Distant Choices (14 page)

‘The child, I fear, is somewhat given to excess.' Such had been Maud's opinion, and Matthew's. Like mother like daughter, in fact.
Excessive
; which, in their cool translation, meant ‘embarrassing', ‘to be apologized for', ‘unlikely ever to be loved'.

Nor had her mother been of any help to her. ‘Aunt Maud knows best, my dear. She always has. Do as she tells you. You will find it safer.' Had Eva really been saying ‘Be warned by me.' Or had it been: ‘Leave me alone, child. Don't worry me. I wanted
him
, to be his woman not just his legal wife and the mother of his child. So now that he rejects me why should I concern myself with you?'

She had not concerned herself, or so it had seemed to Kate. ‘Your father does not care for lively children.' Kate, therefore, had schooled herself never to run to him with her eager enquiries, never to tug at his hand, never to chatter in his presence, never to clamour for a seat beside him in the carriage, or to attract his attention in any other way than by the careful art of not annoying him. Obeying, in fact, the rules laid down by Maud which, when they failed after all to win her his affection, had left her hurt and shuttered and difficult to handle.

‘Your father sets great store, Kate, by ladylike behaviour and strict obedience to the conventions.'

A straitjacket into which she had forced herself for a while and then, finding no advantage, had shrugged off, emerging crushed, not without distortion, a few emotional bones certainly broken, a few others set at awkward angles, to live her real life in critical, often angry solitude. By day she was odd, wilful, unrepentant. By night she dreamed of suffocation by earth and sand and mountainous feather pillows, or of striving to run on feet that were embedded in swamp.

Having long known herself to be unwanted she had believed herself to be unattractive too until Oriel had shown her otherwise, and had almost resigned herself to a life with Quentin as the only possible alternative to a life with Maud, until Francis Ashington stood before her, not in her dreams of escape to Arabia – as he had escaped himself – but in the flesh. And the very violence of her feelings made all her fear of them irrelevant. If love killed her then, quite simply, she would die, since what could her life mean to her now without it? She believed, with all the fervour of a convert to some devastating, all-devouring religious faith that it could mean nothing whatsoever. Francis Ashington was not only her love, he was her hero, her guru; her saviour, he was
herself
as she wished to be. She had been caged all her life waiting not just for liberty but for
him
, she could admit the possibility of no other, to open the door.

And now, so full was she of her wild fire that Quentin's cool voice came to her from a wholly alien level, very far away. She did not want to hear him, did not want to see him, her face hidden behind the tangled screen of her hair, her manner so brittle, so breakable, so oddly terrified, that Quentin, his senses razor-sharp, his instincts professionally acute, checked the step he had been about to take towards her and remained perfectly still. Biding his time, perhaps, as those who believe themselves to be stronger and surer, or to have right on their side, often do.

‘When we are married, you say, Quentin?'

‘Yes, Kate. Soon, I think. Don't you?'

Was there no cross on her brow then, marking her irrevocably with the brand of Francis Ashington? Had she kept her secret so well. Even through her tight-clenched panic she was astonished to realize that she had.

‘Why, Quentin?' Her voice was sharp, a little off-key, taking him aback. ‘Why me?'

‘Oh Kate – surely?' Surely she knew that. Surely she had understood and accepted long ago – as Maud had told him – the rights and reasons of their future together? Yet – in case she had not – he was a lawyer after all, accustomed to awkward, unexpected questions, whose skill at making words mean what it suited them to mean had never failed him yet.

‘Because, for one thing – and of course there are other reasons – I believe I can look after you.'

There was a short, uneasy silence, something taut and immensely troubled in the air.

‘Oh,' she said. ‘I see. And am I so much in need of care?'

‘I think so. Like all women – surely?'

‘No thank you, Quentin.'

‘I beg your pardon.'

‘No, Quentin.'

Silence again, threaded as before with a dreadful tension which, although she knew it to be coming from the turmoil of her own body, she could not break. Perhaps it would strangle her as this aching for Francis, in the busy presence of Quentin, seemed to be strangling her. Unless it was her mad desire to shout her love aloud which was so painfully blocking her throat and restricting her breath. But she could not shout it to Quentin until she had found her way to shout it to Francis himself, until she knew for certain that when she began to follow him he would at least reach out his hand.

