Distant Choices (50 page)

She paused, giving Oriel time to take in the warmth of that caring, the depth of anxiety felt on her account, the trouble gladly taken, and then, with a smile, went on, ‘Quentin said you felt alone and
at bay
. I know that feeling. Maybe Quentin knows it too. Even Francis. In fact – yes, I have to admit he must. And now that I see you I know why they were both so worried. You look like spun glass, Oriel, ready to shatter the moment those bitches in there screech one sour note too many.'

But calm returned to Oriel now like the return of breath, and with it the clear knowledge of all that had been done for her. They had combined together – her friends, her sister – to show her that even if she remained ‘at bay' forever there would be somebody beside her, two backs, or three, or more, pressed up
together
against Society's wall. And she would not insult them now by any aloofness, any holding back, any mouthing of the trivial formulas Society claimed to be good manners. She would speak the truth now – to her friends, at any rate.

‘These mothers,' said Kate. ‘I have finally laid mine to rest. Can you?'

‘Can they?' said Oriel, gesturing in the direction of the South parlour. ‘Although all they are saying about my mother, in there, is fairly accurate. She will have done everything they are thinking and then – on top of it – rather more than I expect they can imagine.'

‘I can imagine those things, Oriel.'

‘Yes. So can I.' She felt her teeth to be chattering slightly. ‘And if I've been spared the need to do them myself it's only because she did them first, and well enough, to feed me and clothe me and raise me to be a marriageable commodity. I don't even know where I was born, Kate. Somewhere secret and uncomfortable, I expect, with no guarantees made to my mother about anything, and more than a faint possibility of her being abandoned – just left to get on with it as best she could. And then blamed because her “best” was good enough, as it turned out, not only to survive but to do it in luxury. They'd have thought better of her, I suppose, those “friends and neighbours” in there, if she'd left me on the doorstep of an institution in a basket and gone off to drown herself for shame.'

Kate smiled. ‘You know they would.'

‘Yes. I know. And I've been kow-towing to them all my life, courting their good opinion, walking on egg-shells everywhere I went …'

‘For your mother's sake,' said Kate.

‘Yes, of course,' said Oriel, without asking her how she could possibly know. ‘To protect her. To cover her tracks. To put myself in a position where I could look after her, if things went wrong again – as we always knew they might. Always. She never lost the dread – although she wouldn't have called it that. She just pretended to ignore it, and let it weaken her heart …'

What a relief it was to speak, to disperse in blessed words some of the brooding pain, the bitter resentment which had so nearly choked her.

‘Which is why,' said Kate, ‘she went after the Mertons, I suppose. Another and rather golden iron in the fire, just in case …?'

‘Of course. So she could spend her widowhood in London and Monte Carlo instead of here, with Letty and Maud.'

Kate's new, brilliant smile flashed out again. ‘An understandable ambition. How much do you hate Lord Merton?'

‘Do I hate him? He only did what my mother would have expected him to do. Put himself first. As she would have done herself, except that she wouldn't have panicked. She may even have asked him to drag her up those stairs to my room, to make it look right …'

‘For his sake, you mean? To spare him embarrassment?'

‘No, of course not. For her own sake. And mine. Even if she thought she was dying, she'd have done her level best to beat it, you see. So she couldn't take the risk of being found
half
-dead and likely to get better, in his bed – could she? – which would have meant the end even of High Grange, let alone Monte Carlo. That's how she would have seen it.'

And pausing a moment as if for breath she looked directly at Kate and slowly, carefully pronouncing every word, made full confession of her true burden. ‘If that had happened – you see – then her husband would have felt obliged to disown her. My husband may have ordered me to do the same, and if I'd disobeyed him he might well have disowned me. Like mother like daughter, they say, and most men seem to believe it. So how would she, at her age, and me at mine, have lived then? Very poorly, unless I'd set about supporting her in the way she used to support me.'

‘As you would have done, wouldn't you?'

‘When it came to it – yes. Of course I would.'

‘And she wouldn't have wanted that?'

