Distant Choices (4 page)

‘Oh dear – I am so sorry …' Kate's hands, in what looked like their eagerness to make amends, were tugging the hat to an even more drastic angle, badly ruffling its feathers and Evangeline's with them, Matthew had no doubt at all.

‘Please – don't trouble,' said Evangeline.

‘No trouble,' said Kate. ‘Oh – absolutely not … We can't have you looking such a fright …' And perhaps she would have had the hat off altogether and several strands of Evangeline's smooth hair tumbling down with it had not another pair of hands swiftly intervened.

‘
Do
allow me,' murmured his
other
daughter, Miss Blake, moving Kate aside with so little fuss, setting the hat and the awkward moment with it so swiftly to rights that even Matthew Stangway felt obliged to admire her expertise.

‘There, mamma. You are quite lovely again.'

‘Thank you, my darling.' They smiled at one another with quiet satisfaction.

‘Are you acquainted with my daughter,' enquired Evangeline of everyone around her, bringing Oriel forward and, without appearing to do so, pushing Kate back.

Astute Evangeline. And polished, immaculate, highly accomplished Oriel. But when it came to marriage – wondered her father – would the silver hair, the clear blue eyes, the cool serenity, even the dowry he knew Evangeline would prevail upon him to give her, be compensation enough for the questions concerning her birth which even Evangeline would be unable to answer?

He doubted it. Which seemed a pity, since she had everything in her to make a man happy: whereas it would take a desperate man indeed to risk himself with Kate.

‘Come – everyone.' Evangeline was calling them all together, eager now to go and take possession of the home for which she had waited so long.

‘Come, Maud – and Letty. Come, children …' And then, with the air of a woman who has suddenly mislaid her gloves. ‘Come, Matthew …'

Where was he?

‘Here, my love.'

Smiling, he handed her into her wedding landau, tucked a fur rug carefully around her knees just as if she were precious to him, even kissed her hand. Bells rang. There seemed to be a flurry of snowflakes mixed with dried rose-petals in the air. He saw that his sister Letty, surrounded by her progeny, was shedding tears; his sister Maud standing as rigid and stern as a soldier on parade. His daughter Kate scowling and scuffing her new kid boots on a stone. His daughter Oriel making pleasant conversation with strangers, her gloved hands neatly clasped together, saying – he felt certain – only the most appropriate thing.

Did any of them realize that he had seen the dawn of this, his second wedding day, with no more joy than his first? That all he really wanted from these women – daughters, sisters, wives – was to be left alone?

Did any of them understand that?

Only Evangeline.

‘Welcome to your kingdom, my darling,' he said.

Maud Stangway gave up the keys to High Grange Park with a steady hand, a fixed smile and venom of a most lethal nature in her heart, thus abandoning a reign which had been as long as it had been absolute.

‘What a noble-hearted creature she is,' the Gore Valley had been saying of her these thirty years, enjoying a spasm of self-righteousness at the sight of this handsome and, at one time, perfectly marriageable woman sacrificing herself on the altar of family loyalty. Since
somebody
, after all, had been needed to make good the shortcomings of her brother's wife and bring up his difficult daughter. Poor, brave Maud, they said, who had remained single, the better to do it.

But, in fact, she had been a perfectly happy woman, finding in her strict control of the house, the estate, and all within it, the very things she most desired from the married state without any obligation to suffer the caresses of a man. A physical indignity from which her brother's domestic misfortunes had spared her.

For thirty years High Grange Park, the house she preferred above all others, had been hers in everything but name. Her sister Letty's children, living so conveniently nearby at High Grange vicarage, had – in everything but the distasteful task of giving them birth – been hers too. Letty being so much in the habit of taking Maud's advice that she was uneasy about choosing so much as a new shawl without it. While Letty's husband, the Reverend Rupert Saint- Charles, had never seemed to mind who chose the schools his sons attended, or found the money to dower his daughters so long as he was not called upon to do so himself. A
hopeless
couple, Rupert and Letty. Therefore Maud had taken them in hand, for their own good of course, so thoroughly and so naturally that – for as far back as anybody could remember – nothing had been done at High Grange, either at the Park, the vicarage, or in the village itself, unless Maud approved it, gave her permission, or had ordered it, in the first place, herself.

