The Lorimer Legacy (33 page)

‘If he comes back.'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘I mean that I am worried.' Alexa's head was bent over her sewing. ‘He should be here by now.'

‘He wouldn't have known about the yacht: and I should think that the queue for the ferry will not be cleared for a week.'

‘He didn't return to the tent, though.' Alexa sighed, but said nothing more about it. Margaret noticed how eagerly she jumped to her feet every time she heard the sound of a horse approaching, and how great was her dejection as each hope was dashed.

It was Greg, in fact, who was the first to return, a week after his departure, in a carriage hired from the station. Margaret watched from the window as he paid the driver and called Cassie's odd-job man to unload a variety of roped boxes and portmanteaux. All the energy with which he had set off seemed to have drained away from him. His face was grey and tired, his clothes crumpled and dirty again, charred around the ankles to show that he had been stepping through the ashes of the fire. When Cassie came running to greet him, he kissed her but did not speak. As she went to the kitchen to give her orders for a meal, he came into the drawing room without pausing on the way to wash or tidy himself.

‘Where are the boys?' His voice seemed cold, and he did not greet either Margaret or Alexa personally.

‘Working in the forest. And Miss Halloran is resting.'

‘Good.' He had carried inside with him one steel box which he set down before Alexa. ‘I think you will find most of your valuable property in here.'

Margaret expected to see her sister's eyes brighten. At the very least, Alexa would surely want to open the deposit box and see whether any damage had been done. Instead, she stared at Greg as though she knew, as he
clearly did, that there was something more to be said. Margaret, not understanding the tension between them, knew only that there was something wrong.

‘It wasn't all quite so safely stowed, was it, Miss Reni?' he said. ‘You owned one more set of jewellery.' He opened a leather pouch which was belted round his waist and took out the rubies which had been abandoned in the Van Ness apartment. One by one he laid the pieces out on the table: the necklace, the ear-rings, the tiara. The tiara had been bent out of shape. He tried to straighten it with his fingers, as though he needed time to steady his voice before he looked up again.

‘Of course,' he continued, ‘you could not have expected that I would recognize these stones. I have seen them before. I know a good deal about their history – enough to know that you have no right to own them.'

Alexa stood up. Naturally pale at any time, her face now seemed completely drained of blood. But not, as Margaret might have expected, with anger. She was afraid.

‘Mr Davidson,' she said. ‘What has happened to Frank?'

Greg made no attempt to answer the question. Instead he looked at Margaret. ‘You gave her the rubies, I suppose,' he said.

‘No.' Margaret was ready to explain, but by now Alexa was so tense that she would not allow any interruption.

‘They were a gift to me from my father. I have every right to own them.'

‘Then who, may I ask, was your father?'

Whether or not Alexa remembered the warning that Margaret had given her, she could not retreat now. She held her shoulders straight as she answered.

‘My father was John Junius Lorimer, of Bristol.'

Greg looked from one woman to the other, as though
he could not believe what he had heard. He sat down behind the table on which the rubies lay, and buried his head in his hands.

‘After so many years!' he exclaimed. ‘Even from the grave this devil stretches out his fingers to snap the strings of my life.'

Alexa stepped forward, pressing the question to which she must already have guessed the answer.

‘You have to tell me, Mr Davidson. What has happened to Frank?'

‘Certainly I will tell you, although all I know is what is contained in a military report. Frank approached the guard at the entrance to your apartment block and asked for permission to go inside. He was refused permission and told that the building was unsafe. The reason for this was that dynamite had been placed in every building between Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street in order that a fire break could be created. A little while later the guard was withdrawn. The soldiers reported that they had cleared the area and, as soon as they themselves were at a safe distance, the fuses were lit. Frank's body was found three days later, buried in the rubble of your apartment block. These rubies were in his pockets. When his body was dug out, it was labelled as that of a looter.' Greg's fists clenched, in anger as well as grief. ‘You sent him to his death, Miss Reni. Just for these.'

‘I didn't send him.' Tears were running down Alexa's face, but she stood her ground. ‘I was going to go myself – he insisted – what does it matter? You loved Frank, Mr Davidson, and so did I. We should be able to share our grief, not to be angry.'

It was a vain hope. Greg's eyes showed the intensity of his feelings as he looked straight at the young woman who might have been his daughter-in-law, and the sight of her tears did not move him.

‘You killed my son,' he said. ‘Thoughtlessly or selfishly, it makes no difference now, but don't talk to me of loving him. I ask you just to get out of my life before you do – any more damage.'

Margaret, recognizing that no good could come of an argument between two people who were so distraught, moved towards Alexa and tried to lead her out of the room. But Alexa shook her arm free.

‘Your anger is with my father, Mr Davidson. He died when I was a baby. I never knew him. If you had some quarrel with him, I know nothing about it. You have no right to be angry with me merely because you hate my father.'

Greg took a deep breath, controlling himself so that his answer came in a voice that was calm and cold.

‘Once upon a time – a very long time ago – I loved a woman who was also your father's daughter. I loved her for herself, and I did my best never to hold her parentage against her. If Frank had lived, I would have welcomed you into my family whoever your father was. But thanks to you, my son is dead, and every time I see you I shall remember why. There is no longer any link between us. There is no longer any reason why you should stay in California.'

At last Alexa seemed to realize the uselessness of talking to him. But as she turned towards the door, making no further attempt to control her sobs, he called out to her. ‘You are forgetting these.'

She looked back, but was not in time to catch the necklace that he sent spinning through the air towards her. It hit her in the face, just above the eye: the edge of the pendant cut her eyebrow open. Darker than the rubies themselves, drops of blood began to scar the white rug on which she stood.

