The Lorimer Legacy (23 page)

‘Was Piers one of your admirers?' asked Margaret.

‘Yes, Lord Glanville did me that honour.'

‘And could you not feel –?'

‘No,' said Alexa. ‘I could not. I was able to assure him of my great affection for him, as well as my undying gratitude. But in the time of my trouble he was like a father to me, and I can't think of him in any other way. He should marry someone like yourself – someone who loves him and is of his own generation, able to give him companionship.'

‘Alexa! You surely didn't say anything like that!'

‘Why should. I not? I could hardly help noticing your feelings as soon as I returned, but men are very often blind until someone shows them where to look.'

‘How could you! Oh, Alexa, you had no right to talk of me in such a way.' Margaret's cheeks flamed as she remembered the conversation on the terrace. ‘You've humiliated him by forcing him almost to apologize to me for being unable to love me, and you've humiliated me by forcing me to listen. How shall I ever be able to face him again?'

‘I think you make too much of it,' said Alexa, but there was a doubt in her voice. ‘I'm sorry, Margaret, if I have been unkind. I was thinking only of myself and Lord Glanville when I spoke like that. He has been so
kind to me that I could hardly bear to hurt him, and I thought it might help if – oh yes, you are right. I ought not to have spoken in such a way.'

For a moment neither of them broke the silence. But Margaret had sought out Alexa for a special reason, and did not intend to leave without the reassurance she hoped for. ‘I saw that Matthew was here earlier in the evening -and noticed that he left before the end of the ball.'

‘Yes,' agreed Alexa, her voice giving nothing away.

‘May I suppose that you have told him of your relationship?'

‘Yes, you may suppose it,' said Alexa. ‘I have told him that he is my nephew. And I told him at the same time that I loved him, and that I cared nothing for marriage lines, and that I could not be frightened by talk of incest.'

‘Alexa!'

‘Well, it's so ridiculous!' exclaimed Alexa. ‘A matter of convention only. There have been societies in which kings habitually married their sisters and were praised for doing so. Why should my whole life be ruined by some arbitrary rule? I told Matthew that I wanted nothing more than to live with him in some place where no questions would be asked, or where the answers would not be important. The talents we each exercise are not dependent on social approval.'

Margaret was shocked by what she heard, but did not express her horror. There had been no explanation yet of Matthew's departure or Alexa's own tense expression. ‘What did Matthew say?' she asked.

‘He withdrew for a little while. To think about it, he said – but also, I suppose, to watch me. And the result of his consideration was that he thought I ought to marry. He even went so far as to choose my husband. Like you -I suspect – he saw me as a peeress. He was not prepared, apparently, to feel responsible for my social ostracism.
He will not allow me to be anything to him but a wife; and since that is not possible, he has said goodbye to me. He claimed that it was because he loves me. But what sort of love is that, to run away at the first difficulty?'

‘His behaviour is wise,' said Margaret. ‘And kind, in the long run.'

‘What have love and wisdom to do with each other?' Alexa's voice revealed that she was on the brink of tears.

‘I understand how unhappy you are,' began Margaret, but she was interrupted before she could apologize once again for her own part in the affair.

‘I am unhappy, yes, but most of all I am angry,' declared Alexa passionately. ‘Why should I have to accept Matthew's judgement like this? He says he loves me – but he decides that he will go without consulting me, without listening to my wishes. What right have men to take it so much for granted that women will always accept their decisions? With any other man I at least have the choice to say yes, I will marry him or no, I will not: for that one moment of his life I have power over him, even if never again. But with Matthew I have been deprived of even that one moment. Even though he may plead that it's only for my sake that he deserts me, I'm entitled to be angry.' She paused for a moment to calm herself down and then spoke more quietly, although with an equal firmness. ‘Well, that's that. Finished. Just as you thought it ought to be. I've come to a decision in the past hour, Margaret. I propose to accept the invitation to sing in San Francisco. And there are other opera houses in the New World which are anxious to attract the best singers from Europe and whose reputations are already not to be despised. It will be possible, I think, to arrange a tour. I might even decide to settle down in America. In fact, if I'm made welcome, I think it's very likely.'

