Distant Choices (53 page)

He smiled. ‘Are those Kate's words in direct quotation?'

‘More or less.'

‘And now – having delivered me into the prison of fatherhood – what next?'

‘Is it a prison?'

‘What next, Oriel?' But he was still smiling.

‘I think she's afraid of using Celestine.'

‘I see.' She thought it quite likely that he did.

‘Using her as a test, I mean, for herself. She's calmer now and much more than five years older. Much more. She seems to have come to terms with her own mother, and her father – and the rest. And she felt entitled to hurt herself in the process as much and as badly as it took. But she feels no entitlement to use Celestine as some kind of experiment, to see if she can get that side of herself sorted out as well. She sees the risk …'

‘Yes. So do I. She must also see the need to discuss it with me. It
has
to be done. Oriel, And quickly. Can you tell me what is really holding her back?'

She shook her head and, leaning towards her, his pleasure both in the scented repose of his surroundings and the contemplation of this exquisite woman he thought too valuable to touch, giving way to the urgency which had driven him along the Roman Wall, he said sharply, ‘Oriel, I am sorry to lay this burden on you, but if you could bring yourself to tell Kate … How can I phrase it?

It occurs to me that she may have misjudged the degree of hurt – or the type of hurt – she did me.'

‘How is that?'

The mellow chiming of a clock somewhere in the room gave him an irritating reminder of the luncheon his hosts had requested him not to miss, the time it would take him to walk back to Askham and change his clothes and manner to the correct degree of country-house elegance, with this unsettled business of his wife and child ever at the forefront of his mind. God dammit, something would have to be done. Something immediate –
at once
. Something to shock Kate into seeing him, even if he had to shock this step-sister and friend of hers – his friend too – to do it.

‘She assumed me to be in love with her,' he said, like an officer issuing commands on parade. ‘Romantically, I mean – when we married.'

‘And you were not?'

‘No. I was not. I am not proud of it. It is simply the truth. It also means that in meeting me Kate would have no excessive emotions or jealousies or recriminations of
mine
to deal with – if that should be troubling her. My aim is solely to discuss how best to arrange our lives and the fortune about to come crashing into them. In my view the most workable arrangement would be for her to come back to Dessborough. Terms of friendship only would be perfectly acceptable. Otherwise she must be properly established somewhere else, in a manner we all think safe and sound, and unlikely to shock Celestine when she finds out about it. You do see, Oriel – don't you?'

Silence. Long enough and deep enough for him to regret his words, particularly when she got up and, crossing to the window, stood there with her back to him, looking fixedly across the lake, convincing him more than ever of the embarrassment he had caused her until, turning towards him with an expression which could not – thank God – be called hostile, she astonished him by asking, ‘Why were you not in love with her – and never have been, by the sound of it?'

He stood up too and went across to the window as if drawn there, remembering once again and far too clearly that this was the woman he had meant to marry, not Kate, wondering in spite of himself – since it could make no difference now – how much better or worse his life would have been if he had.

At least he could have gone to Mecca.

‘You may tell me the truth, Francis. In fact, I rather think you should.'

Her voice, coming through a smile in which he saw friendship and encouragement and a little sadness, told him of her need to know. Therefore he had no choice but to tell her. ‘She was very young, Oriel. Much younger than eighteen then, just as you say she is older than twenty-five now. She mistook my intentions …'

‘Which were?'

‘
Oriel
. You must know that I meant to marry you – if you would have had me, that is.'

She smiled, almost lightly it seemed to him. ‘Oh yes, I would have had you, Francis. No doubt about that. What I would really like you to tell me is why you decided not to ask?'

How could she have failed to understand? It had been so obvious to him, so hysterically cut and dried, such a farce and a tragedy rolled into one, that he had believed it impossible to miss. And then, as the alternative struck him, he was horrified. ‘Oriel, you surely didn't think it was because of your mother – or your background …?'

‘Of course I did.'

