The Lorimer Legacy (10 page)

It was the mention of the other students which clinched the matter. She missed the company of young men. The disappointment which she had suffered at Matthew's hands had made her resolve never again to bestow her affections too whole-heartedly, and the hard course of work imposed by La Becattini acted as an acceptable substitute for social life. But after concentrating for so many months on a goal which was still far ahead, the offer of a day's relaxation was too exciting to be ignored. A little flirtation, nothing serious, to be forgotten as quickly as it began, was just what she needed to raise her spirits. And although it might be dangerous to spend too long alone with a young English aristocrat, she would be safe in a group. Excitement animated her face as she told him that she would come.

She had expected that they would travel by the railway, so when the day arrived it came as a shock to find that they were to travel by four-in-hand. True, the duke drove the horses as though taking part in a Roman chariot race; but all the same, Heidelberg was further away by horsepower than it would have been by steam engine. Although Alexa laughed, holding on to her hat, as they sped
through the wooded countryside, she was already calculating times to herself. Her conclusions were not reassuring – but it seemed that her companion was able to read her thoughts.

‘The return journey will be speedier, of course, by railway,' he said. ‘But these horses have to be returned to the livery stable.'

Alexa nodded to show that she understood the situation, and gave herself up to enjoyment of the drive. By the time the carriage rattled into the university city beneath the rosy ruins of the castle and clattered to a halt on the cobbled streets she was in her gaiest and most vivacious mood.

Caversham had been truthful when he promised her the company of his fellow students. The town swarmed with young men, walking stiffly in their high boots, and many of them bearing on their cheeks the fresh scars of duels. They wore the round caps which showed by their colours the corps to which each belonged, and it was those of the red band who quickly attached themselves to the duke and his pretty partner. Feted, almost carried at times, Alexa was borne up and down the town, to stare at its monuments while the young men stared at her.

As evening approached the party swept into a beer cellar. It was already crowded with young men who sat in small groups near the walls, but a long table down the centre was empty. The arrogance with which Alexa's hosts claimed it made clear their right to have it reserved for them: no doubt it was with their initials, as well as those of their predecessors, that the wood was so deeply carved.

While they called for beer, Alexa looked curiously around her. It was difficult to see much in the smoky atmosphere, for there were no windows in the low-ceilinged room and the oil lamps which hung from the
heavy beams were almost obscured by a dangling collection of boots, fencing foils, ladies' slippers and stolen street notices. The walls were covered with photographs of young men stiffly posed in groups, hung on panels as scarred with carved initials as the tables. It was clear enough that this was no place for a respectable young lady, but Alexa felt that she had no choice but to remain. The Duke of Caversham was her only protector here and she must stay in his company until the moment when she needed protection from him.

Although the beer was light, it came in huge, silver-lidded tankards. Alexa, unused to drinking, first of all fought against her increasing light-headedness and then succumbed to it. Someone was playing a piano loudly in a dark corner, and soon everyone was singing. Without knowing the words, Alexa was quick to pick up the tunes. One of the students, who had been scribbling something at the end of the long table, presented it to her with a click of his heels, and called out to the pianist. He had written a poem for her, Alexa saw. She flushed with pleasure as she read it – for by now her German was fluent – and realized that she was being invited to sing it.

It took her only a moment to learn the melody which the young poet had used for her verse; a lilting tune with an exuberant chorus. She sang her part and the students joined in with a roar which became more rumbustious at each repetition. In a steady beat they thumped their mugs and stamped their feet in accompaniment to Alexa's clear tones. Her excitement fed on the presence of so many admiring young men, the touch of apprehension about what was in store, and the exhilaration which always came when she projected her whole personality into her singing. She wished that the moment could last for ever. And then, abruptly, the bubble was pricked.

The door opened, and Lord Glanville stepped inside.
He stood still for a moment, his tall presence impressive even when, as now, his face was grey with tiredness. Alexa was the first to see him and the only one who could guess why he was there, but the recklessness induced by so much beer and the heady atmosphere of the beer cellar carried her on to the end of the song. Only then, as the students roared and banged approval, did she become quiet and ashamed.

