The Shadow of the Lynx (24 page)

I said slowly: “And Jagger?”

His eyes narrowed. His emotions frightened and yet in some strange way thrilled me. There was a violent hatred on his face.

“Jagger!” he cried.

“Yes, by God, Jagger!”

“You killed him. You killed a man.”

“My love, he had to die. I could never have looked at him again without wanting to murder him. I would have killed him with my own hands some time. At least I let him die quickly.”

“Oh, Lynx,” I said weakly, ‘you frighten me. “

“I frighten you} When I love you! And I’ve never loved anyone as I love you. Arabella! What a fantasy! It was my pride that suffered there. I wanted Whiteladies. I wanted to live in that house with my wife and children. And I’m going to, Nora.”

“You go too fast,” I said.

“My imperious Nora!” he retorted with a smile.

“Would you have me go slowly? We are going to Whiteladies, you and

I;

and you shall sit at the table on the dais where kings and queens have sat; and the nursery at the top of the house where poor simple Arabella learned her ABC will be for our children. “

“I have not yet said that I agree.”

“My darling, you will not be allowed to do anything else.”

“If I refuse.”

“You won’t.”

“What does … Stirling say? Have you told him?”

“He knows something of my plans.”

“He knows that you are asking me to marry you?”

“He knows. Adelaide knows. They have guessed at my feelings for you for some time past.”

“And Stirling … he thinks it is a good idea?”

“Of course. He realizes the strength of my feelings for you.”

“And that means that he will wish it too.”

“He has been a good son. He has always been eager for my happiness.”

“I see.”

“So it is only for my imperious Nora to say that she loves me, which I know she does.”

“You are adopting that irritating habit of speaking of me as though I’m not here as you did when you tried to demoralize me on my arrival.”

He laughed delightedly.

“Cruel of me. And foolish really because it never succeeded for a moment, did it? We’ll announce to the family that the ceremony is to take place. You know I’m not a man for wasting time.”

“I will not be hurried into anything. I like to make my own decisions.”

“So you shall, for I see that you are as eager for this ceremony to take place as I am.”

“You take too much for-granted. I was not prepared for this, I do assure you. I thought of you as my father …”

“I will make a better husband than a father, you see.”

I held him off. I said: “I want time … time. I shall say nothing until I have thought about this.”

“Tonight I am going to announce to them our imminent marriage.”

“Not yet,” I protested and then wondered why I had put it that way, as though it would come in due course. Marry Lynx! It was a bewildering and exciting project. What had y feelings for him been—something beyond that of an al pted daughter towards a father—and yet there was Stirling.

Stirling! He knew of this and accepted it. I would live

‘s an incongruous situation, but it was what Lynx had been planning.

I turned away but he was at the door before me, barring my way. His eyes were brilliant with a passion which alarmed me as I had been alarmed when I stood face to face with Jagger, and yet at the same time I had no desire to run away from him.

He took my chin in his hands and lifted my face to his.

“You are afraid,” he said, ‘afraid of what you have not yet experienced. You have discoveries to make, Nora. We’ll make them together. You have nothing to fear, my darling. “

His face was close to me, those gleaming jungle eyes alight with a passion of which I could only guess.

I held him off.

“No,” I said.

“Not yet. I must go away. I must think.

I insist. If you announce anything I should deny it. I will not be forced. “

He dropped his hands.

“You are afraid of me. Oh God, Nora, is that true?”

“Why will you harp on fear? It is not fear. I object to being told whom I shall marry and when the ceremony will take place before I have been consulted. If this marriage took place it would have to be understood that I am not a puppet to be moved this way and that, nor should I be expected to bow down and worship my husband as though he were one of the gods stepped down from Olympus.”

“Oh Nora, you delight me. So my darling wants time to think. She wants to make her own decisions. My only wish is to give her everything in the world she asks for. This is a small thing compared with the gifts I shall shower on her.”