And, in the meantime, if Quentin should touch her she knew she would scream and scratch and utterly disgrace herself in the mad way they said her mother had once done, in a fit of jealousy over her father. Would she, in her turn, be exposed to jealousy? Was there something else still to come, in this perilous world of emotion? An even more scorching fire than this?

‘Have I taken you by surprise, Kate?' Quentin's voice was quizzical. ‘You must surely know that I have always meant to marry you?'

‘Yes. I know. Aunt Maud and your mother have often told me.'

He smiled. ‘Ah yes. I see. Then you should take less notice of my mother, I think, and more of me. It may be her wish. And Aunt Maud's. But it is mine too.'

‘Not mine, Quentin.'

‘Kate, I do feel …'

‘Not
mine
, Quentin.'

She heard him sigh, very slightly, not even very much out of patience, being accustomed to conducting these conversations of man to child with his mother.

‘Well, Kate, you are still very young and I suppose …'

‘What? You suppose I don't understand what marriage is about? Perhaps not. Or not exactly. But whatever it is I know I can't do it with you …'

‘Kate.'
She had startled him at last, embarrassed him even, and she sensed all too clearly how much he disliked it. ‘There is no need, I think, to be specific …'

‘And I dare say you don't want to do it with me, Quentin. In fact I know you don't.'

Silence. And then, very curtly, ‘I am asking you to
marry
me, Kate.'

‘No, Quentin.'

And perhaps it was the pain in her voice which caused him to move towards her and then froze him in his tracks as, feeling herself menaced, she tossed back her hair, revealing a pair of wild eyes, a face pared to the bone with nervous agony, and hissed at him, ‘Don't harass me, Quentin – don't push me. I might have been able to face it once – before – I even thought I'd have to. But not now. Never – now. Don't you see, I'd rather
die
than marry you. And if you, or your silly mother, or your hateful Aunt Maud, try to make me – then that's just what I will do.
Die
.'

It seemed to her that he had turned to ice, that she was herself caught in some frozen block, embedded there chilled to the bone forever, until, with visible effort, she sprang forward and ran out of the room, across the hall, along one corridor and then another, to fling open a door and bolt for cover into the tranquil, fragrant room where Oriel was sorting out her ribbon boxes.

‘Kate – what is it now?' She had been neglecting Kate lately, since Francis, and knew it, dreaming of him instead of keeping an eye on what was going on around her in this place she currently called her home, relaxing the guard she kept on her own back, and her mother's, and Kate's too, in a mood of rare self-indulgence. Had she missed something now, lost in her warm remembrances of every word Francis Ashington had spoken? Something she ought to have seen coming? With the alarm of those who are not often caught out she realized she had.

Kate flung herself across the bed, pressing her face into Oriel's pillows, her hands curling into fists which hurt by their very impotence.

‘Oriel, I feel sick. Oh God –
sick
.'

‘No you don't.' Oriel had always found it best to deny nausea and, quickly soaking a handkerchief in lavender water, she laid it firmly, expertly, on Kate's forehead, expecting no miraculous cure from a square of cambric and a dab of perfume other than the calming effect of
something
being done.

‘Sit up now, Kate, and stop thrashing about – you'll make yourself worse. It can't be so bad.'

‘Yes it is,' her teeth were chattering. ‘I have refused him, that's all …'

‘Quentin?'

‘Who else? And in
such
a manner. I have called his mother a fool, and Aunt Maud a devil, and told him I'll die before I'll let him touch me. So now he'll have gone to tell them all that I said, and how crazed I looked when I said it – just like my mother. And you know what they'll all make of that when they go into a huddle with father – as soon as he gets home – to decide what's to be
done
with me.'

Yes. She knew. There seemed no point in denying it.

‘Do you hate him so much, Kate?'

Hate him? Once, perhaps. But she had hardly thought about him lately. He was simply a man who was not Francis, like all the others. A man who wished to keep her away from Francis.
That
was his only identity and as such, yes, she hated him.

‘If only I had been calmer,' she said.

‘Yes,' Oriel smiled. ‘I dare say it would have been better. But you weren't. And, at least, to have refused him like that means he probably won't ask again.'