A state of affairs which suited both her brother Matthew, who did not wish to be troubled with domestic matters,
and
her sister Letty, who had no head for them: Letty's children – for whom she had never had much head either – being left gladly, quite naturally, to Maud. And had Maud's ‘other' niece, Kate, shown the same appreciation, then matters at High Grange Park may well have been easier. But Kate – neglected little cuckoo in the Stangway nest – had never seen in Maud the role of virgin-mother which she had been quite ready to play. She had a mother of her own, after all, her manner had always seemed to imply. A mother who prowled the attic all day, perhaps, talking to her paint brushes, but a mother nevertheless; which had led her to question – often and rudely – why she should need, or in fact pay attention to an aunt? An attitude which had soon turned Maud's ministrations to slaps, her words of wisdom – so eagerly absorbed by Letty's children – to reprimands, orders, threats; leading her finally to pursue a policy not so much of bringing Kate up as keeping her under some sort of control. A harsh policy, growing harsher as Kate continued to resist it, during which she had done her best to instil into the child a proper sense of shame and fear. Shame, that is – although the actual words were never spoken – at being the daughter of so odd and unhappy a mother. And the fear that she might come – unless she mended her ways – to resemble her.

‘If you wish to be loved then you must deserve it,' had been Maud's favourite maxim to all her charges, bringing her a steady stream of little gifts, embroidered purses and slippers and flattering little water-colours from Letty's daughters, posies of flowers and ‘secrets'from Letty's sons; nothing from Kate but a blank stare, an insolent half-shrug of a brittle shoulder, a raised eyebrow which said mutely, but as plain as day, ‘Aunt Maud – what a tedious fool you are.'

Difficult moments, these, when Maud – for years now – had been forced to wrestle with her conscience, warding off, as best she could, the evil – for she knew it to be that – of wishing a human life away. Yet there were times, nevertheless, when she was angry enough or honest enough to succumb to the temptation. For if Kate had never been born then how simple, how natural, how
right
it would have been for Matthew to make Letty's eldest son his heir. Thus elevating to the rank of master of High Grange Park and Low Grange Colliery a young man who was his mother's darling and the apple of his Aunt Maud's determined eye.

How fitting. How fervently – before the shock of Eva's unexpected pregnancy – had Maud and Letty prayed for that. A dream shattered first by the appearance of Kate and then, to somewhat more serious effect, by Evangeline whose arrival as mistress of High Grange began with a flourish, the new Mrs Stangway expressing herself tolerably satisfied with the bedroom and dressing-room prepared for her own use, and with the accommodation provided for her personal maid, but somewhat puzzled by the room ‘dear Maud' had thought suitable for her daughter.

‘Oh dear …' she murmured, pausing on the threshold as if waiting for someone to tell her it was all a mistake. ‘How small …'

‘How
pretty
, mamma.' Oriel came forward at once to pour balm on troubled waters in the same practised manner in which she had rescued her mother's wedding hat:

But Evangeline, turning to Maud with the bright, brisk smile of mistress to head-parlourmaid, had not the least intention of being pacified.

‘Dear Maud – my daughter is so very good-natured, I am sure you have noticed it?'

‘Yes, indeed.'

‘And so much inclined to consider the feelings of others …'

‘I dare say.'

‘… that she often allows her own feelings to be set aside. An attitude of unselfishness in which …'

‘I am sure you have trained her well, Evangeline.'

‘I have done my best. The room is too small, Maud.'

‘It is of exactly the same proportions as Kate's.' Evangeline looked puzzled again, as if wondering what Kate could possibly have to do with it.

‘Poky,' she said. ‘And dark. A window like a prison cell.
Really
, Maud.'

‘Mamma,' murmured Oriel, moving across the fourteen feet or so of rose-patterned carpet to glance out of the perfectly adequate window. ‘There is a carriage on the drive. A landau with – I think – a coat of arms. And two ladies in it.
Rather
dignified …'

‘I wonder?' said Evangeline. ‘Lady Merton?'

