Distant Choices (35 page)

‘My dear, if you had seen Kate as recently as I have, you would realize that Francis might be a widower any day now.'

And since, by the look of Garron Keith, it seemed unlikely that Oriel could manage, at the appropriate moment, to be free herself, Evangeline felt fully entitled to be aggrieved about it.

‘Well, I suppose I had better be off. At least I can take that ninny Susannah off your hands and back to that even greater ninny her mother. Poor Letty, she doesn't know – really she doesn't know – that what ails her at present is jealousy – pure and simple – of her darling Quentin's handsome landlady.'

‘I dare say. But if she doesn't know, then I don't think you ought to tell her, mamma.'

‘My dear, why waste my breath? She would never believe it. Goodbye then, I will see you on Christmas morning. You will come to High Grange church with me, of course – won't you? – to defend me from my dear friends and relations. And luncheon afterwards – naturally. Your husband can spare you to me for that.'

But when Garron returned home that night, very late, very cold, considerably mud-stained and soaked to the skin by the rain which, yet again, had flooded through the clay of Merton Ridge, he was in no mood to make concessions of any kind to anyone. A tub of hot water, clean clothes, hot food and plenty of it eaten from a tray in the armchair by the parlour fire, his wife's total attention. These were his requirements. After which he would glance at the correspondence which had accumulated in his absence, smoke a cigar or two over a glass or two of brandy, and take his wife to bed.

Yes, two navvies had been killed. Short men, as Jamie had said, who had failed to keep their heads above the floodwater. But one had to bear in mind that after six months of digging and blasting, these two were the only fatalities. Due in part – as he believed the whole site to be aware – to his insistence on using dynamite instead of gunpowder, even though it cost him five times as much.

‘Did those men leave families?'

‘Of a sort.'

‘What sort?'

‘Oh – wives they never got round to taking to the altar. And a few children I expect. They'll be provided for.'

‘By whom?'

‘By their mates. They'll all put a penny or two in the foreman's hat.'

‘Will you give them something?'

‘I might. But not with anybody else looking on. Do you know how many men fall into cuttings, on pay-night, and don't even know which bones they've broken until morning? Or how many lay down dead drunk on top of Merton Moor where the rain never stops and then, about ten minutes before the pneumonia kills them, start wondering what caused it? Or how many blow themselves up through carrying dynamite about in their pockets to keep it warm? Your Cousin Susannah says there's a death to every mile of track and thirty to a tunnel. So when it comes to compensation, I'd rather pick and choose …'

‘Yes – of course …' But she was thinking, as she had been thinking to some extent all day, about Miss Woodley, and had not really heard him.

‘So I'm going to be busy, Oriel, this next day or two – devilish busy. The tunnel's a mess. That clever bastard de Hay was out by a bloody mile in his findings. Mainly rock, he said, to blast clean through, and that's what I allowed for. And that's bad enough. But clay's different. Clay can be hell. Once you open it up and the light gets to it, and the bloody rain, there's no holding it. It expands. It can get so lively that even when you've lined it twice and three times over with good bricks you've paid good money for, it can squeeze the mortar out between them. Christ – I hate clay. So I'm going to be up at the tunnel now until it's drained and sorted out, or it's going to cost me a fortune. It's not de Hay they'll come looking for if it's not ready on time. And it's not de Hay who'll lose his penalty money either. You'll manage all right – with the kids? Won't you?'

‘Yes, Garron. I will.' Once again she was barely listening, although she was, nevertheless, perfectly well aware that he had asked her to serve up the spirit of Christmas single-handed on the most ornate platter she could contrive, to these children who were still quite strange to her.

‘I want their bedrooms to look like Aladdin's Cave on Christmas morning. We got enough presents, didn't we?'

‘Oh – enough for a school, I think. Or two. Yes – yes, we did. Garron – listen – do you remember the cottage by Lake Ullswater where I was staying last winter?'

‘Yes. Yes, I do,' he said and then, as if remembering exactly how and why, reached out to the piled up correspondence on his desk. ‘I have a letter about it from a solicitor in Penrith.'

