Dorothy Eden (12 page)

‘Ah, Colonel Fortescue! How nice to see you. Of course my son remembers you. Mrs Blount, Miss Blount. And Sir Geoffrey. And dear Lady Mary. Thank you, my dear, but you can’t be as happy as I am. Let me present my daughter-in-law. And my grandson. Where’s Titus? Miss Mildmay, bring Titus. I want you to see how extraordinarily he resembles his father as a child. You remember Blane at this age?’

The sea-wind stirred in the long grass about the old gravestones. Even the stones, tilted with age, seemed to be bowing deferentially. The lord of the manor was home. Everyone, naturally, must be happy.

Everyone except the lord himself. For Blane’s expression now held an intense boredom which he didn’t attempt to hide, although he made the necessary conversation. Was this expression even more authentic than his moment of self-derision in church? Was it that of the young Blane who had run off to sea because he was so impossibly bored with country life, and wanted adventure?

This same sea-wind, Sarah thought irrelevantly, would be blowing in Ambrose’s face. Perhaps it had some of his breath on it, and one of his cautious admonitions, ‘Don’t be taken in by the fellow’s charm. It’s only superficial.’

Sarah walked very slowly towards the carriage. Soames was standing at the horses’ heads, grinning too familiarly at her. His expression had all the triumph Blane’s had lacked.

‘Does your heart good, miss, a sight like that. The prodigal son returned.’

The next day, helped by the elderly Betsey and Eliza, Sarah organised the schoolroom. Betsey was full of sentiment about leaving things exactly as they had always been, but Sarah firmly suggested changes that would brighten up the rather gloomy room. Titus was little more than a baby. Why should he have to endure this dreariness just because his father had? Sarah pulled herself up sharply. She was falling into the treacherous habit of accepting what everyone else in the house apparently accepted without question—that Titus’s father had spent his childhood there.

‘Look, miss,’ Betsey exclaimed triumphantly. ‘Here’s where the master wrote on the window pane. He borrowed his mother’s diamond ring. There was such a row because afterwards he hid it.’

The scratching on the lowest pane, behind the curtain was perfectly visible. It was a childish scrawl, and the verse was the invention of an irreverent schoolboy.

I hate this room,

It’s full of gloom.

I’d rather go away than stay.

‘How old was he when he did that?’ Sarah asked.

‘Old enough to know better, miss. About ten or eleven. His father punished him severe.’

Old enough to remember, Sarah thought privately. Especially after the severe punishment had emphasised his misdoing.

‘Look what naughty Papa did,’ Sarah said deliberately to Titus. ‘He wrote on the window and it will never come out.’

Titus scrambled up to see.

‘What does it say?’

‘Why don’t you ask Papa to tell you?’

Titus’s small fingers scratched at the indelible marks.

‘Does Papa know what it says?’

‘If he wrote it he’ll know, won’t he?’ Betsey had given her a rather odd glance. Sarah smoothly changed the subject.

‘It’s time for your walk. Go and tell Eliza to put on your outdoor things.’

She had thought she would have had to do a little more discreet coaching before Titus did what she wanted. But Titus, for all his nervousness and timidity, was a sharp little boy. When, following the custom Amalie had established in London, he was taken down to the drawing-room for an hour before his bath and bedtime, he immediately approached his father and said,

‘Papa, what did you write on the window?’

Blane looked bewildered.

‘On the window? What window?’

‘In the schoolroom. Betsey said you wrote with a diamond. How did you write with a diamond?’

Blane grimaced and said easily, ‘Looks as if my untidy childhood is catching up on me.’

‘But what does the writing say, Papa?’ Titus persisted.

Blane looked at Sarah.

‘Is it illegible, Miss Mildmay? I know I was an almost illiterate child.’

‘No, it isn’t illegible, Lord Mallow. It’s quite a clever verse for a ten-year-old boy. I gather from Betsey you were punished rather severely, I don’t know whether for writing on the window or for having such a thing as a diamond in your possession.’

Amalie sprang to her feet.

‘I must go up and see this evidence of your precocious talents, my love.’

Sarah had not missed her uneasiness, and now she didn’t miss the significance of her action. Let Blane read the silly verse before he should be challenged again to remember it.

But Blane was not to be challenged. He merely shrugged and said, ‘Frankly, I haven’t the slightest recollection of it. What does it say, Miss Mildmay?’