‘No. She wouldn't.'

‘So you feel
you
helped to kill her?'

‘I do. I feel she chose to die in a cheap maid's room to save me from scandal. I feel one of her reasons for being in bed with that poor little fool at all was to provide insurance for me – to equip herself to look after me if the man she'd never wanted me to marry suddenly lost all his money. That's what I feel. I wish I could feel something else.'

‘Oh – well – let's see. Could you try feeling mildly pleased – do you think? – to see your sister.'

Through the stale air of the book-room, the odours of old tobacco and old leather, the word ‘sister'hung almost visibly between them, a small but shiny thing flecked hopefully with sunlight, until the sound of the door opening sent it scurrying away into hiding once again.

‘I am intruding, of course,' said Matthew Stangway, their father, his manner as elaborately courteous, his face as distant and faintly disdainful as they had always known it, his familiar, beautifully polished barriers raised most securely, it seemed, against these intrusions of female tragedy.

‘Hello, father,' said Kate, a well-groomed, sophisticated woman of the wider world, who could easily have passed for thirty.

‘Ah, Kate,' he said, his voice, like hers, sounding as if they met every day. ‘I trust you had a pleasant journey?'

‘Delightful.'

‘I am so glad. And so sorry to interrupt you now, in case your time should be limited. As mine seems to be. Which makes me think it wise. Oriel, to give you this now – before other matters arise … Your mother's jewellery. She was – most insistent – that you should have it.'

The box he put into Oriel's hands was large and ornate and very familiar, her mother's treasure chest to which other men, besides Matthew Stangway, had contributed, although he, having known her by far the longest, had given the most. Costly, fashionable pieces chosen by Evangeline for their resale value – just in case – Oriel remembering vividly and acutely now, her mother's triumph at the acquisition of every one.

‘This ruby brooch would pay rent on a comfortable little apartment for six months, should anyone need to do so. Oriel. Just as these pretty, pretty pearls would treat us to a summer in Italy or the South of France – if it ever happens, that is, that no one rushes to invite us. And these gold bracelets – well, my darling, people
listen
to gold. Do remember.'

They were all here now, she supposed, a small fortune acquired with skills and energies which had had nothing small about them. Her mother's prizes which she knew Garron would forbid her to wear, wishing to see her only in the ‘prizes'she had herself won from him.

‘These are not family jewels, Kate, as I'm sure you understand,' explained Matthew Stangway to his legitimate daughter. ‘The Stangway pieces have been removed and placed in Quentin's care. These are personal effects which Oriel should have.'

He appeared, rather oddly, to be requesting her agreement. ‘Of course,' she said.

‘Then perhaps, Oriel, if you would check over the contents it would avoid any possible misunderstanding – later …?'

She nodded, and finding it easier to obey than to enquire his actual motives, she raised the lid, looking without really seeing until something struck out at her quite violently, causing her to blink and look again and then to stare at the magnificent diamond solitaire her mother had thrust upon her in the moment of dying and which she had returned a moment after. Evangeline's wages; which she had wanted acutely and absolutely to put into the grave with her.

Blanched with shock, she flung out a rigid arm. pointing at the ring with horrified accusation. ‘
That
. What is that?'

‘My dear.' Matthew Stangway sounded not in the least disturbed about it. ‘It is a rather large diamond, given to your mother by Lord Merton. If
I
know that then so, I imagine, must you.'

Nor did he show any other sign of agitation when she let the lid of the box fall shut and wheeled round upon him, in a white fury so ungovernable that she was alarmed by it herself.

‘I particularly asked that this ring be buried with her. I told Quentin …'

‘Ah yes.' He smiled, rather as he might at a restive horse which it was the groom's business, surely, not his, to soothe. ‘Quentin did mention it. Several times, I seem to remember. But there were those who did not think it right to dispose, in that way, of so valuable a jewel. Whereas I – my dear – could not bring myself to believe that your mother would have wished it, in spite of everything Quentin said. Come on, Oriel – she did not wish it, did she?'

