The Changeling (22 page)

“And the priceless tapestries, are they still there?”

“They were taken to Chislehurst. What do you know of them?”

“I heard of them because Leah Polhenny went to High Tor to repair them, and made a very good job of the intricate work, I believe. She is now in our nursery.”

He was silent for a few seconds, wrinkling his brows as though trying to remember.

“Oh yes, she did come to repair the tapestries … I remember now how pleased my mother was with her work. So you know her well.”

“Nobody knows Leah very well. Even now I am not sure that I do. Everyone knew her mother because she was the midwife and had assisted at the birth of quite a number of the inhabitants of the Poldoreys.”

“Well … so now the young lady is here and the tapestries are safe in my parents’ house in Chislehurst and I am sure I cannot fully express what great pleasure it is for me to meet you. I hope you too are pleased to renew our acquaintance.”

“So far,” I said, “it has been a pleasure.”

“Why do you say … so far? Do you expect it will not continue to be a pleasure?”

“I meant nothing of the sort. I am sure it will continue to be as it is now.”

“We are relations how, eh … in a way. My sister married to your stepfather.”

“Well, a connection, shall we say.”

“We shall meet often. That I look forward to with great pleasure.”

I was sorry when the dance came to an end. It had been so comfortably easy to dance with him. And when he returned me to my seat I was delighted to see Pedrek there.

Jean Pascal stayed and chatted with us and Pedrek remarked that he was late in arriving because his train had been delayed.

“Better late than never,” commented Morwenna, “and I believe Rebecca has left the supper dance free. I advised her to because I knew you would want it.”

“How is it going?” Pedrek asked me.

“As well as can be expected.”

“That sounds like a sick patient.”

“Well, I always felt it would be touch and go … According to these gruesome accounts I had from your mother and Aunt Helena, these occasions can be fraught with anxieties. Will this man or that man ask me to dance? Will anybody ask me? I am going to be a failure. The wallflower of the season.”

“That could never happen to you.”

“Perhaps not in my stepfather’s house where it would be a breach of good manners for no one to ask me. So far I have got through with slightly mutilated toes but my pride intact.”

One could be easy and frank with Pedrek. But then we had been friends from babyhood; and the most enjoyable dance of all was the supper dance which I shared with him.

Not that he could dance well. He was no Jean Pascal, but he was Pedrek, my dear friend with whom I felt fully at ease.

“It is long since I have seen you,” he said. “It’s not always going to be like that.”

“What are your plans, Pedrek?”

“I’m starting next month at a Mining Engineering College near St. Austell. Pencarron Mine will belong to me one day. My grandfather thinks I should take the course. The college is one of the finest in the South West.”

“Well, that’s good. I am sure your grandparents are delighted. You won’t be far away from them.”

“And I shall be there for two years. It will be extensive study, but when I emerge I should be ready to take over the mine and, as my grandfather says, with a full knowledge of modern improvements. I’ll tell you more about it over supper. And, Rebecca, let’s find a table for two. I don’t want anyone joining us.”

“It sounds intriguing.”

“I hope you’ll find it so. I’m sorry … I think I went the wrong way then.”

“You did. Madame Perrotte would despair of you.”

“I noticed the graceful movements of the Frenchman.”

“He’s the perfect dancer.”

“Few possess his talents.”

“You sound envious. Surely you know there is more to life than being able to dance well?”

“I breathe again.”

“Oh, Pedrek, what’s come over you? You’re unlike yourself tonight.”

“A change for the better or worse?”

I hesitated, then I said: “I’ll tell you over supper. Look. They are going in now. Do you think we ought to look after your mother and Aunt Helena?”

“They can look after themselves. Besides, I suppose they will be with other chaperones.”

“I see they have joined my stepfather and his wife.”

“Come on. We’ll find a table for two.”

We found it—slightly shaded by a pot of ferns.

“This looks inviting,” said Pedrek. “You sit down and I will go and get the food.”

