The Lorimer Legacy (25 page)

‘I remember your saying, on the night of the ball,' Margaret began slowly; but Alexa interrupted her.

‘I said and did a good many foolish things that evening,' she admitted. ‘But I remember one thing
you
said. That sometimes love comes after marriage.'

‘It's unfortunate for Lord Glanville that it's taken you so long to accept that.'

Alexa sighed with the impossibility of explaining her true feelings for Lord Glanville – especially to Margaret, who almost certainly loved him herself. His kindness to
the young singer he had befriended had been so great that Alexa had always had a particular affection for him. She did indeed love him in a way, but it was not a passionate way. Perhaps because she had never known a father of her own, she could not prevent herself from thinking of him almost in that relationship. What love she did feel was sincere enough to hold her back from anything which might in the end disappoint and hurt him. With a stranger it would not be too unkind to experiment. She could set herself the task of falling in love with someone. If she succeeded, she could marry him with a good conscience: if she failed, it should be possible to disentangle herself before too much harm was done. But with Lord Glanville, who knew her so well, no such experiment would be possible. A single kiss would have been enough to raise his hopes and open the door to disappointment. All this, however, was too difficult to put into words.

‘To marry Lord Glanville without loving him would have been to take a risk – and he would have been the one to suffer most if the marriage failed.'

‘I think you may have misjudged him, Alexa. He is stronger than you seem to believe. And he should have been allowed to estimate his own risks. Well, it's too late now to regret that. But didn't you refuse an earl that night as well?'

‘I told you then that a title means nothing to me,' said Alexa. ‘It would have imprisoned me, in fact. How could a countess be allowed to earn her living? I don't intend to let any husband prevent me from singing. I think it may prove easier to make that point in America than in Europe. And there are other kinds of aristocracy. Seven days in San Francisco have been enough to teach me that.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean that the heights of the city are made of money. The men who live here build their homes of wood, not stone, because they know that one day another earthquake will bring the buildings down on their heads. But the foundations of the houses are of silver and gold and the iron tracks of railway lines. San Franciso is full of millionaires, Margaret. There are respectable ones and crooked ones, each with his own place in a hierarchy which it will take us a little time to understand. I shall rely on you to stop me making any mistakes. But as soon as we have made our map of society, I shall marry a millionaire. Or, at least –' she checked herself. ‘That's not quite right. The men who have made fortunes themselves tend to be rather rough. But their sons – that's something else again! Educated, cultured, with enormous expectations of wealth but a certain lack of imagination when it comes to spending their riches. They need expensive wives to show off their fortunes. I shall find the most suitable of the eldest sons and encourage him to fall in love with me. He will allow me to continue singing professionally until he comes into his inheritance; and then he will build me my own opera house, and we will make it the most famous musical centre in the world.'

‘I don't like to hear you being cynical,' Margaret said quietly.

‘That's not fair!' Alexa protested. ‘I'm only saying out loud and in advance what a good many other young women think secretly. Don't marry for money, but marry where money is. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have the choice. Am I expected to throw away all my natural advantages? I can promise that whoever marries me will get a good enough bargain. I have never been a cheat. And I could say that
you
were the cynical one, when you advised me to marry first and hope that love came afterwards.'

‘I was thinking only of Lord Glanville.'

‘That demonstrates the danger, then, of generalizing from a particular case. So you must not frown too heavily if I decide instead to take a general truth and particularize from it. The general truth being that – other things being equal – a rich man makes a better husband for an extravagant woman than a poor one. Matthew had hardly a penny to his name, so you can't accuse me of
always
being greedy. As I grow older, I become more realistic, that's all.' She leaned over the back of the sofa and hugged Margaret apologetically. ‘And I should have realized long ago that the only reason you allow me to rant on like this is because you are weak with starvation after all this time in bed. We have a Chinese cook who is longing to tempt your appetite with something more exciting than broths. I will set him to work at once.' She moved towards the bell, but burst out laughing before she reached it. ‘Do come, Margaret. Look out of the window.'

