The Landower Legacy (43 page)

Cousin Mary was waiting for me. There was no mistaking her joy in my return. “Thought you were never coming back,” she grumbled. “Of course I came back,” I said.

“NO LONGER

MOURN

FOR ME”

Memories of Olivia stayed with me after I had returned. Cousin Mary wanted to
hear all about my visit and I told her. I mentioned that Jago had travelled up with me.

She laughed. “One can’t help liking Jago, eh?” she said. “No, of course one can’t. He’s a bit of a rogue but a charming one. I daresay he’ll be marrying soon.”

“He won’t have to be so concerned with bolstering up the family fortunes as his brother was.”

She looked at me sharply. “It’s a pity. Jago ought to have been the one to have done it. It wouldn’t have affected him half so much. He would have just gone on in his old way.”

“Would he have looked after the estate?”

“Ah, there you have a point. Well, it’s worked out the way it has and Jago will, I daresay, settle down in due course.”

She was looking rather slyly at me.

“He won’t with me,” I said, “even if he had the inclination—which I doubt.”

“I think he’s fond of you.”

“As I have said: and of every member of the female population under thirty and perhaps beyond.”

“That’s Jago. Well, well, it’ll be interesting. But he did go up to London remember. What did Olivia think of him?”

“Charming. But then she would be inclined to think everyone charming—and he was very pleasant.” I told her about Rosie and her comments.

She looked grave. “It would be in character, wouldn’t it? Yes, indeed it would. Well, there’s nothing you can do about it. Perhaps it’s a temporary embarrassment. I suppose people sometimes win. Otherwise they wouldn’t do it, would they? As for that woman … some nightclub hostess … that wouldn’t be serious and it’s inevitable, I reckon, with a man like that.”

Enthusiastically I described the baby. She gave me some oblique looks which I knew meant she thought I was hankering after one of my own.

I answered her as though she had spoken. She was accustomed to my reading her thoughts. “Being a godmother is quite enough for me.”

“You might change your mind.”

“I hardly think so. Unfortunately one can’t have a family without a husband and that is something I really can do without.”

“You’ll grow away from all that.”

I shook my head. “There are too many about like Jeremy Brandon.”

“Oh, but they’re not all like that!”

“My circle is rather limited, but in it there are two who sold themselves for a mess of pottage. Very nice pottage in both cases, I must admit. A fortune and a grand old house. Well worth while both. No. I have nothing to offer so there will be no suitors for my hand.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”

“I’m sure enough … and of my own feelings.”

“I’ve often thought that you could get rather bitter, Caroline. People do, I know … when these things happen to them. But it doesn’t do to judge the whole world on one or two people.”

“There is my mother. I doubt whether she would have found Alphonse so appealing without his money. Poor Captain Carmichael couldn’t stay the course, could he? He was handsome and charming … more than Alphonse.”

“You shouldn’t dwell on those things, dear.”

“I have to see the truth as it is presented to me.”

“Forget it all. Stop brooding on the past. Come out now. I want to go along to Glyn’s farm and then I want you to have a look at the books with me. Everything is getting very profitable. Very satisfactory, I can assure you.”

She was right. I threw myself into the work of the estate. I was becoming absorbed in it, and I realized how I had missed it while I had ” been away.

There came the occasional postcard from my mother. Life was wonderful. They were in Italy, in Spain and then back in Paris. Alphonse was such an important businessman. She was in her element. There were so many people who had to be entertained. Alphonse wrote to me and said he would be delighted for me to join them. There was always a home for me with them if I wished it. But at least why not come for a visit? He was as enamoured of my mother as ever and I imagined she was of use to him in his business. She certainly knew how to entertain and there was no doubt of his delight in his marriage. My mother was less pressing in her invitation and I gathered she did not want a grown-up daughter around to betray her age.

I would not wish to go with them. While I was working here with Cousin Mary I could forget so much which was unpleasant.

Soon after my return I rode out to the moors. It was my favourite spot. I loved the wildness of the country, the wide horizons, the untamed nature of the place, the springy grass, the clumps of gorse, the jutting boulders and the little streams which seemed to spring up here and there from nowhere.

The country was colourful—its final splash of colour as the year was passing. The oaks were now a deep bronze; very soon the leaves would be falling. There were lots of berries in the hedgerows this year. Did that mean a cold winter?

I rode almost automatically in the direction of the mine. It fascinated me. It looked so desolate and grim. How different it must have been when the men were working there!

I dismounted and patting my horse asked him to wait awhile; but on second thought, fearing he might not be able to resist the wild call of the moor, I tethered him to a bush and I went close to the mine and looked down.

It was eerie—due to the loneliness of the moor, I told myself. I took a stone and threw it down into the shaft. I listened to hear it hit bottom, but I heard nothing.

Paul was almost upon me before I heard the sound of his horse’s hoofs. He galloped up, dismounted and tied his horse to the same bush as mine.

“Hello,” I said, “I didn’t hear you approach until you were almost upon me.”

“I thought I told you not to go near the mine.”

“I believe you did. But I don’t have to do as I’m told.”

“It is as well to take advice from people who know the country better than you do.”

“I can see no danger in standing here.”