‘
Oriel
– such things could never matter to me.'

‘So I thought – to begin with.'

‘And you were right …'

‘I'm so very glad.'

‘You would have been so perfect …'

‘Thank you, Francis.'

‘I came over to High Grange that night to propose to you …'

‘So I
was
right.'

‘Yes. I expect you usually are.'

‘Oh – I try not to make it obvious.'

‘I was early, or you were late, having dinner. And Kate hadn't dined …'

‘I remember.'

‘She met me. She thought I'd come for her. Oriel, please do believe me …'

‘I do.'

‘I handled it so badly – lost my head – and then that foolish woman rushed in and started screaming rape …'

The word ‘rape'and the incredible amusement of her reaction to it steadied him, bringing to his notice how closely they were now standing together, his need to explain, to make amends, having been accompanied by a series of urgent steps towards her which had left her pressed up against the window, his body not an inch away from hers, his mouth, speaking directly to her mouth, even nearer.

Quickly he backed away.

‘Did I hurt you?' he said.

Smiling, shaking out her skirts and moving gracefully, lightly, away from the window, she nodded.

‘Badly?'

‘Yes. Rather badly – at the time.'

‘I didn't expect to. I thought …'

‘Yes. I know. That I was cool and sensible and much the best candidate for the situation on offer.'

Watching her move through the small room full of furniture and bric-à-brac as gracefully and accurately as one of her cats, her wide skirts disarranging nothing, he was enchanted once again by the lightness, the ease, with which her manner beckoned him. inviting him into her life all over again, it seemed, not as a lover he thought – with some regret – but as rather more than a friend.

‘Situation on offer? You must think me a monster of conceit. Oriel.'

She smiled full at him, so much at ease, making him so easy that anything could now be said.

‘Men are brought up to be conceited, Francis. So perhaps you can't help it. I also think you are generous and brave and responsible. And very interesting.'

‘I think you are quite wonderful, Oriel.'

Her smile gave him gracious permission to think so, his pleasure in her company married only by another intrusion from the clock, telling him that he was late already and must – considerably against his inclination – make his excuses and go.

‘Of course, Francis. I'll walk a little way with you. As far as Pooley Bridge if the wind has turned no colder.'

It had not, although as they went out into the garden it came rushing greedily towards them, a loud-voiced predator grabbing Oriel's cloak and tugging it half off her shoulders, lifting her skirts so that a pair of terrified kittens, bolting for shelter beneath them, became wildly entangled with each other around her ankles, causing her to stumble against Francis who, having caught and steadied her, continued to hold her, one hand finding the magnificent curve of her back which had been in his vision all morning, the other going to the nape of her neck and into her hair, his mouth on her mouth, kissing her as if the world had but ten frenzied minutes to endure and then, remembering the true length of a day much less of eternity, releasing her.

Steadying herself now, one hand still on his shoulder, she held out the other towards him. palm upwards and outwards. ‘Francis – don't apologize. I know you think you should. But please don't.'

She was smiling very gently, very steadily, very much – he clearly understood – his friend.

‘Oriel, I can hardly apologize for what I don't regret.'

‘I don't regret it either, Francis – although …'

‘Yes,' he said, warmly, easily – returning her smile. ‘There's no need to tell me I can't be your lover. I know. I wouldn't worry you by asking. It wouldn't even be necessary – would it?'

Her hand still resting on his shoulder, she leaned forward, letting her palm take her weight, and very gently, with exquisite care and cherishing, placed a kiss on one corner of his closed mouth and then the other, a gift of affection which spoke to him delicately, sweetly, altogether freely, of friendship, of a kindred spirit even, in no way of sensuality. One of the most moving approaches, it seemed, that he had ever had in his life from a woman.

And as they walked arm-in-arm through her snowdrops and out of her garden gate to the lakeside, Swarth Fell standing tall and sombre to one side of them, a cold expanse of water to the other, he found it possible, and then easy, to tell her of Arshad, the other woman whose approach had moved him, in a time which now could only be called ‘long ago'.

