Distant Choices (40 page)

No one else, in those first moments, could function in any way at all except Oriel, and so she functioned, knowing that Dora must be kept warm and still until the doctor came, that Francis'arms and hands must also have immediate attention although he, being fully conscious, did not appear to think so; knowing, when these vital emergencies had been attended to, that the servants must be kept calm and prevented from running upstairs to Lady Merton with the news that her younger daughter had very nearly been burned to death; knowing that the husband and fiancé must be taken into another room and given cigars and a great deal of brandy; and that something – although she was not sure just what – must be done about Kate and Adela Merton who remained rooted to the spot, white and rigid and clenched so tightly in shock that Oriel's own body could feel the unbearable tension of their muscles, the crashing and thundering of their hearts.

It occurred to her that they should be kept apart.

‘Adela, the doctor says Dora is conscious and you may see her now.' He had said nothing of the kind, although in fact she was conscious, her face and the upper part of her body relatively untouched so that the sight of her would at least cause no additional shock to her sister.

Without replying Adela moved away.

‘Kate, the doctor is going to give Francis something to make him sleep. Won't you go up and see him first?'

Kate shook her head. And so she was still there, immobile, chained to the scene of what Oriel supposed must now seem to be her crime, when Adela came back, already aware that her sister, although in great pain and the prospect of far more to come, was not visibly disfigured and would live.

‘Kate,' she said, her voice a whisper with something almost greedy in it, as if now – at last – she had found the means to assuage both her grief and her vast hunger to be avenged, to strike a blow – lethal if she could – in the defence of her sister; and of herself. ‘How are you, Kate? Well enough, I expect. You haven't quite managed to kill Dora, I know, but near enough …?' Her voice was rising now.

‘Answer me, then. Don't stare. What's the matter, Kate? Are you grieving because you're not a widow yet? Is that it?'

‘Adela.' It was Oriel who broke in with an attempted remonstration, Kate remaining quite still, taking this punishment as she had once taken Maud's, in silence.

‘So – Kate Ashington – you haven't managed to kill your husband either, although he might even be glad if you did – the grief you cause him – the humiliation …'

‘Adela,' said Oriel very sharply this time, because it
had
to stop. ‘I know why you are saying this. So does Kate. But not now.'

‘Shut up!' shrieked Adela Merton, the sound ripping through all of them, although Kate gave no sign that she had even heard it. ‘Keep out of this. Who are you to tell me what to do? And who is she? A devil, that's what she is. A destructive devil, who takes pleasure in tearing us apart. A
monster
, who crucifies her husband every day of his life for her amusement – and for other people to laugh at. Didn't you see her, taunting my sister, taunting and trapping her, getting her own back because she heard Dora telling somebody today that women like her aren't fit to have children …?'

A quick gesture of protest from Oriel. No movement of any kind from Kate.

‘And they're not,' thundered Adela, her voice, strident at any time, vibrating now, hurting her throat, no doubt, as much as it hurt Oriel's ears. ‘
She's
not. God help that child. God help it. Everybody is saying so. Will you try to burn
her
– your daughter, Kate – one day when she's grown up and you take a fancy to her man …? It wouldn't surprise me – no, no – nor anybody else …'

The great voice catching in her throat at last she burst into tears, her whole body heaving with them as Oriel took her by the arm and led her away upstairs to her maid, her own sleeping draught, her quiet bed, not to her husband who was still overcoming his shock with brandy in her father's library. Downstairs again she found Kate exactly as she had left her.

Dear sister. My sister. What now? Can you get over this? Can you bear it? How can I help you? You must know that I will. Probably forever.

But nothing in Kate was listening.

‘Go to bed now,' she said gently, receiving in reply a sharp nod of the head as Kate walked quickly away.

She returned to Lydwick a half hour later since no one at Merton Abbey had thought to ask if she cared to stay the night, and, waking early the next morning, she had already ordered the carriage to take her back to Kate and Francis, no matter how much the Mertons might resent it, when Kate's letter was delivered. And, remembering afterwards, that she had gone out into the chilly garden, the unopened envelope in her hands, and sat for rather a long time under the chestnut tree, it always seemed to her that she had known in advance what Kate had to tell her.

