The Shadow of the Lynx (35 page)

“Let them talk,” said my father.

But Lucie thought it best to wait; and already he was relying on her judgment.

She was right, of course; and they waited.

It was a misty November day, very much like the one when Mamma had died that Lucie became Lady Cardew, my stepmother.

How different was our household now! The servants knew they must obey Lucie. She never lost her temper; she was always gracious. I doubt Whiteladies had ever had a more respected chat elaine

She loved the house and the house seemed to respond to her love. I have seen her stand on the lawn looking at it with a sort of wonder, as though she couldn’t really believe that she was the mistress of it.

I used to tease her about it.

“I believe you are the reinarnation of a nun. You knew this place was your home from the moment you set eyes on it.”

“Minta’s romantic nonsense,” she said teasingly.

Very little was done about my father’s book. She had so much to occupy her now, and since he was not continually told what an unsatisfactory husband he was he did not feel the need to justify himself. He took an interest in the gardens and the house. Lucie quickly discovered that repairs were necessary.

It was soon after that that I saw her really shaken out of her usual calm. She told me about it because it was not easy to discuss such matters with Papa.

“Your father’s financial affairs are in a wretched state,” she said.

“Those lawyers of his are no good whatsoever. He has lost a great deal of money on the stock exchange lately and has been misguided enough to jeopardize the house by borrowing money on it.”

“Franklyn hinted at this some time ago.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“Not interested in Whiteladies I’

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“Well, now you are of course. What does it mean, Lucie?

“I’m not sure.

I must find out. Whiteladies must not be in danger. “

“I think that now you’re in command we shall be all right.”

She was pleased with that remark, but a little impatient. We were reckless. We didn’t deserve Whiteladies because we had jeopardized it.

She would sit in Papa’s study with a pile of bills and papers before her.

“We must cut down here,” she would say.

“We could economize there. We must make Whiteladies safe now and for the future.”

My father admired her greatly. He had a childish belief that now Lucie was mistress of Whiteladies everything would be all right. I shared that view. There had always been a quality about Lucie that inspired confidence.

I told her often how glad I was that she was now definitely a member of the family. I had only wanted her to marry the doctor, I pointed out, so that she could stay near us.

She was pleased.

“Stepmother is not an ugly word in this house,” she commented.

“Darling Lucie, it was a lucky day for us when you came to Whiteladies,” I told her; I knew my father told her the same.

Neither of us could openly say this, but Whiteladies was a happier and more peaceful place since my mother had died.

Then Lucie surprised us again. She told me first. I thought she had been a little subdued for a few weeks, and one day when I was sitting in my favourite spot in the pond garden, she came out there to me.

“I have something to tell you,” she said, ‘and I want you to be the first to know. Even your father doesn’t know yet. “

I turned to her, not understanding the ecstatic expression in her smoky eyes.

“I hope you’ll be pleased, but I’m not sure.”

“Please tell me … quickly.”

She laughed in a rather embarrassed way.

“I’m going to have a baby.”

“Lucie! When?”

A long time yet . in seven months’ time, I should say. “

“It’s … wonderful.”

“You ttunic so?”

“Don’t you?”

She gripped her hands together.

“It’s what I’ve always longed for.”

I threw my arms about her neck.

“Oh, Lucie, how happy I am! Just imagine—a baby in the house! It’ll be lovely. I wonder whether it will be a girl or a boy. Which do you want?”

“I don’t know. A boy, I suppose. Most people like the first born to be a boy.”

“So you anticipate having a family!”

“I didn’t say that. But I’m so excited. But I wanted to be absolutely sure before telling your father.”

“Let’s tell him now. No, you should tell him on your own. You wouldn’t want an intruder at a time like this.”

“You are the sweetest stepdaughter anyone ever had.”

She left me sitting here, watching a dragonfly hover over the pond and settle momentarily on the statue.

This, I thought, will compensate Lucie for everything. That horrid little house in the Midlands, all the hardships of her youth. What a happy day for Lucie!

My father was bewildered at first, then delighted. I am sure he had never thought he would have other children. But Lucie, it seemed, could provide everything. There was no talk in the house now of anything but the coming baby. Lucie softened considerably; as her body grew more shapeless and she lost her elegance she gained a new beauty.

She loved to sit with me and talk about the baby. She planned the layette and Lizzie sewed it. Those were the lov&ly peaceful months of waiting.

We tried to coddle Lucie but she wouldn’t let us. Her baby was going to be strong and healthy, she said. He wasn’t going to have an invalid for a mother. I noticed she referred to the baby as ‘he’, which showed she wanted a boy, although I guessed that when the child came she wouldn’t care what its sex was.

Dr. Hunter was calling frequently at Whiteladies now. He told me that there was nothing to worry about whatsoever. Lucie was strong and healthy; she would produce a lusty child.

It was Franklyn who pointed out to me what a difference the birth of a child might make to me personally.

“If the child is a boy,” he said, ‘he will be your father’s heir, for when your mother married him her property passed into his possession.

Has this occurred to you? “

“I hadn’t thought of it.”

“What an impractical girl you are! Whiteladies would go to your father’s son. You would have no claim to it unless some moral duty made him leave it to you.”

“Whiteladies would always be my home, Franklyn. What would it matter if it belonged to my stepbrother … or would he be half-brother?”

Franklyn said it could make a great deal of difference to me and implied that I was most unworldly.

I laughed at him, but he was very serious.

Such pleasant days they were. During summer afternoons on the lawn and winter evenings by the fire, we eagerly awaited the birth of Lucie’s child. My father seemed younger;

he was so proud of Lucie and could scarcely bear her out of his sight.

And then in November—the same month in which my mother bad died but two years later—the child was born.

It was a girl and was christened Druscilla.