He returned with the salmon I had seen being delivered that morning. On each of the tables was a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. We sat down opposite each other.

“I must say your stepfather knows how to manage these affairs in style.”

“It is all part of the business of being an ambitious member of Parliament.”

“I thought that was done by distinguishing oneself in Parliament.”

“And keeping up appearances outside … knowing the right people … pulling the right strings and keeping in the public eye.”

“That can sometimes be disastrous.”

“I mean keeping in a favorable light.”

“That’s different. But enough of politics. I don’t ever intend to take part in them. Does that please you?”

“Do you mean does it please me that you don’t intend to?”

“I mean exactly that.”

“I don’t think you’d make a politician, Pedrek. You’re too honest …”

He raised his eyebrows and I went on: “I mean that you are too straightforward. Politicians always have to think of what is going to please or displease the voters. Uncle Peter was always saying that. He would have made a good politician. We were all fond of him but he was a manipulator … not only of things but of people. Look how he made Martin Hume. I don’t think a man should have to be made. He should do it by his own efforts.”

“You are looking for perfection in a less than perfect world. But enough of politicians. I want to talk about myself … and you.”

“Well, go ahead.”

“We’ve always been friends,” he said slowly. “Isn’t it wonderful that we were both born in extraordinary circumstances … both of us seeing the light of day in the Australian goldfields? Don’t you think that makes us special friends?”

“Yes, but we know that, Pedrek. What was it you wanted to tell me?”

“I shall not be able to marry for two years … not until I finish with the college really. How do you feel about that?”

“What should I feel about your marriage?”

“The utmost interest because I want it to be yours as well.”

I laughed with pleasure. “For the moment, Pedrek, I thought you were going to tell me that you had fallen victim to some alluring siren.”

“I have been in the coils of an irresistible siren ever since I was born.”

“Oh Pedrek, you are talking of me. This is so sudden.”

“Don’t joke about it, Rebecca. I am very serious. For me there is only one siren. I always knew you would be the one. To me it was a foregone conclusion that one day we should be together … always.”

“You have never consulted me on this important matter before.”

“I didn’t think it was the time; and I thought it was something between us … something you knew as well as I did. That it was … inevitable.”

“I don’t think I thought of it as inevitable.”

“Well, it is.”

“So this is a proposal?”

“Of a sort.”

“What do you mean, ‘of a sort’? Is it or isn’t it?”

“I’m asking you to become engaged to me.”

I smiled at him and touched his hand across the table. “I’m so proud of myself,” I said. “It is not many girls who get a proposal the instant they are launched into society.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I haven’t finished yet. I was going to say get a proposal from Pedrek Cartwright. That’s what makes it so wonderful … because it’s you, Pedrek.”

“This is the happiest night of my life,” he said.

“Of mine, too. Won’t they be pleased?”

“My mother will. I am not so sure of your stepfather.” He was frowning.

“What is it, Pedrek?” I asked.

“He has planned all this for you because he wants you to make a grand marriage.”

“I am going to make a grand marriage in exactly two years from now.”

“Let’s be sensible, Rebecca. It’s not what he would call a grand marriage. A mining engineer with a mine in remote Cornwall.”

“It’s a very successful mine. In any case I wouldn’t care if it was an old scat bal, as they call a useless old mine down there, if you went with it.”

“Oh, Rebecca, it’s going to be wonderful … the two of us … I can’t wait. You make me want to abandon the idea of going to college. I could go into my father’s office and we’d be married right away.”

“You have to be sensible, Pedrek. This is marvelous. Two years … they will pass and all the time we’ll be thinking of what’s to come. They would say we are too young anyway. It doesn’t matter so much for women … eighteen is all right … but for a man it should be older. Let’s do it the right way, Pedrek.”

“Yes. I’m afraid we’ll have to.”

“We want to do it all absolutely right. You’ll go to your college knowing I’m waiting … longing for the day … and that will help you to come through with flying colors. Then there will be a riotous feast at Cador. My grandparents will be pleased and I shall be rid of my stepfather forever.”