Fury ebbed out of her to be replaced by something far more complex. ‘No. She didn't wish it. I did.'

‘May I know why?'

‘My reasons would not please you.'

‘Do you know me well enough, Oriel, to judge?'

She gave him a level stare. ‘No. Does anybody know you?'

‘Your mother did.'

She had nothing to say to that, although he waited a moment with his empty courtesy, before he went on, ‘And I knew her, of course – dare I suggest it? – even better than you did.'

‘You may have done, I expect.'

Very slightly, a faint smile on his lips, he bowed to her. ‘Thank you. Oriel. I knew her better and for much longer, my dear. Ten years, or very nearly, before you were born. So I am quite certain she would never have asked you to put the Merton diamond in her coffin. My dear child, if she had, then you would have done it yourself I think. Or tried to. But no, the diamond was meant for you along with all these other costly odds and ends which have the great virtue – as your mother must have told you – of being
small
. Portable, my dear, and easily concealed about the person so that should you ever feel the need, for instance, to run away from your husband, you would have a very fair chance of taking these with you. Which brings me to their other virtues. They are at once easily saleable and easily hidden away. Thus making it far more difficult for your husband to claim them back, as he would be entitled to do, than household furnishings or a piece of land. Your mother – my wife – would think of that. Would she not?'

‘Yes. There was no shame in admitting what had been the essence of Evangeline. ‘She would. She did.'

He smiled suddenly and broadly, which, since she was not accustomed to it, took her somewhat aback. ‘Thank you, Oriel.'

‘I beg your pardon?' And what startled her was that he had sounded genuinely grateful.

He smiled again. ‘Should it surprise you that I hoped she had remained – true to form, shall we say – up to the end? I understood her. It would have – disappointed me, rather – had I been proved wrong.'

‘And you knew – how she was living?'

For a moment which seemed very long to her, a moment in which she was aware both of Kate's keen scrutiny and her careful silence – leaving this conflict, whatever it really was, to them – he did not answer. It even began to seem that he would not answer at all, but then, as if deciding that some kind of reply was due, he sighed. ‘Did I know about Merton? Yes, I fear so. Had she trusted me he would not have been necessary. But she was not a trusting woman. Whereas I – I do confess – gave her no reason to be so. There was a game we played – a contest, of sorts. It had gone on for years. She believed I had grown tired of it – given in. My lack of enthusiasm threatened her. I feel unable to tell you more than that. Except, perhaps, to express regret that I have found myself unable to help you during these difficult days. Not that I have tried, of course, since it would only have been a wasted effort. Perhaps you know that. But had the capacity existed I would have employed it gladly on your behalf. You are a beautiful woman and, I rather imagine, naturally virtuous. But we have never known each other. When you were a child it seemed unwise. Later there seemed no need for it. And sentimentality must surely be out of place now. Nevertheless, if there is something you would like done, or something you would like to have, and you think it within my power, please tell me – so that I can put the wheels in motion.'

‘Nothing, thank you.' In her amazement she could say no more, by no means enough, she thought, although, nodding briefly, as if
that
, at least was settled, he turned to Kate.

‘May I know how long you intend to stay?'

An expression of quiet amusement coming over her face, she met his eyes. ‘Not here, father. There's no need for Aunt Maud to fret about that. I shall take a room in Hepplefield. Quentin will see to it.'

‘I dare say he will. But you mistake my meaning. Your twenty-fifth birthday is not too far away.'

‘You mean the Kessler money?'

‘I do.'

‘That is not why I came back, father.'

He smiled, quite broadly again. ‘My dear, you may think it odd – or out of character – but I am quite ready to believe you came only for Oriel.'

‘Thank you. Although others may not, of course.'

He shrugged, as if the Kessler inheritance did not really concern him. ‘So I imagine. It will seem far more likely to most people that you came to find out how much, if any, of your mother's money you can get for yourself. Or even to effect a reconciliation with your husband, now that he is to become a rich man. I suppose there is no possibility of that?'