Distant Choices (61 page)

‘Yes. Very nice.' But to her great distress, when Oriel tried to think of the pretty, contented little princess of Dessborough, it was the thin, taut face of Morag – her
own
Morag – which filled her mind.

‘And Francis is always laying his cloak over life's puddles for her to walk on, is he?' murmured Kate, as if she had often imagined it. ‘A fatherly knight-errant riding off with her on a new adventure every morning. How happy
I
would have been with that. Is she?'

‘I think so.' How happy Morag would have been with it too.

‘Good. And he talks to her, doesn't he, and explains things? Quite deep things, I expect? And
listens
to her? Does he? Very seriously, picking things out of her chatter that mean she's exceptionally intelligent or compassionate or has a hidden talent for music or mathematics, or that she's going to be a famous ballet dancer or ride to hounds better than anybody else? Or so he imagines. Some of the German Kesslers talk to their children like that. Beautifully, I think. It saddens me, rather, that the only time my father ever really talked to me was ten minutes before he went off and shot himself. Because he couldn't live without your mother, I expect.'

‘Yes – I expect so too …' But whatever Oriel had begun to say about Matthew – and she knew it had been something – never reached her tongue, defeated once again by a swift series of images flashing in her mind one after the other, the taut plea that was Morag, the taut, so
harsh
plea – but plea nevertheless – that was Garron, his savage hands clamped in their stranglehold around a chairback, the savage, suffering line of his shoulders hunched away from her, containing, with equal ferocity, both his need to murder her and his need to weep in her arms.

Bleakly she did not think he would ever do either.

‘Well now,' said Kate cheerily, ‘I suppose I had better get on with my work.'

‘What work?' Morag's pain, Garron's pain, her own, had made Oriel's voice sharp.

‘Didn't I tell you? It is Quentin, of course, who is to blame for it. There is a newspaper in Hepplefield called the
Gazette
. No, I am sure you have never seen it. Neither had I. But there are women, my dear, in Hepplefield, who actually write letters to it, asking all manner of questions on
desperate
topics like whether to announce dinner fifteen or twenty minutes after the arrival of one's guests, and whether one is really obliged to have grey carriage horses – which are more expensive – for a wedding, or whether one can settle for chestnut or bay at half the price. Which leads me to wonder if one could get black for even less. Would you think so, Oriel?'

What a ridiculous question. Yet, nevertheless, she found herself shaking her head and, if only faintly, smiling. ‘I expect there are people who would try.'

‘Very likely. So you see why the poor editor – having asked for all these letters in the first place to boost his circulation – really couldn't cope with them. One would hardly expect a gentleman to know the best way for cleaning fur cloaks, or whether a conscientious mamma should permit her daughters to read novels.'

‘Do
you
know?'

‘Ah well … While you were still asleep I constructed a reply to the letter signed “Conscientious Mamma” telling her what Aunt Maud used to tell me.'

‘Which is?'

‘That one may read authors who write neither for money nor to entertain but only to morally instruct. I thought you might know how to clean fur.'

‘Hot flour and sand.'

‘How very drastic.'

‘Not if you give it a good brushing afterwards and a going over with a wet comb.'

‘Oh good,' said Kate making swift notes. ‘Poor editor, you see. All he could think of to do was turn to Quentin – like the rest of us.'

‘Yes. I see.'

‘And Quentin solved his problem in a flash. You'll see that too. Told him at once what he needed. A lady of breeding and quality with a high tone and a high reputation. A gentlewoman fallen on times hard enough to arouse her interest in working for a pittance, while still remaining very gentle. “The very thing, Quentin dear boy,” said the editor. “You're a brilliant fellow.” So Quentin sent him to me.'

Kate's laughter, warm and rich and very steady, seemed to fill the room for a moment and then, as she took up her pen and began to peruse another letter, reduced itself to a wry amusement. ‘I don't sign my replies Kate Ashington of course. Lord – can't you just imagine the faces of those “conscientious mammas” if it ever came out they'd been advised by the Ashington whore? My poor editor friend turns pale, at least twice weekly, at the very thought of it. Lady Penelope Peel. That's my
nom de plume
.'