As she stepped away from the long table, the Duke of Caversham looked round and sprang to his feet. He reached Lord Glanville before Alexa could, blocking her way to him. He was drunk enough to be belligerent, but the older man did not flinch.

‘I have not had the pleasure of meeting you since your school-days, Your Grace,' Lord Glanville said. ‘Allow me to take this opportunity of expressing my sincere regret at your father's death. And now, if you will excuse me, I have come to take Miss Lorimer back to Baden-Baden.'

‘Miss Lorimer is here under my protection, my lord. You are not insinuating, I hope, that she has anything to fear in Heidelberg.'

Behind Alexa, the singing had begun again, but between the two men in the doorway there was a long silence which seemed charged with antagonism. Alexa, without understanding what was at stake in the confrontation, was frightened. They would surely not fight. There could be no doubt that they were both angry, both prepared to defend injured pride; and the scarred faces around them made the thought of a duel less impossible. But duels, although an accepted part of the Heidelberg way of life, were illegal for Englishmen, and aristocrats did not exchange blows. She told herself that she must be exaggerating their antagonism; yet still she was frightened.

The young duke, beer-blustering and with the need to maintain his reputation in front of his companions, might have pressed the challenge into an open quarrel. But the older man, tired with more than the rigours of travel, not only refused to be provoked but offered Caversham a means of saving face.

‘Miss Lorimer is my wife's companion and her presence is required at once. My wife is gravely ill, and is to leave Germany without delay. I am sure Miss Lorimer is most grateful to you for entertaining her, but she will acknowledge that I have some claim on her services.'

Sulkily, the young man stepped aside and allowed Alexa to pass. She held out her hand to him, not wishing their acquaintance to end in anger.

‘It has been a very pleasant visit, Your Grace. I hope very much that one day we may meet again.'

He bowed over her hand without speaking and watched her go. Lord Glanville offered his arm, and she took it. As the clear summer air refreshed her after the smoky noise of the beer cellar, she told herself that she must not be angry with her patron. He had presumed on his position; there could be no doubt of that. But although she was not quite sober yet, she was sensible enough to realize that – not for the first time – he had saved her from a situation which she could not have controlled. She was prepared to be grateful. What she was not prepared for was the realization that Lord Glanville himself was almost too angry to speak.

When she did understand it, she became indignant.

‘I have not had a single free day since my first meeting with you, my lord,' she protested. ‘I know how much I owe you, and I am truly appreciative. But it is surely not too much to ask that just for a few hours I should be allowed to enjoy myself as other young people do.'

Lord Glanville came to a standstill in the middle of the
cobbled street. ‘You misunderstand my feelings,' he said. ‘I am tired, yes, for I have travelled from England and then have been forced without resting to come in search of you. And I am angry with you, yes, because you have been blind to what has been happening. But most of all I am upset, because what has brought me to Germany is what you appear not to have noticed. Did you really not see that my wife is dying?'

Shocked out of her self-absorption, Alexa stared into her patron's eyes. Recognizing the truth as soon as he spoke it, she was appalled at her own indifference. She had liked Lady Glanville from the moment of their first meeting, and the older woman's kindness had deepened the relationship to one of affection. But to Alexa, young and healthy, the invalid's condition had seemed a sad one from the start. Lacking experience as well as sensitivity, she had failed to note the moment when a continuing deterioration carried the sufferer past any hope of cure.

‘My lord!' she whispered: and the depth of her sympathy produced an unexpected effect, for at once she found herself enclosed in Lord Glanville's arms. With her head pressed hard against his chest she could hear him groaning aloud in despair, completely overcome by his emotions. They had stood like this once before, but then it was Alexa who was fearful and crying and in need of help. Now the positions were reversed, and the appeal for comfort was to Alexa herself. She gave it as well as she could, not caring what passers-by must think as he buried his face in her hair, his arms tightening convulsively around her waist. He was weeping, or else so near to it that his breath was forced out in sobbing gasps as he struggled to control his emotions. Alexa murmured in sympathy, hardly knowing what words she used, until his frenzy of grief had spent itself.