“The earth is soft and soggy. It could crumble under your feet. You could slide down there and call till you’d no voice to call with, and no one would hear you. Don’t do it again.” He had come close and he caught and held my arm. “Please,” he added.

I stepped backwards so that I was nearer to the edge of the mine. He caught me in his arms and held me.

“You see … how easy it is.”

“I’m perfectly all right.”

His face was close to mine. I felt weak, forgetting that he had married a woman for what she could bring him and that he was as mercenary in his way as Jeremy was in his.

He said: “I have wanted to talk to you for so long.”

I tried to release myself but he would not let me go.

“Come away from the mine,” he said. “I feel alarmed to see you so reckless.”

“I’m not in the least reckless, you know.”

“You were dangerously close. You don’t understand these moors. You should come here with people who know the country.”

“I’ve been here quite a while now. I am becoming as sure-footed as a native.”

He was still holding me, looking at me appealingly. Then suddenly he held me tightly against him and kissed me.

For a moment I did not struggle. In spite of everything I wanted this … for so long I had wanted it … ever since the days at school when I had dreamed about him.

Then all my anger came sweeping back. It was anger against him … against Jeremy … and all arrogant men who thought they could use women as it suited them … becoming engaged when they thought there was a fortune, casually saying goodbye when there was not, marrying to retrieve their fortunes and then afterwards attempting to make love to someone they preferred to the one who went with the bargain.

Yes, I was angry, bitterly angry because there was nothing I wanted more than to be with Paul, to love him, to spend my life with him.

“How dare you behave in this way!” I cried.

He looked at me sadly and said simply: “Because I love you.”

“What nonsense!”

“You know it’s not nonsense. You know I loved you when we were in France and I felt you were not indifferent to me then. That’s true, isn’t it?”

I flushed. I said: “I did not know you then, did I?”

“You knew how you felt about me.”

“But it was not
you.
It was someone I mistook for you. Then I discovered my mistake. You’ve forgotten I’ve already learned something about men and their motives.”

“You saw that man when you were in London?”

“Yes, I saw him.”

“Something happened …”

“What do you think happened? He is married to my sister. I was godmother to their child.”

“But you and he … How were you?”

“He
behaved like the exemplary husband. Why should he not? He achieved his ends. An impecunious young gentleman, he now lives the life of a very wealthy one. You will understand that. As for myself I was aloof, cool, dignified … indifferent. How did you expect me to be?”

“Caroline, listen. I want you to understand. Please … let us move away from this mine.” He put his arm round me and held me tightly against him. I made a pretence of trying to escape but he held on firmly and I allowed him to lead me over the grass.

He indicated one of the boulders. “Sit down,” he said. “They make good back rests.”

“I really don’t want to sit.”

“I think you are afraid of me.”

“Afraid of you! Why should I be? Are you a monster then as well as …”

He drew me down beside him. “Go on,” he said, “as well as what?”

“A fortune hunter,” I said.

“You are talking about my marriage. I want to talk to you about that. I want to explain.”

“There isn’t really anything to explain. It is all very clear.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“It is not really so profound, surely. You saved the house for the family. It was a noble act. Landower was passing into alien hands and
for the honour of tradition, the family, the ancient ancestry in general, you sacrificed your own in particular.”

“You are so bitter. It tells me a good deal.”

He turned my head to look at me; then he took my face in his hands and kissed me, angrily, wildly, over and over again.

I tried to escape but it was impossible. In any case I did not really want to. I wanted to stay here, leaning against him. It was a kind of balm to my wretchedness, because I knew now more certainly than I had ever done that I wanted to be with him always and forever … and that I could never be.

“If I could go back,” he said, “I would not do it. I would face anything … rather.”

“It is easy to say that … when it is too late.”

“If I could be here with you and all that had not happened … I could be happy … so happy … happier than I have ever thought possible … because of you, Caroline. When I am with you everything seems different. I’m alive as I never have been before. I just don’t care about anything. I just want to be with you.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to lie against him and say: Let’s forget it happened. Let’s pretend.

I heard my voice, hard and brittle, because of my wretchedness and my need to disguise my true feelings: “It’s an old complaint. When things haven’t turned out as we expected … we want to go back and live our lives over again. We can’t go back … ever. We ought to remember that when we take these actions. No, Paul. You’d do the same thing over again. That house … it’s important to you … more important than anything. Just consider. You’d be living in the farmhouse. You’d see Landower stretched out before you … all that land which used to be yours for all those generations … now belonging to someone else. That would have been hard to bear.”

“I could have borne it,” he said, “if you had been there. And I would have got it back … decently … honourably … in time.”

“How is a farmer going to find the money to buy a big estate?”

He was silent.

“You can’t go back, Paul,” I said.

“No. That’s the pity of it. It’s a mistake, I know now, to live for bricks and stones. If you had been there it wouldn’t have happened. I should have known.”

“I was there.”

“A child. But there was something special about you even then. I
saw you in the train. Often … during those magic days in France … it seemed as though you and I were meant for each other. You must have felt that.”

“I was pleased to see you. Life was rather dull there.”

“You mean I relieved the tedium.”

“You did, of course.”

“But you seemed …”

I turned to him and said coolly: “I did not then know about your bargain.”

“Don’t call it that.”