Which did not mean, of course, that he would not ask her father to compel her to change her decision, would not call up the wrath of the whole family against her so that, by the withdrawal of all her privileges, her use of the carriage, her few pounds pin-money, her little measure of freedom and air, she would live a virtual prisoner, frustrated and wilting, until desperation or simple boredom prevailed. And if that happened – as seemed highly likely – then Oriel, herself subject to the same restraints, did not know how she could really help her. Might it not even be in Kate's best interests to accept him now and have done with it, thus freeing herself from the awful bondage of girlhood, the authority of a husband allowing more dignity – it seemed to Oriel – or being easier to manage or easier to evade, perhaps, than Aunt Maud's? Marry and then ‘come to terms', ‘make an arrangement'. Such, she knew, would have been Evangeline's advice.

It did not occur to her that Kate might be in love with somebody else. It did not occur to Kate that Oriel, behind her fine, pale shell, might be in love at all.

Sitting up cross-legged, dishevelled, tossing back her hair and rubbing her eyes, Kate managed a shaky smile.

‘So tonight, at dinner, they'll all have their knives into me. Unless, of course, I do something fatal and save them the trouble. Where does hemlock come from, Oriel?'

‘A plant. I don't suppose it grows in the garden.'

‘Then I could always run away.'

‘I'd miss you.'

‘Oriel – tell me the truth – don't you ever want to run away yourself?'

‘No, Kate. Because I know I have nowhere to go.' Neither, she believed, had Kate. Marry and ‘come to terms'. Marry and compromise. Compromise and survive. She had been ready to accept that compromise herself, thinking it inevitable. But now, with the golden dream of Francis Ashington filling her whole mind, she could not speak to Kate – of all people – of sordid convenience. Marry and ‘come to terms'. But Francis Ashington had offered her a glimpse of marrying for love, the ultimate blessing which, since she could not give it to Kate, she would not flaunt before her. Indeed, how could she be so heartless as to parade her own possible – just possible – happiness before the near certainty of grief in store for Kate, who had had grief enough in her life – surely – from the start?

‘I'll help you, Kate,' she said. ‘Although – do you
know
what it is you want to do?'

And she was taken aback by the fervour, the thrill of absolute certainty in Kate's reply. ‘Oh yes. I know.'

‘Can you tell me?'

For a moment Kate's whole body seemed to tremble with the double effort of almost reaching out, almost confiding, followed by the sudden force of her withdrawal.

‘No. No, I can't. There are some things – don't you see – that one can't speak of – one mustn't speak of – until they're certain – until they've
happened
. Things that matter too much …'

With her own fragile secret clutched tight in her heart how clearly Oriel understood.
Breathe no word of it. Or some jealous demon, listening just over your shoulder, will snatch it all away. So leave it unsaid, don't take the chance
… How well she knew.

But, for the present, there was Quentin to contend with and all those who, certainly by now, would have been summoned to his assistance, his outraged aunt and mother, his Uncle Matthew who, since Quentin suited
him
as a son-in-law, would be unlikely to show Kate any mercy. It would be a difficult evening, full of voices raised in horror and anger, hysterical tears, Kate locked in her room, not by Maud who could be defied but by Matthew who could not, while downstairs in the South parlour the talk would be of punishment and compulsion, the shocking insult to Quentin, and taking of proper steps to bring Kate to her senses or, if not, at least to ensure that she would do as she was told.

Kate was white-faced and tense by dinner time, walking downstairs with the mixed bravado and desperation of a woman going to her execution. Yet as she and Oriel entered the drawing-room together it was to encounter nothing more sinister than the quick up-and-down glance Evangeline bestowed as a matter of course on all females, proving that she, at least, had not yet heard Quentin's shocking news. Nor, it seemed, had Letty who was dining at High Grange that night. Nor even Maud, Quentin's favourite confidante, who, looking up from her needlework – busy hands becoming ever more essential to her these days – had no more serious reprimand than a curt ‘Kate – must you fidget so?' While Susannah, the most devoted of Quentin's sisters, who had been invited in compensation for the missed tea-party, talked of nothing but the navvy camp at Merton Ridge and the scandalous manner in which Mr Garron Keith was permitting his labourers to
wallow
– no other word could describe it – in drink and depravity. Particularly now, with the cart-roads in and the huts erected, that the men had felt able to send for – or otherwise acquire – their female companions.