‘Chosen by Quentin?'

‘Of course. Now then, this one is only about morning calls. I suppose I can manage that. How long should they last and should the caller expect refreshment? Oh dear, this lady's husband must only just have made his money if she doesn't know that. A quarter of an hour, dear lady, no longer, or your hostess will start worrying in case you think she's invited you to dinner. No refreshment either, even if it's freezing outside, or you're swooning for a cup of tea. Now what about this one? I have a young lady here who has been engaged for several years to a man she no longer loves.'

‘Does she know why?'

‘Well – it seems, although she doesn't quite say so, that she has fallen in love with somebody else. Can Lady Penelope accept that as a good reason?'

‘I shouldn't think so.'

‘Nor I. In fact I seem to remember there's a definite social rule to cover it …?'

‘There is.' And, although the images of taut faces and heavy, hunched shoulders, had not quite receded, Oriel smiled and adopted a tone of voice somewhere between Maud and Evangeline. ‘A young lady in such a position must inform her fiancé of her change of heart. And that, my dear, is all she must do, the rest being entirely up to him. If he chooses to release her from their engagement then she may go off to her new love – if he will have her. But should her fiancé prefer to keep her then he is entitled to do so, obliging her to forget about love and get on with marriage.'

‘Splendid,' applauded Kate. ‘I remember all my governesses telling me that too. Now then, what does one do about round shoulders?'

‘Lady Penelope would recommend a back-board.'

‘And how should a young lady behave in the street to avoid the attentions of gentlemen?'

‘My dear!' And they could almost have given the answer together. ‘She must not attract such attentions to herself in the first place. She must walk quietly and close to the wall, with her eyes modestly straight ahead and a little lowered. No audible conversation. No laughter. To put it in the simple manner young ladies can best understand if she does not encourage a gentleman's notice then he will leave her alone.'

‘Do you believe that?'

‘Of course not. But it's what all
my
governesses told me. And I expect it will please your editor – particularly if he has ever noticed a young lady too vigorously himself.'

‘Oriel – what a cynic you are.'

‘Kate – if you had been brought up as I was you would have been spared your innocence.'

Yet, as the afternoon progressed, even Lady Penelope's letters began to pall, leaving Oriel's mind unguarded once more against the need to know in exactly how deep and dangerous a mire she, and others, now stood.

Where was Quentin?

‘He'll come,' said Kate. ‘He always does.'

But a cool evening had drawn in, a silence which none of Kate's casual cheer could penetrate had fallen – Oriel's ears strained with their listening for footsteps on the stairs, every other sense strained a bare whisper away from breaking – before he walked into the twilit, still untidy, still oddly nourishing and sustaining little parlour as calmly as if it belonged to him, not even a hint of fatigue or anxiety in his lean, dark face, no travel stains or creases about him anywhere, a cool, immaculate, faintly amused, discreetly competent gentleman whose main concern appeared to be the correct chilling of the wine and the correct serving of the oyster patties, veal cakes and game pie he had brought with him.

‘If you could manage to find three glasses of decent crystal, Kate?'

She gave him a wide smile, evidently – and pleasantly accustomed to his strictures. ‘Good Heavens, Quentin, if the wine is superb enough what does the glass matter?'

‘Kate, the wine
is
superb.'

‘Quentin, I would stake my life on that.'

He bowed his very slight acknowledgement. ‘In which case, Kate my dear, being certain of one pleasure, it seems no more than commonsense to add as many others to it as one possibly can. Beginning with a crystal glass. I have told you so before.'

‘So you have. You see what a voluptuary he is, Oriel? Is that usual, do you think, in the son of a vicarage?'

But Quentin answered for her. ‘Quite usual, Kate. Clerics who can afford it are every bit as fastidious as I am. So do fetch the glasses and those Crown Derby plates I lent you – hopefully unbroken – so that we may sit down and – well – ease Oriel's mind in as many directions as we can.'

The glasses, long stems of diamond-cut crystal, were brought, incongruous in the shabby room yet highly appropriate to both Quentin and Kate, the wine, which Oriel readily assumed to be fine and famous, scarcely penetrating the dryness of her tongue.