“The first thing I ask is that you stop that ridiculous habit. It infuriates me.”

We were laughing again—back for a moment to the old relationship.

“Now,” I said, “I will leave you. I will go to my room and when I have decided I will tell you.”

He dropped the hands which had imprisoned me. As I turned he caught me and I felt his lips on my neck. I wanted both to stay and to escape;

and as ever, I did not understand my feelings.

I went to my room and closed the door. I stood against it pressing my cool palms to my burning cheeks.

You knew it, I accused myself, and you refused to see it.

You had made up your mind that you would marry Stirling. tt had all seemed so right and natural. But I love Stirling, ( protested.

Yes, you love Stirling. And Lynx.

I could think of no one but Lynx. He filled my mind as he seemed to dominate every room in which he stood. He was exciting; he was magnificent; he was more than human.

I tried to be calm. Marry Lynx! Be with him day and night! I was so inexperienced of life. I had so much to learn of men and marriage; and Lynx would be my instructor. I was aghast at the thought and yet completely obsessed by it. I love Stirling, I kept telling myself. It was always Stirling, ever since we stood on the deck of the Carron Star together. Yes, but at that time I had not met Lynx.

Yet having met Lynx my feelings towards Stirling had not changed. I remembered that terrible night when we had lain in the cave together and had known that we might never come out alive; and when we had emerged and had known that after all we had a future, it had been like an unspoken declaration of love.

Yet even in the cave Lynx had been constantly in my thoughts—in both our thoughts.

If I married Lynx I should be Stirling’s stepmother. Stepmother to the man I had thought of marrying! It was incongruous. Suppose I talked to Stirling? Suppose he told me he loved me? We should have to go away.

We could not marry and live under the same roof as Lynx, now that he had declared his passionate need of me.

But when I thought of life without Lynx I was filled with dismay. It would be flat and dull. With Stirling? Yes, perhaps even with him. But Lynx would never allow us to go away. That thought comforted me. I remembered vividly the sight of him on his white horse, the gun in his hands. A murderer! He said he would do the same to any man who laid hands on roe. And Stirling?

I was caught up in the whirlwind of my own emotions. I did not know what I should do.

I must see Stirling.

I spent a sleepless night and was up early. I saw Stirling at breakfast and told him I must speak to him soon and alone.

We took our horses and rode out into the bush.

Before we had covered a mile, I said to him, “Stirling, your father has asked me to marry him.”

“Yes,” he said, his face impassive.

“It surprised me.”

Did it? “

He talked to you about it? “

“It came out in his plans for going to England.”

So Stirling had indeed known about it for some time. Before the fire.

Then I had misunderstood everything. To him I was only a sister. I had made this mistake of believing that our relationship went deeper than that. I had misunderstood everything—Stirling as much as Lynx.

“I see,” I said blankly.

There was silence. His face betrayed nothing. I felt disappointed, deflated. How stupid I had been!

“If I married your father I should be your stepmother,” I said with a foolish little laugh.

“Well?”

“That seems very odd.”

Why? “

“You’re older than I am.”

Tt wouldn’t be the first time someone had a young stepmother. “

“Stirling, what do you think of it?

“My father would be happier than he has ever been in his life. And you know how fond of you we have grown. You’re already one of us. This will …”

1 waited breathlessly for him to continue. He shrugged his shoulders.

“It will bring you closer than ever,” he finished.

Again I felt that maze of bewilderment. What did I want? Stirling to break down, to tell me that he could not endure to see me married to another man—even his own father? Did I want him to plan our escape?

”

I did not know. I think part of me clung to the old dream of myself and Stirling going through the years together, our children climbing on to their grandfather’s knee, venerating him, adoring him, as we all did. It was the old conventional dream. But how could Lynx play the background figure in any story?

I started to gallop and immediately heard Stirling’s horse thudding behind me. He doesn’t care, I thought. He’s glad because it’s what his father wants. Stirling has no will or his own; his only will is that of his father. He had been fond of me, yes—but as his sister.