And by the time Evangeline had taken tea with her caller –
not
Lady Merton, alas, the coat of arms having had no existence outside Oriel's imagination – Oriel had quietly installed herself and all her dainty possessions, her hair-brushes with their mother-of-pearl backs and spotless bristles, her lace-trimmed petticoats and chemises, her winter wardrobe of fine, pale woollen dresses, her summer wardrobe of white lawn, sprigged muslin, crisp cotton, her evening wardrobe of ice-blue silk mousseline and cream-coloured satin, her strands of pearl and coral, her silver-topped bottles of toilet water, her dozens of pairs of gloves to suit every occasion – wrist-length gloves in white kid, pastel suede, embroidered Spanish leather, elbow-length gloves in white or black silk, ribboned gloves, riding gloves, net mittens, gloves of lace and knitted silk and velvet – all neatly placed in an appropriate drawer with her ivory glove-stretcher.

‘I see you have made yourself at home,' said Maud, who had been excluded – sweetly but firmly – from Evangeline's tea-party.

‘Yes. It seemed best.' Oriel's light blue eyes were polite but very steady.

‘Although somewhat against your mother's wishes.'

‘Oh – I think she will be pleased to see I have got everything in and will be quite comfortable.'

But Evangeline, as Maud knew, had been far less concerned with her daughter's comfort than with making a demonstration of her own authority. And now, having demonstrated it, her daughter might take the perfectly-well-proportioned, prettily-furnished room or not, as seemed best to her. Which was, Maud realized, exactly what this irritatingly self-possessed girl had just told her.

‘You are satisfied then, Miss Blake?' Maud, spoiling for a fight, rather hoped she was not. For if she could find evidence –
now
– that the daughter was as tricky and greedy and flighty as the mother, then she would feel justified in striking out at her, and beating her, as she had failed to do with Evangeline, to her knees. An impulse of savagery instantly foiled by Oriel's sweetly-spoken ‘Yes – perfectly, Miss Stangway.'

‘You are sure you wouldn't want – well –
my
room, perhaps? It is large and overlooks the rose-garden. Don't hesitate to ask for it. Your mother would not.' Maud's temper was rising.

‘How kind you are, Miss Stangway.'

And even Maud, with her prickly self-esteem, her senses tuned so finely to detect the least hint of insult or disobedience, was not certain whether Oriel was goading her or paying a compliment.

‘Kind?'

‘To be so concerned. But there is really no need to pay
too
much attention when mamma makes a fuss about me. Where I am to sleep, or where I am to sit at dinner, or making sure my name is on every invitation. Things like that. I am her only child, you see, and we have been very much together. I suppose it worries her that I might feel neglected. And so she takes
extra
care – perhaps even more, sometimes, than might be needed.'

Oriel smiled encouragingly, serenely, inviting Maud – it rather seemed – to join her in a little conspiracy to protect Evangeline from the affectionate overflow of her own maternal heart.

‘Are you
explaining
your mother to me, child?'

‘Oh no.' Oriel looked as if such a liberty had never crossed her mind. ‘I simply did not wish you to think me disobedient, by settling myself in, after what mamma said. When she sees I am happy then it will all blow over. These things almost always do.'

‘You are very loyal, Miss Blake.'

‘Oh – am I? How kind of you to say so.'

And a shade too composed, too clever by half for the taste of Miss Maud Stangway who spoke sharp words that same afternoon to her sister Letty on the subject of Evangeline Slade's daughter, warning her that still waters of this type would be likely to run exceedingly deep.

‘I believe, Letty, that we would do well to keep her away from Quentin.' The name of Quentin, of course, being that of Letty's much-favoured eldest son.

‘My dear,' Letty was predictably horrified. ‘Do you mean she might – well – turn his head?'

‘I do. Should she find it in any way to her advantage. She would not lose her own head, either. One may be very sure of that. Like her mother before her.'

Still waters. Calm waters. Treacherous waters, perhaps, in which any young man she decided to lure there might drown.

But, contrary to all appearances, Oriel Blake walked through the first weeks of her new life on eggshells, a delicate process to which her old life had thoroughly accustomed her, each careful step accompanied by a careful word – the
right
word – and her calm, if never too radiant, smile. A pose of quiet self-confidence which had so far managed, during the twenty years of her life, to deceive everybody. Except – that is – herself.