Margaret's reaction to the plan were mixed. She sympathized with the feeling that a complete change of scene might prove stimulating to someone whose emotions had been under such strain. In unfamiliar surroundings Alexa might more easily forget Matthew.

‘You may be right,' she agreed. ‘Although I had hoped that after such a long separation we might enjoy a longer time together.'

‘My wish is the same,' said Alexa. ‘That's why I'm asking you now to come with me.'

For a second time since her arrival in the music room Margaret was almost too much taken aback to speak.

‘But Alexa, my sabbatical year is almost at an end. I shall have to return to work at the hospital.'

‘There must be opportunities for a trained doctor in America,' said Alexa, sweeping the objection aside. ‘You might well meet with less prejudice in San Francisco than in London. And your experience is such that you could do nothing but good by working there. There are hundreds of people, thousands, pouring across the Atlantic every week, and most of them are poor and ignorant. The need for skills like yours must be immense.'

‘But I have Robert to care for. Already this year he has been left for far too long while I visited Ralph and Lydia. And on that occasion he had William to look after him during the school holiday. I have no intention of ever allowing William to do me any favour again.'

‘On the day of my return to London you spoke of the possibilities which a new life in America might hold for me,' Alexa reminded her. ‘Wouldn't they be even greater for Robert? It's the land of opportunity. A boy of his age could grow up as an American, with a whole continent open to his ambition. Margaret, let us all three go. I will sing for a season. That much can be settled at once, and it will provide enough money for us to look around and
decide where we might make a home, and what work we might do.'

‘Why are you so anxious suddenly for this?' asked Margaret.

Alexa shrugged her pale shoulders. ‘You've given the answer yourself,' she said. ‘I'm in the mood to start a new life. To return to my wanderings in Europe after saying goodbye to them would seem a defeat; and since I had hoped to make a home in England as Matthew's wife, it would be painful for me to live here in any other style. The solution seems to lie in some new place which will hold no memories, and it's fortunate, I suppose, that I already have exactly the invitation I need. Matthew has set me free in order that I may marry, and perhaps I shall do so, although not at once. And if that is to happen, I must be respectable from the moment I arrive in San Francisco – chaperoned and decorous. What do you say? Will you come with me?'

‘Alexa, you are too impetuous. I cannot possibly make a decision of this sort at a second's notice, without time to reflect.'

‘Then I'll leave you to think about it. But I hope very much that you will come. I've been foolish in the past and run away from you, but you have never left me or ceased to love me. There is no one else to whom I can look for support.'

She stood up to face Margaret in entreaty. The whiteness of her low-cut dress and the paleness of her skin and hair gave her an ethereal look in the cold light of the moon. Only the rubies were dark, like drops of blood falling from her neck. Troubled, Margaret kissed her goodnight. As she left the music room, the piano resumed its plaintive lament.

By now it was almost morning and Margaret's body longed for rest. But her mind was teeming with questions
and she knew that she would not be able to sleep until she had resolved them. Instead of returning to the bedroom allotted her, she climbed the stairs to the Long Gallery which ran the full length of the Tudor core of Blaize. She paced up and down beneath the line of Glanville portraits as she attempted to sort out her thoughts.

Her first reaction to Alexa's suggestion was to dismiss it as impossible. She was forty-eight years old. That was hardly the time to begin a new life. Yet Alexa, whether she intended it or not, had spoiled the friendship with Lord Glanville which provided the chief warmth of her life in London. And with Ralph in Jamaica, Margaret had no family ties to keep her in England. She had never been close to William, and now to past resentments was added the belief that none of Alexa's present difficulties would have arisen had he been frank both with Alexa herself and with Margaret. Alexa's account of the letter which had never been delivered had brought to the surface of her memory other half-forgotten lies. She had learned, long after the event, how William had engineered David Gregson's flight after the collapse of the bank, and she had often wondered whether she had been misled in any other way, never revealed, in order that her relationship with David might be ended. William was, to put it bluntly, a deceitful man, and her anger with him made it easy for her to break all her ties with Brinsley House.