So now I knew what I should do. Stirling had made the decision for me.

But was that true? Should 1 ever have been able to tell Lynx that I could not marry him because I loved his son?

I love them both, I thought in desperation. How strange it should be that with the younger man I envisaged the peaceful and conventional life, and with the other—old enough to be my father—the adventure.

When we arrived back at the house Lynx must have seen us for one of the servants came down at once to say that he wished to see me in the library.

It was like a command, I thought with a faint but indulgent exasperation. But while his arrogance irked me I wanted it.

I deliberately delayed and he was impatient.

“How long you took,” he complained.

“I stopped to comb my hair and wash my hands before entering the royal presence.”

“Didn’t you know that I expect immediate obedience?”

“I knew you expected it, but things don’t always happen as one expects.”

Hs laughed as he did so readily now. In fact I seemed constantly to amuse him. But perhaps it was the laughter of triumph for he knew that I was going to succumb to his wishes. I think I had known it right from the start . in spite of Stirling.

“You are more self-assured this morning than you were last night.”

“I was a little taken by surprise then.”

“And now you have had an opportunity to consider …”

“My good fortune?”

“Our good fortune,” he amended.

“But you need not go on. I know your answer.”

“You were so sure of it from the beginning that you didn’t really think it necessary to ask me.”

“I know what is best for you.”

“Do you also know what is best for yourself?”

“You are best for me and I for you. It’s as simple as that. You had a good ride with Stirling?” He looked at me steadily.

“He is delighted.

My family knows that my marriage with you is what I desire more than anything in the world. Therefore they are happy that it should take place. “

I held out my hands to him and he grasped them eagerly.

I

am a member of that family,” I said, ‘so I suppose I must fall into line.”

I saw the triumph in his eyes as I was caught up in his embrace.

“I shall disappoint you,” I said.

“Impossible.”

“You will find me too young and stupid.”

“And you will be imperious with me.”

“You will be impatient with me.”

“I shall find you as I always have—enchanting.”

I think it is somehow incongruous. “

“Nonsense. You love me.”

“Is it lese-majeste to love the gods of Olympus as one would an ordinary mortal? Shouldn’t one adore merely.”

“That will do for a start,” he said.

There was a ceremonial dinner that evening and every place at the table was filled. I sat beside him. He was benign; his eyes shone rather than glinted. I had never seen him look as he did then and I was elated because I was responsible for it.

He laughed a great deal; he was tolerant with everyone;

and at the end of the meal he made the announcement. He and I were shortly to be married—very shortly, he added. This was a great occasion and everyone was to drink the health of his bride-to-be. They stood and lifted their glasses. There were men at the table who had been present at that scene in the wool shed after the shooting of Jacob Jagger. There was Adelaide looking flushed and delighted because at last her father was happy; there was Jessica, her lips pursed, a gloomy Cassandra; and there was Stirling, his face betraying nothing of that which I half hoped to see.

I thought about them as I lay in bed that night—and particularly did I think of Stirling. I tried to look back on everything that had happened between us and ask myself how I could have misconstrued his feelings for me. If he had given me some sign that he loved me . but what should I have done? Somehow I knew that I could never have refused Lynx. He would not have allowed it. Nor did I wish him to. He loved me a thousand times more than Stirling ever could. He was capable of deeper, more searing emotions. I should be honoured to have won the love of a man like Lynx.

My life would be frightening sometimes perhaps, but exciting.

I could not sleep, and as I lay in the darkness trying to visualize the future, I heard a movement outside my room My heart started to flutter uncomfortably as the door moved silently open. I thought for a moment: It’s the ghost of dead Maybella come to warn me.

I might have known that it would be Jessica. Indeed, she looked like a ghost, with her nightcap tied over her hair which was in steel curlers, her long white flannel nightdress flowing about her and the candle in her hand.