Sarah repeated the verse without expression, and Blane burst into a roar of laughter.

‘By jove, it’s deuced appropriate. It expressed my feelings. But I wonder where I picked up the diamond.’

‘Off your mother’s dressing-table,’ came Lady Malvina’s voice from the door. She stood there, flushed and aggressive. ‘It was my most valuable ring. Afterwards you hid it in a bird’s nest in the guttering, and only confessed when your father had whipped you. Disgusting child that you were.’

Blane shrugged again, unperturbed.

‘This shows how fascinating the sub-conscious mind is. It deliberately shuts out unpleasant memories. Isn’t that so, Miss Mildmay? You’re the highly educated person here.’

He had subtly turned the challenge to her. He was very clever, much more clever than the rebellious little boy who had thought up a schoolboy rhyme. He was trying to discover whether anyone found this little scene significant. Apart from Titus who was too small, and Betsey who was too unsuspecting, she was the only one who might inconveniently at some time have too good a memory.

She answered carefully, ‘I believe the sub-conscious can do quite remarkable things, Lord Mallow. Personally I would not have thought a child likely to forget an escapade like that. But there is, of course, the amnesia from which you suffered.’

‘I didn’t intend to make use of that reason again,’ Blane said. ‘The jury were beginning to consider it a too-convenient one, and my cousin Ambrose didn’t believe a word of it. But it is perfectly true that I have the most extraordinary blanks. Isn’t it, Mamma?’

‘Perfectly,’ Lady Malvina agreed. ‘Especially as regards your misdeeds, whether that’s due to your sub-conscious mind or not. I don’t understand these modern ideas. But I do know that ring was an exceptionally good one, and I’d lost it for weeks. Most upsetting.’

‘Poor Mamma. Then I must make belated amends. We shall find you another one.’

Lady Malvina relaxed and glowed with pleasure.

‘What a trifling thing to be making a fuss about,’ Amalie said pettishly. ‘All little boys are mischievous. And that doesn’t seem to have been a very heinous crime. Titus, it’s your bedtime. Come and kiss Mamma goodnight.’

Lady Malvina looked pointedly at the very fine yellow diamond on Amalie’s finger.

‘I wonder if you would think it so trifling, my dear, if Titus followed his father’s example.’

‘Oh, tush! What nonsense! Titus is an obedient child.’

The next day which was wet and stormy, Blane came unannounced into the schoolroom. Sarah was beginning to teach Titus his alphabet with a box of bricks. For convenience she sat on the floor beside him and interspersed the lesson with a little building of houses and bridges. Titus had grown quite noisy, and was announcing with glee that shortly he would demolish the latest erection when the tall figure stood over them.

‘I thought the boy was to learn his letters, not architecture.’

Sarah scrambled to her feet, aware that she had been as interested in the game as Titus. It was unexpectedly satisfying to make the little boy laugh.

‘Titus is too young, Lord Mallow, to have long hours at lessons. I think a certain amount of teaching disguised as play is good for the very young.’

‘Aren’t you a little in advance of the times, Miss Mildmay? Is it that you enjoy the games, too?’

He put out his hand and lightly lifted a drifting lock of hair on to the top of Sarah’s head. Startled, she drew back smoothing her hair. Blane began to laugh in his sudden explosive manner.

‘Well, where’s this piece of deathless verse on the window?’

‘Here, Papa,’ said Titus. ‘What does it say?’

Blane stood hunched over it thoughtfully.

‘Do you know, Miss Mildmay, I really haven’t the slightest recollection of doing that. I sometimes wonder whether the toss I took permanently injured my brain.’

Had he come up specially to convince her of his innocence? But why bother? She was only a servant.

His merry irreverent eyes held her.

‘The trouble, no doubt, was that I didn’t have nearly as charming a governess as my son has. I remember a Miss Ottway, a holy terror.’

‘A match for you, Lord Mallow?’ Sarah murmured.

‘Never! Though after her I got a tutor, just as mean and deceitful, and then thank heaven I was sent to school.’

‘Papa, can I have a diamond to write on the window?’ Titus was asking.

‘No, you cannot! It’s more than I can do to keep your mother happy, let alone my own mother. What is this terrible fascination that jewels have? Do you know, Miss Mildmay? I believe women would do murder for them. Or for any possessions.’

‘And do you exclude your own sex from this greed, Lord Mallow?’

Blane’s eyes narrowed wickedly.

