A Dream of her Own (45 page)
Then, instead of taking issue with them and causing an unpleasant scene, Gerald guessed that the cost of the wine had simply been spread over the rest of the items on the bill. Carmichael hadn’t really checked it, he had been so obsessed with the idea of cheating Alvini’s out of a bottle of wine.
‘Hurry up, Sowerby!’ Leonard Russell called. The other two were waiting on the pavement outside.
‘What’s keeping him?’ Carmichael asked.
‘Perhaps he’s gone upstairs to the private rooms - perhaps he’s got an assignation up there,’ Russell replied.
They both turned to look at him as he joined them. Their smiles were foolish but Gerald was always aware that he was the outsider. They both came from much wealthier families than his own and if they needed a butt for their jokes it was usually he.
‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ He tried to sound aggressive but was aware that he was enunciating his words a little too carefully.
‘Oo-ooh! He’s cross with me!’ Russell said. ‘I simply meant that I saw you watching that big booby Valentino carrying the woman up the stairs, and I wondered if you fancied going up and showing him how.’
Gerald relaxed and laughed with them. ‘Even if I wanted to show him I don’t think I’d succeed,’ he said.
Russell frowned. ‘What do you mean by that? Something the matter with you?’
‘Not me; nothing wrong with my performance.’ Gerald leered suggestively. ‘But I’m not even sure if Alvini’s got what it takes to please a lady - and even if he has got one, I shouldn’t think he knows what to do with it.’
There was a moment’s silence as his words penetrated the drunken fog and then both his companions hooted with laughter. Then Carmichael turned and called loudly for a cab.
‘Good night, Sowerby,’ he said, and he and Russell made their way across the frosty cobbles to the cab stand.
On their way, Leonard Russell caught the heel of his shoe in a metal tramline. Gerald watched with amusement as he struggled to free himself while one of the new electric trams, known locally as a coffin, rumbled towards him. Carmichael reached out to help, the bottle of wine fell from his cloak and smashed on the road and he collapsed with laughter. In the end, the waiting cabby had to run and pull Russell free. Gerald heard his friend’s howl of pain turn to rage as he realized that he had left his shoe behind for the tram to run over.
Just before he followed Carmichael into the cab Russell turned and yelled indignantly, ‘Thanks a lot, Sowerby, thanks for your help, I’m sure!’ Then he turned and vomited on to the cobbles.
Gerald lit a cigar before strolling over to get a cab for himself. On the way home he thought about what Russell had said earlier. It was true, he had watched as Valentino Alvini had carried the woman upstairs. But what had intrigued him was that he thought he knew who the woman was. And yet he could hardly believe it. She had been bundled up in a voluminous velvet cloak but her hood had fallen back to reveal the pale blonde ringlets tumbling down over Valentino’s arm.
It was the luxuriant hair that had attracted him. And then he had seen her face - or rather her profile. His admiration had turned to incredulity and then disgust. Impossible as it seemed, the well-dressed, attractive woman being carried upstairs in her Valentino’s arms was none other than Nella, the little humpback skivvy who had left the Sowerbys’ house on Rye Hill one night about a year ago and never returned. Her features may have filled out - the cheek he had glimpsed had been more rounded than before - but the profile was the same. She still had the sharp nose and the pointed chin of a witch.
Now, on the way home, he thought about her again and he couldn’t even begin to imagine the circumstances that had brought her to Alvini’s. Suddenly he recalled the way she had looked at him that day in Annabel’s bedroom ... when had it been? He couldn’t remember for sure but he had known in that instant that she despised him. But why? He had never harmed her. She’d had no cause to look at him like that ... unless ... unless ...
Gerald remembered the other little maid who had left their employment a short while before Nella had gone. Constance, her name had been. Had the girls been friends? Had Constance told the other one what he had done? Had the little witch sworn to put a curse on him? In spite of himself he shivered.
In that case it was just as well that the creature had left his mother’s employment. Valentino was welcome to her.
Chapter Twenty-three
Constance pushed the gate and found that it was blocked by a drift of snow. The path across the moor was almost clear, with heaps of grey-looking sludge lying amongst the brownish straggles of grass but, here in the sheltered grounds of Lodore House, the thaw had been slower. She pushed harder and the gate gave way, skidding across the snow so quickly that she almost fell into the garden. She stopped to take her breath.
The air she gulped in was cold, catching at her throat painfully. The garden looked desolate. Although the bare branches of the trees lent a certain stark beauty, the shrubs had grown unchecked and the rose bushes remained unpruned with a few late roses, their petals brown-veined and shrivelled, clinging to the thorny stems. Constance was sad that her brother seemed to care so little for the garden that their father had loved.
She almost turned to go back at that point, but curiosity got the better of her. She had no intention of making her presence known. She would look and then leave again, just as she had the last time she had been here a few weeks ago, just before Christmas ...
That time she hadn’t planned to come at all. She had been driven out of her own house by her ever-growing sense of restlessness - and by anger and the need to try to forget the remarks of John’s Aunt Muriel and her daughter, Esther. The two women had peered into the babies’ cribs, their faces pinched with curiosity.
Aunt Muriel had been holding her breath. She’d let it out slowly and remarked, ‘Fair hair.’
‘And blue eyes,’ Esther added unnecessarily.