‘It just seems that my emotional courage has never recovered. I suppose only Celestine, so far, has really managed to slip through my guard.'

‘You will lose her too, you know,' said Oriel gently. He smiled. ‘I know. Hopefully to a young man quite madly in love with her. I could hardly stand in the way of that.'

‘And what will you do then, Francis? Make your pilgrimage to Mecca?'

Smiling once more into the wind he shook his head. ‘No, there's no point to that any longer. A former acquaintance of mine, one Captain Richard Burton – Ruffian Dick, we used to call him – has just got back from there, very much alive. And what mattered, you see, was to be first. He will be writing extensively about it, I expect, and lecturing to the Royal Geographical Society – and getting lots of encouragement to go off and be the first European to set foot somewhere else. All that.'

How much did ‘all that' still mean to him? A great deal, she imagined, as, parting from him affectionately at Pooley Bridge, having promised to do everything in her power to make Kate talk to him, she walked back slowly along the lakeside, listening to the wind and the water, lengthening her stride for the sheer pleasure of exercising her own sure-footed strength, her ability to breathe even and deep and free, so many things lifted from her heart that felt light enough to rise – easily, pleasantly – from the ground and fly. And if her liberation was composed, in part, of the knowledge that her mother no longer depended upon her and that the man she had once so much wanted to love her had never done so, she seemed well on her way to coming to terms with it. Neither his kiss nor her own enjoyment of it had taken her by surprise. It had been pleasurable, exciting, and final, leading her not into his bed but into his affections where she meant, most decidedly, to stay. He was a man she cared for and who cared for her, but it did not follow – she saw that now – that he was a man for love.

She must talk carefully to Kate, who might not be a woman for love's real burdens either. Yet, walking back through her snowdrops, the fells rising from the lake, one upon the other, the high, solitary places where red deer might be seen wandering at this season, the air was so fresh, suddenly so still, this quiet centre of the world so very much her own, that she was taken considerably aback to find Morag in the parlour, standing on the hearth-rug by the basket of kittens, her face set in a rigid expression which meant – as Oriel knew too well – that someone had offended her.

‘Morag! What are
you
doing here?' She had not meant to speak so sharply but, having assumed herself to be alone, and – moreover – wanting to be alone, the shock was not pleasant.

‘Why shouldn't I be?' Morag did not appear to be finding it pleasant either.

‘Because you should be over at Watermillock with the Landons, and Elspeth. She's not here as well, is she?'

‘Oh no. Don't worry about that. You're safe from her.'

Oriel sighed, adjusting her mind and all her new exhilaration with it to this level of everyday. ‘Don't be foolish, Morag. I don't mean you're not welcome. You took me by surprise, that's all.'

‘Yes – didn't I? You changed colour just now when you walked in.'

Was she attempting to apologize? The sourness in her voice did not incline Oriel to think so.

‘How long have you been here? Did the Landons bring you?'

‘About half an hour. And no – I walked.'

‘I didn't see you?'

‘Should you have?'

‘Well, I've been down to Pooley Bridge and back – about half an hour each way. How did I miss you?'

Morag shrugged a peevish shoulder. ‘I came the other way, through Patterdale around the fell.'

‘That's a terribly
long
way, Morag.' And rough too. in any weather.

She shrugged again. ‘Well, it's the way I came. I'd just had enough of watching Elspeth batting her eyelids at Tom Landon and him nearly going into a swoon every time she did it – making a fool of himself …'

Had Morag, plainer but finer than Elspeth, taken a fancy to Tom Landon herself? A handsome young man with startling violet-coloured eyes and not too much behind them, in Oriel's estimation. It seemed quite likely and, remembering the pains of seventeen, she said, ‘Never mind. I just hope Mrs Landon wasn't offended at your leaving like that.'