‘About Miss Woodley? She died – while we were away.'

‘Yes, that's what the letter tells me. It seems she left her house to you, and her lawyer is asking what I want done with it.'

Asking
him
? Of course. For she understood quite well that as a married woman, the law allowed her no separate identity apart from her husband, her body belonging to him so irrevocably that, so far as the law was concerned, she
was
him. Mrs Garron Keith, the shadow of Mr Garron Keith, whose guardianship of her was as absolute as the control he exercised over his children. More absolute, in fact, since his authority over his children would end when they reached twenty-one, whereas she remained his for life.

Quentin Saint-Charles had explained it all to her in his precise, legal fashion on the day he had drawn up her marriage contract. ‘You do understand, Oriel, that on marriage a woman relinquishes all her legal and financial rights to her husband? That is to say that such property as she brings into marriage becomes his property, to be administered or disposed of as he thinks fit, with or without her consent. Likewise in the matter of inheritance, all legacies to her becoming his, absolutely and without any obligation on his part even to inform her as to what he does with them. Nor can she sue him at any time, or take any kind of legal action against him whatsoever, since in law they are the same person. And one can hardly sue oneself.'

‘Yes, Quentin, I understand.' And, at that moment, since she had no property and no prospect, that she could see, of acquiring any, it had seemed irrelevant.

No longer.

‘Garron …?'

He shrugged, the letter still in his hand, but not weighing very heavily there.

‘Yes. A ramshackle old place, as I remember. Better get rid of it. I suppose, before it falls down. Although it won't be looking its best in this cold weather …'

It seemed to her that her own body was being menaced. ‘Garron –' and her mouth seemed dryer than she had ever known it before, ‘– couldn't we keep it?'

‘Why?'

It meant nothing to him, she knew that. She did not even dare to contemplate, at this vulnerable moment, how much it meant to her.

‘I could take the children there in the summer.' She knew, although he did not, that she was pleading with him. ‘The fresh air would do them good. And Jamie would love it.'

He shrugged again. ‘I can think of places he'd like better. A bit on the quiet side for our Jamie, I should have thought. And lonely for the girls. I doubt we'd get our money's-worth out of it, Oriel. The money I'd have to spend, that is, to make it fit to live in and keep it that way.'

She saw his hand begin the movement of tossing the letter back on to his desk to be answered, whenever he happened to remember it, with a brief request to sell, and said quickly, ‘Will you reconsider?'

‘What?' He had given the matter as much consideration already as it seemed worth. And then, his eyes which were always shrewd and keen growing quickly suspicious, he rapped out ‘Why?', the tone of his voice warning her that she had alarmed his sense of possession and would have to tread warily.

And how could she say to him ‘Because only there have I ever been at peace. Only there have I felt truly undisturbed, unmolested, free from other people's schemes and manoeuvres. It is the only home I have ever known'? She knew she could not. Yet if he took that home away from her, those few memories of childhood content, that prospect of one calm acre of her own where she could breathe unencumbered air, she also knew she would be unable to forgive him. The wound would fester and spread to everything around her. For all their sakes she must not allow that.

And since she could not browbeat him, was in no position to make demands, not even, with any guarantee of success, to ask outright, she would have to use such weapons as came to hand. She had never flirted with him before, nor with any other man for that matter, but, having all her life watched Evangeline strewing dainty little promises of delights which might, or might not, be forthcoming, she knew very well how it was done.

‘It's so lovely there, Garron. The garden is so beautiful.'

‘You have a garden here, three times as big …'

‘I know. I know.' She knew, too, that the warmth in her voice, the hint of laughter, had caused him to look at her
very
keenly now. ‘But there is the lake and the high fells, which always makes me feel so energetic. And the track up to Martindale and the old churchyard – do you remember – with the enormous yew tree … It must be the most romantic place on earth. I feel romantic there, in any case. You must remember how – well – invigorating – it is?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘What of it?'

‘Do I take it you've forgotten already?'

He shook his head. ‘No – no. I've not forgotten. Do
I
take it you want to build a little shrine where I proposed to you?'