Walking with an unsteadiness which made her weakness clear, Margaret came to stand beside her. Together they looked down at the wide avenue below. Two thirteen-year-old urchins were walking across it, dodging the busy flow of horses and bicycles and an occasional automobile. They were of the same height and covered from head to foot with the same coating of sandy mud. Only a glimpse of bright red hair through the covering of dirt suggested that one of them might be Robert.

Alexa could tell that Margaret was startled by the sight. The tone of her exclamation combined delight at seeing her son with shock at his appearance.

‘Robert's instincts seem to be more democratic than yours,' she commented. ‘While you look for your friends in the homes of millionaires, he finds his in the gutter.'

There was nothing critical about her voice, nothing to
suggest that she disapproved. She laughed in fact, as she saw her son's new friend wave goodbye and set off down the avenue at a run, turning a cartwheel as he went out of sheer high spirits. Nevertheless, Alexa supposed that she ought to explain. She missed her opportunity, however, for Margaret was already hurrying out of the room to greet Robert.

It didn't matter. Margaret would be as polite to a guttersnipe as to a prince, if he was a friend of her son. Alexa changed her mind about providing more information. It would be amusing to delay any introduction for a little while. She would have a word with Robert, asking him not to spoil the joke. Then they could both look forward to teasing Margaret when the truth finally emerged.

The social structure of a cosmopolitan city offers to a newcomer the same excitement that an explorer finds in the landmass of an unmapped continent. Alexa wasted little time before plunging Margaret into a preliminary expedition.

‘Who is Miss Halloran?' Margaret asked, looking at the first name on the list which was set before her.

‘Brad's aunt.'

‘But who is Brad?'

‘Bradley Davidson is the guttersnipe,' said Alexa, laughing. ‘Robert's new school friend, with whom he went tunnelling yesterday. No doubt his aunt wishes to establish Robert's respectability by scrutinizing his family. She called last week, while I was at rehearsal and you were asleep. I gather that Brad's mother is dead, and his
father travels a good deal on business. So Miss Halloran has to a large extent taken her sister's place in running the household.'

Deliberately Alexa made no attempt to explain why their first formal call should be in Robert's interest rather than in that of her own début into the highest level of San Francisco society. For the same reason, she gave Margaret no advance information about the area of the city they were about to visit. This enabled her to watch with amusement the astonishment on her sister's face as they paused before entering Miss Halloran's home.

Like almost every other house in the city, it was made of wood – but wood which had been carved into so many twists and scrolls and knobs and cross-hatchings that it had taken on the appearance of a gingerbread house. The ornateness of the architectural design rivalled the decoration: there were turrets and pediments, bow windows and a pillared colonnade. The building, itself four times as large as any normal family house, was surrounded by a garden which was huge by the standards of the densely-packed city, landscaped to take full advantage of the steep fall of the hill.

Alexa allowed Margaret a moment in which to adjust her picture of a filthy thirteen-year-old to this surprising setting. ‘This is to San Francisco what Clifton is to Bristol, I suppose,' she said. ‘It's nicknamed Nob Hill, after the railroad nabobs who developed it. If you find Miss Halloran's residence ostentatious, I can only suggest that you take a look at the Hopkins's house.'

‘Is that all the information you're going to give me?' Margaret asked her. ‘I'd like to know more about Miss Halloran than only the name of her young nephew. Was her father one of the railroad builders you mentioned?'

‘Only in the sense that with his pick and shovel he actually helped to carve out a section of the track. He
was an Irish labourer. He arrived in America with a wife and two small children, who lived in a tent beside each new section of the railroad. He hadn't a penny in his pocket more than his week's wages, and he couldn't even read or write.'

‘Then how . . .?'