It was true, in addition, that Robert was of an age to find adventure in a new country, and might well discover opportunities open to him there as he grew up. There was nothing in his case or her own which would decide the question either way.

Alexa's situation was a different matter. No one could force her to marry Lord Glanville, however much he wanted it and however advantageous such a marriage
might seem. It was not her own fault that her hopes of happiness with Matthew had been doomed to disappointment – in fact, Margaret herself was mainly to blame, for the situation could not have arisen had she spoken out sooner. It was a responsibility which must be taken into account in considering Alexa's appeal. The angry disappointment caused by her enforced parting from Matthew might well have directed her into a way of life even wilder than had been offered her by the Duke of Caversham. If instead she was prepared to continue her career and at the same time to consider settling down in a respectable society, the choice was to her credit and deserved support. She had made the decision on impulse, no doubt, but there was good sense in what she said.

One question Margaret still had to put to herself. Accepting the fact that it would be desirable to make the journey, had she the courage? She abandoned her pacing of the gallery and threw open one of the windows, staring out at the quiet woodlands as she considered this most important point of all. Once before, as a young girl, she had been prepared to begin a new life with the man she loved – in any part of the world to which he wished to take her. But that was a long time ago, and she had put all such plans behind her when she knew that there would be no loving arm to support her in a strange country.

As vividly as though it were yesterday she remembered the names and the dates which William had written down so that she might question the captains of his ships when they returned from their long voyages. The
Rosa
from Australia; the
Diana
from Jamaica; the
Flora
from San Francisco; the
Stella
from New York. She had crumpled the paper up and thrown it away on the day she was accepted as a medical student, and had done her best never again to think of David Gregson or any of the cities in which he might now be living.

It was a coincidence that one of those cities should now be offered to her for a second time – but a coincidence which strengthened her growing resolve. When she was young she had faced disaster with determination. She was not yet too old to accept change with an equal courage.

Through the open window she could hear Alexa singing at the piano in the music room, the pure voice of her girlhood matured by her training and experience. The whole world deserved to hear such a voice. Was it possible for a woman to appear on the stage and yet to live a respectable life? It was difficult for Margaret to free herself from the prejudices of her upbringing, but the challenge stiffened her determination. If it could be done, she would help Alexa to do it. Together they would make a new life in the New World.

Men and women, like other animals, instinctively establish themselves in a strange territory by covering the ground and delineating boundaries on foot. On the day after her arrival in San Francisco with Robert and Alexa, Margaret went for a walk. She felt confused and unwell -but there were no symptoms which would enable her, as a doctor, to diagnose her own case. No doubt the main cause of the turmoil in her mind was the strain of turning her back on all her well-loved friends and the familiar scenes of her past life. The future, uncharted, invited apprehension as well as excitement by its unpredictability. The only certainty was that the long journey by sea and railroad had left her under-exercised. She needed movement and fresh air. It would be a relief to experience the ordinary tiredness caused by physical exertion instead of the exhaustion brought on by the discomforts of travel.

From the moment, twenty-four hours earlier, when the ferry left the railroad terminal at Oakland to carry them across the Bay, everything about their reception had come as a complete surprise to Margaret. How could she have anticipated that Alexa would be welcomed by crowds and cheered all the way to a hotel room filled with flowers from admirers who could only distantly know of her reputation? Nor had Margaret expected the brisk helpfulness of strangers who had borne Robert off to school on his very first morning in the city and had arranged for Alexa to visit the Opera House on that
same morning. To Margaret herself, they had revealed that a furnished apartment – and the servants to run it -awaited her inspection in the afternoon. In London, the reputation of the New World had been one of self-help, in which newcomers were expected to fend for themselves. It was ungrateful, Margaret knew, to wish that they, could all have been allowed just one day in which to rest before being rushed off their feet by friendliness.