‘The devil I don’t! My cousin Ambrose, for instance, was as sour as he—I beg your pardon, Miss Mildmay.’

Sarah began to gamer up the blocks.

‘If you will excuse us, I think the lesson ought to continue.’

‘So you’re driving me out also?’

‘Also?’ Sarah asked involuntarily.

Blane returned to the window. He thrust his hands into his pockets gloomily.

‘Look at that rain! That’s what I remember about this place. Everlastingly wet. No wonder I ran off to the Caribbean. My wife’s arranging a lot of social calls. I never thought she’d want to take to conventional English social life. I didn’t come here to be a drawing-room dummy, or to be bored to death.’

Sarah, unable to hold the conversation she would so dearly have liked to, said nothing.

‘Papa, will you help us build the blocks?’ Titus asked.

Blane flung round.

‘Is that what I’m to be reduced to? No, I will not build blocks. Oh, the devil take this place! I’ll ride over and have a drink with Tom Mercer. I’ll leave you to your pursuit of knowledge.’

‘Is Papa angry?’ Titus asked uncertainly, as his father flung out.

‘No, darling.’

‘He looked angry.’

‘Help me gather up the blocks and come and say your letters again.’ (No, your father isn’t angry, he’s just bored. How does he have the colossal nerve to oust Ambrose from his inheritance, and then be bored with it himself!)

Lady Malvina also was worried about her son’s restlessness. He had been in the place three days, after fighting for months to get possession of it, and already he behaved as if he were in prison. The trouble, of course, was his wife, always wanting something, always peevish. Instead of behaving like a happy and satisfied woman who had everything anyone could reasonably expect in life, one would have thought she was being constantly unfairly treated. The danger was that if she kept on like this she might succeed in driving Blane back to sea. Already he was hankering for the freedom of his old life. Lady Malvina had heard them quarrelling the previous evening.

‘Look, Amalie, I told you at the start I couldn’t be bothered with Colonel this and Lady that. If you must have a dinner party, have it. But let it stop at that. I won’t pay endless calls. I’ve come here to enjoy country life.’

‘This is country life. We must do as other people do, or they’ll think it odd.’

‘What the devil do I care what they think? We’re here, and that’s the beginning and end of it. And another thing, I’ll tell you once more I won’t spend thousands on fancy decorations that will be shabby and out of date before Titus grows up.’

‘Titus! This is my house, too.’

‘I think of it purely as Titus’s!’

‘Blane!’ Lady Malvina heard Amalie’s voice quiver. The sly creature was putting that on. She must know better than to think that she could get round Blane with tears. ‘Why are you always so unkind to me?’

‘Unkind?’

‘What word would you use? After I’ve shown my feelings so plainly.’

‘More than plainly.’

‘Blane, darling—’

‘Look, Amalie, I warn you, if you start that again I’ll leave for the Caribbean tomorrow. I can’t stand whining.’

‘A wife has the right to say what she pleases.’

‘Oh, my God!’ Blane came striding out of the room so quickly that Lady Malvina hadn’t a moment in which to appear to be innocently passing. He actually collided with her, but sowing her straight muttered an apology without seeming to notice who she was. After he had gone Lady Malvina heard Amalie weeping. And this time the tears were real, for the woman was alone, with no one to be impressed.

In a way, however, the scene reassured Lady Malvina, for this was exactly the kind of husband she would have expected her son to make, intolerant, impatient and overbearing. Even the threat to leave for the Caribbean was completely typical of Blane. He would not do it, of course. He would not have struggled so hard to obtain Mallow Hall only to immediately leave it. And he had promised her jewels. Amalie would get some, too, but that couldn’t be helped. She was his wife, Lady Malvina merely his mother. At least, one was almost certain about that latter fact. One made allowances for those repeated strange lapses of memory. The verse on the schoolroom window, for instance. What a good thing that had not been brought up in court. Ambrose couldn’t have known about it. Now these significant trifles were happening too late for anyone to be unduly interested or suspicious. And they were happily established at Mallow. Everything was well.

Lady Malvina sighed with relief and rang for Bessie to come and light the lamps and replenish the fire. Presently she would have Titus in for a game. The boy, under the care of that gentle and pretty Miss Mildmay, was improving enormously. Soon he would be just as his father had been, arrogant and headstrong and handsome. And his grandmother would have her jewels and her comfort for as long as she needed them.