The Return of the Gypsy (32 page)

I cried: “What a beastly hypocritical letter. I think the person who wrote it is loathsome.”

“It’s true, I suppose.”

I was silent.

“My God,”-he said, “and this is the young idiot we are harbouring at Eversleigh! Tell them to send him to me… at once … this minute.”

“He probably isn’t up yet.”

“No. Late night, I daresay. At the tables till the early hours of the morning!”

“Aren’t you accusing him before you know?” I said, with sinking heart.

“Second thoughts … I’ll go to see
him.
”

He strode out of the room clutching the letter. I followed him up the stairs. He threw open the door of Jonathan’s room. Jonathan was in bed fast asleep.

“Wake up,” roared my father.

Jonathan slowly opened his eyes and stared at us in astonishment.

“What are you doing in bed at this hour? Why aren’t you up and about? Late last night, were you? At the gaming tables were you? I’ll tell you this, young man, you’re out. You’ll not be coming back to Eversleigh. You can go straight back to your mother. I shall speak to your grandfather about you, you lazy good-for-nothing.”

Jonathan was the sort of young man who would always be at his best in a crisis.

“Am I dreaming?” he asked. “Are you figures in a dream? You look real enough to me. Is that you, Jessica?”

“Yes,” I said, and thinking it best to put him in the picture as soon as possible added: “Someone has sent a letter about your gambling debt.”

That startled him. “How tiresome,” he said.

My father went to him and taking him by the shoulders shook him. Jonathan’s head went back and forth, his hair flopping over his face. He looked so comical that I would have laughed if the situation had not been so serious and I was feeling so upset because I liked having him around at Eversleigh.

“You had better not try to hide anything from me,” said my father.

“I had no intention of doing so,” said Jonathan. “I incurred the debt in a rash moment and oddly enough without having any desire to.”

“Stop talking like an idiot.”

“It’s true, sir. I went to the club and was persuaded to sit down and before I knew what was happening I had lost five hundred pounds.”

“Do you think I say what I don’t mean?”

“Certainly not.”

“Haven’t I told you that I won’t have gamblers on my estate?”

“Many times.”

“And you deliberately defy me?”

“Defiance was not really in my mind.”

My father would have struck him but with a graceful gesture Jonathan evaded the blow.

“I can only admit that this accusation is true,” said Jonathan, “and add that it shall never happen again.”

The door was flung open and Tamarisk came in.

“What do you want?” I cried.

“Get that child out of here,” said my father.

“You mustn’t blame Jonathan,” said Tamarisk. She ran to my father and hung on his arm. “It was my fault. I gambled. I lost the money. I was the one. It was five hundred pounds and I am going to sell Enderby to pay for it.”

It was so nonsensical that it stemmed my father’s anger.

“The girl’s gone mad,” he said.

“Yes, it was madness,” went on Tamarisk. “It was the gambler’s fever. You get it… and you are mad. You go in … the stakes get higher and you go on, saying I’ll go higher … I’ll go five hundred pounds.”

She was so beautiful in her charming innocence and determination to save Jonathan that I almost loved her in that moment. Her wonderful dark eyes were blazing and the colour in her cheeks made a charming contrast to her dark hair. No one could have watched her unmoved—not even my father, angry as he was, could be anything but susceptible to a beautiful woman. She was scarcely a woman but her innocence and passionate devotion gave her a certain maturity.

Jonathan was looking at her with great tenderness. I understood his feeling. This selfish rebellious girl was capable of love and when she loved it would be a fierce emotion which matched her temperament.

My father said gruffly: “You’re talking nonsense, child.”

“No … no. It’s true. I was there.”

“When?”

“When I lost the money.”

My father took her by the shoulders and looked into her face. “Don’t lie to me,” he said.

“It’s not lies. It’s true. Jonathan was pretending … to save me.”

“As you are pretending … to save him?”

“You’ll be sorry if you send him away.”

“Do you mean,” said my father and I saw his lips beginning to twitch in the way I remembered he had often looked at me when some precocity of mine had amused him during my childhood, “that
you
will be sorry if he goes?”