Dear Oriel. It's no use, you see. I know that. Adela is not famous for being right but last night, in her way, I suppose she was. And since hers is the way of the world, what can I really do now except the decent thing? They will be better off without me, you know. Of course you know. And Francis knows. And, as we once told each other sitting in your garden, he is a wonderful father. It was what she said about that part of it really – you know, about turning on my daughter like she thought I'd turned on Dora. Can't have that now, can we? So I'm off to fight my revolutions somewhere else, in a warmer climate, perhaps. No, no, not hell – or not yet – so don't worry. France, I think. Or one of those little foreign states where absolutely everybody one comes across is fighting for freedom. I love you, Oriel. Keep well and beautiful. Kate.

And in the following pandemonium it was not realized until quite a late hour of the afternoon that she had left with the newest and certainly wildest of Dora's fiancés.

It was a clear summer morning, some three years and the half of another later, that Quentin Saint-Charles, having walked from the village of Pooley Bridge at the northern tip of Lake Ullswater to the serene isolation of its shore between the bays of Howtown and Sharrow, entered the garden gate of a long, low cottage set on the fellside looking out through pale blue air, across pale silk water; and, continuing along a path edged with a profusion of lavender and clove-scented gilliflowers, encountered, without any surprise whatsoever, a number of disdainful, well-nourished but decidedly stray cats.

Not that the highly-acclaimed legal gentleman, Mr Quentin Saint-Charles of Hepplefield, was in any way famous for his interest in non-pedigree animals, mountain scenery, or even in respectable women, although as Mrs Oriel Keith came around the corner of the house to greet him, a basket of rose petals for pot pourri over her arm, her garden hat swinging from its ribbon around her neck, leaving her bare-headed yet still elegant in the sun, no one could have faulted the greeting exchanged between them for either its warmth or its ease.

‘Quentin – such a surprise.'

‘Not an inconvenient one, I hope?'

‘How could it be that? The girls are here – and Jamie somewhere or other on the fells – but they all seem happy enough with their own company. I am glad to see you.'

‘And I. I happened to be in Pooley Bridge, on Merton business – his lordship being a guest at Lowther Castle. And I thought it a pity not to step over …'

‘It would have been.'

He smiled. ‘I had a sudden wish to know how your lemon balm and chamomile and all your rosemary and marjoram and whatever else are growing.'

‘Oh – very well. In some abundance even, I'm glad to say.'

He bowed his head in swift acknowledgement. ‘Of course. I never doubted it.'

He was no gardener, she knew that, with even less ability or interest than Garron, her pit-bred, city-bred husband, to tell one plant from another or hazard a guess as to its uses. To Quentin – and to Garron too – herb teas and remedies came in neat jars or packets from the shelves of an apothecary, just as naturally as shirts came from a tailor, not from the patient earth where she, whenever she could snatch a day, a week, a blessed month these past three years, had been planting them with thought and affection; chamomile with its daisy flowers to make a rinse for fair hair – like hers and Elspeth's and Morag's – or a healing lotion for sore eyes; sweet lemon balm to cure headaches and attract the honey-bees; spicy wild marjoram for the kitchen and blue rosemary which, sadly, did not seem to improve the memory as the country people said; blue and white spikes of comfrey to lay upon open wounds – Jamie's, more often than not, after his fell-climbing – and to ease sore, winter chests; red bergamot to soothe frayed nerves; tall, tangy hyssop for the tea she had never made for Kate.

And because she thought it likely he had come with news of Kate, having lately returned from abroad where he usually managed to meet his errant cousin – Oriel did not know how or where – she said quickly, ‘I have planted valerian too, which is supposed to make a sleeping draught, although it means the garden is always full of cats. They seem to love it.'

‘Do you sleep badly, Oriel?'