“You’ve never liked him.”

“Well, I suppose I blame him for spoiling our lives. If he had never been there my mother would be alive today. I can’t get that out of my mind.”

“I don’t think you should blame him for that. But I do think he is very ambitious. He married his first wife for a goldmine. Money is important to him … money and fame.”

“He sees himself as a Disraeli or Gladstone. He wants to be Prime Minister one day.”

“He probably will.”

“At the same time he happens to be my stepfather and my grandparents say he is my guardian because of it. I don’t want a guardian. If I have to be guarded my grandparents can do it.”

“Let’s try to look at this logically. He is your guardian until you are twenty-one or married, I suppose. I have a feeling that he might not give his consent to our marriage. At best he would insist that we wait until you were twenty-one.”

“Do you think he could … if I wanted to and my grandparents approved? I do feel absolutely sure that they will be pleased.”

“He could stop it, I suppose.”

“It’s three years before I’m twenty-one.”

“When I’m through with college we shall be twenty. Then we’ll get married and say nothing about it until after the deed is done.”

I laughed. “How exciting!”

“In the meantime,” he went on. “Let’s not announce it … just yet. We can leave it until later.”

“All right. For the time being it is our secret.”

He gripped my hand and held it tightly. Then we lifted our glasses and drank to the glorious years ahead of us.

That was my first grand ball and I had enjoyed almost every minute of it. I was ecstatically happy. Pedrek and I were engaged—secretly for the moment, it was true, but that added to the excitement.

I looked beyond the next two years. They would pass quickly, lightened by the knowledge that when they were over I should be Pedrek’s wife. We should have a house on the moor possibly. I loved the moor, and I should not be far from Cador. Pedrek’s grandparents would be close by. We should have ten children and they would be loving and as devoted to me as Lucie was. That was another problem which had been solved. Some husbands would not have wanted Lucie in their households and I would never be parted from the child. I regarded her as my own and my husband must do the same. Pedrek had understood at once.

This was the happy ending which all romances should have and mine with Pedrek had lasted for years already. We had been destined for each other from the moment we had been born on that dusty goldfield in Australia.

Life was now a round of gaiety. This was the Season. Eager mothers, and those who were bringing out young ladies, gave balls, dinners and parties to the newly emerged young people. The fact that Benedict was my stepfather meant that I was invited to many of them.

I saw a great deal of Pedrek during the next three or four weeks. He would be at the functions as the good-looking son of one of the sponsors. He might not have been in the highest echelons of society, lacking the necessary blue blood, but his grandfather was well known in mining circles and a man of great wealth, and money and blood were often weighed equally in the social scales.

We used to meet in the park where I often walked with Morwenna, for it was permissible for her son to join us.

Long happy days they were but at last the time came for him to go off to his college. He would write every week he told me and I must do the same. I swore I would.

I was lonely after he had gone, but there was always a great deal for me to do. There were the constant social engagements and during these I often met Oliver Gerson and Jean Pascal Bourdon. The latter, having connections with exiled royalty at Chislehurst, was acceptable; and Oliver Gerson’s links with my stepfather gave him the entry, if not to all, to a great number of occasions.

I was rather glad of their company. I found them both interesting and in a way amusing. Moreover they expressed admiration for me and I was vain enough to enjoy this.

Jean Pascal was an excellent dancing partner. I loved dancing and, thanks to Madame Perrotte, when I danced with him I thought I did really well. People actually commented on how well our styles matched.

I learned a little about both men. Jean Pascal had become a wine importer and paid periodic visits to France.

“I must do something, you understand,” he said. “I cannot dance all day.”

There was something completely sophisticated about him. He was a cynic and a realist at heart, I believed. It was his great hope that one day the monarchy would be restored in France and then he would return to his own country and live in the old chateau in the style to which he had become accustomed under the rule of his good friends the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie.

“Will that ever be?” I asked him.