She made a wide, airy gesture, giving him her permission to take whatever view – and, just possibly, whatever liberties – he pleased.

‘I don't believe you, Oriel.' Yet she saw the corners of his mouth twitch slightly with amusement, his eyes narrowing no longer in scrutiny but the acknowledgement of his readily aroused desire, and the advantages her present mood gave him. And it was not in his nature – as she had gambled – to neglect an advantage.

‘No, bonny lass, I don't believe you.' But he was smiling openly now, enjoying both the pretty game she was playing and the prospect of his own generosity. No doubt she was ‘handling'him as women did, but, equally without doubt, he could afford to be ‘handled', when it suited him, if it made her more than usually accommodating. It was a situation with which he was both comfortable and familiar. A lakeland cottage then, if that was what it took to make her eager and happy and glad – on the whole – that she had accepted the proposal he'd made to her under that yew tree. Why not? It would cost him far less in time and trouble and hard cash than the Merton Ridge Tunnel. He was even – although secretly – delighted to have found something she wanted badly enough to ask.

‘All right,' he said, tossing the letter from Miss Woodley's lawyer into her lap. ‘Write to this Mr Braymore and tell him whatever you want to tell him. I'll sign it.'

‘Thank you, Garron.'

‘Happy to be of service, ma'am. I presume there is a reward?'

She went upstairs with him in a glow which carried her through the next few, often difficult days, the strains and stresses of being a ‘family at Christmas'when the father was away from early morning to late at night, shouting curses and instructions through the sleet storms lashing down on Merton Ridge, and the natural mother gone beyond recall of anything but the imagination of Morag, her eldest daughter, who set about inventing memories in the unconcealed hope of annoying the ‘new wife'.

Thinking of her cottage, her own calm acre, such memories did not annoy her, her glow warm and deep enough to survive every attempt the Festive Season made to snuff it out. The cool, dismissive manner, for instance, in which Morag unwrapped the books and shawls and fans and bonnets, the beautiful porcelain dolls dressed up like queens, the exquisitely sad clown, the musical boxes, the water-colours, the flower prints, the coral earrings and beads, the gold locket, the angel cameo, all of them chosen by Oriel, leaving them extravagantly neglected all day, ostentatiously underfoot, until the cameo was broken, the earrings missing, the head of one porcelain lady cracked open, while Morag spent her time gazing – whenever Oriel was looking – at a religious picture sent by Susannah.

The perhaps equally cool manner in which Evangeline received the information that Oriel could only spend half an hour on Christmas morning at High Grange. The half-hour itself, with Maud serving port wine and Madeira as if it were hemlock, Matthew locked away in his book-room, Morag and Susannah whispering together, Letty waiting in visible agony for Quentin who had promised to come early, terrified that he might not come at all and then speaking to him sharply the very moment he did, unable to stop herself from asking him every one of the questions she had vowed never to ask at all, about his rooms in Hepplefield which she could not bring herself to visit, his landlady whom she could not bear to see, his friends of whom he ought surely to have no need, and dropping hints which only she imagined to be veiled as to why he had so callously turned his back on his family and broken his mother's heart.

The drive back to Lydwick and the violent quarrel halfway when Morag finally noticed her missing coral earrings boldly swinging in her sister Elspeth's ears. The grand Christmas dinner to follow, the turkey and oyster patties, the roast lamb and caper sauce, the mince pies and plum pudding all kept waiting until Morag could be brought to admit that her father would not come. Her refusal, afterwards, to join her brother and sister in the games of Hunt the Slipper and Blind Man's Buff, or the Charades bravely organized by Oriel, who did not care for games herself. The gnawing fatigue in her bones long before the children had gone to bed, her cheeks aching with the effort of constant, usually false smiles, her throat sore with constant words of encouragement, approval – usually false, too – and good cheer, her eyes smarting with the strain of watching them, checking their needs and their humours, what else – what next – what now, ready to pour oil on their troubled waters before – if possible – the trouble had begun. Her assurances – very false these – that their father would run straight upstairs to see them the very minute he came back from the Tunnel, when she knew very well that his immediate needs would be of an altogether different variety.