Aunt Muriel straightened up. ‘They’re fine babies, Constance,’ she said grudgingly. She paused and added, ‘But they did come a little early, didn’t they?’
John stepped forward. ‘Dr Mason told me that that’s not unusual for twins,’ he said.
Constance could barely control her anger. She knew that John was anxious to assure them that everything was normal because he never wanted anybody to know what had happened that terrible night in the turret room - what had caused the shock which sent her into labour. But she also knew that Muriel Barton had been implying that the twins had come when they did because she, Constance, had been pregnant before she got married. She realized then that the poisonous woman had even been hinting at that at the wedding breakfast ... and perhaps at something more.
After they had gone and John had made some excuse to leave the house, Constance had left Florence in charge of the nursery and set out to walk off her rage. The walk had become longer and longer until she’d found herself halfway across the Town Moor.
And then, of course, it had seemed inevitable that she should go on and enter the gardens of Lodore House. The day had been bright, and a fresh fall of snow had sparkled in the sunshine. Constance had felt a sense of exhilaration and excitement as she’d peered surreptitiously through the windows of her childhood home.
The sitting room at the side of the house had a large bay window and she pressed herself close to one of the stone stanchions and peered round into the room. A fire blazed in the hearth and, in one corner, a giant Christmas tree shimmered with tinsel and shining glass ornaments. The people in the room were too interested in the baby sitting on Iris’s knee to thank about glancing towards the window. Constance was safe to observe them.
Iris still looks pasty, Constance thought, but she is obviously devoted to the sturdy, rosy-cheeked child on her knee. Constance couldn’t tell whether the dark-haired baby was a boy or a girl but her brother’s child looked to be some months older than her own daughters.
Robert stood behind his wife and child and Constance couldn’t see his expression. He was bending towards the baby and dangling something that twisted to and fro on the end of a ribbon. It was a silver rattle and the baby followed its progress with its eyes. The child was laughing with delight. The scene of domestic bliss was being played out before Robert’s grandparents, Captain and Mrs Meakin, and a middle-aged couple whom Constance took to be Iris’s parents. They all stared at the little family group with self-satisfied absorption.
The pain that gripped her heart was almost physical. For the first time since the birth of her own babies it struck her that there was no one to hold her and her daughters in such a cherished gaze. Their father rarely visited the nursery and her children had no grandparents to dote on them. Her eyes had filled with the tears that never seemed to be far away these days.
The scene before her had blurred and, sobbing convulsively, she had turned and run from the garden.
Today the scene was different. The tree and the Christmas decorations had gone and only a small fire burned in the hearth. At first Constance thought the room was empty until she saw a movement in one of the armchairs near the fire. A man sat there reading by the light of a lamp on a table nearby; the movement that had attracted her attention had been the turning of a page. Was it Robert?
She stared at him. The figure in the chair was so still that she thought he might have fallen asleep. She pressed her face right up to the glass. She saw that it was her brother and that one hand held the book steady on his knee while the other rested along the arm of his chair and supported his head. His attitude suggested weariness or dejection.
Then, without warning, he looked up and saw her. He rose to his feet and the book fell to the floor. She stayed long enough to see him begin to walk towards the door of the room, before she turned and began to retrace her steps through the garden. She had almost reached the gate on to the moor when she heard him call out to her.
‘Constance! Don’t go!’ When she turned to face him he stopped and reached a hand out towards her. ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t run off like you did last time. I’m all alone here. At least come in and take a cup of tea with me!’
She stood watching him for a moment. He looked sad, she decided. Why should her half-brother look so sad? Slowly she began to walk towards him.
It was a different little maid who brought them tea and a plate of rich fruit cake. Constance wondered how many unfortunate girls Iris had seen off since the last - and first - time she had visited them in late spring. This one seemed cheerful enough, but perhaps that was because Iris and the baby - a son, Robert had told her - were away staying with her parents in Berwick.
When the girl had gone, Robert built up the fire and then sat down and smiled at Constance. ‘It’s so good to see you,’ he said.
Constance sipped her tea before replying. ‘Robert, what did you mean just now when you asked me not to run off like the last time?’
He looked at her solemnly. ‘I saw you that day, looking in at us. But before I realized fully who it was, you had taken off. None of the others had seen you so I didn’t say anything.’
‘I don’t suppose Iris would have made me welcome.’ She realized how crabby she must have sounded and added, ‘I’m sorry.’
But she noticed Robert didn’t contradict her. ‘I thought it was because my grandparents were here. I thought that perhaps you might ... you might...’
‘Bear them a grudge?’
‘Perhaps.’
This time it was Constance who made no contradiction. ‘But, Robert, how could you have seen me?’ she asked. ‘You had your back to me. You were engrossed with your son.’
‘It was Douglas who saw you.’ He smiled when he saw Constance’s frown of puzzlement. ‘He was following the movement of the rattle with his eyes. He’s so alert, you know! Well, anyway, he suddenly looked beyond the rattle towards the window, as if he had seen something. I looked round and saw you, you had a hand to your eyes. I barely had time to register the fact that it was you before you turned and hurried away.’
‘I see.’ Constance smiled. ‘Clever baby.’
Robert’s response was immediate. ‘Oh, Constance, he is! He’s so bright. I think I spend more time in the nursery than Iris does ... and I hate having to leave him and go to the office!’
‘And what does Iris think of that?’
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