‘Are we celebrating?' she murmured, as Quentin raised his glass to her. ‘Or offering consolation?'

‘A last supper?' enquired Kate, setting out the oyster patties with a casual hand. ‘Which might suit the humour, one supposes, of a fastidious cleric like yourself, Quentin dear.'

Smiling, he raised his hand to her, not calling for silence, suggesting it rather, and when she, returning his smile, sat down on the hearthrug, her back against Oriel's knees, and began eating her supper, he turned calmly, pleasantly, to Oriel.

‘Are you feeling rational and strong?'

‘My goodness,' said Kate from her perch on the ground, her mouth full of oyster. ‘Such
little
things to ask of a wronged and abandoned woman. Of course she is.'

‘Strong enough,' murmured Oriel, her fingertips resting for a moment on Kate's shoulder, their touch saying
And if not, little sister, if it happens that I break or even shatter, then no one could ever pick up my pieces faster and better than you
.

‘Go on, Quentin,' she said.

‘Yes.'

He had gone first to High Grange vicarage, not in any way to recriminate – which could, in his measured view, have served no useful purpose – but merely for information, Susannah having confirmed, whether readily or otherwise he did not mention, her part in the proceedings. Yes, she had indeed received a letter from Morag, written from the cottage by Ullswater to which Susannah had never, despite repeated pleas from Morag to Oriel, been invited. A terrible letter, proving the girl to have been in a painfully strained condition, and no wonder – surely – when one took in the shock of all she had uncovered. Was it surprising therefore, that she had turned to Susannah, her trusted confidante, the woman she would have preferred her father to have married in the first place, for advice? In short, by sending her husband's daughters to Watermillock in the full knowledge that Morag, at least, did not wish to go, Oriel had managed to be alone for seven days and nights at her so conveniently isolated cottage. Or had she been alone? Returning before she was expected Morag had been appalled to see, through the cottage window, her stepmother pressed up against the windowpane with a man she did not recognize until – concealing herself in the garden for the simple reason that she was afraid to go inside – she had witnessed a prolonged embrace of the most intimate nature. And then, when it was over, the further and even more dreadful shock of seeing her father's wife offer another. The letter had been most descriptive, stemming no doubt from the girl's need to unburden herself, going into some detail as to how she had felt, watching the guilty couple stroll away arm-in-arm, the agony she had undergone waiting for the clearly adulterous woman's return, the way Oriel's face had ‘changed colour'when she found Morag in the room her lover had only just vacated, the resulting sharpness of her tongue, her failure to mention that she had had any kind of visitor, her all too obvious annoyance that Morag had dared to come back without her permission. Evidence enough, surely, to convince the poor girl not only of her stepmother's guilt but to torment her, most acutely, as to whether or not it was her duty to inform her father.

No doubt about it, in Susannah's opinion.

‘My dears, that goes without saying,' murmured Kate.

Yet when Morag had returned to Lydwick some days later she had reacted in a strange, dreamy, downright difficult manner to the advice Susannah had hurried to give her. Not that the girl now believed herself to have been mistaken, or had received an explanation from Evangeline's daughter which had been clever enough to set her mind at rest. Nothing of the kind. She simply – and far too heatedly for Susannah's peace of mind – did not wish to give her father any more troubles, at the moment. An attitude Susannah could appreciate, had ‘the moment'not clearly run the risk of being forgotten, the intention ‘to do the right thing'well-nigh obliterated in Morag's mind by Oriel who, doubtless suspecting the extent of what was known against her, had set about defending herself by charm. Exactly as Evangeline had known how to be charming whenever it suited her to make someone who ought to have known better eat out of her hand.

Susannah had spoken several times about it to Morag, pointing out to her that one's moral duty is not intended to give immediate pleasure, that it would not, in fact, even deserve to be called ‘moral' unless it was extremely hard to do. But Morag had resisted, made excuses, had even demanded the return of her letter in so insulting a manner that Susannah, in her brother's presence, she reminded him, had informed Oriel that she no longer cared to visit her. And returning to the vicarage she had made a copy of Morag's letter and, after some days of deep contemplation, had sent it, with a note of her own, to Garron.