss my children.”
Two of the grooms from the stables had joined the two boys in a vigorous game of ball on the lawn. Netta was sitting on the edge with her English nursemaid, Harriet, who was reading her a story. Harriet was a brisk, sensible, capable young woman of about twenty-five or six who had been invaluable on the long journey back to England where the children were to stay with Carson over the Easter holidays. In the end, the divorce had been amicable, both parties having in mind that the main thing was the welfare and happiness of the children.
It had been agreed that for the time being they should stay with their mother and go to school in Venice, and spend the holidays with their father. When the boys were eleven they would go first to a prep school, then a public school in England. They would then divide the holidays between their mother and father. Connie had not wanted any money for herself, but Carson would pay the school fees and contribute to the upkeep of the children.
“I feel in a way I have lost everything,” Carson continued. “These children are no longer really mine. We get used to one another and then it’s time to part again. They talk quite fondly of the count. Of course, I am glad they like him, and he’s good to them, that’s obvious, but it’s not the same as having your own children in your own house with you.
“And then there is Alexander. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever see him again or if he is lost to us for ever?” He looked despairingly at his companion. If there was anyone in the world he could confide in it was Dora – cousin, friend, contemporary. She was only three years older than he. They had always shared a bond, a love of horses, of the countryside, the family. They had both served in the war and then, and at various other times in their lives, suffered physical and emotional hardship.
“It’s been a tough year for you.” Dora still held his hand tight. “Connie, Alexander ...” She sighed. “I can’t say what will happen about Alexander. He was certainly very bitter when I saw him in London. I think he will take some time to come round.” She looked anxiously at Carson. “Maybe, after the baby is born, things will be better. Perhaps as Mary gets older she will have a softening effect on him. I got the impression she very much misses the family and she is sure to want to mend bridges. After all they have had a very hard year too.”
Dora was interrupted by the sound of a car horn and, looking across the lawn they saw an open tourer driven by a striking fair-headed woman sweep up the drive. A hand fluttered as the car came to a halt a few yards from where they were sitting. Dora shaded her eyes.
“Well, I’m blowed. I do believe it’s Sally. Sally Yetman,” she said jumping up.
“Remember me?” the blonde called gaily, getting out of the car.
“Of course we remember you.” Dora, seeing that tall, vibrant goddess-like creature dressed in slacks and a loose sweater, a canary co
loured scarf at her neck, experienced a completely unexpected coup de foudre, a sense of excitement, as she walked towards her. And when Sally clasped her warmly in her arms and kissed her cheek Dora felt a raising of the spirits, an elation she hadn’t felt ... well since she’d fallen in love with May, and that was many years ago.
“How lovely to see you again!” Sally exclaimed.
“And you.” Dora hoped that the overwhelming emotion she felt had escaped Sally’s notice.
Carson stood behind Dora, an amiable smile on his face, and also embraced Sally, though with a cousinly peck on the cheek rather than a hug.
“I do hope you don’t mind. I just happened to be passing.”
Sally began apologetically and Carson vigorously shook his head as he drew up a chair.
“Of course we don’t mind. I have been meaning to get in touch with you ever since Eliza’s party.”
“And I you.” Sally looked at him. “But it’s been such a busy year.”
Carson looked at the ground murmuring, “For me too.”
“What have you been doing?” Dora asked eagerly.
“I went to South Africa to visit my cousins, Uncle Robert’s children, and stayed for months. I came back through Africa, Egypt and the Middle East. It was marvellous.”
“What an adventure,” Dora said, a little enviously.
“And you? Is your husband with you?” Sally looked around.
Dora shook her head.
“No, he and Louise stayed in France. I came to see Mother who has been nursing Lally Martyn, a great family friend who has not been well.”
A Time of Hope (Part Five of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 11