‘Oh – sometimes.' She smiled. Not here, of course. Unless the moon spread enough silver across the lake to draw her out, enchanted, into the garden to stand quite still and look at it, feeling herself happily alone in an unpeopled world, nothing stirring around her but thin, pure air, no sound but the faint lapping of water, a quick rustling in the grass as a rabbit scampered home, a long-drawn breath of wind along the fells.

Sleepless nights such as that she felt to be a privilege. Although elsewhere …? Yes, perhaps at Lydwick, almost certainly at High Grange whenever she went to stay with her mother, a good hot cup of valerian tea would not go amiss; might even see her through until morning. Nor had she the slightest objection to the cats who came, day and night, to sniff daintily at her pale valerian flowers, even feeding a few of them on what Morag, who did not care for cats, considered a far too regular basis; the persistent ones, the timid ones, the ones who, from a proud yet nervous distance stared at her with wide eyes, half expecting, from her too, the kick, the well-aimed stone the rest of the world had given, hoping it would not come, supposing that it very likely would.

Reminding her of Kate.

‘Quentin …?'

‘Yes,' he said, his eyes too on the cats. ‘I have just come back from France, as you know – settling one of the more fragile of Lord Merton's affairs. And having settled it – yes, I managed to see Kate.'

In another garden, three years and four, or was it five months ago, sitting with Kate's letter in her hand, Quentin's name had been the first to enter Oriel's mind. If anything
could
be done, then Quentin would know. She had been quite sure of that. And, going back into the house, taking her own pale blue note-paper, she had watched, as if from a great height, her own long, very steady hand precisely penning the words, ‘Dear Quentin – as a matter of some urgency may I ask you to come at once …'

He came: very evidently between two serious appointments which meant –
of course
– that he could not spare her very much of his time. Ten minutes, perhaps?

‘I suppose,' he had said, ‘it is about Susannah?'

‘What about her?'

‘Why – this foolish engagement she has just entered into with the curate …'

‘Has she?'

His eyes had sharpened. ‘Have you really not heard? High Grange is talking – I gather – of nothing else.'

‘Oh. Then their voices have not yet carried to me.'

He looked impatient still, but rather surprised. ‘Indeed? Then why am I here, Oriel? I assumed you wished to put your side of the story to me?'

‘Why should I have a side to put?'

He had shrugged. ‘Because the engagement is quite foolish and since it seems to have happened as a result of a quarrel my sister had with you, then you are being held partly to blame.'

Somewhat to her own surprise she had shrugged her shoulders, rather flippantly too. ‘Oh, that. She has only engaged herself to the poor man to get out of the housework at the vicarage. It doesn't mean she will ever really marry him.'

‘Yes, Oriel.' The slight, rather supercilious lift of his eyebrow had warned her of a coming reprimand. ‘I dare say. But it has caused a great deal of distress to my mother and Aunt Maud who realize – as clearly as Susannah – that one cannot claim anywhere near as much domestic assistance from a fiancée as from an unattached daughter in residence. And for some reason, you – Oriel – appear to have made an enemy of Susannah … I supposed you wanted my help in bringing about a reconciliation?'

Very brusquely, she remembered, she had shaken her head. ‘That would be quite pointless, Quentin – a
real
waste of your valuable time.'

‘Oh.' He had never seen her even mildly angry before and, although possibly only faintly, she had seen that it interested him. ‘May I ask why?'

‘Why not? Susannah hates me because … Well, I'm not sure if she wants to be Garron's wife in any other way than running his home and having the use of his income, but I do know she wants to be Morag's mother. Which means – doesn't it – that I'm in her way?'

Had it been her calm voice speaking those words,
her
fastidious mind which had released them? She feared so.

‘Oriel …' She had never forgotten how intently he had looked at her, with something in his keen face that could have been pity; although not for her. ‘I would appreciate it – very much, Oriel – if you would never say anything at all like that to Susannah.'

‘Oh Good Heavens, Quentin, you ought to know that I never would.'

And it was then, in silence, that she had given him Kate's letter.