Gradually the bruising tightness of his grip relaxed. He
drew a very little away from her, although not far enough to let her look up into his face. There was a moment of quietness between them in which Alexa found herself suspecting feelings which in no circumstances could he ever have expressed. He loved his wife: she knew that well enough, but knew with equal certainty that it was a long time since Lady Glanville had last been able to live with him as a wife. What had never occurred to Alexa before was that he might love her as well. He could not confess it, and Alexa herself could not acknowledge it – nor, in fact, did she wish to do so. Lord Glanville was a kind man, a handsome man, an upright man; but in her eyes he was also an old man. She could take pleasure in his company: she certainly felt for him sympathy and gratitude and respect. But it had never occurred to her to love him, and it did not do so now.

The clarity of her perceptions had an unexpected side effect. The Duke of Caversham had flirted with her, had pressed her hand, would have kissed her before the evening was out if there had been no interruption, and she would not have cared. She would have fought off any attempt on his part to go further, as she had fought off Lord Glanville's brother; but that was a matter of reputation rather than of feelings. She did not love the Duke of Caversham any more than she loved Lord Glanville, but had she been asked an hour earlier she would have seen no obstacle to allowing some kind of relationship to develop. In this moment of emotional exposure, however, the memory of Matthew Lorimer, whom she had tried so hard to forget, flashed before her eyes. Almost as though he were standing in front of her she felt herself looking at his shy, serious eyes, his thick fair hair. She was still in love with him, after all. A flirtation could not have reminded her, but the intensity
of Lord Glanville's suppressed feelings had the power to raise the ghost of her own.

The moment ended. Lord Glanville's arms fell to his sides and he gave a single deep sigh. The spring of emotion, briefly uncoiled between them, sprang back into a tangle of words that could not be expressed. Throughout the journey back to Baden-Baden, neither of them spoke at all.

To the unhappy, ‘home' is always somewhere in the past: to the contented, it is in the present. Alexa, in the emotional sense, had never had a home at all, only a succession of addresses.

She was not conscious of the lack. Because she had never felt an attachment to any place, she hardly knew that such a feeling existed. The subject was far from her thoughts when, three weeks after her escapade in Heidelberg, she was shown to a room in an Italian villa. Lord Glanville had learned that on the tiny peninsula of Sirmione, projecting into Lake Garda, there was a thermal site which might prove more beneficial to his wife than Baden-Baden. The area was not developed as a spa, but a local doctor had agreed to take Lady Glanville into his own home and treat her daily with baths of hot mud. Like every other doctor, he held out no hope of offering more than temporary comfort, but even that was to be welcomed.

Alexa stood at the open window and looked out. The scents of cypress and rosemary were carried up by the warm air to caress her nostrils. There were cypresses
everywhere, slim pillars of darkness, peacefully contrasting with the contorted shapes of ancient olive trees. At the foot of the garden lay the undisturbed surface of the lake, as placid as though it were coated with oil. While she watched without moving, its deep blue depths paled to a silvery turquoise: across it, a path of rosy orange led to the setting sun. She should have been tired after the slow journey, but instead she felt at rest, content.

A servant arrived with her luggage and asked in Italian where he should put it. Without turning round, Alexa answered in the same language. The words came to her lips without any pause for thought. By the time she left Germany she had been able to speak German, but as a foreign language. Ten years had passed since she had last conversed in Italian with her mother, but she recognized instinctively that it was her native tongue. She looked across the lake at the black silhouettes of the mountains on its further side and knew in the same way that this was her country. ‘I have come home,' she thought to herself in wonder, and all at once the wanderings of her childhood and youth fell into place. They had brought her to Italy, because Italy was where she belonged.