I think Lucie was a little disappointed that she had not borne a son and so was my father, but the delight at finding themselves parents of a charming little girl soon dispersed that.

Druscilla quickly became the most important person in the household;

we all vied for her favours; we were all delighted when she chose to crow at us.

I often marvelled at the way in which everything had changed since my mother had died.

That was the state of affairs when Stirling and Nora came back to England.

One

I was going to England and it was much against my will. I had argued persistently with Stirling.

“What good will it do?” I kept asking; and he set his lips stubbornly together and said: Tm going. It was his wish. “

“It was different when he was alive,” I insisted.

“I never agreed with his ideas but they had some meaning then.”

It was no use trying to reason with Stirling; and ia a way I was glad of this controversy because it took our minds from the terrible searing sorrow which we were both experiencing. When I was arguing with Stirling I was not thinking of Lynx lying on the brown earth, of their carrying his body home on the improvised stretcher; and I had to stop myself thinking of that I knew it was the same with Stirling.

There was something else we both knew. There was no comfort for either of us but in each other.

We should have turned to Adelaide. Her sound good sense would have served us weB. She said she would not leave home;

she was going to stay and keep things going for when we came back.

I wanted to stay, yet I wanted to go. I wanted to get right away from the house I had called Little Whiteladies. There were too many memories there; and yet I took a fierce and morbid delight in remembering every interview with Lynx, every game of chess we had played. But perhaps what decided me was that Stirling was going, and I had to be with Stirling. My relationship with Stirling was something I could not quite understand. I saw it as through a misted glass. How often in the past had I thought of marrying Stirling and yet when Lynx had married me that had seemed inevitable; and Stirling had made no protest. I believed that he felt towards me as I did towards him; but for the mighty personality of Lynx we should have married and been content. So now I had to be with Stirling. He and I could only have lived through those desolate weeks which followed the death of Lynx because of the knowledge that it was a desolation shared, and

we belonged together.

“I am going to England,” he said firmly.

“He would want me to.”

So I knew I must go too.

Jessica came gliding into my bedroom one late afternoon when I was busy with preparations.

“So you’re going,” she said.

“I knew you would. You kept saying you’d stay but I knew you’d go.”

I didn’t answer and she sat on the bed watching me.

“So he’s gone,” she went on.

“He died, just like any other mortal being. Who would have thought it could have happened to him? But has he gone, Nora? He’d break free of death, wouldn’t he, just as he broke free of captivity? Out he came on the convict ship, like all the others, a prisoner. Then within a few weeks he breaks the fetters.

Could he break the fetters of death? “

“What do you mean, Jessica?”

“Will he come back? Do you think he’ll come back, Nora?”

He’s dead,” I said.

“You were lucky. You lost him before you knew him.”

“I knew him well,” I retorted.

“I was closer to him than anyone.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“You didn’t get to know the bad man in him. He was bad, Nora. Bad! You’d have found out in time just as the others did. All bad men see themselves as greater than other people. They see the rest of us as counters to be moved about to please them. You were a counter, Nora-a pretty counter, a favourite one … for the time being. He cherished you, but you were a counter all the same.”

I said: “Look here, Jessica, I have a lot to do. Don’t think you can change my feelings towards him. I knew him as you never could.”

“I’ll leave you with your pleasant dreams. Nobody can prove them false now, can they? But he’ll come back. He’ll find some way to cheat death as he cheated others. He’s not gone. You can sense him here now. He’s watching us now, Nora. He’s laughing at me, because I’m trying to make you see the truth.”

“I wish you were right,” I said vehemently.

“I wish he would come back.”

“Don’t say that!” she cried fearfully, looking over her shoulder.

“If you wish too fiercely he might come.”

“Then I’ll wish it with all my heart.”

He wouldn’t come back as you knew him. He’s no longer flesh and blood.

But he’ll come back . just the same. “

I turned away from her and, shaking her head sadly, she went out. I buried my face in the clothes which I had laid out on the bed and I kept seeing hundreds of pictures of him: Lynx the master, a law unto himself; a man different from all others. And lifting my face I said:

“Lynx, are you there? Come back. I want to talk to you. I want to tell you that I hate your plans for revenge now as I always did. Come back.

But there was no sign—no sound in the quiet room.

Adelaide drove with us to Melbourne and we stayed a night at The Lynx;

the next day she came aboard to say goodbye to us. I am sure Stirling was as thankful as I was for precise Adelaide, who kissed us affectionately and repeated that she would keep the home going until we returned. So calm, so prosaic, I wondered then whether she was like her mother for she bore no resemblance to Lynx. As our ship slipped away she stood on the quay waving to us. There were no tears. She might have been seeing us off for a trip to Sydney.

I remembered sailing from England on the Carron Star. How different I was from that girl! Since then I had known Lynx. The inexperienced young girl had become a rich widow—outwardly poised, a woman of the world.

Stirling stood beside me as he had on that other occasion;

and I felt comforted.

Turning, I smiled at him and I knew he felt the same.

We went first to the Falcon Inn. How strange it was to sit in that lounge where I had first met Stirling and pour the tea, which had been brought to us, and hand him the plate of scones. He was aware of it too. I knew by the way he smiled at me.

“It seems years ago,” he said; and indeed it did. So much had happened. We ourselves had changed.

We had talked a great deal in the ship coming over. He was going to buy Whiteladies because, he said, the owners would be willing to sell.

They would, in fact, have no alternative. He would offer a big price for it—a price such as they could not possibly get elsewhere. What did it matter? He was the golden millionaire.

“You can’t be certain they’ll sell,” I insisted.

“They’ve got to sell, Nora,” was his answer.

“They’re bankrupt.”

I knew who had helped to make them so and I was ashamed. The triumvirate, he had called us when I had discovered the mine. I wished I were not part of this.