‘He happened to be working within striking distance of Nevada when the Comstock lode was discovered,' said Alexa. ‘I suppose he ran there a little faster than anyone else, and dug a great deal harder. He did only moderately well there, I'm told – he wasn't one of the original bonanza millionaires. But it set him up in San Francisco comfortably enough. And by the time the next big strike was made, in Alaska, he'd married one of his daughters to a man who could do considerably more than sign his own name. They went into partnership and really made a killing. Hence this fine example of domestic architecture. I've been warned that we shall find Miss Halloran excessively stiff and formal, and with a strong prejudice against the English which she may or may not express in our presence. She wouldn't thank us for mentioning her own father's origins, but she will be snobbishly curious about ours.'

‘How did you discover all this?' asked Margaret.

‘Oh, I made a few enquiries. Shall we go in?'

Alexa was not quite as confident as she tried to pretend about how she should behave. Her social life had for a good many years now been conducted on a very much less formal basis. But she was interested to discover that her sister knew exactly what was expected. Although Margaret had certainly never had time in her busy professional life for the making and returning of calls with which more leisured women of her age filled their days, she had already noticed that the fashions in dress here were a good many years behind those of London. It was
reasonable to guess that perhaps social conventions also bore some relation to the rules of etiquette which had ruled Bristol society thirty years earlier.

Her own role, she realized as they sat stiffly in a huge gold and white drawing room, should be that of the shy young ingénue. It was not a time to parade her fame and independence. Alexa was as well able to act the part of a demure eighteen-year-old as that of a princess or a gypsy, and she did so now – speaking when she was spoken to, and listening with amusement to Miss Halloran's unsubtle attempts to research into Robert's pedigree.

The door opened, and Alexa's smile changed from amusement to pleasure as two young men came in to be presented. She wondered whether Margaret would recognize that she had caught a glimpse of one of them before. On this occasion Brad was clean. His face shone with scrubbing, his hair was sleeked down with water, and he was formally dressed in a suit whose style – of woollen stockings and knee-length knickerbockers – was odd to Alexa's eyes, but typical of the well-dressed young citizen of San Francisco.

Alexa, however, had no great interest in Brad. She was waiting to see how Margaret would like his brother.

‘My elder nephew, Frank Davidson,' announced Miss Halloran. ‘Though what he's doing in the house at this hour of the day I can't imagine. Frank, this is Dr Scott. And Miss Reni.'

Frank's face was boyish and handsome. Frank's hair was dark and curly. Frank's brown eyes sparkled with mischief and conspiracy as he bowed his acknowledgement of the introductions.

‘I've been making some adjustments to the Panhard,' he said in answer to his aunt's criticism. ‘And I have polished every piston and fender until the whole machine is glowing with elbow grease and pride. All I need now is
a passenger worthy of its excellence. I came here to offer you an automobile drive through the Golden Gate Park, Aunt Halloran. A pleasure for you, I hope, but a test drive for myself. I'm almost ready to build a complete engine which will be more reliable than anything at present on the market. So you see, I'm hard at work even while I seem to be lazing in your drawing room.'

‘You know how I hate the noisy brutes,' said Miss Halloran.

‘They are the transportation system of the future,' Frank assured her. ‘And I intend to entrust my own future to them. You should be pleased that instead of being content to share my father's fortune, I propose to earn my own. Well, if I cannot persuade you, perhaps I could induce Dr Scott instead to accompany me. And Miss Reni, of course.'

‘Oh yes, do let us go!' exclaimed Alexa, introducing a note of excitement into the debutante voice she was practising, for all the world as though she had never seen a horseless carriage before. To her delight, Margaret was willing to pick up the cue.

‘As long as you don't expect me to be the eventual customer, Mr Davidson, that would be a treat for both Alexa and myself.'

Frank gave Margaret his most charming smile. ‘I salute your enterprise in being a lady doctor, Dr Scott,' he said. ‘But even you, I imagine, hardly expect that ladies will ever wish to drive their own autos. Even if they had the taste for covering their hands in dirt and grease, they would not have the strength to start the engine. So you will be safe from my sales talk.'