‘Take them away,' Greg ordered. ‘Your father had no
right to give them to you. They were bought with money stolen from those who had once believed him to be an honest man. But he is dead, and so no doubt are most of the people he ruined. You have made it clear enough how much you value your baubles. Take them away.'

Alexa did not seem to be listening. She had put a hand up to the cut on her face and now looked incredulously at the blood which covered it. With her other hand she stooped to pick up the necklace. Then, in an action which was almost that of a madwoman, she rushed towards Greg, snatching the rest of the jewellery which lay on the table in front of him and holding it up as though she intended to dash it down on his head. Margaret recognized that she had moved from grief and shock into hysteria, and was in time to grasp her hands and pull her away.

‘Come dearest,' she said. Alexa began to scream as she was led firmly towards the door, gasping out a series of short, piercing sounds. She broke away and ran out on to the verandah, allowing Margaret to turn back for a moment.

With his head pressed down on the table, Greg was weeping. Margaret was in tears herself as she looked at him. In her first glimpse of him here, at the opera, it was his prosperous, well-dressed good looks which had instantly revived all her old feelings for him, making her long to show her pleasure in his success. Seeing him now, crumpled and distraught, she was overwhelmed by an even greater longing to love and comfort him.

‘David,' she said quietly, forgetting in the stress of the moment to abide by his change of name. ‘Please, David.'

She touched his hand, and as though he had felt the cold skin of a snake he pulled it abruptly away and used it to cover his face. Margaret looked down at him, as unhappy on her own account as on his. Her heart ached
with the realization that he would never again be able to look at her with anything but hatred in his eyes. It had been possible to explain away all their old misunderstandings, but nothing could alter what had happened within the past week. Just for a moment she put a finger on the shoulder of his jacket, so lightly that perhaps he would not feel it. Then she went outside to look after Alexa, whose screams were gradually subsiding into gasps.

It was necessary to be brisk. Margaret sent a messenger to find Brad and Robert. By the time they came, she had already packed together the few possessions with which they could leave. Robert looked in astonishment at the two tear-swollen faces which greeted him, and his bewilderment turned to bad temper when he learned that he must say goodbye to his friend at once.

‘If ever you come to London, Brad, I hope you'll come and visit us,' Margaret said. It was the polite formality of the departing guest, but its effect was to trigger off a new outburst from Alexa.

‘I can't return to London. I came here to work. I must stay here.'

‘There's no work for you to do here,' said Margaret firmly. ‘The opera house is burned. The whole world will know what has happened to San Francisco. There will be no disgrace in abandoning our plans and returning home. In London we have friends who will help us to start again. We have no friends here. Get inside, and let us be off.'

She had already asked for the use of the carriage to take them to the station, and had guessed from Cassie's surprised look that the news of her brother's death had not yet been broken to her. Now their young hostess looked even more puzzled as she came running to catch them before they left.

‘My father asked me to give you this.' She held out a
purse which was heavy with silver. ‘When you say you're from San Francisco, you'll get free travel on the railroad right across the continent to New York. But you'll need food on the journey, and then the cost of your passage home.'

Margaret hesitated for a moment; but it was true that they could not manage without some immediate supply of money.

‘Thank your father from me, and tell him that of course I'll repay it when I get back to England,' she said.

Cassie's embarrassment increased. ‘He told me you'd likely say that,' she agreed. ‘And if you did, I was to tell you –'

Margaret recognized that Greg's daughter was too kind-hearted to speak the words she had been given.

‘You were to tell me that he never wanted to hear from us again,' she suggested bitterly, and recognized the truth of her guess in Cassie's silence. ‘I think your father needs you now, Cassie. Goodbye.'

There was a moment more of delay. Alexa, still hysterically bright-eyed and flushed, was fitting into the box brought up from the safe deposit the rubies which Margaret never wanted to set eyes on again. With her own emotions as near to breaking point as were her sister's, Margaret looked through the window of Cassie's sitting room. It was easy to see that Greg had broken the news now, for he and his daughter were gripping each other in a long, unhappy embrace.

There were explanations which could have been made. Margaret knew that she could have justified her own behaviour, even if not Alexa's. But as she stared, an outsider, at the father and daughter who were attempting to comfort each other, she recognized that she could never again expect Greg to be reasonable as far as the Lorimers were concerned. She had reminded herself
when she first arrived in San Francisco that the man she had once loved would have a life of his own which could leave no room for her, and it would have been better for both of them if that assurance had never been put to the test. The interlude in which they had seemed to have carried their old affection over such a long gap of years had been very brief; and it was over. They were strangers again, and this time it would be for ever. The whip cracked and the wheels of the carriage began to roll.

Greg did not lift his head to watch them go.

The most useful members of society are those who have the fewest ties of love and family to distract them. So at least Margaret tried to persuade herself as the train chugged interminably across the whole width of the continent. But it was no easy matter to come to terms with the griefs she was leaving behind and the bleakness of spirit which she carried with her. Separately and silently, Alexa was no doubt occupied in much the same way.

Margaret's misery was tinged with bitterness. How much kinder it would have been, she thought, if fate had not allowed her the brief hope of happiness before snatching it away again. But she recognized that what had happened was irrevocable. There was nothing to be gained by looking back; and if the future appeared desolate compared with the life which she had briefly imagined for herself – well, she had been lonely before, and survived it. She must try once again to find her satisfaction in the service of others.

She hoped that her sister would be equally successful
in putting the disaster behind her. Alexa had more to mourn than herself – death instead of disappointment -but that might make it easier for her to recognize the finality of what had happened. The months in San Francisco must be considered as a time out of their lives. Even though they would never be able to forget the events which had taken place, they must go on as though nothing had happened.