“Yes … yes … and so will you. He’s very good on the estate. The people all love him … more than they do—”

“More than they do me?”

“Yes. And people on the estate should love the squire. It’s all part of it.”

“He doesn’t deserve such an advocate.”

“A what?” she asked.

“He doesn’t deserve your confidence in him.”

“I don’t like Enderby much. It can be sold.”

Jonathan had risen from his bed and wrapped a dressing gown about him while this conversation had been going on.

“Tamarisk,” he said, “thank you for trying to save me. I can repay the money and if I have to go I shall come back and see you.”

She stamped her foot. “It won’t be the same.”

My father was a little disconcerted.

“I’ll see you later, Jonathan,” he said, and went out.

I sat on the bed and looked at Jonathan.

“It’s a letter he had. Anonymous. Signed ‘A Friend.’”

“I wonder who that dear friend could be.”

“It was a miserable thing to do.”

“It was rather. I’d have had the whole thing cleared up in no time and saved all this fuss.”

Tamarisk was looking from one of us to the other.

She said: “He’s very angry. He’ll send you away. I know.”

“He always sounds more angry than he is,” I reminded them.

“It just happens to be the cardinal sin,” said Jonathan.

“What’s that?” asked Tamarisk.

“The worst possible thing you can do, Gypsy.”

“I hope he doesn’t send you away.”

“If he does, I’ll come over to see you. We’ll have secret meetings.”

“I’d rather you were there all the time.”

He came over to her and taking her hands looked into her eyes solemnly. He said: “Everything is worth while to know I have such a good and loyal little friend.”

Then he kissed her gently on the forehead.

I felt very moved.

I said: “I’ll try to talk him out of it.”

“Do you think you can?” asked Jonathan.

“If anyone can, I can … or my mother. I’ll get her help.”

We did talk him out of it, but it was not easy.

I said that people who wrote anonymous letters were the worst possible and to give them the satisfaction of achieving their ends, was to pander to them.

I insisted that Jonathan had learned his lesson. He would never be so foolish again.

My mother and I both agreed that if he were found guilty of gambling again we would stand firmly beside my father and make no attempts to persuade him to act other than his inclinations advised him to.

And at last he gave way with a bad grace.

“When Eversleigh is bankrupt, you’ll be the ones to blame … just as much as that young jackanapes,” he growled.

We said meekly that we would accept the blame, hugged him and told him that he was not really such a fierce old curmudgeon as he made himself out to be—and even if he were, we still adored him.

Jonathan paid back the five hundred pounds and came back with us to Eversleigh.

But I did wonder who had written that anonymous letter and as the weeks passed I saw that Tamarisk’s feeling for Jonathan was growing stronger.

T
HE MONTHS PASSED QUICKLY
. One day was so like another. I seemed to be caught in the monotony of the days. Sometimes when I awoke in the mornings, I would say to myself: Another day. Is it going to be like this all my life?

Mr. and Mrs. Barrington were frequently at Grasslands. There was less trouble with the Luddites now. They may have been sobered by the terrible events of the day when Edward had been hurt and the fact that two of them had gone to the gallows for it.

New machines had been installed in the factory and the workers seemed to be reconciled to that necessary evil. Mr. Barrington would talk to Edward for hours and I would see the light in Edward’s eyes which would afterwards be replaced by a look of helplessness. I often thought how frustrating he must find it to be reduced to his state.

He was, on rare occasions, mildly irritable and afterwards suffered great remorse. I used to tell him that it was nothing and I marvelled at his good humour. He suffered a great deal—not only physically.

Try as we might we could not make ours a really happy household.

Amaryllis was pregnant again. When I heard this a great depression seized me. I congratulated her and pretended to be pleased, and I despised myself but I could not control the jealousy which beset me.

I had been rash. I could have remained Edward’s friend. I could have devoted a great deal of time to him, visiting him, playing chess and piquet with him. Why had I married him? It had been a quixotic gesture, which was certain to bring frustration. My parents had tried to make me see this but as usual I had been obstinate and gone my own way.

There were days when I felt shackled, when I looked ahead to the years to come and saw myself growing older in this house, rising in the morning, taking solitary rides and walks, sitting with Edward, playing endless games with him, retiring at night. That was my life.

I would
get
old, lined and wrinkled, beyond the age of child-bearing.

I was becoming obsessed by the desire for a child. And now that Amaryllis was going to have another, this desire in me was stronger than ever.

My mother guessed at my feelings. I would often find her eyes on me, a little sad and sometimes, I thought, with a hint of fear. She knew me well, perhaps better than anyone, even myself. I think that in her mind was the thought that somewhere, sometime my resolution would break. I was a woman of natural impulses. I was not meant to live unfulfilled.

She and my father had paid a visit to France that autumn and she had come home very happy. They had been present for the vendange, and how exciting that had been! Charlot and Louis Charles lived with their families in a small
chateau
which, although it had been vandalized to some extent during the revolution, they had been able to restore, and there they lived with their growing families in perfect harmony it seemed.

Louis Charles and Charlot had always been like brothers. They were actually half brothers for Louis Charles had been my mother’s first husband’s bastard. There was a great bond between the two and it seemed such a happy solution that they should share a flourishing vineyard.

My mother gloried in long descriptions of how they brought in the grapes, the pressing, the bottling, and the great rejoicing when everything was brought to a satisfactory conclusion.

My father grudgingly admitted that they were making a success of it and that their wines were excellent.

I saw him looking at Jonathan and drawing comparisons. He was still suspicious of Jonathan. He would never forget that episode, and every now and then would expound on the pitfalls of gambling.

I teased him a little about it. “Obviously,” I said, “it is one of the few vices in which
you
have not indulged at some time or other.”

He replied that he had always been intent on making a success of what he had and, thank God, had had the sense to realize that he would not jeopardize one acre of land to chance. “Certainty was what I was after,” he added. “I was not staking my future on the drop of the dice or the place of a card in the pack.”

I think he was anxious about me and I guessed he and my mother had long talks in the privacy of their bedroom.

In the meantime life went on as before. Jonathan was doing well… at least he was avoiding trouble. I think he really was interested in the estate, but that nonchalant air, that easy charm which gave him an air of indifference, was something my father found irritating.

There were occasional explosions of temper on his part which my mother usually managed to soothe without too much trouble.

Tamarisk was often at Eversleigh and there was a very special friendship between her and Jonathan. My mother did comment on this once and betrayed a certain apprehension. “She is young yet. Not nine until the summer. But she is a precocious girl. No doubt her feelings will abate a little as she gets older.”

“Jonathan is very fond of her,” I pointed out. “She will be quite safe with him.”

“I hope so. I haven’t said anything to your father about it. He’s very critical of Jonathan and I don’t want to make him worse. He would come to all sorts of conclusions.”

“You worry too much,” I told her and added: “About everything.”

Which brought us back to the position in which I found myself. There was an uneasiness in the air—faint but present.

I had never been perfectly at home with Peter since his announcement of the engagement between himself and Amaryllis; and I often felt that he was a little wary of me. He must have known that I had believed his interest to be in me. I often thought of our dramatic meeting and how he had followed me in the street. He had seemed so attentive, so eager to know me, and then suddenly he had fallen in love with Amaryllis.

I suppose it was natural, but it did seem a little odd. He must have been aware of this and it made for restraint between us.

When I looked back I realized that I had scarcely been alone with him since the announcement. He was always busy—making frequent visits to London. He was a highly successful businessman. He was doing well with his rum and sugar and seemed to have many interests. He was still renting Enderby, which seemed an ideal arrangement; the money was banked for Tamarisk for when she came of age, so the house was an investment for her; and the fact that Amaryllis and Peter continued to live there shelved the problem of what was to be done with it. I sometimes wondered about his business and would have liked to see those warehouses of his. I still marvelled at Amaryllis’ lack of interest, particularly as she had money invested in the company. Once or twice I tried to discover something about this but she was vague. All she could tell me was that they were very successful and Peter’s business was growing so rapidly that he had to be more and more in London.